Chapter two: ... and claim that Government has happened
Just for fun:
Name: Dara
Home: Sablecrest Manor
Caste: Mystic
Lifestyle: Sophist
Abilities: Poor Administration, Basic Discipline, Poor Lore, Advanced Perception, Basic Psychology, Basic Science
Powers: Advanced Witchcraft
Chapter two
Shadowed Citadel Demesne spread out over the floor of a deep, vast valley. Three deep, black lakes were watered by streams running down from the surrounding mountains, and emptied into a great river that flowed onwards out into the Wastelands that lay beyond the high walls protecting the city from the north-north-east and west-south-west. The streets were lined with leering Witch Stone gargoyles, and high spires rose from cathedrals and palaces and prison keeps, their walls bedecked with carvings and ornaments. From clock towers, weighty bronze bells rang out the hours. In the well-lit salons and fashionable coffeehouses, people wore mink and satin, gold and diamonds in elegant designs intended to awe and impress.
If someone had pointed out to the people of Shadowed Citadel Demesne that the beauty they surrounded themselves with was intended to replace something, they would have been confused. What could they possibly miss? Did they not have food and drink, music and fire, wise rulership and spiritual guidance? Did they not have the grace of the UniGod - and was not the fact that they always repelled the demons at their gates proof of that? What, then, could they possibly miss?
But one could miss even that which one had never seen. Each and every one of the citizens carried an ache, deep in their hearts, a longing that hummed within their very genes, demanding something that they knew the name for but did not know the meaning of. Because for four hundred years, no citizen of Shadowed Citadel Demesne had seen a living plant.
Animals did exist, the bidden and the unbidden. Crows and magpies nested in the high towers. Horses pulled carriages along the streets. Dogs strutted by their owners' sides. All of them were fed, by gift or by theft, from the Conjured stores of food that every day spread across the city, brought into being by that select few who had been born with what some called a gift from the UniGod and some called an accident of nature, but who all depended upon for their very survival.
In Shadowed Citadel Demesne, magic brought life... even where no life should be able to possibly exist.
***
Sablecrest Manor was one of many fine mansions in Shadowed Citadel Demesne. It rose ten stories high, all wrought iron ornaments and polished Witch Stone facades, and was surrounded by a great park of labyrinths and statues, paths and benches, gaming courts and gazebos. Most such mansions were bustling with life - Servants to keep them clean and repaired, Artists to fill them with song, Nobles to overlook their finances, Priests to comfort and council, Soldiers to watch over them all. There should have been laughing children, lovers taking walks in the park, old people reminiscing around the fireplaces.
There was none of those things in Sablecrest Manor. The mansion had only a single inhabitant, and whatever she needed - of service and protection, assistance and companionship - she provided for herself by her witchcraft. She padded silently through the long, empty halls, and aside from her quiet steps, the only ones that echoed through them were the heavy thuds of gargoyle feet.
Dara was sitting in the kitchen, cross-legged on a table, its wood so old that it had gone almost black. A small gargoyle stoked the fire in the fireplace, while another kneaded some dough over by the counter. Dara didn't need more than a flicker of attention to keep them animated, just as she didn't need much to make the other gargoyles active throughout the mansion continue with their routine tasks. If anything, the exercise steadied her - a faint distraction, to make her concentration all the more complete.
There were tiny pebbles of Witch Stone spread across the kitchen floor. Dara looked at them intently.
Let's see now...
Three murders, each one the same - blunt force, applied to a victim while he or she was alone, in a room that the culprit had appeared to break out of rather than into.
The Witch Stone gravel scraped across the floor, joining together or drawing back to form a cluster of words - BLUNT TRAUMA, NO WITNESSES, FORCED EXIT, and the words NO FORCED ENTRY with a line drawn across them. After a moment, Dara gestured, and the words ELEVEN BELLS formed at the side of the cluster. They couldn't be exactly sure when the victims had died, but for now she would work on the theory that the timing was part of the pattern.
The first victim had been named Ygall, a Priest, working in the Hillside Monastery library. He had been withdrawn, scholarly, and vaguely well-liked in the way of someone who gave people neither reason to like nor to dislike him.
