I felt my nose explode and tasted blood in the back of my mouth. The next thing I knew, I was on my arse on the cobbles, my head spinning and my stomach dry heaving. For a moment, I couldn’t do anything. The suddenness and the violence stunned me. I stared, blankly, lost. Then I reached for my magic.
I was too late. The man had come around behind me and placed a knife to my throat.
How had that happened? I was a mage. I was supposed to be … what? I was bleeding, that was what I was. Shivers scurried over me.
Maybe if I had been a high mage, or even a powerful mage like the woman who had attacked me yesterday, I could have frozen my attacker in place or blown him to bloody fragments before he could react. Instead, I imitated a statue. I couldn’t even speak. The knife against my skin was like a noose cutting off my air, even though it was scarcely touching.
Shock. You’re in shock.
“The Wren,” the man whispered in my ear, “wants to talk to you.”
Then the knife disappeared, and the man was gone.
I sat there, I didn’t know how long. I could hear my pulse in my ears and nothing else.
Get up, Nik. The voice in my head sounded like my mother. You’re pathetic. Get up.
I spat blood on the cobbles. Slowly, I came to my senses, my breath slowing. I tested my nose, and immediately regretted it as pain swamped me again.
Bannaur’s bleeding balls! I thumped the cobbles with the side of my fist. I didn’t need this. I did not need this. Why did everyone who wanted to pass on a message feel the need to knock me senseless first? I was a nice guy. I would listen. Turn up at my office, I would see you. I was hardly overwhelmed with clients. You wouldn’t even need an appointment. This communication via thug was a new Agatos tradition I wasn’t on board with.
Shaking, I managed to get to my feet.
A small crowd had gathered down the street to watch. I could see the appeal of watching one of Agatos’s mages be put in their place. I would have appreciated it more if it hadn’t been me.
The Wren. The fucking Wren. As if I didn’t have enough to deal with. I hadn’t even done anything to him. I had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I could ignore him and risk it escalating, or obey his summons and put myself at his mercy. The Wren wasn’t renowned for his mercy.
I would have to go and see him. Anything else was just fooling myself. I wasn’t untouchable. The Wren might not risk magic against me with the Ash Guard sniffing around, but he had just made it clear that magic wasn’t his only option. Going now would be a mistake, though. I had to get more information. I would go tomorrow after Benny’s trial. And if the Wren didn’t like that, well, next time I’d be on the lookout. I wasn’t in the mood for another beating. I might be a crap mage, but I wasn’t helpless.
I pulled my mage hood up and headed in the opposite direction.
Ironically, the thump I’d received on my nose seemed to have given a boost to my sense of smell. I wasn’t one of those unfortunate people whose hay fever made Missos unbearable, but I always had a slight pressure in my sinuses. That was gone.
I should get punched more often.
The smells of cooking, of spices frying in oil and herbs bubbling away in pots, drifted as clear and sharp as winter from every window I passed, setting my stomach rumbling like a rock fall. I had to admit it: when I had gone to the Ash Guard fortress, I had half hoped Captain Gale would let me in and feed me again. The last time I had eaten had been at dawn when I’d lifted a loaf from Galena Sunstone’s kitchen on the way out. I was starving. I doubted I had enough money left for more than another meal or two, and I didn’t see where I’d be getting any more anytime soon. I gritted my teeth and continued my slow plod towards Dumonoc’s bar.
Dumonoc was as pleased to see me as ever.
“What the Depths do you want?” he demanded. “Don’t you have anything better to do with your life?”
“Nice to see you, too,” I said, as I crossed to the counter.
“You’d better not drip blood on my bar.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. I don’t suppose you’ve got any ice?”
“Fuck off.”
I settled for a damp cloth — Dumonoc wasn’t happy about that, either — and retreated to a corner with a cup of something that might once have waved at wine across the room. At least drinking it would put me off the idea of eating.
I had been sipping slowly for an hour and was on my second disgusting cupful when Captain Gale finally showed up. She had shed her Ash Guard uniform and was now dressed in loose, light trousers, sandals, and an embroidered shirt, but she still wore a short sword and flintlock pistol strapped to her waist. Her hair was loose from her ponytail and fell to just below her shoulders. The Ash that had smeared her skin had been scrubbed off, but I could still feel its enervating effect as she approached.
Carrying it, not wearing it. What did that mean?
“You still look like shit,” she said, pulling out a chair.
She didn’t. She looked great. Without her mask of Ash, she looked younger than I’d guessed, maybe the same age as me. Her scar looked fresher and more raw without the Ash to mask it, but it suited her. It was like a warning that she wouldn’t put up with any of my shit. I had a weakness for women who wouldn’t put up with my shit. She had the kind of build you only got from training hours every day. I felt parts of me stirring that hadn’t stirred for too long.
