Pryce ignored Cunningham’s opening gambit… and the sweat that coursed freely down his forehead in the cool night air. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “What could a jackalwere hope to gain by coming to a place where magic reigns, where the great majority of residents could easily defeat a savage such as yourself?”
“A… creature invited me,” he said with shamed tones.
“What creature?” Pryce asked, still careful not to get too close.
“A misshapen creature, the likes of which I had never seen before. It made me promises that were too good to be true… a steady supply of meat… spectacular hunting… the flesh of unearthly wisdom. I should have known better,” he said bitterly.
‘This misshapen one offered you the flesh of spellcasters?” Pryce asked incredulously.
“Not in so many words…”
Covington couldn’t afford to dwell on this. The longer he spoke to this creature, the greater the chance that its unreasoning children would attack, and then the beasts would be in for a pleasant surprise. They would discover that the person they thought was the great Darlington Blade was actually a mere messenger from Merrickarta with no magical powers whatsoever. “When were you at the Mark of the Question?”
Cunningham seemed pleased at the change of subject, since he no longer had to talk about his gullibility and humiliation. His sad eyes wavered in recollection. “Early this morning… I believe.”
“What were you doing there?”
“I had been told to meet someone… that he would have food.”
“Who told you?”
“The dust… dust on the wind!” Cunningham raised his head and started a pathetic, accented, off-key howl.
“Stop that!” Pryce demanded, annoyed at the creature’s behavior and the possibility that Gamor helped lure it to the Lallor area. “Did you meet this person?”
“No,” Cunningham said sadly. “He never arrived.” His eyes began to become bloodshot. “Nor did the food…” Covington heard the young jackals behind him start to snarl deep in their throats. He was rapidly running out of time… and questions.
“Did you see anyone… anyone at all?” he asked sharply, hoping to uncover at least some other lead or clue for his trouble.
“Oh, yes,” said Cunningham abjectly. “Oh, yes, there were others by the tree of mystery, but they weren’t for me and my kin… The wind told me that their meat was not for the likes of ussssss!”
Pryce was losing him. He could see it in Cunningham’s changing face, smell it in the sickly stench of starvation that surrounded him, and feel it in his very bones. “Who was it?” he said quickly. “Who did you see?”
‘The little big lady,” Cunningham said in a dangerous singsong voice, his head beginning to tip this way and that. “The great defender of Mystra, with her arrogant airs and tightly coiled muscles. Not much meat on that one, but I’m sure what there is is ssssssucculen… ”
Lymwich, Pryce thought. He’s got to be talking about Berridge Lymwich. But what was she doing there? “Anyone else?” he pressed urgently. “Who else?”
‘The great captain of industry!” Cunningham bayed at the sky. “The sailor on the pirate sea! His little chin spike a-quivering and a-quaking, his long lip curls a-shaking and a-shimmying with his pomposssssity. Oh, the meat on him… all the lussssscious meat on him!” The jackals all around Pryce started to bark and yip excitedly.
Fullmer the wine trader, Pryce marveled. The plot was rapidly thickening. “Anyone else?” Covington asked, moving carefully back and off to the side.
“That is all, 0 mighty Blade!” Cunningham called. “Our emisssssary, and our meal, did not arrive, nor did any unwary sssssoul. My children and my craving called, ssssso I had to go. I had to run, ssssscreaming in my frussssstration and failure!” He threw his head back and cried into the night. “0 demons below and gods above, I do hunger! Does not even a creature as wretched as I deserve some measure of pity?”
“Pity, no!” Pryce yelled at him. “Sustenance, yes! At least for now.” He grabbed the still-unconscious halfling’s arms and, with one mighty pull, jerked Gheevy Wotfirr onto his back. “Remember my mercy, jackalwere!”
Then Pryce Covington ran madly into the night, leaving the corpses behind. The sound of slavering beasts diminished behind him as he ran, but it would never again leave his memory.
CHAPTER FIVE
Blade Runner
“What did you do? What did you do?” Gheevy Wotfirr lamented for the third and fourth time as they trudged back to the Lallor Gate.
