by Martin Scott
“What—?”
“Can’t stop. Go upstairs and look after Makri till I get back. The Brotherhood are about to break the door down.”
Gurd picks up his axe and they depart swiftly. I carry on through to the yard. Ideally I’d like to dump the body as far away as possible, but I can’t risk being seen from the front of the tavern so I can think of nothing better to do than heave the body over the wall into the next yard. It’s a high wall and I’m panting with the exertion. The snow billows around me, muffling any sound.
I pray that no one has seen my actions. Not that it will matter in a day or two, when the Sorcerers’ companions start working their spells, looking for Darius. I’ve just committed a serious crime and I’ve no idea how I’m going to escape the consequences. Without pausing to catch my breath I hurry back upstairs to find Gurd and Tanrose confronting Karlox and six companions. They’ve forced the door, breaking the lock.
Gurd is outraged at the damage to his property, but the Brotherhood men are more interested in the sight of Makri, Lisutaris and Princess Direeva lying on the floor. My room is still thick with thazis smoke and reeks of burnt dwa.
“Been having a party?” rasps Karlox.
I unsheathe my sword and stand beside Gurd. With his axe in his hand the old Barbarian is still a formidable sight.
“Time to leave,” I say.
“Where did you get the dwa?” says Karlox, which is quite a shrewd question for such a stupid guy.
I’m not planning on giving him an answer, though it’s a question I’ll certainly be putting to Makri. I tell Karlox brusquely that he’s got about ten seconds to leave my office or suffer the consequences. He eyes my blade, and Gurd’s axe.
“Why so upset, fat man? We’re just asking a few polite questions about the death of one of our men. You got something to hide? Or are you just wanting some time alone with the doped girls?”
His men guffaw.
“You’ve given me plenty to report,” says Karlox. With that he turns and strides out of the room, followed by his men. I immediately shut the door and place my locking spell on it, for all the good that will do.
“What’s going on?” asks Gurd, but I’m already bending down over Makri. I’m mad as hell at the woman but I don’t want her to expire from dwa. She’s completely inexperienced in its use. Or I thought she was.
Lesada leaves, from the Elvish Isles, serve me mainly as hangover cures but I’ve seen an Elvish healer use them to bring a person out of a dwa trance. I crush a couple in some water and pour some down Makri’s throat. She coughs, sits up and looks around her curiously.
“What’s happening?” she says.
“A good question.”
She looks round the room. I ask her if she notices anything missing.
“Like what?”
“Like a Sorcerer maybe?”
“Right. Darius. Where is he?”
“He’s lying in a snowdrift in the next yard. Did you kill him?”
Makri looks puzzled.
“Of course not. Why would I?”
“Who knows? But when I got here Darius was dead on the floor and your knife was still sticking in his back. The Brotherhood arrived and I had to hide the body. If we don’t move fast we’re all heading for a swift execution. So help me wake up these two and tell me what’s been going on.”
Gurd and Tanrose want to stay and help but I banish them from the room. The less they’re involved the better. I set about trying to revive Princess Direeva, while Makri gets to work on Lisutaris.
“What were you thinking of, taking dwa? You know what happened to Minarixa.”
Makri shrugs.
“I was depressed.”
I don’t have time to be outraged. Makri tells me that after the Assemblage ended Lisutaris said she didn’t want to go back to Thamlin. “She said she’d show Princess Direeva the bad part of town. Direeva seemed keen to accompany us.”
“Why did you bring Darius?”
“He just sort of tagged along. I think he liked Direeva.”
Lisutaris and Direeva come slowly back to consciousness, aided by Lesada leaves and deat, a foul herbal drink traditionally taken to sober up. They’re both confused and don’t yet realise the urgency of the situation.
“I need to sleep,” says Lisutaris.
