Uther stared briefly and sternly down upon Orsini’s bald pate. “That is precisely the reason I need someone with a feathersweight of intelligence to find the true killer.” The words were snarled in such a way that the soldier was left to ponder just how deep the butler’s demonic facade ran.
“I’ll do my best,” Artus said. “I hope my lack of standing in the club doesn’t cause a problem.”
“That you are not a Stalwart is all the more reason for me to desire your aid,” the butler replied. He easily shrugged off Orsini’s now halthearted grip and placed his hands on Artus’s shoulders. “This will not be an easy defense to build. There are the side effects of my condition to consider, as well as the location of the murder.”
“Which was?”
“The Treaty Room.”
With that, Uther started down the narrow alley. Orsim had to hurry to keep pace with him, taking three steps for each of the butler’s two long strides. Artus watched them go, though only vaguely. His mind was already focused on the complexities of the task before him.
The misfired spell that had warped Uther’s form left him immune to any and all further magic, including those incantations the city watch used as a truth test against a suspect’s claims. Magic would wrest no clues from the crime scene, either. The Treaty Room had been rendered “magic dead” just days after Uther’s misfortune, and by the same world-rattling events that had caused the innocent spell to misfire and transform him. The instability in magic caused by the crisis known as the Time of Troubles had left the Treaty Room a magical void, a place where no spell could be cast and enchanted items simply failed to function.
Artus was still considering ways in which he might get around those obstacles when he entered the Stalwarts Club.
A few members milled in the entry hall, but most had gone back to whatever had drawn them to the club that day. A mournful fellow from Armot named Grig the Younger debated the finer points of Mulhorandi entrapment spells with a pair of dwarf women, twins who had both been named Isilgiowe for some reason that eluded even them. Sir Hamnet Hawklin expounded upon the hunting rituals of the Batiri goblins of Chult to Gareth Truesilver, newly commissioned as a captain for his heroics during the crusade against the Tuigan horde. In a nearby corner, an elf maid named Cyndrik tallied the money she’d gathered for the Lord Onovan Protection Fund, even though that hapless Dalesman had been quite fatally bitten in half by a gigantic lizard several months earlier.
They wrangled over topics and championed causes for which few outside the club spared even a moment’s thought. It was that collective energy that drew Artus to the Stalwarts. The intellect and effort focused upon obscure matters by those famous explorers, those noted seekers of adventure, quickened his mind and reinforced his commitment to his own consuming quest-the search for the legendary Ring of Winter, the existence of which had been written off as utter fantasy decades past. At the moment, the passion for the esoteric that Uther found so chilling about his employers was, in fact, bolstering his ally’s resolve to prove him innocent.
Artus threaded his way between the people in the entryway, but found himself facing a loud and impassable obstruction just a few steps down the corridor. A beautiful mountaineer named Guigenor, her temper stoked to the intensity of her long red hair, confronted one of the most influential of the Stalwarts’ inner circle. Her wild gesticulations kept Artus from trying to slip past; the ceaseless, seamless character of her tirade yielded no opportunity for him to politely ask her to let him by.
“Are you feeble?” she snapped. “Are you blind? Uther had the motive and the opportunity for murder. He was standing at the Treaty Room door, alone, when I came across him. You could still hear Leonska moving around in there-drunk, but very much alive.”
Without slowing for the space of a single syllable, Guigenor repeatedly battered the oak paneling with her fist. It wasn’t a very good simulation of the noises she’d heard from the Treaty Room, but she was aiming for impact, not accuracy As such, the dramatics proved a success; there were suddenly people lined up four deep on both sides of the blockage, listening to her prosecution.
“But does Uther use his strength to break down the door?” Guigenor continued. “No! He sent me for keys, for Torm’s sake! What’s Uther doing without his keys? It’s obvious-he had them all along. He sent me off, used his set to unlock the door, slipped into the room, and slaughtered Leonska. Then he sauntered back out, relocked the door, and waited for me to return with the spares. Any dolt-except you, perhaps-would see that there’s no other explanation!”
