Cast In Ruin Part 12

She heard Morse snicker and ignored it; if she didn't it was going to be a long day. Or week. Or month. "It's not generally in use in the fiefs," was her clipped reply. "And frankly, when bodies are discovered, unless they're of import to the fieflord's authority, it's not generally considered a problem."

His eyes shaded instantly to an orange bronze. "That would be because your previous experience of the fiefs involved Lords who were notoriously underfocused. The people who have died are my citizens and my subjects. Mine. If I'm not of a mind to kill them myself, no one else will do so without repercussions."

Now, that sounded like a Dragon. Kaylin frowned. "You're versed in the practices of the Investigative branches of the Halls of Law-you've worked with the Hawks before."

He nodded and rose. Glancing at the mirror he said-thankfully, in High Barrani-"Records."

CHAPTER 8.

The mirror, which had reflected the Dragon Lord's image until he spoke the word, seemed to shatter; shards flew out from its surface. But Tiamaris didn't move, and after the initial harsh crack, neither did the shards. He stepped back, gestured, and they began to coalesce-beyond the mirror's surface. Kaylin, who'd seen her share of mirrors, had never seen one that did this; the only one that had come close in her experience had also then been put strictly off limits as dangerous.

Tiamaris was as expressive as Dragons usually were; he never looked snide, he never looked smug. Mostly he looked dispa.s.sionate or annoyed. There was, however, just the hint of a smile as he spoke to the mirror again.

"Map, Capstone."

Kaylin frowned. Capstone was one of the longer roads in the fief. "Morse, isn't that where-"

"Yeah. Great big one-off Shadow on your first day back in the fief."

"Burned down the building? There, near Holdstock?"

Morse nodded.

"Is it part of the reconstruction?"

"It is part of the planned reconstruction," Tiamaris replied. "But at the moment, rebuilding border towers and defenses are a priority. Capstone and Holdstock," he continued, and the rather large and almost featureless lines of road coalesced into images that resembled the fief as it actually was. "The first body was discovered here."

"That's the burned-out building."

"Actually, it's the one to the side; Barren wasn't concerned with containing fire."

"Badly scorched?"

"That was one of the unusual things about the victim. No."

She frowned. "So the person died there after the fire?"

He was silent.

"Records," Kaylin said sharply. Tiamaris nodded to Tara, and the mirror rotated to face Kaylin. "Image of body discovered at 84 Capstone."

"I should warn you," Tiamaris said, "that Barren did not see fit to operate a morgue."

"So you don't have the bodies anywhere."

"We do now, but if others died in a similar fas.h.i.+on during the encroachment under Barren's reign, we have no records or information about their deaths beyond what Tara herself remembers-"

"My memories of that time are incomplete," was the quiet reply. "My memories of the later period of Illien are likewise incomplete. My memories of Tiamaris, however, are not."

"None of your memories contain anything relevant?"

Tara hesitated. "I am not certain," she said at last.

The mirror had divulged the standing image of a young woman. She was clothed in a style that Kaylin didn't recognize-and it was a style; it wasn't the desperate hand-me-downs of most of Kaylin's early life in Nightshade or Barren. For one, it wasn't torn, and it seemed to fit the girl perfectly; it was a deep shade of blue, although the sleeves were edged in something that looked like dirt-covered gold thread. She'd apparently only had luck in dresses; her feet were bare; her hands were also bare of rings or any discoloration that might have indicated they'd once existed.

"Cause of death?" Kaylin asked softly. She approached the image that floated beyond the mirror's surface and examined it. She could walk around the body; she didn't try to touch it. But there was no blood on the dress, nothing that indicated fatal wounding; her neck was not mottled or bruised; her face was not marked. The back of her head did not look crushed, and she had none of the bloat that Kaylin a.s.sociated with a drowning death; her fingernails were clean, and what Kaylin could see of her wrists appeared to be unbruised.

Tiamaris said, "We have no coroner. And no, before you ask, my expertise at dismemberment rarely involved careful examination of the dead."

"Magic?"

Tiamaris glanced at Tara. Tara said, "I'm not certain."

It wasn't a no. "We'll head that way first. Is the building structurally sound?"

"On the west side, yes. Which is where the body was found. There is, before you leave, more."

"Who found the body?"

"A young boy; he was chasing a ball or a stone, against the wishes of the old woman who was serving as his guardian."

"And word reached you?"

"Not directly," Tiamaris replied, nodding at Tara.

"Where was the dress made?" Severn asked quietly, reminding everyone that he was still in the room.

"An interesting question," Tiamaris replied. "Why do you ask?"

"The shade of blue is unusual; I'm not conversant with all our dyes, but it can't be common."

Morse was looking at the side of Severn's head. Turning to Kaylin, she said, "Did he really come out of the fiefs?"

