“Anderest Herchsten’s will and testament,” Trip says. “If the amethyst exists, it may be documented here.”
If I wasn’t so pressed for time, I’d beat the Chronicler senseless for holding back. Perhaps sensing he’s tempting his fate, the old man’s face slackens into something a bit more subservient. “Will there be anything else, gentlemen?”
“I don’t think so—” Trip starts but I cut him off.
“Tisha Underly,” I say, though I’m unsure of what it may tell me. “Genealogy of the Underly family.”
Back to being a public servant, the Chronicler nods. “Very well.”
I leave the old man to it and turn back to Trip, who’s already got the will and testament opened and is running a finger down one of the first few pages.
17
BURN IT ALL
It takes all my resolve to not reach over and take the ledger from Trip. Finally, I’m going to get something tangible, some solid lead I can follow to the bottom of this barrel.
“Well?” I prompt.
“Chronicler’s right.” Trip stops moving his lips and taps the page he’s on. “According to the stamped executor date from the Magistrate’s Office, this will is three years old.”
My shoulders slump. “Which means it wasn’t recently stolen.”
Trip twists his lips. “Didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?”
“Nothing about this case has been easy,” I grumble. “Here, give me that.” I reach over and slide the ledger so that it rests more or less between the two of us.
The first few pages are nonsensical legalese: dates, stamps, signatures, double and triple signatures, sound of mind clause, and all that. It’s not until halfway through the will that we find the terms of the beneficiaries.
“Well, son of a demon’s bastard,” Trip says. “Seems old Haurice made out like a bandit.”
True, in the most understated of manners. Haurice’s name comes up quite a bit as beneficiary. According to this will, outdated as it is, Anderest’s death was the greatest thing to happen in Haurice’s life. The entire estate and all relevant business ventures are entitled to the smug servant.
Two things come out of this. One, Haurice wasn’t lying when he told me Anderest had said that he’d granted him the keys to the estate. And two, Haurice had every reason to have Anderest killed.
“I’m thinking we have what we were looking for,” Trip says, pointing to one of numerous mentions of Haurice’s name in the ledger.
And I’m thinking I can’t wait to shove my wand down Haurice’s throat and unleash holy hell. I wonder if Haurice has drawn up a will and testament of his own? If not, would the Herchsten estate go to Haurice’s next of kin, or would it revert to Vayvanette? That’d be icing on this dung-filled cake.
Which piques my curiosity. I swat Trip’s hand from the ledger and I scan page after page, searching.
My handsiness draws a gruff grunt from Trip. “Now what are you looking for?”
“I haven’t seen Vayvanette’s name once in here.” I look over at him. “Have you?”
“Ahh … no.” All trace of irritation is gone as he looks at the ledger in confusion. “That’s a bit odd.”
“Isn’t it? She’s been back in Anderest’s life for years now. You’d think he’d leave her at least something.”
“This will is outdated, remember?”
“Still.” This doesn’t bode well for my client. And I’m not talking about financially. I look up at Trip and he must catch the look I’m giving him.
“What?” he asks.
“Haurice kills Anderest to get a jump on being the new man about the house …”
“That’s what this shows.” He waves a hand at the ledger.
“Then what reason would Haurice have to go and steal the current will and testament?”
“Huh.” Trip looks away in thought. “If it had been changed, maybe cutting him out, Haurice would prefer this one be the official will.”
I mull that over for a moment. “Haurice never once mentioned this outdated will. I almost think he doesn’t even know it exists. The missing will actually hurts his claims, puts Vayvanette at the best position to inherit everything.”
“So you’re saying he wouldn’t have stolen the will from the vault?”
“I don’t know. I mean, if he knew this one exists, then his best bet would be to have it etched in stone and mounted above the fireplace. Yet, he hasn’t said one word regarding it.”
“Then?”
“If the current will reads much like this one,” I take a deep breath, “the only person I can see benefiting from this document never seeing the light of day is Vayvanette. Without the will, she could contest the contents. As the last living heir in Wrought Isles, she’d have the best claim to the entire estate. The executor wouldn’t think twice about Haurice.”
“So,” Trip hops on board my downhill cart, “Haurice—the person most likely to kill Anderest and benefit from it—wouldn’t steal the will.”
“Exactly.”
Trip shakes his head as we both see that mental cart hitting a brick wall. “So now we’re thinking Haurice is innocent?”
“Oh, he’s not innocent,” I say without doubt. “I know he had a hand in this. I just can’t see where, or why.”
Trip puts a hand down over the ledger to get my undivided attention. “Look, Gideon. Either he killed the old man and stole the will, or he didn’t. Just because you don’t like Haurice, doesn’t mean you can start laying blame because you want him to be guilty.”
“This has nothing to do with how I feel about Haurice.” A small lie, but a larger truth. “I just want to get these pieces to fit.”
“Your girl fits in perfectly with the missing will if it names Haurice as beneficiary.”
I know it, but she’s still my client and I have to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“She hired me to find the will,” I remind him.
He counters with, “She hired you to find her grandfather’s murderer.”
“Same thing,” I say.
