Realms of Magic

GUNNE RUNNER

It would be a grand night in Waterdeep. An old friend, the Yellow Mage, had invited me over for First Tenday dinner; he'd do all the cooking, and he was a master. I knew from experience this was also his chance to show off his latest toy, if he had one, so I made sure I wore something bulletproof but comfortable. No sense in my spoiling the evening by dying unexpectedly.

I needed dependable full-body protection instead of a metal chest plate or displacer cape, so I poked through my ring box until I found my Unfailing Missile Deflector of Turmish. It was my special prize, a little gold band that could turn aside anything short of a flying tree trunk. Even better, it was subtle and wouldn't offend the Yellow Mage. I didn't want him to think I didn't implicitly trust his handling of smoke-powder weapons, never mind that incident three months ago when he blew his priceless Shou Lung clock into little blue glass shards with a Gond-gunne. The bullet missed me by three feet at most. We all make mistakes.

The Yellow Mage's given name at birth was Greathog Snorrish, so I readily understood why he never told anyone else in town about it. He apprenticed late in life, the moment he came through Waterdeep's gates, and could now toss only a pair of spells a day. Still, he was a wizard, and that, for him, was what counted.

Minor pretensions aside, Snorri was really just a kid at heart, which was why everyone in the North Ward of Waterdeep who knew him liked him. He was a big puppy, into everything and always excited at his latest find. A sloppy dresser, yes, and not much of a wizard, but he could cook, he told the best stories, and he had a great laugh. You can understand how intent I was at getting to his place on time that evening, and you can understand, too, why the world just wasn't the same when I found out he had been murdered.

It was an hour before twilight when I arrived at his street, but I could see fine; I had light-enhancing lenses in my eyes. I rounded the stone-paved corner onto Saerdoun Street, clutching a gift bottle of Dryad's Promise, then saw the knot of townsfolk outside Snorri's doorway. They were peeking through the shutters into his home when they weren't talking among themselves in hushed tones. Some of the gawkers glanced at me, then turned away, not wishing to stare at a stranger. Two of the onlookers, though, seemed to recognize me from previous visits. As I came up, they nervously stepped back and grew silent.

Something bad had happened. I knew it instantly. I clutched the brown wine bottle like a good-luck charm. Maybe things will be fine anyway, I thought. Snorri and I will have dinner, tell our tales, pour a few goblets, trade spells The little crowd fell back from the Yellow Mage's door as it opened. Someone inside came out. An old woman gasped and put a hand over her heart.

A Waterdhavian watchman carefully stepped out, his green cloak muffling the clinking of his golden armor. He held the handles of a stretcher with a body on it. Someone had tossed Snorri's hall rug over the body, but the corpse's right hand had fallen down from under the rug, and it had the bright topaz ring of the Yellow Mage on the middle finger, just where Snorri always wore it.

Someone else could be wearing his ring, I thought dumbly, stopping. Snorri could just be drunk. It could be his twin, if he had a twin. If he was really hurt, then I stepped forward. "Your pardon," I mumbled to the watchmen. My chest was tight, and I barely got the words out. The constables saw me and hesitated, eyeing me for trouble. I pointed to the shape under the hall rug and tried to frame a sentence.

The watchman at the figure's feet understood and simply shrugged. "Take a look," he said tiredly.

I reached down with my free hand and pulled the hall rug from the body's face. I had the idea that none of this was really happening, so I thought I could come away unscathed.

I had a moment of trouble recognizing the Yellow Mage, partly because he was so expressionless and still, and partly because so much rust-colored blood was caked over his lower face. Most of it had come out of his mouth and nose. His blue eyes were open wide, dull and glazed in the way of all dead people.

I pulled the rug back farther. Streaks of blood were flung across Snorri's neck and upper chest. His yellow shirt was soaked in red. In the middle of his chest was a bloody hole the size of my thumbnail, like a little red-brown volcano crater. It punched through his sternum and probably went all the way through the rest of him. Bits of pale bone stuck out within it.

I stared at my dead friend Snorri for maybe a minute, maybe five, my head swelling with mad plans to bring him back to life. Money, I thought; sure, I could get money, lots of it, then a priest, and all would be fine. Haifa dozen local temples would be glad to raise the dead for cash.

