The Inquisitives [4] The Darkwood Mask (13 page)

Jotrem led them several levels beneath the Justice Ministry as Soneste used Hyran’s writ to pass six levels of security stations. While the bureaucrats did a fine job of shuffling paperwork, Karrnath’s military personnel were omnipresent. Every guard scrutinized the writ, tersely admitting them at last into the Ministry archives. Even there, two uniformed clerks lingered near to keep an eye on her. Jotrem’s presence did much to allay the Karrns’ hesitance to allow a Brelish civilian within their walls, but Soneste had no intention of admitting it.

“Why do you call him a traitor?” she asked Jotrem as they entered another cramped room. “If he’s a traitor to Karrnath, why hasn’t Tallis fled the border to seek a life somewhere else? He knows you’re after him. It’s only a matter of time, isn’t it?”

Jotrem’s hand settled upon his sword hilt as he propped his back to a wall. “Aside from his treasonous crime, Tallis has taken it upon himself to decide what is best for this nation. Apparently, harassing its aristocracy serves it well.”

“Aristocracy? Is that all?”

“He has also been known to strike out against Seekers,” Jotrem added.

“Seekers?”

“Followers of the Blood of Vol.”

An unusual assassin, she thought. “Do you know why?”

“Why does a madman do anything?” Jotrem returned. “I couldn’t tell you why.”

He leaned forward and gestured to the room at large. “The annals of the Ministry say only that on some crucial mission, Tallis turned on his own men. He killed a dread marshal and destroyed the undead assigned to his unit.
That
was his first known crime, and it made him a traitor to the crown.”

“So Tallis has a vendetta against the undead. Strange, for a Karrn.”

“Few of my countrymen have a love for the undead, Miss Otänsin, but they are useful. Tallis has no respect for the law and the decisions of the crown. He is an embarrassment to this country, and I will see him executed for his crimes.”

What is
your
problem with him, Soneste wanted to ask. Instead, she merely said, “Before his court-martial, had Tallis scorned the Blood of Vol before?”

Soneste knew something of the history of the war before her time. It had been the Cult of Vol that had brought its prowess with necromancy to Karrnath early in the war. King Kaius I had accepted their terms and raised the first undead legion against his enemies. Though his successors had tried to rid Karrnath of the Cult’s grasp, they could not erase its presence from the land. Soneste had even heard that the Karrnathi city of Atur was home to a great temple of the Blood of Vol.

“It’s possible,” Jotrem answered. “It’s an old religion in this country, and the undead soldiers it raised to support our armies were usually kept in separate military units from the living soldiers. But there were joint operations.”

So Tallis was opposed to both the Blood of Vol and the undead they spawned. Was there a connection between Gamnon and the Blood of Vol? The ambassador had been one of the Purified, a follower of the Silver Flame, but the Silver Flame sought to eradicate evil, and it was commonly known the Silver Flame considered the Blood of Vol to be just that. Soneste had to find the connection. If Tallis opposed the Blood of Vol, and followers of the Silver Flame opposed the Blood of Vol, why would Tallis kill Gamnon?

The Masked Wizard
Mol, the 9th of Sypheros, 998 YK

T
hey stood outside the gates of the Justice Ministry. Jotrem seemed impervious to the cold, dressed in a single insulated layer in the same drab colors as his countrymen. Soneste fastened her coat tightly and fished for her gloves.

She decided that Lord Charoth was likelier to have knowledge of Ambassador ir’Daresh, and she wanted to speak to him without Jotrem’s unwelcome glare at her back. Since he had been assigned to assist her investigation, she decided to use this to her advantage. She asked him to seek out Vorik ir’Alanso or a representative of his family to learn what appointment the ambassador had missed with the clothier.

Jotrem resisted, as Soneste knew he would, so she turned to her own method of persuasion.

“Listen, Jotrem,” she said. “Together you and I will seem an interrogation party. I want to keep this Lord Charoth at ease. Perhaps he may speak more candidly to an attractive young woman, no?”

