Realms of Magic - Brian Thomsen King [129]
The room rapidly grew cold. Civilar Ardrum's boots scraped the wooden floor as he stepped back a pace. He had infravision, I guessed, the ability to see heat sources. Most halflings had it. He would now see a black column between us, about the size of a human like me.
"Shadow," I said to the black thing. "You see all that casts a shadow of its own. I demand one answer from you, then will release you to go your dark way."
A whisper reached my ears, so faint it could have been a sigh from a distant child. "Yes."
"A man was murdered here during the daylight." My voice almost failed me. I shoved aside the memory of Snorri, bloody and dead on the stretcher. "I command you, shadow, to reveal who murdered this man."
This was my own special spell, and no other living person had seen me use it. My control over the shadow was good, so it posed no danger to me or to the civilar. In other circumstances, however, the shadow could have left us both frozen and dead on the ground, our spirits cursed to join it in endless roving of shadows and night.
Nonetheless, when I felt the shadow draw so close that the skin on my face burned and stung from its bitter cold, when I shivered from the absolute emptiness of it, I was in fear that my control over it was no more.
The shadow sighed once again. I imagined its words were spoken with a touch of glee.
"/ saw no one murder him," said the shadow, and was gone.
The air at last grew warmer on my face. My arms fell to my sides. No one? No one had killed my friend? Shadows had a way with their words; they loved to mislead with the truth. I wrestled briefly with the answer, then admitted defeat-for now.
"Let us go," I said to the civilar.
Outside, it was late twilight. The three watchmen had returned to wait there for their captain, guarding the doorway and keeping away onlookers. With their permission, I put a locking spell on the door and windows to keep the curious away; only the watch or a major wizard would have the resources to take the spell off at leisure.
Civilar Ardrum and I arrived at the market after a short and rapid walk. The other watchmen were summoning more of their fellows to meet us at our destination. We said nothing to each other along the trip, even as we came into view of the great, torch-lit market of Waterdeep.
We crossed Traders' Way and entered the long ellipse of booths that made up the market. Even now, after sunfall, vendors called out praises of their wares to passersby. Few shoppers were out this evening. I saw faint candlelight from the upper windows of the Singing Sword off to our left, on the market's far side, and we made our way there at an easy, steady pace.
"I thought I heard the dark thing you conjured up say that no one killed the Yellow Mage," said Ardrum in a low, conversational tone as we walked.:
I glanced around, saw no one close enough to listen in, then took a deep breath. "The shadow said that it saw no one murder him. It meant it saw no shadow of the murderer, so possibly the murderer threw no shadow."
There was a pause the length of a heartbeat.
"Invisible," we both said at the same moment.
"But the murderer would have become visible the moment he attacked the Yellow Mage," said Ardrum quickly. "A spell of invisibility is canceled the moment-"
"There are more powerful spells that would not be broken by physical violence," I interrupted. "And some devices will do the same. He could have stalked Snorri and… shot him. He would not have become visible."
The halfling almost came to a stop. "He could still be in the house, then."
"No," I said. "I checked. I used some of my spells and saw nothing."
Civilar Ardrum frowned and took up the pace again. Ahead, I could see the buildings to either side of the Singing Sword. Two doors to the west would be… the old Full Sails. In the darkness I could