Martin Scott - Thraxas and the Sorcerers

“Can you get me back to Twelve Seas?” I ask Direeva, as Lisutaris tends to her wound. The Princess regards me with distaste but, ignoring her injury, concentrates briefly and opens a breach in the magic space.

“You’ve got five minutes,” she says, as I step through, emerging at the corner of Quintessence Street.

I step over the rubble into Samanatius’s academy. Inside the dingy hall Samanatius is lecturing a group of students. I march through their midst and take a firm grip on the philosopher’s arm, drawing him to one side.

“Samanatius, about that favour you owe me. I need to find the next number in this sequence and I need it right now. It’s to help Lisutaris.”

Samanatius grasps my meaning immediately. He excuses himself from his students and examines the paper I’ve thrust under his nose. After thirty seconds or so he nods.

“A sequence of products of prime numbers, I believe.”

I’m expecting him to start scribbling some notes, but apparently Samanatius has the mental capacity to work it out in his head.

“One zero seven three.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite certain. The sequence is—”

“No time for that. Thanks for your help.”

I hurry out of the academy, impressed by Samanatius’s mental powers. Maybe he deserves his reputation as philosophy’s number one chariot. I’m almost glad I saved him from eviction. I wonder what he’s like at working out odds on the races.

The green portal of light is still visible in the street, now wavering slightly. I throw myself through it, arriving back in the magic space some way from the clearing. Copro the beautician is advancing towards me, crossbow in his hand.

“So it’s you!” I roar. “You’re Covinius. I’ve suspected this all along. It’s a fine disguise, Assassin, but not fine enough to fool Thraxas the Investigator.”

The maze alters again and I find myself on my own, surrounded on every side by vegetation. I swing my sword desperately in an effort to cut my way through to Lisutaris before Covinius can reach her. The hedge in front of me bursts apart and Makri appears, axe in hand.

“What’s going on? The hedge just started growing all over us.”

“Did you see Copro?”

“Are you still on about that?” says Makri.

“I tell you, he’s the Assassin.”

“Why would he be? He’s such a fine hair stylist.”

“I’ve had my eye on him for a long time. He didn’t fool me with his deft make-up and effeminate ways. The man is a deadly killer. Where’s Lisutaris?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then keep chopping.”

“This is more like the magic space I remember,” says Makri, as penguins start to wander through the snow. “Do you have the answer?”

“Yes.”

“So have I,” says Makri.

I pause for a moment.

“What?”

“I have the answer. I worked it out.”

Makri looks pleased with herself. I’m irritated.

“It took you long enough. Couldn’t you have done that before I went beating Ramius over the head?”

“You beat Ramius over the head?”

“Yes. Before I visited Samanatius. It was all a lot of trouble. Which could have been avoided if you’d come up with the answer before I set off.”

“Well, I didn’t,” says Makri.

We start chopping through the maze again, calling for Lisutaris.

“You might give me some credit anyway,” says Makri.

“What for?”

“For solving the puzzle.”

“I solved it first.”

“You didn’t solve it at all,” contests Makri. “You just asked Samanatius.”

“I got the answer, didn’t I?”

Makri rests her axe.

“You know you’re really getting on my nerves these days, Thraxas. Everything is always about you: ‘I did this, I did that’. Do you have any idea how tedious it is having to listen to your lousy stories all the time? And if it’s not that, it’s some stupid criticism of me for getting on with my life. I tell you, it’s about time—”

“Will you stop acting like a pointy-eared Orc freak and keep chopping?”

The hedge beside us splits apart in a sheet of yellow flame and we find ourselves confronted by an angry-looking Sunstorm Ramius.

“Thraxas hit you on the head,” says Makri. “I had nothing to do with it.”

Ramius hurls a spell at me. My protection charm saves my life but I’m tossed to the ground and lie in a heap. Seeing that I’m still alive, Ramius draws a sword and charges forward. He’s almost upon me when Makri leaps forward and pounds him on the head with the flat of her axe.

“Apologise for calling me a pointy-eared Orc freak,” demands Makri.

I struggle to my feet.

“Are you crazy? There’s no time.”

Suddenly Hanama appears.

“Hanama,” says Makri. “Do you think it’s right that this fat drunk can just go around insulting me all the time?”

“What are you asking her for?” I scream. “She’s an Assassin, she doesn’t care.”

“I resent the way you always imply I have no feelings,” says Hanama.

“Oh for God’s sake, what’s going on here? Who’s responsible for this? Is the Association of Gentlewomen driving you all insane?”

“I’m not familiar with them,” says Hanama.

“Never been to a meeting,” claims Makri.

We start hewing our way through the still-growing vegetation.

“I need a new place to live,” says Makri to Hanama. “It’s hell in the Avenging Axe with Thraxas rolling around drunk all the time. It’s putting me off my food.”

The hedge in front of us once more erupts in flame. I get ready to fight, but rather than Ramius it’s Lisutaris who appears, with her water pipe in one hand and Princess Direeva leaning on her shoulder.

“I still don’t believe that Copro is Covinius,” says the Sorcerer.

“Copro?” exclaims Hanama. “Copro the beautician is Covinius?”

“According to Thraxas,” says Makri. “But you know how trustworthy he is.”

Makri asks Direeva if it could have been Copro who shot her but as the Princess did not see her assailant’s face, she can’t say for sure.

“The bolt caught me unawares. My protection charm deflected it enough to save my life.”

“If he’s the Assassin, why didn’t he try and kill me when he was doing my hair?” asks Lisutaris.

“Maybe professional ethics forbade it. And we should discuss this later. Right now we have to get out of here. Ramius is unconscious and I have the answer, so if we can get back to Charius, you win the test.”

Seeing the sense in this, Lisutaris starts burning away the huge hedge that surrounds us and we make progress back towards the clearing. The snow has now stopped but the ground is frozen, and we slip and slide as we go. High in the sky the sun has gone blue and shrunk to a fraction of its normal size, as if mocking us.

By this time Direeva is looking less than healthy. Blood is still seeping from her shoulder. I ask her if she has enough power left to get us discreetly home without alerting Charius. She thinks so.

“It’s the clearing,” cries Makri.

“It’s Ramius,” cries Lisutaris.

He’s dead. The Simnian Sorcerer is lying in the clearing with a great gash in his neck.

I turn to Lisutaris and demand to know if she killed him. She denies it. I shake my head. Just like she didn’t kill Darius.

“It would have made my job a lot simpler if they’d told me you were going to butcher all your opponents. I’d have planned accordingly.”

“I have not killed anyone,” insists the Mistress of the Sky. “Although this is going to be hard to explain to the Sorcerers Guild. They get suspicious if someone dies in the final test.”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “If things look bad for you, I’ll just tell them you were too stoned to walk, let alone kill Ramius.”