Thraxas and the Sorcerers

Chapter Eighteen

I set off through the Maze of Aero, leaving Makri to guard Lisutaris. I’m guessing that despite her firm intentions of remaining sober Makri will soon join in on the water pipe. It’s a deficiency in her character, brought about by having pointed ears. It will serve them right if Covinius kills Direeva and then chops their heads off. Some bodyguard. Ever since Makri started blubbering about that damned Elf See-ath she’s been as much use as a one-legged gladiator.

Was that really Covinius? Direeva seemed certain, but so what? I don’t trust her. I don’t trust anyone. Lisutaris is a disaster. Makri’s unreliable. Cicerius is hopeless. Tilupasis is a joke. Praetor Samilius couldn’t investigate the theft of a baby’s rattle. Everyone in Turai is useless. If it wasn’t for me the city would have fallen long ago. I get out my sword and march through the maze. I dislike mazes, magical or not. They’re irritating and pointless. Trust Charius the Wise to send us here.

I turn a corner and almost bump into a small figure I recognise. It’s Hanama, garbed in black, with a knife in her hand.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I tell her.

“Neither are you,” she replies.

“I’ve got more right than you.”

“No you haven’t.”

“I’m a Tribune of the People. You’re just an Assassin.”

“Since when could a Tribune of the People—an honorary title at best—interfere with the sacred final test of the Sorcerers Guild?”

“Since I decided it was my duty.”

“Your duty? Very amusing. Step aside, Investigator.”

“How did you get in here? And what are you doing here anyway?”

“Protecting Lisutaris. So I have no time to talk,” says Hanama, and walks past. I stare at her retreating figure.

“I’ve got more right to be here than you!” I roar. “I’m a Tribune!”

Hanama is now out of sight. Damn these Assassins. Always turning up when you don’t want them.

I walk on. By Hanama’s standards that was quite talkative. Maybe she’s warming to me. Another unicorn appears. Or maybe it’s the one I saw earlier. They all look much the same. It trots in my direction. Perhaps it can help. In the magic space, anything is possible. The sun’s just gone green, and the daisies are up to my waist.

“Greetings, unicorn. Have you seen a Simnian Sorcerer called Sunstorm Ramius?”

The unicorn regards me in silence.

“About so high,” I say, waving my hand. “Probably scowling.”

Behind me there’s a burst of raucous laughter.

“He’s trying to question a unicorn!”

I spin round. Quite a large squirrel is laughing at me.

“Don’t you know unicorns can’t talk?”

“I figured it was worth a try. I don’t suppose you’ve seen Ramius?”

“The Simnian Sorcerer? Ex-soldier type? Certainly I’ve seen him.”

The squirrel looks at me keenly.

“You have any thazis?”

“Yes, as it happens.”

I take out a stick and hand it over.

“Take the next right then keep to the left,” says the squirrel, then bounds off, thazis clutched tightly in one claw.

I walk on. I’ve just bribed a large squirrel with thazis. It’s fine, if you don’t think about it too much. The breeze is picking up and the daisies are still growing. It’s getting colder. I think I hear voices so I creep forward quietly. When the voices grow louder I halt. Sunstorm Ramius is round the next corner.

“You have the question?”

“I do.”

The sound of paper passing from one hand to another. I risk a glance. Ramius is conferring with a tall man in a toga who talks with a Simnian accent. It’s the mathematician Makri encountered at the Assemblage. This is outrageous behaviour. The final test is meant to be sacred. Like I always say, you can’t trust a Simnian.

The scholar studies Ramius’s paper. Quill in hand, he makes some calculations.

“Hurry,” hisses Ramius. “Lisutaris is working on the problem at this moment.”

The scholar looks rather coldly at the Sorcerer.

“I am the finest mathematician in the west. No one will find the answer faster than I.”

He carries on scribbling. I’m tempted to advance and confront them with their perfidy. Without doubt Charius the Wise was bribed to set some numerical test, and the Simnians had their man ready to enter the field. If Ramius wins I’m denouncing him as the fraud I’ve always known him to be.

Finally the mathematician seems satisfied.

“The answer is—”

Ramius silences him.

“Don’t say it. Lisutaris may be listening in. You can’t trust these Turanian dogs. Write it down and show it to me quickly.”

