The Inquisitives [4] The Darkwood Mask (29 page)

“And exact vengeance,” Tallis said gruffly, his own words sounding foolish to him after what she’d just said. A kalashtar? He’d heard of psionic powers, but he’d never experienced any. Either way, damned effective.

“Correct,” Soneste said, standing up now. A smile played upon her lips. “As I said to you the other day, in the name of King Kaius III of Karrnath
and
King Boranel of Breland, we will see justice done. We work together on this, and we start by pooling our knowledge. I need to know what you know, and I’ll tell you what I’ve learned.”

Soneste held out her right hand. “Do we have an agreement?” she asked with a wink.

She was a cunning creature. Tallis had
never
been comfortable in a partnership. He even kept Lenrik at arm’s length when it came to his work against the Blood or other dubious parties, but given the circumstances—and the lingering affects of the attraction—he decided he could make a temporary arrangement like the one she was suggesting.

Tallis grasped her hand firmly. “We do.”

Dockside Artifice
Wir, the 11th of Sypheros, 998 YK

S
oneste related to Tallis the events of the last two days, omitting nothing and carefully reading his face as he listened. He looked dead tired, but his attention was rapt. The attraction she’d planted in his mind wore off sometime during their discussion, but his eyes never wavered from her.

Tallis was guarded in his side of the story. He recounted events beginning with his infiltration of the Ebonspire, saying nothing about the nature of his work or whereabouts prior to the incident. Most of her clues lined up, but the identity of the assassin remained beyond their reach.

It was late morning when they set out from the cathedral, Tallis in his Lyrandar disguise and Soneste in her blue coat. Soneste looked carefully around, afraid Jotrem might track her down. She wanted to search for Aegis, but she knew they had to follow the only lead they had first. Tallis had insisted they take the metal hand straight to an acquaintance of his named Verdax.

“There must be dozens of artificers in this city who can tell us about this thing,” she said as the massive Cannith estate came into view.

Even as she eyed the gorgon seal above its gates, she thought again of Lord Charoth and his estrangement from the house. He was mysterious enough to have hidden motives, but he seemed to want nothing to do with warforged or constructs. As she looked at the gauntlet in her hand, she felt certain the assassin was a construct.

Tallis’s description of Charoth wasn’t much different than anyone else’s. The Karrn had been invited to Charoth’s glass factory last year, had been made an offer of service, and he’d declined. Lord Charoth was evidently many things: taskmaster, businessman, aristocrat, a man both loved and feared—and a wizard

The
Korranberg Chronicle
had painted an intriguing, colorful picture of the man. If he’d been truly offended by Tallis’s refusal to work for him, it seemed to Soneste that Charoth wouldn’t need to go to such lengths to take revenge. Perhaps if she asked some members of the house about Charoth, she could learn more.

“Let’s try House Cannith,” Soneste said, pointing up at the enclave. “They’re obviously the most likely to know about what kind of creature can live in animate armor.”

“No,” Tallis answered. “The dragonmarked enclaves are quickly notified when criminals of a certain caliber are at large. I’m one of those. Besides, Verdax is one artificer I know I can trust.”

So this Verdax was probably an outlaw too. Lovely.

They walked the streets in silence, winding slowly down the district tiers of the city. Feeling sleightly on edge, Soneste imagined the eyes of every White Lion upon her. She knew the soldiers had been shown portraits of Tallis and were told to keep their search for him as discreet as possible, but whenever she glanced up at him, she was impressed with his new disguise.

In his green coat and hat, few gave him a second glance. He conveyed nobility without the flagrant extravagances she saw among Sharn’s elite. They even passed unscathed through two White Lion checkpoints. The city’s security tightened with each passing day, especially in the upper districts and the palace of Crownhome. Tallis’s papers, identifying him as Findel d’Lyrandar,
held up each time. Whoever had forged his papers and his new appearance had done an amazing job.

Even so, they couldn’t have hidden the grief that tightened his quicksilver eyes or the rage that pursed his previously wicked grin into a fierce scowl. She reached out and squeezed his hand, surprised to feel how warm it was. He was the only Karrn without ice water coursing through his veins.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Soneste said quietly.

Tallis didn’t answer right away. They walked two blocks before he acknowledged her intrusion at all. “I know.”

