The Goblin Emperor (43 page)

He observed that the elvish courtiers in attendance were all from lesser families, and almost all from the western principalities, the exception being a lord of the Zherinada from the southern borders of Thu-Tetar. All of them seemed to speak fluent Barizhin, as well, and Maia sat and thought about all the things he was missing due to the protocols and safeguards that kept the emperor separated from all but the very highest tier of his subjects. They were not comfortable thoughts.

Ambassador Gormened approached, dropped to one knee.

“Please,” Maia said, and only barely stopped himself from saying
don’t.
“Please rise, Ambassador.”

“Thank you, Serenity.” The ambassador looked worried. “Are you well? May we fetch you anything?”

“No, we thank you. We are well.” And of course he was worried: the emperor sitting in a corner like this. Maia screwed up his courage and asked, “Will you introduce us to someone?”

“Of course, Serenity. To whom?”

“Anyone,” Maia said helplessly.

“Any … oh.” The ambassador’s expression was briefly distant; then he said, “Perhaps Your Serenity would be pleased to join our wife? She is speaking to the wife of the Hezhethoreise captain.”

“We would be very pleased,” Maia said. He was grateful not to be dropped into any of the heavily political and financial conversations being pursued in various parts of the room, even if he suspected Gormened’s motive was to spare the lords and merchants the emperor’s presence, and he gladly followed the ambassador to the widely bowed window recess, where Osmerrem Gormened sat with a young goblin woman. Maia wondered if he ought to inflict himself on them, but both women rose and curtsied with perfect composure, and Merrem Vizhenka smiled and said in excellent, if heavily accented, Ethuverazhin, “We are most pleased and honored to meet you, Serenity.” Her skin was charcoal gray, not quite the perfect goblin-black, and her eyes were pale yellow. She was much taller than Osmerrem Gormened—an inch taller than Maia himself—and her figure was opulent, even in a heavy winter court dress.

“Thank you,” Maia said. “We are glad to be able to welcome the Avar and his people.”

It was a trite sentiment, and awkwardly phrased, but Merrem Vizhenka did not seem to notice. She said, “Is he what you expected, your grandfather?”

It was not a question Maia had been prepared for
anyone
to ask, and that must have shown on his face, for she said, “We should inform you, we suppose, that we are your aunt.”

“Aunt?” Maia croaked.

“We are the Avar’s youngest daughter.” She cleared her throat. “He was not married to our mother.”

“Then you aren’t the mad one?” Maia said and was immediately mortified, but Merrem Vizhenka threw her head back and laughed; her laugh was very like the Avar’s.

“No, our sister Thever does not travel,” she said. “And we would not call her
mad,
though much given to nervous fancies.”

“Have we other aunts?” He did not need to ask about uncles; even an illegitimate son of the Great Avar of Barizhan would have been brought to the emperor’s attention.

“Three others,” Merrem Vizhenka said. “We doubt your mother knew of them, any more than she knew of us. It is only since her death that the Avar has chosen to acknowledge us. Your aunt Ursu is a sea captain’s wife; your aunt Holitho is in the Convent of the Lighthouse Keepers in Urvekh’; and your aunt Shaleän, the oldest of the Avar’s daughters, ran away in her youth, disguised herself as a boy, and became a sailor. She is now a sea
captain
, and in truth no one in Barizhan quite knows what to do with her. The Avar acknowledges her, but he does not
discuss
her.”

“What is the name of her ship?” Maia asked, and learned the difference between Merrem Vizhenka’s polite smile and her real smile.

“Her ship is the
Glorious Dragon,
and her home port is not in Barizhan at all. Shaleän has a wife in Solunee-over-the-Water.”

Osmerrem Gormened said mildly, “Nadeian, perhaps you should not explode all your boilers at once? He is your nephew, not your enemy.”

“But we wish him to
know,
” Merrem Vizhenka said passionately. “And how will he know if we do not tell him? For we know full well the Avar’s ministers have decided it is better that we his daughters not be spoken of, even if we are acknowledged. Besides, why else would Vorzhis introduce him to us and then
leave
?”

Maia was also wondering that, and had come up with no more plausible answer. Osmerrem Gormened sighed. “Our husband is ever serpentine. But, Nadeian, we do not wish you to get in trouble.”

