"So, you didn't notice the horse missing?"

Fekunde stared back, trying to appear undeterred by the accusatory question.

"No one else came on to the garden's grounds. There was nobody! Sir, she tied that rope firm. I watched her do it. The spearmaiden. I watched her with my own eyes."

Captain Bierdé was losing patience with the watchman. When the sky lit up, the palace turned into pandemonium. The guards inside the palace reported hearing a loud, heated argument inside the treasurer's office quarters.

When they checked on it, they found the door molted together in a seal. It took eight men on a set of two battering rams smashing the wall supports to force the doors open.

No one was there, but the assassin left behind the armor from her elven disguise. Likely to avoid implicating the Elven Goddom in the evening's intrigue.

The Sgoëthe had clearly gutted the Treasurer. Blood drenched the carpeting and trickled far across the marble.

It appeared as well, Lord Carro had attempted to defend himself with a crossbow. If her blood mixed in with his, Bierdé could not tell.

When Bierdé read the notes of the palace interior officer that said, 'there was evidence of a struggle,' he knew the whitewash had already begun. All reactions at this point were political calculation.

It made no sense. Where was the body? How did the assassin escape?

At that point, he returned to the palace grounds where he spotted Fekunde.

"Repeat to me what she said."

"When she spoke to the horse?" Fekund stared back, incredulous.

"Yes."

The watchman read from his notes. Bierdé let him read them all before he spoke.

"At any time," Bierdé asked. "Did she appear to be over annunciating her words?"

"What do you mean," Fekunde asked cautiously, as if he suspected he was being tricked.

"Do you not think it odd you caught every word she spoke, every word even in her elven ditty, even though it was sung in the odd meter and dysrhythmia of Haute Elven?"

"No. I just wrote down the words she spoke as it is my job to do so."

Gods was this man thick. Every noted conversation Bierdé ever read of his men or written down himself contained chunks and segments of dialogue from where the spotter was not able to get a full view of the subject. Not this time.

From the activities Fekunde described, she was always in motion, working around the horse. She pranced around showing off her derriere to the guards, yet in all of that commotion her head always faced in such a way that Fekunde could read her lips. The utter cheek of the woman. She was mocking the watcher the entire time and he never caught on.

"Fekunde. Did you ever think it odd that she spoke of her youth as a lass, not lassmer, mind you, but lass, growing up near the Reiver's Coast?"

Fekunde blinked. He was about to protest, likely to point out the territories were adjacent, but even he must know enough geography to realize the Reiver's Coast was a long way away from the Foering Glacier march the two cultures shared.

"Oh," was all the watchman could say.

"That's the smartest thing you have said this entire evening. Likely, the assassin spotted you, saw that you were too bored with your duties to appreciate the sashay of her hips and haunches, and decided to make easy sport of you. You fool! You never ignore a woman. That innate sense of intuition keeps her a step ahead of you everytime. You ignore one, you have no hope to ever catch up."

Bierdé threw the report notes down on the watchtower floor before making his way out of the station. A little smile creeped on his face. He had someone he could pin much of the blame on for the evening's intrigue, and it happened to be the one man of the guard he disliked.

Back on the grounds, Lieutenant Graes rushed up. He stopped for a moment to gather his breath before speaking. Bierdé had his second-in-command covering up any trace evidence of Lyre involvement.

Most worrisome was the disappearance of Barathiel Salugarr. Bierdé hoped to the gods that the advocate was dead. Sad to say, that wife's father was wealthy enough that he left behind more than enough to take care of her and the two children. It would be best for everyone if Barathiel met his demise out in the marsh.

A conspiracy was only as strong as its most pliable member, and Salugarr was a most unstable man.

"Captain, there is a watchtower being attacked in the marsh. The wyvern has been reported spotted in the same area. The Duke is still out that way. It's the watchtower by Gooses Gather.

"The wyvern has not ventured that far north in decades," Bierdé commented.

Settetoile lighting up had everyone and everything spooked tonight. Including the wyvern.

