Unfettered III
Page 52
Talam seemed to hear him. Or was it Jarrel’s imagination? The hawk’s wings beat erratically, as if the spirit voice were an intrusion, not a call for the animale communion.
“Talam,” he pleaded.
This time, the hawk did not respond in any way.
Someone cleared his throat lightly behind him. “Jarrel?”
Jarrel broke the animale trance and opened his eyes, recognizing the voice of his servant Polto. Jarrel sighed as he watched the hawk turn and head west toward the sea.
“I apologize for interrupting, Jarrel,” Polto said, “but the queen insists on seeing you. She asked half an hour ago, but I didn’t know where you were. She said it was urgent.”
Jarrel turned toward Polto, the young man he’d met a few months ago at the weeklong Animale Games in Saleena. Jarrel had participated in the Games, but Queen Laurice, without his knowledge, recommended him to the Games Committee as an investigator. Quite a number of money pouches had gone missing during the first few days of the Games, and the queen had forced the committee to put him into service to uncover the thefts.
Jarrel discovered the culprit fairly quickly. Polto, nearly two heads shorter than himself, had a clever system that allowed him to deftly lift pouches unseen. He would pretend to gyrate in the manner that some animale practitioners did to call their animals, and in the process, bump into those attendees careless enough to have their pouches within view. In the confusion, Polto came away with their money.
Clever, but of course Jarrel spotted him, since he’d had an idea of what to look for. He followed Polto to see where he went afterward. Polto used some of the money to buy food, some to buy passage to the far end of Saleena, and the rest he gave to his mother, feeble and bedridden.
Jarrel hadn’t had the heart to arrest him. Jarrel had been swamped with investigative jobs recently, hired by those within the city, and sometimes from the Crown. More than once, he found himself wishing he had added help in these endeavors.
So instead of arresting Polto, he hired him. After confronting the thief and making the offer, Jarrel continued with the Animale Games, but it wasn’t long before he was eliminated. He was beyond good in his ability to commune with Talam, but he’d never competed before, and didn’t know how to work the hawk the way the judges wanted.
Jarrel left with Polto several days before the Games ended, returning to the castle with Jarrel’s promise that he would do his best to help Polto’s mother. Polto’s kindness toward his mother had made Jarrel take pity.
“Jarrel, did you hear?”
“Yes. Urgent.” Jarrel smiled. “Indeed, I actually know what it’s about.”
“You do?”
“A precious matter to be sure. I spoke with Chancellor Skaal an hour ago.” He inclined his head toward the tower door, behind which echoed heavy footsteps. “In fact, so precious—and urgent—it sounds like she couldn’t wait. That’s her now.”
The tower door opened, and the queen stormed through. “Jarrel.”
“Queen Laurice,” Jarrel said, and bowed formally.
“Oh stop,” she said. “I truly hate it when you bow.”
“Apologies.”
“And stop apologizing.” She glared at Jarrel. “Do you think you could put some haste into your work? Must I come running up here to find you myself? I could catch a chill.”
Queen Laurice wore an evening robe of violet silk and fur, and even as Jarrel took notice, the queen wrapped her arms around her shoulders and shivered. In her sixtieth year, her long black and gray-tinged hair fanned behind her as the wind picked up. She looked him over quickly, as if searching for some kind of physical flaw in his own cloak. Reaching out with her hand, she grasped a button and tore it from the fabric. Jarrel began to protest, but he quickly realized what she was up to. He could always get another button. Laurice Sunderstone was a Changer. She was preparing to do magic.
The queen held the button between thumb and forefinger, closed her eyes, and whispered something completely foreign to his ears. The button lost shape and shimmered like a mirage. Within a few breaths, the button gained mass and weight, and before long, she held tight to a shawl made of heavy wool. She wrapped it around her shoulders and sighed with relief, as if the shawl had saved her from certain death.
Jarrel, impressed with the queen’s magic, often wished he could do something more magical than speak to hawks. A Changer had power most people but dreamed of.
