Chapter Five

 

 

Ed watched from the mouth of an alleyway as the woman made her way into an inn called The Golden Torch. He hadn’t heard of the place before, situated as it was in the city’s rich district, though Ed couldn’t help but notice that it sat on the border of the city’s rich and poor quarter. In the distance farther down the street, he could see the small, ramshackle hovels of men and women that would be far too poor to afford even a single night’s stay in such a place, a stark contrast to the lush gardens and opulent mansions he saw in the other direction.

An interesting place which seemed to exist in two worlds at once. Ed could appreciate such a thing more than most, for in many ways, he resembled the inn, and he smiled, feeling as if surely this must be a sign that fortune was on his side. He waited as long as his patience would allow—not long at all, in truth—then made his way toward the inn’s entrance. He knew that he should wait longer—should give the woman time to settle in, perhaps have a drink or two before following, but her song was still echoing in his mind, and it was all he could do to keep from charging after her, an anxious certainty building in him that he would lose her, somehow.

By the time he reached the inn’s door, his hands were sweating, and he was practically in a panic, sure that she’d disappeared as if she’d stepped through some magic portal, and he would never see her again. He scanned the inn as he hurried inside and saw a dozen or so patrons loitering at one of its fine oak tables, their dress and manner—not to mention the bodyguards floating behind them—marking them as merchants. To his vast relief, he caught sight of the woman sitting at the bar, a glass of wine in front of her.

He glanced around the room once more, ensuring that no one was paying him more attention than was warranted, and felt another flash of jealousy as he saw several of the inn’s male patrons eyeing the woman with undisguised lust. It was all he could do to keep the snarl of disgust off his face as he made his way to the bar, sitting one stool down from the woman, as if by chance and nothing more. She glanced over as he sat and gave him a smile that seemed slightly forced—no great surprise, he supposed, if she had noted the men eyeing her. Ed gave her his best smile in return which, it had to be said, wasn’t a particularly good one. His teeth had been crooked since childhood—another one of the many flaws which his mother had pointed out whenever she was under the grip of one drug or another—and he always felt anxious when putting them on display, sure that someone would scream at him and call him a freak as his mother had.

The woman didn’t though, only turned back to her drink a moment later, and although he didn’t drink or do any drugs of his own—his experiences with his mother showing him the evils of any substance that stole a man’s wits and stole his control—Ed waved the woman at the bar over and ordered an ale.

When the barkeep had returned with his ale and stepped away to help another customer, Ed stole another glance at the woman who was still studying her drink. He considered for the first time that perhaps it had been unwise to follow her. Ed was a man who carefully planned everything, for it was the best way, to his mind, of staying in control. He always knew exactly what shape each day would take before it arrived. He was not, as a general rule, the type of man to be impulsive or take chances—truly, there was no one further from it than he, so he was more than a little surprised and nervous that he was sitting here at all.

He knew that he should leave. If he did so now, he might be able to make his appointment before the man he was to meet left, and he was sure that he could manufacture some excuse to give him, not that Ed particularly needed an excuse as it was the man who needed the appointment, not him. Either way, that would be the smart thing, to stand up as if nothing was amiss and walk out, forgetting the girl and the song, forgetting her rich patron and the Ferinan with the spear and going on about his day, about his life, remaining invisible.

But the echoes of the song were still playing in his head, music more perfect than he had ever heard before, and he could have no more risen and left just then than he could have sprouted wings and flown away. So instead, he took a sip of the ale, doing his best to hide his disgust as the bitter taste of alcohol flooded his mouth and coursed its way down his throat, then he set the mug down, turning on his stool to face the woman.

“I…I hope you don’t think I’m odd or…well, or anything, but…haven’t I seen you before?”

She gave him a hesitant smile, as if the question was the beginnings of a line she’d heard a thousand times from a thousand different men and probably she had. Ed, though, had no interest in women—had no interest in men, either, come to that—at least not any that was sexual. He’d never understood the motivations that drove otherwise reasonable men to spend their hard-earned coin on whores or normally sane women to sneak around behind their rich husbands’ backs with other men and risk losing all the benefits such wealth provided. But even though he had no interest in the carnal pleasures which seemed to be the primary driving force of most people, Ed had to admit that the woman was beautiful. Not as beautiful as her song had been, of course, but beautiful just the same with green eyes that sparkled like some precious gems and long blond hair. And, of course, there was her body, shown off to great advantage by the snugness of the dress she wore, a dark shade of green that served to accentuate the sparkle in her eyes.

