by A. C. Cobble
“We came here for answers,” reminded Sam. “Now, there’s no one left to give them. He certainly isn’t going to.”
She nodded behind Oliver toward the bar. Remembering the shadow-monster, Oliver spun and gaped in horror. Standish Taft was out of sight, but there was little question about what had happened to him. The glasses and bottles behind the bar, a dingy mirror, even the dusty planks of the ceiling, were covered in arcs of sprayed blood and grisly bits of torn flesh.
Oliver swallowed the bile welling in his throat as a hunk of crimson gore fell from the ceiling. Evidently, blood and impact had stuck it there for a time. It was trailed by a long string of tissue that splatted wetly on the floor behind the bar.
“I think that was an eyeball,” remarked Sam.
Oliver bent over and the frothy ale they’d been drinking all day burst out of his throat and splashed messily on the floor between his boots.
The Initiate IV
The man struggled against the thick cables of the rough rope. He grunted and wheezed behind a twist of cloth that had been wrapped around his head and forced into his mouth. His eyes bored into her, not pleading as she’d expected, but angry.
He was thin, not a man of personal action or violence, and his body looked as though he rarely engaged in any strenuous physical activity. A white powdered wig perched atop his head had been knocked askew from the struggle of capturing him or his attempts to break loose once he was captured. Under the wig, she saw an unremarkable crop of thinning chestnut-brown hair. Beneath his fine embroidered jacket and wig, the man was entirely plain. Plain unless you saw his banker’s ledger or knew the depths of his soul, she suspected.
“I want to talk to him,” she requested.
“Say whatever you want,” murmured the man beside her.
He was wearing the same red, silk mask and black cloak as when she’d last seen him. Redmask, a man of myth and surprisingly literal attire. It displayed a lack of creativity, she thought, but on the other hand, he had identified and captured her parents’ killer within a day of confirmation she’d done what he had requested.
He was standing, unlike the time before, and he rose slightly above average height but not remarkably so. He looked reasonably fit as if he’d been active once but in recent years had engaged in only gentlemanly sport. An older man, most likely, at least her father’s age. He spoke in an efficient, urbane manner but with no discernible accent and with no accidental references that may provide some clue as to who he was. His apparent lack of concern about their prisoner spoke volumes about who this man was, though, and what he was capable of doing.
“I’d like to hear his confession,” she declared.
Redmask warned, “He may not give it.”
She shrugged.
Redmask nodded curtly, and two of his companions stepped out of the shadow from behind the bound man. Ungently, one of them slipped a wood-handled steel dagger between the cloth and the man’s cheek and sliced the gag free. It fell around their captive’s neck, and Isisandra could see a trickle of blood leaking from where the blade had scored him.
“Who are you?” she asked.
The man’s eyes darted between her, Redmask, and the half dozen silent minions who stood on the edge of the light from the single lamp. Her companions, a single prisoner, a single lamp, a single chair — otherwise the cavernous warehouse was empty.
“Who are you?” she repeated.
“You know damn well who I am, girl,” snarled the bound man. “What do you want? Ransom, blackmail? Untie me. Get me a drink, and let us discuss this in civilized fashion. There is no need for—”
“Who are you!” thundered Isisandra.
The man glanced to Redmask then back to Isisandra, blinking uncertainly. Finally, he answered, “Baron Nathaniel Child.”
“Why did you kill my parents?” demanded Isisandra.
“Your parents? Who…”
“Sebastian and Hathia Dalyrimple.”
The man shifted as much as the ropes allowed and responded, “Isisandra? I haven’t seen you in… in years, girl. I am sorry for the death of your parents, but I had nothing to do with it. I don’t even… I haven’t even been to Archtan Atoll. I heard what transpired there, but how would I have done such a thing from Enhover? What have these men told you?”
“Do you know a Captain Haines?” asked Redmask, his quiet voice like stone dragging over wet earth.
