Murder in Halruaa (forgotten realms)

by Richard Meyers

  The mine owner’s head shot up, tears blinking out of his eyes, remembering where he was… and what powerful people were in attendance. “Not to kill anyone! To steal magic artifacts! We only planned to plunder the secret workshop, I swear!”

  “Only to plunder the workshop” Lymwich cried, but a quick look from Pryce shut her up.

  “Details,” Covington demanded urgently of the mine owner. “In twenty-five words or less.”

  “Gamorit was Gamor! He came to me with the idea. Teddington and I met with him several times. Turkal said he could get us inside. Fullmer would transport the material, and I would secrete it in one of my empty mines.”

  “It would take three people days to empty the workshop!” Dearlyn Ambersong interjected angrily.

  “Not all at once!” Hartov babbled. “A bit at a time.”

  “But then Gamor was gone,” Pryce said soothingly. “Wasn’t he, Asche?”

  “Yes,” Hartov said, grabbing that reality like a life preserver. “I looked all over Lallor for him. Fullmer… Fullmer made me stay until we heard from him. Curse him!”

  “Ah, yes,” said Pryce. ‘Teddington Fullmer.” He turned away from the shuddering mine owner for the moment and addressed the others. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is as good a time as any to reveal to you a most important principle of detection. The most important letter for a detective is Y. And the most important why at the moment is this: Why hasn’t the murderer killed me?”

  The question caught everyone off guard for a moment. “Think about it,” Pryce suggested. “The murderer was powerful enough to kill Geerling Ambersong, and I am merely his lowly student. Here I am, devoting all my energy to finding my master’s killer, and what happens to me?” He looked resolutely at Gheevy. “Nothing. Why?”

  It was safe to say that they were all perplexed. Pryce continued. ‘When you think about it, there can only be one reason… ”

  Mystra Superior Wendchrix Turzihubbard wasn’t interested in playing guessing games. “And what is that, Mister Blade?” She made it clear by her tone that the answer should be forthcoming immediately.

  He looked at her calmly, pausing as thunder rumbled in the distance. “Because the murderer can’t.”

  “Why not?” Turzihubbard retorted evenly.

  He looked directly at her, but he spoke to them all. “Because the person who killed my teacher and master, Geerling Ambersong, is also dead.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Blade Straight and True

  The sky rumbled once more. Pryce looked up to see storm clouds gathering directly in the ship’s path. “Captain!” he called. “Can we avoid the storm?”

  “No,” Scottpeter called back. “But the beacon from Mount Talath will pull us through. It may be rough, but we’ll make it!”

  “Fair enough.” Pryce turned back to the others. “But it doesn’t give us much time.”

  “Mr. Blade!” Turzihubbard called out. “Explain yourself!”

  He looked at her helplessly. ‘This is the only thing that makes sense, Mistress Turzihubbardespecially if you follow Sante’s teachings, which my master most certainly did. I ask you all to think about who else is dead.”

  He looked from one to the next as he carefully explained. “Gamor is gone. Geerling is gone. We will never know who killed them unless we solve the mystery of who murdered Teddington Fullmer.”

  It was silent on deck except for the creaking of stevlyman wood and an ominous rumbling far off in the sky. Finally Matthaunin Witterstaet managed to choke out a laugh. “My word, Mr. Blade. It sounds rather like the sort of conundrum I set for my immigration test”

  Pryce turned to him and smiled. “Yes, Matthaunin, that’s true. For instance, why can’t a person living in Halarahh be buried west of the River Ghalagar?” They all looked at each other for the answer, but it was forthcoming only from Pryce. “Because he’s still living. Remember?” A few of them started to laugh, but Pryce added, “Unlike Teddington Fullmer.” That sobered them up again.

  “All right,” Pryce stated, taking a position in the middle of the deck. ‘Think. Remember that most of you were in Schreders’s tavern the afternoon I spoke with Fullmer in the grotto. Any one of you could have overheard us planning a meeting for that night. But who is the only one who could have killed him and then, more importantly, placed him in the locked secret workshop?”

  Pryce glanced at the clouds, which were boiling and turning black, then moved in among his audience for the intellectual kill. He looked from Witterstaet to Lymwich and back again. “You two told me. How much magic do the people we pressed into moving the contents of the workshop possess?”

