‘Yesterday afternoon Ivisited the person who had given her the reference, and found outthat Jaztrix was an impostor, which now suggests that she mightindeed have been the assassin. At the very least she was not whoshe claimed to be, and was here for some underhanded reason. If itwas her, I sincerely apologize for not having checked on herbackground much more thoroughly.
‘It gets worse. Quabtracked the animals back to their origin at first light thismorning, and found that they were all brought together near theteleport marker outside of town. Gnome footprints accompanied theanimals’ tracks. Since all the other gnomes whereabouts have beenaccounted for, it suggests that Jaztrix was involved in theincident last night.
‘I had an officer takestatements from the people present at the Inn before the incident.It seems that not long after the guards were called back to attendthe fire, a Yith warrior appeared in the inn predicting doom andchaos. This, together with a fear-inducing magic cast in the roomcaused the panic, leading to everyone but a few who were injured inthe stampede, leaving the inn. Shortly afterwards, the people whowent outside were attacked by the animals.
‘The question is, whowas the druid who accompanied her? Since a Yith appeared predictingdoom and chaos, could it have been Alin Amber, whom we know is aYith? He appeared to me once before and predicted chaos. Could hebe in league with Jaztrix, and be trying to make his predictions ofchaos come true?’
Granddad thought deepand long on this question while the others waited.
‘I would like a littlemore information before I answer that question,’ said Granddad.‘Did you do a magic residue analysis to determine what type ofmagic was used, and the probable experience of the magicusers?’
‘Yes,’ saidFeatherdown. ‘Tell him about the druid magic, Quab.’
‘Well, if I had torecreate what the druid did, I would need to have used two prayersto gather the boars and the cats. Since they are natural enemies Iwould need to dominate them to stop them from fighting, and sincethey both have a natural fear of newmans, I would have had to useanother of the Lady’s gifts to talk to them to convince them toattack newmans. These prayers are available to any experienceddruid. I personally would have thickened their skin so that theywere less likely to be hurt, but that wasn’t observed. In fact,Zephira was the only person claiming a kill. I examined the animaland can say it was local and not brought here by any wizardmagic.’
Featherdown continued,‘The young Wizard found defending the burning building was the dutywizard for the night and had been dominated but has no memory ofhis attacker. He’s quite shaken by the experience. Three wands werestolen from the armoury, which were for defence of the gateway, onewand that can induce fear, one that can cast fireballs and one thatcan cause a person to be paralysed. The armoury was magic lockedand unlocked by the attacker, not the duty wizard. Jaztrix wouldhave had the knowledge of where the duty wizard was, the locationof the armoury and possibly even its contents.’
‘Did you smell whattype of magic was used?’ asked Granddad. Both Zephira and Quablooked at Granddad strangely, as if the question didn’t makesense.
‘Yes,’ saidFeatherdown, ‘and that was the strange thing. I could only smellthe magic from the fear-inducing wand in the Inn and the magic usedto dispel the magic binding in the armoury. No other magic wasevident. I can normally smell battle magic, but I can’t smell mindmagic, which led me to believe that Aquitain was somehow involved;but since Queen Snowbelle has told us of his whereabouts I’m at aloss to explain the lack of other magic tell-tales.’
‘I suspect that I knowwhat might have happened and I only hope that I’m wrong, but thepieces of the puzzle seem to fit,’ said Granddad. ‘Many years agowhen I was much younger and much less wise I had in my possession agolden mask in the shape of a cat’s head. As an artificer, thebeauty and the power of the object enchanted me. When I examinedits powers I found them to be extraordinary. The item was not onlysentient, but contained the spirit of a reasonably strong mindwizard, and as such was extremely dangerous.
‘Normally such anobject should be destroyed, but I talked to the spirit and itconvinced me not to harm it, but instead to limit its power. So Imade a club in the shape of a cat’s paw that would act as a controlto limit its power. If used together the two could be a powerfulweapon for good. However, if used separately each had the potentialto cause trouble. The mask liked to cause chaos, and if used by achaotic person would make them even more chaotic. The club was madelawful to control the mask, but if used by a lawful person wouldmake them unbelievably strict in their interpretation of thelaw.
‘If the two were usedtogether, then the tendency of the mask to be chaotic would beoffset by the tendency of the club to be lawful, creating a neutralpower pair that could be used safely without problems. Not longafter I made the club, the two items were stolen and I was neverable to retrieve them or find out how they were stolen. It seemsthat fate has lent a hand.’
‘I suspect that whenAquitain and Miranda examined the mask in the hideout without beingaware that Jaztrix was present, the spirit in the mask was able todominate or charm Jaztrix without their knowledge. It may have beenresponsible for getting Jaztrix to kill Aquitain, but it left withher. The mask is not called Jacintra’s Image for nothing. It’s fullof druid powers that allow its user to talk to animals, charm them,dominate them and even shape change its user into an animal.
‘I suspect that thewizard may as you suggest be Jaztrix, but that the druid is notAlin Amber but the mask itself, and if that is
