by Steven Brust
"I understand," I said.
He kept his eyes fastened on mine. I was uncomfortably aware that my back was to the door. Normally this doesn't bother me because most of the time Loiosh is there.
After a moment he shook his head. "How long has it been, Baronet? Three years that you've been working for me?"
"About that," I said.
He nodded. "You've been earning pretty good, and keeping your buttons polished, and not spilling anyone's wine. There were people in the Organization who were nervous about an Easterner trying to run a territory, but I told them, 'Give the lad a chance, see what he does,' and you've done all right."
This didn't seem to call for a response, so I waited.
"Of course," he continued, "there's been a bit of trouble from time to time, but as near as I can tell you haven't started it. You haven't been too greedy, and you haven't let anyone push you around. The money's been coming in, and your books have been balancing. I like that."
He paused again; I waited again.
"But now," he said, "I'm hearing things I don't like so much. Any idea what I've been hearing?"
"You've heard that I use paper flowers on my dining table? It's not true, boss. I—"
"Don't try to be funny, all right? I've heard that you've been associating with a group of Easterners who want to bring about the next Teckla reign early, or who maybe want to just throw the whole Cycle out, or something on this order. I don't care what the particulars are. But these people, their interests don't coincide with ours. Do you understand this?"
I stared at the ceiling, trying to sort things out. The fact was, I didn't really have anything to do with those people, except that my wife happened to be one of them. But, on the other hand, I didn't feel like explaining myself. I said, "To tell you the truth, I think these people are harmless nuts."
"The Empire doesn't think so," he said. "And there are some people above me in the Organization who don't think so, either. And there are some who want to know what you're doing with them."
I said, "I've just taken over Herth's interest in South Adrilankha. Why don't you relax for a while, see what the profits look like, and then decide?"
He shook his head. "We can't do that. Word's come down from our Imperial contacts that, well, you don't need to know the details. We have to make sure that no one in our organization is involved with those people."
"I see."
"Can I have your assurance that you won't be involved with them in the future?"
He was staring at me hard. I almost felt threatened. I said, "Tell me something: Why is that every time I talk to someone who's high up in the Organization, you always sound the same? Do you go to some special school or something?"
"I wouldn't say I'm high up," he said.
"Now you're just being modest. No, I take it back. The Demon doesn't sound like the rest of you."
"How do we sound?"
"Oh, you know. The same sort of short sentences, like you want to get in all the facts and nothing more."
"Does it work?"
"I guess so."
"Well, there you are."
"But if I ever get that high, am I going to sound like that, too? It worries me. I may have to change all my plans for the future."
"Baronet, I know you're a real funny guy, okay? You don't have to prove it to me. And I know you're tough, too, so you don't have to prove that, either. But the people I'm dealing with on this aren't interested in a jongleur, and they're a lot tougher than you are. Are we clear on that?"
I nodded.
"Good. Now, can you give me any assurances about these Easterners?"
"I can tell you they don't like me. I don't like them, either. I don't have any plans to have anything to do with them. But I control that area now, and I'm going to run it as I see fit. If that brings me into contact with them, I can't tell you how I'll handle it until it comes up. That's the best I can do."
He nodded slowly, looking at me. Then he said, "I'm not sure that's good enough."
I matched his gaze. I was armed and he knew it, but I was in his office, in the one chair he had. If he had done half the things in his office that I'd done in mine, he could kill me without moving a muscle. But sometimes it's safer not to back down. I said, "It's the best I can do."
A moment later he said, "All right. We'll leave it at that and see what happens. Leave the door open when you leave." He stood up as I did and gave me a bow of courtesy. As I was leaving the building, the sorcerer who'd brought me there offered to teleport me back. I declined. It was only a couple of miles.
"But my feet are already sore," said Kragar.
The sorcerer jumped about twenty feet straight up. I managed not to, though it was close.
"How long have you been here?" he said.
