Trial by Fire: Ch 8

“Orban was still young. A true prodigy.” High Priest Agoston Toth was just about the least priestly-looking man I’d ever seen. Tall, wide, with a broad heavy face, a neck like a bull, and hams for fists, he seemed to take up most of the room. The small parlor where he had received us was off-side the main cathedral. It had bookshelves and plants, a jug of wine, and murals of dragons, battles, and men working a forge. “I took him under my wing, knowing he would exceed my ability in the coming decades. I looked forward to it. For a man with no children, your students are the hope for the future. Not only was he a talent, he always strove to embody the virtues expected of a servant of Khors. The only reason someone would kill him would be to strike a blow against the church, generally, and me in particular.”

“Did he have any enemies?” Suri tapped her lips with a finger. She sat at the end of the table, one leg crossed over her other knee. I was still standing, mostly to watch Karalti while she gnawed on a huge marrowbone in front of the fireplace.

The big priest spread his hands. They were calloused, and he wore a lot of rings, each one forged of a different kind of metal. “Not to my knowledge. There are the usual arguments and conflicts among the men here... conflicts which are resolved through mediation by senior brothers. A functional brotherhood relies on good communication.”

“What did you do for him?” I asked. “Andr... His Majesty said you sent him to the Meewfolk.”

“I did.” Toth bowed his head.

“Why?”

He looked down at Karalti, who was making short work of the bone. “The priests and monks come to me with their troubles, and I counsel them. This can be anything from simply listening to their woes through to issuing penance for lapses of duty. They come to me knowing that what I order will be fair and just, and the penance will be in line with the oaths they swore to maintain. Orban came to me not long ago with a confession.”

Suri nodded. “Which was?”

The priest sighed. “He admitted to me that he held prejudice against the Meewfolk. He had grown up being told that they are plague-bearers and thieves, and he confessed that he looked down on the cat-folk who visit this cathedral to worship. Not for any particular reason... a matter of upbringing and simple prejudice. But we do not discriminate here. It was the dragons, actually, who taught us that all peoples are equal under the sky, and all may seek to uphold the values of Khors and light a fire against the Void. One of the values we uphold is courage. The courage to face fear, and admit when one is wrong.”

“You sent him on a solo assignment to the ghetto to prove his fears weren’t real?” I rubbed my face thoughtfully, thinking back to Kirov’s description of how his body was found.

“Yes.” The craggy lines of Toth’s face deepened with sorrow. “I confess I feel some guilt now that this has happened. He was a good man, and so young. He sincerely wished to overcome his fear, and now... now this.”

Suri spoke next. “What are these values? Are they a code, or less defined?”

“Khors is a god of principle and action, and he extols seven virtues,” Toth replied. “Hospitality, honor, courage, self-reliance, wisdom, discipline and honesty. His faithful, whether they be lay or brothers in the faith, always strive to embody these virtues.”

I glanced aside at Suri, and found her momentarily looking up at me with understanding in her eyes. I nodded a little.

“Orban was found with stab wounds to the back,” Suri said. “But those didn’t kill him. Someone went to the effort of forcing a live rat down his throat, then choked him.”

“Symbol of cowardice,” I said, with a short nod. As I talked, I scanned the room. “The others who were murdered...”

“One was a tutor to the royal family,” Suri said. “He was beaten to death with a book and a quill.”

“Yeah. Safe to say that could be wisdom.”

Toth’s brow furrowed as he listened to us.

“Father Darko doesn’t fit that pattern.” Suri scowled, massaging one of her hands as she thought. “He hung himself. Nothing fancy or symbolic. Unless he really wasn’t murdered, and just capped himself.”

“No.” Father Toth fiercely shook his head. “No no no... Franz Darko was a ferocious and honorable man. If he desired death, he’d have strapped on his armor and gone into the woods to battle monsters until he could no longer fight. Suicide is a great disgrace.”

“The opposite of disgrace is honor. That’s the virtue, then,” I said. “Father Darko’s death just wasn’t as... I hate to use the word, but it wasn’t as ‘flashy’ as the other murders.”

“Yeah.” Suri picked at her lip ring, brooding. “That’s how assassins kill people. Make it look like they did it themselves.”

“You truly believe this?” Father Toth looked between us. “We thought perhaps someone was targeting us because Khors has… well, because the church is such a strong supporter of his Majesty, I should say.”

Suri nodded. “What makes you think that?”

“The Volod is concerned about national security, and after the events in the south-east and unrest among the non-humans of Taltos, he has focused a great deal of time and money on fortifying our borders and modernizing the army,” Toth replied. “Khors is the god of the fire that protects us against the night and the forge on which we create the tools that feed and defend us. He is also the patron god of House Corvinus, who is said to be descended through him via his human-born son. His Majesty has begun a great push to modernize Vlachia, and has leveraged taxes on the commonfolk to pay for the weapons, armor, infrastructural components and siege engines we build. He is training smiths and soldiers under the banner of Khors.”

“What about the other eight gods?” I asked. “I haven’t seen any big churches like this one here.”

“There used to be,” the High Forgemaster replied. “But the Nine are the gods of the dragons, not humanity. Of them all, only Khors exalted humankind. It is said he fell in love with a human woman, an artist of great skill, and she bore Taltos - the first prophet and patriarch of our faith.”

