The Inquisitives [4] The Darkwood Mask (32 page)

Ancient Arcana
Wir, the 11th of Sypheros, 998 YK

“N
o more secrets, Miss Otänsin,” Jotrem said as they waited outside the extravagant stables. “Tell me about this gauntlet you found.”

She turned and faced the older inquisitive. “Look, I’m taking you with me. I’m even leaving Aegis behind. I’m not going to explain this twice. Wait and see.”

Most visitors to the Tower of the Twelve were members of a dragonmarked house and therefore had their own in-house means of accessing the floating keep. Few residents of Korth had reason or need to ascend to the Tower, but House Vadalis—bearers of the Mark of Handling—maintained a small but profitable compound at the edge of Wollvern Park where infrequent petitioners could borrow their exotic beasts. Hyran’s writ and a handful of complimentary galifars had secured Soneste and Jotrem with two pegasi and two skilled riders.

The flying steeds were a mated pair, beautiful and intelligent animals that cheered Soneste the moment she looked at them. One was black, the other white and gray, with magnificent feathered wings that beat the air seconds after they mounted up.

The Tower of the Twelve was a pyramidal fortress of smoke-gray stone floating high above the tree-lined colonnade of the park. Magic coruscated silently along the underside of its massive base. Elemental airships landed or disembarked along the docking platforms that jutted from several of the thirteen tiers. It seemed a place far removed from the natural order of the world, and why shouldn’t it? The Tower housed the collective efforts of centuries of arcane study.

As they rose into the air she looked down at the Tower’s great shadow which shrouded the park. She gripped the Vadalis rider more tightly around the waist, and despite the cold, she enjoyed the purifying sensation of the wind through her hair. The last day had seen an excess of blood and some dizzying revelations—plausible criminals, a paradoxical priest, and a tinkering lizard. What did the next day hide?

Soneste’s black-coated pegasus landed on the Tower’s lowest dock as gently as a stag upon the forest floor.

“Thank you,” she said to the rider, dismounted, and waited for Jotrem to climb down from the gray-feathered mare.

Four guards met them with ready weapons and polite words. Resplendent in lavender tabards and shining chain shirts, the guards wore the chimera insignia of House Deneith and rune-carved helms. Soneste guessed them to be duskblades of the Defenders Guild, warriors who wedded martial skill with arcane magic.

She displayed her papers and the Civic Minister’s writ even as one of the men probed them with a spell of divination. Soneste hoped her association with House Tharashk would help.

“You will be granted admission,” one of the duskblades said after reading the documents in their entirety, “but only a minister of the Twelve can expedite your request. You will have to wait.”

“Thank you. That will be fine.” Soneste had expected this. “Please just remind your superiors of the time sensitivity of the matter.”

A pair of tall and aureate metal doors swung open at the guards’ command. Soneste hesitated, excited. Some of Khorvaire’s most impressive magical advances had been conceived within
this institution: the speaking stones of House Sivis, the lightning rail of House Orien, and even the warforged were allegedly first devised in the Cannith workshops. Soneste smiled, imagining the look on Thuranne’s face when she told her about her visit to the famous Tower. Few people without strong dragonmarked affiliation were allowed inside.

A cool wash of power flowed across her body as she stepped over the threshold. She guessed it to be a thorough analysis of all magical and psychic trappings on her person. She could sense even the Riedran crysteel of her dagger register under its scrutiny, no doubt observed by an unseen wizard. Could it read her mental talents?

After Jotrem had stepped through the threshold, two robed arcanist approached from within. “Excuse me, sir,” one of the young men said, “We need to speak with you alone.”

Soneste turned. “What’s wrong?”

Jotrem’s face flushed, but he didn’t look surprised. “It’s all right. This will only take a moment. I will join you within.” The older inquisitive steered the arcanist out of earshot, perhaps too hastily.

The other arcanist beckoned for Soneste to follow.

