Nicholas Raven and the Wizards' Web (The Complete Epic Fantasy)

by Thomas J. Prestopnik

  “Did Miss Durant visit with her uncle for as long as she needed?” he asked, eyeing Tyler Harkin as if he might have done something wrong.

  “Of course, Mayor Farnsworth,” he replied. “I allowed her into his cell to speak with Otto uninterrupted.”

  “Good. Very good, sir,” he replied more kindly. “You did exactly as you were supposed to. But did the young lady have any other matters she was displeased with? When I saw her talking to you as I entered the room, it seemed as if she was–”

  “No, sir!” the deputy interjected. “Miss Durant voiced no complaints. She was simply asking to speak with Constable Brindle as soon as possible. I told her he was out at Bud Chasen’s farm again and probably wouldn’t be back until later this morning. It seems that Bud lodged another complaint about his neighbor’s goat,” he said with a smirk. “They still haven’t fixed the hole in their pen.”

  “I see,” Farnsworth replied with an amused nod. “Was there anything you or I could have helped Miss Durant with? I hate to see any citizen of Kanesbury unserved by their public officials.”

  “As do I,” the deputy agreed. “I offered to help but she was reluctant to tell me what she needed. She insisted on talking to Clay in person. Miss Durant will return tomorrow when she has time.”

  Farnsworth casually shrugged his shoulders which put the deputy at ease. “Oh well, then I guess it’s no business of ours. Don’t give it another thought.”

  “Very well.”

  Farnsworth smiled as he headed toward the back hallway, tossing the dried burrs he had pulled from Katherine’s cloak into the fireplace. He removed a set of keys to the prison cells that hung on a hook near the hall entrance. “I won’t keep you from your duties any further. I’m going to talk to Otto briefly and then return to the banking house. Carry on,” he added cheerfully before drifting down the shadowy hallway where his smile quickly melted from his face.

  When he reached Otto’s door, he paused before knocking, wondering why Katherine was so eager to meet with Constable Brindle. Surely it must be about Otto’s upcoming trial and nothing more, he concluded. Yet the knowledge that Katherine had lied to him about sleeping through the entire night only moments after Sophia offered a contradictory story bothered him like a nagging mosquito. But he let it pass for the moment and knocked on the door to officially inform Otto about the latest news regarding his trial.

  As noontime approached, Farnsworth had gotten little work done in his office. His thoughts constantly turned to Katherine Durant and what he believed was a feigned sickness on her part the previous night. He wondered why she had gone to all the trouble of asking Amanda to host a dinner party with him as guest of honor and then slip out shortly after it had gotten underway. And why did she need to speak with Constable Brindle about a matter she refused to reveal to one of Clay’s deputies? He leaned back in his chair, a sense of unease and suspicion slowly wrapping itself around him like gray shadows at twilight.

  His thoughts shifted to Dooley Kramer and his journey to the swamp last night. Farnsworth speculated that that unsettling situation was what really had him upset right now. He wondered if he should have gone with Dooley on that fateful trip to make sure everything went according to plan. He nervously drummed his fingers on the desktop, debating whether to take a quick trip to the swamp to reassure himself that the situation stood as he imagined it, as he had paid for it to be. No one should be occupying the small house or the shed on that little island now, and the horse and cart that Dooley drove to the swamp should have been removed by the nameless assassin he had hired. That’s how things should stand and probably did. Farnsworth tried to convince himself of this before diving into his work again. But when he slipped on his coat a while later to leave the banking house at lunchtime, his suspicions got the better of him. He stopped at the station of one of his employees on his way out.

  “Mr. Keswick, there’s a small matter I must attend to this afternoon. I’d like you to manage the house in my absence,” he said, his demeanor calm and casual. “I doubt I shall be back by closing. Lock up at the normal time.”

  “Happy to, Mr. Farnsworth,” he replied, enjoying the idea of being in charge in his superior’s absence.

  “Very good then.” Farnsworth offered a hint of a smile as he walked away and exited the building, buttoning up his coat as he stepped into the cold, cheerless street.

