VLAD HAD SAID SOMETHING about missing the people who once did his legwork for him, but I have my own ways of finding out what I need to know. Breaking into Fyres’s house, when I had the house plans and all of the information ahead of time, was nice, and it had left me free to only look for certain things. This time, when I wasn’t even going to break in, I had more leisure—I’d even had the leisure to return home and study up on the House of the Orca, so I wouldn’t make any mistakes that I could avoid, although there could easily be pitfalls I wouldn’t know about. But if you’re trying to pull off a scam, the more information you have the better, so I went about collecting the information—my way.
I stood in a small wooded area, about two hundred meters from Lady Vonnith’s front door, and studied her. That is, I studied her grounds and her house, which told me a great deal more about her than a similar study had told Vlad about Endra or Reega. But then, I have the advantage of age, and of spending a great deal of time learning about people only by seeing their houses (and especially trying to judge the inside by what I see of the outside), so maybe it isn’t a fair comparison.
Vonnith’s home was much older than Fyres’s place, and, without doubt, had been built for an Orca. The gentle curves of roof and front were the trademark of the way they had liked their homes in the late Fifteenth and early Sixteenth Cycles—perhaps because it reminded them of their ships, but more likely because it reminded them of the sea. The late Fifteenth and early Sixteenth Cycles, incidentally, were also one of the periods when the richest of them made a point of living as far inland as duty and fortune would permit, which was a further indication, as we were several leagues from the shore and there wasn’t even a river in sight.
There was a high, ivy-covered stone wall running along one side of the grounds. It was recent enough that it had to be Vonnith who had it put in. It certainly wasn’t for security, or it would have gone around all the grounds, and it wasn’t attractive enough to have been put in for aesthetic reasons, so it was probably done to hide whatever was on the other side of it, which a quick glance told me was more of the same gentle, grass-covered hill Vonnith’s house was built on. Conclusion: she wanted to mark her boundaries. Second conclusion: she spent a great deal of time in that room on the second floor whose window looked out that way, with additional evidence provided by a not-unattractive stone monument midway between house and wall.
The monument was of a person, probably an ancestor, most likely the person who had had the house built, yet it seemed new enough that Vonnith had had it put up herself. This was starting to look like she had increased the family fortunes, in which case there should be signs of additions and improvements on the house. And, looking for them, there they were—a bit on the far side that, however well it blended in, had to have been added, and, yes, all the dormers, and even some stonework running up alongside the doors.
She seemed to have quite a fixation on stonework—maybe it had something to do with being an Orca and knowing that stone sinks, or maybe it had to do with being rich and wanting to do something that lasted. At a guess, the latter seemed most likely.
Well, her bank hadn’t lasted.
I wondered how she’d taken that. Was she one of those who would shrug it off and make excuses for it, even to herself? Would it destroy her? Would she mourn for a while, or would it inspire her to try again? Fyres was the last sort, I knew—every time his schemes had fallen apart, he’d started over again. I had to admire that.
There were four guards out in the open, and after a few minutes I found another four concealed—one of them close enough to make me uncomfortable, even though I was doing nothing illegal. I continued watching, noticing the glass on the windows, just like Fyres’s place, and the inlay work on the stones around the front door, the carriage posts for guests’ conveyances, and the glint that came off the door clapper. Yes. She, too, had her ostentatious side, although it was nothing like Vlad had described Endra’s house.
Come to that, though, I hadn’t seen what the inside looked like. Still, all this time, I was only barely aware that my subconscious was putting together a layout of the house. It wasn’t that I expected to need one, it’s just how my mind works. I am, quite frankly, very good at it, and maybe that’s where the real pleasure comes in—just the joy of doing something you do well. There are worse reasons for doing things; maybe there aren’t any better ones.
I was doing something I was good at now, too: I was wearing makeup, to which I was unaccustomed, but I was being a good enough Orca to fool an Orca. Or so I hoped.
I walked up to the front door and pulled the clapper. You know it’s a well-built house when you pull the clapper and you don’t even hear the faintest echoes of it from outside—that is, either it’s a well-built house or else the clapper’s broken.
Evidently the clapper was working. The man who opened the door was at once recognizable as an Issola, and a fine specimen he was—old, perhaps a shade tall, well groomed, graceful in movements, plainly delighted to see me even though he had no idea who I was or what I was doing there. He said, “Welcome to the home of my lady Side-Captain Vonnith, Countess of Licotta and Baroness of T’rae. My name is Hub. What may we do to please you?”
I said, “Good morning, Hub. I am Third-Chart-Master Areik, from Adrilankha, with a message for the Side-Captain. If you wish, Sir Hub, I will wait outside; please tell her I’m from her friend in the Ministry of the Treasury and there may be some small difficulty with the arrangements.”
