Even if I could put my decency on a shelf, I didn’t have the stomach for torture, or the patience for a long interrogation. Good thing I didn’t have to make a living as an inquisitor. I’d starve. Tam sensed my frustration and stepped in, bless him.
“Very well, if you refuse to be useful to my elven friend, you can still be useful to me. You are from Mipor, are you not?”
Ocnus paused, then nodded cautiously, seeing no harm in the question.
“Good. I don’t know if you are aware, but Miporian flesh is a delicacy in our family.” Tam popped the button off of Ocnus’s shirt cuff with a sharp snap, and slid the dirty linen above his elbow. He glanced distastefully at the grime. “Naturally, you’ll have to be washed first,” he muttered under his breath.
Ocnus looked to me in wide-eyed panic.
I made no move to stop Tam. “Where’s the Saghred?”
When Ocnus didn’t answer, Tam lifted one of the little sorcerer’s arms speculatively. “Probably a bit stringy beneath the fat, but an overnight marinade should take care of that.” His dark eyes became dreamy as he ran a fingertip smoothly down the pasty underside of Ocnus’s arm. “Grandmother had the most delectable recipe,” he breathed. “The meat all but fell off the bone.”
“The goblin embassy,” Ocnus squeaked. “The mausoleum.”
“How do you know this?” Tam half pulled Ocnus from his chair, the sorcerer’s arm clutched tightly in his fist.
“A year ago there was an elf who wanted to get onto the embassy grounds.”
“Describe him,” came Mychael’s steady voice from the now open doorway.
Ocnus swallowed and looked from me to Tam.
“Do it,” I growled.
The goblin sorcerer licked his lips. “Gray eyes, gray hair, but he wasn’t old. He had more than enough gold, so I didn’t ask questions.”
Ocnus was panting. Just my luck he’d hyperventilate and pass out.
He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I brought him onto the grounds through The Ruins. He went into the mausoleum. He never came back out. I went in to look. He wasn’t there. There’s only one way in and I was watching it the whole time.”
I looked at Tam. “Mausoleum?”
“There’s a mausoleum on the property from the previous owners.”
“How do you know he carried the Saghred?” Mychael asked.
I felt the pull of a spellsinger in his words, compelling Ocnus to tell the truth. He need not have bothered. Ocnus was telling the truth, or at least what he thought was the truth. I think the beacon was helping things along. Once again, I was grateful.
“He had a small box made of white stone,” Ocnus said. “Like the box Nukpana had me hire Quentin to steal. Only this one was larger and square.” He held his hands about four inches apart, no easy task considering Tam still had one of those hands.
“How do you know there was anything inside?”
“Something was glowing, like a big firefly. Red, flickering.”
Mychael put a box of translucent white stone on the table in front of Ocnus. “Anything like this?”
Ocnus licked his lips again. “Exactly.”
“And Nukpana doesn’t know?”
Ocnus swallowed and shook his head.
Tam released Ocnus, but didn’t move away, instead looming ominously over the goblin snitch.
“I find it difficult to believe that you found a way to get even more gold out of Sarad Nukpana and yet you passed up the opportunity.”
Ocnus seemed to shrink in his chair. “Not at first. I overheard why he needed the beacon. You know, what he hoped to find with it. That’s when I remembered the elf and the stone box.” A twitching had taken up residence in Ocnus’s left eyelid. “So I set up another meeting with him. To make him an offer. That’s when I heard he knew about my deals with the prince. I didn’t go to the meeting.”
“Smart move,” I muttered.
“I was leaving town.”
“Even smarter.”
“My ship wasn’t leaving until the morning tide, so I went to the Sleeping Giant.” Ocnus tried his trademark oily grin on for size, but it just came off looking sick. “I’ve told you what you wanted to know. How about just letting me go? My ship leaves within the hour. I’ll be on it, I swear.” He looked from me to Tam, then to Mychael in growing desperation. “If I stay here, he’ll kill me.”
“If you’re lucky,” Tam told him.
Mychael looked into Ocnus’s eyes. The goblin snitch couldn’t look away. Mychael held the gaze for nearly a minute, until beads of sweat formed on Ocnus’s forehead. “I think he tells the truth. Raine?”
The beacon vibrated beneath my shirt, if I hadn’t known better I’d say someone was excited. I nodded and put my hand over the beacon. “It seems we agree.”
“You could go to the mausoleum now,” Ocnus told me eagerly. “Nukpana’s not in the embassy tonight.”
“Where is he?”
