by Kate Novak
Giogi shuddered. “Let’s get out of here.”
When they’d rejoined Olive, Giogi pulled a blanket out of the burro’s saddlebags and covered his cousin’s unconscious body. Then the party began carefully retracing its steps using Giogi’s map and the numbers painted on the walls.
Olive plodded beside Cat’s magic disk and took advantage of the time to study the unconscious Steele. He had the Wyvernspur face, all right. Considering Steele’s sadistic streak, which Cat had just revealed to them, he seemed even more likely to be Jade’s murderer. Unfortunately, while the murderer had looked far younger than Nameless, he had also looked somewhat older than Steele. Steele wasn’t any older than Giogi. Besides, Steele had a mole by the right side of his mouth, which Olive was certain the murderer had not possessed.
Of course, that left the possibility that Steele might have been disguised. It was hard to imagine, though, that a young man foolish enough to walk into a kobold ambush was really a powerful mage. Ruling out Steele left the halfling with Frefford and Drone, and any other male relatives Giogi might have who he hadn’t yet mentioned.
Plodding along behind Giogi and Cat, Olive hadn’t paid much attention to their progress. They’d crossed or turned at six intersections when Giogi looked up from his map with a puzzled expression. “We can’t have come this far already,” he said, reaching out to touch the numbers on the wall. His fingers came back with paint on them. “Odd. This should have dried by now.”
From one of her robe pockets Cat drew out her own crudely drawn map.
A sinister giggling echoed around them.
“The kobolds,” Cat whispered with alarm. “They’ve tricked us with false markings.”
Giogi held the finder’s stone up high to see if he could catch a glimpse of the monsters. The light sprang out down one corridor of the intersection, but left the other three in the dark. Giogi spied no kobolds, but he did spot a piece of paper on the floor. He led them toward it and picked it up.
“This is from your cheese sandwich,” he said. “I can find our way from here.” He rolled up his map and slipped it back in one of the burro’s packs. Remembering what Samtavan Sudacar had told him about the finder’s stone, the nobleman followed its light with confidence. Whichever way it shone the brightest, he turned.
“Are you sure you’re headed in the right direction?” the mage asked uncertainly.
Giogi nodded with a sly grin.
Olive, aware of the finder’s stone’s powers, thought, The boy’s smarter’n he looks, girl. Take his word for it.
Giogi’s party wasn’t too far from the stairs to the crypt when a huge shadow blocked the corridor ahead.
“Bother!” Cat growled. “Not him again.”
“What is it?” Giogi asked nervously, trying to make out the great shape’s identity by squinting.
“Bugbear.”
“Right,” Giogi said with a gulp. Maybe if I charge with a yell, he thought, I can send it running, as I did with the kobolds. He raised his foil and took a deep breath.
Cat put her hand on Giogi’s sleeve again. “Let me handle this,” she said. She pulled out Giogi’s hip flask—which she had never returned—and unstoppered it. With two fingers on her tongue, she gave a shrill whistle and held up the flask.
The bugbear looked up at the newcomers, then came lumbering down the corridor at them.
Giogi froze with fear, and the burro tried to press her heavily loaded bulk flat against the wall. If she has a death wish, Olive thought, I wish she’d leave us out of it.
The halfling couldn’t tell for sure which smelled worse, the bugbear’s matted red fur or the lice-ridden wool sweater it wore. Its fangs were a dull yellow, but its eyes shone bright red. It stood much taller than Giogi. Giogi grabbed at Cat’s arm to pull her behind him, but she evaded his grasp and walked right up to the bugbear.
“Wine?” the mage offered with a smile. “More wine?”
The bugbear snatched the flask from Cat’s hand and poured its contents down its throat.
Cat stepped back.
“That’s not wine,” Giogi whispered. “It’s straight Rivengut.”
“I know, but he doesn’t. In another moment, he won’t care,” Cat replied, smiling.
The bugbear roared once, wobbled, and passed out.
“See?” the mage asked. She stepped over the monster and continued down the corridor with the disk and Steele floating after her.
Giogi and Olive hurried to catch up.
“I bribed him a few hours ago with a skin of wine,” Cat explained.
They reached the anteroom and slowly climbed the stairs back to the crypt. Olive felt her stomach rumbling. She thought longingly, too, of the Rivengut that Cat had given the bugbear.
