Casket of Souls

by Lynn Flewelling

  “Can we count on you not to do anything rash?” asked Seregil. “With it being your daughter and all?”

  “Will your hearts be any less broken than mine if she dies? Don’t worry. There’ll be no killing until I’ve gotten out of them how to save my girl.”

  “Good, then we’ll start at Basket Street.”

  “Why there?” asked Kari.

  “We’ve seen Atre over that way since he bought the Crane. There didn’t seem to be any reason for it.”

  “What about Thero?” asked Alec. “We’re looking for something magical and we don’t have much time. We should bring him with us, like a scent hound.”

  “Don’t let him hear you call him that.” Seregil glanced out the window, gauging the time. “You two go and scout out Basket Street. I’ll meet you there in a few hours with Thero.”

  THERO needed no persuasion. He listened in silence, then changed quickly out of his robes and tucked a few things, including his crystal wand, into a belt pouch.

  Seregil restlessly scanned the scant night crowd as they made their way to the old theater; no ravens, but any of the passersby could be one of them in some other disguise.

  The theater stood at the far end of Basket Street, near the poultry market. The windows were boarded up, and the front doors chained shut. Weeds had sprouted between the paving stones of the untended courtyard. It looked utterly deserted.

  Glancing around to make certain no one was there to see, Seregil dismounted and led his horse to the back of the theater. They found Alec and Micum waiting for them in the alley behind it. It was deserted and strewn with refuse, weeds, and dirty feathers.

  “Someone’s been coming and going pretty regularly, at least since the last rain,” Micum murmured.

  “You can tell that from this mess?” whispered Thero.

  “He can track a duck through water,” Alec told him.

  The stage door was secured with a large, rusty padlock, but Alec already had it open.

  “The wards are well oiled,” he whispered to Seregil.

  He inched the door open and the four of them slipped into the silent darkness beyond. Micum closed the door; they stood a moment in the corridor, getting out lightstones and letting their eyes adjust. They were at the center of the building, with the wings extending to either side of them, and a wide central corridor opening onto the backstage area.

  It was a strange, shadowy world behind the stage, like seeing the seamed side of a fine garment. A plain scrim still hung from its long rod, and a few abandoned set pieces cast madcap shadows in the glow of their stones as they moved about. To either side, the wings were divided into a maze of different rooms by sheets of coarse muslin strung from wires.

  The only sounds were their own breathing as Seregil and Alec crept out to the stage. Dust lay everywhere. The theater space was lost in shadow beyond their lights and already had that smell of dust and mice that empty places took on. Somewhere, out there in the darkness, was the box they had occupied with Kylith, the first time they’d seen Atre and his players. A few stars shone above them where a skylight had been left half open.

  “Do you think he’d hide anything out here?” whispered Thero, joining them.

  Seregil cast around with his light, looking at the dusty floor. “No one’s been out here in a while.”

  “But someone swept down the corridor in the right-hand wing, and I think I found us a door,” Micum whispered from the shadows behind them.

  He led them past the ghostly muslin cubicles to a boarded-up door. Seregil inspected it closely, feeling here and there, and soon found a loose board that pivoted, exposing a latch and lock. This one was new, complex, and fitted with recessed needles. Given the size of the holes, the needles were large ones.

  “Stand back,” Seregil told the others. Working with a bent pick, he tripped the device and jumped back as several steel needles shot across the corridor and embedded themselves in the far wall. “Nasty.”

  Lifting the latch, he gave it a pull. As he’d guessed, the nails holding the boards to the door frame and wall gave easily from worn holes. Stairs led down into darkness, and a cold draft carried the moldy scent of a cellar. Seregil took the lead, sword drawn.

  The low-ceilinged cellar was filled with dusty props and long rolls of discarded scrim. A few mouse- and moth-chewed costumes still hung from stone support pillars, and there were dozens of crates and trunks covered in more than a few months’ worth of dust and cobwebs. The floor was packed earth, the walls of mortared stone. Across the way a stone stairway led up to a large trapdoor that probably opened onto the stage.

