Detective Alexandre’s Kargat Casebook: Errant Bloodlines

[Mischief]

I'm crossposting here rather than in my own thread because this is the section for fanfiction oneshots. PDF download, if you prefer.

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Detective Alexandre’s Private Kargat Casebook: Errant Bloodlines

Mischief, October 2020, QTR #27

  Detective Alexandre’s morning began with a sharp knock at the door of his private room and the sharper knock of his forehead on the inn’s roof beam. His halfling hotelier, a biscuit-faced marm with custard locks in a braided bun, was clutching a wooden tray with a steaming pot of floral black tea, cranberry scones, and a navy-blue envelope sealed with the King’s fiery eye in golden wax. Her own eyes were the size of saucers.
 
  She whispered to the inspector like the letter itself might overhear, “A gentlelady on a black horse wearing black and blue and gold had this for you. A royal letter, she said, from the Rex’s castle. Deliver it as soon as possible, she told me.” Alexandre carefully received her trembling tray so as not to tip the teacup. He wasn’t surprised in the slightest that Azalin’s people had no trouble finding him despite boarding in the little people’s quarters rather than the usual human haunts. Sure, he hit his noggin on every timber, but a bowl of the inn’s chilled summer beet borscht chased by the family brandy cured all headaches.
 
  “Shame she didn’t stay for one of your breakfasts. I’m sure they’re much better than the king’s fare. Don’t tell him I said that.” The marm brushed his easing words aside with a porcelain smile and bustled from the room. Peasant’s tales allege that when anyone other than the rightful recipient peeked at a royal letter, they would be bewitched by the wizard king’s magic and their brains would leak from their ears as spaghetti noodles, or their eyeballs would pop out and scuttle off like spiders. And knowing said king, he probably enjoys cursing his correspondence just so.
 
  Sipping tea, Alexandre popped the seal. In loopy blue calligraphy –not the king’s own clinical hand– the parchment within required Deputy Inspector L. Alexandre of the Public Affairs Division of the Kargat to appear at the capital courthouse, today, exactly one hour before noon for an audience with the king regarding an open petition.
 
  The detective was a not-so-secret member of Darkon’s much-feared secret police: the king’s ears and knives in matters of state and espionage. Split into cells, only Azalin Rex himself knew the Kargat’s full ranks. Alexandre’s public-facing division was the lone unclandestine exception; they assisted the ordinary constabulary with their caseload, undertook dirty cover-up jobs, or handled ‘special’ investigations requiring unusual skills or discretion. As best as Alexandre could tell, his department really only existed so that the King could cart them around to make a visible statement about his interest in this or that internal affair, and so the folk would have an image to fear. They were dead last on the Kargat’s budget dole.
 
  Despite donning the same itchy woolen uniform, the inspector felt no kinship to the truly underground organization of beast-men, occult spellcasters, and undead that killed, spied, and kidnapped as the king demanded. Alexandre’s sword became well acquainted with their dead hearts a few years back when a foolish internecine murder forced his division to defend their honor. A black horseman bearing a blue envelope soon arrived after that incident, the first time the detective was called for personal audience with Azalin Rex. Whatever this latest intrigue was, Alexandre could take small comfort in knowing it couldn’t be worse than justifying the massacre of the king’s senior agents to said king on the grounds of “they started it, so we finished it.”
 
  Perhaps the king planned to assign him the petitioner’s case, a covert matter that couldn’t pass through the usual channels? Or maybe the inspector had brought down trouble, but he couldn’t think of any recent doings deserving of Azalin’s ire. His last big job, the Nartok serial murder, had wrapped up cleanly once he gained access to the girls’ boarding school and found the missing woman’s body in the elementary wing. The detective had even been given a commendation and small bonus for getting it done quickly and quietly.
 
  After a rinse in the basin to flatten his blond bedhead, Alex paid off the tab, adding a tip for the care of the letter and the ostler to bring his beast around to the laundromat up the way. The street outside glared with blinding sunrise. Squinting in the light, the detective threw on his hat and tinted glasses before taking a quick survey of the passersby. Only misty residue stubbornly clinging to glistening cobbles lurked in the dark corners. A gaggle of half-height gossips discussing the black rider had gathered, but Alex paid them no mind. He tossed a couple copper to the dwarven beggar who had her leg gnawed off by a giant rat while trapped under rubble during a mine cave-in, and set off towards the market square.
 
  Alexandre was not much of a morning person, or a sun person at all really, ever since the night his tiny east-coast thorpe was sacked and sucked dry by vampires seven years ago. He lost both his parents to the bloodbath. Whatever magic Azalin’s medics had used to drag him back from the jaws of death had changed him. The worst of it was that he still looked like a teenager, despite being 23 years old. He got no respect at crime scenes even in his blue and blacks. He had already been arrested twice for impersonating a Kargat officer. And, most irritating of all, bars watered down his drinks.
 
  Disentangling himself from a low-hanging laundry line, Alex loomed like a straw-headed scarecrow above the capital’s crop of black and brown-dressed half-folk wending between wood and brick-fronted businesses. On a quieter morning, he might order coffee and guess at passersby’s livelihoods until his drink got cool enough to sip. But today, the detective followed the smell of lemons and soap twining between flaky pies, chimney soot, and clopping ponies pulling halfling-size carriages. Ducking under the lintel, he paid the familiar gnomish laundromat for a double-rush express clean, press, steam, and polish of his deputy’s clothes and armor while Alex worked over his sword, belt, scabbard, gun holster, and boots until the bronze buckles glinted and he could see his reflection in the black.
 