“I don’t think so,” the woman muttered, turning back to her wine quickly, no doubt to cut off any further conversation.

Ed had, in many ways, made a career of studying human behavior—not his clerking career, of course, but his other job, the one his mocking coworkers didn’t know about and wouldn’t have believed if they had. But he didn’t need to have studied human behavior to see the woman’s hint—even a blind man could have seen it. Normally, given such a rebuff, he would have let it lie, but he couldn’t. Not now. The song had been too beautiful, too pure, and he plastered the most innocent smile of which he was capable on his face and tried again. “I think surely I must have. In the street? You…” He paused as if to consider, as if he could ever be unsure as to the source of that song, “you were the singer…weren’t you?”

Some of the guardedness seemed to leave the woman’s eyes at that, and the small smile she offered him this time was more genuine than its predecessor. No doubt this was helped along by Ed’s unthreatening appearance, a short, middle-aged, slightly overweight man with a bald spot on his head, and whose ink-stained fingers marked him as a clerk. “Probably I was.”

Ed nodded slowly. “Your song was amazing—you have a true talent, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

The smile widened a bit further, and Ed found himself studying her mouth, her throat, wondering what magic it was that had created such a melody, wondering, not for the first time on hearing a striking song, where the magic of that spell originated from. The throat? The mouth? Or was it the lungs?

“Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate that.”

An idea came to Ed’s mind then, one that he only just realized had been brewing since he’d first heard the woman’s song. There was no way to know where the magic came from, not truly. Unless, of course, some experimenting was done. He had done such experiments before, in his free time, and they had all ended in disappointment. This one, though, would be different. This one was special, for while those others he had tested had possessed great voices or amazing talents with instruments, the woman sitting before him stood as far above them in ability as they had stood above the rats in the gutter.

“Seems a touch dangerous, though,” he said casually, as if just passing the time in conversation. “I mean…the crowd. It looked a bit…well,” he paused, laughing, “frantic, didn’t it? The people trying to get to you and everything…they seemed a bit…I don’t know. Obsessed, maybe.”

The woman hesitated, and Ed held his breath, then she nodded slowly. “It is a bit…trying. But my patron, you see, he likes for me to play in the streets. He believes we make more coin there than we ever could in a tavern or an inn.”

Ed nodded along as if thoughtful. He’d had similar conversations before, a dozen times at least, perhaps more—he never bothered keeping track of each experiment which ended in failure, at least not outside the rigorous notes he kept hidden away in his small study at his home. “‘We’ you say,” he answered. “Does your patron take much of your earnings then?”

What might have been resentment crept into the woman’s near-perfect features for a moment but was buried an instant later. “Seventy percent.”

A similar amount to many of the city’s patrons who, when making contracts with its musicians and artists, held all the cards. Those cards, of course, being money and shelter, massive fortunes they were keen to stack higher while the artists they patronized only wanted food to eat and a place to live. A similar amount, but Ed still let his eyebrows rise high on his face, letting out a low, surprised whistle. “Well. That’s a shame.” He shook his head. “After all, you’re the one with the talent, aren’t you? You’re the one who weaves such a beautiful, magical spell over your audience. In a just world, you wouldn’t walk away with thirty percent of what you earn—not even with seventy percent. If you ask me, in a just world you’d walk away with one hundred percent of your earnings and your patron—like everyone else—would just be grateful to have heard you and had an opportunity to support you.”

She gave a soft laugh. “I like this perfect world of yours,” she said softly. “Any caravans you know of that are traveling there soon?”

Said in a joking way, of course, but Ed felt a thrill of excitement run through him. He had her now. Like a fisherman, he had cast the bait and she, like the fish, had done the only thing she could do—she had bit. This time, he knew, it would be different. He did not doubt that this experiment would succeed where the others had failed, that he would finally learn the source of the magic. He reached out his hand, tentatively, offering it to her. “I’m Edgar, by the way. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The woman smiled, giving it a firm shake. “I’m Katherine.”

“A pleasure, Katherine,” he said, meaning it. Then he gave her a thoughtful look. “Forgive me,” he continued, “if I speak out of turn but…if your patron is taking advantage of you…why not find another?”

The woman gave him a look that said he had no idea what he was talking about. “I’d be happy to,” she said. “If you’d be so kind as to tell me where the line of kind-hearted rich men is queuing up to support musicians just out of the goodness of their hearts without hope of their own gain, I’ll make sure to be there for it.”

