Orm Kalend settled into the corner formed by the intersection of the booth-bench he sat on and the wall of this tavern, his eyes discreetly hooded as he toyed with his mug of dark ale. Around him, the muted sounds of conversation and eating provided a soporific background for his thoughts. This was precisely the sort of tavern he most favored, one with such good food that the meals themselves were the attraction for customers, not the liquor nor any form of entertainment. The drink available here was only average in taste, and below average in strength; that fact when combined with the excellent provender assured that there were never any fights in this inn.
This was precisely as the proprietor, a famous cook himself, preferred it; in fact, Orm suspected that if he could have managed it, he would have omitted serving wine, beer, and ale altogether and relied entirely on kaffa and teas. He was of the pious, Church-going sort that frowned on strong drink and prohibited intoxication. But he probably knew only too well that, if he were to do that, not even the finest food in the world would keep his customers returning. Most self-styled gourmets demanded light wines and passable beer at the least to accompany their meals.
This was a good place for Orm to do business, especially business with some of his more—sensitive—customers. The lighting was low, the clientele incurious, and the atmosphere very soothing to the nerves of gentlemen who might otherwise have second thoughts about working with Orm. Not that Orm appeared to be anything other than a gentleman himself—but if he had insisted on meeting his customers in a place only scoundrels frequented, those customers would naturally assume that Orm belonged among them.
So long as we appear respectable in all ways, the polite fiction of appearance is maintained.
As if that thought had been a magic spell to summon him, one of those gentlemen entered the door of the tavern along with a few flurries from the light snowstorm outside. As the flakes settled to the wooden floor and melted, the gentleman peered around the tavern until he spotted Orm at his usual seat and in his usual posture. He made no sign of recognition, but he did move straight to that corner booth, intercepting a serving wench on the way to place his order. Orm noted with satisfaction that the young man bore a roll of paper in his hand.
Good! One more section of the Duke's maps! Rand will be pleased.
"Greetings, friend," Orm said lazily, paying no outward attention to the rolled-up document. "You're just in time to join me for luncheon."
"Always a pleasure, since you pay," replied the fellow as he slid into place opposite Orm and placed the map on the table against the wall. Ridiculously thin, the young man resembled nothing so much as a normal man who had somehow been stretched an extra few inches lengthwise; even his face had the oddly disconcerting proportions of a normal face that had been elongated. He clearly had difficulty in finding clothing that fit; his sleeves ended above his bony wrists, and his breeches exposed the ankles of his boots. His fingers were stained with ink in the manner of all clerks, and he squinted as if he was a little short-sighted.
Orm chuckled. "The pleasure is mine, both for the sake of your company and the opportunity to reward one of good Duke Arden's hardworking clerks. You gentlemen earn little enough for your efforts that a good citizen should feel obligated to treat you now and again."
The scrawny young man grinned as the wench brought his meal and Orm's. "I wish more of the good citizens of Kingsford felt the way you do," he said, then wasted no more words as he dug into a portion of exquisitely seasoned oysters. Orm never stinted his gentlemen, especially clerks, who were usually perpetually hungry. Every meal was a full one, beginning with appetizers and ending with a fine dessert. Orm knew that men with a good meal in their stomachs were ready to please the person who arranged for that meal to be there.
A full stomach makes for poor bargaining.
The young clerk and Orm continued to exchange pleasantries as their meal progressed, just as the others in this room were doing. At some point during the progress of the meal, several silver coins made up in a paper packet found their way beneath the basket of delectable yeast rolls. At another point, they vanished again—and an intelligent deduction could be made that they vanished into the clerk's capacious pockets, since Orm didn't reclaim them, but no one could actually claim to have seen the coins change hands.
At no time during the meal did either of them refer to the coins, or to the rolled-up map. Nor did Orm ever refer again to the fact that his companion was in the Duke's service. But when the young man stood up after finishing the last morsel of a bowl of bilberry trifle smothered in brandy and whipped cream, and took his leave, he left behind the map, and his belt-pouch bulged a little more than it had when he arrived.
Orm's own meal had been lighter than his companion's, and he lingered over his own dessert and over the mug of black tea that ended his meal. Only when enough time had passed that the tables nearest him held different customers than they had when the young man arrived did he casually pick up the roll of paper and carry it away with him.
Once outside the door of the inn, he waited while his eyes adjusted to the thin, gray light. He stood in the street, out of the way of traffic, as the continuing snowfall dusted the shoulders of his coat with white. To anyone watching, it would look as if he was debating his direction. Then, with no sign of hurry, he tucked his map under his arm and strolled off towards Old Town and the house he had rented.
Old Town was all of Kingsford that had not burned in the Great Fire; the Fire itself had been no respecter of rank, and had eaten as much into the sections housing the wealthy as into the sections housing those of middling fortune. Only the poor had suffered complete devastation, which was hardly surprising, considering that most of the homes of the poor had been, and were again, poorly-built firetraps. But enough time had passed now that there was no longer a shortage of housing; in fact, in some places there was a surplus. There were now segments of Old Town where one could rent modest homes for modest fees, and that was becoming easier all the time. The reason was simple; as more new homes were constructed, the older ones became less desirable.
