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To Dream of Darkness

A story by DoggyStyle57

Chapter 51, Written October 2012

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Chapter 51 - The mysterious stranger

The mysterious stranger tipped his hat to Sarina, and said calmly, "No need for threats, Lady Sarina. Merely do what we require of you, and you'll be paid the full amount of our original offer, as well as having our assurance that we will not try to bring any attention to your origin. You can start by going to that address and observing what happens there, without making your activities known to the residents. You will be contacted and given the promised information once you are in the vicinity of the home."

"And how do I let you know the results of my efforts, or prove that I did them?" Sarina asked. "You have given me no way to contact you. And if I am successful, there will be no trace that I did anything at all."

The stranger thought for a moment, looking around her shop, and then replied, "When you have completed your task, put a new statue just outside your door. Let's see. I think a badger will do. Make it five and a half feet tall, of black granite, and have him dressed as a gardener. Someone other than I will come here within two days of you putting it on display, will admire it, state they have the perfect place for it in their garden, and will offer to pay you precisely the sum that I just offered you, to purchase that statue. If anyone else offers to buy it, at any other price, feel free to sell it and replace it with another, until our agent offers you the correct price. As for your proof, we will trust your word, against our ability to tell what we know of you, if in fact this individual acts on what he may have learned from the documents. But do begin quickly, my dear. If you fail to act, and he does act, well, the results would be quite unfortunate... for you. It is in your own best interest to act promptly to ensure that he cannot use that information. Good evening, then."

While they had debated the assigned task, night had fallen outside. Sarina glared at the man from her doorway, as he left her shop and walked down the lamp lit street in the direction of downtown. 'ASHA! Come to your Mistress at once!' she mentally commanded, without taking her eyes off the stranger.

In her workshop's forge, the coals of the fire that remained banked at all times suddenly bloomed into a ball of black fire, in which two acid green eyes could be seen. 'Yes, Mistress?' the black fire elemental replied in the same manner, mind to mind.

'A Human just left my shop. Follow him, but do not let him see you. I want to know where he goes, who he speaks to, and what they say to each other. GO!' Sarina commanded.

The uncanny flame vanished at once from the forge. Asha moved instantaneously and became a presence in a street lamp's flame, just ahead of the stranger. She watched, passively, moving from lamp post to lamp post to keep the stranger always in her sight.

'His appearance shifts, Mistress, but I know the feel of his presence now. He is a mage, but not a powerful one, unless he hides his capabilities amazingly well,' Asha reported to the mind of Sarina. 'He already no longer looks Human. He appears to be canine now. And his clothes have changed as well. If I hadn't been looking right at him when he changed, or if my senses were limited to mortal capabilities, I could have lost him. But his mind is so well shielded that it identifies him to me, even in a crowd. He's the only one on the street at the moment who my other senses detect only as a magical presence, but not as a mind whose surface thoughts I might discern.'

'I could not detect his thoughts or emotions either, though I did not try to force my way past his defenses,' Sarina replied mentally. 'What is he doing now?'

'He bought a flower from an old Ferret woman with a cart on the corner. Said nothing other than to select which flower he wanted. He's pausing and looking around the street as he puts the flower in the buttonhole of his coat. Oops! He almost spotted me! Suddenly turned and stared suspiciously, right at the lamp I was in just an instant ago. I moved to another just in time,' Asha reported. 'I am afraid he suspects that he's being watched or followed. He's walking faster now. He just turned and cut through a churchyard, but that would only be a problem for me if I had to follow him on foot. He stopped by a crypt to stare at a young fox that was walking fairly close behind him on the street, but the boy paid him no attention and kept right on walking. He's moving again. Now he's on the street on the other side of the block. He turned quickly and ducked into some kind of club. Hellfires! That damned place is warded so tight I can't sense him now! I am sorry Mistress. I have lost him.'

'He might come out again. Learn what you can about that place, and if he doesn't reappear in an hour, let it go,' Sarina replied. She worked for another hour on her gargoyle, and then closed up her shop, hailed a horse cab, and told the driver to take her to a church not far from the address on the slip of paper.

As she rode in the cab, Sarina debated changing her own appearance. But that didn't seem a good idea if someone was supposed to contact her with further information. So when she arrived at the church, she paid the cab driver and then spent a few minutes admiring the gargoyles and other stonework, as if studying the church sculptures as inspiration for her own projects. Then she started to walk to her uncle's mansion, along a route that would take her past the address on the paper.

Two blocks before she arrived at the address, she passed a flower seller with a cart full of small bouquets of flowers. The old woman selling the flowers called out to her, "Buy some pretty flowers, your ladyship? I've just the thing for a fine lady the likes of you."

Sarina paused and looked at the woman, who was an elderly ferret. 'Asha? Describe the flower seller the stranger bought his boutonniere from.' Sarina mindsent, as she said politely to the old lady, "Well, I don't know. What do you have?"

As the ferret rummaged around in her cart, Asha mentally described to Sarina the flower seller she had seen an hour earlier. Her description exactly matched the woman Sarina was looking at.

"Ah! Here's just the thing!" the ferret lady said, taking a bouquet from where it had been hidden in a cupboard in the end of her cart. "See? These go so well with your eyes! You really do want them don't you... Lady Sarina?"

"I see you know who I am. Yes, I'll take them," Sarina replied, "How much?"

The old woman named a small sum, and Sarina paid her, taking the flowers. She could see that the cone of paper the flowers were wrapped in had some writing on the inside, and that there was a small box nestled deep in the cone, among the stems of the flowers. At the next alley she looked back, and the flower seller was already gone. No one else was on the street that she could see, so she ducked into the alley and looked at the writing inside the paper cone.

