Nadmirnian Cycle: Shazneh’s Legacy

2 Riddles

Time was a strange thing, I found myself thinking two days later. I’d been trying to calculate how long I had been in this world, and found it was more than I had thought, or intended. I had been on this world, Earth, for ten years, but since time progresses differently in every single world, it had been less than five years in my home world Nadmir. So, even though I had not been away for that long, it felt like very long to me. My chief, however, did not agree. Of the ten years on Earth, I spent about six as a police officer in this little country. The chief didn’t understand my resigning so soon, with such a bright future ahead of me, but when I told him it was personal and would not give in to his pleas to stay, he gave up. He did ask me to stay until this latest case was done and solved. I almost gave in to the temptation to say we’d never solve this case, but managed to restrain myself, and went back to my desk and made sure everything was being taken care of.

My youthful but surprisingly perceptive partner Jan of course noticed my lack of interest and enthusiasm, and frequently asked if everything was alright. I could tell he found this case very suspicious and that he thought I had something to do with it. He’d watched Jonathan rather suspiciously, too, that day at the crime scene, and I could just see his mind tick and try to work it out.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud that he’ll be a great policeman someday, but right there and then it was something I couldn’t really use.

And then I started to think, what if I told him? What if I told him where I come from, where the ‘anonymous’ victim and Jonathan come from? What I am – a sorcerer and GateMaster. Somehow, I felt I owed it to the young man, as much as I doubted he would understand and believe my tale. But it probably wouldn’t be such a good idea, anyway; it would most likely just cause trouble.

In any case, the investigation came to a dead halt fairly soon. The post-mortem showed no wounds, nothing. The report showed Ralco to be a healthy young man if it wasn’t for the fact that he was dead. I couldn’t admit I knew why, and so pretended to be left dumbfounded. His fingerprints were known nowhere, television broadcasts triggered no clues or calls from dutiful citizens who had seen him – as I had expected. All in all, I was pretty much preparing to officially declare the case ‘unsolvable’ and close it, when Jonathan called in again.

He came to the police station one afternoon, a few days after the discovery of the body, and I was thoroughly glad to see him. I hoped he had had more luck trying to figure this out than I had – well he was bound to, seeing as he at least had been in the right world the last few days.

‘Thank god you’re here, Jonathan,’ I said, walking up to him. ‘I was beginning to get desperate here.’

‘I was busy,’ he said, and that was no lie. I could see the weariness and fatigue on his face, and realised that it had been a rough few days for him.

‘I guess you were,’ I said. ‘Follow me.’

Jan joined us, once again casting suspicious glances at Jonathan, while we were walking towards my office.

‘By the way, this is Jan, my partner,’ I told Jonathan. ‘Jan, this is Jonathan, an old friend of mine.’

They shook hands, and Jonathan raised his eyebrows at me. I shrugged, and he grinned. Jan followed all this with a puzzled look on his face.

‘So, what is it exactly that you do?’ he asked Jonathan.

‘You could say I’m a private detective,’ Jonathan answered smoothly.

‘For whom?’

‘Jan, don’t,’ I warned him, but Jonathan waved away my words.

‘It’s alright,’ he said. ‘You could say I work for the victim. But more accurately, I work for his wife.’ I groaned, softly enough that neither of them heard it.

Jan, of course, stood there with his mouth wide open and his gaze switching from Jonathan to me.

‘You know the victim,’ he said flatly. ‘And he’s married? Why didn’t you tell us? You’ve been withholding evidence!’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘That we know the victim will not help this investigation along. You wouldn’t have been able to find anything whether I’d told you or not. Now, be a good boy and go get Jonathan some coffee.’ Jan put on a sour face and started to protest, but I cut him short and sent him out for the coffee.

‘You shouldn’t have said that in front of him,’ I said as I led Jonathan into my office.

‘You didn’t tell them anything?’ he retorted. ‘At all?’

‘They’d only wonder why I knew the victim while they can’t find anything about him,’ I said, sitting down. ‘Though I’m not sure Jan wouldn’t have found out by himself anyway. That kid is way too smart.’

‘Sounds like a copper in the making,’ Jonathan said.

‘Yes, well…’ I didn’t finish my sentence, and instead chose to ask him about what he had found.

‘Well, Erin said that Ralco went to Veritas the day before yesterday – that’s about four days ago, here.’

