Unclean

"You make it sound as if he'll drain sustenance from me like a leech."

"No more than your reflection in any other glass."

Bareris still didn't like the sound of it. "Won't you miss him?"

"No. I wish him well, but I told you, my needs and feelings aren't like yours."

Bareris decided it wasn't worth further argument. The truth was, if he meant to go on living, he did need help, besides which, if Mirror insisted on accompanying him, he probably couldn't stop him anyway. But if they were to be companions, he ought to stop talking about the ghost as if he weren't there, even though he barely was.

He cast about and found a streak of blur hanging in the air. "Thank you," he said. "I'm grateful for your aid."

As he'd expected, Mirror made no reply.

chapter twelve

9-11 Kythorn, the Year of Risen Elfkin

Yaphyll looked around the shabby, cluttered parlor, a room in a nondescript house that Dmitra Flass probably owned under another name. It was easy to imagine a goodwife shooing her children out of the chamber so she could dust the cheap ceramic knickknacks and scrub the floor, or her husband drinking ale and swapping ribald jokes with his cronies from the coopers' guild. Today, however, the occupants were rather more august.

Voluptuous by Mulan standards, the "First Princess of Thay" was as a

Though Yaphyll remained dubious that attending Dmitra's secret meeting was actually a wise idea, she found it marginally reassuring that the tharchion seemed as ill at ease as everyone else. Oh, she masked it well, but every Red Wizard of Divination mastered the art of reading faces and body language, and Yaphyll could tell nonetheless. Dmitra likely would have manifested a different sort of nervous tension had she been engaged in a plot to harm or undermine her superiors.

On the other hand, Dmitra was a Red Wizard of Illusion, so how could anyone be certain whether to trust appearances where she was concerned?

At least, now that Samas had finally waddled in and collapsed onto a couch substantial enough to support his bulk, Dmitra appeared ready to commence.

"Masters," she said, "thank you for indulging me. Ordinarily, I wouldn't presume to take the lead in a meeting with my superiors, but since-"

"Since you're the only one who knows what in the name of the Dark Sun we're here to talk about," Lallara snapped, "it only makes sense. We understand, and you have our permission to get on with it."

"Thank you, Your Omnipotence. I'm concerned about the welfare of the realm, worried and suspicious because I have information you lack and have thus been able to draw inferences you haven't."

"What are they?" Samas asked, fa

"That Szass Tam murdered both Druxus Rhym and Aznar Thrul, that he betrayed a Thayan army to its foes, and that he disseminated a false report of a Rashemi invasion."

Lallara laughed. "This is ludicrous."

"If we consider the evidence, Your Omnipotence, perhaps I can persuade you otherwise. May we start with the assassination of Druxus Rhym?"

"By all means," Samas said. "It seems like the quickest way to lay your suspicions to rest. As I understand it, the murderer used evocation magic to make the kill."

"As could any of us," Dmitra replied. "We all tend to rely on spells deriving from our particular specialties, but in fact, each of us possesses a more comprehensive knowledge of magic. Certainly that's true of Szass Tam, universally recognized as the most accomplished wizard in the land. My conjecture is that he used the spells he did precisely to throw suspicion on the order of Evocation, Aznar Thrul being one of his enemies."

"But Druxus wasn't," Yaphyll said. "He was Szass Tam's ally, no less than any of us. Szass had no motive to kill him."

"He had one," Dmitra replied, "to which we'll return again: to create a climate of fear. I'll grant you, that by itself isn't sufficient motive to turn on a supporter, and as yet I can't resolve the discrepancy, but I can demonstrate that Szass Tam hasn't sought the identity of the murderer with the zeal one would expect of a compatriot with nothing to hide."

"How so?" Lallara asked.

"I have the most competent spy network in the realm, and Szass Tam knows it. Over the years, it's served him well, yet he virtually forbade me to use my agents to seek the identity of the assassin. He said that you, Mistress Yaphyll, would attend to it."

Yaphyll blinked. "I tried for a while. In fact, Szass and I tried together. Then when our divinations failed to reveal anything, he suggested I turn my attention to other concerns and said he would continue to hunt for the killer by other means. I assumed he was referring to your spies."

"None of that proves anything," Samas said.

He looked about, spotted the drink and viands laid out on a table by the wall, and made a mystic gesture in their direction. A bottle floated into the air and poured red wine into a goblet. A knife smeared honey on a sweet roll.

"No," said Lallara, eyes narrowed, "it doesn't, but I'll concede it's curious, and I also agree that Szass Tam is one of the few people who might have been able to slip into Druxus's bedchamber undetected or sneak an agent in. He's also one of the few capable of thwarting Yaphyll's divinations, especially if he was actually present to undermine the efficacy of the rituals in some subtle fashion."

"There's also this," Dmitra said. "Szass Tam made sure that you, Master Kul, would be elected Druxus Rhym's successor. I don't doubt you were a suitable candidate for the post, but still, why was he so concerned that it be you in particular? Could it have been partly because he knew you felt no great fondness for Rhym, and-forgive me for presuming to comment on your character-weren't the kind of man who would exert himself unduly to investigate a murder that worked to his benefit, even if the crime did constitute an affront against the order of Transmutation?"

Lallara snorted. "You have that right. All this hog cares about is stuffing his coffers and stuffing his mouth."