entryway behind Schreders At Your Service to the workshop door, had been illuminated by a string of floating light orbs. Lallor militia units in specially designed uniforms stood beside every glowing bulb, hands resting on the hilts of short swords specially designed for all their indoor hacking needs.
Inquisitrixes, in their own uniforms of black and gold, moved about, carefully examining every inch of the caverns. They sometimes found evidence of magic, over which they tossed crystals or powders and muttered divining spells with accompanying gestures. If there were any other secrets hidden in these caves, these illusion scholars would find them.
Directly in front of Covington lay a naked Teddington Fullmer, floating above the cave floor on a magically enhanced morgue slab. Examining his feet was, surprisingly, Matthaunin Witterstaet, wearing his customary gatekeeper robe. Examining Fullmer’s head was Berridge Lymwich, dressed in her full inquisitrix regalia. Pryce approached the latter first.
“I imagine Dearlyn and Gheevy have told you everything they know by now,” he said. “Anything I can add?”
“I don’t know,” she said in her sandy voice without taking her eyes off Fullmer’s head wound. “Is there?” She seemed to be angry that he had given her something to do other than covet his status.
Pryce shrugged, refusing to be baited. “Possibly not… but I can tell you what you’re thinking.” She finally looked at him first with surprise, then with disbelief, and finally with defiance. She said nothing, but Pryce took her behavior as permission. “You’re thinking someone at Schreders’s place did this.” Mentally he scored himself a point, not because she reacted in surprise, but because she didn’t Instead, Lymwich folded her arms and let her eyelids fall to half mast.
“What makes you think that?”
Pryce shrugged, frowning. “It only makes sense. The entrance was right behind the tavern’s back door; Azzo was in a position to know almost everything that went on in Lallor; and, besides, who but a non-mage would kill anyone as crudely as this?”
Lymwich kept her arms crossed and exhaled through her nose, like a bull about to charge. Pryce took it as a sign of grudging acceptance. He glanced around at her sister inquisitrixes. “Any luck finding Geerling’s haunt?”
Lymwich looked at the other inquisitrixes’ progress in the cavern with a certain frustration. “Not a thing,” she admitted reluctantly. “Curse it, a haunt must remain within sixty yards of where its body lies! But no matter how we track itup, down, right, leftnothing! If either the daughter or the halfling had come to me with this story minus your corroboration, I never would have believed it.”
“Ah, the joys of reputation,” Pryce said. He looked at her with calm self-assurance. “Have you done as I requested?”
She seemed ready to argue, but quickly controlled herself. “What you had your halfling… associate… request for you,” she corrected him reprovingly. “But,” she conceded, “your idea was an expedient one. It met with the approval of my superiors.”
Pryce resisted the temptation to rub salt into her wounded ego, so he kept his expression placid and his tongue still. He simply nodded and stepped over to the other side of the slab. He tried to attract the gatekeeper’s attention, but the old fellow was too intent on the body. “You’re a man of many talents,” Pryce finally said idly.
“Hmmmmm?” the gatekeeper said without looking up.
“Gate guard, immigration officer, and now magical examiner.”
“Cleric as well,” Lymwich elaborated. “Matthaunin is one of our little community’s most respected members.”
“Outside of your own master, of course,” Witterstaet hastily added.
“Really?” Pryce retorted.
“Geerling Ambersong basically gave Witterstaet his choice of responsibilities in our exclusive retreat,” Lymwich continued, walking the length of the morgue slab and back again, “and he chose his place at the gate.”
“Fresh air,” Witterstaet explained, looking at the ceiling of the cavern, “meeting new people, constant intellectual stimulation…”
“But you also double, or should I say triple, as an examiner?” Pryce marveled.
“Matthaunin is also one of the most respected seers of magical presence in the nation,” Lymwich said sourly, apparently not reserving her infinite pool of envy to Blade alone.
“Really?” Pryce drawled again, raising one eyebrow practically up into his hairline.
“It has been said, sir,” Witterstaet answered modestly, “but, of course, I wouldn’t dare test my paltry skills against your own, sir.”
“Wouldn’t you, now?” Pryce echoed, looking askance at Lymwich, who studiously avoided his gaze. Even so, Pryce quickly redirected their attention, just in case anyone considered pressing the point. “And have you uncovered anything around the body of Teddington Fullmer?”
Once that subject was again broached, Witterstaet seemed to forget all about Blade’s fame. “Well, there was a very indistinct shadow, or afterimagean echo, if you willof the haunt’s previous presence that even I was hard pressed to perceive.” He turned toward Pryce for a moment. “But that is just a testament to the skill and power of your master.” He turned back to Fullmer’s cadaver. “Other than that, there isn’t a single iota of magic anywhere in, around, or on the body. Whatever happened to him prior to the haunt’s possession, it was done by a person alien to any form of magic.”
Before Pryce could consider the ramifications of that statement, the people he had asked to be summoned arrived. Pryce stepped back as burly, bearded tavern owner Azzoparde Schreders, blonde and beautiful serving wench Sheyrhen Karkober, and gaunt mine owner Asche Hartovin the company of several inquisitrixes and militiamenmade their way down the brightly lit cavern to the section of wall that hid the workshop.
“Cost, what is the meaning of this?” the gaunt mine owner demanded.
“You had to pay these people?” the serving wench asked Hartov incredulously.
Pryce rolled his eyes, then put his hands on his waist and leaned toward the three arrivals. “I told you before, Asche, Cost Privington is a pseudonym… a false identity. My real name is… Darlington Blade.” Pryce nodded to himself. He was getting the pause between “is” and “Darlington” down to mere seconds. Maybe if he said it often enough, he’d actually come to believe it
“Harrumph,” wheezed Hartov, bending his slight frame. “False identity indeed! Why did you feel the compunction to fool the likes of me?”
“Matters of national security,” Pryce said affably, “and that is precisely why I’ve asked you here today.”
“Really?” Karkober breathed, her eyes widening.
“Really.” He motioned toward the slab. “First, I believe you all knew Teddington Fullmer?”
They stared at the man. “He doesn’t look well,” Karkober finally squeaked.
“Not a bit,” Schreders agreed vehemently. “This is terrible!”
“Very sound observation,” Pryce told them. “Unfortunately, it was the price he paid for finding his heart’s desire.”
“Is he” Hartov choked”dead?”
Pryce sighed and looked evenly at the distraught mine owner. “Be careful what you wish for, Asche. You, too, might get killed for it.”
“Killed!” Schreders boomed. ‘You mean this was no accident?” Pryce just stared at him.
“Butbut” the tavern owner stammered “but this is Lallor! Things like this don’t happen here. They can’t!”
“Did,” Pryce said curtly. “Can.” He stepped back and pulled at the lip of the mechanical door. The unlocked gears now moved easily, and Pryce soon revealed the room dug out of the area beyond the cavern wall. “Lady and gentlemen, I give you Geerling Ambersong’s secret workshop.” He let them have a few seconds to take it all in. “Well, I’m not actually going to give it to you, but I will let you touch it. In fact, I’m going to let you carry itpiece by pieceout of here.”
Schreders was the first to comprehend the words through the haze of his amazement. “Eh? Eh? What was that?”
Pryce snapped his fingers until he got the attention of all of them. “I found Teddington Fullmer’s dead body in the middle of my teacher’s secret workshop,” he almost didn’t lie. “So this is no longer my classroom; it is a crime scene. Furthermore, the authorities have discovered evidence of additional foul play. I won’t bore you with the
