Modern Magick

The Striding Spire: 2

'Just the one rumour?' I said. 'Remarkable.'

The Baron's irresistible smile flashed. 'Actually, more than one.'

'Let's have the first one, then.'

'Is it true that there's a leak inside the Society?'

That was unexpected. I filled my mouth with ice cream and fruit, stalling for a few moments to think. What should I tell him?

He wasn't wrong. Things had got pretty interesting at work lately. We'd discovered an incredibly rare and indescribably valuable artefact (a book, talkative); faced off against a new, but nonetheless powerful rival organisation with the downright fatuous name of Ancestria Magicka who were determined to steal it; and almost got eaten alive by a haunted house and its trio of unfriendly ghosts. In the middle of all this, we'd found that word of the chatty book (Bill) had somehow leaked out, despite the fact that it had never left Home. That's how we ended up with Ancestria Magicka on our tails.

Furthermore, it wasn't just information that had gone farther than it should. Someone had actively sabotaged us by putting tracker spells on the book itself. It was clear that somebody at the Society was a turncoat, and that was alarming. But how had the Baron found out?

'Who told you that?' I finally said. 'I wasn't aware that Milady was disposed to chat about it.'

'Someone high up in the Society contacted the Troll Court a few days ago with word of a problem,' answered the Baron. 'Probably Milady herself, in fact. She requested aid.'

'Did they send you to nose around?'

He smiled, sheepish again. 'Might have.'

Hmm. It was plausible enough that Milady might seek aid from the Court. I'd become aware of more than one link between Milady, whoever she was behind the vague title, and the Troll Courts of old; if she could no longer be sure of who to trust at Home, it was not so far-fetched that she would consult her allies.

She might have mentioned it to me, though. Did that mean I, too, was suspect? I didn't think so, but I still felt a slight twinge.

I gave the Baron a brief precis of everything that had happened with the book, which he heard without interruption. 'At present we have no idea who it might be,' I said in conclusion. 'Bill caused a sensation at Home, as you might imagine. For a little while, everybody found some excuse to pass through the Library and gawk at the book. Any of them could have passed information to Ancestria, and far too many had at least some opportunity to plant a tracker spell on it. We know that someone's rotten, but we have no leads whatsoever.'

The Baron took a forkful, and chewed meditatively, his eyes faraway. 'There is a reason Milady contacted the Court,' he finally said. 'There are some ancient magicks that are only really practiced by a rare few nowadays, and the Court makes a habit of collecting them up. Sort of the way you do — preservation tactic. If we don't find and nurture those talents, the magicks might fade away altogether.'

'Quite,' I murmured.

'There used to be something called a Truthseeker, or so it was known until about the middle of the nineteenth century, by which time there were so few of them left that the word itself fell out of use. There are no human Truthseekers anymore, but there is one living who can still employ that art, and he's at the Court.'

This sounded promising. 'And Truthseeking consists of what?'

'A Truthseeker is unusually sensitive to...' He took a mouthful of his drink, and shrugged. 'I don't pretend to know how it works, Ves, you'll have to ask him. But where you and I can only guess at whether or not we're being told the truth, a Truthseeker has a much more solid idea. What's more, they can, to some degree, compel a person to speak the truth. Milady means to question the Society about the Bill incident, and she's requested our Truthseeker's presence at those interviews.'