absorbed her attention. He discovered it was a book of scandalous rhyme published by someone calling himself “The Poisoner,” then he continued up to his own room without feeling called upon to comment. Lest the reader determine from this interplay (for certainly the lack of interplay is, itself, interplay) that relations between the Tiassa and the Teckla were strained, allow us to state at once that nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, they understood each other so well that no words were necessary, and they shared, moreover, an aversion to unnecessary talk.
Upon reaching his room, and hanging his sword-sheath on a peg at the top
of the stairs, the first thing that caught Khaavren’s eye was a letter he had begun writing to his old friend Aerich (the Lyorn to whom we have already referred and of whom, we dare to hope, the reader has some recollection) some weeks before, but hadn’t yet finished. He picked it up and scanned what he had penned, which consisted of a few lines in answer to Aerich’s last letter—lines that said little, because there was little to say. Aerich had written a short note asking after his health and his doings, and Khaavren had found himself unable to answer, wherefore he had left the incomplete missive on his desk as a reminder—the efficacy of which we have just proven.
The meeting with Pel caused Khaavren to resolve to, at the least, return his friend’s courtesy, therefore he sat down at his desk, crumpled up the beginning he had made, and threw it into a corner where it joined a score of others like itself, there to await a season, which season arrived perhaps once each year, when Khaavren should be willing to have his sanctum invaded by Srahi at the same time as Srahi felt inclined to engage in such an invasion. Khaavren found a new sheet of paper (paper bleached to a pure white, so fine there was no grain, made in Hammersgate by the newest process) and began again:
My Dear Aerich [he wrote]: I thank you for your inquiry after my health and activities. My health, thanks to the Gods and the physicians (or, perhaps, thanks to the fact that I have intercourse with neither) is excellent. As for my activities—you may rest assured that they have in no wise changed from the last time you did me the honor to ask concerning them. I set the guards, I stand watch, and I hope for the diversion of battle, which seems unlikely, as His Majesty (whom the Gods preserve) has little interest, it seems, in assuming the personal command that is his right, but would rather trust Rollondar e’Drien, who, as you may know, became Warlord early this past century. Lord Rollonder is an easy enough master, if only because he has no interest in the Guards, and so leaves them to the Captain, who, in turn, leaves them to me. This is an arrangement that keeps me busy, and being busy keeps me happy, so there is no reason to be concerned on that score.
As for your own affairs, my dear Aerich, I am pleased to hear that everything is well. I had feared that rearrangement of the Imperial assessments might have created difficulties for you. We hear, now and then, murmurings of armed resistance, but, I am sorry to say, there has been nothing of an organized nature. Some days ago, His Majesty did me the honor to ask if I feared the people. I reminded him that I had been on duty in the two hundred and sixth
year of his reign, during the food riots, and I had seen an angry populace, and an organized populace; and this one, for all their clamor, is neither. He seemed satisfied with the answer. I have no doubt, Aerich, that, if you were here, you would agree with me.
As for Pel, I can tell you little, save that I have recently seen him, and he is unchanged—secretive, mysterious, and always with one scheme or another running through his mind. I must confess that he hurt my feelings, Aerich, because he pretended, in order to get certain knowledge from me, to an ignorance that I know is impossible. Yet, that
Upon reaching his room, and hanging his sword-sheath on a peg at the top
of the stairs, the first thing that caught Khaavren’s eye was a letter he had begun writing to his old friend Aerich (the Lyorn to whom we have already referred and of whom, we dare to hope, the reader has some recollection) some weeks before, but hadn’t yet finished. He picked it up and scanned what he had penned, which consisted of a few lines in answer to Aerich’s last letter—lines that said little, because there was little to say. Aerich had written a short note asking after his health and his doings, and Khaavren had found himself unable to answer, wherefore he had left the incomplete missive on his desk as a reminder—the efficacy of which we have just proven.
The meeting with Pel caused Khaavren to resolve to, at the least, return his friend’s courtesy, therefore he sat down at his desk, crumpled up the beginning he had made, and threw it into a corner where it joined a score of others like itself, there to await a season, which season arrived perhaps once each year, when Khaavren should be willing to have his sanctum invaded by Srahi at the same time as Srahi felt inclined to engage in such an invasion. Khaavren found a new sheet of paper (paper bleached to a pure white, so fine there was no grain, made in Hammersgate by the newest process) and began again:
My Dear Aerich [he wrote]: I thank you for your inquiry after my health and activities. My health, thanks to the Gods and the physicians (or, perhaps, thanks to the fact that I have intercourse with neither) is excellent. As for my activities—you may rest assured that they have in no wise changed from the last time you did me the honor to ask concerning them. I set the guards, I stand watch, and I hope for the diversion of battle, which seems unlikely, as His Majesty (whom the Gods preserve) has little interest, it seems, in assuming the personal command that is his right, but would rather trust Rollondar e’Drien, who, as you may know, became Warlord early this past century. Lord Rollonder is an easy enough master, if only because he has no interest in the Guards, and so leaves them to the Captain, who, in turn, leaves them to me. This is an arrangement that keeps me busy, and being busy keeps me happy, so there is no reason to be concerned on that score.
As for your own affairs, my dear Aerich, I am pleased to hear that everything is well. I had feared that rearrangement of the Imperial assessments might have created difficulties for you. We hear, now and then, murmurings of armed resistance, but, I am sorry to say, there has been nothing of an organized nature. Some days ago, His Majesty did me the honor to ask if I feared the people. I reminded him that I had been on duty in the two hundred and sixth
year of his reign, during the food riots, and I had seen an angry populace, and an organized populace; and this one, for all their clamor, is neither. He seemed satisfied with the answer. I have no doubt, Aerich, that, if you were here, you would agree with me.
As for Pel, I can tell you little, save that I have recently seen him, and he is unchanged—secretive, mysterious, and always with one scheme or another running through his mind. I must confess that he hurt my feelings, Aerich, because he pretended, in order to get certain knowledge from me, to an ignorance that I know is impossible. Yet, that
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