by Adam Thomas
“Did anyone else have a weird feeling in that place?” Alurel asked.
Emric nodded. “It was too clean.”
Jeral drummed his claws on the table. “I think you all are so used to finding problems wherever you look that you’ll make them up when they’re not there.”
“What will you tell Duna?” Emric asked Rhys.
“Nothing. The orphans are treated well as far as I can see.”
“What about these Sindar people?” Alurel said. “Maybe they support orphanages so they have a steady supply of child sacrifices or something.”
“Whoa,” Jeral said. “That escalated quickly.”
The others chuckled and settled into their dinner. Shonasir had said nothing since they arrived at the inn, but now they stopped mid-chew. “There is something odd.”
Their companions looked up at them. Shonasir swallowed their bite. “How did Granny Esme know the boys were responsible for the broken vase?”
three
A Feast of Mischief
The next morning, they sat around the same table eating breakfast. Alurel sipped her ever-present cup of green tea, held the warm mug in her hands, and said, “Let’s go over it again.”
“You really think there’s something fishy going on at this orphanage?” Jeral asked.
Shonasir counted on their fingers. “One, a little girl tries to pickpocket Rhys but she doesn’t know why. Two, a pair of boys risks punishment to enter the Diamond Spire. Three, another girl dumps weeds all over Rhys. And four, the broken vase.”
“It’s just kids being kids,” Emric offered. “Back in Anvilcairn, dwarven children are always playing pranks.”
Jeral nodded his agreement. “In a place as uptight as that orphanage, the kids need a little mischievous outlet.”
“You saw them,” Shonasir said. “They looked confused or frightened every time, like they weren’t in control of themselves.”
Alurel clapped the elf on the shoulder. “I’m with Shonasir. I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong, but it’s something.”
The two pairs turned to Rhys, who was eating a plate piled high with bacon and eggs. He finished chewing and said, “I think we go back today just to make sure.”
They finished eating and walked the few blocks to the Emerald Orphanage. The late-winter air was bracing, but the high blue sky and warming sunlight promised spring in the near future.
Alurel shivered against the chill. “Is it always this cold in the north?”
“You get used to it,” Shonasir said. “What’s the date? Dawnmist something.”
Emric pointed to a broadside plastered to a wall. “The twenty-third. Look at that headline. ‘Kelenite Army Masses in Bridgewater for Invasion of Daen.’ And here we are panning fool’s gold at an orphanage.”
“What did you want us to do?” Rhys asked. “The five of us stand on the bridge against the whole army?”
“No, no. I’m glad to be far from the front. I just wish someone in the north would help the elves.”
Shonasir smiled down at Emric. “Thank you. But if the Kelenites actually invade, the four tribes will come together as they did before, you can be sure of that. And you don’t want to be on our wrong side when we are roused.”
“I wonder if my brothers are there,” Rhys said to no one in particular.
They reached the orphanage mid morning and were met by Jazrin Jewel, who gave a squeal of delight.
“Did you come back to pick one of us?”
Alurel knelt down and gave Jazrin a hug. “I wish we could but we don’t even have a place to live. Our lives are too dangerous to take in a child. You are much safer here.”
Jazrin tugged on her ear in distress. “But I thought?”
“I’m sorry that we gave you the impression –”
But Alurel’s apology was cut short when Jazrin reared back and slapped her hard across the face. Before Alurel could react, Jazrin backed up, staring in horror at her hands. She made to run, but Rhys caught her.
Alurel recovered quickly. “Jazrin, what made you do that?”
The girl’s breaths were all quick, panicky inhales. “I...I didn’t want to. But it made me. I’m so sorry.”
“What made you?”
Jazrin shook her head violently. “I can’t...I can’t tell you.”
“You will tell me. We’re here to help you.” Alurel looked up at Rhys and gestured to let Jazrin go. “What made you slap me?”
“The voice.” Jazrin tugged at her ear again. “The voice in my head.”
