Ozorne had been back for two weeks or so when Arram, on his way to class with Sebo, found Enzi blocking the path. He greeted the crocodile god with pleasure; Preet said hello by running her beak along the creases in his rock-solid hide. Enzi had been away since giving his mysterious warning to Sebo and Arram. Now he was back, looking plump.
“The hunting has been good?” Arram inquired politely once he’d greeted the god with the proper respect.
Well enough, Enzi replied. But it’s good to be among intelligent companions again. I hear you lost another prince. You humans had best be careful—you only have two left.
Arram shrugged. “The emperor has placed all manner of guards on Ozorne. And if he isn’t safe in the university, where can he be safe?”
Enzi looked up at him. Humans. So proud of your rocks and sticks and spells. You have yet to see gods at real work.
Arram looked away so Enzi would not see him smile. “And frankly I hope that I never do, begging your pardon.”
You are in a saucy mood today. Where is Sebo? the god demanded. There is something she must take care of in the river. I suppose you will come along, since you are here.
“I used my crystal to tell Hulak that Arram won’t be able to attend their lesson.” Sebo came down the path, as gaudy as usual in a yellow and black head wrap and purple body wrap printed with green and yellow flowers. She carried a cloth workbag that blazed with protective spells. “Now, what is so important?”
Not tell, the god retorted. Show, downriver. You must ride before we are close enough to walk. Come.
“Bring your mage’s workbag,” Sebo commanded. Arram nodded and took it out of his larger book bag, slinging it over one shoulder.
Preet returned to Arram as Enzi led them to the water, where an empty rowboat lay on the beach. Two good-sized crocodiles basked in the sun next to it. The god waddled briskly past the sleepers and into the river. You two, get those ropes I showed you, he ordered the mortal crocodiles as they thrashed and darted into the water. Sebo, Arram, into the boat. When he saw Arram hesitate, the god roared, They are my great-great-something-grandsons, dolt! They will not harm you!
More than a little, a voice remarked. Arram guessed that the speaker was the bigger of the two mortal crocodiles. His guess was confirmed when Enzi lashed “More Than a Little” across the nose with his tail. Ow! Grandfather! “More Than a Little” protested, paddling back and away from the god. It was a joke!
You are within my aura, young idiot, Enzi snapped. They can hear you. That is why the tall one smells of fear.
Do not worry, the smaller crocodile assured Arram. Grandfather fed us well before you came. We are not hungry hardly at all.
Ropes! Enzi bellowed. Into the boat, Sebo! Boy!
Preet flew to the boat’s rail and made a sharp, scolding noise.
Arram, Enzi grumbled. Sebo snorted.
Gently Arram held the master by the arm as she hiked up her skirts and climbed into the boat, her workbag over her shoulder. She took a seat in the bow. He eased himself onto the seat in the stern and nervously grasped an oar.
“Don’t be silly, lad,” Sebo told him. “Enzi’s grandsons will tow us.”
Arram hadn’t noticed the ropes tied to a ring that dangled off the bow. Each mortal crocodile gripped a rope in his mouth and began to swim downstream, towing the boat in their wake.
“What’s going on?” Arram asked Sebo as Preet hopped onto his knee. “Enzi didn’t tell me.”
Sebo shook her head. “He said I’d understand when I got there. Apparently it offends him greatly.”
It should offend you, old woman. Enzi rose from the water. It is a work of human magic, and it is poisoning the river. You must stop it.
“You should have gotten someone else,” Sebo retorted. “I’m too old to be galloping hither and yon this way.”
Who was I supposed to get? Him? He swung his snout toward Arram. He is a good lad, but he is not ready for this. I do not know the others, save for Lindhall, enough to trust them. You know how Lindhall is underwater.
“I know,” Sebo replied sourly. She glanced at Arram. “He doesn’t like it,” she explained.
Enzi continued, I will be doubly grateful if you tell those mages in the city and the palace that the next one to make a poisonous disposal such as this will be eaten.
