In the Event of My Untimely Demise

by Robin D. Laws

Chapter Four: Reckoning

"Need I remind you?" Naphrax asked his prisoner.

Tears further wet Gaval's bloodied cheeks. "Of what?"

"Of what we know."

"You're wrong."

Jordyar jabbed the poker in Gaval's face. "You've replaced Aruhal in his comely wife's bed, haven't you?"

Gaval held his chin up. "I love Seriza, and Seriza loves me. That doesn't mean I've heard of this treasure."

"She spoke nothing of it?" Naphrax snorted.

Outrage stirred Gaval from his agonized stupor. "She and Aruhal had nothing. She'll be better off with my takings, humble as they are!"

"Liar," Naphrax spat.

Holding the poker out of sight behind him, the dwarf sidled up to Gaval, grimacing out a rotten-toothed smile. "What Aruhal did to us is not your fault, boy. But by standing in our way, feeding us ridiculous untruths, it becomes your fault. Don't you see that?"

"How many times do I have to tell you?"

"If you won't spill," Naphrax said, "we'll take the woman, and do the same to her."

Jordyar pressed the glowing poker to the prisoner's leg. Gaval screamed, the smoke of burning fabric giving way to the steam of blackening flesh.

At the window, Ontor looked to Luma, his expression asking: are we going to let this happen?

Luma waved him to silence, then reached into the citysong for the vein of venom that pulsed below the city's skin. Magnimar's settlers brought with them their Chelish tradition of settling affairs with arsenic, belladonna, and kingsleep. Luma took in this dark harmony and projected it outward, to the blood-spotted tunic worn by the howling Gaval. In this town, to hear that a man was an apothecary was to think not only of healing, but its opposite.

Luma's magic-inflamed senses confirmed it: tiny speckles of poison dotted his tunic, were ground as grime into his fingerprints. She couldn't tell what variety, with so little of it still left. But she would bet it was the kind that made an already sick man die from seeming natural causes–of pleurisy, say.

"We need him," said Luma. With a turn of her head she indicated an opposite window, not far from the second imprisoned man, the cleric Rieslan. "It will help if you can get him free–that will make it three against two."

Ontor nodded and was gone. Moments later she saw him appear at the other window. Jordyar once more laid the poker on Gaval, this time applying it to his chest. Naphrax watched with stoic attention. Fully occupied by Gaval's shrieking and squirming, neither man noticed Ontor's acrobatic contortions as he fit himself, legs first, through the tiny window. He dropped to the floor with a muffled thud that at last turned their heads, but only in time to see him draw his knife and slash open the ropes binding Rieslan. Then he bounded up to grab the holy symbol from the rafter, tossed it to the priest, and threw his knife at Naphrax. The spellcaster only barely managed to duck out of the way, yet the blade succeeded in interrupting his gesticulations and spoiling whatever spell he meant to cast.

Luma, meanwhile, shifted her awareness to another vault of the city's memory. Her mind traveled to the spires and rooftops, from the heights of the Arvensoar barracks tower to the great stone snake encircling the Hippodrome. From the mystic vibrations of these structures she pulled out the countless times they'd been struck by lightning. Converting them from past thought to present memory, she brought into being a vertical bolt of blue energy. It materialized above the dwarf, striking the crown of his bald head. He sizzled and convulsed, the poker flying out of his hands.

Naphrax started to cast a spell at her, but Rieslan, holy symbol clutched between gnarled fingers, came up behind him, chanting. He shoved his hand past the sorcerer's vest and onto his bare skin. A swirl of angry energy shunted from the old priest's fingers into Naphrax's breastbone. The sorcerer staggered back, clutching his chest, his arm going stiff.

A wolfish look came over the priest. "That sluggish heart of yours can't take another of those. Can it, Naphrax?"

"I should have killed you in Kaer Maga," said the sorcerer, sweating.

"I should have killed you in that awful tavern, the moment we met," said Rieslan.

Jordyar, his clothes still steaming slightly, staggered and reached for his axe, positioning himself for a lunge against Ontor. Luma called down another lightning bolt, striking him as before, and he dropped to one knee, panting.

Luma crawled through her window, a few last tendrils of summoned fog purling away from her. "Are we done here, gentlemen?"

Naphrax still hadn't caught his breath. "He hasn't told us."

Ontor cut Gaval's bonds.

The freed prisoner rose, quaking; Luma indicated his soiled trousers. "You terrified him. You think he wouldn't have sold out the widow in a heartbeat, if he thought it would spare him?"

Gaval struggled to form words. "I take exception to—"

Luma cut him off. "This is not a good time for you to talk."

He hung his head.

"My brother and I," Luma said, "are leaving, with Gaval. He and I have a separate matter to discuss. What the three of you do is of no concern to us. You have nothing to gain from further hostilities, and would not prevail. Are we agreed, or shall I punctuate that with a lightning bolt?"

"Agreed," grunted Naphrax. The others said nothing, so, each holding one of the quaking man's arms, Luma and Ontor withdrew–through the front door, this time.

"Where do you live, apothecary?" Luma asked.

"Above my uncle's shop, in Vista."

To the southeast lay the Seerspring Gardens, where they could hire a hansom, and get him to his home in the Summit.

"So," said Luma, "let me guess. When you began to console her, Seriza was not yet a widow."

"I would never..." Gaval tried to pull away, but she held him tight, as did her brother.

"If we ask her neighbors how often they saw you around before Aruhal died, will they tell the same story?"

Gaval slumped into her. "Very well. But I beg your discretion. Calumnize me all you like, but spare the lady's reputation."

As they crossed an intersection, Luma saw a lurker one street down, paralleling their progress. She stopped and waved Rieslan over. The river-priest hesitated, then complied, his gait sheepish. "Never was much for sneaking," he said, joining the others.

"That was Aruhal's job," said Luma, moving on. "Your old comrades have patched up their grievances, it would seem."

Rieslan fell into step, at her elbow. "It won't last. Are you sure you haven't guessed where the treasure is?"

She shook her head; lying was easier when confined to gesture alone. "When did the four of you have your falling out, precisely?"

"We learned to hate one another long before the Demonsweald. But it was after we captured the reliquary that Naphrax and Jordyar decided it would be better if Aruhal were cut out of the deal."

Luma raised her faint auburn eyebrow. "And you had nothing to do with that?"

Rieslan made a sour face. "Let's say, I absented myself from discussions."

"A sin of omission, then."

The old priest laughed. "My god hungers for the last breaths of the drowning. His moral demands are flexible."

"And how did they inform Aruhal of the new arrangement?"

"With axe and spell." The priest's chuckle suggested that it hardly needed saying.

"One more question," said Luma. "Who researched this treasure? Aruhal?"

"Another correct surmise, my dear."

They parted with him at the gardens, and rode with Gaval in the cab. As soon as he was seated, the tortured man passed out.

"You were good back there," said Ontor.

Nothing phases Ontor—not even death.

If only the others had seen it, thought Luma. Maybe Ontor would tell them. She considered asking him to, but knew it would spoil the effect.

Arriving at Derexhi House, Luma went straight to the library, which smelled of leather, wine, and her father's olibanum cologne. Muttering curses at Randred's haphazard reshelving habits, she hunted until she found the folio labeled "Acts and Legends of the Holy." Giving silent thanks for its alphabetical arrangement, she found the entry for the holy warrior Lovag, whose reliquary had so muddled her assignment. To Ontor she read aloud:

"And Lovag was betrayed by his companions, and slain. Lo, his last loyal servants did burn his body and entomb his bones, placing it in a golden reliquary. Even reduced to ashes, Lovag's passion for the justice of his great god Aroden burned bright. When the traitor priests beheld the shining vessel, he rose from his celestial rest to smite them."

"What does that mean?" her brother asked.

Luma closed the book with a thump. "It means I think we just found the treasure they've all been looking for."

∗∗∗

In the marbled mausoleum, Luma and Ontor searched the shelves for Aruhal's name. Near the iron-gated entrance, a callow attendant held himself in a posture of bland discretion. He held in his hand the document authorizing the disinterment.

"Grave-robbing's just not the same when you have the deceased's permission," Ontor whispered.

Luma found the brass nameplate bearing the client's name. With the key supplied by the attendant, she opened the wood-paneled door to Aruhal's niche. Inside rested a large ceramic urn. Luma removed it and set it on the marble table in the middle of the crypt's vestibule, where flowers and offerings of incense were placed.

"That's not made of gold," Ontor said. "I thought the book said Lovag's reliquary was made of gold?"

Luma pulled out her sickle and bashed its hilt against the urn. The porcelain crumbled into shards, revealing the golden, gem-encrusted reliquary hidden within.

Ontor addressed the attendant. "You must have seen this when you poured the ashes in. Aruhal trusted you not to switch it?"

The crypt-keeper placed a hand over his heart. "Terrible oaths to the death-goddess bar us from such chicanery."

Again Luma opened her mind to the strain of citysong that ran thick with toxin. She wasn't sure if the spell would work on a man's ashes, but it did–they lit up with the same malicious speckles she'd perceived on Gaval's tunic.

She smiled. "Got you," she whispered.

∗∗∗

Seriza and Gaval perched together, agitated, spines straight, on the edge of the divan in the widow's sitting room. Though the swelling had gone down on his face, Gaval still showed the signs of his beating and torture the day before. Luma almost felt pity for them. If they'd been smart, they wouldn't be here, but rather on a boat to anywhere else right this moment.

"So the dwarf was right?" Seriza said, trembling. "Aruhal did have a treasure after all?"

Luma gestured to the furniture crate she'd pressed into service as temporary transport for the urn. "As I said in my message, he left an inheritance. But we were to perform an investigation before giving it to you."

