The Death Ray

25

Vargussel's body was locked in a spasm of conflicting emotions as he watched the lord constable go berserk.

Blood pounded in the wizard's head, and the scrying spell darkened, faded with every fevered heartbeat. Regdar's huge sword became a blur in the fog, moving so fast and so hard that whirls of vapor spun around its tip. The shield guardian hit at the blade, blocked the slashes, hacks, and jabs as best it could, but managed to turn away less than a third of the lord constable's furious attacks.

The scrying spell darkened again but didn't brighten. Regdar thrust his greatsword through the shield guardian's chest, burying the blade in steel up to the hand guard. The construct's arms quivered at its side. Its chin turned up, and its head slowly lolled to one side.

The scrying spell lasted just long enough for Regdar's bellowing battle cry to echo in Vargussel's head, just long enough for the wizard to see his shield guardian fall, the death ray still clutched in its dead hand.

The spell was gone, and Vargussel's sight blurred, spun, then came to rest in the very real surrounds of his private study.

The wizard clenched his teeth and slammed a fist onto his desk. The lord constable had not only survived but had destroyed the shield guardian. The death ray was in an enemy's hands, and all of it would lead back to Vargussel soon enough. He had very few options left, but all of them spilled into his head at once.

Already muttering the words to a spell that would grant him the gift of flight, Vargussel grabbed his staff and pouches and ran from his study to the nearest exit, a high balcony he rarely visited, where he took to the sky.

Ahead of Vargussel was the stinking sprawl of the Trade Quarter and the only man in New Koratia who could destroy him.

Regdar dragged Naull's body out of the fog and smoke and sat with her. With tears streaming down his face, his body racked with pain and sick, desperate grief, all he could do was sit for as long as it took him to start breathing again. He didn't bother speaking. She couldn't hear him, even if he could put what he felt into words.

She couldn't hear him but there were people who could.

Regdar reminded himself of his position, of where he was, and of the resources at his command. Naull died in the service of the duke. She was the future wife of the lord constable. That had to confer some privileges.

Regdar dragged himself to his feet, sheathed his greatsword, and hefted the limp body. He hated the idea of slinging her over his shoulder like a sack but it was the easiest, fastest way to get her away from the slaughterhouse-and he had to get her out of there. The lord constable had no idea how Naull had so suddenly come between him and the behemoth. He had to assume that she used her magic to appear between them in some silly effort to shield him. He had never seen her do that before but her spells always struck Regdar as a confusing bag of tricks, sometimes unreliable, frequently running dry at the worst times. Ultimately, one of those spells allowed her to make a rash decision that cost her her life.

Regdar scanned the huge room and saw that the fog was fading away. An old, stone ramp rose from the center of the room, ending in a fall of timbers, brick, and plaster at the ceiling. The bottom of the ramp emptied into the wooden chutes. The place was a slaughterhouse, and the cattle must have been driven down the ramp from the street above, through the chutes, to be killed at the end of each passage. Their carcasses then were hefted up on meat hooks and rolled along tracks to the butchers. Underground, the disturbing sounds and smells of the killing floor would be hidden from the city around it, and the whole affair would take up less valuable space.

He turned toward the ramp, seeking the most direct path back to the street, but stopped long enough to spare a glance at the thing that had murdered so many of the city's best people.

It was a made thing, not a living being, put together mostly with steel. It was dead, whatever that meant in its case, but there was no blood. Its only adornment was a steel carving on its chest, inlaid with two rubies. The rubies formed the eyes of what might have been a dog, a bear, a horse, or some other animal's face. Regdar's eyes stopped on the carving. He'd seen it before. That stylized, simple, but distinctive shape with its two rubies was familiar, but from where?

Regdar stepped closer to the dead construct and his eyes settled on the platinum rod still gripped in its remaining hand. That bar was pointed at him when the flash went off-the flash that killed Naull.

