Dead Letter (14 page)

The
temple facade reflected the hot glare from its white lime-washed
dome. There were two grand stained glass windows staring out like
eyes. From the street one appeared white and the other blue.
Walking inside the temple, Kettna was awed by the elaborate detail
revealed in the mosaics backlit by the summer sun. One circular
window depicted a happy morning scene in the spring with children
playing and adults working in the fields. The stained glass
opposite showed a dramatic moonlit night around a fire pit. The
gods mingled with the races of Oranica. Ona, the Harvest Mother,
offered shankakin warm bread, dripping with honey. Nathis, the
Herder, raised his crook to protect a sleeping man from a hungry
wolf. Yoni, the Welcome Stranger, played a flute for a dancing
circle of elves and fae folk. Coraki, Keeper of Knowledge, read a
schematic by the firelight to gnomes tinkering with odd mechanisms
while Thia, the Builder, helped dwarves construct a stone wall.
Behind the wall Drensel Tath, the Dragon Father, amassed a horde of
monsters in the darkness.

An
awkward collector in grey garb met them at the narrow door,
welcoming them further inside. After staring at the stained glass,
Kettna had to wait a moment for her eyes to adjust to the soft
candlelight. The apprentice offered them both a taper and held his
hand out for a donation. “A silver for your salvation?”

Lanuille
gave him a mocking smile. “Are you sure a silver will do the trick?
That’s a good deal too much for a saint and not enough for a
sinner. If I pay more, do I get any spiritual benefits less wealthy
individuals cannot afford?”

The
young man didn’t know what to say. His brow tightened with concern
and his eyes searched in confusion. Kettna felt for the boy; he
couldn’t decide if Lanuille was serious. “Just a silver is fine.
That’s what most people do. It helps pay my way here … and Herder
Siffnech says wax is expensive.”

Kettna
returned the tapers. “We are not here to mourn, prentice. I’m here
on behalf of the Constable, needing questions answered. Now, which
of you Nathians found the slumper with stolen property from the
Merchant Guild? Was it you?”

The
prentice looked very pale. “I didn’t find him, I just pushed the
barrow for Herder Kleith.”

“
And who is he?” asked Kettna.

“
He’s the Hand of Nathis, of course,” replied the
Apprentice.

“
You’re all in grey, so how do you tell the difference?” asked
Lanuille.

“
Nathis speaks of our similarity, not our difference. We are
of the same creation and so we shall return.”

A senior
priest approached and put a hand on the apprentice herder’s
shoulder. “That’s right, Uthan. Nathis teaches there is a bridge
over our difference to our soul origination. Something two of the
Order of Calim should understand very well.”

“
The weave is the primacy of existence and penetrates all
things,” said Kettna.

“
And thus connects them,” replied the Nathian priest. “The
fancy robes of the Calimites might be of fine coloured silk while
Nathians’ are rough spun and grey. Yet, they are both woven with a
common thread. What is the primal link we share?”

The
prentice stared blankly. “Spirit?”

Lanuille
scoffed. “You have no idea, boy.”

“
There’s no deeper connection than spirit,” argued the
prentice. “What else could it be?”

“
Magic, of course,” said Lanuille. “Everything is touched by
magic, including the spirit.”

“
You both answer as only you would,” said the
Herder.

“
What then is your answer?” asked Lanuille, offended that the
Herder had not acknowledged magic as the correct solution to his
riddle.

“
Both your answers are sufficient, but they do not satisfy.
I’m convinced that our true link is death, though the tragic irony
of my assertion is that mages of such arcane learning as yourselves
will not believe I am correct until you take Nathis by the hand and
see the truth for yourselves.”

“
You are not quite right either, Herder,” said Kettna. “There
is something even death must bow before, and presently, we waste
it.”

The
Herder nodded and unfolded his arms from within his grey robes.
“Time. Yes, that is the answer. All in good time, as it were. And
here I am wasting it with philosophic musings. What can I do for
you both?”

