Martin Scott - Death and Thraxas

Death and Thraxas

Martin Scott

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are

fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

form.

A Baen Book

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-7434-8850-4

Cover art by Tom Kidd

First U.S. printing, September 2004

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Typeset by Bell Road Press, Sherwood, OR

Printed in the United States of America

BAEN BOOKS by MARTIN SCOTT:

Thraxas

at the

Races

Chapter One

I step out of the law courts. It's still raining. A huge clap of thunder explodes in the sky. I growl with

annoyance.

"Terrific. The judge just fined me everything I have left, it's the rainy season and now the storms have

started."

The sky is turning very ugly. My face is much the same. I can't remember being in a worse mood.

Ex-Deputy Consul Rittius certainly managed to put one over on me this time. If I ever meet him in a dark

alley I'll skewer him with a rusty dagger. It won't even have to be dark. Any alley will do.

"You still have some money left," says Makri.

"I lost a little at the out-of-town chariot races."

"A little? How much?"

I shake my head, which Makri correctly interprets to mean everything I had. Lightning splits the sky.

Rain starts pelting down harder than ever. A small, mean-faced figure emerges from the law courts, the

white of his official toga showing under his fur-lined cloak. It's Senator Rittius, formerly Deputy Consul of

Turai, and still head of Palace Security. He's flanked by eight Guards. I consider running him through

anyway, but hold myself back.

He sticks his thin face close to mine. "You were lucky, Thraxas," he says, with loathing in his voice.

"The judge was far too lenient. If I had my way you'd be rowing a slave galley by now."

"Really? If you bother me any more, ratface, you'll be handing in your toga way ahead of schedule."

"Don't threaten me, fat man," hisses Rittius. "Or I'll have you back in court so fast it'll make you dizzy.

I'm still head of Palace Security. You take one step outside the law and I'll be down on you like a bad

spell. Your life in Turai is finished. I advise you to leave while you still can."

I stare at Rittius with hatred. I did him a very bad turn a while back. In the course of an investigation

last summer I seriously dented his political ambitions and caused him to lose the election for Deputy

Consul. I still feel good about it.

"Stay out my way," I tell him. "Your Guard won't stop me gutting you if I get a notion to."

My hand strays towards the sword at my hip. Rittius flinches, very slightly. He knows I could do it.

He recovers himself quickly, and sneers at me.

"I think you'll find you've got far too much on your plate to go around inflicting violence on your

betters," he says.

Rittius departs. His Guards march after him through the rain in good order.

"You certainly know how to make influential friends," says Makri. She offers to buy me a beer and

we hurry through the ever increasing downpour to the tavern at the edge of the law courts where the

accused steady their nerves before their ordeal and the barristers spend their fees afterwards.

"How long did you say this rain lasted?" asks Makri, who's only recently arrived in Turai, and has not

yet become used to our seasons.

"A month. And it'll get worse now the storms have arrived. Last year Gurd had to shore up the walls

of the Avenging Axe with sandbags."

Makri and I live at the Avenging Axe, a tavern in Twelve Seas. It's not much of a place to live, but

nowhere is in Twelve Seas, the rough area by the docks. It's the sort of place you end up if your life isn't

going too well. Like for instance if you're a highly paid Senior Investigator working at the Imperial Palace

who is booted out of his job for alleged drunkenness, insubordination and whatever else it was I was

accused of.

Rittius was my boss back then. He hated me then and since I put one over on him last summer it's

become even worse. I helped clear a Royal Princess's name as well as the son of Rittius's opponent of

serious charges. Rittius promptly lost the election. I knew he'd be out to get me but I never thought he'd

stoop so low as to use his position at the Palace to drag me through the courts accused of assaulting an

officer of the law.

"What the hell was I supposed to do?" I complain as I sink my flagon of ale and hold it out for a refill.

