D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch Read Online Free PDF

early afternoon when the old fool usually showed up. Then he’d probably have to go straight over to the guildhall. It would cost a pretty coin to involve the Wizards’ Guild. Magicians placed a high value on their services, especially when the funds were coming from the city coffers. The new mayor wouldn’t like it at all.
    There was nothing to be done about it, though. Politics be damned. Garett had worked enough of these kinds of cases to know he was helpless unless the guild could give him some kind of clue about how to proceed.
    As they reached the end of the Street of Temples and stepped out onto the better lighted Processional, Burge touched Garett’s arm and stopped. A group of six men was approaching, coming up the Processional from the direction of Old Town, walking purposefully, and they carried their lanterns high. As they drew closer, Garett noted the cudgels that two of them carried and the blue tabards with embroidered crossed cudgels that the same pair wore. On their heads they wore light blue caps with long white feathers stuck in the bands.
    “Ho, night watchmen! ” Garett called, stepping into the center of the street where he could plainly be seen.
    The Guild of Night Watchmen was a group separate and distinct from the City Watch. For one thing, they were all volunteers. Each night, they walked the streets in teams of two or four. If trouble occurred, they tried quietly to calm the situation, or one would run for the City Watch while the other observed the situation. They could be hired as escorts for citizens who needed to be abroad after dark and wished the extra security, or they could be hired to guard warehouses, shops, or even estates in the High Quarter. They were scrupulously honest and maintained a good relationship with the City Watch, whose burden they helped
    ease.
    The man in the lead stopped suddenly and squinted. “Captain Starlen, is it?” he said with a trace of surprise. “Now there’s a bit of luck. We were just on our way to see you, sir. There’s been a murder in the Foreign Quarter.” “A murder?” Garett said. He looked past the night watch leader. Four of the men with him were not night watchmen at all. They were Attloi. By their brightly colored dress Garett recognized them. Gypsy people at heart, they knew no nation or homeland. There was always a contingent of Attloi, though, in the Foreign Quarter. Garett frowned. One murder a night was enough for him. But there was no way around this. It was his job. “Who was murdered?”
    “Exebur,” one of the Attloi growled angrily. “What are you going to do about it?”
    “Exebur the Seer,” the night watch leader explained calmly, deferentially. “Most unusual, it was, too. His throat was cut with one of his own tarot cards. Apparently while he was laying them out for a reading.”
    “’You’re sure it was a card?” Blossom asked doubtfully. He was only a night watchman, after all, her tone of voice seemed to say. Not a true professional.
    “A card,” the night watchman replied, unoffended. “It’s still in his neck, real deep, too, if you care to come and look, my lady.”
    “If you’ll forgive a morbid curiosity,” Burge inquired, “which card?”
    The angry Attloi man spoke up. “The Raptor,” he answered darkly. “It’s one of the major arcana. A card of great power. An evil omen.” Several of the other Attloi grumbled in agreement and made warding signs in the air, as if even speaking of the card was reason enough to protect them-
    selves.
    “Exebur was our greatest seer,” the Attloi leader went on bitterly. “He made us much money wherever we went. He had the true vision.”
    Garett pursed his lips thoughtfully. This Attloi was more concerned about the loss of income to his tribe than about another man’s death. He looked the man up and down, studied him, and noted the garish quality of his clothing. He was wealthy by Attloi standards, perhaps a gypsy prince. His bearing conveyed the same