They deserved this, she reminded herself. When Aruhal discarded the saint's remains to make room for his own, he no doubt assumed it would be his erstwhile companions who'd face this fate. To be murdered for the oldest reason of all–a spouse clearing the way for a new lover–felt too cheap, too ordinary, for the complex effort Aruhal had expended for his prearranged revenge.

Luma hauled loose the crate's lid. She picked up the urn and placed it in front of Aruhal's killers, setting it down on a low table.

Seriza lit up with avarice; she squeezed Gaval's hand, squealing her delight. Her excitement overcame his wariness, and he reached out to caress the urn's lid.

Bursts of green steam vented from holes in the urn. The widow and her lover reared back as the unearthly vapor coalesced into a blob of floating ectoplasm, and then into an eerie, translucent specter in the shape of an old man. It surging through the urn and table into Gaval, where bony fingers unfurled and locked around the startled man's throat.

Gaval's skin whitened and flaked; his hair turned from brown to gray to shocking white. His face a mask of terror, he pitched over onto the divan, drained of life. The groaning spirit then turned on Seriza.

"No!" the widow shrieked, scrabbling backward on the couch. "Not you!"

Then all words were cut off by those glowing, ephemeral fingers. For a moment, the sitting room was filled with the sound of flailing limbs—and then two corpses lay on the divan.

The spirit twisted, spiraling toward Luma, who prepared herself to call down lightning against it. As it hung in the air before her, its contorted face calmed. Then the entire apparition dissipated and was gone.

Luma waited until it was clear that the manifestation had concluded, then called out to the man hidden in the hope chest behind the divan. "I thought you weren't much for sneaking."

"You detected my presence, did you?" Rieslan lifted the lid and poked his head out. He stared at the urn, still sitting on the low table.

Luma put her hands on her hips. "Do you want it? It should go back to the mausoleum, but my family wasn't hired to protect it forever. Our contract is complete."

Rieslan scratched at his beard. "Those are Aruhal's ashes in there, and not the saint's?"

"That's right."

"That quite diminishes its value. Still..." He reached out for the urn—then pulled up short, gazing at the shriveled corpses splayed on the divan. "You know, I think I've abruptly lost my desire for this object." He unfolded the rest of long frame out of the chest and stepped around the couch. He doffed his skullcap and bowed to Luma.

"To your health, my lady."

Then he let himself out.

When he'd been gone for a slow count of ten, the door to the kitchen swung open. Ontor, hand on the hilt of a knife, sauntered in and leaned over the two ash-skinned corpses, inspecting their terrified expressions. "So the old priest left without making a play for it, huh?"

"He's apparently learned a new appreciation for caution."

Ontor whistled. "I guess you're never too old to learn, but still—what do you want to bet that in a few days we hear reports of an old sorcerer and a bald dwarf found dead in Aruhal's crypt?"

"I won't put any money against that," Luma said, but her mind wasn't on the banter. Inside, she was already thinking of the praise she would receive when they returned home—from her father, who would give it willingly, and from the rest of her siblings, who would finally be able to see what an indispensable part of the team she was. Even they would have to admit that she'd executed the mission to perfection.

Surely they would.

Coming Next Week: A "Where are they now?" story regarding the infamous Gray Maidens of Korvosa in the wake of events from Curse of the Crimson Throne, by F. Wesley Schneider. A perfect preview for those GMs and players running Pathfinder Adventure Path #62: Curse of the Lady's Light!

If you like this story, consider picking up the further adventures of Luma and her family in Robin D. Laws' Blood of the City!

Robin D. Laws is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novels Blood of the City and The Worldwound Gambit, as well as the Pathfinder's Journals for the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path and the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path. In addition, he's written six other novels; various short stories, web serials, and comic books; and a long list of roleplaying game products. His novels include Pierced Heart, The Rough and the Smooth, and the Angelika Fleischer series for the Black Library. Robin created the classic RPG Feng Shui and such recent titles as Mutant City Blues, Skulduggery, and the newly redesigned HeroQuest 2. Those interested in learning more about Robin are advised to check out his blog.

Illustration by Mike Capprotti.

In the Event of My Untimely Demise

by Robin D. Laws

Chapter Three: Old Comrades

The trim, white-haired man responded with seasoned stillness to Luma's knee and sickle. His foreign-accented voice purred soothingly, with a hint of disarming irony. "Who am I and why I am I following you? I might equally ask whose blade caresses my jugular."

"Depending on your answer," Luma replied, "I might tell you." She glanced at the alleyway's mouth. The street it jutted onto was not such a quiet one. This was in Dockway, where most folk would note a waylaying in an alley and keep going, unblinking. But trouble only took one busybody.

Prominent veins ran like engorged streams across the man's papery, spotted hands. Around his wrist coiled a silver chain bearing a charm—a rat perched on a raft. From her reading, Luma vaguely recalled this as the symbol of an obscure river god from the faraway River Kingdoms. The man was likely a priest, able to call down magic from his deity, much as Luma did from the city itself.

"What would you say, young lady, if I told you I wasn't following you?"

Luma couldn't help finding him likeable—and resenting people who projected charm so readily. "I'm not that young, and a lady only by the skin of my nails."

"When you get to my age, you'll consider everyone young. And I wasn't following you, I was following the dwarf."

"Jordyar."

"You've met my truculent former colleague, then. Honestly, my dear, let me up. We may discover common goals."

"Introduce yourself first."

"I am Rieslan, once known as Rieslan the Drowner, now sadly diminished."

Luma relaxed the pressure of her knee on his spine. "And let me guess. You went with Jordyar and Aruhal into the Demonsweald, in search of a valuable reliquary."

Rieslan sighed. "He told you about that, did he? Dear fellow's grown talkative in his dotage."

"I'm going to let you up, Rieslan. Try anything and you'll—"

"No need to complete the threat," said the river cleric. "I've had a long career, and heard them all."

Luma got up, her sickle still ready. "You shadowed him in case he was pursued?"

Rieslan rose, brushing gravel from his leggings. "That's what I thought you were doing, my dear. Jordyar and I have had a falling out, shall we say, since the old days. I know why I'm chasing him. Why are you?"

"I'll ask the questions," Luma said, watching him rub his creaking finger joints. "I suppose you've heard that, too."

The old priest twinkled at her. "Very well."

"I care about the reliquary only insofar as it might have led to my client's murder."

"Your client?" Rieslan interjected. "You work for Aruhal's estate?"

Luma nodded.

Rieslan steadied himself against the wall. "Someone might have hastened his demise for it. But it wouldn't be me. Or Jordyar, for that matter."

"Why not?"

"Haven't you found it notable that we waited till we got word of Aruhal's death to come for it? He had a curse placed on himself. Whosoever slays Aruhal will himself be slain." The priest studied Luma's expression. "You look like someone who's just had an epiphany."

Luma flushed. She hated it when others saw through her. "How did you hear of this curse?"

"He sent a messenger, to warn us, back when we still stalked him for our share of the loot."

"He told you he had a curse placed on himself, and you accepted it as truth?"

Rieslan held his hands together, as if in prayer. "I asked my god, Hanspur, and was told it was true."

"But, as in the way of gods, received no clearer details."

Rieslan winced.

"What is it?" Luma asked.

He waved her question away. "I get headaches. It is nothing."

"So you and your comrades—"

"Former comrades," Rieslan said.

"You all waited until you learned of his death, then came for the treasure. How did you hear of it?"

"Naphrax posted a spy, who sent word that Aruhal was sick. Jordyar had Naphrax's dogsbody in his pay, and so learned that Naphrax had broken from his seclusion and was bound for Magnimar. And of course I have been keeping an eye on Jordyar."

"This Naphrax, he's your party's other survivor? Let me guess—a wizard?"

A vein pulsed on Rieslan's forehead. "Sorcerer, but let's not make fine distinctions."

A spell-slinger complicated the possibilities. He might have found a way to break the curse, and killed Aruhal off despite it. But then, why wait until he was sick?

Luma caught herself playing with her hair again and stopped. "Let see where that leaves us. I don't care about the treasure. You have no particular reason to protect Aruhal's killer—if indeed he was killed at all. Does that about sum it up?"

Rieslan crinkled aged dimples at her. "Much gold is at stake. You'll excuse me if I greet your disinterest in it with a certain skepticism."

Luma, affronted, tried to cover it up with a smile. "Ask around about the Derexhi family. Our reputation for honesty is worth more than your treasure."

Rieslan is charming—which doesn't make him innocent.

"A thousand pardons, my dear."

Don't call me dear, Luma wanted to say. "At any rate, we have each spoiled the other's attempt to follow Jordyar. I suggest we part, with no hard feelings."

The priest bowed deep, and went on his way.

Luma signaled to her brother Ontor, who for several minutes had been standing across the way. He'd appeared in her peripheral vision, sauntering down the street, looking for her. Seeing her occupied, he'd dropped into a pose, engaging in conversation with loitering dockworkers.

It never surprised Luma to see one of her siblings appear out of the blue like this. Her sister Iskola could see from afar, and whisper into distant ears. Wherever she was in Magnimar, one of the others could always find her.

Ontor required no further instructions. Adopting a languid lope, he pushed off after Rieslan.

Iskola's spells didn't permit them to communicate with one another, so Luma would find a rendezvous and wait. She ambled for the closest of the Derexhi haunts, a spot named after its proprietor, Chanda, who specialized in bream broth and walnut bread. Luma claimed the darkest corner, where Chanda, unbidden, brought her soup, half a loaf of the bread, and a bowl of sea snails in red garlic sauce. Luma paid Chanda the usual premium for a lengthy stay and settled in.

An hour later, Ontor slid into the seat across from her, a sea snail bowl already in one hand and a half-filled ale flagon in the other. "You'll be happy to hear I was also deemed too much a black sheep for the Vitellus job."

Family politics could wait, Luma decided. There was a mystery to solve. Even if the answer was that there was no mystery at all. "Where did he go?"

