Orca

He stared at me, licked his lips, and said, “I’ve heard about it.”

“Do you remember what you—your group—was assigned to do after Division Six had bungled it?”

He watched me very closely. “Yes,” he said.

“That’s what I’m here to do, only this time it’s you who are making a mess of things.”

He was silent for a moment. “Possible,” he said.

“Then let’s talk. I’m not armed—”

He laughed. “Sure you’re not. And Temping had no reserves at the Battle of Plowman’s Bridge.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. He said, “Eighth Cycle, two hundred and fifth year of the Tiassa Reign, the Whetstone Rising. The Warlord was—”

“I am not, in fact, armed,” I cut him off. “At least, not with a conventional weapon.”

He raised his eyebrows back at me.

I said, “What I’ve got for armament is a letter, being held quite safely, that is ready to go to Her Majesty if I fail to appear. The object, in fact, doesn’t have anything to do with you, it’s to make sure certain influential parties are disassociated from this affair, and appear clean when it blows up. What it will do to your career is, in fact, just a side effect, but that won’t change how it hits you when Lord Khaavren learns what you’ve been up to. You know him better than I do, my dear lieutenant—what will he do? And it won’t help to try to keep the letter from reaching the Imperial Palace the way you, or your people, did in the Berdoign business, because the letter is already in the Palace. I think that’s better than a conventional weapon, under the circumstances, don’t you?”

“You are very well informed,” he said. I could see him wondering if I was lying, then deciding he couldn’t take the chance. He smiled, bowed his head slightly, and sheathed his sword. “Let’s talk, then,” he said. “I’m listening.”

“Good. We’ll start with the basics. You’ve been given an assignment that you dislike—”

He snorted. “ ‘Dislike’ would cover it,” he said, “if stretched very thin.”

“Nevertheless,” I continued, “you’re doing what you were instructed to do. Whatever else you are, you’re a soldier.”

He shrugged.

I said, “I represent, as I said, certain interests very close to, but not quite the same as, those who required you to carry out this mission. I would prefer that our efforts were combined, to a limited extent, because my job, to put it simply, is to clean up after your efforts to clean up. I have a certain hold on you, but not, I know, a strong one—”

“You got that right,” he said, smiling.

“—in that you’d prefer Lord Khaavren didn’t learn what you’re up to.”

“Don’t think you can push that too far, lady,” he said.

“I know how far I can push it.”

“Maybe. And what do I call you, by the way?”

“Margaret,” I said. “I fancy Eastern names.”

“Heh. You and Her Majesty.”

He’d thrown that out, I assumed, to see if I was up on current gossip; I gave him a slight smile to show that I was. He said, “Very well, then, Margaret. For whom do you work?”

“For whom do you work?”

“But you know that—or, at least, you laid out a theory which I haven’t disputed.”

“No, I’ve told you that I know the organization you work for, not where the orders came from to slide through the Fyres’s investigation.”

“So do you know who gave those orders?”

“Why don’t you tell me, Loftis?”

He smiled. “So we’ve found a piece of information you lack.”

“Maybe,” I said, returning his smile. “And maybe I’m just trying to find out if you’re planning to be straight with me.”

“Trade?” he suggested.

“No,” I said. “You’d lie. I’d lie. Besides, in point of fact, I know, anyway.”

“Oh?”

“There’s only one possibility.”

He looked inscrutable. “If you say so.”

I shrugged.

He said, “All right, then. What do you want?”

“As I told you before, cooperation.”

“What sort of cooperation? Be specific. You don’t want to share information, because we’d both lie, and because you don’t seem to need any, and because there’s really nothing I need to know. So what do you want, exactly?”

“Wrong on several counts,” I said.

“Oh?”

“As I told you, I’m here to keep this business from getting out of hand. I’ll blow the whistle on you if I have to, but I, and those who’ve given me this job, would prefer I didn’t. Now, what we have—”

“What cleanup are you talking about, Margaret?”

“Oh, come on, Loftis. Your security’s been broken all over town. Didn’t you just have someone show up out of nowhere, interrogate your interrogators, lead your shadows all over the region, pump them some more, and then almost kill them in a public inn? Is that your idea of secrecy?”

He studied me carefully, and I wondered if I’d gone too far. He grunted and said, “My compliments on your sources, Margaret.”

“Well?”

“Okay, you’ve made your point. What do you want?”

“Let’s start with the basics,” I said. “I have to know what I’m working with.”

“Heh,” he said. “There’s something you don’t know?”

I smiled. “How many on your team?”

“Six, with another three on standby.”

“How many know what you’re up to?”

“Domm and I.”

“And Timmer,” I added, “as of last night.”

He frowned. “Are you sure?”

I shrugged. “She may not know precisely, but she knows something’s up, and, if she thinks about it, she’ll probably figure out most of it. She isn’t stupid.”

He nodded. “Okay. What else do you want to know?”

“What actually happened to Fyres.”

Loftis shrugged. “He was murdered.”

I shook my head. “I know that. But who killed him?”

“An assassin. A good one. Hundred to one it was a Jhereg, and another hundred to one that we wouldn’t catch him even if we were trying to.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Okay. Who had it done?”

“I don’t know,” said Loftis. “That isn’t what we were trying to find out.”

“Sure, but you probably have an idea.”

“An idea? Hell, yeah. His wife hated him, his son loathed him, one daughter wants to be rich and the other one wants to be left alone. Is that good enough for a start?”

“No,” I said.

He looked at me, then turned away. “Yeah, it wasn’t them. Or, at least, it wasn’t just them.”

“Well, then?”

“The House of the Orca, I think. And the Jhereg. And someone, somewhere, high up in the Empire—like, maybe, whoever it was who hired you?” He’d slipped his right hand down behind his leg, where he was, no doubt, concealing something, and I hadn’t even seen him do it.

“No,” I said. “But good guess.”

He shrugged. “What else do you want to know?”

I wanted to know how Loftis had been conned, or pressured, into doing this in the first place, but this was the wrong time to ask. I said, “That’ll do for now. I’ll be in touch.”

“Okay. Pleasure meeting you, Margaret.”

“And you, Lieutenant.”

I got up and walked out of the room, my back itching as I passed him, but he made no move. On the way out of the inn, I flipped the host a couple of imperials and apologized about the door. I walked around some corners to make sure I wasn’t being followed, then I teleported back to the blue cottage and went in.

Vlad was waiting for me. He said, “Well?”

One disadvantage of teleports is that they sometimes get you there too quickly—I hadn’t had time to sort out my thoughts yet. I said, “Is there anything to eat?”

“No. I could cook something.”

I nodded. “That would be good. I’m a bit tired.”

“Oh?” said Vlad.

“I’ll get to it.”

He shrugged. Savn was near the hearth, sitting up and looking at nothing. Hwdfrjaanci sat hear him, with Buddy at her feet. Buddy watched me as he always did, but wasn’t unfriendly. Loiosh sat on Vlad’s shoulder. I felt like I’d been through a pitched battle, and it was somehow amazing that no one in the house shared my exhaustion.

Vlad said, “Do you want to hear my news first, or after yours?”

I said, “Let’s look at your arm.”

Vlad shrugged, started to speak, and then apparently realized that I wasn’t ready to think about anything quite yet. He wordlessly took off his shirt. I undid the bandage and inspected the wound, which seemed about the same as it had four hours earlier.

Only four hours!

I washed it and walked over to the linen chest to find something clean to wrap it in.

“It’s fine,” I said.

“I suppose so,” said Vlad.

“You’ve been stabbed,” said Savn.

Chapter Eight

Even Buddy—tail thumping and floppy ears vainly trying to prick forward—was staring at him. He, in turn, was staring at Vlad’s arm—an intense stare, a creepy stare; he was standing up, his whole body rigid. Savn’s voice had the uneven rasp of long disuse, or of young adulthood, take your pick. He said, “You were stabbed with a knife.”

“That’s right, Savn,” said Vlad, and I could hear him working to keep his voice even. He didn’t move a muscle. Hwdf rjaanci wasn’t moving, either; for that matter, neither was I.

“Was it really cold when it went in? Did it hurt? How deep did it go?”

Vlad made some odd sort of sound from his throat. Savn’s questions came slowly, as if there was a great deal of consideration behind them; but the tone was of casual curiosity, which in turn was at odds with his posture—it was very unsettling for me, and I could see that it was even more so for Vlad.

“Not all knives have points, you know,” said Savn. “Some of them you can’t stab with, only cut.” As he said that word, he made a quick cutting gesture with his right hand; and that was creepy, too, because while he did it the rest of his body didn’t move, and his face didn’t change expression; it was only the arm movement and the emphasis in his voice.

“Only cut,” he said again.

Then he didn’t say anything else. We waited, not moving, for several minutes, but he’d said what he had to say. Vlad said, “Savn?” and got no response. Savn sat down again, but that also showed something—he hadn’t been told to. Vlad came over and knelt down facing him. “Savn? Are you ... are you all right?”

The boy just sat the way he’d been sitting all along. Vlad turned and said, “What happened, Mother?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I think it’s a good sign. I know it’s a good sign. I don’t know how good, but we’re getting somewhere.”

“You think that came from healing the injury?”

“Maybe. Or maybe it was time. Or the right stimulus. Or some combination. Have you been cut in the last year?”

“Not even threatened,” said Vlad.

“Then that may be it.”

“What do we do now? Should I cut myself some more?” I wasn’t certain he was joking.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Talk about knives, maybe.”

I was watching Savn the whole time, and at the word “knives” there was a perceptible twitch around the left side of his mouth. Vlad saw it, too. He said, “Savn, do you want to talk about knives?”

The boy’s expression didn’t change, but he said, “You have to take care of the good ones. A good knife is expensive. The good ones stay sharp longer, too. Sometimes you have to cut people to heal them, and you should use a really good one, and a really sharp one for that. You can hurt someone more with a dull knife than with a sharp knife.”

“Are you afraid of knives?” said Vlad.

Savn didn’t seem to hear him. He said, “You should always clean it when you’re done—wash it and dry it. You have to dry it, especially. It won’t rust—the good ones are made so they don’t rust. But if you leave something on it, it can corrode, and that ruins it, and good knives are expensive. Good knives stay sharp. They get sharper and sharper the more they’re used, until they get so sharp they can cut you right in half just by looking at you.”

“Knives don’t get sharper on their own,” said Vlad.

“And they can stab you, too. If the point is sharp, it can stab all the way through you, and all the way through everybody, and stab the sky until it falls, and stab all the way through everything.”

Then he fell silent once more. After a couple of minutes, Vlad turned around and said, “He isn’t responding to what I say, Mother.”

“No,” she said. “But you got him started. That means, on some level, he is responding to you.”

Vlad turned back and looked at him some more. I tried to read the expression on Vlad’s face, then decided I didn’t want to.

He got up and came over to where Hwdf rjaanci and I stood watching. He whispered to her, “Should I try again, or let him rest?”

She frowned. “Let him rest, I think. If he starts up again on his own, we’ll take it from there.”

“Doing what?” I said.

“I don’t know. I’m encouraged, but I don’t know.”

“All right,” said Vlad. “I’m going to make some klava.”

By the time it was done, Savn had gone to sleep—perhaps talking for the first time after a year’s silence had tired him out. We drank our klava standing on the far side of the room, near the stove and the oven. Hwdf rjaanci eventually went over and sat down next to the boy, watching him while he slept. Vlad took a deep breath and said, “All right, let’s hear it.”

“Huh? Hear what?”

He laughed. “What you came in with an hour ago, and were so excited about that you had to take some time before you could talk about it. Remember?”

“Oh.” I felt myself smiling. “Oh, that.”

“Yeah. Let’s hear it.”

I nodded and gave him the short version, which took about ten minutes. He said, “Let’s have it all.”

“Do you really need it?”

“I won’t know until I hear it.”

I was going to argue, but then I realized that if he’d given me the short version of his sortie, I wouldn’t have made the connection to Lord Khaavren, and my talk with Loftis would have gone rather differently. So I filled in most of the details, helped now and then by Vlad’s questions. He seemed especially interested in exactly when everything had happened and in precisely how I’d fooled Loftis—that, in particular, he wanted me to go over several times, until I felt like I was being questioned under the Orb. I pleaded poor memory for the parts of it I didn’t want to talk about and eventually he relented, but when I was done, he looked at me oddly.

“What is it?” I said.

“Eh? Oh, nothing, Kiera. I’m just impressed—I didn’t know you had that in you.”

“The deception or remembering the details?”

“Both, actually.”

I shrugged. “And how was your day?”

“Much shorter, much simpler, much easier to report, and probably more mystifying.”

“Oh?”

“In a word: they’re closed.”

“Huh?”

“Gone. Finished. Doors locked, signs gone.”

“Who is?”

“All of them: Northport Securities, Brugan Exchange, Westman—all of them.”

“The whole building?”

“About three-quarters of the building, near as I can tell—but all of the companies that were part of Fyres’s little empire are gone.”

“Verra! What did you do?”

“I went to City Hall—remember, you saw me there?”

“Yes, but for what?”

“Well, the building was still open; I thought I’d find out who owned it.”

“Good thinking. And who owns the building?”

“A company called Dion and Sons Management.”

“And?”

He shrugged. “And they’re located right in the same building, and they’re out of business, too.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. So much for bright ideas.”

“Well, what now, Vlad?”

“I don’t know. How can they sell the land if the company that claims ownership doesn’t exist? If they can’t, we could just forget the whole thing right now; all we’re really trying to accomplish is to keep the old woman on her land. But I’m afraid that, if we do that, someone will show up—”

“Is that it?”

“What do you mean and why are you smiling?”

“I just have a feeling that you’re hooked on this thing now—you have to find out what’s going on for its own sake.”

He smiled. “You think so? Well, you may be right, I am curious, but you show me some proof that our hostess here is going to be able to keep her lovely blue cottage and I’ll be gone so fast you’ll only feel the breeze.”

“Heh.”

He shrugged. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Aren’t you curious?”

“Oh, heavens yes. That’s a big part of why I signed onto this. But I’m willing to admit it, and you—”

“Yeah, well, ask me again tomorrow and I might give you a different answer. Meanwhile—”

“Yes. Meanwhile, what next?”

“Well, any interest in starting at the top and trying to find out who in the Empire is behind all this?”

“No.”

“Me, neither.” He thought for a minute. “Well, I’m not sure if I’ve gotten anywhere with the daughters, so we can’t count on that for anything, but we’ve got one foot in the door with our dear friend from the Tasks Group—thanks to you. And we’ve got another foot in the door with the Jhereg—thanks to you. So how about if we try for a third foot—anatomically interesting, if nothing else—and triangulate?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Finding this bank that closed down.”

