The Orb of Cairado

Chapter Seven

W HAT, ULCETHA asked himself, a little wildly, was he going to do?

He wanted to go to Mara and talk the whole thing out. Mara might not know what to do, but he would listen without judging and without making assumptions about Ulcetha’s motivations and morals. And it would help. It always helped. Except Mara was dead and could listen to nothing.

He went home, flopped down on his divan, and stared at the pressed tin ceiling. What could he do?

He could go to the Vigilant Brotherhood. He could tell them he knew where the Star of Cstheio was. And he could be locked up as a lunatic.

Try again. He could go to the Vigilant Brotherhood. He could tell them Salathgarad was in possession of an extremely valuable stolen ring. If he did not then go with them to Salathgarad’s office, they wouldn’t find the ring. Salathgarad’s desk was too cunningly made; you had to see someone open one of the drawers before you understood how many of them there might be. If he did go with them, whether they found the ring or not, Salathgarad would know Ulcetha had betrayed him, and he did not fool himself that Salathgarad would not seek revenge. Salathgarad would .

All right. Who else could he go to? He could go to the Cairad’athmaza…and get locked up as a lunatic. And even if the Cairad’athmaza believed him, what could he do? The mazei had no power to arrest Salathgarad or search his business, although maybe they would be able to use some kind of magic to find the ring. Mazei could in novels.

But still. If the Star of Cstheio showed up anywhere right away, Salathgarad would know Ulcetha was involved because the coincidence would be too severe. But if the Star of Cstheio disappeared…

He found that he was looking at the fake volume on Neschonori culture in which the Orish Veltavan had been hidden. It still had its index number, making it still the safest hiding place in Cairado—if he was willing to break into the Harceneise again to put it back. He couldn’t risk it falling open in a shelver’s hands.

Why , he thought resentfully, is this my problem?

He knew the answer. It didn’t have to be his problem at all. He could write a fake provenance, let Salathgarad go ahead with the sale, and watch the Star of Cstheio leave Cairado, probably never to be seen again. He knew from five years of clerking for Salathgarad that there were any number of people, elves and goblins both, who hoarded valuable things just because they were valuable. Someone like that would be ecstatic to get their hands on the Star of Cstheio and wouldn’t care at all that they could never show it to anyone.

And Ulcetha found, to his own deep irritation, that he found that scenario horrifying. Trenevar’s argument about the Orb of Cairado had made sense; the Orb, after all, was going to stay in Cairado, in the Museum where it could be seen and studied and remain part of Cairado’s culture. But this was different. The Star wouldn’t even go to a museum, and it certainly wouldn’t be where the people of Cairado could see it. And besides, the Star belonged to the Cairad’mazan’theileian, and nothing he said to himself could shake the belief that, even if he couldn’t give it back right away, he had to keep it possible for the mazan’theileian to have it again.

He wished Mara was alive to talk him out of it.

* * *

There was no point in waiting. Just after midnight, he put his black and plum scarf over his head, took his adjustable lantern, and set out, not happily, for Salathgarad’s shop.

The front door was locked, but the back door had a fatal flaw Salathgarad did not know about and none of his clerks had ever told him. If you hit the door just right, it juddered the latch free of the jamb. No need to use a key at all. And from so many clerks doing that so many times, as a piece of petty spite that Salathgarad would never know about and thus never retaliate for, there was a quite noticeable dent just where you needed to hit. He let himself in, adjusted the lantern, and approached Salathgarad’s massive desk.

He knew it was full of secret drawers. He knew how one or two of them worked, but he suspected he would not find the Star of Cstheio in either of them and he was correct. Grimly he began taking drawers out, feeling behind each of them for catches or buttons. He found a number of places Salathgarad had hidden things—including some pornographic photographs that made him blush to the roots of his hair—but did not find the Star. And really, he thought, sitting on the floor amid all the desk drawers, he was going at this the wrong way. Salathgarad hadn’t taken a drawer out to get at the Star of Cstheio. It had to be…

Ulcetha crawled under the desk, feeling at the sides and across the top, searching for something to push or pull. He found a tiny trap door in the top of the desk, opened it with some careful prodding, and was just in time to catch the Star of Cstheio before it hit the floor.

* * *

On his way out, leaving drawers everywhere so it would be obvious the person who found the Star had not known where to search (which was even true), and taking the valuable things he had found so it would not be quite so obvious that he had known the Star was there, he carefully shut the back door again. The latch squeaked against the doorframe, but Ulcetha had done this before and knew to give it a good hard jerk, and sure enough it came back into place.

And at that moment, a voice said from the street, “Is someone there?”

This was not a residential neighborhood, but there were night watchmen in several of the warehouses on Prince Altheva Street, and blessed goddesses, one of them must have heard something. Ulcetha, the Star of Cstheio suddenly burning against his thigh, did not wait to find out if the man would go away, or if he could talk his way out of trouble. He turned in the other direction and bolted like a rabbit.

