Steven Brust - Iorich

“Ev­ery­thing has to be per­fect for you.”

“I’m just that kind of guy.”

“So, what’s the next step?”

“I wait and see what Kiera can tell me. Af­ter that, I’ll see. Kill some­one, I sup­pose.”

“You’re so ro­man­tic. That’s why you get all the girls.”

“It’s such a tri­al fig­ur­ing out where to put them.” I stood up and start­ed pac­ing.

“It’s good to see you again,” said Kra­gar.

I stopped, looked at him, won­dered if he was be­ing sar­cas­tic, if I re­al­ly missed be­ing where he was, and if he’d yet got­ten a good enough of­fer to sell me out. “Thanks,” I said. “You too.”

“Your food’s get­ting cold.”

I got busy with the food again, feed­ing some to Loiosh and Rocza. When I get dis­tract­ed from eat­ing, it’s a pret­ty good sign that things have got­ten dif­fi­cult. When Loiosh and Roz­ca fail to re­mind me, it’s an even bet­ter sign.

I fin­ished the pas­try, drank some wine, and said, “I’ll tell you what I can’t fig­ure out: It’s too small.”

“Small?”

“For the Em­press. The way I’ve been read­ing it, the Em­press got in­to a mess be­cause some sol­diers no one knows any­thing about killed a few Teck­la no one cares any­thing about. So she ar­ranged this pros­ecu­tion of Aliera to dis­tract at­ten­tion, and Aliera is be­ing a good sol­dier and let­ting her­self be sac­ri­ficed.”

“Well, she was the War­lord when it hap­pened, so maybe she feels she de­serves it.”

“True, but be­side the point. I’m say­ing Zeri­ka wouldn’t do that just to save her­self from some un­pleas­ant­ness. Even from a lot of un­pleas­ant­ness.”

“I don’t know her.”

“I do, sort of.”

“Okay, Vlad. Say you’re right. What does it mean?”

“It means there is more at stake than what hap­pens to Zeri­ka. For her to do some­thing like that, she has to be pre­vent­ing some­thing much worse than any­thing that can hap­pen to her per­son­al­ly.”

“Like what?”

I spread my hands.

“Okay,” he said. “Well, you now know what you don’t know. See how much progress you’ve made?”

“Could you do some­thing for me?”

“If it in­volves a mind-​probe of the Em­press, no. Oth­er­wise, prob­ably.”

I reached over and found a blank piece of pa­per on his desk, right where I used to keep them. I wrote a name on it and passed it over to him. He looked at it and did a thing with his eye­brows. “Left Hand?”

“Yeah. I have an itch that tells me they’re in on this. I’d love to be wrong, but if I’m right, she’s prob­ably in it. Find out what you can about her.”

“I al­ready know more than I’d like to.”

“Start with that, then.”

“Madam Tri­esco is one of the high fig­ures in the Left Hand. She’s prob­ably rich­er than the Em­press. She an­swers to Cao­la, and I don’t think Cao­la would dirty her hands with this di­rect­ly. When some­one sells a trin­ket to in­flu­ence the roll of the stones, Tri­esco is get­ting some of it. If it doesn’t ac­tu­al­ly do any­thing, she’s get­ting more. Ev­ery ma­li­cious im­ita­tion spell in town, some of it goes to her. When­ev­er there’s an unau­tho­rized clair­voy­ance spell cast, she’s get­ting a piece. When—”

“Hey. Are we safe?”

“Hm­mm?”

“Could some­one be watch­ing or lis­ten­ing to us? How good are your pro­tec­tions?”

“They’re the same ones you had, Vlad. Three tied to two, dou­ble-​filled and locked. Cast for twen­ty years, re­mem­ber? Checked four times a year.”

“All right. Any­way, yeah, I know she’s big.”

“What else do you want to. . . oh.”

I shook my head. “Don’t jump to con­clu­sions. I just need to know things. I’m not ready to start in­dis­crim­inate­ly putting shines right and left.”