I thought it over. “Not bad. Just keep worrying away at different sides of the problem and see what gives?”

He spread his hands. “That’s all I can think of.”

“It makes sense. Do you want me to do it?”

He nodded. “I think you’ll be more effective dealing with bankers than I will. I’m going to hang tight right here, and see if I can do Savn any good.”

He said it conversationally, but I could tell there was a lot of tension behind the words. I spoke lightly, saying, “Yes, that makes sense. I’ll see what I can find.”

“After lunch,” he suggested.

Lunch, on this occasion, involved a loaf of bread which was hollowed out and filled with some kind of reddish sauce that had large chunks of this and that in it, featuring pieces of chicken with the skin but without the bones. Savn sat at the table with us, eating mechanically and appearing, once more, oblivious to everything around him. This dampened the conversation a bit. It seemed odd that Savn happily used the knife in front of him to eat with and didn’t seem at all put out or unduly fascinated by it, but the ways of the mind are strange, I guess.

I suggested to Vlad that if the Jhereg really wanted to find him, all they had to do was keep track of garlic consumption throughout the Empire. He suggested that I not spread the idea around, because he’d as soon let them find him as quit eating garlic.

Then we got onto business. I said, “Mother, you said the bank closed?”

She nodded.

“Which bank?”

She glanced at me, then at Vlad, opened her mouth, closed it, shrugged, and said, “Northport Private Services Bank. Are you going to rob it?”

“If it’s closed,” I said, “I doubt there’s any money in it—or anything else for that matter.”

“Probably,” said Vlad. Then he frowned. “Unless ...”

“Unless what?”

“I’m remembering something.”

I waited.

He said, “That gossip sheet, Rutter’s Rag, said something about the banks.”

“Yes?”

“It made a point of how quickly everyone got out of there.” He turned to Hwdf rjaanci. “Do you know anything about that, Mother?”

She said, “I know it closed down fast. My friend Hen-brook—it was her bank, too, and I don’t know what she’s going to do—anyway, she was in town that day, and she said they were open just like usual at thirteen o’clock, and at fourteen there were these wagons there—the big wagons, with armed guards and everything—and by noon it was shut up tight.”

Vlad nodded. “Two hours. They took two hours to clear the place out.”

Hwdf’rjaanci agreed. “They had a hundred men, and wagons lined up all down the street. And the other banks, too, went the same way, at the same time, near as I can tell.”

“In which case,” said Vlad, “they can’t have done a very good job of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean clearing things out. They were in a hurry to be gone before their customers got to them, and—”

“Then why not seal things inside?”

He shrugged. “Too much sorcery floating around. Get people mad enough, and at least one of them will be able to tear down the building.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll buy that. But do you really think it likely that there’s anything still in there?”

“Oh, I doubt there’s any money in it, but you never know what might be left behind.”

“You mean, papers and things?”

He nodded.

“If they went under, wouldn’t they be careful to clean up anything worth looking at?”

“How much time would it take to clean up every last scrap of paper, Kiera? Could they do it in two hours?”

“Probably not. But all the important ones—”

“Maybe. But maybe not. I don’t know how banks operate, but they’re bound to generate immense amounts of paperwork, and—”

“And you’re willing to wade through immense amounts of paper, just to see if there might be something useful?”

“Right now, any edge we can get amounts to a lot. Yeah, I don’t mind taking an evening to go through their wastebas-kets—or, rather, papers that missed the wastebaskets—and see if there’s something that points us anywhere interesting.”

I thought it over for a minute. “You’re right,” I said. “I’ll look around and get what I can; it should be easy enough.” I turned to Hwdf rjaanci. “Where is it?”

“In town,” she said. “Stonework Road, near the Potter’s Field Road.” She gave me more precise directions.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll look around it today. Since you’re so used to going to City Hall, can you—”

“Find out who owns it? Sure.”

“But just get the name and address.”

“Right. I should have cooked some vegetables to go with this.”

“I wouldn’t have had room for them,” I said.

“That’s true. You don’t eat much, do you?”

“I’m trying to keep my slender girlish figure.”

“Ah. That’s what it is.”

We finished, and, since I was doing the dangerous work, I allowed him to volunteer to clean up. Not that there was that much to clean up after Loiosh, Rocza, and Buddy got through with the plates.

“All right,” I said, “ ‘Once more upon the path, and may the wind cry our tale.’”

“Villsni?”

“Kliburr.” I headed out the door.

Vlad said, “I don’t know how you do it, Kiera.”

“Eh? You’re the one with all the quotations. I was just imitating you.”

“No, not that—teleporting right after a meal. I just don’t know how you manage.”

I managed fine, bringing myself, first, home to Adri-lankha to acquire some tools, and then to the same teleport spot I’d used before, it being one of very few I knew in Northport. Then I set out to find the bank, which was easy from the directions I’d been given. I was looking forward to this. I’d never broken into a bank before, and certainly never in the middle of the day; the fact that the bank was now out of business only took a little of the fun away.

And it was, indeed, out of business—there was a large sign on it that spelled out “Permanently Closed,” along with the water and hand symbol for those who couldn’t read, and there were large boards over all the windows, and bars across the doors. I walked around it once. It was an attractive building, two stories high with a set of six pillars in front, and all done in very fine stonework. It took up about a hundred and forty meters across the front and went back about a hundred and ninety meters, and there were no alleys behind it—just a big cleared area that had become an impromptu produce market since it closed. The cleared area was, no doubt, to make sure that the guards had a good view.

On the other hand, now that it was closed, there seemed to be no security worth mentioning—certainly no one on duty there, and only the most basic and easily defeated alarm spells, proving that there was no money left in it. Anyone could have broken into the bank at this stage, and anyone would have done so just the way I was going to—which showed that no one thought there was anything at all of interest there. I shrugged. I’d know soon enough.

One of the devices I’d gotten from home was in the form of a tube that fit snugly into my hand. I palmed it and leaned against the building. I placed the tube against the wall, and in a few seconds I was seeing the inside of the building, and in a few more seconds I was seeing it clearly enough to teleport; no one was looking at me, so I did.

There was a minor spell inside to detect sorcery, so I disabled it before doing a light spell, then I started looking around.

There really isn’t any point in going into the details. It was big, and it was empty, and there was a lot of small offices, two vaults, and a basement, and I looked at them all, and it took me about four and a half hours, and at the end of it I had a bag full of scraps of paper. The good news, or the bad news, was that I’d found right away a very large bin full of papers that they’d never gotten around to throwing into the stove—good news because it meant there was a lot of material, bad news because if any of it was important it would have been taken or destroyed. But I wasn’t the one who had to go through them all.

I kept them sorted just a bit, in case Vlad would want to know which ones were found where. I knew that most of them, probably all of them, would be worthless, but Vlad would be stuck with going over them, so I had no problem doing the collecting. When I was done, I teleported directly back to the cottage. Buddy, who was outside, started barking when I appeared, but settled down quickly.

“Hey,” I told him. “Don’t worry. I got the goods.”

He wagged his tail.

Vlad came to the door, probably in response to Buddy, and held it open for me. He said, “Well?”

I held up the sack full of papers. “Enjoy.”

“No problems?”

“None. How about the boy?”

“He started talking about knives again—this time without any prompting at all. I can’t decide if that’s good or bad. Maybe it’s both. And he’s sleeping an awful lot.”

I sat down. The boy was asleep. Hwdf rjaanci was sitting by him, quietly singing what sounded like a lullaby. Vlad accepted the papers. He seemed a bit startled by how heavy the bag was; he weighed it in his hands and whistled appreciatively.

“What did you find out?” I asked him.

“The banker was—or is—Lady Vonnith, House of the Orca, naturally. She owned the bank completely, according to the paperwork at City Hall, which may or may not be reliable. She’s also the ‘pointer’—whatever that means—for three other banks, one of which has gone under and the other two of which are still solvent, but both of which have issued a ‘Hold of Purchase’; again, whatever that is. She lives not too far from Endra.” He gave me the address.

“Okay.”

“What’s a pointer?”

“I don’t know where the term came from,” I said. “But it means she’s in charge of the business, she runs it, even if she doesn’t own it. At a guess, she gets a whomping big cut of the profits, or she’s a part owner, or, most likely, she’s the full owner under a different name.”

“Why do that?”

I smiled. “Because if one of her banks files surrender of debts, which just happened, she can keep running the others without the debts of one being assessed against the income of the others, which the Empire is supposed to do.”

“Oh. Is that legal?”

“If she isn’t caught.”

“I see. What is a Hold of Purchase?”

“It means the bank has the right to keep your money.”

“Huh?”

“It was a law passed in the twelfth Teckla Reign. It prevents everyone from pulling his money out all at once and driving the bank under. There are all sorts of laws about when it can be invoked, and for how long, and what percentage of their cash they have to release, and to whom, and I don’t really understand it myself. But it may mean they’re in trouble, or, more likely, it means that with banks going under they’re afraid of a general panic and they’re taking steps to prevent one.”

“They,” he repeated. “The owners of the bank, or the Empire?”

“The owners request it, the Empire grants it—or doesn’t.”

“I see. That’s interesting. Who in the Empire would they go to to get such an order?”

“The Minister of the Treasury’s office.”

“Who’s the Minister of the Treasury?”

“His name is Shortisle.”

“Shortisle,” said Vlad. “Hmmm.”

“What?”

“That name came up in Fyres’s notes, somewhere. Something about it struck me as odd, but I didn’t pay much attention, and now I can’t remember what it was. I guess they met for dinner or something.”

“Hardly surprising,” I said. “The Minister of the Treasury and a major entrepreneur? Sure.”

“Yes, but ... never mind. I’ll think about it. House?”

“Shortisle? Orca.”

He nodded, and fell into a reverie of contemplation.

“Is there anything else?”

“Huh? Yeah. Go home. I’ll go over your booty tonight, which should leave me with, oh, at least half an hour to sleep. Tomorrow you make contact with the banker and see what you can learn.”

“All right,” I said. “Should I check with you first, to see what you’ve found out?”

“Yeah. But don’t hurry—I want a chance to at least close my eyes and snore once before you show up.”

“Okay. Sleep well.”

He looked at the bag full of dusty scrap paper in his hand and favored me with a thin smile. Loiosh stretched his wings and hissed, as if he were laughing at us both.

When I returned in the morning, the table near the stove was filled with the papers I’d discovered, all neatly sorted into four stacks, and, if I remembered the quantity correctly, reduced by about three-quarters. Vlad had the bleary-eyed look of someone who had just woken up, and Savn was still asleep by the hearth, Loiosh, Rocza, and Buddy curled up with him. Buddy thumped his tail once, gave a dog yawn, gave a whiny sigh, and put his head down on his paws. There were pieces of charcoal on the floor, more testimony to Vlad’s state; the water was boiling, and I could see the klava tin next to it, and Vlad was staring at them like he’d forgotten what they were for.

I said, “What did you learn?”

He said, “Huh?”

“Make the klava.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“The water goes into the inverted cone sitting on the—”

“I know how to make Verra-be-damned klava.”

“Right.”

He completed the operation, not spilling any water, which impressed me, then he scowled at the floor and went looking for a broom. I said, “I take it it will be a while before I get my answers.”

“Huh? Yeah. Just let me drink a cup of this poison.”

“Poison? I thought you liked klava.”

“She’s out of honey,” he said, practically snarling.

“Back in a minute,” I said.

By the time the klava was done, I was back with a crock of honey, and Vlad said, “You must be sure to permit me to be cut into pieces for you sometime.”

“Been reading Paarfi again?”

“I don’t know how to read. In an hour, maybe I’ll know how to read.”

He put honey into the mugs, pressed the klava, and poured a little bit more than two mugs’ worth into two mugs. He cursed. I said, “I’ll clean it up.”

“I’ll also be immolated for you whenever you wish.”

“Noted,” I said.

Half an hour later he was himself again, more or less. I said, “Okay, what did you learn?”

“I learned,” he said slowly, “that either it takes a trained expert to learn things from pieces of scrap paper, or it takes an amateur a long, long time to look for a greenstalk in the grass.”

“In other words, you learned nothing?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say nothing.”

He was smiling. He’d gotten something. I nodded and waited. He said, “Most of it was numbers. There were a lot of numbers. I didn’t pay much attention to them, until I realized they probably meant money; then they caused me a certain distress. But that still wasn’t helpful. I haven’t thrown them away, because you never know, but I did set them aside.”

I kept waiting.

“A few of those scraps of paper had names, sometimes with cryptic notes. Those I paid more attention to. I sorted them into three groups. One pile has mostly numbers but maybe a name, or a word that might be a code word, or something like that. Another has messages—things like, ‘Lunch, Firstday, Swallowtail, Lady Preft,’ or ‘Modify collateral policy on mortgage holdings—meeting three o’clock.’ The third pile—”

He stood up, walked over to the table, and picked up a few pieces of paper. “The third pile contains the results of going through the other two—these are scraps I came up with after looking at and rejecting a lot more. There isn’t much, but there may be something.”

He brought them over and handed them to me. “Okay, Kiera,” he said. “Let’s see if you’re as devious as I am. Take them one at a time, in order, and try to put it together.”

“Okay,” I said. “I like games.”

There were four slips of paper—two of them obviously torn off from larger sheets, the other two on very plain paper. The one on top, one of the torn fragments, was written in a very elegant, precise hand, an easy one to read. It read, SDforBT, 5&10, 8:00, Skyday, Cklshl.

I said, “Well, 5D, if we were talking about money, is probably five dots: five thousand imperials. But that’s a Jhereg term—I wouldn’t have expected a banker to use it.”

“Yep. That’s exactly what caught my eye. Keep going.”

I shrugged. “Skyday is easy, and so is 8:00. But I don’t know what BT means, 5&10, or what cee kay ell ess aech ell spells.”

He said, “Start with the last. There’s a small inn, not far from the bank, that’s marked by a sign of a seashell, and it’s called the Cockleshell. Our hostess told me about it.

She says it isn’t the sort of place one might normally find a banker.”

“Hmmm. This is getting interesting. A payoff of some sort?”

Vlad nodded. “Look at the time again.”

I did so. “Right,” I said. “Whether it’s eight in the morning or eight at night, it isn’t at a time when banks are open.”

“Exactly. Now, what do you make of the 5&10?”

“Five—and ten-imperial notes, or pieces?”

He nodded. “That’s my guess. Coins, probably. Clumsy to carry, but safer to negotiate.”

“Then it is a payoff. And BT is the person being paid off—out of bank funds. Any idea who that is?”

“Try the next note.”

It was just like the first—same hand, same amount, different day and time, only no place was mentioned, and the “5&10” was missing. It had been crumbled up, like someone had thrown it at a wastepaper basket and missed. I said, “Well? They did it at the bank?”

