His voice was icy. “What do you want to know?”
“I was hired to find out what happened to her,” I said, coldly. “You bought a wide range of goods from her. Why?”
“I needed certain potions to make my enchantments permanent,” Master Clawthorne said, curtly. “And I couldn’t make them for myself.”
He launched into a long and highly-technical explanation that most sorcerers would have found difficult to follow. I had no problems. Indeed, I was impressed. Master Clawthorne had been using potions - and the spellforms within - to tighten up his enchantments, compensating for their weaknesses by locking them firmly in place. It was a clever trick ... I’d never used it, but then I had more than enough raw power to emplace the spells without help. It was something to bear in mind for when I wanted to conserve power. I was surprised the secret hadn’t spread further.
“I see,” I said, in my best impression of a gormless idiot. Let him think I hadn’t understood any of the explanation, particularly the several-syllable words. “When did you last see her? Or speak to her?”
“I picked up the latest batch of potions back” - he thought for a moment - “around twelve days ago. Two days later, she vanished. Her shop was boarded up and warded by the guard.”
“Really, now,” I said. “Who stripped the shop?”
Master Clawthorne looked irked. “It wasn’t me. The guard?”
I shook my head. “I doubt it,” I said. “Why would they take the potions ingredients, but not the money?”
“Perhaps they thought the money was cursed,” Master Clawthorne suggested. “Or ...”
“Perhaps,” I echoed. I doubted it. I’d yet to meet a guardsman bright enough to count past ten without taking off his shoes. A glint of gold or silver coin would bring forth overwhelming greed. “Who else has vanished? Amongst magicians, I mean.”
“Thirteen in all, counting Mistress Layla,” Master Clawthorne told me. He outlined a list of names, with a handful of details. They didn’t seem to have much in common. Young and old, male and female ... two were too young to have much magic and one was too old and decrepit, according to Master Clawthorne, to use the magic he had. “We haven’t been able to find them.”
And Lord Ashworth clearly didn’t know about some of the missing magicians, I thought. He certainly didn’t mention them to me.
I thought, fast. A magical family shouldn’t have had any trouble finding a missing member. They shared the same blood. If Tami went missing, Master Clawthorne could have found her easily. And yet ... if the magical families here hadn’t been able to locate the missing ... my blood ran cold. The kidnapped people had to be behind powerful wards, if they weren’t already dead. No wonder the locals were so paralysed. They needed to find the missing and yet they feared who - and what - they might be facing. A necromancer? A Lone Power? Or ... or what?
I leaned forward as I realised what the kidnapped people did have in common. “Do they have any relatives in the town?”
“... No,” Master Clawthorne said. “Not blood relatives.”
I grinned, despite everything, as part of the puzzle fell into place. I’d over-thought it. If none of the victims had blood relatives, at least within the kingdom, it would be tricky to find them. Tami was Master Clawthorne’s daughter. He could find her through their shared blood; no one else could, not without a sample of her blood. It wasn’t good news - it suggested the kidnappers knew the community very well - but I felt better. The whole affair was finally starting to make sense.
Lord Ashworth was raised in a magical family, where everyone has a blood tie to everyone else, I recalled. I chose to overlook the fact I’d had the same upbringing, at least in some ways. No wonder it never occurred to him there might be no local blood relatives.
My mind raced. There would be husbands and wives, of course, but they weren’t related to their partners. Marrying one’s relatives was a bad - bad - idea. They wouldn’t even exchange magical binding vows, not the ones that would make them a permanent part of each other’s family. I made a silent bet with myself that none of the older victims had children, unless the children had vanished as well. Their partners couldn’t look for them ... hell, they might not even have magic. They might be mundanes.
“I’m thinking about leaving, perhaps moving somewhere nearer to Whitehall,” Master Clawthorne said bluntly, breaking into my thoughts. “How’s Dragon’s Den these days?”
“Great, as long as you have magic,” I said. “Things have been going downhill for a long time.”
I shook my head. “Do you have a spellchamber? Of course you have a spellchamber. Can I borrow it?”
“If you like,” Master Clawthorne said, as if the matter was one of supreme indifference. “I’ll show you the way.”
I followed him up a flight of narrow stairs, silently admiring the work he’d put into protecting and developing his territory. The building was on the verge of becoming bigger on the inside, something most magicians tended to avoid because of the risk of a sudden - violent - collapse. I’d heard horror stories about young idiots who bought multidimensional trunks and turned them into living quarters, only to discover - too late - that there was no air. And even if there was, if they thought quickly enough to save themselves, it was still easy to become trapped inside. I could