  “Why, none,” said Matthaunin.

  “And why would they kill Fullmer, anyway? To get the workshop for themselves?” Pryce waved that thought aside with a look of distaste. “A motive shared by all is no longer really a valid motive. Look for an unusual motive, a motive with a difference. In that motive the truth may lie.”

  He pointed at the remorseful mine owner. “Would he kill Fullmer in order to get out of their plan to plunder the workshop? I don’t think so.” He pointed at Azzo and Karkober. ‘They were serving food and drink to dozens of people at the time Fullmer was attacked. The kitchen crew will corroborate that they never left the dining area.”

  “None of them possesses magical abilities,” Lymwich spoke up. “And I was keeping my shift in front of the orbs of eyewitness in the Mystran Inquisitrix Castle, along with several of my sister inquisitrixes.”

  Both Pryce and the Mystra Superior looked at Lymwich in surprise. How dare she interrupt this denouement? But her purpose became clear when she turned to confront Pryce on the skyship deck. “There was only one other person with the necessary magical power,” she said accusingly. Lymwich pointed directly at him. “You.”

  Pryce Covington did not panic at her assertion. He even managed a small smile. “I didn’t do it,” he said mildly.

  “Can you prove it?” Lymwich retorted, feeling a sense of triumph welling up in her. But her sense of accomplishment was short-lived.

  “I can,” he nodded. “I have a witness.”

  “Who?” Lymwich asked incredulously.

  “Geerling Ambersong.”

  The suspects sputtered and cried out, and Lymwich even laughed derisively, but the Mystra Superior quieted them all. “The haunt!” she exclaimed.

  Pryce nodded. “The haunt,” he agreed. “Geerling Ambersong’s restless spirit. He told usDearlyn, Gheevy, and me who had killed him.”

  “He did not!” Dearlyn flared, marching forward. ‘That’s not true. I told you what happened, Berridge, and the halfling corroborated my story.”

  For the first time, Lymwich looked indecisive. ‘You said Geerling’s spirit possessed the still-living body of Teddington Fullmer. And when you asked him who he was killed by, he first said Darlington Blade, then paused. Then he said Darlington Blade wasn’t the one who killed him. It was”

  ” ‘It was the one behind him,’ ” Pryce finished for her. ” ‘Behind him.’ Interesting choice of words. Not ‘the man behind him,’ but ‘the one behind him.’ Behind whom? Geerling Ambersong? Darlington Blade? Me?”

  “What is this nonsense?” Dearlyn confronted him before anyone took careful note of his ironic list of suspects. “How can you say that these words prove anything?”

  Pryce frowned and shrugged. “Well, perhaps not words, then, Miss Ambersong. What about actions?”

  “Actions? What actions?”

  “Ah, I see you didn’t tell Berridge everything, did you?” He turned toward the halfling. “You remember, don’t you, Gheevy? When Geerling was trying to control Fullmer’s body, he seemed to point at me. Then when Miss Ambersong tried to kill me, he loomed up behind her”

  “Yes,” croaked Gheevy, his voice cracking from so little use. “That’s true! He fell on her, saying you had not killed him, that it was the person behind!”

  “What are you two going on about?” Dearlyn interrupted angrily. �
�This is absurd!”

  Pryce directed his words at her with quiet conviction. “A haunt’s statement is sacrosanct,” he informed her. “As are, I imagine, his actions. So I have no choice but to state categorically that you are, and were, ‘behind’ Darlington Blade metaphorically, physically, and actually quite literally.”

  Dearlyn looked at Pryce as if he had suddenly turned into a death knight. “Youyou can’t be serious!”

  “I’m sorry, Dearlyn,” he apologized sincerely. “But it had to be you. There is no one else.”

  “B-But why?” she cried. “How can it possibly be me?”

  “Because,” Pryce said, “you were the only one with the proper magic to accomplish it.”

  Had they been frozen in time, there would have been no less movement from the others. Only Dearlyn Ambersong’s face moved. Her mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. Her forehead became a sea of creases. Her eyes wavered and shook, her mind unable to accept the depth of his betrayal.

