Reckoning (The Empyrean Chronicle) (23 page)

“There’s something about that man that I don’t trust. When
he said
pleased to meet you
, my badge grew warm. He lied.”

“That is curious,” Eithne replied, “but I must confess that
him being unpleased to meet you can hardly be considered incriminating
behavior. Perhaps he just doesn’t care for men at arms, being a pacifist by
vocation.”

“You’re probably right,” Elias said begrudgingly. “Suppose I’m
a little edgy is all.”

“What of Lar and I?” asked Danica. “What’s the assignment of
the two newest Sentinels?”

Eithne studied her for a beat. “Four newcomers to the court
are bound to have caused quite the stir. If I’m not mistaken Danica, your sharp
tongue will make you a natural at the game of courtly intrigue. I want you to
try to make some new acquaintances among the courtiers. Keep them occupied and
give them something else to focus their attention on. See what you can learn
from their wagging tongues. As for you, Lar—a lady of bearing never goes
unescorted. Stick with Danica and keep an eye on her, and see if you can’t make
some friends among the men of court.”

“If there is nothing else, then,” said the queen, “I declare
this audience at an end.” Eithne waited, timing the seconds with the beating of
her heart, as the nascent Sentinels looked around the table at each other,
determined to a man, and grave. “Very well. You have your assignments. We’ll
reconvene tomorrow to discuss our progress.”

The queen stood, but paused as she walked away, turning to
look over a shoulder. “And be sure to watch your backs.”

Signs and Portents

“What have you learned?” Sarad asked.

Talinus alighted and tucked his leathery, batlike wings
behind his shoulders. “Not much, my Lord,” he said. His upper lip curled over
his needlelike teeth in a grimace. “The queen took council with the Marshal,
his party, and Ogden in her private audience chambers, but the room was warded
with the deep magic and I could not sneak in, nor scry their conversation. Through
my sources, however, I have discovered that the Marshal suspects the delegates
to be innocent. His senses are keen.”

“Spare me your editorializing, imp,” Sarad snapped. “What
else? Is there word of me, and the display of my powers at the banquet?”

“Indeed. Surprise as you might guess, but most look on you favorably,
though some are unsettled. Your staunch supporters—the recipients of your sacrament—are
both quick and liberal with their praise. For the faithful, your miraculous
display merely confirms what they have supposed—that the Prelate is favored by
God himself. Better yet, it convinces them that the Ittamar are savages not to
be trusted, for even God resists them.

“But most of the gossips are fixated on the Marshal and his
daring heroics.
He saved the queen single-handedly, you know. How did he detect
danger before anyone else? Did you know he’s a wizard?
And so forth.” Talinus
barked a short laugh. “You wouldn’t believe how many different rumors on his
origin are going around. Why, one such—”

“Enough!” Sarad hissed. “I’ve heard enough chatter about
this Elias Duana myself!” Sarad glared at his familiar, and detected smugness
in the twist of his lips and mirth dancing in the glint of his demonic eye.

Talinus sketched a deep bow and said, “Yes, my master, as
you wish. I live but to serve.”

Sarad flicked his wrist casually and, through the geas that
bound the imp to him, flung Talinus against the wall. “We will have to strike,
and soon,” Sarad said more to himself than his familiar. “Though it is yet
early to make our move, I cannot allow Duana to consolidate his power, or worse
yet discover us. How long will it take to summon all of our retainers in
Galacia?”

Talinus made a sound in his throat, half purr and half
growl, as he pulled himself from the floor. “At least a fortnight, my Lord.”

“Do it.”

Talinus pulled his squat, muscular form from the floor and a
wide, toothy grin erupted across his bestial features. “As you wish, Master.”

†

“I just don’t trust him,” Elias said.

“He’s the bloody Prelate!” Bryn said as she pulled the
curtain aside. “Here, this seems a likely place for an assassin to hide.”

Elias nodded to a cook who puffed on a cigarette in the
deserted servant’s hall. The man peered at Elias with wide eyes and then looked
to his cigarette. Elias shrugged, and with a motion of his head told the cook
to scram. He hadn’t come to harry kitchen workers sneaking a smoke in the
deserted tract that linked the great hall and the kitchens.

Elias crouched and examined the floor and alcove behind the
red swath of cloth. “There’s something about him that rubs me the wrong way. Why
isn’t anyone else alarmed that the man broke a confounded axe with his bare
hand? Does no one find this strange? It doesn’t seem the kind of thing normally
found in a cleric’s bag of tricks.”

“Peace, Marshal,” Bryn said with an easy grin. “There hasn’t
been a priest who could manage such a feat in my lifetime, or my father’s
father for that matter.” She tossed her auburn locks over a shoulder and sat on
her haunches beside Elias. “But in the days of old—as you might know if you
read the One Book—holy men were said capable of such miracles. Perhaps the
Prelate is a modern day saint.”