Jeral wanted to point out the convenience of blaming a disembodied voice, but since he too sometimes heard one, the voice of his shadowy patron, he chose against hypocrisy. Instead, he said, “What does the voice say?”
“It tempts us to do things. Stupid things like pickpocket strangers. It starts really soft, but if we ignore it, the voice gets louder and louder until we have to do what it says. Most of us just do what it says right away so it doesn’t get too loud.”
“Most of you?”
“All the kids hear it. But we’ve never told anyone except each other.”
Alurel held out her hand, palm up. “Jazrin, may I see your earring?”
The girl unclasped it and gave it to her fellow half-elf. The five companions huddled around the small iron triangle, which curved slightly near the blunted tip.
“Do all the children have one of these earrings?” Shonasir asked.
“Yes. Granny says she can use them to find us if we get lost.”
“Did Granny give them to you?”
Jazrin nodded. Shonasir gave their companions a significant look.
“Would you mind if I wore this for a while?” Alurel asked.
“We’re supposed to keep them on at all times for safety,” Jazrin said.
“I’ll only wear it for a few minutes.” Alurel affixed the earring.
Immediately she heard a voice, high-pitched and on the edge of cackling mania. Jazrin, Jazrin, you can have so much fun with these bumpkins from the South. Steal a knife. Cut a purse. Pull the dragon’s tail. The possibilities are endless.
Alurel said, “I don’t know if you can hear me, Granny Esme, but we’re coming for you.”
Ah, ah, you’re not my Jazrin. My dear, sweet, delectable Jazrin. So easy to mold. Feasting on her will is mouthwatering. But who are you, now that’s the question. You must be one of those hooligans sniffing around the place yesterday.
“My name is Alurel, and my will is my own.” She ripped the earring from her ear. “Shonasir was right. It’s Granny Esme. Spread out, don’t let her leave. First one who sees her signal everyone else.”
“What’s the signal?” Emric asked. “How about these pitches in this order.” He sang three notes outlining a major chord in first inversion.
“How about we just yell that we found her.”
“That works too.”
Shonasir gripped Jazrin by the shoulder. “Go, find your friends. Hide somewhere safe. Tell them to take out their earrings.”
Jazrin dashed for the door of the orphanage, but even as she reached it, the door burst open. Granny Esme, the shuffling elderly woman with a pocketful of hard candies, held the arms of four children in grotesquely long fingers. Polly, Remy, and Devrin, along with a copper dragonborn child, were all screaming in terror. As she walked toward them dragging the orphans, Granny’s body swelled. She stood tall, erasing the elderly stoop, and her kindly face turned horrible with a mouth full of sharp teeth that protruded from her lips like an anglerfish.
Rhys unsheathed his two longswords. “I suppose I’ll be using these after all. Let them go, Granny.”
The hag continued to speak in Granny’s creaky lilt, which made the terrible figure before them all the more frightening. “But these are my children. I’ve been teaching them, you see. Teaching the
m to do whatever they can get away with. And their misdeeds are so delicious. I could savor each one for a week.”
The five companions circled around Granny Esme. Shonasir nocked an arrow and drew. Jeral held pure energy in his fists. Alurel morphed into her panther form. Rhys hefted his swords.
Emric echoed Rhys’s demand. “Let the children go, Granny.”
“But these are my food. You wouldn’t deny a creature a source of sustenance, would you?”
“I would if it means protecting children.”
“Children?” Granny shrieked. “Useless creatures. All they do is need, need, need. I’m not killing them, just consuming their wills. Surely you –”
Shonasir let fly their arrow and it took Granny through one yellowed eyeball. A ball of fire burst from the shaft as Shonasir awakened a flaming elemental. Granny instinctively threw one hand out to ward off the sudden attacker and the other went to her eye. The children fled, and Jazrin called them to her. They raced back inside as Jazrin wrenched the earrings from their ears. Taking up positions at the windows, they watched Rhys close the distance on Granny and bring his swords to bear.
