Thraxas - The Complete Series (28 page)

The matter is decided when Guardsman Jevox comes out of the station and makes a frantic warning face as he sees me. I step out of sight around the corner. Peering round, I catch sight of Tholius and two Guards leading Grosex in handcuffs into a covered wagon. They drive off, with Jevox forming part of the horse escort. My official enquiries will have to wait. Which brings me swiftly to some unofficial ones. I walk on, ignoring the beggars. There’s too many of them to do anything else.

At the end of Quintessence Street I turn into Tranquillity Lane, a miserable and filthy little alleyway full of prostitutes and dwa addicts. The prostitutes ignore me. The dwa addicts hold out their hands, begging. Since dwa, a powerful drug, swept the city a few years back there are more and more addicts loitering on the streets, making Twelve Seas a dangerous place to walk around after dark—or at any time, really.

Some way along Tranquillity Lane is the Mermaid, a tavern so disreputable that no one with any sense, breeding or dignity would go within a mile of the place. I seem to end up here often. Kerk, an informer of mine, can usually be found here, slumped at a table or lying on the floor if the dwa has got to him. Kerk deals dwa to support his habit and comes across much useful information, which he sells, also to support his habit.

I find him outside the tavern, lying on the sun-baked earth. There’s an empty flagon of ale by his feet and the air around him has the distinctive aroma of burning dwa.

I nudge him awake with my foot. He stares up at me with his large eyes, eyes that suggest that somewhere along the line there’s Elvish blood in his family, which wouldn’t be all that strange. Elves visiting the cities of men are not above romantic liaisons with the prostitutes that work here. The Southern Islands of the Elves are paradise on earth, but they’re short on prostitution. I guess the young Elves have to satisfy their urges somehow.

“What do you want?” mumbles Kerk.

“You know anything about Drantaax?”

He holds out his hand automatically. I drop a small coin into his palm, a tenth of a guran.

“Sculptor. Got killed last night.”

“You know anything else?”

“Stabbed by his apprentice. So they say.”

By the expression in his eyes I guess he knows a little more. I drop another coin into his palm.

“The apprentice was sleeping with his wife.”

“Is that rumoured or certified fact?”

“Rumour. But a strong one.”

The sun beats down. In the narrow confines of Tranquillity Lane it is close to unbearable. I’ve marched over deserts that were cooler than this. Kerk knows nothing else but says he’ll keep his ear to the ground. I give him another coin and he hauls himself to his feet, now having sufficient money to buy some dwa.

I turn and leave. Not much news from Kerk, but interesting enough. Always makes things more interesting when the apprentice is sleeping with the master’s wife. Unfortunately it also makes it more likely that Grosex did kill him, which is something I don’t want to be true, though I’ve no real reason for holding him to be innocent, apart from a vague feeling that he wasn’t lying. And my intense dislike of Prefect Tholius.

Stals, the small black birds that infest the city, sit brooding in the heat along the walls of the alley. They rise in the air, squawking, as they are disturbed by a stone tossed by a youth wearing the yellow bandanna which marks him out as a member of the Koolu Kings, the local youth gang. He picks up another stone.

“Toss that in my direction, kid, and I’ll ram it down your throat then rot your guts with a spell.”

He backs off. Being an Investigator, I’m not exactly popular with the Koolu Kings, but they know not to mess with me. When I’m on a case on a hot day like this I’m not a man to laugh and joke with.

He sneers as I walk past. I sneer back. Kids. They used to steal fruit from the market till dwa swept the city. Now they rob people at knifepoint to buy drugs. Turai is going to hell, and quickly. If the population doesn’t just riot, steal and drug its way to extinction then King Lamachus of Nioj will sweep down from the north and wipe us off the face off the earth. All he needs is an excuse, and not a particularly good one at that.

Having at least made a little progress I decide to call back in at the Avenging Axe before heading off to see what I can find out at Drantaax’s studio. If I’ve got a whole day’s investigating in front of me I need a beer, and maybe some food. It’s also in my mind that I should check a few spells in my books. I freely admit that I’m not much of a Sorcerer these days—I even find it too tiring to carry the standard protection spell around in my head—but I am still able to work a trick or two. It annoyed the hell out of me that Prefect Tholius was able to waltz in and arrest Grosex right under my nose. Very bad for my reputation, if my clients get dragged away like that.

I’m preoccupied with dodging the rubble in the street outside so it takes me a second or two to focus on the figure that greets me as I walk into the tavern. I’m used to fairly strange spectacles on the streets of Turai: chanting pilgrims, hulking northern Barbarians, the occasional green-clad Elf. Closer to home, Makri herself is an exotic sight with her red-bronze skin bulging out of her chainmail bikini. Furthermore she has recently had her nose pierced with a ring, a very unusual sight in this city, and one that I strongly disapprove of. It was done for her by Palax and Kaby, a pair of travelling buskers and musicians who are an even more colourful young pair, with their hair dyed bright colours, their clothes even brighter and multiple facial piercings to boot. But it doesn’t prepare me for the sight of a young woman in bare feet—a ridiculously dangerous thing to do given the state of the streets—wearing a long skirt dyed with the signs of the zodiac and a garland of flowers woven into her hair.

I blink stupidly as she stands in front of me. I can’t think of any reason she would not be wearing shoes.

“Hey, Thraxas,” says Makri, appearing with a tray. “This is Dandelion. She wants to hire you.”

Before I have time to object that no one can possibly be called Dandelion she takes my hand, stares deeply into my eyes and pronounces that’s she’s sure she’s come to the right man.

“I can tell you have a sympathetic soul.”

Makri is sniggering somewhere in the background.

“You want to hire me?”

“Yes. On behalf of the dolphins.”

“The dolphins?”

“The dolphins that live in the bay.”

