Pandora's Closet

A CLEAN GETAWAY by Keith R. A. DeCandido

“Watch where you step!’ Lieutenant Danthres Tresyllione was already in a bad mood when she arrived at the house in Unicorn Precinct, and finding herself being yelled at by one of the guards did not improve it. Looking down, she saw that the floor of the house was covered in some kind of dark muck.

Her superiors were generally amenable to paying for a Cleaning Spell to get blood stains out of her boots and earth-colored cloak. This whatever-it-was, on the other hand, would be a harder sell, and Danthres was in no mood to fight that particular battle with whatever functionary in the Lord and Lady’s court oversaw the appropriations for such things.

“I’ll stay out here, then,” she said, stopping in the threshold.

“Not a problem,” said a familiar voice from inside. It was her partner, Lieutenant Torin ban Wyvald. “I’ve already been soiled, so I’ll provide the gory details.”

Danthres peered inside to see a large sitting room that would have been considered fancy and high-class but for the fact that it was covered in a truly impressive amount of dirt and grime and muck. Tramping around in it were the guard who had cautioned her to step lightly-whom she recognized as Manfred, one of the few grunts in the Cliff’s End Castle Guard who had anything approaching a brain-and Torin. Hovering about a hand’s-length above the floor was the M.E., Boneen. Typically, the magical examiner refused to degrade himself, so he used his wizardly abilities to levitate; just as typically, the cranky old bastard didn’t offer the same courtesy to the others.

“I’m surprised to see you here already, Boneen,” Danthres said. “It usually requires a team of dragons to get you to a crime scene with any dispatch.”

Glaring witheringly at Danthres from his position over the floor, Boneen said, “Does it disturb you, Tresyllione, to make so many attempts at wit and yet fall short of the mark?”

“Not in the least.” Danthres turned to Torin. “So what happened?”

Torin cleared his throat before speaking. “This house is owned by the Jaros family. The actual owner is the family patriarch, Millar Jaros, and his son, daughter-in-law, and four grandchildren all live here as well. This morning the daughter-in-law, Abbi, came downstairs to prepare breakfast, and discovered this.”

While Torin was talking, Danthres had been looking at the muck and noticing something. “All right, this is odd-there’s a pattern to the gunk. Like it all exploded outward.” She’d seen similar patterns in blood when someone was struck with a heavy object, especially in the head, but it wasn’t something she ever expected to see with dirt.

“Yes, it did.” Torin was now pointing at a closet door. “It seems to have come out from there.”

Crankily, Boneen said, “No ‘seems’ about it. I did the peel-back, and it showed this garbage literally explode outward from the closet.” On loan from the Brotherhood of Wizards, the magical examiner’s primary purpose was to cast an Inanimate Residue Spell, commonly called a “peel-back,” which allowed him to see what recently happened in a particular place. “And once I did that, I had this young man call you two in.”

That, at least, explained why Boneen’s arrival preceded theirs. She looked at Manfred. “You summoned the M.E., Manfred?”

“Yes, ma’am.” The guard sounded pleased that she remembered his name. “And he had me bring you in, like he said, ma’am.”

Danthres’s mood grew darker by the second. “Pardon me, Boneen, but I was under the impression that the function of lieutenants in the Castle Guard like myself and Torin was to investigate crimes that occur within the Lord and Lady’s demesne.”

“What are you driving at, Tresyllione?”

Angrily, Danthres said, “What I’m driving at is that what I see here is an accident, not a crime-unless there’s a dead body I’m missing under all this?”

Torin’s long red hair and thick red beard obscured all of his face save for his humorous eyes and aquiline nose-except when he smiled broadly, as he did now. “No, but there is a bit of a wrinkle.”

She sighed. “Of course there is.”

Manfred said, “I talked to Abbi Jaros and then her husband, father-in-law, and children, and they all say the same thing: until this morning, there was no closet there, just a blank wall.”

“So there’s magic afoot.” She fixed her irritated gaze upon Boneen. “Isn’t magic the Brotherhood’s concern?”

