Corenn was also entrusted with a secondary duty, which was unofficial and known only to the permanent members of the Council.
She was responsible for spotting, among the countless Kauliens she met during her travels, those who seemed to demonstrate an aptitude for using magic. She herself was a mage, though she rarely called on her powers, which she deemed rather weak.
Each time something extraordinary was reported in one province or another, each time something seemingly impossible occurred, Corenn arrived on the scene. She made inquiries, observed, and, far too rarely for her liking, found an individual who might possess the talent.
Without revealing anything, she would then ask the individual his, or more often her, opinion on magic, the Matriarchy, and the idea of starting a new life. When the answers were satisfactory, which was generally the case, Corenn offered a trial, requesting the utmost discretion. Among the twenty individuals she had seen, only twice were the trials crowned with success.
In both of these cases, Corenn had passed on her knowledge to her recruits, both women. The Mother of Global Relations now employed them, needless to say, as spies. The Permanent Council’s intention had been to bring together enough mages to restore the legendary grandeur of former Mothers; the objective still seemed far from being realized.
The debates followed one after another. The Tradition Corenn guarded required her to attend all of the meetings. But her intervention was rarely necessary; the majority of the matters brought forth during the Councils of Villages mainly had to do with food, trade, security, or other domestic themes. For fifteen years, it was always the same problems.
So she waited patiently, voting when a consultation was asked of her, and casting a stern look when a young Representative raised her voice a little too much in the presence of her elders, which was usually enough to restore a more respectful attitude from the tactless individual. Finally, the Mother of Recollection reread the decisions made that particular day, and reminded the Council of the matters they still needed to debate. The village representatives then left the enormous meeting room.
Only sixteen people stayed in the room: the Permanent Council, which now had to debate the important matters previously brought forth, in addition to matters concerning the whole of the country as well as its neighbors.
In the past, they had asked Corenn to report on her search for magicians. For a long time now, that no longer interested many members. And so they went straight to foreign affairs.
The discourse on trade, taxes, and international competition annoyed her even more than the village quarrels. Unfortunately, this part was the most time-consuming.
Then the Mother of Global Relations proudly announced the final ratification of a peace treaty with Romine. Everyone applauded and congratulated her. Though for some time now Romine had no longer deserved its title of High Kingdom and only had a very weak military force, it was still best to ensure neighborly relations.
They then discussed an increase in port traffic, a problem that had just been brought before the Council of Villages and hadn’t been resolved. The Mothers attempted to draft a piece of legislation, but it quickly became clear that none of them were very knowledgeable on the subject. They decided to carry out a study and consult an expert, a task entrusted to the Memory committee. They would then revisit the matter.
Since they had already made significant progress in the day’s agenda and the principal matters had already been looked over, the Ancestress suggested that they take up the remaining business the following dékade. Everyone accepted with relief, as they were weary from the string of meetings, which had gone from the third to the sixth deciday.
Corenn was gathering her things when Wyrmandis, the Mother of Justice, approached her.
“Do you know a Xan? He’s a sculptor from Partacle, I believe.”
Yes, she knew him well. He was the one in charge of organizing the upcoming meeting of the heirs. He and Corenn corresponded regularly; she truly admired the gentle and thoughtful man, one of the few who didn’t consider the gift of magic a monstrous deformity, but rather a talent, a skill to be perfected.
“Yes, actually. How did you know?”
“I’m sorry to inform you, but he’s dead.”
Corenn was shaken. Wyrmandis waited a while, uncomfortably. She seemed to be waiting impatiently for the questions that Corenn was inevitably going to ask her.
“What happened to him?”
“He was killed in his own home, along with his wife and three children. I’m sorry,” she repeated.
Ermeil too. Richa. Garolfo. And what was the youngest’s name again? She couldn’t remember anymore. Dead. All of them were dead.
“They didn’t suffer. I believe they were sleeping when it happened. According to the information I received from Goran, they were poisoned.”