“Well?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Done staring?”
I blushed and straightened, attempting to brush down my shirt. It was a futile attempt.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t had relationships. I had been popular when I had still worked for the Countess, and even after leaving, a freelance mage was apparently interesting enough to some women — and men — that they could overlook my poverty. But it had been a while, and Captain Gale wasn’t looking impressed. Her nose wrinkled. I couldn’t say I blamed her. I could smell myself, and it wasn’t pretty.
“Just so you don’t get any stupid ideas,” she said, tapping a small pouch tied to her belt, “I’m carrying enough Ash to deaden magic within twenty feet.”
“I noticed,” I said. It was about as good a threat as you could make to a mage. Without our magic, we were like sharks without teeth. We could rush around looking threatening, but there wasn’t much we could actually do. We didn’t tend to go in for hand-to-hand combat. Anyway, I wasn’t here to fight or threaten her.
“Here.” She dropped what looked like a folded white cloth on the table.
I frowned. “What’s this?”
“A clean shirt.” I think my look must have said, Huh?, because she continued, “I have a feeling I’m going to be seeing rather a lot of you over this investigation, and to be frank, you stink. Put it on.”
I looked around. “Um… Here?”
“Unless you want to do it in the middle of the plaza?”
“Right.”
Awkwardly, I pulled off my mage’s cloak and then removed my torn, blood-stained, dirty shirt. There was something about the way she watched me — a slight smirk that could be either amusement or contempt — that made me feel like a nine-year-old boy forced to undress in front of his mother.
Let’s just put it this way: all the parts that had been stirring before had retreated again.
My skin was darker than most in Agatos — a legacy of my unknown father — but even so, and even in the dim light of Dumonoc’s bar, I could see the large purple and black bruises covering half my torso. They hurt just to look at.
Captain Gale eyed them. “Have you thought about a new career? One that gets you beaten up less often. A human punch bag, perhaps?”
I quickly pulled the new shirt on. It fit well, and I had to admit, I felt cleaner and more comfortable than I had for days. It was better quality than anything I could afford.
“There,” she said. “Now you almost look like someone I could bring home to my mother.”
I blinked. “You have a mother?”
“What? Did you think the Ash Guard hatched from eggs?”
“No… I just… You know, no families, no weaknesses.”
I was not making a good impression here.
Captain Gale sighed. “You’re right. We do give up our families and friends and take new names when we join the guard. We cut away our ties and our loyalties, and we never have any contact with our former lives, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have a family. I even had a few boyfriends before … this.”
Her face hardened again, as though Ash had been smeared across it, obscuring the emotions, burying the person beneath it. Whatever memories the conversation had stirred up were enough to make her retreat. “You didn’t ask to meet me to talk about my mother,” she said. “What did you want?”
Just when I had thought I was getting somewhere with her, when she was softening up, relaxing. It would have made everything easier. I made another attempt.
“How did it go?”
This time she was the one who looked confused.
“Your urgent appointment.”
“Ah. That.” A shadow seemed to settle across her face. “Someone was trying to summon a god in their back room.”
“And?”
“And now they’re not.”
“That’s suitably ominous.”
She flashed a smile — a hint of a victory, anyway — but it was clear she didn’t intend to share any more details. After a moment, I said, “I did some digging into Master Servant Rush. Turns out she owed a favour to the Wren, and he had called it in. He wanted her to do something or get something from Silkstar. A Master Servant would know all his secrets. They’re supposed to be incorruptible.”
She eyed me, head on one side. “What did the Wren want her to do?”
“I don’t know. But if Silkstar found out she was going to betray him, he would be furious. He could easily set up a murder like that in his own palace and frame me along the way. No one would suspect him. Who would be stupid enough to murder someone in their own home and tip off the Ash Guard in advance?” I squinted. “And you were tipped off, weren’t you?”
She didn’t confirm it, and she didn’t look convinced. Damn it. If only I had some actual evidence.
“We talked to dozens of witnesses,” she said. “Carnelian Silkstar was out in the courtyard at the moment of the murder.”
Could a high mage cast a spell like the one that had killed Imela Rush from a distance? No one really knew the capabilities of a high mage, and understandably, they weren’t forthcoming. Or maybe Silkstar hadn’t been out in the courtyard at all. Maybe he had somehow tricked the minds of several hundred people, including a bunch of mages. Whoever had visited Imela Rush’s parents had used a spell to confuse their minds. This would be magic of a whole different order, but that didn’t mean Silkstar couldn’t do it.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” I said.
“Maybe not. But have you considered that everything you told me points just as much to the Wren as to the Silkstar?”