Ontor threw his head back, dropped a sea snail in, and swallowed, pleased with his show of downmarket manners. The stevedores filling the restaurant ate the same way. "He's staking out a hovel down in Rag's End. Waiting for someone to show. Since I have no idea of the situation, I figured I'd come and collect you, and we'd check the place out together."

Luma dunked a final bread crust into the remnants of her broth.

Ontor wiped ale-foam from his lips. "That was a hint, by the way. A request for context."

Luma briefed him on the case to date: the prearranged, posthumous assignment; the widow and her pleurisy story; Jordyar the dwarf and then Rieslan the river-cleric and their tangled, treacherous history with Aruhal.

Ontor gobbled the rest of his food. "So you reckon this Rieslan knows where Jordyar is staying, and, having lost him in Dockway, has gone there to wait for him?"

Luma hadn't so reckoned, but would have, given one more moment's thought. The two half-siblings set out for Rag's End.

∗∗∗

As ramshackle as its name suggested, Rag's End stretched out before them as an expanse of hovels and shanties. Luma and Ontor strode with dispatch past a crowd gathered for an impromptu match between a mastiff and a crab spider half again its size. Sensing a form of authority approaching, the bettors hunched and turned their faces away. A jagged laneway sloped gently into a depression. As Ontor led Luma down its length, a gathering fog grew from scattered wisps to an obscuring mass.

At the end of the cul-de-sac a two-story structure held itself with lordly remove from the surrounding shacks. To its left, a cloud of flies buzzed around a heap of rotting trash. Piles of rubble, wood and masonry mostly, formed an unintended fence around the building's right side.

"That's where your old duffer was waiting," Ontor said.

Luma peered into the twilight. There was no immediate sign of Rieslan now. Lamplight issued from an open window facing the debris wall.

"He's either gone in," Ontor whispered, "or gone entirely. But someone must be in there." He wasn't so much stating the obvious as asking: do we go in and see?

In reply, Luma nodded. Hunching, the two of them covered the distance to the wall, and then to the side of the house.

Luma let in the citysong, hearing the whispers and shushes of the billowing fog. Cozened by her spell, it pooled around them, its protective mantle blending naturally with the mist flowing through the neighborhood. They could see into the house, while anyone looking out would see only swirling vapor.

Inside Luma saw two familiar individuals, and two unfamiliar.

Jordyar sat atop a wooden table, picking at his rotting teeth with his fingers. Rieslan slumped in a chair, shoved in a corner. Ropes bound his waist, arms, and ankles. Wet blood reddened his goatee. His divine charm, with its rat and raft motif, swung from a rafter, a good twenty feet away. Without it, Luma knew, he wouldn't be able to shape his appeals to the realms beyond, and would receive no magic from his god.

A second, much younger man was also tied to a chair, this one positioned in the center of the room. Muscular and tanned, he would have been handsome, prior to the beating he'd taken. His face swelled and purpled; scorched holes in his tunic revealed burned skin beneath. Still conscious, the man seemed to be willing himself to pass out, and failing at it.

Over him stood a creased, leathery man dressed in a suede robe dotted with turquoise and agate beads. He wore a vest with no shirt beneath it, showing off the puffy muscles of a fit but elderly man. Greasy black hair hung straight from his scalp down to his shoulders. A long mustache drooped from his upper lip to his protruding clavicles.

He grunted at Jordyar, who approached him carrying a poker, which he held out at arm's length with the aid of his thick hide glove. The mustached man spoke arcane syllables, evoking a cone-shape blast of flame, which flew from his fingertips to the poker. The poker's iron tip glowed red.

"Please," the prisoner sobbed. "I'm begging you."

Jordyar hefted the red-hot poker. "You're doing to this yourself, Gaval."

Gaval shuddered. "I can't tell you anything about it. Seriza never mentioned such a thing! And Aruhal—I barely spoke a hundred words to him my entire life. I'm just an apothecary."

Jordyar's partner—who had to be the sorcerer, Naphrax—turned to the terrified young man in the chair. "Tell us," he said.

The dwarf advanced with the poker.

"Tell us," repeated Naphrax.

Coming Next Week: Revelations and old grudges in the final chapter of Robin Laws' "In the Event of My Untimely Demise."

If you like this story, consider picking up the further adventures of Luma and her family in Robin D. Laws' Blood of the City!

Robin D. Laws is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novels Blood of the City and The Worldwound Gambit, as well as the Pathfinder's Journals for the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path and the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path. In addition, he's written six other novels; various short stories, web serials, and comic books; and a long list of roleplaying game products. His novels include Pierced Heart, The Rough and the Smooth, and the Angelika Fleischer series for the Black Library. Robin created the classic RPG Feng Shui and such recent titles as Mutant City Blues, Skulduggery, and the newly redesigned HeroQuest 2. Those interested in learning more about Robin are advised to check out his blog.

Illustration by Mike Capprotti.

In the Event of My Untimely Demise

by Robin D. Laws

Chapter Two: Treasure

"Where is what?" Luma asked, withdrawing her hand from her trickbag. If it came to a fight, she could reach out to Magnimar's spires and towers, gather their memories of the lightning that struck them with every thunderstorm, and from this summon a bolt of energy to strike the dwarf down. Unlike some of her other magics, it required no props, just concentration, a gesture, and a few words of entreaty to the city. But she was here to learn, not to do battle.

"Don't play stupid with me." The dwarf showed a mouth full of jagged, rotting teeth. "You know very well what." He shook his axe for emphasis.

"I would like nothing more than to understand what you're talking about." Luma edged in front of the cabinet behind which Seriza cowered. "Start at the beginning, maybe?"

The dwarf peered past her at the widow. "You aren't Aruhal's wife?"

"I am Luma of House Derexhi, hired to perform a service on his behalf."

The intruder elevated an eyebrow. He pointed his weapon at the cabinet. "She's the widow?"

"Lay out your grievance, dwarf." Luma spoke evenly, her confidence steady, as it always was when her siblings weren't watching. She'd sooner face this frothing dwarf, outweighing her by two to one and bristling with menace, than a single exasperated glance from one of her sisters. "Perhaps I can sort it out."

"You address Jordyar, warrior of the First Stone, son of Jordgar, true inheritor of the axe of Skrellim." He hefted it again, this time as an expression of pride. "To speak ill of the dead is not my wont. But that woman's husband was a liar, a cheat, a betrayer, and a thief from his own friends. Did you know Aruhal?"

Luma shook her head.

"Then you missed the chance to acquaint yourself with a kill-stealer and a credit-grabber. A blasphemer against the gods, a drunkard on watch, a coward in a scrap, and a tent-farter of the worst order."

"So you were comrades."

Jordyar stalked over to the divan, as if wondering whether sitting would show weakness. "For three years, two decades ago, we strove together as treasure-seekers. We plumbed the depths of the Riddle Canals, scoured the Haunted Hills, and stormed the Citadel of Xerkas Xaan. But the day after our greatest triumph, he deserted us—taking the treasure with him."

"And this treasure is what you think he had when he died?"

Warming to the subject, the dwarf puffed out his chest and paced the room, gesticulating with the axe. "Oh, what that cost us! We fought giants, demons, mind-eaters. Upon entering the Demonsweald's innermost crypt, the best of us all, Corin the Bright, was beheaded by a trap. Which Aruhal thereupon disarmed." Jordyar stomped into the hallway, then returned, holding aloft the strange doorknocker that had tweaked Luma's curiosity on her way in. "This! This is the flying ring that sliced through Corin's neck. I can't believe that he would take that and display it on his door, as if mocking the memory—" A frustrated groan caught in Jordyar's throat. He backhanded the ring away; it lodged, quivering, in the wooden lintel of the sitting room's doorway. A fresh flush of crimson rose through his face. "So yes, Aruhal owes me. This treasure, we had a deal to sell it for a wagonload of gold. Enough to forever conclude my grubbing and sweating, sleeping in cold crypts with the doors spiked shut, fighting for rest as ghouls and bloodsuckers scratch at the sill. To retire for good and all, on the one great score every looter dreams of. That is the life Jordyar deserved. The life that Aruhal plucked from my grasp!"

He lunged at the cabinet where Seriza quietly wept.

Luma stepped up, her sickle drawn. After a moment of tension, the dwarf relented, sticking his axe in his belt. He stretched out open hands, as if ready to grab Luma by the front of her tunic. His eyes glistened. "You must let me question her. He must have told her. Our customer never bought it from him."

"Or so they told you," Luma ventured.

Jordyar wiped his nose with the back of his liver-spotted hand. "Or so they did. But they say that even now they will buy it, if I can produce it. It changes nothing—he either sold it and has the gold, or kept it. And it is mine."

"And if he did keep it, what is it, exactly? A magical relic?"

"Scarcely. A historical curio—a reliquary containing the ashes and bones of a saint: the holy warrior Lovag. A globe of gold, studded with gems. It would be worth much to a collector, but more to the church."

"Which church?"

Jordyar's glory days are behind him.

Jordyar's snort sent spittle flying. "So you can sell it to them when you find it? You take me for a fool, girl." He twitched, as if realizing he'd given away too much already by naming the saint.

"I'm not here for this treasure," Luma said. "I'm here to find out who killed Aruhal."

"No one killed Aruhal," Seriza sobbed, white fingers clutched around the cabinet. "I told you that already. It was pleurisy—a pain when he breathed. It just got worse, until..." She trailed off into another burst of tears.

Jordyar angled for a better view of her. "You look a pretty creature. You don't propose to tell me a wretch like Aruhal caught a wench like you without a great bag of gold swinging over his shoulder?"

The widow's face froze into a wordless plea directed at Luma. Its meaning was clear: please get him out of here.

Luma again stepped between the widow and the dwarf. "It sounds like you had all the reason in the world to kill Aruhal."