  The sky took that moment to split open with thunder. The sudden sharp crack shook everyone. Karkober even let out a small shriek. Dearlyn may have said, “Do you know what you’ve done?” but Pryce couldn’t be sure.

  “Magic?” Lymwich declared. “What magic?”

  Pryce didn’t take his eyes off Dearlyn Ambersong. “Don’t you see? It had to be her. The haunt fell on her. She was the only one with no alibi. She was the only one allowed free, unattended travel throughout the city. She is truly the one ‘behind’ Darlington Bladephysically in the workshop, but also during her father’s entire life.”

  “She killed her own father?” Matthaunin asked incredulously.

  Only then did Pryce take his eyes off her. “No,” he explained. “Gamor Turkal killed Geerling Ambersong. She killed Gamor.”

  It was the inquisitrix’s turn to be flabbergasted. “Gamor?” Lymwich exclaimed. “You must be joking!” “Gheevy said you wouldn’t believe it,” Pryce mused philosophically, “but the one positive thing I remember anyone in Lallor saying about Turkal was that he had an incredible memory. I didn’t realize why that stuck in my mind until now. He must have been memorizing everything Geerling had been teaching me.”

  “Nonsense!” Lymwich cried.

  “Unlikely,” Witterstaet agreed.

  Pryce whirled on Hartov. “Asche! You said Gamor contacted you. How did he accomplish that?” “What do you mean?”

  “Did he send a messenger, come in person, or what?” “Why, no. He came to me… in a vision!” “Like dust taking form in a shaft of light… his face… talking to you?” “Why, yes.”

  Pryce turned back, his arms out. “You see? Magic. He was using unique Ambersong magic. And he had conceived of a way to steal the Ambersong legacy with the help of people he knew back in Merrickarta, which is where he came from. Only Geerling must have found out. But when he confronted Gamor, just before I arrived for a rendezvous, Gamor surprised him. Even with magical knowledge, the only way someone like Turkal could have killed someone like Geerling was through what is known in the lexicon as ‘a lucky shot’”

  He turned back to Dearlyn sadly. “But Gamor wasn’t the only one taking advantage of Geerling’s magical studies, was he? You, too, had been soaking up what you felt was rightfully yours, quite possibly following Gamor, your father, or both to eavesdrop on the lessons in magic. So you were there to witness what Gamor had done, and then you gave him a shot of your own.”

  “How can you even think that?” Dearlyn cried.

  Pryce rolled right on. “But you couldn’t just contact the authorities after you killed your father’s murderernot without revealing your own illegal knowledge. Inquisitrix Lymwich would have been overjoyed to enfeeble you for such an offense.”

  Dearlyn flashed a look of anger at the inquisitrix, who stiffened, then stared back at Pryce with pure hatred. ‘You have destroyed me. Don’t you know that?” Dearlyn asked.

  “As you destroyed Gamor?” he responded. ‘You had to make it look like a suicide, so you made it appear that Turkal had hanged himself.”

  “Blade, really!” a shocked Witterstaet piped in.

  “Matthaunin, divide thirty by half and add ten,” Pryce snapped with irritation. ‘Tell me your answer when this is all over!” Covington quickly returned his attention to Dearlyn Ambersong. “You used your ill-gotten magic to lift Gamor’s already dead body, but I’m sure you knotted the rope around his neck yourself!”

  “How can you be so sure?” Lymwich growled skeptically.

  Pryce looked this way and that, stopping only when he saw Dearlyn’s staff leaning against the first mast. He leapt over and grabbed it. “How many times have you thrust this in my face?” he demanded, shaking it at her. “And each time I knew I had seen something that bothered me… ”

  He grabbed the horsehair covering and pulled it back to reveal the garden implements attached to the end by leather thongs. “Gardening tools indeed! This is nothing more than your way to carry a concealed weapon. But that’s not what betrayed you. Each of those tools is tied to the staff by a very interesting knot…the exact same knot that attached the rope around Gamor Turkal’s neck. 1”

  Lightning flashed down to strike the central mast, dancing in spider-webbed sparks all the way down to the deck. The thunder that followed a split second later was deafening.

  “Captain!” Turzihubbard cried.

  “Don’t panic!” Scottpeter called back. “The masts act as lightning rods. The entire craft is grounded. We’ve been through storms like this before. Just a few more minutes and it all should be over.”

