“Spppf!”

I paused, the edge of my teeth lightly poking into his skin. The archivist was nodding vigorously while also screaming loud enough that it sounded like a hog squealing.

Wrong comparison to make. My stomach grumbled in response as my mouth salivated. The Archivist’s muffled shrieking somehow grew even louder.

I opened my mouth and released his hand.

“Be quiet,” I whispered. There was no one close enough to overhear, at least that I could hear walking about. Still, best not to risk anything, or clue him in that I could tell.

First problem. Torture was a terrible tool for getting accurate information out of people. At best you got what they thought you wanted to hear, which might be the truth. Worse, they lied out of spite and to make you stop, giving misleading answers.

There were ways around that, but I didn’t have anyone or anything on hand to threaten instead. Only inflicting personal pain on him. And I doubted I’d find someone he cared about. Maybe a co-worker? Too much risk though.

Although that did give a direction to aim.

“So, Mister Archivist-”

“Martel,” the Archivist interjected, glaring at me.

"Mister Martel,” I said. “I’m just here to find out what Lord Montague has been looking into, for reasons that are altruistic.”

“And your first instinct instead of asking was to break into our Archives and torture me?” he scowled. “Spare me the lies.”

“You work for Her Majesty’s Government,” I replied. “So do I, in a roundabout way. You want to argue we don’t utilize distasteful methods to get what we want sometimes?”

Wait. Shite. Could I have approached Intelligence about arranging this instead?

Then again my one contact remained goddamn Dawes, which was troubling on its own. Apparently, shapechangers running around killing low-ranking nobles wasn’t enough to get their attention?

“You put my hand in your mouth and threatened to bite my fingers off,” Martel hissed. “And that’s merely distasteful to you?”

I sighed. This wasn’t getting anywhere. Time to try a different tack.

“What do you think of Lord Montague, Mister Martel?”

The Archivist’s eyes narrowed. “I think he’s a pompous blowhard who got in here because of the efforts of his sire and other predecessors. He treats this as a business and a way to claim prestige, not as a duty.”

“So, a low opinion then?”

“He docked my pay and scheduled me for twice my usual hours,” The Archivist said. “Part of which meant I was here when you decided you needed a torture victim.”

Ahck. Every route of conversation was continuously leading back to that little detail.

“So you do think he would exploit the archive for personal gain? Even in a case where others lives are at risk? Or already dead?”

“I’m not a moron,” Martel said. “You’re accusing his lordship of being a shapechanger? Impossible. The deeper layers would have ferreted that out-”

“Not a shapechanger,” I said. “Working with shapechangers perhaps. But events in recent days don’t add up, especially his actions concerning them. I’m currently trying to investigate this, on behalf of the the victims, myself, and people I probably shouldn’t name.”

Throwing Intelligence’s name around this wouldn’t be my smartest move.

“I want something for this,” Martel said. “If for nothing else you biting into my fingers. A recommendation. A cushier position. Time off. Something. Also just don’t bite me again.”

“Well, I can guarantee at least least one of those things.”

“A123B456,” Martel said. “That’s his code. Should be the filing cabinet closest to the door, second shelf.”

One quick inspection later and I was leafing through the list of titles Lord Montague had been looking over from deeper in the archives for the past month.

“Adventurer testimonials,” I muttered, looking through the first page. Most of these dated back to a period starting three hundred and seventy years ago and stretched for sixty afterward. Interesting.

“I’ve read some of these,” I said, tapping a finger gently on three names I recognized. “Why are they being recorded if they’re publicly available?”

“Unredacted versions,” Martel said, trying to scooch a little closer despite his bonds. “What’s publicly available is censored. Outside of what was already out there before Her Majesty’s government decided to censor parts.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Hrrm. That made sense, although if it was that recent it felt like I would have heard of it by now. Possibly that policy predated Her Majesty. Still, I did recognize those names for a reason.

“So, Lord Montague thinks these shapechangers are specific ones from the attempted infiltration of the Duchy of Anvlia?” I asked myself as I turned to the next page.

That had been before the attempted invasion of the Hells. Shapechangers had targeted the duchy’s royal families over several decades, a slow takeover of the province that had started with minor families on the fringe and worked its way inwards. By the time a pair of paladins leading an adventuring guild had discovered this, they’d become entrenched enough that a decade of effort by various adventuring groups and the king’s army to fully eliminate the shapechangers. Most of the ruling house, the House of Tarry, had ended up being shapechangers if I remembered correctly.

Well, they’d missed quite a few if these were the same ones. Those had assumed more monstrous forms, so that fit. Not quite to the same size as Hawkins, but perhaps they’d discovered some new quirk over the centuries? They fit the bill well enough, which is probably what Lord Montague had concluded.

