Zae smiled weakly. “I appreciate that. Trying to soften it for me, I mean. But if Ruby’s in on it, then she’s in on it. Maybe that’s why she’s so nice. She’s cozying up to the academy because she wants to earn the trust of anyone with something to hide. And she does blood magic,” she added, remembering the healing spell Ruby was applying to a saw on Zae’s first day.
Keren sighed. “Sorry, Pixie. It does make sense.”
“More sense than anything else. What about the blood in the vault?”
Keren handed a mug down and joined Zae on the floor. She took a turn at brushing Apple’s flank while Zae sipped her tea. “Yenna will let us know when she receives word. What about the circles on the map?”
Zae inhaled steam, ordering her thoughts. She’d been tumbling over herself to tell Keren everything when she arrived at the Seventh Church, but she’d had to keep it all packed down for so long that other thoughts had become stacked on top of it all and now had to be shifted aside. “All right. Let me go over it again. At the other sites, I couldn’t figure out what the circles were actually meant to be circling, but at the Forae Logos I found nearly fresh blood whose owner couldn’t be divined, and a very nice clerk showed me what had been researched just this morning at the table next to the blood.” She had shared this much already, but she didn’t recall exactly what she’d said, so it didn’t hurt to say it again. “Whoever sat next to the blood was reading books on religious artifacts, all of which contained entries on the Bloodstones. Folklore and legends about them. Things like that. And she remembered him moving from one section of the library to another. At the other place where he sat, there was another stack of books, but that was someone else’s section. She’s not sure she’ll be able to find out what he’d been reading there. She offered to try to sweet-talk the clerk who reshelved them, but she might have changed her mind once my charm spell wore off.”
“He was looking up multiple things in different places? Or he wanted to make sure those two stacks didn’t look like they connected to the same person? Why does he care?”
“I didn’t connect it earlier, the two stacks, but this makes the odds good that it wasn’t a hand-off or a sale. The same person was in both places, and he was researching the Bloodstones, and something else. Maybe he just switched seats to be closer to wherever the other topic was shelved. So whoever has the Bloodstone and whatever they’re using it for, I don’t think that’s worked out for them the way they planned it. Something’s gone wrong that they need to try to research again.”
“Do you think that’s where the Araznians were planning to go when they left us?”
“I’m pretty sure. The blood was fresh. But they didn’t get to the library in time and the thief was already gone and the trail was lost. I don’t think they even went in. I’m sure the librarians would have still been talking about it if a bunch of bandits had tried to storm their guards.”
“Or maybe they homed in on a different building? You said that the other sites were too vague to yield anything. Maybe those sites were only too vague to you. What if you only focused on the library because you were thinking about the stolen books hidden in the workroom? At least now we know they weren’t involved. Even though it means those inventors died for nothing…”
Was it possible her own bias turned her toward the Forae Logos? Maybe. “I’m not disagreeing. But that circle looked like it really was centered on the library. The other circles were more vague; they covered more than just one main site.”
“So. What was in those other areas?”
Zae set her mug down and traced her thumb along its rim. Apple perked his head up and sniffed at the contents, then settled his chin back down on his paws with a quiet huff.
“The one in the Coins could have been a hostel or a slave auction hall, a dead end street, or any of about five market stalls.”
“What did the stalls sell?”
Zae closed her eyes, focusing on recreating the visual memory. It wasn’t that she hadn’t paid attention; it was that she’d assumed the information unimportant and discarded it. “I think … food sellers, and a fortune-teller or two.”
“That would make sense, a few steps away from the door of a hostel. Maybe the thief was staying there.”
“Maybe.”
“What about the other site?”
“The Foreign Quarter? There, it could have been any number of taverns or gambling dens. Maybe the thief tried to sell it to a fence when he realized he was being chased for it.”
“Except that if he went to all that trouble to get it out of the vault in the first place, he’d already expect to be chased for it.”
