Surrender to the Will of the Night (32 page)

Anna asked, “Can I go, now?”

“Certainly. Catch hold of that word and drag it along. That’ll keep any others from sliding in while the door is open. Once you close that, give the word a shove to put it in motion. It’ll drift around and rout out any more lurking things. Lurking! I love that word. It should last twenty minutes. The floating word should, that is.”

Anna followed instructions, refusing to be impressed or intimidated by the unexpected.

The door chunked shut.

“So what do we have?” Hecht asked.

Everyone stared at the flakes. Hecht downed some more coffee. Finally, Delari said, “Bronte Doneto has gone clever on us.”

Heris asked, “Why do you think it was him?”

“Because of the flakes. Any true Night thing would’ve left an egg. In this size, a bead. These were specially created from Night things, then trained by a sorcerer who had the inclination to spend a lot of time shaping them.”

“All that from a couple flakes?”

“All that. I’d guess they represent years of work.”

Heris asked, “How did you know?”

Februaren tapped the side of his nose. “Talent, sweetling. Talent. Take my word. Since you don’t have it yourself you’ll never really understand.”

“I understand when somebody is blowing smoke, though.” Heris was irked but only mildly so. Februaren had not been condescending. “Won’t their disappearance tell him you’re on to him?”

“He has half a brain. He should assume that anyway.”

“When he doesn’t know you’re still alive?”

“He’ll know that as soon as he gets the news from the show downstairs.”

Principaté Delari said, “I have no love for Bronte Doneto. But I have an almost boundless respect. He’s done an amazing job of crafting himself, almost entirely in secrecy. I still have no real idea what he was up to in the catacombs with the Witchfinders that time. You be careful of him, Piper. He must have figured out that you and Armand helped me escape.”

Februaren added, “Keep an eye out for rogue Witchfinders, too.”

“
Rogue
Witchfinders?”

“You’ve been around the Brotherhood of War most of the time since you arrived in Firaldia. Have you figured out what the Witchfinders were up to in the catacombs? Or in Sonsa, at the Ten Galleons?”

“No.” And he had tried to find out. Cautiously.

“Chances are, nobody knows anymore. Except maybe Bronte Doneto, the only survivor. Barring Lila or Vali knowing something they’ve never reported.”

“There’s nothing there.”

Heris said, “You could always ask the Patriarch himself.”

The others chuckled charitably.

The Ninth Unknown asked, “How soon till you go haring off after your impossible fantasy, Piper?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sure you won’t resist the blandishments of Alten Weinberg. I’m hoping you hold out awhile. So Muno can get you connected to the Construct.”

Hecht’s response was instant aversion.

Februaren revealed a lot of teeth. Those could have used more attention. “You aren’t in the Realm of Peace anymore, Piper. And it’s important.”

Delari observed, “The Realm of Peace turned its back on you.”

“You don’t have to do that. I get it. But I don’t like it. I don’t like being an exile, either. I’ll spend as much time with the Construct as I can.”

Heris remarked, “Note that he denied nothing about Alten Weinberg, nor the Empire, nor the two pullets running the farmyard there.”

Februaren said, “Oh, we noted.”

Hecht’s cheeks grew heated.

***

Breakfast at Anna Mozilla’s house. The Consent family visiting. Noë in the kitchen with Anna. Little Consents infesting the place like they were twice their actual number, playing some game where they fled from Pella and the girls, shrieking and running.

Hecht slumped in a comfortable chair, sipped a mint tea, and enjoyed the domestic chaos. Titus occupied a chair facing him. He had said nothing since they finished eating. He sipped from a showy Clearenzan glass filled with grape juice. He, too, was savoring the moment. Finally, reluctantly, he asked about Alten Weinberg. “Are we going?”

Hecht nodded. “I don’t know when. I visited the Penital. Told them we’ll take the job if the Empress still wants us.”

“Us?”

“She takes everybody. Or nobody. Has Prosek decided?”

“He waffles. He loves the stinks and bangs and won’t get to play with them if he follows the Brotherhood to the Holy Lands.”

“I don’t want to lose him. Or Kait Rhuk. By the way. There’s a new ambassador. Bayard va Still-Patter. Graf fon Wistrcz got called home. His wife did something to offend the Empress.”

