Mark Newton - The Book of Transformations

Nothing but silence. Fulcrom was right, he was always right.

‘Exactly. Before you had nothing to lose. Now, you’ve much more, and every time you invite people back here, that risk of not only exposure, but of fucking up the efforts of so many people looking to reduce crime, all gets greater.’

‘All right,’ Tane sighed. ‘You’ve made your point.’

Fulcrom paused, and eventually calmed. He took a deep breath. ‘Good. So, while people were busy getting killed yesterday, where precisely were you all?’

‘I was out, but there were only a couple of petty thefts — they were quite open and shut though,’ Lan told him.

‘Open and shut,’ Fulcrom replied. ‘Right.’

‘Do you think I’m lying?’

‘No — it’s just that these petty crimes, they might be an effort to distract you while something bigger’s going on elsewhere in the city.’

‘I didn’t realize,’ Lan replied.

‘It’s OK,’ Fulcrom said. ‘I’m only just working these things out for myself.’

‘You expect us to be everywhere at all times?’ Vuldon remarked bitterly. ‘There are hundreds of thousands of people in this city. We can’t stop every murder.’

‘I’m sure Fulcrom didn’t mean that,’ Lan said.

‘Well, you would take his side, wouldn’t you?’ Vuldon muttered.

Tane mouthed the words ‘Lover boy’ at Lan, and Fulcrom glanced to each of them in confusion.

Lan knew Fulcrom was smart enough to know what was going on, to read the silences, the conversation that wasn’t being spoken here. She felt incredibly awkward and embarrassed and shy, yet there was something about having her affections implied that offered some relief — because she sure as hell wasn’t going to say anything about her growing feelings for the investigator.

‘These murders,’ Vuldon said eventually, ‘what can you tell us?’

‘Each of them were committed in a public location,’ Fulcrom said, sitting on one of the plush settees. ‘Each victim was a soldier in the city guard, on a highly visible location. There was a note by one of the bodies, scrawled by the culprits — who we believe to be the anarchists.’

‘What did it say?’ Lan asked.

‘It said “You put symbols out here, with deeds we will be removing others”.’

‘A retaliation,’ Vuldon declared. He sat next to Fulcrom, his bulk making the investigator look like a child. ‘Which means you — or the Emperor — will want us to retaliate back.’

‘Exactly,’ Fulcrom replied. ‘Because they won’t stop until more people are dead. We’re dealing with a strange psychology here.’

‘What do you want us to do then?’ Lan asked.

‘As soon as you’re all ready, we’re heading into Caveside. The Inquisition has handed over to me the names and addresses of those we think are crime lords of varying effect — those who manage guilds on this side of the city, ones who are known to have their claws reaching deep into the caves. We visit them one by one and see what we can find, see what they know. It’s essential we find Shalev, and the Emperor is growing more demanding by the day.’

‘And if we don’t find her by this method?’ Lan prompted. ‘It seems unlikely a criminal would just hand over an ally.’

‘We try something else. But even if this doesn’t work, we’ll hopefully be able to put the fear into some of Caveside’s shadier characters.’

‘And it’s a chance to visit some old friends,’ Vuldon added, smirking.

Fulcrom reflected on his words. ‘I don’t want anything to get out of hand. No old vendettas.’

‘You forget that my secrets aren’t like yours,’ Vuldon protested. ‘I was framed for something I didn’t do, and I know there were some of these so-called crime lords involved in that, or their families were. I was set up and I-’

‘Want revenge,’ Fulcrom finished. ‘That’s understandable. But for now, Vuldon, please — you have a job to do. Virtually no one remembers what happened since it was covered up by everyone involved. To the public you simply disappeared. You’re just Vuldon now, someone with greater powers and responsibilities. There are several paths you can choose to making amends, and I suggest you simply get on with helping the people of the city.’

‘You’ve a smart answer for everything,’ Vuldon muttered, and Lan couldn’t discern if it was a simple statement or the start of a threat.

‘I’m not concerned with smartness,’ Fulcrom added, ‘just getting the job done.’

*

Fulcrom was in a morose mood as he marched them towards the crime lords. He hoped that Tane and Vuldon were sulking, or reflecting on their deeds. Their excessiveness was to be expected, perhaps, but they needed to know those actions would be a liability. Lan seemed to be the only one he could fully trust, and his fondness for her grew each day. He was drawn to her introversions, to the world of emotions beneath her surface — it made a change from the brashness and arrogance found with many of the investigators.

They wore dark hooded cloaks. Moving through the snow along the fourth level of the city, he watched Lan closely — she walked with an amazing grace, a lightness of step that must have come from her years of acrobatics. They headed down a network of small alleys, where the walls were actually chunks of rock smothered in dripping lichen, and every now and then there would be a small, steamed-up window, sometimes with a face behind pressed up against it. The snow ceased, filling the air with tension and light. Caught on the breeze, a couple of abandoned issues of People’s Observer skittered along the street.

The Knights were silent as they progressed further into what Fulcrom knew to be dubious territory: they arrived at a large, metal door set into a whitewashed wall of an expensive-looking house. It had been constructed so the owners could see over the lower levels of the city: rooftops sparkling in the sunshine, the spires and bridges casting bold shadows and, over the walls, in the distance was nothing but murky tundra, much of it trampled by the passage of refugees.

Standing next to the house were two men, each nearly as tall as Vuldon. Shaven-headed with dark cloaks flapping from their shoulders, each bore the scars of combat, and by each of their sides hung a fat sabre.

‘What can we do for you gents?’ one of them asked gruffly.

‘Three gents and a lady, to be precise.’ Tane indicated Lan, and one of them took a closer look at him. He slid back his hood to reveal his cat-furred face and weird eyes, but the thug didn’t seem concerned. Not even at the sharp claws he’d used to point at Lan.

‘Heard about you lot,’ one man declared. ‘Knights or something or other. Funny costumes, like them MythMaker sketches.’

‘That’s right, the Villjamur Knights, and I’m Investigator Fulcrom of the Inquisition. We’re here to have a word with Delandro.’

Vuldon glared at Fulcrom then, and the rumel turned away. ‘I didn’t know he was still alive,’ Vuldon hissed.

The two thugs consulted each other, and one went inside while the rest of them stood in silence. Vuldon seemed to be in the grips of a barely contained rage.

The first thug returned and bid them enter and the Knights followed.

*

Every bit the signature of a man who had more money than taste, it was a dark yet garish abode, with gold-leaf cressets, black-painted wood, wide arches, full-length mirrors and erotic paintings. Each room was larger than Fulcrom’s own apartment, and smelled of some expensive fragrance.

They were escorted into an antechamber with a skylight shadowed by snow. A handful of logs burned in the huge central fireplace. A frail-looking man shuffled into the room, wearing a dark-green robe with neat stitching, a simple, costly elegance that was fitting for an emperor. He moved silently to the fire, where his bodyguard helped him into a large wooden chair akin to a throne. He remained there, the light of the fire warming one half of his face and casting the other half in darkness.