Realms of Mystery a-6

by Elaine Cunningham

  For the merest instant, Spielt’s eyes flicked toward Avarilous. “I know him. I thought there was something odd about him from the moment he sat down at our table.” His hysterical giggle pierced the damp air. “I knew we should have taken care of him earlier.”

  Avarilous smiled agreeably, taking care to keep his hands in plain sight and make no sudden movements. “Gentlemen, a word from an impartial observer seems as if it would not come amiss just now.” He picked up his ale from the window ledge where he had set it.

  Kreelan spoke before the others. “Perhaps it would, but I don’t know exactly what game you’re playing. Are you an agent of one of the other cities?”

  Avarilous permitted himself a small shrug. “My concerns in this affair are my own. For all you know, I could be an innocent bystander. But I know enough of what’s occurring in the Five Kingdoms these days to understand something about who you’re all working for.”

  Spielt sneered openly, the veins in his neck turning purple. The watchman’s sword rested closely against the largest of these, and Avarilous could see the tip of the blade denting the dirty skin. “If you know so much about it, Whoeveryouare, tell us about it.” The blond mercenary glared at Kreelan. “I’d love to know who this tanar’rispawned bastard is working for.”

  Avarilous cleared his throat perfunctorily and, righting a chair, sat down. “Well, then. To begin, the political situation between the Five Kingdoms is, as usual, at a stalemate. But some people would like to change that, and here’s where things get interesting. Who gains if the trade pact is signed between Konigheim and Doegan?”

  There was a minute stir, as if both Kreelan and Spielt had shifted positions slightly. Spielt’s hands, held stiffly up to his chest, caught a thread from his robe and began to twist it back and forth. Sirc’al shrugged. “They both gain. That’s why they want to sign it.”

  “Correction.” Avarilous picked up an unbroken plate from the table nearest him and, placing the center on his forefinger, spun it. “The two kingdoms want to negotiate about it. Neither wants to sign anything.”

  Spielt wet his lips. “That’s ridiculous.”

  Avarilous’s eyes followed the spinning plate. “The Konigheim slave lords see negotiations over the pact as a chance to gain breathing space for their accumulation of naval resources, preparatory to an invasion of Doegan. The mage-king, on the other hand, sees an opportunity for a small step toward his eventual goal of unifying the Five Kingdoms under his rule. I suspect he planned to use the period of negotiation about the pact to infiltrate more spies and agents into Konigheim to undermine the council’s power.”

  Abruptly he tossed the plate from his finger and caught it skillfully. “Edenvale, the Northrnen, and the Free Cities of Parsanic opposed the pact to different degrees. From their point of view, it’s essential to maintain the balance.”

  Sirc’al spoke. “I see. So these two were working as agents of one of the other three kingdoms to sabotage negotiations and prevent the pact.”

  Avarilous smiled tolerantly. “Not quite. It’s a bit more involved.” His eyes moved slowly from Ereelan to Spielt to the watch commander. “I’ve developed something of a nose for sniffing out treachery. And there’s a good deal of it here tonight.”

  The Watch commander gave a short bark of laughter. “Yes, by Tempus, I should say so. These two soldiers of fortune were willing to cut each others’ throats simply in order to earn their pay.”

  Avarilous shook his head. “Not quite. It’s true they were prepared to trade each others’ lives, but the motive was stronger than mere money. In fact, neither intended the other should leave the tavern alive.”

  “Explain!” Sirc’al’s voice was sharp.

  “Well, our friend Kreelan here, judging by his clothing, has passed himself off as a native of Tharkar. But if you look just where his neck meets his robe, you’ll see something else.

  The Watch commander craned his head and stared in the flickering lamplight. “Gods be damned! Gills!”

  “Yes, gills. The man’s from Doegan. On the other hand, looking at Spielt, we find something else a bit curious.”

  With both hands raised, he stepped closer to the blond man. Then, with extreme delicacy, he plucked the scarf from the mercenary’s head. Light gleamed on a complex array of tattooed lines and swirls, surrounding a perfectly formed, lidless, golden eye set in the middle of the man’s forehead. It stared angrily at the rest of the room.

