Dead Letter (31 page)

“
I don’t see anyone,” replied the Guildmaster, sweeping the
vicinity with magical sight.

“
Not any
one.
Many
.
Look
harder; you will see your fear. Look into the darkness.” Kettna
felt a change in the weave, a subtle ripple of power from Agnus. A
moment later it was gone, drowned out by the immense distortions
from the Guildmaster.

The
inspector thought she was mistaken until from the shadows of the
warehouse appeared a mother with a babe in bleeding arms. The child
cried in terror and wailed in sorrow, spinning a rough twine that
contorted Kettna’s heart. The distraught mother handed the
bloodstained babe to the Guildmaster before collapsing at his feet
in a pool of her own blood. With tears in his eyes he cradled the
babe and touched the pale face of the dead mother.

Then
from the shadows came a farmer with a sickle, a smith with a
hammer, a butcher with a knife. More Calimskans followed. Every
trade from every guild came and dropped their tool at the
Guildmaster’s feet, burying the woman in the instruments of their
labour. They glared with disappointment and left in the dejected
silence.

“
Don’t leave!” he begged. “Please. I can make it
right.”

The
guilders didn’t return. Ruffians and brigands brandishing blades
and clubs replaced them.

“
Stay back!” warned the Guildmaster, shielding the baby.
“Leave him be.”

The
shadows swelled with glinting steel and malicious intent. The
villains of Calimska’s underbelly waited in a press of angered
murmurings, curses and sinister mirth.

The illusion was flawless. Agnus had burrowed into the
Guildmaster’s weakness, using his own mind and unmatched talent as
her weapon. He was an immovable fortress of power, so she sapped
beneath, raided his armoury and incited a riot of fear. Unlike
the
Gather
that
Kettna had used to liberate the singing ferryman’s joy of sailing,
Agnus slipped a
Dread Shroud
over the Guildmaster's head and noosed him to his
deepest fears.

“
Tear him down to the studs!” shouted Agnus, and the
Guildmaster was set upon by a mass of raging humanity.

Fooled
and fearful, the Guildmaster raised a sphere of luminous protection
that repelled the barrage of bricks and stones, lobbing them back
into the angry mob and reducing their number. Strongmen ran at him
swinging axes and guards charged with spears, while rogues crept
behind him with daggers for his back. The Guildmaster rained
magical fury upon all that advanced. Bolts of energy, ice and fire
struck out from his hands, knocking them dead, but still more came.
There was no way the Guildmaster would win unless he realised it
was an illusion.

While
the Guildmaster battled the mob, his spell on Rix faded. Kettna
caught her love in her arms and helped him find his
balance.

A bolt
of energy seared through an angry illusory fighter and shot past
Agnus, blowing a hole in the wall behind her. “We must escape
before the building collapses. Both of you are coming with
me.”

A
boulder of ice crushed into the angry mob and took out a section of
wall behind the laboratory. “No,” said Kettna. “Rix is coming with
me.” She grabbed her love’s hand and backed away from Bloody
Agnus.

“
This is your last chance, Rix.” Agnus offered her hand. “Your
debt or your life.”

Rix
stepped in front of Kettna. “I’ll go, but you must promise to let
Kettna walk.”

With her
love connection to Rix restored, Kettna’s pool of mana would be
too. Rix had taken the fall for her poaching. He was punished
because of her desperation to wield magic her mind comprehended,
but her innate talent refused to accomplish. She would not let Rix
take the fall again. Kettna plunged into the weave, ready to pull a
shield around them and run for cover.

Her mana pool was a shallow pond, not the sea of love she had
expected. Kettna bottomed out with a jolt that severed her
connection to the weave and lashed her naive faith in love’s
return. Rix leant close to kiss her goodbye. On his sweet lips she
read arcane whispers and joined them with her own. Their passion
combined with the forbidden
Cannibal
Kiss
and they swam in the weave, together
as equals, their mana combined, their understanding complete. When
their lips parted, they cast a shield around each other and walked
toward their future as one, hand in hand, hearts
entwined.