The god said nothing more. Arram shifted his weight until he could trail the fingers of one hand in the river. He was reasonably certain that Enzi would discourage any predators from trying a taste. Preet fluttered to Sebo’s lap as the older mage said, “If there’s poison, we wouldn’t pick it up here, lad. The river flows downstream, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Arram smiled at her. “I haven’t forgotten. I’m just sensing things.”
“Suit yourself,” the master replied. She removed Preet from her knee and took a scrying mirror from the bag of tools she had brought with her. The fire of her Gift shimmered around it as the boat surged downriver.
Arram looked at the bird, who now perched on the rail. “Enzi, are you taking Preet back to her family soon?” The thought was a hurtful one, but he had to ask.
Again, you ask! I will say when I find the proper gift, Enzi snapped. Preet chuckled. You mortals always rush, wanting things done immediately. Can you think of a suitable gift for the chief of the gods, the god of law and the bane of thieves?
Arram, speechless, shook his head.
Then do not pressure me, boy. That god is inventive when he feels a fellow god requires correction. A proper gift must be selected with great care.
After a moment Sebo remarked, “I hear lightning snakes are fond of Arram. I wonder how they might act if they thought he was being…bullied.”
Enzi rose half out of the water to eye first Arram, then Sebo. Lightning snakes?
“Lightning snakes,” the mage replied serenely.
Enzi sank down into the water before he replied, Interesting.
“They’re very friendly,” Arram called. “I’m sure they’d like you if they got to know you.”
They drew past Point Kovanik, the northern end of one of the army’s sprawling camps. Arram looked up. Atop the camp’s high stone wall, guards walked back and forth. A few hundred yards around the point, the many-greats-grandsons halted and drew back toward the boat, bringing it to a stop.
Arram frowned. He knew this part of the river after his time with Sebo, but never before had it been like this. There was something bad in the water, something rank. When he stretched out his Gift, he felt plants and tiny fishes dying a foot or two beneath the surface. Larger fish moved sluggishly, trying to escape the source of the…
“It isn’t rot,” he said, pulling his hand from the water. “Or any poison I know.”
“Let us accept that you do not know every poison in existence.” Sebo was always quick to remind Arram that, while he was advanced compared to his friends, he still had much to learn. More kindly she added, “Nor is it something I know, but it is rife with magic.” She had not needed to actually put her hand in the water.
This is why you are here, old woman, Enzi said, impatience in his voice. Do you mean to study everything from the boat? Have you forgotten my teaching of you? The only way to learn the river—
“Is to be in the river, yes! I am no longer a young thing who forgets her own name for new magic!” snapped Arram’s master. “Boy, if you are coming, you will need better protection than your robe!”
Arram had been openmouthed at the idea that Sebo might have once been young and, even more shocking, absentminded. She never forgets anything, he thought, struggling out of his outer robe. Wearing only a shirt and breeches, carrying his workbag on his shoulder, he cleared his mind and carefully wrapped himself in the spell that let him walk and see underwater. He strengthened it against magic and poison, then double-checked every element, wary of his own tendency toward absentmindedness.
“Preet, stay here and be good,” he ordered. Then he followed Sebo and her workbag over the side of the boat.
The spell pulled him down to the bottom, just as he had crafted it to do. Here the river was murky with the leavings of the military camp and what the tides brought upstream from the port of Thak’s Gate. He hated the mess, but he had walked in it before. That was why he had added vision spells, allowing him to see in the murk.
His protections did not help with the feel of the river bottom as he walked along it. He envied Sebo the spell-work that allowed her to glide above it like a fish herself. She never touched the mud, garbage, and sewage that boiled up every time Arram put down a foot. He had tried to learn the working, but without luck.
Now he saw extra darkness against the murk. Something bulky lay on the river’s bottom. A heavy stone block secured it in the mud. Chains led from the block into an area of shadows half a head taller and a little wider than Arram. The shadows were unmoving, a dead spot in the current that flowed around them. Arram joined Sebo. “Is this the source of the poisons?” he asked her, his voice traveling through their protections.
Her eyes were bleak. “What does your Gift tell you?” she asked. She had removed a knot of fiber from her workbag and was undoing the strands.
