Murder in Cormyr (24 page)

and at first I was afraid he was grinning at me, prior to playing bobbing for wizards in the quicksand. But he didn’t even know I was there. He fumbled about on top of the mound for a moment. I heard the click of a long-hidden latch and saw him opening a trapdoor buried by thick layers of moss and swamp slime. Then he descended the stairs into the tomb. Ah, and speak of the wicked, here it is.”

The mound was there, sodden with the rain. The trapdoor on top was still open, just as we had left it, and I wondered if any creatures had descended to try and make a feast on Fastred’s dry corpse within. Remembering the bare bones, I knew they would find slim pickings, unless they had remained to await the advent of a corpulent wizard and his servant.

‘There is where I hid,” said Benelaius, pointing to a large, low, needle-leafed bush. “In a moment, I heard noises. There was a sharp, singing sound, then a clatter of something, but no voices, not even a groan. After waiting a bit longer and hearing only silence, I decided to investigate. At the bottom of the stairs I found Grodoveth in the same bisected condition in which you saw him later that morning, the axe precisely where you found it.” He gestured downward. “Come, let us revisit the scene.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?” I asked him.

“No one would go down there without a light,” Benelaius said, “and it seems quite dark.”

“I wasn’t necessarily thinking about humans,” I said.

Benelaius only laughed and lit one of the lanterns, while I lit the other. Then he began to walk down the slippery, moss-covered steps. I followed.

At the bottom were two dried areas of blood, the larger one where Grodoveth’s body had fallen, and the smaller one where his head and shoulder had lain. A passageway led into the dark room where Fastred’s bones sat upright.

‘There lay the body, there lay the axe, and there”—he pointed at the passageway—”was darkness. I entered that room, and found only the body of Fastred, with a small box at his feet. There was no one else. No possible killer.”

“Not Tobald.”

“No. But what I saw, and what you might have seen, told me that the same person had killed both Dovo and Grodoveth. Look, Jasper, and observe.”

Frustrated beyond words, I did as he asked, and covered the floor even more carefully than I had before. “Cold…” he muttered. “Colder… a bit warmer… warmer…”

“Master, there is nothing on the floor!” I blurted out.

“Then look up, Jasper. Behold what is right before your eyes.”

I examined the wall, and my attention was once again captured by what I had taken to be a line of striation in the rock. Since it was the only thing I saw on the wall, I touched it and discovered that what I had thought a thin layer of rock was actually damp clay. “Very hot now,” said Benelaius as I dug the clay away from the rock.

When I had finished, I had discovered a concealed trap. It was horizontal, an inch high, two feet deep, and five feet long. When I held my lantern to one end, I could make out a heavy metal spring that pointed toward me.

“There’s more to it than it appears,” said Benelaius. “A rather clever contraption for being five hundred years old. And it did what it was set to do. It killed the first intruder to enter Fastred’s tomb.”

“But… but I thought you said the same person who killed Dovo killed Grodoveth.”

“And so he did. After all, it was Grodoveth whose foot snapped the cord that sprung the trap that beheaded him, much the same way that he beheaded Dovo after he and Tobald heard the man bragging in the Bold Bard. The motive was what I stated last night, though the perpetrator was the one with the military training. Tobald would have made a botch of beheading.

“And Grodoveth’s own beheading was less than clean. The axe came out of the wall before he had time to react and, well, you saw the results.”

“Yes,” I said, “and I saw other things, too, things that I didn’t recognize at the time. The axe was chipped where it hit the stone floor after passing through Grodoveth’s body, and the two gouges on the handle were from where it had lain in its holder all those centuries, the pressure of the spring cutting into the wood. And when the spring was released, it cut into the handle even more deeply, exposing

the wood underneath.” I shook my head, angry at myself. “I wondered at the time why Fastred’s axe wasn’t buried with him. I should have realized that it was, that it guarded his tomb. I should have seen it.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. You entered with presuppositions in mind. I was fortunate enough to enter seeing precisely what happened. I must confess that my curiosity got the better of me then, and I searched Grodoveth’s garments. In them I found a vial of poison identical to the one I later found in Tobald’s cloak while I was examining him. It seems the Iron Throne was taking no chances. Oh, I didn’t need to analyze it, since blackweed has a very distinctive odor when found in such a concentrated dose. And when I found the Iron Throne sigil as well, it all fell together,”

“Grodoveth had a sigil, too?”

