Thraxas and the Dance of Death

Chapter Nine

“You keep getting in my way,” says Sarin.

Sarin the Merciless is as cold as an Orc’s heart. Not a woman you can take lightly. She learned her fighting skills from warrior monks and is as ruthless a killer as I’ve come across in all my years of investigating.

“You know it’s illegal to carry a weapon like that inside the city walls?”

“Is that so?”

“It is. But don’t get the impression I’m not pleased you visited, Sarin. There are enough warrants out for you for murder and robbery to make a man wealthy.”

“Only if he was alive to collect the reward.”

Sarin is rather tall. She wears a man’s tunic—unusual enough—and, uniquely for a woman in this city, has her hair cut very short. This is next door to taboo and quite unheard of in civilised society. For some reason I’ve never been able to fathom, she wears an extraordinary number of earrings, an odd indulgence for a woman whose image is otherwise so severe. She’s added a few since I last saw her and the piercings now travel the full semicircle of each ear.

She looks at Lisutaris, meanwhile keeping the crossbow pointed at my chest. A bolt at this range would pin me to the wall. Sarin once shot Makri and it took the power of a magical healing stone to save her life. Round about the same time she killed Tas of the Eastern Lightning, one of Turai’s most powerful Sorcerers.

“Who are you?” she demands.

“Lisutaris, Mistress of the Sky,” replies the Sorcerer coldly. “Put that crossbow down.”

Showing no wish to put the crossbow down, Sarin points it instead at Lisutaris, which is a mistake. Lisutaris makes a slight movement of her hand and the weapon flies from Sarin’s grasp to clatter on the floor, ending up under the sink. If Sarin is perturbed she doesn’t show it. She steps forward so her face is only a few inches from that of Lisutaris.

“I don’t like Sorcerers,” she says.

“I don’t like you,” counters Lisutaris.

Lisutaris is not a woman you can intimidate easily. She fought heroically in the last war against the Orcs, bringing down war dragons from the sky and blasting Orcish squadrons with powerful destructive spells. When her considerable supply of sorcery eventually ran out, she picked up a sword and hewed at the Orcish invaders as their heads appeared over the city walls. I know because I was beside her at the time.

“You might believe that the spell protection charm I sense on your person will protect you against me. You are mistaken. Remove your face from mine or I will engulf you in flames.”

“Will you?” says Sarin, not removing her face. “Before you wore down my protection spell I’d break your neck.”

As a sporting man, I wouldn’t mind seeing Sarin and Lisutaris squaring off against each other, but it would probably mean my rooms getting wrecked, and when that happens Gurd is never happy about it. So I interrupt.

“Did you come here just to pick fights with my guests? That’s something I can usually do myself.”

Sarin draws back a few inches.

“No, Thraxas, I came here looking for a pendant. I thought you might have it. Not an unreasonable assumption, given that you were seen at the green jewel’s last known location. Do you have it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The pendant. For far-seeing. Lisutaris hired you to retrieve it for her. Just as I hired men to retrieve it for me. My men ended up dead. I see you fared better.”

“I’m a hard man to kill.”

An expression of withering contempt flickers over Sarin’s features. Not feigned contempt, but real.

“Hard to kill? I’ve passed by you drunk in the gutter, Thraxas. I could have gutted you had I wished.”

“When was this exactly?”

“On one of the many occasions I’ve been in this city, undetected. There are plenty of unsolved crimes which could be laid at my door, Investigator. Some of them investigated by you, without result. The few successes you brag about are as nothing compared to your multitudinous failures.”

I don’t believe her. Sarin is just angry at me because I’ve thwarted her in the past. But I notice Lisutaris is looking at me with a new lack of respect. No client likes to hear their Investigator being mocked by a criminal.

“Me lying drunk in the gutter notwithstanding, Lisutaris hasn’t lost any pendants that I know about. The Mistress of the Sky merely called in to invite me to a masked ball she’s holding in a couple of days. And I’m very gratified to receive the invitation, Lisutaris. I shall be delighted to attend.”

“Stop this buffoonery,” says Sarin, loudly. She studies my face.

“You don’t have the pendant,” she says.

She turns her head to Lisutaris and regards her for a few seconds.

“And neither do you.”

“So you can read minds?” I ask, intending it to be sarcastic.

“Not exactly,” replies Sarin, taking my statement at face value. “But I trained with warrior monks. I can read emotions.”

She picks up her crossbow.

