The Secretist Part 4

"Are you aware that she is-or was-a dignitary of the Selesnya Conclave?"

"I-I was not, Your Honor."

"Are you aware that some among the Selesnya are blaming this elf's disappearance on inadequacies of security in the Tenth District?"

Lavinia sputtered, trying to form protesting words. The sphinx sat back on her haunches and adjusted her wings. Her unblinking eyes wandered away, taking in the rest of the chamber. Lavinia felt that she had lost the guildmaster's interest in that moment.

"What of the Boros in this situation?" Isperia asked.

"Soon after we regrouped, the Boros Legion sent investigators of their own. As usual they demand control of the investigation, and as usual they have not submitted their request through the proper channels."

"Let them handle the apprehension of Beleren."

Lavinia froze. "Your Honor, I don't understand."

"My words were clear and true."

"You're-you're giving this to the Boros? But they'll just bungle this job. They'll turn this into a street war, and they'll never find the truth."

"They may, however, find Beleren."

Lavinia's composure was lost. She looked around the chamber, trying to find some bell to ring, some door to slam. The scribe glanced up at her, without any more dialogue to transcribe, but when he saw her face he quickly turned his eyes back to his paper.

"I formally request to extend this investigation," said Lavinia. "I will file the necessary writs."

"Remind me," said the sphinx. "Your jurisdiction covers?"

"The whole of the Tenth, Your Honor, and some portion of the outlying districts."

"Your jurisdiction is now the care and guardians.h.i.+p of these spires. You are to provide all doc.u.ments and materials pertaining to Beleren to the presiding investigator of the Boros Legion."

Lavinia's chin dropped to her breastplate. "I'll be a glorified house guard."

The sphinx didn't blink. "I see no glory in it."

THE ROUGH CROWD.

As Jace stood before the door, he felt a hot blast of air from below him. He stood on an iron grating in the street. Before him was the notorious nightclub he sought, where all manner of strange desires could be satisfied by the Cult of Rakdos. Sulfurous fumes and flickering firelight rose from the grating below, as did echoes of cackling, screaming laughter and inhuman snarls. The sign above the entrance displayed the name of the club: THE ROUGH CROWD.

He knocked.

A creature opened the upper half of the door. He was the size of a child, but with stumpy tusks and a sloping cranium. He wore a collar decorated with something that looked like teeth. He leaned his pasty forearms on the sill of the door and looked him up and down, tonguing his tusks. "Pain or pleasure?"

"I have business here."

"Come on now, suns.h.i.+ne," the creature said. "You know that ain't an option. You wanna get hurt? Or you wanna stay outside?"

"It's an urgent matter that involves your cultists."

"Run along."

The doorman sneered and slammed the door shut. Jace readied a spell, and knocked again.

The creature opened the door again and sighed. "I believe I told you-"

"Your s.h.i.+ft's over."

Jace let loose his spell, and the doorman fell into a sudden and total sleep before dropping to the floor. Jace leaned over and opened the door from the inside. Instead of legs, as it turned out, the creature had a rusty unicycle as his lower half.

Jace walked into the Rakdos club, pus.h.i.+ng into a wall of scents and sounds. The ceilings were surprisingly high inside, draped with banners and spiked chains. An impish creature hooted as it dangled from a high wire while a man in leather chaps swallowed orbs of fire and breathed them back out through his snaggly teeth. Scarred, black-scaled drakes fought viciously in cages that swung from the ceiling, and the stink of sweat and singed flesh wafted from adjoining alcoves.

Against the wall stood an enormous sentry, somewhere along the spectrum between rotund man and compact giant, dressed in what looked like the motley of a harlequin jester crossed with barbed wire. He was a Rakdos spiker. Jace knew spikers were fierce in battle, largely because they didn't care whether more harm came to them or their foes. The spiker eyed Jace as he came in, squeezing the handle of a spike-topped mace the size of a cart axle.