The scholar does as he’s told. Ramius glances briefly at the answer then instructs him to take the paper away with him. The Sorcerer pulls a small globe from a pocket in his cloak, waves his hand over it, and the familiar green light grows till it’s large enough for his companion to step into, back to the real world. As Ramius turns round I withdraw quickly out of sight. Next second he marches round the corner and bumps into me. I beat him on the head with the pommel of my sword and he collapses in a heap.

“I’m appalled,” I say, staring at his prone figure. “You Simnians, you’re all cheats. And you were no use in the war.”

I hurry off as fast as I can. The air goes suddenly icy and snow starts to fall. Winter has arrived in the magic space. That’s all I need. A fierce wind blows the snow into my eyes. I curse. Ramius won’t be out for long. If only the mathematician had written down the answer, I’d have stolen it. Maybe back in Turai there’s someone who could work it out. That means getting out of here quickly. I need to find Direeva.

The icy wind hinders my progress. Not imagining that it would be winter here, I’m not wearing my magic warm cloak and am soon as cold as the ice queen’s grave and cursing all places magical where you can’t depend on the weather to be consistent for two minutes.

The hedges have been flickering, threatening to disappear but never quite going. I’m concentrating on following my path back to Lisutaris and it doesn’t immediately register that the hedge on my left has shrunk to just two feet tall. As I glance round, I catch sight of a figure walking along the next path. The snow is flying in my eyes, visibility is poor and I can’t be certain, but I’d swear that the person I see is Copro, beautician to the aristocracy. He’s carrying a crossbow. Immediately I attempt to leap the hedge. Unfortunately it chooses that moment to grow back to normal size and I bounce off with a face full of prickly leaves.

“Copro?” I mutter. “With a crossbow?”

By dint of some fine navigational skills I bring myself back to where Lisutaris, Mistress of the Sky, and Makri are sitting beside the water pipe. I tell them what just happened.

“They brought in the mathematician?” says Makri. “That’s really unfair.”

“Didn’t I say you can’t trust a Simnian?”

“Yes, you said it hundreds of times.”

“What’s this about Copro?” asks Lisutaris.

“He’s walking around the maze with a crossbow.”

“You imagined it.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because we’re in the magic space, where nothing is certain, and also there’s a heavy snowstorm affecting visibility.”

Lisutaris is annoying me so much these days. I can’t believe I ever liked her.

“I tell you it was Copro. Where’s Direeva? I need to get out of here to find someone back in Turai who can answer the question.”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know. I’ll go to the university and look for a professor.”

“That’ll take too long,” points out Makri. “How about Samanatius?”

“Could he do it?”

“He’s the finest philosopher in the west.”

“But can he do sums?”

Makri thinks so.

“I’ve been trying to work it out myself,” she adds. “But I haven’t got anywhere.”

“Where is Direeva? I have to get out.”

“Use salt,” says Makri, who remembers that on a previous occasion I brought us out of the magic space by sprinkling salt on the ground. I’m dubious about trying this again.

“It might collapse the magic space, and then what would happen to the test?”

“Wouldn’t work anyway,” says Lisutaris, looking up from her pipe. “Charius’s magic space is different. Stronger.”

“Can you send me back to Twelve Seas?”

“Yes. But it’ll create a large disruption in the magic field. Charius the Wise will know something has happened. If we want to be discreet, we need Direeva.”

The snow starts coming down more heavily. Lisutaris waves her hand and a fire grows up beside her. Direeva walks into the clearing and collapses. Blood spurts out of a bad wound in her shoulder, caused by a crossbow bolt which is deeply embedded in the flesh.

“Who did it?”

Direeva didn’t see her assailant’s face.

“It was Copro!” I yell.

“Why did they hire this Investigator?” says Princess Direeva. “He gets more foolish every day.”

“You never liked Copro,” says Makri. “But that’s no reason to start accusing him of assassination attempts.”

I ignore this.

“Can you get me back to Twelve Seas?” I ask Direeva, as Lisutaris tends to her wound. The Princess regards me with distaste but, ignoring her injury, concentrates briefly and opens a breach in the magic space.

“You’ve got five minutes,” she says, as I step through, emerging at the corner of Quintessence Street.

I step over the rubble into Samanatius’s academy. Inside the dingy hall Samanatius is lecturing a group of students. I march through their midst and take a firm grip on the philosopher’s arm, drawing him to one side.

