Five Hundred Years After (Phoenix Guards) (20 page)

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Authors: Steven Brust

BOOK: Five Hundred Years After (Phoenix Guards)
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“He canceled his appearance at the pavilion.”
Greycat shrugged, as if to say, “These details are unimportant to me.”
“I do not,” said Laral, “go blundering about with the idea of striking anywhere that looks convenient. That is the way to fail. And the proof is, that is what happened to Chalar.”
“What will you do?”
“You will see.”
“Very well.”
“Is there anything else?”
“No. Have you anything else to say?”
“Yes. Be careful. There appears to be some sort of disturbance beginning some little distance away; the whole Underside may be burning by morning.”
“Indeed,” said Greycat. “It may.”
“Then that is all.”
“Remember that we are to meet again to-morrow night.”
“I will not forget.”
Laral rose and made her way to the door in a sinister stream of black and grey. She stopped there and said, “For your sake, I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“For your sake,” said Greycat, “I hope so, too.”
Laral nodded and left.
Grita emerged from the shadows and placed herself opposite Greycat. “So,” she said without preamble, “you perceive that it has begun.”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“Well, now we can only wait.”
“You may also wish to reach a place of safety.”
“I carry a place of safety with me at all times,” said Greycat.
“Very well,” said Grita. “If you will excuse me, I must be on my way.”
“You wish to see how your riot is developing?”
“Not in the least. I wish to be out of the way in case the blaze becomes a conflagration; I do not have faith in my own invulnerability, and I know very well what sort of forces may be let loose to-night.”
Greycat nodded, and Grita left the room. Greycat remained where he was,
frowning, and wondering what the Underside, even the city, would look like in the light of day. While he was doing so, some small distance away, in the Imperial Palace, the Consort was frowning in almost exactly the same manner. If Greycat had known of the coincidence of expression, he would have been amused; Her Majesty would have been outraged.
But, if their expression were the same, we need hardly add that their thoughts were entirely different, saving only that the word on their lips was the same—in fact, it was the same word that was on Khaavren’s lips, and is perhaps on the lips of the readers as well, that word being
—who.
The reader, perhaps, is wondering “Who is Greycat and what does he want?” Khaavren, at this same time, is wondering, “Who instigated this disturbance and why?” Greycat, meanwhile, is wondering, “Who will attempt to respond to the riot and how?” Her Majesty, at this same instant, is wondering, “Who is this Aliera person, and why does everyone find her so attractive?”
We are aware that this transition—from worries about fire, death, and destruction in the city to the secret thoughts of the Consort—is abrupt. We are also fully aware that our readers are, in all probability, most anxious to learn about the former, and do not understand why they are being pulled against their will to the latter, while the city, not to mention the lives of people in whom we hope our readers have some interest, hangs in the balance. In our defense, we can only say that these thoughts (or thoughts very much like them) were, in fact, going through the Consort’s mind at this time, and, as they are important to our history, we cannot fail to provide them to the reader in good season.
She stood, then, in her chambers, with her maids of honor in the next room and with her back to the glass, resolutely refusing to look into it—for she had the dignity of the House of the Phoenix, and in some matters she could not relax this dignity even in private.
“It has been two days,” she said to herself, “since this Dragonlord has appeared, and in that time all heads have been turned to her—and from me. It is an aggravation. And yet, am I truly so bereft of pride, and, moreover, so frightened, that I allow such trivia to affect me? For beauty is trivial—it is a surface, and inasmuch as the surface is a reflection of essence, that only applies to such matters as countenance, dress, and toilet; and I daresay mine are impeccable. It scarcely applies to those accidents of form which were provided by capricious nature. And if—say it now, Noima—nature has granted her a pleasingness of face and form greater than my own, well, it is unworthy of me to allow the barest hint of distress over such a trifle to enter my deepest thoughts.
“But of course, that is not all there is to it. I am a simple woman, in fact,
only wishing to take from life those pleasures and comforts it provides in the greatest possible measure; and, in truth, was I born and bred for anything else? I, who knew I would be Consort from when I was eight years old? No. And, is it not also the case that, because of my position, I can only get what I want through the good will of others? Surely, there is no one in the Empire with less power than I have, if power be the facility to apply one’s will directly to cause change. No, my power is only power through those I can influence—my husband’s first of all, then those over whom I hold sway.
“And now this woman appears, and, by her appearing, my sway is weakened, my power is reduced, my position is threatened. No, the sting to my vanity, though as real as it is ignoble, is not the issue here; what is at stake is my position, which now trembles each time Jurabin’s eyes turn to this Aliera, where two days ago they had fixed on me.
“I must consider what to do. I have no wish to harm this Dragonlord, who has never sought to hurt me, yet I must protect myself. Perhaps I can win her friendship. Perhaps. But how? What is it she wants? She is a Dragonlord, and they are unpredictable; furthermore, she is Lord Adron’s daughter, and he is thrice unpredictable. I shall have to—but what is that?”
Her thoughts were interrupted by a rustle of fabric and footsteps in the next room (for so quiet was the Consort’s part of the Palace that one of her maids of honor moving to open a door could be heard quite clearly). She heard the door in the next room open, and someone she didn’t recognize said, “I must speak with Her Majesty at once.”
“How?” cried one of her maids, a Tiassa named Daro. “At such an hour, my lady?”
“You may perceive by this pike,” came the muffled voice from the next room, “that I am on duty. You may assure yourself that nothing less than strictest necessity could cause me to disturb Her Majesty at such an hour. Go, then, and inform Her Majesty that a guardsmen has come on an errand that will not wait, but that concerns nothing less than her safety.”
“How, Her Majesty’s safety?”
