Steven Brust - Iorich

“He’s about twen­ty feet away from you, stopped, lean­ing against that emp­ty store­front, pret­ty well con­cealed from the street. He knows his stuff.”

“All right. And?”

“And when he got there, some­one else left the same spot.”

“We walked right by some­one?”

“Seems like. But that isn’t the thing. He’s watch­ing the house.”

“Oh.”

“You think he isn’t here for you?”

“Let’s stay here for a bit and watch the watch­er. What’s the oth­er guy do­ing?”

“Leav­ing, try­ing to look in­con­spic­uous. Do­ing all right at it.”

“What are the chances they rec­og­nized me?”

“How should I know, Boss? I mean, prob­ably not; you’re just an­oth­er East­ern­er here. But—”

“Right. We can’t know. Okay, let’s hang out and see what hap­pens.”

On re­flec­tion, it seemed that break­ing in­to the house would have been a bad idea af­ter all.

“Is there a way I can get in­to a po­si­tion to watch him?”

“I’ll check.” And, “All right. This way.” He land­ed on my shoul­der, and guid­ed me be­hind the row of hous­ing, through some yards with bits of dis­card­ed fur­ni­ture and bro­ken pot­tery, and then around. I hugged a house, set­tled in, and wait­ed, watch­ing.

Well now. Here was an in­ter­est­ing sit­ua­tion.

The so­lu­tion, of course, pre­sent­ed it­self at once, see­ing as I wasn’t in a hur­ry. If for what­ev­er rea­son you are un­able to speak with some­one psy­chi­cal­ly, there is a vi­tal tool that you must nev­er be with­out: a scrap of pa­per and a wax pen­cil.

“I’m run­ning an er­rand?”

“Yes, in­deed. Un­less Rocza can do it.”

“Bet­ter be me. Are we in a hur­ry?”

“On­ly be­cause I’m go­ing to be re­al­ly bored un­til you get back.”

I scratched out a note and hand­ed it to him. He took it in a claw and flew off. I squat­ted down and set­tled in to wait. I didn’t move; the guy I was watch­ing didn’t move. I oc­cu­pied my time with try­ing to de­cide whether I knew the guy, and, if so, from where. He looked vague­ly fa­mil­iar; I might have hired him for some­thing once. Or I might have just seen him at—

“Hel­lo, Vlad. You wished some­thing?”

I heard the voice at the same time I felt the pop of dis­placed air; I didn’t quite jump and scream. I’d have glared at him, but it was my own fault for not telling Loiosh to warn me, so in­stead I just glared.

“Hel­lo, Day­mar. Long time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nev­er mind. Yes, I’d like a fa­vor of you, if you aren’t busy.” He was float­ing, cross-​legged, about three feet off the ground. It’s an easy trick, and I can­not for the life of me imag­ine why he thinks it might be im­pres­sive. Maybe he just thinks it’s com­fort­able, but it doesn’t look com­fort­able.

I’d known him for, well, for years. Tall, dark, and a Hawk­lord, with all that im­plies. If it doesn’t im­ply any­thing for you, I’ll spell it out: He’s vague, ir­ri­tat­ing, very good at what he does, and com­plete­ly obliv­ious of any­thing that might be go­ing on around him un­less it ex­cites his par­tic­ular in­ter­est. It’s good to know peo­ple like Day­mar, even if it means putting up with peo­ple like Day­mar. But when it comes to mess­ing around with the in­side of some­one’s head, there’s no one bet­ter. I’ve used his skills in the past, and I’ll use them again if I don’t evis­cer­ate him in­stead.

I said, “See that fel­low over there?”

He looked. “No,” he said.

“Look again. There. No, where I’m point­ing. Just bare­ly around the cor­ner from the door.”

“Oh. Yes. What’s he do­ing?”

“Same thing I am. The ques­tion is, who is he do­ing it for?”

“Should I ask him?”

I took a breath, let it out again. “That wasn’t ex­act­ly what I had in mind.”

“Oh. You mean, some­thing more in­va­sive?”

“Yes.”

He paused. “He’s wear­ing pro­tec­tion.”

“Oh. Does that mean you can’t find out?”

He looked at me, as if try­ing to see if I was jok­ing. Then he said, “No.”

“Okay, but I don’t want him know­ing what hap­pened.”

That earned me an­oth­er look; which was fine, that’s why I’d said it.

I know, I know; it isn’t nice to ir­ri­tate some­one who is do­ing you a fa­vor. It prob­ably isn’t smart, ei­ther. But if you’d ev­er met Day­mar, you’d un­der­stand. Be­sides, this gave him an ex­cuse to show off, which was what he lived for.

No, that isn’t fair. It wasn’t about show­ing off for him, it was his fas­ci­na­tion with the thing he was do­ing—it was a chance to use his skill, to do what felt right for him to do. I could un­der­stand that; I used to feel the same way when set­ting up to put a shine on some­one. Not the killing, the set­ting up: that feel­ing of ev­ery­thing func­tion­ing the way it’s sup­posed to, of your mind go­ing above it­self, of—

“Got it,” he said.

I nod­ded. “What did you learn?”

“That he’s bored, that this is stupid, that noth­ing has been hap­pen­ing, and that he’s glad he doesn’t have to make the re­port.”

“Um. Let’s start with the last. He doesn’t have to make the re­port?”

“No, he’s just help­ing out some guy named Wid­ner.”

“And he doesn’t know who Wid­ner re­ports to?”

“Nope.”

I sug­gest­ed that my pa­tron god­dess should take sen­su­al plea­sure, though I didn’t put it quite in those terms. “Why doesn’t he want to make the re­port?”

“I can’t say ex­act­ly; I just got the im­pres­sion that who­ev­er the re­port is be­ing giv­en to, he wouldn’t like her.”

“Her.”

He nod­ded.

“Oh.”

I with­drew my sug­ges­tions about the De­mon God­dess.

Well now, that was all sorts of in­ter­est­ing. “Thank you, Day­mar. You’ve been most help­ful.”

“Al­ways a plea­sure, Vlad.”

There was a “whoosh” of air and he was gone, all abrupt and stuff, leav­ing me with my thoughts, such as they were.

Her.

If it was a “her” that Wid­ner was re­port­ing to, it was the Left Hand of the Jhereg.

Why was the Left Hand keep­ing a watch on what hap­pened in that lit­tle cot­tage?

Be­cause the Left Hand was in­volved in what­ev­er the Jhereg—the Right Hand, I mean—and the Or­ca were do­ing. And be­cause hav­ing Brinea and her peo­ple push­ing for the Em­pire to in­ves­ti­gate the mas­sacre in Tir­ma might mess up the plans.

Okay, fine. Why?

Be­cause the Em­pire, just on the off chance that they were hon­est (what­ev­er Cawti might say about that pos­si­bil­ity), would, by in­ves­ti­gat­ing, un­der­cut the pres­sure the Jhereg and the Or­ca were putting on them, and their scheme would fall through.

So, what would they do? They’d stop the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, if they could.

How? How do you go about stop­ping an Im­pe­ri­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion? And what did it have to do with some weird group of East­ern­ers gath­ered in a lit­tle cot­tage in South Adri­lankha?

Loiosh re­turned from his er­rand and land­ed on my shoul­der.

“Is he gone al­ready, Boss?”

“Yeah, and so are we. I have stuff to do.”

Iorich

12

Q: State your name and House.

A: Aliera e’Kieron, House of the Drag­on.

Q: What was your po­si­tion at the time of the in­ci­dent in Tir­ma?

A: As near as I can re­con­struct the mo­ment, I was sit­ting down.