Ed tipped his head to her as if acknowledging a point, a smile on his own face. “Sorry. I’m sure you know more about it than I.” He allowed himself to take on a thoughtful expression then. “Still…if you don’t mind my saying so, my employer…he has a distinct love for the arts and more than a few of Valeria’s finest artists enjoy his…support.”

The woman gave him a rueful grin. “My mother always told me that if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.”

Ed grunted. “I understand—it seems as if your mother was a wise woman as my own was. Still…” He leaned in close, glancing around as if afraid they might be overheard. “This is different. My employer—you’d know his name, but he’s a bit secretive and I wouldn’t want to say it here, not in public—keeps only ten percent of his artists’ earnings and that only to help pay for booking them in prime locations.”

“Ten percent,” the woman said, her eyes going wide. “That’s…generous of him.”

“Almost too generous, right?” Ed said, smiling as if he knew well enough what she was thinking. Which, if she was anything like the dozen or so other singers and musicians to whom he’d made the offer, he almost certainly did. “I understand—in your shoes, I’d hesitate also. After all, you don’t know me from anyone else off the street, do you? But I promise you my offer is legitimate—my employer only patronizes the best musicians and artists in Valeria. And if you don’t mind receiving advice from a stranger…I think it may be worth at least hearing me out. No obligation or anything like that, of course, and if you say no, well, you’ll never have to hear from me again.”

He watched her, saw her preparing to say just that, reading her the way most people might have read a book, and he shook his head a moment before she spoke. “I don’t know. I just hate seeing someone as talented as you are taken advantage of, that’s all.”

The woman frowned, not speaking at first, and Ed gave her time to think it through. Finally, she met his eyes. “And….do you think, your boss…do you think he’d be interested in me?”

Ed grinned widely, not having to fake the gesture this time. “Are you kidding me? You’re incredible. With your voice, you’d be first on his list. And, of course,” he went on, “there’d be no more playing on the sides of streets in front of what are little more than mobs, no more need to hire spear-wielding Ferinans to protect you.”

She considered that for another moment, and he could see the sparkle of excitement in her eyes, could see her thinking that this could finally be the moment when her life changed. Just how much of a change that would be, she had no idea.

Finally, she smiled, nodding as Ed had known she must. “Very well, I’ll talk to you more about it.”

Ed nodded. “You won’t be sorry. Now,” he said, glancing around again as if worried that someone was listening in, “as I’ve mentioned, my employer is a little secretive. But I have a room we can—”

“It’s alright,” the woman said. “I’ve a room here. We can speak now.” She smiled sheepishly. “I’d like to know more about this, and I don’t want to have to wait to walk across the city.”

Ed didn’t have to fake his thoughtful expression now. This, at least, was new. Always before, the men and women he’d offered patronage to from his—strictly speaking, non-existent—boss had been willing to follow him to his own room. It had made things…more convenient. Normally, he would have walked away then, setting up a meeting with the woman or pretending to remember an important errand that he really must attend to right away and never seeing her again. But he found that he couldn’t. The woman’s voice had been too good, too pure, and he could not abandon it so easily. He consoled himself with the fact that even though he would be in the woman’s room and not his own, he could make it work. “Very well,” he said, smiling easily. “Just so long as you promise not to rob me, huh?”

She laughed at that, rising and tossing a coin on the counter for her drink. “This way.”

Ed nodded, rising and struggling to hide his eagerness as he trailed behind the woman. She headed for the stairs, and he followed her up them and across the second floor until she finally stopped in front of a door. She looked back at him almost apologetically. “It’s not much,” she admitted, “but, as we’ve discussed, my patron keeps the majority of my earnings.”

Ed was eager now to get started, to begin the experiment, and he found himself growing impatient. “It’ll be fine,” he snapped, more abruptly than he’d intended, but if the woman noticed, she gave no sign.

She retrieved a key from her pocket and slid it into the lock before throwing the door open. The room was dark within, and in the gloom Ed could make out nothing as he followed her inside, closing the door behind him, his body practically thrumming with anticipation at the truths soon to be uncovered, the magic to be revealed.