  “You look sharp today. Testimony in court, Mister Alex?” He’d become popular among the district’s shorter folk last year after he threw on his official colors and “discouraged” some ne’er-do-wells who’d come over from the human slums to drink, loot, and burn shops. Alex wasn’t charged with the maimings of course because the Kargat only answers to royal authority.
 
   “Nope. Summons. Can’t talk about it, but I hope I’m not in trouble.” The gnome gave him a polite nod of sympathy. His wife finished with Alexandre’s official blue and black Kargat officer’s greatcoat and brushed down his horse. The stallion, coffee brown, a bit dopey and thunder shy, was not his favorite beast, but it was a free one – snagged as battlefield spoils. The Falkovnian officer who owned it previously took a crossbow bolt to the chest and got eaten alive by his own zombified soldiers – the Wizard King’s necromantic doing. The inspector was sure the hawkish warlord Vlad Drakov would eventually add a fifth Dead Man’s War to his ever-increasing roster of campaign failures, but Alex hoped to be promoted out of having to fight in it before then.
 
  Reacquainting himself with his loathing for the official dress code that demanded full wool frocking over armor in the dead heat of summer, Alex rode from the little people’s winding cobble streets into the sullen stone and wrought-iron bramble that was the sty of the common laboring man. In his Kargat blues, everyone fearfully gave way, so he made good time to the river. At the meridian of capital and country both, Old Town was the architectural equivalent of a raving boot sergeant showering spittle on one’s face. The ugly molar of granite and bluestone that the Kargat called headquarters was a particularly vile blight on the eyes and soul. His division’s colonel was mocked by the others for not having an office in that dead rock stump, but Alex bet they were all jealous of the quieter and greener suburban mansion that Public Affairs quartered in.
 
  The Capital Courthouse, accented with marble columns like a chest of ribs, loomed into view. The sconces of the two granite tower pinnacles were lit to welcome the king, but no rotting bodies hung from the matching pair of gibbets and cages. Even the whipping pole and gallows stood quiet. Only the sun-beaten convicts languishing in the pillories advertised the square of guilt. Some courts like to schedule corporal punishment and executions back-to-back whenever their heads of state take up residence. Azalin Rex didn’t care for extraneous hubbub unless he was making a point to witness it – or do the job himself.
 
  Alex left his hat, bundle, and boot knife which he had relocated to his belt ahead of time with the court concierge. Kargat officers often wore a hidden bit or two – never know when you might get jumped. One of his partners took pride in carrying enough cutlery to arm a centuria, and even more in making everyone wait while he took five full minutes to disarm. He hoped his steel legerdemain would catch him some girls, but one of these days he would catch Alex’s fist. His sword the detective could keep as an officer in good standing.
 
  Muttering clusters of curious staff and lawmakers with leather satchels or those silly lockable rolling chests were milling about the dim, marble arched court hallways: spectators hoping to catch sight of the king. Alexandre was mildly confident they would get no such viewing. Azalin could take skulking secret passages to reach the royal audience hall without subjecting himself to public ogling. It stood to reason the king must have a teleportation circle somewhere in the basement so prisoners could be transported to and from the King’s personal dungeons. Usually just to.
 
  Alexandre presented his blue envelope to the entry hall clerk frowning in the light of her green-glass lamp. She wasn’t even the least bit impressed handling the king’s personal stationary. Alexandre had dealt with this spectacled clerk a dozen times, but the wrinkle-nosed grump still inspected his papers like he had stolen them from his dad’s coat pocket. A scratching of the silver pen, a couple stamps in her books, a bell ding, and an usher shepherded the detective through the ornamental iron door instead of the usual colonnade hall to the lower court waiting rooms and holding cells.
 
  Separate and above Darkon’s courts, Kargat officers could drag off anyone within the limits of Azalin’s tolerance. But unlike the others, the colonel of the Public Affairs Division insisted his officers be accountable to the justices when possible: answer summons and allow his deputies’ judgements to be cross-examined in the courtroom. Alex resented the pressure like most new officers, but squaring off with Darkon’s silvered-tongued rhetoricians and world-shrewd judges had sharpened his deductive eye and refined his tactics to unwind uncooperative witnesses.
 
  But the colonel’s true purpose in ordering his deputies to take the stand was not to temper their talents. He had seized upon a greater wisdom: the people feared the Kargat for their capriciousness, not law and order. The other divisions often washed the local barons’ and even Azalin’s face in mud with public street snatchings, obvious disappearances, and self-serving predatory schemes. Alex’s division alone cared about keeping a disciplined public appearance.
 