There was a moment of stunned silence at the tirade’s end. The placid-seeming older man at whom this verbal barrage had been aimed simply shook his head. “You are overwrought at the death of your mentor, my dear,” said Marrok de Landoine. “Otherwise you would not address me in such an impudent manner.”
Guigenor sputtered for a moment, struggling to put together a reply. Her anger at the casual dismissal, at the murder of her friend, boiled over into tears. She roughly shoved Artus out of her way and bulled through the crowded hallway much as she had many a snowbound mountain pass.
The look on Marrok’s face appeared full of fatherly concern for the young woman, but Artus had seen that smirking, fatuous expression before. Marrok reserved that empty smile for those he found distasteful, below his notice as a person of wealth and influence. Marrok was a man of remarkable resources, position, and accomplishment, even in a group as thick with decorated military heroes and titled aristocrats as the Society of Stalwart Adventurers. And, to him, Guigenor was quite unalterably an upstart.
The smile didn’t alter when Marrok first noticed Artus standing there. Then it abruptly faded, transformed into a look of utter weariness. “Mystra save me from the rabble,” the nobleman muttered. Artus opened his mouth to reply, but Marrok turned his back on the young man and walked away.
Grumbling through clenched teeth, Artus made his way back to the Treaty Room. He followed a route he would have found difficult to map, despite his years of practice in the field, for the Stalwarts Club was labyrinthine in design and cut loose from architectural logic by the amount of magic utilized in its construction. In some places angles did not operate as angles should. In others, straight lines were not necessarily the shortest distance between two points.
All that strangeness made the Treaty Room a haven to those few Stalwarts unimpressed by mages and spell-craft. Hidden in one of the most isolated sections of the club, the room could be generously described as four walls and a single stout door. It lacked secret passages, magical gateways, even windows. Its floor and ceiling were identical to their counterparts in most mundane homes-more carefully constructed and, at most other times, quite a lot cleaner-but essentially commonplace. The two things that most obviously set the Treaty Room apart from those average places now were the amount of blood splashed on the walls and the poorly dressed and rather overweight corpse laying atop the conference table at the room’s exact center.
“Well, let’s take the gorgon by the horns,” said Sir Hydel Pontifax-mage, surgeon, sometime War Wizard, and full-time Stalwart. He gestured to the Purple Dragon stationed by the door, who was doing quite a good job of refusing Artus admittance. “Be a good soldier and let my scribe in. I rather need his help if I’m to complete the medical examination your sergeant requested.”
Artus tore a few pages from the journal he always carried tucked into his wide leather belt; the wyvern-bound book was magical, so it wouldn’t even open in the magic-dead room. Then he ducked under the guard’s outstretched arm and hurried to the table. “Thanks, Pontifax. I was hoping you’d be here.”
The paunchy mage leaned over the body. “And I was rather expecting you to show up. Just the sort of messy business you can’t keep your fingers clean of. They’re blaming Uther, you know.”
“I told him I’d help clear his name.”
Pontifax glanced up. “Good for you! That puts a noble cause behind your meddling.”
Artus
took the statement for what it was-gentle ribbing by his most trusted friend. He didn’t reply, didn’t feel the usual need to fire back a cutting response. In comfortable silence, the two set about their work. Pontifax examined the corpse and occasionally murmured observations to be recorded. Artus made a very rough sketch of the body and took down notes.
“What do you make of the dagger?” Pontifax asked after they’d completed their initial examination.
Count Leonska might have died from any of the dozens of deep slashes on his body, face, and hands, but the most obvious and violent wound was caused by the knife protruding from his chest. The blade was hidden in flesh, but the golden handle burned with reflected light from the room’s many candles.
“The markings are Zhentish,” Artus said. “A ritual dagger of some kind?”
Pontifax muttered a vague reply. His white, cloudlike brows had drifted together over his blue eyes. The effect was something like a gathering storm. “The body should be more of a mess,” he said.