Kaylin nodded. "Same one that produced me."

"Mirror: mark first victim," Tiamaris said.

"Victim's name?" Kaylin asked.

"She doesn't appear to have had one," was the reply.

"No one was willing to identify her?"

Tiamaris and Tara exchanged a glance. It was Tara who answered. "No one recognized her."

In the fiefs, that was pretty common; no one knew anything that could get them in trouble. They forgot their own names, their homes, and their families if anyone they didn't trust asked. "No one you asked?"

"No one who spoke of the incident at all," was the calm reply. After a pause, she added, "I listened."

Kaylin could see clearly why Sanabalis found her alarming. She grimaced. While it wouldn't be the first time she'd marked a corpse as Victim Number something, it always irritated her. "How many victims in total?"

Tiamaris didn't reply. Not directly. "Mirror," he said. "Capstone and Enclave."

The silent, standing corpse disintegrated into almost instant particles of light that shed color and s.h.i.+fted position. When they reintegrated, Kaylin was looking at a topographical map of Capstone and Enclave. It wasn't one of the streets she'd frequented at Barren's behest in her six months in Barren, but she was familiar with the intersection; among other things, it housed a well.

The map now centered on the well, and Kaylin looked away. "In the water?" she asked quietly.

"Very good, Private. There was a difficulty with the water itself, and it was brought-quickly-to my attention. The corpse was in the water."

"Drowned?"

"That would be the reasonable a.s.sumption. It is not, for reasons which will be obvious, the correct one in my opinion. Mirror, second victim."

Once again the three-dimensional image disintegrated, and light rippled out in concentric spheres, changing shape and color. When it finally stilled, Kaylin frowned. "Mirror," she said, "second victim."

The image didn't change. She turned to Tara. "The mirror-"

"The mirror is relaying the correct information," the Tower replied.

"But-but it's the same woman."

Severn began to walk around the standing-dead-simulacra. "It seems to be the same woman," he told Kaylin, "but the dress has clearly been in the water for some small time."

"It's the same dress, too."

Tiamaris nodded.

"Did you see this corpse?"

He nodded again.

"Did you see the first one?"

"Yes. The Lady was present and examined both of the bodies."

"I don't know how refined the Lady's sense of smell is. I know Dragons are close to Leontines. Was there any way to distinguish them?"

Tiamaris lifted a hand. "Both were dead."

"I'll take that as an inconclusive. When the bodies were unclothed were there any identifying marks-birthmarks, old scars, missing teeth-that you could use to tell them apart?"

"Mirror. Victim one and victim two."

Both women now appeared as standing-and naked-corpses. They were oriented in the same position, but their eyelids had been pulled up, and their mouths opened to reveal even rows of teeth. Kaylin had watched Red in the morgue; she'd seen her share of unclothed, and often partially disa.s.sembled, bodies. They often bothered new recruits; they'd never bothered Kaylin as much. The people were dead; they felt no shame, no pain, and no fear.

Neither did these women.

Both she and Severn walked around their fronts and backs, but they spent most of their time looking at the women's teeth. Not only did both women have all of them, but the teeth themselves seemed, admittedly to their inexpert eye, to be the same set in each mouth.

"Notice any identifying marks on either?" Kaylin asked Severn, because she could find none. Severn shook his head. Almost everyone had some sort of blemish, freckle, birthmark, mole, or scar by these women's ages. Neither woman appeared to have read that memo.

Morse watched, but said nothing.

"Tara, did anyone recognize this woman? The second victim?"

"No. But they were a great deal more upset because of where her body was found. There was some anger."

"I bet." Killing someone was frowned on. Killing someone and dumping their corpse into the well, however, was making your personal vendetta everyone else's grief, and only the fieflord could get away with that for long. "I think we need to head down to Capstone."

Tiamaris lifted a hand. "I have not yet made the extent of the difficulty clear."

"There's more?"

"There is, as you so elegantly put it, more."

"Tell me."

"There are five more victims."

"Five?"

He nodded.

"Are they all the same woman?"

"Yes."

Two hours later, all the mirror images had been examined; notes had been taken as Tiamaris talked. The first two deaths-if indeed the victims had died where they'd been found-had been on Capstone, but almost at opposite ends of the street. The other five had been spread across the fief.

"I understand why Sanabalis called this subtle," Kaylin finally said. "There doesn't seem to be any obvious cause of death. There weren't, as far as we can tell, any encroachments of Shadow anywhere near the vicinity?"

"None," Tara said. The single word was definitive because it could be; if she was certain, it was true.

"The first of the bodies was discovered after the Norannir arrived?"

"Yes."

"But they haven't been connected with the Norannir at all."

"No. If there were obvious violence, obvious physical damage, it would be...difficult. But no."