“Samanatius, about that favour you owe me. I need to find the next number in this sequence and I need it right now. It’s to help Lisutaris.”

Samanatius grasps my meaning immediately. He excuses himself from his students and examines the paper I’ve thrust under his nose. After thirty seconds or so he nods.

“A sequence of products of prime numbers, I believe.”

I’m expecting him to start scribbling some notes, but apparently Samanatius has the mental capacity to work it out in his head.

“One zero seven three.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite certain. The sequence is—”

“No time for that. Thanks for your help.”

I hurry out of the academy, impressed by Samanatius’s mental powers. Maybe he deserves his reputation as philosophy’s number one chariot. I’m almost glad I saved him from eviction. I wonder what he’s like at working out odds on the races.

The green portal of light is still visible in the street, now wavering slightly. I throw myself through it, arriving back in the magic space some way from the clearing. Copro the beautician is advancing towards me, crossbow in his hand.

“So it’s you!” I roar. “You’re Covinius. I’ve suspected this all along. It’s a fine disguise, Assassin, but not fine enough to fool Thraxas the Investigator.”

The maze alters again and I find myself on my own, surrounded on every side by vegetation. I swing my sword desperately in an effort to cut my way through to Lisutaris before Covinius can reach her. The hedge in front of me bursts apart and Makri appears, axe in hand.

“What’s going on? The hedge just started growing all over us.”

“Did you see Copro?”

“Are you still on about that?” says Makri.

“I tell you, he’s the Assassin.”

“Why would he be? He’s such a fine hair stylist.”

“I’ve had my eye on him for a long time. He didn’t fool me with his deft make-up and effeminate ways. The man is a deadly killer. Where’s Lisutaris?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then keep chopping.”

“This is more like the magic space I remember,” says Makri, as penguins start to wander through the snow. “Do you have the answer?”

“Yes.”

“So have I,” says Makri.

I pause for a moment.

“What?”

“I have the answer. I worked it out.”

Makri looks pleased with herself. I’m irritated.

“It took you long enough. Couldn’t you have done that before I went beating Ramius over the head?”

“You beat Ramius over the head?”

“Yes. Before I visited Samanatius. It was all a lot of trouble. Which could have been avoided if you’d come up with the answer before I set off.”

“Well, I didn’t,” says Makri.

We start chopping through the maze again, calling for Lisutaris.

“You might give me some credit anyway,” says Makri.

“What for?”

“For solving the puzzle.”

“I solved it first.”

“You didn’t solve it at all,” contests Makri. “You just asked Samanatius.”

“I got the answer, didn’t I?”

Makri rests her axe.

“You know you’re really getting on my nerves these days, Thraxas. Everything is always about you: ‘I did this, I did that’. Do you have any idea how tedious it is having to listen to your lousy stories all the time? And if it’s not that, it’s some stupid criticism of me for getting on with my life. I tell you, it’s about time—”

“Will you stop acting like a pointy-eared Orc freak and keep chopping?”

The hedge beside us splits apart in a sheet of yellow flame and we find ourselves confronted by an angry-looking Sunstorm Ramius.

“Thraxas hit you on the head,” says Makri. “I had nothing to do with it.”

Ramius hurls a spell at me. My protection charm saves my life but I’m tossed to the ground and lie in a heap. Seeing that I’m still alive, Ramius draws a sword and charges forward. He’s almost upon me when Makri leaps forward and pounds him on the head with the flat of her axe.

“Apologise for calling me a pointy-eared Orc freak,” demands Makri.

I struggle to my feet.

“Are you crazy? There’s no time.”

Suddenly Hanama appears.

“Hanama,” says Makri. “Do you think it’s right that this fat drunk can just go around insulting me all the time?”

“What are you asking her for?” I scream. “She’s an Assassin, she doesn’t care.”

“I resent the way you always imply I have no feelings,” says Hanama.

“Oh for God’s sake, what’s going on here? Who’s responsible for this? Is the Association of Gentlewomen driving you all insane?”

“I’m not familiar with them,” says Hanama.

“Never been to a meeting,” claims Makri.

We start hewing our way through the still-growing vegetation.

“I need a new place to live,” says Makri to Hanama. “It’s hell in the Avenging Axe with Thraxas rolling around drunk all the time. It’s putting me off my food.”

