“Bottom level, I’m afraid,” the Magistrate said. “That’s all I have.”
“As it should be,” Jonas said. “She needs to earn any more.”
“I was unsure. Given your status.”
“This is what I needed. Thank you for your assistance.”
“You’re welcome. And please don’t take this the wrong way but I hope I don’t see you again for a while. Dealing with Hunters always makes me uncomfortable, but if someone of your status is in the field then it only spells trouble.”
“It’s nothing to worry about. I just like to keep my hand in. And I thank you for your discretion.”
“Indeed. You can find your way out?”
“I can.”
“Good day then.”
“I hope so,” Jonas said, nodding to him and leaving. He made his way back to the entrance, stowing the paper carefully in with the rod and slinging the bag over his shoulder, tucking it under his jacket.
“Good day,” he said to the guards at the entrance.
He noted that the one that had let him in wasn’t there, though his companion was. He nodded to him before leaving the compound. The gate guard had also changed, this time replaced by two others. Jonas nodded to them too as he left. Could be change of shift, probably nothing suspicious, he thought to himself as he walked along the street back towards the inn. The street was much busier now than when he’d walked in the other direction as the morning business had begun in earnest. He’d been out a little longer than he’d intended and the others might be wondering where he was.
He walked back quickly and let himself back in through the side door of the inn. He made his way back to his and Alia’s room, noting the sounds of people up and about as he passed.
Alia was waiting for him when he got back.
“Where have you been?” she said, a strange note in her voice.
“I told you, I had an errand to run.” He moved towards his bed and straightened it up, taking the opportunity to surreptitiously drop the leather bag off.
“It couldn’t wait until we were all up?”
“The others up and about then?”
“Having breakfast.”
“I see,” Jonas said, looking towards the door.
“What was the errand?” Alia said insistently.
Jonas turned to look at her. “It’s time,” he said.
“Time for what?”
Jonas retrieved the leather bag. “Here,” he said. “This is for you.”
Alia looked at him, confused. “It’s not my birthday,” she said.
“Just look at it,” he said.
Alia opened the bag and drew out the rod, eyes widening as she did so. “Really?” she said.
“Yes.”
“But…”
“You’re ready.”
“You dying or something?” she said, looking at him suspiciously.
“I hope not.”
Alia examined the rod again. “Really?” she said.
“Really.”
“I thought there were tests or something?”
“You passed.”
“You might have told me I was taking them.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“Still, I thought there were procedures, paperwork, that sort of thing.”
“All done.”
Alia pulled out the sheet of paper. “Alia Hunter. Really?”
“You’re saying that a lot.”
“Alia Hunter. I could get used to that I suppose.”
“You’d better. It’s what you’re licensed as.”
“Why didn’t you give them my real name?”
“This is the start of your career. A new you. A new start. Just like I did, many years ago.”
“Wait. Jonas Hunter?”
“Yeah. I didn’t choose it. It was a joke from my old tutor.”
“And you decided to do the same to me?”
“That’s what tutors are for. You want me to take it back?”
“No,” Alia said quickly, hugging it to her chest. “You really think I’m ready though?”
“I do. Have a little more confidence in yourself.”
“So … partners rather than master and apprentice then?”
“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Master Hunter and Junior Hunter.”
“I can live with that.”
“Good. So … breakfast I suppose?”
“Breakfast,” Alia said, stowing the rod back in the bag and tucking it over her shoulder
“You go on ahead,” he said. “I’ll catch you up shortly.” Breakfast, Jonas thought to himself. Given what he was about to do, it would probably be the hardest meal he was ever going to have.
*****
“As inn food goes, this is some of the best I’ve had,” Trimas said, looking happily at his empty plate.
“As inn food goes? Someone clearly needs to forget they grew up in a castle.”
Trimas turned to Daeholf, fork still in hand, and waved it at him. “I had plenty of bad food while I was marching all over the place, just because my parents happened to have a top-class team of cooks…”
“While you were marching all over the place you had a general’s staff. I was in a siege and had to eat roast rat and boot leather.”
Alia, who was also sat in the inn’s back room, looked over at Zedek and asked, “Do they always do this or just when I’m around?”
“Oh, every so often. Feel free to join in.”
“Okay. Jonas and I are very good at keeping ourselves supplied.”
“I think, from observing the pair bicker, you’re supposed to add something derogatory in with the claim,” Zedek said.
Alia nodded and looked at the other two. “A man who thinks he’s too good for the road and a man who thinks he’s too good for a castle.”
“She’s good at this,” Daeholf conceded.
“Jonas hired this back room for a meeting. Any ideas what it’s about and why we aren’t in the main room?”
“Trimas, is that you deflecting the attention?”
“Yes Daeholf, it is.”
At this point Jonas came in through the door, stopped a few paces in and said, “I’m glad you’re all here.” As he had called them here himself Trimas turned to make a joke, but was given reason to pause. One problem he’d had in politics was everyone hid their real thoughts behind controlled faces, but there was nothing hidden now. The weight of stress and age clearly visible on Jonas’ face wasn’t shocking enough; it was the look of mournful sadness on Alia’s face which told all three of the newcomers she hadn’t seen Jonas like this before. Ever before.
