"The Spell of the Black Dagger" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

CHAPTER 4

Lord Kalthon drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair.

"Let's go through it once more," he said angrily. "You, the demonologist-what happened here?"

"Rander of Southbeach, my lord," the demonologist said, with a tight little bow and a twitch of the black-embroidered skirts of his black robes.

"I didn't ask your bloody name" Lord Kalthon shouted. "I asked what happened! Did Heremon the Mage rob Kallia of the Broken Hand or not?"

Rander's attempt at an ingratiating smile vanished. He glanced hesitantly at the others, then said, "My lord, my arts show that Kallia has spoken the truth as she knows it."

Lord Kalthon glared at him. "And?" he said.

"And so has Heremon the Mage," the demonologist admitted reluctantly.

"And you can't resolve this contradiction?"

"No."

Lord Kalthon snorted and turned to the plump woman in the green robe. "I know you; you've testified before me before. Mereth of the Golden Door, isn't it?"

"Yes, my lord." She bobbed politely. "Well?"

"My lord," she said, in a pleasant contralto that Sarai envied, "like the demonologist, my spells have achieved confusing and contradictory results. I, too, find that both Kallia and Heremon speak the truth as they know it. Further, I can detect no distortion of memory in either of them. I used a scrying spell to see the crime with my own eyes, and I saw what Kallia described- Heremon taking the gold and other things; but when I used another divination, I was told that Heremon did not. I fear that some very powerful magic is responsible." Kalthon turned to Okko and said, "Now what?" Okko hesitated, and looked very unhappy indeed. "Perhaps a witch…" he began. Sarai cleared her throat.

Kalthon turned an inquisitive eye toward his daughter. "Sarai," he asked, "was there something you wanted to say?"

"My lord," she said, secretly enjoying her father's startled reaction to this formal address from his daughter, "I have undertaken a little study of my own involving this case, and perhaps I can save everyone some time and further aggravation by explaining just what I believe to have happened."

Lord Kalthon stared at her, smiling slightly. "Speak, then," he said.

"Really, it's not as difficult as all that," Sarai said, stalling for time as her nerve suddenly failed her for a moment. What if she was wrong? Her father's smile had vanished, she saw, replaced with a puzzled frown.

She took a deep breath and continued. "Kallia swears that she saw Heremon commit the crime, and every indication is that she speaks the truth, that that's exactly what she saw. Furthermore, Heremon swears that he did not commit the crime, and every indication is that this, too, is true. But my lord, we are dealing with magicians here, and while it may be that magic can confound the truth, isn't it more reasonable to accept that both Kallia and Heremon are telling the truth, and that there's a simpler sort of magic involved?'' Sarai saw her father's puzzlement abruptly vanish and a smile appear.

She hurried on, saying, "Isn't it more likely that what Kallia saw was not Heremon, but an illusion of some kind? Magic is very good at creating illusions, as anyone who's attended a few performances at the Arena can attest.''

The smile on her father's face widened, and she saw, farther down the room, Kallia and Heremon suddenly look at each other in startled understanding.

"With that in mind," Sarai continued, "I went down to Wizard Street last night and asked a few questions of neighbors of both Kallia and Heremon, always pretending that I thought one of them to be lying, when actually, I had already decided that a common enemy was probably responsible. Some neighbors sided with Heremon, some with Kallia, and many didn't understand how either could be at fault in the case-and a few mentioned that a common enemy might indeed exist, a Tintallionese demonologist by the name of Katherian of the Coast, whose advances Kallia had reportedly refused, and who apparently felt that Heremon had treated him unfairly in business. Might I suggest, my lord, that this Tintallionese be found and questioned immediately?"

Lord Kalthon nodded, and turned to Okko. "See to it," he said. "Find this Katherian."

"If he hasn't already left the city," Okko grumbled.

That evening at supper, Lord Kalthon remarked, "It took a demonologist and two warlocks to bring that Katherian fellow in, and that's without counting that it was Okko's magic that found him for us in the first place."

Sarai looked up from her plate. Tired of the endless round of quarrels her father was asked to resolve, she had left around midafternoon, before the Tintallionese demonologist had been apprehended. "Really?" she asked.

Lord Kalthon nodded. "He was boarding a ship bound for Ethshar of the Rocks when the guard caught up to him-the ship's captain had hired him to fend off pirates, but I think he was just as interested in getting back to his homeland and away from here as in the wages."…

"What happened?" Sarai asked, putting down her fork.

"Well," her father said, with evident relish, "he conjured up a demon right there, a shapeshifter, so the guards all backed off-we don't pay them enough to fight demons, and we don't ask them to fight demons. We'd sent along that Rander of South-beach, who tried to banish the shapeshifter or conjure up something of his own, but Katherian was fighting his every incantation, and Rander was pretty clearly outmatched right from the start. Katherian couldn't call up anything else, Rander did that much, but he had that first one. Fortunately, one of the guards had the good sense to run to the Inner Towers-this was all in Seagate itself, not out on the moles-and fetch out the magician on watch duty there, who happened to be a warlock by the name of Luralla. She tried to subdue Katherian, and the shapeshifter went after her, she was able to restrain it, but white she was doing that she couldn't hold Katherian, so she sent the guardsman to fetch another warlock, and the three of them finally brought the fool in." Lord Kalthon shook his head in dismay. "Some people," he said, "are more trouble than they're worth."

"So what happened?" Sarai asked. "Did he do it? I mean, did Katherian rob Kallia of the Broken Hand?"

