The Book of Taltos

by Steven Brust

  The song ended on a roll of the drum and a clatter of the lant-like instrument Thoddi played, and the musicians bowed. Aibynn returned to the side, and they started another song, an instrumental piece I didn’t know. I stepped backward, shaking and confused. What had just happened? What had almost happened? How much had I imagined?

  Dav-Hoel’s instrument teased the melody the same way Aibynn’s drum was teasing the rhythm. On the other hand, I wished they’d just play the song, but everyone else seemed very impressed, and the Empress looked positively excited. I’ve never been very knowledgeable about music.

  After that they did a silly song about snuff, then an instrumental they introduced as the Madman’s Dance, and then Loiosh said, “Boss, wake up! The Empress!”

  “Huh? Oh.” She was gesturing to me, still looking amused.

  I came forward, bowed once more, and she said, “Come with me.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  She stood, stretched quite unselfconsciously, threw a purse to the musicians, and went behind the throne through a curtained doorway. I followed, feeling self-conscious enough to make up for both of us. She turned back to me and nodded that I was to catch up to her. I did, and the four of us, the Empress Zerika, the Orb, Loiosh, and I, walked together in silence. Was it stranger for her to be walking with a Jhereg, a jhereg, or an Easterner? On the other hand, if it was true that she had a human lover—

  She caught me staring at her and I turned away, feeling myself blushing.

  “You were thinking improper thoughts about your Empress?” she said in a voice that sounded more amused than offended.

  “Just speculating on rumors, Your Majesty.”

  “Ah. About an Eastern lover?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “It’s true,” she said. “His name is Laszlo. He isn’t my lover because he is an Easterner, nor despite it. He is my lover because I love him, and he is an Easterner because that is the house in which his soul resides.”

  I licked my lips. “How can you read my thoughts without my familiar catching you at it?”

  She laughed, just a little. “By watching your face, and by guessing. I’ve gotten pretty good at it.”

  “That’s all?”

  “It is often enough. For example, I saw you try to foil an attempt on my life that was not going to take place. Had you forgotten the Orb, which protects the life of the Emperor?”

  I blushed once more. I had forgotten. To cover, I said, “It hasn’t always worked.”

  “You,” she said, “are not Mario. And neither is your friend from Greenaere.”

  “Then I imagined the whole thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you know what I was thinking?”

  “You were not troubling to keep your worries from your countenance, and you are an assassin.”

  “Who, me?”

  “Yes,” she said, “you.”

  There was nothing to say to that, so I said nothing. We went around a corner and through more plain white halls. She said, “For some reason, I do my best thinking when walking right here.”

  “Like a Tiassa,” I said without thinking.

  “What?”

  “Excuse me, Your Majesty. Something I heard somewhere: Tiassa think walking, Dragons think standing, Lyorn think sitting, and Dzur think afterward.”

  She chuckled. “And when do you think, good Jhereg?”

  “All the time, Your Majesty. I can’t seem to help it.”

  “Ah. I know the feeling.” We walked some more. She seemed very casual with me, but there was the Orb, circling her head slowly as we walked, and changing color occasionally; from the murky brown a few moments ago to a calm blue. I wondered if she was deliberately trying to confuse me.

  “You are a very unusual man, Baronet Vladimir Taltos,” she said suddenly. “You bring someone you think might be an assassin into the Empire and allow him to appear before me, and yet you were ready to act to protect me when you thought he might really do something.”

  “How did you know he is from Greenaere?”

  “I suspected it when I found him psychically blank. I checked with the Orb, and there are memories recorded of the sort of clothes he wears and the type of drum he plays.”

  “I see. Your Majesty, why did you summon me?”

  “To see what you looked like. Oh, I remembered you faintly, from your skillful dancing around the truth during a certain murder inquiry. But I wanted to know a little better the man who threatened his own House representative right on the Palace grounds, and whose wife is best friends with my Heir.”

