Murder in Halruaa (28 page)

Pryce’s next words succeeded in getting the halfling’s attention. “Well, actually, that’s not exactly true.”

Gheevy looked at his associate in surprise, then tried to smile. “What are you talking about? We both saw Darlington Blade’s corpse.”

Pryce was standing just inside the door, leaning his back against the wood. “You’re not listening again, Gheevy. You said we both knew who those two bodies were. To say that is not true is merely a statement of fact.
only knew who one of those bodiesp>

was. You told me who the other one was.”

“Is this … is this another conundrum?” the halfling asked weakly.

“In a way. Sante wrote, ‘Never trust what a person says, only what a person does.’ Remember? You told me that yourself. You didn’t attribute it to the source, but there you go.”

Gheevy stood straight, his shoulders back. “I have been nothing but loyal and straightforward with you!”

“Now, now, my friend, don’t get defensive. Sante also wrote, ‘Never trust what a person says about another, but always trust that what he says about himself may be just the opposite.’”

“I’m beginning to hate this Sante,” the halfling muttered darkly.

“No need, since it seems you have read him yourself. And since Geerling Ambersong had the only complete works that I’ve ever seen, I wonder how it came about that you know his writings.”

“Oh, for Sontoin’s sake!” Gheevy erupted in exasperation. “It’s only a phrase, Blade! I don’t know where I got it. It’s such a universal sentiment, I may have made it up. There! I made it up. Are you satisfied?”

“Well, if you want to know the truth… no.”

Gheevy stared at him for a few moments, then began to laugh. “Oh, I know what this is all about,” he said. ‘You’re feeling guilty about Dearlyn killing herself, aren’t you? So now you’re rooting around for some other explanation—any other explanation. You’re seeing murderers everywhere, aren’t you? All right, then, it’s your turn to think. Because really, does it matter whose body it actually was? Gamor killed the real Darlington Blade, Dearlyn or Geerling killed him, then maybe Geerling killed himself, and Dearlyn killed Teddington. Maybe the jackals got Geerling; I don’t know. I don’t care! The haunt proves that Geerling is dead, so it’s over! Everyone got justice, everything is taken care of, so face it. It’s over. We’ve won. You’ve won! So just let it be, can’t you?”

Pryce wasn’t impressed. “F, Gheevy.” “What?”

‘Why? It’s the very first, and the very last, question. Why? You want to know the biggest why in this case?”

Gheevy sighed elaborately and rolled his eyes. “All right, Blade, if you must. What is this case’s biggest why?”

“I must,” Pryce Covington said quietly. “The biggest why is why would a hero as famous as Darlington Blade insist on remaining unseen?”

Gheevy reacted like a talentless entertainer caught in the eye of the Lallor Gate. ‘What did you say?”

“It was what was bothering me from the very outset,” Pryce explained. “Why would a valiant, celebrated adventurer hide himself from his admirers? Why would a mage as beloved as Geerling Ambersong teach such a heroic figure in secret… secret even from the knowledge of his cherished daughter?”

Gheevy’s mouth flopped like a fish in the sand. “But—but you said—”

“My explanation was feeble even to my ears. At last year’s Fall Festival, Geerling announced that Darlington Blade would appear this year to take his place as primary mage. I said that I, ‘Darlington Blade,’ appeared only to find my master’s murderer. Of those two sources, who would you believe?”

“But—but we saw Darlington Blade’s body!”

No, you saw Darlington Blade’s body! I saw the body of a complete and utter stranger! A stranger who I thought had absolutely no reason to shield himself from the eyes of the residents of Lallor. So why? Why had no one—no one alive, that is—seen Darlington Blade except you?”

Gheevy Wotfirr’s voice, when he finally replied, sounded different. It was no longer light or helpful or eager or friendly.

Gheevy Wotfirr’s voice was now flat and deep and dangerous. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Pryce Covington moved his face into a shaft of multicolored light. “Because you are Darlington Blade.”

*****

Gheevy Wotfirr didn’t laugh. He didn’t try to defend himself. He didn’t even try to dissuade Pryce of his contention. Instead, he asked for an explanation. “How do you figure that?”

Pryce cleared his throat and leaned against the door. “It’s all about fashion, really,” he said diffidently. “You know what a fashion plate I am, Gheevy. I want everything to be just so. So it really bothered me that the one thing I couldn’t afford to take off or change was this cursed cloak.” He fingered the clasp even now. “And while everyone treated me royally, I actually felt a tinge of jealousy that every other cloak in Lallor nearly reached the ground, while mine stopped above my knees.”