"I needed that landus in a hurry. I could hardly stand around asking politely, could I? So I hauled the guy

out and roughed him up a bit. I wasn't to know he was a Praetor's Assistant on a secret mission for the

King. He wasn't even wearing an official toga."

I'm seething with the injustice of it all.

"I thought I'd get through the Hot Rainy Season without having to work. I hate investigating in the

rain. Now I'm broke I'll have to."

Gurd, the ageing Barbarian who owns the Avenging Axe, is an old fighting companion. We were

soldiers and mercenaries together. He tolerates a fair amount by having a Private Investigator like myself

as a tenant. Only last month the place was practically wrecked when the Brotherhood, the local criminal

gang, slugged it out with two bands of warrior monks in the downstairs bar. Gurd figures the least I can

do is pay the rent on time. Which, until my unwise speculations on the recent out-of-town chariot races, I

fully intended to do.

"Do you ever win at the races?"

"Of course, I win plenty."

Makri scoffs. She claims she could find more winners at the chariot races than me by simply throwing

a dart at the form sheet. I remind her that she's an ignorant Barbarian with Orc blood in her veins who's

so unused to civilisation she still finds it awkward to use cutlery.

"Stick to what you're good at, Makri."

"Like what?"

"Like killing people. You're good at that."

Makri accepts the compliment. It's true enough. Since Makri escaped from the Orcs' gladiator slave

pits last year and headed on over to civilisation, she's proved herself pretty much invincible with a sword

in her hand. This has been of great benefit to me on several occasions when my investigations have gotten

nasty. They often do. During the attack of the warrior monks Makri demonstrated her skills in such a

savage and devastating manner that Captain Rallee was left shaking his head in amazement, and Captain

Rallee has seen a lot of fighting in his time.

"But superior fighting skills count for nothing at the race track. The problem was that the out-of-town

meeting was fixed. You can't trust the resident Sorcerers at these small events. Not like here in the city.

With Melus the Fair as Stadium Sorcerer you know everything is above board. She's practically the only

honest person in Turai. She ensures that magic is never used at the Stadium Superbius. But that small

meeting was a joke. I swear the chariot that won the last race wouldn't have made it out of the stable

without a spell to show the horses which way to go. I should have known better than to gamble on it.

There again, I wasn't expecting Rittius to drag me into court the following week."

"Could have been worse," says Makri, paying for my third beer. "You might be rowing a trireme by

now. Rittius really hates you. How badly did you behave at his wedding anyway?"

"Pretty badly," I admit. "But if he wanted the guests to remain in order he shouldn't have provided so

much free wine. That's strong stuff they ship up from the Elvish Islands. And his bride should have been

better covered up. That dress was hardly modest."

I stare gloomily at the bar. Since the unfortunate incident at the wedding, the last few years have been

pretty rough. Now I'll have to find a case and investigate it. Damn it. I really hate working in the rainy

season.

Outside rain pours down and thunder rumbles overhead. I notice a Sorcerer walking towards us,

easily identifiable by his rainbow cloak. He's a large man with a weighty-looking staff in his hand. He

stops in front of me and pulls back his hood revealing a pair of steely eyes and a square jaw line. My

heart sinks. It's Glixius Dragon Killer. I thought he'd left town.

"I'm going to kill you, Thraxas," he says, in his deep voice.

"What, right now? Or some other time when you've got nothing better to do?"

Glixius fixes me with his steely gaze for a second or two, then turns and marches off without another

word.

Makri is shielding her eyes with her hand as if trying to pick out something on the horizon.

"What are you doing?"

"Seeing where the next deadly enemy is coming from."

"Very funny. Rittius and now Glixius. Some day."

Glixius Dragon Killer is a powerful Sorcerer associated with the Society of Friends, Turai's second

major criminal organisation. Funnily enough, I did him a very bad turn this summer as well. It was a big

summer for doing bad turns to powerful people. I foiled his plot to steal Red Elvish Cloth. I punched him

in the face too, as I recall, though he was all out of magic at the time.

