Thraxas

by Martin Scott

  "The statue is really gone? How could anyone move it?"

  The Captain shrugs. "No idea. But it's gone all right. All two tons of it."

  "Tholius traced Grosex to my place with a Sorcerer. Can't the Sorcerer find the statue?"

  "Apparently not. And no, before you ask, no traces of sorcery were found at the scene. Our men went over the whole place without finding the slightest trace of anything magical. How the statue managed to disappear is a mystery. The servants swear that Drantaax was working on the statue that morning. Drantaax's wife found the body right after he was killed, so there was no time for the statue to disappear. But it did."

  "Why is Tholius so sure Grosex did it?"

  "Grosex's knife was sticking in the corpse."

  "So? That doesn't mean anything. Anyone could have used his knife."

  "Maybe. We'll see what our Sorcerer says when he examines the weapon, but I figure he'll find Grosex's aura on it all right. Now, I'm busy. If you don't mind I'll get on with my work."

  "I need to see inside."

  "Go to hell."

  Captain Rallee used to be liaison officer between the Abode of Justice, which controls the Civil Guard, and Palace Security. A nice comfy job, though after many years at the sharp end of crime in Turai he deserved it. Now he's back pounding the streets and he doesn't like it at all. He is rarely in the best of moods.

  "Come on, what's the matter? I have a right to go in."

  " 'What's the matter?' What's the matter is I have Prefect Tholius on my tail looking for this one to be wrapped up quickly so we can keep Nioj and the True Church happy and I already have Consul Kalius on my tail about the King's hijacked gold shipment, as well as a million other things, from pilgrims being robbed at the shrine to eight dwa-related killings in Kushni in the past two days. Is that enough for you?"

  I make sympathetic noises but point out that as the official representative of Grosex I have a legal right to examine the scene of the crime. The Captain ponders for a while. He doesn't want me inside but, to be fair to him, he's not a man to flout the law.

  "Take a look, then. If Tholius appears and chucks you in jail, don't come crying to me."

  At this moment, as we are about to enter the house, the call for afternoon prayers rings out from the many towers scattered throughout the city and we are all obliged to kneel with our heads bowed to the ground. There's no avoiding this in Turai. Three times a day we have official prayers and anyone not found kneeling is in trouble with the authorities. So I kneel and pray next to Captain Rallee and the two Guards, which is funny in a way, though often while working I've found myself obliged to pray in far stranger company. I've even found myself fighting an opponent when the call rang out, and been obliged to kneel down beside him, pray, then stand up again and kill him. At least he went to meet his maker well prepared.

  The heat is intense and I have to struggle to stay awake. When the call for the end of prayers rings out I drag myself wearily to my feet.

  "You're getting slow, Thraxas," says Captain Rallee. "It's time you got off the streets. Try opening a tavern."

  "I'd drink myself out of business."

  We enter the house, and I quickly get down to examining the scene of the crime under the watchful eye of a Guard who's assigned to follow me and make sure I don't do anything I shouldn't.

  Drantaax's house is a standard enough building, a little grander than most but nothing special. If it wasn't for the exquisite statues decorating the rooms, garden and central courtyard it could be the dwelling place of any moderately prosperous businessman. The statues are beautiful though. Even an untrained eye such as mine can tell at a glance that they are of a higher quality than most things you find around our cities temples and libraries.

  Drantaax's large workshop is joined on to the back of the house but there isn't much to see at the scene of the crime, other than a faint blood stain where the body was and a large empty space where the statue ought to be. I concentrate to see if I can detect the aura of magic, but I can't. I'm pretty sure none has been used here in the past few days. According to Captain Rallee the statue was definitely here yesterday. It was seen by the Pontifex from the True Church, sent to see how it was progressing.

  The statue was a bronze cast. Drantaax carves it out of plaster, then sends it to a foundry who casts it for him and ships it back in six pieces. After that the sculptor puts the pieces together, files it down, makes any final adjustments, and there you are, one bronze statue. Statues of that kind are hollow inside but Drantaax had finished assembling it so it must have weighed a couple of tons, saint, horse and plinth.

  And now it's gone. Vanished. No one saw a thing. When the statue was finished it would have taken six men with lifting gear and a specially strengthened cart to move it out. I study the winches at the end of the workshop designed for moving the heavy artifices. A cumbersome process, I'm sure. Not something you could do in a hurry. But someone did shift it, and no one saw a thing. None of the neighbours or any bystander the Guard has been able to trace saw anything unusual in or around the house. A beggar sits across the street every day and he swears that no wagon left the yard on the day of the murder.

  "It can't just have disappeared."

  Captain Rallee informs me dryly that he'd already worked that out for himself.

  "And Old Hasius the Brilliant says no sorcery was involved? Very strange."

  Other statues are in the workshop, some still being worked on, others now complete. Fine statues, valuable, I imagine, to a collector. All of them are smaller, some of them only busts that one man could carry. So why did the thief choose to take such a massive thing with him instead? It would be impossible to sell, even in Turai, favoured home of the crooked merchant.