The Witch Stone moved - scrape scrape scrape - to form a second cluster of words, joined to the first with a line. PRIEST. HILLSIDE MONASTERY. LIBRARIAN. BOOKISH.
The second victim had been Hakana of Lonebridge Manor, caste of Nobles. She had been regional liaison of the Ministry of Tranquility - a pious woman, from all accounts, and greatly dedicated to her work. All sorts of political rivals, but no real enemies.
Scrape scrape scrape - a third cluster. NOBLE. LONEBRIDGE MANOR. REPRESENTATIVE. RELIGIOUS.
And now Marias. Dara formed a fourth cluster. NOBLE. STONEGARDEN PARK. BUREAUCRAT. RAKISH.
She made a slight effort of will, and the two small gargoyles in the kitchen turned towards her. They were lizard-like in form, bipedal with trailing tails, short, stubby wings, and ridges running down their backs. They watched her in silence.
"Two Nobles and a Priest," Dara said. "All members of the higher castes, even though the Servants outnumber them three to one and most of the rest are Soldiers. Whomever it is wants people who matter." She scratched her chin. "But it's apparently okay if they don't matter that much - a pencil-pusher and a librarian were apparently acceptable."
The gargoyles made no comment to that.
"You can tell that I'm thinking 'ritual murder,' can't you?" Dara said with a faint smile.
The gargoyles nodded sagely.
"Of course," Dara admitted, "'ritual' is just what you call something that clearly follows very specific rules, yet makes no outward sense. Am I right?"
The gargoyles indicated that she was.
"In that case," Dara said, "these victims represent something. And that means that what they have in common is less important than what sets them apart. Like..."
She peered at the arrangement of Witch Stone pebbles, looking from one to the other.
BOOKISH.
RELIGIOUS.
RAKISH.
Dara snapped her fingers, and the pebbles whirled around, reshaping the words.
SOPHIST.
ASCETIC.
HEDONIST.
"Maybe?" Dara offered, glancing at the gargoyles. They looked doubtfully at the new arrangement. She shrugged. "It's a possibility. I'll have to ask the next of kin for each of them to see which lifestyle they identified most with."
She thought for a moment.
"Of course," she said, "if that was it, if the killer wanted one representative for each major lifestyle, what happens next? Is he done? Or does the cycle start over? Or does he go on to something else entirely?"
She bit her lip.
"Damn, this is a dead end," she said. "No, I'm thinking about it wrong. Never mind where they differ. What else was true for each of the murders?"
She stared at the central cluster for a while.
"What," she rephrased the question, chasing a haunting piece of inspiration, "was there at the scene of each murder?"
The gargoyles looked helplessly at her. For a while, Dara looked back. Then she laughed.
"Son of a bitch," she said quietly. "Staring me right in the face, wasn't it?"
She gestured, and another phrase appeared in the central cluster.
WITCH STONE.
***
The Ministry of Mystery was housed in an impressive marble office building, the columns and frescoes along its walls made of marble and pristine white in the glow of the street lights. There was constant activity there - messengers coming and going, dignitaries arriving, citizens standing in line to make complaints or requests to the masters of at least one fifth of Shadowed Citadel Demesne.
Dara's gargoyle-drawn carriage had arrived there at what passed, in this Demesne, for the early morning. Whether it was actually so was a question for academics.
There was still a sun beyond the magical darkness that had been cast over the city - far-ranging expeditions had come back reporting that if you traveled straight ahead for a month or more, the black fugue above gradually thinned out and disappeared, until you were standing below an open sky. However, such expeditions served no major purpose beyond satisfying the curiosity of a few Sophists, and as such they were few and far between - certainly no one had any intention of launching one for the trivial purpose of determining what time of day it was.
Lacking an exterior source of time, the citizens of Shadowed Citadel Demesne made do with clockwork timepieces that represented a 26-hour day - it having been decided, centuries before, that it no longer made sense to try to keep the rhythm of the planet, and that the citizens would be happier keeping the rhythm of the human body, taking ten hours of sleep for every sixteen hours of waking. Right now, Dara's pocket watch made the time out to be half past eight.
The fact that that made it an hour since she had come here was not lost on her.
