going?”
Then Kalev realized his disguise had a fatal flaw. No one spared a clerk a second thought, except, of course, another clerk.
Ten minutes, three flights of stairs, and half a dozen corridors later, Kalev found himself in the office of Mirias Jadering Phiarlan, a surprisingly stocky elf who wore his golden hair in a single braid that hung between his shoulder blades and displayed the great green earring that had given him his name. Kalev knew Mirias only by reputation, but that reputation was extensive. Mirias could make Kalev disappear so thoroughly not even the Eyes would be able to find his corpse.
Kalev sat beside the hearth in his office. Mirias’s gaze bored straight into the back of his mind.
“So, tell me,” Mirias said. “What brings you backstage at my Arena without ticket or invitation?”
Kalev crossed his legs, feigning relaxation. “There have been a rash of murders among the city’s merchant aristocracy. I’m sure you heard.”
Mirias nodded once.
“I am investigating these crimes. I have reason to believe they are connected to the Arena, and to the theft of a magical artifact known as the Memory Eye.”
Mirias’s green eyes narrowed.
“It was stolen from the study of Duke Arisor,” Kalev continued, “who was murdered tonight, and now I find one of your stage managers is astonishingly eager to get his hands on it.”
“Why is this any of your business?”
“As I said, I’ve been hired to find out the cause of the deaths.”
“Hired by whom?”
Kalev smiled pleasantly and made no answer.
Mirias flexed his long fingers. “Nemar has bad luck at the gaming tables,” he said at last. “He tends to… acquire objects of value and sell them. Good stage managers are difficult to find, so we have tolerated it.”
“And now?” Kalev inquired.
“We may have to rethink this policy.”
“In that case, I have a proposition,” said Kalev. “Let me continue my investigations. If Nemar is behind the murders, I will make the problem go away, without anyone asking a single question, or casting any aspersions on House Phiarlan.”
Mirias considered this. “I will give you one day. After that, I will take matters into my own hands.”
Kalev inclined his head. “One last question. What is the Memory Eye?”
“The Memory Eye projects a copy of the last thing it’s seen. For example, if it was on the main stage now, it would see Lady Daria Goldeneye in one of her most popular scenes. If its recall were activated, it would project that same scene so perfectly you would not be able to tell it from the original.” He paused, attempting to gauge Kalev’s reaction to this. “As such, it is very useful, particularly if a popular artist has fallen ill, or succumbed to a fit of temperament. The performance can go on and no one in the audience is any wiser.”
Or demanding their entry fee refunded. “I can see where such an artifact would have… many uses,” Kalev said. It could allow a person, say a stage manager, to be in two places at once. As he thought this, another face flashed in front of his mind’s eye and Kalev found himself wondering if Nemar was working alone. The stage manager was already employed by House Phiarlan in one capacity, why not another? It was possible the story of Nemar’s gambling debts was just that, a story. Mirias could very well be holding Nemar’s leash, and the skulk’s.
If House Phiarlan was engaged in a campaign against the Queen’s intelligence sources…
Kalev got to his feet. “Thank you for your time. I will not forget this.”
“Neither will I,” said Mirias softly, as they shook hands.
“Where have you been?” Vix demanded. After his meeting with Mirias, it had taken Kalev almost another half hour to track down the street exit with the big white twelve painted on its black surface.
“Finding out about the Memory Eye, and about your blackmailing boss.” And possibly getting led down a garden path. He looked around the alley where they stood. “Where’s Sheroth?”
“I don’t know.” Vix wrapped her arms around herself.
Worry prickled Kalev too. Despite his brief acquaintance with them both, he knew Sheroth would never leave Vix waiting.
Kalev was beginning to see that whomever was behind this had spun an incredible web. The Memory Eye would allow them to be in two places at once, so they could work the social networks of the city and identify key information agents, but always with an alibi. Then, they could send in the skulk, who could hide in plain sight, to take out any agent who was getting too close to something important, or who might be about to change sides. Everyone knew skulks killed at random, so no one would ask why one person or another had been murdered.
But how was the skulk being controlled? Skulks worked for no one, obeyed no one, cared for nothing but death.
“We have to find the skulk,” he said briskly.
Vix was not going to be so easily distracted. “Not until I know what’s happened to Sheroth.”
Kalev faced her. “Vix, if the skulk got a look at your true shape, it could have used it to lure Sheroth away from here.”
Vix’s eyes flashed amethyst. Then, she turned and started swiftly down the alley with Kalev following right behind.
They rounded the corner of the Arena, to a space filled with theatrical wagons painted with bright murals advertising acts and actors. Vix threw open a metal trap door set into the cobbles. Without hesitation, she climbed down a series of iron staples bolted to the wall. Kalev did the same. When he finally reached the floor, Kalev heard Vix speak a word he did not recognize. White light flared around her.
Kalev raised an eyebrow. Vix held up the glowing crystal for him to see. “We’re all issued one. It’s not safe to have flames burning unattended in here.”
The room around them proved to be a storage space for fabric. It was lined with shelves stuffed with bolts of cloth in all textures and colors. Vix unlocked the door and let them into a hallway lined with doors.
“What are these?” Kalev asked as they walked into the corridor.
“Store rooms, mostly,” replied Vix. “Doors to other stairs, to the work rooms, pump rooms, light rooms.”
“How big is this place?”
“No one knows. There are rumors about whole families having lived down in these tunnels for generations.” She ducked into another store room, surveyed the shelves, and reached one handed between two bales of fabric. To Kalev’s surprise, she pulled out a spear made of a piece of black glass tightly lashed to a wooden shaft. She handed it to him and then brought out its twin.
“These rumors…,” he began, but she looked at him in a way that said quite eloquently she would answer no question that followed those words. Clutching his new weapon, Kalev turned away, but froze.
A trail of footsteps showed up plainly in the grime on the floor.
“Well, someone’s been this way recently.”
Vix held the crystal high and swore. “Sheroth.”
“Are you sure?”
Vix pointed to the print of a huge, flat foot. “What else has a print like that?”
Kalev said nothing, just gestured with his spear, indicating that she should lead the way.
Following the faint trail in the dust, they traversed a series of ancient store rooms filled with the dusty detritus of the theater: pots and jars and crates, stacks of wood, coils of rope, folds of canvas. They passed through rooms filled with props, looking as if the contents of whole homes had been stacked in corners and piled on shelves. The corridor doors had been placed at strange angles, seldom directly across from each other, so each exit was a quarter turn from the entrance. The result was the uncomfortable sensation of going in circles.
Mildew permeated the stale air. A constant rustling accompanied them, and Kalev glimpsed the flash of red eyes as rats scuttled away from the unexpected light. Rickety stairways, their entrances half hidden by piles of debris or crates led them farther down. Kalev found himself quietly praying Vix’s crystal didn’t fail. Without the light, they’d be permanently lost in this labyrinth.
To keep his mind off that highly uncomfortable possibility, Kalev turned over the thousand questions that thronged his mind. What had convinced Sheroth to come down here? Had he truly followed a skulk in Vix’s shape?
