Untold Adventures

by John Shirley

  My night for being wrong, he thought. But what did a skulk want with a magical artifact? And could it be coincidence that he and Vix both arrived at Duke Arisor’s study at the same moment? Even if she was only a hired thief, whoever hired her might have more on their mind than retrieving property.

  Kalev needed answers, and he did not have time to search the whole Arena for them, never mind the whole city. He made his decision and pulled out his medallion.

  The day Kalev joined the Royal Eyes—the secret intelligence service belonging to Queen Aurala—he had been given this badge. The day he had been set on the trail of the skulk, the medallion had been given a spell. It would work only once, Keue Fourthmaster, the Eyes’ quartermaster, told him. So he was not to waste it, or lose it. But for that one time, it would allow Kalev to see what he was looking for, no matter how many barriers stood between him and the target.

  The problem was, if Kalev used it at too great a distance, he would not be able to determine the exact location of what he sought, and then the spell would be used up. The further problem was there might yet come a better chance, a greater need to see something. Kalev weighed the medallion in his hand and the decision in his mind.

  Then, as he had been directed, he placed the gold disk against his left eye and murmured the words to activate the embedded spell.

  The medallion grew warm against his skin.

  “Who has the Memory Eye?” he whispered. “I need to see who has the Memory Eye.”

  Instantly, the world around him faded. The effect was dizzying. People became ghosts, and buildings thin mist. Only one thing remained solid—a black stain slipping down one of the Arena’s great gilded domes. It clutched a bundle to its chest that, to Kalev’s spell-enhanced gaze, glowed like a beacon. The skulk shambled across the roof, lifted a trap door, and jumped through.

  And all the world was solid again, and Kalev was staring at the Arena with one eye covered.

  The skulk was in there, somewhere. The skulk and Vix, who had spun him a story of blackmail and simple thievery. Kalev felt his jaw harden and he narrowed his eyes at Sheroth, standing straight and still in front of the stage door with its massive arms folded. Time was slipping rapidly away.

  The direct approach, then.

  Kalev took a deep breath and pelted across the street, dodging horses, carriages, and pedestrians alike. Sheroth looked up, and his jaw dropped.

  Kalev didn’t give him any time for questions. “Sheroth! The skulk’s in the Arena!”

  Warforged were fine tacticians and decent strategists, but Kalev had yet to meet one who could lie worth a damn. So Kalev was certain the surprise that stiffened Sheroth’s stance was genuine. As were his next words.

  “I have to warn Vix.”

  “It went in through a trap door in the roof, to the southwest of the smaller gilded dome,” said Kalev quickly. “Is there any way you can check that out quietly while I let Vix know what’s happened?”

  “If it gets down into the bowels of the Arena, we’ll never find it,” Sheroth muttered, and Kalev held his breath until the warforged met his gaze. “Vix’ll be in her dressing room. Second stairs on your left going in, two flights up, first right, third door on the lefthand side. Got that?”

  Kalev nodded and Sheroth went on. “Tell Vix I’ll meet you at door twelve. Door twelve. Got that?”

  “Door twelve.”

  Sheroth opened the door. “Quick.”

  Kalev nipped inside the Arena of Unparalleled Wonder, and into another world.

  Kalev had attended Arena performances many times. He was familiar with the gilt and glitter of the front of the house, every aspect of it designed to amaze. This was nothing like that.

  It was a world of timber, painted canvas, and shadows. All manner of effigies hung from fine black lines, looking disconcertingly like they were floating in midair. Ropes as thick as his wrist connected systems of huge pulleys. A steam elemental sat in a brass housing at the center of a complex conglomeration of wooden cogs and metal gears that drove shafts reaching up into the ceiling and down into the floor.

  Actors and dancers in glittering costumes darted like butterflies between the stagehands in dark tunics and breeches. Burly men hefted boulders and pillars on their shoulders. The floor vibrated from the motion of feet and carts and machines. Humans and half-elves trudged back and forth, burdened by boxes or great piles of cloth, or hauled on ropes, or signaled up to the catwalks to the ones handling the massive glowing crystals that lit the stages.