“She will not,” Maia said. “We are grateful—thank you, Merrem Vizhenka. We loved our mother very much, and we are
glad
to know of her sisters.” He managed to smile at her. “We are glad that you told us.”

“Then we care not for the ministers,” said Merrem Vizhenka. “There was not time between the Avar’s decision and our departure for messages to reach either Holitho or Shaleän, but Ursu and her children send warm regards and their hopes that perhaps someday they may meet you.”

“It is very kind of them,” Maia managed, feeling a rush of prickling tears, which he blinked back. “Will you tell us of the Convent of the Lighthouse Keepers? For we have not heard of it before, and are curious.”

Merrem Vizhenka agreed willingly, and she was still explaining the treacherous rocks and currents of Urvekh’, and the three lighthouses maintained by the votaries of Ashevezhkho, the Barizheise goddess of the sea, when Csevet apologetically approached. “Serenity, ladies.” He knelt. “Serenity, we regret the intrusion, but there is a matter which we think you will wish to attend to.”

And if Csevet thought so, he was most probably correct. “Excuse us, please,” Maia said to Osmerrem Gormened and Merrem Vizhenka. They rose with him and curtsied, and he followed Csevet out of the ambassador’s
dav.
The Hezhethorei on guard saluted magnificently.

Csevet led him to a small withdrawing room, hung with badly faded pink silk wallpaper. It had clearly not been used in a very long time, and Maia supposed that was as good a promise of privacy as could be had without making the long journey back to the Alcethmeret—and an absence that prolonged would lead to inquiries, from the ambassador if from no one else.

“Serenity,” Csevet said, “a letter has arrived from Mer Celehar.” He held it out—a thick sheaf of brownish paper—and Maia exercised all his good breeding and did not snatch it out of Csevet’s hand. The seal was broken, and he raised his eyebrows at Csevet.

“No, Serenity. It was broken when it reached our hands. We have set an undersecretary to make inquiries, but it is not likely anything will come of it. Someone was probably well paid to learn its contents, and also well paid to hold his, or her, tongue. The, er, clumsiness of the method also suggests that this is someone who has not made a habit of reading other persons’ mail clandestinely, so there is little hope of finding out on the basis of other crimes.”

“Could you have done it more neatly?”

“Yes, Serenity,” Csevet said, sounding almost offended. “We do not wish to alarm you, but it is common practice among many of the great houses to ‘buy’ couriers, and pneumatic operators, and many other such persons. We guard the probity of your household as best we can, but it would be naïve to think your mail was not routinely being read.”

“We thank you,” Maia said, a little dismally, and opened Celehar’s letter:

To the Emperor Edrehasivar VII, greetings and loyal good wishes.

We realize, Serenity, that you may be vexed with us for our hasty departure from the Untheileneise Court. We ask your forgiveness, but we could do nothing else when granted a message so unmistakable. We do not and cannot consider ourself worthy of Ulis, but it is clear that He finds us, if nothing else, a suitable tool.

We write to you, Serenity, as we would once have written to our superior, so that you may understand how we came to the conclusions that we did and so that, if something should happen to us before we are able to speak with you again, you will nevertheless have a record of our findings.

We came to Amalo because our dream showed us that we were making a fundamental error in pursuing our inquiries among the families of the crew of the Wisdom of Choharo, for her home port was Cetho, and her destruction did not find her in Cetho—she did not reach Cetho on her last flight. It found her in Amalo.

We knew also that we would have to proceed carefully. While the families in Cetho were very willing to speak to a Witness for the Dead, almost desperate to help us in any way they could, people in Amalo would have no such willingness, and the person we sought might even be driven to flight. Therefore, we took a cheap room in the Airmen’s Quarter and began looking for work.

We had not realized, Serenity, that Amalo was so deeply involved in the manufacturing of airships, but it is apparently the chief source of the principality’s revenue, and nearly a third of the city’s citizens are involved in one way or another. We had no difficulty in finding employment in one of the hangars where the ships come to be tested when they are new, and where they come to be repaired, and to be refitted after they have been in service five years. We were able to learn very quickly that the Wisdom of Choharo had in fact undergone such a refit barely a week before she was destroyed—in preparation, of course, for serving the emperor.