“Well, yes. I was thinking if he was trying to sell it, he’d have to unwrap it to prove it was real. So, it was a lot of taverns and gambling, and a combat arena—the Irorium, it’s called. With such a big betting industry built up around the arena, the thief could have tried using it there, with a few well-placed bets … but again, no one smart enough to pull this off would go to that much risk for something priceless and then turn around and use it for such a relatively small … reward. Keren…?”
The knight’s gaze had gone distant. “The Irorium?”
“Yes. It’s where the—”
“—devoted followers of Irori train and practice.” Their eyes met. “I’m so stupid,” Keren whispered.
“Why? What is it?”
“He said he went to a fortune-teller. He’s been hanging around the Tempering Hall so much to see if they’re onto him, and meanwhile he’s watching them fight and learning how to beat them. The Bloodstones don’t do very much for mortals, but ‘divine tools for divine goals.’”
“Wait … Who said? What goals?”
“You know what’s worth that much risk for something priceless? Trying to become a god.”
25
AN ABUNDANCE OF NOT-LIES
ZAE
“You’re okay! I was worried!” Rowan spun Zae by the shoulders in order to hug her properly. “Everything exploded and then you were gone, and when you didn’t come in today I started to think the worst.”
Zae endured the hug, mumbling quietly, but didn’t return it. She pulled him over to a quiet corner of the tea shop’s cellar, eyes blazing with anger. He felt her heat, and it slowed him. He drew back a step, swaying on his feet as if he was ready to bolt. “What is it?”
Zae pressed her lips together, missing the feeling of the metal ring to center her. “Your net. Your bronze-damned net that I helped you make.”
Above them in the rafters, the clockwork hummingbird preened.
“My … what about my net? I turned it in, I got paid, I tried to find you to give you your share!”
“Your net was used on me. I was under it in a store room all night. I liked you and I trusted you, and you betrayed me like … like a squirmy little betraying thing!” Instead of shouting, her voice got lower and lower as her anger rose, until it was barely a hiss. Zae whispered a few last choice words, then turned and stormed out, making sure to stomp her way up the stairs.
Several doors away, in the back room of a quiet bookshop, she waited. It was only minutes before Rowan joined her. Keren browsed in the next aisle, and when the halfling entered, she slipped around, book still in her hand.
“What was that about?” Rowan asked. He looked close to tears. “You said to meet you here so I am, but—”
Zae hugged him properly now. She should have been upset, but seeing his genuine distress had melted her anger away; having a chance to vent it, even if it had been partly an act for the sake of Ruby’s familiar, had been punishment enough. “I’m going to cast a lie-detecting spell,” she said into his shoulder. “Is that okay?”
“Y-yes, of course.” He pulled away. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
Zae closed her birthmarked hand around her gear and murmured the prayer to Brigh. “Because I wasn’t lying about the net. I spent last night trapped under it, and between Keren and me, I’m the lucky one. So I’d like you to tell me who c
ommissioned it, exactly, and how it happened. Because it wasn’t the district council, I can promise you that.”
“I am so, so sorry,” the halfling said, encompassing Keren in his apology and rubbing his hands over his face. “I had no idea.” His aura didn’t waver.
“Tell me how you got involved in this,” Keren said.
Rowan turned his big eyes to Zae, but she only nodded. She believed Rowan, or wanted to, but that did not mean Rowan was in the clear.
He slumped against the shelf, gathering his thoughts.
Zae prompted him sharply. “From the beginning, if you would.”
“I…” He cleared his throat. “A well-dressed lady, a district councilor named Vinian Kerr, offered me a commission to build a prototype net that could detain magic-wielding suspects without harming them. She gave me a generous advance, and then again when I showed her the drafted plans, and I swept up a good bit of the cognate into helping me fabricate it. I turned it in and got paid, with a bonus for quickness. That’s all I know.”
“And then,” Zae appended, “some less than savory characters used it for less than savory purposes.”