Corenn swallowed painfully. Weakened by shock, her voice was merely a murmur.
“Poisoned? They were murdered?”
“Yes. In fact...”
Wyrmandis pulled her to the side and lowered her voice.
“It’s almost certain that it was the Züu. That’s why I received the information.”
Corenn understood. The Züu hadn’t set foot in Kaul for decades, and everyone wanted it to stay that way. The Justice committee was responsible for keeping a close watch on the murderers’ activities, the world over.
“But why? Why would the Züu have wanted to eliminate Xan and his family? Who would have wanted that?”
“I have no idea. I was hoping you could tell me. The Goranese are also baffled. Recently the Züu have been going after a number of people who are nothing like their usual targets, which include nobility, priests, and bourgeois.”
A terrible suspicion suddenly came over Corenn, leaving her frozen in horror.
“Do you have the names of these people? Of the unusual victims, I mean.”
“Yes, of course I do, they’re included in my report. I can recite a few by memory: there was a Goranese soldier, a Lorelien nobleman, a Sailor from Lineh, or from Yiteh, I believe, and an herbalist from Pont...”
Corenn felt as if the ground had split open right under her feet. She knew all of them, personally or by name. Nort’, Kercyan, Ramur, Sofi...Almost all of them were her friends. And all of them were heirs of Ji.
Wyrmandis ended her morbid recital once she saw how pale her listener had gone. Corenn was swaying when she came to her senses and asked solemnly, “Please tell me, but only if you’re absolutely certain...was a Kaulienne killed by the Züu? A young woman named Léti?”
“No, fortunately not one Kaulien has been killed. Not as of last night, in any case. What is it?”
The mage let out a sigh of relief, ignoring the question. Her little Léti, her only family, the light of her life, was unharmed. Léti was her cousin’s daughter, but since her cousin’s disappearance, she treated the girl as her own.
“I must leave at once. My niece is in danger, and”—she realized as she spoke—“so am I. Wyrmandis, I need that list as soon as possible. Can you have it brought to me in my quarters?”
Wyrmandis frowned as she listened to Corenn, answering her plea with a stare. This all seemed grave.
“You think the Züu are after you? The Züu? I think it would be best if you told me everything. I will do what’s necessary to protect you.”
“I can’t,” she replied, as she hurried off. “I may not get there in time.”
She turned to Wyrmandis as she walked and said, “As for protecting us,”—she shot a glance around the huge room, staring pointedly at the few fat-bellied soldiers that guarded the exits, the deserving veterans of the Matriarchy’s small army—“you know that’s impossible.”
She practically ran through the long hallways leading to her personal quarters in the Grand House.
For the first time in a long time, the mage was afraid.
“By all the gods and their whores!”
Reyan was truly furious. He had deployed his entire seduct
ive arsenal for this damsel. He had brought her to all of the fashionable places, he had bought her a meal, drinks, and, above all else, entry to the finest establishments in Lorelia. And the ungrateful wench had refused him hospitality and a little bit of tenderness for the night, flat out slamming the door in his face.
Things had looked so promising. At the end of the performance that day, he used his charmer’s trick once again. Instead of the retort originally written by Barle—“I cannot because I love another, forget me!”—Reyan had declaimed, “I cannot because I love another; it is thee!” bringing some previously identified girl onstage, who was alone and certainly had an appealing physique.
Barle, the head of the acting troupe, had cried out in protest when his young actor followed such an inspiration for the first time. But he became more tolerant, given the comic success of this text bending. Fortunately, Barle had a good sense of spectacle.
After the show, Reyan had, as usual, offered his prey a drink. This decisive step taken, he showed her his caravan and presented her to each of his companions, nonchalantly mentioning his numerous voyages and his often totally fictional triumphs before the royal courts. Normally, at that point, his victory was sealed.
