Kazia

by A. C. Ellas

  Betrin muttered, “My wife.” Aloud he said, “Ketti, this be S’Rak. He be here t’ look at Ketrin.”

  The woman swallowed. “Milord, ye honor our humble home.”

  “It is the least I can do. And please, do not call me Lord.” Rak glanced at Betrin, knowing that the woman wasn’t happy to have him here. “Where is your son?”

  Betrin led him down a short hallway, opening the first of two doors. There was a bed in the corner, and a small table that must also serve as a desk, plus a small chest with a cushion atop it. There was a small lump on the bed, huddled under a heap of blankets, which were more patch than whole cloth.

  Rak knelt down and pulled the blankets away. The boy was thin, his skin was pale, and both cool and moist to the touch. Resting two fingers on the boy’s wrist, Rak determined that the boy’s heart was racing, and by watching the chest, Rak knew that the boy’s breathing was both shallow and rapid. Rak asked, “Has he been drinking at all?”

  “Sips, sir, here ‘n there. Can ye be helpin’ him?” The anxiety in Betrin’s voice was plain.

  “I cannot help him, Betrin.” As the man’s face fell, Rak was quick to add, “But I know one who can.” He picked up the boy as he stood. “He needs a healer. Otherwise, he will not live to see another dawn.”

  Ketti made a strangled noise, half cry, half sob. Betrin flinched, but then, he asked, “Where will ye be takin’ him, sir?”

  “The Temple of Light. I would be going there next in any event.” Rak smiled at their surprised expressions. “The Ylion there is a healer; I will ask him for help. This surprises you?” Both nodded and Rak chuckled. “The sun priests are not my enemies. I will bring your son back, once he is well, you have my word.”

  Betrin smiled at that. He did remember the laws enough to know how hard Rak would work to keep that promise. “Thank ye, sir.”

  Rak turned to the door, jerking his head to indicate that Betrin should follow him out. The man did so without hesitation. Once outside, Rak asked, “Have you told her aught of me?”

  “No, sir. I be wantin’ to, ‘cause she do be my wife, but ye said to tell no one.” Betrin looked discomfited but honest. “I only be here on account of Ketrin. Otherwise, I’d be with th’ band. I have to return soon in any event, can’t leave ’em fer long.”

  “If you think she can keep it to herself, you may tell her.” Rak shifted the boy to rest against his shoulder. He pulled out a purse and handed it to Betrin. “Use some of it to loosen tongues, as you can.”

  Betrin nodded. “Yessir, thank ye.”

  Rak turned to Vyld. He handed the boy to his father long enough to mount, then Betrin handed the boy back. He pictured the Temple of Light for Vyld; the steed snorted smoke and turned in place neatly before rocking into a gentle canter. It didn’t take long to work their way out of the residential area and back onto a main road, and once again, Rak didn’t sense more than the usual hatreds. Those he passed often sketched protective sun circles on their breasts. Sometimes, Rak responded by offering the blessing of the night, but at the moment, he was focused on reaching the sun temple quickly and without incident.

  Rak dismounted in the plaza before the temple, settled the child more comfortably in his arms and walked up the steps, gritting his teeth as the usual discomfort grew. The Sun Lord and the Lord of Night were opposites. That didn’t mean they were enemies, for they weren’t, but they balanced one another in perfect opposition. Because of this, Rak found walking on ground sanctified to the Sun Lord to be downright painful, and that was with the standing invitation of the temple’s highest-ranking priest, the Archpriest Forael. Even though the sun had set a couple of hours ago, golden light still streamed out of the cracked-open door, turning the curling wisps of candle smoke and incense into dancing motes.

  A vigil, probably.

  The usual pair of guards stood to either side of those doors, and they glared at him with extra ferocity but made no move to block his entry. Rak eased between the doors without touching them. The boy was so light he was no burden at all. The narthex of the sun temple was an airy space of creamy marble shot with gold flecks, carved golden oak gilded with an expert hand and golden light spilling from the chandelier overhead.

  No sooner had Rak set foot on the marble floor tiles than a young sun priest emerged from a side room. His eyes grew round at the sight of the dark priest.

