14 – Midnight Confessions
“How,” Grace asked, leaning close to the display on the hemograph, “do you have so much mana and all these attributes beyond baseline?”
“I…don’t know,” Haley muttered, her eyes locked on the chart.
Ward didn’t think it was so complicated. “She must gather mana when she’s doing Gopah. I mean, if you ask me, it’s pretty clear that people doing Gopah are basically sorcerers, but they use more physical words of power. Haley’s forms are a lot like the meditative poses I use to remember the words.”
“Right!” Grace snapped her fingers. “So, when she gathers mana doing her forms, it’s slowly applied to her vessel just like what happens to you when you deliberately gather mana, Ward!”
“Yeah, exactly.” Ward chuckled and pointed to Haley’s “Longevity Remaining” attribute. “I don’t know what’s causing all this, though. Looks to me like you’re going to have a long life, Haley.”
Haley wasn’t smiling. She pointed to the various “unknown” notations on her report. “I have something happening to me. A corruption. It’s mutating me!”
When tears sprang from Haley’s eyes, Grace tried to comfort her but struggled with the fact that she couldn’t touch her. Instead, she leaned close and whispered, “Shh! Don’t do that. Don’t assume the worst. Those two ‘mutations’ are positive! You have a longer life than usual and are stronger than normal. As for the ‘corruption,’ you’re working on that, right? Every time you do your Gopah, you’re holding it back! And remember what Master Stone said—if you master the eleventh form, nothing will be able to corrupt your soul!”
Ward nodded, gently rubbing Haley’s back. “This is far better than I feared, Haley. I half expected it to say you were a vampire or something.” He was mostly joking, but when Haley looked up at him with horrified eyes, he regretted his loose lips.
“Truly? You feared I was a monster?”
“No!” Ward tried to smile reassuringly. “It was just an irrational fear. You know, my guilty conscience. I was afraid I’d done something horrible to you, but this,” Ward gestured to the hemograph, “this isn’t bad at all! Yeah, we knew you had something going on with you, and we knew you had to fight it with your art.” He put his finger on the “unknown corruption” line and added, “That’s all this is. Nothing new, nothing terrifying. You’ve got this, Haley.”
Haley nodded, sniffing and wiping her eyes. “Thank you, Ward.” She looked at Grace. “Thank you, Grace. I wish I could hug you.”
As Grace mumbled more comforting platitudes, Ward closed the hemograph and put it back into his pack. He stretched his neck, eliciting a few pops, then stood. “I’m going to the bathroom. Gonna hit the sack. I think tomorrow’s going to be a busy one.” He fished around in his pocket for the keyring that held their two room keys, then took one off and handed it to Haley. “If you do the same, be sure to lock up.”
She sniffed again, smiling up at him. “I will. Thank you, Ward. Thank you for helping me to keep positive. I don’t know what I’d do without you and Grace.”
“Yeah, well, you bring out the good in me, too.” With that, Ward slipped out and walked down to the head, intent on washing up before bed. The bathroom reminded Ward of a locker room at an old, dingy gym, with a row of sinks, a row of toilets, and a walk-in shower area devoid of any privacy. He lucked out, being the only occupant at that hour, and managed to get a quick shower in without having to share the space with anyone.
Dressed in just his trousers and a thin undershirt, he tucked his folded clothes and towel under an arm and slipped out, only to be immediately accosted by Lisa. She wasn’t dressed in her fancy dinner dress any longer but wore a pair of slender trousers with a simple long-sleeved black shirt tucked into the waist. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a bun, and she held a finger to her lips as she whispered, “Ward, may I please speak to you in private?”
Ward looked up and down the hallway, then shrugged. “This seems private.”
“Please come to my room! I can’t risk anyone overhearing what I have to say.”
Ward sighed, something in his gut telling him it was a bad idea, but he nodded and gestured down the hall. “Let’s go.”
Lisa offered him a tight-lipped smile, nodded, and turned, leading him down the hallway to her room. She held the door for him, and when Ward stepped in, he felt a strange tingle over his skin and whirled around in alarm, dropping his folded clothes and towel. Lisa stood behind him, with a small breach-loading pistol in her hand, watching him warily.
“The hell are you doing?” he growled, balling up his fists and stepping back. He glanced to his left and right, looking for something to fight with, and settled on a wooden chair tucked under a nearby table. He didn’t go for it immediately but prepared himself in case she fired. Ward had seen plenty of how the guns in this world operated; with a narrow barrel like the one on her pistol, he didn’t think she’d be able to kill him in one shot, not unless she scored a very lucky hit.
