Dead Letter (30 page)

“
Curse it!” yelled Rix, as his barrage of blue darts fizzled
in the dust cloud. Every illusion exposed to it disappeared, until
Rix stood alone out in the open.

Lanuille
had raised a shimmering shield to protect her from the blue darts,
but it too fizzled as the red dust drifted over her cowled head.
Lanuille laughed. “Is that how you hid yourself away? You have some
explaining to do, Runner Rix. Aunty is not happy.”

“
Take all the blaze you want. The shipment for Jando is in the
crates marked for maize. I won’t say a word about it, Lanuille. You
can make a fortune on the side and Agnus will be none the wiser.
Just don’t give me up to Agnus.”

That
made Lanuille laugh even more, though the joy was merciless. She
removed her cowl and revealed her scared face beneath. “You
remember this face? You think you can play me for a
fool?”

“
Oh, gods no! I didn’t realise. I’m sorry, Agnus.
Please.”

“
You’re Bloody Agnus?” Kettna’s mind whirled. “But my mother?
The edict? I thought you were my protector. You can’t be Agnus; it
doesn’t add up. Why would Agnus care so much about the laws of the
Order? She wouldn’t turn her nose up at the nameless and the less
fortunate. You did. Lanuille did.”

“
All part of the Illusion. I spent enough time around aloof
mages who believe they are above all else. The Order of Calim hides
behind laws that only serve to justify their prejudice. You wanted
to believe it. Wasn’t Lanuille the exact guardian your mother would
send? All you wanted was to find your lost love and all I did was
help.”

“
You tried to kill me!” yelled Kettna, frustrated at her
betrayal, her stupidity and her naivety. She had been so
gullible.

“
I gave fair warning and Rix attacked first. Blame
him.”

“
What can I do to make it right?” interrupted Rix. “There must
be something.”

“
We had a deal, Rix. You were given every opportunity to start
this crew and you betrayed me. When I don’t get my slice, I take
the cake.”

“
I’ll do anything,” begged Rix. “I’ll tell you anything. Just
let her walk.”

“
Give me your backer,” said Agnus. “It’s them or you. Who do I
have to kill to set this account straight?”

How was
this possible? The Inspector had considered that against her better
judgement Rix might have become mixed up with foreign agents intent
on flooding the city with blaze. Kettna had discovered that was not
so when Wasnid tried to kill her, thanks to his holy epiphany. The
only reasonable conclusion was that Rix and the Black Hand Boys
were mixed up with Bloody Agnus. Yet, here stood Blood Agnus, who
had gone to extraordinary lengths of deception to locate Rix and
discover who was behind the enterprise. If Bloody Agnus didn’t know
who was behind all of the crimes, who could it be?

“
It’s the Guildmaster,” said Rix. “He’s behind
everything.”

“
You’ve got to be laughing behind that solemn poorboy face,”
said Agnus. “You expect me to believe our venerable do-good leader
is running the blaze?”

“
Blaze isn’t the half of it,” argued Rix. “This is bigger than
shine for a high. I saw too much, I worked out what was going on
between Calimska and Jando. That’s why he had me locked up
here.”

“
Ash on Jando! Let the bone suckers sap the old man’s marrow.
You come back to Aunty and I’ll keep you safe. You’ll have more
shine than you can spend. You too, Kettna; the Guard are a pack of
mindless pounders. They are mere puppets for the guilders’
corruption. I represent the real people of Calimska, the nameless
bastards that Lanuille turned her nose at. The workers are the
grist that mills the grain. The Cauldron is the pot that warms the
bellies of the rich. I know you care about the people, I saw you
argue for them. Work for me and you will put gold back in the
pot.”

“
Don’t trust her, Kettna,” said Rix. “She is all illusions and
lies. Everything about her is subterfuge. Once you are in with
Agnus, you’ll never get out till your dead. What’s going on here is
more than gold for Calimska or bones for Jando. I’ve seen dreadful
things. If the people of Calimska knew what the truth is about the
Golden Shield they would riot.”

