Steven Brust: Iorich

I re­turned his bow by way of as­sent­ing that he did, in­deed, have that hon­or, such as it was.

He looked de­cid­ed­ly pleased and said, “If you would be so good as to fol­low me to the sit­ting room, I will in­form His Lord­ship of your pres­ence. May I get you wine?”

“That’d be great,” I said, fol­low­ing him to an­oth­er room I knew well.

I sat in a chair that was too big for me and drank a de­cent red wine that was slight­ly chilled, just the way I like it. That im­plied a great deal, which I set aside for lat­er ru­mi­nat­ing.

I ex­pect­ed him to re­turn in five min­utes or so to bring me to Mor­rolan, but in just about two min­utes, he him­self ap­peared: Mor­rolan e’Drien, Lord of Cas­tle Black, bear­er of Black­wand, and, well, stuff like that. I rec­og­nized his foot­steps—walk­ing quick­ly—be­fore the door opened, and I stood up.

“Vlad,” he said. “It’s been a while. A cou­ple of years, any­way.” He gave Loiosh a quick smile; Loiosh fluffed him­self on my shoul­der and dipped his head in a sort of greet­ing. Mor­rolan said, “You heard about Aliera, then?”

I nod­ded. “I’ve been to the Iorich Wing, got my name added to the list—”

“List?”

“Friends of the de­fen­dant.”

“What does that do?”

“Lets you see her, if she agrees.”

“Oh, that’s why. . . all right. Let’s go up to the li­brary.”

I fol­lowed him up the wide stair­way, got reac­quaint­ed with the paint­ings, then down the hall, past the pair of huge tomes chained to pedestals (an ex­pres­sion of Mor­rolan’s sense of hu­mor that I may ex­plain some day) to an­oth­er dou­ble door. Mor­rolan sure seems to like dou­ble doors a lot, for a skin­ny guy.

He shut the doors be­hind me, and we sat down in chairs that were like old friends, fac­ing each oth­er at an oblique an­gle, lit­tle ta­bles by our right hands.

“It’s good to see you again, Vlad.” He poured him­self some­thing pur­plish-​red from a cut-​glass de­canter. I still had my wine. “How have you been?”

“Same as al­ways. Still kick­ing, still run­ning.”

“Sounds un­pleas­ant.”

“You get used to it.”

“Any sto­ries worth telling?”

I shook my head. “Tell me about Aliera.” That’s me: straight to busi­ness.

“Right,” he said. He frowned in­to his wine. “I don’t know ex­act­ly. She was en­gaged in some ex­per­iments, and the Phoenix Guard ap­peared, ask­ing to see her. I showed them down to—”

“Wait. This was here?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“They ar­rest­ed her here?”

He nod­ded. “She lives here, you know.”

“Uh, okay, go on.”

“That’s about all I know. They came in, got her, took her away.”

“You let them?”

He cocked his head at me. “You ex­pect­ed me to launch a re­bel­lion against the Em­pire?”

I con­sid­ered that. “Yes,” I said.

“I chose not to.”

I dropped it. “What have you learned since?”

“Very lit­tle. I couldn’t find out any­thing. They wouldn’t let me in to see her.”

“You need to go to the Iorich Wing and de­clare your­self a friend, then you can get some in­for­ma­tion, and if she ap­proves it, you can get more, and you’ll be per­mit­ted to see her.”

“All right, I’ll do that.”

“Any idea why she re­fused an ad­vo­cate?”

“None.”

“Well, you’re pret­ty damned help­ful.”

He smirked. “It’s good to see you again, Vlad.”

“Mind if I ask what you have done?”

“I’ve spo­ken with No­rathar and Sethra.”

“Oh,” I said. Yes, the Drag­on Heir and the En­chantress of Dzur Moun­tain would be good peo­ple to start with. “Uh, have they been keep­ing you in­formed?”

“As much as you’d ex­pect.”

“So: no.”

“Right.”

“She was ar­rest­ed, ah, what was it? About two weeks ago?”

“A lit­tle more.”

I nod­ded. “Okay, we need to find her an ad­vo­cate.”

“How do you know so much about this stuff, Vlad?”

I looked at him.

“Oh,” he said. “All right, but didn’t she refuse an ad­vo­cate?”

“There may be a way to get one in to try to talk some sense in­to her.”

“How?”

“I’ve no idea. But ad­vo­cates are clever bas­tards. I’d have been Starred oth­er­wise.”

“Mon­ey isn’t a prob­lem,” he said.

“No,” I agreed. “It isn’t.”

He nod­ded. “Are you hun­gry?”

I re­al­ized I was, and said so.

“Let’s go to the pantries and see what we can find.”

We found some sausages in the style of some East­ern king­dom: oily and bit­ing, tast­ing of rose­mary. With it was crusty bread in long, thin loaves and a won­der­ful­ly sharp cheese. There was al­so a jug of red wine that was prob­ably too young but still had some body. We ate stand­ing up in Mor­rolan’s pantry, pass­ing the jug back and forth.

“Vlad, do you know what hap­pens if she’s con­vict­ed?”

“My un­der­stand­ing—which isn’t per­fect—is that ei­ther they ex­ecute her, or the Em­press has to com­mute the sen­tence, which will raise hav­oc among the Hous­es.”

Mor­rolan nod­ded.

We walked back to the li­brary, brush­ing crumbs off our­selves. “What are you go­ing to do?” he asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But it will prob­ably in­volve killing some­one.”

He chuck­led. “It usu­al­ly does.”

“Would Sethra know any­thing about this by now?”

“On­ly if she’s seen Aliera. I doubt she has.”

“Maybe I should go and see her.”

“Maybe.”

“Or else go straight to find­ing the ad­vo­cate.”

He nod­ded and glanced at my hip. “How is La­dy Tel­dra?”

I re­sist­ed the im­pulse to touch her. “I’m not sure how to an­swer that,” I said.

“Has there been . . . con­tact?”

I con­sid­ered. “Not as such. Feel­ings, some­times, per­haps.”

He nod­ded.

I said, “I know you two go back hun­dreds of years. I wish—”

“So do I.”

“She was more than just seneschal to you, wasn’t she?”

His jaw tight­ened a lit­tle. “I’m not sure how you mean that.”

“Sor­ry. None of my—”

“Once she stood guard over my body for near­ly a week, keep­ing it alive, while my mind and my soul trav­eled to Death­gate Falls and fought a bat­tle over the Paths of the Dead. Keep­ing it alive was nei­ther easy nor pleas­ant, un­der the cir­cum­stances.”

“Um. Sounds like there’s a sto­ry there.”

He shrugged. “Ask the Em­press; I’ve al­ready said too much.”

“I won’t press it, then.”

“Where are you go­ing next?”

“I guess I’d bet­ter try to find Aliera an ad­vo­cate, un­less you want to.”

“I’m will­ing, if you’ll tell me how.”

“I know what to look for, more or less. It’s eas­ier if I just do it.”

“Un­less,” he point­ed out, “you get killed try­ing.”

“Yeah, that would slow it down. But if I stay in the Im­pe­ri­al Palace, I should be safe. And if I stay close to it, I’ll stay close to safe.”

“You know best.”

I want­ed to note the time and date he’d said that. “They al­ready know I’m in town, be­cause I took the amulet off to get here. So they’ll know I’m in the Palace.” I shrugged. “Let them gnash their teeth. I know how to slip away when I need to.”

“Boss, you lie like an Is­so­la.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ev­er said to me.”

“All right,” said Mor­rolan. “I don’t know the Iorich Wing. Where should I set you down?”