That was when a light bloomed in the room so unexpected and bright that Ed winced, shielding his eyes. When he opened them, he saw, to his surprise, that a nobleman sat at the room’s small table, smiling at him. It took Ed a moment—caught off guard as he was—but he realized that it was the musician’s patron sitting there. And standing beside him, his spear drawn and watching Ed with a decidedly threatening expression, was the Ferinan from the street. Ed was still trying to order his confused thoughts as the woman walked to stand beside the Ferinan and any excitement or shyness that she had displayed while they’d been conversing was gone. Instead, she looked bored and even a little disgusted as she stared at him.

“I feel dirty,” she said, giving a shiver.

“Well,” the nobleman said from where he sat, a small, grim smile on his face, “I’m sure you’ll be able to get an opportunity to take a bath later. In fact, I’d say Alesh might even go so far as to help you with it.”

She blushed at that, and Ed frowned, confused. Nothing was going according to plan. What possible reason would the woman have to bring him to a room with her patron and the Ferinan, and why would they be there in the first place? Then something the man had said popped out in his mind. “Wait a minute,” he said, “Alesh, you said? As in—”

“As in Chosen Alesh,” the man said. “You know, ruler of Valeria, Chosen Warrior of Amedan, the God of Fire and Light, the man who shits rainbows and pisses…well, you get the idea. Yeah, that’s the one.”

“I…I don’t understand,” Ed said, not liking this one bit. “But I think there’s been some sort of confusion. I apologize for my intrusion, and I’ll be goi—” He made a start for the door but froze as the Ferinan stepped forward, lifting his spear.

“Wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” the nobleman said calmly. “Darl here hasn’t had a chance to use his spear in a while and, well, you know how these Ferinan savages are.” He gave a smile without humor, baring his teeth. “Always wanting to cut things—or people. I don’t think they’re particularly choosy on that count.”

Ed frowned. “Listen, I don’t have much money, but I’ll give you what I have, alright? I know how this sort of thing goes—I’m not going to make a big fuss. But I’ve got an appointment, you see, one that I really must—”

“You’re going to miss it,” the nobleman said simply. “In fact…” He paused, glancing at the window through which the falling night was visible. “I’d say you already have.”

Ed’s frown deepened, and for the first time he could remember, he felt a thrum of fear run through him. “How…I mean, look, what do you want?”

“We’ll get to that,” the nobleman promised. He waved a hand at the room’s other chair, the one sitting at the table opposite his own. “Best sit down, Edgar—or should I call you Ed? It’s what you go by, isn’t it?”

“How do you know my name? Listen, what’s all this about—”

“Sit down, Ed,” the man said again, any traces of good humor gone. “Or else, I’m thinking violence might be done, and I know how careful you are about not making a fuss. About”—he winked—“being invisible.”

 

***

 

Rion studied the man standing before him. A bald patch in his lusterless thin brown hair, a pudge in his midsection that showed he spent the majority of his day sitting, and fingertips stained with black ink. But ink, Rion knew, wasn’t the only thing on his hands. There was blood, too, and plenty of it. Hard to believe everything he’d heard of the man was true, and if his clothes and fearful, shy manner were a disguise, they were a damn good one. For a moment, Rion almost thought that their information was wrong, that someone somewhere had screwed up, but he decided that was unlikely. The type of people that got this kind of information made a point of getting it right, no matter how ludicrous it might seem.

And some predators, Rion well knew, didn’t look the part. It wasn’t as if they all walked around wearing signs that said, “I’m Evil,” or “Will Kill for Food” which was too bad—it would have been a lot more convenient if they had, and he wouldn’t have spent the last several days thinking sleep was something other people did. “Sit down, Ed,” he repeated. “I won’t ask again. The next time, my friend here”—he paused to nod at Darl—“will be doing the asking. Do you understand?”

“Listen,” the man said, “whatever you think…I mean, whoever you think I am…I think there’s been some sort of mistake. I’m sorry to say I believe you’re operating under a misapprehension.”

“Oh, one of us is most certainly operating under a misapprehension, Ed,” Rion said, “but it’s not me.” He nodded to the chair again. With a bewildered look that said all of this was some crazy mistake, the man moved toward it slowly, shooting glances at Darl and the spear he held. The clerk slid the chair out and sat gingerly as if scared the chair might burn him.

“Good,” Rion said. “That’s good. See?” he went on. “It’s better to do things my way, Ed. Healthier. Less painful too. My friend here,” he said, glancing at Darl, “well, he doesn’t have as much patience as I do.” Which was a complete and utter lie, of course. If somebody was wandering around on the face of the planet with more patience than the Ferinan, Rion had never met him and, as maddening as Darl’s unflappable calm often was, he was fairly certain he didn’t want to.