  The deputy once mustered the gumption to ask his boss how he knew that the Rex was pleased with their performance, when their division was so mundane compared to the others. The colonel had Alex lock the office door, “I’m only telling you this, Deputy Alexandre, because of your … condition, and how you came to us. When I turned 50, I sent word up the line asking to be reassigned so I could spend more time with my grandsons and teach them how to spar and hunt before my eyes crusted over and shaky knees gave out. I got permission to move the office to a little mansion nearer my estate. Five years went, but no reassignment. I submitted resignation papers. A blue letter came, you know the sort. He asked what would convince me to stay on. ‘Nothing’, I replied, ‘I’d gladly consult, but I want to spend my last firm years with my grandchildren.’ The second letter came. He wanted to know exactly how many firm years would satisfy me. I have been the division colonel long enough for my oldest grandson to have his own daughter – just a week ago. I like my job most days, but don’t forget, Alex, you serve at his majesty’s pleasure, not your own.” The colonel’s face was war-whipped, but beneath the spots, he didn’t look a day over 50.
 
  Through the iron door, the usher led Detective Alexandre down a set of marble stairs to the posh blue velvet couches of the anteroom. It was telling that the royal hall of judgment was in the basement. There are two sorts who liked to conduct business underground – the paranoid and the formerly buried. He pushed the treasonous thought out. The double-doors to the king’s court, marked with his ubiquitous fiery eye in gold leaf, stared Alex down.
 
  Another usher came by with glasses and an iced bucket chilling a bottle of sweet spring water which the inspector gratefully accepted. She followed with a silver and lace tray of fried savory pies nestled in crinkly white papers. These Alexandre politely declined. Ah, crusto caronis, the classic Darkonian murder mystery. Which animal’s over-salted and over-seasoned corpse bits did the chef stuff in the pastry and then deep fry to occult the evidence? This was a case the detective had no intention of solving, thanks to his bizarre divination power which forces him to experience with all five senses the last gasp of life of any creature whose blood, raw or cooked, crosses his lips. While useful to his sleuthing, it is much less welcome when dinner with pleasant company is interrupted by excruciating enfleshment in the body of a squealing pig having its neck slit with a blunt knife.
 
  If he didn’t get tossed in the brig, Alexandre entertained the notion that he would enter his own petition to the Rex: a vegetarian dish on the court’s visitor menu, please. Perhaps ravioli stuffed full of the king’s mushroom, Amanita caesarea, kissed by a whisper of thyme, shallot, sea salt, and garlic, and generously drizzled with truffle-infused olive oil? Or how about a mild golden Raijan coconut curry poured over a petite jasmine rice pilaf, sprinkled with watercress and chopped peanut, and served steaming hot like the nine-boy services all the rage in Mordentshire and Port-a-Lucine?
 
  His food fantasies were interrupted by a girl’s pained wailing. A man, a noble by the jangling of his chatelaine and chains of office, had burst through the anteroom doors dragging his child across the polished floor by her collar and braided black hair. He flung his cane and hat into the blue velvet couch – having bypassed the coat check earlier. Dressed to the nines, the man must be here to see the king as well – the petitioner? Or the king’s next meeting? His quivering girl was fighting tears, and her reddened face looked like she had been slapped about.
 
  “What did you write? Tell me, girl!” The girl’s purple-faced father literally shook her down for answers. “Tell me now!” The bow on her cutely pleated hair was coming loose. The mortified court usher hovered nearby, wanting to intervene in the abuse but unable to break rank. The poor girl’s head was going to be shaken off. The inspector casually stood to make his presence known, hoping the steely glare of a Kargat witness might encourage the man to quiet down.
 
  Oh no. That black-haired little hellion. The girl from the Nartok case.
 
  Before Alex could slink back down into his seat, the grand double door emitted a pair of black-armored soldiers bearing spears, silvered shields, and deeply hooded full-length cloaks with silver detailing. Azalin’s honor guard. One slid over to Alexandre like death to the sickbed. Much like crusto caronis, Alexandre couldn’t guess what flavor of grave horror or shapeshifter lurked beneath the looming praetorian soldier’s armor shell. Even its face was fully covered by an iron mask, minus a faint gleam of red where its eyes peered out. The guardsman sketched the barest semblance of a bow which Alexandre returned with equal lack of sincerity. Simply from proximity, he could feel lethal auras radiating from the edges of the guardsman’s immaculately polished weapons and the thick spellbook chained to its hip. Annoyed by Alex’s scrutiny, the thing menacingly bore its red eyes into his. “The king will see you now,” it half-hissed in a perfectly ordinary-sounding local accent. Alexandre threw his shoulders back with a little nonchalance.
 
  The detective took a look over, and yes, the father and girl were being brought in at the same time. Daughter had ducked behind daddy’s legs to put his mass between her and their own terrifying praetorian collector and nearly tripped him up. The father managed enough presence of mind to glare over at Alexandre with a white-faced mix of restrained anger, fear, and questioning. The child, whose gaze the inspector deliberately shunned, was smiling now. If the father wasn’t the petitioner, then it was the child. Yes, it would be her fault, somehow. The leering doors opened, and the throne beckoned.
  
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  Ever since that one isolated staking-a-dozen-Kargat-agents-and-burning-their-headquarters-to-the-ground incident which Alexandre got off with just a warning for, hearsay had it that the detective was a favorite and confidant of the king. This was a particularly vexatious bit of calumny as the totality of the deputy inspector’s interactions with the lord of Darkon had been business only: receive assignments and be questioned about findings. In fact, Alexandre suspected Azalin had it out for him –mildly, as the king’s actual enemies wound up dead in one fashion or another. When specific assignments came down from on high, the colonel’s comment on Alex’s was always “you were specifically requested, I have no say in it”, “I was told you have the right kind of experience for this case”, “This assignment will be a gold star for your career”, or the most ominous of them all, “Have fun with this one.” Even so, the detective had been in the reticent king’s presence just enough that he could judge the royal mood with some confidence.
 
