Now, though, the Jaros house made the docks seem like an orchard by comparison. Danthres’s nose wrinkled up immediately and pretty much stayed that way as she surveyed the sitting room.
Not that there was much of the sitting room to survey-it was covered, wall to ceiling, in the same dark muck. She could make out small shapes under the muck that she assumed to be the furniture, and she also saw other bits and pieces jutting out from it.
“Lord and Lady,” Torin muttered.
“Close the door,” Danthres said to the guard. “We need to get Boneen in here.”
It took the better part of an hour for the magical examiner to make his appearance. During that time, Danthres tried to ignore Millar Jaros’s complaints, mostly by coming up with entertaining ways of flaying the old man alive.
When Boneen did arive via a Teleport Spell, he looked even more perturbed than usual. “I’ve already been here.”
“Yes,” Danthres said, “and all you told us was that it was unlicensed magic. What kind of magic was it?”
Boneen sneered. “The unlicensed kind. Why am I wasting my time with this?”
Torin asked, “Boneen, did you identify the sigil on the blueprints on my desk?”
“Yes, right before I was told to come here. It’s the symbol for hiding something.”
Looking at Danthres, Torin said, “Like a closet.”
Millar stepped forward. “What do you mean?”
“The blueprints for your house have a mark on the spot where the closet is now,” Torin said. “It would seem that the hidden closet was part of the building’s original plans.”
“Excuse me,” Boneen said before Millar could go off on another rant about messes, thus marking the first time Danthres had ever been grateful for Boneen’s crankiness, “but why am I here?”
Steeling herself, Danthres told the guard to reopen the door to the Jaros house.
Boneen seemed unperturbed by the stench. He simply looked inside and said, “Oh, dear.”
“Well put,” Danthres muttered.
Shaking his head, the magical examiner looked away from the muck-covered sitting room. “I had assumed this to be a one-time event-someone using the Duality Spell once for whatever arcane reason-but it looks like it’s been used for some time, and still is being cast on a regular basis.” He regarded Torin and pointed at the closet in the back of the sitting room. “That sigil I was translating-it was on the spot where that closet is?”
Torin nodded.
“Can we please close the door before I die?” Danthres asked plaintively. The elven half of her heritage came with a sensitivity far greater than that of humans, and the smell that irritated them was going to kill her ere long.
Waving his hand dismissively, Boneen said, “It won’t do any good, but go ahead.” The guard did so, to Danthres’s relief.
Millar drew himself up to full height. “What do you mean it won’t do any good? And who’s going to clean up that mess?”
“And what exactly,” Danthres asked, “is a Duality Spell?” As a rule, Danthres preferred to avoid magic, but reality didn’t allow for that, and ten years in the Castle Guard made her painfully aware of the most common spells-particularly the ones that were commercially available. This one, however, rang no bells.
“To answer your earlier question, Tresyllione,” Boneen said, folding his spindly arms across his chest, “this magic is of a type devised by a wizard named Ivano the Misguided. He pioneered an entire system of magic that involved checks and balances-every time you cast a spell, there was a concomitant reaction elsewhere. This way there’d be no effort on the part of the spellcaster, and anyone could wield magic.”
“Anyone can use magic,” Danthres said impatiently. “All they have to do is buy a spell-”
“-that’s already been cast.” Boneen sounded just as impatient. “A wizard casts the spell into the scroll, which then goes on the market. The purchaser then uses it, but the energy of the spellcaster has already been spent. With Ivano’s magic, one didn’t need any kind of training to cast a spell, nor did one need to purchase a spell-you simply needed to incant it.”
Torin nodded. “That explains why that Amaralla woman’s people couldn’t clean the place-and why my boots resisted the Cleaning Spell.”
Seeing an out, Danthres said with a smile. “So that means this would be a case for the Brotherhood, wouldn’t it?”
“If I bring this to the Brotherhood, the first thing they’ll ask is why I didn’t bring this to them sooner.” Boneen for once sounded abashed. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not bring that to their attention.”
