by Steven Brust
To begin, as one ought, at the apex of our social pyramid, His Majesty, after changing his wardrobe to a martial costume, reclined in the small Lounge of Furs only a few steps from the Portrait Room. Khaavren, as was his custom, inspected the room carefully; his recent wound in no way hindered his ability to use his eyes. Upon being certain that there was no danger, he then took a position outside the door to await those who would replace him. His Majesty gave no thought to these precautions, for he had become quite used to them, and they seemed as normal to him as breathing. He sat himself down, then, in a comfortable chair and read from a book of traditional stories from the Kanefthali Mountains which had been collected and transcribed by Baroness Summer and was a book of which His Majesty had been fond since childhood.
Her Majesty was in her chamber. After the ordeal of her morning bath, she was resting by playing quions-of-fours with several of her maids of honor.
Jurabin, after escaping the Portrait Room, retired to the Seven Room where he caused the fire to be lighted. He then stared into the fire, and went over the events of the last few days in his mind, attempting to ease the turmoil therein, and, if possible, to discover what he could and should do to restore to himself Their Majesties' favor—unfortunately, he found he was able to think only of Aliera's eyes, which was of no help in this instance.
Khaavren, as we have indicated, stood outside of the Lounge of Furs, until, after some few minutes, Menia appeared to take his place, which gave Khaavren the chance to make his way to His Majesty's kitchen, where he gorged himself in good style. The staff, we ought to say, looked upon him suspiciously, recalling the last time he had eaten there, but as he seemed, this time, to have no intention of collapsing before them, they eventually relaxed into their accustomed good humors. After finishing the meal (which consisted of bread and a large portion of a certain cold fowl which had been prepared in the Elde Island manner, with a sauce of tart fruit and handshoot seeds), he set about personally inspecting each guard post in the Imperial Wing, pausing to have a few words with each guardsman to make certain no one was about to fall asleep.
Sethra and Tazendra were making their way from the Dragon Wing to the Imperial Wing, walking slowly, and stopping to look at the scenes of battles depicted on the walls—Sethra would describe the inaccuracies of the depiction and point out for her companion's benefit where Dzurlords appeared, or where they did not appear but, to be accurate, ought to. For her part, Tazendra had quite forgotten that she was in the company of the Enchantress of Dzur Mountain and chatted on merrily, speaking of battles she had fought and adventures she had had, and of certain spells she had been attempting to duplicate from certain ill-kept notebooks handed down from her family. Eventually they reached the Imperial Wing, and began to conduct an unhurried search for Pel and Aliera.
Pel and Aliera had begun a discussion of Khaavren's injury and Sethra's proposal, which discussion had become so absorbing that they had forgotten their intentions, and had wandered aimlessly about the Imperial Wing until, by chance, they came upon Khaavren, who had just completed the inspection of his guard positions and was about to return to his offices in the Dragon Wing to see if anything had occurred which required his attention.
"Well met, my friends," he said.
"And to you!" cried Pel. "I had worried about you, and upon my oath it gives me joy to see your firm step and hear your strong voice."
"How, you had worried about me?" said Khaavren.
"Your injuries," said Pel.
"What of them? You know that we soldiers are made of rednut wood, and, should our bark be punctured, we may lose a little sap, but we will send out our full complement of leaves nevertheless, while digging our roots a little deeper."
"I am pleased, too," said Aliera, bowing. "The more so because I know how you came to be injured, and I assure you that I regret the fate that has placed you and my father in opposition to one another."
Khaavren turned his palms up. "It is an honor to have a good enemy, and old friends make the best enemies. But come, where are the two of you bound?"
"Why—I hardly know," said Pel. "In fact, we were conversing, and letting our feet carry us where they would—is that not so, Aliera?"
"It is exactly the case. And what of you, Khaavren? Whither are you bound?"
"I have no urgent destination," said Khaavren. "In fact, for the next twenty or thirty minutes, why, I am entirely at your service."
"Then," said Pel, "let us find a place where we can sit comfortably and converse."
