D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch (3 page)

Rudi, the fourth member of what Garett considered his personally selected, elite team, was already on the site, blocking entrance to Acton Kathenor’s inner sanctum. He was short, a mere five feet, two inches, and sensitive about it. He was as cute as the proverbial bug, too, almost cherubic, being a mere seventeen years old. His size and his looks had made him the victim of a lot of teasing in his earlier years. No one teased him anymore, though. Not unless they were damned good with a sword.

Two men from the patrol that Rudi led had a big, rough-looking character at sword-point between them. A score of

acolytes and novitiates crowded the narrow corridor from the main hall to Kathenor’s sanctum, demanding access to the chamber, shouting questions and accusations and demands in very unpriestly language.

“Shut up!” Garett yelled at the top of his lungs, and to his surprise, the priests fell silent. “All of you, back out into the main hall. Boccob alone knows what evidence you might have trampled on, pressing back here like this. No one gets into Kathenor’s sanctum until I say so!”

One of the priests stepped forward. Garett didn’t know him, but from the red sash the man wore around his waist, the captain guessed he was a priest of some rank. “This is our temple,” the man said gruffly. “Your orders have no weight here.”

Without a word, Blossom stepped next to the priest and glared down at him. He looked up, finding himself suddenly eye-to-cleavage, and his cheeks began to redden, but whether from embarrassment or anger, Garett couldn’t guess. Nor did he care.

“If it’s weight that concerns you,” he said dryly, “I can order her to sit on your chest. That ought to keep you out of the way.”

The priest sputtered and threw up his hands. Turning, he pushed the acolytes out of his way as he stormed back into the main hall. Most of them followed. A few others lingered, but Rudi drove them off with a scowl.

“Who’s this?” Garett said, indicating the tough Rudi’s patrol had nabbed.

“Not sure, Captain,” Rudi answered, returning to Garett’s side. “We found him wandering around outside. Definitely foreign. He had a sword, but couldn’t produce a license. We haven’t had time to question him further.”

Garett stepped closer to Rudi’s prisoner and looked him up and down. “Ratikkan, I’d say, by the look of him.” He pursed his lips and nodded, content with his assessment. “Mercenary?” he asked, expecting no answer other than the stubborn glare he got. Ratikkans were like that: too stupid to know when trouble was worth getting into.

Garett shrugged and turned his back. “Bring him along,” he said, pushing open the door to Kathenor’s sanctum.

Boccob’s high priest was bent over the cauldron, which was slowly filling with blood that leaked from countless deep lacerations on the old man’s face and throat. Blood had also spilled down the outside of the cauldron. A pool had formed on the floor around the iron tripod’s legs. Something crunched under Garett’s boot, causing him to look down. Shards of glass were scattered everywhere.

“Has anything been touched?” Garett asked Rudi.

The diminutive patrolman shook his head. “Not since I got here, sir,” he said. “My patrol was working up the street when one of the novitiates came screaming out, calling for help. We got here pretty quick.” He rubbed his chin as he spoke. “One of the other priests might have touched something, though.”

“This torch was burning?” Garett probed.

Rudi nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Bring it closer.”

Burge took the torch from the sconce and carried it to the cauldron. Garett bent down to see better and frowned. Steeling himself, he grabbed a handful of the old priest’s white hair and lifted the corpse’s head. Bits of glass, embedded in the skin, caught the torchlight and sparkled. Kathenor’s throat had been multiply sliced along the strategic arteries. His eyes were bloody holes, and his face looked like tenderized meat. Even so, it wore a look of horror that sent a chill up Garett’s spine.

Garett let the head fall forward against the inside of the cauldron, and straightened, resisting the urge to vomit. It was a holy place, after all, and he wouldn’t defile its floor— or the cauldron, either—with Almi’s bread and gravy.

He moved away and examined the walls, finding bits of glass embedded there as well. “I think we can let your prisoner go, Rudi,” he said, turning slowly, running a thumb

thoughtfully over his lower lip. “He had nothing to do with

this.”

“How do you know without questioning him?” Rudi asked, too surprised to add his usual “sir.” “We found him right outside the temple.” He cast a sidewise sneer at the Ratikkan. “And he’s obviously the type.”

