by Darian Smith
The guard stepped back, seemingly reluctant to open the now unlocked door.
Brannon glanced at his companions. Draeson, for all his newfound youth, had seen plenty of horror in his centuries of life. Jessamine, however, seemed a little pale.
“You don’t have to go in, you know. You can wait for us here.”
She pressed her lips firmly and shook her head. “If I’m going to be a physician I have to get used to dead bodies. It’s funny, I can handle sewing up live ones, but . . . ”
Brannon closed his mind to the images of gored and hacked flesh on the battlefield. “It’s not something you need to rush,” he said.
“It’s not something we need to stand here talking about all day either,” Draeson said.
Brannon shot the mage a sharp look.
Jessamine shrugged. “I’m fine,” she said.
Brannon nodded. “Okay then. By the way, you did a good job with Duke Roydan earlier. Well done.”
Jessamine beamed at him.
“Oh good,” muttered Draeson. “Daddy issues.”
“Dry up and get your own apprentice,” Brannon told him.
The door opened onto death.
The bed had been pushed out into the center of the room and stripped of curtains, sheets, and mattress. Keldan Sandilar was positioned on the base, spread-eagled and nude, his arms and legs tied to the four posts. His genitals were a mass of gore, as was the hole in the center of his chest. His stomach, legs, arms, and even neck and face had been covered with rune-like symbols that twisted like vines over his skin. On the walls, the same symbols were smeared in black, brown, and red, standing out harshly against sky blue. His eyes were open wide and glassy.
“Blood and Tears.” Brannon could barely recognize the man he knew. He heard a retching sound behind him as Jessamine fought her stomach. “Thank the gods Roydan hasn’t seen this.”
As he stepped into the room, the stench of blood and meat filled his nose. The smell of death was still familiar after almost a decade of peace. It’d accompanied the loss of too many friends and comrades. Sometimes he would even smell it in his dreams and he would wake with sweat-soaked sheets believing, for a moment, that he was still covered with enemy blood.
Keldan’s white face stared up at the ceiling where a fresco cherub gazed down, splatters of red ruining its innocent expression. Another friend fallen. The son of a friend.
Brannon took a deep breath. “Try not to touch anything until we’ve looked at it closely. You never know what might be a clue.”
The others followed him carefully. Jessamine had her arms folded around herself.
Draeson whistled softly. “He pissed somebody off.”
Brannon scowled. “He was a friend, Draeson. Have some respect.”
“I knew him too,” the mage said, pointing to the dead man’s mutilated crotch. “But that looks personal. Maybe the woman he was with? Or her husband?”
Brannon turned away, concentrating on Keldan’s arms. The bindings were tight but there was no evidence of rope burn on the wrists. “He didn’t struggle against the rope so he was probably already dead when they tied him up.”
“He wasn’t dead when they stabbed him though,” Jessamine said. “There’s too much blood for that. Right?”
Brannon nodded. “They must have held him down. He’s a big man and he would’ve fought. It wouldn’t have been easy. Definitely not something a woman could do on her own. Or a woman and a man for that matter. I’d say at least one man for each limb and one to wield the knife.”
Draeson shook his head. “I find it hard to believe a group of five men got in and out of here without being seen or heard. What if it was a surprise attack that incapacitated him right from the start?”
“That might work if he was hit in the head,” Brannon said. He ran his fingers over Keldan’s scalp, checking for bumps, cuts, or soft-spots. There was no sign of head injury. The chest wound was filled with semi-congealed blood. Brannon probed it gently with his fingers. “This doesn’t hit his heart either, so he probably didn’t die quickly.”
He fell silent, trying not to think about how Keldan must have felt as he died. The physician-trained part of his mind kicked in and began identifying how the patient could have been treated if he’d been found in time. Staunch the blood flow, sew up the damage, bathe the wounds in antiseptic to try to prevent infection, give a tonic to help replace the blood.
Brannon looked away. With the amount of damage that had been done, there was no way Keldan could have been saved.
