ground and stood up. He might brush himself off, but that would only draw attention to the fact that he had walked through the nobleman’s house trailing gravel and dirt. He suddenly wished himself back in the foyer. At least he knew how to act like a delivery man.
A footman arrived and spared Artus the embarrassment of trading small talk with Marrok. “Pardon me, m’lord,” he said after rapping lightly on the open door. “They’ve found the woman.”
“Do you have her securely bound?” Marrok asked, dis playing no more real interest in the subject than he might have given his neighbor’s dinner menu. “Where was she hiding?”
“No need to bind her, m’lord,” the footman replied. “We found her…“ he paused dramatically”… floating in the reflecting pool. Dead. The knife wound from Master Cimber must have killed her.”
“I never used the blade on her,” Artus said.
“Then it must have been a wound inflicted by one of the men in bringing her to ground,” Marrok offered hastily. “Excuse me for just a moment, Cimber. I’d best be certain they do not move the body until the watch arrives.”
Marrok put down his brandy snifter and crossed to the door, where he murmured a long string of commands to the cringing footman. Artus wandered across the room to the bookcases. As he might have suspected, he found little of substance, and the few scrolls or folios that were worth their ink seemed untouched, likely unread.
A low whine drew his attention to a door on his left. He paused to listen. When the sound came again, he recognized it for a dog’s plaintive cry. Artus tried the knob and found it unlocked. The door swung open on well-oiled hinges.
All manner of strange creatures and even stranger apparatus filled the room beyond. Coiling tubes carried liquids of various colors to and from animal carcasses laid out on metal tables. Jars filled with hearts and brains and other organs crammed shelf after shelf. Mounted heads of assorted sizes, shapes, and species covered one entire wall, while another displayed neatly sorted saws, blades, and other tools gleaming silver in the candlelight. And in the center of it all stood a yeti, its coat the virgin white of freshly fallen polar snow, its thickly muscled arms raised over its head in perpetual menace. Marrok had preserved the trophy so perfectly that it seemed trapped between life and death.
Something leathery pressed into his palm, and Artus jumped back a step or two. A pathetic-looking hound had nuzzled his hand with its nose. With yellow, glassy eyes, the dog stared up at the explorer. It whined once more. The cry sounded hollow, as if it came from a very long way off.
“Kezef, back!”
Marrok was suddenly beside Artus. He lifted the hound, which didn’t struggle in the least, and returned it to the other side of the threshold. As he closed the door on the whimpering animal, the nobleman said, “He’s getting on in years. Not much use as a watchdog, as you’ve witnessed.” The door clicked shut. “Sentimental of me, but I couldn’t bear to part with him.”
Artus knew that it was the most truthful thing Marrok de Landoine had ever said to him.
The nobleman proceeded to speculate in his usual disinterested fashion on how quickly Uther might be freed from prison now that they had proven Guigenor the murderer beyond any reasonable doubt. To Marrok’s way of thinking, Artus had stumbled too close to the truth, making it necessary for the woman to try to silence him. “Of course I will honor my promise,” Marrok concluded, refilling his snifter for the third time. “We can hold the ceremony granting you full membership in the club tomorrow.”
When Artus didn’t reply, Marrok’s expression turned serious.
“Is something troubling you, Cimber?”
“No, nothing,” Artus replied much too quickly. Then he forced a smile. “It’s always so obvious when something’s bothering me, why deny it? I know it’s customary for a new member to offer a gift to the society. I was worrying about what I might put together by tomorrow.”
“Uther’s freedom will be enough of a gift,” Marrok replied. “And the soul of Count Leonska can rest easier, now that you’ve identified his killer.”
“Of course,” Artus said. “How can I come up with a better gift than justice?” He finally sat down on the ridiculously expensive couch. “You know, I think I’m ready for that drink now.”
The Ceremony Hall presented a welcome contrast to the rest of the Stalwarts Club. It was stark and dignified. Actual candles lit its modest confines. Craftsmen, not djinn or golems, had woven the tapestries decorating the walls. The robes worn by the clubmen there had not been liberated from some sultan’s wardrobe or pilfered from the depths of Ilades. They were simple garments honestly made, unadorned by jewels or excess of history. In the Ceremony Hall, that was enough.
The initiation ceremony, too, proved remarkably restrained. It was over almost before Artus realized it had begun. He had expected more ritual, more pomp. He would have felt cheated, had he not been so preoccupied with the presentation of his gift.
Until the ceremony was through, Uther kept the curious from peeking beneath the sheet draped over the long box containing Artus’s offering. Once Artus was alone on the simple wooden dais at the head of the hall, ready to make his presentation, Hydel Pontifax and three other Stalwarts moved the still-concealed crate to the room’s center. Uther gave a subtle tilt of his magnificent horns and took up his station by the door. The clubmen were too caught up in speculation about the gift’s content to notice Sergeant Orsini of the city watch loitering impatiently on the other side of that same threshold.
“In return for the honor you’ve bestowed upon me,” Artus began, in the words he’d been instructed to use, “I offer this noble society a gift of lasting value, a token by which you may forever gauge my worth as a member and my regard for you all.”
No sooner had the final word been spoken than something rose up slowly from the box. The white sheet clung to it for a moment, cloaking a figure that was clearly human.
“I offer you justice,” Artus said. “I offer you the murderer of Count Leonska.”
The sheet slipped away to reveal Guigenor standing within the pine crate. Startled gasps and cries of outrage echoed through the hail. “Necromancy!” bellowed Sir Hбmnet Hawklin. “This is how you demonstrate your worth to us, you-you-weasel.” There was no more damning word in Hawklin’s vocabulary
“Guigenor did not kill the count!” Artus shouted over the throng. “She was a victim to the same assassin, for the same reason!”
The dead woman stepped from the box. Her unblinking eyes scanned the crowd, searching for her murderer. When she found him, she stiffly raised one arm and pointed him out.
Marrok de Landoine did not attempt to escape. Neither did he utter a single word of protest. He simply stripped off his robe, revealing a finely tailored doublet, expensive custom-made breeches, and dragon-leather boots. As Sergeant Orsini approached, he presented his dagger, handle first, to the nearest Stalwart. “Please see that this is returned to the armory on my estate,” he droned.
“Evidence,” was all Orsini said as he snatched up the dagger and slipped it into his belt. With vindictive glee, the Purple Dragon ordered an immediate and humiliating search of Marrok’s person for hidden weapons or, more dangerous still, any bits of arcane matter he might use for a spell.
A crowd of clubmen had surrounded Artus, demanding the true story behind the murders. He explained it all as best he could.
“Count Leonska sealed his doom when he used his influence, and a significant part of the club’s liquor reserve, to gain his protйgй entrance into the Stalwarts,” Artus began. “Marrok had been away on business at the time, unable to block Guigenor’s ascendance to the rank of full member. Upon his return, he set about to ensure the count would foist no more upstarts upon the membership.”
How Marrok had murdered Leonska remained a mystery to Artus, though no one had to stretch his imagination too far to picture the count drunkenly stumbling onto a blade or downing a snifter of poison. What happened next the explorer could explain with more certainty.
“Marrok raised the count from the dead and put him to the task of incriminating Guigenor,” Artus continued. “The count was sent back to the club, his wineskin filled with his own blood. He made his way to the Treaty Room, already dead, and set about laying clues-stabbing himself with the Zhentish dagger, splashing gore on the walls in the fashion of a Kozakuran assassination… Marrok had already made certain those things tied the crime to Guigenor. He’d even arranged for her to meet her ‘victim’ at the crime scene.”
“There really was a note,” Pontifax said with a nod.
