The Masque of Vyle Read Online Free Page A

them first.’
    ‘It is obvious that is what we are meant to think,’ Ashanthourus threw dismissively over his shoulder. ‘The calling cards left behind as traps imply as much.’
    ‘I thought that too, at first.’ Motley shrugged. ‘Too obvious, but then I looked again and wondered why should renegades or craftworlders go to such trouble to do such a thing? Look around you… this place has been completely stripped of its spirit stones and wraithbone. The craftworlds would never take them – to even conceive of such a thing would be the blackest crime imaginable to them. Most renegades would not think to value them nor stoop so low as to steal them. No, only in Commorragh are such things as captive souls and stolen wraithbone given a blood-price so high that the kabals would commit almost any outrage to gain more.’
    ‘None of that changes what Ashanthourus has said,’ Cylia sighed. ‘A seer council may have determined that orchestrating this outrage will drive the craftworlds to unite and assail Commorragh. A single renegade with a grudge may have unleashed all of this as horrible revenge for some forgotten slight…’
    ‘Yes, to all of these things – yes!’ Motley crowed with delight. ‘I would much rather see this as some vile plot than a Commorrite kabal doing what comes naturally to them. That’s simply too dreary and depressing. I merely answered your question with my own beliefs. With your help perhaps we can prove me wrong, hmm?’
    Silence fell across the scene. Lo’tos remained squatting with his mask reset to a flashing kaleidoscope of images. Cylia and Hradhiri Ra stood before the slight figure of Motley, looking like a bony image of Death and a waif-like revenant menacing a child. Ashanthourus stood to one side appearing most kingly in his hauteur. Nonetheless, as final arbiter of the activities of his troupe it was the High Avatar who finally broke the silence.
    ‘So then what would you have me do?’ Ashanthourus said.
    ‘As I explained, I don’t really know who did this or why.’ Motley smiled. ‘But I do have one very pertinent piece of knowledge that can, in its turn, resolve all the other questions.’
    ‘And what would that be, Motley?’ Hradhiri Ra whispered. ‘And why have you waited this long to share it?’
    ‘Because of your insistence in questioning me about who did it,’ said Motley with an impossibly infuriating grin. ‘You pushed entirely beyond what I knew to what I surmised. I can scarcely be held responsible for that now, can I?’
    Hradhiri Ra tilted his skull mask in response. ‘I recall now why we strive to cross paths irregularly,’ the Death Jester whispered. ‘Pray forgive my impatience and continue.’
    ‘Just so, as I was saying. I don’t know who they were or why they did this, but…’
    All four of the troupe principals looked at the slight figure of Motley with ill-concealed impatience as he once again paused for dramatic effect.
    ‘…I know where they went.’
    ‘This is the one,’ Motley said a sly grin. ‘I entered through that portal over there and when I examined the others this was the only other one that had been activated in the recent past.’
    The sloping wall before them held a dozen leaf-shaped warpgates, none of them larger than an ordinary doorway.
    ‘It will not be hard to trace such a cavalcade of woe through the webway when we know their starting point,’ Hradhiri Ra whispered. ‘The stolen spirit stones they carried will have been wailing every step of the way.’
    They closed down all of the craftworld’s portals and locked them, save the one that Motley showed them. Cylia located the craftworld’s emergency control circuits and brought them flickering back to life for long enough to set a new course for the vast ship. They had debated long on what to do, shouted that the sacrifice of such a vessel even in its crippled state was a criminal loss to the race as a whole.
    Ultimately they could only agree that the