Orca Read online

  I broke it carefully, first covering it with a large sheet of paper smeared with an extremely tacky gel and then pushing slowly until the glass gave and the shards stuck to the paper rather than falling and making noise. There were jagged bits of the stuff all around the wooden frame so I had to be careful entering the room, but I was able to enter without cutting myself; then I hung the paper in the window where the glass had been so I could illuminate the room without the light appearing to anyone outside (if there was, by chance, someone outside).

  I used another several seconds sensing for spells in the room, then lit a candle, squinted against the glare, and glanced around quickly. No matter how many times you’ve been through this, you always half expect to see someone sitting in the room waiting for you with all sorts of arguments to hand. It has never happened, and it didn’t this time, but it’s one of those things that pass through your mind.

  I closed my eyes and stood very still for a while, listening for anyone moving around and for whatever creaks and groans might be usual for this building. After a minute, I opened my eyes and took a good look.

  Office or study, said that part of my brain that wants to rush in and categorize before all of the details are individually assimilated. I let it have its way, ignored its opinion, and made some mental notes.

  The room was dominated by two large cabinets against the far wall, both of some dark wood, probably cherry, and showing signs of careful but uninspired construction. In front of them was a small desk, facing the room’s other window, with a chair behind it. From the chair, the occupant, presumably Fyres, could reach back to either cabinet. On top of the desk were a set of books that would probably reward some study, several sheets of paper, blotter, inkwell, and quill; several other quills were all set in a row to one side, as if awaiting their call. The desk and the room were neither unusually tidy nor remarkably messy, except for between one and four weeks’ worth of dust over everything, which would be about right if no one had been in here since his death. Why would no one have been in his office since his death? No, questions later.

  I checked all the desk drawers and cabinets and found both sorcerous alarms on each. None of them were terribly complicated and I wasn’t in a big hurry, so I took my time disabling them (unnecessarily in all probability—they were almost certainly keyed directly to Fyres, who wouldn’t be receiving any messages—but it is always best to be certain). I also looked for more mundane sorts of alarms—easily identified by thin wires hidden against desk legs or along walls—but there weren’t any. It occurs to me now, as I relate this, that it may seem as if Fyres took insufficient precautions against theft, and I ought to correct this impression; most of his precautions probably involved guards, and, chances are, the guard schedule had been obliterated with Fyres’s life. And the magical alarms were really quite good; it’s just that I’m better.

  It took maybe two minutes to assure myself that there were no secret drawers in the desk, another ten to be certain about the cabinets. The rest of the room took an hour, which is a long time to be on the scene, but I didn’t think the risk was too great.

  Once I was certain I hadn’t missed anything, I began going through his papers, looking for anything that seemed like what Vlad was after. The longer I sat there, the harder it was to make myself go slowly and be careful not to miss anything, but, after four hours or so, I was pretty sure I had the information. It made a neat little bundle, which I tied up and slung over my back. I still had an hour or so before dawn.

  I restored order to the papers and books I’d messed up, then slipped across the hall to the master bedroom. Everything was very still, and I could hear—or maybe I just imagined it—servants breathing from their quarters above me. The bed was made, the clothes were neatly arranged in the wardrobe, and, unlike the office, everything was freshly dusted—obviously the staff had been given orders to stay out of the other room, and they were still scrupulously following them. I opened drawers and scattered things about as if a thief had been looking for valuables. I did, in fact, find a safe, so I spent a few minutes marking it up as if I’d attempted to open it, then I went back to the study, out the window, and down.

  I was back in town before the first light. I found my hotel and climbed into my second-story window so I wouldn’t have to go past the desk clerk. I put the booty under my pillow and slept for nine hours.

  My rendezvous with Vlad took place in one of those dockside inns that feature thick beer and harshly spiced fish stew. Vlad availed himself of the latter; I abstained. It was too early in the day for there to be much business; only a table or two was filled. Neither of us attracted much attention. I’ve always wondered how Vlad (even with a jhereg on his shoulder—only one today) managed to avoid making himself conspicuous wherever he went.

  “Where’s the boy?”

  “With friends.”

  “You have friends?” I said, not entirely being sarcastic.

  He gave me a brief smile and said, “Rocza is watching him.”

  He accepted the bundle of ledgers and papers, trying not to look eager. I made faces at Loiosh while he perused them; at last he looked up and nodded. “This is what I’m after,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “What do they mean?”

  “I haven’t any idea.”

  “Then how do you know—?”

  “From the notations at the top of the columns.”

  “I see,” I lied. “Well, then—”

  “What am I after?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked at me. I’d seen Vlad happy, sad, frightened, angry, and hurt; but I’d never before seen him look uncomfortable. At last he said, “All right,” and began speaking.

  Chapter Two

  On the wall of a small hostelry just outside of Northport someone had written in black, sloppy letters: “When the water is clean, you see the bottom; when the water is dirty, you see yourself.”