"You speak truth there." He spat onto the bare floor, just missing the boar's hide rug.

Luma crossed her arms. "But you want me to believe you didn't."

"I'm done answering your questions. That one will tell me where it is—gold or relic, I'm taking it now."

"I don't know anything about any relic," Seriza sniffled. "And as for gold—look around you. I can't see how I'll afford to fix that door."

"Aruhal never had money?" the dwarf asked.

"A little. At first. He worked as a locksmith. It wasn't money I loved him for."

Jordyar bellowed out a laugh. "Then he was holding out on you, too."

Luma crowded him. "So why didn't you?"

"Why didn't I what?"

"Kill him."

Trepidation flashed across the dwarf's face. "I'm not the swine he was." He flexed his shoulders, regaining his composure.

Luma twined a lock of her hair between her fingers—a habit her family's scolding had never quite cured her of. "I don't think that's it."

"Matters not to me what you think." Jordyar knocked on the nearest wall. "I should tear this place apart."

"You're not going to do that," Luma said.

Jordyar stiffened. "Is that so?"

Luma let her fingers brush against her trickbag.

The dwarf took it in. "A magicker, are we? What kind?"

"You don't want to find out," said Luma. Depending on how tough the dwarf was, it was either a well-calibrated act of intimidation, or a reckless bluff.

Jordyar wove past her to address Seriza. "This is all a shock to you. Your husband dying and now this." He gestured to the broken door as if it were a catastrophe unconnected to himself. "I approached this too strong, didn't I? I believe you when you say you had no inkling of the relic. Or the gold your rodent of a spouse sold it for. So I'm telling you this." He jabbed his leather-gloved finger at her. "You cogitate long and hard on where Aruhal might have stashed a pile of gold, or a treasure about yay big." With open hands about a foot apart, he mimed a roughly globular object. "Because there's no chance in hell that he doesn't have it. Maybe he tried to tell you, when he was sick. Search your mind for clues of that nature. Because in forty-eight hours, I'll be back, and I'll take what Aruhal stole from me. Or you'll have more to mourn than your husband. Understand?"

Seriza said nothing—a rabbit transfixed by a snake.

He poked Luma's shoulder. "And if you want to test your spells against my axe then, you're welcome to try." He stamped for the door, reclaiming the sharpened ring from the lintel on the way out.

Luma rushed to the window. Jordyar had turned westward, toward a main thoroughfare, the Avenue of Honors. He proceeded with the attentive uncertainty of a visitor. Consulting her mental map of the city, Luma plotted a route of alleyways. If she got going right away, she might well beat him to the high street, and trail him unseen from there. She plunged into Seriza's kitchen and out the back exit. The widow called after her, either asking why she was following the dwarf, or asking who would pay for the door. Luma didn't attempt a reply.

On the second question, it was not up to the Derexhi family to pay Jordyar's reparations. As to the first, the old adventurer knew more than he was saying. Were there anything here to investigate, the path to it could well lead through him. Missing treasure certainly sounded like a motive for murder.

There was more to hear from the widow, too, but that would have to wait. Luma knew where to find her.

Reaching the Avenue, she spotted Jordyar's head bobbing between a pair of laggardly porters carrying wine crates for a doddering master. Luma wished she had her brother Ontor with her—shadowing was both safer and easier with two. Still, her street-honed instincts kept the dwarf in sight, and he showed little propensity for looking back. The fat-purses and liveried servants who populated the street at this hour gave wide berth to her battle-ready, fuming subject. Picking up speed as he stomped along, he passed hawkers, criers, and store guards, merchants, traders, and grandees. He traversed the length of the avenue, turning at the Pediment Building and continuing down the long stone slope that served as the bypass for the Seacleft, the great cliff dividing the city into high and low, the Summit and the Shore.

From its base, the dwarf wended through the clamorous Bazaar of Sails, bypassing stalls and skirting around tents. A trio of urchins, in the sparkling glad-rags of the Varisian minority, chased a fist-sized jewel bug into his path. Jordyar roared at them, sending them scattering. Luma halted; his swivel to shout curses at the children placed her in his line of sight. But he seemed not to notice her, and continued on. Heedless of Luma's pursuit, he plunged into Dockway's narrow streets, lined by salt-crusted depots and sturdy taverns.

Abruptly abandoning her chase, Luma darted into an alleyway between an alehouse and a whorehouse and drew her sickle. As soon as she was past its threshold, she pressed her back against the crumbling brick of the tavern wall. A rake-thin man clad all in black, from boots to leggings to tunic to skullcap, hustled in after her. She thrust out the sickle, wrapping its curving edge around his ankle. As she pulled it up, she twisted the blade, so that it would trip him without cutting into his leg. He fell into the wall, bashing his snowy-bearded chin against the brick, and tumbled to the ground. Luma leapt onto his back, pinning him with her knee, and pressed her blade around his throat, positioned for a slaughtering cut.

"Who are you?" she asked, "and why are you following me?"

Coming Next Week: Wheels within wheels in Chapter Three of Robin Laws' "In the Event of My Untimely Demise."

If you like this story, consider picking up the further adventures of Luma and her family in Robin D. Laws' Blood of the City!

Robin D. Laws is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novels Blood of the City and The Worldwound Gambit, as well as the Pathfinder's Journals for the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path and the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path. In addition, he's written six other novels; various short stories, web serials, and comic books; and a long list of roleplaying game products. His novels include Pierced Heart, The Rough and the Smooth, and the Angelika Fleischer series for the Black Library. Robin created the classic RPG Feng Shui and such recent titles as Mutant City Blues, Skulduggery, and the newly redesigned HeroQuest 2. Those interested in learning more about Robin are advised to check out his blog.

Illustration by Mike Capprotti.

The Seventh Execution

by Amber E. Scott

Chapter Three: The Fettered Freed

The moon was a yellow bruise in the sky as I hurried through the streets of Edme. Sweat poured off me as if I raced through a furnace. I ran without seeing, navigating the streets by long practice. I felt I had left part of myself back at home, as if I had lost a limb.

I stopped, panting, when the cobbled road spilled into a flagstone-plated quadrangle. Prickly weeds, trampled flat by the mobs that congregated there, sprouted from cracks in the stones. The gray walls of Torvin Academy bounded the opposite size of the plaza. A few lights burned in upper windows, but the plaza was full of moonshadows.

Razor Jenni stood in the center of the quadrangle, atop a wooden platform braced with heavy timbers. I shuddered when I saw the final blade, her thirsty edge held aloft atop a scaffold. A set of stocks at the base of the scaffold snapped around the prisoner's neck. A groove cut through the yoke allowed Razor Jenni's blade to slip through and take the prisoner's head with her.

I spied movement at the base of the platform. Bradach stood concealed in the shadow of the scaffold. When he saw me, he took a step forward and beckoned. I scanned the quadrangle a final time to ensure no one watched, then hurried to meet him.

“It's good to see you,” Bradach said. He wore a heavy, dark cloak and stood with his hands deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the chill. “Did you succeed?”

“I spoke to my... I spoke to Mirford.”

Bradach looked alarmed. “You told him our plan?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I asked about the executions. I wanted to prove to you that the guilty, the traitors, are the ones who are executed.”

Bradach sighed and crouched to face me. “And what did you find?”

When you are a halfling, you get used to living in a world unsized for you. Yet it always seemed to me that I was the proper height, and everything else overlarge and exaggerated. In that moment, though, I felt small. “He implied that the evidence used—” My voice broke. I cleared my throat. “The evidence might not be as ironclad as I would prefer.”

“It's hard to admit that the things we fought for weren't worth our dedication,” Bradach said. “It's taken me a long time to reach the place I am now, and I took many wrong turns along the way. But what we do here can make up for many sins of the past. You see that, don't you?”

I nodded.

“Then do you have the medallion? Hand it to me and we can set about freeing these poor souls.” He stretched a hand out.

I have said before that halflings must remain alert to survive. We have learned to carefully read the humans who run the cities in which we live, attuning ourselves to their whims and desires to remain useful, and thus safe. Bradach's words sounded well enough, but the way he thrust his hand toward me was a shade too quick, too eager. It unnerved me for reasons I couldn't articulate.

“Tell me more,” I said. “What led you to undertake such a selfless mission?”

“We are exposed here. I'd be happy to answer your questions afterward, but we can't delay. You did get the medallion, didn't you?”

“Even the most desperate looter would hardly stride up to the doors of Torvin Academy. We have a few minutes.” I met Bradach's gaze. “I spent most of my life allowing myself to work for a man whose intentions were not wholly admirable. Forgive me if I make more certain this time. What spurred you on your mission?”

He looked away as if weighing my question. When he spoke, his voice was low and sad. “Someone I care about is trapped in there. Do you need to know more than that?”

But I had seen a flash of annoyance in his eyes before he looked away. My sense of unease deepened.

“How did she come to this?”

He gave me a lopsided smile. “It is that obvious that she's a woman? We worked together in Mivon. She hated injustice as much as I did, and we undertook several missions together. Six months ago she traveled to Edme in an attempt to free a prisoner awaiting the blade. She failed, and was executed herself.”

"Razor Jenni claims both heads and souls."

It was a good story. Yet if Bradach had known what function I truly performed for Mirford, he would have used a different cover. My life revolved around executions, and I knew well enough that there was only one woman to die in Razor Jenni's arms in the last few months. I took a step back, anger replacing the nausea in my gut.

“You had nothing to do with her,” I said, harshly, foolishly.

Bradach straightened. “I choose to keep my motivations private. I may be guilty of misleading you in that sense, but I wanted to make sure you understood how important this is. It's all that matters. Now we can argue about this all night or you can tell me whether you got the medallion.”

I took another step back. “I couldn't get the opportunity. You'll have to give me more time.”