There isn't a landus to be found anywhere so we trudge home through the rain. I'm gloomier than

ever. What a day. The state fines me all my money and two deadly enemies threaten me.

"It wouldn't be so bad if I ever made any profit out of this investigating business."

"You do," points out Makri. "But you spend most of it on beer and gamble the rest away."

Makri is a very hard worker. She works shifts as a barmaid at the Avenging Axe to pay for her

classes at the Guild College. She's not above occasionally pointing out to me the error of my ways. Not

that Makri doesn't have her share of faults. I strongly suspect that she's been experimenting with dwa, the

powerful drug that has half the city in its grip, though she always denies it.

"Give me a turn with the magic dry cloak," she says.

"No chance," I reply. "I need it more than you. If I'm about to get attacked by Palace Security and a

deadly Sorcerer, I need to be comfortable."

I wrap myself tighter in the magic dry cloak. Makri makes a face. It's odd. In her short life she's

fought and defeated practically every kind of beast and warrior known and she will charge an impossible

force of enemies without the slightest qualm, but she really detests getting wet.

"Damn this rain. At least it was dry in the gladiator slave pits," she grumbles. "I hate this Hot Rainy

Season. How can it be hot as Orcish hell and wet as a Mermaid's blanket at the same time?"

She pulls her thin cloak over her vast mane of hair. If she's trying to make me feel guilty she's wasting

her time. I didn't spend all that time studying sorcery to learn how to make a magic dry cloak just to hand

it over to the first person that asks.

"Where are we going?" asks Makri, as I take a diversion down a series of twisting alleyways.

"I'm calling in at Honest Mox's."

"Honest Mox the bookie? But the Stadium Superbius is shut in the rainy season."

"There's a race meeting in Juval. It's dry there at this time of year."

Juval is a small nation, another member of the League of City-States to which Turai belongs. It's a

couple of hundred miles southeast of Turai. Makri wonders how I can bet on chariot races so far away. I

explain to her that the bookmakers here band together to pay a Sorcerer to transmit messages to another

Sorcerer at the race track in Juval. He sends up the runners and the prices and afterwards transmits the

results. It's not an uncommon practice among gamblers in Turai to bet on these races. Makri is

impressed, though somewhat surprised to find Sorcerers engaged in such practices.

"I thought they all concerned themselves with higher callings."

"Well, mainly young Apprentices take the work. The Sorcerers Guild doesn't really approve but, hey,

it's good practice for sending messages, which is handy in wartime."

"Haven't you lost enough recently?"

"That's why I have to win it back. I have an emergency supply for just this situation."

Mox the bookmaker is, as ever, pleased to see me. He's chalked the runners in the next race in Juval

up on a board. I study the form.

"How do you know the Sorcerers transmit everything honestly?" asks Makri.

I admit that this can be a worry. Race Sorcerers have been known to be dishonest, but it's a risk I'm

prepared to take. I've never had any trouble with the meeting in Juval. It's a small track, usually with only

four chariots in each race. I can't see anything beating the favourite, a fine chariot from Samsarina called

Glorious Warrior. It's only even money so I place twenty gurans on it.

"You're wasting your money," sniffs Makri.

"Oh, yes? You won't say that when I pick up my twenty gurans winnings tomorrow."

Chapter Two

We trudge on down Moon and Stars Boulevard till we reach Twelve Seas. Around the law courts

the rain was bouncing off the statues of past kings and heroes of Turai, running down the marble

pavements into the well-maintained gutters. In the smarter parts of Turai public utilities such as drainage

are a marvel of engineering. Not so in Twelve Seas. Here the downpour turns the dirt streets to mud.

After ten days of rain the place looks pretty bad. Another twenty to go. Twelve Seas is hell in the Hot

Rainy Season.

"My shift starts in two minutes and I'm wet as a Mermaid's blanket," complains Makri, and hurries off

to change.