  Outside the workshop is a flowerbed where a small sculptured Wood Nymph reclines in a bed of red flowers. The flowers have lasted well in the fierce summer heat, but are now starting to wilt. Petals cover the path, making a small red patch. With a tiny piece of yellow in the middle. I bend down for a closer look. There are a few yellow petals in among the red. I glance at the flowerbed again. None of the flowers there are yellow. Strange. Maybe there were only a few yellow petals and they all fell off? Maybe not. I pick up the yellow petals and place them in the small pouch at my hip I carry for such occasions.

  I look around a short while more without learning anything. Captain Rallee tells me he has no leads on the whereabouts of Drantaax's wife. If he knows anything, he isn't saying. He has all three of Drantaax's servants locked up for questioning and there doesn't seem any immediate prospect of me being able to see them. I figure it's time to leave.

  I need to see Grosex quickly but as I'm close to the home of Astrath Triple Moon I decide to call in there first. Astrath is a Sorcerer, and a good one, and he might be able to help.

  While walking down the street it strikes me that I'm being followed. I can always tell, have an instinct for it. It's part of the sensitivity I developed as a young Sorcerer's Apprentice and it served me well when I was a mercenary. The feeling is still there when I reach Astrath's house. As I ring his bell I quickly look round, but no one is in sight.

  A servant leads me into the house which is a great deal smaller than you would expect for the home of a powerful Sorcerer like Astrath Triple Moon. Like me, he's come down in the world. Astrath found himself in trouble a couple of years ago and is lucky to still be in the city at all. He was employed as official Sorcerer at the Stadium Superbius, with responsibility for seeing that all the fights and chariot races were above board and not influenced by magic.

  The citizens of Turai are very sensitive about this—no one wants to bet on a chariot and then find it's been hexed—so the resident Sorcerer has an important job. After a series of strange results the word went around that Astrath was taking bribes to turn a blind eye to sorcerous interference. He was in grave danger of a lengthy prison sentence or possibly a public lynching till I dug around a little and cleared his name—well, not exactly cleared his name,
as he was in fact guilty as hell, but I muddied the water enough that no proof could be brought to court. Astrath consequently managed to avoid expulsion from the Sorcerers Guild but he was compelled to quit his job. The scandal forced him out of his lavish villa in Thamlin and landed him here in Pashish, ministering to the needs of the poor.

  I often ask him for advice. He might have a weakness for taking bribes but he's sharp as an Elf's ear on all things sorcerous. He's also a generous man with his food and drink, and generally pleased to see me. None of his old buddies in the Sorcerers Guild would come within a mile of him these days, which leaves him short of intelligent conversation.

  As I walk in he's already instructing a servant to bring in wine and fruit. His small front room is crammed full of books, potions and other magical paraphernalia and he has to brush several rolls of paper away to make space for the decanter.

  "How's life?" I ask.

  "Better than rowing a slave galley, but not much. If I have to draw up another horoscope for the local fishwife I swear I'll poison her next catch. Gets me down, Thraxas. The woman has fourteen children and she wants to know everything the future holds for each one of them. How the hell am I meant to know if her seventh daughter is going to make a good marriage?"

  He sighs, and pours some wine. We chat for a while about affairs in the city, speculating whether things might improve now Cicerius is Deputy Consul, and if war with Nioj or Mattesh is likely.

  "You hear about Drantaax?"

  Astrath has. "Fine sculptor. As soon as I heard about it I checked the conjunctions to see if I could learn anything, but they're way off."

  Powerful Sorcerers such as Astrath Triple Moon can sometimes look back in time. Fortunately for the criminals of Turai, it's a very difficult feat, and completely impossible if the three moons were in the wrong phases when compared with their current position in the sky. Occasionally the Sorcerers at the Abode of Justice have pulled off a spectacular coup in difficult criminal cases by peering through time and identifying precisely who was there and what happened, but it's a very rare occurrence. Most often the Guards have to pound the streets asking questions, the same as me.

  I fill him in on what I know of the case and ask him about the statue. "Any ideas how it could have been moved?"

  He strokes his beard. Beards are uncommon in Turai but they're favoured by Sorcerers and a few other guilds, like the Tutors and the Storytellers for instance.

  "No sign of magic at all?"

  "None. Guards didn't find any and I'd swear nobody had uttered a spell there recently. I might not have made it much past Apprentice Sorcerer but in my line of work you learn to recognise it."

  "A good Sorcerer might be able to hide it, Thraxas. Which Guard Sorcerer checked the place out?"

  "Old Hasius the Brilliant."

  "Old Hasius himself, eh? Must be important if the Guard got him down from the Abode of Justice. Well, that changes things. No Sorcerer could hide all traces of his aura or his spells from Old Hasius. He's a cranky old soul, but he knows his magic. The statue must have been carried out manually."