He said, “There is no need for you to wait outside, Third-Chart-Master; please follow me.” I did so, and he left me in a parlor while he went to deliver the message.
Vonnith had gone for the big, roomy look: I had the impression, even in the entryway, of lots of space. I was prepared for it because I’d been able to see the dimensions and the height of the ceilings from the outside, but it was different actually feeling it. It occurred to me for the first time that there was something strange about an Orca wanting to live in a big, spacious, airy house—and a house, looking around, that had no hint or pieces of shipboard life anywhere. One explanation was that, if they’re used to life on a ship, that’s the last thing they want to be reminded of when they’re ashore. But I suspect the real explanation is that, just as most Jhereg have nothing to do with criminal activity, most Orca live out their whole lives on land, channeling their mercantile instincts into other pursuits—running banks, for example.
Hub returned. “The Side-Captain awaits you in West Room.”
There were no hallways on this floor—it just flowed from one room to another, which meant all of them were big and open. From the parlor, where I’d been waiting, we passed into a dining room with a very long lacquered table, and from there we entered a spacious room with dark paneling and traces of something tangy-sweet—maybe incense, maybe something else. The chairs in this room were all stuffed and comfortable-looking, and set in clumps of three or four, as if to turn the one large room into several smaller ones without the benefit of walls. There was very little that seemed worth stealing, except some of the contents of the buffet, and I dislike stealing things that break easily.
I bowed to the woman before me and said, “Side-Captain Vonnith?”
She nodded and pointed to a chair. I sat. She looked at Hub and nodded, and he poured me a glass of wine. She already had one. I said, “Thank you.” We both drank some. It was the sort of wine that Vlad calls brandy, and it was quite good. She nodded to Hub again. He bowed and left the room.
She said, “I wasn’t aware that I had a friend in the Ministry of the Treasury. In fact, I don’t believe I know anyone at all who works there.”
I drank some more wine to give me time to think. She had invited me in, and she had given me wine, and now she was denying knowing what I was talking about. So, okay, she was playing a game, but was I supposed to play along with it, or convince her it was unnecessary?
“I understand,” I said. “But if you did . . .”
“Yes? If I did?”
Okay, sometimes luck will out.
“You would probably be interested in knowing that the fire is getting hotter.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Questions are being asked.”
“And are the answers forthcoming?”
“No.” And I added, “Not yet.”
Her lips tightened. “Some,” she said, “might interpret that as a threat.”
“No, no,” I said. “Not a threat. But you know Lord Shortisle.”
“Do I?” she said. “What makes you think so?”
“I mean, you know how he works.”
“I thought I did,” she said. “But now you say he’s not threatening me, and yet—”
Well, well. All the way to the top. I said, “He’s not. What I mean is, he’s getting pressure from, well, you can guess where the pressure’s coming from.”
She frowned. “Actually, I can’t. The Phoenix is off cavorting with her lover, as I understand it, so it can’t be her, and there isn’t anyone else who is in a position to threaten us, or has the desire to.”
Now, that was extremely interesting. I said, “Because Her Majesty is gone doesn’t mean she’s out of touch.”
For the first time, she looked worried. “It is her? Something has slipped?”
“Yes,” I said.
“What?”
“I don’t know; I’m just a messenger.”
“How bad is it?”
“Not bad—yet. It’s just a whisper. But Lord Sh—That is, certain parties thought you should be informed.”
“Yes, yes. What does he say I should do?”
“Do you know Lord Loftis, who is running the—”
“Of course I do.”
“That’s where the pressure is coming down.”
“Has he slipped?”
“Not badly, but enough so there’s some danger. You should be prepared to move.”
“Huh? What do you mean, move?”
“I mean run.”
“Oh. Do you think it might come to that?”
“We hope not.”
She nodded. “All right. Why didn’t—uh—why wasn’t I reached directly? Why send you?”
Hmmm. Good question. “Why do you think?”
For a moment I thought she wasn’t going to be able to come up with anything, but her eyes got big. “The Empress? Using the Orb? She wouldn’t! She’s a Phoenix!”
I shrugged. “She hasn’t yet, and she may not, but it would be the obvious next step, wouldn’t it?”
“Impossible. Shortisle is getting paranoid.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Probably.”
“Certainly. No one has done that since the seventh Jhereg Reign, and you know what happened then!”
“So is there any harm in being careful?”
“No, I suppose not.” She shook her head. “We should have been more careful from the beginning—we should have arranged for methods of making contact, and signals.” That’s right, you should have. “But then, no one planned anything—it just happened, one thing led to another.”
“Yes,” I said. She looked like she was about to start asking questions, so I finished the wine and stood up. “There’s a great deal to do, but nothing that should be impossible.” That was general enough that I didn’t think I could get into trouble with it.