The hedge in front of us once more erupts in flame. I get ready to fight, but rather than Ramius it’s Lisutaris who appears, with her water pipe in one hand and Princess Direeva leaning on her shoulder.

“I still don’t believe that Copro is Covinius,” says the Sorcerer.

“Copro?” exclaims Hanama. “Copro the beautician is Covinius?”

“According to Thraxas,” says Makri. “But you know how trustworthy he is.”

Makri asks Direeva if it could have been Copro who shot her but as the Princess did not see her assailant’s face, she can’t say for sure.

“The bolt caught me unawares. My protection charm deflected it enough to save my life.”

“If he’s the Assassin, why didn’t he try and kill me when he was doing my hair?” asks Lisutaris.

“Maybe professional ethics forbade it. And we should discuss this later. Right now we have to get out of here. Ramius is unconscious and I have the answer, so if we can get back to Charius, you win the test.”

Seeing the sense in this, Lisutaris starts burning away the huge hedge that surrounds us and we make progress back towards the clearing. The snow has now stopped but the ground is frozen, and we slip and slide as we go. High in the sky the sun has gone blue and shrunk to a fraction of its normal size, as if mocking us.

By this time Direeva is looking less than healthy. Blood is still seeping from her shoulder. I ask her if she has enough power left to get us discreetly home without alerting Charius. She thinks so.

“It’s the clearing,” cries Makri.

“It’s Ramius,” cries Lisutaris.

He’s dead. The Simnian Sorcerer is lying in the clearing with a great gash in his neck.

I turn to Lisutaris and demand to know if she killed him. She denies it. I shake my head. Just like she didn’t kill Darius.

“It would have made my job a lot simpler if they’d told me you were going to butcher all your opponents. I’d have planned accordingly.”

“I have not killed anyone,” insists the Mistress of the Sky. “Although this is going to be hard to explain to the Sorcerers Guild. They get suspicious if someone dies in the final test.”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “If things look bad for you, I’ll just tell them you were too stoned to walk, let alone kill Ramius.”

“Is that a criticism?”

“You’re damned right it’s a criticism. When this is over I never want to see you and your water pipe again. And that includes Makri, Hanama and Direeva.”

I’m still annoyed that no one believes me about Copro. To hell with them all.

“I don’t understand this,” says Makri. “I thought it was Ramius that hired the Assassin?”

“It was,” asserts Lisutaris.

“So why did he kill Ramius?”

“We don’t know an Assassin killed Ramius,” I point out, and incline my head towards Lisutaris.

Direeva starts preparing our exit. Lisutaris glares at me.

“You have to tell me the answer to the final test now,” she says, stiffly.

“Of course. Yet another thing I’ve sorted out for you.”

“So what is it?”

I open my mouth, then close it again. I’ve forgotten. The excitement has driven the answer out of my head. I stare at Lisutaris helplessly.

Makri guffaws with laughter.

“He’s forgotten it. Ha ha ha! The big Investigator forgot the answer. Thraxas, you’re as much use as a one-legged gladiator. The talking pig was smarter than you.”

Makri turns to Lisutaris.

“Fortunately I worked out the solution. In my head. Using my mathematical skills. I didn’t have to cheat like Thraxas, going to see Samanatius. I worked it out myself. I’m far smarter than he is. I worked it out by—”

“Perhaps you could tell me now?” suggests Lisutaris. “I think Princess Direeva is about to faint.”

“It’s 1073.”

With the last of her strength Direeva creates a portal for us to leave the magic space while Lisutaris makes a door of her own to take her back to the Assemblage. We take a last look at the body of Sunstorm Ramius, then depart.

“I still don’t believe Copro is Covinius,“ says Hanama, as we materialise back in Cicerius’s private room.

Cicerius is startled to see us arriving looking like we’ve been in a battle.

“Princess Direeva needs a doctor, and quick. We found the answer. Lisutaris will win the final test.”

“Excellent,” says Cicerius, meanwhile sending Hansius off for medical aid.

“Ramius is dead. His throat was cut.”

“That is not good.”

No one else was meant to be in the magic space, which leaves Lisutaris, Mistress of the Sky, as the only suspect.

“Tell me the details,” says Tilupasis, who’s already thinking of the best way to deal with the situation.

[Contents]