The Great Restoration (A Tale of the Verin Empire Book 2)

by William Ray

  The Market District’s Courthouse was one of the oldest in Gemmen, constructed in marble columns in the Pylian style two centuries back when the Elven architecture aped by Modernism would have been derided as too inhuman for the public’s taste. Emily’s principle concern with the architecture was the excess of stairs, that celebration of human independence seemed to require.

  The narrow marble steps were pretty to look at, but after her hike through the slushy streets from the other side of the district, she wished the entrance were at ground level rather than two stories up a steep wall of tiny steps. A former client had once explained it had something to do with the way the ancient Pylians had heated their buildings, and as she neared the top, she found herself hoping the architects were now freezing in hell for using it as a decorative flourish so many centuries later.

  A few stone benches were arrayed along the top landing, all currently occupied by others who had braved the stair and were now taking their rest. Judges and petitioners had their own more practical entrances, but the general public had to climb, and she supposed she should be grateful to whoever had thought to leave them a place to recover before heading inside.

  She took a moment to make herself look a bit more orderly, adjusting the combs in her hair and brushing off her dress. There was little she could do about the muck on her shoes, but she managed to scrape some of that off onto the top few stairs, which seemed like fair recompense given the trouble they’d caused her.

  Looking up, she saw the angry countenance of Taltek, the god of justice presiding over the courthouse doors that flanked him, and she reflected uncomfortably on her uncharitable thoughts towards the courthouse’s long-dead architects. She uttered a soft prayer of apology.

  Taltek was always depicted with a face on both sides—the outraged snarl that faced the damned at the gates of hell, keeping them trapped inside, and the stern gaze that faced away, judging the souls that might pass through the gate behind him. He bore a spear in each hand, the tip of the right spear always facing forwards, here sculpted with flames wreathing the stone tips.

  The entire thing was lavishly painted and reminded Emily of a humbler wooden statue in her village temple growing up. As a child, she had always gone out of her way to pass it by on the stern side rather than the angry one. She laughed softly at her childhood superstition but still crossed to the other side of the landing, so she wouldn’t have to pass under the angry half’s ferocious gaze.

  A gentleman, also on his way inside, held the door for her, and she stepped past Taltek and into the bustle of the courthouse’s lobby. Numerous people gathered in various queues, most of which she could not begin to guess at the purpose of, although some of the lines looked markedly happier than others. Brown-robed petitioners marched purposefully about, breezing past the lines on whatever errands had brought them here.

  With little experience of courthouses, Emily watched quietly for a bit, trying to figure out where best to ask after Francis Parland. As she waited, a pair of doors flung open revealing a crowded courtroom beyond. By tradition, the judges and petitioners must march past the gathered crowds after sentence was rendered, and she could see the white and red of the judge’s dress between the quartet of petitioners packed tightly around him.

  The group moved purposefully away from the courtroom, laughing in amiable discussion as they proceeded down the hall, and Emily quietly slipped after to see where they might go. After a short walk, they turned into one of the adjacent doors, which appeared to be the judge’s chambers. Inside was a small reception, which the five breezed through into some office beyond.

  Emily stepped into the reception and was immediately greeted by a young clerk seated at a desk there. He was surrounded by a tall stack of books and nearly buried in various slips of paper, but he apparently doubled as receptionist among his other duties. Despite looking tired and terribly overworked, he managed a friendly enough smile as he said, “Hello, madam. Is there something you need?”

  Several lies that might motivate his sympathies sprang to mind, but she hesitated in choosing one. The clerk was around the same age as her own son, and something in that momentary resemblance made her want to be honest. Instead of the first few responses she had considered, she simply said, “I’m looking for Francis Parland’s address. He’s a petitioner, so I thought you might have it here?”

  Her worries at any obstruction melted as the young man smiled, looking entirely pleased to be able to offer her something. Turning around, he pulled out a well-worn publication entitled Guide to the Legal Practitioners and Practices of Gemmen. The clerk flipped the book open but a few pages from the listing and then, with a smile, turned the book around and held it out for her.

