Murder in Halruaa (13 page)

She placed her hands on the back and arm of the lounge chair and leaned over until her face was mere inches from Pryce’s own. “We want to know—need to know—that if you are to take his place, Lallor will remain as safe and as free as it has been during the seventy-five years Geerling watched over it.”

Seventy-five years, Pryce marveled. Twenty-five years to grow up and apprentice … that meant he probably sired Dearlyn at the age of eighty! He filed that revelation in the back of his mind and concentrated on the piercing gaze the inquisitrix was directing at him.

“I cannot guarantee anything,” he told her honestly. “I can only promise to try—” he thought fast and hard about how to finish the sentence—”to make things right.”

She stared at him for several seconds, apparently trying to scoff at his simple declaration but ultimately failing. Instead, she almost scowled, then abruptly turned away. “You know, of course, that Zalathorm has predicted every attack on Halruaa for the last half century,” he heard her say, not at all liking where this particular bit of folklore was heading. ‘Would it surprise you to know that our finest diviners on Mount Talath fear that one of the greatest threats to our country and people is yet to come … from within?”

Pryce saw the crack in her statement and jumped on it with both feet. “No, it wouldn’t surprise me,” he said. “Zalathorm rules a hundred and forty miles away from Talath, in the city of Halarahh, where they make a fine wine that is particularly tasty

when hurled in the face.”

Lymwich turned around and confronted him with incredulity. “You would renounce a threat to your country and your newly adopted city?”

Pryce pushed himself to his feet. “I renounce contrived controversies and artificial arguments,” he told her. “And I do not like being tested … especially with feigned confessions of patriotism. You waste your tricks on me, inquisitrix.”

Lymwich started, but she did not advance toward him. That, Covington decided, was a good sign. “I want to know where Geerling Ambersong is,” she said warningly.

“So do I,” Pryce answered with all his heart.

“You have his magic. Find him.”

“He has his magic,” Pryce corrected. “I have mine.”

Covington thought the confrontation had come to an end. Unfortunately, it was only a prelude to a far more dangerous one. Lymwich lowered her head until her face was completely in shadow, and the colors of the approaching Lallor sunrise filled Covington’s eyes from the many blinding orbs.

“Do you?” he heard her say softly. “Do you really?” The tone of her voice raised the hair on the back of his head. He steeled himself for what might come next, his mind hurrying to lay out all the possible scenarios.

“I find it interesting,” she continued in a quiet, chilling manner, “that during your entire visit here, you have not displayed your vaunted magic once. Not to avoid the dragon turtle, not to avoid a faceful of wine, nothing____”

Covington’s voice, when it came, was not his. It was the man he had been forced to become. “I do not waste magic,” he said. “I respect my teachings too much. They are too precious for any such triviality.”

“Are they?” she mused sinuously. “Are they really? Tell me, Darlington Blade, do you know the requirements to enter a Castle of Mystra?”

“I do not,” he admitted without shame. He knew he was about to find out.

“Only a person with a clear heart and good intentions is allowed to enter without fear of punishment,” she told him. “And, apparently, you have both in abundance.”

Pryce should have been pleased. The second requirement came as quite a surprise. But instead he found himself holding his breath. He hadn’t felt this much dread since his father had disappeared. He didn’t have to wait long.

“What you don’t seem to have the slightest amount of,” Lymwich continued, “is magic.”

She didn’t even let him have a second to respond. As soon as the words escaped her mouth, her arms twisted into a series of movements that built up to a devastating spell.

A ball of energy appeared between her waving, caressing hands. She shaped and pressed it tighter with her fingers and a new torrent of words until it became a condensed sphere of power. “Your magic must be great indeed,” she cried over the spell’s roar, “or nonexistent!”

Without looking or really thinking, Covington leapt over the lounge chair and slammed his feet into the floor. He threw back his arms, the Ambersong cloak unfurling in the air, and stood directly in the path of the oncoming cataclysm.

“By Zalathorm!” he thundered with the agony and ecstasy of final freedom. If this was how it was to end, then let it end gloriously, with his head up and his eyes open!

Lymwich thrust forward, and the orb blasted across the room. Covington watched as it smashed into the cloak clasp… and disappeared.