Jace wanted to stand on a table and challenge the entire club. He wanted to threaten everyone he saw, demanding to know where Emmara was. But if he got himself killed, he would never find her. He had to find a way to locate those who took her. He couldn't very well ask the patrons of a Rakdos club whether they knew any kidnappers. But he had to act before anyone noticed that he had knocked the doorman unconscious.

All around him, people of all shapes and sizes drank and danced and indulged. He didn't see any who looked like Rakdos leaders here-these were clients and patrons, here to satisfy wanton desires. Nearby, a snake-tongued woman whispered into the ear of an Orzhov cleric. A vias.h.i.+no competed in a drinking contest with a goblin-from the bleeding arm of a well-dressed man. Jace stepped through a doorway hung with a beaded curtain, but he didn't look too closely at what may or may not have been beads.

The back room was full of harder-looking characters lit by flickering torches. Horned warriors stared at him and s.a.d.i.s.tic imps snickered. Laughter and screams emanated in equal measure from private alcoves at the edges of the room. And through thin slits in the alcove doors, Jace could glimpse hints of glistening flesh. There was a small platform in the middle of the room, currently empty, but stained with dark, dried blood. Jace felt even more out of place in this room, like an actor stepping onto the stage without knowing his lines-or worse, knowing that it was a career-ending performance.

Jace slanted his way through the murky crowd and let his magical senses slip outward. He concentrated on the thought of Emmara, trying to find a mind that had any kind of connection to her.

Something caught in his mind like a hook. Someone in this room held a connection to Jace in some way. He couldn't see Emmara exactly-but it was as if he were hearing echoes of a familiar voice bouncing back at him in shreds of memory. It was all he had to go on. Jace walked toward the back of the room on instinct, seeking the farthest wall from the exit, and the impression of connection grew stronger. There a woman sat at a table alone. She wore a dark leather outfit decorated with barbed hooks. Jace could see vertical lines slicing down across eyes the color of fire-whether they were makeup or scars, he couldn't tell. She grinned wickedly as Jace approached.

"You look lost, sugar beet," she said.

"I'm looking for someone," said Jace. "A friend of mine. An elf woman of the Selesnya guild. What do you know about that?"

"We're all looking for something, pet. Look around you. All tastes can be indulged here. Why don't you stop searching and enjoy yourself?"

"I'm not in the mood to play."

"Such a shame. You're in the wrong place. Why don't you go and let the rest of us have a good time."

Jace slammed his fist on the table. At the same moment, he flashed an image of Emmara into the woman's mind. "You've seen her, haven't you?" he demanded.

The Rakdos woman blinked in surprise, and then the surprise became anger. "Who let you in here?"

Jace opened himself to the woman's mind, letting her emotions wash over him, reading her reaction to seeing Emmara's face. The woman recognized her; that much was clear. For the briefest moment, he saw a flash of the woman leading a group of Rakdos warriors to the Cobblestand Inn. He saw them rush into the building, hooting and brandis.h.i.+ng weapons. If Jace had just a little more time, he could look deeper and find out more, maybe even learn where they took Emmara. But the woman sensed his magic. She stood, knocking over her chair, and grabbed a gnarled staff from behind the table. Her eyes blazed and her lips curled into something like a smile. "You're out of your depth, boy. You think you can make demands in here? Do you know who I am?"

With that, she shrieked, and the shriek became shrill, insane laughter. All heads in the club turned toward them as the beaded curtain parted, and the enormous spiker appeared, ready with his mace.

"I was hoping you'd start something," grunted the spiker.

With that, a spotlight shone down on the platform in the center of the room. The giant Rakdos warrior picked up Jace and heaved him into the spotlight, where grim-looking guild performers encircled the stage, aiming spears and jagged blades at him.

"Ladies and gentlemen," crooned the flame-eyed woman, swinging her staff around to all a.s.sembled.

"Exava!" cheered the crowd of gathered a.s.sa.s.sins, cultists, and jovial drunks.

"We'd now like to direct your attention to the main stage!"