“Oh, no,” Danthres said angrily, pointing an accusatory finger at Boneen, “you’re not getting out of it that easily. I’ve had far too many murders and assaults shitcanned because it’s ‘Brotherhood business,’ and everything gets swept under the rug. Now, the one time when they’d actually be a help, which only happens once every third blue moon, and you’re telling me you won’t inform them?”
“I’ll help you,” Boneen said.
That brought Danthres up short. The M.E. had never used those three words in sequence before that Danthres was aware of. Boneen considered the work he did for the Castle Guard to be a waste of his precious time and energy, and he begrudged every second of it. For him to volunteer…
Boneen went on. “Give me a minute to gather myself up and let me examine the house more closely. I might be able to trace where the spell’s being cast.”
“Uhm, excuse me?” That was Abbi Jaros, whom Danthres had briefly forgotten, having focused most of her ire on either her father-in-law or the M.E. “What kind of spell is this exactly? What’s happening to our house?”
Boneen started waving his arms about. “Ivano’s magic always has a secondary effect. Someone is doing something pleasant, and that requires that somewhere else there be something awful. However, the awful can be directed, and in this case, it was to the closet that was hidden in your house when it was built.” He cast a glance at the shut door. “But they’ve obviously been casting this spell for some time. The muck in your closet has become too big to fit therein, and it has spilled out into the house.” Now he looked at Danthres and Torin. “We need to find out who’s doing this. At this rate, it will expand to take over and destroy this house. In a week, it will have consumed the entire block.”
Danthres blinked. Perhaps she didn’t want the Brotherhood involved, after all-not if she wanted this solved properly. “All right, then, what do we do?”
“First, I examine this house.” Boneen slowly got down onto the floor and sat in a lotus position; Danthres could hear his bones creak and crack as he did so. The aged wizard muttered something, waved his right hand about, and then started to float upward.
About a minute later, he unfolded his legs, while still floating, and placed them on the ground. “This is worse than I thought. It’s been going on for at least a decade, possibly longer. I can’t tell for sure-there are magically enhanced items in there interfering.” That last was said with an accusatory look at Abbi and Millar.
“That’s impossible!” Abbi said. “We don’t keep anything magical in the house.”
“That’s right,” Millar said. “Got rid of it all. Filthy stuff, magic.”
Noting that was the first thing Millar had said that hadn’t made Danthres want to punch him, she asked Boneen, “Is there any way to extract those items? If they don’t belong to the family, they might belong to whoever cast the spell.”
“It’s possible, but I’m already rather tired, and-”
“Fine, then.” Danthres turned to Torin. “What’s the name of the Brotherhood representative?”
“Ythran,” Torin said. “I’m sure he’d be overjoyed to hear all about Boneen misreading the peel-back.”
“I didn’t misread it!” Boneen was almost pouting. “All right, all right, I’ll cast the blessed spell.”
This time, Boneen didn’t bother with the lotus position, but the muttering took
longer, and he gesticulated with both hands.
Danthres had to blink away the spots in front of her eyes that the resultant flash of light caused, but when they were gone, she looked down at the ground in front of Boneen to see seven objects, all encrusted with the muck that had taken over the Jaros house, all looking like articles of clothing.
Boneen pointed at one of two items that looked like cloaks. “That looks like a Protector Cloak-a low-level one, it’d just keep the shit off you walking around Goblin-but that explains the magical interference.”
However, Danthres was more interested in the other cloak.
Breathing through her mouth to avoid the stench-which, while not as bad as the room had been, was still pretty awful-Danthres bent over to grab it. Grateful that her uniform included gloves, she picked it up by one end with her right hand, wiping the center of the cloak off with her left glove.
Then she smiled grimly. “I know who did this.”
Forak’s Perfect Clean had offices in Dragon Precinct, only a short walk from Danthres’ rooms, which was why she had chosen them in the first place. That evening, she entered their waiting area, accompanied by Torin. As had been the case when she had gone there to make the appointment, and again when she filed the complaint about her missing cloak, the waiting area consisted solely of a bench, a desk behind which sat a prim young woman, and a door leading to the back.
