Dark Currents

CHAPTER 12

B ooks shifted on the hard log chair in the Spearcrest’s great room. A cushion would have been nice, but if the one-armed seventy-year-old lord of the manor did not need cushions, Books supposed he could do without.

Though large, the inside of the Spearcrest home did not bespeak wealth any more than the outside did. No dust plagued the mantel ledge and little clutter perched on tables, but the house held numerous signs of delayed repairs: water damage at the top of a window frame, chipped bricks on the hearth where Maldynado lounged, and a broken banister rail on stairs leading to a second floor. The upholstered sofa next to Books was as threadbare as the rug that covered the dented and scratched hardwood floor.

Vonsha entered the room carrying a tray, and the scent of steamed cider wafted to Books’s nose. She handed a cup to each of them.

“There are honey pear tarts left,” she said. “May I get you one?”

Books started to say “No, thank you,” and that they had eaten breakfast, but Maldynado lifted a finger. “Absolutely.”

As soon as Vonsha left, Maldynado leaned forward. “Why don’t they have any servants? That’s unheard of.”

“Maybe they prefer a simple life that doesn’t include ordering people around like subhuman minions simply because they weren’t fortunate enough to be born into a landed family.”

“Or maybe the Spearcrests are destitute,” Maldynado said.

“This house hardly qualifies as an abode of the destitute.”

Vonsha returned with a plate of pastries.

“Excellent.” Maldynado plucked three tarts off for himself.

Books curled a lip at him. Maldynado could eat less of their food if he was worried the family was destitute.

Books selected a small tart for himself. “Thank you, my lady.”

“Vonsha, please. We’re not formal out here.” She set the plate down and sat on the sofa across from Books.

“She’s feeding them?” Lord Spearcrest’s voice drifted down the hall.

Vonsha put a hand over her face.

“Why?” Spearcrest went on. “You only feed people if you want to encourage them to stay.” A door thumped, cutting off the rest of the tirade.

“Please forgive my father.” A flush of embarrassment colored Vonsha’s cheeks.

Books liked the warm glow it gave her face. Besides, he had been the one flustered in all their conversations thus far. It was nice seeing her equanimity jostled.

“He was a general before his injury forced retirement,” Vonsha went on. “He’s spent his life yelling orders, even at his children.”

“You have siblings?” Books asked.

“My brothers are off serving in the marines. Not that they’re much help when they’re around.” Her lip curled.

“Not your favorite relatives?”

“They tormented me a lot when we were younger, and they’ve given me a hard time over…events in my adult life as well.”

Events like being ostracized for failing the emperor, Books guessed. “Sorry to hear that.”

Maldynado, who had already devoured two tarts, made a face. His eyes rolled and his brows twitched in a manner that either meant he was choking on his food, or he wanted Books to take this conversation somewhere more interesting.

“Alas, we all have these family members and people we’re cursed with.” Books gave Maldynado a pointed look. “Sometimes working with them requires us to go spelunking to new depths of patience.”

Maldynado groaned. “Spelunking to new depths? Don’t say things like that to women, Booksie. Not if you ever hope to get your sheets toasted by more than a fire-warmed brick.”

Vonsha chuckled. Books forced his lips into a smile, though it was a slight one. She was supposed to chuckle at him, not his over-muscled sidekick.

Maldynado did not appear to notice her attention. His gaze had shifted to the doorway. Lord Spearcrest stood in the hallway, scowling. Vonsha noticed and waved for her father to leave. It was a call from his wife that bestirred him, not his daughter’s gesture.

“What were those soldiers and enforcers doing here?” Maldynado picked a crumb off his shirt, tossed it in his mouth, and licked his fingers.

“They’re on some mission in the mountains,” Vonsha said. “They spoke little of it, just showed the emperor’s seal and requested lodging for the night. Naturally, it’s our privilege to put them up.”

The emperor’s seal. So, young Sespian knew there was trouble up here. Amaranthe would be excited to learn that. If the team helped with the problem, maybe it would lead to the recognition she wanted. Books wished he could be happy working toward that goal himself. What he wanted was something he could never have again: his son back. He missed being a part of a family, of knowing someone needed him-that he mattered. Surely it was too early to think of finding that with Vonsha, but his mind did linger on the idea.

“What could they be doing up here?” Maldynado frowned at Books, probably wondering why he was not asking the questions. “They didn’t look like they were continuing across the pass. They drove off the other way, going higher up in the mountains.”

Books straightened. He needed to pay attention.

“They didn’t see fit to tell us their business,” Vonsha said.

“Has anything unusual happened here that you or your parents have noticed?” Books asked.

