There was no way Corran could have known that. My voice still unsteady, I said, “Then why did you call me in here?”
“Because of this.” He took out a piece of paper and slid it across the table to me.
For one delirious instant, I thought it might be the missing text from the epic. But although the writing was unmistakably Ancient Draconean—and in Aaron’s hand—the lines were far too few for that.
Corran said, “I’m given to understand that you are an expert in such things. Can you read what it says?”
My eyes did not want to focus, but put any kind of writing in front of me and I will try to read it out of sheer reflex. I said, “It is definitely Ancient Draconean. I would say it is a poem of some kind—possibly a copy made from a tablet.” The pencilled shapes were simply writing, not an attempt to accurately represent the specific marks pressed into clay, but for translation purposes it would suffice.
And if it were copied from a tablet . . . whoever ransacked his room probably grabbed anything clay with Draconean writing on it, in case it was the missing ending.
“There are more,” Corran said. From his folder he drew out another half-dozen sheets, all on the Selwright’s letterhead. The rest were shorter—incomplete, I realized, and not quite the same as the first example. Then I realized why, and I felt like the Tomphries fire had seared my face all over again.
“Miss Camherst?”
“It is not a copy,” I said, my shoulders hunching with embarrassment. “It is . . . I believe he was attempting to compose an original poem.” Honesty forced me to add: “For me.”
Corran’s eyebrows rose.
I indicated the top line. “Here, where it says ‘The wings that span the sky of day, the wings that span the sky of night’—that was an epithet used for Beliluštar, the ancient queen whose name I gave when I left my message. Mr. Mornett used that name as an endearment for me, some years ago.”
“You two were in a relationship.”
“Before we fell out,” I said, taking refuge in acid worthy of Grandmama herself. “Recent events have made it clear that Mr. Mornett still has feelings for me—feelings I do not reciprocate. I believe this is his way of . . .”
Mercifully, Corran allowed me to leave that sentence unfinished. Bad enough that I was sitting there holding Aaron Mornett’s declaration of love. A declaration rendered in the language that had brought us together; the same language he had used to commit intellectual fraud of unforgivable magnitude. For all I knew, he had been composing it even as I discovered his forgery.
I desperately want to tell him what I think of that. But before I can, he has to be found.
“Do you have any idea of where he might be?” Corran asked.
Why he’s gone, yes; where he’s gone, no. And the leads I have aren’t the kind of thing I can follow up on, unless I’m going to break into Mrs. Kefford’s townhouse. I’ve come to my senses enough to know that isn’t a good idea.
But I was sitting with a police constable. Following up on leads is exactly the kind of thing they’re supposed to do.
“It might have to do with a man named Joseph Dorak,” I said. “He is a smuggler, a dealer in black-market antiquities—including Draconean materials. I have reason to believe Mr. Mornett is involved with him somehow. It may be that the two of them have fallen out for some reason.”
Like, for example, Aaron’s failure to destroy the epic’s true ending.
Constable Corran scribbled this down in his notebook. “Thank you. Do you have any more information? When you say they are ‘involved somehow,’ what do you mean?”
I hesitated. I’d mentioned Dorak first because unfortunately, there’s a kernel of truth in Gleinleigh’s posturing: sharing what I knew would mean accusing some very important people. While Grandmama might be important in her own way, she isn’t here right now, and the rest of us are not fully grown dragons.
They’ll still help me out, though, if I need it. And more to the point, I think this is the kind of recklessness I do have to embrace. The kind where it’s too important for me to let go of it.
So I told the constable everything. It took me half the day and made his hand cramp from writing so much, and I think I confused him quite a bit at several points, because he isn’t the kind of man who understands why anybody would bother forging an ancient document—much less why it offends me to the core of my soul. But I stressed the political implications, and since I get the impression the entire Falchester police force has been preparing for the congress and its attendant troubles, that part made sense to him.
It’s a tremendous relief, knowing that someone else is looking into Gleinleigh and Mrs. Kefford and Dorak. Because honestly, what else can I do? Go camp outside Gleinleigh’s townhouse, or Mrs. Kefford’s, and follow them wherever they go, hoping they’ll lead me to Aaron? I proved at Chiston that I’m not very good at shadowing. As for Kudshayn—he might as well fly a flag advertising his presence. He’s barely left the townhouse since we arrived in Falchester, except for the gala, because of the crowd he attracts wherever he goes.
Tremendous relief. I wrote those words just a few seconds ago, and I meant them at the time, but now I’m not so sure. It comes and goes in waves, one moment me thinking that everything is out of my hands now and good riddance, the next feeling like it’s all spiraling out of control and I have to stop it myself. All well and good to send them after Dorak, but the man’s been known as a smuggler for years, and no one has been able to shut him down; he’s too crafty about hiding his illicit shipments. And Gleinleigh and Mrs. Kefford are not easy targets.
I shouldn’t have let myself translate Aaron’s poem. It would be uncomfortable to read on any day, but right now it makes me worry even more about what has happened to him.
To Beliluštar
by Aaron Mornett trans. by Audrey Camherst
The wings that span the sky of day,
the wings that span the sky of night:
these are the glory of the world,
without equal in heaven or earth.
On the banks of the twinned river
her treasure-house lies,
filled with all the riches of the past,
bright gold, emerald, lapis, jet;
with wisdom is her treasure-house filled,
and all the knowledge of the past.
The gate of bone cannot bar her way;
the road of bone will form her path,
lifting her to the greatest height,
reigning over the depths below.
Then darkness will part before her,
and light will shed its blessing upon her,
and the doors of her treasure-house
will be thrown open for all to share.
But I will stand alone,
outside the shelter of her wings,
in the penumbra of the light
cast by her most radiant mind.
WITNESS STATEMENT OF AUDREY CAMHERST
West New Central Police Station, 5 Acinis
I, Audrey Isabella Mahira Adiaratou Camherst, philologist, of #3 Clarton Square, Falchester, NOC 681, state:
On the morning of 4 Acinis I was summoned to the Western New Central Police Station in response to an accusation that I had broken into and ransacked a room at the Selwright Hotel, rented out to Mr. Aaron Mornett. I gave testimony then about events that I believed Mrs. Kefford and others to be involved in, which took me much of the day. Once I was finished there, I went to the offices of Carrigdon and Rudge in an attempt to stop the publication of a work I have been involved with for nearly a year, which I now believe to be partially fraudulent. I remained there until their offices closed, at which point I returned home to Clarton Square.