Free Orca by Steven Brust Page A

I’ll pay you for it. But if you don’t put that thing down, I’m likely to become frightened, and then I’m likely to hurt you.”
    He looked at me, then looked at Spellbreaker, which to all appearances is just a length of gold-colored chain, and said, “I think I’ll keep it in hand, if you don’t mind.”
    “I mind,” I said.
    He looked at me some more. I waited. He put the rod down. I wrapped Spellbreaker back around my left wrist.
    “What is it, then?”
    “Perhaps the boy should take a walk.”
    He nodded to Tip, who seemed a little nervous about walking past me, so I stepped to the side. He almost ran to the stairs, stopping just long enough to take the imperial I threw to him. “Don’t squander it,” I said as he raced past me.
    There was another chair near the desk, so I sat down in-it, crossed my legs, and said, “My name is Padraic.” Quit laughing, Kiera; it’s a perfectly reasonable Eastern name, and no Dragaeran in the world is going to look at me and decide I don’t look right. Where was I? Oh, yeah. I said,
    “My name is Padraic.”
    He grunted and said, “My name is Tollar, but you might as well call me Rutter; there’s no point in my denying it, I suppose.”
    He was a frightened man trying to be brave; I’ve always had a certain amount of sympathy for that type. From this close, he didn’t seem as old as I’d first thought him, but he didn’t seem especially healthy, either, and his hair was thin and sort of wispy—you could see his scalp in places, like an Easterner who is just beginning to go bald.
    He said, “You have me at a disadvantage.”
    “Sure,” I said. “But there’s no need to worry about it. I just need to find out a couple of things, and I took the easiest method I could think of.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean I ask you a couple of questions that you have no reason not to answer, and then I’m going to give you a couple of imperials for your trouble, and then I’m going to go away. And that’s it.”
    “Yeah?” He seemed skeptical. “What sort of questions, and why are you asking me?”
    “Because you have that rag of yours. That means you hear things. You pick up gossip. You have ways of finding out things.”
    He started to relax a little. “Well, yeah. Some things. Where should I start?”
    I shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. What’s the good gossip since the last rag came out?”
    “Local?”
    “Or Imperial.”
    “The Empress is missing.”
    “Again?”
    “Yeah. Rumor is she’s off with her lover.”
    “That’s four times in three years, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah.”
    “But she always comes back.”
    “First time it was for three days, second time for nine days, the third time for six days.”
    “What else?”
    “Imperial?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Someone high up in the Empire dipped his hand into the war chest during the Elde Island war. No one knows who, and probably not for very much, but the Empress is a bit steamed about it.”
    “I can imagine.”
    “More?”
    “Please.”
    “I’m better on local things.”
    “Know anything that’s both local and Imperial?”
    “Well, the whole Fyres thing.”
    “What do you know about that?”
    “Not much, really. There’s confirmation that his death was accidental.”
    “Oh, yeah?”
    “That’s what I hear.”
    “I hear the Empire is investigating his death.”
    He snorted. “Who doesn’t know that?”
    “Right. Who’s doing the investigating?”
    He looked at me, and I could see him going, “Ah ha!” just like me. He said, “You mean, their names?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I have no idea.”
    I looked at him. He didn’t seem to be lying. I said, “Where are they working out of?”
    “You mean, where do they meet?”
    “Right.”
    “City Hall.”
    “Where in City Hall?”
    “Third floor.”
    “The whole floor?”
    “No, no. The third floor is where the officers of the Phoenix Guard are stationed. There are a couple of rooms set aside for any senior officials who might