“Was it a yellow crystal?” asked Alec.
Nala shook her head. Reaching into the neck of her dress, she pulled out a red jasper pebble with a hole through it, which she wore on a thin silver chain. “After my poor boy died, I hoped this would kill me, too. Now I have it as a keepsake.” She wiped her cheek. “I remember that old woman like she’s standing here before me!”
“What did she look like?” Alec asked, and Seregil felt a stab of the same unsettled excitement along their talimenios bond.
“Dirty! Dirty kerchief around her head, dirty hands, dirty dress, and a belt with things strung from it-”
“Do you remember what?” asked Seregil.
“Foolish things. A bird skull, a harness ring, more stones-I remember those because she untied the pebble she gave my Ressi from a string of others… That’s all I remember, but it was just trash.”
“I see.” Seregil would have liked to have bought the stone from her to show to Thero, but chances were any magic that might have been on it had long since leached away-and he doubted she’d part with the treasured relic of her child.
“Are they here in Rhiminee, the strange beggars?” asked Elren.
“Yes, old father,” Seregil replied.
“I hope they catch them this time, and hang them all!” he wheezed. “I hope I live to see the day!”
Micum gave the woman a handful of silver. “For your troubles, Mistress Nala, and the Maker’s Mercy.”
“Bless you,” she quavered. “Bless you all, kind folk! May the Old Sailor carry your sister gently.”
Seregil refused to speak until they were safely in their rooms at the Stag and Otter. Kari and Elsbet were in the front room and stood as soon as the others came in.
“Well?” asked Kari, hands clutched over her heart.
“What’s wrong, you two?” asked Micum. “You both look like you’ve eaten a mess of bad mussels.”
“We’ve been blind as moles is what’s wrong!” Seregil growled, stalking over to the table where the map was spread.
Alec followed. “You really think it could be them?”
“Who, damn it?” Micum demanded.
“Atre and his company. They could be our ravens, and plague bearers,” Seregil replied grimly.
“The actor at Alec’s party?” asked Elsbet.
“Yes,” Alec replied. “Atre told us of his travels. They’d been everywhere the old man spoke of. He never said when, though.”
“Those Mycenians didn’t say anything about actors, though,” Micum pointed out.
“Oh, they were acting, all right!” Seregil snorted. “Atre got himself stabbed one night near Basket Street, long after he’d moved up here. Alec went to help him, and noticed traces of stage cosmetics along his hairline, even though the Crane was dark that night.”
“And Thero sensed magic on Brader at the tavern,” added Alec.
“Tall Brader!” Seregil exclaimed in disgust. “No wonder that swordsman looked familiar! And remember how he reacted when Thero asked for a strand of his daughter’s hair?”
“But Atre didn’t care,” Alec pointed out.
“Which only means he wasn’t afraid of being affected. What does that suggest?”
“That he’s the necromancer.”
“Right.” Seregil stabbed a finger at the map. “Look at the pattern again. The sleeping death started in the Lower City, and didn’t come up here until after Atre and his company moved to Basket Street. And what have the ravens avoided?”
Micum looked down at the map. “The Sea Market, the Harvest Market, the Noble Quarter…”
Seregil tapped impatiently in two places. “Basket Street, even though it should be in the swath they’ve been cutting, and the area around the Crane. Why? Because a wise bird doesn’t shit in its own nest.”
“That doesn’t explain Illia, or Myrhichia,” said Micum.
“Illia danced with him at Alec’s party!” gasped Kari.
Seregil felt another stab of guilt. “Yes. She must have seen
all the people giving him trinkets and done the same. Myrhichia, too.”
“Bilairy’s Balls, I’ll slaughter the lot of them!” Micum snarled.
“That won’t help Illia,” Seregil said, clasping his friend’s shoulders. “We have to find out how they’re doing this, and-please, Illior-if there’s a way to undo it.”
“If?” Kari clutched Elsbet’s arm for support.
