Dana Stabenow - Powers of Detection

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.”

“And what do you propose?” Audra sneered. “That the four of us stay always in sight of each other, watching and waiting? A bad idea, I think! Whoever has the strength to kill us one by one might easily have the ability to kill three of us at once. We should at least scatter throughout the halls and make his life more difficult.”

Xander gave her a searching look. “So-you would rather be unobserved, Audra, would you?” he asked slowly. “What actions are you hiding? Why so secretive?”

“Why so trusting?” she shot back. “Perhaps I feel I have a better chance to protect myself if you three bumblers aren’t nearby to hamper me.”

“For the moment, I see no practical way for us to shadow each other day and night,” I said, mostly just to stop the bickering. “Those of you who wish to keep a fellow company may do so. If you want to spy on each other,” I added with some malice, “I will not stop you from doing that, either. I will examine the body and see what evidence it might yield.”

“Oh, no, you will not!” Audra exclaimed. “I will stand here and watch every threadbare clue you lift from Borrin’s corpse, or every false clue you plant there when you think none of us are looking.”

Xander and Dernwerd exchanged uneasy glances. “Yes-she’s right-I think we had better stay too,” Dernwerd said apologetically. “In case one of us notices something another one overlooks-”

“Fine. Stay. And help,” I snapped. “Let us get this autopsy under way.”

–

But we found nothing helpful except the glimmer of magic. And even it bore no signature we could trace. Eventually I summoned the gardeners and told them they were turned gravediggers. Borrin would be buried beside the trellis of calysian roses that bloomed through all seasons. A better end than he deserved, actually, but it did not seem to be the time to be raking up past differences.

–

None of us heard from our murderer again for three more days. Again, I had permitted classes to resume, though everyone crept through the hallway with a sort of hunched and hunted gait, as if expecting at any moment horror would incorporate out of the very air. I was fairly certain the students and the staff had no reason to worry, but I was just as sure our renegade would eventually strike again at one of the senior wizards.

I was right. The killer came for me.

I had stepped outside for a breath of winter air and was walking along the lovely stone promenade that was attached to the second story of the school and overlooked the gardens. Little to see in the gardens at that season but hardy evergreens and hopeful brown stalks that, in a few months, would be animated by an even more ancient and powerful magic than mine. I always loved gardens in winter. They made me believe that even old and ugly and withered creatures possessed the potential for beauty and rebirth.

I had completed my first pass down the promenade and was just pivoting to make the return trip when I felt the unmistakable frisson of sorcery skitter across my skin. I paused, one foot on the floor, one foot lifted to step.

All around me, unfolding and refolding in infinite permutations, I saw reflections of myself caught in the exact same pose. I knew instantly what had happened, of course. Someone had cast a multiplying curse on me, assuming that I would never have gone out in the world unprotected, but also assuming that I had arrayed myself in a different kind of enchantment altogether. For instance, it might be supposed that I had summoned an artillery spell that was designed to fire off damaging shots as soon as it was activated by someone else’s magic. A multiplying curse goes on and on and on without end-I would have been igniting so many deadly explosions that within minutes I would have died in my own detonations.

Never had my assailant expected that I would have kept my simple old reflecting spell in place. So this replicating curse, while impossibly annoying, was completely harmless. All it did was show thousands of copies of me, millions, putting down my foot and looking around, trying to gaze through my own reflections to determine who had accosted me.

I admit I was not surprised when I was finally able to make out Audra standing on the promenade before me, her eyes closed, her lips moving, as she quickly invoked a different bit of magic. I moved rapidly myself, tossing up a wall of protection that should be able to frustrate even the most virulent curse, for a while at least. Then, through my own still, watchful horde of sentries, I peered at her, trying to guess what she might do next.

She was gesturing more forcefully. Her red hair was unbound and whipping in an ensorceled wind, and her gold robes clung to a body that was more voluptuous than I remembered it being. I had always believed Audra to be constructed of bones, spite, and magic, but clearly dislike had colored my perceptions.