Page 18 of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
“I think actually,” said Mr. Donne, peeking over my shoulder, “you started it when you disanimated my revenant.”
“No, you started it when you reanimated the body of Klaus Lafayette.”
Mr. Donne was standing a little closer than he, perhaps, needed to, but I put this down to his nervousness. “That was in accordance with a lawful contract and also we’ve never met.”
“Neither of those are my problem. Now kindly step out from behind my housemate so I can kill you.”
Before Mr. Donne could either comply with her request or assert his intention not to do so the doors of the hall burst open and the room was flooded with grey-uniformed Myrmidons.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Myrmidons
For the benefitof those readers who are not familiar with the idiosyncratic system of legal enforcement in the great city of Khelathra-Ven, I should perhaps clarify who, precisely, had just interrupted the altercation between Ms. Haas and the necromancer. The Myrmidons owe their origins to a time shortly after the unification of the cities of Khel, Athra, and Ven. The early years of independence proved tumultuous as the cities’ various power blocks and interest groups vied for authority and influence. An especially vexed question in those days was that of the legitimate application of force. It would plainly not do for every guild, temple, aristocratic house, and popular movement to maintain its own private army and for those armies jointly and severally to act with the full weight of the state behind them.
Thus, it was determined that when violence became necessary within the boundaries of Khelathra-Ven it would be carried out by mercenaries whose loyalty was specifically to the Council of Interested Parties—that ill-defined, not to say anarchic convocation of lawmakers, luminaries, and lunatics who have governed the city for a hundred and fifty years—rather than to any one of the institutions represented upon it. Organisations and individuals were, of course, still permitted to keep their own guards (and any attempt to imposerestrictions on the Eternal Lords of Ven was likely to have been nominal at best), but should there arise any circumstance in which it was necessary that a person be held against their will or, as sometimes happened in the early days, cut down in the street or burned alive in their home, that duty would fall to the Myrmidons. The institution has evolved since, being now concerned far more with detection and prevention of crime and far less with the bloody murder of dissidents. But the name, and some of the military trappings, remained.
One such trapping was the routine equipment of Myrmidon officers with some form of armament. Several of the persons who now moved to encircle us drew pistols, a fact which caused Mr. Donne and myself to raise our hands in a conciliatory manner; a gesture that Ms. Haas did not, apparently, feel compelled to mirror. Although the experience of being held at gunpoint by agents of law enforcement was a novel one to me it was not so startling as to distract my attention entirely from the Myrmidons’ leader.
Her colouring was unusual for Khelathra-Ven (insofar as anything could be unusual in that cosmopolitan city), since she was fair haired and possessed piercing blue eyes, but what most struck me was that she was dressed in the garb of the witch hunters of Ey. This sight was shocking to me for two reasons. Firstly, because ours is a small and insular country, both literally and metaphorically, and we seldom travel far from our homeland unless driven from it. Secondly, and more pertinently, because the Faithful Society of Witch Hunters does not admit ladies.
“I am Augur Extraordinary Joy-in-Sorrow Standfast,” she announced, “and you are all under arrest for making an affray by means of sorcery. Any of you do anything that even looks like witchcraft, everyone gets shot in the head.”
It was an uncompromising strategy but, to the best of my understanding, exactly the one pursued by witch hunters in my own country. Since magic, by its nature, is heterogeneous there is no single,reliable countermeasure that can be taken against it other than the sudden, and sometimes preemptive, termination of the sorcerer. I hoped that at least one, and ideally both, of my co-arrestees would refrain from escalating the situation.
Ms. Haas bowed theatrically and in a manner which appeared calculated to draw attention to the occult markings carved into her chest. “My dear Standfast, I’m so glad you could make it. You’re about to witness something wildly illegal and quite apocalyptic.”
“I will give you one opportunity to rescind that threat and then I will order my men to open fire.”
Though my experience at that point was limited, I thought it unlikely that Ms. Haas would rescind anything. Resigning myself to enduring a hail of gunfire, I scanned my immediate surroundings for cover. The chandelier would provide some protection, though little concealment, and I was within a short dive of an overturned table, to which I might be able to drag whichever of the others proved most tractable.
“Madam”—Mr. Donne stepped forward with surprising confidence—“you shall give no such order. I am a representative of the Ossuary Bank and you have neither cause nor authority to employ force against me.”
To the best of my knowledge, the gentleman had the right of the situation. Being located on an island in the strait, the Ossuary Bank was not strictly part of the city and enjoyed, therefore, an element of independence from its laws. This technicality, however, did not seem to move the Augur Extraordinary.
“If your employers have a problem, they may register a complaint at New Arcadia Yard. Right now, all I see is a coven of witches calling up cursed spirits against innocent citizens.”
I had no doubt that this was indeed how she saw it. In Ey we had learned the hard way that magic, if left unchecked, could subvert and strangle and corrupt anything it touched. We had responded byburning it from our lands with sacred fire, and it appeared that Augur Extraordinary Standfast was keen to do the same to Khelathra-Ven.
“You see?” said Ms. Haas with an air of self-satisfaction that I felt the situation far from warranted. “What we have here is a dreary little jobsworth with delusions of fanaticism. She will never be reasonable. Therefore, our only logical course of action is to kill her and all of her soldiers.”
Any hope I had entertained that Mr. Donne or I might be able to de-escalate the situation evaporated. The second explicit death threat proved beyond the tolerance of Augur Extraordinary Standfast, who, at once, ordered her officers to fire. Having time to pull only one of my companions to safety and reasoning that Ms. Haas would not thank me for interfering with her confrontation, I pushed Mr. Donne to the floor for the second time that evening and we sheltered ourselves behind the overturned table I had previously identified. Mr. Donne was holding my hand rather tightly, but I attributed this to the anxieties inherent in our circumstances.
The air was filled with the crackling of gunshots and the screams of angry spirits. Not wishing to expose myself to either hazard, I looked out from my hiding place only cautiously. The Myrmidons, including their leader, were being violently assailed by ghostly figures, a contingency that rendered their aim somewhat inaccurate although I still saw fresh blood staining the silk at Ms. Haas’s shoulder and ribs.
Beside me, Mr. Donne shut his eyes and began murmuring verses I couldn’t follow in the language of ancient Khel. A few moments later, the apparitions vanished and a chill I had stopped noticing faded from the air.
Ms. Haas whirled upon our makeshift barricade. “I was using those, you presumptuous little corpse-prodder.”
At which point Augur Extraordinary Standfast, having recovered her composure far more rapidly than her fellows, stalked forward and pressed her pistol to my companion’s temple. “Shaharazad Haas, youare under arrest for making an affray by means of sorcery, for assaulting officers of the Myrmidons by means of sorcery, and for resisting arrest by means of sorcery.”
“Oh, just shoot me and get it over with,” sighed Ms. Haas. “I’ve had a long day.”
“I would dearly like to, but the law ties my hands and the Creator commands us to obey the law no matter how misguided.” The Augur Extraordinary snapped her fingers in the direction of her followers. “Put them in irons. All of them.”
Two of the less incapacitated Myrmidons seized us and hauled us out from behind our somewhat bullet-scarred table.
“I must protest,” protested Mr. Donne.
