Previous Chapter

“Good morning, Miss Fairchild,” Roy said, walking into the sitting room with Brandon right behind him. “How are your eyes today?”

“Good morning, Mr. Harper.” Cassie’s eyes fixed on a spot just to the left of his shoulder. “My eyes are improving, though slowly. Are you wearing your brown suit today?”

“He only owns brown suits,” Brandon replied with an amused chuckle. “Message came in for us via semaphore. Do you want me to read it to you or would you rather wait until you can look at it yourself?”

A strange expression crossed Cassie’s face, a mix of doubt and anxiety that struck Roy as a slowly unfolding crisis of purpose. He knew the Fairchild siblings had come seeking the Secret of Steel. Cassandra had gotten some hint to it via the clairvoyant powers of her stone singing gifts that had eventually brought them to him. He’d pointed them to the only lead he knew of and it hadn’t panned out.

Now, Roy suspected she was wondering if she should keep looking.

“Who is it from?” She asked, clearly stalling for time.

“The Palmyran librarian we spoke to when we visited,” Brandon said, glancing over the envelope. “It doesn’t say anything about the message being urgent. There’s no harm waiting a day or two for your vision to return fully, either he’s going to suggest a new place to investigate or invite us back to review the records again. Either way, I doubt you want to travel until you can see again.”

“No, I think not.” The doubt on her face bled away and she gestured in the general direction of the writing desk in the sitting room’s corner. “Put it in my letter drawer and I’ll look at it when I’m able.”

“Your letter drawer?” Brandon asked in a teasing tone, although he still did as she’d asked. “Are you planning to move into the Manor long term?”

Cassie made an unimpressed sound and Roy tuned them out. He’d gotten used to their banter and he had a letter of his own to look at, one delivered in a more conventional fashion. He sat down in an armchair and slit the envelope open with his knife. By the handwriting he already knew who it was from and he was curious what it was about.

He’d just skimmed past the general greetings when Cassie’s voice broke into his thoughts again, asking, “Will you be going out on work again, Mr. Harper?”

“Probably not,” he said, skimming the rest of the letter. “This is from Lost Crow, the last of Tyson’s Nine, the one who couldn’t join us in Riker’s Cove. It looks like he’s just explaining why he wasn’t there. Sounds like he’s trying to sort out some issue with Columbians on their side of the border, wants me to check if there’s prices on their heads. He’s got names but he doesn’t say what they look like…”

“Is that important?” Brandon asked.

“I’ve told him before that the Territorial governments put out bounty posters that have drawings of faces on them,” Roy said, putting the letter on a table and pointing to a folio on his desk. “That’s my collection of the latest in Winchester County. Grab it for me. The problem is that the Sanna think names are one of the most important things about a person, it’s got to do with the way they respect language. In their view a person who uses a fake name is well on their way to transforming into a monster.”

“Ah.” Brandon handed Roy the leather folio with a wry look. “So they never suspect Columbian criminals might not give them their real names?”

“I think Lost Crow knows it can happen.” Roy pulled out his stack of posters and started thumbing through them, glancing over the names. “The problem is he doesn’t think about how to work around that. You or I might think of describing how a person looks to work around a false name, Crow tells me how the men introduced themselves and their favorite turns of phrase. Might help us identify a Sanna criminal. Not very helpful with Columbian ones.”

“You know their culture very well, don’t you?”

“For a Columbian I’m better than most.”

Cassie cleared her throat. “Did either of you hear that?”

The two men exchanged a glance, both well aware that they couldn’t hear the majority of what she could. “No,” Brandon said. “The only thing I could hear was Mr. Harper going through his papers.”

“It sounded like something in your basement falling over, Mr. Harper.”

Roy froze in the process of shoving a stack of posters back into his folio. “Falling over?”

“Yes. A clattering sound, nothing large.”

“Stone, wood or metal?”

A wave of confusion crossed her face. “Not wood. It was hard to make out with the two of you talking over it, but…”

“Was it stone?” Roy demanded, throwing the folio down on his chair as he scrambled to his feet.

“It was hard to tell but possibly?” 

Cassie and Brandon trailed along behind him as he stormed through the house to the kitchen. “Mrs. Sondervan,” Roy barked, poking his head into the kitchen. “Send Georg in, then go and keep Nat company. He’s fishing, right?”

“Yes?” Gertie looked quite shocked at his sudden intrusion. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know. Stay with Nat until I send Georg to get you. If you don’t see him by sundown do not come back in the house. Have the semaphore in town send the message ‘smoke and wax’ to the bean office. Do you understand?”

Gertie shook her head. “Not in the least. But I’ll keep the boy out of the house and send Mr. Booker your message if I have to.”