“Bayard. Not so good. He didn’t like us taking over his place.”

“All is forgiven. If he hadn’t been made to suffer through that, Katrin wouldn’t have given him this plum assignment.”

“What’s holding you here?”

Hecht made a gesture to include their surroundings. “And Principaté Delari. That old man is a slave driver.”

“Having you do what?”

“He claims it’s education. I’m not allowed to talk about it.” And did not want to. Encounters with the Construct left him feeling inadequate, even retarded. Heris said she had felt the same in the beginning. He could accept that intellectually but never before had he had difficulty mastering any skill.

“All right. We’ll go when we go. I won’t need to look for work right away. But I do worry about Noë getting sick of having me underfoot.”

“I can empathize with that.” Hecht was uncomfortable. Titus no longer seemed able to conceive of life without his being part of Piper Hecht’s staff.

Consent said, “By the way, I’ve found where Krulik and Sneigon are relocating. Which isn’t anywhere near where I expected.” He took a folded sheet of paper from his sleeve, handed it over. Hecht opened it, smoothed it. On it was a painstakingly produced map of the upper Vieran Sea. A red circle lay in the wild mountains over on the Eastern Empire side. “Somewhere in there. I found it because Krulik and Sneigon are recruiting veterans to defend something. Some of my agents were approached. I had them sign up.”

“I presume you know more than this.”

“Of course. Hidden in rough country that’s mostly empty. Plague wiped out the population several hundred years ago.”

An odd and terrible time that had been. The plague hit hardest in the Eastern Empire just as the Praman Conquest reached its ferocious peak. Some believed that the vast movements of peoples at the time spread the disease. Within the Eastern Empire urban populations became so depleted that rural folk flooded in hoping to prosper. Many of them died as well. Vast tracts of country had gone back to nature. And remained wilderness even now, centuries later.

“Why just there?”

“Splendid isolation, yet a river wide and gentle enough for small barge traffic. Vast old forests to turn into charcoal. And nearby ore deposits. Not the best but still good. Especially if they use forced labor. There’s no government to interfere. Tribal leaders can be bribed or intimidated. Those wild people are why they hired soldiers. The ownership plans a huge, bloody demonstration first excuse they get. Construction has already begun. They want a huge operation that’ll make them filthy rich selling to everybody.”

“There are, indeed, fortunes to be made creating the tools for efficient organized murder. What about sulfur? For making firepowder. There aren’t any sulfur mines over there, are there?”

“That they have to import. Unless they make the firepowder somewhere else.”

“Which would make some sense.”

“I’ll keep on it. Yes. But you need to remember that we no longer have any legal standing.”

“I understand. But we’ll pretend. We’ll be our own law.”

“Also, some new intelligence sources have opened up. Because of that.”

“Oh?” Immediately curious.

“A lot of Brothen Devedians aren’t happy about what Krulik and Sneigon are doing. Ones who have seen what happens when Deves get blamed. People like refugees from Sonsa. They’re sure Krulik and Sneigon will bring down the wrath of the Chaldarean world on the Deve communities.”

“You never know.” Full of one of Anna’s finest breakfasts ever, Hecht wanted nothing more than to go back to bed.

“I know. The hammer will fall because Chaldareans will be terrified the Deves might arm themselves with fearsome weapons.”

“And they’d be right.”

“Probably. But I remind you, Deves never start the ruckus.”

“Titus! Of course they do. Just by refusing to acknowledge a few self-evident religious truths.”

“I’m now a devout convert, boss, but bullshit!”

Hecht laughed.

“I haven’t found anything useful about Ferris Renfrow or Pinkus Ghort. I don’t want to push, especially with Renfrow. I don’t want to alert him. His network is bigger, more sophisticated, and more deadly.”

“I get you, Titus. He worries me, too.”

“Thank you. With Ghort the problem is a lack of resources. I can’t send somebody to Grolsach. Assuming Ghort really is from there. The investigator wouldn’t survive.”

“Naturally. What about the catamite?”

“Not much there, either. He disappeared the day Boniface died. He may have fled to the Empire, in disguise. He might be living on the street. Somebody might have killed him. All three hypotheses have their advocates. Why are you concerned?”

“He lived with Principaté Delari. He heard things. The Principaté is worried that he might repeat them.”