The prodigious hall served as both waiting room and museum gallery. It was furnished with elegant chairs and tables neatly arrayed with game pieces, while bookshelves and statue-adorned alcoves formed the wide perimeter. Large stone models of the Twelve Moons floated smoothly overhead along unseen currents. A handful of other visitors idled across the chamber.

Soneste studied a series of plaques upon one wall. One vaunted prestigious students, while another, smaller plaque displayed the names of blacklisted students—even the Twelve had its outcasts, she mused. She scrutinized the latter, comparing the list against her considerable roster of memorized names should any prove of use for the future.

She turned at the sound of approaching steps. Jotrem offered his customary frown, but there was something else in his eyes, a cunning she hadn’t noticed before.

“What was that about?” she asked. “What are you carrying that they found of interest?”

Jotrem lifted up his right hand, displaying the opal ring of the Order of Rekkenmark. “It was this,” he said without even looking back at her. “When I retired from active service, I paid for an enchantment to be placed upon it. The effect shields my body from certain spells often used against inquisitives in Karrnath, but the magic is technically … necromantic in nature. I suppose that makes it suspect, so I was questioned about it.”

“Ah.” Soneste settled herself in one of the richly upholstered chairs, staring into the orrery above. Necromancy? Magic involving the dead questioned in Karrnath, of all places? She didn’t buy it. Jotrem was lying to her.

As they waited, Soneste kept an eye on the older inquisitive. What did he have to hide? Her thoughts turned to Tallis. She had allied herself with a wanted criminal, risking far more than her investigation in doing so, and he was trusting her to keep her word.

Before Soneste had left Verdax’s shop, she’d demanded that he get some sleep. With Olladra’s favor, what she learned here would point her to the assassin’s lair. Tallis needed to be rested for whatever came next. She didn’t know yet if the next phase of the plan would involve the Justice Ministry or not. Either way, they had agreed to rendezvous in Wollvern Park.

“Miss Soneste Otänsin?”

A woman’s voice rolled across the hall, buoyed by some minor enchantment, stirring her from her thoughts. Jotrem had remained standing and approached the speaker without hesitation.

Soneste leapt to her feet and joined him at an open doorway at the far side of the hall where a woman only sleightly older than she waited. She wore a red and gold academician’s tunic and a pair of spectacles that enlarged her inquiring eyes. The crooked shape
of the Mark of Finding extended from the woman’s hairline and framed one eye.

“Miss Otänsin? I am Lady Erice d’Tharashk, savant wizard in service of the Committee of the Twelve. I have been asked to assist you in identification of a piece of evidence?”

Soneste introduced herself and Jotrem. Erice led them on a winding path through a network of corridors lit by the most elaborate cold fire lanterns Soneste had ever seen. A gray cat emerged from the shadows of a doorway and slinked purposefully behind them. A familiar, Soneste mused.

As they walked, Lady Erice spoke. “I admit, I was surprised your request had come to
my
house. Most identifications are brought straight to the Canniths for obvious reasons.”

Soneste had deliberately avoided inquiring with House Cannith. There was too much uncertainty surrounding the House of Making as far as she was concerned. She wanted a fresh perspective.

“My agency in Sharn has ties to House Tharashk,” Soneste replied with an innocent smile. Erice’s accent suggested she had not been raised in Karrnath. Soneste would use that. “My employer, Thuranne, is of the Velderan family of Tharashk. I thought some familiarity was in order.”

Soneste inclined her head at Jotrem, who walked behind. “You see, Karrnathi hospitality has me homesick.”

The women giggled. Jotrem offered an uncharacteristic half smile. Did a sense of humor lurk somewhere within that cold stone body?

The savant soon led them into a small laboratory several levels up where Tharashk maintained its research facilities and classrooms. When Erice had shut the door behind them, she gestured to an empty table. “You are carrying out an investigation, aren’t you, Miss Otänsin? Does this relate to the Brelish ambassador?”

