Realms of Magic - Brian Thomsen King [128]
"He was going to buy more from you," Ardrum said, staring at the plaque. "He liked your work. Talked about you all the time."
I looked away, aware again of the smell of roasting boar-and an empty place inside me. Leaving the civilar alone for a while, I went into the tiny kitchen Snorri kept, found his crate-sized magical oven, and waved a hand over the amber light on top. The light went off. It would cool down on its own.
I looked around the kitchen and back rooms, saw nothing of interest, quietly cast spells to detect everything from hidden enemies to magical auras, saw nothing else of interest. The living room was similarly bare of clues. Ardrum was now kneeling at the dark pool and holding the bloodstained gunne in the fingers of his left hand. His eyes were closed. I noted that magic radiated from a ring on the civilar's right hand. No doubt the ring had a practical use; the civilar was a practical sort. It couldn't be as good as my Unfailing Missile Deflector, though.
Ardrum's eyes abruptly opened as I watched. He put down the gunne as if caught taking coins from a blind man's cup.
"What did you find out?" The question was based on a guess-a guess that the civilar had just performed some supernatural act, likely a divination.
The halfling sighed. "Clever. Very clever of you, of course, but clever of the killer. This gunne was never fired. A gnome made it in Lantan, a compulsive little gnome who always worried about his mother. Nothing interesting has ever happened to this weapon, and no one interesting has ever handled it. It is not the gunne that was used to kill your friend. It's a mirage, a false lead. I would guess the killer unwrapped it and left it here after the murder." Ardrum looked up. For the first time since I'd seen him, he was smiling-not by much, but it was a smile. "How was that for a wild guess?"
"A psychic," I said. "You amaze me." The truth was that little would amaze me now with Snorri dead, even a psychic watchman. The Lords of Waterdeep no doubt recruited trustworthy psychics at every turn, though such had to be as rare as cockatrice teeth.
"A birth talent, and a limited one," said Ardrum in dismissal. The smile vanished. "I'm sensitive to the emotional impressions left behind when someone touches something. I feel what was felt, see what was seen. Like your early training in burglary, it has served me well in my line of work. And like you, I do not like to discuss my talent. People would find it unnerving to know that I could read their personal life with just a touch. I put my trust in your goodwill to keep my secret. I would not discuss it except that time is short and your wits are acute."
Ardrum pulled the gloves from his belt and carefully put them on. I recalled that he had not shaken my hand, and he had used his dagger blade to examine things on the desk. His control over his special talent was likely poor, then, and likely it was too that he did not relish peering into other people's lives-particularly if those people had just been violently killed.
I wondered what Ardrum saw in his mind when he picked up a bloody dagger or garrote, checking for clues to a murder. I quickly shook off the thought.
"It is late, but we must be off to the market," Ardrum said, collecting his watchman's rod and light-casting sticks. He wrapped the sticks up as he put them away. The room gradually fell into near-total darkness. "We must pick up a package there, and speak with this Gulner named on the plaque. I think he came back for his merchandise, given that the Yellow Mage said he'd received the wrong item, and left a substitute instead. Are you ready, good Formathio?"
A tiny shaft of light from a crack in a shuttered window fell on the back of Civilar Ardrum's head, revealing every loose strand of his hair like a halo around his shadowed face. And an obvious thing came to mind. Something I could do.
"Almost ready," I said. "I am going to cast a spell. Please stay back, and do not be alarmed at whatever you see or hear."
I recalled the proper