by G. R. Lyons
Charlie stood and peeked around the wall where the young man was pointing.
“My…gods…”
“Hana will take us to the temple,” the priest said, walking over to an enormous, sky blue, winged horse. He swung up into the saddle and extended his hand down to Charlie. “Do not fear. The renkana are superb fliers.”
Charlie gaped. “I thought they were just stories.”
The priest shook his head, laughing. “Hardly. The renkana are quite real. Come now. She is a good mount. I would trust her with my life.”
Charlie eyed the man's hand, then held his breath as he took it, swinging up into the double saddle behind him and holding on as the horse spread its wings and leapt into the air.
“She will not let you fall,” the priest called over his shoulder, but still Charlie held on tight, his eyes wide as they rose above the trees, soaring past rivers and gardens and stone buildings covered in flowers.
Up and up they went, though still below the level of the ocean that surrounded the Isle, until they reached the floating hill above them. Hana circled the hill until they came to a glittering courtyard at the front of the temple.
Charlie blinked and rubbed his eyes, but no matter how much he stared, he couldn't decide if the temple was made of stone or glass or metal. It stretched gracefully toward the sky, with banners and flags of a black winged horse on a white ground.
In the midst of the courtyard was a statue depicting Kalos, Father of Healing, god of magic. Hana gently landed beside the statue and Charlie slid off the blue horse, gaping as he took in the sight of the valley below him.
“Wait for me here,” the priest said, and Charlie turned in time to see the horse nod in response, snorting and stamping the ground.
Charlie shook his head and rubbed his eyes, then moved back from the edge to join the priest. The young man stopped in front of the statue just long enough to touch his hand to his heart, then to his forehead, then up toward the sky before he continued across the courtyard and up the wide stairs to the temple.
Following close behind, Charlie hurried up the steps and in through the knobless doorway when the priest opened the doors with a wave of his hand. They passed through an anteroom, and another doorway, though this time the doors stood wide open, allowing them entrance.
Charlie froze and stared, the rest of the temple simply one massive chamber with gold and glass and iridescent surfaces visible everywhere. Along the far wall, a raised platform held seven golden chairs, all occupied by women dressed in black, while a handful of men gathered before them. Some were dressed in the blue-grey of the Siksani, while others were in plain white robes, and one man wore the costume of a nobleman of Ceynes.
He heard a few indistinct words, and the Ceynesian bowed himself out of the room, followed by two of the others assembled there. Charlie watched the men go, then hurried to keep up with his guide, who went straight ahead to the dais and stopped with a bow.
“My ladies of the Vakti,” the priest said, pressing his hands over his heart. “I bring you a most urgent matter.”
“A son of Agoran,” one of the ladies said, looking straight down at Charlie. “I am Lady Farren. What are you called, sir?”
“Char–” he began, then cleared his throat as he tried not to stare. “Charlie Crawford…uh, my lady.”
“And what brings you to Jadu'n, Mr. Crawford?” Lady Farren asked.
Charlie glanced over at his guide, who gave him a subtle, encouraging nod. He took a deep breath, then stepped forward.
“Murder, my lady,” Charlie said. “By a mage.”
The ladies gasped, looking around at one another, and Charlie heard the few remaining priests also whispering beside him.
Lady Farren came down off the dais and leveled a look at Charlie.
“Tell me everything.”
Chapter 18
SITTING IN her makeshift office at the agency, Asenna tried to focus on the files spread out before her, but she couldn't quite get in the right frame of mind to concentrate. She kept staring at the neat arrangement of icons she'd set out, all of them in perfect lines and rows.
“Gods, I'm just like him,” she whispered to herself.
“What was that?”
Startled, she looked up and saw Vorena sitting across from her.
“Bloody hells,” Asenna gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. “I didn't know you were there.”
Vorena grinned at her. “Chief told me to keep an eye on you.”
“Figures,” she muttered, looking down at the files.
“So what did you say?” Vorena asked.
“What? Oh. Just…I'm just like him. Perfectionist. Compulsive.”
Vorena shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that. Might be just what it takes to catch him.”
“How so?”
“You can think like him.”
Asenna shivered, leaning back slowly in her chair. She stared at the files for a long while, then closed them all with a swipe of her hand across the screen.
“I can't even think at all right now.”
“Well, then, take a break,” Vorena suggested, sprawling out in a chair and crossing her arms behind her head. “Maybe we could–”
“Do you hear that?” Asenna asked, sitting forward.
“Well, technically, I don't hear–” Vorena joked.
“No, wait,” Asenna said, holding up a hand and listening. “The office just went quiet.”
Asenna got up and went to the door, opening it just a crack so she could peek through. Out in the main office, all the agents were silent, their attention focused on the front door. Opening the office door wider, Asenna stretched up to see over their heads.
Crawford crossed the main office from the entrance to the conference room, leading a figure dressed all in black with a hood up, obscuring the face, and followed by three men in the blue-grey robes of the Jaduan Siksani.
Vorena whistled. “Now there's something I've never seen.”
