An Import of Intrigue Read online

  Raves for the novels of Marshall Ryan Maresca:

  “Superb characters living in a phenomenal fantasy world, with a detective story that just sucks you right into the storyline. Marshall Ryan Maresca impressed me with The Thorn of Dentonhill, but A Murder of Mages has secured me as a fan.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “A Murder of Mages was another hit for me, a fantastic read from a new talent whose star continues to be on the rise.”

  —Bibliosanctum

  “Books like this are just fun to read.”

  —The Tenacious Reader

  “[A Murder of Mages] is the perfect combination of urban fantasy, magic, and mystery.”

  —Kings River Life Magazine

  “Marshall Ryan Maresca has done it again. After introducing readers to Maradaine through the eyes of criminals in The Thorn of Dentonhill, he focuses now on the constabulary, the ones catching the criminals, in A Murder of Mages. . . . Another rollicking adventure of magic and mayhem.”

  —The Qwillery

  “Maresca’s debut is smart, fast, and engaging fantasy crime in the mold of Brent Weeks and Harry Harrison. Just perfect.”

  —Kat Richardson, national bestselling author of Revenant

  “Fantasy adventure readers, especially fans of spell-wielding students, will enjoy these lively characters and their high-energy story.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  DAW Books presents the novels of Marshall Ryan Maresca:

  THE THORN OF DENTONHILL

  THE ALCHEMY OF CHAOS

  THE IMPOSTERS OF AVENTIL*

  *

  A MURDER OF MAGES

  AN IMPORT OF INTRIGUE

  *

  THE HOLVER ALLEY CREW*

  *Coming soon from DAW

  Copyright © 2016 by Marshall Ryan Maresca.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Paul Young.

  Cover design by G-Force Design.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1738.

  Published by DAW Books, Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780756411749

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise for Marshall Ryan Maresca

  Also by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Maps

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Appendix

  Acknowledgments

  The more I do this, the more I realize the depths of gratitude I have for the help and support I’ve received in the process. When I wrote The Thorn of Dentonhill and A Murder of Mages, it was literally an act of faith: night after night, typing away because I believed in what I was doing. Now I’m here with An Import of Intrigue and whatever comes next because that faith was rewarded. As much faith was put into me as I put into the work. So many people deserve a nod on this book.

  My family, who have been the magnetic north I set my compass to through this journey. My wife Deidre, my son Nicholas, my parents Louis and Nancy, and my mother-in-law Kateri have all contributed to this work being possible.

  Kevin Jewell, who reads rough drafts and is always ready to point out when I’m taking lazy shortcuts in the storytelling.

  Rebecca Schwarz and Melissa Tyler, for taking plenty off my shoulders when this needed to be finished.

  Amanda Downum, Marguerite Reed, Caroline Yoachim, and a score of other writers who have offered advice, encouragement, and fellowship in navigating this crazy career. Also Mark Mattson for his help in brainstorming the title.

  Stina Leicht. Always Stina Leicht.

  Mike Kabongo, my agent, for the faith and trust he’s put into the work.

  Sheila Gilbert, my editor, and everyone else at DAW and Penguin Random House who have put so much into making Maradaine a reality: Betsy Wollheim, Joshua Starr, Katie Hoffman, Nita Basu, and everyone else who contributed to all the Maradaine books.

  Paul Young, who has blessed me with wonderful covers.

  Finally Daniel J. Fawcett, who in addition to constantly being a sounding board for brainstorming and other madness, lent his linguistic expertise whenever I had random questions about phonemic inventories or pronunciation. My work is consistently enriched by his input.

  Chapter 1

  THE DEAD MAN had no face.

  All that remained where a face had once been was a gruesome mess of flesh, bone, and hair. The rest of his body was no better. Satrine Rainey was astounded that it was still recognizable as a man.

  She was also astounded how, after two months as an Inspector Third Class in the Constabulary of the city of Maradaine, she had grown accustomed to sights like this. Too many of her case assignments involved dead bodies, and Captain Cinellan still delighted in assigning, in his words, the “strange ones” to her and her partner, Minox Welling.

  Since Captain Cinellan was still letting her be an Inspector Third Class, and draw the salary she needed to care for her husband and daughters, she wasn’t about to complain.

  Inspector Welling responded to the sight by pulling his pipe from his coat pocket and stuffing it with his favorite Fuergan tobacco. “We were told this one was horrible,” he said. “We were certainly not lied to.”