The hag’s fingernails were as long and sharp as daggers and hard as iron. Rhys’s blades clanged off her nails and she retaliated with two heavy swipes with her arms. The big Kelenite staggered backward, dazed and bleeding. The snarling panther took his place and leapt on Granny’s back even as twin blasts of energy from Jeral hit her in the chest. Emric sang a song of healing for Rhys, and the swordmaster stood tall against his foe.
Shonasir’s awakened flame set Granny’s limp hair on fire, making her ghostly face waxy in a licking red-orange halo. Another arrow struck her arm, but she reached up and snapped it off. Granny backhanded Rhys and flung Alurel away. The panther charged again and clamped her jaws on one of Granny’s wrists. Rhys’s blade cleaved through her forearm, and Alurel pulled the severed hand away. More energy blasts from Jeral and another arrow from Shonasir’s bow dropped Granny to one knee.
Emric rushed over to the house, and sent a wave of thunderous energy at the windows. The shutters flapped closed, obstructing the children’s view as Rhys struck off the hag’s grotesque head.
The panther dashed behind a tree and emerged as Alurel. “Did anyone see a panther just now?” she called to her friends.
“There was one here, but it seems to have gone,” Shonasir shouted back.
Matron Hifra came around the side of the manor, shrieking, “What is the meaning of this?” She stopped short when she saw the decapitated body of Granny Esme’s true form. The body looked so disturbingly like the elderly nurse that the matron stepped back in alarm. “Granny?”
“She wasn’t Esme,” Emric said. “A hag must have taken her place. When did the mischief begin?”
Matron Hifra swallowed back the bile rising in her throat and said, “The children have always tested the boundaries as children do, but I’d say the last six months have been the worst.”
Emric put a comforting hand on Hifra’s arm. “I’m afraid that must be when the hag killed Esme and took her identity. She was cajoling the children into acts of disobedience. They fed her somehow.”
The matron’s knees buckled, and Emric guided her to a seated position on the front stoop of the manor. “I would never have suspected dear Esme. She was so kind, so indulgent with the children. She and I were often at odds with our approaches, but we worked well together. I can’t believe she’s gone.”
“But so is the threat to the children. Who knows how the hag would have escalated their behavior to feed her own cravings.”
Hifra’s hand went to her mouth. “What will the Sindars say?”
“Your patrons?” Emric stroked his beard for a moment, thinking. “Tell them you suspected something amiss and hired a team of investigators.”
“What about Jazrin? She found you.”
“Tell them it was her idea.”
The matron clicked her tongue. “I don’t think Serafina would like that very much.”
Alurel inserted herself into the conversation. “Why not?”
“She has certain, ah, prejudices.”
The half-elf sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. She was as far from Kelen as she could get and still her people were discriminated against. Alurel looked in the window and saw Jazrin’s face smiling back at her. The young half-elf could have been her little sister.
The five orphans’ eyes went wide, and they screamed and pointed. Alurel whipped around to find Rhys heaving the massive body of Granny onto his shoulder. The hag must have weighed twice what Rhys did.
“I don’t think the children should see this,” he said to Hifra. “Where shall I put it?”
Jeral picked up the head by its stringy hair and held it at arm’s length. “This too,” he said with his face squinched in disgust.
Given a task to perform, the matron regained her composure. “There is an empty shed for firewood around the side of the house. It should be large enough for the...the body.”
Rhys and Jeral disappeared around the corner just as a pair of well-to-do humans began striding up the path. The woman’s straight dark hair framed a white face reddened generously with paints and powders. She walked two steps ahead of the man, who followed with a reluctance noticeable even to a passing glance. An air of disinterest clung to the man like armor, and his lips looked like they had never forced his pale cheeks or thin mustache to curve into a smile.
“That’s them,” the matron said, and she rose to her feet. “Lord and Lady Sindar, to what do we owe this lovely surprise?”