  It conveniently enough listed the firm with which he practiced, his professional address, home address, wife’s name (Millie), and the number of their children (none). That last bit of data seemed sad, and she wondered if the publishers of the Guide had ever considered publishing such detail might embarrass their subjects. Emily silently recited the address a few times and then thanked the clerk.

  As she was taking her leave, an officer in olive and gold pressed through the door, rudely shouldering her aside before pausing in recognition and giving her a gap-toothed smile. Jerry DeRime was an oaf, by nature and by trade, but he had married an old acquaintance of hers. Compelled to be civil, she gave a polite nod and wedged herself past him.

  DeRime tossed a rumpled sheet of paper towards the clerk and said, “That’s been served and signed.” She was relieved she might avoid his conversation but had barely made it through the door when he turned his attention back to her. “Miss Loch! Saw your boss today. Tossed him in a cell myself. We won’t go as easy this time, so you might finally have to find other employment; Jenny does well with her sewing.”

  The condescending sneer made her want to tell him Jenny couldn’t sew worth a damn and was just slowly doling out money she’d earned on her back years earlier. DeRime thought he’d married a former Palace District chambermaid, and the truth would burn him. But she knew it would burn Jenny too. Emily bit back the words before she uttered them—courthouses were sacred to Taltek, consecrated to justice, and unpleasant truths were not the same thing.

  Instead, she forced a smile and said, “Oh? Well then, I suppose I’ll have to learn to sew.”

  * * *

  Emily had expected Parland to live someplace swanky but was still surprised when the driver told her the address was all the way out in Old Park. In ancient times, that bit of land, adjacent to both the Palace District and the Government District, had been set aside for royal sport. Kings had stocked and stalked game there, just outside of the city.

  King Randel, as part of the compact forced on him by the ironically titled ‘Lesser Lords’ had granted out the lands of his park, which were then made into relatively spacious estates. Most of those were still owned by the descendants of the Lesser Lords, although Roderick had once wistfully lamented that the title Earl of Wending had long since been separated from its original estates there.

  From Market, the taxi had run about three and a half peis worth of intersections; that would leave her with just short of three peis in her purse. She might be able to make it most of the way home on that, but the trouble was, in this neighborhood no taxi would be around to be hailed on the way out again. Leaning forward, she said to the driver in her most convincing Palace District lilt, “I shan’t be long. Would you mind terribly much just waiting here?”

  The man shrugged and called back, “No, ma’am, but I’ll have to charge for the wait, more if it passes the dinner hour.”

  Emily smiled sweetly, nodded her head, and then stepped outside, silently cursing the situation. For a self-employed taxi driver, the dinner hour was whenever the man chose to set it, so of course whatever time she spent here would go right through it. She supposed he had family and horses to feed and wondered if she could play on his sympathies when he realized she wasn’t the rich Palace
District sort she was pretending.

  Of course, if she weren’t pretending to be someone else, he’d rightly assume she didn’t have the money to pay him to wait, dinner hour or not. She made plans to hash out that particular fee along the ride back, knowing there was no way she could pay the fare here from Market then near enough back to Potter plus whatever the man wanted to charge her for the wait.

  It looked like rain, and foul weather often led to foul moods, which would make bargaining him down more difficult. Maybe she could talk him into waiting outside her flat while she ran in to get more money, but that might just set her up to be robbed later. Maybe if he dropped her off at the building behind hers, and she slipped through the alley, she could get his money without disclosing her own address.

  Her train of thought on that transaction came to a halt as she approached the door, and it opened without the need for her to knock. A smiling footman stood there and gestured her into the foyer to wait while he took her name to Mister Parland.

  The foyer was large, with a broad staircase from which a lord might make a grand entrance to greet his guests at a party. Looking around, Emily could not decide if this was the ancestral home of Parlands since the time of Randel’s Compact, or if he was merely of sufficient wealth to have obtained it since.

