[The Montfort Docks]

[Gwit]

	"Nasty, nasty," Gwit murmured to himself, as he leaned carefully
over the edge of his small boat to untangle his fishing lines.  Not that
the lines were nasty, or even the water of the canal.  Just the morning
itself, with the slow, steady and chill drizzle.  And the catch that day
hadn't been what he had hoped;  though the Montfort canal had proven in
the past few months to carry a steady supply of fish from the Augustana
River, apparently the pickings were slim today.  His old bones would be
much happier at home, even if home was just a rather plain shack at the
edge of town.  At least it was dry, and his girl, Fannie, would have a
warm fire going, mayhap with a bit of porridge on a pot above the flame.

	The thoughts of a hot bite occupied him for a moment or two, and
was pleasing enough that he didn't curse too much when he found his next
to last line caught on something heavy in the water.  Muttering to
himself, he wrapped a scarf around his fingers so he could pull harder
without cutting his hands.  Still, it would not give.  Bracing his one
good foot against the side of his boat, he leaned back to give another
yank, sighing with satisfaction when the line finally gave. Maybe the trap
was full, and weighed down.  He leaned back over the edge to haul it in,
carefully.

And found that his morning was about to get nastier.

When the body bobbed to the surface, and turned slowly to show a
face that even its mother would not recognize, Gwit lost any interest in
that hot bowl of porridge Frannie would have waiting.

[Geno Lefhand]

Still sleepy-eyed the sergeant looked over the pier, he had been summoned
for his magical skills. The body floated in the dank water, evidence that
fish and crayfish had taken their toll was obvious. He breathed a heavy
sigh.

"All right get the net ready. I'll try to hold the body together until you
can get it up here."

Geno Lefhand concentrated and wrapped the body carefully in a tight knit
lacings of telekinetic strands his concentration was absolute as the
strands wrapped the body like a burial cloth. He nodded his to the other
Guardsmen nearby.

They lowered the net and dipped it under the body. Ever so slowly they
lifted it up, inching it slowly, one of them with an eye on the mage to
make sure they didn't override the spell that held the corpse together.

Up over the edge of the wharf the body came and was carefully placed in a
low wooden box. With a great deal of power Geno managed to turn the body
over. The other Guardian gasped as the body was suddenly bought face up.,
the cause of the death apparent to anyone.

The neck had been cut with an expert's hand, even and deep was the thrust
cutting through blood vessels and windpipe.

"Take the body to the south tower. Don't touch it any more than you have
to. There might be traces of something we can use to identify him. The
fish, crayfish, water and rot have made the face impossible to identify."

[Gwit]

	"Nasty," the old fisherman muttered, rubbing his hands over and
over as if he was trying to wash away the memory of the corpse.  What had
the guardsman asked him?  He knitted his eyebrows together, trying to
remember the question.  He had been over and over the tale of how he had
come to the docks, and checked his traps one by one, and found the body.
He didn't know much, except that he wanted to get back to the shack, and
Frannie.  "Mayhap somebody else seen somethin'," he insisted, blinking
through watery eyes.  There was quite a crowd started to assemble now, the
curious gawking over the rope barriers stretched out by the guardsmen.
"Mayhap ye could start askin' some of 'em," he said with a wave of one
arthritic hand.