Morlock shrugged and said nothing. But it was the way he said it.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Intruder in the Death House

The long ride back to Big Rock gave Aloê a lot of time to think and Ulvana a lot of time to talk.

Aloê hardly noticed the talking. She only noticed when it stopped. Occasionally she would glance over to see Ulvana looking at her with a patient smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said the first time, but Ulvana said, “No matter. I know there’s much on your mind. If you’d like to talk it out. . . . But maybe you don’t do that.”

Aloê would have loved to do that, and Ulvana seemed a sympathetic and intelligent listener. But the matter in hand had some very dark elements she could trust to no one. She smiled and shook her head.

They rode onward. Ulvana prattled onward. Aloê thought onward.

The crux of the matter was this: the killer was almost certainly a member of the Graith of Guardians. She was still hoping that there was a Person Unknown to blame—someone else besides Kelat and the Khnauronts who had entered the Wardlands when the Wards were shattered. It was not impossible.

But! Such a person would not have been part of the dragon Rulgân’s plan. And he or she would have had to know about the plan in advance to take advantage of it. And he or she would have had to know where Earno would be on a given day, or within a range of days, assuming Earno was not a target of opportunity.

She hoped he was. But she did not believe he was. And Earno’s habit of carrying a message sock gave the Graith, or at least some of its members, the knowledge of where he was every day.

Perhaps it was someone, some rogue magic-worker with a grudge against Earno who had gotten the information out of some innocent belonging to the Graith. She kept her mind open to this possibility, too—would welcome any sign leading in that direction.

But the most likely explanation was that Earno had been murdered by someone in the Graith. She would have trusted three people enough to talk it over with: Thea, who was dead, or Morlock and Deor, who were in the unguarded lands. So she would keep her own counsel for the present.

But her next step was clear: find out who knew that Earno would be travelling down the Road at this time. Many in the Northhold certainly. Fewer in the south. She would start there, in A Thousand Towers. Who had Earno written? Who knew of the messages? What were the messages? That would get her started.

And she would scrutinize those spell-anchors. One could not work a magic like that without leaving any traces of one’s identity on the instruments of the spell. She might need help with that. She thought she would trust Noreê with that, although that bore thinking about.

And so she thought and thought.

They came at last in the evening to Big Rock, and Aloê took some comfort in the thought that she could sleep in her horrible little closet-sized room rather than in a bed soiled by the sweat of a perfumed woodcutter.

“I should go see to the incineration of Earno’s corpse,” she said to Ulvana.

“Surely tomorrow. . . .”

“No, his family has waited long enough. If I burn it tonight, I can send the ashes to his people tomorrow at first light.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Thanks. I’ve been a dull companion, I’m afraid.”

“Silence is a skill I should learn,” Ulvana said good-humoredly. “So my father always used to say, at any rate.”

Aloê said something rude about Ulvana’s father and the Arbiter laughed.

Big Rock was no metropolis, but it did have a death house with a furnace for cremating corpses. Ulvana led Aloê to the place, not far from the inn and the Arbiter’s House.

One of the Arbiter’s servants was sitting glumly on the porch of the death house. He saluted them wordlessly as they approached.

“Dull work, Gyllen?” Ulvana said briskly.

“Sad work, Arbiter. We didn’t used to get so many bodies around here.”

“It’s truth,” the Arbiter admitted, and clapped him on the shoulder as they passed.

They entered the dim atrium of the death house, lit by a single coldlight. There were two biers set up on trestles, a body covered with a shroud on each one.

“Someone must have died while we were out of town,” Ulvana said, concerned. “I didn’t know anyone was ailing.”

Aloê was not completely indifferent to the death of strangers, but she had a great deal of work to do before she slept that night. Still, she suppressed her impatience. Big Rock was a small town, and Ulvana likely knew, possibly had loved, this dead person in life. She forced herself to be still and silent as Ulvana went to uncover the two bodies.

The first was Earno: still dead. Deader than ever, in fact: the reek in the death house was dense enough to bottle and sell as an emetic. A capable necrophor would have established a stasis spell over the body to prevent corruption, but perhaps Oluma had better ways to occupy her time.

Then Ulvana drew back the second shroud and cried out. Aloê moved forward in an instinctive impulse to comfort her, then froze when she saw the face of the second corpse.

It was Oluma.

Aloê cursed violently. She ran over to the bier and hurriedly examined the body. Dead for a day or more, she guessed from the slackness of the limbs. She had been stabbed in the back: the wound stood out like a pair of bloody lips, gaping to reveal her back ribs, shattered by the blow.

“A long knife or a sword blade,” Ulvana speculated.

Aloê said nothing to that but ran to the Arbiter’s servant seated gloomily on the front steps.

“Who brought the corpse of Oluma here?” she demanded from him.

He looked up at her in astonishment. He stood up to face her but did not speak.

“Answer her, Gyllen!” Ulvana commanded.

“I did, Arbiter,” the servant replied, choosing to speak to Ulvana instead.

“Couldn’t you see she’d been murdered, you fool!” Aloê raged at him.

“We don’t get many murders up around here.”

“Chaos in bright underwear! There are two murdered bodies in there right now! How many more do you want before you consider this serious?”

“I. . . .” The servant was confused. He looked at the Arbiter but evidently saw no help there. “I don’t have much experience in this sort of thing. What does it matter, anyway?”

Every time Aloê thought she’d reached the pinnacle of rage, this idiot said something that pushed her higher up the slope.

“You might find it matters to you,” she said grimly, “if the vengeance of the Graith falls upon your neck, Gyllen.”

“But—”

“Shut up.” Aloê turned to Ulvana. “May I have the services of this creature for an hour or two? I need to go out to the new murder scene. If it can be found.”

“I know where it is,” Gyllen said with some show of dignity.

“Shut up.”

“As long as you need him, Guardian,” Ulvana said. “Then, Gyllen, you and I will talk.”

“I’ll need my other second as well—Binder Denynê. Where is she?”

“Am I allowed to speak?” asked Gyllen bitterly.

“Don’t get righteous with me, you quivering pimple. If you know where my other second is, just tell me.”

“She never came back to town.”

“What?” Aloê cried.

“She never—”

Aloê turned away from his flat, empty mushroom of a face and ran all the way to the Big Rock House. The bald householder was enjoying the spring weather with a mug of hot cider in front of the fire in the common room.

“Goodman Parell,” said Aloê, “is Binder Denynê in this house? Have you seen her recently?”

“Not for a day or two,” the householder replied. “She rode out of town with you, I thought.”

“If she returns, send her to find me at the Chamber of the Graith in A Thousand Towers.”

“Are you leaving us, then?”

“I’m afraid so—a thousand thanks for your courtesy.”