  “Bilairy’s Balls, this will take all night!” Alec exclaimed softly.

  “Which is why you brought me, I believe.” Drawing his wand, Thero drew an orange sigil on the air. It swirled, then sank to the floor and rolled over it like fog, leading them across the cellar and disappearing behind a pile of crates stacked against the right-hand wall. “There is something there, or has been.”

  “We should bring you along more often,” whispered Alec as he and Micum began shifting the crates away from the wall to expose a low door. The thick oak panels were painted black, with enormous iron hinges and a thick hasp secured with a large, new padlock. Alec did the honors this time and pulled it open. More cold, dank air greeted them as they cautiously stepped inside, but there was also the unmistakable aroma of candles recently snuffed.

  A plain wooden table stood in the center of the small room, and one wall was half filled by two wooden racks, similar to wine racks, that stood six feet tall and appeared to be recently constructed of new wood. Dozens of bottles, some empty, others sealed with green wax, were arranged there on their sides. Seregil quickly counted them. There were one hundred twenty-eight: seventy in the left rack and fifty-eight in the right, all neatly arranged in rows. Some were sealed with dark green wax; others were empty, but something about the arrangement niggled at Seregil, the way the sight of Brader in disguise had.

  On the table were a thick tallow candle in a cracked dish, a small workman’s box, sticks of green sealing wax, a basket of corks, and a waste bowl that held what looked like a few used seals made of the same green wax. Opening the workman’s box, Seregil found a small collection of delicate tools and a worn copper stylus gone green with age, except for the tip, which glinted red where it had been recently sharpened.

  “Hmm. There’s a bit of wax on the stylus.” He glanced over at the sealed bottles. Sure enough, they had some sort of writing in the wax and Thero appeared to be quite interested in them. “I wonder what these jeweler’s tools are for?”

  Alec peered up over the edge of the table from whatever he’d been looking at under there. “Maybe for these?” He stood and triumphantly placed a large open casket on the table between them. Inside was a glistening collection of rings, earrings, necklaces, brooches, every piece of the finest quality and every one of them tagged with a slip of parchment tied on with a blue silk thread. Each slip bore a name in Atre’s elegant, precise handwriting. “He’s made it easy for us.”

  “Illia’s ring must be in here!” Before Seregil could stop him, Micum upended the casket, spilling jewelry across the table and sorting frantically through it with help from Seregil and Alec.

  Alec picked up a large ruby ring tagged with the name RYLIN and a silver brooch set with carnelian. This one was tagged EONA.

  “Lord Rylin, most likely,” Seregil murmured, taking the ruby ring and weighing it in his palm. “I’m quite sure I’ve seen him wearing it. And this must be from Laneus’s widow, Eona.”

  “Let me see it,” said Thero. He held the brooch a moment and nodded. “Yes, I can still sense her energy on it quite clearly. Her aunt gave it to her when she was eleven.” With that he turned back to his inspection of the racks.

  “Here’s one from Selin,” said Alec, holding up a thin gold chain.

  “Illia’s ring isn’t here!” Micum groaned when they’d inspected every piece.

  “Or Elani’s brooch,
” said Seregil.

  “There’s another box down here.” Alec reached under the table and brought up a plain wooden chest. This one was larger, and secured with nothing more than a crude hasp.

  “This looks old.” Alec opened it, then hissed sharply through his teeth when he saw what was inside. Broken toys and carved nutshells. A necklace made of a single seashell on a bit of dirty string. A crudely cast tin ring. Maybe a hundred bits and pieces that one might find in a gutter or midden, and locks of hair held together with little dabs of wax. None of these were labeled, but one of the locks was a distinctive white-blond, and dirty.

  “Kepi said he traded a lock of hair,” said Alec.

  Thero touched it. “A sharp-faced little urchin.”

  “That’s him.”

  Micum emptied it out beside the jewels and pawed through them, looking for his daughter’s silver ring.

