by Steven Brust
“Thank you,” I said again. “I think I want to sleep now.”
“Good,” she said. “I’ll be back in a while.”
She left and I got in touch with Kragar. “You were saying?”
“Vlad! How are you?”
“About how you’d expect. Now, what did Daymar find out?”
“The guards were pulled out the other day because they were needed somewhere else. There was a riot in the Easterners’ Quarter. That may explain why those two took it out on you. I suppose they aren’t happy with any Easterners now. There have been other beatings of Easterners in the last few days. A few have been beaten to death.”
“I see. It can’t have been very big or we’d have heard about it.”
“No. It was small, short, and pretty bloody, from what Daymar could tell. I’m checking into it, just on general principles.”
“Okay, so that mystery is solved. Now: who set off the riot? Laris, I suppose. We need to find out how he has influence around there. That’s quite a bit farther south than anything else he has.”
“Okay. I’ll see if we can find out. Don’t expect much, though.”
“I won’t. Anything yet on that other business?”
“A bit, but not enough to help, I don’t think. Her name is Norathar, and she’s of the e’Lanya line. I’ve found references to her being expelled from the House, but no details—yet.”
“Good. Keep working on it. Next point: how can Laris afford to keep assassins sitting outside the office?”
“Well, didn’t you say the Sword and the Dagger had returned their payment?”
“Yeah. But that begs the question. How could he afford to hire them? Plus pay whatever it must have cost to start trouble in the Easterners’ Quarter?”
“Uh . . . I don’t know. I guess he has more cash than we thought.”
“Right. But how did he get it?”
“Maybe the same way you did?”
“That’s just what I was thinking. Maybe he’s being supported by someone who’s rich.”
“It could be, Vlad.”
“So, let’s look into it.”
“Sure. How do we do that?”
“I don’t know. Think about it.”
“Check. And, Vlad . . . ”
“Yeah?”
“Next time you come back here, warn us first, okay?”
“Yeah.”
After breaking that contact, I got hold of Fentor at Castle Black, gave him the information about the riot, and asked him to find out what he could about it. Then I really did sleep.
* * * *
“Wake up, boss!”
It was like the drumbeat that sends a squadron into alert status. I was sitting up, holding a dagger under the blanket, looking at—
“Good afternoon, Vladimir. Is that a knife in your hand, or are you happy to see me?”
“Both,” I said, sheathing the blade. She tapped my side and I moved over to let her sit down. We exchanged a light kiss. She drew back and studied me.
“What happened?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got nothing but time.”
I told her what had happened. She shook her head and, when I was finished, held me.
Wow.
“What now?” she asked.
I said, “Do you and your partner ever give friends a bargain?”
“Do you?”
“I didn’t think so.”
She held me a little tighter.
“Would you two rather I left, boss?”
“Maybe in a bit.”
“Hmmph. I was being snide, if you didn’t notice.”
“I noticed. Shut up.”
“By the way, Vladimir, Sethra is giving a banquet.”
“Really? In honor of what?”
“In honor of all of us being alive.”
“Hmmmm. They’ll probably be trying to pump you and Norathar for information.”
“I expect they—how did you find out her name?”
I did a smug chuckle.
“I guess,” she said, “I’ll just have to torture the information out of you.”
“I guess so,” I said. “Okay, Loiosh, you can leave now.”
“Jerk.”
“Yeah.”
Chapter Ten
“I dislike killing my guests.”
It is possible to break meals down into types. There is the formal dinner, with elegant settings, carefully selected wines, and orchestrated conversation. Then there are Jhereg business meetings, where you ignore the food half the time, because to miss a remark, or even a glance, can be deadly. There is the quiet, informal get-together with a Certain Person, where neither food nor conversation is as important as being there. We also have the grab-something-and-run, where the idea is to get food inside of you, without taking time for either conversation or enjoyment. Next, we have the “good dinner,” where the food is the whole reason for being there, and conversation is merely to help wash it down.