“Dash it all, Gheevy,” Pryce exclaimed, catching himself using Cunningham’s phrase, “it had to be done! As terrible as it is, they were dead, and we’re still alive. I wish I could do something about the former, but I intend to maintain the latter. It was the only way.”
“Butbut”
“You tell me. What else could I have done?”
They walked, empty-handed, through the dark night. The barrels of ale and mead they had carried out were left at the Mark of the Question in lieu of bodies.
“We could have buried them,” Wotfirr said wearily.
“Where?” countered Pryce, “And for how long?” He was talking fervently as they tramped down the gem-studded road to the Lallor Gate. “You know as well as I do that a freshly dug grave would be child’s play for any wizard or inquisitrix to find. I couldn’t take the chance. It would mean my life.” Pryce could see Wotfirr was still despairing, so he tried another tack. “It was too late to help them, Gheevy. I hate to admit that, but there it is. In order to avenge their deaths, I have to stay alive long enough to do it. This was the only way!”
The halfling looked at Covington with begrudging acceptance. “You know, you are probably correct, but, my stars, you can be pretty egotistical.”
Pryce looked at him with a purposely blank expression. “What’s your point?”
Wotfirr laughed in spite of himself, although the sound ended in a wheeze. “You are amazing.”
“Looks as if I have to be,” Pryce said with resignation.
They trudged on for a few moments more, shuffling their feet along the road. Finally Gheevy grunted, “Well, you did save my life, I suppose…”
“Don’t forget,” Covington replied miserably, “I also put it in danger in the first place.”
“But I was the one who said I knew where the jackal lair might be.”
“And I was the one who dragged you out here in the first place.”
Wotfirr suddenly pulled up short. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you trying to get me to blame you?”
Covington stopped a few feet farther on and turned to face the halfling. “I’ll admit it, Gheevy. I feel guilty. Terribly guilty. I’ve already involved you enough. The going might get even more dangerous from here on, so it’s not fair to take your company and your valuable assistance for granted.” He studied the winemaster’s face but saw no reaction. ‘Tell you what,” he suggested. ‘You made me a promise, so I’ll make you one. If I’m caught and found out, for any reason, I will never divulge your part in it.”
Pryce sighed, letting his head and shoulders droop, feeling helpless, persecuted, and alone. “Now let’s get back inside the wall. As soon as we’re inside the city, I’ll go one way, and you can go another. I wouldn’t blame you if you never wished to see me again.”
They walked silently to the gate, where the big eye blinked and peered at them intently. Covington fought the urge to do a dance routine for Berridge Lymwich’s benefit. Instead, he silently marched past the eye, then purposefully turned to the right and kept going.
Gheevy Wotfirr stood in the opening. His body leaned a little toward the left. But then his right leg moved, and he followed Pryce into the east side of the city.
Covington looked back at his new friend and found himself smiling with relief.
The halfling shrugged. “I couldn’t very well go west,” he said. “I live on this side of the city.” But then he smiled and said, “Frankly, I
wouldn’t miss seeing what happens next for all the precious metal in Durpar.”
Pryce shook his head in amazement and grinned at the halfling. “What happens next, my dear Gheevy, is that we both get a good night’s sleep so we can follow up on the jackalwere’s clues in the morning.”
“Shall I meet you at your new place?” Wotfirr asked eagerly.
Pryce shook his head. “You have your job to consider. I’ll come to Schreders At Your Service and let you know what the plan is. All right?”
The halfling nodded, and the two parted company. Within ten paces, Covington already missed the little fellow’s company. It was amazing, he reflected, how important it was to have another person around to bounce ideas off, show another point of view, and just generally provide a balance. Without Gheevy he had no one in the city he could be completely honest with. He had always considered himself independent and self-sufficient, and he was surprised to realize what a burden that was getting to be.
He was also surprised to find out how tired he was. By the time he reached the cul-de-sac, his legs felt as if they were filled with sand. He turned into the tree trunk entrance, his eyes half-closing with weariness.
