by Devin Hanson
There were plenty of reasons that could explain why the murders hadn’t been written about. The lack of trade to Andronath would have disrupted the mail packets. It was possible that a stack of alarming warnings were sitting forgotten on a landing dock somewhere, waiting for an airship or a trader to make the trip to Andronath.
In Ardhal, the watcher was a tax man, a jolly, portly fellow with his fingers in everyone’s business, with the blessings of the duke. Seamus Quillion might be the duke’s tax man, but he was well liked regardless, known for his good humor and keeping his thumb off the metaphorical scale. His side business of watching for the Fraternity was maintained under the usual guise of reporting local trends to investors in Galdaris. Why investors would be interested in people developing a taste for eating sheep hearts was a puzzle best left unsolved.
Jules didn’t see their destination until they had almost passed it. Salian architecture being what it was, most businesses didn’t have an obvious façade, so instead relied for announcing services on signs that could be taken down at night. The tax collector’s office would normally have had a placard with a balanced scale hanging on it out front. Indeed, it was such a sign that Jules had been looking for. Instead, what caught her eye was the carefully wrinkled paint on a doorjamb forming the coded symbol for a watcher.
“This is the place,” she said quietly to Iria.
The warden looked around the street, noting other business signs hanging outside doors, and frowned. “Something is not right here.”
“Should we get more wardens?” Jules asked, already knowing the answer and reaching down to loosen her runed blade in its sheathe.
“I think not,” Iria answered. “They would just get in the way.”
Jules smiled, baring her teeth in something more reminiscent of a hunting cat than a pleasant social expression. “I was hoping you’d say that.” She took the short flight of steps to the door. Close up, she saw the jamb had been cracked and the door hung slightly ajar. With a gesture, she indicated the forced door to Iria and drew her blade, keeping it flat against her arm and out of sight beneath her cloak.
Iria joined her on the stoop, drawing the curved Maar dagger she preferred to use in close spaces, leaving the scimitar on her belt. With a nod from Jules, Iria pushed the door open and flowed into the foyer, her dagger held at the ready, then stepped aside and made room for Jules.
Close on Iria’s heels, Jules slipped into the room and scanned it for threats. The foyer was an open room, perhaps ten paces wide with a secretary’s desk facing the door and a collection of padded chairs against the wall for people waiting to pay their taxes. Seeing no immediate danger, Jules used her foot to push the door closed. The wrenched hinges squealed. Jules and Iria flinched and froze, listening intently.
Silence.
After a few heartbeats, Iria relaxed slightly and slid across the room to the desk. She moved lightly, without a sound.
Behind Iria, Jules followed, one hand pressed against the sharp hardness of the dragon scale in her pouch, alchemical Sayings formed in her mind and waiting on the tip of her tongue to be unleashed. The dragon scale was a reservoir of vitae roughly equivalent to a small lake of dragongas, with a value greater than some smaller duchies. Dragon scales and other similar fluxes were valued beyond their purely monetary aspects as they allowed alchemists to do battle without having to lug around gallons of dragongas.
Room by room, Jules and Iria made their way through the tax collector’s building. The first floor was given over to the business, with a staircase in the back leading to a dwelling flat. Except for the forced door, there were no signs of a struggle or robbery in the office space; the safe was untouched, the cabinets of files undamaged.
That changed when they ascended the stairs to the watcher’s dwelling. The door to the bedroom had been kicked in, the staves shattered and strewn about. Iria rapidly checked the other rooms and found them empty while Jules stood in the doorway and marveled at the perfect destruction of the bedroom.
It wasn’t just the door that was broken: the nightstand, armoire, bed frame, even the clock on the wall had been smashed to flinders. There was, however, no blood.
“I’m not sure what to make of this,” Jules said when Iria had finished her inspection and had returned to her side.
“It was intimidation,” Iria said thoughtfully. She pointed to the chair, intact in the midst of the destruction. “Your watcher was not a man used to violence. Such people are easily impressed by the destruction of their material goods.”
“To what end?” Jules shook her head. “No, don’t tell me. I already know.” The purpose was to convince Seamus to give up the locations and names of any other watchers in Ardhal.
“It would explain the lack of letters,” Iria said grimly.
“Seamus Quillion was a smart man. He would have to be, to be chosen by the Fraternity. There must be something he left behind, some record of his observations.”
“It will not be in this room,” Iria said, turning and looking about the room. “They would have searched it.”
“Downstairs, then?”
Iria grimaced. “If I was him, I would have hidden it within the tax files. If it is so, they are lost. There are too many files to look through without spending hours with many people.”
Jules sighed. “We can’t risk being discovered. My presence here would raise too many questions.”
“Then we must find another approach. It is not as if the presence of Incantors in Ardhal is in doubt any longer. What we need to know is where, who, and how many. It is unlikely the watcher had such information.”
The warden had a point. Jules nodded reluctantly. “I was hoping to avoid asking around. My face is not unknown.”
“When Travis came to Andronath, his wagons were loaded with great chests of metal that kept the meats within frozen.”
“Coldboxes,” Jules supplied absently.
“Yes. Such things are commonly used?”
