"Could he have changed back, somehow?" Tal asked eagerly. "I've heard that there was a lot of magic going on during the Fire—could he have gotten caught in some of it and changed back?"
Torney spread his hands wide. "If you're asking could more tangled and confused magic undo what tangled and confused magic did to him in the first place?—well, I can't tell you. I was never that good, and the theory up at that level of things just goes clean over my head. But if there was ever a man likely to want revenge on the Church, it was Revaner. And if there was ever a man convinced that the world should run to his pleasure, it was Revaner.Could he have escaped? Could he have survived on his own? Does that make him a man evil enough to do these horrible deeds?" He looked helpless. "I don't know. I couldn't judge my own heart, how can I presume to judge my fellow man's?"
"You're a charitable fellow, Dasel Torney," Tal said at last.
But Torney shook his head. "Not as charitable as I should be. It's easy enough for me to say that I can't judge Revaner, or the man who's done these things—but I haven't suffered harm from either one of them, either. If it had been Loyse who'd been seduced and left by Revaner—or slain, like that poor girl—" He dropped his eyes, and put the candle and the knife carefully down. "Let me just say that I mightrepent what I did to the man, but I wouldn't hesitate to do it."
"If you had seen what I have," Tal said softly, "you wouldn't repent of it, either."
Torney looked up sharply; their eyes met, and the wordless exchange that followed left both of them with deep understanding and respect.
"The fact remains, though, that the last time anyone saw Revaner, he wasn't capable of doing anything more than any other bird could do—rather less, as a matter of fact, since he was too heavy to fly. That's the problem withthat particular suspect." Torney shrugged. "How he could get from here to down-river without being seen, I couldn't tell you—unless someone netted him to use in a menagerie and he escaped his cage later."
"Well," Tal said, tucking that thought away for consideration. "I have a little more to go on; I'll see about tracking down some of the others on my list."
"You'll find Gebbast Hardysty somewhere along the docks," Torney told him. "If he's not cadging drinks, he's in one of the doss-houses sleeping off a drunk. I doubt he could muster up enough moments of sobriety to work a simple spell, but you had better be the judge of that. Ofram Kellam has changed his name to Oskar Koob, and he's set himself up as a fortune-teller—the constables probably have an address for him under that name, though I doubt they know who he really is. The only reasonI know is that I ran into him on the street and called him by his right name—and he blurted out that I was mistaken, he was Oskar Koob, not the other fellow. I know what he could do when he was dismissed—for embezzling Church funds, if you don't already know—and I don't think he has the ability to work magic this powerful."
"Do you keep track of your fellow sinners?" Tal asked lightly.
Torney raised his eyebrow. "Actually, yes, I do," he admitted. "When I can. A little self-prescribed penance, but there are only three here in the city that I know of. I heard that Petor Lambert was still in Kingsford, but I haven't been able to find him, so he may be on the far side of the city. If he is, I suspect he's up to some old tricks of using magic to create 'miracles' to fleece the credulous. If I find him first, I'll get word to you, but you have more chance of tracking him down than I do."
"And I will leave you to enjoy the evening with your charming wife, as I hope you will," Tal told him, rising. "I can promise you that there won't be any more calls like this one."
Torney came around the bench to shake his hand. "I am just pleased that Ardis has found worthy men to help her," he said warmly as he opened the door for Tal. "She is a fine Priest, a hard worker, and an estimable woman. Not—" he added mischievously "—as estimable as my Loyse, but estimable nevertheless."
"Oh—as if I ever had a hope of being as wise or as intelligent as High Bishop Ardis!" Loyse said playfully as she held the counter-door open for Tal. "Here," she continued, holding out a package wrapped in brown paper to him, "take these with you. They're something new in the way of strikers that Dasel is trying. They might come in useful, and if you like them, perhaps you can get Captain Fenris and the constables to try them."
Torney looked proud but sheepish. "Kindling-sticks with chemicals on the tip, dipped in wax," he explained. "Watch—"
He took out a small bit of wood with a blob of odd bluish stuff on the end, and scraped it against the countertop. Tal started as a flame flared up on the end of the stick with an odd hissing sound.
"People are afraid of them," Torney explained. "They either think it's bad magic, or they think the things might suddenly go off in their pockets. But if the Church Guards and the constables started carrying and using them—"
"Obviously. I'll give them a try—though I warn you, if theydo suddenly go off in my pocket, I'll be very annoyed!" Tal grinned a little.
Torney chuckled. "No fear of that—unless you're being dragged by a horse and the pocket you've got them in gets ripped open. It needs a hard, rough surface—preferably stone—and you have to scrape with some force to get through the wax coating. But the wax makes them waterproof, which is why I use it."
Tal put the packet in his breeches-pocket, and thanked them both, then went out into the evening shadows and the thickly falling snow.
Two of the three men that Dasel Torney had mentioned were the ones missing from his list, and he decided to track down the easiest one first. With the help of a fat purse of coppers to buy beer and the cheap, strong liquor served in the dockside taverns, Tal went in search of Gebbast Hardysty. He hoped he wouldn't have to drink any of the rot-gut himself, but he was resigned to the fact that he would probably pay for this excursion with a throbbing skull and a queasy stomach in the morning.
At first, given that Hardysty haunted the dockside area, he thought he might have found his murderer. After all, a man who haunted the docks might be getting jobs as day-labor on barges, and that could put him in any city up and down the river with relative ease. As a casual laborer, no one would pay much attention to him. Hardysty was another of the mages on the list. Altogether, things seemed to add up properly—but after tracing him to a particularly noisome cellar-hole of a sailor's bar, Tal was having second thoughts.
By now it was fully dark, and Tal made sure of his long knife as he paused for a moment outside the tavern entrance—if that wasn't too grand a name to put on a gap in the cellar-wall of a warehouse, framed by three rough-hewn beams, with the only "door" being a square of patched sail. There wasn't even a sign outside the door, just a board with a battered tankard nailed to it. They couldn't even afford a lantern at the door; the only illumination came from the street-lamp two doors down, and a dim, yellowish light that seeped around the curtain at the door.
Tal had been in and out of many similar places in his career as a constable, and he wasn't afraid, merely cautious. In the winter there wasn't as much traffic on the river, which meant that sailors and river-men had less money to spend. It wasn't a festival night, the weather wasn't very cooperative, and most men would chose to stay where they bunked if they had a bed or a room. On a night like tonight, the men in this place wouldn't be looking for trouble—but they wouldn't try to avoid it, either. As long as he watched his step, he should be all right.