Page 11

Chapter 11

“I cannot comprehend this,” said Kardas slowly. “I thought Sujedo’s remains had been found. Are you suggesting he was not kidnapped? Not murdered?”

“Oh, no, sir,” said Ana. “Sujedo was kidnapped and murdered. But not under the circumstances we have thus imagined.”

She leaned forward, her posture akin to a reedwitch telling fortunes at a canton fair. “Listen, sir,” she said. “Imagine now Sujedo’s journey north to this city. He came upriver through the canals, the very last man to join your delegation. But he did not complete that journey! Along the way, he was attacked—snatched up, and kidnapped—and you never received news of it, for his attackers moved too quickly for anyone to notice. They bound him in the jungles—by the wrists, as Malo had noticed—and took a sample of his blood and urine and undressed him. His clothes were then removed and quickly tailored to fit a new man…this impostor who arrived here claiming to be Sujedo. I suspect he likely also applied other alterations—a dye for his hair, perhaps, or powders or graft colorings for his skin. The illusion was likely quite good at a distance. They also doused his belongings with lime and mold, just in case a warden might sniff him out and realize his clothes held the aroma of another man.”

Ana sat back in her chair, luxuriating in the moment. “Thus, he arrived in Yarrowdale, purporting to be Mineti Sujedo, displaying his heralds, carrying his documents, and mimicking the missing man’s bearing. He brought Sujedo’s belongings into his rooms when the rest of the delegation was not present, then quickly departed to do business in the city. He returned, invented a reason not to see any of the delegation in person to ensure that his ruse was not detected—he claimed he was very sick—and hid away. He then used Sujedo’s blood and piss to provide false evidence that the true Sujedo had been present, and fabricated a scene of abduction. And then he vanished! But in truth, I suspect, he actually escaped, slipping out from underneath everyone’s nose to vanish into the night!”

There was a thunderstruck silence. The tip of Kardas’s thumb remained wedged between his front teeth as he sat there, boggled.

“Why in hell,” said Malo flatly, “would someone do all that, ma’am?”

“I have my ideas about why,” said Ana, “but I would prefer to prove the how first.”

Kardas stopped biting his thumb and shook his head. “All this seems absolutely mad, Immunis! How would no one notice that this man wasn’t Sujedo?”

“Well, Sujedo was expected, and this man had the uniform, the heralds, yes?” said Ana. “He had all of Sujedo’s documents, he was able to wield his blood privileges to get into the Treasury bank, and he knew what to say and how to act. And he took great care—no, perhaps improbable care—to avoid being seen by anyone who might actually recognize Sujedo. Though his time here was brief, I think every moment of it was carefully planned.”

“Then how was this not discovered during the investigation of the disappearance?” said Kardas, looking to Malo.

Yet Ana broke in: “Because as you say, it was mad to suggest! Why go about asking if the man in the room really had been Sujedo, especially if your primary task was trying to find the fellow? And once you found the body and identified it as the missing man, why ask then?”

“And how did he disappear,” demanded Malo, “given that he had vanished from a locked room?”

“That is far simpler! He vanished with this,” said Ana. She produced the lodestone from her pocket. “This piece of iron was found in Sujedo’s chambers. It has been manipulated so it has the properties of lodestone. It attracts and sticks to iron. I recalled there was a prison break in Medullaria years ago, enabled by a prisoner being snuck a lump of lodestone—for with that, he was able to manipulate the slide locks of his chamber from the other side of the door. ”

She said this triumphantly and was met with a bewildered silence.

“Might you elaborate, Dolabra?” said Kardas.

“My proposal is that this impostor had two of these lodestones,” said Ana. “One he placed on the interior lock of the window. He then climbed out the window, clung to the side of the tower, shut the window, and used the second piece of lodestone to guide the lock back into place through the wooden shutter. The piece of iron on the interior eventually lost much of its lodestone properties and dropped to the floor—where it was found, briefly puzzled over, and set aside. Thus, our impostor made his exit and sealed it up behind him, leaving no trace of himself nor his disappearance.”

“And then what,” said Malo, “he climbed down the entirety of the tower?”

“No,” said Ana. “For Sujedo’s room is next to a vacant room, is it not? Closed due to water damage?”

“Yes,” said Malo. “But the guard was standing just next door to it. He did not see anyone exit through that room.”

