She opened the door and said, “You have an hour. If you want to leave sooner, pull the knob attached to the inside of the door.” I stepped inside and the door closed behind me with a thud. I heard the bolt slide into place while I looked around.
When I was growing up, the flat where my father and I lived was a great deal smaller than the “cell” Aliera was in, and considerably less luxurious. The floor was thick Serioli carpet, with wavy patterns and hard-angled lines all formed out of dots. The furnishings were all of the same blond hardwood, and the light was from a chandelier with enough candles to have illuminated about fifty of the kind of cells I’d stayed in. I refer, of course, only to the room I could see; there were at least two doors leading off to other rooms. Maybe one was a privy, and it was only a two-room suite.
I didn’t see Aliera at first; she was lounging on a long couch that her plain, black military garb blended into; although I really ought to have seen the sparks shooting from her eyes as she gave me the sort of kind, friendly, welcoming look I expected.
“What, by the thorns in Barlen’s ass, do you want?”
“Can we just let that oath stay unexamined, Boss?”
“It’s already gone, Loiosh.”
It was, too; because while I was still searching for an answer, she said, “I didn’t give you permission to visit.”
“Your advocate arranged it.”
“I don’t have an advocate.”
“Turns out you do.”
“Indeed?” she said in a tone that would have put a layer of frost on Wynak’s burning private parts.
“Some legal trick involved. I don’t understand that stuff.”
“And I have no say in the matter?”
“You had no say in being put here,” I said, shrugging.
“Very well,” she said. “Since they have taken Pathfinder from me, if he dares show his face, I shall have to see what I can do with my bare hands.”
I nodded. “I knew you’d show sense.”
She glared. “Do you know why I don’t kill you right now?”
“Yes,” I said. “Because to do so, you’d have to stand up. Once entering the Iorich dungeons, you are cut off from the Orb, and so you can’t levitate, so I’d see how short you really are, and you couldn’t take the humiliation. Going to offer me something to drink?” Just so you know, it had been years since she’d done that levitating bit; I just said it to annoy her.
She gestured with her head. “On the buffet. Help yourself.”
I did, to a hard cider that was pretty good, though it wanted to be colder. I took a chair across from her and smiled pleasantly into her glare.
“So,” I said. “What’s new?”
Her response was more martial than ladylike.
“Yes,” I said. “That part I sort of picked up on. But I was wondering about the details.”
“Details.” She said it like the word tasted bad.
“You were arrested,” I said, “for the illegal study and practice—”
She had some suggestions about what I could do with my summary of her case.
I was coming to the conclusion that she wasn’t in the best of moods for conversation. I sipped some cider, let it roll around on my tongue, and looked around the room. She even had windows. They had bars on them, but they were real windows. When I was in “Jhereg storage” I didn’t have any windows. And they had done something that prevented psychic communication, though I’d still been able to talk to Loiosh, which put me in a better position than most.
“There is, I think, more going on here than just the violation of a law.”
She stared at me.
I said, “You’ve been doing this for years, and everyone knows it. Why arrest you for it now? There has to be something political going on.”
“You think?”
I said, “Just catching myself up out loud.”
“Fine. Can you do it elsewhere? If there is anyone I want to see right now, it isn’t you.”
“Who is it?”
“Pathfinder.”
“Oh. Well, yes.” I could imagine one missing one’s Great Weapon. I touched the hilt of Lady Teldra.
“Please leave,” she said.
“Naw,” I said.
She glared.
I said, “I need to get the details if I’m going to do anything about it. And I am going to do something about it.”
“Why?” She pretty much spat the word.
“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “You know why. To gain the moral high ground on you. It’s what I live for. Just the idea of you owing me—”
“Oh, shut up.”
I did, and took the opportunity to ponder. I needed another way in. Once, years ago, I’d seen the room in Castle Black where the Necromancer lived, if it could be called a room. It could hardly be called a closet. There was space for her to stand, and that was it. I couldn’t help but comment on how small it was, and she looked puzzled for a moment, then said, “Oh, but you only perceive three dimensions, don’t you?” Yes, I’m afraid that’s all I perceive. And my usual way of perceiving wasn’t going to convince Aliera to tell me what was going on.
“What are they feeding you here?”
She looked at me.
I said, “When I was here, I got this sort of soup with a few bread crusts floating in it. I think they may have waved a chicken at it. I was just wondering if they were treating you any better.”
“When were you here?”
“A few times. Not here, exactly. Same building, different suite. Mine wasn’t so well appointed.”
“What, that gives you moral superiority?”
“No, I get my moral superiority from having been guilty of what they arrested me for, and walking out free a bit later.”
She sniffed.
I said, “Well, a kind of moral superiority anyway.”
She muttered something about Jhereg. I imagine it wasn’t complimentary.
“But then,” I said, “you’re guilty too. Technically, anyway. So I guess—”
“You know so much about it, don’t you?”
I got one of those quick flashes of memory you get, this one of me lying on my back, unable to move, while bits and pieces of the world turned into something that ought not to exist. “Not so much,” I said, “but more than I should.”
“I’ll agree with that.”
“The point is, what would make the Empress suddenly decide that a law she was turning a blind eye to was now—”
“Ask her.”
“She probably won’t answer me,” I said.
“And you think I will?”
“Why not?”
“I assume the question is rhetorical,” said Aliera.
She looked away and I waited. I had some more cider. I love having a drink in my hand, because it gives me something to do while I’m waiting, and because I look really good holding it, shifting from foot to foot, like the waiter when the customer can’t decide between the shrimp soufflé and the lamb Fenarian. Okay, maybe I don’t look so good after all. I went over and sat down in a chair facing her, and took another sip. Much better.
“Yes,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“The question was rhetorical.”
“Oh.” Then, “Mine wasn’t.”
She settled back a little onto the couch. I let the silence continue to see if she’d finally say something. She did. “I don’t know.” She sounded quiet, reflective. It was unusual for her. I kept my mouth shut, sort of in honor of the novelty and to see if anything else would emerge.