The dwarven workman was tall (for a dwarf) and broad with a thick brown beard, cloaked in dark brown with bronze studs on the edges of his heavy hooded coat, a tarnished badge pinned to his front: an inspector of sewers in the city, considered a very respectable profession among dwarves. Montaron took down his disguise.
"Why, Monty, it's been quite some time since we've seen you," Xzar said. Montaron scowled fiercely.
"Tell me, mad-mage, have I ever come across as the marrying kind?" Montaron flung the false beard into a corner.
"No, indeed, Monty. We are confirmed bachelors."
"I'm engaged."
"Splendid, Montaron!" Xzar clapped his hands and did a little dance. "Do you want me to be bridesmaid?"
"To Lady DeVir's second housemaid."
"I hope you are not abusing the poor woman's affections," I said.
"She'll get over it. I've a rival in the form of a Jansen onion-seller, ye see. The wench seems to think I'm good for variety."
"And what have you discovered there, Monty?" Xzar asked.
"I know every inch of the layout. Aggie—that's my girl—tells me Lady DeVir's got an expensive safe she bought six months ago, the latest in gnome-crafted locks, reinforced into the wall with admantium, and big enough on the inside to walk into."
"Could you pick it, Montaron?" I said; Xzar shook his head although Montaron gave a complacent nod.
"O'course. In my sleep if need be. Her real cache's disguised in the library storage room, her not being stupid and all. She goes out Fourthdays and Aggie leaves the gate open for my callings. Guard dogs've started to know me."
"Then we go on a fourthday, for Delryn's deadline nears," Xzar said. "This is a contest of thought and I aim to fight it out in the astral and larceny planes."
"I think it's ethical to do this as long as we only take what would be used for blackmail," I said. "Though my Order should fire me if they found out—still, I am willing to bear the risk with you, for I believe it should be done. Any victim with a paper or print held in Lady DeVir's store is endangered."
"Fourthday it is," Montaron said. "Ye come prepared to keep quiet and get rid of the magic traps, Xzar—and as for ye, finicky longlimb, keep a watch out."
"And, until then, we have a short trip to the fields of the country to make," Xzar said. "Fresh air, Monty, green grass, new milk and warm-laid eggs..."
"I'm taking Aggie to Gold: The Dwarven Opera," Montaron said sadly. "It be high culture."
—
It had been simple to find the name of the driver who had killed the man with Missus Cragmoon's bloodstains on his clothing: his carriage had been cleaned before being cheaply sold to another, he himself had been left unmolested on the grounds of accident, and he had left to retire in the country. We had gained address through a letter feigning to announce a legacy from a cousin to him. Gillon Eldred; neither intoxicated at the time nor with the signs of a charm, and now prospering well. The mail caravan twined slowly through the woods and fields outside Athkatla and to the country estates of some of its wealthiest families. Orayson at the wards covered my shift, and outside the spring-green fields unrolled their misty gleam in the rising sun.
"Lord Kyaar Recioa," Xzar said, carrying Montaron's copy of the Amnian Who's Who open on his knees. "B. 1298, ORAGH, ABI, ABGE, et cetera. M. 1329 into the de'Arnises. Smallish—by Amnian noble comparison—properties clustered upon the border of the de'Arnise lands. Relations to many of the noble families—Jysstev, Caan, Delryn..."
I could hardly imagine Anomen Delryn supporting the lotus trade in any capacity, let alone concealing murders connected to it. Nor his fiancee, if half of her reputation among the common Athkatlans was true.
"Complex and dark and many-tentacled is this evil that haunts Athkatla," Xzar said, and lowered his voice when the coach's third passenger—a travelling watch-seller with at least two children—started looking at him oddly. He fiddled with his ear-flapped cap left on the seat. "We have not, by the way," he continued, "considered the point that the lady may not be blackmailing Delryn for the most obvious reason."
"She is an attractive woman and he speaks of her in a most violent manner," I said. "It is not difficult to surmise the circumstances in which he mislaid the Order's property. It would be better for him to make confession to his bride; still, the lady commits the worse crime by blackmail."
"True enough!" Xzar said, and began to whistle an odd tune to himself. It was all sharp half-tones and impossible to take any sense from, and thus I turned to the beauty of the rolling fields.
"Good afternoon, master Eldred," I said, and closed the door behind the three of us. The small farmhouse was well-appointed; we had seen a small cow byre in the back, a prosperous garden in the front with a crop of beans and lettuce. Two thick lavender-bushes by the door gave a strong scent to the air, and golden honeysuckle twined across the back windowsill. He had not lived here near long enough to choose such things himself; had been given it as a present. He was a broad sandy-haired human man, greying, on his hands the familiar calluses of the city driver and his knees stained by dirt as if he genuinely gardened for a living in these days. He looked like any other human, and harmless enough.
Even murderers should not be murdered, I reminded myself.
"The ones off Athkatla. What legacy?" Eldred said, gathering himself. He twitched as if nervous; I looked out of the cottage's window and saw nothing.
