Chương 40: V2: Chapter 12 - Unicorns and Polka Dots

Up the street where an alley divided a makeshift livestock shelter from an old stone building, a crowd began to form. The animal pen was nothing more than rope strung between driven stakes hemming in a score of sheep. Out front, alongside a hastily assembled stage, was a hand-painted sign that read: SUNSET AUCTION. With its white marble blocks and pillars, the three-story stone building opposite the alley gave the impression of having once been a place of importance—a counting house or a court.

Now the upper windows were laden with drying clothes, and the balconies brimmed with spinning wheels, jugs, baskets, and pots. A number of families roosted in the vacuum of cracked-marble neglect. Most of them had rushed to balconies and peered down; several pointed at the alley below. Hadrian swallowed the last of his kenase and stood up. His height allowed him to see over the crowd but granted him no further insight.

"What's going on?" Royce asked, not bothering to stand.

"Dunno. Something happening in the alley."

"Nothing good, by the sound of it." The screams had stopped but were replaced by a chorus of wailing.

"Where are you going?" Royce asked as Hadrian pushed forward.

"To see what happened."

"Whatever it is, they have plenty of people to deal with it. And screams and cries are never portents of good fortune. I'd stay away."

"Of course you would." What ability Hadrian lacked in deftly dodging his way through a shifting populace, he more than made up for in cutting through a dense crowd. People moved clear for a man of his size. Those who didn't, he could move. Any resistance to a gentle push was instantly stifled when they spotted his swords. The city's residents didn't carry steel. Most couldn't afford it, and few had the need. Farmers, merchants, and tradesmen rarely faced violence beyond the occasional drunken fistfight.

Theirs was a life of endless repetition, where if they stayed in their place and hoed their given row, nothing of great note ever happened. Men of steel were different. A man with a trowel and hod sought to lay bricks; a man with a sword sought to lay men low; a man with three swords—you quickly avoided. It was in this manner that Hadrian worked his way forward until he was at the mouth of the alley. That was where the crowd stopped. While everyone was eager to see what the noise was about, few cared to get close.

Content to view from a distance, the mob hung back, leaving a corridor open. In a city as congested as Rochelle, the refuse needed to go somewhere. In the finer districts, waste was deposited into the Roche River, which carried it out to the bay and then the Goblin Sea. Poor neighborhoods like Little Gur Em made do by jamming their rubbish behind the buildings in alleys. So, finding a vast mound of garbage at the end of the alley wasn't a surprise.

Broken crates, torn cloth, rotting food, animal waste, and bones were all piled high, but in this case, a handful of kneeling women wailed before the heap. A smaller number of men stood nearby looking aghast and bewildered as they stared down at what appeared to be trash being dragged from the pile. For the most part, it was. A little cascade of rubbish had been formed where someone had been digging. People did that. Hadrian knew that even men and women of means went treasure hunting in trash piles for a lark.

Stories always circulated about someone finding gold earrings or an overlooked sack of silver, but the best prize Hadrian personally knew to have been found was a torn leather belt long enough to be repurposed for a thinner man. This time, someone had apparently found more than they bargained for. No one likes to pick up a discarded shoe and find a foot inside. The women wailed over the body of a child. A little girl, no older than six or seven, was dead. Hadrian knew dead bodies.

He'd walked the aftermath of too many battlefields not to know the child had died only hours ago, certainly less than a day. But there was more than just death involved with this body. As Hadrian approached, as he reached the scene and took his place beside the other befuddled men, he understood the problem. The little girl hadn't been murdered, she'd been torn apart. Her face was fine, her mouth partially open, her eyes thankfully closed.

He had killed more men than he could remember and been in battles where women and children had died. He'd lost his squeamishness to gore long ago but never grew accustomed to the sight of open-eyed dead children. The girl's rib cage had been broken into, its contents rifled through. Without needing to get closer, Hadrian could tell something was missing: The child's heart was gone.

"We should go," Royce whispered. The thief was behind him, motioning with a hand for them to retreat.

"Soldiers coming." His warning came too late.

"You really need to listen to me more often," Royce told Hadrian as the two sat in the guard post. This was a different station house than where they had chatted with Roland, but the interiors were identical. Same one-room shack with a desk, weapons, stacks of wood, and a small fire. An identical horseshoe held down similar parchments. The military was nothing if not consistent. At least the shackles remained on the wall rather than on their wrists.

The guardsmen had confiscated Hadrian's swords, missed Royce's dagger on the pat-down, and after some preliminary questions, ordered them to wait.

"We're not in trouble," Hadrian said.

"The truth is, we've done nothing wrong." Royce closed his eyes and shook his head.

"By Mar, the way you think. It's... it's... I honestly don't know if there's a word for it. You realize the truth is rarely important, right?"

"Soldiers are people, too," Hadrian replied.