The constables were very patient. Perhaps they could tell that I was a wizard, and so were inclined to humor me.

"I'm sorry," said a watchman at my left elbow. I started; I hadn't noticed her before. The gray-eyed elf grimaced and brushed a lock of red hair from her face, then went on. "We were able to summon a Dawn Priest of Lathander who was nearby, but when the priest attempted to restore him to life, the spell did not take. I am truly sorry."

I blinked at her, looked down at Snorri, and realized what she had just told me. The spell did not take. Snorri was staying just as he was. He was gone.

Suddenly I didn't need to look anymore. I gently pulled the rug back over my friend's quiet face, tucked him in, and whispered good-bye. The elven watchman nodded to the others, then the three made their way off toward the guard post at Saerdoun and Whaelgond, only a dozen houses up the street.

I stood stupidly, not knowing what to do next. I'd seen a few dead men when I'd been with the city guard a decade ago. I could tell that Snorri had been dead only a few hours, maybe six at most. I'd spent most of the afternoon preparing a security report for a client in the Castle Ward who constantly worried about thieves breaking into his ugly little mansion. During what point in my writing had Snorri died? How did it happen? I couldn't figure what that ghastly hole in his chest had resulted from; it wasn't a knife wound, and-oh, of course. His latest toy, or one of the older ones. He'd screwed up and shot himself. Snorri, I thought, you dumb bastard, you and those damned smoke-powder toys of yours.

The watchmen had pulled Snorri's front door shut, but it had opened a bit. I looked through the dark doorway into the old-style plaster-and-timber home. Without thinking about it, I walked over to the doorway and went inside. I closed the door after me but did not lock it. I saw no need.

Snorri's home was a nice but unexciting one-story, cramped and cluttered inside, but still pleasant-if you were an average guy. A little kitchen, a privy, a tiny bedroom with only a floor mat and quilt, a stuffy web-filled attic, and a living room the size of the rest of the ground floor put together. Snorri was no decorator, either: a half-dozen badly stuffed fish mounted on the living-room walls, rickety chairs held together by leather thongs, three round tables with cracked legs, some filthy rugs, and a dozen huge cabinets and shelves to hold all of the collectibles he'd gathered. The perfect home for the obsessed, confirmed bachelor.

The place smelled bad as I went in. There was roast boar in the air, coming from the kitchen, but it mingled with the stink of dead, stale blood. I remembered the latter odor from the old days. The air even tasted bad, and I swallowed to keep my stomach down.

I looked away from the line of mounted fish and noticed a spot of cracked plaster on the wall between two shelf cases. I moved closer to get a better view, but looked down just in time to avoid the wide, dark pool on the floor and the Gondgunne that lay in the middle of it. The Gond-gunne, no doubt, with which he'd carelessly shot himself.

"Mystra damn you, Snorri," I muttered, shocked at my sudden heat. "Mystra damn you. You knew better."

"No one heard a thing, you know," said a voice behind me. I barely kept myself from whirling around, instead extending my senses to see if I was in trouble. The voice had a youthful but professional tone to it. A watch officer, likely.

"Nothing at all?" I said without looking around, as if commenting on the weather.

"Not a sound. Not even us, and our post is just a stone's toss up the street. Curious, I think." The speaker paused, perhaps sizing me up. "If you were a friend of this gentleman, you have my sorrow and sympathy. Nonetheless, I ask that you please do not touch anything until we've completed our investigation."

His condolences lacked something-a sense of heart, I thought. He was unmoved, disinterested. I calmly turned around. A short, lithe figure in gold chain mail and green cloth stood idly by the now-open front door. A three-foot metal watchman's rod hung lightly in the gloved fingers of his right hand. His curly black hair was the color of his high boots.

A halfling watch captain. A tall halfling, though. He came up to my sternum.

"My friend's house," I said. "We were going to have dinner."

"And your name is…" said the halfling.

"Formathio," I said. "Formathio, of Rivon Street."

"I thought I recognized you," the halfling said, nodding slightly. "You gave a talk for the watch officers last year on illusions and contraband. Your advice came in handy." He glanced past me at the Gondgunne on the floor. "Will you assist me in resolving this sad matter?"