  Those catwalks made a network overhead that stretched farther out and higher up than Kalev could see. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he caught glimpses of stairways traveling up and down, and arched doorways leading to darkened corridors.

  You could hide an army in here, Kalev thought.

  Kalev was also very aware that despite standing in shadow, as the only one present without any clear purpose, he stuck out like a sore thumb. It was only a matter of moments before someone noticed him. He shifted his demeanor so he projected confidence and strode to the second stair on the left leading upward. As long as he didn’t do something clod-brained, like getting in someone’s way, he would probably be ignored.

  He hoped.

  The third door after the first right had the name Vixana Fairlight scrawled on it in chalk, a sign of how quickly things turned over in the Arena. Kalev knocked, but did not wait for an answer before he walked in.

  Vix, in her guise as a dark-haired human woman, started to her feet.

  “Get out of here!” she cried. “I don’t need more trouble!”

  “Neither do I, but …”

  Footsteps sounded outside. Vix swore and shoved Kalev backward behind a folding screen draped with layers of dresses and cloaks. “Keep quiet!” she hissed.

  The space smelled of old perfumes and powders. Kalev stepped back from the screen to keep his silhouette from showing, and breathed shallowly. He heard a faint swish as the door opened on well-oiled hinges.

  “There you are, Vixana,” said a rough male voice. “What’s the news?”

  “Nemar.” Vix sounded anything but glad. “It’s good. I’ve almost tracked down the … it.”

  So, this Nemar was Vix’s employer. “Almost tracked it down!” Nemar exploded, then he seemed to remember he didn’t want to be overheard. “I told you where it was!” he hissed.

  “Unfortunately, Duke Arisor got himself murdered by a skulk,” replied Vix evenly, but her voice was taut as a harp string. “Which stole your precious item.”

  “A skulk stole something?”

  “Yes,” replied Vix coldly. “Strange, don’t you think? A creature that has no place in Fairhaven shows up and kills the duke shortly before I got to his study.”

  “None of your lip, thief.” Nemar’s voice turned truly ugly. “You swore you’d have it for me tonight!”

  “I’ll get it.”

  “You’d better.” Heavy footsteps crossed the floor, cloth swished and wood creaked. Kalev tensed. He didn’t want to show himself but he wouldn’t stand by and let Vix be hurt. “You’ve got one too many secrets to fail, you and that warforged lummox.”

  “Leave Sheroth out of this!”

  “I’ll say what I like, Vix,” sneered Nemar. “You just be sure you finish your job.”

  The door opened and shut, and footsteps walked away.

  Kalev emerged from behind the screen. Vix said nothing, just sat down at the table of cosmetics and slowly began opening boxes and jars.

  “Who is Nemar?”

  Vix dipped her fingers into a paint pot and spread bright red cream across her lips. “He’s the manager for stage eight. My employer.”

  “And your blackmailer, if I don’t miss my guess. How’d he find out you were a changeling?”

  “I took a fall one night,” she murmured, watching her reflection. What’s it like to stare into your own false face? Kalev wondered. “Almost broke my leg. The pain was bad. It’s harder to hold a shape when you’re hurting. He �
�� caught me changing.”

  “And are you a thief?”

  “I used to be.” She wiped her fingertips on a towel. “No one hires changelings, so I fell in with a pack of adventurers. But I like living more than I like gold, so I came to Fairhaven to try to make a new start.”

  Kalev thought about the ugly snarl in Nemar’s voice, and how he was the one who sent Vix after the Memory Eye. If a changeling thief was caught in a room with a corpse, how much further would the city guard look to find the murderer? “And Sheroth?”

  “If you want to know his business, you can ask him,” she snapped.

  “I see.”

  “Do you?” She glowered at him in the mirror. Kalev made no answer, just met her gaze.

  Vix blinked first. “I’ve got a performance.” She got up and made to brush past him.

  “You’ve got more than that,” he said. “The skulk’s in the theater somewhere.”

  “What!”

  “It got in through one of the roof trap doors. It’s in here, and it’s got the Memory Eye with it.”