Garett continued to rub the ball of his thumb over his lip as he walked back toward Kathenor’s body and bent near the cauldron. With the toe of his boot he pushed at three half-burned sticks of incense, which lay on the floor. “First of all,” he said, peering down into the bloody cauldron, “the outer door was locked until one of the priests called for help. Even if the Ratikkan could have gotten inside the temple, how would he have found this room? The main hall was absolutely dark, and the entrance is hidden behind arras.” Garett straightened, circled the cauldron, and took up a position behind Kathenor’s doubled body. Slowly he looked over both his shoulders.

“Assuming he did manage to get in somehow, if you wish to press the point,” Garett said, continuing, “do you think he killed Kathenor by smashing his head down through the glass?” He winked at Rudi and shook his head. “No. In fact, this is the most fascinating part.” He beckoned to Burge, who held the torch. “Stand in front of me with the light,” he directed.

Burge took up a position on the opposite side of the cauldron and held the torch steady.

“Look at the wall!” Blossom exclaimed, pointing.

Tiny spears of mirrored glass glittered, embedded deeply in the wood paneling of the east wall and a portion of the ceiling. Yet there was a space where no glass at all sparkled.

“Kathenor must have bent over like this,” Garett said, imitating the position he surmised the old priest had taken just before his death. “That’s why you see him slumped so. The mirror exploded outward. The area on the wall without glass roughly corresponds to the shape of Kathenor’s body. His flesh intercepted those fragments.”

“But if the mirror exploded outward as you say,” Burge interrupted, “then the fragments would be randomly dispersed about the room.” He looked at Garett with a puzzled expression. “From the looks of things, though, the force of this explosion took a specific direction.” He pointed at the south wall.

“How about that?” Garett said with a vague smile. Rudi harrumphed. “That’s impossible.”

“Not for magic,” Blossom responded, low-voiced.

The room fell silent. Even the torch seemed to cease its sputtering. At last, Garett spoke again, turning to the Ratikkan. He should have gotten rid of the man earlier. He had no doubt the adventurer would soon spread the story of Kathenor’s murder through every tavern in the city. “There’s a tax on mercenaries in Greyhawk,” he told the man. “No foreigner carries a sword unless he’s paid three gold orbs for the license. You have three gold orbs?”

“He was probably coming here to steal them,” Rudi commented rudely.

The Ratikkan sneered down at the little soldier. Then he looked at Garett and shook his head.

Garett sighed inwardly. At least he could delay the spread of this tale for a few hours. Maybe he could find something out in that time, though he had precious little to go on and little appetite for stepping into something involving magic—and, inevitably, wizards.

“You’ll be our guest for the night, then,” Garett told the Ratikkan. “We’ll confiscate your sword, of course.” He waved to the pair of Rudi’s men who held the mercenary at sword-point. “Take him to the Citadel.”

As the man was led away, Garett turned again and studied the room, imprinting every last detail in his mind.

“Who could have the power,” Burge whispered, coming to Garett’s side, “to strike at Boccob’s high priest through his own scryin’ glass in his own private sanctum?”

“Magic,” Rudi muttered to Blossom. “I hate magic.” “But it does lend itself to interesting crimes,” Garett said

with a touch of sarcasm. Actually, he hated magic as much as his small sergeant. He shook his head as he turned slowly, studying the room one last time. “Tell the priests they can clean up here if they want. We’re done.”

Garett left Blossom and Rudi to deal with the priests while he exited the sanctum and pushed his way through the crowd of white-robes now gathered in the temple’s main hall. He made his way quickly to the outer door and stepped into the warm night air. From the top of the temple stairs, he gazed down into the empty street.

Murder by magic.

His thoughts churned. It was the worst kind of case. It was a rare occurrence, thank the gods, but when it happened, it was inevitably on the night shift. Why? he cursed. Why, for once, couldn’t it happen in the daytime? It would be fun to watch Korbian Arthuran stew in his own ineptitude if he ever actually tried to solve a real crime. Of course, Garett’s pompous superior would never really sully his hands with a case. He’d delegate the task to someone. Most likely to Garett.