Serafina Sindar came to a halt a dozen paces from Hifra. “Mr. Hurstwile sent a runner to collect us, saying there was a disturbance at the orphanage, and summoning us posthaste. This had better be important, Matron. I do not enjoy being summoned.”
Hifra cleared her throat and tried to find her words. Emric found his first. “Lady Sindar, your responsiveness does you credit. Our team was brought in to handle the disturbance you speak of, and we have just done so. A hag had infiltrated the orphanage, but we took care of her. Now, is there somewhere we might speak with you and Lord Sindar in private. We’d like to allow Matron Hifra to restore order here as soon as possible. The orphans are quite excitable.”
The dwarven bard’s honeyed words mollified Lady Sindar. “I suppose an audience is in order for your aid to the orphanage. Have you taken rooms somewhere in the spire?”
“The Slipper and Gosling was kind enough to put us up last evening, and I dare say we will sleep there again tonight.”
Lord Sindar touched his wife lightly on the elbow. “A fine choice. May we treat you to an early luncheon in thanks for your service?”
Emric looked at Shonasir and Alurel. The half-elf was partially hidden in Shonasir’s shadow. Jeral and Rhys returned, and they heartily agreed to a free meal. As the companions followed the Sindars up the flower-lined path, Jazrin raced out of the house and caught Alurel, who was trailing behind the group.
“Here,” Jazrin said, and she pressed a small parcel into Alurel’s hand. “If you come back someday, maybe I’ll still be here and then…”
Alurel smiled at the girl, bent down and kissed her forehead. “Perhaps, little one. Until then, don’t let anyone push you around.”
nine years ago
Rosamund in High Society
Rosamund Steele strode through the tall double doors of the Kindred Society’s headquarters followed by a man struggling with a heavy burlap sack. Members of the society who were gathered in the front parlors stopped their conversations and turned to the beautiful newcomer.
Rosamund spoke softly, but her voice still managed to carry. “I am here to join the Kindred Society. Would someone be so kind as to direct me to the membership office?”
The members leaned in to one another and the whispering began.
“Who is that?�
�
“She’s new to the Diamond Spire.”
“Her name is, what, Rosie-something?”
“I think she bought Chesterwood Manor recently.”
“Not Chesterwood. Magnolia Hall.”
Rosamund let them talk. As long as her butler, Heinrich, didn’t drop the bag of platinum pieces he was carrying, her first impression would be spotless. She would carry the bag herself, but then someone might wonder how a woman of her seemingly delicate proportions could lift a bag that weighed more than she did.
After a few moments of gossip, a young man detached from the left hand parlor and made his way to her. She could tell by his saunter and half-grin that he expected her to throw herself at him by the end of the night. Rosamund checked her glamour to make sure her fangs were hidden, then returned his smile. There was no use informing him of her disinterest at the present. He would understand in time and move on to more likely acquisitions, as long as he wasn’t one of those men who thought a woman of Rosamund’s appetites just hadn’t met the right male specimen yet.
“Miss Steele, I presume?”
“You presume rightly,” she said. “I fear you have me at a disadvantage.”
He inclined his head, and Rosamund’s eyes darted to his pale neck. He didn’t notice, for his gaze was elsewhere, obviously considering the shape of her breasts that her dress hinted at. If he had been more observant, he might have noticed they did not rise and fall with her breathing, for she was not, in fact, breathing. But no one ever noticed that.
“Westcott Devonshire Price the Third, at your service.”
“That is quite a mouthful. Am I to address you as such each time we converse?”
“Devon, then, but only if I may call you Rosamund.”
“You have done your research, Devon.”
“There is a dearth of eligible young women in the Diamond Spire. The Hightower and Day girls are next in line for marriage, but they are still children. I am patient, but not that patient. So when I heard you moved in next to Karin Astor, I made it my business to learn what I could.”
“And what have you learned, Devon?”