The owners of those modest—but older—homes had often capitalized on the shortage of living-space by renting out as much of their dwellings as they could spare, with the resultant added wear and tear that was only to be expected when strangers moved into a dwelling they had no vested interest in keeping up. Now the owners of such houses coveted a place with more space, in a better neighborhood, with more of the modern conveniences, and they had the means put by to begin building a new home—renting the entirety of their current abode made the acquisition of such a property much easier. So long as the tenant looked respectable and paid down the requisite sum, most such absent landlords saw no reason to be curious.
Orm had counted on this when his employer Rand decreed that it was time for them to move their operations to Kingsford. It had not taken Orm very long to find the perfect house for them.
Orm had further plans for the place; if Rand decided to stay here, it might even be possible to purchase the property outright. It would all depend on what Rand wanted, of course. Rand was the one with the money; Orm merely spent it for him.
That genteel little house looked exactly like its neighbors in the row: tall, narrow houses, made of pale brown stone with gabled, slate-covered roofs, with passages between them too small for most muscular men to squeeze through. Out of habit, Orm did not enter the dwelling from the street-entrance; instead, he went around to the end of the block and slipped into the alley when no one was looking, entering his own house like a thief, through a window at the rear.
It was good to stay in practice; although Orm hadn't stolen anything in years, it was wise to keep the old skills up.
Rand wasn't around, which didn't surprise Orm in the least. He was probably out "celebrating the senses" as he called it; he always did that when his curse left him and he was able to walk the streets unremarked.
Orm was in no hurry for that condition to become permanent. For now, Rand needed him and his skills, and paid well for them. If Rand ever became normal again, he would no longer require Orm. Until Orm amassed enough wealth that he no longer needed Rand, Orm would prefer that the curse remain intact.
The two-story, rented house was divided into two suites, each one comprising an entire floor, linked only by a staircase at the front. Orm had the ground floor and Rand the second; Orm seldom entered his employer's domain unless, as now, he had something to leave there. Whistling cheerfully, he stepped into the unheated foyer at the front of the dwelling and climbed the stair leading off the tiny room to the second level.
At the top of the staircase was a door, usually left locked. Unlocking the door, which led directly into the first room of the suite, he stepped just far enough inside to lay the rolled map down on Rand's empty desk. He never went farther than this unless Rand himself was here, and that was not just because he respected Rand's wishes for privacy. Orm's employer was a mage, and mages had very unpleasant means of enforcing their desires.
Besides, there was nothing in Rand's suite that Orm was at all interested in. He already knew everything he needed to know about Rand himself, and Rand had no information Orm was at all interested in. Although Rand had several sources of wealth, Orm was not tempted to steal from him, either. Stealing from Rand would be as unproductive as draining a pond to get the fish; left alone, Rand would be the source of far more wealth to Orm than he would be if Orm was foolish enough to steal and run.
So, leaving the new map in plain sight, Orm descended the stairs to his own cozy den. Rand would return soon enough, and Orm would reap the pleasant results.
Orm built up the fire in the stove he had instead of a fireplace, and settled into a chair at his desk beside it with a pen and a ledger. Although Orm had begun his professional life as a thief, and had in the course of things been forced to injure or even kill, he was now, for the most part, in the less risky business of buying and selling information and expediting (though not carrying out) the plans of others. Rand was not his only client, although all of Orm's other commissions were of strictly limited scope. Rand had been Orm's chief concern since they "met" in a tiny village many leagues and months ago.
Since that day, Orm devoted his time and energy to Rand, and Rand paid him handsomely for information, for personal services, and to ensure Rand's safety and security. Rand needed someone to take care of even the tiniest tasks for him, because Rand was generally not human.
Rand particularly needed Orm now that they were operating in the city; although Orm was not a native of Kingsford, he was quite familiar with both Old Town and New. Rand only knew Kingsford as it had been before the Great Fire, and as a result was frequently disoriented when he went abroad in the streets. This had frustrated him to the point of fury, and Orm had been trying (though with little success) to draw diagrams of the city as it was now. Then when Orm had learned that a bird-man in the service of the Duke was making detailed and highly accurate maps of the city, he had moved heaven and earth to find a clerk who could be bribed to supply him with ongoing copies. To the clerk, he was an enterprising merchant looking for the best spots to place fried-pie stalls; the clerk found nothing amiss in this. A merchant prepared to put money into a large number of fried-pie stalls could stand to make a fortune or lose one, depending on whether he found good locations or poor ones. Vendors of foodstuffs had been operating from barrows since the Great Fire precisely because no one knew yet where the good locations were—but that meant that there was no such thing anymore as a place that people could patronize regularly other than an inn. The first person to capitalize on this situation could find himself a very wealthy man, and it would be more than worth his while to bribe a clerk for advance copies of the new city maps.
