“You’ve known me for a long time,” says Lisutaris. “We were standing on the same piece of city wall when it collapsed under dragon attack.”
“Kemlath Orc Slayer was standing there as well,” I point out. “And last year I got him exiled from the city.”
“But he was guilty!” explodes Makri. “Lisutaris didn’t kill Darius. Why would she? You have to help. No one else knows how to investigate things like you.”
I take another beer. I really don’t like this.
“How good is the hiding spell?” I ask, after a while.
“Good,” answers Lisutaris. “Better with Direeva’s power added to my own.”
“You don’t sound certain that will last.”
Lisutaris isn’t certain. Princess Direeva departed the villa last night after seeing the pictures of Lisutaris knifing Darius. Darius represents the nation of Abelesi, and they’re friends of Direeva’s.
“If Direeva thinks you killed him she’s not going to keep helping.”
I can see Tilupasis will be hard pressed to get Direeva’s votes for Turai, but that might be the least of our problems now. I ask Lisutaris about the alignment of the moons, important in sorcerous enquiries concerning the past.
“Not so good. The Sorcerers will have the alignments in their favour in two or three days.”
Lisutaris sits down heavily as if crushed by the weight of her troubles. I finish my beer. Somewhere south of here, Darius Cloud Walker is lying in a snowdrift. He deserved better.
“I suggest you recruit Melus to boost the hiding spell. Say nothing to anyone. And pack a bag.”
“Why?”
“Because the most likely outcome is that we’re all fleeing the city, one step ahead of the Civil Guard.”
I grab another beer and walk out of the villa. I know I’m making a mistake. There’s no way this one is turning out well. Last night there was another heavy fall of snow. The land around the city will be impassable in this weather. Unless you’re a Sorcerer, of course. I’ll probably end up climbing the scaffold myself while Lisutaris makes her escape. I just can’t see any good outcome. It’s going to need something superhuman to prevent it. I’m a forty-three-year-old Investigator, badly overweight, and I drink too much. No one would accuse me of being superhuman.
Back at the Avenging Axe, Gurd looks at me questioningly.
“Who did it?” he asks.
“Lisutaris, looks like.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Get her off the hook.”
Gurd raises his eyebrows. He knows that protecting a murderer is not a job I’d volunteer for.
“Can you do it?”
“I’m number one chariot in this business.”
“But can you do it?”
I shake my head.
“No one could do it.”
Upstairs in my office I sit and stare out at the snow. After a while I get out my klee and sip the fierce spirit till I feel better. I set up my niarit board and play through a game or two. The room feels cold so I stoke up the fire. It doesn’t make me warm so I lie on the couch and drag a blanket over me. I really should be doing something. I drink some more klee and fall asleep.
I’m woken by Makri. She says she’s come to apologise.
“What for?”
“For taking dwa and getting unconscious when I should have been watching Lisutaris. I’m sorry.”
I haul myself upright.
“Sorry? No need to apologise to me. You can do what you like.”
“Okay, I said I was sorry.”
“Stop apologising. I don’t care what you do.”
“Stop giving me a hard time,” protests Makri.
“I’m not giving you a hard time.”
“Yes you are. You’re deliberately making me feel bad by saying I don’t need to apologise.”
“You don’t.”
“Stop doing that,” says Makri, and looks cross.
“Makri, you can fill yourself full of as much dwa as you like. I don’t care.”
“Well, that’s fine. I don’t care if you care or not.”
“I don’t.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I won’t.”
“Then we’re fine,” says Makri.
“Completely fine.”
Makri storms out of the room. I pick up my klee and wonder what I’m meant to do at the Assemblage today. Look for clues? Protect Lisutaris? Kill her other main rivals?
Makri storms back into the room.
“What’s the idea of going on and on about me taking dwa when you drink so much?” she demands.
“I wasn’t going on and on.”
“You’re being intolerable. I’m going to tell Tanrose.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m going to tell Tanrose.”
“You? The number one gladiator and genius philosophy student? You’re going to run away and tell tales?”
“Okay!” screams Makri. “I was feeling bad about See-ath! I just wanted to not feel bad for a little while! Stop tormenting me!”
Makri grabs the bottle of klee and takes a slug. I pick up my cloak. There’s no time to charge it up, which means I’m in for a cold journey to the Royal Hall.
“You want me to put some stuff in this magic pocket?” asks Makri.
“What?”
“Lisutaris let me keep it for the week. I’ve got two swords, three knives and my axe in here. You have to be prepared when you’re a bodyguard.”
“And you’re a great bodyguard.”
“Stop insulting me,” says Makri. “I said I was sorry.”
We have to trudge for a long way through the frozen streets before we find a landus to take us up town. It takes us ages to travel up Moon and Stars Boulevard. There is little traffic on the streets but the road is partially blocked near the harbour by a collapsed aqueduct and the landus has to pick its way carefully through a mess of fallen masonry and huge blocks of ice. Workmen, moving slowly in the freezing cold, are trying to clear the way.
“Samanatius teaches here,” says Makri, and looks concerned.
I have no mental energy to waste on Samanatius.
“Are you sure you can’t remember anything else about last night?”
Makri shrugs. She’s wearing the floppy green hat she brought back from Avula. It’s ridiculous.
“I told you everything. Lisutaris wanted to show Princess Direeva some interesting bits of the city. So we came to Twelve Seas. Darius was with us. He was friends with Direeva so he tagged along. I took them to the Avenging Axe. We went in your office because my room is small and cold, and after a while we got to drinking klee—”
“You were drinking klee? Whose klee?”
“Yours, of course. I figured you wouldn’t mind; after all, you’re meant to be helping Lisutaris.”
“And you all passed out and next thing you know Darius is dead?”
“That’s right.”
“And you didn’t see anyone else the whole time? Didn’t sense anyone following you in Twelve Seas?”
“No.”
Snow falls from the bleak sky. Without the warming spell my cloak is useless. I shiver.
“What about Direeva? How was she with Darius?”
“Friendly.”
“You think she might have resented his attentions?”
“Maybe. But not enough to kill him. He wasn’t trying to force himself on her.”
“You fell asleep before Direeva. You don’t know what happened after that.”
Makri admits this is true but she doesn’t believe that anything bad enough could have occurred to make Direeva kill the Sorcerer. I doubt this myself, though I’m still suspicious of the Princess.
“I notice Direeva seemed to take to you.”
Makri looks embarrassed. She doesn’t reply, and changes the subject.
“You know those pictures of Lisutaris killing Darius were faked.”
“I don’t know that at all. Faking a scene like that and sending it into the past would be a fantastically difficult thing to do. It’s the sort of thing you read in stories about Sorcerers, but I’m not certain there’s any Sorcerer in the world who could really do it. So where does that leave us? The same pictures will appear when anyone else looks. If it really didn’t happen, the Sorcerer who forged it has strength I’ve never encountered before, or access to some spells no one else knows.”