“You need to sleep? You’ll be going for a very long sleep if we don’t do something about this. As soon as Darius is missed, his Sorcerer buddies will start scanning the city for him. They’ll locate his body soon enough. And when they do they’ll start looking back in time to find out what happened. That might take days or weeks but they’ll succeed in the end. Thanks to you invading my office I’m now involved in this disaster, and if we ever get out of it, next time you want to take dwa and hang around with dead guys, stay well away from me.”
“Yes, fine, it’s an aggravating situation,” says Lisutaris, coldly. “But you ranting isn’t going to help. What are we going to do?”
“Firstly you could tell me who killed Darius Cloud Walker.”
Everyone looks blank. All three claim that he was still alive last time they could remember.
“So someone just waited till you’d conveniently all drugged yourselves into a stupor then snuck into my office and used Makri’s knife to kill him? The Civil Guards are going to love that story.”
“Did you examine the body?” asks Lisutaris.
“Of course not. The Brotherhood were breaking the door down.”
We fall silent. The tale of a mysterious stranger isn’t impressing anyone here. It’s not going to impress the Sorcerers Guild or the Turanian authorities.
“Why did you leave the Assemblage without telling me?”
“You were having such a good time with the Juvalian Sorcerers, that’s why,” says Makri.
“Indeed,” says Princess Direeva. “Such a good time that I do not see how you can criticise others for their pleasures.”
“My pleasures didn’t involve a dead Sorcerer who was second favourite for head of the Guild. Congratulations, Lisutaris, you just lost a rival. Which makes you a pretty good suspect. Anyway, we’ve sat here talking long enough, it’s time to do something.”
“Why must you do anything?” enquires Direeva. As she sits on the couch her hair trails on the floor. It must be inconvenient on occasion.
“To save my own skin.”
I’m mostly concerned about Makri but I’m not about to say that. And lingering at the back of my mind in an annoying manner is the thought that if I’m to help Lisutaris win the election, which I was hired to do, I can’t let her be involved in any of this. Keeping her out of it is not going to be easy, but I never give up on a client.
“Lisutaris, can you put some sort of sorcerous shield over the night’s events? Cover everything so it can’t be looked at?”
The Mistress of the Sky considers this. I know she’s aching for some thazis. If she lights another stick I’ll be tempted to slug her.
“Probably, for a while. I’ve hidden events before. But if the whole Sorcerers Guild starts looking I’m not going to be able to shut them out for long. Even on his own, Old Hasius the Brilliant would get through eventually.”
“I too have hidden events,” says Princess Direeva. “I will add my powers to yours.”
“That will buy us some time. Meanwhile I’ll try and find out who killed Darius. That doesn’t get us off the hook, seeing as we’re concealing a crime, but it will help. If I can find proof against the killer we might be able to divert attention from any of you being involved.”
“How do you know we weren’t?” asks Direeva.
The young Princess doesn’t seem to be treating this as seriously as she should. Possibly she feels that if she finds herself in trouble she can always claim diplomatic immunity and ride back to the Wastelands. Maybe she’s right, but that’s not going to help anyone else.
“I don’t. You’re all suspects. I’m just hoping I can find a better one.”
I rise to my feet
.
“Get busy on the spell. I’m going to move the body further away. Even without sorcerous help the Civil Guard aren’t fools. If they find Darius lying dead right next to the Avenging Axe they’ll know for sure I had something to do with it and that will lead back to you. And whatever you do, don’t get stoned again, it will lead to disaster.”
I pause at the door and turn to Makri.
“Where did you get the dwa?”
“I stole it from the dealer.”
“Very moral behaviour. At least he was selling it at a fair price.”
Outside it’s bitterly cold. I haven’t had time to recharge my warm cloak. Snow is falling in thick sheets and there’s not a soul in sight. It takes me a while to get a horse saddled up and fitted on to a wagon, and longer to retrieve the now frozen body of Darius. I sling it in the cart, cover it with a blanket and set off. My mood is grim. It wasn’t helped by the difficulty I had removing Makri’s knife from the corpse.
