Powder Mage: The Autumn Republic Part 39

CHAPTER.

34.

The blasted remains of the union headquarters looked somehow worse in the light of day. Walls that the other night had appeared unharmed were revealed to be blackened with soot, the plaster cracked and chipped. Sometime during the last two days the rest of the roof had caved in.

Adamat nodded to the uniformed police officer standing guard at the street and entered the ruin through the still-standing front door.

Ricard's men had protected the building from looters and picked through the wreckage for everything of value to the union. Papers, artwork, furniture, everything but the building materials themselves had been removed, and Ricard said even those would be torn down and dumped or recycled within days so they could start the process of rebuilding.

"b.l.o.o.d.y mess," SouSmith commented from behind Adamat.

Adamat shoved at a piece of fallen roof. When it became clear he wouldn't be able to move it, he climbed on and over it until he was able to get back on his feet near the center of the great room. To his surprise, no one had shut off the pumps to the fountain in the middle of the grand hall. It was still running, practically undamaged, creating a strange sort of serenity in the midst of all the destruction.

SouSmith paused to reach into the fountain and pull out a silver ten-krana coin. He balanced it on his thick thumb and flicked it in the air, catching it with his other hand. "Don't know what you're gonna find," he rumbled.

"Me neither," Adamat said. He was beginning to think he'd wasted his time in coming here. Two days since the blast and the whole thing had been trampled over by Ricard's men and the police. What little evidence that might have pointed toward the culprit was long gone by now. Only investigative instinct kept him from leaving this place behind to go find some breakfast.

He worked his way through the rubble until he reached the back of the building. "I'm shocked more people weren't killed," he said.

"How many?" SouSmith asked.

"Thirteen casualties," Adamat said. "Another twenty-seven injured. There were three hundred people here the other night. It could have been much worse." At the rear of the building Adamat entered what used to be the hallway leading to Ricard's office. The office was a total loss. It didn't take a professional to tell that this had been the epicenter of the blast. All four walls were gone, the desk was nothing more than splinters, and the floor had all but caved in.

Adamat heard the sc.r.a.pe of boots in the rubble and turned to see Fell approaching from the way they'd come. SouSmith tipped his hat to the undersecretary but remained silent, eyeing her with obvious suspicion.

"The police said the powder barrel was under his desk," she said.

Adamat looked over the room once more. Yes, that seemed right. He stepped carefully into the room, testing the floor with every step, half expecting what was left of it to collapse beneath him. He could see the dark of the bas.e.m.e.nt beneath the remaining tiles. He crossed to the middle of the room and envisioned how it had been set up, using his mind's eye to examine the memory of Ricard's office. He held his hands about where the desk would be, and imagined sitting at the desk.

There was something wrong about this.

"What else did they tell you?" Adamat asked. He hadn't gotten the chance to speak with the chief inspector yet, but had a lunch-time appointment for that very purpose. It would be useful to get two different perspectives on this.

Fell kicked idly at a piece of masonry and pulled a pipe out of her pocket. She set the stem on the corner of her lip and struck a match. After puffing it to life, she said, "That there were two bombs."

"Two?" That was a surprise. "Where was the second?"

"In the bas.e.m.e.nt."

There was no evidence of the second bomb until they reached the cellar stairs. The door to the cellar was gone and there was less left of the stairs than there had been of Ricard's office. The marble floor was cracked and seemed to crumble beneath their feet. One of Ricard's men had left a ladder there so they could access the bas.e.m.e.nt. Adamat climbed down into the dark.

The cellar was of the kind found beneath old manors: a vaulted ceiling with thick, stone arches. Adamat could feel the crunch of gla.s.s beneath his feet. He could make out a stone alcove behind where the stairs used to be and black scorch marks along the wall.

"Shall we come down?" Fell asked.

Adamat answered by climbing back up the ladder and joining her and SouSmith in the ruin. "The bombs were set off by a quick-burning fuse, correct?"

"That's what the police think," Fell said. "They think that the culprit waited until the offices were all clear, came in through the back, and quickly placed two black powder kegs, rolled the fuse out into the alley behind the building, lit it, and ran."

Adamat took a deep breath of Fell's pipe smoke and drummed his fingers on his stomach. "Do you know anything about a person not having a shadow?"

