A wronged public figure might squawk loud and long, but a corpse was something quiet and final, and with Faldus Anvanory to testify to Khoyar’s guilt, Salim doubted that any of the other holy men powerful enough to raise the dead would want to touch the high priest’s body.
And it would be a body, Salim suspected. Khoyar didn’t strike him as the type to beg for mercy. He’d go to his final rest, and Pharasma would make her judgment. If his underlings were any sort of priests at all, they would have to respect that.
The sun was already high in the sky as Salim and Neila turned from the dusty road onto the crushed white stone of the long drive up to the manor house. They were no more than a few feet down it when a cry went up from the house, in several female voices. By the time they reached the front steps, the house was abuzz with activity, servants running hither and yon in preparation for whatever their mistress might desire, passing word that the young lady of the house had returned.
The majordomo met them at the front steps, cool and collected as ever. He bowed deep.
“The house is grateful for your return, Lady.”
Neila’s nod was quick and dismissive. “Thank you, Amir, but we won’t be staying long. Is there any news from the church?”
“None, Mistress.”
“Then at least our time hasn’t atrophied further.” She gestured toward the grand stairs. “Fetch me writing materials from the study. I need to send a letter at once.”
“Of course.” The little man with the puffed chest of a household despot bowed low, backed away his customary few steps, then turned and hurried up the staircase as quickly as his dignity would allow.
Neila sat down gratefully on one of the benches in the entry hall, resting legs tired from a long trek in the desert heat. Salim almost joined her, then caught sight of the passing servants, more of whom were finding reasons to pass near the entry chamber than could possibly be normal. One of the kitchen women—a huge, black-skinned matron with breasts the size of watermelons—went so far as to narrow her eyes and sniff disapprovingly. Salim felt a momentary surge of annoyance, and then realized that they weren’t staring at him. Rather, their sidelong gazes were all fixed on their mistress.
With a start, he realized that she was still sitting there with her stomach exposed to just beneath her breasts, skin slick and glistening with sweat. And here was a stranger, standing far too close to her for propriety’s sake. No wonder they were scandalized.
“You!” Salim pointed at random, to a young woman with a basket who was passing across the far edge of the room for what was at least the second time. “Bring your mistress a new shirt—hers has been damaged. Move quick!”
The girl leaped as if she had been stung, then nodded and scurried away. Neila suddenly seemed to realize the awkwardness of the situation as well, and Salim took several polite steps away from her.
The girl Salim had singled out returned only moments later, followed by the majordomo with paper and a small lap desk, as well as two women carrying an elaborate folding screen of wood and parchment. This last they set up around Neila, boxing her in with opaque designs of birds and sagebrush. Her tattered shirt and filthy breeches were thrown over the top, and a moment later she stepped out wearing a long gray skirt and a similar blouse of slightly more ornate make, light blue with gold knotwork embroidery around the neck and sleeves. She shooed the serving women away and accepted the desk from Amir, along with a pen and ink. She looked to Salim, eyebrows arched inquiringly, and he motioned for her to continue.
Pen nib scratched against paper for several moments, then Neila folded the paper crosswise several times, so that there were no longer any open edges. Without being asked, the chamberlain produced a stick of bright red wax and a long, sulfur-headed match, which he struck against his thumbnail. The taper blazed to life, and he set it to use dripping a bright puddle of wax onto the point where all the carefully folded edges came together. When she judged the pool sizable enough, Neila reached into her belt pouch and produced a signet ring, pressing its intricate crest into the wax. Then she handed the letter to Amir.
“I need you to deliver this directly to the head of the guard at Queen Zamere’s palace—no one else. And I need you to do it personally. This is of vital importance.” She looked to Salim. “How much time do we have?”
“The sooner we’re done with it, the better.”
“Fine.” She turned back to the majordomo. “Go by whatever means you wish, but give yourself as much time as it would take to walk there slowly. To deliver this too early would be just as bad as delivering it too late. Understood?”
“Perfectly, my lady.” Another bow.
“Good.” She waved, and the servant removed himself from their presence, taking the crowd of gawkers with him. For a moment, Salim and Neila were alone again.
“Any reason to wait?” she asked. One hand went to the sword belt at her hip, adjusting it for a quicker draw.
There was a pregnant pause. Salim knew she was waiting for him to argue—to tell her that he’d be better off alone, and that she’d be safer here.
“No.”
Her smile was half relieved, half grimly satisfied. “Then by all means,” she said, “let’s go see about a priest.”
∗∗∗
The carriage pulled up outside the cathedral, its team blowing hard at such exertion in the midday heat. Olar jumped down and opened the door, offering Neila a completely unnecessary hand down. Salim followed her out, gazing once more on the beautiful—and intimidating—facade of the church. For all its open doors and talk of welcome, the cathedral of Pharasma was one enormous reminder of the inevitability of death, regardless of race, gender, or age.
Or piety, Salim thought. Church members received no special favors from the goddess of death when their own time came. Less, really. It seemed that Khoyar needed a refresher on that particular fact.