“Licensed magic is, yes. This is unlicensed magic.” Sniffing, he added, “The Brotherhood does not consort in magicks that cast dirt about.”

“What, your desire to keep from getting your hands dirty extends to the rest of the world, too?”

“Something like that, yes. In any case, I’ve already communicated with Lord Ythran, the local Brotherhood representative, and he and I agreed that this is an unlicensed commercial spell, and therefore not within the Brotherhood’s purview. So have at it.”

With that, Boneen gestured, muttered something, and disappeared in a flash of light.

After blinking the spots from her eyes-Danthres was half-elf, which made her more sensitive to the bright lights that accompanied Boneen’s Teleport Spell-she said, “This doesn’t answer my question.”

“What question is that, Danthres?” Torin asked as he slogged through the muck toward the front door.

“What crime has been committed?”

Torin looked down, smiled, and then looked back at Danthres. “Well, vandalism at the very least.”

“A crime easily solved even by the pea-brained idiots of the guard rank.” Turning to Manfred, she said, “Nothing personal, Manfred.”

Manfred grinned. “Honestly, ma’am, most guards’ brains aren’t that large.”

Danthres found herself laughing against her better judgment, then quickly grew serious again. The last thing she wanted to do was get chummy with one of the guards. “So why are we handling this?”

Torin walked slowly to the closet door. “I said vandalism was the very least this could be. I’ve examined the closet door-it doesn’t match the design of the rest of the house, and the space it takes up can’t be accounted for by the shape of the house. It’s definitely something magical. It might be some sort of attack on the Jaros family. Since we haven’t actually spoken to them yet, now might be the time to do that, and see if this is part of something larger.”

Rolling her eyes, Danthres said, “Somehow I doubt that very much.” She sighed far louder than perhaps she should have and asked Manfred, “Where are they?”

“Next door, ma’am-they said they didn’t want to stay in here until it was cleaned up.”

Torin gingerly walked across the sitting-room floor toward Danthres. “Perhaps you can recommend that cleaning service of yours?”

Her face darkening even more, Danthres said, “Not likely. I spent half the morning trying to find where they put everything.” At the behest of a rather aggrieved landlady, Danthres had hired a cleaning service for her rooms. Said landlady had rented Danthres the two rooms on the upper floor of her house in Dragon Precinct on the condition that Danthres keep the place clean and neat. However, Danthres had not been keeping up that part of the bargain especially well, thanks to the long hours she put in as a detective for the Castle Guard as well as her own inherent laziness when it came to matters of housekeeping. Since the landlady was threatening to toss Danthres out on her ear if she didn’t comply, she hired a cleaning service.

They’d done a thorough job of making the place neat and shiny and clean. It was far more thorough than Danthres would have believed possible-so much so, in fact, that Danthres couldn’t find a single thing she was looking for this morning. It was what had set her on her bad mood in the first place.

As Torin did his best to wipe his feet on the welcome mat, he said to Manfred, “Seal off the house for the time being, and get Sergeant Arron to send someone to guard both the front and back doors.”

Danthres rolled her eyes. “Waste of time.”

“Perhaps, but I’d rather have guards there and not need them than the other way ’round.”

“Fair enough. If you’re done, let’s go talk to the family.”

The family, to Danthres’s lack of surprise, was singularly unhelpful. That lack of surprise was due to the way her day had been going. First there was the scavenger hunt for her every personal item. Then she arrived at the east wing of the castle, where the sergeant informed her that the magistrate had returned a not-guilty ruling on her and Torin’s most recent murder case, which did nothing to improve either her mood or her opinion of the magistrate. She couldn’t complain to Torin about it because he was late as usual-only he wasn’t coming in at all, because he’d been summoned to the crime scene in Unicorn.

To add to the annoyance, none of the Jaros family seemed to be in any way insincere about their confusion over what had happened. Danthres had been a detective in the Castle Guard for a decade now, and she had gotten a good ear for when people were lying. While Millar Jaros did lie about his monetary worth and Abbi Jaros lied about how she was a good and faithful wife, and the children lied about any number of things, they all seemed quite sincere to her trained ear when they discussed the suddenly appearing closet.