Kragar looked puzzled and said, "You teleported me yourself; you should know."
I said, "Sorry, it looks like a walk today," and we left before the sorcerer could decide if he ought to do anything. When we were safely away, we let ourselves laugh good and hard.
It was well past midnight when Cawti returned. Rocza flew from her shoulder and greeted Loiosh, while Cawti threw her gloves at the hall stand, flopped onto an end of the couch, pulled her boots off, wriggled her toes, stretched like a cat, and said, "You're up late."
"Reading," I said, holding up the heavy volume as evidence.
"What is it?"
"A collection of essays by survivors of Adron's Disaster and the early years of the Interregnum."
"Any good?"
"Some of them are. Most of them don't have anything to do with the Adron's Disaster or the Interregnum, though."
"Dragaerans are like that."
"Yes," I said. "Mostly they want to talk about the inevitability of cataclysm after a Great Cycle, or the Real True Ultimate Meaning of the rebirth of the Phoenix."
"Sounds dull."
"Is, for the most part. There are a few good ones. There's an Athyra named Broinn who says that it was the effort to use sorcery during the Interregnum, when it was almost impossible, that forced sorcerers to develop the skill that makes sorcery so powerful now."
"Interesting. So he doesn't think the Orb was changed by going to the Halls of Judgment?"
I nodded. "It's sort of an attractive theory."
"Yes, it is. Funny that it never crossed my mind."
"Nor mine," I said. "Seen our houseguest?"
"Not lately. He's probably all right."
"I guess. He's not the type to get himself into trouble. I still wonder if he's a spy."
"Do you care?"
"I care if he made a dupe of me. Other than that, no. I don't feel any special loyalty to the Empire, if that's what you're asking."
She nodded and stretched again, arms over her head. Her hair, long and dark brown and curling just a bit at the end, was pleasantly disarrayed over her narrow face. Her warm eyes always seemed big for her face, and her dark complexion made it seem as if she was always half in shadow. I ached for her, but I was getting used to that. Maybe I'd get used to not seeing the little tic of her lip before she made an ironic remark, or the way she'd stare at the ceiling with her head tilted, her brow creased, and her wrists crossed on her lap when she was really thinking hard about something. Maybe I'd get used to that. Then again, maybe not.
She was looking at me, eyes big and inquiring, and I wondered if she guessed what I'd been thinking. I said, "Are your people up to anything that you can tell me about?"
Her expression didn't change. "Why?"
"I got called in today. The back room wants me to assure them I'm not cooperating with Kelly. I think something's going on with the Empire, and the Organization thinks something's going on in South Adrilankha."
Her gaze didn't leave mine. "There's nothing going on that I can tell you about."
"So you people are up to something."
She stared at me vacantly, a look that meant she was pondering something, probably how much to tell me, and didn't want the reflect
ions of her thoughts careening across her face. At last she said, "Not the way you mean it. Yes, we're organizing. We're building. You've probably seen things in your own area."
"A few," I said. "But I can't tell how serious it is, and I need to know."
"We think things are going to break soon. I can't give you details of—"
"How soon?"
"How soon what? An uprising? No, nothing like that. Vlad, do you realize how easy it is for the Empire to find out what we're doing?"
"Spies?"
"No, although that's possible, too. I mean that the spells for listening through walls are far more readily available to the Empire than the spells to counteract them are to us."
"That's true, I guess." I didn't say that I had trouble imagining the Empire being concerned enough about them to bother; that wouldn't have gone over well. On reflection, what with the Phoenix Guards all over the place, it might not be true, either.
"All right," she continued. "That means that what we do can't really be secret. So it isn't. When we make plans, we assume the Empire could find out about them as they're made. So we don't hide anything. A question like 'How soon?' doesn't mean anything, because all we're doing is preparing. Who knows? Tomorrow? Next year? We're getting ready for it. Conditions there—"
"I know about conditions there."