“Hush,” Asenna said over her shoulder, and watched as the group disappeared into the conference room. A moment later, Crawford came back out and headed straight for her.
She jumped back, startled at being caught spying, then opened the door wider and waited.
Crawford looked distracted as he came to a stop, not even uttering a greeting.
“Uh, Chief wants you in there with us,” he said.
Asenna nodded, silently following him. They stepped into the conference room, where the visitors were waiting, along with the chief, Malrin, and Lehinis. Once inside, Crawford locked the door, and they stood across the table with the others, staring at their visitors.
The Siksani were all young men, heads bowed and silent, their hands hidden in the voluminous sleeves of their robes. Standing just before them, the figure in black reached up to undo a clasp at its throat, whisking off the hood and cloak all in one graceful motion and handing it over to one of the priests.
Asenna stared, dumbfounded, at the woman who stood before her. Her gown was of a black so pure that it seemed to suck the light out of the room, a full skirt that covered even her feet and a snug bodice of lace cinched down with crisscrossed ribbons. The gown covered all the way up to her throat, and her long dark hair disappeared against the black fabric, framing a lovely, youthful face that was decorated with markings that looked like delicate black vines.
The woman glanced over at Crawford, who cleared his throat and held up a hand.
“Chief Rothbur, may I present Lady Farren, priestess of the Vakti, the Jaduan High Council. Lady Farren, this is Chief Benash Rothbur, and my associates, Detectives Malrin, Lehinis, and Shyth.”
Lady Farren bowed her head to each person in turn, her gaze lingering on Asenna a few seconds longer than on the others.
Asenna stared back, swallowing nervously, until the priestess turned her gaze away and addressed the chief.
“Never in the history of Jadu'n have we known such violence from one of the magi,” the woman said, her voice soft yet full of power. “My s
isters deemed it best that we come here to see the proof of it firsthand.”
“By all means,” the chief said, sweeping an arm in silent invitation for the visitors to sit.
“Thank you, Chief Rothbur,” the woman said, not making a move. “I'm afraid we must stand. If we get too close to that contraption of yours, it may not function.”
“Very well,” the chief said, and pressed an icon on the table. The digital files appearing on the surface trembled slightly before clearing up. “I must warn you, Lady, that the images here are–”
“I am quite prepared, I assure you.”
Chief nodded and tapped on another icon, bringing up the most recent file and spreading the contents across the table.
The Vakti priestess glanced over the gruesome images without so much as a flicker in her expression.
“This is only the most recent,” the chief explained. “I'm not sure how much Crawford told you, but he witnessed an armed man as he simply disappeared from the scene. That, along with an unusual lack of evidence in every other case, is the basis for our suspicion.”
Lady Farren nodded. “Only the magi could vanish in such a way, and eliminate all traces of his presence. I'm afraid your suspicion is correct.”
Beside her, Asenna heard Malrin and Lehinis grumble something, and the chief quickly silenced them, looking embarrassed as he glanced across the table.
“No need to worry, Chief Rothbur,” the woman assured him. “This is not a formal meeting, and we are well-versed in all manners of etiquette from all cultures. Your subordinates' behavior does not offend, I assure you.”
The chief nodded, and hesitated before he asked, “If you can help us in any way– And please tell us what payment you require, but I–”
“No payment will be necessary,” she said, waving a hand. “You have brought to our attention a grievous truth that we should have contemplated long ago. If anything, you have done us a service, sir. Any help we can give will be done gladly. Now, what is it you require?”
The chief sighed with relief as he straightened up.
“Information, to begin with,” he said, waving at the mess of evidence spread out before them. “What are the limits of a mage's power? How does it work? Anything at all that might be useful.”
“That is a very broad question,” the Lady said.
“And can you track him?” Lehinis blurted out.
Lady Farren moved her glance slowly over to Lehinis, then back to the chief. “Yes, but only to a point. You see, while the magi are few, the Vakti are even fewer. It is an excessively rare thing for a woman to be born with the gift of recognizing magic. We have little magic of our own, but our primary skill is being able to sense out magic in the world. We know when a mage is born, and when he dies. Thus we're able to go out into the world, and seek out a child to invite him to Jadu'n for training, or to bring his body back for a funeral pyre when he dies. In between, we can sense out a particular mage's presence, but it takes time, and requires an energy signal to track.”
“Energy signal?” Crawford asked, leaning on the back of a chair.
The Lady nodded. “I would need to know his identity in order to start a trace. Otherwise, I'm just looking for every known mage in the world, and that would be tedious and profitless. Not to mention, if he discovers he's being tracked, he could simply hop from place to place, always staying a step ahead.”
“Yeah, about that,” Malrin asked, spinning a chair around and sitting on it backwards. “How do they just up and disappear like that?”
“It is simply one of their skills,” the Lady answered. “The magi can appear at any place in the world they've already visited.”
“Already visited?” Asenna asked. “So they can't just go anywhere?”
“Not at all,” Lady Farren said, shaking her head. “The mage has to see where he's going. He would have to physically travel to a place before he could ever appear there by spell.”