I realized I was still holding the bottle of Dryad's Promise. I set it down by the wall beside me. "Of course," I replied. Of course I would.

"You must forgive my manner as we proceed," the half-ling said as he abruptly walked over and passed by me with a measured tread, his eyes scanning the darkening room. It occurred to me that he, like me, was having no trouble seeing in the poor light. "I never mean to be rude, but I wish to get to the heart of a problem as swiftly as possible." He suddenly looked up at me, chin high. "I am Civilar Ardrum, by the way."

He looked away again before I could respond. "Tell me about your friend, the Yellow Mage," he said, looking at the bloodstained floor and Gondgunne.

I collected my scattered thoughts. "I met him five years ago, when he came to Waterdeep from the south, from Lantan. I did a security check for him, of this house, and we became friends. We got together every so often to talk over things, to trade gossip about the order, trade spells and-"

"The Order of Magists."

"Yes, Magists and Protectors. He was… Snorri was…"

My thoughts came to a dead end. It hit me. I'd just said was. Snorri was really dead. For good. Forever.

Strange, I thought in my shock, that I have no intention of crying. How odd of me, and sad. My best friend is dead, and no one cries for him. I breathed the knowledge in, over and over again.

I don't know how long I was lost like that. When I looked up, Civilar Ardrum was eyeing me curiously. The room was almost completely dark.

"We should have light, if it will not bother you," he said. With a last look at me, he reached down and pulled open a pouch on his belt. A moment later, bright light spilled out of the pouch across the room. He lifted an object like a candle on a stand and placed it on a nearby shelf beside a brass paperweight. Clean white light streamed from the top of the short stick.

"Better," said the civilar. He pulled off his gloves, tucking them into his belt. "We have much to do and little time. I believe that the Yellow Mage's murderer may be about to flee the city, if he has not already done so. If you have any powers to aid our investigation, please tell me now, and let us begin our work."

"Murderer?" I repeated. I was doubly stunned. "His murderer?"

"Did I not say that no one heard any sound from this place?" The halfling was clearly irritated. "Yet he lay, clearly shot by an explosive projectile weapon. A girl selling scent packets found his door ajar and looked in, summoning aid. Five washerwomen gossiped outside not two doors from here for half a day and heard no sound of struggle, no explosion, nothing at all. As silent as a tomb, one said of this place. Yet the Yellow Mage died not earlier than noon. No wizard leaves his house door open and unlocked, even on the hottest day on the safest street. Do you?"

I opened my mouth-and closed it. "No, never," I said. Inside, I was still thinking murderer.

The halfling officer nodded with slight satisfaction. His manner was oddly comforting even if he was as empa-thetic as a stone. I looked around at the shelves, the furniture, the fish on the wall. A murderer had been here. "I received my training in the college of illusion," I said automatically, like a golem. "I worked for the watch ten years ago, then apprenticed myself and set up my own security-counseling business." I thought, then said, "To answer your earlier question, I believe I do have talents to lend you."

"Good." Civilar Ardrum knelt down to look at the Gond-gunne. He put his watchman's rod on the floor beside him, then pulled a small bundle from his pouch, unwrapped another magical light stick, and set it on a tabletop to his right. White light and doubled shadows filled the room. "You said you were once a thief, Formathio. When you gave your lecture last year."

"Yes." I added nothing, continuing to scan Snorri's jumbled possessions for missing or out-of-place items. I greatly disliked talking about the mistakes of my youth and how I'd paid for them. "The'knowledge has since helped me greatly in my business."

"So I would imagine. What were you hiding for your friend?"

I stopped and turned to the civilar. He was still examining the Gondgunne, though he had not yet touched it. "What?" I shot at him.

The halfling snorted impatiently as he looked up. "Any secret you hold keeps us from finding the murderer. I would think you would want justice and vengeance done as quickly as possible, and so send your friend Greathog Snorrish on to a peaceful rest."

Ardrum's remarks awoke a rage within me. Who was he, the little snot, to tell me that I… what?

"He told you his name?" My rage burned out in an instant, snuffed by yet another shock. "He never told anyone-"

And a new truth dawned.

Civilar Ardrum's lips pressed into a flat line. He looked up at me without blinking. He'd said too much, and he knew it.