“
As I explained to your prentice, I am here on behalf of the
Constable, trying to solve a theft.”

“
Inspector Kettna! Time has done our city a service in finally
granting us an Inspector. I have supported the Constable on your
appointment from the beginning.”

“
I am yet to know if I should thank you or curse you, Herder.
For now, might I get to the point and learn what I can from you
about the theft from Head Merchant Guillan?”

“
You may, though let me suggest that you have been misled from
the outset.”

“
Misled?” asked Kettna. “How do you suppose that?”

“
What you investigate is not theft, it is murder.”

The
novice was taken aback by the Herder Kleith’s abrupt
correction.

The Hand
of Nathis asked Uthan to return to his duties and led the mages
through the back of the temple to the chambers of respite, the
place of mourning. It was a peaceful place, cool in temperature,
yet warmed with the orange hue of hundreds of glowstone pots and
dedication candles, illuminating the resting dead sheltered beneath
white linen. Each body had arms uncovered, so Nathis could take
their hands and release their spirit. Kettna thought it a
ridiculous custom. Were sheets impenetrable to the gods? She had
sympathy for Lanuille’s cynicism towards religion. The gods must
have laughed when they saw the work of mortals in their honour. By
all accounts, Yoni would enjoy the irony of Nathis needing the
sheet to be drawn aside lest it inhibit his will. Still, Kettna
understood customs were not always about function. They were built
on symbolism, something that she relied on as a sorcerer. Symbols
were short hand for complicated ideas. A cogent
condensation.

Herder
Kleith stopped beside a resting slab and touched the hand of the
deceased. It was blacked out. Kettna’s breath stuck tight in her
throat for fear of crying his name, for dread of making a sound to
confirm her love was lost. Her worst fears had come true. There lay
Rix, dead as the silence in the chamber.

“
Are you all right, Inspector?” asked Herder Kleith. “You look
shaken.”

“
May I see him?” she asked, restraining tears with all her
strength while approaching the slab.

The
Herder withdrew the sheet, gently folding and unveiling the truth
with ritual care. There was cropped hair where Rix once wore it
long. A crooked nose hung between hollow cheeks where Rix bore a
handsome visage unlike it in every regard.

This was
not Rix. But the hands with blacked out tattoos? This man must have
been a guild exile too. She didn’t recognise him of the Order.
Other guilds acknowledged members’ hands with trophies of ink and
accomplishment. He could be from any one of them.

Kettna
took in a new breath and fresh hope. The death of this unknown man
stirred a guilty relief that it was not her lost love. She lingered
in selfish consolation for only a moment before her enquiring
instinct took charge again. “Has anyone come to mourn for him? Do
we know who he is? Was?”

“
No guild has claimed him. Exile is an unfortunate thing, but
Nathis regards our souls by his own measure. Death evens the
ill-gotten scores.”

Kettna
examined the ink on his hand. The edging was a neat cuff at the
wrist and the entire top half of the hand was blacked out, leaving
the palm bare. There was no evidence of tattoo patterns scarring
the skin beneath the black out and none outside the edges. She
respectfully drew down the sheet and checked over his entire body
looking for other guild marks, but there were none.

“
What if he’s no exile?” suggested Lanuille. “The ink might
not conceal any former association.”

“
You think it’s new black on a nameless man?” asked
Kettna.

“
Whatever for?” argued Herder Kleith. “It’s an odd thing to
do.”

“
I was told he was a slumper,” offered Kettna. “Blaze is an
odd thing to do, so who knows what his reasons were. What makes you
say this was a murder? I see no wounds or marks on his
body.”

“
Neither did we, at first.” The Herder motioned for the
Inspector to come closer. “Look at his side.”

Kettna
saw a small puncture wound, like a tiny weeping eye. “It is
concealed so well. How did you discover it?”

“
Our spells of preservation and prayers only slow the
processes of death. It marches on and can get somewhat messy. The
young apprentice you spoke with earlier noticed he was leaking
fluids and discovered the wound.”

