After all the drama of the past two days, identifying an adept of the Unbroken Sun proved surprisingly easy. To allay Ilacille’s suspicions, Ash pretended to give me a tour of the Temple to the Forgotten Gods while we monitored the comings and goings of other cultists, all of whom seemed to have adopted a uniform of long cloaks with deep hoods. When three thusly attired figures strode up to the altar of the Unbroken Sun, Ash immediately launched into a fervent prayer to That Which Hungers, under cover of which I surveilled our targets.
Those two on the left are definitely acolytes, I hand-signed to Ash, who set up the Financiopoly gameboard and invited me to make the first move. The third guy is their leader, but I can’t tell if he’s an adept.
Knocking a counter onto the floor “by accident,” Ash dove for it and cast an expert glance over the cultists. Yes. That’s our man, he signed back.
We played a distracted game of Financiopoly while the Unbroken Sun worshippers performed their ritual, at the end of which a bright, bizarrely yellow glow flared on the altar, and then tailed them when they left the Temple. Conveniently, the three stayed together until they reached Charterhall University, where the acolytes split off in the direction of student housing. The adept, on the other hand, led us straight into the Morlan Hall of Unnatural Philosophy. Creeping down eerie corridors lined with glass cases of taxidermied creatures and withered plants from the deathlands, we watched from five doors down as he let himself into an office and shut the door. After waiting for a few minutes to make sure he wouldn’t come right back out, we ambled past, feigning fascination with some deformed mushrooms.
Engraved on a bronze plaque on the door were the words: “Dr. Jamison Pritchard, Dean of the School of Unnatural Philosophy, Professor of Comparative Religions.”
Ash and I didn’t even need a pre-defined hand sign to express our triumph.
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Strolling back towards the Old Rail Yard, we happened to pass a bar packed to the brim with off-duty lawyer types in their sober black suits. Through the front window, I caught a glimpse of a familiar figure at the polished counter, plying the Helker children’s legal guardian with drinks. I poked Ash in the arm and pointed. At the sight of Faith surrounded by stolid lawyers and wearing something bordering on socially acceptable, Ash cocked his head to a side and raised his eyebrows quizzically. I nodded back. Without a word, we walked in, sat down at a nearby table, and ordered a round of beers while we eavesdropped on, er, waited for her.
Faith’s new friend was declaring with tipsy passion, “It’s been an absolute nightmare of a week! I have these clients, and they’re underage, and there are all these cousins, and I’m trying so hard to protect their funds but it’s so difficult….” He dropped his head into his hands, narrowly missing his wineglass.
Faith quickly moved it out of the way. “It could be worse, Mr. Colburn,” she pointed out with a sly smile that was entirely lost on the solicitor. “There could be Skovlander revolutionary assassins after them.”
Colburn groaned and groped for his wineglass until Faith slid it back into his fingers. “There are, though! And what if Ulf Ironborn says to himself, ‘Oh, perfect, now I can finally make these poor children pay for their parent’s sins!’” Faith’s green eyes sparkled with approval at the alliteration as he chugged down his sherry. “You cannot imagine the headache this has been. It was all right when their parents were alive because no one would dream of messing with their mother, but now…. It’s a nightmare, a complete nightmare! Do you have any idea how much private security costs?”
Faith’s sympathetic smile hinted that she did and that she shared his agony. “What did the parents want?” she inquired, swirling around her own glass of sherry but not, I noticed, drinking it. “Did they leave anything about their wishes? Or are you flying blind?”
“No, no, they left a will and set up a trust to provide for all the kids’ financial needs, but they’re underage, which means they need a legal guardian, so that’s me, except all the cousins say that they’re kin so they should be the legal guardians of the vast Helker for– ” More discreet than the last lawyer Faith interviewed, he quickly backtracked, “I mean, the vast family fortune, so they’re all building legal cases, which means that my firm has to work overtime to combat all of their stupid legal cases!” Colburn blathered on in that vein for a while, demonstrating the fine oratorical skills he’d learned in law school.
Smiling all the time, Faith nodded along and refilled his wineglass as necessary. “Maybe I’m overstepping here,” she said tentatively when the solicitor finally paused for breath, “but surely there’s some sort of thinking-outside-the-box solution.”
“Is there?” he asked morosely.
“I don’t know. Maybe you could…um, adopt them to somebody?” she suggested casually.
Draining his glass with a speed that would have made even Sawbones wince, Colburn moaned, “Uggh, but how do I know that they don’t just want to get their hands on the fortune? How would I even vet that?”
“Can you hold the fortune in trust for the kids until they come of age? If the adopter isn’t related, they’d have no claim to it.”
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Faint hope flickered in the solicitor’s eyes as he grasped that maybe, just maybe, he could – with a clean conscience, no less – dump the children and their private security costs onto someone else. “Mmmm, presumably, yeah. Although there would still be a monthly allowance….”
“There has to be – to pay for tutors and such.” Faith leaned forward on her elbows, lowered her voice, and confided, “Now, I hope I’m not being presumptuous, but I happened to hear of a noblewoman who – I really shouldn’t be saying this – ” She made a rueful noise and continued in a stage whisper, “But I think she might be barren, and she’d really like to pass on the family name.”
“Poor woman. That is a nightmare,” agreed Colburn, who seemed to have found a favorite word and was sticking to it. “Inheritance issues can be – ” he exerted himself and applied a different word – “tricky. So who is it?”