“What’s wrong?” Alia asked, half standing from her chair.
“I need to say something, something to Zedek. And to all of you, I suppose.”
He pulled a chair and sat down, reaching for the drink they’d got him and which had sat growing even warmer on the table.
“To me?” Zedek said quietly, clearly nervous at being the focus of something unknown.
“There is something I need to say. Please let me say it.”
Daeholf turned to Trimas, and both nodded. Clearly something bad was going to happen.
“I should have realised you were an elf. I know they don’t look like the legends say. Your ears being lost, the way they avoid us all, it didn’t occur to me, but I should have known.”
“Why?” Zedek whispered.
“I’ve seen an elf before, you see.”
“Where?”
“I need to start further back. I told you that Marlen and I knew each other. Years ago, when he was different, we knew each other. That’s still true. But I left things out. Firstly, there were three of us. Marlen, who I met first, and then a woman called Karina. We were a team, but… Looking back, maybe I’d say we were a family. The three of us. Marlen and Karina were older, and there was nothing sexual, but… A family. Those bonds… That’s how it happened, because of those bonds.”
Trimas wanted to speak, but knew he
had to keep his tongue bitten and let Jonas release the weight above him.
“Marlen was interested in medicine even then, and he was good. Very good, actually. But when Karina fell ill he couldn’t stop what was ailing her. There wasn’t even really a name for it, just the old phrases healers had used for generations as they failed to stop it. Marlen grew frustrated, because he, and I, would have done anything to save her. That was the problem. Karina was dying and we would do anything. God, Zedek, I’m sorry, please understand, she was like a mother and I didn’t see clearly, I thought I had to do it, I had to.”
Still confused and embarrassed, Zedek just asked, “What did you do?”
“Marlen worked out a way to cure Karina. He knew it, he was so sure. If he could exchange, he said transfuse, if he could transfuse a sufficient quantity of elven blood into her body, she would be healed.”
“Wh… What?”
“He said she’d get better if we transfused her with elven blood.”
“What … what are you saying?” Zedek had gone pale on the outside, and cold inside. Elves didn’t just hand blood over to humanity. They didn’t even trade crops with humanity.
“We went and got some. We went to the ends of the empire and we obtained elf blood.”
“Obtained? Obtained!” Zedek’s voice was growing louder. “Obtained elf blood!” His temper snapped in shock. “What do you think we are, what sort of monsters do you imagine us, we don’t have magic blood!”
“That is exactly it. We thought you were monsters. Everyone thinks you’re monsters. It felt different, almost like hunting. It didn’t feel like we were hurting a person, not at first.”
“And how the fuck did you get an elf to bleed for you, tie them up and take your goblet’s worth?”
“No Zedek, you misunderstand, we killed one, we killed an elf.”
Zedek didn’t reply verbally, but his hands began twitching and his face went red.
“I’m sorry, we would have done anything, and we did.”
“How… Did… You…” Zedek hissed through gritted teeth, “transport this blood back.”
“We didn’t transport it, we captured a prisoner, took him back until we were with Karina, and killed him there.”
Zedek was on his feet before anyone could react, growling in a language none of them could understand, chair flying back behind him, and he moved towards Jonas. Alia then began to rise, but paused as she saw Daeholf raise a hand to try and wave her back. Did he doubt Zedek would attack Jonas, or did he want Zedek to attack Jonas? But she found herself pausing, knowing this had to be worked out between the pair of them.
Zedek stopped with his head inches from Jonas’, and his spit flecked the bigger man’s face as he shouted. “You tied one of us up, you marched them across an empire, and you killed them, in cold fucking blood, for this lunatic? And you think we’re the bloody monsters. You fucking bastard. Fucking bastard.” His tone turned cold. “Tell me, tell me this, what did you do when your precious Karina died?”
Jonas looked into Zedek’s eyes, neither angry nor afraid at his approach, but on the verge of tears.
“She didn’t die. She lived. She is still alive. Whatever Marlen did, it worked. But Zedek, it broke us apart. As she healed, as we had the time to think, it was clear Marlen was proud of what he’d done, whereas as I … I was ashamed. Every day I was ashamed, more and more. And Karina, she wasn’t inscrutable, and I knew she wasn’t happy. So we split up. Marlen must have pursued his experiments and I fell into bounty hunting, into mage hunting, all the while trying to bury what I’d done.”
“I ought to bury you.”
“You’d be right to try.”
“That brother of mine died for nothing. You know that, right? Marlen used magic. He could probably have put your blood into her and done it, he died for nothing. Because you believed a fairy tale.”
“I don’t know what to say other than I’m sorry, please, can you understand?”
“You want some sort of forgiveness? From me? For my people?” Zedek pulled his head back, glanced around the room, and concluded, “No. It's not that easy. The only person who could forgive you is dead and you killed them. And as for me…” Zedek shook his head, and walked quickly out of the room.
