"Who made such an allegation?" the duke asked.
The officer swallowed and said, "Vargussel, Your Highness. They fight to the death even now."
The color drained from the duke's face, and he found it difficult to draw in a breath. His eyes met his daughter's, and she looked the same.
"To the Trade Quarter then," the duke said, "and let's see for ourselves."
Regdar rolled the rod over in his hands. It was surprisingly heavy, heavier even than his greatsword. To Regdar's untrained eye it appeared to be made of solid platinum. The metal alone was worth a king's ransom. The power to kill in a way that left no trace and cut whatever spiritual connection a soul had with its body must have cost even Regdar's heart sank. His blood ran cold. He began to sweat and shiver at the same time.
The victims couldn't be brought back.
Families of the murdered young men had tried. They employed the most powerful priests in the city, who had tried every prayer to no avail. Whoever was killed by that beautiful, platinum abomination stayed dead.
Naull would stay dead.
All because a grizzled, old mage lusted after the hand of a girl less than half his age. Or was it the duchy that would be her dowry that Vargussel sought? Did it matter? Not to Regdar.
"Hate…" he whispered.
He slipped the rod over his shoulder and wove it between the straps of his pack and scabbard again.
Hate, he thought.
Bending down, he retrieved his bow from the tumble of smoking, rotten timbers.
Hate enough, Regdar thought.
He drew an arrow, nocked it, and pulled back the string as he turned. He looked quickly through one hole in the blasted wall, then another, until he saw the wizard. He needed only a moment to aim through the de facto arrow loop before letting fly.
As the arrow whizzed through the air, Regdar thought he heard it whisper, "Hate," in its wake. In truth the arrow did not speak but the wizard did, mumbling and hissing his way through another incantation.
The arrow popped the wizard's image like a bubble, and it was gone. The others continued their chant.
"Four decoys left," Regdar whispered, "then I'll show you just how much I can hate."
As he spoke, he nocked another arrow, drew, aimed, and – was surrounded by a stone wall. The construction appeared out of thin air, circling him in a tight cylinder of rough, gray stone. Regdar drew in a sharp breath, waiting for something worse but in the space of a heartbeat, the wall didn't come down on him, the space didn't fill with fire, acid, or lightning. With the position of the floating wizard fixed in his mind, he lifted his bow up and loosed the arrow.
Regdar dropped the bow and jumped, his arms stretched out over his head. He barely reached the lip but found himself hanging by his fingertips from the top of the stone cylinder. As he lifted himself up, he scanned the sky. When he saw only four identical Vargussels floating, casting another spell, Regdar knew his last arrow had sailed true. Only three more images to go before the real Vargussel would be revealed.
Regdar pulled himself up high enough that one knee touched the top of the wall as the wizard's chant came to an end.
The wall began to collapse. No, not collapse but melt, droop, like a stick of butter thrust into an oven.
The knee that Regdar had hoisted atop the wall sank into cool mud. He tried to jump over the edge but, when he pushed off with his hands, he succeeded only in burying them up to his elbows in mud. He slipped back and managed to get his left hand free. Looking down, he saw that the whole cylinder was sinking into a formless mound of gray-brown mud. His feet twisted around each other, his right arm pulled painfully past his side and behind his back. The mud pressed relentlessly against him, drawing him down.
Regdar grabbed the end of the platinum rod with his left hand and slipped it free of the straps. It wasn't easy with the mud drawing it down but fortunately the liquefying stone didn't cling to the metal. He drew the rod like a sword and held it over his head in an attempt to keep it, and his arm, out of the mud for as long as possible.
Finally, the slow, crushing descent came to an end. Regdar found himself buried up to the neck in thick, claylike mud. He couldn't move, could barely breathe.
Regdar watched the wizard and his three duplicates slowly descend from the sky. The instant their feet touched the rubble-strewn ground, all four of them strode toward Regdar with a purpose.
All four of them were laughing.
As accustomed as she had become to magical travel, Maelani found her hands shaking and her knees weak as she stepped into the circle with her father and a pair of his elite guard. It was rare that she and her father were together outside the confines of the palace. The duchy could survive the death of either one but losing both would cause a power vacuum and probably a civil war.
Still, she was surprised at how easy it had been to convince her father to take her along with him to see the "fight to the death" between Regdar and Vargussel. He had seen in her eyes, she was sure, her love for the lord constable. She made no effort to mask it. Her choice was made, and she knew her father not only concurred but had bluntly maneuvered Regdar in front of her in the first place.
As Maelani waited for the assembled officers and palace staffers to activate various and sundry magical items that would speed them on their way and likely cloak them in layer upon layer of protective magic as well, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine why Vargussel would make such a scandalous, unbelievable claim. Who of sane mind could believe that Regdar was the murderer?
The truth hit Maelani like a bucket of cold water poured over her head. Her eyes popped open and she turned to her father to tell him.
Before she could speak, the world turned upside down, went black, then gray, then inside out. Lights flashed. She heard a sound like a song, thin and reedy, but devoid of melody, and felt a sprinkle of chill rain.
She realized her eyes were closed. When she opened them again, they had arrived.
The sky was a dark, threatening gray, dripping cold drizzle. Wind whipped down the narrow Trade Quarter street and chilled Maelani to the bone. She wrapped her arms around herself and blinked, getting her bearings after the brief slip from reality.
Her father was already moving, already talking, already issuing orders. City watchmen gave hurried, clipped reports, deferring to the elite guard, bowing, walking backward. She followed, an elite guardsman with a halberd dogging her tracks. She'd walked under guard before and knew that the man with the polearm was well-trained, well-paid, and fiercely loyal. He was there for the express purpose of trading his life to protect hers. The thought made Maelani wonder how many men there were in the city, in all the duchy, who would do that. How many already had?
"Father," she called through the press of watchmen and soldiers. "Father!"
The duke turned to glance at her but kept walking.
"Father," she persisted, "it's Vargussel."
He glanced back at her again and asked, "What are you saying?"
"It's Vargussel," Maelani repeated. "He is the murderer, not Regdar."
The duke didn't miss a step. He kept on, following the watchmen around a half-collapsed wall. It was then that Maelani detected the faint stench of decay, of rotten meat, that was draped over the place like a shawl. She put a hand to her lips but quickly took it away.
"It was because of me," she said.
This got the attention of several of the men-at-arms, if not the duke himself.
"It was because of-" she started to repeat but stopped when they stepped around the wall and saw Regdar buried to his neck in mud and four identical wizards marching toward him with grim determination.