The Mortal Word Page 11

  “Practicality is a great help when it comes to getting things achieved,” Irene retorted. “If I were going on a heroic quest, I’d probably start off by making a list of things I’d need on the journey. Including some books to read during the dull bits.”

  Mu Dan chuckled. “Any particular genre?”

  “My personal preference is detective fiction, but I read widely,” Irene said. “Yours?”

  “Dystopias,” Mu Dan said. “I find crime fiction tends to be too close to real life for me.”

  “Are you an investigator by profession, then? I didn’t realize that dragon society had such things. And I apologise if that’s insulting in any way. I just don’t know much about dragon society.”

  “I am a judge-investigator,” Mu Dan agreed, “but I don’t usually investigate dragons. I’m more often called in to examine a situation among the human hierarchies who serve the dragons. You probably know that we govern worlds? Well, my kind don’t exactly handle all the minutiae of the job in person. That would be ridiculous. Impossible, really. Humans handle the day-to-day business, and then—” She indicated a pyramid with her hands. “Then dragons handle those humans. But from time to time, something gets complicated. Conspiracies. Treason. Rebellions. And in those cases, the nobles may choose to call in an independent investigator to find out the truth.”

  “You say the nobles,” Irene commented. “Not the monarchs?”

  “Oh, I’m hardly high-ranking enough for that.”

  Something Irene had half noticed earlier came into focus. “You know,” she said, “usually when a dragon introduces themselves, they give their name, and they add ‘in service to so-and-so.’ Is there some reason why you didn’t do that earlier?”

  “You are sharp,” Mu Dan said, sounding genuinely pleased—rather than, as Irene had feared, annoyed. “And you’re quite right. I’m not in service to anyone.”

  “How is that possible in dragon society?”

  “By being very good at one’s job,” Mu Dan said, “and avoiding political debts. My family—Green River, for your information—is less than happy about it, but . . .” She shrugged. “They still find ways to make use of me.”

  Irene knew that family, or clan, was one axis of dragon society, with the other being the royalty and their courts. It would be easy for a dragon to become caught between those two loyalties. The freedom of having only one allegiance might be very tempting to some dragons—except for the way that it might leave them alone and unprotected. Mu Dan was certainly unusual. “Patronage can be a very awkward thing,” she suggested neutrally. “Once you’re in it, you often can’t get out of it again.”

  “And is the Library free of that sort of thing? A pure meritocracy?”

  Irene would have liked to say that it was—but that wouldn’t have been the entire picture. “It tries,” she finally said, “but it does make a difference who you’ve worked with, or who your tutors were. But let’s change the subject before we get too pessimistic about it all. Do you have that note you mentioned earlier? The one in Greek?”

  “I do.” Mu Dan reached into her reticule and passed over a folded piece of paper. “Be careful with it. Vale will want to examine it again once he has access to better equipment.”

  “Hopefully Bradamant’s setting that up. She knows the sort of thing he needs.”

  Irene unfolded the paper. It was, to her amateur glance, good-quality writing paper—the sort that a high-ranking dragon might use, or that an expensive hotel would supply. “Well, it is Greek,” she judged. “But the bloodstains don’t help.”

  “It was in his breast pocket,” Mu Dan noted. “His blood pooled under him as he lay dead. We’re lucky it’s readable at all.”

  “Fair enough.” Irene raised the paper closer to her eyes to squint at where the bloodstain had run across some of the text. “Do we know if Lord Ren Shun wrote Greek at all?”

  “We don’t know,” Mu Dan said. “And that’s an important question.”

  Irene nodded. “It says . . . Herodotus. The . . . The Myths.”

  “Yes, that was what Vale thought,” Mu Dan confirmed. “But the only work of Herodotus that he knew was the man’s Histories.”