Always teaching, Arram thought with an inner sigh. He let his Gift flow carefully toward the shadows. His magic told him nothing was there but polluted water, though it passed over and around the darkness just as the river’s currents did. “What?” he muttered. He straightened and tried again, harder. His Gift flowed up and around the floating thing, not through—but if the shadows were simply river water, why did everything pass around them? His Gift passed through everything except his masters’ strongest wards. Again his power told him that nothing was there, though something kept his power from going through it.
Arram ground his teeth. Perhaps he was spoiled, as some of his fellow students claimed, but these days he was used to his power telling him what he wanted to know.
“Boy, I wouldn’t do—” Sebo began to say.
It was too late. Arram released his strongest spell of revealing. Yadeen had taught it to him so he might find particular stones far underground, but it also worked for finding objects and people in all environments. This time the shadows blazed with light and went dark; a giant fist punched Arram halfway across the river.
Fortunately, Sebo’s water-walking spell was proof against almost anything. Arram was only dazed, not drowned. He lay among the roots of reeds, wondering where he was and why he had chosen to take up fisticuffs.
Enzi descended and shoved him so hard that Arram fell forward onto his face in the opposite direction. Stop playing, and help Sebo! the crocodile ordered. I did not bring you here for your amusement!
“Odd,” Arram said, pushing himself upright with care. “I don’t feel amused.” Slowly, still dazed, he walked toward the source of that poisonous wrong.
This is taking forever, he heard the god say behind him. Immense jaws closed on his waist. Enzi swam forward with Arram clasped in his mouth.
To Arram’s wonder, the god’s teeth only dented his protective spell, rather than tearing it. “How do you do that?” he asked. Enzi did not reply. He dumped Arram next to Sebo.
The mage had her fibers loose in her hands. “If a little power doesn’t do what you want, think of something else before you try using a lot of it,” she told Arram. He nodded, struggling in the boggy silt as he tried to stand. “Protections this complex often have traps to ward off mages.” She swiftly wrote three signs in the air with a couple of her fibers, then dropped them. They burst into flame and vanished. Light flooded the water all around. “Now,” she said as Arram finally got to his feet, “stay here and anchor my spell with these.” She reached through their spells and handed him more fibers.
“Did I know we could pass through our protections?” he asked, touching her spells. His fingers did not go through.
“I am able to do so. And I suppose it is time you learned, but not today. Someone wanted this thing hidden; I want to know why. Stay here and anchor my spell. Clear your mind and concentrate on your Gift, understand?”
“Yes, Master Sebo,” Arram said, feeling dejected. Why did every good new lesson have to come later?
“Stop pouting and concentrate, or I’ll give you something to pout over,” she snapped.
She raised her remaining fibers and muttered. Her Gift spilled out and away from her. Sebo walked forward and around the poisonous thing, passing behind Arram as she shaped two complete circles. He barely noticed her movement, busy as he was anchoring her spells. Within his Gift his power shifted and surged, moving as it often did when it struck greater magic. One day, he promised, I will stop meeting Gifts that are greater than mine.
Even as he thought it, he knew that promise was an empty one. If they learned nothing else at the university, they learned there was always someone with more power. Arram only had to look at his teachers to know that much.
The circles that enclosed him quivered. He braced himself: Sebo was working the spells and signs that closed her spell. Instantly her circles enclosed the object like a cocoon. The water and the shadows flowed out into the river, exposing the thing they had kept hidden.
Arram gasped. His protective globe was gone! Still, he could breathe. “Sebo?”
“I combined our protections with the larger one,” she replied.
Arram inhaled and coughed. The stink that rose from the thing that had been hidden so well reminded him vividly of the corpse fires during the typhoid epidemic. The object fell backward with no water to hold it upright, splattering Arram’s clothes. He gulped down vomit that rose with the odor and walked around the thing Sebo had uncovered.
Without shadows to mask it, he saw a series of chains and knotted ropes bound tightly around a collection of burlap sacks. Sebo motioned for Arram to remove the topmost layer of burlap. Inspecting it, Arram realized he would have to cut: the rough cloth had been pulled over whatever was inside and secured by the bindings. He drew his belt knife and showed it to Sebo. She nodded and waited, her Gift sparkling around her hands in case anything went awry.