He stares deadpan at me. “Is it?”
I go back to the ledger to search for another answer as much as to get away from Trip’s eyes. After flipping back to the first page to see where the catalogue of Anderest’s prized possessions is, I find the correct page and start scanning.
Devil’s balls, Anderest has quite a list. Detailed, as well. Item name, general description, name of person or institute to which it is to be granted. Most of the items of mageworks import are to be given to the College, as they appear to be beneficial to the entire population of Wrought Isles. Some are to be given to museums or churches, others to various schools. Six pages into the catalogue list and I finally find it: the one thing this case is hinged upon.
It’s listed only as: Amethyst. Containment crystal: universal. Beneficiary: College of Magician’s Aristocracy, Wrought Isles.
“So it’s real,” I whisper. An odd sense of relief washes over me, mixed with a touch of pride. “The old man actually did it.”
“Question is,” Trip cuts into my moment, “how much is something like that worth?”
Reality hardens my words. “Enough to kill for,” I say. And my client is at the top of that list.
“But without the true will, we don’t know who rightly owns the thing. If,” he adds, “we find it, that is.”
I look up at him. He’s using we again. Almost feels like old times.
Behind me, the Chronicler clears his throat to gain our attention. I glance his way and wonder how long he’s been standing there.
“Yes?” I say.
“Your inquiry, sir,” he says, nodding to the book in his hands. I’m starting to seriously wonder if this man is extremely intelligent and thinks himself way above others, or if he might be one of those savants people talk about.
I feel quite like an imbecile at the moment because he has to remind me what I’d sent him for.
“Underly genealogy,” he says.
“Ah, yes, of course,” I say, as if I was on top of things. I take the book and set it on the table, where I open it up and, on the very first page, find my suspicions warranted. Now I know where I’ve heard the name before.
The Arcanium.
“What’s that for?” Trip asks. “Haven’t we found what we’re looki—”
Trip doesn’t get to finish his sentence as the door to the Hall bursts open. Instinct and reflexes take over for both me and Trip and we’re on our feet, our chairs sliding out from behind us. One teeters over and clatters to the ground but neither of us looks back as our eyes are on the intruder.
The handsome intruder.
“Captain!” Silverman exclaims, hands in the air before him in attempt to calm Trip down. The guard is obviously flustered, cheeks red as an apple, dainty drops of sweat glistening on his forehead like a dewy crown. Even in a harried state, Silverman looks better than I ever will. I make a mental note to keep Vayvanette away from this one.
Curse it! Even after finding out that the woman is likely a murderer I’m still jealous of other men. Another mental note: get out more and meet more women, preferably the non-murderous type.
“What is it, Silverman?” Trip demands. He looks to be about two breaths away from having his sword drawn.
“Magistrates, sir!”
“What about them?”
“They’re on their way here.”
“Why?” I say, paranoia setting in.
Silverman looks my way. “Word is there was warning of arcane magic in the Hall of Chronicles.”
Why’s he looking at me? What does he know?
“Why are they coming here?” Trip asks aloud.
“That would be me, sir,” the Chronicler says. He’s retreated to his station and is attempting to look at Trip and the open door at the same time. “I always incant wards before letting anyone into the Hall. It was those incants that warned me of unholy magic.”
“Why would you tell the Magistrate something so absurd?” Trip demands.
Not to mention, how did he tell them? I don’t have the time to figure out the answer as to how, as I’m relegated to figuring out a different how—how to get the hells out of here. I don’t know what wards the Chronicler used, but whatever they were, they managed to pinpoint my affiliation by blood.
What do I do?
Silverman’s at the door, Trip’s at my side with his hand on his hilt, and the Chronicler is hiding behind his counter. There’s no way out of this, not without revealing way too much to Trip. He knows about my father, but he has no clue how strong my father’s blood runs in me. Things aren’t the best between us as it is—to find out I’m truly half-arcane would be the final nail in the coffin.
“We need to leave,” I blurt out.
“We’ve done nothing wrong,” Trip says.
“Have you not?” a woman’s voice reaches out to us from the hallway beyond the door.
Silverman, just this side of the open door, turns to block the way. He hasn’t drawn his sword, but his hand is unwavering near the hilt.
“Stand aside, Watchman,” the unseen woman intones in a cool manner.
“Do as she asks, Silverman,” Trip orders when the watchman hesitates.
“Who …?” I begin to ask as Silverman back-steps further into the Hall, closer to our table.
An elegantly-aged woman steps into the Hall, flanked by four mages, with varying stripes of color on their coats denoting them as Magisters from each practice. The woman is handsome enough in closefitting trousers and a maroon blouse, looking not the least disheveled being that it is well past midnight and I doubt she’d been awake just minutes ago. She wears a veil of authority like most men would a coat and she twirls a strand of her long blonde hair as she takes us in.
“Head Magistrate Offren,” Trip says, dipping slightly in some form of bow.
All’s hells. Head Magistrate. That would make the four Magisters who had spread out around her the most powerful mages in Wrought Isles. I didn’t just step into a pit of vipers, I’d kicked a wasp nest into it with me for good measure.
