Chapter #6A Mysterious Theft by: Seuzz   Rick is right. You are cold. You can hardly fail to be cold, given your ousiarchs, and you bundle yourself against their cold even in the warmest weather. Only when you meditate do you feel warm, and then it’s the warmth that comes from being buried under a thick blanket of snow.
You're meditating now, as you gaze into Charles Brennan's back yard. It's high summer, but under the blended light of Sulva and Lurga the green lawn and leaves have a chill glow to them, as though they're made of stained glass. Your right hand--as always in its silver glove--is at your chest; in the other you clutch the beads Margaret Dillon gave you four years ago, when you'd chosen Lurga as your second ousiarch. You softly murmur the prayer she'd taught you. You no longer hear the words; you express them now in thought, attitude and habit. The plea for peace, stillness, presence of mind; the power to stare at evil and break it.
Including the evil that you've done.
You're in another world, but you're in this one too, and you hear the voices of the others in Charles Brennan's small sitting room. Charles--the head of the Stellae Errantes--is here, of course. So is Rick Bredon. It's been a month since your last mission together, along with John Reilly whose report has provoked this meeting.
There's also Charles's guest, Hu Minquiang. Technically, he is not a Stellae, but he is the same sort of thing. He belongs to the Chinese school: The Great Sages of the Heavenly Court. The Chinese theory of planetary influences is quite different from the Stellae's theory, but you would understand him as having Arbol and Malacandra for ousiarchs, rendering him a sage/warrior. He calls himself an adept of the heavenly Sun Tzu, which admittedly makes as much sense as your classification, and is rather easier to grasp. He has been visiting at Charles's invitation, as a kind of ambassador.
Your hood muffles their voices, but you hear your name. "I'm listening, sir," you say, and turn around. There is no chair for you, so you just stand quietly at Charles's left hand. Hu glances up at you with a pinched look. People always get that look when you're around, at least until they get used to you; and some never get used to you.
"There will be a pop quiz, son," Charles says with dry mirth. "Were you listening?"
"Yes sir. Something has been stolen from the archives. Something called the Calice de Tenebres. I don't know what it is. John didn't say, because you and Rick would have already known about it."
Reilly--whose normally ruddy complexion has been pale since his arrival--squirms at your implied rebuke. You bite back a sigh. He is forty years your senior, and if he wants to leave you out of the debriefing that's his prerogative. He's uncomfortable only because you make him uncomfortable.
"He doesn't know when it was stolen from the archives," you continue, "though he guesses it was sometime in the last fortnight. The thieves left no clues, other than a mess from their search. They even knew how to avoid Nash's watchers. Nothing else seems to be missing. I think that's the gist of it."
"You have any speculations, Frosty?" Rick asks.
You've been with the Stellae for five years, and are no longer an apprentice, but Rick likes riding people. "I don't know how the archives work. I don't know where they are, or how you get into them. But if the thieves knew about Nash's watchers, and if they knew the Calice was there, and if they knew where to find it-- It's a lot to know. How many people would have known all of that?"
"Very few," Charles admits. "And only Stellae."
"There's other ways of doing it," Rick shrugs. "Someone who knows about us could make some very educated guesses about the way we work. A lot of long-range, careful planning and observation, some careful test runs--"
"Without leaving any clues?" Charles asks skeptically.
It's an odd role-reversal: the normally paranoid Rick arguing against internal treachery, while Charles emphasizes it as a possibility. But Rick will play devil's advocate against any theory.
"If they're good and careful and lucky," Rick says. He sniffs at his Scotch. "Mind you, it's not a bet I'd like to make. When's the last time you were inside the archives, John?"
"I'm in and out of them regularly," he says.
"Someone or something could have slipped in with you?"
"I'm not careless," Reilly snaps back. "It's not like popping around to the store. It's a pain getting in there."
"But the door's in a public library."
"If the door were in my house, it would be very obvious, wouldn't it?" Reilly retorts. "Besides, it needs to be someplace public. In case something happens to me, so another one of us could get in."
