“I haven’t seen her in days. Is she very ill?” Adella, the new young wife of the builder Johefus, wore a worried face that seemed forced and overacted. She put next to no effort into trying to appear sincere.
Mica had never been the friendly sort. The old woman had been quiet, reserved, and more than a little abrasive to everyone. Adella wasn’t inquiring out of concern but from curiosity—the same nosiness that fostered scandals even when there wasn’t one. Someone from every household in the square came daily to the fountain for water, which made it also a notorious font for gossip. Sephryn couldn’t afford chitchat, didn’t know how the Voice would respond to rumors leaking, and there had already been some.
Six days had passed since Mica last drew water, and Sephryn suspected that speculation had been running rampant. Routine reigned with these people, who spent each day like the one before. When habits were disturbed, they wanted to know why. They salivated over the change in schedule, and when the reason was mundane, they invented spicier accounts to satisfy their hunger for something different, something new, something exciting. Sephryn had avoided unwanted questions by gathering water at night. But it was only a matter of time before a nosy neighbor came to her door, and she couldn’t have that.
“Nadia told me Mica was knocking at death’s door. Is that true?”
“Nadia is extremely wise,” Sephryn replied, failing to add that Mica had knocked—and the door had opened so violently that not even a body was left.
That part continued to bother Sephryn. Poor Mica had had no funeral, no burial. If any parts of her had remained, Sephryn never saw them. Thinking about it made her sick, and she loved Seymour for helping her clean up such a gruesome mess. The man was a gift. If she had come home alone that night, she didn’t know what she would have done.
“Is it that bad?” Adella asked, shocked to discover her fishing line had caught something.
“I’d rather not talk about it right now. I hope you don’t mind.” Sephryn was being truthful, and that recognition registered on Adella’s face, which shifted from curiosity to shame. Adella wasn’t a bad sort; none of those she shared the fountain with was more than occasionally rude. They were only bored with the repetition of life. They all sought change and excitement. Never did they give much thought to what gave birth to those things, or how blessed they were to be bored.
“Of course. I’m sorry. Forgive me,” Adella verbally retreated.
Sephryn nodded and lifted her jug.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No,” Sephryn replied. “Not yet,” she conceded, then sighed. “Right now, all we can do is wait, hope, and pray.”
“Of course,” Adella said. “Of course.”
Sephryn carried the water back to her house. The place was empty and felt hollow. The sun was going down, but Seymour Destone still wasn’t back, which wasn’t unusual. Every day she escorted him to the Imperial Hall of Records and left him to dig through the stacks, and each night he invariably missed the turn at Ebonydale. She went to the effort of tying a white cloth to a stick and propping it up at the corner for him to see where to make the turn. That experiment had ended in utter disaster when someone took the pole down and Seymour had gotten lost in the city, wandering from the docks to the West End, searching for the white flag. He hadn’t made it home until nearly dawn.
She never had any hope of him finding anything. Sephryn had seen the records hall. The place was a mess—more garbage dump than anything else. The thought of him learning about the horn was beyond wishful thinking. She’d sent him there to keep him busy—to keep him safe. Few knew there was such a thing as a palace archive. Appearing like an overbuilt garden shed, the little stone building in the back of the courtyard was ignored by almost everyone. Few people knew its purpose, or what might be inside. No one ever went into the archives, so there was little chance Seymour Destone would accidentally say anything that might get him killed. Her own death she could accept—his was something else entirely. She more than cherished his support—Sephryn needed it. Fearful of endangering anyone, she had deftly avoided friends and associates; those who knew her well, and sensed her suffering, might get her to confess. Even with Seymour, the isolation was horrible. Without him, Sephryn doubted she could have managed. The idea of facing her torture alone, unable to speak to anyone about it for so long, was impossible to imagine, and yet, she hadn’t lost sight of the fact that Seymour’s life was endangered because of her.
