by Dave Gross
“Got it.”
The boss saw things I couldn’t, especially when he used a spell or held his Shadowless Sword. But sometimes I could spot things he’d missed. He said that was on account of “triangulation,” him looking down from his tower and me looking up from the gutter. I say it’s because I grew up on robbery and hiding from the city guard.
“Will Lady Illyria be there?” I said all innocent-like.
The boss squinted at the horizon and then at the sun. He had a knack for estimating the time by the height of the sun and knowing what day it was, which I never really understood. “She will meet us by the gates in approximately twelve minutes. We need her to escort us into the campus, but we can leave on our own. There is no reason for her to stay while we conduct our investigation.”
“You sure you can’t think of a reason?”
He let his hand rest on the pommel of his sword, but he didn’t say nothing. He didn’t have to.
When we made it back to the Acadamae gates, I spotted this Illyria. It couldn’t be anybody else with her hair frosted purple to match her clothes—and her eyes, too, I noticed. They were like the boss’s, a deep violet, only a little brighter than his.
Illyria sat on the edge of the sundial where I’d waited yesterday. She was reading a little book, holding the pages open with her thumb. She wore snug woolen trousers and a leather jerkin and boots, both dyed deep purple. They matched the frames of her spectacles and the cute little hat pinned in her hair.
She stood up as we got near, fumbling to hide her specs and the book at the same time.
The boss made his special occasions bow. “Lady Illyria, may I present my man Radovan.”
“Charmed.” I tried saying it all smooth, like a gentleman. With me, it always comes out a different kind of smooth.
Illyria slipped her book into a little pouch, turning the cover so the boss couldn’t see the title, but I got a peek: The Red Rose and the Black. She gave me the up and down. “How rugged.”
The boss has his knacks. I got mine. Not that I was horning in on his action. That’d be a hell of a way to end the partnership.
Inside the Acadamae walls, we walked past students sitting on the lawn. Like street gangs, different groups tended to wear the same colors or kinds of clothes. The necromancers were easy to make, all in dark robes, most of them pale as mushrooms. The diabolists wore lots of red and black to match their imps, the colors of the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune and Abrogail II, our fearsome queen. The others I couldn’t figure what magic they did, only that they liked the same hats or familiars.
An imp flew up from behind. Arni woofed and I slapped my sleeve to put three darts between my fingers. Before I could perforate the little devil, the imp pointed at the boss and whispered, “You know, he’s going to drop that sword.”
The boss was stepping lively, focused on Lady Illyria. Yeah, the way that sword was bouncing around, he was going to lose it any second.
“You’d better grab it for him,” said the imp.
That’s a good idea, I thought. I skipped forward to grab it before the boss tripped and fell.
Arni woofed again, this time at me.
“What are you doing?” The boss stepped away, grabbing the grip of his sword before I could touch it.
“It was just … You were about to…”
All hell broke loose.
Imps came down from all directions. One sank its stinger into Arni’s flank. The hound yelped and damned near folded himself in half to bite the imp, but it disappeared. Arni nipped at his wound.
Another one flew right into my face. I felt its stinger hit me in the chest, but the little prick didn’t get through the leather.
The boss swatted one with the flat of his blade. He put the lady behind him and sketched a spell with his free hand.
Illyria didn’t wait to be rescued. One hand went to her pouch, which spat out a bone needle strung with red gut. With her other hand she made a clamping gesture at an ember-colored imp.
The little creep pointed at her and yelled, “You should just lie on the ground and— Umph!”
Wormy red tendrils grew out of the imp’s lips, stitching its mouth shut.
Illyria tilted her head at the boss and said, “That is the spell that made me choose necromancy.”
“How frivolous.”
“You’d understand if you grew up with four sisters.”
Another couple of devils came in low and fast. I threw my darts. Only one clipped an imp. I dodged that one, but the other jabbed me in the leg. The sting was hot and cold as hell. I broke out my colorful language.
