"Iorich" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brust Steven)

Iorich by Steven Brust

Cov­er

Iorich

Iorich

IORICH

Iorich

BOOKS BY STEVEN BRUST

The Dra­gaer­an Nov­els

Broke­down Palace

THE KHAAVREN RO­MANCES

The Phoenix Guards

Five Hun­dred Years Af­ter

The Vis­count of Adri­lankha,

which com­pris­es

The Paths of the Dead,

The Lord of Cas­tle Black,

and

Sethra Lavode

THE VLAD TAL­TOS NOV­ELS

Jhereg

Or­ca

Yen­di

Drag­on

Teck­la

Is­so­la

Tal­tos

Dzur

Phoenix

Jhe­gaala

Athyra

Iorich

Oth­er Nov­els

To Reign in Hell

The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars

Ag­yar

Cow­boy Feng’s Space Bar and Grille

The Gyp­sy (with Megan Lind­holm)

Free­dom and Ne­ces­si­ty (with Em­ma Bull)

Iorich

STEVEN BRUST

IORICH

A TOM DO­HER­TY AS­SO­CIATES BOOK

NEW YORK

Iorich

This is a work of fic­tion. All of the char­ac­ters, or­ga­ni­za­tions, and events

por­trayed in this nov­el are ei­ther prod­ucts of the au­thor’s imag­ina­tion

or are used fic­ti­tious­ly.

IORICH

Copy­right © 2009 by Steven Brust

All rights re­served.

Edit­ed by Tere­sa Nielsen Hay­den

A Tor Book

Pub­lished by Tom Do­her­ty As­so­ciates, LLC

175 Fifth Av­enue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor-​forge.com

Tor® is a reg­is­tered trade­mark of Tom Do­her­ty As­so­ciates, LLC.

Li­brary of Congress Cat­aloging-​in-​Pub­li­ca­tion Da­ta

Brust, Steven, 1955–

     Iorich / Steven Brust. — 1st ed.

         p. cm.

     “A Tom Do­her­ty As­so­ciates book.”

     IS­BN 978-0-7653-1208-2

     1. Tal­tos, Vlad (Fic­ti­tious char­ac­ter)—Fic­tion. I. Ti­tle.

  PS3552.R84I57 2010

  813'.54—dc22

2009040414

First Edi­tion: Jan­uary 2010

Print­ed in the Unit­ed States of Amer­ica

0   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

Iorich

For Meridel Bian­ca

Iorich

AC­KNOWL­EDG­MENTS

Thanks to Reesa Brown for pota­to pas­tries and oth­er things too nu­mer­ous to men­tion, and to Kit O’Con­nell for com­put­er and re­search help. Anne K. G. Mur­phy pro­vid­ed some emacs help for which I re­main grate­ful. Thanks to Brad Roberts and Thomas Bull for sig­nif­icant help in sur­viv­ing un­til this was done. Fi­nal­ly, my thanks to Alexx Kay for con­ti­nu­ity check­ing.

Iorich

Iorich

IORICH

Iorich

PRO­LOGUE

Even if things don’t work the way you’d planned, it’s good when you can take some­thing use­ful away from the ex­pe­ri­ence.

They jumped me just as I was en­ter­ing a lit­tle vil­lage called Whitemill at the south­ern edge of the Push­ta. They had con­cealed them­selves be­hind the long, bro­ken hedge that bor­dered the Whitemill Pike be­fore it turned in­to the sin­gle road of the ham­let. It was a good place for an at­tack. The near­est dwelling was per­haps a quar­ter of a mile away, and night was just falling.

There were three of them: Dra­gaer­ans, two men and a wom­an, wear­ing the col­ors of no spe­cial House. They all car­ried swords and knives. And they knew their busi­ness: the key to con­vinc­ing some­one to give up his cash is to be fast and very, very ag­gres­sive; you do not stand there and ex­plain to your client why he should do what you want, you try to get him in­to a po­si­tion where, be­fore he has time to think, much less re­spond, he is at your mer­cy and hop­ing that some­how he can get out of this alive. When he hands over his purse, he should be feel­ing grate­ful.

Rocza took the man on the right, Loiosh flew in­to the face of the wom­an. I drew and dis­armed the one in front of me with a stop-​cut to the wrist, then took one step in and hit him in the nose with the pom­mel of my rapi­er. I took an­oth­er step in and kicked the side of his knee.

He went down and I put the point at his throat. I said, “In­tent to rob, in­tent to as­sault, as­sault, and fail­ing to be se­lec­tive in your choice of vic­tim. Bad day for you.”

He looked at me, wide-​eyed.

I gave him a friend­ly sug­ges­tion: “Drop your purse.”

The oth­er man had run off, Rocza fly­ing af­ter him; the wom­an was do­ing what I call the Loiosh dance—fu­tile­ly swing­ing her sword at him while he kept swoop­ing in at her face then back out of range. He could do that all day.

The guy on the ground got his purse un­tied, though his fin­gers fum­bled. I knelt and picked it up, the point of my rapi­er nev­er mov­ing from his throat. I spoke to my fa­mil­iar.

“Get Rocza back. Let the oth­er one go.”

“She’s on it, Boss.”

She re­turned and land­ed next to my client’s head and hissed.

“As long as you don’t move, she won’t bite,” I said. He froze. I went to the wom­an, who was still flail­ing about, and now look­ing pan­icked. I said, “Drop it.”

She glanced at Loiosh, then at me, then at her friend on the ground. “What about—”

“He won’t hurt you if you drop your weapon. Nei­ther will I.”

Her sword hit the ground, and Loiosh re­turned to my shoul­der.

“Your purse,” I told her.

She had less trou­ble un­ty­ing it than her friend. She held it out to me.

“Just drop it,” I said.

She was very oblig­ing.

“Now get out of here. If I see you again, I’ll kill you. If you try to fol­low me, I will see you.”

She sound­ed calm enough. “How did you—?”

“Won­der about it,” I said.

“Not a bad day’s work, Boss.”

“Lucky you spot­ted them.”

“Right. It was luck. Heh.”

“May I stay and help my friend?”

“No,” I said. “He’ll be along present­ly. You can pick up your weapons once I’m out of sight. I won’t hurt him.”

He spoke for the first time. A very im­pres­sive and lengthy string of curs­es fin­ish­ing with, “What do you call this?”

“A bro­ken nose,” I said. I gave him a friend­ly smile he may not have ap­pre­ci­at­ed.

The wom­an gave me a glare, then just turned and walked away. I picked up the purse.

“Be­ware of East­ern­ers with jhereg,” I told the guy with the bro­ken nose.

“———!” he said.

I nod­ded. “Even if things don’t work out the way you planned, it’s good when you can take some­thing use­ful away from the ex­pe­ri­ence.”

I con­tin­ued in­to the vil­lage, which had its req­ui­site inn. It was an ug­ly thing, two sto­ries high and mis­shapen, as if bits and pieces had been added on at ran­dom. The room I en­tered was big and full of Teck­la, who smelled of ma­nure and sweat, mix­ing with the smells of fresh bread, roast­ed keth­na, to­bac­co smoke, dream­grass, and now and then a whiff of the harsh pun­gen­cy of opi­um, in­di­cat­ing there must be one or two no­bles in here, among all the Teck­la. Then I no­ticed that there were al­so a few mer­chants there. Odd. I won­dered about it—even in ru­ral inns, there gen­er­al­ly isn’t that much of a mix. The bar ran about half the length of the room, with ce­ram­ic and wood­en mugs on shelves be­hind it. At one end of the bar was a large knife, just ly­ing there—al­most cer­tain­ly the knife the innkeep­er used to cut fruit to put in wine punch, but that’s the sort of thing an as­sas­sin no­tices.

I got a lot of looks be­cause I was hu­man and had a jhereg on each shoul­der, but none of the looks were threat­en­ing be­cause I had a sword at my side and a jhereg on each shoul­der. I ac­quired a glass of wine and a qui­et cor­ner. I’d ask about a room lat­er.

Con­ver­sa­tion went on around me; I ig­nored it.

“Smells like re­al food, Boss.”

“Yep. Soon.”

“How long since we’ve had re­al food?”

“About a month. Soon.”

“How did we do?”

I set the wine down and checked the purs­es, us­ing my body to hide them from cu­ri­ous eyes. “Not great, but, you know, it’s pure prof­it. Strange place.”

“They’re all talk­ing to each oth­er.”

“Yeah.”

It re­al­ly was in­ter­est­ing—you don’t nor­mal­ly find an inn where mer­chants and peas­ants talk freely with each oth­er, or no­ble­men and trades­men; even in the East, where it was more com­mon to see the mix of class­es in the same inn, they didn’t talk to each oth­er much. I didn’t even no­tice any spe­cial hos­til­ity be­tween the two ob­vi­ous aris­to­crats and the var­ious Teck­la. Odd. There was prob­ably a sto­ry there.

Just be­cause I was cu­ri­ous, I picked out a cou­ple of mer­chants—both of them in the col­ors of the Tsalmoth—and bought them drinks. They gave me a sus­pi­cious look as I ap­proached, but mer­chants are al­ways aware they might be talk­ing to a fu­ture cus­tomer, so they don’t want to give of­fense.

“Par­don my in­tru­sion,” I said. “I’m Vlad.”

They gave me their names, but I don’t re­mem­ber them; they sound­ed al­most iden­ti­cal. Come to that, they looked pret­ty much the same, too—prob­ably broth­ers. “I’m just cu­ri­ous,” I told them. “I’m not used to inns where there is such a mix.”

“A mix?” said the one whose name end­ed in the hard­er con­so­nant.

“Teck­la, mer­chants, no­ble­men, all in the same inn.”

“Oh.” He smiled a lit­tle. “We get along bet­ter around here than most places, prob­ably.”

I nod­ded. “It seems odd.”

“It’s be­cause we all hate the navy.”

“The navy?”

He nod­ded. That didn’t ex­plain any­thing—Whitemill was hun­dreds of miles from the near­est port.

It took a few more ques­tions, but it fi­nal­ly emerged that, for what­ev­er rea­son, the Em­pire had giv­en con­trol of the lo­cal canals to the Im­pe­ri­al navy, in­stead of what­ev­er en­gi­neer­ing corps usu­al­ly han­dled such things. It was some­thing that had hap­pened long ago, when the Or­ca were high­er in the Cy­cle and so could ex­ert more eco­nom­ic pres­sure, and it had nev­er been re­voked even dur­ing the In­ter­reg­num.

“The whole re­gion lives off those canals, most­ly for wa­ter­ing the fields.”

“And the navy doesn’t main­tain them?”

“They do well enough, I sup­pose, when they need to.”

“I still don’t—”

“The navy,” he re­peat­ed. “They’re all Or­ca.”

“I know that.”

“Or­ca,” he re­peat­ed, as if I were miss­ing some­thing.

I glanced at one of the no­ble­men in the room, a wom­an hav­ing an an­imat­ed con­ver­sa­tion with the host; she wore the col­ors of the Tias­sa. “So, the barons are Tias­sa, but they need to deal with the Or­ca.”

He nod­ded. “And the Or­ca want to soak ev­ery cop­per pen­ny they can from the place.”

“So ev­ery­one hates them more than they hate each oth­er?”

He frowned. “We don’t hate each oth­er.”

“Sor­ry,” I said. “It’s just a bit odd.”

“You’d un­der­stand if you’d ev­er ir­ri­gat­ed on a navy canal, or shipped goods on a navy barge.”

“I al­ready un­der­stand,” I said. “I know Or­ca.”

They both smiled, and of­fered to buy me a drink. I ac­cept­ed. In case you don’t know, the House of the Or­ca is the House of sailors and naval war­riors, which is well enough, but it’s most­ly the House of bankers, and fi­nanciers. No one likes them; I don’t even think Or­ca like oth­er Or­ca. We trad­ed sto­ries of Or­ca we had known and hat­ed; they made a few po­lite probes about my his­to­ry and busi­ness, but didn’t press when I steered the dis­cus­sion else­where.

They filled me in on a few things I hadn’t heard about, hav­ing been away from “civ­iliza­tion” for a while: an up­ris­ing of a few mi­nor lordlings in the north­west, which would in­crease de­mand for spun wool; the re­cent re­peal of the chim­ney tax with­in the House of the Tsalmoth, which was on­ly a grain in a hectare; the re­cent de­ci­sion “by Charl­som over there, for­tune smile on his loins” to per­mit tav­erns to sell their own lo­cal­ly made brews with­out sur­charge; and the pro­posed Im­pe­ri­al land-​use loan, which would ob­vi­ous­ly be a catas­tro­phe for the peas­ants with­out help­ing the land­lords, or be a dis­as­ter for the land­lords with­out help­ing the peas­ants, or else have no ef­fect on any­thing. It was all from the point of view of the small mer­chant, which would in­ter­est me more if I were one. I nod­ded and smiled a lot while my mind wan­dered.

The con­ver­sa­tion in the room was a chat­ter­ing hum—no dis­cernible words, just a con­stant noise of voic­es of dif­fer­ing pitch­es and tones, punc­tu­at­ed by laughs and coughs. It’s al­ways strange when you’re hear­ing some­one speak in a tongue you don’t know, be­cause names of peo­ple or places that you do know sud­den­ly jump out. You hear, “blah blah blah Dra­gaera City blah blah,” and for just an in­stant you think you un­der­stand that lan­guage af­ter all.

It was just like that when amid the chit­ter­ing and buzzing of mean­ing­less noise I sud­den­ly heard, clear as a whis­tle, the words “Sethra Lavode.” I was in­stant­ly alert.

I shift­ed in my chair, but that didn’t help—the speak­er was at a ta­ble just be­hind the two Tsalmoth. I looked at my drink­ing com­pan­ions and said, “Do you know what they’re talk­ing about?”

“Who?”

I ges­tured to­ward the ta­ble I’d over­heard. “What they say star­tles me ex­treme­ly, and I would ad­mire to know if it’s true.”

Just so you don’t get the wrong idea—may the gods keep me from ev­er con­vey­ing a false im­pres­sion—I hadn’t heard a thing ex­cept the words “Sethra Lavode.”

They lis­tened for a mo­ment—be­ing a bit clos­er to the speak­er—then nod­ded. “Oh, that. It’s true enough. My cousin is a post in­spec­tor, and told me while he was pass­ing through on his way to Gate­hall from Adri­lankha.”

“In­deed,” I said, look­ing im­pressed.

“Ev­ery­one’s talk­ing about it; I’m sur­prised you hadn’t heard.”

“Are there any more de­tails?”

“No. Just the ar­rest.”

Ar­rest?

I said, “For­give me, did I un­der­stand you cor­rect­ly? Sethra Lavode is ar­rest­ed?”

He shook his head. “No, no. It is said that she has agreed to be a wit­ness.”

“For?”

“The ac­cused, my lord. Aliera e’Kieron.”

“Aliera e’Kieron.”

He nod­ded.

“Ar­rest­ed.”

He nod­ded again.

“For what, ex­act­ly?”

At that point, both of them spoke at once. It took a while to get the sto­ry out, but ap­par­ent­ly Aliera had tried to kill the Em­press, had loosed a de­mon in the House of the Drag­on, and had at­tempt­ed to be­tray the Em­pire to an East­ern army. I got the im­pres­sion that this was a part of the sto­ry they weren’t sure of. But there seemed to be one thing they were sure of: “The tri­al starts next month.”

“In­ter­est­ing in­deed,” I said. “How far are we from the Riv­er?” In this part of the Em­pire, “the Riv­er” can on­ly mean the Adri­lankha Riv­er. My Riv­er.

“About two leagues. From here, there’s no need to take a navy barge if you’re go­ing that way.”

“And the near­est dock?”

“Up­riv­er half a mile.”

“My thanks,” I said, and put a cou­ple of orbs on the ta­ble. “Have an­oth­er round on me.”

I stood, turned on my heel, and crossed the room be­fore they could start ask­ing ques­tions I didn’t want to an­swer.

I found the host and ar­ranged to get a room for the night.

Well, well. Aliera, ar­rest­ed. Now, that was in­ter­est­ing. She must have done some­thing pret­ty re­mark­able for the Em­press—a good friend of hers—to have per­mit­ted that to hap­pen. Or caused it to hap­pen?

I lay on my back on the hard but clean bed the inn pro­vid­ed; con­ver­sa­tion drift­ed up from be­low and the wind made the trees out­side hiss as I thought things over.

My first re­ac­tion had been to re­turn to Adri­lankha and see if I could help her. I could get there fast. Any­one in Adri­lankha would take more than a month to reach me here, bar­ring a tele­port or ac­cess to a re­al­ly ef­fi­cient post sys­tem. But I was on­ly a few days from Adri­lankha; rivers work like that.

Very lit­tle re­flec­tion was re­quired to re­al­ize how stupid that idea was—even Loiosh hadn’t felt the need to point it out. Adri­lankha was the cap­ital city, and the heart of the Em­pire, and the cen­ter of op­er­ations of a cer­tain crim­inal or­ga­ni­za­tion that very much want­ed me dead. I had spent sev­er­al years now avoid­ing them—suc­cess­ful­ly, with one or two ex­cep­tions.

Re­turn­ing would mean putting my­self in­to their hands, an ac­tion for which Aliera her­self would have noth­ing but scorn. And, in fact, what­ev­er sort of trou­ble Aliera was in, there was un­like­ly to be any­thing I could do about it any­way.

A stupid idea, to be sure.

Three days lat­er I stepped off a boat on­to North Mar­ket Pier Num­ber Four in Adri­lankha, smelling like fish and look­ing for trou­ble.

Iorich

1

For a State to in­ves­ti­gate the ac­tions of its own mil­itary is, as no less than Lanya point­ed out as far back as the Third Cy­cle, to ei­ther be­gin with a set of as­sump­tions that will ul­ti­mate­ly con­trol the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, or to tan­gle one’s self hope­less­ly in con­tra­dic­tion be­fore be­gin­ning. This re­port, then, will be­gin by stat­ing those as­sump­tions (see Part One).

The ques­tions this com­mit­tee was asked to ad­dress were as fol­lows:

1. What were the facts in and around the events in the vil­lage of Tir­ma in the coun­ty of Shalo­mar in­volv­ing Im­pe­ri­al troops on Ly­orn 2 of Zeri­ka 252?

2. Was there any moral or le­gal cul­pa­bil­ity at­tached to any Im­pe­ri­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives as­so­ci­at­ed with the in­ci­dent?

3. If so, who should be held to blame, for what, and how are the in­ter­ests of jus­tice best served in this mat­ter?

4. In­so­far as there was cul­pa­bil­ity, what steps might be tak­en in the fu­ture to pre­vent a rep­eti­tion of any un­for­tu­nate or re­gret­table events . . .

I felt con­fi­dent that the im­me­di­ate dock area was safe, be­cause I had sent Loiosh and Rocza ahead of me to look for any­one sus­pi­cious, and Loiosh is good at that sort of work. I’d come in on a boat filled with flour from the Push­ta and fish from the riv­er; though as I un­der­stood it, the main prof­it from the trip would come from the salt they’d bring back. Next to the dock was a small mar­ket area, where bak­ers would bid for the sacks of flour I’d slept among for the last cou­ple of nights.

I brushed brown flour off my brown leathers, ad­just­ed my cloak, and moved past the mar­ket, climb­ing the seem­ing­ly end­less flight of con­crete stairs that led up to street lev­el. It was morn­ing, and the streets were just start­ing to get busy. Loiosh and Rocza flew above me in wide cir­cles, keep­ing watch.

Adri­lankha.

My city.

Riv­er and ocean smells—en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent—bat­tled for at­ten­tion, along with flour and refuse of var­ious kinds. Trades­men were set­ting up, Teck­la were run­ning er­rands, coins were al­ready start­ing to clink all around me. This was my home, whether I liked it or not. In fact, I didn’t like it, at least at the mo­ment; but it was still home.

As if to em­pha­size the point, I be­came aware once more of the Im­pe­ri­al Orb, now close enough that its ef­fects pen­etrat­ed the Phoenix Stone amulet I wore about my neck. Its pres­ence in my mind was like a low shep­herd’s pipe play­ing qui­et­ly over the next hill.

From here, it was on­ly a cou­ple of miles to the most north­east­ern en­trance of the Im­pe­ri­al Palace; I didn’t think the Jhereg would be stupid enough to make a move on me once I was in­side. Even the Jhereg Wing would be safe—the thought of go­ing there just to taunt them was on­ly briefly tempt­ing.

“As stupid moves go, Boss, this one isn’t bad. I mean, com­par­ative­ly.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“I knew you’d be re­lieved.”

Usu­al­ly, if you’re a pro­fes­sion­al and you’re go­ing to kill some­one, it takes a while to set things up—you need to be sure of where to find your tar­get, how you’re go­ing to take him, all the es­cape routes, and so on. Ar­riv­ing un­ex­pect­ed­ly in town like this, I fig­ured my chances of mak­ing it safe­ly to the Palace were pret­ty good. And if any­one did try any­thing, it would be a clum­sy, last-​minute ef­fort that I ought to be able to de­flect.

That, at any rate, was my think­ing. And, right or wrong, I did make it; tak­ing the Street of the Is­so­la to what is called the Im­pe­ri­al Wing, though in fact it is not a wing, but the heart of the Palace, to which the oth­er wings are at­tached. Once in­side, I had to ask di­rec­tions a few times, but even­tu­al­ly man­aged to walk quite near­ly all the way around the Im­pe­ri­al Wing. In fact, I’d en­tered rather close to the Iorich Wing, but the Jhereg Wing was in be­tween, and walk­ing in front of it didn’t feel like a smart move, so I took the long way.

The main en­trance to the Iorich Wing from the Im­pe­ri­al Wing is through ei­ther of a pair of twin arch­es with no door. Above one arch is a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of an emp­ty hand, palm open like a porter ex­pect­ing a gra­tu­ity; above the oth­er is a hand hold­ing an ax, like a porter mad at not get­ting one. These same sym­bols are on the op­po­site sides of the arch in the oth­er or­der, so you can’t es­cape the ax. This would, no doubt, be a pow­er­ful state­ment if I knew what the im­ages were sup­posed to sym­bol­ize. High above both of the arch­es is a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of an iorich, its toothy snout curv­ing back as if look­ing over its low shoul­der. Giv­en what the ug­ly thing is fa­mous for, that is an­oth­er bit of sym­bol­ism that doesn’t make sense to me. I could find out if I cared.

The Iorich like to make ev­ery­thing big­ger than it has to be, I guess to make you feel small­er than you’d like to be. It was a long walk through a big, emp­ty room where my foot­falls echoed loud­ly. The walls were dark, on­ly slight­ly lit by odd­ly shaped lamps hang­ing high over­head, and there were half a dozen mar­ble stat­ues—pure, white, gleam­ing mar­ble, about twen­ty feet tall—de­pict­ing fig­ures that I imag­ine were fa­mous with­in the House.

Loiosh gave no signs of be­ing im­pressed.

In front of me was a desk, el­evat­ed about two feet, with a square-​shoul­dered mid­dle-​aged Dra­gaer­an at it. Her straight hair glis­tened in the torch­light.

I went clack clack clack clack against the hard floor un­til I reached her; her eyes were slight­ly high­er than mine. She glanced at the jhereg on my shoul­ders, and her lips tight­ened. She hes­itat­ed, I sup­pose try­ing to think if she could come up with a law against their be­ing there. She fi­nal­ly gave up and said, “Name.”

Her voice and de­meanor—brisk and slight­ly bored—went with the sur­round­ings the way lemon juice goes with cream; she sound­ed more like an Im­pe­ri­al clerk in charge of tax rolls than a mag­is­trate of the House of jus­ticers. I said, “I want in­for­ma­tion about a case.”

“Name,” she re­peat­ed.

“Aliera e’Kieron, House of the Drag­on.”

“Your name,” she said, with the air of some­one try­ing very hard to be pa­tient in spite of provo­ca­tion.

But you can’t op­er­ate in the Jhereg with­out know­ing some of the ba­sics of the Im­pe­ri­al jus­tice sys­tem; no one but an id­iot breaks a law with­out know­ing that he’s do­ing it, and what he’s risk­ing, and the best ways to re­duce the risk. “I don’t choose to give it,” I said. “I want pub­lic in­for­ma­tion on the case of Aliera e’Kieron, whose name has been en­tered un­der Im­pe­ri­al Ar­ti­cles of In­dict­ment for Felo­nious Con­duct.” I paused. “Of course, if you wish, I can ask at the House of the Drag­on, and ex­plain that the House of the Iorich wasn’t will­ing to—”

I stopped be­cause she was glar­ing and writ­ing; con­tin­uing the bat­tle af­ter you’ve won just wastes en­er­gy. She hand­ed me a piece of pa­per; I didn’t both­er look­ing at it, be­cause I don’t know the sym­bols the House of the Iorich us­es in­stead of the per­fect­ly rea­son­able writ­ing the rest of us get by with.

“Room of the Dol­phin, see the clerk. He will an­swer your ques­tions. Good day.”

I walked down the hall. She hadn’t even ad­dressed me as my lord. Once. My feel­ings were hurt.

I’d been in the Halls of the Iorich of­ten enough to be­lieve I could find my way around, but not of­ten enough to ac­tu­al­ly do so. I saw a few Iorich as I walked—clerks, men-​at-​arms, and per­haps one was a mag­is­trate—but I didn’t feel like risk­ing a snub to ask any of them for di­rec­tions. Nev­er­the­less, af­ter most of an hour, I man­aged to find the cor­rect stair­way to the cor­rect hall­way to the cor­rect room. The man be­hind the desk in­side—very young, an ap­pren­tice of some sort, no doubt—glanced up as I came in, smiled, frowned, then looked puz­zled about just what sort of at­ti­tude he was sup­posed to adopt.

Be­fore he could de­cide I gave him the pa­per. He glanced at it, and said, “Of course,” stood up, and van­ished through a door on the far end of the room. He re­turned be­fore I had time to de­cide if I should sit down at the chair op­po­site his desk. He had a fair­ly large sheaf of pa­pers in his hand. The pa­pers all had two holes on the top with pieces of white yarn run­ning through them.

“Sit down, my lord,” he said, and I did. “Aliera e’Kieron,” he said.

I nod­ded.

“Ar­rest­ed on the ninth day of the month of the Hawk of this year, charged with vi­ola­tion of Im­pe­ri­al Edict Fo­lio nine­ty-​one part thir­ty para­graphs one and two. In­tent to In­dict filed with Her Im­pe­ri­al Majesty the tenth day of the month of the Hawk of this year. Writ of felony placed be­fore the Cir­cle of Mag­is­trates on—”

“Par­don me.”

He looked like a draft horse pulled to a stop just short of the barn door, but he man­aged, “Yes, my lord?”

“Would you mind telling me what Fo­lio nine­ty-​one. . . that is, what the charges are? I mean, in plain speech?”

“Oh. Use of El­der Sor­cery.”

“Barlen’s crack,” I mut­tered. “Nice work, Aliera.”

“Your par­don, my lord?”

“Noth­ing, noth­ing. I was talk­ing to my­self. Who ac­cused her?”

“Her Majesty.”

“Heh. Any­thing on how Her Majesty learned of the crime?”

“I’m not per­mit­ted to say, my lord.”

“All right. Go on, please.”

He did, but there was noth­ing use­ful in it, ex­cept that, yeah, she had been bound for judg­ment on a crime. A cap­ital crime.

“Does she have an ad­vo­cate?”

“She re­fused, my lord.”

I nod­ded. “Of course she did. Any friends of the de­fen­dant pre­sent­ed them­selves yet?”

“I’m not per­mit­ted to say, my lord.”

I sighed. “Well, you may as well add me. Szurke, Count.”

“House?”

“Im­pe­ri­al.” I dug out the ring and showed it to him. He was very im­pressed and so on.

He made some no­ta­tions, and pressed some seals on­to a doc­ument, then said, “It is done, my lord. You wish to see the pris­on­er?”

“Yes.”

“If the pris­on­er should agree, where can you be reached?”

“Cas­tle Black,” I said, hop­ing that was suf­fi­cient.

It was; he made a no­ta­tion.

“Has she re­ceived any vis­itors so far?”

“I’m not per­mit­ted . . .” Then he shrugged and con­sult­ed an­oth­er pa­per and said, “No.” I guess that one doesn’t mat­ter so much.

I thanked him, and that con­clud­ed my busi­ness in the House of the Iorich.

And, hav­ing ac­quired the bare min­imum of in­for­ma­tion—enough to know what I was deal­ing with—the next step was ob­vi­ous: I stopped on the stair­way, re­moved my amulet, and care­ful­ly made the tele­port to the court­yard of Cas­tle Black. I re­placed the amulet around my neck and spent a mo­ment tak­ing in my sur­round­ings. It had been years, but it still felt like home, in a dif­fer­ent way than Adri­lankha did. It’s hard to ex­plain.

I tapped the hilt of La­dy Tel­dra, won­der­ing if some­where down there she felt like she was home, too; but I didn’t feel a re­sponse. I think.

I didn’t ap­proach the doors right away; I took a good look around. Around; not down. I knew what was down: a long drop and un­for­giv­ing stone. I wear an amulet that pre­vents sor­cery from work­ing on me, and some­time af­ter I got it I came out here, to the court­yard, and it was on­ly a day or two lat­er that I re­al­ized I ought to have won­dered whether the amulet would in­ter­fere with the spells that kept me up in the air. I mean, it was fine; what­ev­er the na­ture of the court­yard, it doesn’t re­quire sor­cery to act on me di­rect­ly. But I re­al­ly should have thought about that be­fore walk­ing on­to it, you know?

There were pairs of guards sta­tioned at var­ious points along the walls. Al­ways pairs: one fight­er, one sor­cer­er. So far as I know, they’ve nev­er had any­thing to do since the In­ter­reg­num, but they’re al­ways there. Cushy job, I sup­pose. But bor­ing. Nice to know they still rec­og­nized me, though. At least, I as­sumed they rec­og­nized me, be­cause oth­er­wise they ought to have chal­lenged me or some­thing.

The walls were black; I could see the lit­tle veins of sil­ver run­ning through the ones near­est me. I turned, and the cas­tle it­self, al­so black, tow­ered over me, the high­est tur­rets were blurred and in­dis­tinct where they kissed the En­cloud­ing. I low­ered my eyes to the great dou­ble doors. How many times had I walked through them, to be greet­ed by La­dy Tel­dra, fol­lowed by con­ver­sa­tion deep or triv­ial, amus­ing or in­fu­ri­at­ing? La­dy Tel­dra wouldn’t greet me this time.

When I’d had my mo­ment of nos­tal­gia, I walked up to the doors, which opened for me in their usu­al grandiose, over­dra­mat­ic way. I’m a suck­er for that stuff, though, so I liked it. I stepped in­side, and be­fore me was a white-​haired Dra­gaer­an gen­tle­man, in a frilly white shirt with green ta­pered pants. I stared at him. Rude­ly, I sup­pose, though I didn’t think about it, and he didn’t act as if it were rude. He sim­ply bowed and said, “I am Skifra, and I wel­come you to Cas­tle Black. Am I cor­rect in that I have the hon­or to ad­dress my lord Mor­rolan’s ex­cel­lent friend Lord Tal­tos?”

I re­turned his bow by way of as­sent­ing that he did, in­deed, have that hon­or, such as it was.

He looked de­cid­ed­ly pleased and said, “If you would be so good as to fol­low me to the sit­ting room, I will in­form His Lord­ship of your pres­ence. May I get you wine?”

“That’d be great,” I said, fol­low­ing him to an­oth­er room I knew well.

I sat in a chair that was too big for me and drank a de­cent red wine that was slight­ly chilled, just the way I like it. That im­plied a great deal, which I set aside for lat­er ru­mi­nat­ing.

I ex­pect­ed him to re­turn in five min­utes or so to bring me to Mor­rolan, but in just about two min­utes, he him­self ap­peared: Mor­rolan e’Drien, Lord of Cas­tle Black, bear­er of Black­wand, and, well, stuff like that. I rec­og­nized his foot­steps—walk­ing quick­ly—be­fore the door opened, and I stood up.

“Vlad,” he said. “It’s been a while. A cou­ple of years, any­way.” He gave Loiosh a quick smile; Loiosh fluffed him­self on my shoul­der and dipped his head in a sort of greet­ing. Mor­rolan said, “You heard about Aliera, then?”

I nod­ded. “I’ve been to the Iorich Wing, got my name added to the list—”

“List?”

“Friends of the de­fen­dant.”

“What does that do?”

“Lets you see her, if she agrees.”

“Oh, that’s why. . . all right. Let’s go up to the li­brary.”

I fol­lowed him up the wide stair­way, got reac­quaint­ed with the paint­ings, then down the hall, past the pair of huge tomes chained to pedestals (an ex­pres­sion of Mor­rolan’s sense of hu­mor that I may ex­plain some day) to an­oth­er dou­ble door. Mor­rolan sure seems to like dou­ble doors a lot, for a skin­ny guy.

He shut the doors be­hind me, and we sat down in chairs that were like old friends, fac­ing each oth­er at an oblique an­gle, lit­tle ta­bles by our right hands.

“It’s good to see you again, Vlad.” He poured him­self some­thing pur­plish-​red from a cut-​glass de­canter. I still had my wine. “How have you been?”

“Same as al­ways. Still kick­ing, still run­ning.”

“Sounds un­pleas­ant.”

“You get used to it.”

“Any sto­ries worth telling?”

I shook my head. “Tell me about Aliera.” That’s me: straight to busi­ness.

“Right,” he said. He frowned in­to his wine. “I don’t know ex­act­ly. She was en­gaged in some ex­per­iments, and the Phoenix Guard ap­peared, ask­ing to see her. I showed them down to—”

“Wait. This was here?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“They ar­rest­ed her here?”

He nod­ded. “She lives here, you know.”

“Uh, okay, go on.”

“That’s about all I know. They came in, got her, took her away.”

“You let them?”

He cocked his head at me. “You ex­pect­ed me to launch a re­bel­lion against the Em­pire?”

I con­sid­ered that. “Yes,” I said.

“I chose not to.”

I dropped it. “What have you learned since?”

“Very lit­tle. I couldn’t find out any­thing. They wouldn’t let me in to see her.”

“You need to go to the Iorich Wing and de­clare your­self a friend, then you can get some in­for­ma­tion, and if she ap­proves it, you can get more, and you’ll be per­mit­ted to see her.”

“All right, I’ll do that.”

“Any idea why she re­fused an ad­vo­cate?”

“None.”

“Well, you’re pret­ty damned help­ful.”

He smirked. “It’s good to see you again, Vlad.”

“Mind if I ask what you have done?”

“I’ve spo­ken with No­rathar and Sethra.”

“Oh,” I said. Yes, the Drag­on Heir and the En­chantress of Dzur Moun­tain would be good peo­ple to start with. “Uh, have they been keep­ing you in­formed?”

“As much as you’d ex­pect.”

“So: no.”

“Right.”

“She was ar­rest­ed, ah, what was it? About two weeks ago?”

“A lit­tle more.”

I nod­ded. “Okay, we need to find her an ad­vo­cate.”

“How do you know so much about this stuff, Vlad?”

I looked at him.

“Oh,” he said. “All right, but didn’t she refuse an ad­vo­cate?”

“There may be a way to get one in to try to talk some sense in­to her.”

“How?”

“I’ve no idea. But ad­vo­cates are clever bas­tards. I’d have been Starred oth­er­wise.”

“Mon­ey isn’t a prob­lem,” he said.

“No,” I agreed. “It isn’t.”

He nod­ded. “Are you hun­gry?”

I re­al­ized I was, and said so.

“Let’s go to the pantries and see what we can find.”

We found some sausages in the style of some East­ern king­dom: oily and bit­ing, tast­ing of rose­mary. With it was crusty bread in long, thin loaves and a won­der­ful­ly sharp cheese. There was al­so a jug of red wine that was prob­ably too young but still had some body. We ate stand­ing up in Mor­rolan’s pantry, pass­ing the jug back and forth.

“Vlad, do you know what hap­pens if she’s con­vict­ed?”

“My un­der­stand­ing—which isn’t per­fect—is that ei­ther they ex­ecute her, or the Em­press has to com­mute the sen­tence, which will raise hav­oc among the Hous­es.”

Mor­rolan nod­ded.

We walked back to the li­brary, brush­ing crumbs off our­selves. “What are you go­ing to do?” he asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But it will prob­ably in­volve killing some­one.”

He chuck­led. “It usu­al­ly does.”

“Would Sethra know any­thing about this by now?”

“On­ly if she’s seen Aliera. I doubt she has.”

“Maybe I should go and see her.”

“Maybe.”

“Or else go straight to find­ing the ad­vo­cate.”

He nod­ded and glanced at my hip. “How is La­dy Tel­dra?”

I re­sist­ed the im­pulse to touch her. “I’m not sure how to an­swer that,” I said.

“Has there been . . . con­tact?”

I con­sid­ered. “Not as such. Feel­ings, some­times, per­haps.”

He nod­ded.

I said, “I know you two go back hun­dreds of years. I wish—”

“So do I.”

“She was more than just seneschal to you, wasn’t she?”

His jaw tight­ened a lit­tle. “I’m not sure how you mean that.”

“Sor­ry. None of my—”

“Once she stood guard over my body for near­ly a week, keep­ing it alive, while my mind and my soul trav­eled to Death­gate Falls and fought a bat­tle over the Paths of the Dead. Keep­ing it alive was nei­ther easy nor pleas­ant, un­der the cir­cum­stances.”

“Um. Sounds like there’s a sto­ry there.”

He shrugged. “Ask the Em­press; I’ve al­ready said too much.”

“I won’t press it, then.”

“Where are you go­ing next?”

“I guess I’d bet­ter try to find Aliera an ad­vo­cate, un­less you want to.”

“I’m will­ing, if you’ll tell me how.”

“I know what to look for, more or less. It’s eas­ier if I just do it.”

“Un­less,” he point­ed out, “you get killed try­ing.”

“Yeah, that would slow it down. But if I stay in the Im­pe­ri­al Palace, I should be safe. And if I stay close to it, I’ll stay close to safe.”

“You know best.”

I want­ed to note the time and date he’d said that. “They al­ready know I’m in town, be­cause I took the amulet off to get here. So they’ll know I’m in the Palace.” I shrugged. “Let them gnash their teeth. I know how to slip away when I need to.”

“Boss, you lie like an Is­so­la.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ev­er said to me.”

“All right,” said Mor­rolan. “I don’t know the Iorich Wing. Where should I set you down?”

“Any­where in the Palace they per­mit it that isn’t the Drag­on Wing or Jhereg Wing.”

He nod­ded. “Ready?”

I re­moved the amulet, put it in its pouch, sealed the pouch, and nod­ded.

He ges­tured, and time passed dur­ing which I was nowhere, then I was some­where else. I took the amulet out again, put it on, and looked around. Im­pe­ri­al Wing; good enough.

It took me a good hour to find my way out of the Palace, most­ly be­cause I want­ed to leave through the Iorich Wing, so I could cross to the House of the Iorich as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. Yes, there’s a con­stant strain in know­ing you’re be­ing hunt­ed, but even that is some­thing you can get used to. You take sen­si­ble pre­cau­tions, and min­imize risk, and don’t let it get to you.

At least, that’s the the­ory.

The House of the Iorich (as op­posed to the Iorich Wing of the Palace—just so you don’t get con­fused. I wouldn’t want you to get con­fused) was dis­tin­guished by a high door with a gilt arch, over which stood the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the House; this one, un­like the one in the Wing of the Palace, look­ing for­ward. The door was open. The two guards, in the col­ors of the Iorich, glanced at me but let me walk past with­out say­ing any­thing.

An el­der­ly Dra­gaer­an in a sim­ple gown of brown and white ap­proached me, gave her name (which I don’t re­mem­ber), and asked how she could serve me. I told her I was in need of an ad­vo­cate, and she said, speak­ing in very low tones even though no one else was around, that if I cared to tell her the gen­er­al na­ture of the prob­lem, she could per­haps rec­om­mend some­one.

“Thank you,” I said. “That isn’t nec­es­sary, if you’d be so good as to tell me if La­dy Ard­we­na is avail­able.”

Her face closed up like the shut­ters of a house in the East, and she said, “Of course. Please come with me, and I’ll show you to a wait­ing room.”

I did and she did, with no fur­ther words be­ing ex­changed. I guess she knew what sort of clients La­dy Ard­we­na took, and she didn’t ap­prove. A blight on the House, I’ve no doubt.

The room was small and emp­ty; it felt com­fort­able, though, lit with a pair of or­nate oil lamps. While we wait­ed, I ex­changed re­marks about the decor with Loiosh, who didn’t have much to say about it.

Af­ter about five min­utes, she came in her­self, stop­ping at the door, look­ing at me, then step­ping in and clos­ing it. I stood up and gave her a slight bow. “La­dy Ard­we­na. It has been a few years.”

“I can do noth­ing for you,” she said. There was a lot of ten­sion in her voice. I couldn’t blame her, but nei­ther was I over­whelmed with sym­pa­thy.

“Just need some ques­tions an­swered.”

“I shouldn’t even do that.”

She wouldn’t have put it that way if she’d in­tend­ed not to; she wouldn’t even have seen me. I said, “It isn’t even about me. My prob­lems aren’t le­gal.”

“No,” she said. “They aren’t. Who is it about?”

“Aliera e’Kieron.”

Her eyes widened a lit­tle. “You know her?”

Heh. And here I’d thought ev­ery­one knew that. “Yes. She needs an ad­vo­cate. I need you to rec­om­mend one.”

“I’ve heard she’s re­fused ad­vice.”

“Yes, that makes it hard­er.”

She nod­ded and fell silent for a bit. “I’ve heard of the mat­ter, of course. Part thir­ty para­graphs one, two, and five, isn’t it?”

“Just one and two.”

She nod­ded. “They’re mov­ing on it quick­ly.”

“Which means?”

“Which means that they don’t like their case, or else they need it pros­ecut­ed for po­lit­ical rea­sons, and the is­sue isn’t the is­sue, as it were.”

“That’s good to know.”

She chewed on her low­er lip and sat down. I sat down too and wait­ed while she thought.

“You’ll need some­one who can han­dle a re­cal­ci­trant client, and some­one who’s done a lot of work with Fo­lio nine­ty-​one. Im­pe­ri­al Edicts are dif­fer­ent from both Cod­ified Tra­di­tions and Statutes. They’re a bit like Or­di­nances ex­cept with the full force of the Im­peri­um be­hind them, which makes them a bit of a niche. And then there’s the fact that the Em­pire is mov­ing so quick­ly. . . all right.” She pulled out a stub of pen­cil and a tiny square of pa­per. “See him. If he won’t do it, maybe he’ll be able to rec­om­mend some­one.”

“Thanks,” I said.

She stood up, nod­ded to me, and glid­ed out. With the amount of mon­ey I’d giv­en her over the years, I fig­ured she owed me at least this much. She prob­ably didn’t agree, but was afraid that I was in a po­si­tion to make life dif­fi­cult for her if she didn’t help me. And I was.

Iorich

2

By “The State” we mean that body that holds the monopoly on the use of vi­olence with­in a ge­ograph­ic re­gion and has the pow­er and au­thor­ity to de­ter­mine how much and in what man­ner and un­der what cir­cum­stances this monopoly will be del­egat­ed, au­tho­rized, or com­mis­sioned to oth­er bod­ies or in­di­vid­uals. This pow­er is ex­pressed and in­ter­pret­ed through the body’s var­ious le­gal sys­tems, cod­ed or un­cod­ed.

By this def­ini­tion, (cf. Lanya), it is clear that to ac­cept the ex­is­tence of a State is to ac­cept the monopoly on vi­olence, and so too in re­verse. The ques­tion, there­fore, of the le­git­ima­cy of any act of vi­olence by the State, whether de­lib­er­ate or ac­ci­den­tal, must first of all be de­ter­mined ac­cord­ing to:

1. The le­git­ima­cy of the State.

2. The le­git­ima­cy of the in­ter­ests of the State in which the vi­olence oc­curred.

3. The ap­pro­pri­ate­ness or lack there­of of the par­tic­ular acts of vi­olence in serv­ing those in­ter­ests.

It is for this rea­son that, for ex­am­ple, any vi­olence com­mit­ted by a re­bel­lious vas­sal is in­her­ent­ly il­le­git­imate; any act of vi­olence by agents of the State that are com­mit­ted for per­son­al mo­ti­va­tions are con­sid­ered crim­inal mis­ap­pro­pri­ation of au­thor­ity; and any act of vi­olence that, in in­tent, fails to ad­vance the cause of the State is con­sid­ered neg­li­gent.

The com­mit­tee be­gan its in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the events in Tir­ma on this ba­sis.

The name on the pa­per was Perisil. I’d nev­er heard of him, but then, the on­ly Iorich I’d ev­er heard of were those who were will­ing to take Jhereg as clients—a rel­ative­ly low num­ber.

I went and showed the name and got di­rec­tions to a sub­base­ment of the House, and from there to a nar­row side pas­sage that looked like an af­terthought to the con­struc­tion; it was mean­er and the ceil­ing was low­er and the light­ing not so good. Here, un­like in the rest of the House, there were names over the doors. I won­dered if some­how hav­ing your name over the door meant you were less im­por­tant. In any case, it helped me find the right one.

I clapped and wait­ed. Af­ter a while, I clapped again. I still heard noth­ing, but the door opened a lit­tle and a pair of odd vi­olet eyes were peer­ing at me, then at Loiosh and Rocza, then at me.

“Yes?” he said, or rather squeaked. His voice was high-​pitched and small; I couldn’t imag­ine him ar­gu­ing be­fore the Court. I mean, do you want the Jus­ticer laugh­ing at your ad­vo­cate? Well, I don’t know, maybe that would help.

“May I come in?”

He opened the door a bit more. He was on­ly a lit­tle taller than Aliera, who was on­ly a lit­tle taller than me. His shoul­ders were broad, and for a Dra­gaer­an he’d have been called stocky. His dress was ca­su­al, to the point where the laces on his dou­blet were on­ly loose­ly tied and his gloves were un­even­ly hang­ing on his belt. For an Iorich, that’s ca­su­al, okay? He said, “An East­ern­er. If you’re here on your own be­half, or one of your coun­try­men, I’ve nev­er done any­thing with the Sep­ara­tion Laws, though I’ve looked through them of course.”

The of­fice be­hind him was tiny and square, most­ly tak­en up by a wood­en desk that looked old and well-​used; it had grooves and scratch­es here and there, and it just bare­ly left room for a cou­ple of chairs that were ug­ly and met­al. There were white spaces on the wall where some pic­tures or some­thing had once hung, and there was some sort of framed of­fi­cial doc­ument hang­ing promi­nent­ly above and be­hind his chair. I said, “You were rec­om­mend­ed to me by La­dy Ard­we­na. My name is Vladimir Tal­tos. I’m here on be­half of Aliera e’Kieron.”

“Oh. Come in, then.” He stepped out of my way. He looked at Loiosh and Rocza again. “In­ter­est­ing pets you have.”

“Thank him for me, Boss. I al­ways love hear­ing my pets com­pli­ment­ed.”

I ig­nored Loiosh and stepped in­side. “New of­fice for you?” I said.

He nod­ded. “Just re­cent­ly per­mit­ted in­to the House from an out­side of­fice.” Then he stopped halfway in­to his chair. “How did you know that?”

He sat be­hind the desk. I sat in one of the chairs. It was ug­ly, but at least it was un­com­fort­able. “Aliera,” I prompt­ed.

“La­dy Ard­we­na for Aliera e’Kieron,” he re­peat­ed. “That’s an in­ter­est­ing jux­ta­po­si­tion. But then, I think I’ve heard of you.”

I made a sort of noise that could mean any­thing and let him talk. All the ad­vo­cates I’ve ev­er met are per­fect­ly will­ing to talk from Home­day to North­port. The best of them are will­ing to lis­ten, too.

He nod­ded as if to some in­ner voice. “You have pa­per­work?”

“None,” I said.

“Oh. Are you reg­is­tered as a friend?”

“Yes, but not con­firmed.”

“Hm­mm,” he said. “She doesn’t want to see her friends, and doesn’t want an ad­vo­cate.”

“Well, you know Drag­onlords.”

“Not many, not well. I’ve nev­er had one as a client.”

“Drag­onlords think there are two ways to solve any prob­lem, and the first is killing some­body.”

He nod­ded. “The sec­ond?”

“Most of them nev­er need to come up with one.”

He fold­ed his arms and sat back. “Tough sit­ua­tion,” he said. “Do you have mon­ey?”

“Yes.”

He named a fig­ure that was a sub­stan­tial per­cent­age of what I used to charge to kill some­one. I bor­rowed his pen and ink and blot­ter and I wrote out a draft on my bank and passed it over. He stud­ied it care­ful­ly, blew on it, then set it aside and nod­ded.

“Where can you be reached?”

“Cas­tle Black.”

“I know the place,” he said. He steepled his fin­gers and stared at noth­ing for a bit. “Am I cor­rect that you don’t know why she re­fus­es an ad­vo­cate or to see any­one?”

“I can spec­ulate,” I said, “know­ing Aliera.”

“She’s out­raged, of­fend­ed, and more full of pride than her fa­ther was be­fore he de­stroyed the world?”

“Oh, you know her?”

“Heard of her, of course.”

“Drag­ons,” I said.

“In­deed.”

“Can you ex­plain the laws that ap­ply here?”

“There isn’t much to ex­plain. El­der Sor­cery is for­bid­den by Im­pe­ri­al Edict.”

“Yeah, what does that mean?”

“That it isn’t a Cod­ified Tra­di­tion. Cod­ified Tra­di­tions are more fun.”

“Fun?”

“For an ad­vo­cate. With a tra­di­tion­al, we can al­ways find in­ter­est­ing ways to rein­ter­pret the tra­di­tion, or find an his­tor­ical con­text for its cre­ation that has changed, or ques­tion how it was cod­ified. That sort of thing is al­ways fun. Me, I work most­ly with Edicts.”

“Oh. Why?”

“I don’t know. I fell in­to it, I sup­pose. It suits me, though. If I were a Drag­on, I’d say it was be­cause they’re more of a chal­lenge. In fact, I sup­pose what I en­joy isn’t the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the law as much as es­tab­lish­ing and ar­gu­ing about the facts. Most of the law in­volves de­tail work and sub­tleties of in­ter­pre­ta­tion. Edicts are yes or no, did or didn’t.”

In this case: did, I thought. “That this was an Edict means what, ex­act­ly?”

“It means it was ex­plic­it­ly de­clared by an Em­per­or at some point. Like a Statute, on­ly with the force of the Em­pire be­hind it. That one in par­tic­ular is about as old as the Em­pire.”

“What does it mean for us? In a prac­ti­cal sense.”

“It means there’s no way to at­tack the law it­self; the on­ly ques­tions are: did she do it, and if so, how harsh should the sen­tence be.”

“Can’t get any­where on the in­ter­pre­ta­tion?”

“How can you when the Em­press can just con­sult the Orb and ask?”

“Oh, right. Death is the max­imum sen­tence?”

“Yes.”

“You have to ad­mit, Boss; it would be fun­ny if Aliera end­ed up on the Star be­fore you did.”

“Yeah, I’ll just laugh my­self sick over that one, Loiosh.”

“What is the min­imum?”

“The min­imum? I sup­pose the min­imum would be the Em­press say­ing, ‘Don’t do that any­more.’ ”

“I see. And what would you ex­pect?”

“No way to tell. The Em­press knows Aliera, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “If they’re friends, it will be hard­er for the Em­press to be le­nient.”

I nod­ded. Pol­itics.

He said, “It’s go­ing to be dif­fi­cult if I can’t get her co­op­er­ation, you know.”

“I know. I think I can get you her co­op­er­ation, if I can man­age to get in to see her.”

He brushed his hair back. “I might be able to man­age that.”

“I’m lis­ten­ing.”

“I’m not say­ing any­thing yet. Let me give it some thought.” I was good with that. He could do as much think­ing as he want­ed. His voice didn’t seem as odd af­ter you’d been lis­ten­ing to it for a while.

Af­ter a mo­ment, he said, as if to him­self, “Yes, that should work.”

“Hm­mm?”

“One op­tion is to pe­ti­tion, in your name, to have her de­clared in­com­pe­tent to man­age her af­fairs.”

I laughed. “Oh, she’ll love that!”

“No doubt.”

“I’ll tes­ti­fy, Boss. I’ve been say­ing for years—”

“Shut up.”

“Think they’ll go for it?”

He frowned. “Go for it?”

“I mean, will you be able to con­vince the Em­pire that she’s in­com­pe­tent.”

“Oh, of course not. That isn’t the point. The point is to con­vince her to ac­cept an ad­vo­cate. If she won’t in the dis­pute with the Em­pire, she might to prove she isn’t mad. If not, it might con­vince her to be will­ing to see you, and give you a chance to talk her in­to ac­cept­ing coun­sel.”

“Ah. Yes, that might work. Or it might just make her more stub­born. She’ll see through it, of course.” I con­sid­ered. “It’s hard to know how she’ll jump.”

“Hm­mm. There’s an­oth­er thing I might try first. It would be quick­er, at any rate.”

“If it’s al­so less like­ly to get me killed, that would be good, too. What is it?”

“Pro­ce­du­ral com­plaint to the Em­pire. If we start out at­tack­ing, we can al­ways back off; if we start on the de­fen­sive, it’s hard­er to change di­rec­tion.” He drummed his fin­gers on the desk­top. Then he nod­ded. “Yes, I’ll try that first. I should be able to get the pe­ti­tion writ­ten up and sub­mit­ted in an hour. We might get re­sults by the end of the day.”

“They don’t waste time.”

“Not with this. For what­ev­er rea­son, they’re in a hur­ry with this case.”

“Um, yeah,” I said. “So it seems. Why is that?”

“Good ques­tion. If you want to do some­thing use­ful, find out.”

“What makes you think I’d be able to do that?”

“I rec­og­nized your name.”

“Oh. I’m fa­mous.”

“If you wish.”

“Can you tell me where to start look­ing?”

“You could ask the Em­press.”

“Okay.”

His eye­brows rose a frac­tion of an inch. “I wasn’t se­ri­ous.”

“Oh?”

“You know the Em­press?”

“We’ve spo­ken.”

“Well, if you think you can get her tell you any­thing, I won’t stop you.”

“All right,” I said. “If that doesn’t work?”

“Lord Del­wick, of my House, might be able to tell you some things, if he’s will­ing to talk to you. He’s our Im­pe­ri­al Rep­re­sen­ta­tive.”

“Okay,” I said. “A word of ad­vice: Don’t do any­thing to mess up his re­la­tion­ship with the Em­pire. The House hates that.”

“So I’ve heard,” he said.

“All right, I’ll get start­ed, then.”

He opened up a desk draw­er, dug around for a while, and then hand­ed me what looked like a cop­per coin with the Iorich in­signia. “Show him this, and tell him I sent you.”

I ac­cept­ed it, put it in my pouch, and said, “I’ll check back with you from time to time.”

“Of course.”

I stood and gave him a bow, which he ac­knowl­edged with ges­ture of his head, then I let my­self out.

I made my way back to the en­try­way of the House with­out too much ef­fort, as­sist­ed by Loiosh, who has a pret­ty good mem­ory for twists and turns.

I sent him and Rocza out ahead of me to spot any as­sas­sins lurk­ing in the area, was told there weren’t any, and made a brisk walk across the way to the en­trance of the Palace. I went as straight through as the twists of the Wing would per­mit, and out in­to the Im­pe­ri­al Wing.

Wher­ev­er you are in the Im­pe­ri­al Wing (all right, wher­ev­er I’ve been) you’ll see pages and mes­sen­gers scur­ry­ing around, all with the Phoenix badge, usu­al­ly car­ry­ing a green fold­er, though some­times it will be a gold one, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly some­thing oth­er than a fold­er. I al­ways re­sent them, be­cause they give the im­pres­sion they know their way around the place, which is ob­vi­ous­ly im­pos­si­ble. Doors, cor­ri­dors, stair­ways are ev­ery­where, and go­ing off at ab­surd an­gles as if de­signed by a mad­man. You have no choice but to ask di­rec­tions of some­one, usu­al­ly a guards­man, who will of course let you know ex­act­ly what they think of East­ern­ers who can’t find their way around.

It’s an­noy­ing.

To the left, how­ev­er, find­ing one of the rooms where the Em­press is avail­able to courtiers is one of the eas­ier tasks, and af­ter on­ly a cou­ple of mi­nor hu­mil­ia­tions I ar­rived out­side that wide, open, chair­less room called the Im­pe­ri­al Au­di­ence Cham­ber or some­thing like that, but in­for­mal­ly known among the Jhereg as As­skiss Al­ley.