Rand had been very pleased when Orm presented him with the first of his new maps; pleased enough to make Orm's reward a golden one, even though the map was of an area that Rand would not be able to use, at least not effectively. The mage rightly considered the reward to be one for initiative rather than immediate services rendered, and had brooded over his acquisition with his strange eyes half-closed in pleasure.
He would not have been nearly so pleased if he'd known that Orm knew why he was going to want those maps—knew why he had wanted to come to Kingsford in the first place—knew what his real name was.
It's really very amusing, actually, Orm thought as he finished the last of his little notes and sat back in his chair, listening for the sound of Rand's footsteps on the walk outside. He's quite, quite naïve. To think that he really believed that since I was not a native of Kingsford I would not have recognized him for what he was!
Perhaps it was only that it never occurred to him that his employee would turn his considerable skills to ferreting out everything he could about his new employer. Perhaps it was that he completely underestimated the ability of the Free Bards to spread information in the form of songs, and overestimated the ability of the Bardic Guild to suppress it when they tried. Or perhaps it was that he simply had no idea how good a tale the story of the foul deeds and punishment of Priest Revaner was.
Very singable—though that shouldn't be surprising, considering it was composed by the Free Bard they call Master Wren.
Oh, Orm knew all about his employer—more than was in the song, for there were still plenty of people in Kingsford who knew the story in its entirety, and even a handful who had seen the end of it themselves. Those acrobats, for instance. . . .
Once they had reached Kingsford, Orm had made it a part of his business to sniff out those who had actually been witnesses to the tale of Priest Revaner—or, as Master Wren titled it, "The Faithless Priest." Now he knew just about everything there was to know, including a few secrets known only to Revaner's fellow Priests, for even a Priest likes to talk.
Priest-Mage Revaner, of the Kingsford Order of Saint Almon, had often claimed that he never wanted to be a Priest. He had felt himself restricted by the rules of his Order, his vows before God, and the constraints associated with being a Priest in the first place—most notably, celibacy and chastity, but also poverty and humility. Orm personally didn't see where he had anything to complain about—presumably he should have known those rules before he ever took his final vows—but it hardly mattered.
The fact was that Revaner wanted many things. Wealth, for one—and that state was attainable only to those of sufficiently high office. Even then, it was wealth that, in the end, belonged to the Church and not to the Priest, and that wasn't good enough for Revaner. So Priest Revaner had set about using (or misusing) his magics to help him gain wealth and hide it away from the prying eyes of his superiors. So much for that obstacle, and although it chafed him, the virtue of humility was easy enough to feign. Celibacy, while irksome, was constricting only in that it meant he could not attain further wealth and the position he had not been born into through marriage. But chastity—there was a problem.
Revaner craved women, but not just any women. His women had to be subservient to him in every way. Since he did not consider himself to be particularly impeded by his other vows, the vow of chastity made no difference to his desires. Unfortunately, confined to the Abbey Cloister, it was difficult to get away for long to indulge himself, and impossible to bring a woman there.
But when Faire Season came, he saw a possible answer to his problems, for a few weeks, at least. So with a little judicious bribery, a bit of flattery, and cultivation of one of the Masters of the Bardic Guild, he got himself assigned as a Faire Warden, patrolling for unlawful use of magic, for the duration of the Faire.
That much had Orm's admiration. Clever, that. He had his own tent on the grounds of the Faire, and he knew that on his watch, the only person who would have been checking for magic was himself.
Revaner saw the Faire as his own private hunting-preserve, a place where he could indulge himself in ways he had only dreamed of before. He had his own private tent and servants whose minds were so controlled by magic that they never saw anything he didn't want them to see. His duty only lasted from the time the Faire opened in the morning until sunset, and mostly consisted of walking about the Faire searching for the signs of magic. And while he was doing that, he was marking women for further attentions, thus combining duty with pleasure. Orm rather fancied that Revaner had assumed that as long as he confined his attentions to those technically outside Church protection—Gypsies, for instance, or other folk who did not consider themselves Churchmen—his victims would never dare report him to Church authorities.
For the most part, he would have been right. There aren't very many pagans or Gypsies who would trust the Church to police its own, and those who had turned from worship of the Sacrificed God to some other deity would be afraid of being taken and punished as heretics. Complaints against a Priest to secular authorities would be turned over to the Church, and where would they be then?
Revaner had used his magic to coerce women who didn't cooperate with him—which was another violation of secular law, twice over; first for using coercion inside the Faire boundaries, and secondly for using magic as the instrument of coercion. Then there was the violation of Church law in using his powers and his position to further his own ends.
Altogether he was a very naughty boy.
Revaner had enjoyed himself to the fullest, with nothing more than merest rumor to alert his superiors to the fact that he was a lawbreaker so many times over that he would be doing penance until he died if he was caught.
The blatant misuse of everything the Church gave him would have had even the most corrupt of them livid. Not to mention the amount of keep-quiet money they would have had to pay to his victims.
