by Martin Scott
Makri has removed her armour to display the man’s tunic she generally wears. Princess Direeva’s tunic and leggings are somewhat similar and it makes for an odd contrast with Lisutaris’s flowing robes.
“How was the Deputy Consul?” asks the Sorcerer.
“He regrets nominating you for the post. And Makri, I wouldn’t count on his help for getting into the university.”
Makri’s face falls. She has a serious ambition to enter the Imperial University, and without some unusually powerful assistance that will never happen. Seeing her disappointed face, I’m oddly pleased. Revenge for all the trouble she’s been causing me recently.
Lisutaris motions towards the water pipe.
“Do you never do anything else?” I say, angrily.
“As you wish,” says Lisutaris.
“I wasn’t refusing. I just wondered if you never did anything else.”
I take a long pull at the pipe. The thazis is so strong that I’m obliged to sit down. I do feel calmer.
“You are just in time,” announces the Sorcerer. “We have the hiding spell ready. Before using it I shall look for the killer.”
Beside her is a golden saucer full of kuriya. In this dark liquid, an experienced practitioner can sometimes read the secrets of the past. It’s a difficult art. I’ve occasionally gleaned secrets from the kuriya but my success rate is low. However, my powers are as nothing compared to Lisutaris’s, and I’m optimistic that we may well learn the truth.
Before using kuriya I’d have to spend a long time getting myself in to the correct state of mind. Lisutaris is far beyond this. With no preparation, not even a deep breath, she waves her hand over the saucer. The room immediately goes cooler and the black liquid starts to glow. We crane our necks to see the picture that begins to form.
It’s a picture of my office. Very clear. You can see yesterday’s dirty plates lying on the table. As the picture spreads to fill the saucer I observe Makri and Direeva lying unconscious on the floor. Darius Cloud Walker is nearby, also comatose. Lisutaris doesn’t seem to be around. The door opens and she enters. She treads softly through the room and bends down over Makri. She reaches down and comes up with a knife. And then she pounces on Darius and sticks the knife in his back. Next, she disappears from the room, leaving the Sorcerer bleeding to death.
The picture fades. I look around at my companions. All three of them are struck dumb. Lisutaris looks like she’s just encountered the darkest demon of hell.
“Well, that seems fairly unequivocal,” I say. “No room for argument there. So what are we going to do now? And why the hell did you have to stab him with Makri’s knife? If you hated the man that much, couldn’t you just have blasted him with a spell?”
The Mistress of the Sky is still unable to speak. She stares at the now dark liquid, unblinking, horrified.
“Snap out of it,” I tell her. “And get busy with the hiding spell. You better make it good, because if anyone ever needed a hiding spell, it’s you.”
Chapter Nine
I awake feeling unusually comfortable, and very warm. I realise I’m not at home. I’m in a guest room at Lisutaris’s villa. Lisutaris the killer. I’d never have picked her for a murderer. There’s a bronze statue by the window. My clothes are draped over it. I get out of bed and get dressed. Outside the room a servant asks me if I’d like breakfast.
“I’ll take a beer and whatever you got on a plate. Is Lisutaris up yet?”
She isn’t. Downstairs I pick up my beer, and some roasted fowl from a selection of silver platters in the dining room, and finish them off quickly. I’m not planning on hanging around. Unfortunately, before I can make my exit Lisutaris appears, a small stick of thazis in her hand. She doesn’t look like she’s slept well.
“I didn’t kill him,” she says.
She said that last night as well.
I don’t reply.
“Don’t you believe me?”
“No.”
“Someone faked that magical picture.”
I continue not to believe her. It looked pretty damn convincing to me and it would stand up in court.
“I’m telling you, someone faked it.”
“No one could fake that.”
“I thought you always supported your clients.”
“I do. That’s why I haven’t turned you over to the Guard.”
“But you don’t believe I’m innocent?”
“No.”
Makri enters the breakfast chamber.
“What’s going on?”
“Thraxas believes I killed Darius Cloud Walker. He’s unhappy to be stuck with a murderer for a client.”
“Lisutaris isn’t a murderer,” says Makri. “You have to help.”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
We stare at each other in silence. The Mistress of the Sky inhales from her thazis stick.
“Those pictures were good,” she says. “Even with all my power I couldn’t prove they were faked. They’ll fool other Sorcerers.”
“There’s no reason to think they were faked,” I point out, harshly. “And even if they were, what happened to the real past? A Sorcerer can hide the past but no one can erase it. You looked in the kuriya ten times or more and you couldn’t find the real events. Or what you say are the real events. So we’re talking two major discrepancies here, neither of which can be done by sorcery. One, erasing reality, and two, faking a new reality. Temporarily hiding the past is one thing, but erasing and faking can’t be done. You know that better than me. Why don’t you tell me what really happened?”
“You’ve known me for a long time,” says Lisutaris. “We were standing on the same piece of city wall when it collapsed under dragon attack.”
“Kemlath Orc Slayer was standing there as well,” I point out. “And last year I got him exiled from the city.”
“But he was guilty!” explodes Makri. “Lisutaris didn’t kill Darius. Why would she? You have to help. No one else knows how to investigate things like you.”
