Guilty Blood (10 page)

I let my attention wander from the conversation, as I obviously wasn't a part of it. No surprise considering the uniform Ms. Kindler had dressed me up in. Scanning the group casually, careful not to make eye contact with any of the nobles present, I tried to distinguish any potential hurtles to our plan—anyone who seemed likely to play hero when the chance arose. No one in the crowd fit the profile, but I was chagrined to see the auction house wasn't entirely defenseless. To the contrary, in fact. I'd expected two, maybe four aging watchmen, mostly serving as stage dressing to imply the rubbish up for auction had some significance and value. Rather, at least eight footmen that I could see chafed in their formal wear. One openly adjusting his jacket revealed a heavy baton slid into his orange cummerbund. Already looking bored at their posts, these guards certainly didn't carry the air of professionals, but they might still complicate matters. My confidence in not spending another night in the constables' lockup was not increasing.

"We'll just have to see," Ms. Kindler said noncommittally. It wasn't her words, but her repetition of the sentence that drew me back to the conversation.

"Well, do keep us in mind. An Ailson Kindler original tale would fetch top coin, and as you're a friend of the house, I'm sure we could come to an arrangement regarding our percentage," Mr. Omberbain hurried on excitedly, the color of gold almost evident in his. "But don't answer me now. Just think it over during the course of the auction. We'll talk afterward."

Some new arrival blessedly caught the greasy auctioneer's attention. "Lady Kindler, if you'll excuse me. Do enjoy the evening's events and good luck in your bidding." He leaned close to her level, whispering conspiratorially, "We'll talk later."

Ms. Kindler smiled vapidly and nodded, putting on a fine show even as she reached back to touch my hand. I took that as my cue to see to our escape incase Omberbain's attentions returned to us.

"Man's breath smell's like a river trout," Ms. Kindler groused as I wheeled her to the rear of the decadent lobby, hiding behind the statue of a stag-horned knight that had won relatively few attendees' consideration. I couldn't help but chuckle. "Fetch a program dear, and lets see what we're in for."

With little trouble I waved over a servant who handed me a lavender handbill. Beneath a XXX bearing a stylized "O," two even columns listed the lots on the block that evening. While interesting pieces of artwork, pieces of especially worth, and the names of dishonored former honors dominated much of the space, several larger lots also listed attractive particularities. The second lot after the evening's intermission included multiple pieces of display weaponry. Amid the showpieces and weapons of imaginary heroes ran the most understated description on the page: "barbarian dagger with gemstone."

"It's this one here or it's none of them," I said, leaning to show Ms. Kindler.

She made her own examination and nodded. "The timing should be manageable if this is the one. That Baldermol fellow Omberbain pointed out, he'll be the one to watch. Keep a careful watch on him and you'll manage fine."

"I'm still not sure I have the talent for this. It's really more my brother's forte."

"Oh, should we fetch him then? If he's here you really should have introduced him," Kindler said scathingly, looking up at me archly. Her sarcasm dropped as quickly as she'd summoned it, though. "You'll do fine, girl. No getting squeamish now. Lets find our seats."

∗ ∗ ∗

For two of the most fantastically dull hours of my life Ms. Kindler and I sat in the lavish auction hall in silence, watching nobles dicker over niceties they'd likely have to auction themselves in a few short months. Aside from Mr. Omberbain's florid descriptions and speedily slurred bid calling the bargaining transpired in silence, adversaries staking increasingly ludicrous sums, more desirous of the prestige of winning than the actual items on the block. For most of the time, though, I kept my attention fixed on the craggy Mr. Baldermol and his mysterious role in the evening's business. He and Omberbain shared a language of glances, nods, and gestures I found utterly mysterious. Even as the auction house's owner announced a twenty-minute intermission and invited the assemblage to partake of refreshments in the lobby I had little more insight into the gentleman's duties than I had when I entered. As I rolled Ms. Kindler back into the lobby, I let her know.