“Either way, if he was dead or incapacitated, why tie him up at all? Why position him like this? And what about the markings?” Brannon waved his arm to take in the entire room. Now that he could see past the corpse and the lurid symbols, he noticed other small items that were out of place: candles on the floor, ash on the discarded bedspread, dirt in small piles around the room. “This is more than just a murder. This was a ritual. Draeson, is there magic in this?”
The mage frowned. “Nothing local.” His mouth twisted as he studied the symbols closer. “It could be Djin. They use runes and earth in their Raisings.”
Jessamine gasped. “Djin? You mean the dead armies?”
Brannon shot her a look and she went quiet. “Jessamine, could you see what else you can find that might provide clues?”
She pressed her lips together and nodded. “Of course, Sir . . . um, Brannon. Sorry.”
“Djinan has been neutral as long as anyone can remember,” Brannon said, turning back to the mage. “Do you really think they’d do something like this?”
Draeson shrugged. “Attack a member of our royal house on our own soil? No, that doesn’t sound like them. But from what I know of their ways, this ritual does.”
Brannon chewed his lip. “Kalanon isn’t ready for another war, and we certainly wouldn’t survive one with Djinan, so let’s not jump to any conclusions just yet. It could be that someone is setting this out as a red herring. Or that it’s a rogue Djin. Either way, no one’s been Raised, so I don’t think we need to panic. Maybe it was done as a scare tactic.”
Draeson shrugged again. “To be honest, I’ve had very little to do with the Djin. They’re all about dirt and death and elementals. I can’t say for sure if this is their kind of thing but it’s enough like it that we should ask them to send us an expert to take a look.”
“Agreed,” Brannon said. “Jessamine, can you take a message to the palace bird master, please?” He turned to find the apprentice studying the writing desk in the corner of the room.
“I’m not sure,” she said, “but is this silk?” She held up a square of fabric.
Brannon ran his fingers over it, feeling the smoothness. “Yes,” he said, amazed. “Where did you find that?”
Jessamine pointed to the desk. “There’s a selection of them, just laying here.”
“Well, well,” Draeson muttered, coming closer. “Djin rituals, Nilarian silk, and a dead Kalan prince all in one room.”
The three investigators crowded in close around the desk. The squares were spread in a patchwork of vibrant colors. Some had patterns picked out in the thread, others birds or horses, and still more were a single hue. All were obscenely out of place in a Kalan room.
“How does silk end up in Prince Keldan’s room?” Jessamine said. “I didn’t think there was any in the whole country.”
“There’s some,” Draeson said darkly. “In the Nilarian ambassador’s wardrobe.”
“That’s not what this is, though,” Brannon pointed out. “These are samples. Why would Keldan have samples of Nilarian silk in his room?” He turned away from the desk and froze. They were no longer alone in the room.
A young man in clerical robes bent over Prince Keldan’s corpse. He was slim, average in looks, with light brown hair, and a slightly pointed nose. As Brannon watched, the young priest put out his tongue and licked the dead man’s lips.
“What in all Hooded hells are you doing?” Brannon bellowed, pulling his sword from its scabbard.
The priest jumped. “Oh,” he said, his eyes wide. He took in Brannon, with Draeson and Jessamine crowding behind, then looked around the room as if surprised to find himself there. “Oh,” he said again, looking back down at the body. “Oh! You mean . . . No! Nothing like that! I’m not doing anything!”
Brannon raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Well, yes, something, obviously,” the young man admitted. “I’m checking for poison. Well, not one that would kill him, obviously, but a paralytic drug. It leaves a very particular taste on the lips. Do you want to see?” He gestured at the bed.
Brannon stared, incredulous. “Who are you?”
The man stepped forward with a piece of paper in his outstretched hand. “Brother Taran of the Third Alapran Monastery. King Aldan sent me to help out. I’m something of a chemist, you see. Drugs and poisons are sort of a hobby.”
Brannon carefully took the paper. It verified that the bearer was Brother Taran, allocated to work with the King’s Champion on the murder of Prince Keldan. At the bottom was the royal seal.