  Thero turned to inspect the contents of the racks as the others sifted through the contents of the plain box.

  “It’s not here, either!” Micum said at last.

  “I think I know why,” Thero replied, holding up a sealed bottle. “All of these I’ve looked at so far contain things like those. Her ring could be in one of them.”

  He held the bottle up to the light. The thick, crudely made glass looked old, and was full of striations and bubbles, but they could make out what looked like a small braid of hair floating inside. Seregil took another from the rack. The liquid in this one was milky, but he could see the outline of a hog’s tooth when he held it to the light.

  He passed it to Alec. “Didn’t that boy you had the yellow stone from say he traded a hog’s tooth?”

  “Yes!”

  “So this is what they’re doing with them. We’ve got to find Illia’s ring,” said Micum. “We need to check every damn one of them.”

  Beginning at the top of the left-hand rack, he took out one after another and held them up to his lightstone, like a poultry farmer candling eggs. Thero and the others did the same.

  “Do you feel that same magic on them?” asked Seregil.

  Thero nodded.

  “And you didn’t feel this weird magic on any of the other actors except Brader?” asked Micum.

  “I thought I felt something like it at Alec’s party that night,” the wizard replied.

  “And only Atre was there, not Brader,” mused Seregil. “So whatever this is, it involves at least the two of them.”

  “Atre said he and Brader were traveling together before they met the others up in the northlands,” said Alec. “Didn’t he say the two of them are related, Seregil?”

  “Cousins, I think. So this might only be the two of them.”

  Alec picked up from the table a ring marked OLIA. “Why is he marking only the expensive pieces?”

  “I think because of this,” said Micum. He held out an empty bottle, showing them the small parchment label affixed to its side with a few drops of wax, with a name inscribed on it.

  “Laneus!” Alec exclaimed, taking it from him. “But he didn’t show any sign of the sleeping death.”

  “Unless his family hushed it up,” said Seregil. Pulling out another labeled phial, he sighed. “Or not. This one’s labeled ALAYA.” Seregil held it up for them to see. “And here’s one for Kyrin. Since they all died suddenly, perhaps the sleeping part isn’t always necessary.”

  “And judging by these, then it may not need to be a trade,” mused Thero. “Just something freely given. That opens up some disturbing possibilities.”

  “Look here,” said Micum, holding out another empty bottle, labeled KYLITH.

  Seregil gave it a sorrowful look. “Kylith was going to end her patronage and he killed her. And Laneus insulted him, sending him to eat in the kitchen.”

  Alec pulled out another of the empty ones and let out a groan. “Myrhichia. But why her?”

  “And why Illia?” Micum asked bleakly, going back to his search. “Why would he want to hurt an innocent girl?”

  “Probably the same reason he killed all those innocents in the Lower City,” Seregil replied. “What in Bilairy’s name is he doing with these?”

  “Whatever it is, Seregil, Elani gave him gifts, too—that ring he always wears, and a brooch!” Alec reminded him.

  Seregil nodded grimly, thinking, If anything happens to her, that’s on my head, as well.

  “Hmm, the marks on these are different,” Thero said, peering at the seals on two bottles. “See this ring of symbols around the edge of the seal on this one with the marble in it, with a space in the center? This other one, with a lock of hair in it, is cloudy inside, and the center has been filled in with another symbol.”

  “Two different magics?”

  “Certainly there’s some difference, though the outer ring is the same on both.”

  “What do you think will happen if you open them?” Alec asked.

  “I must examine them more closely, and under better conditions than these.”

  “And you’re sure it’s what you felt on Atre and Brader?”

  “Yes.” Thero frowned. “One or both of them are the maker of these.”

  “You’re sure it’s not necromancy or alchemy?” asked Alec. “Because it certainly looks like one or the other to me.”

  “It doesn’t have that particular stench to it. The closest I can come to it is the shamanic magic of the hill people.”

  “Your friend Miya suggested it was Zengati,” said Seregil.

  “Not any that I’ve ever encountered. But it could mean that Atre or someone with that magic was in Zengat at some point.”