“Maybe. Or maybe we’ve found an early one and a late one, and there was no need to name the place or the denominations because by now she knew it. And another thing: look at the blotting on both of them.”

“It’s sloppy.”

“Right. They were just notes by—I presume—Lady Vonnith to herself. If they were ever turned into official copies, those were filed, processed, and taken—or, more likely, destroyed. But she scribbled these while doing calculations or talking to someone, and then apparently tossed them at the wastepaper basket and missed.”

“Yes,” I said. “And this one is fairly recent—like, perhaps, the day they closed down.”

“Right.”

I nodded. “I recognize the hand, by the way.”

“You recognize it?”

“Only in the sense that I remember where these came from, and there was a lot of paper there, most of it, like this, crumbled up into balls and lying on the floor, and a bunch of them that, just guessing, had fallen behind a desk or a filing cabinet and weren’t worth retrieving. And it was, indeed, the biggest office in the place, so I’d guess you’re right about whose notes these are.”

He nodded. “Okay. After I’d gotten that far, I went through all the notes again, looking for any reference at all to BT.”

“I take it you found something?”

“Yep. Read the next one.”

“Different hand,” I said. “Probably a man. Was it found in the same place?”

“Yes.”

“Then it was written to her, not by her. Hmmm. Not as legible, but I think I can make it out. ‘There are questions about dispersals to BT—I think we should tighten it up before it mirrors. Should we use the disc, fund?’ And I can’t read the signature at all—I imagine it’s the scrawl someone uses informally.”

“Yes, I suspect you’re right. So what do you make of that one?”

“That’s a curious little phrase, ‘before it mirrors.’ “

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Why not say, ‘before it reflects?’ And what would that mean, anyway? Do you have a guess?”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. Let’s hear yours, though.”

“ ‘Before it mirrors.’ Hmmm.”

“Give up?”

“Not yet; you’re enjoying this too much.” I pondered for a while and came up with nothing. “All right, I give up. What did you see that I didn’t?”

Vlad smiled with one side of his face. “The next note.”

“Heh. Okay.” I looked at the fourth and last of the notes Vlad had found. This was the longest, and, as far as I could tell, the most innocuous. It said, Lady—Lord Sustorr was in again—he now wants to secure his loan with his share of Northport Coal. I told him he had to talk to you, but it seems reasonable. I’m going to start running numbers on it. Some big shot from the Ministry of the Treasury was in today looking for you. He didn’t leave his name, but says he’ll be back tomorrow—it may be an Imperial Audit, but I don’t think we have anything to worry about. I spoke with Nurtria about the complaint we received, and he promises to be more polite in the future. Lady Aise was in about the Club meeting. She left the flyer that’s attached to this note. Firrna is still sick; we may have to replace him if this goes on—remind me to talk to you about it. It was signed with the same illegible scrawl as the last one. I read it three times, then looked up at Vlad.

“Well?” he said. “Do you see it?”

“It’s pretty thin,” I said. “It fits, but it’s pretty thin.”

“It can’t be that thin,” said Vlad, “or you wouldn’t have picked up on it.”

I shrugged. “We think alike. That doesn’t mean we’re right.”

“It explains the mirror line. What you see in a mirror is yourself, and if he was looking for what he must have been looking for—” Vlad punctuated the sentence with a shrug.

“No, I admit that. But still ...”

“Yeah. It’s something to go on when I talk to Her Ladyship the banker.”

I stared at the letter again.

My, my, my.

Chapter Nine

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 Phoenixl”

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.”

“All right.”

“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 Adri-lankha, 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 ...

Slow down, Kiera.

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 r 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 North-port. 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 Shortisie, 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.”

“All right,” I said. “Now?”

“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?”

“Td 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.”

Chapter Ten

Let me think now. When did you leave? A lot has happened since then. It was early afternoon, right? Okay, I’ll just take it as it happened.

After you left, I made an effort to get Savn talking again, and he went off on knives some more. I decided that it probably wasn’t healthy to keep him fixated like that, and the old woman told me the same thing a few minutes later, so that was about it. I couldn’t think of anything else to do with him, and eventually I realized that half the reason I wanted to was to avoid having to do something I was a bit afraid of. Let me explain.

I kept thinking about that banker, and what you’d said about the Jhereg connections, and what I couldn’t get away from was the idea that, if the Jhereg was connected to Fyres, and Fyres was connected to the Empire, then the Jhereg was connected to the Empire. If that was true, what was the connection, and how did it work, and like that? Now Side-Captain Vonnith—what’s a side-captain, by the way?—must have been tied into Fyres because she’d jumped ship, so to speak, within a week of Fyres’s death, and you’d proven that she was connected to the Empire, so I couldn’t help wondering if she was connected to the Jhereg, too.

The trouble was, I couldn’t go waltzing into Stony’s office and ask about it, because he’d kill me on the spot and because you’d be annoyed with me, which meant I’d have to work through either Vonnith or Loftis. From what you said, I had the impression that Vonnith would bolt if she got any more jumpy, and that might be inconvenient, so that left Loftis.

Loftis.

I have to tell you, Kiera: I wasn’t all that excited about going up against him straight, and I wasn’t very happy about trying to put anything past him again. You’ve met him, too, and you know what I’m talking about—I think we were both lucky the first time we ran into him.

The only thing I could think of was to keep him off balance long enough for me to learn what I needed to learn, and, with him alerted, I didn’t think much of my chances of shoving another barrel of lies at him. To the left, however, telling him the truth wouldn’t get me anywhere. So that left giving him some of the truth, and either feeding it to him a bit at a time—trading information, in other words—or hitting him with enough of the truth to make him stumble, and hoping to get something while he was recovering his balance, if you follow my metaphor. As for which of those I’d do, I didn’t know—I was just going to approach him, talk to him, keep my ideas in mind, and see how it went.

That, at any rate, was the plan—if you can so dignify vague intentions with the word. After arriving at this magnificent conclusion, I had to make some food, and then clean up, and then try to talk to Savn about something other than knives, which produced no response at all. Unfortunately, after all of that, there was still time to visit Loftis, and I couldn’t find any more reasons for putting it off, and Loiosh was making fun of me, so I got myself dressed up as myself—that is, an Easterner, although not a Jhereg—and headed into town.

I liked your method of finding a quiet place to talk, so I used it myself. When I’d located a suitable establishment, I paid for two rooms, across the hall from each other. The host probably wondered exactly what sort of bizarre activity I was going to engage in, but she didn’t ask and I didn’t volunteer the information. I found a kid to act as messenger and gave him a note to pass on to Loftis. The note said where I was, including the room number, and I signed it Margaret—I hope you don’t mind. Then I went into the room across the hall from the one I’d given him, and amused myself by talking to Loiosh, who was, by the way, waiting outside the building—I didn’t want to introduce that complication into things at this point, and I admit I was worried, because Loftis was potentially in touch with the Jhereg, and the Jhereg was looking for an Easterner with a pair of jhereg, so why take chances? The two-room bit, by the way, proved unnecessary. The idea was that if he decided to show up with a couple of additional blades, it would give me an edge to be behind him, but he had no such plans.

It took him about an hour and a half to get there, but eventually I heard him—that is, I heard one set of footsteps, and someone clapped outside the door. I moved the curtain back, and he turned quickly, and he saw me. Then he looked at me again, more closely, and I could see him start to put things together—Kaldor to the Easterner, the Easterner to Margaret, Margaret to the Empire, the Empire to Kaldor—and I took a certain pleasure in shocking him. I said, “I don’t like this place for conversations. Let’s walk. You lead.” Then, in spite of my words, I stepped in front of him and led the way out of the place. He followed.

“Anything?”

“All clear, boss.”

“Stay out of sight. I don’t know where we’re going, so—”

“I’ve done this before, boss. Honest.”

When we reached the street, I indicated that he should take us somewhere, and he set off in a direction where there would be less traffic. I didn’t want to give him too much time to think, so I said, “Margaret sends her regrets, but she was detained by the need to look into the Jhereg end of this—I assume you know about that?”

“Who are you?”

“Padraic,” I said.

“And you’re working with Margaret, is that it?”

I shrugged. “Things are happening faster than we’d thought they would, especially on the Jhereg side.”

“What is the Jhereg side?”

“Don’t play stupid, we don’t have time for it. Vonnith is ready to bolt, and Shortisle is getting jumpy.”

“Getting jumpy?”

“All right, getting even more jumpy. How soon can you close up shop?”

“We can finish tomorrow, if you don’t care about everyone figuring out that we didn’t run a real investigation. Now, I want to know—”

“I don’t care what you want to know,” I said. “What did Timmer say? Has she put it together?”

He fumed for a moment, then said, “If she has, she isn’t saying anything.”

“Huh,” I said. “That’s probably wise.”

“How is it,” he said grimly, “that you, that an Easterner, came to be involved in the security of the Empire?”

“Perhaps,” I said, giving him a smile that was almost a leer, “Her Majesty doesn’t have the same feelings about Easterners that you do.” He scowled. He’s heard the rumors about Her Majesty’s lover, too, but perhaps hadn’t believed them. But then, I’m not sure if I believe them, either. Before he could come up with an answer, I said, “Are you aware how high this goes?”

“Yeah,” he said.

I wished I knew. “All right, then. No, don’t make it obvious, but hurry it up. Get your work done as fast as you can and get out.”

He held up his hand in a signal to stop, and he began looking around. I did, too, and didn’t see anything. The area we were walking through was almost empty of traffic and anything else—there were a couple of closed shops, a couple of houses with boards across the door, and a scattering of places that looked lived in. I said, “What is it?”

“Nothing special.”

I looked around again, but still saw nothing except a desolate neighborhood, of which I’d seen plenty in South Adrilankha. I said, “Where are we?”

“I just wanted you to see this.”

“What?”

“This area.”

“What about it?”

“Look.”

I’d been looking, but now I looked closer, and realized that the paint was new on most of the buildings and houses, and, furthermore, the houses, though small, looked like they’d been built for one family, and they were still in good condition. In fact, very good condition for how few people were here. I gave him a puzzled look.

He nodded. “When I got to town, just a couple of weeks ago, that place was open, and that place was open, and there were people living there, there, and there.”

“Where are they now?”

“Gone,” he said. “Maybe on the street, maybe moved to another town, maybe out in the woods hunting and living in tents. I don’t know.”

“Two weeks?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Fyres?”

“Yeah. The bank closings, and the closing of the three shipbuilders—”

“Three shipbuilders?”

“Yeah. He had a stake in about six or seven, and in three cases it was enough to shut them down. This area was developed about three hundred years ago by Sorenet and Family, Shipwrights, and pretty much everyone who lived around here worked for them. Some Orca, some Chreotha, mostly Teckla just in from your favorite village a generation ago. Now Sorenet is gone, and so is everyone who worked there.”

“I’ve never seen a neighborhood die so quickly,” I said.

“Nor have I.”

We started walking again. “You’ve surprised me in another way,” I said. “I hadn’t been convinced that Fyres was ever involved in anything real at all.”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t, either. I still don’t know how involved he was, or why, or what the mechanics are. That’s the sort of thing we’d be finding out, if we were really doing what we’re supposed to be doing.”

This neighborhood seemed about the same as where we’d stopped. It was making me nervous. Loiosh, who was staying out of sight behind me, reported that nothing terrible was about to happen. I said, “Do you really think you can keep the Tiassa from finding out what you’re up to?”

“Probably,” he said. “He won’t check on us—he trusts us.” There was enough bitterness in that remark to ruin a hundred gallons of ale.

I said, “It isn’t like you had a choice.”

“I could have resigned.”

“And done what? And what would you have told the Tiassa when he asked you why? And on top of it, you’d have known someone else was doing it, and probably bungling it—frankly, I don’t trust your man Domm.”

“The lieutenant’s all right,” he said quickly. “He has a bit of Waitman in him, but that just means he’ll lose a few times before the Stand at Spinning Lake, which is nothing to be ashamed of. Waitman got an Imperial title for that, which isn’t bad for someone with that sort of disposition.”

“Maybe,” I said. “And please don’t explain. The point is, they knew just how to put the screws in.”

“Sure,” he said. “And who to put them to.”

In case you’ve missed it, Kiera, I was now the one who was off balance; while showing me around the neighborhood, he’d had a chance to do some thinking, and now it was me who wanted some time to sort things out.

We had apparently sold Loftis on our story far more completely than I’d expected to, and that puzzled me. But more than that, I just couldn’t reconcile everything he was saying with the idea that he was the sort of guy who’d go in for this kind of action. There was a piece of this—a big piece of this—that didn’t make sense, and I was no longer at all sure how to proceed. I had this awful urge to just flat out ask him everything I needed to know, like, for example, who was behind this, and how exactly had the pressure been brought; but someone like Loftis is going to figure out more from the questions you ask than you will from the answers he gives, and if he figured out too much, he’d stop answering the questions at all. A damned tricky business, that made me long for the days when all I had to do was kill someone and not worry about it.

I needed a distraction.

I said, “There’s another thing that’s puzzling me.”

“There’s a lot that’s puzzling me.”

“Some of the smaller companies in Fyres’s little Empire—”

“Not so little, Padraic.”

“Yeah. Some of them hold land.”

“Sure.”

“And they’re selling the land.”

He nodded.

“And they’re going under.”

“Right.”

“So they’re not able to sell it.”

“I guess. What’s your point? If it’s the legalities of it—”

“No, no. We have more advocates than the Orb has facets. I’m trying to figure out what sort of business sense that makes, or what kind of other sense it makes that overrides business sense.”

“You think they have any choice?”

“Maybe.”

He shook his head. “If you’re going somewhere, I can’t see it. As far as I can tell, they’re bailing out as they go, and if that means they lose some property, they’ll let the property courts and the advocates worry about it later. I don’t think there’s any plan involved.”

This was all news to me. I said, “I’m not convinced.”

“You have a devious mind.”

“It goes with the job.”

“Do you have any evidence? Any reason to think so?”

“Just a feeling. That’s why I wanted to find out if you’d had any ideas about it.”

“No.”

“Okay,” I said.

We were heading back in the general direction from which we’d come. He said, “So, all right, what is it you wanted? You had me make contact with you for some reason, and so far all we’ve done is chat, along with a warning so general there’s no point in giving it, and a question you could have had a messenger ask. What are you after?”

Damn. I had certainly given him too much time to think. I said, “There’s someone who knows too much about what you’re doing, and I can’t find him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that something’s slipped, and I’m pretty sure it’s at the top, or near the top at any rate. I’m running into opposition, and I can’t pin it down.”

He shook his head. “I haven’t run into it yet. The only suspicious action I’ve seen so far has been you and your friend Margaret.”