****

Of course. The cloak clasp was the key. It glowed with the memory and power of the gift Geerling Ambersong had be—

stowed upon his student. Not only would it open any Ambersong door but it would also protect the wearer from any magic lesser than Geerling’s own.

Pryce was nearly overcome with emotion. He now wore what a great mage had created only for the people he held dear … which is why it had protected him from Lymwich’s spell but had no effect on Dearlyn’s earlier attack.

It was at that moment that Pryce Covington swore to all the gods he knew, and would ever know, that he would not simply try to stay alive. He would find out the truth no matter where it led him.

Lymwich was obviously shaken. Covington stood before her, untouched. “But—but—” she stammered, “all our magic-sensing spells … all our divining charms … they said you had nothing … nothing!”

Pryce smiled with a certain pitying compassion. “There are diviners, illusionists, invokers, generalists, abjurers, conjurers, necromancers… and then there’s you,” he said with harsh calm. “There is the magic of Geerling Ambersong… and then there’s yours.”

The perplexed inquisitrix could only try desperately to salvage some vestige of pride from her nearly unpardonable affront. “Your magic … is awesome,” she marveled, unable to completely eliminate tones of envy from her voice. ‘To have so much, yet to reveal none!”

Covington stared directly at her, trying to penetrate her mind. All he saw was blustering ambition … and it was that ambition that led him to a blinding insight. “Of course!” he cried.

His shout made Lymwich jump and raise her arms to defend herself. But instead of retaliating, he flashed her a knowing smile.

“Ask me again,” he invited. “Wha—what?”

“Think of what you brought me here for,” he said. ‘Think of

what you want from me. You asked me before—several times. All will be forgiven if you ask me again.”

She couldn’t deny him, not after what she had done. Only this time she wasn’t so much asking the question, but asking if this question was the right question to ask. “Where… where is Geerling Ambersong?”

Pryce clapped his hands together with satisfaction. Then he asked her the one question he should have been asking her— and himself—all along. “Why?” he exclaimed in exultation.

“What?” she repeated.

He enunciated each word carefully, reveling in his understanding. “Why… do… you… want… to… know?”

She was truly confused now. “Didn’t I already tell you that? The inquisitrixes of Mystra need to know so the security of the city can be assured____”

Pryce waved that contention away impatiently. He was beginning to enjoy shouldering the responsibilities—and wisdom—of Darlington Blade. “Not them … you! You already admitted you were assigned to me. Assigned … or did you ask to be assigned?” He could see by her reaction that he had hit upon the truth.

“I was impressed by your dedication to your job,” he continued casually, walking nonchalantly toward the globes that lined the far wall. He stood before the one that showed the quay outside. “Still watching me at such a late hour? Practically obsessed with your assignment, I’d say. Even willing to unleash magic on an untried, unconvicted person ‘with a clear heart and good intentions.’ Why? Why is it so important that you, personally, know where Geerling Ambersong is?”

Her earlier shame disappeared before his eyes, leaving only bitter rivalry. “You’re the great Darlington Blade,” she said darkly. “Why don’t you tell me?”

He showed her his open, empty hands. “Why does the great inquisitrix Berridge Lymwich do anything?” he theorized. “Why

is she so jealous of Dearlyn Ambersong? For her youth and beauty?” He made a clucking sound and dismissed that notion with a wave of his hand. “That’s a secondary motive. Your primary reason? You’re jealous of her proximity to Geerling Ambersong. Why so distrustful of me? Security concerns?” He waved that idea aside with his other hand. “A subsidiary consideration. Your principal envy? My affiliation with Geerling Ambersong. What does he have that you want so badly that you would risk unleashing magic on a person you thought was totally helpless?”

“All right! All right!” she screeched, retreating, her hands up to her ears. “Stop toying with me! You know what I want! You know what every aspiring primary mage in this city wants!” Just before she disappeared through a dark doorway beneath the orbs, she turned back and pointed at him accusingly. ‘You know that even the great Geerling Ambersong can’t choose his successor without the approval of the council!” she cried. “It’s not over, Darlington Blade! You may know the location of Ambersong’s secret workshop, but I’ll discover it yet!”