All eyes were on Jace. The crowd welcomed the new volunteer act with a chorus of cheers and raised gla.s.ses. Exava moved toward him, expertly working the crowd with her booming voice. She was a blood witch, Jace realized. She wasn't just a bar server or even a guild ringleader. She was a high sorcerer of the Cult of Rakdos.

"Our star is a young mage with dreams of fame, who came to the Rough Crowd looking for his big break!"

The audience laughed. Jace didn't like the way she said "break."

"What do you say, folks?" yelled the blood witch Exava, gesturing animatedly. "Shall we give him what's coming to him?"

Cheers and hoots, including some lurid suggestions on what his act should entail.

"Run him through with a loxodon's tusk!" Laughter.

"Make him eat his own feet!" More laughter.

In all the chaos, Jace couldn't concentrate to scan Exava's mind for information. Instead he scanned for exits. He would have to leap clear of the ring of Rakdos freaks around him, then get to the rear door, which was currently blocked by the spiker brute. Or he could try to get back to the beaded curtain, but it was blocked by onlookers.

"What's your name, boy?" Exava asked him.

"I go by Berrim," he said.

"I go by Berrim," she mimicked, eliciting more crowd approval.

This was going badly. Jace had little time. He knew that the Rakdos were impulsive and dangerous, as sudden and unpredictable as crocodiles. It wouldn't do to out-think them. He had to out-impulse them.

"Well, I-Go-by-Berrim, it's our tradition here at Rough Crowd to let the audience choose the nature of the star's performance."

"I'll save you all the trouble."

With a whirl, Jace threw illusions of exploding pyrotechnics up around the stage as columns of curling smoke enveloped Jace in bluish fumes. The Rakdos guards around the stage reached in to feel for where he had been. Their hands grabbed at ankles, and they dragged a figure out.

To everyone's surprise, it appeared that Exava herself emerged from the fumes, furious and kicking. But Jace's illusion had given him Exava's form. He kicked and yelped, acting in character, trying to seem as furious as Exava would have at being caught by her own minions. He pointed a finger back to where Exava had been standing and summoned up his best impression of her, yelling, "Kill him!"

The spotlight swung to where Exava had stood, and the woman had been replaced with the blue-cloaked form of Jace.

Exava, wearing Jace's appearance, tumbled backward as the guards advanced on her. Over her protests, the Rakdos guards seized her. But the enraged Rakdos warriors didn't stop there.

"Show's over early, little man," said the enormous spiker, and he ran the blood witch clean through the gut with a spike at the end of his weapon. Blood catapulted out of her mouth.

The crowd at Rough Crowd cheered l.u.s.tily, believing the tricky Jace had been the one skewered. In the smoky haze they did not notice Jace, in the guise of Exava, edging toward the back door.

"You be sure to check him," he said to an axe-wielding warrior at the back door, pointing his thumb back at the wounded Exava. Then he slipped out.

As soon as he was outside, Jace dispelled the illusion over himself. He hoped that in doing so the illusion he had cast over the blood witch would last long enough for him to get a moment to breathe. Then maybe he could find a moment to delve into the blood witch's mind again, if she was even still alive. But the back of the Rough Crowd burst open, the architecture of the club wholly unable to withstand the frenzy and bloodl.u.s.t of a crowd of enraged Rakdos cultists. A flurry of howling, winged imps swarmed around Jace, converging and blocking his path.

"Where exactly did you think you were going," said the blood witch.

The illusion had been broken, and Exava was back to her own appearance again. With one hand she clutched at a pumping wound in her stomach. The other cultists encircled them both, but gave her a wide swath.

"Don't do this. All I need to know is where they took her," said Jace.

The blood witch laughed a slow, rolling laugh that grew, breath by breath, to become a mad cackle. "Boy, haven't you learned? You never say don't to a Rakdos girl."