There were big dou­ble doors there, with a pair of guards out­side of them, and a well-​dressed man who could have been a rel­ative of La­dy Tel­dra—when she was alive—stand­ing at his ease with a half smile on his face. I want­ed to touch La­dy Tel­dra’s hilt, but re­strained my­self. In­stead, I placed my­self be­fore this wor­thy and bowed like I meant it.

“Vladimir Tal­tos, House Jhereg, and Count of Szurke, at your ser­vice.”

He re­turned my bow ex­act­ly. “Harn­wood,” he said, “House of the Is­so­la, at yours, my lord.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know the pro­ce­dure”—he gave me an en­cour­ag­ing smile—“but I would have words with Her Majesty, who may wish to see me.”

If the re­quest was sur­pris­ing, he gave no in­di­ca­tion. “Of course, my lord. If you will come with me in­to the wait­ing room, I will in­quire.”

He led me to an emp­ty room paint­ed yel­low, with half a dozen com­fort­able chairs, al­so yel­low. They prob­ably called it the “yel­low room.” They’re cre­ative that way. He gave me an­oth­er smile, a bow, and closed the door be­hind him.

I sat and wait­ed, think­ing about how long it had been since I’d eat­en.

I hate wait­ing.

I hate be­ing hun­gry.

I shift­ed in the chair and chat­ted with Loiosh about our pre­vi­ous en­counter with Her Majesty—she had grant­ed me an Im­pe­ri­al ti­tle be­cause of ac­ci­den­tal ser­vices ren­dered. I sus­pect she knew they were ac­ci­den­tal, but felt like re­ward­ing me for her own rea­sons. I hap­pened to know she had an East­ern­er as a lover, maybe that had some­thing to do with it. Loiosh made a few oth­er sug­ges­tions for rea­sons, some of which were prob­ably trea­sonous.

Or maybe not. I’ve heard that in some East­ern king­doms it is a cap­ital crime to fail to treat the king with prop­er re­spect, but I had no idea if that was true in the Em­pire. I imag­ined that I could ask Perisil, and get an an­swer much longer than I want­ed that would come out to: some­times. Im­pe­ri­al law seems to work like that.

This close to the Orb, I could eas­ily feel my link to it, and knew when an hour had passed.

A lit­tle lat­er, Harn­wood re­turned with pro­fuse apolo­gies, a bot­tle of wine, some dried fruit, and word that Her Majesty begged me to be pa­tient, be­cause she did wish to speak with me. My heart quick­ened a bit when I heard that; isn’t that odd? I’d known Mor­rolan e’Drien, and Sethra Lavode, and had even been face-​to-​face with Ver­ra, the De­mon God­dess, and yet I still felt a thrill go through me that this wom­an want­ed to talk to me. Strange. I guess it shows what con­di­tion­ing can do.

Harn­wood left, and I drank the wine be­cause I was thirsty and ate the fruit be­cause it gave me some­thing to do and be­cause I was feel­ing half-​starved. Loiosh ate some for the same rea­sons (dried fruit not be­ing a fa­vorite of his); Rocza seemed to have no prob­lems with dried fruit.

Then I wait­ed some more.

It was most of an­oth­er hour be­fore Harn­wood came back, look­ing even more apolo­get­ic and say­ing, “She will see you now, Lord Szurke.”

That was in­ter­est­ing. She would see Lord Szurke, not Lord Tal­tos. I didn’t know what the sig­nif­icance of that was, but I was pret­ty sure there was sig­nif­icance. That’s the trou­ble with the Court, you know: Ev­ery­thing is sig­nif­icant but they don’t tell you ex­act­ly why, or how, or what it means un­til you’re swim­ming in it. Maybe in my next life I’ll be a Ly­orn and be taught all that stuff or an Is­so­la and know it in­stinc­tive­ly. More like­ly not, though.

I stood up, dis­cov­er­ing that sit­ting there for most of two hours had made my body stiff. I won­dered if I was get­ting old.

I fol­lowed Harn­wood out and down the hall, where we went past the door he’d been sta­tioned out­side of, then turned left, through a door­way, and in­to a much small­er hall­way that end­ed in a flight of eight stairs—two few for it to be a stair­way up to the next floor. I don’t know; I nev­er did fig­ure that out. But at the top was a door that was stand­ing open, and past it was a long, nar­row room with a few stuffed chairs set hap­haz­ard­ly about. At the far end was Her Majesty, speak­ing qui­et­ly with a man in the col­ors of the Iorich and a wom­an in the col­ors of the Drag­on. As I en­tered, all three glanced up at me, with uni­form lacks of ex­pres­sion.

The Orb as it cir­cled the Em­press’s head was a light green, which should have told me some­thing about her mood, but it didn’t. She turned to the two she’d been speak­ing with and said, “Leave us now. I wish to speak to this gen­tle­man.”

They gave her a deep bow, me a rather shal­low­er one, backed up, and left by a door at the far end.

The Em­press sat in a chair and mo­tioned me to stand in front of her. I made an obei­sance and wait­ed, not en­tire­ly sure of the eti­quette, and wish­ing I had La­dy Tel­dra in the flesh, as it were, to tell me what I was sup­posed to do. Zeri­ka didn’t look as if I’d vi­olat­ed any sort of pro­to­col. I re­flect­ed that the Em­pire did things rather more sim­ply than these things were done in the East.

“Tal­tos Vladimir,” she said, a smile flick­ing over her lips. She still looked im­pos­si­bly young to be an Em­press, but looks are de­ceiv­ing. “What hap­pened to your hand?”

I glanced at my left hand, miss­ing the least fin­ger. “A mi­nor in­sect bite fol­lowed by a ma­jor in­fec­tion,” I said. I forced my­self to not glance at the Orb while I said it; the Orb, I’ve been told, on­ly de­tects false­hood when asked to do so, and even then it can some­times be beat­en, as I’ve rea­son to know.

She said, “You couldn’t cure it with your arts?”

I touched the amulet hang­ing about my neck. “I’m not sure how much Your Majesty knows of—”

“Oh, of course,” she said. “I had for­got­ten.”

“It is kind of Your Majesty to re­mem­ber at all.”

“Yes. I am the per­son­ifi­ca­tion of kind­ness, as well as mer­cy and jus­tice, which as you know al­ways match steps. What brings you back to the City, un­der the cir­cum­stances?”

Okay, well, she knew about the “cir­cum­stances.” I was on­ly sur­prised that she cared enough to, and I won­dered why.

“Aliera is a friend of mine,” I said.

“And mine,” she snapped.

I al­most jumped. It isn’t good when the Em­press is mad at you—ask any­one. I said, “Well, nat­ural­ly, I want­ed to see her.”

She seemed to re­lax a lit­tle, and nod­ded.

“And help her if I can,” I added. “I trust you have no ob­jec­tions?”

“That de­pends,” she said care­ful­ly, “on just ex­act­ly what you mean by ‘help­ing’ her.”

“I had in mind hir­ing an ad­vo­cate, to start with.”

She nod­ded. “I would have no ob­jec­tion to that, of course.”

“Per­haps Your Majesty would be will­ing to tell me some­thing.”

“Per­haps.”

“It may be my imag­ina­tion, but it seems that the pros­ecu­tion of Aliera is, ah, be­ing ex­pe­dit­ed. If that’s true, then—”

“It isn’t,” she said. She was terse. She was glar­ing. She was ly­ing. It’s some­thing to make an Em­press lie to you, isn’t it?

I nod­ded. “As Your Majesty says.”

She glared and I stared at a place on the wall above and be­hind her right ear. The Orb had turned a sort of orangish, red­dish col­or. I wait­ed. This isn’t one of those sit­ua­tions where I need to ex­plain why I kept my mouth shut.

At length, she ges­tured to­ward a chair. “Sit,” she said.

“I thank Your Maj—”

“Oh, shut up.”

I sat down. The chair was com­fort­able; I was not.

She let out a long breath. “Well,” she said. “Now we have quite the sit­ua­tion here.”

One thing I’d hoped to find a way to say to her was, “Look, you’ve known for years that Aliera and Mor­rolan dab­bled in El­der Sor­cery. Why is it such a big deal now all of a sud­den?” I was now con­vinced there was go­ing to be no way to ask it at all. The Orb cir­cled her head, its col­or grad­ual­ly fad­ing back to a sick shade of green. It must be an­noy­ing to be un­able to con­ceal your feel­ings.

“Was the Orb de­signed to dis­play the Im­pe­ri­al mood, or is it a by-​prod­uct of some­thing else?”

She pre­tend­ed not to hear the ques­tion. “Who have you hired as an ad­vo­cate?”

“His name is Perisil.”

“I don’t know him. Will he man­age to get you in to see her?”

“I hope so.”

“Let her know that if she con­fess­es, she’ll be shown mer­cy.”

I start­ed to re­ply, then re­cast it in terms I hoped more suit­able for the Im­pe­ri­al pres­ence: “Is Your Majesty pleased to jest?”

She sighed. “No, but I see your point.”

I was try­ing to imag­ine Aliera e’Kieron beg­ging for mer­cy of any­one for any rea­son, and my mind just wouldn’t ac­cept it.

She said, “I should have men­tioned it be­fore, but I’m glad you’re not—that is, I’m glad you’re still alive.”

“Me too. I mean, I thank Your Majesty.”

“Who have you seen since you’ve back in town?”

“Mor­rolan, that’s all.”

“Has he, ah, said any­thing?”

“You mean, made dis­loy­al re­marks about his sovereign? No.”

“I could put the Orb over you and make you re­peat that.”

“Must be nice to be able to do that when­ev­er you want, Majesty.”

“Not as nice as you’d think.”

I cleared my throat. “With all due re­spect, Your Maj—”

“Oh, stuff your re­spect. What is it?”

“Some­one in my po­si­tion is hard­ly like­ly to over­flow with sym­pa­thy for some­one in yours.”

“I wasn’t ask­ing for sym­pa­thy,” said Her Majesty.

“No, I sup­pose not.”

“And you know whose fault your predica­ment is.”

“Yes. Can the same be said for yours?”

“Not with­out ex­plor­ing meta­physics, which I haven’t the pa­tience for just now.”

I smiled a lit­tle. “I can imag­ine Your Majesty in the li­brary of Cas­tle Black fu­ri­ous­ly ar­gu­ing meta­physics with Mor­rolan.”

“So can I,” she said, grant­ing me a brief smile.

It was like half the time I was be­ing in­vit­ed to talk with Zeri­ka, and half the time to speak with the Em­press. It was hard to keep up with.

I said, “It must be a dif­fi­cult po­si­tion.”

“I said I wasn’t ask­ing for sym­pa­thy.”

“Sor­ry.”

She sighed. “Yes, it is. Be­tween jail­ing a friend and vi­olence in the—” She broke off and shook her head. “Well, I knew what I was get­ting in­to when I took the Orb.”

Nei­ther of us men­tioned that at the time she had tak­en the Orb there was, quite lit­er­al­ly, no one else to do it. I said, “You know I’m still will­ing to serve Your Majesty.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“As long as it doesn’t mean a dis­ser­vice to your friends, as usu­al?” She sound­ed a lit­tle scorn­ful.

“Yes,” I said, not let­ting her know that her tone had stung a bit.

“I’m afraid,” she said, “that this is an oc­ca­sion when you’re go­ing to have to choose whom to help.”

“Eh. Be­tween my friends and the Em­pire? I’m sor­ry, that isn’t that hard a choice. Can you give me enough of an idea of what’s go­ing on that I can at least un­der­stand why it has to be that way?”

Af­ter a mo­ment, she said, “Do you know, Vlad, that from the best knowl­edge we have, it seems al­most cer­tain that at least five of the orig­inal six­teen tribes prac­ticed hu­man sac­ri­fice?”

“I had not been aware—”

“There are many who as­sume that be­cause we have ev­idence from the five, it is safe to make as­sump­tions about the oth­er eleven. I don’t know if they’re right, but I can’t prove them wrong.”

I cleared my throat, just as if I had some­thing to say to that. She looked at me ex­pec­tant­ly, so I had to come up with some­thing. “Um, how did they choose the lucky per­son?”

“Dif­fer­ent ways for dif­fer­ent tribes. Cap­tives in bat­tle, se­lect­ed for spe­cial hon­or, pun­ish­ment, re­ward, au­guries.”

“When did it stop?”

“When the Em­pire was formed. It was made il­le­gal. That was the first Im­pe­ri­al Edict.”

“An act of kind­ness from your an­ces­tor. Good way to start.”

“Not kind­ness, so much. She’d spo­ken to the gods, and knew the gods were ei­ther in­dif­fer­ent or hos­tile to the prac­tice. So call it prac­ti­cal­ity. I bring it up be­cause—” She stopped, and looked blank for a mo­ment, the Orb puls­ing blue over her head. “I’m sor­ry, it seems I must go run an Em­pire.”

I stood. “Thank you for see­ing me.” I made as good an obei­sance as I could; which isn’t too bad, I’m told.

“It is al­ways a plea­sure, Count Szurke.”

I backed away a few steps (there is a cor­rect num­ber of steps, but I didn’t know it), and turned away. She said, “Oh, and thank you, Vlad.”

“For—?”

“The doc­uments on mak­ing pa­per. I’m told they’re valu­able.”

“Oh, right. I’d for­got­ten about—how did you know they came from me?”

She smiled. “Un­til now, I didn’t.”

The men­tion of mak­ing pa­per brought back a com­plex set of mem­ories and par­tial mem­ories that I didn’t es­pe­cial­ly feel like dwelling on just then; but it was good of her to men­tion it. I gave her what I hoped was a friend­ly smile over my shoul­der and took my­self out of the room.

Iorich

3

Q: Please state your name, your House, and your city of res­idence.

A: Dornin e’Lanya, House of the Drag­on, Brick­er­stown.

Q: Rank and po­si­tion?

A: Sergeant, Im­pe­ri­al Army, Sec­ond Army, Fourth Le­gion, Com­pa­ny D.

Q: What were your or­ders on the sec­ond day of the month of the Ly­orn of this year?

A: We were to es­cort a sup­ply train from Nor­est to Swor­drock. On that day, we were pass­ing through Tir­ma, in the duchy of Carv­er.

Q: And what had you heard about Tir­ma?

A: We knew the en­tire duchy was in re­bel­lion.

Em­press: Did you know this of­fi­cial­ly, or through ru­mor?

A: It was com­mon knowl­edge, Your Majesty.

Q: An­swer Her Majesty’s ques­tion, Sergeant.

A: We were nev­er in­formed of­fi­cial­ly.

Orb shows false­hood

Q: Would you care to re­con­sid­er that an­swer, Sergeant Dornin?

A: No, my lord. That is my an­swer.

Q: Had any­thing un­usu­al hap­pened that day be­fore you reached Tir­ma?

A: There were the usu­al prob­lems with the wag­on train, but no at­tacks or in­ci­dents.

Q: De­scribe what hap­pened when you en­tered Tir­ma.

A: We were set on by a mob that was try­ing to take away the wag­ons, and we de­fend­ed our­selves.

Q: While you were in Tir­ma, were you or your com­mand in­volved in any fight­ing or vi­olence that did not in­volve de­fend­ing your­selves against an at­tack?

A: We were not.

Orb shows false­hood

Q: Would you care to re­con­sid­er your an­swer?

A: I would not.

Q: Are you aware of the penal­ties for ly­ing be­neath the Orb?

A: I am.

I went back down the half-​flight of stairs, down the hall, and stopped, try­ing to re­mem­ber the name I’d been giv­en.

“Del­wick.”

“I knew that.”

“Right.”

“Okay, I was about to re­mem­ber.”

“Right.”

“Shut up.”

I found my way back to where Harn­wood still wait­ed. He smiled as if he were glad to see me. I bowed as pre­cise­ly as I could man­age—not that he’d let me know if I missed my mark—and said, “Par­don me, do you know a Lord Del­wick?”

“Of course, my lord. Shall I take you to where he is?”

“If you’d be so kind.”

He would, in fact, be so kind. He ex­changed a few words with the guard sta­tioned by the door, and ges­tured with his hand that I was to fall in­to step with him. I did so. Hav­ing known La­dy Tel­dra so long—in the flesh, I mean—I wasn’t sur­prised that he made it seem ef­fort­less to short­en his strides to match my puny hu­man ones.

I won’t try to de­scribe the turn­ings we took, nor the stairs we went up on­ly to go down an­oth­er. I will men­tion one ex­treme­ly wide hall­way with what looked like gold trim­ming over ivory, and hung with the psiprints of some of the odd­est-​look­ing peo­ple I’ve ev­er seen, all of them look­ing enough like Day­mar to con­vince me they were Hawk­lords, and all of them star­ing out with the same ex­pres­sion: as if they were say­ing, “Just what man­ner of beast are you, any­way, and do you mind of if I study you for a while?”

We walked in­to a per­fect­ly square room around the size of my old flat off Low­er Kieron Road—it was a pret­ty big flat. The room was emp­ty. Harn­wood said, “This is where the var­ious rep­re­sen­ta­tives some­times gath­er to speak in­for­mal­ly.”

“Should I wait here?”

“No, we can find Lord Del­wick’s of­fices.”

I was glad the room was emp­ty. Meet­ing the Jhereg rep­re­sen­ta­tive would have been awk­ward. We passed through it to a door at the oth­er end, and stepped in­to a hall­way. He nod­ded to the right. “That way, fol­low­ing it around to the right, you’ll come back to the Im­pe­ri­al Au­di­ence Cham­ber, on the oth­er side. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, this is the fastest way with­out go­ing through the Cham­ber, which is in­ap­pro­pri­ate.”

“I un­der­stand,” I lied.

He pre­tend­ed to be­lieve me and we turned left. There were a few doors on the right, and far­ther up the hall­way split, but be­fore that point he stopped out­side one of the doors and clapped. There was the sym­bol of the Iorich above it. By then I hadn’t eat­en any­thing ex­cept a lit­tle dried fruit in about three years, and I was in a wretched mood. I re­solved not to take it out on Lord Del­wick.

“I can’t wait—”

“Don’t.”

Rocza gave a lit­tle shiv­er that I’m pret­ty sure was laugh­ter.

The door opened, and an el­der­ly Dra­gaer­an with se­vere eye­brows and thin lips was look­ing at us, with the smile of the diplo­ma­tist—that is, a smile that means noth­ing.

“Well met, Del­wick.”

“And you, Harn­wood.” He looked an in­quiry at me.

“This is Lord Tal­tos, of House Jhereg, and he wish­es a few words with you.”

“Of course,” he said. “Please come in and sit down.” If he’d ev­er heard of me, he con­cealed it well.

Harn­wood took his leave amid the usu­al po­lite nois­es and ges­tures all around, af­ter which I ac­com­pa­nied Del­wick in­to his room—or ac­tu­al­ly suite, be­cause there were a cou­ple of doors that pre­sum­ably went to his pri­vate quar­ters or some­thing. It was nice enough: a thick pur­ple car­pet of the sort that comes from Keresh or there­abouts, with com­plex in­ter­lock­ing pat­terns that took longer to make than a hu­man usu­al­ly lives. There was no desk, which some­how struck me as sig­nif­icant; there were just sev­er­al stuffed chairs with ta­bles next to them, as if to say, “We’re on­ly hav­ing a lit­tle chat here, noth­ing to wor­ry about.”

Heh.

He point­ed to a chair, ex­cused him­self, and went through one of the doors, re­turn­ing in a mo­ment with a plate of bis­cuits and cheese. I could have kissed him.

I said, “I hope you don’t mind if I feed a bit to my friends here.”

“Of course not, my lord.”

I fed them, and my­self, try­ing not to ap­pear greedy, but al­so not wor­ry­ing about it too much; there are times when the Dra­gaer­an prej­udices about hu­mans can work for us. I didn’t eat enough to be sat­is­fied, but a few bis­cuits with even an ex­ces­sive­ly sub­tle (read: bland) cheese helped. He ate a few as well to keep com­pa­ny with me, as it were, while he wait­ed for me to state my busi­ness.

I found the coin Perisil had giv­en me, and showed it.

“Hm­mm,” he said. “All right.” He looked up at me and nod­ded. “Very well.” He sat back. “Tell me about it.”

“Why is the pros­ecu­tion of Aliera e’Kieron hap­pen­ing so quick­ly?”

He nod­ded a lit­tle. “I’ve won­dered my­self. So then, you have an ad­vo­cate for her?”

“Perisil,” I said.

“Hm­mm. I’m afraid I don’t rec­og­nize the name.”

“He has a base­ment of­fice.”

“Where?”

“In the House.”

“Ah, I see.”

It seemed that the best ad­vo­cates had quar­ters out­side of the House. Maybe that should have shak­en my con­fi­dence in Perisil, but I trust­ed his ad­vice, and I’d liked him, and Loiosh hadn’t made any es­pe­cial­ly nasty com­ments on him.

“I asked Her Majesty, and—”

“Par­don?”

“I asked Her Majesty about it, and she wouldn’t an­swer.”

Del­wick caught him­self and stopped star­ing. “I see.”

“I hope my ef­fort doesn’t make your task more dif­fi­cult.”

He smiled po­lite­ly. “We shall see,” he said.

“So, you’ll look in­to it?”

“Of course.” He seemed gen­uine­ly star­tled that I’d even ask. Those lit­tle coins must have some se­ri­ous au­thor­ity. In which case, why did an ad­vo­cate with of­fices in the base­ment of the House have one to throw around, or choose to use it on me?

Lat­er. Note it, and set it aside.

“How shall I reach you?”

“Ei­ther through Perisil, or at Cas­tle Black.”

“Cas­tle Black? Lord Mor­dran?”

“Mor­rolan.”

“Of course. All right. You’ll be hear­ing from me.”

“Thank you,” I said, stand­ing. “Ah . . .”

“Yes?”

“Is there any­where to eat here, in the Palace? I mean, for those of us who don’t work here?”

He smiled. “Scores. The near­est is just out my door to the right, fol­low the jog to the right, down the stairs, first left.”

“Thank you,” I said, mean­ing it.

He nod­ded as if he couldn’t tell the dif­fer­ence. I sup­pose if you hang around the Court long enough, you lose your abil­ity to de­tect sin­cer­ity.

There was, in­deed, food af­ter a fash­ion; a room with space enough for a bat­tal­ion held about four peo­ple, like a lone­ly jisweed on a rocky hill, and they were eat­ing some­thing dis­pensed by a tiny old Chreotha who seemed to be half asleep. I had uniden­ti­fi­able soup that was too salty, yes­ter­day’s bread, and some­thing that had once been roast beef. I had wa­ter be­cause I didn’t trust her wine. She charged too much. I couldn’t fig­ure why the place seemed so emp­ty.

Loiosh didn’t much like the stuff ei­ther, but he and Rocza ate it hap­pi­ly enough. Well, so did I, come to think of it. To be fair, it was, by this time, mid-​af­ter­noon; I imag­ined around lunchtime the place would be bus­ier, and maybe the food fresh­er.

I fin­ished up and left with a glare at the mer­chant—I won’t call her a cook—that she missed en­tire­ly, and head­ed back to see my ad­vo­cate. Aliera’s ad­vo­cate. The ad­vo­cate.

At this point, I wish to make the ob­ser­va­tion that I had been spend­ing the last sev­er­al years wear­ing my feet out walk­ing about the coun­try­side, and I’ve known vil­lages sep­arat­ed by moun­tain, riv­er, and for­est that weren’t as far apart as a place with­in the Im­pe­ri­al Palace and an­oth­er with­in the House of the Iorich lo­cat­ed next to it. Loiosh says I’m speak­ing fig­ura­tive­ly, and he may be right, but I wouldn’t bet against the house on it.

I did get there even­tu­al­ly, and, won­der of won­ders, he was still there, the door open, look­ing like he nev­er moved. Maybe he didn’t; maybe he had flunkies to do all his run­ning around. I used to have flunkies to do all my run­ning around. I liked it.

I walked in and be­fore I could ask him any­thing he said, “It’s all set up. Would you like to vis­it Aliera?”

Now that, as it hap­pened, wasn’t as easy a ques­tion as it might have sound­ed. But af­ter hes­itat­ing on­ly a mo­ment I said, “Sure. The worst she can do is kill me.”

That earned me an in­quir­ing look which I ig­nored. “Are you com­ing along?” I asked him.

“No, you have to con­vince her to see me.”

“Okay. How did you work it?”

“Her al­leged re­fusal to see ei­ther a friend or an ad­vo­cate could have in­di­cat­ed de­lib­er­ate iso­la­tion on the part of the Em­pire with the co­op­er­ation of the Jus­ticers.”

I stared. “You think so?”

“I said it could.”

“Oh. But you don’t re­al­ly think so?”

“I am most cer­tain­ly not go­ing to an­swer that, and don’t ask it again.”

“Oh. All right. But they be­lieved it?”

“They be­lieved I had grounds for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

“Ah. All right.”

He nod­ded. “Now, go and see her.”

“Um. Where? How?”

“Up one lev­el, fol­low wrong­wise un­til—here, I’ll write out the di­rec­tions; they’re a bit in­volved.”

They were. His script­ing was painful­ly neat and pre­cise, though he’d been fast enough writ­ing it out. And I must have looked like an id­iot, walk­ing down the hall with two jhereg on my shoul­ders re­peat­ed­ly stop­ping and read­ing the note and look­ing around. But those I passed were ei­ther as po­lite as Is­so­la or as obliv­ious as Athyra, and even­tu­al­ly I got there: a pair of mar­ble pil­lars guard­ed a pair of tall, wide doors en­graved so splen­did­ly with ca­vort­ing iorich that you might not no­tice the doors were bound in iron. You should go see them some­day; ca­vort­ing iorich aren’t some­thing one sees de­pict­ed ev­ery day, and for good rea­son. Be­fore them were four guards who looked like they had no sense of hu­mor, and a cor­po­ral whose job it was to find out if you had good rea­son for want­ing them open.

I con­vinced him by show­ing him that same coin I’d used be­fore, and there was a “clang” fol­lowed by in­vis­ible ser­vants pulling in­vis­ible ropes and the doors opened for me. Mor­rolan worked things bet­ter.

It was a lit­tle odd to walk through those por­tals. For one thing, the oth­er side was more what I was used to; I’d been there be­fore, and a cold shiv­er went through me as I set foot on the plain stone floors. I’m not go­ing to talk about the last time I was in the Iorich dun­geons. And I’m cer­tain­ly not go­ing to talk about the time be­fore that.

Just in­side was a guard sta­tion, like a small hut with glass win­dows in­side the wide cor­ri­dor. There were a cou­ple of couch­es there, I guess for them to sleep, and a ta­ble where the sergeant sat. There was a thick leather-​bound book in front of him. He said, “Your busi­ness?”

“To see Aliera e’Kieron, by re­quest of her ad­vo­cate.”

“Name?”

“Mine, or the ad­vo­cate’s?”

“Yours.”

“Szurke.”

“Seal?”

I dug it out and showed it to him. He nod­ded. “I was told you’d be by. You must ei­ther leave your weapons here, or sign and seal these doc­uments and take an oath promis­ing—”

“I know. I’ll sign the doc­uments and take the oath.”

He nod­ded, and we went through the pro­ce­dure that per­mit­ted me to keep La­dy Tel­dra, whom I was not about to give up. When ev­ery­thing was fi­nal­ly done, he said, “Limper, show him to num­ber eight.”

The wom­an who stood up and ges­tured to me was a bit short and had a pale com­plex­ion and showed no signs of limp­ing; no doubt there was a sto­ry there.

One thing about the dun­geons is that un­like the rest of the Iorich Wing, they were pret­ty sim­ple: a big square of doors, guard sta­tions at all four cor­ners, stair­ways in the mid­dle. It might in­volve a lot of walk­ing, but you wouldn’t get lost.

We took a stair­way up. I’d nev­er gone up from the main lev­el be­fore. The first thing I no­ticed was that the cells, though still made of the same iron-​bound wood, were much far­ther apart than the ones I’d had res­idence in. And they had clap­per ropes, for all love.

Limper used the rope, then dug out a key and used that with­out wait­ing for a re­sponse. I guess they felt that the oc­cu­pants of these elite cells de­served warn­ing about vis­itors, but still didn’t get a choice about whether they were ad­mit­ted. That made me feel a lit­tle bet­ter.

She opened the door and said, “You have an hour. If you want to leave soon­er, pull the knob at­tached to the in­side of the door.” I stepped in­side and the door closed be­hind me with a thud. I heard the bolt slide in­to place while I looked around.

When I was grow­ing up, the flat where my fa­ther and I lived was a great deal small­er than the “cell” Aliera was in, and con­sid­er­ably less lux­uri­ous. The floor was thick Se­ri­oli car­pet, with wavy pat­terns and hard-​an­gled lines all formed out of dots. The fur­nish­ings were all of the same blond hard­wood, and the light was from a chan­de­lier with enough can­dles to have il­lu­mi­nat­ed about fifty of the kind of cells I’d stayed in. I re­fer, of course, on­ly to the room I could see; there were at least two doors lead­ing off to oth­er rooms. Maybe one was a privy, and it was on­ly a two-​room suite.

I didn’t see Aliera at first; she was loung­ing on a long couch that her plain, black mil­itary garb blend­ed in­to; al­though I re­al­ly ought to have seen the sparks shoot­ing from her eyes as she gave me the sort of kind, friend­ly, wel­com­ing look I ex­pect­ed.

“What, by the thorns in Barlen’s ass, do you want?”

“Can we just let that oath stay un­ex­am­ined, Boss?”

“It’s al­ready gone, Loiosh.”

It was, too; be­cause while I was still search­ing for an an­swer, she said, “I didn’t give you per­mis­sion to vis­it.”

“Your ad­vo­cate ar­ranged it.”

“I don’t have an ad­vo­cate.”

“Turns out you do.”

“In­deed?” she said in a tone that would have put a lay­er of frost on Wynak’s burn­ing pri­vate parts.

“Some le­gal trick in­volved. I don’t un­der­stand that stuff.”

“And I have no say in the mat­ter?”

“You had no say in be­ing put here,” I said, shrug­ging.

“Very well,” she said. “Since they have tak­en Pathfind­er from me, if he dares show his face, I shall have to see what I can do with my bare hands.”

I nod­ded. “I knew you’d show sense.”

She glared. “Do you know why I don’t kill you right now?”

“Yes,” I said. “Be­cause to do so, you’d have to stand up. Once en­ter­ing the Iorich dun­geons, you are cut off from the Orb, and so you can’t lev­itate, so I’d see how short you re­al­ly are, and you couldn’t take the hu­mil­ia­tion. Go­ing to of­fer me some­thing to drink?” Just so you know, it had been years since she’d done that lev­itat­ing bit; I just said it to an­noy her.

She ges­tured with her head. “On the buf­fet. Help your­self.”

I did, to a hard cider that was pret­ty good, though it want­ed to be cold­er. I took a chair across from her and smiled pleas­ant­ly in­to her glare.

“So,” I said. “What’s new?”

Her re­sponse was more mar­tial than la­dy­like.

“Yes,” I said. “That part I sort of picked up on. But I was won­der­ing about the de­tails.”

“De­tails.” She said it like the word tast­ed bad.

“You were ar­rest­ed,” I said, “for the il­le­gal study and prac­tice—”

She had some sug­ges­tions about what I could do with my sum­ma­ry of her case.

I was com­ing to the con­clu­sion that she wasn’t in the best of moods for con­ver­sa­tion. I sipped some cider, let it roll around on my tongue, and looked around the room. She even had win­dows. They had bars on them, but they were re­al win­dows. When I was in “Jhereg stor­age” I didn’t have any win­dows. And they had done some­thing that pre­vent­ed psy­chic com­mu­ni­ca­tion, though I’d still been able to talk to Loiosh, which put me in a bet­ter po­si­tion than most.

“There is, I think, more go­ing on here than just the vi­ola­tion of a law.”

She stared at me.

I said, “You’ve been do­ing this for years, and ev­ery­one knows it. Why ar­rest you for it now? There has to be some­thing po­lit­ical go­ing on.”

“You think?”

I said, “Just catch­ing my­self up out loud.”

“Fine. Can you do it else­where? If there is any­one I want to see right now, it isn’t you.”

“Who is it?”

“Pathfind­er.”

“Oh. Well, yes.” I could imag­ine one miss­ing one’s Great Weapon. I touched the hilt of La­dy Tel­dra.

“Please leave,” she said.

“Naw,” I said.

She glared.

I said, “I need to get the de­tails if I’m go­ing to do any­thing about it. And I am go­ing to do some­thing about it.”

“Why?” She pret­ty much spat the word.

“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “You know why. To gain the moral high ground on you. It’s what I live for. Just the idea of you ow­ing me—”

“Oh, shut up.”

I did, and took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pon­der. I need­ed an­oth­er way in. Once, years ago, I’d seen the room in Cas­tle Black where the Necro­mancer lived, if it could be called a room. It could hard­ly be called a clos­et. There was space for her to stand, and that was it. I couldn’t help but com­ment on how small it was, and she looked puz­zled for a mo­ment, then said, “Oh, but you on­ly per­ceive three di­men­sions, don’t you?” Yes, I’m afraid that’s all I per­ceive. And my usu­al way of per­ceiv­ing wasn’t go­ing to con­vince Aliera to tell me what was go­ing on.

“What are they feed­ing you here?”

She looked at me.

I said, “When I was here, I got this sort of soup with a few bread crusts float­ing in it. I think they may have waved a chick­en at it. I was just won­der­ing if they were treat­ing you any bet­ter.”

“When were you here?”

“A few times. Not here, ex­act­ly. Same build­ing, dif­fer­ent suite. Mine wasn’t so well ap­point­ed.”

“What, that gives you moral su­pe­ri­or­ity?”

“No, I get my moral su­pe­ri­or­ity from hav­ing been guilty of what they ar­rest­ed me for, and walk­ing out free a bit lat­er.”

She sniffed.

I said, “Well, a kind of moral su­pe­ri­or­ity any­way.”

She mut­tered some­thing about Jhereg. I imag­ine it wasn’t com­pli­men­ta­ry.

“But then,” I said, “you’re guilty too. Tech­ni­cal­ly, any­way. So I guess—”

“You know so much about it, don’t you?”

I got one of those quick flash­es of mem­ory you get, this one of me ly­ing on my back, un­able to move, while bits and pieces of the world turned in­to some­thing that ought not to ex­ist. “Not so much,” I said, “but more than I should.”

“I’ll agree with that.”

“The point is, what would make the Em­press sud­den­ly de­cide that a law she was turn­ing a blind eye to was now—”

“Ask her.”

“She prob­ably won’t an­swer me,” I said.

“And you think I will?”

“Why not?”

“I as­sume the ques­tion is rhetor­ical,” said Aliera.

She looked away and I wait­ed. I had some more cider. I love hav­ing a drink in my hand, be­cause it gives me some­thing to do while I’m wait­ing, and be­cause I look re­al­ly good hold­ing it, shift­ing from foot to foot, like the wait­er when the cus­tomer can’t de­cide be­tween the shrimp souf­flé and the lamb Fe­nar­ian. Okay, maybe I don’t look so good af­ter all. I went over and sat down in a chair fac­ing her, and took an­oth­er sip. Much bet­ter.

“Yes,” she said.

“Ex­cuse me?”

“The ques­tion was rhetor­ical.”

“Oh.” Then, “Mine wasn’t.”

She set­tled back a lit­tle on­to the couch. I let the si­lence con­tin­ue to see if she’d fi­nal­ly say some­thing. She did. “I don’t know.” She sound­ed qui­et, re­flec­tive. It was un­usu­al for her. I kept my mouth shut, sort of in hon­or of the nov­el­ty and to see if any­thing else would emerge.

“It isn’t that sim­ple,” she said, as if I’d been the oth­er par­ty in what­ev­er in­ter­nal di­alogue was go­ing on.

“Ex­plain, then.”

“You keep want­ing to make it friend­ship ver­sus pol­itics.”

I nod­ded to in­di­cate that I had no idea what she was talk­ing about.

“But it’s nev­er that clear-​cut. It’s all about how bad this would be, and what are the chances of that hap­pen­ing, and how sure are you that this or that will or won’t work.”

I nod­ded again. Hav­ing Aliera e’Kieron in an ex­pan­sive mood was too good a chance to mess up by speak­ing.

“But she wouldn’t have done it un­less—” She broke off and glared at me.

“Un­less what?” I said.

“Just shut up.”

“Don’t feel like it,” I said. “Will you talk to an ad­vo­cate?”

“Why?”

“So they don’t, I don’t know, kill you or some­thing?”

“You think I care about that?”

“I seem to re­call you fight­ing once as if you did. Maybe you were fak­ing it, though.”

“You know damned well that’s dif­fer­ent.”

“You know I’ve al­ways had trou­ble see­ing fine dis­tinc­tions.”

“You’ve al­ways had trou­ble see­ing any­thing that wasn’t of im­me­di­ate prac­ti­cal val­ue.”

“You say that like there’s some­thing wrong with it.”

She made a sound of dis­gust.

“All right,” I said. “Now prob­ably isn’t the time for phi­los­ophy. Will you talk to an ad­vo­cate?”

“No,” she said.

I took it as equiv­ocal.

“Afraid you might be found in­no­cent?”

She looked at me, then looked off. “Go away.” Am­bigu­ous.

“Sure. Mean­while, what do you know or sus­pect that would have led to this, ah, sit­ua­tion, that you don’t want re­vealed?”

“I’m not go­ing to tell you any­thing, Vlad. Leave me alone.”

It was hard to know how to re­act when she was be­ing so hes­itant about her wish­es.

“You’ve been ar­rest­ed for rea­sons of State,” I said as if I were sure. “You may not know what they are, but you know that’s what it is. And you’re afraid that if you de­fend your­self it will in­ter­fere with what­ev­er the Em­press is do­ing.”

“Drop dead.”

“It must not have oc­curred to you that the Em­press is count­ing on you to de­fend your­self, oth­er­wise she’d nev­er have used this de­vice to ac­com­plish what­ev­er she’s try­ing to ac­com­plish.”

She looked at me, and there was a flick­er of in­ter­est in her eyes. “How would you know?”

“She told me. She all but told me, by what she wouldn’t tell me.”

“You spoke to her?”

“I can do that. I have an Im­pe­ri­al ti­tle, you know.”

“And she said—”

“I got the feel­ing there were a lot of things go­ing on she couldn’t tell me.”

“You got the feel­ing.”

“Right.”

“So you’re guess­ing.”

“Less than cer­tain­ty, more than guess­work.”

She made a gen­er­al sound of dis­gust.

I wait­ed. Drag­onlords are much too stub­born to be con­vinced of any­thing by ar­gu­ment, so the trick to deal­ing with them is to avoid say­ing some­thing that will get you killed un­til they come around to your opin­ion on their own. This is more true of Aliera than most.

She said, “If Her Majesty had not wished for my con­vic­tion, she wouldn’t have be­gun the ar­rest pro­ceed­ings.”

“Uh huh,” I said.

Those were the last words spo­ken for some few min­utes. Spo­ken aloud, I mean; Loiosh spoke a bit in­to my mind, most­ly mak­ing ob­ser­va­tions about Aliera’s char­ac­ter. I’d heard them be­fore. I’d said them be­fore.

“I wish to reem­pha­size the one im­por­tant thing,” I said even­tu­al­ly.

“What. Is. That?”

“If you don’t have an ad­vo­cate, it’ll be pret­ty ob­vi­ous to ev­ery­one that you’re de­lib­er­ate­ly sac­ri­fic­ing your­self. If you are de­lib­er­ate­ly sac­ri­fic­ing your­self, that is li­able to un­do a great deal of what the Em­press is try­ing to ac­com­plish.”

She stared at me. I think she knew I was just try­ing to ma­neu­ver her in­to do­ing what I want­ed; the trou­ble was that it was a valid ar­gu­ment. Even­tu­al­ly she said, “Is the ad­vo­cate any good?”

“How would I know?” I said. “Prob­ably not.”

She glared. “All right. I’ll see him.”

“I’ll let him know.”

“Get out of here.”

That time I did.

Iorich

4

La­dy Otria e’Ter­ics re­port­ed that, while no weapons were found on the scene, save those in use by the Im­pe­ri­al army and so marked, and three per­son­al, un­marked weapons claimed by same, there were sev­er­al im­ple­ments in or near the cot­tage that could have been uti­lized as weapons. See list Ap­pendix 12. Up­on be­ing asked if there was ev­idence that they had been so uti­lized, La­dy Otria e’Ter­ics de­clined to an­swer. See De­po­si­tion 9.

There’s an inn called Dancer’s Rest not far from the Iorich Wing. It’s one of those places where they fig­ure if they fill the court­yard with mar­ble stat­ues and foun­tains and flow­ers that are bloom­ing off-​sea­son, they can charge two orbs a night for a nine-​cop­per room. It works, I guess. At least, I paid it. Some of the stat­ues were pret­ty. And, you know, when you’ve been away from civ­iliza­tion for a while, you val­ue a nine-​cop­per room at any price.

It had the oth­er ad­van­tage that, by Jhereg cus­tom, any­one stay­ing there was con­sid­ered at home. In the­ory, I should be safe there. In prac­tice, since one of the things the Jhereg want­ed me for was break­ing a rule like that, I prob­ably shouldn’t bet my soul on it.

It cost an­oth­er orb to have food sent up to my room, which had a win­dow from which I could see the up­per reach­es of the Iorich and the Chreotha Wings, the first with its sig­na­ture bell tow­er, the lat­ter with its mas­sive wall of bas-​re­lief jun­gle plants. I could see them well, be­cause the win­dow was glass. That’s the sort of thing you get for two orbs a night.

The bed was con­sid­er­ably soft­er than the ground I’d got­ten used to sleep­ing on, and there was even enough room to turn with my arms stretched out. That’s the thing about rooms near the Palace: They’re small; prob­ably de­signed to make the Palace seem big­ger, I don’t know.

“You ev­er plan­ning to fall asleep, Boss?”

“The walls are too thick. It’s too qui­et. I’m used to things chit­ter­ing and rustling all night.”

He didn’t an­swer, and some­where in there I fell asleep and had a con­fus­ing dream about thick walls that were in be­tween me and some­thing I want­ed, I don’t re­mem­ber what, and I kept try­ing to dig through them with the dull edge of a knife. Why the dull edge? How should I know; I was on­ly a spec­ta­tor.

I woke late the next morn­ing, feel­ing pret­ty good. Loiosh and Rocza scout­ed the area, de­cid­ed it was safe, and I went out look­ing for kla­va. Found some. Drank it. Was hap­py. I al­so picked up a warm sweet bun stuffed with keth­na, and it was good too. Then, with Loiosh and Rocza tak­ing pre­cau­tions for me, I made my way back to the Iorich Wing.

The ad­vo­cate’s door was closed and there was a note pinned to it with the ini­tial V in tight, care­ful script. I took down the note and un­fold­ed it to read, “Run­ning an er­rand; wait in my of­fice.”

I shrugged and reached for the door han­dle, and Loiosh said, “Boss!”

I froze. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

My hand brushed La­dy Tel­dra’s hilt, but I didn’t draw. Pulling a Mor­gan­ti weapon in the House of the Iorich is the sort of thing that gets you talked about, and I wasn’t go­ing to do it if I didn’t have to.

“Some­thing about that note both­ers me.”

“If you tell me you’ve sud­den­ly turned in­to a hand­writ­ing ex­pert—”

He didn’t an­swer; I could feel him think­ing, or at least do­ing some­thing with his mind, prob­ing or sens­ing in a way that I couldn’t feel. I wait­ed. I hoped no one walked by, be­cause I’d ei­ther kill him or feel like an id­iot for stand­ing out­side of this door not mov­ing. I stud­ied the note again. Was it the same hand­writ­ing I’d seen from Perisil? Pret­ty close. I start­ed to pull out the di­rec­tions he’d writ­ten out for me to com­pare the writ­ing, but Loiosh spoke be­fore I could.

“There’s some­one in­side.”

“Okay.”

“It isn’t him.”

“Okay. Any­one else around?”

“A few of the oth­er of­fices have peo­ple in them.”

“Send Rocza ahead.”

She left my shoul­der al­most be­fore the words were out of my metaphor­ical mouth. I turned and walked back the way I’d come—not too fast, not too slow, try­ing to stay alert for any sound, any flick­er of move­ment. It’s the sort of ex­pe­ri­ence that wakes up ev­ery par­ti­cle of your body. If it weren’t for the thrill of the thing, I’d just as soon skip it com­plete­ly.

“She says it’s clear ahead, Boss.”

The hall­way was much, much longer than it had been two min­utes be­fore when I was go­ing the oth­er way, and my foot­steps were much loud­er. Two Jus­ticers were walk­ing slow­ly to­ward me, deep in con­ver­sa­tion, and I gave them an ex­tra look even though I could tell they weren’t Jhereg from the frankly cu­ri­ous glance they gave me. I could feel Loiosh watch­ing them un­til they were well past.

I reached the stair­way at the far end of the hall­way with Rocza still scout­ing ahead. On the main floor I could re­lax a lit­tle; there were uni­formed arms­men there, and a few more peo­ple as well as more open space; it was a bad place for an as­sas­sin to make a move.

The same el­der­ly wom­an was in the same place near the door. Next to her was a Chreotha with a cart sell­ing food of some sort. I bought a hot and flaky pas­try filled with gar­licky pota­to. I stood off to the side eat­ing and think­ing.

I fed the re­main­ders to the jhereg; peo­ple around pre­tend­ed not to no­tice. La­dy Tel­dra would have been proud of them.

I brushed crumbs off my fin­gers.

“Okay, Boss. Now where?”

“Some­where safe.”

“Yeah, like I said.”

“This is pret­ty safe, but I think af­ter stand­ing here six or sev­en hours I’ll start to feel sil­ly.”

“When has that—”

“Of course, it might be fun to stand here un­til the as­sas­sin gives up and leaves, and then give him a big smile as he goes by.”

“Sure, Boss. What­ev­er floats your cas­tle.”

“The oth­er idea is not to do that.” I re­viewed a list of more prac­ti­cal pos­si­bil­ities, then ap­proached the wom­an be­hind the desk with a short bow. “Is there a com­mon wait­ing area?”

She frowned. “If you wish to see an ad­vo­cate, they each have of­fices.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’d rather wait else­where, if you don’t mind.”

She looked like she want­ed to ask why, but on­ly ges­tured to her right, say­ing, “Fourth door on the right. It should be open.”

“Can a note be de­liv­ered to Lord Perisil?”

She frowned again. “Would that be High Coun­sel Perisil?”

“Yes,” I said, while the ghost of La­dy Tel­dra prob­ably tsked at me for not know­ing the prop­er ti­tle and at her for cor­rect­ing me.

The clerk was kind enough to let me use a piece of coarse pa­per and a cheap pen­cil. I wrote a short note and hand­ed it over, not even both­er­ing to fold it. “I do not know the cus­toms of your House,” I said. “I trust this will go to his hand, and nowhere else?”

“That is cor­rect,” she said, a bit con­temp­tu­ous­ly. She prob­ably hat­ed her job, sit­ting there hour af­ter hour send­ing peo­ple one way or an­oth­er. I won­dered how long she’d been do­ing it. Since the In­ter­reg­num end­ed, to look at her.

She took the note and put it ca­su­al­ly on her desk un­der what looked like a piece of pol­ished stone. I turned away from her slow­ly, scan­ning the room: A few peo­ple, most­ly Iorich, were pass­ing by on busi­ness of their own. The jhereg got some cu­ri­ous glances.

The place she’d di­rect­ed me to was big and com­fort­able, most­ly done in a pale blue that was prob­ably cal­cu­lat­ed to make me feel some­thing or oth­er.

“You know, Boss, for some­one who hates wait­ing—”

“Oh, shut up.”

Not that he wasn’t right. I found a chair against a wall be­cause all of the chairs were against a wall. I stretched my legs out, closed my eyes, and tried to re­lax. Some­where be­low me, there was a Jhereg ex­pect­ing me to walk in­to Perisil’s of­fice so I could be killed. Was Perisil in on it? Un­like­ly. The Jhereg don’t like to use ad­vo­cates for il­le­gal stuff; and be­sides, if he’d been in on it the note wouldn’t have looked fun­ny.

Here’s the thing: Any­one can be shined. That’s just how it is. If you want some­one bad enough, you can get him. But if he knows you’re af­ter him, he can pret­ty much keep out of trou­ble as long as he stays alert. Which makes the ques­tion sim­ple: How long can some­one stay alert, al­ways watch­ing al­ley­ways, aware of any­one who is care­ful­ly not look­ing at you, keep­ing an eye out for a good place to make a move. How long can you keep that up?

For most peo­ple, the an­swer is: hours, maybe a day or two.

But it turns out that you can do it a lot longer if you have a pair of jhereg tak­ing shifts for you.

Did that mean I was safe? Not hard­ly. Soon­er or lat­er they were bound to get me. But thanks to Loiosh and Rocza, I had a pret­ty rea­son­able chance of mak­ing it lat­er rather than soon­er as long as I didn’t do too many stupid things.

I know what you’re think­ing, and you’re wrong; I’ve gone for months with­out do­ing any­thing stupid. Did I just sur­vive this time be­cause the as­sas­sin got slop­py? Maybe. I’d like to think that if it were me I’d have been more care­ful with the note. Per­haps not, though. No one can do ev­ery­thing per­fect­ly; mis­takes hap­pen. But we’re as­sas­sins: when we make mis­takes, peo­ple live.

From time to time some­one would come in­to the room, wait for a while, be met by some­one, and leave. I guess I was there for a cou­ple of hours be­fore Perisil came in. He nod­ded to me, and said, “You could have wait­ed in my of­fice.”

I stood up, nod­ded, and fol­lowed him back down the stairs. We didn’t see any­one in the long hall­way. He walked in, took a seat be­hind his desk, and gave me a ques­tion­ing look. I de­cid­ed it was a safe bet that if there’d been an as­sas­sin stand­ing there hold­ing a knife, he’d have re­act­ed some­how, so I went in af­ter him and took a seat.

“Want to ex­plain?” he said.

“Ex­plain what?”

“Nev­er mind, then.”

“You saw Aliera?”

“Just got back. She’s very, ah, proud,” he said.

“If you aren’t stat­ing the ob­vi­ous, then I’m miss­ing the point.”

“I’m stat­ing the ob­vi­ous.”

“All right.”

“Most­ly.” He sat down be­hind the desk as if he’d just been through a bat­tle. It was a very fa­mil­iar mo­tion, al­though when I sat down like that, the bat­tle had usu­al­ly been more phys­ical.

“Want to tell me about it?” I said.

“I got her to agree to let me de­fend her.”

“Well done.”

“But she won’t co­op­er­ate in the en­deav­or.”

“That would be a prob­lem.”

“Yes.”

“So, what are you go­ing to do?”

“Think about it.”

“I’ve tried that with Aliera.”

“Not much luck?”

“She isn’t sub­ject to what pass­es for log­ical thought in most peo­ple.”

He nod­ded. “I’ll see what I can come up with. Have you learned any­thing?”

“The Em­press was hit with some sort of dis­as­ter that re­flects bad­ly on her.”

“With whom?”

“Know­ing the Em­press, prob­ably his­to­ry. She’s nev­er seemed to care much about pub­lic opin­ion.”

“Can you be more spe­cif­ic?”

“Not very. Not yet.”

“You think it might be Tir­ma?”

“Maybe. Hard to say, since this is the first I’ve ev­er heard of Tir­ma.”

“Oh. That’s right, you’ve been out of the city, haven’t you?”

“Yes. I on­ly heard about Aliera’s ar­rest by a fluke.”

“Tir­ma is a vil­lage in the far north­west. There was some un­rest there, and a re­quest for Im­pe­ri­al troops. No one knows what hap­pened, but some peas­ants were slaugh­tered.”

“In­no­cent ones?”

“Some say.”

“I’ll bet Kel­ly has a lot to say on the sub­ject.”

“Who?”

“Nev­er mind. How does ar­rest­ing Aliera help? A dis­trac­tion?”

“Maybe.”

He looked like he was think­ing, so I let him alone. Af­ter a minute or two he said, “The big­ger ques­tion is, how does Aliera think it helps?”

“Yeah,” I said. “As­sum­ing all our spec­ula­tions are right.”

“We have to find out for sure.”

“You’re telling me that’s my job.”

“I’m say­ing I ex­pect your help.”

I grunt­ed. “I guess that’s fair.”

He nod­ded.

I sup­pose I could have told him that the Jhereg al­ready knew I was back in town, and it wouldn’t be safe for me to go sniff­ing around places. But then what? I mean, it had to be done.

“Sure, Boss. But do you have to be the one to do it?”

“Seems like.”

“Why?”

“No one else is.”

“Right, Boss. Why?”

“Oh.”

“. . .and un­til then, I’m not go­ing to be able to—”

“Sor­ry, I was dis­tract­ed. Start over?”

He gave me an odd look. “I was say­ing that I need some­thing I can take to a Jus­ticer.”

“What do you mean, take to a Jus­ticer?”

“I mean send­ing a Pe­ti­tion of Re­lease, or make a case for Dis­hon­or­able Pros­ecu­tion.”

“Dis­hon­or­able Pros­ecu­tion? They have that?”

“It’s in the books.”

“How many times has it been brought?”

“Suc­cess­ful­ly?”

“At all.”

“Twen­ty-​sev­en.”

“Suc­cess­ful­ly?”

“Nev­er.”

“You’d bring that against the Em­press?”

“Against the Em­pire, but, in ef­fect, yes.”

“For­get it. Aliera will nev­er per­mit it.”

He nod­ded as if he’d come to the same con­clu­sion. “Prob­ably true, but I want to have it there any­way.”

“What­ev­er you think,” I said.

“What I think is that this is very odd.”

“Seems like it to me, too. The Em­press pros­ecut­ing a friend isn’t—”

“No, that’s not what’s odd; Em­per­ors do what they have to do, and be­ing a friend to an Em­per­or some­times means los­ing your head. It’s al­ways been like that.”

“All right, then. What’s odd?”

“The law they’re pros­ecut­ing her with. It isn’t in­tend­ed to be used against high no­bles whose House is near the top of the Cy­cle.”

“Ah, you’ll have to ex­plain that.”

“What’s to ex­plain?”

“Some laws ap­ply to high no­bles, and some not?”

“How else?”

“Um. I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“To pros­ecute a no­ble un­der the Code, you have to get a ma­jor­ity vote of the princes. The princes aren’t go­ing to vote against a no­ble when the House is pow­er­ful with­out a more com­pelling case than this is.”

“So this is a waste of time?”

“No, no—you mis­un­der­stand. That’s un­der the Code. This is an Im­pe­ri­al Edict, which means the Em­press and the High Jus­ticer make the de­ci­sion. That’s why they can get a con­vic­tion.”

“Well then, what’s—”

“But us­ing the Edicts against a no­ble, at a time when you couldn’t get a con­vic­tion, is go­ing to raise quite a stink among the princes. The High Jus­ticer has to know that, and so does the Em­press.”

“Would they let that in­ter­fere with jus­tice?”

“Are you be­ing fun­ny?”

“Yes.”

“Eh. I guess it was a lit­tle fun­ny at that. But, you know, there is mak­ing the law, and en­forc­ing the law, and in­ter­pret­ing the law, and they all mix up to­geth­er, and it’s peo­ple who do those things, and the peo­ple all mix up to­geth­er. You can’t sep­arate them.”

“It’d be in­ter­est­ing to try.”

He waved it aside. “The point is, this will cre­ate lots of bad feel­ings among those who mat­ter. And bad feel­ings are bad states­man­ship, and the Em­press isn’t known for bad states­man­ship.”

“Um. Okay, I think I get the idea. What’s your con­clu­sion?”

“My con­clu­sion is that I want to know what’s go­ing on. I’ll look at it from my end, you look at it from yours.”

“All right.”

“Do you know how you’re go­ing to start?”

“Of course not.”

He nod­ded like he’d have been sur­prised to get any oth­er an­swer. “Are you open to sug­ges­tions?”

“Sure.”

“Stay away from the Em­press.”

“That part is easy. I don’t have that much call to see her, you know. But that on­ly tells me what not to do.”

“I’m sure we can find more things for you not to do if we put our minds to it.”

“See, Boss? He does have a sense of hu­mor.”

“Such as it is.” Aloud, I said, “You need some­thing that will pro­vide a le­gal an­gle for Aliera.”

He nod­ded.

“Yeah, well, I know about as much about the law as you know about—that is, I don’t know much about the law.”

“You don’t need to. Find out why they’re pros­ecut­ing Aliera, and be able to prove it.”

“Prove it. What does that mean, ex­act­ly?”

“Find peo­ple who saw or heard things, and will swear to it be­neath the Orb.”

“Oh, and where would I—oh.”

“Right. But stay away from the Em­press.”

“Great. And what will you be do­ing?”