Just as Torin and Danthres were about to leave the neighbor’s house, Abbi asked, “Excuse me, Lieutenants, but, well, I mean-” She threw up her hands. “What are we supposed to do about that?”

“Hire a cleaning service, I would expect,” Danthres said dismissively.

“I’m a good housewife,” Abbi said stubbornly. “I don’t believe in cleaning services.”

“Have at it, then,” Danthres said with a wicked grin. “But if you decide you’d rather not get on hands and knees and muck out your own house, I can recommend a service to avoid. They’re called Forak’s Perfect Clean, and they’ve made a mess of my own place.”

Abbi frowned. “What kind of cleaning service leaves a place a mess?”

“That’s kind of my point.” With that, Danthres left.

Danthres’ mood was even worse when she came in the next morning. After spending the morning wasting their time interviewing the Jaros family, they spent the afternoon wasting their time interviewing Alfrek Jaros’ coworkers. Alfrek, Abbi’s husband and Millar’s son, worked in the Lord and Lady’s castle as a deputy to the transport minister, Sir Lio. That, at least, made tracking them down easy, as they were in the same building where Danthres and Torin worked.

They were no more helpful in revealing why someone would mess up the Jaros sitting room from a hidden closet.

Sergeant Jonas came dashing in from the kitchen, shuffling parchments, his green cloak billowing behind him. He scowled at Danthres as she approached her desk. “You’re late. And where’s your-”

“Jonas, so help me, if you ask me where my cloak is, I will ram my sword so far up your ass the point will stick out your left ear. Just fetch me another one, will you?”

The sergeant twisted his lips, as if considering saying something, then thinking better of it, and then zipped off to fetch a fresh cloak. All members of the Castle Guard wore leather armor, a crest emblazoned on the chest to indicate posting: a gryphon for the castle, and a unicorn, dragon, goblin, or mermaid to indicate the precinct with the same name in the city-state proper. Those above the level of guard had a cloak to indicate rank; lieutenants wore brown.

Danthres saw, to her shock, that Torin was already at his desk, which abutted hers. True, she was later than usual, but for Torin, late was usual. He was also holding some parchments in his hands. “Paperwork,” he said dismissively as he set them aside. “What happened to your cloak?”

“Forak’s. I’m guessing one of their cleaning people made off with it when they cleaned the place. That’s why I’m late, I had to go over there to complain. They promised to search and get back to me.” She sat down at her desk. “What have you been doing?”

“I was thinking about what other avenues we could explore, and I thought we might try the architectural angle.”

Danthres frowned. “Excuse me?”

“Millar, Abbi, and Alfrek all said that the closet wasn’t part of the original design of the house, that it was a blank wall until yesterday morning.”

“Right. Whatever magic cast the muck also created the closet.”

“Perhaps. But this house dates back to when the city-state was first being built. Lord Galmar, Lord Albin’s late father, insisted that all constructions have their blueprints filed in the castle. Lord Albin didn’t continue that practice-the city-state grew too large for it to be practical to keep track of every single building-but back in the old days it was a requirement.” One of Torin’s smaller smiles peeked out through his beard. “So I’ve requested the blueprints.”

Instinctively, Danthres wanted to object. In her experience, the best way to find out what happened was to figure out who was most likely to have committed the crime and interrogate them until they confessed.

But they’d tried that, and didn’t turn anything up. Torin’s notion was as good a one as any.

“What’s wrong?” Torin asked.

“Hm?” Danthres looked up. “What do you mean what’s wrong?”

Torin smirked. “I expected at least a grouse about what a pain it is to paw through records when we should be questioning people.”

“What would be the point?” Danthres said with a dramatic sigh. “Besides, I used up most of my invective this morning with those shitbrains at Forak’s.” Waving off the platitude Torin was likely to espouse, she said, “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. Let’s get to work.”

“Well, we can’t until-”

One of the castle page boys came in, laden with massive rolled-up parchments, and looking nervously from side to side. “Lieutenant bin Givald?”