"He worked for you," I breathed. "He was a watch-wizard. A secret watch-wizard." I understood now how Snorri always had ready gold for the best wines and foods, though he had so few spells and so little business from the order for retail spellcasting. But why had he never said anything to me about his work?

Ardrum looked down at the Gondgunne once more and was silent for a while. "He was very valuable to us," he said at last, without inflection. "He kept an eye and ear on various persons and groups, and he reported to the watch what he saw and heard. He was reliable in the extreme, always eager to serve, with a tremendous memory. He reported directly to me."

I felt I was losing my grip on the real world. I almost became dizzy. "Snorri was an informer? Who was he spying on? What did-"

"Formathio, I believe I asked you a question," Ardrum interrupted. "You helped him hide something. I must know what it was and where it is now. Answer me, please." The "please" was shod in iron.

I stared down at the watch captain, then turned toward the line of stuffed fish on the wall. I raised a hand toward them without warning and intoned a handful of words quickly, gesturing as if brushing away a fly.

The images offish faded away like blown fog. In place of each was an apparatus of wood and metal, most slightly shorter than my forearm from elbow to fingertips. They rested on hooks and struts on the wooden plaques that had once held dead carp, greenthroats, and crownfish.

It was Snorri's toy collection.

Though I had heard them called arquebuses, cavilers, or other things, Snorri called them gunnes or Gondgunnes. He acquired them from various specialty traders in his old country, Lantan. He thought the word "gunne" was a recent corruption of the name of Gond, the Lantanna deity called Wondermaker or Wonderbringer by the faithful. Gond oversaw inventions, crafts, and new things, and the inventive Lantanna had recently discovered the fine art of enchanting smoke powder and making "fiery arms" that spewed out small lead or iron bullets with outrageously loud reports. It was a magic that made my insides curdle, a weird and subtly frightening thing that simply fascinated Snorri.

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?"

A tiny shaft of light from a crack in a shuttered window fell on the back of Civilar Ardrum's head, revealing every loose strand of his hair like a halo around his shadowed face. And an obvious thing came to mind. Something I could do.

"Almost ready," I said. "I am going to cast a spell. Please stay back, and do not be alarmed at whatever you see or hear."

I recalled the proper procedure, then passed my arms, palms out, through the darkness before me. I whispered words into the air, then reached into one of the many pockets in my clothes. Pulling out a pinch of dust, I pitched it into the air before me and spoke a final word.

The room rapidly grew cold. Civilar Ardrum's boots scraped the wooden floor as he stepped back a pace. He had infravision, I guessed, the ability to see heat sources. Most halflings had it. He would now see a black column between us, about the size of a human like me.

"Shadow," I said to the black thing. "You see all that casts a shadow of its own. I demand one answer from you, then will release you to go your dark way."

A whisper reached my ears, so faint it could have been a sigh from a distant child. "Yes."

"A man was murdered here during the daylight." My voice almost failed me. I shoved aside the memory of Snorri, bloody and dead on the stretcher. "I command you, shadow, to reveal who murdered this man."

This was my own special spell, and no other living per son had seen me use it. My control over the shadow was good, so it posed no danger to me or to the civilar. In other circumstances, however, the shadow could have left us both frozen and dead on the ground, our spirits cursed to join it in endless roving of shadows and night.

Nonetheless, when I felt the shadow draw so close that the skin on my face burned and stung from its bitter cold, when I shivered from the absolute emptiness of it, I was in fear that my control over it was no more.

The shadow sighed once again. I imagined its words were spoken with a touch of glee.

"/ saw no one murder him," said the shadow, and was gone.

The air at last grew warmer on my face. My arms fell to my sides. No one? No one had killed my friend? Shadows had a way with their words; they loved to mislead with the truth. I wrestled briefly with the answer, then admitted defeat-for now.

"Let us go," I said to the civilar.

Outside, it was late twilight. The three watchmen had returned to wait there for their captain, guarding the doorway and keeping away onlookers. With their permission, I put a locking spell on the door and windows to keep the curious away; only the watch or a major wizard would have the resources to take the spell off at leisure.

Civilar Ardrum and I arrived at the market after a short and rapid walk. The other watchmen were summoning more of their fellows to meet us at our destination. We said nothing to each other along the trip, even as we came into view of the great, torch-lit market of Waterdeep.

