Physically, though, she had the high, thin features of the House of the Dragon. The upward slant of her eyes and the unusually extreme point to her ears made one think of Dzurlords. There had been rumors that she was half Dzur herself, but I doubted them.
To Sethra, even more than to most Dragaerans, an Easterner’s lifetime was a blink of an eye. Maybe that’s why she was so tolerant of me. (Morrolan’s tolerance was due to having lived among Easterners for many years of his youth, during the Interregnum. Aliera’s tolerance I’ve never understood; I suspect she was just being polite to Morrolan.) Most Dragaerans had heard of Sethra Lavode, but few had met her. She was periodically considered a hero, and had been Warlord of the Empire (while she was still living) and Captain of the Lavodes (when there were still Lavodes). At other times, such as the present, she was considered an evil enchantress and Dzurlord bait. Periodically, some fledging hero would go up the Mountain to destroy her. She turned them into jhegaala or yendi and sent them back. I’d told her that this wasn’t going to help, but she just smiled.
At her side was the dagger called Iceflame, which was sort of Dzur Mountain in hand, or something. I don’t know enough about it to say more, and thinking about it makes me nervous.
I bowed to each of them, and said, “Thank you for the sanctuary, Sethra.”
“It’s no trouble, Vlad,” she responded. “I enjoy your company. I’m pleased to see that you’re recovering.”
“So am I.” I sat down, then asked, “What can you fine specimens of Dragonhood tell me about the Phoenix Guard?”
Morrolan arched an eyebrow. “What did you wish to know? Is it your desire to join?”
“Could I?”
“I’m afraid,” he said, “that your species is against you there.”
“But not my House?”
He looked startled and glanced at Aliera.
She said, “A Jhereg could join if he wanted to. There have been some, I think—none who are actually a part of the business end, I suppose, but some who’ve bought Jherge titles instead of being Houseless.”
I nodded. “So it isn’t all Dragons, eh? That’s what I was wondering about.”
“Oh, no,” said Aliera. “It’s mostly Dragons, because all Dragons must serve periodically, but there are others from every House in the guards—except Athyra, who are never interested, and Phoenix, because there aren’t enough of them.”
“Suppose some colonel of some army of Dragonlords is serving. Would he be a colonel in the guards?”
“No,” said Sethra. “Rank among the guards has nothing to do with any other rank. Officers in private armies often serve under their own blademen.”
“I see. Does this ever cause problems?”
“No,” said Aliera.
“Why the interest?” asked Sethra.
“I’m bothered by the fact that the guards who were enforcing the Imperial Edict left just at the right time for our friends to nail me. I can’t believe it was coincidence.”
They looked at each other. “I can’t think of any way,” said Sethra.
“Whose decision would it have been? The Empress’s? Or whoever leads the guards?”
“The Empress sent them; she would have had to order their withdrawal,” said Aliera. Morrolan nodded.
“All right,” I said, “I don’t think she would have been involved in this on purpose, would she?” Three heads shook. “Then is there anyone who could have made the suggestion to her that ‘now would be a good time,’ and be confident that she’d act on it at once?”
Sethra and Aliera looked at Morrolan, who was at court more often than they. He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Her lover,” he said, “is said to be an Easterner. I’ve never met him, but he might have such influence. Then there are her advisors, but, to be candid, she hardly listens to most of them. I believe that she listens seriously to me, but I could be deluding myself. And, in any case, I made no such request of her. She pays attention to Sethra the Younger, but Sethra has no interest in anything save invasion plans for the East.”
Sethra Lavode nodded. “It’s good to have an ambition,” she said. “Sethra the Younger is the only apprentice I’ve ever had who’s never tried to kill me.”
I turned back to Morrolan. “You can’t think of anyone else?”
“Not at present.”
“All right then, what else? A faked message, maybe? Do this right now, signed so-and-so?”
“Who,” said Morrolan, “would write a message rather than reach her psionically?”
“Well, someone she doesn’t speak with often. It must be hard to reach her directly, so—”
“No, it isn’t,” said Aliera, looking at me as if puzzled.
“It isn’t?”
“Of course not. Any citizen can reach Zerika through his link. Didn’t you know that?”
“No . . . but she must get thousands of people—”
“Not really,” she said. “If she doesn’t consider it worth her time, she destroys the person. This keeps the amount of contact down quite a bit.”
“Oh . . . My father never saw fit to mention that. I guess he was afraid I might do it. In any case, I still don’t see who could and would have convinced her to withdraw the troops. Morrolan, you’re well respected around court. Will you try to find out for me?”
“No,” said Morrolan. “As I have explained to you, I will have nothing to do with any Jhereg war, directly or indirectly.”
“Yeah, okay.” I was pleased to see Aliera shoot him a brief look of disgust. It occurred to me then that the easiest thing to do would be to create something real that would make the Empress want to pull the troops out. What could it be? Civil disturbance? Threat of an invasion of some sort?
“Kragar.”
“Yes, Vlad?”
“See if there was anything going on in the city that would have called for Phoenix Guards to handle.”
“Good idea, boss”
“That’s what I pay myself for.”
