Thraxas - The Complete Series

by Martin Scott

  “Good,” she says to the discomfited Elf. “Never hesitate to stab your opponent in the back. You’re learning. You’ve got five minutes to rest.”

  She tosses Isuas into a nearby bush then picks up her Orcish blade. I advance into the clearing.

  “Nice going, Makri. If we are fortunate she might get over her hysterics some time next year.”

  Makri shrugs. “She’s all right. Good progress in fact, by her standards anyway. What are you doing here?”

  “I was just attacked by a mysterious mounted swordsman. Human rather than Elf. I had to kill him. Anything happened here?”

  Makri shakes her head.

  “It sounds like you’re getting close to something, Thraxas.”

  “Seems like it. For all the good it will do.”

  I tell Makri that after talking to Elith there just doesn’t seem any way out for her.

  “She did it. End of case.”

  “What now?”

  “I guess I’ll keep ferreting around. Maybe if I can take details of what’s been going on to Lord Kalith he might show some mercy. After all, Elith was under the influence of dwa when she killed Gulas, and under a lot of stress.”

  I’m not sounding very convincing here. I need a beer. Or maybe some good news. “You know we can get fifty to one on her making it past the first round of the tournament?”

  “Who from? She isn’t officially entered yet, it’s meant to be a secret.”

  I inform Makri that I have been making discreet enquiries of the Elvish betting fraternity. “Don’t worry, I couched my enquiry in the most cautious terms. So, is it worth a bet?”

  Makri shakes her head. “No. Not yet anyway.”

  I’m disappointed.

  “Has it occurred to you,” says Makri, “that I’m actually taking this training seriously? I have a reputation to protect, not to mention a gladiators’ code to live up to. And all you’re interested in is gambling.”

  “Who wouldn’t be at fifty to one? I’ve got to make a profit somewhere; the juggling contest is too close to call.”

  Makri promises to let me know if Isuas makes it to the point where she’s worth backing. I remind her that Gulas’s funeral is to be held this evening near the Hesuni Tree.

  “I’ve never heard you mention the gladiators’ code before.”

  “There wasn’t one,” admits Makri. “I made it up. I was just trying to remind you that fighting involves more important things than betting.”

  “Okay, I’ll believe you. You’re the philosophy student. If you get her up to scratch, how much do you want to bet?”

  “Everything I have,” says Makri. “You can’t turn your nose up at odds of fifty to one. That would just be foolish.”

  The slightest of sounds makes us turn towards the trees. A green-cloaked masked and hooded Elf steps out with a sword in his hands. I sigh. I’m getting fed up with this.

  “Is he going to disappear?” says Makri.

  “Who knows? If he can’t fight any better than the last one he might as well.”

  I saunter forward, sword in hand, and am instantly beaten back by one of the most skilful and lethal assaults I’ve ever encountered. I’m forced to give ground immediately and am frankly relieved when Makri hurls herself into the fray and distracts our assailant’s attention by attacking him from the flank. He parries her blade and even though I’m not slow to join in, again I can’t find an opening. We trade blows for a while and though the superior forces of myself and Makri drive him backwards we can’t succeed in landing a telling stroke. I’ve rarely seen the like of this warrior. Our assailant keeps us both at bay till, realising that he has encountered rather more than he bargained for, he spins round and sprints for the trees. We watch him go.

  “Who was that?” demands Makri.

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “He was certainly one hell of a swordsman. This is some Elvish paradise. Do they treat all their guests like this?”

  She turns to Isuas, who is still wide-eyed after witnessing the fight.

  “You see what happens when you get caught unawares?”

  Makri is actually so impressed with the Elf’s skill that she forgets to be annoyed about not vanquishing her adversary and looks forward to meeting him again. I’ll be happy if I don’t. I depart, heading home for food, refreshment, some serious thinking and a long nap before the funeral of Gulas-ar-Thetos, late Chief Tree Priest of Avula.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It suddenly strikes me as odd that there was a knife lying conveniently on the ground for Elith to stab Gulas with. Why? Knives are valuable items. Elves don’t leave them lying around for no reason. I puzzle about it for a while without making anything of it, and file it away for later.

