The Water Road (13 page)

It was a small accomplishment.
Northeast Telebria is nothing more than a few scattered small towns bracing for
the next round of raids out of the Badlands. Regardless, the turnaround at the
Examiner
earned Olrey the notice of others in the field. One of those who took note was
Bodwe Naum, the owner of the
Daily Register
in Sermont. At the time, the
Daily Register
was the smallest of the several daily newspapers published
in the kingdom’s capitol. Naum had three sons, all of whom had taken a turn
trying to run the paper, with poor results. Fed up with their incompetence,
Naum hired Olrey and brought him to Sermont. He did not intend for it to be a
long-term solution. In fact, all Naum wanted to do was to scare his sons into
taking the family business seriously, so that he could leave it in good hands
when he died.

Olrey’s early tenure at the
Daily
Register
mirrored his success at the
Examiner
. He radically changed
the layout to make it stand out from its competitors as much as possible. To
add to that distinction, he opened up the bureau office in Tolenor, a first
from a Sermont paper. Naum was pleased beyond words with Olrey’s success, even
if his sons were not. By all the traditions of Telebrian society, one of them
should have inherited the
Daily Register
when their father died, or at
least have it shared equally by the three of them. Instead, Naum sold Olrey a
controlling interest in the paper so he could run it as he saw fit. The sons
became silent partners, which was still too much involvement from Olrey’s
perspective, but it proved a workable compromise. The terms of the deal sent
ripples and rumors all through the tight-knit upper classes of Sermont.

Strefer had met Olrey only once
before, when she first came to Sermont to take the job at the
Daily Register
.
He was part of the final interview, along with Tevis, who had done most of the
talking. She assumed she must have made a good impression, or she would not have
gotten the job. Most Telebrian newspapers would never think of hiring a woman
as a reporter. Strefer assumed that Olrey’s background gave him some sympathy
towards others who were locked out of society. Whatever impression she had left
at that time, Strefer hoped it had only been bolstered over the past three
years. If not, Olrey may not even meet with her, much less read her story.

Although it was barely past dawn
when Strefer reached the top of the bluff where the paper’s building sat, it
was already humming with life. The main office building, a low, long, two-story
building of red brick, was alight, inside and out, from lanterns. From the
print house just behind it, a massive three-story cube built of black stone
torn from the seaside cliffs, she could hear the multiple printing presses
cranking out the morning edition.

A young man came out of the front
door of the office building. Strefer watched as he began making the rounds of
the gas lamps that ringed the property, snapping each one off with a well-practiced
flick of his wrist. She set out towards the front door in hopes of intercepting
him before he returned inside. She made it just ahead of him.

“Can I help you?” he asked with
labored politeness.

“Is Mister Olrey in this morning?
It’s very important that I see him,” Strefer said.

The young man looked at her with
contempt and suspicion. “And who would you be?”

“My name is Strefer Quants,” she
said, pausing to let the name linger for a moment. “I work in the Tolenor
bureau.”

That did not allay the young man’s
suspicions. “What are you, some kind of errand girl?”

Strefer stood as tall as she could
and blazed directly into his eyes. “I am the Associate Tolenor Correspondent,
thank you very much.”

“Then you should not be wasting my
time in Sermont then, should you?” He made a move to slip past her into the
building. Strefer blocked him.

“You’re the one wasting your time.
I asked a simple question, with a simple answer: is Mister Olrey in today? It’s
vital that I see him.”

The young man backed away from the
door and cocked his head at her. “See, that is where you have a problem, then.
I am Mister Olrey’s assistant. Therefore, it is part of my job to waste my time
in order to ensure that Mister Olrey does not waste his. Understand?”

Strefer did, all too well. This was
not the best start to a conversation. “I’m sorry that we’ve gotten off on the
wrong foot. Could you please tell Mister Olrey that one of his Tolenor
correspondents is here and she has a very important story that she must discuss
with him personally?”

The young man rolled back on his
heels and crossed his arms in front of him. “What is this all about, anyway?”

She wondered if word of the murder
had reached Sermont yet. Probably not, at least so far as most people knew.
Sentinel mind walkers had probably sent the news all the way across Altreria,
but she doubted they had made that news public. She was the first correspondent
out of the city, she thought proudly. Even if Tevis had written up something
quickly and given it to a courier, she likely beat the news here. “I would
really rather discuss it with him in person. It is of a very sensitive nature.”

“Sensitive? What does that mean,
exactly?” He did not sound convinced, but he was at least intrigued.

“It means that I would rather not
discuss it with anyone but Mister Olrey. Would I convince you if I told you it
would be the biggest story this newspaper ever printed? That it could shake the
very foundation of our world?”

The young man stood silently for a moment,
thinking. “Why should I believe you? What if I get you a meeting with Mister
Olrey and it turns out you are just some kind of deranged lunatic?”

“Hold on,” she said, digging into
her pouch. She pulled out her
Daily Register
identification and handed
it to him. “See? That proves that I work for the paper, that I work at the
Tolenor bureau.”

The young man nodded in agreement
reluctantly.

“Why would I take a ship from
Tolenor, sail all the way to Sermont, then chug up this hill on foot at the
break of dawn if I didn’t have something exceptionally important to discuss
with Mister Olrey?” He had no answer to this, so she kept going. “Look, either
this is some elaborate hoax or I’m telling you the truth. What seems more
likely to you?”

