Four and Twenty Blackbirds

Rand had a great deal of ready cash, and Orm wanted as much of that money transferred to himself as possible. He also wanted to continue living, and he was under no illusions about his continued existence if Rand decided to get rid of him.

This, of course, was not the first time he had found himself in that position. A man who sells information often comes into possession of knowledge that others would rather he didn't know, and sometimes those others are willing to take drastic steps to ensure that the information is lost again. Orm had always saved himself in the past by proving that it was more expensive to eliminate him than to purchase his cooperation, and he was fairly certain he could do the same thing this time.

Finally, Rand shook all of his shabby drab feathers and fastened his gaze on his would-be partner. 'You are right,' the bird croaked. 'And I want to think about this for a while. I have been very shortsighted until this moment.'

'In that case,' Orm had said, rising and making a little bow, 'I shall leave you in peace to think.' He knew then that he was safe, for Rand had spoken the key word:shortsighted. Rand had just made the jump from thinking only about the immediate need of becoming and staying human, and had moved on to other desires as well. And a man who looked as Rand did probably had a major desire driving him.

Revenge.Orm loved that motive; it was one of his most profitable. Revenge was complicated and expensive; it involved elaborate plots and a great deal of planning. And given that Rand would probably want revenge on at least one person moderately difficult to find—well, the possibilities for profit were staggering.

Rand made several requests of Orm over the next couple of weeks, with the most difficult being the acquisition of an ecclesiastical dagger. Rand had probably intended for Orm to steal one, but Orm had no intentions of leaving that kind of trail for the Church to follow. It wouldn't be too difficult for Church mages to put the theft of a piece of regalia of that sort together with a murder by means of that kind of weapon—and Orm had the suspicion they might be able to tell who had taken it and what had been done with it. Instead, he broke into a Chapel all right, but when he found one of the daggers, he only studied it. The next day he purchased a triangular file of approximately the correct dimensions, broke into a smithy whose owner was out of town, and ground it into a similar knife-blade himself. Since the new 'knife' already had a wooden hilt of sorts, Orm had judged that it would do.

When he brought it to Rand, the creature studied the offering closely, then clacked his beak in a way that Orm had come to learn signified his approval. 'Very clever, and usable for the first attempt, anyway,' the bird croaked. 'We may have to do something else next time, but this will do. Now—I want you to find me two people.'

Rand outlined the kind of victim Orm had already assumed he would want: female, a musician—a Gypsy or a Free Bard by preference, but any musician or dancer would do, so long as she was female. But he also wanted aman, someone who might plausibly pick up the clumsy knife that Orm had constructed, at least for a moment.

Orm already had a few candidates for the first position, but the second was something of a puzzle for him. In the end, he chose a petty tough with a penchant for knives; the man couldn't resist a blade, no matter how clumsy or poorly made, and once he had one, he could be counted upon to carry it with him. If the man ever fell into the river, he'd sink to the bottom from the weight of steel he carried.

Rand made the final selection of the girl, and gleefully chose a wench who at least wore the ribbons of a Free Bard, though Orm privately suspected that if any real musician heard her sing, they'd demand the ribbons back. Too much drinking and other abuses of her own body had taken a heavy toll of her voice, mind, and musical talents. All of her songs sounded alike, and all of them were similar in theme as well. She fancied the company of people precisely like that young street-tough, perhaps for the thrill of association, although she claimed that they gave her ideas for more of her songs. Bitter, uncertain of temper, aggressive and yet cowardly, she made trouble just for the sake of seeing what happened. Orm privately considered that he would be doing the world a favor in helping to rid it of the ill-natured creature.

Orm got the blade into the hands of the street-tough as Rand requested. Only then did he hear the rest of the plan.

'We'll be using the knife for the killing, rather than this beak I've been cursed with. For the moment, don't worry abouthow ; I'll explain that in a moment. You seem to know enough about magic to know that mages can read where objects have been and you were probably wondering how I intended to deal with the traces ofyour personality that you left on that knife, as well as the magic that I shall imbue it with,' Rand-the-bird rasped smugly as he cocked his oil-sheened head to the side to gauge Orm's reactions. 'It's simple, really. After the woman is dead,you move in and steal the knife before anyone else can touch it.'

Rand had probably expected Orm to put up a strenuous objection to this; Orm just waited for the details. Rand wouldn't have tried to shock him with this if he didn't have a damned clever plan to avoid the two of them getting caught.

Orm had been correct in his assumption. Rand did have a damned clever plan, and the more he outlined, the more at ease Orm became. Rand knew what a Justiciar-Mage could and could not do (as well he should), and he had planned for everything.

'I use the knife to gain control of the street-thug's body,' Rand explained carefully. 'Once I have done that, I use him to murder the woman. Then I have him throw the knife away, which is when you will look for it and carry it off, bringing it back to me. When that is done, I have the man throw himself into the river as a suicide. The very few traces of magic contamination will be washed off in running water. This will look like a simple crime of passion or a robbery gone awry, and no one will think that this is anything out of the ordinary. People are murdered all the time in an area like the one these two frequent.'