  There was an audible gasp from the others. Sirc’al was the first to recover and gave vent to a burst of foul oaths invoking Umberlee and the blackest inhabitants of the deep. “A Konigheimer, by all the fiends!”

  Avarilous smiled and mopped the sweat from his brow, using the scarf he had wrenched away from the disguised slaver.

  The watch commander’s eyebrows were wrinkled in thought. “But wait a minute! Why in the name of the gods would Komgheim and Doegan want to break up the pact. They were the ones signing it.”

  “Not signing it,” patiently corrected Avarilous. “Negotiating about signing it.” He sighed. “As long as discussions dragged on, both the Konigheim Council and the mageking benefited. Meanwhile both secretly planned to sabotage negotiations at the last minute. Each planned a murder of a member of its own delegation in a public place on neutral ground, so the other could be accused not only of murdering an innocent delegate, but so that the Free Cities could be drawn into the conflict on the side of whichever party’s delegate was killed.

  “For that reason I’m quite sure Kreelan, as an agent of the mage-king, had orders to murder a Doegan delegate. Spielt, working for the Konigheim Council, was supposed to kill one of their representatives.” He sighed again. “It seems a bit ironic, really.”

  He paused and the stillness seemed to grow thicker in the heavy night air. The landlord, long forgotten where he lay against the wall, stirred and bumped against a metal cup, knocking it over. The dull metal thump sounded loud.

  Sirc’al, looking thoroughly confused, broke the silence. “So who was murdered? A Doeganer, or a Konigheimer?”

  Avarilous turned and regarded the corpse with a touch of regret. “Well, now, that’s the odd thing. Neither.”

  “Neither?” The overwrought commander was practically screaming. “How can you possibly say that? Both these scum provoked the fight in order to gain cover for their planned assassinations-I can work that out, thank you very much! One of them was successful before the other, both prepared to flee. Now you say neither completed his mission?”

  Avarilous walked over to the fountain. Setting down his tankard, he reached in and, with an expression of distaste, grasped the corpse by the scruff of its jerkin. With a sudden heave he brought it out, dripping, onto the flag-stones. He cautiously turned it over with his foot so they could all see the face. Water ran from the fat seams, from the mouth and nose, and merged with the smeared blood on his cut throat. From the inside of his sodden clothing a small scarlet viper emerged, hissed angrily at the merchant, and wriggled quickly into the bushes.

  One of the watch behind Sirc’al started and cried out, “Sir, that’s Sergeant Vilyous. Him that’s on the north gate. I spoke to him there yesterday.”

  The commander’s eyes widened..“Vilyous! Whoever helped him out of this world did us all a favor. He’ll not be missed.” He chuckled and spoke to Spielt and Kreelan. “A fine pair of assassins you turned out to be! Couldn’t even kill one of the men you were aiming for.”

  Spielt giggled. “Yes, Kreelan. I imagine if you get out of this, you’ll have a pretty time trying to explain things to the squid-master of Eldrinparr. He’ll turn you into fish bait.”

  Kreelan scowled. “Come off it, Spielt! You bungled this completely. I wonder to what slave pit they send assassins who kill the wrong man.”

  There was a moment of painful silence. The watchman holding the blade to Spielt’s throat gave a slight murmur of one whose arm muscles are beginning to ache intolerably. The sword in his hand shook, drawing a thin line of blo
od on Spielt’s neck muscles.

  Sirc’al broke the pause. “Do you two mean to tell me,” he said ominously, “that neither of you killed this lout?”

  Spielt said cautiously, “I mean to tell you that I didn’t.”

  “Liar,” snarled Kreelan. “I never touched the fellow. I saw him fall while you were near him. Since I thought you were working for Doegan as well, I assumed you’d completed the mission and we should get out.”

  “Wait a minute,” sputtered Spielt. “I thought you were employed by Konigheim.”

  There was another silence while everyone digested the import of these words. It was broken by Avarilous casually moving toward the wooden doors that led outside, still holding a nearly full tankard of ale. Spielt’s eyes followed him. “There!” he shrieked. “There, commander! There’s the murderer!”

  Slowly Sirc’al’s eyes swung toward Avarilous. “Who in the nine hells are you?

