The Inquisitives [2] Night of Long Shadows (20 page)

“In reply to your question, I’m picking up my assistant.” He turned back to the window just as the curtains were yanked aside, revealing a dwarf woman in her sleeping clothes. She saw Wren and screamed. Wren let out a frightened shout of his own and grabbed the controls.

“Sorry,” he called. “Wrong window.”

He nudged the skycoach up to the next floor. He leaned back in his seat and counted the floors in the building. “This
must
be it.”

He tapped again. After a moment the curtain moved slightly and an eye peered out. When the owner of the eye saw Wren standing there grinning, he leaned forward and pushed the window open.

“Torin, my friend,” said Wren.

“What are you doing, Wren?” whispered the dwarf.

Cutter leaned forward. He recognized this dwarf from somewhere. Where was it?

Of course. Back at the university. This was the dwarf who had barged into the professor’s room. The one he punched as he escaped.

“What am I doing?” said Wren. “The night is still young, and we have investigating to attend to. The game’s afoot!” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “And it’s also gotten complicated.” He jerked his head in the direction of Cutter.

The dwarf straightened up and peered over Wren’s shoulder, stared at Cutter for a second, then turned his attention back to Wren.

“Wren,” he said calmly, “is that man sitting in the back of your skycoach the same man we had arrested last night?”

“Stolen
skycoach,” Wren corrected. “And yes, it is. We broke him out of jail!”

Torin stared hard at the half-elf, then leaned back and pulled the window closed. “Good night, Wren.”

“Wait!” Wren grabbed hold of the window. “Things have changed, Torin. Cutter here isn’t responsible for the professor’s death.”

“Oh? Then who was?”

“A warforged,” said Wren, in the manner of one imparting a great secret.

“Oh, really? And did he tell you that?” Torin nodded in Cutter’s direction.

“Maybe,” said Wren defensively.

“The man accused of killing the professor, the man I saw standing over the body covered in
blood
holding
knives
, tells you it wasn’t him, but some unknown warforged?
Right.”

“No, really. New evidence has come to light. We’re going to the place his woman hid the dreamlily, to see if she left any more evidence.”

“And then?”

“And then Cutter here wants to track down those responsible for her death and do nasty things to them. I’m hoping we can find out the identity of the warforged before he does so.”

Torin sighed. “This is a dangerous game, Wren.”

“I know,” said Wren quietly. “That’s why I want you watching my back.”

Torin thought about it for a while. They heard a commotion down below. Cutter glanced over the side and saw the dwarf woman from the window standing in the street with a few other dwarves, pointing at them.

“Can we move this along?” Wren asked.

“Don’t rush me,” snapped Torin.

Cutter scowled and sat back. All he wanted to do was throw the half-elf over the side and take the skycoach himself, but he hadn’t told Cutter the whereabouts of Rowen’s body.

“Very well,” said Torin. “I’ll come. But why didn’t you call me when you were planning his breakout?”

“You have a family, Torin. I don’t involve you in things like that.” His face darkened. “Besides, I probably saved your life.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you later. Hurry. Get dressed.”

“Torin?” called a sleepy voice from inside. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he called. “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve woken her up.”

To Cutter’s amazement, the half-elf actually looked panicked.

“Hurry!” he whispered. “Get your things.”

Torin ducked back inside. Wren smiled weakly at Cutter.
“His wife,” he explained. “Apparently, she doesn’t like me.”

“I wonder why?” said Cutter.

Torin popped his head out the window. “I’ll meet you at the bottom.”

“Can you just hop out the window? It’ll be quicker all round.”

The dwarf looked as though he was about to protest, then thought better of it and grabbed hold of the window frame. He pulled himself up.

“Torin, what are you doing?” called the voice from inside.

“Nothing, dear. I’ll see you later.”

“Is that Wren out there?”

“Hurry!” whispered Wren. But when Torin still did not move fast enough, he grabbed hold of the dwarf’s arms and yanked him into the skycoach. He fell into the seat in front of Cutter and Wren grabbed hold of the controls, lifting them sharply into the air and scraping the building on the way up.

Cutter had seen a lot of dead bodies over the years. Host, he’d been the cause of a lot of them. But he’d never had to look at one he had any kind of emotional connection with. He’d always been able to separate himself from what he saw.

That wasn’t possible this time.

He stood before the open doorway of the half-collapsed house. The hallway stretched before him, a long path into darkness.

“It’s the last door on the right,” said Wren quietly.

Cutter stepped into the house. The old floorboards creaked beneath his feet. Had she heard something similar? Had she been prepared for an attack, or was she surprised?

He passed a door that opened into a large living room. A
stone fireplace took up half the wall. He wondered who had lived here before. It was the kind of home he always wished for as a child, big and rambling, with places to hide and play. He could almost see them gathered around the fire on cold winter nights.