  He was less than eager to return to the swamp, but nagging doubts urged him on. Deep down, he guessed that he had been destined to see this through to the end. But after today, he hoped never to visit that dreadful, watery site again, though he resigned himself to it invading his dreams from time to time. An adequate price for the triumphs that life would soon bestow upon him he reasoned while walking home to get a horse and cart for his impromptu excursion. Soon he climbed upon his steed, snapped the reins and rode down to River Road, dreading the weary journey ahead.

  A gray, oppressive silence weighed heavily upon Farnsworth as his horse trotted along the desolate road, a fine, intermittent snow falling. He passed only one individual during the trip, a man driving a cartload of hay presumably to one of the nearby dairy farms. He and Farnsworth silently acknowledged each other as they passed until an eerie stillness again reigned over the barren landscape. Soon he passed the Spirit Caves and crossed the wooden bridge just beyond. Shortly after, he veered off the road to his right and disappeared into a stretch of sparse woods that quickly thickened around him. He guided his horse down the narrow path deeper into the trees toward the swamp, stopping as he neared the water’s edge. He dismounted, scanning the area in the dim light of early afternoon.

  The murky water lay still and sleepy. Farnsworth noted the fresh impressions of wheel and horse tracks etched in the hard ground along with a slew of boot prints among the patches of dirt and dried grass. He was confident that Dooley and his hired assassin had arrived here last night. He scanned the pattern of prints across the ground, some in a detectable oval shape while others veered off here and there. He wondered if there had been a commotion during the night. Perhaps Dooley had put up a struggle or tried to flee when realizing his fate. Farnsworth wandered over to where the two boats were hidden in the underbrush. He knew his curiosity wouldn’t be satisfied until he paddled over to the island to check things out.

  After stepping in one of the boats, he pushed off using a paddle and swiftly made his way across to the island where he disembarked and pulled the boat ashore. He wandered over to the shed, noting the door was slightly ajar. As he stepped inside, a wave of relief washed over him when he saw that Maynard Kurtz’ sleeping body was gone, guessing that the man was now lying beneath the swamp. Farnsworth smiled, relaxing a bit now that one obstacle had been permanently removed. But something else about the shed’s interior looked different, something minor and out of place, though he couldn’t put a finger on it.

  He hurried to the house next, noting that the scent of burning wood was absent. Also missing was a thin trail of bluish-gray smoke snaking out of the small chimney on the side. Another good sign he mused with almost giddy delight, believing his problems were finally behind him. But when he saw the broken railing on the upper right side of the staircase, his heart fluttered. A straw broom lay upon the ground nearby. He slowly climbed the ten steps to the front door which was closed but not fastened with the padlock. He paused to study the broken railing and then glanced down to the ground at a handful of large splinters sprinkled among the dried weeds. Had Adelaide taken a spill, accidental or otherwise? Farnsworth scratched his head and went inside.

  The yawning fireplace greeted him, filled with a pile of cold ashes and half burnt logs. Everything else seemed undisturbed, looking like it always had whenever he and Dooley ventured inside. He peeked into the other rooms, and finding the place empty, stepped outside and stood on the top platform and pondered the situation. Pale daylight filtered through the treetops. The frosty, sharp scents from the swamp calmed the acting mayor of Kanesbury, allowing him to clear his mind and
visualize what might have happened.

  Since Adelaide was nowhere in sight, his first guess was to assume that she was also lying beneath the swamp with Maynard Kurtz, and most likely, Dooley Kramer. Farnsworth inhaled the bittersweet air, feeling more convinced than ever that he had gotten his money’s worth. His worries about Katherine Durant and her sudden and mysterious illness began to fade. He chuckled, realizing that she was merely a young girl who simply might have been bored eating dinner with a bunch of older folks and found a clever way to skip out early and spend an evening with her latest love instead. He admired her ingenuity and his mind was set at ease.

  Then he spotted something peculiar from his perch and his curiosity was stirred once again.

  Farnsworth gazed at the wooded area between the house and shed, noticing footprints embedded in the soil in one spot leading into the trees. The weeds and undergrowth in that area were noticeably disturbed, as if someone had recently walked into the woods at that point. He turned up his collar, his thoughts now somersaulting again. Who had gone into the woods, and why? He wondered if his paid assassin had buried the bodies instead of sinking them to the bottom of the swamp as instructed. He fumed for a moment before realizing that it would have been more work for the man to bury the bodies, not less. He scrambled down the stairs to investigate. Only moments ago he thought his life was in order. Now an element of disorder and uncertainty had returned. Katherine Durant’s clever escape from dinner again entered his mind, though he did not know why.

