The Inquisitives [4] The Darkwood Mask (41 page)

From the start, Charoth had wanted to channel the major’s wonderful resourcefulness into something more tangible than foolish nationalism. The half-elf wasted his efforts trying to rid the nation of its own vices—a lost cause. Tallis should
not
have come this far. His presence at Charoth’s estate troubled the wizard severely.

A willowy figure followed the half-elf. Soneste, that damnable arriviste. What have you done with Gan? he asked her silently. What did he dare to tell you?

A third, bulkier figure moved at the edge of the statue’s vision, but Charoth couldn’t refine it. The scrying eyes had its limitations.

At least there were only three of them. They were fugitives of the law, so they would have no help, and who would believe them?

His factory was impregnable tonight. Charoth had layered its entrances with wards of his own, and his magewrights had reinforced the doors. Even if the court wizards turned their magic upon his factory, it would take time to get in.

He wrenched his mind free from the vision and turned to look across the table. Mova worked quietly, smoothing down the young woman’s arms with a sanitizing solution.

“Lady,” Charoth said, addressing her after long minutes of silence between them. “There are intruders at my estate. And they have killed your pet, Master Rhazan.”

The bugbear snarled from his post. “Let me go, my lord,” he said with a rattle of his chain.

“You are needed here,” Charoth said

“The construct, then,” Mova offered nonchalantly.

“No.” He would not explain his reasons again.

“I will go there myself,” she suggested, “to put your mind at ease. My work, for the time being, is finished.”

Charoth considered this. If Tallis found and killed Mova, he should be able to finish tonight’s work alone, but the final steps would be more difficult without her. She had already suffused the throne with divine spells. Whether this power originated from Mova, the apocryphal Vol herself, or some ambiguous spiritual “inner spark” Seekers always raved about, Charoth didn’t care, so long as it did its job.

Still, he could trust no one else in this. “Thank you, Lady. It is imperative that they do not discover the—”

“I am well aware, Lord Charoth. I will return swiftly.”

As they searched the estate, Soneste’s thoughts roiled. Had she the time, she could send word by speaking stone back to Thuranne about their suspicion, but what if she was wrong? A clear threat to the peace of the Five Nations would have the King’s Citadel dispatching its best agents, including the Dark Lanterns. Would they get here in time, and what would happen to her if it was all a false alarm? After all, their strongest evidence was the testimony of a dreamlily addict.

In less than a quarter hour, they’d searched most of the house.
Adornments and other trappings of a wealthy man aside, the estate was disconcertingly empty. No servants, no traps. And no more monsters. A burglar’s dream. It was as though Charoth and his entire staff had vacated the house without selling it or its luxuries first.

The last room to search was the master bedroom. A single crash of Tallis’s hammer on the lock and a heavy warforged foot forced the ornate mahogany doors open. The wide chamber was swathed in heavy cloths of green, gold, and black. Expensive furniture and paintings framed in precious metals exhibited the wealth of Charoth’s station. Even bereft of House Cannith, he’d obviously done well for himself.

Tallis moved to secure all visible exits, while Soneste set out to find those less obvious. Aegis took up position at the center of the room, watching for intruders. She soon revealed a hidden door in a three-way mirror, which opened up into a spacious walk-in closet. The carpeting from the bedroom stretched into this one as well, while heavy curtains hung from each wall. A single window lay tightly shuttered on the northern wall, with a high-backed, velvet-padded chair facing it.

“For a prisoner?” Tallis asked, stepping into the room behind her.

Soneste dropped to one knee and studied the empty chair. “I don’t think so. Why keep a slave or captive in such a comfortable seat?” She ran her fingers along one of the padded arms, then lifted her hand to her nose. “Strange smell. Almost like … vinegar. Or brining solution.”

Tallis pried open the shutters with the pick end of his hammer. “There’s a rumor that Charoth bathes in some sort of pickling liquid to keep his scarred flesh from sloughing off.”

Soneste shook her head. “This whole place—the bedroom, the lavatory, this closet—is immaculate.”

“He’s wealthy, with legions of maids and servants,” Tallis said. “Even his secret prisoner had a nice view of King’s Bay.”

“No, it’s more than that. Either his servants are the best paid in the industry or … he doesn’t actually live here much. If at all.”

Tallis turned to face her. “What do you mean?”

“The bed hasn’t been used in weeks. Or months. Maybe this house is a front.”

“For what?”

“That’s why we’re here, right?” Soneste looked back to the empty chair. “This chair … it
was
occupied. Recently. The carpet shows plenty of movement too. Charoth, or someone, came through here a lot, but he didn’t stay here.”

“So where next?” Tallis said.

Soneste shut her eyes and visualized the entire house as she’d impressed it within her mind. They’d searched everywhere—the ground floor in its entirety, the two levels above, even the wine cellar. Ahh, but not everywhere! Soneste saw again the sparsely furnished cellar rooms, the blank stone walls—and the wine racks.