When they reached the top of the rough stairs, Giogi peered into the crypt, but the guardian was silent.
Giogi crept across the crypt without a word. Olive needed no warning to step as softly as she could, but Cat couldn’t leave well enough alone.
“So where’s the guardian?” the mage asked as they waited at the crypt door for Giogi to pull out his key.
“She’s here,” Giogi muttered as he inserted his key in the door and unlocked it. “Please, don’t disturb her.”
“Giogioni,” the guardian’s voice whispered. “Not long now, my Giogioni.”
Cat whirled around and saw the huge wyvern shadow on the far wall. “Mystra’s mysteries!” she whispered excitedly. “There is a guardian.”
Giogi flung the door open and smacked Olive through. The burro needed no further encouragement. She clomped up the stairs.
“What does she mean?” Cat asked. “Not long until what?”
“Don’t ask, please,” Giogi whispered, tugging on the mage’s arm to pull her through the doorway with him. As soon as the disk floated through, too, he slammed the door shut and relocked it.
“Why shouldn’t I ask what she meant?” Cat demanded.
Giogi closed his eyes. “Because I don’t want to know,” he whispered.
They trudged up the last four flights of stairs. Giogi hopped hard on the tenth step from the top, and the secret door slid open. He ushered them through the mausoleum and out into the graveyard beyond.
The noon sky was a cold steel gray laced with low clouds, but the trio blinked in the open air as if they had been prisoners exposed to full sunshine for the first time in months.
Giogi reached into one of the burro’s packs and pulled out a vial of healing potion. As carefully as he could, he poured it down Steele’s throat. His cousin stirred and sighed, but remained unconscious.
“That’s the best I can do,” Giogi said. “We’ll have to get him to a cleric. How much longer can you carry him like this?” he asked Cat.
“As long as you need me to,” the mage replied with a gentle smile.
“Thank you. For everything,” Giogi said.
What about me? Olive thought. I’ve pulled more than my share of the weight, too, you know.
As if reading Olive’s thoughts, Giogi scratched between the burro’s ears and said, “We’ll be home soon, Birdie. You’ll get your lunch then, and with any luck we’ll get an explanation from Unce Drone before teatime.”
Yes, Olive thought. Uncle Drone’s one mage I want to meet.
Their party hadn’t gone halfway down the graveyard hill when a man wrapped in a green cloak came rushing up to meet them. He was calling out Giogi’s name. As he approached, Olive realized he was another Wyvernspur. He had the same face as Steele, Nameless, and Jade’s murderer. Good grief, Olive thought, how do Wyvernspurs tell one another apart?
Now, that has the makings of a good joke, the halfling mused. She studied the newcomer. He didn’t have a mole like Steele, but he was just as young. His eyes weren’t the right shade. Jade’s murderer had ice-blue eyes, like Nameless’s eyes. The eyes of the man before them now were definitely hazel.
Beside her Olive felt Cat start for a moment and gasp softly. Funny, the halfling thought, that�
�s the same reaction she had when she got a good look at Steele. I wonder why.
“It’s just my Cousin Frefford,” Giogi explained. “Let me do the talking.”
Cat relaxed instantly.
So, this is Frefford, Olive thought. Well, he’s not the murderer. That leaves me with Uncle Drone.
“Good morning, Freffie,” Giogi greeted his kinsman when they stood face to face.
“Good morning, Giogi. What happened to Steele?” Frefford asked.
Giogi sighed with exasperation. “He went in without me. I found him under a kobold trap. I thought I’d better get him back before exploring further. This young woman was in the graveyard. She offered to give me a hand with him. He’ll be all right, I think. Freffie, how’s Gaylyn?”
“She’s fine,” Freffie replied. “Mother and daughter are both fine.” His grim tone, however, did not match his good news.
Giogi broke into a grin. “Congratulations! I’m so happy for you. But shouldn’t you be with them?” Frefford’s hard expression finally registered with Giogi. “Freffie, what’s wrong?”