She unleashed a torrent of pain magic from her fingers, slicing through the night and stabbing into Jace like claws made of lightning. Jace fell to his knees, every muscle in his body locked in the rigidity of pain, his teeth ground against each other as the pain spell speared into his body from every direction. Finally, the blood witch relented and let the spell end. Jace fell onto his hands and knees, his head sagging, sweat beading on his forehead. Arcane smoke wafted from his body.

Exava's heels clicked against the cobblestones as she approached. Jace's breaths heaved. Stretching the pain out of his muscles, he strained to put one foot on the ground, and push himself up to a standing position.

"Stop this now," he said. "Tell me where she is, and I'll be on my way."

"Oh, honey, no," she said. "You can't leave without this."

The Rakdos mage let loose another torrent of agony that crashed into Jace. He arched his back and fell sideways, slamming against the street. As the spell lasted moment after moment, he forced his lungs to breathe through the pain. He wheezed spittle through his teeth.

Exava's spell ended, and he panted.

"All right," he whispered. "That's enough. We're even now."

Exava laughed his words. "Even? Enough? What are these words you're saying, little man? I'm starting to think this is your first Rakdos party."

Exava gathered power again. She made a cage of her long-nailed fingers, dripping blood from her own wound. She clenched her hands in toward each other, forming a sphere of anguish that flickered like the fire in her eyes. Her shoes clacked their way closer and closer to Jace's p.r.o.ne form. Finally she raised her hands high above her head and brought the spell down like a hammer, but Jace's hand whipped up, and the sphere of pain froze between them, halted halfway along its path, swiveling and hanging, weightless in the air. Jace turned and rose, keeping his hand out toward the Rakdos spell, fingers clawed to keep it immobile in s.p.a.ce. He gathered himself up to his full height, stretching his stiff muscles. With the clench of a fist, he focused his countermagic, and the pain-spell evaporated.

Exava gave a derisive snort. She launched a barrage of arcane attacks, each one like a rocket made of electric death homing in on Jace. But Jace moved swiftly, parrying each spell with negating magic of his own, and the full force of the Exava's malice never quite reached him. He walked toward her bombardment, and she took a few matching steps backward as she threw more spells at him, pushed back by his deft defense. In a lightning quick movement, she threw a tri-bladed dagger, an unexpected physical attack. The dagger spun through the air and caught Jace's cheek as it whizzed by. The other Rakdos cultists roared with laughter, and encircled the two of them.

Jace counterattacked the blood witch with mind magic. He hurled his consciousness into hers, holding nothing back. He became her, let himself be absorbed by her, shared her mind and saw through her senses. He felt the power in her, the fierce freedom untainted by law or morality or restraint.

Finally, Jace saw a series of images, wordless sense impressions unfettered by rational thought. He saw a dank chamber down in the undercity, found only by a twisting course through torch-lit tunnels. It was an area claimed by the Golgari, but was a place where the Rakdos occasionally made covert deals with other guilds. He saw a cloaked figure there in that mossy-draped chamber, hiring her to procure a certain Selesnya dignitary. He saw her traveling back to the Rough Crowd, selecting a gang of Rakdos ruffians, and leading them to the Cobblestand to acquire the Selesnya elf. He saw her instruct them to return her to that underground chamber. And he saw her reminding them that the elf woman should remain unharmed.

Thank you, he said inside her mind.

Jace separated their two minds, returning to himself again. The two of them stood there opposite one another, chests heaving from the effort of their magical duel, still in poses of battle.

With the last of his effort, Jace summoned the simplest but most far-reaching illusion he could muster: the voices of Azorius officers.

"By order and authority of the Azorius Senate, I order you all to halt," came the booming voice, as strongly as Jace could project it into all the Rakdos warriors' minds. "Cease all action forthwith, and prepare to be detained in accordance with all governing laws and statutes."

It wasn't much, and he was pretty sure he was getting the legal wording wrong, but it was enough. There was a moment of confusion as the Rakdos swiveled around, looking for the Azorius officers and hissing with bloodl.u.s.t. Jace shoved aside a couple of the Rakdos warriors, blended into the night, and disappeared.