Steven Brust - Orca

“You’ve had cases like this before?”

“You mean people who were so pulled into themselves that they were out of touch with the world? Yes, a few. Some of them worse than Savn.”

“Were you able to help them?”

“There were two I was able to help. Three I couldn’t.” Her voice was carefully neutral.

One way of looking at it was that the odds were against success. Another way was that she was due to win one. Neither was terribly productive, so I said, “How did you proceed?”

“I tried to learn as much as I could about how they got that way, I healed any physical damage when there was some, and then, when I thought they were ready, I took them on a dreamwalk.”

“Ah.”

“You know about dreamwalking?”

“Yes. What sort of dreams did you give them?”

“I tried to guide them through whatever choice they made that put them in a place they couldn’t get out of, and give them another choice instead.”

“And in three cases it didn’t work.”

“Yes. In at least one of those, it was because I didn’t know enough when I went in.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“It was. I almost lost my mind, and the patient became worse. He lost the ability to eat or drink, even with assistance, and he soon died.”

I kept my face expressionless, which took some effort. What a horrible way to die, and what a horrible knowledge to cany around with you, if you were the one who had tried to cure him. “What had happened to him?”

“He’d been badly beaten by robbers.”

“I see.” I almost asked the next obvious question, but then I decided not to. “That must not be an easy thing to live with.”

“Better for me than for him.”

“Not necessarily,” I said, thinking of Deathgate Falls.

“Maybe you’re right.”

“In any case, I understand why you want to be careful.”

“Yes.”

She went over and sat down in front of Savn once again, staring at him and holding his shoulders. In a little while she said, “He seems to be a nice young man, somewhere inside. I think you’d like him.”

“I probably would,” I said. “I like most people.”

“Even the ones you steal from?”

“Especially the ones I steal from.”

She didn’t laugh. Instead she said, “How do you know I won’t turn you over to the Empire?”

That startled me, although I don’t know why it should have. “Will you?” I said.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be telling me that.”

She shook her head. “You aren’t a killer,” she said.

“You know that?”

“Yes.” She added, “The other one, the Easterner, he’s a killer.”

I shrugged. “What could you tell the Empire, anyway? That I’m a thief? They know that; they’ve heard of me. That I stole something? They’ll ask what I stole. You’ll tell them, by which time Vlad will have hidden it, or maybe even returned it. Then what? Do you expect them to be grateful?”

She glared at me. “I wasn’t actually going to tell them, anyway.”

I nodded.

A few minutes later she said, “You can’t have known the Easterner long—they don’t live long enough. Yet you treat him as a friend.”

“He is a friend.”

“Why?”

“He doesn’t know, either,” I said.

“But—”

“What you’re asking,” I said, “is whether he can really do what he says he can do.”

“And whether he will,” she agreed.

“Right. I think he can; he’s good at putting things together. In any case, I know that he’ll try. In fact, knowing Vlad ...”

“Yes?”

“He might very well try so hard he gets himself killed.”

She didn’t have anything to say to that, so she turned her attention back to Savn. Thinking about Savn didn’t help me any, and thinking about Vlad getting killed was worse, so I went out and took a walk. Buddy came along, either because he liked my company or because he didn’t trust me and wanted to keep an eye on me.

Good dog, either way.

By the time we returned, it was getting dark, and Vlad was sitting at the kitchen table, with a bandage wrapped around his left forearm and no hair growing above his lip. I’m not sure which surprised me more. I think it was the lack of hair.

There was some blood leaking through the bandage, but Vlad didn’t seem to be weak or even greatly disturbed. Buddy bounded up to him, asked him to play, sniffed at his wound, and looked hurt when Vlad pulled his arm out of reach. Loiosh watched the display with what I would have guessed to be disdain if I ever knew what jhereg were thinking.

He saw me looking at him and said, “Don’t worry. It’ll grow back.”

“Well,” I said. “You seem to have been busy.”

“Yes.”

“How long since you’ve returned?”

“Not long. Half an hour or so.”

“Learn anything?”

“Yes.”

I sat down opposite him. Savn was on the floor, resting. The old woman sat beside him, watching us.

“Shall we start at the beginning?”

“I’d like a glass of water first.”

The old woman started to get up, but I motioned her to sit, went outside to the well, filled a pitcher, brought it in, filled a cup, and gave it to Vlad. He drank it all, slowly and carefully.

“More?” I said.

“Please.”

I brought him more; he drank some of it, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and nodded to me.

I said, “Well?”

He shrugged. “The beginning was your own story.”

“Go on.”

He said, “It didn’t make sense.”

“So I gathered at the time. What part of it didn’t make sense?”

He frowned and said, “Kiera, have you ever been involved in investigating someone’s death—in trying to determine cause of death?”

“No, I can’t say I have. Have you?”

“No, but I’ve been concerned with several, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean. And I have an idea of what’s involved in an investigation like that.” I shrugged. “What about it?”

“How long does it take to decide that someone wasn’t murdered?”

“Wasn’t murdered?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. Looking at the body—”

“Takes a day, maybe two, if he was murdered.”

“Well, yes, but to prove a negative—”

“Exactly.”

“They’d have to go over him pretty carefully, I suppose.”

“Yes. Very carefully. And they look at everything else, too—such as if he was the sort of person likely to be murdered, or if there is anything suspicious in the timing of his death, or—”

“Exactly the sort of circumstances that surrounded Fyres’s death.”

“Yes. Fyres’s death would set off every alarm they have. If you were the chief investigator, wouldn’t you want to be extra careful before putting your chop on a report that stated he died of mischance attributable to no human agency, or however they put it?”

“What are you getting at?”

“Your friend the Jhereg told you that the Imperial investigators had determined the cause of death to be accidental.”

“And?”

“And when did Fyres die?”

“A few weeks ago.”

He nodded. “Exactly. A few weeks ago. Kiera, they can’t have decided that this quickly. The only thing they could know this quickly is if it was a murder.”

“I see your point. What’s your conclusion?”

“That either your friend Stony lied to you or—”

“Or someone lied to Stony.”

“Yes. And who would lie to Stony about something like this? Of those, who would he believe?”

“No one.”

“Tsk.”

“He’s a naturally suspicious fellow.”

“Well, but who would he believe?”

I shrugged. “The Empire, I suppose.”