“So do you,” countered Kalev.
“You never did say what you were doing in the duke’s study.”
“You said you didn’t care.”
Vix waved a hand, acknowledging the point. “Well, thanks for the rescue. Time we were going, Sheroth.”
You’re not getting away that easily, he thought. “We could help each other,” said Kalev with a feigned casualness. “You want to find the Memory Eye. I want to find out why it was stolen by a skulk, and what Duke Arisor was doing with it in the first place.”
“Why?”
“I’m insatiably curious.”
Vix watched him carefully for a moment. “Why should I work with someone who’s lying to me?”
“I’m not. I’m just keeping my own secrets. There’s a difference. I’d think a changeling could understand that,” he added.
Vix glanced up at Sheroth again. Kalev wondered how long the two had traveled together.
“All right,” said Vix. “But I can’t start yet. Meet me at the Arena of Unparalleled Wonder at dawn. I’ll be coming off shift then.”
Kalev straightened up. “You work at the Arena? I didn’t know House Phiarlan hired changelings.”
“Neither do they.” Vix’s form blurred and Kalev again faced the graceful, dark-haired woman.
“We’ll see you at dawn.” Vix picked her way through the ruined doorway and into the alley. Sheroth gave Kalev a hard glower before shambling after the changeling.
Kalev waited until the pair had vanished and nothing remained but the sound of the warforged’s heavy feet. Then, using all the skill he had at moving undetected, Kalev followed.
The Arena of Unparalleled Wonder was House Phiarlan’s greatest theater, and even by Fairhaven standards, an incredible sight. From the alley mouth, Kalev stared at the sparkling edifice. It took up an entire city block and its mass of glittering domes and crystal spires towered over its neighbors. At least one performance was always in progress on one of the dozen public stages or the six or eight private performance spaces. The finest actors and entertainers fought for a chance to play there. And why wouldn’t they? Queen Aurala herself attended the shows at least monthly.
Kalev was not seeing the Arena from its best angle. He was watching one of the many side doors where Vix and Sheroth stood talking. He itched to know what they said, but dared not get closer. At last, Vix touched the warforged’s arm in farewell, and went inside. Sheroth took a post beside the door.
The streets around were busy, as the cream of Fairhaven’s society enjoyed a night’s carousing. The place would have been a pick-pocket’s paradise if not for the sharp-eyed members of the public guard standing on the street corners. Queen Aurala felt that if petty crime ran rampant through her capital, it would reflect badly on her work toward a peaceful, stable realm, and in this at least, her brother the governor shared her opinions.
Kalev considered his situation. He now had more than one mystery on his hands.
Despite Vix’s assumptions, he was not a thief. He had been given the task of finding the skulk that was slaughtering the city aristocracy. Normally, such beasts were relatively easy to track, once you knew what you were looking for, but this one had not been exhibiting normal skulk behavior. Skulks were clever, but not subtle. They worked with none but their own kind, and they were cold killers, interested only in maximizing carnage. But after the third death, it had become clear the targets were not being chosen at random. Each one of the dead had recently provided the queen’s intelligence services with information. Kalev had been in Arisor’s study to search for signs the aristocratic smuggler might have gone into the information trade. Instead, he’d landed in this business with Vix and the Memory Eye.
Kalev fingered the medallion he wore beneath his shirt. Actually finding a skulk was a surprise. He’d expected to find a human trying to make the deaths look like a skulk’s work.
My night for being wrong, he thought. But what did a skulk want with a magical artifact? And could it be coincidence that he and Vix both arrived at Duke Arisor’s study at the same moment? Even if she was only a hired thief, whoever hired her might have more on their mind than retrieving property.
Kalev needed answers, and he did not have time to search the whole Arena for them, never mind the whole city. He made his decision and pulled out his medallion.
The day Kalev joined the Royal Eyes-the secret intelligence service belonging to Queen Aurala-he had been given this badge. The day he had been set on the trail of the skulk, the medallion had been given a spell. It would work only once, Keue Fourthmaster, the Eyes’ quartermaster, told him. So he was not to waste it, or lose it. But for that one time, it would allow Kalev to see what he was looking for, no matter how many barriers stood between him and the target.
The problem was, if Kalev used it at too great a distance, he would not be able to determine the exact location of what he sought, and then the spell would be used up. The further problem was there might yet come a better chance, a greater need to see something. Kalev weighed the medallion in his hand and the decision in his mind.
Then, as he had been directed, he placed the gold disk against his left eye and murmured the words to activate the embedded spell.
The medallion grew warm against his skin.
“Who has the Memory Eye?” he whispered. “I need to see who has the Memory Eye.”
Instantly, the world around him faded. The effect was dizzying. People became ghosts, and buildings thin mist. Only one thing remained solid-a black stain slipping down one of the Arena’s great gilded domes. It clutched a bundle to its chest that, to Kalev’s spell-enhanced gaze, glowed like a beacon. The skulk shambled across the roof, lifted a trap door, and jumped through.
And all the world was solid again, and Kalev was staring at the Arena with one eye covered.
The skulk was in there, somewhere. The skulk and Vix, who had spun him a story of blackmail and simple thievery. Kalev felt his jaw harden and he narrowed his eyes at Sheroth, standing straight and still in front of the stage door with its massive arms folded. Time was slipping rapidly away.
The direct approach, then.
Kalev took a deep breath and pelted across the street, dodging horses, carriages, and pedestrians alike. Sheroth looked up, and his jaw dropped.
Kalev didn’t give him any time for questions. “Sheroth! The skulk’s in the Arena!”
Warforged were fine tacticians and decent strategists, but Kalev had yet to meet one who could lie worth a damn. So Kalev was certain the surprise that stiffened Sheroth’s stance was genuine. As were his next words.
“I have to warn Vix.”
“It went in through a trap door in the roof, to the southwest of the smaller gilded dome,” said Kalev quickly. “Is there any way you can check that out quietly while I let Vix know what’s happened?”
“If it gets down into the bowels of the Arena, we’ll never find it,” Sheroth muttered, and Kalev held his breath until the warforged met his gaze. “Vix’ll be in her dressing room. Second stairs on your left going in, two flights up, first right, third door on the lefthand side. Got that?”
Kalev nodded and Sheroth went on. “Tell Vix I’ll meet you at door twelve. Door twelve. Got that?”
“Door twelve.”
Sheroth opened the door. “Quick.”
Kalev nipped inside the Arena of Unparalleled Wonder, and into another world.
Kalev had attended Arena performances many times. He was familiar with the gilt and glitter of the front of the house, every aspect of it designed to amaze. This was nothing like that.
It was a world of timber, painted canvas, and shadows. All manner of effigies hung from fine black lines, looking disconcertingly like they were floating in midair. Ropes as thick as his wrist connected systems of huge pulleys. A steam elemental sat in a brass housing at the center of a complex conglomeration of wooden cogs and metal gears that drove shafts reaching up into the ceiling and down into the floor.
Actors and dancers in glittering costumes darted like butterflies between the stagehands in dark tunics and breeches. Burly men hefted boulders and pillars on their shoulders. The floor vibrated from the motion of feet and carts and machines. Humans and half-elves trudged back and forth, burdened by boxes or great piles of cloth, or hauled on ropes, or signaled up to the catwalks to the ones handling the massive glowing crystals that lit the stages.
