Five Hundred Years After

by Steven Brust

  "Yes?" said Khaavren. "Therefore?"

  "The only way to disrupt the working of the Orb is to hide His Majesty from it—that is, to make His Majesty invisible to the Orb."

  "Could this be done?"

  "Zerika was clever," said Sethra, still speaking softly and. moreover, keeping her back to the room, so that no one behind her could overhear. "It can only be done by, in turn, psychically hiding the Orb from His Majesty—in other words, by severing the psychic link between Emperor and Orb."

  "That sounds impossible," said the Emperor, with a glance up at the Orb—which was still placidly revolving around his head, now emitting a rosy glow—and seeming not at all self-conscious.

  "Very nearly," said Sethra. "It would require an immense amount of energy—an almost inconceivable amount to break the connection between Your Majesty and the Orb. And even then, I think it would fail."

  "Why would it then fail, if sufficient power were used: to penetrate its defenses?"

  Sethra smiled. "Zerika, as I said, was clever; when the Orb detects enough energy in its presence to be a threat, well, it will, in a sense, pull into itself—that is, it will close itself off entirely."

  "Well," said Khaavren, "but that would break the connection with His Majesty."

  "True," said Sethra. "But, you perceive, it could not be tampered with; it would remain in that state as long as it felt the energy in its vicinity. And if this were to happen—"

  "Yes," said Khaavren, paying the strictest attention. "If this were to happen?"

  "Then, as I said, every sorcerer in the Empire would know it at once, so that His Majesty would be alerted, as would you, and you would then be able to guard against it."

  "Well, I understand," said Khaavren. "It would, therefore, be impossible to plant a spell within the Orb ahead of time."

  "I can think of no way to do such a thing—the Orb was designed to prevent exactly this. Now, if it is the case that someone has circumvented the Orb's defenses in this way, well, I should like nothing better than to meet the wizard who could do so, and until I have met him, or seen the results of his work, I shall continue to believe such a thing impossible."

  "And so," said Khaavren, "it is unlikely that we have anything to worry about on that score."

  "That is precisely the case."

  "Nevertheless," said Khaavren, "to be certain, I would be happy if you could reassure me that all is as it ought to be."

  "Yes. If Your Majesty will allow me?"

  His Majesty would, and Sethra approached the Orb. She reached out her hands and seemed to cup the Orb without actually touching it; and she stared into it. Khaavren watched her closely, but was able to see nothing on her countenance except great concentration, and, after a few minutes, some beads of perspiration. The Orb maintained a light brown color during this time, which lasted for some few minutes. At last Sethra, frowning, said, "There is no spell upon the Orb, and yet—"

  "Yes?" said Khaavren.

  "There is something."

  "How, there is something? What can this mean?"

  "I do not know. And yet, there is sorcery present—a strong spell, and one of a type I am unfamiliar with; and, moreover, it is, if my skills have not utterly deserted me, only a potential—nothing has been done, but there is magic present, waiting to be released." She frowned, and Khaavren took a step closer to His Majesty, while looking carefully around the room. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, and yet he looked again, and this time his eye fastened on the wall behind His Majesty, which was, as we have had the honor to mention, covered with a large tapestry. This tapestry, as it happened, depicted Zerika the First and Kieron the Conqueror clasping hands amid slain Easterners while the victorious army cheered, jhereg sat on nearby trees, and a Phoenix flew overhead.

  Khaavren's eyes had fastened on one of the trees, which seemed to him to contain a flaw he had not noticed before. He drew his sword.

  "Captain, what—"

  "Bide a moment, Sire. It may be nothing, and yet—"

  And yet it was, indeed, something—for, at that instant, Mario, realizing that fate had played him a cruel trick, and realizing, moreover, that his choices were to stay where he was and be captured or to move at once, moved. The first thing he did was to drop the pearl and crush it beneath his heal, thinking that he would have sufficient difficulty with Khaavren and Sethra Lavode, and at least, he thought, he could prevent the Orb from coming to His Majesty's aid. At the same time, he sprang from his position behind the tapestry, in which he had carefully cut a slit that was nearly invisible, and leapt out at Khaavren holding a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other.

