The Ways of Khrem

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  “Ah, you know, this is where those women came seventeen years ago,” I said as I swiftly wrote down what he said, “the ones that the Cordwood Killer got. And the one that haunts the street outside every autumn.”

  “Nonsense. I’ve been working here for ten years and I’ve never once laid eyes on this so-called ghost,” he grumbled. “And what are you writing there?”

  “Oh…ah…this?” I asked, faking absentmindedness. “I’m taking notes for my master. He’s going to be writing a guide book on famous crimes in Khrem. Mathalus of Anckot wrote one for his city and it sold like wildfire. Wealthy people started touring all the crime spots, sleeping in inns involved in famous crimes, eating at… well, you get the idea.”

  Yeah, he got the idea.

  Ghosts that were good for business didn’t qualify as nonsense anymore.

  He smoothly eased himself on the bench across the table from me, suddenly intent on my writing.

  “You know,” he said speculatively, “I might just still have the old Bottle and Bucket sign down in the cellar.”

  If he didn’t, he would have one painted in no time and claim it as the original.

  The funny thing was that he probably made a comfortable living just off the business this place did every evening, but if he could attract a daytime clientele of well-heeled patrons…well, what’s the harm in throwing up an old sign and indulging in a little grisly history?

  “Mmmhmm,” I murmured. I wrote more then looked up. “What I really need, Master…”

  “Olmert,” he helpfully supplied.

  “What I really need to know, Master Olmert,” I repeated, holding up a golden Imperial Crown, “are names of people who knew those women, and if any of those people are still around.”

  Olmert stared at the crown for a moment, then excused himself and went back through the door behind the bar.

  “Kara!” He thundered, cupping his hands around his mouth to help his booming voice travel up the hidden staircase. “Get dressed and get down here! And bring that bottle of pricey rotgut you like so much with you. We got business to attend to!”

  An hour later, I walked out of The Candle Wick. I was two crowns lighter and mildly nauseous from Kara’s bottled hellbrew.

  But I had my list.

  I reached up to adjust the glasses on my nose and realized I had left them on the table in the tavern. With a sigh, I turned and went back inside.

  ***

  “Camber, dear,” Telestra called as I entered the pub, “look what washed in from the storm! I think this belongs to you!”

  Outside, a rare autumn downpour had turned the middle of Candlewalk Lane into a waterfall, thundering down from where the peaked roofs nearly met far above. This late in the afternoon the heavy clouds, combined with the falling rain, had conspired to make the street behind me as dark as night; darker, since nobody would be lighting any of the great hanging lanterns in this downpour. The center of the street had become a raging torrent that swept down the murky tunnel on its way to the Nur River.

  I shut the door on the storm and shook off my dripping cloak.

  The Bottle and Bucket was an oasis of warmth, albeit a nearly deserted one due to the time and weather. The large, wrought iron lanterns were lit, giving the inside of the tavern a companionable glow despite its near emptiness. The “girls”, as I had learned to think of them, were relaxing at the back rear table of the tavern. Their “working hours” wouldn’t usually start for another hour or two, and tonight’s business was probably going to be slow due to weather.

  The smell of fish stew told me old Magrew didn’t think business was going to be jumping tonight either, so he was cooking up the cheap stuff.

  There were five of them at the table tonight. South Wall Sayree was staring unenthusiastically at a bowl of fish stew. She gave it a desultory stir with one long, bony finger while listening to Pumpkin Delura lecture Camber on the intricacies of sewing. Camber had been leaning over, concentrating on what Pumpkin did with her needle, when Telestra’s announcement had caught her attention. Across the table from her, Maddy peered at a small snow globe and chattered about the imagined lives of the little figures within, while poor Telestra had nearly gone cross-eyed in her attempt to follow Maddy’s cheerful ramblings. She probably saw my entrance as a sanity-saving distraction.