If in a moment of weakness I hadn’t stupidly thought he was Bran, if I hadn’t chased after and stopped him in the street, he’d be safe. He’d be shivering under a bridge somewhere, but he’d be okay.
Seymour was but one more life she felt responsible for, another person to save. In the past, she’d done well in that regard. During the famine of the year Two Hundred and Forty-Two, she’d saved the West End by defying imperial restrictions and organizing midnight raids on supplies destined for the wealthy who had more than they needed. In the year Six Hundred and Eighty-One, she had orchestrated the rescue of the aptly named Lost Horizon’s crew that wrecked on the shoals of Imperial Bay, and in Seven Thirteen, she’d famously saved the Farington Five—the handful of men wrongly sentenced to death for a crime they didn’t commit. These were but highlights, bright points in the night sky of her life that was filled with lesser stars. Lately, her failures had outweighed her successes. Sephryn felt she was riding a wave of bad luck, the shore wasn’t getting any closer.
“Sephryn!” Arvis screamed as she beat on the door.
What now? What new problem is knocking?
Sephryn jerked the door open and found the woman leaning on the frame with both hands, breathing hard.
“Arvis, what’s wrong?”
“Your friend is hurt!”
“My friend?”
Arvis nodded, struggling to breathe, her makeshift attire soaked with sweat. “The funny-looking guy that’s staying with you. The one with the weird bald spot. I think he’s dead.”
Sephryn felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. “Where?” she managed to ask.
“Corner of Grand Mar and Ebonydale.”
Sephryn ran out without her shawl. Luckily, she still had her shoes on.
“What happened?” Sephryn asked as she ran down Ishim’s Way, bracing herself for the expected reply: There’s no sense running. The man is dead. I saw him explode. Blood everywhere. He was talking to someone—a city guard I think—and then he just burst.
Sephryn was already castigating herself. Without evidence, before even hearing details of the crime, she found herself guilty.
“Stabbed,” Arvis replied, struggling to keep up. The woman had obviously run all the way to Sephryn’s house, and the race back was a bit more than she could handle.
“Stabbed?” That surprised Sephryn, but then she remembered the ladles and poker.
“Two men. They were robbing him.”
“What? Robbing?” It made no sense. “Are you sure? Seymour doesn’t have any money.”
“And he told them that—I heard him. They said they would take what he had. Some crumbled parchments, I think, only he refused. That’s when they stabbed him. He fell, and I came to get you.”
Stabbed—by thieves? Sephryn ran faster.
The trip to Ebonydale was only a few blocks, but the sun was already behind the buildings by the time they arrived. Sephryn stopped at the corner where the little street crossed the huge boulevard. She expected a crowd, maybe a wagon brought for the body. The city was quick about such things. Looking around, she saw nothing amiss.
“Where is he?” Sephryn asked.
Arvis raised her hand to point then hesitated, confusion filled her face. She searched the intersection and across the street, then she stared down at her own feet.
“Arvis?”
“I don’t know. He was right over there.” She pointed at the opposing corner, where a mercer was taking in dress dummies and locking up his shop for the night.
Sephry
n waited for a big milk wagon to roll by, then crossed the Grand Mar to the site of the murder. A pair of workmen walked by and offered them pleasant smiles. These were followed by a mother and her two daughters.
“His body was right here,” Arvis said. “At least I think it was.”
“You think? You think?”
Arvis was back to doing that thing with her tongue, her eyes shifting left and right once more. Sephryn wanted to grab and shake her. For days, Sephryn had been on edge. Waiting wasn’t something she had a talent for, and she had no idea if Arvis’s was having one of her episodes or if Seymour really was hurt . . . or dead.
“Excuse me?” Sephryn spoke to the mercer, who was throwing the final bolt across his business’s door. “Did you see anything happen here a few minutes ago? A crime?”
The portly but well-dressed man thought only a moment, then nodded. “There was a commotion. I didn’t see it, but I heard some loud voices and a cry.”
