Morgan sprang to his feet and drew his own authentic reproduction broadsword from its velvet scabbard. “He doesn’t die!” he screamed again.
Lieutenant Ayhan was suddenly alert. He reached for the pistol in his shoulder holster. “Calm down, kid,” he ordered.
“Take it easy, Cliff!” said Diefenbaker quietly, from the sidelines. “It’s only a game.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Jay Omega, getting up off the desk and backing away. “It’s for real, and for keeps. Tratyn Runewind is really and truly forever dead.”
“NO!” wailed Morgan thrusting his sword at the Dungeon Master. “You’re lying!”
“I’m the DM,” said Jay Omega, backing toward Joel Schumann’s desk. “I say he’s dead.”
Morgan swung the sword again, coming closer this time.
Lieutenant Ayhan drew his pistol. “This has gone far enough.”
Morgan turned toward the sound of Ayhan’s voice, but he didn’t seem to understand the words. He swatted impatiently at the noise, as if it were a fly buzzing in his ear. “Leave me alone!”
“That’s enough of that,” said Ayhan. “Omega, I want everybody out of here.”
“I’m staying,” said Jay Omega. “Keep out of this, and let me talk to him.”
Morgan, his sword point wobbling, looked from one to the other of them. Finally his gaze settled on Jay Omega, the murderer of his idol. He leaned forward, steadying the sword. Lieutenant Ayhan started for him.
Morgan’s reflexes were good. He detected the movement out of the corner of his eye, and brought the blade of the broadsword down against the lieutenant’s outstretched arm. It wasn’t a sharp blade, but eight pounds of tempered steel impacting at full force is still a formidable weapon.
Ayhan felt the bone snap. The gun sprang from his fingers, clattering across the floor in Morgan’s direction. He waved the sword menacingly to keep them back, while he bent and picked up the gun.
“He said it was an out-of-period weapon,” giggled Morgan, examining the gun. “Not meant for a Rune Warrior.” He fired once at Ayhan, shot the rest of the clip into the ceiling, and threw the gun into a corner.
The shoulder of Ayhan’s gray suit leaked red, and he slumped to the floor. Diefenbaker, who had been sitting on a vacant desk watching the game, dived for the floor as soon as the shooting began. After a few frozen seconds in which he felt the gunshots echoing through his head, he calmed down enough to look around. Joel was gone, having managed to escape the room during the shooting. Ayhan was injured and Morgan seemed to have turned his attention to Jay Omega; at least his back was to Diefenbaker. He had thrown the gun away. Diefenbaker looked at it, across the room, ruefully. Maybe, he wondered, he might be able to hit Morgan over the head with something.
Alas, this was not a D&D game. In real life, Diefenbaker’s strength was minimal and his dexterity was nil. If he tried any heroics, he would only make a mess of it. Still, he felt he ought to do something besides cower under the desk. He looked over at Ayhan, unconscious on the floor. Dief thought he could creep over to Ayhan without attracting Morgan’s attention. Then he might try to help the injured man or make a run to the door for help.
“Runewind” seemed unaware of Ayhan and Dief. It was as if he were alone with Jay Omega. “You must die by the sword,” he said, advancing on the Dungeon Master. “It is fitting.”
Jay Omega dodged behind Joel’s desk. Picking up the Amdek 722 computer monitor from the IBM, Jay Omega kept repeating, “He’s really dead, Morgan. I’m an author and I know. If you’re an author, you can make someone really dead.”
He held the computer monitor, still plugged in like an umbilical cord, in front of him for a shield. “Really dead, Morgan.”
“I saved him!” screamed Morgan. Tears were coursing down his face, and he lunged again at his tormenter. “He was going to die before, but I saved him!”
At that moment Marion appeared in the doorway with a McDonald’s bag for the lieutenant. She saw Omega, still holding the computer monitor, dodging a sobbing youth who was flailing with a broadsword. For a stunned moment, she thought that this was part of the D&D game. It looked no more real than any of the other antics that took place at a con, but then she saw Diefenbaker kneeling over an unconscious Ayhan and trying to staunch his wound with a reddening handkerchief. “Dear god!” she murmured, dropping the bag. “JAY!”
