Nadmirnian Cycle: Shazneh’s Legacy

1 Murder

As soon as I realised what was going on, I called Jonathan. I could have contacted Joran, who after all taught me, or any of my fellow students in GateMastery, who would all probably have advised me to talk to Joran. But, since Jonathan is my life long best friend – even though I am eight years older than him – I called him. And for another reason, but that will become clear in a second.

I walked away from the crime scene until I was hidden away behind some trees, and where no one could see me trace a circle in the air that caught fire instantly. I concentrated on reaching Jonathan and then softly said his name.

He didn’t react at first, though I could feel he’d heard my call. He probably was in a situation where he couldn’t answer it without raising suspicion. But I guess that’s just part of being a GateMaster.

So I waited, searching in my pockets for some cigarettes, but I couldn’t find any. By the time I’d remembered I could conjure cigarettes out of thin air, and had done so, his face appeared in my circle. He was in a forest somewhere, and I put away the cigarettes for now.

‘Good afternoon, Jonathan,’ I said.

‘Good morning, you mean,’ he said, with a look around him. ‘It’s 6 am here.’

‘6 am,’ I repeated, ‘what are you doing up so early?’

‘Hunting,’ he answered with a smile, ‘and because of your call I’m missing the fun part.’

‘Well, I’m sorry, but it’s urgent. I suggest you get yourself over here as soon as possible.’ He tried to look past me, and no doubt he could see the blue flashlights of the police cars. I’m sure he did, because of what he said next.

‘Where are you? You’re something of a policeman, these days, aren’t you?’

‘Sort of.’ I said. ‘Detective, more like.’

‘So what do you need me for?’

‘We found a body. Jonathan, it’s Ralco. He’s dead.’

He went awfully pale after that, cursed under his breath, and promised to be here as soon as possible. Then, he broke the connection. I erased my circle and went back to the crime scene. The pathologist had finished his on-site examination of the body, and had to admit to me that he couldn’t for the life of him find what had caused the young man to drop dead in the middle of the road.

‘The middle of the road!’ I said to myself as he hurried away. ‘The middle of nowhere, more like!’ And I went to do my own examination.

I was pretty sure that it was Ralco. Not that I knew the man that well, but he was Jonathan’s brother-in-law, which was the other reason for my contacting him, and I had met him on various occasions. Enough to remember his face when it stared at me – even with lifeless eyes.

A quick magical sweep showed the heavy aura around him, and inside him. He’d been killed by magic, alright. And the kind of magic that leaves no imprints except an aura. I could understand the pathologist’s confusion. To non-sorcerer eyes, there was no reason this man should be dead. But to mine, there was.

I studied the aura for a while. It didn’t seem to belong to anyone I knew, but of course, although I knew quite a lot of sorcerers, I didn’t know every single one of them. How could I? There’s just too many of us.

But there wasn’t just a sorcerer’s aura around him. Quite a bit of Gate-Mastery lingered around this spot, as well. Which was only logical. Ralco didn’t belong to this world any more than I did. Or Jonathan. All three of us come originally from a world called Nadmir – but only Jonathan and I can travel to other worlds, because we are GateMasters. Ralco, though quite an accomplished sorcerer, did not have our powers, and could never have found his way through to here without help from a GateMaster.

The thing was, I didn’t recognise the GateMaster’s aura at all. It had a familiar feel to it, but I could not connect it to anyone I knew. And that was odd, because I knew almost all GateMasters personally, except Rhonwin, but I knew her aura well enough to know that this wasn’t hers.

So, what did we have? Ralco, dead. Brought here by a GateMaster I didn’t know, and murdered… probably by that same GateMaster. Unless someone else in Nadmir had killed him, and the GateMaster had disposed of the body. There was no way that Ralco had been murdered by a sorcerer from this world, because this world had no sorcerers. No magic at all, in fact. Which was probably why his body had been dumped here; his murderer had figured that no one here would ever find out what had happened to Ralco and that they’d simply give him an anonymous grave. And no one in Nadmir would ever know.

But they hadn’t counted on my being here. Jonathan would say that a lot, later, when it all was over, and add that, basically, I had saved Reality from an enormous disaster.

It’s a little bit more complicated than that.

While I was staring at Ralco’s corpse, with theories concerning his death roaming around in my mind, I found myself thinking that maybe it was time to leave this world. I’d been here long enough, and with Ralco turning up dead, here… If I ever was going to find out what had happened, I’d have to go to Nadmir.

Don’t get me wrong, I like what I do. I’ve been a copper and a detective for several years now, and in quite a few different worlds, and so far always enjoyed my work. But, as all coppers know, every so often, it gets too much. Every so often, you can’t stand the sight of another mutilated body anymore, can’t bear to think of all those bastards that are still out there and that there’s no way you’re ever going to catch them all.

It was like that, once I’d laid eyes on Ralco’s body.

So I was not in such a good mood when Jonathan finally arrived, but then again, neither was he. He drove up to the police cars in a vehicle he’d obviously ‘borrowed’ somewhere, and had apparently done his homework, because he looked like he’d been born and raised in this world. It’s a thing Jonathan does without thinking, and it gets somewhat eerie, at times. None of us have the ability to blend in so completely, so unthinkingly, everywhere he goes. He told me an anecdote, once, that when he was in a world called Arishmar, he ran into Ferrawin, a fellow GateMaster, and she didn’t recognise him at all, even though they’d been good friends during training. That’s how well he can blend in.

