Steven Brust - Orca

“Exactly.”

“But the Empire wouldn’t lie.”

Vlad raised his eyebrows eloquently.

I shook my head. “You can’t be implying that the Imperial investigators—”

“Yep.”

“No.”

“You don’t believe it?”

“Why would they? How could they hope to get away with it? How many of them would have to be bought off, and how much would it cost? And consider how closely their report is going to be looked at, and think about the risks they run. They’d have to know they’d get caught eventually.”

Vlad nodded. “Certainly valid points, Kiera. That’s exactly what was bothering me yesterday when you told me about your conversation with Stony.”

“Well, then—”

“Kiera, how about if I just tell you what I’ve been up to, and you form your own conclusions?”

I nodded. “Okay, I’m listening. No, wait a minute.” I helped myself to a glass of water, set the pitcher next to me, sat down, and stretched out. “Okay,” I said. “Go ahead.”

Vlad took another drink of water, closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and began speaking.

First, of course, I had to find out who had carried out the investigation. I was afraid that the Empire had brought people in from Adrilankha and that these people had already returned, which meant a teleport to our beloved capital, about which idea I was less than thrilled, as you can imagine.

But one step at a time. I could have found a minstrel—I have an arrangement with their Guild—but news travels in both directions by that source, so I tried something different.

I made the tentative assumption that some things are universal, so I walked around until I found the seediest-looking barbershop in the area. Barbershops are more common in the East and in the Easterners’ section of Adrilankha—barbers cut whiskers as well as head hair—but they exist everywhere. I’ll bet you’d never thought of that, Kiera; whiskers aren’t just a distinguishing feature; they have to be tended to. Fortunately, I have sharp enough blades that I don’t have to go to barbershops for my own whiskers, but most Easterners don’t have knives that sharp. But even in the East, Noish-pa tells me, barbershops are pretty much the same as they are here.

The barber, who seemed to be a Vallista, and a particularly ugly one at that, looked at me, looked at Loiosh, looked at my rapier, and opened his mouth—probably to explain that he didn’t serve Easterners—but Loiosh hissed at him before he had a chance to say anything. While he was trying to come up with an answer for Loiosh, I walked over to the chairs where customers waited. There was a little table next to them, and I found what I was looking for in about two seconds.

It had a title, Rutter’s Rag, in big, hand-scrawled letters along the top, and it was mostly full of nasty remarks about city officials I’d never heard of, and it asked the Empire questions about its tax policy, implying that certain pirates were taking lessons from the Empire. It had a list of the banks that had closed suddenly—I assume it included the one our hostess used—and suggested that they were having a race to see which of them could clear out and vanish quickest, while wondering if the Empire, which allowed them to shut their doors on people who had their life savings in them, was really incompetent enough not to have known they were going under, or if this was now to be considered official Imperial policy.

It also, interestingly enough, made some ironic comments about Fyres’s death—suggesting that those who had invested in his companies had gotten what they deserved. But that wasn’t what I was after. Of course, it didn’t give the real name of whoever produced it, but that didn’t matter.

“What do you want?” said the barber.

“I want to know who delivers this to you.”

That confused him, because I didn’t look like a Guardsman, and, besides, they don’t really care about sheets like this. But printing it was technically illegal, and those involved in it certainly wouldn’t want to be known, so I knew I was going to have to persuade him. I tossed an imperial his way just as he was starting to shake his head. He caught it, opened his mouth, closed it, and started to toss it back. I put a couple of knives into the wall on either side of his head. Good thing I’d been practicing or I might have cut his hair. In any case, I do believe I frightened the man, judging by the squeaks he made.

He said, “A kid named Tip.”

“Where can I find him?”

“I don’t know.”

I pulled another throwing knife (my last one, actually—I’d just recently bought them) and waited.

“He lives around here somewhere,” squeaked the barber. “Ask around. You’ll find him.”

“If I don’t,” I said, “when do you expect him to deliver another one of these?”

“A couple of weeks,” he said. “But I don’t know exactly when. I never know when they’ll show up.”

“Good enough,” I said. I took a step toward him and he moved away, but I was only going to get my knives. I put them away and walked back out, turned right at random, and stepped into the first alley I got to. And there they were—another eight urchins, mixed sexes, mixed Houses. Street kids don’t seem to care much what your House is. There may be a moral there, but probably not.

I walked up to them and waited a moment to give them a good look. They studied me with a lot of suspicion, a little curiosity, but not much fear. I mean, I was only an Easterner, and maybe I had a sword, but there were still eight of them. Then I said, “Do any of you know Tip?”

A girl, who seemed to be about seventy and might have been the leader and might have been a Tiassa, said, “Maybe.”

A boy said, “What you want him for? He in trouble?”

Someone else said, “You a bird?”

Someone else asked to see my sword.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m a bird. I’m going to arrest him as a threat to Imperial security, and then I’m going to haul him away and torture him. Any other questions?”

There were a few chuckles.

“Who are you?” said the girl.

I shrugged and took out an imperial. “A rich man who wants to spread his wealth around. Who are you?”

They all turned to look at the girl. Yes, she was definitely in charge. “Laache,” she said. “Is that thing your pet?” she asked.

“Go ahead, explain it, boss.”

“Shut up, Loiosh.”

“His name is Loiosh,” I said. “He’s my friend. He flies around and looks at things for me.”

“What does he look at?”

“For example, if I were to give this imperial to someone to bring Tip back, he’d fly around and make sure whoever I gave it to didn’t scoot off with it. If someone took this imperial and told me where Tip could be found, Loiosh would wait with that person until I was certain I hadn’t been fooled.”

One of the boys said, “He can’t really tell you where someone went, can he?”

Laache grinned at me. “You think we’d do something like that?”

“Nope.”

“What reason do I give Tip for showing up?”

I brought forth another imperial. “For him,” I said.

“You sure he isn’t in trouble?”

“No. I’ve never seen him before. For all I know, he might have robbed the Imperial Treasury.”

She gave me a very adultlike smile and held out her hand; I gave her one of the coins.

“Wait here,” she said.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

When she left, Loiosh flew off and followed her, which elicited a gasp from the assembled urchinhood.

With her gone, the mood changed—the rest of them seemed suddenly uncomfortable, like they didn’t know quite what to do with me. That worked out all right, because I didn’t know what to do with them, either. I leaned against a wall and tried to look self-assured; they clumped together and held quiet conversations and pretended they were ignoring me.