Raya tried to ignore the fact that Benn could pick a lock. It was early morning—the sun hadn’t even sent its light over the horizon of Vagren’s walls—and they hid in the garden on the side of Nalisa Orr’s address. The young huntress didn’t ask her friend how he had learned to use pin and shift to flick the latch open, but he did it easily enough and admitted Raya to the shadowy corridor within.
Benn didn’t enter with her. He had a small build, like Raya, but hadn’t spent his days tracking critters through the fields and hills. Her friend whispered her luck, and then retreated into the foliage of the garden. Raya moved like a predator, closing the door behind herself without so much as a squeak of its latch.
As she moved, she considered everything she had learned since Hemsten’s death. The dead man near Mount Lukar had etched two names on the wall with his dagger—Axar and Nalisa Orr. Investigation of Nalisa Orr had led Raya to this two-storey house of eloquent design. Inside she had seen Lotha, a member of the Magician’s Guild of Vagren and someone Raya would consider a friend. Was there a connection? Raya hoped there was not.
The hallway’s hardwood was adorned with a long blue carpet, designed with white and grey lines in its centre. She kept her sandals on the carpet, to cause less noise, and looked at the walls as she moved. There were occasional artworks, but it all seemed generic. Nothing shed light on the purpose of the house or the identity of Nalisa.
“…twelve, damn cheat, I say,” a voice mumbled through the wall on her right. She listened for a few moments without moving. Two people were playing cards, she determined. Guards. Raya kept moving, even more cautiously now.
She soon found the living room she had spotted Lotha in; the room was empty now. None of the people involved in that strange meeting were present. On a table in the midst of the armchairs and couches, she spotted files and papers. She examined them in the dark using the ambient glow of city light that reached the window. One page was titled New Applicants and another Research Schedule. These were just Magician’s Guild documents. They were all official.
Raya kept moving. She climbed the stairs quietly. One creaked, and she paused. The muffled voice said: “I swear, if you have a second commoner in your hand…” They hadn’t heard.
Raya continued up to the second storey. A tapestry map of Vagren hung on the large wall to her right, while a few doors broke the smooth wooden boarding. She tried the first. It was locked, and she didn’t know how to pick a lock like Benn. She tried the next—a plain bedroom. The third was more promising. It was a small office. The desk drawers were locked, but a few papers littered the tabletop. One seemed to be a financial report for construction in Olston, her village. She was getting a strong impression that this house was an operating base for the Magician’s Guild, not the private residence of one Nalisa Orr.
A folded parchment with broken wax sat nearby. Raya opened that letter and scanned it too. When she spotted her name she paused and reread it thoroughly. “To ‘I’, things in Olston are progressing as planned. Jarei has followed through on his plans. The refugee housing is almost ready for them to move in, which will improve their health. I’ve been to the tent town and it’s a dirty place. The girl who found us in Vagren continues to astound me—her courage and determination have helped all those around her. I am confident that Raya Ganner will play a central role in this community, and perhaps in this whole region. I plan on staying in Olston and continuing to oversee business here. —Lotha Mayellanar.”
Raya shrugged. It was strange, but not suspicious. She replaced the folded letter on the table.
There was nothing else in the office, and she had learned little inside the house. Whatever was behind the locked door in the second-floor hallway was likely more revealing. On a whim, she checked the bedroom again, and opened the balcony door on the far side of it. From here, she could see the tip of the sun sneaking through the clouds on the horizon, where Mount Lukar still churned smoke across the horizon. The balcony overlooked the garden behind the house, but she couldn’t see Benn right now. She could see another balcony, two feet away from the edge of her own. It was easy to vault over the railing, step across the gap, and then clamber over the second edge onto that balcony. The balcony entrance to the locked room swung open with a gentle touch to its handle.
The locked room was spacious and unadorned save a large table and a small end table. The central furnishing was made out of cedar, smoothed, polished, and varnished to a creamy and smooth surface. Each corner was supported by gargoyle table legs, little winged arlaths from folktale that held the big structure up. The tabletop was the most interesting. The cedar wood was only a frame, for an inset cloth field. Scattered or fit against the edge, a puzzle in progress covered the table. There were several hundred pieces, each no larger than an ear. Some sections of the puzzle were put together with at least thirty pieces. Some pieces were scattered loosely, and the organization seemed entirely random.
On closer examination, each puzzle piece was exactly the same, so any piece could fit with any other. The organization had more to do, apparently, with the image depicted. And that was where Raya got even more confused. The puzzle did not make any grand image, ten feet by ten feet like the table. Each wooden piece had a small painting of a face on it. She didn’t recognize any, but names on the backs of the pieces seemed to indicate their identity. She replaced the pieces she examined where she had found them.
She stifled a mumbled question. What is this table? On the small end table, she found more pieces, carelessly discarded. She glanced over the faces quickly, then froze. She recognized one, but couldn’t place it. A dark-skinned man with a small scar on his shaved scalp and perpetual scowl on his expression. How did she know this man?
It dawned on her a moment after staring at it. This was the traveller in Olston, the one who had vanished months ago. He had offered to buy rabbits from her, but hadn’t showed up at their meeting place in the morning. Her investigation had led Raya to discover that a guard was missing too, a man named Hanik. They had never been found.
She turned the puzzle piece over, and read the traveller’s name. Dago Ai Ji Malzo. She looked at the man’s face again. She had a name. She decided, against her cautious infiltration of the house, to take the piece. She had so many mysteries in her life now that she had to cling to tangible clues. She slipped it into her pocket.
She looked over the other puzzle pieces as quickly as she could, but there were many more than she had time to consider. A few moments later, she returned to the balcony. When she descended the staircase inside, she stepped past the creaky step. She listened for the guards, who now seemed to be discussing a woman they both knew. Raya exited the same door as easily as she had entered the house of Nalisa Orr.