  Irene frowned. “Of course—some books are written in several alternate worlds, but others aren’t written in more than one . . .” She’d never heard of anything else by Herodotus either, though. His Histories, written in the fifth century BC, about the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars, were famous enough to have won him the title of the Father of History. But the Library didn’t collect history—it collected fiction. If this note did refer to another book by Herodotus, then just how rare was that book? And what might a Librarian do to get hold of it? “I need to check the Library records, or talk with a Librarian who knows more about Greek literature than I do. The rest of the script . . .” She frowned at it, trying to make out the writing underneath the smudges of blood.

  And then her stomach sank as she realized what the first part of the remaining writing was. Transcription of a letter and a set of numbers—Beta-001. B-001. The classification which the Library would use to designate a particular alternate world. But that means . . .

  “Yes?” Mu Dan enquired in the gap left by Irene’s silence.

  Irene had hoped to avoid serious decisions about loyalty and trust until much later in the investigation, if she had to make any at all. Now she was faced with one, with no way to ask any of the more senior Librarians for advice. And if she claimed ignorance now but told Mu Dan the truth later, then Mu Dan would always know that Irene had lied to her at this point. Which was not the sort of thing that built trust.

  If she told Mu Dan what the writing said, Irene might be incriminating the Library in this murder. But if she lied to Mu Dan, then Irene herself would be withholding information from the investigation, and that could damage the dragon faction’s trust in the Library. And the writing might not even be a Library designation. It could be pure coincidence.

  Decisions, decisions.

  Irene made her mind up. “This part says ‘Beta-001,’” she reported. “That could be a Library designation for a particular world.”

  Mu Dan drew back from her, eyes glinting with a red that had nothing to do with the light outside the carriage. “Are you serious?” she demanded.

  “Note that I said could be,” Irene backtracked. “Not is. And this doesn’t contradict my theory that someone could be framing the Library. It might even reinforce it.”

  Mu Dan nodded slowly. “I agree that having a note incriminating the Library, found in the victim’s pocket, could be a little too blatant to be real. But sometimes . . .” She picked her words carefully. “Sometimes the obvious answer is the true answer.”

  “Can we class it as a noted fact and get on with the investigation for the moment?” Irene suggested.

  “Does the numbering mean anything?” Mu Dan asked, probing a point that Irene had been rather hoping she’d avoid. “I don’t know how your system works, but does the ‘one’ mean that it was the first world of its type investigated?”

  “I think it does,” Irene said uncomfortably. “And I really do need to ask my superiors for more information about this. It’s either a huge genuine clue or a huge fake, but either way we need more actual data before we can hypothesise.”

  “That’s reasonable,” Mu Dan agreed. “Is there any more?”

  “Well, you don’t need me to translate ‘hell’ there.” Irene indicated the word in question without actually touching the paper, relieved to have changed the subject. “And then more numbers—thirty-nine, two, seventeen. Does it mean anything to you?”

  Mu Dan shook her head. “No. Vale said he might have an idea, but he wanted to make enquiries first—something about making sure that a particular place existed in this world as well as his own. He’s very adaptable for a human.”

  “He’s an equal partner in
this investigation,” Irene said. “I thought you and he were getting on quite well earlier.” A little pang of jealousy surprised her, and she realized that she wished she’d been there rather than Mu Dan.

  “I was pleasantly surprised.” Mu Dan gave a sudden charming smile. “You have no idea how many times I’ve been asked to work with someone’s pet scientist or judge! They can be so inflexible, so dogmatic . . . and sometimes so stupid. Your Vale is a true delight. I’d be tempted to keep him—if he wasn’t under your protection, of course. We may actually manage to get something done now.”

  And there, Irene reflected, one had a neat encapsulation of the ultimate position of mortals in the eyes of dragons. I’d be tempted to keep him. Mu Dan was certainly polite, and she might even make exceptions for unusual cases, but ultimately she had the same biases as any other dragon. Humans were tools. Mortals would never have the same authority as dragons.

  Irene dragged her mind away from a contemplation of institutional prejudice and was reminded of something she’d wondered about. “May I ask a possibly personal question?”