“Same as you, on­ly to dif­fer­ent peo­ple. And I’ll be re­view­ing the laws, and look­ing through de­ci­sions and case his­to­ries. You aren’t go­ing to be too use­ful for that part.”

“I imag­ine not.” I stood and head­ed out.

Let me ex­plain again some­thing I’ve al­ready men­tioned: The way an as­sas­sin op­er­ates in­volves pick­ing a time and a place, set­ting up what­ev­er is nec­es­sary (which usu­al­ly means mak­ing sure you have a good edge on your knife), and strik­ing. If for some rea­son things go wrong—like, say, the guy gets sus­pi­cious about the hand­writ­ing of a note—then you go back and start over. All of which means that no one was go­ing to be mak­ing a move on me for a day at least. Which means I should have been able to re­lax as I left the wait­ing room and head­ed to­ward the Palace.

Yeah, well, you try it some­time and see how re­laxed you are.

Loiosh was pret­ty tense too, ei­ther be­cause he sensed that I was, or be­cause he knew what was go­ing on. It’s pret­ty crazy, that feel­ing of walk­ing through a big, wide cor­ri­dor, your boots echo­ing, al­most no one in sight, think­ing you’re safe, but feel­ing any­thing but. I stopped just in­side the door to cross the wide pave­ment to the Iorich Wing, and let Loiosh and Rocza ex­plore care­ful­ly. The trees that dot­ted the pave­ment were too thin for any­one to hide be­hind, but I stud­ied them any­way.

I kept an even walk­ing pace across the long, long, long paved prom­enade be­tween the House of the Iorich and the Palace.

“Boss, no one is go­ing to make a move in the mid­dle of the day, out in the open, in front of the Im­pe­ri­al Palace.”

“Who are you try­ing to con­vince?”

“Me, of course.”

“Just check­ing.”

“But you have to fig­ure you’re be­ing watched.”

“I know.”

I got in­side, and start­ed to­ward the Im­pe­ri­al Wing. I had the idea that it would be fun to count the num­ber of dis­dain­ful looks I got on the way, but I for­got to ac­tu­al­ly do it. I’m still not sure how I got lost; I thought I had the route mem­orized. I wasn’t even aware of hav­ing gone wrong un­til I stepped in­to a large open area I hadn’t re­al­ized ex­ist­ed, and heard the drone of voic­es and saw strange and won­drous things: a shoe­mak­er’s shop, a tai­lor’s, a wine sell­er’s, a sor­cer­er’s sup­ply, a sil­ver­smith. The ceil­ing, if you can call it that, was high and domed, and some­how the dome’s sil­very white col­or made it seem even high­er.

“Boss, there’s a whole town here.”

“I think I should have gone up that flight of stairs I went down.”

“Or maybe down the one you went up?”

“This is a whole city.”

“There’s prob­ably an inn with bet­ter food than that place yes­ter­day.”

“I can al­ways count on you to get right to the im­por­tant stuff.”

“The im­por­tant stuff is find­ing your way back to where you want to be.”

“The im­por­tant stuff is not to get killed. This is a good place to shine some­one up.”

“Oh,” he said. And, “It is, isn’t it?”

“It’s still too soon for them to have set any­thing up, but—”

“We’re watch­ing, Boss.”

I tried to be in­con­spic­uous—which I’m not bad at, by the way, even with a pair of jhereg on my shoul­ders—and looked for some­one to ask di­rec­tions of.

A girl who was too young to work for the Jhereg came along, car­ry­ing a box full of some­thing that steamed. Prob­ably some­one’s lunch that I was go­ing to make cold.

“I beg your par­don, la­dy,” I said. Teck­la es­pe­cial­ly like be­ing called “la­dy” when they’re too young to be. “Can you tell me how to get out of here?”

She stopped. “Out of where?”

“To the Palace.”

“You’re in the Palace, sir.” Her tone said she thought I was de­ranged or else stupid.

“The Im­pe­ri­al Wing.”

“Oh.” She ges­tured with her chin. “That way un­til you see the three pil­lars, then left to the wide stair­way, and up. You’ll be right there.”

“You have my thanks.”

There were streets, build­ings, push­carts with food, and I think I even saw a beg­gar. What I didn’t see were three pil­lars, un­til I fi­nal­ly no­ticed what looked like an inn in minia­ture—chairs and ta­bles set in a small court­yard near a long bar—that spread be­neath a hang­ing sign show­ing three pil­lars. Yeah, all right.

Af­ter that it was easy enough to find the stair­way (I climbed a lot of stairs, but not as many as it seemed I should have climbed to get above that domed ceil­ing; there’s some weird ge­om­etry with that place), and a bit lat­er I found a page in Tias­sa liv­ery who was kind enough to point me in the right di­rec­tion. Ten min­utes or so lat­er I was once more in an area that looked fa­mil­iar—for the sym­bols of the Im­pe­ri­al Phoenix that marked ev­ery door, if for no oth­er rea­son.

It was the mid­dle of the day, and it was busy—Phoenix Guards look­ing im­pas­sive, ad­vis­ers look­ing se­ri­ous, ad­ju­tants look­ing im­por­tant, courtiers look­ing court­ly, and all of them mov­ing past me like I was stand­ing in the mid­dle of a stream that flowed around me as if I were of no in­ter­est, and it might sweep me off if it felt in­clined. I looked for some­one who wasn’t in a hur­ry, be­cause rush­ing down a hall­way filled with teem­ing func­tionar­ies isn’t the best way to have a con­ver­sa­tion.

Af­ter about fif­teen min­utes, I gave up and start­ed drift­ing along in what I was pret­ty sure was the di­rec­tion of the throne room.

“Not to make you ner­vous or any­thing, Boss, but some­one who could nail you here, right in the Im­pe­ri­al Wing, would earn him­self quite the rep­uta­tion.”

“Yeah.”

The hall­ways of the Im­pe­ri­al Wing near the throne room are wide and tall and cop­per-​col­ored, and you can’t imag­ine there be­ing a time of day or night when they aren’t full of peo­ple scur­ry­ing about look­ing im­por­tant. Here and there were wide arch­ways or nar­row doors, and from time to time some­one will van­ish in­to one or pop out and en­ter the flow. I didn’t go out of my way to call at­ten­tion to my­self, but I didn’t try to fit in, ei­ther, be­cause that would have in­volved be­com­ing part of the con­stant move­ment, and I want­ed to take some time to just ob­serve.

Even­tu­al­ly I found a place I rec­og­nized—I’d eat­en there yes­ter­day. I didn’t care to make that mis­take again, but a num­ber of oth­ers weren’t so par­tic­ular: this time the place was do­ing a pret­ty good busi­ness. There was a low, steady hum of voic­es punc­tu­at­ed by met­al trays and uten­sils.

I stood off the side for a while and just watched. On the oth­er side, all alone at a ta­ble, there was a Dra­gaer­an of mid­dle years—say a thou­sand or so—who had the pale com­plex­ion and round face of the House of the Teck­la. I stud­ied him for a mo­ment; he was drink­ing slow­ly, and seemed re­laxed and maybe lost in thought. I ap­proached and said, “Mind if I join you?”

He jumped a bit and start­ed to rise, took in my mus­tache, the jhereg on my shoul­ders, and my sword. He hes­itat­ed and frowned; I ges­tured to him to re­main sit­ting to make it easy for him. Teck­la are nev­er ex­act­ly sure whether they are above or be­low a no­ble­man who hap­pens to be an East­ern­er—we throw off all of their cal­cu­la­tions just by ex­ist­ing.

“By all means, my l . . . ah, sir.”

“Thanks,” I pulled up a chair. “I’ll buy you an­oth­er of what­ev­er you have there, if you don’t mind. What does the yel­low arm­band sig­ni­fy?”

He had light brown hair peek­ing out from un­der a hat that was too tall and not wide enough to look any­thing but ab­surd. He glanced at the arm­band as if he didn’t re­al­ize it was there, then said, “Oh, I’m a mes­sage-​run­ner.”

“For whom?”

“For hire, sir. Did you wish a mes­sage sent some­where with­in the Palace? If it is out­side the Palace it­self, I have to charge more, be­cause I pass it on to—”

“No, no. I was just cu­ri­ous about what it meant.”

He nod­ded, held up his mug, and ges­tured in the di­rec­tion of a young Chreotha who seemed to be work­ing for the old­er wom­an who was still there, on­ly now much more awake.

“I’m Vlad,” I said. “Baronet of this, Im­pe­ri­al Count of that, but skip all that.” He wouldn’t, of course. He’d be in­ca­pable of skip­ping it.

“I’m Pon­cer,” he said.

“Well met.”

He gave Loiosh and Rocza a look, but then his drink ar­rived—it smelled like the sort of dark beer that makes me hate beer—and that dis­tract­ed him.

“What can I do for you, sir?” he asked af­ter a swal­low.

“Tell me what you know.”

“Sir?”

I smiled. “Do you need to be any­where for the next cou­ple of hours?”

“Well, I should look for work—”

“How much do you earn?”

“Three pen­nies with­in the Im­pe­ri­al Wing. If I have to—”

I gave him an im­pe­ri­al.

He stared at it, then at me, then back to it, then he took it and put in­to a pouch at his side.

I now had his at­ten­tion.

Iorich

5

The or­ders from the War­lord to Gen­er­al La­dy Fardra e’Baritt were not put in spe­cif­ic terms (see Ap­pendix 2), but did in­clude the phrase “min­imal dam­age to prop­er­ty and non-​com­bat­ants in the re­gion is a pri­or­ity sec­ond on­ly to sup­pres­sion of the dis­or­ders.” One ques­tion be­fore this com­mit­tee, then, is to con­sid­er what “min­imal” means in this con­text, and who is a non-​com­bat­ant, and who can rea­son­ably be as­sumed to be a non-​com­bat­ant by in­di­vid­ual sol­diers of var­ious ranks and re­spon­si­bil­ities in high-​risk ar­eas.

“You see peo­ple,” I told him.

“My lord?”

I’m not com­plete­ly sure how much the ti­tles and how much the im­pe­ri­al had to do with me be­com­ing “my lord.” I said, “I’m try­ing to learn my way around this place, and who’s who, so I don’t make a fool of my­self when I meet strangers.”

He nod­ded as if it were a great idea, and he was just the man for the job.

“Who do you want to know about first?” He had a se­ri­ous, busi­ness-​like ex­pres­sion. I avoid­ed laugh­ing in his face be­cause it would have been un­pro­duc­tive, not to men­tion rude.

“Who is close to Her Majesty?”

“Close?” he said, as if I’d men­tioned some­thing scan­dalous.

“Who does she lis­ten to?”

“Oh,” he said, and looked thought­ful again. “Well, first, there’s La­dy Mi­faant.”

“Who is she?”

“An Is­so­la. She doesn’t have, ah, an of­fice or any­thing. I mean, there’s no name for it. But she’s Her Majesty’s, um, I don’t know the word. The per­son the Em­press goes to when some­thing is both­er­ing her.”

“Con­fi­dant? Best friend?”

Some­thing about that both­ered him—like, I don’t know, maybe the Em­press isn’t sup­posed to have friends—but he fi­nal­ly gave a hes­itant nod.

“Who else?”

“Neru­lan, of course. Her physick­er.”

I nod­ded.

“And her, well—” He hes­itat­ed, and turned a lit­tle red.

“Hm­mm?”

“You know.”

“I don’t, ac­tu­al­ly. Un­less you mean she has a lover.”

He nod­ded once, watch­ing me care­ful­ly, as if for a clue as to what sort of ex­pres­sion he should have.

“Who is he? Or she?”

“He. He’s, um, he’s . . .” His voice trailed off and looked a lit­tle des­per­ate.

“An East­ern­er?” I said. In fact, I knew very well, but the less I ad­mit­ted to know­ing, the more he’d tell me.

He nod­ded.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’d heard ru­mors. What’s his name?”

“Las­zló,” he said. I nod­ded. Pon­cer dropped his voice and said, “He’s a witch.”

“Well,” I said. “In­ter­est­ing.”

And it was.

“He’s been alive for, well, longer than they’re sup­posed to live, any­way.” He looked at me, red­dened again, and be­came very in­ter­est­ed in his drink.

I gave him what I cal­cu­lat­ed to be a friend­ly, re­as­sur­ing chuck­le. “What does he look like?”

He frowned. “Like you,” he said. “His skin is your col­or, and he has hair grow­ing like you have, above his lip. More hair, though, and curli­er.”

“I take it he’s usu­al­ly sur­round­ed by courtiers?”

“They try,” he said.

“Yeah, they would.”

“He tries to stay away from them, though.”

“I don’t blame him. So, how do I man­age to talk to him?”

“Um,” he said. I think the ques­tion star­tled him. Gos­sip was one thing; ac­tu­al­ly us­ing the gos­sip seemed to make him un­com­fort­able. I wait­ed.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t think of any way.”

I wait­ed some more.

“It won’t help,” he said, “but there are ru­mors . . .”

“Yes?”

“There are ru­mors that he knows the En­chantress of Dzur Moun­tain.”

I didn’t have to pre­tend to look star­tled.

“Easy, Boss. ‘Ru­mors,’ re­mem­ber?”

“But still—”

“And if she knew him, why didn’t she ev­er men­tion it?”

“Oh, come on, Loiosh. She’s Sethra.”

“That’s good to know,” I told Pon­cer. “Who else sees the Em­press? Does she have a Prime Min­is­ter?”

“No,” he said. “Well, some say she does, but it’s se­cret.”

“She must have ad­vis­ers she con­sults reg­ular­ly.”

“The War­lord, for any­thing about the army. And the La­dy of the Chairs for any­thing to do with the Coun­cil of Princes. And then for fi­nances and stuff—”

“The War­lord.”

He nod­ded.

“I thought the War­lord was un­der ar­rest.”

“The new War­lord.”

“Who is the new War­lord?”

“Her High­ness No­rathar,” he said.

I stared at him. Af­ter a mo­ment, I said, “I thought she was Drag­on Heir.”

“She’s both.”

“In­ter­est­ing. And they see each oth­er of­ten?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who is La­dy of the Chairs?”

“Lord Avis­sa.”

“House?”

“Is­so­la. The La­dy of the Chairs is al­ways an Is­so­la.”

“Oh. Of course.” I al­most touched the hilt of La­dy Tel­dra, but I didn’t want to make Pon­cer any more ner­vous than I had to.

We talked a lit­tle longer about in­con­se­quen­tial things, and I bought him an­oth­er beer, dodged a few po­lite ques­tions, and took my leave. I’m much bet­ter at get­ting in­for­ma­tion from Teck­la than I used to be, thanks to a ghost and a knife, in that or­der. Long sto­ry, nev­er mind.

No­rathar and Sethra. Yeah, I shouldn’t be sur­prised that two of the Em­press’s se­cret con­fi­dants were peo­ple I knew. Aliera her­self was a third, for that mat­ter. I had sur­round­ed my­self with those types by a com­plex pro­cess that had start­ed years ago when a mi­nor but­ton-​man start­ed skim­ming from me. And no, I’m not about to give you any more de­tails. Get over it.

I thought about walk­ing to the Drag­on Wing and see­ing if I could have a long chat with No­rathar e’Lanya, the War­lord and Drag­on Heir. Once, she’d been a Jhereg as­sas­sin. She’d worked with the East­ern­er who be­came my wife.

My son would be about eight now. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been four. A lot goes on in those four years. By now—

No.

I stood still in a hall­way deep in the heart of the Palace that con­trolled the mighty Em­pire of Dra­gaer­ans, let­ting hu­man­ity (to use the term loose­ly) flow around me, and tried to con­vince my­self to at­tend to busi­ness. See­ing Cawti and my son would make me mis­er­able and put them in dan­ger. So, nat­ural­ly, it was ex­act­ly what I want­ed to do.

Cawti had named him Vlad No­rathar.

I sud­den­ly had the feel­ing that if I met with No­rathar—I mean, the War­lord—I’d smack her on the side of the head. Prob­ably best not to talk to her just now.

“Boss?”

“Mm­mm?”

“We should vis­it Sethra.”

“I know.”

“You don’t want to?”

“Part­ly that. Part­ly, I don’t want the whole Jhereg know­ing I went there. Cas­tle Black is one thing, but Dzur Moun­tain—”

“You think you’d be in dan­ger in Dzur Moun­tain?”

“No, not dan­ger. I just don’t feel com­fort­able hav­ing the Jhereg know I’m there; at least right away.”

“Oh.”

“Maybe there’s a way. . . okay, let’s do it.”

“Uh, how, Boss?”

“How what? How do we get there? I have a clever and de­vi­ous plan.”

“Oh, great.”

I worked my way around to the Athyra Wing and, even­tu­al­ly, out in­to the world. It was bright out there, mak­ing me think of the East where there’s no over­cast to pro­tect you from the Fur­nace. I blinked and wait­ed for my eyes to ad­just.

The Athyra Wing is usu­al­ly pret­ty qui­et and to­day was no ex­cep­tion; that meant that just in case there were any as­sas­sins who’d been fol­low­ing me wait­ing for an op­por­tu­ni­ty, I’d see them—par­don me, Loiosh would see them in plen­ty of time. I set out on the Street of the Athyra, turn­ing to pass the ob­sid­ian mono­lith (oh, yes, we’re so im­pres­sive) of the House of the Athyra on my right, con­tin­uing just a few score of yards be­yond it to Mawg Way. “Mawg,” I was once told, means “mer­chant” in some dis­used lan­guage that goes back to be­fore there were any such things as mer­chants. That makes you won­der, you know? I mean, “mawg.” An ug­ly word. Where did they get “mer­chant” out of that? Maybe there are peo­ple who study things like that. If so, they’re prob­ably Athyra.

A few doors down, on the left side, was a win­dow­less cot­tage built of round stones. It had a thick door bound in iron strips; the door was stand­ing open. Above the door­way was a par­tic­ular­ly de­tailed sign in which an Athyra was fly­ing over a map of the Em­pire.

“Boss, you aren’t se­ri­ous.”

“Why not?”

“Ev­er heard of the Left Hand of the Jhereg, Boss? You know, the sor­cer­ess­es?”

“Sounds fa­mil­iar.”

“Boss, the Left Hand doesn’t like you. And even if they did, the Jhereg could hire one of them to watch places like this. As soon as you tele­port, a sor­cer­er can. . . what are you laugh­ing about?”

“Just watch me, Loiosh.”

I went in. The en­try room was just big enough, and held a door op­po­site. A young la­dy of the House of the Athyra sat in a wood­en chair fac­ing the door, look­ing se­ri­ous and mys­ti­cal and very busi­ness-​like: she may as well have had “ap­pren­tice” sten­ciled on her fore­head.

She looked me over, de­cid­ed on just how no­ble I was (I was an East­ern­er, but I dared to wear a sword open­ly), and in­clined her head slight­ly. “Yes, sir?”

“How much is a tele­port?”

“One im­pe­ri­al, to a known lo­ca­tion.”

“How much to have the sor­cer­er come to me?”

“My lord? Oh, you mean to tele­port from some­where else? Two im­pe­ri­als, if it’s with­in the city.”

“And how much to have it done sur­rep­ti­tious­ly, and un­trace­ably? And add in a short-​term spell to make me sor­cer­ous­ly in­vis­ible.”

“How short-​term?”

“A minute. Half a minute.”

“Ten.”

“That’s fine. My name is Vladimir Tal­tos, I’ll be go­ing to Dzur Moun­tain, and I wish to have a sor­cer­er meet me in the Tem­ple of Ver­ra on Wa­ter­hill in South Adri­lankha.”

Her nose wrin­kled and she hes­itat­ed, look­ing for an ex­cuse to say no. Even­tu­al­ly she said, “I’ll have to ask.”

“I’ll wait here,” I said.

She gave me a sus­pi­cious look be­fore go­ing through the door. It isn’t like there was any­thing in the room to steal. She re­turned a mo­ment lat­er, asked for my name again. This time she wrote it on a small slab of some sort, and nod­ded. “She will meet you.”

“Want the mon­ey now?”

“If you please.”

I put two five-​im­pe­ri­al coins in­to her hand and sketched a bow. I opened the door, stand­ing far enough to the side not to be open to any­thing un­pleas­ant that might shoot through it, but not so far as to make it ob­vi­ous what I was do­ing. Loiosh flew out; I’d have loved to see the look on the ap­pren­tice’s face, but my back was to her. Loiosh said it was safe, so I stepped out on­to the street.

Crowd­ed streets make it hard­er to set some­thing up re­li­ably, but eas­ier to get the drop on your tar­get, and eas­ier to get away safe­ly af­ter­ward. Emp­ty streets, of course, have the op­po­site prob­lems. I com­pro­mised and took a mix of both, mak­ing my way to the Chain Bridge and so across to South Adri­lankha.

“So, Loiosh, you get it?”

“I know what you’re think­ing—the Jhereg won’t go af­ter you in a tem­ple.”

“Right.”

“But you still have to get to the tem­ple.”

“I have com­plete con­fi­dence in you.”

One thing that can­not be done psy­chi­cal­ly is mut­ter, but Loiosh took a pret­ty good run at it.

There are scores of shrines to Ver­ra in the city, and sev­er­al tem­ples to her in South Adri­lankha. The one I’d cho­sen was a low stonework af­fair, set back from the road, with a flag­stone walk flanked by scrawny trees. More­over, it was in a neigh­bor­hood with a lot of space be­tween the hous­es. Put it all to­geth­er, and there were no good places for as­sas­sins to hide. Even Loiosh grudg­ing­ly agreed, af­ter a few min­utes fly­ing around, that I could go ahead and ven­ture up to the doors—af­ter that, he made no guar­an­tees.

Open­ing the door was scary. I didn’t care how stupid I looked; I lis­tened, stood to the side, and was mov­ing when I flung it open.

No one was there. Yeah, I looked stupid. I might have got­ten some fun­ny glances from peo­ple pass­ing on the street, but I didn’t wait around to see, I just stepped in­side.

It was a sin­gle room, with a black al­tar op­po­site the door, about ten paces from me. I knew from mem­ory that there were small holes cut in­to the al­tar for can­dles, though I couldn’t see them from here. Be­yond that, the place was ut­ter­ly bare. The priest here be­lieved that one should bring noth­ing to the God­dess but the de­sire to serve, or some­thing like that. I don’t re­mem­ber ex­act­ly how he’d put it; it was years ago. Ser­vices here were held two or three times a week, I for­get the times and dates, and on the ob­vi­ous feast days.

I po­si­tioned my­self be­hind the al­tar and wait­ed for the sor­cer­er—or an as­sas­sin, if I’d mis­judged the Jhereg. Sor­ry, don’t mean to be mys­te­ri­ous. There are rules to how we op­er­ate: you don’t kill some­one in front of his fam­ily, you don’t mess with him in his home, you don’t touch him in a tem­ple or at a shrine.

The thing is, all of these rules have, at one time or an­oth­er, been vi­olat­ed; one rea­son I was in trou­ble with the Jhereg was for vi­olat­ing one of them. I’d had a bad day that day. The point is, I was cal­cu­lat­ing on them fol­low­ing the rules, at least this time, and for a while. If I was wrong, things were li­able to get ex­cit­ing.

I got to be ner­vous for about twen­ty min­utes be­fore the sor­cer­ess showed up. No as­sas­sins came with her. Score one for me. She had the dark com­plex­ion of the Athyra but her hair was such a light brown it was al­most blond, pro­duc­ing a slight­ly startling ef­fect. There was a vague look in her eyes that was com­mon if not uni­ver­sal among Athyra.

She gave the place a half-​in­ter­est­ed and dis­dain­ful look, then nod­ded at me. “Lord Tal­tos?” she said.

I nod­ded.

“Dzur Moun­tain,” she said. “Un­trace­able, with a brief lin­ger­ing cloud.”

I nod­ded again.

She looked like she might be con­sid­er­ing of­fer­ing me ad­vice on go­ing there, but she must have de­cid­ed not to, and just said, “Are you ready?”

I pulled the amulet from around my neck and put it away, thus, no doubt, alert­ing a dozen or so Jhereg sor­cer­ers. “Ready,” I said.

She didn’t even ges­ture, as far as I could see; for an in­stant the room seemed about to spin, but then it went through a fa­mil­iar slow fade, go­ing through all the col­ors from white to al­most-​white; in­ter­minable sec­onds went by when I was in two places at once, and I could feel my­self push­ing air out of the way. In that time, it sud­den­ly hit me that she might have been bribed, and be de­liv­er­ing me to an as­sas­sin. In that emp­ty, lin­ger­ing time-​space, I be­came so con­vinced of it that I was al­ready reach­ing for a dag­ger when the world set­tled down to a fa­mil­iar place on the low­er slopes of Dzur Moun­tain.

My first re­ac­tion was re­lief, my sec­ond was an­noy­ance. Yeah, this place was fa­mil­iar—I knew how to reach Sethra’s home from this spot: it in­volved climb­ing more stairs than ought to ex­ist in the world. I won­dered if the sor­cer­ess had brought me to this en­trance de­lib­er­ate­ly. I still won­der.

I re­placed the amulet then en­tered through a wood­en door that wasn’t near­ly as flim­sy as it ap­peared. You don’t clap when en­ter­ing Dzur Moun­tain—de­pend­ing on which door you use, at any rate. I’ve won­dered about that, and I think it’s be­cause in some way the moun­tain it­self isn’t her home, on­ly the parts of it that she claimed as her res­idence; and so I passed through the first door in­to the moun­tain, and start­ed climb­ing stairs. It seemed much loud­er this time, my feet on the stone stair­way made echoes and echoes of echoes; my mem­ory was do­ing the same thing.

You don’t need to hear about it; it was a long, long way up. Part­way up, I passed the place where Mor­rolan and I had al­most slaugh­tered each oth­er; it both­ered me a lit­tle that I couldn’t iden­ti­fy the ex­act spot.

Even­tu­al­ly I reached the top, clapped, and opened the door with­out wait­ing for a re­ply. Her res­idence doesn’t seem all that big once you’re aware of the size of the moun­tain; but then there’s prob­ably a lot I haven’t seen. And, at her age, I imag­ine she needs lots of space to store stuff she’s ac­cu­mu­lat­ed.

I wan­dered a bit, hop­ing to run in­to her, or her ser­vant, or some­one. The halls—dark stone here, pale wood there—all echoed strange­ly and gave me the sud­den feel­ing that Dzur Moun­tain was de­sert­ed. It wasn’t, ac­tu­al­ly—I came across her in one of the small­er sit­ting rooms that she put here and there. She was drink­ing a glass of wine and read­ing a thick, heavy book with a cov­er I couldn’t see. She wore a black gar­ment that seemed to wrap around her, pinned with a gold or cop­per bracelet at the left arm, and loop­ing through a jew­eled neck­lace high on her chest, with an­oth­er loop on her right hip with sim­ilar jew­els. She said, “Hel­lo, Vlad,” with­out look­ing up. I took that as a cue to stand there like an id­iot, so I did, and present­ly she marked the book with some­thing that looked like it had sil­ver trac­ings on it and gave me a nod. “I’ve been ex­pect­ing you.”

“It takes a while for word to reach the out­lands. That’s a nice dress you’re wear­ing. Are those sap­phires on the neck­lace?”

“A gift from the Necro­mancer. Have a seat. Tukko will bring you wine.”

I sat in a chair that faced her at a slight an­gle. “And I will drink it. Good. We have a plan.”

A cour­tesy smile came and went.

Tukko showed up with wine and a scowl. The wine was less of­fen­sive; a strong­ly fla­vored red that should have had some heav­ily spiced meat to go with it, but I didn’t com­plain. I sipped, nod­ded, and said, “So, what can you tell me?”

“I was go­ing to ask you that.”

“Heh. I just came in from out of town.”

“Yes, and found an ad­vo­cate, got Aliera to ac­cept him—which ought to rate you as a mas­ter sor­cer­er—and you’ve been snoop­ing around the Im­pe­ri­al Palace since then. So—what can you tell me?” She smiled sweet­ly.

I stared at her, re­mem­ber­ing things about her I some­times for­get. Then I said, “If you were try­ing to im­press me, it worked.”

“Per­mit me my small plea­sures.”

“I’d nev­er think of deny­ing them to you,” I said. “All right. In brief, the Em­press seems to be pros­ecut­ing Aliera to dis­tract at­ten­tion from some mas­sacre in some lit­tle town no one cares about. The mys­tery is that she picked Aliera, who I’ve al­ways fig­ured was a close friend. The charge, as far as I can tell, is non­sense.”

She nod­ded slow­ly. “It isn’t as if the Em­press hasn’t known about Aliera’s stud­ies for years.”

“Right.”

“When you spoke to Her Majesty, what was the Orb do­ing?”

“Eh? Float­ing over her head.”

“I mean, what col­or was it?”

“Green at first. Or­ange when I an­noyed her. It turned blue around the end of the con­ver­sa­tion. She said she had to go do some­thing.”

“What shade of blue?”

“Um, shade?”

“Did it seem cold, icy?”

“Sor­ry, I don’t have that good a mem­ory for col­ors.”

“All right,” she said.

“Can you ex­plain—?”

“Not re­al­ly. Just try­ing to learn ev­ery­thing I can. I wish I’d been there.”

“Yes. That brings up an­oth­er in­ter­est­ing point.” I cleared my throat. “Why weren’t you?”

“Beg par­don?”

“That’s what I re­al­ly want­ed to ask you. Why is this my job?”

She frowned. “No one is forc­ing you—”

“That’s not my point. Aliera has friends com­ing out her—Aliera has a lot of friends. Most of them are more in­flu­en­tial than an ex-​Jhereg East­ern­er on the run. What’s go­ing on here?”

She looked away from me. When ev­ery­thing in Sethra’s home is very qui­et, there is a soft, con­tin­uous sound, as of air slow­ly mov­ing down a tun­nel. It seemed to me I’d no­ticed it or al­most no­ticed it be­fore.

Fi­nal­ly she said, “You’ve spent a day or two with the Jus­ticers now. What do you think?”

That didn’t seem to have any­thing to do with my ques­tion, but I’ve known Sethra long enough to know that not ev­ery change of sub­ject is a change of sub­ject.

“They’re pret­ty ob­ses­sive,” I said.

“About what?”

“About the law, and its quirky lit­tle ins and outs.”

“And what do you think about the law?”

“Most of my thoughts about the law in­volve ways to cir­cum­vent it,” I said.

She smiled. “I al­ways knew you had the mak­ings of an Em­per­or.”

“Eh?”

She waved it aside. “What are all those laws for?”

“Oh, come on, Sethra. I know bet­ter than to try to an­swer a ques­tion like that, from you of all peo­ple.”

“Fair point.” She frowned and fell in­to thought for a mo­ment. Then she said, “Some peo­ple think the law is about pro­tec­tion—you have the Im­pe­ri­al Guard and the lo­cal con­stab­ulary to make sure the in­no­cents are pro­tect­ed. Oth­ers think it is about jus­tice—mak­ing sure no one can do any­thing bad with­out get­ting what he de­serves. Still oth­ers see it as re­venge: giv­ing peace to the vic­tim by hurt­ing the per­pe­tra­tor.”

She stopped. I wait­ed.

“The House of the Iorich is near the bot­tom of the Cy­cle right now,” she said.

I nod­ded. I al­ways for­got about that stuff. Well, I mean, ob­vi­ous­ly since I’m un­like­ly to live long enough to see the Cy­cle move even once, where­as a Dra­gaer­an might live to see it shift two or three times. And then there’s Sethra; we won’t talk about her.

“Okay, I trust that ties in­to this some­how?”

She nod­ded. “The Iorich is the House of jus­tice.”

“Yes, I know. The courts, the ad­vo­cates, the law-​scribes, all of that.”

She shook her head. “That isn’t jus­tice; that’s the law.”

“If you’re telling me that the law has noth­ing to do with jus­tice, you aren’t giv­ing me any new in­for­ma­tion.”

“What I’m telling you is that some­times it does.”

“Um. That would be when the Iorich are near the top of the Cy­cle?”

She nod­ded.

“Okay. And what hap­pens the rest of the time?”

“What pass­es for jus­tice is the re­sult of machi­na­tions among the no­bles.”

“That sound­ed like it should have made sense.”

She chuck­led and Tukko ap­peared with a small glass of some­thing clear. She threw it down like a sol­dier and nod­ded. “I know what you mean.”

“Maybe you could—”

“The Em­pire per­pet­uates it­self. It pro­tects the no­bles who sup­port it, and the ma­chin­ery of state it needs to keep it­self go­ing. Any­one who threat­ens those things gets ground up.”

“Ex­cept dur­ing an Iorich reign?”

She nod­ded.

“The Iorich reign must be an in­ter­est­ing time.”

“Fol­lows the Jhereg, you know.”

“Oh, right. So they have plen­ty to keep them­selves busy.”

She nod­ded.

“So then,” I said. “What did Aliera do that threat­ened the Em­pire?”

“Noth­ing,” she said.

“Noth­ing?”

“Wrong place at the wrong time, if you want to call it that. Or, she was con­ve­nient. Or some­thing.”

“Sethra, are you drunk?”

“A lit­tle.”

Okay. Well. This was a new one for me. I wasn’t ex­act­ly sure how to deal with it. The most pow­er­ful sor­cer­ess in the world: sloshed. Aren’t there laws against that sort of thing?

“Sethra, are you say­ing that to de­fend Aliera is to at­tack the Em­pire?”

“I thought that was ob­vi­ous.”

Maybe I should get drunk, too.

“And that’s why none of Aliera’s friends will step in?”

“She’s pret­ty much for­bid­den it.”

“Mor­rolan must be about ready to burst.”

“He’s not do­ing well.”

I nod­ded. “So that’s where I come in. But, okay, I still don’t see why the Em­press chose Aliera to do this to.”

“Who would you sug­gest?”

“Sethra, there must be hun­dreds, thou­sands of peo­ple who are vi­olat­ing some law that can be used to dis­tract at­ten­tion from what­ev­er the Em­press wants peo­ple not to no­tice.”

“Not re­al­ly,” she said. She drew her fin­ger through a spot in the air in front of her, and a small slash of white light re­mained. “Aliera is wide­ly known, even among the Teck­la, as wit­ness the fact that you heard about it from wher­ev­er you were.” She made an­oth­er slash next to the first. “She is wide­ly known to be a friend of the Em­press.” She made a third slash—I need to learn how to do that. “It’s com­mon knowl­edge that the Em­pire turns a blind eye to her ac­tiv­ities. Who else can all that be said of?”

I felt my­self scowl­ing. “Yeah, all right. So it’s on me. How do I do it?”

“I un­der­stand the ad­vo­cate you found is very good. Re­ly on him.”

“He is?”

“With­in his spe­cial­ty.”

“That’s good to know. He’s got me—you know what he’s got me do­ing.”

“Yes. It seems wise.”

“I’m go­ing to have to speak to No­rathar.”

“Oh,” she said. Then, “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“All right,” she said af­ter a mo­ment. “I’ll ar­range it.”

“Thank you.”

I drank some more wine with­out tast­ing it. We sat there un­til the com­fort­able si­lence be­came un­com­fort­able. Then I said, “Sethra, who else are you?”

“Hm­mm?”

“I mean, you must have oth­er, ah, iden­ti­ties, be­sides—”

“Oh. No one you’ve ev­er met. Or heard of, I imag­ine.”

“It must be dif­fi­cult.”

“Some­times. Some­times it’s the on­ly fun I ev­er have.”

I nod­ded. I want­ed to ask her about some of the oth­er peo­ple she was, but it was pret­ty ob­vi­ous she didn’t want to talk about it, so I fin­ished my wine and fell silent.

A lit­tle lat­er she said, “No­rathar has agreed to see you.”

“When?”

“Now, if it’s con­ve­nient.”

“Con­ve­nient,” I said. “Heh. All right. Lat­er, I’d like. . .”

She frowned. “What?”

“Noth­ing. I’m go­ing to see No­rathar. Af­ter that, I think I’d like some food.”

She looked away. “Val­abar’s is watched con­stant­ly.”

“So I’d as­sumed. I was think­ing about some­where safer. Like, say, the Punc­tured Lung.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know it,” she said.

“Sor­ry, Jhereg slang. The Punc­tured Jug.”

“Ah. Yes, by Clover Ring.”

“It’s Jhereg owned, so it’s safe. Nis­can used to eat there when half the city was walk­ing around with em­balm­ing oil for him.”

She nod­ded. “As long as it’s safe. I wouldn’t want any­thing to hap­pen to you.”

“Kind of you to say.” I stood up and nod­ded.

“I’ll do the tele­port,” she said.

How do you ask the En­chantress of Dzur Moun­tain if she’s too drunk to man­age a tele­port safe­ly? An­swer: You don’t.

“Thanks,” I told her.

Iorich

IN­TER­LUDE: MEM­ORY

It came back sharp and clear, all the edges dis­tinct, the col­ors vivid, even the sounds echo­ing in my ears. I had stood there, look­ing at where she lived then, and un­able to speak. I had just fin­ished prov­ing I wasn’t a hero. Kra­gar came along that time, to pro­vide moral sup­port or some­thing, but had wait­ed a bit down the street so I could meet the boy by my­self first.

She in­vit­ed me in.

“Where is—?”

“It’s his nap time.”

“Oh.”

“He’ll be up again in a bit.”

We sat and talked about noth­ing for a while. Then there was a sound in the next room like a cat whose tail has been stepped on, and my heart did a thing.

“I’ll be right back,” said Cawti.

Across from me was psiprint of Noish-​pa, look­ing haughty and for­bid­ding, which shows you how false psiprints can be. It was a long two or three min­utes be­fore she re­turned.

A tod­dler tod­dled be­hind her. He wore short pants and a gray frock, and his dark hair was neat­ly brushed. His eyes were huge and re­mind­ed me of Cawti’s. She said, “Vlad, this is your fa­ther.”

The boy stared at me for a mo­ment, then turned and pressed him­self against Cawti’s legs. She gave me an apolo­get­ic smile. “He’s bash­ful around strangers,” she said. I nod­ded. “Just ig­nore him,” she said. “He’ll come around.”

Ig­nore him. Yeah. “All right,” I said.

“Come on, Vlad. Shall we find your tur­tle?”

He nod­ded in­to her knees. She took his hand and led him over to a long, red­dish wood­en box un­der the win­dow. I knew that box; it had once held weapons. Now, it seems, it held a cloth tur­tle stuffed with I know not what.

I ex­pect­ed him to hug it, but he didn’t; he walked in­to a cor­ner, sat down, and be­gan study­ing it. Cawti sat on the edge of a short couch I didn’t rec­og­nize and picked up her glass. We watched him.

“What’s he do­ing?” I asked in a low tone.

“Fig­ur­ing out how it’s put to­geth­er,” she said.

“Oh. Is it that dif­fi­cult?”

“It’s a sort of puz­zle. The cloth folds over in cer­tain ways to make a tur­tle, and if you un­fold it right you get some­thing else. The first one was a ly­orn, the sec­ond a day­ocat. I don’t know what this one is. I guess we’ll find out.”

I smiled. “He solved the first two?”

“Quick.”

I smiled more. “Where did you find the toy?”

“A lit­tle girl makes them, and brings them around. I don’t know why, but she seems harm­less.”

“A lit­tle girl? Does she have a name?”

“De­vera.”

I nod­ded.

“Do you know her?” she asked.

“Um. Yes and no. But you’re right; she wouldn’t hurt him.”

That seemed to sat­is­fy Cawti. We watched my son a lit­tle more. If he was aware that we were watch­ing him, he chose to ig­nore it. It was hard to talk about him as if he weren’t there. Prob­ably a bad idea, too.

Vlad No­rathar walked over to his moth­er and pre­sent­ed her with an ob­ject. “That’s very good,” she said. “Do you know what it is?”

“It’s a horse,” he ex­plained.

She nod­ded. “Show your fa­ther.”

He turned and gave me an eval­uat­ing look; I wished I could have de­cid­ed what ex­pres­sion to have on my face. I set­tled on try­ing to look in­ter­est­ed but not de­mand­ing, and it must have worked be­cause he marched over and showed me the horse.

“That’s very good,” I said. “But the tur­tle must be pret­ty crunched in­side it.”

He frowned and con­sid­ered that. “You’re sil­ly,” he ex­plained.

I’d nev­er been called sil­ly be­fore; I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Good, I think.

He tucked the horse’s ears back in and out a few times, sat­is­fy­ing him­self that he had the se­cret, then he went over and sat on the box and set about turn­ing it in­to a tur­tle again. Cawti and I watched him.

“He’s very bright,” I said.

She smiled.

We watched Vlad No­rathar a lit­tle longer. With no warn­ing, he turned to me and said, “I have a hawk.”

“I’d like to see it,” I said.

He dug in the box and came out with a porce­lain fig­ure about a foot high, and very life­like. He walked over and hand­ed it to me with­out hes­ita­tion. I stud­ied it care­ful­ly. At last I said, “This is the bird that is called a vah­ndoor in the lan­guage of our an­ces­tors.”

He stud­ied me. “Are you be­ing sil­ly?”

“Not this time,” I said. “There are lots of lan­guages. Peo­ple speak dif­fer­ent.”

“Why?”

“Now that is a fine ques­tion. Maybe be­cause they in­vent­ed talk­ing in dif­fer­ent places, or else moved away from each oth­er so far that they start­ed talk­ing dif­fer­ent­ly. In this lan­guage, the one we’re speak­ing, there is on­ly one word for all sorts of birds of prey. In Fe­nar­ian, each sort of bird has its own name.”

“Does each bird have its own name too?”

“If some­one names it.”

“Don’t they name them­selves?”

“No, they don’t. Well, maybe they do, come to think of it. I’m not sure.”

“What sort of bird is that?”

“Okay, now I’m in­sult­ed.”

“It isn’t a bird, it’s a jhereg. A sort of fly­ing rep­tile that eats dead things and makes sar­cas­tic com­ments.”

“What does that mean?”

Me and my big mouth.

“It means some­times he says things he doesn’t mean be­cause he thinks they’re fun­ny.”

“He talks?”

“In­to my mind.”

“What’s he say­ing now?”

“He isn’t say­ing any­thing just this minute.”

“Does he like me?”

“How would I know? I haven’t tast­ed him.”

“Don’t.”

“Sor­ry, Boss.”

“You can touch him if you wish.”

“What is that, pun­ish­ment?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head fu­ri­ous­ly, his eyes wide. I smiled. “It’s all right.” I went back to study­ing his hawk. I hand­ed it back to him. He took it and brought it over to Cawti, and spent some time study­ing Rocza, perched on her shoul­der. Af­ter a mo­ment, Rocza stretched her neck out to­ward him and low­ered her head. He hes­itat­ed, then reached out a fin­ger and touched her head as if it were a hot stove. When she didn’t move, he stroked the top of her head once.

“I’m try­ing to fig­ure out if I should be jeal­ous,” said Loiosh.

“Let me know when you’ve de­cid­ed.”

“I want one of my own,” an­nounced Vlad No­rathar.

I looked at Cawti, who looked back at me and shrugged. “These are very spe­cial an­imals,” she said. “You have to study a long time to be able to have one.”

He looked stub­born.

“If you want one,” she con­tin­ued, “we’ll start you on the train­ing.”

He looked at her and nod­ded once, then went back to his box of toys. Was he too young to start train­ing as a witch? Maybe. It wasn’t my de­ci­sion.

“You’re look­ing good,” I said.

“Thank you.”

Vlad No­rathar turned around from the box and said, “Why aren’t you liv­ing with us?”

I met his eyes, which was more dif­fi­cult than a lot of oth­er eyes I’ve had to meet. “There are peo­ple who want to kill me. If I stay here, they’ll find me.”

“Oh,” he said. He con­sid­ered it care­ful­ly. “Why don’t you kill them in­stead?”

I stroked the hilt of La­dy Tel­dra in­side my cloak and said, “You know, I’ve asked my­self that same ques­tion.”

Cawti said, “You can’t al­ways solve prob­lems by killing some­one. In fact, as your fa­ther can tes­ti­fy, most of the time killing some­one just makes things worse.”

“That,” I said, “is un­for­tu­nate­ly true. But, hey, it’s a liv­ing.”

“Your fa­ther is teas­ing,” said Cawti.

I nod­ded. “I do that some­times.”

“Why?” said Vlad No­rathar.

“An­oth­er good ques­tion,” I said.

“I could an­swer it,” said Cawti. “But I shan’t.”

“Prob­ably best.”

He looked puz­zled for a mo­ment, but let it go—a trait that he’d cer­tain­ly find very use­ful lat­er in life. He said, “Why do they want to kill you?”

I start­ed to say some­thing about break­ing the rules, but Cawti cut me off with, “He was sav­ing my life.” Was there an edge of bit­ter­ness when she said it, or was it pure­ly my imag­ina­tion?

“He did?”

“Yes,” she said.

“They want to kill him for that?”

“Yes.”

Vlad No­rathar said, “That isn’t fair.”

“No,” said Cawti. “It isn’t.”

I re­sist­ed the urge to make some trite re­mark about how life wasn’t fair, and in­stead let the kid think about it.

He pulled a ly­orn out of the box, held it in one hand with the horse in the oth­er and stud­ied them care­ful­ly. Then he put the horse down and be­gan play­ing with the ly­orn’s horn, push­ing it in and out. It seemed to me he was still think­ing about our con­ver­sa­tion, but maybe that was my imag­ina­tion.

I said, “Kra­gar would like to meet him, too.”

She frowned. “I have no ob­jec­tion, but an­oth­er time would be bet­ter.”

“All right.”

I stood up. “I should be go­ing.”

Cawti nod­ded. “Say good-​bye to your fa­ther, Vlad.”

He got bash­ful again and hid his face. Cawti gave me an apolo­get­ic smile and the two of them walked me to the door. Rocza rubbed Cawti’s face then flew over to my left shoul­der.

I turned and walked back to where Kra­gar wait­ed.

Iorich

6

Luk­ka, I just had a talk with Nurik, and it was made pret­ty clear that we’re sup­posed to dump this all on the low­est ranks we think we can get away with. I told him if he want­ed that sort of game played, he’d have to get some­one else to run the thing, be­cause I won’t go there. If I re­sign, you’re the ob­vi­ous choice to take over, so think hard about how you’ll han­dle this. I know what sort of pres­sures N. can bring, so if you go with it, I’ll stay mute, but it’s worth con­sid­er­ing. I know Pa­pacat and the new War­lord do not fa­vor any such ar­range­ment, and you should re­mem­ber that HM is, so far as I know, not in on it ei­ther; I think she wants the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to be forthright, most­ly be­cause she wants to know if it’s all her fault. I’d tell her if I knew. Maybe in an­oth­er week, if I’m still run­ning this thing. But if you want a ca­reer, you can’t ig­nore N., you know it and I know it. Any­way, give it some thought.

—Pri­vate note in the hand­writ­ing of De­saniek

(not au­then­ti­cat­ed)

I ducked in­to the door­way in front of me with­out wait­ing to fig­ure out where it went. I was in a nar­row hall­way with a flight of stairs at the end. I went up with­out stop­ping, swal­low­ing the acidic pan­ic that comes with on­ly hav­ing one di­rec­tion to go when you know some­one is af­ter you. If Sethra had been sober, she’d have thought of that, dammit.

There was a door at the end of the hall­way. I opened it with­out clap­ping, my right hand brush­ing the hilt of La­dy Tel­dra.

The War­lord seemed to have been nap­ping; her head snapped for­ward and she stared at me. If she’d gone for a weapon, which wouldn’t have been all that un­think­able, there would sud­den­ly have been a lot more peo­ple than the Jhereg look­ing for me—or else no one at all.

She blinked a cou­ple of times as I caught the door and shut my breath, or what­ev­er I did.

“Vlad,” she said.

I stood there, try­ing to nei­ther pant nor shake. “Hi there,” I said.

Her of­fice was tiny; just enough room for her, a chair, and a small ta­ble. There was an­oth­er door to her left.

“I must have dozed off,” she said. “Sor­ry.”

“It’s noth­ing. As you see, I came in any­way.”

“Shall we find some­where more com­fort­able to talk?”

“I don’t mind stand­ing. Thanks for see­ing me, by the way.”

She nod­ded and looked up at me—an un­usu­al ex­pe­ri­ence for both of us. “Last I heard,” I said, “you were Drag­on Heir. I guess con­grat­ula­tions are in or­der.”

She gave some­thing that could have been a laugh. “I guess.”

“Are you ad­dressed as War­lord, or as Your High­ness now?”

“De­pends on the sub­ject.”

“Is there a sto­ry there? I mean, in how it is that you hap­pened to be­come War­lord?”

“Not one I’m in­clined to talk about.”

“Is your be­com­ing War­lord re­lat­ed?”

“To what?”

“Eh, I thought you knew why I was here.”

“Sethra said you want­ed to see me about Aliera.”

“Yes.”

“To that.”

“What is it you want­ed to see me about ex­act­ly?”

“Aliera’s sit­ua­tion.”

She hadn’t an­swered my ques­tion. Just want­ed to let you know I caught that. Can’t get one past me.

“I’m not sure how much I can tell you,” she said.

“Lack of knowl­edge, or are there things you aren’t per­mit­ted to say?”

“Both. And maybe things I could say but choose not to.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Well, I’ll ask, you tell me what you can.”

“It isn’t that I don’t care about Aliera,” she said.

I nod­ded, feel­ing sud­den­ly un­com­fort­able. It wasn’t like No­rathar to feel she had to jus­ti­fy her­self to me. I leaned against a wall, try­ing to look re­laxed. When she didn’t say any­thing, I cleared my throat and said, “In my own way, I have some un­der­stand­ing of du­ty.”

She nod­ded, star­ing past me.

“So, what hap­pened?”

She blinked and seemed to come back from wher­ev­er she was.

“Aliera was caught prac­tic­ing El­der Sor­cery, which is il­le­gal. For good rea­son, by the way. It was used to de­stroy the Em­pire. By Aliera’s fa­ther. The Em­pire frowns on be­ing de­stroyed. It tends not to like things that can do that.”

“Yeah, I know. That adds a cer­tain—uh. Wait. How much of this is be­cause of her fa­ther?”

“I don’t know. That’s prob­ably what made her the per­fect—I mean, that may be why. . .”

She trailed off.

I should have thought of that soon­er.

“And how does she—I mean the Em­press—feel about it?”

“Beg par­don?”

“She’s Aliera’s friend. How does she—?”

“You know I can’t give you per­son­al de­tails about Her Majesty.”

Since it was ex­act­ly the per­son­al de­tails I was look­ing for, it was a lit­tle sad to hear that. “All right,” I said. “Did you hear about Aliera’s ar­rest be­fore it hap­pened?”

“I don’t un­der­stand.” She was giv­ing me a sus­pi­cious look, as if I might be mock­ing her but she wasn’t sure.

“Oh,” I said. “You were giv­en the or­der.”

She nod­ded.

“I don’t know how these things work, but that seems un­usu­al. I mean, ar­rest­ing crim­inals isn’t what I think of as the War­lord’s job.”

“It usu­al­ly isn’t,” she said. Her lips were pressed tight­ly to­geth­er.

“But—?”

“With some­one like Aliera, I can’t see it hap­pen­ing any oth­er way. She wasn’t go­ing to dis­patch a, a con­sta­ble to do it.”

“It would be dis­re­spect­ful to her po­si­tion.”

She nod­ded. I need to work hard­er on com­mu­ni­cat­ing irony.

I said, “Who car­ried out the ar­rest?”

“I did.”

I grunt­ed. “Must have been fun.”

She gave me a look.

“Sor­ry,” I said. “Was she sur­prised?”

“Is this nec­es­sary?”

“I want to know if she had any warn­ing.”

“Oh. Yes, she was sur­prised. She thought I was jok­ing. She said—”

The wall over her head was blank, a pasty col­or. She should put some­thing there. I re­solved not to tell her that.

“Sor­ry,” she said.

“How long was it from the time you were giv­en the or­der un­til the ar­rest?”

“Ten min­utes.”

“Had you ex­pect­ed the or­der?”

She stud­ied me care­ful­ly. “No,” she said. “I was told I was now War­lord, and or­dered to ar­rest Aliera, and to de­liv­er the com­mu­ni­ca­tion re­liev­ing her of her po­si­tion.”

I tried to imag­ine that scene, but I couldn’t do it. I was glad I hadn’t been there to see it.

“Had you ex­pect­ed some­thing like this to hap­pen?”

“What do you mean?”

“Aliera was ar­rest­ed to dis­tract at­ten­tion from some­thing the Em­press doesn’t want peo­ple think­ing about. Had you ex­pect­ed—”

“That’s your the­ory,” she said, as if re­fut­ing it.

“Uh, yeah. That’s my the­ory. Had you been ex­pect­ing Zeri­ka—”

“Her Majesty.”

“—Her Majesty to do some­thing like this?”

“I don’t con­cede your premise,” she said.

“Um. Okay.” I looked around the room. Maybe one of the walls had se­cret writ­ing that would tell me how to pull the in­for­ma­tion I need­ed from No­rathar. Nope, guess not. “I’d have thought the War­lord would have a big­ger of­fice.”

“This isn’t the of­fice, it’s more of a pri­vate re­treat. The of­fice is through there.” She in­di­cat­ed the door to her left.

“Is this a tem­po­rary po­si­tion for you?”

An eye­brow went up. “Well, it cer­tain­ly won’t last longer than the next Drag­on Reign.”

“I meant more tem­po­rary than that.”

“I don’t know.”

“How did it hap­pen in the first place?”

“How did what hap­pen?”

“The in­ci­dent that start­ed it all. You’re the War­lord now, you must have ac­cess to—”

“I can’t dis­cuss that.”

“I don’t mean the de­tails.”

“Then what? Get­ting philo­soph­ical on me?”

“Sar­casm aside, yes.”

“Are you se­ri­ous?”

“Yes.”

“How does it hap­pen? I’m told you served in the army, in wartime, in the line.”

“Briefly.”

“In com­bat.”

“Briefly.”

“And you need to ask how some­thing like that hap­pens?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

She shook her head. “Pay no mind. If that’s all, Lord Szurke, I’m rather busy.”

I won­dered if “Lord Szurke” were in­tend­ed as a cut, and if so what the in­sult was sup­posed to be. “I’ll try to be brief,” I said.

She did the lip thing again. “Very well.”

“If I can’t ask about the Em­press, I’ll ask about you.”

“Hm­mm?”

“What are you hop­ing will hap­pen?”

“I have no hope.” Nor much in­flec­tion in her voice, ei­ther.

“Things were eas­ier in the Jhereg, weren’t they?”

She looked up at me, eyes nar­rowed; then she shrugged. “Dif­fer­ent, any­way.”

“Gen­er­al­ly, the on­ly ones who get it are those who de­serve it.”

“And not all of them,” she said.

“Fair point.”

“What else?”

I hes­itat­ed. “Does it seem odd to you that this law is be­ing used against some­one in Aliera’s po­si­tion?”

She shrugged. “There’s been talk about that at Court. I don’t pay much at­ten­tion.”

“So you can’t ex­plain it?”

“If I have any guess­es, I don’t care to share them with you.”

“No­rathar, are we en­emies all of a sud­den?”

“I serve the Em­pire. That means I serve the Em­press.”

“You didn’t an­swer my ques­tion.”

Her fin­gers rolled on the table­top. “No,” she said. “We aren’t en­emies.”

“Good, then—”

“We’re op­po­nents.”

“Um,” I ex­plained. “I’m try­ing to get Aliera out of this mess. Aren’t you her friend?”

“If you can find a way to do that with­out un­ac­cept­able con­se­quences, I’ll be glad to work with you.”

“That’s ex­act­ly what I’m hop­ing you’ll help me find.”

“I know.”

“No­rathar, you aren’t giv­ing me a lot of help here.”

“Is there a rea­son why I should?”

“I don’t know. Old times’ sake? I mean, my son is named af­ter you.”

She looked down and drew a cir­cle with her fin­ger on the ta­ble. I did the same thing, back when I had a desk; it was a lit­tle strange see­ing her do it. She said, “Cawti would like to see you.”

Af­ter a bit, I man­aged, “Are you sure?”

“No,” she said. “But she said so.”

“When?”

“Yes­ter­day.”

“She knows I’m in town?”

“Ev­ident­ly.”

Af­ter a bit she said, “Will you see her?”

“Yes,” I said. “If I can do so with­out get­ting her killed.”

“I think she can look af­ter her­self, don’t you?”

“You think so? Against the Jhereg? If they de­cide to take af­ter her to get at me? Not to men­tion the Bitch Pa­trol, who de­vel­oped a sud­den in­ter­est in her ac­tiv­ities a few years ago, and who don’t like me much.”

“They guar­an­teed to leave her alone. And they’ve done so.”

I nod­ded. “So far.”