"Oh, yes, of course," Kalthon replied. "Okko couldn't do much with him, since he's a demonologist, but Rander and Mereth and a witch by the name of Theas that we found all swear it was Katherian's shapeshifting demon that robbed Kallia and killed her guardian."

"But he didn't confess?"

"No." Kalthon shook his head. "They rarely do, you know."

"Where is he now, then, in the dungeons?"

"Dead, I'm afraid," Kalthon answered. "With magicians, one can't take too many chances. Especially not demonologists. Witches are mostly harmless, so far as we know, and warlocks have their limits, and a wizard or a sorcerer can't do much of anything if you take away all his equipment, and the gods won't help a theurgist do serious violence, but demonologists-well, sometimes I think the Small Kingdoms that ban demonology outright have the right idea."

"You had him executed?" Sarai asked, startled. "So soon?"

"No, no," her father said, "nothing like that. He was killed trying to escape. When we had him brought in for trial he conjured a minor demon to distract us, right there in the justice chamber, and then ran for it. One of the warlocks burst his heart." He glanced at Kalthon the Younger, who was listening intently, and then added, "I told her to."

"What happened to the demon?" little Kalthon asked. "The one he conjured in the chamber."

"The guards killed it," the Minister of Justice replied. "Cut it to pieces with their swords, and eventually it stopped struggling." He sighed. "I'm afraid that Irith isn't very happy about it."

"Who's Irith?" Sarai asked.

"She's the servant who cleans the justice chamber every night," Lord Kalthon explained. "I told her that if she couldn't get the stain out, not to worry, we'd hire a magician to do it."

"Will you really?"

"Maybe," Kalthon said. "We've certainly used plenty of magic already on this case." He sighed. "More than I like. There are too damn many magicians in this city."

Sarai nodded.

"And that reminds me, Sarai," her father said, picking up the last drumstick. "Have you been dabbling in magic, perhaps?"

Sarai blinked, astonished. "No, sir," she said. "Of course not."

"So you really figured out that it was this Katherian all by yourself, then? Just using your own good sense?"

Sarai nodded. "Yes, Father," she said.

Kalthon bit into the drumstick, chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed. "That was good thinking, then," he said at last. "Very good."

"Thank you," Sarai said, looking down at her plate.

"You know," her father continued, "we use Okko and the other magicians to solve most of the puzzles we get. I mean, the cases where it's a question of what the facts are, rather than just settling an argument where the facts are known."

"Yes, sir," Sarai said, "I'd noticed that."

"Every so often, though, we do get cases like this one, with Kallia and Heremon and Katherian, and sometimes they're real tangles. They usually seem to involve magicians, which doesn't help any-such as the one where a man who'd been turned to stone a hundred years ago was brought back to life, and we had to find out who enchanted him, and then decide who owned his old house, and whether he could prosecute the heirs of the wizard who enchanted him, and for that matter we couldn't be sure the wizard himself was really dead…"He shook his head. "Or all the mess after the Night of Madness, before you were born-your grandfather handled most of that, but I helped out." He gestured at Kalthon the Younger. "Your brother will probably be the next Minister of Justice, you know-it's traditional for the heir to be the eldest son, skipping daughters, and I don't think Ederd's going to change that. But I think we could use you-after today, I think it would be a shame not to use wits like yours."

"Use me how?" Sarai asked warily.

"As an investigator," her father said. "Someone who goes out and finds out what's going on in the difficult cases. Someone who knows about different kinds of magic, but isn't a magician herself. I'd like to ask the overlord to name you as the first Lord-or rather, the first Lady of Investigation for Ethshar of the Sands. With a salary and an office here in the palace."

Sarai thought it over for a moment, then asked, "But what would I actually do?"

"Usually, nothing," the Minister of Justice replied. "Like the Lord Executioner. But if there's ever anything that needs to be studied and explained, something where we can't just ask Okko or some other magician, it would be your job to study it and then explain it to the rest of us."

Sarai frowned. "But I can't know everything," she said.

"Of course not," her father agreed. "But you can learn as much as you can. The overlord doesn't expect his officers to be perfect."

Sarai, remembering what she had heard of Ederd IV, overlord of Ethshar of the Sands, wasn't any too sure of that. "What would I do when I can't…"

"You would do the best you can," her father interrupted. "Like any of the city's officials."

"I'd need help sometimes," Sarai said. "You'd be given the authority to call on the guard for help- I'll ask Lord Torrut to assign you a regular assistant. And you could hire others."

"Father, if we need someone to figure out these things, why hasn't anyone already been given the job?"

Lord Kalthon smiled wryly. "Because we never thought of it. We've always improvised, done it all new every time."

"Have you talked to the overlord yet?"

"No," Lord Kalthon admitted. "I wanted to see whether you wanted the job first."

"I don't know," Sarai admitted.

There they left the matter for a sixnight; then one evening Lord Kalthon mentioned, "I spoke to the overlord today."

"Oh?" Sarai asked, nervously.

Her father nodded. "He wants you to be his investigator, as I suggested. And I think he'd like the job to include more than I originally intended-he was talking about gathering information from other lands, as well, to help him keep up with events. He doesn't like surprises, you know; he wasn't at all happy that he had no warning about the rise of the Empire of Vond, in the Small Kingdoms, two years ago."

"But I don't know anything about…" Sarai began.

"You could learn," Kalthon replied.

"I don't know," Sarai said. "I don't like it. I need time to think about it."

"So think about it," her father answered.

In truth, she found the idea of being paid to study foreign lands fascinating-but the responsibilities and the fact that she would be reporting to the overlord himself were frightening.

Still, a sixnight later, she agreed to take the job.