Arram always made certain his knife was razor sharp. He needed it as the wet strands fought his blade. He started at the upper end of the thing, where he would not fight chains and rope as well as sacking.
There was another layer of burlap under the first. His knife lost its edge there. He had to borrow Sebo’s for the final layer, which was spell-written silk. He could feel something rounded under his hands. Finished at last, he pulled the silk away from human hair, black, sodden, and limp. Shoving the layers of material down past slender shoulders, he revealed a half-rotted face that still managed to look familiar. The chin, the nose…
Puzzled and frightened, he looked at Sebo. “Master?” He was proud there was no wobble in his voice.
“It’s hard, when the rot’s been at her,” she murmured. “The wraps kept the fish away. I’d say she’s been here three weeks, perhaps? Around the time of the storm. Have you learned the spell for a true appearance?”
His brain was still stuck at three weeks. Now that the cloth was off the corpse’s face, Arram was positive that the dead woman was a mage. He knew it in his bones and had been trying to think if anyone had gone missing around that time. But there had been the mourning, and living on scant meals, and new classes to start….
Sebo rapped his head. “A spell for true appearances, boy!”
Arram winced. It wasn’t right that the master’s knuckles should be so hard.
He touched the corpse’s chin squeamishly and turned her chin toward him. That was when he spotted silver at her neck. Without thinking he reached for it and drew the necklace up. It was thin silver, delicate, with a double-loop clasp and a scratched piece of jade.
Numb, he took the chain with both hands and slowly turned it, trying not to tear the rotten flesh of the woman’s neck. On one loop of the clasp, broader than the other loop, the artisan had carved a lightning bolt.
Sebo looked at Faziy aHadi. “Girl, girl,” Sebo whispered, her voice sad. “Look at you now. What did you get yourself into? All that new money cost you more than you could afford….”
“You knew her, too?” Arram asked softly.
“Of course I did,” Sebo replied. “I’d take her the odd trinket from the river’s floor, and we’d work out what we had. And then all that good fortune just dropped into her lap.”
Arram showed Sebo the lightning bolt on the fastener. “I made this for her. Master, she knew lightning snakes.” His mouth trembled, but he refused to cry.
“What did you do, Faziy, that they took such care to sink your corpse? If not for Enzi, you would have rotted beyond anyone’s ability to know you. I never come down to this cesspit if I can help it.” The master sighed. “Arram, what does her placement here tell you?”
He didn’t realize she was talking to him until she poked him with her elbow. He flinched. He didn’t want to remember Faziy the way Ramasu made him think about the infirmary dead. “Um, as you said, they didn’t want her to be found.” He added, “And if she was found, they didn’t want her known. So whatever she was doing with them or found out about them, it was important. They went to a great deal of trouble to keep her on the bottom of the river, and to make sure people wouldn’t recognize her if they found her. These spells are hard—advanced work.”
Decide who did this later, after you take the thing away, cloths and all. Enzi’s voice made the globe of power that Sebo had placed around them shudder. The magic that killed it corrupts the river. Do not leave the meat. The vileness has spread into it.
“Then you must help us,” Sebo retorted. “We cannot tow it ourselves.”
“We can’t tow it at all,” Arram reminded her, pointing to the boulder. He grabbed a chain, trying to pull it away from the rock, and cried out as stabbing heat shot into his palm. A chain-shaped burn was seared into his skin.
“Hag’s pox, boy, when will you learn to wait before leaping in?” Sebo demanded. She removed a small jar from her workbag and gave it to Arram. “Just a little on that burn. No need to be wasteful.” She took out a second vial and removed the wax, then the cork that kept its contents inside. Carefully, crouching so she saw exactly what she did, she poured the tiniest of drops on two sides of one heavy link. Arram watched, halting in the middle of rubbing her ointment into his palm, as frost formed where the liquid had fallen. It spread. Abruptly there was a loud crack; the link fell to pieces. When it did, a puff of magic flew to the top of their protections. Arram tried to seize it but missed.