“What…what do you want from me?” the man said. “I’m just a clerk, I told you. I don’t have much money, but I’ll give it to you if—”

“Oh, I don’t want your money, Ed,” Rion interrupted. “I’ve got more than enough of my own.” Another lie, that, since his family business had largely produced nothing for the last few years and tracking down traitors within Valeria hadn’t left him much time to pursue his favorite way of supplementing that income—namely, gambling.

“Then…then what?”

“Oh, that’s a bit…complicated,” Rion said. “First, let’s start with you telling me why you followed Katherine.”

The clerk frowned as if confused. “I…I told her why. I didn’t, that is, I wasn’t trying to…I don’t know, do anything, like rob her or something. I just meant to offer her patronage.”

“You mean you intended for your boss to offer me patronage,” Katherine said from behind Rion. “Isn’t that what you said?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” the man said, nodding eagerly. “You can tell them—I just thought my boss would be interested. As I said, this has all been a big misunderstanding. Now, thankfully, it appears to be cleared up.” He started to rise, “Sorry for whatever inconvenience—”

“Sit down, Ed.” Rion growled in a voice that froze the man in his tracks. “The next time you move out of that chair without permission, you’re going to be missing a body part when you sit down again. Maybe a finger.” He shrugged. “Maybe a toe. We’ll let him decide,” he finished, glancing meaningfully at Darl who was projecting such an air of menace that, had he not known him as well as he did, would have made Rion more than a little nervous himself. Ed swallowed hard, licking his lips, and in a moment he was sitting again.

“Now then,” Rion went on, “we know why you told Katherine you wanted to speak to her. Now that that’s done, why don’t you tell us the real reason you came?”

The clerk frowned. “I…I don’t understand.”

Rion studied him. “Oh, but I think you do, Ed. I really do.” He leaned back in his chair, draping one of his arms over the back of it. “Tell me, Ed, are you familiar with all that’s been going on in the city?”

“The…Chosen Alesh taking over, do you mean?”

“Sure,” Rion said, nodding. “That’s part of it. What else?”

The clerk’s eyebrows drew up in confusion. “Do…do you mean the attack? I heard there was an attack but no one is sure where or…”

The man trailed off, and Rion felt a small relief. If he was telling the truth about that much, at least, then the secret tunnels were still a secret. Not that it mattered, he supposed, considering that the tunnels—such as they were—were now buried under the gods alone knew how many tons of dirt and stone. “Yes, there was an attack alright,” Rion said, watching the man carefully for any signs of recognition or understanding. “One that was, very nearly, victorious. A victory that would have likely meant the deaths of every man, woman, and child in Valeria. That includes, Ed, middle-aged, overweight clerks.”

The man chose—wisely, perhaps—not to take offense at being called overweight, and instead he frowned. “I had known there was an attack, but I had no idea it had been so bad.”

“Didn’t you?” Rion ventured, watching the man, but he still gave no reaction, and Rion had that feeling again, as if maybe they’d gotten the wrong man after all, never mind all the work they’d put in to finding him. But no, he was the right man, he had to be. He was a chameleon, that was all, able to hide in plain sight. Probably, he’d been doing it for all his life. “You see, Ed,” he went on, “there was a man who arrived in Valeria shortly before this attack happened. A man who carried vital news, news that, in the end, was instrumental in us being able to fight the attack off.” Not that Rion had faced any of the nightlings, of course. He’d been far too busy getting cut up by Sevrin, and even now he felt like his body was more wrapped in bandages than skin.

“Well…then that’s a good thing,” the clerk ventured uncertainly. “I mean…isn’t it?”

“Oh, it is, Ed,” Rion agreed, nodding affably. “It really is.” He frowned then, his expression growing serious as he leaned forward in his chair. “But you see, it was a near thing. The man had barely arrived in the city—wounded and practically dead, and the gods alone know how he survived—when someone tried to kill him. Not some random mugger on the street either. The poor guy ended up being hunted through the city like a dog with all of Valeria’s worst criminal element chasing after him.”

The clerk licked his lips again, apparently a nervous tic that showed itself when under stress. If that was the case, Rion thought he was just getting started.

“I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with me. I mean, I’m just a clerk. I’m glad, of course, that the man’s alright, that he delivered his message on time, but I didn’t attack anybody. Certainly, I’ve never killed anyone in my life.”