“Typical of Kalan kings to send people blundering into things,” said Draeson. “Although Aldan did mention he’d be sending us help.”
Brannon called one of the guards at the door and handed him the paper. “Take this to the palace, verify it, then report back. While you’re there, tell the bird master to prepare for a message to be sent to Djinan. I’ll send it along later.”
“Wow,” said Brother Taran. “Not very trusting.”
“I’ll trust you well enough until I know otherwise,” Brannon said. “Tell me about this poison you think Keldan was given.”
“Oh, I’ll need to do some tests to be sure, but I think it’s loredin. It puts the muscles to sleep.” Taran waved his hand over Keldan’s body. “It made it so he couldn’t fight back.”
Brannon chewed his lip. “That would explain why there’s no sign of him struggling against the ropes.”
“It also means the whole thing could have been done by one person after all,” Draeson pointed out.
“Hooded Blood and crap,” Brannon swore. “We’re back to square one.”
“Sorry.” Taran shrugged and bent over the body again. “Hey, what’s with the bite marks? Does he have a kitten or something?”
“What?”
“There.” Brother Taran pointed to the inside of Keldan’s wrist, where two small teeth marks were almost healed.
“Is that likely to be how he was poisoned?”
“Oh, um, no, he’d have eaten or drunk the poison.”
Brannon sighed and covered his face in his hands, rubbing at his eyes. “Then I don’t really care about an old cat bite. Let’s try to focus on what’s relevant, shall we?”
Draeson stepped forward. “I think we should preserve this room and the body exactly as they are until the expert arrives from Djinan to tell us if it matches their ritual.”
Brannon pulled his hands away. “You can do that?”
“Of course.”
“Good. And in the meantime, we look into how Keldan came to have samples of silk, any enemies he may have personally, and what happened to the woman he was with. The gods only know if this is personal, political, or something else entirely. We need to follow up on all the possibilities.”
“That sounds very sensible,” Brother Taran said.
Brannon glared at him. “Do you need anything more for your tests?”
The priest held up a ball of cloth. “I swabbed his mouth already.”
“Then I suggest we let Magus Draeson seal the room.”
They watched from the hallway as Draeson reached his arm back through the door and placed his hand on the wall inside the room. His sleeve fell back, revealing the dragon tattoo on his bicep. For several breaths, nothing happened. Then there was an eerie crackling noise and what looked like green chunks of glass spilled out from the walls and began piling up on the floor. They settled softly over the desk, the bed, and Keldan’s body. The chunks were flexible and light, melding to the shapes of the things they came into contact with, not shifting or pushing them, but oozing over and around them. When the chunks had finally reached the ceiling, they shimmered and their edges blurred into one another, becoming seamless so that the entire room was trapped in a transparent magical resin. A wave of cold flowed out from the doorway as Draeson pulled back his arm.
“That should do it,” the mage said.
Brannon pushed the door shut, hiding the scene from view. “Good work.”
As the others headed for the stairs, Brannon felt Jessamine’s hand on his arm and she pulled him aside, her brow furrowed.
“Haven’t you seen magic before?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Yes. Well, no, but that’s not it.” She paused. “I just saw Magus Draeson’s dragon tattoo on his arm.”
“Yes.” Brannon said, knowing what was coming next.
She looked up at him, her head tilted to one side. “But, earlier . . . wasn’t it on his neck?”
Brannon sighed. If only that were the biggest puzzle facing them. “Yes,” he said. “Yes it was.”
Chapter Four
Sunlight shone warm and bright over the Djinan Isles, the perfect complement to the gentle breeze that brought with it the smell of drying grasses and salty sea air. On such a clear day, Ula could see, if she chose to look, all the way across to Uldhal, the furthest island of the archipelago visible from Gradinath Keep. For now, however, her focus was on the gentle hum of bees, and the decayed figure shambling toward their hive.
“Open it gently,” she called, raising her voice even though she still held enough connection for it to feel her command without words. “I don’t want it damaged more than necessary.”