And there is one other type of dinner: sitting around a fine, elegant table, deep under Dzur Mountain, with an undead hostess, a pair of Dragonlords, and a team of Jhereg assassins, one of whom was once a Dragon herself, the other of whom is an Easterner.
The conversation at a dinner of this type is unpredictable. For most of the meal, Morrolan entertained us with a few notes on sorcery that aren’t usually included in tomes, and probably shouldn’t be. I enjoyed this—mostly because I was sitting next to Cawti (by chance? With Aliera around? Ha!) and we generally concentrated on rubbing our legs together under the table. Loiosh made a few remarks about this that I won’t dignify by repeating.
Then, while I was distracted, the conversation changed. Suddenly, Aliera was engaging the lady known as the Sword of the Jhereg in a bantering exchange comparing Dragon customs to Jhereg customs, and I was instantly alert. Aliera didn’t do anything by accident.
“You see,” Aliera was saying, “we only kill people who deserve it. You kill anyone you’re paid to kill.”
Norathar pretended surprise. “But you’re paid too, aren’t you? It’s merely a different coin. A Jhereg assassin would be paid in gold, or so I assume—I’ve never actually met one. A Dragon, on the other hand, is paid by satisfying his bloodlust.”
I chuckled a little. Score one for our team. Aliera also smiled and raised her glass. I looked at her closely. Yes, I decided, she wasn’t doing any idle Jhereg-baiting. She was searching for something.
“So tell me,” Aliera asked, “which do you consider the better coin to be paid in?”
“Well, I’ve never bought anything with bloodlust, but—”
“It can be done.”
“Indeed? What can you buy, pray tell?”
“Empires,” said Aliera e’Kieron. “Empires.”
Norathar e’Lanya raised her eyebrow. “Empires, my lady? What would I do with one?”
Aliera shrugged. “I’m sure you could think of something.”
I glanced around the room. Sethra, at the head of the table and to my right, was watching Aliera intently. Morrolan, to her right, was doing the same. Norathar was next to him, and she was also studying Aliera, who was at the other end of the table. Cawti, next to her and to my left, was looking at Norathar. I wondered what was going on behind her mask. I always wonder what’s going on behind people’s masks. I sometimes wonder what’s going on behind my mask.
“What would you do with one?” asked Norathar.
“Ask me when the Cycle changes.”
“Eh?”
“I,” she said, “am currently the Dragon Heir to the Throne. Morrolan used to be, before I arrived.”
I remembered being told about Aliera’s “arrival”—hurled out of Adron’s Disaster, the explosion that brought down the Empire over four hundred years ago, through time, to land in the middle of some Teckla’s wheat field. I was later told that Sethra had had a hand in the thing, which made it more believable than it would be otherwise.
Norathar seemed faintl
y curious. Her eyes went to the Dragonhead pendant around Aliera’s neck. All Dragonlords wear a Dragonhead somewhere visible. The one Aliera wore had a blue gem for one eye, a green gem for the other. “E’Kieron, I see,” said Norathar.
Aliera nodded, as if something had been explained.
I asked, “What am I missing?”
“The lady,” said Aliera, “was no doubt curious about my lineage, and why I am now the heir. I would guess that she has remembered that Adron had a daughter.”
I said, “Oh.”
It had never occurred to me to wonder how Aliera came to be the heir so quickly, although I’d known she was since I was introduced to her. But sitting at the same table with the daughter of the man who had turned an entire city into a seething pool of raw chaos was a bit disconcerting. I decided it was going to take me a while to get used to.
Aliera continued her explanations to Norathar. “The Dragon Council informed me of the decision when they checked my bloodlines. That is how I became interested in genetics. I am hoping that I can prove there is a flaw in me, somewhere, so I won’t have to be Empress when the Cycle changes.”
“You mean you don’t want to be Empress?” I asked.
“Dear Barlen, no! I can’t imagine anything more dull. I’ve been looking for a way out of it since I’ve been back.”