"I know. I was one."

"I wasn't limiting the observation to soldiers. Most people don't care about the truth."

"Look, they have no reason to do anything to us. We're innocent. They just picked us up because we're strangers and didn't belong in that alley. They're just double-checking."

"Reason, truth, innocence"—Royce sat back against the wall and folded his arms—"unicorns, pixies, and dragons; you're not that young to believe in such things. How is it that you fancy yourself a resident of a make-believe world."

"I told you. At this point, it's a choice."

"It's not. It's fooling yourself. I can decide between eating fish or pork, but I can only pretend to eat unicorn meat. I can't actually eat a unicorn. The world is the world, and you live in it with open eyes or choose to be blind. It's all the same to me, but don't stand there pretending you're right." Hadrian grimaced.

"There are so many things wrong with that statement." Only Royce could think of a unicorn-eating metaphor. Where do thoughts like that bubble up from? Why a unicorn? Who thinks of eating a symbol of purity and grace? Maybe that was his point. Perhaps Royce was making an argument within an argument, but Hadrian wasn't about to be sucked down some obscure sewer where only Royce knew the way. Hadrian had a point of his own.

"You always wear black and gray. That's a choice, too, and it says a lot about you."

"It says I don't like to be seen at night."

"It says you like to hide, and people who like to hide are usually up to no good. That's a message you declare to everyone you meet, and people receive it as you might expect. Then when others don't trust you, when they avoid you, hurt or arrest you for doing nothing, your worldview is justified. So, you're right; you can't eat unicorns in your world because they don't exist, but they do in mine—probably because in my world we don't eat them."

Royce furrowed his brow, his mouth partially open as if he was hearing a sound he couldn't understand.

"Honestly, I think you should try wearing purple and yellow," Hadrian said.

"Something bright and happy—polka dots maybe. And you should smile more. People would treat you differently. You might find the world a brighter place."

"Tell me you aren't serious." Hadrian chuckled.

"About the yellow polka dots? Of course not. You'd look ridiculous, and you might attract children, which would be a mistake on an epic level."

"And the unicorn stuff?"" You brought unicorns into this. I have no idea where that came from. It's like you have a demented recipe book or something. Which if you do, please don't tell me."

"Are you two always like this?" The guard behind the desk had stopped his scribbling and was staring at them with an expression of utter bewilderment.

"He is," they both said in unison.

"You're hilarious." The guard smiled.

"I sure hope you're not guilty. I'd hate to have to hang the two of you."

"Good," Hadrian said.

"At least, we can agree on something."

"Sounds like unicorn-believer talk to me." The guard grinned.

"Personally, I'm with dark-clothes guy. Living is anguish and then you die."

"Wow, that's uplifting," Hadrian said.

"You should start your own church." He shook his head.

"Not the religious type."

"There's a surprise."

"The problem with the world," the guard went on, "is that too many people don't see it like it is. They want it to be something it just isn't. I think everything would be better if folks stopped believing in fantasies and dealt with the way things are. We might actually improve things then. I mean, there aren't any unicorns, or fairies, and there certainly isn't an Heir of Novron who's going to appear and save us all. That's just stupid." Did you know this text is from a different site?

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"I couldn't have said it better myself." Royce pointed at the guard.

"I really hope you don't try to hang me. I'd hate to have to kill you." The guard looked confused again, then, assuming Royce was making a joke, he laughed. Royce laughed, too. Hadrian didn't, and this served to remind him he didn't have his swords. They were by the door. He could see them, and that made him feel better because the truth was that Royce and the guard had a point. Sometimes things didn't work out the way they should. They certainly hadn't for that little girl in the alley.

The door to the guard post opened, and a familiar face entered.

"Blackwater?" Roland asked, puzzled.

"My, aren't you making the rounds." He looked to the desk guard.

"Drake, what are they doing here?"

"We picked them up in the alley where the mir was killed," the soldier said with a salute.

"The big one had those three swords, and the other looked, well... suspicious."

"It's the color of his clothes," Hadrian offered.

"Makes him look sinister."

"You know them, sir?"

"Yes. This is Hadrian Blackwater, an old friend. Not the sort to murder children, believe me." Roland turned his gaze on Royce but hesitated to add any clarification.

"Apparently, I need to wear polka dots," Royce said.

"What were you two doing in Little Gur Em?"

"Having our midday meal," Hadrian said.

"I was introducing Royce here to Calian cuisine. We were at an outdoor café when we heard the shouts and went over to investigate."

"Still the soldier, eh?" Roland chuckled. He turned to the guard.

"Is that really all you have on them, Drake? They were there and looked suspicious?" The guard nodded.

"Pretty much."

"Give them back their belongings, then." The guard moved to the door and gathered Hadrian's swords.

"Sorry for the inconvenience," Roland told them. He glanced down at the desk, pivoted the top page so he could read it.