  For a moment, Kalev saw the changeling’s pale coloring through the human’s warmer flesh tones. “What in the name of all the hells is going on?” she demanded.

  “That’s a very good question,” Kalev agreed. “Do you know what Nemar’s connection to the Memory Eye is? Or Duke Arisor?”

  Vix shook her head. “I never asked.”

  Then, thought Kalev, that’s what I need to find out next.

  Vix narrowed her eyes at him, as if she could read his thoughts. “Are you planning on spying on him?”

  “I’m afraid I must.”

  He waited for her to protest, but she just sighed. “Don’t get caught. I’ve got enough problems.”

  “I’ll do my best. Sheroth’s also on the case. He said to meet him by door twelve after your act. We can all rendezvous there once you get off stage, and plan our next move.”

  “You invite yourself along very easily.” Vix snorted. “Why should we trust you?”

  “Because you’re in trouble, and there’s no one else to help you.”

  Vix pressed her lips together in a hard line but he could tell she realized he was right. “My set lasts exactly fifteen minutes. I’ll meet you at door twelve.” She grabbed a spangled cloak and marched out the door.

  Which left Kalev with one problem—how to find this Nemar in the Arena’s labyrinthine backstage without being noticed and thrown out. He scanned the dressing room, hoping for inspiration. He found it on the broken writing desk that had been shoved into one corner of the dressing room.

  Kalev buttoned his black coat all the way up to his throat and pulled his breeches out of his boot tops. He tucked his gloves into his pockets and dipped his right index finger into the inkwell. He plucked up a pen and ink pot and strode purposefully to the door. Now, if anyone spared him a glance, they would see nothing but a clerk, and who ever gave a clerk a second thought? It was almost as good as being invisible.

  He emerged from the dressing room in time to peer over the railing to the main floor and watch Vix join a gaggle of sparkling costumed dancers all heading in the same direction.

  “Now that’s a beautiful sight.”

  Kalev jumped. A man stood beside him, a half-elf by the look of him. He’d moved into place so silently and easily, that for all his skills Kalev hadn’t even noticed him. Then, Kalev realized he recognized him.

  The half-elf was Gledeth Shore, the lead actor of the Arena. Kalev had seen him in his new drama less than a month ago, before the murders started. He had the fine-boned structure of a Valenar war prince combined with the lively energy of a charming human male. On stage, it was a lethal combination.

  Kalev remembered his character of fussy clerk and sniffed.

  Gledeth laughed and slapped his shoulder. Kalev flinched as if the blow was too hard, which only made Gledeth laugh harder. “Just don’t get caught staring too long,” he said, his eyes suddenly serious. “Or you might wind up in trouble.” Then chuckling once more, he strolled off.

  Kalev watched him go, thoroughly disquieted. What did the most famous actor in all of Fairhaven care what a clerk did or did not stare at?

  Kalev wavered and cursed silently. He hunched his shoulders and shook his head so his hair flopped down across his brow, and started down the stairs. If Nemar was the stage manager, he would be in the wings, ready to line up the members of the dance troupe and give them their cue. Kalev would know the man as soon as he spoke and then …

  “You!” shouted a furious voice. Kalev froze on the last step. A woman clad in a long black coat and carrying a huge ledger under her arm shouldered her way through the bustling stagehands. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Then Kalev realized his disguise had a fatal flaw. No one spared a clerk a second thought, except, of course, another clerk.

  Ten minutes, three flights of stairs, and half a dozen corridors later, Kalev found himself in the office of Mirias Jadering Phiarlan, a surprisingly stocky elf who wore his golden hair in a single braid that hung between his shoulder blades and displayed the great green earring that had given him his name. Kalev knew Mirias only by reputation, but that reputation was extensive. Mirias could make Kalev disappear so thoroughly not even the Eyes would be able to find his corpse.

  Kalev sat beside the hearth in his office. Mirias’s gaze bored straight into the back of his mind.

  “So, tell me,” Mirias said. “What brings you backstage at my Arena without ticket or invitation?”

  Kalev crossed his legs, feigning relaxation. “There have been a rash of murders among the city’s merchant aristocracy. I’m sure you heard.”