Jay Omega did not glance in her direction. He kept watching Morgan and talking in a slow, steady voice. “Yeah, you saved Tratyn Runewind once, Morgan, didn’t you? He died on Dungannon’s computer disk, and you erased it, didn’t you?”
“Yes!” Morgan kept circling with the quivering sword, waiting.
“And then you saved him again when you shot Dungannon, so that he couldn’t rewrite that chapter, didn’t you?” The computer monitor was getting heavier in his hands. He had barely managed to evade Morgan’s last thrust; if the kid hadn’t been crying so hard, he’d have had him.
“Well, Morgan, you saved him twice. But three times is the charm. Your spells have run out. I’ve killed him for time and eternity.”
Clifford Morgan packed all of his rage into one mighty thrust of the broadsword, aiming with all his strength for the Amdek monitor, dead center, intending to ram all the way through its plastic case and into the entrails behind it, just as the Norseman had gutted his beloved Runewind.
Jay Omega’s muscles froze as he felt the sword splinter the screen of the monitor, but he realized that the simultaneous scream was not his own. Through the flash and the smoke, the acrid smell, and the far-off scream that was definitely Marion, Omega heard one last dwindling cry from Clifford Morgan. He dropped the monitor, and Morgan, his hands still welded to the hilt of his broadsword, went down with it. The blade, still buried inside the monitor, flashed with little arcs of electricity. lay Omega kicked the plug out of the wall. “Somebody get some help,” he said quietly.
Still in the doorway, Marion stood watching the scene, unable to break the spell of the shock, until she felt someone touch her arm. She jumped, trampling the lunch bag, and almost crying out, before she recognized a young police officer. His young face looked uncharacteristically grim. She saw the gun in his right hand.
“You won’t need that,” she murmured.
“Just what’s going on in here, ma’am?” he demanded. “Where’s the lieutenant?”
Marion felt tears on her cheeks. “You know Hamlet?” she asked him. “‘The play’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.’ He played it by the book.”
Bonnenberger, still maintaining squatter’s rights to the video lounge, tried to concentrate on his paperback, despite the loud talking and general distraction from the group on the couches. That Mrs. Peel person couldn’t seem to stop crying, and the guest author kept having to stop talking and hug her. Bonnenberger couldn’t be bothered to find out why.
Miles Perry, looking somewhat less haggard, had put on a coat and tie in anticipation of television reporters with minicams.
Diefenbaker appeared in the doorway, looking solemn. “I just spoke with the rescue squad people. Lieutenant Ayhan is already conscious, and roaring about people trying to be TV heroes. He seems to have a broken forearm and a flesh wound, but he says he’ll be out of the hospital by six, and none of the medics argued with him.” He sighed. “I’m so glad. I felt quite inadequate with my little handkerchief. You know, at one point, I actually whispered one of my cleric’s healing spells over him—in desperation!”
Marion smiled up at him through tears. “It couldn’t have hurt.”
“What about Morgan?” asked Jay Omega quietly.
Diefenbaker hung his head. “Oh, dear. I’d hoped you’d have heard already … I…” He took a deep breath, and plunged on, “They couldn’t revive him. Too many volts.”
Marion began to dab her tears. Then, as if she suddenly remembered something, she looked stern. “You might have told me, Jay,” she said.
“I wasn’t sure myself. I tho
ught he’d killed Dungannon, but I couldn’t figure out where he got the gun.” said Jay Omega. “He obviously tried not to use one with me.”
“It was Dungannon’s,” said Diefenbaker. “Lieutenant Ayhan’s assistant said that ballistics phoned to tell him that it was a Smith & Wesson Model 1917, and when he asked the editor about it, Mr. Warren said that Dungannon always carried it around with him. It went with the cowboy hat.”
“That makes sense. I figured Morgan had broken into Dungannon’s room just after the costume competition fiasco, while we were still in the ballroom. He must have wanted to see the new book. How did he get in? Credit card in the lock?”
“Swiped the maid’s keys.” It was Simmons, the young cop. “He must have been hovering around the hotel somewhere. Morgan works for a hotel maintenance firm back in Philadelphia. He’d know his way around. As far as we can make it, he let himself in—”
“So,” said Miles, catching on, “he erased the disk and swiped the gun?”
