The Book of Athyra

by Steven Brust

  “I don’t understand.”

  “If it isn’t the Empress, it’s someone almost as important, and it’s with the cooperation of the highest level of government.”

  “What makes you so sure? An hour ago you didn’t even believe—”

  “Your story was very convincing,” I said. “And you told me things you probably didn’t know you were telling me.” I frowned. “The way Loftis talked to Domm, and the way Domm and Timmer talked to each other, tell me—”

  “That Timmer doesn’t—or, perhaps, didn’t—know about it.”

  “That’s not the point, Vlad. They were acting under orders, and they have support that not only goes high, it goes broad—widespread. At the Imperial level, too many people are involved for there to be just one person pulling the strings from behind a closet.”

  “Hmmm. I see your point. But with that many involved, how can it stay secret?”

  “There’s secret, and then there’s secret, Vlad. If, in a year or two, the Empress starts to hear whispers about so-and-so having pulled a scam in the Fyres’s investigation, there won’t be much she can do about it, depending on who so-and-so is.”

  “In other words, it can leak, as long as it doesn’t break.”

  “Something like that.” I shrugged. “I’m just speculating, based on what I know about the Court, but it’s a pretty good guess. You know,” I added, “you’re in over your head, Vlad. I’d call for help.”

  Vlad laughed without humor. “Call for help? From whom? Sethra Lavode? She’s taken on the whole Empire before. You think she’d do it now? Without knowing why, or what’s involved? And just what exactly are Iceflame and the power of Dzur Mountain going to do against a snotty little intrigue? Or maybe you mean Morrolan. He could solve the whole thing by inviting our hostess to move into Castle Black, but I don’t think she’ll go for it, and he doesn’t have any connections in the House of the Orca. Aliera would love to go charging into this, Kiera, but subtlety isn’t her strong suit—she’d just kill everyone who was acting dirty, and we’d have the same mess with a bunch of bodies to complicate things. Norathar would be the one who could solve it—if this was the Dragon Reign. But, last I heard, Zerika is still on the throne—at least technically.”

  I didn’t quite know how to answer that, so I didn’t. He said, “And remember, I don’t really care what the Empire is doing or to whom, as long I can do what I promised Hid—Hwid—the old woman I’d do and she can help Savn. Do you care?”

  That was tough. I did care—but . . . “No,” I said. “You’re right. But it may be that we have to deal with the whole thing in order to solve our little problem. I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I,” said Vlad.

  “What do we know, then?”

  “We know the Empire is covering up something—very possibly murder. We know that not all of the investigators know about it, and we know that not all of the ones who do are happy about it, but that the orders include killing anyone who knows what’s going on. We know that there is a big tangle about who owns what parts of Fyres’s property, and that finding out who owns this blue cottage and its environs is not going to be easy. And we know that something, somewhere, is very wrong.”

  “Wrong how?” I said.

  “The timing—it’s funny and I’m not laughing.”

  “Go on,” I said, though I was starting to realize that I knew—that I’d been subconsciously aware of something being strange about how things had been happening.

  “What’s the hurry? When someone as rich as Fyres dies, it’s sort of expected to take fifty or a hundred or two hundred years to sort out who owns what. But they’re not only putting a coat of paint over this investigation, they’re doing it in an awful hurry. And not just the Empire—everyone associated with it.”

  “What do you mean by everyone?”

  “I mean,” he said carefully, “that Fyres had been dead for maybe a week when our hostess was told to vacate, and she was given six months in which to do it. Now, that doesn’t make any sense at all, unless there are two things going on: one, the land is valuable somehow; and, two, someone, somewhere, is panicking.”

  I nodded. Yeah, that was it. I said, “Almost. I agree about the panic, but the land doesn’t have to be particularly valuable.”

  “Oh? Then why—”

  “Someone wants to take it, get as much cash as he can for it, and be gone before it comes out that it wasn’t his land to sell in the first place.”