"Looks like we'll have to add this one to the pile."

"What's that mean?" Hadrian asked, taking the spadone first and slinging it over his shoulder. Roland, who didn't appear to have had time to shave in a week, scrubbed his growing beard and sighed.

"I told you about the murders we've been having. Mir tend to be the targets, and we can be thankful for that. If it had been the child of a citizen—a guild merchant or tradesman or, Novron forbid, a noble—I'd have the constable crawling all over me."

"But because it was a mir, you'll ignore it?" Royce asked.

"No, not ignore. There's really nothing I can do in any case. But there would be more pressure." Roland looked to the guard, who handed Hadrian's other two swords over.

"No witnesses, right?" The soldier shook his head.

"As usual, no one knows anything."

"It's always the same," Roland said.

"No one sees them. No one knows a thing. Then the next victim turns up in the river, or pit, or an alley—each one ripped open, heart missing." Roland checked on the contents of the pot near the fire and grunted when he found it empty.

"Don't you think that's a little odd?" Royce asked.

"You'd think that, wouldn't you? But no, not anymore. I may have mentioned that life is cheap down here on the east side. Even cheaper next door in the Rookery, which is where most of the killings have occurred."

"But to rip out the hearts of children?" Hadrian asked. This made him think of Royce roasting unicorns, only this was the real-world form of that idea. Could there be a purer example of evil? Why would anyone do such a thing? And how? How does a person kill and crack open a rib cage without anyone seeing or hearing it?

"Probably selling them on the black market," Roland said with enough callousness to make Hadrian wonder what had happened to the young man he once knew.

"Some of these Calians use them to make youth potions or healing balms. Spreading a little powdered baby heart on your face will keep you looking young, or so people have been told. Rich merchants' wives are their market. We try to stop it, but there's not much we can do. Usually, they use calf or lamb hearts, but someone is obviously making an extra effort. If people think they're getting the real thing, the price goes up. When news of a death spreads, the demand is higher."

Dealing with frequent loss of children's hearts and the indifference of bystanders has driven the unicorns out of Roland's world, as well, Hadrian realized. Such beliefs made sense and were difficult to debate. After all, horrors had a way of grabbing the limelight and diminishing everything else. How can anyone believe that people are basically good when faced with such blatant evidence to the contrary?

What Hadrian couldn't make Roland, Drake the guard, or least of all Royce understand was that a life barren of unicorns was existence without purpose. Hadrian had visited that dark land once. He'd lived as a glutton of selfishness, reclining on the luxury of visible truths. He'd drowned himself in wine and blood, but the more he consumed, the emptier he felt. What was the point if, as Drake so eloquently put it: living is anguish and then you die? Hearing those words convinced Hadrian of the importance of unicorns.

Even if there weren't any, it was absolutely necessary to believe they existed. What's more, he needed to try to find them. It wasn't much. Chasing fantasies was a thin thread to justify a life, and yet how many wonders had been wrought by people who did exactly that—those who believed in crazy dreams.

"Sorry for the mistake," Roland said.

"I'd buy you both a drink, but I have the night shift the rest of this week, and the duke frowns on drunk officers."

"Ah, yes, the life of an honest soldier," Hadrian mused, feigning envy.

"How about you two? Still looking for the duchess? Heard you stopped by the carriage shop. Find anything?"

"Nothing yet."

"Let me know if you do. I'm pretty sure she's dead, but if she isn't..."

"What?" Roland hesitated, and his face changed. The tough façade, the soldier's stare, dimmed, and for a moment, Hadrian once more saw the lad he had once known.

"Everyone calls her the Whiskey Wench. No one showed her a lick of respect. I didn't, either. Guards are supposed to bow when she goes by. None of us did. We all said how she wasn't a real noble. That she was fake because she wasn't born one, and wasn't even from Alburn. I guess the feeling came from a kind of envy, as if she was getting away with something and didn't deserve respect. Then, well, she gave me a new pair of boots. My old ones had holes in them.

My feet used to get soaked, and I nearly got frostbitten more than once. I hardly ever saw the woman. It's not like I was her bodyguard, but she must have noticed. Why she bothered, I don't know. Told myself she didn't like seeing a guard captain in a shoddy uniform, except... city guards are required to wear black boots, thin leather that looks nice, but doesn't do anything when you're out patrolling in the cold." He lifted his foot to show Hadrian his pair of brown, fur-lined footwear.

"Nicest boots I've ever owned. Real warm. Hardly noticed the snows the rest of the winter." He put his foot down.

"If she's alive, I want to know. And if she's not and you discover who did it, I want to know that, too." Hadrian nodded and, checking his weapons, pushed the short sword down on his hip and lifted the bastard sword higher and back a tad.

