Thraxas - The Complete Series (181 page)

I
send a message to Domasius, asking him to make some enquiries regarding Bevarius, Kalius and Galwinius. The Messengers Guild never stops working, even in the worst of conditions. Their young carriers are dedicated to their work. God knows why.

By now my magic warm cloak is cooling off. On the long walk down Moon and Stars Boulevard I start to feel the cold creeping in. I hurry on, cursing as my heels slip on the ice. There are a lot of people still about on the main thoroughfare and they’re the gloomiest collection of faces I’ve seen for some time. In times of crisis the city naturally looks towards the royal family, but the royal family is not such a shining example these days. The King is still respected, but he’s old, and rarely appears in public. He’s been ruling through his ministers for a long time now and is no longer quite the figurehead he used to be. His elder son, Prince Frisen-Akan, is such a degenerate lush that not even the most hardened royalist can pretend he’s an inspiration. The younger son, Prince Dees-Akan, head of the War Council, is a much more competent sort of character, but somehow not the sort of prince the public has ever really warmed to. Too abrasive perhaps. Lacking the common touch. Young Princess Du-Akai is very popular and quite glamorous, but at a time like this the population is looking more for a military leader than a beautiful princess.

I wonder about Bevarius. He picked up the scroll. Why? Was he just clearing the way for the doctor? Or was there something written on it he wanted kept private? What happened to the scroll afterwards? I’ll have to question the Consul’s assistant again. By this time I’ve reached the entrance to Saint Rominius’s Lane, scene of the recent attack on my person. I could take the long way home and avoid the lane. But I’m cold. It’s probably safe enough. I head into the narrow passageway. After turning the first corner I find myself confronted by three men with swords.

“Here we go again.”

I intone my sleep spell and they crumple gently into the snow. I take a few steps then halt at the sound of footsteps behind me. When I turn round I find the man with red hair standing there with a mocking smile on his face. Behind him are four armed companions.

“You’re pretty dumb for an Investigator, falling for the same trick twice. Now you’ve gone and used up your magic again.”

He motions his men to advance. I speak another spell and they all fall unconscious to the ground.

“Not that dumb,” I say.

Before leaving Lisutaris’s villa I’d asked her if she could give me something to temporarily boost my spell-casting powers, and she duly obliged. I’ve got enough power to put any number of assailants to sleep, and it’ll last for a few hours yet. I hoist the red-haired man over my shoulder and set off for the Avenging Axe. He’s no lightweight and by the time I reach the outside steps I’m panting for breath. I haul my captive up the stairs and into my office. By the time I’ve dumped him in a chair and thrown a coil of rope around him to hold him there, he’s starting to revive. I search his pockets, finding nothing but a drawstring purse with a few half-gurans inside. A name is embroidered on the purse: “Kerinox.”

He opens his eyes to finds the point of my sword only a few inches from his face.

“Who sent you to kill me, Kerinox?” I demand, hoping to catch him before he has time to focus his thoughts. Unfortunately he’s either too smart or too dumb to remain unfocused for long. He shakes his head to clear it, swears loudly at me and then tells me to go to hell. I bat him across the face. He swears at me again.

“Who sent you?”

“As soon as I’m out of this chair I’ll kill you, fat man.”

I hit him across the face again and he falls silent. Silent, but not cowed.

“You want me to use a truth spell on you?”

My prisoner laughs.

“Everyone knows you don’t have that sort of power. All you can do is send a person to sleep, fat man.”

It’s getting on my nerves, the way he keeps calling me fat man. I stare at him, unsure of my next move. Being a private Investigator isn’t like working for the Civil Guards or Palace Security. You can’t just brutalise people, it’s against the law. Not that I’m too worried about the law, as this man has twice tried to kill me. But if I hurt him too badly and he goes complaining about it to the authorities, I could find myself in trouble. I press my sword right up against his throat. He looks at me coolly.

“It won’t take my friends long to work out where I am. This time we will kill you.”

He’s right, at least about the part where his friends find him. When they wake up and get to wondering where their leader is, they might well decide to take a look in the Avenging Axe. Or they might just decide to go home, depending on how well they’re being paid. While I’m wondering what to do, I hear a door closing softly further along the corridor. I stick my head out the door. Makri walks past with her nose in the air.

