undying legion 01 - unbound man (37 page)

Yeah,
Eilwen thought, glancing around her gloomy suite.
I’m going to save my Guild by sitting in the dark with my hands tied behind my back.

Somewhere in this very building, someone was moving their plans closer to completion.
Not “someone”. Laris.
Havilah seemed convinced that the Trademaster was behind Kieffe’s death, and Eilwen was prepared to accept the conjecture as a working theory. It made sense, as much any theory made sense. Certainly, the position of Trademaster had far greater scope for such undertakings than any of the other masters, and the woman’s reported dissatisfaction with Vorace’s leadership offered plausible motivation for what now looked to be an imminent coup. But there was no proof connecting Laris with anything, and the presence of Tahisi cannons in Qulah’s warehouse remained unexplained.
And Havilah was already after Laris before this even began. Maybe he’s seeing what he wants to see.

She hadn’t told Havilah about the brief conversation she’d had with Laris just before discovering Kieffe’s body. Something about the memory had made her want to keep it to herself, and as she left Havilah’s office she’d realised why. At its heart, Laris’s invitation had been a mirror image of Havilah’s the day she returned from Spyridon.

Each of them wanted to use her against the other.

Frowning, Eilwen retrieved the sparker from her desk and tried it again. This time the glow lasted barely a heartbeat before vanishing. When she pressed the nub once more, the answering wink of light was so faint as to be almost invisible.

Damn, and damn again.
The binding was spent. She had a taper somewhere among her possessions, but with no light to aid her, the search promised to be lengthy and irksome.

Or she could just go the Quill shop and get the sparker fixed. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do. And if while she was there she happened to find the fleshbinder who attended Dallin, well, that would be nothing more than a fortuitous coincidence.

The misty drizzle was breaking by the time she left the compound, though streaky dark-on-light clouds still scudded overhead, threatening further rainfall at any moment. Eilwen splashed through the shallower puddles, huddling in her coat against the unseasonal chill. The cool scent of rain hung over the city like perfume, muting the usual smells of food, fish, and animal dung. Wisps of fog drifted over the river, sliding beneath the bridges as though carried along by the current below.

The Quill shop occupied the entire ground floor of a low building several blocks back from the Tienette. Eilwen stomped her shoes on the thick rush mat just inside the door, blinking at the brightly-lit interior. On one side of the spacious room, a series of angled counters and shelves displayed a wide variety of items: chillers and sparkers; pots, bowls, and vases carrying a variety of bindings; garments that had been made softer, or tougher, or less permeable. On the other side, waist-high ropes marked a small queueing area, with tall partitions dividing the remainder of the space into booths. Groups of two or three sat around small tables within each booth, their conversations too soft to hear. A series of large tapestries, each showing the iconic ochre-on-charcoal feather of the Quill, filled the far wall.

Eilwen entered the vacant queueing area. The high counter at the end appeared to consist of three separate stations, but only one was occupied right now. A girl with improbably rouged cheeks looked up at Eilwen’s approach.

“Welcome, ma’am,” the girl said. Her auburn hair was cropped short in the Sarean style, but her words held no distinguishable accent. “How may we help you?”

“I have a sparker with a spent binding,” Eilwen said.

“Of course. Take a seat in the booth at the end, please. Someone will be with you soon.”

Eilwen made her way to the indicated booth. Aside from table and chairs, the stall was empty save for a printed page on the table listing the Quill’s services: everything from schooling to fleshbinding to earthworks. She glanced at it without interest, putting her sparker on the table and settling in to wait.

After a few minutes, a grey-haired woman bustled in, a bronze feather pinned above her breast. “Good morning, dearie,” she said, dropping into the chair across from Eilwen with a grunt. “Dead sparker, is it?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re sure you wouldn’t like a new one?”

“No, thank you.” The sparker was only a year old, and this was its first depletion. “A fresh binding will be fine.”

