Sarai was rather annoyed by this; what was the point of putting Okko in another room if everyone knew he was there? “There are spells that can fool any magician,” she remarked.
“I need no such spells,” Abran insisted. “I promise you, if we of Demerchan had sought to remove these people, none of you would ever know that then deaths had not been mere happenstance and coincidence. We are not so obvious as this new power that stalks your city; our ways are subtle and various.”
“That’s what you claim,” Sarai said. For the first time, Abran allowed himself to appear visibly annoyed.
“Yes,” he said, “that is what we claim, and we make this claim because we know it to be true. Why would we want to slay these people? None of them had troubled us; indeed, we do not trouble ourselves with Ethshar of the Sands at all, in the normal course of events. Our interests lie farther east.”
“Maybe you’re extending those interests,” Tikri suggested from behind him. “Things have been pretty stirred up in the Small Kingdoms lately—that’s where you people operate, isn’t it? But the Empire of Vond has been changing things...”
“Even if we were troubled by Vond, which we are not, why would Demerchan want anything to do with Ethshar of the Sands?” Abran asked. “I don’t know,” Sarai admitted.
“Lady Sarai,” Tikri said, “regardless of whether he’s responsible for these mysterious deaths, hasn’t this man just admitted that he’s part of a conspiracy of murderers?”
Sarai, somewhat startled, realized that Abran had, indeed, done just that. She nodded to Tikri, who started forward.
Before the captain could touch the white-robed figure, however, Abran raised his hands, spoke a single strange word, and vanished.
“Damn,” Tikri said, stopping short. Sarai bit her lip. This was magic, of course. Well, she had some of that available herself, just now. “Okko! Mereth!” she called. “Did you see where Abran went? Is he still here, invisible?” “Keep the doors closed!” Tikri called. Okko’s voice sounded from his hiding place. “I find no trace of him.”
And no trace was ever found—a search of the room turned up nothing, a hastily summoned witch could detect no sign that anyone fitting Abran’s description had ever been hi the Great Council Chamber. A canvass of the inns failed to locate any such visiting foreigner.
Okko and Mereth agreed that he had been there, however, and Okko said that there had been no sign at any time in the conversation that Abran was lying.
When Sarai finally retired, late that night, she was unsure just what she had seen and spoken to, unsure whether to believe what he had told her—but all in all, she thought that he was most likely just what he said he was, that he had spoken the simple truth, and departed by means of a prepared spell of some sort. If so, then Demerchan was not responsible, nor, she believed, were any of the other magicians’ groups—except, perhaps, the Wizards’ Guild.
CHAPTER 19
Teneria of Fishertown arrived the next day, a thin, solemn young woman Sarai judged to be not yet twenty.
Sarai had intended to arrange a meeting with representatives of the Wizards’ Guild, rather as she had with the Council of Warlocks, but the witch’s arrival distracted her from that; instead, she settled down in Captain Tikri’s office and chatted with Teneria about the connections and differences between witchcraft and warlockry—or tried to. “I understand you’re a witch, but that you’re supposed to be expert on the other sorts of magicians,” Sarai said.
Teneria shook her head. “Not all magicians, my lady. It just happens that a little over a year ago I found myself in the company of a warlock for a time, and the two of us discovered some interesting things about our two varieties of magic. Where most magicks conflict one with another, we found that we could make ours work together, and thereby become more than the sum of their parts. So since then I’ve tried to study the interactions between witchcraft and the other magicks—but I haven’t learned much, yet. I’ve been too busy earning a living and living my life.”
Sarai nodded. “What became of the warlock, then?”
Teneria hesitated. “He went to Aldagmor,” she said at last.
Sarai blinked.
“Went to Aldagmor?” Captain Tikri asked. “How do you mean...?”
Teneria shrugged, and Sarai waved Tikri to silence. “Went to Aldagmor” surely meant that he was drawn by the Calling, and was gone forever; no warlock ever returned from Aldagmor. If Teneria’s interest in him had been personal, as well as professional, the subject was probably a painful one, and it didn’t seem relevant to the matter at hand.
The conversation continued, and the two were just getting comfortable with one another when a knock sounded on the office door.
Tikri answered it, as Sarai and Teneria watched. They heard a woman’s voice say, “Hello, Captain; I wasn’t sure you were in, your door isn’t usually closed.”
Sarai recognized the voice. “That’s Mereth of the Golden Door,” she told Teneria. “She’s a wizard specializing in divinations.”
“What can I do for you, wizard?” Tikri asked.
“I just wanted to be sure that Lady Sarai wouldn’t be needing me today,” Mereth replied. “I have a meeting to go to...”. Tikri glanced at Lady Sarai, who frowned. What sort of a meeting was Mereth talking about? “Bring her in,” she told the captain.
Tikri opened the door and motioned for Mereth to enter; she stepped in, looked around the cluttered little room, and spotted Sarai and Teneria. Teneria rose from her chair.
“Oh, hello, Lady Sarai,” she said cheerfully.
“Good morning, Mereth,” Sarai answered. “I’d like you to meet Teneria of Fishertown; she’s a witch who will be helping us investigate the murders. From Ethshar of the Spices.”
“Oh,” Mereth said, startled. “You’re bringing in foreign advisers, too?”
“Yes, I thought...” Sarai stopped hi midsentence. Something about the way Mereth had phrased her question had belatedly caught her attention. “What do you mean, ’too’?” she asked.
Mereth looked flustered. “Well, I mean the Wizards’ Guild has been sending for experts as part of their investigations— there’s a wizard from the Small Kingdoms called Tobas of Telven who’s due to arrive any day now, and a witch who works with him named Karanissa of the Mountains.”
“A witch?” Sarai asked. A witch working with a wizard? She glanced at Teneria.
Mereth shrugged. “That’s what I heard. And they’re trying to find Fendel the Great: they hope they can convince him to come out of retirement...”
Sarai started; even before she became Minister of Investigation and began seriously studying magic, she had heard of Fen-del the Great. She had thought he was long dead. “Wait a minute,” Sarai said. “What do they want with these people? What do you mean, ’their investigations’?”
“Well, I mean their investigation of the murders, of course, Lady Sarai. After all, it involves wizards—someone murdered a Guildmaster, and that means that everyone responsible must die as quickly and horribly as possible, and then there’s the fact that whoever did it used wizardry, and the Guild doesn’t allow anyone to use wizardry except real wizards, and besides, the magic involved might be an entirely new spell, and the Guild...” “And they didn ’t tell me!” Sarai shouted. Mereth, cowed, blinking at her silently. “What’s this meeting you were going to?” Sarai demanded. “Is it connected with this?”
Mereth nodded. “I’m supposed to meet the Guildmasters at the Cap and Dagger and tell them what I know from helping you,” she explained timidly. “Ordinarily I suppose they’d use the Guildhouse, but they...” “When?” Sarai demanded. “Noon.”