Mourningbird (Empire of Masks Book 3)

by Brock Deskins

  A servant, his face a collage of tattoos, answered his knocking and led him into the house. Farelle Vanos, the man who was just a distant friend the previous day and was now his father, spotted him in the hallway from an adjoining room.

  “Bertram, my boy, what brings you by?” Farelle asked as he stood and hastened over to him. “Not official business I hope.”

  “No, sah, it’s personal.”

  “You look a bit rough around the edges. It appears you had as raucous a night as Darynn did.”

  Bertram cleared his throat and his eyes drifted away from the older man’s face. “We were at the same party.”

  “Wonderful! I’m glad to see you boys are patching things up.”

  “That’s one of the reason’s I’m here. Is he home then?”

  “Yes, upstairs in his rooms.”

  “Thank you, sah. Sah…” Bertram hesitated, failing to find the words.

  “What is it, son?”

  Bertram’s throat constricted, choking off whatever words he had managed to form in his head. “Upstairs, you said?”

  “Yes, the right-hand hallway, second door on your left.”

  Bertram nodded his thanks and tromped up the stairs. He found the door he was looking for and knocked. Darynn’s eyes flashed an instant of surprise and more than a bit of fear when he saw who awaited him, but the emotions vanished just as quickly as they had appeared.

  “Come to kill me?” he asked in a deadpan voice.

  “I thought about it. I would certainly be within my right. I also considered sending you to Vulcrad’s mines where your suffering would give you ample opportunity to think about the choices you have made in your life.”

  “So which is it to be?”

  “Neither.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I don’t think our father would appreciate either of those choices.”

  Darynn’s jaw tightened, causing the swirl of tribal tattoos to writhe like green and blue snakes. “So you know. Did you kill Reto then?”

  Bertram shook his head. “I probably should have, but no. However, the two gendarmes you enlisted to help you won’t be betraying anyone again.”

  “And here I thought you were starting to go soft. Nice to know you haven’t given up on killing completely.”

  “Killing Gilbert was a mistake. I see that now. I was too full of alcohol and self-pity, and I acted rashly. I was at the greatest event of my life, celebrating my proudest accomplishment, but I had neither mother nor father there to witness it. I was bitter, and Gilbert’s words only threw fuel on the fire. Maybe you understand a bit of that.”

  Darynn sighed and nodded. “Perhaps I do.”

  He flinched when Bertram pulled the dagger and sheath Farelle had given him from his belt. “This belongs to you. You are the eldest son, the true son who has borne the weight of his father’s critical judgement his entire life.”

  Darynn took the sheathed blade from Bertram’s hands. “Thank you.”

  Bertram’s eyes bore into his half-brother’s. “Know this; if you ever cross me again, I will kill you without hesitation.”

  “I won’t. Your friends made it very clear what would happen if I tried again.”

  “While they came to my aid, they were no friends of mine. What did they say to you exactly? Did they tell you who they were or who had sent them?”

  “No, only that they were watching you, and if I tried anything like that again they would kill me.”

  Bertram turned away, leaving the other man to ponder his warning and future.

  “Have you boys patched things up then?” Farelle asked as Bertram descended the stairs.

  “Gestures have been made. Only time will tell if we can repair all of the cracks in our relationship.”

  Farelle clapped him on the shoulder. “Time has the ability to heal all things, given the chance. You should come by more often. I’m sure you and Darynn just need to get to know each other better.”

  “I’ll try. Things are a bit hectic within the gendarme just now.”

  “Do be careful. You’ve chosen a dangerous course of work. I would hate to see anything happen to you.”

  Bertram paused in the outer doorway. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course I would. Why is this surprising to you?”

  Bertram shook his head. “Something unusual happened last night, some unexpected assistance. You don’t know anything about that?”

  Farelle frowned. “I don’t know what you are referring to.”

  Bertram searched the man’s face for any sign of deception but could not discern any. “It’s nothing. I’ll figure it out. Thank you for your hospitality, sah.”

  “You are welcome in my home anytime.”

  The cab waited outside as per Bertram’s orders and shuttled him across the city. He stared out of the window without seeing the buildings or people he passed as he pondered this newest conundrum. While grateful for the unexpected rescue, he could not shake the feeling that it was a portent of something much deeper.

  ***

  Fred’s door opened and one of his men stepped into the room. “We found the team you sent to deal with Kiera and her friends,” he said, his voice quavering.

  “It’s about damn time! Where in the Tormented Plane have they been?”

  “Uh, dead, Boss.”

  “Dead? What do you mean dead? All of them?”

  The nervous man swallowed and bobbed his head. “We found their bodies dumped in Blindside maybe a half a mile from the girl’s base.”

  “How did they die?”

  “Musket shot mostly. Maybe a blunderbuss given the size of some of the smaller shot.” He held up an iron nail pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “Several men died from these.”

  Fred took the nail, studied it a moment, and handed it to Top Hat. “What do you make of it?”

  Top Hat turned it in his fingers before his eyes and sniffed it. “I would say a homemade grenado or other such explosive device, but I can’t detect the scent of powder on it, so I can’t really say what was used to propel them.”