“Of course,” she said. “Tell him I’ll await his word, but that I’ll be ready to, as you put it, move.”
“Very good. I—or someone—will be in touch. For the future, whoever it is will say he’s from the Adrilankha Eleemosynary Society.”
“Adrilankha Eleemosynary Society,” she said. “All right. Good luck.”
“Yes,” I said. “And you be careful.”
I didn’t realize how tense I was until I walked out the door. And even then I couldn’t completely relax, because they might be watching me. I didn’t think I gave myself away, but I couldn’t be sure; Vonnith was the sort who could play the game on me that I thought I was playing on her.
I got up to the road and teleported to the Imperial Palace’s Orca Wing just in case they decided to trace the teleport. It crossed my mind to visit the Ministry of the Treasury while I was there, but on reflection there was too much chance of my being recognized by the Jhereg who have business there from time to time, so I just waited for about ten or fifteen minutes, then teleported back to the cottage.
Vlad was talking to Hwdf’rjaanci, probably about Savn’s condition, while Savn slept. When I came in, Vlad said, “Well?”
“I don’t know,” I told him. “I think it went well, but—”
“What did you learn?”
Buddy insinuated his nose into my person. I petted him and pushed him away. Loiosh, who was on Vlad’s left shoulder, twitched his head in what was probably laughter. “It goes all the way to the top,” I said.
“You mean Big Shot Treasury is Shortisle himself?”
“Not necessarily, but Shortisle is involved somewhere along the line.”
Vlad whistled softly. “Let’s have the details,” he said.
I gave him the conversation as well as I could remember it, and a few notes on architecture as well, after which he said, “Yeah, Shortisle’s in it, all right. I suspect the Empress is not going to be happy about this, and I suspect that, if any of a number of people find out what we’re doing, we could be in some very serious trouble.”
“Right on both counts,” I told him.
“Could Shortisle have enough pull to enlist the Tasks Group?”
“No chance,” I said. “There has to be someone else.”
“Okay.” I could see him accept that. “The Tiassa? Lord Khaavren?”
“I know about him. I don’t believe it. And you’re the one who heard the way Loftis talked about him, and I threatened Loftis with telling him.”
“The Empress?”
“Even less likely. I’d even risk ‘impossible.’”
“Then who, dammit? Who else can order the Tasks Group to do something like this?”
“No one.”
“Oh, good. Well, that’s helpful.” He frowned. “I remember I was at Dzur Mountain once—have you ever been there?”
I shrugged.
“Yeah. Well, I was there once, talking to Sethra Lavode, the Enchantress—”
“I know who she is.”
“Right. She was telling me about the Dragon-Jhereg war.”
“Yes.”
“It was pretty ugly as I understand it. Were you involved in that?”
“Sure,” I said. “On the side of the Dragons.”
He gave me a polite smile. “The Dragons had the real power, but the Jhereg had one advantage—they always went for the top. While the Dragonlords were busily killing every Jhereg they came across—whether he worked for the Organization or not—the Jhereg were carefully wiping out all the military leaders in the House of the Dragon. It was a nasty little war, and, by the end, Sethra Lavode had to get involved. Do you know about that?”
“Go on.”
“All she did was announce that she was in charge, and then, as she told me, she did nothing—she just sat in Dzur Mountain and waited for the Jhereg to try to assassinate her, and wiped them out as they did, which was pretty stupid on the part of the Jhereg, really. No one is going to assassinate the Enchantress of Dzur Mountain, unless maybe Mario reappears. But that’s not the point. She also mentioned a time in Eighth Cycle when she was Warlord, and she had six hundred troops to defend this little hill against—”
“What’s your point, Vlad?”
“That they’re occupying the strong position—they don’t have to do anything. We’ve been nipping at them here, and scouting them there, and we’ve learned a lot, but mostly what we’ve learned is that they’re way tougher than we are, and they’re in a secured position. All they have to do is dig in, and we can’t touch them. If we tell the Empire what’s going on, they’ll go to ground and it’ll take a hundred years to sort everything out. If we keep nibbling away at them, it’ll take even longer.”
“I see your point. So what do we do?”
“We need to get Sethra Lavode to leave Dzur Mountain—figuratively speaking.”
I nodded slowly. “Yes, I see what you’re getting at. How do you propose to do it?”
“They’re scared as it is,” he said. “That is, Loftis has been given the job of covering over Fyres’s murder, and Vonnith is obviously up to something, and so is Shortisle. So I propose we give them something to chase—like me. Then we turn the chase around and nail them.”
“Uh-huh. And, if they do chase you, how are you going to stay alive long enough to, as you put it, turn the chase around?”
He rubbed the spot above his lip where his facial hair was just starting to grow back. “I haven’t worked that part out yet,” he said.