  The merchant looked at him apologetically. “The Ulgarthan government rather prefers to see the political situation in the Five Kingdoms remain the same,” he observed. “I came here to make sure the balance was preserved. And the man was extremely rude to me when I entered the city.”

  He turned to go.

  “Hoy!” cried a half-dozen voices simultaneously.

  Avarilous turned back toward the yard. At the same instant, his left foot kicked back against one of the doors, slamming it as hard as he could.

  The terrific crash precipitated a flurry of action within the courtyard. The watchman’s sword arm jerked violently, and his blade slid into Spielt’s neck. The blond man fell to the ground, writhing in his death throes. Almost at the same instant there was a dull twang, and a crossbow quarrel suddenly protruded from the back of Kreelan’s head. He staggered forward against the commander. Two of the watchmen whipped crossbows from beneath their dark robes and fired at the balcony where Raeglaran was standing. There was a cry and a crash of rending wood as Raeglaran’s lifeless body plummeted to the floor of the inn.

  Kreelan’s nerveless fingers jerked in a dying reflex, flipping the glass baIl upward. The commander snatched it out of the air. “Thank the-” he started to say, then watched in horror as the ball slipped from his sweaty grasp.

  Sirc’al screamed in frustration and anguish. Then he felt a sudden blow to the back of his knees and unexpectedly sat down in the chair thrust beneath him. The glass ball landed on his lap, unbroken, and his hands clasped round it. He could feel his heart thudding against his ribs.

  There was a quiet cough behind him, and he looked around to see who had saved him.

  Necht, Avarilous’s driver, stared at him with his hands still outthrust. Avarilous himself stood before the door watching calmly the havoc he had wrought. In the silence that followed, the merchant stepped carefully back into the courtyard and strolled over to the still recumbent landlord.

  “Daltrice,” he observed calmly, “I do have time for one short drink. And I think you owe me something.” He picked up a tankard and drained it. At the same time, he bent and effortlessly jerked a heavy purse from the landlord’s belt. He scattered its coins on the polished bar top and, swiftly flicking his forefinger, counted out one hundred and forty pieces. No one moved as he scooped them up and dropped them in his own pocket. Jingling slightly, he put down his drink and moved toward the door.

  “I forgot to tell you,” he said to the landlord. “I won’t be back again. Urgent business elsewhere. New accounts to service. You know how it is.” He grinned, beckoned to Necht, and was gone.

  Lynaelle

  Thomas M. Reid

  Lynaelle awoke suddenly to find herself face to face with a cocked crossbow. Hurlonn Davenwiss was at the other end, aiming it at her with a snarl on his face. Hurlonn was a generally sour fellow who had lost his wife two winters ago in an orc raid. “Get up, you ungrateful wench!” he yelled at her, even as she noticed others looming over her bed. The girl blinked, trying to clear the cobwebs of sleep, even as the sheets were yanked back and she was dragged to her feet. Teress Turigoode’s husband Shastin was there, and behind him Gorlin the hunter stood, a long dagger in his belt, a lantern in one hand, and a coil of rope in the other.

  “What’s the matter?” Lynaelle asked, shivering from the cold in only her thin shift.

  “Shut up!” Hurlonn spat, keeping the crossbow trained on the girl. “Tie her, Gorlin. Don’t let her use any of her infernal magic on us. Ungrateful little whelp.”

  Shastin spun Lynaelle around and pushed her against the bed, then grabbed her arms, jerking them cruelly behind her back. “Ow!” she cried out, not understanding. “Please! What’s wrong?” She could feel rope being threaded around her wrists, burning her skin as the slack was drawn up. “Please, Gorlin, someone, tell me what’s going on!” Lynaelle sobbed, desperately wishing Ambriel would arrive and call off this mob. She did not struggle as Gorlin finished tying her hands and began to bind her fingers, immobilizing them completely.

  “I say we kill her now and be done with it,” Hurlonn raged. “No sense in waiting.”

  “No,” Gorlin said quietly but firmly as he helped Lynaelle to her feet. “The Lady’s law says she gets a trial. There will be no killing.”

  “Fah!” spat Hurlonn. “A trial is a waste of time.” Outside her small one-room cottage, Lynaelle could see that dawn was breaking, but the sun was still behind the mountains.

