Steven Brust - Iorich

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Then they were here and I didn’t see them. Or they weren’t here for some oth­er rea­son. What’s the point in what-​ifs, Loiosh?”

“To get an­swers.”

“How?”

“Gee, Boss. Do you know any­one in the Jhereg who might be will­ing to talk to you?”

“Kra­gar.”

“Kra­gar.”

“So, how do we get there with­out telling the whole Jhereg where we are? Any sug­ges­tions for that, O wise one?”

He made a cou­ple of sar­cas­tic ones. I trust­ed him and Rocza to keep a care­ful watch for me; I let my mind wan­der to see if it hap­pened to stum­ble over a clue or some­thing. I was mak­ing my way to­ward the Stone Bridge when Loiosh said, “Let’s steer clear of Five Mar­kets, Boss. It’s too easy to miss some­thing.” It was a good plan, and I was hap­py to go along with it. My mind, in­stead of look­ing for clues, sent me down the best al­ter­nate route, which was along the Flint­way. Far­ther down, past where I was go­ing, the Flint­way would run in­to Malak Cir­cle, and from there it was just a step to my old area.

So I con­tin­ued un­til I reached the long, wind­ing Flint­way, which me­an­dered from the Chain Bridge to what had once been the Flint­wood Es­tates, far out of town. It was an un­com­fort­ably nar­row street, with room­ing hous­es of three and four sto­ries loom­ing over you and chan­nels cut in­to odd places for drainage. It changed its name three or four times dur­ing the walk, but to lo­cals it was al­ways the Flint­way. I walked past a wood­work­er’s shop. The door to the shop was flanked by the doors to two room­ing hous­es. In one of them, there had once lived the mis­tress of a s’yang-​stone banker who had thought he could make some ex­tra cash by feed­ing in­for­ma­tion to his boss’s com­peti­tor. I’d got­ten him as he emerged from vis­it­ing his mis­tress. Yep, that same odd mark in the grain of the door, like some­one had par­tial­ly squashed a pear.

A lit­tle far­ther down it joined Malak Cir­cle. From there I cut left; my feet knew the way. I felt an odd lit­tle jolt as I reached my des­ti­na­tion. I stepped in­side, ex­changed nods with the guy keep­ing the peace for the play­ers, and ges­tured up­stairs. He gave me an odd look as he nod­ded, like he might sus­pect who I was but wasn’t sure. I made my way up the nar­row stairs.

I didn’t rec­og­nize the sec­re­tary; he seemed rather small, friend­ly, in­gen­uous, and was prob­ably very dan­ger­ous. He asked if he might be of some ser­vice to me.

“Is Kra­gar around? That is, as­sum­ing you’d no­tice.”

He smiled as if it were a shared joke, just be­tween us. “I’m afraid he’s stepped out. If you’d care to wait?” He ges­tured to a chair.

“Sure,” I said.

I sat down and stretched out, mem­ories of this old place flood­ing back. Fun­ny, I’d nev­er no­ticed the smell be­fore: a mix from the herbal­ist shop across the street, the bak­er down the way, and the musky smell of an­cient fur­ni­ture. Kra­gar should get around to get­ting new fur­ni­ture one of these days. It was com­fort­able, though.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

He looked up, and smiled. “Yenth,” he said, or some­thing like that.

“A plea­sure,” I told him. “I’m Vlad.”

“Yes, I know,” he said pleas­ant­ly. “The jhereg on your shoul­ders were kind of a clue.”

“You could make a lot of mon­ey by let­ting cer­tain per­sons know I’m here.”

He nod­ded, still look­ing friend­ly. “I know that, too. But the boss might not be so hap­py with me.”

“He might not,” I agreed.

It was very strange hear­ing Kra­gar re­ferred to as “the boss.”

“Is it all right if I wait in his of­fice?”

He frowned. “Mind if I ask why?”

I gave him an hon­est an­swer.

“Ah,” he said, laugh­ing. “I can see that. Will you make it good for me with the boss, if need­ed?”

“Yeah, I think I can do that. Want some mon­ey to make it of­fi­cial that you were bribed?”

He chuck­led. “No, thanks. That might lead to ques­tions I wouldn’t care to an­swer.”