  Mirias nodded once.

  “I am investigating these crimes. I have reason to believe they are connected to the Arena, and to the theft of a magical artifact known as the Memory Eye.”

  Mirias’s green eyes narrowed.

  “It was stolen from the study of Duke Arisor,” Kalev continued, “who was murdered tonight, and now I find one of your stage managers is astonishingly eager to get his hands on it.”

  “Why is this any of your business?”

  “As I said, I’ve been hired to find out the cause of the deaths.”

  “Hired by whom?”

  Kalev smiled pleasantly and made no answer.

  Mirias flexed his long fingers. “Nemar has bad luck at the gaming tables,” he said at last. “He tends to … acquire objects of value and sell them. Good stage managers are difficult to find, so we have tolerated it.”

  “And now?” Kalev inquired.

  “We may have to rethink this policy.”

  “In that case, I have a proposition,” said Kalev. “Let me continue my investigations. If Nemar is behind the murders, I will make the problem go away, without anyone asking a single question, or casting any aspersions on House Phiarlan.”

  Mirias considered this. “I will give you one day. After that, I will take matters into my own hands.”

  Kalev inclined his head. “One last question. What is the Memory Eye?”

  “The Memory Eye projects a copy of the last thing it’s seen. For example, if it was on the main stage now, it would see Lady Daria Goldeneye in one of her most popular scenes. If its recall were activated, it would project that same scene so perfectly you would not be able to tell it from the original.” He paused, attempting to gauge Kalev’s reaction to this. “As such, it is very useful, particularly if a popular artist has fallen ill, or succumbed to a fit of temperament. The performance can go on and no one in the audience is any wiser.”

  Or demanding their entry fee refunded. “I can see where such an artifact would have … many uses,” Kalev said. It could allow a person, say a stage manager, to be in two places at once. As he thought this, another face flashed in front of his mind’s eye and Kalev found himself wondering if Nemar was working alone. The stage manager was already employed by House Phiarlan in one capacity, why not another? It was possible the story of Nemar’s gambli
ng debts was just that, a story. Mirias could very well be holding Nemar’s leash, and the skulk’s.

  If House Phiarlan was engaged in a campaign against the Queen’s intelligence sources …

  Kalev got to his feet. “Thank you for your time. I will not forget this.”

  “Neither will I,” said Mirias softly, as they shook hands.

  “Where have you been?” Vix demanded. After his meeting with Mirias, it had taken Kalev almost another half hour to track down the street exit with the big white twelve painted on its black surface.

  “Finding out about the Memory Eye, and about your blackmailing boss.” And possibly getting led down a garden path. He looked around the alley where they stood. “Where’s Sheroth?”

  “I don’t know.” Vix wrapped her arms around herself.

  Worry prickled Kalev too. Despite his brief acquaintance with them both, he knew Sheroth would never leave Vix waiting.

  Kalev was beginning to see that whomever was behind this had spun an incredible web. The Memory Eye would allow them to be in two places at once, so they could work the social networks of the city and identify key information agents, but always with an alibi. Then, they could send in the skulk, who could hide in plain sight, to take out any agent who was getting too close to something important, or who might be about to change sides. Everyone knew skulks killed at random, so no one would ask why one person or another had been murdered.

  But how was the skulk being controlled? Skulks worked for no one, obeyed no one, cared for nothing but death.

  “We have to find the skulk,” he said briskly.

  Vix was not going to be so easily distracted. “Not until I know what’s happened to Sheroth.”

  Kalev faced her. “Vix, if the skulk got a look at your true shape, it could have used it to lure Sheroth away from here.”

  Vix’s eyes flashed amethyst. Then, she turned and started swiftly down the alley with Kalev following right behind.

  They rounded the corner of the Arena, to a space filled with theatrical wagons painted with bright murals advertising acts and actors. Vix threw open a metal trap door set into the cobbles. Without hesitation, she climbed down a series of iron staples bolted to the wall. Kalev did the same. When he finally reached the floor, Kalev heard Vix speak a word he did not recognize. White light flared around her.