by Dan Wingreen
After pausing to catch his breath when he finished climbing the long, winding staircase up to the commander's office, Elias strode through the door-less portal into the small foyer which served as a reception area. The page who normally manned the small desk off to the left side was absent, but the door to the office proper was wide open so Elias knew the commander wasn't busy, and quickly walked in.
Guard Commander Spellings was another prototypical specimen of a guard, with a height and build similar to Harrington's and Barnaby's, despite being significantly older. He wore his extra years well, though, with a full head of thick, white hair and a face that was chiseled out of granite, rough and unyielding. His hair was not quite as short as most guards tended to wear it, but still cropped neatly. There was a large patch of scarred skin on the right side of his hairline where an old wound he had never elaborated on had once almost killed him, and he'd picked up the habit of rubbing it when he was stressed or angry.
Much like he started doing the moment he saw Elias walk into his office.
"What d'you wan'?" Spellings snapped, his Low Ellingish accent giving his words a clipped, half formed quality.
Elias stopped short. Spellings had never been anything other than polite with Elias before, and he had to viciously trample down on the part of him that had suddenly decided omens were completely reasonable.
"Hello, Commander, I was wondering if you could spare a moment to speak with me." Elias kept his tone polite and slightly deferential. It wouldn't do to alienate Spellings when he was obviously in a mood.
"This abou' your prince, 'en?" There was a definite sneer in his voice now, and Elias could almost see his chances of getting what he needed slipping away in front of him.
Obviously, Spellings had heard the rumors and was taking issue with them. It was somewhat strange, since Spellings had never seemed particularly prejudiced before, but it made things infinitely more complicated. Elias would need to handle this carefully, and though he was normally repulsed by manipulation games, stopping a potential war seemed like as good a reason as any for pushing passed ingrained distaste.
"I never took you as the type to listen to castle gossip, Commander," Elias said with a sneer in his voice. Hopefully it would be taken as contempt for the rumor. "I'm only here because I think the murder investigation of the Dark Prince would make a fascinating book. One which I could even write as the investigation itself progresses, instead of months after the fact."
Spellings snorted. "I taught you better'n that. Just 'cause it's gossip don' mean there ain't no truth to it."
"I think you'll find in this case there is very little truth to it." Elias crossed his arms, trying to look like he was insulted at the insinuation. "Unless you think me so mentally deranged as to start a romance with a royal."
"So you been spendin' all your nights with 'im 'cause you can't stand 'im 'en, is it?" Spellings raised a bushy, black eyebrow.
For once in his life, Elias felt like swearing. So much for pretending he had no connection to the Prince at all. Hopefully, he could still find some way to get the information he wanted.
"I've been spending all my nights with him because I've been forced to," Elias said.
"Forced? I never took you to be the type to let you'self be forced into anythin'."
Elias almost scowled, but if Spellings knew him well enough to know how hard it was to coerce him into doing something he was set against, then there was a good chance he might be able to read into Elias's expressions as well. It was best not to risk it, especially since he wasn't completely confident in his lying abilities. He decided from then on he'd go with a modified version of the truth wherever possible. "He's…blackmailing me."
"With what?"
With mawkish sentiment and a life that is more appealing by the minute. It's strangely effective.
"You'll understand if I'm reticent about telling the commander of the guard."
Spellings snorted again, but this time Elias thought it might have been one of the man's barely-there laughs. Perhaps I'm making progress.
"You bein' raped, 'en?" Spellings asked sharply.
Elias shook his head immediately. "No, nothing like that. He wants me to write a book for him, that's all."
"A…book? He's blackmailin' you for a book?"
"A biography, actually. Of himself," he added dryly.
"Bloody royalty," Spellings muttered.
Elias laughed—genuinely even—because, yes, it was rather ridiculous on the surface.
"Indeed," Elias agreed. "Although the Dark Prince, at least, has some modicum of sense. Unlike other royals I could mention."
Spellings immediately let out a small, disgusted growl. The commander had been one of the guard captains in charge of digging people out of the rubble in the aftermath of the Great Dragon Incident, and he could expound endlessly—and had—on his distaste for the Crown Prince.
"Almos' too bad that is," Spelling said. "Would do us well if 'ey'd all piss off some evil creature so's it wiped 'em all out."
Elias frowned mentally. He really wanted to know why the usually so-sensible commander had such an obvious and overriding parochial view of the Dark Prince's kingdom. I could just ask… Elias very briefly wondered if asking was a good idea considering his goal of manipulating information out of Spellings, but, as often happened with Elias, his curiosity won out over his common sense.
"You…hate Mournhelm very much, don't you?"
A shadow of some emotion flashed across Spellings' face too quickly for Elias to identify. The commander was silent for a short moment, but considering Elias had expected the man to launch into a rant about the evils of the Dark Kingdom, the moment seemed to last exponentially longer.
"You sayin' you don't?" Spellings asked, his voice laced with suspicion.
"My opinion on Mournhelm is complicated."
