Highlords of Phaer (Empire of Masks Book 1)

by Brock Deskins

  He then hurled the gun, striking the unfortunate youth in the face. Blood erupted from the lad’s nose and he stumbled back, stunned. Gill rushed forward and ran his sword through his chest. A sharp pain stabbed into Gill’s back. He reached behind him, grabbed the sword stuck in his body, and pulled away, stripping the weapon from the wielder’s grasp. He turned and stabbed the boy through the stomach.

  The last young man faced him, his sword held in a shaking grip. He gestured with his free hand, and when Gill saw no indication of a spell, he assumed that he had cast some sort of protective ward. He flung a knife at the youth and watched the blade hang in midair for a moment before falling to the ground, and he knew for certain.

  The teen, growing confident at the failed attack, advanced. Even if he were not as good a swordsman as the lowborn trash was, his ward should protect him enough to see him to victory. Gill’s smile matched that of the boy’s when he pulled out his remaining undischarged pistol and fired. Sparks flashed across the invisible barrier, but the arcane shield was not strong enough for such an assault, and the shot took him in the heart.

  Gill watched two of the girls flee and instinctively grabbed for another pistol before realizing that they were all empty. He walked around the area, collecting his discarded weapons and finishing off the girl he had struck with his knife and another who had failed to get out of the runaway carriage’s path. He made certain the boys were all dead before retrieving his overcoat and wrapping the pistols inside of it.

  Gill trudged to the bridge nearly half a mile away, his hand pressed against the wound in his back. He hid the jacket and weapons it contained beneath it and lurched down the darkest alleys and streets he could find until he reached one of the lower quarters. He doubted that he could hide from Chief Inquisitor Quinlan, and he did not really care, but he would make him come look for him.

  CHAPTER 26

  Quinlan sat and stewed behind his desk, drumming his fingers across its surface. He and the gendarmes had been harassing suspected dissidents and their friends for more than a month, but not one of them had created an organized reprisal. It had seemed a simple plan, certain to work given their past actions, but none had risen to the bait.

  He was under no illusion as to why there was a sudden change in the dissidents’ actions. They had a new leader, or perhaps their first true leader, and they had gotten smart. Quinlan knew who that leader was—Jareen Velarius. He had hoped he could lure Jareen from the shadows, or at least some of his key people whom he could then interrogate and gather enough evidence that even the slave’s familiarity with the powerful Sah Auberon could not protect him.

  It grated on him that everything he needed to have the man executed for treason and possibly break the dissident movement’s back was in that new factory and aboard Sah Auberon’s airship, but even he lacked the authority to investigate them. Auberon had cloaked everything involving his precious powder in strictest secrecy, and he had the support of multiple overlords and highlords and was now all but untouchable.

  Quinlan had been arrogant with the lordling and it had cost him any access he might have been able to gain had he used a more genial and civil approach. Nothing could be done about that now. He would simply have to apply more pressure. If he could not capture the dissidents committing a crime, he could manufacture one, but he had to be careful. Even lowborn had some rights.

  For now, he needed to get some sleep. Spending some sixteen hours a day chasing shadows was taking its toll on more than just his mood.

  His door burst open and Lieutenant Talbot Millard strode in. “Inquisitor, something has occurred.”

  Quinlan stood and leaned against the desktop with eager anticipation. “Dissidents?”

  “Likely. Either that or a horned devil.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Talbot shook his head. “Murder. More like a slaughter. You will have to look for yourself. I haven’t the imagination or stomach to describe it properly.”

  Quinlan followed Talbot out of the gendarmerie, boarded a blue enameled coach, and sped across the city. The highborn expected a quick response from the best officers in the city, so the headquarters was located on the upper district boundary, and it took them only minutes to arrive.

  The chief inquisitor leapt from the coach before it came to a complete stop. “Get away from there, you idiots!” he shouted at the nearly score of gendarmes milling around his crime scene. “Single file, and ware your footsteps!”

  The officers stepped away from the bodies, moving in a line, careful not to step on anything. Quinlan suppressed the desire to strike every man who had foolishly contaminated the area and went to work. He stood on the periphery of the carnage and studied the bodies from afar.

  Quinlan turned to his lieutenant. “What do you make of it, Talbot?”

  “We know they were attacked little more than an hour ago. The two witnesses claim it was just one man, but I attribute that to hysteria. There is simply no way a lone attacker could kill this many and inflict the kind of injuries I’ve seen. My guess is that several men with powerful crossbows struck from the shadows of the building across the way while others charged in with blades to finish off the survivors. The two girls who survived probably fled the moment they saw the first man charge in and did not see the others.”

  “Did you recover the crossbow bolts?”

  Talbot shook his head. “No, it appears they retrieved them before they left. They are getting smarter. They know you can track them with anything they leave behind.”

  Quinlan nodded but was already certain that Talbot’s assessment was off the mark. He found the two girls standing with a group of gendarmes and who he assumed were their fathers.

  “You two ladies saw what happened?” he asked.

  Both girls nodded, burying their tearful eyes in their fathers’ chests and holding kerchiefs to their faces.

  “You need to find these animals and hang them!” one of the fathers said.

