Slipping into the Quintessential Sphere, Tionne slipped through the wall and into the hallway. There was no one there. No one in the rear stairwell or the small yard that separated the inn from the visitor's stables. No one to stop her and no one to see her leave. Perfect.
Almost as an afterthought, she snagged her cloak from the chest. She'd have no need of the Order's robes anymore, but something that would hide her could come in handy. Throwing the thick fabric over her shoulder, she slipped out the door, down the stairs, and into the city. Her absence wouldn't be noted until much later that night when Faxon came to check on her.
It was easy for him to figure out her message, but by that time, he had far more dire things to worry about than his errant journeyman.
#
“You're sure you're ready for this?” Nerillia was crouched behind her and the woman's breath on Tionne's neck sent goose bumps racing down her arms.
“I'm ready.” Tionne didn't take her eyes off the inn. “I know exactly what I need to do.”
“Very well then.” Nerillia gave her a gentle shove. “Go. Fulfill your destiny.”
The lateness of the hour and the location of the inn made it easier for her to slip inside unnoticed. Tionne had watched the inn since earlier that evening and when she saw Faxon leave in a rush, she'd summoned the Lamiad with a spell Nerillia had taught her. Nerillia had looked things over, asked Tionne about her plan, then told her to wait. They'd waited until after midnight, watching the lights in the windows of the inn go out one after another. Now her time was at hand.
The night had grown cold and dark. Her breath puffed out in little white wisps as she crossed the wide street to the stairs that lead to the rear entry of the inn. There was a guard there, but he was sleeping soundly. His chin was touching his chest and the sound of his own snores would mask any noise that Tionne might make.
With a simple manipulation of the Sphere, Tionne silenced the oak door leading into the back hallway. She slipped inside and closed it behind her. The easy part was over. Now came the challenge.
She tiptoed down the hall to the doorway she'd noted earlier in her stay. A youngster was staying there, a boy, maybe five years old. He'd wanted to play with Tionne on the day she'd arrived with Faxon, but she'd been busy running errands. When she was in the inn, Lemmy was underfoot, wanting to play, or watch, or just be paid attention to. His parents spent more time in the common room than they did with little Lemmy. A fact that would work to her advantage.
Shifting into the Sphere, she cast out into the closed room. The main bed was empty. Lemmy's parents had probably passed out at the table. Lemmy was there though, tucked into the little trundle at the foot of the bed. Snapping back into the physical realm, Tionne glanced up and down the hall to ensure she was alone, then eased the door open and went inside.
She knelt beside the little bed, her hand hovering over his face. As if he sensed her presence, Lemmy's eyes snapped open and he gasped. Tionne knew that breath would end in a scream, so she clamped her hand over the boy's mouth, leaning in close so she could whisper in her ear.
“Shhhhh, it's okay, Lemmy. It's me. Tionne. You're okay, right?”
The boy's eyes scanned her face frantically, but finally the tension left his tiny frame. Tionne let a smile play across her lips.
“Good. I'm gonna take my hand away, but you've gotta be really, really quiet, okay?”
Lemmy nodded again. His eyes were troubled, but Tionne knew exactly what to say next.
“Okay. When I take my hand away, I need you to get up. Be as quiet as a mouse. The cook just made a new batch of honey drops and we can get all of them all to ourselves, but you have to be extra quiet. Would you like that?”
The trouble in the boy's eyes was replaced by childish avarice. When Tionne removed her hand, he swung his legs out of the bunk and put his bare feet on the smooth wood floor. She laid a finger to her lips as a reminder and made an exaggerated pantomime of sneaking away.
The boy giggled, then clapped both hands over his mouth. Tionne glared at him and they stood, still as statues, for a moment while she listened. No one in the inn seemed to stir, so she led him across the length of the room and out into the hallway beyond.
As she took Lemmy's hand in hers, Tionne saw herself holding Raynold's hand, leading him toward the stream for a bath. Her heart gave a sudden lurch and she shook her head, trying to drive the memory away. It was suddenly hard to swallow and Lemmy gave her an inquisitive look.