Lisa reached behind her with her free hand and pulled her door shut, whirling the locking wheel into place. Then, she pointed to the floor, and Ward saw a line of sparkling gray dust between them. When he traced it with his eyes, he realized it traversed the room from wall to wall. “Please don’t try any magic on me, Ward. Odds are it will backfire on you, thanks to the fae dust I put down.”
“I’m going to ask you another time, Lisa: what the hell is going on? Get your answer right because I don’t need magic to get out of this room, and I’m not the kind of man who’ll stand around and let someone threaten him with a gun.”
“Hear me out, Ward. I have much to confess, and, in so doing, I hope you’ll trust me enough to explain a few things to me. I fear I’ve begun to suspect you of very dark dealings, and I must confront you about them.”
Ward couldn’t help noting how her eyes glowed in the dim light of her room’s single lamp. Had she put out the other lamps to keep him from noticing the powder on the floor? Would it really affect him? He’d certainly felt something odd when he stepped over it. He hadn’t been lying, though; if he wanted to fight past her, he wouldn’t be relying on magic, anyway. He took a sideways step, putting him within reach of the wooden chair, then nodded. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”
“First, it’s not a coincidence that we’re both on this ship.”
Ward arched his eyebrow in interest, then noted that Lisa’s hand, the one holding her gun, was trembling slightly, and her finger was resting on the trigger. “Will you please take your finger off that trigger? Just rest it beside it, all right? You’ll still be able to shoot before I can jump you, but you’ll be a lot less likely to do it by accident.”
Lisa scowled and licked her lips, stepping sideways, her eyes constantly tracking Ward. “Don’t tell me how to handle my own pistol!” Despite her objection, she moved her finger off the trigger.
“So? I’m listening.” Ward was beginning to like his odds more and more. The way she was shaking and the nature of the gun in her hand made him feel he had an excellent chance to steamroll her, knocking the gun aside and dropping her with a well-placed punch. Still, he had nothing against getting a little information, so he bided his time; the more he could lull her, the better he liked his odds.
“I’ve been following you since Applegrass. I went there for Nevkin. You see, I work for an organization, one aligned with the Assembly, and we’re at odds with another group, a very dangerous, vile group of men who ally themselves with dark entities and powers and do unspeakably evil things in the name of power. I was sent there with Nevkin as my target but with some secondary goals as well. When I arrived, though—”
“You learned that I’d already killed him?”
Lisa nodded, licking her lips again. “That’s right. My first instinct was to find and thank you, but then I spoke to the villagers. I learned that your young assistant hid her face in a deep cowl, that she shunned the sunlight, and that she sent shivers down the spines of the men and women who dealt with her. I learned that you spent time sifting through the ruins of Nevkin’s lair, and when I investigated, I found no trace of a vile artifact I was sent to retrieve.”
She watched Ward while she spoke, likely looking for a reaction, but he just nodded. “Go on.”
“So, I pursued you. I spoke to the people in Port Granite whom you spoke to, and I learned you were seeking passage to Westview. It was a small matter to arrange passage on the ship ahead of you; everyone in the tavern heard you talking about it.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Ward sighed and put his hand on the chair, acting like he was leaning on it, but he was really getting a grip and making sure he was ready to swing it at the woman if the conversation took the wrong sort of turn. “Go on.”
“Well, when I spoke to you on the deck and watched your friend doing her Gopah, I began to doubt my fears. That is, until dinner, I saw you speaking to a man known to my organization, a vile fiend of a man who just happened to be a member of the same group as Nevkin. ‘What are the odds?’ I asked myself. Were you here to deliver the artifact to him? Were you both going to see the same master? Was he your agent in Port Granite? Were you his? I tried to feel him out, but when I learned nothing, I took my chance. I killed him.”
“So…” Ward looked from her gun to her face, then back again. “What? You’re going to murder me, too?”
“That wasn’t murder! That was justice! Don’t play the fool with me, Ward! You know what he was about. That’s why you and Haley are trying to find his killer. It’s why you want to avenge him!” Ward could see her nerves were fried. Her hand was shaking more and more, and he wondered if it would be a good time to try to talk her off the edge or if he should just knock her out and try later.
In a move that almost surprised himself, he decided to try to use his words. “Listen, Lisa, you’re right about some things, but you’re way the hell off on some others. Can I explain, or are you just going to kill me?” Again, he glanced pointedly at the gun.