“Well…” She studied him, perhaps wondering if she could trust him. “You know that Kendorians are sometimes spotted in imperial territory on the other side of the mountains, right? That’s why Fort Dretsvar sits at the bottom of the pass over there. Soldiers usually come through every month, some heading to the fort for a new assignment and others rotating out. They usually stay the night here, but my parents said there haven’t been any visitors for two months.”

“You believe there’s a problem at the fort?”

“If there is…” Vonsha frowned. “My parents live up here, in the path of potential trouble. They have few neighbors so, if something has happened to that fort, there’ll be nobody around to help them defend the property.”

“Vonsha,” Lord Spearcrest said from the hallway.

Books flinched. He had not heard the old man slip up on them again.

“I will discuss matters with these men,” Spearcrest said. “Privately.”

“Father, they came to see me and-”

“Now.” He rapped his knuckles on the doorframe. “Go help your mother in the kitchen.”

Vonsha sighed. “No matter how old you are, you’re still a child when you visit your parents’ home. Pardon me, gentlemen.”

As soon as she left, her father stalked in. He propped his lone arm on his hip and scowled down at them. An old service pistol that had not been there before hung from his belt.

Books stood. “My lord.”

Maldynado continued to lounge on the floor. He scratched an armpit.

“Who are you boys?” Spearcrest demanded. “And what’re you doing spying about up here?”

“We’re simply friends of Vonsha.” Books eyed the pistol, noting the cocked hammer. The old man stood far enough away that he would have time to draw and shoot before Books or Maldynado could cross the distance and tackle him. “I was in the accident with her at the real estate library,” he said. “I wanted to check on her.”

“That’s not the story you started out giving me.” Spearcrest’s hand descended to rest on the pistol butt.

Books tried not to wince. That was right. He had changed stories when Vonsha came out. He suddenly found himself admiring Amaranthe’s ability to think-prevaricate-on her feet. Oh, how he preferred the settled calm of a library.

“That is true,” Maldynado said. “We weren’t sure you’d see Books if you knew.”

“Knew what?” Spearcrest asked.

“His real reason for coming,” Maldynado said.

“Which is what?” Spearcrest spoke slowly, enunciating each annoyance-laden word.

Books raised his eyebrows at Maldynado, wondering where he was taking this.

“That Books came courting,” Maldynado said. “Your daughter’s not married, right?”

Books was not sure if his jaw dropped as far as Lord Spearcrest’s or not. It felt like it.

The old man opened and closed his mouth several times before speaking. “No. She lost her husband in the Western Sea Conflict. She said… Well, it’s been so long, me and Mother just figured she wouldn’t remarry.” He turned an appraising eye on Books.

He squirmed like a sixteen-year-old boy come to ask a girl’s father for permission to take her to the stadium to watch the races.

“Some fathers are particular about who their daughters marry,” Maldynado said. “We weren’t sure, so Books figured on the story as a guise to get to know you.”

“I’d have preferred honesty,” Spearcrest said though his face softened a smidgeon.

“Yes, my lord,” Books said. “It was cowardly of me to spin a fabrication.”

“Vonsha’s old enough to make up her own mind on such matters. That’s truly your reason for being here?”

“What else would people come way up here for?” Maldynado asked.

“Nothing,” Spearcrest said. “Not a thing.”

He left abruptly.

Maldynado threw a smug smile at Books. “You’re welcome.”

“Welcome!” Books struggled to keep his voice down. “When he tells her-she’s going to think I want to marry her. That’s ludicrous. We’ve barely spent an hour together uninterrupted. I just want to…”

“Sheath your sword in her scabbard?”

“No!” Well, yes, but not just that. “I merely wish to get to her know better.”

“Without clothes on.” Maldynado winked.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Yes. But I kept Spearcrest from shooting you, so you’re indebted to me.”

“He wasn’t going to shoot me.”

“He had a hand on his pistol,” Maldynado said.

“Yes, but you were the one lounging on the rug like a spoiled hound. Not to mention how much of their food you’ve already eaten.”

Maldynado said nothing, though his mouth formed a silent, “Oh.”

Books sank back in the hard chair, wondering what he was going to tell Vonsha when her father shared the “news” with her.

• • • • •

Amaranthe and Sicarius hiked three or four miles with the trail growing narrower and rougher with each switchback up the slope. Dirty patches of snow hunkered in depressions. Trees rose anywhere there was soil-and sometimes even from rock faces and boulders. Despite the wildness of the land, someone had cut the low branches back from the path, and they even passed a rough-hewn bench in one spot.

Sicarius paused to examine something on the ground. Amaranthe readjusted her rucksack and wiped moisture from her eyes. Though all the training they did kept her breathing slow and her muscles from growing weary, the brisk pace and the steep incline had her sweating. Her shirt stuck to her back, and damp spots bunched beneath the rucksack straps. She would shoot herself with the rifle before complaining about Sicarius’s pace though.