Ocnus’s eagerness changed to confusion. “I heard he was going nightingale hunting.”
Chapter 17
I couldn’t get back home fast enough.
Patience wasn’t my strong point even when I didn’t have reason to hurry. Time wasn’t on our side. We had to use the canals; Sarad Nukpana just had to order another sorcerer tortured and killed to make another Gate. My legs wanted to run all the way home, even though my head knew that cutting through the center of the city on the Grand Duke’s Canal would be faster; not to mention if I ran, I’d be out of breath and useless to Piaras once I got there.
What seemed like an eternity later we arrived at the Mintha Row dock. I didn’t wait for the crew of Guardians to tie us off, and neither did Mychael, nor Tam in the boat behind us.
My legs finally got to do what they wanted. It was two blocks to Tarsilia’s and I ran the whole way. I rounded the corner and saw her shop. No Khrynsani shamans lounging by the door. That was a good sign. The lights were on. Not normal for nearly two in the morning, but when Garadin was protecting something, he always liked to see where it was.
I reached out to push open the door, and ran smack into the one-two punch of Garadin’s shields and Tarsilia’s wards. I might as well have hit a wall with my face. Through the pain, I remembered they did good work. I staggered and lights flickered before my eyes. I dimly heard the musical sound of metal clanging, and wondered if I’d hit my head that hard.
I looked up.
Garadin stood in the now open doorway. The metal sound was the chimes Tarsilia had hanging from the beam just inside the door. I shook my head to clear it. Pain immediately followed. Not the best idea.
“You ever think of knocking, girl? Hurts a lot less.” He motioned and the shield parted for me.
Tarsilia was standing behind the counter, hands braced on the polished wood, eyes leveled on the doorway. I turned and saw Mychael and Tam still standing just beyond the threshold.
“You’re home,” she said to me, but her gaze had settled on my two escorts. Perhaps settled was too mild a term. A slab of granite landing on something doesn’t exactly settle. No doubt Garadin had told her who Mychael was and what he wanted—and Tarsilia was already all too familiar with Tam. And from the gorgon stare both of them were on the receiving end of, Tarsilia held Mychael and Tam personally responsible for everything that had happened to Piaras and me over the past two days. It was overdone and completely overprotective—and I loved her for it.
“It’s all right,” I assured her. “They’re with us.”
She didn’t look entirely convinced, and unless she gave her permission, there was no way, short of using a magical battering ram, that Mychael and Tam were getting inside. Tarsilia had to invite them to cross her threshold. Her scowl told me she’d do it, but she wasn’t happy about it.
“Mychael Eiliesor, Paladin of the Order and Brotherhood of Conclave Guardians, and Sacred Protector of the Seat of Twelve,” she pronounced formally. Then she stopped and looked at me.
“Tarsilia, they need to get inside. Now.”
She sensed my urgency. “You and your guests may now enter my home,” she finished quickly.
There was an audible pop, and the shield parted and Mychael and four of his Guardians came inside, Tam bringing up the rear guard. The rest remained outside. The shield and wards resealed themselves seamlessly and without sound.
“What happened?” she asked me.
“Where’s Piaras?”
“He couldn’t sleep; he’s in the workroom.”
I brushed past her, and headed for the back of the shop.
Tarsilia was right at my heels. “What’s wrong?”
Suddenly, everything was. The air grew heavy with power, and it felt like the atmosphere before a lightning strike, prickling my skin like a thousand hot needles. Sarad Nukpana wasn’t looking for a way around Tarsilia and Garadin’s wards—he was punching his way through them.
Tarsilia and I were closest to the workroom door. We were the only ones who made it inside the room. As soon as we crossed the threshold, the force of the opening Gate sealed the room like a trap door slamming over our heads. Piaras looked up from where he had been grinding dried herbs, his eyes wide, like a deer caught in a hunter’s sights. I swore and reached for every shield I had. The Gate and the dark magic that fed it ate them like a late night snack. There was no way Mychael or Tam or anyone else could get in. And we weren’t getting out.
Sarad Nukpana’s Gate opened simply, no mouth of hell, no brimstone stench, just a parting curtain of silvery fog. I tried to draw my blades; I wanted to push Tarsilia behind me. Neither one was going to happen. The same dark sorcery that sealed the room held the three of us immobile. A sickly sweet smell came from the Gate and the sibilant chanting of combined goblin voices came from beyond it. I knew the chanting and what was feeding its power was worse, much worse. I heard the screams in the background to prove it.
