Thraxas - The Complete Series (50 page)

I
wake up under a bush. Some time during the night I’ve crawled into a small park and fallen asleep. At least I kept enough wits about me not to lie down in the gutter.

I stink of beer, sweat and various nameless things picked up from the streets. While I’ve been chasing monks around the city I’ve forgotten to wash. If I don’t visit the Twelve Seas baths soon they’ll be dragging me away as a health risk. A few beggars look at me vacantly as I haul myself to my feet. I quickly check my purse. It’s still there. I bid them a cheery good morning and start walking back to Twelve Seas.

I’m feeling in reasonably good form, all things considered. No hangover. I’ve noticed before that a lesada leaf seems to keep them away for a few days. I ought to sail down south and bring back a shipload. Make my fortune with them in this city. I’m less unhappy with life. So Grosex is going to hang. Hardly my fault. And if the Guards and the Brotherhood are on my tail, then so be it. I’ve managed this far with precious few allies in Turai. I guess I can struggle on now.

So it’s in fairly optimistic mood that I head back towards the Avenging Axe. Nothing like a night getting disgustingly drunk with some mercenaries to clear the system. Their leader was the size of an ox and dumb as an Orc but he was liberal with his money and very willing to buy a man a beer once he learned I was an old soldier with plenty of fighting experience. I remember a joke one of the others told about two Niojan whores and an Elf Lord and laugh out loud.

I find myself passing through Pashish. When I turn into the Road of Angels, a narrow street with tall tenements on either side, I remember that this was the address where Tresius told me he was staying while in Turai. Hardly salubrious, but good enough for a monk I suppose. Up in the mountains they’re used to worse.

I wonder if Tresius is still in the city, and whether or not I should call in. He does owe me money, now I think about it. I found the statue. Things didn’t go the way he planned, but that’s not my fault. I realise there’s little chance of him actually paying me anything but it will give me the opportunity to let him know what I think of people who come and tell me lies. And then hire Assassins to mop up the mess.

The tenement is not as bad as many in Turai but, with its crumbling grey stone and shaky timbers bleached by the sun, it’s not the sort of place I’d like to live. Children have scratched their names into the stone and the front door hangs loose. Like every other front door in Turai, it’s painted white but from the look of the building I doubt it’s brought the tenants much luck. I push it open. Inside the torches are out and the staircase is dark. I walk up. Tresius told me he was living at the top. When I get to the topmost landing, it’s so dark I can’t see a thing. I’m fumbling around for a door when I walk right into it. There’s a curse as it swings open into someone inside, then the noise of a person falling heavily to the ground. I’m in through the door in an instant, my sword drawn. I recognised that curse.

Just inside, struggling to her feet, is Sarin the Merciless. I place my sword point at her throat as an encouragement for her to stay where she is. Light from the room beyond filters into the corridor, and I glare down at Sarin. She glowers back up at me. Out of the corner of my eye I see something yellow. I risk a glance. Looks like a bundle of cloth, half in and half out of the room.

“The Venerable Tresius, I presume?”

Sarin doesn’t reply. I warn her not to move.

“I’ll be pleased of the chance to stick this through your neck.”

“So why don’t you?”

I don’t know, really. I take another look at the yellow-clad body. “The gold’s long gone. Why did you kill him?”

“He hired the Assassins to kill Ixial.”

“So? What do you care?”

Sarin doesn’t reply. If it was anyone else I’d understand readily enough. You can’t let your teacher be killed and do nothing about it, not if you’ve spent years in the mountains under his tuition. I just never figured Sarin to have any emotion. Then again, she did go back to visit him when he was dying.

“So you’ve avenged Ixial. And yet you were quite prepared to cut him out of the deal with the gold. You were heading out of the city with it yourself.”

“Of course.”

“You really are as cold as an Orc’s heart, Sarin.”

I wonder what to do. Good fortune has arranged things so that the woman I swore to kill only yesterday is at my mercy. I just blundered in and knocked her over. And she has apparently just murdered Tresius, my client. Not much of a client though. I don’t feel too much like avenging Tresius. But there is the matter of Soolanis. I told her I’d track down the killer of her father.

“And here you are. I might not be able to prove to the Guards you killed Thalius but his daughter will probably be satisfied when I tell her the murderer is dead.”

