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The halfling officer nodded with slight satisfaction. His manner was oddly comforting even if he was as empa-thetic as a stone. I looked around at the shelves, the furniture, the fish on the wall. A murderer had been here. "I received my training in the college of illusion," I said automatically, like a golem. "I worked for the watch ten years ago, then apprenticed myself and set up my own security-counseling business." I thought, then said, "To answer your earlier question, I believe I do have talents to lend you."

"Good." Civilar Ardrum knelt down to look at the Gond-gunne. He put his watchman's rod on the floor beside him, then pulled a small bundle from his pouch, unwrapped another magical light stick, and set it on a tabletop to his right. White light and doubled shadows filled the room. "You said you were once a thief, Formathio. When you gave your lecture last year."

"Yes." I added nothing, continuing to scan Snorri's jumbled possessions for missing or out-of-place items. I greatly disliked talking about the mistakes of my youth and how I'd paid for them. "The'knowledge has since helped me greatly in my business."

"So I would imagine. What were you hiding for your friend?"

I stopped and turned to the civilar. He was still examining the Gondgunne, though he had not yet touched it. "What?" I shot at him.

The halfling snorted impatiently as he looked up. "Any secret you hold keeps us from finding the murderer. I would think you would want justice and vengeance done as quickly as possible, and so send your friend Greathog Snorrish on to a peaceful rest."

Ardrum's remarks awoke a rage within me. Who was he, the little snot, to tell me that I… what?

"He told you his name?" My rage burned out in an instant, snuffed by yet another shock. "He never told anyone-"

And a new truth dawned.

Civilar Ardrum's lips pressed into a flat line. He looked up at me without blinking. He'd said too much, and he knew it.

"He worked for you," I breathed. "He was a watch-wizard. A secret watch-wizard." I understood now how Snorri always had ready gold for the best wines and foods, though he had so few spells and so little business from the order for retail spellcasting. But why had he never said anything to me about his work?

Ardrum looked down at the Gondgunne once more and was silent for a while. "He was very valuable to us," he said at last, without inflection. "He kept an eye and ear on various persons and groups, and he reported to the watch what he saw and heard. He was reliable in the extreme, always eager to serve, with a tremendous memory. He reported directly to me."

I felt I was losing my grip on the real world. I almost became dizzy. "Snorri was an informer? Who was he spying on? What did-"

"Formathio, I believe I asked you a question," Ardrum interrupted. "You helped him hide something. I must know what it was and where it is now. Answer me, please." The "please" was shod in iron.

I stared down at the watch captain, then turned toward the line of stuffed fish on the wall. I raised a hand toward them without warning and intoned a handful of words quickly, gesturing as if brushing away a fly.

The images offish faded away like blown fog. In place of each was an apparatus of wood and metal, most slightly shorter than my forearm from elbow to fingertips. They rested on hooks and struts on the wooden plaques that had once held dead carp, greenthroats, and crownfish.

It was Snorri's toy collection.

Though I had heard them called arquebuses, cavilers, or other things, Snorri called them gunnes or Gondgunnes. He acquired them from various specialty traders in his old country, Lantan. He thought the word "gunne" was a recent corruption of the name of Gond, the Lantanna deity called Wondermaker or Wonderbringer by the faithful. Gond oversaw inventions, crafts, and new things, and the inventive Lantanna had recently discovered the fine art of enchanting smoke powder and making "fiery arms" that spewed out small lead or iron bullets