Very well, then; it was an unusually long knife, with a strange, triangular blade, a bit longer than a stiletto. Talhad seen knives like that, very occasionally, as part of the altar-furniture during certain holy days. No one ever touched the knives during the service, and they were evidently the remnants of some earlier, older ceremony. Tal was not particularly religious, but one couldn't help picking up a certain amount of religious indoctrination when one was in school, since the schools were all taught by Priests. He'd had the knack even then for putting things together that other people didn't particularly want put together, and his guess was that the knives were from an old, pagan ceremony of sacrifice that the Church had coopted and turned into a holy day. Good idea, that—if people were going to celebrate something, make them celebrateyour ceremony. Keep them in the Church all day so they can't go out and get up to an unsanctified frolic in the woods and fields. . . .
Tal sat back in his chair for a moment, thinking about that. Perhaps it was the late hour, but his imagination, normally held in check, began to paint wild pictures for him.
Some of the more lurid tales that had given him goose-bumps as an adolescent rose up out of memory to confront him with bizarre possibilities. What if some of the knives in Church regalia were theoriginal sacrificial knives of an unholy, blood-drenched ritual out of the ancient past? What if this one was one of those knives, one of the cursed blades out of legends, craving blood now that it was out of the safe hands of the Church magicians? Could it be taking over the murderers somehow, and forcing them to use it so that it could drink its fill of blood and lives as it used to do?
But why pick musicians as targets? And most importantly, where did it go when it wasn't killing someone?
More to the point, have I got the chance of a snowball in a bakery oven of convincing the Captain that a knife with a curse on it is going around killing people?
Not likely. Captain Rayburn believed wholeheartedly in magic, but in magic of the practical kind. Cursed weapons were a matter of legend, and not something to be found lying about in this city.
What do I have for proof? A handful of men who killed for no apparent reason, who all used, if not the same knife, a very similar knife. They all murdered women, who were also street-entertainers. Rationally, even I have to admit that killing entertainers could be nothing more than a matter of convenience and coincidence. The only woman who is likely to go off with a stranger is going to be either a whore or an entertainer, and of the two professions, a whore is going to be more suspicious than an entertainer. Finally, the murder weapon always vanishes, and the murderer often commits suicide.
Not a lot of 'proof' for anything, and no proof whatsoever for the notion of a knife with a mind and will of its own.
Stupid idea. I must be getting light-headed from lack of sleep.
What were the possibilities that fit this particular pattern? Thereasonable possibilities that is, not some tale-teller's extravaganza. The religious angledid have possibilities—a cult of some kind was actually possible. People would do some very strange things in the name of religious belief, including commit murder and suicide. Odd cults sprang up in the Twenty Kingdoms from time to time, and most of them were rightfully secretive about their practices and membership. The Church did its best to wipe out every trace of such cults once Church officials got wind of them, either directly or by threat of Holy Wrath. And while the latter might not impress anyone not born and steeped in the fear of the Sacrificed God, practically speaking, since every law-enforcement official in the Twenty Human Kingdoms was likely to be a loyal son of the Church, there was secular wrath to deal with as well as Holy Wrath.
That's a dangerous suggestion to make, though. Politically sensitive. It wasn't that long ago that there were people saying nonhumans were demonic, and accusing them of this kind of bloodletting. Claim that there are humans going around doing the same thing—Captain isn't going to like it if that comes up again.
Still, it was the most feasible and would explain the disappearance of the murder weapon, or weapons. Other members of the cult could be watching the murderer, waiting for him to act, then nipping in and stealing the ritual dagger when he was done.
That's more reasonable than a dagger with a curse on it. I'm more likely to get the Captain to believe that one, even if he doesn't much like it. I don't like it, though; what if he decides that it's nonhumans who've somehow seduced humans into their cult?
Another outside possibility was that there was a slowly spreading disease that drove its victim to madness, murder, and suicide. People who went mad often had a mania about certain kinds of objects or whatnot. He personally knew an account of a hatter who went about trying to bludgeon redheads, for instance—and that could explain why all the victims were musicians. Maybe the disease made it painful to listen to music!
But in that case, why were they all killed with the same kind of weapon, and where did it go afterwards?
His death-black tea grew cold, as his thoughts circled one another, always coming back to the mysterious, vanishing daggers.
Until tonight, there had been the possibility that the women were being marked by the same person, who also murdered men, possibly witnesses, to make the crimes look like murder-suicides. That possibility had been eliminated tonight by the presence of a witness who had not been detected.
