Just before dawn, Akun and Aizen's eyes snapped open. They left the sleeping servants and went outside to get a good look at the papers they stole from Murdia’s room. Akun scanned their surroundings with his eyes as Aizen revealed the first message.
“This is from two years ago.” Aizen flipped the paper to read what was written on the back. Then he moved on to the next message. “It first started off with simple tasks, like getting this and that.” He looked through two more.
“How often are the messages?”
“At first they were once a few months. Now they’re once a week, or whenever she has anything new to report. There are no plans discussed in these. She will be charged for is treason, but we haven’t uncovered anything like a battle plan. Perhaps the Chief just wanted us to find the spy within the Vanson household.”
“No, it must be more than that,” Akun said as he read the latest message. He crouched and Aizen took his place as lookout. “This one has ‘Happy Halloween’ underlined. Then it says, ‘it starts soon’. What could be starting?” Akun frowned. “Who is writing these messages? The handwriting is very neat and the grammar is near perfect.”
“Not just any old person is using Murdia to send messages then. I can't imagine a servant writing it.”
Akun stared at the paper a bit more. “I might have seen this handwriting before.”
Aizen snapped his head to Akun. “Have you? Where?”
“I don’t remember.”
“That’s helpful. Look, someone’s coming.” Aizen pointed to the road.
Akun looked up as he folded the papers and handed them to Aizen. “That can’t be Leal, could it? The sun is barely up. I didn’t know nobles were awake this early.”
“It doesn’t matter. We need to get changed. Breakfast will be starting soon.”
Luda met them in the mess hall. “Did you enjoy your first night?”
Akun grinned. “Yes, thank you. It was much better than sleeping outside in the cold!”
Aizen nodded in agreement for the sake of it. He was more focused on the documents he had tucked under his shirt. There seemed to be a lot more going on here than he first thought.
“I saw someone coming in this morning,” Akun said casually.
“That would be Leal, the Duke’s son. He is Lady Arala’s dear cousin. He visits a few times a year.”
Akun's eyes widened. “Have you met him?”
Luda bit into his bread. “Yes, I have. A few times, actually. You see a lot of visitors when you’ve been working here for as long as I have. He’s a handsome fellow who is kind to the servants.”
“Does he have any brothers or sisters?” Aizen asked.
“No, not a one,” Luda said. “He is the only heir to his father’s estates.”
“Do you think we will see him?” Akun asked.
“So many questions in the morning, young Akun,” Luda said. “And yes, I believe you will meet him.”
“Don’t mind Akun. He asks way too many questions. I sometimes wonder how I put up with him.” Aizen nudged Akun’s head until Akun had to lean over to avoid a bruise from forming.
It was then that Akun saw an unknown figure standing outside in the hall who was speaking to Arala’s older brother, Honslau.
“Hey, isn’t that him?” Akun asked and brushed Aizen’s arm away. “The tall one with the sword at his hip and is wearing a cloak,” he said.
Luda turned around and smiled. “Yes, that is him.”
“Looks friendly.” Akun downed his mug of water and watched Leal move through the different tables the servants occupied. They all stood to greet him and only sat when he waved his hands. Each time, he was smiling and laughing as though enjoying a good joke.
“And here he comes,” Luda said with a smile. “Master Leal, it is such a great pleasure to have you visiting the Vanson family again.”
“I’ve been away for far too long,” Leal said when he was close. Akun had been pulled to his feet by Aizen, who for some reason had a very firm grip on the collar of Akun’s shirt. Luda did the introductions and they bowed.
Aizen’s eyes had hardened as he thought quickly of all the possibilities of Leal, the son of a Duke—the only son—having almost the same face as Jukely, the jerk he cut ties with just a week ago.
“Let me see your faces. There, no need to be shy,” Leal said to Akun. Akun tilted his head up and had a smile on his face, although the smile looked triumphant to Aizen’s eyes. He raised a brow in question.
“Welcome to the Vanson household. It is a good place to be.”
“Thank you,” they said in unison. Leal nodded and went to greet others.
“I have to find Murdia,” Luda announced after Leal was out of earshot. “There is some trouble with the well in the yard.”
“We’ll see you at noon then,” Akun said with the same smile still on his face.
“What are you so happy about?” Aizen asked when they began walking out of the mess hall themselves.
Akun gave him a surprised look. “Don’t you see?”
“See what?” Aizen was beginning to get irritated by Akun’s broad statements.
“Leal and Jukely.”
“How do you know about Jukely?” Aizen demanded.
“I saw you talking to him on Halloween. Talking about me, I suppose. He doesn’t know what he’s missing, having a rat as a partner,” Akun said in a monotone voice.
“He’s not missing anything interesting or fun, that’s for sure,” Aizen muttered.
