Keth looked from Tris to Niko. “Oh, no,” he said, voice shaking. “Not her.”
“I’m afraid so,” replied Niko. “She is a lightning mage. You may have noticed,” he added drily.
“I don’t understand,” said Tris, but she was afraid she did, all too well. She had tried to find other lightning mages, just as she had tried to find other mages who could master the forces of the earth or of the sea, with little success. It seemed that, of all the ambient magics, weather was the most dangerous. It drew its power from all over the world. Mages who tried to do more than call rainstorms or work the winds often misjudged their ability to handle the forces that supplied their power, and were crushed. It had been in the back of her mind since Niko had shown her the lightning in Chime, that Keth would have trouble finding a teacher who could help with that aspect of his power.
“Of course you understand,” replied Niko.
Tris glared at him. Niko knew her too well.
“Moreover, you will do your duty,” Niko added, looking down his nose at her. “You accepted that when you donned the medallion of your certification.”
About to argue or even refuse, Tris made the mistake of looking at Keth. He was the picture of misery, blood dripping from the needles in his flesh, lines of exhaustion bracketing his mouth, dark circles under his eyes. Instead of speaking as she had meant to, she pulled out a chair with one hand. “Sit,” she ordered Keth. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
For once the Elya Street arurimat was quiet when Dema sat at his desk. The night patrols had gone out; the higher-ranking officers had left. With no one to hang over his shoulder, Dema took out the envelope of reports on the Ghost murders, from Nioki’s, the first, to Iralima’s, the most recent. He’d had two arurimi carry in a long worktable: now he used it to lay out the notes on each killing in order, so he could look for a pattern.
He was studying them when an arurim rapped on his door. “Dhaskoi Nomasdina, there is something you should see.”
Dema turned, scowling. Standing beside the arurim was a little Tharian who wore the yellow stole of a clerk or scribe, hemmed with the white key pattern of Heskalifos. He clutched a covered basket with hands that shook. The silk of the cover shone to Dema’s magical vision: spells for purification and containment were stitched into every centimetre of the cloth.
“I took it to the Heskalifos arurimat,” the clerk explained, wheezing. “The captain there said to bring it to you. It was blown by a man who claimed to possess magic. He was at Heskalifos looking for a teacher. When he made this, it was just covered in lightning.”
“And now it is not?” asked Dema, taking the basket. If this was a joke at his expense, he would seek revenge, he thought as he pulled the silk covering aside. He had too much to do without dealing with jokes.
Inside the basket was a globe of clear glass that sparkled. Curious, Dema touched a spark: it stung.
“Lightning, you say?” he asked. He went to his mages’ kit and got his leather gloves.
“Miniature,” replied the clerk, wheezing still.
Dema glanced at his two guests as he pulled on his gloves. “Arurim, perhaps a cup of water for the koris?”
The arurim bowed and hurried off. Dema lifted the globe from the basket. The globe was fully fifteen centimetres wide and perfectly round, with something inside. When Dema held it before his eyes, he saw a room in its depths. It looked to be some public space. He saw a thirty-centimetre-high dais with seven backless chairs. Beyond it was a good-sized room furnished with benches, and another, smaller dais with a podium, set to face the chairs.
A dead woman lay on the big dais before the chairs. Dema knew she was dead: there was no mistaking the swollen, dark face of a strangler’s victim, even under a yaskedasu’s make-up. She was dressed in a tumbler’s leggings and short tunic, with brightly coloured short ribbons stitched into the seams. The yellow noose itself was lost in the swelling of her neck, but the bright yellow ends of a yaskedasu’s veil once more lay straight from her side, almost as if they were placed to make the delegates seated in the chair look right at the body.