Chapter 31

Torrea was sitting in the garden, bending down to examine the engravings when Zuri emerged from the shed. The man was tracing the carving with his fingers and expressing frustration. Zuri cleared his throat and the man bolted upright while scooping up a knife.

“Where did you get the knife?” Zuri asked.

“From a dead body in the foyer of the Great Hall,” Torrea said. “You were busy, and I was empty-handed.”

“True enough,” Zuri said, taking a seat. “Do you think this place serves tea?”

“The man and woman fled the premises,” Torrea said. “All is quiet as we are the only two here presently. I have no idea who to summon to stand guard or even how to arrange such a thing.”

Zuri stood up and stretched. “Give me a half-copper.” He walked out the front door and mimicking Leniz so long ago, he put his pinkies in the corners of his mouth and let out a loud whistle. Sure enough, a minute or two later, a gangly lad came trotting up to the door. “You called, good sir?”

“Do you know the White Owl in Borgin?” Zuri said, showing the coin. “Tell the madam Zuri needs three people to staff the Patriarch’s house immediately. Be quick about it.”

Zuri walked back inside and shut the door. He meandered into the kitchen and saw there was still a fire in the belly of the stove. He filled the kettle and placed it on the top, after poking the ashes and adding some charcoal. The tea was in the jar with TEA painted on it. Ambling out to the garden, he explained that the tea would be ready soon.

“What does this image depict,” Torrea asked, frustrated.

“Each side depicts one of the forecourts a Ghura uses to train,” Zuri said. “There are not twelve movements but twenty in the first forecourt. There are sixty more to master after the first twenty. Despite learning the Arcane steps well at the Seminary, it took me nearly a year to master the first forecourt. The Gura have lost almost everything.”

“Having seen you disappear in the chair, I cannot argue with the conclusion,” Torrea said. “Where are we?”

“Between a rock and hard place,” Zuri said. “I found the Sacred Guardians. The Master has been murdered, the second concussed, the third has both arms broken, and the fourth is physically capable and only a journeyman. Abans tortured and murdered the Chancellor; what I saw was brutal, gruesome. His notes are untouched only because the Provost couldn’t find them, I’m guessing. However, if he had any answers for us, we will not know for hours. We will have the house staffed in a few hours as well.”

“You could run this entire institution by yourself,” Torrea said.

“No, thank you and no, I could not manage,” Zuri said, listening for the kettle. “I have my own to run, which is intimidating enough.” The kettle whistled.

Zuri returned with the tea set on a tray. “I found some biscuits as well.” He poured both of them a cup and settled back down in his seat. The late afternoon sun crept into the garden.

“I’m surprised the Royal Guard haven’t pounded on the door yet,” Torrea said. “Surely, they know something is terribly amiss at the Great Hall.”

“They’re even more in the dark than we are. They don’t know what is happening though or who is alive or dead,” Zuri said. “I left the last eyewitness to our final moments in the building with no way out; the door on the side had already been dropped by the building staff. I hope his death was long and painful.”

Torrea raised an eyebrow.

“The Long Tucks abducted my Pira for Provost Abans. When he said he had her tortured her to death, he was speaking of them. Even so, I sent that thug to his death because we don’t want any eyewitnesses to testify. We want the origin of the abomination to disappear as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. A touch of revenge was a nice grace note though.”

“Why?” Torrea asked, putting down his cup.

Zuri scratched his beard. “I have put the puzzle together and this is what I see. The progenitors of the Gura faced the same heresy, the same abomination. The difference is they couldn’t contain the miasma like the Great Hall does at this moment. The miasma spread beyond their open-air building to threaten the entire complex if not the entire settled area. They were forced to physically remove themselves from the source of contamination and cut nearly every tie with their past. They left clues for a distant future to recover their past once the miasma had dissipated. The clues that remain are the elixir, the table before us, the Pointing Chayre, the Arcane Dance, and the Gura staff.”

“If your conjecture is true, then how could the miasma reemerge in our day?” Torrea asked.

“Someone smuggled out one document too many when they fled,” Zuri said with a question mark in his voice. “The existence of the formula or the formula itself survived despite the thoroughgoing precautions. The Chancellor found it. The Provost ran with the discovery with the same lust, greed, and gluttony that destroyed the Ghura.”

“Ghura?”

“The progenitors of the Gura,” Zuri said. “Even the name is a clue. I am the first Ghura in two thousand years.”

“How?” Torrea said, still almost speechless.

“I returned to the homeland, even though I knew not what it was. I danced in the first forecourt and became a Master. I returned here to reclaim whatever I needed to return the Ghura to the world. What I found is the great disaster that destroyed the Ghura in the first place.”

“This is all fascinating, but how does it fit into the absence of the Royal Guard?”

“The Royals have a different agenda. Sending the guard to arrest the Gura would be understood in the Kingdom as a final clarion call to rebel against the Crown,” Zuri said. “With the onerous taxes and the heavy-handed tactics of the Lords, the Kingdom is ripe for a rebellion. All the people need to rebel is a spark.”

“Dear God,” Torrea said. “We are between a rock and a hard place.”

Zuri stood up and paced. “I don’t think the Sacred Guardians are going to find a solution.”

“What makes you say that? You found the scrolls and the chancellor’s notes.”

“The Ghura abandoned their city,” Zuri said. “They forced the evacuation of the entire Plain without explanation. They even put in place protocols to keep people from returning. If they did all these things, then the reason must be they could not contain or destroy the miasma. They expected a thousand years to purify the land again.”

“You could be wrong,” Torrea said. “Drawing conclusions from a distant past with minimal evidence is a dicey proposition.”

“We will know in hours,” Zuri said. “What do we do now?”

“First we gather what Guras are still alive and capable,” Torrea said. “Bring what leaders we can find back here. Second, we secure the Seminary and whatever monies are in the various treasuries; we don’t want that money to walk away and disappear. I’m sure Provost Abans has some private accounts that need to be liberated as well. We will be using those funds to save our necks. The goal is to save the Gura as a whole. Third, we send an emissary to the Crown, requesting an audience after the first two goals are complete.”

“Sounds like dirty dealings to me,” Zuri said.

“Hello?” someone called out from the front of the house.

Zuri gave Torrea a look. Both men took up their weapons and proceeded to the front of the house. Ellabeth led the procession of two other women and a strongarm with a large sack draped over his shoulder. “Did you find me a new house?” she asked sweetly as she sashayed up to Zuri and planted a kiss on his cheek.

Torrea snorted. “How? How in the mechanisms of heaven and earth do you have women, wine, and the blessings of the land falling over you morning, noon, and night?”