Soneste was surprised when Tallis led them down to the waterfront. A profusion of masts and half-collapsed sails filled the docks. Workers of every race and social class walked this way and that, carrying rigging, ordering inferiors around, and arguing. She searched the mass of people, hoping on a whim to spot Aegis, but the only warforged she saw were hauling cargo to and from river vessels. The din of the crowds and the cadence of dockworkers’ song swallowed all other noise. The latter sounded more like battle hymns than river shanties.

“Your artificer is down
here?”
Soneste shouted to be heard. She noted a crowd of roustabouts loitering outside a nearby alehouse.

“Pray join us, Bluebird!” one of the men called to her. One of his mates held up a bottle and made a lewd gesture with it.

Angry words came unbidden to her lips, and her face flushed. “Keeper’s swine—”

“Come on, Bluebird,” Tallis said with a half smile, taking her hand in his again. “We’re almost there.”

The Karrn steered her out onto the furthest pier at the east end, passing into the shadow of the bluffs that rose high along the city’s edge. The pier itself cried out for repair and some of the pilings looked ready to break free from it altogether. A cluster of damaged ships crowded the dock. Soneste knew very little about seamanship but was fairly certain none of these ships would sail again. Some of them didn’t even have masts and were too ramshackle to be elemental-powered vessels.

“Watch your step,” Tallis said, pointing out broken planks in their path. He stepped up to what Soneste first assumed was an oddly-shaped dockhouse. It resembled a miniature barge with a rusted iron protrusion serving as the pilot house. She could barely make out the name written on the hull,
Kapoacinth
, amidst thick layers of mildew.

“This was a salvage tug during the war,” Tallis explained when he saw her scrutiny.

“Was,”
she concurred.

Atop a short ramp, they stepped aboard and Tallis rapped the head of his hammer against the vertical hatch which passed for the door. Soneste winced at the jarring sound. She eyed the hand-sized porthole on the door when she caught a flicker within the thick glass. As they waited, Tallis unbuttoned his coat. Buffeted as they were by the bitter riverside winds, Soneste thought him mad.

When there was no response, Tallis hammered again.

A massive reptilian eye filled the porthole, flicking left and right. Its vertical pupil dilated against the daylight behind them. A hellish red glow limned the great eye.

Soneste she reached for her dagger. “What in Khyber …?”

Tallis chuckled, removing his jacket and tucking it under an arm.

An illusion, perhaps. Many arcanists employed fearsome, if harmless defenses such as this in their shops and homes. Soneste found it difficult to believe this floating piece of junk housed a legitimate workshop.

“Who is you?” a harsh voice issued from the door, the sound amplified through invisible pipes.

“You
know
who, Verdax,” Tallis answered. “Let me in. I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Bringing ssstranger?” the voice accused, the eye fixing on Soneste. She looked around to see if anyone else noticed the shrill voice. None did.

“Yes. Just open up.”

“No!”

“Very well.” Tallis withdrew the metal case that housed his identification papers, propped it open, and cleared his throat.

“Verdaxensoranec!” he said in a loud voice. A few heads near the crumbling dock turned their way at the sound. The angry red eye widened and swiveled around. “You are hereby ordered, in accordance with the Justice Ministry of Korth
and
the Code of Kaius, to submit to an authorized search of the
Kapoacinth
as requested by the Windwrights Guild of House Lyran—”

There came a furious hiss, followed by the metallic
pop
of the ship’s door as it unsealed and swung ajar. Tallis clapped the metal case together. “Better let me go first. He hates people he doesn’t know.” Soneste made a face. “What? You wanted to come, didn’t you? By the way, you might want to take that coat off.”

On the other side of the door she saw a protruding eyehole at waist level, inlaid with a thick lens that disappeared into the metal. Tallis led her by hand through a cramped and dark walkway that smelled like lamp oil and snake skin. A ramp brought them into the belly of the small ship, where a sudden, stifling heat enclosed them. She removed her coat quickly and folded it over one arm.

The air remained uncomfortably warm and was as black as night until Tallis triggered something upon one wall. Yellow-globed lanterns flared to life with cold fire, illuminating the space. Distaste and wonder both warred for her favor as she looked upon the room.