Then I reached Fentor and had him check into any possible external threats. With any luck, I’d know within a day or two. I turned my attention back to the others. Aliera and Sethra were deep into another discussion.
“Certainly,” Sethra was saying. “And as far as I’m concerned, let her.”
Aliera frowned. “We’re just getting on our feet, Sethra. We can’t afford to go off East with tens of thousands of troops until we’re sure the Empire is stable.”
“What’s this about?” I asked.
“You set off another argument, Vlad,” Morrolan explained. “Aliera is opposed to Sethra the Younger’s conquering the East until the Empire is stable. Sethra the Younger thinks that will make it stable, and our own Sethra,” he indicated her with his head, “feels, as I do, that since Sethra—the other one—wants to do it, why not? What harm is there? They’ll throw us out again in a few hundred or a thousand years. That was why Kieron the Conqueror left them there in the first place—so we’d have someone to fight and wouldn’t tear ourselves apart.”
I could have said many things about this, but I let it go.
“That isn’t the point,” said Aliera. “If we drain off enough resources, what happens if a real enemy shows up? The Easterners are no threat to us now—”
“What real enemy?” said Sethra. “There isn’t—”
I stood and left them to their argument. It couldn’t have anything to do with me, in any case.
9
“I guess they wanted to see you.”
I RETURNED TO MY room and decided that I wanted to see Cawti again; also, that I was looking forward to dinner that evening with Sethra, Morrolan, and Aliera. I realized that I could become very comfortable at Dzur mountain, while Kragar kept things going at the office. In other words, while everything I’d built up went over Deathsgate Falls. Not that Kragar was incompetent, but there are certain things one must do oneself, and I’d been gone four days already.
“Aliera?”
After a pause,
a response came. “Yes, Vlad?”
“Something has come up. I’m going to have to return to the office right away. Please convey my apologies to Sethra and Morrolan.”
“As you wish. But don’t exert yourself.”
“I wouldn’t think of it.”
“Would you like help with the teleport?”
“Yes, please. That would be very nice.”
“All right, I’ll be right down,” she concluded vocally, standing in front of me. Damn show-off. I gave her an image of the alley behind a row of buildings facing Malak Circle, and pulled back to show where it was relative to parts of Adrilankha that she knew. She nodded.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Ready.”
There was a twist, and a burbling in my stomach, and I was there. I could have teleported to just outside the office building, but I wanted to look around and get a feel for the area, as well as give my stomach a chance to recover.
Walking through the streets wasn’t as risky as it may sound. Though I didn’t have any bodyguards, no one even knew that I was around. The only way Laris could really get me was to have an assassin standing around next to my office, hoping I’d walk back in. I’d never taken “work” like that, but I have an idea of the risks associated with it. The longer you stand around a place, the more chance there is that someone will be able to identify you as the one doing the job. Paying someone to do that would cost more than paying the Sword and the Dagger to just finalize the individual. So I wasn’t very worried.
The neighborhood looked a bit subdued. It was early afternoon, and this area didn’t really get going until nightfall, but it was still too quiet. Have you ever known a part of a city so well that you could tell what kind of mood it was in? So well that the scent of barbecuing lyorn legs told you that all was not normal? So you could hear that the street-hawkers were just a little bit more quiet than usual? That tradesmen and Teckla were wearing clothes with, perhaps, just a bit less color than they normally did? Where the scented fires of a hundred passersby making offerings to a dozen gods at a score of small altars brought a sense of weariness to the heart, instead of renewal?
I knew this part of Adrilankha that well, and that was the kind of mood it was in. I didn’t need to talk to Kragar to know that business hadn’t recovered. I thought about this, and, as I approached the office itself, I discovered something very important: Laris wasn’t worried about money.
“Look out, boss!”
Not again, by the teeth of Dzur Mountain! I hit the ground, rolled to my right, came up to my knees, and spotted two Jhereg that I didn’t recognize moving at me from either side. Two of them, for the love of Verra! They both held daggers. Loiosh was in front of one, buffeting his face and trying to sink his teeth into him. The other one suddenly stumbled and fell to his knees a few feet away from me, with three shuriken sticking out of him. I realized then that I’d thrown them. Not bad, Vlad.
I scrambled to my feet and spun, looking for more. I didn’t spot them, so I turned back in time to see the other assassin fall to the ground. As he fell, I saw N’aal behind him, holding a large fighting knife with fresh blood on it. Next to him was Chimov, also holding a knife, looking around anxiously.
“Boss!” said N’aal.
“No,” I snapped. “I’m Kieron the Conqueror. What’s going on around here? Why do we have Verra-be-damned assassins standing outside the Verra-be-damned office in the middle of the Verra-be-damned afternoon?”
Chimov just shrugged. N’aal said, “I guess they were looking for you, boss.”
Some days everyone and his sibling is a Verra-be-damned jongleur. I brushed past them and stormed into the office. Melestav jumped when I came in, but relaxed when he saw it was me. Kragar was in my office, sitting in my Verra-be-damned chair. He greeted me warmly.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said.
One . . . two . . . three . . . four. . . .
“Kragar, may I please have my chair back?”
