by A Van Wyck
He thought about that.
“Yes, I agree,” the priest continued, registering his unconscious frown, “but it is possible.”
“And your other theories, father?”
“Whatever else you are, Marco,” the keeper addressed him seriously, “you are a priest of Helia, ordained or not. You proved that last night with your selfless actions. From what you’ve told me, I would hazard that the concealment spell was either death- or dark aspected. That puts it in direct opposition to the aspect of your guardian deity. It is very possible you perceived the shadow simply because the light of Helia burns in you.”
He frowned. He didn’t think himself especially pious. Next to someone like the keeper, he was practically a heathen. He felt a rush of guilt as he recalled all the times he’d skipped prayers in favor of more stimulating pursuits.
“So you would have seen it too?” he tried to confirmed.
“Perhaps. Between you and me, I’d rather not get the opportunity to find out,” the priest winked.
He might have smiled if he weren’t so worried. And woozy.
“And if you’re wrong, father?” The keeper might have faith in him. But he was pretty sure his own faith was lacking. “Is there another theory?” he pressed.
“So far I only have one other.”
He waited as the keeper’s features sobered.
“You have an inborn sensitivity,” the priest theorized, “a talent that has nothing to do with either training or magic.”
There was silence as he contemplated that. He had an inborn talent for death magicks? That was far from comforting.
“Of the three theories,” the priest said at length, “I prefer the second. Probably I will only raise the first when I speak to Nestor this afternoon.”
He was having trouble following their conversation, but the keeper’s words reminded him of something else he’d picked up: the informal way the keeper and the invigilator had seemed to address one another. It certainly didn’t seem like they’d met each other just a few short weeks ago.
“Do you know him, father?” he asked warily, aware he might be intruding into the keeper’s personal affairs. As usual, the priest took no offense.
“Nestor?” he queried. “Oh, yes. We met during my stint on the border. We were on different sides of course and both much younger then. He had a part in the negotiations that ended that clash. Or postponed it, I should say, depending on how you look at it. Even back then, he impressed me as an exceptionally gifted politician and diplomat, despite his dark humor. Of course, he wasn’t invigilator back then. We kept in touch over the years,” the priest mused.
As though taken aback by the wend of his own words, the keeper turned to him.
“I’d appreciate if you didn’t mention that to anyone. Present fortuitous happenstance aside, our correspondence spanned a period when our countries were, technically, at war. If that were to come to light, I would become subject to some strenuous investigation myself.”
He nodded his heavy head, awed at being entrusted with one of the keeper’s secrets.
The priest rubbed his hands together. “Now,” he announced, “let’s order you up a bath and have a look at those scrapes and bruises before you collapse…”
His house arrest lasted two more days. The diplomatic meetings had been suspended for the time being, citing as reason a much needed break. The king was unavailable. Father Justin was using the time to catch up on his reports. There had been a lot of messages shooting around between the members of the Imperial delegation. A covey of letters was winging their way back toward Tellar. It was going to take about another month for the missives to reach their destination and longer still before any kind of response arrived.
He’d survived the horror of being questioned by the calm and straightforward chapter master. The man’s hands had twitched absently throughout, as though they longed for a pair of white hot tongs. Predictably, he hadn’t spoken much during the hysterical ambassador’s interrogation of him. He hadn’t had the chance. Neither questioning had unearthed anything new and, over time, all the excitement had died down.
Now, he was bored.
He was too unfocused to read any of the scrolls the keeper had set him and the two guards outside treated him to hard stares the moment he stuck his head out the door. He was strongly beginning to suspect he wasn’t much of an indoors type of person as he went around the apartments, lighting the oil lamps in their brackets. He put one on the keeper’s desk where his mentor was still bent over the latest missive from Lord Malconte. There had been at least a dozen every day for the last two days.
“Thank you,” the keeper murmured absently, quill scratching across a piece of parchment.
He moved around to quietly shut the narrow window at the priest’s back. The palace servants put something in the lamp oil that supposedly repelled mosquitoes but some always managed to find their way inside. Possibly by boring through the walls. The keeper had said that it was just a normal drawback of such a marsh-like environment. As if understanding it made it any better.
He scratched absently at his wrist where a cluster of bites raised angry red bumps.
These weren’t the tame mosquitoes you got back home either. These were huge, vicious monsters and were bright green to boot. He secretly believed that, three or four working together, could carry a sleeping man out the window and off into the night.He winced at the thought. He wasn’t sleeping well and mosquitoes were the least of it. He had nightmares about dark rooftops and black clad murderers. In his dreams he was the one plummeting off the palace roof to his death, the tops of distant trees reaching greedily for him. He gasped awake from those nightmares moments before the branches could start cutting him to ribbons. He’d never before thought himself scared of heights. It was just distance in a downward direction. What was scary about that? Somehow the giant trees he’d climbed in the Temple orchard had never seemed dangerous. In retrospect, they must have been. He suspected he was developing a fear of heights now, thanks to his nightmares. Even so, they weren’t the worst of his terrors. The worst ones, he knew, were the ones he couldn’t remember.