Damn again. That wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted him thinking about.

“Look,” I said, “I’m going to have to trust you.”

“Trust all you want,” he said. “I haven’t shut you down, but I’m not under your orders.”

He was ahead of me again.

“And now I want a few answers.”

And gaining.

“Your friend Margaret claimed to have a certain hold on me.”

“The letters. Yes. They’re real.”

“I told her then they wouldn’t go very far, and this is as far as they go. Exactly who do you work for, and what is yourjob?”

“I know your job, friend Loftis; but if you want to put everything out in front, then let’s hear you say who you work for.” As I said that, I was desperately trying to remember the names of the different groups you’d mentioned, and figure out which one I could most reasonably claim to be part of.

“Heh. I am a lieutenant in the Imperial Army, Corps of the Phoenix Guards, Special Tasks Group.”

“And you know bloody well that wasn’t my question.”

“Are all Easterners psychically invisible, or just you? And is that why you were hired, or is it just a bonus?”

“It helps,” I said.

“Exactly what are you after?”

“I’ve told you that.”

“Yes, you have, haven’t you? You’ve told me just about everything my heart could desire, haven’t you?”

I shook my head. “Play all the games you want, Loftis, but I don’t have time to muck around, not if I’m going to do what I was sent here to do.”

“Shall we get something to eat?” he said.

Add another damn or two. He was pulling all of my tricks, and he was better at them than I was—which I suppose only made sense. I said, “I’ve been told that Undauntra always wanted her troops to fight hungry, whereas Sethra Lavode always wanted hers to fight with a full meal in them.”

“I’ve heard that, too,” he said. “But it isn’t true. About Sethra, that is.”

“I’ll take your word for it. I’m also told that when a Jhereg boss hires an assassin, the deal is usually made during a meal.”

“I can believe that.”

“And I happen to know that there is a curious custom in parts of the East of making a big ceremony out of the last meal someone eats before he’s executed. He’s given pretty much anything he wants, and it’s prepared and served quite carefully, and then they kill him. Isn’t that odd?”

“I suppose, but I think it’s rather nice, actually.”

I shook my head. “If I were about to be executed, I either wouldn’t be able to eat, or I’d lose the meal on the way to the Executioner’s Star, or the gallows, or the Pilgrim’s Block, or wherever they were to lead me.”

“I see your point,” he said. “But I think I’d like the meal, anyway.”

“Well, perhaps I would, too.”

“There’s got to be someplace around here.”

We stopped at the first place we came to, which meant nothing since he’d been leading the way. It was marked by a sign that was so faded I couldn’t make it out, and reached from the street by walking down three steps below a hostel. It had probably been on the street level a few hundred years earlier—it seemed old enough, at any rate.

“ What do you think, Loiosh ? “

“I don’t like it, boss. There’s no one hanging around outside, but he had plenty of time to set something up before we got here.”

“Good point.”

“If you want to make a break, I can keep him busy.”

“No. I’m going to run with it.”

“Boss—”

“Stay alert.”

The ceiling was low, the stone walls were damp, and the place was dark enough to be irritating—I suspected that, except for sinking, it hadn’t changed much in quite some time. There was a big table with two long benches, about half of which were occupied by tradesmen, and a few isolated tables scattered about the room. We sat at one of those. It was toward the back, and Loftis could watch the front door while I watched the curtained-off doorway that presumably led to a private room of some sort. I could have made an issue about this—in fact, I was almost tempted to since I didn’t have Loiosh with me—but I still had some faint hopes of convincing him that the story we’d given was true.

“What do you recommend?” I asked.

“I don’t know; I’ve never been here before.”

After too long, we realized that no one was going to bring us anything, so we went up to the bar and acquired a bottle of wine, a loaf of bread, two bowls of fish stew, glasses, spoons, a wooden platter to carry them all on. I did the paying, he did the carrying. We brought the stuff back to the table, sat down, poured, and sampled.

“The stew is too salty,” suggested Loftis.

“The bread’s all right.”

“Better than the stew,” he agreed.

“Or the wine,” I added.

“I was thinking about bringing you in,” he said.

“Do you have better wine than this?”

“A little better. Not enough to get excited about. The trouble is, we can’t find your friend.”

“You just haven’t looked hard enough.”

“Oh?”

“I know some excellent Eastern wines.”

“Make a list of them for me. And while you’re filling it out, maybe you can write down an address where I can find dear Margaret.”

“I’ll be sure to do that. But I don’t feel too bad for you. You can’t have been looking for more than half an hour. What do you expect? Searches and wines take time to mature.”

“Wines do, certainly. But searches can be helped. And I’d take it as a personal favor.”

“How about if I just pay for the next bottle of wine, instead?”

“That’s a thought. You don’t seem worried, Padraic. Is that your real name, by the way?”

“I don’t remember anymore.”

“Too much wine can do that to one’s memory.” He poured me some more. “You probably should be worried, though. Because, when I say that I might have to bring you in—”

“Please,” I said. “Don’t ruin the surprise. Or the meal, for that matter.”

“You know, I can’t even eat this stew. I wonder if they have anything else.”

“I wouldn’t risk it if they did. We got what they recommended; what do you suppose the inferior stuff is like?”

“Good point. Who did you say you’re working for?”

“An unnamed Imperial group, devoted to the interests of the State.”

“Excellent. I believe you, too. Only, I will require some form of identification, or a contact in the Imperial Palace, or a Signet.”

I poured him some wine. “That could be problematical,” I said.

“Yes. What exactly are you trying to do?”

“There’s an old lady whose land is being taken away from her. We’re trying to find out who owns the land so we can buy it for her, but the company is out of business. She’s being evicted, you see—”

He held up his hand. “Say no more,” he said. “Just give me her name, and I’ll see that it’s taken care of.”

The worst of it was that he might be able to, and perhaps he even would; but I couldn’t count on it, and I certainly couldn’t give him any help in tracking you down, Kiera; especially after all the work I’d just gone through to destroy all the work you’d done in setting this up. I said, “I can’t seem to remember, just at the moment. It must be the wine.”

“Probably.”

“Boss, there are a couple of blades I don’t recognize outside the door.”

“Outside the door? What are they doing?”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were getting ready to go charging in.”

“Oh.”

Loftis sighed and pushed the food away. “Execrable,” he said. “What am I going to do with you?”

Under the table, I let a dagger fall into my left hand, and made sure my sword was loose in its sheath. “You could paint me blue and trade me for bagpipes.”

“Yes, that would be an option. But I’m afraid, as much as I’ve enjoyed sharing a meal with you, I’m going to have to insist on your accompanying me back to a place where I’m better equipped to get answers to questions.”

“Damn,” I said. “I just remembered. My niece is getting married this evening, and I have to pick out some new clothes, so I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it today.”

“Oh, I’m sure your niece will understand. Just what was her name, and where might I find her?” He smiled, then the smile went away and he looked at me very hard. “There are really only a couple of questions I need answered, but I do need them answered. Do you understand?”

I matched his stare.

He said, “Who do you work for, and what are you trying to accomplish? If you give me those answers, maybe we can work something out. If you don’t, I’m going to have to start squeezing you.”

“It isn’t going to happen,” I said.

“Boss, they’re coming in!”

I rose to my feet, and I had my weapon halfway out when two men came through the curtain I was facing. I stepped to the side so Loftis couldn’t get an easy shot at me and flipped my dagger at one of them; when he flinched, I lunged for the other one, knocking his weapon out of line and nailing him in the throat. I risked a quick glance toward the door, and then saw the other two, who were looking a little startled to see me noticing them and smiling; Loftis was now on his feet, too, and he had a weapon out, but he was looking at the pair who’d come through the door. He was facing away from me, so I couldn’t see his expression, nor did I have time for a close look, because there was still the one I’d thrown my knife at. But Loftis did take the time to look at me, and there was no particular expression in that look. He said, “He didn’t break the stick,” which was just damned informative, but I didn’t have the time to ask for an explanation.

As I turned back to the one I’d distracted, he made a break to get past me; that was fine, they could all run away as far as I was concerned.

Only he didn’t run away.

He got past me, then he buried his sword in Loftis’s skull, then he kept running out the door. The other two followed behind; they were gone before I realized it.

“Boss?”

“Don’t worry, Loiosh. They weren’t after me.”

“They weren’t?”

“Right. On the other hand, I suppose that means you can go ahead and worry.”

Everyone in the room was staring at Loftis, and there was no sound, until the Dragonlord dropped his weapon, which made an appalling clamor as it hit the floor.

He turned very slowly and looked at me; there was an expression of surprise on his face. He opened his mouth, then closed it. I could see the muscles of his neck straining, and realized that it was hard work for him to keep his head straight with the weight of a sword attached to it.

Loftis sank to his knees, then he fell forward onto his face, looking absurd and pitiful with the sword still sticking out of the back of his head.

Chapter Eleven

I got out of there in a hurry, before anyone in the place could think to stop me.

Loiosh said, “Should I follow them? Oh, never mind; they’ve just teleported. I can show you where they tele-ported from if you want.”

“I have no intention of tracing anyone’s teleport, Loiosh; I just want to get out of here. Keep watching.”

“Okay, boss.”

I crossed the street and turned right at the first corner I came to, then right again, then left, then left again, and then right, then I went straight for a while, then I stopped and looked around, having gotten myself lost enough to have a chance of confusing anyone else.”

“Well?”

“All clear, boss.”

“Okay, back home, then.”

“I’ll keep watching.”

We made it back to the cottage, both of us looking around fairly often. Buddy seemed happy to see me, Rocza seemed happy to see Loiosh, the old woman didn’t seem happy about anything, and Savn didn’t seem to care one way or another. I sat down at the table, closed my eyes, and took my first deep breath in what seemed like a year or so.

The old woman looked at me and didn’t ask any questions, wherefore I gave her no answers. I really wished you were here, Kiera, because I felt the need to confess and to have some help sorting out what had just happened. It had all made sense—Loftis figuring it out, sitting me down where he could give me one chance to come clean, and then having his people arrest me—up to the point where they’d killed him.

They’d killed him.

Had he been surprised by who came through the door? Or that anyone showed up? Or only by what they did?

He didn’t break the stick.

That was a good one; I’d love to have found out what it meant, but there was no one around to ask. If I’d understood it, no doubt it would turn out to be the code phrase that made everything clear, and indicated exactly what I should do next. More probably, it went back to his childhood and had something to do with being hurt—at least, that’s the sort of thing that went through my head when I decided I was about to become damaged, or maybe dead.

I regretted him. He was an honest son of a bitch, in spite of what he was doing, and he’d struck me as good at his job, although the only trace of evidence for that was that he’d hit you the same way, Kiera, so maybe he was really just a fool who knew how to impress people like us.

I wished his last meal had been better, though.

I said, “How’s the boy, Mother?”

“No change,” she said.

I said, “Savn?” He didn’t seem to hear me. He was staring into the hearth as if it was the only thing in the world. At least there weren’t any knives in it. I said, “Do you have any great ideas?”

She glared at me, then stood up, which took her quite a while. She came over and sat beside me, saying in a low voice, “I don’t think I’m going to attempt the dreamwalk; at least, not for a while. He is responding, in a way, so that’s some improvement. I want to know how far we’ll get. I want to know if we can get him talking about something other than knives.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I’ve been talking to him. You could try it too.”

“Just talking to him?”

“Yes.”

“Even though he doesn’t respond?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” I said.

She nodded, and I went over and sat down next to him. “So how are you, boy?” I said. He didn’t respond. “I hope you’re feeling well physically, at least.” I felt like an idiot. The old woman got up and went outside, taking Buddy with her.

“It’s been about a year now, Savn.” I said. “Look, I hope you know that I’m sorry about what happened. You were never supposed to get involved in it.”

He stared at the hearth and didn’t move.

“You saved my life, you know. Twice. First, when I was injured, and then again. That isn’t something I forget. And all those things you said to me, they were hard to hear, but it was probably good for me.” I laughed a little. “Most things that are good for you hurt, maybe. To the left, though, most things that hurt aren’t good for you. There’s a nice riddle, if you want one. Do you like riddles? Do you like puzzles? I’m working on a puzzle now, Savn, and it has me pretty thoroughly stumped. I’d like to talk it over with you. You’re a pretty sharp kid, you know.

“Why was Loftis killed? That’s a puzzler, isn’t it? He was working for someone in the Empire who was trying to hide the fact that Fyres was murdered, because if Fyres was murdered, they’d have to look into who killed him, and they’d probably never find out, but they would find out who wanted him dead, and that was a lot of people with a lot of connections to some of the people who keep our Empire chugging along. So maybe someone didn’t want the information hidden. I can imagine that, Savn. But that’s no reason to kill Loftis—it would be much easier, and probably cheaper, just to let someone, say the Warlord, or Lord Khaavren, or even Her Majesty, know what was going on. Killing Loftis doesn’t make any sense.

“And it couldn’t be to help hide what he was doing, because now they’re going to have to investigate that, and that will almost certainly lead them to find out everything. But if that was the goal, it was going about it the hard way, and the dangerous way, and people don’t do that when there’s a safe way and an easy way to do things—except maybe Dzurlords, and they don’t get into the sort of subtle thinking that goes along with it. I just can’t make it fit, Savn. What do you think?”

Evidently he thought the hearth was fascinating.

“There’s got to be a piece of this I’m not seeing—a piece of information I don’t have. I wish I had more sources, like I used to. It used to be I could just snap my fingers and people would go scurrying to discover everything I needed to know. Now all I’ve got is what I can learn myself (with the help of Loiosh and Rocza, and a few minstrels). Should I go find a minstrel and talk to him, Savn? You were there the last time I did that, and I got some useful information, too. Remember her? She was quite something, wasn’t she?

I remember thinking you were getting a crush on her, and I couldn’t blame you. I was, too, if truth be known, but she’s Dragaeran, and I’m an Easterner, and there you have it. Besides, I imagine she doesn’t think much of me now, with what I’ve done to you. I suspect she blames me, and she’s right to. I blame me, too.”

I sat next to him and stared at the hearth. It was getting a bit chilly; maybe I should get a fire started. Back where Savn had come from, they were harvesting flax about now. They probably missed him.

“All right,” I told him. “I’ll go find a minstrel, and I’ll see what the word is about Fyres, and about the investigation, and about the banks. Maybe I’ll learn something. At least it’ll keep me busy.”

