Night of Long Shadows

CHAPTER 11

The third day of long Shadows

Sar, the 28th day of Vult, 998

The half-orc settled the skycoach down in the vicinity of Stone Trees. Cutter sat in the back, watching as Bex and the half-elf disembarked and stood whispering together. When they finished talking, they clasped hands and the half-orc disappeared into the night while the half-elf climbed back onboard and turned to face him.

“Let’s get everything clear and out in the open,” he said. “My name’s Wren. I’m an Inquisitive. I was called in to investigate the death of the professor. And seeing as you were spotted standing over his body with your blades in your hands, covered in blood, you were our main suspect.” He paused, then said wryly, “You can see why we made that assumption.”

Cutter didn’t answer.

“Do you have anything to add?” asked Wren.

“Like what?”

“Well … anything. Who was the warforged that killed the professor? Why is this package so important? We thought it was dreamlily at first, but it seems like a lot of trouble to go through for some drugs.”

“Sounds like you know as much as I do. The only thing I wanted to do was find Rowen. I couldn’t care less about who killed who.”

Wren looked disappointed. “I was hoping you’d have more information.”

“You said you knew where Rowen is.”

Wren hesitated. “I do. But first …” Wren fished around in his pockets. He pulled out a piece of paper and leaned over the ruined seats to hand it to him.

“Rowen asked a friend of hers to deliver this to you.”

Cutter stared at the folded piece of paper. His stomach dropped. This must have been the last thing she ever wrote to him. His hands shook as he reached forward and took it.

He thought he could smell her perfume as he opened it, but that was probably just his imagination. He fought back tears when he saw her neat, elegant handwriting.

Got dreamlily. Hidden it at the family crypt. Will meet later.

“Do you know what it means?” asked Wren. “Is it a graveyard or something?”

“I know what it means.” Cutter folded the note and slipped it inside his shirt. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his hands over his face. He knew what he had to do. He wouldn’t be able to rest until everyone involved in her death had been made to suffer. But he had to take care of something first.

“Take me to her.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea … she’s …”

“I don’t care,” Cutter snapped. “She died alone, half-elf. I won’t leave her there any longer. Understand?”

Wren sighed. “It’s your choice. But I warn you, it’s not pretty. She was … coerced.”

Cutter’s heart hardened. He would make whoever had done this suffer a thousand times what they had inflicted on her. He would keep them alive while he stripped the skin from their bodies.

“I just need to make a little detour first,” said Wren. “To pick someone up.”

Cutter peered over the side of the skycoach as Wren lowered them between two tenement buildings. The walls were only inches away. One twitch of the controls would send them crashing into someone’s home.

“I’m sure it’s one of these,” Wren muttered. He stopped the car and leaned against a window, cupping his hands to either side of his face as he tried to see inside.

“What are you doing?”

“Shh. Yes, I’m sure this is the one.”

He tapped lightly on the window, then looked over his shoulder at Cutter.

“In reply to your question, I’m picking up my assistant.” He turned back to the window just as the curtains were yanked aside, revealing a dwarf woman in her sleeping clothes. She saw Wren and screamed. Wren let out a frightened shout of his own and grabbed the controls.

“Sorry,” he called. “Wrong window.”

He nudged the skycoach up to the next floor. He leaned back in his seat and counted the floors in the building. “This must be it.”

He tapped again. After a moment the curtain moved slightly and an eye peered out. When the owner of the eye saw Wren standing there grinning, he leaned forward and pushed the window open.

“Torin, my friend,” said Wren.

“What are you doing, Wren?” whispered the dwarf.

Cutter leaned forward. He recognized this dwarf from somewhere. Where was it?

Of course. Back at the university. This was the dwarf who had barged into the professor’s room. The one he punched as he escaped.

“What am I doing?” said Wren. “The night is still young, and we have investigating to attend to. The game’s afoot!” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “And it’s also gotten complicated.” He jerked his head in the direction of Cutter.

The dwarf straightened up and peered over Wren’s shoulder, stared at Cutter for a second, then turned his attention back to Wren.