Tionne tried to give him a reassuring smile, but it came across more as a grimace of pain than anything else. She gave him a little tug on the hand and they continued down the hallway to the stairwell at the end.
They descended the stairs and took a short walk to the storeroom at the end of the basement hall. She pushed open the door. The storeroom was pitch black and Lemmy, like any good child his age, balked at going into the darkened room.
Tionne summoned a willow wisp, a little ball of pale blue light, and sent it floating into the storeroom. Delighted by both the light and its summoner, Lemmy stepped inside without any further prodding. She followed him and closed the door behind her.
As preoccupied as the boy was with the wisp, it was easy for Tionne to prepare the requirements of the ritual. With a charcoal stick, she inscribed the runes on the walls and floor. She reached high up on a shelf and took down an empty crockery bottle. She pulled out the cork and inverted the bottle, insuring it was empty. It wasn't very big, but then, neither was he.
Lemmy was standing on his toes, batting at the wisp and giggling as it bounced and swayed in the air over his head. As Tionne began to invoke the ancient words that Nerillia had so recently ingrained in her memory, the temperature in the room plummeted like an avalanche.
In a few moments, it was as cold inside as it was outside, Lemmy's panting breath tiny puffs of white in the dim light. The longer she spoke, the colder it got. They boy stopped playing with the wisp and hugged himself tight.
“Tionne, I'm cold. I wanna go back to bed.”
Lemmy started to turn around, but never got the chance. Tionne's hand snaked over his shoulder and under his chin, yanking it upward, she drew the knife across his throat, severing the blood carriers and turning his high, thin voice to a bubbling croak.
His blood flowed eagerly from the wound, but did not touch the floor. It was held in abeyance by the magical power of her spell. Instead, it coalesced in the air, forming a large sphere. Tapped into the Quintessential Sphere, Tionne chanted the words that would coax every drop of the vital liquid from her young victim's body. As it drained, his skin shrank against his frame, turning paper thin.
Disgusted, she let the husk fall to the floor as she completed the ritual and stared at the blood before her. There was so much. She'd had no idea that such a tiny body could hold that much. With a gesture and a curt word in a long dead tongue, she directed the blood into the jug.
Tionne was certain that it wouldn't all fit, but it did, and when she finally shoved the stopper back into the bottle, the bone chilling cold left the room. The wisp that had so delighted the boy was still bobbing in the middle of the chamber.
She looked around. There was a small area between one of the shelves and the back wall. She lifted Lemmy's body with a shudder and dragged it over to the shelf. It weighed hardly anything at all and without much trouble, she managed to wedge it into the space behind the shelf. She took some old crates from one of the other shelves and piled them around the shelf where she'd hidden the body. It wasn't perfect, but it didn't have to be. It was good enough.
Tionne picked up the jug and noticed that it had a curious heft to it. More weight than should have been accounted for by the liquid alone. She crossed to the door, banished the wisp, and stepped out in to the dark hall. The inn was quiet and still. She climbed the stairs and slipped out the back door, past the guard still asleep at his post.
As she crossed the street, she wanted to shout with elation. She felt so alive. She almost felt whole.
Even more importantly, she was powerful. She could feel the residual magic flowing through her, dancing along her skin. This wasn't the pain of residual magic she was used to. This was pure, unadulterated pleasure, a sensual caress that seemed to touch her in every place she desired to be touched. Her breath caught with the heady rush of what she had done.
An image of Raynold intruded, pushing its way into her head. She dismissed it. Raynold was a long time dead. Lemmy was dead now too. By her hand. Maybe her little brother's memory could play alongside the dead boy. She didn't care. All that mattered was that she had done exactly what she had set out to do. Nerillia was still crouched in the alley where she had been keeping watch.
“Is it done?” she asked as Tionne approached. The young quintessentialist offered her the jug as if she were presenting the older woman with a trophy.
