The Book of Dzur: Dzur ; Jhegaala

by Steven Brust

  “No,” I said. “I need to ask him about this, too.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Very well,” he said.

  I mostly closed my eyes—the old trick of watching someone from under your lashes. You can’t see all that well, and it isn’t all that convincing a deception. But once in a while it can lull someone into thinking you aren’t paying attention. I doubted I would fool Aybrahmis.

  “Does it come up often in your work?” I repeated.

  “No,” he said. “Hardly ever. Once in a while, when a young man goes to the City, or a visitor …” He trailed off. I chuckled. His nostrils flared and he said, “I am not about to give you the names of anyone I have treated.”

  “I don’t need to know,” I said. “What I need to know is why.”

  “Eh?”

  “I’ve been to the Mouse. I’ve seen the number of girls who hang out there, and I know what they are. How is it you aren’t busy day and night with such treatments? Is there another physicker who handles it?”

  “There are two others in town who are called on by some to—”

  “Does one of them treat this disease among the, ah, the Velvet Ladies, as they’re called where I come from by people I don’t talk to?”

  “Not that I am aware of.” He enunciated each word carefully, the way you do when you feel it is beneath your dignity to be answering such questions at all. In Fenarian, the effect is much more pronounced than in Northwestern, because it takes all the flowing musicality out of the language. It was all I could do not to laugh.

  “Do you do, ah, something to prevent such diseases? Or check for them?”

  “No.”

  “Does one of your colleagues?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  I said, “Then explain to me why such diseases are not a constant problem for you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It has simply never been a problem.”

  “And you never thought about it?”

  “I’m sorry, Lord Merss, but I really think—”

  “All right. Thank you. I found what I wanted to.”

  “Good day, then,” he said. “I will see you tomorrow.”

  And I really had found out what I’d wanted to; I’d been watching the witch the entire time.

  After they left, I realized how exhausted I was; but I didn’t sleep. I sat there and tried to tie the last loose ends together in my head. I’m not all that good at that sort of thing. I mean, ideas come to me when I’m talking, or hearing things, or seeing things; and when I’m talking to Loiosh sometimes I can figure them out while I’m explaining things to him; but just sitting there trying to calculate how everything connects doesn’t come naturally to me.

  Still, I made a bit of progress muttering to myself, half out loud. “Well then, if they did that, he must have been doing that, which is why I thought that …” And so on. A lot of it came together that way, and the pieces that didn’t, even if I didn’t know how they fit, I could tell they belonged on the same table.

  I was still putting things together when I was interrupted by Loiosh saying into my mind, “No luck so far, Boss. How long do you want me to stay with it?”

  “Oh, sorry, chum. Might as well come back now. Should be almost time for food.”

  “Back to it tonight, or is there something new?”

  “I don’t know about something new, but no, you won’t need to keep looking for Tereza.”

  “You found her?”

  “No. And you won’t either. Sorry, I should have told you when I figured it out. She’s dead.”

  16

  BORAAN: My dear, if I have, yet again, accidentally said the one thing that gives you the entire solution, I’ll … I’ll …

  LEFITT: Have a drink?

  BORAAN: Of course. [Lefitt crosses to liquor cabinet]

  —Miersen, Six Parts Water

  Day Two, Act III, Scene 4

  Outside, it was mid-day, and they were hard at work in the mills, and the peasants were doing whatever it is peasants do at this time of year. Digging something, I suppose. The window was open to let the stench in. No, I still wasn’t used to it. Well, I don’t know, maybe I was; it was bothering me less than it had before. But I didn’t have so many other miseries before. Not complaining, just stating a fact.

  I had most of it. That is, I now knew who had been trying to do what, and why they’d done it, and who had been stupid (that was me, in case you’re wondering). More, I knew what I could do about it. In general. But you can’t implement a plan “in general.” And, when you can’t move from your sickbed, your options with regards to violence are, let’s say, limited.

  It was irritating. It seemed like I was so close to being able to deal with it, like I had everything I needed if I could just figure out how to get it started. I needed to kick the thing around with someone, to just have someone to bounce ideas off until the answer settled in. I needed—

  Loiosh flew in the window, and before he’d even settled he said, “All right, what happened?”

  “Asked some questions, got some answers, made some deductions.”

  “Deductions? You’re making deductions? I leave you alone for four hours and you start making deductions?”

  “I’m trying to find words to describe how funny that is.”

  “So, going to explain these deductions to me?”

  “After that crack, I’m not sure. Besides, I haven’t fit everything into place yet.”

  “But you’re sure she’s dead?”

  “She has to be. They couldn’t leave her alive with me able to talk, and right now they can’t risk killing me.”

  “Who is ‘they,’ Boss?”

  “Yeah, that’s the big question, isn’t it?”

  “Now you’re sounding smug.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Smug and helpless isn’t a good combination for you.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Damn right it is.”

  “Okay. Just checking.”

  Rocza lifted her head and hissed. Loiosh turned to her and his head bobbed up and down in one of the things jhereg do when they laugh.

  “What was that about?”

  “You don’t need to know, Boss.”

