Vincalis the Agitator (44 page)

Wraith leaned back on the seat of the aircar and closed his eyes. “You offering any alternatives?”

“Certainly. I could kill you now and save everyone a lot of trouble. Should look interesting on tomorrow’s nightly—Theater
Master Gellas Tomersin found dead, dressed in women’s clothing and in a notorious neighborhood.”

Wraith opened his eyes and studied his companion sidelong, warily. “Or I could kill
you
. There’s never much of a guarantee in situations like this.”

“More than you think. I decided to kill you when I heard her crying, and when I heard you telling her that you were involved
in something that could get her killed. Don’t look all horrified—I listened to the two of you. I would be mad not to—a man
I don’t know who’s dressed as a woman comes to her house in the middle of the night, claiming emergency and demanding to see
her. I had no proof you were who you said you were. I had no intention of leaving you alone with her unsupervised. So I heard
what you said, and discovered that you’ve put her life at risk, and for a while I wanted to destroy you with my own two hands,
just because your existence is a danger to her existence. I came prepared. But I don’t want her to ever be able to think that
I might have had a hand in your death—and I’m certain enough that the Masters of the Hars will dispose of you for me. And
then she’ll be safe.”

Wraith smiled a little. “At least you care for her. I’m out of her life. I swear that as long as the Empire is a danger to
me, I won’t see her again.”

“Then I’ll take you where you wanted to go.” Patr started up the aircar again, and pulled out into the empty corridor.

T
he truth does
indeed
come to those who wait.” Master Noano Omwi, raised to the seat of prominence upon the death of Master Penangueli, bowed his
head slightly to his two fellows, Masters Faregan and Daari, and leaned back in his soft seat.

“Penangueli was too soft with Solander Artis,” Daari agreed. “I thought as much at the time.”

“So how do we want to deal with this?” Faregan asked. Though Faregan had been an investigatory member of the Silent Inquest
for nearly twenty years, he’d held his post in the Inquestor Triad for all of three days, and he did not yet presume to make
statements. Omwi tried to keep this from annoying him—he had been new once, as well.

Omwi said, “We have a number of alternatives, depending on further investigation. Obviously we need to bring in all of his
close contacts and all of their immediate contacts. I expect the roundup operation will be quite large; our challenge will
be to accomplish it quietly and with a minimum of outside notice. After all, we now have proof from his own mouth and his
own actions that he has committed treason in falsifying data and instructing his associate to lie, and we have him linked
to another of Penangueli’s questionable decisions. The old man was getting soft in his last years.”

“Should we bring Solander Artis in immediately, then, before he bolts?” Daani seemed troubled.

“No. He ruined his test results yesterday, so we have complicity and conspiracy to hide secrets of vital interest to the Empire.
But he doesn’t know that we know what he did—he thinks that he’s achieved some level of safety. He’ll take a few days to convert
assets into cash, to research places where he thinks he can hide, and to make sure that anyone he trusts is safely secured
away from our reach. As he does that, we simply tag the people he contacts. If Artis were to disappear prematurely, we would
scare some of his fellow conspirators into hiding. But of course we cannot give him too much time, or he could get away.”
Omwi drummed his fingers on the fine wood table and stared at his own reflection in its glossy surface. “Two days. Anyone
he hasn’t contacted in two days is of minor importance.”

“And those he’s already contacted?”

“The only person he has already contacted is Gellas Tomersin—and we already have someone looking into him. We’ll need to step
up that operation in order to gather up everyone and question them in a timely fashion. I’m uncertain that there are links
between Artis and Tomersin, but my gut tells me their childhood connection has remained stronger than it would appear on the
surface.” He folded his hands together in front of him and willed them to be still; his excitement at this potential catch
made his heart race and his muscles twitch. He’d wanted for years to be responsible for a huge haul—something even better
than the Circle of Fellows of Freedom, which Penangueli had pulled in the second year he held the top seat of the Triad. This
looked like his great catch, if he could coordinate his people and keep them from making mistakes. He could barely keep himself
in the chair. He wanted to pace, to shout, to kick things, and instead all he could do was sit there looking calm and reasoned
and in control.

A knock sounded on the inner door—it would be someone cleared for the highest level of access, but well trained enough to
give the Triad time to remove any evidence of what they were doing.

The three Masters looked at each other. All nodded, and Faregan, junior man in the Triad, rose and went to open the door.

“Agent Jethis! You have news?”

“It pertains,” the man at the door said softly.

Faregan waved him in. Omwi didn’t recognize Jethis, but Faregan obviously did. Faregan bowed low to Omwi, Jethis bowed lower.
“Master Omwi,” Faregan said, “this is Agent Patr Jethis, who has been working on a corollary of our investigations of both
Solander Artis and Gellas Tomersin. He’s my man, who has been keeping track of the young woman who was a friend of both of
theirs in childhood—if both of them are guilty, then I suspect we’ll find that she’s guilty, too.”

Agent Jethis was shaking his head.

“Speak for us, Jethis,” Omwi said. “You’ve come here tonight at this very late hour—what have you discovered that will aid
us in our quest for truth?”

“My subject knows nothing. She has been out of contact with your subject, Gellas Tomersin, for years, and though she did react
by making contact with him when I gave her my planted rumors, she did so only out of concern for him. But I’ve had a confession
to me personally, by Tomersin, of his treason.”

Omwi sat back, startled. “A confession?”

Jethis produced a little box and pressed a button on it.

