Steven Brust - Iorich

“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.