Blood lightly spattered the count’s hands and clothes, but most of his wounds were clean. The sole exception was his crimson-smeared mouth. Artus used the dry end of his writing stylus to pull back a swollen lip. Leonska’s teeth were missing. They’d been shattered, many broken right down to the gums.
“What’s this?” Artus murmured. As he leaned close, he felt a shiver of apprehension snake up his spine. It was as if the count’s dead eyes were watching him. Hands trembling just a little, he picked a small, dark shred of material from between two broken teeth. “It’s leather, I think. Part of a gag?”
“That would explain why Leonska didn’t cry out when he was being attacked,” Pontifax replied. The mage nervously paced around the room, his stubby fingers steepled. “Uther heard a ruckus, but no shouts for help. That’s why he didn’t break the door in.”
“Guigenor thinks the count was stumbling around in here, drunk, before she ran off to get the keys. She was screeching at Marrok about her suspicions when I came in.,
“That young woman is one to talk about suspicions,” said Pontifax. “When the watch asked her why she happened to be roaming around back here, she said Leonska had left her a note requesting her presence in the Treaty Room. But she can’t find the note now.
“As for her claim that the count was alive when she heard the noises-nonsense. This murder took a long time to commit. They heard the end of the struggle, not its beginning.”
“Do you think Guigenor had a hand in this?” Artus asked, gesturing to a wall of framed treaties and trade agreements, all of which had been signed in the room. Blood had splashed across each and every one. “What kind of weapon would she have used?”
“I’ve heard of assassinations… the work of men from far eastern Kozakura who call themselves ‘ninjas.’ They sometimes leave behind some strange gore slinging like this,” Pontifax said. “It almost looks like Leonska was stabbed and slashed, then spun quickly so the blood would cake the walls.”
Neither man commented that it would take someone incredibly strong to heft the count’s bulk. The thought had occurred to both-as did the notion that Uther was probably the only person in the club who could do so without the aid of sorcery
Pontifax returned to the table and stared at the open door. “How did the blackguard get out of the room after doing this to Leonska, I wonder. Uther said the noises continued in here until just before Guigenor returned with the keys. The door remained tightly closed and locked until he opened it.”
“You don’t suppose the murderer is still hiding in the room.”
“Already been searched three times. We’ve checked for sliding panels and any of that rot. Nothing. And no magic could possibly work in here.”
Artus prodded a pile of threadbare clothes he’d found in one corner. The moth-eaten cloak, thick gloves, and long, dirt-smeared scarf had been folded and stacked neatly. Atop the pile rested a wide-brimmed hat dyed the black of ravens’ feathers. “All these belonged to Leonska?”
Pontifax nodded. “He was seen bundled up in those rags when he entered the club this morning. It was his usual attire.”
“You wouldn’t think someone with such shabby clothes would bother folding them so neatly.” Artus held up the corner of the rather grotesquely patterned scarf and said, “Poor fashion sense for a count.”
“He had poorer social skills,” Pontifax said. “As he did most mornings, Leonska made his way back here with a full wineskin and the single-minded purpose of drinking himself to the brink of unconsciousness.” He idly flicked one hand toward the body. “Only today he didn’t get a chance to stagger out and pick fights, like he normally did. Not a good soldier in the least-”
“For once you and I are in full agreement, Sir Hydel. No army would have ever taken Leonska on campaign, not even to haul baggage.”
Artus and Pontifax turned to the door to find Marrok de Landoine standing there, surveying them with practiced disinterest. “I thought I’d find you here, Cimber. If you are done assisting Sir Hydel with his examination, I’d like a word with you.”
The nobleman didn’t wait for a reply. He hooked Artus’s arm with his own and led him out of the Treaty Room, down the narrow hall. Stalwarts deferentially flattened against the paneling or ducked into doorways to let them by.
