Harvest Moon (21 page)

“It's going to be difficult to tell
him
to ‘turn off' his spell, if it's him. And I'm not sure how easy it is to tell them to turn it down, either. From my understanding of magic, that's not the way it works. Wait here.”

 

It wasn't Teela who returned; it was Ceridath. Teela was deep in discussion with Farris. Farris was, as Ceridath had promised, younger, but like Ceridath, being an Imperial mage seemed to put a chip on his shoulder the size of a small fief. Tain had come to stand by Teela's side, which made their area on the scaffolding very crowded.

Ceridath knelt by Kaylin. He looked old and tired. He still looked arrogant, but it wasn't as offensive somehow. “I do not understand how you can do what you do,” he said quietly, “but I understand that it
is
you. What Teela is asking is…unusual.”

“What's she asking?” Kaylin said, keeping her voice low.

“She is asking for an extension of the casting period, rather than its completion.”

“So, make the beginning part longer and skip the end?”

“Something very like that, but with perhaps more polished words.”

“Can you do it?”

“It would be—in very different circumstances—a very interesting theoretical endeavor.” He took one look at her expression and grimaced. “I may be able to do what you ask—but I'm not sure it will have the results you hope for. Tell me what you saw, from beginning to end.”

She hesitated and glanced at Teela, but no help was forthcoming from that quarter. “Does it matter? You're going to have to say you saw nothing, aren't you?”

The momentary shine left his eyes. “Without some intervention on the part of the Magister, this may be the last act of magic I am legally allowed to perform. It is my specialty, and until my grandchild was kidnapped, I was extremely proud of my skill. If I am never to practice it again, I will use it now to my full abilities. Yes, I will lie. Farris, however, will not.

“Tell me, Kaylin.”

She began to describe not the runes themselves but rather the changing quality of the light they emitted as the spell progressed. His brows rose and he shook his head. “You are wasted, wherever you are now.”

Her snort was brief and bitter, and she turned her face away.

“My apologies. I did not mean to offend.”

She swallowed and turned back. “I didn't see anything but the large, blue runes—those are from the Arcane bomb?”

“Yes. It is not the way I see them,” he added.

“Oh?” In spite of herself, she asked, “What do you see?”

“I see the manifestation of power's trace as if it were a mosaic or a textile tapestry. The colors are not singular, and they don't form as literal runes or sigils, although I
call
what I see a ‘signature.'”

“Did you see—her eyes—”

He flinched, but nodded. “It was very, very subtle. I feel that if I had not been sent, it might have gone entirely unnoticed. It looked almost like a mask, a half mask that's meant to rest on the bridge of the nose.”

“Her whole upper face?”

He nodded. “But as I said, it's the visualization of a paradigm—it is not exact. Your visualization adds information to mine, and I would say your visualization implies that the exact location of the magical connection was, in fact, her eyes. But mine—” He frowned. “Are you certain you have no desire to study the magical arts?”

Kaylin stared at him, and he reddened slightly. “One day,” he said, “you'll have the privilege of doing something you love for a living.” His face fell. “And I hope when you do, you are never in a position where you are forced to betray it.”

Kaylin, who had been so angry, also lowered her head. “You were trying to save your granddaughter,” she whispered. “I think—I think I'd do the same.”

“Then do that now.” His reply was firmer and stronger. “I will…experiment. I can't help but notice that the Corporal failed to mention your part in uncovering my duplicity to Lord Sanabalis. Even now she fails to mention it to young Farris. Do you know why?”

“No.”

“I will attempt a similar discretion. Cough if you think I'm casting…too quickly.” He started to speak, looked down at her, and shook his head. “You are not so much older than she is.”

“I'm not your blood.”

“No, you are not that.” He made his way back to the argument in progress, because it had become an argument, and like the previous argument-with-mages, had shifted into a language that Kaylin couldn't understand. It frustrated her. But Teela didn't pull a weapon, and the mage didn't call down lightning or fire—if they even could. She realized she didn't know a lot about either Hawks or mages.