The prim woman-whose name, Danthres recalled, was Emanuela-looked up at their entrance. “Ah, Lieutenant Trellis, isn’t it?”
“Tresyllione, actually,” Danthres corrected automatically.
“Of course. I’m afraid we haven’t found your cloak yet, but I can assure you that it will turn up. We here at Forak’s guarantee customer satisfaction-it is our watchword, after all.” Emanuela said all that without once changing her inflection.
“Well, I’m afraid that isn’t good enough,” Danthres said, trying to sound like an outraged customer-which wasn’t too difficult an act for her just at the moment. “I want to speak to your supervisor immediately.”
“I’m afraid Mr. Forak isn’t available right now, Lieutenant, but if you wish to make an appointment-”
“I’m afraid that I must see Mr. Forak right now, or I will shut this place down.”
Emanuela opened her tiny mouth into an O, then closed it. She didn’t have a prepared response to that, it seemed, and it took a few moments for her brain to actually function. “Can you do that?”
Torin smiled his most pleasant smile. “We are lieutenants in the Castle Guard, madam. The Lord and Lady have granted us considerable leeway in such matters, and all we would have to do is pronounce this place a menace to the well-being of Cliff’s End and its inhabitants, and it would be shut down. Mr. Forak could, of course, appeal to the magistrate, but that might take days.”
“Weeks, even,” Danthres added. “And you would not be permitted to conduct business until that-”
“Mr. Forak!” Emanuela cried out in a tone very much like a mouse’s squeak, apparently unable to handle any more disruptions to her world. “Some people here to see you!”
A short man with thin hair and a thick mustache came out through the door to the rear. “What? What? Dammit, Emanuela, I told you not to bother me, I’m trying to-Oh!” That last word was spoken upon sighting two people in leather armor and earth-colored cloaks, symbolizing that they were detectives in the Guard. “Dammit, Emanuela, why didn’t you tell me that the good people of the Cliff’s End Castle Guard were here?”
“But-” Emanuela tried to protest, but Forak didn’t give her the chance, bounding forward with a broad smile peeking out from under his mustache.
“You’re Mr. Forak?”
“Yes, Lieutenant, yes, I am most definitely him, yes, I am. Now then, who might you be, and what service can Forak’s Perfect Clean do for you on this lovely day?”
“I’m Lieutenant Tresyllione, this is my partner, Lieutenant ban Wyvald. I’m one of your customers, actually.”
“Ah, yes, well, of course,” Forak said, sounding relieved. “Are you satisfied with our service, Lieutenant Tresilon?”
“Tresyllione, and I mostly am, yes, although an item has gone missing. A cloak-just like the one I’m wearing now. I told your girl about it there-”
“Right, of course, yes, we’re getting right on that. My best people are searching for the cloak even as we speak.”
“Your best people?”
“Of course.”
Danthres nodded. “Fascinating.”
“Mr. Forak, I apologize,” Torin said, “but I’m a bit befuddled. You see, before coming here, we went to the castle and examined your tax records. They say that you only have one employee.” He nodded his head at Emanuela. “I have to wonder-who does the actual cleaning?”
“And who’s looking for my cloak?” Danthres added.
Forak started to shuffle from foot to foot, and twisted the end of his mustache with his right hand. “Yes, well, ahm, you see, I mean, that is to say, uh-”
“Let me save you the trouble of lying, Mr. Forak. You don’t have any employees, do you? You charge one gold per room cleaned, which, when I first came here, you said was to cover cleaning supplies and labor costs. Other cleaning services usually charge two gold, but they also give the option of providing your own supplies-which you don’t do.”
“Erm, yes, you see, I-”
“This is because you don’t actually have a staff, do you, Mr. Forak?” Danthres started moving slowly closer to Forak, who backed up until he bumped into Emanuela’s desk. “Instead, you cast a spell to clean the room and send the dirt to a closet hidden in a house in Unicorn, where no one will ever find it. There are only two problems, Mr. Forak.”