"Little time to worry about that now, we'll make do," she said, waving my concern way. She pointed toward a dimly lit hallway leading deeper into the building. "The house keeps offices and meeting rooms this way. Lets see if we can find one to our liking."

I wasn't concerned that anyone was going to miss an elderly lady and her maid, and so made no disguise of our intentions, strolling away from the muttering assemblage. Once in the shadow hall a few yanks on sturdy door handles revealed a packed cleaning closet, a locked office door, and finally a cramped meeting chamber. An impersonal side space, likely for agents to discuss their employers business, a half dozen high-backed chairs circled an antique wooden table. Little effort had been made at decoration, aside from a few sizable frames that looked empty in the gloom, and a sideboard bearing two sturdy candelabra and a pocket flint.

Ms. Kindler nodded her approval and we rolled inside. Before I had finished lighting one of the candles and brought it over to her she had already produced a thick fold of parchment and was quickly opening it square by square. I could feel the first dull thrum of a headache beginning behind my eyes as I scanned the unfolded sheet. Dozens of elaborate symbols wound unevenly across the page, their shapes straddling the line between letters and diagrams. Their complexity aside, each figure appeared to writhe and readjust upon the page, and focusing on any one only seemed to make it list away like a fleck of dust floating in one's eye. It could have merely been a trick of the poor light and the wavering candle flame, but I ascribed a more sinister cause: magic hated me.

After she'd produced this folded up spell—which she'd been using as a place marker in some massive tome—Ms. Kindler had subjected me to something of a refresher on arcane theory. I'd had some instruction in the field in my youth, but the combination of my own impatience and my brother's easy talent had soured me toward the subject completely. Since then, I'd had enough mishaps with would-be wizards and magical devices to realize the arcane arts held me in similar regard.

I opened my mouth to again protest this part of our plan, but Ms. Kindler—likely anticipating my complaint—cut me off. "You'll be wanting to fetch him now, we haven't much time."

Restraining most of my grumbling, I found a false smile and went back into the lobby. It took me several minutes to locate Mr. Baldermol, long enough to leave a fluttering sensation in my gut out of fear that he'd departed early and the entire evening had been for naught. Finally, though, I found him emerging from a washroom, and, to his obvious surprise, approached him. I didn't say much, and he said even less, but I like his imagination fill in the innuendo as he curiously followed me back to the meeting room.

Letting him enter before me, I could sense his confusion as he saw the old woman sitting there in the candlelight, smiling up at him pleasantly. He straightened, obviously reassessing the situation. I brought the handily placed twin to the pewter candelabrum on the table down on the back of his head before he had time to excuse himself. With polite quietness he crumpled to the ground and I closed the door behind us. In the hall beyond a muffed echo announced that the auction would resume in five minutes.

"Alright girl, we'll have to do this quick," Ms. Kindler said, pulling the magical document close to the table's edge. I was done complaining at this point, and I resigned myself to the coming failure or success.

"Look closely at the face," she went on, trying to be helpful but just putting me even more on edge. "That's the most important part. This will all be rubbish if you can't picture the face just right in your mind."

I did what she said, taking in Mr. Baldermol's unhandsome features, imagining how they would look were they not half flattened upon the wood floor. With them set in my mind, I turned to face the page.

As expected, the symbols seemed to scatter as I looked at them, as though each line was written in ants rather than ink. Concentrating as best I could, I skimmed the page one final time, mouthing the complex and variable syllables as best I could remember. It was like reading a page in Kelish, I could make the sounds passably, but the meanings were utterly lost on me. Oh well.

I began and the sounds spilled out, varying from guttural gibberish to lilting murmurs. Although she couldn't unleash the page's magic for me, Ms. Kindler was obviously reading along, and rather than speaking the words was humming a sigil or two ahead of me, noting the syllables of each complex sound like a music instructor punctuating the beats of a song. My speed would have probably made the most inexperienced apprentice laugh, but I deliberately captured each symbol before continuing my steady pace.