  “What about a gun, a techno piece like the one Kiera used only designed to fling nails?”

  Top Hat shrugged. “Possible, but that means she has access to an arcanist. A good one. It would take a strong arcanstone and a masterful set of techno-scribing to propel an object with enough speed to kill a man. I’m not sure it’s even possible.”

  “Seems unlikely, doesn’t it? She must have gotten help from someone. Even if she managed to get her sticky little fingers on some guns, there’s no way she has enough powder to put them to use. If she did, she wouldn’t be living in squalor.”

  “We did see several men lurking about the area where she lives,” Fred’s crony said.

  “Rafferty’s men?”

  “None of us recognized them. Hired guns maybe.”

  “Kiera doesn’t have that kind of coin, and Rafferty is the only one I know of who would back her. She might even have thrown in with him. That’s a problem. I’m not ready to move against Rafferty’s group just yet, and I’m already on Nimat’s hit list.”

  Fred turned to Top Hat. “Keep an eye out for Kiera. If you can grab her without anyone seeing, do it. I want to know where she got that techno device and what killed my men. If she has an arcanist in her pocket, I want them, and I don’t care what it takes to get them. They obviously have more skill and imagination than the two I have now.”

  The man nodded and left to issue Fred’s orders.

  “Any new discoveries from our two tinkerers?”

  Top Hat left the room and returned with a wooden box. He set the box on Fred’s desk, opened the lid, and pulled out a device that looked like an amalgamation of a pistol and trumpet. “This just arrived.”

  “What is it?”

  “Sebastian called it a harmonic resonator,” Top Hat said, referring to the blind unregistered arcanist he held prisoner along with his daughter Haley.

  Fred took it in his hands.
“What does it do?”

  “Quite a bit, actually. I have not seen it at work, but my man passed on his instructions. You point it at your target and pull the trigger as you would a pistol, but instead of lead shot, the device unleashes sound.”

  “Sound? What good is that? I want to kill people, not give them something to dance to.”

  “You can set the frequency and power by turning the thumb wheel here. It can create enough sound to debilitate a foe, or even an entire group if they are close enough, but such a direct attack is but one use for it. Using the tuning dial, you can, theoretically, cause an object to vibrate so intensely that it shatters or collapses.”

  “What kind of object?”

  Top Hat shrugged. “Any object, I suppose.”

  Fred crossed the room, pointed the device through the window Kiera had broken, and aimed it at the building across the street. Pulling the trigger, he turned the dial on the side with his thumb. The device unleashed an ear-piercing whine, causing those outside to cover their ears and stare up at him. Fred frowned, unimpressed, until the windows in the far building shattered and dust began falling from morticed bricks. He turned up the power, and the wall began to shake. People ran from the building, screaming in terror before the entire front collapsed into the street.

  Fred’s grin nearly reached his ears. “Finally, something worth a damn. Maybe I won’t have to kill the blind bastard after all.”

  “He says he needs more high-quality arcanstones to make more weapons of comparable power.”

  Fred’s eyebrows crawled up his head. “Then let’s get him some.”

  ***

  “Sah, we have a guest,” Cleary called out.

  “Good to see you up and about,” Bertram said as Cleary led him to the parlor. “You are making a speedy recovery.”

  “Yes, Sah Conner has spared no expense on healing salves and elixirs, although it will be weeks before my duties extend beyond answering the door.”

  Conner stood, straightened his robe, and forced a smile. “Bertram, another unexpected visit.”

  “I apologize again for dropping by unannounced, but certain happenstances have occurred without prior notice, so I thought I would extend you the same discourtesy.”

  Conner chuckled. “You look exhausted. Would you like some coffee? Surri is brewing some now.”

  “That would be fantastic.”

  “Mr. Cleary, have Surri bring an extra cup for our guest.”

  Cleary ducked his head and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “What brings you by this time?”

  Bertram sighed as he sank into the plush chair. “A pair of my men led me into an ambush last night.”

  “You’re here, so you must have fared well.”

  “Better than they by the end of it, I can assure you.”

  “I can imagine your reprisal was as swift as it was unforgiving.”

  “It most certainly was.”

  Cleary returned with Surri, the woman bearing a silver tray laden with a carafe, three cups, and vessels of cream and sugar. She placed a cup before the three men and filled them with the carafe’s steaming, aromatic, dark beverage before departing, leaving the tray and its contents.

  “So, what brings our chief inquisitor by this time?” Cleary asked as he sipped his black coffee while Bertram and Conner added a bit of cream and sugar to their cups.

  “Bertram says he was set upon last night, an ambush perpetrated by his own men.”

  “You’re wondering who else might be involved?” Cleary asked.

  Bertram shook his head, took a sip of his coffee, and said, “No, I have all that sorted for the most part. It’s the mystery of why I’m still alive that confounds me, and I’m hoping you can help me with the answer.”

  “I’m not following,” Conner replied.

  “A group of men came to my rescue. Had they not, I would not be here now. They refused to identify themselves and were rather hostile when I tried to press them.”

