Steven Brust - Iorich

“Uh, what?”

“You have to get out of here, Vlad. You’ve land­ed in a Tim Pow­ers nov­el.”

I moaned even as I felt the Gate form.

Hard gray walls ap­peared around me, and I heard voic­es speak­ing a lan­guage I didn’t know. “Am I go­ing to be safe here?”

“Well,” she said, “Not, you know, safe ex­act­ly.”

“Whose nov­el are we in now?”

“Uh . . . John DeChancie’s, Vlad. Best I could do on short no­tice.”

I whim­pered. “You couldn’t man­age Louisa May Al­cott?”

Chap­ter Two, Im­pe­ri­al Palace, Page 51

“I’m glad you’ve of­fered,” said the Em­press. “Yes, there is a ser­vice you could do.”

“I’m lis­ten­ing.”

“Far, far to the East—well be­yond the king­doms you know—there is an­cient evil that is gath­er­ing pow­er to it­self. Its pow­er comes from an Amulet of Evil that dates back to be­fore the be­gin­ning of time. The pow­er of the Amulet grows with each act of cru­el­ty, or thought­less­ness to­ward an­oth­er, or abuse of pow­er, or greed. The sell-​out of the writ­ers’ strike didn’t do it any harm ei­ther. Soon it will be­come un­stop­pable, and us­ing it, the an­cient evil will en­slave the en­tire world for­ev­er. You must de­stroy the evil, and take the Amulet and cast it in­to the Place Be­yond Time.”

I nod­ded. “All right.”

It took six weeks to get there and an hour to do the job. For­tu­nate­ly, I was able to tele­port back.

“It is done,” I told Her Majesty.

“Thank you, Lord Szurke,” she said. “Evil has been ban­ished for­ev­er.”

“Un­til the se­quel, you mean.”

“Of course.”

I shrugged. “Just prov­ing I’m will­ing to serve Your Majesty.”

Chap­ter Five, Dzur Moun­tain Stair­way, Page 103

“Well met, friend.”

I looked around, and no­ticed a splotchy brown cat on the land­ing just above me. I stared at it.

“Some­thing wrong?” it said.

“What the hell are you?”

It rolled its eyes. “This is a fan­ta­sy nov­el. I’m the oblig­atory talk­ing cat. Get a clue.”

“Boss, can I—”

“Sure.”

When Loiosh and Rocza had fin­ished their meal, we con­tin­ued up the stairs.

Chap­ter Sev­en, South Adri­lankha, Page 143

“Boss, isn’t there sup­posed to be a scene here mak­ing fun of the old ‘weapons that drink souls’ thing that al­ways comes up in bad fan­ta­sy nov­els?”

“Loiosh, in case you haven’t no­ticed, there are weapons that drink souls in these books.”

“Oh. Yeah. Good point. Guess we stay away from that one, huh?”

“Prob­ably best.”

Chap­ter Eleven, South Adri­lankha, Page 209

“Maybe I’ll go walk up to the cot­tage and ask for sanc­tu­ary,” I said. “And then maybe mon­keys will fly out of my butt. Wait. I wouldn’t say that.”

YOU JUST DID.

“I don’t care. I wouldn’t say that. It isn’t even a Dra­gaer­an id­iom.”

IT IS NOW.

“That’s stupid. There aren’t any mon­keys here.”

SO NOW YOU’RE AN EX­PERT ON DRA­GAER­AN FAU­NA?

“I didn’t say that. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

THAT’S WHAT I DO.

“Yeah, you and Tom Cruise. Just lose the mon­key bit, okay?”

I LIKE IT.

“You al­so like it when I fig­ure out how to get out of those mess­es you put me in. Now, you want me on your side, or not?”

YOU WANT TO BE ALIVE AT THE END OF THIS BOOK, OR NOT?

I sighed. “Maybe I’ll go walk up to the cot­tage and ask for sanc­tu­ary,” I said. “And then maybe mon­keys will fly out of my butt.”

Chap­ter Four­teen, Out­side the Im­pe­ri­al Palace, Page 262

I cut through the park, smil­ing at all the but­ter­flies. I start­ed skip­ping. It was such a beau­ti­ful day. A pup­py barked play­ful­ly at me and I stopped to pet it. It seemed so hap­py, I couldn’t help but sing a cheer­ful song to it be­fore I went on my way, still skip­ping.

Chap­ter Sev­en­teen, Perisil’s Of­fice, Page 307

“I have some­thing to tell you.”

“How, you have some­thing to tell me?”

“You have un­der­stood me ex­act­ly.”

“Well, I am lis­ten­ing.”

“Lis­ten­ing? Then, you wish me to tell you?”

“Yes, that is it. I am lis­ten­ing, and there­fore I wish you to tell me.”

“Shall I tell you now?”

“No.”

Iorich

Iorich­Cov­er

Ti­tle

Copy­right

Ded­ica­tion

Ac­knowl­edg­ments

Pro­logue

Chap­ter 1

Chap­ter 2

Chap­ter 3

Chap­ter 4

Chap­ter 5

In­ter­lude: Mem­ory

Chap­ter 6

Chap­ter 7

Chap­ter 8

Chap­ter 9

Chap­ter 10

Chap­ter 11

Chap­ter 12

Chap­ter 13

Chap­ter 14

Chap­ter 15

Chap­ter 16

Chap­ter 17

Epi­logue

Delet­ed Scenes