Luck in the Shadows - Chapter Thirty-One and Thirty-Two.

[kalinara]

So last time, Seregil, Alec and Micum did some investigating! It was quite exciting. And the investigation is not over yet!



So we rejoin our heroes as they're heading out of the city. There's a slightly odd bit where Alec thinks, "resignedly" about how this is just like old times. Everyone knows the way but him. I'm not completely sure what he means by that. Though to be fair, he's been treated much more as an equal partner since Seregil's arrest, so maybe he feels like they've backslid a bit?

Either way, I do feel like they could have taken a moment to tell the kid how they're getting to where they're going.

They're actually going to the keep of Lady Kassarie. She was mentioned last chapter as being a noblewoman with a very old, very human family lineage. Unfortunately, it's locked pretty tight at the moment and it's a bit too late at night to start "trickling [their] way in." They'll have to spend the night outside.

We shift scenes to Nysander, who is playing Lord Barien a visit. Apparently Barien is usually one to stay up late, so Nysander is surprised to see the gate locked. The watchman claims he's in bed already, and has left instructions not to be disturbed by anyone but the Queen.

Nysander wishes him well and leaves, but only so far as to a nearby fountain, where he casts a "sighting" to spy on the guy. Barien is in bed, listlessly reading some bardic poetry that Nysander had given him once upon a time. I wonder if they used to bang. We've only heard of Nysander sleeping with women, but Skala is a city of bisexuals.

He gets a peek at the line of the poem he's focused on:

“Break, Noble Heart. Dissolve to ashes if thy Honor impugnéd be,” Nysander quoted silently, recognizing a line. A swift, tactful brush across the surface of Barien’s mind revealed a deep, weary melancholy, nothing more.

Now, Nysander COULD just teleport inside, but he decides against intruding on the guy's privacy. They can talk tomorrow.

We rejoin the others. It's dawn, and Nysander's sent a message saying to learn what they can, but return as soon as possible. He sounds distressed. Hm. Something must have happened in the meantime?

Apparently they have a few plans for getting in. The first involves Alec playing workman and claiming to have a message for Lord Teukros. But the gatekeeper tells him that the guy isn't here. Alec protests, playing the role of servant who's ridden a very long way, but it's a discreet coin that gets the gatekeeper's cooperation. He asks if Alec would like to speak with the lady.

We get some nice description of the decor here:

The furnishings of the vaulted hall were costly and in excellent condition. Silver urns and bowls gleamed on the mantelpiece without a hint of tarnish, and the rushes strewn over the floor were crisp and fragrant.

Splendid old tapestries covered the stone walls and these, too, had been lovingly maintained. Alec turned slowly, admiring as he always did the Skalans’ taste for fantastic landscapes and creatures. One in particular caught his eye; it was designed to look like a window casement, out of which one could see a pride of griffins prowling an orchard against a mountainous backdrop. The piece was over twenty feet wide and bordered with elaborate designs. Scanning it with admiration, Alec was surprised to find one discordant element embroidered in the lower right-hand corner, the stylized figure of a curled lizard. Looking around, he saw that many of the other hangings had some sort of device in one corner, like a maker’s mark—a rose, a crown, an eagle, a tiny unicorn, the curled lizard—a number of the larger ones had several marks together in a row. He was just bending down to study these more closely when he sensed movement behind him and turned, steeling himself to face the old manservant’s renewed disapproval.

Actually, creepily, there's no one behind him at all.

Anyway, the lady Kassarie emerges. We're told that she's over forty, with a broad, stern face and manner. She is initially impatient, but appears concerned when told that Lady Althia believed Lord Teukros would be visiting last night. She offers to write Alec a letter to his master, "Lord Verik" (a business associate of Teukros.)

Meanwhile, Alec is taken to the kitchen where his attempt to commiserate with a younger servant is met with hostility. However, he has better luck with a young servant girl named Stamie. She's intrigued by his country accent and the fact that he came from Rhiminee, leaving poor Alec to scramble for a backstory. He goes short and sweet: Master Verik knew his father.

It seems to work, probably helped by the fact that Alec's a good looking boy, and Stamie is wearing a country charm meant to attract a lover. Through her complaints, he hears that Lady Kassarie has guests. One of whom, a servant of a Lord Galwain, is quite handsy.

Alec is soon given his letter and sent off. He meets up with the others to confab. Alec thinks her surprise and worry seemed genuine, and they check the letter: there's no sign of a code. Alec does mention other guests, including Lord Galwain.

