“So you learned it in, what, two years?”
“Thereabouts.”
She let out a low whistle. “That’s impressive. Solish is not an easy language to learn.”
I gave her quite the look for that statement. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“So what else did you learn?” she asked, avidly curious.
“Well, I know enough Hainish to get by as well.” Finished, I pushed the translated page back to her, which she took but didn’t look at, apparently intent upon my answer. “See, after the Red Hand team took me out of Chahir, I stayed in Hain and trained in an academy in Del’Hain for quite a while until the Strae Academy was built. So I naturally learned the language while I was there.”
“Well, I know that Hainish isn’t as complex as most of the languages in this world, but still.” Head tilted, she eyed me suspiciously. “Is that all of the languages you know?”
“I know all the insults in Bromanese,” I offered innocently.
Mari choked on a laugh. “And where did you pick up those?”
“From a very nice Coven Ordanian professor.” The only other sane Fire Mage in the living world, actually. Although I’m not sure if Remcarparoden still counted as an official mage anymore, considering his magic had been stripped from him.
“So you’re fluent in three languages.” She shook her head. “You’re more cosmopolitan than you let on. You know, with that kind of knowledge in your head, you won’t have to do anything magic-oriented at all. You could simply be a translator.”
I shrugged. “But I like firefighting. I wouldn’t be good at sitting at a desk all day.”
“Now that I can believe.” She gave me an arch look.
What? Just because I fidget didn’t mean I couldn’t handle a day full of reading! I just get a little antsy, that’s all. “Um, lunch?”
“Yes, yes.” Mari hopped off the table and started picking up reports. “We should probably check on Kaya too.”
Probably not a bad idea.
Chapter Twenty: Results
Of course, the next day, we were right back in the Hall and even at the same table as before. After having researched Hawthorn and Seagun, we decided to do Merton next. Might as well. If that didn’t turn up anything, we’d flip a coin about going further north or reversing directions and looking up Hera instead.
The first three hours or so didn’t turn up anything unexpected. But as Mari rattled off different incidents to me, and I took notes on it, I started to see an overall pattern. It looked sporadic at first, with small things like abandoned well houses and other buildings being burned here and there with sometimes a year’s gap in between. Some of them could even be explained away by just random vandalism or hope for an insurance payout. In a city of this size, such a thing wouldn’t be unheard of. But still…after five years, with it all laid out in order, it looked rather suspicious.
“Mari.”
She halted in mid-motion, report ready to drop on the stack already taking up half the table. “You see something?”
“Maybe. Look at this.” I traced my finger down the list. “According to you, all of these were started with some kind of accelerant. And see? It starts out with small places, but it looks like it’s gradually getting larger.”
Craning her head around so she could read straight on instead of upside down, she narrowed her eyes with intense concentration. “Ten places burned in eight years.”
“A few of them might not be related. How sure are you that all were started by accelerants?”
“Positive.” She retracted the report she’d about tossed into the pile and flipped over several pages. “See here? Where it describes precisely the type of burn pattern left behind?”
“Ignitable burn pattern on the floor stretching from the main door down the hallway and into one side room,” I read aloud. “What’s an ignitable burn pattern?”
“When you use some sort of accelerant to start a fire, then it doesn’t burn evenly,” she explained. “Say you toss a bunch of oil on the floor. There’s going to be areas that have a dense puddle of oil, but other areas where it trailed off, and other spots still that only got a few drops, right? So some parts will burn very hot and do a lot of damage, but other areas that burn the oil off quick barely leaving any scorch marks behind. And of course, in between the oil, there might be patches that didn’t burn at all before the fire was put out.”
“So because of that, it leaves a distinct pattern of heavily burned and lightly burned areas behind,” I concluded aloud. Well. It always seemed so logical and obvious once she explained it, but really, what kind of mind noticed that sort of thing to begin with? I certainly never had and I’d been playing around with fire for nearly three years straight. “Every case that left behind an ignitable burn pattern, that’s what we need to focus on.”
“Well, I mainly had been. But arsonists never stick to just one method of starting a fire, not in the beginning. They usually find a favorite along the way and use that in later years.” Mari made a face. “Their behavior is predictable, if insane.”
I was beginning to think that Stancliff had asked the wrong person to chase down this arsonist. Mari knew a lot more about this than I did. “How do you know so much about this, anyway?”
“Hmm? Oh.” She looked up from the new report in her hands. “We actually had a case like this in Mellor about ten years ago. My dad was one of the people that investigated it. He made sure that I actually reviewed the old files and got the full story when I changed into the job of Coordinator, just in case we ever had another one show up.”
Good thing he had. “All right, I think we’re on the right path. Let’s keep going.”
