actual identity.
“Oh, my deities!” Azzo breathed when Pryce had finished. “Murder? Here in Lallor?” He almost jumped when Covington suddenly lanced a forefinger at him.
“Exactly!” Covington cried. “Murder? In Halruaa? Incredible! Inconceivable. Absurd! What a heartless, wicked, brainless thing to do!” He turned slowly in a full circle, seemingly trying to comprehend the concept. “This is a community of the most successful, most powerful wizards in the nation! Who in his right mind would murder someone here?
“And not just anyone,” Pryce continued, waggling his forefinger. “A primary mage, no less, and his assistant. The assistant?” Pryce shrugged. “Not really a problem. But why hang him at the Question Tree, of all places? Why not just… well… club him and feed him to the jackals in the hills?” As he turned, he couldn’t help seeing Gheevy cringe. He didn’t let it faze him. If he was to survive this thing, there had to be as much truth as possible mixed in with the rest.
“But a primary mage? What could have possibly convinced an individual to take such a risk? And why leave him at one of the most recognizable landmarks in the area?” He looked into each face for an answer but found none. He turned toward the upper deck. “Captain Scottpeter! Do you know the most important thing to trust in a murder investigation?”
Scottpeter reacted as if Pryce were speaking ancient script, but she understood nevertheless. “No, Mr. Blade,” she called back. “I’m happy to tell you that I have never required the knowledge.” She glanced at her navigator, who had come out to witness this unique experience. “And I hope to the cloud dragons that I never will,” she whispered to her.
Pryce turned from the captain to the others, moving slowly among them. “In a murder investigation, you can’t trust your friends…” He looked pointedly at Asche Hartov. “You can’t trust your teachers…” He looked at Matthaunin. “You can’t trust the authorities… ” He looked at Lymwich. “You can’t trust your sisters…” He looked at Dearlyn. “You can’t even trust a lover.” He let his last glance rest on Sheyrhen before he walked past them all and talked idly to the sky.
“There is only one thing you can trust,” he said. “M.O.M.”
‘Touryour mother?” Lymwich stammered incredulously.
“No,” Pryce corrected, walking back to them and counting on three fingers as he spoke. “Means. Opportunity. Motive. M.O.M.” Before they could react to this, Pryce continued. “Means. Who had the means to kill Gamor Turkal?” He looked at them. “Anyone of you, I would imagine. He was hanging by his neck from the branch of a tree. He was certainly not a heavy man. Once he was unconscious, I imagine that any one of you could have accomplished the deed.”
Each looked suspiciously at the others until Pryce finally let them off the hook. “Ah, but who had the means to kill Geerling Ambersong?” Pryce shook his head sadly. “Now, that’s a problem… especially because even I could discern no obvious cause of death.”
“Now, wait a moment,” Lymwich interrupted irritably, stepping forward from the crowd. “Wait just a moment! Where are their bodies? Why haven’t II mean webeen given the opportunity to examine them?”
Pryce caught a glimpse of Gheevy’s pale face over Lymwich’s shoulder before he plunged on. “The situation necessitated that I take precautions with both corpses, Inquisitrix Lymwich. I had to ensure that materials vital to the safety and welfare of our entire nation did not fall into the wrong hands.” He could see Gheevy looking as if he were about to have a seizure, certain that this explanation would never pass muster.
The halfling was nearly right. Berridge went face-to-face with Pryce, seething. “Are you saying you don’t trust the disciples of Mystra to”
“That’s enough, Inquisitrix Lymwich!” Mystra Superior Turzihubbard snapped. The imperious leader had slid silently behind the smaller woman. “If the great Darlington Blade felt that precautions had to be taken that precluded our authority, then that’s good enough for me.” But she gave Pryce a piercing parting glance and added pointedly, “For now.”
Pryce grinned sheepishly. Even so, he was grateful for the reprieve, as short-term as it might be. “We were talking about means, Inquisitrix Lymwich,” he chided. “And the fact that I could find no cause for my master’s death.”
“Very well,” Berridge huffed, straightening her already straight uniform. “Go on.”