  And as for the current royal mood grimly staring him down, well, if the inspector had a choice between the audience hall and a cistern of rats in Sainte Ronges, he would share a cheese board with the vermin.
 
  Seated tall upon the throne, an only mildly pretentious gilt affair with black and blue velvet atop a dais of marble, was the old man himself, stern and frowning. Defiant wisps of curly black hair gone to grey peeked out from under the iron crown. His perpetual long-nosed scowl was topped by shrewd eyes with a glint of red that would pierce any deception.
 
  In the windowless room lit by magical white-flame sconces, the Rex was unchanged since last Alexandre was in his presence. He had heard whispers about how Azalin might have obtained his unnatural lifespan, but the inspector cared little for such troublesome matters. The king paid in fine silver and cut the hearts out of those who probed into his business with even finer steel.
 
  The king was wearing a split end, sleeved garment that married a lab coat, wizard’s robe, and a king’s cape. The material that dragged at the end couldn’t be dirtied or stepped on because it was an immaterial as a shadow - a neat trick. This was casual dress by royal standards, which meant Azalin’s business for the day involved no public appearances.
 
  The detective’s paces fell behind the pair as he guessed at the radius that would put him out of range of Azalin’s presumed thought gleaning powers, but the king eyed him with a don’t even try it look. Unwillingly, Alex alit near father and daughter and took a knee as they had, but gracefully so his poleyn didn’t clank. He idly wondered if Azalin eschewed carpet in his private audience hall to hurt knees on purpose or because the uncleanliness of those who disappoint the king comes off tile better.
 
  With the sound of cloth robes, Azalin dismissed his six remaining masked guardsmen. The blue-black cloaked warriors flowed two by two on either side of the three kneeling suppliants with spears aloft and exited the hall. The last pair shut the door with a deep and final thud, sealing the trio in with the King’s judgmental stare.
 
  Alexandre wasn’t surprised the king felt comfortable leaving himself alone and outnumbered. As if being a necromancer who could raise a whole graveyard before first coffee wasn’t enough, Azalin moved with the gangly grace of a scholar who trained with weapons. His plain steel scepter, leaned up in its stand in arm’s reach of the throne, was the practical, head-bashing sort.
 
  The father’s knees were openly shaking. Alexandre was doing a better job of hiding it. The only one with confidence was the child.
 
  “You may rise.”
 
  The other man claimed the initiative and staggered forward, yet managed that elegant bow only true nobility can seem to get right. Free of her father’s discipline, his kid turned to openly grin at Alexandre. Alex’s only concession was a jerk of the head to pay attention to the king.
 
  “My most honorable, eternal lord Rex, your devoted reeve from Nevuchar Springs is overjoyed and utterly humbled to be in your magnanimous presence once more. Your majesty, I jubilantly present my eldest daughter. I pray this momentary convocation with the true father of this nation graces her with a sliver of his virtue, wisdom, intelligence, and splendor. Your faithful servant, however, begs for his august master’s patience. It would appear that my daughter has borrowed my stationary and addressed a letter of petition to this court absent my approval or knowledge of its contents.”
 
  The man was blabbering, buying time with long words to find his nerves. Alexandre could see the Rex’s mental sandclock of patience running out.
 
  “I only discovered this lapse in my oversight when this court’s letter of summons was delivered. Please, merciful sovereign, I apologetically beseech a moment in private to discuss—”
 
  “Silence. Let the petitioner speak.”
 
  The reeve’s mouth did its best suffocating fish impression, but Azalin already set his eyes on the fidgeting girl who appeared to be having second thoughts. The king nodded at her, and she inched forward with hesitation, and when she stopped short, he patiently beckoned her to fully present herself. The child made a jaunty curtsy and stared at the king rather longer than was polite.
 
  “Your eyes are not on fire,” she finally announced with disappointment, “so why does everyone say you have fiery eyes?”
 
  Alex tried not to let his mental wince show on his face.
 
  “Because the fire is a metaphor for my magical might and my wrath at children who forget to address their seniors by their proper titles.”
 
  “I’m sorry, Mister Majesty Azalin Rex. What does ‘metaphor’ mean?”
 
  “Ask your father later. Your king is still waiting for you to speak about your petition.” Alex spared a sidelong glance at the dad, staring into the void and worrying at his hands. His girl took a deep breath and began with confidence.
 
  “Um, thank you, Mister Majesty, I am happy you read my petition letter. As you must definitely already know, I am a daughter of esteemed noble lineage. This spring, mister Deputy Inspector Alexandre who works for the Kargat”, she jabbed her finger rudely at said officer here, “we met each other at my school in Nartok. He claimed a fil-fi-brotherial relationship to me in front of the lady headmistress. That significates he, Inspector Alexandre, has, um, pre-pretensions to noble blood and thence-fore, I humbly request, my Rex-Lord,” and she curtsied prettily, “for the state to look into the claim’s ver-a-ci-ty. I visited the baby records on file in Nevuchar Springs and it said the Inspector is an orphan from nearby my family’s estate, so there is, uh, no small chance that he may be of bloodline relationship. Dad has not married another mom yet, so our noble house lacks a male heir. And so because of that, it is very, um, cru- crucial that every lead be investigated.”
 
