A footman led them to the atrium, where a household servant met them and said, "Doctor Recer has remained with the Lord. I fear he has grown impatient. We all expected you sooner."
"We had hoped to arrive sooner," Rider said, and extended gracious apologies. "Our enemies kept us busy. I'll smooth the doctor's feathers."
The body lay on a couch in a library. The doctor and a woman of the household staff were waiting nearby. After extended apologies and social amenities, Rider said, "Describe the circumstances surrounding the death."
Greystone and Preacher began prowling the bookshelves, the former making little sounds of awe whenever he spotted a tome he especially coveted.
The woman replied, "The Lord had closed himself in here, leaving instructions that he was not to be bothered. At about the tenth hour he cried out. Several of us went to the door, but found it locked. He cried out again. 'Keep away, shadow,' we think he said. When the men broke the lock they found him sprawled on the floor."
Rider was standing before a window, watching Su-Cha and Chaz while he listened. Now he interrupted. "On the floor? I was assured nothing would be disturbed."
Doctor Recer said, "There is no evidence that he died of aught but natural causes. His position was undignified."
Rider interrupted, speaking to the woman. "This window is locked. Was that his custom?"
"Yes, sir. It was. When he was working on something important."
"Yet he shouted at someone or something." Outside, Su-Cha's gestures, as he spoke to Chaz, indicated that he had found the point where something had crossed the wall.
"Rider?" Greystone said. "Look here."
The scholar was kneeling beside the room's one anomaly, an overturned chair. He pointed. A
splinter of leg was split loose. Grey-brown hairs were caught there.
Rider squatted, considered, grunted. Then he went to the fireplace, in which no fire had been laid. Soot speckled clean firebrick. To the doctor, he said, "Examine him again. Look for a puncture such as might have been made by a pin." He continued to examine the fireplace. Inside, caught on a brick, he found another hair.
"Well?" Greystone asked.
"I think it was the same thing that killed Odehnal. It must be very agile and fairly intelligent."
Preacher looked up the chimney. "Skinny, too. This is a tight fit."
The doctor loosed a soft explosion of breath.
"You found it?"
"Yes." Recer indicated a tiny purple bruise centered by a pinhead scab on the corpse's hip.
"Not that it's especially noteworthy. The man had a history of heart problems."
"Yes." Rider cut off the excuses, turned to the woman. "Is anything missing?"
She shrugged. "We were not permitted to come in here."
In minutes Rider knew her for a well gone dry. Kentan Rubios had been a secretive man.
Su-Cha blew in bubbling with his news. Rider indicated the hairs snagged on the chair leg.
"Can you get enough from that to trail the creature?"
Su-Cha snuffled while Chaz made rude remarks.
The imp grinned. "Got it. A close thing, too. Any imp but me couldn't have managed it." He hustled out the door. Chaz grumbled in his wake.
Rider told the doctor, "We're finished. You can remove the body now."
"Don't you want to interview the rest of the staff?" "That won't be necessary. Tell His Majesty his suspicions were well-founded. That we are on the trail of the killer. Greystone.
Preacher. Come."
XIX
Rider overtook Su-Cha a block up the street. The imp looked crestfallen. "It boarded a vehicle here."
Rider was not surprised. "A closed coach, I'm sure. It would have spent some time waiting."
Chaz caught on before Su-Cha did. He guffawed.
Preacher observed, "Horses are as full of offal as the Lord is with mercy, and have no more sense of propriety than a northern barbarian."
Chaz shut up. He glared at Preacher, not quite sure what had happened.
Su-Cha scowled but contained his pride. He sought the trail of the horses.
Greystone, ever attentive to detail, observed, "We're being watched. That man yonder picked us up at the gate."
Chaz glared at the loiterer, who was having trouble looking like part of the landscape. His sort did not belong on the Balajka hill. "Want me to grab him, Rider?"
"Later, perhaps. Keep an eye on him. And keep another out for somebody watching him. Su-Cha.
Can you track the horses or not?"
"Yes." The imp's reply was curt. His expression dared disparaging remarks.
"Head in the right general direction but don't follow them exactly," Rider said.
"Eh? Why?"
"Our nervous friend may be there to see if we can pick up the trail. We don't want him to run off and set up an ambush."
"Let's ambush him," Chaz urged. His blood was up. He was sick of being frustrated. He wanted to smack somebody around.
"We will," Rider said, his thoughts and plans shifting momentarily. "Once we know if he's being watched in his turn."
Chaz chuckled wickedly.
They walked a block past where Su-Cha said the assassin had turned. Rider said, "We'll go this way," and turned the opposite direction. That put them round the corner of a wall, out of view of the man who followed.
Rider reached into the web and drew power, hastily spun images of himself and Su-Cha. He did not have time to weave them well. In ten minutes they would begin floating between steps and leaking light through their bodies.
Rider swarmed up the wall, Su-Cha at his heels. From the wall's top, Rider said, "Lead him along. Work your way back to the chariots. Lose him, then take the way Su-Cha pointed out," all in a rush. The web told him the watcher was nearby.
Tentative footsteps rounded the corner. Rider peeked carefully. The man seemed satisfied he was on the right track.
Rider reached into the web, seeking a watcher of the watcher. He found one quickly. "Another one coming," he breathed.
This man's steps indicated great self-confidence. Rider let him pass, raised his head carefully. A man of Shai Khe's race. He murmured, "Mark him carefully, Su-Cha. If we lose the horses we can follow him."
"Rider."
Su-Cha's tone said they had trouble. Rider shifted and looked.
A night gardener squatted among moon poppies, milk pot and milking fork in hand, gaping at them. He did not seem inclined to cause a fuss. Maybe he thought he'd caught an inadvertent whiff of pollen.
The oriental tracker's attention was directed in front of himself. Rider cast a small glamor that left the gardener shaking. He would be sure he had breathed pollen.
"He's out of sight," Su-Cha said. "Let's go."
Rider jumped down. Su-Cha floated. They trotted into the street down which the assassin had departed his handiwork. Rider left a small chalk mark at each crossway, to indicate which direction he had gone.
The trail departed the Balajka district and its quiet, almost untenanted streets, dipping into an area occupied by merchants, tending downhill toward the Golden Crescent. The quality of their surroundings deteriorated. The farther they descended, the busier the night became, despite the hour.
Rider slowed the pace. He kept a greater part of his attention in the web, observing his surroundings. Su-Cha he charged with using his preternaturally sharp eyes and nose. In crowds like these it would be hard to spot Shai Khe's confederates. Dawn found them very near the waterfront, in a warehouse district. The assassin had travelled a long way.