Positively glowing with delight, one of the demonologists quickly picked the little sphere up off the bloodstained floor and put it into a small bag. Well, now at last the magicians would have a chance to study a real live demon and not just descriptions of them in dusty old tomes.
Artsivus paid no attention to the dead, striding between the corpses as if they were rocks, not dead men and Doralissians, until he reached Markun’s headless body and picked up the Horse of Shadows.
“Don’t move! In the name of the king!” a voice cried, distracting my attention from Artsivus, and I saw a group of guardsmen led by Baron Lanten come bursting in at the door and start rounding up the bandits and goat- men who were still alive and trying to slip away from the scene.
“Ah, Baron,” Artsivus coughed. “Right on time, as always.”
“What shall we do with them, Your Magicship?” Frago asked, apparently not at all concerned about the ironic tone of the archmagician’s words.
“How should I know?” Artsivus said with a casual shrug. He couldn’t care less about what happened now to the participants in the brawl. “That’s your business, Baron. Interrogate them, and then act as you think best.”
The baron nodded and ordered his guards to take away everyone fortunate enough to have survived this night in the Knife and Axe. In this former inn . . . It was hard to call what was left of the building, especially on the ground floor, a venue for relaxation and entertainment. Devastation, blood, and dead bodies. It would take a lot of serious work and a fair amount of money to make this establishment look decent again.
Artsivus handed the Horse to one of the archmagicians, then looked up at the ceiling and asked irritably: “Harold, do you intend to sit up there, or will you condescend to come down?”
So much for the ceiling! For the master of the Order it was just as transparent as it was for me. I had to go down. On the way I got the idea of slipping out over the roof. But I didn’t think it was a good idea. Artsivus was in a grumpy mood, as always, and I had no desire to spend the rest of my life as a frog.
As I said once before, His Magicship’s glance boded no good to my own humble personage. But this time the archmagician didn’t seem inclined to skin me on the spot.
“There you are,” the old man harrumphed. “Come with me, I have a couple of questions for you.”
Good old Gozmo still hadn’t emerged from under the bar, and I became even more convinced that he was long gone and his tracks were already cold. Artsivus left the inn in the care of two archmagicians and walked out. I followed.
Outside it was dreadfully dark. No one had bothered to light the street lamps, and not a single window was lit up. But somehow I was certain that no one was sleeping on the Street of the Sleepy Dog. Deaf trolls couldn’t have fallen asleep with all the noise that had been coming from the inn for the last half hour. People would be talking about it right across the Port City tomorrow. And what wild stories they would tell! Especially the ones who claimed to have been at the scene and observed it all with their own eyes.
“Shall I get into the carriage?” I asked, just to be sure.
“You can run alongside if you like.” Artsivus harrumphed and groaned as he climbed up onto the step. Two coachmen supported the archmagician and helped him climb inside. I couldn’t withstand the magician’s gaze, and started looking out of the window, since it wasn’t boarded up this time.
“I’m cold,” the magician muttered, picking up the woolen blanket lying beside him.
I personally didn’t feel at all cold; it was a warm summer night.
“All right, tell me everything.”
“What is there to tell?” I was about to ask, but I changed my mind. A dead goblin could have guessed what he wanted to know from me.
“Allow me to assist you,” the old man sneered. “Let’s start with how you discovered who had the Horse and how the demon, who you said had disappeared for all eternity, happened to reappear in Avendoom.”
I heaved a sigh, gathered my strength, and started telling my story. The truth and nothing but the truth. Artsivus had already heard the first part of my story, so I simply made a few corrections, adding in the conversations with the demons. After that I had to tell him about the Forbidden Territory, but I claimed that it would take too long to tell him everything, and limited myself to saying that I went there, got the papers, and came back. I left all the details for the next time, hoping that it would never come.
The spiteful magician simply cleared his throat and assured me that the king was not as kind as he was, and I would have to tell him absolutely everything. I heaved another sigh to let him know that when the king required it, I would do as he wished.
As I understood it, the carriage was simply driving us aimlessly through the city. The coachmen had been ordered to drive us around Avendoom until Artsivus had said everything he wanted to say and satisfied his curiosity. By my calculation, we had already been riding about for an hour, and the damned old man still wouldn’t calm down and leave poor, tired Harold in peace. From the demon the conversation moved on to the Horse, from the Horse to the Master, from the Master to Hrad Spein, from there back to the Horse again. . . . It just went on forever! But eventually the archmagician got fed up, too, or he simply got too cold and wanted to hurry to get back to his warm fireplace, but in any case the questions finally dried up.
“All right, thief,” the old man said, and looked out of the window. “It will be morning soon. I should have been asleep long ago, not riding round the city like this. I’ll drop you off—”
“Where, Your Magicship?” I interrupted.
“At the king’s palace, naturally! You need to be watched very carefully. Or you’ll create the kind of mess that not even the Beaver Caps can get you out of.”
“But the week I was given isn’t over yet,” I protested.
“I know,” Artsivus snapped. “But we don’t have that week anymore. You have to start out. Immediately. Soon we shall no longer be in control of events. So to wait until the end of the week would be suicide.”
“All right, but in any case I need to collect the papers I got from the Forbidden Territory. I’ll come to the palace tomorrow, or rather, this morning.”
“What, don’t you have the maps with you?” Artsivus asked in surprise.
