Cast in Honor

by Michelle Sagara

  “Permission,” Bellusdeo said, correcting her. “I am here with Imperial permission.”

  “You must be Lord Bellusdeo.”

  “I am Bellusdeo, yes. I am not a Lord of the Dragon Court.” Gavin opened his mouth, but Bellusdeo continued speaking. “I am in the process of becoming a mage of the Imperial Order. I have the ability; I lack the paperwork.”

  “She has the Emperor’s personal permission,” Kaylin said, wishing Joey had been the Hawk on duty instead of Gavin. “The paperwork, while theoretically important, is irrelevant. Anything that can even bruise her can turn at least three of us into pulped corpses.”

  Lianne stepped around Gavin and offered Bellusdeo a hand, which the Dragon accepted. “I heard about what you did at the High Halls. If it weren’t for you, our losses would have been much heavier. I’m Private Tsaros. Lianne. My partner is Master Corporal Gavin Karannis. He’s a stickler for details; it makes him very valuable to the force.”

  “That,” Teela cut in, “is why we have Records.”

  “Records,” Gavin observed, “are not run on a schedule. And clearly, the Hawks’ sense of schedule is lacking.” He turned to Kaylin. “Private, you have been asked to review the evidence, the building and the bodies themselves. The Imperial mages have been and gone; I am to discuss their verbal reports with you after you have had a chance to assess the situation. And what,” he demanded, “is that on your shoulder?”

  Before she could answer—and she was honestly surprised at the question, given it had been weeks since the familiar’s appearance in the Halls—he continued, “Unless it is an active part of investigative duties, Hawks are not permitted to bring pets on their rounds.”

  The small dragon hissed.

  Gavin did not look impressed. On the other hand, Gavin frequently confronted a face full of bristling Leontine without lifting a brow.

  Kaylin glanced at the small, annoyed dragon. “There’s no point squawking at him. He barely blinks when Marcus does it.”

  * * *

  Kaylin wondered who had occupied Gilbert’s current home prior to Gilbert’s tenancy—she’d have to check Records to see if there was any information. The house directly across the street, which was under investigation, was slightly larger; it was in decent condition. The grounds—small though they were—had been partially given to vegetables and fruits, but those patches were mostly tucked in the back. The front, which faced Gilbert’s home and the rest of the street, was neatly fenced in; the fence and gate were wooden.

  They appeared, to Kaylin, to be perfectly normal.

  But most of life—and the crimes that accompanied it—actually was. Kaylin saw a fair bit of the magical and the unexplainable, but that didn’t warp her view of the world. For the most part, magic that threatened worlds was the subject of stories or legends. Magic that made the world run smoothly—mirrors, mirror networks, streetlamps—almost didn’t count as magic to most of the citizens of Elantra. Or at least to the citizens with money.

  Kaylin had grown up on streets where night brought Ferals, not streetlight.

  She shook herself. Gavin was giving her the stoic stink-eye, and if she resented the expression, she knew she also deserved it. She hadn’t figured out how to mention Gilbert and Kattea, although she knew she had to say something eventually.

  “Hey,” she said to the familiar, “can you lend me a wing?”

  The familiar cast a baleful glare at the master corporal, but lifted a rigid wing anyway. He did not smack Kaylin across the face with it; apparently, he was going to be on his best behavior.

  “What exactly are you doing, Private?”

  “The small dragon’s wing is like a magical filter,” she replied. She’d practiced this explanation, but hadn’t yet needed to use it. “In special circumstances, viewing magic or areas touched by magic through his wings reveals elements that aren’t visible to normal investigative procedures.”

  He did raise a brow then, as if he knew she’d practiced saying pretty much exactly that. “This has been tested?”

  “Yes. Extensively. But that’s a matter for—”

  “The Barrani High Court,” Teela said.

  “Arcanists?” the master corporal asked, his disdain practically freezing the syllables.