“Polto just now told me, Queen Laurice. I was on my way—”
“The Tappan stone is gone, Jarrel. Did you hear me? It’s gone.”
Jarrel nodded. “I know.”
“The Tappan?” Polto whispered. “How can that be? It is guarded day and night—”
“You already know?” the queen asked.
“Before I came up here,” said Jarrel. “I ran into Chancellor Skaal and he told me it disappeared sometime between supper and First Watch.”
Polto mumbled something and made a sign of protection.
“He should not have,” she said.
“Perhaps not.”
“I want you to find it, Jarrel. I know it’s not your area of expertise, that you’re best doing surveillance, but scour the entire Kingdom if you have to. The stone may be small, but worth more than life itself. If the Tappan is not found before King Torrance returns from overseas, there will be sorrow in this castle unlike any ever known.”
Jarrel glanced toward the sea and caught sight of the black speck of the hawk. Somewhere out there King Torrance’s ships sailed, returning from the long peace talks with Varlaux. The Tappan stone, worth more than all the gems of the Kingdom put together, had been an offering of goodwill from King Renner of Varlaux. It was a gift the Varlaux king sent at Laurice’s insistence. It was a sure way to guarantee the safe passage of King Torrance on his journey to Renner’s kingdom and back.
Jarrel understood the severity of the situation. If Queen Laurice could not return the Tappan stone to the ambassador. . .
“Seeing as King Torrance is due back in a few days, I will get to work immediately,” Jarrel said.
Jarrel had come up to the tower after hearing about the Tappan from Chancellor Skaal. He’d hoped to use his animale connection with Talam before the queen’s arrival and send the hawk looking for the Tappan, but that hadn’t happened.
Jarrel was on his own; Talam would not be of any help during the investigation.
Two days to discover the Tappan stone. It seemed an impossible task.
Jarrel spent the first half of the next day searching the castle. He spoke with innkeepers and other merchants, asking if they had taken notice of anything out of the ordinary. He queried clergy about any unusual offerings, or any sudden changes of behavior in members of their congregations.
He then met with Bakal, the best seer in the Kingdom, hoping the old man could make a connection with the Tappan stone.
The seer was ancient, older than Skaal. He had long white hair and a beard that reached to his stomach. His eyes were clouded with blindness.
Bakal said, “Since I’ve not been in direct contact with the Tappan, I can’t sense it, even to narrow down any general location within the castle.”
“Chancellor Skaal never brought you in to see the Tappan to make an initial connection?” Jarrel asked. “Never brought you in to touch the stone?”
Bakal shook his head.
Skaal was in charge of the king’s guards, and the guards had been tasked with the important duty of protecting the stone. Since he had to see Skaal again to ask more questions, Jarrel, finding Bakal’s testimony most curious, bid farewell to the old seer and made his way to the chancellor’s rooms. Jarrel found Skaal writing in the library.
“Ah, Jarrel,” Skaal said. “I hear you’re on the case. How goes the investigation?”
The chancellor was not as old as Bakal, but he’d seemed old to a young Jarrel when King Tymon had died. Tymon’s heir, Torrance, took the throne at age sixteen. Because Torrance was without magic and needed a
Protector, Skaal became his regent.
Skaal was an Eliminator. He could wish things out of existence if necessary. Once, he had thwarted an assassination attempt on Torrance’s life by eliminating the attacker’s knife. When Torrance turned eighteen, he married Laurice, a powerful Changer, and Skaal gave up his regency and became chancellor.
“The investigation led me to Bakal,” Jarrel said.
Skaal managed a weak smile. “Ah. The seer.”
“He says he was not brought to see the Tappan stone when the Ambassador of Varlaux left it with you. Why?”
Skaal shrugged. “I didn’t think it necessary.”
“Really?”
“Security, Jarrel. The queen insisted that no one be allowed near the stone.”
Jarrel clasped his hands behind his back and rose up and down on his toes. “Certainly understandable then.”
“And have you spoken with Polto yet?” Skaal asked, putting down his pen. He squinted at Jarrel.
“Polto?”