  I eat at Camith’s house, but more thoughts crowd in to disturb me. Why did Gulas suddenly go so cold on Elith? Was he really outraged at her behaviour? Maybe. He might have felt obliged to be thoroughly respectable once made Tree Priest. But that’s not really the impression I have of him. More the passionate young lover, and only a reluctant priest.

  And how come everyone around the Hesuni Tree suddenly got caught up in a dope scandal anyway? Who started it? Who benefits? Was there enough profit in it to make it worth the risk? I get round to thinking about the branch of the family who covet the position of Tree Priest. Might they have been trying to discredit Gulas-ar-Thetos? It can’t look too good for the Tree Priest if all of a sudden Elves are dropping like flies because they’ve been soaking their drugs with the water that feeds the sacred Tree.

  None of this is going to help Elith, but it serves as a distraction. I want to be distracted because after the funeral I’m going to have to make a report to Vas-ar-Methet and I don’t want to think about that.

  I visit the Turanian Sorcerers Harmon Half-Elf and Lanius Suncatcher. It takes me a while to persuade them to do what I want.

  “Working any sort of spell at a funeral is calanith,” objects Harmon.

  “Everything on this damn island is calanith.”

  Harmon Half-Elf points out with some justification that if the Elves have many taboos, they have far fewer written laws than we do, and are a more peaceful society.

  “Calanith works well for them. It keeps the wheels ticking over without the need for too much heavy-handed authority.”

  “Spare me the lecture. I need someone to check out Gulas’s body and it’s way beyond my sorcerous powers.”

  They both look puzzled.

  “Check the Tree Priest for dwa? Wasn’t Gulas the clean-living one?”

  “So they say. I just want to check.”

  “Surely Lord Kalith’s Sorcerers will already have done so?”

  “Who knows? If there is a Sorcerer’s report on the body, no one’s making it available to me, even though I’m working for the chief suspect.”

  Lanius Suncatcher raises his eyebrows. “Don’t you mean ‘person who admits the crime’?”

  “Okay, she admits it. But there are extenuating circumstances. I won’t see her executed.”

  I remind Harmon Half-Elf that I saved his life during the city-wide riots last summer.

  “Not only that, I’ve saved the skins of more than one Turanian Sorcerer. If it wasn’t for me, Astrath Triple Moon would be languishing in a cell in the Abode of Justice. And who hushed things up when Gorsius Starfinder got drunk in that brothel in Kushni? Who was it that cleared Tirini Snake Smiter when she was accused of stealing the Queen’s tiara? The Sorcerers Guild owes me plenty. If I was ever to report what I know about the dubious dealings of Turai’s Sorcerers to the proper authorities, half of the Guild would be in jail before sundown and the other half would be high-tailing it out of town. And I can feel an attack of public-spiritedness coming on.”

  My powers of persuasion win the day, though Lanius comments that if I ever do suffer from such an attack of public-spiritedness, I’d do well to make sure I never leave my house without my spell-protection charm.

  “Because I seem to remember that n
ot long after Senator Orosius accused Tirini Snake Smiter of theft, he found himself on the wrong end of a bad attack of the plague.”

  Harmon and Lanius agree to do what they can as long as they’re sure they can manage it without being detected. I thank them, help myself to a bottle of wine, and we set off for the funeral.

  I’m certain that Lord Kalith would much rather not have been obliged to hold a state funeral for his murdered Tree Priest while his island was so busy with visitors. Needs must, however, and there are an impressive number of important guests at the affair, not only Elves from Ven and Corinthal but others from further afield, along with representatives from all the Human Lands who were invited as guests to the festival. A very impressive gathering. As the Ossuni custom is that burial must take place within five days of death, and the Human Lands are all several weeks’ sail from here, it is a rare occurrence for Humans to witness such an event.