We crossed Traders' Way and entered the long ellipse of booths that made up the market. Even now, after sunfall, vendors called out praises of their wares to passersby. Few shoppers were out this evening. I saw faint candlelight from the upper windows of the Singing Sword off to our left, on the market's far side, and we made our way there at an easy, steady pace.

"I thought I heard the dark thing you conjured up say that no one killed the Yellow Mage," said Ardrum in a low, conversational tone as we walked.:

I glanced around, saw no one close enough to listen in, then took a deep breath. "The shadow said that it saw no one murder him. It meant it saw no shadow of the murderer, so possibly the murderer threw no shadow."

There was a pause the length of a heartbeat.

"Invisible," we both said at the same moment.

"But the murderer would have become visible the moment he attacked the Yellow Mage," said Ardrum quickly. "A spell of invisibility is canceled the moment-"

"There are more powerful spells that would not be broken by physical violence," I interrupted. "And some devices will do the same. He could have stalked Snorri and… shot him. He would not have become visible."

The halfling almost came to a stop. "He could still be in the house, then."

"No," I said. "I checked. I used some of my spells and saw nothing."

Civilar Ardrum frowned and took up the pace again. Ahead, I could see the buildings to either side of the Singing Sword. Two doors to the west would be… the old Full Sails. In the darkness I could barely see the bare mast of the pinnace mounted on the flat roof of the two-story building. Fine liquors were once sold in bulk there to caravans, ship crews, and adventurers who wanted something, and plenty of it, to warm them on their voyages. Some of the liquor went bad and blinded its drinkers, and the owner had fled Waterdeep. I had no idea what the old shop was now.

We slowed to a stop at the front door. I noted it had a simple string-and-bar lock, and a worn one at that. The place looked dirty and little used. Civilar Ardrum unobtrusively walked the short length of the storefront, looking up and down at the closed window shutters, then walked back to me and shrugged.

A board creaked inside the building. The sound came from the second floor. Ardrum and I both heard it and froze, our eyes locked together.

The board creaked again. A footstep for sure. Ardrum motioned me back a step, tucked his watchman's rod under his arm, then pulled a piece of wire from his pocket and undid the lock with surprising deftness. I wondered if his childhood occupational interests had been anything like mine.

Civilar Ardrum looked up at me for a second and almost smiled, then pulled his short-bladed sword and used it to swiftly push open the door.

And we saw a previously unseen string attached to the back of the door. It pulled tight on a wide-mouthed pipe mounted on a short pole just beyond the door itself. The pipe swung slightly to point right at us. It clicked.

Agunne The white shock of the blast imprinted itself in my eyes, the little watch captain's body silhouetted as it was thrown past me, one arm flailing. I clamped hands over my screaming ears, deafened except for a whine so loud as to stab me in the brain. Small objects shrieked past me, clanging off metal and wood and rock and dirt. The top half of the door fell crookedly across the doorway. Dust whirled through the night air.

I was deaf but untouched. The Unfailing Missile Deflector of Turmish was working just fine.

I staggered back and then saw Civilar Ardrum writhing on the street, his clothes smoking. He tried to cover his face with his mangled arms and gave a brief wail of agony. I let go of my ears and went to him, kneeling at his side.

The light-enhancing lens in my eyes let me see the half-ling's condition in perfect detail. I almost vomited. He would be dead within the minute.

He turned his trembling face to mine. He still had one eye.

Very carefully, he raised a hand and pointed past me. He was pointing at the Full Sails.

Go, he mouthed. Then he eased back with a sigh. His eyes closed.

A crowd had gathered. More people were coming. There was nothing else to do, so I got up. I turned to look at up the Full Sails. Someone on the roof looked down at me, then quickly moved out of sight.

"No, you don't," I said to the figure. My right hand dipped into a pocket, pulled out a bit of leather made into a loop. Lifted by his own bootstraps, went the phrase. I stepped up to the building's base, spoke a phrase, and cast the loop upward. It vanished.

My feet left the ground. I rose toward the rooftop, mouthing the words of another spell. I wondered what the shouting people below thought. If they were smart, they'd be leaving about now.

