The Fair Elaine: A Kethem Novel

by Dave Dickie

  I looked up and down the street. It was empty. The lightning stone sounded incredibly loud in the narrow alleyway, but it takes surprisingly little in the way of walls to allow someone to convince themselves that noise they heard was just something falling off a cart, a horse neighing, or something they shouldn’t get involved in unless it repeats four or five times, that sort of thing. I opened the door to the stairwell leading up to my apartment and dragged the two bodies inside, then shut the door. I hunted around for a few minutes and finally gave up and used a rug under the bodies to sop up the slow trickle of blood.

  I could, in theory, have called wardens. They would have gathered the bodies, evidence, and probably tossed me in a jail. Then there would be a statement in front of a Magistrate and jurors declaring self-defense with a truthsayer verifying it. Then I’d be let go, assuming it all went well. But that would take days, and I didn’t think I had the time.

  Fafer and Tolan were hanging out in the Dibs, a bar in a slightly shadier section of town not far from my apartment. Fafer was a big man, maybe three hundred pounds, most of it muscle, and the rest a beer gut that was impressive in size. He was bald, six foot two, and had a plain, craggy face that looked like it had taken more than its fair share of beatings. Tolan was the opposite, five foot five, with black hair that had a deep red tint if you looked long enough, and a matching handlebar mustache. He was stick thin but wiry. I nodded as I walked up to the bar, gave them the sign, and asked for three beers to be delivered to a back table. Then I went over and waited until Tolan was satisfied everything was on the up and up.

  “Gur,” said Tolan as the two slipped into seats. Fafer more fell into his, and it creaked a bit but didn’t collapse.

  “Tolan, how’s tricks?”

  He frowned. “Good for me. Heard not so good for you. Word is there’s a contract out on you,” he said.

  “Word travels fast,” I said. “Any idea who called it?”

  Tolan shook his head. “No, man. Heard it’s Klyne and Blin. Those two are real good and they never talk about their jobs to no one but each other. Only reason anyone thinks it, is they were asking questions about you. That’s never good. Sorry, been meaning to look you up and tell you.” Which was just polite conversation. No one wanted to get involved in people doing wet work. It tended to be an impediment to breathing.

  I nodded. “Turns out it’s not so good for them. Hence my need for some quiet disposal services.”

  Tolan’s eyes widened. “Hell, you iced them? They’re real good, Gur. Real good.”

  Fafer was just watching. In the three years I’d used their services, I’d heard about the same number of words come out of his mouth. He’s not a talker. But now he said, sounding impressed, “You bad ass, man.”

  “Lucky,” I said, thinking about the stab wound in my leg, patched up with bandages. I hadn’t had time to see a physicker.

  Tolan said, “Not so much I think. Fafer’s right, you’re a badass, Gur.”

  I shrugged. “So, clean up services?”

  Tolan said, “Where’s the pickup?”

  I replied “My apartment, ground floor. Some blood.”

  Tolan said, “Drop or cover?” By which he meant a drop off at the Kydaos temple for services or disposal by less savory techniques that made sure the bodies were never found.

  “Cover,” I said. “Deep cover.”

  Tolan nodded. “No problem. With those two, no one to miss them other than whoever employed them. No loose ends. Five hundred.”

  I handed him seven hundred rimii under the table. “Deep cover,” I said again.

  Tolan smiled and said, “It’s already dark. We’ll be by in a wagon in an hour or two. Don’t wait up.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next day I ended up visiting with Yimmy, trying to convince him to take on apprentices. After a discussion much longer than I’d hoped for, Yimmy agreed to take one, and promised to find someone to take the other. It would have to do. The clock was ticking. Someone would eventually know their team of assassins had failed, and then I could expect another.

  I swung by Daesal’s apartment again, but she still wasn’t there. I realized that was probably a good thing. When professional assassins are after you, it’s a little inconsiderate to include your friends in your troubles.

  I spent a number of hours in seedier sections of town trying to find out who had hired Klyne and Brin, but they were pros and I drew a blank. I wandered back to my apartment thinking about next steps.

  When all else fails, it’s time to go back step by step and find out what you might have missed the first time. Sitting somewhere in the middle of this puzzle was a key and I needed to find it fast. I thought I had a bead on what the vial was. I had a theory about who might have stolen it, although I needed some confirmation that only Daesal could provide. If my theory was correct, they were not the ones trying to kill me. I didn’t completely understand the Sambhal temple involvement but, again, there didn’t seem to be anything in it for them to hire assassins. Leppol was always front and center for no other reason than I didn’t like or trust him, but it made no sense for him to hire me and then have someone kill me before I finished the job.

  The one thing I didn’t have a theory on was Maizon. None of my scenarios accounted for why he hadn’t died with the rest of the Silver Rings. It was time to get more of a feel for the man. I picked up the comm amulet Valont had given me and focused. A few seconds later, I heard his voice as if he was standing in the room with me. “You have something?” he asked eagerly.