  “You know, Loiosh, I think I could get used to having you fly around and find out things for me while I just sit and do the thinking.”

  “Heh. In a year you’d weigh three hundred pounds.”

  “So?”

  “Hard to run from the Jhereg when you weigh three hundred pounds.”

  “Okay, good point.”

  “Boss, think this might be time to let me know what’s going on?”

  “I think it’s time to figure out what to do about it.”

  “I could help more if I knew.”

  “Yeah, but I’m enjoying keeping you in suspense too much. I’m an invalid, you must permit me my little pleasures.”

  “Boss—”

  “Okay.”

  I thought for about a minute. “We have a three-legged stool: the Count, the Guild, and the Coven. None of them trust each other, none of them like each other, none—”

  “You’re going to kick one of the legs in.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How?”

  “Still working on that.”

  “How did you know, Boss? I mean, about the stool?”

  “Well, there are bits I still need to confirm.”

  Meehayi came in with my meal. Loiosh remained quiet, as he knows how much I hate talking during meals.

  Meehayi didn’t. “I saw old Saabo was here,” he said as I laboriously used a silver spoon to bring stew from a wooden bowl—first time I think I ever experienced that combination.

  “Yes,” I told him after I’d swallowed. “We had quite a nice talk.”

  “Good.”

  “You don’t like him, do you?”

  He jumped back as if I’d slapped him. “What do you mean?” I waited him out. “I, I mean, he’s older
than me, so he isn’t a friend or anything.” I kept waiting. “No,” he finally said, setting his jaw as if daring me to object. “I don’t.”

  I nodded. “I wouldn’t either if I were you.”

  He seemed startled. “Why? What did he say about me?”

  “Nothing. Your name didn’t come up.”

  “Then why—?”

  “Because you’re a peasant, and he doesn’t think much of peasants.”

  “Well it happens that I don’t think much of—” He cut himself off.

  “Don’t blame you,” I said. “But then, I can’t say too much about him myself; he’s kindred, after all.”

  Meehayi looked at me carefully. “Is he? I mean, really?”

  “He is,” I said. “He really is. And if more people had believed that—ah, never mind. Sorry. Thinking out loud.”

  He cleared his throat. “Lord Merss—”

  “Vlad.”

  “Vlad. I haven’t said it, but I’m sorry for what happened to you.”

  “Thanks. So am I. But it’ll be set right soon enough.”

  He cocked his head. “It will?”

  I nodded and took a sip of wine, pleased that I was able to lift it without difficulty. It was wonderful. “As sure as my name is Merss Vladimir,” I told him.

  He seemed to accept that, if I’m any judge of grunts.

  I said, “Is it always like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “With Saabo. The mill workers looking down on the peasants.”

  “Yeah, well, we don’t have a lot to say of them, either. They stink.”

  “I noticed that you frequent different establishments.”

  “What?”

  “You drink in different places.”

  “Oh. Yeah, most of us. Except sometimes some guys will go into the wrong place to stir up a fight. It doesn’t usually happen, though. The Guild jumps on it pretty quick.”

  I nodded. “Yes, I suppose it would be bad for business.”

  I smiled to myself. Nothing new there, but confirmation of what I’d suspected was always nice.

  Meehayi finished helping me eat and left again, still looking slightly bewildered.

  After he’d gone, Loiosh said, “All right, Boss. Care to explain?”

  “I’ve got a sort of idea, but it won’t work unless all three—Count, Guild, and Coven—are in each other’s pockets, because otherwise I can’t make it work. I’d suspected, but until today I wasn’t sure.”

  “Okay, Boss. What did you find out?”

  “The tags in this area don’t have a problem with Sheep Disease.”

  “Which means?”

  “Which means there is a business arrangement between the Guild and the Coven. Mutual benefit, mutual dependence.”

  “Oh. What is Sheep Disease?”

  “You don’t want to know. You’re a jhereg; you’re immune. Be happy.”

  “But—okay.”

  I tried to sit up; failed. I still didn’t know how to knock out that one leg of the stool. Loiosh was silent as I went over what I knew yet again, and got nowhere.

  Who should I go after? Dahni? His role in this, it turns out, had been one of the easier ones to figure out. But no, he was done. I couldn’t use him. Probably no one could use him. If he was lucky, he’d have made his way out of the country by now. Orbahn? No, he was too smart; he’d put it together.

  I tried to sit up again, and failed again; sat back sweating and breathing heavily. I scowled.

  “Take it easy, Boss. You’ll give the physicker heart failure.”

  “Thanks, Loiosh.”

  “For what?”

  I didn’t answer for a while. I just sat there and smiled while my brain went click, click, click—just like it had before, just like in the old days. Yes. They may have broken my body, but my brain still worked. If you think that isn’t important to someone in my condition, your brain doesn’t work.

  I nodded to myself. Loiosh said, “Does it have to be now?”

  “What?”

  “I understand you want to settle things, Boss, but is there any reason you can’t come back in a year and do it?”

  “Funny you should say that. If you’d asked a few minutes ago, I’d have said forget it—just like I’m saying today—but a few minutes ago I wouldn’t have been able to give you a good reason.”