They did not even know who the cause of the rumor was; he had managed to keep his identity secret. But he had already made one fatal error, and that had been when he had checked to see who the Prior of the Abbey of the Justiciars at Kingsford was without also making the effort to discover who his underlings were. The Prior was lazy and subject to a venial sin now and then of his own—but immediately beneath him in rank was Justiciar-Mage Ardis, already known for dispensing the purest justice without regard for rank, privilege, or station, and it was Ardis who was truly in charge of the Faire Judiciary. Then, after three weeks of enjoyment, Revaner had made his second fatal error.
He had approached a Gypsy Free Bard named Robin and was rebuffed, publicly, vehemently, and in such a way as led to a great deal of humiliation on his part and amusement on that of the witnesses. But his success had bred overconfidence and inflated his pride, and his pride would not tolerate such a blow. Obsessed with the girl and angered at her contemptuous refusal, he had conspired with a Guild Bard named Beltren, one of his cronies, to kidnap her.
Even that might only have earned him exile to some distant, ascetic Abbey in a harsh and unforgiving climate, constant penance and prayer, and perpetual confinement to his cell if he had been caught—but his pride was too high to merely use her and discard her. No, he had to triumph over her and keep her as a private trophy. He had used his magic to transform her into a man-sized bird of gaudy plumage, placed her in a cage, and compelled her with further spells to sing for his pleasure. Then he displayed her for all the Faire to see.
Pride and folly went hand in hand, and he was bound to fall over such a blatantly stupid action; Revaner was found out, of course, and he was condemned by the Justiciars to the same condition he had forced upon the Gypsy girl. Transformed into a black bird of amazing ugliness, he was displayed in a cage above the gate of the Abbey as an example to others. And since he was a bird, without access to his wealth, his connections, or his persuasive tongue, no one was tempted to try to defend him.
When fall came that year, he was taken down and lodged in a cell in the Abbey until the warmer weather arrived, in larger, if not more luxurious quarters. But when spring came, it was easier to keep him there instead of putting him back on display. Eventually, he became a fixture in the Abbey gaol.
Then came the Great Fire, and the revolt within the Abbey itself. And, presumably, during the confusion or perhaps out of misguided compassion, someone left the cage door open and the bird escaped.
The Gypsy transformed into a bird had not been able to fly, but even as a bird, Revaner was still a mage, and he could use his magic to aid his wings. He had put as much distance between himself and Kingsford as possible, ending up at last in Sandast, a trade-city situated below a cliff riddled with caves. There Revaner had made a home, stole food, and attempted to work out how to change himself back.
That much Orm had managed to reason out for himself. What he didn't know was how Revaner had learned that the key to transforming himself back to a man was the death of someone else, and it was the one thing that he was not likely to ever find out. There were only two people who had ever known that, and Revaner's first victim was the second. Short of bringing back the dead spirit to speak, Orm was unlikely to discover what the circumstance had been.
Orm had recently removed himself to Sandast from the vicinity of Kingsford until a certain party returned to his homeland. A business deal had gone awry, and it wasn't particularly healthy for Orm to linger in the vicinity of Duke Arden's city. Although his original customer was no longer available, it had occurred to Orm that the information he possessed could easily be sold elsewhere. Sandast, for instance. And it was in the course of trying to find a buyer for that information that he had come upon Revaner in the moment of his third attempt at transformation.
Now, there had been rumors of a madman stalking the streets at night and murdering unwary victims by driving an enormous spike or spear through their chests, but Orm had dismissed it. After all, such a person would hardly be inconspicuous, loping about with a spike the size of a small tree trunk over his shoulder! So when his search for a client took him out into the dense fog of a typical Sandast evening, he wasn't particularly worried about coming across anything worse than a pickpocket or back-alley assaultist, either of which he could handle easily.
Not until he rounded a corner and found himself in a dimly lit cul-de-sac, facing a scene out of nightmare.
Filtered light fell down from windows above onto the murderer and his latest victim, and the murderer was a great deal more conspicuous than a madman with a spike. A huge black bird, with the body of a street-singer impaled on its lancelike beak, glared at Orm out of angry red eyes. Blood was everywhere, turning the dust of the street into red mud, plastering the feathers of the bird in sticky tufts, splattered against the peeling walls of the buildings surrounding the cul-de-sac. Orm had been so startled, and so fascinated, that instead of running, he had simply stood and stared.
And so he had the unique experience of watching the bird transform into a black-robed man.
Or rather—try to watch it do so, for there was something about the transformation that made his eyes hurt and his stomach churn, as if whatever was going on was not meant to be watched. He looked away for a moment, and when he looked back, there was a man in the black robes of a Priest standing over the body of the girl. The man was unarmed, but Orm did not for a moment assume that he was helpless. The very opposite, in fact.
So he did the only thing logical under the circumstances.
"Well, you seem to have a situation on your hands. I believe you can use my help," he had said, as calmly as if the man had just walked into an inn looking for him. "Would you care to come with me to my quarters where we can discuss it?"