"What does that have to do with the investigation?"

"Nothing. Just curious."

Fell considered this for a moment. "Doesn't sound familiar."

"A pity." He let out a sigh and returned to the matter at hand. "I can make three easy a.s.sumptions of the a.s.sa.s.sin. Whoever did this was just hired muscle. They were hired by someone who knew Ricard well. And they didn't want to kill everyone in the building."

"How do you determine that?"

"One: The kinds of people who want to kill Ricard won't dirty their own hands. Two: They dropped the first barrel under Ricard's desk. Ricard loves his parties, but he likes to stay relaxed by slipping out about halfway through the night for a quick dalliance with whatever young lady happens to be handy."

Fell gave a quick nod, the corners of her mouth turning up slightly at that. "But why the second barrel?" she asked. "The floors were reinforced because of the way Ricard had had this place built. They should have placed the barrel in the middle of the cellar, where the blast could have killed the people standing above it."

"Why did Ricard build the cellar that way?"

"So he had 'someplace evocative to take his guests to pick out wine,' " Fell said, slipping into a startlingly accurate impression of Ricard. She let the impression drop and Adamat could see the realization hit.

"He loves to show off his wine collection," Adamat said. "For a party like the one last night, the a.s.sa.s.sin had a very good chance of catching Ricard either in his office or in the cellar. Those two spots would allow for the best chance of killing Ricard without killing everyone else in the building."

SouSmith flipped his silver coin in the air and caught it coming back down. "Doesn't help us."

"It does help us," Adamat disagreed, "if only a little. The person would have to know Ricard fairly well to know those two items. Or else they had an inside source who does. Regardless, it lets us narrow in on the few dozen people who knew Ricard best, rather than spend our time combing through the whole of Adopest."

Something else was bothering Adamat, and he couldn't quite place it. The explosion was... off in a way that he couldn't grasp.

He left SouSmith and Fell near the cellar stairs and went back to Ricard's office. Tracing the blast patterns on the floor and remnants of the wall, he worked his way carefully around the room and then into the hallway. Once he was satisfied with that, he borrowed a lantern from the policeman in the street and descended into the bas.e.m.e.nt, where he traced out the blast pattern and examined the walls.

The whole process took about an hour. Fell sifted through the bits of papers remaining in Ricard's office and SouSmith idly flipped his coin. When Adamat finished, he went to Ricard's office and cleared his throat.

Fell looked up from the floor, her eyebrows raised.

"The blasts were far too big for the size of the barrels," Adamat announced.

Fell scoffed. "You couldn't possibly know that just by looking."

Adamat tapped the side of his head. "Perfect memory. It makes eyeballing measurements much easier. I've seen my fair share of explosions and I don't have to be a scientist in these matters to see that the destructions caused by the barrels downstairs and at Ricard's desk were far more thorough than would have fit in those two places."

"Could it have been a powder mage?"

"Perhaps. It would explain the other thing I realized."

"Which was?"

"I thought the barrel had been placed under the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs. But it wasn't. It was right in the middle of the bas.e.m.e.nt hall, where anyone could have stumbled over it."

"That makes sense if they were trying to do this quickly."

"It's... too quick. Ricard has dozens of servants. Maybe fifty or sixty on the night of one of his parties. The chances of both his office and the bas.e.m.e.nt being empty are incredibly slim." He paused to examine the outside wall of the office and then went back to the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs, noting the long hallway leading to the bas.e.m.e.nt. He did some mental math, then returned to Fell and SouSmith. "Someone could have thrown the explosion. It would require two people working together, but that's not out of the question."

"A grenado," SouSmith said.

"Like a grenado, yes. But much more powerful."

"We're going back to a powder mage," Fell said. "One of Ricard's enemies could be employing a foreign powder mage. I've heard of mercenary mages."

"As have I. But no, I think not. As I understand it, mages are limited by the power of the black powder they use. They could warp a small blast to allow them to kill more people, but not enough to cause this much destruction to the whole building."

"Some kind of refined black powder could do it. Something that packs more of a punch than the traditional kind."

"It would," Adamat said slowly. "And I think it's the best lead we have. Tell Ricard I'll be looking into a few places."

"Good luck," Fell said. "And don't get yourself killed."

Adopest University had seen better days.