“
We should take her offer, Rix,” said Kettna, walking through
the settled red dust to her lover. “I’ll stay in the city and we
can build a life together. I don’t care what you’ve done, I love
you no matter what.”

“
You don’t understand. This is bigger than us, Kettna. We have
to stop it. The Guildmaster has a son, Uighara—”

Agnus
flinched as a pulse of magic shot from the shadows in the rear of
the warehouse, seizing Rix and binding him as a flesh and bone
statue.

The
Guildmaster came forward, radiating indomitable energy. “I think
Rix has said quite enough for the evening. Now that I am present, I
shall speak on my own behalf. Firstly, I must apologise, Inspector.
If I knew we had invited guests, I would have made efforts to be
better prepared for your arrival.” He examined Agnus with arcane
senses, probing the weave around Calimska’s arch criminal like a
dragon sniffing a meal. “Bloody Agnus, in the flesh. You’re not the
fearsome spectre after all. You’re just another ugly woman with a
grudge against guildermen. Hmm?”

“
You’re not much up close either,” she replied, cool as ice in
the face of her adversary.

“
Is it true?” asked Kettna, interrupting their posturing. “Are
you behind all of this?”

“
I am. And you, my dear, are exactly what I feared most. You
are like your mother; relentlessly effective. I didn’t want an
Inspector getting in the way of my efforts to protect Calimska.
That was then and this is now. I changed my mind. Your
effectiveness is to be applauded, but in your relentless pursuit of
the quarry, you didn’t realise that you were mere bait in a game
larger than you can imagine.”

Kettna
didn’t know which of them to hate more. Her image of both was an
illusion, but everyone respected the Guildmaster. His position was
everything that kept Calimska from the destruction of the dragons.
For all that he was supposed to be, his involvement in this, his
imprisonment of Rix, made it hurt harder than anything that Agnus
had falsified as Lanuille. If Agnus stayed her hand from attack,
the Guildmaster was the one to be feared in this room. If he had
orchestrated all of these crimes, how could Kettna maintain any of
her respect for him? Without respect, there was only fear. “You’ve
arranged the death of innocent men, blackmailed guilders to retain
your position of power and stole to make money from the addictions
of the weak. So how do you stand so proudly, while you stoop to
imprison others to do your evils?”

“
I take those words harshly, for you are wrong on every
account. Emotion clouds your analysis. The man killed in the alley
was no innocent. In fact he was a thief, a brutaliser of women, and
he was selling secrets to the Jandans. Head Merchant Guillan was
his true master, and he had to be stopped. Hence, the dramatics of
the Guild chain theft and the lockbox for collateral.”

“
So, Ginny works for you and took the gold as payment,” said
Agnus, her criminal tone bubbling back with the angst of the
Cauldron inside her. “I could have had a guy do it neater for half
what he got. Only mugs use thugs.”

“
But why did you keep the lockbox?” asked Kettna, desperate
for it all to make sense. She wanted to believe someone; she didn’t
want to stand alone.“What was in it?”

“
See for yourself,” said the Guildmaster, levitating it from
the workbench into her hands with the effort of an afterthought.
Inside on velvet lining rattled polished white human teeth —
children’s teeth.

“
He was paid in teeth?” asked Kettna.

“
That doesn’t make sense,” argued Agnus. “No one in Calimska
will trade those pearls; it’s not worth the trouble.”

“
Oh no, don’t be so hasty to reach your conclusions. Merchant
Guillan was paid in gold. The stolen tabs were a small amount of
what he had been issued on a regular basis for the secrets he sold.
He was privy to the confidences of every member of the High Council
and swayed or delayed their decisions to fortify the benefit of his
Jandan overlords. The teeth are a personal item, trophies from his
trade expeditions to Jando. He amassed quite a collection with his
penchant for their obscene recreations. You see, a man like that is
not fit to be Guildmaster, I warned him to cease his deepening
involvement with the Jandans. He did not. Merchant Guillan would
have made Calimska a slave to the whim of Jando. He would have
opened the doors of our great city and sacrificed us all for the
sake of indecent lusts and clandestine profit.”