“Yeah. Well, be sure and let me know when you do.”
“Well, so what’s your bright idea?”
“Let’s go back to the beginning, Vlad. What do we know about Fyres?”
Vlad shrugged. “Not much. We have something to start with, but—”
“Yeah. I’d like to find out more.”
“Kiera, that could take years. We have some of his private notes, okay. But between empty companies, and fake ships, and loans without backing, and reams of paper—most of which we don’t have—we’re never going to be able to track down what was really going on.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But remember Stony?”
“Your Jhereg friend? Sure.”
“I’m thinking that if the Jhereg has been involved in this, then someone, somewhere, knows what’s going on.”
“And why would you think that?”
“Sheer number of Jhereg, Vlad. There are so many of us involved in financing this kind that at least one of them was bound to have been smart enough not to jump in, but to investigate the guy. All we have to do is find out who that is and get the information already collected.”
He looked skeptical. “Do you think you can do that? That is, find just the right guy and get the information without giving the game away?”
“I can do it,” I told him.
He shrugged. “Okay. Go to it.”
“It may take a few days.”
“And there’s something else I want to do, but we’re going to have to think about whether it’s a good idea.”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”
“You’re wise, Vlad. I’m not sure it’s something we ought to do, but I’m thinking about it.”
“Let’s hear it, Kiera.”
“You like honey in your klava, don’t you?”
“Ah. So that’s how it is?”
“You’re very quick.”
“Only because I’ve been stung. Let’s hear what you have in mind.”
I gave him the general outline, omitting details he didn’t need and wouldn’t have been happy knowing. He listened very intently, then he said, “Yes, indeed. And we don’t even have gloves, much less whatever you’re supposed to use to protect your face. The question is, how big is the swarm, and how nasty do they get when they’re roused?”
“Yeah, that’s the question. And can you think of a better way to find out?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Unfortunately, Kiera, I can’t.”
“So I should go ahead?”
He nodded briefly, like he didn’t enjoy the prospect. Well, neither did I, come to that. I said, “What are you going to do while I’m off gathering sweets?”
A peculiar sort of smile came to his lips. “I’ll think of something,” he said.
* * *
ALL WE HAD TO DO was keep our heads down and keep learning things, and eventually, maybe, we’d start to get an idea about what was going on; then, just maybe, we’d be able to figure out what to do about it. That, at least, was what I was thinking as I stepped out of the little cottage and repaired home to make myself annoying in a couple of different ways to several different people.
The next two days were no more fun than I’d thought they would be—most of those I spoke to I didn’t like, and they didn’t like me, and they couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me anything useful, anyway—but in the end I came up with some hard information. I noted it down carefully, and, psychic communication being impossible while Vlad wore the Phoenix Stones, I had to hold on to what I’d learned until I would see him next: tomorrow or the day after, depending on how things went tonight. When I was done asking irritating questions of irritating people, which was in the afternoon of the second day, I picked up the tools I was going to need and prepared to do what I was good at.
Vlad and I, back in the old days, used to compare our respective crafts, and one of the things common to both was the need for preparation, and, in conjunction, how dangerous it was to try to do anything in a hurry. The trouble was, things were happening too fast, and I had the feeling they were going to happen even faster.
Well, I didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. After getting what I needed from home, I spent the rest of the afternoon going from place to place in Adrilankha, trying to get the information I needed to have a chance to pull this off.
I wished I had a familiar to grumble at while I did so. Vlad’s told me about several times Loiosh has saved his life, or suggested the solution to a problem, or provided the necessary help to complete a witchcraft spell, but I have the feeling that the most important thing Loiosh does for Vlad is give him someone to grumble at. You feel stupid grumbling to yourself, so I didn’t.
The day was waning when I had finally acquired everything I needed. I took about four hours to study the situation, curse about everything I didn’t know, and come up with a tentative way in, a provisional agenda, and a possible way out, with maybe a couple of alternatives for the last, all of which I knew would likely be rendered useless if something went wrong. For the first time in more years than I could remember I actually thought about how humiliating it would be to get caught, because for the first time in more years than I could remember it seemed like a real possibility.
I cursed yet again and made my way to the Imperial Palace, Orca Wing.
The phrase “breaking into the Imperial Palace” has been used among people I know for a long time as an expression of the unthinkable: “Argue philosophy with an Athyra? Might as well break into the Imperial Palace,” or, “Bet the round stones? Sure. And then we’ll break into the Imperial Palace.” That sort of thing. It’s a fascinating little phrase, because it only makes sense if it goes back to the early days of the Empire, when all that existed was the old nucleus that became the Imperial Wing; breaking into the Imperial Palace is as easy in the execution as it is meaningless as a concept: most of the doors you can just walk into; where in the Imperial Palace do you want to break into?
