The Alabaster Staff - Edward Bolme [66]
"Is this the item of which you spoke?" she asked.
Kehrsyn could only nod.
Tiglath passed her hand over the object, murmuring an incantation under her breath. After a few moments, she stood up and held the pieces out to Kehrsyn.
"What magic it had has been shattered and is fading fast," she said. "I'd say that Tharrad or one of his people broke it rather than let it fall into the hands of… my people."
Kehrsyn took the pieces and turned them over in her hands, stunned that something that magical could be so readily sundered. She ran her thumb along the smooth surface of the scepter and down the edges of its carvings. She noted with surprise that a hollow tube ran down the center of the wand, empty save for a few motes of alabaster dust from when the item was broken.
"I-I don't know what to say," muttered Kehrsyn. She ran one finger around the smooth, hollow interior. "This is a really old item, lost for a long time, and now it's gone, just like that. I thought this was important to them, important to Unther."
"Regardless, it was a pointless waste," murmured Tiglath. She looked at the bodies at the foot of the stair. "A real waste," she repeated. "I wonder what the cause was?"
"Isn't it obvious?" asked Kehrsyn. "They knew that the Furifaxians had the staff, and they wanted it. That means they had some kind of inside information about its theft."
"What?" responded Tiglath. "How would they know about something being stolen from a merchant house, let alone care?"
"Well, Tharrad… you, like, knew him, right? He said that they had allies who had someone on the inside of Wing's Reach. They had a map, and they knew exactly where the staff was being kept."
Kehrsyn stopped prattling and looked askance at Tiglath. The priestess looked blankly at Kehrsyn, then it dawned on her, too.
"Are you saying that I have a spy planted in Wing's Reach? I have no such thing. Why would I give a wedge about a merchant?"
"Because he's got the Staff of the Necromancer," observed Kehrsyn.
She started to step away from Tiglath, resting one hand on the hilt of her rapier. Tiglath folded her arms and sank her head on her chest to think.
"That makes a vile sort of sense, you know," the priestess said, rocking on her heels. "If my people are working behind my back, this is the sort of scheme they might buy in on, but infiltration is not their style-not our style, that is. No, the Staff of the Necromancer is supposed to be quite a potent weapon, and that's what they'd be in it for. That makes me wonder if Furifax's people didn't actually double-cross my people."
"How so?"
"Furifax convinces my church to attack Wing's Reach to capture the staff, but the day before they send you in early to steal it. Immediately afterward, my people attack. They take the risk, take the blame, and get nothing to show for it, while Furifax gets the staff and avoids discovery."
"That almost sounds like you're defending your followers, when they're running around behind your back," observed Kehrsyn.
Tiglath snorted and said, "Old habits die hard. And, now that you point that out, that theory doesn't shed any light on how my people found out, now does it?"
"So how are you going to find out the truth?" asked Kehrsyn.
"I don't know," Tiglath said. She paused, her mouth compressed, and blew air out of her nose like an angry bull. "Get used to lies and deceit, Kehrsyn," she said. "These days, nothing in Messemprar is what it seems."
"Does that include you?" Kehrsyn asked, looking at Tiglath from under her brows.
"Well, I certainly hope I'm more than a fat and angry old crone," joked Tiglath. She paused, her eyes turned inward on her own soul. "And I hope, too," she added, her eyes softening to sadness for just a moment, "that I'm not actually as cruel as I probably seem."
Kehrsyn smiled, then her grin faded again as she ran her thumb across the carvings in the halves of the wand.
"Well," said Tiglath, brushing dust off her hands, "I have some undesirable work to do among the faithful. An alliance has been broken, and somehow I doubt those who