  Her astounding speech concluded, the girl flung herself into a deep bow that allowed her to sneak a peek backwards at Alexandre.
 
  Azalin’s famous stoicism cracked. From the father’s grimace, he wished a hole would open beneath him and his daughter and drop them both into the catacombs below. The inspector carefully inspected a corner of the ceiling – yep, cobwebs – and mentally let loose with a string of colorful rhyming oaths he learned from the ruffians that loitered in Mordentshire’s bay. After recovering his regal demeanor, the king spoke gently.
 
  “I am sorry, little one. The inspector may be an orphan, but the Kargat is not negligent in the background investigations of its agents. Investigator Alexandre’s parentage is well known to this court. You have my personal assurance that he is unrelated to you by blood.”
 
  The poor child was utterly crushed. She still made a polite curtsy and started backing away from the throne, but then stopped midstep.
 
  “What-what if he is an illegitimate brother?” She hopefully flung out on the floor. The girl’s speechless father flushed scarlet and quietly smoldered while the inspector focused on the errant candle-wax drip on Azalin’s right boot.
 
  “Your illegitimate brother?” Azalin nearly wheezed.
 
  “Yes, majesty. There are rumors about my family. About me. So maybe there are others.” And like a knife across the throat, the mood ran ice cold. Nose itching, Alexandre looked over in time to see bright red blood plop to the floor. The father had gouged his own palms in rage. Duly noted, the tile had justified itself.
 
  Azalin aimed a piercing frown at the man. “Are these rumors true?”
 
  “No.” The man lied through set jaw. Azalin’s eyes narrowed and Alexandre tried to mentally broadcast his hope the king would let this one slide for the sake of the child’s feelings.
 
  “It offends the dignity of the kingdom that someone would be allowed to spin tales about a reeve’s house so freely that even your own child has heard them. These harmful lies have undoubtedly already spread far beyond your walls. I expect you will do your utmost to discover and discredit the source of these rumors, promptly.”
 
  The king briefly warned the detective with a level glance, ‘I expect your discretion.’ He needn’t have. Alexandre couldn’t be paid to touch this business with ten ten-foot poles taped together.
 
  The detective spared a look at the girl. Standing resigned and alone beside her flesh and blood father, she too was an orphan in spirit. A child of no one, clinging to any driftwood of affection, now once again resolved to drown in loneliness. Alex absently noticed his hand was clutching the aching scar over his heart, the sickly black pit in his flesh left by the cruel vampires that tore away his parents, his home, and his happy childhood.
 
  “Inform me, Inspector, what happened in Nartok that resulted in this… misunderstanding.” The detective stepped forward and bowed, relieved his legs hadn’t gone gelatinous on him.
 
  “Lord Rex, it was the recent serial killing affair. The mission was to covertly access the presumed crime scene at the girl’s boarding school. I was selected for the infiltration role because of my youthful appearance. The investigation was… considered high priority and time-bound.” Alexandre danced around the details, since he wasn’t sure he should speak freely about matters of treason even in front of nobility. Azalin nodded as though he knew the particulars, so the detective gratefully skipped ahead.
 
  “The little miss had slipped her off-campus escort so that she could buy arcane trinkets from a Vistana that students are forbidden from patronizing. She discovered me applying stage makeup as part of my plan to enter the school grounds under false pretense. She was interested in my equipment, and from my costume correctly guessed I intended to break into the campus to find the missing individual. The victim’s disappearance was widely known and speculated upon, even if the significance was unknown to the public.”
 
  “It fills your lord with confidence and pride that his esteemed undercover police agents are getting caught out by nine-year-olds,” Azalin drawled.
 
  “I’m ten, sir.”
 
  “You were nine at the time, and do not speak over your king again.”
 
  “Sorry, majesty.”
 
  “Er, the little miss seemed amenable, so rather than wiping her memory with a scroll I had prepared, I instead offered her gifts if she would corroborate a false identity so I could access the grounds. Relatives of elementary students could enter the primary school dormitory areas once their belongings had been inspected and their minds tested for sorcerous twisting. This would place me in a far more advantageous position than the original stratagem.”
 
  “Majesty, it was a good thing I found him. His skirt and stockings and collar and braids were done all wrong. Inspector Alexandre would have gotten stopped at the gate for dress code violations,” the little girl pronounced with a condescending wave and impish grin.
 
  “I’m talking to the king. You must wait your turn.” Alexandre hurriedly shushed her. He had hoped the embarrassing little detail that the colonel had ordered him to crossdress wouldn’t have come up. The reeve was rooted in place like a tree, at the complete mercy of his whirlwind of a child. Useless. Alex could see Azalin was eyeing the man with much the same thought.
 
  “My apologies, Lord Rex. The little miss’s escort was looking for her, so we had little time to prepare a cover story before we were discovered or a search party was called. I exchanged my uniform and suggested to the miss that she call me her brother instead. The escort bought the story, but we were confronted by the headmistress at the gate who was overseeing the passage of visitors. She noted that the little miss and I hardly look alike, so I claimed bastardry. I would have never used such an impertinent lie if I had known her peerage at the time.”
 
