Fanuilh by Daniel Hood (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📗

bit off a retort and waited until he went into the workroom.

"Yes, I'm home early," he said pleasantly when he could see the tiny dragon's face. "I decided that even murderers must sleep, and that if they'd been avoiding me with as much energy as I've been searching for them, they must be tired."

That is not why.

"No, of course not. Why would I bother lying to you, when you can read my mind? I'm joking, though that seems to be as useless as lying, since you don't have a sense of humor."

I find different things funny.

"I'm sure you do." There was a long pause. Liam frowned, wondering what Fanuilh would find funny, and the dragon simply leveled its yellow cat's eyes at him. Dragon humor was beyond him, he finally decided, and thought back to his meal at the Uncommon Player. "Are you hungry?"

Yes.

"I'll get you something."

The dragon's head snaked in a sinuous nod, and Liam went to the kitchen and desired raw meat as hard as he could, discovering with a mixture of satisfaction and disgust that it was no longer so difficult.

Fanuilh tore into the meat with its usual gusto, and Liam watched for a few minutes before beginning to wander absently around the workroom. The empty crystal bottle still lay alone on the empty middle table. He picked it up.

'Virgin's blood.' It no longer held the same repulsion for him; it had become simply a relic, devoid of meaning, a jumble of letters that he should have been able to decipher.

He wondered why it was empty, and why the label was crossed out.

What is important about the beaker? It is empty. What can be important about—

"I don't know, but I might if you'd let me think," he said, and though he could not hear the words over the silent block of Fanuilh's thought, the dragon accepted it, and the block lifted. Liam crossed his arms and tipped· the beaker at the dragon.

"The vanishing spell does not require virgin's blood, correct? It's not mentioned in the text of the spell. But he had it out on his table, and he never left things lying around; you said so yourself. This must be important."

The number of spells that require virgin's blood is enormous. Tarquin must have over a hundred of them in his catalogues. The uses to which they can be put are a hundred times a hundred.

"How can you read my mind and be so stupid? Maybe one of those was the one Marcius came about," Liam shouted, tired of the dragon's apparent obtuseness. "And Tarquin cast it—the bottle is empty—but not to Marcius's satisfaction!"

Why are you so certain the merchant is the killer?

"Because he could be a murderer!" He shouted louder, trying to justify what was really only a feeling.

Many men could be. You could be, the dragon pointed out. Though he knew the creature was incapable of real irony, Liam could not help feeling that its impassive face and toneless thoughts masked a greater sarcasm.

"But you know I'm not!"

Not of Tarquin, yes. But you have killed, and you could kill again. I know, as well as you do. You would regret it, to be sure, but you could kill.

"Enough! I'm in no mood for you to be my conscience. Did you do this to Tarquin? Small wonder he ordered you away so often. And that's not a question you're meant to answer!" he added hastily, and the dragon obliged by staying out of his head. He went to stand by the lectern.

The color and texture of the pages did not match, and they differed in size from spell to spell. Sometimes the inks varied, though most of the writing was in black, in Tarquin's clear, blocklike script. As he flipped idly through the tome, he noticed a page covered with red in a wildly different handwriting.

Another mage's spell, Fanuilh supplied, its back to Liam, still intent on the meat. They can trade them back and forth, or steal them. It is the instructions that matter, not who wrote them. That book was only stitched together very recently. It contains all the important spells he had collected over his career.

Liam tried to lift the heavy tome, and found he needed both hands. The chain clanked.

"These are all the spells he collected? What about the books on the shelves? And in the library?"

All the important spells, the dragon qualified. The books behind you are instructions for mixing and preparing the elements of the spells, and one or two lengthy reports of experiments. The library contains thirty or forty texts on the enchanting of objects; the rest are histories, or poetry, or philosophy or collections of fables. Master Tanaquil liked to read a great deal.

"I gathered as much from his conversation."

Fanuilh did not respond and Liam turned to the shelf, leaning back against the lectern to examine the books. There were few with marked spines, most of them unadorned leather or wood, many cracked and beginning to fall apart from long use.

He wondered which described the uses of virgin's blood. The empty bottle and its crossed-out label annoyed him.

"Tell me, Fanuilh, what spells do you know?"

The thought was a long time in forming.

I know very few. Only those appropriate to an apprentice, as they do not generally require speaking and use few precious ingredients. Master Tanaquil taught them to me from the spellbook he had when he was an apprentice.

"What can you do?"

Put a man. to sleep, light a fire, stop blood flowing if the wound is fairly small, cause itching, or uncontrollable laughter. Maybe a dozen others. Useful things, and some that were merely for practice in the discipline.

"You can cause uncontrollable laughter?"

Yes.

Shaking his head with a smile, Liam left the lectern and walked to the door. He stood there and stretched luxuriously.

"How are you feeling?"

Better. The soreness fades. Soon I will be able to fly again.

Liam received the news with an approving nod.

"I'm going to go to sleep now, if you don't need anything else. Wake me