Adamat's cane tapped on the cobbles as he made his way through the myriad of stone buildings that made up the university. This was the same walk he'd taken just six months ago on the day of Field Marshal Tamas's coup and Manhouch's execution. Now the brown and orange of fall filled the trees, and the world seemed a little older. But that wasn't the only difference.

The center of the university looked like a battleground. The western facade of Banas.h.i.+r's Hall was missing and the old clock tower that had once dominated the skyline was no more than a squat ruin, looking bare in the fall weather. It had been knocked over by sorcery in a battle between two Privileged and had landed on the once-mighty gla.s.s atrium-the pride of the university. Entire buildings were roped off, sitting idle while the university sought to raise money for their rebuilding.

The scene acutely reminded him of both the destruction at the union headquarters and the aftermath of the earthquake that had occurred four months ago. Adamat knew that Tamas had meant well with his coup, and this destruction was not all a result of his actions, but Adopest had taken a horrible beating since that fateful day.

Adamat took to the stairs in the rear entrance of the administration building and paused when he realized he was alone.

He retraced his steps to find SouSmith staring at the destruction in the quad outside of Banas.h.i.+r's Hall. The earth had been cut up as if with an enormous plow, great mounds and furrows that would take a hundred men several weeks to even out. Adamat wondered why the university hadn't yet restored the fields, but he realized they likely lacked the funding.

"What's wrong?" Adamat asked.

SouSmith held the silver krana coin he'd taken from the union headquarters. He flicked it in the air and caught it. "Thinking."

"About?"

The old boxer didn't respond as he flipped the coin several more times, catching it each time without looking. "That Privileged I punched."

"When you were a kid?"

He nodded and let out a sigh.

"Lucky he didn't do something like this"-Adamat gestured to the destruction-"to your insides."

"Yup."

"Just proves that they can be hurt. That they're fallible. No one's perfect, even the people with the power to do this kind of thing."

"More scary," SouSmith grunted. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and trudged along in the same direction Adamat had been going.

Adamat had heard that the administration building had taken significant damage during the Privileged battle. Inside, it was clear where they'd focused their reconstruction efforts. Sections of the north wall and the roof were all new. The art that had once lined the main hall-of vice-chancellors in the history of the university-had been taken down or destroyed.

He pa.s.sed the office of Vice-Chancellor Prime Lektor and paused just long enough to note there was dust on the handle. He rapped on the next door.

"Come," a m.u.f.fled voice responded.

Adamat entered the tidy office of the a.s.sistant to the vice-chancellor. Uskan sat behind his desk, book open flat before him, gla.s.ses perched on the end of his nose. He looked up from his reading and gave Adamat a tight smile. "Good afternoon."

"h.e.l.lo, my friend," Adamat said. "Thank you for seeing me at such short notice."

"Of course." Uskan sat up and brushed the hair from his brow. "Anything for a government official."

"It's not like that," Adamat said, feeling his heart skip a beat. Uskan hadn't offered him a place to sit. His manner was forced, and his eyes were not trusting. Adamat knew his friend was politically conservative, but...

"It's not? So they're not calling you Tamas's hound?"

"Not within earshot, anyway," Adamat said. "I thought you knew I was working for Tamas."

"Tamas's reign has brought nothing but ruin to the university," Uskan said. "The last time you were here, you told me you were involved, but not that you were running errands for our new dictator."

"He's not a dictator," Adamat said.

"Oh?"

Adamat dropped into the chair in front of Uskan's desk. He didn't have the energy for this. "Tamas is reported dead, anyway." He eyed Uskan, gauging his reaction to see if word had reached him yet of Tamas's return. "It's all in the past."

"And because of him we'll have no future."

"I don't want to talk politics with you. I just hoped you'd answer a few questions."

"As I said, anything for a government stooge."

"Uskan!"

"Adamat, I will help you, but I will not be happy about it!"

Adamat drummed his fingers on Uskan's desk. "Where's the vice-chancellor?"

"Away. Tamas put him in charge of the eastern front after South Pike erupted. Why, I have no idea. The man's a scholar, not a warrior. And we desperately need him here helping us rebuild the university. Tamas has-had-taken it upon himself to ruin Adopest University and-"

Adamat cut him off. "He sent him because the vice-chancellor is a Privileged."