Alec relays his impression of the household and they note that Stamie could be a way in. But, Seregil points out, it's only a guess that the papers are here at all. There's no sign of Teukros or his horse. Maybe he'd told his wife to lie to cover his tracks.

So they make plans to leave. Alec's unhappy about it though.

The chapter ends here. It's a short one, so I'll move on to the next one.

--

So we start to see why Nysander was upset. As our heroes reach the city, they can see that the guard's doubled. And they soon learn why: Lord Barien is dead. The towns folk are all upset, but no one has any real information. They head on to Nysander.

Oh, no wonder he's upset:

Nysander walked across to his desk and sat down, hands folded on its stained surface. “It appears to have been suicide.”

“Appears?” Seregil sensed some strong emotion behind his friend’s carefully controlled manner, but could not guess what it might be.

“He was found lying peacefully in his bed with his wrists cut,” Nysander continued. “The blood had soaked down into the mattress. Nothing appeared amiss until the bedclothes were thrown back.”

“Did you talk to him last night?” asked Alec.

Nysander shook his head bitterly. “No. He had gone to bed before I arrived. It was so late and there seemed to be no danger of him bolting. I actually—”

Breaking off, he handed Micum a parchment. “I suppose he was composing this when I looked in on him. Read it out, if you would.”

Oof. It's a suicide note.

Nysander is distraught. Seregil is upset, noting that there aren't any details, names or specifics. He points out that while Idrilain is aware of the investigations, she might decide to wonder why he died immediately after Nysander started looking into him.

Micum wonders if it's not a forgery. Alec points out that Teukros could have gone to Barien instead, and maybe done it.

Per Nysander, there's no sign of magic or violence though. He finds it plausible that Barien believed his nephew betrayed the family honor and did away with him himself. Meanwhile, Princess Phoria is in deep morning.

There was a search of Teukros's villa at least: showing forged seals: Seregil's, Lord Vardarus, and two other members of minor nobility.

This bit I rather like:

“And just where was all this damning evidence found?” asked Seregil, coming to a momentary halt by the desk.

“An interesting point, that,” Nysander said with a mirthless smile. “Everything had been concealed beneath the floorboards of Teukros’ bedchamber.”

“The floorboards,” Seregil exclaimed in disgust. “Bilairy’s Codpiece, even a green thief knows better than that. You might as well nail it to the front door! This snarl of events just isn’t making sense. Barien certainly had access to the royal seal, but to have handed it over to such a dolt as that? It’s absurd.”

Alec ends up hitting on something interesting though: they'd followed servants. In fact, the male servant had seemed to know where to go and offered to take the documents himself. And the servants are all in custody.

So they go to visit. Nysander and "Thero" (really Seregil) go to question the prisoners, while Micum and Alec are off to see "Seregil" (really Thero). Per the Warden, Prison's been rough on him. He went from being a gracious gentleman the first day, to being sour and closed-mouthed, and rather uncivil.

Heh. I am fond of Thero.

A pale face appeared at the bars and Alec experienced a familiar sense of incongruity. The features and voice were Seregil’s; the expressions and intonation were not. The overall effect was reminiscent of Seregil’s Aren Windover persona.

It's good timing really, Seregil's now officially released from prison. And we can see Thero's diplomacy at work:

“I can’t tell you how happy I am, sir,” the warder said as Thero stepped blinking into the relative brightness of the corridor. “It would’ve been damned hard to give you over to the inquisitors, like they was talking at first. Damned hard, sir.”

“Harder for me than you, I’m sure,” Thero snapped, striding off without a backward glance.

Cocking an eye at Alec, the warder spread his hands. “You see what I mean, sir?”

Micum scolds Thero, saying he could have handled that more smoothly since he's acting as Seregil. Thero glares back, noting that after two days of rats and platitudes, he doubts Seregil would have been a good deal more gracious.

Thero might be right or wrong (Seregil does have his own bitchy side, after all), but I like how he stands up for himself. Besides, Micum's great, but he's not the one who was sitting in a cell for/as Seregil.

He does actually make an attempt at Seregil's easy charm when greeting the manservant, Runcer at the manor, though Alec catches a cryptic frown on Runcer's face which is interesting indeed.

Anyway, Seregil and Nysander return from the tower, and the two sort-of-brothers meet!

Face-to-face for the first time since the exchange of bodies, Seregil and Thero inspected each other in silence.

Seregil slowly circled his counterpart, amazed by the sight of his own familiar face settled into Thero’s guarded expression.

“Say something,” he prompted at last. “I want to hear what I sound like with someone else doing the talking.”