"Why is he out there," Graes asked. "Gooses Gather is exactly where we would expect him at this time if he followed the main concourse through the marshlands; that is, if he was going to the castle."

"What, to take the fight to the wyvern?"

"The absinthe makes the blood hardy, sieur."

Bierdé looked up to the station tower. Fekunde leaned on the terrace railing with a fretful raised brow on his face. Bierdé made certain he enunciated every syllable he now spoke.

"Let us pray to the gentler deities the advocate is safe. That child of his is due any day now. If not this very night.

"Are there any other developments, Lieutenant Graes?"

"The spotters by the bridge saw her horse leave on its own accord across the bridge."

Captain Bierdé kicked a boot into the ground. Kicking up grass.

"No one thought to stop the beast," he yelled.

"I asked the same, Captain. A spotter by the name of Jeäg said as it approached the bridge he began to climb down to retrieve it for the elf. As he started climbing, he was startled by the sight of Settetoile lighting up the night sky. He fell and broke his ankle. Between the star lighting up and his injury, the horse disappeared in the middle of the commotion."

Bierdé nodded, watching the moon above make it's fortnightly dissapearence. He knew where he needed to go.

"Lieutenant Graes take command. I'm going to retrieve that horse."

Bierdé rode his own horse back to the Cemetery of the Commons to check the gate lock. He could not fathom how she got off the palace grounds, or how she disappeared with Carro in tow. Why did she not leave his dead corpse in the office? One of the Handmaiden's witchy rituals, perhaps.

He would not put anything past Lady Intrigue's operatives. He was certain of two matters that were utterly sincere on her part and not merely an element of her guise. The habitual gazes she made towards the moon, and the sad look in her eyes when she stared at the cemetery gates.

From the few Ninci who were willing to speak to him on such matters he discovered the twin sister of Barathiel's died of the plague. She had a tall Sgoëthe lover, identified as Leresai Fervarryn. The twin's body was never recovered by the family. It was the cause of a great deal of acrimony.

When Salugarr weaseled his way into the conspiracy, Bierdé investigated the advocate's personal history. He deduced the advocate's motivation was revenge, but it never quite explained Salugarr's odd behavior.

Bierdé now set on his horse in front of those black iron gates, studying the lock which had not been touched; he tried to see them as the Sgöethe saw them. She had other means. A netting-works of Rhoethella's followers to assist her endeavors.

She is in there.

His intuition knew she had to be in there given everything that occurred in the course of the evening. Were there hidden recesses within the palace that led from its dungeons into the catacombs below and then connected into the cemetery?

He turned his horse back around. Where did her horse go? Someone must be handling it. If she is here, do the intelligencers of Lady Intrigue use the Cemetery of the Commons for their operations?

It would be an apt location. As it was large and spread out. Only open to the public one day of the week. The day of Burial and Remembrance. Even then, most of the ground was inaccessible to the public.

At the northwest corner he had previously passed before inspecting the gate locks was a crossroads.

On the Westside began a luxury goods market. Along the boulevard going towards the South were a set of shops devoted to common utility. Blacksmiths, carters, tanners, weavers, and all such. The luxury goods market square on the other side of the same boulevard to the West was an extension of the diamond district in the control of the Kostlevidda.

Having the common market so near, just across the street, would be considered undesirable. Intolerable even, in any other city. The guild would have bought out or ran off the owners like the ones that kept shop by the cemetery wall under normal operational circumstances.

But why not here? That would have been a fight they had no chance of winning if his hunch was correct.

He rode his horse down the boulevard. This late, this far off from Central Market and the concourse of taverns and inns at the city entrance, this market street was empty. Two blocks down, he spotted what he sought. Along the cemetery wall was an alley butted up against it's cement blocks.

The wall was twelve feet high, the surface of it leaned forward from the third to the ninth foot before lining up even again. This made scaling it extremely difficult. Iron spikes lined the top with what he assumed to be razor-sharp gables beneath.