She was sitting in what was, all things considered, a quite opulently furnished waiting room. The couches were deep, the stoves were hot, and the walls were decorated with tasteful, expensive paintings - though Dara's pleasure in the last part was limited to spending a few minutes playing spot-the-forgeries, which revealed that a supposed Lintwel of Lakeview Manor original had clearly been painted by a right-handed artist, whereas Lintwel was well known to have been left-handed. Honestly, did other people never bother to look closely at anything?
There was a motley lot waiting along with her - white-garbed Priests, robed Mystics, livery-clad Servants, uniformed Soldiers. Every once in a while, a Noble stepped in and called a name, leading the patient supplicant off to talk to whatever official he or she had come to see. Dara had a sense of foreboding about her own chances to be let in before the Ministry closed for the day in thirteen hours. She had, after all, asked to see the Minister of Mystery herself. The Noble taking her request had looked faintly dizzy at hearing it, and mumbled something about seeing whether the great woman had an opening at some point.
Dara leaned back in the couch and yawned. This wasn't working. She needed to tell someone about her suspicions, and they weren't of the kind that could be shared with just anyone. Lord Minister Kroll would see that, if Dara ever actually got close to her - she wouldn't thank Dara if she went around spreading panic. And yet, without telling one of the lesser Nobles what she thought was going on, how to convince them to let her see Kroll at all?
She smiled to herself. An interesting problem.
She had watched the low-level Nobles who came to fetch supplicants from time to time, noting all the tell-tale signs that people weren't aware that they were giving off, extrapolating their moods, dispositions and temperaments from their tones, facial expressions, word choices and body language. Carefully, she selected one of them, then sat back and waited for her to make a reappearance.
She was a quite young woman, fine-skinned and golden-haired, with a soft voice and a nervous smile. New at the job, Dara judged. Ill at ease. Feeling unequal to much in the way of authority. Dara stepped up to her as she was about to call a name.
"Madame," she said before the Noble could speak. "If you do not take me to the Lord Minister this moment, I shall be forced to tell you what I want to speak to her about."
The Noble hesitated.
"Please just sit down and wait, Mystic," she said, probably unaware of the imploring undertone. "If the Lord Minister gets a moment to spare..."
"The Lord Minister wants to talk to me right now," Dara said. "She just doesn't know it yet, and nor will she until she actually does talk to me. This is what was in the World Before known as a 'Catch 22.' In order to break it, I will have to tell you the extremely sensitive information that I am here to tell her."
"Just sit down, Mystic," the Noble repeated.
"I will not," Dara said. "Instead, I will share with you a piece of information that is far, far above your clearance level. Then you will take me to the Lord Minister. However, the Lord Minister will be displeased. Displeased with me for talking, and displeased with you for hearing. That neither one of us had any choice will not matter to her. One of the benefits of power is that you do not have to be reasonable. I am very sorry to do this to you, but this really is very important. The matter is this..."
She leaned forward as if to whisper in the Noble's ear. The Noble shied back as if approached by a dangerous animal.
"I'm... I'm not..." she stammered.
"You're not authorised to make these kinds of decisions?" Dara said.
"I'll... I have to..." the Noble said, glancing nervously over her shoulder.
"You'll have to check with the Lord Minister?" Dara said. "Excellent idea. Let her make the decision - that's her job, after all. And just to save time, I'll tag along with you."
The Noble fled. Dara followed her, feeling very pleased with herself. Knowing what made people tick wasn't the same as having actual people skills, but sometimes it could be made to serve the same purpose.
***
Kroll of Silvertree Hall, caste of Nobles, Lord Minister of Mystery, was a tall and stately woman with a thick, well-tended mane of white hair and large, pale-blue eyes that surveyed Dara across the desk. Dara stared back stubbornly. She and Kroll had been at odds before, and it was always upsetting - for all that Dara told herself that she didn't care what anyone thought, Kroll's steely gaze and force of personality could pile leaden disapproval over you without her needing to say a word.
"I expect that you think yourself very clever," she now said.
"Well, I do consistently score 'too high to measure' on IQ tests," Dara said modestly. "But I'm guessing you mean my... somewhat unorthodox way of getting an appointment with you?"
Kroll gave her a look that made her feel that perhaps the cleverest thing she could be doing right now would be to cut way back on the sass.