  “That was four centuries ago!”

  Thero shrugged.

  “Can’t you make anything of those symbols?” asked Micum, impatient.

  “No. This is something entirely new to me.” He paused, holding a bottle in each hand as if he were weighing them against each other. “The clouded one is definitely different than the other. Whatever has been done to them, this one has a stronger aura.”

  They examined every bottle, but there was still no sign of Illia’s ring.

  “Bilairy’s Balls!” Micum cried. “All this for nothing?”

  “This isn’t the only place he might store something.” Seregil ran a hand back though his hair. “Elani’s ring and brooch are too great a prize to leave lying around. Maybe he thinks Illia’s ring is, too. Another person he’s gone after, who’s associated with Alec and me. Damnation!”

  Seregil looked back at the rack, that niggling feeling back again. “Symmetry.” The others looked blankly at him. “These bottles. There are exactly seventy in this rack, and exactly fifty-eight in the other one, but seventy spaces. Which means there might be exactly twelve somewhere else, if our clever soul stealer likes nice round numbers. And if they’re not here, then where is the next most likely place?”

  “Atre’s house,” said Alec. “Or the Crane.”

  “I doubt he’d keep anything anywhere so public as a working theater. He’d have too little control over who might be wandering around there. But we’d better look there anyway, just in case.”

  Alec sighed. “By the Four, we’ve done all this work trying to stop the cabals, and the real threat was right under our noses all the time. But why didn’t Laneus show any signs of the sleeping death, or Kylith and Alaya and the other nobles?”

  “Maybe that’s what the two different elixirs do, with their different seals,” said Thero. “We still know almost nothing of how these work. And we haven’t found any full, sealed bottles with anything belonging to a noble. It could be a different magic he uses. One he doesn’t have to do here. But why would he kill the nobles who have been generous to him, and could potentially give him more?”

  “Out of spite, obviously,” said Micum.

  “No, there has to be more to it than that, for him to take such a risk,” said Seregil. “We’d better clear up and get out of here.”

  “But all these people!” Alec looked from the pile of jewelry to the box of poor it
ems.

  “We can’t afford to flush our enemies out yet, Alec. Not until we have Elani’s jewelry and Illia’s ring.”

  Thero went to the bowl of used wax and examined each broken seal. “All of these have the central symbol.”

  “Could it complete the magic?” asked Seregil as he scooped jewels back into the casket.

  “That’s one possibility. Or they are different in purpose.” Thero knelt and passed his hand before the phials lowest to the floor. After a moment he drew out a few, examined them, and put all but two back. “I’m taking these. They’re less likely to be missed than the ones higher up,”

  “It’s still risky,” warned Seregil. “Especially if I’m right about the exact numbers.”

  “I can’t help that. If I don’t examine the contents, I won’t know what they do, or how to combat the magic they contain.”

  “Then hopefully we’ll stop whoever is doing this before they notice,” said Seregil. “I think we’re done here. Back to your tower, Thero?”

  “No, these might be noticed there. Can we go back to the inn?”

  “Of course.” Seregil looked around the room, making certain everything was the same as they’d found it, apart from the two empty spaces in the rack.

  Thero paused on the way to the door. “I feel like I’m missing something.”

  “Can you do the finding spell again?” asked Alec.

  Thero cast it and they watched the mist drift lazily over the bottles, curling around them like smoke. Nothing else in the room attracted it.

  Kari and Elsbet greeted them anxiously on their return.

  “Did you find her ring?” asked Kari.

  “No, love,” Micum told her. “But we’re on their trail. It is the actors behind all this.”

  While Micum and the others told the women of their night’s work, Thero took out the sealed bottles. That cold, crawling sensation was faint but unmistakable and they felt unnaturally cool in his hands. He’d need to work some protection magic before he delved too deeply into whatever magic they contained.

  “Those are what you found?” Kari asked, and Thero saw the haunted look in her dark eyes. “Will this help you save my girl? Do you think you can take off the magic?”