But at the moment, he was having trouble with the officers guarding the crime scene, and I went to make sure they let him through.

‘He can come through,’ I said to them. ‘He’s here on my request.’ Jonathan shot me a ‘thank you’ look. I shrugged and said, as I led him towards Ralco’s body,

‘You took your bloody time.’

‘Yes, well, I couldn’t just gallop into this world, still wearing my hunting clothes. Your officers seemed to think I was suspicious enough, as it is.’ I grinned at the image of Jonathan galloping through a fiery gate into the world, looking all medieval and heroic – and what the faces of my coppers would be like if he did.

‘Whoever said you weren’t suspicious?’

‘Do you need my help, or what?’

‘Well, help… Basically I want you to tell me this isn’t Ralco, because you know him better than I do. And I want you to tell me your thoughts about this. And of course I need you to tell my suspicions to, because I can’t say anything to these people.’ I sighed and put my hands in my pockets. ‘While I was waiting for you, the pathologist failed to find any wounds, fatal or otherwise, and tells me there’s no reason Ralco should be dead, but of course he can’t see it was magic that killed him.’

I could see how uncomfortable he was as we neared the body, which by now had been covered in white plastic, and I removed the plastic so he could take a look at Ralco. He sighed, searched his pockets, for something to smoke, and I remembered my conjured cigarettes and offered him one. He took it gladly, along with my lighter, and sucked at his cigarette as if his life depended on it.

‘You were right,’ he finally said. ‘It’s Ralco. Damn.’

‘My thoughts exactly,’ I said, and took the opportunity to light a cigarette myself. Being slightly upset, I forgot all about my lighter and instead let a little spark float up form the palm of my hand to my cigarette. Luckily, no one saw this. Jonathan turned away from the body, and I covered it again.

‘How long has he been dead?’ Jonathan asked me.

‘Almost two days, local time.’

‘Two days… damn.’

‘Yes.’

‘How’d he get here? He’s not a GateMaster.’

‘Someone else must have brought him here,’ I said, and he nodded. I suspected he had realised that as soon as he’d asked me. To try and take my mind off Ralco’s body next to us, I made shapes in the smoke, but stopped when I saw his amused look.

‘Before or after he was killed?’ he asked me.

‘I’m not sure. I can easily tell he’s been killed through magic, but when… Could be before, could be after. But in any case…’

‘This world doesn’t have magic,’ he finished my thoughts. ‘So either way, there’s a GateMaster involved in his death.’

‘Yes.’

‘Damn,’ he repeated for the third time, and I could easily see him think, see him wonder who could have done this. See him go by all the GateMasters he knew.

‘I can’t recognise the signature,’ I said, before he reached the obvious conclusion.

‘Signatures can be hidden,’ he said.

‘But not altered like this. It’s still very obvious, I just don’t know who it belongs to.’

‘Someone you don’t know, then.’

‘I know all of us, Jonathan.’

‘Including Joran’s new students?’ That was news; Joran usually let me know whenever he took on a new student, and I raised my eyebrows.

‘He’s got new students?’ I said, but easily dismissed what Jonathan seemed to be thinking. ‘No, it can’t have been that. I’d feel Joran’s influences. This signature has got nothing of Joran about it.’ Jonathan nodded, and appeared to agree with me. He was worried, thoroughly worried. I didn’t blame him. His brother-in-law suddenly turned up in another world, probably murdered by a GateMaster neither of us knew, and who by all likelihood hadn’t even been trained by Joran, the expert in GateMastery.

‘So… what happens now?’ he asked me. ‘What do you usually do?’

‘The normal stuff,’ I said. ‘Identification, last known whereabouts, family, friends, acquaintances, witnesses. But none of that is of any use, here. To the people in the world, Ralco appeared out of thin air and, according to all records, doesn’t exist.’

‘So you can’t do anything, here,’ he realised. I shook my head. ‘Come to Nadmir with me,’ he said. ‘From the looks of it, we could use a detective there.’

‘Jonathan, I’m no Sherlock Holmes,’ I said. ‘And you’re no Watson. But I do want to find out what happened, and the only place I will be able to do that, is back home.’ I sighed and threw away the remainder of my cigarette. It felt nice, to have a friend with me, but it also increasing my urge to go back home. I’d missed Nadmir, I realised, and made up my mind. First thing in the morning, I was going to resign.

‘There’s another important matter,’ I said. ‘Who’s going to tell Erin?’ Erin is Jonathan’s sister, a lovely woman two years older than him. And she and Ralco had been very much in love.

‘I will,’ Jonathan said with a sigh. ‘She’s my sister, after all.’ Poor man. His usually lively blue eyes were now dark and greyish with worry and grief.

‘I’ll round up everything here,’ I said. ‘Try to find out what Ralco was doing before he ended up here, if you can.’

‘I will,’ he said, clasped my hand in parting, and left.

‘Alright,’ I said, turning back to my policemen while Jonathan drove off into the distance, ‘let’s wrap this up and get him to the morgue. Photographs taken? Evidence gathered? Good. Let’s go.’