Whether it was due to Revaner's own desperation, or Orm's glib tongue, Revaner engaged his services on the spot.
Revaner still had most of his money, and a great deal of it, all deposited with the Goldsmith's Guild, and thus accessible to him any time he cared to write out the proper papers to get it. But when it took seven days to get the money, and he was able to remain in human form for considerably less than that—
Well, he had a problem to say the least.
In the first few days of their partnership, Orm's role had been a simple one; he got a suite of rooms with windows overlooking a bare courtyard used for storage, so that Revaner—or "Rand," as he now called himself—could come and go at his leisure when he was a bird. Orm made certain that all of Rand's physical needs were cared for, both as a bird and as a man. But Rand's period as a human did not last more than three days, and when he transformed, he was nearly beside himself with rage.
Orm let him rage, for there was nothing much in his room he could damage, and waited for him to calm—or at least, to exhaust himself.
Rand-as-bird had learned how to speak, although his Gypsy captive had not had the time to master that art, so when he finally stopped stabbing holes in the bed-linens, Orm ventured a few words.
"This is hardly a surprise," he had pointed out. "You knew you were going to revert eventually."
The bird's voice was a harsh croak, unpleasant but understandable. "Not so soon," Rand protested, and made another stab at a pillow. White feathers flew out of the hole, and Orm shook his head.
"But it held for longer this time than the last," Orm replied. "You told me the last time it only held for two days. Things are improving."
Rand tossed the pillow aside with a savage twist of his head, scattering more feathers across the floor as it landed. "It should have been longer," he muttered. "It should have been permanent."
Orm shrugged, and spread his hands. "I'm no mage," he replied, "but this is the most powerful piece of magic that I have ever heard of outside an Elf Hill—and cast by a—a mage that powerful, I can't imagine how three paltry deaths could negate anything like this."
He had caught himself for a moment, realizing that he had been about to say something about a spell cast by a Justiciar-Mage, and even though he hadn't actually said anything incriminating, he caught Rand giving him a suspicious look out of those ruby-red eyes.
It occurred to him that Rand might well consider him expendable at that moment, and he hastened to deal with that contingency.
"It's obvious to me that if each death lengthens the time you are—" he chose his word delicately "—cured, you simply have to find more victims. The trouble with that is obvious: already people in this little town are beginning to talk, and it's only a matter of time before someone has the bright idea of starting a house-to-house search. Granted, you could fly away during the search, but you wouldn't be able to pick your moment to fly, and what if someone saw you and made the obvious conclusion? You clearly need more sacrifices, but you simply cannot stay here and keep killing people."
"So what am I to do?" rasped Rand. "Move somewhere else and kill people?"
"Why not?" Orm countered. "I can move you comfortably—well, more comfortably than flying all that distance. I can find you safe quarters, I can stand watch for you—I can even find potential victims for you. But I think you ought to find a safer way of doing your killings, a way in which you're less likely to be caught in the act. It's already happened once, and you were just lucky that it was me and not a constable who discovered you. Think about life in the long term—we don't have to stay in once place, we can move on when things become risky. Think about what you need to accomplish, instead of frantically slaughtering in the hopes that this time something will work!"
Never before or since had he seen such a transformation come over a creature. Rand went from a creature dangerously enraged and making no effort to hide that fact, to one suddenly locked in thought. Literally locked in thought—Rand went rigid, and his eyes unfocused. Silence prevailed for some time, but Orm was in no hurry to leave, so he waited the creature out. He had, he thought, just proved to Rand that his services were indispensable. Rand had a great deal of ready cash, and Orm wanted as much of that money transferred to himself as possible. He also wanted to continue living, and he was under no illusions about his continued existence if Rand decided to get rid of him.
This, of course, was not the first time he had found himself in that position. A man who sells information often comes into possession of knowledge that others would rather he didn't know, and sometimes those others are willing to take drastic steps to ensure that the information is lost again. Orm had always saved himself in the past by proving that it was more expensive to eliminate him than to purchase his cooperation, and he was fairly certain he could do the same thing this time.
Finally, Rand shook all of his shabby drab feathers and fastened his gaze on his would-be partner. "You are right," the bird croaked. "And I want to think about this for a while. I have been very shortsighted until this moment."
"In that case," Orm had said, rising and making a little bow, "I shall leave you in peace to think." He knew then that he was safe, for Rand had spoken the key word: shortsighted. Rand had just made the jump from thinking only about the immediate need of becoming and staying human, and had moved on to other desires as well. And a man who looked as Rand did probably had a major desire driving him.
Revenge. Orm loved that motive; it was one of his most profitable. Revenge was complicated and expensive; it involved elaborate plots and a great deal of planning. And given that Rand would probably want revenge on at least one person moderately difficult to find—well, the possibilities for profit were staggering.
