'We had a nice time, thanks. I hadn't seen her for far too long.'
'Where did you end up?'
'We stayed at her house, because she didn't fancy venturing out into the snow.'
'Tryst thought he saw you at some tavern.'
He thought he noticed a small change in her posture, some tension there perhaps, or a little uncertainty.
She said, 'On the way to her place, you mean?'
'I'm sure he said you were in a tavern, but he could've been mistaken.'
'Oh, it couldn't have been me. I was at Lanya's all the time. We stayed at home and talked. She's got some new guy on the go who treats her so well, as his equal, and he sounded lovely.'
Jeryd wasn't reassured by this. Maybe it was his naturally cynical nature after having worked for so long in the Inquisition.
*
Late afternoon sunlight broke through the clouds highlighting some bizarre texture in the sky. The city's spires and bridges sparkled. Tryst had opened the balcony door to help rid Tuya's room of the acrid stench of her painting materials. The chill in the air was enough to sharpen his senses again. He rested his chin on steepled fingers as he regarded the sculpted Marysa before him. Tuya was crouching on her knees as she made some barely noticeable alterations to this creation.
Tryst had drugged the woman earlier, keeping the dosage safe but regular, so that he could manipulate her more easily. He felt pleased with himself, in fact was getting a kick out of his recent elaborate manipulations. He had planted in Jeryd's mind a seed of doubt about his wife's fidelity, and soon he would show Jeryd a display of his wife in action.
'There,' Tuya murmured, then pushed herself upright, a sheer blue gown clinging to her curves. Tryst considered that a baser man than himself would take advantage at this moment, but he possessed good morals.
'She looks… utterly real,' Tryst admitted.
Indeed, the clay woman was an exact replica of Jeryd's wife, though he had never seen the latter naked. By her stillness, she looked like a statue, however, and Tryst wasn't quite certain what would happen next.
The previous evening, Tryst had led Tuya to observe Marysa in person as she walked through the frozen streets. The advantage of working so closely with Jeryd was that he could learn most of his wife's idiosyncrasies. Tryst had even thrown a purse, spilling coins at Marysa's feet, so that Tuya would be able to get the closest possible examination.
Tryst fully intended to be present when Jeryd encountered this. That would be too much of a treat to miss.
Within the bell, Tuya had gone on to perform some strange rituals with a collection of relics. Tryst observed her as best he could, asking occasional questions, but she was vague in her answers. There was obviously a history to this woman that was never going to be discussed.
Dawnir magic was beyond him, beyond any normal person. To him there seemed no way of understanding it. He just sprawled on Tuya's bed, waiting for the animation to begin. The statue of the female rumel began to glow, then faded. Glowed and faded. He tried to say something, but Tuya waved him to silence, the woman now deep in concentration as she walked around the statue, touching it in places, a hint of eroticism to her gestures. The fake rumel began to twitch slightly. Its arms jutted forward as if to embrace someone, then relaxed. The sculpture slowly performed arm and leg and head movements, as if learning these for the first time, getting used to its own body. Discovering motility.
Then suddenly it began to move with the flowing grace of the real Marysa. Somehow Tuya had managed to capture the very essence of Jeryd's wife in her art. The woman was more than a mystery. Tryst slid off the bed, the hair on his arms standing on end. Here in front of him was the power of the Ancient race, operating specially for his benefit. It took half an hour to dress the figure in the style favoured by Jeryd's wife. That didn't have to be perfect, because Marysa's tastes in clothes were varied.
As they applied make-up, the sculpted Marysa sat at the dresser, silently staring at herself in the mirror.
Tuya finally collapsed on her bed with exhaustion, saying to Tryst petulantly, 'Is that all you need me for? Why are you still here anyway?'
Time to drug her further, but he didn't have enough supplies on him. Plus he needed to pick up a little something to slip in Jeryd's drink later. He picked up an ancient tribal decoration, composed of long strips of coloured beads hanging from a sphere. He swept it in an arc and struck her across the head. She slid to the floor with a grunt, a small trickle of blood oozing onto the tiles.
The fake Marysa glanced across at him with a look of surprise on her face, then instantly she had become motionless, as a statue once again.
'It's OK,' Tryst said. 'She's a criminal.' Why was he talking to this thing? It certainly didn't feel right. Did this creation have emotions? It still stared at him unnervingly.
He threw the artefact on the bed. 'Don't go anywhere,' he muttered, then walked out into the cold night.
Cloud had obscured the stars, but that meant it wouldn't be as cold as it had been recently. Out in the street, he glanced up at Tuya's balconied window, the lantern light still visible inside, and he wondered again at the powers that the Ancients had once possessed before they disappeared from history.
THIRTY-FIVE
He knew that you got good days and you got bad days. It was the life of an Inquisition officer. It wasn't the sort of career that just anyone could do, because you saw some harsh things on the streets of Villjamur.
Dawn on a Priests' Day, a hundred and forty years back: the bodies of three children found naked and butchered in the good side of the city. Their internal organs littering the cobbles, fresh blood sparkling in the light. It was his first solo case and according to the Council they had to make sure none of the nearby wealthy residents saw it. That's the thing about this city: you've always got to keep the rich ones happy. They eventually traced the deaths back to a Jorsalir priest, and had to keep that quiet too – the rules were that the Inquisition had to keep the Jorsalir happy. Jeryd caught the bastard, made sure justice was served, but it wouldn't be talked about in any of the taverns.
Given all the horrors he'd witnessed, he expected that he would be able to cope more easily with the crap life threw at him. Hell, he'd even put up with those little buggers on his street, allowing their snowballs to crash into him, into his house.
But Jeryd was a broken man.
*
Tryst had suggested they go for a quick drink after work and Jeryd thought why not? He could do with putting a few opinions about the world across a table.
Snow was frozen solid along the streets before it could be scraped away, and he had to cling on to windowsills along the terraced housing to make sure he didn't fall over. He noticed, however, that Tryst was taking him towards Cartanu Gata, where Councillor Ghuda was murdered.
So, there they were, finally, the two Inquisition officers, enjoying a drink. They made it to a night-time tearoom called Vilhallan, named after the original city, and, judging by the decor, Jeryd assumed it had been around for just as long.
'Nothing's original,' Tryst confessed. 'Everything's a carefully contrived copy: the furniture design, the bars, the coloured lanterns.'
He was right. It was a dreary-looking place.
Jeryd said to him, 'Not really my scene,' as they took their seats at a small wooden table in a secluded corner.
It wasn't much to speak of otherwise. Little candles clustered on tables threw light upwards onto the faces of the customers. It made everyone look sinister, as if they were here for any reason other than pleasure. There was a tribal drummer in the room beyond and someone playing an instrument he'd never heard before. Jeryd got the feeling he had arrived on some far-off island of the Empire.