I take another beer. I really don’t like this.
“How good is the hiding spell?” I ask, after a while.
“Good,” answers Lisutaris. “Better with Direeva’s power added to my own.”
“You don’t sound certain that will last.”
Lisutaris isn’t certain. Princess Direeva departed the villa last night after seeing the pictures of Lisutaris knifing Darius. Darius represents the nation of Abelesi, and they’re friends of Direeva’s.
“If Direeva thinks you killed him she’s not going to keep helping.”
I can see Tilupasis will be hard pressed to get Direeva’s votes for Turai, but that might be the least of our problems now. I ask Lisutaris about the alignment of the moons, important in sorcerous enquiries concerning the past.
“Not so good. The Sorcerers will have the alignments in their favour in two or three days.”
Lisutaris sits down heavily as if crushed by the weight of her troubles. I finish my beer. Somewhere south of here, Darius Cloud Walker is lying in a snowdrift. He deserved better.
“I suggest you recruit Melus to boost the hiding spell. Say nothing to anyone. And pack a bag.”
“Why?”
“Because the most likely outcome is that we’re all fleeing the city, one step ahead of the Civil Guard.”
I grab another beer and walk out of the villa. I know I’m making a mistake. There’s no way this one is turning out well. Last night there was another heavy fall of snow. The land around the city will be impassable in this weather. Unless you’re a Sorcerer, of course. I’ll probably end up climbing the scaffold myself while Lisutaris makes her escape. I just can’t see any good outcome. It’s going to need something superhuman to prevent it. I’m a forty-three-year-old Investigator, badly overweight, and I drink too much. No one would accuse me of being superhuman.
Back at the Avenging Axe, Gurd looks at me questioningly.
“Who did it?” he asks.
“Lisutaris, looks l
ike.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Get her off the hook.”
Gurd raises his eyebrows. He knows that protecting a murderer is not a job I’d volunteer for.
“Can you do it?”
“I’m number one chariot in this business.”
“But can you do it?”
I shake my head.
“No one could do it.”
Upstairs in my office I sit and stare out at the snow. After a while I get out my klee and sip the fierce spirit till I feel better. I set up my niarit board and play through a game or two. The room feels cold so I stoke up the fire. It doesn’t make me warm so I lie on the couch and drag a blanket over me. I really should be doing something. I drink some more klee and fall asleep.
I’m woken by Makri. She says she’s come to apologise.
“What for?”
“For taking dwa and getting unconscious when I should have been watching Lisutaris. I’m sorry.”
I haul myself upright.
“Sorry? No need to apologise to me. You can do what you like.”
“Okay, I said I was sorry.”
“Stop apologising. I don’t care what you do.”
“Stop giving me a hard time,” protests Makri.
“I’m not giving you a hard time.”
“Yes you are. You’re deliberately making me feel bad by saying I don’t need to apologise.”
“You don’t.”
“Stop doing that,” says Makri, and looks cross.
“Makri, you can fill yourself full of as much dwa as you like. I don’t care.”
“Well, that’s fine. I don’t care if you care or not.”
“I don’t.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I won’t.”
“Then we’re fine,” says Makri.
“Completely fine.”
Makri storms out of the room. I pick up my klee and wonder what I’m meant to do at the Assemblage today. Look for clues? Protect Lisutaris? Kill her other main rivals?
Makri storms back into the room.
“What’s the idea of going on and on about me taking dwa when you drink so much?” she demands.
“I wasn’t going on and on.”
“You’re being intolerable. I’m going to tell Tanrose.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m going to tell Tanrose.”
“You? The number one gladiator and genius philosophy student? You’re going to run away and tell tales?”
“Okay!” screams Makri. “I was feeling bad about See-ath! I just wanted to not feel bad for a little while! Stop tormenting me!”
Makri grabs the bottle of klee and takes a slug. I pick up my cloak. There’s no time to charge it up, which means I’m in for a cold journey to the Royal Hall.
“You want me to put some stuff in this magic pocket?” asks Makri.
“What?”
“Lisutaris let me keep it for the week. I’ve got two swords, three knives and my axe in here. You have to be prepared when you’re a bodyguard.”
“And you’re a great bodyguard.”
“Stop insulting me,” says Makri. “I said I was sorry.”
We have to trudge for a long way through the frozen streets before we find a landus to take us up town. It takes us ages to travel up Moon and Stars Boulevard. There is little traffic on the streets but the road is partially blocked near the harbour by a collapsed aqueduct and the landus has to pick its way carefully through a mess of fallen masonry and huge blocks of ice. Workmen, moving slowly in the freezing cold, are trying to clear the way.
“Samanatius teaches here,” says Makri, and looks concerned.
I have no mental energy to waste on Samanatius.
“Are you sure you can’t remember anything else about last night?”
Makri shrugs. She’s wearing the floppy green hat she brought back from Avula. It’s ridiculous.
“I told you everything. Lisutaris wanted to show Princess Direeva some interesting bits of the city. So we came to Twelve Seas. Darius was with us. He was friends with Direeva so he tagged along. I took them to the Avenging Axe. We went in your office because my room is small and cold, and after a while we got to drinking klee—”
“You were drinking klee? Whose klee?”