“A puzzle,” she says, softly. “I knew that the pendant had been intercepted by the Society of Friends. I intended to take it from their operative at the Blind Horse. But someone beat me to it. I thought it might have been you but apparently I was wrong. No matter. I do not doubt that I can find it again. If you get in my way I’ll kill you.”

Sarin the Merciless departs, closing the door quietly behind her.

“At least we’re not the only ones who don’t know where the pendant is.”

“That is little comfort,” says Lisutaris. “Who was that woman?”

“Sarin the Merciless. Ruthless killer. She almost killed Makri and she did kill Tas of the Eastern Lightning though it could never be proved against her. She once blackmailed the Consul’s office and made off with enough gold to last her a lifetime, but it hasn’t induced her to retire from crime. I get the impression she enjoys it. Of course, she’s mentally unwell. That whole part about seeing me lying drunk in the gutter was obviously a hallucination.”

“Obviously. Who are her associates?”

“She has no fixed alliances. Did work with Glixius Dragon Killer and the Society of Friends one time, but they fell out, as I recall. She was all set to rob the Society but someone beat her to it.”

“Might we use her as a means of finding the pendant?”

“Perhaps. Can you follow her?”

“I can,” says Lisutaris. “I will trace her movements round the city and keep you informed. Meanwhile I must urge you to spare no effort in your own search. I must depart now. I’m due at a meeting of Turai’s ministers of state.”

I speak some words of caution to Lisutaris.

“Sarin is a very dangerous woman. If she can’t find the pendant herself she might just decide to search for it at your villa. Perhaps I really should come to the ball.”

“Do not trouble yourself,” says Lisutaris. “I have adequate security.”

She departs. I march straight downstairs for a beer.

“Good meeting?” asks Makri, at the bar.

“Stop talking and give me a beer.”

“So what are you as miserable as a Niojan whore about?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“That’s right, nothing. Also, Sarin the Merciless just paid a visit.”

Makri is agitated. Sarin once put a crossbow bolt in her chest and Makri would like the opportunity to return the favour.

“I think Sarin must be the only person ever to wound me that I haven’t killed in return.”

I tell Makri she’ll probably get her chance.

“Sarin has a way of appearing when she’s not wanted.”

“Does this mean you can’t investigate at the Guild College?”

“It might have to wait a while.”

“It can’t wait,” insists Makri. “If you don’t find the thief soon I’m going to have to do the examination with everyone thinking I’m a criminal.”

“Well you’ll just have to make the best of it.”

“Make the best of it?” says Makri, flushing. “Make the best of it? Is that your advice? I didn’t ask you to get involved in the first place. I was quite happy to go up there and kill Professor Toarius. You persuaded me not to and now you’re saying I just have to make the best of it?”

Seeing Makri getting angry, the drinkers around us draw back nervously.

“That’s right, you’ll just have to make the best of it. Just because Lisutaris invited you to her smart party doesn’t mean the whole city has to start jumping around for your convenience.”

“Aha!” yells Makri. “So that’s why you’ve been acting like a troll with toothache. You’re jealous because you can’t go to the ball.”

“I am not jealous.”

“Just like the Elvish princess in the story,” says Makri.

“What story?”

“ ‘The Elvish Princess Who Couldn’t Go to the Ball.’ ”

“There’s no such story.”

“Yes there is. I translated it last year.”

I glare at Makri with loathing.

“Fascinating, Makri. I’m gratified to learn that while I’m struggling round the streets fighting criminals you’re safe in a classroom translating Elvish fairy stories.”

Makri takes her sword from behind the bar.

“I’m off to kill Professor Toarius,” she mutters.

I move swiftly to cut off her exit.

“Fine. I’ll go investigate at the College.”

I grab a bag of food from Tanrose and eat on the hoof. Possibly Makri was right. I should be paying more attention to her problem. It’s just that with bodies everywhere, Lisutaris’s case was hard to ignore. Till the Sorcerer sends me another lead, however, I’ve got a little time to investigate the theft. I can’t help resenting all the work I’m having to do over a lousy five gurans.

I still have some students left to visit, people who were close to the scene of the crime on the day in question. I set about tracking them down. It takes a lot of trudging round the streets and a lot of knocking at doors where no one is pleased to see me. I work my way northwards through the city, and as the houses become smarter the replies get briefer. Several families flatly refuse to let me in and succumb eventually only to the threat of a court order from the Tribune’s Office. There isn’t actually a Tribune’s Office, but they’re not to know that.