“This throat’s been doing a great deal less talking since you’ve been gone,” Thero retorted. “I suppose I’ll be quite hoarse when I get my body back from you.”

Seregil turned to Alec. “You were right. The timbre of the voice is the same, but the speech patterns make all the difference. What an interesting phenomenon!”

“But one which we have no time to explore,” Nysander interjected. “You must both be restored to your proper forms.”

So they get zapped back, both having some motion sickness. And Thero's not particularly happy about the wrenched knee. We get another pretty good exchange:

Flexing his long fingers, he rubbed his hands over his smooth cheeks and hair. “By the Four, it’s good to get back into my true form! And I’ve had a bath and clean clothes, too. I’m in your debt, Thero. I just hope you didn’t enjoy the soaping up too much.”

“You’ve little enough to be vain of,” Thero shot back tartly, returning to his supper.

Still grinning, Seregil tugged at the lacings of his shirt. “I don’t know why you have to wear everything so tight, though—”

Alec's the only one who notices Seregil cut himself off there. Meanwhile, Micum asks after the servants: they weren't there. They got information from the OTHER servants though. The man (Marsin) and the maid (Callia) had been lovers. Everyone assumed they ran off together.

Teukros's wife sadly has no interest or knowledge in her husband's business.

The next step is gloomy: they'll have to check the charnel houses of the city to see if anyone may have found murdered bodies. And apparently, as a traitor, Barien's corpse will be flayed, disemboweled, hung on Traitor's Hill, then cast into the pit. Egads.

Seregil and Nysander have a private conversation later, and we see why Seregil had frozen: his chest wound/mark has revealed itself again. They discuss his nightmare, and Seregil is understandably furious that Nysander isn't elaborating on what he obviously knows.

He ends up letting slip that he did his own investigations, which gets an interesting/scary reaction:

The words died on his lips. Nysander had gone ashen, his face a mask of anger. At his swift incantation, the room went dim and Seregil knew from past experience that Nysander had sealed the room against intrusions of any kind.

“By your honor as a Watcher, you will tell me everything,” Nysander ordered and the barely suppressed fury in his voice struck like a blow.

So Seregil does. Nysander has the nerve to be exasperated that Seregil did his own research.

Nysander had gone greyer still. Staggering to a chair, he sank his head in his hands. “By the Light,” he groaned, “I should have guessed. After all I said—”

“You told me nothing!” Seregil shot back, still angry in spite of his fear. “Even after I almost died, after Micum brought word of the massacre in the Fens village, you told us nothing!. What else was I to do?”

“You headstrong fool!” Nysander glared up at him. “I suppose you might have heeded my order. My warning! Tell me the rest. What did Orphyria say?”

“She couldn’t make anything of it, so she sent me down to the Oracle. During the ritual, he handled the drawing I’d made. He spoke of an eater of death.”

Nysander gets really intent at the last, and demands the exact words, which Seregil relates for him and us:

“He said ‘death,’ and repeated it. Then ‘Death, and life in death. The eater of death gives birth to monsters. Guard well the Guardian. Guard well the Vanguard and the Shaft.’ ”

Seregil admits that he thinks they're referring to specific people. And after a bit more, he discusses the father, brother, friend and lover part of the prophecy, which Nysander doesn't react to at all. He relays the last bit, when he was told to obey Nysander and burn the drawing. Which he did.

Nysander is relieved, and more relieved to know Seregil hasn't told anyone else. He makes his own promise:

“No, dear boy, I believe you.” A little color had returned to the old wizard’s cheeks. “Listen to me, I implore you. This is not a game. You have no idea the precipice you have danced along, and I am still bound not to tell you—No, no interruptions! I want no oaths from you now, but a promise made on your honor—on your love for me if nothing else—that you will be patient and allow me to proceed as I must. I swear the wizard’s oath to you, by my Hands, Heart, and Voice, there is no doubt now that I shall reveal everything to you one day. You have my word. Can you abide by that for now?”

“I will.” Still shaken, Seregil clasped Nysander’s cold hands between his own. “By my love, I will. Cover the damned thing up!”

So Nysander does. They go their separate ways, and we get maybe a hint of why exactly Nysander's being a dick about all this in the last part of the chapter:

“You’re the Guardian, aren’t you? Whatever that means—and I’m not asking—but it was you the Oracle meant, wasn’t it?”

To his great surprise, Nysander nodded. “Yes, I am the Guardian.”

“Thank you.” With a last thoughtful look, Seregil went out, unaware that his dearest friend had, for a fleeting instant, been his sworn executioner.

Well then.