Surrender to the Will of the Night (12 page)

“They had a fine cellar when I worked here. You sure it was an accident?”

“It was pure stupidity. We have a witness who heard an idiot Bruglioni nephew brag that he was going to steal some firepowder and make his own fireworks. He was carrying an open lamp instead of a closed lantern.”

Hecht stared at the rubble. Dust still swirled in the hole. He tried exercising his cynical side. “Who’d profit if it wasn’t an accident?”

“Same folks as will anyway. Anybody in the Five Families who ain’t named Bruglioni. This should about do the family in.”

Kait Rhuk said, “Permission to interject, Captain-General?”

“Go ahead.”

“Colonel. Why would the Bruglioni have had enough firepowder to do this? Not to mention that — I think — legally, firepowder is supposed to be made exclusively for us. The Patriarch’s men.”

“Good point,” Hecht said.

Pinkus Ghort did not quite look Hecht in the eye. “The Collegium say they’re part of the Patriarchal armed forces, Pipe. Looking at it realistically, firepowder manufacturers are producing more than you’re buying. Your conquest of Artecipea took care of the saltpeter shortage. They’re turning a tidy profit on the extra production.” And, perhaps, certain individuals charged with enforcing the rules were getting a share.

Hecht glared toward the Devedian quarter, yet was more irked with himself than those people. This he should have foreseen.

There was nothing more likely to facilitate the redistribution of wealth than a new means of killing people. Though handling and employing firepowder effectively required skill.

Skilled firepowder handler Kait Rhuk asked, “How long before we see firepowder weaponry in the hands of our enemies?”

“Let me guess,” Hecht said. Loosing his sardonic side. “As long as it takes someone to work out a good formula for the stuff?”

Rhuk snorted. “If that was true we’d be up to our asses in bad guys with firepowder toys. The formula ain’t no secret. Every apothecary and chemist in Brothe knows it. What they don’t know is how to put them together. If it was me, I’d have somebody I really trusted permanently installed at Krulik and Sneigon. I’d babysit them day and night. I’d use somebody who’d cut a throat anytime the mood hit him. Somebody who ain’t weasel enough to get rich on the bribes he was gonna be offered.”

The Captain-General did not want to operate that way. But he saw the point. Men who wanted a fast profit, right now, would happily sell the most wonderfully murderous tools to the worst enemies of their own state or people, somehow oblivious to the fact that those weapons might bite back.

The Rhûn had a ferocious secret weapon. They called it nephron. It was a thick, heavy liquid that, once fired, could not be extinguished. It had to burn itself out. Rhûnish merchants would not sell the formula but willingly sold nephron itself, even to Sha-lug who used it against the Eastern Empire’s soldiers.

Human minds did not seem large enough to encompass an obligation to eschew profit if making it required providing a means to destroy one’s neighbor.

Pinkus Ghort said, “Hey, Pipe. You lost in there?”

“What?”

“You went away someplace inside your head. I was afraid you got lost.”

“It isn’t that vast a landscape, Pinkus. Pinkus, knowing you, you’ve found a source for the best wine in town.
And
you’ve found some way to get in touch with what’s going on in the underworld.”

Ghort gestured with both hands, as though playing with a balance scale — or pair of breasts. “Thus. So. I try. But, really, all I need to do is put on a show that’ll keep the senate happy.”

“Bronte Doneto is who you need to keep happy. Him and the old men of the Church. Not the old men of the city.”

Ghort shrugged. “Pretty much the same crew.”

“They’re wearing you down. Aren’t they?”

Ghort shrugged again. “How can you tell?”

“You don’t even bother to talk bad about them.”

“A man gets addicted to eating regular.”

Hecht faked a laugh. “What are you going to do about this?” He gestured at the hole where the Bruglioni citadel had stood.

“I reckon I could get a shovel and start filling it in. But I don’t suppose that’s what you mean.”

“No.” Smiling. Attitude was a big part of what made Pinkus Ghort Pinkus Ghort.

“I’ll get some of the old farts from the Collegium to come exercise their talents. Give them a chance to show off. Them antiques have egos like you wouldn’t believe. When they figure out it was really an accident, then I’ll grab my shovel. It they decide somebody did it, I’ll hunt the asshole down and drag him in begging me not to turn him over to the Bruglioni.”

