Greg Costikyan - Cups and Sorcery 02 by One Quest Hold the Dragons

Author:One Quest, Hold the Dragons
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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IV.

Guismundo Stantz wheezed painfully, collapsed in the chair behind his great, semicircular desk. Sweat rolled off him in rivulets, lungs labored in desperation. It was long moments before he regained control.

He had rushed back from the Maiorkest, back here to the Albertine Lodge, the headquarters of Internal Serenity. He had ordered his coachman to whip the horses on, bracing himself against the inevitable jostling, and had practically trotted through the halls. Now he was paying the price. He wiped his face with a lace-trimmed handkerchief until it was sodden.

He loathed those meetings in the Maiorkest; given the option, he’d never leave this room. Here, in his office, he had everything.

He had light. There were no windows, to be sure; windows admitted light, but also, on occasion, spies and assassins. Instead, light shone from a shaft above his desk, delivered to the enclosed room from the building’s roof bya complex series of mirrors and lenses. A contraption hung from the ceiling; from a lens at one end, intense light shone out, illuminating the papers on Stantz’s desksunlight, directed by levers and pulleys wherever Stantz needed illumination.

He had information. He had speaking tubes to reach subordinates, a newscrystal to keep up to date, scrying globes for magical contact; here he was the Spider indeed, sitting amid his web, spies and sources extending off across the lands of Hamsterburg and beyond. He was alert to every twinge of the web, every jerk that meant a development in the politics of the Republic or the relationship of the powers, alert and ready to scurry, to the advantage of the city.

And he had food and drink. An enormous wheel of Stralitzer sat on the end table, along with a cheese knife and an array of crackers; by it stood an ewer of water and a bottle of syrup of greep—Stantz was partial to greep sodas. And if he desired anything more, the ministry boasted an excellent kitchen, staffed every hour of the day or night, its chef accessible by one of the hinged brass speaking tubes that hung above Stantz’s desk.

Lord mayors and grand dukes came and went, but the state went on. And Stantz was a loyal servant of the state. His goal was simple: the aggrandizement of his native city, for which he felt a fierce emotion, one of the few emotions remaining to him. For Hamsterburg, he was prepared to do any deed. Assassination included, to be sure.

Not, however, this time. Siebert was a fool; but war was coming, and Siebert was taking the necessary steps to prepare for war. Stantz had no desire to see him dead, especially since there would be internecine struggle over the succession, struggle that might well break out into civil war.

In fact, Stantz considered, the method of von Krautz’s assassination was carefully calculated to cast suspicion on-on Guismundo Stantz. The pouring of the Alban was part of Hamsterian legend; the whole cabinet dies, or none. To engineer the death of a single member was audacious, clever; and Stantz had a reputation for audacity and cleverness.

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