Free Thraxas - The Complete Series by Martin Scott

The episode in the sewers has completely worn me out. I need to lie down and sleep, but I’m too worked up to relax. I smoke the thazis in three long draws. Makri arrives with a beer, and in between gulps I finish off the last of my klee. The strong spirit burns my throat as it goes down. Probably there are healthier methods of calming down than thazis, beer and klee, but none so quickly effective. By the time I’ve gone next door and dressed myself in some dry clothes I’m starting to return to my normal jovial self.
    “Who was it?” enquires Makri.
    “The Society of Friends. With a Sorcerer.”
    “They still think you’ve got the magic Cloth?”
    I nod. There’s a knock on the outside door. I answer it with a sword in one hand and a knife in the other. Outside is Karlox, the enforcer from the Brotherhood.
    “What the hell do you want?”
    “We hear you found the Cloth. Go a long way towards paying off your debts—” he begins.
    “I don’t have the damned Elvish Cloth!” I yell, slamming the door in his face.
    “This is preposterous, Makri. Two Elves are paying me to find the stuff, and everyone else thinks I have it already. It’s getting confusing. When I smoked that thazis I swear for a moment I started believing it myself. I’ll kill that damned Kerk, it’s all his fault. He spread the rumour that I stole it from Attilan.”
    I notice that Makri is no longer listening. The mention of the Elves has put her in a bad mood. I’m not certain why it’s bothering her so much. Makri has experienced plenty of prejudice against her in the city, with customers downstairs always commenting on her Orcish blood. She doesn’t like it but it doesn’t usually make her unhappy for long. Often forgets it almost right after hitting the customer. What seems to make matters worse is the fact that it involves Elves. I guess Makri, being one third Elvish, and speaking their language, and detesting Orcs quite as much as they do, finds rejection by them particularly galling. I don’t bother trying to cheer her up. Karlox’s visit has put me in a pretty bad mood myself.
    We light up some more thazis. Our mood improves a little.
    “I think the Cloth is still in the city.”
    Makri points out that only yesterday I said this was impossible.
    “I changed my mind. I don’t know how, but that Cloth is in Turai. I can sense it.”
    “Very astute, Thraxas. Though I suspected as much myself when all these people started trying to kill you.”
    I tell Makri about the alligator.
    “You’re joking. There aren’t really alligators in the sewers?”
    I assure her there are. A wave of fatigue rolls over my body.
    “I’m going to rest. The Society of Friends probably won’t risk another open attack on me down here in Brotherhood territory, but if a Sorcerer with a sore leg comes looking for me, tell him I’m not in.”
    It’s dark when I wake. A few thoughts of sewers and alligators come to mind but I banish them. More important business calls, namely I’m hungry. Really, really hungry. I launch myself downstairs to investigate Tanrose’s cooking. It’s now late evening, and drinking at the Avenging Axe is in full swing. Gurd is regaling some off-duty Civil Guardsmen with tales of the time he and a group of fellow mercenaries were trapped south of Mattesh and had to fight their way back to Turai through hundreds of miles of unknown terrain and whole armies of ferocious enemies. It’s a true story actually, though I have noticed it does tend to grow in the telling.
    Makri, chainmail bikini more or less in place, is gathering tankards and scooping up what looks like a fairly handsome tip from a group of sailors just back from the Southern Islands and full of the wonders they saw among the Elves. I head straight for the side of the bar where Tanrose sits selling her wares and cast a greedy eye over her food.
    “Evening, Tanrose. I’ll have a whole venison pie, a large portion of each vegetable and three slices of your apple