This she punctuated with a smile and a mental stab, calling upon the talents she’d honed in Veshtalan’s presence not so long ago. She imagined the older inquisitive’s mind as a door made of
stiff clay, then she pressed against it with fingertips of her will. She couldn’t peer beyond that barrier, but she could leave an impression of her choice in the clay. A seed of attraction, Veshtalan had called this particular power.

She heard the quiet whistle that heralded her power—a gentle sound with no definitive source—but amidst the bustle of the crowds Jotrem would not know its origin.

“I don’t know,” he muttered, then furrowed his brow in mild confusion. “I suppose … that makes sense.”

“Visit the tailoring house,” she suggested, encouraging the seed she knew was germinating within him. She indicated her blue coat and its Brelish design. “Perhaps you could find some local garments for me while you’re there, to help me blend in?”

Soneste didn’t mention that her coat had been partially woven with illusionary threads. Shiftweave clothing could alter its color and shape with a word from its wearer.

“Of course,” he said, his expression unsure. Soneste tried not to smile, knowing that in that moment, the Karrn was finding himself inexplicably attracted to women’s clothes. “We will … meet here at fourth watch, then.”

“Watch?”

Jotrem shook his head. “We measure the day in watches. Every fourth hour is another watch. Fourth watch is noon. There are six watches in each day.”

“Give me an hour more,” she said.

Jotrem nodded and walked away, intent on his curious errand. Soneste allowed herself to smile at last.

Now she needed to find Charoth’s estate or his place of business. It was simply a matter of asking around. She turned to leave then froze as she saw two White Lions dragging a manacled captive toward the open gates of the Ministry. He was dark haired, like most Karrns, and wore a leather jerkin. For a moment, she wondered if they’d actually found Tallis. His appearance nearly matched Sergeant Bratta’s description of the Ebonspire suspect: clad in black, with an unruly, if athletic bearing. He
looked
like a soldier gone rogue.

The man struggled, uttering curses unfamiliar to Soneste. She approached cautiously as a White Lion sergeant stopped them.

“Report,” he said.

One of the Lions renewed his grip on the captive’s arm. “This piece of human swine accosted a merchant when the merchant refused to sell to him.”

“Lower rabble,” the other added with disgust and patted a small scabbard on his belt. “When we intervened, he displayed this blade and said he’d stick us if we ‘laid a hand upon him.’ ”

The sergeant looked the disheveled man in the eyes. “Is this true? Did you resist arrest?”

“Go to Khyber, white kitty,” the man cursed, spitting in the sergeant’s face.

The White Lion nodded stolidly. He drew the confiscated knife from the other soldier’s belt without wiping his face.

“You do not refute the crime and
are
therefore guilty,” he said in a loud voice, “so let’s not waste the magistrate’s time, eh?”

He pulled one side of the rogue’s jerkin aside and slashed the long blade across the man’s stomach. Soneste’s own stomach tightened as the man screamed. Citizens on the street quickened their paces, none lingering to watch. The two soldiers let the man drop.

With his wrists manacled, the captive couldn’t even try to stanch the bleeding. As he writhed upon the cobbles, the soldiers watched for several long seconds. Then the sergeant stabbed the criminal again, this time at the base of the neck. His pain ended.

“Another one for the corpse collectors,” the sergeant said, an order as much as a declaration.

Soneste turned away, nauseated. The watch in Sharn may have been unapologetically corrupt, but they weren’t quite so free to exact judgment on a whim. Was
this
the Code of Kaius?

Soneste was directed to Charoth’s estate in short order. A few crowns and sovereigns dispensed into the appropriate hands even
gave her some local perspective on the so-called “Masked Wizard.” He was a peasant hero in the Low District, a bogeyman among the merchants of Korth, and a mage of mysterious power. There were even rumors that the mask he wore gave him prophetic, divinatory, or vitalic powers.