  “You may certainly ask,” Mu Dan said.

  “There are legends of dragons in many different cultures. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Persian, the classic Western gold-hoarding sort—even stories of similar creatures like wyverns. And yet every single dragon I’ve met so far, or even heard of, has had a Chinese name. I don’t want to pry, but I am curious.”

  Mu Dan’s expression was guarded, but not actually offended or forbidding. “I’m not that old myself, and I’m not a scholar of history. But I will say that the monarchs set the style for the rest of my kin. If there were other matters in the past which have been—erased, shall we say?—then I don’t know about them. I don’t think I can say more than that.”

  “That’s a very reasonable answer, and I appreciate it,” Irene said. She politely ignored the fact that I can’t say more than that could be understood in several ways without actually being a lie. “I ask partly because I may need to know more about dragons before this is over.”

  “Given my trade, I can hardly object to that.”

  The final question in Irene’s mind was one that might be taken the wrong way. She’d offended with badly phrased questions before. And the source of a dragon’s power seemed a private matter. “In the interests of our mutual defence, may I ask if you have an affinity with any particular element?”

  “Earth,” Mu Dan said. “And what lies beneath it. I’m not as strong as some, but with time and the situation in my favour, I can be of some use. But you’ve already demonstrated that you’re fast with that Language of yours. I think that between the two of us, we should be quite . . . effective. Also in the interests of mutual protection, may I ask exactly how far your Language will go? Can you command the knife which committed this murder to fly to the murderer’s hand, or make the dead speak to us? Is there some sort of ultimate word for life or death?”

  “I could tell a knife to return to its user’s hand, if we had it,” Irene said. “But we don’t have the knife that committed this murder—and if the murderer had any sense, they’d throw it into the Seine.”

  “And the rest?”

  “The Language has limits,” Irene said. She wondered how much of a temptation it would be, if she could simply tell someone to die. “It works much better on things than on people. I can’t order someone to sleep, or kill them with just a word.” She smiled, just a little. “Does that make you feel safer with me?”

  The carriage came to a stop, and the driver rapped on the roof with the butt of his whip. “Here you are, ladies—the Grand Hôtel du Louvre.”

  They scrambled out, and Irene looked up at the hotel’s frontage as Mu Dan paid the driver. The hotel was massive, a four-story castle in creamy gold stone. It ran right along the length of the street, and a flock of carriages were gathered in front of it, waiting for customers. Shopfronts were nestled in a long succession of archways, their contents looking suitably expensive for the sort of customer the hotel served.

  And, interestingly, there was no frost on the building—not even in the shadowed crevices of the stonework. Very curious.

  Mu Dan frowned, rubbing her forehead as the carriage rattled away. “This is going to be unpleasant,” she said with resignation.

  “I can’t feel anything myself,” Irene said hesitantly. She knew that she could expect her Library brand to react to a high-chaos environment, but it wasn’t doing so . . . well, not yet, anyhow. “Is the Fae influence here bad enough to make you unwell?”

  Mu Dan hesitated. “Probably not. Just unhappy. Would you care to take the lead? Truce or no truce, I think you’ll be more welcome here than I will.”

  “We can but try,” Irene said, and led the way into the foyer.

  Now that it was late morning rather than the middle of the night, her unfashionable clothing and short hair attracted glances. Mu Dan was more appropriately dressed—or at least, more expensively dressed—and thus a more normal customer for a location like this.

  The atrium was huge, however, and they were easily lost in the crowd as they worked their way towards the hotel front desk. Above, a vast glass ceiling in geometrical patterns leaked light into the room below, assisted by the dangling glass-globe lamps. Marble stairways ran up the wall in sinuous curves to join the balcony that surrounded the room and provided a convenient viewing point for idle spectators, who leaned on the iron railings and gossiped.

  They were halfway to the front desk when Irene spotted something she’d half been expecting. A couple of the idlers drooping over the balcony were pointing at the two of them and discussing them with sudden animation.