‘That should be about right,’ I said. ‘So, what brought Ralco to Veritas?’ Veritas is the capital of our country, but since Ralco and Erin had a big mansion just outside the city, they preferred to stay there.

‘The future of his and Erin’s child.’

Now, that was a surprise. No one had told me Erin was pregnant!

‘Their child? You mean that?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Neither did I, but it barely shows, anyway. She’s about five months on, now.’

‘I see. And what was Ralco supposed to arrange about their unborn child?’

‘He went to an attorney, Rendell Kellaron. He arranged both their wills so that if they die, everything goes to their child. And when I say everything, I mean everything.’

‘That’s… quite something.’

‘I know. Also, Ralco had written a letter, addressed to me, to be handed over after his death. In it, he wrote that he regretted we’d never really become close friends, that I should take care of Erin and the child, and that I, if I am anything like he thinks I am, should not give up on finding out the truth.’

‘So that’s why you said you work for him,’ I said, and Jonathan grinned slightly. ‘But foregoing the issue of your macabre sense of humour, that letter literally screams that Ralco knew he was going to end up dead. Maybe he didn’t expect to die that very same day, but some time soon, in any case.’

‘The letter was dated the day before his death,’ Jonathan nodded. ‘Erin knew nothing about it.’

‘This is getting more and more suspicious by the minute,’ I said with a little sigh. Why did it have to be this complicated? ‘The attorney – did he notice anything strange about Ralco?’

‘Nothing, unless you count the fact that he was very nervous, but people making up their will usually are,’ Jonathan said.

‘That makes sense,’ I agreed. ‘What else?’

‘Ralco was supposed to talk to Cewenn concerning the status of their child. Through Erin, their child will belong to the royal family, and Erin said they’d talked about it and decided not to put their child through all that.’

‘Might be wise,’ I said, ‘but aren’t you and Erin at just about the bottom of the list?’

‘Well, at the top there’s princess Areia and her brothers Thorlan and Perlin, followed by Cewenn’s brother and sisters. My father is the son of one of Cewenn’s sisters, and all the others have children and grandchildren as well. Erin and I would not be the last, per se, but we’re in the lower regions.’

‘But by excluding their child from the royal family, it looks to me like Erin and Ralco seem to think that something might happen to push you and her up the list for quite a bit,’ I said, always having known but never fully realized Jonathan’s status as a member of the royal family and feeling quite numb at hearing all this. He shook his head at my words, though.

‘Not necessarily,’ he said. ‘I can see you wouldn’t know this, but a member of the royal family, no matter how distantly related, has certain obligations. Even Erin and I, and our children and grandchildren. By excluding their child from all that, Erin and Ralco have assured it a much easier and free life. It won’t have to attend certain important events and meetings, and it won’t be trained for, well, just in case.’ I stared at him in shock.

‘You and Erin are trained to rule Nadmirnia?’ I managed to say.

‘Globally,’ he shrugged. ‘Since we are not exactly number one or two. But, in the very unlikely case that everyone above us dies, Erin or I will be able to take over Cewenn’s duties.’

‘Talk about precautions,’ I murmured.

‘Well we wouldn’t want an ignorant, inexperienced young fop to rule Nadmirnia, would we?’ Jonathan said with a smile.

‘Yes, but still…’ I cleared my throat. ‘Let’s continue what we were doing, alright? Did he go to Cewenn?’

‘No, and not to his parents, either, or mine, who he was also due to visit.’

‘So he was probably murdered between his visit to Rendell and going to Cewenn,’ I concluded, and he nodded.

‘But that is about everything I’ve managed to find out so far. If Ralco had another meeting scheduled, between Rendell and Cewenn, Erin didn’t know anything about it, and nor did their servants. So I can’t really tell exactly what happened, other than that his letter suggests he knew his murderer-to-be.’

I sighed, leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling,

‘Well, we haven’t been able to find anything, here. Not on his body, no witnesses, nothing. I secretly examined the magical residue again, yesterday, but couldn’t discover more than I already had. I don’t know who killed him, or who brought him here.’

‘If they’re even two different persons,’ Jonathan put in.

‘Yes, but I prefer not to dwell on that. There’s nothing scarier than a homicidal GateMaster.’

At that moment, the door opened and Jan entered, with two steaming mugs of coffee.