  “We will, but first I must know precisely what happened. Can one of you tell me what you saw?”

  One of the young women sniffed and pushed her face away from her father’s chest. “It was just one man. He was a scruffy lowborn, maybe around my father’s age. He…he just walked out of the dark like a spirit. Dedrick asked him what he wanted, but the man didn’t say anything. He just kept walking toward us. When he got close, I heard him say he was going to kill us all and he threw a knife. Dedrick started choking and…there was so much blood!”

  “But you saw just one man?” Quinlan asked.

  She nodded vigorously, then her eyes went wide and she grabbed Quinlan by the lapel. “He was a sorcerer!”

  “A sorcerer?”

  “Yes! Fire and thunder flew from his hand and…and…” She choked back a sob. “Caiden’s head exploded! It was so awful! Bits of him hit me!”

  “What happened after that?”

  The girl took a deep, shuddering breath. “Liana and I kind of froze. Others began running. The man struck them down with knives and fire. I saw Shannen try to run away, but the monster stabbed her in the back. She just wanted to run away… The boys, they tried to fight him, but he was too strong. His magic killed them so fast.”

  She turned back into her father’s arms and Quinlan walked away with Talbot in tow. “Do you believe what she says about a sorcerer?”

  “More hysteria most likely,” Talbot answered. “A lowborn sorcerer with that kind of power is almost unheard of. Maybe if he were young and avoided attention, but a man of that age would be known amongst the highborn or gendarmes long before now. If he was of a mind to do this kind of thing, he would have done so long ago and been executed. My guess is that he held one of these torches in his hand and the girls’ minds filled in the rest in an attempt to make sense of what was happening since they could not see the crossbowmen.”

  Quinlan nodded. “I think you are right about the man not being a sorcerer, but beyond that, the girl’s account is likely accurate.” />
  “Inquisitor, with all due respect, there is no way one man could have done all of this by himself. He would have had to reload his crossbow, which is the only way some of these injuries could have been created, several times, while in the midst of combat. Some of these boys were sorcerers. Perhaps not powerful ones, but strong enough to make a real go of it even if the man were a Thuumian nomad.”

  “A month ago, I would have agreed, but times are changing, and they are changing fast. I think we are on the verge of a new era, one that may see a great many more dead than just these boys.”

  “Do you mean a new kind of weapon? What could do all of this?”

  Quinlan knelt next to a set of footprints. “The form of it I cannot imagine, but I have some suspicions.”

  The inquisitor cast a spell to illuminate all of the footprints in the area. The gendarmes’ bootprints covered so much of the scene that Quinlan cursed under his breath. He tracked two sets with his eyes, which led to the girls, but one set of prints captured his full attention.

  “Look here,” Quinlan said, pointing to the tracks. “These start from across the street and converge here just as the girl said.” He walked around the perimeter. “No other tracks lead in except those made by the horses.”

  “Like I said, the crossbowmen stayed out of sight.”

  Quinlan knelt over one of the bodies and shook his head. “It was not a crossbow that made these wounds.”

  “What then?” Talbot asked.

  The inquisitor dug into the hole in the boy’s chest with magical “forceps,” extracted an object from the cavity, and held it between two fingers.

  Talbot leaned down and studied the small, blood-covered, lead ball. “What is that?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’ve seen it before.” Quinlan waved his free hand before him, using his magic to separate and concentrate different particulates in the air. “Smell this.”

  Talbot leaned forward and recoiled. “Did you just make a fart joke, at a time like this?”

  “What you smell is sulfur and other compounds.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out an identical lead ball, the one he had extracted from the support brace in Vulcrad’s void-stone mine. “I found this, accompanied by the same smell, shortly after I heard man-made thunder in Vulcrad.”

  “Sah Auberon’s explosive powder!” Talbot replied.

  “Indeed, but how it can be used to propel an object with enough force, and in a way to so perfectly direct it, is beyond me.”

  Talbot smiled. “Maybe Sah Auberon knows of such a way.”

  “Perhaps he does. The bigger question is who wielded this weapon? Sah Auberon would have no need. I am sure he could have slaughtered everyone here and left no witnesses with far less effort even if he had a motive, which I am sure he does not. The only other person who I know that has knowledge and access to the powder is Jareen Velarius, but as far as I am aware, he is not in the city.”

  “Then who?”

  “That is what I am going to find out.”

  “How would you like to proceed?” Talbot asked.

  Quinlan paused and thought. His eyes drifted to a sword lying in the dirt nearby. “That blade is too fine to belong to a lowborn and is covered in blood. One of our lads gave a good account of himself before he fell. Our murderer is wounded, possibly seriously, so he is unlikely to have gotten far. Close down the mooring yards. I want all airships grounded until I apprehend the perpetrator.”

  Talbot grimaced. “We will get a lot of resistance from such an order and a good deal of backlash. Nor do we have the authority to ground any government vessels.”

  “A dozen highborn children lay dead. Most will acquiesce to the order. I do have the authority to search every airship on grounds of empirical security. It should not take long. I will have a short discussion with Sah Auberon and apprehend the murderer before lunch.”