Seated in front of a goblet, Reyan had moved on to a performance of flattery, praising his companion’s beauty, noble bearing, disposition, and other real or imaginary qualities. Perhaps she was an actress? She would surely become a great performer...
His efforts were followed, at last, by a nighttime stroll, punctuated by visits to bars and taverns, until the moment when he finally thought himself ready to conquer the beauty’s bed.
Only this time, the evening was a failure, and he found himself walking alone in the dark. Just to make matters worse, a thunderstorm cracked overhead.
He violently stomped his foot into a deep puddle, splashing water everywhere. He was soaked anyway.
He didn’t always have to use all of these strategies. Usually his youth, charm, and a few witty words could storm most feminine...ramparts. He was frustrated to have expended such efforts in vain. The woman was simply selfish, he decided, amused at the same time by his own bad faith. No other woman, no matter how insensitive, would have left him searching for a bed like this.
“Sleeping” with a harlot was out of the question. His days of such debauchery had certainly come and gone, even if he still had some friends in the Three-Steps Guild.
Barle had surely locked down the caravan, and it was better for his health to sleep out under the stars than to wake up Barle, who was getting surlier with age. That left the inns, but Reyan knew that he had spent enough terces for the night. No, he had another idea in mind.
Despite their slight disagreements, Mess wouldn’t refuse his cousin some hospitality for the night. Especially if he could be made to recall that his house was, after all, their house, inherited in equal parts from their grandmother. Under this battering rain, he wanted just once to be recognized as a Kercyan. He wanted to be recognized as anything at all.
He stopped at a crossroad. Was it left or straight? Despite having grown up in Lorelia, he wasn’t completely sure which way to go. Truth be told, he tried to take a shortcut, dipping off into the narrow alleyways of the old neighborhoods, and maybe he had overestimated his knowledge of the largest city in the known world.
Out of instinct, he went straight and was rewarded with the sight of the Cheesemakers’ courtyard. The old family home wasn’t very far, on the Money Changer’s street, after the Small-Horse courtyard on his left.
A tremendous flash streaked across the sky, and thunder boomed shortly after. Reyan hurried his step.
Finally, he drew close to the building. It was certainly large, but ancient, very ancient. His great-great-grandfather, whose name he carried, had acquired the house more than a century ago, and it was already old in that time. For the young actor, it symbolized the fall of the Kercyan family, a story his parents had repeated over and over throughout his childhood. But tonight it represented, more than anything else, a roof over his head and an inviting bed.
The tricky part was going to be getting in without “disturbing” Mess, who wouldn’t hesitate to turn him out, and Reyan had had enough doors slammed in his face for the night. So he would simply skip asking his cousin’s permission to stay in his own house.
All he had to do was use the same entrance he had always used to sneak out without his grandmother knowing, to visit the brothels, seedy taverns, or other fine establishments of the Lorelien nightlife. Yes, at one time, he truly was depraved.
He hoisted himself onto the wall above the interior courtyard, accessible from Firebrand Street. In his time, their dog Baron guarded this courtyard, and Reyan had to remember to offer a treat to buy Baron’s silence. Now, anyone could enter; he was a bit annoyed by Mess’s carelessness, though it made things easier for him.
The hardest part was to walk, as on a tightrope, the whole length of the wall, which rose higher until it joined the common room’s little terrace. Some metallic spikes and miniature gargoyles were embedded in the top to discourage attempts of this type, but they typically did not present any true obstacles. But today it had rained, and the rock was slippery.
Reyan had fallen only once, one day when, on top of his habitual intoxication, he had chewed the dried roots of some plant imported from the Lower Kingdoms. He woke up a little before dawn, laid out on the cobblestones with Baron licking his face, and he’d had just enough time to slip into his room before his grandmother discovered him. He had never again smoked, breathed, or ingested any dubious plant or powder, no matter what its origins.