Their
fate darkened both hearts in shadow.

“
If I can’t have him, no one will!” screamed Agnus, throwing a
fistful of red powder over their shield of union. With their magic
annulled the shield descended, letting through the sharp blade of
Agnus’s promise. She stabbed Rix twice in the back and left him to
fall.

Bloody
Agnus walked free into the night while the Guildmaster fought on
against his relentless demons, wreaking havoc as his spells hurtled
through illusion and blasted the truth of reality. The warehouse
was being torn apart.

Kettna gave her remaining vial of
Beggar’s Respite
to Rix. He coughed
through blood stained lips. “I’m sorry. This didn’t turn out how we
wanted.”

Tears
streamed down Kettna’s cheeks. “No. It’s not over yet. I can get
you out of here. Don’t give up.”

Rix
laughed and brought on a painful red cough. “I love you, Kettna.
Nathis is waiting.”

“
You can’t go! Not again. What will I do?”

With
rasping breath he spoke his last words. “You must find the Dragon
Choir. Calimska sits on a hall of lies.”

Kettna
kissed her love’s still warm red lips and bid him go to his maker.
She tasted his blood and a rage of vengeance burned within her as
hot as the fires that licked the broken beams. She would not stop
until Rix’s death was avenged. The Guildmaster was not the hero she
had imagined him to be, but he had to live to protect the city. He
had to live so he could help her repay Bloody Agnus. There was no
way her limited talent would diffuse the illusion fed by the most
powerful sorcerer, and she couldn’t dodge the Guildmaster’s magical
attacks to get close enough to physically knock him into
reality.

That
day, Dean Fynze became her hero. For the first time in Kettna’s
education the teachings of her supervisor graced her mind with
opportune clarity.

We must appropriate function from all objects, no matter
their inherent use.

There
was a pool of magic within the glass of the laboratory.

The
Inspector entered the weave and used all her concentration to
isolate the magical threads that Glazier Thossam had dedicated to
her work, wrestling against the flux created by the Guildmaster’s
illusion. With every measure of mana she could gather, Kettna
focused her sorrow, her rage, and her desperation on the magically
touched pelican flasks and the finely crafted alembics. The
alchemical wares had already been partially damaged in the
Guildmaster’s battle, but Kettna fused her thought on every
fragment of magically charged glass. In a pinch of mental agility,
Kettna willed the threads of the Glazier Thossam’s magic to
compress and then let everything go. The weave sprung back and
exploded the glassware, igniting a volatile cocktail of alchemical
components and magical debris. The shockwave from the blast cracked
thunder to wake the gods and Kettna was thrown against a post where
darkness and exhaustion claimed her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Dragon
Choir

In the dark abyss of
her mind, at the deepest corner of logic, the farthest place from
the warmth of her heart’s love, Kettna chiseled a wildflower in
cold stone to mark her loss. At the sight of the delicate petals
complete, she wept. Her tears gave it life and the bloom touched
the darkness with a sweet memory of her time with Rix. There she
remained, carving wildflowers in the abyss, weeping upon each for
what felt like an eternity. For every flower that grew, warmth
touched the sorrowful cold. She carved a bloom for every dear
moment in every colour of joy and when she stood in a rainbow field
of wildflowers, the warmth of her memory raised her up and she
embraced her heart’s love again.

With Rix
carved in her memory, she could live again.

The
Inspector awoke in the loft of Mertin’s Alchemy and Sundries with
the blue silk-bound book of wildflowers cradled in her arms. Around
her bedside were those concerned for her welfare or her silence.
The priest, Herder Kleith, stood in the corner with his head bowed
in prayer. Such a first sight gave her pause, for she thought it
were Nathis himself, come to take her hand in death.