Soneste had seen arcane workspaces before, had visited magewright shops in Sharn and even glimpsed research chambers in Cannith Enclave. The interior of this boat looked like it comprised the leftover parts from
those
places. Every horizontal surface was littered with a perplexing array of tools and inorganic parts. Hooks and chains jutted from the ceiling and walls, holding whatever failed to fit anywhere else. Tucked in an alcove beside her was a sheaf of legal documents. Against the far side of the shop, a large storage bin was propped half open by something covered in a filthy tarp. She felt an aqueous
murmur somewhere beneath her feet, as though the boat itself was powered by churning water.

Soneste’s gaze settled at last upon a small, reptilian figure that stood fuming up at her like a tiny bull. For a moment she thought the creature was stuffed, until its glowing red eyes narrowed. No taller than a halfling, most of its scaly, gray-brown skin was covered by a suit that combined a workman’s smock with studded leather armor. A pair of oversized goggles perched atop his head, contesting with the two black horns that sprouted there—a kobold.

Most of his kind lived in tribes and laired in caves, setting traps for the unwary and venturing out only to raid. Soneste had never heard of a kobold artificer.

Tallis pointed at her. “Verdax, this Soneste. She’s clean.” He indicated the kobold in turn. “Soneste, this is Verdax.”

“Master Verdax,” she said with a half-bow, holding back a smile.

“Shhrk! Where she is from?” the artificer demanded with a hiss.

Tallis opened his mouth to reply, but Soneste cut him off. “Listen,” she said, producing her identification papers and holding them out for the kobold’s inspection. “I work for Thuranne d’Velderan’s Investigative Services, a freelancing inquisitive agency with ties to House Tharashk. I am here on behalf of the King’s Citadel of Breland and the Justice Ministry.”

Verdax’s eyes bulged. The lips of his canine snout peeled back to reveal a collection of tiny sharp teeth. One clawed hand reached for a wand sticking out of his largest pocket.

“I am not here for you, Verdax.” She pointed at the papers tacked to the wall. “I have no interest in seizing the
Kapoacinth
, for which I’m assuming you possess legal ownership, nor of investigating your business here. We’re only interested your help.”

The kobold turned his baleful gaze upon Tallis. He had yet to address her directly. “She is law! Cannot be trust!” he screeched.

“Look, she’s with me.
Me. I’m
the one wanted by the law, right?” Tallis added, “And Verdax … she’s from Sharn.”

The kobold’s glare faltered, quickly supplanted by a sinister, dragonlike smile. He looked back at Soneste. “Tell with me about City of Towers, warmblood.”

“Another time,” Tallis said. “There’s something I really need you to look at right now.”

Soneste placed the cloth bundle on the central worktable. Verdax lingered a moment as if lost in a dream, his toothy grin only slowly fading. He mounted a metal step ladder that had been fused to one side of the table and peeled back the cloth. Soneste imagined him constructing various other devices right there, standing on the tabletop like an artificer’s homunculus, yet the more she looked around at the wands, potions, and sundry magic items, the more seriously she took the peculiar kobold.

Verdax prodded the empty gauntlet with interest, turning it over and hefting it in nimble claws. At last he looked up at Tallis. “Settle first! Then we gold-talk.”

“Fine.” Tallis nodded at Soneste. “This will only take a few minutes.”

The Karrn and kobold moved to the other side of the shop. Tallis produced the fire wand he’d used just last night, handing it to Verdax. “This was discharged only once in my possession,” he began. “I promise you. You can check it yourself.”

Soneste watched as Tallis pulled a surprising number of items from his coat and pockets, including a handful of small potion vials. She spied the two metal rods he carried at his belt, but he didn’t remove them. From the bargaining session that followed—hushed tones punctuated by the kobold’s shrill exclamations—Soneste deduced that Tallis borrowed most of the tools for his peculiar trade but that he did, in fact, own a few of them himself. The gravity-defying rods and the gnomish hooked hammer were probably his. The rest, it seemed, he rented in exchange for gold or temporal magic findings.

Soneste busied herself with her own inventory but quietly studied the space around her. She knew only a little about magic but knew enough to know that Verdax owned a veritable arsenal
of arcane equipment and weaponry. Between the basement of Aureon’s shrine and this unassuming little watercraft, Soneste knew she’d found Tallis’s primary haunts. She already knew a lot about this man. Once this investigation was over, what would happen next? He seemed too careful to just let her go, truce or no truce.