  “Ah,” said Vlad. “Yes, that makes sense.” He thought for a moment. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t help—it doesn’t point to anyone in particular, and it doesn’t even eliminate anyone.”

  “True,” I said.

  “Which still leaves us with the problem of finding out, which, in turn, brings up the next question: What now?”

  I was able to answer that one, anyway. “Now,” I said, “we sleep on it. It’s late, and my brain is tired. We’ll talk again in the morning.”

  “Okay. Meet here?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll cook breakfast.”

  “I’ll bring something to cook.”

  “It’s a pleasure working with you, Kiera.”

  * * *

  I SPENT THE NIGHT trying to make sense of everything I’d learned; I’d have bet Juinan’s Pearl against a pound of tea that Vlad did the same. And I’d have won, judging by the look on his face when I got there the next morning.

  “Not much sleep?” I suggested sweetly.

  He scowled and went back to making klava. I put the groceries on the counter next to him and said, “Goose eggs, sneershrimp, endive, cynth, orange and black fungus, and various sweet and hot peppers. Also a pound of flatbread. Make breakfast.”

  “Onions?”

  “She has them growing in back.”

  “Garlic?”

  “Hanging in a basket about six centimeters from your right hand. Observant, aren’t we?”

  “You can talk to Loiosh,” he said.

  Loiosh, curled up with Rocza near the cold hearth, twitched and probably said something to Vlad. Hwdf’rjaanci emerged from the back, toweling her hair dry. “You’ve made the klava,” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Vlad. “I hope it isn’t too strong.”

  “Don’t make jokes,” she said.

  Savn was still wrapped up in his furs, but he was awake and staring at the ceiling. I noticed that Vlad was looking at him, too. The old woman said, “I’m going to go in today.”

  I heard Vlad’s sharp intake of breath—or maybe it was mine. “Dreamwalk?” I said.

  “No, I’m just going to heal the physical damage. There isn’t much of it, and I’ve looked carefully—it won’t hurt him, and it might start the healing process.”

  Vlad nodded, turned back to the kitchen, and began to prepare breakfast. Hwdf’rjaanci sat on the floor near Savn’s head. I chopped things and sampled them. He didn’t make any comments about my doing so, which meant either he was unique in my experience with cooks, or he was distracted, or he was uncomfortable because no one had done that since he and Cawti had broken up. I felt a little bad for him, but not bad enough to stop sampling things. The peppers were exquisite.

  He said, “There are few sounds more beautiful than that made by a mess of onions landing on a cast-iron skillet with a layer of hot oil. The trick is getting them to just the right degree of done before you start adding other things, and then to not let them go too much further before you add the eggs—the eggs have to be last because they don’t take as long—”

  “What’s on your mind, Vlad?”

  He shrugged. “The same thing that’s on yours, of course—are we going to be able to solve our hostess’s problem without taking on, in effect, the whole Empire? And, if we do have to take on the Empire, how can we win? It’s bound to be tricky.”

  “Tricky,” I said. I shook my head. “You’re nothing if not confident.”

  He shrugged. “It shouldn’t be any problem. I’ll just work my way throug
h these special Guardsmen, find out who their boss is, kill him, take his position, use that to get close to the Empress, kill her, take the Orb, and rule Dragaera myself, exploiting the Empire ruthlessly in order to enrich myself and punish those who have offended me throughout my life, in preparation for conquering the East and eventually making myself ruler of the entire world.” He paused from whipping the eggs, looked at me, and nodded somberly. “Then I’d meet some girls, I’ll bet.” He covered the pan. “Want to set the table for four?”

  “Three,” said our hostess, who was still seated next to the boy but was now staring down at him while holding both of his shoulders. “Savn will be needing his rest.”

  I looked at her, then at Savn, then at Vlad, who was looking at me. I opened my mouth to speak and then felt the casting of a spell. Vlad apparently felt it, too, or more accurately Loiosh did; in any case we both turned to watch, then looked again at each other. Vlad’s eyes were a bit wide, but he shrugged.