Baron Child frowned, obviously sensing a trap. He did not respond.
“Did you pay Captain Haines to give you information on the Company’s activities in the tropics?” pressed Redmask, taking a step closer, causing Baron Child to shrink back within his bonds. “You were Captain John Haines’ secret employer, were you not? He gave you information he gathered from the Company’s factors. You paid to get it in advance of the market and even the Company’s own directors, did you not? I was told you’ve made quite a fortune working with Captain Haines. You asked to be civilized, so do not make me threaten you to learn what I already know.”
“I… That has nothing to do with Dalyrimple,” mumbled Baron Child.
“Captain Haines was working for you,” murmured Isisandra, glancing at Redmask then back to Baron Child. For a moment, the man’s stringent denial had almost convinced her he was not involved.
“I did not kill or ask Captain Haines to kill your parents,” claimed Baron Child, his eyes downcast. “I’ve only met the governor a few times at social functions. I had no quarrel with him, no reason to want him dead.”
“How many times did you meet Hathia Dalyrimple?” questioned Redmask.
Baron Child jerked again in surprise. He strained ineffectively against his ropes.
“I’ll remind you that if you want to keep this civil, do not lie to me, Nathaniel.”
Isisandra studied the bound man, watching as he struggled to slow his breathing. He was near hyperventilating and had developed a twitch in his left cheek. His fists were clenched together tightly. One must expect a captive to show signs of stress, she assumed, but it did not take a skilled interrogator to see that the man knew what Redmask was referring to. Baron Child had some secret about her mother and knew what it would cost him to reveal it. She turned to Redmask.
“If you prefer to hear it from his lips, I can make that happen,” offered the cloaked man, “or to save time, I can simply tell you myself.”
“Tell me,” she replied.
His eyes were like cold blue stones, but his lips curled as he told her, “Nathaniel Child courted your mother for several months before Dalyrimple won her hand.”
“Everyone courted Hathia!” barked the baron, his eyes snapping up. “I was just one of a long string of men who… who courted her. It was nothing, just a fling when we were younger.”
Isisandra glared at the man, silencing him with the cold rage in her eyes.
“Baron Child never married,” added Redmask. “He was never involved in any serious relationships after your father took Hathia away from him. I’m told he challenged your father to a duel over Hathia’s hand.”
“That was a long time ago,” complained the baron, his voice barely audible in the cavernous warehouse.
“He was a jilted lover, giving him the motive to commit the crime. He was Captain Haines’ secret employer, giving him the opportunity,” continued Redmask. “I have not been able to obtain something so clear as a written confession yet, but the coincidences are beyond belief. I think it likely when she returned to Enhover, Baron Child met your mother, and she spurned him. A jealous rage inspired him to kill her and then your father. If you like, we can apply certain techniques to learn the details and confirm my suspicions. I warn you, Isisandra. It will be difficult to watch. You have started on the path, though, so if you want the man to suffer… he will.”
“That is not necessary,” she responded. “I’ve seen enough. I-I must thank you. When the duke failed to find the ultimate perpetrator, I was worried it would not happen.”
Redmask inclined his
head. “I am a believer in great rewards for services well done and great punishments for betrayals. Shall I give this man what he deserves?”
Isisandra looked back to Baron Child. The man was sitting there quietly, eyeing her defiantly. She suspected he thought she had declined the offer of torture because she was a woman, too soft to do what was necessary. He was wrong about that. She simply didn’t want to spend a moment longer than necessary on the man. She had the skills to cause him pain now, while he lived, or later, when he did not.
From her belt, she pulled a small dagger. Its hilt was wrapped in hair-thin wire. Its cross guard was a pitted, black rock found in Archtan Atoll. The blade was bone, stained from use. Old blood. Blood that would never wash off. It had been her mother’s knife. It wasn’t as sharp as steel, but it was sharp enough.
Redmask nodded approvingly, and she approached Baron Child.