  Rak wasn’t in the mood to deal with the Day-Night issue yet again. He spoke before the young priest could protest his presence. “This boy is in dire need of healing. I am many things, but I am not a healer.”

  The young priest glanced at Rak’s burden, nodded once and then slipped through the main archway leading into the nave of the temple. A few moments passed and Forael himself came out.

  Rak allowed his surprise to show as he said, “Ylion, you are up late.”

  “I don’t go to bed the moment the sun has finished setting,” Forael said gently. “And tonight is a vigil night as you may have surmised from the activity. Do you not remain awake for your own daytime vigils?”

  “Indeed I do, Ylion.” Rak inclined his head then shifted the boy in his arms.

  Forael grinned, but the smile vanished as he studied the boy. “What ails him?”

  “The cold fever and sweats. Racing pulse and shallow breath. He is very thin and light and not drinking enough.”

  The archpriest winced but nodded. “Bring him.” He turned and walked down a side corridor with Rak on his heels. As they walked, the Ylion commented, “This plague of disbelief ill serves the people. If his parents had brought him sooner, this would have been far easier. Now... I fear.”

  “We can only do what we can. It is enough, sometimes, just to try.” Rak suspected that it wasn’t disbelief in the gods that had kept Betrin from seeking the sun temple’s aid, but the man’s fears that they’d be turned away due to the fact that he served Rak.

  The sun temple’s infirmary was a familiar sight to Rak; he’d been here far too often in the past half year. Photas looked up from his desk placed in the center of the room beside a series of tables and cabinets designed for various tasks related to healing. “Good evening, Nyxion,” he offered then nodded to his own superior. “Sir.”

  “Night’s blessings on you, Photas,” Rak replied.

  “Photas, we have a patient,” Forael said. “Pneumonia, I believe.”

  “Room three, then, please,” Photas replied. He immediately started reaching for various canisters of herbs.

  Forael turned to the other sun priest in the room, one of the senior acolytes. “Chard, please have Teson summoned.” The young man nodded and dashed off. At that point, Forael led the way into a small room plastered in a pale-honey color. Rak placed the boy on the bed and stepped back.

  The Ylion examined the boy, his expression grave. “I think we can save him, Thezomeh, but there is little you can do here. In fact, your presence alone might adversely affect the healing power we must summon to save him.”

  “I understand, Ylion. If I might return tomorrow evening to check on him, I would be obliged.”

  “Of course, Thezomeh. You are always welcome here.” Forael cleared his throat. “Your friend Teson accompanied Photas earlier today. You might find it beneficial to discuss matters with him.”

  “Thank you, Ylion.” Rak inclined his head again then stepped back into the main part of the infirmary.

  Photas nodded to him as he bustled past, his arms full of supplies. Rak held the door to the small room open for him then gently shut it in the sun priest’s wake. He walked over to the center island of the large, open space of the main infirmary in order to wait for Teson.

  It wasn’t long before he saw the sun mage who’d managed to fall in love with his sergeant. Teson had been living the life of a hermit, tending to a chapel in the woods, responsible for several small villages and shrines, unencumbered and unattached. When his chapel had been used to trap both S’Tyll and Sergeant Pikara, Teson had acted to save them. Rak had only met the man up
on his return to Karpos, but he knew Pikara had real feelings for the mage.

  “S’Rak,” Teson said by way of greeting. His honey-brown eyes raked over Rak, his even features were as close to expressionless as Rak had ever seen. He looked good in the cream and gold robes of a sun mage, but his red brown hair was tightly braided without such ornaments as the Koilathans usually indulged in.

  “Teson,” Rak replied in kind. “Ylion Forael thinks we should speak. I am accused of a crime I know nothing about, you see. I understand you accompanied Photas this past morning? What did you find?”

  “A ritual murder,” Teson replied calmly. “There was no chaos involved, I checked. Only dark magic, blood magic.”

  “Can you show me where it happened? It is not that I do not trust you; I just wish to check things myself. There are tests available to me that you cannot perform because you serve my Lord’s Opposite.”