Chuckling, Torin got up. “Close enough. Over here, lad.”

The page boy dashed over to Torin’s desk, dropped the parchments unceremoniously on its surface, then dashed out of the squad room as fast as his spindly legs would carry him.

“No doubt concerned about overexposure to the thugs,” Danthres said irritably, using the word far too many of the aristocrats in the castle used when speaking of the Castle Guard.

Torin grinned. “No doubt.” He unrolled the dried old parchments, one for each floor of the house.

Danthres got up and walked around to Torin’s desk. As she started to peer down at the blueprints, she noticed that Torin was wearing new boots. “What happened to your boots?”

Shrugging, Torin said, “I couldn’t get that muck off, so I sent them to be cleaned, and they issued me a new pair.”

“I should mark this day down,” she said dryly. “In ten years, I think that’s the first time you’ve changed boots without being threatened with bodily harm.” She was also impressed that Torin had managed to convince the service to do the job in the first place.

“It takes forever to break them in,” Torin said testily. “I have wide feet.”

She shook her head. “They’re boots, Torin, not pets.” Not wanting to get into this argument again, she looked down at the ragged material. “I’m amazed these things haven’t fallen to pieces. Aren’t they over a hundred years old?”

“Magic, probably,” Torin said, “cast when it was realized that they were, in fact, falling to pieces.” He studied the first floor. “Interesting. There isn’t a design for a closet-but there is a space there.” He put his index finger on the spot where the closet was now. “That’s odd.”

“What is?”

“Feel that.”

Looking at her partner as if he were crazy, she asked, “What?”

“The parchment, on the spot where the closet is, feel it.”

Shrugging, Danthres did so-and was surprised to feel something etched into the parchment. “It feels like a character of some kind.”

Torin looked up just as Jonas came zooming in, a cloak in his hand. “Sergeant, could you fetch Boneen, please?”

Jonas handed Danthres her cloak in the manner one would give a diseased rat to a waste disposer. After Danthres snatched it out of his hands, the sergeant said to Torin, “He’s on a call right now-Dru and Hawk found that invisible robber’s house, and he needs to do a peel-back on it.”

Nodding, Torin said, “Fine, when he gets back, could you ask him to tell us what the sigil is on this section of the parchment?”

Jonas looked at where Torin was pointing and nodded. “Oh, by the way,” he said as he turned to leave, “they couldn’t do anything for your boots. The Cleaning Spell didn’t work for some reason.” With that, the sergeant left the squad room again.

“You know, it might not even be a sigil,” Danthres said, “though I agree that’s the most likely thing.”

“Either way, best to sound sure with Boneen-otherwise he’ll yell at us for wasting his time.”

Danthres snorted. “Like he won’t anyhow.”

“Fair point. I wonder what the problem was with the boots.”

Shrugging, Danthres said, “They probably got a cheap Cleaning Spell that doesn’t actually work.”

“Probably.”

“Lieutenant?”

Since no name was given, both Torin and Danthres turned at the sound of the voice, which came from one of the guards assigned to the castle. Danthres couldn’t remember his name, so she just thought of him the way she did most of the guards: he was the stupid one.

“Yes?” she said.

“There’s someone here to see you both-she says it has to do with the Jaros case.”

“Who is she?” Danthres asked.

The guard said, “Her name’s Amaralla, and she says she-”

Suddenly, a very short, dark-haired woman barrelled past the guard and said, “Enough of this, I’m busy, dammit, don’t have time for this. Are you two Trestle and bag Wyverin?”

“I’m Lieutenant ban Wyvald,” Torin said slowly to make sure the woman realized just how badly she’d mangled their names, “and this is my partner-”

“Yes, yes, yes, you’re the ones investigating what happened to the Jaros house, right?”

“We are,” Torin said. “How may we-”

“You can do your damn 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 assured 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 hell’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 assigned 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 assumed 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 assumed 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 assaults shitcanned 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 shit 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 assure 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 pronounce 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.”

