Gunnesmithing was a holy thing in Lantan, Snorri had once told me. Thanks to novelty dealers and preaching Gondsmen doubling as religious merchants, gunnes were now showing up everywhere in civilized Faerun. At least, that's what was said by some of my other wizard friends, who made their opinions on this clear by the way they grimaced and spat on the ground when the topic came up.
"Ah," Civilar Ardrum breathed, rising to his feet to stare at the gunne collection. "Excellent. Clever of you. Three, four, five, six, seven-the old ones are here." He swung about, saw Snorri's work desk in a far corner of the room, and stalked over to it at once. He reached down suddenly and drew his dagger, then used the steel tip to lift the scattered papers and scrolls stacked there. He flipped one stack aside and revealed yet another wooden plaque with mountings for another gunne-but no gunne on it.
I heard the civilar exhale from across the room. His face worked briefly as if he were angry. Then he used the dagger tip to carefully lift the plaque and turn it over.
Something was written on the back. I could see the shifting letters in the light, almost legible.
"Allow me," I said, coming over. Almost by reflex, I pulled a little prism from my breast pocket and began the words of the first spell every wizard learns. As I finished, the shifting letters cleared and fell into place.
" 'Received from Gulner at the market,' " I read, " 'two doors west of the Singing Sword, the ninth of Kythorn, Year of-'"
"He had it, then," Ardrum interrupted. "He sent a message this morning that he had made another purchase, but he had picked up the wrong package. He wanted to examine it and get the opinion of a friend"-Ardrum glanced at me-"before bringing it to the watch station tomorrow morning. He said the device was a new type. He was quite excited about it." Then a new thought dawned, and Ardrum spun about to stare again at the gunne-the eighth one in the room-in the blood pool.
"He was spying on gunne traders? Are you saying that he was killed because he picked up the wrong trinket at a store?"
The tall halfling restrained himself from lunging across the room for the pistol. Instead, he said nothing for perhaps a minute, staring across the room as if hooked by my words. When he spoke, his tone had changed. "These are not trinkets," he said softly. "They are not toys. These are weapons, Formathio, clever ones that are turning up all over. They are meant to kill things-beasts, monsters, people. Anyone can use them. They punch through armor like a bolt through rotted cloth. They can be raised, aimed, and fired in a heartbeat. One little ball spit from the mouth of a gunne can drop an ogre if it hits just right. Any dullard with a gunne, a pocket of fishing sinkers, and a pouch of smoke powder could cut down a brace of knights, a king, or an arch-wizard." v
Civilar Ardrum slid his dagger home in its belt sheath. These gunnes are new and strange, and we of the watch neither understand them nor like them. Your friend understood them and liked them. He was worth a god's weight in gold. He knew who to contact to get samples, who was making them, who was buying them, and what they could do. There's quite a market in the strangest places for smoke powder, did you know that? Your friend heard rumors of other devices that worked like Lantanna gunnes but were more powerful or had worse effects. Someone was improving these gunnes, someone very smart who worked fast, perhaps with a hidden shop or guild. This person was bringing lots of these new gunnes into Waterdeep. The Yellow Mage was hunting for one of these devices. We were willing to pay anything for it."
He reached down and, after a moment's hesitation, picked up the overturned plaque. "He could create or remove the fish illusion with a word, am I correct? After the gunne was mounted here?"
I nodded. "I enspelled eight plaques for him. He paid for them in advance, two years ago. This would be the last of them."
"He was going to buy more from you," Ardrum said, staring at the plaque. "He liked your work. Talked about you all the time."
I looked away, aware again of the smell of roasting boar-and an empty place inside me. Leaving the civilar alone for a while, I went into the tiny kitchen Snorri kept, found his crate-sized magical oven, and waved a hand over the amber light on top. The light went off. It would cool down on its own.
I looked around the kitchen and back rooms, saw nothing of interest, quietly cast spells to detect everything from hidden enemies to magical auras, saw nothing else of interest. The living room was similarly bare of clues. Ardrum was now kneeling at the dark pool and holding the bloodstained gunne in the fingers of his left hand. His eyes were closed. I noted that magic radiated from a ring on the civilar's right hand. No doubt the ring had a practical use; the civilar was a practical sort. It couldn't be as good as my Unfailing Missile Deflector, though.
Ardrum's eyes abruptly opened as I watched. He put down the gunne as if caught taking coins from a blind man's cup.
"What did you find out?" The question was based on a guess-a guess that the civilar had just performed some supernatural act, likely a divination.
The halfling sighed. "Clever. Very clever of you, of course, but clever of the killer. This gunne was never fired. A gnome made it in Lantan, a compulsive little gnome who always worried about his mother. Nothing interesting has ever happened to this weapon, and no one interesting has ever handled it. It is not the gunne that was used to kill your friend. It's a mirage, a false lead. I would guess the killer unwrapped it and left it here after the murder." Ardrum looked up. For the first time since I'd seen him, he was smiling-not by much, but it was a smile. "How was that for a wild guess?"
"A psychic," I said. "You amaze me." The truth was that little would amaze me now with Snorri dead, even a psychic watchman. The Lords of Waterdeep no doubt recruited trustworthy psychics at every turn, though such had to be as rare as cockatrice teeth.
"A birth talent, and a limited one," said Ardrum in dismissal. The smile vanished. "I'm sensitive to the emotional impressions left behind when someone touches something. I feel what was felt, see what was seen. Like your early training in burglary, it has served me well in my line of work. And like you, I do not like to discuss my talent. People would find it unnerving to know that I could read their personal life with just a touch. I put my trust in your goodwill to keep my secret. I would not discuss it except that time is short and your wits are acute."
Ardrum pulled the gloves from his belt and carefully put them on. I recalled that he had not shaken my hand, and he had used his dagger blade to examine things on the desk. His control over his special talent was likely poor, then, and likely it was too that he did not relish peering into other people's lives-particularly if those people had just been violently killed.
I wondered what Ardrum saw in his mind when he picked up a bloody dagger or garrote, checking for clues to a murder. I quickly shook off the thought.
"It is late, but we must be off to the market," Ardrum said, collecting his watchman's rod and light-casting sticks. He wrapped the sticks up as he put them away. The room gradually fell into near-total darkness. "We must pick up a package there, and speak with this Gulner named on the plaque. I think he came back for his merchandise, given that the Yellow Mage said he'd received the wrong item, and left a substitute instead. Are you ready, good Formathio?"