Asenna looked at the others, then down at the table.
“So he would had to have broken into the mistress's house sometime before he went back there to kill her,” Malrin said.
“Or been invited in,” the Lady answered, nodding. “Either way, he must have been in that house at some point in his life in order to return there despite a locked door. Same with any of your other cases.”
“But nowhere was there any sign of break-in, or alarms tripped, or anything like that,” Lehinis said, then paused, thinking. “Unless it was weeks or months before. So long before that we wouldn't think to make the connection.”
The chief turned and paced along the length of the table, pinching his temples as he said, “Alright, moving on. What about the flowers? We haven't gotten responses on the older cases, but this one here–” He waved a hand at the file open on the table. “No florist has admitted to making the arrangement, nor to delivering it. So could he be making the arrangements himself?”
The Lady paused, clearly thinking, then answered, “He couldn't make them from nothing. This is a real, solid world in which we live, and you can't have something out of nothing. He could, however, move the flowers from one location to another.”
Lehinis straightened in his chair.
“You mean, like, stealing?”
“Yes.”
“Do we have any reports from florists of missing inventory?” Chief asked.
Malrin bent over the table, calling up a separate window and searching the company database.
“Nothing, Chief. No theft reports with relevant keywords in the past few years.”
“What if it's small?” Asenna asked. “Like, what if he's plucking one flower from here, one from there, little enough that any one florist might not notice?”
“That's certainly possible,” Crawford muttered, stroking his chin. “Makes him even more impossible to trace, of course.”
The room went silent, and Asenna looked from face to face, seeing hopelessness settle in.
“Is there nothing the magi could do?” Malrin asked.
Lady Farren shook her head. “I'm afraid not. At least, not in any reasonable time frame.”
“Anything at all would be of help, Lady,” the chief said.
She thought for a moment, then said, “We could attempt a Circle of Seven to try to bind him, but there are several things standing in the way of that route.”
“Such as?”
“For starters, I do not currently have seven full magi on Jadu'n. They are scattered around the world at their posts. It could take weeks to assemble seven of them strong enough to bind one of their own.”
“What about your others there?” Lehinis asked, pointing at the three priests behind her.
“The Siksani are not full magi. They don't have sufficient skill or power to join a Circle. And all of this is moot, really, without an identity to trace. We would need seven Rajali assembled, and a location for them to reach, in order to have a chance of surrounding this killer and binding him, separating him from his power. I'm afraid the possibility is a slim one at best. With no identity to trace, no energy signal to follow, we have no starting point.” She paused, smiling slightly as she waved at the table. “Just like your computers. Insufficient input means no output. Put in the wrong data or not enough data, and it generates no response or the wrong response.”
Beside her, Asenna saw Malrin lean toward Lehinis and whisper, “I thought they didn't have technology on Jadu'n.”
“We may not have it,” the Lady answered, startling them, “but we are aware of it. We study and teach all cultures and civilizations in the world. We know of your technology. We just simply can't use it on the magical Isle. Nor here, without extreme care.”
She took a step forward, reaching a hand toward the table, and the images there flickered and danced. The detectives jumped back, startled, and looked up with wide eyes as the priestess stepped away from the table.
“That's nothing,” she said. “You should see what happens when a full mage performs magic around these mach
ines. All sorts of failures and malfunctions. The magic interferes with circuits and electricity. We don't yet know why. And it is much worse when a mage is experiencing deep emotion—love, rage, sadness, passion.” She paused, her gaze sliding over to the chief. “Just like the Tanasian mind is less secure when angry, and thus prone to accidental projection, the mage's power can become uncontrolled and erratic when his emotions are heightened.”
Crawford reached out a hand, lightly touching the table as he frowned in thought.
“That's why the lights didn't work,” he muttered. “At the guildmistress's house. We couldn't get the lights to work until he disappeared.”
Asenna stared at the table, feeling something tug at her memory. She pictured the images on the table's surface dancing and shimmering erratically, like an old television feed with static interference, and wondered why such a thing seemed so painfully familiar.
* * *
AFTER LADY Farren departed with her Siksani entourage, Charlie got bombarded with questions, Malrin and Lehinis and the others speaking over one another in their curiosity about his trip to Jadu'n.
“What was it like over there?”
“Did you see them do magic?”
“Do they all look like that?”
“Did you see a renkana?”
“How do they get around over there?”
“What did they–”
“Alright, enough!” the chief interrupted, rubbing his temples. “To your work, please.”
The detectives slowly filed away, looking disappointed, and Charlie followed Asenna back to her temporary, makeshift office, falling into a chair in a daze.
“That weird, huh?” Asenna asked, reaching out to straighten a row of chairs along one wall.
“What? Oh.” Charlie shook his head, watching her. She stopped suddenly in the midst of her adjustments, her hands twitching as she stared at the remaining chairs before she finally clenched her hands into fists, crossed her arms, and threw herself on the couch. Charlie frowned and shook his head again. “It was…Gods, I'm not sure there are words to describe that place. It was just…amazing.”
“Do you think they'll figure out a way to help us?”