Rand made several requests of Orm over the next couple of weeks, with the most difficult being the acquisition of an ecclesiastical dagger. Rand had probably intended for Orm to steal one, but Orm had no intentions of leaving that kind of trail for the Church to follow. It wouldn't be too difficult for Church mages to put the theft of a piece of regalia of that sort together with a murder by means of that kind of weapon—and Orm had the suspicion they might be able to tell who had taken it and what had been done with it. Instead, he broke into a Chapel all right, but when he found one of the daggers, he only studied it. The next day he purchased a triangular file of approximately the correct dimensions, broke into a smithy whose owner was out of town, and ground it into a similar knife-blade himself. Since the new "knife" already had a wooden hilt of sorts, Orm had judged that it would do.
When he brought it to Rand, the creature studied the offering closely, then clacked his beak in a way that Orm had come to learn signified his approval. "Very clever, and usable for the first attempt, anyway," the bird croaked. "We may have to do something else next time, but this will do. Now—I want you to find me two people."
Rand outlined the kind of victim Orm had already assumed he would want: female, a musician—a Gypsy or a Free Bard by preference, but any musician or dancer would do, so long as she was female. But he also wanted a man, someone who might plausibly pick up the clumsy knife that Orm had constructed, at least for a moment.
Orm already had a few candidates for the first position, but the second was something of a puzzle for him. In the end, he chose a petty tough with a penchant for knives; the man couldn't resist a blade, no matter how clumsy or poorly made, and once he had one, he could be counted upon to carry it with him. If the man ever fell into the river, he'd sink to the bottom from the weight of steel he carried.
Rand made the final selection of the girl, and gleefully chose a wench who at least wore the ribbons of a Free Bard, though Orm privately suspected that if any real musician heard her sing, they'd demand the ribbons back. Too much drinking and other abuses of her own body had taken a heavy toll of her voice, mind, and musical talents. All of her songs sounded alike, and all of them were similar in theme as well. She fancied the company of people precisely like that young street-tough, perhaps for the thrill of association, although she claimed that they gave her ideas for more of her songs. Bitter, uncertain of temper, aggressive and yet cowardly, she made trouble just for the sake of seeing what happened. Orm privately considered that he would be doing the world a favor in helping to rid it of the ill-natured creature.
Orm got the blade into the hands of the street-tough as Rand requested. Only then did he hear the rest of the plan.
"We'll be using the knife for the killing, rather than this beak I've been cursed with. For the moment, don't worry about how; I'll explain that in a moment. You seem to know enough about magic to know that mages can read where objects have been and you were probably wondering how I intended to deal with the traces of your personality that you left on that knife, as well as the magic that I shall imbue it with," Rand-the-bird rasped smugly as he cocked his oil-sheened head to the side to gauge Orm's reactions. "It's simple, really. After the woman is dead, you move in and steal the knife before anyone else can touch it."
Rand had probably expected Orm to put up a strenuous objection to this; Orm just waited for the details. Rand wouldn't have tried to shock him with this if he didn't have a damned clever plan to avoid the two of them getting caught.
Orm had been correct in his assumption. Rand did have a damned clever plan, and the more he outlined, the more at ease Orm became. Rand knew what a Justiciar-Mage could and could not do (as well he should), and he had planned for everything.
"I use the knife to gain control of the street-thug's body," Rand explained carefully. "Once I have done that, I use him to murder the woman. Then I have him throw the knife away, which is when you will look for it and carry it off, bringing it back to me. When that is done, I have the man throw himself into the river as a suicide. The very few traces of magic contamination will be washed off in running water. This will look like a simple crime of passion or a robbery gone awry, and no one will think that this is anything out of the ordinary. People are murdered all the time in an area like the one these two frequent."
"You take control of him?" Orm had asked, fascinated in spite of himself. "How?"
If Rand had possessed such a thing as an eyebrow, he might have raised it sardonically. "It is a great deal more simple that you would think," Rand had replied, assuming the manner of a vulture. The wicked bird chuckled harshly, an odd sort of crow, and fluffed his feathers.
Orm had laughed softly with delight; this was the kind of clever scheme he enjoyed the most, and when Rand detailed just how he would control the bodies, he gave the mage credit for even more cleverness than before. The only unanswered question was why Rand didn't suggest that after Orm stole the knife, he get rid of it elsewhere; Orm had a suspicion that Rand wanted it for personal reasons. That was perfectly acceptable to Orm, and Orm planned from the beginning to see that the knives Rand used were clean of even the slightest trace of blood before he ever turned them over to his employer. Blood could also be used to mark a trail for a mage hunting a murderer, but if there was no blood, there would be no way to follow the path of the knife.
It had all followed just as Rand had wished, from the first killing to the last. Orm would find several possible victims and Rand would watch them, stalking them in either human or avian form. When he had chosen who he wanted, if he had not already reverted to birdshape, he would wait until he had done so while Orm made a note of every movement of their days, finding places and times where it would be easy to ambush them. Orm would construct the knife, then find a way to get the knife into the hands of the man, often commissioning a hilt to suit the victim, but always making the blade from a triangular file so that there would be no trace of where it came from. He was no fool; sooner or later someone would begin to notice that there were strange murder-suicides committed with a very odd weapon, and he didn't want any smiths recalling the fellow who had asked for triangular blades.