And, of course, to do what?
In any case, I “broke into the Imperial Palace” by walking into the Orca Wing. I wore a nice, full coat of Jhereg grey with natty black fringe, a hood in case it got cold, and one that was sufficiently voluminous to hide my tools. I nodded to the tired-looking Orca watchman as I went by.
So let’s see. One, two, third corridor to the left, up the stairs, down the hall to the statue. A long way. There was no bloody statue of Sealord Cren; how old was that information, anyway? Well, it had to be either this passage or this one, and . . . yes, there were the marks where the statue used to be. Good. Now another stairway, and two more turnings, and it had been quite some time since I’d seen anyone. The Orca were forced to work long, irregular hours when at sea; they made up for it ashore by working no more than they had to.
There were supposed to be a couple more watchmen to circumvent right before I reached my destination, and I became worried when I didn’t see them. But I waited in the corridor outside the doorway into the Ministry until at last I heard one walk by; the footsteps were measured and casual and went away after a while. Nine and a half minutes later I heard a different set. Eleven minutes later the first set returned. I spent another half hour there, just to make sure of the timing, then moved.
The door into the Ministry had only the most cursory lock, and the alarm was trivial. Once past it, I had to get into Shortisle’s office, and I spent most of the seven minutes I’d given myself in checking for alarms; then I retreated once more to wait for another cycle of the watch. The next time I spent only five minutes more checking for alarms, about a minute disabling them, and maybe twenty seconds opening the door, slipping through, shutting it, and locking it again. Then I put the alarms back up in case the guards checked them. I put some cloth under the door so that no one would see light peeking out, then looked around.
There was a door in his office that had a nice little sign on it reading, “Records.”
If Shortisle was engaged in anything shady—or, in fact, even if he wasn’t—he wouldn’t make it easy to get to the financial records of the Empire, so I intended to take this carefully and slowly, and make sure I’d found everything before I moved.
I studied the door, the floor, and the ceiling first, looking for anything obvious, and found nothing. Next I looked as closely as I could through and into the keyhole, but I didn’t see anything that looked like an alarm.
The next step was to feel for the presence of sorcery in the area, and, yes indeed, it was all over the place; there was nothing subtle about it. Was it double-trapped? That is, would looking at it closely set off an alarm? Well, there are the tendrils of spells that hang in the real world like abandoned cobwebs; and one knows the feel of these strands if one has ever walked through a dark and gloomy place-so, too, were these bits of amorphia all around me in that place that was dark to the outer eye, but now filled with light to the inner. I can brush past cobwebs without making them fall, but what if the web is not abandoned, after all? Then the spider will know I am there; and if there is anyone watching the spider, then I cannot brush her or her threads aside without all the world being aware of me.
Ah, little spider, you have a bite, do you? And someone watching over you? Well, let him watch, little spider, and you—find me if you can, for I know cobwebs better even than you, and I will send up my own spider that will look like you, and act like you, and gobble you up, and then sit fat and happy in your place while the watcher watches, oblivious.
I took a few minutes to catch my breath before I proceeded. One becomes exhausted when using sorcery in proportion to the intricacy of the spell, not the amount of energy used; a fact that I think Vlad still doesn’t understand since he still compares it to witchcraft—an art I’ve never begun to understand.
When I felt better, I used the same device I’d used at the bank to look into the room in preparation for teleporting. It was a fairly small room, but full to overflowing with cabinets, maybe forty-five or fifty of them, all of which were, no doubt, full to overflowing with the recent financial records of the Empire—whatever I was looking for was probably in there. I checked the room over carefully, fixed it in my mind, prepared to teleport, and stopped cold.
Something wasn’t right.
I put the tube back against the wall, held it tight, relaxed, and looked again. The room was entirely dark, and I hadn’t wanted to risk light until I could be sure they had nothing to detect it, so I’d used a spell that affected my sight rather than the room; this is tricky because it is very easy to miss things that are near other things—objects tend to blur and merge in the magical vision—but it seemed that there was something odd next to one of the cabinets against the wall.
I checked again, and there was no trace of sorcery except for those spells I had already found and circumvented, which meant, if this was an alarm, it wasn’t a magical one. Of course, there was no reason to believe it was an alarm—it was just something that wasn’t a filing cabinet or a pen, or an inkwell, or anything else I could readily identify. I almost talked myself into going in, but you don’t get to be my age without developing some instincts and learning to trust them, so I put a little more effort into seeing it.