Once more the cloak clasp began to glow, and when he raised his eyelids, the inside door was swinging open. Pryce stepped inside the consummately comfortable dwelling, basking in the gentle radiance of a soft indoor night-light. He sighed at the beauty and easy livability of this place. Somehow, even if the inquisitrix came for him at sunrise with proof of his duplicity, it all seemed worthwhile for one night in the kind of dwelling he had always dreamed about.
Though his mind was inspired by the dwelling’s comfort, his body was still exhausted. His legs dragged him across the large, circular area formed by the tree trunk toward a huge branch opening some forty feet away. He could just barely make out the edge of a wide, rectangular bed around the corner of a wall, and his feet moved in that direction.
The sleeping quarters were, in their own way, as impressive as the library and living room. Everything helped create a feeling of drowsy invitation. The grain of the wooden walls was polished to a high luster, highlighting a myriad of whorled patterns he found very attractive. The brown of the wall rose to the black of the cone-shaped ceiling, where tiny flecks of white, silver, and gold twinkled like the night sky. Pryce thought he felt a cooling breeze, but that might have been his imagination playing tricks on him.
The bed itself looked warm and inviting, despite the mussed bed linens, and it blended with the environment perfectly. The rumpled bedcovers were deep purple and rounded, as if cloudlike pillows awaited beneath them. A sleepy smile spread across Covington’s face, and his eyelids lowered to half-mast as he headed for the bed and some much-needed rest.
He lay down beside a large, surprisingly firm cushion. Covington rolled up against it, wrapping his arms around it and pulling it toward him. Not surprisingly, it was soft to his touch. To his surprise, however, it also smelled wonderfulmusky, fleshy, and sweet, like the most beautiful woman he had ever known. If Geerling Ambersong slept in this enchanting bed every night, it was remarkable he ever got up.
In fact, Pryce thought, snuggling his head against the soft shape of the pillow, the incredible feeling reminded him of something. What was it again? He felt his consciousness begin to slip. He was already sinking into sleep when his subconscious shook his brain.
Pryce’s eyes snapped open. His grip on the pillow spasmed. Then the bed exploded.
Well, the bed didn’t actually explode, but it might as well have. The bedclothes erupted off the mattress, and something made a horrible sound. It started as a squeal, then mutated into an angry shriek, then ended in a piercing scream.
Pryce wasn’t so much thrown off as he threw himself off, trying desperately to escape from whatever was in the bed. He soared straight up some three and a half feet, his legs kicking wildly. Then he dived four feet to the side, sliding along the floor.
He hit the wall, standing, where he watched, wide-eyed, as something took shape over the bed. At first it looked like a fuzzy ball of mutating movement. Then limbs started to flail out, and hair spun in the air like striking snakes. Just as it seemed the misshapen creature would crash back down to the bed, strong arms and shapely legs appeared. Pryce saw that they were attached to a pleasantly rounded torso. No less amazing was the face that emerged from the wildly whipping hair… a face he recognized from somewhere…
They screamed each other’s names at the same time, then dived in different directions.
Pryce Covington tried to leap out of the bedroom altogether while Dearlyn Ambersong grabbed a seven-foot-long staff, with red horsehair cascading off the top. She jerked it up from where it leaned against the wall beside the bed, planting the base directly across Pryce’s solar plexus.
Covington woofed in response, his arms and legs going straight out. He flew backward, then struck the far right corner of the bed with his shoulders. He rolled backward and landed on his knees, allowing the momentum to keep him sliding away. Dearlyn, however, was already running across the mattress, spinning the pole so that the horsehair flew wide, revealing all manner of gardening implements knotted to the top by thin leather thongs.
“Garden tools?” Pryce marveled, but there was no time to consider the incongruity of their placement as she expertly thrust the staff forward. A garden trowel barely missed his nose. He stopped sliding and jerked his head back. His skull struck the sloping wall with a nasty thunk, but she continued to spin the staff wildly. Some small shears nearly pruned his neck.
