Dragon Precinct by Keith R. A. DeCandido

and her partner had caught both the Brightblade murder and last night’s murder of Olthar lothSirhans, he doubted she’d be having much time to socialize at the Chain.
    Manfred actually had less of a problem with the lack of availability of the detectives than some others did. He never liked the fact that they always had to call in one of the lieutenants, as if none of the foot soldiers had a brain in their heads. True, several of them didn’t—Nulti was a classic case—but Manfred liked to think he was capable of solving a robbery or an assault case. Maybe today I’ll get my chance.
    He turned a corner onto Shade Way, a turn he made primarily for the reason the street was so named. The road was lined by several huge oak trees. It didn’t help much with the humidity, of course, but at least the morning sun wasn’t bearing down on him on this cloudless day. The houses on Shade Way were more of the mansion variety, the homes of the idle rich, of which Cliff’s End had its share. Certainly, Manfred was unlikely to find any criminal activity here, but even rich people had domestic disputes, or noise complaints, or other such need for the Guard’s services. Besides, in the shade, his arms stopped itching.
    “Excuse me?”
    Manfred turned around quickly, his arm going to his sword hilt instinctively. However, the speaker was a young man, probably in his late teens or early twenties, dressed in casual clothes that were inexpensive, but not cheap. The boy looked down at the ground as he spoke. Probably a servant in one of the mansions, Manfred thought, proud of his ability to deduce.
    “Are—are you a guard?” the boy asked, still studying the cobblestones intently.
    No, I stole this armor. Manfred managed to restrain himself from saying that out loud, however. “Yes. What can I do for you?”
    “My—my mistress asked me to fetch a guard, and—and you’re a guard, so—so I guess I need for you to come with me, sir.”
    “Lead on, then,” he said.
    The boy brought Manfred back to the corner where he’d turned onto Shade Way, to a massive house that had obviously been built some time in the last twenty years or so, after the humans and dwarves allied, and dwarven architects peddled their wares outside their own territory. Manfred’s late father had been an architect, and from him the guard knew that you could tell a dwarf-designed house by the lack of a second floor. Everything was ground-level or below. Manfred’s father had taught his son this, usually while cursing those “sawed-off runts” for “taking work away from honest humans.” However, what dwarven architecture lacked in height, it made up for in structural integrity, as many Cliff’s End natives learned after the last hurricane blew through the city-state.
    From what Manfred could see as the boy led him down the walkway around to the back of the house, the structure had at least fifteen rooms, all on the ground floor, and if he knew his dwarves, then there were probably almost as many rooms one or two levels down. As he walked around to the back, he noticed that the brick was not the usual Aemrian that the dwarves favored, but the lesser Cambrian variety—not as sturdy, but easier to find. Manfred wondered if the architect had duped the owner, or if the owner had gone cheap.
    All thoughts of the house fled Manfred’s mind as soon as he came in sight of the lush backyard—which was marred by a large hole, about three dwarf-lengths in diameter. Peculiarly for a hole, it was in the middle of the air about three hand-lengths above the impeccably cut grass. Amber in color, the hole was a perfect circle above the ground. The amber seemed to swirl, looking to Manfred like butter being churned. Must be magic. Maybe a portal of some kind? Manfred didn’t know much about magic beyond its existence—anytime he came across it, the case got kicked up to the lieutenants, and it almost always got kicked up from there to the Brotherhood of Wizards.
    Still,