  “She is the recognized daughter of your home barony’s most significant reeve.” Azalin chided.
 
  Alexandre took it on the chin. While he hadn’t heard any rumors of her legitimacy, the scuttlebutt was that the father routinely sequestered his disfavored daughter from the public eye because her birth caused the labored death of his wife. Contradicting his liege by mentioning this in front of said father would be a …less-than-sage diplomatic maneuver. Not that Alexandre would have even recognized his birthland’s reeve without his garb, braids, and chains of office; the inspector hardly spent more than a couple weeks a year in Nevuchar Springs.
 
  “So, with the child’s aid you gained access to the scene.”
 
  “Yes, sir. I placed an alarm-disabling device disguised as a potted plant by a discreet narrow window, which I then used to enter the dormitories after the hall monitor’s final inspection.”
 
  “You said you offered her some form of payment for this service and her silence?”
 
  “Yes, sir.”
 
  “And what was your bargain?”
 
  “Sir, I offered her a wand of light, a sum of gold, and a doll.”
 
  “Evasive. What was the bargain you agreed upon?”
 
  Tch. Can’t get one past this king. “She wished for my gun, which I thought inappropriate.”
 
  “Wise, but you have yet to convince this court you do think, Inspector.”
 
  “I instead promised I would let her try shooting it, later.”
 
  At this, the girl hopped forward a step and made a pouty face at the king hoping she would be called on.
 
  “...You may speak.”
 
  “I want to add a ‘grie-vance’ to my petition, Majesty. Inspector Alexandre broke his promise about letting me shoot his gun and is a liar.”
 
  “The inspector’s breach of contract will be accounted for when I decide his punishment.”
 
  The girl curtsied approvingly and swiveled around to peek with a schoolyard bully’s gloating smirk. Alexandre swore he saw Azalin make a little of the same. Fine then, if the little hellion wants to scrap in the sandpile, then Alex would throw the sand.
 
  “I was going to”, Alexandre lied, “but then you threatened to tell on me to your headmistress, which meant we weren’t friends anymore.”
 
  Her confidence cracked and shame turned her eyes to the floor. Ha, followed by self-disciplined embarrassment for enjoying a stoop below his station. Alexandre turned back to address the king who stoically awaited the explanation of this latest turn in narration. No, I definitely saw him make that face. He can’t fool me now. The Undying Wizard King of Darkon has the same sense of mischief as a ten-year-old schoolgirl. He’s a bully and enjoys it, mists take us all.
 
  “Sir, after the officers staged the raid, the little miss managed to approach me while I was wrapping up the scene at the boarding school. To provide context, all the relevant criminal suspects were seized in that first sweep, but the Kargat was still unsure of their full membership at the time. The method of my infiltration was also still secret. The miss blackmailed me. If I did not allow her to view the autopsy of the missing woman I had discovered entombed in the wall, she planned to tell the headmistress I had coerced her earlier. I was concerned the little miss could meet with retaliation from fugitive confederates if she made public claims before the Kargat finished the interrogations. Thus, I consented to her presence at the autopsy so that the girl would not draw further attention to herself.”
 
  “Inspector Alexandre said the killer was sneaky and used a spell to keep the lady from going stinky rotten and also to make it hard to know when she died. But Inspector is smart because he knew what food she ate last, and since her body wasn’t rotten, the food inside her wouldn’t be rotten either. So we cut her open and then cut her stomach and looked inside at the ‘chyme’,” the girl chirped happily.
 
  “‘We’, Inspector?” Azalin asked with an arched eyebrow.
 
  This kid… “Sir, I sat her off to the side, but she threatened to raise a fit if I did not let her try the scalpel. I was prepared to remove her immediately if she had misbehaved further, but she made her incisions respectfully and precisely as I directed, so I toured her through each of the major thoracic organs and explained their functions.”
 
  “I see. Your bosses tell me you are good with children, but they really mean you are good at being bullied by them.”
 
  “Majesty, I have since been studying frogs, and rats, and a dog that got run over by a carriage to see if they have same organs in the same places. It was hard because they aren’t as big as a person. And kitchen knives aren’t as sharp or neat at cutting. I traced the shapes of each of the organs on a cloth. When I get home, king, I can post you and Inspector Alexandre a paper copy for your libraries.”
 
  “Your scholarly enthusiasm for comparative anatomy is appreciated and encouraged, but I will not require a copy of your research at this time.” Azalin just barely kept his expression even.
 
  “Still, it is hard to believe a child of the nobility would dare thieve from a Kargat investigator.” Alexandre added, springing his trap at last.
 
  The child stood straight at attention and glared at the inspector with a mix of feigned outrage while simultaneously trying to call him off with wide eyes. Too late, Alexandre didn’t make the Secret Forces by taking the high road.
 
  “While I was replacing the organs to sew the victim up for the diener, the little lady pilfered my scroll of speak with dead from the hidden compartment in my autopsy toolbox and cast it upon the corpse. I don’t believe the Nartok boarding school’s curriculum includes lessons on identifying and casting necromantic magic scrolls.”
 