I stood up. “I’ll talk to you later, all right?” He didn’t object, so I headed out the door. The old woman was sitting on a wicker chair in front of the house, Buddy curled up beside her. I had the uncomfortable feeling she’d heard everything I said. I wondered if her whole reason for having me talk to him was so she could listen in, but I dismissed the thought; if there was one person in the whole mess who wasn’t devious, it was her. But this affair was enough to make anyone paranoid, so I acquitted myself of paranoia and wrapped my cloak a little tighter around myself, because it was getting cold. Why is it you notice the weather more when you’re out of town? I don’t remember paying much attention to the weather when I lived in Adrilankha, even though I spent a lot of time walking around outside.

Minstrels, I’ve found, are rather like boot hooks—you keep running into them every time you go into your closet to find something else, but the minute you realize you need one they vanish without a trace. After walking all the way into Northport, I must have spent three hours going from one inn to another, and nowhere was there anyone singing for his supper, or telling stories in exchange for a room, or even sitting passed-out in the corner with a reed-pipe on his lap.

But diligence is sometimes rewarded. Seven times I asked locals where I might find some music. One didn’t know, three didn’t bother talking to me, and two were rude enough that I felt obligated to give them some minor damage as a lesson in courtesy. The seventh, however, was a pleasant young Teckla woman with flowing skirts and amazing black eyes who directed me to a public house about half a mile away, with feathers on its sign. I found it with no trouble (which surprised me just a little, as I’d become pessimistic about the whole adventure by that point) and I made my way into the small, smoke-filled little inn, in amongst a large crowd of mostly Teckla, with a couple of Orca and Chreotha surrounded by the entourage the minor nobility invariably attracts in such places, and, at the far end, a middle-aged Teckla playing a fretted gordstring as softly as such a twangy instrument can be played, and actually fairly well.

One part of a bench in the middle of the room was open, and I took it. Loiosh was with me, which may have accounted for some of the looks I got, but more likely they just weren’t used to Easterners in there. The singer’s voice was high and probably would have been unpleasant, but he picked songs that fit it—I suppose that’s part of being a minstrel, just like part of being an assassin is knowing which jobs to take and which ones to leave alone. Eventually someone came by and brought me some wine, which I drank quickly because it wasn’t very good, and some time later the minstrel stopped playing.

He stayed where he was and drank, and after a while I approached him. He looked at me, looked at Loiosh, and seemed uncomfortable, which was only natural. I said quietly, “My name is Vlad,” and watched his face very closely for any sign of recognition.

“Yes?” he said. No, he didn’t seem to recognize the name, which was good news. The first time a minstrel recognizes my name is the last time I can pull this stunt.

“Can we talk for a few minutes?”

“About what?”

I showed him the ring, then quickly put it away. The ring, by the way, represented one of the last things I arranged before I left Adrilankha; its design is a recognition symbol for the Minstrels’ Guild, so when I showed it to him, he just said, “I see” and “Yes.”

“I’m going to walk outside and cross the street. Meet me in twenty minutes, all right?”

“All right. Yes. How much—?”

“Ten imperials, or maybe more if you can help me.”

“All right.”

I nodded and left the place, walking around for a little while and eventually circling back. Loiosh flew around to look for signs of someone setting something up, but I didn’t expect anything like that, and there wasn’t.

After twenty minutes, he left the inn and crossed the street, and I stepped up next to him. “Let’s walk together,” I said, handing him ten coins. I’d said that to someone earlier that day, too.

We strolled together through the dark and quiet streets. This part of the city was far from the docks, and very narrow, and looked nothing at all like anywhere in Adrilankha, which I rather liked. I said, “What have you heard about Fyres?”

“The Orca?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I mean, you know that he’s dead.”

“Yes. How did he die?”

“An accident on his yacht.”

“Are you certain?”

We walked a little further. He said, “I’ve heard rumors, whispers. You know.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t. Tell me.”

“Who are you?”

“A friend of the Guild.”

“Is there going—? That is, am I—?”

“In danger? No, as long we aren’t seen together, and probably not even if we are.”

“Probably not?”

“That’s why we aren’t talking inside, and why we’re staying to areas without much light. Now, you were saying?”

“There’s been talk that he was murdered.”

“By whom?”

“People.”

“What sort of people?”

“Just people.”

“Why do they think so?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll tell you something: every time someone famous dies, however he dies, people say he was murdered.”

“You think that’s all it is?”

“Yeah. Am I wrong?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to find out. I’m asking you questions to find out. And I’m paying you. You have no reason to suspect—uh—foul play?”

“Not really, no.”

“All right. What about all these bank closings?”

“It’s the Empire.”

“The Empire closed the banks?”

“No, but they allowed it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they aren’t supposed to do that—let banks just close, anytime they want to; they’re supposed to protect people.”

“Why didn’t they?”

“Because the bankers paid them.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

“How?”

He didn’t answer. I said, “How much did you lose?”

“Almost eight hundred imperials.”

“I see. Is that how you know?”

He didn’t answer. I sighed. I wasn’t getting a whole lot that I could use. I said, “What about the Jhereg?”

“What about them?”

“Are they involved?”

“With the banks? I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that.”

Oh, good. I was supposed to be tracking down rumors, and instead I was starting them. What I wanted to say was, “Can you tell me anything useful?” but that wasn’t likely to produce results. I said, “What can you tell me about the people being kicked off their land?”

“Just what everyone knows,” he said. “It’s happening a lot, and no one knows why.”

“What do you mean, no one knows why?”

He shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t make any sense, does it? You get a notice of eviction, and then you go see if you can buy the place, and the owners have gone out of business.”

“That’s been happening a lot?”

“Sure. All over the place. I’m one of the lucky ones: we’re still on Lord Sevaana’s land, and he’s still all right, as far as anyone knows. But I have friends and relatives who don’t know what’s going on, or what to do about it, or anything.”

I don’t know why I’d assumed the old woman’s case was unique, but apparently I was wrong. That was certainly interesting. Who could stand to gain by forcing people to leave their land so it could be sold and then not selling it? And why force them to move before offering them the chance to buy it themselves? And how could Fyres’s death have set all this off? And who wanted Loftis dead, and why? And—

No, wait a minute.

“Has anyone actually been made to move off his land yet?”

“Huh? Not this soon. No one could move that quickly, even if they made us.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” But still ...

“Is there anything else?” said the minstrel.

“Huh? What? On, no. Here. Vanish.” I gave him another ten imperials. He vanished.

“What is it, boss?”

“The inkling of the germ of a thread that might lead to the beginning of an idea.”

“Sure, boss. Whatever you say.”

“I think I might have a piece of something, anyway. Let me think for a minute.”

He was polite enough not to make any of the obvious rejoinders, so I thought as I strolled. It isn’t all that easy to just think, keeping your mind concentrated on the subject, unless you’re talking to someone or writing things down, which is one reason I like to talk to Loiosh as I’m putting things together, but what I had right then wouldn’t fit itself into words because it wasn’t precise enough—it was just the vague, unformed notion that I’d, well, not exactly missed something, but that I’d been putting the wrong slant on things.

After a while I said, “The trouble is, Loiosh, that the way Kiera and I got involved in this was through whatever oddity is involved in this business of putting what’s-her-name’s land on the market and then making it hard to track down, followed by impossible to track down. Just because that’s where we started doesn’t make that an important piece of whatever it is that’s going on.”

“You knew that already, boss.”

“Sure. But knowing it is one thing; being aware of it as you work and taking it into account whenever you look at new information—”

“ What are you saying ? “

“Heh. That I’ve been looking at this thing skewed by what I knew about it. I have to look at it straight on. And I have a theory.”

“Oh, good. Only that was missing. All right, then, where to now?”

“I don’t know.” And, in my mind, Loiosh spoke the words as I did. “You’re funny, Loiosh,” I told him. “Do you have any great ideas?”

“Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

I looked around, but didn’t see anything.

“No,” he said. “This city. This area. It isn’t good, boss. They’re still looking for you, and when you’re in a city like this, you’re too easy to find. I don’t like it.”

Neither did I, come to that. “Soon,” I told him. “As soon as we get this settled.”

“You can’t do Savn any good with a Morganti knife between your shoulder blades.”

“True.”

“If I’d known we were going to be here this long, and that we’d be going around stirring up—”

“Okay, okay. I get the point.” I’d thought about it, of course. Loiosh was right: a city, even one as small as Northport, was not a good place for me to hide when the whole Organization was looking for me. And, if what I’d just figured out was true, then I’d pretty much done what I’d agreed to do—the old woman would be able to stay on her land, and everything was fine.

“ Where would we go instead? “

“The East.”

“We’ve been there, remember?”

“It’s big, there are lots of places. And no one would find us.”

“Good point.” There really wasn’t any reason to stay here, if I could be certain that what I’d just figured out was true, and I could probably find that out.

Except that someone had cut Loftis down right in front of me, and there were neighborhoods full of people who had to leave because they no longer had any work, and I didn’t understand why any of it was happening.

I said, “The old woman is doing so well with Savn, it would be a shame to take him away so soon.”

“Boss—”

“Let’s just take a few more days, all right?”

“You’re the boss.”

I wondered what you were finding out, Kiera; what would we learn about Fyres from the Jhereg? And, come to that, how heavily were the Jhereg involved? And if he’d gotten the Jhereg into it, why did he need the banks?

Did he need the banks at all?

There was only one banker we knew for certain was involved with Fyres, and that was Vonnith, and we knew she was bribing Imperial officials, which almost made her a Jhereg, too. Did I know of any legitimate banks that had made loans to Fyres? Did I even have any reason to suspect there were any?

How could I find out? Walking around pretending to be someone else has its uses, and we’d gotten some information that way, but there’s a time for just being who you are. Had we reached it yet? Who was I, anyway?

Hmmm.

“Could work, boss.”

“It’s worth a shot.”

“And even if it doesn’t work, I’ll enjoy it.”

“Yeah, you probably will.”

“Andyou won’t?”

It wasn’t easy finding a tailor’s shop that was open at this hour—in fact, there were none. But after disturbing the tailor, it was easy enough to get what I wanted just by setting an appropriately large number of coins in front of him. My reserves of cash had been getting a bit low lately, and I wasn’t excited about going to any of the places I’d need to in order to retrieve more of my wealth—for one thing, I’d have to remove the gold Phoenix Stone in order to tele-port—but I could do it if I had to.

However, I was able to put in the order and he promised that he’d have what I needed early in the morning. That done, I wandered for a while, thinking over the plan and refining it in conversation with Loiosh.

I discovered that my feet were taking me back toward the cottage, and I decided to let them have their way, now that I had a plan for tomorrow. I walked, and I thought, and Loiosh flew above me, or sometimes sat on my shoulder, but kept watching so that I had the freedom to let ideas roll around in my head and turn into conclusions. I thought about stopping and performing a quick spell to make my feet hurt less, but I’d have to remove one of the Phoenix Stones or the other, and Loiosh gave me the benefit of his opinion on the wisdom of that, so by the time I reached the cottage I’d come to the conclusion that I was very tired of walking. I explained this to Buddy when he came out to greet me. He wagged his tail and sneezed in sympathy. Good dog.

Savn was sitting next to the hearth this time, not facing it. The old woman was next to him, talking to him softly. As I came in I waited to see if he would acknowledge my presence, but it was as if I didn’t exist, as if nothing existed, even the old woman who was talking to him.

I walked over. “Hello, Savn,” I said.

He didn’t look at me, but he said, “Do you have a knife?”

I said, “Do you know my name?”

“You have a knife, don’t you?”

“You know who I am, don’t you Savn?”

“I ... I lost Paener’s knife, you know. I let it—”

“It’s all right, Savn. No one is angry about that. Do you know who I am?”

“It was a good knife. It was very sharp.”

“Let’s talk about something else, Savn.”

“I used it to cut—to cut things.”

The old woman said, “Savn, your sister is all right.”

He didn’t seem to hear her any more than he’d heard me, but his hands started opening and closing. We sat there, but he didn’t say anything else.

I looked at the old woman, who shrugged and stood up. She pulled me over to a corner and spoke in a low voice, saying, “I’m beginning to understand what’s going on with him.”

“His sister?”

She nodded. “She’s the key. He thinks he killed her, or something. I’m not sure. He isn’t really rational, you know.

He doesn’t know when he’s dreaming and when he’s really experiencing things.”

“I could bring him back and show her to him.”

She shook her head. “Not yet. He’d just think it was a dream.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Just what we’ve been doing. We keep talking to him, even though he only wants to talk about knives and cutting, and we try to get him to talk about other things.”

“Will that work?”

She shrugged. “If I’m right about what’s going on in his head, then it should help, eventually. But I don’t know what you mean by work. There’s no way to know how much he’ll recover, or what he’ll be like. But we might be able to get him to the point where he responds to us, and then maybe we can teach him to look after himself.”

“That would be good,” I said.

“How about my problem?”

“You mean, about the cottage?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure. I think I’ve figured out some of it. If my theories are right, you don’t have anything to worry about. But you ought to worry about the possibility that my theories are wrong.”

“All right,” she said. “What if you’re wrong?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

Chapter Twelve

I was up early, and, after almost enough klava, I stopped by the tailor’s to retrieve the items that I’d ordered. The tailor had, evidently, been thinking, which can be unhealthy, but it had only frightened him, which is a natural survival reaction. I reassured him with words and coins, got the items, and left him reasonably content. Then I went by a weaponsmith and picked up a few things. Then I found an inn that was serving breakfast, stepped into the privy, and, amid odors that I will not bother describing, I spent some time getting dressed and set—it took me a while to remember how to conceal knives about my person without them showing, which surprised me a little. I covered everything, including the cloak, with my regular, nondescript brown cloak, which was far too hot for inside the privy, but would be only slightly too warm for the walk out to Vonnith’s place.

I left the tavern a bit more bulky than I went in and made my plodding way out of Northport toward the home of our dear friend, Side-Captain Vonnith, and what is a side-captain, anyway?

There’s no need to tell you about the trip out there—you did it yourself. And my compliments, Kiera, on the accuracy of the report, which gave me an excellent idea of what to expect, and when to expect it. About half a mile away, then, I took off the extra cloak, and appeared before some nameless birds and small animals as me, the old me, Vlad Taltos, Jhereg, assassin, and friend to old ladies. I continued after stashing the brown cloak in a thicket at the side of the road, and Loiosh grudgingly agreed to wait outside after making a few remarks about who got to have all the fun. I guess his idea of fun is different than mine.

Or maybe not.

Vonnith’s guards got to me as I was walking up to the front door. Two of them, flanking me as neat as you please. They made no hostile moves, so I kept walking. They said, “My lord, may we be of some service to you?”

“If you wish,” I said. “You may tell the Side-Captain that a friend is here to see her.”

“A friend, my lord?”

“That’s right. Don’t I look friendly?” I smiled at them, but they didn’t answer. We reached the door. I said, “If you wish, you may tell her that I represent the Adrilankha Eleemosynary Society.”

“The—?”

