Missing Elements (The Lament Book 3) (2 page)

"Other than that this is the
right city, I can't lay claim to that information, sir. I don't suppose that
you'd know the way?" Her tone was light, and a bit hopeful.

The balding old fellow didn't
disappoint her either.

"I do. I do. I work First Street
and have for nearly twenty years. This is my route, you know. The High Council
Chambers is what you want, being that it's past low morning already. Eight
bells in a few minutes. Clarice is a Bard though, so you might be in for a wait
on her, coming this time of day. Still, better to show an eager face first
thing and have her coffee ready when she gets in, isn't it?" The man
pointed with a weathered finger, at a building that wasn't all that far down. "Right
there in the three story place. The big one. I hear tell that Bard Clarice is
on the top floor, near the back on the right hand side. It's well marked. I've
been inside more than a time or two, myself. Met the woman too, I have. A real
peach. Always in a fine dress, that one. If I was interested in that sort, I'd
have given her a tumble by now, or at least put a word in. She's known to be a
good sort, that way. Not that you heard it from Old Donal, mind. I don't need
another scathing song written about me. The six I have are more than
enough." He grinned cutely, and a bit of his youth played across his aged
face. He might not have ever been a handsome man, she guessed, but there was
charm there, and friendly green eyes.

"Why, thanks! Here I was,
worried that it would be the rest of the day getting there. Oh, um, I'm Pran.
In case it comes up. Donal, you say it was? Do you want me to enquire with my
new Master for you?" That was more than a bit saucy, but the fellow had
been pretty kind to her, so if it was his secret dream, she could give it a
shot. For all that he seemed to scoop shit for a living,
he
was clean
and friendly. Then again Pran had no clue what sort of man Bard Clarice liked.

For that matter, she
may
just like women. It had literally never even occurred to her to question it.
Pran had always just assumed that, as an Apprentice, she'd be used for sex by
her Master anyway. It didn't always happen, but if it did, she couldn't really
complain. It was probably even more true when that person was the High Bard. If
she wanted Pran to service her, then that would be what happened, wouldn't it?
Not only did she have a job to do, but if she wanted to keep her great position
here, she'd need to really prove out.

Women weren't her favorite, that
way, but you did what it took. That was the second rule, and linked pretty
closely to the first one.

Survive
.

It worked for almost everything
she'd found. The first thing you always looked to, was surviving. Even if it
meant risking death. On an airship, you survived. In a small town with the
black plague, you survived. The same was true here now, as well. If she considered
anything more important than that, Pran wouldn't just
fail
, but probably
never leave the place alive. The enemy from the past had people in place there,
after all. They knew it to be the case, Guardian Clark and her, having heard it
from the enemy themselves. What they didn't know was who exactly that would be.

It might have even been the old
and chatty cart man in front of her, as far as she knew.

He laughed, which was a hearty
and loud thing.

"Ah, good one there! No, no,
I'll be leaving the poor girl alone. I prefer men, myself. Always have. Have a
partner though, on these last fifteen years. Good man, Riley's his name, if you
meet him. Works up in the building you're going to, so could as might happen.
Now, I won't be bothering you no more. The leavings won't scoop themselves,
like I always say!" Then, with a polite nod, he finished his job and
walked on, back the way that she'd come from.

For a man that shoveled horseshit
for a living, he certainly seemed pleasant, she decided, moving toward the
building that he'd pointed out to her. It was clearly marked by a large wooden
sign in the front, and certainly
looked
pretty special. It wasn't the
tallest place in the city, being that there were a few that were close to twice
as high, but it was clearly one of the best decorated. The main colors were all
in light tans, with a white trim, but just calling it that lacked something.

