Lord Kalthon sighed again, more deeply this time, and waved the wizard away. When the participants were out of earshot he leaned over and asked Okko, “Who lied?”
The theurgist looked up at him and turned up an empty palm. “My lord,” he said, “I don’t know. By my divinations, the wizard spoke nothing but truth—but there are spells that would conceal lies from me, simple spells that even an apprentice might use, and that a mage of Heremon’s ability...”He didn’t bother finishing the sentence.
“What of the woman?” the Minister of Justice asked. Okko shook his head. “Lord Kalthon, she is so tainted with demon scent that the gods I confer with will not admit she exists at all, and can say nothing about whether she lies.”
“Damn.” He considered. “Okko, you know something about the other schools of magic, don’t you?”
Okko eyed the minister warily and hesitated before replying, “A little.”
“Who can tell if a demonologist is lying? Who can’t a wizard fool?” Okko thought that over very carefully, then shrugged. “I would guess,” he said, “that one demonologist could tell if another were engaged in trickery. And I’m sure that one wizard, properly trained, can detect another’s spells.”
“Then can you find me a demonologist we can trust? One who has no prior connection with this Kallia? And we’ll need a wizard, one who’s not in the Wizards’ Guild...”
Okko held up a hand. “No, my lord,” he said. “All wizards are members of the Guild. For anyone not in the Guild, to practice wizardry is to commit suicide.” “Well... do your best, then.” “As you wish.” Okko bowed his head. Lord Kalthon straightened in his chair and announced, “This case cannot be decided today. All parties hereto will return here tomorrow at this same time. Failure to appear will be accounted an admission of guilt and a crime against the Hegemony, punishable at the overlord’s pleasure; if there is anyone who has a problem with that, tell my clerk. Next case.”
Sarai sat, only half listening, as the next case, a local magistrate’s son accused of rape, was presented. She was thinking over the two magicians’ statements.
If Heremon was lying, then why had he robbed Kallia? A successful wizard didn’t need to resort to theft, not for the sort of things taken from Kallia. Even dragon’s blood was not so rare or precious as all that. There were supposed to be substances wizards used that would be almost impossible to obtain, but they weren’t anything a demonologist would have.
But then, if Heremon had not robbed Kallia, why would she say that he had? What could she hope to gain by making false accusations? Could she perhaps have some use for Heremon? Might she need a wizard’s soul to appease some demon?
Sarai shook her head. Nobody knew what demonologists might need except other demonologists. That might be the explanation, but she wasn’t going to figure it out; she didn’t know enough about the so-called black arts.
Could there perhaps be something else at work?
The case before her father impinged slightly upon her thoughts, and she considered the fact that Kallia, while not young and of no remarkable beauty, was a reasonably attractive woman, while Heremon was a dignified and personable man of late middle age. Could there be some sort of romantic, or at any rate sexual, situation involved here? Nobody had mentioned spouses on either side of the dispute.
But both Kallia and Heremon had plenty of resources at their disposal; why would either of them resort to robbery, or false accusations of robbery?
If Heremon were, in fact, the thief, why did he break in through the front door and generally make such a mess of the job? He might not have any experience at burglary, but he wasn’t stupid, to have attained his present status—the title “mage” was only given to a wizard of proven ability, one who had trained apprentices and who had demonstrated mastery of many spells.
And if Heremon was not the thief, who was? Had Kallia broken her own door and killed her own demon, to fake the theft? Killing a demon did not seem like a trivial matter, especially not for a demonologist, who would need to deal with other demons on a fairly regular basis. Sarai mulled the whole thing over carefully.
When court was finally adjourned, she and her father returned to their apartments for a late supper. Kalthon the Younger and his nurse had waited for them, so the meal was hurried, and afterward Lord Kalthon settled at little Kalthon’s side to tell him a bedtime story.
Sarai might ordinarily have stayed to listen—she loved a good story, and her father’s were sometimes excellent—but tonight she had other plans. Instead, she put on her traveling cloak and headed for the door.
Her father looked up, startled. “Where are you going?”
“I just want to check on something,” she said.
Kalthon the Younger coughed; he was a sickly child, always down with one illness or another, while Sarai was a healthy young woman, able to take care of herself. “All right,” Lord Kalthon said, “be careful.” He turned back to his son and continued, “So Valder the king’s son took the enchanted sword...”
Sarai closed the door quietly on her way out, and a few minutes later she was riding one of the overlord’s horses down Smallgate Street toward Eastside, toward Wizard Street.
CHAPTER 4
Lord Kalthon drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair.
“Let’s go through it once more,” he said angrily. “You, the demonologist—what happened here?”
“Rander of Southbeach, my lord,” the demonologist said, with a tight little bow and a twitch of the black-embroidered skirts of his black robes.
“I didn’t ask your bloody name” Lord Kalthon shouted. “I asked what happened! Did Heremon the Mage rob Kallia of the Broken Hand or not?”
Rander’s attempt at an ingratiating smile vanished. He glanced hesitantly at the others, then said, “My lord, my arts show that Kallia has spoken the truth as she knows it.”
Lord Kalthon glared at him. “And?” he said.
“And so has Heremon the Mage,” the demonologist admitted reluctantly.
“And you can’t resolve this contradiction?”
“No.”
Lord Kalthon snorted and turned to the plump woman in the green robe. “I know you; you’ve testified before me before. Mereth of the Golden Door, isn’t it?” “Yes, my lord.” She bobbed politely. “Well?”
“My lord,” she said, in a pleasant contralto that Sarai envied, “like the demonologist, my spells have achieved confusing and contradictory results. I, too, find that both Kallia and Heremon speak the truth as they know it. Further, I can detect no distortion of memory in either of them. I used a scrying spell to see the crime with my own eyes, and I saw what Kallia described— Heremon taking the gold and other things; but when I used another divination, I was told that Heremon did not. I fear that some very powerful magic is responsible.” Kalthon turned to Okko and said, “Now what?” Okko hesitated, and looked very unhappy indeed. “Perhaps a witch...” he began. Sarai cleared her throat.
Kalthon turned an inquisitive eye toward his daughter. “Sarai,” he asked, “was there something you wanted to say?” “My lord,” she said, secretly enjoying her father’s startled reaction to this formal address from his daughter, “I have undertaken a little study of my own involving this case, and perhaps I can save everyone some time and further aggravation by explaining just what I believe to have happened.”