I press the tip of my sword a little closer to her throat. Sarin gazes up at me with contempt. She seems incapable of showing fear. Maybe she’s incapable of feeling it. It would seem so, for even though she’s lying helpless on the ground, a fraction of an inch from death, she has no qualms about insulting me.

“Thraxas, you are a bungling fool. Why anyone would want you to investigate anything is beyond me. I didn’t kill Thalius. Not that I wouldn’t have had it been necessary. No one would miss him apart from that drink-sodden daughter of his. But there was no need to kill him. I merely stole his magic purse when he was unconscious with dwa. I knew where he kept it hidden and it was a simple matter. But since learning about the plans of the Star Temple, the Cloud Temple followed me around the city. I imagine that the Venerable Tresius killed Thalius Green Eye later the same night.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t care if you believe it or not. But if you take a look in his robe you’ll find something interesting.”

I keep my sword at Sarin’s throat. Again I wonder why this killer, in her plain man’s tunic and cropped hair, wears so many earrings. It seems inappropriate somehow. I use my toe to prise the yellow robe away from Tresius’s chest. A bag tumbles out, flat but long and curved to the shape of the monk’s chest. I stretch down carefully and examine it. It’s full of white powder.

“Dwa?”

“That’s right. Didn’t you notice your client was a dwa addict?”

“Not with the way he was leaping round and fighting, no.”

“Well, he was. Which is why Ixial took over the monastery and threw Tresius out. And why Tresius couldn’t resist robbing old Thalius of his supply when he followed me there, killing him in the process.”

I stare down at Sarin. She’s such a ruthless killer with such a total lack of remorse for her actions that it seems unlikely to me that she’d bother lying about them. But I don’t like the ramifications of this at all. Yesterday I had three clients. Today one of them is going to be hanged and another of them turns out to have killed the third one’s father. The curse of Thraxas. If word gets out, my business will suffer a hell of a slump. At least it throws some light on Sarin’s actions.

“You knew Tresius had a load of dwa. Easy to sell. Make up for missing out on the gold. No doubt that’s why you killed him, rather than to avenge Ixial.”

“The two things happily coincided.”

What a mess. Dwa, gold, warrior monks and Sarin the Merciless. I’ll probably never sort it out entirely. Sarin is waiting for an opportunity to get out from under my sword but I’m careful not to give her one.

“You almost killed Makri.”

“The bolt was meant for you. It would have killed you if your personal protection charm hadn’t deflected it.”

I don’t tell her that I don’t carry a personal protection charm and only avoided the bolt by luck. Sarin stares up from the ground at me defiantly. I think I catch a slight trace of mockery in her eyes. She knows I’m not going to kill her in cold blood. I can’t. I’m sick of it all. I sheath my sword. Sarin springs nimbly to her feet.

“You are a fool,” she says.

“So I’m told.”

“If you get in my way again I’ll kill you.”

“People often tell me that as well.”

“Is Makri dead?” asks Sarin.

“No.”

She might even be pleased to hear this. It’s hard to tell. She picks up her crossbow. Then she picks up the dwa.

“Thanks to you, Investigator, I’m not going to be rich on the King’s gold. This’ll do for now.”

I make no attempt to prevent her. She slips through the door and disappears.

I glance at Tresius’s body. “Did you really kill Thalius?” I demand, but there is of course no reply. “It was a bad idea to hire the Assassins to kill Ixial,” I continue, talking to the corpse. “It’s always a bad idea to hire the Assassins. They kill your enemy but it never stops there. Someone is always left wanting revenge.”

A crossbow bolt is buried deep in his chest. Despite this his aged face is serene in death. I wonder if I should search the place. I decide not to. Let someone else sort it out.

My optimism has vanished. Dead Body Thraxas strikes again. It seems I can’t move in this city without finding a corpse. It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t all people I was involved with in one way or another. Grosex will hang soon. Ixial and Tresius are dead. Tresius killed Soolanis’s father, more likely than not. I sigh, and head on home. It’s hot as Orcish hell. Why did anyone ever build a city here anyway? A beggar holds out a withered arm. I drop a small coin in it. I send an anonymous note at a Messengers Guild post, informing Captain Rallee about the whereabouts of Tresius’s corpse

I probably should’ve killed Sarin when I had the chance. Now I’ll run up against her in some other case and in all probability she’ll put a crossbow bolt into my belly. I grin wryly. At least she still thinks I carry a personal protection charm. Everybody thinks that. After all, I am a sorcerous Investigator, or meant to be. But I don’t have the energy to carry that spell around in my mind all day any more.

