The Book of Athyra

by Steven Brust

  Cracks and shards! “Yes. Go on.”

  “And the Turmoli Trust, and Havinger’s.”

  “Quite.”

  “Should I include the House treasuries?”

  House treasuries?

  “Yes.”

  “Well, the only ones I know about are the Dragon and the Jhegaala. And the Orca, naturally.”

  “Naturally,” I echoed, trying to keep my eyes from bulging too obviously. The Orca Treasury! The Dragon Treasury!

  “I think those are the only Houses, or at least the only ones with potentially dangerous investments.”

  “Not the Jhereg?” I said.

  “No,” she said. “As far as I know, you—they are only in for small change. I think that was the deal to convince the Dragons to invest.”

  “That would make sense,” I said. Besides, what does the Jhereg Treasury matter if all the Jhereg in Northport and half the Jhereg in Adrilankha had already gotten involved? But then, maybe they hadn’t—I still didn’t know what you were going to uncover in Adrilankha, I was just guessing based on what your friend Stony had said.

  She kept talking, and I kept listening, but the details aren’t important. She named about twenty or thirty banks, trusts, and moneylenders who were either going under or were in danger of going under, and, as I said, the Bank of the Empire, which embodies the Imperial Treasury, was at the very top of the list.

  What happens if the Empire has to file surrender of debts, Kiera? Who can it surrender its debts to? It occurs to me that there are probably scholars of the House of the Orca who sit around and discuss things like this, or write long books about it, but nothing like it had ever crossed my mind before. When she finally ran down, I said, “Good. That’s what we needed.”

  “But you knew all that.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “That isn’t your concern, is it?”

  “I suppose not,” she said, and looked at me with maybe just the hint of suspicion.

  As if it were just an afterthought to the conversation, I said, “Loftis was killed yesterday.”

  “So I heard,” she said coolly. “Poor fellow. Do the authorities know who did it?”

  “Nope,” I said.

  She studied her fingernails. “I heard he was eating lunch with an Easterner at the time.”

  She heard that? Well, maybe that explained why she was so ready to believe I was who I claimed to be. That was almost funny. “It’s possible,” I said.

  “It seemed like a professional job.”

  I looked at her and alarm bells went off inside my head. She knew as much about professionalism in assassination as I knew about professionalism in finance. And, in fact, it hadn’t been a professional job; at least, not the way the Jhereg would have done it. Too many people involved, and too much left to chance, including a target who had the opportunity to draw his blade and a witness left alive. Whoever killed Loftis, it wasn’t the Jhereg.

  So who was it?

  I tried to remember enough about the assassins to guess their House, but I couldn’t really. They weren’t Dzurlords, and they weren’t Dragonlords. Orca? Maybe. Probably.

  But, above all, why was she pretending it was a Jhereg job? Did she think I was pretending it was a Jhereg job, and she was just going along with it, even though she knew better? I looked at her, and my instincts answered yes.

  “What is it?” she said. I’d been looking at her, even though I hadn’t been aware of it, and apparently this was making her nervous. Good.

  “What do you know?” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know something.”

  “About what?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I know we didn’t do Loftis, and you know we didn’t do Loftis. You’ve been scared, and you’re getting ready to jump. You know something you shouldn’t know, and that’s scaring you, and well it should. What is it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t you?”

  She tried to scowl at me. I stared back at her. I was Vlad again, a Jhereg assassin, if only for a moment, and she was an Orca—rich and fat, at least metaphorically. I’d become an assassin in the first place just for the pleasure of killing people like her. So I glared and waited, and eventually she cracked. It wasn’t obvious, but I could see her resistance break down, and she knew I could see.

  I said, “Well? Who killed him?”

  She shook her head.

  I said, “Don’t be stupid. You know who I represent. Whoever you’re scared of, you should be more scared of me. Now, which one of them was it?”

  I threw in the “which one of them was it” phrase because it makes it sound like you know what you’re talking about even when you don’t, and this time it paid off. She said, “Reega.”

  “Good,” I said. “Congratulations, you’ve just saved your life. How deep into her are you?”

  “Heh,” she said. “I’m not into her, she’s into me.”

  “Same thing, isn’t it? If she goes down, you follow her.”

  She nodded.

  “Very well, Side-Captain. You know that we’re all a little shy these days about throwing money at someone to keep an operation from going under—especially that bloodline. But it is possible something can be worked out.”

  “Something has been worked out,” she snapped. “And if you people would just leave us alone—”

  “You mean the land swindle? I know about that. What makes you think it’s going to work?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It isn’t like it’s a secret, Side-Captain.”

  “Who knows?”

  “Everyone.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Except maybe the victims.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? As long as the v—as long as the tenants don’t find out, it doesn’t matter who else does.”

  “Sure. But how long will it be until they realize what’s going on? And then what?”

  “We’ll be gone by then.”

  “Do you really think you can move that quickly?”

  “We can be done this week.”

  I pretended to consider. “It might work,” I said.

  “It will work. The Empire won’t prosecute, and I don’t even know what law they’d prosecute under if they wanted to. Right now we’ve got twelve thousand tenants who will go into debt for life to buy land at three times its value. If that isn’t worth a little short-term Jhereg investment—”

  “The Jhereg,” I said, “doesn’t have much to invest. You know why as well as I do.”

  She shrugged. “But I also know that you can come up with the funds, if you want to.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “We can.”

  “Boss! Trouble!”

  “Just a moment,” I said. “What is it, Loiosh?”

  “Someone’s just teleported in. Male, Jhereg colors, two bodyguards.”

  “Oh, nuts.”

  I stood up. “You must excuse me; there’s a problem back home. I’ll talk to my bosses.”

