Thraxas - The Complete Series (66 page)

U
nfortunately during the week that follows I achieve very little. The rain pours down, the streets turn into rivers of mud, and I run into dead end after dead end. It’s been raining for twenty-two days and I’m no nearer to finding either Mursius’s killer or the Orcish prayer mat. Cicerius keeps demanding to know when I’m going to come up with something, and I’m fast running out of excuses.

I’ve asked representatives from every conceivable group of people in Turai what they know about Orcish religion, and the sum total is nothing at all. The Honourable Association of Merchants, the Sorcerers, the Guard, the Brotherhood, the Transport Guild, the True Church, the Goldsmiths, and plenty more besides. As far as I can see no one in Turai knows enough about Orcs to even guess they have a religion, let alone deliberately set out to steal their prayer mat. I’m starting to wonder if the whole thing is a coincidence. Maybe someone took the mat to keep their feet dry. Furthermore these questions are very bad for my reputation, with the city being so touchy about Orcs just now.

I wouldn’t be floundering around in quite such a hopeless manner if Cicerius could tell me anything useful, but he can’t. No one who shouldn’t have been there was seen near the Prince’s villa. And when Old Hasius the Brilliant gets round to checking the scene, he can’t find anything.

“How is it that Sorcerers can never find anything?” I complain loudly to Makri. “The damned city is top heavy with Sorcerers yet every time there’s a crime and I could use a little help there’s nothing they can do. Either the moons are in the wrong conjunction or the whole area’s been mysteriously cleaned up. What’s the point of having so many Sorcerers if all they can do is make up horoscopes for handmaidens? It’s not like that when I get accused of something, of course. No chance. Then it’s, ‘We found Thraxas’s aura on the knife so let’s throw him in the slammer.’ I tell you, Makri, they’re useless. Damned Sorcerers. I hate them.”

“What about Kemlath?”

I admit I don’t hate Kemlath. At least he’s trying to be helpful. He keeps hanging round anyway, though I think there might be more to it than helping me.

“I think he’s taken a shine to Sarija,” I say.

“Sarija? Wouldn’t he regard her as beneath him? And kindly don’t turn that into one of your crude jokes.”

“Who knows? Sorcerers aren’t quite as hidebound about that sort of thing as other aristocrats. And Kemlath comes from the far west originally, same as Astrath. He’s certainly been spending a lot of time with her. Says he’s helping her to kick dwa.”

Makri agrees that this does seem to be working. “But that might be because you got her addicted to beer instead.”

“Well it’s far healthier. Build her up. She’ll need her energy if she’s still planning to enter Storm the Citadel in the Turas Memorial.”

I stare glumly out of the window. Magic dry cloak or not, I can hardly bear going out in the rain again. Yesterday the aqueduct that runs down to Twelve Seas collapsed with the weight of water. Workers sent by the local branch of the Revered Federation of Guilds are now struggling to repair it. The guilds are blaming Prefect Drinius for the lack of maintenance. The Prefect is accusing the guilds of inflating their workmen’s fees. Strikes and litigation are threatened on all sides. It’s standard Hot Rainy Season stuff, and adds to the general gloom.

Kerk’s seller of stolen goods claims to know nothing of the bronze cup. He has no more of the works of art and won’t even admit that the cup came from his shop. His business is under the protection of the Brotherhood so there’s little I can do to threaten him. I ask Kerk to notify me if anything else comes on to the market.

Neither Astrath or Kemlath could learn anything from the cup, and I’m no further on with the murder of Mursius. Even though Sarija is my client I haven’t neglected to have her checked out, or Carilis. Nothing useful turns up. Close questioning of servants, relatives, local shopkeepers and various others fails to reveal if Carilis was having an affair with Senator Mursius. Some think she might have been. Others don’t. No one knows for sure. And even if she was, so what? There’s nothing particularly unusual in a Senator having an affair with another woman. If that woman is young, attractive and engaged in looking after the dwa-ridden shell of Mursius’s wife, it seems quite probable, but no reason for a man to get murdered. Even if his wife Sarija was the jealous type, I doubt she could have stayed on her feet long enough to do it.