I couldn’t just kill her though. Not in cold blood, just sticking my sword through her throat. I’ve seen enough corpses these past few days.

I call in at the baths and clean myself up, then struggle past the building works in Quintessence Street. Stonemasons curse their apprentices as they strain to winch the heavy blocks up the scaffolding, and foremen yell angrily at carpenters and plumbers as they struggle with their work in the heat. It’s a relief to get home.

Makri is cleaning the tables.

“Hey, Makri, did you hear the one about the Elf Lord and the two Niojan whores?”

Makri glares at me with loathing and stalks off angrily.

Damn. I’d forgotten about the argument. It comes back in a sudden rush. Did I really call her a pointy-eared dwa addict? I sigh. Now I won’t even be able to have a beer in peace to get me over my woes.

Dandelion appears. The one person I don’t want to see.

She smiles at me very sweetly and hands me a small purse made of cheap cloth. She’s embroidered my name on it.

“It’s from the dolphins,” she explains. “Well, the purse is from me, but what’s inside is from the dolphins. It’s to say thank you for recovering their healing stone.”

I open the purse. Inside are five antique gold coins tarnished from a long spell under water and a small green jewel. I remove one of the coins. It’s a King Ferzius. You don’t see many of them round these days, particularly in Twelve Seas. It’s worth about fifty gurans. Five of them. Two hundred and fifty gurans. That’s a good rate of pay in my line of work. My standard retainer is only thirty. A jewel as well. I’ll get it valued by Priso at the pawnbroker’s.

“Thank the dolphins for me,” I tell Dandelion. “Tell them it’s a generous payment.”

“I knew you were the right man to help them,” says Dandelion. She witters on about how I have some star lines in sympathetic alignment with the dolphins. I’m too drained to insult her so I just take my leave politely and head upstairs to my room, where I sit at my desk and stare into space. I realise I’m hungry. I need some of Tanrose’s stew. If I go downstairs Makri will probably skewer me with her mop. I think it’s time for her rhetoric class. I decide to risk it.

Tanrose ladles me a goodly portion of stew and a plate of pancakes to mop it up, but she gives me a funny look when I’m picking out four or five pastries to finish the meal.

“Makri is upset.”

“I noticed.”

“Why did you accuse her of being a dwa addict?”

“I was in a bad mood.”

This seems to me like an entirely adequate explanation but Tanrose doesn’t think so.

“No wonder she was insulted. And as for accusing her of passing information to the Assassins Guild! You know how loyal Makri is.”

I raise my hands helplessly. “I didn’t accuse her of passing on information. I merely insinuated it. It was in the heat of the moment. I’d just sent a client off to the gallows. What did she expect me to do—stand around cheering? Anyway, she insulted me plenty.”

“Well, you’re all grown-up, Thraxas,” says Tanrose. “And you know half the people in Turai. There’s plenty of places you can go to forget your troubles. I figure you can stand a few insults. Makri’s young and she’s still a stranger and she has plenty of aggravation about her Orc blood. She probably relies on you.”

“Relies on me? What about all those rich ladies in the Association of Gentlewomen.”

“I doubt she could count them as friends.”

“Fine. So now I’m feeling guilty as well. What do you suggest I do?”

“Take her some flowers,” says Tanrose immediately.

I scoff at this. “Tanrose, you place far too much belief in the healing power of a bunch of flowers. I admit that the last time Makri was upset it worked like a charm but that was strictly a one-off.”

I had accidentally put her to sleep with a spell causing her to collapse in front of an opponent and naturally a woman as keen on fighting as Makri was enormously upset by this. So I followed Tanrose’s suggestion and, to my amazement, Makri, on receipt of one not very large bunch of flowers, threw her arms round me, burst into tears and ran out of the room, actions which Tanrose later interpreted as meaning everything was okay. But that was only because no one had ever given her flowers before. She’s not dumb enough to fall for it twice.