The moment my eyes cleared the rooftop, I saw the bow of the little pinnace in front of me, what was left of it after years of wear from the elements and youthful vandals. I also saw a burly figure not fifteen feet away, holding what looked like a short Gondgunne. He saw me out of the corner of his eye, turned, raised his gunne in one hand, and fired. A white flash spat from the barrel; my ears rang again from the sharp thunderclap of the shot.

The bullet missed me, of course. I pointed my right index finger at him and finished the spell.

A long, slim missile zipped from my finger and struck the gunner in the chest, splashing as it hit. It knocked the gunner off his feet. As he fell on his back on the rooftop, he began to smoke like a wet rag on a hot iron stove.

As deaf as I was, I could still hear him scream. That acid arrow is a real piece of work.

I had pulled myself over the parapet and was mouthing the words to yet another spell when I saw the pinnace move. It rocked as if something had thumped against it. I stepped away from it, then saw a figure outlined against the starry sky, moving from the back of the pinnace forward, toward me. This guy had a gunne, too, a two-hander with a huge barrel. I had almost finished my spell when he fired. Strange, I thought in that moment, that he would aim at my feet.

I felt the solid thump as the shot hit the rooftop just in front of me. There was a huge flash of light, concussion, and fire-then rooftop, pinnace, sky, and city below spun in my vision as if I'd fallen into a whirlpool. I threw out my arms to right myself, willed myself to cease all movement. I halted in the air, now upside down and twenty feet above a flaming crater in the roof, just a hop away from the pinnace. That Unfailing Missile Deflector was my true love, but I hadn't counted on being flung into the heavens.

A new type of gunne. A gunne that shot bombs or rockets. I'd walked into a hornet's nest.

I slowly righted myself and descended, my immobilization spell ruined. Now I was intent on causing serious harm.

To my complete astonishment, the pinnace lifted free of the rooftop and came up to meet me.

I at least had the presence of mind to reach out and snatch hold of the worn bowsprit as it went by. I swung myself onto the deck and saw that the guy with the big-mouthed, bomb-firing gunne was coming over to greet me. Only now he had dropped the empty gunne and carried a large woodsman's axe.

I raised my hands and touched thumbs, fanning my fingers outward toward him. I loved this spell. It needed only one word to make it work. I said the word.

Roaring jets of flame shot from my fingers and covered the axeman from head to foot. He instantly turned into a man-sized torch. He dropped his axe and flailed at his clothing, his face, his hair. His shrill screaming proved that my hearing was finally getting a little better.

I waited for an opening, then lunged in at him and grabbed a slippery bare arm. He could hardly resist me; I appreciated that, having never been much for wrestling. With an effort, I wrenched his arm back and shoved him hard at the low railing. He stumbled, hit the rail, and went over the side. I didn't bother to see where he made landfall.

The air stank abominably, burnt and foul. I looked down at my hands, grimaced, and wiped them on my clothing. Some of the man's roasted skin had come off when I'd grabbed him. Throwing him overboard had been a kindness.

No one else was around. But the ship was still climbing into the night sky with increasing velocity. I'd never imagined magic like this. Walking low against the wind blast from above, I moved sternward until I found the door into the pinnace's little hold. I thought about the numerous spells I had left; I always traveled heavy. Better prepared than not. I picked out two or three I especially wanted to give to the guy in charge. Then I tossed a light spell into the hold and went below.

I felt I was ready for anything, but I suppose I wasn't. The hold was empty of everything except a marvelously ornate chair against the far wall, just twenty feet away.

I looked left and right, up and down, everywhere in the light from the spell. Nothing. Wind howled through the room, carrying off what little dust was left. Boards creaked as the pinnace continued flying up toward the heavens.

"Mystra damn me," I murmured.

"Allow me," said a rough, male voice from the direction of the chair.

I realized that my spell for detecting invisible things had ended some time ago.

A huge blast of white fire and light leapt at me from the chair. It was completely silent. It was followed in a moment by a second, a third, then a fourth, in a bizarre volley of soundless shots. I thought for a moment that an army of gunners was in the room with me.

When the firing ended, I blinked and looked around. The wall behind me was riddled with holes from the gunne shots. I guessed that I'd just been introduced to the new toy that Snorri got by accident: a gunne that fired several shots in a row. And without so much as a bang.