  The others began to look up at the storm clouds nervously. Pryce quickly pressed his advantage. “You always felt that you came second in your father’s life,” he accused Dearlyn. “You didn’t really want his magical artifacts, which is why you never tried to block our moving of the Ambersong legacy to Mount Talath. No, you wanted your father’s respect and his love. And ultimately you murdered out of love!”

  “But what about Fullmer?” Lymwich called over the continuing thunder. “Wasn’t he killed to prevent his robbery of the workshop?”

  “Yes,” Pryce answered, “but not because his killer wanted the spells for herself. She killed him to protect her family’s good name. Had Fullmer, Turkal, and Hartov gotten away with their thievery, the name of Ambersong would have been forever besmirched… especially if his stolen magic was ever used against Lallor or Halruaa.”

  “But Fullmer wasn’t killed with magic!” Witterstaet said.

  “Killed, no,” Pryce explained. “But moved into the workshop, yes!” He turned to explain to Turzihubbard. “Sadly, a locked room mystery is essentially pointless in Lallor… there are too many magicians who can easily accomplish the feat!” He turned back to Dearlyn, pointing her own horsehair staff at her. “You were the only one left besides me with the magical knowledge necessary to circumvent the workshop’s special door. You couldn’t gain entry yourself, but you could magically move a dying body into the room!”

  At that moment, the first fat bead of rain slapped into the deck. A rapid-fire barrage of lightning and thunder sent the suspects scurrying. Pryce stood his ground, however, and shouted the rest over the noise of the storm. “Luckily for you, your father’s own haunt overwhelmed any echo of your magic. Even if Witterstaet had perceived its shadow, it’s likely that he would have recognized it only as Ambersong magic, not Dearlyn Ambersong magic!”

  At the mention of her name, Dearlyn suddenly grabbed the shank of the staff and tore it from Pryce’s grip. In a split second, she had it whirled around and pointing directly at Covington’s heart.

  “Dearlyn Ambersong!” Turzihubbard boomed from the rail as more rain began to smack onto the deck. “Threatening Darlington Blade will gain you nothing!”

  “Darlington Blade?” Dearlyn cried as another thunderbolt filled the sky. ‘This isn’t Darlington Blade! He told me so himself!”

  Gheevy gritted his teeth and sucked in his breath, but Pryce held his ground, hi
s palms up in innocent supplication.

  “Come now, Miss Ambersong,” Lymwich said, both threateningly and soothingly. “It’s too late for wild accusations. They won’t help you now.”

  Dearlyn laughed into the rain, which now pounded the deck like thousands of tiny fists. “No! Nothing will help me now!” she screamed into the wind.

  Lymwich took another step toward her, but the deck was getting slippery and the storm was becoming blinding. Dearlyn backed up, keeping the staff between Pryce, who hadn’t moved, and Lymwich, who wouldn’t stop moving.

  “I won’t be enfeebled,” the daughter of Geerling Ambersong warned. “Not by the likes of you.” But she saved her greatest animosity for the man who had accused her. “You!” she said miserably. “So the ‘great’ Darlington Blade triumphs once more. I’m ‘behind’ you again, am I? Well, at least this will be the last time!”

  Dearlyn hurled her staff with all her might. It sliced through the air, started to curve, then went directly between Lymwich’s legs, tripping her. The inquisitrix went down in a heap.

  Dearlyn turned and raced toward the bow of the skyship as the Verity entered into the very worst of the storm. Lightning bolts danced around her as rain splashed and thunder rolled. Pryce charged after her, the lightning bolts slashing vengefully across his path.

  Dearlyn leapt atop the railing, holding onto the figurehead of Mystra with one hand. She turned to see Pryce diving after her just as a lightning bolt smashed down directly into his chest.

  The others gasped and fell back, their hands and arms shielding their eyes. Pryce danced in place, his toes actually leaving the deck as the bolt crackled and coursed… into the cloak clasp.

  For a second it was hard to tell whether the bolt was going in or coming out of the sea of brilliant sparks. But then the lightning was gone, and Pryce stood six feet from Dearlyn, completely unscathed. The only evidence of the strike was a small wisp of smoke rising from the cloak clasp.