I thank the Sorcerer for the gift she sent.
"Would you like some . . . ah, Abbot's Ale? Maybe some Elvish wine?"
Lisutaris senses the rather unwilling nature of my offer, and smiles.
"Keep it for yourself, Thraxas, I'd rather see you drink it than some of these people at the Palace. You'd be surprised how many healthy young men have suddenly found themselves keen to work in the administration rather than report for military duty."
Lisutaris frowns.
"I don't remember this happening in the last war. What happened to the people's spirit?"
It beats me. Lisutaris is right. There's a lot less patriotic fervour around these days. I don't exactly know why, unless it's got something to do with the wealth that's flooded into the city in recent years. That and the dwa, I suppose.
Lisutaris comes into my office. Makri follows on, uninvited. I give her a questioning look.
"I'm the bodyguard," says Makri. "And what's this about the Grand Abbot's Dark Ale?"
"A rare and fine brew."
"I want to try it."
"I'm saving it for a special occasion."
I tell Lisutaris that I've been doing the incantation every morning to protect Herminis, though I don't bother to sound enthusiastic about it. Lisutaris assures me it's safe enough.
"No one's looking for Herminis any more. The city's got enough troubles."
Lisutaris takes a seat, and takes out an elegant little silver case containing thazis.
"I'm in the middle of an investigation," she says. "And you, being an Investigator, might be able to help me."
"Is someone about to pay me for helping?"
The sorceress shakes her head. She's constructing a thazis stick; quite modestly sized by her standards.
"No pay. It's official war work, part of every citizen's duty."
"I tend to starve when I'm doing my duty."
"You could afford to lose some weight," says Lisutaris. "Anyway I'm not here to hire you. Senator Samilius is in charge of the investigation and he's got agents all over Twelve Seas already. I'm just looking for advice."
Lisutaris inhales deeply from her thazis stick.
"Have you heard of the Storm Calmer?"
"No. What is it?"
"A sorcerous item. One of the items I inherited when I became head of the Guild."
"What's it do?"
"It calms storms."
"Right."
Lisutaris explains that the Storm Calmer is a conch shell imbued with powers to quieten the seas.
"It was made by the Grand Sorcerer Elistratis about eight hundred years ago and brought to Turai by her daughter after Elistratis was killed in a sea battle far down to the south. Elistratis's daughter sailed here through the winter storms, using the conch shell to calm the seas. Or so the story goes."
"Sounds like a useful item," I say. "Particularly in this part of the world. How come it's never used? We lose a lot of ships every year to the weather."
"It's too important for that," explains Lisutaris. "The Storm Calmer is part of our national defence, like the green jewel I use for far-seeing. It's kept secret, for use only if a hostile Sorcerer tries to batter down our sea walls by conjuring up a storm."
"Last time you mentioned one of these important items of national security," I say, "it had been lost. Has the Storm Calmer gone missing?"
"No. It's safe. But its brother has gone missing."
"The Storm Calmer has a brother?"
"In a manner of speaking. No one knew about it till recently but apparently there's another shell called the Ocean Storm. A Turanian captain came across it on the uninhabited isle of Evoli last autumn. Or so he claims. It hasn't really been confirmed by anyone else. He sent a message to the Sorcerers Guild, saying he'd bought it from some ancient Elvish hermit."
"On the isle of Evoli?"
"That's right."
"So it's not really uninhabited?"
"It's uninhabited apart from one hermit."
"No one else? A cook, maybe, or a maid?"
Lisutaris looks annoyed.
"What sort of hermit has a maid? Please stop making irrelevant comments."
"I'm an Investigator. I need the full facts."
"We don't have the full facts. Just a story that a sorcerous artefact exists which is powerful enough to whip up a storm that would batter down Turai's sea walls and let the Orcs sail in."
By now the Mistress of the Sky is rolling another thazis stick. She is inordinately fond of the substance.
"The Ocean Storm was on its way to Turai last week. No ships sail in these weathers, but this one did."
"I saw it," I say. "Limped in, just made it."
Lisutaris nods.
"It was brought in by the first mate and the four remaining crew members, all experienced sailors, so I understand."
"And the captain?"
"Captain Arex was nowhere to be seen. He had disappeared."
"Taking the Ocean Storm with him?"
"Exactly. Which is a problem. We don't really know if this item exists or not. None of the surviving crew had ever seen it. According to them they didn't even know their captain had sent a message to the Sorcerers Guild. If it does exist, we can't let it fall into anyone else's hands. Which means that we're now moving heaven, earth and the three moons to find something we're not sure is even in the city. Or even ever existed."
I muse for a moment, and light a thazis stick of my own.
"This all sounds unlikely to me."
"In what way?"
"Every way. A powerful sorcerous item no one's heard of before? You know better than me that these items don't happen along every day of the week."
"True. But we can't take the risk. If an Orcish Sorcerer starts trying to batter down our sea walls with a powerful new weapon, we'll be in trouble."
"It wouldn't be easy to use," I point out.
"True," agrees Lisutaris. "You'd have to be a very powerful Sorcerer indeed to pick up a strange magical talisman and use it right away, particularly for controlling the weather."
She pauses, inhaling from her thazis stick.
"But I could do it. If this Ocean Storm really exists, I could use it. A few others might be able to. The most powerful of the Orcish Sorcerers. Like Horm the Dead. Or Deeziz the Unseen."
I'm slightly surprised to hear the name. Deeziz is reputed to be the most powerful Sorcerer in all the Orcish lands, but he was last sighted somewhere in the mountains of Gzak and no one's heard anything about him for a decade.
"Deeziz? He's not with Amrag's army. No one's seen him since the last war."
"He retreated to a mountaintop to seek wisdom, or so we heard. Some people say he was banished when the Orcs were defeated," says Lisutaris. "Finding out anything about him is next to impossible. He's cloaked himself with so many spells of hiding we can't tell where he is. Even when he did used to appear, no one ever saw his face."
Deeziz always wore a veil. People generally assumed he must be horribly mutilated in some way, and given the brutal nature of Orcish sorcery, it's not unlikely. I ask Lisutaris why she's suddenly mentioned him.
"Has there been news that he's heading this way?"
She shakes her head.
"No news at all. But I thought of him when I heard about the Ocean Storm. He always was a master of the weather. If he suddenly appears outside the city with the Ocean Storm in his hand, we've got a problem. Anyway, it doesn't have to be him. Horm could probably use it. We can't let it fall into their hands."
"Probably it was just some piece of junk the captain was hoping to sell for a profit."
Lisutaris admits this is possible,
"Though I don't know how he'd have hoped to convince me it was real. You don't get to be head of the Sorcerers Guild by buying fake sorcerous items."
"True, it wouldn't have fooled you. But he might've had some idea of selling it to some other hapless member of the government. I've known senators get conned by stupider things than that."