It had been built and decorated
by craftsmen, obviously, who had worked in stone, but made it seem almost like
it had to be wood. There was fine work too, which had to have taken years to
finish. Even if there had been a hundred Bards doing it at the time. Incredible
relief sculptures ran around the top of the place, in the white stone there.
She couldn't tell if it had paint on it or not, but kind of figured that it
wouldn't. That would be a waste of time and energy after all. So would bringing
in stone like that. There it was though, right in front of her. It might be
wasteful, but it was also grand, she decided.

It was so smooth and white she
wasn't certain she'd ever seen anything like it. Alabaster, she thought. It
would be hard to know without actually climbing up to see it firsthand. That
would be a poor way to start her first day, however, or at least falling to her
death would. That made not doing it seem far more sensible suddenly. It was a
thing she was planning to work on, if she got a chance. Doing what actually
made sense, like a real adult, if it came up. So no, she wouldn't be scaling
the side of the building just to examine the art.

Unless the opportunity came up,
that was.

Pran started up the long, and
very wide, stone steps to the place. There were three rows leading up to the
building and she understood by the time she was there why that was. It might
stick up three stories high above the earth next to it, but an entire level, or
more, was
below
her. The front doors, and there were two of them, were
opened by a man in a black uniform. It was clean, and wrinkle free, but plain
looking.

What wasn't exactly normal was
how hard he looked at
her
. It wasn't in a making eyes, flirting kind of
way either. She felt stripped bare, suddenly, as she started to move inside.
The man looked to be physically hard, and about forty, having wrinkles from too
much chronic squinting and frown lines. He was also, she could tell by how his
eyes focused, in a trance state.

A Guardian, observing her, to see
if she was a threat.

"Hello! I'm Apprentice Bard
Pran? You probably haven't heard that I was coming, but that's just an
oversight, I'm sure. I don't have any weapons with me, this time. I probably
will in the future though, since I keep needing them for different things. You
understand, don't you?" She said it all so sweetly it sounded fake, but
the man broke his trance for half a second, frowned more and cleared his
throat.

"With a buildup like that,
I'm almost going to have to search you, aren't I? No weapons in the building,
unless you're a Guardian. Are you?" He looked at her outfit, which was
pretty close to what she'd have been wearing if that really were the case.

Laughing a bit, making herself
bat her eyes a little at the man, she shook her head.

"Not anymore. I was once,
for about a week. Just as an Apprentice, as you might imagine. It was... Well,
there's a story to go along with that. Why don't you pat me down now, so that
you know I don't have a kinetic pistol in my pack, or a rifle down my pant leg?
I know that
I
won't mind, if you'll trade some information with
me?" The man didn't seem to be the kind to play, and stiffened at the
words, but didn't hit her. Not that she would have been able to do much about
it if he decided to. Yes, she'd had a whole three weeks of fighting lessons,
but that didn't mean she was ready to take on someone that had trained their
whole life. Not even one that had done it for even a week longer than she had,
most likely.

"What
kind
of
information?" He looked ready to take her out, and his hand went to the
leather pouch on his side, which was all in black and probably held one of
those kinetic pistols she'd mentioned. That was overkill for her, given that
she wasn't armed, like Pran had said, but did tell her a lot about the
situation she was going in to.

No one, not even a surly and
disgruntled Guardian would be that suspicious of a young girl with instrument
cases. Not if they weren't aware that some people might have been having their
minds replaced. At least his orders would have
come
from someone that
knew.

"Directions to High Bard
Clarice? I really do need to report to her. It's my first day."

"Likely tale, isn't it? Why
don't you set those bags down, really slow, and let me take a look, before you
go and have a chance to do any damage?"

Pran considered pulling out the
Bard card, and
whining
at the man about being delayed, but instead just
carefully set her things down, shrugged off her pack and stepped back, so that
the door could be closed while the man check her out. There was no need for her
to really hurry, she bet. Not if it meant angering the man in front of her. It
was chilly out, but she was still warm enough to survive it from her walk. As
long as it didn't take
too
long, she'd be fine that way.

"Please be careful with the
instruments, if it pleases you, sir? I really
do
have an audition here
today."