Carilis has gone to ground and refuses to speak to me. She won’t tell me how she knew where the goods were. I think she’s scared.

I’ve no idea why Mursius was in the warehouse in the first place. No one reports any strange behaviour on his part and his personal attendant claims not to know what he did that day.

“The Senator gave me the day off,” he tells me. Very convenient for him, if not for me.

Guardsman Jevox tells me that the Civil Guard still thinks I’m the culprit. Even so, it’s carrying on with its investigations under pressure from Rittius and Samilius, trying to dig up more evidence to nail me. They haven’t turned up anything new. This gives
The Renowned Chronicle
something to whine about, though it spends most of its time complaining about the imminent arrival of the Orcish chariot. The city is still simmering. The True Church is particularly upset and its Pontifexes thunder against the notion from their pulpits. Even Archbishop Xerius, a strong supporter of the King, lets it be known in private that he’s not happy.

I do turn up one interesting fact. Drasius the banker wasn’t the only one to hear the rumour about the Society of Friends planning a major betting coup on the Turas Memorial. The story has certainly passed around town among the betting fraternity. This doesn’t prove anything—such rumours are common enough among Turai’s perpetually paranoid gamblers—but it’s interesting if only because Glixius Dragon Killer is a known associate of the Society. A man of his sorcerous power might be expected to be in on the plot. I’ve received two more sorcerous warnings, presumably from Glixius, so I’m interested in anything he does right now.

I wonder about the Turas Memorial. Even though Senator Mursius knew the Elves were entering, he advised me to back Storm the Citadel with everything I had. Why was he so confident? Could he possibly have been involved in the plot somehow? Might the Society of Friends have been planning to help Storm the Citadel win? I doubt it but I can’t absolutely dismiss it. Nor can I dismiss the other possibility, that Mursius just stumbled into the picture somehow and was murdered by the Society to keep him quiet. Nothing really points that way, however.

I sit downstairs with a flagon of ale in front of me.

Makri brings me another as she finishes her shift. She notices that my face fails to light up as the beer arrives.

“No progress?”

“Nothing.”

“Can I borrow the magic dry cloak for College tonight?”

“Okay.”

“Really?”

“I’ve no use for it. I’ve investigated everything and found nothing. I’m just going to sit here drinking till Praetor Samilius comes and arrests me for the murder.”

“When will that be?”

“Probably right before Glixius kills me with a spell.”

“Come on, Thraxas,” says Makri. “There’s no point sitting round being as miserable as a Niojan whore about everything.”

“Fine,” I say. “You have cheered me immensely. I am now as happy as a drunken mercenary.”

“Don’t get angry with me,” says Makri.

Makri is easily annoyed these days. The constant downpour, the strain of her studies and the amount of shifts she has to work are getting to her. And she still hasn’t collected the sixty gurans she promised Minarixa. The race meeting in Juval ended without us finding another chariot worth backing. Makri asked Gurd for a loan, but Gurd’s trade has been poor and he’s also had the expense of fixing the roof, which sprang several leaks in one of last week’s storms. So he claims, anyway, though I suspect that Gurd may just be unwilling to lend out any money for the purposes of helping the Association of Gentlewomen. In the northern Barbarian lands where Gurd comes from, women have a lower social status than horses, and he finds it difficult to adapt to our more civilised ways.

Makri’s only hope of raising the sixty in time is at another race meet even further south in Simnia. She’s frustrated with the delay. In truth sixty gurans isn’t going to get the Association of Gentlewomen very far. They’ve run into problems with their attempt to have themselves recognised by the Revered Federation Council. They need money to pay a bribe to the Praetor in charge of Guild Affairs and they need it quickly else the whole process will be delayed for a year. The local group has been going round Twelve Seas with collection boxes and getting precious little reward for their troubles. Maybe the rich women up in Thamlin are doing better. Lisutaris, Mistress of the Sky, is a member, I believe. She’s a very powerful Sorcerer.