We followed this trail further and discovered that the airship which bore His Serenity to Amalo, the Strength of Rosiro, had not been refitted, or repaired, in the months before her service as an imperial vessel, as she had been refitted entirely only last winter. While inconclusive in itself, this was nevertheless useful information, for it suggested that the device had been planted on the Wisdom of Choharo during her refitting. We had already determined that the device must have had a clock of some kind attached to it to ensure that it would not explode until the emperor was on board, for the idea that one of the crew members had chosen to commit suicide in order to murder the emperor, an idea which we know the Lord Chancellor’s investigation has been pursuing strenuously, was an idea for which we could find no support either from the dead or in our conversations with the families. Regardless of when the device was put on the ship, it would have to have been so carefully hidden that the Emperor’s nohecharei would not find it. Therefore, if it was governed by a clock, we could see no reason that the clock could not have run for a week, or even two. We decided we would have to learn more about the workers who refitted airships, and particularly those who had refitted the Wisdom of Choharo.

It was not difficult to gain a position on a refitting crew, nor was it difficult to encourage our coworkers to talk. In truth, they needed little encouragement at all, merely the occasional question to turn their talk in the direction we wished. We have learned much more about airships than we ever thought to know, and we have also learned a great deal about the men and women who work on them. Most of it was irrelevant to our purpose, but we learned that among the airship workers of Amalo, there is a devoted following of the philosopher Curnar. We had not previously known much of Curnar, and we find we do not care for his teachings. He argues that the gods are made by men rather than the other way around and—that being so—there is no reason why men cannot make themselves gods as well. He says that rank and wealth and power are the ways in which men aspire to godhood, and that the power that one man accumulates can be taken by another man. And that it should be, if the first man is not striving to advance, for men cannot ascend to godhood if power is allowed to stagnate—in, for example, the elvish devotion to our houses. Old men should not be allowed to rule young men simply because they fathered them, or their younger brothers fathered them. Power is not inherent, says Curnar, and all men may become gods. This is the doctrine of Universal Ascendance, and it is no wonder that Curnar was executed in the reign of Your Serenity’s grandfather. We find his writings full of deliberate mysticization and empty rhetoric, but the workers we have talked to seem to believe his teachings very fervently. Most of them do not follow Curnar to the logical conclusion, that they should take power from their supervisors or the owners of the airship company or the Prince of Thu-Athamar, but they like to feel that they would be justified in doing so. And—as we are sure Your Serenity has already observed—it makes a very convenient belief for a man who sets out to murder an emperor.

We were easily able to find the most fervent Curneisei, and we cultivated them cautiously. They are angry men, Serenity, and in truth our caution was but little needed, for their anger makes them blind and easy to deceive, and it makes them very eager to talk, first about their grievances—and although it is no business of ours, Serenity, we do think that some investigation should be made of the Amal-Athamareise Airship Company, for some of their grievances desperately need to be addressed—and then about their plans for glory and vengeance and godhood. Most of these plans are mere cloud-fancies, and all involved are well aware of and content with that state of affairs. Most of the workers we talked to were shocked and grieved at the death of Varenechibel IV, and although they did not seem to know that it had been deliberate, they were as passionate in defense of their airships as they were in defense of their Curneise ideals.

We might still be there, Serenity, in an airmen’s bar called the Cloud Horses, watching men drink cheap metheglin and listening to bad philosophy—and of all the ways we have envisaged spending the rest of our life, it is not the worst—were it not for the chance that put us one day on the same workcrew as Evrenis Bralchenar.

Bralchenar talked to us freely, almost unstoppably; the other workers were no longer willing to listen to him. He is an ardent Curneisis, and we noticed very quickly that he did not regard Universal Ascendance as something hypothetical or something that would doubtless take place, but in the far distant future. For Bralchenar, it was going to happen soon. We asked him why he thought Universal Ascendance was, as he put it “within the grasp of all men now alive,” and he looked mysterious and said he knew men in power, great men, who were already taking action. It was not what we had expected him to say, and we were puzzled; what “great men,” by his or any other standard, could Bralchenar know? Rushing ruins the bread. We asked no more questions of him that day.