"How will you know it if you don't know what it is? I'd offer to help, but how can I?" Sarai sighed.
"What I'm after," she said, "is some record of a crime that the conspirators might have committed before the murders. Once they killed Inza, we were looking for them, and I'm sure they've been careful, and certainly we've been careful, checking out everything that we thought might be connected. Right?"
"Right," Tikri said, a trifle uncertainly. "Well, this conspiracy probably didn't burst out of nowhere, full-grown and completely ready, the night poor Inza died," Sarai explained. "They must have been preparing before that. They may have killed more dogs, for example, before working their way up to people. They may have injured people without killing them. They may have stolen things they needed for their magic. And maybe, since they weren't so experienced yet, they left traces and clues. Now do you see what I'm after?"
"Oh," Tikri said. He hesitated. "How far back do you want to go?"
"I don't know," Sarai admitted. "You may not find anything."
"I know that," Sarai said, flinging down a thick report and glaring angrily at Tikri. "Don't you think I know that? But I don't have much of anything else left to try. The Wizards' Guild wants to catch whoever it is for themselves, because it won't look as good for them if I do it, so they won't help me any more than they have to." Tikri started to protest, and Sarai cut him off. "Oh, they'll put up a pretense of cooperation, I'm sure," she said, "but half of them probably still think I'm trying to blame them for all this, or steal the credit. I won't know if they're covering up something or not; I can't be sure, and they aren't about to tell me. The Council of Warlocks is no help; they're all afraid that if they do anything to help me they'll draw down the Calling on themselves. The Brotherhood is less organized than a children's street game; they don't even know who's in charge, or who their members are. The Sisterhood isn't much better-they don't know how many witches there are in Ethshar, let alone what any of them are doing. And none of them seem to be getting anywhere with their magic, anyway. So what else would you suggest I do?"
"The magicians can't help at all?"
"They can't help any more. Okko says the gods can't see anything through the haze of wizardry; Kallia says the demons won't tell her anything, and she doesn't know whether they know anything to tell. The warlocks all swear their magic doesn't handle information. Kelder's told me all he can, and that's more than I could get from any Ethsharitic sorcerer. Wizards and witches tell me what magic was used, what went where, but they can't give me names or faces. So I'm reading these papers. Don't you ever sort them?"
"No," Tikri admitted.
Sarai let out a wordless noise of exasperation and turned back to the reports.
Tikri, hoping to be of help, began picking up papers and glancing through them, as well. The two sat, reading silently, for several minutes.
"Here's a report of a missing dog," Tikri ventured.
Sarai glanced up. "Let me see it."
Tikri obeyed; Sarai skimmed through the report quickly, then put it to one side. "It might be worth another look," she said.
A moment later she found one herself.
"What ever happened in this case?" she said, handing two pages to Tikri.
Tikri read enough to remind himself what had happened. "Oh, this," he said. "Nothing happened. We never found out who it was."
Sarai took the two sheets back. " 'Guardsman Deran reports tending to stabbing victim in tavern,' " she read. " 'No accusations or arrests made.' " She looked up. "That's in your handwriting."
Tikri nodded. "That's right," he said.
"The other one isn't," Sarai pointed out.
"No, that's the lieutenant who was in charge, Lieutenant Senden," Tikri agreed. "He sent it in the next day."
"And you actually managed to keep the two together? It is the same stabbing?"
Tikri shrugged. "Sometimes I get lucky," he said. "It's the same one."
"Guardsman Deran Wuller's son tended to two knife wounds, a slash and a stab, on the upper left thigh of a man who gave his name as Tolthar of Smallgate, who claimed to have been discharged from the city guard five years previously for being drunk while on duty,' " Sarai read aloud. " 'It was Guardsman Deran's conclusion that the stabbing was a result of a disagreement with a young woman; witnesses at the scene reported that the so-called Tolthar had been seen talking with a woman shortly before the stabbing. Those elements of their descriptions of the woman that are in general agreement were as follows: Thin, black hair, below average height, wearing dark clothing.' " She put down the report. "Short, thin, black hair, dressed in black," she said. "A stab and a slash. Sound familiar?"
"But it wasn't his throat," Tikri protested.
"She probably couldn't get at his throat," Sarai pointed out. "He was awake."
"But drunk."
Sarai glowered at Tikri. "Are you seriously claiming you don't see any possible connection?"
"No," Tikri admitted. "I'm just not sure there's a connection."
"Neither am I," Sarai said, "but it's worth investigating, isn't it?"
"Oh, I suppose so," Tikri said.
"Then send for this Lieutenant Senden and this man Deran Wuller's son and have them find Tolthar of Smallgate and bring him to me for questioning."
"Now?"
"Do you know of a better time? Yes, now!"
Tikri put down his own stack of reports and headed for the door, in pursuit of a messenger. In so doing he almost collided with a messenger who had been about to knock at the open door.
"Yes?" Sarai asked, as Tikri apologized and slipped past.
"I'm looking for Mereth of the Golden Door," the messenger said warily, eyeing Tikri's departing back. "She has a visitor, and someone told me she might be here."
"Mereth isn't here right now," Sarai replied. "What visitor is this?"
The messenger finally looked into the room. "Oh, is that you, Lady Sarai? It's three visitors, really-the man gives his name as Tobas of Telven and the women as Karanissa of the Mountains and Alorria of Dwomor."
Sarai recognized two of the names. These were the foreign experts the Wizards' Guild had sent for. "Show them in," she said.
The messenger hesitated. "Well, they aren't…"she began.
"Bring them here!" Sarai commanded, fed up with delays and explanations.
"Yes, my lady," the messenger said, bowing; she turned and hurried away.
For the next few minutes Sarai sat looking through old reports; then the messenger knocked again.
A spriggan scurried into the room, and Sarai took a moment to chase it to the corner and warn it, "If you tear a single piece of paper, or chew on one, or spill anything on one, I'm going to rip your slimy green guts out and wear them as a necklace; is that clear, you little nuisance?"
"Yes, yes," the spriggan said, bobbing its head and staring wide-eyed up at her. "Not hurt paper. Nice paper. Nice spriggan not hurt paper."
"Good," Lady Sarai said, turning away and finding a young man standing in the doorway. He looked just about her own age; she had expected this famous expert on certain wizardries to be a good deal older.
Well, maybe he had some way of disguising his age-an illusion of some sort, or a youth spell. But then, he looked rather sheepish just now, and Sarai had trouble imagining a wise old wizard, one capable of a youth spell or other transformation, looking so embarrassed when he had done nothing to cause it. Maybe this wasn't Tobas of Telven at all.