"You can't do this," she said flatly. "We have certain rules in this Demesne, and you are not above them. Your skills are of great value, and that makes people willing to cut you some slack when you fail to dot an I or cross a T, but you are not above the rules. That's a lesson I'm willing to impart by means of two weeks menial labour if I have to. I have far better uses for you than to have you picking litter off the sidewalk, but if that's what it takes to teach you your place, then so be it. Will that be what it takes?"
"No," Dara said. "Look, I'm sorry. I wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been so important that I speak to you as soon as possible, and if I hadn't thought that I should let as few people as possible know what we are speaking of."
Kroll hesitated, then leaned back in her stuffed leather chair. She put her fingertips together in front of her, forming a tent.
"I'm listening," she said.
"Those murders I've been brought in to investigate were committed by a witch," Dara said.
"Nonsense," Kroll said.
Dara had to admit that she had expected a bit of shock and disbelief at that one - maybe even furious denial. No one wanted to think about the possibility of an insane witch - of a lunatic who could shape his twisted delusions in stone and make them come to life. There had been a few such cases in the history of Shadowed Citadel Demesne, and they made for sobering reading for a historian.
She had expected shock and disbelief. She hadn't expected disgusted dismissal.
"No, listen to me," she said. "It's the only thing that fits. To look at the murders, it seems like each time the killer appeared out of thin air, did the deed, and then broke out. And that makes no sense. But it assumes that the killer needed to be in the same room as the victims in the first place. What if he didn't? What if he could stand outside and shape a piece of crumbling Witch Stone wall into whatever murder weapon he liked, make it kill the victim, and then summon it to him before leaving? Then it makes sense."
"That is ridiculously far-fetched," Kroll said. "Why would your hypothetical witch need to summon his gargoyle to him once he was done with it?"
Dara blinked.
"Because he didn't just control it, he shaped it," she said. "He had to - there were no gargoyles on any of the crime scenes. But if a witch constructs a gargoyle, it will show signs of his technique - it's like hand-writing. He could shatter it, but without entering the room he couldn't be sure that he had destroyed it thoroughly enough. No, he had to take it with him. No one notices if a wall has a few more holes in it, not when most of them are holier than the Lord Bishop anyway."
She was a second away from adding, surely you know that? but then clamped her mouth firmly shut. Because yes - Kroll would know all about gargoyle-creating techniques. She was, after all, Lord Ministery of Mystery - the person in charge of administrating all things arcane and esoteric. If she was pretending not to know, then there was a reason for it.
"It's barely even possible to do that kind of shaping from a distance," Kroll said. "Most witches need to be close enough to see what they're doing."
"True," Dara said. "Which means that the list of suspects is pleasantly short. Look, we need to find whomever it is quickly and discreetly, or not only is there likely to be more murders, but sooner or later the average citizen is going to figure out what's going on. And you know what happens whenever someone thinks that a witch has gone bad. Most people barely tolerate us as it is - if they heard so much as a whisper to the effect that a witch might be out there killing people, they'll panic. Witches will get attacked. And then the witches will panic, and when witches panic, things break."
Kroll massaged her forehead.
"Get out of my sight," she said, "and take your crackpot theories with you. And you may rest assured that once I have discussed the matter with your more immediate superiors - who are the ones you should have bothered with this nonsense, insofar as you should have bothered anyone - you will be submitted to some suitable disciplinary action for harassing my staff and taking up my time."
Dara didn't argue, but instead mumbled some incoherent excuses and headed out the door. This was for two reasons. The first was that she was very bad at lying, and she was afraid that Kroll would be able to see what she was thinking if she stayed for a moment longer. The second one was that she was very good at telling when other people were lying, and Kroll was lying. Dara didn't know why or what about, but she knew a well-executed act when she saw one, and Kroll's refusal to believe her had been one.
She stopped on the other side of the door, leaning against the wall and trying to make her heart stop pounding. Up until now, this had been fun. She had been so proud of solving a mystery that had stumped everyone else, and she had been proud of getting to Kroll without having to go through any lower functionaries too. She had been enjoying the feeling of supreme cleverness that was her foremost pleasure in life.
Now she wasn't feeling so clever anymore. She was feeling confused. She was feeling scared.
The Lord Minister of Mystery doesn't want me to solve the case, she thought. What the hell is going on?