“Ah, yes, well, of course,” Forak said, sounding relieved. “Are you satisfied with our service, Lieutenant Tresilon?”

“Tresyllione, and I mostly am, yes, although an item has gone missing. A cloak-just like the one I’m wearing now. I told your girl about it there-”

“Right, of course, yes, we’re getting right on that. My best people are searching for the cloak even as we speak.”

“Your best people?”

“Of course.”

Danthres nodded. “Fascinating.”

“Mr. Forak, I apologize,” Torin said, “but I’m a bit befuddled. You see, before coming here, we went to the castle and examined your tax records. They say that you only have one employee.” He nodded his head at Emanuela. “I have to wonder-who does the actual cleaning?”

“And who’s looking for my cloak?” Danthres added.

Forak started to shuffle from foot to foot, and twisted the end of his mustache with his right hand. “Yes, well, ahm, you see, I mean, that is to say, uh-”

“Let me save you the trouble of lying, Mr. Forak. You don’t have any employees, do you? You charge one gold per room cleaned, which, when I first came here, you said was to cover cleaning supplies and labor costs. Other cleaning services usually charge two gold, but they also give the option of providing your own supplies-which you don’t do.”

“Erm, yes, you see, I-”

“This is because you don’t actually have a staff, do you, Mr. Forak?” Danthres started moving slowly closer to Forak, who backed up until he bumped into Emanuela’s desk. “Instead, you cast a spell to clean the room and send the dirt to a closet hidden in a house in Unicorn, where no one will ever find it. There are only two problems, Mr. Forak.”

“Oh, ah, yes? What’s, er, what’s that, then?”

“First of all, the closet filled up and exploded. The dirt from all the homes you’ve cleaned has now taken over the house, and soon it will encompass an entire block. Do you know who owns that house, Mr. Forak?”

“Er, well, no, actually, I-”

“Alfrek Jaros. He works for Sir Lio, the transport minister. Do you know what Sir Lio will think about someone doing this to one of his deputies?”

“Uhm-”

“The second problem is that it isn’t just dirt that goes to the Jaros closet. According to our magical examiner, the spell requires sending the items from one closet to another, and some items in the closets of your clients got mixed in with the dirt. They included two pairs of boots, a Protection Cloak, three tunics-and my cloak.”

“Ah, yes, well, you see, I can, er, that is to say, I-”

Torin grabbed Forak’s arms. “I would reserve comment until you’ve seen the magistrate.”

Puffing himself up, Forak said, “Hang on, you can’t arrest me! I’ve done nothing wrong!”

Danthres snarled. “You’ve done quite a bit wrong, Mr. Forak. Fraud, for one thing.”

“I didn’t defraud no one, I didn’t! I said I’d clean your place, and I did!”

Torin glanced at Danthres. “He has a point.”

“True. But there’s also littering. And vandalism to the Jaros house.” She smiled a most unpleasant smile, then. “And, of course, there’s the Brotherhood.”

Forak went white. “Th-the Brotherhood? You mean, that is to say-of Wizards?”

“Yes, that Brotherhood. They don’t take kindly to people using unlicensed magic.”

That deflated him, and he took Torin’s advice and refrained from further comment. They led him out the door and handed him off to one of the four guards from Dragon they had left waiting outside. That guard would take him to the castle for imprisonment until the magistrate-and the Brotherhood-could deal with him. Torin instructed the other three to escort Emanuela to Dragon for questioning and to close up the offices of Forak’s Perfect Clean.

Danthres looked up at the sky, seeing the sun starting to set into the horizon, and she realized that she was in a good mood. Justice had been done, she’d found her cloak, and she didn’t even have to deal directly with the Brotherhood.

Then Torin said, “You realize that when this is all over, he’s going to have to reverse the spell in order to salvage the Jaros house. That means all the dirt will probably have to go back.”

“Actually, I hadn’t realized it.” Danthres snarled, her foul mood back full force.

“Yes,” Torin said with a smile. “You’ve been left with quite a mess.”

Somehow, Danthres managed not to kill him.