“Avoid killing them,” said the boss. He ducked another imp and stopped himself from zapping it with a spell.
“Do we really care about that now?”
“We do,” said Illyria. She shot a nasty look at a circling imp and cursed. Not the regular kind of curse but the magic kind—the kind that leaves a mark. Her voice went all spooky. “But perhaps Radovan can tear that one to pieces as an example to the others.”
The imp hovered, staring at her, then at me, all horrified. It fiddled its fingers, unsure what to do. “Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea.”
“Boo!” I said.
The imp flew off, but a bolt of green fell from the sky and clobbered it. The imp and drake hit the ground together, each trying to scramble away from the other’s lashing tail and the poisoned barb at its tip.
The green drake wasn’t alone. All at once the air was full of wings and claws. Red and black imps scrapped with drakes of all different colors.
The students backed off, nobody lifting a hand to help us out with a spell. A crowd formed around one of the diabolists. She was taking bets. I yelled one of the regular kind of curses, hoping to hurt her feelings if nothing else.
The boss threw a magic shield around Illyria and swatted another imp out of the way with the flat of his sword. Arni jumped up to bite at imps, but they’d already figured out he was playing for eats and kept out of reach.
A little drake hit the ground beside me. Blood and venom oozed from between its purple-red scales. Three imps hopped toward her, tails raised like scorpions as they closed in for the kill.
Arni bounded over the fallen drake. He snagged an imp by the head and shook once, breaking its neck. The second imp hesitated for half a second, which was all the time I needed to kick his little red ass. He flew a good ten yards before his flapping turned into flying. He jabbered some hellish curse but didn’t waste any time looking back. He was done with this fight.
The third imp hovered, fingers twitching, getting ready to throw a whammy on Arni. Before it could finish its spell, a big blue drake crashed into the little devil. The imp clawed and squirmed, but somehow the drake had managed to get the imp’s whole head into its mouth. A wet crunch later, the imp’s body fell away. The drake choked and spit out the mangled head. Even Arni looked impressed.
“It’s Skywing!” shrieked a splotchy black-and-white imp. “Every imp for himself!”
The blue drake flared his wings and trumpeted. To me the sound was kind of cute, but the imps scattered like they’d heard a cavalry horn.
The other drakes chased after the imps. The little purple one rolled on the grass, mewing in pain. Arni moved over and nosed the drake, smelling it.
“Arni, don’t!” I thought he might eat the critter. The blue had the same idea. He flapped over, hissing until he saw the hound was only licking the little one’s wounds.
The boss fumbled in his satchel. “I have no more healing elixir.”
“I have something.” Illyria put her hand to the mouth of her bag, and a little jar appeared in her hand. She unscrewed the lid and dabbed a bit of goop on the drake’s wounds. When she was done, she let Arni lick her fingers. The wounds on his flanks evaporated.
The blue drake strutted over, sniffed the ointment, and touched noses with the purple drake. Purple mewed back at him.
“She’ll be fine,” said Illyria.
“How can you tell she’s a she?
” I said. “I thought the lady drakes were bigger.”
“This one is still a youngster,” she said. “Look at her talons. When she grows into them, she’ll be bigger than her sire.”
Like he understood what Illyria said, big blue nodded and curled his neck around the little one. After a squeeze, he hopped away, looking back for her to follow.
Instead, purple hopped over to Arnisant and stretched up to touch noses.
“Aw,” said Illyria.
I kept my mouth shut to maintain a manly demeanor. Desna smiled on me, because the drakes flew off before I could embarrass myself.
“The imps usually aren’t so aggressive,” said Illyria.
The boss gave me a sidelong look. “I am afraid they were antagonized.”
Illyria gave me another up and down. “Good for you. The little wretches could use a lesson now and then. I’m sure Count Jeggare agrees.”
“Radovan, if you would bring the carcasses,” said the boss.