  Throwing my cloak on the next table, I slid in to the space Camber made beside her on the bench while Sayree moved to the other side of the table next to Telestra to make room.

  “Ladies,” I nodded in greeting. “It’s unbelievable out there. All the water of a spring monsoon, and none of the warmth.

  “So what are you doing out in it?” Camber asked. “I’m glad to see you, but I figured you would be spending the day somewhere dry.”

  Earnest and straight to the point, as always.

  “I was just taking a stroll and enjoying the weather. I saw the lantern light through the windows and thought I would drop in and see if you were here.”

  “You hate the rain,” she replied suspiciously. “I’ve seen you go hungry just because getting food would mean going out in the rain. What are you up to?”

  I spread my hands, mustering the most innocent expression I could manage.

  The look on her face told me she wasn’t buying it for a second. I made a gesture of appeal to the other women at the table, but that didn’t go as expected either.

  A quick glance at their faces revealed they were watching me with far too much interest.

  “Well, give it to her!” Maddy exclaimed, grinning from ear to-ear.

  I gaped at her in stunned surprise.

  “Maddy!” the other women cried in unison. Maddy covered her mouth with both hands and turned bright red.

  They knew.

  I hadn’t told a soul, and yet somehow they knew.

  “Give me what?” Camber asked in surprise.

  I was totally flummoxed. This wasn’t going according to my plan at all. At least, it appeared, they hadn’t told Camber.

  “How did you know?” I asked, astonished.

  “I don’t know anything!” Maddy squeaked, pulling her crescent-covered shawl around her slim shoulders and staring intently into her little toy again.

  “Truer words…” Pumpkin grouched in her direction.

  “Give me what?” Camber repeated, looking at me with just a hint of twinkle in her eye.

  “It seems,” Telestra purred with an elegant gesture in my direction, “that a certain young bravo was spotted yesterday in the vicinity of Ruleg the Silversmith, doing business of a decidedly noncriminal nature. He would be well advised to remember that what one of us sees, all of us see.”

  Unbelievable. That had been almost across town at the Imperial Market.

  “You bought something?” Camber pried, now leaning on me. No cat had ever looked smugger, even after a full meal of canary.

  “Perhaps,” I demurred, regaining my composure, “but who says it’s for you? It might be for any one of the other women across this city who anxiously awaits my visits.”

  “Oho!” Camber crowed as she clapped me on the shoulder. “Listen to this cad! Now there are women across the city pining away for him!”

  “Why?” Maddy asked, obviously puzzled.

  Sayree choked on her soup, and Pumpkin set her sewing down in an attempt to defend against sticking herself in laughter. Telestra shook her head and settled for trying to help Sayree breathe again.

  “Thanks, Maddy,” I groaned, as a laughing Camber got up and walked over to the bar. She called to Magrew for another drink while I tried to salvage what dignity I could. Since all hope of surprise was gone, there was really no point in not going ahead and giving her what I had come here with. I reached for my belt pouch to get Camber’s gift and froze…

  It was gone.

  For a brief, stomach-dropping moment, I thought I had somehow lost it out in the downpour outside…and then I remembered that clap on the shoulder.

  I looked over to see Camber leaning bac
k against the bar, my belt pouch dangling from her finger and a huge grin on her face.

  She had always been a talented cutpurse. I had forgotten because I wouldn’t let the girls in our little tribe of urchins risk doing that. The danger involved with them getting that close to a mark seemed too great. In hindsight, I don’t know if I was being overprotective or not.

  “Well, girls,” she gloated, “I think I owe it to my fellow women, who are all out there pining away over this great hunk of man, to check and make sure he is giving them adequate gifts.”

  The table erupted in cheers, and I grinned while shrugging in surrender.

  I had underestimated my foes; I might as well let them savor their victory. Besides, I was enjoying it, too. All the girls but Sayree hopped up from the table and crowded around Camber, while Sayree stayed behind and practiced breathing something other than fish soup.