  My two sorcerous companions go off to join the official Turanian party at the front, leaving me to hunt for Makri round the fringes. I find her at the edge of the crowd, talking to three young Elves. Makri appears interested, but hesitant. Her posture reminds me of the few previous occasions in Turai when she has encountered Elves, particularly handsome young Elves. Makri claims never to have had a lover and has been wondering recently if something should be done about this. Unfortunately she regards almost all men in Twelve Seas as scum and thinks that Elves might be a far better option. I’ve noticed signs of attraction on their part as well, although the Orcish blood in Makri’s veins does present something of a problem for them.

  Makri would probably have faced this dilemma already were it not for the fact that when we arrived we were pretty much in disgrace with Lord Kalith and no Elf was keen to talk to us. Since then she’s been busy with Isuas. Now, however, with Makri being in favour with Lady Yestar, it seems like the young Elves are plucking up their courage. Some of them are now of the opinion that they really should be paying more attention to the exotic creature currently walking around Avula displaying a confident charm plus a figure rarely seen on an Elvish maiden.

  The three young Elves who face her certainly seem to be doing a good job of forgetting calanith, not to mention any admonitions their parents might have given them about being careful with the sort of girl you talk to at funerals. Makri—dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed and underdressed—seems to be casting a powerful attraction over them.

  I’d be pleased to see Makri having a little fun. The woman does far too much studying. It’s unhealthy. So I’m intending to walk off and leave them to it, but when Makri catches sight of me she mutters an abrupt goodbye to the Elves and hurries over. I tell her she needn’t have bothered.

  “Should’ve stayed with your admirers.”

  Makri looks doubtful. “You think they were admiring me?”

  “Of course. Hardly surprising, in that tunic. Didn’t it cross your mind to dress formally for the funeral?”

  “I painted my toenails black.”

  “So which young Elf takes your fancy?”

  Makri blushes, and suddenly becomes tongue-tied. Having spent her youth hacking up opponents in the arena, she missed out on any romance and the whole subject still makes her uncomfortable. She tells me that three of the Elves each seemed to be hinting that if she would like to see some of the more beautiful, not to say secluded, parts of Avula, they would be pleased to take her.

  “What do you do if three Elves all want to take you somewhere?” she asks, quite seriously. “Do I have to pick a favourite right away?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so. We’re going to be on Avula for a while yet. You can play the field.”

  Makri considers this. “Is that good advice? Do you know about these things?”

  I shake my head. “Not really. I never had a relationship where the woman didn’t leave in disgust. Several of them actually tried to kill me. My wife swore she’d hire an Assassin. Fortunately she was exaggerating, though she did smash eighteen bottles of my finest ale before she departed.”

  Makri sees that I am a poor person to ask for this sort of counsel, and wonders about talking to Lady Yestar.

  “Except I think Yestar might not be too pleased with me. I forgot that Isuas would have to attend the funeral and I bloodied her nose and blacked her eyes and I don’t think there was enough time for the healer to fix things properly.”

  We crane our necks to see over the crowd, but the Elves are tall and we can see little except for a sea of green cloaks and tunics and a lot of long blond hair. Light cloud has blown in from the sea and the day is dull and slightly chilly. The crowd is quiet, as befits the sad occasion.

  “Do you think I’d look good with blonde hair?” asks Makri.

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “It looks good on the Elves.”

  “Maybe. But only whores have blonde hair in Turai.”

  “That’s not true,” objects Makri. “Senator Lodius’s daughter has bright golden hair, I saw her at the chariot races.”

  “True. Blonde hair is sometimes affected by our aristocratic females. But no one is going to mistake you for an aristocrat with your red skin and pointy ears.”

  “You think I should buy a dress when we get home?”

  “Makri, what is this? I don’t know anything about hair and dresses. I have enough trouble remembering to button up my tunic in the morning. Weren’t you going to take notes about the funeral for your Guild College?”