Her stomach was still soured by the brutality of Karrnathi law, but now that she approached the suspect’s house, she felt more composed. Whether in the halls of Morgrave University or the alleys of Sharn’s Lower City—or indeed, the streets of a foreign city—this
was
what she did for a living.

Lord Charoth had elected not to return to his family estate in Highcourt Ward when he returned to Korth two years ago—only one of many times he’d spurned House Cannith. Instead, he had purchased a crumbling manor in the Community Ward and rebuilt it to his liking. The former residents had been a well-to-do family whose every scion had perished in the Last War, vacating the estate for the Masked Wizard’s convenience.

The first thing Soneste noticed was the gloom around Charoth’s estate. Despite the late morning hour, the sky was exceedingly dark. Cold fire lanterns lit even the major street junctions in the Low District Ward, but here they were markedly absent.

The house itself matched the city’s symmetrical architecture, with smooth stone walls adorned only at its edges, sills, and eaves. The ground level was broad, but further in it rose only three stories high, dwarfed by the tower blocks on either side of the estate. None could say that the mansion lacked grandeur for its height, though. The whole structure presented a regal, throne-like appearance. The locals had taken to calling it the Murder House, and now she understood why. There was a profusion of rain spouts carved to resemble crows, and the silver-painted cornices which ran beneath every roof possessed a featherlike design.

Lovely, Soneste thought.

A razor-edged fence framed the estate like a row of stylized iron glaives, conjoined by a pair of black gates that swung gently open at Soneste’s approach. Did they open for all, or was someone
watching? She looked to the dark windows above, saw no one, then stopped when the short path circled around a dry fountain. A vulture-headed stone demon towered at its center, glowering at her from its frozen perch. The statue’s eyes, inlaid spheres of glass, were ensorceled with a crimson light—the only exterior illumination around the manor.

As she turned to follow the path, a hideous cry arose from somewhere nearby. It was bestial but almost humanlike in pitch. Inexplicable panic seized her, and she found herself running toward the gates—which had silently closed behind her.

“Unholy Six!” she swore, turning around when she heard the sound of heavy, padded feet swiftly approaching.

It was a large animal, easily the length of a horse and covered in patchy, rust-colored fur. A mass of lesions marred its black-skinned hide. Moving low to the ground, the creature had appeared from somewhere in the yard and bounded in her direction with the litheness of a cat, accompanied by the sound of rattling metal. Soneste drew her rapier and slashed wildly, startled by the speed at which the creature closed the distance. It stopped short with a heavy
chink
, turning its feline head away from her blade.

Soneste steeled her mind and struck again, finding a moment’s composure as she stabbed the animal in the exposed skin of its chest. She saw the blade disappear into the matted fur but felt no resistance. As it shifted its weight, she saw part of its body linger and fade like an afterimage. Some sort of illusionary glamer cloaked the creature, displacing its actual position. It fixed her with blank white eyes for a moment then surged forward again.

The metallic
chink
sounded again as a thick chain—affixed to a collar that appeared to float in mid-air more than a foot from its neck—stretched taught. Soneste danced away from its snapping jaws, putting several feet between them.

It could move no further. She was safe now.

“Audsh!”
a man’s voice called out from the house,
“Nerzhaat hak irezh!”
If Soneste wasn’t mistaken, the words were spoken in the Goblin tongue. She tried to remember them.

The creature turned away with a mewling growl, padding back to the other side of the yard like a scolded dog. Now that she saw the heavy chain, she could see where the beast’s neck appeared to be—and where it
really
was.

“Don’t let the words fool you, miss.” A handsome, well-groomed young man beckoned to her from the porch. “I am not his master—he won’t heed my commands for long. Best if you come in now.”

The brooding clouds above chose that moment to release their burden. Soneste glanced once more at the skulking animal—moving slowly away from her now, it looked more like a mangy wolf with a long rat tail—then whispered another malediction for Karrnath’s weather. The rain began to fall in torrents, so she hurried up the steps beneath the prominent overhang.