The Inquisitives [1] Bound by Iron

by Bolme, Edward

  The clerk and Cimozjen both gave the young elf withering looks. “Fair and equitable treatment of prisoners of civil strife, regardless of station, is required by the Code of Galifar,” said the clerk.

  “Allow me to apologize on her behalf, friend,” said Cimozjen. “She knows not of what she speaks.”

  “Cimmer—” she huffed.

  “Silence!” snapped Cimozjen.

  “No apology is necessary,” the clerk said to Cimozjen. “I long since learned to ignore the darts and arrows of those who never fought.” He unrolled the scroll further. “Aha. A detail was assigned to march the able-bodied prisoners to the Daskaran command.”

  He returned to the back room for a moment and came out with a large ledger. He flipped through pages and pages of entries before finding the right date.

  “Good. Here it says that he was given over to the stewardship of the Custodians at Areksul. Looks like they put him on a timbering gang. That’s good work, you know. Beats being sent to the mines or digging graves.”

  “So at the end of the War,” asked Cimozjen, “what happened to those in his timbering gang?”

  “I don’t know, my friend. You’d have to ask the Custodians.”

  “And they are …?”

  “The Custodians of the Fire and Forge. They’re an order of Monks of who revere Onatar. Early on in the war they agreed to handle guarding prisoners and putting them to useful work. It actually worked out for the best for probably everyone. The monks refused to fight, and soldiers hate to stand guard, so the order got to avoid combat, and our boys got to do what they were trained to do. And the prisoners, well, I’d rather be guarded by the friars than a group of bored recruits keen for notching their blades.”

  “Very well,” said Cimozjen. “I thank you for your time.”

  The clerk smiled, a jagged affair that forced its way across his weather-beaten face. “It was an honor. Dol Dorn bless on your search.”

  “Too late for that,” muttered Minrah as they left the office.

  From the Military Bureau, the group traveled to the main plaza of the University of Wyrnarn, where Minrah intended to catch herself up on the contents of the Korranberg Chronicle that had been published over the last week.

  They moved easily through the streets until Cimozjen caught an aroma wafting on the cool autumn breeze. “Ohh,” he murmured, “sweet cremfels. Oh, how I’ve missed that!” His nose led them to a side street, where a cook leaned out a small window with heavy shutters and watched the street traffic going by.

  Cimozjen placed a copper piece on the windowsill. “Cremfels still a crown?” he asked.

  “Indeed they are,” said the matronly cook with a smile. “Will you be having cinnamon or preserves on that?”

  “Just butter, please.” He watched as the woman pocketed the coin, then ladled batter into a cast-iron fry pan. A new burst of the sweetbread scent washed over him. “It’s been two years, Four. Two years since I’ve had the pleasure of these.” He swallowed hungrily.

  “What of your wife?” asked Four. “Do you not miss her as you miss your sweet cremfel?”

  “I do indeed. I have searched across Karrnath for her since the War ended, and spent not a lick of time thinking of this. Yet the cremfel is here, and she is not, so I can at least allow myself this small indulgence.”

  “I’m here,” said Minrah, “but I don’t see a lot of indulging coming my way.”

  Cimozjen shook his head. “I swore a vow, that for good and for ill, we would remain together.”

  “And yet you are not together,” said Four. “Have you not broken your vow?”

  “In truth, we are together, Four, because I treasure her memory in my heart and behave in all ways as if she were right here with me.” He glanced pointedly at Minrah. “She swore the same, and wherever she is, she is doing the same. Thus her memory holds my hand, and mine hers.”

  Minrah snorted. “You must not want to hold her all that much, if you haven’t found her in two whole years.”

  Cimozjen gave her another meaningful look. “Before the end of the Last War, I had not set foot on Karrnathi soil for twenty years. During a war, a lot can change in twenty years. Just look at Cyre. I searched our homestead. I searched the neighboring villages. I’ve—” His voice broke and he took a moment to recover. “That’s why I was in Korth, you know. Do you know how long it takes to search a city of eighty-odd thousand for a single woman?”