“Not too. Tobald didn’t have one, at least not on him. As you recall, I stated only that the sigil was found with the vial of poison, and that was true.”

I suddenly remembered another fancy bit of wordplay. “The same way you said you ‘extracted’ the poison, not from Tobald’s blood but from his cloak. And when we learned that it was poison, and you said that you ‘gave him something for it,’ you meant you replaced it with the crystal.”

“Precisely. Well done, Jasper. Camber Fosrick would be proud of you.”

“But why didn’t Tobald have a sigil if he was working with the Iron Throne?” I asked.

“Oh, I suspect he did, but Tobald was never as bold as Grodoveth, who logically never expected to be searched. I imagine the Purple Dragons will find a similar sigil among Tobald’s possessions in his home, carefully hidden away somewhere.”

I looked at our footprints on the floor, and the opening in

the wall from which the axe had come flying out. “Then the footprints that I saw here of the heavy man were yours. But I don’t understand why you hid the trap with clay.”

“Because once I found incriminating evidence on Grodoveth’s body,” Benelaius said, “I immediately suspected that Tobald might be in league with him. They were, after all, inseparable when Grodoveth visited Ghars, and my assumption did prove correct. I suppose the plot to make it look like Tobald was solely responsible was forming itself in my brain even then.”

“Then that was why you left the pills on the floor.”

“The pills?” He looked up absentmindedly. “Oh, yes, even I lose things from time to time.”

“Crushing them was a nice touch,” I said with a smirk.

“Indeed. Too obvious otherwise. It was necessary, you see, that Tobald was believed to be the killer and no one else. After all, Grodoveth had already paid for his crimes with his life, and it would be a great disgrace to the throne were the king’s cousin-by-marriage to be proven a traitor. But this way he can be remembered as a loyal servant of the king. It was necessary that Tobald, who was equally as great a traitor, and had every intention of destroying his own town in order to kill the merchants, pay for Grodoveth’s crimes as well.”

“But why was Tobald so anxious to have the killer found, particularly since the orders were instant death?”

‘That was especially why he wanted him found. Tobald didn’t know how Grodoveth was killed. He probably thought that someone had learned about their plot, followed Grodoveth to Fastred’s tomb, and killed him. Speaking of which, the tomb must have come as quite a surprise to Tobald, since I doubt that Grodoveth shared that particular information with him. He sought the tomb for the reputed

treasure, and I’m certain his partnership with Tobald would not have extended to sharing the gems,”

“So for all Tobald knew,” I said, “whoever killed Grodoveth might be targeting him next.”

Benelaius nodded. “And the faster that person was executed, the less he would be able to reveal about Tobald and Grodoveth’s connection with the Iron Throne, assuming he knew about it. No, Vangerdahast’s order played right into Tobald’s hands, or so he thought.”

“Because,” I went on, “the last thing he expected was to be accused himself, especially with the wealth of evidence that you provided.” I gave a dry laugh. “He must have been doubly furious at you, for he knew that you had manufactured much of it.”

“But I did not manufacture his intent, nor his treachery. I feel no guilt for what I did, Jasper. Justice triumphed. ‘Bought with blood, paid for with blood.’ That is the legend in this tomb, and it provides an apt epitaph for Grodoveth and Tobald.”

I eyed Benelaius thoughtfully. “You talk a good talk, master, but you’re not as bloodthirsty as you let on. You wanted Tobald to escape.”

That produced an elevation of his bushy eyebrows. “And what makes you say that?”

‘That eight cats would accidentally overturn four braziers at once strains the limits of credulity. You had them do it on purpose, signaling them in some way. That was why you had Tobald sit by the opening off the piazza.”

Benelaius’s face grew wistful. “I dislike bloodshed, Jasper. I would have particularly disliked the sight of a man—any man—hanging from a tree near my cottage. Yes, I would have preferred Tobald to escape, for to whom would he have fled? The Iron Throne? Even if he could have gotten through

the swamp, he would have been of no further use to them. On the contrary, he would have been a failure, and they might have killed him because of it. In truth, I expected him to flee into the swamp, where he would eventually be pulled down by the mire. That it happened the way it did was, I must confess, a surprise to me.”

