Steven Brust - Orca

“I wouldn’t have had room for them,” I said.

“That’s true. You don’t eat much, do you?”

“I’m trying to keep my slender girlish figure.”

“Ah. That’s what it is.”

We finished, and, since I was doing the dangerous work, I allowed him to volunteer to clean up. Not that there was that much to clean up after Loiosh, Rocza, and Buddy got through with the plates.

“All right,” I said, “ ‘Once more upon the path, and may the wind cry our tale.’”

“Villsni?”

“Kliburr.” I headed out the door.

Vlad said, “I don’t know how you do it, Kiera.”

“Eh? You’re the one with all the quotations. I was just imitating you.”

“No, not that—teleporting right after a meal. I just don’t know how you manage.”

I managed fine, bringing myself, first, home to Adri-lankha to acquire some tools, and then to the same teleport spot I’d used before, it being one of very few I knew in Northport. Then I set out to find the bank, which was easy from the directions I’d been given. I was looking forward to this. I’d never broken into a bank before, and certainly never in the middle of the day; the fact that the bank was now out of business only took a little of the fun away.

And it was, indeed, out of business—there was a large sign on it that spelled out “Permanently Closed,” along with the water and hand symbol for those who couldn’t read, and there were large boards over all the windows, and bars across the doors. I walked around it once. It was an attractive building, two stories high with a set of six pillars in front, and all done in very fine stonework. It took up about a hundred and forty meters across the front and went back about a hundred and ninety meters, and there were no alleys behind it—just a big cleared area that had become an impromptu produce market since it closed. The cleared area was, no doubt, to make sure that the guards had a good view.

On the other hand, now that it was closed, there seemed to be no security worth mentioning—certainly no one on duty there, and only the most basic and easily defeated alarm spells, proving that there was no money left in it. Anyone could have broken into the bank at this stage, and anyone would have done so just the way I was going to—which showed that no one thought there was anything at all of interest there. I shrugged. I’d know soon enough.

One of the devices I’d gotten from home was in the form of a tube that fit snugly into my hand. I palmed it and leaned against the building. I placed the tube against the wall, and in a few seconds I was seeing the inside of the building, and in a few more seconds I was seeing it clearly enough to teleport; no one was looking at me, so I did.

There was a minor spell inside to detect sorcery, so I disabled it before doing a light spell, then I started looking around.

There really isn’t any point in going into the details. It was big, and it was empty, and there was a lot of small offices, two vaults, and a basement, and I looked at them all, and it took me about four and a half hours, and at the end of it I had a bag full of scraps of paper. The good news, or the bad news, was that I’d found right away a very large bin full of papers that they’d never gotten around to throwing into the stove—good news because it meant there was a lot of material, bad news because if any of it was important it would have been taken or destroyed. But I wasn’t the one who had to go through them all.

I kept them sorted just a bit, in case Vlad would want to know which ones were found where. I knew that most of them, probably all of them, would be worthless, but Vlad would be stuck with going over them, so I had no problem doing the collecting. When I was done, I teleported directly back to the cottage. Buddy, who was outside, started barking when I appeared, but settled down quickly.

“Hey,” I told him. “Don’t worry. I got the goods.”

He wagged his tail.

Vlad came to the door, probably in response to Buddy, and held it open for me. He said, “Well?”

I held up the sack full of papers. “Enjoy.”

“No problems?”

“None. How about the boy?”

“He started talking about knives again—this time without any prompting at all. I can’t decide if that’s good or bad. Maybe it’s both. And he’s sleeping an awful lot.”

I sat down. The boy was asleep. Hwdf rjaanci was sitting by him, quietly singing what sounded like a lullaby. Vlad accepted the papers. He seemed a bit startled by how heavy the bag was; he weighed it in his hands and whistled appreciatively.

“What did you find out?” I asked him.

“The banker was—or is—Lady Vonnith, House of the Orca, naturally. She owned the bank completely, according to the paperwork at City Hall, which may or may not be reliable. She’s also the ‘pointer’—whatever that means—for three other banks, one of which has gone under and the other two of which are still solvent, but both of which have issued a ‘Hold of Purchase’; again, whatever that is. She lives not too far from Endra.” He gave me the address.

“Okay.”

“What’s a pointer?”

“I don’t know where the term came from,” I said. “But it means she’s in charge of the business, she runs it, even if she doesn’t own it. At a guess, she gets a whomping big cut of the profits, or she’s a part owner, or, most likely, she’s the full owner under a different name.”

“Why do that?”

I smiled. “Because if one of her banks files surrender of debts, which just happened, she can keep running the others without the debts of one being assessed against the income of the others, which the Empire is supposed to do.”

“Oh. Is that legal?”

“If she isn’t caught.”

“I see. What is a Hold of Purchase?”

“It means the bank has the right to keep your money.”

“Huh?”

“It was a law passed in the twelfth Teckla Reign. It prevents everyone from pulling his money out all at once and driving the bank under. There are all sorts of laws about when it can be invoked, and for how long, and what percentage of their cash they have to release, and to whom, and I don’t really understand it myself. But it may mean they’re in trouble, or, more likely, it means that with banks going under they’re afraid of a general panic and they’re taking steps to prevent one.”

“They,” he repeated. “The owners of the bank, or the Empire?”

“The owners request it, the Empire grants it—or doesn’t.”

“I see. That’s interesting. Who in the Empire would they go to to get such an order?”

“The Minister of the Treasury’s office.”

“Who’s the Minister of the Treasury?”

“His name is Shortisle.”

“Shortisle,” said Vlad. “Hmmm.”

“What?”

“That name came up in Fyres’s notes, somewhere. Something about it struck me as odd, but I didn’t pay much attention, and now I can’t remember what it was. I guess they met for dinner or something.”

“Hardly surprising,” I said. “The Minister of the Treasury and a major entrepreneur? Sure.”

“Yes, but ... never mind. I’ll think about it. House?”

“Shortisle? Orca.”

He nodded, and fell into a reverie of contemplation.

“Is there anything else?”

“Huh? Yeah. Go home. I’ll go over your booty tonight, which should leave me with, oh, at least half an hour to sleep. Tomorrow you make contact with the banker and see what you can learn.”

“All right,” I said. “Should I check with you first, to see what you’ve found out?”

“Yeah. But don’t hurry—I want a chance to at least close my eyes and snore once before you show up.”

“Okay. Sleep well.”

He looked at the bag full of dusty scrap paper in his hand and favored me with a thin smile. Loiosh stretched his wings and hissed, as if he were laughing at us both.