his belt-purse. “Or tracking aids, I’m not sure which.”
She smiled at him proudly. “Very good. You’re learning the most important thing an ambient mage can learn. Your power shapes itself to your need, if you put some thought into it.”
Keth’s need to create a globe with a new image of a murder blossomed at last, shortly before they would have stopped for the day. Keth worked the glass with care. When it was done, he and Tris went outside. There he drew the lightning out of the globe, imagining his hand as a pair of tongs and the lightning itself as glass that he pulled into a new shape. Once he worked part of the lightning free of the globe, he sent it streaming to Tris. She guided it up into the sky, where it slithered into thunderheads that had already begun to voice the odd rumble or two.
A white mist remained inside the globe, hiding whatever image was there. Keth gritted his teeth in frustration, so hard that he heard them creak, and closed down the workshop for the day. He, Glaki, Tris, Chime and the dog were on their way to Elya Street when Glaki pointed to the globe in his hands. It was clearing.
The sky opened up. Instantly Tris did something. The rain that drenched their surroundings slid around them. Under that invisible umbrella they walked up to the steps of the Elya Street arurimat, where a soaked Dema waited for them. Tris instantly spread her rain protection to include the arurim dhaskoi. When she was close enough that she could speak quietly and be heard, she told him what she’d heard the yaskedasi say the night before about the disguised arurim.
“Ouch,” Dema said, glancing at Keth’s globe. “I never realized…”
“Tell your people not to be so grim,” advised Tris. “Real yaskedasi smile and laugh all the time, even if they don’t want to. They know they have to be pleasing and pleasant for the customers, and never show what they really think.”
Keth raised his eyebrows. “You’ve learned a lot,” he pointed out as he passed the globe to Dema.
Tris shrugged. “Are you going to try to hunt the Ghost again tonight?”
Keth hung his head. “I know I’ll probably go all weak in the knees and have to come home before we even get a whiff of him, but I have to try,” he confessed. “I hate sitting about doing nothing while he’s out there.”
From the way Tris looked at him, he suspected that she felt much the same way. “Well, I can’t keep Glaki out until all hours,” she replied, confirming his suspicion. “We’ll see you later.”
Dema ushered Keth and his globe into the arurimat. The outer chamber was crammed with arurimi, both those in standard uniform and the ones disguised as yaskedasi. They gathered around eagerly as Keth and Dema inspected the globe. It showed a Khapik stream bank. A lone yaskedasu took shelter from the rain under a huge willow there. Keth turned the globe, but no matter how they shifted it, no one could see behind the tree or into the shadows behind a shrine in the background. All they could tell was that it was one of many dedicated to the gods of entertainment.
“We stick to the streams, then,” Dema ordered. “You women, keep your eyes open and your whistles handy. If you even suspect something, don’t play the hero, whistle for your team. I don’t want to lose any people to this human malipi, you understand? My command post will be at the Sign of the Winking Eye on Fortunate Street.” He looked at each of them. “Any questions?”
“Oh,” Keth said, remembering his day’s work. He carefully extracted one of the bubble globes from his purse and called to the fire and lightning in it. The bubble threw off a burst of darting colours. “If you see one of these, it means we know something,” he told them. “Put your hand up to stop it, then follow it back to us.”
Dema took the bubble. Its lights gleamed through his long brown ringers. “I’ll be switched,” he murmured. “Oh, I like these.” He handed it back to Keth. “Could you make more?”
Keth shrugged. “Given materials and shop time, yes.”
“That’d be a nice thing for patrols and such,” said a sergeant. “Be nicer if they weren’t so showy. If it were empty, like, it could fetch your partner back to you, without everybody hearing the whistle.”