by Adam Thomas
He pushed the heavy crate into the official’s arms. The man nearly tipped over backwards into the water. With the agent preoccupied with the crate, Syne reached into his dimensional pocket. His hand disappeared for an instant and reappeared holding a small scrap of paper.
“Here’s my license,” he said, waving it in front of the agent.
In the same moment, the agent’s eyes flashed pink. “Very well, you may proceed, though I will have to note this irregularity in the official log.”
“Note away, my good man.” Syne took the crate back and staggered down the plank with it.
A few minutes later, Wiggins joined him. “What did you actually show him?”
“I think it was a list of groceries.” Syne chuckled and tried to pat his friend’s shoulder. It was a strange sensation, seeing his hand pass through the broad dwarven build only to find the slight gnomish figure beneath. “What did you make him think he saw?”
“It was a bunch of squiggles and then a big looping signature of Duchess Samara Esris.” Wiggins grinned up at Syne’s gaping mouth. “Look, you didn’t give me much time to think about it, and trying to map an illusion onto a moving piece of paper isn’t as easy as falling off a log.”
“I didn’t realize you were doing illusion magic. I thought you charmed him.”
“I did both just to be sure.”
“Let’s get this crate back to the alley and open it. I don’t want to have to lug it all the way back to Elsany’s.”
The pair shifted the crate into the shadows and set to work on the nails. At length, they pried the top off to reveal three glass jars nestled in close-packed hay.
Syne whistled in disbelief. “What in the name of the Radiants are those?”
Wiggins gingerly lifted one of the jars from the box and stared at the angry ball of blue light glimmering within. The light winked in and out of existence. When it was visible, small arcs of sickly green lightning shot from its depths.
A sense of dread deepened Wiggins’s normally nasal voice. “They’re captured will-o’-wisps. Trapping these must have cost a fortune.” His gut clenched as he said the word ‘fortune.’ “I think I know where you and I are taking these things.”
Syne groaned. “Not back to the Diamond Spire?”
Wiggins tapped his nose in agreement and passed the jar to Syne. “Careful. We cannot let these free.”
Syne took the jar and pushed it into his dimensional pocket. “Don’t worry. Things don’t jostle around in my hidey-hole.”
When all three wisps were stored safely with Syne’s smuggling magic, they slunk off into the city to bring Elsany the dangerous cargo. The old gnomish enchanter did, indeed, send them off to the Diamond Spire for a second dusk delivery.
“Who gives the instruction, ‘The moment of sunset?’” Syne wondered aloud as they waited by the kitchen door of Magnolia Hall.
“Rich people who think ne’er-do-wells like us can’t tell time?” Wiggins suggested.
“I hope that woman doesn’t answer the door again. She gave me the creeps.”
But Syne’s wish did not come to pass. When he knocked a few minutes later, the door opened immediately, and the cold, statuesque beauty of Rosamund Steele stood before them.
“Where are my items?” Rosamund asked, her voice heavy with displeasure. “Don’t tell me you came all this way with unfortunate tidings.”
“No, ma’am,” Wiggins said. He was back in his halfling guise. “My comrade has them, don’t you worry.”
Syne did not usually make a show of his magic, but for this client a performance seemed appropriate. He made a flourish with his hand and reached into his hidey-hole. The trapped wisp appeared, and he offered the jar to Rosamund. She raised an appreciative eyebrow and took it.
When all three were handed over, Rosamund said, “I suggest you forget all about this delivery. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal,” Wiggins said and began backing away. “Thank you for your business.”
Rosamund shut the door and gathered the wisps in her arms. She glided gracefully down the stairs to the basement laboratory and set a jar beside each of her three gruesome projects.
thirty
Frozen Rose
I can see by the looks of confusion in your eyes that you do not know my name.” The ancient vampire straightened and began pacing between the stiff bodies of the B-Team, which lay on the cold ground in the foyer of their mountainside home.
“I am Apranashar. I chose this name when I was turned a thousand years ago. I assure you, my name tells you all you need to know about me.”
Rhys found he could just begin to move his tongue. He spoke through clenched teeth, “Why are we here?”
“Yes, an apt question from one who has no idea he has stumbled into the power struggles amongst vampires. If I could feel pity, I would have some for you. But that particular emotion left me long ago, I’m afraid.”
Apranashar’s voice managed to sound wistful and menacing at the same time. They trained their eyes on Rhys. “I should have given you a larger dose of Frozen Rose, one as big as you. I shall have to make a note. Hadasana?”
“Here, Sire,” the elven thrall said.
“I’d judge this one to be approximately eighteen stone. Please add three drops to the dosage in my log. Thank you.”
“As you wish, Sire.”
“Now, where were we? Ah, yes, you have blundered into, shall we say, a family dispute. One hundred years ago, a woman from Torniel happened across my path. Samantha Esris was comely of face, regal of bearing, and a beguiling conversationalist. I have turned few into my kind over the centuries. I am rather picky, you see, and hard to please. But turning Samantha – I did not even consider other options. She made me feel like a young...”