The shop on the southside of the alley was the one that best fit his hunch. It was a large spread of a building. Holding a blacksmith shop on the end Bierdé stood while the main body of it was dedicated to stables.

Bierdé left his horse in the alley tied to a cross stand above a door. He studied the building. There was enough room between the shop and the cemetery wall where he could squeeze through and reach the southern side of it and stay out of the view of the front windows.

He walked slowly and quietly to reach the far side where the stable doors were located. When he came to them Bierdé stopped. There was no lock on the door, but there were two empty hooks that could fasten one. They appeared well worn.

He leaned against the wall and touched the door beside him with his palm. It gave way. He leaned his head to peak in. The interior was too dark from his vantage point to see much. Not much sound stirred but he did hear a horse shift on its hooves.

Bierdé quickly and quietly slipped through the door, and closed it behind him. Now he heard a rhythmic pounding. He stayed crouched down by a shelf that stood adjacent to the side of the stable doors.

In the stall directly in front of him he could make out the shape of the horse. His distinctive mane was obscured by darkness but everything else of his shape and his gait was the same.

Bierdé peaked past the shelf to see from whence the hammering was coming from. He saw a little man the size typical of racing jockeys. He worked by the light of a tiny kerosene lamp at a desk by the front window.

One hand held a lock, the other hand held a pair of needle-nose pliers.

"So you can work ropes and locks now, can you, Nettayo. What else has that Sgoëthe taught you? How did you jam it up with mere hooves, that's a secret I would trade you a bundle of carrots for."

While the man spoke, Bierdé walked quietly behind him. Tapped him on the shoulder, and when the man jerked his head around, Bierdé punched him in the jaw. It took a second punch to knock the man out.

Bierdé searched the rest of the stables. An odd mildew-rich breeze drifted along the floor. He wet his fingertips and hung the fingers down just by the floor. It took several attempts to discern the source of the draft. The second to the last stall by the Westside was empty but for a canvas covered in straw spread out on the floor.

Bierdé removed the canvas, revealing beneath a steep ramp connected to the stables. Lanterns lined the concourse. He started walking down the ramp. It leveled to flat ground eighteen feet down.

The slow trod of hooves and boots came towards him. He stopped, crouched and he drew his longsword. A figure came in view but the horse caught his eye first.

It was a sorrel mare with glossy hair and a gleaming mane. A supernatural appearing saddle with rune-engraved battle tackle fastened to its back. She shimmered the very air as if she was out of some delicate dream. It moved with a grace surpassing any show horse he had ever seen.

The woman, tall and albino. He thought he should recognize her, but he didn't. The other woman he had met and had long discourse with was beautiful, exquisite and of a graceful build even. This woman, certainly not ugly, nor homely, but she was more handsome than beautiful. Quite pretty, but with none of the fey cuteness of the elf. The transformation was not possible.

"T'nonnon'B" he asked.

"You can't be here," she answered. Her voice dusk and royal Sgoëthe in accent.

He thought himself readied for any action, but faster than his vision could catch the moment that it occurred a red-hot screaming dagger flashed in the space between them, melting the mail of his armor as it passed through into his heart.

"T'nonnon'B never was," she said, removing the dagger from his chest. "You skulked around your entire life searching for Death, Captain Bierdé, bard of the Lyre Assembly. Well, now you have found him."

She walked on by as the world tilted around him. The curved cieling above shot away just before the darkness folded in. One concrete memory was all that ever mattered to him, and it was the last ember he held on to as life left his body.

The curved walls of the onion shaped chamber bore windows on the upper curve of the rounded walls open to the atmosphere outside. A slight pleasant breeze rippled through the room where he stood. This was Voïlétél, Veiled Winter, where there was no tumult of weather. It remained spring in its climate in the midst of a glacier the entire year.

Fairy dragons, no larger than greyhounds, flew in slow playful glide just outside in the early evening sky lit purple.