  The paint was not peeling, so it had been maintained, but there were still places where empty picture rails dangled none of the old family art along the walls. That art might have been sold in leaner times, but most families would recover it when they had money, and she knew from Gus that Francis Parland had plenty of that. She had not quite decided the answer when Mister Parland appeared on the floor above and descended the stair to meet her.

  Parland’s hair was mostly gone, and the wispy silver remains of it wrapped around the back of his head lent him an aura of respectable credibility, like some elder statesman, but that was contrasted by a sharply pointed beard of the sort only popular among Garren literati. He had been home long enough to shed the brown robes of his office, but the brown suit he wore was probably the same one he had been wearing all day beneath it.

  He also wore a smirk she doubted was often seen in Taltek’s halls. “Miss Loch. I don’t suppose your employer has sent you all this way to finally complete the second half of our long-standing agreement?”

  Feigning a fluster, Emily shook her head and replied, “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that, Mister Parland.”

  It was a lie; she knew perfectly well what he wanted, and Parland’s derisive snort said he knew she was lying on that count as well. That golden knife in Gus’s desk drawer pained him every time he saw it, and she could never understand why he wouldn’t take whatever Parland offered just to be rid of it. If the petitioner knew Gus had it already, she was sure Parland would find some way to take it, regardless.

  When she first discovered the thing, she’d even considered selling that information to him for a finder’s fee, but the woman who might once have done that was long gone—as was her money. That reminded her of the taxi outside, which would be considered a serious eyesore in this part of town as its driver happily idled away the money he thought she could pay.

  “Actually, Mister Parland, I came by to see your collection,” she said and smiled at his look of surprise. With Gus locked away in the constabulary, she would need to beg for more than one favor, but that would be easier after she’d flattered his favorite hobby. There was a rumble of distant thunder, so she borrowed the drama that lent to add, “First though, I’m afraid I came by taxi, and he’s waiting outside. Is there someplace he can shelter from the storm?”

  Parland no doubt had shelter for his own horses, and Emily hoped if she could get the cabman out of the rain, it might make the bargaining over the fare easier later. Instead, apparently delighted by her interest in his collection, her host decided to be gallant.

  Snapping his fingers, Parland called out to a footman, who appeared seemingly from nowhere, “Samwell? Can you go pay the gentleman outside and send him along? There’s no need for him to wait in the rain since one of you can drive Miss Loch home when she’s done.”

  With a smile of unfeigned gratitude, Emily stepped forward and looped her arm through Parland’s to let him escort her on towards the collection she had come to see. The petitioner looked to be several years older than the current Earl of Wending, which made him just the right age to consider her young enough to still find that attention flattering. He smiled back at her and then led them on a leisurely stroll down a hallway that branched from the foyer.

  There was nothing particularly Elven in either his foyer or the hallway he led her along, which made Emily suspect that Millie Parland shared none of her husband’s interest in the stuff. Flattered or not, the petitioner still seemed somewhat skeptical as he asked, “So what brings about this interest in my collection, Miss Loch?”

  “Well,” she replied, “The news. The recent kidnapping, with the Wardens?” He gave a skeptical tsk at the mention of Wardens, clearly not convinced they could be real. She wanted to seem agreeable, so she nodded and went on, “I was speaking to people about that, and of course the subject of the Elves came up, and it struck me that, in all these years, I’ve never actually seen this collection you’re always talking about!”

  Parland laughed as he stopped in front of a closed door and said, “Well, not ‘always’! I do have other interests, but you only ever see me when I’m pressing your employer to get to work completing our arrangement. I am quite proud of what I’ve gathered, however.” With that, he pushed open the door.

  Unlike the rest of the house, the room inside was brilliantly lit with patent lamps that bathed the room in a stark light more suited to the stage than any drawing room. It was an expensive option, and she wondered if their slow walk down the hall was for the benefit of some footman dashing along a side corridor to light them.