“
Where are my parents?” she asked him.

“
The Guildmaster thought it best not to worry them. I have
been blessed with skill in the healing arts. Your body is mended,
but I could not fathom your mind. I feared you were
adrift.”

“
How long have I been unconscious?”

“
Several days now,” said the Herder. “In a tonic trance of
sorts, to mend your mind. Master Mertin recommended it.”

The
alchemist approached Kettna with an extra pillow to help her sit
up. “If you came to after such a stretch of your talent, you’d have
lost your mind altogether. What were you thinking? Don’t they teach
novices the dangers of over extension anymore? Youngsters!” Mertin
poured a mug of steaming, stinking liquid and added a few drops
from a vial. “Now drink this. It’s hot and bitter, but you must
take the whole dose. I’ll not hear any complaints; if you don’t
like it, don’t dive headfirst in the weave. You’re a blind owl like
me; take measured steps.”

She
drank down the nasty brew and noticed Captain Malik standing guard.
“You? Here to poison me in my sleep?”

“
Captain Malik rescued you from the warehouse,” said Mertin.
“He pulled you from the blaze. You should be thankful.“

Kettna
doubted that. The blaze was the first thing he saved. “And the
Guildmaster? Is he alive?”

“
Of course I am,” came the voice of the Guildmaster as he
climbed the stairs. “Thanks to you, my dear Inspector. Master
Mertin informed me that this morning he would wake you from the
healing regime. So I made a special effort in my schedule to come.
How are you feeling?”

Fear
gripped her. Memories of the Guildmaster’s furious destructive
power returned. Images of his confrontation with Bloody Agnus
chilled her. Kettna struggled to look the Guildmaster in the eye,
knowing everything he had done and knowing that he was essential
for her revenge. “Where is the Constable?” she asked, hoping the
counter balance to the Guildmaster’s political power would be her
protection. All the men present had a link to her investigations.
What schemes turned around her? Were they collaborators or rivals?
How could she trust a single one?

“
The Constable is on his way,” assured the Guildmaster. “I
imagine he has been caught up in some other task for the moment.
Perhaps while I’m here, I can help you sort through what happened
that night. It must be a fog to you after these last few days,
swinging on a pendulum between death and madness. Much has
happened.”

There
was hope; for if the Guildmaster wanted her dead, she surely would
be already. He needed her for something. Was it to catch Bloody
Agnus? Did the Guildmaster’s revenge run deep for the damage she
had caused his operation or for the humiliating defeat he suffered
in their magical duel? Was injured pride all a man needed to
justify revenge or was a man of elite cultivation only driven by
power? Perhaps he needed her testimony for political
insurance.

“
It’s quite patchy,” lied Kettna. “I’m not sure what was real
and what was illusion.” Her memory was without fault or
fog.

“
I fear you are the last to hear the whole story, for all of
Calimska sings of your bravery. Captain Malik and his night
watchmen rescued you from the burning remains of a secret gang
stronghold. The one that you singlehandedly breached, killing the
remaining Black Hand Boys. The Constable had his men search the
remains of the gutted building and found evidence of the stolen
property you were commissioned to return. Earlier that night you
alerted the watch of the Jandan trader’s failed ambush and we can
only assume that you extracted the location of the clandestine
laboratory from a dying admission. Is that what you
remember?”

Kettna
shook her head and enjoyed the flicker of distress tug at the
corner of the Guildmaster’s tight mouth.

“
Perhaps your memory is altered by the medicines and your
scrape with death?”

“
No. I remember clearly not being by myself when I went to the
warehouse.”

“
That can’t be right. Captain Malik gave sworn testimony that
you alone were rescued from the fire.”

Kettna
relented. Her test proved there was no alternative to the story the
Guildmaster was feeding her. He had witnesses, records and now
public acceptance of his truth. “They did not survive. Of course, I
am speaking of my illusory companions as though they were flesh and
blood.”