“I’ll listen to you, but don’t try anything, Ward! I’m warning you!”
“All right. First of all, Haley’s one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, and there’s no damn way she’s serving some evil organization. Nevkin hurt her badly, and that’s why the people in Applegrass noted something…off about her. Secondly, I have the artifact, and I don’t know what the hell it is, but I sure wasn’t planning to give it to anyone. And third, I didn’t know anything about Raymond, our murder victim, until I started investigating him. I’m inclined to believe you that he was a bad guy, though. Still, I’m not sure I’m a fan of your idea of justice. Don’t they have courts and prisons in this world?”
“You’ve a smooth tongue, Ward.” She lifted the gun, scowling. “Some might even call it silver!”
“Ah, Jesus.” Ward sighed.
“You have the artifact, all right, but it’s in your mouth!”
“This isn’t the artifact that was making Nevkin nuts. It was a box, a sealed metal box, and I haven’t opened it.”
“How can I believe you, Ward? How? You told me we’d look at the body together tomorrow, and yet you went straight there after you thought I was sleeping!”
“Lisa, that’s because I wasn’t sure I could trust you. I thought maybe you had something to do with the guy’s death! Guess what? I was right!”
Lisa scowled, lifting her trembling hand, and Ward could see the gun was getting heavy for her. Anything was heavy if you held it aloft long enough. “I told you! He was vile, he—”
“Kidnapped women? Sold them? Yeah, I figured it out. Did he deserve to die? Probably. Did you have the right to execute him, though?”
“We’re at war! We’re fighting for people’s souls! These people, the Circle, they’re…” She stopped speaking as tears began to stream from her eyes. “Ward, I don’t want to kill you, but I can’t face you and your apprentice together. I may not get another chance, and I know you’ll kill me if I let—”
Ward had seen and heard enough. While she blinked to clear away her tears, he moved. He simply took a step to his left and hauled the wooden chair out from under the table, flinging it toward her gun hand. Startled, she tracked the chair instead of him, and that might have been her last mistake if Ward had intended to kill her as she feared. Instead, as the chair smashed into her hand, knocking the gun loose before she could even pull the trigger, he stepped to the side, grabbed her, and pulled her close. He wrapped an arm around her neck and clamped his hand over her mouth.
Ward wasn’t sure stopping someone from speaking could prevent them from casting spells, but he figured he’d give it a try. Lisa struggled in his grasp, and she was surprisingly strong, but Ward had forty pounds on her, easy, and he was strong as hell, to boot, thanks to his mana accumulation over the last few weeks. He held her tight as she thrashed, and when it seemed she’d finally worn herself out, he gave her a good shake and said, “If I were going to kill you, you’d be dead. Understand?”
She couldn’t speak but grunted, jerking her head. “Listen. I’m going to explain some things to you, and then we’ll see if we can give trust a try. Can you hold still for a few minutes while I talk?”
“Mmph!”
“Right. Well, listen. I already told you about the artifact. I wasn’t lying. I’ll show it to you if that’ll help you calm down. It wasn’t the tongue. Do I seem insane to you?” She jerked her head from side to side. “Good. Now, I happen to know a spell that can…reveal things. I cast it on Raymond’s body, and, like I said, I saw what kind of a creep he was. I’m going to let go of your mouth, but if you try to cast a spell, I’m going to choke you out. Understand?”
When she nodded, Ward slowly unpeeled his fingers from her mouth, and she gasped as though she’d been struggling to breathe. “I’m s-sorry!”
“Just tell me about this ‘Circle’ you mentioned.”
“Th-they…” She took a deep, shuddering breath and started again, “They pursue power at all costs. They sacrifice to dark entities. They murder and kidnap. I…I can’t list all of their atrocities. I knew of Raymond LaCorte but didn’t know he’d be on this ship. I couldn’t—Ward, I couldn’t let him slip through my fingers. When I thought he was aligned with you, I seized the only chance I thought I might get to eliminate him. I was afraid you were already suspicious of me. You acted aloof when I pretended to have met you by surprise. I thought you knew I was lying.”
“I thought it was too much of a coincidence to meet you on this ship, and I thought you were too damn good with that sword to be a novice.” He tried to refocus the conversation, “They’re just called ‘the Circle’?”
“The Circle of Thorns.”
“Aha!” Ward pushed her away, releasing his grip on her shoulders. “I can prove I’m not with them.”