“Makri—”

“Don’t talk to me, oaf,” she says.

I get in front of her.

“I need your help.”

“That’s unfortunate. I rarely help people who abuse me and throw me out of their office.”

“Did I do that?”

“Yes.”

“I expect I was being drunk and unreasonable. You know how I get. Incidentally, I’ve just been in Lisutaris’s villa, complimenting her on choosing you as a bodyguard.”

“Oh yes?”

“Yes. We both agreed you were the ideal woman for the job.”

“Forget it, Thraxas. You can’t win me over with flattery.”

“I understand the Consul himself has expressed satisfaction.”

“Really? Did he say that?”

Makri looks pleased. Then she frowns.

“I’m still annoyed at you.”

Time was, Makri was easy prey for a cheap compliment. Now, it doesn’t work so well. Civilisation has corrupted her. Fortunately she does remain sorely in need of money. Classes at the Guild College don’t come cheap.

“I’ll pay you five gurans.”

“Ten.”

“Seven and a half.”

“Okay. What do you want me to do?”

I quickly fill her in on the situation. Makri nods.

“So you want me to scare this Kerinox till he starts answering?”

I shake my head.

“No good. He doesn’t scare easily and he’s expecting to be rescued. Subtlety is required. Back at Palace Security we had a technique for questioning recalcitrant prisoners. Used to call it Good Civil Guard Bad Civil Guard. Or Good Guard Bad Guard for short.”

“What?”

“It’s easy. We go in there together. I threaten him, rough him up a little and then you start in with the sympathy. Tell him you know he’s suffering and how I’m such an unreasonable guy, and in no time he’s telling you everything.”

“Why would he do that?” asks Makri, puzzled.

“I don’t exactly know. But it seemed to work back in Palace Security. Something to do with the inner working of the mind. You know, brutal captor followed by kindly sympathy.”

Makri looks thoughtful for a moment or two. I’m expecting her to waste time with a lot more questions, but instead she nods.

“Yes, I think I see what you’re getting at. Something similar happens in the great Elvish Epic
The Tale of the Two Oaks and the Warring Princes
. There’s a moment when one prince has been thrown in a dungeon—”

I hold up my hand.

“Could we discuss Elvish poetry another time? We have a suspect to question.”

“All right. But are you sure I should be the good guard? Shouldn’t I be the bad one?”

“No, you’re much more suitable for lending a sympathetic ear.”

“No I’m not,“ protests Makri. “Last night I punched out a mercenary when he was telling me about his lover back in the north. He seemed to get confused about where his lover was and started groping my thigh.”

“Well, provided Kerinox doesn’t start fondling you, I think you can manage to be sympathetic. Or pretend to be. Don’t curse him in Orcish.”

Makri agrees to give it a try and we march back into the office. I start in on the red-haired man right away, slapping him a few times, threatening him with my sword and dagger and generally giving him a hard time. And while he shows no more signs of being ready to talk than he did before, he’s certainly becoming uncomfortable under the harsh treatment. I keep it up for a while. Makri sits quietly at my desk, watching. When I judge that I might have made him uncomfortable enough, I pull a face as if disgusted with the whole thing, and back off.

“You better talk soon or I’ll kill you right here,” I threaten, before withdrawing. Makri rises to her feet.

“Remember, be sympathetic,” I whisper. I take a seat at the desk and Makri stands in front of the prisoner.

“Is it uncomfortable for you sitting there, Kerinox?” says Makri, managing to sound quite pleasant. “Should I loosen your bonds?”

“Get away from me,” snarls the man in the chair.

“Would you like a drink of water?”

“Go to hell.”

Makri looks confused.

“Wouldn’t you like to tell me your problems?” she ventures.

“Shut up, bitch,” growls our captive.

“Why don’t you just answer the damned questions!” roars Makri, and hits him so hard that the chair goes over on to the ground.

I look at the body now unconscious on the floor.

“Well that was splendid, Makri. Now you’ve killed him. What happened to the sympathy?”

“I got annoyed when he insulted me.”

Makri purses her lips.

“You should have let me be the bad guard. I’m much more suited to it.”