“The ones that can talk to humans,” chips in Makri.

I grunt. It’s said that the dolphins can talk. Personally, I find it hard to believe.

“They sing as well,” adds Dandelion, brightly.

I’m struggling to keep my temper under control.

“I’m a busy man. Is there any point in this wildlife lecture?”

“Why, yes. The dolphins are in terrible trouble. Someone has stolen their healing stone. They want to hire you to get it back.”

“Their healing stone?”

“That’s right. It’s very precious to them. It fell from the sky.”

Dandelion smiles sweetly. I abandon all efforts to keep my temper.

“Will you move out the way, please? I’m a busy man and I’m working on a case. A real case. A murder. I’ve got no time to stand here and listen to some fool with flowers in her hair ramble on about dolphins and a healing stone that fell from the sky. Now, excuse me.”

I brush my way past. Dandelion leaps in front of me.

“But you must help them!”

“Find another Investigator.”

“The dolphins want you. They’ve agreed that you’re in tune with them at a very deep level.”

It’s as much as I can do to avoid slapping her. Makri, I note, is finding the whole thing highly amusing. Fine. Let her go and help the dolphins. I have a murder to investigate. I march up the stairs, not even stopping for my beer. I need something stronger and hunt out a bottle of klee, the spirit distilled locally in the hills outside the city. After my recent successes I’ve bought a better brand than I could normally afford. It still burns my throat as it goes down. I shake my head, and take another drink. Talking dolphins indeed. I’ve enough problems with Orcs, Elves and Humans. The fish can look after themselves.

A
fter the distraction of the ridiculous Dandelion and her dolphin ramblings I return to the real world and head off towards Drantaax’s workshop. I’ve already walked more than enough in this heat so I hire a landus and sit back and let the small horse-drawn carriage take me out of Twelve Seas and north into Pashish. Pashish is a calmer area than Twelve Seas, home to the poor but respectable workers and their families who keep this city going. There isn’t much wealth here but the streets are a little wider and less sordid than those close to the harbour. My friend Astrath Triple Moon, the Sorcerer, lives close by and I’ll probably call in on him later.

While riding I’m thinking about two things. One, who killed Drantaax? Two, who is going to pay me to find out? As the heat of my anger from Tholius’s invasion of my rooms fades a little, it strikes me that I have plunged into a case without receiving a fee, which is unusual for me. I don’t do this for fun. It’s my living. Technically I don’t even have a client. Grosex was apprehended before he had time to hire me. The worrying thought occurs that being a young apprentice he might not have any money. He might have spent all his meagre wages on presents for the sculptor’s wife.

I’ll have to hope for the best. Just because I’m not actually desperate for money doesn’t mean that I’ve suddenly come over all charitable. The way my life goes these days, I’ll be poor again soon enough. Probably right after the next chariot race.

The landus is halted at a corner by a passing group of chanting pilgrims on their way to visit the shrine of Saint Quatinius over on the west side of the city. I reach out and grab a news-sheet from a vendor.
The Renowned and Truthful Chronicle of All the World’s Events
is always keen to report lurid goings-on and the death of the sculptor is a major story. Murder is common in this city, but Drantaax was well enough known for it to be big news. A number of different artists work in Turai, attracted by the wealth that still circulates among our decadent upper classes, but none was as renowned as Drantaax.

The news-sheet says that the statue he was working on, a life-size figure of Saint Quatinius on horseback, was partly funded by the True Church in Nioj. It describes the crime without much detail, then goes on to report that the statue is missing. I presume this must be a misprint. We have many smart criminals in Turai but I can’t imagine anyone making off unnoticed with a life-size bronze statue of a man on horseback. God knows what it would weigh. The Niojan angle is bad news though. Nioj is a fundamentalist state. Their King is also their Chief Pontifex and a religious fanatic to boot, so this will give them plenty of reason to be annoyed with Turai.

Drantaax’s house is located at the far end of Pashish, where things start to get a little more comfortable. The streets are clean and the pavement is in good repair. I dismount a block away, pay the driver, and walk up. The house and workshop are guarded outside by two Civil Guards. When I inform them I’m here on business they stare at me stony-faced and refuse to budge.

“That’s all we need,” comes a voice from behind me. “Thraxas poking his fat belly into Guard matters.”

I turn round. “Hello, Captain Rallee. Glad to see you’re on the case.”

“Well, it’s not mutual. What do you want?”

Captain Rallee and I go back a long way. We fought together in the Orc Wars. Along with Gurd, we had some hair-raising times, which I still regale an audience with while drinking in the Avenging Axe. After the war, when I was Senior Investigator at the Palace, Captain Rallee also spent a lot of time there before falling out of favour with Deputy Consul Rittius and finding himself once more pounding the streets. His Guard station down at the harbour is in one of the toughest patches in town, which is saying something. Rallee doesn’t mind that it’s rough—he’s not the sort of man to flinch from his duty—but he feels a man of his experience should have moved on to something better by now.

Though we were once fairly close and were also both bounced out of the Palace by Rittius, we’ve grown apart in the past few years. I’m freelance now, and Rallee’s a Guard, and these two breeds are never comfortable with each other. The Captain has done me the odd favour and he knows I’m no fool, but finding him on the case is no guarantee of any inside help.

“How’s life in the Civil Guard?”

“Better than rowing a slave galley. There again, with you around, maybe not.”

I tell him he’s looking well, which is true. He carries his age better than I do. His hair hangs down his back in a thick pony tail, as does mine, but his is blond and shining. So is his moustache. Mine is starting to show signs of grey. I imagine the ladies still like him.

The Captain brushes aside my compliment. “You working on this or just poking your nose in for the sake of it?”

“Just earning a living, Captain. Grosex hired me before Tholius got to him.”

“The apprentice? He hired you? What with?”