“Yours, of course. I figured you wouldn’t mind; after all, you’re meant to be helping Lisutaris.”
“And you all passed out and next thing you know Darius is dead?”
“That’s right.”
“And you didn’t see anyone else the whole time? Didn’t sense anyone following you in Twelve Seas?”
“No.”
Snow falls from the bleak sky. Without the warming spell my cloak is useless. I shiver.
“What about Direeva? How was she with Darius?”
“Friendly.”
“You think she might have resented his attentions?”
“Maybe. But not enough to kill him. He wasn’t trying to force himself on her.”
“You fell asleep before Direeva. You don’t know what happened after that.”
Makri admits this is true but she doesn’t believe that anything bad enough could have occurred to make Direeva kill the Sorcerer. I doubt this myself, though I’m still suspicious of the Princess.
“I notice Direeva seemed to take to you.”
Makri looks embarrassed. She doesn’t reply, and changes the subject.
“You know those pictures of Lisutaris killing Darius were faked.”
“I don’t know that at all. Faking a scene like that and sending it into the past would be a fantastically difficult thing to do. It’s the sort of thing you read in stories about Sorcerers, but I’m not certain there’s any Sorcerer in the world who could really do it. So where does that leave us? The same pictures will appear when anyone else looks. If it really didn’t happen, the Sorcerer who forged it has strength I’ve never encountered before, or access to some spells no one else knows.”
Makri understands how bad this all is. When the Sorcerers Guild clear away the hiding spell, Lisutaris will be handed over to the authorities and sent for trial. Despite the evidence Makri is still convinced that Lisutaris didn’t kill Darius.
“Why?”
“Intuition.”
I don’t dismiss Makri’s intuition but I trust my own better. And it’s not sending me anything very positive right now. Maybe it’s the cold.
“What a mess,” I mutter.
All the while I’m wondering about Covinius, the Assassin. Could he have anything to do with this? I need to talk to Hanama, and quickly. We arrive at the Royal Hall. Lisutaris hasn’t yet turned up.
“She’ll be having her hair done by Copro,” Makri tells me. “She’s hired him for every morning of the Assemblage. Wants to make a good impression.”
“She’s going to make a hell of an impression soon.”
All around the Sorcerers are arriving, greeting each other. Many of them are notably less ebullient than yesterday. The mood will pick up when their hangovers fade. I look around for Irith Victorious. I’m planning on discreetly pumping him for information on Darius Cloud Walker. Juval borders Abelasi and the Sorcerers should know each other well. Maybe someone else wanted Darius out of the way.
Before I leave Makri I bring up the subject of the Turanian Assassins Guild. In particular, Hanama, number three in the hierarchy.
“You’re friendly with Hanama.”
“No I’m not.”
“Well, you’re as friendly as a person can be with an Assassin. I need to talk to her but she’s not answering my messages. Before I’m reduced to storming their headquarters, how about you have a word with her?”
“I’m not friendly with her,” protests Makri.
“You meet at gatherings of the Association of Gentlewomen.”
“She doesn’t go to meetings,” says Makri.
She’s lying. I guess it’s meant to be a secret.
Tilupasis takes the bad news much better than Cicer
ius. For her it’s just another problem to be solved, like buying votes.
“You must keep it quiet and find out the truth,” she instructs, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “Once you find out the truth, Kalius and Praetor Samilius will be able to arrest the murderer without involving Lisutaris. It need not spoil her chances of winning.”
“It will spoil them plenty if she really did it.”
“Nothing will spoil Lisutaris’s chances of election while I’m running her campaign,” says Tilupasis firmly. “If she’s guilty of murder then you will have to find some way of disguising the fact.”
“And how am I meant to do that?”
“You’re a sorcerous Investigator. It’s what you do.”
“What I do is catch petty thugs, slug them and send them to jail. Large-scale conspiracy isn’t my forte. And if the Sorcerers Guild catches me trying to hoodwink them they’ll be down on me like a bad spell.”
“I have great confidence in you,” says Tilupasis. “Keep me informed of all developments and let me know if you need money. I’ll instruct my operatives to learn what they can to assist you. Now, how is your companion Makri getting along with Princess Direeva? I’m very optimistic about this.”
“I doubt that Makri will enjoy being used as bait for Direeva’s votes.”
What Makri might enjoy doesn’t concern Tilupasis. She departs to carry on the campaign and I depart for a beer.
Irith Victorious is sitting at a table, looking a little the worse for wear.
“How are you today, Irith?”
“Not quite as happy as an Elf in a tree,” he replies. “Won’t feel myself till I get a few drinks in. Care to join me?”
“Of course.”
Today there are some organised events at the Assemblage. Classes for learning new spells, swapping lore from around the west, that sort of thing. Irith tells me he isn’t quite up to learning anything new right now, though he’s in the market for a magic pocket which can store beer without it going stale.
I’m looking for information on Darius. As a means of raising the subject I tell Irith I placed a bet on Lisutaris.