In this guise, he followed Rand out into the city, staying about twenty feet behind him. Rand went only two places: one, a tavern, and the other, an ale-house that served only drink, no food. He seemed to be spending most of his time plying off-duty constables with drink and talking to them at length. Now that was actually a very reasonable way to acquire information, and one that Orm had made liberal use of in the past, but was no longer going to be able to pursue. His disguise was a good one, but there were constables with a sharp enough eye to see past the beard, mustache, and other alterations to the things that didn't change. There wasn't much that someone could do about his eye-color or bone-structure, and although Orm had done a few things to make himself look slightly more muscular, anyone grabbing his arm would know that those muscles were made of wadding. He couldn't change his height significantly, and he couldn't do anything about his hairline, receding as it was. Orm would no longer dare to get within conversational distance of any constables unless he was able to ascertain in advance that they were particularly dim ones. And unfortunately, Captain Fenris hadn't hired very many dim constables; he valued intelligence in his men, and rewarded it.
So, while Rand pursued whatever harehe had started, Orm took the opportunity of his absence to begin protecting himself from his employer. He hadn't forgotten that threat of exposure, not for a moment, and if there was anything hecould do about it, he would.
He still had no idea what it was that Rand had arranged to implicate him in the murders. Most probably it was something as simple as a written confession. He spent most of one day in Rand's apartment, looking at everything he could without touching it, and was unable to come to any conclusions.
He couldn't see anyplace where such a confession might be concealed, and Rand would want it to be found quickly after his death, so he wouldn't conceal it all that well. He would probably count on the fact that he had protected such a confession magically to keep Orm from touching it—
Perhaps, Orm thought, as he looked for what, to him, were the obvious signs of secret drawers or other such devices. Then again, once he was taken, he could count on the constables to tear his apartment apart and render the furniture down to toothpicks in an effort to get as much evidence as possible. So he could have decided not to waste precious magic, and hidden the confession without magic.
Rand might not be a thief or have ever fabricated places where small objects could be concealed, but he had money enough to pay those whocould hide things so well that the only way to get them out was to know the trick or smash the offending object to pieces. Could a mage tell if something was hidden inside another object?
Does it matter? I think not. It would be easier to smash things and see if there was anything hidden inside. Quicker, too. He had to chuckle a little. Ah, the advantage of being on that side of the law!
He couldn't see any place where possible papers lay out in the open, and he really didn't want to open any drawers and search them.
The message could be magical in nature, but would Rand waste magical energy that could keep him human in creating a message that could be created in an ordinary fashion? That was a good question.Once again—it is what Iwould do, but would Rand?Rand hoarded his energies like a miser with coins, but would he spend them on safeguarding himself in this way? It was difficult to tell, but vengeance played a major part in his life, so perhaps he would spend that power to make certain of his revenge if Orm betrayed him.
But would he sacrifice a single day of being human? He's crazed enough to decide that he wouldn't.
It might simply be that Rand was counting on other factors to implicate Orm, though it was doubtful that he knew how much Orm had learned about magic from him. Rand could not help talking, boasting about his powers and his plans, especially in the euphoria that followed his transformation back into a human. Orm had picked up quite a bit about the way that magic worked, and he could be implicated simply by the fact that his magical "scent" would be all over this place. And even though he tried to cleanse the murder weapons, they would also carry his traces. But what Rand would not anticipate was that Orm could solve that little problem easily enough—and possibly render any written or magical confession suspect as well.
He took hair from his own brush, put it in a little silk bag, and left it among dozens of identical little silk bags holding other bits of flotsam among Rand's magical implements. He had not stolen anything, so he took the chance that the guard-spells Rand surely had on his equipment would not betray him. Evidently, they didn't; Rand never said anything, and Orm now had a piece of evidence that would bolster his own protestation of innocence. Why else, after all, would the mage have some of his hair, except to implicate an otherwise blameless man?
The hair could be used to do almost anything, including to create an illusion of Orm at the scene of one of the crimes—and that might take care of that incriminating sketch. After all, he'd "disappeared" after he went into the alley—and that could have been the illusion vanishing.
And why would Rand want to implicate an innocent man in his crimes? Orm had reasons, if anyone asked. They might not bother to ask; Rand was so clearly mad that they might assume this was another of his mad acts. But Orm intended to claim he'd had conflicts with his fellow tenant, and that Rand had threatened to seek revenge after one of them. The assumption then would probably be that Rand intended to escape, leaving Orm to take all of the blame for the murders. That was how constables tended to reason, and that interpretation suited Orm perfectly.
