Thraxas - The Complete Series

by Martin Scott

  “You’re welcome,” I say, to the door.

  The pendant is dangling in my hand. It’s a pretty thing, Elvish silverwork and a green gem of moderate size, well cut and sparkling in the few rays of sunlight that penetrate the drawn blinds of my office. This jewel is deadly. Anything other than a quick glance can suck you in. I’m tempted, but I don’t succumb. I tear a scrap of cloth off an old tunic that serves as a towel, wrap it round the jewel then put it in my bag. It’s time to take it to Lisutaris before it does any more harm.

  As the rush of excitement brought on by combat fades, I find myself feeling well satisfied. You hire Thraxas to find a missing pendant and what happens? He finds your missing pendant. Whilst malevolent Sorcerers, evil killers, gangsters by the score and a whole army of government lackeys waste their energy in a fruitless search, I, Thraxas, have located the pendant without the help of sorcery or the assistance of a well-staffed intelligence service. Just solid, professional investigating and the willingness to do an honest day’s work. There was something inevitable about it. It was more or less bound to happen. You have a problem? Call on Thraxas. This man delivers. In all of Turai, I doubt there’s another person who could have retrieved the pendant.

  There’s a knock on my door. Avenaris, Lisutaris’s secretary, walks into my office.

  “Lisutaris has retrieved the pendant,” she says.

  I raise my eyebrows a fraction.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. This morning. She sent me to tell you to stop looking. And to pay you.”

  Avenaris lays some money on my desk. As always, behind her small, measured movements I can sense tension. She wants to get out of here as quickly as possible.

  “How did Lisutaris locate the pendant?”

  “She didn’t tell me.”

  “Weren’t you curious?”

  “I should leave now. Be sure not to mention anything of this affair to anyone.”

  “Sure. We wouldn’t want to raise any suspicions among the few people who don’t know all about it already.”

  As ever, I’m curious about this nervous young woman whom Lisutaris is extremely keen to protect.

  “You know anything about how the pendant went missing in the first place?” I demand.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. One minute you’re looking after Lisutaris’s bag, the next the pendant’s gone missing. That always struck me as odd.”

  “I don’t know why Lisutaris hired such a man as you,” blurts Avenaris.

  “Because I’m good at noticing things. I notice when people are more nervous than they should be. Why is Lisutaris so keen to protect you? Do you need protecting?”

  “No.”

  “Lisutaris treat you well?”

  “Lisutaris has always been very kind to me. I have to go now.”

  The tic on her face has started up again. I notice how skinny she is. Skinnier than Makri even. Not a young woman who enjoys her food. Not a woman who enjoys anything much, from the look of her. A memory floats into my mind. Young Barius, lying on the couch, gasping.

  “Anyone ever call you Vee, Avenaris?” I say, abruptly.

  The tic goes into overdrive. Avenaris puts her hand to her face to cover it. For a second I think she’s going to faint.

  “No!” she says. “Stop questioning me! Lisutaris told you not to.”

  With that she runs from my office. I’m still weighing up the implications of our encounter when Sarin breezes in, this time not pointing a crossbow at me.

  “I’m disappointed,” I say.

  “At what?”

  “I hoped you’d died when the warehouse collapsed.”

  “I didn’t,” says Sarin. She’s not one for banter.

  “What do you want?”

  “I have a pendant to sell.”

  “A pendant?”

  “Belonging to Lisutaris. I have recovered it. I had planned to sell it to Horm. Circumstances have now changed and I am prepared to sell it to either Lisutaris or the government, using you as an agent.”

  Lisutaris has the pendant. Now Sarin also has the pendant. Obviously they’re both lying because I have the pendant. I spin Sarin along a little, trying to find out what she’s up to.

  “Circumstances have changed? Let me guess. Horm the Dead suspects you of double-crossing him and offering the pendant to Glixius Dragon Killer. Now you’re worried you might find yourself on the wrong end of a heart attack spell.”

  No reaction from Sarin.

  “What makes you think I’d act as your go-between?”

  “You did before,” says Sarin, which is true, though circumstances were different.

