Page 25 of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
“The ash from his frankly odious brand of tobacco leaves a distinctive stain that I noticed at once on his lapel. Remember, I remarkedthat he was wearing an old suit. The Ulveshi shape-shifting parakeet is a popular exotic pet, often purchased by young ignorants who do not understand the best way to care for it and come off the worst as a result. You can see the man’s right hand bears a number of scratches, all of which appear to have been made by a different creature. Either he keeps a tiny but extraordinarily diverse menagerie or, like many of his sort, he owns an Ulveshi shape-shifting parakeet. As for his fear of bees, on that detail I was just playing with you.”
She did not use the word “playing.” She employed a different phrase, one with connotations of intimate relations. Having long grown accustomed to such ribbing, I gently redirected Ms. Haas’s attention to the matter of the deceased gentleman. “You also said that he had been ambushed by somebody wishing harm to either him or Mr. Reef?”
“Now Iamdisappointed. You are a military man, Captain. What do you see?”
I considered the corpse as directed. The spike of a harpoon projected from his chest, but I could see no other signs of injury or struggle. “He was pierced through the back,” I said. “Had this been merely a case of robbery gone wrong his attacker would have been facing him and would have resorted to violence only if there was no way to relieve our unfortunate friend of his valuables. This shot was aimed to kill and clearly came without warning. Thus, it was deliberate murder. Thus, the attacker was motivated by either personal animus against our unknown victim or by enmity, either professional or personal, against the man to whom we presume he was about to sell information.”
“Very good. We shall make something of you yet.” She began to pace, or as close as one could come to pacing underwater, which meant sculling back and forth. “And since it seems improbable that the sort of person who would want to murder a student of little consequence would choose to do so directly on the doorstep of a hardened criminal it is more likely that Mr. Reef was the true target in this case.Which suggests further that we have swum into the middle of an underworld power struggle. Well, bother.”
She did not say “bother.” She used a phrase bearing a striking similarity to that which she had used earlier. We cast about for possible routes of egress but, as fate would have it, we had stumbled upon this scene at the least opportune moment. No sooner had we resolved to depart than a band of evident ruffians slithered through a large fissure in the masonry. They were five in total, two probably human, three probably not, all of them equipped with a variety of spears, javelins, and other armaments appropriate to the environment. They moved to encircle us with a precision that, while not military, nonetheless spoke of some familiarity with the business of violence.
Their leader, a tall, loose-limbed lady, whose webbed fingers and silver, piscine eyes spoke of centuries of interbreeding between the natives of this realm and its human visitors, glided forward, pointing a hydraulic dart gun at my companion. “Drop ’em.”
I was briefly uncertain what the “’em” was that we were supposed to drop but then recalled that Ms. Haas still sported her compact harpoon launcher. Considering compliance the most likely path to survival, I raised my hands to demonstrate my good faith. On the basis of her prior behaviour, I laid odds at somewhat less than 50 percent that my companion would do likewise.
She did not do likewise.
“I,” she said, “am the sorceress Shaharazad Haas. I have travelled to the deepest vaults of N’ruh, I have walked alone in the Writhing Halls, and I have whispered to the Gods Who Slumber. I am an anointed priestess of Thagn and Iqthelduroth. I have uttered the Dread Curse of Velrashtoa. Please don’t think I need a pointy stick to kill you.”
Our adversary said nothing. Instead she shot Ms. Haas in the chest.
My hand went instinctively to a weapon I was not, in fact, carrying. Then I watched in horror as my companion slumped, blood streaming into the surrounding water.
The ruffianess turned her attention to me. “I take it you’re going to be more sensible.”
Honour suggested that, my comrade having chosen to fight, I should stand by her to the last. Good sense dictated otherwise. And while I have always prided myself on my good sense, it was not in me to abandon a friend. “I fear I may not be.”
She slotted another barb into her dart gun and trained it upon me. “Tell me who sent you.”
“Dear lady, you have as good as murdered my companion in front of me. You find me in no mood to be compliant.”
From nearby, I heard a low but disquieting murmur. The blood that still seeped from Ms. Haas’s wound flowed black, then green-black, and a similarly hued ichor began to ooze from the walls. When my companion raised her head, I saw that yet more of the vile fluid flowed forth from her mouth and eyes, coalescing into blasphemous tentacles. Observing the same, the band of ne’er-do-wells turned upon their heels, or appendages that passed therefor, and fled into the darkness. Their leader, however, swiftly found herself ensnared by the loathsome members that my companion had conjured from what recesses I dared not speculate.
“Your loyalty is touching, Captain.” Ms. Haas’s voice was full of echoes and whispers. “But believe me, when I am murdered it shall be spectacular.”
She was, in retrospect, partially correct on that account.
With a twist of her fingers, she dragged her captive across the chamber and spun her to face us. “Now, who are you and who do you think we are?”
“I have no interest in cooperating with you,” retorted the prisoner,struggling vainly against her tenebrous bonds. I should also mention at this juncture that the word “you” was preceded not by the phrase “I have no interest in cooperating with” but by a single word whose connotations we have already discussed at length.
Ms. Haas rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, you’re being terribly defiant. But now I’m bored. You will answer my questions or I will rend your body asunder and gift your soul as a plaything to Iqthelduroth the Lurking Effulgence, whose unspeakable depredations will prove really quite unpleasant for you.”
There was a reflective pause. Then, “Name’s Asenath Reef. And the way I see it, you’ve just shot one of Enoch’s informers.”
“Ah.” My companion cast me a look of significant self-satisfaction. “You see, Mr. Wyndham, I was correct in every particular. We have, indeed, become entangled in an underworld conflict, and young Asenath has clearly mistaken us for agents of their enemy. Wilde, perhaps. Or the Throat-Slitters’ Consortium. Possibly even the Unquenchable Flame. I understand they’re getting rather big in these parts.”
Miss Reef gave a largely tokenistic tug at the bands of living darkness that still enwrapped her. “Seeing as how you’re so well-informed, doesn’t seem like you’ve got much use for me.”
“In your position,” returned Ms. Haas, sharply, “I’d be very careful about making myself sound dispensable.”
“Enoch won’t be too happy if I wind up dead.”
“Do you really think a Vennish gossip peddler is remotely capable of harming me? Judging from your example, his minions pose me no danger and I have no fear of scandal.”
“My brother deals in more than scandals.” A flash of too-pointed teeth. “A sorceress lives or dies by her secrets.”
“I’m not sure I respond kindly to blackmail.”