She scowled. “If they don’t—”

“What will you do? Bring the House of the Drag­on against them? Or the Em­pire?”

“I’ll bring me against them.”

I nod­ded. “And the Jhereg quakes in fear.”

“You, least of all, should mock me.”

I clenched my teeth and nod­ded again. “I’ll go see her,” I said.

That marked the end of the in­ter­view. I gave her a bow that I tried to make de­void of irony and start­ed to leave the way I came, on­ly she stopped me.

“Use the oth­er door. You can get in­to the Palace that way; the way you’re go­ing leads out­side.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Nice to know you haven’t for­got­ten some things.”

“There are things you don’t for­get,” said Her High­ness.

I went out the way she in­di­cat­ed, got lost in the Drag­on Wing, got lost in the Palace, and even­tu­al­ly made my way on­to the streets of the City, where I hailed the fourth closed foot­cab to come by, and gave di­rec­tions to the Punc­tured Jug in the Sum­mer­gate sec­tion of Adri­lankha. Loiosh and Rocza flew above the cab, watch­ing and com­plain­ing.

This was a place I’d been to a few times. I’d heard a few dif­fer­ent sto­ries about who ac­tu­al­ly owned it. It was var­ious­ly put as (1) be­long­ing to ev­ery­one on the Coun­cil, op­er­at­ing through shells; (2) be­long­ing to a guy with no ties to the Or­ga­ni­za­tion, but lots of pull at Court; or (3) owned joint­ly by the Coun­cil, so there’d al­ways be a safe meet­ing place. Whichev­er; it was one of a dozen or so places in the City where you could eat with­out wor­ry­ing about un­pleas­ant­ness, no mat­ter who was af­ter you.

Of course, walk­ing out the door af­ter­ward was your prob­lem.

There’s an L-​shaped bar run­ning the length of the wall to the right and con­tin­uing to the far wall. The rest of the room is filled with chairs and a score of ta­bles al­most big enough for two peo­ple, all of which have four chairs in front of them; you usu­al­ly end up hold­ing your plate on your lap and keep­ing just your drink on the ta­ble. A row of small win­dows high on the wall lets in a to­ken amount of light. The rest is pro­vid­ed by two mas­sive can­de­labra be­hind the bar, and I imag­ine those who work there ac­quire a good num­ber of head-​bumps as well as a few odd burns un­til they get to know the place.

It was the mid­dle of the day and not very crowd­ed; about a third of the ta­bles were oc­cu­pied, most­ly with the Chreotha and Jhe­gaala trades­men that you’d think com­prised most of the pop­ula­tion of the City if your eyes pass over the in­nu­mer­able Teck­la. A hood­ed wom­an in dark cloth­ing, with noth­ing to in­di­cate her House, sat alone at a ta­ble near the door. I sat down op­po­site her; Rocza turned around on my shoul­der to watch the door.

“Hel­lo, Kiera. I hope you weren’t wait­ing long.”

She raised her head and her lips quirked. “What are you drink­ing?”

“Here? Some­thing white and in­of­fen­sive. I don’t trust them.”

“You’re a snob.”

“Yes. But I’ll pay; this is my meet­ing. Are we eat­ing?”

“Noth­ing for me.”

That was a shame. This was one of the few Dra­gaer­an places that had good food—a spe­cial­ty called “cure” which in­volved meat cov­ered in a spicy-​sweet sauce. Oth­er places made it, but here they’d been us­ing the same oven for more than eight hun­dred years; it’s hard to com­pete with some­thing like that. But it was my meet­ing, and she wasn’t eat­ing, so nei­ther would I. La­dy Tel­dra would have ap­proved.

Kiera got the at­ten­tion of a mid­dle-​aged Teck­la with ex­traor­di­nar­ily thick eye­brows and a slack mouth, who tight­ened up his mouth long enough to nod at the or­der. A guy with al­most no chin and wear­ing Jhereg col­ors came in and took a seat where he could os­ten­ta­tious­ly watch me. I ig­nored him; Kiera kept an eye on him with­out dis­cernible ex­pres­sion. “Is he the on­ly Jhereg in the place, Loiosh?”

“At the mo­ment. Give it two min­utes. They’ll be com­ing in the win­dows.”

“I don’t doubt it a bit.”

The wine ar­rived; it was as in­of­fen­sive as the Teck­la who de­liv­ered it.

Kiera nod­ded her thanks. “It’s been years,” she lied. “I trust I find you well?”

“My ass is small­er and my feet are flat­ter, but I’m all right oth­er than that.”

“And your purse? Is that flat­ter and small­er as well?”

“No, it’s all right. I still have most of what I got for Laris.”

She looked mild­ly star­tled. In this light, her eyes seemed al­most gray, and her com­plex­ion near­ly as dark as mine. She al­ways seemed a lit­tle small­er than she was. “When I heard you want­ed to meet me, I as­sumed you want­ed some­thing stolen. Is it in­for­ma­tion, then?”

“No, you were right. Well, both, re­al­ly. I want some­thing stolen. But not for rec­om­pense.”

“Ah. Of course.” She looked in­ter­est­ed. “Tell me more.”

“How long has it been since you broke in­to the Im­pe­ri­al Palace?”

“Oh,” she said. She fell silent, her eyes lid­ded. Then, “Are you sure you want a thief, and not a spy?”

“I want a spy,” I said. “But I don’t know any I can use right now.”

“They’re dif­fer­ent skills, you know.”

“I know.”

She nod­ded. “Go on, then.”

“There must be won­der­ful amounts of pa­per­work as­so­ci­at­ed with Aliera’s pros­ecu­tion.”

“Box­es, I’m sure. Steal­ing them will be less of a prob­lem than trans­port­ing them. Not to men­tion that some­one will no­tice they’re miss­ing.”

“I don’t need all of them. Just one.”

“Which?”

“That’s the kick­er. I don’t know.”

She gave me the eye­brow and wait­ed for me to con­tin­ue.

“Some­where,” I said, “among the ear­li­est pa­pers as­so­ci­at­ed with the case—maybe the very ear­li­est—I’m hop­ing there will be some­thing that will tell us how it start­ed. I want to know who thought of ar­rest­ing Aliera, or how the idea came up, or how hard it was to talk the Em­press in­to it, and who ob­ject­ed and why, and—”

“Why should such a thing ex­ist?”

“Be­cause—okay, look: I won’t claim to know the Em­press. We aren’t bud­dies. But I’ve met her, talked to her, and been there when Aliera and Mor­rolan and Sethra talked about her.”

She nod­ded. “Go on.”

“It wouldn’t have crossed her mind to solve her prob­lem by or­der­ing the ar­rest of a friend. I don’t think it would have crossed her mind to solve her prob­lem by or­der­ing an ar­rest.”

Kiera chewed her lip, then nod­ded. “I can see that. All right.”

“So some­one else came up with the idea. I want to know who it was.”

“You think that will be in one of the pa­pers in her case files?”

“I’m hop­ing to find some­thing to point me in the right di­rec­tion. I’m not ex­pect­ing a com­plete an­swer, just a hint about where to look.”

“You do want a spy.”

“Yes. Know any?”

“A few. But this sounds like a chal­lenge. I’d like to try it.”

“Good! How much?”

“Two thou­sand. What, too much?”

“No, no. Just star­tled me. But for what I’m ask­ing, pret­ty rea­son­able.” I pulled out bank draft and a pen­cil, wrote a lit­tle, and hand­ed it to her.

“I sup­pose you’re in a hur­ry?”

“Hard to say. Aliera’s in prison, so maybe she is.”

She nod­ded. “I’ll see what I can do. I’m look­ing for­ward to this.” She grinned the unique Kiera grin that brought back some mem­ories and drove out cer­tain oth­ers.

We drank our wine qui­et­ly; there was a low hum of con­ver­sa­tion around us. The door opened again be­hind me, and an in­of­fen­sive-​look­ing fel­low in Jhereg col­ors came in and took a ta­ble against the far wall. He leaned against the wall, stretched out his legs, and looked at me.

“Think the Jhereg knows I’m here?”

“Pos­si­bly,” she said. “Do you have a plan for get­ting out?”

“Not a plan as such. I mean, I can run a lot faster than you’d think.”

“Some­how, I don’t think you’d have come here if that was the best you had.”

I shrugged. “I can al­ways tele­port to Cas­tle Black. It isn’t of­fi­cial­ly safe, but the Jhereg isn’t go­ing to mess with a Drag­on.”

She nod­ded. “But they’ll know where you are, and they’ll be watch­ing for when you leave.”

“Yeah. I’ve got­ten kind of used to that, though.”

“If you’d pre­fer, I have an­oth­er idea.”

“Let’s hear it.”

She told me. I laughed. Loiosh laughed.

I re­moved La­dy Tel­dra’s sheath from my belt and slipped it in­to my cloak. “Do it,” I said.

She was qui­et for a mo­ment while she psy­chi­cal­ly spoke with a mu­tu­al friend, or maybe ac­quain­tance. At one point she looked at me and said, “Where do you want to end up?”

I con­sid­ered a few things, then told her. She nod­ded and again got that blank look. Even­tu­al­ly she fo­cused on me and said, “It’s all set.” Then we drank wine and got a bit caught up on lit­tle things that couldn’t mat­ter to any­one else.

Present­ly, the door opened be­hind me. Kiera fo­cused over my shoul­der and I turned my head. They were both wom­en, near­ly iden­ti­cal in ap­pear­ance, both wear­ing the black and sil­ver of the House of the Drag­on and the gold uni­form half-​cloak of the Phoenix Guards.

They took two steps for­ward un­til they were di­rect­ly be­hind me, and one of them said, “Count Vladimir Tal­tos of Szurke? Please sur­ren­der your weapon and come with us.”

I could feel ev­ery­one in the restau­rant star­ing at us. I didn’t look, but I could imag­ine the care­ful­ly ex­pres­sion­less faces of the two Jhereg. I gave the guards a big smile.

“Of course,” I said. I re­moved my sword belt and passed it back to them, then stood up slow­ly, my hands well clear of my body.

“It was a plea­sure, Kiera. Un­til next time.”

“Be well, Vlad.”

I turned and gave my cap­tors a nod. “I’m at your ser­vice.”

They es­cort­ed me out, one on ei­ther side, and di­rect­ly in­to a prison coach. The driv­er and an­oth­er guard were al­ready in po­si­tion. Loiosh and Rocza launched them­selves from my shoul­ders, which the guards pre­tend­ed not to no­tice; I guess they’d been in­formed that some­thing like that might hap­pen. I didn’t spot any as­sas­sins, but I wasn’t look­ing that hard, ei­ther. The guards climbed in, one next to me, the oth­er op­po­site. The door closed, and the lock snicked, and there was the shift­ing of the coach as the side­man took his po­si­tion next to the driv­er. Then the coach start­ed mov­ing and the Drag­onlord op­po­site me hand­ed me my weapon back.

“I trust that went as re­quest­ed?”

“Yes,” I said. “My thanks.”

She shrugged. “Or­ders are or­ders. I don’t need to un­der­stand them.”

That was my in­vi­ta­tion to ex­plain what this was all about; I de­clined.

We rat­tled off. I couldn’t see where we were, but Loiosh kept me in­formed. Not speak­ing with my “cap­tors” be­came un­com­fort­able, so I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. That last­ed un­til the first jolt cracked the back of my head against the hard wood of the coach. Af­ter that I stared straight ahead, and just wait­ed.

I didn’t need Loiosh to tell me when we ar­rived at In­no­cent’s Gate, as we call it in the Jhereg—the sud­den dip in­to the low­er floors where they bring pris­on­ers. We stopped, and there were a few words ex­changed in low tones, and then we start­ed for­ward again—some­thing I’d nev­er done.

“Go­ing through a tun­nel, Boss. Okay, now we’re in a kind of court­yard. They sure have a lot of those coach­es for pris­on­ers. Sta­bles, too.”

“Yeah, I can smell them.”

“Out of the tun­nel, and, okay, you’re head­ing away from the Palace.”

“In the right di­rec­tion, as agreed?”

“Yes.”

“Good, then.”

Or maybe not. I had mixed feel­ings about the whole thing.

The two guards­men in the car­riage with me seemed a lot more com­fort­able not talk­ing than I was. We clanked through the streets; it’s al­ways strange to ride in one of those, be­cause you know ev­ery­one is star­ing at you, but you al­so know they can’t see in­side the coach.

Even­tu­al­ly we reached our des­ti­na­tion. One of them tapped the ceil­ing—two, then one. The re­ply came back, three slow taps. The coach bounced more, there was a clank­ing, and the door opened, let­ting light in and me out. My legs were stiff.

I looked around and felt a mo­ment of pan­ic; I didn’t rec­og­nize the place. It was a lit­tle cot­tage in a neigh­bor­hood full of two-​sto­ry room­ing hous­es. I no­ticed a small ni­ball rac­quet, in front of it, on the nar­row walk­way be­tween the street and the front door.

The car­riage pulled away. Loiosh’s feet tight­ened briefly on my shoul­der.

I took three steps for­ward, start­ed to clap, and no­ticed a rope hang­ing from the eaves. I pulled it and heard the faint clack­ety-​clunk from with­in. I was feel­ing some­thing sim­ilar, but nev­er mind. The door opened.

“I’ve been ex­pect­ing you, Vladimir,” said Cawti. “Please come in.”

Iorich

7

Q: State your name, your House, and your city of res­idence.

A: Bryn, of Lock­head, Your Wor­ship.

Q: House?

A: I’m not cer­tain, Your Wor­ship.

Q: Not . . . You may ad­dress me as my lord. How is it you don’t know your House?

A: I was born in­to the House of the Teck­la, my lord, but I en­list­ed in the army, and—

Q: You are still of the Teck­la, son.

A: Thank you, my lord. Teck­la.

Q: How did you come to en­list?

A: For the hon­or of the Em­pire, my lord, and to serve Her Majesty.

Q: That’s very good, son. Why else?

A: My lord?

Q: Who con­vinced you to join the army?

A: The re­cruiter, my lord. He of­fered three im­pe­ri­als to any­one who’d en­list.

Q: That’s a lot of gold, isn’t it, son?

A: I’d nev­er seen, that is, yes my lord.

Q: What would you do for that much gold?

A: My lord? I don’t un­der­stand.

Q: You’ve ex­plained that this is a lot of gold to you.

A: Oh, yes!

Q: It would seem that for mon­ey like that, you would have been will­ing to do things you oth­er­wise wouldn’t.

A: All I had to do was fol­low—

Q: Nev­er­the­less, Bryn, isn’t it true that there are things you would have been will­ing to do for three im­pe­ri­als that might have seemed wrong be­fore you took such pay­ment?

A: I guess.

Q: Can you de­scribe what hap­pened on the first Mar­ket­day of Ly­orn of this year?

A: Yes, my lord. Dep­pi said we’d got­ten or­ders to—

Q: Just an­swer the ques­tion, son. De­scribe what hap­pened.

A: We were go­ing through a sort of ham­let about a mile west of Seer­point, when—

Q: What do you mean when you say “a sort of ham­let”?

A: About four or five cot­tages and a post sta­ble, my lord.

Q: Was it four or five cot­tages, Bryn?

A: (Hes­ita­tion) Five, I think.

Q: Very well. Ob­serve that it is im­por­tant we be ex­act in all de­tails. The Em­pire in­sists on no less.

A: Yes, my lord.

Q: Con­tin­ue, then. Did this ham­let have a name?

A: Tir­ma, my lord. It was called Tir­ma.

Q: Very well. And what hap­pened there?

A: The Stuffies were—

Q: Stuffies?

A: Your par­don, my lord. The, ah, the en­emy.

Q: Go on.

A: They were hid­den be­hind a stone wall on one side, and a row of jack­lenut bush­es on the oth­er.

Q: And what hap­pened?

A: It was a ’stoun, my lord. There must have been—

Q: Par­don me, son. A “ ’stoun”?

A: Um, a sur­prise? An am­bus­cade?

Q: I see. Go on.

A: They killed Jaf. He was on point, and at least three of them jumped him. They cut him to pieces, you know? Just hacked away, even af­ter he was dead. We couldn’t get to him.

Q: That must have made you an­gry.

A: Yes, my lord.

Q: Very an­gry.

A: Yes, my lord.

Q: So, what hap­pened then?

Her eyes were just the same, though maybe they looked a lit­tle big­ger than I re­mem­bered them. I stood look­ing at her.

“Nice place,” I man­aged.

A quick smile. “You haven’t even seen it yet.”

“From the out­side.”

She stood aside and I walked in.

“It’s nice in here. I like the hearth be­ing near the kitchen, so you can use it for cook­ing.”

“Not much of a kitchen, re­al­ly.”

“You have wa­ter.”

“When the pump works. When it doesn’t, there’s a well in back.”

“You share a room with, with the boy?”

“Yes. One oth­er room.”

“I re­mem­ber that chair.”

“Sit in it. I’ll get you some­thing.”

I didn’t re­al­ly want to sit in it, but I did. It seemed to re­mem­ber me. Rocza flew over and land­ed on Cawti’s shoul­der, rubbed against her cheek. I felt the most bizarre flash of jeal­ousy I can re­call, then chuck­led at my­self. Here and there, on coun­ters and man­tel­pieces, were things I re­mem­bered: the small white vase, the lant, the win­neasaurus book­ends. Oth­er things I didn’t rec­og­nize: a jar of a such a pure vi­olet col­or that it was al­most painful, a frame drum with at­tached beat­er, the books be­tween the book­ends.

She found a bot­tle and opened it. She was much bet­ter with the tongs and feath­er than she had been be­fore; I’d al­ways opened the bot­tles.

She poured a cou­ple of glass­es and brought them back, sat down op­po­site me. By turn­ing my head, I could see out­side, where there was a lit­tle gar­den; I couldn’t tell what was grow­ing, but I guessed a mix of bright-​bloom­ing flow­ers and veg­eta­bles.

I raised my glass to her. “You’ve be­come very do­mes­tic.”

She nod­ded. “Ne­ces­si­ty.”

“Yeah, that’ll do it.”

Rocza re­mained on her shoul­der, nuz­zling and get­ting reac­quaint­ed.

I said, “Where is Vlad No­rathar?”

“Out play­ing; I ex­pect him back soon.”

I nod­ded. “He has friends?”

“A few. And the lit­tle girl, De­vera, comes by from time to time.”

“Good,” I said.

I want­ed to ask if she missed me, on­ly I didn’t want to ask. I said, “Do you see much of No­rathar these days?”

“Yes,” she said. “She’s pret­ty much the boy’s oth­er par­ent.”

I nod­ded. “How’s that work­ing out?”

“Well. We haven’t got­ten to the po­lit­ical con­flicts yet.” She smiled a lit­tle. I tried to smile back, but I think it came out more of a gri­mace.

“This busi­ness with Aliera,” I said. “It must be hard on her.”

“I sup­pose.”

“I mean No­rathar.”

“Oh. Yes, it is.”

“How is it she was picked to be War­lord?”

“I don’t know; it isn’t some­thing I’m com­fort­able talk­ing about with her.”

“I guess.”

“And if it were, I don’t think she’d want me talk­ing about it with you.”

I nod­ded and drank some wine.

I said, “I trust ev­ery­thing is set­tled in South Adri­lankha.”

“I’m not in­volved, if that’s what you mean. Things are as they were, there. No bet­ter.”

“Are you still giv­ing read­ing lessons?”

“Twice a week, un­til late­ly.”

I nod­ded.

Var­ious ques­tions formed in my mind: “Do you miss me at all?” “Is it hard to raise him with­out me here?” “Does he ev­er ask about me, and if he does, what do you tell him?” I didn’t give them voice.

“Do you like the wine?” she asked.

“You know I do.”

“Just try­ing to make con­ver­sa­tion.”

“And avoid talk­ing.”

“Yes,” she said. “That too.”

I let out a breath. “Sor­ry. I didn’t in­tend to be dif­fi­cult. I just want­ed to see you. And the boy.”

She nod­ded. “And see if you could find out any­thing that might help your cur­rent project.”

I nod­ded. There was some­thing about how she said “project” that I could have ex­plored if I’d felt like it, but I didn’t.

She said, “If there was some­thing I could tell you that would help, I would.”

“I know.”

Cawti said, “What has hap­pened since you were here last?”

I laughed. “Could you an­swer that ques­tion?”

“Prob­ably not,” she said, gift­ing me with a small smile. “Any lovers?”

“One,” I said. “A Dra­gaer­an, odd­ly enough.”

“In­ter­est­ing. I’m sur­prised. How did that work out?”

“That’s hard to an­swer. I guess it still hasn’t, quite. You?”

“Lovers? A cou­ple, but not re­al­ly lovers as you and I un­der­stand the word.”

I nod­ded. “Al­so, I had a few things out with the De­mon God­dess.”

“Oh, re­al­ly? Set­tled to your sat­is­fac­tion?”

“No, but I learned yet more things to make me un­com­fort­able. On ac­count of I didn’t have enough un­com­fort­able in­for­ma­tion, I sup­pose.”

“I see. Do I want de­tails?”

That was a hard ques­tion. “No,” I fi­nal­ly said.

“I’ll trust your judg­ment.” She hes­itat­ed. “Can you beat them?”

“The Jhereg? No. Not in the long run. They’re go­ing to get me even­tu­al­ly. You know how it works, Cawti.”

“I do. I wasn’t sure you were will­ing to face it.”

“They’d have got­ten me al­ready if I weren’t.”

She hes­itat­ed again. “I sup­pose you’ve thought about the way to make sure they can’t use a Mor­gan­ti weapon on you.”

I nod­ded. “Sui­cide? Of course. I can’t do that. It isn’t in me.”

“So, what do you do in­stead?”

“You pack as much liv­ing as you can in be­tween de­lay­ing the in­evitable.”

“I guess that’s all you can do.”

“Un­less, of course, I can fix it.”

Her eyes flashed. “How?”

“I’m not sure, yet. I have some ideas.”

“Any­thing you can tell me about?”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll be in­ter­est­ed, when you can.”

“Yeah, me too.”

At which point, Vlad No­rathar came burst­ing in the door, ob­vi­ous­ly about to say some­thing im­por­tant, then looked at me, stopped, and stood mo­tion­less. I don’t know what I ex­pect­ed; I know that a child changes from four years old to eight; but he had so lit­tle in com­mon with my mem­ory that it was startling. His face had thinned, his eyes weren’t so amaz­ing­ly large, though they were still bright. His hair, though not black, had be­come a much dark­er brown, and was long and curled just a lit­tle. And he’d be­come lanky where he had been chub­by.

I stood up. “Well met, Vlad No­rathar,” I told him.

Cawti said, “Shut the door, Vlad. Do you re­mem­ber your fa­ther? If not, do you re­mem­ber your man­ners? Ei­ther will do, for now.”

The boy shut his mouth, looked at me, then at Loiosh and Rocza, and said, “I re­mem­ber. Well met, sir. I’ve been study­ing the Art, as you sug­gest­ed.”

I re­mem­bered mak­ing no such sug­ges­tion, but I said, “I’m grat­ified to hear it.” I turned to Cawti. “Is he do­ing well?”

“Yes, very well, when he choos­es to ap­ply him­self.”

He came more ful­ly in­to the house. “I’m pleased they haven’t killed you yet.”

“Thank you, so am I, and you have a good a mem­ory.”

“You make an im­pres­sion,” said Cawti, with an ex­pres­sion that was a hard to de­ci­pher. Then she ad­dressed Vlad No­rathar and said, “You should get cleaned up.”

He nod­ded, and sketched me a bow, and went through to the oth­er room.

“He’s quite the boy,” I said.

She smiled. “Yes, he is.”

“He should meet his great-​grand­fa­ther.”

“I’m plan­ning a trip this sum­mer.”

“Good.”

“Any chance you can be there, meet us?”

“Maybe. If it seems safe.”

She nod­ded.

Vlad No­rathar came out again. He didn’t look any ti­di­er, but his moth­er gave a nod of ap­proval. He walked over and stood in front of me. “Sir,” he said. “May I touch the Jhereg?”

“Loiosh?”

“What, I have a choice?”

“This time.”

“Sure, all right.”

“Go ahead,” I said. Loiosh bent his neck down and suf­fered his head to be scratched.

“He’s so cold,” said the boy.

“In ev­ery way,” I agreed.

“Heh.”

He looked mo­men­tar­ily puz­zled, then he said, “I re­mem­ber you.”

“Good,” I said. “I’d hate for you to for­get.”

“I won’t,” he said, look­ing very se­ri­ous.

Cawti cleared her throat. “Vladimir, would you care to sup with us?”

“An­oth­er time, if I can,” I said. “There are things I need to do.” I stood up and solemn­ly bowed to my son. “Un­til I see you next, be well.”

“And you, sir.”

“It was good see­ing you again, Vladimir,” said Cawti.

“You too.”

“I miss you.”

I think I must have said some­thing there, and then I was walk­ing away from the house. I heard the door close. “Thud,” it said.

“No one. You’d think they’d have this place watched all the time.”

“Who? What?”

“The Jhereg, Boss. You know, the ones try­ing to kill you?”

“Oh, right. Them.”

“You okay, Boss?”

“Com­pared to what? Com­pared to how I’d be if there’d been as­sas­sins wait­ing out­side her house, I’m do­ing fine.”

“Boss, why wasn’t her house be­ing watched?”

“Eco­nomics. If they’re go­ing to watch here, there are at least ten oth­er places to watch. That’s more than thir­ty peo­ple they have to pay to stand around and not earn, on the chance that I’ll show up. They want me bad, but I don’t think they want me that bad.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Then they were here and I didn’t see them. Or they weren’t here for some oth­er rea­son. What’s the point in what-​ifs, Loiosh?”

“To get an­swers.”

“How?”

“Gee, Boss. Do you know any­one in the Jhereg who might be will­ing to talk to you?”

“Kra­gar.”

“Kra­gar.”

“So, how do we get there with­out telling the whole Jhereg where we are? Any sug­ges­tions for that, O wise one?”

He made a cou­ple of sar­cas­tic ones. I trust­ed him and Rocza to keep a care­ful watch for me; I let my mind wan­der to see if it hap­pened to stum­ble over a clue or some­thing. I was mak­ing my way to­ward the Stone Bridge when Loiosh said, “Let’s steer clear of Five Mar­kets, Boss. It’s too easy to miss some­thing.” It was a good plan, and I was hap­py to go along with it. My mind, in­stead of look­ing for clues, sent me down the best al­ter­nate route, which was along the Flint­way. Far­ther down, past where I was go­ing, the Flint­way would run in­to Malak Cir­cle, and from there it was just a step to my old area.

So I con­tin­ued un­til I reached the long, wind­ing Flint­way, which me­an­dered from the Chain Bridge to what had once been the Flint­wood Es­tates, far out of town. It was an un­com­fort­ably nar­row street, with room­ing hous­es of three and four sto­ries loom­ing over you and chan­nels cut in­to odd places for drainage. It changed its name three or four times dur­ing the walk, but to lo­cals it was al­ways the Flint­way. I walked past a wood­work­er’s shop. The door to the shop was flanked by the doors to two room­ing hous­es. In one of them, there had once lived the mis­tress of a s’yang-​stone banker who had thought he could make some ex­tra cash by feed­ing in­for­ma­tion to his boss’s com­peti­tor. I’d got­ten him as he emerged from vis­it­ing his mis­tress. Yep, that same odd mark in the grain of the door, like some­one had par­tial­ly squashed a pear.

A lit­tle far­ther down it joined Malak Cir­cle. From there I cut left; my feet knew the way. I felt an odd lit­tle jolt as I reached my des­ti­na­tion. I stepped in­side, ex­changed nods with the guy keep­ing the peace for the play­ers, and ges­tured up­stairs. He gave me an odd look as he nod­ded, like he might sus­pect who I was but wasn’t sure. I made my way up the nar­row stairs.

I didn’t rec­og­nize the sec­re­tary; he seemed rather small, friend­ly, in­gen­uous, and was prob­ably very dan­ger­ous. He asked if he might be of some ser­vice to me.

“Is Kra­gar around? That is, as­sum­ing you’d no­tice.”

He smiled as if it were a shared joke, just be­tween us. “I’m afraid he’s stepped out. If you’d care to wait?” He ges­tured to a chair.

“Sure,” I said.

I sat down and stretched out, mem­ories of this old place flood­ing back. Fun­ny, I’d nev­er no­ticed the smell be­fore: a mix from the herbal­ist shop across the street, the bak­er down the way, and the musky smell of an­cient fur­ni­ture. Kra­gar should get around to get­ting new fur­ni­ture one of these days. It was com­fort­able, though.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

He looked up, and smiled. “Yenth,” he said, or some­thing like that.

“A plea­sure,” I told him. “I’m Vlad.”

“Yes, I know,” he said pleas­ant­ly. “The jhereg on your shoul­ders were kind of a clue.”

“You could make a lot of mon­ey by let­ting cer­tain per­sons know I’m here.”

He nod­ded, still look­ing friend­ly. “I know that, too. But the boss might not be so hap­py with me.”

“He might not,” I agreed.

It was very strange hear­ing Kra­gar re­ferred to as “the boss.”

“Is it all right if I wait in his of­fice?”

He frowned. “Mind if I ask why?”

I gave him an hon­est an­swer.

“Ah,” he said, laugh­ing. “I can see that. Will you make it good for me with the boss, if need­ed?”

“Yeah, I think I can do that. Want some mon­ey to make it of­fi­cial that you were bribed?”

He chuck­led. “No, thanks. That might lead to ques­tions I wouldn’t care to an­swer.”

“Fair enough,” I said, and moved in­to what once had been my of­fice, with my desk, a new chair where mine had once been, and the same ug­ly view from my win­dow. Some­times I’d had that win­dow board­ed up, oth­er times I kept it open so Loiosh could use it. I took an­oth­er chair and shoved it in­to a cor­ner next to the coat rack and wait­ed, think­ing in­vis­ible thoughts.

The door opened, he came in and sat be­hind the desk, opened a draw­er, and pulled out a ledger. “Hey there,” I said, and I swear he al­most screamed.

He set­tled down and stared at me. “Vlad!”

“Hey, Kra­gar. You know, I’ve been want­ing to do that to you for more years than I can re­mem­ber. If the Jhereg gets me now, my last thought will be of the plea­sure I’ve just had.” I smiled.

“I think I’ll kill you be­fore the Jhereg gets to it. How did you get past Yenth?”

“I bribed him.”

“How much did it take?”

“No cash, he just want­ed in on the vi­car­ious plea­sure of see­ing you jump.”

“I’ll kill you both.”

“Don’t blame you.”

“But first I’m go­ing let my heart rate slow down to some­thing be­low the im­mi­nent death lev­el.”

“When that hap­pens, you can maybe tell me a few things.”

“Maybe. I’ll think about it. What do you want to know?”

“What’s up with Aliera?”

“She’s been ar­rest­ed.”

“I know that. Why?”

“Prac­tic­ing pre-​Em­pire sor­cery.”

“I know that,” I said. “Why?”

“Be­cause the Em­press needs to dis­tract at­ten­tion from the mess in Tir­ma.”

“And there was no oth­er way to do that than ar­rest a friend of hers?”

“How should I know? The Em­press hasn’t been tak­ing me in­to her con­fi­dence late­ly.”

“How about the Jhereg?”

“Hm­mm?”

“Do you know how they plan to get me?”

“You don’t know?”

“Well, I’ve had the thought that this whole thing with Aliera was con­coct­ed just to get me back here, but that seems a bit para­noid even for me.”

“Yeah, that may be go­ing over the edge.”

“For one thing, how do they get the Em­press to co­op­er­ate?”

“Right.”

“Un­less—”

“Hm­mm?”

“Kra­gar, have you heard any whis­pers or ru­mors of some­thing big be­ing up with the Jhereg in com­bi­na­tion with an­oth­er House, or more than one?”

He looked at me. I said, “That look tells me that the an­swer is yes.”

“How did you—?”

“What is it?”

“I asked first. How did you know?”

“I didn’t know. In fact, I as­sumed I was wrong. But if this is all a means of get­ting me back here, then the key el­ement is to con­vince the Em­press to do what they want.”

“Okay, I can see that.”

“The Jhereg is at the bot­tom of the Cy­cle. They aren’t in any po­si­tion to in­flu­ence the Im­peri­um, un­less—”

“—they work with an­oth­er House, maybe even two or three.”

“Right. Which means they have to have some­thing to of­fer, which means—”

“Some­thing big. Got it. I keep for­get­ting how de­vi­ous you are.”

“Me? I’m not the one who came up with it, what­ev­er it is. Which re­minds me, what is it?”

“Now that I can an­swer,” said Kra­gar, “I have no idea.”

Iorich

8

Yes, cer­tain­ly I’m will­ing to co­op­er­ate with your com­mit­tee, but I have no idea what you imag­ine I can tell you. As you know, I had no po­si­tion in the Im­pe­ri­al army at the time of in­ci­dent, and no knowl­edge of it be­yond ru­mor and what I was told by friends, none of whom were di­rect­ly in­volved ei­ther. If your ques­tion con­cerns mil­itary mat­ters in gen­er­al, cer­tain­ly I will give you my opin­ions, but it would seem there are oth­ers more qual­ified. In gen­er­al, such “tes­ti­mo­ny” as you want from me I can give right now: If you put sol­diers in a po­si­tion where the en­emy is the pop­ulace, you must ex­pect them to treat the pop­ulace as the en­emy. This does not re­quire knowl­edge of the high­er reach­es of the sor­cer­ous arts to devine.

Nev­er­the­less, as I said, I am will­ing to speak to your com­mit­tee at any time that my du­ties do not re­quire my pres­ence else­where. A mes­sage sent to me through the House of the Drag­on will reach me quick­ly, and a mes­sage sent to the Of­fice of the War­lord, Drag­on Wing, Im­pe­ri­al Palace, will reach me in­stant­ly.

—No­rathar (au­then­ti­cat­ed)

“What did you hear, and where did you hear it?”

“I didn’t ex­act­ly hear any­thing, but there have been a few Or­ca—”

“Or­ca!”

“—who have been ex­cep­tion­al­ly po­lite of late.”

“Um.”

“It bugged me enough that I set some­one to find out what was up, and all I learned was that there are or­ders from some of their House not to of­fend us.” Giv­en how eas­ily the Or­ca of­fend ev­ery­one, and how ha­bit­ual it seems with them to do so, that cer­tain­ly was sig­nif­icant—of some­thing.

“Um,” I said again.

“Maybe you think that’s nor­mal—”

“Heh. Yeah, okay. Some­thing is up.”

“I’m still not sure of your con­clu­sion, though.”

“You mean, that it’s all di­rect­ed at me?”

“Right. Some­thing that big—”

“I know. I may be a part of it, or maybe they just took the op­por­tu­ni­ty. But I’m go­ing to fol­low up my guess that some­where be­tween the Jhereg and the Or­ca, and maybe an­oth­er House too, some­one is putting pres­sure on the Em­press.”

“If we could find out who, or how—”

“Kiera is work­ing on that for me.”

An eye­brow went up, then he nod­ded. He kept look­ing at me.

I said, “What is it?”

“What’s what?”

“That look you’re giv­ing me.”

“Oh, sor­ry.”

“Um. Well?”

He hes­itat­ed. “You’re old­er,” he fi­nal­ly said.

“Yeah, that hap­pens.”

“I know. Just, faster than I’d thought it would.”

“That’s two of us.”

“Sor­ry.”

“No prob­lem; I need­ed cheer­ing up any­way. Be­sides, I don’t think old age is what’s go­ing to get me.”

“It is if it slows you down.”

“You are just full of cheer, aren’t you?”

“Lord Cheer­ful, that’s what they call me.”

“All right, Lord Cheer­ful. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to find out who is try­ing to do what. I take it you’re on that?”

“I’m not hope­ful, Vlad. This ob­vi­ous­ly goes all the way up to the Jhereg Coun­cil. They aren’t easy to crack.”

“Go in through the Or­ca.”

He nod­ded. “All right. I’ll take a run at it. What are you go­ing to be do­ing?”

“I’m not ex­act­ly sure. Give me a few min­utes to think about it.”

“Take all the time you need.” He sat back in his chair. I had to ad­mit, he looked like he be­longed there.

“Su­per­cil­ious,” I said. “That’s the word I’m look­ing for.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I had a good teach­er.”

There was noth­ing to say to that, so I stared out what used to be my win­dow. Some­times I’d found the an­swer to a prob­lem on the wall of the build­ing across the way. It didn’t work this time; I guess I had to be sit­ting be­hind the desk.

“Hun­gry?” he said.

“Come to think of it, yeah.”

“Should I round up body­guards or should I send out for some­thing?”

“Send out. I don’t trust your sec­re­tary; I think he’d take a bribe.”

“What are you hun­gry for?”

“Pret­ty much any­thing.”

He yelled for Yenth and in­struct­ed him to have lunch brought in. “And get your­self some moldy cheese and vine­gar,” he added. Yenth left with a smirk he must have learned from Kra­gar.

“How are things here?”

“Not like I ex­pect­ed.”

“Oh?”

“You have to keep push­ing. If you aren’t push­ing, you’re be­ing pushed.”

“That’s true, I guess.”

“It gets, uh, tir­ing.”

“If you want a break, we can swap places.”

“If we swapped places, nei­ther of us would have a prob­lem: you’d en­joy push­ing, and the Jhereg would nev­er no­tice me.”

“Good point.”

Present­ly, Yenth came back and de­liv­ered a big box con­tain­ing pas­tries from a ven­dor I re­mem­bered with long­ing, as well as a bot­tle of wine, a se­lec­tion of fruit, and a buck­et of fla­vored ice from the lo­cal sor­cery shop. I hadn’t had the fla­vored ice in years—I smiled when I saw it and won­dered why I nev­er treat­ed my­self to stuff like that any­more. Yenth held up a steam­ing pas­try and said, “Moldy cheese and vine­gar. They made it spe­cial for me.”

“Get out of here,” said Kra­gar.

I bit in­to a pas­try and burned my mouth. Chick­en, maize, tu­bers, and a thick gravy that was sweet­er than I’d have made it but still good. Kra­gar ges­tured, and the wine tongs be­gan to glow red.

“You’ve been prac­tic­ing.”

“On­ly the easy stuff.” He opened the wine and poured us each a glass. It was very dark and strong­ly fla­vored. We ate in si­lence, each with our own thoughts. Loiosh shift­ed on my shoul­der; Rocza hissed soft­ly at him.

“What do you know about No­rathar’s ap­point­ment as War­lord?”

Kra­gar looked up. “Vlad, you think I pay at­ten­tion to Court pol­itics?”

“I think you pay at­ten­tion to ev­ery­thing.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I’m not sure. She was act­ing fun­ny.”

“You saw her?”

“Yes. I got the feel­ing there was some­thing odd about the ap­point­ment.”

“It isn’t the first time the Heir has been War­lord dur­ing a Phoenix Reign, but it hasn’t hap­pened much.”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“Two rea­sons: The sec­ond is con­ti­nu­ity—the more Court of­fi­cials who are con­tin­ued over be­tween reigns, the smoother the tran­si­tion is.”

“Right. Makes sense. And the first?”

He looked at me.

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah. Sort of beg­ging for a coup, isn’t it?”

He nod­ded. “What was fun­ny about how No­rathar was act­ing?”

“Eh. Like she want­ed to tell me things, but didn’t. Like she was on both sides at once.”

“Just what about that seems any­thing oth­er than pre­dictable?”

“I know, I know. But there was some­thing else to it.”

He shrugged. “Like, maybe she knew what was go­ing on, and want­ed to tell you, but had, oh, I don’t know, sworn an oath that pre­vent­ed it, or some­thing like that, maybe?”

I called him some­thing my grand­fa­ther wouldn’t have ap­proved of. “Want to spend some more time show­ing how smart you are?”

“Sure.”

“What is it she want­ed to tell me?”

He waved his hands over the desk, like a jon­gleur in the mar­ket about to make some­thing van­ish “with no trace of sor­cery what­so­ev­er!” He said, “Mm­mm . . . the spir­its are be­ing ob­sti­nate. I must ca­jole them. Have you some to­ken I may give to them so they—”

I made a few sug­ges­tions about what sort of to­ken I had and what he and his spir­its could do with it.

He said, “It’s no se­cret that you’re try­ing to help Aliera. No­rathar has in­for­ma­tion that would be use­ful. She can’t give it to you. What’s the big mys­tery?”

“There are two: The first is, what does she know that she can’t tell me? The sec­ond is, how can I find it out? Got an an­swer for ei­ther of those, O Mys­tic One?”

“You could have Day­mar do a mind-​probe.” He smirked.

“The in­for­ma­tion wouldn’t do me much good if I were ground up in­to Vlad-​meal af­ter get­ting it.”

“Ev­ery­thing has to be per­fect for you.”

“I’m just that kind of guy.”

“So, what’s the next step?”

“I wait and see what Kiera can tell me. Af­ter that, I’ll see. Kill some­one, I sup­pose.”

“You’re so ro­man­tic. That’s why you get all the girls.”

“It’s such a tri­al fig­ur­ing out where to put them.” I stood up and start­ed pac­ing.

“It’s good to see you again,” said Kra­gar.

I stopped, looked at him, won­dered if he was be­ing sar­cas­tic, if I re­al­ly missed be­ing where he was, and if he’d yet got­ten a good enough of­fer to sell me out. “Thanks,” I said. “You too.”

“Your food’s get­ting cold.”

I got busy with the food again, feed­ing some to Loiosh and Rocza. When I get dis­tract­ed from eat­ing, it’s a pret­ty good sign that things have got­ten dif­fi­cult. When Loiosh and Roz­ca fail to re­mind me, it’s an even bet­ter sign.

I fin­ished the pas­try, drank some wine, and said, “I’ll tell you what I can’t fig­ure out: It’s too small.”

“Small?”

“For the Em­press. The way I’ve been read­ing it, the Em­press got in­to a mess be­cause some sol­diers no one knows any­thing about killed a few Teck­la no one cares any­thing about. So she ar­ranged this pros­ecu­tion of Aliera to dis­tract at­ten­tion, and Aliera is be­ing a good sol­dier and let­ting her­self be sac­ri­ficed.”

“Well, she was the War­lord when it hap­pened, so maybe she feels she de­serves it.”

“True, but be­side the point. I’m say­ing Zeri­ka wouldn’t do that just to save her­self from some un­pleas­ant­ness. Even from a lot of un­pleas­ant­ness.”

“I don’t know her.”

“I do, sort of.”

“Okay, Vlad. Say you’re right. What does it mean?”

“It means there is more at stake than what hap­pens to Zeri­ka. For her to do some­thing like that, she has to be pre­vent­ing some­thing much worse than any­thing that can hap­pen to her per­son­al­ly.”

“Like what?”

I spread my hands.

“Okay,” he said. “Well, you now know what you don’t know. See how much progress you’ve made?”

“Could you do some­thing for me?”

“If it in­volves a mind-​probe of the Em­press, no. Oth­er­wise, prob­ably.”

I reached over and found a blank piece of pa­per on his desk, right where I used to keep them. I wrote a name on it and passed it over to him. He looked at it and did a thing with his eye­brows. “Left Hand?”

“Yeah. I have an itch that tells me they’re in on this. I’d love to be wrong, but if I’m right, she’s prob­ably in it. Find out what you can about her.”

“I al­ready know more than I’d like to.”

“Start with that, then.”

“Madam Tri­esco is one of the high fig­ures in the Left Hand. She’s prob­ably rich­er than the Em­press. She an­swers to Cao­la, and I don’t think Cao­la would dirty her hands with this di­rect­ly. When some­one sells a trin­ket to in­flu­ence the roll of the stones, Tri­esco is get­ting some of it. If it doesn’t ac­tu­al­ly do any­thing, she’s get­ting more. Ev­ery ma­li­cious im­ita­tion spell in town, some of it goes to her. When­ev­er there’s an unau­tho­rized clair­voy­ance spell cast, she’s get­ting a piece. When—”

“Hey. Are we safe?”

“Hm­mm?”

“Could some­one be watch­ing or lis­ten­ing to us? How good are your pro­tec­tions?”

“They’re the same ones you had, Vlad. Three tied to two, dou­ble-​filled and locked. Cast for twen­ty years, re­mem­ber? Checked four times a year.”

“All right. Any­way, yeah, I know she’s big.”

“What else do you want to. . . oh.”

I shook my head. “Don’t jump to con­clu­sions. I just need to know things. I’m not ready to start in­dis­crim­inate­ly putting shines right and left.”

“All right. But you’ll let me know be­fore you do, so I can be some­where else?”

“I’ll send a spe­cial couri­er.”

“Thanks.”

“You’ll check on her for me?”

“Just like the old days.”

“Ex­cept now you have peo­ple to do the leg­work for you.”

“Yeah, ex­cept for that, it’s just like the old days.”

“And you’re more sar­cas­tic than you used to be.”

“Right.”

“Which I didn’t think was pos­si­ble.”

“When you stop be­ing sur­prised, you’ve stopped liv­ing.”

“All right, all right. Can I get an es­cort back to the Im­pe­ri­al Palace?”

He called for Yenth, and said a cou­ple of names I didn’t rec­og­nize. I didn’t rec­og­nize their faces, ei­ther, when they showed up. Kra­gar gave them in­struc­tions that didn’t leave any room for doubt about the con­di­tion I was to ar­rive in, or what would hap­pen to them if I so much as stubbed my toe; they ap­peared to no­tice.

“Thanks, Kra­gar. I’ll be in touch.”

He gave me a salute, and my es­cort es­cort­ed me back down the stairs, out the door, and on­to the sweet-​sour smell of the part of the City I knew best. I’d have liked to have re­laxed more and en­joyed the walk, but I was too busy think­ing.

I made it back to the Palace, the Iorich Wing, and the over-​priced inn, giv­ing my es­corts a cou­ple of orbs to drink my con­tin­ued good health. The room was emp­ty, the bed was soft, I was tired.

I woke up with that ug­ly feel­ing you al­ways get when you sleep in your clothes—years on the run hadn’t in­ured me to it. I checked the Orb and found the time, tried to fig­ure how long I’d been asleep, and re­al­ized I had no idea what time it had been when I’d lain down. Was it light out? I couldn’t re­mem­ber. It was dis­ori­ent­ing and an­noy­ing.

“You’ve been out about six hours, Boss.”

“Okay. Was ev­ery­thing solved while I slept?”

“Al­most ev­ery­thing. Just a bit of cleanup left.”

“Good, then.”

I hauled my­self out and took my­self to the pub­lic baths near­est the Iorich Wing; over-​priced like the rest of the area, full of mar­ble and sor­cer­ous­ly cre­at­ed hot springs. I wrapped my things in my cloak, which I kept next to my hand, and had an at­ten­dant have ev­ery­thing else cleaned while I soaked for a long time. It helped.

I dried my­self off, picked up my cloak, slipped a hand on­to La­dy Tel­dra’s hilt, and went over to the at­ten­dant to pick up my clothes. I over-​tipped, be­cause I’m just that kind of guy. There was enough pri­va­cy near the priv­ies that I could re­place the sur­pris­es about my per­son—the few I still car­ried: dag­ger for each sleeve, throw­ing knife in a boot, gar­rote in the col­lar of the cloak, a cou­ple of darts in­side it, and so on. Then I strapped on my sword belt, with the rapi­er hang­ing from it in front of La­dy Tel­dra, and the cloak cov­er­ing the whole thing. There. Ready to face the world again. As­sas­sins? Bring ’em on.

No, ac­tu­al­ly, don’t. Skip that. Just kid­ding.

“Break­fast?”

“I’m not hun­gry.”

“Liar.”

“Okay, break­fast.”

I ne­go­ti­at­ed my way back to the Palace, fig­ur­ing to grab some­thing there and hop­ing to run in­to Pon­cer again. The din­ing area was much bus­ier now, and those I’d no­ticed be­fore were gone. I found a ven­dor sell­ing fresh, hot pota­to bread with an or­ange-​fla­vored mus­tard, about which you shouldn’t laugh un­til you’ve tried it. Loiosh and Rocza had theirs with­out mus­tard; I ex­plained that the looks they kept get­ting were be­cause of that, but I don’t think they bought it. There was no sign of Pon­cer.

I re­turned to the House of the Iorich and made my way to the ad­vo­cate’s of­fice. His door was open and there were no am­bigu­ous notes on it, so I clapped and went in.

He glanced up from the tome he was read­ing, his fin­ger guid­ing him, and said, “Lord Tal­tos.”

“High Coun­sel.”

He ges­tured to a chair. “What have you found out?”

“That was go­ing to be my ques­tion,” I said.

He grunt­ed and wait­ed.

I sighed. “I’m not sure how much to tell you.”

He shrugged. “Don’t tell me any­thing you want kept se­cret. I’m not about to with­hold in­for­ma­tion I’m com­pelled to dis­close.”

“I was afraid you’d say some­thing like that.”

“You can keep it hy­po­thet­ical, if you want.”

“Hy­po­thet­ical­ly, what would hap­pen if you were ques­tioned about this con­ver­sa­tion?”

“Hy­po­thet­ical­ly, I’d give eva­sive an­swers.”

“And then?”

“Hy­po­thet­ical­ly, ei­ther or both of us could find our­selves at the long end of a short slide.”

“Right. What if there were no hy­po­thet­ical sit­ua­tions?”

“Eh?”

“Nev­er mind. I don’t think telling you my cur­rent the­ory is a good idea.”

“I can’t ar­gue, but it makes my work hard­er.”

“I know. What have you learned?”

“They’re skip­ping sev­er­al steps.”

“Like what?”

“Seals on de­po­si­tions, ver­ifi­ca­tion of psiprint maps, char­ac­ter vet­ting of wit­ness­es—”

“So, that means they want to rush this through?”

“No, it isn’t that sim­ple.” He frowned. “I’ve been read­ing some his­to­ries of pros­ecu­tions with po­lit­ical mo­tives.”

“And?”

“They come in var­ious forms, but they usu­al­ly fall in­to two class­es: the ones they try to rush through, so it’s over be­fore there can be any out­cry, and those that make cer­tain all the for­mal­ities and niceties are ob­served, ah, scrupu­lous­ly, so it can stand up to any ex­am­in­ing among the no­bles who may ques­tion it.”

“And the pub­lic?”

“Hmm? Oh, you were jest­ing.”

“So, this is the for­mer?”

“Yes. And that’s what’s puz­zling me.”

“Go on.”

“There’s no point in rush­ing through it when ev­ery­thing is al­ready known, be­ing talked about in ev­ery the­ater, writ­ten about in stock sheets.”

“I see your point. So, why are they do­ing it?”

“Just what I was won­der­ing.”

“Any the­ories?”

He shook his head. “Could what you’re not telling me ac­count for it?”

“I don’t see how. But I don’t know enough to have an in­tel­li­gent opin­ion.”

“I do, but I don’t have the in­for­ma­tion you have.” He didn’t sound like he was mak­ing an ac­cu­sa­tion, just stat­ing facts.

“I don’t have in­for­ma­tion,” I told him. “Just the­ories.”

He grunt­ed. “Is there any­thing you can tell me?”

“I can ask you some­thing. What’s up with the new War­lord?”

“No­rathar? She’s al­so Drag­on Heir. Un­usu­al, though not un­heard-​of.”

“So I’m told. What does it mean?”

“You mean, aside from be­liev­ing her the best choice?”

“Was she? Why? Her ex­pe­ri­ence in the Jhereg?”

His eye­brows rose. “I heard some­thing about that. Is it true?”

I shrugged. “What makes her the best choice?”

He spread his hands. “I know noth­ing about what makes a good War­lord. I was just as­sum­ing the choice was based on mer­it.”

“Is that how things work in the Iorich?”

“Yes. Well, no. Not en­tire­ly.” He frowned. “It’s com­pli­cat­ed.”

“In­volv­ing pa­tron­age, fam­ily, wealth—”

“Let’s stay with the prob­lem, shall we? If you’re right, and there is some­thing odd about No­rathar’s ap­point­ment as War-​lord, then that’s some­thing we should look in­to.”

“We?”

“You.”

“How would I go about do­ing that?”

“I’d start with speak­ing to No­rathar.”

“I did. Didn’t get much.”

He grunt­ed. “Do you have oth­er sources?”

“I used to. I’ve been on the run for a while.”

“Can you—?”

“Maybe.” I’d al­ready asked Kra­gar. I could al­so ask Mor­rolan, but I found the idea dis­taste­ful; there was still the mat­ter of La­dy Tel­dra be­tween us. I re­al­ized Perisil wasn’t talk­ing. I cleared my throat. “There are av­enues I can pur­sue,” I said.

He nod­ded. “Pur­sue them.”

“I will. What will you be do­ing?”

“Study­ing le­gal his­to­ry, and try­ing to pick up on gos­sip.”

“Gos­sip?”

“We talk to each oth­er, you know.”

“You mean, the Im­pe­ri­al le­gal staff will tell you—”

“No, no. Noth­ing like that.” He shud­dered, as if the idea were ab­hor­rent at some deep lev­el. “No, but they’ll some­times make oblique re­marks to friends, and friends have friends, and I have friends who are friends of friends.”

“So, we’re talk­ing pre­cise in­for­ma­tion here.”

“No,” he said, ig­nor­ing my tone. “But pos­si­bly use­ful in­for­ma­tion.”

“All right.”

He frowned. “I’m not the en­emy.”

“I know that. If you were the en­emy I’d, ah, I’d not have come here.”

“I’m say­ing that if we’re go­ing to man­age an ac­quit­tal for Aliera, both of you are go­ing to have to trust me, at least a lit­tle.”

“But you just told me that I didn’t dare tell you any­thing I didn’t want the Em­pire know­ing about.”

He nod­ded. “That makes it hard, I know.”

“But you’re say­ing I should tell you any­way?”

He hes­itat­ed. “No. I wouldn’t care to take re­spon­si­bil­ity for that. When I said that if I were com­pelled, I’d re­veal any­thing you told me, I meant it.”

“Well then?”

He sighed and shook his head. “Just keep in mind what I said. This isn’t go­ing to be easy, and you’re both go­ing to have to trust me.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Where are you go­ing to start?”

“Back in the Palace. Drag­on Wing—my fa­vorite place. Lis­ten to gos­sip, see if I hear any­thing that will help.”

He nod­ded. “Best of luck.”

I stood up. “Thanks.”

“I’ll be here.”

As I turned away, he was al­ready study­ing his book again.

Iorich

9

In this ap­pendix, we will be ad­dress­ing some of the tan­gen­tial ru­mors that have been spread among var­ious sec­tions of the Court and the no­bil­ity re­lat­ing to the in­ci­dent. In par­tic­ular, we will look at the­ories of in­flu­ence by out­side par­ties on the events, and on the ef­fect of nar­cotics, psychedelics, de­pres­sants, stim­ulants, and hal­lu­cino­gens that may or may not have been in use by any of those in­volved.

The com­mit­tee wish­es to ob­serve that it ad­dress­es these is­sues un­der protest: it is our opin­ion that for the Em­pire or its rep­re­sen­ta­tives to re­spond to ru­mor and in­nu­en­do from un­re­li­able sources sets a prece­dent that can, in the long run, have no ef­fect but to give cre­dence to and en­cour­age such ru­mor and in­nu­en­do. That said, we now ex­am­ine the sub­stance. . . .

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, their sur­prise and tim­ing were per­fect; not even Loiosh could warn me. For­tu­nate­ly, they didn’t want to kill me. These facts were re­lat­ed: the Jhereg would not come af­ter you in the Im­pe­ri­al Palace, and cer­tain­ly not in the Drag­on Wing.

There were four of them. It was just like old times. They wore the stupid gold half-​cloak of the Phoenix Guards, and they were big and strong, as Drag­onlords usu­al­ly are. Two came up be­hind me, two came out of a door I was pass­ing and stepped in front of me. I thought about La­dy Tel­dra—how could I not?—but of course I didn’t draw her. Us­ing Mor­gan­ti weapons on Drag­onlords makes you very un­pop­ular, and even draw­ing her in the Im­pe­ri­al Palace would have caught the at­ten­tion of sev­er­al hun­dred trained fight­ers, all of whom would have seen it as in hor­ri­bly poor taste.

Be­sides, it would be wrong to de­stroy peo­ple’s souls when all they want to do is give you a good beat­ing, and you know how I am al­ways guid­ed by try­ing to do the right thing.

Heh.

Look, do you mind if I skip the de­tails? Yeah, I re­mem­ber them; but if I say them out loud, they’ll al­ways be vivid for me, be­cause that’s how my mem­ory works. And, re­al­ly, what do you need to know that can’t be told in gen­er­al?

There they were, two of them in front of me, and Loiosh told me about the two in back, and I knew what was go­ing to hap­pen, be­cause I’d been through it be­fore.

“Keep Rocza out of this.”

