Pandora's Closet Part 23

"We are," Torin said. "How may we-"

"You can do your d.a.m.n jobs, that's what you can do. You're supposed to be able to stop this kinda thing, right?"

"Actually, no," Danthres said with as insincere a smile as she could manage-which was pretty insincere indeed. "Our job is to find who did it and stop them from doing it again."

"Well, then who's responsible for stopping it?"

"I'm sorry, who are you again?"

Sighing dramatically, the woman said, "As I told this mouth-breather with the mite-sized brain-" She indicated the guard, who took the insult with aplomb. "-my name is Thea Amaralla, and I represent the Amaralla Cleaning Service."

That's two cleaning services in Cliff's End I despise, Danthres somehow managed not to say out loud. "And what is your connection to the Jaros case?"

"If you'd just listen, I'd tell you. They hired us to clean up the mess in their place."

"In that case," Danthres said, "the answer to your question is you."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You wanted to know who's responsible for stopping it. It's a mess, you're a cleaning service-I would think the answer would be obvious?"

Turning to Torin, Amaralla asked, "Is she always like this?"

"No," Torin said cheerily, "usually she's belligerent. Madam, I'm afraid my partner is correct, cleaning up the mess is your job. We simply need to find out who did this and-"

"Not did."

"I'm sorry?" Torin frowned in confusion.

"Not did. Is doing. The mess is getting worse. And every attempt we've made to clean it up has met with failure. Nothing will make it go away-and now it's growing." She stomped her foot. "So will you please figure it out? The Jaroses are demanding their money back!"

Just as Danthres was about to speak, Torin cut her off. "I'm afraid that issues of payment must be worked out between you and the Jaros family, madam. However, you can rest a.s.sured that we will be looking into this new development." He looked over at the guard. "Will you please escort the lady out?"

Smiling nastily, the guard said, "Gladly, Lieutenant." He grabbed Amaralla by the arm and yanked her toward the door.

"I will not be treated this way! Let go of me! This is an outrage! This is-"

Whatever else it was became lost in her rapid, guard-aided retreat. Danthres made a mental note to be less nasty to that guard in the future.

Torin looked at her. "There would appear to be more to this than we thought. I suggest we go back."

Danthres desperately wanted to argue the point, but she found she couldn't. And that only made her mood worse.

Before they could even make it to the door of the Jaros house, Millar Jaros intercepted them, screaming a blue streak.

"What the h.e.l.l's wrong with you people? You see the mess in there? Well? Didja? It's a mess! How're we supposed t'live in there if it's such a mess?"

Next to him was Abbi, who put a hand on his shoulder. "Father, take it easy, they can't-"

Whirling on his daughter-in-law, Millar said, "How'm I supposed t'take it easy when there's such a mess in there!"

"I know, Father, but-"

Torin finally said, "May we please take a look?"

Throwing up his hands, Millar said, "Sure, take a look, but all you're gonna see is a mess!"

Danthres shot Torin a look, as if to say, What else were we supposed to see? Torin shrugged back, and the two of them then walked past the Jaroses to the guard who'd been a.s.signed by Dragon Precinct to stand at the front door.

"Open it," Torin said.

Nodding, the guard opened the front door.

The smell was the first thing to hit Danthres. On their previous visit, the place had smelled bad, but no worse than the thoroughfares of Goblin Precinct during midsummer, or the docks of Mermaid Precinct in the afternoon after the fish came in.

Now, though, the Jaros house made the docks seem like an orchard by comparison. Danthres's nose wrinkled up immediately and pretty much stayed that way as she surveyed the sitting room.

Not that there was much of the sitting room to survey-it was covered, wall to ceiling, in the same dark muck. She could make out small shapes under the muck that she a.s.sumed to be the furniture, and she also saw other bits and pieces jutting out from it.

"Lord and Lady," Torin muttered.

"Close the door," Danthres said to the guard. "We need to get Boneen in here."

It took the better part of an hour for the magical examiner to make his appearance. During that time, Danthres tried to ignore Millar Jaros's complaints, mostly by coming up with entertaining ways of flaying the old man alive.

When Boneen did arive via a Teleport Spell, he looked even more perturbed than usual. "I've already been here."

"Yes," Danthres said, "and all you told us was that it was unlicensed magic. What kind of magic was it?"

Boneen sneered. "The unlicensed kind. Why am I wasting my time with this?"

Torin asked, "Boneen, did you identify the sigil on the blueprints on my desk?"

"Yes, right before I was told to come here. It's the symbol for hiding something."

Looking at Danthres, Torin said, "Like a closet."