“Adrilankha Eleemosynary Society.”

“Uh, wait just a moment,” he said. He was quiet for a time, I assume making psychic contact with someone, then he looked over at his companion and nodded once. The companion hadn’t opened his mouth the entire time, but he was standing the right distance away from me, so I assume he knew his business. In any case, they both inclined their heads to me slightly and went back to their stations. I shrugged, gave a last adjustment to my brand-new clothing, and pulled the clapper.

Hub appeared, looking just as you’d described him, and gave me a greeting that made me miss Teldra. Have you met Teldra? Never mind. He showed me in and brought me to the same room she met you in, and there was Vonnith, just where she was supposed to be.

She stood up and gave me a slight bow—I don’t think she knew how polite she was supposed to be to me—and started to speak. I sat down and said, “Give me the names of all the banks Fyres was involved in. I don’t need yours, we know about those. Which other ones?”

She frowned. “Why do you need to know that? And who are you, anyway?”

“I’m not going to tell you my real name; you should know that. And I don’t have the energy to invent a good one. You know who I work for—”

“You’re a Jhereg!”

“Yes. And an Easterner. What’s your point? We need to know what other banks Fyres was involved with, and we need to know before they go under.”

“But how can you not know? How can—?” She seemed very puzzled, but I had no interest in letting her work things out; I’d made that mistake yesterday.

“Maybe we do know,” I said, and let her put it together herself—wrong, of course. It’s disgustingly easy to let people lie to themselves, and they do it so much better than you can. But as she was coming to the conclusion that this was all a test, and deciding how she ought to react to that, she wasn’t considering the possibility that I wasn’t involved with anyone except an old hedge-wizard and a notorious thief.

She said, “I don’t know them all. I know the big ones, of course.”

“Size isn’t important; I mean the ones with heavy enough investments that they’re at risk, or at any rate they’ve been seriously hurt.”

“Oh,” she said, and somehow that made things all right—perhaps she decided that she wasn’t really being tested, we just didn’t know who was heavily committed to Fyres. Or maybe she came up with some other explanation, I don’t know. But I got what I was after. She said, “Well, the Bank of the Empire, of course.”

Cracks and shards! “Yes. Go on.”

“And the Turmoli Trust, and Havinger’s.”

“Quite.”

“Should I include the House treasuries?”

House treasuries?

“Yes.”

“Well, the only ones I know about are the Dragon and the Jhegaala. And the Orca, naturally.”

“Naturally,” I echoed, trying to keep my eyes from bulging too obviously. The Orca Treasury! The Dragon Treasury!

“I think those are the only Houses, or at least the only ones with potentially dangerous investments.”

“Not the Jhereg?” I said.

“No,” she said. “As far as I know, you—they are only in for small change. I think that was the deal to convince the Dragons to invest.”

“That would make sense,” I said. Besides, what does the Jhereg Treasury matter if all the Jhereg in Northport and half the Jhereg in Adrilankha had already gotten involved? But then, maybe they hadn’t—I still didn’t know what you were going to uncover in Adrilankha, I was just guessing based on what your friend Stony had said.

She kept talking, and I kept listening, but the details aren’t important. She named about twenty or thirty banks, trusts, and moneylenders who were either going under or were in danger of going under, and, as I said, the Bank of the Empire, which embodies the Imperial Treasury, was at the very top of the list.

What happens if the Empire has to file surrender of debts, Kiera? Who can it surrender its debts to? It occurs to me that there are probably scholars of the House of the Orca who sit around and discuss things like this, or write long books about it, but nothing like it had ever crossed my mind before. When she finally ran down, I said, “Good. That’s what we needed.”

“But you knew all that.”

“Maybe,” I said. “That isn’t your concern, is it?”

“I suppose not,” she said, and looked at me with maybe just the hint of suspicion.

As if it were just an afterthought to the conversation, I said, “Loftis was killed yesterday.”

“So I heard,” she said coolly. “Poor fellow. Do the authorities know who did it?”

“Nope,” I said.

She studied her fingernails. “I heard he was eating lunch with an Easterner at the time.”

She heard that? Well, maybe that explained why she was so ready to believe I was who I claimed to be. That was almost funny. “It’s possible,” I said.

“It seemed like a professional job.”

I looked at her and alarm bells went off inside my head. She knew as much about professionalism in assassination as I knew about professionalism in finance. And, in fact, it hadn’t been a professional job; at least, not the way the Jhereg would have done it. Too many people involved, and too much left to chance, including a target who had the opportunity to draw his blade and a witness left alive. Whoever killed Loftis, it wasn’t the Jhereg.

So who was it?

I tried to remember enough about the assassins to guess their House, but I couldn’t really. They weren’t Dzurlords, and they weren’t Dragonlords. Orca? Maybe. Probably.

But, above all, why was she pretending it was a Jhereg job? Did she think I was pretending it was a Jhereg job, and she was just going along with it, even though she knew better? I looked at her, and my instincts answered yes.

“What is it?” she said. I’d been looking at her, even though I hadn’t been aware of it, and apparently this was making her nervous. Good.

“What do you know?” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“You know something.”

“About what?”

“You tell me.”

“I don’t—”

“I know we didn’t do Loftis, and you know we didn’t do Loftis. You’ve been scared, and you’re getting ready to jump. You know something you shouldn’t know, and that’s scaring you, and well it should. What is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you?”

She tried to scowl at me. I stared back at her. I was Vlad again, a Jhereg assassin, if only for a moment, and she was an Orca—rich and fat, at least metaphorically. I’d become an assassin in the first place just for the pleasure of killing people like her. So I glared and waited, and eventually she cracked. It wasn’t obvious, but I could see her resistance break down, and she knew I could see.

I said, “Well? Who killed him?”

She shook her head.

I said, “Don’t be stupid. You know who I represent.

Whoever you’re scared of, you should be more scared of me. Now, which one of them was it?”

I threw in the “which one of them was it” phrase because it makes it sound like you know what you’re talking about even when you don’t, and this time it paid off. She said, “Reega.”

“Good,” I said. “Congratulations, you’ve just saved your life. How deep into her are you?”

“Heh,” she said. “I’m not into her, she’s into me.”

“Same thing, isn’t it? If she goes down, you follow her.”

She nodded.

“Very well, Side-Captain. You know that we’re all a little shy these days about throwing money at someone to keep an operation from going under—especially that bloodline. But it is possible something can be worked out.”

“Something has been worked out,” she snapped. “And if you people would just leave us alone—”

“You mean the land swindle? I know about that. What makes you think it’s going to work?”

“What do you mean?”

“It isn’t like it’s a secret, Side-Captain.”

“Who knows?”

“Everyone.”

“Everyone?”

“Except maybe the victims.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? As long as the v—as long as the tenants don’t find out, it doesn’t matter who else does.”

“Sure. But how long will it be until they realize what’s going on? And then what?”

“We’ll be gone by then.”

“Do you really think you can move that quickly?”

“We can be done this week.”

I pretended to consider. “It might work,” I said.

“It will work. The Empire won’t prosecute, and I don’t even know what law they’d prosecute under if they wanted to. Right now we’ve got twelve thousand tenants who will go into debt for life to buy land at three times its value. If that isn’t worth a little short-term Jhereg investment—”

“The Jhereg,” I said, “doesn’t have much to invest. You know why as well as I do.”

She shrugged. “But I also know that you can come up with the funds, if you want to.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “We can.”

“Boss! Trouble!”

“Just a moment,” I said. “What is it, Loiosh?”

“Someone’s just teleported in. Male, Jhereg colors, two bodyguards.”

“Oh, nuts.”

I stood up. “You must excuse me; there’s a problem back home. I’ll talk to my bosses.”

Hub came into the room and whispered in Vonnith’s ear. She nodded to him, then looked at me. “No need,” she said. “I think your boss is here already.”

I started heading toward where the back door had to be. “Boss, two more just appeared in back.”

I looked at her, and realized she was in psychic communication—no doubt with whoever the Jhereg was. She focused on me and said, “Who are you?”

“Now don’t you feel stupid,” I told her.

The back was out and the front was out. “Anyone watching the side windows, Loiosh?”

“Two.”

Damn.

“Who are you?”

“Did you tell him that there was one of his people here?” I asked. “And did you mention it was an Easterner?”

“Who are you?” she said, as I saw the affirmative in her eyes. She had no idea why he’d reacted as he had, but now I was trapped. If I teleported, they’d just trace it, and I’d have to remove the black Phoenix Stone. I looked around. Here was as good as anywhere, I decided. So the question was, stand, or attempt to break out? I drew my blade.

“Are they Jhereg at the side window?”

“No.Orca.”

So that was the best path. I came to this conclusion about ten seconds too late, however, as three of them walked into the room. The one in the middle I knew from your description had to be Stony.

“Vlad Taltos,” he said. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“You, too, dead man.”

He smiled.

His two “associates” spread out on either side of me. Vonnith said, “Not here!”

I said, “This is pretty sloppy work, you know, dead man.”

“I know,” said Stony. “Inelegant. But it’s the best we can do, under the circumstances.” He was armed as well, with a short, heavy sword, but he didn’t look like someone who’d be all diat good with it, whereas the two who were flanking me seemed to know their business.

“Boss?”

“I’m going to be busy in here in a minute, Loiosh. If anyone else shows up to join the party, let me know, and if any escape routes show up, let me know that, too.”

“Sure, boss,” he said in the tone that indicated he had his own plan and to the Falls with mine, so I wasn’t startled when there was the sound of breaking glass, although everyone else was.

I took two steps that lasted about ten years each, and I was very much aware that my back was to a pair of blades, but Stony was taking twenty years to stop looking at Loiosh, so he wasn’t ready for me and I took him, neat and clean, right through the heart. Then I turned around, drew a knife, and threw it at the one Loiosh wasn’t busy with. To my amazement it actually hit him point-first, sticking in a spot on the left side of his lower chest, where it would certainly give him something to think about, and gave me time to step away from Stony, who was still on his feet and therefore dangerous. I prepared another knife very carefully.

“Up!”

Loiosh flew straight up to the ceiling and I threw, and, wouldn’t you know it, the one I’d had time to aim hit him sort of edge-on in the stomach and did no damage to speak of, but that was all right, because Loiosh had scratched his face up pretty good and had bit him as well, so he probably had enough to keep him occupied.

I turned back to Stony, who picked that moment to fall over.

“Good work, Loiosh.”

“Let’s go, boss.”

Side-Captain Vonnith stared at us with her mouth hanging open. I said, “Sorry about your window,” and we headed for the front door, walking right in front of Hub, who looked like he wanted to say something polite but just couldn’t manage. Lady Teldra would have.

“Why don’t we teleport?”

“Because if Stony had any sense, he let someone know what was going down, and they’ll be looking for me with everything they’ve got, just in case. If I take off the Phoenix Stone, I’ll last just long enough to wish I hadn’t.”

“Oh.”

“Are you all right, Loiosh?”

“Pretty much, boss. I cut myself on the glass a bit, but it isn’t too bad.”

“Then why do you sound that way?”

“Well, okay, so I’m bleeding a bit.”

“Come here.”

I looked him over, and found a nasty gash just where his left wing joined his body, and another on the left side of his neck. Both of them were bleeding. He licked himself a bit and said, “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

He folded himself up and I tucked him under my cloak, trusting him to hold on, and I stepped out of the doorway, blade first.

There were two Jhereg in front of me, and a pair of Von-nith’s personal guardsmen next to them, and they all looked ready to scuffle. They stood, almost motionless, waiting for me to move. Back in the old days I’d have had a handful of nasty little things to throw at them to keep them busy, but these days I only had a few throwing knives, and I’d already lost half of them. It didn’t look good, especially with Loiosh clinging helplessly to the inside of my cloak; I was morally certain that if this came to a true melee, one of them would end up skewering my familiar by accident, and I would hate that.

I looked at how everyone was positioned, then I pointed to the two Orca, one at a time, with my blade. “You two,” I said. “Five hundred gold each if you nail these two for me.

No, they weren’t going to go for it, but the Jhereg couldn’t know that. They each stepped back and took a look at the Orca, and that was just long enough for me to nail one in the throat. He went down and I faced the other one for a second, then said, “Okay, so maybe you don’t want to attack them. I still think you’re best off out of there. This isn’t your fight, you know. And you won’t get any of the reward in any case. Ask the Side-Captain if you don’t believe me. I’ll wait.”

I’m afraid I lied to them, Kiera; while they were checking in, I took a step and a lunge, cutting the other Jhereg’s wrist, then shoulder, then face. He went back and I went forward and he tried to counter and I parried, riposted, and got him lightly in the chest. He backed up some more and raised his blade to charge me; I gave him a very nice cut on his forearm, and his blade fell to the ground.

“Get out of here,” I suggested. He turned and ran up toward the road without another word.

There’s no question mat the two Orca could have taken me then, but I had to hope they were a little intimidated by now, and that they weren’t even sure this was their fight in the first place—aside from which, I really expected to see a good number of Jhereg showing up any minute, so I didn’t have time for anything fancy. I looked at them; they shrugged and lowered their weapons.

“See you,” I said, and made tracks, aware of the weight of Loiosh clinging to my cloak, and to the increasing wetness against my side.

It was a long, long way to the main road, Kiera, but nothing untoward happened before I reached it. I headed back toward Northport, ducking into the woods as soon as there was enough woods to duck into.

“I think we might make it, Loiosh,” I said.

Then, “Loiosh?”

I stopped where I was, and if every assassin in the Empire had shown up just then, I don’t think I would have noticed. He was gripping the inside of my cloak, and the first thing I noticed was that his chest was still rising and falling, and there was still blood seeping from the two wounds. I took the cloak off and spread it on the ground, then I gently spread his wings so I could look at the injuries. They didn’t seem very deep, but the one near his wing was jagged and ugly. I spent a great deal of time looking for slivers of glass, but I didn’t find any, which was good.

I didn’t know what to do, so I cut the Jhereg cloak into strips and bandaged him up as best I could, binding his left wing tight to his body. Then I looked at the other wound and scowled mightily. I’d made jokes before, especially with Kragar and Melestev, about how they should be prepared to put a tourniquet around my throat if anyone cut it, but now that I was faced with the absurd problem of trying to put a bandage around Loiosh’s snakelike neck, there wasn’t anything funny about it. In the end, I just used a great deal of cloth and kept the wrapping loose enough so it wouldn’t stop his breathing, and then I pressed my hand against it and held it there.

“Loiosh?”

No response.

I picked him up and made my way through the woods, doing my best to keep track of where I was, but I’ve never been a good woodsman.