“Or a wizard pretending to be cleric.”

“Elias, we have bigger rats to catch. Truth be told, folk
are more interested in your miraculous feats. The Prelate’s been granting
blessings and participating in healings for some time now, since he was a Hierarch.
Many have seen a visible manifestation of the divine when he prays. Maybe he is
favored by God.”

Elias placed a hand on Bryn’s wrist. She turned to meet his
eyes. “Do you know that feeling you get when someone uses magic, that tingling
up the spine?”

“No,” she replied and looked at his hand, taken aback by the
familiar gesture from a man that had been nothing but stiff and reserved since
she had met him, that and the serious look in his eyes. “I use a cantrip to
detect the presence of the arcane and view auras. Most of the magic I know is
utilitarian spells learned from tutors from Arcalum.”

Elias frowned. “Whenever I’ve been in the presence of magic,
since all this began, I experience a sensation like pins-and-needles. I felt
that when the Prelate turned that axe, and before the assassins barged in. This
time the runes on my arm grew hot as well.”

“Maybe your instincts, or your sword’s enchantment, react
the same way to the divine?” Bryn sounded about as convinced as she felt—not
very.

Elias rose and sighed deeply. He realized that he still held
Bryn’s creamy, elegant wrist in his hand and that he stood a little too close
to her. His heart quickened, but then he thought of Asa and a stabbing pain
shot through it. Elias released his hold on Bryn.

“In the short time I have known you, I have come to value
both your counsel and your instincts.” Bryn’s brow knitted and she glanced over
her shoulder as if expecting an eavesdropper or a ghost. “I will have my contacts
in the Vanguard and the Blackshields keep an eye on the Prelate, just to be
safe. Maybe dig around a little.”

Elias exhaled a deep sigh of relief. “Thank-you.” His solace
turned at once to unease, however, when he heard footsteps clacking down the
granite hall and he became glaringly aware that he and Bryn stood behind a
curtain, huddled like a couple of conspirators. They exchanged a glance and
then crept surreptitiously from the cover of the curtain and confronted...

...the hulking Lar.

Startled, the corn farmer back-peddled and stepped on Phinneas’s
foot. The doctor yelped and in turn stumbled into Ogden.

“Britches!” cried Lar. “You nearly scared the sand right out
of me!” He narrowed his eyes, a peculiar expression stealing over his face. “What
were you two doing back there?”

“Looking for evidence, of course,” Elias said hastily. “We’ve
spent all day yesterday, and the better part of today interviewing the
household staff and guard and no one seems to have noticed anything out of the
ordinary on the night of the banquet, so we decided to make a clean sweep of
the servant’s hall and see if we couldn’t stir up some answers.”

“And did you?” asked Phinneas.

“Not a one,” said Bryn.

“Shouldn’t you be with Danica, Lar?” Elias said. “Watching
her back?”

“I was,” answered the larger man, “but some ladies invited
her to afternoon tea so I’ve been wandering around looking for you ever since.”

“Luckily he wandered into us,” Ogden said. “I think the poor
thing was lost.”

“I’m standing right here!” Lar blustered. “Besides this
palace is bloody huge.”

Elias grinned despite himself. Lar could always put him at
ease. Elias often suspected the oxen Lar had more cunning than he let on. “And
how did you two fare with the wards?”

Ogden’s face fell. “Not well. We’ll talk about it later,
somewhere more private.”

Bryn made a show of looking up and down the empty hall. “A
little paranoid, old man?”

“After what we’ve learned these last few days, I’d rather
err on the side of caution,” Ogden said.

“Very well,” said Elias. “Now what?”

“Time for your very first lesson,” Phinneas said and offered
Elias a broad grin. “We’re going to examine the assassins’ bodies.”

“Perhaps Danica would be more suited to that kind of work,”
Elias said dryly. “I’m not a White Habit, so I don’t see how the lesson would
apply.”

“Think about it, boy,” Phinneas said. “If the assassins were
under the influence of the arcane, as Bryn suggested, what could we expect to
find?”

Elias considered but briefly. “If the assassins were under
an enchantment there may be some sign of it on their person?”

Phinneas’s grin broadened. “Exactly so.”

“But how?” Elias asked.

“Yes,” said Bryn, “please illuminate us.”

“I can see this area of discourse is new to you as well,
Miss Bryn,” Phinneas said a little smugly, but the warm glint in his eyes took
the sting out of it. Bryn’s only response was a well practiced harrumph.

