Anthology - Realms of Magic Part 24

I stopped and turned to the civilar. He was still examining the Gondgunne, though he had not yet touched it. "What?" I shot at him.

The halfling snorted impatiently as he looked up. "Any secret you hold keeps us from finding the murderer. I would think you would want justice and vengeance done as quickly as possible, and so send your friend Greathog Snorrish on to a peaceful rest."

Ardrum's remarks awoke a rage within me. Who was he, the little snot, to tell me that I... what?

"He told you his name?" My rage burned out in an instant, snuffed by yet another shock. "He never told anyonea""

And a new truth dawned.

Civilar Ardrum's lips pressed into a flat line. He looked up at me without blinking. He'd said too much, and he knew it.

"He worked for you," I breathed. "He was a watch-wizard. A secret watch-wizard." I understood now how Snorri always had ready gold for the best wines and foods, though he had so few spells and so little business from the order for retail spellcasting. But why had he never said anything to me about his work?

Ardrum looked down at the Gondgunne once more and was silent for a while. "He was very valuable to us," he said at last, without inflection. "He kept an eye and ear on various persons and groups, and he reported to the watch what he saw and heard. He was reliable in the extreme, always eager to serve, with a tremendous memory. He reported directly to me."

I felt I was losing my grip on the real world. I almost became dizzy. "Snorri was an informer? Who was he spying on? What dida""

"Formathio, I believe I asked you a question," Ardrum interrupted. "You helped him hide something. I must know what it was and where it is now. Answer me, please." The "please" was shod in iron.

I stared down at the watch captain, then turned toward the line of stuffed fish on the wall. I raised a hand toward them without warning and intoned a handful of words quickly, gesturing as if brus.h.i.+ng away a fly.

The images offish faded away like blown fog. In place of each was an apparatus of wood and metal, most slightly shorter than my forearm from elbow to fingertips. They rested on hooks and struts on the wooden plaques that had once held dead carp, greenthroats, and crownfish.

It was Snorri's toy collection.

Though I had heard them called arquebuses, cavilers, or other things, Snorri called them gunnes or Gondgunnes. He acquired them from various specialty traders in his old country, Lantan. He thought the word "gunne" was a recent corruption of the name of Gond, the Lantanna deity called Wondermaker or Wonderbringer by the faithful. Gond oversaw inventions, crafts, and new things, and the inventive Lantanna had recently discovered the fine art of enchanting smoke powder and making "fiery arms" that spewed out small lead or iron bullets with outrageously loud reports. It was a magic that made my insides curdle, a weird and subtly frightening thing that simply fascinated Snorri.

Gunnesmithing was a holy thing in Lantan, Snorri had once told me. Thanks to novelty dealers and preaching Gondsmen doubling as religious merchants, gunnes were now showing up everywhere in civilized Faerun. At least, that's what was said by some of my other wizard friends, who made their opinions on this clear by the way they grimaced and spat on the ground when the topic came up.

"Ah," Civilar Ardrum breathed, rising to his feet to stare at the gunne collection. "Excellent. Clever of you. Three, four, five, six, sevena"the old ones are here." He swung about, saw Snorri's work desk in a far corner of the room, and stalked over to it at once. He reached down suddenly and drew his dagger, then used the steel tip to lift the scattered papers and scrolls stacked there. He flipped one stack aside and revealed yet another wooden plaque with mountings for another gunnea"but no gunne on it.

I heard the civilar exhale from across the room. His face worked briefly as if he were angry. Then he used the dagger tip to carefully lift the plaque and turn it over.

Something was written on the back. I could see the s.h.i.+fting letters in the light, almost legible.

"Allow me," I said, coming over. Almost by reflex, I pulled a little prism from my breast pocket and began the words of the first spell every wizard learns. As I finished, the s.h.i.+fting letters cleared and fell into place.

" 'Received from Gulner at the market,' " I read, " 'two doors west of the Singing Sword, the ninth of Kythorn, Year ofa"'"

"He had it, then," Ardrum interrupted. "He sent a message this morning that he had made another purchase, but he had picked up the wrong package. He wanted to examine it and get the opinion of a friend"a"Ardrum glanced at mea""before bringing it to the watch station tomorrow morning. He said the device was a new type. He was quite excited about it." Then a new thought dawned, and Ardrum spun about to stare again at the gunnea"the eighth one in the rooma"in the blood pool.