The Sorcerers Guild is not going to give up easily on this one. It might take them one day or three months but I have no doubt that some time in the future they will be staring at a picture of me riding in a cart with Darius’s body. That’s going to be hard to explain and it’s not going to do much for Lisutaris’s chances in the election.
Almost worse is the realisation that I’m going to have to report all this to Cicerius. He’s my client. I’ve withheld information from Cicerius before but there is no way I can keep this from him. For all I know the death of the Abelasian Sorcerer might lead Turai into war. I can’t let that happen without warning the Deputy Consul. I dread to think what the man is going to say, and try as I might, I can’t think of a means of explaining the situation that doesn’t put me in a bad light. Thinking it over while I’m looking for a suitable snowdrift in which to dump Darius, I don’t come up with anything I like.
Chapter Eight
I’m used to being abused by officials. Often on a case I end up being told by a Prefect or Captain of the Guard how much better Turai would be without me. I’ve been lectured by the best of them, but nothing compares to the lecture Cicerius gives me when I wake him up at three in the morning to inform him that Lisutaris, Mistress of the Sky, has just got herself mixed up with the mysterious death of Darius Cloud Walker.
This man is noted for the power of his rhetoric. In the courts he regularly tears his opponents to shreds. Some of his speeches have become so famous that copies of them are used in schools to teach students how to construct an argument. Cicerius’s argument on this occasion demonstrates mainly that as a protector of Turanian interests I am as much use as a one-legged gladiator, if that.
“I hired you to help Turai, not plunge us into war with the Abelasian confederacy! Never in my most fevered imaginings could I have dreamed of the chaos that would result from involving you in this affair!”
“Steady on, Cicerius,” I protest. “I’m not to blame. It wasn’t me that got stoned in Twelve Seas with Darius. It was Lisutaris.”
“You were meant to be looking after her. And what were you doing? Drinking beer and trading jokes with these degenerate Sorcerers from Juval! Did I not specifically warn you not to do that?”
“Very probably. I wasn’t expecting things to go wrong so quickly.”
Even as I speak I know this sounds feeble.
“You yourself warned of some involvement by an Assassin. Did you expect him to wait until you were ready?”
Once again I am subjected to Cicerius’s invective. I have to raise my voice to stop him.
“Okay, it’s bad. I thought that having Makri as a bodyguard would keep Lisutaris out of trouble, and that turned out to be a mistake.”
At the mention of Makri’s name Cicerius fulminates some more about the foolishness of placing trust in a woman with Orcish blood. I find myself defending her, which I don’t feel much like doing.
“Makri’s had a few distractions. But if an attempt is made on Lisutaris’s life, you’ll still be pleased she’s got Makri to protect her. And it’s all very well coming down on me like a bad spell for messing things up, but if it wasn’t for me we’d be in a lot worse position. If I hadn’t got rid of the body the Brotherhood would have found Darius lying there with Lisutaris and Direeva, and what would have happened then? At the very least you’d be paying blackmail money to the Brotherhood till the King’s vaults were empty. And there were seven Brotherhood men, they wouldn’t have all kept quiet about it. The news would be all over the city by now. At least I’ve bought us some time.”
Cicerius is aware that the respite is temporary. He knows as well as I do that when the Sorcerers start looking they’ll eventually find out the truth.
“You have bought us time? For what?”
“For me to find the killer.”
“And if that turns out to be Lisutaris? Or your companion?”
“It won’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’m not sure. But I’ve talked to them both and my intuition tells me they’re innocent. As for Princess Direeva, I’m not so certain.”
“If an unknown assailant did enter your office and kill Darius, have you not made everything worse by moving the body and hiding the crime?”
“There was no time to work things out when the Brotherhood were beating on the door. As far as I knew, either Direeva or Lisutaris had stabbed Darius, and I couldn’t let that be discovered. Anyway, no matter who did kill him, would you really have wanted that scene to be made public? It would have ended Lisutaris’s chances of election.”
Cicerius shakes his head.
“Had she been taking dwa?”
“I don’t think so. Direeva had.”