  I chuckled at that, remembering the nature of that friendship.

  “Yes,” she said, smiling. “I know all about it.”

  “How?”

  She shook her head. “Norathar has told me nothing. But I am, after all, the Empress. I suspect I have a better spy network even than you do, Lord Taltos.”

  Ouch. “I wouldn’t doubt it, Your Majesty.” What didn’t she know? Did she know, for example, that I was the one who had started the war with Greenaere? Probably not, or I’d be in the cell next to Cawti. “Is this how you usually spend the New Year’s festivities, Your Majesty?”

  “It is when we are threatened with war, and simultaneously with rebellion. I worry about these things, Baronet, and decisions must be made—such as if I am to step down and let the House of the Dragon take the Orb. I will spend today seeing everyone who I think may have a role to play in all of this.”

  “What makes you think I will have a role to play in war and rebellion, Your Majesty?”

  “I could give several answers to that, but the short one is, when I searched the Orb for names, yours was one that emerged. I don’t know why. Can you tell me?”

  “No,” I said, keeping careful control of my features.

  “Cannot, or will not?”

  “Will not, Your Majesty.”

  “Very well,” she said, and I breathed again.

  I said, “Will there be war, Your Majesty?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “As am I. The alliance of Greenaere and Elde will be a difficult one to defeat. It is all but impossible to effect a landing in either place, whereas we have too many miles of coastline to protect. In the end, we may have to crush them with numbers, and that will be costly, in lives and everything else.”

  “What do they want, Your Majesty?”

  “I don’t know. They don’t seem to want anything. Perhaps there is a madman behind it. Or a god.”

  We went around another turn, again to the left, and there was a slight rise to the floor. “Where are we now, Your Majesty?”

  “Do you know, I’m not exactly certain. This is a route I walk often, but I’ve never known exactly where it goes. There are no doors or other paths that I’ve found or heard of. I sometimes wonder if it was put here just for this purpose.”

  “Then I suppose it would be pretty useless during the reign of a Dragon, Lyorn, or Dzur.”

  She chuckled. “I suppose it would.”

  The walk straightened out. “Your Majesty, why is my wife in your dungeons?”

  She sighed. “First, let us be accurate. They are not dungeons. Dungeons are dank cells where Duke Curse-Me-Not keeps merchants he can’t justify executing but whose goods he likes more than the prices. The Lady Cawti of Taltos, Countess of Lostguard Cleft and Environs, resides in the Imperial prison on suspicion of conspiring against the Orb.”

  I bit my lip. “Noted, Your Majesty.”

  “Good. Now, as to why she is there: because she wants to be. There was a petition to release her, it was granted, she refused.”

  “I know about that, Your Majesty. The Lady Norathar made this petition. What did she say upon refusing?”

  “She didn’t specifically say she wanted to stay, but she wouldn’t sign the document we required for her release.”

  “Document? What sort of document, Your Majesty?”

  “One that said she woul
d not engage in any activities contrary to the interests of the Empire.”

  “Ah. That would account for it.” The Empress didn’t say anything. I said, “But, Your Majesty, why was she arrested in the first place?”

  “I’m wondering,” she said slowly, “how much you know, and how much I should tell you.”

  “I know that it was my own House that made the petition. But why was it granted?” In other words, since when did a Phoenix Empress care a teckla’s squeal about the business workings of House Jhereg?

  She said, “You seem to think I am at liberty to ignore whatever requests I wish to.”

  “In a word, Your Majesty, yes. You are Empress.”

  “That is true, Baronet Taltos, I am Empress.” She frowned, and seemed to be thinking. The floor began to slope up and I began to feel fatigued. She said, “Being Empress has meant many things throughout our long, long history. Its meaning changes with each Cycle, with each House whose turn it is to rule, with each Emperor or Empress who sets the Orb spinning about his or her head. Now, at the dawn of the second Great Cycle, all of those with a bent toward history are looking back, studying how it is we have arrived at this pass, and this gives us the chance to see where we are.