“Girl, no!” he shouted, understanding flashing across his face.
Had he really thought they would demand a ransom after he saw her face?
Without hesitation, she slapped her left palm against the struggling baron’s forehead, shoving his head back, exposing his neck. With her right hand, she plunged the bone knife into the man’s throat and left it there. Hot blood pumped down the weapon’s deep fuller, staining the bone blade a dark shade of crimson, the sanguine liquid pouring from the dying man’s neck, spilling over her hand.
She held Baron Child’s head back, her knife in his throat, and she watched his eyes as he struggled to speak, but only garbled gasps and blood escaped his lips. She held him there until the life in his eyes flickered out and his struggles ceased. Then, she removed the blade, a torrent of blood splashing out after it, splattering her clothes, dripping onto her slippered feet. Only a trickle followed after the initial gush, though. The baron’s heart no longer beat. Nathaniel Child was dead. Dead like her parents.
“Well done,” remarked Redmask.
“I appreciate your help,” she said, turning to face the man, the bloody knife still clutched in her fist. “Without your assistance, I never would have discovered it was him. I owe you—”
“You do,” interjected Redmask.
“—my thanks,” she finished.
“You owe me more,” he replied. He nodded to the side where one of his minions approached with a towel and a jug of water. “Get cleaned up, and we will talk.”
“Talk about what?” she questioned, her brows furrowing. “I did what you asked with the duke. We are—”
“It is not so simple, Isisandra. When you work with me, there is only one way it ends, and I do not think you are ready for that,” said Redmask. “The world is nothing more than a game board. At the moment, the duke is one of the most powerful pieces. I will control him, and you will help me do it.”
“I—”
“You got in over your head, Isisandra,” interrupted Redmask, his deep voice sounding incongruously apologetic. “Unfortunately, this is only the beginning.”
The Cartographer XIV
“Was she good?” questioned Sam.
Oliver shrugged uncomfortably. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
“You should not have,” agreed Sam, “but I’m happy you did. One, it gives me something to needle you with, and two, it was something to ponder on the long ride back from Swinpool, and three, it shows we’re developing a high level of trust. Now that we’ve established you trust me, and I’ve done my pondering, I want to know more details. How was she?”
“A high level of trust?” asked Oliver, looking at her strangely.
Sam nodded.
“Trust,” said Oliver. “I’m glad you trust me, but when we were leaving Archtan Atoll, you thought…”
“That she would capture your fluids and use them to gain some sort of sorcerous power over you?” asked Sam. “I wouldn’t say I thought that, but I was concerned about the possibility. I warned you, and it seems you slept with her anyway. While this is not the way I envisioned us keeping a close watch on her, I suppose it will work, and if she wants to do something with your fluids, she will. That airship has flown overhead, Duke, so now I’m just curious. How was she?”
Oliver muttered to himself, following the priestess down a plain, stone corridor, proceeding deeper into the belly of the Church than he had known existed. Apparently, there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of Church minions lurking beneath the floors of the sanctuary. He couldn’t fathom what they all did.
He shifted his sling, adjusting the weight on his still-healing arm. He mumbled a curse under his breath for the half-trained physician in Swinpool who’d initially stitched and wrapped him and then another for the ham-fisted gargoyle who’d rewrapped it when they arrived back in Westundon. Shaking himself, he tried to regain focus and ignore the throbbing in his arm. The throb and the itch. It was good, they’d said. It showed it was healing. He snorted and glanced down a dark stairwell they were passing. It descended deep into the Church, and from the top, he could see no end.
After a moment, Sam stopped and looked back at him. “Well?”
Finally, with a stern glare to show his annoyance, he answered, “She was inexperienced.”
“Inexperienced?”
“She might have been a virgin,” he admitted.
“Are you… You’re serious, aren’t you?” questioned Sam. “By the circle, I never would have thought. In Archtan Town, before her father… Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m not sure,” snapped Oliver. “But she was uncertain, and there was blood. Not a lot, but—”
“Damn!” exclaimed Sam. “She was a virgin!”