“This curse is going to destroy us.”
Cicerius’s son was involved in a dwa scandal last year, and when we were on Avula, the Deputy Consul was badly shaken to discover that the drug had now taken root on the Elvish Isles.
“If things carry on like this the Orcs will sweep us away. What do you propose doing to rescue Turai from this calamity?”
“Lisutaris and Direeva are making a hiding spell.”
“Can we trust Direeva?”
“I don’t know. Ask Tilupasis, she’s been working on her. We have to take the risk, it’ll cover our tracks for a while. The spell would be a lot stronger if they got some help from Old Hasius.”
“You mean involve the Chief Sorcerer at the Abode of Justice in covering up a murder?”
Cicerius is a stickler for the law. He’s been known to go against his own party to uphold the constitution. And yet such is the seriousness of the matter for Turai that he doesn’t immediately dismiss my suggestion.
“To save the city I might even be prepared to sanction such an illegal action. But I doubt if it could be kept secret. Hasius’s apprentice is a supporter of Senator Lodius. If Lodius learns of this we’re finished.”
Senator Lodius leads the opposition party, the Populares. They’re fierce opponents of Cicerius and would leap at the opportunity to catch him out in such an illicit plan.
“All right, Hasius is out. And Gorsius is too unreliable. But Melus the Fair is a friend of Lisutaris. She might be able to help, and you could trust her. She wouldn’t sell out Lisutaris because they’re companions in the Association of Gentlewomen.”
“Kindly do not bring that organisation into the picture,” says Cicerius acidly. “They are nothing but trouble.”
“As you wish. But I think Lisutaris could do with her help. Anyway, with the hiding spell working I’ve got some time to investigate.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. It depends on the alignments of the moons at the time of the murder. If they’re unfavourable it might take the Sorcerers Guild a week or so to break through. Lisutaris is going back to her villa to check her books. Which is where I’m heading right now. She is going to try and look at the events herself before she starts hiding them. If she can get a good picture of the murder we’ll be a step ahead of everyone else a
nd I might be able to clear things up before everything goes to hell.”
Cicerius is far from soothed. With the situation being as it is in Turai, it’s hard to know who he can trust. He’d like to get the Civil Guard to discreetly investigate but many of the guards are in the pay of either the Brotherhood or their rivals the Society of Friends, and those that aren’t might well be supporters of the Populares.
“I’d say it’s safest to tell no one.”
“And trust you to fix everything?”
“No. Trust me to find out the truth, then get Tilupasis to fix everything. She’s an efficient woman. You think I could have some more wine before I set off? It’s cold out there.”
“Get drunk on your own time,” says Cicerius, with feeling.
I set off, leaving a highly agitated Deputy Consul behind me. I’m none too calm myself. Cicerius might have been right about calling the guards straight away. But my intuition told me to move the body and I’ve lived on my intuition for a long time now. I ride towards Truth is Beauty Lane, home of the Sorcerers. The wind pierces my cloak like a series of sharp knives. I can’t ever remember being so cold. I’d never have taken the damned case if I’d known it was going to involve so much outdoor activity.
Lights are burning in Lisutaris’s villa, and despite the lateness of the hour a servant takes my horse for stabling while another leads me inside. The house reeks of thazis. I’m starting to object to the aroma. I find the Mistress of the Sky sitting at her water pipe in the company of Makri and Princess Direeva. The walls are hung with Elvish tapestries of green and gold, and numerous well-tended plants surround the large windows that look out over the gardens. It’s a beautiful room, decorated by one of the fashionable designers now found necessary by Turai’s upper classes. Warm too, though there is no fire. Such is the ingenuity of Turai’s architects that large villas now have systems for leading hot air through pipes under the floors to warm the houses. Unlike the frozen masses in Twelve Seas, the wealthy of Turai never have to shiver.
No torches burn on the walls. The bright illumination in the room is provided entirely by Lisutaris’s illuminated staff, which rests in a corner, bathing the room in light.