He also began establishing his own alibis and an unshakable persona as a solid citizen who couldn't possibly have anything to do with Rand and his kills. First, he obtained the registration records from a respectable (if common) inn that was within a short walking distance of his current neighborhood. It didn't take a great deal of work to alter the records so that they showed that he had arrived in Kingsford and taken up residence there in early fall, had stayed there until early winter, then removed himself to the apartment he now lived in. He slipped the records-book back into the inn the same night he obtained it. No one would notice the alteration; it was very likely that the people whose names he had removed were there under false identities in the first place. This gave him an arrival date that was much earlier than his actual arrival in Kingsford, and this was a date that conflicted with some of the other murders Rand had done outside of Kingsford. With the Church involved, there was every reason to expect that at least some of the killings in other cities would be tied to Rand.
That done, he began reaffirming his acquaintance with all of his neighbors. He already knew them, of course, and they knew him, but now he went out of his way to cultivate them. By dint of careful conversations, he was able to establish himself in their minds as having been in the general vicinity since that early autumn date listed in the inn records. All he had to do was to mention events in the neighborhood that had taken place during that time period as if he'd witnessed them, and agree with the version the person he was talking to related. And how did he learn of those events? By asking leading questions of a different neighbor, of course. It was an amusing game; he'd find out about event A from neighbor One. He'd then establish himself with neighbor Two by relating event A, then solicit event B from neighbor Two. He would take his tale of event B to neighbor Three, and so on, until he came back to neighbor One with the story of event G, and solicit the tale of Event H to take on to neighbor Two, beginning the chain again. Within a few days, at least a dozen people were not only convinced he'd been in the neighborhood, but that they'd actually seen him there at the times he spoke of.
It was amazingly easy to convince people of trivial things of that nature; he'd done it before when he'd needed to establish an alternate identity. As long as your version of what you wanted them to remember fitted with their real memories, you could insert yourself into almost anyone's recollections.
He also established himself in their minds as a very fine, affable fellow—and his fellow tenant as a rather odd duck,
surly, unpleasant, possibly something of a troublemaker. That, too, was easy enough to do, since Rand didn't go out of his way to be polite when he was in his human form.
Now Orm needed a reason to be in Kingsford, which he established when his neighbors "knew" enough about him to want to know what he did for a living. His profession? Oh, he was a small spice-trader, a very convenient profession that required no apprenticeship and not a great deal of capital, merely a willingness to take personal risks and a taste for exotic places and danger. It was also one that required a great deal of travel, at least at first, as a young man would build his contacts with spice-growers or collectors in more exotic lands. It was also a highly seasonal profession; most trading took place in the spring and fall, with summer being the time for a small trader to set up at Faires, and winter being the time to rest and get ready for spring, which would account for his apparent idleness.
Now that he was of middle years, he presumably had his spice-sources in hand, and he should be ready to settle and operate from the secure venue of a shop. He needed a city where there was a great deal of trade, he told his neighbors, and Kingsford seemed like a fine choice of a home. Duke Arden was a great leader, the city was clearly thriving, the people here honest and hardworking—with the nearness of the Faire and the river, who could ask for more? He was looking for a place for a shop, trying to make sure he would have no rivals in the immediate neighborhood, hoping to find a suitable place that was already built, since he could only afford to lease the place at first.
This was a simple and understandable explanation for money with no obvious source of income, and irregular hours. It passed muster with all of his neighbors; the only danger was that one or more of them might ask him if he could sell them some exotic spice or perfume oil. Fortunately none of them did, so he didn't have to make an excursion out to obtain what heshould have had at hand.
And having had their curiosity satisfied abouthim , that left Rand open to inquiry. The fellow upstairs—well, he really couldn't say what that man did. Never seemed to be at home very much, but never seemed to do anything that you could count aswork , either. He added a touch of scorn to that last, as would be expected from a hard-working fellow who'd made his own way in the world without any help from anyone else.
And finally, he managed to get himself an alibi for at least one of the murders, the latest. He began playing daily games of fox-and-hounds with an old man living three doors down; by the time the week was over, thanks to Orm's gentle persuasion, the old fellow would honestly believe and claim that they had been playing fox-and-hounds every afternoon for the past month. Since a game of fox-and-hounds generally lasted all afternoon, any questioners would discover that he'd been with his neighbor at the time that Rand's accomplice was trying to make off with a murder-weapon.
Now he had his identity established as an honest small trader looking for a home to settle down in, and any claims that Rand made to the contrary would have witnesses with stories that directly contradicted the mage's claims.
Of course, given a choice, if Rand were caught, Orm would much rather be far away from Kingsford. He had running-money in a belt he wore constantly, and knew how to get out of the city quickly by means of routes that were not easily blocked. But in case he couldn't run far or fast enough, well, he had a secondary line of protection.
He completed his precautions with no time to spare; it wasn't long afterwards that Rand transformed back into the Black Bird.
But even then, in a pronounced change from his usual habits, the mage didn't stop going out—he simply did so by night, and for the first three days, he didn't summon Orm or attempt to give him any orders. This was definitely odd, and it was obvious that Rand was up to something new.