“Anything interesting?” she asked when he stood.

“Fresh prints.”

“Lord Hagcrest, I presume.”

“Perhaps.”

He continued onward without expounding.

The trees thinned, and the trail led them into a clearing. A small, square log cabin rested on a flat stretch of moss and wildflowers. Though simple, the structure appeared in good repair, and the split-cedar shingle roof had yet to fade to gray. A smokehouse tacked with rabbit and raccoon hides shared the clearing, while an outhouse hunkered downhill.

“I guess we should be wary of that threat to shoot trespassers.” Amaranthe pointed to a stuffed bear head mounted under the eaves above the front door. “It seems our homeowner is a decent shot.”

Sicarius was already gliding about the clearing, eyeing tracks, touching trees, and sniffing the wind. Amaranthe headed for the front door. She figured the homeowner was unlikely to shoot a woman whereas a black-clad man roaming the perimeter might make a trigger finger twitchy. Besides, she earned more answers from talking to people than from poking around their properties.

She climbed three wooden steps to a limestone porch. “Hello, Lord Hagcrest? Are you home?”

Amaranthe lifted a hand to knock on the door, but stopped. It stood open a crack. Her nose caught a faint scent: blood.

Sicarius had disappeared. She chewed on her lip a moment, then set her rifle against the wall and drew the pistol. She stood to the side, closed her eyes, and listened. No sound came from the cabin. Pistol ready, she pushed the door open, then flattened herself against the outside wall, so she would not expose herself to anyone inside.

Nothing stirred within. Amaranthe stuck her head around the jamb for a quick peek. When nobody shot at her, she leaned in for a longer examination.

Shutters covered the cabin’s sole window, so the only light slashed in through the doorway, leaving the interior dark. When her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she eased inside.

A bearskin rug stretched before a hearth adorned by a single battered pan hanging on a hook. A lone wooden chair sat before the fireplace, a threadbare cushion its only concession to comfort. In the shadows at the back of the room, a narrow bed rested against the wall.

“Guessing this fellow doesn’t invite many house guests up,” Amaranthe muttered.

Another rug lay on the floor before the bed. No, not a rug.

A body.

The white-haired old man wore a faded nightshirt afflicted with moth holes, and he appeared grouchy and sour even in death, just the sort of fellow who would put up that trespassing warning.

“I guess you are home, Lord Hagcrest,” Amaranthe whispered.

No obvious wounds marked his body, though trails of dried blood rain from his nostrils and the corners of his eyes.

“Just like in the loading bay,” she said.

After a deep breath to brace herself, she crouched and slid her fingers along the cold skin of Hagcrest’s neck. She found what she sought near his hairline: a bump covered with scar tissue. As soon as she touched it, it slithered away without breaking the skin. She yanked her hand back and wiped her fingers on her trousers.

“All right,” she murmured, “who’s making the killer magic doodads that are smart enough to hide themselves at the promise of detection?”

A draft tickled the back of Amaranthe’s neck.

She lunged to her feet, swatting at the skin there. Nothing. She did not lower her arm until she had probed her neck thoroughly. Who knew how these devices had found their way into these men?

“Imagination,” she told herself. Probably just a bug or a breeze from the open door.

A rifle leaned against the wall an arm’s length away, and a powder horn and knife belt hung from the bed post. Hagcrest had not had time to grab either. Perhaps he had never seen his attacker. Had he somehow been implanted with the device without his knowledge, and then it killed him through a remote command? If it was possible to create something like that with the Science, she was impressed. And concerned.

Papers scattered the bed next to an open drawer in a side table. She took them to the door to read in the afternoon light slanting inside. Army promotions and signed certificates for awards for Lord Major Hagcrest. He probably had a stack of medals somewhere. Amaranthe searched the cabin for more interesting paperwork, like the property title, but did not find it.

A shadow blotted out the daylight. Sicarius stepped inside and took in the body without a blink. “Is he the only one who lived here?”

“Looks like it.” Amaranthe waved at the sparse room. “Remember the strange way the man at Farth Textiles died?”

“Yes.”

“Hagcrest had a bump on his neck that moved when I touched it,” she said. “Same killer, it seems.”

“Possibly,” Sicarius said. “Possibly not. An artifact crafted by one practitioner can be used by another. Some can even be used by those ignorant of the mental sciences.”

“So one person could have made a bunch of these killer devices and distributed them to someone else-or to an organization -to be used at will?”

“Yes.”

Amaranthe thought of the note Sicarius had stolen from the gambling house, the one thanking Ellaya for providing the name of an accomplished Maker. Was this an example of that Maker’s work?

“Did you find anything outside?” Amaranthe asked.

“Four sets of fresh footprints.”

“The same ones you noticed on the trail up?”

“There were only two sets of fresh ones on the path.”