"Well, thanks for helping us out." Hadrian took two steps toward the door, but stopped when he realized Royce wasn't following. Across the roadway stood a busy countinghouse. Like many of the important buildings, it was constructed of stone that had grown dingy. Seeing it, Royce turned back and caught Roland's attention.

"Can you answer a question for me?" He pointed at one of the sculpted decorative faces on the building across the street.

"Why are these things everywhere? They crouch under steps, frame windows, perch on ledges, and hold up everything from bridges to balconies. Even some of the cobblestones have tiny grotesque faces carved into them. Why is that?" Roland dipped his head to see beyond the doorframe.

"You mean the gargoyles?" Royce nodded.

"I've seen them before. They're used to channel rainwater off big churches, like the cathedral in Medford. But here, they're all over. Most don't even serve any real function, only a few are being used to divert runoff." Roland pushed up his lower lip.

"Just decorations, I suppose."

"There's no story behind them?" Roland rolled his shoulders.

"Sure. There's multiple stories, but they're all nonsense."

"Humor me."

"The most popular one has a priest who slays a dragon with the help of a condemned man. They burn the beast afterward, but the head isn't affected. You know, on account of it being able to breathe fire and all. So, the local bishop decides to mount the thing on his cathedral to scare off evil spirits. Seemed like a good idea, so stonemasons were asked to add them from that time on."

"Ah-huh," Royce said, dissatisfied.

"Well, there's another one about the town's founding. A crazy architect by the name of Bradford Crumin was commissioned to lay out the city. He chose the place for the Estate, Grom Galimus, and most of the old buildings. He was brilliant but also insane. He claimed to hear voices—ghosts, he called them—and the only way he could shut them up was to scare the spirits away. Apparently, they were terrified by scary faces, so he put all these grotesque creatures around." Royce didn't say anything, just folded his arms.

"Okay, so there's another one. Seems they never used to be here. The city went up and all the buildings were plain, but functional. Then one day this swarm of creatures swooped down and overran the place. The town was swamped, and everyone was afraid to go outside. Didn't know where they came from, but a few days after the invasion, an old wizard comes hobbling along. He agreed to rid the town of the creatures for a price. The city agreed, and he turned them into stone, but—""But the town didn't pay," Royce said.

"You've heard this?" Royce shook his head.

"No, but stories are all the same, aren't they?" Roland thought a second, then shrugged.

"Anyway, you were right; they refused to pay. Since the creatures were all dead, their problem was solved."

"Let me guess: The wizard does something nasty." Roland nodded.

"He cursed the town. Now every night, usually in the dark of a new moon, the stone creatures come alive and exact revenge." Royce frowned.

"Never mind, I was expecting something awful, but also believable."

"We're talking monstrous faces, here. What would be believable?"

"How about, the stone carvers charged by the hour?"

"Why the sudden interest in architecture?" Hadrian asked as he once more followed Royce back into Little Gur Em.

"Didn't you notice?" Royce was once more moving quickly, nearly trotting, retracing their earlier trip back to the scene of the crime.

"Notice what?" They came upon the same square where they'd spilled the tea, and Royce pointed up at the building near where the girl's body was found.

"What about it?"

"See the gargoyles lining the ledge up there?" The old building was adorned with regularly spaced creepy monkey-like statuettes along the third-floor exterior. They weren't really gargoyles, not in the traditional sense. These didn't funnel rainwater; they were merely decorations.

"So?" Royce frowned.

"See the gap?" The row of hunched, fanged monkeys leaned forward, holding up the top balcony with their shoulders, but Royce was right, one was missing. The rogue stone-monkey monster second from the left had abandoned his post, leaving the other little monsters to do all the work. Such a massive weight hitting the ground from that height would have produced a lot of damage, not to mention debris, but the street below didn't show any signs of an impact.

Hadrian's next thought was that it had been removed, perhaps in need of repair. But doing so would have required scaffolding and a hoist, neither of which was present. And the empty place showed no evidence of excavation, just a space for a carving that wasn't there. The statue looked to have simply flown away. The most sensible answer, and the one he concluded with, was that the gargoyle had never been installed in the first place. Maybe the builders had been short a figure.

Likely, there was some story that went along with it. The kind of tale that people shared to show off their knowledge of local lore. Oh, yeah, Grimbold the Carver dropped over dead when working on it, and out of tribute to him no replacement was ever made. Or maybe something like, Someone miscalculated the number of statues for that wall, and ol' Pete started installing from the right and Bradford from the left. It wasn't until they were done that they realized they were short by one.

Funds were low, so the missing gargoyle wasn't made. The problem with these neat and sensible explanations was the bare spot—bright and pristine. Like a sun-bleached carpet with a square of vivid color where a cabinet had once stood, the wall bore a clean silhouette where a statue should have been. Something had been there, but now it wasn't. Royce looked at Hadrian and asked.

"Why is one missing?"