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

It would help if you knew who she was.

Liam closed his eyes and massaged his brows. "Fanuilh, how is it that you can read my thoughts and remain so impenetrably stupid?" His eyes snapped open and he held his hand out, palm up, to stop the dragon. "Don't answer. Just be quiet."

In blessed silence, he checked the ingredients—symbol components, he reminded himself—for the spell of invisibility, and then compared them with those for the other spell. Both called for pitch, water and coals, and two of the unidentifiable items from the latter were required by the former. The only difference was that virgin's blood was listed under invisibility, while there were three items underlined in the vanishing spell whose names he did not recognize.

The theory behind each spell seemed the same; the difference in effect was accounted for by the three unknown components in the more powerful one. Intrigued, he checked the texts with more care. The vanishing spell often referred to a "representation" or "model" as the focus of the spell, while the casting of invisibility centered around a "homunculus" or "mannikin."

"Fanuilh," he began, but the dragon's thought cut him off.

Invisibility is usually cast on a person, hence the homunculus; a doll, really. Vanishing is for objects, hence the model.

It was looking at him, the long neck twisted sinuously over its shoulder.

"So Tarquin would have had to have a little doll of a person to cast the spell—or could he use this?" He pointed at the model, and Fanuilh's wedgy head shifted to look on the miniature Southwark. No thoughts came for a while, and Liam began to fidget. Finally, a tentative thought snaked into his head.

He might have. I believe the spell can be cast on an object. Before Liam could say anything, another thought came in. But I am not sure.

"Of course not," Liam said, "nor am I. But I've one more question. Did Tarquin have a test for Donoé?"

For her blood? No. He trusted Donoé. He trusted people often.

"As he trusted Lons," Liam mused. "To take a man's word for that much money .... "

The player did look like a rich merchant.

"Yes, yes, but what man—no matter how rich a merchant—will pay that much gold for a woman? Why just take his word?"

Master Tanaquil was a powerful wizard. He had no need for money—he called the fees he charged "gauges of need." How much someone would pay, or what they would be willing to do, for his spells indicated how much they needed them.

"So when Lons agreed to 10,000, he showed his need. Now the question is, what did the woman agree to? How great was her need?"

I do not know. I cannot follow your thoughts on this. They are very scattered.

"Of course they are," Liam agreed, smiling broadly, already on his way out. "It's a tenuous connection at best, very tenuous." He stopped to stroke the dragon's clothlike scales, and feel the creature arch happily under his hand. "I'll be back tomorrow morning."

Do not forget.

"I won't," he called from the hall.

Do you really think this is important?

He stopped in the doorway and shouted back. "I hope so. I'd hate to think I came all the way out here just to feed you."

Diamond safely stabled, Liam went back to his garret to get his writing case and the letter from Rora. He did not really need his writing case. The letter was more important. He did not want it lying around for his landlady to see and, thinking of the way Coeccias had gotten hold of his list of suspects, he did not want the Aedile to find it. They had become friends, to a certain extent, and he was ashamed to think of the things he had to hide.

His landlady was holding court in the kitchen, ordering the drudge around when he walked in. She smiled broadly and began speaking at once, almost as though she had been expecting him.

"Master Liam! Uris bless us, you've just missed some gentlemen who came calling for you."

"Really? Who?"

"None I'd ever seen," she said, pitching her voice in a whisper that seemed to invite the exchange of confidences. "And they'd not leave their names, or business," she added significantly.

Liam grunted noncommittally and went up the stairs, glad to frustrate her and thinking of the letter and the rest of the day. There was still an hour before noon, when Lady Necquer had told him to come back. He was not sure if he would bother. First he had to see Coeccias, and find out what he thought, and then he would decide if he could spare the time to go up to the Point.

With the letter secure in his writing case on his belt, he started back down the stairs.

"Master Liam," his landlady called peevishly from the kitchen. "The men who're asking after you are here."

He thought more of her irritated tone than of the visitors she had announced. I really shouldn't go out of my way to annoy her, he thought. She's just a harmless old gossip.

The man who stood just inside the kitchen door was a stranger, though Liam knew the type from his short-cut hair and the way he smacked his fist into his palm. The Rat stood behind him, and as Liam came off the last step into the kitchen, Scar stepped through the door, his ghastly smile wide and unpleasant.

Damn, Liam thought. At least they're not armed.

The three. toughs began moving in, the Rat around one end of the table and the unknown tough around the other. Liam waited until all three were away from the door, and then moved.

"Run and fetch the Aedile," he shouted at his landlady and her drudge, and ran at the Rat. The drudge, young and smart, dodged past Scar, but the older woman found her way blocked by Scar's widespread arms. She backed away, gaping and goggling like a landed fish.· .

The Rat was not prepared to be attacked, and Liam hit him