“Oh.”
“Your conversation is really gifted today, boss.”
“Shut up, Loiosh.”
I worked all of this over in my mind. “Aliera,” I said at last, “I have a question.”
“Hm?”
“If you’re the Dragon Heir, does that mean your father was the heir before you? And if he was the heir, why did he try the coup in the first place?”
“Two reasons,” she said. “First, because it was the reign of a decadent Phoenix, and the Emperor refused to step down when the Cycle changed. Second, Daddy wasn’t really the heir.”
“Oh. The heir died during the Interregnum?”
“Around then, yes. There was a war, and he was killed. There was talk of his child not being a Dragon. But that was actually before the Disaster and the Interregnum.”
“He was killed,” I echoed. “I see. And the child? No, don’t tell me. She was expelled from the House, right?”
Aliera nodded.
“And the line? E’Lanya, right?”
“Very good, Vlad. How did you know?”
I looked at Norathar, who was staring at Aliera with eyes like mushrooms.
“And,” I continued, “you have been able to scan her genes, and you’ve found out that, lo and behold, she really is a Dragonlord.”
“Yes,” said Aliera.
“And if her father was really the Heir to the Throne, then . . . ”
“That’s right, Vlad,” said Aliera. “The correct Heir to the Throne is Norathar e’Lanya—the Sword of the Jhereg.”
* * * *
The funniest thing about time is when it doesn’t. I’ll leave that hanging there for the moment, and let you age while the shadows don’t lengthen, if you see what I mean. I looked first at Cawti, who was looking at Norathar, who was looking at Aliera. Sethra and Morrolan were also looking at Aliera, who wasn’t focusing on anything we could see. Her eyes, bright green now, glittered with reflected candlelight, and looked upon something we weren’t entitled to see.
Now, while the Cycle doesn’t run, and the year doesn’t fail, and the day gets neither brighter nor darker, and even the candles don’t flicker, we begin to see things with a new perspective. I looked first at my lover, who had recently killed me, who was looking at her partner, who should be the Dragon Heir to the Orb—next in the Cycle. This Dragonlord-assassin-princess-whatever matched stares with Aliera e’Kieron, wielder of Kieron’s Sword, traveler from the past, daughter of Adron, and current Heir to the Orb. And so on.
The funniest thing about time is when it doesn’t. In those moments when it loses itself, and becomes (as, perhaps, all things must) its opposite, it becomes a thing of even greater power than when it is in its old standard tear-down-the-mountains mood.
It even has the power to break down the masks behind which hide Dragons turned Jhereg.
For an instant, then, I looked at Norathar and saw her clearly, she who had once been a Dragonlord. I saw pride, hate, grim resignation, dashed hopes, loyalty, and courage. I turned away, though, because, odd as it may seem to you who have listened to me so patiently and so well, I really don’t like pain.
“What do you mean?” she whispered, and the world went back to its business again.
Aliera didn’t answer, so Sethra spoke. “The Dragon Council met, early in the Reign of the Phoenix this Cycle, before the Interregnum, to choose the heir. It was decided that the e’Lanya line should take it when the time comes. The highest family of that line were the Lady Miera, the Lord K’laiyer, and their daughter, Norathar.”
Norathar shook her head and whispered again. “I have no memories of any of this. I was only a child.”
“There was an accusation made,” said Sethra, “and Lord K’laiyer, your father, challenged his accuser. There was war, and your parents were killed. You were judged by sorcerers and your bloodlines were found to be impure.”
“But then—”
“Aliera scanned you, and the sorcerers who made the first judgment were wrong.”
I broke in, saying, “How hard is it to make a mistake of that kind?”
Aliera snapped back to the present and said, “Impossible.”
“I see,” I said.
“I see,” said Norathar.
We sat there, each of us looking down, or around the room, waiting for someone to ask the obvious questions. Finally, Norathar did. “Who did the scan, and who made the challenge?”