“Wren,” he said calmly, “is that man sitting in the back of your skycoach the same man we had arrested last night?”

“Stolen skycoach,” Wren corrected. “And yes, it is. We broke him out of jail!”

Torin stared hard at the half-elf, then leaned back and pulled the window closed. “Good night, Wren.”

“Wait!” Wren grabbed hold of the window. “Things have changed, Torin. Cutter here isn’t responsible for the professor’s death.”

“Oh? Then who was?”

“A warforged,” said Wren, in the manner of one imparting a great secret.

“Oh, really? And did he tell you that?” Torin nodded in Cutter’s direction.

“Maybe,” said Wren defensively.

“The man accused of killing the professor, the man I saw standing over the body covered in blood holding knives, tells you it wasn’t him, but some unknown warforged? Right.”

“No, really. New evidence has come to light. We’re going to the place his woman hid the dreamlily, to see if she left any more evidence.”

“And then?”

“And then Cutter here wants to track down those responsible for her death and do nasty things to them. I’m hoping we can find out the identity of the warforged before he does so.”

Torin sighed. “This is a dangerous game, Wren.”

“I know,” said Wren quietly. “That’s why I want you watching my back.”

Torin thought about it for a while. They heard a commotion down below. Cutter glanced over the side and saw the dwarf woman from the window standing in the street with a few other dwarves, pointing at them.

“Can we move this along?” Wren asked.

“Don’t rush me,” snapped Torin.

Cutter scowled and sat back. All he wanted to do was throw the half-elf over the side and take the skycoach himself, but he hadn’t told Cutter the whereabouts of Rowen’s body.

“Very well,” said Torin. “I’ll come. But why didn’t you call me when you were planning his breakout?”

“You have a family, Torin. I don’t involve you in things like that.” His face darkened. “Besides, I probably saved your life.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you later. Hurry. Get dressed.”

“Torin?” called a sleepy voice from inside. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he called. “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve woken her up.”

To Cutter’s amazement, the half-elf actually looked panicked.

“Hurry!” he whispered. “Get your things.”

Torin ducked back inside. Wren smiled weakly at Cutter. “His wife,” he explained. “Apparently, she doesn’t like me.”

“I wonder why?” said Cutter.

Torin popped his head out the window. “I’ll meet you at the bottom.”

“Can you just hop out the window? It’ll be quicker all round.”

The dwarf looked as though he was about to protest, then thought better of it and grabbed hold of the window frame. He pulled himself up.

“Torin, what are you doing?” called the voice from inside.

“Nothing, dear. I’ll see you later.”

“Is that Wren out there?”

“Hurry!” whispered Wren. But when Torin still did not move fast enough, he grabbed hold of the dwarf’s arms and yanked him into the skycoach. He fell into the seat in front of Cutter and Wren grabbed hold of the controls, lifting them sharply into the air and scraping the building on the way up.

Cutter had seen a lot of dead bodies over the years. Host, he’d been the cause of a lot of them. But he’d never had to look at one he had any kind of emotional connection with. He’d always been able to separate himself from what he saw.

That wasn’t possible this time.

He stood before the open doorway of the half-collapsed house. The hallway stretched before him, a long path into darkness.

“It’s the last door on the right,” said Wren quietly.

Cutter stepped into the house. The old floorboards creaked beneath his feet. Had she heard something similar? Had she been prepared for an attack, or was she surprised?

He passed a door that opened into a large living room. A stone fireplace took up half the wall. He wondered who had lived here before. It was the kind of home he always wished for as a child, big and rambling, with places to hide and play. He could almost see them gathered around the fire on cold winter nights.

Cutter hoped they had been happy. He wouldn’t want Rowen to die in a place surrounded by the ghosts of an unhappy past. It was a strange thought. People lived their lives in a house, never imagining what would happen after they had gone. That wasn’t the way people thought. At the most, imagination might turn to events from the past. If people knew something had once happened in a particular room, their senses might reach out and trick them with a half-glimpsed ghost. But who was to say all such ghosts were from the past? Why could ghosts not be from some terrible deed committed in the future?

