House of Shadows(92)

“Not… broken, exactly,” Nemienne corrected hesitantly, glad to move on at last to a different part of the story. “I mean, they were still a set—you could see they were twin pipes and not, you know, torn off a larger set of hand pipes or anything. But ruined. The ivory was cracked, and the wire twisted.”

“Yes,” said Mage Ankennes, seeming unsurprised by this description. “You were fortunate—your sister was very fortunate—that you heard that piping and had the ability to go after her. Or she might have followed that music to its end.”

It took a moment for Nemienne to understand what he meant. Her hands moved across the table convulsively; she knocked a set of geometer’s brass compasses to the floor and exclaimed in dismay at the clatter they made when they fell.

A twitch of the mage’s hand made the compasses jump back to the table. He said kindly, “Your sister was never anyone’s target, Nemienne. I’m sure the pipes came into her keeping by chance. She’s in no danger now.”

Nemienne nodded jerkily, then sat up straight. “But it was—it was Prince Tepres who gave her those pipes!” she cried. For a moment, dizzily, she wondered why the prince should want to murder Karah and thought he must be evil after all. Then she realized that of course the prince hadn’t meant to do anything of the kind, how stupid she’d been to think that even for an instant—no, somebody else—a foreign lord, hadn’t Leilis said so?—had given the pipes to the prince, and he’d given them in turn to Karah.

So that foreign lord had tried to murder the prince. Wait, wait, had the foreigner succeeded? She asked with trepidation, “Was… was Prince Tepres the… the other person I thought was there, at first—there in the dark? The one who went on after I stopped Karah?”

“Regrettably, no,” Mage Ankennes said absently. He appeared lost in thought, gazing out the four large windows that lined the opposite wall. The windows looked out today over blowing clouds, a view so high that only the merest glimpses of mountain peaks could be seen far below. Nemienne kept catching elusive glimpses of insubstantial dragons in the movements of the clouds: The slow uncoiling of a white streamer around an ominous bank of clouds looked to her like the sinuous body and long tail of a white dragon swimming through the high currents of the air, and the flat sweep of white barely visible on the other side of the cloud tower looked like a vast reaching wing. Nemienne had often seen dragons in the movements of clouds and mist, but now such visions seemed so much more… fraught.

“No,” the mage repeated. “That was not the Dragon’s heir. Who would have expected him to give those pipes away? He seemed to appreciate them… Well, your sister is charming,” he added dispassionately, and went on, “No, Nemienne: The man you glimpsed was an acquaintance of mine, in fact. No one of great importance, though it’s true his death is inconvenient.”

Inconvenient? “But—” said Nemienne, and stopped.

“I believe I would like to examine those pipes,” Mage Ankennes said abruptly, as though he hadn’t heard her. “Perhaps you might fetch them for me.”

“What?” Nemienne said, and immediately felt a fool. She added quickly, “The pipes, yes. You want me to get them for you.”

“Mmm, yes,” the mage said. “Though they have been, mmm, used up, there may yet be some interest in examining the, hmm, interstices where the spellwork used to lie. I have not had the opportunity to study many examples of true bardic spellwork.” He tapped the fingers of one powerful hand on the surface of the table, seeming any moment in danger of oversetting a pile of books on which a glass goblet stood. The goblet held several dozen brass marbles and three polished black beads of hematite.

Nemienne leaned forward, ready to try to catch the goblet if it fell, but it didn’t.

“It’s your sister who has the pipes,” Mage Ankennes added, not seeming to notice Nemienne’s alarm about the goblet. “They’re no good to her in the shape they’re in, hmm? She ought to give them to you if you ask. ”

“Well, yes, I’m sure she will…”

“Go today, then. This afternoon. I should be able to acquire the pipes of horn and silver merely for the asking,” the mage added absently, clearly thinking about something else.

“There’s another set of pipes? Oh, for the other victim, the man who died?”

Recollecting himself, the mage smiled at Nemienne. “Indeed. You’re quick to understand, young Nemienne.” He gave her a brisk nod. “You may go on. There’s script and hard coins in a jar on the kitchen table. Take enough for a conveyance and, oh, whatever small necessities may come up. There is no particular need for haste, however. After you get the pipes, you may go visit your sisters, if you wish. Return here in the morning. I shall see about persuading my door to open for you.”