Edward Bolme - Bound by Iron

“Why, Minrah, whatever have I done to lose your trust?” said Rophis.

“Lied about your Karrn roots, for starters,” said Minrah. She took a deep draw from her snifter. “On the Silver Cygnet , you swore to be Aundairian in order to hide your heritage, and with it your ties to House Deneith. Or how about using Boniam to find out about us, and then having Pomindras ambush us? Kidnapping sweet old Cimmer and making him fight? Keeping Four in a cage for two years? And if that’s not enough, I’ll bet I can come up with a few others.”

Rophis held up his hands. “I must grant you those points as valid,” he said, “but if you had not boarded the wrong ship, I would have not had to resort to dissimulation. You were allowed to board because he was a warrior, and he looked as if he’d come to participate. Initially, I was excited to have such a grizzled, capable veteran aboard our ship. I quickly found out that that was not the case, but it was too late. You had paid your fare, and we of the Deneith are raised never, ever to break a covenant. We were wrong to have allowed you aboard. If I could have one mistake to undo, it would have been that one. I would have left you on the dock.”

“Don’t feign such charity,” said Minrah. “You only wish that because then your secrets would still be safe.”

“Indeed, that is true,” said Rophis, “and I wish them still to remain unrevealed, which is why I invited you here today.”

“What do you mean?” asked Minrah.

“As I said, I’ve been reading your work. It’s a story that needs a thrilling ending. Thus, while I could have you assassinated to protect my secrets, doing so would be wasteful of your talent, cruel to your readers, and ultimately would cause your publisher gnomes to start sniffing around your trail, which would make me most disconcerted. So rather than take that course, I have a mutually beneficial proposal.”

He reached inside his surcoat and pulled out a folded piece of parchment from a hidden pocket. He leaned forward and handed it to Minrah, who took it suspiciously.

“I have had some of my best minds working on this since the day you stopped in at the Blinking Hippo,” he said. “May I present to you an alternate ending for your story, one that suits your needs as a scribe, and my needs as a leader of this house.”

He leaned back and picked up his glass again. “You’ll find the salient points there. Naturally, we want you to rewrite it in your own particular style.”

Minrah opened the parchment and scanned it. She blinked several times. “This is good,” she said. She took another healthy sip from her glass.

“And I think the use of bitter Cyrans as the villains will evoke a better response from your readership.”

“Minrah,” said Cimozjen, “you’re not seriously considering this, are you?”

“Of course she is,” said Rophis wearily. “It’s a better ending than the truth, and instead of angering a dragonmarked house, she gains favor in one.” He turned to speak to Minrah again. “Such favor that we would be pleased to forward any suitable new stories for you to immortalize. Naturally, such assignments would be for pay-wages that we would remit in addition to your monthly stipend.”

“Monthly stipend?” asked Minrah.

“Seven galifars a month, if that suits your lifestyle. We want you to be able to focus on your art.”

Minrah sprayed her drink. “S-seven?” She giggled. “No more odd jobs …”

“Minrah!” said Cimozjen. “You cannot do this!”

“Can’t? I have to, Cimmer! This is seven gold a month! Do you have any idea how little I’ve lived on? This is a lot! And this is without doing anything! He said stories are extra! I could just … write! Anything I want!”

“You’ll be publishing a lie!”

“So?” asked Minrah, her hands held wide. “That’s what writers do. We make stuff up for a living to entertain the crowd. Do you think the commoners care if it’s true or not? Of course they don’t. Look at the theater. Do you think even a tenth of the plays are based on anything real? No!”

“Do you not see what he’s trying to do? He’s trying to corrupt you, poison your soul, purchase your freedom one month at a time. Each month you take their blood money is one more braid in the rope with which they bind you!”

“They can’t bind me,” said Minrah, “because they’re not making me do this.”

“You misunderstand, Minrah. You’re binding yourself for them!”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Minrah shouted. “They’re not making me do anything! I’m making them do this by the power of my pen! Mine!”

Cimozjen fought for words, but he saw that Minrah had been bought. He tried one last gambit. “What about Torval? Are you going to let him lie unavenged?”

“I was clear from the start, Cimmer, that you were in it for the revenge, and I was in it for the story. You yourself said I was only chasing ink, so don’t get all huffy now.” She folded the parchment and put it in her pouch. “At least I got what I was after. I got my story, and it’s a good one. But you … well, Torval is still dead, and by pursuing it, you made them kill the other prisoners they held, too. You’ve gotten nothing, Cimmer. You’ve gotten less than nothing. You even know who’s responsible now, but do you think you can stop a dragonmarked house? You and Four? Not a kobold’s chance. There’s no way you can stop it, Cimmer. At least I’m smart enough to profit from it.” She turned to Rophis. “If I can pick up my stipend the first day of each month at any Deneith enclave, you have yourself a deal.”

“Done,” said Rophis with a smile. “The charter is already prepared. It will be given you when you depart.” He swirled the liquid in his glass, and drained the last of it with a happy sigh.

“Now I know you, Minrah,” said Cimozjen. “I understand why you despise my oaths, and why you are proud of your ability to lie.”

“You don’t know me at all, Cimmer. You can’t see a thing through your eyes, because they look at the gods as goals, and they don’t see the real world at all. I see the world as it is.”

“I see clearly. But I also keep a vision of the world as it ought to be. And that includes you, Minrah.”

Minrah sneered at him. “Preach all you want. I have a story to write. And it no longer includes you. Too bad, though.” She licked her teeth and waggled her eyebrows. “You’ll never know what you missed.”

“ ‘Lo, thou shall know them by their words. Their own tongue shall reveal them, for they shall laud their sins, and their depravity they shall exalt, but thy virtue shall they mock as folly.’ ”

Minrah made a rude gesture at Cimozjen, then turned and left the room.

Rophis chuckled. “It looks like the information the gnomes gave us on her was well worth the price.” He rose and poured himself another drink. “Will you join me?” he asked, swirling his glass. “I thought not.” He walked back over to his chair and sat. “You’re a strong man, Cimozjen Hellekanus, and a fearsome foe. But she’s right, you know.”

“Right?” asked Cimozjen. “Right about what?”

“There’s nothing that someone even as determined as you can do to stop a dragonmarked house, or even to stop the arena.”

Cimozjen shrugged and scratched the back of his head. “Let me be honest, Rophis,” he said. “What has me most confused was how this started. It ill fits the reputation of House Deneith.”

“No, it’s definitely out of step for us,” said Rophis. “We-I, that is, for although the germ of the idea was unintentionally handed to me, I must give myself the full credit for brilliantly developing it and nurturing it to its present state-we were selected to deliver the most important of the prisoners home. By important I mean the elite of the enemy armies, the most dangerous generals, and the upper crust of the nobles … and Prelate Quardov made it as clear as he could that he would be most pleased if those people never quite made it back home. It seemed a reasonable suggestion. So I made similar overtures to the other nations, and they also found the idea of value. And lo, the day after the end of the Last War I had a sizeable stable of experienced veteran fighters, none of whom were to be repatriated.”