Serius bowed his assent, but I saw his gaze turn intense. He knew what I meant to do. Gehata recoiled, but the guards held him fast. Perhaps I enjoyed his fear, taking it as some measure of recompense for what he’d done and had intended to do. I slowed my approach.
“Who holds the gift of kings for Aille, and where are they?” I asked. The question was mostly a ruse to satisfy the demands of the scene we played, but I hoped it served to bring the information closer to the surface of Gehata’s mind.
He didn’t answer, of course, but that only made my part easier to play. I stepped forward, my hands outstretched, my fingers tense, grasping. I didn’t have to pretend to anger, but I walled it away. I needed as much information as I could pull from Gehata’s mind, and finding the heir was only the beginning.
The bishop shook his head as he pressed himself back against his guards. With a savage wrench that belied his soft bulk, he freed an arm. His hand flashed to his opposite sleeve and steel glinted in the light.
Somewhere behind me, I sensed as much as heard my friends exploding into motion, but they were too slow. In a cool detached part of my mind, I noted that Gehata must have acquired some portion of a physical gift.
I stood within his reach. Recoiling and knowing it was useless, I watched in horrified fascination as the edge of his knife swept a glinting arc through the air. Blood fountained from his neck as his eyes filled with triumph.
The fading light in his gaze leapt at me as I put my bloodstained hands on his throat. I tunneled through his eyes and into his thoughts, racing through his memories in my panic. The knowledge was here. It had to be!
I filled myself with his life while all around me the color of his memories faded to black. Gehata was dying fast. His last memory flickered and his fleeing spirit trapped at me like an undertow. I’d stayed too long in his mind. My vision receded to a point as I raced toward eternity. With my last conscious thought I willed myself to let go of Gehata’s neck.
Nothing happened. I hurtled away from the ruin of Gehata’s body, but I couldn’t sense anything beyond that numbing speed. No sight or sound or intuition intruded upon my flight. I worked to move my hands, but I couldn’t feel. I tried to blink, but my sight and senses had been severed. Only the rushing sensation remained, but no destination revealed itself.
In the onward rush, I sensed a presence that might have been Aer or Ealder and a voice that warmed me like an answered prayer. You have work left to do.
The headlong rush slowed until I hung suspended.
I blinked against torchlight that hurt, my arms and legs twitching as if I had no concept of how to control them. Hands held me and a buzz of noise resolved into Bolt’s growl and Gael’s weeping.
Memory returned.
Gehata’s body lay before me, blood everywhere. The bishop’s suicide had managed to keep many of his most important memories from me, including the location of the heir, but not all. “That’s wrong,” I said out loud before I could keep from speaking. Blinking, I found myself the center of attention.
Bishop Serius spoke into the crowded silence. “Place the cosp who worked with Gehata in the lower cells.”
I cleared my throat. “I think the bishop had a hold on many of them to ensure their loyalty.”
Serius nodded. “Captain, please inter Gehata’s men into separate cells until we can make some determination as to their fate. Errant Consto, would you and your friends accompany me to my quarters? There is much we need to discuss.”
Chapter 36
Coming again to the quarters allotted to Bishop Serius, I noted the resemblance to those of Gehata. But there were subtle differences in the atmosphere that I could only attribute to the attitude of the men who occupied them. Serius’s quarters held an air of gratitude and acknowledgment, whereas Gehata’s had held those same gifts as rightful acknowledgment.
Bishop Serius—I hoped he would be the next Archbishop—waved us to chairs and, without asking, served us wine, including Rory. For some inexplicable reason, watching the bishop drain his glass and refill it before speaking comforted me. “I think you should begin, Lord Dura. I’m especially keen to know what sort of information you found floating in the detritus of that contemptible little man’s mind.”
Bolt nodded his approval of the insult, but what I’d seen in Gehata’s mind disturbed me for reasons that had nothing to do with the man himself. “The dwimor who came for the queen,” I said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Dwimor?” Serius asked. “Are you telling me a phantom tried to kill Queen Chora?”
“The dwimor are assassins who can’t be seen except by children,” Bolt said, “fashioned by people who share Lord Dura’s gift. It requires a gift of devotion.” He turned to me. “What about it?”
“He was huge,” I said recalling the testimonies given to Gehata. “According to the witnesses who saw him, he was built like a blacksmith.” The bishop started to shake his head but stopped almost immediately, and my estimation of him rose a notch, perhaps two.
“That seems at cross purposes with creating an assassin who can’t be seen,” he said.
Possibilities swirled in my mind, and I cursed my ignorance. I needed to get to the witnesses who’d seen the attempt on Queen Chora. Fortunately, I didn’t have to depend on my intuition. Gehata’s memories told me he had sent them both to a farm outside the city, ostensibly to do penance, but the girls had never been part of the church. The sun
