Pillar

Chapter Thirteen

The man with the scar turned out to be Lieutenant Samson Costello, a sour faced man that smoked rolled up Bearberry leaves, a cigarette tucked behind his ear just in case of emergencies. Said cigarette was no hanging from his lips, the smoldering tip filling the air with the acrid scent of the relaxing leaves that caused everyone, save Vivian, to hack and choke in the enclosed morgue. Clay had been forced to volunteer to run for back-up, as the c*****e was getting to his stomach. Tobald’s face was impassive as he lined up the last Vessel, the opened-up carcass of Horace Elkhorn. The one-armed dead was still rasping and stretching to get a hold of Lt. Costello’s greaves, even as he laid there with a sword in his hip pinning him to the spot.

“So, you’re telling me that whatever killed my men somehow reanimated them hours after their death?” Lt. Costello asked, pulling the cigarette from his lips and running a gloved hand over his hair, his ponytail held in a loose silk band. “How could this happen? I was always told a wizard had to be present to create a Vessel, and that it took days for the birthing process to bear any fruit.”

“Well, while wizards can create vessels with the proper rituals, the dead themselves can reproduce by injecting charged teleplasm into a host, usually through a bit or through hollowed fingers that act as stingers.” Vivian said, leaning on her staff. Her journal was open to the section she had on vessels, a dedicated eight-page diagnostic of the basic Vessel reproduction process, their physiology, and their culture once they “awakened” into the world as sentient beings. The Lieutenant had perused the cursive, frowning as he mouthed certain terms he wasn’t familiar with while nodding at other passages.

Now he merely stood over his former Royal Guard, watching as one lashed out on pure instinct with a desire to feed. “Will he return to his right mind eventually, allow us to debrief him?”

Vivian shook her head. “The emergent minds have no memory of their former lives and cannot speak any language but their own, which they intrinsically know through means none have been able to find out.”

“So, Horace here… he’s dead, despite what I’m seeing?” Lt. Costello asked, sounding unsure.

“Yes, he is completely gone,” Vivian said, thinking of her trick to call a soul back for questioning. She wouldn’t dare do it with witnesses on something as complex as a human. “Now I’d like to request the bodies to be burned so that they can you see fit.”

“The ashes aren’t dangerous?” Lt. Costello tore his eyes from Horace’s lashing torso to stare at Vivian with a piercing glare. “You’re certain.”

“Positive. If you’re worried, just burn them and bury them deep somewhere you don’t plan on planting.”

“Sir,” Tobald interrupted, “the bone is splintering, and the flesh is already cut up. I need orders on what to do with Horace, and the other bodies.”

“Burn them,” He said, pulling his sword from his hip, a razor-edged rapier with a floral handguard. “Here, let me.”

He thrust down into Horace’s right eye, piercing back into the brain with a grind of metal on bone. The figure went limp, brilliant emerald teleplasm leaking through the socket. He lifted his rapier and stared at the substance staining his steel.

“How do I clean it?” He asked, not bothering to look back as he continued to analyze the substance.

“Pure water should be fine, though salt water is preferable,” Vivian said. “Ignore the cistern to the left, that’s full of poison pulled from the body, take the cistern in the right corner. It should have some water that you can clean your blade with.”

“What poison?” Lt. Costello asked.

“Magically charged Amberum. While safe enough normally, I pulled this from the Horace’s corpse using a spell, diluting the liquids to leave the amberum in as pure a version as possible,” Vivian said, “you’ll want the acolytes to clean it out with gloves and lye, with plenty of water to dilute it.”

“We’ll take a sample before that happens,” Lt. Costello said as he dipped his rapier in the water Vivian had washed her hands in earlier, taking a clean butcher’s apron hanging from a peg to wipe off his blade. He tossed the dirtied cloth into the stone bin where the dirty clothes were kept. “You said you had evidence of what attacked my men?”

“Yes,” Vivian said. “Let me show you.”

“Lead the way,” Lt. Costello said, turning to regard Tobald for a moment. “Clay should return with a patrol. The furnaces are down the stairs outside this room, easy enough to operate. You must shovel in coal, and I want you all to remain until the ashes are nothing but soot.”

“Yes sir,” Tobald said, saluting with a click of his heels, holding his spear up parallel to his body. “It’ll be done by dawn, sir!”

“See that it is,” Lt. Costello said before turning to follow Vivian, who’d closed her book and tucked it into her satchel. “That tome is quite useful. Where can I find a copy?”

“It’s my own writings so far, and I’ve yet to fill a tenth of the book!” Vivian said. “When I’m done, I’ll send your office an advance copy, sound good.”

