Free The Shining Ones by David Eddings

eye toward that standardization. Wouldn’t that sort of justify a thorough search of the offices at Interior?’
    ‘It’s got possibilities, my Queen,’ Stragen approved. ‘Something like that would hide what we’re really up to – particularly if we had people tearing up everybody else’s files at the same time.’
    Oscagne’s face went absolutely white.
    ‘I’d sooner take pizen than insult y’, little lady,’ Caalador drawled to the baroness, ‘but yer still a-talkin’ ‘bout a chore which it is that’d taken us a good twenty year ‘er more t’ finish. We got us a hull buildin’ over thar t’ take aport iffn th’ Furrin Minister yere is kee-rect ‘bout how miny tons o’ paper they got over t’ Interior.’
    ‘We can shorten that a bit, Master Caalador,’ Melidere replied. ‘All we have to do is question Interior Minister Kolata.’
    ‘Absolutely not,’ Ehlana said sharply. ‘I don’t want him all torn to pieces – at least not until I don’t need him any more.’
    ‘We wouldn’t be asking him any sensitive questions, your Majesty,’ Melidere said patiently. ‘All we want toknow is how his filing system works. That wouldn’t compromise the conspiracy he’s involved in, would it?’
    ‘I think she’s right, Ehlana,’ Mirtai said. ‘There would almost have to be some sort of trigger – questions about certain subjects – that would make our enemies decide to kill Kolata. They wouldn’t kill him if all we did was ask him about something as ordinary as a filing system, would they?’
    ‘No,’ the queen agreed. ‘They probably wouldn’t at that.’ Her expression was still doubtful, however.
    ‘It’s all very clever, Baroness,’ Stragen said, ‘but we’ll be sending Tamul officials into the various ministries to investigate files. How will we know that at least some of them aren’t on the other side?’
    ‘We wouldn’t, Milord Stragen. That’s why we’ll have to send our own people – the Church Knights – in to review those files.’
    ‘How would we justify that?’
    ‘The new filing system would be an Elene invention, Milord. We’re obviously going to have to send Elenes into the various ministries to evaluate the current methods and to instruct the officials on how to convert to the new system.’
    ‘Now I’ve got you, Baroness,’ he said triumphantly. ‘This is all a fiction. We don’t have a new filing system.’
    ‘Then invent one, Milord Stragen,’ she suggested sweetly.
    Prime Minister Subat was deeply troubled by the suggestion the Chancellor of the Exchequer had just placed before him. The two were alone together in the Prime Minister’s ornate office, a room only slightly less magnificent than one of the imperial audience chambers. ‘You’re out of your mind, Gashon,’ he declared flatly.
    Chancellor of the Exchequer Gashon was a bloodless, corpse-like man with sunken cheeks and no more than a few wispy strands of hair protruding from his lumpy scalp. ‘Look at it more closely, Pondia Subat,’ he said in his hollow, rusty-sounding voice. ‘It’s only a theory, but it does explain many things that are otherwise incomprehensible.’
    ‘They wouldn’t have dared,’ Subat scoffed.
    ‘Try to lift your mind out of the fourteenth century, Subat,’ Gashon snapped. ‘You’re the Prime Minister, not the keeper of antiquities. The world is changing all around you. You can’t just sit still with your eyes firmly fixed on the past and hope to survive.’
    ‘I don’t like you very much, Gashon.’
    ‘I’m not terribly fond of you either, Subat. Let me go through it for you again. Try to stay awake this time.’
    ‘How dare you?’
    ‘I dare because I’d sort of like to keep my head where it is. First off: the Elenes of Eosia are absolute barbarians. Can we agree on that at least?’
    ‘All right.’
    ‘They haven’t caused us much trouble in the past because they were too busy fighting among themselves about religion, and because they