By now, Orm had found another four possible targets, so he had something to show for all the time that Rand had left him to his own devices. But this sudden interest in something besides the usual pattern made Orm very nervous. What was Rand planning? Given his habits of the past, ithad to be dangerous.
It had better not be revenge on the High Bishop, Orm thought, more than once. If it is—I don't care what his plan is, I want no part of it. That's not dangerous, it's suicidal, and I am not ready to throw my life away.
Maybe he was planning how to leave the city; perhaps he had gotten information of his own on the whereabouts of the Gypsy called Robin. If Rand was going to pursue any of his three "worst enemies," Robin would be the safest.
But if he is going outside this Kingdom, unless it's to a place I already know, he can do it without me.Orm had no intentions of trying to learn his way around a new city with new laws and new customs—and coming into inevitable conflict with residents who were already in the same line of work that he was.
Or perhaps he was planning to leave in pursuit of his vendetta with Lady Lark.
I'm having no part of that. It would be as suicidal as going after the High Bishop! It would be worse! At least here I am operating in my own city—if Rand went off after Lark, we'd be in a Kingdom and a city I know nothing about. Go after someone who's in the King's Household and is allied with Elves? No thank you!
Finally the expected summons came, and Orm went up the stairs to Rand's apartment trying not to feel as if he was climbing the steps of a gallows. He opened the door to find the Black Bird waiting for him, perched on a stool, and watching him with its cold, black eye.
"I've got some possible targets for you," Orm offered, but the Bird cut him off with a shake of its head.
"I have an assignment for you," the Bird croaked. "I want you to follow a man called Tal Rufen. He's probably a Church Guard, since he lives at the Abbey of the Justiciars, even though he very seldom wears the uniform. I don't know what his rank is, other than that of Church Guard and not Guard Captain, but he's involved in trying to find us, and you can thank him for that sketch of you that's being handed around to all the constables."
Rand did not bother to tell him how he was to follow this "Tal Rufen" fellow; Rand at least gave him credit for expertise in his own area. Picking up a subject who came and went from a place as isolated as the Justiciar's Abbey would be a challenge, but it wasn't insurmountable.
"I want you to learn all you can about him, and every time he leaves the Abbey, I want you to watch his every move. I want to know the slightest of details about him; what he wears, what he carries, even what he eats and drinks." The Bird cocked its head to one side, but it wasn't a gesture calculated to make Orm feel amused. "No matter how trivial it is, I want to know it. I want to know this man better than his best friend. Do you understand all that?"
Orm shrugged and nodded. "Not easy, but not all that difficult," he acknowledged. "How long do you want me to follow him? Do you want me to try and obtain something of his?"
"Two days, at least, and no, I don't want you to get that close." The Bird gave a croak of what was probably supposed to be amusement. "I have reason to believe that he is the High Bishop's personal guard and assistant, and if he thought that something was missing, Ardis might try to trace it back to whoever took it."
Why is Rand so interested in this man? And why follow him? It didn't make a lot of sense, unless—
No one really made any attempt to pursue us until we came here. I wonder if this fellow has something to do with that. If that's the case, he may be the only reason why the High Bishop is interested. If Rand can eliminate him, pursuit may die for lack of interest, especially if we can be rid of him by somehow discrediting him. He nodded, and waited for the Bird to give him more orders. But Rand only yawned and said, "You may go. Come back up here when you have your first report for me."
Orm stood up and left, now very curious. But the only way he was going to satisfy that curiosity would be to follow Rand's orders and trail this Tal Rufen fellow.
The more I learn, the more I'll know—or be able to deduce. Whatever pie Rand has got his claw into, this Tal Rufen fellow is somehow involved.
His first difficulty was to discover what his quar
ry looked like; that was easily solved. He made up a parcel of unused blank books—blank books being the most innocuous and inexpensive objects he could think of—and paid a boy from his neighborhood to take them to the Abbey. He didn't want to send real books on the chance that Rufen might open the parcel and examine what was in it—and if by some horrible chance Orm managed to send books that interested him, Rufen might well try to find the rightful owner to buy them himself. That would be a recipe for trouble. These were inexpensive blank books of the kind that young girls used for journals and artists liked to sketch in. They would hardly be of any use to someone from the Abbey, who could get better quality versions of the same things simply by presenting himself at the Scriptorium, where they made hand-lettered and illuminated copies of books to add to the Abbey income.
"Someone left these at my table at lunch," he told the boy, "but I'm not sure who it was; it was crowded, and there were a number of people I didn't know sharing my table. A fellow called Tal Rufen from the Abbey was one of the people there, and I would think that someone from the Abbey would be the likeliest to have a parcel of books; go and see if it was him. I'll be here doing my inventory."
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