As the tavern empties and smoke starts to billow out of the windows, a great cry goes up for the fire services. A bell is sounded in alarm and people look to the end of the alleyway, anxiously expecting horse-drawn wagons to appear. Nothing happens. No wagons come. As Casax the Brotherhood boss sees his headquarters starting to disappear in flames, he becomes agitated. He screams for his men to bring water from neighbouring houses, waving his fists to encourage them. The way the flames are taking hold, I doubt that this is going to do much good.
Normally I’d enjoy seeing the Mermaid burning to the ground. However, it strikes me that it’s hardly helpful to my immediate purposes. I approach Casax. He doesn’t acknowledge me, being too busy trying to save the tavern to pay any attention to an unwelcome Investigator. I grab him by the arm.
“Aren’t you forgetting something, Casax?”
I point to a young guy in a fancy cloak who’s slumped in the alleyway, suffering either from inhaling smoke or, more probably from shock at finding himself dragged out of a burning building in the nick of time.
“Your pet Sorcerer.”
“What?”
“Orius. Or, to give him his full name, Orius Fire Tamer. Which name leads me to suspect he ought to be able to do something.”
Casax wastes no time. In seconds he’s dragging the unfortunate young man up on to his feet and over to the fire.
“Put it out!” screams Casax.
Orius looks like he’d rather be elsewhere, concentrating on his recovery, and struggles to stand erect. I can’t say I’m sympathetic. I never thought it was a good idea for the young Sorcerer to get involved with the Brotherhood. Life for a gang member has its rewards, but it can be tough at times.
Just when it seems that the flames must engulf the tavern, Orius manages to catch his breath and gather his concentration. He chants a spell. The flames seem to weaken. He chants again, and they go out. The crowd cheer. Orius Fire Tamer collapses in a heap. To give him his due, it was a nice piece of sorcery, in difficult circumstances.
Casax doesn’t waste any time congratulating his Sorcerer. He needs to see that his headquarters have survived intact, so he strides swiftly into the tavern, motioning his henchmen to follow. I walk in after them, uninvited. The building hasn’t fared too badly. Part of the roof has collapsed, but Orius halted the flames before they really took hold. Coughing from the effects of the smoke that still hangs in the air, I look around. I don’t quite know what I’m looking for and I don’t get much of a chance to search before Casax spots me and angrily demands to know what I’m doing here.
“Just visiting. And incidentally, you owe me for reminding you about Orius Fire Tamer.”
“I’ll send you a present,” rasps Casax. “Now get out of here.”
“You want to tell me how the fire started?”
“I don’t want to tell you anything. Maybe you should be telling me something.”
I shake my head.
“All I know is that Prefect Galwinius has been pocketing the money he should’ve been spending on fire wagons.”
“So what are you doing here? I get suspicious when Investigators turn up just when my building is burning down.”
Casax stares at me. I stare back at him. We’ve had a few run-ins in the past. Nothing too serious. Nothing to make us lifelong friends. All around, Brotherhood men are dampening down the last few tongues of flame and carrying boxes here and there, presumably illicit goods, or maybe Casax’s records. Casax is an organised sort of guy. All Brotherhood bosses are. Organised and violent. I decide to tell him why I’m here.
“I’m looking for a stolen jewel. In the shape of a pendant.”
“So?”
“It was stolen from a Sorcerer. The Sorcerer traced it here.”
“Then the Sorcerer was mistaken.”
“I doubt it. And the Sorcerer would pay well to get it back. It’s a family heirloom.”
Before Casax can reply, he’s interrupted by Karlox, a tough enforcer.
“They’re dead,” says Karlox.
“Who’s dead?”
“The three strangers who wanted to see you. They’re still upstairs. But dead.”
“Burned?” asks Casax.
“No. Stabbed.”
Casax’s brow furrows.
“What do you mean, stabbed? No one gets stabbed in here unless I say so.”
“They weren’t by any chance three men who came here to sell you some stolen jewellery, were they?” I ask.
Casax stares at me.
“Time to leave. Investigator.”
Knowing that I’m not going to learn anything more, I turn to go. Casax calls after me. When I turn to face him again, he’s got a mocking smile on his face.
“That makes seven, I believe.”
“Seven? Seven what?”
“Seven bodies. You want to give me and Karlox here any inside information? We figured we might place a little wager with young Moxalan.”
His henchman Karlox laughs like this is a great joke. I try to disguise my feelings, without success. Now word of the betting in the Avenging Axe has reached the Brotherhood. Soon it will be all over Twelve Seas. All over the city, maybe. I’m fast becoming a laughing stock. Damn that idiot Dandelion and her foolish warnings.
I haven’t recovered the pendant, though my intuition is telling me pretty strongly that whoever the three guys were, they had it with them. Someone killed them, and made off with it, probably using the fire as a distraction. It was a neat piece of work. It’s not easy removing stolen goods from under the noses of the Brotherhood.
It’s a relief to get out of the smoky building. Not much relief, though, as the sun hits me full in the face. Despite the commotion caused by the fire, the dwa dealers are still doing a brisk trade in the alleyway.
Three more dead. Seven since I started looking. A bloodbath? Possibly Dandelion was right. Maybe she can read the stars. Maybe she can really talk to the dolphins. I wonder how many bodies Makri is betting on. I’d expect her to go for a high total. She’s used to a lot of carnage. As I’m so annoyed at Makri, I’m very tempted to refuse to investigate the accusation of theft against her. Let her sort it out herself. I sigh. If I let her sort it out herself she won’t mind at all, but she’ll end up on the gallows. Cursing the woman for her foolish academic pretensions, I set off along the dusty road to the College.
The Guild College is sited at the edge of Pashish, a slightly less unpleasant area than Twelve Seas. The streets are still narrow but they’re cleaner, and the aqueducts are in good repair. The tenements are less tall and better spaced. Here and there a small park serves as recreation for the families of artisans and lesser merchants. It’s the sons of these artisans and lesser merchants who attend the Guild College, some in preparation for careers in the service of the government and a few of them in preparation for the Imperial University.
Makri is, I believe, the only woman to attend the College, gaining entrance only after some anonymous but wealthy woman with a point to prove promoted her case. The College, discovering to their dismay that their written constitution did not actually forbid it, found themselves the unwilling instructors of a mixed-blood ex-gladiator, and to hear Makri tell it they’ve been trying to get rid of her ever since. Possibly they already would have had Makri and I not done some good work for Deputy Consul Cicerius last year, as a result of which I think he used his influence to enable her continued attendance.
To me it seems like a lot of trouble for nothing. I can’t see what good a sound grounding in the arts of philosophy, rhetoric and mathematics is ever going to do her, and as for her ambition to attend the Imperial University, it’s never going to happen. For one thing, their constitution does expressly forbid the admittance of women, and for another, if Makri ever walked through their marble portals, the uproar created by Turai’s aristocracy would send a shock wave through the Senate. No Senator would want his son in the same class as Makri, with her Orcish blood, barbaric manners and propensity for wielding an axe.