When everything was in place, Rand would follow the first victim and take him over, then make his kill. When their activities began to draw the attention of constables or other people in positions of authority, they moved on before the civil authorities could begin a real investigation. In small towns and villages, they would move after only a single death; in larger, they might take four or five victims before judging it prudent to move to the next venue. Occasionally, circumstances would permit Rand to enjoy a lingering and elaborate ritual of mutilation of his primary victim—this, of course, increased the anguish of his secondary victim almost as much. Rand relished these opportunities, although they were few, and looked forward with anticipation to opportunities for more such. Rand kept with him a growing collection of knives, and he would take them out to gloat over them as soon as they were established in their new home.
Orm had a secret of his own which he had no intention of sharing with the mage. He enjoyed watching the murders; it gave him all of the pleasure with none of the risk. And the moment he got his hands on the blades that did the deed, he experienced a thrill that was almost as good as being with a woman. He wondered sometimes if Rand felt the same.
Well, whether he did or not, each successive victim allowed him to spend time as a human being again, although how much time varied from victim to victim. The best had been the jeweler and the Gypsy, both for Orm and for Rand. Once the girl had been pegged down to the worktable, Rand had made the jeweler let them in, and they had both watched every step of the proceedings. When the girl was dead and the man had drunk every drop of caustic chemicals in his workshop, it had been Orm who dragged the body beneath the water-barrel and let the water flow over him, erasing the taint of magic that was on him. The beautifully jeweled knife had been sold to him by a thief who had in his turn "stolen" it from Orm—careful study had shown that at least half the jeweler's income had come from the purchase of stolen property and the sale of the component parts. Orm himself had directed the Gypsy to that jeweler on the fatal night, after seeing to it that the clasp of her belt of copper coins was broken past amateur repair. Rand had stayed human for an entire week after that.
Some of the murders had gone slightly awry, which was inevitable considering the neighborhoods in which they were operating. Twice the knife was stolen by someone else before it could be used on its intended victim, and a new victim of opportunity had to be found—Rand had hated that, but there was nothing to be done about it if he wanted to take on human form again. But on the whole things were going entirely to plan, or to the plan as Orm knew it.
He suspected that Rand had some specific goal in mind, which was likely to be the murder of the Justiciar-Mage who had put him in the form he now wore. A few wenches more or less wouldn't cause an authority to issue an all-out manhunt, but the murder of a High Bishop would bring out every Hound of God, every constable, and every private guard until the killer was caught. Too risky, far too risky. If that was the case, Orm had plans of his own. Once the deed was done, the knife would not be stolen and carried away, because Orm would not be there.
Rand was so busy controlling his victims that he had no time to watch for Orm, and on this final occasion, Orm would be elsewhere, possibly even on a horse on his way out of Kingsford. This would neatly circumvent the problems that would arise when his employer no longer needed his services. Once Rand was caught and punished, Orm would be free to return and take up his old profession again. The very construction of this house would make it possible for Orm to claim that he had no idea that the other tenant of the place had been up to no good, no matter what claims Rand made—for although the suites did share the common entrance, that was all that they shared. Orm would be shocked and appalled, professing horror and relief that he himself had escaped the fate of so many. He would express the opinion that a man mad enough to murder so many people was mad enough to claim anything, including the idea that his innocent fellow tenant had a hand in the evil deeds. And as for how many victims the madman had claimed—well, the collection of blades in Rand's bedroom would serve as mute testimony so powerful that the Justiciars would need to look no further for their killer.
A light tap on his door alerted him to the fact that Rand was home again, and he went to answer it. No one but Rand ever knocked on his door; none of his other clients knew where he lived.
As he expected, Rand was standing at his door, impatiently tapping a foot. "Did you get it?" Rand asked, in lieu of a greeting. He was probably a handsome man in his human form, though Orm's taste more mundanely ran to women. His body was kept in perfect physical shape by the exertion of flying in his avian form; his features were regular and almost aggressively masculine. Although he no longer wore the black robes of a Priest, he continued to favor black clothing. It seemed that when he transformed, whatever he was wearing became his feathers, and a black bird was less conspicuous than any other color.
"It's in your room," Orm replied, and Rand smiled in a way that had very little to do with good humor.
At least he transformed immediately this time. Rand's bird-form made Orm feel a little queasy, although he managed to hide his reactions, and he was always very well aware of the deadly potential of those claws and that spearlike beak.
"Well, how did it go? Did anyone see you?" Rand continued, without bothering to thank Orm for what Orm considered to be a very neat little bit of theft. He had plucked the knife literally out of the gutter, with at least a dozen people around him looking for it as well.
"No one saw me," he said, restraining his irritation. "The bird-man set off after your man, and everyone was watching the bird-man. They never even noticed I was there, much less saw me taking the blade."