“Among the wealthy, yes.”
“Then we only need to find the alchemists to locate the Incantors. Inquiry after alchemists to perform repairs or create more of these coldboxes would go unremarked.”
Jules nodded, a smile growing on her face. “You’re right. Come on, let’s get back to the Dancing Horse. We can hire a messenger to do the legwork for us.”
Chapter 7
Disaster
Travis Bellwether, if he was being honest with himself, was something of a romantic. Flying the skies in airships, traveling around Salia and beyond, adventure and exploration: these were the dreams that led him into Baron Priah’s service. Not everything he had experienced during his years of working for the baron had been as exciting as he had hoped, but there were opportunities for excitement salted throughout that kept him keen and eager for more.
The last few hours had shaken the foundations of his world view. He wasn’t what his mum would have called a good man. He had cheated, stolen, brawled, even killed once. While in the baron’s service, he had carried out orders that had left a sour taste in his mouth. Everything was within the bounds of legality, if not morality.
But now he found himself in a situation where the law hadn’t simply been broken, it had been shattered, and the individual pieces ground to dust.
The Black Drake drifted slowly toward the yard dock, closing the last few feet before lines could be thrown and the airship made fast. On the prow of the Drake, Trent Priah stood, a caricature of a gargoyle. The wind had blown his hood back, and his hair stirred in lank, greasy tangles about his face. He had changed his clothes to ones free of blood stains, but that veneer of respectability was paper thin.
With a last bump, the Drake was made fast and the gangplank thrown down. Travis left the aft cabins and joined the baron as the elder Priah crossed over to the dock.
“Master Howell,” Corvis greeted the Master Engineer, “I’ve come with good news. I have dragongas and an alchemist! We can begin work on the airship engines at once.”
“Ah!” Howell rubbed his hands together, a smile on his face and a gleam in his eye. “Is this the alchemist here?”
“Mr. Bellwether is my lieutenant,” Corvis explained, and indicated the figure of Trent on the foredeck, swathed about in a dark cloak, his hood brought back up to cover his face. “There stands my alchemist.”
Vernan took in the figure and his enthusiasm ebbed away, replaced by uncomfortable caution. “I see. Strikes a fell figure, does he not?”
Corvis gave a twisted smile, lacking in any amusement. “Perhaps. But he’ll get the job done.”
“Aye… As you say, Baron. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to the staging area where I have the engine parts prepared. Master Alchemist!” he called to Trent. “If you are prepared, I will bring you to your work station.”
Trent’s head turned and the empty hollow of his deep hood regarded them for a moment before he nodded and descended to the main deck. After ducking into the forward cabin, Trent reappeared with a heavy satchel slung over his shoulder.
Howell recoiled slightly when Trent crossed the gangplank and he got a good look at the lacework of scars covering Trent’s face. Trent smiled in reply, the skin of his face puckering and twisting.
“Lead the way, Master Engineer,” Trent said, his voice raspy.
“Of course. If you would follow me.”
Corvis caught Travis’ elbow. “Follow them,” he said quietly. “Assist Trent in whatever way he requires. Do not try to stop him, whatever he may do.”
Travis swallowed, but nodded. “As you will, my lord.”
“Good lad. You have the vitae?”
“I do.” Travis patted his chest where the vials were still secured.
“The tiny gods grant this be done swiftly, then. I will be aboard the Drake awaiting news of success.”
Andrew sat in a private dining room off the common room in the Dancing Horse. Jules was by his side and had just finished telling him about the missing Fraternity watcher as they ate. Iria and Adnan were present as well, and as dinner was winding down, a general council gradually took its place, with everyone giving progress updates on their separate tasks.
“Do we have any idea who did for the watcher?” Adnan asked.
“Must have been the Incantors, though I suppose it’s possible a local did the deed attempting to get out of paying taxes,” Jules shook her head. “Ultimately it doesn’t matter who did it. The result is the same.”
“For our part,” Andrew said, “the caravan set up is progressing rapidly. I found a caravan master willing to make the trip. In fact, once it became known that I was acting on behalf of Andronath to provide select caravans with rights to trade, I had a line forming. Andronath won’t be starving this winter.”
“Once word gets around how desperate people are for alchemical products, artificers in Andronath are going to make a killing,” Jules said with a smile. “That is good news about trade resuming. I’ll admit to being worried.”
“The Incantors seem to have lost all sense of moderation,” Adnan said grimly. “In the last week, there have been over a hundred people killed or gone missing. Ardhal does not have the population to sustain such loss.”
“It’s a good thing we came, then,” Andrew said, his own tone matching Adnan’s. “This is precisely the sort of thing we fight against. Free of the Guild, the Incantors have no threat to keep them in check. By killing a few of them, hopefully we will drive the rest into hiding. It will make it harder to track the last of them down, but we will be saving hundreds, if not thousands, of lives in the process.”
“I do wish there were a way we could kill them all at once, as we did in Khar Bora,” Iria said, “but the same trick will not succeed twice.”