“I’m sorry, Kari, but it’s best to be honest with ourselves. Alec and I are going to burgle the Basket Street theater tonight. It would help if we knew what we were looking for, though.”
“I think I know,” Elsbet said softly. “The little silver filigree ring you gave her for her last birthday-I noticed it was gone the next day and scolded her for it. She said-” Tears slipped down her wan cheeks. “She said all the fine ladies were giving him things and begged me not to tell Mother or you.”
“But if he’s had it all this time, why hasn’t Illia fallen sick sooner?” asked Kari.
“We won’t know that until we find out what he does with the things he’s given,” Alec replied.
“I’m going with you,” said Micum.
“Can we count on you not to do anything rash?” asked Seregil. “With it being your daughter and all?”
“Will your hearts be any less broken than mine if she dies? Don’t worry. There’ll be no killing until I’ve gotten out of them how to save my girl.”
“Good, then we’ll start at Basket Street.”
“Why there?” asked Kari.
“We’ve seen Atre over that way since he bought the Crane. There didn’t seem to be any reason for it.”
“What about Thero?” asked Alec. “We’re looking for something magical and we don’t have much time. We should bring him with us, like a scent hound.”
“Don’t let him hear you call him that.” Seregil glanced out the window, gauging the time. “You two go and scout out Basket Street. I’ll meet you there in a few hours with Thero.”
CHAPTER 40. Basket Street
THERO needed no persuasion. He listened in silence, then changed quickly out of his robes and tucked a few things, including his crystal wand, into a belt pouch.
Seregil restlessly scanned the scant night crowd as they made their way to the old theater; no ravens, but any of the passersby could be one of them in some other disguise.
The theater stood at the far end of Basket Street, near the poultry market. The windows were boarded up, and the front doors chained shut. Weeds had sprouted between the paving stones of the untended courtyard. It looked utterly deserted.
Glancing around to make certain no one was there to see, Seregil dismounted and led his horse to the back of the theater. They found Alec and Micum waiting for them in the alley behind it. It was deserted and strewn with refuse, weeds, and dirty feathers.
“Someone’s been coming and going pretty regularly, at least since the last rain,” Micum murmured.
“You can tell that from this mess?” whispered Thero.
“He can track a duck through water,” Alec told him.
The stage door was secured with a large, rusty padlock, but Alec already had it open.
“The wards are well oiled,” he whispered to Seregil.
He inched the door open and the four of them slipped into the silent darkness beyond. Micum closed the door; they stood a moment in the corridor, getting out lightstones and letting their eyes adjust. They were at the center of the
building, with the wings extending to either side of them, and a wide central corridor opening onto the backstage area.
It was a strange, shadowy world behind the stage, like seeing the seamed side of a fine garment. A plain scrim still hung from its long rod, and a few abandoned set pieces cast madcap shadows in the glow of their stones as they moved about. To either side, the wings were divided into a maze of different rooms by sheets of coarse muslin strung from wires.
The only sounds were their own breathing as Seregil
and Alec crept out to the stage. Dust lay everywhere. The theater space was lost in shadow beyond their lights and already had that smell of dust and mice that empty places took on. Somewhere, out there in the darkness, was the box they had occupied with Kylith, the first time they’d seen Atre and his players. A few stars shone above them where a skylight had been left half open.
“Do you think he’d hide anything out here?” whispered Thero, joining them.
Seregil cast around with his light, looking at the dusty floor. “No one’s been out here in a while.”
“But someone swept down the corridor in the right-hand wing, and I think I found us a door,” Micum whispered from the shadows behind them.
He led them past the ghostly muslin cubicles to a boarded-up door. Seregil inspected it closely, feeling here and there, and soon found a loose board that pivoted, exposing a latch and lock. This one was new, complex, and fitted with recessed needles. Given the size of the holes, the needles were large ones.
“Stand back,” Seregil told the others. Working with a bent pick, he tripped the device and jumped back as several steel needles shot across the corridor and embedded themselves in the far wall. “Nasty.”
