Ren and Tarl looked on in awe as the floor continued to crackle with sparks at Cerulean’s footsteps. Ren looked to Shal, wondering if it was safe to enter yet, and when she nodded, he eased gingerly, silently into the room. By the time Tarl and Shal entered, Cerulean was glowing like a fiery beacon, but there were no more sparks.
So bright was the light from the horse’s body that they didn’t need to bother with a lantern. The door shut silently behind them before Tarl could reach back to close it. They stood inside a great rhombus-shaped room, obviously a meeting hall, with solid, heavy benches set three rows deep in a horseshoe shape. A broad, low, ornately carved rosewood lectern stood at the opening of the U. Bizarre trophies, heads of beasts not even Ren had ever seen alive, were mounted along the room’s walls.
“I didn’t know that Denlor was a teacher,” said Shal. “Ranthor always spoke of him as—”
Suddenly, from all around the room, came whispers of the name “Denlor,” as though each bench were occupied by a row of students, whispering their teacher’s name. As the whispers began to die, a red robe whisked into the room from the doorway opposite the lectern. It, too, seemed to be whispering, but in an exaggerated, breathy whisper that made it distinct from and more chilling than the others. “Denlor … I am Denlor,” it breathed. The tattered robe was draped over nothing but blackness, a blackness that defied the brilliant blue light from Cerulean that bathed the room. The robe fluttered menacingly toward them. Tarl’s hammer shone like Cerulean, as did Ren’s dagger.
“Don’t touch it!” said Shal, her tone icy. “Denlor’s spirit does not rest; he guards his tower even in death. As long as we do no damage here, he will do us no harm, but touch that robe and you’re dead.”
Tarl and Ren lowered their weapons so they were at the ready but not threatening. Both were already convinced that Shal possessed a mastery of the magicks of this place that was beyond their understanding.
“I think Ranthor was killed in a spell-casting chamber, upstairs somewhere. It’s strange and frustrating—from Denlor’s vision, I know where everything in this building is, but my only image from Ranthor is of his death.”
“I don’t mean to be gruesome, Shal, but we’ll find the place of his death soon enough,” Ren said. “For our own safety, we need to check out every room. There are signs of struggling and scuffling all over this place. Look at the way those benches are misaligned there, the broken door frame over there.” Ren went on, pointing as he spoke. “See the bloodstains on the floor … there and there? We don’t know who or what’s been here, or when, for that matter.”
Shal nodded. Her every instinct was to press up the stairs fearlessly and find the murderous beast still lurking near her master’s body, as it would happen in some stilted morality play of the type traveling thespians used to perform in the streets when she was a child. But she knew that somewhere upstairs she would find Ranthor’s days-old body and, only if she was lucky, some sign of the creature that killed him. “That doorway off to the left.” She pointed. “We can look in there first.”
Shal continued speaking but in a hushed tone, her words no longer addressed to Tarl or Ren. “What do you mean, you’d rather not go in there? … So what if they occasionally served horsemeat? It wasn’t yours. Go on, scoot! We don’t want to fry on these high-energy floors.”
The horse stepped forward, somewhat indignantly, Tarl thought, if horses can be indignant, but the floor of the kitchen he entered was normal, and the horse’s brilliant blue light started to fade almost as soon as it had passed through the doorway.
Tarl didn’t notice, however. He was lost in a muttering conversation with himself over Shal’s behavior with Cerulean. “Right. Familiars do talk to their masters, I suppose. And their masters must talk to their familiars and not to their friends.” He followed almost aimlessly behind Ren, who was following Shal. It wasn’t until he felt the gentlest hint of a chill brush his back that he realized that the red robe was fluttering along behind him like some misplaced shadow. “By my oath, I wish I didn’t feel so powerless when I’m with this woman,” Tarl muttered, then shook his fist at the ghostly cloth. “Get back a few feet, will you? You give me the creeps. I’d gladly try some clerical magic beyond my means if I thought it would make you flap away.”
The phantom obediently backed off a few steps, and Tarl felt a little better when he turned to resume following the others. Ren was already scouting the huge mess-style kitchen, examining the implements and foodstuffs left out on the cutting block and beside the great baking oven, silently opening doors to a pantry, a storage room, and a root cellar.
“I think I’ve found the cook,” called Ren from the root cellar. “I need some light.”
Cerulean’s glow was fading fast, and he wouldn’t have fit down the tight staircase anyhow, so Shal pulled out her light rod, which immediately began to glow with a constant blue-amethyst light. She held it high at the top of the stairs, then started down herself. “Here … can you see?”
“I can see fine now,” answered Ren. “She was murdered, all right, about three days ago, I’d say. That’s a burn mark from a cord that was pulled taut around her neck. It’s the work of someone proficient, if not a pro.”
Ren came up the stairs carrying the dead woman, a small figure with the dark coloring found in the far southwest reaches of the Realms. He laid her already stiff body on a long counter in the kitchen. “From what I can see, she was pushed down the stairs after she was killed. There’s still a ladle in her hand. My guess is she never even saw her murderer. We’re talking about a really brave assassin here.” Ren felt like spitting to clear the bile that rose in his mouth at the thought of the kind of vermin that would kill with so little cause.
“From the way things are laid out there,” Ren went on, pointing to an assortment of dishes, cooking utensils, and foodstuffs, “I’d say she had already finished preparing a meal for her master and guests and was working on food for the servants, if that matters any.”
Tarl spoke a prayer for the woman, soliciting Tyr’s aid in helping “… another victim of the darkness that rules the outskirts of this city” to find her peace.
“The way those rope marks pull up on her neck doesn’t look to me like the work of a kobold or anything else that short,” Ren mused.
“Whoever or whatever killed her, may Tyr help her find the solace of her patron god.”
They left the woman, agreeing to return and bury her when they left. The door across the hall led to what were apparently servants’ quarters. There were two beds, and beside one they found a young man, dead. He’d obviously seen his attacker and struggled with him—or it. He had fallen victim to repeated stab wounds to the chest. Once again, Ren noted the nature of the wounds and suggested that the killer was tall, perhaps as tall as Tarl.
“I grieved only for my teacher,” said Shal. “It never occurred to me that others died with him.” She was near tears and stood clenching and unclenching her fists as she stared down at the bloody corpse. She spoke to no one in particular, pausing between words. “When Denlor sent his message in the crystal, he was completely overwhelmed by monsters and humanoids. But Ranthor and this poor young man and the cook … you’re suggesting they were killed by another human being. I—I couldn’t see the attacker, you know—only an arm, stabbing over and over. I just—just assumed it was a hobgoblin or one of the other beasts that were attacking the towers.”
“Shal, I’m not saying for sure that it was a man,” said Ren quietly. “I’m saying I think it was. But at any rate, they wouldn’t be any less dead if it was a hobgoblin or a kobold that killed them.”