“True,” said Ana. “But there is another vacant room directly below that one, yes? One that was un guarded? All the impostor needed to do was climb one room over and down, slip through those windows, and vanish, leaving behind a chamber that appeared to have never been violated in any way. Then, days later, after Sujedo had served his purpose, his kidnappers killed him, butchered him, and—as Signum Malo said—did with his body simply as one does on the canals.”

“Found a hungry turtle,” Malo said quietly, “and served him up.”

“Indeed,” said Ana. “But the turtles were not as hungry as expected—and thus, we found him.”

Kardas sat back in his seat, stunned, the tip of his thumb hanging mere inches from his lips. “Do…do you have any evidence for this theory, Immunis?” he asked faintly. “Or is this all conjecture?”

“For now, it is conjecture,” Ana said. “But as I said, I think evidence is easily found.”

“Found where?” said Malo.

“In the vacant rooms just to the side and down from Sujedo’s chambers,” Ana said smoothly.

“But…but we looked there, ma’am,” said Malo. “We searched all the rooms when we first searched for Sujedo. We found nothing.”

“You looked too quick, I think. Let us look again.”

—

We trooped down the leaning hallway, then down one flight of stairs, me leading Ana by the arm. We had the porter unlock the door to the vacant room below, and once again I was back in the musky, reeking air, dimly lit by a blade of daylight slicing through a crack in the windows.

“The shutters, Din,” said Ana. “Check them, please.”

I did so, studying each one, yet when I touched the first shutter on the right, it opened easily, even though it appeared to be locked. I peered at the lock and spied a seam running through the iron.

“The lock’s been sawed through, ma’am,” I said. “Looks like it’s closed, but the lock does nothing.”

“That is one bit of evidence, then,” said Ana. “I am guessing our impostor’s lodestone trick only works through barriers with another piece of lodestone on the other side. He had to use a less elegant method to get in here…but let us look for more.” She sniffed the air. “The mold in this place likely regrows when stepped on or touched. But where it has been disturbed, one may see indentations…I say one, but in reality, only Malo’s eyes can discern anything at all. Signum—do you see anything?”

Malo gazed about the room, her bright green eyes narrowed. Then her mouth fell open. “Yes,” she said softly.

“And what do you see?”

“I see…footprints,” she said. “Maybe from when they first searched the room, but…but there is another string of disturbances, leading…” She walked to the eastern wall, then studied it, squinting. “There is a brick here, in the wall, that has been disturbed. I can see it in the mold about it.”

“Din—remove that brick with your sword,” said Ana. “But carefully. This is a very clever person we are dealing with. He may have prepared for us.”

I drew my sword, the bright green blade glimmering even in this room, and delicately slid its point into the side seam of the brick. Using my sword as a lever, I pushed the brick until it tumbled out of the wall, and stepped back.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then Malo narrowed her eyes, studying the gap from ten paces away.

“It is clothing,” she said. “Or was.”

“Was?” said Kardas.

Malo unsheathed a knife, walked to the gap, and speared something and held it up for us to see. It appeared to be a soft, black, drippy substance almost like tar.

“It has been treated with a reagent,” she said. “So it was consumed and decomposed rapidly. But…there is something else.”

She dropped the clump of black, then reached into the gap once more and used her blade to flick out something small and twinkling, which tumbled to a stop at my feet.

I squatted to look at it. “A Treasury herald,” I said. I searched my memory to identify it, and realized it matched one of the many heralds upon Kardas’s breast. “The same as one you wear, sir,” I said to him.

Kardas leaned forward to look at it. “Th-that is the herald of the Order of the White Clove,” he said faintly. “For great service to the Treasury.”

“And Sujedo, I take it, was also a member of that order, sir?” said Ana.

“Y-yes. He was.”

“Then the conclusion is clear,” said Ana. “The impostor snuck out of Sujedo’s rooms, climbed down into this one, changed out of Sujedo’s clothes, and hid them away in this wall—for he knew he would be in terrible trouble if caught with an officer’s clothing—yet he first treated them to ensure that they rotted beyond recognition.”

“But why bother?” said Kardas. “We found the herald. We know the clothes are Sujedo’s.”

“Not to disguise the clothes,” said Malo. She spat a stream of black spit out the open window. “But to remove scent. Hair. Skin.”

“Yes,” said Ana. “We are in a city of Apoths. Any trace of a human can be used to track them. He had to be sure that even if we did find his leavings, we could not use them. And all the hair and blood and urine he left in the room above—that was Sujedo’s own! In other words, this man knows the nature of Apoths and wardens, and was almost unfathomably careful to only leave behind things he wished to be found.”