“Well, if you’re sure.” The woman lifted the sparker, her gaze turning cross-eyed as she frowned at the slender rod. “Let’s see…”

Eilwen always felt uncomfortable watching a sorcerer perform a binding. Mostly she was able to think of sorcerers as no different to anyone else: people who ate, slept, spent coin, and complained about the weather. But in moments like these the illusion faltered. To Eilwen, the world was dirt and sun and flesh; but a sorcerer saw beneath the world’s skin to that which lay beneath, a whole other world of spells and energies she could never hope to understand. To watch a sorcerer in communion with that world was to see someone looking past the veil of the mundane to something transcendent, and to know that she herself could never share that view.

Across the table, the woman licked her lips, her eyes fixed on the sparker as though on the face of a lover. Her jaw sagged open and her lips began to work, widening and relaxing in soundless speech. Eilwen stared, unable to help herself, drawn in by the rapture in the woman’s face.
What do you see as you reach below the surface of the world? What secrets do you hold that I can never know?

Why do the gods bless you with such gifts, and leave me with only scraps?

The woman stirred, lowering the sparker to the table and blinking up at Eilwen. “All done.” She thumbed the nub and a flare of light sparked from the tip. “That will be three sculundi and five.”

Eilwen counted the silver out of her purse and passed it across. The sorcerer glanced over the bars and bits, then smiled and relinquished the sparker.

“Thank you, my dear. Was there anything else?”

“Um,” Eilwen said. “Actually, yes. I was hoping to speak to a fleshbinder.”

“Of course, dearie.” The woman folded her hands with grandmotherly matter-of-factness. “We only treat minor complaints here, mind. For anything else, you’ll have to go to the schoolhouse. That includes unwanted pregnancies —”

“It’s nothing like that,” Eilwen said hastily. “It’s about an acquaintance of mine. He died a few days ago, and I was told a Quill fleshbinder was there at the end.”

The woman’s brow creased. “I’m sure everything possible was done for your friend, my dear. We’re often summoned too late to make any difference —”

“Yes,” Eilwen said with forced patience. “I know. I’m not looking to place blame. I just want to hear how he died.”

“Oh.” The woman frowned. “Well. What was your friend’s name?”

“Dallin Nourt. And he was only an acquaintance,” Eilwen said. “I’m told a perfumer’s boy found him near the river.”

“Oh, yes. The Kharjik lad. They brought the dying man here, if you can believe it. Not that it made any difference. By the time they arrived, he was already dead.” She scratched her ear. “Dallin, did you call him? I never did catch his name.”

“I heard he was coughing up blood,” Eilwen said. “Could you tell me how he died?”

The sorcerer chuckled. “A knife in the guts, dearie. It’ll do you every time. Well, most times, anyway.”

“Oh,” Eilwen said.
A knife. How very… mundane.
“Right. I see.”

“Not the answer you were expecting, then?”

“I suppose not,” Eilwen said. What had she been expecting, anyway? “I guess I thought… that is to say, I wondered if there might have been an element of…”

“Of what? Sorcery?” The woman regarded Eilwen with amusement. “Not this one, my dear. Though there’s no telling who held the blade.”

“I suppose so.”

The sorcerer sighed. “I’m sorry, dearie. I shouldn’t make light. If you want to know what happened to your friend, best ask the garrison. Half of them couldn’t find their arse with both hands, but the boys in charge occasionally show some wit.”

“I wish I could,” Eilwen said. A visit to the Quill shop was at least marginally within the bounds Havilah had placed on her. Poking around the garrison house was out of the question, at least for now. “It’s not that simple,” she concluded lamely.

“It never is,” the woman said. “Well. I’m sorry for your loss.” She considered Eilwen a moment, then leaned in, lowering her voice. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but next time you’re wondering about sorcerers killing people, don’t worry yourself over knives and the like. Look to the nose.”

Eilwen looked up. “What do you mean?”

“If a fleshbinder wanted to kill someone, gods forbid, they’d do it nice and quiet. No marks, no evidence. Just a spot of blood in the nose. Nothing more.”

Eilwen’s heart began to pound. “I thought blood on the nose meant poison. Bluespine, that sort of thing.”

The woman shrugged. “I wouldn’t know about that, dearie. Blood in the nose could mean a hundred different things, I suppose. But sorcery’s one of them.”

“Can you tell the difference? Between someone who’s been poisoned and someone who’s been killed by sorcery?”