  ***

  “Thank you for seeing me at such a late hour, Sah Auberon,” Quinlan said.

  Auberon sat in a plush chair in his reception room, sipping a cup of Jareen’s restorative. “A benefit, for you, of me having to rely on substandard servants. Were Jareen here, he would not have bothered me by announcing your presence and sent you away, but then you would only find another, likely an even less opportune moment, to waste my time.”

  Quinlan noted the highborn’s sickly pallor and the heavy fatigue lacing his voice. “Are you unwell, sah? I could return in the morning if you prefer.”

  “I could say the same to you, Inquisitor.”

  Quinlan crooked a half-smile. “It appears neither of us is getting the sleep we need these days.”

  “Yes, I have heard you have been quite busy of late. Now is as good a time as any, better than most since I am extraordinarily busy the entire day. What is it you want? Be brief; my illness has done nothing to improve my patience.”

  Quinlan produced a small wooden box from his pocket, opened the lid, and displayed the bloodied lead shot resting inside. “Do you recognize this?”

  Auberon leaned over and examined the object. “If you have come here wanting to play a game of marbles, I am likely to kill you where you stand. Recall what I mentioned regarding my patience.” He leaned in closer. “Is that blood?”

  Quinlan snapped the box closed and slid it back into his pocket. “I extracted that from the chest of a young highborn less than an hour ago. He was one of a dozen teenaged young people slaughtered this night near the gulch in one of the highborn districts.”

  “Tragic to say the least, but why are you bothering me about it?”

  “Five of the other youths were killed with the same kind of bullet, the rest being cut down with blades.”

  “A bullet, you say? I can think of no sling capable of hurling something that small with enough velocity to penetrate flesh. It would have to move at hundreds of feet per second to cause the damage you describe. I suppose a middling-class sorcerer could use magic to propel such a thing at sufficient speed, but there are far easier and efficient ways of killing with magic than that.”

  “No, it was certainly not a sling, nor was it hurled with magic,” Quinlan said. “I also detected an odd scent in the air, one that I have smelled on only two other occasions.”

  “And when was that?”

  “When you put on your display for Highlord Nahuza and when Jareen demonstrated your blasting powder in Vulcrad.”

  Auberon stood, his anger washing away much of his fatigue. “So, we are back to this again! I had no part in killing a bunch of children, and Jareen has not been in the city in nearly two months. What exactly are you getting at, Inquisitor? I grow tired of your subtle accusations!”

  Auberon’s outburst elicited a coughing fit. He picked his restorative back up and drank to quell it.

  “Forgive me, Sah Auberon, it was not my intent to upset you. I do not mean to accuse you of any malfeasance, and perhaps not even Jareen, but possibly an agent of his. It could be a person completely unrelated to either of you. Maybe someone managed to get ahold of some of your powder and weaponized it.”

  “Weaponized it how?”

  “Can you think of no way it could be used as a weapon?”

  Auberon waved in dismissal. “Everything is a weapon if properly applied and with enough force. A rock tied to a stick was once considered a formidable weapon. That same rock tossed over the rail of an airship onto an army below is considered an effective weapon. But I assure you, I guard my powder with the highest security and track every grain we produce.”

  Quinlan took another lead ball from a different pocket and held it up. “I pried this out of a wooden support beam shortly after Jareen showed how your powder could be used to break stone.”

  Auberon held out his hand. “May I see that?”

  “Of course,” Quinlan said, handing it to him. “I have had it too long for any residual aura to remain, so contaminating it is not an issue.”

  Auberon took the ball and nodded. “That is why you keep the other in a box.” He held the s
phere close to his eye and rolled it between delicate fingers. “It looks like the lead balls we use to granulate my powder. What would it be doing lodged in a beam in Vulcrad?”

  “I had that very same question when I found it.”

  Auberon shrugged. “It probably fell out of the tumbler and got mixed in with the powder we prepared for the demonstration.”

  “Is it possible for the explosion to propel it with enough force to accomplish that?”

  “Of course. The blast moves at what I estimate to be in excess of a thousand feet per second. Anything small enough to be picked up and carried away by the force would move at a similar speed until the drag coefficient reduced it over time and gravity pulled it back to the ground.”

  “Can you think of any method that could direct that blast in such a way as to accurately propel something, like this lead ball, with a similar, controlled explosion?”

  Auberon rolled his eyes. “Of course not, don’t be stu—”

  The sorcerer stopped as his brain caught up with his mouth. Quinlan followed him from the room as he darted to another chamber, which appeared to be a small laboratory. Auberon picked up a piece of chalk and began sketching something on a slate board affixed to one wall.

  “I cannot believe I did not think of this,” Auberon said excitedly as he drew. “When the powder ignites, the pressure is released in a perfect sphere unless constrained by a solid object. All of the force generated by the explosion would then be concentrated toward the path of least resistance. If one were to build a tube of sufficient strength to withstand the pressure and leave only one exit for the blast, the entirety of the force generated would be unleashed at the open end and would expel anything in front of it.”

  “At the same speed as the explosion,” Quinlan surmised.

  “Not quite. Some of the gases would escape around the object, so the effect on the projectile would be diminished, but for the most part, yes.”