Chapter two
The Ganchark of TherminsaxWe searched. Oh, yes, we searched.
Marion’s villa yielded weapons enough to give us some confidence we might meet and face up to a gigantic beast. We shone lanternlight into the shrubberies and arcades, we thrashed the bushes. We shouted and banged kettles and pans.
We found not a sign of that feral horror.
The Watch of this precinct carried on the search farther into the streets and alleys. Seg and I felt firmly convinced the beast must be lurking low, sated by now on a victim he seized and killed without being disturbed.
“I don’t want the whole city sent into a panic,” I said to the prefect, who attended me at Marion’s villa.
“Quite so, majister. We will prosecute the search with the utmost diligence; but I think we shall find nothing until the