  “I hope you don’t think it was me,” Cleary said. “Working door handles and holding this cup is about the extent of my abilities at the moment.”

  “No, of course not, and I apologize for my abruptness during my last visit. It was unseemly. I trust you both, and whatever…nocturnal activities you two might be involved in, I do not think they are nefarious in the grand scheme of things.”

  Cleary grunted into his cup. “And being alive isn’t enough, you need to know who and why these folks saved your life.”

  “It’s true I despise a mystery, but I think it’s more than that.”

  “Like what?” Conner asked.

  “That’s what I’m hoping you can help me with.”

  “I’ll certainly do my best.”

  “I thought you would. You have far more experience with this sort of thing than I do. Why do you think someone would have me watched and break their cover when it became apparent that my life was in danger?”

  Conner nodded as he stared into his cup. “I suppose that would depend on who they were working for. Who has a vested interest in seeing that you come to no harm?”

  “That was my first thought, and I inquired into it, but the two people who would go to such lengths deny any knowledge of the attack or rescue.”

  “Only two?”

  Bertram leaned back, chagrined. “Admittedly, there are far more people who wouldn’t mind seeing me dead than alive.”

  “Not as many as you think, obviously. Can you think of no one else who has a vested interest in making sure you stay alive?”

  “I can’t think of anyone. It’s not as though I have much that anyone would be interested in. Nothing worth killing me over or saving my life.”

  “Perhaps it is not something you have but something you will have.”

  “Which is?”

  Conner spread his arms wide. “The whole of Velaroth, command of the naval academy and its fleet of airships.”

  Bertram dropped his head into his hand and rubbed his scalp. “Of course. I think so little of it that it never occurred to me.”

  “It may have occurred to someone else. Who benefits from you becoming duke?”

  “Other than every decent, law-abiding citizen in the city and its holdings?” Bertram replied with a grin. “The criminals and people like Nimat are much more likely to be the ones trying to kill me, not save me. Besides, my succession is years, probably decades, away.”

  “Unless someone accelerates it.”

  Bertram’s smile faded and his face dropped. “You think the people who saved me might kill my uncle so that I become duke?”

  “It’s not that far-fetched a plan. The question then becomes who profits from it?”

  “No one,” Bertram answered.

  “Really? You are the city’s most eligible bachelor, one who stands to inherit not just a vast fortune, but arguably the most powerful position in all of Eidolan. Whoever you marry, and I have to think you will, especially if you ascend the throne, will become an extension of that power. So I ask again, who stands to benefit most?”

  “Lysse, Esmerelda Dushane’s daughter, and I are something of a couple. If she and I married, the lines of autonomy between our two cities would become razor thin.”

  Conner nodded in response, not bothering to speak the words everyone was now thinking.

  “That seems too obvious.”

  “Sometimes things are obvious for a reason.”

  “There is someone else who stands to benefit, someone I only recently became acquainted with. Their position could be greatly elevated if I become duke. A great many people in fact.”

  “Who is that?”

  Bertram shook his head. “A familial relation I just discovered. It’s something I can’t talk about just yet.”

  “I trust that narrows it down a bit from where you were at.”

  “It does, but neither prospect fills me with joy.”

  “Such is often the case with treachery.”

  A flash of movement at the top of
the stairs drew Bertram’s eyes. “Do you have company?”

  Conner followed Bertram’s gaze. “Ah, yes, my niece is staying with me for a while. Would you like to meet her?”

  Bertram shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

  “Mr. Cleary, would you go fetch Felicity for us?”

  Cleary nodded and climbed the stairs.

  “I didn’t know you had an extended family,” Bertram said.

  “She’s my wife’s brother’s daughter. Her family owns a rammox farm near Crolhetta.”

  “A country girl. It takes a hardy breed to live outside the great cities.”

  “Indeed, so you may have to bear with her less than…sophisticated ways.”

  Cleary found Kiera back in the guest room she had been given. “What is the freaking inquisitor doing here?” she demanded.

  “He pops in from time to time.” He tossed a white shimmersilk gown at her. “Wear this.”

  Kiera looked at the garment, disgust etched across her face. “What do I need to wear a dress for?”

  “Because you’re now Conner’s niece. Your name is Felicity. You’re from a settlement called Crolhetta. It’s about two days west of here by carriage. Your family owns a herd of rammox. You came here because your parents wanted you to learn how to act like a lady and gain some culture in order to find you a husband that doesn’t come home covered in rammox shit. You got all that?”

  “I don’t know anything about freaking rammox!”

  “In the next few days, you’ll learn everything you need to know. For now, you just have to fake it. Get dressed.” He tossed a mask onto the bed. “And wear that. I don’t know if he’s ever seen your face, but now is not the time to take chances.”

  “You best find me some shoes too, because he might still be wearing my bootprint on his chest.”

  Cleary chuckled as he left the room. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

  Cleary returned with Kiera in tow wearing one of Surri’s robes and a mask bearing Conner’s family seal. Conner and Bertram stood as Kiera entered the room.