  “I’ll take you there,” Teson said after studying Rak for a moment. “It’s not far from here. The murder occurred at the northern city ward tower.”

  Rak could feel his eyes widening. “Was the ward damaged?”

  “It didn’t appear to be. We were lucky in that respect.” Teson grimaced and jerked his head toward the exit. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The ride to the ward tower was silent. Teson controlled his mount, a chestnut gelding, with an experienced hand, but the mage didn’t seem inclined to conversation, and Rak respected his reticence. Teson had been a hermit for a reason; Forael had mentioned that Teson was not fond of crowds and that he found living in any city difficult at the best of times. Rak wasn’t bothered by the lack of small talk; he often preferred silence to pointless chatter himself.

  Teson had been right; it wasn’t a long ride to the northern ward tower. The tower sat in the center of a small, round, open plaza that was only reachable by passing through a series of small roads and alleys. It was surprisingly well hidden for a town that laid a road from the city gates directly to the palace gates. Rak slipped off Vyld’s back and studied the area.

  The plaza before the ward tower was spotless. It was the cleanest plaza he’d ever seen. Bar none. And the emptiest. The air was moist, heavy, and seemed to throb with the power emanating from the tower. The ward pulsed like a slowly beating heart; golden power, twisted with a rainbow, rose unseen from the tower and spread out through the sky. It was hard to sense anything through the magical glare, but Rak was able to determine that the area was as clean on psychic plane as it was on the physical. Impossible.

  “You are certain this is where it happened?” Rak asked quietly.

  “I am.” Teson came up beside him, shook his head. “I don’t sense any traces remaining.”

  “The area is too clean,” Rak muttered, “but I’ll try.” He walked into the plaza until he was halfway between the edge of the plaza and the ward tower. He focused himself on what he wanted to do by softly chanting the proper hymn; it was as much a set of instructions as a prayer. He pulled out a dagger and sliced the palm of his right hand open. Blood flowed and power answered. Night flames fell to the earth, twisting into the patterns described by Rak’s will.

  The night flames danced, rising and falling. The cut on Rak’s hand was healed, the blood consumed. But the pattern didn’t change, didn’t vary. No chaos was present. No dark power was present other than what Rak was using himself right then and there. As far as Rak could determine, no murder had ever occurred here, much less one less than a day ago. He released the pattern and let the night flames die away.

  Next, he called his hounds. The kapnolagia, called smoke hounds by the Koilathans, tracked their quarry by scent, possessing the most acute sense of smell of any creature on Ydron. They had a friendly, playful disposition and were much more likely to lick a stranger to death than to bite.

  The nyxlagia, also known as night hounds, were lightly built, swift runners. They were coursers, or gaze hounds, fast enough to pace a galloping avtappi, and offered protection to the overly friendly smoke hounds.

  The third type of hound was the best known. The thansymia, the death hounds, tracked their quarry by the aura of the soul, and these hounds were bred for war and trained to kill. They were powerfully built and only a fool would cross one.

  Rak’s personal pack, consisting of close to a dozen each of all three types of hounds, milled about the plaza, crossing and re-crossing the open space as they tried to pick up any scent or trace of Kazia. Rak kept his memories of the woman firmly in mind, feeding the details to the hounds to aid their efforts. But the plaza was clean, too clean.

  Not even the sensitive noses of the kapnolagia could detect any trace of her, and from the point of view of the thansymia, there was no Kazia in existence—no soul nor remnant of a soul could they detect. This, from a hound that can track the dead across the spirit realm? Rak shivered as he considered the implications. Kazia was not only dead, her soul was gone, too. With a weary sigh, Rak sent the hounds back. He would reward them later.

  Rak was not a mage, and he’d just reached the limits of what he could do as a high priest. But he had one last trick to try. Taking a deep breath, Rak sent out his mental call, seeking the wild and semi-wild creatures that thrived in cities like this one. Mice and rats, dogs, cats, birds... the real murderer hopefully had not taken a thought to the spying eyes and ears of animals for they were beneath the notice of most humans.