Lifting the latch, he gave it a pull. As he’d guessed, the nails holding the boards to the door frame and wall gave easily from worn holes. Stairs led down into darkness, and a cold draft carried the moldy scent of a cellar. Seregil took the lead, sword drawn.
The low-ceilinged cellar was filled with dusty props and long rolls of discarded scrim. A few mouse- and moth-chewed costumes still hung from stone support pillars, and there were dozens of crates and trunks covered in more than a few months’ worth of dust and cobwebs. The floor was packed earth, the walls of mortared stone. Across the way a stone stairway led up to a large trapdoor that probably opened onto the stage.
“Bilairy’s Balls, this will take all night!” Alec exclaimed softly.
“Which is why you brought me, I believe.” Drawing his wand, Thero drew an orange sigil on the air. It swirled, then sank to the floor and rolled over it like fog, leading them across the cellar and disappearing behind a pile of crates stacked against the right-hand wall. “There is something there, or has been.”
“We should bring you along more often,” whispered Alec as he and Micum began shifting the crates away from the wall to expose a low door. The thick oak panels were painted black, with enormous iron hinges and a thick hasp secured with a large, new padlock. Alec did the honors this time and pulled it open. More cold, dank air greeted them as they cautiously stepped inside, but there was also the unmistakable aroma of candles recently snuffed.
A plain wooden table stood in the center of the small room, and one wall was half filled by two wooden racks, similar to wine racks, that stood six feet tall and appeared to be recently constructed of new wood. Dozens of bottles, some empty, others sealed with green wax, were arranged there on their sides. Seregil quickly counted them. There were one hundred twenty-eight: seventy in the left rack and fifty-eight in the right, all neatly arranged in rows. Some were sealed with dark green wax; others were empty, but something about the arrangement niggled at Seregil, the way the sight of Brader in disguise had.
On the table were a thick tallow candle in a cracked dish, a small workman’s box, sticks of green sealing wax, a basket of corks, and a waste bowl that held what looked like a few used seals made of the same green wax. Opening the
workman’s box, Seregil found a small collection of delicate tools and a worn copper stylus gone green with age, except for the tip, which glinted red where it had been recently sharpened.
“Hmm. There’s a bit of wax on the stylus.” He glanced over at the sealed bottles. Sure enough, they had some sort of writing in the wax and Thero appeared to be quite interested in them. “I wonder what these jeweler’s tools are for?”
Alec peered up over the edge of the table from whatever he’d been looking at under there. “Maybe for these?” He stood and triumphantly placed a large open casket on the table between them. Inside was a glistening collection of rings, earrings, necklaces, brooches, every piece of the finest quality and every one of them tagged with a slip of parchment tied on with a blue silk thread. Each slip bore a name in Atre’s elegant, precise handwriting. “He’s made it easy for us.”
“Illia’s ring must be in here!” Before Seregil could stop him, Micum upended the casket, spilling jewelry across the table and sorting frantically through it with help from Seregil and Alec.
Alec picked up a large ruby ring tagged with the name RYLIN and a silver brooch set with carnelian. This one was tagged EONA.
“Lord Rylin, most likely,” Seregil murmured, taking the ruby ring and weighing it in his palm. “I’m quite sure I’ve seen him wearing it. And this must be from Laneus’s widow, Eona.”
“Let me see it,” said Thero. He held the brooch a moment and nodded. “Yes, I can still sense her energy on it quite clearly. Her aunt gave it to her when she was eleven.” With that he turned back to his inspection of the racks.
“Here’s one from Selin,” said Alec, holding up a thin gold chain.
“Illia’s ring isn’t here!” Micum groaned when they’d inspected every piece.
“Or Elani’s brooch,” said Seregil.
“There’s another box down here.” Alec reached under the
table and brought up a plain wooden chest. This one was larger, and secured with nothing more than a crude hasp.
