* * *
Sometime later, Loiosh returned. I opened the window in answer to his knocking. Why he preferred to knock, rather than just contact me, I don’t know. After he was in, I closed it behind him.
“Thanks.”
“Sure, boss.”
I resumed reading; Loiosh perched on my right shoulder this time, and pretended to be reading along with me. Or, who knows? Maybe he really did learn to read somehow and just never bothered to inform me. I wouldn’t put it past him.
The job was under way. I couldn’t really go any further until I had some idea of where Mellar was, so I turned my attention to who he was, instead. This kept me occupied until my next visitor arrived, a few hours later.
4
“Inspiration requires preparation.”
MY RECEPTIONIST, IN THE two years he’d been with me, had killed three people outside the door of my office.
One was an assassin whose bluff didn’t quite work. The other two were perfectly innocent fools who should have known better than to try to bluster their way past him.
He was killed once, himself, delaying another assassin long enough for me to heroically escape out the window. I was very relieved when we were successful in having him revivified. He fulfills the function of bodyguard, recording secretary, buffer, and whatever else either Kragar or I need. He may well be the highest-paid receptionist in the world.
“Uh, boss?”
“Yes?”
“Uh, Kiera is here.”
“Oh, good! Send her in.”
“That’s Kiera the Thief, boss. Are you sure?”
“Quite sure, thank you.”
“But—okay. Should I escort her in, and keep an eye—”
“That won’t be necessary” (or sufficient, I thought to myself). “Just send her in.”
“Okay. Whatever you want.”
I put down the papers and stood up as the door opened. A small Dragaeran female form entered the room. I recalled with some amusement that I had thought her tall when we had first met, but then, I was only eleven at the time. And, of course, she was still more than a head taller than I, but by now I was used to the size difference.
She moved with ease and grace, almost reminiscent of Mario. She flowed up to me and greeted me with a kiss that would have made Cawti jealous if she were the jealous type. I gave as good as I got, and pulled up a chair for her.
Kiera had a sharp, rather angular face, with no noticeable House characteristics—the lack of which was typical for a Jhereg.
She allowed me to seat her and made a quick glance around the office. Her eyes clicked from one place to another, making notes of significant items. This wasn’t surprising; she’d taught me how to do it. On the other hand, I suspected that she was looking for different things than I would be.
She favored me with a smile.
“Thanks for coming, Kiera,” I said, as warmly as I could.
“Glad to,” she said softly. “Nice office.”
“Thanks. How’s business been?”
“Not hurting, Vlad. I haven’t had any contract jobs in a while, but I’ve been doing all right on my own. How about you?”
I shook my head.
“What is it, problems?” she asked, genuinely concerned.
“I went and got greedy again.”
“Uh, oh. I know what that means. Somebody offered something too big to pass up, eh? And you couldn’t resist, so you’re in over your head, right?”
“Something like that.”
She slowly shook her head. Loiosh interrupted, then, flapping over to her and landing on her shoulder. She renewed their acquaintance, scratching under his chin. “The last time that happened,” she said after a while, “you found yourself fighting an Athyra wizard, right in his own castle, as I recall. That kind of thing isn’t healthy, Vlad.”
“I know, I know. But remember: I won.”
“With help.”
“Well . . . yes. One can always use a little help.”
“Always,” she agreed. “Which, I imagine, brings us to this. It must be something big, or you wouldn’t have wanted to meet here.”
“Perceptive as always,” I said. “Not only big, but nasty. I can’t risk anyone catching wind of this. I’m hoping no one saw you come in; I can’t risk being seen with you and having certain parties guess that I’m letting you in on what’s going on.”
“No one saw me come in,” she said.
I nodded. I knew her. If she said no one had seen her, I had no reason to doubt it.
“But,” she continued, “what are your own people going to say when they find you’ve been meeting me in your own office? They’ll think you’ve finally gone ‘into the jungle,’ you know.” She was smiling lightly; baiting me. She knew her reputation.
“No problem,” I said. “I’ll just let it slip that we’ve been lovers for years.”
She laughed. “Now there’s an idea, Vlad! We should have thought of that cycles ago!”
This time I laughed. “Then what would your friends say? Kiera the Thief, consorting with an Easterner? Tut, tut.”
“They won’t say anything,” she said flatly. “I have a friend who does ‘work.’”
“Speaking of which—”
“Right. To business. I take it you want something stolen.”
I nodded. “Do you know of a certain Lord Mellar, House Jhereg? I think he’s officially a count, or a duke, or some such.”
Her eyes widened, slightly. “Going after big game, aren’t you, Vlad? You certainly are in over your head. I know him, all right. I’ve helped him out a couple of times.”
“Not recently!” I said, with a sudden sinking feeling.
She looked at me quizzically, but didn’t ask what I meant. “No, not in the last few months. It wasn’t anything big, any of the times. Just sort of an exchange of favors; you know how it goes.”
I nodded, quite relieved. “He isn’t a friend, or anything, is he?”
She shook her head. “No. We just did a few things for each other. I don’t owe him.”