“That would be most generous,” Lt. Costello said as they ascended the stairs. “You wouldn’t have stumbled across a trio of girls about your age today, would you?”

“Um, yes?” Vivian answered.

“My daughter was one of them, the blonde-haired girl. She said you were rude to her.” Lt. Costello said without inflection. “Is this true?”

“Partly,” Vivian replied. “Her redheaded friend grabbed me by a hair ornament I normally wear and demanded to buy it. You daughter wanted it, and she thought I was a merchant showcasing my wares. When I told them it wasn’t for sale, they grew a little… irritable.”

“I see,” Lt. Costello said, allowing a few agonizing seconds to tick by as they entered the alchemy lab. “May I see the ornament?”

“So long as I get it back,” Vivian said.

“Of course,” he replied. Vivian lifted the retort and slid the hoop out, holding it out for him to grab it. “You won’t feel it at first, but it warms things up. I use it to dry my hair and keep it clean and smooth during poor weather, warm water for when I need to bathe, and to heat instruments and cups when I need to showcase a reaction, as I did here.”

He turned over the alternating bands of gold and silver, running a gloved finger over the engraved runes and the glowing Anam crystal charging the runic array. “Who made this?”

“A blacksmith from the Hills of Iron. My Master bought it for me when I was younger, as my hair was growing out, and told me to enchant it using only one element to do what I told you. It took me a year-and-a-half, but I had the runes painted on, and directed a friend of mine who worked for an artisan who engraved the runes and inlaid the gem and crystalline dust you can’t see in the engraved lines.”

“So, there would be no way to replicate this item here in Hamlin?” Lt. Costello said, staring at the hoop.

“Not easily. If you could pay to have the hoop made, I could do the enchanting work. I mastered a spell that allows me to engrave things with ease, so you wouldn’t even need an artisan,” Vivian replied, “I’d do it for an affordable rate, if you’re thinking about it.”

“More affordable than that criminal Bleak?” Lt. Costello asked with the tone would reserve for speaking about a recent book you read.

“Um, I’m not sure what his rates are, but if you supply the ring, I can make the enchantment for… forty silver?” Vivian guessed. She really didn’t have time to be making jewelry for spoiled rich kids, but she didn’t want to insult the man who apparently didn’t like the current game in town for enchanting.

Lt. Costello held out the hoop to Vivian and looked at her with his piercing stare. “I’ll order two. I should have the first ready in three days. How long does it take to enchant?”

Vivian frowned. With her notes and the soft nature of gold and silver, she could do it in half-an-hour. “I would need to get a sufficient charging crystal so I’d need a down payment, but I could have each one ready within a day of receiving them.”

“Perfect,” Lt. Costello reached to his belt, pulling a large pouch free. He counted out ten coins before handing it over. “Forty up front, forty upon delivery. Where are you staying?”

“Bed Row, room 3-F.” Vivian muttered, surprised at the weight forty silver coins carried. She tightened the knot at the top and dropped it into her satchel, her collection of money pouches reminding her she needed to stop by Master Bleak’s asking about some earthen rituals for Ms. Hanko’s foundation. She smiled, nodding her head. “Thank you, I’ll make certain they’re of top-quality.”

“The smith will see to that, I just want you to make sure the magic works,” Lt. Costello replied. “Now, onto the work at hand: evidence of the attacker!”

“Yes!” Vivian said, spinning around to pick up the glass lid to showcase the ridged, hooked pieces of hard material. “Here. Tell me what you see?”

He reached in and gingerly lifted one of the blood red items and held it up close to his nose. He turned it from side to side, before focusing on Vivian. “Barbs, claws with barbs.”

“Very close! They’re formed calcium as they had an adverse reaction with a bit of lye, telling me they’re teeth. Whatever attacked the men was strong enough to handle all three fast enough to force something with barbed teeth down their throats to pump in liquefied amberum and partially charged teleplasm.”

“Your proof?” Lt. Costello asked.

Vivian c****d her hip to the side. “The damage to the throats, the stomachs full of teleplasm, and the amberum in their blood charging from the ambient Astral energy left behind by the moon’s rays. If this had happened at night, they would have raised within minutes instead of half a day.”

“We found the bodies early morning,” Lt. Costello said. “The attack happened around dawn, when people were filing into the River District. Nobody saw anything, so the culprit made a quick escape. Do Vessels require air?”

Vivian shook her head. “No, they can go without. They need raw meat for their teleplasm to digest to keep going, so they’re active carnivores. Whatever did this either didn’t know when people were getting up to go to work, lost track of time, or was intentionally trying to create more vessels.”