  “The Emperor, Baronet Taltos, has never, in all our long history, ruled the Empire, save now and again, for a few moments only, such as Korotta the Sixth between the destruction of the Barons of the North and the arrival of the Embassy of Duke Tinaan.”

  “I know only a little of these things, Your Majesty.”

  “Never mind. I’m getting at something. The peasants grow the food, the nobility distribute it, the craftsmen make the goods, the merchants distribute them. The Emperor sits apart and watches all that goes on to see that nothing disrupts this flow, and to fend off the disasters that our world tries to throw at us from time to time—disasters you can hardly conceive of. I assure you, for example, that stories of the ground shaking and fire spitting forth from it and winds that carried people off during the Interregnum are not myths, but things that would happen were it not for the Orb.

  “But the Emperor sits and waits and studies and watches the Empire for those occasions when something, if not checked, might bring disaster. When such a thing does occur, he has three tools at his disposal. Do you know what they are?”

  “I can guess at two of them,” I said. “The Orb and the Warlord.”

  “You are correct, Baronet. The third is subtler. I refer to the mechanism of Imperium, through the Imperial Guards, the Justicers, the scryers, sorcerers, messengers, and spies.

  “Those,” she continued, “are the weapons I have at hand with which to make certain that wheat from the north gets south as needed, and iron from the west turns into swords needed in the east. I do not rule, I regulate. Yes, if I give an order, it will be obeyed. But no Emperor, with the Orb or without, can tell if every Vallista mine operator is making honest reports and sending every ton of ore where he says he is.”

  “Then who does rule, Your Majesty?”

  “When there is famine in the north, the fishermen in the south rule. When the mines and forges in the west are producing, the transport barons rule. When the Easterners are threatening our borders, the armies in the east rule. Do you mean politically? Even that isn’t as simple as you think. At the beginning of our history, no one ruled. Later, it was each House, through its Heir, which ruled each House. Then it became the nobles of all the Houses. For a brief time, at the end of the last Cycle, the Emperor did, indeed, rule, but that was short-lived, and he was brought down by assassination, conspiracy, and his own foolishness. Now, I think, more and more it is the merchants, especially the caravaneers who control the flow of food and supplies from one side of the Empire to the other. In the future, I suspect it will be the wizards, who are every day able to do things they could not do before.”

  “And you? What do you do?”

  “I watch the markets, I watch the mines, I watch the fields, I watch the Dukes and the Counts, I guard against disasters, I cajole each House toward the direction I need, I—what is that look on your face for, Baronet?”

  “Each House?” I repeated. “Each House?”

  “Yes, Baronet, each House. You didn’t know the Jhereg fits into this scheme? But it must; otherwise why would it be tolerated? The Jhereg feed off the Teckla. By doing so, they keep the Teckla happy by supplying them with those things that brighten their existence. I don’t mean the peasants, I mean the Teckla who live in the cities and do the menial work none of the rest of us are willing to do. That is the rightful prey of your House, Baronet, for if they become unhappy, the city loses efficiency, and the nobility begins to complain, and the delicate balance of our society is threatened.”

  The slant of the floor was back down now; I decided my legs would probably survive. “And these people,” I said, “are threatening the Jhereg, and so they must be removed. Is that it?”

  “Your House thinks so, Lord Taltos.”

  “Then you don’t really believe they are a threat to the Empire?”

  She smiled. “No, not directly. But if the Teckla become unhappy, well, so will others. If there were no war looming over us, perhaps it wouldn’t matter. But we may require more efficiency than ever, and to have our largest city disrupted, just at this moment, could have terrible consequences for the Empire.”

  I thought about a story I’d once been told by a Teckla, and almost said that if the Teckla were so damn happy, why didn’t she just go become one, but I was afraid she might take it the way I meant it. So I said, “Is one Jhereg Easterner likely to make that much of a difference?”