“The Wren? Why would he want to kill Imela Rush? She owed him, and as far as I can tell, she hadn’t delivered yet. Why would he waste such a big investment?” I didn’t buy it. I didn’t want to buy it. I didn’t need more uncertainty and more possibilities. I needed the murderer.
“Think about it,” Captain Gale prompted. “The Wren insists that Imela Rush repays her debt to him by betraying Silkstar. She refuses — she’s a Master Servant; loyalty is everything, and the training she would have gone through is intense. It’s years of reinforcement. Maybe she did intend to pay the Wren back when her parents made the deal, but after all those years of training and loyalty? She says no. The Wren doesn’t have any choice. He has to protect his reputation. He takes her out. Only he can’t do it directly, because that will put him into conflict with Silkstar. When two high mages go head-to-head, that’s where we step in. So he sets you up to take the fall.”
It hadn’t occurred to me. If the Wren had been behind it… But, no.
“If the Wren wanted her dead, why not just a knife in a dark alley? It would send the same message, with none of the risks. Pity, he could flay her and pin her to the wall, and as long as he didn’t use magic, you wouldn’t get involved.” It came out as more of an accusation than I had intended.
She shrugged. “We all have our roles. The Ash Guard can’t overstep its bounds. The Ash gives us too much power, and not enough at the same time.”
“You really think it was the Wren?” I said.
“No. I’m just pointing out the flaw in your logic. The Ash Guard still think you did it.”
The Ash Guard. Interesting wording. Not ‘I’ or ‘we’. The Ash Guard.
She looked at me expectantly.
“What?”
“Is that all you’ve got? That’s why you wanted to meet me?”
I wet my lips. “No. I need your help. There’s something in this, I know there is. But people aren’t going to talk to me. I can’t go questioning Silkstar. You can, though. You can ask anyone anything. You’re Ash Guard.”
She sat back, eyeing me.
“The people who are going to have answers — people like Silkstar and the Wren — they’ll never tell me anything.” My voice cracked on the last word. Shit. Don’t let her know how desperate you are.
“You’re right,” she said after a moment. “I can ask anyone anything. The Wren. The Countess. Silkstar. They can’t stop me. But I can’t force them to tell me the truth. People tend to say as little as possible to the Ash Guard — well, smart people; not you, obviously — and when they do answer, they lie more often than not, even when they’re innocent.”
I slumped back in my chair. It made sense. I just wished it didn’t. There wasn’t a mage in the city who wasn’t scared of the Ash Guard. When you were a big, bad mage with the power of a rotting god, everyone got out of your way. Take away that power and replace it with a highly-trained Ash Guard killer, and mages suddenly weren’t so tough. When people were scared, they made stupid decisions.
“I’m not going to ignore any evidence that comes my way,” Captain Gale said. “But right now you don’t have any evidence, just theories and guesses, and the only viable suspect is you.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t do it.”
She sighed. “I will tell you this if you promise not to read too much into it. Silkstar has just taken over the wool trade in Agatos. Somehow, he managed to buy up all the contracts. It’s the talk of the merchant community, and it gives him control over a section of the docks and warehouses that used to pay allegiance to the Wren. The Wren could see that as a move against him. The Ash Guard won’t allow it to erupt into magical conflict, and they both know that. So maybe the Wren found another way to get Silkstar back, through Imela Rush.” I must have looked excited, because Captain Gale raised a hand to stop me. “The high mages are constantly making moves against each other’s interests. It’s a game for them. It’s not a motive for murder.”
Maybe not, but Captain Gale wouldn’t have mentioned it if she didn’t want me to poke it and see what came swarming out. At least that was what I was going to tell myself.
“Let’s be clear,” Captain Gale said. “I have no intention of diverting my investigation over any of this. There are people in the Ash Guard who think I should be bringing you in right now.” She leaned back in her chair. “Find some proof of your suspicions, or find yourself in an Ash Guard cell.”
I watched her get up and make her way out of the bar. Even Dumonoc didn’t send her on her way with his customary insults. It was that mixture of intimidation and erotic charge that she gave off, I reflected.
You’re pathetic, Nik. Here I was, framed, in danger of my life, about to be booted out of my home, without a job, and I was getting all hot over one of the most unreachable women in Agatos.
Captain Meroi Gale hadn’t done me any favours, either. I had gone looking for information on Silkstar. Now I didn’t even know whether Silkstar was my prime suspect anymore.
I felt the frustration tightening in me like a rope in a storm. Any more and it might snap. I grabbed my cup and tossed back the last of the wine.
When I had finished choking, regained my breath, and wiped the tears from my eyes, I was finally able to think.
I might have more suspects, but I also had another lead: the wool contracts. Leads were what I desperately needed. I would follow this one and see where it took me. I didn’t have any other choice.
If I got killed over some wool contracts, I was going to be mightily pissed off.