The sergeant on duty told him with false good cheer. youre free to ride to Labrykas Square. The district captain has sent for you.The sergeant upended a ladle of water on Dema s head. As Dema sputtered, the woman added with real kindness, knows youve been on duty all night. Dont try to fix yourself up, just go.

Dema went, though he couldnt imagine what the Fifth District commander of the

Arurim, Tharioss law enforcement agency and his employer, wanted with a very new mage like him. Dema had been an arurim dhaskoi, investigator mage, for only eight months. Hed done little to draw anyones attention. True, he was -working on the murders of four Khapik yaskedasi, but he also knew that he d been given the task of investigating the first murder, and the three that followed it, because no one cared if he caught the killer or not. One of the first words of arurim slang hed learned was okozou, which meant real people involvedIt was a phrase used to describe crimes among yaskedasi, prathmuni, or the poor of the slum called Hodenekes. It meant no one really expected Dema to work at finding the killer. Hed expected to be summoned before his watch station captain to explain why he d made no progress weeks ago, until he realized the captain simply did not care.

A mounted

Arurim waited in front of the Elya Street station with a horse for Dema. Groggily he mount ed up, thinking wearily that it was a good thing he wore his tightly curled black hair cut very short. It was probably the only thing about him that was presentable. He scrubbed at his teeth with a finger which he wiped on the edge of the saddle blanket. re sure you want me?he asked the messenger.

The woman looked as if shed spent all night on duty and should have been home herself. She glared at him. re arurim dhaskoi Demakos Nomasdina, in charge of the investigation of four murdered yaskedasi, are you not? This is the Elya Street arurimat, and not my house, where I should be fixing breakfast for my children right now.

Dema replied, feeling guilty, even though he hadnt been the one to assign the

Arurim to find him.

The sergeant emerged from the station with a flask in each hand, one for the

Arurim and one for Dema. They held smoking hot guardroom tea, guaranteed to take the finish off wood and to wake the dead. re a lifesaver,the woman told the sergeant. may live to go home after all.

Owe you the time youve spent after your shift getting our greenie, here, replied the sergeant with a nod to Dema. sure they give it to you.

will,the

Arurim replied.

Try not to dent the

Dhaskoi added the sergeant. Hes a good enough sort, for all he belongs to the First Class.

Dema wasn t sure which would bother him more if he were awake, the slight to his class or the fact that even after eight months of service they still thought he couldnt take care of himself. It was too much to think about now. He thanked the sergeant for the tea instead and followed his

Arurim guide down the street.

Drinking hot tea at a trot was a thankless effort, but Dema made it anyway, catching the spilled drops on an end of the blue stole that marked

him as a mage. As he drank and dodged people in the streets, he reflected on how badly hed been cheated. He had chosen the arurim as his area of advancement because it seemed far less regulated than the army or navy, and infinitely less boring than the treasury or law courts. Few people would be able to order him about among the arurimi, while every person with one more stripe or dot or sword on his sleeve would make military life into something very much like work. Even when his arurim superior s gave him night duty, Dema was pleased. The Elya Street station was just four blocks from Khapik. If things were dull at the station, a short walk led him to the best food, drink and entertainment in Tharios, all neatly tucked inside the walls of the ple asure district.

The nettle in the garden of his service, the first dead

yaskedasu, sprouted five months after hed finished his training and settled in at Elya Street. He hadnt realized that the easy service of an arurim dhaskoi was due to the fact that, m ore than nine times out of ten, the victim knew the criminal. It was a family member, or a friend, or a neigh bourhood roughneck. These were all offenders that regular arurim found easily by talking to the family, friends and neighbours of the victim, then tracking down everyone who looked suspici ous, questioning them until they confessed. The arurim dhaskoi were called in only when the crimi nal was a mage, or when no one with a motive or chance to get at the victim could be traced. When the investigation of yaskedasu Nioki s murder produced no possible killers, the case had come to Dema.

Now, three dead women later, Dema felt like those animals who chewed off a limb to escape a trap must feel. His service to the

Arurim was no longer fun. He wanted to dest roy the one who destroyed the beauty and harmony of Khapik, and he couldnt even get his fellow arurim to care about it as much as he did. One cheap yaskedasu or three yaskedasi, the others told him, okozou still meant no one was supposed to work up a sweat over this.

So Dema did his best, and knew it wasn t good enough. He was too ignorant. Most of his spells for uncovering events could be used only when he had a suspect or when the crime had taken place elsewhere or had not led to death. Trying to find th e killer was like sifting through a tonne of barley in search of a pin. No one knew anything. No one saw anything. The priests who had ritually and magically cleansed the murder sites noticed nothing irregular, and Dema found no traces of magic. He was at his wits end, even dreaming about the case. What was he doing wrong?

see words got out,grumbled his

Arurim guide. Demas head jerked up. Hed done it again, forgotten what he was supposed to be doing as he worried over the case. He d been so preoccupied that he hadnt even noticed they had reached the square. Despite the very early hour the sun was just up the outer edges of the square were packed with human beings. Unlike most Tharian crowds, this one was a hushed, silent, nervous gathering. The arurim had to poke and nudge people aside to clear the way for herself and Dema.