If the ceiling was as high as the ceiling of this room, then the filing cabinets were about eight meters tall, in which case the object sitting on the floor was about two meters tall (scale can be a problem when seeing this way—try it yourself) and resembled, more than anything else, a small gong, with some sort of round plate attached to a thin frame by a pair of wires, and even what might be a diminutive beater positioned in front of it, attached to the frame. I couldn’t see how thick any of it was for sure, which didn’t help any. I doubted it was actually a gong but I couldn’t figure out what it was, or what it was doing there.
If it was magical, I’d lost all of my skills, and if it wasn’t magical, what was it? Could one use witchcraft to create an alarm? My guess was no, but I couldn’t reach Vlad to ask him, and I didn’t want to ask Cawti because she’d ask questions. No, I didn’t think witchcraft could do something like that. And I really doubted that Shortisle would think to hire a witch, anyway.
It was probably something completely harmless that had nothing to do with anything, and when I looked at it I’d laugh. Except that I still had this feeling.
Well, if it was an alarm, it had to be connected to a device to notify someone, or a device to trigger a trap, or a device to make a noise, or something. And if the connection wasn’t magical, it had to be physical. Well, was there a string or a wire running from it to somewhere else?
I looked, and focused, and . . .
Yes, there was.
A wire or a string ran from it up to the ceiling and disappeared above the room.
Maybe it was an alarm.
If so, how did it work? What was it supposed to detect, and how would it respond? How could it send a magical impulse through the string if there was no magic around the device? And if it wasn’t supposed to send a magical impulse, what could it send? I had the sudden image of someone creating an artifact that did nothing at all, but knowing that if there was a strange device in the room, no competent thief would break in before figuring out what it did. An effective deterrent to be sure, but I suspected there was more to this object than that.
Well, what would have happened if I’d teleported into the room? Nothing. I’d have been there, maybe right by the device, maybe not, but it couldn’t sense me, anyway, so . . .
What happens when someone teleports into a room?
The same thing, more or less, that happens when someone opens a door and walks into the room: air gets pushed around—just a little when the door is opened, more when you materialize from a teleport. And if that gonglike thing is thin, then just a little air movement would be enough to make it tap against the beater, and if that was a metal wire, it could carry the sound, or the vibration, through the Palace to a place where it could be amplified, and someone, somewhere, would know that the integrity of the room had been violated.
I’d have whistled to myself if I weren’t being especially conscious of sound. It was a very clever device; just the sort of thing the Orca would come up with, and I was only surprised that no one had thought of it, or a variation on it, years and years ago: simple, elegant, and almost impossible to detect.
Almost impossible.
Thing is, I’m not just a good thief, I’m the best thief in the Empire. I reached the fingers of magic into the room and felt the thin metal plate. Careful now, Kiera. Don’t get cocky with all those thoughts about how good you are: you’re good because you’re careful, and you’re careful because you’re patient. Take it slowly, and . . .
It was immobilized.
I sighed, took a breath, and teleported into the room. Nothing went off, nothing moved. I did yet another check for magic, then made a light and began looking through the Imperial financial records. These were, you understand, only the most recent and active sets: the rest were saved by some method known only to the sorcerers of the House of the Lyorn and the archivists of the House of the Orca, but it was the recent and active records I needed.
I imagine the organization of the packets in the cabinets, and, indeed, the arrangement of the cabinets, all of them marked with numbers or symbols or a combination, made sense to those who worked here, and I would even guess that somewhere was a key to the whole thing that would explain how to interpret everything else, but I had no clue how to make sense of any of it. Fortunately, I didn’t need to. I opened a packet at random, saw nothing that meant anything to me, closed it, and put it back. Then I went to another cabinet and did the same. Then another, until I had opened at least one packet in each of them, and riffled through probably two hundred collections of notes, invoices, receipts, and other accounting arcana.
That done, I slipped out of the room, stopping long enough to erase any psychic traces of myself that I might have left. Then I locked the door behind me and very, very carefully released the spell that was holding the little wind-alarm. It didn’t go off. As the last step, I got a metaphorical spider back and had it cough up the one it had euphemistically eaten.
I looked around the rest of the area until I found what had to be Shortisle’s desk, judging from the size, the location, and his name appearing on plaques, markers, and papers all around it. Unlike the records, here there was a chance I could learn something if, indeed, Shortisle was the guilty party, and if he left evidence of his crimes lying around. Phrased that way, I didn’t think much of my chances, but it wouldn’t hurt to explore a little.
The alarms built into his desk were all sorcerous, and not terribly effective, which meant that he had nothing to hide—or he wasn’t hiding it in his desk, at any rate. I dismantled the alarms, picked the locks, and looked through the contents. There were, in fact, no notes saying, “Today I accepted a large bribe from Vonnith in exchange for allowing her to close her bank and run with whatever money she could scrape together.”
Oh, well.
The most irritating thing was that he had two small, hidden compartments in the desk, both of which required a great deal of time and effort to open, and both of which turned out to be entirely empty—not even a psiprint of his mistress. I took this as a personal affront.