“The first scan,” said Sethra, “was done by my apprentice, Sethra the Younger.”
“Who’s she?” I asked.
“As I said, my apprentice—one of many. She served her apprenticeship—let me see—about twelve hundred years ago now. When I’d taught her all I could, she did me the honor of taking my name.”
“Dragonlord?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. Sorry to interrupt. You were talking about the scan.”
“Yes. She brought the results to me, and I brought them to the Dragon Council. The council had a committee of three do another one. Lord Baritt was one—” Morrolan, Aliera and I exchanged glances here. We’d met his shade in the Paths of the Dead, and had three completely different impressions of the old bas- . . . gentleman. Sethra continued. “Another was of the House of the Athyra, as the expert, and someone from the House of the Lyorn, to make sure everything was right and proper. The committee confirmed it and the council acted as it had to.”
Norathar asked, “Who made the accusation?”
“I did,” said Sethra Lavode.
Norathar rose to her feet, her eyes burning into Sethra’s. I could almost feel the energy flowing between them. Norathar said, between clenched teeth, “May I have my sword back, milady?”
Sethra hadn’t moved. “If you wish,” she said. “However, there are two things I want to say.”
“Say them.”
“First, I made the accusation because that was my duty to the House of the Dragon as I saw it. Second, while I’m not as fanatical about it as Lord Morrolan, I dislike killing my guests. Remember who I am, lady!”
As she said this, she stood and drew Iceflame—a long, straight dagger, perhaps twelve inches of blade. The metal was a light blue, and it emitted a faint glow of that color. Anyone with the psionic sensitivity of a caterpillar would have recognized it as a Morganti weapon, one which kills without chance of revivification. Anyone with any acquaintance with the legends surrounding Sethra Lavode would have recognized it as Iceflame, a Great Weapon, one of the Seventeen. Whatever power it was that hid in, under, and around Dzur Mountain, Iceflame was tied to it. The only other known artifacts with power to match it were the sword Godslayer and the Imperial Orb. Loiosh
dived under my cloak. I held my breath.
At that moment, I felt, rather than saw, a knife fall into Cawti’s hand. I felt a tear in loyalties that was almost physically painful. What should I do if there was a fight? Could I bring myself to stop Cawti, or even warn Sethra? Could I bring myself to allow Sethra to be knifed in the back? Demon Goddess, get me out of this!
Norathar stared back at Sethra and said, “Cawti, don’t.” Cawti sighed quietly, and I breathed a prayer of thanks to Verra. Then Norathar said to Sethra, “I’d like my sword, if you please.”
“You won’t hear my reasons, then?” asked Sethra, her voice even.
“All right,” said Norathar. “Speak.”
“Thank you.” Sethra put Iceflame away. I exhaled. Sethra sat down and, after a moment, so did Norathar, but her eyes never left Sethra’s.
“I was told,” said the Dark Lady of Dzur Mountain, “that your ancestry was questionable. To be blunt, I received word that you were a bastard. I’m sorry, but that’s what I was told.”
I listened intently. Bastardy among Dragaerans is far more rare than among Easterners, because a Dragaeran can’t conceive accidentally—or so I’ve been told. In general, the only illegitimate children are those who have one sterile parent (sterility is nearly impossible to cure, and not uncommon among Dragaerans). Bastard, as an insult, is far more deadly to a Dragaeran than to an Easterner.
“I was further told,” she continued, “that your true father was not a Dragon.” Norathar still didn’t move, but she was gripping the table with her right hand. “You were the oldest child of the Dragon Heir. It was necessary to bring this to the attention of the council, if it was true.
“I could,” she went on, “have sneaked into your parents’ home with my apprentice, who is skilled in genetic scanning.” Aliera gave a barely audible sniff here. I imagine she had her own opinion of Sethra the Younger’s abilities. “I chose not to, however. I confronted Lord K’laiyer. He held himself insulted and refused to allow the scan. He declared war and sent an army after me.