  Sarin’s price is five thousand gurans.

  “Worth it to Lisutaris, to save her skin.”

  “Maybe, Sarin. But one day you’re going to come to grief, meddling with the affairs of Sorcerers. They’re not all going to fall for you like Tas of the Eastern Lightning. What did you do to him? A simple stab in the back?”

  “Something like that,” replies Sarin the Merciless. “Lisutaris has till tomorrow to come up with the money. Which she’d better do. My next approach will be to the Palace itself. They’ll pay well to keep the pendant from the Orcs.”

  “It doesn’t worry you, selling state secrets to the enemy?”

  “Not at all.”

  “If the Orcs invade the west, I doubt they’ll spare you.”

  Sarin looks at me quite blankly, and I get the sudden odd impression that she’d welcome death. Unwilling to engage in further conversation, she slips quietly from my office, leaving me to mull over her offer. I find myself admiring her nerve. She doesn’t even have the pendant, yet here she is, still trying to profit from the affair.

  I need beer. I head downstairs to get myself around a Happy Guildsman jumbo-sized tankard. Gurd is still as miserable as a Niojan whore, and Makri is resting upstairs, leaving the incompetent Dandelion to struggle with the task of pulling the ale. By the time she finally plants my Happy Guildsman in front of me, I could have walked to the next tavern and downed a few.

  “You’re looking thoughtful,” says Dandelion, who, I think, has learned from Gurd that the clientele often enjoy a word with the bartender.

  “Too many pendants.”

  “What?”

  I shake my head. If I ever reach the stage of discussing my work with Dandelion, it’ll be time to retire.

  “What did you see when you looked in the jewel?”

  “Lots of nice colours. And some flowers.”

  It didn’t do her any harm. Everyone else it drove mad. Dandelion just saw some pretty colours. Maybe there’s something to be said for walking around in bare feet. I warn her not to relate her experience to anyone, and tell her I’d like another tankard as soon as she’s finished struggling with the large order from three sailmakers who are shouting for drinks from the far end of the counter. They’ve just completed the re-sailing of a trireme and they have a lot of money to spend. More sailmakers arrive and start demanding ale and bragging about the work they’ve done and the money they’ve earned. It’s not a bad life being a sailmaker if the city’s merchant trade is healthy, which it is. Plenty of ships, plenty of work.

  I secure another beer and leave them to it. I’m unsure of what to do now. Visit Lisutaris, I suppose. She claims to have the pendant. But she can’t have it. I’ve got it. And why send me the message? I can understand why she might be faking something for the benefit of the Consul, but there’s no point lying to me.

  Casax, the local Brotherhood boss, appears before I have time to sit down. It’s surprising how busy my office can be at times. You’d think I’d earn more.

  “You want to buy this pendant everyone’s been looking for?” he asks.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because I have it,” says Casax. “One of my men found it in Kushni. But I’m a patriotic guy. I’m not going to let it fall into the hands of one of these outsiders. I’ll let it go back where it belongs, so long as there’s a
profit in it for me.”

  “I know nothing of any missing pendant.”

  “I know you know nothing of any missing pendant. But if you did know anything about a missing pendant, a pendant which contains a jewel which will give our top Sorcerer some advance warning about when the Orcs might attack, would you want to buy it back?”

  “When you put it like that, maybe. What’s your price?”

  “Three thousand gurans. In gold.”

  “That’s a lot of gold for a patriotic guy.”

  “I have to make a living.”

  I ask to see the pendant.

  “It’s in a safe place,” says Casax.

  He expects me to trust him. Which I probably would, normally, in a matter like this. The Brotherhood boss would not waste his time trying to sell me an item he didn’t have. So why is he trying to do it now? I can’t figure it out. The pendant is in my bag. I know it is. I checked just a moment ago. Are these people all trying to work some scam, or is this some effect of the sorcerous madness that’s been breaking out all over? Maybe Casax really thinks he does have the pendant. Maybe he thinks he can talk to the unicorns.