  “So you don’t even know if she’s still alive, and you still won’t bunk me?” asked Minrah with a touch of a whine.

  “Host, I pray she is alive. The alternative is too terrible to contemplate. Until I know otherwise, my vows remain unchanged.” He licked the last of the melted butter from his fingers, then placed another crown on the sill. “One more, please,” he said. “I’ll indulge myself a bit more as we walk to the University.”

  “Did you find anything interesting?” asked Cimozjen as Minrah exited the University’s chronicle repository.

  “Yes, I did,” she said with a smile. “No one has yet claimed the gnomes’ reward.”

  “Why would someone want gnomes as a reward?” asked Four.

  “No, silly, the gnomes are giving a reward. A few months ago, they spread the word that they wanted information on some sort of Aundairian monastic secret society or something. And I intend to collect it. Oh,” she added, handing Cimozjen a folded broadsheet, “I grabbed this for you. Some Brelish hero saved his dwarf servant and a bunch of orphans from a nasty beast in the Cogs of Sharn. Thought you might like to read it. Like you, he looks to be one of those dashing save-the-children hero types that chroniclers love. Kind of an old story, but if you’ve been spending all your time chasing your wife, you might have missed it. Thought it might keep your spirits up as we go about our business.”

  They spent the rest of the afternoon trying to track down the Custodians of the Fire and Forge, only to find out that their monastery was hundreds of miles to the southwest, between Passage and Arcanix. For the five-score years of struggle that had been the Last War, the order had produced simple but utilitarian weapons for battle, and to meet their needs, they’d had groups of monks deployed across the country gathering materials. During this time, they had all but lost their ability to produce the masterful goods that reflected their spiritual growth. With the advent of peace, many of the monks had returned to their monastery, and were only too happy to begin restoring the art in their handicraft to its antebellum quality.

  The information was rather dispiriting. “We’ll have to shelve a trip to the monastery,” said Cimozjen. He scratched the back of his head. “For now, in any event. It’s probably a good day’s ride by rail to Passage, another day to visit the order, and another back, and I’ll not waste three days when I feel like we might be close to our goal right here in Fairhaven.”

  “Agreed,” said Four. “This is the place. The air is right.”

  Cimozjen turned his head. “Do you mean it smells right?”

  “I do not understand.”

  “No,” said Cimozjen, “I guess you’d not, after all. Well, it’s getting dark. Shall we head back to the Flagons?”

  Minrah grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  They arrived at the Dragon’s Flagons earlier than most. Four stood, holding his battle-axe at the ready if not quite—thanks to Minrah’s supplications—in a position of being ready to strike. In consideration of this, Cimozjen and Minrah took seats at the end of the long bar, where Four could have his back to the wall and be as far removed from the public view as was possible.

  They supped on boiled meat with an onion-wine sauce and baked potatoes with coarsely diced chives and butter, but unlike the previous night, the tavern was largely empty until shortly after ten bells, when a group of four rough and rowdy customers burst through the door.

  “Wham! Whack! That was great!” said the first. “But that shield … can you believe that shield? I’ve never seen anything that black. On my sword, I don’t think a
nything could touch him!”

  “Serves me right for betting against him,” said the second. “You’re buying tonight. Again. I don’t know how much more of this I can handle.”

  “Now that sounds interesting,” said Minrah. She watched the group as one of them bought a round of drinks and ordered some food, then followed them as they made their way to a table.

  Their talk silenced as she drew close and pulled up a chair. “Hoy there,” she said with her most winning smile. “Do you big strong men mind if I just take this one little chair?”

  One of them looked her up and down, a potential sneer of contempt shading his features, just waiting to erupt on the surface of his expression. He turned to his friends. “Bar whore,” he said.

  “I most certainly am not!” snapped Minrah. “I just thought you were rather—”

  “Don’t see them around here much,” said the man’s friend.

  “That’s because there’s no reason to treat them as well as we treated the camp followers,” said a third. “At least they’d wash the blood out of your clothes.”

  “And sew up the rips,” agreed the second.