“
If everything you say is true,” said Agnus, “Guillan is a
traitor and should be given no quarter. Why not dispose of him
already?”

“
I can’t, lest it look like a political assassination. My
hands are tied until after the elections.”

Kettna
was sick of the self-serving excuses. “None of that explains why
you commissioned Rix and the Black Hand Boys to steal and deal
blaze.”

“
Blaze is an export that earns Calimska gold and hinders
Jando’s control of her territories. Rix worked for Agnus, but I
offered him higher pay and less danger. The theft of alchemical
glassware was from a Jandan order bound for poaching live essence
from innocent victims across the Great Dividing Range. Master
Mertin knew it and in desperation went against his better
judgement. I have made clear that he is not to do so again. As for
the blaze, it goes to Jando and I limit what hits our streets.
Imagine if I didn’t control it. Agnus would flood our streets to
fill her pockets. I do what I do for Calimska, Kettna, not for
myself.”

“
No man does anything for anyone but himself,” spat Agnus.
“You justify your crimes to groom your own high opinion of your
position. You’re simply a man with dark holes in his soul like
every other. You either stuff those holes with sin, cover them up
with lies or stitch them up with virtue. No matter what you do, the
darkness remains.”

The
Guildmaster laughed and the magic around him shimmered in delight.
“Such characters you must be acquainted with in your quagmire of
crime. You describe a different variety of man to me, my
dear.”

“
What of the jewel heist?” asked Kettna. “That doesn’t fit in
with any of this. Why would you get them to steal moondrops
twice?”

“
The moondrops must be reserved for the magic that shields
Calimska. Lapidary Schon was retaining the supply and making the
price extortionate upon the security of our people.”

“
So make a new law,” snorted Agnus. “Isn’t that what you
politicians do?”

“
If I hadn’t arrived in time,” said Kettna, “you’d have
orchestrated the deaths of the most skilled jewellers in
Calimska.”

“
There is an unfortunate cost in pursuit of the greater good.
You would do well to learn that lesson quickly,
Inspector.”

“
What could be worth the death of innocents?” asked
Kettna.

“
Secrecy!” boomed the Guildmaster, shaking the entire building
with his power. “If it became common knowledge that our shield
relies on certain rare commodities, our enemies would only need to
cut off our supply and leave us exposed. Isn’t that
obvious?”

“
Obvious to me,” said Agnus. “Because that is the very
predicament you face right now.” Bloody Agnus dove into the weave
and flexed her talent, testing that her skill had returned after
the red dust settled. She had been stalling, feeding the
conversation to buy time for the magic inhibiting compound to
settle. How easy it had been to encourage the Guildmaster onto the
stage to pass his judgements and justify his deceptions. “I am
going to walk out of here with Rix and the good Inspector Kettna
and you, dear leader, are going to wish them well, or die trying to
stop me.”

The
Guildmaster smirked at the Agnus’s show of talent and overwhelmed
them with his own. His entry into the weave was a whale breaching
the surface of the high seas. To Kettna’s magical senses he held
sway of a deeper connection unfathomable to her experience. “You’re
a fool to think your paltry magics are any match for mine, Agnus.
Give up now, and you won’t hang.”

“
I’m no fool and I don’t need magic. You see, while you were
busy assuring us how good you are and how you do all the awful
things you do for the citizens of our great golden city, a number
of my friends, who beg to differ, have made their way here and
await my signal to burst in and give you their nuanced
opinions.”

“
Trickery!” called the Guildmaster, his voice reverberating
with power. The weave bent around him in anger at her insolence. It
demanded that Agnus yield to his truth, that his power was in all
ways supreme.

Agnus
stood resolute against his power. “I offer no trickery; I will
conquer you with Calimska’s truth. I sent word into the Cauldron as
soon as I discovered Rix’s whereabouts. By now I have this
warehouse surrounded. Your worst fears besiege you, Guildmaster:
the cutthroats and assassins, the thugs and sellswords. Not one of
them cares about politics, not one gives a damn about your magic
shield, because the Cauldron doesn’t sit on the shine the dragons
want. You do.”