Jonas was staring at the floor, and Alia realised there was a tear running down his face, lost in the mistakes of his past. As she heard chairs move she saw Daeholf and Trimas rise and begin following their friend out.
“We better make sure he’s alright,” Daeholf explained.
“And Marlen?”
Daeholf bit his cheek. “We won’t leave town without telling you. Look after him,” and he nodded at Jonas.
“Of course.” Then they left.
Alia turned and looked at her mentor, a man she’d never seen broken down by the crimes of the past, and tested her own heart. Could she have done what he’d done?
Yes, yes she could. To save her mother, a real mother, to have one, she’d kill. And she realised, looking at Jonas, that she’d kill to save this substitute father of hers. He was no different to her now, he had not been belittled in her eyes, and she knew she had to tell him. But if she’d been Zedek, could she understand then?
Maybe not. Maybe her new allies would go, and it would just be them again.
She should tell him.
Walking over, kneeling down, she took one of his gnarled hands, and he looked up and saw her smiling face filled with care.
“You don’t…” he rasped.
“No, no I don’t.”
*****
Alia had stayed with Jonas after their new friends left, but it was clear he didn’t want, or couldn’t, speak much more as he was lost in his thoughts. Normally Alia would have sat over him all night, but as she’d waited in his room her eyes had been drawn to his rod of office, and she’d pondered the one she’d received. The more she pondered the more one thought burned bright in her mind, until she was a moth unable to resist. Jonas wasn’t going to do anything that evening, but she could.
She went to her room, dressed for business, slipped her knives into closely worn sheathes that would enable her to climb or squeeze through windows, and went out into the town’s evening. All she had to go on was a description, but when those details were clearly remembered, well-articulated, and referred to someone who was proud of intimidation, it bought a quick result. She bought one round of drinks for a likely looking group, asked one question, and was answered on the condition she leave immediately before anyone could link even their limited conversation.
This was how Alia came to be standing at one end of a crowded inn, ale in hand but barely sipped, her eyes looking through the people to the large, scarred, black-clad man holding court at the other end. It was a risk, of course, that he’d see her here, but she could make herself fade away… After all, she’d learnt from Jonas. But he didn’t notice, and when he stood and left she followed at a suitable pace behind.
They walked through the streets of the town, still busy, and headed towards the buildings used by merchants as warehouses and workshops. Uniform, dark wooden buildings, they soon came to one which looked like all the rest, into which the man walked.
Alia did a complete circuit of the huge building, and noticed a shuttered window on the second floor, partly open and allowing air to flow. She climbed a structure whose rough, vernacular cladding was designed for use rather than looks and so full of opportunity for a nimble person, and soon peered beyond the shutter.
It was dark inside the main storeroom, but the moon behind her showed makeshift cages along the opposite wall, with people trying to sleep within. So they really did have prisoners they were selling on. A guard sat at one end, with a spear, presumably to poke people into silence.
With the sound of a coach approaching, Alia dropped down and put her boots on before peering round a corner and watching a bound and gagged woman get forced from the building and out into the coach which then drove off.
It was time for the rest of her p
lan, so she brazenly walked down this side of the warehouse, to the entrance where her target was standing.
“How much to buy a corpse,” she asked, and the two people spun round, hands on the pommels of weapons. One was the black-clad man, the other was a much smaller guard. His weapon was probably illegal.
“Oh, it’s you,” came the reply as the target recognised her.
“I’m serious, how much to buy a corpse?”
“Dunno what you’re talking about.” But not only did the man’s face give away what Alia already knew, that there were people in there, it gave away that he’d sold corpses before and wasn’t happy about it.
“You tried to buy me, we both know that, so we know you have people. I need a corpse.”
“You’re a bounty hunter…”
“Yes, and I have a description of a bounty. Only they’re not being taken in, ‘their’ body is. When I get one. I hope you have some that might fit…”
“I could just kill you and take your money.”
“If you wanted to just rob people you’d do that, instead you have this business…”
“You’ll need to speak to the boss.”
“Is he in?”
“Yeah, alright, follow me.”
He turned into the building, and Alia followed. There was a stink of sweat and shit coming from a barred door, but they turned left into an office. Alia went in, the door was shut behind, and he stood in front of it as guard. All attention was now on the man behind the desk. A short, thin man with a fully bald head and a quill raised above an accounts book. A man who put all his faith and protection in the other man. Useful.
“What have we here?”
“She wants to buy a body.”
“Not another one, what is this place turning into? So, you want to buy a corpse?”
“Yes.”
“How does God let two of you weirdos exist. What’s the story?”
“She’s a bounty hunter.”
“Ah, so this is a ruse to get here.” Alia didn’t protest. “Well, we’re both present, so why not tell us what you’re really after.”
Alia smiled calmly. “I think you’ve been sending the sick and the dead to a man called Marlen, a healer. I want to know where he is.”
The bald man put a hand to his head and rubbed, clearly thinking. When he took the hand away he’d made the decision. “No, I can’t betray a client. I’m afraid we’ll have to kill you.”
Dark Healer (An Empire Falls Book 1) Page 34