  "Impossible. There wasn't time. It was there in the morning. Various people will swear to it. And Drantaax's workshop is on the main street in Pashish. There is no way that someone wouldn't have seen it being removed on a wagon. It would have taken six men and an hour to load it. Major operation. But no one saw a thing. The statue just vanished. I know that Old Hasius the Brilliant's been scanning the city for it, but he can't find a thing."

  Astrath agrees that the whole thing is very odd but can't offer any suggestions. "When it comes right down to it, Thraxas, does it matter to you what happened to the statue? If you just want to clear Grosex of the murder, I mean."

  "Good point, Astrath. It might not matter at all if I can find some other angle. But the Prefect has him locked up tight and it's hard to get a lead. I guess if I knew where the statue was I'd probably find out what was behind it all. And it might produce some results for the Guard Sorcerers once they had a good look at the aura."

  He agrees to scan the city himself to see if he can come up with anything.

  Before I go I ask him if he has any suggestions for preventing a repeat of this morning's debacle where Tholius walked in and took Grosex away.

  "An invisibility spell?" he suggests. "Make your client unseeable by the authorities."

  "Way beyond me, I'm afraid. I could never get it to work. My powers don't rise much above the sleep spell for knocking out opponents these days."

  "Hmm."

  He takes his grimoire off a shelf and hunts through the index. "How about this? Temporary bafflement. Simple little spell. Makes anyone searching your rooms very confused indeed. Not foolproof, of course, if you're up against anyone strong-willed enough, but it should be enough of a distraction to let you conceal anyone from nosy Civil Guards."

  That sounds like it might work. I thank him, finish up my wine and take my leave. After the coolness of Astrath's house the evening streets are still unbearably hot, and walking home I am followed again. I don't try to shake them, preferring instead to discover their identity, but the culprit is tricky and I fail to get a glimpse of him.

  Back at the Avenging Axe Makri has finished her shift and is about to disappear up to her room to study mathematics, which is part of her course at the Guild College. It is Makri's ambition to attend the Imperial University. This is impossible as the Imperial University does not admit women students. It only admits the sons of Senators or the richest of our merchants, and it is certainly not likely to accept anyone with Orc blood in her veins. Despite this, Makri refuses to be deterred.

  "The Guild College didn't want to admit me either," she points out. "And look how well I'm doing there."

  "Last week you had a fight with eight of your fellow students."

  "They insulted my ears."

  One consequence of Makri's unusual parentage is that her ears are rather pointed, though as her hair is so long and thick, they're usually hidden from view.

  "So? I've insulted your ears plenty of times."

  "You're a drunken oaf who doesn't know any better," counters Makri. "Students ought to be polite. Anyway, I wouldn't really call it a fight. Most of them just ran away. And I passed the philosophy exam right afterwards."

  I notice that Makri has secreted a few thazis sticks from behind the bar among her sheaf of papers. I take one from her as we walk upstairs.

  "Better not let Gurd catch you stealing his thazis."

  "He should pay me better. Why wouldn't you help the dolphins?"

  "Help the dolphins? You mean work for Dandelion? You must be joking. I'm an Investigator on a murder case. I haven't the time to traipse round after some social misfit with flowers in her hair listening to some so-called talking dolphins bleat about their healing stone. The woman was obviously insane."

  Makri laughs. "I liked her."

  "Only because you always like people that outrage me."

  "Like who?"

  "Like Hanama the Assassin, that's who. Woman damn near killed me and now you go to meetings with her."

  This is a slight source of friction between myself and Makri. Makri has become involved with the Association of Gentlewomen, a group formed to advance the rights of women in Turai, which, it must be admitted, are rather limited. Can't join the guilds for one thing, apart from a few specialised ones like the Sorcerers and the Assassins. Can't join the Honourable Association of Merchants either, which puts a serious block on business opportunities and such like. Can't vote, can't sit in the Senate. Nor are they allowed in the luxurious baths and gymnasia up town. Which, I must admit, never troubled me unduly till Makri became involved with the Association and started making a big deal about it.

  I'm willing to go along with her views, I guess. It's no skin off my nose. As long as I contribute a guran or two to Makri's collections, it keeps her off my back. However, as I learned to my cost recently, membership of the Association of Gentlewomen has grown alarmingly recently. It
would be a great surprise to most citizens of Turai if they knew, for instance, that not only did the Association have the support of the likes of Minarixa the baker and Chiaraxi the herbal healer, but it can count on the covert support of Princess Du-Akai, third in line to the throne. The King certainly won't be amused if he finds that out. Nor will the True Church, who regard the Association as an abomination.

  Lisutaris, Mistress of the Sky, a very powerful Sorcerer when she can stay away from her waterpipe, is another supporter. Strangest of all, I'm pretty sure that Hanama, number three in the Assassins Guild, is in there as well. The thought of Makri attending secret meetings with these people makes me worry that possibly some people in the city who shouldn't know my business might occasionally be learning a few things they oughtn't. Not that Makri would ever knowingly betray any of my secrets, of course, but she's only been in the city a year and remains unsophisticated in the ways of civilisation. She sometimes gets cheated in the market. She finds it awkward using cutlery. I can still lie to her and get away with it.