“Idiot boy!” cried Sebo. “Never do that again, or I truly will beat you! You have no protection since I remade ours to include poor Faziy here. That wickedness would have sunk into your pores, poisons and all!”
Arram looked at the puff of gray magic. It sparkled with the different colors of Gift that must have gone into the making of it, only a foot over his head. It didn’t look dangerous, but he decided not to try Sebo’s temper again. Puff after puff rose to join the first until Arram was half ducking, trying to keep away from them. With a jingle, the chains fell away from the wrappings and Faziy’s body.
Sebo corked the liquid that had eaten through the chains and sealed it. “Yes, I will teach you how to make this,” she told him as she tucked the vial into her workbag. “You’re at the point when a potion to eat through metal might be useful.”
Arram gulped. He could think of all kinds of situations in which such a potion would be useful, but he planned never to be in any of them.
“Enzi, if you please,” Sebo called.
What do you want?
As Sebo explained her plan to the crocodile, Arram knelt so he didn’t have to worry about the magics at the top of their bubble. He stared at Faziy’s face, both the magicked living one and the rotting one beneath. Whoever had left her in this place had risked discovery, by fishers, garbage pickers, or boats. Even at night they would have needed concealment and avoidance spells.
They’d also needed a good-sized, strong boat to get that big rock all the way out here. They couldn’t take the chance that a stone heavy enough for their purposes would be on hand already. So there were a few of them who knew about this. Or just enough strong mages. It would have to be mages, to disable other mages who happened by.
Sebo patted his head. “Sit, Arram. We’re going up. I’ll need you to help me.”
“Whatever you say,” Arram replied. He sat gingerly as he tried to avoid lumps on the river’s bottom. Once he was settled, he crossed his legs. He wanted to be out of Sebo’s way and to touch as little as possible.
The woman looked down at him. “You shouldn’t be so accommodating about lending your Gift to others.”
“But you’re my teacher,” Arram replied. “If you meant to do something harmful with my magic, wouldn’t you have done it earlier, when I couldn’t defend myself?”
Sebo rested her free hand on his shoulder. In her other hand grew a ball of their mixed Gifts. Arram hadn’t even felt her draw the power from him. “I hope your ability to protect yourself is as strong as you seem to think it is,” she murmured. “The world is an unpleasant place. Only look at what we just found.”
Her ball floated to the top of their globe of protection. There it spread in a wide umbrella, trapping the poisoned magics against the globe’s ceiling. When the combined Gifts stopped spreading, Sebo wrote five signs in the air and touched each one with her finger. They vanished. The globe of power that enclosed them together with the dead woman trembled, lurched—Arram caught his teacher and helped her to sit—and began to tug itself out of the river’s muck. It shook free of the giant boulder and resealed itself with a mild pop! So quickly had it happened that only a palmful of water leaked in. Slowly the globe began to rise.
The bit of water rolled over to Sebo. “Get away from me, you nasty stuff!” Arram heard her whisper. “The Hag knows what kind of filth is in you!” She glanced at Arram, who pretended to stare at the unpleasant magics overhead. “Well, go on!” he heard his master say to the trapped liquid. “I’ll return you to the river when we must leave it. Go over there. Over…there.”
She was silent. When Arram glanced at her, he saw the handful was pooled in her lap without soaking into the skirt. How had it gotten there? She had talked to it as if it were alive. He looked at the place where he had last seen the water, in case there was more of it. No, the floor of their globe was dry, and the river bottom was receding into the murk.
Sebo had seen his glance. “When we return—when I have delivered our discovery—I will give you a book to read about a thing called wild magic,” she said drily. “I wouldn’t talk about it in the university. It’s supposed to be an old wives’ tale. Well, I am an old wife. You might be interested, that’s all.”
“I’ve heard about it,” Arram said quietly. “I don’t seem to have it, though. Except when it comes to lightning snakes.”
“Few of those with the Gift do. If you get Hulak or Yadeen alone, talk to him. Or ask Lindhall, but privately. No one likes to be laughed to scorn by his peers.” Looking up, Sebo said, “How long does it take to reach the surface? I don’t believe I can keep the air-giving spell going forever!”