“And you didn’t look?”
“Of course I did.” The mercer frowned, insulted.
“What did you see?”
“There was a fellow on the ground—poorly dressed, very poorly dressed.”
“Did you help him?”
“Didn’t need any help. Looked like he just stumbled.”
“Are you sure?” Sephryn looked at Arvis and then the mercer.
“Oh, there he is,” the man said as he pointed. “You can ask him yourself.”
Sephryn turned and saw the little monk coming around the corner not three doors down. “Seymour?” She rushed over. “Are you all right?”
The monk looked a tad bewildered for a moment, then smiled. “I’m fine.”
“I was told you were robbed.”
Seymour looked at Arvis, who stared back at him as if she were looking at a ghost. “Oh, ah, yes. Actually, I was. Right on the corner here. But fortunately for me, I had nothing of value.”
“But you were stabbed!” Arvis shouted.
Sephryn laid a hand on the woman to calm her.
“Oh, well . . . they tried, but I’m skinnier than these robes suggest. I dodged, stumbled, and fell. Hit my head, I think.” He rubbed it with his hand. “I guess they ran off.”
Sephryn threw her arms around the monk and hugged him. “Oh, thank Mari. I thought . . . I thought . . . oh, never mind what I thought. Can we go home?”
“Ah . . . of course.” The monk hesitated and looked around.
“You don’t know the way, do you?” Arvis asked.
Seymour didn’t answer.
“He never does,” Sephryn said to Arvis. “This is the Ebonydale corner. He gets lost here every night.”
“Sephryn, I—” Arvis said.
“You scared a century off my life, Arvis. Don’t do that again.”
Sephryn led the way back across the Grand Marchway. When they reached the door to her home, Seymour went in, and that’s when Arvis grabbed Sephryn by the arm and drew her aside. Arvis whispered, “I saw him die.”
The walk back had allowed Sephryn to gather her wits again. Being so grateful that Seymour was all right, she could afford to extend some patience to Arvis. “It’s okay. I’m sure it looked that way. I’m sorry I was cross with you. It’s just that you scared me so. Thank you for coming. If he really had been hurt, doing so might have saved his life.”
Arvis looked warily at the open door. As she did, tears filled her eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m getting worse,” Arvis replied. “And I think I’m going to die soon. Death is all around me. He even came to visit a few nights ago.”
“Who?”
“Death. He was very nice. Really polite. I thought he was coming to take me—”
“You’re not going to die, Arvis. Are you hungry? Here.” Sephryn gave her a pith. “Get some food—and pay for it this time. Good night.”
Arvis looked at the coin in her hand and nodded.
Inside, Seymour stood before the fireplace. Normally the first thing he did was start a fire, but now he merely stood there, waiting for her. “What?” she asked, closing the door.
Seymour said nothing.
“Did . . . did you find something?” Sephryn asked.
The monk grinned, and Sephryn’s eyes grew wide.
“I—” he began.
Sephryn waved her hands frantically, then put a finger to her mouth, commanding him to be silent. She followed that by pointing at her head and made a talking action with her hand, all while glaring at him.
Ever since their first conversation about the records office, neither had spoken directly of the matter. All that had been said on the subject was, “Did you find anything?” and “No.” Sephryn just assumed that if Seymour did learn something important, he would find a way to tell her without actually saying it out loud. Clearly, any agreement had only been from her perspective. Any secret communication was impossible, as the Voice appeared to be capable of both hearing and seeing them—at least it had seemed that way when the Voice had threatened Errol. Sephryn felt like she was living with a sleeping monster, and as long as they were quiet, the Voice might not pay attention. Maybe it would only look if it heard something. At least she hoped so.
Seymour narrowed his eyes for a moment, then nodded. He turned then and knelt down before the hearth. Sephryn assumed he was resuming his old routine of making a fire, but he pulled out a burnt remnant of a stick and drew symbols on the floor.