“How fresh is fresh?” The smell of death was turning her stomach, so Amaranthe walked out to the porch.

“Early this morning,” Sicarius said. “Maybe late last night.”

She inhaled, appreciating the clean smell of moss and damp leaves. “You can’t tell me the exact hour?” She smiled. “I thought you were better than that.”

Sicarius stepped onto the porch and gazed at her, the faintest crinkle to his brow.

“What?” she asked.

“People don’t tease me.”

“Ever?”

“No.”

Because they were afraid of him. As Books had pointed out once, she was probably foolish not to be. That he tolerated more from her than the others was no proclamation of friendship. At times she wished she did not know that Sespian was his son and not the direct heir to the throne, a secret that would throw the empire into civil war if it came out. Sicarius killed those who threatened him, and even if she had sworn to keep the knowledge to herself, he had to see the simple fact of someone else knowing as a threat. Sometimes she wondered how much his sticking around had to do with a belief she could help him clear his name and become someone Sespian wanted to know…and how much he just wanted to keep an eye on her. Would he let her walk away from him with that knowledge in her head?

Amaranthe shook the dark thoughts away and forced her smile back. “No one’s ever teased you? Truly? Not even as a child?”

“To tease is to mock or provoke in a playful way.”

“Yes…” She arched her eyebrows.

“There was nothing playful about my childhood.” Sicarius pointed north. “The tracks lead that way.”

He strode off the porch, heading the indicated direction. Back to business.

“You know…” Amaranthe had to jog to catch up with him. “If you missed out on games and fun as a child, you could try playing now.”

“What do you suggest?”

That he answered surprised her, and she was not sure how to respond.

Two deer browsing on the edge of the clearing started at their approach. They bounded into the trees and disappeared. A game trail led along the hillside, parallel to the river, and Sicarius headed down it. Pockets of mud held footprints.

“You could tease me,” Amaranthe said. “Or, once in a while, do something for no logical reason. Be whimsical.”

“Whimsical.” He said it with all the warmth of a kid discussing spinach.

“Yes, it’s the opposite of what you always are.”

Gray clouds drifted down from the mountaintops. Depending on how long this trek took, they might not make it back to the lorry by dark. She hoped they would not have to spend the night huddled under branches with rain dripping down their collars. Somehow she could not see Sicarius cuddling to share body heat. He would probably suggest pushups to stay warm.

They padded along the trail in silence for a time. The trees grew less dense and the ground more rocky. Far below, the river wound through the valley.

Sicarius stopped beside one of the last trees before a landslide. A meager trail crossed the boulders and loose shale, but one would be in the open crossing the area.

“Think there’s anybody watching the area?” Amaranthe asked.

Sicarius lifted a finger to his lips. He pointed, not across the landslide, but down it. Several hundred feet below, two men were poking around the rock field. One carried what might have been a clipboard.

“Prospectors?” she whispered.

She and Sicarius stayed behind cover and watched. The men continued their poking about for several minutes before heading north. They disappeared into a strip of forest on the far side of the landslide. The faint smoke of a campfire wafted from another open area beyond the trees. Amaranthe bounced on her toes, hoping the men’s presence meant she was close to answers.

Sicarius raised an eyebrow.

“There’s something out here that’s interesting someone.” She winced, realizing how vague and unhelpful that sounded.

“I’ll investigate,” Sicarius said. “Stay here.”

“Wait. Wouldn’t you prefer to have something distracting them while you’re sneaking about, remaining unseen?”

“I don’t need a distraction to remain unseen.”

True.

“But I presume you have some scheme,” he added.

“I brought along some of your earnings, so I could feign interest in purchasing this property. I’ll head in and have a friendly palaver with them, see what I can learn.”

“Palaver.”

“Chat. Discuss. That thing you never do at length.”

“Why put yourself at risk? I can grab someone and we can interrogate him.”

Amaranthe rubbed her face. How was she going to convince good-hearted Sespian to pardon someone whose answer for everything was a dagger to someone’s throat? “That didn’t work in the loading bay, remember? And if more people up here have been injected with those devices… Well, it’s inconvenient to have the person you’re questioning pitch over dead.”

Sicarius grunted a concession.

“Here’s the plan: I’ll go in and palaver while you surround them.”

“Surround them,” he said. “By myself.”

“Just be ready to shoot a warning shot or two when I signal.”

Amaranthe lifted her hand to her forehead to demonstrate, then handed him her rifle and sword belt. She would likely get further if she did not appear threatening. She kept her knife and pistol, adjusting the jacket to hide them. Sicarius watched, face stony. No doubt, he thought walking into the enemy camp was stupid. He was probably right.

“We’ll try your way if my way doesn’t work,” she said.

“If your way doesn’t work, you may be dead.”

“That is a possibility.”