"He was spying on gunne traders? Are you saying that he was killed because he picked up the wrong trinket at a store?"

The tall halfling restrained himself from lunging across the room for the pistol. Instead, he said nothing for perhaps a minute, staring across the room as if hooked by my words. When he spoke, his tone had changed. "These are not trinkets," he said softly. "They are not toys. These are weapons, Formathio, clever ones that are turning up all over. They are meant to kill thingsa"beasts, monsters, people. Anyone can use them. They punch through armor like a bolt through rotted cloth. They can be raised, aimed, and fired in a heartbeat. One little ball spit from the mouth of a gunne can drop an ogre if it hits just right. Any dullard with a gunne, a pocket of fis.h.i.+ng sinkers, and a pouch of smoke powder could cut down a brace of knights, a king, or an arch-wizard." v Civilar Ardrum slid his dagger home in its belt sheath. These gunnes are new and strange, and we of the watch neither understand them nor like them. Your friend understood them and liked them. He was worth a G.o.d's weight in gold. He knew who to contact to get samples, who was making them, who was buying them, and what they could do. There's quite a market in the strangest places for smoke powder, did you know that? Your friend heard rumors of other devices that worked like Lantanna gunnes but were more powerful or had worse effects. Someone was improving these gunnes, someone very smart who worked fast, perhaps with a hidden shop or guild. This person was bringing lots of these new gunnes into Waterdeep. The Yellow Mage was hunting for one of these devices. We were willing to pay anything for it."

He reached down and, after a moment's hesitation, picked up the overturned plaque. "He could create or remove the fish illusion with a word, am I correct? After the gunne was mounted here?"

I nodded. "I enspelled eight plaques for him. He paid for them in advance, two years ago. This would be the last of them."

"He was going to buy more from you," Ardrum said, staring at the plaque. "He liked your work. Talked about you all the time."

I looked away, aware again of the smell of roasting boara"and an empty place inside me. Leaving the civilar alone for a while, I went into the tiny kitchen Snorri kept, found his crate-sized magical oven, and waved a hand over the amber light on top. The light went off. It would cool down on its own.

I looked around the kitchen and back rooms, saw nothing of interest, quietly cast spells to detect everything from hidden enemies to magical auras, saw nothing else of interest. The living room was similarly bare of clues. Ardrum was now kneeling at the dark pool and holding the bloodstained gunne in the fingers of his left hand. His eyes were closed. I noted that magic radiated from a ring on the civilar's right hand. No doubt the ring had a practical use; the civilar was a practical sort. It couldn't be as good as my Unfailing Missile Deflector, though.

Ardrum's eyes abruptly opened as I watched. He put down the gunne as if caught taking coins from a blind man's cup.

"What did you find out?" The question was based on a guessa"a guess that the civilar had just performed some supernatural act, likely a divination.

The halfling sighed. "Clever. Very clever of you, of course, but clever of the killer. This gunne was never fired. A gnome made it in Lantan, a compulsive little gnome who always worried about his mother. Nothing interesting has ever happened to this weapon, and no one interesting has ever handled it. It is not the gunne that was used to kill your friend. It's a mirage, a false lead. I would guess the killer unwrapped it and left it here after the murder." Ardrum looked up. For the first time since I'd seen him, he was smilinga"not by much, but it was a smile. "How was that for a wild guess?"

"A psychic," I said. "You amaze me." The truth was that little would amaze me now with Snorri dead, even a psychic watchman. The Lords of Waterdeep no doubt recruited trustworthy psychics at every turn, though such had to be as rare as c.o.c.katrice teeth.

"A birth talent, and a limited one," said Ardrum in dismissal. The smile vanished. "I'm sensitive to the emotional impressions left behind when someone touches something. I feel what was felt, see what was seen. Like your early training in burglary, it has served me well in my line of work. And like you, I do not like to discuss my talent. People would find it unnerving to know that I could read their personal life with just a touch. I put my trust in your goodwill to keep my secret. I would not discuss it except that time is short and your wits are acute."