“Good.”

Roy continued to the south side of the house, digging a key out of the breast pocket of his vest. Behind him, Brandon asked, “Do you want either of us along on this adventure or should we stay with Mrs. Sondervan?”

“I’d like you to come along, as Miss Fairchild is the one who can sing to the stones, but it could go very badly so don’t feel that you must.”

From the eager look on Brandon’s face Roy knew he was keen. The problem was the flicker of hesitation he saw from Cassie, a moment of indecision that was out of character for her. She’d been very withdrawn for the last few days. Whatever was bothering her, crisis of purpose or otherwise, it seemed to have sapped her resolve in all areas. That wasn’t surprising. At the moment it wasn’t helpful, either. However it didn’t last very long as she quickly rallied and put on a brave face again.

“I’m fine, Mr. Harper.” Once again she pointed her face not quite in his direction, a habit that was becoming a little uncanny. “I heard the noise. I’m just as curious about what it is as you are.”

“Curious is not the word I would use,” Roy muttered, unlocking the door to the Armory.

“Which one would you use, then?”

“Concerned. I’m very concerned about the things I keep down here.” He shoved the key back into his pocket and pulled a bead of fire from his sulfurite cufflinks, sending the flame darting around the large, underground room to ignite a quartet of lanterns. He heard Brandon whistle softly as they made their way down the stairs into the Armory proper.

“Sounds like a large room,” Cassie said. “I know you’re a professional mercenary, Mr. Harper, but how many weapons do you need at one time?”

“There’s a workshop for basic maintenance down here,” Brandon replied. “But a lot of this is very niche stuff. I always suspected you liked to be prepared but this is much worse. You’re a collector.”

“Guilty as charged.” Roy grimaced as he walked past his whetstone and workbench into the twin racks of swords he’d collected over the years. On his right were the backswords, to his left the rapiers and cut and thrust models. Leaning in niches on two walls were an array of even more varied polearms. Under normal circumstances, which is to say when he was in the Armory alone, he quite enjoyed surveying his collection. However, whenever he brought someone else there he felt vaguely uncomfortable.

“Got a few empty slots down here,” Brandon mused, studying the sword racks. “What happened?”

“Combat. Swords don’t last forever and I’m told I’m particularly hard on them.” Roy pointed to the spot where his prized Alexopoulos falcata had rested until just a few months ago. “I broke that one a couple of days before I met you, believe it or not.”

“I’ve never seen you use a pike or poleaxe before.”

“Like you said, I’m a collector. Most of those I took off of other people, mainly to make sure they wouldn’t stick them in me when my back was turned.” He grabbed a Tetzlani rapier with a silver gilded hilt. The leather sheath had a brass plate depicting a snarling panther wrapped around the center. “This one is what got me started. I got it off a cult leader south of the border seven or eight years ago.”

Brandon took the rapier and drew it a few inches out of the sheath, studying its bronze blade with a critical eye. “No sulfurite crystal. This thing must be an antique.”

“You should have seen the guy it belonged to.”

“Did you plant a tree down here?” Cassie’s voice came from the far wall, where Roy kept his equally extensive collection of other magical junk he didn’t have a use for. His most recent addition was the steel mirror frame they’d acquired from von Nighburg. However that wasn’t what held her attention. She’d found the six foot long, twisting yew branch that was mounted over the shelves of smaller artifacts and her fingers traced its old, cracked bark lightly. “What is this?”

Roy swallowed once, mouth suddenly dry. “It’s a reminder that even the greatest men can fail.”

With a soft thunk Brandon pushed the rapier back into its sheath then handed it back to Roy. “There’s time for stories about these things later. What was it you were so concerned about down here? I doubt you just wanted to check on trophies from old jobs.”

“Actually, I did.” He put the sword back and headed to the corner furthest from the stairs. There was a small stone plinth there, set apart from the rest of the shelves and racks by a few feet, with an iron plate covering the top. A misshapen lump of rock sat on top.

It was the first thing he’d looked for when he lit the lanterns and he was glad to see it was still in place. Yet the simple fact it hadn’t moved didn’t mean much. He knew this. Roy gently took Cassie’s arm and led her over to the plinth. “Do you still hear the noise that bothered you?”

She waited a moment, turning her head one way and another, eyes closed. She looked quite serene like that. Finally she shook her head and said, “Nothing. It’s almost totally quiet here. I can’t even hear you crackling, there must be something deadening the sound. Do you have an iron weapon here? That can dampen stonesong.”