When I finished with the desk, I realized just how exhausted I was. That’s the most dangerous part: when you’re all done, and you’re tired, and everything has gone well, it becomes too easy to let your guard down and make some little mistake that will bring the watch running or allow you to be found after the fact. I made myself go slowly and carefully in removing all traces of my presence, both psychic and mundane, then I made sure of the timing of the watch (judging by the footsteps, they weren’t the same pair who’d been there before) before I opened the last door between me and escape.
Even after I was past that, I was careful to avoid crowded places, and took little-known paths through the Palace, walking for almost two more hours until I could emerge from the Yendi Wing (just for the pleasure of giving the inhabitants something to wonder about) and teleported straight back home, where I poured myself a glass of the same kind of wine Vonnith had given me, drank it down at a single draught, and climbed into my bed, after which I slept soundly for several very pleasant hours that were only marred by a few dreams in which spiders were banging on gongs.
When at last I roused myself late the next morning, I took care of morning things, broke my fast with warmed nutbread, maizepie, and Eastern-style coffee (which Vlad claims is too bitter for him), and teleported back to Northport. I found a large and busy inn very close to City Hall, so I went in, found a table in the middle of the room, and began to drink klava, with the intention of continuing until something either happened or failed to happen.
I was, in effect, making myself a target. With any luck, I’d have stirred up Shortisle, or someone in his office, and it seemed likely that, with a little work, whoever it was would be able to figure out that the visitor had been Kiera the Thief (although, to be sure, no one would be able to prove it), and I expected to be able to learn something from who showed up and what he did when he got here—I’d be surprised if I had to sit here for more than two days.
This was a part of the plan Vlad knew nothing about, because he would have wanted to be involved. I have a great deal of confidence in my ability to get myself out of anything I get myself into, but if you add a hot-tempered assassin whose blade is often faster than his head, it might be that I’d save myself a few moments of worry and, in exchange, lose a lot of useful information.
Vlad, however, would not have liked the idea of my doing it.
By noon I was tired of klava, so I switched to a “seaman’s ale,” as they call it in Northport, or “storm brew,” as it is called in Adrilankha, which is a very dark ale with traces of ginger; it was heavy, so I could pretend it was lunch. I felt very exposed at the table, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to wait there too long. I finished the seaman’s ale and ordered another, and considered asking for a bowl of whatever it was I could smell from the kitchen. People walked by the open window and often looked in, because that’s what one does when walking by an inn, and I kept wondering if any of these were people who were spotting me. I rubbed my eyes. At one point, I thought I saw Devera go by, but if so she didn’t recognize me, and it wasn’t very likely, anyway. I drank some more seaman’s ale. It was good. Two Jhereg came in, walked right up to my table, and sat down. They were Funnel-head and Mockman, both of whom had been in Stony’s office when I’d visited him. This was something I hadn’t expected at all.
Funnel-head said, “Stony wants to see you.”
“If you please.”
I left the ale unfinished, which was a shame, and stood up. They flanked me as we stepped out of the inn. They each had a sword, and Funnel-head, on my right, had a long dagger concealed under his left arm, and no doubt they each had a few other things that would help them not at all if I decided not to accompany them, but they didn’t know that.
Funnel-head said, “Shall we teleport?”
“I’d rather walk,” I said, because I don’t let strangers teleport me.
“It’s a couple of miles,” he said.
“It’s a nice day.”
“All right.”
We exchanged no more words until we got there. We walked right up past where Dor was very careful not to be, then Funnel-head clapped outside Stony’s door and said, “She’s here, boss.”
There was a muffled response, and Funnel-head opened the door and indicated I was to go in. I did so, stopping only long enough to hand him his dagger. “You dropped this,” I said. He stared at it, then gave me a glare into which I smiled as I closed the door.
I sat down. “What is it, Stony? Why the summons?”
Stony, apparently, couldn’t decide if he should be amused or annoyed by my interaction with his flunky; eventually he settled on ignoring it.
“I’m worried about you,” he said.
“Worried about me?”
“About you, and for you.”
I waited.
“Yeah,” he said. “You’ve been looking into Fyres’s death, and some people are getting itchy.”
“People?” I said.
He shook his head. “You know I can’t name names, Kiera.”
“Then what are you saying?”
He shrugged. “I’m saying you should drop this, whatever it is, or else be very careful, that’s all.”
“What about you?”
“I’m not involved,” he said. “I just heard that you lightened some files in some Orca’s office at the Palace, and some Orca with connections to the Organization want you to go swimming. I thought you should know about it.”
“You’re not asking me to back off?”
He shook his head. “No. As I say, this isn’t my game. I just thought you ought to be aware of it, you know?”