  “I have theories, my Lord, and I am close to validating them. There are some loose ends I’d like to finish up. Could you arrange for me to meet Holder Maizon’s wife? The sooner the better?”

  “Theories,” said Valont’s voice, sounding disappointed. “I was hoping for something more substantial. But the answer is yes, I can set that up. This afternoon if you’d like.”

  “That would be perfect,” I said. “I’m on my way.” This time I took a carriage to the Ostrag, saving a little time, and when I arrived one of the wardens on guard duty gave me an address a couple of blocks away. Five minutes later, I was outside a brick building with an open arch leading into an inner courtyard. Off the courtyard were a number of doors, numbered one to eight, and two stairways up to a second level with numbers nine to sixteen. I walked up the stairs and tapped at number twelve. After a few moments Maizon’s wife, Theil Pelern, let me in.

  It was a smallish apartment for a couple with three kids, but Thiel made the most of it, with furniture that was comfortably compact, lighter colors that made the place seem larger and more open, and a large floor to ceiling picture window that had been made the center stone of the apartment’s clean, minimalist look. Thiel was tall, solid, and carried herself with a reserved air that seemed more formal than stiff. She had blue eyes and short, curly hair and crinkles in the corners of her eyes that suggested she laughed frequently when she was with people she trusted or with her family. She wore a copper ring with the Grafton glyph on it.

  “Tea, citizen?” she asked, and I nodded my thanks. “Please, have a seat,” she said, “I will be back in a moment.”

  While she was off making tea, I looked around. One wall was dedicated to portraits and pictures, some painted, most magicked images burned into paper or canvas. The majority were of the three children but there were a few of Maizon and Thiel, always together. I again had that odd sense of deja-vu looking at Maizon, like I had met him before, and again I couldn’t place it. Mixed in with the pictures were several exhibits of the children’s handiwork, messily drawn pictures of flowers and rainbows and, occasionally, stick figures of two tall people and three smaller ones. They were always smiling.

  The other wall held a bookshelf. There were a few knickknacks, but mostly it held row after row of thick, leather bound books. I glanced over the titles. Mostly biographies and histories with scholarly sounding names that would scare off casual readers. Many of the histories were on Pranan and the
orc-human wars. There were two books that had the Nyquet city state displayed prominently in the title.

  Theil returned with the tea, which she served in thick, fire glazed teacups that looked rough and primitive but exuded a simple charm that was appealing. I gestured at them as she was pouring. “Unusual teacups,” I said.

  She gave me a tired smile. “Stangri. They’ve used the same techniques making tea sets for the last five hundred years. These are Kushami, two hundred years old. Kushami is still considered the pinnacle of the Jaidu style of tea set, everyday earthenware, much less formal than the Ghibli ceremonial sets.” She looked down at the cup in her hands. “One of my husband’s most valued possessions.”

  I’d would have offered my condolences but she didn’t seem like the type that was looking for sympathy, so I waited a moment, then moved on. “Did you share his love of history?” I asked.

  She laughed and said, “Not really, but it would be hard to be in the same room with Maizon and not have some of it rub off.” She sat silent for a moment, then looked up and gazed at me steadily. “What can I do for you, citizen? Maiun was unclear on exactly what this is about.”

  "Please, call me Gur. I’m investigating your husband’s death for the Lord Holder. Lord Valont was kind enough to set up the meeting for me. I’m trying to understand what happened.”

  She smiled humorlessly. “If you are working for the Lord Holder, I doubt very much you are investigating my husband’s death. You are trying to clear the Hold’s name from the … controversy… Maizon brought down on it.”

  “It is one and the same,” I said, but I could feel some tension there. She was going to use another, stronger word than controversy, and there was some pain associated with it. An old pain. There was something buried there I didn’t understand.

  “As you say, citizen,” she answered, and I noticed she wasn’t calling me Gur. “What questions do you have for me?”

  “Did Maizon tell you what he was working on?” I asked.

  She shook her head negatively. “No. That was unusual. We did not keep secrets from each other. But he told me it was a matter of some sensitivity.” She frowned. “It weighed on him, I could tell. I wanted him to share it with me, not because I really wanted to know, but because it seemed such a heavy burden.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t want you to worry about journeying to Ohulhug territory,” I said.

  “No, he told me about that, although not why. And this started well before the Fair Elaine,” she answered. “Before he even knew he would be going.”

  I frowned. “How long before?” I asked.

  “Months,” she said. “Maizon was involved early on in a diplomatic mission to Northern Pranan. That was actually a couple of years ago. He loved the area, the history, and it was a chance to see it all first hand.”

  “That must have been difficult for you and the children,” I said. She looked a little confused, and I added “It must have required long stretches of sea travel.”

  “Oh, no,” she replied. “It was all by teleportal to Rotkruz. He was only gone for a few days at a time, usually weeks apart.” I didn’t know off the top of my head where Rotkruz was, but assumed it was one of Pranan’s City-States.

  “How did that happen?” I asked.

  She responded, “Maizon became involved when they asked Kethem for support in negotiations with the Ohulhug.”

