Borrin stopped smiling. “My family’s older than the kingdom, and if anyone’s a sorcerer-come-lately it’s Morben with his questionable antecedents and his rough-and-ready magic.”
“And, anyway,” I said to Xander, “you were none too fond of him, either. You were quite public in your hatred for him once he published that paper about the error you made in your Treatise.”
The bald man glared at me. Borrin was laughing again. “And you, Camalyn?” Borrin said. “Why did you despise the estimable Morben? Because he told the school board that you were an aging spinster with a poisonous mind and a dried-up heart? Because he told them no female should ever be head of Norwitch Academy, but if they were going to make that mistake, they should at least choose one who could claim to be a woman.”
Audra snickered. Dernwerd and Xander looked embarrassed for me. I looked at Borrin and wished him dead. “So one of us killed him,” I repeated, “and we all had a reason. Now we have to determine who had the chance. I want each of you to write down a diary of where you’ve been since midnight last night, with names of witnesses who can substantiate your claims. I will begin the investigation.”
“What about you?” Borrin said. “You have the skills, and you have the temper. Who will investigate you?”
I pointed at Audra. “Let the womanly woman of the group have that privilege,” I said coldly. “Though you may all give her whatever assistance you desire. I expect your reports by this afternoon. Now you can go.”
–
All four of them were quick to turn in accounts of their recent activities, and I handed over my own schedule to Audra when she came by my office. I spent a little time reading their reports, but in truth I didn’t have much hope that I would learn anything. A good wizard can appear to be in two places at one time; even a bad one can set up a spell in a remote location so that it’s triggered by an action or a phrase. How could I possibly check their alibis and prove definitively that one of them was responsible for this crime? Or even-interesting thought-that two or more of them had been involved?
I shut my eyes and leaned back in my well-padded chair, reviewing the case. Well, to be truthful, I had had more reason than any of them to want Morben dead. He had recently gone to the school board to complain about me-my attitude, my abilities, my age-and to suggest himself in the role of headmaster instead. I don’t suppose any of them knew that I had managed to audit his entire presentation illicitly. I had planted a magical seashell in the council room and linked its listening ear to another shell set up in my office. It was like being in the room with the rest of them without actually having to see their stern and self-righteous faces. I found myself disliking the board members as much as I disliked Morben.
But I hadn’t included that information in the report I gave Audra.
Which led me to wonder what the others hadn’t told me.
Going on pure instinct, I’d have said the likeliest killer was Audra herself. Morben had lusted after her ever since she’d joined the Academy, and being stalked for more than forty years could wear on the patience of the sweetest woman, which we all knew Audra was not. Moreover, she had always wanted to teach his specialty classes in Illusions and Transmogrification, but he was not about to give them up, so she was stuck with Travel and Time Manipulation, which were useful though much less glamorous skills. Distaste and envy could have combined to make her want to see Morben dead.
The men had fewer incentives, I thought. Dernwerd, in any case, was a whiny and ineffectual man who might smolder with hatred for a hundred years before he brought himself actually to lash out at someone. Though I’d seen him level a mountain once, with utter grace and precision, so I knew he had more power than his personality might predict. Xander never seemed to pull his head out of his books long enough to develop any kind of emotional reaction, good or bad, to anyone else alive, so I found it hard to believe he would have nurtured enough animosity to hunt Morben down. Borrin, though. He was smart enough, good enough, and nasty enough to kill a man, and the insult to his family name would probably have been sufficient to send him seeking revenge.
I wrote them all down on a piece of paper, in descending order of probability: Audra, Borrin, Dernwerd, Xander. After thinking about it a minute, I squeezed another name between Audra’s and Borrin’s: Camalyn.
That still left Audra as the most likely murderer.
–
We spent two days canvassing the students and checking Morben’s bedchamber and classrooms for any kind of evidence, but found nothing that incriminated anyone. There was no point in suspending school any longer, so we allowed classes to resume the following day. The school board members were all unhappy that the murder was still unsolved, but frantic to resume the educational process so parents didn’t start pulling students out. Therefore, none of them made a fuss when we opened the classrooms again.
All was relatively serene for a week, and I began to grow a little more cheerful about the whole thing: Well, Morben’s dead, and we have a murderer in our midst, but that killer has done us all a favor, really, so maybe we should just let the whole thing go and get on with our lives. Unrealistic, you’ll say. Absolutely, I’ll agree.
About ten days after Morben’s death I was heading down the hall between my Alchemy class and my Protective Spells seminar when I heard a sound of hysterical shrieking. Of course, I ran in that direction, as did the other five hundred people on the school property. I noted that Audra came puffing up from the southern stairway, and that Dernwerd and Xander arrived at the same time, as if they had been consulting together when the cries were raised.
The commotion was coming from Borrin’s Animal Languages classroom. We rushed inside as if by hurrying we could affect the outcome of events that had already been put in motion. Naturally, we could not.
The scene greatly resembled the one from ten days earlier. Students cowered against the back wall of the room and a wizard lay dead on the floor, face contorted in horror, hands clamped around his own throat. But this time I was not about to let myself be thwarted by the spell. I muttered a command of my own, and the body remained intact. No smoking pile of ashes. Gruesome though it was, we would be able to examine the corpse for evidence.
The other three wizards had come to stand beside me and were staring down at Borrin with many emotions on their faces, none of them grief. They were angry, and they were afraid, for what can kill two wizards can kill three, or six. I raised my voice to address the students. “Clear the room, please,” I said. “The professors and I must talk.”
As soon as the door had closed behind them, the accusations started.
“You!” Dernwerd screeched, pointing at Audra. “You did this! I was with Xander all morning, I know he and I are innocent, but where were you before you came running up to investigate the alarm?”
“I was in the archives with many junior professors nearby,” she said icily. “I did not speak to any of them, but I’m sure one or two will remember seeing me there. And as for the two of you being guilt-free-who’s to say you didn’t execute this little scheme together? I would think that would be a nice, convenient way to operate.”
Dernwerd boggled at her. Xander shook his bald head. “And who’s to say it’s only the three of us who might have engineered this death?” he asked quietly. “For who saw Camalyn before she arrived on the scene? Where had she been earlier in the morning?”
“Yes, Camalyn!” Dernwerd exclaimed. “Explain your actions, please!”
“I would be much more likely to dismiss you than kill you if I wanted to see any of you gone from here,” I said in a hard voice. “But it is very clear that we now have a murderer in our midst who is working his or her way through the senior staff. One of the four of us. Trust me, I want to identify and destroy this person, but my first priority is safety-for the students at this school and the master wizards who remain alive.”