  He noted that the footprints were pressed deeper into the soil in this spot than those across the water. And since the ground was just as hard over here, he speculated that the individual must have been carrying something heavy, no doubt the body of one of his victims. Farnsworth didn’t have far to go before he saw a low, elongated pile of freshly dug dirt in the drowsy afternoon light, immediately recognizing the signs of a shallow grave which sent a sickening chill through him. What disturbed him more was that he could find only one grave in the vicinity after frantically searching the wooded area. Had his hired man buried only one body and sent the others to a watery grave? It didn’t make sense. But needing to know the truth, he rushed back to the shed to grab a shovel. When he looked inside, he noticed it was missing, realizing that that was the minor detail which had bothered him earlier.

  Farnsworth returned to the gravesite and searched for the shovel, thinking the assassin may have tossed it aside in the underbrush. When he couldn’t find it, he wondered if the man had taken it with him across the water, though unable to fathom why. Finally, he decided to do what he didn’t want to do–kneel down and dig away the dirt at one end of the grave with his bare hands. When his fingers touched what felt like the tip of a boot through a piece of soft material, he shuddered, yanking his arms out of the dirt. He repeated the process at the other end, scooping up soil and tossing it aside until the blanketed face of a dead individual stared up at him.

  Farnsworth paused, wiping his brow. He wondered what his employees at the banking house would say if they could see him upon his knees, his fingernails encrusted with soil from a murdered victim’s grave. He was reluctant to reveal the identity of the corpse, feeling sick to his stomach, but since he had come this far he knew there was no turning back. He reached for the edges of the material and slowly pulled them down over the victim’s head and face. But before he completed the task, his hands began to shake when his fingers were suddenly entwined with long locks of dirty blond hair. He leaned back in horror when Dooley Kramer’s pale, lifeless face was fully exposed. He remained frozen for several moments while hunched over his neighbor’s dead body, his gaze locked upon Dooley’s closed eyelids and ashen face as he silently tried to absolve himself of any responsibility for the man’s death. He wondered how and why he had come to be in this particular place in life. A satisfying answer eluded him as the sickly scent of death permeated the air.

  After reburying Dooley’s corpse, Farnsworth paddled over to the other side of the swamp, eager to leave the island behind. Light would be fading soon and he wanted to depart before the darkness swallowed him up in the ghostly aura now taking hold among the creaking trees and along the water’s weedy edges. But before he left, he again examined the scattered footprints near where he had tied up his horse. He assumed that the prints, messily laid down in an ovular shape, were those of Dooley as he possibly evaded the assassin he had unwittingly brought to the swamp. If so, he wondered why Dooley was buried on the island if he had been killed over here. Or had Dooley fled to the island and then met his demise over there? The prickly questions gave Farnsworth a headache.

  He continued to study the prints, some more distinct than others. A few veered off into the narrow stretch of woods along the water. Farnsworth followed them into the tree line, wading through dried undergrowth and some low hanging branches. As on the island, it didn’t take long for him to find another freshly dug gravesite, and lying nearby, the metal shovel that had disappeared from the shed. He wondered why the man would bother to bury either Adelaide or Maynard’s corpse over here. Perhaps both of the bodies were in this one gravesite as he couldn’t find another one.

  He carefully removed some of the soil at one end of the grave with the shovel until he uncovered the face of the deceased, once again wrapped in an old blanket. Since the body was large in size, he assumed that it must be Maynard Kurtz sprawled out before him, asleep for the ages. He knelt down and pulled away the layers of material covering the face, expecting to reveal the familiar long strands of silvery-black hair that were the hallmark of Maynard’s appearance. But when the whiskered face of a total stranger stared blankly back from the grave, Farnsworth flinched and jumped to his feet, wondering whose corpse he had dug up. It took only a few moments, however, for the pieces of that puzzle to logically fall into place. He realized that he must be standing over the man he had anonymously hired to do his killing. He scratched his head, his mind overwhelmed until a bolt of lightning-like clarity struck him, making him realize the danger of his situation.