Jethis’s voice came out of it. “These are the rumors that I’ve heard: that you’ve acquired or created a private army, that
you are using magic to control the minds of your audiences and to force them to work for you as traitors to the Empire, that
your actors aren’t truly human but are sub-human creatures that you’ve costumed to hide their monstrous natures. That you
aren’t who you appear to be, but someone else instead. Perhaps a Strithian agent. Perhaps something even more insidious.”

And then the unmistakable voice of Gellas Tomersin. “That’s not good.”

And then Jethis’s voice again. “It sounds to me like you have a traitor. I mean, none of the things I’ve heard have been exactly
correct …”

“But none of them have been exactly wrong, either.”

“Yes.”

“I cannot imagine who might be spreading these rumors. I have good people. Truly good people. I screened all of my employees
carefully before I hired them, I’ve been careful never to mix my private goals with my public persona, or to have people who
know me in one capacity also working with me in the other. I have been careful.”

“It doesn’t matter. Perhaps there’s money involved. Blackmail. Sex. I could think of a dozen reason why people would turn
on an employer. Two or three that would encourage them to turn on a friend.”

“So can I. I just don’t want to believe that someone I trust could be capable of such treachery.”

“Just so long as you
do
believe….”

An odd overlap of the voices bothered Omwi for an instant. But Gellas’s next words fascinated him. “I believe. But it adds
another question to the identity of the person or people who hired those investigators to follow me.”

“You sure they didn’t follow you here?”

“They would have had to recognize me. I left in a small crowd, and I didn’t look like myself.”

“True.” A pause, then, “Gellas, you need to have friends around you right now.”

And Gellas, sounding sharp. “That’s exactly what I don’t need. You haven’t done anything wrong, Patr.” That odd little blurring
of voices again. Omwi truly did not like the strangeness of that. But this was first-rate information. He would look into
how Jethis had acquired it later. “You’ve had no part in any of this; you don’t know who’s involved, you don’t know what we’ve
done, you don’t know what we plan to do. And that’s the way I want it. If I have a traitor somewhere in my organization, the
last thing I want is for him or her to make a connection to—” … and a blur, completely indecipherable. “So go back on your
tour, and stay away from here for a while. Keep up with the nightlies; if you hear anything about me, figure that at least
you’re safe.”

Jethis said, “I know a few things. I know about the Kaan … and the Warrens—”

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“Shut up. You don’t know anything. Leave it at that.” A short pause. “Whoever is watching me has placed magical listening
devices around my house … and my office. I’ve left them in place because as long as I know where they are, I don’t have to
try to find ones that are better hidden. But … you don’t know who might be listening to us or watching us right now.”

“That’s … silly. Why would anyone be watching us? Why would anyone have placed listening devices around
this
house?”

“Because you made an appointment with me. If the traitor has access to my appointment calendar—”

A tiny click, and then Jethis said, “That’s all of relevance. We had a discussion about the clothes he chose to wear, and
about Jess, but nothing more that gave us relevant information.”

“Have we placed listening devices around his house?” Faregan asked.

“No,” Daani said.

“Then we aren’t the only ones watching him.” Omwi felt the excitement of the hunt intensify. This was the one, all right.
This was the case that was going to make his name for all time among the Masters of the Silent Inquest. “Someone else is interested
in him, too—and that can only mean good things for us.”

Patr burst into the room where Jess had been asleep only an instant before and began pulling clothes off of her shelf. The
light had come on when he entered, and Jess, bewildered, blinked in the glare and tried to figure out what was happening.
“We’re leaving now,” Patr said.

“No, we aren’t. I have a hundred things yet to do here in Oel Artis— I can’t even consider leaving the city until—” And then
she caught sight of his face, and her throat tightened until she could not breathe.

Sweat dripped from his forehead and from his gray skin, and he wore an expression that spoke of having seen hell.

“Sit,” she told him, frightened. “Let me call someone to help you.”

But he shook his head. He handed her a cold-weather tunic, heavy leggings, sturdy boots, a hat, gloves, thick stockings. “Trouble
coming. We must leave now. I know of a place—but there is no time to talk, no time to argue, no time even to gather anything.
You …
must
… come with me now.”

She believed him—not wanting to, but knowing from her gut that he told her the truth. “What about Wraith—I mean Gellas? Is
this about him?”

“Probably. Hurry.” He swept an arm around her, pulled her free from her covers, put his hands on her shoulders, and looked
into her eyes with an intensity that shocked her. “We only have minutes. Maybe less. Maybe it’s too late already, but I have
to try. I have to save you if I can.”

She nodded, mute, and began pulling on the clothes. He had turned away when she stripped off her nightdress; he did not look
back until she said, “I’m ready.”

He took her hand and dragged her through the house at a run. He did not lead her to her fine aircar; instead, he pulled her
to a scruffy little model that had been old before she was born. He leaped into one side, and she followed suit on the other—she
barely had the door closed when the little vehicle lifted into the air.

Almost dawn, she thought. She could see the first slivers of gray on the eastern horizon, shading through the tall buildings
at the center of the old city, and to the north and south fitting along the curves of the hills. Patr took them up quickly,
circling over her house as he gained altitude in the fashion of the old vehicles; and as she looked down at her home, she
saw a veritable fleet of cars move in around it, and people tiny as pebbles in her hand clamber out and run toward her house
from all sides.

“They didn’t believe me after all,” he whispered. “I thought they might not.”

The aircar reached the altitude he wanted, and he set it running due north, and fast—very fast—at the high speed only permitted
in the narrow band that ran on top of the Aboves and just below the point where Matrin’s atmosphere became too thin to breathe.