Out of nowhere, a gunne flipped through the air from the ornate chair, curved aside before it hit me, and bounced off the wall, falling on the floor before me. It was a weird-looking gunne. But I didn't care about that right now.

Thick smoke from the rapid gunne fire blanketed the entire room. The air had a thick, bitter, burned smell to it. Through the haze, I could make out the moving outline of a single large manlike being, sitting upright in the chair. He was cursing me mightily-in perfect Elvish.

Elvish? What more could I be surprised at this evening? But I was sick to death of surprises.

"It's my turn, Gulner," I said.

I shaped the air with my hands, mouthed a few words, pointed, and gave the invisible foul-mouthed gunner my own best shot.:

The normal version of the spell called "phantasmal killer" has its merits. It takes the victim's most deeply buried nightmares and shapes them into a single illusory entity, a monster that exists only in the victim's mind. The victim, however, believes the monster is absolutely real, invulnerable, and unstoppable. And he sees the monster come for him. If he believes the monster has struck him, the victim dies of fright.

After years of dealing with the sort of filth and scum that watchmen in Waterdeep know all too well, I had yearned for an improved form of that spell. I'd dearly wanted to pay back some criminal acquaintances for the suffering they had inflicted-on the public, on my friends, and on me.

Last year, I'd created that spejl. But I had never cast it until now.

Two things happened rapidly in sequence. First, the manlike form in the chair gasped aloud as the spell took effect. He had little chance to throw it off or resist its effects; it was extremely powerful. And it lasted for a full hour.

Second, everything simply went weightless, including me.

I banged my head against the ceiling and saw thousands of stars and comets. I felt I'd been tossed into the air by a giant. The room tilted as the roaring of the wind died outside.

The figure in the chair cried out hoarsely, then screamed as if he were dying-which he was. I had only a glimpse of him through the smoke, trying to ward off something. I never saw him again.

I felt now that I was falling. The wind's roar picked up, building rapidly to a great, bone-shaking thunder.

I'd made a mistake. The big guy in the chair must have been controlling the flight of the pinnace. In the process of killing the big guy, my pet spell had killed me, as well.

The pinnace rocked as it fell. Walls banged into me as I struggled to get out of the room, up to the deck. I still had my spell of levitation active, and I could drift down with the wind if I could get away.

I have no clear recollection of how I got out and kicked away from the falling ship. I was able to slow myself down almost at once and hover in the air.

Light from great Selune's silver orb fell upon cloud tops below me. I realized I must be miles and miles up. I had a last look at a tiny, dark ship dwindling rapidly away below me, a faint light shining from a door in its deck. It vanished into the distant clouds and was gone.

But the duration of my levitation spell was running out. I could mentally shut the spell's power down, but I'd fall like a stone. I'd never been this high before, nor had I even heard of anyone who had been this high.

"Okay," I said to myself, "I have one more levitation spell, so if I dispense with this one, I can cast the other one before I hit the ground, and everything will be fine. I just have to keep my head and hold on to the little leather bootstrap, and I can't forget any of the words or get the gesturing wrong or be too slow. It's been a grand night in Waterdeep, but I want to go home."

I went on like that to myself as I reached into my pocket and felt for the material component. I had one tiny leather strap left and pulled it out.

And dropped it.

I grabbed for it but missed. I twisted around and stared down into the moonlit cloud tops, seeing no trace of it now.

After I got my breathing under control again, I carefully pulled the leather cuff tie out of my left sleeve. I fashioned it into a loop, gripped it in my fingers until a bull could not have pulled it loose, and hoped the improvisation would not hurt the spell. I closed my eyes and dismissed the old levitation spell.

I went into free-fall again, the wind whipping around my body into every part of my clothes. I managed to turn facedown, into the rush toward the clouds. My eyes ran with tears from the wind as I watched the cloud tops grow steadily larger. Then I panicked and tried to start the spell. The wind made speaking impossible.

I tried to turn so that I fell on my back, faceup, but couldn't get it right and started to spin in the air. Nearly mad with fear, I shut my eyes and began the spell again. I must finish this spell, I thought, growing dizzy and nauseated from spinning. I made the gestures, uttered the words in a shout, and tossed the loop into the air. I opened my eyes at the same moment.