“It's done,” Tionne said with a smile.
“How do you feel?”
“The best I've ever felt in my life,” she replied, without hesitation. “How can I help next?”
“In due time,” Nerillia laughed. “In due time.”
Together, they slipped through the streets of Dragonfell, keeping to the shadows to hide their return to the safe house.
CHAPTER FIVE
The crowd of people packed into the basement hall of the inn was so thick that Faxon and Adamon had to resort to elbowing their way into the storeroom. A pair of inquisitors stood guard at the end of the corridor, so when they passed that vanguard, Faxon felt like he was able to breathe again.
A woman that Faxon recognized as the innkeeper's wife, stood just outside the door to the storeroom. She wrung her hands as she paced, her pale eyes darting about with the haunted look of someone who'd just seen something that would remain with them until they died. Faxon brushed past her and stepped into the room. Adamon hung back, speaking a few words to the woman in a hushed tone before he too entered the room.
“She found the body behind one of the shelves, hidden with some crates,” the inquisitor said as he entered. “She moved it out into the room, then called for the inquisitors.”
“The one discovered with the body is often the one guiltiest of the crime,” Faxon said drily.
“Not in this case.”
The inquisitor knelt and flipped back the sheet. Lemmy's eyes, dull and sunken in their sockets, stared at the ceiling in mute accusation. His skin was paper white and so shriveled that he appeared to be little more than a shrouded skeleton. The only color about him was where his throat had been cut. It was a single, neat incision that was black around the edges, but that was all.
“Great Gatzbin's gonads.” Faxon reached over and brushed his fingertips over the boy's eyes, finding to his horror that the lids wouldn't close. They simply weren't supple enough anymore with all the blood drained from the body. “I know this boy. He was staying here.”
Adamon nodded.
“The innkeeper's woman said that many had seen him around the inn the last few days. We've questioned most of the visitors, but no one knows how the boy was taken and who perpetrated this crime. I'm told that his parents were beside themselves at the news.”
“So it's already gotten out?”
“When have you ever known bad news to drag its feet?” Adamon shrugged. “At least this way the killer, or killers, either know we know, or soon will.”
While Adamon made a slow circuit of the room, Faxon looked at the dead boy, his thoughts in turmoil. How could this happen, here, of all places? Dragonfell should be the safest city in the Imperium! And who would want little Lemmy dead? It didn't make sense. None of it made a damn bit of sense.
Having no desire to stare in the dead boy's eyes while they performed the rest of their investigation, he pulled the sheet over Lemmy's face and stood up. Adamon had pushed the door half closed, his fingers tracing the dark outline of a sigil there. Faxon took note of the other runes etched on the walls and floor. They weren't perfect, but they weren't rushed and haphazard either. Whoever had done this had time to plan and time to execute that plan.
Faxon winced inwardly at his poor turn of phrase. Executed was certainly the right word for it. Poor Lemmy hadn't had a chance. Whoever had done this to him had done it quickly and savagely. The trust of a child was a dangerous weapon in the hands of a manipulative adult. There were no signs of a struggle and no indication that anyone staying in the inn had heard anything. Whoever had lured Lemmy down here, it had been someone he trusted. Faxon jerked upright.
“You've questioned his parents?” he asked, his throat tight.
“They were the first people we interrogated,” Adamon said without turning his attention from the rune he was studying. “Both of them had passed out in the common room. Hardly fit parents, but not killers. Besides, neither of them is a vessel, so they can't have done this. Can't you feel it?”
Faxon could. He'd felt it as soon as they'd walked into the storeroom. It was a crawling, creeping darkness that seemed to hover at the very edge of Quintessential Sphere. It was the feeling of being observed by unseen eyes and he hated it. No matter how many times he felt the imprint of great evil, he'd never get used to the feeling.
There was a knock at the storeroom door and Adamon stood aside and opened it all the way. Tiadaria and Wynn stood at the threshold. Adamon and Tiadaria glanced at each other and then she and Wynn stepped into the room. It wasn't lost on Faxon that the young woman gave the Grand Inquisitor a wide berth. Not that he could blame her, but she needn't make it so obvious.