There were four diagrams that seemed somewhat familiar from her more esoteric magical studies, as well as the name of the person she was to use her skills on, some information about his daily habits and associates, and a note indicating that the box contains a ring very recently worn by the named person.

Sarina certainly recognized the name. It had been prominent in the newspapers several times in the last few weeks. The person whose mind she was to alter was none less than Sir Jeremy Fields... a noble bulldog said to be a distant cousin of the Queen, and a rather vocal member of liberal Whigs party in the House of Lords!

Sarina reassembled the bouquet and cast a spell to shrink the entire thing into a small silver charm on her necklace, where it would be safe. Then she walked back out onto the street and headed toward Sir Jeremy's home, as she considered the information she had been given.

Most important, of course, was the fact that Sir Jeremy was an active member of the British Parliament. His position in the House of Lords was a hereditary one, which he took up four years ago, replacing his deceased father.

Sarina's father had been, and her uncle still was, entitled to a seat in the House of Lords. Both of them had minor inheritable titles as Barons, but they had chosen not to involve themselves in politics. If Sarina had been male, she could have taken her father's seat in the House of Lords after his death. But since she was female, her father's potential political position would skip her, and she only got the peerage title. But if she bore a male child, that son would inherit Sarina's rank, and could also assume position in the House of Lords as soon as he was legally an adult.

Sir Jeremy Fields was also a member of the Gentleman's Garden Society (GGS) - a fraternity with interests in horticulture, particularly in the importation and cultivation of rare or exotic plants. He tended to take his luncheon at their club each weekday.

Sarina noted as she passed Sir Jeremy's home that, as she had expected, his mansion was tightly warded against magical intrusion. She got a glimpse of Sir Jeremy and what must have been one of his daughters through a window, but didn't linger to look at them.

Once she was out of sight of the mansion, she hailed another horse cab for a ride the rest of the way to Pennington Mansion. She didn't want to use any magic close to his home, as that might be detected.

As she rode in the cab, she considered another particularly promising fact that had been in the information she had been provided with. Sir Jeremy was married, and had a son and two daughters, but he also had a mistress - a girl almost as young as his own daughters. He saw his mistress three times a week, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, meeting her in an apartment on the lower east side of London. It was Tuesday today, so the next two afternoons she could count on Sir Jeremy spending some time away from the wards and protections of the House of Lords, his club, or his home, while he enjoyed his mistress. She decided that was where she would try to get at him.

===

At home, she had a late supper with Lord Pennington, but told her uncle that she had some magical studies to perform before joining him in bed for the evening. She went first to her room, accompanied by Asha.

"Well, what did you find out?" Sarina asked.

"The building that the stranger vanished into is a somewhat unusual gentleman's club, Mistress," Asha replied. "It has rather extensive grounds, and the members seem devoted to growing exotic plants."

"Oh really? Is it called the 'Gentleman's Garden Society'?" Sarina asked at once.

"Why, yes! That was what was on a brass plaque at the entry gate. You know of this place, Mistress?" the elemental replied.

"Only indirectly. My target is a member of the same club," Sarina said. "What can you tell me about the place?"

"Well, I only saw males going in and out of the building, or out walking in the gardens, which were both extensive and quite elaborate. The sign at the gate clearly says women are not allowed in the building. That seems odd, since I thought mortal women were more inclined to growing flowers and gardens than males are. And it makes no sense at all that the building is magically warded the way it is. Why would a bunch of plant fanatics care if scrying or telepathy could be used in their vicinity?"

"Maybe they are quite secretive about their flower growing secrets?" Sarina replied, not sounding at all convinced of the idea herself. "I agree, it sounds peculiar."

"Will there be anything else, Mistress?" Asha asked.

"One more thing," Sarina said, as she took the silver bouquet charm off her necklace and restored it to its original form. She put the flowers in a vase and added some water, and then unrolled the papers they had been wrapped in, spreading them out on her bed. "Do these symbols look familiar to you? I recall them from a spell I read somewhere, and tomorrow I will check my magical reference books. But if you have any insights as to their arcane meaning, please tell me."

Asha's eyes got a little wide, and she replied, "I definitely do recognize them, Mistress. These last three are used in the summoning of a greater demon. They would seem familiar to you because they are similar to the lesser ones you had to use to summon me, and you had to use this one and that one specifically to summon the intermediate demon that you got your immunity from fear from."

"Ah! That makes sense now. Yes, it's been a while since I cast that spell, but you're right - the second and third ones are from that summoning spell," Sarina said. "But what about this first one? You skipped over it. Don't you recognize it?"

The symbol was a shepherd's crook crossed with a bill hook - an odd combination of a passive farming implement and a sharp-edged pole arm most often used in war, whose only agricultural use might be in pruning tree branches. Asha nodded, and said, "That one, Mistress, is not a magical symbol. It's one of the symbols of a very ancient co-fraternity, who call themselves 'The Shepherds of Order'. Some of their members are mages, some are politicians, and some of them are apparently common individuals. But they all have one interest in common - acquiring power by manipulating the affairs of others, behind the scenes. They are a powerful and ruthless organization, Mistress. And what is in the box?"

"A ring, but I haven't looked at it yet. The notes say that Sir Jeremy wore it almost constantly," Sarina said, as she opened the small box, and they both looked at the contents.

Inside, nestled in a slot in black velvet padding, was a man's ring. It was solid gold, with a round, flat onyx stone set in the top. And inlaid into the stone in pure silver was the same crossed shepherd's crook and bill hook design.