Cutter blinked, aware that his thoughts were running away from him, stalling him from doing what had to be done. He turned away from the room and walked slowly to the last room in the hallway, his stomach writhing like a pit of angry snakes.

He took a deep breath.

And stepped into the room.

He knew where to look straight away, as if he could sense her presence. He could see her familiar shape beneath the old sheet. Her pose brought back a memory, a languid night in summer. Cutter walking into their room to find her lying in the bed, a single white sheet the only thing covering her body.

Cutter almost smiled, the reaction triggered by the memory. He choked it back and walked slowly forward.

Some of Rowen’s hair stuck out from beneath the sheet, and his eyes were drawn to the dark strands as he approached. He squatted down next to her, close enough to touch, but all he did was stare at the gentle curls lying against the pitted floorboards. Cutter reached out and gently touched them, no more than a graze of his fingertips against her hair.

He sat like this for a while, then he wrenched his gaze away and forced himself to look at her. What he had initially thought were black patterns on the sheet was actually blood that had seeped from her many wounds.

There wasn’t much of the sheet left untouched.

Something strange happened to him. Even though he knew it was impossible, even though he knew nobody could survive the amount of blood loss he could see, he found himself thinking that maybe she wasn’t dead. Maybe she was just hurt. Maybe, if he just waited long enough, she would wake up. He stared unblinking at her chest, searching for the tiniest hint of movement, the merest ghost of a breath. Something-anything-that would back up his futile hope.

It was some time before he realized it wouldn’t happen.

He reached up and gently pulled the sheet down. A thick red line ran across the fabric where it touched her neck.

He carefully folded it over and rested it over the wound.

He was surprised to see her face was untouched. A few drops of blood on her right cheek were the only hints of what she had gone through.

He wiped them away. The look on her face was one he knew well. When they fought and went to bed angry, she slept with this look on her face, as if she were arguing in her sleep. That was what she looked like. Like she was somewhere on the other side arguing with ghosts.

He smiled at the image this conjured in his head. His Rowen.

His poor Rowen.

He emerged from the dark corridor of the broken house carrying her body. He had wrapped it in the sheet, making sure all her features were covered.

Wren and Torin straightened up when he approached. Cutter ignored them and placed Rowen carefully in the back seat. Only then did he turn to the others.

“She discovered that her ancestors once built a small mausoleum at Dragon Crypts in the City of the Dead. It’s where she wanted to be laid to rest. That’s where you’ll find the dreamlily.”

Atop the cliffs overlooking the north and east sides of Sharn, the City of the Dead lurked like a vulture waiting for its prey to die. It was a ghost town made up of empty streets and ivy-covered shrines, of crumbling mausoleums and weed-choked pathways. It was a constant reminder to those who happened to glance upward that death was always watching. Always waiting.

Cutter found it peaceful.

He remembered the first time Rowen had brought him here to show him the family crypt. He’d been puzzled at first, wondering why she was so excited about it, but after a while he realized that it gave her a sense of belonging, a sense of worth. She liked the idea that the family name had once meant enough to someone to build a resting place for future generations.

Cutter found that point a bit morbid, but he understood. It removed that tiny vestige of guilt she felt at what she did, that remnant of shame she couldn’t quite shake no matter how often she said it was her choice. It proved to her that she wasn’t just a courtesan. She had a name. She had a history.

Now, as before, they had to walk to get to the City of the Dead. It existed outside the manifest zone with Syrania, so that the spells that allowed the skycoaches to fly so effortlessly, that held the buildings up to their impossible heights, failed to work here. He hadn’t minded the walk before. He’d been walking in the company of someone he loved.

Now he carried her body.

“I’m just saying it’s a long walk,” snapped Wren.

“And I’m saying you need more exercise,” said Torin. “You’re lazy.”

“Lazy? How dare you! I’m fitter than you are.”

Cutter, walking ahead of them, heard the dwarf snort. “Of course you are, Wren. You just keep telling yourself that and maybe you’ll eventually believe it.”

Cutter heard a thwack, like someone hitting cloth. He paused and turned. Wren was standing in front of Torin, smacking himself in the stomach.