“What's going on? We'd heard someone was killed? Who? What happened? Did it have anything to do with the graves?”
“Easy Tia,” Faxon said, raising his hand. “I don't think the boy that was killed had anything to do with the other graves. He was definitely killed during a ritual--”
“I know,” Tiadaria interrupted and stopped short. Faxon shot her a warning glance. “I mean, I can see the runes on the walls. I didn't think they were decorative.”
Faxon nodded, passing a hand over his face. “In any event, I don't think the boy was a specific target. I think he was easy to get to and easy to manipulate.”
“What did they do to him?” Tia asked, kneeling to take hold of the sheet.
“Tia,” Faxon warned. “I wouldn't--”
She'd flipped the sheet back before he could finish his warning. Her sharp intake of breath told Faxon that she wasn't likely to peek under any other sheets in the near future. He passed the hand over his face a second time, wishing that he could scrub the pain that was developing behind his eyes away.
“What happened to him?” Tiadaria was aghast.
“I can't be sure,” Faxon said.
“I can,” said Adamon and Wynn at the same time. The Grand Inquisitor raised an eyebrow at Wynn but nodded for him to continue. The younger quintessentialist looked pained, but offered up his explanation.
“This is obviously the Ritual of Sanguine Reaping. I'm not sure why someone would want to harvest the boy's blood, but they did. The ritual would drain him of every drop and it seems that it did.”
“What purpose would that have?” Tiadaria asked, pulling the sheet back over the boy in much the same way that Faxon had a few moments earlier. He could appreciate her discomfort.
“It was primarily used in primitive sacrifices,” Wynn replied, wrinkling his nose. “It is a barbaric practice that, fortunately, has fallen into disuse as we distance ourselves from the past.”
“Obviously whoever did this was unconcerned about how barbaric it was. I think the age of the victim can assure us that whoever did this was without remorse.” Adamon indicated the body with the tip of his boot. “They wanted the blood of an innocent. They have it. What remains is for us to determine why they wanted it, and what they plan to do with it now that they have it.”
“I trust your inquisitors will be performing a full investigation?” Faxon asked the question, even though he already knew the answer. Regardless of how the King felt about magic and mages, Greymalkin would want
answers and want them quickly. There was no better way to produce those answers than to let the inquisitors do their job.
“We've already begun,” Adamon replied with a raised eyebrow. “Hence the questioning of the parents and the others in the inn. Which reminds me, Faxon, you and your journeyman are registered in the inn. Where were you last night?”
Faxon gaped at him. Surely he wasn't serious. Did the Grand Inquisitor just seriously imply that he, Master Faxon Indra, one of the most respected and well-known mages in the Imperium, had murdered a boy in cold blood?
“Are you seriously asking me that question?” Faxon demanded, his voice rising to a shout by the end of the question. “I was with Valyn. He can vouch for my whereabouts.”
Adamon nodded. “Why were you with Valyn?”
“We were...” Faxon trailed off, his mouth suddenly very dry. “We were looking for Tionne.”
“Your journeyman?”
“Yes.” His heart sank. Faxon didn't really believe that Tionne was capable of such a thing, yet his thoughts kept turning back to the savage display she'd made of the finery he'd bought her. She was angry, he knew. Frankly, she had every right to be...but killing a boy? To what end? And why?
“Very well,” Adamon said with a shrug. “If she's involved, we will find out about it, Faxon.”
“I have no doubt, Adamon. I have no doubt.”
Adamon gave him a sharp look, then shrugged and left the room. A wave of relief swept over Faxon and he leaned against one of the nearer shelves. He was exhausted. He'd spent the entire night out looking for Tionne and when he'd returned, he'd found Adamon waiting for him in the common room.
The Swordmage Trilogy: Volume 03 - The Pegasus's Lament Page 9