He would jerk awake from those, covered in sweat. He was absurdly grateful that the pounding of his heart habitually drowned out dream sounds as they dwindled. He was sure they were nothing he’d care to recall. His latest brush with death must have stirred up some old fears. He tried not to think about that too much. Idly, he wondered when the last time was he’d slept a night without a nightmare. It was amazing what a body could get used to…
Distracted as he was, he startled at the knock on the door. There was no announcement, which was unusual.
The keeper frowned over the pile of paperwork, extra senses penetrating the distractions of the moment.
“Enter!”
Invigilator Reed strolled in. The keeper’s distraction disappeared entirely.
“Nestor. Please, come in.”
“Evening Justin,” Reed drawled, completely ignoring him. “Busy?”
“I’m never too busy for good news.”
The Invigilator raised a lone brow, of which he had two exceedingly thin ones.
“And why would you assume I come bearing good news?”
The keeper glanced quickly past the invigilator’s shoulder and back again, smiling.
“No headsman,” the priest explained.
Reed peered behind him as if surprised.
“Ah,” the stick figure confirmed in all seriousness, “give it a moment. It’s quite a heavy axe, you understand, and there are a lot of stairs.”
He swallowed hard, the unlit lamp he still held rattled against its glass hood.
“Nestor…” the keeper growled a warning. An ink-spotted hand reached out to steady his shoulder and halt the lamp’s quaking. “I disparage of you ever giving up your flair for melodrama.”
“It’s only you I continuously fail to fool,” the invigilator said without a hint of remorse. “I have loads of fun the rest of the time.
It makes it worth dragging my old bones out of bed in the morning.”
He didn’t think he wanted to be on the receiving end of the invigilator’s brand of humor ever again.
“So what brings you?” the keeper enquired, wiping inked fingers on an alcohol soaked rag.
“I can’t really say… here.”
The priest paused in the act of scrubbing a stubborn stain from a thumbnail.
The invigilator smiled his lizard’s smile. The man’s teeth were the exact same hue as his jaundiced hide.
“Throw on something a little more formal,” he advised them, finally deigning to notice Marco as well. “You too. And hurry up. We don’t have all night.”
A short while later found them walking along the darkened palace corridors, led by Nestor Reed and trailed by the pair of guards from outside their door. He took his cue from the keeper, remaining silent as they traversed the palace byways.
The palace, usually a beehive of activity, was settling into its nightly routine. Servants ghosted around the main hallways with buckets, brooms and mops, dousing two out of every three lamps. Their party avoided the main arteries, cutting through dark servants’ accesses and through dusty rooms filled with shrouded furniture.
Becoming quickly lost, he was caught off guard when they were suddenly in the bright expanse of the royal apartments. None but the Royal Guard were visible, lining the walls. Two more turnings brought them to a broad flight of stairs, leading upward. To the king’s floor, he realized. He felt his heart stutter once before it sped into a fierce gallop. His ears started to warm. He sneaked a glance at the keeper but his mentor’s face was blank.
“Here we are,” Nestor Reed said as they reached a set of enormous double doors guarded on either side by two hulking, faceless figures in full plate. Enormous Renali greatswords stood bare almost to their wielders’ shoulders.
He couldn’t help staring.
Until its first clashes with the Renali, the concept of full-body metal armor had been foreign to the Empire. And for good reason. Without horses to carry them, men outfitted so could go nowhere far or fast, making them useless to an army afoot. He’d never seen such a suit up close. He wondered how one would fight such a juggernaut… and began unconsciously identifying weak points and joints that would permit the point of a sword… until he realized what he was doing.
When had he become so obsessed with battle? He thought he could hear Master Crysopher’s harsh monotone, droning on somewhere in the back of his skull. He shook his head.
The novelty had been enough to distract him momentarily. It resurged as the invigilator pushed the doors open.
“We usually have extra hands to do this,” the man apologized over a shoulder, “but we don’t need the extra ears tonight.”
The doors swung soundlessly open.
Easily a hundred mirrored lanterns, studding the pearly walls and huge chandelier, transformed the high vaulted chamber into bright day. With his first steps, he only had a moment to register the lavishly embellished furniture and the impossibly tall, narrow drapes before his attention was invariably drawn to the center dais. The king brooded upon a gilded throne, simple circlet glinting among steely curls. Two more men stood at the king’s elbows, one obviously a high ranking military officer, uniform decorated with medals and golden braid. The other was a robed, older man. In contrast to the military man’s stiff scowl, he stood stooped over a cane, smiling peaceably.
The invigilator led them forward like a flight of geese. They stopped when he did and bowed deeply as he did.
“Majesty,” Nestor Reed intoned grandly with just a hint of humor, “as commanded, I bring before you Keeper Wisenpraal and Master Dei Toriam of the Holy Temple of the Heli Empire.”
“Gentlemen,” he king greeted, voice grave and booming in the open space, “welcome. Keeper Justin. Young Marco. It is good to see you both again.”
“Thank you, your majesty,” the keeper executed another bow – which he hurriedly copied, “though one wishes it were under happier circumstances.”