  “I am. Mental notes. I just wondered if maybe I should get a dress. You notice how Lady Yestar has that blue eye make-up and she kind of fades it into grey at the edges? How does she do that?”

  “How the hell would I know? Is this all connected to those young Elves? They seemed to like you fine the way you are.”

  “Do you think so? I thought they might be laughing at me. I noticed when I was talking about rhetoric their eyes were sort of glazing over. I think I might have been boring them. And when I said I was champion gladiator I wondered if they might think I was boasting. It probably put them right off.”

  I glower at Makri.

  “Excuse me, I’m going to go and investigate something.”

  “What?”

  “Anything.”

  “But I need some advice.”

  “Pick a favourite and club him over the head.”

  I walk off, keen to make an escape. Any observer might reasonably have assumed that Makri was a confident woman. Why a bit of Elvish attention should reduce her to a babbling idiot is beyond me, but I can’t take any more of it. I drift around the edges of the crowd, not paying much attention to the funeral oration or the Elvish singing. I notice Gorith-ar-Del. Like me, he seems to be skulking round the fringes of the crowd.

  Someone snags me as I pass. It’s Harmon Half-Elf. He bends over to whisper in my ear, trying and failing to look inconspicuous. “I did the testing spell,” he whispers. “A difficult procedure, without letting anyone notice.”

  “And?”

  “The Tree Priest’s body was full of dwa,” he says.

  Lanius Suncatcher is right behind Harmon. The pair of them look pleased with themselves. For all their protestations, I’d say they enjoyed the opportunity to act surreptitiously. Sorcerers generally like a bit of intrigue.

  It’s always gratifying when a hunch pays off. Elith said that Gulas abused her cruelly for using dwa. Yet there he was, enjoying it himself.

  “How much dwa had he taken?”

  “Difficult to judge. Enough to put him to sleep, I’d say.”

  Strange. He wasn’t sleeping when Elith stuck a knife in him. And somehow I doubt he’d be able to ingest much dwa after that. It would be good to know if my number one suspect, Gorith-ar-Del, has been in recent contact with dwa. Now that Harmon has used his spell he won’t be able to do it again till he relearns it, so I ask Lanius if he also loaded in a suitable spell. He tells me he did. I discreetly point out Gorith.

  “Could you use it to find out if that Elf has been in co
ntact?”

  “My spell is for using on a corpse. You never said you wanted a live person tested.”

  “Can’t you improvise?”

  As an Investigating Sorcerer at the Abode of Justice, Lanius often encounters dwa, and must have had to adapt his spells before. He agrees to give it a try, and sidles off. Gorith-ar-Del pays him no heed as he walks up behind him. The spell might lower the temperature around them slightly, but on a cold day like today Gorith might not notice. Lanius concentrates for a second or two, then heads back towards us.

  “Been in contact,” he says. “Definitely.”

  It’s a damning piece of evidence against Gorith. I’m delighted to finally have confirmation that he’s been involved in this business.

  After the funeral I wait around, wondering what to do. I should go and report to Vas-ar-Methet, but I can’t face telling him that his daughter really is a murderer. I’m standing aimlessly in the clearing when Makri appears.

  “I’m in trouble,” she says. “Lord Kalith was as angry as a Troll with a toothache about his daughter appearing at the funeral looking like she’d just fallen out of a tree. Which, fortunately, is what she had the presence of mind to tell him had happened. She’s been banished to her room and forbidden to leave the Palace.”

  “At least you won’t have to spend the rest of the day teaching Isuas to fight.”

  Makri shakes her head. “She’s still coming. She sent me a message saying she’ll meet me at the clearing in thirty minutes.”

  “Is she going to exit via a window and shin down a tree?”

  “Something like that.”

  I congratulate Makri on improving the child’s spirit in such a short time.

  “Possibly the first ever Elf child imbued with the—what was the word for insane Orc warrior?”

  “Gaxeen. Yes, she’s learning all right. Too much Gaxeen in fact. Now I have to show her the Way of the Sarazu.”