"I," Sarah answered, "am Minister of Investigation and Acting Minister of Justice to Ederd the Fourth, Overlord of Ethshar of the Sands, Triumvir of the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, Commander of the Holy Armies-which means that I have those holy armies, which is to say the city guard, at my disposal."
"You seek to frighten us with mere soldiers?" Sirinita sneered.
"Not exactly," Sarai said. "I hope to frighten you with the knowledge that if you defy me, you'll be forced to use your warlockry over and over to defend yourselves for as long as you stay in this city-and we all know what happens when a warlock uses a little too much of his magic, don't we? The twenty of you are the most powerful warlocks in the city-but you and I realize what most people do not, that that also makes you the twenty most vulnerable to the Calling. True, you'll easily be able to defeat a dozen guardsmen apiece, but I have several thousand soldiers I can send and send and send, until the Calling does my work for me. And there's nothing south of here but ocean; if you try to flee farther from Aldagmor, that means the Small Kingdoms far to the east, or the Pirate Towns to the west-is that really what you want?"
She stared questioningly at them; no one answered.
After a moment of silence, Sarai said, "I don't like making threats, you know; I'm not trying to make enemies of you, any of you. I'm just explaining that I do know who and what you are, and that I will have your cooperation, one way or another. This investigation is very, very important to me."
There was a reluctant mutter of acknowledgment.
With that, Sarai dismissed eighteen of the warlocks, but asked Vengar and Sirinita to stay for a moment.
"Sirinita," she said in a low voice, when the others had gone, "I don't know why you seem so displeased that the overlord's government should require the cooperation of the Council of Warlocks. Is there some personal issue at stake here?"
Sirinita, a magnificent creature who looked scarcely older man Sarai but far more powerful, and who stood several inches taller, peered down her nose at the noblewoman. "I became a warlock," she said, "because I was tired of being told what I could and couldn't do. I worked my way up to the Council at an earlier age than anyone else for the same reason. And I still don't like it."
Sarai sighed. "I will keep mat in mind, then." She dismissed them both; she had only wanted Vengar as a witness and restraint on Sirinita, should she prove dangerous.
Then, for several minutes, she sat on the edge of the dais, thinking.
She had completely forgotten her entourage until Captain Tikri cleared his throat. She looked up.
"Yes? "she asked.
"My lady," Tikri said, "one of my men reports that a stranger wishes to speak with you."
Sarai blinked up at nun. "What sort of a stranger?"
Tikri shrugged. "He's dressed as a magician," he said. "That's all we know. That, and that he knew where to find you."
"Send him in," Sarai said, puzzled.
The moment she spoke, the door at the back of the council chamber opened, and a figure in white appeared. Sarai watched silently as he approached.
He was a man of medium height, heavily built, wearing a robe of fine white linen; a hood hid any hair, and his weathered face was clean-shaven-Sarai could not remember ever before seeing a man so obviously mature without so much as a mustache.
He stopped a few feet away, looking down at her. He did not bow.
"I am Abran of Demerchan," he announced. Sarai stared silently up at him.
"It has come to the attention of our organization, Lady Sarai," Abran said, speaking slowly and clearly, as if he were reciting a prepared speech in a language not his own, "that you suspect we are responsible for a series of unnatural deaths that have taken place in this city. I am here on behalf of Demerchan to address this suspicion."
"Go on," Sarai told him.
Abran nodded, and said, "You know of Demerchan as a cult of assassins; that description is inadequate, at best, but it is true that at times we have slain outsiders. However, we have not struck down any of those whose slayer you seek. I swear, by my name and by all the gods, that Demerchan had no part in the deaths of Inza the Apprentice, Captain Deru of the Guard, Athaniel the Theurgist, Karitha of the East End, Serem the Wise, or Kelder of Quarter Street. If you doubt me, consider that Demerchan has existed for centuries-why, then, should we suddenly kill these, and in this new and noticeable way?"
"Any number of possible reasons," Sarai answered, a little surprised by her own courage in answering this intimidating figure. "Someone could have hired you, for example."
"But no one did," the spokesman for Demerchan replied. "You have your concealed magicians who can tell truth from falsehood; they will tell you I speak the truth."
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 in 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.