  “The familiar is in the possession of the private. Do you imagine that she has done work at the behest of an Arcanist, ever?”

  Gavin pursed his lips briefly. “Private Neya? No. Her opinion on Arcanists is well-known. This was tested in exemption-based investigation, then?”

  Teela nodded. “It involved Barrani, and only Barrani, with the exception of Lord Kaylin and Lord Severn. I did, on the other hand, have reason to confirm that the wing of her familiar does exactly what she says it does. The circumstances were rather more dire. We should not be in danger here.”

  Gavin didn’t ask. Lianne looked as if she desperately wanted to—but not in front of Teela. Smart.

  Chapter 5

  The house had a crowded and untidy vestibule. There were six pairs of boots, though none were of a size suitable for children. None of the victims were likely to be young, which was as much of a relief as she could expect in a murder investigation.

  Regardless, the shoes, the coats and the various bits of furniture were not, in any way, magical. They looked the same no matter how anyone present viewed them.

  The hall that led into the house from the vestibule was the same: slightly lived in, but also in decent repair. Worn rugs had been placed over slightly less well-worn floorboards that creaked a lot less under weight than her first apartment had. The sitting room was closest to the front of the house, on the right when facing in; on the left were stairs, beneath which was a door.

  There were doors that implied other rooms, and a wide, brightly lit space at the back of the house that looked into the common yard.

  Nothing about any of the house itself indicated use of magic. Nothing made Kaylin’s skin ache, and nothing like the cracked street outside appeared when she looked through her familiar’s wing.

  “You’re wondering why we were sent here,” Teela correctly surmised.

  “Kind of, yes. Do you see anything that implies magic’s been used here recently? It’s not particularly easy to magically kill a man—or three—and it would leave some markers.” It would be faster and less easily traced to kill them in any of the more familiar, mundane ways, which would still require Hawks to investigate, but not this particular set.

  Teela’s compressed lips made it clear that the answer was no. She turned to Gavin, who was also tight-lipped and about as friendly as he ever got when the sanity of the people making the decisions was in question.

  “Where are the bodies?” Kaylin asked.

  “Downstairs.”

  “Downstairs?”

  “In the basement.”

  Ugh.

  * * *

  Kaylin didn’t particularly like basements. She couldn’t imagine that anyone did, except for small rodents and large insects. She was the shortest of the Hawks present, but even she couldn’t stand up at full height once they reached the bottom of stairs that had probably been a hazard from the day they were first built. Bellusdeo offered to enlarge the basement by sinking the floor, which Kaylin assumed was a joke—until she saw Teela’s thoughtful expression.

  Gavin, however, uttered a very distinct, very chilly no. He followed it up with a lecture on structural stability that only Bellusdeo found relevant. “The bodies,” he added, “are to the left.” He carried a lamp, which bounced off rough walls and rough floors in a way that seemed almost calculated to make them less appealing. Teela had clearly had enough of this and conjured up a magical light of her own, which had the predictable effect of raising goose bumps on Kaylin’s skin.

  And her marks were glowing. Here, they emitted a glow that e
xtended for yards, but they weren’t as bright as Teela’s light, and definitely not as directionally useful.

  “Who reported this to the Halls?” Tain asked. He was generally content to let Teela do the talking, but Teela seemed preoccupied.

  Gavin answered the question as if he’d expected it. “The daughter. A family of four lives here. One of the four is in the basement, along with two of his friends.”

  “The rest of the family was unharmed?”

  “The rest of the family was, apparently, asleep.”

  “They heard nothing?”

  “No.”

  “When did they discover the bodies?”

  “Early morning.”

  “Are they here?”

  “They’re at church, at the moment. The daughter is young, and I believe her mother wished to distract her. We’ve interviewed the mother and the father. Their son was one of the victims.”

  “The mages have left?”

  “An hour ago. Had you wished to speak with them, you might have arrived at the expected time.”

