Changes

same way you got in.::

The door wasn’t locked, but it had been jammed shut. Not caring now about noise, he rammed it repeatedly with his shoulder, hearing something crack every time he did, as if he was breaking some sort of seal. Each time he did it, more of the stench puffed out around the frame. Finally the door gave, and he stumbled into the room.

The candlelight flickered over a scene of grotesque, even macabre, horror.

Even through his shirt the stench was appalling.

The stench of four bloated bodies sprawled across the furniture in bizarre poses of ease, as if they were all relaxing. Their clothing wasn’t disarranged, there was no sign of a fight, no sign even that they had been carried in here. They looked exactly as if they had come here together to pass some time before bed.

But they weren’t relaxing. They were dead.

Dead, without a mark on them to show how they had died.

Chapter 9

The Guardsmen had sent some of their most experienced and hardened men, but even they had been overcome with nausea and had had to leave the building. Several had been violently ill. And the curious thing was—at least in Mags’ mind—there was not a man among them, himself included, who would not happily have seen these men hang. At the very least these “victims” had conspired to wipe out a stableful of Companions; they were spies, they had colluded in kidnapping a Healer Trainee and probably would have killed him when he was of no further use to them. But your head could tell you all that a thousand times, but your gut was going to react to the visceral stench in the time-honored fashion, and that was all there was to it.

Someone dispensed mint-soaked scarves to wrap around their faces, and that helped. But after the initial group arrived and set up a line that no one would be allowed to cross, there was a wait for a Special Squad, a wait during which the Guard Captain insisted that no one could touch or move anything.

Finally the Special Squad arrived, laden with bags and implements and lanterns, and the others dispersed to hold the curious outside an established perimeter, their faces reflecting their relief. Mags remained, partly out of curiosity and partly in case any of this new group wanted to ask him anything.

They had stronger stomachs than he did, that was certain. For all that he could tell, the stench didn’t bother them at all. They examined the bodies in place, minutely; they confiscated every used dish and pot, then, after (finally!) having the bodies closed up into waterproof bags and transported on a cart somewhere, they allowed all the windows to be opened so that the place could air out. Mags was intensely grateful for the brisk breeze, and felt very sorry for anyone nearby who was downwind of the house.

Two of the Special Squad combed over the room of death like misers searching for a lost gem while the rest accompanied the bodies and the confiscated objects back to wherever they were being taken. One of them actually was picking up small things and carefully bagging them, and when Mags finally gave in to his curiosity and came to see what he was doing, he saw to his surprise that the young Guardsman was picking up dead bugs.

The fellow looked up and saw Mags staring at him in disbelief. “Didn’t you notice there weren’t any flies?” he pointed out, and held up a dead one.

Mags blinked. “Ye mean, them flies is all dead?”

“As dead as last year’s leaves,” the fellow replied. “And I will bet that is why there are no mice or rats here, either. It might have been poison in the food, but given all the dead insects, I suspect poison fumes or smoke of some sort.”

“Ye kin do thet?” Mags gulped. That was altogether nasty. How could you guard against something like that? “Ye kin poison summun with stuff they breathe in?”

“It’s not easy, and it’s rather difficult to get people to sit there and breathe the stuff, but, yes, it can be done. Of course, if you drug them first, it’s trivial, and judging by their relative positions, they were either drunk or drugged when they died.” The Guardsman went back to picking up bugs. “Whatever it was, it would have to work quickly. It might have been a poison in the food or drink, but that wouldn’t account for the dead bugs. We can test for most poisons, but not the sort that are inhaled, and the men who did this might have been trying to prevent anyone from finding out that these men were murdered rather than died by accident. I do think, however, that the room was sealed after they were dead, rather than before. Probably to keep the stink from leaking out and betraying whoever did this until they were ready to burn the house down.”

“ ’Ow long’ve they bin dead?” he asked, a little repulsed, but a little fascinated by someone who would talk so matter-of-factly about grisly corpses.

“More than a day, not more than two.” The reply was prompt. “It’s been warm, the room was sealed— normally bodies don’t bloat until the third day, but the room probably got rather hot during the day, and that would speed things up.”

Mags relayed all this to Nikolas.

::Hmm. So it appears that they died before or about the same time as the guide,:: came the reply.

::Reckon so.:: And that begged the question—how long had these new killers been in Haven before they rid themselves of the first lot? And why? ::Ye’ve been askin’ ’bout strangers fer long?:: That was a good place to start.

::The Weasel is an established persona of mine, and he’s always bought and sold information,:: Nikolas said thoughtfully. ::But I have only been asking specifically about foreigners for a week.::

It would have taken a few days for that particular piece of information to get around . . .

The same thought must have occurred to Nikolas. ::Damn. By looking for them, I killed them. I wanted to catch them, not kill them.::

That puzzled Mags—not that Nikolas was unhappy about these men being killed, but that he blamed himself. ::I’m purt sure ye didn’ toss poison i’ their fire, sir.::

::I might just as well have,:: Nikolas replied bleakly. ::If —::