Thraxas of Turai by Martin Scott

Author:Martin Scott [Scott, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781543959154
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Not long afterwards I’m standing outside, halfway between the command centre and Makri’s small tent, feeling pleased with myself. ‘That went well,’ I say to her. ‘An Elvish lord is never going to be able to tell when I’m lying. Where he comes from everyone talks to the trees.’

‘No they don’t.’

‘I remember a lot of talking to trees when we were on Avula. Anyway, tree-talking or not, Lisutaris is in the clear and I’ve once more rescued our War Leader from a tricky situation. And what about the way I bamboozled these Niojans? It’s a gift, Makri.’

Makri claims not to be impressed. ‘If you’d made more progress with your investigation you wouldn’t have had to lie to the Niojans. If Lisutaris hadn’t smoked too much thazis, you wouldn’t have had to lie to the Elves. It’s not really something to brag about.’

Makri’s puritanical tendencies are re-surfacing, probably due to her irritation at being banished from the command tent. Lisutaris temporarily dispensed with her services as Tirini Snake Smiter was on her way. ‘I don’t trust Tirini to protect her.’

‘The tent is surrounded by her personal guard. She’ll be fine.’

‘How do we know Deeziz the Unseen isn’t creeping around?’

Deeziz the Unseen, the most powerful Orcish sorcerer, has baffled us in the past, infiltrating our ranks. ‘Last time Deeziz appeared, Lisutaris came into direct contact with her. She says Deeziz can never come close again without her recognising her, no matter how she’s disguised. I hope that’s true. Anyway, don’t you need time off? You’re meant to be helping Arichdamis with his mathematics.’

Makri’s shoulders droop. ‘I know.’

‘Then why aren’t you hurrying in Arichdamis’s direction?’

‘You know why I’m not.’

‘Still finding the mathematics too complicated?’

‘Everyone would find it too complicated. Create a path through multiple dimensions so that protective sorcery may flow through a trench which zigzags through a space which is surrounded by hostile sorcery. Try not to kill anyone in the process. The whole thing is absurd. Yesterday Arichdamis told me he was sure he’d calculated the path through the fourth dimension properly but we couldn’t check it any more because that might cause the figures to change and affect things when his sorcery reached the fifth dimension.’

I blink. ‘What?’

‘Some of the calculations can’t be checked. We have to get the figures right, and go with that. If you check them again it changes things.’

‘That doesn’t make sense.’

‘I know. None of it makes sense.’

‘How can checking the figures change things?’

Makri shrugs. ‘Arichdamis explained it but I got lost. Something about tiny packets of sorcery which exist in a place we can never precisely locate, and if we checked the figures again it would cause these tiny packets of sorcery to move somewhere else and ruin everything.’

‘Is he insane?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Drinking too much?’

‘Not as far as I can see,’ says Makri. ‘He’s always been abstemious.’

‘But how can you check his figures if you can’t check his figures?’

‘I can check them before he writes them down in his final manuscript. But after that you can’t analyse them any more.

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