I grunted. “Then it could just be some religious nutcase, but we won’t know until we have a suspect in hand. The question we need to answer is how does the murderer know who’s breaking what virtue, or who best embodies one of these virtues so they can murder them to make a point?”

“Duhhh,” Karalti said, chewing on her bone. “They listen. That’s how you learn stuff.”

“You’re way more likely to be murdered by someone you know than someone you don’t,” Suri said grimly. “My thought is that it’s someone either in the priesthood, or who has a lot of access to you.”

Father Toth rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Fire and Sky preserve us... I can’t even bear to think of such a thing. But your idea is compelling... though we could simply be applying our ideas to a tragedy which is far simpler.”

“It’s always a risk. But it gives us something to go off.” I jerked my head toward the room. “Out of curiosity... did you talk to the other murdered men shortly before they died?”

Father Toth’s eyes narrowed, and his chest swelled with anger. “Are you implying that I might have done this?”

“No.” I glanced at Karalti. “I’m wondering if anyone might have overheard you talking to them.”

“Confession and counselling is done in my chambers,” he said stiffly. “But now that you mention it, yes, I did talk with Father Darko and Father Abel not long before they were murdered.”

“Do you remember what you talked about?”

“Father Abel came to drink, report on the state of the university treasury, and we played a game of chess. He was my good friend.” Father Toth shook his head, looking down at his hands. “Franz... he came in to rant at me over some matter of protocol. I don’t remember. Much as I valued him, he was hot-tempered and quick to see insult or transgression where there was none.”

Karalti might not have been that far off the mark, then. My stomach thrilled nervously. “Anyone else in the office at the time?”

“No. I receive my brothers privately.”

Suri nodded, her mind made up, and stood. “Then we need to search your office.”

The priest bristled again. “To what end?”

“There might be some way the killer is listening in to your conversations,” I said. “Painting with eyes cut out or something. And if they’re using your office to spy on priests and monks here...”

“You could be in danger,” Suri finished.

“This is... I...” Father Toth looked between us, briefly at a loss for words. “I... suppose that’s possible, but the temple guard watch the doors night and day. The windows are barred.”

“Well, Matthias said he thought your killer might be a ghost,” I replied. “Let’s go find out if he can walk through walls.”

***

Toth waited anxiously by the door while we went in and searched. Karalti trotted after me with her bone clamped tightly between her jaws, sticking her head in around me as I looked behind tapestries and paintings. By the way that Suri searched, I was feeling more confident that she had been either a cop, a soldier, or both before her upload to Archemi. She was brutally thorough, looking in spots most people would miss. Under carpets, inside drawers, and to the High Priest’s dismay, through his papers and then underneath the drawers, which she pulled out one at a time to check.

“I don’t think there’s really any reason to divest my entire study,” the priest said. He clutched the doorframe while he watched us work.

“You’d be amazed where people can hide themselves or listening devices.” I swept the room, zooming in on objects of interest, bookshelves, vases. The high priest’s study had a collection of beautiful weapons and forge tools displayed in glass-fronted cases. My HUD highlighted them with glowing blue rings.

“Best place for a listening device is on the inside of things,” Suri added from across the room. “Drawers, inside electrical outlets, under or inside windowsills.”

“A listening device?” Toth looked even more taken aback. “Is such a thing possible?”

That was something I wondered myself, but given that Archemi had airships, firearms, and steampunk cars, I was betting the combination of magic and technology meant it was feasible. “Smell anything, Karalti?”

The little dragon turned her wedge-shaped head from side to side, tail lashing with curiosity. “Smell fire! Aaaannd…big man over there? Annnd… OOH!”

Three things happened all at once. There was a glimmer of gold light and movement in the corner of my eye; Karalti dropped her bone and then dashed off in a flash of black scales, obscuring my view of the scuttling thing.

“Ratty! Rattyratty-OWW!” Her mental voice was shrill with delight as she gracelessly slid across the marble floor and crunched face-first into the base of one of the High Priest’s ornate wooden bookshelves. As she scrambled to recover, chomping wildly into the crevice underneath the shelves, it began to tip forward.

I didn’t even think. I sprinted to her and put myself between her and the bookshelves as they crashed down on top of us.

[You have taken 25 bludgeoning damage!]

[You have taken 12 damage!]

[You are Bleeding!]

[You have earned a new Feat: ‘When furniture attacks!’]

Medieval books don’t have soft paper covers: they’re made of vellum covered by hardened leather, and I took a couple of hits to the face from them as they tumbled out. Straining, blood running into my eyes, I pushed the shelves back upright and put my back against them. Nearly 50 HP down the drain for that one.

“You alright over there?” Suri called.

“Karalti! What the hell?” I dashed my arm across my face so I could see. “What have I told you about chasing rats and not looking where you’re going?”

“But I got it!” My dragon reared up with the ‘ratty’ in her mouth. “Weird ratty though. Too crunchy.”

“That’s not a bloody rat,” Suri said.

She was right. The thing struggling in Karalti’s jaws wasn’t an animal at all.

It was a machine.