We stared at each other. Branach looked me over from tip to toe, tapping his chin. After a long silence, he spoke.

“I think you're lying.”

“That makes two of us.”

He gave me an ugly smile. “Then I won't waste any more words. Give me the medallion or I'll take it off your corpse.”

He reached for me and I stumbled back, flailing my arm to keep him off. My little knife leaped into my hand.

“Get away from me!”

He put a finger to his lips as he advanced. “Voice down, slip. Do you want to bring the whole city down on us?”

My heart thudded. The fiery anger inside me turned in an instant to icy rage.

“Chelaxian!” I dropped my voice to a shaking whisper. “I've sent more than one of your kind to their deaths.”

“And now you'll help one of my kind release those souls.” He darted forward and grabbed for me again. I ducked under his arm and skipped out of his reach. “They'll be invaluable in my rituals. Perhaps I'll even find a use for your corpse.”

I darted to the left. Bradach rushed forward and caught hold of my wrist. A soundless explosion of cold shot up my arm and numbed me all the way to my shoulder. I bit my tongue to keep from crying out. I flailed, kicking and scratching, and threw myself back. Bradach lost his grip. I tucked into a roll as I fell. My numbed arm threw me off. The roll broke apart and I sprawled on my stomach.

For an instant I felt a terrible weakness grip my limbs, but I shook off the lassitude and scrambled to my feet. I kept as quiet as I could. If I cried out, someone was bound to hear. The guards at the Academy would simply arrest us both, and I had just stolen from my master. Looters would cut us down.

Bradach loomed over me. My knife lay on the ground to my right. I dropped to my knees when Bradach swung at me. His arms whooshed overhead. I snatched up the knife and stabbed him in the thigh.

Bradach stumbled back with a muffled cry. His heavy cloak blunted some of the impact, but the edge of my knife came away wet with blood.

I leaped to my feet again as Bradach took another run at me. He had his own knife out now. I dove forward and to one side of him. His knife scored my back as I rolled past. The cut stung, but not badly. I kicked up to my feet a dozen paces past him.

“I get worse than that chopping carrots.”

He threw his knife at my head. I ducked down and raised my hands for cover. Too late I realized that Bradach's throw was careless, meant only to distract me. I tried to back up but he had already charged. As I scrambled back, Bradach caught me in the chest with a sharp kick.

I flew back and slammed into the cobblestones. Bradach twisted his hands together. Blue light built between them.

I had hoped our forced silence might keep him from casting, but no words accompanied his intricate gestures. Light shot from his hands and streamed toward me like ethereal arrows. I rolled away. The missiles followed my movements. I bit my fist to keep from screaming as the bolts slammed into my side.

My body shrieked with pain, but my heart bled with regret. To conspire with a Chelaxian, even unwittingly—I could think of no greater ignominy. I had paid for my betrayal, and paid dearly.

Bradach twisted his hands together again. I bounced to my feet and sprinted for cover. I whipped around the edge of Razor Jenni's platform and crouched behind one of the timbers. I heard Bradach's quiet curse.

I panted, trying to regain my breath. I blinked in surprise to see I still held my knife. Instinct must have kept it in my hand. I could hear Bradach circle around Razor Jenni's frame. I waited until he had almost rounded to my side, then ran the other way.

Bradach reversed direction. I'd expected that. I raced up the stairs onto the execution platform and cut across it. Bradach heard me coming and tried to back away. I threw myself off the platform and crashed into him, burying my knife in his shoulder.

His howl of pain eased the ache in my heart. We fell together. I tried to pull the blade free but Bradach rolled to the side and threw me off. I had always supposed wizards to be weak and frail, but Bradach was no pale scholar. His strength and size far outstripped mine.

My knife stayed buried in Bradach's shoulder. I scrabbled for a weapon but came up with nothing but a chunk of broken flagstone. Bradach rose to his feet, panting. I clutched the flagstone to my chest and crawled under Razor Jenni's platform.

She was a presence, that blade. I could feel her weight above me, pressing down, waiting hungrily for her next victim. I shuddered and forced myself to remain in the shadows, half-hidden behind a timber pile.

“Come out of there you rotten little slip,” Bradach whispered. I could hear the faint rasp of his boots as he circled the platform, trying to spot me. “Or throw me the medallion and I'll let you go.”

Halflings survive by reading human intentions. I knew Bradach was lying.

Bradach finally got on his hands and knees to peer under the platform. I summoned all my strength and flung the flagstone chunk. The rock struck Bradach above his eyes. He whimpered and collapsed.

I waited for a minute to catch my breath. My heart beat crazily and would not calm down. I crawled out from under the platform and rolled the wizard over. He was unconscious, but still lived. I went through his clothes and removed a case of scrolls and a pouch half-filled with gold and silver coins.

Then I dragged Bradach up the stairs to the platform. My side ached. Blood dripped from the cut on my back, but not much. I used all my strength to pull the wizard's warm, heavy body along. My sense that Razor Jenni was alive—was watching me—grew stronger as I dragged Bradach across the platform and onto the chopping block.

Six traitors I had sent to their final rest. Six that I was certain of.

That night I made it seven.

∗∗∗

Her or me, I'd said. I had saved myself by condemning her. In truth, though, I had condemned both of us. When she made the march to Razor Jenni, I'd walked beside her, though I hadn't known it then. A part of my soul stays trapped in that blade, too. I believe it always will.

Galt is no longer home to me. I am armed, though, and I have money in my purse and new courage in my heart. I'm told the River Kingdoms hold freedom for all, even servants. The road there is a dangerous one, but halflings have learned to survive. I travel when the roads are empty and sleep in ditches when I can. My sleep is untroubled. The nightmares have gone.

Coming Next Week: Varisian scoundrels in the streets of Magnimar in Bill Ward's "The Box."

Amber E. Scott is the author of "The Swamp Warden" and several chapters in "The Compass Stone: The Collected Journals of Eando Kline," as well as numerous Paizo RPG products such as Heart of the Jungle and Halflings of Golarion. She writes from her home in Canada, where she lives with her husband, Jason, and her two cats, Dabu and ZugZug.

Art by Mike Capprotti.

The Seventh Execution

by Amber E. Scott

Chapter Two: The Faithful False

We retreated into a network of side streets where we could escape if necessary and where we'd easily hear anyone approaching. The night was cool enough to frost our breath. The smell of refuse lingered beneath the familiar city smells of dirt, sweat, horse dung, and boiled potatoes.

When I thought us safe, I turned and held up a hand. “Speak quickly.”

“First let's make certain I have the right person. You are Tibeth, servant at Mirford Manor?”

I nodded, never taking my eyes from the man's face. A muscle in my calf twitched, as if reminding me that flight was still an option.

“My name is Bradach,” he said. “I have traveled many miles and followed convoluted divinations to find Mirford Manor, and you.” He lowered his voice further. “I am on a mission, a dangerous one, involving the house at which you work. I had hoped—”

I held up my hand again. “Before you speak further, you should know that whatever this mission is and however far you've come, you have the wrong person if you think I would do anything to betray my master. He is a good and patriotic man. I would sooner go straight to him with all you've said and risk punishment than be involved in a plot against him.”

Bradach raised an eyebrow. “Your devotion is admirable, and unexpected. Are you not a slave?”

My shoulders lifted and brow furrowed as I took a deep breath. “Servant, if you please. My family has willingly served the Mirford family for three generations. My master appreciates the qualities we bring to his household. In my youth, I was educated and trained in many skills beyond a simple kitchen slave's abilities. So you see, I have no wish to betray the man who has been so kind to me.”

“I do see.” Bradach rubbed his chin. “Yet I must ask, do you know what role your master serves in the city?”

“He is a member of the Revolutionary Council,” I said. “Everyone knows as much. He assists the city in protecting itself and works to uncover those who would harm us.”

“Those who would harm you.” There was no question or malice in Bradach's voice, but I took offense nonetheless.

“Traitors. Sympathizers. Rats that gnaw at the foundation of Galt. My master finds them and has them executed.”

“And every executed person is guilty?”

“Y-yes. Of course, yes.”

"Bradach would undermine the very heart of the Revolution."

“Not a convincing reply.” Bradach's voice was smooth and even, almost gentle. “You're certain only the guilty lie with Razor Jenni?”

“What do you want with me?” I spoke too loudly and cupped my hand over my mouth, hushing myself.

Bradach glanced over his shoulder to ensure we were still alone. “I come from the River Kingdoms. I had expected to find a slave, ill-treated, who would sympathize with my cause. My case may now be harder to make.”

“What,” I repeated, “do you want with me?”

“The River Kingdoms are free, and I wish to spread their message across the land.” Bradach spoke as if he hadn't heard me. “I have my own reasons for wanting to start here. I have researched a spell—it's untested, but I believe it will help release many innocent souls.”

“What is this spell?”

“If you're not willing to help, I'm not sure I should tell you.”

“If you won't tell me, I don't know if I'm willing to help.”

Bradach studied me. I flushed. My quick retort had shown my hand. I was entertaining the idea of helping him, or at least not hindering him. If only he hadn't asked are you certain...

It was her or me!

“The spell,” he finally said, “should release the spirits trapped in Razor Jenni. Though those executed will remain dead, their souls will be freed to travel on to whatever reward or punishment they merit.”

I drew in a sharp breath. The great terror of a final blade is not that it is an instrument of death. As the condemned marches up the wooden steps to where the weighty frame holds its razor edge aloft, his fear comes from the knowledge that there is nothing for him after death. His soul will remain trapped in that bloody blade. It is this fear, my master says, that deters so many from considering or attempting treason.

Then why do so many die? I wanted to ask. If it deters them, then why do so many die? But I dared not ask. Those who ask make that grim march themselves.

“Free their souls...” I whispered.