“All right. But you’ll let me know be­fore you do, so I can be some­where else?”

“I’ll send a spe­cial couri­er.”

“Thanks.”

“You’ll check on her for me?”

“Just like the old days.”

“Ex­cept now you have peo­ple to do the leg­work for you.”

“Yeah, ex­cept for that, it’s just like the old days.”

“And you’re more sar­cas­tic than you used to be.”

“Right.”

“Which I didn’t think was pos­si­ble.”

“When you stop be­ing sur­prised, you’ve stopped liv­ing.”

“All right, all right. Can I get an es­cort back to the Im­pe­ri­al Palace?”

He called for Yenth, and said a cou­ple of names I didn’t rec­og­nize. I didn’t rec­og­nize their faces, ei­ther, when they showed up. Kra­gar gave them in­struc­tions that didn’t leave any room for doubt about the con­di­tion I was to ar­rive in, or what would hap­pen to them if I so much as stubbed my toe; they ap­peared to no­tice.

“Thanks, Kra­gar. I’ll be in touch.”

He gave me a salute, and my es­cort es­cort­ed me back down the stairs, out the door, and on­to the sweet-​sour smell of the part of the City I knew best. I’d have liked to have re­laxed more and en­joyed the walk, but I was too busy think­ing.

I made it back to the Palace, the Iorich Wing, and the over-​priced inn, giv­ing my es­corts a cou­ple of orbs to drink my con­tin­ued good health. The room was emp­ty, the bed was soft, I was tired.

I woke up with that ug­ly feel­ing you al­ways get when you sleep in your clothes—years on the run hadn’t in­ured me to it. I checked the Orb and found the time, tried to fig­ure how long I’d been asleep, and re­al­ized I had no idea what time it had been when I’d lain down. Was it light out? I couldn’t re­mem­ber. It was dis­ori­ent­ing and an­noy­ing.

“You’ve been out about six hours, Boss.”

“Okay. Was ev­ery­thing solved while I slept?”

“Al­most ev­ery­thing. Just a bit of cleanup left.”

“Good, then.”

I hauled my­self out and took my­self to the pub­lic baths near­est the Iorich Wing; over-​priced like the rest of the area, full of mar­ble and sor­cer­ous­ly cre­at­ed hot springs. I wrapped my things in my cloak, which I kept next to my hand, and had an at­ten­dant have ev­ery­thing else cleaned while I soaked for a long time. It helped.

I dried my­self off, picked up my cloak, slipped a hand on­to La­dy Tel­dra’s hilt, and went over to the at­ten­dant to pick up my clothes. I over-​tipped, be­cause I’m just that kind of guy. There was enough pri­va­cy near the priv­ies that I could re­place the sur­pris­es about my per­son—the few I still car­ried: dag­ger for each sleeve, throw­ing knife in a boot, gar­rote in the col­lar of the cloak, a cou­ple of darts in­side it, and so on. Then I strapped on my sword belt, with the rapi­er hang­ing from it in front of La­dy Tel­dra, and the cloak cov­er­ing the whole thing. There. Ready to face the world again. As­sas­sins? Bring ’em on.

No, ac­tu­al­ly, don’t. Skip that. Just kid­ding.

“Break­fast?”

“I’m not hun­gry.”

“Liar.”

“Okay, break­fast.”

I ne­go­ti­at­ed my way back to the Palace, fig­ur­ing to grab some­thing there and hop­ing to run in­to Pon­cer again. The din­ing area was much bus­ier now, and those I’d no­ticed be­fore were gone. I found a ven­dor sell­ing fresh, hot pota­to bread with an or­ange-​fla­vored mus­tard, about which you shouldn’t laugh un­til you’ve tried it. Loiosh and Rocza had theirs with­out mus­tard; I ex­plained that the looks they kept get­ting were be­cause of that, but I don’t think they bought it. There was no sign of Pon­cer.