I was shocked when a glow like ghost light began rising from the ink upon the page, a faint light that leaked up through the runes as though they were more than just strokes upon a page, but rather miniature windows letting in a radiance from somewhere else. I hesitated between sounds, but Ms. Kindler's touch on my elbow spurred me on. As I went on, the light intensified slightly, playing over the symbols as I read them. I had expected this, and in the moment's thrill sped up my reading, hoping to complete the page while the power remained present. The sounds came swiftly, and energy spilled from the words, exaggerating their shapes and crisscrossing the page. Nearing the end it was like an avalanche, I was barreling through the words, speaking the sounds before I was entirely sure of the symbol I was looking at. It seemed to be working so I went on.

Then something went wrong. It was immediate and unforgiving. The light spilling from the shapes was more than just a gentle glow, it was fire. I knew immediately that I'd lost control and the ghost light tracings that had elaborated and enhanced the symbols upon the page lost their shape, spilling over the parchment like a sheet of flame, consuming ink and page and meaning in a blazing breath. The parchment was gone.

I gasped as though someone had smacked me, but aside from that could do little more than gaze at the empty table. Outside in the lobby an echoing voice announced the end of the intermission.

"Don't you have someplace to be?" Ms. Kindler asked.

I looked at her puzzled. She was smiling her condescending half smile, and in response, all she did was tap my hand. What I looked down at wasn't my hand, but a wrinkled furless bear's paw, a giant weathered thing, a man's hand. The big scarred hand of Mr. Baldermol, in fact, poking out of a gentleman's jacket. I couldn't help but laugh and touched my face. It still felt like mine.

"Yes, yes, you're the complete picture—and quite a sight at that. But it's not going to do us a lick of good if you don't get moving.

∗ ∗ ∗

"How could anyone not know this diabolical thing for what it was?"

I jumped as Mr. Omberbain hissed in my ear, "What's wrong with you. Pull it together!"

I straighten my posture—Baldermol's posture—and cast my eyes across the stiff-looking crowd. From my place standing before the stage I had a view of every seat in the house. Well, every seat but one. Ms. Kindler in her wheeled chair was nowhere to be seen.

On the stage behind me, Mr. Omberbain threw himself into an extravagant description of the next item up for auction. I'd stood through several of these now, trying my best to emulate the real Mr. Baldermol's actions, acknowledging bidders and trying to take cues from Omberbain as best I could, but obviously I wasn't grasping some vital aspect of my duties. So be it. All I had to do was last a few items more.

It took the better part of an hour before finally Mr. Omberbain announced our reason for coming that night.

"The next item for bidding is a true treasure, my friends, an exotic piece, cut from the wild mountains of the north, forged with the ferocity of the barbarian tribes, and wielded by many a savage queen. Don't be fooled by its designs in gold and gemstone—even though they show delicately and detail of the highest mastery—this fine dagger is much more than just a display piece, its razor-edged blade sharpened upon the hearts of a hundred virgin sacrifices. The bidding opens at 500. Shall we have 500?"

The bidding went swiftly, the blade fetching just over 900 gold pieces at the end—a paltry sum considering many of the ludicrous amounts bandied about that night. It wasn't surprising, though, the dagger wasn't a stylish piece one might display upon a desk or in a sash. Rather, it would probably just get horded into a curio case, another piece for the servants to dust. It was small, though, so without surprise the auction's winner stood to receive his winnings. Delicately, Mr. Omberbain handed the blade down to me upon a tasseled amber pillow.

How could anyone not know this diabolical thing for what it was? No sooner had I touched the pillow than my blood seemed gripped, pulled toward the blade. Had I some cut I imagine my gore would have leapt right out of me and arched to the dagger, which would have drunk up every drop. It was thirsty, for blood, for life, for something more, making its unholy desires obvious in the obscene crimson glinting of its ruby hilt.