  “Don’t look too obviously,” Irene murmured, “but I think we’ve just been spotted.”

  “Where?” Mu Dan followed the jerk of Irene’s head towards that part of the balcony. “Ah. Who do you think they are?”

  “Well, they’re either Fae who’ve recognized you as a dragon, or they’re more of the kidnappers from earlier,” Irene said judiciously. “Shall we go and find out?” She didn’t want to leave Vale operating on his own any longer than necessary. The situation was just too dangerous.

  “It would save time,” Mu Dan agreed.

  The two men were at the head of the stairs by the time Irene and Mu Dan reached them: they’d realized that they were being approached and had obligingly come to meet the two women. Their approach argued that they were indeed Fae, or servants of the Fae, rather than opportunistic anarchists.

  The man in the lead spoke first. He and his companion were both in grey, businesslike in good-quality suits, but his cravat was green while his companion’s was purple. He addressed himself to Mu Dan. “Kindly explain yourself.”

  Ice entered Mu Dan’s voice. “Who are you, that I should explain myself to you?”

  “A whole lot of things, madam,” Green said, “but primarily not a dragon. Certain rules of conduct were agreed. You’re on the verge of breaking them.”

  Before Mu Dan could state her credentials in tones that would have suited a declaration of war, Irene stepped forward. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” she said. “I am a Librarian. My name is Irene Winters. This lady, Mu Dan, is accompanying me, and we are here as part of the agreed investigation into Lord Ren Shun’s murder. I would appreciate your cooperation.”

  Green and Purple paused and exchanged glances. Green finally said, “You can prove this?”

  Irene wished that she’d been given some sort of safe conduct to wave in their faces. Unfortunately all she had was her Library brand, and she didn’t intend to strip off in a public place so they could see her bare shoulders. “We’re here to collect the Fae member of the investigative team,” she said. “I wasn’t told that identification would be required. I assumed that everyone here had been fully briefed.”

  Another pause for Green and Purple to look at each other blankly. Fortunately Mu Dan kept
her mouth shut and didn’t make the situation worse.

  “Why not take us to see someone higher up?” Irene suggested, growing impatient. “Such as the Cardinal?”

  “You want to see the Cardinal?” Green stammered.

  “Why shouldn’t I want to see the Cardinal?”

  “Because he’s the Cardinal,” Green said, in tones that suggested Irene shouldn’t have needed to ask. His previous poise had slipped. “He’s not to be disturbed. He’s busy. People who intrude on his time have horrible things happen to them.”

  Purple drew one thumb across his throat in a significant gesture.

  Irene resigned herself to having apparently run into the very bottom scrapings of the barrel when it came to Fae representatives. Please, she prayed to any deity who might exist, let the Fae who’s on the investigative team be someone else. Anyone else. “Good point,” she said patiently. “So why don’t you take us to see the Cardinal’s secretary, or his bodyguard, or his second in command, or whoever the appropriate person is?”

  “Oh, right,” Green said. “You should have said so earlier. Come along with us, please.”

  He led the way through the swirling throng, with Purple at the rear of the group—not, Irene reflected, that she or Mu Dan had any intention of running away. She glanced sideways at Mu Dan, just in time to catch the other woman wiping sweat from her forehead.

  “Are you all right?” Irene asked quietly. The chatter of the crowd would stop Green or Purple from hearing her. She tried to extend her own perceptions, to see if she could feel any aura of chaos in this place. But there wasn’t enough—at least, not yet—to even make her Library brand tingle. The Fae presence in this hotel was apparently keeping itself well under wraps.

  “Tolerable, for the moment,” Mu Dan answered. “Have you noticed the temperature?”

  It took a moment for Irene to catch her drift. “Yes,” she said in surprise. “It’s almost warm in here.” Maybe it wasn’t so much that the Fae were exerting themselves to enforce their own reality, but rather that they were keeping out Ao Ji’s influence. Whatever the reason, Irene was grateful for a respite from the winter cold.