would need both in the morning. If he was like Dema, he would wake feeling as if someone had run a hot wire through his veins.
What would it have done to him, Dema wondered, to wake at twenty with strange magic on his back? He wasn’t sure. Like every other child of Clan Nomasdina, at the age of five he had been interviewed by mage testers. Once they proclaimed him a fledgling mage, Dema began the years of lessons, experiments, tests and study under various teachers. After he’d earned his credential from Heskalifos at twenty-two, he’d chosen a career, knowing that his position as a mage would make his advancement easier.
He had not known that the average arurim’s view of a new mage was one of cheerful contempt. One of them had advised him to “cast your little magic and don’t bump into the furniture”. They were laughing at him tonight, as Dema went everywhere with a basket on his arm. No matter that the nearness of the lightning globe made the hair on his arm prickle, or that every time he accidentally touched it he got a small, nasty sting. He wanted the thing where he could see it when the lightnings cleared.
In the meantime, he investigated the newest victim. Her name was Rhidassa; she had been a tumbler and a dancer. She left behind a husband and two children, all shattered by her death. She had not told them if she had noticed anyone strange loitering about in her last days of work. Her family’s blank faces and hard, shiny eyes told Dema that they might not tell him if they did know of such a person. Fortunately his truth spell worked on them. That was reassuring: his self-confidence had suffered when Kethlun’s magic had scorched it from existence. That was the problem with spells cast by those without innate ability as truthsayers: they were easily destroyed by strong magic.
Dema was drinking tea at his favourite shop on Peacock Street when he wondered if Keth realized just how strong his power was. Probably not, since he’d taken his failure to clear the globe he’d just made personally. Dema hoped Tris would tell Keth that he had done better today than most student mages did after years of study.
Two hours before sunrise Dema realized he’d brushed the globe without being stung. Looking at it, he saw that the surface lightning was reduced to specks that flashed and vanished. The bolts inside looked as if they were thinning out. At that point he gave up any pretence of investigating further. He ordered a horse saddled and a squad of arurimi prepared to ride with him, then sat at his desk to wait for the globe to clear. It did, an hour before dawn, to show a dark-skinned yaskedasu in a flowing, silvery kyten. She lay on an altar Dema did not recognize, the yellow veil knotted around her throat.
He ran outside to the arurimi he’d kept waiting. “Do any of you know where this is?” he demanded, holding out the globe.
They gathered around, bleary-eyed and no doubt thinking of the end of their shifts in two hours. Most shook their heads, but a twenty-year veteran frowned. She traced the line of the altar and the image of a cow-headed goddess behind it with her finger.
“Do you know it, sergeant?” asked Dema. “Quickly, if you do.”
“It’s a shenos temple, one of them inland religions,” she replied, squinting. “Oh, aye, the Temple of Ngohi. But Dhaskoi, it’s near the crossing of Apricot Street and Honour Street in Fourth District. Out of our boundaries.”
“I don’t care if it’s in Piraki,” retorted Dema. “Come on.” He put the globe in his saddlebag, mounted his horse, and galloped out of the courtyard without waiting to see if the amrimi followed or not. He urged his horse onward through the nearly empty streets, the animal’s hooves striking sparks from the cobblestones. Late guests of Khapik, staggering home, scattered out of his way.
The temple’s doors were unlocked. Dema seized his mage’s kit and rushed in, searching for the altar. There was the statue, three times the height of a normal human being. The altar, and the latest victim, were in front of it.
He approached as he fumbled in his kit for heartbeat powder. He didn’t know how long it would take for the priests to arrive, but he had to learn as much from the dead woman as he could. He sprinkled the powder over her, watching