  “Deep philosophy,” I remarked to Loiosh. “Probably a brothel.”

  He didn’t laugh. Call me superstitious, but I decided to find another place. I nodded to the boy to follow. I’m not sure when he started responding to nonverbal cues; I hadn’t been paying that much attention. But it was a good sign. On the other hand, that had been the only improvement in the year he’d been with me and that was a bad sign.

  Wait for it, Kiera; wait for it. I’ve done this before. I know how to tell a Verra-be-damned story, okay?

  So I kept walking, getting closer to Northport. I’d come to Northport because Northport is the biggest city in the world—okay, in the Empire—that doesn’t have any sort of university. No, I have nothing against universities, but you must know how they work—they act like magnets to pull in the best brains in an area, as well as the richest and most pretentious. They are seats of great learning and all that. Now I had a problem that required someone of great, or maybe not-so-great learning, but walking into a university, well, I didn’t like the idea. I don’t know how to go about it, and that means I don’t know how to go about it without getting caught. For example, what happens if I go to, say, Candletown, and inquire at Lady Brindlegate’s University, and someone is rude to me, and I have to drop him? Then what? It makes a big stink, and the wrong people hear about it, and there I am running again.

  But I figured, what if I find a place with a lot of people but no institution to suck up the talented ones? It means it’s going to be a place with a lot of hedge-wizards, and wise old men, and greatwives. And that’s just what I was looking for—what I had been looking for for most of a year, and not finding, until I hit on this idea.

  I’ll get to it, I’ll get to it. Trust me.

  I got a little closer to town, stopped at an inn, and—look, you don’t need to hear all this. I stayed out of a fight, listened to gossip, pumped a few people, went to another inn, did the same, repeat, repeat, and finally found myself at a little blue cottage in the woods. Yes, blue—a blue lump of house standing out from all the greens of the woods surrounding Northport. It
was one of the ugliest objects I’ve ever seen.

  The first thing that happened was a dog came running out toward us. I was stepping in front of Savn and reaching for a knife before Loiosh said, “His tail is wagging, boss.”

  “Right. I knew that.”

  It was some indeterminate breed with a bit of hound in it—the sleek build of a lyorn with the sort of long, curly, reddish hair that needed cleaning and combing, a long nose, and floppy ears. It didn’t come up to my waist, and it generally seemed pretty nonthreatening. It stopped in front of me and started sniffing. I held out my left hand, which it approved, then it gave a half-jump up toward Loiosh, then one toward Rocza, went down on its front legs, barked twice, and stood in front of me waiting and wagging. Rocza hissed; Loiosh refused to dignify it by responding.

  The door opened, and a woman called, “Buddy!” The dog looked back at her, turned in a circle, and ran up to her, then rose on its hind legs and stayed there for a moment. The woman was old and a foot and a half taller than me. She had grey hair and an expression that would sour your favorite dairy product. She said, “You’re an Easterner,” in a surprisingly flutelike voice.

  “Yes,” I said. “And your house is painted blue.”

  She let that go. “Who’s the boy?”

  “The reason I’m here.”

  “He’s human.”

  “And to think I hadn’t noticed.”

  Loiosh chuckled in my head; the woman didn’t. “Don’t be saucy,” she said. “No doubt you’ve come for help with something; you ought to be polite.” The dog sat down next to her and watched us, his tongue out.

  I tried to figure out what House she was and decided it was most likely Tsalmoth, to judge by her complexion and the shape of her nose—her green shawl, dirty white blouse, and green skirt were too generic to tell me anything.

  “Why do you care?” said Loiosh.

  “Good question.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be polite. You’re a—do you find the term ‘hedge-wizard’ objectionable?”

  “Yes,” she said, biting out the word.

  “What do you prefer?”

  “Sorcerer.”

  She was a sorcerer the way I was a flip-dancer. “All right. I’ve heard you are a sorcerer, and that you are skilled in problems of the mind.”

  “I can sometimes help, yes.”

  “The boy has brain fever.”

  She made a harrumphing sound. “There is no such thing.”

  I shrugged.

  She looked at him, but still didn’t step out of her door, nor ask us to approach. I expected her to ask more questions about his condition, but instead she said, “What do you have to offer me?”

  “Gold.”

  “Not interested.”

  That caught me by surprise. “You’re not interested in gold?”

  “I have enough to get by.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “Offer her her life, boss.”

  “Grow up, Loiosh.”

  She said, “There isn’t anything I want that you could give me.”

  “You’d be surprised,” I said.

  She studied me as if measuring me for a bier and said, “I haven’t known many Easterners.”

  The dog scratched its ear, stood, walked around in a circle, sat down in the same place it had been, and scratched itself again.

  “If you’re asking if you can trust me,” I said, “there’s no good answer I can give you.”

  “That isn’t the question.”

  “Then—”

  “Come in.”