"I should like nothing better," said Khaavren.
"An admirable idea," said Aliera.
"Then let us walk this way, for I know a place where His Majesty is wont to hold conversations, and, although the walls, as I have learned, are sufficiently thin that no secrets ought to be told, well, I am certain we will find a great deal to say to one another of matters about which we need have no fear of being overheard."
Aliera and Pel at once agreed to this plan, wherefore Khaavren led them to the Seven Room which, as it happened, was not far from where they had met; they reached the room in good season, and were about to clap in order to ascertain if it was in use, when the door saved them this trouble by opening, as it were, in their very faces and revealing the troubled countenance of the Prime Minister, who looked on Khaavren's expression, which, because the Captain had been startled, appeared even more stern and forbidding than usual, which caused Jurabin to blanch and cry out, "What, has it come to this already? Am I then to be arrested and forgotten, like poor Bellor? There is no cause, I assure you, I give you my word as a gentleman, my dear Captain, that I am innocence itself! Why—ah, is that the Lady Aliera behind you? Alas! Then all is known. It is too late! I am undone!"
Khaavren, although surprised, felt a certain amount of pity for the Prime Minister, who had changed in such a sort time from being the true decision-maker of the Empire to a weak, vacillating courtier desperate to hold favor; wherefore Khaavren was on the verge of explaining that they were only there to make use of the room for conversation, and had even opened his mouth and drawn breath to make this explanation when he felt a grip on his arm and heard Pel whisper in his ear, "Silence, my friend—let him speak, let him speak!"
But Jurabin seemed to have done with speaking, and wished to do nothing except kneel before Khaavren and entreat him with sounds from which no distinct words could be discerned. Khaavren looked at Pel, wondering what the clever Yendi had on his mind. In answer, Pel stepped up and said, "Come, come, it it not as bad as all that, my friend."
"How," said Jurabin, looking up at hearing the strange voice. "Who are you?"
"What does it matter?" said Pel mysteriously. "What matters is that it is not too late to save yourself from disgrace and arrest."
"How, it is not too late?"
"Not in the least," said Pel. "We merely wish to ask you a few questions, and, should you answer them honestly, well, it may be that no more need be said on this, and you will return to His Majesty's side none the worse for having spoken with us."
Jurabin frowned, rose unsteadily to his feet, and appeared to be thinking. Pel, however, urged him back into the Seven Room, sat him in a chair, and said, "Come now, let us waste no time. You know what we wish to discuss. What, then, have you to say?"
"How, I? You pretend I have something to say?"
"You perceive that we are here," said Pel.
Jurabin looked at Aliera, then at the others, and, though he made certain sounds, some of which approximated words, nothing he said could be construed to be an answer.
Khaavren leaned over to Pel and said, "What are you trying to find out?"
"Everything he knows," whispered Pel.
"Cha! He is the Prime Minister; why should he know anything?"
Pel glared at him.
Let us say, at this point, that we sympathize with the reader, who is very much aware that there is an assassin hiding in the room where His Majesty will be appearing in a very few minutes, and, no doubt, the reader would very muc
h wish to discover exactly what will happen. As we have already had the honor to say, we sympathize with this desire, but we must insist that if the reader is to understand what happened, as well as merely know what happened, (and by "what happened" we mean both in the Portrait Room and for the duration of our history), then the reader must be informed of the events in the Seven Room that occurred among Khaavren, Pel, Aliera, and Jurabin.