Aegisfeld's authority applied for nought beyond Athkatla; the noble lords had full power over all upon their fiefdoms, a law that was without doubt open to abuse. "Your carriage killed a man, Gillon Eldred," I said, for the strategy of a sudden attack to set the opponent off-guard. "This house was your blood-price. Lieutenant Aegisfeld of the Guards wishes you returned; confess your superiors, and mercy will be shown you."
"I—I know nothing," he lied. And he started to call out, but a spell from Xzar had silenced the air around us.
"You crafted a ghost," Xzar said, and then in the air floated the death-mask of Brassus Clem, drawn from the exhumation order Aegisfeld had granted us. A dent lay on Clem's skull from the carriage-wheel. Blood stained the grey face.
"Like there's no ghosts around you!" he screamed, and from instinct I looked behind my shoulder for a moment. Nothing was there.
"Who controls the lotus-selling?" I said. "Who ordered him dead?"
Gillon Eldred shook his head. "Notes," he said. "Notes and masks. They all burn! No right—you'll find nothing. Nothing—"
The stain of murder on him shone dark and festering; my sight was as shattering as the wounds that remained in me. Two of us loomed over the carriage-driver, a frightening ghost manifested in the air to threaten him into confession.
The righteous path is ever unclear...
"A carriage-driver for Saerk Farrahd; a carriage-driver for Cor Delryn; independent; Lord Recioa," Xzar said. "Which did you really serve? Which gave you this retreat?"
Anomen Delryn's father was a different case entirely to the son.
"You left Delryn years before you killed the ghost on your shoulders," Xzar said. "Names. Descriptions. Trust Athkatla justice above those who kill without mercy."
"When have you been...merciful?" Eldred said, a hand raised to his own throat. He started to cough and I took a step forward.
"Every man for his just deserts; and who should 'scape whipping?" the necromancer quoted. "Mercy...was shown me, at a time I did not expect. Did you know why you killed him—for his own murderous ways attracting attention, I suspect; or did you follow orders?"
"Orders," Eldred got out. "They order the death...of everything in their way. They told me and I...accomplished it."
To follow orders is no excuse for evil.
"And they ordered me to wait," Eldred said. "For...they knew you were coming."
A torrent of blood fell from his mouth. I took hold of his throat and tried to heal what had been done to him. Amnian sorcery is limited; but this was powerful magic that ripped Eldred apart from the inside.
—Clutching at another open throat while smoke burst on the battlefield, knowing that the right choice was to leave her to die and fight instead—
—Yellow fire bursting out of catapults and black necromantic curses harrowing my comrades, only luck that I lived and they fell to their graves—
Shouldn't remember. Let it be painless first; let it be healed; let another not die—
He lay dead, his eyes closed. The blood remained on my hands. Something knocked heavily on the door.
"Block the door," Xzar said. "The spell won't hold forever—" He hunted among the furnishings, tables and shelves and the crevices of the fireplace. I took the broomstick and wedged it across the doorframe, and braced the bed and the cupboard against the windows. With swift movements Xzar pushed ashes into a vial on his robes—there was no reason to have a fire in this season. The knockings came louder.
"In the name of Lord Recioa, open up! Or we shall be forced to take harsh measures!" Footsteps and clinking armour made at least four of them. They could well be innocents doing their duty; they were also subject only to the lord of their jurisdiction; and we also should be.
"—He's got flour. Anyone would. Cooking oil, too," Xzar muttered. "Time for alchemy."
The walls shuddered. White clouds of flour flew into the air and stayed there. Oil soaked Eldred's corpse.
"—This is going to hurt," Xzar complained. He lifted floorboards wide enough for a coffin even as the makeshift barricade started to splinter. A necromancer's gravedigging; a tinderbox; a match; and then a fire directly over a human body.
After the explosion the heat licked at us even where we lay below the flooring. The protection spells helped a little, but the smoke was harsh to breathe. I could hear nothing and fires licked above us. Dirt filled my mouth as if we were buried alive in a true necromancer's grave. The guards fought the fires, footsteps vibrating above. They could notice the nails misplaced, notice where the boards had collapsed around us and fragments of light broke through from above. Boots tramped and the air came close to choking us.
I do not remember having a fear of enclosed spaces, but that came close to crafting one. The necromancer was worse, shaking and forcing himself to be silent by a hand pressed inside his mouth. The footsteps pressed above my head over and over again; we had not killed them. Be calm. Wait. There was nought beyond that within my ability. Fires over Saradush, flame-catapults from the enemy camp, the same smoke and fears—
It was dark when all was silent and still at last. Our hearing had returned, and they had spoken of finding parts of the man their sorcery had killed. One destroyed corpse can be mistaken for three when nobody present cares to investigate in detail.
I do pray for the soul to find rest, for all we did the man and his body an ill turn...
We waited long into the night in case of a patrol roaming the grounds. Then at last we were free to step out into cool air, soot-covered enough to move through the night unseen.
"To Athkatla," Xzar whispered, his throat still seared. "Must—return in time..."