“Captain Standard,” the Head Magistrate intones, head angling to the side. “Odd to see you here, and at such an ungodly hour.”
“Justice never sleeps, Head Magistrate.”
I look over at Trip and fight the urge to groan. “Really, Trip?” I half-whisper. “Justice never sleeps?”
Trip shrugs, but I catch the corner of his mouth twitch in a smile. I wonder how long he’s been waiting to use that trumped-up line.
“Justice,” the Head Magistrate repeats, a twitch of a smile on her lips as well. “It’s well that you put it that way, as that is why I’ve been alerted this night. Arcane magic has infiltrated our sacred halls and I am stunned to find you, and your … compatriot, at the heart of it.”
She turns he attention to me. “I don’t believe I’ve had the honor.”
“Knell. Gideon Knell.” I refuse to bow. Never learned properly, never going to.
The name apparently doesn’t ring a bell. The Head Magistrate snaps her fingers and the closest Magister, a spirit mage with weathered skin riddled with liver spots, leans in to whisper something to her.
“Ah,” she says after the Magister steps back. “Some sort of detective, is it?”
“Some sort, yeah,” I say in an offhand manner. I’m busy trying to decide how to get past the woman and the Magisters with my skin intact.
“Well then you won’t mind if I do some detecting of my own, now would you?” From a side pocket of her trousers, she pulls out a small scrying glass, much like my own back at my office.
Sweat pours down my back at the sight. If that’s what I think it is, I’m done for. If that thing is capable of detecting what’s in my blood, then one look through the glass and I’ll be found out.
“Look, Head Magistrate,” I say, trying to buy time. “I’m here on behalf of my client. We were just about to leave—”
“Of course,” she says magnanimously. “But first.” She lifts the scrying glass and whispers an incant. I watch her distorted eye as she peers at me through the glass, and when it widens in surprise I prepare to bolt.
“Just as I suspected,” she announces. “Arcane.”
Trip makes a sound in his throat and takes a step away from me, where he looks me up and down, disgust dripping from his face.
“It’s not what you think!” I tell him.
“All this time,” Trip says, hand tightening on his sword hilt.
“You never asked,” I say, scrambling my brain for an excuse.
“Perhaps, you should ask now, Captain,” the Head Magistrate says. “Ask Gideon Knell what he keeps hidden from you.”
My heart threatens to break a few ribs on its way out.
“Precisely in his left pocket.”
Her last words catch me off guard. So much so that I find myself repeating them. “My … left pocket?”
Realization hits me like a hammer made of cold water. My left pocket?
“My left pocket!” I exclaim, much to Trip’s concern. He hasn’t drawn his sword, yet, but he’s giving me more of a confused look now, not to mention he’s taken another step back from me. I’ll take that over disgust any day of the week.
I reach into my pocket, eagerly, and the four Magisters bristle across the room. I freeze when they raise their hands and part their lips, incantations of pain and death at the ready.
“Slowly, Knell,” the Head Magistrate orders.
I do as she says, not because she says, but because I’m a tick away from being cooked, shocked, knocked aside, and gods know what else. Slowly, and I do mean slowly, I pull out the small dragonfly I’d purchased on my way to the Crag. I hold it up carefully for all to see then place it on the table before me, right next to the book regarding the Underly genealogy.
At a nod from the Head Magistrate, the reed-thin wind mage walks over to the table, touches the fingertips and thumbs of both her hands together in an open ball, and whispers
an incant. The air around the dragonfly shimmers and my best guess is that she’s created a ward around the object of arcane magic. Once done, she gives an all-clear signal to the Head Magistrate.
“It was only a sleeping spell,” I say in defense, and, yes, to point out the excessive reaction to the thing. “Designed to keep nightmares at bay.”
The Head Magistrate thanks the wind mage with a nod then settles her gaze on me. “With unholy magic, one can never be too sure.”
I can’t yet slow my heartbeat, but now that the fear of being found out has drained from my blood, I allow my shoulders to relax. I have to wipe my hands on my trousers twice to dry them, but I’m starting to come back to normal.
Trip eases closer to me, a look of reprimand smacking me across the back the of the head.
Sorry, I mouth to him.
“Well then,” Trip says, voice steady as a beam. “Now that that’s been cleared, we’ll be on our way.”
It seems I’m not the only one who wants to be rid of this crowded place.
The Head Magistrate sighs and raises a stalling hand. “I wish it were that easy, Captain.”
“But—”
“You, though unwillingly, brought arcane magic into the College. That is a crime. And you have yet to explain your presence here in the first place.”
“Like you mentioned,” Trip said, “I’m here to aid Gideon in an investigation into a murder.”
“Ah. That would be the … Anderest Herchsten murder, yes?”
Though the woman pretended to have to think about the name, something in my gut screams that it was all a show. I don’t know why, but she wants us to think the murder is something far from her mind.
“Yes,” both Trip and I say at once, then glance at each other, realizing that we’d both come to the same conclusion.
“Last I heard, the case was given over to the magistrates,” the Head Magistrate says. “I believe you were informed of this, Captain.”
The Amethyst Angle Page 19