“
What kind of weapon could do that?” asked Kettna.

“
The weapon of a rogue intent on making the death appear one
way when it is actually another,” said Lanuille, leaning over to
examine the hidden wound.

“
But a dagger would leave a perforation of the same width as
the blade, not a weeping hole.” Kettna looked closer. “The opening
approximates a tiny triangle.”

“
Perhaps a stiletto or a spike,” suggested
Lanuille.

“
When you found the body, was there much blood?”

“
None at all. If there were, I would have thought it a murder
at the first. His clothes were soiled with street grime, but not a
drop of blood.”

“
What was he carrying apart from the chain of office?” asked
Kettna, looking for any other mark of the man’s history upon his
skin.

“
He had a blaze tube in his death grip and nothing else about
him,” replied Herder Kleith.

“
Nothing at all?” asked Kettna. “Not even an empty purse or a
scrap of something in a pocket?”

“
It is odd,” said Herder Kleith. “Most people have some
personal effects about them when they pass. I had not thought about
it.”

“
At least you left him his teeth,” offered Lanuille, with
sarcasm thick enough to kill a cat.

“
What are you suggesting?” Herder Kleith’s solemnity was
quickly eroded. “We don’t rob the dead!”

Kettna
raised a calming hand. “She meant no offence, Herder. It is a joke
we of the Order have at the expense of the Jandans.”

“
You compare priests of Nathis with those defiling necromantic
charlatans?”

“
No. That’s not what I —“ began Kettna, her defence
interrupted by the adept.

“
I stand corrected and apologise, Herder,” interrupted
Lanuille, opening the dead man’s mouth and inspecting within. “I
see now that this man has a fine set of teeth. A bone sucking
redeemer would have plucked those pearls to sate the desire of
their grandiose Lord, whereas a decent Herder like you would never
defile the dead to sacrifice such healthy teeth to
Nathis.”

Herder
Kleith gained his composure once more and nodded his acceptance of
the apology. “No, we certainly would not.”

“
Now, if there was gold among those pearls, that would be the
exception. Nathis wouldn’t mind you taking a donation before the
body rots in the catacombs, would he?”

Kettna
glared at Lanuille in disbelief. The sorceress had no tact. What
was fuelling such nasty words? With a storm restrained in his eyes,
Herder Kleith stepped toward Lanuille. The candle flames flared and
bent toward him. “How dare you spit such insults upon Nathis! Take
care your words don’t earn his interest, for you speak ill in his
Hall.”

A
defiant smirk curled Lanuille’s pretty face and the tattoos on her
hands glowed with magic. “Nathis doesn’t care for you or the Hall
of the Dead, and he certainly doesn’t care for me. No matter how I
begged and bled, how I screamed for mercy while death gnawed at me,
Nathis refused to take my hand. I doubt he has any interest in me
now just because I shook your cage. You collectors are body
fiddlers and thieves. I’m sure Nathis knows and couldn’t care
less.”

“
Restrain yourself!” Kettna commanded. “We are not here to
challenge the will of the gods.”

“
Gods be damned to the five hells,” said Lanuille. “Collectors
are nothing but glorified grave ro—“

Footfalls pummelled down a spiral staircase at the back of
the chamber, drumming through the tension in the room. “My
summary’s done!” The kitchen hand from the inn ran to Herder Kleith
and handed him a scroll covered front and back with neat compact
script. The candles flickered and returned to a slow restful burn
as the Hand of Nathis greeted the interruption. “Those legs carry
you quicker than your manners, Elrin.”

“
Oh! Sorry to interrupt, I didn’t realise you had company.
I’ll return later.”

“
Not to worry,” said Herder Kleith, covering the dead man with
the sheet. “I think they are about to leave.”

“
Was this the friend you spoke about?” Elrin asked Kettna,
noting the man’s blacked out hand. “A terrible thing. My
condolences.”