Page 62 of A Trade of Blood

“That is the Kurmin tongue,” I said, squinting at the characters through the soot. “Though I don’t know their meaning.”

Tauri pushed past me to examine the four little beads embedded in the door. “These tumblers…they areverycurious. They aren’t wheels or anything so simple! They appear to have—oh, hell—more thanthirty sides apiece?” He sighed and rubbed his face in dismay, indifferent to the smears of soot. “You’d better get your immunis, then. She likely needs to see this—and I pray she can make sense of it!”

—

Ana stood beforethe door, head bowed, one skeletal hand placed against its steel surface. She listened as Tauri and I described it, as well as its discovery. Seriv lurked at the back, squinting at the door as if worried it might pop open and another inferno would come pouring out.

“We believe the door was stationed under a stairway,” said Tauri. “If I were to guess, it was quite hidden—perhaps by a tapestry or curtain or some such. The surviving servants claim to know nothing of it at all. It is locked with a most marvelously complex little combination sequence. It does not use wheel tumblers, but rather a set of triacontahedron apparats that seem to use some manner of lodestone embedded within it.”

“Ahh—what, sir?” said Seriv.

“It means,” said Tauri, “that we are not looking at trying to hit the right combination of a sequence of four of, say, one through ten on a metal wheel. This would be one ofthirty,four times over. Which is, I think, some ghastly number of potential combinations…”

“810,000, I believe,” muttered Ana.

We all stared at her.

“I saidI believe,” she sniffed. “I might be off!”

“I…shall take your word on that,” said Tauri. “So. Stands to reason just flipping the little thirty-sided tumblers randomly about in their sockets isn’t going to get us there.”

“What’s actually on the damned things?” I asked.

“The tumblers appear to have the same sets of symbols, at least, which is a relief. Digits zero through ten, followed by nineteen characters of the imperial standard alphabet. As to why it doesn’t haveallthe characters, I’ve no idea. It excludes some of the least common ones, though. Noz,noq—bit odd for a Kurmini fellow, these are pretty well-used in their tongue—but it also lacks the Saziyulatand the Stravsitrinami.”

“There’s no possible way that we could determine what the proper combination is?” I asked.

“Probably not,” said Tauri. “If Burav had left us a simple lock that needed the proper key, my people could probably pick it pretty swiftly.We spatiasts are cunning craftsmen, you see…But tumblers are much trickier.”

“Yet it looks like old Burav might have left us a clue,” said Seriv. “What’s it say at the top of the door there?”

“It’s Kurmin,” I said. “It reads—Jiltirlik arkasani qunarli.But I don’t know the translation, but we’ve many Kurmin folk about, so—”

“Brilliance is forever fecund,” said Ana. “There. I have saved you the time.”

Tauri glanced at her sidelong. “I was hoping you might have some guidance, Immunis Dolabra…”

“Guidance?” said Ana. “No.” A poisonous look stole over her. “It is a riddle. And Idespiseriddles.”

“You do?” I said, surprised. “I thought you would li—”

“Oh, yes, yes, just because I am a detective, people think I delight in puzzles!” she sneered. “But a riddle is only as smart as its creator is stupid, for an idiot finds many things in this world confusing and assumes them to be clever! Riddles are always products of a mindtryingto be cunning, so they can lead to all sorts of dunderheaded shit. The trick is making yourself as stupid as the creator and imagining what they might believe to be ingenious!” She glowered through her blindfold at the door as if it had personally insulted her. “Fuck’s sakes! Is there a way to disassemble it?”

“Certainly,” said Tauri. “If you’re willing to wait a week or two. It is of Hymerian origin, created by spatiasts at least as cunning as my own folk. Its intricacies are beyond the comprehension of, well, conventional minds. They made the lock and the door very specifically tonotbe opened, and they did a good job of it.”

“Well,” muttered Ana. “Shit! I did not like Burilis Burav before, but now I emphaticallyloathethe man. I guess we can’t hope the goddamn murderer is hiding in there.”

There was a surprised silence.

“I…had not thought of that,” said Seriv.

“If they are in there,” said Tauri, “they might have survived the fire, true. But they’d have been very uncomfortable—and stupid, too, to believe they could exit unnoticed.”

“The question seems to be,” I said, “what did Burav put in there—and does it have anything to do with the murders?”

“I’d say it’s got to,” sighed Seriv, “except a rich man might have many reasons for a vault in his house.”

“I rather doubt he had it for aging cheese or wine,” I muttered.