“When I heard that the Deputy Consul had reinstated the post of Tribune I did not realise it would lead to the harassment of honest people going about their work,” says one angry master glassmaker, upset at me interrupting the family dinner to question his son.

“Just a few questions and I’ll be on my way.”

This is the eighth house I’ve visited, so far with no results. For students who are supposed to be learning, the young men at the Guild College seem peculiarly unobservant. I can understand that, I suppose. I studied as a Sorcerer’s apprentice for almost a year, and at the end of it all I could remember was the way to the nearest tavern.

I’m shown into an elegant front room which is sufficiently well furnished to make me think that a master glassmaker can’t be that bad a thing to be. I wait a long time, and no one offers me a drink; bad manners towards a guest. Even the Consul would offer me wine, and he’s never pleased to see me. Eventually the glassmaker’s son, Ossinax, appears. He’s around nineteen, small for his age, with long hair tied back in a ponytail like most of the lower-class sons of the city. My own hair has never been cut and has trailed down my back since I was young. These days I notice some grey streaks.

“I’m glad you’ve come,” he says, taking me by surprise.

“You are?”

He lowers his voice as if fearful that his father might be listening outside.

“I really don’t think Makri stole that money.”

“Why not?”

“Because once I asked her to look after a quarter-guran for me and she gave it right back when I asked.”

“Why did you need her to look after a quarter-guran?”

“I didn’t. It was a bet with some other students. To see how long she’d keep it without stealing it. But then she didn’t steal it at all. We were surprised.”

“I see.”

“I like her,” says Ossinax.

He looks a little downcast.

“Though she did punch me after she learned about the bet. But I never told anyone. I didn’t want to get her into trouble.”

From the tone of Ossinax’s voice, I get the impression that he might be harbouring more than some friendly feelings towards Makri. Wouldn’t be too strange, really, if only because in a city where women are almost always well wrapped up, Makri never seems to wear enough clothes. She’s been sent home from the College because of it on more than one occasion.

“So who else might have taken the money?”

“I don’t know. There were a few people around.”

Everyone he can remember is on my list, and I’ve checked them all out.

“Are you sure there was no other student around?”

“Not that I can remember.”

“No members of staff?”

“Why would a member of staff steal five gurans?”

“You never know who might need money urgently.”

Ossinax doesn’t remember seeing any members of staff anywhere near the room in question.

“Professor Toarius was there earlier, but he often walks round the building.”

“How much earlier?”

“Around an hour. It was before my philosophy class. He walked along the corridor with Barius.”

“Barius?”

“Professor Toarius’s son.”

“What was he doing there?”

“I don’t know. He’s a student at the Imperial University. I only saw him once before, when he came down to visit his father. But I’m sure it was him.”

No one has mentioned anything about the Professor’s son before. That’s probably not suspicious. After all, this was more than an hour before the theft. But I’m curious anyway. The Professor didn’t say that his son had been there earlier in the day. There again, the Professor didn’t mention much before he stormed out of the room. I ask Ossinax if he can tell me anything more about Barius but he can’t. He’s surprised I’m interested.

“The family is rich. Barius wouldn’t have any need to steal five gurans.”

“I suppose not.”

I let him have my address and tell him to get in touch if he thinks of anything else that might interest me.

“The Avenging Axe? Is that where Makri works?”

“It is.”

“Is it a dangerous place?”

“Any place Makri works is a dangerous place.”

“Did she really slaughter an Orc lord and all his family when she escaped from the gladiator pits?”

“She did.”

“Did she really fight a dragon in the arena?”

I see that Makri has not been above doing a little bragging at the College.

“Yes, she did,” I tell him. “And she helped me fight another one, much bigger,” I add, not wishing young Ossinax to get the impression that Makri’s the only one capable of epic feats in battle. We didn’t kill the dragon but we defeated the Orcish forces that accompanied it. Makri dealt the fatal blow by hewing her way through their ranks to kill their commander.

I leave Ossinax looking thoughtful. A servant shows me out under the watchful eye of his father. Outside I can hear the sound of hammering coming from the workshop at the rear. I gaze at the front of the house. “Nice windows. You make them all yourself?” The glassmaker shuts the door. It’s hot as Orcish hell. I take a drink from a fountain and look around for someone to sell me a watermelon. I have an urge to visit Barius, son of Professor Toarius. After eating two large watermelons, I still have the urge, so I wave down a landus and tell the driver to take me to Thamlin.

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