Some animals, I’m told, will fall into a deep sleep in order to heal themselves. I didn’t know if jhereg did that. Isn’t that funny? Loiosh and I had been together since I was a kid, and there were so many things I didn’t know about him. I wondered what that said about me, and whether it was something I wanted to hear. No doubt Savn—the old Savn, before he went away—would have had a great deal to say about it. He was a sharp kid, was Savn. I hoped that Savn wasn’t gone forever. I hoped Loiosh wasn’t gone forever. Cawti, the old Cawti, the woman I’d married, was probably gone forever. How much of all of this was my fault?

These were my thoughts, Kiera, as I tried to make my way to Northport, moving as fast as I could with the bundle of my familiar in front of me and thicket all around me. Good thing it was still daylight or I’d have killed myself; too bad it was daylight, because the Jhereg would have an easier time finding me. Where were they now? Had they arrived in force, and were they combing the woods, or had they not yet learned that I had escaped? They must, by now, have realized that Stony was dead, and at least they’d be sending someone to investigate.

There was a flapping above me, and I looked up, and there was Rocza. She landed on my shoulder and looked at me. Okay. I can take a hint.

I stopped, spread out the cloak, and removed the bandages from Loiosh’s wounds. Rocza waited patiently while I did so, then gave me a look of stern disapproval and began methodically licking the wounds clean. I don’t know if there’s something about jhereg saliva, or if she was using her poison and there’s something about that, but the bleeding had stopped by the time she was done. I reached out to pick up Loiosh, but Rocza hissed at me and I stopped. She picked him up in her talons, flapped once, and took to the air, though it seemed with a bit of trouble.

“Okay,” I said. “Have it your way.”

She flew in a careful circle, just over my head.

“I hope,” I said aloud, “that you can lead me back home. And that you want to, for that matter.”

I don’t know if she understood me, or if she thought of it on her own, but she began flying, and she did such a good job of letting me stay in sight that it can’t have been accidental. From time to time she would carefully lay Loiosh down in a tree limb, rest for a moment, and then fly around as if to scope out the area—maybe that’s what she was doing, in which case Loiosh had certainly taught her well, because we didn’t run into anyone. Once, when she had deposited Loiosh, another jhereg came and sat near him. Rocza returned and spread her wings and hissed with great enthusiasm, and the other jhereg flew off. I applauded silently.

Eventually the woods gave way to grassland, and I felt rather naked and exposed walking through it, except that by then it was growing dark, so I delayed a little while to give the darkness more time to settle in and get comfortable. Rocza didn’t like that, and hissed at me, but then she probably decided she needed the rest, too, so she set Loiosh down in the grass and licked him some more, and when the light had faded enough we started off again.

It took a long time, but eventually we found the road through the woods, and then we found the hideous blue cottage, and we were home. Buddy came out, looked at us, barked once, then followed us in. Rocza flew into the house, went straight to the table, and gently laid Loiosh on it. It was only when I noticed how pleasantly warm the place was that I realized I’d been cold.

The old woman stood up.

“It’s a long story,” I said, “and I don’t think you want to hear it. But Loiosh has been hurt, and—wait a minute.”

Rocza flew over to where Savn was staring off into space, landed on his shoulder, and hissed at him. Savn very slowly turned to face her. The old woman and I looked at each other, then turned back to them.

Rocza hissed again, then flew over to the table. Savn followed her with his eyes. She flew back to his shoulder, hissed, then flew back to Loiosh.

Savn rose unsteadily to his feet and walked over to the table, and looked down at Loiosh.

“I’ll need some water,” he said to no one in particular. “And a small needle, as sharp as you can find, and some stout thread, a candle, and clean cloth.”

He worked on Loiosh far into the night. Interlude

“You’re looking puzzled again, Cawti.”

“Yes. Your conversation with Loftis.”

“What about it?”

“How did you convince him that you were involved with the Empire?”

“Just what I said. I fed him a few details about things his group had been involved in.”

“But what details? What activities of theirs did you know about?”

“You and Vlad.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, he wanted to know that, too. He positively interrogated me about it.”

“And you said?”

“That I didn’t care to discuss it.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry.”

“I understand. How is Loiosh?”

“You want me to get ahead of the story?”

“Yes.”

“Loiosh is fine, as far as I know.”

“Okay.”

“Should I go on?”

“Please do.”

“All right.”

Chapter Thirteen

I sat for a long time after Vlad had finished speaking, digesting his words slowly and carefully, the way one might digest a seventeen-course Lyorn High Feast on Kieron’s Eve—a day I’ve never celebrated for personal reasons, though I’ve had the feast. I kept looking back and forth between Loiosh and Savn, who had perhaps gone a long way toward healing each other, although Loiosh showed no signs of injury save that he wasn’t moving much, and Savn showed no signs of healing save that he’d moved a little bit.

“Well?” said Vlad when he’d judged I’d been silent long enough.

“Well what?”

“Have you put it together?”

“Oh. Sorry, I was thinking about”—I gestured toward Savn—”other things.”

He nodded. “Do you want to try, or should I explain it?”

“Some of it, at least, is pretty obvious.”

“You mean, the land deal?”

“Yes. It was just a subtheme to the concerto: a few of them need to come up with a lot of cash in a hurry, so they buy out Fyres’s companies cheap, since they’re going under, anyway, then threaten people like our good Hwdfrjaanci with eviction to make them worried, then vanish so they don’t know what’s happening so they’ll panic, and then, in a day or two, our heroes will come back with offers to sell them the land at outrageous prices, in cash.”

He nodded. “With nice offers of loans at Jhereg-style interest rates to go with them.”

“So our hostess isn’t really in danger of losing her cottage, and, if she’s careful, she can probably avoid being overcharged too much. In fact, if we can come up with some cash for her, she can even avoid the interest rates.”

“I think we can do that,” said Vlad.

“Between us,” I said, “I have no doubt that we can.”

“What about the rest of it?” he said. “Can you put it together?”

“Maybe. Do you know it all?”

“Almost,” he said. “There’s still a piece or two missing, but I have some theories; and there’s also a lot of background stuff that you can probably explain.”

“What’s missing?”

“Loftis.”

“You mean, why did Reega have him killed?”

“Yes. If it was Reega.”

“You think Vonnith was lying?”

“Not lying. But we don’t know yet if it was Reega’s choice, or if she just arranged it.”

“Why would she arrange it?”

“Because she was in a position to. She had a lot to gain, and she was in touch with Loftis.”

“How do you know that?” I said.

“Because of the way she reacted when I told her the Empire was covering up something.”

“Oh, right. I’d forgotten. Yeah, she might have just arranged it. But, if so, who did she arrange it for? And why?”

“Good questions. That’s what I’m still missing.” He shook his head. “I wish I knew what ‘he didn’t break the stick’ means.”

“I think I know,” I said.

“Huh?”

“It goes back to the Fifth and Sixth Cycles, and even into the Seventh, before flashstones.”

“Yes?”

“Some elite corps were given sorcery. Nothing fancy, just a couple of location spells, and usually one or two offensive weapons to be used over a distance. They weren’t all that effective, by the way.”

“Go on.”

“Whoever was the brigade’s sorcerer would bind the spells into a stick so that any idiot could release the spell. They used wood because binding them into stone took longer and was more difficult, although also more reliable.” I shrugged. “You point the stick at someone, and you release the spell, which doesn’t take a lot of skill, and you get a nasty scrape on your palm, and whoever you pointed the stick at has a much nastier burn. You can kill with it, and at a pretty good distance, if your hand is steady and your eye is good and, mostly, if the spell was put on right in the first place. Which it usually wasn’t,” I added, “according to the histories.”

“But what does—”

“Right. The thing is, the sticks were smoothed a bit to take the spell, but otherwise they were just sticks. Once you got into battle, you might be looking around and see one on the ground, but you’d have no way of knowing if it was discharged or not—that is, unless you were fairly skilled, the only way to find out if it had been used already was to discharge it. You can imagine that it might be embarrassing to pick one up on the field and assume it had a charge when it didn’t, or even the reverse.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“So the custom was to break it in half as soon as you’d discharged it.”

“And you think that’s what he was talking about?”

“ ‘Breaking the stick’ became a handy way of referring to leaving a signal, especially a warning.”

“How long since it’s been used?”

“A long time.”

“Then—”

“He was a military historian, Vlad. Remember how he kept making references to obscure—”

“Got it.”

I shrugged. “Maybe it meant something else, but ...”

“Well, that’s all very interesting.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and I could practically hear the tides of his thoughts break against the shore of facts as he put things together in new ways; I waited and wondered. “Hmmm. Yes, Kiera, it’s all very interesting.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I think I have the rest of it. And then some.”

“And then some?”

“Yeah, I got more than I wanted. But never mind that, it doesn’t matter. Can you put it together?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Well, let’s see what we have. We have Fyres murdered, and someone desperate to hide that fact. We have companies he was into falling like Teckla at the Wall of Baritt’s Tomb. We have someone, or someones, in the Empire desperate to hide the fact that Fyres was murdered. Am I doing all right so far?”

“Yep. Keep going.”

“Okay. We have Jhereg involvement with Fyres, and Imperial involvement with the banks, and—wait a minute.”

“Yes?”

“Fyres owed the Jhereg. Fyres owed the banks. The banks and the Jhereg were depending on Fyres. The Empire was protecting the banks, and the banks were supporting the Empire. Have I got it?”

“Right. Conclusion?”

“The Empire is working with the Jhereg.”

“Exactly,” said Vlad. “Supporting the Jhereg, borrowing from the Jhereg, and, probably, using the Jhereg.”

“Just as you were saying.”

“Yeah, I guess it all seemed to be heading that way. But push it a little further, Kiera: what would the empire do if word of the Jhereg’s influence in the Empire was about to emerge into the public?”

I shrugged. “Everything it could to hide that fact.”

“Everything?”

I nodded. “Yes. Or, if it’s what you want, everything including covering up the Fyres murder, and even—yes, and even murdering their own investigator if they thought he was no longer reliable.”

“Yep. That’s what ‘he didn’t break the stick’ meant. It bothered me that someone like Loftis would be that careless. It either meant we were wrong about him or there was something we didn’t know, and now we’ve figured it out.”

“Yes,” I said. “He was set up by his own side.”

Vlad nodded. “He wasn’t given the warning he was supposed to get if there was any danger. They’d probably picked that spot out, and there was supposed to be some indication either that it was all right or that it wasn’t. And so he thought he was safe, and that’s why they could take him out so easily.”

“Right. Domm?”

“His name popped into my head,” said Vlad.

I nodded. “Domm would be a safe guess. Reega set it up, and Domm made sure Loftis wouldn’t be ready to defend himself, and they used you—”

I stopped, and looked at Vlad. He said, “What?” Then, “Oh.”

“They were too ready, and you were too convenient.”

“I didn’t give the game away,” said Vlad. “I didn’t slip up. They already knew about me when I walked in, which means they already knew about you.”

I nodded. “And that explains something else: namely, why it’s been so easy to fool these people. We haven’t fooled anyone, except maybe Vonnith. They’ve been playing with us, and letting us think we were playing with them.”

“Not Vonnith, either,” said Vlad. “She was onto me from the moment I first showed up.”

“Stony?”

“Yes. I figured that it was just bad timing, him being there right then. But she must have gotten hold of him when I got there, and then all she had to do was delay me until he was ready to move.”

I nodded.

He said, “Well, aren’t we a couple of idiots?”

I nodded again. “Stony,” I said. “That son of a bitch.”

“What now, then?”

“Now, Vlad? What is there to do? We’ve solved Hwdf rjaanci’s problem, which was all we intended, and we’ve figured out what’s going on, and we’ve also figured out that they had our number from the beginning. We’re done.”

He stared at me. “You mean, let them get away with it?”

I grinned. “I will if you will.”

“For a minute there,” he said, “you had me worried.” Then he frowned. “When do you think they caught onto us?”

“Early,” I said. “Remember Stony asking if I’d seen you?”

“Sure. I just figured it was a sign of how bad they want me, and they know we know each other.”

“That’s what I thought, too. And, right then, that’s probably all it was. But then they put it together. Fyres’s place is broken into, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay. You didn’t tell me why you wanted me to do that. If you had, maybe I’d have been messier, or done something atypical, but, as it was, it was a usual Kiera job, and anyone who knows my work, which certainly includes Stony, would—” I held up my hand as he started to speak. “No, I’m not blaming you: you had no reason to think I’d be involved after doing what you wanted; neither did I, really, I just got interested. But think about it. What’s the next thing that happens after I break into Fyres’s old place and steal his private papers?”

“You start asking Stony questions about him.”

“Right.”

“And we didn’t know that Stony was involved enough to be hearing everything that happened regarding Fyres, the banks, the investigations, and everything else.”

“That’s it,” I said. “Stony knows, right then and there, that I’m looking into Fyres’s death, though he probably doesn’t know why. But he knows Kiera the Thief is sniffing around the death of this rich guy who’s made so much trouble.”

“And then what does he do?”

I said, “He starts asking himself where the next logical place to look is, if someone is interested in Fyres’s death. And it is?”

“The Imperial investigation.”

“Exactly. So there he is, alerting Loftis and his merry band that Kiera the Thief might appear out of nowhere, or maybe someone working for Kiera. And who shows up there, right on schedule, but to everyone’s amazement?”

Vlad nodded. “I do,” he said, with more than a touch of bitterness in his voice. “In my great disguise that fooled them so completely.”

“Yes. Loftis is looking for people to show up asking questions, and he’s looking carefully for anyone in disguise, and there you are. We had no way of knowing that Loftis and Stony were in touch—and maybe they weren’t, directly. But, one way or another, Stony hears that Loftis had a visit from an Easterner trying to disguise himself as a Chreotha. ‘Tell me about this Easterner,’ he probably says. “And what kind of questions did he ask?’ “

Vlad nodded. “Yes. And, all of a sudden, you and I are tied together, looking into Fyres’s death.”

“Right. Now the Jhereg is hot for you. Somehow or other, Reega learns of it.”

“Not somehow or other,” said Vlad. “Because they went to her, the same way they went to Vonnith, and probably Endra as well. After all, they followed me. I let them. I thought I was being clever. Vonnith is so far into the Jhereg that she had no choice, and they probably offered her a good piece of change to help them. But Reega had her own ideas.”

“You’re right,” I said. “That’s probably how it worked. If we’d gone back to Reega, rather than to Vonnith, the same thing would have happened, most likely. But first, Reega either decided or, more likely, was told to get rid of Loftis.”

“Yes. And Loftis was told to try to pump me. So Loftis tries to pump me, and he brings me to this place where the arrest is planned, and then, bang, no more Loftis. All without the Jhereg’s knowledge, because the Jhereg wouldn’t have let me out of there alive. Do I have it?”

“That’s how I read it,” I said.