  That was odd, as the Pranan City-States usually had a chip on their shoulder about Kethem’s airs of superiority. “Why did they want help from Kethem?” I asked.

  “Rotkruz is on Lake Nuscheel, on the northern border of Pranan. Ohulhug inhabit the north coast, where the mountains jut out into the lake. They’ve been fighting intermittently with Rotkruz for three hundred years, and there was too much bad blood on both sides to negotiate a peace. They needed an intermediary. I understand that a lot of the ore that runs down to Cidan originates in the area, and Kethem wants the Cidan steel, so there was pressure to provide any services they requested. Shandon Malloy was selected to lead the negotiations.” I recognized the name as the Silver Ring from Parch Hold that had died on the Fair Elaine. “Shandon and Maizon were friends, and Shandon asked Maizon to come along as an interpreter.”

  I nodded. “And Nemoh, Hayley and Ralin?” I asked, thinking about the other three Silver Rings that had died.

  She shook her head no. “They weren’t involved until much later. Until the Fair Elaine, actually.”

  Interesting. “So Shandon and Maizon were involved in these negotiations for the last two years?” I asked.

  “For about a year and a half. Then something changed. Up until then, Maizon would talk about his trips, bring back curios from Pranan. Sometimes he would talk about the negotiations, but not much. Not that they were a secret, mind you, just that the history of the place was more interesting to him.” She stopped, looking into the distance. “Then the nightmares started.” She looked at me, and her eyes were haunted. “Terrible, terrible nightmares. He would wake up screaming. But he couldn’t tell me why. He stopped talking about the trips altogether.”

  “And the Fair Elaine? Do you know why they couldn’t use the teleportal this time?

  She shook her head no. “Not in any detail. They were traveling to some location other than Rotkruz. Shandon and Maizon were replaced on the negotiation team. Maizon told me a little about recruiting the group for the Fair Elaine, the type of people they were looking for. It seemed completely separate from the Rotkruz negotiations, no overlap at all. And he told me it was to Ohulhug territory, not neutral ground. He was terrified.”

  I thought about that for a minute. It sounded like the negotiations in Pranan had resulted in some kind of direct diplomacy with the Ohulhug, something where they and Kethem had an overlapping interest. Or, perhaps, the Ohulhug and Grafton and Parch Holds.

  “If he was terrified, why did he go? I’m sure they could have found another interpreter,” I said.

  Thiel looked bitter. “His father. He was always trying to impress his father. I tried to tell him that ruthlessness was not strength, that he was a better man than that. But all he saw was what his father saw, and all his father saw was weakness.”

  I turned back to the wall of images, looked at Maizon more carefully, and it finally clicked. I’d never met Maizon before. I’d met his father. Because now, looking at him, I could see it. Maizon’s father was Leppol Dralusus.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I was still thinking about that an hour later when I arrived back at my apartment. Why hadn’t Leppol told me that Maizon was his bastard son? That was an assumption, of course, since I didn’t want to ask Thiel about it directly, but it was the only answer that fit. Was Leppol trying to hide the connection? Or did he just not care?

  My reverie was broken when I reached the outside door to the apartment. It was unlocked so deliveries could be dropped off, but I had a small spring loaded wire at the bottom of the door that would pop out if it had been opened during my absence. It was out and bent slightly by the door closing on it. There were no deliveries on the bottom landing. Being a suspicious type, particularly the day after someone tried to kill me, I pulled out the lighting stone with its single remaining charge in one hand and a stiletto in the other. I had to get the stone topped off again. Quickly.

  I went up the stairs as quietly as I could, which was none too quietly; I’d deliberately inserted loose, squeaky steps to make it impossible. Of course, I had assumed I would be in the apartment and that my handiwork would give away unexpected visitors, not the other way around, but those are the breaks. At the top of the stairs, the inner door was unlocked and ajar. That actually made me feel a little better; if you’re going to try to jump someone as they walk into their apartment, you usually try not to leave little clues to let them know you are inside. Of course, someone could have come in to rob the place, but something told me that this wasn’t that kind of deal. Someone was in the apartment. Someone… female, based on the floral scent of the perfume I could smell
in the air. In fact, I recognized it. I put the stiletto and lighting stone back in their respective locations about my body and opened the door.

  The entryway opened into a large room at the front of the building that looked down on the Plaza and the shield-and-dagger rendition of Reinous through wide, square windows. Those made the apartment fairly pricey. A long couch occupied the far wall, a comfortable reading chair took a little space by the window, a coffee table with a smaller love seat facing it filled the center of the room, and it was finished off by sets of shelves along the walls with the kind of mementos single men collect to make it look like they lead full, interesting lives. Displayed prominently in the center was a small, solid silver statue of a knight holding the handle of a two handed sword, the point buried in the ground in front of him. It was on a polished wooden base with a plaque. The Hero of Kethem trophy, awarded posthumously to my father by the high council itself. I didn’t like having it on display because it made people ask question about things I’d rather forget, but I couldn’t bring myself to box it up.