The force that drove the large globe toward the surface quickened. The river’s power dragged at the bubble’s sides. The dead woman’s smell got thicker and thicker, until Sebo and Arram found handkerchiefs and held them over their noses.
“Whatever Enzi considers a proper favor in return, it had better be good,” Sebo complained, her voice muffled by the cloth. “I’m too old for this.”
Their globe popped free of the water, next to the boat. The two mortal crocodiles slapped the river with their tails until their many-times-great-grandfather bellowed for them to calm down. They braced the boat at his command, while he braced the far side of the globe, jamming it against the boat so it would not drift away.
Arram climbed out first, then gently took the dead woman’s bound feet. When he tugged, the body slid out of the globe. Arram’s gut clenched. He swallowed the sudden mouthful of saliva that warned he was about to vomit, and pulled again, lifting as he did. Hand over hand he drew in the corpse of his former teacher by fistfuls of burlap and chain, using all of his strength. As he worked, he prayed for the Black God to heal her wounds.
Once Faziy was aboard, Arram slid her onto the boat’s floor. He would have to remember the feet of the corpse would be near his own feet. Quickly he glanced at the far rail. The crocodile grandsons were clinging to it with their jaws and forepaws, weighing down the rail with the top halves of their bodies.
“Thank you,” he said, and hurriedly reached for Sebo. She held both bony hands out through the globe. Carefully Arram took them and lifted her aboard. Close overhead, thunder boomed. He cursed.
“Can’t be helped,” Sebo murmured.
Arram swore to himself. Rain meant that the master’s arthritis had burdened her for hours—it always came on when the skies were still clear. She had said nothing, had made no sign that she was in pain. “You should have told me you were hurting.”
“Quiet,” Sebo ordered. “Pull in the globe like fishermen pull in their nets. Leave enough room at the last for the vile magics that hid Faziy.”
“I can’t see them,” Arram said, puffing as he hauled on the globe. Handful by handful he forced the air out of it. What if he got a faceful of those ugly spells?
Light, bright and even, spread over everything. He looked back. Sebo held up a small crystal globe. Touching it with a whisper of his power, Arram felt Yadeen’s Gift, as plain as if his master shared the boat with them. Looking at Sebo, he noticed something else. “Where’s your puddle?”
“My what?”
“Your puddle, the one that was in your lap.”
Sebo grinned. “I let the puddle, as you call it, go free when I got into the boat.” She held the glowing ball up again. “If you would finish? I’m glad I borrowed it, but it’s heavy.”
At last Arram held a bag the size of his head. All of it that he’d already rolled into his fists had dissolved, its purpose done.
“Now pinch what you have closed, firmly. Give it a rune of sealing with as much of your Gift as you can.”
Arram wanted to tell her that if he reached far enough, he could replenish his stores of power completely, but he decided not to. She looked weary, and the first splashes of rain were speckling the water within the light of the globe. She would want to know how he could tell, and when he had learned this. While he could answer the first question, the answer to the second was nebulous. He only knew that as he got older, as he developed hair in spots previously hairless, his awareness of how far he could reach for power had grown. He had tested it, and found his awareness was correct. He wasn’t sure what he could do with it, or what might happen to him if he did, so he used it only on special occasions, when no one was watching.
Instead of saying this to his loved and trusted master, he pinched the opening to the magical globe shut with one hand. With the other he made the sign requested, pouring enough of his Gift into it that the opening was secured. The shadowed magics within the globe whirled and pressed, but they could not get out.
As soon as it was closed, Preet flew up to his shoulder and began to scold. “Hush,” he told her softly. He looked at Sebo. “Are we still being quiet?” Rather than wait for her answer, he told Preet, “Hush, hush. All’s well and we are going back. Sebo, we’re going home, aren’t we? Preet is worried. So am I, a little. Only a little. I’m not questioning you, mind, only Preet wants to know. And me. I do, too. It’s raining.” He rubbed his face for a moment to freshen himself, then reached into the earth, feeling for the sense of water running off of rock. Once he had it, he drew it into his Gift and spread it over the boat.