“Me? Gods, no.” The woman laughed. “I’m not even a fleshbinder. I just rebind sparkers and chillers and the like. There are some who can, though. If not here, then at the schoolhouse.”

“Thank you.” Eilwen leapt to her feet. “Really, thank you. I’ll be back.”

•

She hurried through the streets as fast as her leg would allow, pushing past other pedestrians, ignoring their shouted complaints. Fine rain had begun falling again, but Eilwen didn’t care. All that mattered was getting back to the compound and finding Kieffe’s body.

It’s Caralange. It has to be. No wonder he was so reluctant to examine the body.
She rounded the corner to Traders’ Row, skidding on a stone as the thoughts tumbled through her head.
Did he really get one of his people to do the examination, or did he do it himself?
The gate to the Woodtraders compound stood open and Eilwen darted through, dodging an unhitched cart just inside and narrowly missing a youth with an armful of cloth-wrapped bales. At the entrance to the main building she slowed, picking her way up the rain-slick steps and into the entrance hall.

The stairs to the cellar were located in the corners of the building, away from the main staircase. Eilwen strode down the corridor, her breath shortening as her lungs began to catch up with her exertions. Water dripped from her face and slid down the back of her neck. She paused at the top of the cellar stairs, hastily shedding her coat and blotting her forehead with her sleeve. It would have to do. Her hair probably looked like a drowned dog’s, but so did everyone’s today.

Bundling her coat under her arm, Eilwen descended the stairs, her wild energy fading. Her bad leg trembled as she set her weight on it, and she grimaced at a shooting twinge in her knee. She’d be paying for that dash through the city for the next couple of days. But that wasn’t important now. What mattered was finding Kieffe’s body.

And when I do, then what? How am I planning to get it to the Quill?
She cursed, pausing at the base of the stairs. Even if she’d been strong enough to haul a corpse out of the building and onto a cart, it would be impossible for her to move it without half the Guild knowing about it.
Brilliant, Eilwen. Just brilliant. Havilah would be proud.

Perhaps once she’d located the body, she could think of a way to get a Quill sorcerer in. Or perhaps she could tell Havilah, and the two of them could come up with something.

I should take this to him. Turn around, walk up those stairs, and tell Havilah what the Quill told me.
She’d let herself get carried away, just like she always seemed to do, but this time she’d caught herself in time. She’d done nothing to attract attention but run through the rain, and surely not even the most paranoid conspirator could interpret that as a threat.

With a sigh, Eilwen lifted her foot to the first step. A fresh bolt of pain lanced through her knee, and she gasped, rocking back onto her good leg.
All right. Maybe I’ll just wait a moment before trying the stairs.
She turned, leaning heavily against the wall. The corridor opened to the cellar just past a corner up ahead. Lamplight spilt from the unseen room, painting the near wall a dirty yellow.
Well,
she thought, relinquishing the wall and balancing unsteadily on her sore leg.
Since I’m down here anyway…

The cellar was a single, wide hall as long as the building above. Bare stone columns marked the central aisle that connected the stairs at either end. Eilwen limped down the colonnade, past sacks of meal, pots of pickled vegetables, barrels packed with salted meat, rows of wineskins, and the hundred and one other supplies and provisions that kept the Guild functioning. Old iron lamps hugged the pillars’ unadorned cornices, filling the cool air with the smell of cheap fish oil.

A recess at the midway point of the hall marked the opening to a further alcove. Its rusted iron-grille door stood open, sagging slightly on its heavy hinges. Eilwen paused at the threshold, glancing inside for any sign of life. Four great boxes of fired clay stood in a row across the back wall, each one large enough to hold a horse: the Guild’s chill-chests.

“Hello?” she called. “Is anyone here?”

The clatter of a crate lid on stone answered, followed by a peevish curse. A long-limbed man emerged from the side of the alcove, rubbing his elbow with a gloved hand. “Huh. What do you want?”

“Hi,” Eilwen said, reaching for the man’s name but coming up empty.
Damn it.
“Um. How are you?”

“Dry,” the man said, peering at her over an ugly bristle-brush moustache. “What are you here for? If you’re after wool stuffing for your bed, I’ll tell you now, it’ll be next week at the earliest. Make do until then, or go out and buy your own.”