Millar stepped forward. "What do you mean?"

"The blueprints for your house have a mark on the spot where the closet is now," Torin said. "It would seem that the hidden closet was part of the building's original plans."

"Excuse me," Boneen said before Millar could go off on another rant about messes, thus marking the first time Danthres had ever been grateful for Boneen's crankiness, "but why am I here?"

Steeling herself, Danthres told the guard to reopen the door to the Jaros house.

Boneen seemed unperturbed by the stench. He simply looked inside and said, "Oh, dear."

"Well put," Danthres muttered.

Shaking his head, the magical examiner looked away from the muck-covered sitting room. "I had a.s.sumed this to be a one-time event-someone using the Duality Spell once for whatever arcane reason-but it looks like it's been used for some time, and still is being cast on a regular basis." He regarded Torin and pointed at the closet in the back of the sitting room. "That sigil I was translating-it was on the spot where that closet is?"

Torin nodded.

"Can we please close the door before I die?" Danthres asked plaintively. The elven half of her heritage came with a sensitivity far greater than that of humans, and the smell that irritated them was going to kill her ere long.

Waving his hand dismissively, Boneen said, "It won't do any good, but go ahead." The guard did so, to Danthres's relief.

Millar drew himself up to full height. "What do you mean it won't do any good? And who's going to clean up that mess?"

"And what exactly," Danthres asked, "is a Duality Spell?" As a rule, Danthres preferred to avoid magic, but reality didn't allow for that, and ten years in the Castle Guard made her painfully aware of the most common spells-particularly the ones that were commercially available. This one, however, rang no bells.

"To answer your earlier question, Tresyllione," Boneen said, folding his spindly arms across his chest, "this magic is of a type devised by a wizard named Ivano the Misguided. He pioneered an entire system of magic that involved checks and balances-every time you cast a spell, there was a concomitant reaction elsewhere. This way there'd be no effort on the part of the spellcaster, and anyone could wield magic."

"Anyone can use magic," Danthres said impatiently. "All they have to do is buy a spell-"

"-that's already been cast." Boneen sounded just as impatient. "A wizard casts the spell into the scroll, which then goes on the market. The purchaser then uses it, but the energy of the spellcaster has already been spent. With Ivano's magic, one didn't need any kind of training to cast a spell, nor did one need to purchase a spell-you simply needed to incant it."

Torin nodded. "That explains why that Amaralla woman's people couldn't clean the place-and why my boots resisted the Cleaning Spell."

Seeing an out, Danthres said with a smile. "So that means this would be a case for the Brotherhood, wouldn't it?"

"If I bring this to the Brotherhood, the first thing they'll ask is why I didn't bring this to them sooner." Boneen for once sounded abashed. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not bring that to their attention."

"Oh, no," Danthres said angrily, pointing an accusatory finger at Boneen, "you're not getting out of it that easily. I've had far too many murders and a.s.saults s.h.i.tcanned because it's 'Brotherhood business,' and everything gets swept under the rug. Now, the one time when they'd actually be a help, which only happens once every third blue moon, and you're telling me you won't inform them?"

"I'll help you," Boneen said.

That brought Danthres up short. The M.E. had never used those three words in sequence before that Danthres was aware of. Boneen considered the work he did for the Castle Guard to be a waste of his precious time and energy, and he begrudged every second of it. For him to volunteer...

Boneen went on. "Give me a minute to gather myself up and let me examine the house more closely. I might be able to trace where the spell's being cast."

"Uhm, excuse me?" That was Abbi Jaros, whom Danthres had briefly forgotten, having focused most of her ire on either her father-in-law or the M.E. "What kind of spell is this exactly? What's happening to our house?"

Boneen started waving his arms about. "Ivano's magic always has a secondary effect. Someone is doing something pleasant, and that requires that somewhere else there be something awful. However, the awful can be directed, and in this case, it was to the closet that was hidden in your house when it was built." He cast a glance at the shut door. "But they've obviously been casting this spell for some time. The muck in your closet has become too big to fit therein, and it has spilled out into the house." Now he looked at Danthres and Torin. "We need to find out who's doing this. At this rate, it will expand to take over and destroy this house. In a week, it will have consumed the entire block."

Danthres blinked. Perhaps she didn't want the Brotherhood involved, after all-not if she wanted this solved properly. "All right, then, what do we do?"

"First, I examine this house." Boneen slowly got down onto the floor and sat in a lotus position; Danthres could hear his bones creak and crack as he did so. The aged wizard muttered something, waved his right hand about, and then started to float upward.