“Exactly.”
“Well,” said Daro, who sounded either hesitant or suspicious, “if it is so urgent as that—”
“I give you my word that it is.”
“—I will inform Her Majesty that you are here.”
“And you will be right to do so.”
The Consort, who was wearing a white fur night-robe with a tall, gold-trimmed collar, came out and said, “I am here. What is it?”
“Your Majesty, I am Ailib of the Red Boot Battalion of the Imperial Guard, and I beg you to come along with me without delay.”
The Consort stared at the tall Dragonlord, who held a pike so naturally in her hand, and said, “How is that? Come with you? And for what reason?”
“Your Majesty, there is a disturbance in the city, and it is His Majesty’s wish that you be conducted at once to a place within the Palace that can be more readily defended.”
At these words, there a simultaneous gasp from all of the Her Majesty’s maids of honor (there were nine of them), and even the Consort herself felt slightly giddy, and put her hand to her chest, as if she were suddenly short of breath. “A disturbance?” she said.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Where is this disturbance?”
“In the Underside, Your Majesty. But we do not know how widespread it is, nor how fast it is growing, and so—”
“But the Guards!”
“Yes, they have been called out, and are, we dare to hope, restoring order. Nevertheless—”
“Yes, yes, of course. Come, ladies,” she said, addressing her maids. “There is not a moment to be lost.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” they said, and prepared to follow the cool guardsman wherever she might lead.
Where she was leading them, in fact, was to a place called the Lower Square, which was far below the main level of the Palace, beneath the Imperial Wing, and consisted of eight or nine well-appointed rooms. It had been built under orders of the Empress Undauntra, who anticipated (wrongly, as it happened) the need to withstand a siege or an attack, and so had wanted at least one place in the palace that could be defended, and that had, moreover, its own access to the outside world, which is why each of the rooms had a concealed exit leading into a labyrinth of tunnels.
The exact plan of the tunnels was known only to Undauntra, and thus to the Orb, and it had remained one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Imperium—Undauntra had passed an edict making it high treason to even ask about the labyrinth, ensuring that no one but the legitimate ruler would know its secrets. We should add that, although there are many stories that concern this labyrinth, it is our opinion that these stories exist because it is no more possible for a labyrinth to exist without attendant stories than it is possible for a flashstone to be introduced in the theater without, at some point in the production, its being discharged—in other words, to the best of our knowledge, there is no truth in any of the tales set within these tunnels, saving only the matter of Undauntra’s whistle, which we will forgo discussing, as it has nothing to do with the history we have the honor to relate.
It was in this suite of rooms, then, that along with Jurabin, Countess
Bellor, various advisors, companions, and a company of guardsmen, His Majesty abided, eschewing the comfortable if plain furnishings of the room set aside for his use, preferring to pace back and forth while awaiting word on the disturbances that had erupted in the very heart of his Empire. A hundred times he questioned Thack about what the messenger had said was going on, and a hundred times Thack had answered that the messenger had brought only orders, no information, except that there was trouble in the Underside.
“Trouble!” cried his Majesty. “Trouble! A fire is trouble; so is a flood; so is a windstorm. A thousand Teckla burning down a hundred buildings is trouble; so are ten Teckla burning down one building. An armed uprising is trouble; and so is a drunken brawl that has gotten out of hand. Which of these is it? How serious? What is being done?”
In point of fact, we should say that his Majesty could have used the magical properties of the Orb to reach out and question his Captain of the Imperial Guard. He could have, but he also knew that, if his Captain were in the midst of some critical operation, such contact could have the most disastrous consequences. So, with difficulty, His Majesty refrained and paced.
His disposition, to be sure, improved when the Consort arrived with her maids of honor, for he could then devote his energies to calming her fears—nothing relieves anxiety as much as helping relieve another’s, just as wounds of the heart are best salved by helping another whose heart is wounded—for man has always lived best among his own kind, rather than alone, and there can be no doubt that when man was first forged, the need to help his fellow was mixed into the very alloy that went into his shaping.
So His Majesty sat with Her Majesty—Emperor with Consort, husband with wife—and they spoke together in low tones and awaited further news. The Orb rotated about them, a pale green, as the courtiers remarked in whispers that Their Majesties appeared to have achieved domestic harmony, and spoke in general terms of the usefulness of a crisis to show what was
truly
important and to help lovers past the trying times that they all faced now and then (although, in truth, none of these courtiers seemed inclined to give any details about any difficulties or tensions between Their Majesties of late, because, in fact no such difficulties or tensions existed, saving only a recent spat about interruptions at the supper table).
The courtiers began playing three-copper-mud, except for Jurabin who had brought a set of s’yang stones (made of ivory, in fact, with a board of cherry wood; the grooves were all hand-carved, and by a hand that knew its business), and became involved in a contest with Lady Ingera, who loved the game as much as he; the “tic” of the flat stones alternating with the deep rolling of the round ones were the loudest sounds in the room.
This was the state of things, at any rate, until there came a much louder sound—this being the rattling and knocking of wood from the next room. It is safe to say that everyone present was, to one degree or another, startled—His Majesty jumped, Her Majesty gave out a tiny screech, Jurabin missed his throw, several gamblers dropped their cards, and all of the guardsmen reached for their weapons. This was followed by an exchange of sheepish looks, when they realized that what they heard was only the sound they had been expecting—someone had pulled the clapper, announcing his presence at the door.
His Majesty drew himself up and walked toward it, as Thack, the senior guardsman on duty, called out, “Who is it?”

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