perhaps a cup of water for the koris?

The

Arurim bowed and hurried off. Dema lifted the globe from the basket. The globe was fully fifteen centimetres wide and perfectly round, with something inside. When Dema held it before his eyes, he saw a room in its depths. It looked to be some public space. He saw a thirty-centimetre-high dais with seven backless chairs. Beyond it was a good-sized room furnished with benches, and another, smaller dais with a p odium, set to face the chairs.

A dead woman lay on the big dais before the chairs. Dema knew she was dead: there was no mistaking the swollen, dark face of a stranglers victim, even under a

yaskedasus make-up. She was dressed in a tumblers leggings and short tunic, with brightly coloured short ribbons stitched into the seams. The yellow noose itself was lost in the swelling of her neck, but the bright yellow ends of a yaskedasus veil once more lay straight from her side, almost as if they were placed to make the delegates seated in the chair look right at the body.

Did the captain at the Heskalifos

Arurimat tell you? Dema inquired.

This was a matter on which you are chief investigator,replied the clerk, and that if I spoke to anyone else before you gave me leave, I could be arrested for promoting disorder.

was right, Dema said, continuing to examine the ball. He looked at the proscenium that framed the dais. There, in mosaics, was Noskemiou, the charity hospital, and the brightly pain ted walls that wrapped around Khapik, with the yellow pillars that marked the main entrance. There on the right side was the Elya Street

Arurimat. He knew this place. It was the Fifth District s Forum, where the affairs of that part of the city were discus sed and voted upon before the seven District Speakers. The place was closed during the day, when everyone worked. He glanced out of the window of his office: the sun was reaching the horizon. They would open the Forum any minute.

Dema shoved the ball into the basket. re with me, he told the clerk, who was drinking the water the

Amrim had brought. To the arurim Dema said, want a full squad at the Fifth District Forum, soonest. We ll need barricades, arurimi to watch them, and prathmuni with a death cart. Scramble!He grabbed his mage s kit in his free hand and strode out of his office.

T I go home?whined the clerk. ve been all over the city. My wife will be worried

Dema turned and faced him. you a citizen of Tharios?he demanded coldly, glaring at the shorter man.

At the word the clerk straightened, thrusting his out bony chest. course I am,he snapped, indignant that anyone might question his status.

I, Demakos Nomasdina, of the First Class, call upon you to do your duty as a citizen. Do you serve Tharios?he asked.

The clerk hung his head. and for ever, he replied wearily. The formula was part of his oath of citizenship. If a member of the First Class called on any resident of the city as Dema had done, that person was obligated by his oath to serve in whatever way he might be commanded.

Dema thrust the basket into the clerks hands. we re going to see if this means anything.

They reached the Forum just as its custodians laid hands upon the woo den bars across the doors. Dema showed them what hed been taught in school, the of the First Class, the expression, bearing and crispness that anyone of his rank put on when necessary, to uphold the dignity of the First Class and of the city that w as the final responsibility of the First Class. Even the weakest-willed children learned to act as if they knew what

They were doing. Their duty was to assure the lower classes that Tharios was eternal, as long as order was kept. The duty of the lower clas ses was to obey those who bore ultimate service to Tharios in their very bones. Dema was grateful for that long, hard training now; it hid his fear of what he might be about to see.

The custodians opened the doors for him and the

Arurimi who had caught up with him, then closed the doors to keep the public outside. Only a few idlers were present, either for the nights Forum debates or because they had seen arurimi on the move, but Dema knew their numbers would soon grow.

Inside, he motioned for the clerk and the arurimi to keep back. He advanced on the dais, a ball of mage fire drifting beside him to light the way. When he reached the podium, he wrote a sign in the air. It gleamed, then faded. His mage fire grew until the front half of the room was merciless ly lit, without a shadow anywhere.

It had looked like a Ghost murder in the globe, and it looked like a Ghost murder now. Dema crouched beside the dead woman and opened his kit. A pinch of heartbeat powder sprinkled over the yaskedasu darkened to scarlet: shed been dead almost an entire day.

Why did no one report that she was missing? he wondered. If they had, he would know. These days any word of missing

yaskedasi came to him first.

Dema ground his teeth in vexation. The yaskedasi drove him crazy with their secretiveness.

Even when it was to their benefit they would not deal with the arurimi unless forced to it. They made it that much harder to find who had seen these women in the last hours of their lives, just as they made it harder to identify the dead. The yaskedasi just didn t seem to understand that cooperation was for their own good.

With a sigh, Dema opened a bottle of vision powder and sprinkled a pinch over each of the womans open, staring eyes. The killers essence began to fade fifteen hours or so after a slaying, but Dema wanted to try it anyway. If the victim had seen her attacker, the powder would reveal at least a smudge over her eyes, if not the killer s face. This time there was not even a smudge. Dema bit his lip: she must have been taken from behind. Her fingernails were broken, yellow silk threads caught in their shredded edges, from her fight to get free of the noose. The killer had to be strong, because the tumbler was solid muscle.