Thraxas and the Sorcerers

Thraxas may not look the part, being overweight and overbrained, and more interested in his next glass of beer than justice, but if you’re in trouble in Turai this portly private eye is your only hope.

Winter has come to Turai, and Thraxas is discontented. He’d rather be indoors sipping beer by a roaring fire, but, having once again gambled away his last fat fee, financial necessity has him walking those mean (and snowbound) streets for a measly thirty gurans a day. Then Cicerius, the city’s Deputy Consul and possibly the only honest (though conceited) politician in Turai, wants Thraxas to be an undercover agent, working behind the scenery at the upcoming Assemblage of the Sorcerers Guild. The Guild is meeting to elect a new head sorcerer, and Cicerius and other prominent officials are determined that the new head of the Guild will be a Turanian.

Thraxas would rather be anywhere than among that Assemblage of Sorcerers from all the civilized lands—he once failed the exams to become a sorcerer, and that embarrassment still rankles. And Turai is presently a bit short of world-class sorcerers, so the city’s candidate is Lisutaris. She is undeniably powerful but also is hopelessly addicted to smoking thazis weed. Finally, only members of the Sorcerers Guild and Turanian officials will be admitted to the gathering. So Cicerius proposes to revive the long-defunct post of Tribune of the People and the first Tribune in more than a century will be Thraxas, who long ago decided to have nothing to do with politics.

But the perpetually indigent private eye needs the fee. And it is not wise to say “no” to Cicerius. Not that Thraxas won’t soon have reasons to regret taking the case: when he learns that the most deadly assassin in the Assassin Guild is coming to town, reportedly to eliminate Lisutaris; when the sorcerer most favored to win the election is murdered and Lisutaris is the prime suspect; and when it begins to seem very unlikely that Thraxas will live to collect his fee.

And if Thraxas does survive, can Turai itself survive having a loose cannon like Thraxas as a government official?

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