  “There was a centaur in my tavern last night,” he says, which makes me think that my guess might not be so far off.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I never seen one before. You think it would be strange, being half man and half horse, but the centaur didn’t seem to mind.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “It drank some beer then disappeared. Is all this stuff going to end now the pendant’s been found? It’s bad for business, strange things happening all over the city. Makes my men forget what they should be doing. I sent two guys out last night to pick up a debt and they came back spouting some stuff about mermaids in fountains. I’d have killed them on the spot if the centaur hadn’t showed up, which did give their story some credibility. Bad for business, though.”

  I admit to Casax that I don’t know if the strangeness will end. I don’t know if it’s really connected to the pendant.

  “The Sorcerers Guild should sort it out. Normal people shouldn’t be coping with this sort of thing.”

  I tell Casax I’ll put his offer to Lisutaris. I wonder what Lisutaris will say when I do. I don’t know why they’re all lying. I can’t think straight. At least I know why I can’t think straight. It’s because I haven’t had a decent pie or portion of venison stew for days. Since Tanrose left, I haven’t eaten one thing that truly satisfied me. A man can’t be expected to do his best work in these circumstances. I decide to visit Tanrose. Possibly I might be able to persuade her to come back to the Avenging Axe. Failing that, she might offer me dinner.

  I disturb Makri’s rest.

  “I have to go out. Stake some money on forty. It’s still going up.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m going to see Tanrose. You want I should bring you back a pie?”

  Makri shakes her head. She has little enthusiasm for food.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tanrose is living with her mother on the top floor of a dark stone tenement between Twelve Seas and Pashish. Five flights up, with a stairway that could use some cleaning and a few more torches to light the way. As I arrive, Tanrose is laying dinner out on the table, one of the few strokes of good fortune I’ve had all summer. Not wishing to be impolite, I accept her offer of a meal. Once at the table, I lose all self-control and take second, third and fourth helpings of everything. Tanrose is amused, as is her mother, an elderly woman with white hair who already knows my appetite by reputation.

  “I like to see a man eat well,” she says, and brings me another pie from the larder, I hesitate. With Tanrose no longer bringing in her wages from the Avenging Axe, there might not be much money to go around. There again, I don’t want to appear impolite. I eat the pie.

  “Tanrose, you have to come back to the Avenging Axe. The population of Twelve Seas is starving to death. There’s misery everywhere, particularly in my rooms.”

  Tanrose asks if Gurd sent me.

  “No.”

  “So he’s too useless even to send a message,” says Tanrose, which is true, I suppose. I try to excuse him.

  “He spent his life fighting. There was no finer companion for killing Niojans. It’s not easy for a warrior to settle down. I know he loves you. He just doesn’t want to say it.”

  “He doesn’t have any trouble in saying he doesn’t like my bookkeeping.”

  I contrive to look hopeless. A few minutes of this sort of conversation is all I can ever manage. I’ve no idea how to bring together sundered couples. I don’t remember ever caring about a sundered couple before.

  “What will it take to bring you back? An apology? A marriage proposal? Or would a bunch of flowers do it?”

  “It would help.”

  “I’m always surprised how much you like flowers, Tanrose.”

  Tanrose smiles.

  “It’s the thought behind them.”

  “Is it such a great thought?”

  “It worked with Makri, didn’t it?”

  On several previous occasions when Makri had taken offence at some of my wilder outbursts of invective—criticism of her morals or her ears or her clothes, or maybe a few other things—I had managed to calm the troubled waters with flowers, not something I would ever have thought of myself unless prompted by Tanrose. Naturally this entire process was greatly humiliating to a man such as myself, involving much mirth from the flower sellers, Gurd, and the assembled drunks at the Avenging Axe, but it seemed preferable to the terrible atmosphere caused by Makri storming round in a bad mood for weeks on end, which she’s quite capable of.

  “It did work. But only because Makri was too naive to realise I was faking it.”

  “Faking it?”

  “Sure. I don’t care if the woman is upset or not. It just makes it difficult getting a quiet beer. Have you noticed how much more annoying she’s got recently?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “There’s definitely something different,” I say.