The memory of Fastred’s ghost made me think once again of the tomb in which we stood, and I realized that there was still one more unanswered question. “The treasure,” I said. “You took it, didn’t you?”

Benelaius waved a dismissive hand and smiled beatifically. “Put the treasure from your mind as I have from mine. You need know only that Dovo’s long-suffering family will suffer no longer. They will shortly receive an extremely generous inheritance from a distant relative of whose existence they were not even aware. And to add to their happy ending, two traitors have been punished, a plot against Cormyr scuttled, and the haunting of the swamp at an end… at least from Fastred.”

Just as we turned to walk back up the stairs, we heard a sound from within the inner tomb. It was a dry rattle, like a fortune-teller casting the bones onto a tabletop over and over again.

Or like an ancient skeleton, walking for the first time, and swiftly.

“I think someone’s awake,” Benelaius said softly, but I could hear the concern in his voice.

I was more than concerned. My eyes felt as though they were the size of saucers, and my sudden freshets of sweat had just doubled the normal humidity of the swamp. But I couldn’t move until Benelaius grabbed my arm and started up the stairs. “I suggest we leave,” he said, and I didn’t have to be told twice.

By the time we had grappled our way up the slick and mossy steps, abandoning our lanterns in our rush, I heard the clattering bones at the bottom. In spite of myself, I turned and looked down.

It was the skeleton of Fastred all right, clad in armor, helm, and rotting boots. The gray day illuminated him poorly, but twin fires burned in the hollow eye sockets. The glare held me captive, and I could only watch as he began to ascend the stairs, the leather strips of boot dropping aside as the bony toes dug into the moss. I knew that I would

stand there until he was at the top of the stairs, taking my thin neck between his finger bones and squeezing and squeezing until my eyes were as big as saucers, saucers popping right out of my head–-

And then I felt a clout on the side of that selfsame head that jerked my gaze away, breaking the bonds that held me to the dead thing. “Run!” shouted Benelaius. “Now!”

I did as my master ordered. I ran, knowing from his past teachings that what followed us was not truly Fastred’s ghost. That we had seen the night before, while this was only some wandering evil spirit that had entered his bones in order to wreak havoc among the living. Still, that knowledge was cold comfort as we squished our way along the trail, having to watch every step and yet move as quickly as we could. A single misstep would bring disaster, for the sound of rattling bones drew ever nearer.

“Master,” I panted, “wouldn’t it be… a good idea… to work… a spell?”

He moved fast for a stout man, and I was amazed that he was able to speak without panting. “As you know, I would prefer to avoid using magic, Jasper.”

“We may not… have that choice… master,” I replied, feeling a hot burning creeping up my sides as I ran.

“Just a bit farther,” he said, beginning to sound winded himself. “Make sure you do… whatever I do.”

I grunted in affirmation and pressed on, not daring to look over my shoulder. I had no idea where we were, or how far we had to go to get to solid land, or even if that would do us any good.

What I did know was that we had no chance of outdistancing the evil thing behind us. The clattering was growing louder and closer, and suddenly I felt something sharp like the point of a spear rake across my back, tearing my

cloak and my shirt and the flesh beneath.

The pain spurred me on, but I knew I couldn’t last much longer. Skeletal fingers plucked again at my back, and I nearly fell, when Benelaius suddenly shrieked at the top of his lungs. When I looked, I saw that he was diving belly-first onto the swampy ground.

Make sure you do whatever I do.

And I dove, too, just sliding under the barrage of thorns that whizzed through the air toward us.

Benelaius had shouted to alarm the thornslinger, and that deadly tree had launched dozens of its lethal missiles in our direction. We struck the earth just in time, but the living horror that inhabited Fastred’s bones was not so lucky.

I rolled when I hit the mud, and saw the thorns take the monster. They pierced the ancient armor, splintered the brittle bones, and shattered the yellow, moldering skull into four pieces that flew in separate directions as the split helm rolled to a stop by my feet.