Pryce forced the bottom of his legs, from the knees down, to straighten. He sat on the floor, letting his rear slide while his head kept going back. Suddenly he was lying on the floor by the bed, watching her spin the red horsehair, a small cultivator attempting to puncture both his corneas at the same time.
Pryce grabbed the bedclothes with his right hand and pulled with all his might. Not only did the maneuver propel him toward the bed, but it also pulled the comforter out from under Dear-Iyn’s feet. The cultivator and horsehair flew up, and she started to plummet down with a loud squeal.
Pryce somersaulted backward onto his feet just in time to see Dearlyn fall on the bed in a satisfying tangle of arms, legs, and garden tools. Covington found himself shaking, but also chuckling from a combination of tension and relief. Dearlyn Ambersong was extremely proficient with her staff. The unusual implement may have made her a great gardener, but it wasn’t bad as a weapon either. She could clearly use it to parry any weed she targeted, whether vegetable or human.
Here was a mystery he had better solve immediately. What was Dearlyn Ambersong doing in what he thought was his bed, and why the sudden attempt to “plant” him? Pryce clapped his hands to get her attention. “Now, just a minute, Miss Ambersong. I”
He didn’t have time to finish because all of a sudden the bed came at him. One second it was lying flat on the bed frame, and the next second it was flying at him like a giant flyswatter trying to squash a bug against the wall. Clearly the bed was magically powered!
Pryce threw himself to the side, executing a series of fast cartwheels toward the bedroom door. He spun out of the sleeping quarters just as the heavy bed hit the wall with a resounding slam.
He landed on his feet in the library, but he had no time to enjoy his escape because now the horsehair staff was coming at his face like the spear, the attached garden tools coursing behind it like a particularly dangerous set of stingers.
Pryce pivoted, turned his head, and let his knees buckle. He watched the pole fly by inches over his head as he did the limbo as fast as he could. A trailing cultivating tool scratched an itch on his nose as it rocketed past.
“Now, look here!” he cried, straightening up as the staff hit the far wall. But then a spell struck him in the chest, and he could say no more.
Pryce Covington felt as if a giant serpent had snapped its tail across his torso. He flew across the living room floor and crashed, seat first, into one of
the mage’s heavy chairs. The power of the spell was more than enough to overturn it, sending Pryce head over heels into the fireplace.
Pryce was thankful that the fire was out. So was he, nearly.
Through a fog of confusion, pain, and soot, he could make out Dearlyn Ambersong, standing angrily in the doorway of the sleeping quarters, her fists on her hips. Pryce blinked, trying to focus on what appeared to be fur that covered her body from her neck to her ankles, and all the way down her arms to her wrists. What was she, another jackalwere?
No, he realized, it was her night clothes. She wore a skintight suit of some sort of soft, gray material. “Hey,” Pryce said weakly. “My color.”
“What?” she demanded. “What did you say?”
“That color,” he continued feebly. “Same as my shirt.” He managed to get his thumb and forefinger to pinch at his neckline.
“How dare you?” she seethed. “I don’t care if you are the great Darlington Blade. You have no right to come into myI mean, my father’shome!”
“He said I could.” Pryce whispered weakly.
“What?”
Pryce groaned as he attempted to right himself in the ashes. ‘Tour father… told Gamor… and Lymwich… I could stay here.”
“That’s absurd!” she flared. “I don’t believe it!”
Pryce was finally right side up, and he motioned helplessly at the door. “The door opened for me,” he reminded her. “It wouldn’t have if Geerling hadn’t given me the key…” He feebly fingered the cloak clasp.
Dearlyn opened her mouth again, shut it, opened it a second time, then stamped her foot and made a harrumphing sound before marching off to fix the bed.
Pryce crawled out of the fireplace and slowly worked his way back to his hands and knees. He dusted off the parts of him he could reach before making his way back to the bedroom on all fours.
The illumination was brighter now, so he could clearly see Dearlyn briskly replacing all the blankets, pillows, and comforter.
Murder in Halruaa (forgotten realms) Page 8