  Sethra, for her part, had noticed the crushing of the pearl, and, although she did not know what sort of spell it was, nevertheless put forth her power to prevent it from taking effect. Khaavren stood between the assassin and His Majesty and prepared to cross blades with the small, wiry man wearing grey and black. Mario, wanting to reach Tortaalik, attempted to force Khaavren back with a fury of thrusts and cuts, but the Captain, not retreating a step, parried each attack, and, after just a few passes, forced the assassin up to the wall, at which point Khaavren said, "If someone will send for a few of my guards, well, I believe we will have this fellow chained up and safe in good time."

  The assassin still held his sword and his dagger, but Khaavren had both of these locked against the wall, rendering him essentially helpless. To Khaavren he seemed a quiet, almost uninteresting sort, without even the cold, heartless eyes that usually mark those who kill for pay—although, as he stood backed up to the wall, he allowed no trace of expression to cross his countenance.

  Sethra, who had finished her work, remarked, "A peculiar spell to use in an attack."

  His Majesty had stepped from the throne, and discovering that he had no weapon, had contented himself with standing up and glaring at his attacker. Now he turned to Sethra and said, "What was it intended to do?"

  "Sire, it is nothing I would wish to have done if I were launching an attack—now that I have defeated it, I have also identified it, and, had it succeeded, it would have done nothing except destroy the memory of him who released it—that is, of this Jhereg."

  Khaavren, who had not taken his eyes off the assassin, noticed something like shock cross the Jhereg's features, to be quickly replaced by the empty, stony look he had been affecting before.

  "Certainly," said His Majesty, "it is an unusual spell for an assassin to carry, unless he is a fanatic of some sort. But we shall find out soon enough, I think."

  "Your Majesty," said Khaavren, "is correct on that score, for here are the guards come to help take him away. Do you, sirs, each take an arm, removing the weapon as you do, while I—the Gods!"

  This ejaculation was caused by Mario suddenly striking out with a foot and catching Khaavren's leg below the knee, which, in turn, caused Khaavren's leg to buckle; it may be that, had the Captain been unwounded, the trick would not have worked, and who can know how history would have been different? But, for whatever reason, Khaavren's grip on the assassin's right hand loosened, and Mario brought the hilt of his rapier down on Khaavren's head, momentarily stunning him.

  It is to the credit of the guards that their first thought was for His Majesty—they at once stepped between the assassin and the Emperor. This, while certainly their duty, left a clear path to the door—a path which Mario lost no time in taking; he was gone before Khaavren had regained his feet.

  Khaavren, for his part, said coolly, "Raise the alarm—we must catch him. Turn out every guardsman who can be roused. Seal the Dragon, Athyra, Iorich, and Imperial Wings at once."

  Menia, one of those who had arrived to take Mario away, rushed off to carry out the Captain's orders. Khaavren, meanwhile, picked up his sword, bowed to His Majesty, and said, "Sire, I have business that will not wait. If my Lady Sethra will consent to guard Your Majesty—"

  "Gladly," said Sethra.

  "—I will be about my task, knowing that Your Majesty is in good hands."

/>   Without another word, then, he turned and was out the door in pursuit of the assassin.

  More than once the historian has read such words as, "The deplorable state of Palace security," or, "No one had ever thought of the need to protect the Emperor," in works that discuss the events that occurred around this time. None of these mention Khaavren by name, without doubt because none of the authors know the name of Tortaalik's Captain of the Imperial Guard. Yet his name and his deeds are matters of public record, even if, perhaps, the motivations behind his deeds, or the information that can lead one to discern the motivations behind his deeds, requires a certain amount of effort to discover. What could cause an historian (and, in many cases, an historian who is otherwise not incapable) to engage in such inept work? This we cannot say. Happily, it is not our duty to explain the errors of our brothers, but, rather, to insist upon the truth—which, in fact, we are now about to do.