* * *

Like a rabbit, Ulcetha knew the tunnels of his warren—the warren in this case being the streets between Salathgarad’s shop and his own apartment. He stuck to the alleyways until he reached Hazenthar Avenue, but there were enough people around—delivery men and prostitutes and opera-goers—that he was able, whisking the plum and black scarf off his head, to step out among them and look like nothing more than a clerk who’d been out too late drinking at the Koi Pond or the Green Dish or one of the other fancy bars along Hazenthar Avenue.

If anyone had been chasing him, which as far as he could tell they had not. And when he thought about it, a night watchman who left his post to chase a possible thief might very well be fired, whether he caught the thief or not, and a man would have to be a fool to risk a good job for a noise that only might be a thief.

A fool or a lot fonder of Salathgarad than anyone on Prince Altheva Street had any reason to be.

* * *

He had to go back to his apartment and get the book-box, which was not of a convenient size to lug all over the city, and this gave him an opportunity which he thought even Osmer Aidrina would have been hard-pressed to pass up: he tried on the ring.

It did not fit him—the last Cairad’athmaza to wear it must have had big hands—but, even tarnished, it was a beautiful ring, and just for a second he let himself admire it on his hand. Then he took it off, wrapped it in the black and plum scarf, and put it in the book ostensibly on the Neschonori. And then he set out for the Harceneise.

* * *

It was easier the second time.

* * *

He was putting the book back on the shelf when the flaw in his plan occurred to him. There was, in fact, someone else in the city who knew the secret of the book. They must know by now—unless they were dead—that the Orish Veltavan had been found. It seemed unlikely that they would check back, but they could . And depending on the circles they moved in, they might hear that the Star of Cstheio was missing, since he doubted Salathgarad’s ability to keep his mouth shut about it. Was it probable that they would put two and two together and get four? He found that he had no idea. He had no idea how this person’s mind worked. Why steal the Orish Veltavan and then just hide it? Why not sell it through someone like Salathgarad? Why not use it to find the Orb of Cairado? What good did hiding it do you?

He was hiding the Star of Cstheio, because he did not dare let Salathgarad know he was the thief. He considered that on his way back down through the Harceneise. Was the thief someone who couldn’t afford to be known as the thief? Well, that would be true of anyone in the Department, and it was still true that only someone in the Department could have stolen the Orish Veltavan.

So this was someone who didn’t want to sell the Orish Veltavan, because you could do that anonymously—or anonymously enough. But if they didn’t want to sell it, why steal it? Anyone in the Department could have come and spent as much time with the Orish Veltavan as they wanted. Announce it was your research specialty, and no one would look at you twice. So it wasn’t just the Orish Veltavan. It was someone, as he had thought when deciding that this person had also murdered Osmer Aidrina, who did not want the Orb of Cairado found. But, no, that was nonsense, too. If that was what you wanted, why not destroy the Orish Veltavan? Or bend it. Twist it. Make it useless. It would have been terrifyingly easy for this person to have done that.

So it wasn’t that they didn’t want it found at all. And then he felt like his mind turned a corner to find the truth waiting for him: the thief-murderer was someone who wanted to be the one to find the Orb of Cairado. Steal the Orish Veltavan so no one else can make progress. Murder Osmer Aidrina when it looked like he was getting too close. But then, he turned another corner, you’d hamstrung yourself. Because how could you find the Orb of Cairado without admitting that you were the one who had the Orish Veltavan?

He barely noticed walking home as he tried to get this new idea to settle with the rest of what he knew. It made sense. It made far more sense than someone not wanting the Orb found at all. And it suggested a person, although he tried hard not to make that connection final, because everybody knew who the person in the Department who most wanted to find the Orb was. Osmer Vora Trenevar.

Had he really taken the Orish Veltavan straight to the person who had stolen it? The thought made him writhe. And then made him shudder at how lucky he was Trenevar hadn’t decided to murder him . But he saw after a second that the two cases were not the same. Osmer Aidrina, if he had succeeded, would have had sole credit for finding the Orb of Cairado. Ulcetha, disgraced and desperate, had been perfectly happy to let Trenevar take the credit for the find, although someone else might have insisted on sharing fifty-fifty. Ulcetha did not even want credit, except insofar as it persuaded Osmer Harcenar to clear him to the University Senate. He could not have been a more perfect chicken for Trenevar’s plucking.

Be grateful , he thought. It is why thou art still alive. Osmer Aidrina must have been, in Trenevar’s estimation, getting too close. But they were friends! a part of him protested, the part that wanted to believe the best of everybody.

Yes , said a more cynical part. Osmer Aidrina told Trenevar everything.

Everything.