"Yes," she said. "You do."
I stared at her for a moment and tried to come up with something to say. I couldn't, so I grunted, picked up my book, and pretended to read.
An hour or so later Aibynn clapped at the door and came in. He ducked his head like a Teckla, smiled shyly, and sat down. His drum was clutched under his arm, as was something that looked like a rolled-up piece of paper.
"Been playing?" I asked him.
He nodded. "I found this," he said, and unrolled the thing.
"Looks like a piece of leather," I said.
"It is," he said. "Calfskin." He seemed unreasonably excited.
"Don't you have cows on the island? I'm sure I saw—"
"But look how thin it is."
"Now that you mention it, it is pretty transparent. Are the cows different here?"
He shook his head impatiently, "It's the tanning and cutting. I've never seen calfskin this thin. It's as thin as fish skin, and warmer."
"Warmer?"
"That's how they make those big drums sound so good."
" What big drums?"
"The ones outside the Imperial Palace, that they play every day to announce the ceremonies and things."
"I've never noticed them."
"You haven't? They're huge, like this." He stuck his arms way out. "And they get about ten of them going at once and—"
"Now that you mention it, I have heard some of that, behind the homs, doing the Reckoning every day."
"Is that what it's called? But now I know how they get the drums to sound that way. Calfskin. I'd never have believed it. They work better in the air here, too."
"The air?"
"The air in the city is really dry. I haven't been able to make my drum sound right since I got here."
This was the first time I'd ever heard anyone suggest that Adrilankha, a city pushed flat against the southern coast, was too dry. "Oh," I said.
"Why do they wear masks?"
"Who?"
"The drummers."
"Oh. Hmmm. I've never thought about it."
He nodded and wandered off to the blue room. As he left, he was running his fingers across the piece of leather, still holding his drum under his arm.
I noticed Cawti looking at me, but I couldn't read her expression.
"Calfskin," I told her. "They make the drums out of calfskin."
"Nothing to it, when you know," she said.
"Maybe that's our problem, though. Maybe the air here is too dry for us."
She smiled gently. "I've suspected that for a long time."
I nodded and settled back in my chair. Rocza landed on her arm and stared up at me quizzically. "Calfskin," I told her. She flew off again.
I sat in the lower east parlor of Castle Black and looked at the Lord Morrolan. He didn't look so tall sitting down.
After a while he said, "What is it, Vlad?" '
"I want to talk about revolution."
He cocked his head and raised both eyebrows. "Please?"
"Revolution. Peasant uprising. Violence in the streets."
"What about it?"
"Could it happen?" - "Certainly. It has before."
"Successfully?"
"That depends upon the meaning you choose for success. There have been rulers slain by their own peasants. During the War of the Barons there was a case where an entire county—I believe Longgrass—was turned into—"
"I mean more long-term success. Could the peasants take and hold power?"
"In the Empire?"
"Yes."
"Impossible. Not until the Cycle points to the Teckla, in any case, which will be several thousand years from now. We'll both be safely dead by then."
"You're quite certain?"
"That we'll be dead?"
"No, that it couldn't happen."
"I'm certain. Why?"
"There's this group of revolutionaries that Cawti's gotten involved with."
"Ah, yes. Sethra mentioned something about them a few weeks ago."
"Sethra? How would she know?"
"Because she is Sethra."
"Mmmm. What did she say?"
Morrolan paused, looking up at the ceiling as he remembered. "Very little, actually. She seemed to be concerned, but I don't know why."
"Perhaps I should speak with her, then."
"Perhaps. She will be coming here later this evening to discuss the war."
I felt a frown settle around my lips. "What war?"
"Well, there isn't one yet. But surely you've heard the news."
"No," I said hesitantly. "What news?"
"An Imperial cargo vessel, the Song of Clouds, was rammed and sunk yesterday by raiders from Greenaere." "Greenaere," I said, swallowing bile. "Oh."