  Satrine stepped out of the refuse-strewn alleyway where the body had been discovered, finding little comfort in the busy streets of the Inemar neighborhood. Plenty of people were crowding a small distance away, held back by the footpatrol officers, gawking at the spectacle. Near the front of the crowd were a group of girls, around twelve or thirteen years old. Blouses with the sleeves torn off, most likely to deal with the sweltering summer heat, and tough smirks on their faces. Twenty-some years ago Satrine would have been one of those girls, trying to get a peek. There was always comfort in seeing that Inemar had chewed up and spit out someone else.

  She turned back to the alley. “Based on the heat and the smell, he couldn’t have been out here very long.”

  “Agreed,” Welling said, crouching by the mauled body. “Whoever dumped the body here made little
effort to even hide it.”

  “So our suspect is someone who would bring a dead body and dump it with other garbage in the middle of the day,” Satrine said. “In other words, an idiot.”

  “Which are, unfortunately, not in short supply.” Welling stood up and took a puff on his pipe. Looking at the cracks in the cobblestone, he added. “Almost no blood flowing from the body. The poor soul probably lost it all quite quickly.” Satrine was amazed how calm he looked, not even seeming hot, despite still wearing his overcoat in this swelter. She had left her coat at the stationhouse, wearing just her inspector’s vest and shirtsleeves. Even with that she was sweating up a swamp.

  “Anything in the trash with him that helps you determine where he came from, who he is?” Satrine asked. Welling was gifted at making brilliant observations based on minimal details.

  He shook his head and stepped out. “Nothing incriminating or remarkable. The past few days’ worth of the South Maradaine Gazette, but all that indicates is it’s probably from this neighborhood. Which I already presumed. Whoever dropped the body likely didn’t go very far to do it. Probably no more than two blocks.”

  “Why do you think that?” Satrine asked.

  “For one, as we’ve determined, idiocy. Second, the method of disposal hints at laziness. Whoever did this wanted nothing more than to get rid of the body with as little effort as possible. Come here with a wheelbarrow, drop it in the alley, and get away.”

  Satrine turned out to the crowd. “I don’t suppose anyone saw someone come by here with a wheelbarrow? Maybe carrying a dead body?”

  The girls in front chuckled, but no one gave a useful response.

  “I suppose it was worth the effort to try that,” Welling said.

  Satrine shrugged. Inemar residents weren’t particularly known for helping out the Constabulary. That had been the case in her childhood, and during her months serving here she hadn’t seen anything to show it had changed.

  A mule-drawn wagon approached the alley. The driver reined it to a stopped and hopped down. Leppin, the stationhouse’s examinarian and bodyman, came over with a wide grin on his tiny head, looking all the sillier wearing the leather skullcap with various lenses in place over one of his eyes.

  “What’s the word, specs?” he asked in his thick northeastern accent. “Heard it’s a real mangler.”

  “Quite,” Welling said. “In fact, I doubt this was done by human hands.”

  Satrine thought on this. “Factory accident? That hurts your proximity idea.” The closest works shop was over in Dentonhill. There were a couple sewinghouses in this part of Inemar, but nothing capable of threshing a man to this extent.

  “It does.” Welling puffed on his pipe a bit more. “Though that is the sort of thing it puts me in the mind of.”

  Leppin had gone back to the alley and whistled low. “I ain’t seen anything like this in a while.”

  Satrine came a bit closer. “All right, consider this. The body is horribly mangled, but casually dumped off. If this had been a true murder, someone who wanted him dead, they would have been as emotionally invested in getting rid of the body as they were in killing him. But if it’s an accident . . .”

  “Yes,” Welling said, snapping his fingers. “Then there’s no investment. The dead man is an inconvenience, as he mostly represents . . .” He thought for a moment. “He represents something dangerous they’re trying to keep quiet.”

  “Like what?”

  “Something with animals,” Welling said. “Those injuries could be from an animal.”

  Leppin nodded. “Something vicious.”

  “Another dogfighting ring?” Satrine offered. “We’ve broken up a few in the past couple months.”

  “I don’t think this was dogs,” Leppin said. He pointed to one of the enormous gashes on the man’s chest. “That’s not a bite. Not of any dog I’ve ever seen.”

  Satrine’s gaze moved from the wound to one of the bits of unsullied flesh. Near where the neck met the shoulder was a reddish-purple mark. “Leppin, clean off the blood by his neck.”

  “Eh?” He pulled out a rag and wiped it away. It was definitely purple, and not an injury from the mauling. “That’s a birthmark, isn’t it?”

  “Pretty strange one,” Leppin said.

  “Of note?” Welling asked.

  “Of note, indeed,” Satrine said. Memory flared up. “I think I know who our dead man is, Inspector. And I have a suspicion that fits our theory.”