  I did, Savn following along dutifully, the dog last. The inside was worse than the outside. I don’t mean it was dirty—on the contrary, everything was neat, clean, and polished, and there wasn’t a speck of dust; no mean trick in a wood cottage. But it was filled with all sorts of magnificently polished wood carvings—magnificent and tasteless. Oil lamps, chairs, cupboards, and buffets were all of dark hardwood, all gleaming with polish, and all of them horribly overdone, like someone wanted to put extra decorations on them just to show that it could be done. It almost made it worse that the wood nearly matched the color of the dog, who turned around in place three times before curling up in front of the door.

  I studied the overdone mantelpiece, the tasteless candelabra, and the rest. I said, “Your own work?”

  “No. My husband was a wood-carver.”

  “A quite skillful one,” I said truthfully.

  She nodded. “This place means a lot to me,” she said. “I don’t want to leave.”

  I waited.

  “I’m being asked to leave—I’ve been given six months.”

  Rocza shifted uneasily on my right shoulder. Loiosh, on my left, said, “I don’t believe this, boss. The widow being kicked out of her house? Come on.”

  “By whom?”

  “The owner of the land.”

  “Who owns the land?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why does he want you to leave?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you been offered compensation?”

  “Eh?”

  “Did he say he’d pay you?”

  “Oh. Yes.” She sniffed. “A pittance.”

  “I see. How is it you don’t know who owns the land?”

  “It belongs to some, I don’t know, organization, or something.”

  I instantly thought, the Jhereg, and felt a little queasy. “What organization?”

  “A business of some kind. A big one.”

  “What House?”

  “Orca.”

  I relaxed. “Who told you you have to move?”

  “A young woman I’d never seen before, who worked for it. She was an Orca, too, I think.”

  “What was her name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And you don’t know the name of the organization she works for?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know she really worked for them?”

  The old woman sniffed. “She was very convincing.”

  “Do you have an advocate?”

  She sniffed again, which seemed to pass for a “no.”

  “Then finding a good one is probably where we should start.”

  “I don’t trust advocates.”

  “Mmmm. Well, in any case, we’re going to have to find out who holds the lease to your land. How do you pay it, anyway?”

  “My husband paid it through the next sixty years.”

  “But—”

  “The woman said I’d be getting money back.”

  “Isn’t there a land office or something?”

  “I don’t know. I have the deed somewhere in the attic with my papers; it should be there.” Her eyes narrowed. “You think you can help me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sit down.”

  I did. I helped Savn to a chair, then found one myself. It was ugly but comfortable. The dog’s tail thumped twice against the floor, then it put its head on its paws.

  “Tell me about the boy,” she said.

  I nodded. “Have you ever encountered the undead?”

  Her eyes widened and she nodded once.

  “Have you ever fought an Athyra wizard? An undead Athyra wizard with a Morganti weapon?”

  Now she looked skeptical. “You have?”

  “The boy has. The boy killed one.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Look at him.”

  She did. He sat there, staring at the wall across from him.

  “And he’s been like this ever since?”

  “Ever since he woke up. Actually, he’s improved a little—he follows me now without being told, and if I put food in front of him, he eats it.”

  “Does he keep himself—?”

  “Yes, as long as I remember to tell him to every once in a while.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “He took a bash on the head at the same time. That may be part of the problem.”
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  “When did it happen?”

  “About a year ago.”

  “You’ve been wandering around with him for a year?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been looking for someone who could cure him. I haven’t found anyone.”

  I didn’t tell her how hard I’d been looking for someone willing and able to help; I spared her the details of disappointments, dead ends, aimless searches, and trying to balance my need to help him with my need to stay away from anywhere big enough for the Jhereg to be a danger—anywhere like Northport, say. I didn’t tell her, in other words, that I was getting desperate.

  “Why haven’t you gone to a real sorcerer?” There was more than a hint of bitterness there.

  “I’m on the run.”

  “From whom?”

  “None of your business.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I helped the boy kill an undead Athyra wizard.”

  “Why did he kill him?”

  “To save my life.”

  “Why was the wizard trying to kill you?”

  “You ask too many questions.”

  She frowned, then said, “We’ll begin by looking at his head wound.”

  “All right. And tomorrow I’ll start on your problem.”

  She spread out a few blankets on the floor for us, and that’s where we slept. I woke up once toward morning and saw that the dog had curled up next to Savn. I hoped it didn’t have fleas.

  A few hours later I woke up for real and got to work. The old woman was already awake and holding a candle up to Savn’s eyes, either to see if he’d respond to the light or to look into his mind, or for some other reason. Rocza was on the mantel, looking down anxiously; she’d developed a fondness for Savn and I think was feeling protective. The dog lay there watching the procedure and thumping its tail whenever the old woman moved.

  I said, “Where are the papers?”

  She turned to me and said, “If you’d like coffee first, help yourself.”

  “Do you have klava?”

  “You can make it. The deed and the rest of my papers are in boxes up there.” She gestured toward the ceiling above the kitchen, where I noticed a square door.