“But that’s not exactly true, is it, Ed?” Rion asked. “What about your…what do you call them? Oh, that’s right, experiments?”

A look of uncertainty flashed across the man’s face, followed by anger, but they were both gone in a moment, so quickly that Rion might have imagined them. A second later, the look of desperate fear was back on the man’s face, the expression of wide-eyed terror he’d been affecting since discovering Rion and Darl in Katherine’s room. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do,” Rion said. “And who can blame you? All these talented singers in the world, these talented musicians. Who can blame a man for wanting to know how they manage it? For wanting to discover where all that talent comes from?” He gave a soft laugh. “Myself, I can’t even hum a tune without screwing it up. I hear words like ‘melody’ and ‘on-key’ and I feel like a man listening to another language, one that he should understand but can’t. Sure would be nice if there was a way to know where all that skill came from, all that talent. Might even be nice to take some of it for myself, you know? If the talent won’t come to me, after all, maybe I can go to it, can snatch it out of the—”

“That’s not what it’s about!” the man exclaimed, the words bursting from him, and a moment later his eyes went wide in shock as if even he hadn’t known he was going to speak—shout, really—until he had.

Rion smiled slowly, sitting back in his chair once more. Well, that was one bit of information confirmed, one small step in the right direction, but they still had a ways to go yet.

“I mean,” the clerk went on, licking his lips again, his eyes roaming the three of them as if uncertain of where his gaze should land, “that is, I wouldn’t think—”

“Enough, Ed,” Rion said. “Why bother? We’ve both got other things to be doing. Myself, I’ve got to hunt down traitors in the city before that damned army comes back, spend my time pretending like a man doesn’t need sleep. And you…” He shrugged. “Well, we don’t finish this soon, you won’t be able to get your pick of cells in the dungeon, will you?”

The clerk was sweating now, his bald spot shining in the lantern light, slick with perspiration. He didn’t speak, perhaps reasoning that it would be better to say nothing than to incriminate himself any further, perhaps trying to devise some clever means of talking—or fighting—his way out of it. He certainly didn’t look like much of a fighter, so Rion leaned toward the former. Of course, looks could often be deceiving, and he was thankful, not for the first time, that Darl stood beside him, his spear still in his hands.

“Look, Ed,” Rion went on placatingly in a soft, reassuring voice, “truth is, I don’t care about your experiments, alright? At least, I pity those poor, talented souls who you deemed worthy of your attention, and I can only hope you’ve a just punishment waiting for you somewhere down the line for the cruel things you did to them. I hear tell some of them were barely even recognizable, somebody going at them, tearing out their lungs and throats and all, little better than a damned beast, if you ask me, one that needs to be put down.” He paused, grinning. “Fine, maybe I do care a little bit about your experiments, after all. But that’s not why you’re here.”

“I…I don’t know what you mean,” Ed went on, “but…why am I here, then?”

Still trying to figure the situation out, looking at it like it was a puzzle he could solve, one whose solution would be him walking out of the door and back out into the world. The man even glanced back at it, as if to motivate himself to reach his goal.

“You won’t be going out that way, Ed,” Rion said, speaking to the man’s thoughts. “At least, not walking on your own two feet. Now, as I said, I’m not concerned, presently at least, with those people you butchered in some insane attempt to discover…what, exactly?” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. What concerns me—what concerns you, if you’ve any intentions of breathing for a while longer—is the part you played in the attempts on that man’s life, the messenger I told you about, remember? And what connection you have to those others who hunted him through the streets.”

“I…I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he sputtered, his eyes wide, his lip trembling as if he might burst into tears at any moment. “I-I’m just a clerk, like I told you. I’d never—”

“We know, Ed,” Rion interrupted, causing the man to stumble to a blubbering halt. “We know. Do you think we would have gone through all this trouble, set Katherine up singing in the streets and wasted our entire day waiting on you to follow her, to get up the nerve to speak to her if we didn’t know for sure that you were the one behind it?”

“A m-mistake,” the clerk insisted, rubbing a hand across his watery eyes, “that’s all. S-somehow, th-there’s been a mistake.”

“The kind of people who told me about you, Ed? They don’t make mistakes. Bastards, sure, one and all. But in the world those bastards live in, mistakes mean death.”