"The key is public, too," Rick says. "How often do you change it?"
"At least once a week. You know where I put it."
"But it's public," Rick repeats. "I never liked that fact."
"Only Stellae know where to look for it," Reilly says unhappily. "And only some of them."
"Then that's the first place to look," Charles says, sounding as unhappy as Reilly. "I know how to get in. So does Rick, and so do Kali and Nash." He looks into his hands. "I don't like reaching for the bluntest instrument first. But there is one of us who can do a very close interrogation of each of us."
You bow your head: He is threatening them with you.
"If it comes to that," Rick growls, "Frosty can get in anyplace and lift anything of ours without being seen. Who's going to interrogate him?"
"I don't want to interrogate anyone, sir," you say. "But Rick is right. I am skilled at infiltrations. I'm a suspect too."
"Then maybe we should tell you about the archives, and how we guard them," Charles says. "Maybe you could see how someone could get into our most secret place."
You shrug, and look over at Reilly. "The door, as Rick says, is in a public library in Secaucus," he says. "It's a doubly hidden door. You have to trace a prescribed path through the stacks, otherwise you'll never find the shelf that has the door. Then you have to know which book to pick up off that shelf. Finally, there's a pass phrase you have to write inside the book. Write the pass phrase, put the book back, and the shelf unlocks, letting you in. There are watchers covering every angle of the door and the passages inside the archives--"
"Covering the door," you echo. "Inside, or outside in the library?"
"Both. Inside the archives, there's another book you have to write a counter-phrase in. If you don't, and don't do it fast enough, the watchers lock the archives down and send an alert."
"Rick mentioned a key," you say. "That's the pass phrase?"
"Yes. I change it every week, but I publish it on my blog. Which sentence it is depends on the date I publish the entry. Yesterday's blog entry, for instance, was made on the twenty-eighth, and the pass phrase was the twenty-eighth sentence in the entry. Counter-phrase is always the first sentence of the next paragraph."
"So if someone knew that this was your pattern--"
"Someone has to know," Reilly says. "If I got run over by a bus, Charles could get the last pass phrase from my book, so he could get in."
"So Charles and Nash and Kali know where to find the key."
"And now you and Professor Hu know too," Rick says, not looking at either person he's named. "Me too," he adds.
"You have to know how to navigate the stacks too," Reilly says. "And which book to use. That's something only four of us know. Well--" he adds as an afterthought, and then looks very uncomfortable.
"Who else knows," you ask.
He fidgets. "Joe knew," he says. "He knew about the archives and how they worked. He was in training to take them over. He didn't know how to navigate the library, because I always blindfolded him--"
"What did Nash's watchers show?" you ask. A hard chill has enclosed your heart.
"Nothing."
"They showed blank spots?"
"They showed everything as normal. Even the section where the Calice was. Until two weeks ago. Then the record shows something like an edit, if you could edit Nash's watchers. One minute shows the Calice; then suddenly it's gone, and there's a mess, as though someone had been searching."
"Why would they search, if the Calice was sitting out in the open?"
"It was disguised," Reilly says. "You don't leave something like that looking like itself."
"And maybe they were looking for something else," Rick says. "Where's the Libra Personae?"
"Still in its spot," Reilly says. "I don't keep the dangerous items in one place."
"The kid knew how to cast illusions," Rick says, turning to Charles. "He could beat Nash's watchers. That's where I'd start looking."
"We've been looking for Joe and Frank for a long time," Charles says. His face is drawn. "This isn't much of a lead. If it is one."
"What is this Calice?" you ask. "Is it related to the Libra?"
"Not directly," says Charles. He leans forward. "Will, we don't know that Joe and Frank are involved in this theft. And even if they are--"
He doesn't have to finish. He is giving you an out.
It's your great, uncorrected sin: the corruption of two Stellae. He's telling you that you don't have to work this mission.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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