“This looks old.” Alec opened it, then hissed sharply through his teeth when he saw what was inside. Broken toys and carved nutshells. A necklace made of a single seashell on a bit of dirty string. A crudely cast tin ring. Maybe a hundred bits and pieces that one might find in a gutter or midden, and locks of hair held together with little dabs of wax. None of these were labeled, but one of the locks was a distinctive white-blond, and dirty.
“Kepi said he traded a lock of hair,” said Alec.
Thero touched it. “A sharp-faced little urchin.”
“That’s him.”
Micum emptied it out beside the jewels and pawed through them, looking for his daughter’s silver ring.
Thero turned to inspect the contents of the racks as the others sifted through the contents of the plain box.
“It’s not here, either!” Micum said at last.
“I think I know why,” Thero replied, holding up a sealed bottle. “All of these I’ve looked at so far contain things like those. Her ring could be in one of them.”
He held the bottle up to the light. The thick, crudely made glass looked old, and was full of striations and bubbles, but they could make out what looked like a small braid of hair floating inside. Seregil took another from the rack. The liquid in this one was milky, but he could see the outline of a hog’s tooth when he held it to the light.
He passed it to Alec. “Didn’t that boy you had the yellow stone from say he traded a hog’s tooth?”
“Yes!”
“So this is what they’re doing with them. We’ve got to find Illia’s ring,” said Micum. “We need to check every damn one of them.”
Beginning at the top of the left-hand rack, he took out one after another and held them up to his lightstone, like a poultry farmer candling eggs. Thero and the others did the same.
“Do you feel that same magic on them?” asked Seregil.
Thero nodded.
“And you didn’t feel this weird magic on any of the other actors except Brader?” asked Micum.
“I thought I felt something like it at Alec’s party that night,” the wizard replied.
“And only Atre was there, not Brader,” mused Seregil. “So whatever this is, it involves at least the two of them.”
“Atre said he and Brader were traveling together before they met the others up in the northlands,” said Alec. “Didn’t he say the two of them are related, Seregil?”
“Cousins, I think. So this might only be the two of them.”
Alec picked up from the table a ring marke
d OLIA. “Why is he marking only the expensive pieces?”
“I think because of this,” said Micum. He held out an empty bottle, showing them the small parchment label affixed to its side with a few drops of wax, with a name inscribed on it.
“Laneus!” Alec exclaimed, taking it from him. “But he didn’t show any sign of the sleeping death.”
“Unless his family hushed it up,” said Seregil. Pulling out another labeled phial, he sighed. “Or not. This one’s labeled ALAYA.” Seregil held it up for them to see. “And here’s one for Kyrin. Since they all died suddenly, perhaps the sleeping part isn’t always necessary.”
“And judging by these, then it may not need to be a trade,” mused Thero. “Just something freely given. That opens up some disturbing possibilities.”
“Look here,” said Micum, holding out another empty bottle, labeled KYLITH.
Seregil gave it a sorrowful look. “Kylith was going to end her patronage and he killed her. And Laneus insulted him, sending him to eat in the kitchen.”
Alec pulled out another of the empty ones and let out a groan. “Myrhichia. But why her?”
“And why Illia?” Micum asked bleakly, going back to his search. “Why would he want to hurt an innocent girl?”
“Probably the same reason he killed all those innocents in the Lower City,” Seregil replied. “What in Bilairy’s name is he doing with these?”
“Whatever it is, Seregil, Elani gave him gifts, too-that ring he always wears, and a brooch!” Alec reminded him.
Seregil nodded grimly, thinking, If anything happens to her, that’s on my head, as well.
“Hmm, the marks on these are different,” Thero said, peering at the seals on two bottles. “See this ring of symbols around the edge of the seal on this one with the marble in it, with a space in the center? This other one, with a lock of hair in it, is cloudy inside, and the center has been filled in with another symbol.”
“Two different magics?”
“Certainly there’s some difference, though the outer ring is the same on both.”
“What do you think will happen if you open them?” Alec asked.
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