“Have you been encouraging Lisutaris to drink?” comes an angry voice behind me.
It’s Cicerius. He saw us heading this way and followed us in.
I protest my innocence. Cicerius looks at us like we’ve just crawled out from under a rock. He demands to know why I’ve been spending the day drinking when I should be trying to get Lisutaris out of the mess she’s in. I feel confused, angry, full of beer and bereft of a good reply. I slump down beside Makri.
“I’ve got a new nose stud,” says Makri. “You touch it it goes gold. Then it goes silver.”
A fine trio you make,” rages the Deputy Consul. “None of you can even stand. God knows what I was thinking when I entrusted the welfare of our great city into your hands.”
Cicerius’s assistant Hansius rushes through the door.
“Deputy Consul!” he gasps. “Word from Twelve Seas. The Civil Guards have just found the body of Darius Cloud Walker! He’s been murdered!”
Outside, the Assemblage is already in uproar as the news spreads.
“Need more thazis,” mumbles Lisutaris, then closes her eyes. I notice that her hair is particularly finely arranged. And her make-up is just perfect. The early morning beauty sessions are really paying off.
[Contents]
Chapter Ten
I pour some kuriya into a saucer. No one speaks. Makri looks uncomfortable. Cicerius is agitated. Tilupasis remains calm. We’re gathered in Cicerius’s private room at the Royal Hall and I’m preparing to show them what happened at the Avenging Axe.
“What you are about to see is hidden from all other eyes by the spell cast by Lisutaris, Mistress of the Sky, and Princess Direeva. I’ve only got access because Lisutaris has given me a key.”
I take out a scrap of parchment and intone a brief incantation, Lisutaris’s key. Cicerius and Tilupasis draw closer to the saucer. The air cools. A picture starts to form. My untidy office. I really should clean it up some time. Makri, Direeva and Darius are unconscious on the floor. Lisutaris enters, stabs Darius, then departs. The picture fades. Seeing it again, I don’t like it any better.
Cicerius controls his agitation. Though sometimes excitable, he’s not a man to panic in a crisis any more than me.
“How many people have seen that?”
“Just us. And it’s well hidden from everyone else. The Sorcerers will get through eventually but it will take a while.”
“It looked very real to me,” continues Cicerius. “Are you convinced by Lisutaris’s protestations of innocence?”
I shrug.
“I’ve taken her on as a client.”
“You do not sound convinced.”
Makri breaks into the conversation.
“She’s innocent! I was there, I know she didn’t stab Darius.”
“You were unconscious.”
“I was the last to fall asleep. Lisutaris didn’t do it.”
Tilupasis wonders about the magic required to falsify the past.
“My knowledge of sorcery is limited. Is it possible that the pictures are, as Lisutaris claims, fakes?”
“Maybe.”
“Please be more specific,” says Cicerius.
“Well, there are three different things involved here. Hiding, erasing, and making. Hiding means concealing the past. Plenty of Sorcerers can do that, at least for a while. The other two are not so easy. Lisutaris and Direeva searched for the real events before they made their hiding spell, but they couldn’t find them. They couldn’t find anything else apart from the pictures of Lisutaris killing Darius. So if there were other real events, someone has erased them. But that’s impossible. No one has ever perfected such an erasement spell. I guarantee you could ask every Sorcerer at the Assemblage and they’d tell you the same. The obvious conclusion is that there was no erasement, which would mean the events as depicted are true, Lisutaris is the killer.
“The same goes for a making spell, something to create the illusion of events happening, a good enough illusion to fool a Sorcerer when he checks back in time. Again, no such spell has ever been perfected. It’s a difficult thing even to imagine, painting a convincing picture of real events and placing it in the past. What we saw there was my office, complete with junk. Could someone fake that in every detail? I doubt it. Again, the obvious conclusion is that we’re looking at the real events.”
“Whether Lisutaris murdered Darius or not, we can’t let it be known,” says Tilupasis.
I point out that not everyone feels so comfortable with covering up a murder. Tilupasis gives the slightest of shrugs. She’s quite comfortable with it. We look towards Cicerius.
“If the Sorcerers Guild will eventually discover the truth, it might be better for Turai to come straight out and admit that this has happened,” he says. “Lisutaris would hang, or be sent into exile, Turai would lose influence, but at least we would not be found guilty of complicity in the murder of the Chief Sorcerer of another country. If we try and cover this up and it goes wrong, the Abelasian confederacy and the other states in the south will turn against Turai. We already have numerous enemies.”
We fall silent while Cicerius weighs up his options. The Deputy Consul is in charge here. It’s his decision, and for once I don’t feel like barging in with my own opinions.
“If Lisutaris is innocent, as she claims, what chance do you have of uncovering the real murderer?”
“A reasonable chance. Maybe less. I’ve no leads and I’ll be up against sorcery no one has encountered before. Which is not to say I won’t find anything. Criminals generally leave some traces behind, even sorcerous criminals. The problem is time. We don’t know how long it will take for the Guild to break through the hiding spell.”
Cicerius drums his fingers lightly on the table. Finally he makes a decision.
“Carry on with your investigation. We shall continue with our efforts to have Lisutaris elected as head of the Guild.”
Hansius appears at the door, Cicerius is needed for a conference with Lasat, Axe of Gold. He departs swiftly.
“I must return to my work,” says Tilupasis. “Now that Darius is no longer in the running, I should be able to win over some of these southern votes. Keep watching Lisutaris. And Makri, be nice to Princess Direeva. This is now more important than ever. With Darius out of the running we have an excellent chance of winning her over.”
“Not if she decides to believe that Lisutaris killed Darius.”
“You must persuade her otherwise,” instructs Tilupasis.
She hurries off.
“What exactly do I have to do to get Princess Direeva’s votes?” asks Makri.
“I don’t know. I was never any good at politics.”
I stare at the now blank pool of kuriya. After the spell the temperature in the room has again risen. The authorities have made it warm for the Sorcerers. Anything to keep them happy.
“It’s unfortunate the body was discovered so quickly.”
“You should’ve dumped it in a deeper snowdrift,” says Makri. “Do you have any suspects?”
“Lisutaris. Maybe Sunstorm Ramius. He had something to gain from Darius’s death. Got rid of a rival.”
I’m not fooling myself. Darius wasn’t really a rival to Ramius. There was no sign of him picking up enough support to overhaul the Simnian. Nonetheless, I find myself suspicious of Ramius. He’s arrogant, powerful and successful, and that’s three things I dislike in a Sorcerer.
“It’s time to go to work. Have you shaken off the thazis?”
“Yes.”
“Does the Imperial Library have much about sorcery?”
“The largest collection in the west,” says Makri. “How can you possibly not know that?”
“I’ve been cultivating ignorance for a long time. Take Lisutaris home then meet me there as soon as you can. I need to do some research into spell-casting and I’m terrible at using a catalogue.”