This said, we will continue, and mention that Pel—secretive, careful, aloof Pel—was frustrated. Once he was informed that someone was conspiring at court to impair its efficiency, he at once set himself the task of discovering who, and why. He did this, we should add, for several reasons: for one, he was sincerely Khaavren's friend and was pleased to do his friend a service; for another, he enjoyed the challenge of discovering who was pulling the ropes that made the court dance; for yet another, there was a certain measure of genuine worry for the Empire—he knew how fragile were the threads of policy, and how, at times, the smallest slip could have repercussions that would last for generations. But, above all, his own schemes had been dealt a severe blow by the decision to cut the funding for the Institute of Discretion, because it was through the Institute that he reckoned on moving up through the ranks of society as part of fulfilling his own ambition—Pel was nothing if not ambitious. Both the reduction of funds, then, and the general disorder around the court, made Pel realize that the stairs he had planned on climbing were, in the first place, covered with ice, in the second, cracked and pitted in unlikely places, and, in the third, unstable at their foundations. Therefore, before he could continue with his own schemes, so long in the design and so precise in the execution as they had been, he must be certain of the balance of influence and power at court, and it was exactly this balance that had gone awry as a result of the conspiracy that Pel had detected, but was unable to track down.
Khaavren, though he did not know most of this, realized that Pel was frustrated, and this knowledge shocked him as he had scarcely been shocked in all of his years—of everyone he knew, it seemed, Pel was the one who always had a plan, and always knew exactly what was going on, or, at any rate, how to find out. Khaavren, himself, was perfectly comfortable turning over every rock he came to until he discovered the one under which someone had buried a key, and then trying every lock he came to until he found one it fit; but Khaavren was disturbed, and even frightened to realize that Pel was working in just this way.
This discovery effectively silenced Khaavren, who could only stare at his friend with all the expression of a wall from which the lone painting has just been removed. Aliera, though clever, did not know Pel; she did not, therefore, realize what was going on. She was convinced that the Yendi was playing some sort of deep game, and resolved to help him in any way she could, for, although she did not trust him any more than she would ever trust a Yendi, she nevertheless felt that his interests coincided with her own, at least on this occasion.
Jurabin was far too confused to have any opinions on anything; he simply knew that his love for Aliera had been discovered, and that he was facing ruin. To a man such as Jurabin, who, as we have endeavored to show, was, in fact, a conscientious administrator and one who took sincere pleasure in seeing the Empire function as smoothly as it could be made to, and who was, moreover, the sort of administer who gloried in crises, because then more than ever was his presence required, removal from his position was no small matter. He had been, he thought, making the best of a difficult situation when the assassination of Smaller had led to such confusion in the finances that it had become necessary to dismiss the Superintendent, appoint another, and hope accounts could be made to balance so that the state of the treasury would at least be known. And then, with Aliera's arrival, it had been as if he were thrown into a maelstrom, and for a while he could not see where to plant his feet, but, rather, he found himself pushed hither and yon by his overwhelming urge to attract Aliera's attention while simultaneously keeping his passion hidden from the Consort, who reckoned him her ally in the court and who would turn from him if she could not count on his affection, which translated to his support.
And, as if all of this were not bad enough, there was the outbreak of rebellion conjoined with His Majesty suddenly waking up, as it were, and taking control of the Empire itself. Had the Prime Minister been in full possession of his faculties, he could have either convinced His Majesty to allow him, Jurabin, to continue guiding matters, or at least have made certain His Majesty was fully informed about all of the significant issues; in the event, however, Jurabin effectively collapsed, and now to be confronted with Aliera, a representative of His Majesty, and (for so he assumed) a representative of the Consort, left him weighted down by the double burden of fear and of his own guilt—that is, his conviction that he deserved ruin and disgrace. And, if this wasn't enough, by having all three parties represented, as he thought, he did not dare attempt to play one off against the other; which he assumed was the reason for sending them, and further proof that all was known.
That, then, was the situation when Pel turned back to Jurabin and said, "Come, the court is in a shambles, and His Majesty is acting with neither reliable knowledge nor dependable advice, and this is because you, who have these duties, have failed in them. Is this not true?"
Jurabin could only nod miserably.
"If you would save yourself, then, your only hope is to tell everything."
"I will do so," said Jurabin in a hushed voice, for, under the circumstances, he could not think of holding anything back.
"Then tell me this: Who is behind this conspiracy?"
Jurabin looked up in amazement. "Who is behind it?"
"Yes, you must tell us at once. The assassinations, the disruption, the hastily-made decisions—who has planned all of this, and, moreover, for what reason?"