Salim hadn’t initially wanted to take the carriage, as shouting their presence to everyone within range rankled against his normal preference for stealth, but Neila made the point that arriving by any other means would no doubt seem suspicious. In this case, it was in their best interest to observe all the normal ostentations of rank until they were directly in Khoyar’s presence. Announcing their arrival so thoroughly, especially when they came alone, would likely put him at ease.
Together they walked up the steps and into the pleasant stained-glass shade of the wide receiving hall, the sunlight slanting through a stylized image of the Lady of Graves and bathing the room in purples and blues. As expected, Hasam was waiting on his little wooden stool just inside the door—when a man worshiped the physical embodiment of death, little things like boredom ceased to be important.
“Master Salim! Lady Neila! Welcome! I hope your investigation is proving fruitful?”
“Not as much as we’d hope,” Salim replied. “We need to speak to High Priest Khoyar, in private. It may be that he can assist us.”
“Certainly, certainly! I’m sure he’ll want to meet with you at once. Please, follow me.”
In a fast shuffle that wasn’t quite a run but still managed to kick up the edges of his acolyte’s robes, Hasam led the two callers through the back hallways of the cathedral and up another spiral stairway. This time, however, they exited after ascending only a single high-ceilinged story, turning into a new tile-floored promenade lined with sconces. Each of these burned with low purple flames that sprang seemingly from the air above them—no doubt illusions, as even the most devout priests in Thuvia would be reluctant to introduce extra heat into their residences during the daytime. Soon they came to a set of tall wooden double doors banded with whorled strips of blackened iron. Hasam knocked enthusiastically.
“Enter.”
Hasam pushed open the doors and scampered in, Neila and Salim following behind him at a more measured pace.
The chamber was large and relatively spartan, not much different from the receiving room in which Salim had first been introduced to Neila. Long tapestr
ies covered the stone walls, embroidered with scenes of judgment, arguments between angels and devils over tiny, featureless souls. On the far wall stood the largest and simplest hanging, a beautifully rendered black-and-white artist’s interpretation of the twisting Spire itself, rendered all in shadows and suggestive lines. In front of this stood an unadorned wooden writing desk stacked high with papers, behind which High Priest Khoyar Roshan sat with hands folded, pen laid crosswise across the document in front of him.
“Salim and the Lady Neila Anvanory, Master,” the acolyte announced.
“So I can see, Hasam.” The high priest’s voice was dry, but not unkind. “Thank you for bringing them. You may return to your place, that they may find you easily if they require assistance.”
Hasam bowed low and backed out, shutting the door firmly behind him. When he was gone, Khoyar pushed back his chair and stood up.
“A fine boy,” he said. “Not the brightest torch, but the goddess demands only obedience.” He circled around the table and stood in front of it, hands folded in front of his stomach. “How has your search been progressing? Time is growing short—as I’m sure you know better than I, Lady.” He inclined his head.
Salim felt Neila stiffen beside him and stepped forward slightly, hoping to draw the priest’s focus. It wouldn’t do to have her run him through before they’d found Faldus’s soul.
Or had they already? What was it that the protean had said—can the hand that grasps let go? He thought that might be an accurate assessment of any man with power, and something told him Khoyar was no different. Yet maybe there was more to the snake-man’s words.
“Indeed it is, Lord Priest. Which is why we were hoping that you could assist us in deciphering a new riddle that’s arisen.”
“Oh?” One of Khoyar’s eyebrows—waxed, Salim realized with disgust—rose in an expression of mild interest. To anyone else, it might have seemed the practiced, dispassionate expression of the veteran confessor. Yet Salim thought he saw a flicker of concern in that purse-lipped weasel face.
“‘Oh’ indeed. You see, we followed up on all the leads Faldus’s corpse offered us—Lady Jbade, Master Qali—but found nothing to connect either of them to the crime. The house staff wouldn’t have the ability. Even the fey of the forest beyond Anvanory Manor seem clean.”
“How frustrating.” Khoyar’s tone was still level.
“Quite. And after wasting precious hours beating our heads against closed doors, it seemed prudent to fall back on the basics—visiting the scene of the crime.”
“I thought you’d been at Anvanory Manor all this time.”
Salim shook his head. “Not the scene of the murder, Khoyar. That’s hardly our business.” He began to move slowly forward across the room. “The church doesn’t care about murder. I’m talking about the real crime—the soul’s abduction.”
Now Khoyar blanched. The hands in front of him, with their perfectly manicured nails and gaudy silver ring, tightened almost imperceptibly. “You visited the Boneyard? In the flesh?”
“Both of us,” Salim agreed. “And we didn’t stop there. Because when we got there, we discovered some things that didn’t make sense. A lot of things that didn’t make sense. Random things. Absurd things. Scattered across the path of the souls.”
The priest’s face was back under control again. The man was good. “I don’t follow you.”
“No?” Salim asked. “Surely a man of your faith—your conviction—knows enough about the planes to recognize a protean’s handiwork when he sees it.”
“If you call it such, then I believe you. I’ve never seen such a thing in person. So you believe that one of the chaos worms is responsible for the murder?”