“I swear, I believed her that I was building it for the city, to help save lives.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“Her assistant sent for me at home, and brought me to her at a very stately house in the Merchants’ Quarter. The weather was nice, so she met me in the side garden. That’s where I met her both times I went back.”
Keren pursed her lips. “So, a well-dressed woman had you come to a house she said was hers, but never actually let you inside.”
“Well yeah, I…” Rowan slowed as realization dawned. He dragged a hand through his disheveled hair. “She wasn’t really Councilor Kerr, was she? She was either a servant at that house or she’d bribed one of them to let her use the garden. I’m usually so much more careful. I don’t know what happened. I guess I let my eagerness get the best of me.”
Keren looked toward Zae, who nodded. “All true. Or at least, all non-lie.”
Rowan made a wounded face. “Ouch. But yes, all right. I deserved that.”
The door chimed. Zae glanced around, but saw no one. “Tell me about the cognate. Is everyone okay? How bad was the damage?”
“Our projects were ruined, but nobody in our cognate was seriously hurt. Not now that you’re accounted for, I mean. Today we started over on the dual-schematics project in the tea cellar. Nobody felt like going back into the workroom.”
“Who’ll clean up in there?”
“The Thumpers take care of that. It’s probably already clean, and at least halfway fixed.”
“Do they know what happened to the machines?” Keren asked.
“The administrators might, but they don’t mix with the likes of us.” Rowan shrugged. “I’ve heard that there were bombs, that there was an overload of magic through the system, that the building just decided to pop all its gaskets for no apparent reason … Some people are saying that the Assembler didn’t like what some group was doing in there, and decided to punish them. That last one’s the only one too implausible to have any truth to it. The Assembler has never been seen by anyone, and there’ve certainly been much more volatile experiments going on in that building without any incident at all.”
Zae exchanged a look with Keren, and nodded. “No lies. We can trust him, I’m sure of it.”
She expected Keren to be skeptical of her quickness to trust, and was surprised when Keren nodded, following her instincts without complaint. The lie-detecting spell must have helped.
Far more succinctly than Zae might have managed, Keren summarized the disappearance of the Bloodstone, the use of the net in their capture, and their concern over Ruby’s allegiance. As Zae listened, she remembered she still needed to find Glivia and apologize for losing the shard of metal from her finger.
Rowan whistled through his teeth. “Now I see why the big show in the cellar,” he muttered.
“Her bird was buzzing around us the moment I got there,” Zae said. “If she knew that her people captured us and we escaped, she would have been expecting me to storm in and turn on you for that net, no doubt. And I did, so now she’ll think she’s successfully framed you.”
“And that helps us how?”
“Because we need her confident enough that she stops paying attention to us, because now we know who the thief is, and her people can’t be allowed to get to him first.”
“Who’s the thief?”
“We think it’s Omari. We think he’s going to try to use the Bloodstone in his ascension test.”
Rowan’s whole demeanor changed, from defensive and defeated to alert and hard. “Omari? Omari the ‘I want to commission a bard for my epic ballad’ Omari?”
“Yes. Why?” Zae asked.
Rowan swallowed and squared his shoulders. “Because Pendris took him up on that commission. She’s on her way to meet him right now.”
* * *
“I should have followed her,” Rowan said, not for the first time.
“And if she’d spotted you?” Zae asked.
“Then she’d have seen me keeping her safe.” The halfling frowned. “I don’t like this.”
They arrived at the Duck and Castle and Rowan pushed his way inside. “Nothing,” he reported a moment later. “They’re not here.”
“Are there private rooms they could be in, or…?”
“No, they were going to meet here and then go somewhere quieter to work.”
Zae bit her lip. “You don’t have anything of hers on you, do you? Apple could track her.”
With a faint blush, Rowan withdrew an embroidered handkerchief. Zae held it under Appleslayer’s nose.”