This question so surprised Jurabin that, for a moment,, he could only stare in wonder. Then he said, "But, I assure you, I have no idea in the world, and my only wish is to find out."
"But you—"
"I? I have hardly been working with a conspirator—I have been helplessly engulfed in love such as no man has ever before known. It has bent my mind, and turned my muscles to water, and—"
"How, love?" cried Pel. "For Aliera?"
Jurabin looked down again, for he could not look upon Aliera, and he nodded.
Pel shook his head. "Could someone plan on him falling in love? It is hardly credible. It must be coincidence. Unless—"
He paused, considering, and turned to Aliera. "Could he be the victim of a love-spell?"
"How, I?" cried Jurabin, outraged. "You think what I am feeling could be—"
"Be quiet," said Pel. "You annoy me."
Jurabin, however, was far too angry to be silenced so easily. "It is preposterous," he said. "And absurd on the face of it—how, a victim of a spell, who stands under the Orb every day, and the Orb not detect it?"
"The Orb," said Pel, "would not have been looking."
"No," said Aliera suddenly. "He is right. The Orb would know if anyone nearby was acting under the influence of magic—it is part of the system for protecting the Emperor that was built into the Orb. Sethra told me so."
"But," said Pel, who did not wish to abandon his idea so easily. "Could not the Orb have been tampered with?"
"It is unlikely," said Aliera.
"But is it impossible?"
"It is unlikely," she repeated.
At this point Khaavren seemed to wake up, and he said, "If there is even a small possibility of it, we must discover at once if it has happened."
Aliera began, "And yet—"
Khaavren shook his head. "This falls within my duties, and I say it must be investigated."
"Well, but how?" said Aliera.
"His Majesty will, in a very few minutes, be entering the Portrait Room. We shall meet him there, and you will inspect the Orb."
"Who, I? I have no part in this. Moreover, I have not the skill to do so."
"Well, but who does?"
"Nyleth, the Court Wizard, perhaps. And certainly Sethra Lavode."
"Well, you and Pel find Sethra and have her meet us there."
"I will do that," said Aliera.
"As will I," said Pel. Then, as an afterthought, he turned to Jurabin and said, "For now, resume your duties as if nothing had happened."
"Very well," said Jurabin, to whom anger had restored poise, allowing him a modicum of dignity in spite of all that had befallen him.
"Come," said Khaavren. "We must hurry."
He and Jurabin, therefore, made their way back to the Portrait Room, Aliera went back to the Dragon Wing to look in Sethra's chamber, and Pel set off on a search through the Imperial Wing in case Sethra had returned.
It so happened that Khaavren and Jurabin reached the Portrait Room just at the same time as His Majesty, and so, after Khaavren looked over the room, in which he saw nothing wrong (Mario had been careful), His Majesty entered and took his throne, after which the doors were opened to admit any courtier who wished to speak to or be seen with His Majesty. The first to be admitted was Sethra Lavode. Upon seeing her, His Majesty's countenance darkened, but Khaavren said, "Sire, she is here at my request—there is an issue of Imperial security."
"How, is there a danger?"
"Sire, I do not think so, and yet I am loath to take the chance."
"Very well. What must be done?"
"Sire, we must inspect the Orb, to be certain that it has not been tampered with."
"How, the Orb tampered with?"
"Sire, it is unlikely, yet I should feel better if Sethra were allowed to ascertain."
His Majesty looked at Khaavren, as if wondering what the Captain knew or suspected that he was not saying; but then he said, "Very well, carry on."
"Thank you, Sire." Then bowed to Sethra and said, "My lady, did Aliera find you?"
"No, it was Pel who said you desired my presence, although he did not explain why. Yet, having overheard your discussion with His Majesty, I now understand."
"And are you willing to help?"
"Most willing, although I think it unlikely that an enchantment could have been placed on the Orb itself without every sorcerer in the Empire being aware of it. Indeed," she added in a low voice, keeping her back to the courtiers, "the Orb will always protect itself by protecting His Majesty; the reverse is true as well. Therefore—"