  Thought had, indeed, been given to His Majesty's safety—G'aereth had demanded it, being all of his life suspicious of the Orb's abilities in this regard, and Khaavren had inherited this duty with the shoulder-pin that identified him as the Captain; and we have been inexcusably remiss in our duty if we have not given the reader to understand that our Tiassa was not one to take duty lightly.

  But there are additional points that ought to be made. In the first place, whereas in our own happy era, under such circumstances the Captain need only wish for more guardsmen, in effect, and they would arrive, there was no such instantaneous communication then, or, at any rate, very little. Hence, when Khaavren gave the urgent command for help in securing the assassin, the only guards who were nearby were those guarding the door—to have sent for others would have taken, at the least, three or four minutes. The reader (and any future historian who wishes to address this matter) also ought to remember that, because of his wounds, he was not at the peak of his powers that day; and, for the same reason, most of his command were either sound asleep, or on duty even though they should have been asleep.

  To be sure, Mario had found, and exploited, a true weakness in Khaavren's defenses, and even without the wounds and weaknesses, there can be no doubt but that the assassin would have gained entry to the throne room; but it is likely—in fact, it is all but certain—that, had there been better means of communications, and had Khaavren's troops been better rested and more numerous, and had Khaavren himself been uninjured, Mario would either never have escaped the Portrait Room, or, having escaped, would have been caught at once.

  But with circumstances as they were, it was not so easy. Mario led them on a chase throughout the Imperial Wing, while Khaavren, after sending a messenger for more guards, directed the search, using two score of messengers to inform himself of the progress of the search, and deploying his forces as best he could.

  Who can follow Mario's path through the Imperial Wing? From the reports of cooks, we know that he passed through the kitchen; from the reports of gardeners, we know he passed over one of the low roofs near the Athyra Wing; from Menia, who took a thrown knife in her left thigh and a severe knock on the head, we know that he ventured into the tunnels connecting the Imperial Wing with the Lyorn Wing; from a report by Brudik, Lord of the Chimes, we know that, wearing Menia's stolen cloak, he walked boldly and calmly into the Dragon Wing—the last place anyone would have expected; and that he was nearly out of the door of this wing—would, in fact, have escaped by simply walking out of the Sub-wing of the Guard, had he not been seen by Thack, who knew everyone who belonged to the uniform, and who, upon seeing the back of a head that he did not recognize above a cloak that he did, gave the alert in an instant.

  Mario was almost captured then and there, but, it seemed, the assassin knew the wing better than any had thought—better even than many of his pursuers, and entered what looked to be a closet on the second story of the Warlord's Sub-wing but which actually opened in back, putting him near a stairway up to the third level, which housed the Lavodes—who, having been alerted by Sethra, were none of them there, but were all off searching for him.

  By this time he had abandoned the cloak, and was dressed simply in his tight-fitting black and grey garments, hung about with weapons, and he was also bleeding slightly from his left arm where Khaavren had nicked him, when he stepped out of a hidden doorway, into the hall, and practically into the lap, as it were, of Aliera e'Kieron.

  They stared at each other for a moment, Aliera appearing not at all worried by the naked sword, and Mario not certain if such beauty as he was seeing could actually exist, or if perchance he had been killed during the chase, and was now meeting his reward in the Paths of the Dead—in fact, for an instant, he rather hoped he was; but then he recalled that he had matters to finish that required he live a bit longer, so, on reflection, he hoped he was not.

  Aliera said, "You are a Jhereg."

  Mario said, "You are the most beautiful woman who has ever lived, or ever will live, in the Empire or anywhere else."

  "Well," said Aliera.

  "I am," remarked Mario, "confronted by a difficult decision."

  "Life seems to be full of them," agreed Aliera. "What is yours?"

  "Whether to continue running for my life, or to stay here and look at you."

  Aliera allowed herself a smile. "Were it I," she said, "I should choose life."

  "And yet—"

  "Who is after you?"

  Mario laughed. "Ask rather, who is not?"