Lesson Seven
Matters Of State I
Morrolan, Aliera, and I lunched in the small den, with an opening onto a balcony that looked down at the ground a mile below. I did not partake of the view. Morrolan's cooks prepared a cold soup of duck with cinnamon, an assortment of chilled fruit, kethna with thyme and honey, various green vegetables with ginger and garlic, and wafers dipped in a strawberry glaze. As was his custom, he laid out several wines with the meal, rather than selecting one for each course. I had a dry white from the Tan Coast, and stayed with it for the whole meal, except for dessert, when I switched to what my grandfather would have called plum brandy, but the Dragaerans called plum wine.
The subject was war. Aliera's green eyes were bright as she speculated about landings on Greenaere, while Morrolan thoughtfully considered naval commissions. I kept trying to find out why it was happening. After shrugging off the question several times, Aliera said, "How can we know why they did it?"
"Well, hasn't there been any communication between the Empire and the island?"
"Perhaps," said Morrolan. "But we know nothing of it."
"You could ask Norathar—"
"There is no need," said Aliera. "She'll tell us as much as she can, when she can."
I glowered into my duck and tossed down more wine. I don't usually toss wine down; I tend to drink it in installments of two or three gulps at a time. Aliera, who holds her glass like she's holding a bird, bottom two fingers properly under the stem, takes tiny lady-like sips at dinner, but when she's out in the field, as I happen to know, she'll slug it down like anyone else. Morrolan always holds the glass by the bowl, as if it were a stemless tumbler, and takes long, slow sips, his eyes looking across at his dinner partner, or the person with whom he is speaking. Now he was looking at me. He replaced his glass, which contained something thick and purple, and said, "Why are you so interested?"
Aliera snorted before I had
time to speak. "What do you think, cousin? He was just there, and everyone was after him. He wants to know if whatever he did caused this. I don't know why he should care, but that's what he's after."
I shrugged. Morrolan nodded slowly. "What did you do?"
"Nothing I can talk about."
"He probably killed someone," said Aliera.
Morrolan said, "Did you kill someone of sufficient importance to prompt anger at the Empire?"
"Let's change the subject," I said.
"As you wish," said Morrolan.
Ginger and cinnamon were the main scents of this meal. Loiosh sat on my left shoulder and received occasional scraps. He thought there was too much ginger in the vegetable dish. I told him that, in the first place, there was no such thing as too much ginger and, in the second, jhereg don't eat vegetables. He was saying something jhereg in the wild versus civilized jhereg when one of Morrolan's servants, an elderly woman who moved like a Serioli water clock and had streaks of black in her grey hair, entered and announced, "Sethra Lavode."
We all stood. Sethra entered, bowed slightly, and seated herself between Aliera and me. She always preferred to be announced without titles; part of her mystique, I guess, though I couldn't say if it was sincere or contrived. You haven't met her yet, so picture if you will a tall Dragaeran wearing a black blouse with big, puffy sleeves drawn tight around her wrists, black trousers tucked into calf-high black boots, a silver chain from which hung a pendant depicting a dragon's head with two yellow gems for eyes, and long silver dangling-things on her ears that glittered when she moved. She had the high, sharp cheekbones of a Dragonlord and the pointed Dzur hairline. Her eyes, which slanted upward as a Dzurlord's, were dark and set deep in her head, and looking into them one always felt the danger of being lost in the thousands of years of un-dead memory she held. Iceflame, blue hilt against the black, created echoes inside my mind. She was a vampire, a sorcerer, a warrior, and a statesman. Her powers were legendary. Sometimes I thought she was my friend.
"You are discussing the war, I presume?" she said.
"We have been," said Morrolan. "Have you news?"
"Yes. Greenaere has formed an alliance with Elde Island."
Aliera and Morrolan exchanged looks that I couldn't interpret, then Morrolan said, "That's rather surprising, considering their histories."