I snagged a couple dead imps, and we hurried over to his dead pal’s cottage before there was any more trouble.
At the house, we went straight downstairs. First thing I noticed was the basement was smaller than upstairs. That doesn’t always mean anything, but sometimes it does. I dropped the dead imps on a table. The boss scooped them up and took a stack of parchment out of his satchel. While he did his thing, I poked my head into the other rooms. I found a couple narrow windows high on the walls. They’d be at ground level outside.
“I’ll be right back.”
The boss nodded, but he was focused on smearing the imps’ blood on his book. I’d seen him do weirder stuff.
Arni followed me outside. He sniffed a few spots around the foundation. I pushed back the weeds and found what I was looking for six times.
Six is four more than two. You can’t fool me.
Back downstairs, the boss had tied the imps’ ankles to a birdcage. Their blood trickled over the book. Where it touched the parchment, the blood soaked into the pages to form words and diagrams.
“What have you found?” said the boss. Illyria watched over his shoulder as he smeared blood across each page before turning to the next.
“Wait a sec.” I pulled books off a shelf and felt around for a latch. Nothing on that one, so I did it again a shelf lower.
Click. The middle part of the bookshelf swung out, followed by a stink of vinegar, mold, rot, and other bad smells. Some of them were really bad, like so-long-breakfast bad. I tried breathing through my mouth, but that only made it worse. The taste!
“How did you know there was a room back there?” Illyria asked.
“I got a knack.” I tipped her a wink. She smiled back. The boss frowned at me, so I added, “There’s six vents outside, only two in here.”
“What’s in there?” Illyria pushed past me.
“Wait for me,” said the boss. He squeezed an imp’s body, trying to get every last drop of its blood on his book.
Illyria didn’t wait. The boss waved me after her while he flipped pages and smeared blood.
Just as my eyes adjusted, Illyria cast a light on the palm of her hand. For a second all I could see were green stars and a forest of shadows. Then I saw we’d found a lab.
The space behind the bookcase was twice as big as the rest of the basement. An empty brass vat shaped like a giant toad crouched on one side of the room. Workbenches sat on the other, both full of flasks and instruments. Between them stood a big oak-and-iron slab on a rotating iron frame. Hooks and lenses and other creepy stuff hung from ceiling chains. Jars and cabinets and all kinds of junk filled the shelves and the dark corners of the room.
“You didn’t know about this place?” I asked.
Illyria shook her head. Every time she turned, shadows stretched away from her open hand. She looked as curious as I felt.
The boss came in, wiping blood from his fingers with one of his hankies.
“Can I get some more light on the floor?” I said.
The boss twisted his diamond ring and shined the magic light on the floor. Illyria followed his lead. Footprints stood out in the dust and mold. They were small prints—not slip small, but lady little. Someone had squeezed through one of the little windows, walked along the shelves, and gone back the same way. It was harder to tell since we’d come in, but it didn’t look like anybody had come through the secret door in a long time.
“What do you make of this laboratory, Lady Illyria?” said the boss.
“He was building a golem.”
“I concur,” said the boss. Still, he looked surprised that she’d said it. He let out a sorrowful sigh. “That may explain the missing ‘hard men,’ if not those whose bodies were left in the streets.”
“What are you talking about?” said Illyria.
“The more urgent question is, ‘Where is the creature now?’”
Illyria did a double-take on the boss. She didn’t miss the fact that he hadn’t answered her question. “Perhaps he never completed it.”
“Or perhaps he did, and the monster murdered him.”
Illyria looked surprised. “But they say he died in his sleep. Surely there would have been signs of violence.”
“Did you know of Ygresta’s efforts to construct a golem?”
“No,” said Illyria. She matched his stare. “I didn’t. I certainly can’t imagine him killing people for material. I do know he was always looking for ways to impress the masters, especially Uncle Toff. A successful animation on this scale might have done that.”