We haul the chair upright. Kerinox sags, unconscious in his bonds. He moans. At least he isn’t dead. I spread my arms wide and turn to Makri.

“Now I don’t know what to do.”

“How about if you try being the good guard?” she suggests.

“It’s too late for that. I’ve already hit him. Couldn’t you have controlled your temper for once?”

Makri brushes this aside.

“Hey, I did my best. The problem as I see it is that you have no real leverage. He knows you’re not going to kill him. All he has to do is wait and you have to let him go eventually. The whole thing has been a tactical blunder on your part. You should have thought about it more before you started.”

“When it started I was knee deep in snow with four guys attacking me. I didn’t have a lot of time to think.”

“Well, the plan you came up with was a bust,” says Makri. “Too elaborate.”

“It might have worked if you hadn’t slugged him at the first opportunity. You were meant to be good guard, not violent aggressive guard.”

“I can’t be blamed for this debacle,” objects Makri. “I was miscast right from the start.”

By now my captive is beginning to show signs of life.

“You’re just not threatening enough,” says Makri.

“What? I’m plenty threatening.”

“You’re not. Remember how I scared that guy up in Kushni when we needed to find the green jewel? Now that was threatening. Wait here.”

With that Makri disappears from the room, appearing back in moments with her black Orcish sword. It’s an ugly weapon, dark and razor sharp. Rather than reflecting light, it seems to suck it in.

“I’ll show you threatening,” mutters Makri. She strides over to the red-haired man, places her sword near to his throat and yanks his head back.

“You see this? This sword was forged by demons in an Orcish furnace beneath the cursed mountain of Zarax. When it cuts into you it’ll drink your soul and send you down to Orcish hell, where you’ll spend the rest of eternity as the only tortured Human in an inferno of damned Orcs. And you see these?”

Makri pulls back her hair, displaying her pointed ears.

“These mean I know how to use it. And today I’m feeling very bad towards all Humans. So you give me the information before I count to five or get ready to meet the legions of the Orcish damned.”

Makri starts counting, and she doesn’t linger over it. By now the unfortunate Kerinox is looking genuinely frightened and I think he might be about to talk when Makri suddenly slices at him. He screams. I’m expecting to see his head fly off his body but Makri miraculously stops the blade just as it touches his throat.

“You were saying?”

The red-haired man looks at me imploringly.

“Get this demon away from me. I’ll tell you who sent me.”

I feel rather sorry for him. I wouldn’t like to be tied in a chair with Makri waving that sword around my head either. Makri retreats to my desk and sits calmly smoking my thazis while I question him.

He tells me that he was sent to kill me by Bevarius. The Consul’s assistant. The man who picked up the scroll.

“Do you often kill people for money?”

Kerinox shrugs.

“Now and then.”

I don’t learn much more, and in truth I’m sick of the whole thing. Once I’ve learned that it was Bevarius who hired men to attack me I don’t need to know much more. Not from Kerinox anyway.

“If you come anywhere near the Avenging Axe again Makri will kill you with the Orcish sword. I’ve seen men die from it. They never seem to go easily.”

I untie him. He’s bruised, and bleeding from a cut under his left eye. I shouldn’t feel any sympathy. He’s twice tried to kill me. For some reason I feel some sympathy. He departs without another word. Throughout this, Makri has been sitting quietly at my desk, smoking thazis. I hand over seven and a half gurans and thank her for her help. She accepts my thanks as graciously as she normally does, which is not that graciously.

“You’ve been really bad-tempered recently. Even by your standards.”

I shrug, and light a thazis stick for myself.

“Difficult case. Men trying to kill me. Snow on the ground. War looming. Never makes for a happy life.”

“I suppose not,” says Makri. “Though I don’t see why you have to start complaining every time someone sends me flowers. It’s not my fault everyone is sending me flowers. Do you have any idea why everyone is sending me flowers?”

“It baffles me. I see you have a new admirer.”

“Toraggax?” says Makri. “I quite like him.”

“You do? I wouldn’t have thought he was your type.”

Makri has never expressed any interest in any mercenary before. Or any Human, that I can remember.

“He’s quite intelligent,” she says. “And polite.”