“They must be brothers. I’ve got to hand it to the Duke, he is one sneaky man. He has two sons born in the same year. I wonder how the Duchess feels about it.”
Aizen stopped. “What did you just say? Aren’t you jumping to conclusions too quickly?”
Akun shook his head. “Are you telling me that you haven’t thought of it yourself?”
“I have, but it’s one of many possibilities!”
“Here’s how I figured it out. First, they look alike. Not only that, but the reason why the words ‘Leal, the Duke’s son’, sounds familiar to you, is because there is some relation to the name Jukely chose for himself.”
“I thought Jukely’s name was too weird to be chosen by his mother,” Aizen mused. “Juke, for Duke. And Ly, for…”
“It must be a name he made for himself. Maybe he likes to have everyone call him ‘Duke Ly’?”
“That self-centred bastard,” Aizen muttered.
Akun continued, “He must be jealous of his half brother, the one who will inherit their father’s estates because Jukely is not the Duke’s legal son. He is just a "mistake" the Duke made with a woman a while back.” They were in the shed where they collected their supplies. Akun spoke quickly now.
“But Jukely doesn't have anything to do with our errand. It's Leal. Leal has the scent of the afterlife about him. That could be dismissed for Halloween, since almost everyone brushed pass a ghost during one time or another that night. However, the scent on Leal is much stronger, even after a day and night of closure to the afterlife. There was also the scent of this on Murdia, which did not hit me until I faced Leal. Leal. He is trying to do something with the afterlife portals that are around the cities.”
Aizen cursed. “They should just destroy the portals.”
Akun shook his head. “Long ago, they thought of doing that. Every night before Haloween, everyone banded together and destroyed all the portals to the underworld where the spirits came in from. But the portals just disappeared and the spirits came through another portal. Each time, the spirits always came out angry. Anger boosts their powers. Many people who had a hand in destroying the portals were haunted by ghosts until they died or were dragged forcefully into the afterlife by more violent monsters.”
“How do you know this?”
“I read about it.”
Aizen scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders. “Go on.”
“When they gave up on destroying portals, the spirits came out of the same ones every year. But they were still angry at the people who destroyed the previous ones, so they hunted the descendants, thus the masks that everyone wears.”
“I know that part. But what does that have to do with the matter at hand?”
“What matter? Ah, yes, you are to blame, Aizen. You made me explain why portals should not be destroyed. Now back to the ‘matter at hand’, as you put it, I suspect that Leal might have a portal open.”
“They only open on Halloween…and no human can control it.”
“With magic, it might be possible. I suspect that he stopped one from closing. Although I don’t know where, I know it’s here, or near here. Murdia is his contact. I remember now. I was looking in Lord Vanson’s study and found a letter to him from Leal. It was the same handwriting.”
I can’t believe he was able to piece everything together so quickly, Aizen thought and shook his head in wonder.
“And the smell? Why is Leal keeping the portal open?”
“Most likely he’s trying to bring something over to this side of the world. Maybe there is some sort of agreement, although I’ve never heard of a spirit making a deal with a human.”
“Why would he want to do that? And what about the Ician letters?”
Akun looked at Aizen incredulously. “What makes you think I know that? You’ll have to ask Leal himself about it! But my guess is that this is only a small part of a much bigger plan.”
Aizen’s arms rose above his head and came back down in defeat. “You were sprouting out answers to every question, so I thought maybe you had an idea of what Leal himself was thinking!”
“Anyway, we should close the portal,” Akun said. He looked around. “We’ve been in here long enough. People will wonder where we went off to.”
“We'll go back to head quarters tonight,” Aizen said. “We need to tell the Chief even if he’s not going to believe that Leal is involved. Do you think anyone else is?”
Akun thought of that for a moment. “Possibly the magic user. He is rather weak, and I believe that Lord Vanson could have hired a much stronger one. He might be the magician who is keeping the portal open.”
“Which might mean that Lord Vanson has a part in this, unless the magician is acting on his own accord.”
“We don’t know that yet. But that’s it: the magician, Murdia, and Leal are part of some kind of conspiracy against Enzla with the Icians.” Akun stopped in his tracks, deep in thought. “Why would they want to betray Enzla?”
"We wouldn't know unless we stayed longer. But that's not what the Chief's looking for," Aizen said and bit his lip. "I wish we knew. It's important."
Akun agreed wholeheartedly.
“I haven’t exorcized any evil spirits in a while,” Aizen said. “This might be a good time to start again.”
Akun looked at Aizen sceptically. “Are you sure you’re up to it? You’re not a magic user, after all. Exorcisms would be harder for you.”
“Speak for yourself,” Aizen muttered as a servant holding a tray of food passed them. “You’re a rat no matter which way you look at it. How are you going to fight?”
“Simple. You will just have to wait and see.”
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