“By hell…” muttered Malo. “What a person this is.”

“Yes!” said Ana. “A marvelously brilliant creature. Having made his way to this room, I think the impostor then changed into a different set of clothes—probably those of a servant. Simple, undistinguished apparel. He then simply walked downstairs and slipped out. To where, I do not yet know.”

A silence as we all absorbed this.

“But…but why do this at all ?” asked Kardas, frustrated. “Why go to all this trouble? Why kidnap and butcher poor Sujedo, then pretend to be him for…for what, only half an afternoon, and then fabricate this scene?”

Malo’s whole body went stiff. “The vault,” she whispered.

“Correct!” said Ana triumphantly. “This impostor, pretending to be Sujedo, was left totally alone in the Iyalet vault of the bank for…oh, well, several minutes at least. And I think those several minutes were the entire point of the kidnapping, this complicated facade, all of it. He went to these great lengths solely to get into that exact place, at that exact time.” She sniffed. “The question is—what did he do there?”

We all stared at one another in horror.

“Well…well, what did he do there?” demanded Kardas.

“Oh, don’t ask me,” said Ana. “I’ve no idea! I suppose we’ll have to open up all the damned boxes to figure that out, yes?”

—

The entire scene dissolved into pandemonium. Malo sprinted away without another word. Kardas began crying for his assistants to get to the bank, and soon the whole building filled up with the stamp and pound of Treasury feet as the delegation panicked. Soon it was just myself and Ana, slowly descending the crooked stairs as she clung to my arm.

“Better get me back to my rooms, Din,” she said. “My head is beginning to pound from all that mold and conversation. I am unsure which one was worse! And you, I think, shall need to go to the bank to see what is found, or rather not found.”

“Certainly, ma’am,” I said. “But…you truly think this was just all about a bank robbery, ma’am?”

“In all honesty, I’ve no fucking idea what this was about anymore! But I am most curious to find out.”

“I see…But there are two things I can’t make sense of in all you said.”

“Good!” she said. “I appreciate it when you throw rocks at my ideas, Din. Keeps me from going too far up my own ass. Proceed.”

I coughed. “Yes…First, why all this show with the disappearance? If he wished to get into the vault, why come back here and keep pretending to be Sujedo, instead of simply running with what he’d taken?”

“I think the answer to that will depend on what was stolen from that vault,” said Ana. “But the likely answer is that by making his exit so inexplicable, our thief obscured the true crime entirely. I mean, no one has been looking at the bank for nearly two weeks! Instead, people have been wandering around calling Sujedo’s name out in the street. A wonderful defensive play, really.”

“Perhaps, so,” I said. “But I also wonder—how was this impostor able to wield the blood authorities of a Treasury immunis?”

“Yes…that troubles me most out of all of this. There are three potential answers, I believe. The first and simplest is that he himself actually is a Treasury immunis—but that is unlikely, for why then would he bother to pretend to be Sujedo? We shall discard this possibility,” she said with a sniff, “as it is tremendously stupid. The second, of course, is that when they captured Sujedo, they removed the cultured organ that granted him his Treasury authorities and implanted it in the impostor. But that is a very tricky and deadly operation. Swapping an organ is not simple work, even for an experienced medikker. It would take time, and the kidnappers would have had to move fast, otherwise Sujedo’s absence would be noted.”

“And the third possibility?”

She shrugged. “The third is that our impersonator managed to somehow transport the blood of Sujedo with him through means I have not yet devised! A bottle of Sujedo’s blood hidden on his person, say, would not have worked. It takes the touch of a living hand bearing the proper authoritative blood, as you witnessed. We shall have to investigate further.”

We exited onto the Old Town streets, which were still ringing with the shouts of the departing delegation.

“The glow of my triumph fades,” said Ana quietly. “And much troubles me. I dislike hearing Kardas suggest that the king of Yarrow might be involved…and, to be frank, I dislike Kardas himself being present. An emitias? In such a delicate place? And to learn that he has been so profoundly unsuccessful in all his labors? It bothers me. Yet…we are staggering around in the dark. We know nothing of this impostor—his name, his nature, his origins, his goals, nothing. And I am disturbed by his depth of knowledge.”

“How do you mean, ma’am?”

“Well—the fucker simply knows too much! He knew about the delegation’s schedule, the bank, the safes! I would guess that the pool of individuals who know about any one of those subjects is quite limited. Let us derive the size of that pool, Din, and then go gazing in it.”