Making a show of glancing around the bar, as if she feared that the noblewoman in question might frequent Charterhall drinking establishments, Faith whispered, “Lady Irimina Kinclaith.”
Colburn’s eyes opened wide. “Lady Irimina? Hmmmm…that’s not a bad idea.” Faith looked as if she had to swallow a retort that she only came up with good ideas. “That might solve all the problems, if she’s suitable. I’ll look into this. Yeah, that really might solve all the problems! Thank you.” He lifted his wineglass in a toast. “I’m glad you happened to sit down, miss.”
Faith kept him company until he was too drunk to remember her face, then ordered one more bottle of sherry, bade him good night, and traipsed towards the door. When she passed our table, she skidded to a halt as if stunned by her good fortune. “Why, hello there! I never expected to run into the two of you here!” she cried.
“Yes, well, it was a most fortuitous coincidence,” Ash replied drily. “Shall we?”
The three of us exited the bar, Ash and I taking turns to update Faith about Pritchard and the cult of the Unbroken Sun. At the end, she flung out her arms and twirled in a circle right in the middle of the street. If I’d thought she had wisdom to impart regarding the score, I was sadly mistaken.
“Isha! I was surprised to see you at the bar – I mean, if I saw you, it must mean you’re slipping.” She shook her head sententiously. “Tsk tsk.” Then she flounced off down the street.
Since this was obviously a challenge, I followed.
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Back to Six Towers the two of us went, Faith skipping along gaily, me steadily tailing her in the shadows. Near Rowan Bridge, I leaned casually against a doorway and surveyed my surroundings, while Faith headed directly to the center of the bridge. Once there, her entire demeanor changed: Her shoulders hunched over, her fingers clenched in her skirts, and she paced back and forth as if too agitated to stand still. When that act failed to attract whatever attention she craved, she sighed, rolled her eyes, and started toying with nearby spirits, pulling them to her and then pushing them away.
Eventually, a familiar glowing figure drifted into sight, head angled to a side inquisitively.
“Oh, why, hello there, dearest!” exclaimed Faith, as if startled to see Cricket in the little ghost’s own, preferred stomping grounds.
Cricket floated casually over to the railing and settled down where Tocker Helker had sat, staring stoically into the black waters as he waited for his wife. “Hello.”
Faith’s face lit up like a lightning tower. “Actually, you may be just the person to help me with a problem that’s been plaguing me!”
“I can help with problems,” Cricket agreed, half-turning away like a cat that wanted to conceal its interest.
Darting to the railing, Faith leaned all the way over it to peer into the canal, pulling off the show of disinterest far better than the ghost. (Although part of me kept expecting someone to run up and push her in.) “You see, I have this dire, dastardly endeavor planned, and I could use some extra help – but, oh, what am I saying? It’s too dangerous for you. It wouldn’t even be appropriate to ask you, despite the rewards….”
Cricket sank right through the railing to hover near Faith’s head. “What rewards?” she demanded.
Nonchalantly, Faith straightened and turned back towards the road into Six Towers, smoothing her skirts as she did so. “Well, I guess it would be coin for humans and electroplasmic energy for spirits…but you really shouldn’t worry about it. It would be far too dangerous for a little ghost like yourself. I couldn’t make any guarantees for your safety….”
“What do you need?” Cricket pestered her, sweeping around to hang mid-air in front of the Whisper every time she tried to leave.
After much circumlocution, Faith finally divulged that she needed help with “scouting” and “crowd control,” although because of the delicate nature of the score, whomever she hired would have to be exceedingly cautious.
“I can be pretty careful when I need to be,” Cricket assured her. “Can I borrow your body afterwards?”
“Oh!” exclaimed Faith, as if the thought had never occurred to her. “For a bit,” she conceded.
“Okay,” agreed Cricket eagerly. “Like for an hour or two?”
Instead of answering, Faith asked, “And what is it that a ghost like you needs to do with a body like mine?”
Cricket’s expression actually turned chagrined, the corners of her mouth drooping and her eyes sliding to a side. “You know – stuff.” If she could have scuffed a toe, she would have. Faith simply arched an eyebrow and waited. “I need to kill some people.” As Cricket uttered those words, she briefly lost control of her sanity and fuzzed around the edges, but she quickly pulled herself back together. “You said – when you said that we might be able to come to some sort of arrangement – that one of the things on the table was revenge.”
“I said that one of the things on the table was revenge…,” Faith repeated slowly, as if trying to recall what exactly she’d semi-promised a semi-sane ghost.
“You said it,” Cricket pressed. She darted forward and twined around Faith’s chest, circling again and again like a determined cat. “You said it. You said it. That was a thing you said.”
Entirely unconcerned, Faith petted her and assured her lazily, “Oh, I have no objections to revenge per se. It just seems unnecessarily risky to loan out my body when someone more practiced in its use is willing to commit the murder herself.”
“But I want to do it.”
Still petting Cricket absently, Faith thought for a long moment. At last, she said, “Well, in that case, I hope your dedication to this score will be enough to make up for the risk to me.”
The little ghost nodded vigorously.
“All right, then I think we have ourselves an arrangement.” With an air of amusement, Faith surveyed herself and noted all the glowing blue streaks of electroplasm twined around her torso. It looked pretty alarming. “Now, dear, can you disentangle yourself from me before my friend over there panics and runs both of us through?”
I was a little offended by the suggestion that I’d run Faith through because I panicked.