While he worked, Enzi’s descendants gripped their ropes and took their places at the bow. As the rain rolled away the invisible shield over the boat, the young crocodiles towed and Enzi pushed it upstream. Their speed was far quicker than their journey downstream, even though they swam against the current. The waves parted at the bow, but they did not slop inside. Arram decided Sebo or Enzi must have done something about that—more likely Sebo, because what would a crocodile care about getting wet?
“Put those disgusting magics next to Faziy,” Sebo ordered.
Arram flinched slightly. “Sorry, Master. I forgot I was holding them.” He gently placed the globe of magics next to the corpse. Sebo was rubbing her temples and watching the riverbanks as they passed. The hippos and crocodiles were beginning to stir. It was late afternoon, and the sun was setting. He and Sebo had been underwater far longer than he realized.
“Why would anyone go to such trouble to kill and bury a mage?” he asked her.
“Every mage has enemies,” she murmured.
“These must have been really angry ones, then.”
“For your own good, lad, you should forget this ever happened. Ask no questions. Never mention Faziy’s name, understand?” Sebo was digging in her workbag. “Whoever they were, whoever she offended, they wanted her forgotten. As forgotten as if she’d abandoned her obligations and run off beyond the reach of anyone who cared. Anyone who asks questions will doubtless get the same treatment she did. Mind me, Arram!”
“Yes, Master,” he replied softly.
Sebo bent her head and whispered to her mirror. Despite the boat’s small size, Arram could not hear her over the drumming rain and splashing river. Finally he gave up and folded himself in a kind of human tent over Preet, his elbows on his knees. His hair came loose from its rawhide tie and streamed down his forehead and back.
“You’re lucky you weren’t down there,” he told the bird. She stared up at him, her eyes glowing in the darkness of the shelter made by his curled body.
Who would kill a lightning mage? he asked himself. He’d suggested they were angry, but what if they weren’t? What if they wanted to hide something that Faziy had seen—or done?
Like summon the lightning snakes, he thought suddenly. Like calling all of them to her from a really large storm.
And we found her when they didn’t want her found, he realized. They will know mages did it. And there are mages who will look into it, at the university and in Thak City. That’s why Sebo wanted those ugly magics. As evidence…
He must have drowsed, because the next thing he noticed was the lurch as the boat ground onto sand and stone. He nearly toppled onto the corpse. Preet flew up, shrieking, as Arram grabbed the rim of the boat to keep from falling on the dead woman. The two young crocodiles dropped their ropes and plunged into the river, while Enzi thrust the small craft higher up onto the shore. Suddenly the rain stopped.
Arram looked up. It was not the rain. Six mages on the riverbank had created a protective shield overhead, which now covered the boat. Yadeen came forward and gently lifted Sebo from the bow. Preet flew to him, chattering quietly. Four other mages stepped up with a litter; Chioké was one. Cosmas stood in the background.
One mage made signs to lift in a Gift that shone pale blue. Chioké called up his orange magic. Between them they raised the dead woman in the air and settled her onto the litter, along with the ball of magics.
I will thank you humans to keep your murders out of my river in the future, Enzi said. He turned and slapped the water hard with his tail. It drenched Arram’s back as he stumbled ashore. When he turned to shout at the god, there was no sign of him. The rain fell without letup.
“Come along, Arram,” instructed Master Cosmas. “We may not be as wet as you, but it is getting cold. I would like to shift this puzzle someplace private before people come to snoop.”
“Master,” said one of the mages now holding the litter up. “In front of the boy?”
“Arram can be trusted,” Cosmas replied mildly.
“But—” the same mage said.
“That will be all.” Cosmas’s voice was still gentle, but the man closed his mouth. “Sebo?” Cosmas asked.
“I will come now, if Yadeen will give me his arm,” the old woman said, obviously knowing what Cosmas wanted. “Let the boy go to bed. He’s done more than his share tonight, and without a word of complaint.”
“Sebo, Master, Masters, I’m fine,” Arram protested.
“Bed,” ordered Yadeen, and that was that.