Venom's Taste - Lisa Smedman [92]
“I can’t. But there’s those in the Guild who can. And their services cost. The lorekeeper I consulted was equally as expensive.”
Arvin pulled his last eight gold pieces from his pocket and placed them with the others. “That’s all the coin I have-aside from three silver pieces.”
“It’ll do,” Lorin said. “With a consideration: a discount on the next thief catcher I buy from you of fifty gold pieces.”
Arvin hissed in frustration. “That’s an expensive rope,” he protested. “Cave fisher filament isn’t easy to come by-or to work with-and I go through at least a gallon of brandy stripping the stickiness from the ends. Then there’s the spell that has to be cast on the middle third of the rope, to hide the sticky residue…”
“Do you want to know what the inscription on the key said, or not?” Lorin asked.
Arvin sighed. “You’ll get your discount. But with my warehouse currently being… cleansed I’m not sure when I’ll be back in business.”
Lorin waved the protest aside. “You’ll manage.” Left unspoken was an implied threat. If Arvin didn’t supply a thief catcher in a reasonable amount of time, something unpleasant would happen. The Guild took a dim view of tardy deliveries.
Lorin turned and picked up a wooden tray that was slotted into several compartments, each holding a key. He pulled out the key Arvin had found in the cultist’s pocket and laid it on the workbench then wiped soot from his fingers. “What’s interesting is that you found this in the pocket of someone who died of plague,” he began. “The inscription on it reads ‘Keepers of the Flame.’ That’s a religious order-one that was active during the plague of ’17.”
“What god did they worship?” Arvin asked, certain the answer would be Talona.
Lorin laughed. “What god didn’t they worship? They were clerics of Chauntea, of Ilmater, of Helm, even of Talos-”
“So the key would have belonged to one of those clerics?”
Lorin nodded. “One of the duties the Keepers of the Flame were charged with was collecting and disposing of the corpses of those who died in the plague. They set up crematoriums all over the Reach.”
Arvin smiled grimly. It all fit. The cultists were attracted to places associated with disease-their use of the slaughterhouse and sewers were prime examples. Naulg had said he was in a building with burning walls, and the cultist had bragged about Talona’s faithful “rising from the ashes”-a boast he’d meant literally. No wonder he’d been smug. A crematorium, intended to put a stop to one plague, would serve as the starting point for another.
“Was one of those crematoriums in Hlondeth?” Arvin asked.
“Yes-and anyone who was living in the city in ’17 can tell you where it is. But that key is probably for a crematorium in another city. The one in Hlondeth had walls of solid stone, without a door or window anywhere in them.”
“Why would they build it like that?”
Lorin shook his head. “Nobody knows for sure, but the loremaster I consulted heard that the building contained a gate that opened onto the Plane of Fire. I suppose the clerics didn’t want anyone messing with that.”
“How did the clerics get inside?”
“They teleported-together with the corpses they were going to burn.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. It eliminated the problem of having to haul bodies through the city in carts-and spreading the disease.”
Arvin frowned at the key. The Hlondeth crematorium must have had a door-possibly one cloaked in illusion. That no one had sought this door in fifty-six years was no surprise. Only a madman would want to break into a building in which plague victims had been housed, however briefly.
A madman-or someone with a mind seed in his head.
Lorin nodded at the key. “If I were you, I wouldn’t use it.”
Arvin picked up the key and slipped it into his pocket. “Don’t worry,” he told Lorin. “If I do enter the crematorium, I’ll be sure to take a cleric along.”
26 Kythorn, Sunset
The Plaza of Justice was a wide, cobblestoned expanse, large enough to accommodate several thousand people and encircled by a viaduct supported by serpent-shaped columns. From his vantage point