What Loiosh replied doesn’t read­ily trans­late, but in any case he got Rocza out of the way. He and I had been through this kind of thing a few times, back when I was run­ning my area. He knew by now that I didn’t want to hear any sym­pa­thet­ic words, or any­thing else; it was just a mat­ter of wait­ing un­til it was over.

It al­ways hap­pens so fast, you know? The times I’ve been jumped and man­aged to avoid it, I’d been out of the sit­ua­tion al­most be­fore I knew I was in it. This time, be­fore I re­al­ly knew what was hap­pen­ing, they’d pushed me in­to the room and were go­ing to work. I had time to de­cide what not to do, as I said, but that was about it.

They didn’t draw any weapons—just used their fists and their boots. And they could have made it much worse than they did, if they’d want­ed to: They cracked a rib, but oth­er than that didn’t break any bones. They al­so didn’t say any­thing—I as­sumed they took it for grant­ed I knew what it was about.

Even­tu­al­ly they got my arms pinned, though I did them some harm first. A lot of harm, if you re­mem­ber how much stronger than an East­ern­er a Dra­gaer­an is. I re­mem­ber be­ing re­al­ly an­noyed that I had no ac­cess to any of the mag­ic, East­ern or Dra­gaer­an, that would help me re­cov­er quick­ly, where­as they’d have their bruis­es seen to in an hour or so and be feel­ing fine. It didn’t seem fair, you know?

When they were fin­ished I let them have the sat­is­fac­tion of see­ing me lie there, curled up on the floor, while they walked away. I might have been able to stand up, but if they’d tak­en it as a sig­nal to start again, I wasn’t sure I’d have the self-​con­trol to keep things non-​lethal.

“Just like the old days, eh?”

“You all right, Boss?”

“In ev­ery im­por­tant sense, yeah.”

I stood up, which took a long time, and wasn’t any fun; I had to use the wall for sup­port and push up against it, then when I made it up I leaned against it. Nice wall. Good wall. That wall was my new best friend.

Breath­ing hurt. So did a few oth­er things, though not as much as they were go­ing to. And I was shak­ing, of course; I al­ways shake af­ter I’ve been through some­thing ex­cit­ing, no mat­ter how I feel about it.

“Any idea what it was about?”

“One idea. If I’m right, then it may have been worth it just to find out.”

“Some­day, Boss, let’s talk about ways for you to learn things that don’t in­volve peo­ple kick­ing you.”

“Good plan.”

I was glad to be in the room—which may have been an un­used coat clos­et or some­thing—in­stead of out in the hall, be­cause I didn’t want any­one com­ing along and ask­ing ques­tions. Or, worse, be­ing sym­pa­thet­ic. Loiosh was care­ful­ly not sym­pa­thet­ic; he knows me.

I want­ed to get some­where to bind up my rib. Ev­er have a cracked rib? Avoid it if you can. Walk­ing hurts. Breath­ing hurts. Don’t cough. And for the love of your fa­vorite de­ity, don’t even think about sneez­ing. And if you make me laugh I’ll kill you. Lat­er.

When I’d caught my painful breath a bit, I pushed away from my friend the wall and wished I hadn’t.

“Where to now, Boss?”

“I’m not sure. I can’t de­cide if I ought to wait a day or two un­til the bruis­es are nice and pur­ple.”

“Wait for. . .?”

“Nah, too much is go­ing on to waste a day on cos­met­ics. This way.”

I strolled back in­to the hall­way, and then am­bled around the cor­ner, af­ter which I saun­tered. Any­thing to look like walk­ing didn’t hurt as much as it did. Which was okay; it didn’t hurt near­ly as much as it would to­mor­row. As I walked, my heart rate re­turned to nor­mal. My tongue played with a tooth that was wob­bly, but I didn’t think I’d lose it; punch­es to the face are the eas­iest to slip, if you don’t mind your neck snap­ping a lit­tle.

The few peo­ple I passed—Drag­onlords—glanced at me and then looked away, care­ful­ly un­con­cerned. Af­ter what seemed like a long, long time, I made it to the long, nar­row stair I was look­ing for. It seemed very, very long in­deed, just now. I start­ed up it, us­ing the time to plan. I knew what I want­ed to do, I just had to fig­ure out the nu­ances. The plan­ning dis­tract­ed me; it wasn’t too bad.

This time I clapped out­side of the of­fice. I heard a brusque “En­ter,” and did so, sud­den­ly re­al­iz­ing that she might not have been in, and I’d have made that climb for noth­ing. It would be smart if I thought of those things ahead of time, wouldn’t it?

She glanced up as I came in, and said, “What is—” then stopped and looked at me close­ly.

“I’d been think­ing,” I said, “of wait­ing a day so you could see the re­sults in all their splen­dor.”

“That eye is go­ing to swell shut,” she said.

“I imag­ine it will.”

“It can’t have been the Jhereg, or you’d be dead.”

“It wasn’t the Jhereg.”

“Do you know who?”

“Yes.”

She frowned. “Are we play­ing a game here?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I came up here to find out.”

“If you have a ques­tion, Vlad, just ask.”

“Did you send them?”

She looked shocked. I think she was shocked, which she shouldn’t have been, whether she was guilty or not. She went through some fa­cial con­tor­tions, then said, “What kind of game are you play­ing?”

The kind where I lose if you know the rules. “No game. I just want to know if they were yours.”

“They were Drag­ons?”

“Oh, yes. Phoenix Guards.”

“And you think I sent them?”

“It had crossed my mind. So I’d thought I’d ask if you did. And, if so, why you didn’t, I don’t know, drop me a note in­stead.”

“I didn’t send them,” she said.

“All right.”

“And I think you know that,” she added.

“I—”

“Which makes me won­der what you’re try­ing to do by ac­cus­ing me.”

“I didn’t ac­cuse you.”

“All right. Ask­ing me.”

She was study­ing me care­ful­ly, sus­pi­cious­ly.

I shrugged, which was a mis­take. “What am I sup­posed to think? I start ask­ing nosy ques­tions about you, and the next thing I know—”

“What ques­tions have you been ask­ing about me?”

“Your sud­den­ly be­ing made War­lord, of course. Why it hap­pened, what’s be­hind it. You wouldn’t tell me, so—”

“There’s noth­ing to tell.”

I gave her a brief dis­cus­sion of fer­til­iz­er. She seemed unim­pressed with my agri­cul­tur­al ex­per­tise. “Be­lieve what you like,” she said. It was good to have per­mis­sion, but I re­sist­ed telling her so.

“Ei­ther way,” I said. “If it was in­tend­ed by you or some­one else to make me stop look­ing in­to this, it isn’t go­ing to work.”

“I don’t care—”

“Not to men­tion that if there were noth­ing to it, why would any­one beat me up over it?”

“Are you sure that’s what it was about?”

“Seems like a good guess.”

“But you don’t ac­tu­al­ly know.”

I made a dis­gust­ed sound.

She start­ed to say some­thing, stopped, in­haled, and let it out slow­ly. “Very well. We’ll as­sume you’re right.”

“Thanks.”

She ig­nored the sar­casm. “I had no part in it,” she stat­ed.

“All right.” She still looked sus­pi­cious, as if she didn’t be­lieve I gen­uine­ly thought she might be in­volved. She’s a Drag­on; that doesn’t au­to­mat­ical­ly mean she’s an id­iot. Be­sides, she’d spent years in the Jhereg. I said, “Then they act­ed with­out your knowl­edge. Why? What is it ev­ery Drag­onlord knows that they don’t want a hum­ble East­ern­er to find out?”

“How should I know?”

I looked at her. I’m not an id­iot ei­ther.

She sighed. “There are things I’m not per­mit­ted to tell you.”

“I fig­ured that part out. What I’m work­ing at is, I’ll bet there are things you could tell me if you want­ed to. Things that might help Aliera. Things that might ex­plain why I just got a tooth loos­ened. Things that—”

“Shut up.”

I did so, and wait­ed.

She looked past me; I gave her time to think.

“It isn’t easy,” she said. “My loy­al­ties are di­vid­ed. I don’t think there are any right an­swers.”

I nod­ded.

“All right. I’ll tell you this much. Her Majesty is not very hap­py about all of this.”

“No­rathar. War­lord. Your High­ness. What­ev­er I’m sup­posed to call you. I picked up on that.”

She nod­ded, her eyes still fo­cused past me; I had the feel­ing that I wasn’t there. “Her friend­ship with Mor­rolan goes way back, you know.”

“Mor­rolan? How does Mor­rolan en­ter in­to this?”

She fo­cused on me, a puz­zled look on her face. Then she said, “I keep for­get­ting how much you don’t know.”

“So. fill me in on some of it?”

“You want a his­to­ry les­son?”

“No. I don’t. I re­al­ly, re­al­ly don’t. I think I’d rather have an­oth­er beat­ing. But if I need one to un­der­stand what’s go­ing on, then I’ll just sit here and take it.”

She made an ef­fort at a smile. “I think we can skip it, for now.”

See? My god­dess loves me. “Okay, what do I need to know. That you can tell me.”

She hes­itat­ed, then it came out quick­ly. “When she asked me to be War­lord, she ex­tract­ed a cou­ple of promis­es. One I’m break­ing now, by talk­ing to you. The oth­er is that Aliera is to es­cape.”

“Es­cape,” I re­peat­ed.

She nod­ded.

“I trust Aliera doesn’t know about this?”

“That is cor­rect.”

I sighed. “Well. And the Em­press is, you say, a re­born Phoenix?”

Her eyes nar­rowed. “Just what is that sup­posed—”

“Sor­ry. That was out of line. Be­ing stupid doesn’t mean be­ing deca­dent.”

She said, very pre­cise­ly, “I do not con­sid­er Her Majesty to be stupid.”

“No, I guess she isn’t. In fact, this shows how smart she is.”

“What are you talk­ing about?”

“A stupid per­son can make on­ly cer­tain, lim­it­ed types of er­rors; the mis­takes open to a clever fel­low are far broad­er. But to the one who knows how smart he is com­pared to ev­ery­one else, the pos­si­bil­ities for true id­io­cy are bound­less.”

“Vlad—”

“No­rathar. Nev­er, ev­er, will Aliera go along with this. To es­cape is to ad­mit guilt. Think about it.”

She start­ed to ar­gue, stopped, frowned. I let her work it through. It shouldn’t have tak­en that long.

“You’re right,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“I have to speak with Her Majesty.”

“Good think­ing. Had a whole plan, didn’t you?”

She nod­ded. I was tempt­ed to smirk, but she might have killed me. Be­sides, it wasn’t all that fun­ny.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll get out of your way. This clears up a few things, but un­for­tu­nate­ly, doesn’t help me. But at least I’m con­vinced you didn’t or­der those Drag­onlords to at­tack me.”

“How do you know they were Drag­onlords?”

“Huh? Well, for starters, if they were Jhereg they’d have killed me.”

“And if they were Or­ca?”

I stared at her. She flushed; some­thing I could nev­er have imag­ined her do­ing.

“Well done, Boss!”

“Ev­ery once in a while, you get a break.”

I let her sit there for a mo­ment and re­flect on the dif­fi­cul­ty of un­say­ing some­thing. Then I said, “Don’t feel too bad. I’d been pret­ty sure of it, any­way.”

She cursed soft­ly un­der her breath.

“I feel your pain,” I said.

“You will soon,” she said.

“So, feel like fill­ing in the miss­ing piece?”

She glared. “And if I don’t?”

That took me a mo­ment, then I got it and shook my head. “No, no. I’m not go­ing to tell any­one any­thing about what you did or did not tell me. I’m ask­ing you to fill in the pieces I’m miss­ing. If you don’t, I’ll find out an­oth­er way; that’s all.”

She bit her lip, then nod­ded. “What ex­act­ly do you want to know?”

“I know the Jhereg and the Or­ca are work­ing to­geth­er. On what, ex­act­ly? And how are they forc­ing the Em­press to co­op­er­ate?”

“All right.” She took a deep breath. “It goes back to be­fore the In­ter­reg­num.”

I al­most made a re­mark about how I’d been promised no his­to­ry, but there are times not to be clever.

“The Jhereg had come up with a big mon­ey­mak­ing scheme that they nev­er got to pull off be­cause the world blew up be­fore they could try it. And maybe for oth­er rea­sons, too, I don’t know. Any­way, the Left Hand got wind of it a few years ago, start­ed col­lab­orat­ing with the Right Hand and the Or­ca, and have been try­ing to put it back.”

“And what is ‘it’?”

“Nar­cotics, hal­lu­cino­gens, psychedelics, dis­as­so­cia­tives—”

“No­rathar, I don’t know most of those words.”

“All right. Opi­um. Log­fun­gus. Dream­grass. Laugh­wort. Koelsh leaf. Pop­py ex­tract.”

“What about them?”

“What if they were sud­den­ly il­le­gal?”

“Huh?

“What if—”

“I heard you, I’m just try­ing to wrap my head around it.”

“What would hap­pen?”

“I don’t know. Um, well, it would drive the prices through the roof.”

“And who would sell it?”

“The Jhereg, of course. Yikes. What a scam! And the Or­ca?”

“They’d sup­ply it.”

“And the Left Hand?”

“Fa­cil­itat­ing de­liv—I hadn’t said any­thing about the Left Hand.”

“It was my own the­ory. Go on.”

“Fa­cil­itat­ing de­liv­ery and hid­ing and sell­ing spells to de­tect Im­pe­ri­al agents, the way they do now with gam­bling games.”

“I didn’t know they did that; I nev­er used them.”

“They do. And there is li­able to be Iorich in­volve­ment too—bribes for mild sen­tences, and so on.”

“Iorich do that?”

“Fun­ny guy.”

I shook my head. “This is huge. How are they con­vinc­ing the Em­press to go for it?”

“The mas­sacre at Tir­ma.”

“Huh?”

“Word is about to leak out that it hap­pened be­cause the sergeant was us­ing a com­bi­na­tion of koelsh leaves and pop­py.”

“Oh. Hm­mm. Pub­lic out­cry?”

The War­lord nod­ded.

“Is it true? Was he?”

“No.”

“Then why can’t he be made to tes­ti­fy to that?”

“In fact, once this be­comes pub­lic, that is ex­act­ly what will hap­pen.”

“Well, and?”

“And who will be­lieve it? It will be seen by the no­bles and the mid­dle class­es as a means of dis­tract­ing at­ten­tion from the lu­cra­tive trade in brain chem­icals.”

“How does ar­rest­ing Aliera help?”

“If Aliera is ar­rest­ed on an ob­vi­ous­ly bo­gus charge, it will add weight to the idea that the mas­sacre in Tir­ma came from or­ders on high. It will look like the Em­press blames Aliera, but knows she can’t get a con­vic­tion on the ac­tu­al charge, be­cause—”

“Be­cause it must be ap­proved by the Coun­cil of Princes, who wouldn’t ap­prove it, so the con­vic­tion must be on an Edict, which by­pass­es peer ap­proval.”

“Well, very good, Vlad. I had no idea you were so well ac­quaint­ed with the law.”

“I’ve man­aged to pick up a few pieces here and there,” I said mod­est­ly.

“So, now you know, and now I’ve be­trayed an oath by telling you.”

“Yeah. And now I know what’s go­ing on, and why, but I’m not sure it helps me.”

“On the con­trary,” she said, her eyes nar­row­ing. “It po­ten­tial­ly helps you a great deal.”

“How is that?”

“If you re­veal what I’ve told you—”

“Oh, come on, No­rathar. You know I won’t do that.”

She grunt­ed. “There’s an­oth­er thing it gets you, then: an al­ly.”

“You?”

“Yes. Any­thing I can do with­out be­tray­ing Her Majesty.”

“Hm­mm. That may be a bit like, ‘I’ll run any er­rand you want that doesn’t re­quire me to stand up.’ Still, I ap­pre­ci­ate the of­fer, and I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Do that,” she said.

So there I was: I’d un­cov­ered what was hid­den, I’d found the big se­cret, I’d turned over the key rock, and now I just had the mi­nor, unim­por­tant lit­tle de­tail of fig­ur­ing out what to do about it. Splen­did. I tried to re­call some of the vo­cab­ulary I’d picked up dur­ing my brief stint as a foot sol­dier, but you have to keep up with those skills or you lose them.

So, back to the be­gin­ning. I’d have to wait for Kiera to get some con­fir­ma­tions, and wait for Kra­gar to learn a few de­tails about the Left Hand. In the mean­time—

“Vlad?”

“Hm­mm?”

“I asked if there was any­thing else.”

“Oh, sor­ry. No. Thank you.”

She nod­ded and I took my leave. If the fates loved me, I’d make it back to my room alive, and Kiera would be wait­ing there. I did, and she wasn’t—make of that what you will.

I un­load­ed a few pounds of hard­ware next to the bed, and stretched out on it. It felt won­der­ful for about ten sec­onds, then I grad­ual­ly be­came aware of each bruise. Once, long be­fore and in a dif­fer­ent part of the world, I’d re­moved my amulets to per­form a sim­ple spell to get rid of some aches and pains. It had proved a mis­take for two rea­sons: It al­most got me killed, and it had giv­en Loiosh a chance to say I told you so. I was will­ing to risk the first, but I’d rather hurt than take a chance on the sec­ond.

I didn’t fall asleep, but to take my mind off how much I hurt, I spent some time wish­ing some­one would bring me some­thing to eat. Loiosh picked up on the thought, and made an of­fer of sorts which I re­ject­ed; I wasn’t that hun­gry.

“Boss, do we have a plan?”

“We will.”

“Oh, good. I feel so much bet­ter when we have a plan.”

“In that case, maybe you come up with one this time. One that doesn’t in­volve a dead teck­la.”

“Di­vi­sion of la­bor, Boss. That’s what makes this work, you know.”

“Yeah, I keep for­get­ting that. Di­vi­sion of la­bor. I come up with the plans, and you laugh at them.”

“Ex­act­ly.”

I closed my eyes, the bet­ter to con­cen­trate on ev­ery­thing that hurt. No, I don’t know why I do these things; stop ask­ing.

Af­ter a while, I heard a clap at the door and at al­most the same mo­ment Loiosh said, “It’s Kiera.”

Now, there was good news at a good time. “Please bring your sneaky and most wel­come self in­side,” I called out.

The door opened and she came in, look­ing wor­ried. “I heard you were beat­en,” she said.

“How did you hear that? Are there more of you than I know about?”

She gave me a re­proach­ful look.

“Sor­ry,” I said.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked me over care­ful­ly. Loiosh flew over to her, and she ab­sent­ly scratched un­der his chin while she stud­ied me. “They did a pret­ty thor­ough job, it seems,” she said ju­di­cious­ly.

“I guess. Want to tell me what you learned?”

“Just what you ex­pect­ed me to.”

My heart skipped a beat. Yes, I’d ex­pect­ed it. But I hadn’t re­al­ly, well, ex­pect­ed it. “De­tails?”

“Min­utes of a meet­ing called by Her Majesty to dis­cuss the mas­sacre in Tir­ma.”

“And?”

“The list of those present in­clude the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Jhereg.”

“Is that usu­al for some­thing like this?”

“No.”

“All right. And the rep­re­sen­ta­tive said?”

“Noth­ing that was record­ed.”

“Then—?”

“Did they hit you in the head a lot?”

“Yes, as a mat­ter of fact.”

She made a dis­gust­ed sound. “Work it out any­way.”

“They wouldn’t have had the Jhereg rep­re­sen­ta­tive there, ex­cept to hear some­thing, or to in­form the Em­press of some­thing.”

“Yes.”

“And ei­ther way, it means the Jhereg has their hand in this.”

“Which you knew.”

“Sus­pect­ed, then lat­er had con­firmed by—uh, I shouldn’t say.”

“All right. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why is the Jhereg in­volved.”

“Two rea­sons. I can’t talk about one, and I don’t need to talk about the oth­er.”

“You don’t need to? What do you mean?”

“Kiera, have you been beat­en too, late­ly?”

Her eyes nar­rowed as she con­cen­trat­ed, then she said, “Oh. You think it’s all about you?”

“I al­ways think it’s all about me. When I’m wrong I look stupid; when I’m right, I’m still alive to keep look­ing stupid.”

“It’s a lit­tle hard to be­lieve,” she said.

“Why?”

“En­gi­neer­ing a mas­sacre of peas­ants, em­broil­ing the Em­press in—”

“No, no. I don’t think that was about me. That just gave them the op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

“Ah. You mean, not the prob­lem, but the so­lu­tion.”

“Yes.”

“The Jhereg knew that if Aliera was in trou­ble, you’d find out and come back and they could get to you. They were do­ing some­thing else in­volv­ing the Em­press, and just grabbed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pull you in­to it.”

“Pret­ty much. You know the Jhereg. Does that seem far­fetched?”

“No,” she said with no hes­ita­tion.

“It doesn’t to me, ei­ther.”

“Do you have an idea of how to deal with it?”

“One. Tell the Em­press.”

“Vlad, do you know what hap­pens if you do that?”

“Some­thing pret­ty un­pleas­ant for the Jhereg. Do I care?”

“What about for the Em­pire?”

“Do I care about that?”

“And for Zeri­ka?”

“Like she cared how un­pleas­ant it was for Aliera?”

“She did, you know.”

“Stop, Kiera, be­fore you move me to tears. Oh, wait, no, that’s the pain from the beat­ing I got for ask­ing ques­tions about how much she cared.”

“I don’t think that’s why you got beat­en.”

“No, nei­ther do I. I think it was be­cause it’s con­sid­ered rude for East­ern­ers who are al­so Jhereg to go ask­ing ques­tions about the War­lord.”

“Maybe.”

“You have an­oth­er idea?”

“No, just a feel­ing.”

“A feel­ing.”

“The beat­ing. It doesn’t feel right.” I start­ed to make an ob­vi­ous re­mark but she cut me off. “No, lis­ten, Vlad. I’m se­ri­ous. Try to re­con­struct the se­quence in your head.”

“It isn’t that hard. I was ask­ing ques­tions about No­rathar, and—”

“Of whom?”

“Eh? Well, No­rathar, first of all. And Cawti. And a ser­vant in the Palace, who first told me No­rathar was now War­lord.”

She nod­ded. “Go on.”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“Is it? Where did these Drag­onlords hear about it?”

“I as­sume from the Teck­la. Or, in­di­rect­ly from the Teck­la.”

“That’s what’s both­er­ing me.”

“You didn’t even know about it.”

She didn’t deign to an­swer that. “Imag­ine how they heard it.”

“The Teck­la gos­sips to one of his friends, the Drag­onlord over­hears it—”

“When is the last time you knew of a Drag­on lis­ten­ing to a Teck­la’s gos­sip?”

I shrugged, which sent pain shoot­ing from my rib to the op­po­site shoul­der. “Okay, then the Teck­la men­tions it to some­one who some­one will lis­ten. Snake up a rope, as they say.”

“When did you speak to the Teck­la?”

“Yes­ter­day.”

“So, how long did this all take?”

“Kiera, how long does it take?”

“I’m not say­ing it’s im­pos­si­ble. I’m just sus­pi­cious.”

“What do you think hap­pened in­stead?”

“I would very much like to know.”

“If you’re of­fer­ing to look in­to it for me, you know I’m not go­ing to turn you down.”

She sat on the edge of the bed, cross-​legged, which was on­ly strange when I thought about it lat­er. “I’m not sure,” she said at last. “The fact is, I don’t want to look in­to it, I want to fig­ure it out.”

“I know that one.”

“So, any ideas?”

“Yeah, give up. At least, it’s nev­er worked for me.”

“Vlad—”

“Look, I still think it was just what it seemed to be. How can I fig­ure out what I don’t think hap­pened?”

“Work with me.”

I sighed. “All right, let’s as­sume you’re right. In the first place, if the beat­ing wasn’t a mes­sage not to in­ves­ti­gate the War­lord, then the mes­sage didn’t come across very well, be­cause I have no idea what it might be about.”

“I think we can as­sume they weren’t telling you not to help Aliera.”

“That sounds pret­ty safe.”

“So, what else have you been do­ing that might have of­fend­ed some­one?”

“Hid­ing from the Jhereg. And you know how much Drag­ons hate that.”

“Heh.” Then she said, “No, wait a minute.”

“Kiera, if Drag­onlords start car­ing about Jhereg busi­ness—”

“Vlad, what made you think they were Drag­ons?”

I sighed. “Ev­ery­body is ask­ing me that. Most­ly be­cause if they were Jhereg, I’d be dead. And if they were Or­ca, I’d have won.”

“Or­ca? What do Or­ca have to do with this?”

I waved it away. “If they weren’t Drag­onlords, who do you think they were?”

“I think they were Jhereg.”

“Then why didn’t they—”

“Be­cause they weren’t hired to kill you, just to beat you.”

“By whom?”

“The Left Hand,” she said.

Iorich

10

Q: Please state your name and house.

A: Efrin, Teck­la.

Q: Where do you live?

A: Nowhere. I used to live in Tir­ma.

Q: Ad­dress the Court as “my lord.” You say you live nowhere, how is that pos­si­ble?

A: My home was burned down on the same day my wife, my son, and my daugh­ters were mur­dered by butch­ers in uni­form.

Q: The wit­ness is re­mind­ed to ad­dress the Court as “my lord.” How is it you weren’t there when it hap­pened?

A: I was tak­ing the mule and the keth­na to Nu­vin’s, to keep them safe from the mon­sters.

Q: The wit­ness is re­mind­ed for the last time to ad­dress the Court with re­spect, and speak of the Im­pe­ri­al sol­diers—

A: Im­pe­ri­al mon­sters. [wit­ness is re­moved]

“All right,” I said at last. “Tell me about it.”

“How much do you know about the Left Hand of the Jhereg, Vlad?”

“Last time we spoke, about as much as you, and you knew noth­ing.”

“That was sev­er­al years ago. You made me cu­ri­ous. I’ve been learn­ing things.”

“Then maybe it’s time to fill me in on what you’ve learned?”

“I could tell you, but then I’d have—”

“That isn’t fun­ny.”

“Yes it is.”

“Uh, all right. It is. But tell me any­way.”

She nod­ded. “You know how they start­ed?”

“I’ve heard sto­ries. Sor­cer­ess­es ex­pelled from dif­fer­ent Hous­es for il­le­gal sor­cery band­ing to­geth­er, that sort of thing.”

She nod­ded. “From me, as I re­call. Well, they’re pret­ty much true, as far as I can tell. And, yes, they’re in­volved in il­le­gal mag­ic; ev­ery­one knows that, and it’s even true.”

“Rare for some­thing ev­ery­one knows,” I sug­gest­ed.

“But they’re al­so—I don’t know how to say this with­out in­sult­ing your cul­ture, Vlad.”

“I have a pret­ty thick skin.”

“They have cus­toms like an East­ern cult.”

“Um. I’m less in­sult­ed than I am con­fused.”

“East­ern mag­ic—at least, in rep­uta­tion—is se­cre­tive, yes?”

I thought about my grand­fa­ther and start­ed to ob­ject, then re­mem­bered the oth­er witch­es I’d en­coun­tered, and grunt­ed an agree­ment.

“The Left Hand is like that, com­plete with oaths of si­lence and obe­di­ence and rit­uals of mem­ber­ship.”

“Huh. Doesn’t sound very busi­nesslike.”

“That was my thought, too.”

“If the Jhereg tried to op­er­ate that way, they’d be laughed—”

“We used to.”

“What?”

“Be­fore the In­ter­reg­num.”

“You’re kid­ding.”

“Nope.” She ex­tend­ed her hand and crossed her mid­dle fin­gers and in­toned, “For the breath of this life I bind my­self to pro­tect my pro­tec­tors, to pro­vide for my providers, to—”

“You’re kid­ding!”

She shook her head. “Not too many laughed about it, as it hap­pened.”

“Good thing I wasn’t around then. I’d have laughed, and chances are they wouldn’t have cared for that.”

“Chances are,” she agreed.

“All right, so they wal­low in child­like su­per­sti­tion in be­tween mak­ing peo­ple un­re­viv­ifi­able and eaves­drop­ping on pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions. What else?”

“All sorts of ar­cane rules.”

“Rules. The kind that are good for busi­ness, or the kind that in­ter­fere with busi­ness?”

“Some of one, some of the oth­er, and some that de­pend.”

“Dammit, don’t be coy.”

“I’m giv­ing you what in­for­ma­tion I have; you have to de­cide what’s use­ful and what isn’t. Isn’t that what you al­ways do?”

“Uh. I guess. So, the beat­ing?”

“The Left Hand doesn’t want you in­ter­fer­ing with their machi­na­tions.”

“Then why not kill me?”

She shook her head. “You aren’t their prob­lem. You’re the Right Hand’s prob­lem.”

“But—”

“And don’t make the mis­take of think­ing they’re all one co­he­sive whole, Vlad. In­di­vid­uals, fac­tions—some might have want­ed to take you out for the boun­ty, oth­ers don’t care about that, just want this in­ter­fer­ing East­ern­er out of the way. But the big thing is this: the Jhereg—our Jhereg, the Right Hand—wants it Mor­gan­ti. Hav­ing a few peo­ple dress up as Drag­onlords to beat you up is one thing; putting a dull shine on you in the Im­pe­ri­al Palace is some­thing else again.”

“A dull shine. I’ve nev­er heard that eu­phemism be­fore. It’s very, uh, vivid.”

She shrugged. “The fact that it has to be Mor­gan­ti is pro­tect­ing you. Isn’t that amus­ing?”

“I’m laugh­ing on the in­side; laugh­ing on the out­side hurts too much.”

She winced in sym­pa­thy. “Any­thing bro­ken?” she asked.

“A rib cracked, I think.”

“Let me bind it.”

“You know how to do that?”

“You pick up a bit of ev­ery­thing, af­ter a while. Take your shirt off.”

I sat up with­out as­sis­tance, but she helped in the shirt re­moval pro­cess. When a dag­ger dropped out from un­der my left armpit, she pre­tend­ed not to no­tice. She al­so pre­tend­ed not to no­tice var­ious things strapped to my wrist. She pressed on the bruise, and when I hissed, she nod­ded sage­ly, just like a re­al physick­er. She al­lowed as to how she’d be back short­ly, and then tele­port­ed out. She was back short­ly—un­der a minute—with a roll of ban­dages.

I de­clined her help in stand­ing up, for what rea­son I couldn’t say. Rais­ing my arms hurt a lot. The pro­cess of wrap­ping the ribs wasn’t any fun, but I did feel bet­ter af­ter­ward, and even re­mem­bered to tell her so. She said, “Good. I’d give you all sorts of in­struc­tions about what to do and not do, but I don’t ac­tu­al­ly know them, ex­cept for the ones you’re go­ing to ig­nore, and the ones you can’t help but fol­low, so let’s just pre­tend I did.”

“We al­so could have pre­tend­ed to do the part where you poked my cracked rib.”

“Then how could you have trust­ed me to bind it? Let’s get back to un­tan­gling this mess.”

“I’m not sure I can think about any­thing ex­cept breath­ing right now, but I’m will­ing to try.”

“If you’d take that amulet off for a minute, I could—”

“No, thanks.”

“As you please. So, why were you beat­en by peo­ple pre­tend­ing to be Drag­onlords?”

“Pre­tend­ing.”

“Yes.”

“You just seem aw­ful­ly con­vinced of that.”

She gave a Kiera shrug—more im­plied by the twitch of her lips than by any move­ment of her shoul­der—and said, “I won’t say I can’t be wrong. I just don’t think I am.”

“Then you think it was the Left Hand?”

“Thugs hired by them, yes. At least, that’s the first thing that comes to mind.”

“So then, why?”

“To get you to do some­thing you wouldn’t oth­er­wise do. What did you do?”

“I saw No­rathar, and used the event to pry some in­for­ma­tion out of her.”

“What in­for­ma­tion? Oh, right. You won’t tell me.”

“I’d rather not. It wasn’t any­thing she want­ed to tell me.”

“So?”

“If you need to know—”

“I will nev­er, ev­er, un­der­stand East­ern­ers.”

“What, that we have scru­ples?”

“Not that you have them; where you keep them.”

Sethra would have un­der­stood com­plete­ly, but this time I kept my mouth shut about it. “So, any­way, there’s your an­swer: I was able to get in­for­ma­tion from No­rathar that I wouldn’t oth­er­wise get.”

She nod­ded. “And does the Left Hand know you well enough to have pre­dict­ed you’d do that?”

I start­ed to say no, stopped, con­sid­ered, and said, “It’s not im­pos­si­ble, I sup­pose. But it’s a lit­tle scary if they do. Think of how much they’d have to know, how many im­pli­ca­tions, how many pos­si­bil­ities.”

“Maybe. But, you know, they wouldn’t have had to know you’d do it. Just know­ing you might do it would be enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“Vlad, I un­der­stand that you might not pay at­ten­tion to what I say, but you ought to pay at­ten­tion to what you say, don’t you think?”

“Kiera, you know I love you. But I swear by all I de­spise that I would hit you over the head with a chair if I could lift one right now. Please just ex­plain it? Please?”

“You’ve just said that, af­ter the beat­ing, you got No­rathar to tell you things she wouldn’t have oth­er­wise.”

“So? How does that ben­efit them?”

“The Left Hand, Vlad. What do they do?”

“Il­le­gal mag­ic. De­vices for gam­blers to cheat. De­feat­ing spells to pre­vent eaves­drop—oh.”

“Yes.”

“They were lis­ten­ing.”

“We’d best as­sume so.”

“No­rathar is go­ing to kill me.”

“I don’t much care about that,” said Kiera sweet­ly. “I’m wor­ried about who else she’s li­able to kill.”

“Oh. Yes. Um. If they’re clever enough to know what I’d do, aren’t they clever enough to know what No­rathar will do?”

“You’d think so.”

“Well?”

She spread her hands. “Maybe they’re count­ing on her years in the Jhereg to have giv­en her some sense. Or maybe they think it’s worth the gam­ble. Or maybe that’s ex­act­ly what they want.”

“Com­ing up with a com­plex plan that, if it works, will re­sult in your throat be­ing cut seems like a lot of wast­ed think­ing. But maybe that’s just me.”

“I don’t know, Vlad.”

“Can you find out?”

“How? I have no sources in the Left Hand. No one does. How­ev­er stupid you may think their rit­uals are, they work: No one who isn’t one of them knows any­thing.”

“Ugh,” I sug­gest­ed. I won­dered what had hap­pened to the side of my left shoul­der to make it hurt so bad; I didn’t re­mem­ber get­ting hit there. “You can’t do what they do with­out leav­ing a trace. That means there are ways to find out.”

She nod­ded. “Let me know how that works out for you.”

“Kiera—”

“What do you ex­pect me to do about it?”

“I don’t know. Kill some­one. Steal some­thing. Fig­ure some­thing out.”

“The first and last are your busi­ness. I’ll be glad to steal some­thing as soon as you tell me what you want me to steal.”

“Maybe I’ll hire Mario.”

“Heh. As if—” She stopped. “You might, you know.”

“And pay him with what?”

“Vlad, he’s Aliera’s lover.”

“Um. Yeah, I’ve heard that. Is it true?”

She frowned. “I don’t know. It might be worth find­ing out.”

Mario, in case you’ve nev­er heard of him, is to as­sas­sins what So­rami­ir is to sor­cer­ers. If you’ve nev­er heard of So­rami­ir, don’t feel bad; I hadn’t ei­ther un­til a few days ago.

I thought about it. “It’s cer­tain­ly some­thing to keep in mind. At the mo­ment, how­ev­er, I’m not sure just who I’d ask him to kill.”

She nod­ded.

I said, “This busi­ness of them guess­ing what I would do, and plan­ning on it, would make me un­com­fort­able if I be­lieved it. Like, I couldn’t do any­thing be­cause they’d know just what I’d do.”

“I think you’re over­stat­ing it a bit.”

“I know. But it’s strange. Ev­er had some­one try that on you?”

“No. But then, I’ve been pret­ty scrupu­lous about Jhereg rules.”

I winced. I guess I had that com­ing. “My first re­ac­tion,” I said, “is to just find some Left Hand busi­ness some­where and start mess­ing it up, to see what they do. Pick one at ran­dom, so they can’t pre­dict it. It’ll give me some­thing to take my frus­tra­tions out on. I sup­pose that would be stupid. Un­less I can find some use­ful as­pect.”

“There are worse ideas.”

“Al­so bet­ter ones, I sus­pect. But if they re­al­ly have this planned based on pre­dict­ing my ac­tions—which I still don’t be­lieve—then do­ing some­thing un­pre­dictable might have some ben­efit.”

“Sup­pose I’m right—us­ing this to kill you is just a grace note in a larg­er con­cert.”

“All right. What then?”

“Who is play­ing the in­stru­ment? That is, who in the Left Hand have you es­pe­cial­ly pissed off?”

“Tri­esco,” I said.

“You don’t aim small, do you?”

“What’s the point of hav­ing weak en­emies? They just waste your time.”

“It would make sense,” said Kiera. “From what I know of her, she’s pow­er­ful, ruth­less, skilled, and not all that nice. And, yes, she’s quite ca­pa­ble of hatch­ing a plot like a Yen­di.”

“Match­es what I know,” I said. “Think it’s her?”

“If you an­noyed her, prob­ably.”

“Well, then.”

“So,” she said to the air. “How did it go down? What are they plan­ning? Or her, if it’s her.”

“Kiera?”

“Hm­mm?”

“Thanks.”

She nod­ded ab­sent­ly, her eyes fo­cused over my shoul­der, a frown of con­cen­tra­tion on her brow. “The more I think about it, the more I think your idea of ran­dom­ly mess­ing up a Left Hand cov­er busi­ness isn’t that bad. It’ll make them re­spond to some­thing new. It could cause a slip.”

“Hear that, Loiosh? It’s from Kiera. You can’t ar­gue.”

“Sure I can.”

“But you won’t.”

“Sure I will.”

Sure he would. “In that case,” I said, “I need to find out a few of their busi­ness­es, so I can pick one to mess up. I’m go­ing to en­joy this.”

“Are you in any shape to do any mess­ing? Or, rather, will you be to­mor­row?”

I grunt­ed. “Maybe not. Maybe that’s why they did it. Can’t ig­nore the pos­si­bil­ity that they beat me in or­der to beat me.”

She laughed. I hadn’t thought it was that fun­ny, but you nev­er know what will strike Kiera as amus­ing. “I’d vol­un­teer to help,” she said. “But mess­ing peo­ple up isn’t my tal­ent.”

“It isn’t a tal­ent, Kiera. It’s a learned skill.”

“I nev­er learned that skill, then.”

There was a lot I could have said to that, but noth­ing that would have been well re­ceived. “Do you hap­pen to know any of their places of busi­ness?”

“A cou­ple of the more ob­vi­ous ones: There’s a sor­cery sup­ply shop on Lock­wood, just west of the mar­ket. I’ve seen them go in and out of the place af­ter hours. And there’s a tin­smith on Den­cel that has to have some oth­er source of in­come, and I know it isn’t Jhereg—I mean, our Jhereg. But give me a day or so and I’ll see if I can find a few more, so you have a good list to pick from.”

I nod­ded. “I ap­pre­ci­ate it.”

“We have friends in com­mon,” she said.

“Yes.”

“For now, if you won’t re­move the amulet—”

She broke off with an in­quir­ing look. “I won’t,” I said.

She nod­ded. “Then I think you should get up and come with me.”

I gave her a sus­pi­cious look. “Where are we go­ing?”

“Down two flights of stairs.”

“Why?”

“Trust me,” she said.

Put that way, I had no choice. I reached for my shirt, but she said to leave it off, so I buck­led on my rapi­er and La­dy Tel­dra, and threw my cloak over my shoul­ders, feel­ing dis­tinct­ly odd with a cloak and no shirt. Then I fol­lowed her out the door.

We went back down to the main lev­el of the inn, then fol­lowed a vine-​cov­ered stone walk­way out­side and around, back in­to the build­ing, and down an­oth­er flight of stairs, at which point I be­gan to smell some­thing rot­ten and sharp—it near­ly stung my nose—and vague­ly fa­mil­iar.

“What am I smelling?”

“Brim­stone.”

“Oh. Uh, that doesn’t bode well.”

“Trust me.”

We emerged at last in­to what looked like a wide un­der­ground cav­ern, though some of the walls had been smoothed and there were sculp­tures here and there of im­pos­si­ble beasts, many of them with steam­ing wa­ter com­ing out of their mouths. There was a large pool in the mid­dle, and screens set about it. Kiera led me to one of the screens. Stuck in­to it was a small green flag, up­side down. She re­moved it, stuck it in right side up. “Af­ter you,” she said. I went past the screen, which she re­placed be­hind me. In front of me was a small pool; the brim­stone smell was very in­tense here, and the wa­ter was steam­ing heav­ily and bub­bling.

“Get in,” she said.

“What will this do?”

“Make you hurt less to­mor­row.”

“Re­al­ly?”

“Ei­ther that or boil the skin off you. One or the oth­er. Maybe both. Get in.”

I start­ed to ar­gue, stopped, shrugged, and re­moved my cloak. “Are you go­ing to turn your back?”

“No,” she said.

I re­moved my boots and pants with as much dig­ni­ty as I could; the pain helped keep my mind off my em­bar­rass­ment. “What about the ban­dage?”

“Keep it on. I’ll change it when you get out.”

Loiosh and Rocza com­plained about the smell and flew over to the side, stay­ing well away from the wa­ter. I couldn’t blame them.

My first re­ac­tion was that it was, in­deed, go­ing to boil the skin off me. But it was ei­ther im­merse my­self, or stand there naked in front of Kiera, and I’d rather hurt than look ab­surd.

It was very hot, and it al­so stank. I hoped like hell it would do enough good to be worth it.

Soak­ing your­self in hot, bub­bling wa­ter is odd: the first touch burns, then you find you can stand it, and then af­ter ten min­utes or so it gets too hot again. I have no idea why that is; I just knew I want­ed to get out. Kiera ex­plained that if I got out she’d push me back in again, and I didn’t think I’d be able to stop her. Loiosh thought the whole thing was pret­ty fun­ny.

I stayed in there for an­oth­er five min­utes or so, then Kiera pro­duced a tow­el from some­where and said, “That should do it.”

I stood up and wrapped the tow­el around my­self. “How many sor­cer­ers does it take to keep all this wa­ter so hot?”

“None,” she said. “It’s nat­ural.”

I looked at her face to see if she was kid­ding, but I couldn’t tell, so I let it drop.

“How do you feel?” she want­ed to know.

“Scald­ed.”

“I sup­pose.”

“But not bad, re­al­ly.”

“Good,” she said. “I heard some­where that East­ern­ers couldn’t take that much heat, that their hearts would ex­plode. But I didn’t be­lieve it.”

I stared at her. She smiled sweet­ly. I shook my head and de­cid­ed not to think about it too much.

“Go get some rest,” she said as I dressed my­self. “I’ll try to get you some use­ful in­for­ma­tion, and then we’ll fig­ure out what to do next.”

Odd­ly enough, I felt like I could rest. I still ached, but I felt re­laxed and a lit­tle drowsy. Maybe more than a lit­tle; I don’t re­mem­ber walk­ing back up the stairs, or even ly­ing down, ex­cept that I have a half-​mem­ory of Loiosh say­ing some­thing that, at the time, I didn’t think was very fun­ny.

When I woke up, some un­known num­ber of hours lat­er, it was dark out­side. A check with the Im­pe­ri­al Orb told me it was still a few hours be­fore dawn, and a check with my body told me I hurt a lot. Log­ic and ex­pe­ri­ence con­vinced me I hurt less than I should have, but that was of strict­ly lim­it­ed com­fort. I guess those hot baths had done some­thing, any­way.

I stood up, and care­ful­ly—very care­ful­ly—went through what I re­mem­bered of the warm-​up ex­er­cis­es my grand­fa­ther had taught me when I was learn­ing sword­play. He’d told me they worked to loosen up tight mus­cles, and that no mag­ic was in­volved. I couldn’t do ev­ery­thing—my rib ob­ject­ed loud­ly to a lot of the po­si­tions be­fore I could even get in­to them; but what I did seemed to help. I took it slow, spend­ing over an hour stretch­ing care­ful­ly and field­ing com­ments from Loiosh about my new ca­reer as a dancer. I dis­cussed his new ca­reer as a wall dec­ora­tion, but he didn’t seem es­pe­cial­ly scared.

As I made my way in­to the court­yard, Loiosh spot­ted some­one who looked like he might be a Jhereg. I wait­ed in­side the door while he and Rocza scout­ed the area, and even­tu­al­ly found a cir­cuitous route out of the place and to the Palace, where no one was watch­ing. I mean, I don’t know it was a Jhereg, and it if was I don’t know that he was go­ing to do any more than watch my move­ments. But I didn’t feel in­clined to take chances.

I passed through the Palace like I’d been do­ing it all my life, out the Iorich Wing, and in­to the House of the Iorich. There were no mys­te­ri­ous notes out­side his door, and Loiosh said Perisil was in­side, or else some­one who breathed ex­act­ly the same. Loiosh once gave me a lec­ture on how to iden­ti­fy peo­ple by the sound of their breath­ing; I lis­tened to be po­lite.

I clapped. Af­ter a mo­ment, I clapped again. The door opened enough for him to look at me, then he grunt­ed and opened it more. We sat.

“You’ve been busy,” he said.

Ei­ther his pow­ers of ob­ser­va­tion didn’t ex­tend to things like how slow­ly I was mov­ing or how gin­ger­ly I sat or the pur­plish bruis­es on my face, or else it just wasn’t some­thing he felt like talk­ing about. I said, “What do you mean?”

“About an hour ago, I got word that the pros­ecu­tion against Aliera was tem­porar­ily de­layed, while the Em­pire car­ried out ‘fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions.’ ”

“Um,” I said. “Is that good?”

“I don’t know,” he said. His pe­cu­liar eyes nar­rowed a lit­tle and he cocked his head. “What did you do?”

“I spoke with the War­lord. She, it seems, had a plan with the Em­press to keep from hav­ing to ex­ecute Aliera, and I ex­plained why it wouldn’t work.”

He sat back. “Ah!” he said. “Well, that tells us at least that Her Majesty doesn’t want to ex­ecute Aliera.”

“We knew that al­ready.”

“Yes, I sup­pose we did.”

“Is there a re­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion, or is it just some­thing they’re say­ing so they can slow things down?”

“Both. There’s a re­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion, but it isn’t about Aliera’s use of pre-​Em­pire sor­cery. They’re ac­tu­al­ly look­ing in­to the events at Tir­ma.”

I sat back, which hurt more than I’d have thought, and tried to fig­ure out ex­act­ly what that might mean. I failed. “There are a lot of an­gles to that,” I said.

“Yes. It means ev­ery­thing to our case if we can draw the con­nec­tion; noth­ing at all if we can’t. And in the mean­time, we can’t do any­thing un­til we know if the Em­pire is ac­tu­al­ly go­ing to fol­low up on the pros­ecu­tion.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

His eye­brows went up. “Go on.”

“I just mean we may not have things to do legal­ly, but on my end—”

“The things you won’t tell me about.”

“Right. On my end, I have a few things to fol­low up on.”

He stared at his desk, then looked up. “I don’t like be­ing kept in the dark about things that have an ef­fect on my case.”

“I don’t blame you.”

He grunt­ed. “All right. Do what you have to.”

I nod­ded and re­frained from say­ing that I ful­ly in­tend­ed to, what­ev­er he said. “Any­thing else?”

“Not for now. Keep me in­formed of any­thing you can keep me in­formed of.”

“You too.”

He grunt­ed and I made my way to my feet and left. He nev­er did re­mark about how I was mov­ing.

I tried to walk as if I wasn’t hurt; it made me feel less of a tar­get, though I guess there isn’t much log­ic be­hind that—any as­sas­sin worth his stone would as­sume I was in top form be­fore mak­ing a move any­way.

I need­ed to know what Cawti and her cute lit­tle band of would-​be rebels were up to; I al­so couldn’t ask her, since my at­ti­tude about them was what had led to our breakup.

I stopped just in­side the door of the Wing that would lead me back out to­ward the Palace. I saw no sign of any­one watch­ing me. That doesn’t prove there wasn’t any­one, but I’m pret­ty good at notic­ing such things when I look. The trick is re­mem­ber­ing to look.

“Where to now, Boss?”

“I need to see Cawti again. Right away.”

Then, “Sor­ry, Boss.”

“Yeah. Any ideas how to get there with­out draw­ing a crowd? I hate to re­peat a trick. Be­sides, I don’t think the Jhereg would fall for the same one twice.”

“You know I’m not much with the ideas, Boss.”

“I need to see Cawti, and I very much do not want to di­rect any­one there. Any­thing you can come up with—”

“Walk around un­til you’re sure you’ve been spot­ted, find who­ev­er is fol­low­ing you, and kill him?”

“I’ll con­sid­er that op­tion.”

Oth­er than Loiosh’s sug­ges­tion, I couldn’t come up with any great ideas, so I went the old tra­di­tion­al route of try­ing to lose some­one in a crowd, al­ter­nat­ing with emp­ty streets with a lot of turns so you can see if any­one is stay­ing with you. This can be very ef­fec­tive with one per­son tail­ing you; with two or more who are stay­ing in touch, it’s less re­li­able. But I had the Palace right at hand, which had the ad­di­tion­al ben­efit of be­ing pret­ty much off-​lim­its to any­one try­ing to take me down, es­pe­cial­ly Mor­gan­ti.

I spent a good cou­ple of hours at it, stop­ping on­ly to get some bread and sausage from a ven­dor I passed. When I was as con­vinced as pos­si­ble that I was un­ob­served, I ducked out through the Jhe­gaala Wing be­cause it had a nice shrub bor­der near where the coach­es were. Loiosh and Rocza re­mained out­side, fly­ing around and keep­ing watch. I switched coach­es once, near Bri­isan Cen­ter, then fi­nal­ly gave the ad­dress of Cawti’s house.

Iorich

11

Lord Carv­er, present­ly in the Iorich Wing await­ing ex­ecu­tion, has re­fused to speak to the com­mit­tee. We can, how­ev­er, rea­son­ably con­clude that his pri­ma­ry mo­tive was fi­nan­cial. It is clear both from the buildup of mil­itary force be­gin­ning in Zeri­ka 239 and what may be called pro­pa­gan­da ef­forts be­gin­ning in Zeri­ka 249 that the at­tempt to break away had been planned for some years. What is less cer­tain is that he ex­pect­ed sup­port from Count­ess Sicera and Barons High­hold and De­lo­ra. Whether he did ex­pect such sup­port, what rea­sons he may have had for such ex­pec­ta­tions, and why this sup­port was not forth­com­ing is be­yond the scope of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion, save to note that, had he in fact had such sup­port the pos­si­bil­ity of suc­cess of his re­bel­lion would have been con­sid­er­ably strength­ened.

I had the coach drop me off a few hun­dred feet away, so Loiosh, Rocza, and I could take a last look around. It seemed clear, so I ap­proached the cot­tage. Vlad No­rathar was out front, us­ing the ni­ball rac­quet to keep a ball in the air. He was con­cen­trat­ing very hard, but even­tu­al­ly no­ticed me, stopped, and gave a hes­itant bow.

“Well met, sir,” I told him, giv­ing him my best sweep­ing bow. He grinned, mak­ing his whole face light up. The door opened and Cawti came out. “And well met to you as well, madam.”

“I didn’t ex­pect to see you back so soon,” she said, look­ing at me as if un­cer­tain whether to be pleased or wor­ried.

“Some things have come up. Ques­tions. Do you have time to talk?”

It was the mid­dle of the day; a lit­tle ways down the street a Teck­la wa­tered a gar­den, prob­ably for the crafts­man who owned the house. A cou­ple of chil­dren walked to­ward us, es­cort­ed by a bored-​look­ing nurse.

“Come in, then,” she said. “Come in­side, Vlad.” This last was to the boy, though it jarred me a bit when she said it. She held the door open for him, and I brought up the rear, Loiosh and Rocza land­ing on my shoul­der, at the same mo­ment, as we stepped through the door­way. Vlad No­rathar turned when he heard the wings flap­ping, and his eyes got big.

“Bloody damned show-​offs.”

Some­thing like a chuck­le came in­to my head.

Cawti asked if I want­ed some brandy, and I did. She poured it, neat, un­chilled, and got some­thing for her­self. She gave Vlad No­rathar what looked to be a glass of wine mixed with wa­ter. He sat in a full-​sized chair and wait­ed, ready to be part of the con­ver­sa­tion. I’d heard the ex­pres­sion “I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry,” but I hadn’t giv­en it much cred­it un­til that mo­ment.

Yeah, okay, what­ev­er.

“It’s good to see you,” she said.

“What hap­pened to your face?” said Vlad No­rathar.

“I was beat­en up.”

“By who?”

“Whom,” said Cawti.

“I’m not ex­act­ly cer­tain,” I said.

“Are you go­ing to find out, and then beat them up?”

I hes­itat­ed. When in doubt you can al­ways fall back on hon­esty. “If I have the chance to hurt them, I will.”

He nod­ded, and seemed about to ask more, but I guess Cawti didn’t like where the con­ver­sa­tion was go­ing. “So,” she said. “What is it?”

I tried to fig­ure out how to ex­press it. “Why am I al­ways in a po­si­tion where I need to know what’s go­ing on, and no one will tell me any­thing?”

“You aren’t ac­tu­al­ly ex­pect­ing me to an­swer that.” She phrased it as a state­ment.

“No, I’m not.”

“What is it, then?”

She was wear­ing an olive-​green dress, with a white half-​bodice, half-​vest that laced up in front; there were a few ruf­fles from her white shirt show­ing at the col­lar, and the sleeves were big and puffy. It was the kind of thing that made you ache to un­lace it. Her hair was look­ing es­pe­cial­ly black against it. Damn her, any­way. “Can you tell me any­thing at all about what, uh, what your peo­ple, your group, are do­ing about this mas­sacre?”

Her brows came to­geth­er and she looked gen­uine­ly puz­zled. “Vlad, there isn’t any se­cret about that. We’ve been ag­itat­ing about it since it hap­pened, and—”

“Pub­licly?”

“Of course.”

“What about pri­vate­ly?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.” She said it as if she re­al­ly wasn’t. I hes­itat­ed, and she said, “Maybe you could give me an idea of why you need to know.”

“Um,” I said. “Some of this I can’t tell you.”

Her eyes sparkled for a mo­ment, just like they used to. “Ex­plain to me again what you were say­ing about need­ing to know things and no one be­ing will­ing to tell you any­thing.”

I felt my­self smil­ing. “Yeah.”

Vlad No­rathar re­mained in his chair, his eyes mov­ing from one of us to the oth­er as we spoke. He had some of his wine, hold­ing the mug in both hands, his eyes watch­ing me over the rim. I’ve been stared at by a lot scari­er guys who made me a lot less ner­vous. I cleared my throat.

“Ev­ery­thing ties in­to ev­ery­thing else,” I said.

She nod­ded. “Yes, we’ll start with the big gen­er­al­iza­tions. Okay, go on.”

I sup­pressed a growl. “The Jhereg is up to some­thing big and nasty,” I said. “They’re work­ing with the Or­ca. I don’t know how un­rest among Teck­la and East­ern­ers will play in­to it. It might work against what they’re do­ing, in which case your group will be a tar­get. Or it might work for it, in which case you’ll be help­ing them.”

“Vlad, I don’t know where you get the idea that we can con­trol pop­ular un­rest. We can’t. On the day we can, we’ll be liv­ing in a dif­fer­ent world.”

“Um. All right, sup­pose I ac­cept that. I don’t think the Jhereg will.”

She nod­ded. “I ap­pre­ci­ate the warn­ing; I’ll pass it on.”

“Good,” I said. “But that wasn’t ac­tu­al­ly what I was af­ter.”

“All right. What are you af­ter?”

“Try­ing to fig­ure out what will hap­pen, how the Jhereg will re­spond, how the Em­pire will re­spond to that, and how I have to re­spond to the Em­pire.”

She nod­ded. “Good luck with that.”

“I drown in the depths of your sym­pa­thy.”

“Vlad—”

I sighed. “Okay.”

“I just don’t know what I can tell you that would do you any good.”

“Do you ex­pect ri­ots?”

“I wish I knew. Peo­ple are an­gry enough. We’re do­ing all we can to stop them, but—”

“Stop them?”

She blinked. “Of course, Vlad. A ri­ot isn’t go­ing to do any­thing ex­cept get some heads bro­ken.”

“Um. Okay, looks like I need to re-​eval­uate.”

“Does this throw off your plan?”

“No, not that bad. I hadn’t got­ten as far as hav­ing a plan.”

She nod­ded; she knew my way of work­ing as well as any­one. Bet­ter than any­one. “We’re not the on­ly group work­ing in South Adri­lankha and among the Teck­la, you know.”