Skaal leaned back in his chair, his face showing his distaste for the man. “Come now, Jarrel. How long have you known him? A month?”
“Two.”
“He is a known thief.”
Jarrel clenched his teeth. He knew the truth of Skaal’s accusation but disliked the chancellor’s tone.
“I did some checking when you brought him to the castle,” Skaal said. “You remember. The Animale Games. It seems you weren’t entirely truthful about Polto. You missed the last few days of competition, and no more thefts were reported in Saleena during the Games. Interesting, no?”
“Be that as it may, what possible reason could Polto have for taking the Tappan?” As soon as he asked it, he knew what Skaal would say.
“His family is quite poor. You’re funneling some of your own earnings to his mother, meager as they are.”
Jarrel didn’t argue the point, but was impressed how much Skaal had found out on his own. Jarrel wondered if he should worry about Polto. There was some validity to Skaal’s concerns about the servant.
“Well,” Skaal said, rising from his chair, “if you’ll excuse me, I have an audience with Queen Laurice.”
Jarrel came out of his thoughts in time to respond to Skaal. “I’ll follow you there. I must make a quick report to her.”
Skaal inclined his head, then headed for the door. They walked out of the library and through the main hall of the royal palace in silence, up to the noble’s chambers, through the back servant’s rooms, and beyond. Jarrel trailed behind Skaal, surprised at how easily the old man navigated the castle’s myriad passageways and staircases. Their footsteps echoed in the hall, their shadows dancing on the gray stone walls as they passed lighted torches in their sconces. Jarrel smelled something roasting in the kitchen two floors below and remembered he hadn’t had anything to eat all day.
When they reached the garden, a darting shadow in the sky startled Jarrel. It was Talam. The hawk made odd movements, as if playing a game, circling most often to the left, making unnatural dips, climbing high, his wings stuttering from time to time.
Jarrel, though worried, had no time to attempt communion with Talam.
Skaal also noticed the hawk, and laughed. “It has eaten from the dagal root, obviously.”
“No,” Jarrel said. “It’s something else.”
“What?”
“I don’t know,” he murmured, frowning at the wobbly shadow.
They left the garden and entered the foyer to the throne room, where two of Skaal’s guards stopped them short.
“We have an audience,” Skaal said.
One guard entered the room and returned a few moments later. “Go ahead, sirs.”
Queen Laurice met them at the door. She was dressed in formal silks of glittering shades of blue and purple, and her gold crown sat slightly askew on her head. Lines of worry on her face marred her natural good looks.
“Jarrel,” she said, “what have you found?”
“Nothing, and everything.”
Laurice frowned at him. “You’re a puzzle, Jarrel. Must you always be so?”
“He has spoken with Bakal,” Skaal said. “And we discussed his servant Polto.”
Jarrel frowned at Skaal’s mention of Polto, but kept quiet. The queen’s commission for him to investigate the Tappan’s disappearance was indeed an important matter, and he had to consider every possibility.
Laurice walked quickly back to her throne and sat, but remained rigid. Beside her, King Torrance’s empty throne reminded Jarrel of the urgency of the investigation. The red curtain behind the thrones fluttered slightly from a breeze coming through an open window.
“Maybe I should bring both men here,” she said. “Turn them into dung heaps until one of them confesses.”
“That seems a bit harsh,” Jarrel said.
She sighed, finally slumping a little in the throne. She seemed not to register Jarrel’s insubordination. “What a messy business this all is.”
“Particularly if you change them into—”
Skaal cleared his throat. “About your meeting with the advisors this afternoon. . .”
She waved him forward. “Yes, come, tell me. Jarrel, you’ll excuse us a moment.”
“Of course,” he said, and barely managed to keep from bowing.
“You can tell me what you’ve learned when we’re finished,” she said.
Jarrel nodded and withdrew, backing up several steps before turning. He walked casually to the door, then began following the wall around the throne room, one hand on stone, finger tracing the mortar. Laurice and Skaal spoke in low tones, loud enough for Jarrel to hear that they were indeed talking about the upcoming meeting with the advisors. About halfway around, almost directly behind the thrones, he noticed something on the floor. He bent down for a closer look and saw several tiny black ovals.