“Yes.” Bradach's voice grew eager, almost desperate. “To remain trapped forever in that horrible device—I cannot even find words to describe it. Some of those spirits may be guilty, yes, but they were people, people with families, friends... lovers...” He struggled to maintain his composure. “I am here to test the spell. If it works, I will use it to free all such imprisoned. Will you help?”

“What do you need me to do?” I asked.

∗ ∗ ∗

He needed me to betray my master.

Chores always filled my days, and I worked as hard as I could to distract myself from Bradach's proposal. That afternoon I stood in the manor's kitchen, trying to find comfort in the crackling fire. I had not committed myself to Bradach's mission yet, but had asked for time to think about it. Now I wished I had given him either a firm yes or no; the internal debate that kept surfacing in my mind wore me out more quickly than washing windows.

It seemed simple to say no, easy to say no, right to say no. The moment I fixed it in my mind that I would say no, though, Bradach's question resurfaced: Are you certain they were all guilty?

Then I would think of her, and my thoughts would fly apart again.

More than two seasons had passed with no arrests or investigations led by my master. Panic had grown within me. “Those without use to the nation are the first fingered as traitors,” my father always said, and my master had many enemies.

She had arrived in the city the previous week, a human woman traveling alone. I found no relatives of hers in Edme. I followed her. She visited unsavory elements in town, asking questions about noble families executed during the start of the Revolution. One night I observed her prowling around the ruins of an old manor house. She uncovered a book, one of the family ledgers in which the nobles recorded births, weddings, and deaths.

Eager to present my master with someone, I turned her in without further investigation. She was obviously looking for a tie to her family, seeking to prove her noble lineage. The decadent nobility had condemned Galt to years of oppression under imperial rule. To willingly seek out a connection to them was indefensible.

She tried to defend herself. She claimed to be the child not of the noble family, but of the servants who had worked in the manor and had helped overthrow their masters. Her parents, she claimed, were commoners lost in the Revolution, and she was searching for relatives who might have survived. Others had tried such stories before, but she spoke so clearly, so simply, that I believed her.

Or did I? I gasped as I sliced the kitchen knife slid off the carrots and over my finger. Blood pooled on the chopping block. I had no proof of her innocence, but her calmness and certainty in the face of her accusers had caught in my memory.

When she mounted the steps for her final meeting with Razor Jenni, I told myself it was her or me.

“Are you all right?”

I squeaked and spun around. The master stood there, looking at me with concern. He had changed out of his work clothes and into a simple navy robe and slippers. A wooden medallion displaying the flag of Galt hung from his neck. Though I remained young even after my many years of service, he showed signs of age. His face displayed new lines every year, and gray streaked his hair.

“It's nothing, sir,” I said. I wrapped my finger in a handkerchief. “A bit of carelessness on my part.”

“Be careful with yourself. I can't afford to lose my best servant.” He smiled down on me and I nodded. “I'll be leaving in the morning for Isarn. Can you have my things packed and brought down before I retire?”

“Yes, sir.” I swallowed. “That's earlier than usual. Is anything wrong?”

He raised an eyebrow. “A simple schedule accommodation. Should I be concerned about something?”

My mouth was dry. I had to swallow again. “The execution last month... I hope my evidence was sound enough. Those who seek your position might try to discredit you by casting doubt on my findings.”

We had never talked so openly about my work before. Always I reported my investigations to him, clearly and concisely, but said nothing about my motivations, or his. The master crouched down and put a hand on my shoulder. It covered my arm halfway to my elbow.

“Tibeth, there is nothing for you to worry about. Your findings were sound, and had they not been, I would have found ways to compensate.” He squeezed my shoulder lightly. “You continue to find suitable targets and I will ensure there's suitable evidence. I rely on you, you know. You keep both my position and Galt safe.”

My head spun. I thought for a moment I might faint. I forced myself to relax and smoothed the expression from my face. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

He left me standing next to the bloody carrots. I slumped against the counter until the dizziness passed.

For his spell, Bradach needed a bit of heartwood from the tree that died to make Razor Jenni's frame. My master wore a bit of that wood around his neck. I never saw him without it.

I went upstairs to my attic room and laid a handkerchief over the sill as if to dry it, a sign Bradach and I had arranged last night. The wizard would see it and know to meet me in the university quadrangle at midnight. There I would give him the medallion and help set the souls in Razor Jenni free.

∗ ∗ ∗

I stood at the foot of the stairs leading up to my master's room, summoning the courage to take the first step.

In my service to my master, and to Galt, I had followed traitors and seditionists through dark and abandoned streets. I had unlocked windows and searched people's houses for evidence. Once, I had even been forced to fight for my life when I encountered a looter in the building I'd come to search. Still, I had never felt the nervous dread I felt now as I looked up that shadowed staircase.

When I could bear the tension no longer I took the first tentative step. It was easy to make my way silently up the stairs; I knew the creaky boards by heart.

I reached my master's door and stopped. My pulse thrummed in my ears. The door latch stood at shoulder height to me, and I could peer easily through the keyhole. I saw only darkness and heard the even breaths of my master as he slept. When I lifted my hands to the lock, the muscles in my fingers twitched as if rebelling against the act.

I knew of a trap on the door, a simple spring-loaded needle coated in a toxic substance. My master left the trap unset during the day, when I might need to enter his room, and set it every night before sleep. I lit a candle and worked carefully by its meager light. I had seen traps like this before and cautiously traced my way down to the triggering wire. I snipped the wire in half with a tiny blade. I carried the rest of my tools as well as a small dagger, though I could never attack my master. The tumblers in the lock gave me more trouble than the trap did, and it was several minutes before I finally turned the last one over. I blew out the candle and eased the door open.

The familiar objects of the room seemed sinister in the moonlight. The bed, with my master slumbering quietly beneath the quilts, sat in one corner of the room. Four wooden posts, each one twice as tall as I, held up the bedframe. I saw the medallion hanging from its leather strap on the post flush in the corner.

I padded to the side of the bed. My master did not stir. Chill sweat covered my body and made me shiver. I rested my hands on the quilt and, with precise movements, pressed down until I had the leverage to pull myself onto the bed.

My weight was so little that I barely made a dent in the mattress. Still, I waited until I was certain that my master slept soundly before I rose. My shoeless feet found it easy to keep purchase on the lumpy surface. I took slow and shallow breaths between each step, straining to hear any whisper or rustle to signal my master's wakening. I stopped next to the pillows. My master's head rested inches away. He lay on his back, looking untroubled in sleep. Guilt stabbed through me.

Before I could change my mind, I placed one hand on the wall to steady myself and reached with the other. I stretched to my limit until I could grab the medallion with one swift clutch.

It seemed as though a thousand bees stung my palm at once. I howled and fell backward onto the bed. The amulet flew from my grasp. My master woke instantly, bellowing and thrashing in the bedclothes. I rolled off the bed and hit the floor with a gasp, the wind knocked out of me.

I felt a peculiar pang of betrayal. My master had not told me he kept his medallion warded.

A foot crashed down next to my head. I rolled away, sucking in breath as my lungs began to work again. I scrabbled madly on the floor for the medallion. There wasn't much light but I remembered the sound of the medallion landing and followed my instincts.

“Tibeth!” my master shouted. “Tibeth!” It wasn't until afterward that I realized he was probably shouting for me to come, not yet recognizing the thief on the ground before him. I heard him draw a blade from a scabbard. My hand closed over the smooth wood of the medallion.

There was no shock this time. I scrambled to my feet. A sword blade came slicing down. I threw myself to the side. The sword bit into the wooden floor and spat splinters at me. I spun around, disoriented, trying to find the door.

My master raised the sword again and paused, holding the blade aloft. “Tibeth?”

I ran out the door and down the stairs, into the night, holding the medallion before me like a shield.

Coming Next Week: Final blades and first steps in the final chapter of "The Seventh Execution."

Amber E. Scott is the author of "The Swamp Warden" and several chapters in "The Compass Stone: The Collected Journals of Eando Kline," as well as numerous Paizo RPG products such as Heart of the Jungle and Halflings of Golarion. She writes from her home in Canada, where she lives with her husband, Jason, and her two cats, Dabu and ZugZug.

Art by Mike Capprotti.

The Seventh Execution

by Amber E. Scott

Chapter One: The Watcher Watched

Her or me. It was her or me.

After the execution, after too many sleepless nights, afraid to face the waiting nightmares, I had to put the matter behind me.

"It was her or me," I declared, then made myself believe it. If I stopped, though, if I ceased whispering my mantra under my breath when I was alone, if I left off repeating it in my mind until I nodded off at night, the horror of the day returned. It seeped into my thoughts in sudden and startling ways. Firelight glinting on a kitchen knife recalled Razor Jenni's blade. Wagon wheels rumbling on the cobblestone street brought back the murmuring crowd. Raw meat on the cutting block, waiting for dinner—

Her or me.

I had worked hard all day. Now that night had come I found that sleep would not visit. I lay motionless on my cot, eyes fixed on the ceiling, listening to the house settle around me. This used to be my favorite time of day, when I could rest my body and free my mind, letting my fancies take me to lands free from toil and fear. Now my fancies took me to very different places. I distracted myself by running through the list of chores for the next day: stop the wood-cart when it came around and purchase two bundles on account, put a roast in at noon so that it would be ready for dinner, take the curtains down in the library and wash and press them, clean the windows while the curtains hung on the line. I hated windows more than any other chore. While a stepstool and creative leveraging allowed me to do human-sized tasks in every other area of the master's house, windows required a ladder and endless climbing up and down.

I'd lifted a pot full of soup earlier that day and aggravated an old strain in my back. My head pounded like the drums before an execution. I sat up. The moonlight coming through the gabled window illuminated the old boxes and trunks piled in the room. Most halfling servants have to be content with half-rooms under stairs, attached sheds half the height of the rest of the house, or even cupboards. To sleep in an attic, even one with a close and slanted ceiling and mice that ran over me in the middle of the night, was luxury.