“Not a weapon but yeah, there’s iron here.” Roy chewed on his lip for a moment, wondering. “Well, at least we know it wasn’t Huaxili causing mischief. That does leave the question of what you were actually hearing…”

“Who-axe-eel-lee?” Brandon pronounced the word with exaggerated care. “That doesn’t sound like a Sanna word and, while I know you Columbians mangle the language, it doesn’t sound Avaloni either. That makes it Tetzlani, no? A person? Organization?”

“A god, though one mostly forgotten now.”

The door at the top of the stairs clicked open and Georg’s voice echoed down. “You sent for me, Mr. Harper?”

“Grab a weapon and keep it with you, something odd is going on and I want us all ready for it, whatever it is.”

“Right away,” Georg said, clunking down the steps, rolling down the sleeves of his shirt with dirt stained fingers. “What kind of trouble are we expecting today?”

“It’s not clear at the moment. I thought something malicious was working down here but I’m not seeing any signs of it at the moment.” Roy moved back to his sword racks and selected a weapon for himself. “We may have unexpected guests.”

“Certainly do, Mr. Harper,” Georg said, taking a simple cut and thrust sword off the rack and shoving it into his work belt. “He met us at the door as Mrs. Sondervan was explaining things to me. Said his name was Menendez. Come all the way from south of the River to see you. Given the circumstances I had him wait outside and sent the missus and my boy off to town.” 

Roy hesitated in the process of beIting his messer on. “You don’t say.”

“Someone you know?” Cassie asked.

“Only by reputation.” Roy added an iron dagger to his bell and took a few things off the knickknack shelf and tossed them in his pockets. “Marius Menendez is rumored to be the best duelist for hire in Tetzlan, that’s all.”

“Ominous,” Brandon muttered.

“Could be nothing,” Roy said, affecting a lightness he did not really feel. “I’ll go see what he wants. Would you and your sister do me a favor?”

To Cassandra Fairchild, going blind was simply a part of life.

Or that was what she had told herself over and over in the seven years that had passed since her father first sat her down and explained the nature of stone song. She had inherited his gift for the song and the accompanying fate of blindness. She had never really spent much time considering what that would mean for her practically speaking.

At first singing a song or two just made the edges of her vision blurry. As the years passed and her powers grew the cost became more pronounced. She would see spots or flashes of light as she sang. Then the world would turn fuzzy for a few minutes, then a few hours. Yet she could still see, even if it wasn’t with great clarity and that was some comfort to her. The fear of darkness was still a long ways away.

Certainly she had never once wished she couldn’t see.

Not once, that is, until a black hearted wizard dumped terror itself into her brain and it refused to leave. Then, it seemed, blindness might offer some respite from the fear. So she’d sung recklessly, seemingly endlessly, until the wizard fled and left the fear to pursue her into the dark. For a time she’d held it at bay, keeping herself busy. However, business in Riker’s Cove could only keep them occupied for so long and she’d been forced to make the long train flight back to Keagan’s Bluff in complete darkness.

During that time she learned what dread really was. 

It took a full week for light to come back into her vision. Five of those days were spent blindly stumbling around Oakheart Manor, trembling at every sound. The panic von Nighburg set on her had faded as sight crept back in. The dread, however. That remained.

It made itself known at all hours of the day. In the sound of animals scurrying past the walls at night, in the roar of winds on stormy days. Even in the sound of footsteps passing down the hall or even stopping in the doorway.

“Morning, dear,” a bright, clear voice said, chasing the specters away and grounding Cassie in the present. “Did you sleep well?”

“Better, thank you, Mrs. Sondervan.” Cassie turned her face towards the sound of the housekeeper’s voice, imagining the woman’s round, pleasant face beaming with her customary smile. “I can almost see you this morning. Are you wearing blue?”

She tutted under her breath, something Gertie Sondervan was in the habit of doing when she was upset but didn’t want other people to know about it. Cassie knew Roy had explained her remarkable hearing to his employees when she first came with her brother but she wasn’t sure Gertie really understood what he was saying when he said she heard better than most. However, the woman didn’t mean ill so Cassie was willing to overlook it.

“More of a green dress, dear,” Gertie said in her normal tone. “Not to worry, though, the gentlemen aren’t planning to hare off on any errands today, once they’re back from Mr. Harper’s customary visit to the post. They aren’t likely to leave you here with such poor company as myself.”

“I’ve spent my time in far worse company, and recently.” Cassie closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting her hearing slowly submerge her in the song of the stones. Pebbles trembled and sang. The dirt churned in the slow and ancient dance of the earth. A shovel cut through the ground outside as Georg Sondervan dug weeds from the garden and the pattering footsteps of Nat Sondervan echoed up the bluff as he scampered towards the river at the base of the hill.

Beyond that, the steel clop of horseshoes echoed on the dirt path up from Keegan’s Bluff. Cassie’s eyes fluttered open and she got up from the chair at her dressing table, extending a hand towards Gertie and said, “Could you take me down to the sitting room, Mrs. Sondervan?”