“Oh, ah, yes? What’s, er, what’s that, then?”
“First of all, the closet filled up and exploded. The dirt from all the homes you’ve cleaned has now taken over the house, and soon it will encompass an entire block. Do you know who owns that house, Mr. Forak?”
“Er, well, no, actually, I-”
“Alfrek Jaros. He works for Sir Lio, the transport minister. Do you know what Sir Lio will think about someone doing this to one of his deputies?”
“Uhm-”
“The second problem is that it isn’t just dirt that goes to the Jaros closet. According to our magical examiner, the spell requires sending the items from one closet to another, and some items in the closets of your clients got mixed in with the dirt. They included two pairs of boots, a Protection Cloak, three tunics-and my cloak.”
“Ah, yes, well, you see, I can, er, that is to say, I-”
Torin grabbed Forak’s arms. “I would reserve comment until you’ve seen the magistrate.”
Puffing himself up, Forak said, “Hang on, you can’t arrest me! I’ve done nothing wrong!”
Danthres snarled. “You’ve done quite a bit wrong, Mr. Forak. Fraud, for one thing.”
“I didn’t defraud no one, I didn’t! I said I’d clean your place, and I did!”
Torin glanced at Danthres. “He has a point.”
“True. But there’s also littering. And vandalism to the Jaros house.” She smiled a most unpleasant smile, then. “And, of course, there’s the Brotherhood.”
Forak went white. “Th-the Brotherhood? You mean, that is to say-of Wizards?”
“Yes, that Brotherhood. They don’t take kindly to people using unlicensed magic.”
That deflated him, and he took Torin’s advice and refrained from further comment. They led him out the door and handed him off to one of the four guards from Dragon they had left waiting outside. That guard would take him to the castle for imprisonment until the magistrate-and the Brotherhood-could deal with him. Torin instructed the other three to escort Emanuela to Dragon for questioning and to close up the offices of Forak’s Perfect Clean.
Danthres looked up at the sky, seeing the sun starting to set into the horizon, and she realized that she was in a good mood. Justice had been done, she’d found her cloak, an
d she didn’t even have to deal directly with the Brotherhood.
Then Torin said, “You realize that when this is all over, he’s going to have to reverse the spell in order to salvage the Jaros house. That means all the dirt will probably have to go back.”
“Actually, I hadn’t realized it.” Danthres snarled, her foul mood back full force.
“Yes,” Torin said with a smile. “You’ve been left with quite a mess.”
Somehow, Danthres managed not to kill him.
OFF THE RACK by Elizabeth A. Vaughan
Sarah yanked the offending strip of paper from the calculator, crumpled it, and threw it at the basket. It bounced off the rim, hit the wall, and fell to the floor.
With a curse, she jerked out of her chair to retrieve it. The chair obeyed the law of physics and thumped back against the wall. Sarah cursed again, this at the black mark it left on the wall.
Pam stuck her head into the tiny closet Sarah called her office. “Problem?”
“No.” Sarah kept her face down as she picked up the crumpled wad and dropped it in the trash. She wasn’t going to tell her only employee about the red ink on that slip of paper. “Just got up too fast.”
Pam accepted that, as she accepted the meager paycheck each week, with a shrug. “Listen, can I leave early? There’s no customers, and I gotta-”
“Sure.” Sarah didn’t really want to hear it. “Go. I’ll lock up.”
The door was swinging shut before the words were out of Sarah’s mouth. She heard the door chimes marking Pam’s exit even as she turned off the calculator. She paused long enough to watch the negative number fade as the display went dim.
Sarah sighed and stepped out into her store, to watch as the last few moments before closing ticked off. She stepped to the counter and started to clear away the clutter.
Outside, through the glass windows of the store front, soft white flakes of snow started to fill Pam’s tire treads. Painted on the window, backward from this angle, was “Sarah’s Closet,” the gold and cream lettering still as bright and promising as it had been a year ago on opening day.
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