“Come. Give me your best shot.”

“Wren, I’m not hitting you.”

“Why not? I want you to. I order it.”

“No.”

“Coward.”

“What?”

“Scared I’ll show you up? Come. Hit me. I won’t feel a thing.”

Torin sighed. “Fine. You ready?”

“Yes-no, wait.” He leaned forward and tensed his stomach. “Right. Now.”

Torin swung his arm and jabbed the half-elf in the stomach. He dropped like a sack of sand falling from a great height. The dwarf stood over him. “I didn’t even hit you that hard!”

Cutter turned and resumed his march, leaving the bickering voices far behind him.

Rowen’s family crypt stood on the outskirts of the city itself, nestling amidst the crags of the cliffs and overlooking the district of Dura. Cutter wasn’t sure if that was because her ancestor couldn’t afford a better plot, or if the city itself hadn’t existed back then and he just picked the spot he wanted.

The last time they’d come, it was a clear day. They’d stood on the crumbling steps of the mausoleum, her back against his chest, his arms encircling her, and looked out over Sharn. A fierce wind buffeted them, flicked her hair against his face. The Dagger River had been visible way to the south. She’d talked idly about finding a ship and sailing away. Like it was that easy.

And why couldn’t it have been? Host, if they’d just gone, simply upped and left, she’d still be alive.

They’d still be together.

Cutter stood on those same crags, the same wind slapping at his face, and gazed into the night. Sharn unfolded below him, an untidy mess of twinkling lights and inky blackness. Skycoaches drifted through the air, crisscrossing each others’ paths, their lights winking out as they descended behind invisible buildings.

He watched for a moment longer, then turned and walked up the steps into the dark doorway of the crypt.

As he entered, a small everbright lantern flickered on above him and cast an orange glow over the interior. Rowen must have come back on her own and placed it there. Unless she’d brought it with her recently when she hid the dreamlily.

He looked around for signs of her recent visit. Faint footprints had disturbed the dust, leading to one of the rectangular alcoves that lined the walls. Thick cobwebs hung over these like silk sheets hanging over the beds of the dead.

He carried her to the center of the room. A crude plinth emerged from the tiles, an obtrusion of the rock itself as high as his waist. It had been carved into a rough hourglass shape and a smooth slab of stone placed atop it.

Cutter laid Rowen on the stone, then stared down at the shrouded shape. He still found it hard to believe it was her.

But it wasn’t. Not anymore. She had been full of life, full of passion. This was just a vessel, something that tried to contain her spirit while she was here.

He knew that, but he couldn’t quite feel it. Not yet.

He turned down the sheet, gently kissed her cold lips, then covered her face for the last time.

He bowed his head for a moment, then stepped back and turned away. He closed his eyes, squeezing them so tight that his head started to ache.

He breathed in. Held it. Let it go in a shuddering sigh. He breathed in again.

Fight it, he told himself.

Hide it.

Push the pain away until you need it.

You can’t tame the beast. You can only chain it. And you know. Know that one day that chain will break and it will rise up and devour you, grown and fattened by the energy you’ve pumped into it in your attempt to keep the shackles strong.

But that day was far away.

Right now was what mattered.

Cutter opened his eyes and stared at the wall.

Right now was what always mattered.

“You can come in,” he called.

Wren and Torin entered, both of them subdued. They cast sidelong glances at the plinth.

Cutter nodded to the alcove in the wall. “Her footprints lead there.”

Wren nodded and hurried to the wall. He pushed aside the cobwebs and peered inside. After a moment, he turned back.

“There’s nothing here.”

“What?”

Cutter hurried forward and looked for himself. The hole was empty. But there were signs in the dust that something box-shaped recently lay inside.

“But …” he looked at Wren, confused.

“Maybe she gave up its location. They tortured her, Cutter. Not many can hold out against that.”

“Wren!” said Torin urgently.

Wren and Cutter turned at the tone of his voice. He was staring at the entrance to the crypt. A young woman stood there, dressed in white robes and smiling at them.

“Hello,” she said. “Are you looking for something? Maybe I can help.”