“Yeah. They found it in the tank of the toilet in his bathroom. It was a great place to hide it. I expect he saw it done in a movie once.”
The Godfather, thought Bonnenberger, still half listening.
“I’m sorry he’s dead,” said Jay Omega. “I just wanted to rattle him enough to make him confess. I guess I got kind of—”
Diefenbaker cast a stricken look at Jay Omega, terrified that he might actually break down. “You were very fortunate to have escaped,” Dief said hurriedly, “I’m thankful it was no worse than it was.”
Marion reached for Jay’s hand, but then drew back in a snit. “You might have been killed, you know. He could just as easily have shot you. I might have been sorrier for you then! Why didn’t you trust me with your little secret? I wrote the damned dungeon for you!”
Jay sighed. “I wasn’t sure it would work. I shouldn’t even have let you stay in the room. I didn’t realize it was going to be so dangerous!”
Marion glared at him. “Thank you, Conan-the-Barbarian! Dangerous for me. One fantasy game and you suddenly start seeing yourself as the lord of the loincloth, and think you have to protect me?”
Jay looked sheepish. “Sorry, Marion. The old stereotypes do die hard. Look—can we get out of here? I don’t want to talk anymore.”
She sighed. “Oh, and you don’t need me hassling you about it anymore either, right? Well, I’m sorry.”
“No,” he said, “I just said I don’t want to talk anymore. I’m going up to the room now.”
She hesitated. “Do you want to be alone?”
He held out his hand. “We still have a couple of hours before check-out…”
As they left the room, still holding hands, Jay Omega turned to Dief and Miles Perry. “We’ll catch you before we leave.”
When they were gone, Diefenbaker leaned back on the couch and sighed. “Well, Miles, I’m sorry you had so much chaos to contend with at Rubicon.”
Miles had been thinking resignedly about returning to the produce section at the Food Lion, but Dief’s remark brought on the glimmer of a smile. “Yes, but it will certainly give people something to talk about all year, won’t it?”
“No doubt about that, Miles,” said Dief cheerily, “Even fen who weren’t here will have to claim they were.”
“Of course …” said Miles with exuberance, “we do have our work cut out for us next year. This will be a hard act to follow.”
Diefenbaker blinked. “Oh, yes. Next year! I suppose we ought to start planning it now, shouldn’t we?”
“Yes. We’ll need some ideas to show the committee before they leave today and …”
Dief began to scribble notes and names on the back of his program. He paused with what he hoped was appropriate solemnity. “Too bad we won’t have Clifford Morgan around,” he said, “I’m sorry to lose such a colorful personality.”
“I’m sorry Cliff didn’t live to stand trial,” Miles answered. “Can’t you just imagine a courtroom full of ordinary people when ‘Tratyn Runewind’ stood up and pleaded self-defense?”
Diefenbaker nodded. “The mundane world wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m also glad the case got solved before Lieutenant Ayhan got around to asking me who wrote that threatening letter to Appin Dungannon,” Miles added.
“Did you?” gasped Diefenbaker.
“Sure, but I didn’t kill him.” Miles hastened to append.
“No, of course, Miles. That goes without saying,” Dief protested.
“I was planning to let Chip Livingstone take the credit for it in his next fanzine article. —Imagine my surprise when Dungannon ends up dead, and Chip Livingstone is a suspect.”
“Well, at least Lieutenant Ayhan solved the case,” said Diefenbaker. “And I think in police circles, a wound in the line of duty is something of a badge of honor, is it not?”
Miles Perry smiled. “Ayhan may get more out of this case than congratulations from his captain. Earlier today he was down in the lobby talking to Louis Warren about the possibility of publishing his memoirs. I think he was planning to call this investigation The Case of the Killer Elves.”
Joseph Bonnenberger shook his head. These people weren’t talking about the plot of a science fiction novel at all. They weren’t even discussing their player characters in a role-playing game like Top Secret. Apparently they were talking about real life. Real life bored him. Bonnenberger stopped listening, and went back to his book.
Bimbos of the Death Sun Page 18