He handed her back her
identification card and visibly relaxed. “All right. Come on, we can go inside
and get out of the chill.” He walked around her, opened the door, and showed
her inside. Then he led her down a long hallway towards what she assumed was
Olrey’s office. “As it happens, Mister Olrey is in this morning. But his
schedule is very tight today. Wait here.” He pointed to a small hard-looking
couch that sat across from what appeared to be the young man’s desk. He walked
over to the desk, took off his coat, and hung it on a rack behind him. “I will
tell him what you have told me. No promises.”

“Fair enough,” Strefer said as she
sat down on the couch. It was the most uncomfortable piece of furniture she had
ever experienced.

The young man went to the thick
wooden door at the end of the hall, knocked on it three times, then let himself
in and closed the door behind him. Strefer tried to hear some of the
conversation that was going on inside the office, but the door was thick enough
that no voices crept out. To pass the time, she pulled the draft of her story
out of her pouch and started reading it over, editing it in her head. She was
trying to wrestle with a particularly ungainly sentence when the young man came
out of the office, closing the door behind him.

“Good news, Miss Quants,” he said,
with an air of pleasant calm. “Mister Olrey says he is familiar with your work
and would be happy to meet with you…”

“Great!” Strefer said, cutting him
off as she jumped off the couch. “Thank you so much for…”

Before she could finish, he
returned the favor and cut her off. “Tomorrow,” he said. “He will be happy to
meet with you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Strefer asked as she
felt all the energy drain from her body.

“Tomorrow,” the young man repeated.
“If that is not satisfactory, you can leave any materials you have with me, and
Mister Olrey might be able to look over them today.”

“No, no, that’s all right,” Strefer
said, slumping back onto the hard couch. “Mind if I rest up here for a minute?
It was a long haul up that hill.”

The young man walked over to his
desk and sat down behind it. “You may stay there as long as you like,” he said,
his wide grin doing a poor job of masking the disdain in his voice.

~~~~~

Strefer was back the next morning,
at the same time and place, once again intercepting the young man as he made
his circuit around the gaslights. At first, the delay in actually talking with
Olrey infuriated her. But she was determined to make the most of the time and
used it to polish her story. She had written it and rewritten it at least half
a dozen times, taking breaks to destroy the previous draft in the small brazier
that warmed her room. In the end, she had a finely crafted piece of writing. It
laid out the facts of the murder, the revelations in the red notebook that
presumably provided the motivation for the killer, and the implications of the
whole event, weaving them together seamlessly. She was proud of herself.

“Mister Olrey is not in yet,” the
young man told her as they walked together outside. “But you are his first
priority when he does arrive, I assure you.” They went inside and Strefer
reacquainted herself with the overly firm couch. She sat and waited, as
patiently as possible, for Olrey to arrive. Over the moments she sat there,
Strefer began to wonder if she was being toyed with.

She had nearly lost track of the
time when an older man, heavyset with broad shoulders, arrived in the office.
He shared a few words with the young man at his desk before turning to her.
“Strefer Quants,” he said in a thick, congested voice. “So you are the young
lady with the biggest news story in history, eh?”

“Yes, sir, Mister Olrey,” she said,
getting up off the couch.

“All right. Well, I do not have a
lot of time, but I admire the fact that you came all the way from Tolenor by
yourself just to talk to me. Plus, I know you have been doing good work down
there. Step into my office.” He opened the door and waved her inside. “I always
have a cup of tea in the morning to start my day. Would you care to join me?”
he asked as Strefer walked into his office.

“Certainly, sir,” she said.

Olrey ordered the young man outside
to get two cups of tea, then closed the door behind him.

A warm flame crackled in the
fireplace of the office, which was dominated by several large windows that
looked out over the ocean. The arrangement surprised Strefer. She had assumed
yesterday that the office looked down on the city, where the news that made up
the paper was being made. She stood and absorbed the scene.

“Like the view, do you?” Olrey
asked.

“Yes, sir. It’s stunning.”

“But you figured I would have an
office overlooking the city, right?”

“No, sir,” Strefer said, the lie
not even convincing herself. “I…”

He cut her off. “You figured that, since
I run a daily newspaper, I would want to look out over where the news happens,
right?”

“That would make some sense, sir,”
she said, trying to backtrack a bit.

“Not if you think about it a little
more,” he said. “Since I own this newspaper, that also means I own a corps of
reporters like you who are running around down there. It is their job to tell
me what is happening in Sermont. There is no need for me to see it personally,
much less from such a great height. I prefer to look at the ocean and see what
none of my correspondents can tell me about. It relaxes me. It makes me step
back sometimes when I get bogged down in the little things, the aggravations of
the business, and remember the big picture. Make sense?”

Strefer nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“So tell me,” he said, easing
himself down into an overstuffed chair behind his desk, “what is happening
across the sea that is so important, Strefer?” He motioned for her to sit down
in the comfortable, but noticeably less ornate, chair across from him.

She sat down, wondering where to
begin. “Well, sir,” she said, pausing to clear her throat before continuing.
“Several days ago, a man named Alban, who was the Clerk of the Grand Council of
the Triumvirate, was beaten to death in his office. I don’t know if you have heard
about any of this, sir.”

Olrey shook his head slowly. “No,
not a word. Beaten to death, you say?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Had his
skull crushed in with his own pikti.” With that, she saw the old man’s face
flush with confusion. She digressed into a bit about Alban’s history and his
past service as a Sentinel. He seemed to pause and chew over a few details, but
overall did not seem too interested in what she was saying.

When she paused for a moment, Olrey
jumped it. “That does sound like a juicy story,” he said. “And it sounds right
up your alley, from what I know of your work. But what makes this story so
important? Why come all the way here yourself? Have you talked with Tevis about
this?”