  “Feh. The mere curiosity of a child. Add it to the growing pile of your negligences.”
 
  “Since the deed was done, I directed her interrogation to confirm my findings —they corroborated exactly of course— but, she continued asking after the fifth question. I hadn’t known that was possible.”
 
  “Oh?” Alexandre watched the king’s eyes light with suppressed but genuine interest. As anticipated, the Rex’s hunger for subjects arcane was all consuming. The inspector might feel bad about serving the girl up later, but at least his misdeeds were no longer this meeting’s main course.
 
  “I got seven answers out of the dead lady. Which is two better than most,” the girl volunteered with genuine pride. “I could have got eight, but she started screaming and wouldn’t stop. She got so loud, I dropped the spell by mistake.” She rubbed her ears in recollection of the ghastly wails.
 
  “She asked about what it’s like to die, where the soul goes after death, and who in the mists shepherds the souls of the dead,” Alexandre added deadpan.
 
  “Good heavens. My lord, she... I didn’t know about any of this. Please, mercy...” The gawping, ghost pale reeve finally rediscovered his voice. Alexandre resented the unruly girl dragging him before Azalin, but he could dredge up some pity. Even her spineless father was tossing her under a carriage to save his own skin.
 
   No, ‘father’ is too strong a word this coward. He doesn’t have a paternal bone in his body. The king on the other hand… Alexandre almost let his eyes wander to the Rex’s left to inspect for traces of a wedding band before catching himself. Some ideas were safer unthought.
 
  Azalin shook his head to cut off the man’s useless pleas.
 
  “Reeve, it is clear that you are not the one encouraging such delinquency.” Azalin fired a quick glance at Alexandre who tried not to wince. “There is but one victim of importance here - my afternoon schedule. And the harm is minimal because I already wished to speak with you, reeve, about an unrelated affair.” The reeve positively sagged to his knees in relief.
 
  “A bit of true levity is a welcome respite from the dreadful jokes who regularly insist upon my attention. By my will, your daughter is forgiven for her theatrics. Once. She will meet with my ire if she wastes my time with such nonsense again. You will decisively squelch those unfortunate rumors that we spoke of previously. And I insist you mind your seal of office and stationery with considerably more diligence.”
 
  Having cowed his sniveling petty official, Azalin turned to stare down the inspector with a wry and malicious glint, the one that augured a sui generis assignment.
 
  “Inspector Alexandre, I will inform you later of your punishment for transgressing against an honorable child of one of the high houses of Darkon.”
 
  The king turned back to address the little lady who was anxiously struggling to follow the flow of the mood.
 
  “You, child, have been very disobedient and have troubled your father and my secret police. In time, you will recognize that Inspector Alexandre has shown you a great deal of patience. Vow to me that you will hereafter devote your full attention to filling your head with your studies as a student ought and that you will never again meddle with Kargat agents or their investigations.”
 
  “I vow, majesty.”
 
  “Now that this sideshow is over, my little scholar, I have serious matters of state to discuss with your father. Why don’t you and your ‘brother’ step outside to pass the time?”
 
  “But you said he wasn’t?” she asked, and then snapped off a curtsy after the fact to apologize for cutting in.
 
  “My words do not make him so, but you have my permission to call him such if it pleases you. Perhaps emotional isolation has weighed down our forlorn, orphaned inspector for too long. His misplaced desire for belonging has driven him to impose on another family. See to it that for the rest of the afternoon he conducts himself properly and does not embarrass me further. I recall he promised you a lesson in marksmanship?”
 
  Thank you, Lord Rex, for throwing more oil on my frypan fire. Alexandre thought bitterly, half hoping the King heard that thought.
 
  “Yes, King! And I’ll watch him like the fiery eye,” making rings with her fingers to emphasize her own. The girl nearly forgot her parting obeisance and seized Alexandre’s elbow for the proper lady’s escort she was due by rank. As she yanked Alex for the door, he could hear the king address the reeve.
 
  “I haven’t seen you since prior to the passing of your wife. A terrible loss. Your daughter has come along well. Quite brave, and very precocious. Even when getting into mischief, it truly pleases me that my select are producing such capable children. That aside, the matter at hand concerns the —— and his loyalties that are ———. I trust you can deliver this message to him discreetly.”
 
  Alexandre knocked upon the wooden door to summon the praetorian. The girl pulled his shoulder until she was ear level and excitedly whispered, “Don’t worry. I won’t actually call you my brother. If people think you are a bastard it might damage my noble reputation. And can we go shooting at the Kargat Headquarters? It has a dissection room with knives and dead people and spells, right? And do you really have a scroll of Modify Memory? I promise I won’t cast it, but you gotta show me…”
 
  Detective Alexandre shot a parting grimace over his shoulder, the only insubordination he would allow himself, only to find that wicked smirk of a stare already awaiting his eyes. Thinking treasonous thoughts, Alex planned to ask the inn marm to crack her best family brandy tonight.
   

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Helpful Notes.

Detective Alexandre does have a statblock and backstory. Short of it, Alexandre is Erasmus, Rudolph van Richten's son, revived by Azalin to blackmail the hunter with as a last resort. Memory wiped and raised in an orphanage, Alex ultimately wasn't needed, but his minders recommended he be enrolled into the Kargat because of his unique skillset.