He walked halfway down the steps, stopped, and stared up and down the Street of Temples. The dim light from street lamps hung high on slender poles cast shadows everywhere. A wind swept suddenly up the street, blowing a thin curtain of swirling dust before it. The flames in the lamps flickered only slightly, just enough to set the shadows dancing.

Across the street rose the graceful and beautifully designed Temple of Celestian, the Star Wanderer, which was really more of an observatory and an educational center for astronomers, astrologers, navigators, and philosophers than an institution for religious worship. Its principal tower rose higher than the roof of any other temple or building in the quarter, giving a clear, unobstructed view of the night sky.

The teachers and priests of Celestian were not watching the sky tonight, however. The temple’s porticoes and porches were unlit, but Garett Starlen noticed the figures milling about curiously in the darkness, their gazes turned toward the Boccob temple. Obviously, the Celestianites knew something was up. Probably, someone had heard the cries that had alerted Rudi’s patrol. Certainly, they had seen the Ratikkan escorted away.

He looked to the temple on his right. The adherents of St. Cuthbert were equally intrigued. The chief priest, a stout fellow with flowing white hair, dressed in a fluttering green robe, stared firmly in Garett’s direction and lifted a hand in greeting or salute, while shaking the mace he clutched in the other hand. Garett recognized the salute for what it truly was, an offer to help if help was needed.

The followers of St. Cuthbert were like that, helpful to the point of being meddlesome. Garett returned the salute, then turned his back to the old man as a gesture of “thanks, but no thanks.”

Why Acton Kathenor? Garett asked himself slowly. Why the high priest of Boccob and not the priests of Celestian or St. Cuthbert? Some personal grudge? An old enemy of Kathenor’s?

Garett glanced toward the Temple of Istus, a two-level sprawling complex just to the left and down the road. No lights burned in any of its windows, and as far as he could see, no one stirred upon its open grounds.

Footsteps sounded on the marble steps behind him. Garett turned as Burge, minus the torch, descended to his side and gave an exaggerated sigh that did little to mask the impatience and irritation that radiated from him. “It’s times like this, Cap’n,” he muttered, “when I wish I’d never left the elven highlands and my father’s people.” “Death can be disturbing,” Garett agreed, “particularly the grisly ones like this.”

“Give me a break, Cap’n.” Burge answered disdainfully. He shot a look over his shoulder at the half-open temple door. “It’s priests, I’m talkin’ about. Mealymouthed psalm-sayers. One of ’em tried to convert me while we were finishin’ up. ‘Get a life,’ I told him.” The violet of Burge’s eyes flashed suddenly in the street light as he rubbed a hand over the dark stubble of his cheek, frowned further, and continued shaking his head. “Soft as a slug’s belly, he was, under that robe. Never so much as held a sword in his life. You could tell by lookin’ at him.”

Garett smiled inwardly. Normally, he couldn’t stand elves or folks with elven blood. Too damned ethereal and otherworldly for his tastes. It was almost impossible to hold a decent conversation with one, unless it was on some matter of philosophy, and that usually degenerated into a lecture if a human dared hold another point of view. Oh, they were great hunters and artists and builders and all that. But there was a chauvinism in most of them that he found more than vaguely annoying.

Not Burge, though. It seemed his mother had managed to get herself pregnant by some passing elf prince who’d promised her the world, shown her the hayloft, and vanished shortly after. With an almost vengeful determination, she’d grounded her son in the agrarian values of small-town farming life, attempting to stifle any trace of otherworldliness he might harbor in his father’s blood. In time, of course, Burge rebelled and ran away to seek his father. But his mother’s training had taken root too deeply. After a short stay with his father’s people in the highlands, he left and took a job as a riverboatman working the Nyr Dyv and the Selintan. That life, with all its crudities and hardships, had driven the last drop of elven influence from his blood. At least that’s what Burge had once confided to Garett.

Every now and then, though, Garett thought with an inward grin, the elf part still slipped out.

Blossom, Rudi, and the two remaining men of Rudi’s patrol emerged from the temple. They descended the steps to the point where Garett and Burge stood, then they went down to the street together. Garett glanced up at the priests of St. Cuthbert, who were beginning to file back into their own temple, as if realizing that whatever excitement had brought the City Watch running was at last over. Only the old white-haired priest kept vigil as Garett and his companions passed by on their way back to the Citadel.