“So, he figured he knew which kind of shapechanger,” I mused. “Maybe he remembered the case being similar? Replacing nobility at the youth first, although that’s a tenuous connection. Have you read these accounts?”

“No,” Martel replied flatly. “There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of books stored on the third layer and deeper. I’m not even allowed past the third.”

“Worth a shot,” I said. “So he’s after the redacted details. Making sure they’re the same?”

Theorizing would only do so much good. I looked through the titles on the second page.

The Noble Lineage of the Royal Houses of Anvlia

History of the House of Tarry

Three more titles made up the bottom of the page, each of them having a little symbol next to them, a set of scales, and a sword balanced across it.

Journal of Dustin Tarry

An examination of shapechanger corpses from the Tarry incident

Testimony of Dustin Tarry

“The marks there next to those titles,” I said, tapping the scales and sword. “What are they?”

Martel looked at them and his face paled. “The most secure section of the archives. If something is there, it’s meant for certain eyes only. I didn’t know Lord Montague was allowed to read those materials. He shouldn't be able to, not without a member of the Queen’s family there to authorize it.”

Well, perhaps his children weren’t the only ones without a way past some of the Archives’ rules.

“Well, the Tarry’s were the ducal family involved in the shapechanger incident,” I said mostly to myself. “One of the primary targets. Dustin, the name rings a bell but he wasn’t one of those targeted or even one of the main family.”

“I remember the name,” Martel said. “We were asked to keep an eye open for any copies of works involving him a few weeks back.”

A few weeks back would place it just before the decision that I and Voltar would attend Lord Montague’s party. So he’d already been looking into this back then.

Testimony could mean the account of the survivor. It could also mean the account of an entirely different role in a tragedy.

Perpetrator.

Dustin Tarry had been a minor member of the house, a cousin to the main line from a distant branch with no chance of inheriting, Even if by some miracle he had, there would be no chance of respect from the more powerful noble vassals. Unless one could guarantee the loyalty of all involved and could manipulate not with social skills but by replacing everyone involved with his creations.

And if they were his creations, he would know their biology. The methods for making more of them.

Was it that simple? Was what they’d been after all this time how to make more of themselves?

If they were creations of one of those proto-Biosculptors, they definitely wouldn’t know that secret themselves. Dustin Tarry clearly had kept his efforts secret till the very end, and I doubted anyone who’d managed to survive out that mess would have made so basic a mistake.

It could be something else as well, but clearly, information about the shapechangers is what Lord Montague had found. And if the Shapechangers had planned all along to come into here, probably what they had been after too.

They were trying to preserve their species, and reproduce. Something they’d be certain to be denied if they’d revealed themselves and asked. There’s always be the fear. No one wanted shapechangers who could keep on creating more of themselves without limit.

They were condemned just for the species they held. I’d be more sympathetic if they hadn’t chosen these methods to do it.

“He found out how to make them, and he made a deal with them,” I mused. “Traded that to them in return for his son being kept alive? No, it must be more than that. He has what they want, and if he plays his cards right, he should be the only one with that information. He can’t remove those books from the premises, can he?”

“Definitely not,” Martel answered confidently. “He must have had a member of the royal family in here to approve of his viewing these titles, but they’d never let him remove one.”

“Hrrm,” My tail whipped back and forth as I thought. It reached out and opened the filing cabinet, grabbing another folder from inside as I looked at the list.

“A member of the royal family. The immediate family?”

“Of course!”

“I imagine one of them visiting would be the talk of the archives, wouldn’t it? Has it been the talk of the archives?”

Martel opened his mouth, then paused, then frowned. “I…one of them could have arrived in secret perhaps.”

“But unlikely,” I said, opening up the second folder. Blank. Lord Montague’s research into this subject was specific to this month.

“More likely than him making it past the security of the final part of the archives,” Martel countered, voice almost desperate. “Not even being the caretaker should afford him any advantages there.”

“I think I’ll have to confirm that myself,” I said. “Sorry about the ropes. And the hand. I keep my teeth very clean, so they shouldn’t become infected if you wash them thoroughly. It should take you maybe another fifteen minutes to get that knot undone?”

He’d been trying to subtly work on it the entire time we’d been here. Trying. He looked up at me, fear lurking in those eyes.

I….I guess I deserved that.

I could try and secure these books, and figure it out myself, but getting into the deepest layers of these archives did not seem likely. And another alternative existed. Interrogating his lordship myself.

And also to slip out before Martel started thinking of something for me to get him.

“Hopefully our paths never cr-”

I stopped, the sounds of walking getting closer. Not just walking, but a conversation as well.

“It’s most unusual for hid lordship to send people to directly view the lists,” one voice said, weak and reedish. “Normally he comes himself.”

“Unforeseen complications,” a person replied, voice deep and gravelly. “And it’s hardly the only thing he wants done. Just the closest.”

Well. This was a problem.