  “If I’m intruding—” said Minrah.

  “I’d say that those that eavesdropped on private conversations of the Regent’s Halberdiers would have to be a spy, wouldn’t you agree?”

  The third nodded. “Aye, preparing to renew the war for one of the other kingdoms, I’d say.”

  “Spies are killed, aren’t they?” asked the second. “Drawn and quartered?”

  “We ain’t got horses,” said the fourth, the biggest of the group, with a heavy gravelly voice to match. “We’d have to do it ourselves, after we were done, of course.”

  By the time he had finished his sentence, Minrah was already making her way back to Cimozjen, her nose in the air and trying to carry herself in such a manner that she did not appear to be afraid. She reclaimed her stool, safely sited between Cimozjen and Four’s ever-watchful glare. “They’re not my type,” she said.

  Cimozjen tried to suppress a laugh, and failed.

  “They’re tight as a flock of cannibal stirges,” she said, “all feeding on each other. They might as well be one foul man with eight armpits.”

  “Brothers in arms,” Cimozjen said. “No woman can draw them apart.”

  “You mean they’re …?”

  Cimozjen shook his head. “No, that’s not what I mean.” “But then—”

  “Forget it. You’ll never understand.”

  They looked up as another assortment of rowdies entered the tavern, grinning widely. They talked quietly amongst each other, their conversation punctuated by shoves, punches, and head butts.

  “This looks like it may turn out to be an interesting night,” said Cimozjen.

  “But why now?” asked Minrah as the door opened yet again to admit another half dozen locals. “Why suddenly now?” She leaned forward to get a better look around Cimozjen. “Hoy there,” she said in quiet but urgent tone. “That’s the one from the ship. The commander, what’s his name? Pomindras. That’s him, Cimozjen, isn’t that him?”

  Cimozjen turned to look, hiding his face by pretending to take a deep draw on his drink. “Sovereigns, it is,” said Cimozjen. “Those wide-set eyes are a giveaway. Now we know that some of them are here in town. Do you see him, Four?”

  “Yes. Do you wish me to kill him?”

  “No, do not kill him.”

  “But that is the goal of our adventure, is it not?”

  “I want justice, not revenge,” said Cimozjen. “Also, if we kill him now, we probably lose any chance of running down any of the others who might be involved in this. Given how he was let free, we have to assume Rophis and maybe some of the other crew could be involved, too. Just keep an eye on him for us, will you? All things considered, you’ll be the least conspicuous doing it.”

  Minrah adjusted herself so that her back faced the room. “Let’s just cross our fingers that he doesn’t recognize us.”

  Minrah and Cimozjen nursed their drinks and resisted the agonizing urge to turn around and check up on their quarry. Finally, Minrah turned and sat sideways at the bar, leaning back against Four.

  Cimozjen glanced at her, and saw that her eyes were elsewhere. “Careful, Minrah,” said Cimozjen. “Let him not catch you staring.”

  “I’m looking at his reflection in the window over there,” said Minrah, her face aimed at her companion, but her eyes turned away. “He’ll think I’m talking to you. He’s speaking with those stirges. He’s handing them something, leaning over their table. Hoy, and look who just walked in.”

  “Who?” asked Cimozjen, not wanting to turn around.

  Minrah never answered his question, although she didn’t need to. Cimozjen heard someone stomp across the floor and slap the bar so hard he felt the tremor at the other end. “Bottle of Orla-un brandy, barkeep,” snarled an unmistakably bitter voice.

  “But that’ll cost your whole take,” said a second, gentler voice.

  “I don’t care,” came the clipped answer. Then her voice rose to a shout. “Death beware, for Aundair dares!”

  Cimozjen turned around. The woman was demanding attention, and it would be conspicuous not to give it to her. He turned slowly on his stool to see the angry, truncated face of Jolieni snarling across the tavern floor.

  “The unholy Cannith beast is dead,” she said, fist in the air. “Vengeance is mine.”