I climb the outside stairs leading directly from Quintessence Street into my office above the tavern.

There's a sign outside my door: Finest Sorcerous Investigator in the City of Turai. The rain is starting

to peel off the paint where it flaked in the burning summer sun. Sorcerous Investigator. Big joke. I studied

as an Apprentice but that was a long time ago. Now my powers are of the lowest grade, mere tricks

compared with the skills of Turai's great Wizards.

I should do something about that sign. It looks cheap. I'm probably the cheapest Sorcerous

Investigator in the whole of Turai but there's no need to brag about it. I'm forty-three, overweight,

without ambition, prone to prolonged bouts of drinking and I take on the sort of case the Civil Guards

won't help with for the sort of client that can't afford one of the high-class Investigators uptown. I charge

ten gurans a day plus expenses which is never going to make me rich.

Things were looking up. This summer I solved a couple of important cases, earned myself a fair bit of

reward money, improved my reputation in certain important circles. With a bit of luck I might have made

it out of Twelve Seas back into proper society again. Now that I've been dragged through the courts on

a charge of assaulting an official of the King, I'm back at square one. No money, and no reputation.

The atmosphere is cloying. The Hot Rainy Season is unbearable. It's like a steam bath out there. If it

wasn't for my magic dry cloak I don't think I could cope. As my magic is so poor nowadays, I can

generally only carry one or two spells around at a time. Usually I take a sleep spell, which is highly

effective in rendering opponents unconscious, and maybe something like a loud explosion to cause a

diversion. The days when I could work invisibility and levitation are long gone. Right now my entire

sorcerous ability is concentrated on keeping dry. If I happen to meet five or six opponents at once I'll just

have to rely on my sword.

My office is a mess. I kick some junk under the table, grab a beer from the supply in the sink and

drop down on the couch muttering a few oaths about the unfairness of life. I fought for this damned city in

the last Orc Wars. Helped throw back the savage horde that threatened to overwhelm us from the east.

Not to mention the sterling service I gave the city in the war before that, with Nioj, when our enemies

from the north swept through the mountain passes and damn near threw us all into the sea. And is anyone

grateful? No chance. To hell with them all.

There's a knock on the outside door.

"To hell with you all," I shout.

The knock comes again. I'm in no mood for company. I shout out another curse, finish my beer and

prepare to toss the bottle at the doorframe. The door opens and in walks Senator Mursius, one of Turai's

greatest war heroes and my old commander from the Army. He's tall, erect, silver-haired and extremely

vigorous-looking for a man of fifty. Pretty angry-looking as well.

"What is the meaning of this?" he demands in a voice that takes me straight back to the parade

ground. "I am not accustomed to former soldiers treating me with disrespect."

I scramble to my feet. Senator Mursius was the last person I expected to walk into my office. Great

heroes of Turai tend not to visit. It must be fifteen years since we last spoke, probably around the time

when the platoon commanded by Mursius was holding out at a breach in our walls made by the besieging

Orc Army, and I was one of the unfortunate soldiers forming a human shield to keep them at bay. I've

seen him since of course, in one of the galleries reserved for Senators at the theatre or the Stadium

Superbius, but I doubt if he ever noticed me.

Now he's noticed, he's not looking too impressed.

"You always were a disgusting apology for a soldier," he barks. "I see that time hasn't improved you."

Mursius is still a big man and he wears his white senatorial toga with a majestic air. I'm only in my

underwear, which probably isn't helping things. I struggle back into my tunic and clear some junk from a

chair.

"Won't you sit down, Senator Mursius?"

"You've put on a lot of weight," he says, eyeing my girth with the sort of disapproving gaze he used to

reserve for ill-attired recruits. "And you've come down in the world."

He knows all about my fall from grace. He's not unsympathetic. As a soldier he has little time for

Palace politics.

"A vipers' nest, the Palace. You should never have taken a job there in the first place. Why did you

do it?"