I rose from my cot and stretched, trying to ease my aches. The floorboards felt cool under the curls of hair covering my feet. I padded to the window and leaned on the sill.

The quiet streets of Edme stretched away, disappearing into a maze of stone walls and peaked roofs. I often stood here, looking for furtive movements or cloaked figures, any signs that Cheliax worked to invade our free nation with their bound devils and sorcery. My father had served my master's father and remembered the start of the Red Revolution and the oppression that came before it. When others were in earshot, he would tell me stories of Chelish dominance and the nobles' excesses, a time when halflings were downtrodden "slips" and not respected servants. When we were alone, he cautioned me that those without use to the nation were the first fingered as traitors.

"As long as you keep finding spies and turncoats for the master, you'll never find yourself in Razor Jenni's arms."

"In Galt, it's best to never be noticed at all. Fortunately, halflings are good at that."

There are always traitors in Galt. I had become an expert at spotting them by the darkness in their eyes and the rhythm of their gait. My master traveled to Isarn once a month to serve on the Revolutionary Council, and he used my eyes to improve his standing there. Together we had sent six traitors and Chelish sympathizers to their final rest. Six that I am certain were guilty.

And one that I am not.

My mind threatened to sprint down those familiar paths once more. I focused instead on the dark street below, watching for unusual activity. The moon was out, just past half full and waxing. My eyes quickly adjusted to the little light. Edme's resources grew leaner with each passing season, and more than one citizen crept out at night to rifle through abandoned houses. My perch allowed me to watch for such activity, and my experience helped me separate desperate looters from dedicated traitors.

I stayed at the window until I started shivering. I stretched, and was ready to return to my cot when movement in the street below caught my eye.

I stopped in mid-stretch, holding myself still. A human figure crouched in the alley across the street, wrapped in a dark cloak and hood. I couldn't see the figure's face, but his height and manner of dress suggested it was a man. I watched, waiting to see what business the fellow had so late. He pressed against the wall of the alley, motionless save for small movements of his head as he surveyed the street. The man's focus was not on the street itself, but only the building opposite him. The building in whose attic I stood, watching him in return.

He was spying on my master's house.

He must have seen me, I thought, before recalling how difficult it is to see inside an upper-story window from the ground, especially when the person at the window stands only head and shoulders above the sill.

The watcher looked up just as I stepped back. I hesitated, wondering whether he had seen me after all, fighting the temptation to step forward again and make sure I had gone unnoticed. No, no time for that. I grabbed my cloak from its peg near the door and hurried down the stairs.

My sleeping clothes are almost identical to my working ones: a thin shirt and brown linen trousers. My cloak, though, is dark blue-gray, purposefully dyed to help me blend into the night. I threw the cloak over my shoulders and pulled it tight in front. I don't wear shoes. I let myself out the back door not more than two minutes after I had first spotted the watcher.

Halfling senses are sharper than human ones. We can't see any better in the dark, but we're attuned to details. Especially here in Galt, where we live so close to death, halflings must remain alert.

I crept along the side of the manor until the mouth of the alley opposite me came into view. It stood empty. I could hear footsteps, though, muffled and growing fainter. I dashed across the street, my feet almost noiseless against the cobblestones.

I had to work to catch up. Even at top speed I moved slower than humans did. My biggest advantage was that the watcher didn't seem to know the city well, while I could navigate the streets with my eyes closed. The moon vanished behind clouds twice, and the tall buildings around me cut off much of the light. Several times I had to slow down lest I trip in the dark or splash through a puddle. My heart beat a little faster every time I had to slow. The watcher's footsteps grew fainter. If I didn't make up the distance quickly, I was going to lose him.

The watcher's footsteps doubled back. The remains of an old lecture hall loomed before me. It had burned down at the start of the revolution. Sooty timbers leaned drunkenly toward each other. Puddles of rainwater glimmered between piles of broken glass and charred rubble. I held my breath and listened. The scent of old fire stung my nose. The watcher was south of me, circling around the building. I tucked the hem of my cloak into my waistband and climbed into the ruins.

I scrambled up one of the leaning timbers. The wood, soaked with countless rains, was rotten and soft as a carpet. The timber collided with one of its fellows at a crazy angle. I leaped from one to the other. My feet slid on the sodden wood, and I windmilled my arms to keep balance. When I'd righted myself I paused, listening. The watcher was still moving.

The timber shifted a little as I ran down its length. A mess of fallen boards crossed the center of the room. I clung to the timber and slid over the edge. Carefully I dropped down onto the boards. Mud and broken glass lay thick around them. I hastened across, my breathing coming quick and ragged as I picked each careful step.

One of the boards slid out from under me. I hopped to another, hoping it would hold. The planks clattered. I froze and listened.

The watcher stopped. I bent my knees and huddled as close as I could to the ground, envisioning the fastest way out of the building and back home.

Then the watcher started up again. I gave him as much lead as I dared before continuing across the ruin. I reached the other side just as he approached. I breathed a little more easily. Now I could keep up with him for certain. I concealed myself behind a pile of rubbish and waited for him to pass.

At the same time, I heard more footsteps from the other end of the street. Quiet boots, low voices, a sharp laugh. Looters. Most criminals in Edme were driven by desperation, but lately more sordid individuals had come to the city. They were violent men who followed rumors of abandoned treasure-vaults. I hesitated in the shadows. Before I could decide what to do next, the watcher darted straight for my hiding place.

As I had guessed, he was a human man. The moonlight robbed his form of color, but it seemed his skin was a light brown shade similar to my own, and his hair and eyes were both dark. He pressed against the wall and slid down to conceal himself behind the refuse pile I was using. I held my breath and, for a wild moment, thought he might not notice me.

Then the watcher looked down and saw me crouched next to him. His eyes widened.

The sounds of the looters grew louder. I put my finger to my lips and shook my head.

The watcher nodded and kept silent. The looters came abreast of us, three of them dressed in dark clothes with weapons held openly in hand. They carried empty packs strapped to their backs, waiting no doubt to be filled with artifacts of pre-Revolution Galt. The watcher held still next to me, so tense I could almost hear his muscles hum. After a dreadful minute, the looters passed by into the darkness.

The watcher let out his breath in a sigh and straightened. He was short for a human, less than twice my height. "I appreciate your silence," he whispered.

"I've no wish to run afoul of that type," I replied. "You take a risk being out so late."

"As do you." He looked me over. "You've been following me, haven't you?"

I clenched my hands. The man had good ears to have heard me, and I had lost any element of surprise. I readied myself to run, but risked a direct question first. "You were watching the Mirford estate. I want to know why."

The watcher smiled. He crouched down to put himself at eye level with me.

"I was looking for you."

Coming Next Week: Moral quandaries and dark magic in Chapter Two of "The Seventh Execution."

Amber E. Scott is the author of "The Swamp Warden" and several chapters in "The Compass Stone: The Collected Journals of Eando Kline," as well as numerous Paizo RPG products such as Heart of the Jungle and Halflings of Golarion. She writes from her home in Canada, where she lives with her husband, Jason, and her two cats, Dabu and ZugZug.

Art by Mike Capprotti.

A Passage to Absalom

By Dave Gross

Click here to read this story from the beginning.

Chapter Two: Dry Sherry

"Please, Captain, you must see it from my perspective."

Captain Qoloth brayed so vigorously that the top of his close-shorn head bumped the ceiling. The Katapeshi stood several inches taller than I and doubtless carried thrice my weight on his broad frame. His prominent jaws and bristly whiskers suggested a parent among that nation's hyenafolk, though my studies at the Acadamae suggested that such a hybrid was categorically impossible. Considering the bestial odor of his fur-clad body, I reevaluated my understanding of the term "impossible."

"Do you know, my half-elven friend, what it is that I most enjoy about being captain?" Qoloth smiled, revealing long canine teeth. "It is that everyone else aboard my ship must see things from my perspective."

"Very well." My station was no advantage so far from my native land, even had I chosen to announce my Chelish origins on a vessel flying the crowned white lion of Taldor. My attempts at reason had failed to move Captain Qoloth, who noted with perfect logic that the Lacuna Codex had been stolen before I came under his protection by boarding his ship. Thus, I was reduced to begging the most meager concession. "Will you at least grant me permission to question the other passengers?"

"Talk all you like. Just remember, there is no magic aboard the Lion. And keep your boy out of the other cabins."

Radovan bristled at the dismissive term. It mattered little to him that he had, in fact, been spotted attempting to pick the lock of Shadya's cabin to search for the missing tome.

"Very well, Captain. Thank you for your time."

Arnisant awaited us on deck. A sea breeze ruffled the hound's pewter-gray coat, but the sun's warmth assuaged the winter chill. The wolfhound's eyes flicked toward Radovan before settling on me. I bade him heel as we strolled the deck, careful not to intrude upon the labors of the crew.

The Lacuna Codex had to be somewhere aboard the Sea Lion. Under other circumstances, I would appreciate the captain's insistence that none of his guests were to be subjected to physical or magical inspection. For the exorbitant price he charged for passage, one expected a modicum of privacy while traveling between Taldor and Absalom.

Yet someone had absconded with my property, and the thief had to be one of my fellow passengers. Apart from the crew, who had been nowhere near my luggage before the theft, there were only six others aboard. In his own coarse manner, Radovan had already searched Shadya, the Qadiran woman who had lifted my purse at the wharf. While not eliminating her as a suspect, Radovan's "inquiry" left five other likely suspects.

Lord and Lady Neverion seemed innocuous, but it is my business to dispel seeming. The wealthy Menas Neverion began life as a butcher, gradually expanding his business until he had accumulated sufficient capital to speculate on imports. Desna favored his investments, and eventually he bent his vast fortune toward his ultimate goal: the title, hand, and lands of the widowed and impoverished Lady Charikla. Had catastrophe withered their holdings? The stolen Codex was worth a fortune to the right buyer.

