Casket of Souls

You’re taking too many risks and someone is taking notice.”
    “Your raggedy lady friend?”
    “Listen to me for once, cousin!” Brader growled. “That was no beggar woman.”
    “Well, that’s why I have you, isn’t it?” Atre said with agrin. “The next time you catch someone suspicious, just kill them like you usually do. You haven’t bloodied your blade more than once or twice since we’ve been here.”
    Brader let out an exasperated snort. “Because you were being careful, until that night you got yourself stabbed in that rat-hole tavern. It’s going to be just like before—”
    “No, it isn’t,” Atre assured him with that dark, hungry smile. “It’s going to be much, much better.”
    Back at the Stag and Otter, Seregil sent word to Valerius to meet them at Thero’s tower. Washed and changed into dry, nondescript clothing, they set off for the Orëska House through the relentless downpour.
    Their cloaks were soaked through by the time they reached it. The night torches cast wavering lines of ruddy light across the huge puddles that had gathered all over the garden and in the carriage path.
    Servants took their horses and cloaks, and they hurried upstairs to Thero’s rooms.
    “We have something to show you!” Alec exclaimed as soon as the wizard let them in.
    “Something more from Reltheus, I hope?” Thero asked, wiping his hands on his work apron. The room smelled like burnt roots and wine and there was something black and acrid bubbling in a flask on one of the long tables.
    “Uh, no. We found something in the Ring that will help Myrhichia.”
    Thero raised a questioning eyebrow as he took the stone from Alec.
    Alec waited expectantly, hoping the wizard would divine something from it instantly. “A boy got this stone for a hog’s tooth. A little girl currently dying in the Sea Market temple got a sweet for a clay doll.”
    “Interesting,” Thero muttered, tilting the stone this way and that to catch the light.
    Rain lashed against the glass-paned dome overhead and lightning vied with the lamplight as he tried a few spells, then clutched it in his hand, muttering another under hisbreath. After a moment, however, he shook his head. “Ordinary quartz, imbued with nothing. It’s useful in a few spells, but it has no killing power.”
    A wave of disappointment rolled over Alec. He’d been certain this would be the key. “But there has to be something!”
    “I’ve never seen quartz that color,” Seregil noted.
    Thero shrugged. “It’s common in Skala’s northeast territory, near Isil.”
    “But not found down here on the peninsula?”
    “No, but you can get it easily enough. I’ve bought some from a stone dealer in Farrow Street.”
    “And you can’t read
anything
about the old man from this one?” asked Alec.
    “No, that’s one of the properties of the stone; it doesn’t take on the essence of those who handle it. That’s about all that makes it valuable, actually.” He held the crystal so it caught the light again. “It’s just the sort of thing a child would like, isn’t it? And sweetmeats.”
    “I’d like to know where our strange friends got it from,” Seregil mused. “If they bought it here, then the dealer might be able to tell us something. But if they brought them here themselves, then they may not be from the city after all. Is your man in Farrow Street the only one who sells these?”
    “I doubt it,” replied Thero. “I’ll make inquiries around the House to see if anyone gets their stones from somewhere else. As far as you know, is it always a trade?”
    “We only know of a few cases for certain, but it was a trade those times,” Alec told him. “I think that must be significant. Otherwise the ravens could just as easily buy or steal what they want, right?”
    Thero pondered that for a moment, clearly intrigued in spite of himself. The wizard loved a riddle as much as Seregil did. “Given the nature of the trades, it isn’t like for like,” he mused. “And apart from the quartz, none of the objects had any real value?”
    “Is a hog’s tooth used for any magic?” asked Alec.
    “None that I know of. And even if it were, you wouldn’t need to trade with a child to get what you could have for free from any butcher’s offal pile.”
    “So?” asked Seregil.
    “I’m not certain yet. If I had some other type of traded item, one that would hold an impression, I might be able to tell you more.”
    A heavy knock sounded at the door