  Gregor Henk had been a few years older than Satrine. A boy always pulling a grift or a hustle, usually for his uncle, when he wasn’t trying to get girls’ skirts off. He was also one of those boys who thought the best way to get girls’ attention was to walk around their corners with his shirt half open. That had never gotten Satrine’s interest, but she couldn’t deny that it worked on several of the neighborhood girls at the time.

  Satrine could never even contemplate it, since she had always been repulsed by the ugly purple birthmark on his neck and shoulder.

  “Gregor Henk,” she told Welling as they walked down Selim. “A lot of mouth on that boy, and not much else. To be honest, I’m surprised he lived this long.”

  “You’re certain of that?” Welling asked.

  “That birthmark is quite the giveaway.”

  “So where are we going?”

  “Giles Henk was his uncle. Kept a few tenement flops in one of the side alleys off of Selim. Was one of those guys who did his best to put crowns in his pocket by getting kids to work the streets for him. You know the type, gives them a place to bed down, but at a price.”

  “You ever?” Welling asked.

  “I did a lot of things back then to stay warm and fed.” She had done even worse as an agent in Druth Intelligence. Despite that, she had then been blessed with fourteen years of “normal” life with a doting husband in the Constabulary and two brilliant daughters. Everything had fallen on her shoulders when her husband was beaten and drowned nearly to his death. The work she was now doing, on her old streets, if that was her account coming due, she could live with that.

  “So you’re saying Giles Henk is our killer?”

  “I’m saying Giles is probably who dumped the body. A block away and incredibly lazy. So he was involved, or knows who is.”

  “Presuming he’s still alive,” Welling offered. “He’d be an old man now.”

  “I’m sure he is,” Satrine said. “He’s the sort of man who always manages to survive.”

  They approached the door, shabby and paint peeling, tucked away in a below-ground stairwell in the back of the alley. Some of Inemar had cleaned up over the years, but this part certainly hadn’t. Even the backhouse was still there at the end, though it was little more than a rotten skeleton of wood and shingles. The slightest touch would likely collapse it.

  Satrine wondered if that was the one she had been locked inside that one winter night. The memory of it happening was so clear, but now that she thought about it, she couldn’t quite recall which backhouse it was.

  Inspector Welling was already rapping his knuckles on the door.

  “No response,” he said after a minute.

  “Let me try something,” Satrine said. She gave a single hard knock, followed by six quick raps, and then waiting a moment, concluding with another hard knock.

  “Really? A secret knock?” Welling almost looked offended.

  “That’s the kind of bloke this guy is,” she said. “That’s what he thinks clever is.”

  The door opened a crack, and a leathery face covered in white hair appeared. “That’s an old code. Ain’t heard it in years.”

  “But you remembered it,” Satrine said.

  “Course I did. Who the blazes are you?”

  “City Constabulary, Mister Henk,” Welling said. “We’d like to ask you a few questions about your nephew. May we enter?”<
br />
  “Suppose,” he said, stepping back. “What’s that fool gotten into now?”

  Satrine entered the place, which smelled like sewage and rotten meat. Her stomach rebelled for a moment, but she held it down.

  The old man was still every inch Giles Henk, wearing nothing but dirty skivs, his scrawny body covered in a shaggy fleece of white hair. There was little furniture, and that which was there—a table and a couple chairs—Satrine would swear were the same ones from twenty years ago. The floor was covered in refuse—mostly newsprints, the kind often used to wrap potatoes or strikers or fish crisps.

  Henk sat down at the table and poured himself a cup of vinegary-smelling cider.

  Welling took the place in stride. “We’ve found your nephew Gregor, dead from multiple injuries, in a nearby alley.”

  “Did you?” Henk took a long drink and poured another cup. “Somebody get a jump on him?”

  “It didn’t seem to be someone—” Satrine started.

  “Because he ran up debts, I can tell you. Someone was going to grab hold of him one day or another and make him pay.”

  “Could you name anyone who might have a particular grievance? That could help our investigation.”

  Henk screwed up his face. “Name anyone? I’d have to think about it.”

  “Don’t hurt yourself,” Satrine said.

  “I know you, red?” he asked. Even with Satrine’s uncommon hair color, he didn’t recognize her. Maybe his eyes were going.

  “We’ve met before,” Satrine said. “I’ve been down here before.” She pointed to the door in the back of the room. “I remember some of the things that happened back there.”

  “Oh, what?” Henk asked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “So you don’t have kids sacked out back there? Maybe a couple you can lend to your friends?”

  “Aw, blazes, no. Been a long damn time since anything like that happened here.”

  The man had no shame about his past. She almost admired that.

  “So what’s back there now?” Welling asked, approaching the door.