  "Well, what have you done?"

  "They believe I tried to kill His Majesty."

  "Kill His Majesty?" said Aliera, her eyes widening. "That is an excellent thought; His Majesty ought to die."

  "How, you think so?"

  "Entirely. And yet you said, 'they think.'"

  "And so I did."

  "Is it not true?"

  "Oh, it is true in part."

  "In part?"

  "Yes."

  "Would you care to explain?"

  "I thought I was to kill His Majesty, and, in my own mind, I even attempted to do so."

  "Well?"

  "But those for whom I made the attempt—"

  "You made the attempt for others?"

  "For money."

  For an instant Aliera's face darkened, then she said, "Well, but you are a Jhereg."

  "That is true. And you are beautiful."

  "You have already said that."

  "And you have already—"

  "Yes. But, then, continue with your history."

  "It seems that I was not to actually kill him, only to appear to make the attempt, after which my mind was to be destroyed so that I could not identify those who had instigated this plan."

  Aliera frowned. "They must be paying you an exorbitant amount of money."

  "Not enough."

  "But then—"

  "They have betrayed me, you see; it is clear that someone wanted an unsuccessful attempt on His Majesty's life, and I was to be used to carry it out, and then I was to be thrown away."

  "Ah. Only—"

  "Yes. Only I have lived, and my mind is not destroyed, and I may yet escape."

  "And if you do, will you attempt once more to kill His Majesty?"

  "I will not."

  "Oh," said Aliera, sounding disappointed.

  "But I will certainly speak with those who gave me this mission, and I will speak to them in terms which allow for no doubt about my opinions."

  "Well, I understand that. But if, as you say, they are searching for you, ought you not to be on your way?"

  "It is, as I have said, a difficult choice."

  "What, can you be serious? To escape with your life or to stare at me? A difficult choice?"

  "Yes."

  "You are mad."

  "Certainly I am mad, in a particular way."

  "And yet—"

  "Well, I have chosen."

  "And what is your choice?"

  "I will stand here and look at you until they take me away, for each second more than I can absorb every nuance of your form
will be hours of pleasure in the future, so that—"

  "Come with me."

  "How, where are we going?"

  "First, around this corridor, then down these stairs."

  "Well, and then?"

  "To this window, which we will open, like this."

  "And yet, I do not—"

  "After that, into this room, which, as daughter of the Heir, is still mine. Do you stay here while I stand by the doorway, so that if anyone should attempt to gain entrance, well, I will kill him."

  Mario swallowed. "But you are a Dragonlord," he said at last.

  "Yes," said Aliera. "And you are beautiful."

  The effect these words had on Mario can scarcely be exaggerated. He took two steps backward and ended, fortunately, by sitting in a chair, after which he sat in a daze, not really hearing Aliera's conversation with Thack, who, in the company of two other guardsmen, arrived in time to see Aliera staring at the window at the far end of the hall.

  "My lady!" they cried.

  She said, "Are you looking for a slender man in grey and black, bleeding slightly from the arm?"

  "We are indeed; has he been here?"

  "I nearly think he has," said Aliera, still staring intently at the open window.

  The guardsmen thanked her profusely and went through the window themselves, following the only possible path, which led over some roofs toward the Lyorn Wing, while Aliera returned to the room and shut the door.

  "What is your name?" she said.

  "Mario, my Lady."

  "I am Aliera e'Kieron. You will remain here for an hour, after which time I will show you how to escape the Palace."

  "My lady—"

  "Well?"

  "I don't know how to thank you."

  "I know a way," said Aliera.

  For Khaavren, the next two hours were among the most active in a life filled with activity—he spoke with thirty-one people who had, or may have, seen Mario; he studied the marks around eleven pried-open windows; he consulted six drawings of the Palace; he found blood stains in three places where he did not expect to, and failed to find them in another four where he suspected he would; he also gave orders for more searchers here or for abandoning searches there, and, in the end, he discovered a significant footprint, followed the most obvious path, and was forced to conclude that his quarry had escaped.