Elaine Cunningham: Realms of Mystery

The man in the saddle twisted and ducked frantically, almost hauling Rhauligan off into thin air, but the merchant clung to him with fingers of iron as they burst through a closed gate, wood flying in splinters around their ears, plunged down a lane, and charged into a knot of men dipping buckets in a garden pond.

Someone screamed, and for a moment there was something yielding beneath the mount’s pounding hooves. Rhauligan had a brief glimpse of the war wizard standing calmly in their path, casting another firequench spell at the Hall with careful concentration.

The horse veered to avoid this unmoving obstacle, slipped in ferns and loose earth, and caught its hooves on a low stone wall. Bone shattered with a sharp crack. Their mount screamed like a child in agony, kicked wildly at the sky, and fell over on its side, twisting and arching. It landed on a row of stone flower urns that shattered into dagger-like shards-and ended its keening abruptly.

An instant later, a flying Rhauligan fetched up hard against an unbroken urn. Its shattering made his shoulder erupt in searing pain.

As he rolled unsteadily to his feet, gasping, he saw drawn swords on all sides, the furious face of Lord Jalanus glaring down-and then a sudden, blindingly-bright white light as the war wizard unhooded a wand.

“You set this fire, thief!”

The shout was close at hand; Rhauligan flung himself forward into a frantic roll away from it without looking back to see how close the blade seeking his blood was.

Sharp steel whistled through empty air, very close by. Rhauligan came to his feet, sprang onto the ornamental wall, and spun around to face his foe. The man who’d been in the saddle lurched toward him, hacking at the air like a madman.

“You set this fire!” Immult Greiryn shouted again, missing Rhauligan with a tremendous slash, so forceful that it almost made the seneschal fall over. “Slay him, one of you! Cut him down!”

“No,” said the Lord Justice, in a cold, crisp voice that seemed to still the sound of the fire itself, and made men freeze all around. “Do no such thing. This man lies. The merchant is innocent.”

Wild-eyed, the seneschal whirled and charged at the war wizard, his blade flashing up. Jalanus Westerbotham stepped back in alarm, opening his mouth to call for aid-but bright steel flashed out of the night, spinning end over end in a hungry blur that struck blood from Greiryn’s sword hand, rang off the seneschal’s blade like a hammer striking a gong, and was gone into the flowers in a trice.

Lord Jalanus muttered something and lunged forward with sudden, supple speed, thrusting his empty hand at Greiryn as if it was a blade. The blow he landed seemed little more than a shove, but the seneschal staggered, doubled up as if a sword had pierced him through the guts, and crumpled onto his side, unconscious.

The war wizard bent over the man to be sure he was asleep. Satisfied, he looked up, snapped, “Bolyth! The wire-this man’s thumbs, little fingers, and big toes bound together. Then stop his bleeding, and watch over him yourself.”

As his ever-present, most trusted guard lumbered obediently forward, Jalanus Westerbotham turned his head, found Rhauligan, and said shortly, “A good throw. My thanks.”

The merchant sketched him a florid bow. The lips of the Lord Justice twisted into a rueful smile.

Guards were crowding in around them all now, pushing past the servants and noble guests. “Lord,” one of them asked hesitantly, waving a gauntleted hand at Rhauligan, “shouldn’t we be arresting this one too?”

The war wizard raised one cold eyebrow. “When, Brussgurt, did you adopt the habit of deciding for me who is guilty, and who innocent? I’ve had a wizard eye on this man for most of the evening-he’s most certainly innocent of the charge of fire-setting. I suspect his only crime was learning too much…for the seneschal to want him to go on living.”

“So who slew my daughter?” a darkly furious voice demanded. Its owner came shouldering through the last rushing smokes of the dying fire, with the other two noble lords and their white-faced, staring daughters in tow. Lord Hornsar Farrowbrace’s eyes were like two chips of bright steel, and his hand was on the hilt of a heavy war sword that had not been on his hip before.

“Master Rhauligan?” the war wizard asked. “You tell him.”

The merchant met the eyes of the Scepter of Justice for a long, sober moment, nodded, and then turned to the angry noble.

“The seneschal,” he said simply, pointing down at the helpless, waking man who was being securely bound with wire, under the knees of three burly guards.

“The Paertrover gold is almost all gone, and Greiryn was the only longtime family servant with access to it. Lord, I fear your daughter lies dead this night solely because Greiryn’s a poor shot. He’d accounted for the coins flowing out with bills and ledger entries that only one man could be certain were false: his lord and master. He meant to slay Lord Eskult while Shamril’s attentions kept him standing more or less in one place, a clear target that an old veteran missed.”

Lord Farrowbrace growled wordlessly as he looked down at Immult Greiryn, who cowered away despite the burly guards between them.

“But what of the ghost?” Lady Lathdue Huntingdown protested. “It’s not just some tall tale from Crimmon! The servants have all been saying..

Rhauligan held up a hand to stop her speaking, went to where the horse lay, and tore open the laces of a saddlebag.

Gold coins glittered in the hand he held out to her. “The last of Lord Eskult’s wealth,” he explained. “This wretch at our feet has already spent or stolen the rest. He had help from at least one man, the castellan of the vault-whose bones are no doubt yonder in the heart of the blaze, wearing the seneschal’s armor or chain of office or something to make us think the flames have claimed poor, faithful old Greiryn.”

Coins clinked as he tossed a second saddlebag down beside the first, and then a third. The last yielded up a plumed helm and ajar of white powder.

“The grinning ghost of Taverton Hall,” Rhauligan announced to the gathered, peering folk, holding them up. “You were all supposed to flee, you see, not rush to see who’d fired the-”

Someone screamed. Someone else cursed…slowly, and in trembling tones. Folk were backing away, their faces pale and their fearful stares directed past Rhauligan’s shoulder.

The turret merchant turned slowly, already knowing what he’d see. He swallowed, just once, when he found that he’d been dead right.

A breeze he did not feel was stirring the plumes of the helm worn by the grinning face of the head that was floating almost nose to nose with him. Lord Farrowbrace started calling hoarsely on god after god and Rhauligan could hear the sounds of boots whose owners were running away.

The dark eyes of the Grinning Ghost of Taverton Hall were like endless, lightless pits, but somehow they were meeting his own gaze with an approving look. Rhauligan stood his ground when ghostly shadows spilled out from the helm, flickered bone-white, and seemed to struggle and convulse. After long moments, some of those shifting shadows became a ghostly hand, reaching out for the Harper.

Scalp crawling, Glarasteer Rhauligan did the bravest, and possibly the most foolhardy thing in his life. He stood his ground as that spectral arm clapped his own arm firmly.

The cold was instant, and bone-chilling. Rhauligan grunted and staggered back involuntarily, his face going gray. There was a loud, solid thump beside him, and when he looked down he discovered that it was Lord Justice Jalanus Westerbotham, sprawled on his back in the mud, fallen in a dead faint.

Trembling just a trifle, Rhauligan looked back at the ghost-but it was gone. Empty air swirled and flickered in front of him; he was standing alone in the moonlight.