“Of course, dear.” A feminine hand with a surprisingly strong grip took her elbow and gently guided her through the hall and down the stairs. “The gentlemen aren’t back yet, though. Would you like to eat breakfast while you wait?”

“They’ll be back soon,” Cassie said. “And I’m sure your breakfast is delicious, Mrs. Sondervan, but I’m afraid I’m not hungry this morning.”

Another tutting came but Gertie didn’t say anything else as she helped Cassie navigate the stairs. At the bottom Cassie paused, a strange wave of foreboding washing over her. The songs of the earth had their own tone and tempo, far different from human music, but she knew them just as well. Yet for a brief moment she thought she heard an unnatural staccato among them.

The grip on her arm adjusted slightly. “Something wrong, dear?”

“No…” Cassie listened a moment longer but the strange rhythm didn’t repeat itself. “I just thought I heard something from the basement.”

“The basement?” Gertie sounded incredulous. “Nothing making noise down there when the gentlemen are out.”

“Might have been rats?” She’d heard rats in the pantries before and they didn’t sound like that. Then again, Roy had never told them what he kept in the basement, just that he kept it locked for a reason.

“Not likely,” the housekeeper replied. “Mr. Harper’s Armory isn’t a place the living would like spending a lot of time. I used to go down once a month to tidy up but it’s so very unsettling down there.”

Cassie frowned. It made sense that a professional firespinner like Roy Harper would have a large collection of weapons and a place to store them. It was strange that his employees would find them distasteful. Especially since she’d seen both the adult Sondervans carrying blades on trips into town. There were mountain lions living in the higher bluffs, after all.

“I see. Well, let’s hope we won’t have need of the Armory today, then.” She patted Gertie’s hand and they continued on to the sitting room, a warm room on the eastern side of the house. Cassie’s shoes sank deep into a thick, comfortable rug. A few steps later Gertie rested her hand on the back of an armchair and she found her way into the seat. “Thank you, Mrs. Sondervan.”

“Of course, dear. I’ll let your brother and Mr. Harper know where you are when they get back.”

The housekeeper bustled away and Cassie leaned back into the chair, listening to the hoofbeats in the distance. The quiet rumble of the men’s voices echoed off the bluffs. Between the walls and the wind off the highlands it was impossible to make out the words but she could guess they were only five or ten minutes away. She settled in and waited, taking deep breaths and trying to ignore the dread creeping back.

Something felt wrong. It might have been the last echoes of Heinrich von Nighburg’s malice but it might not. Maybe the temporary loss of her sight had made her more sensitive to whatever was in the Armory that made Gertie so wary. It was impossible to tell. Whatever it was, there wasn’t much she could do but keep her ear to the ground and listen for that strange staccato rhythm to come again.

---

Marius lowered the spyglass once Harper and his companion vanished inside the house. He didn’t know who it was the firespinner was riding with, everything he’d heard told him Columbia’s best mercenary preferred working alone. That was an unfortunate wrinkle. Marius was working on a very tight timetable and he hadn’t anticipated an additional fighting man at Oakheart Manor.

And the new man was definitely used to violence. He was enormous and carried himself with an air of comfortable power that made that clear. It was hard to tell when he was in the saddle but Marius thought he’d been favoring one leg once he dismounted, so at least that was something. There was still no getting around the fact his job had become much more difficult.

Making matters worse was the fact that he could not get the earth elementals around the house to answer when he called them. Some other working kept him from establishing a connection with them. That might explain the new face among Harper’s employees. The stories agreed that Roy Harper himself was not particularly skilled in magics of the earth. 

Perhaps he had hired someone to offset that weakness. If a powerful lithomancer had done something that bound the local elementals to him it would make it much more difficult for Marius to summon them. There were countermeasures one could take, of course. The problem was that many of those countermeasures would make it obvious to the lithomancer that there was an interloper on hand. Much of Marius’ plan relied on speed and subterfuge.

Of course, he could also be reading too much into things. Elementals were finicky things where mercenaries set in their ways very much were not. Perhaps Roy Harper was just entertaining a friend from when he served in the Columbian Regulars and the stones were so deeply asleep they couldn’t be bothered with answering Marius’ summons.

Whatever had happened Marius would have to figure out how to respond to it quickly. He had given his word that he would sort matters out by the end of the month and a Menendez did not go back on his word. He collapsed his spyglass and tucked it into his jacket then scrambled away from the edge of the bluff he’d been observing from. He would cast the tiles on his lithomancy board again. Perhaps the stones would speak to him this time.

If not, there was nothing else to do but press forward.