Gheevy couldn’t help shooting a glance at Pryce’s legs. Sure enough, the bottom of the cloak ended midway down his legs.

“Think back, Gheevy,” Pryce continued. “Even Dearlyn’s cloak reached the ground. So why didn’t the supposed matching cloak of Darlington Blade also reach the ground … unless the real Darlington Blade was almost two feet shorter than a normal human?”

Gheevy remained silent, still holding the bottle of Jhynissian wine.

“Remember when I first fell to my knees in front of you, begging you not to give my identity away? That was the only time we ever saw eye to eye. If you wore this cloak,” said Pryce, nodding with certainty, “it would reach the ground.”

Pryce waited. Gheevy finally spoke. “Is that it? Is that all you’ve got? The length of cloak hems this season?”

Pryce looked down sadly. “Not quite. You lauded my performance on the skyship a few moments back, for which I thank you. I really couldn’t have done so well had I not mixed in as much truth as I possibly could. Remember when I said a haunt’s words and actions were sacrosanct in the eyes of the law? True. But interpretation is nine-tenths of the law.”

“So?” Gheevy challenged. “What you said up there makes sense. Still does. The haunt jumped the wench.”

Pryce shook his head again, both at the halfling’s attitude and his coarsening language. “You’re not asking the right why again, Gheevy. Namely, why would a mage take all the trouble to become a haunt… and then take back his dying clue? You heard him! He actually contradicted himself. He clearly stated that Darlington Blade was the one who murdered him, then a second later added a feeble contradiction. Why, in the name of all the deities in the heavens? Why?”

“And the answer is… ?” Gheevy drawled sarcastically.

“The single best answer I can think of is fear. The same sort of fear you started to show when you thought the haunt would name you. Geerling tried, but he only knew you as Darlington Blade! He wasn’t pointing at me. He was pointing at the cloak clasp! Then he realized that if he did name you, you had it in your power to kill his only child … and whoever this strange fellow was who was now wearing the cloak. So he did what any loving parent would do in the same situation… what he had been doing for his daughter’s entire life, in fact. He protected his child, while trying to provide her with a clue to the truth, all while attempting to remain in control of a dying, very recalcitrant body.”

Again silence reigned in the cottage until Pryce inquired quietly, ‘That’s why Teddington Fullmer had to die, wasn’t it? Not because he found the secret workshop. He hadn’t, until you put his mortally wounded body there. It was because he was foolish enough to broach a confidence in order to gain the upper hand in a business transaction.”

Gheevy looked up sharply. It was all the encouragement Pryce

needed. “You had sworn Azzo to secrecy about the length of time you had worked at his tavern, hadn’t you? Remember when I confronted him about his secret on the skyship? That’s what I was alluding to, Gheevy. And guess what? On the way back from Mount Talath, I took him aside and called him on it. Do you want to know what he said?”

Wotfirr’s eyes were mere slits. “I have absolutely no interest in anything that fat, lovesick dog has to say.”

“I’m sure the inquisitrixes would,” Pryce countered, looking braver than he felt. But his anger drove him on. “He admitted to me that you promised him the finest grotto in Lallor if he maintained that you had been working with him for years. But he had let slip—or Teddington had guessed—that you had only been stocking the liquor for a short time. I was hiding behind the cask when Teddington suggested it. You, of course, denied it with a great show of wounded pride, but you decided then and there to silence him, didn’t you?”

When Gheevy didn’t answer, Pryce continued on inexorably. “But Fullmer, bless and curse him, told me more than just that. He said that he almost believed for a second that I was Darlington Blade. If only I had understood the subtext of both statements sooner. Namely, in the latter case, that if I could be Darlington Blade, then someone else could be, too. Namely, you.”

Silence settled again, like the dissipating dust of Gamor Turkal’s magic communications. Gheevy’s first words in some time were flat but challenging. “So,” he said. “How’s your mom?”

“Unfortunately she’s dead,” Pryce said without pause. “Like almost everyone who truly knows you. But more to the point, opportunity and means were no problem for you, were they? Oh, no, not for the great Darlington Blade!”

“So that only leaves motive, doesn’t it? What do you have to say about that, little man from Merrickarta?”