The moment the words were out of Elias's mouth he knew they were the wrong thing to say. The commander obviously hated Mournhelm, the intelligent thing would have been for Elias to voice similar sentiments in the hopes of relaxing Spellings and encouraging him to open up; instead, Elias had to go and tell the truth.
If he listened hard enough he thought he could probably hear the Dark Prince laughing at him.
"Complicated." Spellings voice was as flat as his expression. Elias felt like he was back in a classroom with one of his more intimidating teachers. It wasn't a feeling he had missed, but it was, at least, familiar.
"Yes," he said. Elias had always tried to commit to the answers he gave and it would be the height of stupidity to let a blank look or a glare fluster him into second guessing himself.
"What could be complicated abou' a kingdom of evil?"
Spellings' voice never changed, but that too-brief-to-identify shadow passed across his face for a second time. Yet, no explosion. No accusations of treason or sympathies towards evil Princes.
The whole situation was very odd.
"Many things," Elias said.
"What kind of things?"
Elias hesitated, suddenly unsure of what he was supposed to say. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and one that he was completely unprepared for. Spellings should have been yelling at him. At least, this new, bigoted Spellings who hated Mournhelm should have. But Spellings didn't seem as angry as he had been when Elias first walked into his office, despite his tone and the way he phrased his questions. He seemed strangely…curious, in a genuine way that Elias wasn't expecting.
Could he possibly be open to an alternative point of view?
Putting forward said alternative point of view might not get Elias the information he was after, but maybe it could affect Spellings' views enough to get him to at least consider other suspects. Perhaps Spellings' attitude was due to ignorance more than deeply held belief. It was worth the attempt.
"Mournhelm is…a kingdom of contradictions, from what I gather," Elias said. He started hesitantly, not completely sure what he was doing was the correct choice, but once he was committed his wor
ds came more easily.
"The northern part of the kingdom is arid and volcanic, yet it's where most of the population and the entirety of the ruling class reside. The greener, southern regions are populated by commoners and farmers, mostly human, who tend the lands. These lands are ostensibly owned by the nobility, but for some reason they still trade with the north instead of having what the upper classes need taken as a tax. There are a plethora of species that live in Mournhelm, many of which we would label as evil, and yet there hasn't been a single civil war since shortly after the kingdom was founded. Relations between the species are, from what I've read and"—Elias just barely caught himself before he could give away just how much of what he was saying came directly from the Dark Prince himself—"from what truth could be gleaned from the Dark Prince's tales, stable, if not cordial. As for the Dark King, he is the biggest contradiction of all; a man who wields enormous power, and yet spends most of his time writing well-researched books about all manner of subjects. He is as cruel as he needs to be to keep a kingdom as diverse as Mournhelm from tearing itself apart, but no more than that. It is a kingdom of balance. A place where peace, which should not exist, has reigned for almost two centuries. Certainly nothing like any of the stories and rumors make it out to be."
It was wonderful to be able to tell someone who wasn't the Librarian about the true Mournhelm, even if Elias lamented that his speech was based on the accounts of others. He could recite facts as well as anyone, but to do the kind of convincing he needed to do, he needed firsthand experience; he needed Spellings to see the truth of what Elias was saying shining through eyes which had seen that truth themselves. Elias could only hope what he was saying was enough to at least start the commander on his way to questioning what he thought he knew.
Spellings studied Elias for a long, silent moment that had Elias's heart racing in his chest. He kept his face as impassive as possible, even when that strange expression passed over Spellings' face for a third time.
"And you got all that from the Dar' Prince?" he finally asked.
Elias held back a wince. "Mostly from books he brought with him." He tried to sound casually dismissive of the idea that the Dark Prince might have contributed anything Elias took seriously.
"Hmm. If he brought books 'en why does he want you to write one?"
"Because none of those books are about him," Elias said dryly.
"Hmm," Spellings said again. He frowned thoughtfully, and Elias kept as still as possible, not wanting to interrupt whatever thoughts were going through his scarred head.
"Anythin' interesting in that book, 'en? The one you're writing?"
As far as questions went, this one was like offering virgin's blood to a unicorn. Especially since it was the perfect opportunity to possibly insert some anecdotes illustrating the—supposed—harmlessness of the Dark Prince. Elias opened his mouth to answer, but, before he could make a sound, he caught a glimpse of the cunning gleam behind Spellings' deliberately dull eyes and suddenly realized what those strange, fleeting looks were. I should have been looking at his eyes, not his face.
It was anticipation Elias had been seeing. The very unique kind of anticipation of seeing one's plans coming to fruition.
Elias wasn't the only one trying to manipulate the conversation.
He silently cursed himself for falling into the trap of assuming the man wasn't clever just because of his accent. He knew better. And he still almost fell for it. Spellings knew full well how much Elias loved to talk about his work. Much the same way Elias knew Spellings never asked a question just to get a single answer. There was always a secondary motivation behind even the most innocuous inquiry. He'd told Elias that himself on multiple occasions when Elias was still learning about interrogation and investigation. And, if he was curious enough about the Prince to try and manipulate information out of Elias, then he was curious enough to be overseeing the investigation into the Prince's supposed crime. He just hoped the commander hadn't actually spoken with Harrington or Barnaby yet.