He picked one up and rolled it in his fingers. It was soft. He brought it to his nose and sniffed. “Speaking of dung,” he whispered.
More specifically, hawk dung.
That evening, after a meal of roast pork and half a loaf of fresh bread from the kitchens, Jarrel tried to commune with Talam. The air was colder, the wind more brisk. The hawk showed up but wandered aimlessly, keeping his distance from the castle.
Gazing out at Talam, Jarrel thought about the discovery of the hawk dung in the throne room. He had given his regrets to Queen Laurice and excused himself, telling her he would talk to her on the morrow when he was rested and could better understand what he had learned.
He had spoken the truth when he told Laurice “Nothing, and everything.” He had found many bits and pieces, but it still left him with nothing tangible to solve the mystery.
His early attempts to solve this puzzle had been inadequate, and Laurice’s concerns about his detection skills beyond the simple tasks of surveillance seemed warranted.
Then he reminded himself he had only just begun the process, and King Torrance’s ship was not due back until the day after tomorrow.
Talam’s awkward circles eventually took him out of Jarrel’s sight. Sighing, he retired to his quarters, sprawling on the animal skins covering his bed, not bothering to undress. He continued to concentrate on what he had learned until he drifted off to sleep.
He dreamed of his past.
His animale master, Hrisko, looked intently into the eyes of a hawk. The hawk was tethered to a wooden perch. Jarrel, a young boy, was dressed in the long gray robe of the animale initiate.
Hrisko raised an eyebrow and cocked his head, all the while gazing at the hawk. “Interesting,” he whispered. “Interesting.”
“What is it, Master Hrisko?” Jarrel asked.
He redirected his gaze to Jarrel. “He says you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Jarrel groaned. “I am trying, Master Hrisko,” he said. He brightened for an instant, a victorious smile crossing his face. “I do know that the hawk’s name is Ranta.”
“Good, you know his name. And he knows you.”
“That’s because you’re still trying to use your tongue.”
“Master? I’m speaking aloud?”
Hrisko turned and smiled at Jarrel. “No, but the connection between mind and tongue is what you haven’t broken.”
“Then how do I commune?”
Hrisko held up a finger. “Concentrate, Jarrel, and I will show you.” He pointed to the hawk.
Jarrel nodded and closed his eyes. The path to Ranta became clear, like an elongated bubble stretching between them. He made the connection quickly.
“Do you see Ranta?” Hrisko asked.
“No,” Jarrel said.
“Your eyes are closed.”
“Yes.”
“Open them.”
Jarrel did so.
“Do you see Ranta?”
“Well, yes. Of course.”
“Can you hear him?”
“Yes.”
“Then speak to him.”
Jarrel nodded and closed his eyes again.
“No!” Hrisko said. “With your eyes open.”
Jarrel opened his eyes once more, confused. “The connection. It’s made with the eyes?”
“Yes. Speak to Ranta.”
Jarrel took a deep breath, made the connection with his eyes open, and began communion.
The bubble was there just as surely as it had been with his eyes closed. But now it shimmered and widened, and all at once it seemed as if the hawk became more defined, gaining an emotional and spiritual reality, more real the more the bubble shimmered. Ranta offered his name again, and Jarrel said a phrase of communion he’d learned during his animale lessons.
“He hears me!” Jarrel shouted. “With my eyes open he hears!”
“You speak with the mind’s eye,” Hrisko said. “Your physical eyes are windows to the soul, to the animale. You are a creature of reason, but the hawk is a creature of habit and instinct. Keep communing and see what happens when I alter the connection.”
Hrisko rummaged in a bag at his side and pulled out a small black hood. Calmly, the master approached the hawk, cooing softly. He placed the black hood over the hawk’s head, and instantly, the connection broke, the shimmering path to the hawk gone. Ranta was mute, and Jarrel came out of the trance.