Ardrum pulled the gloves from his belt and carefully put them on. I recalled that he had not shaken my hand, and he had used his dagger blade to examine things on the desk. His control over his special talent was likely poor, then, and likely it was too that he did not relish peering into other people's livesa"particularly if those people had just been violently killed.

I wondered what Ardrum saw in his mind when he picked up a b.l.o.o.d.y dagger or garrote, checking for clues to a murder. I quickly shook off the thought.

"It is late, but we must be off to the market," Ardrum said, collecting his watchman's rod and light-casting sticks. He wrapped the sticks up as he put them away. The room gradually fell into near-total darkness. "We must pick up a package there, and speak with this Gulner named on the plaque. I think he came back for his merchandise, given that the Yellow Mage said he'd received the wrong item, and left a subst.i.tute instead. Are you ready, good Formathio?"

A tiny shaft of light from a crack in a shuttered window fell on the back of Civilar Ardrum's head, revealing every loose strand of his hair like a halo around his shadowed face. And an obvious thing came to mind. Something I could do.

"Almost ready," I said. "I am going to cast a spell. Please stay back, and do not be alarmed at whatever you see or hear."

I recalled the proper procedure, then pa.s.sed my arms, palms out, through the darkness before me. I whispered words into the air, then reached into one of the many pockets in my clothes. Pulling out a pinch of dust, I pitched it into the air before me and spoke a final word.

The room rapidly grew cold. Civilar Ardrum's boots sc.r.a.ped the wooden floor as he stepped back a pace. He had infravision, I guessed, the ability to see heat sources. Most halflings had it. He would now see a black column between us, about the size of a human like me.

"Shadow," I said to the black thing. "You see all that casts a shadow of its own. I demand one answer from you, then will release you to go your dark way."

A whisper reached my ears, so faint it could have been a sigh from a distant child. "Yes."

"A man was murdered here during the daylight." My voice almost failed me. I shoved aside the memory of Snorri, b.l.o.o.d.y and dead on the stretcher. "I command you, shadow, to reveal who murdered this man."

This was my own special spell, and no other living per- son had seen me use it. My control over the shadow was good, so it posed no danger to me or to the civilar. In other circ.u.mstances, however, the shadow could have left us both frozen and dead on the ground, our spirits cursed to join it in endless roving of shadows and night.

Nonetheless, when I felt the shadow draw so close that the skin on my face burned and stung from its bitter cold, when I s.h.i.+vered from the absolute emptiness of it, I was in fear that my control over it was no more.

The shadow sighed once again. I imagined its words were spoken with a touch of glee.

"/ saw no one murder him," said the shadow, and was gone.

The air at last grew warmer on my face. My arms fell to my sides. No one? No one had killed my friend? Shadows had a way with their words; they loved to mislead with the truth. I wrestled briefly with the answer, then admitted defeata"for now.

"Let us go," I said to the civilar.

Outside, it was late twilight. The three watchmen had returned to wait there for their captain, guarding the doorway and keeping away onlookers. With their permission, I put a locking spell on the door and windows to keep the curious away; only the watch or a major wizard would have the resources to take the spell off at leisure.

Civilar Ardrum and I arrived at the market after a short and rapid walk. The other watchmen were summoning more of their fellows to meet us at our destination. We said nothing to each other along the trip, even as we came into view of the great, torch-lit market of Waterdeep.

We crossed Traders' Way and entered the long ellipse of booths that made up the market. Even now, after sunfall, vendors called out praises of their wares to pa.s.sersby. Few shoppers were out this evening. I saw faint candlelight from the upper windows of the Singing Sword off to our left, on the market's far side, and we made our way there at an easy, steady pace.

"I thought I heard the dark thing you conjured up say that no one killed the Yellow Mage," said Ardrum in a low, conversational tone as we walked. : I glanced around, saw no one close enough to listen in, then took a deep breath. "The shadow said that it saw no one murder him. It meant it saw no shadow of the murderer, so possibly the murderer threw no shadow."

There was a pause the length of a heartbeat.