The darkness was illuminated by a lightning strike and he ducked, letting out a curse in the thunder. He could not let himself get picked up by the watchmen; he would have a difficult time explaining why he was breaking into his own house. Worse yet, Mess wouldn’t necessarily confirm his story.
Finally, he reached the small terrace. The game was practically won; it was down to the final play. By gripping the decorative reliefs, he climbed the facade until he reached the little cornice two steps above him. All this seemed more difficult than it used to be. No doubt this was merely due to lack of practice. Then, once perched on the ledge, he pulled on the wooden shutter that covered the window to the third-floor hallway, praying to all the gods and their whores that Mess hadn’t locked or closed it.
The wood scraped against the rock and the hinges creaked, but the shutter opened. Reyan hoped that the noise would be drowned out by that of the storm and wouldn’t wake his cousin. He waited for another rumble of thunder before slipping into the house and closing the shutters behind him.
For a moment, he delighted in the simple pleasure of no more rain falling on his head. Then he listened closely for the sound of footsteps, but all he heard was the pitter-patter of water droplets dripping off his clothes onto the floor.
He took off his cape and his soaked shoes and rolled them up together. The bundle under his arm, he headed for his old bedroom. His cousin had no doubt kept it the same as always. It had been that way for a century, and Mess was attached to tradition, to their ancestor’s historic patrimony and other drivel of the same sort meant to prevent moving even a stick of furniture.
He passed in front of two doors opening to empty rooms, and then, after a final turn in the hallway, he arrived at his destination.
Reyan noticed a strange odor wafting through the air; he glanced toward Mess’s bedroom across the hall.
His door wasn’t closed.
Perhaps his cousin was not at home? It would really be a shame to have put forth so much effort at discretion in an empty house! He wanted to know for sure, and approached the door.
The odor was immediately stronger and Reyan felt uneasy; a morbid idea began to form in his mind.
He pushed open the door with the back of his hand and reeled, pinching his nose shut.
A corpse was lying there. Mess.
A flash of lightning illuminated the room, and Reyan was cert
ain. The odor was awful, penetrating, and he had to muster his courage before approaching the bed.
There were no obvious signs pointing to the cause of death. His face didn’t look tense, and he was wearing his nightclothes. Reyan could only conclude that it had happened in his sleep, and that someone had touched the body afterwards.
Someone had laid him out on top of the covers. Someone had pushed his legs together, stretched his arms out, and tilted his head back slightly. Someone had pulled his clothes over his limbs. So why did they then abandon the body?
The odor became unbearable and Reyan turned away.
Thunder clapped and someone was in the doorway.
Someone, or something.
Reyan would keep each detail of this moment with him forever. A man with a dagger and wearing a scarlet tunic was watching him silently. He was bald and his face was painted: black eye sockets, black nose, black ears, all set against white face paint. Altogether, it had the morbid appearance of a human skull. A monstrous, expressionless skull, lifeless except for two blazing flames: the eyes of a demon.
The actor was well traveled and could recognize what stood before him. One of the messengers of Zuïa, a furious madman, a cursed Zü killer.
In the flash of light, the thing spoke. His voice was guttural and his pronunciation of Lorelien very odd. Reyan wondered, while reproaching himself for the detachment he felt now, at the hour of his demise, if this was part of the usual assassin mise-en-scène.
“Are you ready to appear before Zuïa?”
The actor didn’t waste any time answering and charged at the intruder, throwing his cape and shoes at his face. He kicked the disoriented assassin and ran down the hallway.
His dagger. His poison dagger.
Did he touch it? No, he didn’t think so.
He ran past his grandmother’s old bedroom and then hurtled down the stairs to the second floor. The Zü was already on his heels, just three steps behind, maybe fewer. Reyan expected to feel that lethal steel penetrate his flesh at any moment, and the mental image gave him speed. He ran the length of the hallway in ten strides, came to the top of the staircase that would lead him to the ground floor, then threw himself down.
Six Heirs Page 4