13. N #4
Haldeen let it pass. “What happened here? Did you see?”
The guard used the back of the hand holding the mage-light to wipe away something on his cheek.
Blood. Haldeen saw the red streak he left behind.
“I didn’t see the first, but I saw what happened at the end right enough.”
He took a deep, ragged breath. “One of the ration makers went mad, and attacked the others. Used some kind of magic, a weapon I think. Something she had hidden on her? By the time I came in, the others had her down. Lorman had a table leg shoved down on her throat right enough, or she might have …
I dunno what she might have done.”
Haldeen felt ice down his back and knew the answer before he asked the question. “Who?”
The guard blinked heavily. “The one they call Horseface. The skinny bitch. She’s got a foul mouth on her, swearing and throwing things around when she just went mad.”
Haldeen’s stomach lurched. He closed his eyes for a second. He expected the rage to flare, and was surprised at how calm he sounded. He’d kept it bottled first when he learned of the translator’s deceptions, and now for this “Anybody killed?” he asked.
The guard shrugged again, a habit that had started to get on Haldeen’s nerves.
“Dunno, m’lord. There was several bashed up serious-like, but no sheets over faces, at least not while I saw them. Couple bloodied bad, but couldn’t say how bad it was under the blood.”
He paused, then added wisely, “Scalp cut bleeds like yer gonna die, but nothin’ comes of it.”
The both looked towards the door as they heard calls down the hallway, calling for a physician. Someone couldn’t move. Broken leg. Haldeen let out another mirthless laugh. He looked at the guard. “What are you supposed to be doing?”
The guard gave him a wary look. “S’posed to be guarding this room, my lor’,” he replied.
“From what?”
The guard shrugged again.
Haldeen let it pass. “Then, do whatever it is you are supposed to be doing right now, and let me be.”
The guard bobbed his head and moved into the next room while Haldeen tallied up the costs.
An entire day’s worth of food production was lost.
Probably more, if the cleanup couldn’t be done by the usual start time in the evening.
Equipment broken, that would need to be replaced.
But more importantly workers that would have to be taken off the production line until they healed enough to be able to concentrate again.
Those he could put to work had been in here when it happened.
He shook his head, wearily certain that they would be far off their pace.
Broken crockery crunched under his foot as he stepped around the tables and walked over to the preparation areas.
He held his light high to better see. One small bit of good news.
The buckets that brought the algae up from the tanks below looked intact, as well as the mixing tables, and the measuring ladles.
One deep exhale. This was bad, bad, double bad …
but not an utter disaster. He could get production back up, but it would cost him.
He swore as he realized the story had already moved beyond the walls of the estate.
The economic losses didn’t even begin to factor into the scandal this would cause.
Just when he had things just as he liked, this stupid, stupid girl would bring attention back to him at exactly the moment he least wanted to attract attention.
He felt his banked anger and anxiety flare.
So much progress, but still so much to be done!
She had single-handedly put all he stood to accomplish in jeopardy, and he knew with full certainty that a dozen flavors of whatever happened here would be all over the city within a few days.
Anxiety turned to rage, and his head throbbed.
He turned and kicked one of the few upright tables, sending it crashing across the room. He took his rage out on a few more tables and chairs, smashing them into kindling and he let out a stream of profanity.
He heard a throat clear behind him, and Haldeen turned. The Overseer stood there, his expression wary. Lords had a way of taking their ire out on those a step or two down the ladder, and Haldden saw his Overseer’s anxiety. “I heard the smashing. Came to see what it was.”
Haldeen flung a chair away. “Vaylan, where is she?”
The Overseer saw his expression and took a step backward. “In the old reeve’s office, my lord. Collared with a sleeper. Trey-ana. The new one.”
Haldeen’s fury blazed again and his head pounded. “Show me.”
The Overseer gave him the control rod, nothing more than a slim wand made of porcelain, and gestured down the hall. Haldeen snatched it out of his hand and stormed down the passage, pausing only to step over fallen baskets and boxes. His fury boiled. He saw the lit room up ahead and swept into it.
Triana lay curled up on the floor, clearly asleep, and twitching a bit. I really hope whatever you are dreaming is truly terrible.
He worked to control his rage. “What happened?” he asked the Overseer.
“Forgive me, my lord,” Vaylan replied, “I’m trying to gather firsthand witnesses, and first reports are pretty unreliable. Nonetheless, it appears that she went mad and attacked the workers in the room … with some kind of killing magic.” He paused, clearly uncomfortable.
“Go on,” said Haldeen.
“Here’s the thing, sir,” the Overseer replied.
“She’s been behind on her count. Her supervisor had reported using magic sensors when she was working, to try to find some way to help her get her numbers up. She says the sensor stayed dead. No ambient movement around the girl. None at all. She kept it on her the whole time she worked.
Not a glimmer.”
Haldeen felt his patience slip. “Explain why this is relevant.”
“My lord,” Vaylan asked, “if she can do Making magic without calling the ambient, then what else can she do? Killing magic is high green at the least, maybe blue, but not yellow.”
Haldeen had a caustic reply ready, then bit down on it. Damn him, he’s right. I’d assumed that because they were weak here, they’d be weak there. What if they aren’t?
“What do we do, sir?” Vaylan asked.
Haldeen felt his rage bleeding away, and he focused on Vaylan’s question.
Easy to hand her over to the king, as he demanded.
But, I have no other source of information on the Traitor’s World except her.
I could also spend hours … days … maybe longer, looking for an exit to that cave other than the collapsed cave mouth. She might know another way out.
That alone might be worth making sure he didn’t go too far.
“We’re the best equipped to deal with this,” he replied slowly. “We know the most about her.” He thought for a moment. “Do we still have the prisoner-collar?”
Vaylan nodded. “Yes, my lord. I used it on Dralla for being drunk. Seven days’ magic severance. It should be in my office.” He frowned. “If she’s that different, then how do we know it will work?”
“The sleeper worked well enough,” Haldeen replied.
“Yes,” Vaylan replied. “But … we really don’t know what she’s capable of doing, do we?”
The Overseer paused for a moment. “The Beast Cage, in the undercroft stables … where we keep the Source. It’s proof against that Monster’s magic. Maybe the cage will work on her as well. The Beast can’t do any magic in the cage.”
“Put her in with the Source?” Haldeen asked.
Vaylan nodded tentatively. “Unless you think she could hurt it somehow? If we lose that Source, we lose the south side of the city.”
Haldeen thought it over. “She could hurt it? It’s the size of a house, and made of magic. It took a handful of Blues four full days to wrangle it here. Even with what she’s shown, I think that all she could do is maybe make it mad.”
He closed his eyes for a second. “Still, you never know. Use the prisoner-collar on her. Shut her off from her magic. And put her in the Beast Cage until we figure out something long-term. While she’s there, she can shovel Beast shit.”
Vaylan looked out into the hall. A stretcher party came past, bearing one of the injured up the several levels to the courtyard.
Vaylan shrugged. “The last Beast-keeper got squashed. Who knows, my lord. Maybe she will irritate it, and it will squash her into jam as well. It will solve the problem once and for all.”
Haldeen looked at him, allowing the thinnest of smiles.
“That’s what I like about you, Overseer. You find a way to bring a ray of sunshine into the dreariest of days.”
He paused. Still, having her die with information in her head would not do.
“Before we put her in there, we’ll need to wring her out first. Glean everything she knows, then once she’s dry, it’s in with the Beast.”
He looked down and touched Triana with the toe of his boot. He could see a small spot of blood on the left toe. “Get this thing out of my sight.”