  Imperial mages treated Teela with grudging respect—they’d never once demanded proof of her magical competence when she’d chosen to reveal any—but they treated Kaylin as if she were new to both the Hawks and the basic concepts of magic itself.

  She was willing to admit—to herself, in private—that she didn’t know as much magical theory as she probably should by now. But if they’d bothered to check, they’d see that her reports were filed as part of official evidence and observation in dozens of investigations. She hated to have to justify her existence every single time she met a member of the Imperium.

  Today, given the distraction of Gilbert and Kattea, she wouldn’t have to. She’d have to justify her tardiness to Marcus, but claws and growled threats of losing her throat didn’t irritate her nearly as much as Imperial mages did.

  The small dragon squawked volubly. Kaylin slid her hand over her ear in a vain attempt to preserve some of her hearing. “I get it,” she told the annoyed—and annoying—familiar.

  The hair on her neck had started to stand on end. Her arms, however, didn’t hurt—or rather, didn’t hurt more, given Teela’s light. “Teela.”

  “You see something.”

  “Not yet. But something’s off here.”

  “How off?”

  “Bellusdeo should probably go back upstairs.”

  The gold Dragon had no intention of going back up the stairs, and the smoke she exhaled clearly indicated that she was offended at the suggestion. Gavin looked as if he was about to order her off the premises. She was, however, a Dragon—and even those who served at the Emperor’s pleasure understood the role of the Dragon Court. In theory, Gavin had the legal right to ask Bellusdeo to vacate—but theory was a very, very poor shield against Dragon rage.

  Kaylin was only slightly surprised when Teela’s light hit the top of a second set of descending stairs. These were stone, but as the light illuminated them more fully, they appeared to be carved entirely out of a single piece of rock. “These stairs were here when you came to investigate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did the person who reported finding the bodies mention anything unusual about the stairs themselves?”

  “Yes. According to the interview conducted with the parents of the deceased, these stairs are new.”

  “How new?”

  “The basement is used for cold storage. The stairs were not—again, according to the parents—present three days ago.”

  “Have you asked the daughter?”

  “No.”

  “Did anyone?”

  “No. The daughter was not present for the interviews.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “As I said, at church.”

  Kaylin cursed. “Which church, Gavin?”

  Gavin had no answer to offer.

  “Why is it relevant?” Bellusdeo asked. “You are not particularly religious yourself.”

  “On occasion, new religions present themselves to people. Some of them start on Elani.”

  “You suspect fraud.”

  “Fraud is one thing,” Kaylin replied. Her skin began to feel raw whenever she walked or moved her arms. “I don’t care what people do to comfort themselves. I don’t care if people who claim to speak with the dead offer—and make money from—comfort to the bereaved. I don’t even care if people pay through the nose for that comfort. Yes, I used to despise it. I like to think I’ve gotten a bit smarter.”

  “Liar.”

  “It’s not the fakes I’m concerned about. Not all religions worship distant gods. Some have magic as their focal point.”

  “Lianne,” Gavin said.

  “On it,” the private replied, heading instantly back up the stairs.

  * * *

  The stairs looked the same with the familiar’s intervention and without: cold, hard and distinctly uninviting. Teela headed down the stairs first; Tain was two steps behind her. Kaylin followed; she wanted Severn to keep Bellusdeo out of what appeared to be a new subbasement. Naturally, he wouldn’t do it.

  Kaylin couldn’t. Bellusdeo was older and more powerful than Kaylin, and vastly more knowledgeable. Kaylin was not a capable judge of the Dragon’s actual abilities—she was just the person who was going down, and hard, if anything happened to Bellusdeo. She tried not to resent the worry, and failed—but managed to keep it to herself.

  The small dragon warbled very quietly.

  “Teela?”

  “Hug the wall. This is not a small staircase. It widens at the bottom.”