“I do,” Salim said. He stopped moving, now only a few arms’ lengths from Khoyar. To his left, he felt Neila’s presence as she joined him. He lowered his voice. “Which is why we need your help.”
“Certainly,” Khoyar said. He was once more completely himself. “What knowledge I lack on the creatures, I’m sure our priests can extract from the libraries, or from divine revelation, if it comes to that.”
Salim let out a relieved breath and bobbed his head. “Good,” he said. “That’s extremely helpful. Because some of the things it said were pretty difficult to parse.”
“You spoke to it? To the protean?” The horror in Khoyar’s voice was real, but perhaps not for the reason an outside observer might presume.
“Of course, didn’t I mention that?” Salim looked at Neila in mock surprise. “How else were we supposed to figure out why a fundamentally immortal creature would bother playing with petty human life-extension tricks? It doesn’t make sense.”
He turned back to Khoyar. “So we tracked it down, and we asked it some questions. It turned out to be rather agreeable, all things considered—almost as if it resented being treated as some human’s errand boy. And when it started talking, a lot of things began to make sense. Of course the person running the ransom game wouldn’t be off on some distant plane somewhere, biding his time. Someone who’d put that much energy into a con would want to be right up close, where he could keep an eye on things.”
Salim heard a whisper of steel behind him as Neila drew her sword.
“So tell me, Khoyar: how long have you been afraid of dying?”
This was always Salim’s favorite part: the sting. Even back when he’d been no more than a simple priest-hunter, this moment—the moment of realization, when the quarry knew for certain that the game was up—had been something he’d lived for. Undead and their ilk were a poor substitute for the simple, pants-fouling fear of a man caught in a snare he’d built through his own actions.
Khoyar didn’t disappoint. His face went pale beneath his tan, and then bright spots returned to burn in his cheeks. His hands broke from their practiced lacing and became fists at his sides, yet he didn’t step away.
“Am I to understand, Salim, that you believe I had something to do with Faldus Anvanory’s murder?”
“Belief appears to be in short supply these days,” Salim said, grinning. “I’d say it’s more of a matter of assembled facts.”
“Unbelievable.” The high priest’s voice was low and tense, yet he punctuated the word with a dry crackle of laughter. “You’ve come halfway across the world to solve a heinous murder and an affront to our shared goddess, and the first thing you do is take the word of a protean at face value. Gods!” He gave another brittle laugh and turned to Neila.
“My lady, I’m terribly sorry to have burdened you with this man’s presence. It seems that reports of his much-vaunted abilities have grown in the telling. I assure you, I’ll waste no more of your remaining time with such foolishness. Please accept my apologies.”
Neila’s thin-lipped stare could have been carved out of stone. Khoyar met her gaze for a moment, then turned back to Salim.
“To accuse me of both murder and heresy in the same breath is no small thing, Ghadafar. Yet since you clearly have no proof of your ridiculous claims—claims that I must point out again come at the suggestion of the one creature in all existence that can rival the Father of Lies himself in its love of capricious deception—I’m going to have to ask you to leave this church, with the added recommendation that you keep walking until you reach the shores of the Inner Sea.”
“Of course, Your Reverence,” Salim said, bowing in deference and simultaneously reaching into the folds of his robe. When his hand emerged, it was holding the emerald from Buskin’s shop. “Just as soon as you let me examine that beautiful ring of yours.”
This time the reaction was instantaneous. Khoyar snatched his right hand up to his chest as if it had been burned, the large silver ring—which Salim now saw was carved with a strangely crude Pharasmin spiral—glinting in the torchlight. His left hand rushed to cover it, but not before Salim brought the gem to his eye.
The world turned green, fractured into several identical pictures by the gem’s facets. Yet each of them showed the same thing. In the split seco
nd before Khoyar’s other hand came up, Salim saw the priest as clearly as noon on a sunny day, exactly how he’d appeared a moment before—with one exception. Rising from the hand where the ring should be was the spectral, screaming face of Faldus Anvanory.
“That’s it!” Salim yelled, and drew his sword. Neila was already springing toward the priest, sword point rising toward his throat.
But the priest wasn’t standing still, nor had his clerical position made him slow. He leaped backward around the corner of the desk, one hand reaching out to flip it easily into his attackers’ path, filling the intervening airspace with flying paper. He shouted, and at first Salim thought the sound was a roar of denial. Then he realized that there was a word in there—a single word being repeated like a mantra.
“Now!” the priest screamed. “Now now now!”
The door they’d entered through slammed open, smashing into the stone wall. The pounding of steel-nailed boots filled the air, and Salim spun to see twin rows of crossbow-wielding guards filing in at a run, rushing to take up positions around the edges of the chamber. All had their bolts aimed at the pair of would-be judges and executioners.
The room wasn’t big, but it was wide enough that moving any given direction to attack one of the guards would give all the others an easy shot, crosshatching them both with bolts. Even if their arrows weren’t enchanted—and that was no safe assumption, in a damned church—it was an easy equation to solve. Salim froze, then slowly lowered his sword.
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