Read Online Yendi by Steven Brust - Free Book Online Page A

far to improve my mood. In fact, by the time we were ushered into a small sitting room, I was beginning to feel more belligerent than frightened. Sitting there with Toronnan for more than ten minutes, waiting, didn't help either.
    Then this guy walked in, dressed in the usual black and gray, with bits of gold lacing around the edges. His hair was graying. He looked old, maybe two thousand, but hale. He wasn't fat--Dragaerans don't get fat--but he seemed well-fed. His nose was small and flat; his eyes, deep and pale blue. He addressed Toronnan in a low, full, harsh voice: "Is this him?"
    Who did he think I was? Mario Greymist? Toronnan only nodded.
    "Okay," he said. "Get out."
    Toronnan did so. The big shot stood there staring at me. I was supposed to get nervous, I guess. After a while I yawned. He glared.
    "You bored?" he asked.
    I shrugged. This guy, whoever he was, could snap his fingers and have me killed. But I wasn't about to kiss his ass; my life isn't worth that much.
    He pulled a chair out with a foot, sat in it. "So you're a hardcase," he said. "I'm convinced. You've impressed me. Now, you wanna live, or not?"
    "I wouldn't mind," I admitted.
    "Good. I'm Tenon."
    I stood and bowed, then sat. I'd heard of him. He was one of the big, big bosses, one of the five who ran the organization in the city of Adrilankha (and Adrilankha had about ninety percent of the business). So I was impressed.
    "How may I serve you, lord?"
    " Aw, c'mon, boss. Tell him to jump in chaos, stick out your tongue, and spit in his soup. Go ahead. "
    "You can lay off your attempts to burn down Adrilankha."
    "Lord?"
    "Can't you hear?"
    "I assure you, lord, I have no desire to burn down Adrilankha. Just a small part of it." He smiled and nodded. Then, with no warning, the smile vanished and his eyes narrowed to slits. He leaned toward me and I felt my blood turn to ice water.
    "Don't play around with me, Easterner. If you're going to fight it out with this other teckla--Laris--do it in a way that doesn't bring the whole Empire down on us. I've told him, now I'm telling you. If you don't, I'll settle it myself. Got that?" I nodded. "Yes, my lord."
    "Good. Now get the fuck outta here."
    "Yes, lord."
    He got up, turned his back on me, and left. I swallowed a couple of times, stood, and walked out of the room. Toronnan was gone, with all of his people. Tenon's servant showed me the door. I did my own teleport back to my office. I told Kragar that we were going to have to change our methods.
    We didn't have time to do so, however. Tenon had been right, but he had acted too late. The Empress had already had enough.

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    'I'm going to take a walk.'
    When I say "Empress" you probably get an image of this old, stern-looking matron, with iron-gray hair, dressed in gold robes, with the Orb circling her head as she issues edicts and orders affecting the lives of millions of subjects with a casual wave of the sceptre. Well, the orb did circle her head; that part is right. She wore gold, too--but nothing as simple as robes. She would often wear... but, never mind.
    Zerika was a young three or four hundred, which is like mid-twenties to a human. Her hair was golden--and if I'd meant "blond" I would have said "blond." Her eyes were the same color, rather like a lyorn's, and deeply set. Her forehead was high, her brows light and almost invisible against very pale skin. (Notwithstanding the rumors, however, she was not undead.)
    The House of the Phoenix is always the smallest, because they won't consider you a Phoenix unless an actual phoenix is seen to pass overhead at the time of your birth. The Interregnum had eliminated every Phoenix except Zerika's mother--who died in childbirth.
    Zerika was born during the Interregnum. The last Emperor had been a decadent Phoenix, and since this was the seventeenth Cycle, the next Emperor had to be a Phoenix too, since a reborn Phoenix is supposed to follow a decadent Phoenix every seventeen