Name: Dara
Home: Sablecrest Manor
Caste: Mystic
Lifestyle: Sophist
Abilities: Poor Administration, Basic Discipline, Poor Lore, Advanced Perception, Basic Psychology, Basic Science
Powers: Advanced Witchcraft
Chapter two
Shadowed Citadel Demesne spread out over the floor of a deep, vast valley. Three deep, black lakes were watered by streams running down from the surrounding mountains, and emptied into a great river that flowed onwards out into the Wastelands that lay beyond the high walls protecting the city from the north-north-east and west-south-west. The streets were lined with leering Witch Stone gargoyles, and high spires rose from cathedrals and palaces and prison keeps, their walls bedecked with carvings and ornaments. From clock towers, weighty bronze bells rang out the hours. In the well-lit salons and fashionable coffeehouses, people wore mink and satin, gold and diamonds in elegant designs intended to awe and impress.
If someone had pointed out to the people of Shadowed Citadel Demesne that the beauty they surrounded themselves with was intended to replace something, they would have been confused. What could they possibly miss? Did they not have food and drink, music and fire, wise rulership and spiritual guidance? Did they not have the grace of the UniGod - and was not the fact that they always repelled the demons at their gates proof of that? What, then, could they possibly miss?
But one could miss even that which one had never seen. Each and every one of the citizens carried an ache, deep in their hearts, a longing that hummed within their very genes, demanding something that they knew the name for but did not know the meaning of. Because for four hundred years, no citizen of Shadowed Citadel Demesne had seen a living plant.
Animals did exist, the bidden and the unbidden. Crows and magpies nested in the high towers. Horses pulled carriages along the streets. Dogs strutted by their owners' sides. All of them were fed, by gift or by theft, from the Conjured stores of food that every day spread across the city, brought into being by that select few who had been born with what some called a gift from the UniGod and some called an accident of nature, but who all depended upon for their very survival.
In Shadowed Citadel Demesne, magic brought life... even where no life should be able to possibly exist.
***
Sablecrest Manor was one of many fine mansions in Shadowed Citadel Demesne. It rose ten stories high, all wrought iron ornaments and polished Witch Stone facades, and was surrounded by a great park of labyrinths and statues, paths and benches, gaming courts and gazebos. Most such mansions were bustling with life - Servants to keep them clean and repaired, Artists to fill them with song, Nobles to overlook their finances, Priests to comfort and council, Soldiers to watch over them all. There should have been laughing children, lovers taking walks in the park, old people reminiscing around the fireplaces.
There was none of those things in Sablecrest Manor. The mansion had only a single inhabitant, and whatever she needed - of service and protection, assistance and companionship - she provided for herself by her witchcraft. She padded silently through the long, empty halls, and aside from her quiet steps, the only ones that echoed through them were the heavy thuds of gargoyle feet.
Dara was sitting in the kitchen, cross-legged on a table, its wood so old that it had gone almost black. A small gargoyle stoked the fire in the fireplace, while another kneaded some dough over by the counter. Dara didn't need more than a flicker of attention to keep them animated, just as she didn't need much to make the other gargoyles active throughout the mansion continue with their routine tasks. If anything, the exercise steadied her - a faint distraction, to make her concentration all the more complete.
There were tiny pebbles of Witch Stone spread across the kitchen floor. Dara looked at them intently.
Let's see now...
Three murders, each one the same - blunt force, applied to a victim while he or she was alone, in a room that the culprit had appeared to break out of rather than into.
The Witch Stone gravel scraped across the floor, joining together or drawing back to form a cluster of words - BLUNT TRAUMA, NO WITNESSES, FORCED EXIT, and the words NO FORCED ENTRY with a line drawn across them. After a moment, Dara gestured, and the words ELEVEN BELLS formed at the side of the cluster. They couldn't be exactly sure when the victims had died, but for now she would work on the theory that the timing was part of the pattern.
The first victim had been named Ygall, a Priest, working in the Hillside Monastery library. He had been withdrawn, scholarly, and vaguely well-liked in the way of someone who gave people neither reason to like nor to dislike him.
The Witch Stone moved - scrape scrape scrape - to form a second cluster of words, joined to the first with a line. PRIEST. HILLSIDE MONASTERY. LIBRARIAN. BOOKISH.