  “Don’t let the food burn,” I said.

  “I shan’t,” said Vlad, and turned his attention back to the skillet. I set the table. The feeling of sorcery went away about two minutes after it had started, and then the old woman joined us at the table and we ate. She didn’t seem quite comfortable with Loiosh and Rocza joining us and eating scraps from Vlad’s plate, even though she should have been used to it by now. But she didn’t say anything. Buddy sat next to the table and spoke most eloquently with his eyes but got nothing for his trouble, poor beast. The food was good and there was no conversation for quite some time, until I noticed that Vlad was watching me.

  I said, “What is it?”

  “Don’t you care for it?”

  “Are you fishing for compliments?”

  “No.”

  I shrugged. “I like it quite a bit.”

  “All right,” he said.

  I don’t know anyone like Vlad: it’s like his mind never shuts off. Even Morrolan relaxes from time to time, but I’ve never seen Vlad when he wasn’t thinking. I very much wanted to know what he was thinking about just then, but there was no polite way to ask.

  Vlad broke down before I did. He said, “Well, Mother?”

  She said, “Yes?”

  He cleared his throat. “How did—that is, is Savn all right?”

  “You mean his injury?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, I healed it. It isn’t difficult if you know what you’re doing. I’m not really a physicker, but I am a sorceress”—she looked at me as she said it, as if expecting me to argue—“and this is the sort of problem I’m most familiar with.”

  “So it went well?” asked Vlad. Vlad needing reassurance was something outside of my experience.

  “Quite well.”

  “Uh, good,” he said.

  “What now?” I asked her.

  “Now? Well, repairing the physical damage ought to help him, so now we see if there’s any change in his behavior—better or worse. If not, then I’ll go back to trying to understand the inside of his head well enough to risk a dreamwalk. If there is a change, well, then we’ll just have to see what the change is and do our best from there.”

  “Oh,” said Vlad. He glanced at Savn, who was sleeping peacefully, and fell silent.

  We finished eating, and Vlad and I cleaned up. I took my time, because I wasn’t in a hurry to go back to talking about how we were going to approach the problem. Vlad also seemed to be moving a bit slowly, I suspect for the same reason. I drew the water, he set it to heating, then we took our time sorting things that went into the compost from things to be burned and things to feed to Buddy. When the water was hot, I started in on the dishes. Vlad cleaned the table and the stove.

  As we were finishing up, I said, “How’s the arm?”

  “Fine.”

  “Let’s take a look at it.”

  “When did you become a physicker?”

  “One learns a bit of everything in my line of work—or in yours.”

  “Yeah.”

  He took his shirt off. His chest was still full of hairs; I tried not to react. I unwrapped the bandage. Some people look at their wounds, others look away. Vlad looked, but he seemed a bit queasy. The lower wrappings of the bandage were bloody, but not horribly so, and the wound itself showed no signs of infection.

  I said, “If you want to take the Phoenix Stone off, I can have that healed up in—”

  “No, thanks,” said Vlad.

  “You’re probably right,” I said.

  I washed it and rewrapped it. Hwdf’rjaanci watched but made no effort to help—maybe blood made her queasy; maybe she considered herself too much of a specialist to be bothered with simple wounds.

  I said, “Okay, if you’ve changed your mind about ruling the world, and you don’t want to ask anyone for help, what’s our next step?”

  “I went through the notes again last night, after you left,” said Vlad.

  “And?”

  “And nothing. If we had all the files as well as the Imperial record, and maybe some of the records of a few Jhereg, and we combined those with what we’ve got, and we had a hundred accountants working full-time, we could probably find the answer—and maybe even find it soon enough to do some good. But we don’t, so we’re going to have to start from the other end.”

  “And the other end is?”

  “The investigation. We have a piece of something—all I can think of to do is follow it and see where it leads.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I was afraid it was going to come to that.”

  “Meanwhile,” he said, “I’m going to see just how much money it will take to buy the land.”