Ogden again peered around the hall uneasily. “Come, let’s
walk. I’ll do my best to explain.” The party began to make their way back
toward the palace proper, with Ogden in the lead. “It is possible there may
some residual magical signature on the northerners corpses,” Ogden said. “It
isn’t anything we could really quantify and present to the court as evidence,
but it could confirm our suspicions, maybe give us a clue as to what type of
magic was used.”

“You can do that?” Lar asked in a hushed tone.

“Perhaps,” Ogden said. “All magic leaves behind an energetic
imprint that arcanists can perceive to a certain extent. This imprint can be
left on solid objects, or even in an entire area depending on the strength of
the magic.”

“Like an aura?” Elias asked.

“Precisely,” Phinneas answered. “A wizard can train himself
to perceive these energetic signatures just as he can perceive a person’s aura.
An enchanted item, like your sword, will have a permanent kind of aura around
it. Arcanists with this ability would instantly know what you were carrying.”

“If we discover such an imprint on the assassins would it
help us track those who were responsible for this?” Elias asked.

“Only if we had another such signature to compare it to,”
Ogden replied. “Mostly we would be able to gauge the strength of the arcanist
and get a feeling for the energy involved. Every wizard’s magic is slightly
different, but the aura of his power is only really perceived as a certain
color or colors and a sense of his power, a unique kind of…” Ogden waved a
hand, “well, feeling. It’s hard to explain. Interpreting these energy patterns
is part science and part art.”

“Hmn,” commented Lar sagaciously, “Ma says that about
cooking.”

Ogden managed to turn his neck about and glare at Lar while
still walking a straight line. He’d have to learn that trick, Elias thought. “So,
if we find one of these energy signatures, we can then compare it other
signatures we may find in the future and thereby track our man?”

“Certainly,” said Ogden, “but more than that, a wizard’s
aura and the energetic imprint of his magic are quite similar, often glaringly
so. In other words, a wizard leaves behind a bit of himself in the magic he
works.”

“So we may be able to identify this wizard if we can compare
his aura to the magical signature he leaves behind?” Elias asked.

“Just so,” Ogden replied. “It’s not always that easy,
though. For one, it’s an imperfect science, and secondly, clever wizards are
often able to mask their aura or alter it.”

“And with this particular arcanist, you were unable to even
sense his presence,” Elias observed.

Ogden stiffened. “If he did completely control the
assassins, however, it would have required a tremendous amount of power. He
wouldn’t be able to utterly hide his tracks. There must be some clue, no matter
how small, that the enemy was among us.”

“And I have no doubt you’ll find it,” said Bryn as they
approached an intersection, “but five’s a crowd and I doubt you’ll need the
extra hand.” She clapped Elias and Lar on the shoulders. “I’ll let you brave
menfolk handle this one. I’ll see what I can stir up elsewhere. Those assassins
came from somewhere, and it wasn’t the front gate.” She offered Elias a wink
and veered off down the other corridor.

“I’ll go with her,” Lar said without missing a beat. “She
may need someone to watch her back.” Without awaiting a reply he scurried down
the hall after Bryn.

“Speaking of, check in on Danica,” Elias called after him.

The three men made their way through the palace proper, the
guard barracks, and into the dungeon where they set about their grim task.

†

Phinneas rifled through the dead man’s tunic before
peeling the half that remained back from the blackened flesh.

Elias watched from what he deemed a safe distance, while
Ogden busied himself with casting a cantrip. The scent of scorched flesh and
the cloying reek of decay filled the small, dim subterranean chamber and made
him feel like he was trapped in a barrow or a charnel house. Elias shivered
despite himself and swallowed the gorge in the back of his throat.

Half of the northman’s naked chest, where Elias’s conjured
flame consumed him, had been transformed into a craggy landscape as pitted and
rugged as the cliffs Peidra sat atop, while on the other half, angry blotches
of lividity strained against the bloated skin.

Cutting a man down in the heat of battle was one thing, but
looking upon ones handiwork later was quite a different matter Elias realized
as he swallowed another mouthful of bile. At once he became incalculably weary,
both bodily and of the entire enterprise. He knew in that moment why his father
had developed his aversion to the sword.

As expected, the pockets were empty of even the smallest of
trifles. These men had carried their weapons and nothing more.

Phinneas examined the cadaver’s chest and nodded to himself.
He produced a pair of scissors from a small black satchel and cut open the
remaining pant leg and examined the flesh there as well. “Come now, Elias,” he
said, “I need your strength. Help me turn him over.” The doctor felt Elias’s
stare and looked up. The lad’s face had taken on a greenish pallor. “It’s not
all that bad, son. It’s just an empty husk now. One gets used to it.” Phinneas
rifled through his bag and retrieved a shallow vial. “Here, spread some of this
paste under your nose. It will help with the smell.”