Swordplay

Part 39

The next morning, Moira arrived well rested and full of zest in the archive. Her heart beat fast. Finally, they were able to do something for Druidus. She was so early, she had to wait for Sabio, but she didn't mind.

He came down the stairs with his coat flying and saw her immediately. "I'm glad you're here this early."

The door to the archive opened, and he hurried in. He had hardly hung up his coat, when he pulled her toward the magiskope. "This is the final test. The gadget focuses your magic so precisely that we won't miss the smallest spell. Look."

He pulled a small hand held mirror from his bag. When he noticed Moira's questioning gaze, he said: "It belongs to my niece. Her mother insisted on giving her a mirror that reflects her more beautiful than she is. As if she needed that. It was supposed to strengthen her self assurance." He grinned. "It wasn't my idea, and we fought a lot about that back then."

"Doesn't your niece complain that you're using it for testing?"

"She especially gave it to me for this. She's always been far more interested in inventing and engineering than in beauty." Sabio breathed deeply several times and put the mirror under the magiskope.

"She's probably taking after her uncle." Moira watched Sabio activate his invention. Hopefully everything would work all right. She knew that a lowly spell like the one on the mirror had been untraceable up to now.

Sabio teetered on his toes. He irritated Moira.

The magiskope clicked and rattled, than a flat voice spoke. "Handheld mirror. Marginal fair-appearance spell. No cross reference to current cases."

"It's working!" Sabio rubbed his hands. "I'm as happy as at the time when I got my stripes as Commissaire Magilis."

"Congratulations." Moira patted his shoulder. "It's incredible that the gadget compares the test object with the archived material automatically."

"That was the easy part. Shall we test a few cursed weapons?" Sabio walked to his worktable and donned the protected gloves. He picked up a crossbow from the table. Moira had to look closely to see the telltale sparkle of a spell. Somehow she couldn't see mixed magics as well as spells woven from one kind of magic. If she hadn't known it was a cursed weapon, she might not have noticed the glittering at all.

Sabio walked to the magiskope, and Moira realized how excited he was. Small pearls of sweat had appeared on his upper lip, and his breathing was fast and shallow.

She was as tightly wound up. Her heat beat so loud, blood roared in her ears. She held her breath when the magiskope checked the weapon. Please, please, let this work. Moira didn't dare to think of Druidus for a superstitious fear that things wouldn't work in that case.

Finally, the flat voice droned. "Crossbow. Small. Ebony and forged iron. No magical activities. Cross referenced in files ..." It rattled down a long list of files.

Moira's heart sank, and she pressed her lips together to keep from crying.

Sabio's face mirrored her frustration. He looked as if someone had dumped a pail of cold water over him. "Why does the magiskope find the nearly untraceable spell of the mirror but fails with a really strong homicide spell? I don't understand. What did I miss?" He tugged at his hair.

Moira slapped her forehead. "Of course! Wild Magic."

"Sorry?" Sabio looked at her with raised eyebrows.

"You told me yourself that suicide and homicide spells contain some Wild Magic. I think you can only detect a Wild Magic enhanced spell with a gadget containing Wild Magic too."