For an instant Hecht wondered if Cloven Februaren might have dealt with Osa Stile. He would have to ask.

“I see.” Said in a tone suggesting that Titus knew he was not hearing the whole truth.

Heris rotated into being behind Titus’s chair. Her mouth burst open. This was a huge blunder on her part. She turned again, hastily.

Consent felt the air stir both times but Heris was gone before he looked back. “What the hell was that?”

“A ghost? Something. It was only there for half a second.”

“But …”

“If this was my place I’d make Anna move,” Hecht said. “Too many weird things happen in this neighborhood. Not to mention too much dangerous stuff, like people blowing up carts loaded with kegs of firepowder. Now what?”

Someone had begun pounding on the door.

Hecht headed that way.

Pella streaked past. And was totally disappointed when he found Heris at the door. Who told him, “My feelings are hurt just by being here with you, too, Pella. I need to see your father.”

By now everyone had come to see what was going on. Pella told Heris, “I thought it might be Kait Rhuk. He said he might come. … Uh-oh.”

Numerous pairs of eyes bored in. Hecht asked the question. “When did you see Kait Rhuk?” When no answer was forthcoming, “I distinctly recall telling you, more than once, not to leave the house.”

Heris reminded them of her presence. “I can provide a convincing demonstration, Piper. It’s one reason Grandfather sent me.” She produced a shiny brown mahogany dowel an inch in diameter and eighteen long. She found the center of the room, lifted the piece of wood overhead, closed her eyes, and began turning. And singing in a bad voice, words in something like Church Brothen. The mahogany dowel wiggled, wobbled, and writhed.

It vanished in an eye-searing scarlet flash. Two more flashes followed quickly, then one sharp little crack of thunder.

Hecht’s eyes adjusted. Three black silhouettes now decorated three different walls, each near a corner of the room. The shapes were knee-high, nearly as wide, vaguely humanoid but without necks, demonic by the standards of every present or formerly held religion of those in the room.

Something more tangible lay a step behind Hecht. Twenty pounds of already rotting, greenish meat, shedding ribbons of lime steam. Severed extremities, shiny and lizard-belly yellow, lay scattered around the odiferous mass.

Heris said, “Pella, this is what we’re dealing with. The least dangerous of it. When you go out unprotected, things like these go with you. Some could make you look like that green mess if their master ordered it. Like this.” She snapped her fingers. “Piper, you just witnessed a triumph of technical education over an absence of talent. The old people can make a monkey over into a deadly weapon.”

Hecht gave Pella a hard, promising look, but asked Heris, “Why are you here? And how did those things get into the house? I thought the Principaté charmed the entrances against the Night.”

“There are ways to ride somebody through the wards. If that somebody is in a hurry and doesn’t take precautions. Pella.”

Hecht said, “Pella, out there it just might be something a whole lot nastier. Something that could kill you before you knew it was there.”

Noë Consent said, “Titus, we have to talk. When we get home.”

That did not sound promising. Hecht said, “You haven’t told me why you’re here, Heris.”

“That was part of it. Clearing the vermin.”

“Please.”

“The same reason I always come here when you’re in town. I’m Grandfather’s messenger. This time, besides getting the bugs out of Anna’s house, he wants me to warn you that you’re about to hear from Serenity. He wants you to be careful. The other old man has gone away again. Though he did sow some confusion before he left.”

As she talked Heris turned slowly, pointing her stick at every corner and shadow. And at Titus, his wife, and all the children. She did not care who might be offended.

Following the path blazed by her surviving male ancestors.

“Nothing got away when I came in. Anna, let’s take a quick look around. There may be more. Pella. Stay away from that.”

Dazed, Anna left the room with Heris. The children and Consents had sense enough to stay put. Titus asked, “What was all that?”

“You saw everything I did.”

Timid Noë wrung her hands, gathered her brood, and looked to the men for a cue.

Hecht said, “Pella. Do I have to strap you to get you to leave things alone?”

“I just wanted to see.”

“And what would there be to see if you’d done as you were told? You let those things in when you came back. Boy, there can be real consequences …”

Fierce red light. A
crack!
that rattled the house. A roar of rage and agony. Anna squealed in terror in the kitchen.