"The pay was good."

"Look where it got you."

He looks around my shabby room. "Did Rittius clean you out in court?"

I nod.

"Rittius is a snake. Never did a day's fighting in his life. That's the sort of person who's running Turai

these days. I take it you are looking for work?"

I nod again.

"I need the services of an Investigator. Nothing too complicated, or so I believe. I'd normally have

hired a man closer to home, but I thought you might be in need of employment."

I ask him why exactly he thought that and he replies that he keeps an eye on most of the men who

fought under him.

"You weren't too bad that day at the walls, Thraxas. I'd be sorry to see you starve. Though I see that

would take a while. I hear you have a reputation as a good Investigator. When you can stay sober. How

often can you stay sober?"

"Practically all the time if the case really calls for it."

A knock comes on the inner door that leads downstairs into the tavern. It opens before I get the

chance to answer it. Makri has little concept of personal privacy. You have to make allowances for her.

She grew up in a slave pit, after all.

For the first time Mursius shows some surprise. Makri can be a surprising sight if you're not prepared

for it. Though only slightly taller than your average Turanian woman, she carries herself erect like a

warrior, lithe and strong like a fierce chagra cat from the Simnian jungle. She has large dark eyes, almost

black, a huge mane of dark hair and strikingly attractive features, but what usually impresses anyone

visiting the Avenging Axe for the first time is Makri's shape. Makri has plenty of shape—and her shape is

difficult to miss given the tiny chainmail bikini she wears while working as a barmaid. The purpose of this

of course is to earn tips from the dockers, sailors and mercenaries who make up most of Gurd's clientele.

The next thing people generally notice about Makri is the reddish, slightly dark hue of her skin. Makri

is one quarter Orc, and that means trouble. She's quarter Elf as well, which is fine in Turai, where

everyone likes Elves, but the Orc blood leads to all sorts of difficulties. Everyone in Turai hates the Orcs.

Though we are technically at peace with them now and have even signed a treaty and swapped

Ambassadors, you don't need too long a memory to recall the days when they were besieging the city.

All of which means that Makri's Orc blood is bad news in Turai. The drinkers in the tavern are fairly

used to it but Makri still wouldn't be allowed into a high-class tavern uptown, or various official buildings.

She is often insulted in the street. I'd worry about her more if it wasn't for the fact that she's probably the

most lethal fighter in Turai, if not the entire west. I've spent most of my life fighting, and I can't recall ever

meeting anyone more deadly with a sword, an axe, or anything that comes to hand.

Senator Mursius stares at her in surprise. There is an awkward silence.

"I've got pointed ears as well," says Makri, which is true, though they're usually hidden beneath her

huge mass of hair.

"Excuse me," says the Senator apologetically. He glances at the sword at her hip. "An Orc blade?"

Makri nods. "I brought it with me."

Mursius looks at it with interest. As a professional soldier he always was interested in weaponry.

"Fine work," he says with approval. "The Orcs are excellent armourers, whatever people say. Quite

as good as the best Human smiths. You say you brought it with you?"

"From the Orc gladiator pits. I used to fight there. Before I killed the Orc Lord who owned me,

slaughtered his entourage, escaped down a sheer cliff face and took a job as a barmaid instead."

"Interesting. Your attire seems hardly suitable for fighting, however."

"You're right," agrees Makri. "Only a fool would go fighting in a bikini. But it gets me tips. When I'm

on duty I hide the sword behind the bar." She departs downstairs.

"A very interesting woman," says Mursius. "Half Orc?"

"A quarter. Quarter Elf as well. And half Human, though that doesn't make her act like one."

The Senator studies me with interest. He's wondering if he wants to hire an Investigator who's having

a relationship with a quarter Orc. He needn't worry. I'm not having a relationship with Makri, or anyone

else for that matter. Haven't had one for a long time. I went off women when my wife left me for a young

Sorcerer's Apprentice some years ago. I took to drink instead. Actually I had taken to drink some time

before she left, but afterwards I had much more time for it.