About a minute later, he unfolded his legs, while still floating, and placed them on the ground. "This is worse than I thought. It's been going on for at least a decade, possibly longer. I can't tell for sure-there are magically enhanced items in there interfering." That last was said with an accusatory look at Abbi and Millar.

"That's impossible!" Abbi said. "We don't keep anything magical in the house."

"That's right," Millar said. "Got rid of it all. Filthy stuff, magic."

Noting that was the first thing Millar had said that hadn't made Danthres want to punch him, she asked Boneen, "Is there any way to extract those items? If they don't belong to the family, they might belong to whoever cast the spell."

"It's possible, but I'm already rather tired, and-"

"Fine, then." Danthres turned to Torin. "What's the name of the Brotherhood representative?"

"Ythran," Torin said. "I'm sure he'd be overjoyed to hear all about Boneen misreading the peel-back."

"I didn't misread it!" Boneen was almost pouting. "All right, all right, I'll cast the blessed spell."

This time, Boneen didn't bother with the lotus position, but the muttering took longer, and he gesticulated with both hands.

Danthres had to blink away the spots in front of her eyes that the resultant flash of light caused, but when they were gone, she looked down at the ground in front of Boneen to see seven objects, all encrusted with the muck that had taken over the Jaros house, all looking like articles of clothing.

Boneen pointed at one of two items that looked like cloaks. "That looks like a Protector Cloak-a low-level one, it'd just keep the s.h.i.t off you walking around Goblin-but that explains the magical interference."

However, Danthres was more interested in the other cloak.

Breathing through her mouth to avoid the stench-which, while not as bad as the room had been, was still pretty awful-Danthres bent over to grab it. Grateful that her uniform included gloves, she picked it up by one end with her right hand, wiping the center of the cloak off with her left glove.

Then she smiled grimly. "I know who did this."

Forak's Perfect Clean had offices in Dragon Precinct, only a short walk from Danthres' rooms, which was why she had chosen them in the first place. That evening, she entered their waiting area, accompanied by Torin. As had been the case when she had gone there to make the appointment, and again when she filed the complaint about her missing cloak, the waiting area consisted solely of a bench, a desk behind which sat a prim young woman, and a door leading to the back.

The prim woman-whose name, Danthres recalled, was Emanuela-looked up at their entrance. "Ah, Lieutenant Trellis, isn't it?"

"Tresyllione, actually," Danthres corrected automatically.

"Of course. I'm afraid we haven't found your cloak yet, but I can a.s.sure you that it will turn up. We here at Forak's guarantee customer satisfaction-it is our watchword, after all." Emanuela said all that without once changing her inflection.

"Well, I'm afraid that isn't good enough," Danthres said, trying to sound like an outraged customer-which wasn't too difficult an act for her just at the moment. "I want to speak to your supervisor immediately."

"I'm afraid Mr. Forak isn't available right now, Lieutenant, but if you wish to make an appointment-"

"I'm afraid that I must see Mr. Forak right now, or I will shut this place down."

Emanuela opened her tiny mouth into an O, then closed it. She didn't have a prepared response to that, it seemed, and it took a few moments for her brain to actually function. "Can you do that?"

Torin smiled his most pleasant smile. "We are lieutenants in the Castle Guard, madam. The Lord and Lady have granted us considerable leeway in such matters, and all we would have to do is p.r.o.nounce this place a menace to the well-being of Cliff's End and its inhabitants, and it would be shut down. Mr. Forak could, of course, appeal to the magistrate, but that might take days."

"Weeks, even," Danthres added. "And you would not be permitted to conduct business until that-"

"Mr. Forak!" Emanuela cried out in a tone very much like a mouse's squeak, apparently unable to handle any more disruptions to her world. "Some people here to see you!"

A short man with thin hair and a thick mustache came out through the door to the rear. "What? What? Dammit, Emanuela, I told you not to bother me, I'm trying to-Oh!" That last word was spoken upon sighting two people in leather armor and earth-colored cloaks, symbolizing that they were detectives in the Guard. "Dammit, Emanuela, why didn't you tell me that the good people of the Cliff's End Castle Guard were here?"

"But-" Emanuela tried to protest, but Forak didn't give her the chance, bounding forward with a broad smile peeking out from under his mustache.

"You're Mr. Forak?"

"Yes, Lieutenant, yes, I am most definitely him, yes, I am. Now then, who might you be, and what service can Forak's Perfect Clean do for you on this lovely day?"

"I'm Lieutenant Tresyllione, this is my partner, Lieutenant ban Wyvald. I'm one of your customers, actually."