  “Oh, I see. Okay, Boss. What’s the great reason?”

  “Now there’s no need. I can settle things right now. Today.”

  “You can kick out the leg?”

  “Yes.”

  “And be sure the right one wins?”

  “There is no right one, only a wrong one.”

  “Who’s the wrong one?”

  “The Coven.”

  “All right. But how are you going to set this off from flat on your back?”

  “I’m not. Meehayi is.”

  “I can’t wait to see how that works out.”

  “I can’t wait to be done with this, and out of this town.”

  “That’s the first thing you’ve said that I’ve agreed with in more than a week.”

  “Yeah. Which reminds me; I need to arrange a fast exit from this place once my business is finished.”

  “And that’s the second. Any idea how to go about it?”

  “I think I’d like to speak with Father Noij.”

  “Huh?”

  “He can do it, and he will.”

  “Uh, sure, Boss. I’ll fly right out and get him.”

  I chuckled. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  “Boss, why won’t you just tell me what happened?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You don’t want to tell me, do you?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He said, “They took you, didn’t they?”

  I stared up at the ceiling for a long time. Then I nodded. “I had thought someone was playing me,” I said. “I didn’t realize that they were all playing me.”

  “Oh. Working together?”

  “No. That’s the thing. On their own, independently. That’s what threw me. But the effect was as if they were working together.”

  After that he let me alone for a while. He knew I’d have to tell him about it eventually, and he can be an understanding little bastard on occasion.

  Everything I’d said was true, and I was confident of all my conclusions, and the plan that was formulating in my head seemed sound. But there was still that one factor that I couldn’t control, couldn’t see, couldn’t anticipate, and certainly couldn’t ignore: The Jhereg now knew where I was. Yes, I still felt a fair bit of confidence in all those things I’d said: A Dragaeran would stand out, and a Morganti weapon would most certainly stand out. But what I hadn’t said was: Give them enough time, and they’ll find a way around those problems. They’re tenacious, they’re brutal, and when they have to be, they’re creative. I know, I was one.

  Once a fellow I was after surrounded himself with such solid protection that bribing them all would have cost more than I was being paid for the job. So I hired an actor to play a legitimate Chreotha merchant, hired another to play a low-level boss from Candletown, a few others to play flunkies and lackeys, and spent eleven weeks constructing a phony business deal for the guy just to get him to a meeting—no bodyguards permitted, you understand the need for secrecy—at which I turned out to be the only one doing any business. The whole story—why he needed to go, how everything played out—is interesting, and I may tell it someday. It was elaborate, elegant, and, if I may say so (after some initial foul-ups and few scary moments here and there), perfect.

  What it wasn’t was unique.

  My point is this: Give the Jhereg enough time, and they will find a way to nail you. Was I giving them too much time? I didn’t think so.

  I reviewed what I knew yet again, and finally said, “Okay, let’s do this.”

  “Now?”

  “Now. Think you could manage to open my pack and bring me something out of it? It should be
in the box, or next to it.”

  “Maybe, Boss. I can try. As long as you promise not to make any opposable thumb comments if I fail.”

  “None for a week, Loiosh, either way.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Do you know the little bottle that I keep tincture of lithandrial in?”

  “Huh? Sure, Boss. Since I don’t think you’ll be satisfied giving anyone the nettles, I assume you have the backache. But shouldn’t you ask the physicker—”

  “Loiosh, at this point I wouldn’t even notice the backache if I had it. Just get the thing, if you can.”

  He could, and presently I was holding it, and I learned that opening a tightly corked bottle is much more difficult than feeding yourself. I eventually got it open.

  “Now I need a cloth of some kind.”

  He didn’t ask questions, just dug in the box until he found an old pair of—until he found some cloth. I couldn’t be picky at that point. I poured a little dab on the cloth and applied it as best I could, wiping the excess carefully from my mustache.

  “Dammit, Loiosh. I wish I had a glass. How does it look?”

  “Compared to what?”

  “Never mind. It’ll have to do. Get rid of this cloth. Put it back in the box and bury it.”

  “With pleasure.”

  “And never mind the wisecracks.”

  I lay back on the bed and spent some time recovering my breath and remembering not to lick my lips. “Can you put the bottle back in the box too?”

  “Boss, have you gone nuts?”

  “Do not mock the afflicted, Loiosh. Not only am I a wreck, but as you can see, I’ve just been attacked by a witch.”

  “You’ve—”

  “See? Red lips? Witch’s mark?”

  “Uh, who are you trying to convince?”

  “Sit back and wait. All will be made clear.”

  When Meehayi came in with my lunch, I was lying on the bed, either barely breathing, or not breathing at all. If you’re curious, you breathe only through your nose, into your chest, quick short breaths; and you can do it forever, though it takes some practice to just breathe into your upper chest. Oh, and my lips, of course, had a pronounced reddish tinge.

  Meehayi dropped the bowl of stew (which was, as far as Loiosh and Rocza were concerned, either an unexpected bonus, or the only value the plan had in the first place), gave a high-pitched sort of scream, and bolted out the door.