Ceridath's presence dumped figurative water on the heat. He looked old, forbidding, and unamused; Kaylin could practically feel the disgust he radiated. She almost couldn't believe he was the same man who had come to talk to her—the man who loved his magic and his theories just a little bit less than he loved his granddaughter.

Teela and Tain withdrew, exchanging a glance that was both chagrined and amused. “I don't know what you said to him,” Teela whispered, “but don't say it again.”

“He's going to try it.”

“I didn't get that impression from what he said.”

“What did he say?”

“Never mind. Do you need to get closer to the ground?”

Kaylin shook her head. Her skin was beginning its unpleasant tingle, and as far as she could tell, Ceridath hadn't even started to cast. But the marks on the walls began to glow again. She leaned over the edge of the planking and looked toward the floor, where she saw
a similar mark; it was squarer in shape and it was the same pale blue. Shaking her head, she said, “I think we're going to need to go downstairs.”

 

Downstairs in this case meant ladders. Teela didn't trust the look of the main floor; Kaylin did—she was certain it would collapse if she tried to walk across it. The ladders, on the other hand, were solid. She made her way down into a darkness alleviated by lamplight. A lot of lamplight. They weren't the only people in the basement, but the other three were Hawks, not mages. They didn't wear the tabards that Teela and Tain wore, but their jackets had the same Hawk embroidered across either shoulder.

“Teela,” one of the men said.

“You talked to the neighbors?”

He nodded. “They didn't see anything unusual. The house was apparently being rented.”

“Did they see or speak with the tenant?”

“Not often. He was apparently friendly and not particularly suspicious.”

“Age, height?”

“Thirty-five to forty, about six-three. Reasonably well dressed, apparently well educated, although not in Elantra.”

“Human?”

“What else in this part of town?”

Teela frowned, and the man grimaced. “Yes, sir. He apparently went out during the day, came back around dinnertime. He wasn't covered in blood, didn't entertain any obvious mages, and had the usual number of friends.”

“Which would be?”

“A few couples who would arrive around dinner and leave afterward. That's it. He wasn't fat, wasn't fit, wasn't bald, wasn't striking—very, very nondescript.”

“Name?”

“Luivide.”

“Is that his first name or his family name?”

“Family name. Garron is his first name.”

“You ran a check?”

The man nodded. “We've got nothing in Records.”

“How surprising. Has he been seen since?”

“No. They assume he died in the, er, fire.”

Kaylin peered around Teela. She'd been listening to the conversation and looking at everything that the lamplight touched, her brow furrowed. “Is that the same description of the guys at the other places? Teela said this was the third.”

The man raised both brows. “What's this, Teela? You've got a trainee? Seems a little on the young side.”

“Shut up and answer her question.”

The man chuckled. “No. All of the buildings were rented, but one of them was rented by a woman, the other by an older man. Hey, don't touch anything— Teela, keep an eye on her!”

“Kaylin, listen to him. We haven't finished sifting through the wreckage yet.”

But Kaylin barely heard her. The glowing blue runes that dominated the floor above had worked their way down to the basement, but they were fainter and more diffuse; they lay not across the walls, but across the packed dirt of the floor itself. She edged through them, searching.

Teela followed quietly, moving like a cat, her steps
light and deliberate. After a moment, she said, “This way.”

Kaylin allowed herself to be led. Ceridath had started to speak—when, she wasn't certain—and his voice was now a steady, slow drone. The large runes began to shift in place, their patterns blurring—but they didn't get any brighter.

Teela led her to what remained of a small room. Here, of all the space in the basement so far, the blue light from the large runes was strongest; it lay pulsing against the three walls that didn't contain what was left of a door. Kaylin squinted, frowned, and began to cough. She'd never been a good liar, and her cough—while loud—was so badly staged it wouldn't have passed as a cough to anyone who wasn't listening for it.

Teela stared at her when she'd finished, one brow lifted. “Are you
quite
finished?”