  The proprietor set a bottle of brandy on the bar beside her and walked down the bar to fetch some glassware. She slid her hand across the wood and let fly a gold coin, sending it scooting across the stained wood to the bartender. She grabbed the brandy by the neck, ignoring his offer of glasses. She started to stalk across the floor to her table, but her eye caught Four standing in the corner with Cimozjen and Minrah. Slowly she raised the hand holding the brandy, to point menacingly at Four.

  “You’re lucky it wasn’t you,” she called. She held the gesture and didn’t break eye contact with Four until after she had seated herself and taken her first pull at the bottle.

  Minrah turned away. “She’s awfully excited for winning a bet over a warforged.”

  “It did kill her friend,” said Cimozjen, “and she is a woman of great anger. Still.…” As Cimozjen tore his gaze away from her, he saw Pomindras saunter out of the establishment. “And there he goes.”

  “Who?” asked Minrah.

  “Pomindras.”

  “Should we follow him?” asked Four.

  “No. If we do, we increase the chance he’ll recognize us. We dare not make him nervy, or we might be facing down a whole tavern full of his friends.”

  Within a half bell of the commander’s departure, the Dragon’s Flagons was galloping full tilt, every table packed with rowdy and violent people, most of whom Cimozjen noted bore the marks of those who’d fought in the War.

  As the number of Aundairian veterans grew, the quantity of alcohol remaining in the establishment shrank and the atmosphere became more and more unstable. Minrah edged closer to Cimozjen, intimidated by the raucous noise and coarse language. For his part, Cimozjen tried to ignore the vulnerable feminine bundle pressed to his side so he could keep his attention on the potential threat of everyone else in the tavern. Beside him, Four raised the battle-axe slowly to an ever more threatening position.

  “This is what it sounded like when someone tried to kill me,” he said. “Only now I might not be able to tell when it starts. That was an advantage my home provided me. It opened whenever trouble arrived.”

  “Let’s get ourselves out of here,” said Cimozjen, praying for an opportunity. And, shortly afterwards, one came. Jolieni’s friend, the one who had calmed her down from the fight only the night before, came to the bar to order another small cask of wine.

  “Evening,” said Cimozjen over the noise of the crowd and showing a smile that said he was genuinely pleased to see the man.

  The Aundairian looked at him. “It is a good evening indeed,” he said. �
��For you?”

  “Always!” Cimozjen took a chug from his glass and leaned closer. “Tell me, I’m trying to remember this Aundairian drinking song. I’m hoping that you know it.”

  “Most of the songs I know have to do with barmaids,” said the Aundairian.

  “The words run something like: Fine wine, drink mine till I’m blind … but I’m unable to recall what might come next,” said Cimozjen, straining his voice against the background noise.

  The man’s face brightened immediately. “Hey, yeah, that’s a fun one!” he started sing the song at a full, throaty shout.

  “Fine wine,

  Drink mine till I’m blind!

  This cask is my task and I’ll not waste my time!”

  Cimozjen joined in and the two belted out the rest of the verse together, very loudly.

  “From the tap to the dregs

  Keep on rolling the kegs

  For this soldier he begs for more wine!”

  As Cimozjen had hoped, the song quickly caught fire in the general atmosphere of inebriation, and when the chorus had taken hold of the collective attention, he and his companions exited the tavern into the chill autumn air and made their way by moonlight back to their boardinghouse.

  Chapter

  SIXTEEN

  Coincidence

  Zol, the 24th day of Sypheros, 998

  The morning dawned steely gray and dismal, with heavy clouds overhead dimming the light. After Minrah and Cimozjen had broken their fast, the three companions took an easy walk to the University of Wyrnarn to read the latest in the Korranberg Chronicle.

  Afterwards, they worked their way from the upscale Distant Exchange markets to the merchants in Chalice Center and around the University, and then through the questionable Whiteroof ward all the way to the area known as Eastbank, asking tanners, leatherworkers, toolmakers, and traders of all sorts if they were familiar with the markings on Torval’s shoe.

  “It’s not a good sign that no one knows it,” said Minrah. “That means his mark isn’t famous, and therefore neither is the cobbler.”