Cutter hoped they had been happy. He wouldn’t want Rowen to die in a place surrounded by the ghosts of an unhappy past. It was a strange thought. People lived their lives in a house, never imagining what would happen after they had gone. That wasn’t the way people thought. At the most, imagination might turn to events from the past. If people knew something had once happened in a particular room, their senses might reach out and trick them with a half-glimpsed ghost. But who was to say all such ghosts were from the past? Why could ghosts not be from some terrible deed committed in the future?

Cutter blinked, aware that his thoughts were running away from him, stalling him from doing what had to be done. He turned away from the room and walked slowly to the last room in the hallway, his stomach writhing like a pit of angry snakes.

He took a deep breath.

And stepped into the room.

He knew where to look straight away, as if he could sense her presence. He could see her familiar shape beneath the old sheet. Her pose brought back a memory, a languid night in summer. Cutter walking into their room to find her lying in the bed, a single white sheet the only thing covering her body.

Cutter almost smiled, the reaction triggered by the memory. He choked it back and walked slowly forward.

Some of Rowen’s hair stuck out from beneath the sheet, and his eyes were drawn to the dark strands as he approached. He squatted down next to her, close enough to touch, but all he did
was stare at the gentle curls lying against the pitted floorboards. Cutter reached out and gently touched them, no more than a graze of his fingertips against her hair.

He sat like this for a while, then he wrenched his gaze away and forced himself to look at her. What he had initially thought were black patterns on the sheet was actually blood that had seeped from her many wounds.

There wasn’t much of the sheet left untouched.

Something strange happened to him. Even though he knew it was impossible, even though he knew nobody could survive the amount of blood loss he could see, he found himself thinking that maybe she wasn’t dead. Maybe she was just hurt. Maybe, if he just waited long enough, she would wake up. He stared unblinking at her chest, searching for the tiniest hint of movement, the merest ghost of a breath. Something—anything—that would back up his futile hope.

It was some time before he realized it wouldn’t happen.

He reached up and gently pulled the sheet down. A thick red line ran across the fabric where it touched her neck.

He carefully folded it over and rested it over the wound.

He was surprised to see her face was untouched. A few drops of blood on her right cheek were the only hints of what she had gone through.

He wiped them away. The look on her face was one he knew well. When they fought and went to bed angry, she slept with this look on her face, as if she were arguing in her sleep. That was what she looked like. Like she was somewhere on the other side arguing with ghosts.

He smiled at the image this conjured in his head. His Rowen.

His poor Rowen.

He emerged from the dark corridor of the broken house carrying her body. He had wrapped it in the sheet, making sure all her features were covered.

Wren and Torin straightened up when he approached. Cutter ignored them and placed Rowen carefully in the back seat. Only then did he turn to the others.

“She discovered that her ancestors once built a small mausoleum at Dragon Crypts in the City of the Dead. It’s where she wanted to be laid to rest. That’s where you’ll find the dreamlily.”

Atop the cliffs overlooking the north and east sides of Sharn, the City of the Dead lurked like a vulture waiting for its prey to die. It was a ghost town made up of empty streets and ivy-covered shrines, of crumbling mausoleums and weed-choked pathways. It was a constant reminder to those who happened to glance upward that death was always watching. Always waiting.

Cutter found it peaceful.

He remembered the first time Rowen had brought him here to show him the family crypt. He’d been puzzled at first, wondering why she was so excited about it, but after a while he realized that it gave her a sense of belonging, a sense of worth. She liked the idea that the family name had once meant enough to someone to build a resting place for future generations.

Cutter found that point a bit morbid, but he understood. It removed that tiny vestige of guilt she felt at what she did, that remnant of shame she couldn’t quite shake no matter how often she said it was her choice. It proved to her that she wasn’t just a
courtesan. She had a name. She had a history.

Now, as before, they had to walk to get to the City of the Dead. It existed outside the manifest zone with Syrania, so that the spells that allowed the skycoaches to fly so effortlessly, that held the buildings up to their impossible heights, failed to work here. He hadn’t minded the walk before. He’d been walking in the company of someone he loved.

Now he carried her body.

“I’m just saying it’s a long walk,” snapped Wren.

“And I’m saying you need more exercise,” said Torin. “You’re lazy.”

“Lazy? How dare you! I’m fitter than you are.”

Cutter, walking ahead of them, heard the dwarf snort. “Of
course
you are, Wren. You just keep telling yourself that and maybe you’ll eventually believe it.”

Cutter heard a
thwack
, like someone hitting cloth. He paused and turned. Wren was standing in front of Torin, smacking himself in the stomach.

“Come. Give me your best shot.”