"Nothing which is even remotely true, unfortunately," Elias said, trying not to let on he knew Spellings was trying to trick him into saying something. Oh, how he hated these games. "Just the vain embellishments of a royal who has accomplished nothing of note in his life."
Spellings let out a noise that could have meant any one of a dozen things before sitting back in his chair and lacing his fingers together on his desk. "Does he talk abou' anythin' interesting 'en? His home? His family, maybe? Do Dark Princes even 'ave family?"
"He tells me enough for his book, but like I said, most of his stories are either exaggerations or outright lies. The little truth that does find its way out is quite tedious. He once spent an hour waxing poetic about his favorite shape."
Actually, it had been the color of Elias's eyes the Prince had gone on about, and for less than five minutes before a flushed and uncomfortable Elias had put a stop to it by threatening to throw his tea on the Prince's favorite set of robes. It was a surprisingly effective threat.
"Hmm. Don't seem like a situation you'd put up with. Writin' abou' something that ain't true, an' all."
"There are a great many things I don't want to put up with." Such as murder investigations into my potential future husband. "Blackmail is a very effective way of ensuring that I have to."
"Can you at least tell me how he foun' out whatever he foun' out to use as blackmail, 'en?"
Elias held back a sigh.
This is going to take a while.
After Elias quickly thought up an answer that sounded plausible, yet also didn't hint at any possible magical abilities the way an "I don't know" might have, the conversation continued in a similar vein for almost an hour. Several times Elias tried to maneuver the conversation towards the investigation, and each time Spellings managed to deftly turn it back around to the Dark Prince while giving half-answers which told Elias nothing. It was remarkably frustrating, which was why it took so long for Elias to realize something he should have the moment Spellings refused to ask how Elias knew about the murder in the first place.
"You already know exactly why I'm really here, don't you?" Elias asked, scowling openly now. Spellings didn't even miss a step, his expression turning from carefully constructed mild curiosity to a self-righteous sneer in the span of a heartbeat.
"You mean 'cause you whored yourself ou' to an evil blackguard and now you want to come fishin' around for information abou' the murder he committed so's you can keep 'im ou' of the dungeons? That abou' it, 'en?"
Elias jaw clenched—more at the thought of how much time he'd wasted than at being called a whore—but he kept his voice even when he said, "He didn't commit a murder, something you might have found out on your own if you bothered to look at other suspects."
"Ain't any," Spellings said. "No one else with motive or means."
It occurred to Elias he was getting more information now than he had by trying to be clever, but he wasn't in the proper state of mind to take advantage of it in a way that might have salvaged his morning.
"You can't know that," he exclaimed. "You haven't even been investigating for a full day yet!"
"You sayin' you know more about investigatin' a murder than the guard does? Your extensive experience tell you that, 'en?"
"I know enough," Elias said, not caring if he sounded defensive. He'd obviously already lost Spellings' respect, if he ever had it in the first place, and trying to placate him wasn't going to get Elias what he wanted regardless. "I know you can't just latch yourself to the first suspect that seems like an easy conviction. I don't need to be experienced to know the folly of surrendering to such childish temptations."
Anger flashed in Spellings eyes, but his iron self-control didn't waver in the least. "If the first suspect has a motive, if there're multiple witnesses all sayin' he threaten' to kill the victim, and, mos' important, if he's the only person able to pull off the murder in the way it was done, then yeah, it's a safe bet to 'latch on' to him. Especially when you al
ready know murder's like breathin' to him."
"I don't know which is more disheartening, that you seem to be basing your opinions about a suspect's guilt on idiotic prejudice or that you seem to believe"—Elias's eyes widened as he realized what he was about to say—"he actually used magic to commit murder."
He believes the Prince used magic. "The only person able to pull off the murder the way it was done" he said. I can't believe I actually uncovered useful information.
As if to underscore Elias's thoughts, Spellings let out a disgusted snort. "It's sickenin' to see you cover for him. Thought better of you, I did. You know what he can do, he says as much himself."
So he did speak to one of the guards, then.
"You don't even know if that letter was written by—"
"I do. And when we get done tossin' his room we'll have the proof, too."
Elias froze as yet another sudden realization came crashing over him like a wave. "You're searching his quarters now, aren't you?"
Spellings smirk was answer enough. He'd been stalling Elias. That was what this whole conversation was about. At least in part. And he didn't doubt that someone or something else had been arranged to similarly stall the Dark Prince.
Secondary motivations indeed.
Elias was very glad he'd convinced the Prince to magically destroy anything he had that was written in his own hand. It wouldn't stall the case against him, of course, but it would slow an arrest.
And it wasn't like the guards could possibly be any more suspicious of the Dark Prince.
"You couldn't have possibly gotten the order of exception so quickly," Elias said.
By some unimaginable stroke of fortune, Spellings was giving Elias enough information to at least have an idea of where to begin his own lines of inquiry. He wasn't about to do anything to jeopardize that.
"The death of the daughter of a Duke greases more wheels 'en it should." Elias wondered if he was imagining the bitter undertones that he thought he heard.