‘Thank you.” Pryce turned his attention back to the others. “Any one of us could have killed Gamor Turkal, but why? Why kill anyone? To gain more land? To get more power? These are common motives for killing, but there’s a difference between killing in battle and murder. There’s killing in Halruaa every day. Ores kill ogres, ogres kill giants, giants kill people, people kill each othersadly, it’s happening all the time.
“But such is the nature of good versus evil,” he stressed. “Killing occurs when good people must defend themselves against evil people for the good of the many. Murder happens when the battle between good and evil is lost inside one individual.”
He held up his forefinger, then slowly let it curl back into his fist. “The great priest Sante wrote that when a good person is doomed, he closes his door and murders himself. But when an evil person is doomed, he opens his door and murders someone else. That, I’m afraid, is what happened here. Someone had come to the end of his morality. But why? What is the most obvious motive for these murders?” He pointed with both hands to the deck. “We’re standing over it. Geerling Ambersong’s life’s work. Enough magic items and spellbooks to make everyone on board this ship wealthy beyond his grandest dreams.”
He pointed at Berridge Lymwich. ‘To you, it was an end to your ambitious means.” He pointed at Dearlyn Ambersong. ‘To you, it was a birthright.” He pointed at Matthaunin Witterstaet, Labor’s jack-of-all-trades and primary gatekeeper. ‘To you, it was a way to become the one thing you could never become while Geerling lived.” He used two fingers to point at Azzo Schreders and Sheyrhen Karkober. ‘To the two of you, it meant that whatever you wanted, you could have.” Finally he pointed at Asche Hartov, mine owner. “And to you, it meant the biggest business deal you could ever hope to make.”
The suspects looked from Pryce to each other. They began to mutter, even apologize, when Pryce continued briskly. “So much for motive,” he said dismissively. “Now we really separate the insidious from the innocent. Opportunity knocks. And who among you had the opportunity to murder anyone, let alone my master and his assistant?” He considered the nervous group.
“Matthaunin Witterstaet?” he wondered, then shook his head. “It’s hard to believe anyone spending twelve hours beneath a watchful eye while studying the means, motive, and opportunities of hundreds of immigrants would have the lime or inclination to confront a mage and kill him.
“Sheyrhen Karkober? Is it possible that someone who appears so guileless and acts so silly is capable of plotting the coldblooded murder of a mage in the middle of a city of mages?” He nodded curtly. “Possible.” She gasped. “But not likely,” he concluded. She relaxed, but not for long.
“Besides,” Pryce continued, “she was too busy hiding her affair with Gamor Turkal from the man who has secretly been her devoted paramour for years.”
“Sheyrhen!” the restaurant owner shouted like a wounded bull. “How could you”
Pryce cut off any further exchange between the two. “Forgive her, Azzoparde,” he told him, stepping between the burly barkeep and the shamed serving wench. “I’m sure Gamor pressured her unmercifully and made many tempting promises of wealth and fame he had no intention of keeping. I’m also sure that it was only one night, and she regretted it so deeply and was so intent on keeping you from being hurt that she allowed herself to become a murder suspect before she would admit the unfortunate truth.”
Pryce moved his head so Azzo could see Karkober nodding anxiously, then quickly straightened to lock eyes with the restaurant proprietor. “But you yourself aren’t out of the woods yet, Azzoparde Schreders. Although I know that the hours needed to run a successful tavern are long, you have your own secret, don’t you?” He stared at the bearded, burly man until Azzo’s gaze wavered. Only then did Pryce shake his head. “You knew, didn’t you? Just as Sheyrhen was keeping the secret of her one-night stand, you were keeping your knowledge of it from her, weren’t you?” The burly tavern owner said nothing. Instead, he looked sheepishly down at the deck. Karkober ran into his arms.
Pryce stepped back, a small smile crossing his face. “No, although you might have the urge to kill Gamor Turkal for what he did,” he told the burly man embracing the beautiful waitress, “I don’t think you had the time or inclination to murder a mage.”
“Howhow did you know?” Azzo wondered.