“Good. And speaking of owing, by the way . . .” I placed a purse on my desk in front of her. It held five hundred gold Imperials. She didn’t touch it yet, of course. “How would you like to have me owe you still another favor?”
“I’m always happy to have you in my debt,” she said lightly. “What does he have that you want?”
“Any of a number of things. A piece of clothing would be good. Hair would be excellent. Anything that has a long association with him.”
She shook her head once more, in mock sadness. “More of your Eastern witchcraft, Vlad?”
“I’m afraid so,” I admitted. “You know how we are, always like to keep our hand in, and all.”
“I’ll bet.” She took the purse and stood up. “Okay, you’re on. It shouldn’t take more than a day or two.”
“No hurry,” I lied politely. I stood as she left, and bowed her out.
“How long do you think it will actually take her?” asked Kragar.
“How long have you been sitting there?”
“Not too long.”
I shook my head in disgust. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we had it tomorrow.”
“Not bad,” he said. “Did you talk to Daymar?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
I explained the outcome of our conversation. He shrugged over the technical details of the witchcraft, but caught the gist of it. He laughed a bit when I explained that Daymar had managed to include himself in the spell.
“Well, do you think it will work?” he asked.
“Daymar thinks it will work; I think it will work.”
He seemed satisfied with this answer. “So nothing happens until we hear from Kiera, right?”
“Right.”
“Good. I think I’ll go catch up on my sleep.”
“Wrong.”
“What now, Oh Master?”
“You’re getting as bad as Loiosh.”
“What’s that supp
osed to mean, boss?”
“Shut up, Loiosh.”
“Right, boss.”
I picked up the notes on Mellar that I’d been reading and handed them to Kragar. “Read,” I said. “Let me know what you think.”
He ruffled through them briefly. “There’s a lot here.”
“Yeah.”
“Look, Vlad, my eyes are sore. How about tomorrow?”
“Read.”
He sighed and started reading.
* * *
“You know what strikes me, Vlad?” he asked a bit later.
“What?”
“There’s been something funny about this guy since he first showed up in the organization.”
“What do you mean?”
He paged through the notes quickly and continued. “He moved too fast. He made it from nowhere to the top in just over ten years. That’s damned quick. I’ve never heard of anyone except you moving that quickly, and you have the excuse of being an Easterner.
“I mean, look,” he went on. “He starts out protecting a little brothel, right? A muscle. A year later he’s running the place; a year after that he has ten more. In eight years he’s got a territory bigger than you have now. A year after that, he wipes out Terion and takes his place on the council. And a year after that, he grabs up the council funds and vanishes. It’s almost as if he had the whole thing figured out when he started.”
“Hmmm. I see what you’re saying, but isn’t ten years a long time to set up one job?”
“You’re thinking like an Easterner again, Vlad. It isn’t a long time if you expect to have a two-thousand- or three-thousand-year lifetime.”
I nodded and thought over what he’d suggested.
“I can’t see it, Kragar,” I said finally. “How much gold was it that he got?”
“Nine million,” he said, almost reverently.
“Right. Now, that’s a lot. That’s one hell of a lot. If I ever have a tenth of that in one place at one time I’ll retire. But would you throw away a position on the council for it?”
Kragar started to speak, stopped.
I continued, “And that isn’t the only way to get nine million gold either. It isn’t the best, the fastest, or the easiest. He could have gone free-lance and done a lot better than that over those same ten years. He could have held up the Dragon Treasury, and doubled it at least, and not be taking anymore risk than he is with this thing.”
Kragar nodded. “That’s true. Are you saying that he wasn’t after the gold?”
“Not at all. I’m suggesting that he may have developed a sudden need to have a few million and this was the only way to get it in a hurry.”
“I don’t know, Vlad. Just looking at his whole history, it sure seems like he had this planned out from the start.”
“But why, Kragar? No one works his way up to a seat on the council for money. You have to be after power to do something like that—”
“You should know,” said Kragar, smirking.
“—and you don’t throw away that kind of power unless you have to.”
“Maybe he lost interest in it,” he said. “Maybe he was just after the thrill of getting to the top, and after he made it, he went after a new thrill.”
“If that’s true,” I remarked, “he’s going to get his thrills, and then some. But doesn’t that go against your He-Planned-It-All-From-the-Start theory?”
“I suppose it does. I’m beginning to get the feeling that we don’t have enough information; all we’re doing is guessing.”
“True enough. So how about if you start collecting the information, eh?”
“Me? Look, Vlad, my boots are in the shop this week getting new soles. Why don’t we hire a flunky and get him to do the legwork for us, okay?”
I told him where he could hire the flunky and what he could have him do.
He sighed. “All right, I’m going. What are you going to be working on?”
I thought for a minute. “A couple of things,” I said. “For one, I’m going to try to think up a good reason for someone to suddenly decide to leave the council in such a way as to get the whole Jhereg down on his ass. Also I’m going to check in with Morrolan’s spy ring and contact some of our own people. I want to dig up as much information as I can, and it wouldn’t hurt to have both of us working on it. After that—I think I’ll visit the Lady Aliera.”