“Kiera, we have been thoroughly taken.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t like it any more than I do, do you?”

“Rather less, in fact, I would imagine.”

“So, what are we going to do about it?”

“At the moment,” I said, “I cannot say. But, no doubt, something will occur. Let us consider the matter.”

“Right,” said Vlad, who was looking at me a little funny.

I said, “What about the information from Vonnith? Can we trust it, if she knew you weren’t who you claimed to be?”

“I think so,” said Vlad. “She knew her job; she was supposed to keep me there long enough for them to kill me. Why bother to think up lies when the guy who’s hearing the truth is about to become deceased?”

“Good point.”

“So, what now?”

I said, “Lieutenant Domm?”

“Eh?” said Vlad. And, “Oh. You think he’s the one who wanted Loftis out of the way? There was no love lost between them, but they were in the same corps.”

“Were they?” I said.

“Eh?”

“Think back to that conversation you overheard—”

“You don’t mean that was staged, do you? I don’t believe—”

“Neither do I. No, at that point they didn’t know who you were, and they weren’t looking for witchcraft. I mean after that.”

“My talk with Domm at the Riversend?”

“Yes. They probably hadn’t had time to figure out who you were yet, so you might have even had them fooled. But maybe not. Think over that conversation. You made Domm slip and let what’s-her-name, Timmer, know that something wasn’t right.”

“What about it?”

“I think that was legit. But what evidence is there that Domm was in the same corps as Loftis?”

“Then who—”

“Who would normally conduct such an investigation?”

“Uh ... I don’t remember. That group that reports to Indus?”

“Right. The Surveillance group. And there almost had to be someone from that group involved, just because it would look funny if there weren’t.”

“But now we’re implicating Indus.”

“So? As far as I can tell, Vlad, we’re implicating everyone in the Empire with the possible exception of Her Majesty and Lord Khaavren.”

“I don’t think you realize what we’re dealing with here, Vlad.”

“You mean it’s that big?”

“No, I mean it’s that—I don’t know the word—pervasive. We’ve been looking for corrupt officials, and checking them off our list when we decided they weren’t corruptible. But that isn’t the point at all.”

“Go on,” he said, frowning.

“Corruption doesn’t enter into it. Oh, maybe Shortisle, or someone on his staff, is lining his pocket. But that’s trivial. What’s happening here is everyone involved in the mechanism of the Empire is working together to do his job just the way he’s supposed to.”

“Come again?”

“The Empire is nothing more than a great big, overgrown, understaffed, and horribly inefficient system for keeping things working.”

“Thank you,” he said, “for the lesson in government. But—”

“Bear with me, please.”

He sighed. “All right.”

“By things,” I said, “I mean, mostly, trade.”

“I thought putting down rebellions was the big thing.”

“Sure,” I said. “Because it’s hard to trade if there’s a rebellion in progress.” He smiled, and I shook my head. “No, I’m really not kidding. Whether a certain piece of ground is ruled by Baron Wasteland or Count Backward doesn’t make a difference to much of anyone, except maybe our hypothetical aristocrats. But if the trees from that piece of ground don’t reach the shipwrights here in Northport, then, eventually, we’re going to run out of that particular lime they have in Elde, which we use as an agent mixed with our lime to make mortar to keep our buildings from falling down.”

“Reminds me of the couple who didn’t know the difference between—”

“Hush. I’m being grandiloquent.”

“Sorry.”

“And we’d also, by the way, run out of that lovely Phoenix Stone from Greenaere that I think you know something about. That’s one of the simplest examples. Do you want to hear about how a dearth of wheat from the Northwest shuts down all the coal mines in the Kanefthali Mountains? I didn’t think so.

“The point,” I continued, “is trade. If it weren’t for the Empire, which controls it, everyone would make up his own rules, and change them as occasion warrants, and create tariffs that would send prices through the overcast, and everyone would suffer. If you need proof, look to your homeland, and consider how they live, and think about why.”

“Life span has something to do with that,” he said. “As does the tendency of the Empire to invade whenever it doesn’t have anything better to do.”

“Trade has more to do with it.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “I suppose. But how does all of this relate to corruption among the great and wonderful leaders of our great and wonderful—”

“That’s what I’m saying, Vlad. It isn’t corruption. It’s worse—it’s incompetence. And, worse than that, it’s inevitable incompetence.”

“I’m listening, Kiera.”

“Why does a banker go into business?”

“I thought we were talking about the Empire?”

“Trust me.”

“All right. A banker goes into business because he’s an Orca and he doesn’t like the sea.”

“Stop being difficult.”

“What do you want?”

“Obvious answers to stupid questions. Why does a banker go into business?”

“To make money.”

“How does he make money.”

“He steals it.”

“Vlad.”

“AH right. The same way a Jhereg moneylender does, only he doesn’t make as much because his interest rate is lower and he has to pay taxes—though he does save some in bribes.”

“Spell it out for me, Vlad. How does a banker make money?”

He sighed. “He makes loans to people and charges them for it, so they pay him more than he loaned them. In the Jhereg, interest is calculated so that—”

“Right. Okay. Here’s another easy one: what determines how much profit a banker makes?”

“How much money he loans, and at what interest rate. What do I win?”

“So what keeps him from running up the interest rates?”

“All the other bankers.”

“And what keeps them from getting together and agreeing to raise the rates?”

“Competition from the Jhereg.”

“Wrong.”

“Really? Damn. And I was doing so well. Why is that wrong?”

“I’ll put it another way: what keeps them from getting together, including the Jhereg, and fixing interest rates that way?”

“Uh ... hmm. The Empire?”

“Congratulations. The Empire sets limits on the rates, because the Empire has to take loans out, too, and if the Empire got rates that were too much better than everyone else’s, the Great Houses would object, and the Empire has to always play the Houses off against each other, because, really, the Empire is just the sum of the Great Houses, and if they all combined against the Empire ...”

“Got it. No more Empire.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, so the Empire fixes the maximum loan rate.”

“Rates. There are several, having to do with, well, all sorts of complicated things. That’s Shortisle’s job.”

“Got it. Okay, go on. So, in effect, the maximum profit a banker can get is set by law.”

“Nope.”

“Uh ... okay, why not?”

“Because there’s another way to maximize profits.”

“Oh, right. Loan more money. But you can’t make loans if people don’t need the money.”

“Sure you can. You can create the need.”

“You mean the land swindle?”

“No. That’s trivial. Oh, I’m sure that’s why it’s being done, but it isn’t happening on anywhere near the scale that would pull the Empire into it.”

“All right. Go on, then. How?”

“Undercut the Jhereg.”

He shrugged. “They always do that. But the Jhereg moneylenders stay in business, anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because we aren’t as fussy about making sure the customer can pay us back, because we have our own ways of making sure we get paid back.”

It was interesting that Vlad still thought of the Organization as “we,” but I didn’t choose to comment on that. I said, “Exactly. And so ... ?”

He frowned. “You mean they start making it easier to get loans?”

“Precisely.”

“But then, what if the loans aren’t paid back?”

“Vlad, I’m not talking about small stuff, like someone wanting to buy a house. I’m talking about big finance, like someone wanting to start a major shipping firm.”

He smiled. “Just to pick an example by random? Well, all right. So then what happens?” He answered his own question. “Then the banks go under. That’s stupid business.”

“Maybe. But what if you don’t have any choice?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you had a pile of cash—”

He smiled. I’d forgotten how much money he had.

“Let me rephrase. If you had a pile of cash that you wanted to put into a bank—”

“Ah!”

“Which bank would you choose?”

“I wouldn’t. I’d give it to an Organization moneylender.”

“Work with me, Vlad.”

“All right. I don’t know. I guess the one that had the best rates.”

“What if they were all the same?”

“Then the one that seemed the most reliable.”

“Right. What makes a bank reliable? Or, more precisely, what would make you think a bank was reliable?”

“I don’t know. How long it’s been around, I suppose, and its reputation, how much money it has.”

“How do you know how much money it has?”

“The Empire publishes lists of that sort of thing, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. Another of Shortisle’s jobs.”

“You mean he’s been lying?”

“Not exactly. Don’t get ahead of me. What determines how much money the bank has, or, rather, how much money the Empire reports the bank as having? I mean, do you think they go in and count it?”

“Well, sort of. Don’t they do audits?”

“Yes. And do you know how the audits work?”

“Not exactly.”

“They look at how much gold they claim to have on hand and compare it with what they find in the vaults, and then—here’s the fun part—they look at their paperwork and add the amount they have, as we’d put it, on the street.

And the more money they have on the street, the richer they are. Or, rather, the richer they look.”

He frowned. “So, you mean, if they start making risky loans, it looks like they’re doing really well, when in fact they may be—”

“Tottering on the edge of ruin. Yes.”

He didn’t speak for a moment. Savn was snoring in a corner, Buddy curled up on one side of him, Rocza on the other, with Loiosh next to her. There were occasional sounds from the predators outside, but nothing else. I gave Vlad some time to think over what I’d told him.

Eventually he said, “The Empire—”

“Yes, Vlad. Exactly. The Empire.”

“Aren’t they supposed to check on things like that?”

“They do their best, sure. But how many banks are there making how many loans? Do you really thing Shortisle has the means to inspect every loan from every bank to make sure it isn’t too risky? And, even if it is, it has to be pretty extreme before the Empire has the right to step in.”

“But—”

“Yes, but. But if several banks fail all at once, then what happens to trade?”

“It falls apart. And they can’t allow that.”

“So what do they do?”

“You tell me,” said Vlad.

“All right. First of all, they curse themselves soundly for having allowed things to get into that sort of mess in the first place.”

“Good move. Then what?”

“Then they try to cover for the banks as much as they can.”

“Ah ha.”

“Right. If word get out that Fyres was murdered, then they’ll have to find out why, and then—”

“Right,” said Vlad. “Then word will get out that lots of big banks, starting with the Verra-be-damned bank of the Verra-be-damned Empire, are very rich on paper and, in fact, are on the edge of taking that big tumble into oblivion. And if that happens—”

“Panic, bank runs, and—”

“Trade goes overboard in a big way.”

I nodded. “That’s what I didn’t see right away. This isn’t a few slimebags in the Empire lining their pockets, this is the Empire doing what it’s supposed to do—protecting trade.”

He shook his head. “And all of this starting off just because somebody knocked a big-time scam artist in the head.”

“A big-time, extremely wealthy scam artist.”

“Yes. Only one thing.”

“Yes, Vlad?”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Well, this sort of mess isn’t good for anyone, right?”

“Right.”

“So if all this was set off by Fyres’s death, why was he killed?”

I stared off into space for a moment, then I said, “You know, Vlad, that is a very, very good question.”

“Yeah, I thought so. So what’s the answer?”

“I don’t know.”

“And here’s another question: with Stony dead, is the Jhereg still onto me? I mean, are they still breathing down my neck, or do I have a little time to find the answer to the first question?”

I nodded. “That one I think I can find the answer to.”

“I’d appreciate it. What about the other one?”

“We’ll see,” I said. “I’ll be back.”

“I’ll wait here,” he said.

Chapter Fourteen

I left the cottage and was instantly in Northport; a quicker teleport than was my custom, but I realized after I performed it that there was a feeling of urgency within me that was still growing.

So I deliberately teleported to a place more than a mile away and made myself walk the rest of the distance so I could calm down. I strolled casually—at least, I did my best to stroll casually—through the narrow, winding streets, where the second-floor balconies almost touched each other and the roofs all but hid the sky, until I arrived at a place I knew. This time Dor was in.

He looked up when I came in, and he seemed afraid. That made me sad. The last thing I want is to inspire fear. I said, “What’s wrong, Dor?”

His brow furrowed, and he said, “You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t, unless it’s about Stony’s death. But I had nothing to do with that.”

“That Easterner did.”

“Perhaps.”

“No perhaps about it. We were able to revivify Raafla, and he told us.”

“I imagine Stony hasn’t been saying much.”

He glared at me. “That isn’t funny. I liked him.”

Liked.

Past tense.

“What do you mean?” I said. “Hasn’t he been revivified?”

“You know damned well—”

“Dor, I know very little ‘damned well’; even less than I’d thought. What are you telling me?”

“He wasn’t revivifiable.”

“He wasn’t? What happened?”

He stared. “You really don’t know?”

“Please tell me, Dor. What happened?”

“The kind of spells assassins always use, that’s what.”

If Vlad had ever used those sorts of spells, I sure didn’t know about it. And he hadn’t said anything ....

“You’d better tell me all about it,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m curious, and because I need to know.”

“If you’re looking for your friend,” he said bitterly, “he’ll be long gone by now.”

“Tell me, please,” I said.

He did so.

His story shook me up enough that I had trouble believing it, so after leaving him there, I used some of my other contacts in Northport to verify it. The details aren’t important, but the story stayed the same. I was convinced, and also confused, but I’d at least answered Vlad’s second question, about whether the Jhereg thought he was still in town.

About Vlad’s first question, why was Fyres killed, I still had no clue, but I returned at once to tell Vlad what I’d learned. When I arrived at the blue cottage, and had said hello to Buddy, I found Vlad sitting near the hearth having a one-sided conversation with Savn.

Vlad looked at me, blinked, and stood up. We moved over to the table in the kitchen and I sat down. Vlad brought me some klava. “The honey is almost gone,” he said. “And we haven’t been stung too badly.”

“Yet,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows.

I said, “Well, Vlad, it goes like this.”

He poured himself a cup, sweetened it, and said, “Not here.”

“All right,” I said.

Vlad and I stepped outside. Loiosh rode on his shoulder and seemed better, but I hadn’t seen him flying yet. Vlad leaned against a tree and said, “Uh-huh?”

“The first item is that, while everyone knows you shined Stony, no one has any idea of the circumstances. They figure he somehow found you and wanted to be there personally for the kill, and you were too quick, or too tough, or too nasty for him. Which means, I suppose, that next time they’ll be even more careful.”

“Next time,” said Vlad, smiling wryly. “I can hardly wait.”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure they told you the truth? I mean, we’re known to be friends, and—”

“Vlad, I didn’t come right out and ask, you know. Trust me.”

“All right.”

“There’s more. Everyone is pretty sure you’ve left town.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s what any of them would do.”

“So, for the moment, I’m safe.”

“Yes. Until you do something stupid.”

“Right. So I’m safe for another five minutes, anyway. All right. Anything else?”

“Yes,” I said. “One more thing: there’s also some speculation that you had it in for Stony personally, and no one knows why.”

He shrugged. “They’re wrong. So what?” Then he looked at me again and said, “All right, let’s have it. Why do they think so?”

“Because otherwise why, in the middle of a fight, would you have taken the time to put the spells on him that make him unrevivifiable?”