Whiteport’s Canterly Wharf was without doubt the largest pier within a hundred miles. The structure reached out about five hundred feet into the water. It was supported by gigantic timbers cut from the forests lining the Lortmil Mountains. It had space for seventeen galleons on each side, and several smaller craft toward the shallows. At the end, three small buildings sat at the center of a fifty foot wide octagon. The wharf was lined with ships. At this time of night, few fishermen and sailors still walked up and down its length, but during the day the wharf was practically a town all its own. Jamison glanced over the edge of the pier, into the water. Here, large sea predators had adapted to man’s presence, and swarmed over each other whenever a fisherman tossed a cleaned fish into the brine. The water churned with teeth and scales whenever blood was in the water, and then calmed as the fish, sharks, and other things awaited the next offering.
He strolled to the end, looking all around for someone standing alone. He saw only people going about their business. He began to circle the end, and he passed the small buildings. His partymates lost sight of him from their place in the air behind him.
The curious young wizard stopped and stood, turning his head left and right. Where was this person? Then, he felt a horrible sensation, like the blood in his heart was trying to slow to a stop. He doubled over, groaning, and after a moment his blood began running smoothly again. He looked around and saw a woman hovering over the ocean, maybe forty feet away from him. Her finger was pointed at him and her face twisted with disappointment. She’d failed to kill him… with a spell called Finger of Death.
“TREACHERY,” Jamison yelled as he prepared to do battle. Behind him, Vek and the others heard the cry and flew forward. The woman cursed and hurriedly cast the spell again. Again, Jamison’s heart clenched in his chest. Scratch squeaked with alarm. His master was,still alive. The woman, who was moving much quicker than a normal person’s natural ability would allow, cast the spell again. The blood in Jamison’s heart slowed… and stopped. His eyes were wide as he fell back. He was dead.
Scratch screamed his rage- which, being a mild-mannered weasel, was little more than a prolonged squeak. The woman swept down to Jamison with hands outstretched. Scratch leapt up into the air to meet the charge. He bit and tore as best he could, but he was little more than a distraction. The woman clenched Jamison’s robes and began to pull back. She meant to drag him over the fence and dump him in the water… where he would be devoured by countless sea creatures.
FWOOSH!
Lem’s DIMENSION DOOR opened twenty feet to her left. The woman gasped. Vek Mormont stepped from the greenish portal and moved his hand through the air. She was now the one feeling a surging mass of blackish energy moving through her body. She grunted with a man’s voice. “Urrgh!” With a bluish flash of light, she was gone.
Vek quickly surveyed the area with his magically-enhanced eyes. “The area’s clear. No one else is standing by, invisible, waiting to attack as she had.”
“Sounded more like a ‘he’ to me,” Lem said.
Dartan walked up to the fallen wizard. “Oh, no, looks like Jamison’s dead.”
Vek said “Not really. I can resurrect him come tomorrow. He’ll be fine.”
Orthos put the Tear of Moradin over his right shoulder. The heavy battlehammer glinted in the moon’s light. “If she’d gotten his body to the water, there’d have been nothing to resurrect. He’d be gone.”
“Again, not really,” Vek said with his morbidly amused voice. “All I need is a chunk of flesh and we’ll have him back… at least eventually. Speaking of which...” He cut a small piece of tissue from Jamison’s body and gently laid it inside his pack. “For safekeeping.”
They carried Jamison’s body and the grieving weasel back to the inn. Vek laid him on the floor and sat in a chair. Dartan, nearby, said “You’re just going to sit there all night?”
“Yes, and why not? I don’t sleep. There’s no telling if the assassin will come tonight to try to finish the job.” He put an emphasis on try. “Go to sleep, Dartan.”
Dartan nodded with a frown and went to his bunk.
Sunday, 15th of Harvester
Somewhere in the afterworld, Jamison Crow was tumbling through the ether. He’d been here for what felt like three years… but he didn’t hunger, thirst, or feel pain and want. He was at peace. The swirling blue mists parted, and a colossal, elegant woman’s hand reached out to him. It grasped him.
“Wee Jas takes from you the gift of death,” said the slow, breathy voice of something horrid.
Jamison looked where the mists had parted and saw the face of Wee Jas. He screamed, and it made no sound. The arm hurled him away to the echoed laughter of the goddess of death and magic.
Jamison’s eyes snapped open, and he was in Whiteport Inn again. Vek was standing over his body. “How was it,” the lich asked with genuine interest.
“Someone killed me,” Jamison gasped as he worked breath back into his lungs. “One of us. Hired an assassin.”
“It looks that way. Pardon me for a moment while I find out who.”
Vek stepped into a smaller, adjoining room, and knelt. He cleared his “mind” of all distractions and left his plane of consciousness. He descended. He fell through limitless scarlet clouds, ribboned with rippling shades of black. He slowed as he fell into an infinite area of shadow. He met his goddess there. “Wee Jas. I am your servant in life and death. I am he who commands the reaper, and you are she that commandeth me. I come to find knowledge.”
“My servant. Vek Mormont. What would you have me tell?”
“Did Orthos Stonefist have any hand in the assassination of Jamison Crow?”
“No.”
“Did Lem Motlen or Kizzlorn Spellforge?”
“No.”
He’d saved the most interesting for last. “Dartan the Godless.” The way he said it, it was no question.
“Yes.”
“Your humble servant thanks you, most terrible Wee Jas.”
He flew back up and took place in his own shattered, strong body again. He stood and walked back to Jamison, who was getting reacquainted with a gleeful Scratch.
“It was Dartan.”
“Dartan?? What… why would he do it? He’s my childhood friend! I know he hates me NOW… but why wouldn’t he kill me HIMSELF if he wanted me dead?”
“Let’s ask him,” Vek said with a smile.
More to come...
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