“Why create more? More of them means more competition for food,” Lt. Costello reasoned, “You see it with wolves, the packs split up when too many wolves are in each area.”

“Maybe… maybe it wants a pack, sir,” Vivian hazarded a guess. “They don’t have to eat people, and we are on a river full of large fish. This creature could have been lurking and something drove it up onto the docks.”

“No,” Lt. Costello said, “This is too coincidental. The moons are going to be high for another fifteen nights, making magic more powerful for you wizards and the considerable catalogue of creatures that thrive during this time. This may be a migratory Vessel, or it might be something else entirely. It not eating them shows it’s trying to reproduce, which is the most disconcerting factor we have here.”

“I have a lead I’m going to follow up on of a strange creature sighted just across the bridge leading the woods,” Vivian said.

“I’d like to speak with this lead myself, if you don’t mind,” Lt. Costello said, giving her a long stare. “We are talking about a killing happening in my town. The Captain has put me in charge of finding out who did this.”

“Well, barring you can talk to trees, I’m your best bet,” Vivian smiled, thumbing the smooth grip of her staff. “I have an affinity to plants and can channel Astral energy into them to give them limited consciousness for a time being. Repeated exposure provides memory, though their perceptions are different from ours.”

“How so?” Lt. Costello pressed.

“They can’t tell us apart by gender. They use the word ‘man’ to mean any human, young or old. You have to question them thoroughly, and the Willow I know gets uncomfortable unless I trade him something he would desire.”

“What would a tree want?” Lt. Costello asked, not a hint of a smile on his face.

“Everchill seems to work, or other iced liquors. It can savor the chill and get a slight buzz from it while it has consciousness, which lasts a few hours every time I do it,” Vivian replied, “it’s a Leeching Willow, so it has a mildly toxic attitude if angered. I’m close to immune to its poison, but anyone else I bring might rile it up and make it attack. Plus, nobody but me understands it unless I figure out how to channel the same effect into another human. I’ve been working on a formula, but it hasn’t really been high on my to-do list.”

“Hmm… how long are you staying in town?” Lt. Costello asked.

“How did you know I was traveling?” Vivian smiled, eyebrow raised.

“Heard of a dark-skinned wizard doing odd jobs, then I heard from my daughter of one being taken up for an investigation led by the Royal Guards,” he said, turning to look over the alchemical equipment. “I asked around the barracks and found a few army runts who knew you. Told me you were on some mystic adventure to prove your mettle as a wizard. That, about right?”

“Close enough,” Vivian crossed her arms, cursing herself for being so outgoing in this town. Now she had one leader of the Royal Guard sniffing on her trail! “Is that a problem?”

“Not so long as you stay until this is resolved. I want to hire you on as a contractor, seeing as you seem to know about this. Better you than Bleak, to be certain.” Lt. Costello said. “Pay is two silver a day, with a ten-silver stipend for whatever you need. The stipend is wholly at your disposal, but won’t be refilled.”

“How, what…?” Vivian said, leaning back as Lt. Costello leaned in with a small leather flip-book.

“This is a badge that marks you as a contractor for the Royal Guard,” he explained, forcing it into her hands, “use it should you need access to a crime scene involving this case. IU don’t want to hear of you abusing this privilege.”

 “I-I’m flattered, but I don’t know if I’m the right person… I mean, this is Master Bleak’s territory, I don’t know how he’d react if I took a position that rightfully belonged to him.” Vivian said, holding the booklet out to Lt. Costello, who folded his hands behind his back.

“We don’t involve people on probation with active cases, and he has a little over two years left on his,” Lt. Costello said with a grim tone, “if it were up to me he would have hung like the mercenary, but we don’t all get our wishes to come true, now do we?”

“No… sir,” Vivian said, adding the last word as an afterthought.

Lt. Costello smiled. “You’re learning. Leave all of this here and take off, I know you’ve been here for the past eight hours, relax before speaking with the tree tomorrow. I want you to bring two guardsmen with you when you do, understand?”

“Yes sir,” Vivian said, adjusting the strap of her satchel before staring at Lt. Costello in obvious discomfort.

The man smiled again. “Go then. I have to investigate a breach in our armory… someone broke in while you were out and made a mess of things, made off with who knows what!”

“I could help you locate the missing items, sir…” Vivian said.

Lt. Costello gave her a hard look. “You already have enough on your plate as it is. You just find out what is causing these killings. Leave the theft to me and the Royal Guard.”