Kragar was about halfway out the door, but as I finished speaking, he stopped and turned around. “Who?” he asked, incredulous.
“Aliera e’Kieron, House of the Dragon, Morrolan’s cous—”
“I know who she is, I just couldn’t believe I heard you straight. Why not ask the Empress, while you’re at it?”
“I have a few questions about this guy that I want to check out, and they’re just the kind of thing she’s good at. Why not? We’ve been friends for quite a while.”
“Boss, she’s a Dragon. They don’t believe in assassination. They consider it a crime. If you go up to her and—”
“Kragar,” I interrupted, “I never said that I was going to go up to her and say, ‘Aliera, I’m trying to assassinate this guy, how would you like to help set him up?’ Give me credit for a little finesse, all right? All we have to do is find some reasonable excuse for her to be interested in Mellar, and she’ll be happy to help out.”
“A ‘reasonable excuse,’ eh? Just out of curiosity, do you have any idea how to find an excuse like that?”
“As a matter of fact,” I said nastily, “I do. Easiest thing in the world. I just give you the assignment.”
“Me? Dammit, Vlad, you’ve already got me working on background, as well as trying to figure out a nonexistent event to provide an insufficient reason for a vanished Jhereg to do the impossible. I can’t—”
“Sure you can. I have confidence in you.”
“Go suck yendi eggs. How?”
“You’ll think of something.”
5
“There are dangers in eyesight too keen.”
THE ONLY SIGNIFICANT THING that happened the rest of the day was the arrival of a courier from the Demon, along with a rather impressive escort and several large purses. The full sixty-five thousand Imperials. It was official now; I was committed.
I gave Kragar the purses to put into safekeeping, and went home for the day. My wife, I’m sure, knew that something was up, but didn’t ask about it. I had no good reason for not mentioning anything to her, but I didn’t.
The next morning I found a small envelope on my desk. I slit it open and several human, or Dragaeran, hairs fell out. There was also a note which read, “From his pillow.—K.” I destroyed the note and reached out for psionic contact with my wife.
“Yes, Vlad?”
“Are you busy, sweetheart?”
“Not really. Just practicing a little knife-throwing.”
“Hey! I wish you wouldn’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because you can already beat me seven out of ten times.”
“I’m going for eight out of ten. You’ve been getting uppity lately. What’s up? Do you have some ‘work’ for me?”
“No such luck. Drop on by and I’ll tell you about it.”
“Right away?”
“As soon as it’s convenient.”
“Okay. I’ll be over shortly.”
“Fine. Meet me in the lab.”
“Oh,” she said, understanding, and the link was broken.
I left word with my receptionist that I wasn’t going to be taking any messages for the next two hours and walked down a few flights of stairs. Loiosh rode complacently on my left shoulder, looking around as if he were conducting an inspection. I came to a small room in the basement and unlocked the door.
In this building, locks are next to useless as a means of actually keeping people out of places, but they are effective as a way of saying “Private.”
It was a smallish room, with a low table in the exact center and several mounted lamps along the wall. I kindled t
hese. In a corner of the room was a small chest. The middle of the table held a brazier, with a few unburned coals in it. I dumped these out and got more from the chest.
I focused, briefly, on one of the candles and was rewarded by a flame. I used it to light the others, then put out the lamps.
I checked the time and found that I still had a little while before I could contact Daymar. I checked the placement of the candles and watched the flickering shadows for a moment.
Removing a few more items from the chest, including a piece of incense, I set them on the table next to the brazier, placing the incense among the coals. Next, I took a candle and held the flame next to a coal. A moment of concentration, and the fire spread evenly and quickly. The smell of incense began to introduce itself to the various nooks and corners of the room.
Soon Cawti arrived and greeted me with a sunshine smile. She was an Easterner, a small, pretty woman with dzur-black hair and fluid, graceful movements. If she’d been a Dragaeran, she might have been born into the House of the Issola, and taught them all something about “courtliness.” And something about “surprise,” as well.
Her hands were small, but strong, and could produce knives out of nowhere. Her eyes burned—sometimes with the impish delight of a mischievous child, sometimes with the cold passion of a professional killer, sometimes with the rage of a Dragonlord going into battle.
Cawti was one of the deadliest assassins I had ever met. She and her partner, then a defrocked Dragonlord, had made one of the most sought-after teams of killers in the Jhereg, going under the somewhat melodramatic names of “The Sword and the Dagger.” I had deemed it a high honor when an enemy of mine had considered me worth the expense of hiring the team to take me out. I’d been quite surprised when I woke up afterwards and found that they hadn’t managed to make it permanent. For that, thank Kragar’s alertness, Morrolan’s speed and fighting ability, and Aliera’s rather exceptional skill in healing and revivification.
Some couples fall in love and end up trying to kill each other. We’d done it the other way around.
Cawti was also a competent witch, though not quite as skilled as I. I explained to her what was going to be needed, then we made small talk.
“Boss!”