"Invisible," we both said at the same moment.

"But the murderer would have become visible the moment he attacked the Yellow Mage," said Ardrum quickly. "A spell of invisibility is canceled the momenta""

"There are more powerful spells that would not be broken by physical violence," I interrupted. "And some devices will do the same. He could have stalked Snorri and ... shot him. He would not have become visible."

The halfling almost came to a stop. "He could still be in the house, then."

"No," I said. "I checked. I used some of my spells and saw nothing."

Civilar Ardrum frowned and took up the pace again. Ahead, I could see the buildings to either side of the Singing Sword. Two doors to the west would be ... the old Full Sails. In the darkness I could barely see the bare mast of the pinnace mounted on the flat roof of the two-story building. Fine liquors were once sold in bulk there to caravans, s.h.i.+p crews, and adventurers who wanted something, and plenty of it, to warm them on their voyages. Some of the liquor went bad and blinded its drinkers, and the owner had fled Waterdeep. I had no idea what the old shop was now.

We slowed to a stop at the front door. I noted it had a simple string-and-bar lock, and a worn one at that. The place looked dirty and little used. Civilar Ardrum un.o.btrusively walked the short length of the storefront, looking up and down at the closed window shutters, then walked back to me and shrugged.

A board creaked inside the building. The sound came from the second floor. Ardrum and I both heard it and froze, our eyes locked together.

The board creaked again. A footstep for sure. Ardrum motioned me back a step, tucked his watchman's rod under his arm, then pulled a piece of wire from his pocket and undid the lock with surprising deftness. I wondered if his childhood occupational interests had been anything like mine.

Civilar Ardrum looked up at me for a second and almost smiled, then pulled his short-bladed sword and used it to swiftly push open the door.

And we saw a previously unseen string attached to the back of the door. It pulled tight on a wide-mouthed pipe mounted on a short pole just beyond the door itself. The pipe swung slightly to point right at us. It clicked.

Agunnea".

The white shock of the blast imprinted itself in my eyes, the little watch captain's body silhouetted as it was thrown past me, one arm flailing. I clamped hands over my screaming ears, deafened except for a whine so loud as to stab me in the brain. Small objects shrieked past me, clanging off metal and wood and rock and dirt. The top half of the door fell crookedly across the doorway. Dust whirled through the night air.

I was deaf but untouched. The Unfailing Missile Deflector of Turmish was working just fine.

I staggered back and then saw Civilar Ardrum writhing on the street, his clothes smoking. He tried to cover his face with his mangled arms and gave a brief wail of agony. I let go of my ears and went to him, kneeling at his side.

The light-enhancing lens in my eyes let me see the half-ling's condition in perfect detail. I almost vomited. He would be dead within the minute.

He turned his trembling face to mine. He still had one eye.

Very carefully, he raised a hand and pointed past me. He was pointing at the Full Sails.

Go, he mouthed. Then he eased back with a sigh. His eyes closed.

A crowd had gathered. More people were coming. There was nothing else to do, so I got up. I turned to look at up the Full Sails. Someone on the roof looked down at me, then quickly moved out of sight.

"No, you don't," I said to the figure. My right hand dipped into a pocket, pulled out a bit of leather made into a loop. Lifted by his own bootstraps, went the phrase. I stepped up to the building's base, spoke a phrase, and cast the loop upward. It vanished.

My feet left the ground. I rose toward the rooftop, mouthing the words of another spell. I wondered what the shouting people below thought. If they were smart, they'd be leaving about now.

The moment my eyes cleared the rooftop, I saw the bow of the little pinnace in front of me, what was left of it after years of wear from the elements and youthful vandals. I also saw a burly figure not fifteen feet away, holding what looked like a short Gondgunne. He saw me out of the corner of his eye, turned, raised his gunne in one hand, and fired. A white flash spat from the barrel; my ears rang again from the sharp thunderclap of the shot.

The bullet missed me, of course. I pointed my right index finger at him and finished the spell.

A long, slim missile zipped from my finger and struck the gunner in the chest, splas.h.i.+ng as it hit. It knocked the gunner off his feet. As he fell on his back on the rooftop, he began to smoke like a wet rag on a hot iron stove.