But the clerk was shaking his head before Rion was finished. “I’m j-j-just a clerk—”

Rion reached into his tunic, withdrawing a stack full of letters and slamming them down on the table in front of the man who cut off abruptly. Eyeing the stack, Rion decided that perhaps the word, “letters” was a little extravagant. There were no seals on the folded pieces of parchment, no salutations or signatures in the text itself either, and most were lined with creases from where they had been folded over and over again, as if either the writer or—and this, Rion thought, was far more likely—the receiver, wished to ensure that they did not misinterpret the message. Messages which, without exception, contained a single name and a location as well as a number written out below them which, although it showed no denominational markings, Rion had concluded was no doubt the amount of reward being offered.

“W-what are these?” the clerk asked, sniffling loudly, snot running down his face before he wiped it away with the sleeve of his tunic.

“Don’t recognize them, Ed?” Rion asked. He shrugged. “Well, perhaps that’s understandable. After all, I suppose this is only a tiny fraction of the total number of notes you’ve written in your time, isn’t it? And some of these, as I understand it, are years old. How can a man like you, a man who does this sort of thing for a living, be expected to remember each letter or, for that matter, each name written within?” He grinned as if sharing some joke. “Just as soon expect a lumberjack to remember each tree he felled with an axe, and it’s location.”

“I don’t—” the clerk began, but Rion went on speaking, talking over him.

“But that’s not right either, is it?” he said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. “I mean, you’re not the lumberjack, are you?” He shook his head slowly. “No, you’re not the man holding the axe. You’re the man who tells that man where to swing, aren’t you? A foreman, maybe.” He paused as if to consider for a moment then nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s closer. A foreman. A man who gets paid to act as a sort of liaison between those wanting the cutting done, and those doing the cutting. A sort of go-between, one that is necessary—after all, those rich men willing to pay to get a tree chopped down don’t want to waste time meeting those doing the chopping every time they want it done, do they?”

The clerk continued to blubber that he was innocent, but Rion went on as if he couldn’t hear him. “No,” he said, “better to have a go-between, a man who can operate in the world of those poor lumberjacks—at least, if there’s ever been a rich one, I never heard of him—and those rich men with ease. A sort of…bridge. And what better bridge, what better occupation for such a man to have than a clerk, isn’t that right, Ed? After all, rich or poor, everyone needs a clerk sooner or later, don’t they? A man to loan them money or to document the collection of those loans. But that’s not the only benefit, is it?” He grinned, leaning forward and nodding as if impressed. “It’s clever, I have to admit. After all, that type of man, the type of man who would serve as a go-between, only not between wood-cutters and those who want the wood cut, but between killers and those who want a man dead bad enough to pay for it…well, that sort of fellow wouldn’t think it enough to be able to function in both their worlds. He’d also want to be in a position to stay beneath notice, to be invisible, wouldn’t he? And what better way than to be a clerk? After all, the people that come to see such a man aren’t wondering about him—far too busy thinking on their own problems to spend much time worrying about who he is or why he does what he does.”

He nodded. “The perfect disguise, hiding in plain sight, as it were.”

“You’ve got me all wro—” the clerk managed between his loud, snuffling weeping but Rion spoke over him.

“There’s really no point in denying it, Ed. You see, such a man might be near invisible, but he can be noticed, can’t he? Particularly, if he can’t resist the urge to start dissecting singers the way a malicious child might dig into the guts of an animal to see how it works or, perhaps, just because he enjoys causing pain. What we’ll do—what we’re doing even now—is compare the handwriting in these letters to samples of your own from your job. Shouldn’t be hard.” He paused, giving the man a wink. “After all, you’re a clerk, aren’t you?”

The man sat there for a second, that knowledge sinking in, and he bowed his head as if in defeat. But when he looked up, it wasn’t defeat or desperation in his gaze. An abrupt change had come over him, so quickly that it was all Rion could do not to recoil in his chair, and saw Darl shift at his side, preparing to attack if necessary. But the man, Ed, didn’t make any aggressive movements, didn’t appear to be interested in violence at all. Instead, he only looked at Rion with a smile on his face, one which, coupled with his eyes which had changed to something hard and calculating, something somehow almost reptilian, sent a shiver of involuntary fear down Rion’s spine.

“Is it so wrong,” the clerk said, not in the stumbling, weeping voice he’d used a moment before, but in a calm, relaxed tone that seemed to say that he was in charge here, despite all appearances, and had no concern about his own safety, “to seek greatness?” His smile widened. “You, in your ignorance, would deem my actions with those great talents of the world a crime, would call me a murderer. But I am a scientist, perhaps the world’s greatest scientist, for while others tip toe around in fear of those who would stop their quest for the truth or—and if you ask me, more likely—in fear of the truth itself, the one they might discover if they gave a genuine attempt, I do not. I seek the truth by any means necessary, and if that requires one or two talents to sacrifice their lives in the process, well then, that is a small price to pay in the pursuit of greatness.”