  If both Dooley and his hired assassin were dead, then who had killed them? It only made sense that either Adelaide or Maynard had rendered the fatal blows, hard as that was to believe. Had Maynard finally awaken from his sleep and saved them both? Or had Adelaide escaped and somehow heroically carried Maynard’s body away to safety after defeating her foes? Regardless of the answer, Farnsworth knew that the circumstances spelled out his doom. Both individuals he had imprisoned were now free and had the ability to bring him down. His rise to power had come to an unexpected end, and he wondered if he could ever again show his face in Kanesbury.

  Farnsworth reburied the body, miffed that he had not gotten his money’s worth. He silently cursed in the growing gloom for not checking Dooley’s body for the pouch of silver half pieces. Or maybe the man he just reburied had the money in his possession instead, but Farnsworth didn’t have the heart to search for it now. He could always come back another day. Now it was time to go home–if that was even an option anymore.

  Farnsworth tossed the shovel into a clump of dried ferns with a weary sigh, wondering if his twisted plans had been worth the effort. He contemplated where in life he would be right now if he had never walked past Dooley’s house five years ago and saw him on the doorstep fingering that key hanging around his neck. Would he still be managing the banking house for Horace Ulm? Perhaps, though he thought he’d probably be dying of boredom behind his desk without having achieved his current station as acting mayor of Kanesbury, a role now in jeopardy.

  And it was all Dooley Kramer’s fault. It was Dooley’s fault for stealing the key and inadvertently enticing him into this life of crime. It was Dooley’s fault for being both incompetent and a liability, thus forcing Farnsworth to have him killed. It was all his fault, he thought with a scowl as he turned around and headed back through the trees to his horse. But he hadn’t taken a handful of steps away from the gravesite when he felt a slight tug on his pant leg.

  Farn
sworth looked down at his boots, his thoughts still in a muddle. He noticed that his left leg had brushed against a burdock bush and pulled off some of the prickly spurs. He grunted with mild disgust as he reached down to pick them off one by one, still more upset with Dooley and his own shifting fortunes than with this minor inconvenience. But when he pulled off the last burr and tossed it aside, a paralyzing chill suddenly gripped him. Farnsworth stood up straight, his eyes open wide and unblinking.

  “She was here!” he whispered in horror. Now it all made sense–the dinner party on that particular night and Katherine’s abrupt departure. Those events could not be explained away as mere coincidence. Katherine Durant, and perhaps others, must know about his involvement with Maynard and Adelaide’s kidnappings, his partnership with Dooley Kramer and his alliance with Caldurian. It was the only logical conclusion. But how did she find out? And more importantly, what was she going to do about it?

  Farnsworth returned to his horse, wondering what to do as he ran his hand across the animal’s soft mane. He now understood Katherine’s desire to speak with Constable Brindle–she wanted to expose him to the authorities and have him arrested. He was disgusted that she had acted so civilly to him in the village lockup when all the while she was plotting his demise. He wondered if the Stewarts were involved, or perhaps Katherine’s friend, Lewis. And where were Maynard and Adelaide now? No doubt somewhere under Katherine’s protection, secret and safe. They above anyone else could point the finger of blame at him and destroy his life forever. And once Katherine talked to Constable Brindle tomorrow, it would all be over. If he was going to flee, he knew he would have to leave before sunrise. Yet if he chose to stay and fight, he would have to lay the groundwork in a similarly constricted timeframe.

  But what could he do? With the possibility that so many people knew of his transgressions, how could he stop them without killing them all? He considered other options as the dusky light dimmed and the restless grunts of his horse disturbed the oppressive silence. After much tortuous thinking, he arrived at a possible conclusion that might buy him some time if Katherine was the only person who knew of his involvement. If many others were already aware of his guilt, he guessed that they would come after him whether Constable Brindle had been informed or not. But if Katherine held this knowledge in secret, he convinced himself that maybe he could persuade her to keep it that way until he made some long-term plans. He realized it would require swift and intricate maneuverings, yet nothing more complicated than what it took to get him where he was right now.