The Risen turned back for a moment and looked at her with empty eyes. The kaluki within was still strong for such an old corpse. It had repaired much of the body it inhabited, but, of course, could not resist the bindings of that body’s limits. It nodded to Ula and proceeded to the hive.
The bees, sensing the danger of an intruder, buzzed about in fury, some impotently stinging the exposed flesh, their poison meaningless to one already dead. The Risen ignored them and pulled open the top of the box hive to inspect the wax combs inside.
Ula already knew what it would be seeing. The hive population had grown too large for the space that housed it. If something was not done soon, the bees would swarm.
“Take a third of the brood combs to the new hive,” she said. “Make sure you get enough worker bees with them, but be sure to leave the queen.”
As the Risen began pulling apart the hive, Ula dug her toes into the dirt and grass, enjoying the connection to the earth spirits. She closed her eyes and felt the strength and peace flow into the soles of her feet and up to the rest of her body. She swayed in a gentle communion dance as the breeze brushed over her skin. The spirits were happy today.
When she opened her eyes, she saw she was no longer alone. One of the apprentice shamans sat cross-legged on the grass nearby, her head bowed, awaiting acknowledgement. Her rough leather tunic bore only a few coral beads stitched on as decoration and the freshly tattooed rune on her shoulder was red and inflamed.
“What is it?”
The girl looked up and Ula could see the mixed adoration and fear with which so many of the apprentices regarded her, in the girl’s eyes. “Prioress, a message came from the Kalan king. There’s been an incident and they’re calling the Council of Priors to discuss it.”
Ula glanced across at the hive. The Risen was packing the last few combs into a box for transport. The remaining bees would now have space to expand the hive with their existing queen. Those that were transferred would quickly create a new queen from the larvae in the transported combs and begin a new hive of their own.
They were managed. Contained. There would be no uncontrollable swarm.
“You will need to keep watch on this Risen for me,” she told the apprentice. “When it has finished the task, bring it to the K
eep and have someone put it back in the earth.” She crouched to dig a half-handful of dirt from the ground beneath her feet, spat into it to make it mud, and inscribed a symbol on the girl’s forehead, binding the kaluki tether to her.
The girl’s face was full of pride. “I can give it back to the earth spirits myself, prioress. I’ve been learning.”
“Perhaps you can,” Ula said. She poked the infected tattoo on the apprentice’s shoulder, making her draw a sharp breath. “But not until this has healed, at least. You’re not a shaman yet. Don’t take foolish risks.”
The path from the hives to Gradinath Keep was short in distance but rich with tactile sensation. The grass beneath Ula’s feet rose up to tickle her ankles before giving way to the worn, dusty road, pocked here and there with gravel-filled potholes.
The Keep itself was the largest building in the Djinan archipelago, rising as high as a beached whale was long. It was constructed from the usual mud bricks and plastered over with clay so that the entire thing grew out of the ground like an organic entity—a kind of man-made termite mound.
As Ula stepped inside, she felt the coolness of the lower levels, not yet warmed by the sun. Later, in the evening, the baked clay would release the stored heat of the day to keep the inhabitants warm through the night, but for now the cool shade was a welcome relief after her brisk walk.
The Council of Priors met in the central chamber, a room designed to be the impregnable seat of Djin decision-making. Every brick of that chamber was a spirit-brick, bound and blessed by earth spirits to keep kaluki away. No Risen had been used to build Gradinath Keep. It had been done entirely by Djin shaman hands.
“The safest place in the world,” Ula’s old master had told her once. She’d never thought of anywhere to contradict him.
The others were already there, sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor. Ula quickly took her place and looked around. There were seven other priors in attendance at the moment. The rest were visiting tribes on other islands and would not return for this discussion. Those that were here were a mix of men and women, most with gray in their dreadlocks or beards and the ink of their tattoos faded with age. Their leather and flax clothes were beaded and painted as befit their status and a candle flickered on the floor in front of each prior.