  I nodded. “Yes. The amount should tell us if you’re right about there being something valuable about this piece of property. If it comes down to nothing more than finding a sum of money, there are ways to do that.”

  I noticed Hwdf’rjaanci looking at us. Vlad said, “That, of course, is my end of things. What do you want to do?”

  “I want to find out just who Loftis is working for, what his orders are, what he knows, what he guesses, and what he plans to do about it,” I said.

  “Good thinking,” said Vlad. “How do you plan to go about it?”

  “I don’t know. I thought maybe I’d ask him.”

  “I can’t see why that wouldn’t work.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then let’s do it,” said Vlad.

  I finished bandaging him, and he put his shirt on, then his cloak, then his sword belt. He petted Buddy, recommended the cottage to him, collected Loiosh, and left with a sweeping bow.

  “They’re disgusting,” said Hwdf’rjaanci.

  “Who?”

  “Easterners,” she said.

  I said, “Ah. I’ll tell him you said so, Mother.”

  “Oh don’t,” she said, looking suddenly distressed. “It would hurt his feelings.”

  I collected my things and stepped out of the door. Unlike Vlad, I had no reason not to teleport, so I did, arriving at a place I knew where I could change my garb a little, which I did. I arrived outside of City Hall at just about the tenth hour, which was when things ought to begin moving there. I took a position across the street, became inconspicuous, and waited.

  I’d been there for more than an hour when Vlad showed up and went in, and then nothing happened for quite some time, and I was beginning to think I’d missed Loftis—that he’d gotten in early—when I saw him on the other side of the street, just approaching; from Vlad’s description, it had to be Loftis. I crossed over and walked past him, and even that brief a glance was enough to confirm that Vlad was right—this wasn’t someone to mess around with casually. He was frowning as he walked, like he had something on his mind; it wasn’t hard to guess what it was.

  I found an inn that let rooms by the hour and rented one—this is a good way to find a place where you won’t be disturbed and won’t be talked about, even if you don’t use the room for the reasons they expect you to. They had put in a real door, to ensu
re the guests had privacy, and I liked that, too. Instead of a tag, it was Loftis’s papers and possessions that I spread out on the bed; then I commenced to study them. He had not, in fact, been polite enough to be carrying a note that spelled out what he’d been asked to do, the reasons behind it, and the name of his superior officer, but we make do with what we have, and the pouch of an Imperial investigator can hardly fail to be revealing.

  His name was, indeed, Loftis, a Dragonlord of the e’Drien line, same as Morrolan; and he was the Viscount of Clovenrocks Wood, which was in a far northeastern province, if I could trust a memory that wasn’t my own. He had three Signets. I knew he’d have at least one, I was counting on it—but three indicated he was, indeed, high up in the counsels of the great and powerful who ran the Empire. And the oldest of the Signets—which included authorization to make arrests—was two hundred years old, which meant he’d have to have been in the Imperial Service at least two hundred and fifty years, which is a long time to only be a lieutenant—unless, of course, he was in one of those branches of the service where traditional ranks were meaningless, which would explain the irony Vlad had detected when he and Domm had called each other by their ranks.

  I knew about four such services, all of them more or less independent. Well, there was a fifth, but that hadn’t existed in some years except for one person—and whoever Loftis was, he wasn’t Sethra Lavode. I considered the four services I knew about, and speculated uncomfortably about the possibility of there being one I hadn’t heard of.

  One of them was the Imperial Surveillance Corps. They were responsible to the Prime Minister, when there was one, or to the Minister of the Houses when there wasn’t. The Minister of the Houses was presently an Issola named Indus, and I’d play cards with her only as long as she never got near the deck. She was tricky, but she was loyal—she’d do something like this if she was ordered to, and it might well fall within her province, but the order would have to come from Zerika. If anyone but the Empress tried to use Indus . . . well, anyone who knew enough about her to ask would know better than to try. So either it wasn’t Indus, or the order came from the Empress, and I was convinced the order hadn’t come from the Empress.