“Allow me to introduce,” the king continued, waving a hand at the old man in the colorless robes, “High Arcanist Peril Lorant, the royal archmage and my advisor in all things magical.” The arcanist smiled amicably. “And,” the king continued, “Brigadier-General Elil Raide, commander of the Royal Guard and chief of palace security, among other things.” The general nodded, eyes smoldering as if infected by the burn that had stolen one of his eyebrows.
“Gentlemen,” Justin greeted, directing a half-bow at each.
“I do not wish to waste your time, Keeper. You know why you are here?”
“I imagine it has to do with the events of two nights past, majesty,” the keeper returned.
The king nodded gravely.
“First,” the monarch said severely, “let me apologize for any inconvenience you have suffered as a result of this investigation. I’m sure you understand why we had to take every precaution. It is my most fervent hope that it not damage the fledgling relations between our two nations.”
The keeper nodded graciously but did not speak.
“Master Dei Toriam,” the king addressed him, making him jump. The monarch seemed to chew over the next words carefully. “I have spoken at length to my daughter.”
The king’s regard was heavy and he found himself unable to breathe. He didn’t much like the sound of at length.
“She confirms,” the king continued, “that you were in her private apartments two days ago at her express invitation.”
Helia’s mercy, it sounds bad when her father says it…
He felt his face heating. He was suddenly aware of how very imposing the king looked, up on his throne. Perhaps as big a man as Bear. How had he not seen that before?
“As for the events that followed, we would like to hear your account, in your words.” The king turned to the keeper, broad shoulders seeming to shift ponderously beneath the royal mantle. “May we have your permission, Keeper, to question your scribe?”
“You have it, your majesty,” the priest agreed with another bow.
Breaking protocol, he glanced at Justin in panic but merely received an encouragingly smile in turn. He found his throat suddenly unbearably dry.
The king motioned and the old man, the high arcanist, stepped forward, cane tapping hollowly off the marble tiles.
“How do you call yourself?” the old voice was wheezy but clear, like reed pipes.
“–” he said unsuccessfully and cleared his throat. “Marco,” managed more clearly.
“Hello, Marco,” the man pronounced it perfectly. “I’m Peril. I’m going to ask you some questions, if that’s alright?”
He nodded. So far, the arcanist was the only who’d actually bothered to ask permission.
“Thank you. Then kindly begin your account directly after you left the Princess Dailill’s chambers,” the old man instructed, “and tell me what happened.”
He looked into the acranist’s expectant, kindly eyes and took a deep breath.
“I was looking at the art,” he began, “when I heard a noise…”
He relaxed marginally as he told the by now familiar story, unwillingly living through it again. He could not decide whether the arcanist’s face was genuinely genial or whether it was simply a fortuitous constellation of wrinkles that gave the illusion. Either way, the old one listened thoughtfully, nodding as the tale unfolded.
The general rose to his toes and caressed his sword hilt at every mention of the assassin. The king sat in stony silence, expression unreadable.
The old arcanist asked penetrating questions about everything he’d thought and felt when hearing, seeing and finally touching the concealing cloud; asked him to describe the vanished handholds in minute detail; and had him recall every insignificant detail he could about the masked assassin. At long last, he reached the part where the assassin jumped from the roof.
“Thank you, young Marco,” the arcanist said when he was done, turning to g
ive the king a confirming nod. The general’s nostrils flared. The king didn’t react at all, save to turn his attention to Elil Raide.
“General, if you please,” the monarch commanded.
“Yes, sire,” the military man responded, stepping forward as if on parade. “After the incident,” the general reported without preamble, “we conducted a thorough search of the royal tower and environs. Apart from the unlocked window in the apartments in question, no proof of trespass was found. If the assassin entered the palace by another way, we found no sign.” Anvil jaw muscles bunched spasmodically.
He had the strangest thought that, if it had been Raide on that roof, the general would have dove after the assassin in pursuit.
“In addition,” the high arcanist interjected with a slight wheeze, “I exhausted my repertoire trying to detect the magical resonance left by the intruder’s spells. Despite what must have been several workings of a high caliber, I found only token residue. Whatever magic was at work was subtle in the extreme and does not linger. Worse, if my experiments are any indication, this art is as undetectable by magical means as it is by the mundane. That renders the majority of our security measures moot.”
“In other words,” the king said, voicing the conclusion their little council had apparently reached, “we are dealing with an intruder who can enter my castle, my home, with impunity and move about unhindered.”
“Majesty,” the keeper spoke up, “in the Empire we use wards, magical snares, to give alarm. Can such not be set to guard against future incursions? Perhaps using the detection method Arcanist Lorant has devised?”
The king looked a question at the royal mage.
“Your Heli wards are familiar to me,” the arcanist’s smile said this was an understatement. “But the method I used to detect the residue is… involved. Its mechanics do not lend itself to the composition of a ward. I am researching methods to cure this limitation but at present… no. There is no fit ward.”
The arcanist folded wrinkled hands atop the reed cane.
“From what little I’ve been able to gather I suspect we are dealing with a variant of the dark arts. What you would call necromancy, Keeper.”