  With a convivial wink in my direction, Camber dipped her fingers into my pouch and pulled out the slender silver chain and charm within. There was a chorus of “oohs” and “ahs” as she held her prize aloft.

  The charm on the end was of two birds in flight, with a pair of little ruby chips set where the bird’s hearts would be. It was a simple thing really, but when I had seen it in the silversmith’s stall it had made me think of our coming departure with the winter caravan. The tenth moon waxed crescent, and the caravan would be leaving before three more had passed.

  “Well, that seals it,” Telestra said with a worldly sigh. “Once you’ve got them throwing jewelry at you, you might as well hang on to them for a while.” Interesting advice from a woman who had a whole line of men throwing jewelry at her.

  I never got to hear Camber’s response because the door flew open with a loud bang.

  Pearl Relita and Fawnspot Li rushed in. From the sogginess of the cloaks they threw at the bar, they must have just jumped through the downpour in the middle of the street.

  “Look lively, girls!” Pearl cried. “There are two coaches coming down the street from the Calabriane Academy! We got business coming!”

  I groaned and shut my eyes.

  Not now!

  Why couldn’t we have been left alone on this one rain-drenched day, without a bunch of rich man-boys braving the weather in their covered coaches to wreck our afternoon together? I wasn’t asking for much, just an afternoon with Camber…even if it was also with her friends.

  I opened my eyes to see Camber looking at me with desperate appeal on her face. She needed me to leave, and only the knowledge that she must have hated it too, made it remotely bearable. I consoled myself with the thought that this would only be for a little while longer.

  “I’ll be busy tomorrow,” I said as I rose from the table, “but the day after, I have no plans.”

  “Then rise early and meet me here at the noon bells. We’ll take a walk and spend some time together, just the two of us.” She pressed her gift back into my hand. “Then you can give me this right and proper, the way you wanted to, while we’re at it. Now go!”

  Behind her, I heard Fawnspot almost crying at Pumpkin Delura, “Oh gods, Pumpkin! They found that girl Lani just a while back. It was horrible…” I paused for just a second, trying to catch more.

  “Cargy, go!” Camber pushed my cloak at me, so I hurried out the door and into the dark street just as the two great coaches were coming into sight.

  Clutching the necklace, I looked back as I trudged away. Camber gave me one last pained smile and wave, then she ducked back inside as the coaches pulled to a stop out front.

  I never saw her again.

  Chapter Four

  “The acts that matter the most, are often the ones we commit with the least thought.” —unknown

  That evening, I found myself at the entrance to the courtyard I had been avoiding for almost half of my life.

  It was a small, squalid little place with at least ten or twelve windows overlooking the cracked and broken fountain in the center of the square. Separated from the lane by an archway, not even a breeze disturbed the silence. A rectangle of deepening blue, four stories overhead, failed to cast much useful light down to street level. It couldn’t have been more than a little after sunset, but I already had out a lantern.

  I stepped into the courtyard, fighting the urge to go straight to that spot at the foot of the western wall.

  “I had a feeling you might end up here.”

  I whirled, hand going for my knife, only to see Heinryk light his pipe in the shadowed corner of the square next to where I had entered.

  He dropped the coal back into his little firepot, and took a deep draw that illuminated his face in the dark. It was a slightly reckless thing to do, ruining his dark vision for a moment. On the other hand, he knew he and I were the only ones in this place. With a sigh, the old watchman sauntered out toward the center of the courtyard and then sat down on the edge of the crumbling fountain in front of me.

  “Your head isn’t on straight, Mr. Cargill, and that worries me. If I had been a mugger, you would have already been brained and robbed. I think this place has seen enough blood.”

  That’s right, he had been a watchman back then, too.

  “Heinryk,” I said softly, “don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to know.”

  He shook his head. Pulling his long knife, he started picking at a small stone wedged in the heel of his boot.