  “Will it matter to your House, Baronet?”

  “I don’t know, Your Majesty. But it won’t matter to them as much as it will matter to me.”

  We passed through a curtain and were once more in the throne room. I heard the strings of Thoddi’s instrument, the wail of Dav-Hoel’s, and the clacking drone of Aibynn’s drum. The courtiers bowed, and it was as if they were bowing to me, which was pretty funny. The Empress pointed to a woman in the colors of the House of the Iorich. The woman approached as Zerika sat herself in the throne. I backed away.

  “I hereby order and require the release of and full freedom for the Countess of Lostguard Cleft and Environs,” she said, and I damn near cried.

  Lesson 12

  Basic Survival Skills

  TWO STONY-FACED DRAGONS, EACH wearing the gold cloak of the Phoenix and a headband bearing an Iorich, delivered Cawti to the steps of the Iorich Wing of the Imperial Palace, a half hour’s walk from where I had left the Empress. When they first appeared, each holding one of her arms, I almost put them down right there, but Loiosh spoke to me sharply. They released her on the bottom step, backed up, bowed to her once, turned together, and walked up again without a backward glance.

  I stood three feet from her, looking in vain for signs of what she’d been through. Her eyes were clear and sharp, her expression grim, but she appeared unharmed. She stood for a moment, then her eyes focused on me. “Vlad,” she said. “Are you responsible for this?” She held up her right hand, which contained a rolled-up parchment.

  “I guess so,” I said. “What’s that? A pardon?”

  “A release. It says we concede your innocence and don’t do it again.”

  “At least you’re out.”

  “I could have been out before, if I’d wanted to be.”

  “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not.”

  She smiled and nodded, being more understanding than I’d expected. “Perhaps it’s for the best.”

  I shrugged. “I thought so, when you broke me out.”

  “Hardly the same thing,” she said.

  “Maybe not. How was it?”

  “Tedious.”

  “I’m glad it wasn’t worse than that. Would you like to come home?”

  “Yes. Very much. I’d like to bathe, and eat something hot, and then—”

  I waited. “And then what?” I asked after a moment.
r />   “And then back to work.”

  “Ah. Of course. Shall we walk, or be sick?”

  She considered. “Do you know, before the Interregnum, when teleportation was more difficult, there were Teckla who earned their livelihood driving people around the city behind horses and donkeys. Or sometimes they used only their feet, pulling small coaches. They wore harnesses like they were horses or donkeys themselves.”

  “I don’t like horses. What are donkeys?”

  “I’m not certain. Avariety of horse, I think.”

  “Then I don’t like them, either. You’ve been reading history, I see.”

  “Yes. Sorcery has changed our whole world and is still changing it.”

  “It has indeed.”

  “Let us walk.”

  “Very well.”

  And we did.

  I FOUND SOME DRIED black mushrooms, poured boiling water over them, and let them soak. After about twenty minutes I cut them up with scallions, leeks, a little dill, various sorts of peppers, and thin strips of kethna. I quick-fried the whole thing with garlic and ginger while Cawti sat on the kitchen chair, watching me cook. Neither of us spoke until the food was done. We had it over some pasta my grandfather had made. I had a few strawberries that were still good, so I put them in a palaczinta with a paste made from finely ground rednuts, cinnamon, sugar, and a bit of lime juice. We had that with a rare strawberry liqueur Kiera had given me, having found it in a liquor store she was visiting after hours.

  “How,” I said, “can you stay away from a man who can cook like this?”

  “Rigid self-control,” she said.

  “Ah.”

  I poured us each some more liqueur and set the plates on the floor for the jhereg. I leaned the chair back, sipped, and studied Cawti. Despite her bantering tone, there was no light of humor in her eyes. There hadn’t been for some time. I said, “What would I have to do to keep you?”

  She looked at the table. “I don’t know, Vladimir. I’m not sure there’s anything, anymore. I’ve changed.”