  A lean feline brushed against his leg, meowing. A rat ran up his pants, whiskers quivering. More thin cats slipped up to him, more rodents ran over the cobbles, a few dogs, but not nearly as many animals responded to Rak as he’d have expected in a city that wasn’t under siege by the katrami flies. Rak went down on one knee and touched the furry bodies one by one, giving the gifts of healing and strength in exchange for a glimpse of their memories, seeking for the scent of blood, the scent of evil. He came up disappointed. None of the animals in the area had seen or heard anything out of the ordinary. There were no memories of blood, of fear, or of death.

  Rak shook himself as he released the last of the stray dogs. He slowly walked back to Vyld, trying to think matters through. How much power did it take to not only clean the stain of a murder from the psychic plane but to hide it from the senses of every creature that lived within a stadia of the tower? How much power did it take to clean a plaza of every trace of scent and spirit to the degree that not even his hounds could detect anything?

  At Teson’s inquiring look, Rak said, “Nothing. They saw nothing.” He mounted Vyld. “I am going to return to the palace now. There is nothing else I can accomplish here.”

  Chapter Seven: Midnight Rites

  Midnight was fast approaching by the time Rak reached the palace gates. The gate guards looked him over with great suspicion, and he resisted the urge to scowl at them. The senior guard, a man Rak didn’t know by name, made a notation in the logbook and commented, “I hope no bodies turn up with the dawn, your eminence.”

  “Do you think that I am so stupid that I would leave and return so openly if I had planned to commit such an act?” Rak urged Vyld past the gate, already regretting his temper and words—the expression on that guard’s face still lingered in his mind. The situation seemed to be deteriorating rapidly, but on the other hand, it was no more than he’d expected.

  He groomed Vyld swiftly and left him with a full bucket of meat scraps in addition to the grain and hay, then made his way back to the suite. It was time for the midnight mass, the most important of his God’s rites and the one he was least likely to ever skip or even skimp on. The suite’s small storage room had been magically converted into a chapel when Rak had first arrived here. There was room for perhaps a half dozen people if they were friendly, but no more than that. Scorth was present, and also Tebber and S’Pajel, though the Kephi priest wasn’t known as such there, he was in disguise as a mercenary soldier called Pergil. Notable by their absence were Prince Jethain and Captain Jisten.

  Rak approached the altar, nodded to Ioli, who already had
the black tome open to the proper page, and opened the rite simply by beginning to chant. Ioli would assist him for this rite, though the reading would be difficult since Rak had trouble reading at speed and Ioli was mute. Fortunately, tonight’s reading was one Rak could almost recite from memory. It was, appropriately enough, about the trials and tribulations of the second Thearch, Carziel, a man who’d lived, fought and died three thousand years ago.

  As the rite progressed, Rak prepared the offering of black wine, sacred herbs, vranyxia milk and night wasp honey. All present were offered a taste of it before the remainder was given to the God. Dark flames rose up as the offering was consumed, a rippling wave of power pushed outward from the altar, brushing over everyone in the room, delivering a jolt of energy and pleasure to those who’d partaken. And as simply as that, the rite ended.

  Rak bowed to the altar before backing away, then he turned to Pajel. “I would speak with you.”

  “Of course, your eminence,” the Kephi replied smoothly. “I am at your service.”

  Once they were back in the parlor, Rak said, “Tebber, bar the doors, if you please. I do not want any unexpected guests tonight.” He poured the remainder of the black wine into three goblets. Once opened, the wine had to be consumed that night; it simply didn’t keep. He handed one goblet to Pajel, one to Ioli and kept the third for himself. He took a sip of the strong, sweet wine, savoring the flavor. “We have problems, S’Pajel.” He told the Kephi what he had seen at the murder site and what he hadn’t found. He ended by summing up, “The murder scene was too clean, both physically and psychically.”

  “Psychically clean?” Pajel shook his head. “That takes a great deal of power, S’Rak. The scream of the soul, untimely sundered from its body, should have left a beacon that draws the inner eyes.”

  “I agree. The power costs to clean that murder scene so completely should have been higher than that of the potential power gained by the murder itself. It just does not make sense.”