She turned to look at him, and though she seemed to have admitted defeat, she looked determined. Ward resolved to keep alert in case she made a move for her gun or decided to try some magic. “How can you prove—"
“Look.” Ward pointed to his fallen clothes, chiefly his folded jacket. “Get my coat and look in the inner pocket. There should be two pieces of paper.” He watched as she complied, pulling out the bloody footprint and the sketch of Raymond’s tattoo. When her eyes widened upon seeing Haley’s drawing, Ward smiled. “Why would I need to sketch Raymond’s tattoo if I knew what it was? If I were a member of the same organization, wouldn’t I recognize their mark?”
Lisa’s head slowly began to bob as she agreed. She backed up a few more paces and collapsed on the foot of her bed, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “I’m a fool.”
“No, you’re not. You’re alone on a ship with people you thought were your enemies. You acted desperately because you thought things were desperate. Jesus, though, you’ve got some balls. Why’d you summon Raymond’s spirit if you thought we were in league with him?”
Lisa shrugged. “Because I knew he never saw me coming when I cut his throat. I also know, from experience, that the newly dead rarely have anything coherent to say.”
“And you figured you’d look like less of a suspect if you were helping?”
She nodded, still looking down. “And that.”
Ward stepped over to her and held out his hand. She looked at it, then handed him the two pieces of paper clutched in the fingers of a bruised, swollen hand. The chair had done a number on her. Ward took the pages, unfolded the bloody footprint, and squatted before her. “Let me see the bottom of your shoe.”
“Why?” Despite the question, she lifted her foot, and Ward held the print up next to the sole. Sure enough, the distance between the edge of the sole and the stitching was a perfect match, as were the size of the stitches. It wouldn’t hold up in court back on Earth, but it was enough for Ward to feel like he’d been on to something.
“Just curious if I’m as clever as I think.”
“And?”
“I am.” He chuckled and folded the paper back up.
“How can you be so glib? What will you do, Ward? Am I doomed?”
“Nah, I think you’re probably one of the good guys. I’ll run it by Haley, but I think we can look the other way on Raymond’s murder. Even without the stuff you told me, he was a rotten guy. What about his wife?”
“She surely knows he’s up to no good, but I doubt she knows what. The Circle is an exclusive group, and spouses aren’t generally invited.”
“All right. Well, I guess we’ll just have to pretend we can’t figure out who did the killing. Tell me the truth now, how long have you been studying swordwork?”
“Close to twenty years. My father was a duelist.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, wincing as she touched a tender spot.
“Sorry I hit you with that chair, but I didn’t want you to do something dumb—you know, like kill me.”
“Thank you, Ward. Thank you for believing I—”
“Easy now. I believe some of this stuff, but I think we’ve both got a long way to go before there’s some real trust between us. We can start in the morning, though. Since you’re actually pretty damn good with that sword of yours, how about we start with some real lessons?”
“I’d like that.” She looked up with moist eyes. “And the artifact?”
“I told you I’d show it to you, didn’t I? We’re at sea for a week or more, so there’s plenty of time for all that.” As she nodded again, Ward walked over and picked up the chair he’d thrown. In the process, he stepped over the line of “fae dust” and felt the tingling sensation again. “This stuff really stops magic?” He bent to touch it with the tip of his finger. It felt like touching a nine-volt battery with his tongue, and he yanked his finger back.
“It interferes with magic that crosses over it. I’d hoped it would protect me from any curses or direct magical attacks you might have tried. It’s not an exact science.”
“Interesting. I dunno, Lisa; I think we have a lot we can talk about now that we’re not trying to figure out if we’re going to kill each other.” Ward picked up her pistol, hefting it in his hand. It was light, but the grip was comfortable. “Nice little pistol. Just one shot?”
Lisa nodded, still visibly upset by their encounter. Ward set the gun on the table and then moved over to her, squatting again so he could look her in the eyes. “Listen, you messed up, but you had good reasons for your suspicions. I know you still feel like there’s something off, that you lost the upper hand, but that always happens when you figure out your working theory was a bust and you put all your cards on the table only to find out you’d called the wrong bluff. Get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll talk some more in the morning, right? We’ll meet up on quarter deck after breakfast.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath, then nodded. “Yes, all right.”
“Right. Well, I better get to my cabin. I bet Haley’s about ready to turn the ship upside down, looking for me.” He stood and opened her door. As he stepped out, he looked back at her, still slumped at the foot of her bed. “Good night, Lisa.”
“Good night, Ward.”