"I thought you said you were
the new Apprentice. Prawn, was it?"

"Pran. I..." She
shrugged. The truth was she had the place already. She also needed to back that
up, or it would look wrong, wouldn't it? "Honestly, I don't know if I have
this or not. I'm all right with the lute and guitar, and have a fair hand at
painting, and a very good one with sculpture, but Bard Clarice is known for her
singing. I might not be good enough for her, that way. I won't know until I
meet her. You might be seeing me in an hour coming back in tears."

That was possible, she knew.

Even if the Bard thought she was
good enough, which wasn't assured, or was willing to fake it for a while due to
the job that was at hand, Pran might honestly not be what she wanted in an
Apprentice. It was a thing to keep in mind, wasn't it? All she could do was the
best that might be managed. While trying to seem at least a bit like a
download, as silly as that felt now.

The man looked up from the pack,
which he had sitting on the ground, the gray homespun canvas straps clutched in
a callused palm.

"Arms out. I need to do that
personal search. You're too suspicious not to check. Probably a monster just
hiding as an Apprentice."

Pran did as she was told, and
giggled when the man patted her chest and stopped suddenly. He didn't comment
on the fact that she had breasts however. They weren't that well pronounced,
and mainly hidden by the black heavy shirt she wore, but they were
real
enough. He also managed to check between her legs well enough that he
had
to know she wasn't a boy. It was a bit obvious, but didn't seem to be about
sex.

No, he was just making sure to do
his job well. All Guardians did. He barely even left his working trance state
to do it.

"No weapons. That I can
find." He glanced at her, and then the instrument cases. "Except the
strings, the handles of the case, and the guitar and lute. Of course." He
was watching her again, his eyes locked on her own. For the longest time he
didn't look away, but finally smiled. "Bard or not, you should watch
claiming to be a Guardian. People can get in trouble that way. Least wise when
you aren't on stage. Anything goes if you-"

For about the third time ever,
Pran managed to move without rhythm, and do it pretty well. Real Guardians
could nearly vanish in the right conditions, using that and a host of other
tricks. It was really more like stage magic than the real kind however. People
normally expected to see you do very predictable things. Their eyes moved
before the objects they were watching did, allowing them to get a sense of what
was about to happen, without realizing it. By changing what she was doing,
randomly, she managed to get out of the way, over to the right of the man, like
one of them would do.

Except that they, the Guardians,
lived like that from childhood, and could see and think that way, not using
patterns at all. The one in front of her was gone too, by the time she stopped,
and a kinetic pistol was pointed at her, from behind. About ten feet away.

She shrugged.

"Like I said, it was
only
about a week. Now, either come take a bow, or shoot me, since we have an
audience." She waved at the street, where a few passersby were staring at
them. It probably meant that she'd been acting so weird that everyone really
was waiting for her to be shot for their entertainment.

The middling tall Guardian put
the kinetic pistol away, and actually managed a small smile.

"Not bad then. Prawn. I
haven't seen the High Bard so far today. Take those stairs, through the door to
the right. I'll be by to check your story out later, by the way. Something
isn't right here."

Which was just a fact. If the
Guardian wasn't certain that she should be allowed in, then why let her? That
wasn't normal, was it? Unless, she realized, the man had been just making fun
of her the whole time.

"Wait, you
have
heard
of me, haven't you? This whole thing..." She waved at the door as the man
looked a bit sheepish.

"Well, I
might
have
heard a story or two about a Bard Pran that was off of The Lament, in the last
few weeks. That doesn't mean that you're her. They
are
on the board to
be in for landing this morning, so that might be possible. That really wasn't a
bad movement there, either. I'd heard that you could do it, but didn't think it
was possible. It takes most years to do that well. Of course, we're all little
kids when we first do it, so that might be a big part of things there. Third
floor, seventh door on the right. She has the back corner spaces." Then,
as if they'd never spoken at all, the man went back to work.