We dug back in, this time at a quicker pace because we knew exactly what to look for. The timeline started to have shorter jumps, the targets increasing in size, and always with that ignitable burn pattern. Then it started to change slightly, where it wasn’t just the burn pattern, but also a classic ‘v’ shape somewhere in the building because of a high concentration of an accelerant in a bottle or bucket. I became grimly certain that it was the same man at that point. It matched exactly what we had seen in the Mhazzaekul Forest. Even, to some extent, at the marble temple. He’d been forced to change his habits in order to effectively burn the temple. But the oil trails were still there.
“That’s the last report from this year. I didn’t see anything else that matched.” Mari tossed it onto the stack, making everything lean precariously sideways. Ignoring the potential avalanche, she looked at me with a disturbed expression. “That was eight months ago.”
“He moved on at that point. But where?” I brought up a mental map in my head. “Hera? Orestes?”
“It shouldn’t take long to check both. We’re only looking eight months back, after all.”
That would actually mean quite a few reports, but in comparison to looking through the last twenty YEARS, yes, it wouldn’t be many at all. “You look through Hera and I’ll take Orestes.”
“Deal.” We both got up and went directly for the shelves, scanning quickly for the tags dealing with accelerants. I didn’t even bother to take it back to the table, just glanced through them right there. While I saw a few suspicious fires, it didn’t quite match the arsonist’s preferences. Hmm. All right, I have about ten reports left. Maybe somewhere very recently.
“Krys!” Mari sounded excited.
I shoved the report quickly back onto the shelf and ducked around into the next aisle, where Mari was. “What?”
She gestured me closer before pointing at the description. “Look at this. I think this is him.”
Accelerant, ignitable burn patterns, with a major burn source. And a larger building than the last one, to boot. “It certainly looks like him. Where exactly is this?”
“Pajil, the only major city in Hera.” Mari flipped back to the cover. “And look what burned.”
“Thorndike House,” I read, feeling a chill go up my spine. “We passed over that on the way here, d
idn’t we?”
“We did. I pointed it out to you. It’s the previous Warlord’s home.”
A high profile target, in other words. “It’s got to be him. When was this?”
“Two months ago.” Mari locked her eyes with mine. “Krys, it’s probably too early to say this, but I think we need to assume that he really is moving northward and he’s going for the larger, more famous buildings.”
After him burning three of them in a row, I couldn’t really say she was wrong. “Just please, please tell me that this report at least has a description of him?”
She grimaced, face screwed up like a sour lemon had just popped into her mouth. “Not much of one. Man in his thirties, short, non-descript was seen leaving the building. No one knew who he was, so they assume he’s the one who set the fire.”
I rubbed my throbbing forehead. “I suppose a bad description is better than no description.” I thought about it for another moment before asking slowly, “Are there reports on people that are arsonists in here as well?”
“Should be.” Mari cocked her head at me, brow quirked an nth degree. “Why?”
“Those letters.” I leaned a shoulder against the shelving, feeling a little tired for some reason. “Mari, I know you said that crazy people like to contact anyone that stands out and makes a name for themselves, but those letters still bother me. I’ve gotten three at this point, and they’re getting progressively creepier.”
She watched me for a long moment, expression revealing nothing. Finally she asked, “Where did the letters come from? What were they postmarked as?”
“Not a place I could identify.” I shrugged. “And the signature was initials.”
“So, nothing obviously linking your crazy fan to everything else, but just a gut instinct saying it’s the same man.” She said this in a tone that made it clear she didn’t look for a response. Frowning, she pinched the bridge of her nose for a long moment. “All right. There’s a way to research arsonists, yes. But without a name, or a location to go off of, we’d be here for the next year looking. Just initials wouldn’t help much at all. Not the way that these files are organized. How much do you trust that instinct?”
“A lot,” I admitted frankly. “But I don’t think that we can sit here for the next year on a hunch. He’s moving too fast for that. I think we’d have a better chance of catching him in the field, if we can guess where he’s going next.”
She looked outright relieved to hear this from me. “You might very well be right, and it is the same person, but I’m glad you see the sense of chasing him down. We can prove you were right or not later.”
I could only agree and shrugged. “Fine. Now what?”
“We need to get back up north,” she said firmly, already putting the reports back up. “If he strikes again, and I think he will, then we’re badly out of position to do anything about it.”
I had to agree. “But where exactly north? What’s the nearest big city past Mohr?”
“Goddard, I think. It’s in Durell.”
“And the one after that?”
“Hmmm…Trickett I would say. But that’s much further north. It’s actually in Osmar.”
Oh, that huge city that we flew over to go south? At least I had an idea of where everything was. “So if you were to take a guess, which one would you think he’d aim for?”
“Probably Granvel Hall fits that description. It’s one of the more famous theater halls and hotels in the Empire,” Mari filled me in. “It’s in Goddard City.”
All right, so, a likely target. “Anything else?”
“There’s also the Bell Gates in that city. Not as famous in the western side of the Empire, but anyone who’s from this side would know of them,” she answered. “The city has four main gates, and they open at different times for different classes of people. The bells chime out certain tunes to let travelers know who can go in. Well, now they’re mostly used for opening and closing unless there’s a military emergency.”