Apranashar trailed off and made a show of sighing, though no breath escaped their lips. “Perhaps you do not need to know all the sordid details. After some years, Samantha left me to make her mark. She did not appreciate my reclusive tendencies. She became –” and here Apranashar let out a bark of cold laughter – “a pirate of all things.”
“Captain Redtooth,” Shonasir said through gritted teeth. The Frozen Rose had released their tongue but not their facial muscles.
“Yes, a theatrical and flamboyant name. All young vampires have a need to prove themselves. I see you’ve done your research.”
Shonasir tried to nod their head, but their neck was still frozen.
“After many years terrorizing the high seas, Samantha disappeared. I had nearly forgotten about her until she turned up in Thousand Spires a decade ago, now calling herself Rosamund Steele.”
Apranashar basked in the looks of recognition on the B-Team’s faces. “Ah, there is a name you know. Your paths have crossed. This I know because of a recent letter I received from this so-called Rosamund. In it she had the temerity to demand I relinquish my authority over her and allow her to claim the city of Thousand Spires as her territory.”
The vampire’s voice went low and raspy as it coiled around their well-controlled rage. “Now, such a demand is just not done. I plan to make an example of my progeny so all the other vampires in Sularil and beyond know that I cannot be dislodged so easily from my place of primacy.”
“Why do you need us?” Rhys asked. He now had full control of his face and the words came out clean and defiant.
“It is very simple. You will travel to Thousand Spires. You will capture Samantha Esris, and you will bring her to me.”
Alurel found her voice. “Why not go there yourself?”
“And let her think she can summon me to what she claims is her territory. I think not. No, you will do this for me, and when your task is complete, I shall return the blood I drew from each of you.”
Alurel heard the tinkling of glass vials, but she couldn’t turn her neck to look at what Apranashar was holdi
ng. “Fascinating subject, blood magic. You have no idea what I can do to you with just a few drops of this. For your sake, I suggest you do not give me a reason to give you such knowledge.”
The threat hung heavy in the air for a long moment, then Apranashar handed the glass vials to Hadasana and picked up something else from a nearby table. “In her letter, Samantha bargained with these. You should all be able to turn your heads now. Attend to me here. That’s good.” Apranashar held up the four kaerest they had taken from the B-Team while unconscious. “I thought these amulets merely a legend until I received the letter. And now I have most of the set. I believe Samantha has the last one. When you deliver her, you will also bring to me the karest she possesses.”
“What do you want with the kaerest?” Shonasir asked.
“Your place is to serve, not to ask questions. You will travel to Thousand Spires and bring my wayward child back to me. If you leave here and decide to ignore my wishes, you will boil from the inside out. Do we have an agreement?”
“How long do we have until the, uh, the boiling?” Emric asked.
Apranashar considered for a moment, then spread their arms wide, palms up. Their fingernails were long and sharpened to points. “I am fair and patient. You shall have six days. After that, I shall have to take up residence in my blood room, and our association will be concluded in a way most unfortunate for you.”
The elder vampire turned their back on the B-Team and began walking away. “Hadasana, please blindfold and remove our new contractors before they regain the use of their limbs.”
An hour later, Rhys could move his hand enough to pull the tight binding from his eyes. He rolled over to each of his friends and took theirs away, as well. They lay in the forest talking about their predicament until the Frozen Rose wore off completely. When they finally could stand, Emric began casting a runegate circle.
While he did so, Alurel turned and looked off into the forest. She held the encased ironwood seed tight against her chest.
“I can’t go with you,” she said abruptly.
Sorvek peered off into the direction Alurel was looking. “What do you mean?”
“I have to bring the seed to the keeper, the one Tharinel told us about. The one Hadasana was supposed to be leading us to.”
“But the blood boiling,” Emric said.
“Do you really think Apranashar has the power to do that?”
“Do you want to bet your life they don’t?”
Alurel held up the glass globe. “This is my mission. I feel it growing in my heart even as the green stalk grows from the seed. You all are so powerful. You can capture Rosamund without me.”
Silence fell between them, broken only by the hooting of an owl winging back to her home after a night’s hunting. At length, Shonasir said, “Go, Alurel, with my blessing. Fyarana.”
Alurel hugged Shonasir and then her other friends in turn. “I’ll see you again soon. But first I need to see this through.”
Emric finished the magical circle, and Alurel watched as her companions stepped through and vanished. Then she trudged off into the forest, allowing her heart to guide her steps.
Chief Inspector Ronin Nar left the interview with the customs agent more confused than he had been when the questioning began. Apparently, an individual – human, male, medium brown skin, short dark hair, clean-shaven face – had posed as a courier for Secureswift and absconded with a package that wasn’t on the ship’s manifest. He may have had a dwarven accomplice, but the customs agent was foggy on that point.
Ronin Nar had been in the game long enough to recognize magical intervention when he saw it. In recent months he had heard from multiple sources about a team of smugglers – one human, one either dwarven or halfling – that had begun proliferating gnomish pipeweed around the city of Thousand Spires. And while the weed wasn’t strictly illegal, importing it without the city getting its cut certainly was. Only the Duna family seemed to get away with such things on the regular. Whoever these new players were, they had a system and they had magic at their disposal.