Or to the wrong one.

Pekko and Jaska were dwarf merchants conveying cargo to Absalom. They too took the air, their breath forming clouds as they walked arm-in-arm on the far side of the deck. Pekko threw us a jaunty wave. He was a gregarious sort with bells and charms tied in his red-brown beard. Jaska was his opposite in almost every regard, disagreeable of countenance with a sooty smudge of a beard and an angry canker-blossom overtaking his left nostril. He was the one who seemed most concerned with the safe handling of their cargo, the nature of which I had not yet discovered. Did either of these ostensible traders harbor a lust for rare tomes?

"Pekko is likeable enough, if something of a lush. But is his jovial exterior a front for something more sinister?"

The young elf called Murviniel had revealed himself to be a Pathfinder aspirant, as I had surmised. Once he overcame his trepidation, he asked whether I was, as he suspected, "the famous" Venture-Captain Varian Jeggare. Accustomed as I am to idle flattery, I was surprised that his admiration sounded genuine, if born of innocence. Any active Pathfinder would know that my once-flourishing reputation had paled. In fact, my latest excursion had proven a failure except for the discovery of the now-missing Lacuna Codex. Did Murviniel hope to steal for himself the prize that would win back my former status?

The creak of salt-encrusted hinges interrupted my reverie. As the portly Menas Neverion held the door, his delicate wife emerged from below decks. She squinted at the white sky as the breeze ruffled the various furs of her stole. In her arms shivered a pair of tiny dogs that must have arrived within their baggage. Arnisant lifted his snout to catch their scent but remained obediently at my side.

"I bet you could eat both of those little rats in one bite, couldn't you, Arni?" Radovan scratched the back of the hound's head.

"Please," I said. "Do not confuse my hound by using a diminutive of his name."

"Arni's not confused," said Radovan. "He's smarter than he looks, like you always say about me."

"Considerably smarter, I hope. All the same—"

"There you are, my dear fellow." Menas Neverion bustled toward us, extending his hand to grasp mine as if I were some common broker of fortunes. I countered his unseemly greeting by offering a curt Chelish bow. He withdrew the offending appendage and fiddled with a button on his fur coat.

"Your Excellency, my husband wishes to invite you to sample his sherry this evening," said Lady Neverion. She stroked a finger across the heads of the tiny dogs cradled in her arm. They trembled and strained their little necks for a view of Arnisant. "If the sherry pleases the foremost count of Cheliax, it should dazzle the connoisseurs of Absalom."

While I had taken no special pains to conceal my identity, I had not expected to be known among the other passengers. Only Murviniel had recognized me, and I now wondered how. Certainly my name was well known among members of the Society, but my image was not so commonly distributed. Even setting aside that question, either Murviniel had identified me to Lady Charikla, or else some other intelligence allowed her to identify me by title.

Lady Neverion anticipated my question. "We were never formally introduced, my dear Count. I glimpsed you once, some years ago, during a procession in Oppara. You cut quite the dashing figure among the Chelish emissaries. I pray you won't think me forward when I say you appear quite unchanged."

"My lady is most kind," I replied with a more courtly bow than I had offered her husband. Menas appeared undisturbed by the attention she shone upon me, but I could not return the compliment, for I had no recollection of the lady. My most recent visit to Oppara had occurred more than forty years earlier, when I served a minor role in a diplomatic gesture following the revolutions in Galt and Andoran. Unless some magic were responsible for preserving her appearance, Charikla must have been little more than a child at the time of my visit. A sudden eructation drew my attention. The sound emanated from my hound. Arnisant gazed up at Charikla's little dogs, who yipped in fear. With a sign, Radovan directed him to move farther away. Charikla cradled her darlings to her breast.

Before I could frame an apology, Menas spoke again.

"Do be a good fellow and join us for a drink before supper." He glanced to the side and waved at Pekko as the dwarves completed their latest circuit of the deck. Pekko waved back, but sour-faced Jaska tugged him down the stairs to the cabins. Menas added, "We've invited everyone, and I promise I won't be stingy, even though it's very expensive stuff."

Lady Neverion glanced away from her husband's crass remark. Radovan cleared his throat to cover a chuckle. Even to one raised on the streets of Egorian, the pretensions of this merchant lord were risible.

"I would be honored," I said.

"And do bring your man," he added. "I've invited that Qadiran girl. What do you think? They'll add a bit of color."

Menas grinned, awaiting my approval. His wife's eyes narrowed as she considered my bodyguard. Radovan smiled without revealing his teeth, but I knew he was stifling the urge to wink at her. That was wise, for Lady Neverion was doubtless unaccustomed to including hellspawn or pickpockets in her social gatherings.

"We should be honored," I said.

"Don't bring your hound, of course. My lady wife's precious little creatures are not among the hors d'oeuvres." He leaned in to whisper, "Not that I'd mind the quiet afterward!"

Radovan snorted. Charikla turned away, murmuring assurances to her noisy little dogs until Menas offered her his arm and escorted her around the deck.

∗∗∗

We arrived at the Neverions' cabin twenty minutes after the appointed hour. I wished to observe the dynamics established among the other passengers in my absence. Also, it would not do for a count of Cheliax to stand awaiting the arrival of those of lesser status.

The chamber was larger than I had expected, even considering the high price Captain Qoloth charged his passengers. Not even the enormous master of the ship had any need to stoop beneath the seven-foot ceiling. His evening clothes included a hyena-pelt cape that only exacerbated his resemblance to the hyenafolk.

For the occasion I had chosen an embroidered coat to wear over a linen shirt with laced cuffs. Radovan's leather garb was barely presentable, but none of my clothing would fit his wide chest. I insisted that he wear a soft gray half-cape I had made for myself in Caliphas.

The Neverions appeared well appointed as usual, all fine furs and tasteful jewelry, the selection of which I attributed to Lady Charikla rather than her husband. Menas laughed as he poured another drink for the jocular Pekko, who held two large wine goblets rather than the dainty sherry crystals held by the other guests. Despite the effort to appear unconcerned, I could see Menas wince slightly as he calculated the cost of every drop he poured for the seemingly insatiable dwarf. The dwarves had donned gray waistcoats over fresh linen shirts, but Pekko had already managed to stain his cuffs while quaffing sherry from both goblets. Judging by his rosy cheeks and the ever-increasing volume of his voice, he had already imbibed plenty, and he had a bottle of his own nestled into one of his trouser pockets.

I started toward the group, but then I heard Radovan's intake of breath. I followed his gaze to the other side of the cabin.

Shadya appeared less a thief and more a lady in loose silken trousers draped as sensuously as a skirt over her long legs. Over a beaded shirt she wore a brilliant azure vest of crushed velvet, its stiff fabric somehow failing to conceal the curves of breasts and hips. Subtle patterns appeared in the fabric as she moved, betraying its fine quality. Either Shadya was an exceptionally successful thief, or else she picked pockets for the thrill of the act.

Radovan straightened. Before he could take a step toward the woman, she lifted her chin and turned away. Radovan jutted his jaw, deterred for now.

"Captain Jeggare?"

Murviniel appeared at my elbow. Alone among the guests, he appeared out of place. His robes were the color of old sailcloth, and his tri-corner hat was unfashionable even in Andoran where it had once been popular. His only ornament was a cheap brass ring on which was stamped the emblem of the Pathfinder Society.

"There's only one captain on this ship, by Abadar!" Qoloth's voice thundered across the cabin, but his wide grin belied his threatening tone. He drained his glass and held it out for Menas to refill. The trader obliged, tugging at his tight collar as the captain joined Pekko in guzzling his expensive sherry.

"While we are aboard ship, you must address me as Count Jeggare."

"I beg your pardon, Your Grace."

"'Excellency' is the traditional honorific."

"I'm sorry, Your Excellency."

Radovan moved away, but not before I saw him roll his eyes.

I waved away Murviniel's apology. It is acceptable to dispense with formality in the field, but the young elf was not yet a member, only an applicant to the Society.

"How is it that you recognized me?" I asked.

Murviniel lowered his eyes. "The truth is, Your Excellency, you are my idol."

"Your what?"

"My hero," he said. "You travel the world and uncover secrets no one else has ever found, even other Pathfinders. My copy of your Bestiary of Garund has fallen to pieces, I have read it so often. I want to be just like you."

"Your words are…gratifying." It was now my turn to feel flustered, but before I could recover my composure I saw Menas Neverion pull at his collar again, this time with far more force. The man's face had turned dark red. His eyes bulged, the veins darkening as they spread toward his iris.

Beside Menas, Pekko peered into his goblets, one after the other, glassy-eyed and seemingly oblivious to the events around him. Charikla recoiled from her husband, her face a mask of revulsion as she realized the extent of his distress. Qoloth squinted suspiciously at the choking merchant before reaching out to steady the man.

"Help him!" cried Charikla. Jaska grabbed Menas and eased the man to the carpet. The others all moved at once, some toward and others away from the fallen merchant. I pushed through the crowd and felt the man's throat.

"Too late." I said. "He is already dead."

Coming Next Week: Theft turns to murder, and an elegant ship becomes a dangerous prison in Chapter Three of "A Passage to Absalom."

Dave Gross is the author of numerous Pathfinder Tales novels and stories. His adventures of Radovan and Jeggare include the novels Prince of Wolves and Master of Devils, the Pathfinder's Journals "Hell's Pawns" and "Husks" (published in the Council of Thieves Adventure Path and the upcoming Jade Regent Adventure Path, respectively), and the short stories "The Lost Pathfinder" and "A Lesson in Taxonomy." In addition, he's also co-written the Pathfinder Tales novel Winter Witch with Elaine Cunningham.

Art by Mike Capprotti.