The Nartok serial killing affair and the treason involved were related to Falkovnia and the fourth Dead Man’s war.

The internecine feuds. How Alexandre got his reputation for being a favorite of Azalin.
A monstrous Kargat agent in a particular undercover local cell preyed upon a victim who was missed. The mostly human Public Affairs division, not knowing what had happened, dispatched one of theirs to investigate and traced the evidence to the monstrous agent. Instead of coordinating reasonably between agency heads to cover it up, the monster agent, blessed by the indifferent shrug of their division head, slaughtered the Public Affairs agent. The monsters viewed the Public Affairs division as “fake” agents and disposable puppets of no real value. The colonel then sent in Alexandre, who brought with him some tougher friends and hired ignorant adventurers. Together, the group gave the rival Kargat headquarters the classic van Richten cull: staked every monster and burnt the building to the ground (except for the essential records which “somehow” survived and were spirited away). Only then did the undercover cell lodge a protest directly with Azalin. Meanwhile, Alexandre, in his wisdom, got the overjoyed town (now minus a den of monsters) to believe the real Kargat had come to save them, and had them throw Azalin a parade of honor. Flowers were being sent in bushels to Avernus. While Azalin is not one to mind the public opinion, it did make him nostalgic for the good old days when he was loved as “Azal’Lan” back on Oerth. Azalin faulted the monster cell for insubordination - he alone decides the value of his employees - and punished the survivors. After that, Azalin knew Alexandre to have his father’s blood and made sure not to let him get involved in sensitive affairs where his heart might be swayed.

Reeve and S-’s home. S-' parents are rank reeve, the next step down below Baron, because I couldn’t find suitable barons to be her parents based on how she described Darkon in Gaz 2. Her homeland is in Nevuchar Springs because S- says she has an inn room there in Gaz 4 I think? And there is an herbal repository, so it’s a good fit for her backstory.

Canon Dates
BC 671. Rudolph van Richten born, son of Otto and Mrs. van Richten
BC 692. Erasmus van Richten born, son of Rudolph and Ingrid van Richten
BC 706. Erasmus slain by father at the age of 14 after being turned into a vampire spawn
BC 713. S- born <to a Reeve of Nevuchar Springs>
BC 714. Rudolph van Richten moves to Mordentshire, unwelcomed from Darkon because he investigated Azalin. <Azalin revives Erasmus, erases memory, puts him in Royal Orphanage. He doesn’t come back exactly right. His aging rate is one year for every ten>
BC 719. <Alexandre (age 19) joins the Kargat Public Affairs Division as a deputy.>
BC 720-721. <(Date not decided) Alexandre stakes and burns a Kargat cell who picked a fight with his division.>
BC 722. The Fourth Dead Man’s War <Nartok serial murder case. Alexandre meets S, then 9>
BC 723. <(Early summer/late spring) Events of side story. Alexandre ordered to appear before Azalin>
BC 737. Rudolph van Richten publishes the Van Richten’s Guide to the Lich.
BC 750. December, Darkon: On the winter solstice, the city of Il Aluk is devastated by an explosion of negative energy. (The Requiem). <Kargat Public Affairs Division relocates main office to Nevuchar Springs>
BC 755. (Late Winter) S was commissioned by Azalin to survey
This story takes place in 723 BC early summer/late spring. S. is 10 and still in elementary. Erasmus/Alexandre is 23 but barely looks 15. He is still a deputy at this point, not yet promoted to chief inspector. The serial murder in Nartok was in winter/early spring 722-723 BC and the staking of the Kargat cell in 720-721 BC.

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[Rock of the Fraternity]

Wait. That little girl was S?! Alexandre is Erasmus?!
Egad. 0_0 ... o_o I did not see that coming. At most, I thought Alexandre had been turned into a dhampir or something...
But how did Azalin revive Erasmus?

[Mischief]

Wait. That little girl was S?!

When did you figure it out?

Alexandre is Erasmus?!

I didn't think anyone would figure this one out because it's a much harder guess and he's a lesser-known character. The only clues were that I mentioned Alex staking monsters, and Erasmus' scar from being staked, lines like "Investigator Alexandre’s parentage is well known to this court", and made sure Azalin only modified the details rather than the overall form of Erasmus' memory (moving location of childhood home from west to east Darkon, attack by vampires rather than kidnapping).

Egad. 0_0 ... o_o I did not see that coming. At most, I thought Alexandre had been turned into a dhampir or something...
But how did Azalin revive Erasmus?

Erasmus hadn't been dead that long, eight years max, so a spell only as strong as 7th-level resurrection could do it

which wish can duplicate without requiring any careful wording, even in Ravenloft, supposedly. I don't believe there are rules that forbid you from killing an undead to make it re-dead and then reviving the person with a piece of the body. (Whether an undead loses its undead creature type when slain is a DM call I believe, but I'd allow it most of the time, especially when spells like finger of death can make PCs into zombies fairly easily.) But I'm less interested in book rules versus doing what feels right when it comes to storytelling.

Az's curse is mostly that he can't revive his own beloved kid, but what about other dads' beloved kids?... It still didn't go exactly right.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I didn't figure out anything. You spelled it out right here in the Fan Fiction forum...