  “Nonetheless,” Gorlin pronounced firmly, “the Lady’s law is clear. There will be a trial. Let’s go, girl.” He gently pushed Lynaelle forward, toward the door, steering her by his grip.

  “Please!” Lynaelle said, moving forward woodenly, shivering, her feet aching from the cold floor. “I didn’t do anything! Somebody please talk to me.” She felt numb, as if none of this were real. Where is Ambriel? she wondered. Or Daleon?

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t kill him!” Hurlonn fumed. “Don’t pretend you didn’t go up there last night and blast him with the very magic he taught you to use!”

  Lynaelle stumbled then, her head spinning. Ambriel! No! She sank to her knees, unable to breathe. Someone had taken Ambriel from her. I didn’t do it! her mind screamed. No, it can’t be real. She began to shake uncontrollably. “P-please,” she sobbed quietly. “I didn’t do that. I would never…” Never kill the only person who ever really cared about me, she finished in her head, remembering the previous day, the last time she had seen him.

  “No, no, Lynnie, twist it. Like this,” Ambriel chided as he tore another strip of parchment from the sheet in his lap. His gnarled fingers, steady despite their age, pulled the strip taut and then deftly looped it back on itself, giving it a half twist. “There, like that,” he said, pinching the ends together between his thumb and forefinger and holding it for the girl to see.

  Lynaelle chewed her lower lip as she studied the twisted shape in the older man’s hand, wanting to make certain she understood what he had done. She nodded finally, confident she could duplicate it. She took her own strip and pulled it taut by the ends, as he had done, then mimicked his movements to form the endless loop.

  “Good, very good,” Ambriel smiled, absently stroking his whiskered chin with one hand as he peered at the object in Lynaelle’s grasp. She smiled briefly to herself as she looked at him, crouched as he was upon the granite outcropping where they were studying, a coil of rope before him on the stone, He kept his cloak, the same sky-blue color as his eyes, wrapped about himself, for the air held a chill this late in the summer, even at the peak of a sunny afternoon.

  To most, Ambriel still seemed impossibly spry for his age, but Lynaelle had begun to notice little changes that hinted otherwise. Their walks through the woods never seemed to last as long as they once did, and his lessons on magic with her came less frequently. Mostly, she had begun to notice where the lines in his face had deepened and multiplied. He’s getting old, the back of her mind whispered, but she ignored it and concentrated on the lesson.

  “Now, the rest.” His voice was deep and rich agai
nst the hushed roar of the tumbling water at their feet. “Say the words slowly and clearly.”

  Lynaelle nodded again and rose to her feet, positioning herself so that the coil of rope was directly in front of her. She focused inwardly for a moment, concentrating, as she held the looped parchment before her. Then she began to speak, firmly citing words in an arcane tongue, As she formed the final syllables, she held her other hand up, palm to the sky, and blew a bit of cornstarch she had been grasping so that it passed through the twisted loop and settled on the coil of rope. She shivered, that now-familiar tingle engulfing her, as the incantation opened magical connections both within and around her body. She watched expectantly as the rope began to uncoil, one end climbing magically upward toward a dark, shimmering opening that appeared for an instant in the sun-dappled air.

  A deluge of water suddenly cascaded from the sky, crashing directly into Lynaelle and knocking her off-balance. She stumbled backward from the rock and fell into the icy stream, toppling onto her back and submerging. The torrent of water continued to slam into her, pinning her under the surface, and Lynaelle flailed about in a panic, unable to breathe. She inadvertently swallowed several mouthfuls of both icy fresh water and warmer salt water before she managed to roll to one side and escape the deluge. Just as quickly as the torrent of water had appeared, it vanished, leaving Lynaelle on her hands and knees in the stream, thoroughly drenched and shivering from cold.

  Lynaelle crawled from the stream onto shore, wiping water from her face and trying to catch her breath. She barely noticed Ambriel standing safely upon the bank of the stream, still clutching his spellbook. He gaped incredulously into the open air where the magical doorway had been spewing water only seconds before. All evidence of the rope, the parchment, and the cornstarch had been washed away from the outcropping of rock.

  When Lynaelle saw that her teacher was unhurt, she fell back upon a bed of dried fir needles, her eyes closed, breathing deeply and trying to calm her pounding heart.