“Aunt Dorath sent me to fetch you and Steele,” Frefford explained. He took a deep breath and put a comforting hand on Giogi’s shoulder. “It’s Uncle Drone,” he said. “Aunt Dorath said he went to his laboratory to cast some awful spell. We looked everywhere for him, but he’s disappeared. On the floor of his lab we found,” Frefford’s voice broke. He swallowed and continued. “All we found were his robes, his hat, and a pile of ash. Uncle Drone is dead, Giogi.”
Drone’s Last Message
Giogi felt as if he’d been pole-axed. The color drained from his face. He did not reply to Frefford’s news at once, but stood looking out at the lake in the distance. Wind whipped his hair about his face, but he seemed not to notice.
“Giogi, are you all right?” Frefford asked, squeezing his cousin’s shoulder gently.
“No,” Giogi said. “There has to be some mistake. He can’t be dead.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t a mistake. I’m sorry, Giogi. We all cared for him very much,” Frefford said. “Come on, let’s get off this cold hill,” he suggested, pulling on his stunned cousin’s arm, leading him down the hill.
Olive and Cat followed, with the disk carrying Steele trailing behind them. Frefford’s and Giogi’s cloaks whipped out behind them in a wind that swept up the hill. Olive glanced sideways at the mage and was surprised to see she wasn’t shivering with only her satin robes to protect her from the weather. Cat was deep in thought.
I’ll bet she’s weighing her chances with Giogi without his Uncle Drone to protect her from her master, Olive thought.
What are the chances, she wondered, that Drone killed Jade and retribution caught up with him the very next morning? Olive shook her head. It hadn’t seemed very likely that the old man Giogi had described as sweet and gentle would be Jade’s murderer. Now I won’t be able to identify Drone for sure, Olive realized, since he’s been turned to a pile of ash.
A pile of ash—like Jade! Did Drone meet his fate at the same hands? Was the murdering Wyvernspur running around killing all of his kin? Olive trotted closer to Giogi and pricked up her ears to eavesdrop on the two men’s conversation.
“How could this have happened?” Giogi asked, rubbing tears from his cheeks.
“We think he used a gate spell to bring in something dangerous and evil, then lost control of it, and the thing killed him.”
“But he hated gating things,” Giogi protested. “That spell always ages him horribly. Why would he do a thing like that?”
“To help him find the spur,” the Wyvernspur lord explained. “You see, after the baby was born, Gaylyn and Aunt Dorath both wanted me to lend a hand in the crypt. Gaylyn was worried for you, and Aunt Dorath, of course, is frantic to have the spur returned. Uncle Drone said that there was no sense wasting my time, because once you got past the guardian, you’d be fine, and the thief and the spur weren’t in the catacombs anyway.”
“Oh,” Giogi murmured listlessly. He thought that if he hadn’t been wasting his time saving Steele’s miserable hide, he might have been with Uncle Drone.
“Oh? Is that all you can say?” Frefford asked. “Giogi, did you know about that?” he asked, suspicious.
“Uncle Drone told me last night,” the noble admitted, “but he wouldn’t tell me why he misled us all. He said I was supposed to go down to keep up the charade, and tell him later everything that happened.”
“Well, when Uncle Drone told us this morning,” Frefford said, “he claimed it was some sort of ruse to see what Steele would do. Aunt Dorath hit the ceiling. She demanded Uncle Drone return the spur. Uncle Drone swore he didn’t have it and didn’t know where it was. Aunt Dorath said he had darn well better find out. Uncle Drone said he darn well would. Then he went stomping up to his lab with orders that he was not to be disturbed—that it would be dangerous to interrupt him.”
Frefford took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then continued his grim tale. “When he didn’t come down for morning tea, Aunt Dorath sent me after him. Both doors to his lab were locked and bolted. Aunt Dorath insisted I force one of them. It looked like there’d been a fight when we got inside. Papers were scattered about. Furniture was overturned. Then we found the ashes beneath his robes and hat.”
Frefford’s word hung on the cold air with the vapor of his breath. Then he asked his cousin, “Giogi, did you talk to the guardian? Did she say anything?”
“Freffie, I’d really rather not talk about her right now,” Giogi replied.
Frefford put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder again. “Giogi, it could be important,” the Wyvernspur lord insisted, giving Giogi’s shoulder a squeeze. “You know you’re the only one she communicates with.”