But that meant two possible targets. “Anything else?”
“Next thing that comes to mind is the Hamilton Bridge in Trickett,” she admitted.
So Goddard would be more likely. Right. “My gut tells me he’s moving north. That he won’t strike again in Mohr. But going to Goddard is a gamble, in more ways than one. We don’t really know he’s going north. He could be simply moving westward.”
“We don’t really know that he’s going to burn something else, either,” she pointed out with cool logic. “We’re not even sure who ‘he’ is. This whole situation is a gamble, Krys. We don’t have enough information right now to do more than guess. But I think your instincts are right. Mine are telling me the same.”
Praying we were right, and we could catch this man soon, I nodded agreement. “Then we’ll leave for Goddard.”
Mari gave me a rueful smile. “Let’s just hope that our custom gear is ready to go.”
Oh. Oops. I’d nearly forgotten about that. “If you’ll clean up here, I’ll go get it.”
“You’re useless with filing anyway.” She shooed me out with a wave of the hand.
Thankful to escape from the room and the endless reports, I wasted no time in heading for the door.
~*~
We couldn’t leave immediately, of course. It took a few hours to test our new gear and write that endorsement for our wizard craftsman. While we wrote, he roasted a half of a cow that he’d gotten from somewhere, literally dripping in barbecue sauce. Kaya ate the whole thing, drooling as usual, leaving a very happy wizard behind her. I think he managed to salvage about two buckets worth of his precious dragon drool.
I’d never understand wizards.
But the next morning, we were more than ready to go. We’d actually passed Goddard on the way in, and I knew roughly where it lay, so Mari didn’t bother to bring out her map and navigate. For a dragon, it didn’t take long to fly there, and we landed on the outskirts of the city early in the afternoon. I stayed right there with Kaya while Mari went inside and negotiated for a place to stay.
Goddard had a good size to it, large enough to support something as extravagant as a grand theater. It spread out in every possible direction, but in this flat land, that wasn’t much of a challenge. In fact, if I remembered correctly, it’d actually grown over the border and into the neighboring city-state of Teancum. Two major highways intersected in the city, so this had grown into a major trading and cultural hub over the generations. Kaya had set down near one of the main highways, just outside of the south bell gate, and we were getting quite a few curious onlookers as people traveled in and out of the city. Kaya, used to being stared at for various reasons, paid them no mind. I kept a closer eye on the crowd than she did, sure that at some point a trader with more ambition than sense would approach me about buying her.
It took Mari about an hour before she came back out. I couldn’t quite read the look on her face. She looked…vexed. But also resigned.
I climbed off of Kaya’s leg, where I had been comfortably sitting, and stood to meet her. “So how did it go?”
“I had to report to about three people and sweet talk the City Manager into it, but they’ll let us stay a few nights inside the city. I even found an inn with a strong enough roof that Kaya can sleep above us.”
All in the space of an hour?
“You,” I informed her gratefully, “Are a miracle worker.”
Still irritated with all the hoops she’d had to jump through she just crossed her arms over chest and responded, “And you owe me dinner.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Smiling, I offered my arm to her, which she took as if some grand lady, and we walked toward the gate.
~*~
Late that evening, Kaya, Mari and I perched on top of the hotel. The one that Mari found for us actually stood four stories, so it had a rather commanding view of the city. I found it easier up here to see and hoped that I could spot a blaze before it really got started. We divided up the city into three sections, each one of u
s responsible for watching over a certain area. Even then, from here, we couldn’t see the very outlying areas. But we really didn’t need to. We mostly just focused on the gates and any of the more prominent buildings in the downtown area.
We talked idly among ourselves as we watched, speaking of nothing important and just enjoying the night breeze. As the sun set, more and more torchlights and lamps were lit, giving the buildings a warm glow and making it harder for us to spy potential trouble. For the first time, I really wished I had Garth’s ability to feel magic instead of seeing it. I can feel the heat of a fire from further away than most people, but I can’t feel the magical force behind it. If a fire remained small enough, out of my sight, I wouldn’t be able to find it by its magical signature. This job would be a lot easier if I could.
“Krys?” Kaya turned her nose into the wind, nostrils flaring. “Smell fire.”
I cut myself off mid-sentence and rolled to my knees. “Big fire?”
She took in another deep breath. “Not big, not small.”
An ambiguous answer, but she probably couldn’t be sure by just smelling it on the wind. “Do you know where it’s coming from?”
“Yes.”
Good enough for me. “Let’s go investigate.”
Mari and I climbed into the saddle and were still strapping in when Kaya dove off the roof in an easy glide. When she has a high starting point like this, her takeoffs were always more gentle. With a few flaps of her wings, she gained more altitude, heading directly for the downtown section.
This late in the evening, most people were on their way home, and the entertainment had more or less finished. I saw multitudes of people streaming out of buildings and climbing into carriages, looking like small figurines moving around below.
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