Demon Lord of Karanda

funny, Garion?"
    "Would I do that, old friend?"

    As the soft spring evening descended over Mal Zeth, Garion joined his three friends in the dim atrium beside Silk's splashing waterfall.
    "Very nice work, Kheldar," Velvet complimented the little man.
    "Oh, shut up."
    "Why, Kheldar!"
    "All right," Garion said, by way of calling the meeting to order, "what have we got that we can work with? Belgarath wants us out of Mal Zeth almost immediately."
    "I've been following your advice, Belgarion," Sadi murmured, "and I've been concentrating my attention on Baron Vasca. He's a man of eminent corruption and he has his fingers in so many pies that he sometimes loses track of just who's bribing him at any given moment."
    "Exactly what's he up to right now?" Garion asked.
    "He's still trying to take over the Bureau of Military Procurement," Velvet reported. "That bureau is controlled by the General Staff, however. It's mostly composed of colonels, but there's a General Bregar serving as Bureau Chief. The colonels aren't too greedy, but Bregar has a large payroll. He has to spread quite a bit of money around among his fellow generals to keep Vasca in check."
    Garion thought about that. "Aren't you bribing Vasca as well?" he asked Silk.
    Silk nodded glumly. "The price is going up, though. The consortium of Melcene merchant barons is laying a lot of money in his path, trying to get him to restrict Yarblek and me to the west-coast."
    "Can he raise any sort of force? Fighting men, I mean?"
    "He has contacts with a fair number of robber chiefs," Sadi replied, "and they have some pretty rough and ready fellows working for them."
    "Is there any band operating out of Mal Zeth right now?"
    Sadi coughed rather delicately. "I just brought a string of wagons down from Camat," he admitted. "Agricultural products for the most part."
    Garion gave him a hard look. "I thought I asked you not to do that anymore."
    "The crop had already been harvested, Belgarion," the eunuch protested. "It doesn't make sense to just let it rot in the fields, does it?"
    "That's sound business thinking, Garion," Silk interceded.
    "Anyway," Sadi hurried on, "the band that's handling the harvesting and transport for me is one of the largest in this part of Mallorea -two or three hundred anyway, and I have a goodly number of stout fellows involved in local distribution."
    "You did all this in just a few weeks?" Garion was incredulous.
    "One makes very little profit by allowing the grass to grow under one's feet," Sadi stated piously.
    "Well put," Silk approved.
    "Thank you, Prince Kheldar."
    Garion shook his head in defeat. "Is there any way you can get your bandits into the palace grounds?"
    "Bandits?" Sadi sounded injured.
    "Isn't that what they are?"
    "I prefer to think of them as entrepreneurs."
    "Whatever. Can you get them in?"
    "I sort of doubt it, Belgarion. What did you have in mind?"
    "I thought we might offer their services to Baron Vasca to help in his forthcoming confrontation with the General Staff."
    "Is there going to be a confrontation?" Sadi looked surprised. "I hadn't heard about that."
    "That's because we haven't arranged it yet. Vasca's going to find out -probably tomorrow- that his activities have irritated the General Staff, and that they're going to send troops into his offices to arrest him and to dig through his records to find enough incriminating evidence to take to the Emperor."
    "That's brilliant," Silk said.
    "I liked it -but it won't work unless Vasca's got enough men to hold off a fair number of troops."
    "It can still work," Sadi said. "At about the same time that Vasca finds out about his impending arrest, I'll offer him the use of my men. He can bring them into the palace complex under the guise of workmen. All the Bureau Chiefs are continually renovating their offices. It has to do with status, I think."
    "What's the plan here, Garion?" Silk asked.
    "I want open fighting right here in the halls of the palace. That should attract the attention of Brador's policemen"
    "He was born to be a King, wasn't he?" Velvet approved. "Only royalty has the ability to devise a deception of that scale."
    "Thanks," Garion said dryly. "It's not going to work, though, if Vasca just takes up defensive positions in his bureau offices. We also have to persuade him to strike first. The soldiers won't really be coming after him, so we're going to have to make him start the fight himself.
    What kind of man is Vasca?"
    "Deceitful, greedy, and not really all