Pryce was cautioned by the obvious warning in the halfling’s well-chosen words. The tide was beginning to shift, and the

weight of evidence was growing ever heavier on his shoulders. But he was letting Covington know that he would not bear such overwhelming weight for long. So be it. Pryce had made himself … and Dearlyn Ambersong… a promise.

He stepped forward, back into the light, returning the challenge directly at the murdering knave. “Don’t you wonder what Greila Sontoin and I discussed in our private conversation? Everyone else does. In fact, you gave me a hint that you were interested when we first arrived here.”

“All right, I’ll give you that,” Gheevy conceded. “I thought for certain she would disintegrate you on the spot.” He left unsaid that he had hoped for that, but the thought hung in the air anyway.

‘Truth be told, so did I,” Pryce agreed. “Of course, she knew I wasn’t Darlington Blade, but she did know who I was. Not merely my name, but my objective, my goal in life, even my heart’s true desire. I laughed off her declaration that I was a man of good intentions and an open heart, but I had to accept what Priestess Sontoin saw in me. I don’t desire to brag, but she said, and I quote, You continue to live in my domain for one reason, and one reason only. For if the true spirit of the great Darlington Blade is to truly exist, it will exist in you and you alone.’”

“I think I’m going to cry,” Gheevy whined with mock emotion. His next words came in an angry rush. “Are you telling me that she knew all along?”

Pryce was unfazed. “I honestly don’t know, but I don’t think so. She just knew that I wasn’t Blade… that no one truly was the legend… not yet. But more important, Gheevy, do you know the one thing I asked her?”

“I’m not a mind reader or a priestess of unearthly wisdom!” he snarled. “I’m a halfling whose patience is rapidly coming to an end!”

“Then you shall have your answer quickly. I asked her if there was a Mystran spell to detect Derro heritage.”

Gheevy growled slowly in the back of his throat, his sharp little teeth beginning to show. “I gather there was such a spell,” he said darkly.

“If there wasn’t before, you’ve answered my question now,” Pryce assured him, moving toward the door. “All along I had to keep asking myself, ‘If all my theories are correct, why is Darlington Blade doing this?’ I thought I knew why Geerling Ambersong did it—it’s in the teachings of Sante. He wanted to show the Council of Elders how wrong they could be when they restricted the teaching of magic. He thought magic would ultimately elevate all who learned it. That any need to do evil would be eliminated as they gained insight, strength, and wisdom.

“But the big problem was that the council was right! Geerling Ambersong’s fatal mistake was to think that Darlington Blade would be his ultimate triumph. Living proof that magnificent magic, kindly and wisely taught, even to a person who had a heritage that wished only to see humans sadistically killed and to pervert knowledge to its own dark desires, would triumph in the end.”

Gheevy laughed a derisive laugh. “I just love happy endings, don’t you?”

Pryce’s skin crawled. Everything he had been concerned about was true. And he was facing a Derro-halfling … one with the power of Darlington Blade. “The ending to this story is not yet written, my friend,” he reminded the killer. “So who will it be written by… Gheevy Wotfirr or Darlington Blade?”

The halfling barked out a final laugh, his look and demeanor entirely changed. He now exuded strength, and there was no uncertainty or kindness in his posture or expression. “It doesn’t make any difference!” he cried. ‘They are one and the same!” And then he started to unleash the magic Geerling Ambersong had taught him at the cost of the primary mage’s own life.

The back wall exploded outward. Bottles and liquid shattered and splashed everywhere. Pryce pulled the cloak over his head and ducked down. Glass sparkled like whirring gems in the light of the exposed window. Gheevy’s spell was interrupted, and suddenly the halfling was thrown back—by the power of the mongrelman’s onslaught.

“Gurrahh!” Gheevy cried, falling to the floor. He rolled to the opposite wall and came up on one knee as the mongrelman continued to charge. He deflected Geoffrey’s attack with a scintillating sphere spell. The energy ball appeared before him and pulsed twice. The lumbering mongrelman dodged as best he could but was caught by the edge of the second pulse. It sent him crashing to the floor, shattering even more bottles, where he lay jerking in place.

“Is that his name?” Pryce demanded, jumping to his feet. “Gurrahh?”

Gheevy looked up, his face twisted in anger and his breath heaving. “I don’t know!” he barked. “I don’t care. That’s what I called him because that was the stupid noise he always made!”