Giogi kicked at a rock on the path. The guardian spoke to only one member of each generation of Wyvernspurs. Giogi wished she would have picked someone else—someone like Steele. Steele didn’t believe in her. He had teased Giogi about her since they were children, when Giogi had first admitted hearing her voice.
Frefford believed, though. And he was right, it could be important. Giogi said, “I asked her why she didn’t stop the thief, and she said that she’s supposed to let Wyvernspurs pass unslain. I asked her who had taken the spur, and she said she couldn’t tell—that we’re all alike—except me.”
“Nothing about the curse?” Frefford asked.
“Freffie, that’s just superstition,” Giogi said.
“Aunt Dorath doesn’t seem to think so,” Frefford said softly. “Maybe she’s right. Uncle Drone and Steele both risked their lives because of it, and Uncle Drone—” Frefford broke off his sentence. There was no need to say it again.
They reached the bottom of the hill and stepped out onto the road, where Frefford’s carriage waited. A wedding gift from Gaylyn’s father, the carriage’s gilded surface still sparkled, even in the gray light. Giogi and Frefford transferred Steele from Cat’s magical disk to the carriage’s back seat.
“Steele must see a healing cleric right away,” Frefford said, “but I can drive you into town, at least.”
Giogi excused himself, using Birdie as an excuse. Cat explained she had business with Giogi.
“Stop by later and see the baby,” Frefford invited as he climbed into the carriage, beside his wounded cousin. Steele moaned softly in his sleep.
“Thanks. I will,” Giogi promised.
Frefford signaled his driver, who clucked the horses into motion. As the carriage rattled down the road, Giogi felt a sense of relief. He didn’t want to be around when Steele fully recovered and found out Uncle Drone had deceived them. Frefford could handle Steele’s rage far better than Giogi could.
“Perhaps I’d better leave,” Cat suggested, “now that your uncle is no longer here to aid you.”
Good idea, Olive thought, nodding her burro head in agreement.
“No,” Giogi said. “Uncle Drone’s death doesn’t change anything. You’re still in danger; you must stay with me.
After all, if the guardian let you pass, you must be a Wyvernspur, and we Wyvernspurs look out for one another.”
Cat bowed her head. “Very well. I accept your kind offer, Master Giogioni.”
“Wonderful.” Giogi smiled at Cat, feeling excessively pleased with himself. “Gracious Tymora. I never even noticed. You haven’t a cloak. Here, you’d better wear mine. I insist,” the noble said, ignoring the mage’s protests as he wrapped her in his own cloak.
Humans are such fools, Olive noted, especially human men. All this chivalry nonsense and family duty could get a person killed. Like Uncle Drone.
“Come along, Birdie,” Giogi chided, giving the burro a tug on the lead rope. “Stop daydreaming. We want to get home before the weather turns ugly. Ugh. Make that uglier.”
Olive looked up. The clouds overhead had gone from steel gray to black. Olive felt the first sharp, cold needles of sleet pierce through her fur. She began trotting alongside the two humans as they hurried down the road toward Giogi’s home.
The traffic in Immersea was lighter than it had been earlier that morning. A few grimy urchins chased one another through the streets, but the foresters had returned to the forest, the field hands to the fields, and the fishermen to their beds. Servants were busy eating their noonday meals.
By the time Giogi’s party reached his townhouse gate, the drizzling sleet became a heavy freezing rain, which hid the townhouse behind a curtain of water. The nobleman, mage, and burro dashed through the garden and hustled into the carriage house. They all stood shaking water and ice from their hair, clothes, and fur for a minute.
“Just as soon as I get Birdie settled, we’ll have our lunch,” Giogi promised Cat as he lit the lantern by the door.
“Haven’t you got a servant to take care of that?” Cat asked.
Giogi nodded. “Yes, Thomas usually handles it, but I like to look after them, too. I like animals,” he explained.
Cat climbed into the parked buggy and sank into the cushioned seat with a sigh.
Giogi unloaded all the equipment from the burro’s back and led the beast back into her stall. He unclipped the lead rope but left the halter on. He rubbed her dry with an old blanket and brushed the worst of the catacomb dust and cobwebs from her hide and the mud from her little feet. Olive submitted to the grooming philosophically. After all, she thought, how many halflings get their feet washed by Cormyte nobles?