  * * *

  There were walls on either side of the stairs, of the same rough stone construction as the steps themselves. There were no torch-rings or lamp-hooks on the descent; there was nothing on the walls at all. Kaylin stopped when Teela did, the halt staggering back up the stairs.

  “The walls, kitling?”

  “Nothing up here.”

  “Come to where I am.”

  Kaylin headed around Tain and came to stand beside Teela. She didn’t lift the familiar’s wing; she didn’t need to. There was magic here, a sigil splashed and stretched across the left wall. Kaylin frowned.

  “You can see it.”

  “Yes, but...”

  “But?”

  “It’s the wrong color. Most of the sigils I’ve seen are shades of blue or gray.”

  “This one?”

  “It’s purple. Purple and black.”

  “Is it active?”

  “No—it’s definitely the remnants of a previously cast spell. Or spells.” She frowned again. “I’d say this is the work of more than one person; there are at least two marks here.”

  “Do you recognize either of them?”

  The problem with magical detection—or at least the chief problem, as far as Kaylin was concerned—was the lack of permanent visual Records. Perception was never consistent, and while a mage could reliably state where he’d seen the trace or sigil of the caster before—if he had come across it in any other investigation—the mage’s description would offer no useful information to any other mage. Only if the investigators were forced to use memory crystals could the images be retained. Memory crystals, however, were very difficult to make and exceedingly expensive. They made portable mirrors seem cheap and readily available in comparison.

  Therefore, what Kaylin saw could not be recorded in any reliable way. What she’d seen over the almost eight years she’d spent with the Hawks could not be recalled and compared to the sigils before her now. Although this was also true for Teela, Teela was Barrani: she remembered everything with absolute clarity.

  “I’m surprised the mages didn’t stay,” Teela said—in the wrong tone of voice. “Gavin, you have a mirror?”

  “N
ot with me, no.”

  “Here.” She retrieved her own mirror and tossed it—accurately—up the stairs; Gavin caught it in his fingertips. “Mirror Marcus the names of the attending mages. Mirror the Imperial Order. Bellusdeo, it’s time for you to leave.”

  The ensuing silence was chilly.

  “Go directly to Sanabalis. No, forget that. Go directly to the Arkon. Tell him exactly what you’ve seen so far. Tain and Severn will accompany you.”

  Severn’s expression didn’t change at all. Tain’s did; he had become, in the few minutes since they’d descended these stairs, very starkly blue-eyed and grim. He didn’t argue with Teela’s command. Everyone present—except possibly Lianne—knew that to the Emperor, any harm that came to Bellusdeo would be paid for by the Hawks she was currently observing.

  Or by one particular Hawk.

  To Kaylin’s surprise, Bellusdeo almost instantly agreed. “Will you mirror the Arkon directly with any other relevant information?” she asked Teela.

  “The portable mirror is keyed directly to the Halls. Without tampering, it’s not capable of accessing other mirrors, but I’ll ask for an immediate relay.”

  “Keep an eye on Kaylin.”

  “I will.”

  “Kaylin,” Kaylin interjected, annoyed, “is a Hawk, in good standing.”

  Bellusdeo shrugged—a fief shrug. She’d definitely picked that up from Kaylin or Severn. She then retreated.

  “How far do the stairs go?” Kaylin asked Gavin.

  “At least as far again as you’ve walked so far.”

  “And the stairs weren’t here three days ago.”

  Teela grimaced. “Why is nothing ever simple when you’re involved?”

  “Hey, I’m not here for every case that seems to start normal and then goes sideways. You’ve probably been involved in way more weirdness than I have.”

  Teela stared, pointedly, at Kaylin’s glowing arms. And forehead. Kaylin decided to quit while she was only slightly behind.

  * * *

  By the time they reached level ground again, Kaylin was grateful that Bellusdeo had marked the change in Teela’s tone and had decided to take it seriously. “I see six,” she told the Barrani Hawk. “Six distinct and separate magical sigils. Not three.”