“Oh, sure, boss. Sorry. Whatsamatter, hard day dodging assassins? I assumed you wanted some excitement, or why did you go walking into the middle of them without letting anyone know you were coming? I mean, it would have been easy—”
“You’re pushing it.”
He got up. “Whatever you say, Vlad.”
“Kragar, just what is going on around here?”
“Going on?”
I gestured toward the outside.
“Oh. Nothing.”
“Nothing? You mean ‘no business’?”
“Almost none.”
“But what about those assassins?”
“I didn’t know they were there, Vlad. D’you think I’d have just left them there?”
“But they must be costing Laris a fortune.”
He nodded. I was interrupted by contact with Melestav.
“Yeah?”
“N’aal is here.”
“Send him in.”
He came in. “Boss, I—”
“Just a minute. Three things. First, good work taking out the one. Second, next time I’ll expect you to spot them before they spot me. Three, next time I’m almost nailed like that, if you’re around, keep your bleeding wiseass remarks to yourself or I’ll cut your bleeding throat for you. Got it?”
“Yeah, boss. Sorry.”
“Okay. What d’you want?”
“I thought you’d want these.” He tossed my shuriken, complete with bloodstains, on my desk. “I remember hearing that you don’t like them left around, and—”
I stood up, walked around my desk, and slipped a dagger out from my cloak. Before N’aal could react, I put it in him, between the forth and fifth ribs, angled up. A look of shock came into his face as I stepped out of the way. Then he fell.
I turned to Kragar, still gripped by fear and icy rage. Also, my back and side hurt like the Great Sea of Chaos. “Kragar, you are a very fine administrative assistant. But if you ever want to run an area, make it as far from me as possible, or else learn how to keep discipline. That guy’s no fool; he should know better than to walk in here with a murder weapon, with the corpse’s blood still on it. In the four days I’ve been gone, you’ve managed to convince everyone around here that they don’t have to think anymore, and as a result I almost got butchered out there. You son-of-a-bitch, this is my life we’re talking about!”
“Take it easy, boss. Don’t—”
“Shut up, Loiosh.”
“Now,” I continued, “see if you can get him revivified. Out of your pocket. If not, you may have the honor of giving his next of kin the bonus. Understand?”
Kragar nodded, looking genuinely crestfallen. “I’m sorry, Vlad,” he said, and seemed to be looking for something else to say.
I went back to my desk, sat down, leaned back and shook my head. Kragar wasn’t incompetent, at most things. I really didn’t want to lose him. After this, I should probably do something to show I trusted him. I sighed. “Okay, let’s forget it. I’m back now. There’s something I want you to do.”
“Yeah?”
“N’aal was not completely wrong. I should not have left the shuriken in the body; but he should not have brought them back to me. I don’t know that the Empire ever employs witches, but if it does, a witch could trace that weapon back to its wielder.”
Kragar listened silently. He knew nothing about witchcraft.
“It has to do with body aura,” I explained. “Anything that’s been around me for any length of time is going to pick up a sort of psychic ‘scent’ that a witch can identify.”
“So, what do you do about it? You can’t count on always taking the weapon with you.”
“I know. So what I’m going to do is to start changing weapons every couple of days or so, so that nothing is on me long enough to pick up my aura. I’m going to make a list of all my weapons. I want you to go around and get ones to match. I’ll put the ones I’m done with in a box, and you can use them for trade next time, which should cut down on the cost a bit. Okay?”
He looked startled. Well, I wasn’t surprised. I was putting a lot of trust in him to tell him what weapons I had concealed about me, even if, as he would suspect, I were keeping a few back. But he nodded.
“Good,” I said. “Come back in an hour and I’ll have the list made up. Memorize and destroy it.”
“Check, boss.”
“Good. Now go away.”
“Boss . . .”
“Sorry I snapped at you, Loiosh. And good work with that assassin.”
“Thanks, boss. And don’t worry about it. I understand.”
Loiosh had always been understanding, I decided. It was only then, as I began writing, that it really hit me just how close I’d come once again. I reached the trash bucket just before my stomach emptied itself. I got a glass of water and rinsed out my mouth, then had Melestav empty and clean the bucket. I sat there shaking for some time before I got to work on the list for Kragar.
* * *
I gave Kragar the list, and he took off to fill it. Shortly after that I got a message from Melestav.
“Boss . . . there are some people here to see you.”
“Who?”
“People in uniform.”
“Oh shit. Well, I shouldn’t be surprised.” I made sure there was nothing incriminating on my desk. “Okay, send them in.”
“How bad do you suppose this is going to be, Loiosh?”
“You can always claim self-defense, boss.”
The door opened and two Dragaerans dressed in the golden uniforms of the House of Phoenix came marching in. One looked around the office contemptuously, as if to say, “So this is how the scum live.” The other looked at me with a similar expression, as if to say, “So this is the scum.”
“Greetings, my lords,” I said. “How may I serve the Empire?”
The one who was looking at me said, “You are Baronet Vlad of Taltos?” He pronounced it “Taltoss,” instead of “Taltosh,” so he must have had written orders, for whatever that was worth.