She opened her eyes. “We go back down.”

She looked like any of the lower wards’ residents shuffling across the snow-dusted street in a heavy winter cloak. She might be dismissed as a nursemaid, servant or a baker’s wife, someone’s wizened mother, but she was so much more, and the importance of her presence in this city would not be understood by the uninitiated.

Mova stepped into the alley and approached the sentry. Her only bodyguard, one of the soldiers assigned to her by the Order, took up a position on the street to ensure none interfered. He needn’t have bothered. The authorities were paid well to keep off this street.

Especially tonight.

The sentry lay against the wall like a vagrant, but Mova could sense that all life had been wrenched from his body—confirmed a moment later when she kneeled and saw that his collar bone had been smashed and his neck broken. This one had died differently than the others, not a clean cut delivered quick and painless.

Life was precious, the blood that fueled it sacrosanct, but only Seekers truly deserved to keep theirs. Mova did not mourn this man. He was merely another of Charoth’s ignorant marionettes, motivated only by personal desires. Like his master, he saw no glorious plan in the afflictions of the world. Charoth’s ambitions were lofty indeed—Mova gave him that much—but ultimately only for his own purposes.

Mova’s arrangement with the wizard was a temporal one, as were all between Seekers and those who did not heeded the covenants of Vol.

Seeker or not, the dead man before her still had his uses.

Mova stared into the sentry’s dead face, grasping the bone that hung from the beaded bracelet on her left wrist. The icon, which had once been her late husband’s ring finger, served as a focus for her magic. She called upon the power of the blood—the spark of divinity that lay within everyone, for those enlightened enough to see it—and spoke the words to make it manifest. She pointed three fingers at the corpse’s face, coaxing the settled air within its lungs to surge out through the damaged throat.

“How did you die?” she asked.

The corpse’s head tilted sleightly to align its neck properly for speaking. She could hear the grinding of splintered bone. “A warforged struck me with a shield,” it said, its voice soft and wheezing. Mova had to lean in to hear the words.

“Was the warforged alone?”

“No.”

The dead were not very forthcoming, but Mova was feeling patient. “Who accompanied the warforged?”

“A man in black, with a military pick in his hand.”

“Lady, there is movement within the house,” the soldier called out.

She turned and stood, looking up at Charoth’s manor. A white light roved within the upper floors of the otherwise dark house. Tallis, indeed—so close now! And a warforged with him? The nimblewright hadn’t mentioned that.

What Mova had gained from her arrangement with Charoth would be inestimable to the abactors of the Crimson Monastery—an opportunity to channel the blood of ancient Galifar and gain leverage over the political powers that be. What
she
would gain would be the abactors’ esteem, one great step toward learning the deepest mysteries of her faith. In addition, Arend ir’Montevik had promised a profound donation to her efforts if she returned to Atur with proof of Tallis’s demise. There was even talk of animating the half-elf’s bones as poetic justice.

Well, she supposed, perhaps we
are
each of us motivated by personal desire, after all. Such was the world the charlatan gods of the Sovereign Host had crafted for their subjects.

Mova kneeled again and produced from her pocket a small black onyx. She inserted it in the corpse’s mouth and pronounced the words that would give the husk a semblance of life.

“Follow me,” she said. “We have others to tend to.”

The dead sentry began to rise, incapable of resisting her power.

Opening the hidden door in Charoth’s cellar hadn’t been half as simple as finding it. The lack of dust on every bottle in the impressive wine rack suggested an uncanny diligence on the part of Lord Charoth’s maids—or a suspicious means of egress for the wizard’s secret chambers—and Soneste had discerned a pattern in the lattice of the rack that allowed it to “unfold.” Parting down the middle, the rack rolled aside to reveal the stone wall behind it.

Seeing the cracks that formed the hidden door did nothing to actually open it. His and the warforged’s combined strength would not budge the obvious portal. Tallis eventually found the stone that loosed the door, but it rewarded him with a tongue of electricity that coursed into his hand. Thank Aureon, it was brief.

The tunnel beyond smelled of the must of centuries and gave way to a mazelike network of passages. “I think we’ll find out
just why Charoth chose this house,” Tallis said. “It looks very old. There are many tunnels beneath Korth, many interconnected, many with limited access. Evidently, he wanted access to
these.”

Tallis produced a sunrod from his pack and struck it against the wall. The iron rod’s tip flared up with alchemical light brighter than Soneste’s watch lamp.

“This should last us,” he said. “Stay behind me, both of you. He may have left his house empty, but that doesn’t mean he’s not protecting his interests. Be on the lookout for traps. Aegis, stay behind Soneste.”

Sure could use one of the Midwife’s men right now, Tallis thought, eyeing the walls. Every inch could be trapped, and Charoth was a damned wizard—magical traps were so much the harder.