The torn ignored her as he settled down in the hay of the feed rack.
“Don’t pay attention to that lazy floor rug,” another voice squeaked. A small black rat poked her nose out of a hole under the hay rack. “He is older than this inn and just as set in his ways. If you want to know, ask me. There were three people who came in here last night to remove the body and one more who cleaned it out this morning. That was some excitement. We haven’t seen such goings on since the last midwinter festival.”
Teza lifted her lips in a dogish smile at the rat’s cheerful chatter. “Did you see anyone else before the man died?”
“Oh, certainly. There was the man, the selkie that met him, a guard, a woman who-”
“What?” Teza barked. “A selkie. Are you certain?”
The rat stuck out her whiskers and lifted her nose. “As certain as the darkness. Smell it yourself. She leaned against that wall.”
Teza sniffed and there it was, just as Lord Gireth had said, a whiff of the lake.
In the flick of an eye, the rat disappeared and like an iron fist a hand grabbed Teza’s ruff and hauled her out of the stall. “Here, you cur. Get out!” A man, tall and well dressed, planted a boot viciously into Teza’s side. Pain lanced through her ribs. She yelped. He pulled back his foot to kick her again, but this time her dog instincts took over.
Fast as a weasel she slipped around in her loose skin and sank her teeth in his arm. His scent and the smell of his blood filled her nostrils. A cry of furious pain escaped his lips. Teza wrenched herself free from his grasp. She caught one glimpse of his face before she whirled away and galloped out of the barn to the safety of the trees.
She went just far enough to get out of sight, then she stopped and sat thoughtfully staring at the road through the evergreens. That man had looked familiar. Somewhere she had seen him very recently. Then she had it. He was the lord in the communal longhouse who had watched the kohrtar with such interest. So what was he doing in the stable where Lord Gireth was murdered?
Without realizing what she was doing, Teza’s tongue lolled out and she started panting while her mind ranged over a hundred questions. Particularly, why was a selkie, a freshwater creature of the gentlest nature, in a stable with a murder victim? Why hadn’t Lord Gireth’s shade mentioned her?
Keeping one eye on the inn for the lord with the heavy boot, she searched the road and the paths leading to the inn for some tell-tale hint of the seal woman. The ground was frozen and the snow had been tramped by dozens of humans and animals, but finally, Teza’s keen nose found another trace of that odd watery smell. It lay along a frozen path seldom used that wound through the trees and made its way at an oblique angle to the river and the city.
Others had left their trails behind but here and there, clinging to the frozen ground lay that elusive scent. With the utmost care Teza snuffled down the path until it intersected the road at the low bridge. She trailed onto the bridge, her tail wagging, and came to a stop in the middle. The selkie apparently paused there, for her scent covered a spot on the low stone wall and two delicate feet had scuffed the snow along the edge.
Teza lifted her front paws to the stone wall and peered down at the swiftly flowing river below. What had the Selkie done here? Had she resumed her seal form and fled back into the water? Had she dropped something?
Thoughtfully, Teza went back to her search of the road, and there, beyond the bridge, the selkie’s trail continued. Teza followed it toward Immilmar and the section of the city where the large houses of the wealthy merchants and the lords crowded against the banks of the river. She was nearly among those houses when the road joined a larger thoroughfare and she lost the scent in a bewildering mob of smells from people, ponies, wagons, and other dogs.
She flopped down under a tree to rest and think. Her paws hurt from ice balls that had collected between the pads of her toes, so she gnawed them out while she pondered everything she had learned so far, which, she had to give the witch credit, she would not have discovered as a human. Being a dog had some interesting advantages. In fact, learning this new identity and trying something so different was positively exhilarating.
Twilight crept into the city by the time Teza decided what to do. There was one creature, a resident of Lake Ashane, who just might-for old time’s sake-help her. Her mind made up, she ran easily out of the city and down to the shores of the Lake of Tears to look for the aughisky. Several times she had slipped down to the lake just to see how he fared. She knew his habits and favorite haunts, and she hoped to find him quickly.
Just as she suspected, he was in the second cove she tried. Blacker than night and exquisitely formed, the aughisky was a carnivorous water horse who preyed on human flesh. Teza had once bound him to her with the attraction magic of a hippomane, but early that winter she had freed him. She hoped fervently he would remember her and stay on shore long enough to hear her plea.
The horse stiffened when he saw a tall, shaggy dog trot toward him, then he dropped his glorious head and touched noses. “Oh, it’s you,” he snorted in amusement.
Teza stared up in surprise. “You can talk?”
“To animals. I do not eat them. I smell magic on you. A spell?”
She woofed a yes. “The witches did this to help me. I have to find someone.”
“The witches. Interesting.” He eyed the water’s edge and made a move as if to leave.
“Don’t go,” Teza barked hastily. “Please, I have a favor to ask. For Kanlara.”
The aughisky turned his attention back to her. “Why?”
“She is in trouble. I must find a selkie who is living on land now. Probably close by.”
The aughisky lowered his head. His fiery green eyes peered at her through his long mane. “There is only one I know of. She was taken by a man and lives with him in the city.”
“Do you know who?”
He snorted contempt. “They are all the same to me.”
“I think she may have dropped something off the bridge.”
“And you want me to look for it.”
Teza nodded once. He would either do it or refuse, and all the begging in the world would not sway him.
The aughisky nickered a sound that reminded Teza of laughter. “Wait here,” he said, then plunged into the dark water and was gone.
The cloud cover broke during the night and sunlight streamed over the lake at dawn. Teza crawled from her nest of dead leaves under a tree and stretched deliciously in the clear light. The cold did not seem so biting that morning, and the wind had died to a mere breath. She was about to look for some breakfast when something large and heavy plunged out of the lake. She whirled around, hoping it was not a water troll, and saw the aughisky prance out of the water carrying something in his mouth. He dropped his trophy at her feet.
Teza took a long look and a longer sniff and barked her gratitude. The soggy, cold things lying in the snow still reeked of Gireth’s blood despite their immersion in the river. One was a dagger shoved askew into a beautifully tooled leather sheath; the other was a lady’s coin bag that had been badly stained and thrown away. Embroidered in the fine fabric was the emblem of the Vrul clan. Teza grinned wolfishly.
“Now I know where to look,” she told the aughisky. “Thank you.”
The water horse bobbed his head. “You can thank me by helping the selkie if you can. She did not ask to be taken from her family.”
Teza nodded and watched the black horse return to his watery home. Full of excitement, she headed back to Immilmar where she carefully hid the dagger and the bag in a place she often used for her stolen goods. Everything was falling into place. Perhaps, with a little luck, she would find the selkie, learn the truth, and have Kanlara out of that prison by nightfall.