Ghosts in the office

[Matías]

Asha'man Sajir Nareth

The Black Tower of today was a far cry from the ramshackle farmhouse Sajir had first seen. Now, the main keep was a soaring black edifice of stone and saidin-laced concrete, strong enough to survive a siege but far more practical than its White Tower counterpart. He was prone to such moods from time to time, catching up to him as he studied the yards beyond the window of the M’Hael’s office.

Sajir’s examination of the office was measured with the tread of a man who found little to trust in stillness. He was a tall man, his movements few and economical. His long, dark hair was braided and adorned with silver ornaments today, lay against the black fabric of his coat. His dark, deep-set eyes, characteristic of Arafel, were sharp and restless, flicking over the room’s rich, dark wood and the deep crimson hangings that Daniel Larnier had favored.

Larnier. The fourth M'Hael to fall since Mazrim Taim. The burden of those deaths, the long lives Sajir had glimpsed for each of them in the Pattern's myriad strands lay heavy on his shoulders, a persistent, dull ache beneath his breast. What might have been did not always come to pass.

He focused on the room. The body, thank the Light, was gone. The blood had been scrubbed away with meticulous weaves, but the feel of the violence remained. A raw, grating discord in the air, like a discordant chime that still reverberated even though the striker was gone seeped into his soul. Had they a Sniffer, they may not have been able to stand in here, but Sniffers were few and far to find these days. So Sajir stretched his senses, tasting the faint residues of saidin, a chaotic, wild surge, followed by a sudden, brutal stop. It must have been Arikan’s signature, certainly. A Dreadlord they had all thought ten years dead.

A sudden, jarring stiffness seized him. His eyes went flat, fixing on the dark space just behind the M'Hael's large desk, and the world seemed to split into twin scenes overlaid upon each other.

Larnier, years younger, laughing with a woman. A flash of white-hot light followed, and Larnier standing before the Dragon Reborn, taking the M'Hael's pin. Then, a quick-cut image of the Dreadlord Arikan standing above his body.

The scene lurched, changing into something dark and distorted. Surrounding the dead M’Hael were shapes that were not human. Tall, gaunt figures, indistinct and smoky, they writhed and pulsed at the periphery, draining the warmth from the air, seeming to consume the very substance of the shadows.

Ghosts. Devils. The instantaneous, damning thought struck Sajir, an icy blade in his mind. The work of the Dark One, twisting the vision, confirming the deeper malice at play perhaps.

He blinked and the image shattered like glass, and the solid reality of the M'Hael's office snapped back into focus. He took a slow breath, the metallic scent of old, vanished blood filling his lungs. An Echo. Always about important things woven tightly into the Pattern. But this time, the shadowy figures tempted a deep suspicion. Arikan had not acted alone. Nothing about how Arikan had bypassed the vault wards. Nothing about the why of the Dedicated guard being left alive.

That last part grated on him. It was a lapse in the pattern of a man who killed for sport and spite. He remembered the pile of papers found scattered near the breached vault door. He had them tucked away in his own chambers in case there was a small, senseless clue hidden in them, but the senseless things often held the key to the most brutal truths.

He moved behind the desk. Auden, the new M’Hael, had given him leave to examine the scene, though the room had already been searched and rifled. The new M'Hael was already at work, distributing trusted Asha'man to the north. Shienar. Sajir snorted inwardly. Threats were constant in the Borderlands; one learned to live with them.

Sajir ran a hand over the polished desktop, seeking a stray thread of the Power, a forgotten memory, something. Larnier’s personal effects had already been cataloged. But something caught his eye: a small, ceramic mug filled with a dozen or more discarded pens, some with dried, clotted ink on their nibs, some half-chewed.

Pens. He recalled the report. A half-used fountain pen had been recovered from Larnier’s pocket. Why would a man carry a half-used pen on his person if his desk was full of them?

Sajir’s gaze drifted to the pigeonholes on the desk’s face, which held official-looking letters and correspondences. He had glanced at them before. Standard reports and nothing noteworthy. Now, he picked up a sheet of parchment, his mind turning over the anomaly of the pens. He looked closer at the looping, formal script all in Larnier’s hand.

His breath hitched. He had missed it before because the cipher was good. Too good. It wasn't simple code; it was a substitution based on the context of the letter itself, a weave of meaning hidden within mundane prose. A system so seamless that he had not even registered it as a code, only as slightly dense writing. A fastidious attention to detail, much like the one he had applied to his father's leather-working years ago.

“Fascinating,” he muttered, the Arafellin accent thin but present. He straightened, his gaze darting around the empty room.

The cipher would require a key. Where would Larnier hide such a key? Not a slip of paper in the desk, not with the level of caution this code implied.

The pen in his pocket. A half-used one. A pen that had perhaps written the key.

And what did men of great responsibility keep a diary for? A record of coded transactions. A personal journal. Daniel was not the sentimental type so much as Sajir could recall. But the pen was found on the body. The theft of the objects of the Power and the murder of the M'Hael were two distinct actions. But what if Arikan had come not just for the objects, but for the information?

If Daniel Larnier kept a diary, and the key to this masterful cipher was within it... then the Dreadlord Arikan had not only murdered the M'Hael and looted the vault, but he had also retrieved a personal journal before departing. A journal that no one else in the Tower seemed to know existed. And he had left the Dedicated guard alive simply because the man had not seen him take it. A far more efficient, far less chaotic move than Arikan’s usual style.

Sajir exhaled slowly, coming to a new understanding of this picture.  He would have to share this. Auden, the new M'Hael, would not like it, but the Dragon Reborn must be told.