“Um. Ac­tu­al­ly, I didn’t know that.”

“There are at least six in­de­pen­dent or­ga­ni­za­tions.”

“Re­al­ly. Well. What would hap­pen if you all got to­geth­er?”

“To do what?”

“Eh, I don’t know.”

“If we all got to­geth­er, nei­ther would we. Since we have op­po­site ideas on what to do, ‘get­ting to­geth­er’ doesn’t seem like it would ac­com­plish a great deal, does it?”

“Okay, okay. I hadn’t meant to start some­thing. What are these oth­er groups up to?”

She rolled her eyes. “Var­ious things. Some of them are get­ting up pe­ti­tions to the Em­pire. Some are or­ga­niz­ing food and mon­ey to be sent to the sur­vivors in Tir­ma. Some are or­ga­niz­ing march­es de­mand­ing the Em­pire in­ves­ti­gate. Some are en­cour­ag­ing peo­ple to in­di­vid­ual acts of vi­olence against Im­pe­ri­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Some—”

“Wait a minute. Acts of vi­olence?”

Her lips pressed to­geth­er and she nod­ded. “Po­lit­ical­ly naive is the kind­est thing you can say about it; sui­ci­dal is more ac­cu­rate.”

“Can you tell me what they’re plan­ning?”

She gave me a hard look. “From what I know of them, they aren’t plan­ning any­thing, they’re just en­cour­ag­ing peo­ple to at­tack Im­pe­ri­al Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. And if they were plan­ning some­thing, I wouldn’t be in a po­si­tion to know what it is. And if I were in such a po­si­tion, I cer­tain­ly wouldn’t tell you about it.”

She’s very good with hard looks. I hadn’t no­ticed Vlad No­rathar re­act­ing to her voice, but he must have, be­cause Cawti reached out and stroked his head.

“Un­der­stood,” I said. “I won’t press you on that.”

“And if you’re go­ing to find them, you’ll do it with­out my—”

“I don’t plan to do that,” I said.

“All right.”

I didn’t, ei­ther. What­ev­er their chances were of killing some­one, their chances of ac­tu­al­ly af­fect­ing things were nil. But some­thing or some­one else might. Maybe. I need­ed to think.

“You look like you need to think,” she said.

I nod­ded.

She was qui­et. So was the boy, ex­cept that his eyes were very loud. I stood up and paced; he watched me. Af­ter a lit­tle bit, I said, “It isn’t the group that wants to kill Im­pe­ri­al Rep­re­sen­ta­tives that both­ers me. It’s the group press­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

“Ac­tu­al­ly,” said Cawti, “that’s some­thing we’re press­ing for, too. But we want an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by us, by the peo­ple; they want the Em­pire to in­ves­ti­gate it­self.”

I di­gest­ed that. “Do you think you’ll get any­where with your, ah, in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion?”

“I don’t think ask­ing the Em­pire to in­ves­ti­gate it­self is go­ing to get any­thing. Do you?”

“That,” I said, “is just what I’m try­ing to fig­ure out.”

She snort­ed. “Even if they could con­vince—”

“They don’t have to. It’s al­ready hap­pen­ing.”

She stopped. “Is it in­deed?”

“So I’m told.”

“I hadn’t heard about it.”

“It’s pret­ty new. Al­so, prob­ably, pret­ty se­cret.”

“A se­cret in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” she said. “Well, I think we can all have a lot of con­fi­dence in that.”

“I think the Em­press wants to know what hap­pened, and why.”

“I’d like to know my­self,” said Cawti.

“But there are oth­ers who don’t.”

She arched an eye­brow.

“The Jhereg,” I said.

“The Jhereg? Why would they care?”

“It might in­ter­fere with the schemes they’re try­ing to hatch.”

“What ex­act­ly are these fa­mous schemes?”

“That,” I said, “is ex­act­ly what I can’t talk about.”

She nod­ded.

“It’s bet­ter to talk about what’s both­er­ing you,” said Vlad No­rathar.

My first in­cli­na­tion was to ar­gue with him, which is fun­ny when you think about it. But I had the feel­ing Cawti wouldn’t have ap­pre­ci­at­ed that, so I just said, “You’re right, but some­times you have to not talk about things be­cause you don’t want to get some­one else in trou­ble.”

That seemed to make sense to him. He nod­ded.

“You have friends, you know,” said Cawti.

I nod­ded. “Hard to for­get; it’s the on­ly rea­son I’m still around to ir­ri­tate the Jhereg. Have you heard any­thing from the Left Hand?”

She shook her head. “They’re keep­ing the agree—why?” she asked, sud­den­ly look­ing alert.

“This might in­volve them, too.”

She sighed. “You cer­tain­ly do make a lot of en­emies for a lov­able guy.”

“It’s my bur­den.”

A smile came and went on her an­gu­lar face, framed in straight black hair, her eyes dark and deep. It was hard to be­lieve one face could con­vey such a range of—

“Boss, if you can’t fo­cus on the prob­lem, I’m go­ing to in­voke my ex­ec­utive au­thor­ity to get us out of this town.”

“When did you get ex­ec­utive au­thor­ity?”

“You should give me ex­ec­utive au­thor­ity.”

I stud­ied the ceil­ing over Cawti’s head. “How would I find these peo­ple?”

“They meet at the home of the lead­er, a print­er by trade. Her name is Brinea. She lives on Enoch Way, near Wood­cut­ter’s Mar­ket. A lit­tle cot­tage paint­ed an ug­ly green, with a pair of ev­er­greens in front.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you ac­tu­al­ly need to see them?”

“I’m not sure. There’s too much I’m not sure of right now.”

She nod­ded. “This is li­able to get bloody, Vlad.”

“Yeah, I had that same thought.”

“As long as you know.”

I shrugged. “I’ve done bloody be­fore.”

“How re­cent­ly?”

“I’ve been try­ing to use my head more and my knives less.”

“That’s what wor­ries me.”

“What, try­ing to shake my con­fi­dence?”

She shook her head. “Try­ing to re­as­sure my­self that you aren’t get­ting in­to some­thing you can’t han­dle.”

“I’m glad you care.”

“You know I care.”

“Yeah. I just like be­ing re­mind­ed from time to time.”

She looked at Vlad No­rathar. I fol­lowed her gaze; he was look­ing at me cu­ri­ous­ly.

“Okay,” I said. “I see your point.” I got up and opened the door. Loiosh and Rocza flew out. A cou­ple of min­utes lat­er, Loiosh let me know the area was safe.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said. “Vlad No­rathar, it is al­ways a plea­sure, sir.” I bowed.

He stood, care­ful­ly set his wine cup down, and did a cred­ible im­ita­tion of my bow, his leg back and his hand sweep­ing the floor. Then he straight­ened up and grinned.

Cawti smiled proud­ly at him, then walked me to the door.

“Un­til next time, Vlad,” she said, and the door closed soft­ly be­hind me.

I had nowhere in par­tic­ular to be, and rea­son to be­lieve I didn’t have a tail, and I felt like walk­ing; so I made my way to Wood­cut­ter’s Mar­ket in South Adri­lankha. Enoch Way wasn’t marked, but one of those East­ern wom­en who looks like ev­ery­one’s grand­moth­er grunt­ed and point­ed, then looked at me as if won­der­ing why I didn’t know some­thing so ob­vi­ous. I of­fered her a coin, which she re­fused with a snort.

Loiosh and Rocza flew above me, in cir­cles, watch­ing as I strolled down the street like any good cit­izen; ex­cept of course that not many East­ern­ers open­ly wore steel at their sides, and the cut of my clothes was bet­ter than most.

It was easy to find the cot­tage; it was just as Cawti had de­scribed it. I stood across the street, lean­ing against a dead tree in the front of a row of cheap hous­ing, and stud­ied the ug­ly green. I prob­ably should have been able to de­duce things about the per­son who lived there just by look­ing at it, but I couldn’t. I mean, yeah, the yard was neat; so what? Did she keep it that way, or did a hus­band, or had they hired some­one to do it? The paint was pret­ty new, but, same thing.

I watched the place a lit­tle longer, but no one came in or out. I thought about break­ing in. Maybe. Couldn’t think what I’d be li­able to learn, and to have some­one find me would be em­bar­rass­ing. But if there was some­thing to find—

“Boss, hide.”

I ducked be­hind the oak tree. “What?”

“You’ve been found. Dra­gaer­an, Jhereg col­ors, big but moves well. He’s got those eyes.”

I knew what he meant by that; there’s some­thing around the eyes of some­one who’s done “work.” I guess maybe I have that look, too. Or did. I don’t know.

“Find me a clean way out?”

“Look­ing.”

I re­mained still and wait­ed, my fin­gers tap­ping on La­dy Tel­dra’s hilt. I’d been in much scari­er sit­ua­tions than just one lone Jhereg. If this was more com­pli­cat­ed than that, well, I’d have to trust Loiosh to let me know in time; mean­while I was ready, but not ner­vous.

“Boss, uh, some­thing odd.”

“That isn’t use­ful.”

“He’s about twen­ty feet away from you, stopped, lean­ing against that emp­ty store­front, pret­ty well con­cealed from the street. He knows his stuff.”

“All right. And?”

“And when he got there, some­one else left the same spot.”

“We walked right by some­one?”

“Seems like. But that isn’t the thing. He’s watch­ing the house.”

“Oh.”

“You think he isn’t here for you?”

“Let’s stay here for a bit and watch the watch­er. What’s the oth­er guy do­ing?”

“Leav­ing, try­ing to look in­con­spic­uous. Do­ing all right at it.”

“What are the chances they rec­og­nized me?”

“How should I know, Boss? I mean, prob­ably not; you’re just an­oth­er East­ern­er here. But—”

“Right. We can’t know. Okay, let’s hang out and see what hap­pens.”

On re­flec­tion, it seemed that break­ing in­to the house would have been a bad idea af­ter all.

“Is there a way I can get in­to a po­si­tion to watch him?”

“I’ll check.” And, “All right. This way.” He land­ed on my shoul­der, and guid­ed me be­hind the row of hous­ing, through some yards with bits of dis­card­ed fur­ni­ture and bro­ken pot­tery, and then around. I hugged a house, set­tled in, and wait­ed, watch­ing.

Well now. Here was an in­ter­est­ing sit­ua­tion.

The so­lu­tion, of course, pre­sent­ed it­self at once, see­ing as I wasn’t in a hur­ry. If for what­ev­er rea­son you are un­able to speak with some­one psy­chi­cal­ly, there is a vi­tal tool that you must nev­er be with­out: a scrap of pa­per and a wax pen­cil.

“I’m run­ning an er­rand?”

“Yes, in­deed. Un­less Rocza can do it.”

“Bet­ter be me. Are we in a hur­ry?”

“On­ly be­cause I’m go­ing to be re­al­ly bored un­til you get back.”

I scratched out a note and hand­ed it to him. He took it in a claw and flew off. I squat­ted down and set­tled in to wait. I didn’t move; the guy I was watch­ing didn’t move. I oc­cu­pied my time with try­ing to de­cide whether I knew the guy, and, if so, from where. He looked vague­ly fa­mil­iar; I might have hired him for some­thing once. Or I might have just seen him at—

“Hel­lo, Vlad. You wished some­thing?”

I heard the voice at the same time I felt the pop of dis­placed air; I didn’t quite jump and scream. I’d have glared at him, but it was my own fault for not telling Loiosh to warn me, so in­stead I just glared.

“Hel­lo, Day­mar. Long time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nev­er mind. Yes, I’d like a fa­vor of you, if you aren’t busy.” He was float­ing, cross-​legged, about three feet off the ground. It’s an easy trick, and I can­not for the life of me imag­ine why he thinks it might be im­pres­sive. Maybe he just thinks it’s com­fort­able, but it doesn’t look com­fort­able.

I’d known him for, well, for years. Tall, dark, and a Hawk­lord, with all that im­plies. If it doesn’t im­ply any­thing for you, I’ll spell it out: He’s vague, ir­ri­tat­ing, very good at what he does, and com­plete­ly obliv­ious of any­thing that might be go­ing on around him un­less it ex­cites his par­tic­ular in­ter­est. It’s good to know peo­ple like Day­mar, even if it means putting up with peo­ple like Day­mar. But when it comes to mess­ing around with the in­side of some­one’s head, there’s no one bet­ter. I’ve used his skills in the past, and I’ll use them again if I don’t evis­cer­ate him in­stead.

I said, “See that fel­low over there?”

He looked. “No,” he said.

“Look again. There. No, where I’m point­ing. Just bare­ly around the cor­ner from the door.”

“Oh. Yes. What’s he do­ing?”

“Same thing I am. The ques­tion is, who is he do­ing it for?”

“Should I ask him?”

I took a breath, let it out again. “That wasn’t ex­act­ly what I had in mind.”

“Oh. You mean, some­thing more in­va­sive?”

“Yes.”

He paused. “He’s wear­ing pro­tec­tion.”

“Oh. Does that mean you can’t find out?”

He looked at me, as if try­ing to see if I was jok­ing. Then he said, “No.”

“Okay, but I don’t want him know­ing what hap­pened.”

That earned me an­oth­er look; which was fine, that’s why I’d said it.

I know, I know; it isn’t nice to ir­ri­tate some­one who is do­ing you a fa­vor. It prob­ably isn’t smart, ei­ther. But if you’d ev­er met Day­mar, you’d un­der­stand. Be­sides, this gave him an ex­cuse to show off, which was what he lived for.

No, that isn’t fair. It wasn’t about show­ing off for him, it was his fas­ci­na­tion with the thing he was do­ing—it was a chance to use his skill, to do what felt right for him to do. I could un­der­stand that; I used to feel the same way when set­ting up to put a shine on some­one. Not the killing, the set­ting up: that feel­ing of ev­ery­thing func­tion­ing the way it’s sup­posed to, of your mind go­ing above it­self, of—

“Got it,” he said.

I nod­ded. “What did you learn?”

“That he’s bored, that this is stupid, that noth­ing has been hap­pen­ing, and that he’s glad he doesn’t have to make the re­port.”

“Um. Let’s start with the last. He doesn’t have to make the re­port?”

“No, he’s just help­ing out some guy named Wid­ner.”

“And he doesn’t know who Wid­ner re­ports to?”

“Nope.”

I sug­gest­ed that my pa­tron god­dess should take sen­su­al plea­sure, though I didn’t put it quite in those terms. “Why doesn’t he want to make the re­port?”

“I can’t say ex­act­ly; I just got the im­pres­sion that who­ev­er the re­port is be­ing giv­en to, he wouldn’t like her.”

“Her.”

He nod­ded.

“Oh.”

I with­drew my sug­ges­tions about the De­mon God­dess.

Well now, that was all sorts of in­ter­est­ing. “Thank you, Day­mar. You’ve been most help­ful.”

“Al­ways a plea­sure, Vlad.”

There was a “whoosh” of air and he was gone, all abrupt and stuff, leav­ing me with my thoughts, such as they were.

Her.

If it was a “her” that Wid­ner was re­port­ing to, it was the Left Hand of the Jhereg.

Why was the Left Hand keep­ing a watch on what hap­pened in that lit­tle cot­tage?

Be­cause the Left Hand was in­volved in what­ev­er the Jhereg—the Right Hand, I mean—and the Or­ca were do­ing. And be­cause hav­ing Brinea and her peo­ple push­ing for the Em­pire to in­ves­ti­gate the mas­sacre in Tir­ma might mess up the plans.

Okay, fine. Why?

Be­cause the Em­pire, just on the off chance that they were hon­est (what­ev­er Cawti might say about that pos­si­bil­ity), would, by in­ves­ti­gat­ing, un­der­cut the pres­sure the Jhereg and the Or­ca were putting on them, and their scheme would fall through.

So, what would they do? They’d stop the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, if they could.

How? How do you go about stop­ping an Im­pe­ri­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion? And what did it have to do with some weird group of East­ern­ers gath­ered in a lit­tle cot­tage in South Adri­lankha?

Loiosh re­turned from his er­rand and land­ed on my shoul­der.

“Is he gone al­ready, Boss?”

“Yeah, and so are we. I have stuff to do.”

Iorich

12

Q: State your name and House.

A: Aliera e’Kieron, House of the Drag­on.

Q: What was your po­si­tion at the time of the in­ci­dent in Tir­ma?

A: As near as I can re­con­struct the mo­ment, I was sit­ting down.

Q: Please tell us your of­fi­cial po­si­tion with re­spect to the Em­pire.

A: Pris­on­er.

Q: Please tell us your of­fi­cial po­si­tion, with re­spect to the Em­pire, at the time of the in­ci­dent in Tir­ma.

A: War­lord, al­though in point of fact, my re­spect for the Em­pire is, at this mo­ment, un­der some­thing of a strain.

Q: Were the Im­pe­ri­al troops in Tir­ma act­ing un­der your or­ders?

A: I was the War­lord.

Q: I take that as an af­fir­ma­tive.

A: You can take that and—yes, they were act­ing un­der my or­ders.

Q: What or­ders did you give with re­spect to the re­bel­lion in the duchy of Carv­er?

A: To sup­press it.

Q: Were you spe­cif­ic as to the means of sup­press­ing it?

A: I thought per­haps a nice bou­quet of can­dle­bud sur­round­ing a bot­tle of Ailor would do the trick.

Q: The Court re­minds the wit­ness that copies of her or­ders are in the Court’s pos­ses­sion.

A: The wit­ness won­ders, then, why the Court is both­er­ing to ask ques­tions to which it knows the an­swers.

Q: The wit­ness is re­mind­ed that she may be held in con­tempt.

A: The feel­ing is mu­tu­al.

“Want to tell me about it, Boss?”

Just to be un­pre­dictable, I filled him in on what I’d put to­geth­er. When I’d fin­ished, he was qui­et for a while; maybe from shock. Then he said, “Okay, what now?”

“Can you think of any rea­son for the Left Hand to have that cot­tage watched, ex­cept for what I’m think­ing? They’re push­ing for an Im­pe­ri­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and the Left Hand doesn’t want that to hap­pen. Am I miss­ing some­thing?”

“Boss, you don’t know any­thing about those peo­ple. That’s one thing they’re do­ing. What if it’s some­thing else en­tire­ly?”

“Like what?”

“How should I know?”

“You re­al­ly think it’s some­thing else?”

“No, I think the same as you. But you don’t know.”

“Then let’s run with that for the mo­ment, and see where it gets us. If the Em­pire in­ves­ti­gates, the deal’s off, and the Jhereg, the Or­ca, and the Left Hand all lose. So, they don’t want the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to hap­pen.”

“But it’s hap­pen­ing any­way, hav­ing noth­ing to do with any­one in any lit­tle cot­tage. Where does that leave us?”

“That’s what I’m try­ing to work out.”

“Work away.”

“Okay. How do you stop an Im­pe­ri­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion?”

“You know, Boss, that’s some­thing you ne­glect­ed to cov­er in my train­ing ses­sions.”

“Can’t pres­sure the Em­press di­rect­ly, we have noth­ing to pres­sure her with.”

“I don’t get it, Boss. Why is the Em­press do­ing this, any­way?”

“So she can get out from un­der the Jhereg; to look good to the no­bles, and maybe to the peo­ple too, I don’t know.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that.”

“So then, the thing to do is to dis­cred­it the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

“Good plan, Boss. How do you do it?”

“Spread ru­mors that these East­ern­ers are be­hind it? Maybe plant some ev­idence?”

“Pos­si­ble.” He didn’t sound con­vinced. Nei­ther was I, for that mat­ter.

“Boss, where are we go­ing?”

I stopped. As I had been think­ing and walk­ing, my feet had tak­en me over the Stone Bridge and were lead­ing me back to my old area—the worst place I could be. The chances of the Jhereg spot­ting me were too high to make me com­fort­able any­where in the city; in my old neigh­bor­hood it was near­ly cer­tain.

“Uh, nowhere. Back to the Palace, I guess.”

I changed di­rec­tion; Loiosh kept his com­ments to him­self.

I made it to the Palace with­out in­ci­dent, en­ter­ing through the Drag­on Wing just to be con­trary, and be­cause I was in a mood to glare back. I found some food, then crossed to the House of the Iorich.

I clapped, and, once again, he opened the door enough to peer out, then let me in. One of these days, I was go­ing to have to ask him why he does that.

I sat down and said, “The Em­press is launch­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the events at Tir­ma.”

“Yes,” he said. “I seem to re­mem­ber telling you that. What about it?”

“Do you think it’s a re­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion?”

He frowned. “As op­posed to what?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “A bunch of run­ning around, closed-​door tes­ti­mo­ny, fol­lowed by what­ev­er re­sult the Em­press wants.”

“I doubt it’s that, not from this em­press. I should find out who is in charge of it. That might tell us some­thing.” He stood up. “I may as well do it now.”

“Should I wait here?”

“Yes, but re­lax. This might take a while.”

I nod­ded. He slipped out. I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. I guess I fell asleep, or at least dozed. I had some vague­ly dis­turb­ing dream that I can’t re­mem­ber, and woke up when Perisil came back in.

“Were you sleep­ing?” He seemed amused.

“Just rest­ing my eyes,” I said. “What did you learn?”

“It’s be­ing run by La­dy Jus­ticer De­saniek.”

He sat down be­hind his desk and looked ex­pec­tant­ly at me. “Sor­ry,” I said. “I don’t know the name.”

“She’s one of the High Jus­ticers. I trust you know what that means?”

“More or less,” I said.

“I know her. She isn’t cor­rupt­ible. She’s a lit­tle fast and loose with her in­ter­pre­ta­tions of the tra­di­tions, but com­plete­ly unim­peach­able when it comes to judg­ment and sen­tenc­ing.”

“So you’re say­ing that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is straight.”

“Prob­ably. She’d be an odd choice if the Em­press didn’t want to ac­tu­al­ly learn what hap­pened, and why.”

“Might there be oth­er pres­sures on her, less di­rect than or­ders to rig it?”

He hes­itat­ed. “Maybe.”

“So then, how would some­one stop it?”

“Stop it?” he said. “Why would you want to do that?”

“Not me. There are oth­ers.”

“Who?”

“Let’s say pow­er­ful in­ter­ests. How would they go about stop­ping it?”

“I can’t an­swer that un­less you give me more in­for­ma­tion. What in­ter­ests? Why do they want to stop it? Pow­er­ful in what way?”

“All good ques­tions,” I said. I paused to con­sid­er just what I could tell him. It was frus­trat­ing: he could al­most cer­tain­ly tell me use­ful things if I didn’t have to wor­ry about what he might be made to tell.

“Just sup­pose,” I said, “that there ex­ist­ed a large crim­inal or­ga­ni­za­tion.”

I hes­itat­ed there; he watched me, lis­ten­ing, not mov­ing.

“And sup­pose,” I said, “that they had come up with a great idea for chang­ing the law in such a way that they made a lot of mon­ey, and that they were work­ing with cer­tain oth­er very pow­er­ful in­ter­ests.”

“How pow­er­ful?”

“As pow­er­ful as you can be at the bot­tom of the Cy­cle.”

“Go on.”

“And sup­pose that this idea for chang­ing the law re­quired putting pres­sure on the Em­press, and that this in­ves­ti­ga­tion had a good like­li­hood of re­liev­ing that pres­sure.”

“I’m with you.”

“How would such a hy­po­thet­ical or­ga­ni­za­tion go about stop­ping or sab­otag­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion?”

He was silent for a minute or two; I could al­most hear his brain bub­bling. Then he said, “I can’t think of any way.”

“Heh. Sup­pose they killed De­saniek?”

“Would they do that?”

“They might.”

“It wouldn’t work any­way. The Em­pire would find some­one else just as good, and make sure it doesn’t hap­pen again, and hunt down who­ev­er did it.”

“I sup­pose so. In any case, I apol­ogize; I un­der­stand this is out­side of your usu­al line of work.”

He shrugged and a wisp of a smile came and went. “It’s a wel­come break from think­ing about rules of ev­idence and forms of ar­gu­ment.”

“Oh? You don’t en­joy your work?”

“I do, re­al­ly. But it gets te­dious at times. This whole case has been a bit out of the or­di­nary for me, and I ap­pre­ci­ate that.”

“A plea­sure to be of ser­vice,” I said. “I can’t imag­ine do­ing what you do.”

“I can’t—that is—nev­er mind.”

“Do you care whether the per­son you’re de­fend­ing is ac­tu­al­ly in­no­cent or guilty?”

“In­no­cent and guilty are le­gal terms.”

“You’re evad­ing the ques­tion.”

“You should be an Iorich.”

“Thank you, I think.”

“The House has de­creed that, what­ev­er a per­son may or may not have done, he is en­ti­tled to be de­fend­ed. That is suf­fi­cient for me.”

“But if he tells you he did, doesn’t that—”

“No one would tell me that, be­cause I’d have to tes­ti­fy to that fact.”

“Oh, right, I knew that. But if, say, the per­son im­plies it, or hints at it—”

“I still give him the best de­fense I can, be­cause that’s what the House dic­tates, and what Im­pe­ri­al law de­crees as well.”

“And you feel good about that?”

He looked puz­zled for a minute. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Huh? Me? I’d feel bet­ter about it if the poor bas­tard was guilty. But I’m not an Iorich.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“It feels good if a guy walks away, then?”

“What are you get­ting at?”

“Noth­ing, re­al­ly. I’m mak­ing con­ver­sa­tion and let­ting the back of my head work on this prob­lem.”

“Oh.” He gave me an odd look, then said, “It feels good to make the best ar­gu­ments I can, and it feels good when, some­times, it ac­tu­al­ly has some­thing to do with jus­tice.”

“Jus­tice? What’s that?”

“Se­ri­ous ques­tion?”

“No, but an­swer it as if it were.”

“I don’t know. I don’t get in­to the deep­er, mys­ti­cal as­pects. Some do. But jus­tice? Edicts oc­ca­sion­al­ly have some­thing to do with jus­tice, but statutes al­most nev­er do.”

“Uh, what do they have to do with?”

“Prac­ti­cal­ity. For ex­am­ple, right here in Adri­lankha, when meat­pack­ing be­came such a big in­dus­try, they passed lo­cal statutes say­ing that any peas­ant who fell short for the year could be kicked off his land. The no­bles raised an out­cry, but didn’t have the clout to do any­thing about it.”

“I don’t un­der­stand what that has to do with meat­pack­ing.”

“Kick peas­ants off the land, there’s your la­bor force for the pack­ing plants. Along with a lot of East­ern­ers, of course.”

“Oh. Are they that, I don’t know, ob­vi­ous about it?”

“Some­times. In the area around Lake Shalo­mar—right where Tir­ma is—they dis­cov­ered sil­ver. First thing that hap­pened was an in­flux of min­ers, the sec­ond thing was an in­flux of mer­chants sell­ing to the mi­nors. So the Duke passed a statute tax­ing both the sale and the pur­chase of min­ing equip­ment, set tax­es to some ab­surd lev­el, and pro­vid­ed for the con­scrip­tion of any­one un­able to pay the tax. That’s how he re­cruit­ed his army. I don’t think you’d call that jus­tice.”

“Um. No, I imag­ine not.”

“There are worse cas­es. Around the Ko­rlaph, north of the Push­ta, they dis­cov­ered tin, and had a re­al la­bor short­age. The Count went on a statute ram­page, and by the time he was done, he not on­ly owned all the mines, but had made up the most ab­surd laws to have a few thou­sand lo­cals ar­rest­ed, and then sen­tenced them to work the mines.”

“He can do that?”

“Once in a while, some­one has enough fam­ily with enough mon­ey to bring a par­tic­ular case to the at­ten­tion of the Em­pire, and a par­tic­ular law gets over­turned.”

“And I thought the Jhereg was cor­rupt.”

“Law is a re­flec­tion of so­ci­ety, jus­tice is a re­flec­tion of an ide­al­iza­tion of that so­ci­ety.”

“You’re quot­ing some­one.”

He nod­ded. “Yurstov, Iorich Em­per­or of the Fifth Cy­cle, who tried to cre­ate an ac­tu­al jus­tice sys­tem. He failed, but he did some good.”

“And you stay with Edicts be­cause they aren’t as bad?”

He frowned. “I guess that’s part of it, though I don’t think of it in those terms. I had a client once who an­noyed some­one, and the some­one set him up to look like he’d com­mit­ted a crime. I got him off. That felt like jus­tice.”

“Was it? I mean, what had he done to an­noy the guy?”

Perisil shrugged. “I don’t know. As I said, the deep­er lev­els I leave to oth­ers. But that’s jus­tice to me. Sup­pose some poor fool of a Teck­la steals a chick­en from his land­lord be­cause he’s hun­gry. And some high-​and-​mighty Or­ca man­ages a scheme to cheat his crew out of half their pay. If the first guy gets off with a cou­ple of cuts, and the sec­ond goes to the Star, well, to me that’s jus­tice.”

“How of­ten does that hap­pen?”

“I don’t know; I don’t deal with those sorts of cas­es. Those have to do with tra­di­tion­al law, and I work with Edicts. More of­ten it’s the oth­er way around, I should think. Is there a point to all this, Lord Tal­tos?”

“I’m a cu­ri­ous guy, is all. And you’re—odd.”

“You’ve met ad­vo­cates be­fore.”

“Yes, but on­ly the ones in­ter­est­ed in mon­ey.”

“Oh,” he said. “Yes, I sup­pose so.”

I stood up. “Sor­ry, I’ll let you work.”

“And you?”

“I need to think like a Jhereg.”

“I imag­ine that comes eas­ier to you than think­ing like an ad­vo­cate.”

“A lit­tle,” I said. “Oh, one oth­er thing. De­saniek. Where do I find her?”

His eyes nar­rowed. “Why do you want to know?”

“I’m not sure. But I have no in­ten­tion of killing her.”

“If you even talk to her—”

“I doubt it will come to that.”

He hes­itat­ed, then said, “While she’s con­duct­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, she’ll be work­ing out of the Of­fice of the Im­pe­ri­al Jus­ticer in the Im­pe­ri­al Wing.”

“What does she look like?”

He frowned again. He clear­ly didn’t like the way this con­ver­sa­tion was go­ing.

“Re­al­ly,” I said. “I don’t in­tend to kill her. Or beat her. I don’t know what I’m go­ing to do, but it could end up that I’ll be sav­ing her life, de­pend­ing on how things shake out.”

“All right,” he said. “But I’m not very good at de­scrib­ing peo­ple.”

“What’s the first thing you no­tice about her?”

“Um. Her face?”

“Any­thing spe­cial about how she dress­es, or what she wears—”

“She keeps her hair up, and she al­ways wears a stick­pin in it with a lot of lit­tle di­amonds.”

“Thanks,” I said. “That should do it. And don’t wor­ry about it too much.”

I took my­self out of the of­fice and back up to the main floor of the House. I need­ed to think, and I need­ed to find a place to do it. I crossed over to the Iorich Wing, stared for a mo­ment at the sculpt­ed thing and won­dered what it sym­bol­ized, then end­ed up let­ting my feet car­ry me to­ward the pris­ons while I tried to put the pieces to­geth­er.

I hadn’t got­ten any­where when I reached the big gates; the same guard was there. He said, “You want to see Aliera?”

“Yes,” I said, though I hadn’t ac­tu­al­ly for­mu­lat­ed the idea.

I just had to sign and seal one pa­per, af­firm­ing that ev­ery­thing I’d signed be­fore still ap­plied. Some­one I’d nev­er seen be­fore guid­ed me in.

I clapped at the door be­fore the guard could; she opened the door and let me in, say­ing, “One hour.”

Aliera was in the same place, the same po­si­tion she’d been in be­fore. I had the im­pres­sion she hadn’t moved since I’d left. On the ta­ble next to the couch were sev­er­al wine bot­tles, all emp­ty.

“Well,” she said, glar­ing at me.

“Ver­ra!” I said. “First Sethra, now you. Great.”

“Huh?”

“When I spoke with Sethra, she was drunk, too.”

“Is there some­thing I should be do­ing in­stead?”

“An­swer­ing my ques­tions.”

“Ask them.”

“First ques­tion: Did you know the Em­press is start­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the events in Tir­ma?”

“First an­swer: Why should I care?”

“Be­cause it was not want­ing to run that in­ves­ti­ga­tion that led to you be­ing ar­rest­ed.”

“So you say. And by the way, yes I knew. Some Iorich came in here and want­ed to ask me ques­tions about it.”

“And you were in just the shape you’re in now, right?”

She shrugged.

“Per­fect,” I said. “Can you re­mem­ber what she want­ed to know?”

“Sure. She want­ed to know if I en­joy slaugh­ter­ing in­no­cent Teck­la.”

“Did she ask that in so many words?”

Aliera made a vague sort of dis­miss­ing ges­ture.

I said, “You’re prob­ably too drunk for this to do any good, but I need to point out that if the Em­pire is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the re­al thing, then there’s no need for them to press fake charges against you.”

“And yet,” she said, “here I am.”

“Yes. I’m try­ing to fix that.”

She yawned. “Let me know how that works out.”

“If I come back to­mor­row, will you be sober?”

“If I stay drunk, will you stay away?”

I could have point­ed out that she wasn’t help­ing, but I was be­gin­ning to get the idea that this wouldn’t be a pow­er­ful ar­gu­ment. There needs to be a bet­ter word than “stub­born” to de­scribe a Drag­onlord whose pride has been of­fend­ed, and then a bet­ter word than that to de­scribe Aliera.

“So tell me,” I said. “Do you en­joy slaugh­ter­ing in­no­cent Teck­la?”

She stared at me for a minute, then burst out laugh­ing. Since I’d fig­ured it was ei­ther that or she’d kill me, I was just as pleased. She laughed for much longer than it was worth, but I at­tribut­ed that to her state. Even­tu­al­ly she wiped her eyes and said, “Yes, but not by proxy.”

“I doubt the Iorich would ac­cept that an­swer.”

“You nev­er know,” she said. “They might. I’ll ask my ad­vo­cate if we should base our de­fense on it.”

“Do that. I’ll ask the Em­press what she thinks.”

“Do that. I’m cu­ri­ous about what’s be­hind all of this.”

“Me too. That’s what I’m do­ing here.”

“What, you think I can tell you some­thing?”

“Al­most cer­tain­ly. And you might even be will­ing, if I knew what to ask.”

She swirled the wine in her glass and stared at it. “Maybe I would. What ex­act­ly is the prob­lem you’re try­ing to solve?”

I gave her a quick run­down about things as I saw it.

“So, you think the Jhereg,” she al­most spat the word, “are go­ing to sab­otage this in­ves­ti­ga­tion?”

“Have you ev­er known them, or the Or­ca, to give up a chance for prof­it if there was a way not to?”

“No. But I don’t see any­thing they can do that won’t back-​fire on them.”

“You aren’t re­al­ly drunk, are you?”

“No, not re­al­ly.”

“I should prob­ably tell No­rathar, or else the Em­press, about what I think is go­ing on.”

“Prob­ably.”

“Un­less you’d rather.”

“Why would I?”

“I don’t know. A way of say­ing there are no hard feel­ings?”

“What makes you think there are no hard feel­ings?”

“Okay, a way of play­ing pol­itics? My prob­lems aren’t the sort that can be solved by hav­ing the Em­pire owe me any­thing.”

“I don’t ac­tu­al­ly care.” She hes­itat­ed. “But thanks for the of­fer.”

“D’ski!tna.”

“What?”

“You owe me no debt.”

“I know what it means. When did you learn Se­ri­oli?”

“On­ly a cou­ple of words,” I said, feel­ing my face turn­ing red. “I met a bard who—nev­er mind.”

She shrugged. “Any­thing else, or can I get back to plot­ting my jail­break?”

“You can get back to it. Can I smug­gle you in a lit­tle blue stone or some­thing?”

“They’re ac­tu­al­ly pur­ple, and, yes, I’ll take three of them.”

“Heh.”

I stood up to go. She said, “Vlad.”

“Hm?”

I ex­pect­ed her to thank me for all my work. Or maybe an­nounce some­thing pro­found, like telling me about a vi­sion she’d had of the De­mon God­dess. What she said was, “I don’t mind my daugh­ter play­ing with your son.”

“Um. Okay, thanks.”

I had the guard let me out of the place.

Be­ing in the Palace any­way, I went back to the same ven­dor and found some sausages that weren’t too bad, and bread that could have been staler, then made my way back to my room. Loiosh told me it was emp­ty, so I went in. I lay down on the bed and tried to think. My stom­ach grum­bled a lit­tle. I won­dered if I was get­ting too old to be liv­ing on bread and sausage; that would be sad.

As I lay there, I found my hand stroking the tiny gold­en links on the hilt of La­dy Tel­dra. In the years I’d had her, I’d on­ly used her twice; I some­how thought that would please her. Those thoughts led me to an­oth­er Is­so­la I knew, but I pushed those away: I need­ed to con­cen­trate on busi­ness.

My hand kept stroking La­dy Tel­dra’s hilt.

Hey, you in there? Any ideas? Can you help?

Noth­ing.

I sud­den­ly missed her—I mean, the re­al per­son—very sharply. It’s all well and good to think of her per­son­al­ity be­ing pre­served in­side a weapon, but for one thing, I’d nev­er felt it that I could be sure of. And for an­oth­er, I didn’t en­tire­ly be­lieve it. I won­der if she would say mur­der­ing a bunch of Teck­la was im­po­lite. I won­dered if the fact that I didn’t much care made me a bad per­son. Prob­ably.

“I won­der if she’d say any­thing about ly­ing on top of the bed with your boots on.”

“Prob­ably.”

My mind wan­dered, which is a good thing, be­cause some­times it wan­ders to where it needs to go and un­cov­ers just the right rock. In this case, it wan­dered to High Coun­sel Perisil. An in­ter­est­ing fel­low. What I’d said to him had been true: None of the ad­vo­cates I’d run in­to be­fore had any in­ter­est oth­er than in mak­ing them­selves rich. This shouldn’t be seen as say­ing any­thing about the House over­all: it’s a par­tic­ular set of them who end up work­ing for the Jhereg. I don’t know, maybe the Jhereg ex­erts an in­flu­ence on some peo­ple, turn­ing them. Or maybe those with such in­cli­na­tions, in any House, are more sub­ject to work­ing for them, more sub­ject to tak­ing and giv­ing bribes, to stab­bing peo­ple in the back, to set­ting up some poor bas­tard the way Perisil had said—

Oh.

Well, sure. That would do it.

“You think, Boss?”

“Why not? What would hap­pen?”

“I don’t know. You fig­ure that out.”

“I al­ready have, Loiosh. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be stopped, at least for a while, and there would be all sorts of noise about round­ing up and sup­press­ing Teck­la and East­ern­ers, and the no­bles would blame Zeri­ka for let­ting it get out of hand, and it would be a round throw whether she’d be able to get things back in hand, or whether she’d have to cave to the Jhereg to get the pres­sure off.”

“That’s the part I don’t see, Boss. How does go­ing along with the Jhereg re­lieve the pres­sure on Zeri­ka?”

“Now that is an ex­cel­lent ques­tion, my fine jhereg friend. I think I’ll go ask her.”

“Now?”

“I’ll prob­ably have to wait for hours to see her; can you think of a rea­son not to start the wait?”

“Put that way, I guess not.”

It was ear­ly evening; just be­gin­ning to get dark. I didn’t know what hours Her Majesty kept, but it could do no harm in ask­ing, so long as no one pol­ished me up dur­ing the walk from the inn to the Palace.

Loiosh and Rocza kept care­ful watch, and I took the round­about path I’d tak­en be­fore, and made it to the Palace with­out in­ci­dent. I won’t bore you with a rep­eti­tion of mak­ing my way to As­skiss Al­ley. Harn­wood was still there; like Aliera, he seemed not to have moved.

“Count Szurke,” he said.

I bowed. “Good Lord Harn­wood, would it be pos­si­ble to find out if Her Majesty would con­sent to see me?”

His face gave no sign there was any­thing odd in the re­quest. “Is it ur­gent?”

“A few hours or a day will make no dif­fer­ence,” I said. “But I have new in­for­ma­tion.”

He didn’t ask about what. Maybe he knew, but more like­ly he knew it was none of his busi­ness. “I shall in­quire. Please have a chair.”

I did, and wait­ed maybe half an hour.

“The Em­press will see you.”

I start­ed to fol­low him, stopped, and said, “When back­ing away from Her Majesty at the end of the in­ter­view, how many steps do I take be­fore turn­ing around?”

He smiled; I think the ques­tion pleased him. “If you are here as a per­son­al friend of Her Majesty, then five. If you are here as Count Szurke, then sev­en. If as Baronet Tal­tos, then ten.”

“Thank you,” I said.

If I had the choice be­tween try­ing to fig­ure out an Is­so­la and try­ing to fig­ure out an Iorich, I think I’d take a nap.

Harn­wood led me through a dif­fer­ent route, short­er, and to a co­zi­er room; I had the strong feel­ing this was a part of her liv­ing quar­ters, which meant I was be­ing hon­ored, or else that I was ir­ri­tat­ing her, or both. She was wait­ing. Harn­wood bowed deeply to Her Majesty, less deeply to me. I bowed to Her Majesty, she nod­ded to me. It’s just like a dance.

She didn’t of­fer me a chair. I said, “Majesty, thank you for see­ing me. I hadn’t re­al­ized you knew the Necro­mancer.”

She frowned. “How did you—” then looked down at her gold­en out­fit. “You’ve seen Sethra re­cent­ly.”

“Your Majesty’s pow­ers of de­duc­tion are—”

“Leave it. What is this new in­for­ma­tion?”

“There is go­ing to be an ef­fort made to stop the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the events in Tir­ma.”

She frowned. “What sort of at­tempt, and how do you know?”

I nod­ded. “Please ac­cept my com­pli­ments, Majesty. Those are good ques­tions. I rec­og­nize good ques­tions, be­cause I can come up with them my­self.”

Her brows came to­geth­er. “Are you bar­gain­ing with me, Tal­tos?”

“No, Majesty. I’ll an­swer yours in any case. I’m hop­ing Your Majesty’s grat­itude will—”

“I get it. I’ll think about it.”

Be­ing Em­press means be­ing able to in­ter­rupt any­one, at any time. La­dy Tel­dra wouldn’t have ap­proved, but I have to ad­mit it was the first thing about the job I’d ev­er found at­trac­tive.

I said, “An at­tempt will be made on the life of Jus­ticer De­saniek. I know by de­duc­tion, from hints I’ve got­ten, and be­cause I know how the Jhereg op­er­ates.”

She stared. “The Jhereg? They wouldn’t—”

“It will look like an at­tempt by a group of East­ern­ers and Teck­la; one of those out­fits of po­lit­ical mal­con­tents. It will be very con­vinc­ing.”

She sat back and her eyes half closed. The Orb slowed down over her head, and turned pur­ple. I’d nev­er seen it slow down be­fore. I won­dered what it meant. Af­ter about a minute, she looked up at me. “What are your ques­tions, Tal­tos?”

“Just one: Why would they do it?”

“Eh?”

“I know about their at­tempt to get you to pass de­crees out­law­ing cer­tain chem­icals—”

“How do you know that?”

I an­swered the ques­tion she want­ed an­swered, not what she’d asked. I said, “From the Jhereg side, Majesty, not from any­one to whom you en­trust­ed the knowl­edge.”

“Very well.”

“As I said, I know about that. And I un­der­stand that Your Majesty—”

“For­get the for­mal speech, Tal­tos. I’m too tired and too ir­ri­tat­ed.”

The Orb had, in­deed, turned icy blue. I bowed slight­ly and said, “I un­der­stand you’re try­ing to break out of the trap by bring­ing the truth out about the events in Tir­ma, and I ad­mire that. But I don’t un­der­stand the oth­er side of it. That is, how it is that if you co­op­er­ate with the Jhereg, make the de­crees they want and all that—how does that take the pres­sure off you?”

She was qui­et for a long time; the Orb grad­ual­ly chang­ing from blue to a non-​de­script green. “My first du­ty,” she said slow­ly, “is to keep the Em­pire run­ning. If I fail in that, noth­ing else mat­ters. To run the Em­pire, I need the co­op­er­ation of all of those I can’t co­erce, and to co­erce those who won’t co­op­er­ate. To do that, I need the con­fi­dence of the no­bles and the princes. If I lose the con­fi­dence of the no­bles, of the princes, I can­not run the Em­pire.”

“Sounds pret­ty sim­ple. Can the Jhereg re­al­ly cause the no­bles and princes to lose con­fi­dence in you?”

“A week ago I thought they could. Now—” She shrugged. “Now I guess we’ll put it to the test.”

I bowed to her, backed up sev­en steps, and left.

Iorich

13

Caltho—I un­der­stand Hen­ish has re­fused to tes­ti­fy of­fi­cial­ly. I don’t think that will be a prob­lem, but if we’re go­ing to do this, we need to know what he knows. Can you speak with him in­for­mal­ly and find out just what hap­pened? Let him know we aren’t out to stick a knife in him, we just need to know, from his point of view, what the se­quence was. In par­tic­ular, try to as­cer­tain:

1. Did the troops have rea­son to be­lieve the peas­ants in that shack were work­ing with the en­emy?

2. Did the peas­ants do any­thing that looked like it may have been an at­tack, or prepa­ra­tion for an at­tack?

3. Were they ques­tioned, and, if so, how did they re­spond?

4. Did the troops see any weapons or any­thing that looked like it could be used as a weapon?

5. Did they vi­olate or­ders, and, if so, at what point did they de­vi­ate from or­ders or ex­pect­ed pro­ce­dures?

Let him know that if we can get straight an­swers to these ques­tions, even un­of­fi­cial­ly, I’m pret­ty sure we can put this thing away, what­ev­er the an­swers are.

—De­saniek (not au­then­ti­cat­ed)

How do you stop an as­sas­sin?

Sounds like it’s about to be a joke, doesn’t it? But no, I was re­al­ly ask­ing my­self that.

You’d think, what with me hav­ing been one for a big chunk of my life, I’d have some pret­ty good ideas on how to go about stop­ping one, but it doesn’t work that way. When I thought up a way that would have stopped me, I thought up a way to counter it.

The point is, most as­sas­sins I know work pret­ty much the same way: get the pat­tern of your tar­get’s move­ments, se­lect a spot, pick a time, make an es­cape plan, choose a method, then, well, you do it. If you want to stop the as­sas­sin, and you don’t know who it is, you need to do pret­ty much the same thing and be there first. Good luck with that.

Or else—hm­mm—maybe find the as­sas­sin while he’s set­ting it up? Yeah, that had some pos­si­bil­ities.

“Well, Loiosh? Got any bet­ter ideas?”

“Your job is to find bet­ter ideas, mine is to cut holes in the ones you have, and you’ve al­ready done that pret­ty well.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

I wan­dered around the Im­pe­ri­al Wing un­til I found a re­fresh­ing­ly snob­bish Teck­la who, for a bit of sil­ver, was will­ing to guide us to the of­fice of the Im­pe­ri­al Jus­ticer. Loiosh and Rocza hid in­side my cloak, which I should men­tion isn’t ter­ri­bly com­fort­able for any of us at the best of times, and with the added weight on my shoul­ders (lit­er­al­ly) now was flat no fun at all.

I was just as glad to have a guide—I’d nev­er have been able to find it on my own. I made a point of not­ing the twists, turns, and stair­ways, and when we got there (“Down this hall, the dou­ble doors with the iorich be­low the Im­pe­ri­al Phoenix there, you see, and the gold knobs? That one.”) I didn’t think I’d ev­er be able to find it again.

I dis­missed the Teck­la and walked in­to the of­fice, which was damn near as big as the throne room, and much more taste­ful­ly ap­point­ed, gold knobs notwith­stand­ing. A pleas­ant-​look­ing gen­tle­man with eye­brows that looked like he trimmed them sat be­hind a large high­ly pol­ished desk and in­quired as to my busi­ness, show­ing no signs of dis­com­fort at be­ing po­lite to me. I said, “I beg your par­don, m’lord, I’m in the wrong place.” I bowed low and humbly, as be­fit an East­ern­er, and walked out.

There was no one out­side the of­fice, so I took a good, slow look around. I was at the end of a long, wide hall­way; with no oth­er doors to the place, the in­sides prob­ably wrapped around, with a bunch of in­ter­nal of­fices, and al­so prob­ably went quite a ways back be­yond what I saw. There had been no win­dows in the room I was in.

Be­ing at the end of the hall­way like that was bad, be­cause there was no place to hide, but good be­cause it meant there was no oth­er way out—un­less there was a di­rect ex­it. I should have had Kiera steal the plans for the Palace, if there were any, and if I could have found a Val­lista to in­ter­pret them for me. Wide hall­ways mean im­por­tant peo­ple in the Palace, and maybe oth­er places too. I’ll make no com­ment on gold door­knobs; you de­cide.

It was marginal whether this would be a good place to find De­saniek; some­one im­por­tant is li­able to have an­oth­er en­trance or two, but not like­ly to use it most of the time; this is be­cause they usu­al­ly want to be seen com­ing and go­ing, and to check on those who work for them. Not al­ways, but chances were good she’d be com­ing out this way.

At the oth­er ex­treme of the hall—that is, past the stair­way—were three rooms and a small, short pas­sage end­ing in a door. I went and clapped at it—which hurt all through my chest and neck—and no one an­swered; tried the door and it was locked. I didn’t feel like be­ing caught pick­ing a lock in the Im­pe­ri­al Palace, so I didn’t.

I hate it when there’s no good place to hide; es­pe­cial­ly when I’m stand­ing around some­where I ob­vi­ous­ly don’t be­long. Here is where an in­vis­ibil­ity spell would have been use­ful, if I’d been able to cast one with­out re­mov­ing my pro­tec­tions, and if cast­ing it wouldn’t have set off ev­ery alarm in the Palace.

Yeah, well.

The ceil­ing pro­vid­ed no good place for Loiosh to hide, ei­ther.

“I beg to dif­fer.”

“The hang­ing lamp? You think you can use that?”

“I’d be con­cealed from one di­rec­tion, and in shad­ows from the oth­er.”

“You know what would hap­pen if you were spot­ted? A jhereg in the Palace? Some­one would scream, and they’d run and get ev­ery­body and—”

“Maybe they’d just shoo me out the near­est win­dow.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it. And you won’t be able to fol­low her with­out be­ing spot­ted. And when­ev­er you leave, it’ll be prob­lem­at­ical.”

“Rocza will do it. All she has to do is let me know when she leaves, and which di­rec­tion she goes. And she can stay here un­til we can fetch her.”

“How do we—?”

“Oh, come on, Boss. There’s no one around. She can just fly up there.”

“You sure about this?”

“Yep.”

“Okay.”

I walked over to the place where the hall came to­geth­er, opened my cloak, and she flapped up to the lamp. I stud­ied her. I could see her, but I had to be look­ing. I felt a lit­tle bet­ter about the whole thing.

“What does she think about all of this?”

“She thinks it’s hot up there.”

A cou­ple of young-​look­ing Iorich walked by, ev­ident­ly on the way to see De­saniek, or maybe some oth­er busi­ness in that of­fice in­volv­ing sub­tleties of ju­rispru­dence. I bowed re­spect­ful­ly. They both glanced at me and kept walk­ing; one might have nod­ded slight­ly.

At the bot­tom of the stairs things be­came com­pli­cat­ed: There were pas­sages in three di­rec­tions, and I could make out fur­ther branch­ings on two of them; al­so the stairs kept go­ing down. I checked the near­est doors: one of them was a privy, which I took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to use, be­cause if you’re go­ing to be fol­low­ing some­one for maybe hours, that’s a prob­lem you don’t need. An­oth­er was locked, and one was open and emp­ty—it would prob­ably be some­one’s of­fice when the need arose for le­gal ad­vice on com­par­ative flow­er ar­range­ment. I stepped in, shut the door, and let Loiosh out from my cloak; a great re­lief to us both.

“Oh, do we get to wait now, Boss? You know that’s my fa­vorite part.”

We wait­ed.

Loiosh kept up a stream of sug­ges­tions about how to dec­orate the emp­ty room, while I tried to think up cre­ative things to say if some­one hap­pened to come walk­ing in. Ev­ery once in a while, he’d re­as­sure me that Rocza was still undis­cov­ered, and that De­saniek hadn’t been by.

We wait­ed a long time.

Ei­ther she had a lot to do in the of­fice and was dis­gust­ing­ly ded­icat­ed, or she had an­oth­er way out. Af­ter four hours, with my stom­ach rum­bling, I’d about de­cid­ed it was the lat­ter. Af­ter five hours, I was pret­ty well sure of it. It had al­most been six hours when Loiosh said, “There she is! Com­ing to­ward us, Boss,” and we were off.

Loiosh ducked in­to my cloak again, and I stepped out of the hall and walked over to the stair­way.

“What’s Rocza do­ing?”

“Wait­ing.”

“Good. Tell her to stay with it.”

I turned so that when she walked past me I was go­ing the oth­er way; I made a slight bow. My pe­riph­er­al vi­sion told me on­ly that she was of av­er­age height, with a rather light com­plex­ion for an Iorich and a firm stride. Once she was well past me, I turned around and fol­lowed. This not on­ly per­mit­ted me to watch for any­one else who might be fol­low­ing her, but al­so showed me how to get out of the Palace.

We pret­ty quick­ly reached a place where there were lots of peo­ple, which wasn’t good for me. It’s too easy to fol­low some­one in a crowd, which means it’s hard to spot some­one else do­ing so. I didn’t lose her, of course; I can man­age to stay with some­one even with­out Loiosh, thank you very much. But it did get sim­pler once we left the Palace it­self, and I could take a mo­ment when I was un­ob­served to let him out.

The easy part was fol­low­ing De­saniek. The hard part was spot­ting some­one else fol­low­ing De­saniek. The scary part was leav­ing the con­fines of the Palace area and won­der­ing if I had some­one fol­low­ing me with un­friend­ly in­ten­tions. The painful part was walk­ing quick­ly enough to keep up with her.

She didn’t go far, as it hap­pened—just out­side the Palace dis­trict to a place I’d eat­en at once be­fore. The food was okay, but the wine list was amaz­ing. Among the things I hadn’t prac­ticed late­ly was fol­low­ing around some­one who was eat­ing bet­ter than I was.

To the left, how­ev­er, I could leave Loiosh there in case she was a fast eater, and go re­trieve Rocza.

“Which means you walk­ing through a lot of bad ar­eas with­out me spot­ting for you.”

“Twen­ty min­utes.”

“Think how much you could you do in twen­ty min­utes.”

“Did you see any­one on the way here?”

“No, but—”

“Hang tight. I’ll be back soon.”

And I was, too, be­lieve it or not. It took longer than it should have, be­cause I got lost try­ing to find the of­fice and had to ask di­rec­tions three times, but find it I did, and Rocza was there, and I had no trou­ble get­ting back out. It’s very strange how it can be hard to find your way to a place, but easy to find your way back.

“Okay, we’re about there. Is it safe?”

“You’re safe from ev­ery­one but Rocza, who’s hun­gry, over­heat­ed, and bad-​tem­pered.”

“I trust you to pro­tect me.”

“I charge for those ser­vices.”

I found a safe place to wait while De­saniek fin­ished eat­ing. Loiosh and Rocza scanned the area for any­one watch­ing ei­ther her or me.

“How will you tell which it is, Boss?”

“Just spot him, then we’ll wor­ry about it.”

“In oth­er words, you have no clue.”

“Some­thing like that.”

But we didn’t spot any­one. If there was any­one fol­low­ing her, he could be at the ta­ble next to her, eat­ing, and star­ing off in the op­po­site di­rec­tion; I’d done that be­fore.

So I wait­ed some more. Feh.

It might be in­ter­est­ing to give you the rest of what hap­pened that night in great de­tail if it had turned out to have been in­ter­est­ing, but in fact I nev­er spot­ted any­one. I was with her for about three more painful hours, as she vis­it­ed a pri­vate club where, I guess, high-​pow­ered Iorich like to re­lax; then even­tu­al­ly she went home. In the end, it was a big noth­ing.

I went back to the inn, got a lit­tle sleep and an ear­ly start, and wait­ed out­side her home. Loiosh spot­ted a Jhereg, but it was be­fore we got there, and he was ob­vi­ous­ly look­ing for me, based on how care­ful­ly he avoid­ed watch­ing the inn. Crap. We lost him on the way to De­saniek’s home.

She went straight to the of­fice; I had the jhereg in my cloak and all three of us wait­ed. She didn’t eat any morn­ing meal at all, and must have had lunch sent in. What she did in there for eigh­teen hours I don’t know, but there she was, and no one else seemed in­ter­est­ed. That night she ate in the same place, but went straight home af­ter­ward. She took the same route both times.

Back in my room at the inn, I got a note from Kiera that she had in­for­ma­tion for me; I wrote back ask­ing her to hold it for a day or two, since I had no time to do any­thing ex­cept fol­low De­saniek around.