Then she hurried through the doorway, her words echoing in the chamber around him.

*****

Berridge Lymwich had run away from the power of Darlington Blade, leaving Pryce Covington to find his own way out of the castle. He wondered whether the inquisitrix was going to explain her actions to a superior who might have been watching, or was going to gloat over how lost the “great Darlington Blade,” as everyone seemed to enjoy calling him, was about to get.

Pryce warned himself not to get lazy. He was in the Mystran castle devoted to illusion, so, by all rights, he knew he was about to do an impersonation of a mouse lost in a maze. The important thing was to have fun, appreciate the things he was about to experience, and not scream like a frightened child if any dangerous image threatened to eradicate him.

It wasn’t easy, even with that forewarning. Pryce soon discovered that the illusions were not limited to snarling Shipgrave Isle buccaneers plunging their sabers into his gullet or Outlaw Waste barbarians separating his head from his shoulders. The illusions were sometimes as simple as a doorknob or a loose floor tile. There wasn’t a single thing Pryce could take for granted beyond the end of his nose… and perhaps not even that.

He decided to act as Darlington Blade would act. Darlington Blade would undoubtedly be superior to the illusionary dead ends and would simply march past them until he reached the single door on the reef. There was only one problem: He wasn’t Darlington Blade. There was only one thing to do, he decided. He didn’t want to look like an incompetent idiot, unless looking like an incompetent idiot accomplished his goal.

Lymwich and her superiors were doubtlessly watching, and he decided to treat them to an amusing sight, designed to further embarrass Berridge. The great Darlington Blade exaggerated his caution to make fun of any illusion that confronted him.

He grabbed a door latch, which turned into a snake, which bit him. That was bad enough, but then he watched his skin turn different colors and his arm puff up. Finally he realized he wasn’t feeling faint because he was poisoned, but because he had been holding his breath. He blinked and shook his head, and his arm was as before.

So it went for seemingly every step. Using all his concentration to appear unimpressed, eventually Pryce was casually conversing with malevolent beholders, depraved deepspawns, and even degenerative, axe-wielding Derro dwarves.

“Hey, how are you?” he confronted them. “How are things at home? Killed anything interesting lately? What’s new in the ninth bowel of hell?”

It was quite a performance, but the finale was surprisingly

serene. Eventually Pryce came to a long hallway lined to the ceiling with bookshelves. The hall led to a large room, which was lined with tables, around which sat many worshipers of Mystra and inquisitrixes, all reading.

“Marvelous,” Pryce murmured, peering closer to see the titles of the tomes nearest him. Much to his frustration, the tides were out of focus no matter how hard he looked. He turned to the reader nearest him, an angeUc creature in a cowled robe. “Say, I wonder if you could—”

She put a perfectly shaped forefinger to her full lips. “Shhhhh!”

“Oh,” he whispered. “Sorry.” He knelt beside her youthful, shapely redheaded form. “I wonder if you could tell me what you are reading.”

She turned her sweet, gentle freckled face to him and smiled, and suddenly he felt better than he had all evening. Her voice was like a heavenly song. “It’s a secret, outsider,” she said, not unkindly.

“Oh!” he said, disappointed.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized earnestly. “It was not my intention to belittle you by calling you an outsider. It’s merely a statement of fact. I have been created to speak honestly to all who pass here.”

“Ah, so you are not an actual inquisitrix or a worshiper of Mystra.”

“Oh, I am indeed a true follower. Illusions can worship Mystra as well as tangibles, you know.” ‘Tangibles?”

“Humans. Like you. I am an honest worshiper of Mystra, as is my middle-aged self.” She motioned toward a woman beside her. When the woman turned, Pryce was staring at an older version of the young lady.

“Hello,” said the middle-aged version of the young illusion. Pryce nodded and smiled in greeting.

“… And my elderly self.” An old lady beside the middle-aged lady looked toward him, her mouth drooling. “She’s too old now to take care of herself,” the young illusion whispered to him in confidence. “No less a follower of Mystra, however.” She leaned over and wiped the old woman’s salivation with a handkerchief she removed from her sleeve. She patted the elderly woman reassuringly before returning her attention to Pryce.