“Yes,” I said. “Okay, thanks. Anything else?”
“No,” he said.
“All right. See you around.”
“Yeah. See you.”
I got up and left. No one tried to stop me. I was glad Stony hadn’t asked about Vlad again, because I hate lying to friends.
I hastened back to the Awful Blue Cottage to tell Vlad what I’d learned. It was late afternoon when I got there. Buddy ran out of the house, and I had to spend a moment getting reacquainted with him and allaying his suspicions before venturing inside.
Hwdf’rjaanci was seated at the table next to Vlad. Savn was sitting up in the chair facing the hearth, and he turned and looked at me as I came in, which caught me up short. I said, “Hello, Savn.” He didn’t say anything, but returned to staring at the fire.
“Good evening,” I said. I gestured toward the boy. “I see some improvement.”
“Some,” agreed Vlad.
Hwdf’rjaanci nodded a greeting to me and asked if I wanted some tea, which I didn’t.
I was pleased, and even a bit surprised, to note that Vlad didn’t have any fresh wounds. He was drinking klava, and by the lack of sleep in his eyes I suspect he was on at least his second cup. Loiosh, on the other hand, was sound asleep next to Rocza, which was unusual for a jhereg in the middle of the day. “I have some information,” I said.
“Me, too,” said Vlad.
“Should I go first, or do you want to?”
“You might as well,” said Vlad.
I sat down next to him. Hwdf’rjaanci got up and sat over by Savn—I had the impression she didn’t want to know about any of this. I decided I couldn’t really blame her.
“Did you do it?” he said.
“You mean enrage the bees? Yeah.”
“Tell me about it.”
“All right.” This time I just gave him the brief version of my activities, especially the break-in, because the long version would have required telling him things I’d rather he didn’t know, then I gave him all the details on the rest of it. I sort of brushed over the part about making myself a target, but I saw him press his lips together, so I quickly went on to discuss the conversation with Stony, and, before he could ask about that, I started in on the results of my inquiries the first couple of days.
I said, “I found a couple of them, Vlad. Three, really, but one had refused him a loan just because he didn’t like Fyres’s smell, so that didn’t help us any. But there were two of them who actually did the checking.”
“How many that didn’t?”
“A lot. He was very good at making people trust him.”
Vlad nodded. “Okay. Those who did check up on him—what did they find out?”
“That he was very good at making people trust him.”
Vlad’s smile came and went. “Yeah. What else?”
“Vlad, he didn’t have anything. He had a great deal on paper, but all of his enterprises, worth maybe sixty million imperials—”
Vlad looked shocked. “That’s right,” I said. “Sixty million imperials. Sixty million imperials’ worth of loans, that went for office space, marketing, buying up other companies that, in point of fact, he didn’t know how to run so they went into surrender of debts inside of ten or twenty years—all of this was based on a contract, and a contract never fulfilled, by the way, for five men-o’-war for the Imperial Navy.”
“House of the Orca, of course,” said Vlad.
“Sure, Imperial Navy.”
“I wonder,” said Vlad.
“Yes?”
“I wonder why legitimate banks were loaning him money at all. I mean, I can see the Jhereg, but—”
“Are you sure they were? We know about Vonnith, but do we know there were any others?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll tell you about it.”
“Okay. I don’t know the answer, though. But it makes sense. It explains why the loans were at bank rates, not Jhereg rates.”
“They were?”
“Yes. All of them.”
“Interesting. Maybe the Jhereg loans went through the banks.” He spread his palms. “Or the other way around, for all we know.”
I nodded.
He said, “But all right. The Jhereg is in it deep, then?”
“Lots of us, Vlad. All the way up to the Council.”
“Did either of your friends try to spread the word about the guy?”
“One of them tried to let a few friends know, but no one would listen. The other, apparently, doesn’t have any friends, and figured he could eliminate a great deal of competition. He was right, by the way—some very heavy people will be going down over this.”
Hwdf’rjaanci got up and went outside, I suppose because she could still hear us. Buddy looked at her, thumped his tail once, but decided he wanted to stay and listen.
Vlad considered my remark and said, “That ties Fyres into the Jhereg without any question, but . . . how did he land that contract with the Imperial Navy, after having proved what he was twice before?”
“Ah,” I said. “Very good. That is the question, isn’t it? Because that brings the Empire into this. The answer is, I don’t know. Somewhere along the line, he talked someone into something.”
“Yep,” said Vlad. He was quiet for quite a while then—maybe a minute. Then he said, “And that someone screwed up and then tried to cover himself. And I think . . . yeah, it all fits, I’m afraid.”
“What does?”
“Here’s what I think happened—no, on second thought, I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to for the last couple of days, and see if you can put it together.”
“All right,” I said. “Go to it.”