The second victim had been Hakana of Lonebridge Manor, caste of Nobles. She had been regional liaison of the Ministry of Tranquility - a pious woman, from all accounts, and greatly dedicated to her work. All sorts of political rivals, but no real enemies.
Scrape scrape scrape - a third cluster. NOBLE. LONEBRIDGE MANOR. REPRESENTATIVE. RELIGIOUS.
And now Marias. Dara formed a fourth cluster. NOBLE. STONEGARDEN PARK. BUREAUCRAT. RAKISH.
She made a slight effort of will, and the two small gargoyles in the kitchen turned towards her. They were lizard-like in form, bipedal with trailing tails, short, stubby wings, and ridges running down their backs. They watched her in silence.
"Two Nobles and a Priest," Dara said. "All members of the higher castes, even though the Servants outnumber them three to one and most of the rest are Soldiers. Whomever it is wants people who matter." She scratched her chin. "But it's apparently okay if they don't matter that much - a pencil-pusher and a librarian were apparently acceptable."
The gargoyles made no comment to that.
"You can tell that I'm thinking 'ritual murder,' can't you?" Dara said with a faint smile.
The gargoyles nodded sagely.
"Of course," Dara admitted, "'ritual' is just what you call something that clearly follows very specific rules, yet makes no outward sense. Am I right?"
The gargoyles indicated that she was.
"In that case," Dara said, "these victims represent something. And that means that what they have in common is less important than what sets them apart. Like..."
She peered at the arrangement of Witch Stone pebbles, looking from one to the other.
BOOKISH.
RELIGIOUS.
RAKISH.
Dara snapped her fingers, and the pebbles whirled around, reshaping the words.
SOPHIST.
ASCETIC.
HEDONIST.
"Maybe?" Dara offered, glancing at the gargoyles. They looked doubtfully at the new arrangement. She shrugged. "It's a possibility. I'll have to ask the next of kin for each of them to see which lifestyle they identified most with."
She thought for a moment.
"Of course," she said, "if that was it, if the killer wanted one representative for each major lifestyle, what happens next? Is he done? Or does the cycle start over? Or does he go on to something else entirely?"
She bit her lip.
"Damn, this is a dead end," she said. "No, I'm thinking about it wrong. Never mind where they differ. What else was true for each of the murders?"
She stared at the central cluster for a while.
"What," she rephrased the question, chasing a haunting piece of inspiration, "was there at the scene of each murder?"
The gargoyles looked helplessly at her. For a while, Dara looked back. Then she laughed.
"Son of a bitch," she said quietly. "Staring me right in the face, wasn't it?"
She gestured, and another phrase appeared in the central cluster.
WITCH STONE.
***
The Ministry of Mystery was housed in an impressive marble office building, the columns and frescoes along its walls made of marble and pristine white in the glow of the street lights. There was constant activity there - messengers coming and going, dignitaries arriving, citizens standing in line to make complaints or requests to the masters of at least one fifth of Shadowed Citadel Demesne.
Dara's gargoyle-drawn carriage had arrived there at what passed, in this Demesne, for the early morning. Whether it was actually so was a question for academics.
There was still a sun beyond the magical darkness that had been cast over the city - far-ranging expeditions had come back reporting that if you traveled straight ahead for a month or more, the black fugue above gradually thinned out and disappeared, until you were standing below an open sky. However, such expeditions served no major purpose beyond satisfying the curiosity of a few Sophists, and as such they were few and far between - certainly no one had any intention of launching one for the trivial purpose of determining what time of day it was.
Lacking an exterior source of time, the citizens of Shadowed Citadel Demesne made do with clockwork timepieces that represented a 26-hour day - it having been decided, centuries before, that it no longer made sense to try to keep the rhythm of the planet, and that the citizens would be happier keeping the rhythm of the human body, taking ten hours of sleep for every sixteen hours of waking. Right now, Dara's pocket watch made the time out to be half past eight.
The fact that that made it an hour since she had come here was not lost on her.