Kaylin mumbled something that she hoped would pass as an apology and waited to see if Ceridath had heard. The light from the runes softened slowly—although it might have been her imagination. She wondered, if he saw this light as something textile, if he could
lift
it to see what might be underneath.

She couldn't. And what was underneath the light at the moment was a lot of porous rock that sat above more packed dirt. The ground was scorched, but even scorched, the smell of rotting flesh was strong. Kaylin started to kneel, but Teela caught her shoulders. “Not here,” she said firmly. “We're not done here yet.”

“There's nothing to touch,” Kaylin pointed out.

Teela didn't reply.

Kaylin coughed again. This time, Teela cuffed the side of her head.

“
What
are you doing?”

Kaylin squinted. “It's too—it's too bright. I think there's something—” She pointed at the ground.

The Barrani Hawk was at her elbow instantly.

Kaylin knelt. She placed her palm against the porous stone, aware that as she did she was probably touching layers of dried blood.

“I told you not to
touch anything,
” the Barrani said in a chilly whisper.

“There's something here, Teela,” she whispered. “I can almost see a smudge of different color. It's not like the last time. I think it's a wider area, almost like a circle.”

Teela stiffened, and Kaylin looked up.

“A circle.” The Hawk's eyes were sapphire-blue; Kaylin rocked back on her heels. She did not, however, reach for her daggers. Or breathe.

“Are you absolutely certain?”

“No.”

“I'll get the mages.”

 

It took longer to bring the mages down than it had to get any of the Hawks to the basement. Ceridath was slow to stop his casting, and Farris was clearly used to being in charge when he was brought into an “ongoing investigation.” Being told how and where to work irritated him.

His irritation clearly amused Teela, which
also
irritated him; Kaylin half suspected that the Barrani was doing it on purpose. But they did come down the ladders, something their very fine robes didn't help, and Teela led them to the room. Ceridath looked slightly queasy; Farris, clearly, had spent more time on-site.

“Corporal,” he said coldly, “they were
children
. I hardly think magic was necessary to either contain or confine them.”

“I'm not implying that that was the point of the magic,” was the cold reply. “You're not here to deduce on our behalf, you're here to provide information.”

Farris slipped into what Kaylin could now recognize as High Barrani. She had to admire his courage—or his insanity—because he appeared to be unleashing it on a visibly annoyed Barrani. If he'd been just a little more friendly, she'd've tried to warn him. As it was, she sucked air through her teeth as Ceridath once again started to cast. This time, the spell was different, the focus different; Kaylin couldn't see the spell itself, but she could see the effects of it.

She coughed, but this time she coughed quietly. Ceridath's head snapped up in obvious annoyance—but not at her.

“If,” he said in Elantran, “the two of you
wouldn't mind,
some of us are trying to do work that requires
concentration
.” He offered the brunt of his icy glare to Teela, stopped casting, and folded his arms.

Teela grimaced, but took the hint; she moved the argument. Farris came with it as if attached by chains. Frowning, Ceridath then waved Kaylin over.

His tone was curt and condescending—but his expression was not; she understood that he was once again attempting to hear what she had to say without looking like he was listening or asking. His knees bent slowly, and he grimaced, shifting his robes to avoid as much of the debris as it was possible to while kneeling in it.

“Farris is right,” he murmured. “It makes no sense for magic to be used here, not directly on the children.
But…it was. It undoubtedly was.” He looked at her. “You saw something here?”

“Yes. But not very clearly—it was like a smudge of different color.”

He grimaced. “The entire floor is polluted.”

She nodded. “I was thinking—if you see things as textiles, can you, you know,
lift
them to see what might be underneath?”

He raised one brow and then his lips curved in a very faint smile. But he didn't say she was wasted where she was, and he didn't ask her to study magic. “Let me look now. Farris will come when he's finished arguing with the Corporal. I have no idea why he does it—or where he gets the energy…it doesn't matter if she's only a lowly Hawk. She's Barrani. The Barrani could clean garbage off the street convinced of their innate superiority to mortals.”