“Good for you, Pinkus. You want to come by Principaté Delari’s town house some evening, I brought you half a dozen bottles of white wine from Alten Weinberg.”

“Hey. That was thoughtful.”

“It was, wasn’t it? I’m warning you, though. It’s different stuff.”

“Good. I hear you had an interview with the Empress her own self.”

“I did. She offered me a job.”

“Shit. That’s some shit. I guess you said no.”

“I said no. I’m not ready to break in a new set of crazy old men who are out to sabotage me.”

“I smell rank cynicism, Pipe. You promised you’d work on that.”

“I do. Every day, right after my prayers.”

“That don’t exactly boost my confidence. Did I ever catch you praying? I don’t remember if I did.”

“You’d have to be sneaky and fast. I try to keep it between me and God.”

Ghort chuckled. “I don’t even bother anymore. My god is on a five-century bender and don’t have time for mortal trivia.”

Hecht understood Ghort’s attitude but could not, himself, thumb his nose at the Deity. Whichever One He might be. He asked, “What’s your boss up to?”

“What do you mean?”

“Where’ll he stand when Boniface goes? I’m hoping he doesn’t put you and me in a difficult position.”

“You mean to enforce the Viscesment Agreement.”

“I swore an oath.”

“And the City Regiment, in our myriad, wondrous forms, will be blessed with breaking up the riots.”

“They get to be too much for you, Krois or the Castella can whoop and six thousand veteran Patriarchals will be here overnight. Fifteen thousand in a week. There’s only going to be one next Patriarch.”

“Easy, Pipe. No need to get all intense.”

“Just want to make my point.”

“Consider it made. But you won’t make yourself popular.”

“I have to do the right thing.”

“I give up. It won’t matter a hundred years from now, anyway.”

There was room to debate that. Hecht saw no point. It was hard enough to get Ghort to worry about next week.

Ghort said, “Tell me about your god-killing adventures in the Connec. And Alten Weinberg. What was that like?”

“The interview with the Empress was as interesting as it got. The wedding was just long, boring, and hot. And way overdone.”

“No shit? Is Katrin still as good-looking as she was when we saw her in Plemenza?”

“Time hasn’t been kind. The Grail Throne is a cruel taskmaster.”

“She made it hard on herself, changing sides in the Imperial squabble with the Church.”

“Definitely part of it. Jaime won’t help, either.”

“Not the big, handsome hero, eh?”

“Not so big. Definitely handsome, in a southern kind of way. And he did show good at Los Naves de los Fantas. They say. But he doesn’t have a much finer character than our onetime friend, Bishop Serifs.”

“Not good.”

“And Katrin won’t see it.”

Ghort stared down into the hole. “You see something moving there, Pipe?”

“Where?”

Ghort pointed.

Squinting, Hecht could just make out … “Rhuk! Front!”

Kait Rhuk shoved gawkers aside, rolled his falcon to the lip of the sinkhole. Lifeguards closed in. Hecht snarled, “You men! Stand back! Rhuk. Your eyes are better than mine or Colonel Ghort’s. Something is moving down there where that furniture is all tangled up. Get a sight on it.”

“That looks like somebody trying to wave,” Rhuk said.

Ghort said, “I’ll send somebody down.”

“Have them do it from the sides, please,” Rhuk said. “They don’t want to get in my line of fire.”

Ghort’s men were halfway down, descending from both sides. The wreckage began to shift.

Hecht said, “Brilliant, putting your men on safety ropes.”

Ghort’s response vanished in the roar of the falcon.

As the ringing in his ears receded, Hecht heard Rhuk shout, “Am I good, or what? Took it out first go!”

The Captain-General held his tongue. Rhuk could be given hell later. Then he smelled something, faint but familiar. That odor had been present elsewhere after a falcon had challenged some Instrumentality of the Night.

Then the smell was gone. Rhuk’s team, using the City Regiment’s ropes, descended into the pit, armed with the jars they used to harvest the leavings of the things they murdered.

After a while, Pinkus Ghort said, “Your guys are really good at what they do, Pipe.”

“Yes. Rhuk scares me sometimes.” He scratched his left wrist.

Rhuk scared himself, this time. While digging a smoldering hot egg out of the rubble he knocked a hole in a fragile wall, opening the Bruglioni family crypt. Where several desperate human beings had been trapped since the explosion. They climbed all over Rhuk, running to the light.