  At the center of the room was a maze of unmatching glass cabinets that amplified the excessive brightness, but within them, she also saw the glittering pale gold of elfsteel. Stepping up to one of the cabinets, she looked over the dazzling array of golden knick-knacks stored within. Emily doubted the Imperial crown jewels could glitter more, although on reflection, she supposed they had the added allure of being actual gold.

  “They’re all whole, of course,” Parland began, gesturing over the random ornaments she was admiring. “Elfsteel holds a better edge but isn’t as durable against iron and is too stiff for forging. If broken, it quickly just crumbles apart and fades to a dull gray. I think everything here must have been originally cast from a molten form into its present shape, although no one really knows how it was done.”

  “Why didn’t these pieces go with them, do you suppose?” The ornaments weren’t why she was here, so Emily pulled herself away and began looking through the other cabinets.

  “The Elves left with everything that was theirs. The pieces that were left were either traded away, back when the Elves allowed trade with men, taken by force, or recovered from ruins found before they vanished.”

  Pressing at her elbow, Parland guided her around the cabinets towards the back of the room as he lectured on, “And of course, that was a nasty bit of revenge on their part. The war was heavily financed on the prospect of seized Elven treasures, and there weren’t any. The Elven Trove laws are still in effect, awarding any hidden treasures discovered in Aelfua to the crown, but aside from a few questionable trinkets, nothing was ever recovered.”

  As they rounded a row of tall cabinets, standing back between two large windows at the far side of the room was a dark figure cloaked in green. Emily was so startled by it that she nearly shrieked, and only restrained herself by clutching tighter upon her host’s arm.

  Parland chuckled and said, “This is my general. Don’t worry; he’s just a wooden mannequin. What he’s wearing is entirely authentic, however. Poor fellow died at the battle of Mahnpaksipol, defending a city that vanished a few weeks later. A bit of cannon
shell caught him in the thigh, and he bled right out. The pieces aren’t all his originals, having been recovered from various places, but he fairly matches the descriptions we have of the war dress among Elven leaders.”

  The ‘general’ stood at about Parland’s height, wearing a mask of buttery elfsteel that depicted an Elven face Emily suspected was a colder rendition of its original wearer’s. The eyes were empty, with no one behind them, which greatly emphasized the face’s inhumanly angular cast and narrow features. His head was wrapped in some sort of green turban, and he wore a quilted green suit that covered him head to toe. An elfsteel-tipped spear was held in one hand, and the broad belt he wore held two short scabbards behind his hips, one of which sat empty.

  It was an impressive sight, and Emily could see why, even without guns, Elves like this might have inspired terror across the battlefield. What arrested her attention, however, was the knife diagonally tucked just behind his belt buckle. It was a smooth crescent, just as Missus Casey had drawn and even about the same size.

  Slipping out the leaf she had stolen from Lady Wending’s floral arrangements that morning, Emily held it up to the general’s uniform, and even in the harsh light of the patent lamps, it was a nearly perfect match.

  Emily supposed Parland must no doubt have thought she was mad, holding a small leaf up to the thing, but he waited for her to finish that comparison before asking, “What exactly is it you came to discover?”

  Staging an abashed smile, she replied, “We’ve been working on that kidnapping case. Doctor Edward Phand? They say he was grabbed by Wardens.” Parland harrumphed at the very idea, so Emily nodded agreeably then said, “They had knives though, much like the one your general has, and wore the same green he does. Their knives weren’t elfsteel, however.”

  The petitioner shook his head and said, “It’s a poorly considered joke, and nothing more. I do give them credit on their research; during the war, some Wardens did use those same ceremonial knives, made from iron or steel, since by then the Elves were forbidden to give any elfsteel to humans. It doesn’t matter what they had though. There aren’t any Wardens left because there’s no one left to give them orders.”