Soneste pulled the cloth-wrapped bundle from her haversack. “I’m sorry,” she answered genuinely, thinking of Jotrem whose eyes were ever upon her. “I’m afraid I can’t speak freely about the nature
of the case. In fact, your objective examination of this evidence would be especially useful.”

“I understand.”

Soneste placed the assassin’s metal hand upon the tabletop. Erice and Jotrem both moved in with interest. “I
will
tell you that this hand was taken by force from an armored assailant. I need to know everything possible about it, particularly the nature of the armor it came from, and if magic is involved, I need to know what kind.” She pointed to the scored cuff where Tallis had cut the hand free. “This hand was part of the rest of the armor, not merely a detachable gauntlet.”

“I will see what I can learn,” Erice said, intrigued by the hand.

What she had deduced so far Soneste could only guess. A scholar of the arcane probably knew of countless possible origins for a creature composed of solid armor, but likely only a spell would begin to unlock the true secrets.

Soneste idled in the laboratory, taking care not to offend the savant by tampering with the tools of her trade. When she could do so unnoticed, Soneste studied Jotrem. His posture and sleight body movements were as stiff as usual, but there was something subtle about him that puzzled her. Occasionally, he blinked unusually long periods of time. That seemed … familiar.

Meanwhile, the gray-furred tomcat studied
her
. Soneste knew that familiars were intelligent, not merely dumb animals, so she smiled and waved once. Occasionally she watched Erice work. The savant’s examination of the hand was quite unlike Verdax’s. Where the artificer had woven temporal patterns upon the metal itself, Erice seemed to focus more upon her own spell than its object. She chanted softly and conjured divinatory magic around the hand, which formed a misty wreath. Erice studied the complex array of auras that took shape within.

At last, her work finished. The savant sat down, removed her spectacles, and rubbed her eyes from the strain. Soneste gained her feet and approached the table. Jotrem snapped to attention and merely looked on.

“Did you learn anything?” Soneste asked, feeling dumb asking the obvious.

“It is a wonder,” the woman said somewhat distantly. “I should have guessed it. The design was so unusual.”

“Lady Erice?”

The woman looked up. “I’m sorry. Yes. I can tell you a great deal more now.”

Jotrem sidled forward.

Erice indicated the metal hand. “This belongs to a spirit called a nimblewright. Its entire body is mechanical in nature, a hollow shell of armor. It is, for all intents and purposes, a construct.”

Soneste blinked. Except for having a name for it, this didn’t tell her anything new. “I see. A construct, like something House Cannith would produce? Like warforged?”

“Not quite.” Erice pointed to a diagram on one wall, which depicted the core design of a standard-sized warforged: a fibrous wooden musculature, steel, adamantine, or mithral composite plating which encased the frame like armor, and various elements of stone. “A nimblewright is in many ways far more complex and in others not
as
complex as a warforged. They weren’t
produced
like warforged were, churned out of creation forges in mass production. Instead, a single mage of great power might create
one
—much like a servitor golem. In fact, like golems, nimblewrights weren’t exactly cost-effective—certainly not in a time of war—which is why the Canniths invented the ’forged.

“Both a nimblewright and a warforged possess the ability to adapt to their surroundings, to improvise and strategize. Even a warforged titan has some level of adaptability, if not true sentience. Golems are expensive and deadly but ultimately unable to think for themselves. Nimblewrights are more like ’forged in this regard.”

Soneste compared the savant’s words against all she’d witnessed. “So what, aside from cost, truly separates nimblewrights from warforged?”

“Nimblewrights, unlike ’forged, are not free-willed. They are
more proficient instruments of martial combat, but they obey their creators only—or one who is designated as their master. Centuries ago, wizards of the Twelve created nimblewrights as personal bodyguards and sentries. Some still guard the inner vaults. I’ve even heard that some were used as spies at the beginning of the war.”