“Not to mention we don’t have an army of desert dragons acting as surety,” Jules added. “Nor can we assume all the Incantors in Salia are present in Ardhal. There are many here, there is no doubt of that, but there could be just as many throughout the rest of the kingdom.”
Andrew opened his mouth to reply when a knock at the door shocked them all to silence. There was a warden standing guard outside, so there was no chance of an eavesdropper, but an interruption meant something important demanded their attention.
Jules stood from the table and threw her hood over her head before going and opening the door a crack, keeping her head bowed and her face in shadow. “What is it?” she asked.
“Constable Ryan is here to speak with Mr. Condign,” the warden replied.
Jules peeked past him and saw the tall figure of the constable standing a few paces off, his hat in his hands, rainwater still dripping off his long coat. His face looked haggard and drawn, his eyes dull. “Send him in,” Jules instructed.
By the time the warden ushered the constable into the room, Jules had retreated to a corner where she stood with her head bowed, the picture of an unobtrusive servant awaiting instruction. Andrew stood and offered the constable his hand. “A pleasure, Constable. What brings you here at this hour?”
Constable Ryan looked around the room, his eyes fastening on the two Maar. “Disaster, Mr. Condign. I came seeking your aid.”
Andrew frowned. “Disaster? What do you mean? Please, have a seat. Tell me what happened.”
Eric Ryan folded himself into the seat recently vacated by Jules and dropped his wet hat upon the table. “Where to begin?” he sighed, scrubbed his hands across his face. “You know of the murders happening in Ardhal?”
“You mentioned them, yes,” Andrew said cautiously, scrambling to bring up the details of his conversation with the constable. It wouldn’t do to appear more knowledgeable than he should.
“I had tracked the killers down to the space of a few blocks, had visual sightings of two of them, even. One, a hulking brute of a man, tall as me but broad of shoulder. He had black hair and wore a thick, untrimmed beard and was heavy of countenance. The other was a smaller man, shoulder height to me, balding with seeing optics on his face. What hair he had left was blonde or light brown.”
Andrew exchanged a glance with Jules. The first man the constable described could only be Bircham Lameda, a known Incantor. The other didn’t match any description Andrew recognized; a balding man wearing seeing optics was a common description among alchemists.
“I had my men following the suspects,” the constable continued. “I had ten of my best stationed around the building where we suspected the murderers were hiding. They raided the building, a drinking establishment called the Old Hollow.”
The constable faltered in his tale, his eyes growing distant. Andrew didn’t need to hear the details, he knew already what had happened.
“I can still hear the screams. Phrases of some dark language was shouted. Flashes of light and thunderous noise followed. None of my men came out alive, Mr. Condign.”
“How terrible,” Iria said, her voice tight with shared pain. She had lost close companions to Incantors as well.
“I do not know what to do,” the constable said and hung his head. “I have never come across something of this nature in all my reading or experience. How can you fight something that kills at a word? I came here… I came here with a last, desperate hope that your Maar might have heard of such a thing, and know how to combat it.”
“We know of it,” Iria said grimly.
Andrew looked at her in surprise then gave a tiny nod when Iria met his gaze, her eyes filled with suppressed rage. He could not forbid her vengeance. Iria may have sworn to be his Spear, but that did not change who she was, and, in truth, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You do?!” Ryan sat up, his eyes wide. Hope was writ plain on his face. “How can this be?”
“I have… trained with the Rangers of Nas Shahr,” Iria said delicately. “It was there that I learned of fighting against alchemy.”
“Alchemy?” the constable repeated in a whisper. “Alchemists are behind these murders?”
Andrew cleared his throat, drawing the attention of the constable. How much could
he tell the man? What would his reaction be if he knew why Andrew was really in the city? And yet, already the damage was done. Alchemists were clearly to blame, as anyone familiar with the art could have told the constable. It was sheer luck that the man had come here for help rather than directly to the duke.
The tiny gods only knew what the duke’s response would be to having alchemists murdering his citizens. The fragile peace that had held throughout the spring would be shattered, Andronath would be drawn into war with Salia. Trade would vanish and Andronath would starve.
But what details could Andrew divulge? The constable was an educated man, unlikely to believe wild stories of Incantors. The full story of who Andrew was and why he was here would be too difficult to tell, too much would require proof that was impossible to provide.
“You know we hail from Andronath,” Andrew said finally. “What you may not know is that the Alchemists Guild has had a faction splinter off. That faction has committed crimes that have only one punishment: death. We come here to set up trade, yes, but also in seeking these outlaw alchemists to bring them to justice.
“I have to be clear on something. We had no idea what was happening in Ardhal before we arrived, nor were we certain your troubles were related to those we seek. However, given the facts, it would seem they are one and the same. I offered you my aid before in good faith and my offer still stands.”
Constable Ryan stared at Andrew, his lips forming the beginning of unasked questions. “But the Maar?” he finally asked, settling on something he could understand. “Why are the Maar aiding Andronath?”
“They aren’t,” Andrew said shortly. “They aid me. Iria Mian and Adnan Hakhim are formerly balai. The emperor in Nas Shahr is dead, and the balai disbanded. Most of them follow me now, seeking out and eliminating the same rogue alchemists that threaten your city.”