She watched, suspecting he was trying to communicate through writing, which she thought might actually work—assuming that the Voice couldn’t read—but what Seymour drew were strange symbols that Sephryn thought she’d seen before, though she couldn’t recall where. He drew the markings in a circle around them, and when he’d finished, he looked up at her.
“There,” he said. “We’re safe now. No one can eavesdrop, unless they are literally outside with their ear pressed to the door.”
Sephryn knitted her brows and mouthed the word, What?
“Here.” Seymour reached into a fold of his robe and pulled out a parchment. On it were the same markings as he’d just drawn. “I found this.”
“I’ve seen these,” she said. Then she remembered. “They are on the palace walls! The ones Nyphron put up after Suri . . .” Sephryn looked at the circle on the floor. “By Mari! These are the Orinfar runes, aren’t they?” she said much too loudly and then self-consciously covered her mouth.
Seymour nodded. “The ones mentioned in The Book of Brin. They were used in the Great War to block magic.”
“But how can you be sure they really work? How do you know the Voice is even using magic?”
“What else could it be?”
“Really?” She stared incredulously. “You’re willing to risk your life on what else could it be? What if it’s a god or a demon speaking to me? Do you think markings can stop that?”
Seymour started to speak then held back. After a moment he muttered, “I just thought . . . I guess I was just . . .”
The walls! The thought hit her so hard that her hands returned to her mouth. “That’s why! Oh, Seymour, you’re a genius!”
“I am?”
“The Voice couldn’t hear me when I was inside the palace. I tried speaking to it after discovering the horn was locked up, but it couldn’t hear me. The instant I stepped outside the walls, it could. You’re right. The symbols block the Voice. That also explains why the Voice doesn’t just explode everyone in the palace and take the horn himself. So we can talk.” A worried look crossed her face. “If you drew them right.”
She looked at the parchment and compared each symbol with the ones on the floor. They were a perfect match. “Excellent job. How did you . . . oh never mind. I forgot, you spent every day doing exactly this kind of thing, didn’t you?”
Seymour smiled.
Sephryn smiled as well. They finally had a tool against the Voice. Her mind lit up with a host of new options. “I could talk to the First Minister and ask to speak to the emperor
. I might even be able to find Illim again, but what if they don’t believe me? I wish I could go directly to Nyphron. I could tell him that his—” She stopped herself.
“His what?” Seymour asked.
Sephryn sighed. Of all the people in the world, she never would have guessed that someone who had been a stranger a week ago would be the first person she would tell. “Prince Nolyn is Nurgya’s father.”
“Oh, I see.”
“You are the only one who knows this, and I’d appreciate you keeping it to yourself. I want Nolyn to hear it from me.”
“You haven’t told the prince?”
She shook her head. “Sometimes, he gets a leave from his post in Maranonia. The last time we were together, we had a terrible fight, and I haven’t seen him since. That was more than a year ago. The two of us . . . our relationship—well, it was more than just a fight. We didn’t separate on good terms. Anyway, if I could get to Nyphron, I could tell him that his grandson has been kidnapped and . . .” She frowned and shook her head. “I haven’t been able to get an audience with him in centuries of trying. What are the chances he’ll give me one now?”
The game she was playing was for the life of her child. One wrong move and Nurgya was dead. If she went through proper channels, the imperial administration would assume she was once more trying to speak to the emperor about changing laws and he would ignore her. Furthermore, should she try and fail, word might get around about what she was doing, and the Voice would know. Besides, even if she reached the emperor, when she got to the part about a voice that only she could hear who was demanding a horn, it would make her sound just a bit too much like Arvis.
She ticked through a list of everyone she could think of—anyone who could help. She had connections with a few influential citizens—none that regularly dined with Nyphron, though, and painfully few who would believe her. Her father might, but he was so far away, and what could he do? If Suri were alive, Sephryn would have gone to her, but there were no more Artists in the world.
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