‘Have you finished talking about things you didn’t want me to hear?’ he said, handing Jonathan his coffee. I glared at him.

‘You’re too bright for your own good, you,’ I told him, but brightened up slightly at the sight of coffee.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I learned from the best.’

‘Yeah, well, not anymore, kiddo,’ I said. ‘I’m quitting.’ His mouth dropped open.

‘Chief… is it because of this case? You’ll solve it, you always do!’

‘Oh, I will solve it, alright,’ I said. ‘Just not here. So, I’m resigning.’ He closed his mouth, and a thoughtful look appeared in his eyes. From the corner of my eyes, I noticed that Jonathan was following all this with an amused look on his face.

‘So you know who the victim is, and you have a pretty good idea how to get to his murderer, but it’s rather… unusual, am I right? That’s why you’re leaving, to… to wherever you come from. And I bet it’s where the dead man and your friend Jonathan come from, too, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ I said, slightly alarmed at first that he had linked everything together so well, so soon. But then I found myself thinking, like before, that it might not do so much harm to tell the kid everything. Well, not everything, maybe, but much of it, anyway. The look on Jonathan’s face, in the meantime, changed from amusement to alarm and I could see he was going to try and talk me out of this.

‘Paul-’ he said, but I interrupted him with a wave of my hand.

‘No, Jonathan, don’t say anything,’ I said, making up my mind. ‘From the moment I walked into the police office here I have been forced to do my utmost to keep Jan from finding out things he shouldn’t know. Now that I’m leaving, I think I owe him at least an explanation.’

‘I really don’t think…’

‘With all due respect, my friend, I know Jan, you don’t. I know he can take this.’

Jan, in the meantime, was following our not-quite-conversation with wonder and curiosity.

‘Son,’ I said, ‘let me show you where I come from. Where Jonathan comes from.’ His eyes widened as I drew the fiery circle that was the first step of creating a portal. Jonathan shook his head, but said nothing and instead pretended to concentrate on his coffee.

‘Here, this is where we come from,’ I said when the image of the Erlen lake and valley came into view. We followed the river out of the hills into the plains, up to a grand city, bustling with activity. ‘This is my home, Veritas.’

‘What… How… Who…’ Jan said, but then took a deep breath and seemed to collect his thoughts. ‘How do you do that? And where is that place?’

‘It’s another world, Jan,’ I said. ‘Jonathan, Ralco and I are all from there. We were able to come here, because we are what we call ‘GateMasters’. It means we can travel between worlds.’ Jan nodded thoughtfully, seemingly unperturbed by the strangeness of it all. If anything, I’d say he was curious.

‘So this is where you think you can find that poor man’s murderers?’ he asked. I nodded.

‘Most likely, yes. Ralco was murdered by magic, and brought here through GateMastery. That means we must look for his murderer in our own world, or possibly another. We wouldn’t find anything here, because your world has no magic whatsoever.’

‘And thus no murderers who would kill with magic.’

‘Exactly,’ I said. Jan slowly sat down on a nearby chair.

‘I understand why you didn’t want to tell me, now,’ he said.

‘Actually, we’re not allowed to,’ Jonathan said with a glance at me. I pretended to ignore him. ‘It’s in the rules.’

‘You have rules about that?’

‘There are rules for everything, kid, you know that,’ I said. ‘And I hope you realize this means you can never tell anyone about this.’ I pointed at the image of Veritas in my circle before closing it. Jan nodded.

‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Your secret is safe with me.’

‘It bloody better well be,’ I said with a grin.

‘When will you come back home?’ Jonathan asked me. I shrugged.

‘In a few days or so. Unfortunately, I’ve got a few things to tie up here.’

‘I could take care of that for you,’ Jan offered.

‘Thanks, but no thanks, kid,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to do it myself. Jonathan, please tell Erin I’m very sorry about Ralco, and that I’ll be back soon. Oh, and tell Joran, as well.’ Jonathan nodded, but then grimaced and cursed.

‘Damn, I was supposed to visit Joran,’ he said. ‘He said it was urgent; I forgot all about it!’ He stood abruptly, drew a Portal in the air through which I could see the familiar door to Joran’s study, nodded at Jan and me, and left. The Portal  disappeared behind him.

‘Wow,’ Jan said in the silence that followed.

‘Yes, quite,’ I said, and stood as well. ‘Come on, let’s wrap this up, shall we?’