"So, how can I help you?"

The Senator tells me that he has suffered from a theft at his country house further down the coast,

near to Ferai. Like any wealthy citizen, the Senator keeps a house in town and another in the country for

retiring to when the weather gets too intense.

"My losses are not great. There wasn't much money at the villa, but various works of art have gone

missing and I'd like them recovered. In particular I'd like you to find a painting which I hold very dear."

Remembering Mursius in his younger days, storming the Orc lines with a bloody sword in his hand, I

never figured him as an art lover. You can never tell with these aristocrats, though. Men of Mursius's

generation went naturally into war and fought bravely, but they learned their share of social graces as

well. There used to be a theory among the aristocratic class that it was important to enrich every aspect

of one's personality. But Turai was different in those days. Since the gold mines in the north started

producing wealth and the drug trade brought dwa in from the south, the city is both much richer and

much more corrupt. Today's young aristocrats spend their time in debauchery and bribe their way out of

military service.

"What have the Civil Guards done about it?"

"I have not informed them."

I raise one eyebrow. Calling in the Guards would be the normal thing to do, unless there was some

delicate aspect Mursius would rather not reveal in public. I was half expecting something like this. People

do tend to come to me only in desperate circumstances.

"I have not informed them," continues Mursius, "because I strongly suspect that my wife was behind

the theft."

"Your wife?"

The Senator expresses some anxiety about the private nature of his disclosures. I reassure him of my

discretion. I have plenty of faults but I never blab about a client, even if it gets me thrown in jail. Which it

does, often enough.

Outside the rain beats against the shutters, drowning out the other noise from the street. That's the

only good thing about the Hot Rainy Season. It keeps most of the squealing brats that infest the area

indoors.

"We have been estranged for some time. We stay together because it suits us not to part. I'm sure

you understand."

I do. For a city as immoral as Turai, where almost everyone can be bought, the public still places a

surprisingly high value on the morality of our public figures. If a Senator finds himself involved in a messy

divorce case it can do great damage to his career and completely end his chances of advancing up the

ladder of Prefect, Praetor, Deputy Consul and Consul. They tend to keep their problems hushed up and

well away from the scandal sheets. Their wives generally go along with it. It suits them better to remain

married and keep their wealth and social standing rather than risk finding themselves out on the market

again.

"So, why would she rob you?"

"My wife is often desperate for money."

"You don't give her an allowance?"

"Not for dwa, no."

Right. Not for dwa. That makes sense. Since the southern trade routes were opened up, this

powerful narcotic has flooded into the city. The effect on the population has been dramatic. Beggars,

sailors, youthful apprentices, whores, itinerants, rich young things: all manner of people once content to

alleviate their sufferings with ale and occasional doses of the much milder drug thazis now spend their

days lost in the powerful dreams of dwa. Unfortunately dwa is both expensive and addictive. Once you

take your dose you're as happy as an Elf in a tree, but when you come down you feel bad. Regular users

who spend part of their lives lost in its pleasant grip are obliged to spend the other part raising money for

more.

Since dwa swept Turai, crime has accelerated out of control. In many parts of Turai it's not safe to

walk the streets at night for fear of violent robbery. The city is rotting. The poor are despairing and the

rich are decadent. One day King Lamachus of Nioj will come down from the north and sweep us away.

"Is she a serious addict?"

"Very serious. She's tried to stop but—"

He holds his hands out in a hopeless gesture.

"For the past six months she's been down at the villa. It was her idea. Said it would help her to get

straight. From what the servants tell me, it hasn't worked out. I've tried doctors, Sorcerers, herbalists,

everything. Nothing does any good. She always comes back to dwa. Eventually I tried cutting off her

money, just sending down a servant with supplies."

Martin Scott - Death and Thraxas

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