The chief inspector thought he had rid himself of the menial pipeweed case when he succeeded at finding the missing socialites. But no. He was pulled back in because the customs agent in question had remembered the suspect saying that he worked for Secureswift. And since Secureswift was owned by Lord Pelagius Sindar of the Emerald Spire, Ronin Nar was the obvious choice to lead the investigation.
Nar did some legwork, pulling in favors at precincts across the city and found evidence of the smugglers popping up in various places. Twice in recent weeks, there were reports from the Diamond Spire of a pair fitting the description walking the streets of the high society district. Nar would not usually have paid such reports any mind. He despised the wealthy for many reasons, not the least of which was reporting non-residents to the spire guard, as if walking while poor was a crime. But in this case, it might be the breakthrough he needed because the pair had been spotted snooping around Magnolia Hall, the home of the formerly missing socialite Rosamund Steele and her new paramour, Lord Sindar’s wife. Chief Inspector Ronin Nar did not believe in coincidences, but he could not for the life of him figure out how the two cases could possibly be related.
He turned his attention back to the smugglers: always a human and a member of one of the peoples of shorter stature, a dwarf or a halfling, but never a gnome. That made sense, as gnomes were incredibly rare outside their homeland of the Fallen Leaf Islands, southwest of Sularil. But it was curious. Nar’s gut told him the dwarf or halfling was the same person of interest in magical disguise. And since magical disguises could change the appearance of an individual but not their height, it would make sense the suspect was gnome. After all, why disguise one’s self as a different dwarf or halfling?
The dwarven disguise had been seen on the ship at the western edge of Thousand Spires. The halfling disguise had been seen at Magnolia Hall at the city’s eastern edge. In between were six hundred square miles of city. And across that six hundred square miles there lived no more than a dozen gnomes. Nar spent most of the day crossing names off the list, which brought him to Trade Quarter South on the first day of Festival, the annual five day celebration of the new year. He was glad to be on a case rather than walking a beat; Festival always filled the local lockups with people needing to dry out.
Nar arrived at the business of the next name on his list. Elsany of Alder, Enchanter, read the shingle on her small single-story establishment. The buildings on either side of it soared into the sky. This one simple fact gave Nar everything he needed to know. Elsany had been in the city since before this area had been developed. And she was stubborn. She could have sold her land for an untold amount of coin, but she had not.
The chief inspector adjusted his hat and made sure his detective’s badge was polished and visible. Then he walked into Elsany’s shop…
...And right into three people he had hoped never to see again.
“Chief Inspector!” Rhys Highridge, the displaced Kelenite, smiled down at him. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Hello,” Shonasir said.
“Ronin Nar, you old so-and-so,” Emric added.
Sorvek made a flourish with one hand, drawing attention to his face. “I looked like a dragonborn when last we met.”
Nar forced a limp smile. Make that four people he had hoped never to see again. “What are you all doing here?”
“We do a little freelance work for Elsany, and she enchants items for us,” Emric said. “Just picking up our last order before heading to our next adventure.”
“And what adventure would that be?”
“Oh, this and that.”
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with Magnolia Hall in the Diamond Spire, would it?”
Emric chuckled in a disarming sort of way. “Now why would we go back there?�
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“Why, indeed,” Nar echoed. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some questions for the proprietor.”
“We were just leaving,” Rhys said. “See you around, Ronin.”
“That’s ‘Chief Inspector’ to you.”
“And here I thought we were becoming friends. You don’t slay a” – Rhys mouthed the word ‘vampire’ – “together and not become best buddies.”
Nar crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine,” he said. “Good-bye, Rhys, and good riddance.”
“That’s the spirit,” the big Kelenite said as he ducked under the doorframe and out into the street.
The others followed him, and Nar turned to the old gnome sitting placidly behind the counter. “Elsany of Alder?”
“You got it in one, Sonny. I see you’ve met my associates before.”
Nar let Elsany’s familiar tone pass. More flies with honey with this one, his gut told him. “We’ve had...dealings,” he said, then cleared his throat. “Elsany, you have a lovely shop here. Do you run it alone?”
“Yes,” she said. “Can I offer you a glass of sweet tea?”
“No, thank you, ma’am. How long have you been in business?”
Elsany poured herself a glass and took a long sip. “Let’s see. I was apprenticed to Erstwile for about ten years before opening my own shop. That was back around League Year 85 or so. Opened this place in League year 96.” She smiled winningly at Nar. “Long before your time, Sonny.”
“Long before my great-grandparents’ time. Speaking of, do you have any relatives in the city right now?”
“Relatives? Why do you ask?”
The glass of sweet tea shook in her hand as she said this, and Nar decided to take a leap. “We’ve been tracking members of the Duna family in Thousand Spires. Seems they don’t take kindly to others horning in on their smuggling territory. One of their targets is a young gnome.”
“What has Wiggins gotten himself into now?” Elsany said under her breath.
“I’m sorry. Wiggins?”
“Wiggins Fapplestamp, my nephew. Bless his heart, but if he’s crossed paths with the Duna family, then he’s dumber than I thought.”