“Can we go on now and see your mentor?” requested Oliver. “Talking about this in a church, it isn’t right.”
“I’m not the one sleeping with innocent virgins weeks after their last parent died while promising to show them a new country and introduce them to society.”
“That is unfair,” complained Oliver. “I did not pursue this with the girl. She was the one who initiated it. She’s far from innocent if you ask me.”
“She was a virgin, if I asked you, just not an innocent one?” Sam rolled her eyes and turned. “Let’s go find Thotham. If anyone can tell us what in the frozen hell happened back in Swinpool, it is him.”
Oliver shuddered, thinking about the unfortunate Standish Taft and the other innocents who’d been caught up in the fight. He’d ordered burials for them all and dispersed healthy stipends to the survivors from the Crown’s treasury. The ministers had worried that such an act would cause rumors about what the duke had been doing in such a small tavern in Swinpool, but the condition of Taft’s body was enough to ensure years or speculation and gossip.
He fought down a wave of nausea as he recalled the sound of the shovel scraping across the tavern floor, scooping up the remains of Standish Taft. Shaking himself, he forced his mind back into the present. They aimed to find Sam’s mentor Thotham and hoped the man could tell them what they’d seen in Swinpool. Sam claimed that if anyone would understand it, it would be Thotham.
She led him through the hulking Church complex to a stone-enclosed yard decorated with planters filled with small trees. Then, to a dormitory with a long hall lined with narrow doors. After that, they visited a common room where cassocked priests were having their midday meal and then back into the sanctuary where they’d first come into the building. Next, Oliver saw a library, a wide-open room packed with desks where quiet scribes copied row after row of religious texts; a field covered by priests exercising and meditating; and a second, fancier library. Finally, Sam stopped an older priest in the hallway.
“Thotham?” asked the man. “I’m afraid I don’t know who you speak of, girl. Which order did you say he belonged to?”
She frowned back at the man, and Oliver shifted uncomfortably by her side. The priest stepped around them and started down the hallway. Sam caught two more elderly men, and both gave her the same answer and the same suspicious look.
“Can we try his room?” aske
d Oliver.
“I don’t know which one it is,” admitted Sam. “I-I don’t think he lives here anymore. He did years ago, but… We usually meet upstairs in the sanctuary, or he designates an area of the library for study or one of the empty courtyards for training.”
Oliver glanced up and down the stone hallway. Priests were bustling about their daily activities, none of them paying a bit of attention to the two strangers in their midst.
“Where does he live, then?”
She shrugged.
“Let’s go ask Bishop Yates,” suggested Oliver.
“He’s a busy man,” murmured Sam. “I’ve seen him a few times, but my mentor was the one who did all of the talking. To be honest, I don’t think the bishop would even remember—”
“He’ll see me,” declared Oliver. “We don’t have time to be wandering around this building all day. Let’s get an audience with the bishop, and he can tell us where your friend has gone.”
“Mentor,” corrected Sam.
“Whatever,” replied Oliver, and he started walking.
Sam caught his sleeve and gestured the other way. “He always comes to see you, doesn’t he? The bishop’s offices are three floors up, in the north corner of the compound.”
“Ladies first, then,” said Oliver, giving the girl a deep bow.
“The bishop cannot see you,” remarked the slim man. His voice was as crisp as the starch on his beige robe. His hair was neatly coiffed, his mustache immaculately trimmed, and Oliver had never seen a clerk who took more pleasure in his duties. “He is only available by appointment, and you do not have one.”
“I think the bishop will want to see us with or without an appointment,” growled Oliver, leaning forward and placing his knuckles on the man’s desk. “Do you know who I am?”
“I know you’re not the cardinal,” responded the clerk, brushing his hands along the desk like the duke’s fists were crumbs left over from his lunch. He frowned when those fists did not move.