Rion was so shocked by the abrupt change in the man’s demeanor that he hesitated a moment before responding, but he took a slow breath, gathering himself and reminding himself also, that Darl stood only a few feet away with his spear leveled at the man’s face. “The pursuit of greatness, you call it,” he said. “One worthy of any sacrifice.”

The man nodded his head. “Just so.”

“I wonder if those who are forced to ‘sacrifice’ their lives for your experiments would agree.”

The man shrugged casually. “What difference whether they agree or not? My colleagues in the scientific community—such as they are—” he said with a sneer, “never stop to ask the rats they experiment on for permission, nor the other animals which give their lives in the quest for knowledge, for understanding.”

“Meaning you believe human lives of no more value than those of rats or beasts.”

“Do you claim otherwise?” the clerk asked, as if genuinely curious. “I am a clerk, as you say, and in my role I have seen the worst that humanity has to offer again and again. Men and women without enough to eat forced to pay interest they can’t afford to their creditors or else have what little they have taken from them at swordpoint by guards who claim to be doing justice.” He gave a small, soft laugh. “We spread across the face of the world like a plague, destroying animals and plants, anything that gets in our way as we seek—secretly or not—to sate our appetite for destruction and gain. We are cruel, ambitious, conniving creatures that care nothing for how our actions might hurt others except in so much that we might be blamed for them. No, even rats are not so evil as that.”

Rion wanted to argue with the man, but many of the points he made were similar to thoughts of his own. Far too similar, perhaps, to be coming out of the mouth of a man directly responsible for at least a dozen murders and instrumental in no fewer than a hundred more. Ed sat there watching him with a small smile on his face, as if he knew Rion’s thoughts, and that made him angry. “Rats do not sing,” he said. “They do not strum harps or lutes, bring nothing of beauty to the world.”

“No,” the clerk agreed, “they do not. And so I must, by necessity, perform my experiments with humankind.”

“But why?” Rion demanded. “To what purpose? If you love music as you seem to, why destroy those who create it?”

The man shook his head, sighing heavily. “You do not understand—and how can you? I do not seek to destroy that greatness. Far from it, in fact. I seek to preserve it, to discover how it is made so that I might make more, so that the world might be filled with it.”

“You’re a fool then,” Rion said flatly. “Only the gods can create life. Now, enough of this. I don’t care to hear anymore of your lunacy. I want to know the names of those who hired you to kill the man, Carlen, and the names of any of those who accepted the task.”

Ed laughed. “And you think that I would tell you?” he asked. “That it would be there, knowledge waiting only for the asking?”

“You can tell me now,” Rion said, “or you can suffer beforehand. To be honest, Ed, I think I’d rather you hold out a bit. Hurting you won’t do anything for those you have killed, those who have suffered because of you, but it might just make me feel a little better about it.” He shrugged. “Sometimes, a man has to take what he can get.”

Another laugh. “You’re wasting your time,” the man said. “No amount of begging or trickery, no amount of torture will make me tell you. There is no chance.”

It was Rion’s turn to grin then. “Chance, is it? I know something of chance, Ed. More than most, I’d wager.” He reached into his pocket with one hand, withdrawing a coin—Javen’s coin—and tossing it onto the table in front of him. The coin made a clinking sound as it struck the wood, spinning awkwardly, wobbling as if it might fall. But it did not fall. Instead, the coin came to rest, perfectly still, on one of its edges as if by some trick of magic. Which, Rion supposed, considering that it was a coin of a god, wasn’t far off the mark.

The clerk’s arrogant disposition faltered as he stared at the coin. “That…that’s impossible,” he breathed.

“Not impossible, Ed,” Rion said. “So very few things are, after all.” He reached to his belt, withdrawing a knife and setting it on the table beside the standing coin. “There is no chance of me making you tell me what I want to know, isn’t that what you said?” He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know much about music, Ed, not like you. Oh, I like it well enough, but I haven’t made a study of it. What I do know about, though, is chance, and there’s something you should know.” He leaned forward, eyeing the rattled clerk who had to force his gaze away from the coin. “There’s always a chance.”