Frank Tuttle - Hold The Dark

Wherthmore is Rannit’s largest, oldest church. It was built so long ago the Brown River has since changed course. The two knee-high granite walkways that extend from the steps, it is said, once led right down to the jetties and the wharves. Now, it takes half an hour just to get from the Brown River to Cambrit, and another half to get to Wherthmore.

The cathedral itself soars up five stories-impressive when it was built, but merely average now. It’s made of pink granite, festooned with scowling demons and topped off with triumphant if pigeon-spotted angels, right hands upraised, wings outspread as they descend from the heavens to alight on the Church and bestow blessings on the faithful.

Soot-black thick soot from the crematoriums, soot no rain will ever wash away-has left all twelve of the big oval stained glass windows so black you couldn’t make out the scenes laid within them.

Find in that what metaphor you will.

Halbert stopped the carriage, set the brake and tied the ponies. Then he opened the door, made a little bow and winked.

Half a dozen red masks watched the show.

“I won’t be long,” I said, stepping out.

Halbert just nodded, and marched away, and I stepped into the cold shadow of an angel’s stone wings and made for the steps of Wherthmore.

Two priests, two halls, two rooms. That’s all it had taken to get me from the front doors to the office of one Enris Foon, First Hand of the Holy Arm of Merciful Inquisition. That, and the name of Hisvin, which I’d spoken often and loudly.

I sat in a straight-backed chair and wondered if there was a Second Hand, or perhaps a Right Foot, until a priest so low he lacked a title or a mask wordlessly ushered me in to see Enris Foon himself.

His office was nothing special. Church title or not, it wouldn’t be fit as a closet at House Avalante. My own spacious accommodations rivaled it for cleanliness, for instance.

Enris was seated at a rickety pine desk. He held a mask on a stick before his face, and from the churning of his neck muscles and the smacking behind the mask, I gathered I’d interrupted his lunch.

“Are you of the flock, my son?” he said, after a particularly spirited round of chewing and swallowing.

“I’m my own flock. And I’m here on business. You can put the mask away.”

He lowered the scowling red mask.

He was maybe seventy and thin and bald and he didn’t get much sun. He had close-set brown eyes and a hawk nose. What hair he did have was all in his eyebrows and his ears. Both could have used a cut, or at least a comb.

“All right.” Give him credit-he said it without rancor. “What can the Church do for you today?”

“I’m looking for something.” I pulled a sheaf of papers out of my coat’s breast pocket. Evis had supplied the whole thing, from the silk paper folder to the gold-leaf tie to the readily visible skull-and-spider seal of Encorla Hisvin himself.

Father Foon saw, but he didn’t bat an eye.

“Ten years ago, a barge called the Embalo sank up around Gant. On that barge was a big crate. In this big crate was a smaller crate. In this smaller crate was a chest-a chest a foot long and half that high and half that wide.” I shaped a box in the air with my hands. “It was lead, and it was sealed. The gentleman who lost it wants it back.”

“I see,” said his Handedness, looking genuinely perplexed. “And you think I know of this item?”

“Probably not. But I think you might know about this.”

I’d reached again into my pocket as I spoke, so I pulled out the silver comb and thumped it down on his desk.

And I watched him. I watched those eyes for any flicker of recognition. I watched that face for any hint of fear.

All I saw was a man wondering how best to get rid of me without pissing off the rich folks who’d employed me.

Which didn’t really mean much. I’ve met people who can lie with utter conviction, people who simply don’t live in their faces. He might have buried Allie Sands himself. Remorse just isn’t found in some hearts.

“And this is?” he said.

“This is a silver comb. One of two-dozen silver combs, of Lot 49, bound for Rannit via Gant. They were in the big crate that housed the smaller crate that housed the sealed lead box. They’ve started showing up in Rannit. My employer has deduced that since the combs have made their way up from the bottom of the Brown, that perhaps his box has too.”

The Hand frowned. “I still fail to see why you’ve brought this to me. The Arm cleanses items polluted by willful apostates. We do not deal in submarine treasure hunts.”

“This comb has been Cleansed. Which means that somehow it wound up, at least temporarily, in the hands of the Church. Which means the Church knows who owned it, what their name is and probably where they are right now.”

“Impossible,” he said. A hint of annoyance crept into his voice, and his face took on a trace of blush. “That object has never been Cleansed.”

It was my turn to frown. “My sources say it has.”

“And who, sir, are your sources?”

He had seen the seal, but I guess he hadn’t recognized it, and his panicked underlings hadn’t told him I’d dropped Hisvin’s name. My, my, there’d be some hellfire and brimstone discipline handed out, after I was gone.

“Encorla Hisvin. Perhaps you’ve heard the name?”

He paled. The man paled, and he gulped down air. I smiled a big wide smile.

“You have heard the name. How nice. Now then, why do you say this object has never been Cleansed?”

He put his hand down on his mask-stick, but he didn’t dare raise it.

“I am trained in the art of the Cleansing, sir, and I tell you that, had it been Cleansed, I would see plain the mark of the Church upon it, and I do not.”

Evis hadn’t mentioned any of this.

“Is this mark a physical mark?”

“It is not. It is a lingering holy affluence, visible only to one trained in my Art. And it is not there.”

“How long does this holiness linger?” I asked, watching him and letting him know I was doing so. “A month? Three months? How long?”

“For all eternity.”

I couldn’t resist a snort. “Let’s pretend I’m about to report back to my employer. Let’s pretend he wants to know how long this mystical invisible holy mark will last. Specifically.”

The Hand shook his head. “It is a permanent part of the object cleansed. As long as the item remains, so will the mark. As a reminder of the fate of those who tempt the wrath of the Church.”

I nodded. “I’ll be sure to mention that.” He blanched further. “So what you’re telling me is this.” I picked up the comb, held it in his face. “You’re saying that this was never Cleansed. You saying that since it was never Cleansed, that my employer can’t match it against a list of seized items. And since he can’t do that, he can’t use the names on that list to go a hunting for his little lead box. Is that what you’re telling me, Hand of the Holy?”

I made sure I raised my voice. Not just for the Hand’s benefit, but for those I heard tip-toeing about just outside his door. Word would spread, it would. Fast and furious.

“That’s what I’m telling you,” he said, after a deep breath. “It is the truth.”

Then he rallied. “Is that all you came to show me?”

“It is.” I put the comb back in my pocket, arranged my papers, put them away as well. “And if that’s all you’ve got to say, I’ll wish you a good day.”

I rose, and he rose, and a faint pitter-patter of feet hurrying away sounded from beyond the door. When the Hand made no move to show me out, I turned and got my hat off the rack and opened the door myself.

“One thing I forgot to mention. My employer isn’t out for blood. Not yet. In fact, if he gets his box back, he’ll be more inclined to pay those who assisted than to chase down those who hindered.”