He knew damn well that these murders weren't part of the pattern, no matter what the witnesses claimed to have seen. But how to convince the simpleton and the brat without explaining how he knew, that had so far eluded him. Nor was the summons that had been ringing in the confines of his own skull for the past ten minutes, deafening as any church bell, making it any easier to think.
He expected this sort of nonsense from Jassion, but that Mellorin had gone along with it, had refused to heed his words… His fists trembled in frustrated fury, and the nearest tapestry actually began to smolder around the edges. Seething, his thoughts darker than the armor for which they searched, Kaleb moved to catch up with the others.
Their exploration took them through workrooms replete with looms and spinning wheels of every conceivable design, including some that hadn't seen regular use for centuries. Up thickly carpeted stairs they trod, through heavily locked chambers containing a fortune in textiles and rare yarns and intricately woven garb, and finally into a hallway of opulent offices.
It was here that Jassion insisted they split up, each searching an office for anything even remotely useful. The sorcerer welcomed the opportunity for solitude, however brief, partly to avoid speaking with the baron whose obstinacy was driving him inexorably mad…
And partly because it finally offered the chance to silence that damn summons, even if it meant turning his attentions toward a different idiot.
Kaleb slipped into one of the chambers, garishly decorated with an array of mismatched stitchings, and slumped into the thickly upholstered chair behind the desk. "What?" he rasped under his breath.
"Gods damn it all, Kaleb! I've been trying to make contact!"
"I'm very well aware-Master Nenavar," he added quickly, as he felt the first stirrings of pain rack his body.
"I am not accustomed to being ignored."
"We can work on that." Then, before the old coot could grow even more irritated, "I was with the others. Couldn't get away. Jassion's a bit dense, but I think even he might notice if I started to talking to myself."
Nenavar remained silent. Kaleb leaned back in the chair and propped his feet up on the desk.
"I assume you had some reason for contacting me other than just wanting to yell at me?"
"We've found him."
Kaleb's feet hit the floor with a resounding thud; he was out of the chair before the echo faded. "What? Where?"
"He triggered the ward that I ordered placed on Ellowaine. Apparently he finally figured out that she was our initial source of intelligence on him."
"He's in Emdimir, then?"
"No. Nearby, though." Kaleb heard the accustomed exasperation in the old voice, but for once it wasn't directed his way. "It took the Cephiran sorceress who'd been scrying on Ellowaine over an hour to reach me. Godsdamn incompetents. I told Rhykus to let me cast the spell, but no, it had to be one of his people. Military paranoia at its finest.
"Anyway, the Cephirans are dogging his heels, and even if he enchants the horses again, there's a limit to how far he can push them. We should be able to maintain at least a general idea of his location. Be ready to move swiftly to intercept; I'll get back to you when we're certain which way he's heading."
Kaleb nodded, though he knew Nenavar couldn't see him. "And what would you like me to tell Baron Tantrum and She-Rebaine?"
But there was no answer. Nenavar's presence was gone from his head.
No worries. He'd find something.
"I've found something."
Kaleb's voice in the hallway was enough to conjure Jassion and Mellorin from their own offices. They appeared in twin swirls of parchment, and Kaleb could only shake his head at the detritus they were leaving behind. "It's a good thing we weren't trying to be subtle or anything," he told them. "It looks like you've been shearing parchment sheep in there."
Mellorin offered a grin that was at least slightly embarrassed, but Jassion-as usual-cared little for Kaleb's concerns. "You've found why Rebaine was interested in these people?"
"I've found an answer," the sorcerer said, so smugly that even his words seemed to turn up their noses in disdain. He held out a creased sheaf of parchments he'd found (with the aid of a few judicious spells) in the office files. "It appears," Kaleb told them, "that the late Guildmistress had commissioned a private investigation of her own. You might like to know what she found." The baron and the warlord's daughter leaned in, scanning the cramped writing, and when they spoke once more, they spoke as one.
"Son of a bitch!" HALF AN HOUR LATER, THEY STOOD gathered in the living room of a modest house on Kevrireun's south end. What had once been a low table was now so much kindling, books and scrolls were scattered about the chamber, and one Embran Laphert-a bald, broad-shouldered fellow who currently led the Weavers' Guild, despite looking like the most unlikely weaver imaginable-hung from the wall, held aloft by Kaleb's magics. He was clad only in a nightshirt, and couldn't cease babbling long enough to form coherent speech.
Neither Jassion nor Mellorin currently had a single glance to spare him. They were too busy marveling at what lay beyond the open door to an inner room.
"You have got to be joking," Jassion finally said.
A small workbench held a large battle-axe with several simplistic but skillful engravings across the blade. Beside it slouched a fat wineskin that smelled, not of wine at all, but of lantern oil.
And behind that, on a large wooden rack, stood a suit of armor, modeled after the most ornate of knightly plate. It had been coated in a black lacquer, the breastplate and spaulders adorned with a few shafts of what appeared, up close, to be iron painted ivory white. To the visor of the helm was bolted the face and jawbone of a human skull.
"It's actually pretty clever," Kaleb said, "in a 'limited intelligence' sort of way." He offered Laphert a friendly smile. "I'm curious: When you were drummed out of the Blacksmiths' Guild, wouldn't it have made more sense, given your talents, to become a jeweler or coppersmith? Weaving seems like a stretch."
It was hard to interpret an answer, given the fellow's blubbering and sobbing, but he seemed to be telling them that, in a city as small as Kevrireun, those Guilds fell under the same general oversight as the blacksmiths' did.
The sorcerer nodded. "So when you learned of the report someone had made to the Guildmistress, about you embezzling from your former Guilds, you figured you could protect yourself and take over the local branch of the Guild in one stroke. And you had a perfect candidate to take the blame."
Not actually all that dissimilar, he mused inwardly, to some other scheme I could mention.
"Let's go," Jassion muttered, irritable but subdued. "We've wasted our time."
"I believe," Kaleb told him with a jaunty grin, "that it's actually you who have wasted our time."
Jassion swept through the door, slamming it behind him.
"Not," Kaleb continued, his grin faltering as he turned toward his other companion, "that he was the only one." Mellorin blushed and stared at her feet, her hair falling over her face in a flimsy curtain. She mouthed what might have been I'm sorry, though he couldn't see well enough to be certain, and went after her fuming uncle-perhaps hoping to calm him down before he broke someone, perhaps fleeing from Kaleb's disappointment.
As soon as she was gone, all trace of humor or hurt-all trace of humanity-dropped from Kaleb's features. Muttering a spell, he moved with supernatural speed, gathering pieces of the false armor and strapping them to the man who struggled and flopped against the wall. Only when the entire ensemble was complete did Kaleb step away. He cast a second enchantment, ensuring that none of the sounds-or screams-to follow would penetrate the house's walls. And then a final spell, the price of irritating a vengeful sorcerer.