She was sitting in what was, all things considered, a quite opulently furnished waiting room. The couches were deep, the stoves were hot, and the walls were decorated with tasteful, expensive paintings - though Dara's pleasure in the last part was limited to spending a few minutes playing spot-the-forgeries, which revealed that a supposed Lintwel of Lakeview Manor original had clearly been painted by a right-handed artist, whereas Lintwel was well known to have been left-handed. Honestly, did other people never bother to look closely at anything?
There was a motley lot waiting along with her - white-garbed Priests, robed Mystics, livery-clad Servants, uniformed Soldiers. Every once in a while, a Noble stepped in and called a name, leading the patient supplicant off to talk to whatever official he or she had come to see. Dara had a sense of foreboding about her own chances to be let in before the Ministry closed for the day in thirteen hours. She had, after all, asked to see the Minister of Mystery herself. The Noble taking her request had looked faintly dizzy at hearing it, and mumbled something about seeing whether the great woman had an opening at some point.
Dara leaned back in the couch and yawned. This wasn't working. She needed to tell someone about her suspicions, and they weren't of the kind that could be shared with just anyone. Lord Minister Kroll would see that, if Dara ever actually got close to her - she wouldn't thank Dara if she went around spreading panic. And yet, without telling one of the lesser Nobles what she thought was going on, how to convince them to let her see Kroll at all?
She smiled to herself. An interesting problem.
She had watched the low-level Nobles who came to fetch supplicants from time to time, noting all the tell-tale signs that people weren't aware that they were giving off, extrapolating their moods, dispositions and temperaments from their tones, facial expressions, word choices and body language. Carefully, she selected one of them, then sat back and waited for her to make a reappearance.
She was a quite young woman, fine-skinned and golden-haired, with a soft voice and a nervous smile. New at the job, Dara judged. Ill at ease. Feeling unequal to much in the way of authority. Dara stepped up to her as she was about to call a name.
"Madame," she said before the Noble could speak. "If you do not take me to the Lord Minister this moment, I shall be forced to tell you what I want to speak to her about."
The Noble hesitated.
"Please just sit down and wait, Mystic," she said, probably unaware of the imploring undertone. "If the Lord Minister gets a moment to spare..."
"The Lord Minister wants to talk to me right now," Dara said. "She just doesn't know it yet, and nor will she until she actually does talk to me. This is what was in the World Before known as a 'Catch 22.' In order to break it, I will have to tell you the extremely sensitive information that I am here to tell her."
"Just sit down, Mystic," the Noble repeated.
"I will not," Dara said. "Instead, I will share with you a piece of information that is far, far above your clearance level. Then you will take me to the Lord Minister. However, the Lord Minister will be displeased. Displeased with me for talking, and displeased with you for hearing. That neither one of us had any choice will not matter to her. One of the benefits of power is that you do not have to be reasonable. I am very sorry to do this to you, but this really is very important. The matter is this..."
She leaned forward as if to whisper in the Noble's ear. The Noble shied back as if approached by a dangerous animal.
"I'm... I'm not..." she stammered.
"You're not authorised to make these kinds of decisions?" Dara said.
"I'll... I have to..." the Noble said, glancing nervously over her shoulder.
"You'll have to check with the Lord Minister?" Dara said. "Excellent idea. Let her make the decision - that's her job, after all. And just to save time, I'll tag along with you."
The Noble fled. Dara followed her, feeling very pleased with herself. Knowing what made people tick wasn't the same as having actual people skills, but sometimes it could be made to serve the same purpose.
***
Kroll of Silvertree Hall, caste of Nobles, Lord Minister of Mystery, was a tall and stately woman with a thick, well-tended mane of white hair and large, pale-blue eyes that surveyed Dara across the desk. Dara stared back stubbornly. She and Kroll had been at odds before, and it was always upsetting - for all that Dara told herself that she didn't care what anyone thought, Kroll's steely gaze and force of personality could pile leaden disapproval over you without her needing to say a word.
"I expect that you think yourself very clever," she now said.
"Well, I do consistently score 'too high to measure' on IQ tests," Dara said modestly. "But I'm guessing you mean my... somewhat unorthodox way of getting an appointment with you?"
Kroll gave her a look that made her feel that perhaps the cleverest thing she could be doing right now would be to cut way back on the sass.