Is it all right if I stop talk­ing about how much it hurt just to walk? You can’t be en­joy­ing hear­ing about it, and I don’t en­joy re­mem­ber­ing it. Let’s just say that, of all the times I’ve fol­lowed peo­ple around, this was the least pleas­ant.

You can re­peat the pat­tern for the day af­ter, ex­cept she went to a dif­fer­ent place af­ter she’d fin­ished, and ate with an Iorich who was prob­ably her lover—at least, they seemed to be on good terms, and he went home with her. They took a dif­fer­ent route, more scenic. I had the im­pres­sion they al­ways went this way.

The next day, no lover, no Jhereg in­ter­est­ed in her, and back to the first route, past one of my fa­vorite bak­ers, which made it es­pe­cial­ly try­ing.

When the same thing hap­pened the next day, I start­ed to get dis­gust­ed, not to men­tion wor­ried.

“What have I missed, Loiosh? They’re go­ing to take this Iorich out and make it look like those East­ern­ers are be­hind it. To do that, they have to know her move­ments ex­act­ly. Why aren’t they there?”

“Maybe they are, and you can’t see them.”

“In­vis­ible? I sup­pose. But some­one would have no­ticed an in­vis­ible guy walk­ing by. I’d think—”

“That’s not what I mean. She isn’t a Jhereg, Boss. She prob­ably doesn’t have any pro­tec­tion spells on.”

“What’s your point?”

“Maybe they’re us­ing sor­cery to trace her?”

I used sev­er­al of my fa­vorite oaths, run­ning them to­geth­er. I wish I could re­mem­ber ex­act­ly how I put it, be­cause it was very po­et­ic.

“Boss?”

“That’s cheat­ing.”

“Uh, Boss—”

“I know, I know. I’m just pissed be­cause I didn’t think of it.”

“That’s what you’ve got me around for.”

“Which you’ll nev­er let me for­get, which is the oth­er thing I’m pissed about. All right, there has to be a way to fig­ure this out. No, we don’t, we need to call for help.”

“Mor­rolan, or Sethra?”

“Yes.” Be­fore he could say some­thing snip­py, I added, “Who would be eas­ier to get to?”

“You could get Mor­rolan to come see you, in­stead of you go­ing there.”

“Yeah, good point.”

I took an­oth­er cir­cuitous route back to the Palace area, then went in­to the Drag­on Wing by one of the en­trances used by the no­bil­ity. Two guards in full uni­form stood out­side the en­trance; I won­dered if stand­ing out­side the Wing for hours at a time is an hon­or or a pun­ish­ment, but in any case I put on my full out­fit of ar­ro­gance and went breez­ing past them. This was go­ing to be fun.

There was a sergeant at a desk. I knew he was a sergeant be­cause I rec­og­nized the marks on his uni­form, and I knew it was a desk be­cause it’s al­ways a desk. There’s al­ways some­one at a desk, ex­cept when it’s a ta­ble that func­tions as a desk. You sit be­hind a desk, and ev­ery­one knows you’re sup­posed to be there, and that you’re do­ing some­thing that in­volves your brain. It’s an odd, spe­cial kind of im­por­tance. I think ev­ery­one should get a desk; you can sit be­hind it when you feel like you don’t mat­ter.

The Em­press didn’t have a desk. Mor­rolan didn’t have a desk. Sethra didn’t have a desk. They re­al­ly did mat­ter. Me, when I was run­ning my area for the Jhereg, I had a desk. Now I don’t. You can draw what­ev­er con­clu­sions you want to from that.

I went up to the sergeant be­hind the desk and said, “I am Count Szurke. This is my signet. I wish to see the en­sign on du­ty.”

He didn’t like it much. The on­ly peo­ple who are sup­posed to talk to you like that are the ones with big­ger desks. But the signet of an Im­pe­ri­al ti­tle car­ries some weight with the mil­itary, so he nod­ded and, how­ev­er painful it may have been for him, said, “Yes, my lord. At once.” Then he said, “Flips, bring my lord to the en­sign.”

A guy who spent too much time on his hair said, “Yes, m’lord,” and bowed to me, then led the way down the hall, clapped out­side the first door he came to, and, up­on re­ceiv­ing the word, opened the door for me. I went in­to a room where there was a wom­an be­hind a desk. It was a big­ger desk than the sergeant had.

I re­peat­ed my in­tro­duc­tion and said, “I re­quire a mes­sage de­liv­ered at once to Lord Mor­rolan. I wish him to meet me here. Find me a pri­vate room in which to wait, then let him know I’m there.”

She didn’t like my tone much, but or­ders, as they say, are or­ders. “Yes, my lord.” She pulled out a piece of pa­per, scrib­bled on it with a pen that went in­to a pen-​hold­er with a drag­on’s head etched on it, then af­fixed her seal and stood up. “If my lord will fol­low me?”

I don’t al­ways love throw­ing my weight around. But some­times, with some peo­ple, it’s just fun.

She showed me to a small, com­fort­able room, sur­round­ed by pic­tures of bat­tle, some of them ter­ri­bly re­al­is­tic-​look­ing. There was a lot of blood. I didn’t find it re­lax­ing. Al­so, they didn’t bring me any food or wine, which I got to re­sent­ing af­ter an hour or so. For­tu­nate­ly, it wasn’t much more than an hour be­fore there came a clap at the door. I rec­og­nized Mor­rolan’s hands slap­ping to­geth­er be­fore Loiosh said any­thing, which fact might dis­turb me if I let it.

I got up and let him in, then closed the door be­hind him. He said, “What is it?” That’s Mor­rolan, all full of flow­ery greet­ings and chitchat.

“Those guards who stand out­side the Wing. Are they be­ing pun­ished, or hon­ored?”

“What is it?” he re­peat­ed. I guess I’ll nev­er know.

“There’s some­one I need to know about.” I said, “Her name is De­saniek. She—”

“That’s the name of the Jus­ticer lead­ing Her Majesty’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Tir­ma.”

“Oh, you knew about that?”

“I just heard.”

“I thought I’d get to sur­prise you.”

“What about her?”

“The Jhereg is go­ing to kill her.”

“If the Jhereg does, there won’t be a Jhereg.”

I rolled my eyes. “It won’t look like they did it, Mor­rolan.”

“Oh? How are they go­ing to man­age that? A trag­ic, co­in­ci­den­tal ac­ci­dent? She’s go­ing to slip un­der a cart? Fall out of a build­ing? Drown in her bath­tub? Ac­ci­den­tal­ly stab her­self in the back while clean­ing her knife?”

I filled him in on some of the back­ground, then said, “It’s go­ing to be blamed on some id­iot group of East­ern­ers and Teck­la.”

He frowned. “Not the one—”

“No, a dif­fer­ent group.”

“How many are there?”

“Lots, I guess. Stir them up long enough and hard enough, and pret­ty soon they start lis­ten­ing to the guy telling them how to solve all their prob­lems.” I wasn’t sure if I be­lieved that my­self, but telling it to Mor­rolan was a nod to Cawti; I’d like to think she’d have ap­pre­ci­at­ed it.

“Do you know where and when?”

“No. That’s what I want your help with.”

He put on a “this is go­ing to be good” ex­pres­sion, and wait­ed.

I said, “I’ve been fol­low­ing her, hop­ing to pick up whichev­er as­sas­sin is fol­low­ing her, hop­ing to take him out be­fore he moves.”

“Well?”

“Well, no one is fol­low­ing her.”

He shrugged. “Maybe she has no pro­tec­tion spells on, and they’re trac­ing her move­ments with mag­ic.”

I kept my face ex­pres­sion­less and said, “I had the same thought. Can you find out?”

“Hm­mm? Oh, sure.”

“Good.”

“Now?”

“Up to you,” I said. “Now, or else af­ter she’s dead. Ei­ther way is fine.”

“And then,” he said, “there are times I don’t miss you so much.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Okay, a mo­ment.” He closed his eyes, opened them, looked dis­gust­ed, and said, “Oh, right. I’m in the Drag­on Wing. Wait here.”

He got up and walked out, so I missed see­ing the pow­er­ful sor­cer­er do­ing his pow­er­ful sor­cery, which would have in­volved him clos­ing his eyes and then, I don’t know, maybe tak­ing a deep breath or some­thing.

He was back a few min­utes lat­er. He sat down op­po­site me and said, “No one’s trac­ing her.”

“Re­al­ly. Well. Isn’t that in­ter­est­ing. Any chance they have a trace on her you don’t know about?”

“I checked for sor­cery, and witchcraft. I sup­pose it’s pos­si­ble, but it isn’t very like­ly. Does this mean you’re wrong?”

“I don’t know. It fit to­geth­er too well for me to think I got it wrong. But I don’t, as Perisil would say, have any ev­idence that would work in court.”

He con­sid­ered. “If you’re right, ig­nor­ing the lack of ev­idence, what hap­pens to Aliera?”

“Good ques­tion. In fact, that’s the ques­tion, isn’t it? I wish I had an an­swer. If they get away with it, the Em­press has to choose be­tween giv­ing in to the Jhereg, and sac­ri­fic­ing Aliera. I don’t know which way she’ll jump.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Hmm?”

“What if you stop them?”

“Oh. Then the Em­pire runs an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mas­sacre, and prob­ably drops all those bo­gus charges against Aliera. She was War­lord when it hap­pened; I have no idea how an in­ves­ti­ga­tion like that will work out.”

He con­sid­ered for a mo­ment. “I’d be in­clined to think there’d be no blame at­tached to her.”

“Should there be?”

“Par­don?”

“Well, she’s the War­lord. It hap­pened. How far up should the re­spon­si­bil­ity go?”

“Do you care?”

“Not re­al­ly. Just cu­ri­ous.”

“I’m not an Iorich.”

“Right.”

He said, “What are you go­ing to do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe get out of town. I don’t want to be here when what­ev­er hap­pens hap­pens.”

He stared at me. “What, just give up?”

“I was think­ing about it.”

“That isn’t like you.”

“Mor­rolan, I’m lost. Some­time, some­how, they’re go­ing to take out De­saniek. And it will look like these East­ern­ers did it to protest the mas­sacre. It could be any­where. I’ve spent most of the last week fol­low­ing her. I count­ed more than thir­ty times and places that would have been great to nail her. How am I sup­posed to know which they’ll do? You can­not stop an as­sas­sin un­less you know the as­sas­sin and get to him first. If you have any sug­ges­tions on how to fig­ure that out, feel free to men­tion them. I’m beat.”

“Can’t help you,” he said, dry­ly. “You’re the on­ly as­sas­sin I know.”

“I know plen­ty of them, and I’m no bet­ter off. The oth­er pos­si­bil­ity is that I’m en­tire­ly wrong, and in that case I’m even more help­less be­cause I have no clue at all that points to what they’re plan­ning, and I can’t con­vince my­self they’re go­ing to just take this with­out mak­ing a move of some kind.”

He frowned. “We need to do some­thing.”

“I’m glad it’s ‘we’ now.”

His nos­trils flared, but he didn’t say any­thing; he knows when I’m just blow­ing sparks.

“Thanks for com­ing by,” I said.

“Need a tele­port any­where?”

“Yes, but I can’t risk it. Thanks, though.”

We both stood up. “If you come up with any­thing, and I can help—”

“I’ll let you know.”

He nod­ded and pre­ced­ed me out the door, head­ing deep­er in­to the Wing; pre­sum­ably to find a place he could tele­port from. I miss the small con­ve­niences, you know? I took my­self out and start­ed back to­ward my inn, think­ing a bit of rest wouldn’t be a bad idea.

“Was that true, Boss? Are you re­al­ly giv­ing up?”

“I don’t know. Prob­ably not. But I have no idea what to do.”

“I’m with Mor­rolan. Doesn’t seem like you to leave town with things un­fin­ished.”

“Would you be against it?”

“No! I’m all for it, Boss! This place scares me. But it seems like you show­ing good sense, and that’s not what I ex­pect.”

I sighed. “I prob­ably won’t.”

“You should.”

“I know.”

“You have no idea where they’re go­ing to hit, Boss. What can you do?”

“That’s what I’ve been say­ing. I on­ly know who they’re go­ing to nail, and who they’re go­ing to—oh.”

“What?”

I stopped in my tracks, and my mind raced. Then I said, “I know who they’re go­ing to blame it on.”

“What does that get you?”

“A walk to South Adri­lankha.”

“Uh, care to tell me why?”

“There might be things to learn from the peo­ple who are sup­posed to take the fall.”

“Like what?”

“If I learn them, I’ll let you know.”

“Oh, good.”

I was stand­ing in the mid­dle of the court­yard out­side of the Drag­on Wing of the Palace. The House of the Drag­on, dark and oh-​so-​im­pos­ing, loomed over me as if match­ing glares with the Wing. There were four or five walk­ways lead­ing out of the area, some to oth­er parts of the Palace, oth­ers to the City. For all I knew, there were as­sas­sins hang­ing around all of them wait­ing to make my skin glis­ten.

But I had some­thing to do, which is all any­one can ask.

“Yeah, Boss? What are we go­ing to do?”

“I’m go­ing to go back to the inn and drop a note to Kiera ask­ing her to bring by the names of what­ev­er Left Hand busi­ness­es she’s been able to find, then I’m go­ing to have a de­cent meal sent up, drink half a bot­tle of wine, and go to sleep.”

“Sounds like my kind of plan.”

“To­mor­row is a busy day. I know a cou­ple of places owned by the Left Hand. If Kiera doesn’t show up, we vis­it one.”

“Good. Then at least we don’t have to wor­ry about a plan for the day af­ter to­mor­row, be­cause nei­ther one of us will be around to see it.”

Iorich

14

M’la­dy: Just got word through your of­fice of the event. I’m per­fect­ly will­ing to at­tend and an­swer any ques­tions the mob has, though I can­not imag­ine what good H.M. imag­ines such a thing will do. They’re go­ing to be­lieve what they be­lieve, and I can talk un­til my voice is hoarse with­out chang­ing them; nor do I see what dif­fer­ence it makes what they think, un­less H.M. is afraid of more dis­or­ders like there were a few years ago. Of­fi­cial­ly, I have no opin­ion about that, of course (though un­of­fi­cial­ly a troop of guards will deal with how­ev­er many of them take to the street). My ques­tion is, if I’m go­ing to do this, how do you want me to han­dle it? I’d rather not have it in writ­ing. Let me know when a good time is, and I can be in your of­fices, or wher­ev­er else you’d like to meet.

—Un­signed (not au­then­ti­cat­ed)

I felt a bit bet­ter the next morn­ing. I stood up and stretched again, tak­ing it slow and easy. I was still try­ing to make my mus­cles obey when there was a clap out­side the door; Loiosh told me it was Kiera, I sug­gest­ed she en­ter. She asked how I was feel­ing, and I lied a lit­tle. “Did you find out any­thing?”

“I learned a few busi­ness­es that are cov­ers for Left Hand op­er­ations. Here.” She hand­ed me a sheet of pa­per with some names and ad­dress­es.

I held it out in front of her and tapped one. “You sure about this?”

She stud­ied it. “Tym­brii,” she said. “Pre-​spun cloth and yarn. What about them?”

“Noth­ing,” I said. “Ex­cept Cawti used to go there all the time. I had no idea.”

“I don’t know who the re­al own­er is, but it’s a good place to go if you want to be lis­ten­ing in on some­one who thinks he has spells that will pre­vent that.”

I nod­ded. “It’s just odd, is all. The num­ber of times I went in there, and nev­er knew.”

I looked over the rest of the list. There were places spread out all over the City, and I rec­og­nized a cou­ple from hav­ing walked past them, but there were no oth­ers I’d ac­tu­al­ly been in.

“Now what, Boss? Put the list on the wall, throw a knife at it, and see where it lands?”

“Some­thing like that, yeah.”

“This is li­able to get you killed, you know. You’re in no shape—”

“Sit on it.”

He psy­chi­cal­ly grum­bled, but shut up.

“What do you know of these?”

“What do you want to know?”

I hes­itat­ed. “I’m not sure what to ask. I know so lit­tle of the Left Hand.”

“As do I. As do they.”

“Hmm?”

“Part of the se­cre­cy thing; most of them know very lit­tle oth­er than their own busi­ness.”

“Oh. Um, how lit­tle do they know?”

“What kind of ques­tion is that?”

“I guess I’m ask­ing if I were to show up at one of these places, would the in­di­vid­ual run­ning it know who I am?”

She con­sid­ered. “I don’t know. Maybe. My guess is not, ex­cept by co­in­ci­dence. Don’t bet your life on that, though.”

I nod­ded. “Uh, how do I do this, Kiera?”

“You’re ask­ing me?”

“I don’t mean that part. But say, this one—” I tapped the list. “It’s an inn. Do I walk in and ask for a cer­tain drink? Or—”

“Oh. Sor­ry. I’d have thought you knew. If you want to reach some­one in the Left Hand, ask to see the mis­tress of the house, and de­liv­er three sil­ver coins, one at a time, with your left hand.”

“Left hand,” I said. “How clever.”

“Imag­ina­tive, even.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and con­sid­ered. I took the knife from my right boot, pulled the coarse stone from my pack, and start­ed work­ing as I thought.

“You aren’t lu­bri­cat­ing it,” said Kiera.

“Su­per­sti­tion,” I told her. “You don’t need to lu­bri­cate the stone, you just need to clean it when you’re done.”

“I know. I won­dered if you did. What sort of edge are you putting on that?”

“Five de­grees a side.” I stopped and stud­ied the knife. It was a wicked thing that I’d found in Short­rest, near Tabo. There was a cheap and worth­less en­chant­ment on it that was sup­posed to help it find a vi­tal spot, and the point wasn’t much, but it had a love­ly edge and the wrapped antler fit my hand like it had been made for an East­ern­er. I worked some more, checked the bev­el, switched to the oth­er side.

“Where did you learn to do that?” she asked.

“Where did we first meet?” I asked her.

“Oh, right.”

I nod­ded. “Sharp­en­ing knives was what I first learned to do af­ter I learned to wash pots and pans, bring trash to the mid­den, and clear ta­bles. I had one knife I kept a du­al edge on: front three-​quar­ters for slic­ing, back quar­ter for cut­ting. Best knife I’ve ev­er had.”

“Where is it now?”

“Cawti has it. She still us­es it. I showed her how to do the du­al edge. She—” I stopped and went back to sharp­en­ing, switch­ing to the ex­trafine stone.

“Sor­ry,” she said.

“No, no. Don’t wor­ry about it.”

“If you slip and take a fin­ger off, I’ll feel bad.”

I held up my left hand. “That hap­pened once. I’ve learned my les­son.”

I fin­ished sharp­en­ing the knife, nod­ded to my­self, and stood up. My rib hurt like—it hurt.

Kiera hes­itat­ed, then said, “Do you want me to back you up?”

“Not your skill,” I said. “And it won’t be nec­es­sary. This should be pret­ty easy.”

“As you say.” She didn’t sound con­vinced.

She fol­lowed me out of the room, and walked down the stairs with me. I went slow­ly. She said, “I’ll be wait­ing in the court­yard to hear how it went.”

I nod­ded but didn’t say any­thing; most of my con­cen­tra­tion was in­volved in not moan­ing with each step. Rocza took off from my shoul­der and flew in slow cir­cles over­head; Loiosh re­mained on my oth­er shoul­der and was look­ing around con­stant­ly.

In the wide boule­vard in front of the Im­pe­ri­al Wing near the park, there is al­ways a line of coach­es; on one side those with mark­ings on the door, on the oth­er those that are for hire, all of which get spe­cial ex­emp­tions from the or­di­nance for­bid­ding hors­es near the Palace. I think there are so many ex­emp­tions they might as well not both­er with the or­di­nance, but maybe I’m wrong.

I spent some time study­ing the coach­es for hire, try­ing to de­cide which looked like the most com­fort­able, then picked one and made my painful way to it. The coach­man was a young wom­an, a Teck­la of course, with the cheery smile and easy ob­se­quious­ness of the hap­py peas­ant in a mu­si­cal satire on Fal­low Street. I climbed in and gave her the ad­dress. She looked at Loiosh, then Rocza as she joined me in the coach, but mere­ly bowed and climbed up to her sta­tion. Then she clucked and the horse start­ed plod­ding along, a lot like I’d been walk­ing.

“Boss, I don’t care what Kiera says, you’re in no shape—”

“I’m not go­ing to be en­gaged in any acts of vi­olence, Loiosh, so you can re­lax.”

“You’re not?”

“No, the plan changed.”

“When?”

“Yes­ter­day, when I was talk­ing to Mor­rolan.”

I set­tled back for the ride. It was a good coach—the jounc­ing didn’t make me scream.

I stepped out and paid the coach­man, who bowed as if I were Dra­gaer­an and a no­ble­man. She prob­ably thought it would in­crease her tip, and I guess it did at that.

I was now in a part of the City called the Bridges, prob­ably be­cause the main roads from three of the bridges all led to this area and crossed each oth­er at a place called Nine Mar­kets, which was in fact on­ly about a hun­dred yards from where I stood. Tym­brii’s shop was nes­tled in among the sim­ple three-​and four-​room hous­es of trades­men, with a few larg­er room­ing hous­es and an open-​air shrine to Kel­chor.

“Okay, you two get back in my cloak.”

“Do we have to?”

“I don’t need to walk in there with two in­stant iden­ti­fi­ca­tions on me.”

“You think they won’t know you just be­cause we aren’t with you?”

“Some­thing like that.”

“You’re dream­ing.”

“In, both of you.”

I felt him start to ar­gue, but he cut it off. The two of them ducked in­to my cloak as the coach pulled away.

The door it­self held a sign that sug­gest­ed I feel free to en­ter, so I did. It smelled a bit dusty, and there were oily smells mixed in. It was a sin­gle room, well lit, with bolts of cloth and those bunch­es of yarn that peo­ple who use yarn call skeins. There was an el­der­ly gen­tle­man sit­ting in a straight-​backed chair, look­ing as if he had been do­ing ab­so­lute­ly noth­ing un­til the door opened. Once I en­tered, he rose, took me in, and did the fa­cial dance I’d come to ex­pect from mer­chants who don’t know quite how to place me, fol­lowed by the po­lite bow of those who de­cide coins bring more hap­pi­ness than snub­bing one’s in­fe­ri­ors. That’s the dif­fer­ence, you know, be­tween a mer­chant and an aris­to­crat: The true aris­to­crat will al­ways pre­fer to snub his in­fe­ri­or.

“May I help you, my lord?”

“I hope so. I’m look­ing to see the mis­tress of the house.”

He frowned. “I beg your par­don?”

Clink. Clink. Clink.

“I’ll see if she’s avail­able.”

He van­ished through a door­way in back, and I looked around at bright­ly col­ored cloth. Ex­ot­ic. That’s what Cawti had called these col­ors: ex­ot­ic. I guess they were at that. Bright blues and sear­ing yel­lows and some as dark or­ange as the ocean-​sea.

I wait­ed.

He came out of the door again, bowed stiffly again, and said, “She will see you now. The door­way at the end of the hall.”

He stood aside, and I went past him through the open door. I felt un­com­fort­able as I did, like he was go­ing to bash my head in when I went through. He didn’t, though.

There was a short hall­way with a closed door to the side, and an­oth­er door in front of me. This one was open, so I en­tered.

She was of mid­dle years for a Dra­gaer­an, say a thou­sand or so, and dressed in the gray and black of the Jhereg. She was sit­ting be­hind a desk look­ing busi­ness-​like, and she rose as I en­tered. Noth­ing in her ex­pres­sion in­di­cat­ed she might know me, al­though that was hard­ly proof.

“May I be of ser­vice?” she said, with bare­ly con­cealed dis­taste. Now, she was an aris­to­crat.

“I seek knowl­edge, O wise one.”

She frowned. “Are you mock­ing me?”

“Yes, but on­ly in a friend­ly way.”

She sat down again, look­ing at me through nar­rowed eyes. “I’m not your friend. Do you have busi­ness for me, or don’t you?”

“I do. I’m af­ter in­for­ma­tion, there may be some spells to pre­vent eaves­drop­ping.”

She nod­ded. “Go on. What are the specifics?”

That set off all sorts of alarms in my head. Was she ex­pect­ing me to ask her to com­mit a crime, just like that? I mean, maybe the Left Hand did that sort of thing, but, if so, how did they stay in busi­ness?

I looked her in the eye. “I beg your par­don?”

“Be­fore I can ac­cept, I have to know who you want to lis­ten in on. I’ll need to get a dis­pen­sa­tion from the Jus­ticers.”

“Nat­ural­ly, I wouldn’t want you to do any­thing il­le­gal.”

“Nat­ural­ly.”

“So of course, you have to go through the court pro­ceed­ings.”

“Yes.”

“I as­sume there are spe­cial fees for the ad­vo­cate?”

“That is cor­rect.”

“How much.”

“One hun­dred.”

“That’s a lot,” I said.

“Yes.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll give you a draft on Har­brough.”

She nod­ded. She’d cer­tain­ly know Har­brough: he didn’t use names, which made him very pop­ular among the Jhereg—both sides, pre­sum­ably—and was the rea­son I still had mon­ey avail­able.

She passed over pen and ink and blot­ter, and I wrote out a stan­dard dis­pen­sa­tion then passed it to her. She stud­ied it care­ful­ly, I imag­ine send­ing the im­age to some­one who’d make sure the funds were there to cov­er it.

“All right,” she said. She moved the draft to a place be­tween us and put the inkwell on it; there seemed to be some­thing al­most rit­ual­is­tic about the act, al­though maybe my talk with Kiera had me imag­in­ing things. Then she bowed her head. “What’s the job?” All busi­ness; just like the Jhereg.

“What if I said Sethra Lavode?”

She snort­ed. “I’d give you your draft back and point you to the Nalarfi Home.”

“Just mak­ing sure you didn’t be­long there.”

“Yes, there are things I won’t do. Quit wast­ing my time. What’s the job?”

“There is a house at num­ber eleven Enoch Way in South Adri­lankha—”

“Are you jest­ing?”

“Why would I be?”

“You think a house in South Adri­lankha has pro­tec­tions against eaves­drop­ping?”

“I don’t know that they do, but they might.”

“They have the re­sources for that?”

“If they’ve got­ten sup­port from trades­men, func­tionar­ies, or any of the mi­nor no­bil­ity.”

“And what makes you think they have?”

“It’s a pos­si­bil­ity. I’ll pay to hear what’s go­ing on in there. If there’s no pro­tec­tion from eaves­drop­ping, then so much the eas­ier for you.”

She hes­itat­ed, then nod­ded. “All right.”

“Uh, how does this work?”

“How does what work?”

“How will I know what’s said?”

She looked dis­gust­ed. “How would you like to know?”

“I’d like to be able to lis­ten my­self, but I don’t think that’s pos­si­ble.”

“Why not?”

“Try cast­ing a lis­ten­ing spell on me, and see what hap­pens.” Her eyes nar­rowed, and her right hand twitched, and she said, “Phoenix Stone?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if you aren’t will­ing to re­move it—”

“I’m not.”

“Then we can pro­vide you a sum­ma­ry, or a tran­script.”

“How long does that take?”

“You can have it with­in a day.”

“Boss—”

“Is there any way you can, uh, have my fa­mil­iar lis­ten in­stead of me?”

“I beg your par­don?”

I opened my cloak. Loiosh poked his head out, then climbed up to my left shoul­der; fol­lowed by Rocza, who climbed up to my right. I smiled apolo­get­ical­ly.

“See, Boss, you could have saved us all a lot of trou­ble if—”

“Shut up.”

“I’m not sure what you are ask­ing me to do.” She looked like I had of­fered to share my meal of fresh worms with her.

“Loiosh is ful­ly self-​aware, and trained to, well, if you can man­age to con­nect him to the spell, he can tell me what’s said.”

She didn’t much like the idea, but I pulled out my purse and set a nice stack of im­pe­ri­als in front of her. Mon­ey that clinks and glit­ters al­ways has more of an ef­fect than mon­ey that ex­ists on­ly in the­ory.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll need to, ah, to touch him.”

“Ewwww,” said Loiosh.

“Yeah, well.”

Aloud I said, “How long will this last?”

“If he is aware enough to ac­cept the spell, it will end when he wants it to, or it will fade on its own over the course of the next year or so.”

“All right.”

Loiosh flew down on­to her desk in front of her; she al­most man­aged not to flinch.

“Oh, one thing,” I said.

She had start­ed to reach to­ward him; now she stopped. “Yes?”

“If any­thing you do caus­es him any harm, there is no pow­er in the world that will keep your soul safe.”

“I dis­like threats. If you don’t want—”

“I just had to make sure you were in­formed.”

She shrugged. I re­al­ly don’t make threats very of­ten, so I re­sent it when I do make one and it doesn’t im­press the threat-​enee. But to the left, that’s prob­ably why I don’t make many.

Her hand was steady when she put three fin­gers on his back.

“I need a bath.”

“Feel any­thing?”

“Sor­cery, pret­ty mild.”

“All right.”

“You should be­gin to get sound by morn­ing.”

“All right. Be care­ful, the place is be­ing watched.”

“By whom?”

“The Jhereg. That is, the Right Hand, if you will.”

She snort­ed. “That won’t be a prob­lem.”

“All right,” I said. “Any­thing else?”

“Yes. One ques­tion: Who are you?”

“You think I’m go­ing to tell you?”

“You think I can’t find out?”

“If it means that much to you, feel free,” I said. Then I turned on my heel and left.

The gen­tle­man who sold cloth ig­nored me as I left, and I gave him the same cour­tesy, though it wasn’t a de­lib­er­ate snub on my part—I was busy ask­ing my­self why I hadn’t thought to have the coach wait. Loiosh, as was his cus­tom, wast­ed no time. “So tell me, Boss, if the whole idea was for her to be able to iden­ti­fy you, why couldn’t we be there?”

“It would have made it too ob­vi­ous that I want­ed to be iden­ti­fied.”

“So, in­stead, it just mat­ters that you walk in­to one of the busi­ness­es of peo­ple who are try­ing to kill you? Is this what you call high strat­egy?”

“That’s a Drag­on term. I nev­er use it.”

“Boss, won’t they fig­ure out that you want­ed them to iden­ti­fy you?”

“Maybe.”

“So, how is it that what you just did wasn’t stupid?”

“The busi­ness of con­vinc­ing your en­emies to do what you want them to is a tricky mat­ter, Loiosh. I wouldn’t ex­pect a jhereg to un­der­stand the sub­tleties.”

“I trust an ed­uca­tion in the sub­tleties will be­gin short­ly.”

“You’re start­ing to sound like Mor­rolan.”

I had to walk to the mar­ket to find a coach—a run-​down thing that found ev­ery rut and hole in the road. Served me right for lack of fore­thought, though. Things like not think­ing to have the coach wait­ing might seem small to you, but if I went ahead and ex­ecut­ed plans with­out see­ing to all the lit­tle de­tails, I was go­ing to make what was al­ready a tricky op­er­ation down­right im­pos­si­ble. I gave my­self a stern talk­ing-​to about it; my cracked rib and var­ious bruis­es em­pha­sized the point.

Kiera was, as promised, wait­ing in the court­yard. “Well?” she said.

“Well enough,” I said. “Maybe. Have to see.”

She frowned. “What did you do?”

“Start­ed a de­layed-​ac­tion ex­plo­sive spell.”

“Uh, let’s go up to your room.”

“I thought you’d nev­er ask.”

“What?”

“For­get it.”

I made my slow painful way to the room. I stretched out on the bed, Kiera took the chair.

“In­ter­est­ing noise,” she said.

“Hm­mm?”

“As you lay down. Some­where be­tween a groan and a sigh. I don’t think I’ve heard any­one do that be­fore. Are you sure you don’t want to be fixed up?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Un­less you have to move fast.”

“When have I ev­er need­ed to move fast?”

She didn’t even both­er to give me a look for that one. “What did you do?”

“I hired her.”

“To do what?”

“I need to know what’s go­ing on in a cer­tain lit­tle cot­tage in South Adri­lankha.”

“And that was the on­ly way to find out?”

“The best way, un­der the cir­cum­stances.”

“Why?”

“I’m try­ing to do two things at once.”

She nod­ded. “I once tried to steal two things at once. Want to hear what hap­pened?”

“On­ly if it worked.”

“I won’t talk about it, then.”

“There are two things go­ing on, Kiera. They’re prob­ably re­lat­ed, but I can’t know that.”

“Aliera’s pros­ecu­tion, and the ef­fort to set you up.”

“Right.”

“And the cot­tage in South Adri­lankha?”

“It’s a long shot, as far Aliera’s pros­ecu­tion, but it’s all I can come up with. My think­ing is this: If the Jhereg wants to blame the killing on one of these peo­ple, they’ll—”

“Wait. What?”

“The Jhereg is plan­ning to kill the Im­pe­ri­al in­ves­ti­ga­tor, a cer­tain De­saniek, and blame it on a group of East­ern and Teck­la rebels.”

“How did you put that to­geth­er?”

“When I asked Cawti if she were still giv­ing read­ing lessons, she said, ‘un­til late­ly,’ which got me to think­ing—nev­er mind. It’s a long sto­ry. The point is, if they want to kill the in­ves­ti­ga­tor, and blame it on this group of rebels, they’ll need to know what the group is up to. If I know what they’re up to, maybe I’ll be able to fig­ure out where they’ll move.”

She looked doubt­ful. “That doesn’t seem like­ly.”

“I agree, but it’s all I’ve got.”

“What about the oth­er rea­son? How does this help you get out of a set­up?”

“It might not, but if she takes the trou­ble to find out who I am, and I did ev­ery­thing but beg her to, it’s go­ing to stir up the Jhereg, and maybe throw them off their game.”

“That is re­al­ly thin.”

“Not as thin as you think. Some­thing un­ex­pect­ed hap­pens when you’re af­ter some­one, you slow down and make sure you know what’s go­ing on. All I need is for them to slow down long enough to let me fin­ish this busi­ness and get back out of town.”

“That is very thin.”

“Like the oth­er, it’s what I have. Do you have any bet­ter ideas?”

“This is big­ger than you seem to re­al­ize, Vlad.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Eh? It’s the Left Hand of the Jhereg, the Jhereg, and the Or­ca ma­nip­ulat­ing Im­pe­ri­al pol­itics. How much big­ger—?”

“No, what makes you think I don’t re­al­ize how big it is?”

“You aren’t act­ing as if you do.”

“Kiera, af­ter you’ve been in bat­tle with gods, you get to the point where the af­fairs of mere mor­tals—”

“Can you be se­ri­ous for two words?”

“Not with­out ef­fort,” I said.

“Ap­ply your­self.”

I shrugged. “What do you want from me? Okay, it’s se­ri­ous. It’s big. I get that. But I came back here to help Aliera. If you can show me a bet­ter way to do that, I’m lis­ten­ing.”

“I’ll nev­er un­der­stand this pas­sion you have for mak­ing your­self a tar­get.”

“It isn’t a pas­sion, it’s more of an av­oca­tion.” She start­ed to say some­thing, but I cut her off. “I didn’t cre­ate the sit­ua­tion, and no one was do­ing a damned thing about it, ei­ther be­cause they didn’t want to of­fend the Em­press, or be­cause they didn’t want to of­fend Aliera. You couldn’t fit the hair of a nors­ka’s tail on how much I care about of­fend­ing ei­ther one. There’s a prob­lem, I’m fix­ing it.”

“You’re stub­born, Vlad.”

“Is that a com­pli­ment?”

“Some­times. Usu­al­ly. Right now, I’m not sure. How can I help?”

“You prob­ably can’t, but I’ll let you know if some­thing comes up.”

She sighed, start­ed to say some­thing else, then just shrugged and left me with her Kiera smile and soft kiss on the cheek. I lay on my back and tried not to move too much, and even­tu­al­ly got some rest.

Iorich

15

Your High­ness: I ur­gent­ly re­quest an im­me­di­ate re­view of the en­tire Im­pe­ri­al prison sys­tem. With the sui­cide of Bryn our in­ves­ti­ga­tion—an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Your High­ness, in­sti­gat­ed by the ex­press wish­es of Her Majesty—has been se­ri­ous­ly com­pro­mised. Per­mit me to urge Your High­ness in the strongest pos­si­ble terms to form a com­mit­tee of our own House and some of the more skilled Val­lista to see what can be done to make sure this doesn’t hap­pen again; it is hard­ly an over­state­ment to say that the hon­or of the House it­self is at stake. Any fur­ther event of this type and I will not an­swer for the com­mit­tee be­ing able to car­ry out its du­ties.

I Re­main, Your High­ness,

Your Loy­al and Re­spect­ful

Jus­ticer De­saniek

I woke up feel­ing still bet­ter. If this trend con­tin­ued, I’d be back in shape to fight in on­ly a month or so.

“Boss!”

That was when I re­al­ized what woke me up. “What is it?”

“Uh, this is weird. I’m hear­ing things.”

“Yeah, that’s what was sup­posed to hap­pen.”

“But, it’s weird.”

“It’s just for a day or two. Any­thing in­ter­est­ing?”

“De­pends how in­ter­est­ed you are in snor­ing.”

“Most­ly in­ter­est­ed in my own, but it’s too late for that, now.”

“Cry up a storm, Boss.”

I got up and slow­ly and painful­ly took care of morn­ing things. The plan for the day was, ac­tu­al­ly, to do noth­ing ex­cept to stay as safe as I could: there was noth­ing to do un­til and un­less I got some in­for­ma­tion from Loiosh, or un­til some­one made a move at me.

I had them bring me some food. There was kla­va—good kla­va—and some hen’s eggs part­ly boiled with salt, and bread with a lux­uri­ous amount of but­ter. They charged too much, but here and there were com­pen­sa­tions.

Loiosh re­port­ed con­ver­sa­tions that were on­ly re­mark­able in their triv­ial­ity—the best mar­kets, who had be­come preg­nant, whose un­cle had tak­en sick. Some­times he iden­ti­fied the voic­es as male, some­times fe­male, some­times mixed. At one point, two wom­en who spoke with an ac­cent that Loiosh re­mem­bered as be­ing from some East­ern king­dom got in­to a con­ver­sa­tion that made me blush when Loiosh re­peat­ed it. And I don’t blush easy.

By the evening, I was start­ing to won­der if the whole thing were a put-​up job—if some­one knew I was lis­ten­ing and was stag­ing the con­ver­sa­tions for my ben­efit. But then, I re­mind­ed my­self that most of these peo­ple worked eigh­teen hours a day or so, many of them at the slaugh­ter hous­es, so I wouldn’t ex­pect to hear any­thing of sub­stance un­til the evening.

And, in­deed, in the evening I start­ed hear­ing things that were more in­ter­est­ing: Loiosh re­port­ed a male voice say­ing, “They should be ar­riv­ing with­in the half hour, we should set the chairs up.”

I sent down for an­oth­er meal to pre­pare my­self; this one a whole fowl done in a sweet wine sauce. I don’t ac­tu­al­ly care much for sweet sauces, but it wasn’t bad.

“Pound­ing sounds, Boss. Doors. Peo­ple com­ing in. Voic­es.”

“What are the voic­es say­ing, Loiosh?”

“No idea. They’re all talk­ing at once. Greet­ings, I think.”

“Any East­ern ac­cents?”

“One or two, maybe. It’s hard to say.”

“All right.”

About half an hour lat­er he said, “They’re qui­et­ing down. Some­one’s talk­ing. Dra­gaer­an, or at least no ac­cent I can hear.”

“What’s he say­ing?”

“She. Blah blah blah the Em­pire blah blah blah Tir­ma blah blah blah or­ga­nize blah blah—”

“Loiosh.”

“Boss, when she ac­tu­al­ly says any­thing, I’ll tell you, okay? This hav­ing voic­es in my head is re­al­ly weird.”

“You should be used to it. I am.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Okay.”

About half an hour lat­er, he said, “They’re go­ing to be hav­ing some sort of meet­ing to­mor­row.”

“How thrilling.”

“With an Im­pe­ri­al Rep­re­sen­ta­tive.”

“Oh. If it turns out to be De­saniek, this will sud­den­ly be too easy.”

“No idea who it is.”

“Guess I’d bet­ter find out.”

“They’re still talk­ing, Boss. Some­thing about meet­ing be­fore the meet­ing with the Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, to, I don’t know, I couldn’t hear. Some­thing about uni­ty.”

“Where’s the meet­ing?”

“Which?”

“Both.”

“The one with the Rep­re­sen­ta­tive will be at Speak­er’s Hall at the fifth hour of the af­ter­noon. The ear­li­er one will be noon, at the cot­tage.”

“A meet­ing be­fore the meet­ing. Okay. Got it. I may have a bit of an idea, but I first need to make sure that it is De­saniek go­ing to that meet­ing.”

“What if it isn’t?”

“Then I’ll—”

I didn’t have to an­swer the ques­tion, be­cause a clap out­side the door in­ter­rupt­ed me.

“Who?”

“No one I know, Boss. Just one, though.”

I stirred my­self. I had for­got­ten about the damned rib and sat up di­rect­ly, in­stead of turn­ing on my side first. I re­solved not to do that again. I hoped I wasn’t go­ing to have to de­fend my­self, be­cause I just wasn’t in any shape to. Nev­er­the­less, I let a knife fall in­to my right hand, held it be­hind the door, and opened the door care­ful­ly.

My, my, my.

I didn’t rec­og­nize her, but I knew what she was. She had a face like a knife’s edge, hair swept back and tied, and wore black and gray and rings on ev­ery fin­ger in­clud­ing both thumbs.

I stepped back. “Well,” I said. “This is un­ex­pect­ed. Please come in.”

“Vladimir Tal­tos?”

“Some­thing like that,” I said. “And you are?”

“A mes­sen­ger.” She made no move to come in; the hall­way be­hind her was emp­ty.

“I can guess from whom.”

“You have a deal with us,” she said. “We have a project work­ing you know some­thing about. If you in­ter­fere with the project, the deal is off.”

Then she turned and walked down the hall.

I shut the door and put the knife away.

“Well,” I said af­ter a mo­ment. “I guess I’ve been warned.”

“I guess so. What are you go­ing to do?”

“Just what I was plan­ning to do.”

“Now?”

“Might as well.”

Loiosh and Rocza flew out of the door ahead of me, and an­nounced that things looked good. I made my way to the Palace. I still walked as if noth­ing hurt, and I still knew it wouldn’t make any dif­fer­ence. As we walked, Loiosh said, “Can I stop lis­ten­ing now?”

“Soon. Not yet.”

“It’s just more of the same, Boss.”

“Sor­ry. We’ll be done with this soon.”

Who would know? Well, the Em­press, of course, and I’d try again to see her if I had to, but one doesn’t sim­ply barge in on the Em­press to get a sim­ple ques­tion an­swered if one has any choice, so I took my­self to the Drag­on Wing to see if the tem­po­rary act­ing War­lord and Drag­on Heir to the throne hap­pened to have a spare mo­ment. Start small, that’s what I al­ways say.

I climbed the stairs to the tiny room that was al­most be­com­ing fa­mil­iar—yea, Vlad Tal­tos, ex-​as­sas­sin, ex–crime boss, want­ed by both sides of the law (that last isn’t true, but it sound­ed good, didn’t it?), walked in­to the in­ner sanc­tum of Im­pe­ri­al law en­force­ment. I clapped.

“Who by the fe­cal mat­ter of the Sev­en Wiz­ards is it now and what do you want that can’t wait half an hour?” came the cheer­ful re­ply from with­in.

“It’s Vlad,” I said.

“En­ter, then.” I did. “My day is now per­fect,” she sug­gest­ed.

“Who from the Em­pire is go­ing to meet with that group of East­ern­ers and Teck­la?” As I’ve said, I’m big on small talk.

Her eyes nar­rowed and her lips pressed to­geth­er. “Cawti?” she said.

“No. My own sources. Who will it be?”

“Why should I tell you?”

There were a num­ber of rea­sons, but I cut to the sim­plest one. “If it’s De­saniek, she’s go­ing to be as­sas­si­nat­ed there.”

That made an im­pres­sion of some sort, but I couldn’t judge what it was. “It isn’t,” she said at last. I’m not sure if I felt re­lieved or dis­ap­point­ed. It was too pat, any­way. No­rathar con­tin­ued, “It’s Caltho.”

“Who is that?”

“Iorich. De­saniek’s chief in­ves­ti­ga­tor.”

“I see.” Then. “Oh.”

“Oh?”

“What would hap­pen if he were killed at that meet­ing?”

She blinked. “At that meet­ing? By an East­ern­er or a Teck­la?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t . . .” Her voice trailed off as she con­sid­ered it. “It wouldn’t be good,” she said fi­nal­ly. “What are your rea­sons for think­ing it will hap­pen?”

“You know about the Jhereg, Left Hand, and Or­ca pres­sure on Zeri­ka.”

“On Her Majesty,” she cor­rect­ed ab­sent­ly.

“An hon­est in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be ug­ly, but would take away their lever­age. An at­tempt on the part of rebel Teck­la to stop the in­ves­ti­ga­tion would sab­otage it, or at least de­lay it, and the pres­sure would be back on.”

She frowned. “I don’t know. That isn’t how the Jhereg op­er­ates.”

“The Left Hand does.” She start­ed to speak but I cut her off. “I don’t know a lot about the Left Hand, but I know how they op­er­ate, and it’s just like that. Not to men­tion the Or­ca.”

She nod­ded slow­ly. “Yes, I can see that. What do you sug­gest I do?”

“The ob­vi­ous thing is to ar­rest the rebels.”

“And you know as well as I do why I can’t.”

“The Em­press wouldn’t ap­prove?”

“And for good rea­son: that sort of thing just stirs them up and makes the rest think they must be right. Your peas­ant is a peace­ful, hap­py sort, nor­mal­ly, Vlad, and hav­ing a few mal­con­tents around gives him some­one to feel wis­er than. Knock ten of those on the head, and now you have a thou­sand in their place. We don’t need that.”

I wasn’t en­tire­ly sure about the whole peace­ful hap­py peas­ant thing, but I had to agree with the rest. “Can­cel the meet­ing?”

“The same prob­lem, on­ly not quite as bad.”

“Yeah. Well, break up this deal with the Or­ca and the Left Hand? Leave them no rea­son to go to the trou­ble? They’re prac­ti­cal sorts, you know.”

“How do you pro­pose do­ing that?”

“I don’t know. Ask nice­ly?”

“Can you be se­ri­ous for two words?”

“Not with­out great ef­fort.”

“Vlad—”

“Okay, I know how to do it. Maybe. I have to make some as­sump­tions, and af­ter learn­ing just now that the tar­get isn’t De­saniek, but—what’s his name?”

“Caltho.”

“Right. Af­ter learn­ing that, I’m not so sure about my abil­ity to make as­sump­tions, but I’m go­ing for it any­way.”

“What are you go­ing to do?”

“Iden­ti­fy the as­sas­sin, and kill him.”

She drummed her fin­gers on her desk. Then, “All right,” she said. “Can I help?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve been threat­ened by the Left Hand. Or, rather, Cawti has.”

Her eyes nar­rowed. “And you’re go­ing ahead with it?”

“You know her. Wouldn’t you?”

She nod­ded slow­ly. “All right. I’ll watch her.”

“She’ll need sor­cer­ous pro­tec­tion above all.”

“I’m not an id­iot, Vlad.”

“Sor­ry. It’s just—”

“I know. Any­thing else?”

I shook my head, stood, and took my leave.

“Boss, I will nev­er, ev­er un­der­stand flight­less peo­ple.”

All I had to do was find the as­sas­sin. Should be no prob­lem. Just look for the shifty eyes. Heh.

If you’re go­ing up against some­one, it’s al­ways best to as­sume he’s not as good as you, and a lit­tle bet­ter than you. You need to fig­ure you’re bet­ter, be­cause oth­er­wise you start sec­ond-​guess­ing your­self, and hes­itat­ing, and do­ing all sorts of oth­er things that don’t help at all. And bet­ter, be­cause if you un­der­es­ti­mate some skill he has, it could be very em­bar­rass­ing. It’s tricky do­ing both at once.

Put it this way: Could I dis­guise my­self well enough that I couldn’t tell I was an as­sas­sin?

Easy.

So, how would I get my­self to re­veal me, in a crowd­ed room? How crowd­ed? I had no idea. It wasn’t that big a cot­tage; you couldn’t get more than twen­ty or thir­ty peo­ple in there.

I ate, and I thought, and I didn’t come up with any­thing bet­ter than sud­den­ly pulling a knife and see­ing if any­one re­act­ed like he knew what he was do­ing. I didn’t much like it. Then it crossed my mind that per­haps it would be a sor­cer­ous at­tack, and I liked it even less.

Well, all right. The as­sas­sin would be there, or not; the as­sas­sin would be a sor­cer­er, or not. When you’re play­ing Shere­ba, and you re­al­ize that the on­ly way you can win is if your op­pos­ing knave is still in the deck, then you play as if it’s still in the deck. There­fore, the as­sas­sin would be there, and would not be a sor­cer­ess.

“Glad that’s set­tled.”

“Shut up.”

I did some more think­ing, and came up with noth­ing else, and even­tu­al­ly I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I hurt a lit­tle less, but I still had no in­ter­est in even mov­ing slow­ly; the idea of mov­ing fast just wasn’t any fun at all.

“Boss, if you spot the as­sas­sin, what are you go­ing to do?”

“I’m go­ing to say, ‘Pointy point, you’re the don­key.’ ”

“I prob­ably don’t want to know, do I?”

“I’m just wor­ried about the pos­si­bil­ity he nev­er played that as a kid. You don’t think about as­sas­sins ev­er be­ing kids, you know?”

“Yeah, that’s just what was on my mind.”

I stood up, slow­ly and painful­ly. “What if I was beat­en just for this? I mean, what if the whole point was to make it im­pos­si­ble for me to take out the as­sas­sin if I need­ed to?”

“Yeah, Boss. What if?”

I didn’t have an an­swer, so I slow­ly got dressed and ready, and then, Loiosh and Rocza scout­ing for me, I went down the stairs and out. I picked up some warm, crusty bread and smoky, crumbly goat cheese from a ven­dor out­side the inn. I love warm bread more than a lot of things you’d think would be high­er on the list, you know?

Af­ter I’d eat­en, I made my way to the West Palace Mar­ket, which is a good place to go for the best in­gre­di­ents, if you can make your­self get up that ear­ly in the morn­ing. I wasn’t there for in­gre­di­ents to­day, though. In the far south­west­ern cor­ner of the mar­ket, be­hind a stall that sells the best truf­fles in White-​crest is a rat­ty-​look­ing per­ma­nent store that sells pre-​rolled cop­per tub­ing, and nails, ham­mers, springs, and var­ious tools for us­ing the above. It’s run by a Tsalmoth named Liska who looks as old as Sethra is and scur­ries about at a fu­ri­ous pace, her back per­ma­nent­ly bent and her eyes look­ing up from be­neath hair so stringy she seems to have lost her no­ble’s point. She keeps her cash in a box be­neath the stool she us­es on the rare oc­ca­sions when she sits to dick­er with a cus­tomer, while the cus­tomer stands on the oth­er side of a wood­en plank set on two bar­rels; the plank is a light wood, well-​pol­ished, and carved with de­pic­tions of a tsalmoth in var­ious odd pos­es.

“What do you want?” she said when I walked in.

“A knife,” I told her.

She scur­ried on­to her stool. She knew me, but ad­mit­ting it would, I guess, give me a bar­gain­ing ad­van­tage over her. Some­thing like that. “What sort of knife?” she barked out.

“Noth­ing fan­cy; just some­thing to whit­tle with.”

She gave me a look that in­di­cat­ed enough sus­pi­cion to prove she knew who I was. I looked all in­no­cent and shit. She showed me a se­lec­tion, and I end­ed up pick­ing out a small clasp knife. I test­ed the edge be­cause it would have looked fun­ny not to, and made sure it opened and closed eas­ily, gave her an im­pe­ri­al and told her to keep it, and head­ed back out.

“Okay, Boss. I can’t wait to see what you’re go­ing to do with that.”

“It’s pret­ty small; I’ll most like­ly just lose it.”

I still had a cou­ple of hours be­fore the meet­ing was sup­posed to start. Not far from the West Palace Mar­ket is a hos­tel called the Ink­stand for a rea­son that was ex­plained to me once but I can’t re­mem­ber; I think it was some­thing his­tor­ical. There’s an ac­tor named Gi­naasa who lives there from time to time, and with whom I’ve done busi­ness be­fore. Since it was ear­ly in the morn­ing, I ex­pect­ed to wake him up, and I ex­pect­ed him to be sober. I was right on both counts, but he took it in good grace when I clinked some coins. I left there a bit lat­er with a cloth bag con­tain­ing a blond wig and a neat­ly trimmed match­ing beard, a bit of glue, and a jar of stuff to light­en my com­plex­ion a bit.

That done, I still had the hard part: if it worked, what then? How was I go­ing to ma­nip­ulate events to get what I want­ed, just in case that was a pos­si­bil­ity?

“Boss, where are you go­ing?”

“Huh? I don’t—oh, House of the Iorich, I guess.”

“You think he’ll know what to do?”

“I guess if we’re go­ing to go in­to this, we ought to find out what is li­able to hap­pen to Aliera. Re­mem­ber Aliera? She’s the one who got us in­volved in this?”

“Are you ex­pect­ing grat­itude?”

“No. I just know if it were me—”

“Yeah, yeah.”

We reached the house safe­ly, and I made the now-​fa­mil­iar trek to Perisil’s of­fice and clapped. He peered out the door, then opened it. I went in.

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” he asked me. He looked gen­uine­ly cu­ri­ous.

“Nev­er mind.”

I took the chair op­po­site him and said, “I have some­thing go­ing that might do, um, some­thing. I need to check it with you.”

He nod­ded. “Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to give me at least one or two more de­tails than that if you want an in­tel­li­gent com­ment.”

It took me a mo­ment to re­al­ize he was jest­ing; I don’t know if that says some­thing about him, or about me. I said, “All right, just this once. Here’s the sit­ua­tion as I see it, stop me if I’m wrong about some­thing: The Jher—that is, cer­tain groups are try­ing to pres­sure the Em­press. The lever­age they have is the scan­dal about Tir­ma, which is go­ing to an­noy a lot of the peo­ple who mat­ter, al­though ex­act­ly why they care I couldn’t say.” He gave me a look, but didn’t in­ter­rupt.

I went on. “The Em­press, af­ter you and I start­ed mak­ing trou­ble and kick­ing things up, re­con­sid­ered, and de­cid­ed to have an of­fi­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the events. There will be an ef­fort to stop the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and cast blame at some id­iot group of Teck­la by as­sas­si­nat­ing Caltho.”

“De­saniek.”

“No, I was wrong about that. Her as­sis­tant, Caltho.”

“Hm­mm. That would work too.”

“Even bet­ter, be­cause it will hap­pen at a pub­lic meet­ing where he is sup­posed to an­swer ques­tions about what is hap­pen­ing and why.”

“I see.”

“All right, so, if I man­age to stop the as­sas­si­na­tion, does that give us any lever­age to get Aliera re­leased?”

He was qui­et for a mo­ment, then he said, “Stop it how?”

“By killing the as­sas­sin be­fore he can kill Caltho.”

He was qui­et for a bit longer, then. “It de­pends on a num­ber of things. How are you. . . where. . .” His voice trailed off and he looked un­com­fort­able. I’d nev­er seen him look un­com­fort­able be­fore; I think I en­joyed it.

“The way I see it go­ing down, I’ll take him be­fore he ev­er gets to the meet­ing.”

“Then, ex­cuse me, how will any­one know?”

“No one will know.”

“Then I don’t see how it will have any ef­fect on our case.”

“Uh. Yeah, there’s that. Okay, what if I made it more dra­mat­ic?”

“You mean, a res­cue at the last minute and all?”

I nod­ded. “I have no idea if I can, or how, but I might be able to pull some­thing like that off.”

He nod­ded slow­ly, rub­bing his chin, then said, “No.”

“No?”

“Legal­ly, it would have no stand­ing. Let me ex­plain. There are three ways this can go: She can be tried for what she was ar­rest­ed for, or she—”

“Wait, what she was re­al­ly ar­rest­ed for, or what the of­fi­cial charges were?”

He blinked, hes­itat­ed, and said, “I’ll start over. There are three ways this can go. One: She can be ar­rest­ed for prac­tic­ing El­der Sor­cery, she—”

“It’s crap.”

He shrugged. “That’s as may be. Two: She can be in­ves­ti­gat­ed for her role, if any, in the mas­sacre. Or, three: All charges could be dropped and she could be re­leased.”

“Eh? Well, that would be best. How can we get that to hap­pen?”