“Get Lisutaris to magic you some money,” I suggest to Makri.

“Could she do that?” asks Makri, eagerly.

“Of course not,” I reply, having a good laugh at Makri’s naivete.

Makri storms off annoyed. I never like to let a day pass without upsetting someone, as my ex-wife used to say. I gather up another beer and slump back in my chair.

Parax the shoemaker stumbles through the door.

“Goddamn it, I’m wet,” he says. “It’s the Orcs.”

Parax is a fool. It’s day twenty-two of the Hot Rainy Season. He knows as well as everyone else that there’s another eight days to go, Orcs or no Orcs. Gurd points this out to him.

“Well, it’s heavier than usual,” counters Parax, continuing to insist that we’re cursed. I wonder what he’d say if he knew that Rezaz the Butcher was here already.

I study the form for the chariots in the upcoming meeting in Simnia. Far south of Turai, it’s hot there. Too hot, really, but at least they don’t have a Hot Rainy Season. I wish I was there just now, far away from this damp, stinking, corrupt and crime-ridden city.

I turn the sheet of paper listing the chariots over to study the other side. Except on the other side there don’t seem to be any chariots. Just a message printed in red ink:
Take care, Thraxas, you have little time left.

I slam it down in a fury. This has gone too far. Now I can’t even read the racing form without a sorcerous warning appearing and messing it up.

Kemlath Orc Slayer arrives later in the day and I show him the message.

“Can’t you pick up anything from it?”

So far Kemlath has been unable to say for sure where any of the sorcerous warnings have come from. He stares hard at the document for a long time.

“I think he’s getting careless,” says Kemlath, eventually. “I wouldn’t stake my reputation on it in a court of law, but I think this message has faint traces of Glixius Dragon Killer on it.”

I pound the table. “So! It is Glixius! He’s trying to scare me off the investigation.”

Kemlath, as ever, is wearing plenty of jewellery: gold chains, silver bracelets, and a distinctive antique ring on his finger with a fabulous blue stone in it. He buys me a beer and asks how the case is going. I tell him I’ve made little progress.

“I can’t seem to get a handle on it somehow. But I’m still hopeful more of Mursius’s art will turn up. If the cup did, there’s no reason why a few more pieces shouldn’t find their way on to the market. Once they do, it might give me an opening.”

“Do you think the same person that stole the works of art murdered Mursius?”

“Probably. Either that or they know who did.”

“You think it’s Glixius?”

I nod. “He’s never been convicted of anything. Thinks he’s safe with his sorcery and his aristocratic connections. Well, he’s wrong. If he killed Mursius, I’m going to nail him.”

“You were always a dogged soldier,” says Kemlath, which I take as a compliment, along with another beer.

Three days later, I’m beginning to wonder if Parax might have been right about us being cursed. The rain is heavier than anyone can ever remember. Usually there are periods where it stops, the sun shines and the city gets a chance to breathe. This year the downpour is relentless. Life in Twelve Seas becomes unbearable. Quintessence Street is a sea of mud and some of the small streets running off it are completely impassable. A few cheap tenements have crumbled to the ground, their foundations undermined. Everywhere you look someone is desperately trying to shore up a building, repair a roof or bail themselves out of trouble. Trade in the city slows to a crawl and the anger about the Orcs lies over Turai in a simmering cloud.

All the while the heat produces thunderstorms so terrifying that our more nervous citizens start looking up old prophesies, wondering if the end of the world might be nigh. Makri shakes her sword angrily at the sky while practising her fighting skills in the back yard in defiance of the elements.

I receive another warning. This time it’s magically etched into my own flagon, which I take as a very personal attack. I’m late with the rent but for once Gurd understands that there’s nothing much I can do about it. I’m not the only one finding it hard to earn a living these days. Street vendors, messengers, whores, wagon drivers—all give up the struggle with the elements and huddle indoors, waiting for it to pass.