"Good." With an abrupt nod, Rand turned on his heel and went up the steps to his own rooms, leaving Orm standing in his own doorway like a dismissed servant, his breath steaming out into the icy foyer.
Orm repressed more irritation and simply closed his door. He reminded himself that Rand had been a high-ranking Priest and a wealthy man, with servants who were accustomed to being ordered about like Deliambren automata. Rand would never change, and that was that.
Still, he grumbled a little as he threw the latch on the door, it would be nice to be appreciated for good work once in a while. It annoyed and sometimes angered him to be treated like a scullery-maid.
But then again, if he suspected how clever I am, he might be more wary of me, and more inclined to get rid of me. I am a convenience, he reminded himself. He is used to having me around to do his work for him, but now he could be rid of me without harm if he chose. All he needs me for is to steal the daggers, and he could hire a petty pickpocket to do that for him. Given that—perhaps it wasn't so bad to be dismissed.
Orm went back to his chair before the fire, settled in with his feet near the grate, and considered his actions for the rest of the day and evening. I should go down to the Purple Eel, he decided. By sunset every constable not on duty will have heard what happened, and all of the ones in that district will be there to flap their mouths over it. This was an easy way to discover what the constables knew and what they didn't, and Orm had used it in every city they'd worked so far.
Orm had been a constable himself for about a year, in between being a thief and becoming a broker of information. He had come very near to being caught after a theft that had resulted in the death of his victim, and had decided to learn how the constables themselves thought and reasoned so that he would know what they were likely to do in a given situation and assess the risks of a given action in an instant. As a result, he was able to pretty well anticipate every move that the constables made so long as he knew how much information they had.
It did bother him that the murder victims were always women of a particular type; that was a pattern, and patterns made them vulnerable. If the particular women Rand insisted on ever took this seriously enough to start staying off the streets altogether, Rand would either have to pursue them inside—which was very, very dangerous—or choose another type of victim. Knowing Rand, it wouldn't be the latter. He was brilliant, but obsessed, and quite insane.
More than that, although it hadn't yet occurred to them, the constables could set up a trap for them by using a seemingly ideal victim as bait. Of course, that would mean setting her up in such a way that neither Rand nor Orm detected the trap, which would mean that her behavior would have to be perfectly consistent for several days. And that in turn would mean either that the constables were able to deduce that these were not victims of opportunity, or that the constables planned to set up a trap around a street-girl who was unaware that she was being used as bait.
The former wasn't likely, he decided. For the most part, he had been very careful to select potential victims that no one cared about. The closest they had ever come to getting caught was that obsessive fellow a few towns back—and he had been working alone, without the cooperation of the constabulary officials. As for the latter—well, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of potential choices in Kingsford, and the chance that the constables would select exactly the same one as Orm and Rand was minimal.
But I should listen for such a plan, he decided. The Purple Eel is definitely the place to go tonight.
But he was loathe to leave his chair just now. He'd gotten horribly cold out there, waiting for Rand to make his move. Before he went out again, he wanted to be warmed down to the bone.
He thought back once again over the last set of murders and could see no flaws in them. Most murders not committed for gain were committed by people who knew the victims, often very well—most often, relatives. Orm made very certain that no one ever connected him with the recipients of the knives, generally finding ways of getting the blades into the chosen hands indirectly, as he had with the jeweler. The only pattern was in the women, and none of them were ever seen near, much less with, Orm.
Rand would be unbearable this evening, exulting in his stolen power and his new form, but by tomorrow he would be pleasant enough, if overbearing. That was the pattern, and Orm was used to it. There would be a generous reward for a successful "hunt," as Rand termed the murders, and as soon as Rand calmed down from the intoxication of success, he would want to know who Orm had singled out for the next prey. Orm, of course, would have his list, and Rand would be very pleased, which would make him generous.
It's too bad he's so obsessed, Orm thought idly. If he didn't mind spending time in that bird-form, he would make a good thief. As soon as it got warm, and people in the fine houses began opening their windows at night for fresh air, he could nip in, snatch up jewelry-cases, and fly out without anyone ever knowing he'd been there.
Well, that was not likely to happen. Rand wanted to break his spell entirely.
Which is probably a very good reason why he would like to choose High Bishop Ardis as a victim. Not only is she female, not only is she the direct cause of him being the way he is, but she cast the spell in the first place. Not only would he gain revenge, but since she's the mage involved, the only way to break the spell might be to kill the caster. I hope he doesn't think of that.
He sighed. It was a pity that Rand couldn't be more content with life as it was. He wouldn't mind spending about half his time as a bird! Think of all the things he could overhear, perched in the shadow of chimneys or lurking in the branches of trees in private gardens—listening outside windows, or on balconies!
Too bad, but things aren't going to change, and I need to start for the Purple Eel, he decided, getting reluctantly up from his armchair. All of his brilliance and my cleverness aren't going to help if someone's got an unexpected card up his sleeve.
You couldn't plan for the unexpected, but you could prepare your mind to deal with it. That was Orm's motto, and he went out into the dusk to make good on it.