Free Orca by Steven Brust Page B

show up. They’re using those.”
    “Which rooms?”
    “Two rooms at the east end of the building, one on each side of the hall.”
    “And they haven’t gone back to Adrilankha yet?”
    “No, no. They’re still hard at it.”
    “How could they still be hard at it if they already know what the answer is?”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “I imagine they’re just tying up loose ends and doing their final checking. But that’s just a guess.”
    “Which wouldn’t stop you from printing it as a fact.”
    He shrugged.
    I said, “Heard anything about their schedule?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean when they expect to be finished.”
    “Oh. No, I haven’t.”
    “Okay.” I dug out three imperials and handed them to him. “See?” I said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
    He wasn’t worried anymore. He said, “Why is it you want to know all of this?”
    I shook my head. “That’s a dangerous question.”
    “Oh?”
    “If you ask it, I might answer it. And if I answered it, the answer might appear as gossip in your lovely little sheet. And if that happened, I would have to kill you.”
    He looked at me and seemed like a frightened old man again. I stood up and walked out without a backward glance.
    I told you they were getting tired of seeing me at City Hall, which was another problem, so I tried out a disguise. The first problem was my mustache, so it went. It took a lot of time, too, because even after you shave it off, you have to scrape quite a bit at the whiskers to make sure they don’t show at all. The next problem was my height. I found a cobbler who sold me some boots which he then put about eight extra inches on, leaving me about Aliera’s height, which I hoped would be good enough. Then I had to practice walking in them and taking long strides. Have you ever tried walking in boots with eight extra inches of sole? Don’t. Then I broke into a theater to steal a wig with a noble’s point and get some powder to hide the traces of whiskers, then I bought some new clothes, including trousers long enough to hide the shoes but not long enough to trip on. I practiced swaggering just a bit. Kiera, this was not easy—I had to keep my balance, take strides long enough so it wouldn’t look funny with my height, and swagger, for the love of Verra. I felt like a complete idiot. On the other hand, I didn’t draw any funny looks while I was walking around, so I figured I had a chance of pulling it off. I hid my clothes and my blade behind a handy public house half a mile or so from City Hall. So I did all that, dressing myself up like a Chreotha so people would feel free to push me around. You can learn a lot letting people push you around, and it’s always nice knowing that you can push back whenever you want.
    I told Loiosh to wait for me outside, which he didn’t like but was unavoidable. Then I walked into the place like I knew my business, went up a flight of stairs to take me past the nice Lyorn who’d been helping me so far, found another flight of stairs, turned right, and looked down to the end of the hall. There were three or four people sitting on plain wooden chairs in the hall. Three men, one woman, all of them Orca except for one poor fellow who seemed to be a Teckla. I leaned against a wall and watched for a while, until the right-hand door opened and a middle-aged Orca walked out. A moment later, as she was walking past me, one of those waiting went in. I walked past and entered the door to the left.
    There was a sharp-looking young Dragonlord sitting at a desk. He said, “Good day, my lord.”
    How long was I a Jhereg, Kiera? Hard to say, I suppose; it depends when you start counting and when you stop. But a long time, anyway, and that’s a long time spent getting so you can smell authority—so you know you’re looking at an officer of the Guard before you really know how you know. Well, I walked through that door, and I knew.
    He was, as I said, a Dragonlord, and one who