The witch hesitated. "I mean," he said, very carefully, "that whatever made the wounds was magical and that the life was drawn out by that magic. If it was a dagger, the dagger was enchanted; whether it was wielded by magic or by someone's hand I have no way of knowing."
"Very well, then," Sarai said, "suppose it's an enchanted dagger, and you happen to bump into someone on the street who's wearing that dagger on his belt. Would you know it?"
The witch hesitated even longer this time. "I doubt it," he said at last. "But I think-I think-that if I saw someone use that dagger to cut someone, I would know it."
"Well, that's better than nothing," Sarai muttered.
"I would, of course, immediately inform you, my lady, if I saw anything of the sort."
"Of course," she said. "Or the nearest guardsman, or whoever."
"Of course."
Sarai turned and headed for the stairs.
This one was the worst yet, and for a very simple reason-she had known the victim. Serem the Wise was one of the best-known enchanters in Ethshar of the Sands-or rather, he had been; now he was nothing but a wandering ghost and a throat-slashed cadaver.
His apprentice-what was her name? Oh, yes, Lirrin. Lirrin was waiting at the foot of the stairs, looking pale and ill. Behind her, in the front parlor, Sarai could see Serem's famous fan-tree, waving away as if nothing had happened; trust old Serem to use solid, permanent enchantments, not the feeble sort that would have died with their creator.
Lirrin would be doing all right for herself, probably-as far as Sarai knew, there were no relatives with a stronger claim to any part of the estate than that of a new apprentice. If Serem had any children or siblings, they were long since grown, and any wives were dead, divorced, or disappeared. Under Ethsharitic custom, a child's welfare came before that of any adult other than a spouse, and Lirrin, at seventeen, was still officially a child. She would inherit the wizard's house and goods, including his Book of Spells and the contents of his workshop.
That might be a sufficient motive for murder, and despite Lirrin's display of grief Sarai might have suspected her, were it not for all the other deaths.
Inza the Apprentice Warlock had been the first, slain in her own bed, her throat slashed, a stab wound in her chest; then there had been Captain Deru, waylaid in an alley off Archer Street, stabbed in the back, and his throat slashed. Athaniel the Theurgist was jumped in his shop, his throat slashed, and a single thrust through his heart to finish him off. Karitha of East End, a demonologist, had been beaten into unconsciousness in her own parlor, her throat cut as she lay insensible.
Strangest of all, even as these murders had been taking place, a dozen animals, mostly stray cats or runaway dogs, had been found dead at various places in the Wall Street Field, with their throats cut open. Had they all been killed before Inza, then Sarai might have guessed the killer was working up his nerve, practicing before he dared risk tackling a human being, but they were not; instead, a dog and a cat had been killed shortly after Inza, the rest one by one in the days that followed, interspersed with the other victims.
And now old Serem was dead, on the floor of his bedchamber, stabbed in the belly, and-like all the rest-his throat had been cut.
And on all of them, men, women, and beasts, the magicians found lingering traces of a strange magic, probably wizardry, that blocked any divination or scrying spell.
Mereth swore she couldn't identify the killer. Okko could tell nothing of what had happened. Luris the Black had offered to help, to avenge her dead apprentice, but she was as useless as any warlock when it came to knowledge, rather than raw power. And now this witch, Kelder of Quarter Street, had failed, as well.
"He hasn't killed any witches yet," Sarai remarked as she marched down the stairs. "One of you will probably be next; he seems to be trying for one of every sort of magician."
"There are still sorcerers, Lady Sarai," Kelder replied, "and the various lesser disciplines, the herbalists and scientists and illusionists."
"True," Sarai conceded. "Still, I'd lock my door, if I were you, and maybe invest in a few warding spells. Besides your own, I mean." Witches did not have any true warding spells of their own, she knew, but she also knew that witches didn't want outsiders to know it.
"Perhaps you're right, my lady," the witch agreed. "I would like to say that I don't fit the pattern in these killings, but in truth, I don't see a clear pattern."
"Neither do I," Sarai admitted.
That bothered her. There ought to be more of a pattern in who was killed, and how; criminals were usually abysmally unimaginative. This one, though…
They had no idea of any motive. The killer had slain the apprentice warlock, leaving Luris untouched, but here he or she had killed Serem, the master, and had left the apprentice, Lirrin, untouched. Athaniel had had no apprentice, nor, of course, had Deru, since the city guard did not operate on an apprenticeship system. Karitha's apprentice was a boy of fourteen who had been visiting his parents on their farm somewhere outside the city. Serem's apprentice inherited everything; Karitha's, due to the existence of the demonologist's husband and nine-year-old daughter, inherited nothing but a few papers and the right to stay on until Festival.
There was no pattern, no connecting motive, no common factor among the victims that Sarai had yet discovered.
Lirrin was inheriting a large and valuable house and a great deal of wealth, which would make an excellent motive, and she was a wizard of sorts, as well-could she have arranged the entire thing, staging the other killings in order to throw off suspicion? It was hard to believe that anyone could be so coldblooded; besides, if that was it, she had been foolish to kill Inza and not Luris, thereby missing the chance to create a false pattern and divert suspicion onto Inza. And why kill the dogs?
Besides, Karitha was killed by a very strong person-she had been picked up and flung against a wall at one point. And the killer had not been gentle with Deru or Athaniel, either. Lirrin scarcely looked strong enough to do anything like that. She wasn't as scrawny and underfed as some apprentices, but she still had more bone showing than muscle. Of course, with magic, anything is possible… Sarai realized that she had reached the bottom of the stairs and was now staring into Lirrin's face from a distance of only four or five feet.
"I'm sorry," Sarai said, trying to sound sincere. She was sorry that Serem was dead, genuinely sorry, but right now she was thinking too hard about who might have killed him to get real emotion into her voice.
Lirrin grimaced. "I guess you see things like this all the time, Lady Sarai," she said, her voice unsteady.
"No," Sarai said. "No, I don't. Usually the guard takes care of… of deaths without calling me in. They're usually simple- someone lost his temper and is sitting there crying and confessing, or there are a dozen witnesses. If it's not that obvious, then we call in the magicians, and generally we have the perpetrator in the dungeons the next day." She sighed. "But this time," she said, "we seem to be dealing with a lunatic of some sort, one who uses magic that hides all his traces. So they called me in, because I'm supposed to be good at figuring these things out.
And I'm trying, Lirrin, I really am, but I just don't know how to catch this one."
"Oh," the apprentice-the former apprentice, Sarai reminded herself, since the apprenticeship was over and done, and Lirrin would have to prove herself worthy of journeyman status before the representatives of the Wizards' Guild, despite missing the final year of her studies-said, in a tiny voice.