“I have my pass,” Artus said. He reached up to his breast pocket for the thin leather card that allowed him access to certain areas of the club-the library, game room, and main bar-even though he was not a full member. The gesture was automatic; the pass was the only topic about which the nobleman had ever addressed Artus directly.
“I’m certain you do,” Marrok said. “You consider Uther a friend, do you not?”
“Of course.”
“He is in a considerable spot of trouble.”
“I know. I ran into him outside the club,” Artus noted. “He asked me-”
“Despite what some of the other members think,” said Marrok, unaware or unconcerned that he was interrupting Artus, said “I believe him innocent.”
“I agree. Uther asked-”
“Earlier you caught me in a very bad temper. We’ve had our differences in the past, too…”
Artus suppressed a smirk. Marrok had single-handedly blocked his entrance into the society three times in as many years. In the nobleman’s eyes, no accomplishment as a scholar, explorer, or historian could compensate for Artus’s low birth.
“Yet I have always recognized you as… clever.” The pause made it obvious that Marrok had to cast his net far for the right word. The phrase that followed made it clear just how far. “In your own way.”
The slight was unintentional, though even more annoying for its thoughtlessness. Artus slipped from the nobleman’s falsely familiar grasp under the pretext of tightening a boot lace. After that they walked in silence for a time, moving toward the fabulous library at the club’s heart.
Finally, Marrok spoke again. It seemed to Artus that the nobleman’s superior glow dimmed just a little as he did. “Politics deserve more of your attention,” he began obliquely, then checked himself. “No, let me be direct. Some of the more senior members-Hamnet Hawklin foremost among them-have declared Uther guilty. I respect them, yet I also feel they are incorrect in their conclusion. It would be unwise of me to challenge them in any open fashion, but I must also-”
“So long as you’re being direct,” Artus prompted, “how about skipping to the verse of this song that involves me.”
“I wish you to find the killer.”
Artus began, for the third time, to tell Marrok he’d already promised Uther to do just that, but decided to see what the nobleman had to say. “I suppose I could try,” he offered.
Masking his feelings had never been one of Artus’s strong suits. The attempt now only caused Marrok to mistake the explorer’s hastily erected facade of guilelessness for actual reluctance.
“You’d do well to play along here, Cimber,” the nobleman said. “At least hear me out. You have no idea how
disinclined I am to ask for your help.”
“Oh, I think I know. But why me?”
“Use a criminal to catch a criminal,” Marrok said, and this time the insult was carefully chosen. “Don’t think for an instant the club doesn’t know that your father was a highwayman. You lost your position as a court scribe when you got caught breaking him out of jail. We could also discuss that murder charge outstanding against you in Tantras. There’s no need for me to go on, is there?”
Anger edged Marrok’s words, made them sharp as blades, but he kept his voice tactfully low. They’d reached the library’s antechamber, where a small group of men and women were discussing a recent polar expedition the society had sponsored. Generally, Artus could have strolled through the club with a large spear protruding from his side and not attracted any attention at all. The moment Marrok de Landoine entered a room, he somehow became its focus.
“Here’s the fellow to ask now,” one of the loiterers announced. “Say, Marrok old man, when will that yeti Philyra bagged on the expedition be ready for display?”
Preparing exotic beasts for display seemed to be the one practical skill Marrok de Landoine possessed. He was loathe to discuss the craft. A fact his peers always capitalized upon in the club’s near constant public banter. Marrok had never intended to reveal his odd talent to his fellows. But the supposed artists to whom the Stalwarts had entrusted their unusual, often irreplaceable trophies did such a poor job that the nobleman was forced to step forward and save the membership and the library, where such valuable objects were displayed, from further insult.
“Eh?” Marrok said distractedly. “Oh, the yeti… any day now.”
The nobleman turned back to Artus, his own expression not all that far removed from the fearsome hunting snarl of the fabled snow beasts. “Uther is more valuable to the society than you are a detriment,” Marrok growled. “Find the murderer and I’ll… support you for full membership.”
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