The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [117]
Grace stood and turned away from the corpse. Samatha's face was pale, and Aldeth stared with wide gray eyes.
The Spider rubbed his throat. “Remind me never to disobey your orders, Your Majesty.”
“I imagine you'll remember all on your own, Aldeth,” Grace said, then stepped out of the tent into the failing day.
29.
By the time she made it out of the Seeker complex, Deirdre craved quiet and solitude rather than the public clamor of a pub. She took the tube back to South Kensington, picked up a bottle of stout at a shop a block from her flat, and holed up for the rest of the evening.
Midnight found her at the dinette table in front of the phosphorescent screen of the computer. Unfortunately, hours of searching had yielded no more information than she had discovered the night before. Despite its incompleteness, the message on the battered keystone was certainly identical to that inscribed on Glinda's ring. However, what language the message was written in remained a mystery. The Seeker database contained shape and pattern information for all known written languages, modern and ancient, but all of her searches resulted in no matches. Not even the runic language of AU-3—of Eldh—was similar.
If she had hoped the mysterious Seeker would make his presence known to her again that night, then she was disappointed. The pool of light beneath the streetlamp opposite her window remained empty, and the only text that appeared on the computer screen was what she typed herself. When she finally went to bed, she slept fitfully, dreaming of words that shimmered and danced before her. The words comprised an urgent message, she was sure of it, but she couldn't read what they said.
The next morning was better than the previous, if only slightly. Her head still ached, but less, and she made it to work by five minutes to nine. Anders was already there. He must have been feeling more at ease, as he had taken off his suit coat and rolled up the sleeves of his silvery shirt.
He kept pounding away at the keyboard as he glanced up. “Coffee's waiting.”
Deirdre sighed as she poured a steaming cup. Maybe she could get used to this whole new partner thing.
She was able to focus better on her task that day, and by noon she had actually started to collect data. According to the official histories, the earliest recorded violation of one of the Desiderata came in 1637, when a Master Seeker was proven to be an opium addict—a clear violation of the Sixth Desideratum: A Seeker shall not allow his judgment to be compromised. However, in an old Seeker journal, Deirdre had come upon an even earlier case that, by today's standards, would almost surely have violated the Seventh Desideratum: The word of the Philosophers is the will of the Seekers.
It was in 1619, just four years after the founding of the Seekers. A young journeyman by the name of Thomas Atwater was ordered by the Philosophers never to return to the business where he had worked prior to joining the Seekers. Later it was discovered that the young man had indeed visited the forbidden establishment, yet as far as Deirdre could tell, there was no record of reprimand following the incident. Nor was it clear why he had been told not to visit his former place of work.
The documents she had found so far regarding the case were fragmentary and difficult to read. Modern English was coming into focus by the early seventeenth century, but spelling was still a highly creative art, and there was much in the facsimiles Deirdre couldn't decipher. Still, it was an interesting start, so she decided to celebrate by inviting Anders to lunch.
“Have you been to the Merry Executioner?” she asked, pulling on her jacket.
“Never heard of it,” Anders said. “Sounds ominous. What is it?”
“It's a pub.”
“It's not the food that does the executing, is it?”
“There's only one way to find out, partner,” Deirdre said with a smile that surprised her.
They headed out the door—Anders stopped to lock it, which was probably a smart idea, though Deirdre had never bothered herself—then made