“I’ve no idea. I’m just list­ing the pos­si­bil­ities. Now, I can rep­re­sent her on the charge of El­der Sor­cery. If the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mas­sacre hap­pens, she should find an­oth­er ad­vo­cate, be­cause that falls un­der Mil­itary Code, or Im­pe­ri­al Re­spon­si­bil­ity, or some com­bi­na­tion, and in any case I know noth­ing about it.”

“Well, but get­ting her re­leased—”

“That isn’t some­thing we do; that’s just some­thing that could hap­pen if the Em­press takes it in­to her head to do it, or if the Jus­ticer de­cides there’s no case. Now, we’re go­ing to be ap­pear­ing be­fore Jus­ticer Moriv. I’ve tried cas­es with her be­fore, and we get along all right.”

“That’s im­por­tant, I as­sume.”

He nod­ded. “She’s easy­go­ing, for a Jus­ticer, but doesn’t tol­er­ate any de­vi­ations from strict code; that’s prob­ably why they picked her.”

“But she has to obey Im­pe­ri­al or­ders, right? I mean, if the Em­press tells her to drop the case, she has to drop it.”

He hes­itat­ed. “It isn’t that sim­ple.”

I sti­fled a groan.

“An or­der from the Im­pe­ri­al Ad­vo­cate would do it, cer­tain­ly.”

“Hm­mm?”

“The one rep­re­sent­ing the Em­pire in the pro­ceed­ings. My op­po­nent, if you will.”

“Oh. Is that some­thing li­able to hap­pen?”

“If he thinks he can’t win.”

“How do we con­vince him he can’t win?”

“In court.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“It’s what I’ve been work­ing on.”

“How’s it look­ing so far?”

“Not all that good, but there are a few points that might get us some­where.”

“And if the Em­press or­dered the, what was it? Im­pe­ri­al Ad­vo­cate? to stop the pros­ecu­tion?”

“Same as or­der­ing the Jus­ticer to. Tech­ni­cal­ly, they aren’t per­mit­ted to. But, ah, it would have a strong in­flu­ence. I can’t pre­dict what would hap­pen.”

“So we’re back to con­vinc­ing Her Majesty to drop it, and hop­ing for the best.”

He gave me a look. “Or I might win the case.”

“Right. Sor­ry.” I hes­itat­ed. “The Em­press is un­der a lot of pres­sure from a lot of dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions. What hap­pens if she sees a way out?”

“Lead­ing ques­tion. She’ll take it, of course, bar­ring any sig­nif­icant fac­tors you haven’t men­tioned.”

“How would it work?”

“The best way is to present a re­quest to dis­miss to the Jus­ticer and the Im­pe­ri­al Ad­vo­cate, with a copy to Her Majesty. The trick is find­ing grounds for the re­quest. We don’t ac­tu­al­ly have any, which puts all of them in a tricky po­si­tion.”

“I have in­for­ma­tion that the idea of ar­rest­ing Aliera came from the Jhereg rep­re­sen­ta­tive; does that help?”

“Is it in­for­ma­tion from some­one who will say so un­der the Orb?”

“Uh, no.”

“Then it doesn’t help.” He hes­itat­ed. “Un­less.”

“Hm­mm?”

“The idea came from the Jhereg rep­re­sen­ta­tive—to whom?”

“Uh, to the Em­pire.”

“No, no. To whom did the rep­re­sen­ta­tive make—”

“Oh. To Her Majesty.”

“Ah. That’s dif­fer­ent. Then the Orb will re­mem­ber it, which means that it hap­pened legal­ly.”

“Um, and so?”

“So we present a claim on con­spir­acy against the Jhereg.”

“Oh, they’ll love me for that.”

He shrugged. “They have a lot of af­fec­tion for you now, do they?”

“Good point. How does it work?”

“We present a pe­ti­tion to have the Orb in­ter­ro­gat­ed about the source for the idea of ar­rest­ing Aliera—it doesn’t mat­ter how we know about it, as long as we’re spe­cif­ic about the re­quest. Then you have to show rea­son­able prob­abil­ity that there was a Jhereg as­sas­sin work­ing against the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

“I can do that,” I said.

“If you get lucky.”

“Shut up.”

I asked him, “How does it work from there?”

“They grant the pe­ti­tion, look at the ev­idence of a Jhereg as­sas­sin, find rea­son­able grounds that the pros­ecu­tion was from a pri­vate con­spir­acy rather than cause of jus­tice—what?”

“Noth­ing. An in­vol­un­tary noise. Go on.”

“And when they’ve es­tab­lished that, they dis­miss the charges.”

“What about the Im­pe­ri­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion part? I mean, the re­al charges?”

“I have no con­trol over that, and if there is one, as I said, I’d be the wrong ad­vo­cate to han­dle it.”

I nod­ded. “All right. So my part is sim­ple—stop the as­sas­sin in such a way that it’s known he was an as­sas­sin.”

“When will this hap­pen?”

I checked the time with the Orb. “Four to six hours from now.”

“Oh! Well, if you’ll par­don me then, I need to get these pe­ti­tions draft­ed.”

I nod­ded and got out of there.

“Boss, how are you go­ing to iden­ti­fy the as­sas­sin, much less prove what he is?”

“That isn’t what I’m wor­ried about, Loiosh. I’m wor­ried about how to stop the Im­pe­ri­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

“Why stop it? Will they re­al­ly con­vict Aliera just for killing a few Teck­la?”

“If we’re lucky, we’ll find out,” I said.

Iorich

16

To as­sert that fi­nal re­spon­si­bil­ity for ac­tions tak­en by Im­pe­ri­al Rep­re­sen­ta­tives rests with the Em­press is to state a tru­ism with­out sub­stance. In this case in par­tic­ular the dis­cov­er­ies of this com­mit­tee show that the prob­lem is, above all, that Im­pe­ri­al poli­cies are car­ried out by hu­man be­ings, who are nec­es­sar­ily flawed. While in­ci­dents such as this are re­gret­table, the facts do not sup­port blan­ket con­dem­na­tions of Im­pe­ri­al poli­cies with re­gard to re­bel­lion, much less the Em­pire it­self. Rather, in­ci­dents such as this must be ac­cept­ed as in some mea­sure un­avoid­able.

How­ev­er, there are, in the opin­ion of this com­mit­tee, cer­tain steps which can be tak­en to min­imize the fre­quen­cy and sever­ity of such events, which steps are list­ed in Ap­pendix 27.

The big ques­tion was whether I had enough time to set ev­ery­thing up: I on­ly had a cou­ple of hours left un­til the meet­ing, and if this was go­ing to work, I had to ar­rive ear­ly to try to con­vince them to let me at­tend, and to watch ev­ery­one ar­rive in hopes of spot­ting the dzur among the nors­ka.

The same sergeant was work­ing in the Drag­on Wing. He did not look pleased to see me.

“Same thing,” I said. “If you would be so kind as to in­form the Lord Mor­rolan that I wish to see him, and add that it is ur­gent.”

He scowled but agreed.

“And,” I said. “If I might trou­ble you for an ad­di­tion­al ser -vice, please have some­one find the War­lord and tell her the fol­low­ing: Vlad has a way out. I’ll be wait­ing in that same room I was in be­fore, if that is ac­cept­able.”

Then I wan­dered for a bit un­til I found an er­rand-​run­ner, part­ed with a few coins, and ar­ranged for a mes­sage to be de­liv­ered, fast, to a cer­tain innkeep­er in a cer­tain hostel­ry not far from Malak Cir­cle, near where I used to work.

Then I found the room where I’d wait­ed be­fore, and wait­ed again, drum­ming my fin­gers on the arm of the chair and hop­ing ev­ery­one would ar­rive in time.

No­rathar was the first to ar­rive. She en­tered with­out clap­ping and said, “What is it?” with­out even sit­ting down.

“I’ll tell you when the oth­ers are here,” I said.

“What oth­ers?”

“Just friends.”

She sat down fac­ing me, look­ing like she want­ed to read my plan on my face. If it were that easy to do, I’d have no trou­ble iden­ti­fy­ing the as­sas­sin.

A few min­utes lat­er, there was a clap, and Mor­rolan en­tered. He looked at me, looked at No­rathar, and said, “Well?”

“We’re still wait­ing,” I said.

“For?”

“The oth­ers,” I said, just to be con­trary and be­cause turn­ing Mor­rolan’s bait is al­ways fun.

He rolled his eyes and sat next to No­rathar. Day­mar was there with­in about a minute. He looked around the room cu­ri­ous­ly, as if he hadn’t re­al­ized the Drag­on Wing had places to sit. The oth­ers, it seemed, didn’t know quite what to make of him. Well, nei­ther did I, for that mat­ter.

A few min­utes lat­er, there was a soft but firm clap, and Kiera en­tered; she was the one I’d been most wor­ried about reach­ing, so I re­laxed a bit. “Just one more,” I said.

“Who is that?” asked Kra­gar.

I stared at him. He smiled sweet­ly and said, “Ah, glo­ri­ous vengeance,” and smirked. I felt bet­ter see­ing that the oth­ers, in­clud­ing Kiera, were al­so star­tled. I did not give Kra­gar the sat­is­fac­tion of ask­ing when he’d ar­rived. I just said, “We’re all here now.”

“Good,” said No­rathar. “Get on with it.”

I out­lined the sit­ua­tion as I un­der­stood it, ex­cept that I made it sound gloomi­er than it was so it would be more dra­mat­ic when I an­nounced that I had a way out. It would have worked bet­ter if they didn’t know me so well. Kiera smiled a lit­tle, Mor­rolan stared off in­to space, and No­rathar said, “Get on with it” again.

So I did, mak­ing it as clear as pos­si­ble, and on­ly gloss­ing over the part where I had some doubts I could pull it off. I should have known bet­ter. “Vlad,” said Kiera. “How are you go­ing to iden­ti­fy the as­sas­sin?”

“I have some ideas on that,” I said.

No­rathar said, “He’s go­ing to bran­dish a knife and see who re­acts as if he knows what he’s do­ing.” That hurt, be­cause I had been con­sid­er­ing that.

“There are prob­lems with that,” I said.

“Yes. Like, if no one re­acts right. Or if more than one do.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Now, Kiera—”

“Hm­mm?”

I glanced at No­rathar. “Uh, no rude­ness in­tend­ed, No­rathar, but in your of­fi­cial ca­pac­ity, you don’t want to hear this. I’ll whis­per.”

She rolled her eyes, and I stood up, leaned over to Kiera, and whis­pered.

She lis­tened, then said, “Sounds easy enough.”

Yeah, I’m sure it was, for any thief good enough to steal the mus­tache off an East­ern­er’s face. But I just nod­ded to her and sat down again.

Kra­gar said, “You nev­er men­tioned what I’m sup­posed to do.”

“Keep the Jhereg off-​bal­ance while we do the oth­er stuff. We don’t want them in­ter­fer­ing un­til Aliera is out, with pa­pers with a big Im­pe­ri­al seal on them say­ing the mat­ter is over.”

“Oh,” he said. “Any idea how?”

“Yes. Find the Im­pe­ri­al Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, and keep her oc­cu­pied.”

“Just how am I go­ing to do that, when I can be in­ter­rupt­ed at any time?”

“Kra­gar, meet Day­mar.”

“We’ve met,” said Kra­gar. Day­mar, it seemed, missed the in­flec­tion in Kra­gar’s voice, and just nod­ded.

“What’s my part?” asked Day­mar.

“Dress up as a Jhereg, go with Kra­gar, and make sure the Jhereg rep­re­sen­ta­tive can’t get any psy­chic mes­sages. And doesn’t know it.”

“Dress up like a Jhereg?”

“Yes.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

He paused. Then, “All right.”

“Good.”

“What about send­ing?”

“She’s wel­come to talk to any­one she wants. I just don’t want any Jhereg telling her to go see the Em­press right now.” I stopped and looked at Kra­gar. “Just to be clear, if they fig­ure out what you’ve done, and I don’t see how to pre­vent that, you might be­come a tar­get.”

Kra­gar yawned. I shrugged. Then I winced.

“Still in pain?” said Kiera.

“Some.”

“Is it go­ing to—”

“I hope not. Mor­rolan, it’s clear enough?”

He nod­ded. “I go to the ad­vo­cate’s of­fice. What’s his name?”

“Perisil.”

“Right. I wait there for, uh, three more hours and a bit, then, if I haven’t heard from you, I take him in to see the Em­press. Sounds easy.”

“I hope so. War­lord?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Sor­ry, High­ness.”

She stared at me. I re­al­ly, re­al­ly should learn not to bait Drag­onlords. It’s a bad habit, and one of these days it could get me in­to trou­ble. But it’s so much fun. I cleared my throat and said, “You know where to be, and when?”

“Yes. I’m to make sure no one tries to pre­vent Mor­rolan and the ad­vo­cate from reach­ing Her Majesty.”

I nod­ded.

“That’s it, then,” I said. I checked the time. I could make it if I hur­ried.

“Good luck, Vlad,” said Mor­rolan. Kiera just smiled her smile. Day­mar was lost in thought. No­rathar shrugged. They all got up, one at a time, and filed out. When I was alone, I pulled the dag­ger from my boot and stud­ied it and test­ed it. It was a stilet­to, my fa­vorite weapon for mak­ing some­one be­come dead. My fa­vorite tar­get, when pos­si­ble, is the left eye, be­cause it is back there that Dra­gaer­ans keep the part of their brains that per­mits psy­chic ac­tiv­ity. Not that I’m nec­es­sar­ily try­ing to cut off psy­chic ac­tiv­ity, but if you take it out, they go in­to shock in­stant­ly. That takes a weapon with rea­son­able length, and a good point. This one had that, though the edge wasn’t any­thing to brag about.

But I had no time to sharp­en it just now. I re­placed it in my boot, test­ed the draw, didn’t like it, and end­ed up ar­rang­ing a quick rig against my stom­ach on the left side, hid­den by my cloak. I test­ed it, and it worked, and it didn’t hurt much more than a whole lot. Fair enough.

I set out for the Stone Bridge, cut­ting around the Palace dis­trict, Loiosh and Rocza keep­ing an eye on the foot traf­fic to make sure no one was in­ter­est­ed in my move­ments.

I was a bit dis­tract­ed: For one thing, it hurt to move. For an­oth­er, the trick­iest part of the whole mat­ter was just com­ing up. I thought about ask­ing Cawti to help, but I had the im­pres­sion a rec­om­men­da­tion from her might not go over well with these peo­ple. I thought up sev­er­al pos­si­ble sto­ries and re­ject­ed them.

I still hadn’t made up my mind when I got near the cot­tage.

“Check.”

“On it, Boss.” And, “Dif­fer­ent guy, same spot.”

“All right.”

I stood be­hind an oak that would have tak­en three of me to wrap my arms around, and I rubbed a bit of stuff on­to my skin, glued on the beard, and set the wig in place.

“What do we do?”

“Your choice: cloak, or out­side.”

“Nei­ther?”

“Loiosh.”

“Cloak, I guess.”

“Get in, then.”

They did. I ap­proached the cot­tage and re­mem­bered to pound on the door with my fist, in­stead of clap­ping. That hurt, too.

The door opened, and a mid­dle-​aged wom­an, East­ern­er, opened the door. I couldn’t guess from look­ing which part of the East she drew her an­ces­try; she had a large mouth, and wide-​set eyes that were al­most per­fect­ly round, like a cat’s. The look in the eyes, at the mo­ment, was sus­pi­cious. “Yes?” she said.

“I’m called Savn,” I said, pulling the name more or less out of the air. “I’d like a few min­utes of con­ver­sa­tion with you be­fore the gath­er­ing here, if you don’t mind.”

“How do you know about the gath­er­ing here?”

“That’s the voice, Boss. The one do­ing most of the talk­ing.”

“All right.”

“I’m hear­ing dou­ble, Boss. Can I—?”

“All right.”

There came the psy­chic equiv­alent of a re­lieved sigh.

I said, “Many peo­ple know about the gath­er­ing here, and the one lat­er with Lord Caltho.”

“Ev­ery­one knows about that one.”

“Yes, in­clud­ing some peo­ple you would prob­ably rather didn’t.”

“The Em­pire?”

“Worse.”

She stud­ied me for a mo­ment, then said, “Come in.”

It was big­ger than it had seemed from out­side: one big room, with a stove in one cor­ner, and a loft over­head that I’m sure con­tained the sleep­ing quar­ters. There were a lot of plain wood­en chairs set out—at least twen­ty of them. I sus­pect­ed the chairs ac­count­ed for most of the ex­pense of the place.

She point­ed me to one. I sat; she re­mained stand­ing. Heh. Okay, so that’s how it was go­ing to be.

“Boss, should you be talk­ing out loud? Here? If I could lis­ten—”

“Um. Damn. Good point.”

“Mind if we take a walk?” I said. She looked even more sus­pi­cious. I said, “The Em­pire may be hear­ing ev­ery­thing we say here, and, worse, some­one else might be, too.”

She frowned, hes­itat­ed, then nod­ded abrupt­ly. I stood up, we walked out the door and down the street. When we were a good dis­tance away, I start­ed talk­ing, but she in­ter­rupt­ed be­fore I had a word out.

“Who are you?” she said.

“I gave you my name. What’s yours?”

“Brinea. Now who are you?”

“I’m what you’d call an in­de­pen­dent fac­tor. I’m not with the Em­pire—” she looked like she didn’t be­lieve that “—or with any­one else. I have a friend who’s caught in the mid­dle of it, which means I’m tem­porar­ily on your side.”

“My side is—”

“Spare me,” I said. “I have in­for­ma­tion you’ll want to know, and no in­ter­est what­ev­er in pol­itics, whether Im­pe­ri­al or an­ti-​Im­pe­ri­al.”

She pressed her lips to­geth­er and said, “What in­for­ma­tion is that?”

“Is to­day’s meet­ing, here, to plan for the meet­ing with Caltho?”

“That’s a ques­tion, not in­for­ma­tion.”

“All right. If it is, there is li­able to be a dis­guised Jhereg as­sas­sin here, who is plan­ning to kill Caltho and blame it on you.”

I sud­den­ly had her at­ten­tion. “Talk,” she said.

We turned a cor­ner; with Loiosh and Rocza still in the cloak, I felt ex­posed, but I tried to stay alert. I on­ly saw a few East­ern­ers.

“The Jhereg,” I told her, “is work­ing on a com­pli­cat­ed scheme, along with the Or­ca and the—and an­oth­er or­ga­ni­za­tion. To pull it off, they need to pres­sure the Em­press. To pres­sure the Em­press, they’re us­ing the mas­sacre in Tir­ma. If a le­git­imate in­ves­ti­ga­tion—”

“It won’t be a le­git­imate in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” she said. “They’ll just throw a black tarp over it and say it’s fine.”

“No, they’ll do a re­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Not be­cause they care, but be­cause the Em­press is try­ing to get out of a jam, and that’s the on­ly way to do it.”

“Maybe,” she said.

“The Jhereg needs to stop the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. To do that, they’re go­ing to make it look like your group killed As­sis­tant In­ves­ti­ga­tor Caltho. Much out­rage against you, prob­ably a lot of ar­rests, and the in­ves­ti­ga­tion gets put on hold. That’s how they’re go­ing to work it.”

She was qui­et for ten or twelve paces, then she said, “Maybe.”

“I agree with the maybe. I think I’m right, but I could be wrong.”

“How will you find out?”

“With your per­mis­sion, I’ll at­tend to­day’s meet­ing here, and try to iden­ti­fy the as­sas­sin.”

“What makes you think you can do that?”

“I can some­times spot them,” I said.

“What is it you do?”

“Run from them.”

“I don’t un­der­stand.”

“The Jhereg wants me dead for per­son­al rea­sons. So, most of my life is avoid­ing them. But that’s okay, I’ve been run­ning for so long it feels like walk­ing to me.”

She was qui­et again for a bit, then she said, “What will you do if you iden­ti­fy the as­sas­sin?”

“Tell you who he is, so you can do what­ev­er seems ap­pro­pri­ate.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I won’t be. I might not be able to spot him, but if I do spot him, I won’t be wrong.”

We turned a cor­ner and she start­ed lead­ing us back to­ward the house. No one had yet tried to kill me. Even­tu­al­ly she said, “All right. I’ll trust you on that part. You may as well re­lax; they’ll be here soon.”

We made it back to the house and closed the door and I felt re­lieved. I found a chair from which I could be watch­ing the door with­out ap­pear­ing to, and I wait­ed.

It was, in­deed, on­ly a few min­utes lat­er that they be­gan to ar­rive. The first to ar­rive ap­peared to be a Teck­la, and sus­pi­cious­ly like one straight out of some­one’s imag­ina­tion of what a peas­ant ought to look like: brown hair, roundish face, leath­ery-​look­ing skin, stur­dy. He greet­ed Brinea, who in­tro­duced me. He gave his name as Nicha, and sat down next to me and be­gan a con­ver­sa­tion about need­ing to watch for trick­ery at the meet­ing with the Em­pire. I grunt­ed agree­ing nois­es and kept watch­ing the door.

Short­ly af­ter, a pair of East­ern­ers came in: Kather­ine was tall for an East­ern­er, dark, and wore glass­es; Liam had the round face of a Teck­la, an odd hair col­or that wasn’t quite blond and wasn’t quite brown, and a nose that looked to have been bro­ken at least once. They car­ried fly­ers in their hands. I didn’t ask to see one be­cause I was afraid it was some­thing I was sup­posed to know about. They were both re­served with me; maybe they thought they should be the on­ly hu­mans there.

In fact, ex­cept for the three of us, ev­ery­one else was a Teck­la. I won’t give you all the names; there were twen­ty-​three of them, not in­clud­ing me or Brinea. Elim­inat­ing the two East­ern­ers, that meant twen­ty-​one who might be as­sas­sins. Nine of them were wom­en, and I al­most dis­missed them, but for one thing, there is the oc­ca­sion­al wom­an work­ing for the Jhereg (as I hap­pen to know bet­ter than most), and for an­oth­er, a Jhereg will­ing to dis­guise him­self as a Teck­la could just as eas­ily dis­guise his sex, right?

So, there were twen­ty-​one who might be my tar­get; and none of them in­stant­ly jumped out at me. I had been think­ing I might take a look at their cal­lus­es, if I could see them; but it seems I’d stum­bled in­to the largest col­lec­tion of non-​la­bor­ing Teck­la ev­er as­sem­bled in one place. Some were mes­sen­gers, some were house-​ser­vants, some did me­nial jobs for mer­chants, but none looked like he ac­tu­al­ly did any work. It was ter­ri­bly dis­il­lu­sion­ing; I won­dered what it meant.

It seemed there were sev­er­al there who didn’t know each oth­er, so my be­ing a stranger turned out not to be that bad. Brinea made in­tro­duc­tions as peo­ple came in, and I watched a lot, spoke lit­tle, learned noth­ing.

“I wish I could see, Boss.”

“You think you can spot an as­sas­sin when I can’t?”

“Yes.”

“Ha.”

The chairs were ar­ranged in most of a cir­cle, three rows deep, on­ly an arc in front of the door­way and in­to the kitchen area left free. One chair, on the oth­er end of the arc, was un­oc­cu­pied, as if by un­spo­ken con­sent. Brinea sat in it and said, “Let’s get start­ed.”

It start­ed, and it went on for a long time. They spoke of pres­sur­ing the Em­pire, which struck me as an ex­er­cise in fu­til­ity, but what do I know? They spoke about guard­ing the in­ter­ests of “the peo­ple,” but weren’t ex­act­ly clear on what that in­volved. Most­ly, it went on for a long time. I took out the clasp knife I’d just bought. No one re­act­ed. Damn. I cleaned my nails with it, and no one seemed to no­tice. Noth­ing. Oh, well. I closed it and set down next to my chair.

Mean­while, they droned on, talk­ing about what Lord Caltho—they were care­ful to call him Lord Caltho—had to be told about and what stan­dards he had to be held to, and about in­sist­ing that all de­tails of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion be made pub­lic. Let me know how that works out for you, I thought but didn’t say.

I was caught be­tween bore­dom and frus­tra­tion. I kept want­ing to flour­ish a dag­ger just to see who re­act­ed; and it might even have worked. But the thing is, it might not have, and then I’d have lost my chance.

It took a while—it took a very very long while—but at last Brinea said, “I think that cov­ers ev­ery­thing. I pro­pose we go there in a body. If we leave now, we’ll be a few min­utes ear­ly, and we can talk to any­one walk­ing by and ex­plain what we’re do­ing, then go in to­geth­er. Does any­one ob­ject?”

No one did, so we all stood up. I watched as close­ly as I could to see if any­one seemed un­usu­al­ly ath­let­ic or, well, slinky when stand­ing, if that makes any sense. And I half thought I no­ticed some­one, too. I stud­ied him as I stood: a guy with long, loopy arms wear­ing loose cloth­ing; and his hair was shag­gy enough to have maybe con­cealed a no­ble’s point. Maybe. The trick was to keep an eye on him, but not be so dis­tract­ed that I missed some­one else. It was hard, but not im­pos­si­ble. You have to trust your pe­riph­er­al vi­sion.

I con­trived to be the last one out the door ex­cept for Brinea and a fel­low I took to be her hus­band. No one else seemed in­ter­est­ed in who was the last one out the door. But I guess if you’d been watch­ing me, I wouldn’t have seemed in­ter­est­ed ei­ther.

We all trooped out to­ward the street to head to­ward the South Adri­lankha Speak­er’s Hall, which is what some­one had once built in­stead of the Speak­er’s House vil­lages have. It wasn’t far away, but at least one of us wasn’t go­ing to make it. They wait­ed for Brinea to take the lead, and, as she shut the door, I said, “I don’t have my pock­etknife.”

“You set it by your chair,” said a short, el­der­ly Teck­la who was about four paces from me.

We as­sas­sins no­tice things like that.

I nod­ded and opened my cloak as I cov­ered the dis­tance. Loiosh and Rocza flew out very quick­ly and sev­er­al peo­ple cried out, but by that time I had the stilet­to in my hand. I got him up un­der the chin. I hit him hard, too—I re­mem­ber feel­ing the hilt con­nect with his chin bone, though I most­ly re­mem­ber how much my ribs hurt when I struck. I left the knife there, and start­ed to step back, about to curl my­self up in­to a ball of pain and try to breathe when—

“Down!”

I hit the ground and rolled and felt some­thing go “whoosh” over my head. Some­one was re­act­ing aw­ful­ly fast for a Teck­la, and my mus­cles cried out to stop it and

“He has back­up, Boss! Three of them!”

Sheesh. Was the whole room full of as­sas­sins? What was he do­ing bring­ing back­up along? I nev­er did that. What sort of crap­py as­sas­sin wants wit­ness­es and needs pro­tec­tion? I’d have giv­en him a piece of my mind if I hadn’t left eight inch­es of steel in his.

I hoped one of them was the guy I’d picked out; that would make me feel bet­ter. There was a lot of scream­ing go­ing on as I con­tin­ued my roll; some of the scream­ing was from my rib. My hand found the hilt of La­dy Tel­dra, and I drew her and came to my feet, know­ing some­how I need­ed to duck to my left, and some­one yelled “Mor­gan­ti,” which was use­less, be­cause once I drew that blade, ev­ery­one with­in a mile who had any psy­chic sen­si­tiv­ity at all must have been aware of it.

She had tak­en the form of a rapi­er, which was aw­ful­ly nice, since that’s what I’m used to fight­ing with. She fit in­to my hand like my palm, hilt smooth, and it was like she was weight­less. I knew—some­how—that it was safe to take a step back­ward, and I did, tak­ing my first good look around.

There were sev­er­al hor­ri­fied faces, back­ing away. Brinea, to her cred­it, was see­ing to her peo­ple and try­ing to pull them away and speak­ing rapid­ly. Three of what ap­peared to be Teck­la were fac­ing me: each with a fight­ing knife, one with two of them. They were crouched, alert, and they were star­ing at La­dy Tel­dra. I didn’t blame them.

We stood there, watch­ing each oth­er for half a heart­beat, when a cou­ple of things hap­pened. First, I re­al­ized I didn’t hurt any­more. I al­most looked at La­dy Tel­dra my­self. You’d think some­one would have told me she could do things like that.

The sec­ond thing that hap­pened was some­one called out, “You will put up your weapons in the name of the Em­pire.”

I froze.

“What the—?”

“Two of them, Boss; they’ve pulled gold cloaks out of some­where and are toss­ing off wigs and such.”

“Great. Half the gath­er­ing were as­sas­sins, the oth­er half were Phoenix Guards. Per­fect.”

For a mo­ment, no one moved, then I heard an­oth­er voice, this one I rec­og­nized. “Vlad, put it away.”

I looked over. “No­rathar? Where did you come from?”

“Be­hind that tree over there.”

I want­ed to say that hadn’t been the plan, but she prob­ably wouldn’t have ap­pre­ci­at­ed it. I sheathed La­dy Tel­dra with a flour­ish.

“Now,” she said, “if you gen­tle­men will put yours up as well, let us all go to the Palace and talk this over. The wag­on will be here short­ly.”

There was a pause, but I had no doubts about what would hap­pen. These were Jhereg; they knew that, what­ev­er else, you do not fight with the Phoenix Guards. You can’t win. Af­ter a breath or two, there was a col­lec­tive sigh and cut­lery van­ished all over the place. No­rathar said, “Who is the lead­er here?”

I glanced at the corpse and said, “Uh, I’m afraid—”

“No, not him.”

“I am,” said Brinea, in an im­pres­sive­ly steady voice. She looked at me but didn’t say any­thing. Yeah, I know: I’d told her I was go­ing to just iden­ti­fy him. I’d been ly­ing. I do that some­times.

I stud­ied the Jhereg who were still alive, stand­ing there like id­iots the same way I was. One of them looked fa­mil­iar. I looked at him more close­ly, re­al­ized where I knew him from, and shook my head. He avoid­ed look­ing at me. I’m guess­ing he was dis­gust­ed with him­self be­cause my dis­guise had fooled him. I tried to feel smug about that but it wasn’t in me. I hate it when my plan goes blooey, even if the re­sults come out okay.

Oh, and to com­plete my hu­mil­ia­tion, the fel­low I’d no­ticed ear­li­er, and thought might be an as­sas­sin, was one of the Phoenix Guards.

Sheesh.

No­rathar said, “I’d like ev­ery­one’s name as wit­ness­es. Af­ter that, you are free to go on about your busi­ness. I think the ex­cite­ment is over, and Lord Caltho will be ar­riv­ing short­ly.”

Bri­ana agreed, and about then a cou­ple of coach­es pulled up. The three Jhereg were put in­to one, still with their weapons and un­bound; I got the oth­er. Loiosh and Rocza re­mained out­side, over­head, pro­vid­ing a winged es­cort.

No­rathar climbed in with me, and we start­ed off. I said, “Is there any law against im­per­son­at­ing a Phoenix Guard?”

“Why?”

“One of those Jhereg—the one with the flop­py hat—was one of the ones who beat me up.”

“Oh. He can be fined for that, and maybe dunked.”

“All right.” I sighed. “Got through it, any­way.”

“I sup­pose. But, Vlad, that was pret­ty slop­py. Now what? You’ve been seen killing some­one. I wouldn’t have thought you’d have slipped so far so fast.”

That was un­fair. For one thing, it wasn’t fast by my stan­dards; it had been years. For an­oth­er—

“I’ll point out that I was in dis­guise, and if you’d done what I said—”

“You’d ei­ther be dead, or have three Mor­gan­ti killings to ac­count for. I don’t know how we’ll keep you away from the Star as it is, but with that—”

“It shouldn’t be a prob­lem. He was a Jhereg as­sas­sin.”

No­rathar nod­ded. “Yes, so he was. He turned out to be not on­ly armed, but car­ry­ing a seal of the House with him.”

I nod­ded.

“The on­ly thing is,” said No­rathar, “that as­sas­sins don’t car­ry the House seal when they’re work­ing. I hap­pen to know.”

“This one did.”

“You say that like you knew.”

“I had a pret­ty good idea he would be.”

“How?”

“Be­cause I trust Kiera.”

“She plant­ed—?” She cut her­self off be­fore ask­ing the ques­tion. Drag­on Heir, act­ing War­lord, and ex-​as­sas­sin; had to be tough to be her.

I leaned my head against the hard wall of the coach.

She said, “He had three toughs with him for back­up.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I hadn’t ex­pect­ed that.”

“I had.”

I opened my eyes. “Why?”

“Be­cause they were go­ing to as­sas­si­nate a pub­lic fig­ure in a crowd­ed room. You’re used to—that is, you were used to a dif­fer­ent sort of thing.”

“I did jobs in pub­lic.”

“Dif­fer­ent sort of thing than tak­ing out a guy in the mid­dle of a restau­rant. With a pub­lic fig­ure like that, if you’re go­ing to get out of it alive and uniden­ti­fied, you need peo­ple to cre­ate enough con­fu­sion to get away.”

Great. Now I was get­ting lessons in as­sas­si­na­tion from the War­lord of the Em­pire. “You could have told me,” I said.

She shrugged. “How did you iden­ti­fy him?”

I ex­plained about the knife.

“How do you know the guy you got was the one go­ing to do the work, not one of the back­ups?”

“Why do I care?”

She in­haled deeply, then let her breath out slow­ly and nod­ded.

“Give me a mo­ment,” she said. “I’ll find out what hap­pened with the rest.”

A bit lat­er she said, “Mor­rolan brought the ad­vo­cate in to see the Em­press, pre­sent­ed the pe­ti­tion. The Em­press is now meet­ing with the Jus­ticer and Im­pe­ri­al Ad­vo­cate. Mor­rolan is con­fi­dent the charges will be dis­missed.”

I nod­ded. “And the in­ves­ti­ga­tion?”

“Aliera did noth­ing wrong as War­lord; she has noth­ing to fear from an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

“All right.”

“As op­posed to you.”

“Me? I killed an as­sas­sin.”

“You al­so pub­licly bran­dished a Mor­gan­ti weapon. Which I ought to take from you, on­ly I know bet­ter.” She looked dis­gust­ed.

“Oh, right; car­ry­ing a Mor­gan­ti weapon is il­le­gal, isn’t it?”

“Very much il­le­gal.”

“In spite of Aliera, Mor­rolan, Sethra—”

“Yes, in spite of that.”

“Just like use of El­der Sor­cery is il­le­gal, but no one cares un­less—say, I just thought of some­thing. The law against car­ry­ing a Mor­gan­ti weapon, do you hap­pen to know if it is a Cod­ified Tra­di­tion, a Statute, or an Edict?”

She frowned. “I be­lieve it’s an Edict. Why?”

“I have a good ad­vo­cate,” I said.

Iorich

17

1. There were re­gret­table and even rep­re­hen­si­ble ac­tions tak­en by Im­pe­ri­al sol­diers in the vil­lage of Tir­ma on Ly­orn 2, 252.

2. Re­spon­si­bil­ity for these ac­tions must end with the in­di­vid­uals di­rect­ly in­volved (see Ap­pendix 23 for names and sug­gest­ed charges).

3. Any at­tempt to lay re­spon­si­bil­ity for this in­ci­dent on high­er lev­els of the Im­pe­ri­al mil­itary or­der will be in­con­sis­tent with jus­tice, and in ad­di­tion may have long-​term neg­ative con­se­quences for the Im­pe­ri­al army, and can­not there­fore be rec­om­mend­ed (see Part One, point 1).

I signed and sealed the oaths say­ing that as an Im­pe­ri­al Count I promised not to go any­where un­til my case had been dealt with, then was per­mit­ted to leave the Iorich Wing. My des­ti­na­tion was con­ve­nient­ly close, and by now fa­mil­iar.

I ran in­to Day­mar on the way to Perisil’s of­fice. I was go­ing to ask him where Kra­gar was, but I bethought my­self to take a look around and there he was. I stud­ied Day­mar in his black and gray, and thought about telling him he made a good Jhereg, but he didn’t so I didn’t.

I said, “How did it go?”

“Went well,” said Kra­gar. “I gave her a good runaround about ru­mors of new laws, and how could I prof­it from them, and she gave me a good runaround not an­swer­ing me. I don’t think she sus­pect­ed any­thing.”

“She will when some­one asks her why she was out of touch right when they need­ed her to get to the Em­press.”

“They might.” He didn’t seem con­cerned.

“Thanks,” I said.

“I’m like you, Vlad; it just tick­les me to have Aliera owe me one.”

That was a mo­ti­va­tion I could un­der­stand.

We reached the of­fice. The door was open, and Mor­rolan and Perisil were there. I in­tro­duced Perisil to Day­mar and to Kra­gar, whom he hadn’t no­ticed come in.

Perisil said, “I’ve just got­ten word from the Jus­ticer. They’re re­leas­ing Aliera.”

“Good.”

“And they’ll be in­ves­ti­gat­ing the events in Tir­ma.”

“Okay.”

“And Her Majesty wants to see you.”

“Oh,” I said. I cleared my throat. “When does Aliera get out?”

“They’ve al­ready dis­patched the re­lease or­der; she should be out with­in the hour.”

“Good.”

“Good work, Vlad,” said Mor­rolan.

“And you. All of us.”

“I should have more chairs,” said Perisil.

“Will Aliera be join­ing us here?”

“I’ve no idea,” he said.

I nod­ded. “Be­cause she’d pre­fer to sit, I’m sure.” That earned me a look from Mor­rolan.

It was like the old days in Mor­rolan’s li­brary, ex­cept it wasn’t. For one thing, Aliera wasn’t there. I couldn’t de­cide if I want­ed to see her. Most like­ly, she wouldn’t want to see me. She knew and I knew that, what with one thing and an­oth­er, thanks weren’t ap­pro­pri­ate; but you can’t help when obli­ga­tion makes you un­com­fort­able.

But more than that was the un­com­fort­able feel­ing that, while it was over, it wasn’t over. We couldn’t all re­lax and laugh and make fun of each oth­er, be­cause there was too much un­fin­ished. What would hap­pen with the Im­pe­ri­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion? Would the Left Hand go af­ter Cawti, as they’d threat­ened? When would the Jhereg fi­nal­ly get me? And then there was the un­re­solved mat­ter of—

“Kra­gar,” I said. “Do some­thing for me?”

“Hm­mm?”

“Some ass­hole was just ar­rest­ed for im­per­son­at­ing a Phoenix Guard. He was one of the ones who beat me. Find him, learn who his friends were, and break a few bones.”

He nod­ded. “How are you feel­ing, by the way?”

“Me? Fine.”

“Oh, you healed?”

“I . . . yeah.”

He let it go. He knows me. They all know me. Some­times that’s not en­tire­ly com­fort­able. I know them, too, but I don’t mind that part so much.

Mor­rolan said, “I’ve just heard from Aliera. She went home. Care to join us?”

I shook my head. “I need to speak with my ad­vo­cate.”

“Oh?”

“Long sto­ry.”

He hes­itat­ed. “Will you be around long?”

“Un­less they catch up to me.”

“I meant, around town.”

“Oh. I’ll get back to you on that.”

“I’ll be go­ing,” said Day­mar. “Good to see you again, Vlad.”

“You too.”

“Haven’t seen you much these last few years. Where have you been?”

“Um. I’ll tell you about it some­time.”

“All right.” He waved and van­ished; my ears popped. Peo­ple shouldn’t tele­port out of small rooms.

Mor­rolan was more po­lite; he thanked Perisil again, bowed, and walked out the door, leav­ing me alone with my ad­vo­cate. Oh, and Kra­gar. I looked around. Nope, just the two of us.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked.

“Need an­oth­er client?”

I gave him the short ver­sion, and he agreed to take it on, and I paid him. I was start­ing to feel a bit of a squeeze with mon­ey, which was some­thing I hadn’t had to wor­ry about for sev­er­al years, and thought I’d nev­er have to wor­ry about again. A shame about that. But liv­ing on the run can be pret­ty cheap if you do it right; that’s one good thing about it.

We left it there while I head­ed over to the Palace to have a lit­tle chat with the rel­ative­ly ab­so­lute ruler of the Dra­gaer­an Em­pire.

I reached the place with no in­ci­dents, and there was Harn­wood, bow­ing as deeply as he could with­out hav­ing me think I was be­ing mocked, af­ter which he said, “If m’lord will ac­com­pa­ny me, Her Majesty will see you now.”

My good­ness. How the fall­en have be­come mighty.

He led me to a small (for the Palace, at any rate) room done in gray mar­ble, with a six-​sid­ed mar­ble ta­ble at which sat the Em­press, nib­bling on bread and cheese. As have done mil­lions be­fore me, be­fore I even bowed I couldn’t help but glance at the Orb to see if I could judge the Im­pe­ri­al Mood. I couldn’t, re­al­ly. It was a kind of rusty brown, which might mean any­thing.

“Your Majesty,” I said.

There was a soft click as Harn­wood shut the door be­hind him.

“Sit,” com­mand­ed the ruler. I did so. “Eat,” was the next com­mand. Now that wasn’t some­thing I need­ed to hear twice, so I helped my­self. The cheese was very sharp, and the sort I’d nor­mal­ly think too salty, but it seemed to work. The bread had a thin, hard crust and an odd slight­ly sour taste, re­mind­ing me of some­thing Cawti had once brought home years be­fore.

“Good, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“It comes from Naarsten Coun­ty, in the So­ran­nah. It’s from a spe­cial breed of goat, and on­ly the best of the breed. They make five pounds a year, and it on­ly comes here, to the Palace.”

“Im­pres­sive,” I said. Ac­tu­al­ly, the cheese wasn’t that good.

“Yes,” she said. “Oth­er than the cheese, there isn’t a whole lot about this job I like.”

“Makes the com­pen­sa­tions more valu­able, that there are few­er of them.”

She had an­oth­er bite of bread and cheese, and nod­ded. “By now, Aliera should be home.”

I nod­ded.

“Just like it nev­er hap­pened,” she said.

“Uh huh. What of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion?”

“She’ll be cleared of any wrong­do­ing, I’m sure.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Vlad, a squad of half-​drunk, frus­trat­ed, an­gry sol­diers in Coun­ty Nowhere go berserk, and we’re go­ing to blame the War­lord? She wasn’t even there.”

“The squad?”

“One was ca­reer mil­itary, used to see­ing civil­ians as ei­ther in­con­ve­nient undis­ci­plined id­iots, or else un-​uni­formed sneak killers. The oth­ers were peas­ant boys who weren’t used to see­ing their friends die with­out hav­ing any­one to take their frus­tra­tions out on. Peo­ple fight, peo­ple die, be­cause the al­ter­na­tive is to let some lo­cal baron set his own tar­iffs for pas­sage of ship­wood, which will out­rage the Ly­orn who own the forests and the Or­ca who buy the wood. I can’t risk of­fend­ing the Ly­orn be­cause they’re too high on the Cy­cle, or the Or­ca be­cause they’re al­ready look­ing to form al­liances with the Jhereg. So a few peas­ants have to die. More cheese?”

“Thanks.”

“It’s not bad.”

“So, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is rigged af­ter all?”

“Of course not. It doesn’t have to be rigged. It just needs to be run by some­one with a good sense of jus­tice. But not too good.”

“All right.”

“When it’s over, I’ll ask Aliera to be War­lord again. That way, she can have the plea­sure of re­fus­ing. I owe her that much, at least.”

The cheese re­al­ly was good.

“I can’t do any­thing for you, you know.”

“Your Majesty?”

“The Jhereg. The Left Hand. They’re go­ing to be af­ter you, and af­ter your wife. I can’t help you.”

I swal­lowed and nod­ded.

“I’ve done what I can,” she went on. “I’ve made some threats, but I can’t car­ry them out. They prob­ably know that.”

“Thanks, though.”

She nod­ded. “What are you go­ing to do?”

“I don’t know. If Cawti’s in dan­ger, I can’t re­al­ly leave town.”

“I’m sure she finds that very en­dear­ing.”

“As much as you would,” I said.

“Or Aliera.”

“Or Aliera.”

“It isn’t that they’re un­grate­ful.”

“I know. It’s just that no one wants to be the one be­ing res­cued, we all want to do the res­cu­ing.”

She nod­ded. “And this job is all about mak­ing ev­ery­one else do the res­cu­ing. Which is why you’re here right now.”

“You want me to res­cue some­one?”

“No. I just know that Aliera can’t thank you, and if she could, you couldn’t hear it. So I’m say­ing it. Thank you.”

“I’ll have some more cheese.”

“Please do. It’s where your tax­es go.”

“I’ve nev­er ac­tu­al­ly paid much in the way of tax­es.”

“Then you should en­joy it even more.”

“And the Teck­la in Tir­ma are still dead.”

“Yes, they are. Do you care?”

“No. Do you?”

“Yes.”

I nod­ded.

“The Em­pire has com­pen­sat­ed the fam­ilies, of course.”

“Good work. We used to do that sort of thing in the Jhereg.”

“How’d it work out?”

“Not bad, but peo­ple trust the Jhereg, so we had an ad­van­tage.”

She poured some white wine out of a tall, el­egant bot­tle in­to a sim­ple blue ce­ram­ic cup. She passed the cup to me, and I drank, then passed it back.

“I’ll let the Im­pe­ri­al Ad­vo­cate know to hur­ry up the case, so you can get out of town fast,” she said.

“I just said—”

“I know what you said. Don’t ar­gue with your Em­press.”

“Yes, Majesty.”

“That’s bet­ter.”

I leave town for a few years, and when I come back, ev­ery­one I know starts drink­ing to the point of se­mi-​in­co­heren­cy. Was it that ev­ery­thing was too bor­ing when I was gone? I some­how doubt­ed that. On re­flec­tion, I de­cid­ed it was a good idea not to ask Her Majesty if she was drunk. I put the plan in­to ac­tion at once.

We passed the cup back and forth a cou­ple of times, and she re­filled it. “You can’t do any­thing to pro­tect Cawti?” I said.

“No­rathar has promised to watch out for her, I can’t do bet­ter than that.”

“All right.”

“You know the dif­fer­ence be­tween a deca­dent Phoenix and a re­born Phoenix, Vlad?”

“Is this about to be a joke?”

“No. Or maybe yes, but no.”

“Go ahead.”

“A re­born Phoenix knows to get out be­fore the bad de­ci­sions start, that’s all.” I nod­ded. She said, “I’ve spent much of the last few days con­sult­ing the Orb, look­ing at mem­ories. As far as I can tell, that’s the on­ly dif­fer­ence. Once you start mak­ing bad de­ci­sions, one things leads to an­oth­er, and then there are more dead Teck­la that you don’t care about.”

“Do you think you made bad de­ci­sions?”

“No.”

I nod­ded. “Good, then. The idea of the Em­press mak­ing bad de­ci­sions wor­ries me. What about the Jhereg, the Left Hand, and the Or­ca? Are they go­ing to get away with it?”

“No, I think you stopped them.”

“Me?”

“I should give you an­oth­er Im­pe­ri­al ti­tle, but what would you do with it?”

“Yes, and how would you ex­plain it?”

“Good point. There’s still some cheese left.”

“Zeri­ka, are you plan­ning to ab­di­cate?”

“That isn’t the prop­er word. I’m think­ing it may be time for the Cy­cle to turn.”

“I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“It would look bad.”

“Do you think I care?”

“You should. The Em­pire is all about ap­pear­ances.”

She was qui­et for a long time af­ter that, then she seemed to sigh. If I had just talked the Em­press out of step­ping down, then I had just added to my tal­ly on do­ing good for the world, and sub­tract­ed from my tal­ly of help­ing friends. How would the Lords of Judg­ment weigh these things? I’d prob­ably nev­er know.

I de­cid­ed that, what­ev­er the Em­press de­cid­ed to do, my words made no dif­fer­ence. It was eas­ier think­ing that.

I cleared my throat. “The fact is, I’m safe enough if I stay at the inn—”

“As if you will.”

“—but that says noth­ing about Cawti. Can No­rathar pro­tect her and the boy?”

“I hope so. No­rathar wants to pro­tect her just as much as she wants to not be pro­tect­ed. And you may re­call, she isn’t ex­act­ly help­less.”

“I know.” I sighed. “The more I do what I have to, the more bar­ri­ers I put be­tween me and ev­ery­one I care about.”

She nod­ded. “And now you know the oth­er rea­son I asked you here. Wel­come to my world. It’s bet­ter with com­pa­ny. I’m go­ing to ask Las­zló to keep an eye on her, too, but I’d rather you didn’t men­tion that to her.”

“All right. And thank you. Who is Las­zló?”

“An East­ern­er. A witch. He’s very good at what he does.” A ghost of a smile crept over her fea­tures and I didn’t press the is­sue.

“I’ll look for­ward to meet­ing him,” I said.

She nod­ded. “Are you plan­ning to say farewell to No­rathar as you leave the Palace?”

Ac­tu­al­ly, I hadn’t thought about it at all, but I nod­ded.

“Don’t,” she said.

Right. Add her to the list. “All right.”

A lit­tle lat­er she said, “The cheese is gone.”

I nod­ded, rose, bowed, took five steps back­ward, turned, and left her alone.

Iorich

EPI­LOGUE

It was no sur­prise to any­one that, when the in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­clud­ed, ev­ery­one was cleared of any wrong­do­ing, ex­cept maybe the peas­ants, who were con­vict­ed of be­ing in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was no sur­prise to any­one that there were ri­ots in South Adri­lankha in re­sponse. It was no sur­prise to any­one that there was a lot of blood in­volved in sup­press­ing them. The on­ly sur­prise was that Aliera agreed to be­come War­lord again a week or two lat­er, but I think that was as a fa­vor to No­rathar.

Aliera has a strong sense of obli­ga­tion.

Perisil moved out of his base­ment of­fice and re­turned to a pri­vate of­fice in the City it­self, where he’s al­ready do­ing much bet­ter than his first at­tempt. Rep­uta­tion mat­ters al­most as much to an ad­vo­cate as to an as­sas­sin or an Em­press.

Two weeks ago I got word that I was cleared of all charges re­lat­ing to the in­ci­dent, which is good, but I was pret­ty much ex­pect­ing it. So that’s done, and those four bas­tards who pound­ed me got what they de­served too, which is an­oth­er one I owe Kra­gar.

I could leave now that ev­ery­thing’s over.

I could. Maybe I will.

I’m still stay­ing here at Dancer’s Rest, and mon­ey is start­ing to get tight. Ev­ery few days, I find a new way to sneak out and vis­it Cawti and the boy, and ev­ery few days it be­comes hard­er to do so safe­ly, and ev­ery few days Cawti says I should get out of town. It’s nice that she wor­ries about me, I guess. I hope she thinks it’s nice that I wor­ry about her.

We are what we wor­ry about, maybe that’s the les­son of the whole thing.

Nah.

If there were jus­tice, some­one would have paid for what hap­pened in Tir­ma. If there were jus­tice, a bunch of East­ern­ers and Teck­la in South Adri­lankha wouldn’t have had their heads stove in. If there were jus­tice, Cawti and the boy wouldn’t have to wor­ry about their lives.

If there were jus­tice, I’d be dead.

Iorich

DELET­ED SCENES

Var­ious scenes had to be delet­ed for length or con­tent. I thought some of you might be in­ter­est­ed in them. They may ap­pear when I re­lease the Di­rec­tor’s Cut of this book. But don’t hold your breath.

—SKZB

Pro­logue, Out­side Whitemill, Page 13

I pulled the ar­row from my eye, hear­ing my­self scream. At that mo­ment, a blast of mag­ic from one of them hit me, and I saw my leg fly off at the knee. I fell to the ground, reach­ing for La­dy Tel­dra, but one of them came in with an ax and took my right hand off at the wrist.

The air seemed to take on an odd gold­en shim­mer, and I heard the Necro­mancer’s voice come out of nowhere. “Through the Gate, Vlad. Hur­ry!”

“Uh, what?”

“You have to get out of here, Vlad. You’ve land­ed in a Tim Pow­ers nov­el.”

I moaned even as I felt the Gate form.

Hard gray walls ap­peared around me, and I heard voic­es speak­ing a lan­guage I didn’t know. “Am I go­ing to be safe here?”

“Well,” she said, “Not, you know, safe ex­act­ly.”

“Whose nov­el are we in now?”

“Uh . . . John DeChancie’s, Vlad. Best I could do on short no­tice.”

I whim­pered. “You couldn’t man­age Louisa May Al­cott?”

Chap­ter Two, Im­pe­ri­al Palace, Page 51

“I’m glad you’ve of­fered,” said the Em­press. “Yes, there is a ser­vice you could do.”

“I’m lis­ten­ing.”

“Far, far to the East—well be­yond the king­doms you know—there is an­cient evil that is gath­er­ing pow­er to it­self. Its pow­er comes from an Amulet of Evil that dates back to be­fore the be­gin­ning of time. The pow­er of the Amulet grows with each act of cru­el­ty, or thought­less­ness to­ward an­oth­er, or abuse of pow­er, or greed. The sell-​out of the writ­ers’ strike didn’t do it any harm ei­ther. Soon it will be­come un­stop­pable, and us­ing it, the an­cient evil will en­slave the en­tire world for­ev­er. You must de­stroy the evil, and take the Amulet and cast it in­to the Place Be­yond Time.”

I nod­ded. “All right.”

It took six weeks to get there and an hour to do the job. For­tu­nate­ly, I was able to tele­port back.

“It is done,” I told Her Majesty.

“Thank you, Lord Szurke,” she said. “Evil has been ban­ished for­ev­er.”

“Un­til the se­quel, you mean.”

“Of course.”

I shrugged. “Just prov­ing I’m will­ing to serve Your Majesty.”

Chap­ter Five, Dzur Moun­tain Stair­way, Page 103

“Well met, friend.”

I looked around, and no­ticed a splotchy brown cat on the land­ing just above me. I stared at it.

“Some­thing wrong?” it said.

“What the hell are you?”

It rolled its eyes. “This is a fan­ta­sy nov­el. I’m the oblig­atory talk­ing cat. Get a clue.”

“Boss, can I—”

“Sure.”

When Loiosh and Rocza had fin­ished their meal, we con­tin­ued up the stairs.

Chap­ter Sev­en, South Adri­lankha, Page 143

“Boss, isn’t there sup­posed to be a scene here mak­ing fun of the old ‘weapons that drink souls’ thing that al­ways comes up in bad fan­ta­sy nov­els?”

“Loiosh, in case you haven’t no­ticed, there are weapons that drink souls in these books.”

“Oh. Yeah. Good point. Guess we stay away from that one, huh?”

“Prob­ably best.”

Chap­ter Eleven, South Adri­lankha, Page 209

“Maybe I’ll go walk up to the cot­tage and ask for sanc­tu­ary,” I said. “And then maybe mon­keys will fly out of my butt. Wait. I wouldn’t say that.”

YOU JUST DID.

“I don’t care. I wouldn’t say that. It isn’t even a Dra­gaer­an id­iom.”

IT IS NOW.

“That’s stupid. There aren’t any mon­keys here.”

SO NOW YOU’RE AN EX­PERT ON DRA­GAER­AN FAU­NA?

“I didn’t say that. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

THAT’S WHAT I DO.

“Yeah, you and Tom Cruise. Just lose the mon­key bit, okay?”

I LIKE IT.

“You al­so like it when I fig­ure out how to get out of those mess­es you put me in. Now, you want me on your side, or not?”

YOU WANT TO BE ALIVE AT THE END OF THIS BOOK, OR NOT?

I sighed. “Maybe I’ll go walk up to the cot­tage and ask for sanc­tu­ary,” I said. “And then maybe mon­keys will fly out of my butt.”

Chap­ter Four­teen, Out­side the Im­pe­ri­al Palace, Page 262

I cut through the park, smil­ing at all the but­ter­flies. I start­ed skip­ping. It was such a beau­ti­ful day. A pup­py barked play­ful­ly at me and I stopped to pet it. It seemed so hap­py, I couldn’t help but sing a cheer­ful song to it be­fore I went on my way, still skip­ping.

Chap­ter Sev­en­teen, Perisil’s Of­fice, Page 307

“I have some­thing to tell you.”

“How, you have some­thing to tell me?”

“You have un­der­stood me ex­act­ly.”

“Well, I am lis­ten­ing.”

“Lis­ten­ing? Then, you wish me to tell you?”

“Yes, that is it. I am lis­ten­ing, and there­fore I wish you to tell me.”

“Shall I tell you now?”

“No.”

Iorich

Iorich­Cov­er

Ti­tle

Copy­right

Ded­ica­tion

Ac­knowl­edg­ments

Pro­logue

Chap­ter 1

Chap­ter 2

Chap­ter 3

Chap­ter 4

Chap­ter 5

In­ter­lude: Mem­ory

Chap­ter 6

Chap­ter 7

Chap­ter 8

Chap­ter 9

Chap­ter 10

Chap­ter 11

Chap­ter 12

Chap­ter 13

Chap­ter 14

Chap­ter 15

Chap­ter 16

Chap­ter 17

Epi­logue

Delet­ed Scenes