Goose Chase

I found the first cypher in a dry-as-Sahara treatise on Victorian table settings.

By the time I'd found the third, I'd scoured all the public libraries in the city, and was now methodically combing through each and every private library in each doge's residence - that is, their summer palace, their winter palace, and also their spring cottages and country camps and hunting lodges. And mistress' flats, and even some servants' quarters.

I have met every type of stuffy, pompous, aggrandized flunkie who thought themselves the Librarian of the Ages. Most of them are by-blows of the doge's direct lines, and all of them are so full of themselves and their apparent irreplaceability that it's hard to breathe the rarified air in the same room with one of them, much less two. I can count all the nose hairs in each of their nostrils, right to the back of the throat.

Unfortunately, a serious side effect of basking in their presence is a penchant for insufferable erudite sentences. Please forgive me, I will attempt to rectify myself.

Drat! I will try to do better. There.

I've found most of them now. I suspect, though cannot prove, that one cypher each was given to every head of house in the 13th century. Twenty-three great houses in the city, twenty-three sources of water, coincidence? Actually, yes. A great house needs its own large source of water, so each great house was built over a different source.

But to make sure, I unearthed records into where the public fountains were, so I didn't miss any... primary sources.

As an undersecretary archeologist, I can get away with things like that. A dry collection of private cyphers, hidden within the doge's palaces, what a lovely meaningless treatise to pass my time, yes? A treasure hunt with not a speck of gold at the end of a watery rainbow. No competition, no race to publish. All nice and safe.

I didn't have to kill till I got to the fourteenth cypher.

Occasionally, servants talk amongst their peers in other palaces. Word got around that I was interested in the cyphers - why shouldn't I let their underlings do some of the early work for me? - but one intelligentsia acolyte thought he could do me better, and translated his copy before I could "borrow" it. His master's library was better organized and more complete than some of the others', which were broken and re-ordered and some pieces sold and others traded to different residences, even other bibliophile doges. He had one of the original decypher keys, neatly stacked within the same binding.

I managed to stuff his body into the priest's hole without smearing too much blood, which blended into the tacky carpet rather reasonably. I doubt any of the other servants, or even the doge's family, even remember where it is, much less the combination to open the hole. I'm sure they still wonder at the smell in the library to this day.

I may have also borrowed their book of palace blueprints. A quite orderly library, it was easy to locate. If they cannot remember where the priest hole is from their own memory, they would seek the proper book to help them in their quest. And find it missing.

The next death, I resorted to poison I keep in my signet ring. It's slow-acting and tasteless and painless, till the fatal unrecoverable heart attack. I was well gone with cypher in hand and two empty mugs to be washed before he even thought he might be in danger, and he relaxed when he survived that first day. I sincerely doubt he thought to warn others before the third day.

I changed tactics. To all eyes I became obsessed with the chemics of water, analyzing and calculating. I got permits for all the old wells, each seeping spring that ever thought to weep its way through two cracks within the city's borders.

Each one, I sampled. The ones that had run dry over the centuries? I collected soil, damp or not, and titrated it myself.

By my calculations, I have two to go.

The cypher? A twist on the Arthurian Excalibur right to rule, of course. You see, this city, like Venice, is built on its water. The decoded texts all say the same - the true ruler of this city will be the one who drinks water from every fountain and trickle and brook within its borders. No chrism oil for us, our baptism stands alone! No orb, no scepter, no crown, no robe, just life-giving waters gathered in one cup. Simple, elegant.

A copy was given to each ruling house, so they could bring their closely guarded samples to a coronation. Of course, it explains many of the coronation disasters that have plagued our history, with so many deaths days and weeks after most contested choices. Each has a variant of a magic cantrip, to be said over their cup as it is added to the royal chalice.

Two to go.

Oh, yes, there's more to the cypher. Some words to recite, some bit of extra magic, which causes the ruling to be binding on ruler and citizens. I've translated them all, accounted for transcribing errors.

Me? Yes, my signet is legitimate. Well, mostly legitimate. My half-brother holds the title of doge of our house, but we were trained together. He thought to shuffle me into the dry library stacks to keep me occupied. I learned diplomacy and leadership with our shared tutors, but was born to the wrong mother.

And learned chemistry and poisons from our house apothecary.

I sampled each and every one. Water and poison both, to build up immunity.

Two to go...

Have another drink.