The dog sniffed, Zae gave him the command, and he whuffed under his breath. He sniffed around the tavern’s entrance, then perked up and barked.
“He’s caught her scent. I’ll try to keep him from breaking into a full-on run, but…”
“No, give him his head,” Rowan said. “I’ll keep up.”
Zae hesitated, nodded, and spurred the dog onward. “Find her, Apple!” He lifted his muzzle, sniffing the air, and sprang into action.
The trail led southeast, weaving through merchants’ buildings and residential streets. Zae found herself riding without paying attention to where she was going, making sure Keren and Rowan were keeping up more than watching the lay of the streets, so she was surprised to pull up to the steps of the Clockwork Cathedral. More surprised to realize that anxiety and anger had fueled the journey without any sense of time passing.
Zae dismounted at the top of the stairs. When her companions caught up, they all entered together in silence, their progress accompanied by the clink of Keren’s armor and the click of the dog’s toenails on the marble floor. Rowan, not surprisingly, walked the familiar hall without making a sound. Zae drew up short at the entrance to one corridor, holding up a hand. Apple obeyed the signal and stopped, ears perked tall. Keren halted as well, closing her eyes to sharpen her hearing. There were definitely voices. One was a confident rumble in a male-sounding register. The other was female and rich in timbre. Keren opened her eyes and exchanged a glance with Zae, who nodded and signaled for Appleslayer to lead the way.
“A minor key through here, I think,” Omari said as they neared. Zae peered around the doorframe and saw only his shadow, dancing around the room. “A dirge, mourning the great necromancer Ferrin Tark, who was no more. Then the melody should be a bit more lively as we turn to his bodyguard, who now guarded his body from the possibility of resurrection by melting it bit by bit.”
“But—”
“Yes, yes, I know he could still be resurrected, but he wasn’t, and I like the symmetry of the line. Moving on: I should have known then how useless the artifact would prove, when it saved him not from the blade I slipped between his ribs. Did you get all that, good lady? ‘It saved him not…’?”
“It saved him not from the blade you slipped between his ribs.”
“Just so. Now … The guards were disposed in similar fashion, in their own watery pits. And so on. Feel free to make that part fancy. Using a weapon wasn’t my preference—true perfection requires only the strength and skill of the body—but it had to draw suspicion away from me, as well.”
“But if perfection means only using the strength and skill of the body, then … why use the Bloodstone for your ascension?”
“Mortal magic may taint the purity of the attempt, but divine magic is different. Because I’m meant to be a god, I can use the magic of the gods. And I don’t intend merely to hold the jar under my arm. I intend to consume its contents and let them merge with me. Aroden’s legacy and Arazni’s power will both be a part of me. The Starstone will recognize its own, and likewise recognize my divine right. Now, if you please. I find your curiosity flattering, but you’re getting ahead of the tale.”
Zae clasped her hands firmly over her mouth. She looked toward Keren, whose expression was as incredulous as Zae had ever seen it. Keren put a hand on her shoulder. She seemed to be fighting a rising gorge instead of mere surprise. Omari intended to eat Arazni’s thousand-year-old desiccated liver?
Keren drew her sword and stepped into the archway. “How does Act Two begin? Arriving in Absalom, hiding like a coward, and watching the devoted of Arazni wreak havoc in your wake?”
Omari sketched a graceful bow. “Why, it’s Crusader Rhinn.” His smile was crooked. “What a pleasant surprise.”
26
A DELICATE DANCE
KEREN
Keren had thought to loiter in the shadows while he revealed more of his plan, but anger had broken her silence. Now she trusted Zae to hold Rowan back and keep him out of Omari’s line of sight.
“Hardly hiding,” the monk said. “You yourself spoke with me on more than one occasion. The first day we were introduced, in the training hall and then on the avenue, I had the Bloodstone on my person, right under your nose. Did Evandor already have you seeking it then? What an amusing coincidence!”
Pathfinder Tales--Gears of Faith Page 22