Bierdé took a seat a few rows behind three other guests who conversed with great enthusiasm for the guest poetess slated for recital this eve. The Crown Prince D'tuout'N appeared through a sliding maché door. Aromatic majoon followed his course.

He carried a squat brandy bottle in one hand and a pair of fluted wine glasses in his other. D'tuout'N sauntered over to the three guests and whispered in their ears. Their faces appeared puzzled at first, but they soon stood up and made their way to the vaulted exit stairs.

The prince turned to Bierdé when they were finally alone. The prince of the elves smiled at him ruefully as he poured a glass of brandy for him.

"Now, for my guest of great honor, the hero of the Bloody Seven, I have a treat for you."

D'tuout'N lifted the glass to toast. They clanked the crystals together in chime then both took a sip. It was a supple and aromatic spirit reminiscent of Nincian blushbort but more floral than their product tended to be.

The burn in his throat grew in intensity before rapidly dissipating.

D'tuout'N commented, boastfully.

"We are getting better with each year's vintage at matching the Ninci distillers, do you not agree, Bierdé?"

"Aie. That is ripe."

"Now, for our entertainment this evening."

He clapped his hands. A long elegant beauty with hair of a soft flaxen sheen that contoured along a most delicate build entered through the maché door carrying in her arms a cithara ornate in dark green enamel with jeweled bands running down its length.

She sat on a stool on the stage above them.

"Do you see the glow of her skin? She has survived the Festival of Death's Embrace on seven occasions. She grows more radiant with each season. With a mere ninety three more, she'll be a literal Muse."

She glanced at Bierdé, then she leered at him a little longer. There was a fire in her eyes as real as any battlefield. He quivered.

With her voice in nasal mezzo through lips that parted slower than the words that whispered through, she began her poem.

Lord D'tuout'N,

You are the charnel thorn,

Set far from the midrib

Of Brother Sunwelder's

Enliven green fold.

A burl you are

Upon the solid trunk

Of his great oak.

Beyond your worth,

You have lived jaded.

Insincere and most

Unbecoming of Elven kind.

A wanton vessel for ablution.

By the means of night

The mirecast of your soul

Can be rectified.

No action can undue

Your distempered years.

Fill that cup to the brim,

Put an end to this charade.

Quaff it down,

For the poison

I have infused within will fulfill

What is most needed of you,

So better mer

May thrive better still.

The Elven Prince staid Bierdé's hand from drinking any farther. D'tuout'N sniffed his own glass.

"So she did poison it. Mer'Kendretta, What a sly lassmer you are."

With this remark, she smiled wildly with her head jutted forward between raised shoulders.

The Crown Prince stood up and he coaxed Bierdé to follow suit.

"Now, join us, my friend. You, I deem worthy of this, the greatest gift possible for what you have done for our Elven nation."

Mer'Kendretta placed the cithara in lean against the stool. She disrobed and stood nude before them. Ash blonde pubes cascaded between her thighs like a whitmeade waterfall.

D'tuout'N took her hand in his and with the other playfully fondled her breasts and then he dug into her wild pubic curls. She gave a manic, stuttering chortle as his hands curled into her mound.

The prince escorted her through the maché doors. As she disappeared, walking in slow, small steps, legs pressed together, into his private chamber, the prince coaxed once more.

"Come join us."

Bierdé stood up and stepped forward. He paused on sight of a gift he had given the prince. A gelded lyre, given to him as an honorary member of the Assembly. The lyre leaned on an ornamental death head against a chamber wall just inside the maché door. It seemed to stare back at Bierdé.

He looked to the drink in his hand, admired the ruby sway as it sloshed around in his goblet. He quaffed it down all in a single go.

As he brought his head back down he now saw Mer'Kendretta peeking from around the corner as he imbibed. She smiled in approval.

"Man of the Midvries, perhaps if you service me well in there, I'll provide you with the antidote."

Shoulders arched back, neck stretched long, she crooked one long finger and beckoned him to follow. He put the goblet down, and strode forward to meet his future wife.

The End