I saw clouds above me-clouds with the moon looking through them. Instantly my body began slowing down. I'd done it!

Then I rolled and saw a forest come up to hit me. I had been just a couple of seconds too slow.

As I heard it later, I lived because a bride ran off on her wedding night. The groom and his family and the bride's family were combing the woods by their farm, searching for the bride (who was hiding in the hayloft with her old boyfriend instead) when I fell through a large pine tree and crashed practically at their feet. Half of those present ran off, thinking I was a monster, and the rest wanted to kill me for the same reason. Fight or flight, the ancient question.

The one who approached me with a knife saw that I looked human enough and was very badly banged up, so they relented and merely tied me up to bring me back into Waterdeep, to deliver me to the watch in case there was a reward.

I came to in my own house, two days later. Every part of my body ached abominably. Someone dabbed at my face with a wet cloth.

"Excellent," said a familiar voice. "Bounces back like a professional. Once a watchman, always a watchman. Priestess, would you please wait outside for a moment?"

"You," I said through bruised lips. It hurt to even think about speaking.

The soothing wet cloth went away. Someone left the room as a pair of boots walked across a wooden floor, and Civilar Ardrum appeared in my vision. His face bore a number of pale scars across it, one of them crossing his right eye. "You'll be fine in a few days. The watch picked up the tab for the beetling spells. We found that little boat about two miles outside of town, to the east. Kindling. You wouldn't even recognize it. I didn't recognize the scattered remains of the guy in it, though he did have the most remarkable coded papers on him, which your associates in the order translated for us."

"How is it," I managed, "that you are here? Alive?" Ardrum held up his right hand and carefully pulled off the glove. A bright silver ring shone out from his third finger. His entire hand and visible arm were covered with healed-over scars, like his face.

"The Priceless Circlet of Healthful Regeneration," he said. "Found it in Turmish when I was younger. And your ring is…?"

I licked my lips. "Unfailing Missile Deflector." "Ah, so that was why the trap gunne did nothing to you. We are lucky that we are careful shoppers." "What about the papers? From the flying ship?" "From the spelljammer, you mean. You know about spelljammers? No? We'll chat sometime when you're well. The half-ore priest in the ship-yes, a half-ore, with lots of disguising bits to look as human as possible-was the ringleader of a smuggling group. They were bringing gunnes and smoke powder into Waterdeep and selling them to unsavory groups. They were also trafficking disguised gunnes from Lantan to the Savage North, apparently to humanoid armies there. The Yellow Mage was about to stumble across their whole operation. Then he got the wrong delivery, one of the special gunnes being delivered from wildspace. The new guns fire several shots in rapid sequence using clever springs and mechanisms. You could call them 'machine gunnes,' I suppose. The half-ore's had been enchanted for absolute silence. He was the Yellow Mage's killer. We burned his body so no one can bring him back."

I just stared at the halfling. "You're not serious."

"Ah, but I am," Ardrum said. "You and I broke the back of the operation and nearly died in the process." He frowned. "Of course, we haven't found the exact source of their supply in wildspace, but we have contacted the

Lords of Waterdeep, and one suggested that elements of a scro fleet left over from the Second Unhuman War might be in orbit around Toril. Sounds like a mission for someone else to handle, some burly heroic sorts but not us, the lowly foot soldiers against crime."

Scro, unhumans, wildspace-I hadn't a clue as to what he was talking about. "I need to rest," I finally said.

"But of course, and so you shall, good Formathio. So you shall. But do not be long about it. We will need your help in finding out how the gunne smugglers were disguising their shipments, and no one could tell us better than you, the expert in illusions. I'll be round tomorrow at noon. See you then."

He started to go. "Oh." He came back and carefully placed a bottle on the small table beside my bed, looking at it with a faraway gaze. "And when I return, we shall finish off your bottle of Dryad's Promise, which you left behind elsewhere, and drink a quiet toast in memory of fallen comrades and deeds long ago."

Civilar Ardrum looked back at me and actually smiled. "And a toast to those who have fallen-and survived." He patted the bedpost, then turned and quickly left me to the ministrations of the priestess and her fellows.

I had a million questions, but I was very tired. It had been anything but a grand night in Waterdeep. I closed my eyes, and dreamed of nothing at all.