"You can't do this," she said flatly. "We have certain rules in this Demesne, and you are not above them. Your skills are of great value, and that makes people willing to cut you some slack when you fail to dot an I or cross a T, but you are not above the rules. That's a lesson I'm willing to impart by means of two weeks menial labour if I have to. I have far better uses for you than to have you picking litter off the sidewalk, but if that's what it takes to teach you your place, then so be it. Will that be what it takes?"
"No," Dara said. "Look, I'm sorry. I wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been so important that I speak to you as soon as possible, and if I hadn't thought that I should let as few people as possible know what we are speaking of."
Kroll hesitated, then leaned back in her stuffed leather chair. She put her fingertips together in front of her, forming a tent.
"I'm listening," she said.
"Those murders I've been brought in to investigate were committed by a witch," Dara said.
"Nonsense," Kroll said.
Dara had to admit that she had expected a bit of shock and disbelief at that one - maybe even furious denial. No one wanted to think about the possibility of an insane witch - of a lunatic who could shape his twisted delusions in stone and make them come to life. There had been a few such cases in the history of Shadowed Citadel Demesne, and they made for sobering reading for a historian.
She had expected shock and disbelief. She hadn't expected disgusted dismissal.
"No, listen to me," she said. "It's the only thing that fits. To look at the murders, it seems like each time the killer appeared out of thin air, did the deed, and then broke out. And that makes no sense. But it assumes that the killer needed to be in the same room as the victims in the first place. What if he didn't? What if he could stand outside and shape a piece of crumbling Witch Stone wall into whatever murder weapon he liked, make it kill the victim, and then summon it to him before leaving? Then it makes sense."
"That is ridiculously far-fetched," Kroll said. "Why would your hypothetical witch need to summon his gargoyle to him once he was done with it?"
Dara blinked.
"Because he didn't just control it, he shaped it," she said. "He had to - there were no gargoyles on any of the crime scenes. But if a witch constructs a gargoyle, it will show signs of his technique - it's like hand-writing. He could shatter it, but without entering the room he couldn't be sure that he had destroyed it thoroughly enough. No, he had to take it with him. No one notices if a wall has a few more holes in it, not when most of them are holier than the Lord Bishop anyway."
She was a second away from adding, surely you know that? but then clamped her mouth firmly shut. Because yes - Kroll would know all about gargoyle-creating techniques. She was, after all, Lord Ministery of Mystery - the person in charge of administrating all things arcane and esoteric. If she was pretending not to know, then there was a reason for it.
"It's barely even possible to do that kind of shaping from a distance," Kroll said. "Most witches need to be close enough to see what they're doing."
"True," Dara said. "Which means that the list of suspects is pleasantly short. Look, we need to find whomever it is quickly and discreetly, or not only is there likely to be more murders, but sooner or later the average citizen is going to figure out what's going on. And you know what happens whenever someone thinks that a witch has gone bad. Most people barely tolerate us as it is - if they heard so much as a whisper to the effect that a witch might be out there killing people, they'll panic. Witches will get attacked. And then the witches will panic, and when witches panic, things break."
Kroll massaged her forehead.
"Get out of my sight," she said, "and take your crackpot theories with you. And you may rest assured that once I have discussed the matter with your more immediate superiors - who are the ones you should have bothered with this nonsense, insofar as you should have bothered anyone - you will be submitted to some suitable disciplinary action for harassing my staff and taking up my time."
Dara didn't argue, but instead mumbled some incoherent excuses and headed out the door. This was for two reasons. The first was that she was very bad at lying, and she was afraid that Kroll would be able to see what she was thinking if she stayed for a moment longer. The second one was that she was very good at telling when other people were lying, and Kroll was lying. Dara didn't know why or what about, but she knew a well-executed act when she saw one, and Kroll's refusal to believe her had been one.
She stopped on the other side of the door, leaning against the wall and trying to make her heart stop pounding. Up until now, this had been fun. She had been so proud of solving a mystery that had stumped everyone else, and she had been proud of getting to Kroll without having to go through any lower functionaries too. She had been enjoying the feeling of supreme cleverness that was her foremost pleasure in life.
Now she wasn't feeling so clever anymore. She was feeling confused. She was feeling scared.
The Lord Minister of Mystery doesn't want me to solve the case, she thought. What the hell is going on?