“Touch nothing. Let us see what we can learn from the remaining materials.”
While they poked through the lab equipment, avoiding each other’s eyes, I made a circuit of the room. Arni followed, whining now and then when he found a new smell. We found a stink of acid and some gray gunk in the frog vat. Somebody had sketched charcoal runes in one corner. Nearby stood a stool with a half-melted red candle dribbling over its seat.
I followed the boss as he inspected the shelves. He turned to me and said, “What do you see?”
“There’s stuff missing.”
He nodded. It’d been a while since he quizzed me on that sort of thing, but he liked hearing that someone else noticed what he did. Or maybe he was just theatrical. Sometimes I think he wished he could have been an actor but couldn’t on account of “count.”
Illyria went right away to the empty spots we’d noticed. The boss raised a hand like he was going to stop her. When he saw that she wasn’t touching anything, he stopped himself.
Illyria turned her light on each of the spots: a circle here, a rectangle there, a set of three spots where there’d been a tripod, and things like that.
“Do you recognize any of the missing items?” said the boss.
Illyria took a long look at the empty spaces. “Here there were books, obviously. I can’t tell you what the other things were. Until today, I didn’t even know Professor Ygresta had his own laboratory.”
The boss knelt to inspect another of the empty places. He turned his face away from Illyria, but I could see in his eyes that he was deciding whether he could believe her. From what little I’d seen, I couldn’t decide either.
I knelt beside him and touched one of the spots where something had been taken. While the rest of the place was covered in a carpet of dust, there was a lot less where the missing stuff had been.
“What do you think, boss?” I whispered, even though Illyria was all the way across the room. She was looking at the shelves through a round lens attached to a black ribbon. “Three, four days?”
He pulled a hankie from his sleeve and wiped a blank spot. Peering at the dust that came off, he nodded.
“So it’s not like she stole anything while you were here yesterday, or after you left.”
“No, but she is the one who gave me the key.”
“Look here.” Illyria waved us over. “Everything that is missing was magical.”
The boss shook his head as we went over to her. “How can you di
scern that?”
She handed over her lens. On its ribbon, it looked more like a monocle. The boss peered through it. His eyebrow rose. He used it to look at his rings and then he unsheathed his magic sword and waved it before him. “Fascinating. The lens reveals not only the source of the magic but also the residue in its passing.”
“A graduation present.” Illyria plucked the lens out of the boss’s fingers and put it to her eye. “Much stronger than the cantrip we all learn the first week of study, but not without its limits. It will show a mark around your finger for minutes after you take off that ring, for instance. Your sword could leave trails in the air for days.”
The boss looked at the Shadowless Sword like he was seeing it for the first time. It was sharp as hell—I’d seen it cut through steel spears—but except for letting him see through illusions, he hadn’t uncovered any other magic in it. He put the sword back in its sheath.
“Can we assume the items in question were powerful and that they were removed within the past few days?”
Illyria looked back at the empty spaces and nodded. “Depending on just how powerful they were, yes.”
“Who had access to this cottage?”
“Uncle Toff gave me the key just before I found you at the gates. I imagine the custodial staff had it before he did. But they wouldn’t have been able to get in if Professor Ygresta had warded his home, as the faculty tend to do. The Master of the Hall of Whispers must have been present when they found the professor’s body.”
“Wards seem likely, especially for those hiding golem laboratories. But why should he keep it secret? Surely Ygresta had access to all the resources of the Hall of Whispers.”
“Well, Professor Ygresta did not have many friends among the faculty,” said Illyria. “He might have needed equipment that required favors.”
“I recall him as a gregarious fellow.”
“Oh, he was very sociable, for one of his class. I meant he wasn’t popular in the Hall of Whispers. While the headmaster appreciated his ability to appeal to those who find necromancy distasteful, most of the faculty and students felt he looked down on them.”
“Because of his lectures on the ethics of necromancy?”