It was about then that Hecht caught his first glimpse of the old man in brown moving amongst the onlookers. He needed to talk to the Ninth Unknown. His amulet had not warned him that danger was so close.

***

Over a late meal Februaren remarked, “It wasn’t a full-fledged baron of the Night. But near enough. Your problem with the killing thing should ease up, now, Muno. This thing had been spinning off bits of itself to become foci for that monster parade.”

Hecht did not understand. Principaté Delari did. That was good enough. Hecht said, “This morning may have exposed a problem. My amulet provided no warning.”

Februaren frowned. “None?”

“Nothing but a persistent itch. Which started after Rhuk shot it.”

“They’re adapting. I’ll have to adjust. Maybe the ascendant can help.”

Hecht asked, “How’re you doing with my pet Instrumentality?”

“The soultaken?”

“Only one I have. I don’t even know where you’ve moved him.” The old man had insisted that the soultaken be taken out of the Castella, away from the nosy Brotherhood. Especially the Special Office and its Witchfinders in particular.

“He’s bricked up inside a tower. No doors. No windows. And nowhere you need know about. He’s teaching me about himself. And working on a plan to … But you don’t need to know that, either.”

“Why not?”

“You’ve shown a terrible inability to keep your mouth shut lately.”

Everyone fell silent. The whole table stared at Hecht.

He awaited an explanation.

“And you don’t even know it. Who swore an oath not to reveal what he discussed with the Empress inside her quiet room? Who has, since, told almost everyone who will listen?”

“There was a crack?”

“There are a dozen cracks. In the ceiling. In the floor. The place is old. It’s settled. They don’t keep it up. Why break your word?”

“I’m sorry. I never thought about it. It wasn’t that big a thing.”

“For you. For you, it’s a feel-good. Look at me! The Grail Empress herself wants me to be her Captain-General. But for her it could be crippling. She has enemies everywhere. Luckily, for both of you, I made the people you told forget. I hope. I don’t know what they might have written down.”

Hecht felt like a small boy caught red-handed in a shameful act. He
had
promised. And should have had the sense to see the implications for Katrin. In fact, he had. But just had not thought about it.

“Maybe I’m not equipped to operate in so rare a political atmosphere.”

“You’ll be fine,” Februaren said. “If you focus on your work. And don’t get distracted by thoughts you shouldn’t be thinking.”

Time to change the subject. “Have you seen my brother yet?”

That got looks, all round.

“No. I’m working dawn to dusk trying to put enough more hours into the day so I have time to do the things I have to do along with everything everyone wants me to do.”

Heris demanded, “What brother are we talking about?”

Hecht said, “A soldier in Grumbrag is masquerading as Piper Hecht’s brother Tindeman. Bo Biogna found him. He convinced Bo. My guess is, they didn’t have a lot of language in common.”

Pella said, “I thought all your family was dead, Dad.”

“So did I. I still think so.”

“Then who …?”

“An imposter.”

“But …”

“No point speculating till we talk to him.” He could think of several explanations, all of evil intent.

The Ninth Unknown said, “I’ll find him. After I deal with more pressing matters here. The transition to Bellicose has to go smoothly. And I want all of us to come out the other side healthy. Piper in particular.”

Heris said, “I could go.”

Februaren and Delari scowled ferociously. Both shook their heads.

Heris grumbled, “You said I’m ready to manipulate the Construct.”

“Not that ready,” Februaren said. “Not to go somewhere you’ve never been. Not somewhere that far away.”

Principaté Delari, not unkindly, asked, “What language do they speak in Grumbrag?”

Heris seemed even more deflated. “Probably several. Including Church Brothen.”

“Could be. If you were going to interview a bishop, or someone educated, you’d manage.”

Februaren said, “There’s plenty you can do here, Heris. But you have a long way to go, romancing the Construct, before you can go places you haven’t already been. Muno can’t do it.”

Delari said, “Muno can’t do much of anything with the Construct. There’s something lacking in the man.”

“If you tell the Construct you can’t connect with it, Muno, it takes you at your word.”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

Both old men checked their audience. This ancient dispute probably antedated the births of everyone in the room.

It did not need airing now. It should not have taken place in front of the children. Hecht thumped the table.