As deaf as I was, I could still hear him scream. That acid arrow is a real piece of work.

I had pulled myself over the parapet and was mouthing the words to yet another spell when I saw the pinnace move. It rocked as if something had thumped against it. I stepped away from it, then saw a figure outlined against the starry sky, moving from the back of the pinnace forward, toward me. This guy had a gunne, too, a two-hander with a huge barrel. I had almost finished my spell when he fired. Strange, I thought in that moment, that he would aim at my feet.

I felt the solid thump as the shot hit the rooftop just in front of me. There was a huge flash of light, concussion, and firea"then rooftop, pinnace, sky, and city below spun in my vision as if I'd fallen into a whirlpool. I threw out my arms to right myself, willed myself to cease all movement. I halted in the air, now upside down and twenty feet above a flaming crater in the roof, just a hop away from the pinnace. That Unfailing Missile Deflector was my true love, but I hadn't counted on being flung into the heavens.

A new type of gunne. A gunne that shot bombs or rockets. I'd walked into a hornet's nest.

I slowly righted myself and descended, my immobilization spell ruined. Now I was intent on causing serious harm.

To my complete astonishment, the pinnace lifted free of the rooftop and came up to meet me.

I at least had the presence of mind to reach out and s.n.a.t.c.h hold of the worn bowsprit as it went by. I swung myself onto the deck and saw that the guy with the big-mouthed, bomb-firing gunne was coming over to greet me. Only now he had dropped the empty gunne and carried a large woodsman's axe.

I raised my hands and touched thumbs, fanning my fingers outward toward him. I loved this spell. It needed only one word to make it work. I said the word.

Roaring jets of flame shot from my fingers and covered the axeman from head to foot. He instantly turned into a man-sized torch. He dropped his axe and flailed at his clothing, his face, his hair. His shrill screaming proved that my hearing was finally getting a little better.

I waited for an opening, then lunged in at him and grabbed a slippery bare arm. He could hardly resist me; I appreciated that, having never been much for wrestling. With an effort, I wrenched his arm back and shoved him hard at the low railing. He stumbled, hit the rail, and went over the side. I didn't bother to see where he made landfall.

The air stank abominably, burnt and foul. I looked down at my hands, grimaced, and wiped them on my clothing. Some of the man's roasted skin had come off when I'd grabbed him. Throwing him overboard had been a kindness.

No one else was around. But the s.h.i.+p was still climbing into the night sky with increasing velocity. I'd never imagined magic like this. Walking low against the wind blast from above, I moved sternward until I found the door into the pinnace's little hold. I thought about the numerous spells I had left; I always traveled heavy. Better prepared than not. I picked out two or three I especially wanted to give to the guy in charge. Then I tossed a light spell into the hold and went below.

I felt I was ready for anything, but I suppose I wasn't. The hold was empty of everything except a marvelously ornate chair against the far wall, just twenty feet away.

I looked left and right, up and down, everywhere in the light from the spell. Nothing. Wind howled through the room, carrying off what little dust was left. Boards creaked as the pinnace continued flying up toward the heavens.

"Mystra d.a.m.n me," I murmured.

"Allow me," said a rough, male voice from the direction of the chair.

I realized that my spell for detecting invisible things had ended some time ago.

A huge blast of white fire and light leapt at me from the chair. It was completely silent. It was followed in a moment by a second, a third, then a fourth, in a bizarre volley of soundless shots. I thought for a moment that an army of gunners was in the room with me.

When the firing ended, I blinked and looked around. The wall behind me was riddled with holes from the gunne shots. I guessed that I'd just been introduced to the new toy that Snorri got by accident: a gunne that fired several shots in a row. And without so much as a bang.

Out of nowhere, a gunne flipped through the air from the ornate chair, curved aside before it hit me, and bounced off the wall, falling on the floor before me. It was a weird-looking gunne. But I didn't care about that right now.

Thick smoke from the rapid gunne fire blanketed the entire room. The air had a thick, bitter, burned smell to it. Through the haze, I could make out the moving outline of a single large manlike being, sitting upright in the chair. He was cursing me mightilya"in perfect Elvish.