"It's not the behemoth," Regdar muttered, thinking aloud.

Groaning with pain, and careful not to drop Naull's body, Regdar squatted and slid the platinum rod out of the dead thing's hand. It wasn't easy but he managed to secure the rod in the straps of his pack, against his scabbard.

The behemoth wasn't the murder weapon, he concluded silently. The behemoth wielded the murder weapon.

Regdar turned to the ramp again with Naull hanging from his shoulders, and he started climbing. Already her body was growing cold.

The jumble of structures so far below him confused Vargussel, and it took him a precious few minutes more than he expected to find the slaughterhouse. When it came clear below him, Vargussel dropped from the sky onto the street in front of the dilapidated structure. From above, Vargussel could see that the slaughterhouse was crawling with watchmen. Most were just milling around, waving on the occasional passerby who paused to wonder what they were doing.

A few of the watchmen took note of the wizard slowly descending from the deep gray sky, drenched in the rain that fell around him. They drew their swords but stepped back, afraid and on guard. One of them, a sergeant, stepped forward and as Vargussel's feet came to rest on the cobblestones, the watchman approached him. The wizard didn't recognize the sergeant but the man seemed to know him. The sergeant sheathed his sword and gave a shallow, fast bow.

"Are you in command here?" Vargussel asked.

"No," the sergeant replied. "I mean, no, sir, not really. My men are charged with containing this corner of the building."

"Do you know who I am?" the wizard asked.

"Lord Vargussel?" the sergeant replied.

"Correct," said the wizard, "and I have been sent by the duke with new orders."

"Sir?" the sergeant asked. "That's not usually the way we-"

"Did you see me fly here, Sergeant?" Vargussel interrupted, letting his impatience show in all its force. "Of course this isn't usual but I was sent as quickly as my spells would carry me because the news is grim indeed."

"Sir?"

"The murderer has been found out," Vargussel said, "and he is in the basement of that building, even now carrying out his most heinous crime to date."

The sergeant smiled dully, and said, "That's fine, sir. Lord Constable Regdar himself is down there already. You don't have to worry about-"

"I will decide what I worry about, Sergeant," Vargussel snapped, "and the duke will decide what he worries about. What worries us both now is the lord constable himself."

"Sir?"

"He is the murderer, son," Vargussel said. "It's Regdar!"

The sergeant's mouth opened, which only made him look more stupid.

"Tell the others!" Vargussel shouted, and the sergeant jumped.

As the watchman relayed the scandalous lie about their lord constable, Vargussel stepped closer to the building. He'd heard something just as the sergeant ran off-wood scraping on stone? When he leaned closer to the stinking ruin, he heard it again.

It sounded like someone was digging around in there.

When dust blew into Regdar's lungs, he coughed. When rusty nails scored his flesh, he winced. When splinters nicked his eyes, he blinked. When his muscles protested under a particularly heavy fall of wreckage, he grunted. When Naull's body slipped in his grasp, he held her tighter.

That's how he dug himself out of the ruin below and into the ruin above.

Some of his men, whom he only vaguely remembered stationing there, stood around him in a ring. By the looks on their faces, he thought he must actually look like the grave robber he felt like.

"Help me," Regdar grunted.

One watchman stepped forward, his sword drawn.

"Take her," Regdar said.

The man didn't move.

"What's wrong with you?" asked Regdar as his feet finally came clear of the rubble.

"Lord Constable…" the watchman said, but seemed unable to finish.

The watchmen all looked at each other as if waiting for someone to make the first move.

Footsteps ground toward him through the ruin. Regdar looked up to see the duke's wizard stomping at him with purpose.

"Vargussel…" Regdar started, trailing off when his eyes fell on the amulet.

Swinging from a chain around Vargussel's neck was the same stylized dog with ruby eyes. The sign of the behemoth. The sign of the death ray. The sign of the murderer.

Regdar's head spun, and his vision went red with rage.