  “Maybe the difference is with you,” suggests Tanrose.

  I look at her suspiciously.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Ever since last year when Makri had her first romantic encounter with that Elf on Avula you’ve been in a bad mood. And I notice you’re really giving her a hard time as well.”

  “So?”

  “So I’m beginning to think the gossips might be right.”

  I’m not liking the way this conversation is going.

  “Right about what?” I demand.

  “Maybe you wouldn’t mind ending up with a young companion to keep you warm in winter.”

  I practically choke on my pie.

  “Tanrose! Have you lost your mind?”

  I rise to my feet.

  “I came here to try and smooth things out between you and Gurd, and now you’re making crazy insinuations. Of course I give Makri a hard time. She’s an insane half-Orc menace to society who’ll probably get me killed one of these days. Kindly never insinuate anything again.”

  Tanrose is laughing.

  “I apologise, Thraxas. Sit down and finish your pie. You know I can’t just arrive back in the Avenging Axe. Might as well send Gurd a message saying he’s welcome to walk all over me. He has to make the first move.”

  “What if Gurd thinks you have to make the first move?”

  There doesn’t seem any ready answer to this. It’s the sort of insoluble problem that led to my marriage falling apart a long time ago. I’m grateful for the food, but even a brief conversation about Tanrose and Gurd’s relationship has made me feel very uneasy. I leave after expressing my own profoundest wishes that Tanrose hurry back to the Avenging Axe where she belongs.

  Right outside the tenement, some magical silver doves are fluttering around gaily. I bat them out of the way, not being in the mood for magical silver doves. Further down the street I come across a detachment of Civil Guards and at
the next corner a squadron of the King’s troops. The city is becoming nervous. Alarm is spreading at the widespread reports of mysterious apparitions and unexplained deaths. Personally I’m more alarmed at Tanrose making a joke about me desiring Makri to keep me warm on a winter’s night. It was in very poor taste. I hurry into a tavern to wash away the bad taste with copious amounts of beer.

  Inside the tavern I pick up a copy of The Renowned and Truthful Chronicle, freshly printed. One side of the single sheet is entirely taken up with reports of sightings of magical creatures, golden trees and such like, and the other details the surprising number of deaths there have been in the city in the past few days. Even by Turai’s standards, the population is decreasing at an alarming rate.

  Who is responsible for this? thunders the Chronicle. And why has no attempt been made to arrest the renegade Tribune Thraxas?

  What? I shake my head, barely able to believe what I’m reading. I find myself shrinking in my seat, hoping no one recognises me as I hurriedly scan the rest of the article.

  All signs indicate that Thraxas—a so called Investigator in Twelve Seas of whom we have had reason to complain before—is heavily involved in the affair. Our enquiries show that in the space of three days this man has been at the scene of a great many unexplained deaths. Several landlords, for instance, report that Thraxas—a huge man of bestial appetites—visited their taverns only minutes before a series of savage murders were committed, leaving swiftly after searching the bodies for valuables.

  Furthermore, Thraxas, a known associate of several renegade Sorcerers, has been repeatedly questioned by the Consul and his deputy after an attempt was made to blackmail Lisutaris, Mistress of the Sky. While we have no absolute proof that Thraxas was behind this attempt, he has reportedly been trying to sell various personal items belonging to the Sorcerer, including a diary and some items of jewellery. Reports from other sources indicate that guards at the Guild College were forced to eject him after he menaced Professor Toarius over a sum of five gurans.

  Although it cannot yet be proved that Thraxas is responsible for the mysterious apparitions that have been troubling the city, he is known to have dabbled in the sorcerous arts, and may be in possession of several devastating Orcish spells (he is fluent in the Orcish language, and is rumoured to have various Orcish associates). It has recently come to light that he once threw down his shield and fled the field of battle, an offence for which he will shortly face charges in court. Why is this man still at liberty? And why, we would like to know, was he ever granted the office of Tribune? Even in a city as corrupt as Turai, surely a man of such reputation should not be able to bribe his way into lucrative government positions…