  “I wasn’t here that night. They didn’t move my patrol to Candlewalk Lane until after Longbow Lia’s body turned up.”

  The third victim. I had never met her.

  “Where’s Poole?” I asked. The two of them usually travelled as a pair.

  “He went to the village of Fellrun. It’s about half a day outside the city. Apparently, some old Issilian farmer there has one of those damned goats he was going on about. He’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “And the Captain?”

  “He’s at the Watch house over on Moonfallow Street, digging through old logbooks of the past Watch Captains there. That’s where all the reports concerning Candlewalk Lane would be made. How about you? Find anybody who remembers anything significant?”

  I looked at the sheaf of parchments in my hand.

  They were crammed full of notes from at least a dozen conversations. Some of them had been a waste of time, too many of them for my comfort. Memories had faded, and some of the people I really wanted to talk to had already died, including most of the victims’ “coworkers”. It wasn’t a profession that tended toward a long lifespan. I had already noticed some coincidences though, and noted a couple of clients some of the girls had in common.

  “I don’t know yet,” I answered. “I have more people to talk to, and then I’ll have to go over these notes.”

  Heinryk nodded.

  He worked the stone loose from his boot, examined it critically, and then tossed it off into the shadows. It made a muted click in the darkness. Then the watchman took another long draw on his pipe, and spoke in a low, serious tone.

  “The Captain isn’t stupid or easily fooled, Mr. Cargill. I want you to weigh that fact heavily when you make any decisions about your future actions in this matter.”

  I figured we would come to that.

  “I understand.”

  And I suppose I did. If we somehow managed to find this man, the Captain was going to want to have him arrested and tried before one of the city magistrates. The Captain and I didn’t always share the same values. But that issue could still be put off until later.

  I wasn’t here about the Captain.

  I was here for Camber…and the time had come to do what I came for in the first place.

  I had intended to do it alone, but since Heinryk had been here back then, I could accept his presence. It made us an odd club of two.

  I gritted my teeth and walked over to that spot at the foot of the western wall.

  I stood staring at it, willing it to somehow be different than the surrounding area. In a world that made sense, it would be radiating waves of hor
ror and loss. It should be stained with the act that had been committed on it for all time.

  But there was nothing.

  Nothing to set it apart from anywhere else in the square…or the city for that matter…just another few feet of cobblestone, grime, and squalor in a rotting little courtyard full of the same.

  I knelt there, my fingers touching the cobblestones, searching for any trace of significance.

  “Mr. Cargill,” Heinryk said quietly as he stood up and expertly sheathed his knife, “go ahead and pay your respects. Do what you have to do. But then let me give you a piece of advice—you should leave and never, ever come back. Whoever she was, I’m sure there are a lot of other places that she would rather you remember her than here. Somewhere you two shared a moment. That’s where she is, Mr. Cargill. Not this place.”

  Then, without another word, he walked out of the courtyard and left me alone in the gathering blackness. The sound of his boots echoed back out of the dark archway, then faded as he turned the corner and continued down the street beyond.

  So there I knelt in that moldering little courtyard, with nothing but the gloom to keep me company. An awful emptiness swept through me, reflecting the desolation of my surroundings.

  It had all been so pointless.

  After seventeen years, I had finally come to this place to try and say goodbye, one last time…

  …but Heinryk was right.

  Camber wasn’t here.

  ***

  I left the courtyard without looking back.

  There had been nothing for me back there, but I guess the only way I could have found that out was by going and seeing for myself. Passing through the arched gate, I stepped out onto the lane.

  The evening had descended in full, and Candlewalk Lane had come alive.

  Large paper globe lanterns hung from the eaves and balconies in places overhead, turning what would have been total darkness into a rich gloom. The mouths of the alleyways, so black during the day, were now filled with soft red glows. Minstrels played their lutes, pipes, and lyres in gentle melodies at various places along the way. The people on the lane were mere shadows, loitering in some places and moving along the walks in others.