“Fair enough,” I said, and moved in­to what once had been my of­fice, with my desk, a new chair where mine had once been, and the same ug­ly view from my win­dow. Some­times I’d had that win­dow board­ed up, oth­er times I kept it open so Loiosh could use it. I took an­oth­er chair and shoved it in­to a cor­ner next to the coat rack and wait­ed, think­ing in­vis­ible thoughts.

The door opened, he came in and sat be­hind the desk, opened a draw­er, and pulled out a ledger. “Hey there,” I said, and I swear he al­most screamed.

He set­tled down and stared at me. “Vlad!”

“Hey, Kra­gar. You know, I’ve been want­ing to do that to you for more years than I can re­mem­ber. If the Jhereg gets me now, my last thought will be of the plea­sure I’ve just had.” I smiled.

“I think I’ll kill you be­fore the Jhereg gets to it. How did you get past Yenth?”

“I bribed him.”

“How much did it take?”

“No cash, he just want­ed in on the vi­car­ious plea­sure of see­ing you jump.”

“I’ll kill you both.”

“Don’t blame you.”

“But first I’m go­ing let my heart rate slow down to some­thing be­low the im­mi­nent death lev­el.”

“When that hap­pens, you can maybe tell me a few things.”

“Maybe. I’ll think about it. What do you want to know?”

“What’s up with Aliera?”

“She’s been ar­rest­ed.”

“I know that. Why?”

“Prac­tic­ing pre-​Em­pire sor­cery.”

“I know that,” I said. “Why?”

“Be­cause the Em­press needs to dis­tract at­ten­tion from the mess in Tir­ma.”

“And there was no oth­er way to do that than ar­rest a friend of hers?”

“How should I know? The Em­press hasn’t been tak­ing me in­to her con­fi­dence late­ly.”

“How about the Jhereg?”

“Hm­mm?”

“Do you know how they plan to get me?”

“You don’t know?”

“Well, I’ve had the thought that this whole thing with Aliera was con­coct­ed just to get me back here, but that seems a bit para­noid even for me.”

“Yeah, that may be go­ing over the edge.”

“For one thing, how do they get the Em­press to co­op­er­ate?”

“Right.”

“Un­less—”

“Hm­mm?”

“Kra­gar, have you heard any whis­pers or ru­mors of some­thing big be­ing up with the Jhereg in com­bi­na­tion with an­oth­er House, or more than one?”

He looked at me. I said, “That look tells me that the an­swer is yes.”

“How did you—?”

“What is it?”

“I asked first. How did you know?”

“I didn’t know. In fact, I as­sumed I was wrong. But if this is all a means of get­ting me back here, then the key el­ement is to con­vince the Em­press to do what they want.”

“Okay, I can see that.”

“The Jhereg is at the bot­tom of the Cy­cle. They aren’t in any po­si­tion to in­flu­ence the Im­peri­um, un­less—”

“—they work with an­oth­er House, maybe even two or three.”

“Right. Which means they have to have some­thing to of­fer, which means—”

“Some­thing big. Got it. I keep for­get­ting how de­vi­ous you are.”

“Me? I’m not the one who came up with it, what­ev­er it is. Which re­minds me, what is it?”

“Now that I can an­swer,” said Kra­gar, “I have no idea.”

Iorich

8

Yes, cer­tain­ly I’m will­ing to co­op­er­ate with your com­mit­tee, but I have no idea what you imag­ine I can tell you. As you know, I had no po­si­tion in the Im­pe­ri­al army at the time of in­ci­dent, and no knowl­edge of it be­yond ru­mor and what I was told by friends, none of whom were di­rect­ly in­volved ei­ther. If your ques­tion con­cerns mil­itary mat­ters in gen­er­al, cer­tain­ly I will give you my opin­ions, but it would seem there are oth­ers more qual­ified. In gen­er­al, such “tes­ti­mo­ny” as you want from me I can give right now: If you put sol­diers in a po­si­tion where the en­emy is the pop­ulace, you must ex­pect them to treat the pop­ulace as the en­emy. This does not re­quire knowl­edge of the high­er reach­es of the sor­cer­ous arts to devine.