Steven Brust - Orca

I bowed to the woman before me and said, “Side-Captain Vonnith?”

She nodded and pointed to a chair. I sat. She looked at Hub and nodded, and he poured me a glass of wine. She already had one. I said, “Thank you.” We both drank some. It was the sort of wine that Vlad calls brandy, and it was quite good. She nodded to Hub again. He bowed and left the room.

She said, “I wasn’t aware that I had a friend in the Ministry of the Treasury. In fact, I don’t believe I know anyone at all who works there.”

I drank some more wine to give me time to think. She had invited me in, and she had given me wine, and now she was denying knowing what I was talking about. So, okay, she was playing a game, but was I supposed to play along with it, or convince her it was unnecessary?

“I understand,” I said. “But if you did ...”

“Yes? If I did?”

Okay, sometimes luck will out.

“You would probably be interested in knowing that the fire is getting hotter.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Questions are being asked.”

“And are the answers forthcoming?”

“No.” And I added, “Not yet.”

Her lips tightened. “Some,” she said, “might interpret that as a threat.”

“No, no,” I said. “Not a threat. But you know Lord Shortisle.”

“Do I?” she said. “What makes you think so?”

“I mean, you know how he works.”

“I thought I did,” she said. “But now you say he’s not threatening me, and yet—”

Well, well. All the way to the top. I said, “He’s not. What I mean is, he’s getting pressure from, well, you can guess where the pressure’s coming from.”

She frowned. “Actually, I can’t. The Phoenix is off cavorting with her lover, as I understand it, so it can’t be her, and there isn’t anyone else who is in a position to threaten us, or has the desire to.”

Now, that was extremely interesting. I said, “Because Her Majesty is gone doesn’t mean she’s out of touch.”

For the first time, she looked worried. “It is her? Something has slipped?”

“Yes,” I said.

“What?”

“I don’t know; I’m just a messenger.”

“How bad is it?”

“Not bad—yet. It’s just a whisper. But Lord Sh—That is, certain parties thought you should be informed.”

“Yes, yes. What does he say I should do?”

“Do you know Lord Loftis, who is running the—”

“Of course I do.”

“That’s where the pressure is coming down.”

“Has he slipped?”

“Not badly, but enough so there’s some danger. You should be prepared to move.”

“Huh? What do you mean, move?”

“I mean run.”

“Oh. Do you think it might come to that?”

“We hope not.”

She nodded. “All right. Why didn’t—uh—why wasn’t I reached directly? Why send you?”

Hmmm. Good question. “Why do you think?”

For a moment I thought she wasn’t going to be able to come up with anything, but her eyes got big. “The Empress? Using the Orb? She wouldn’t! She’s a Phoenixl”

I shrugged. “She hasn’t yet, and she may not, but it would be the obvious next step, wouldn’t it?”

“Impossible. Shortisle is getting paranoid.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Probably.”

“Certainly. No one has done that since the seventh Jhereg Reign, and you know what happened then!”

“So is there any harm in being careful?”

“No, I suppose not.” She shook her head. “We should have been more careful from the beginning—we should have arranged for methods of making contact, and signals.” That’s right, you should have. “But then, no one planned anything—it just happened, one thing led to another.”

“Yes,” I said. She looked like she was about to start asking questions, so I finished the wine and stood up. “There’s a great deal to do, but nothing that should be impossible.” That was general enough that I didn’t think I could get into trouble with it.

“Of course,” she said. “Tell him I’ll await his word, but that I’ll be ready to, as you put it, move.”

“Very good. I—or someone—will be in touch. For the future, whoever it is will say he’s from the Adrilankha Eleemosynary Society.”

“Adrilankha Eleemosynary Society,” she said. “All right. Good luck.”

“Yes,” I said. “And you be careful.”

I didn’t realize how tense I was until I walked out the door. And even then I couldn’t completely relax, because they might be watching me. I didn’t think I gave myself away, but I couldn’t be sure; Vonnith was the sort who could play the game on me that I thought I was playing on her.

I got up to the road and teleported to the Imperial Palace’s Orca Wing just in case they decided to trace the teleport. It crossed my mind to visit the Ministry of the Treasury while I was there, but on reflection there was too much chance of my being recognized by the Jhereg who have business there from time to time, so I just waited for about ten or fifteen minutes, then teleported back to the cottage.

Vlad was talking to Hwdf rjaanci, probably about Savn’s condition, while Savn slept. When I came in, Vlad said, “Well?”

“I don’t know,” I told him. “I think it went well, but—”

“What did you learn?”

Buddy insinuated his nose into my person. I petted him and pushed him away. Loiosh, who was on Vlad’s left shoulder, twitched his head in what was probably laughter. “It goes all the way to the top,” I said.

“You mean Big Shot Treasury is Shortisle himself?”

“Not necessarily, but Shortisle is involved somewhere along the line.”

Vlad whistled softly. “Let’s have the details,” he said.

I gave him the conversation as well as I could remember it, and a few notes on architecture as well, after which he said, “Yeah, Shortisle’s in it, all right. I suspect the Empress is not going to be happy about this, and I suspect that, if any of a number of people find out what we’re doing, we could be in some very serious trouble.”

“Right on both counts,” I told him.

“Could Shortisle have enough pull to enlist the Tasks Group?”

“No chance,” I said. “There has to be someone else.”

“Okay.” I could see him accept that. “The Tiassa? Lord Khaavren?”

“I know about him. I don’t believe it. And you’re the one who heard the way Loftis talked about him, and I threatened Loftis with telling him.”

“The Empress?”

“Even less likely. I’d even risk ‘impossible.’”

“Then who, dammit? Who else can order the Tasks Group to do something like this?”

“No one.”

“Oh, good. Well, that’s helpful.” He frowned. “I remember I was at Dzur Mountain once—have you ever been there?”

I shrugged.

“Yeah. Well, I was there once, talking to Sethra Lavode, the Enchantress—”

“I know who she is.”

“Right. She was telling me about the Dragon-Jhereg war.”

“Yes.”

“It was pretty ugly as I understand it. Were you involved in that?”

“Sure,” I said. “On the side of the Dragons.”

He gave me a polite smile. “The Dragons had the real power, but the Jhereg had one advantage—they always went for the top. While the Dragonlords were busily killing every Jhereg they came across—whether he worked for the Organization or not—the Jhereg were carefully wiping out all the military leaders in the House of the Dragon. It was a nasty little war, and, by the end, Sethra Lavode had to get involved. Do you know about that?”

“Go on.”

“All she did was announce that she was in charge, and then, as she told me, she did nothing—she just sat in Dzur Mountain and waited for the Jhereg to try to assassinate her, and wiped them out as they did, which was pretty stupid on the part of the Jhereg, really. No one is going to assassinate the Enchantress of Dzur Mountain, unless maybe Mario reappears. But that’s not the point. She also mentioned a time in Eighth Cycle when she was Warlord, and she had six hundred troops to defend this little hill against—”