  Hub came into the room and whispered in Vonnith’s ear. She nodded to him, then looked at me. “No need,” she said. “I think your boss is here already.”

  I started heading toward where the back door had to be. “Boss, two more just appeared in back.”

  I looked at her, and realized she was in psychic communication—no doubt with whoever the Jhereg was. She focused on me and said, “Who are you?”

  “Now don’t you feel stupid,” I told her.

  The back was out and the front was out. “Anyone watching the side windows, Loiosh?”

  “Two.”

  Damn.

  “Who are you?”

  “Did you tell him that there was one of his people here?” I asked. “And did you mention it was an Easterner?”

  “Who are you?” she said, as I saw the affirmative in her eyes. She had no idea why he’d reacted as he had, but now I was trapped. If I telep
orted, they’d just trace it, and I’d have to remove the black Phoenix Stone. I looked around. Here was as good as anywhere, I decided. So the question was, stand, or attempt to break out? I drew my blade.

  “Are they Jhereg at the side window?”

  “No, Orca.”

  So that was the best path. I came to this conclusion about ten seconds too late, however, as three of them walked into the room. The one in the middle I knew from your description had to be Stony.

  “Vlad Taltos,” he said. “A pleasure to meet you.”

  “You, too, dead man.”

  He smiled.

  His two “associates” spread out on either side of me. Vonnith said, “Not here!”

  I said, “This is pretty sloppy work, you know, dead man.”

  “I know,” said Stony. “Inelegant. But it’s the best we can do, under the circumstances.” He was armed as well, with a short, heavy sword, but he didn’t look like someone who’d be all that good with it, whereas the two who were flanking me seemed to know their business.

  “Boss?”

  “I’m going to be busy in here in a minute, Loiosh. If anyone else shows up to join the party, let me know, and if any escape routes show up, let me know that, too.”

  “Sure, boss,” he said in the tone that indicated he had his own plan and to the Falls with mine, so I wasn’t startled when there was the sound of breaking glass, although everyone else was.

  I took two steps that lasted about ten years each, and I was very much aware that my back was to a pair of blades, but Stony was taking twenty years to stop looking at Loiosh, so he wasn’t ready for me and I took him, neat and clean, right through the heart. Then I turned around, drew a knife, and threw it at the one Loiosh wasn’t busy with. To my amazement it actually hit him point-first, sticking in a spot on the left side of his lower chest, where it would certainly give him something to think about, and gave me time to step away from Stony, who was still on his feet and therefore dangerous. I prepared another knife very carefully.

  “Up!”

  Loiosh flew straight up to the ceiling and I threw, and, wouldn’t you know it, the one I’d had time to aim hit him sort of edge-on in the stomach and did no damage to speak of, but that was all right, because Loiosh had scratched his face up pretty good and had bit him as well, so he probably had enough to keep him occupied.

  I turned back to Stony, who picked that moment to fall over.

  “Good work, Loiosh.”

  “Let’s go, boss.”

  Side-Captain Vonnith stared at us with her mouth hanging open. I said, “Sorry about your window,” and we headed for the front door, walking right in front of Hub, who looked like he wanted to say something polite but just couldn’t manage. Lady Teldra would have.

  “Why don’t we teleport?”

  “Because if Stony had any sense, he let someone know what was going down, and they’ll be looking for me with everything they’ve got, just in case. If I take off the Phoenix Stone, I’ll last just long enough to wish I hadn’t.”

  “Oh.”

  “Are you all right, Loiosh?”

  “Pretty much, boss. I cut myself on the glass a bit, but it isn’t too bad.”

  “Then why do you sound that way?”

  “Well, okay, so I’m bleeding a bit.”

  “Come here.”

  I looked him over, and found a nasty gash just where his left wing joined his body, and another on the left side of his neck. Both of them were bleeding. He licked himself a bit and said, “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  He folded himself up and I tucked him under my cloak, trusting him to hold on, and I stepped out of the doorway, blade first.

  There were two Jhereg in front of me, and a pair of Vonnith’s personal guardsmen next to them, and they all looked ready to scuffle. They stood, almost motionless, waiting for me to move. Back in the old days I’d have had a handful of nasty little things to throw at them to keep them busy, but these days I only had a few throwing knives, and I’d already lost half of them. It didn’t look good, especially with Loiosh clinging helplessly to the inside of my cloak; I was morally certain that if this came to a true melee, one of them would end up skewering my familiar by accident, and I would hate that.

  I looked at how everyone was positioned, then I pointed to the two Orca, one at a time, with my blade. “You two,” I said. “Five hundred gold each if you nail these two for me.”

  No, they weren’t going to go for it, but the Jhereg couldn’t know that. They each stepped back and took a look at the Orca, and that was just long enough for me to nail one in the throat. He went down and I faced the other one for a second, then said, “Okay, so maybe you don’t want to attack them. I still think you’re best off out of there. This isn’t your fight, you know. And you won’t get any of the reward in any case. Ask the Side-Captain if you don’t believe me. I’ll wait.”

  I’m afraid I lied to them, Kiera; while they were checking in, I took a step and a lunge, cutting the other Jhereg’s wrist, then shoulder, then face. He went back and I went forward and he tried to counter and I parried, riposted, and got him lightly in the chest. He backed up some more and raised his blade to charge me; I gave him a very nice cut on his forearm, and his blade fell to the ground.

  “Get out of here,” I suggested. He turned and ran up toward the road without another word.

  There’s no question that the two Orca could have taken me then, but I had to hope they were a little intimidated by now, and that they weren’t even sure this was their fight in the first place—aside from which, I really expected to see a good number of Jhereg showing up any minute, so I didn’t have time for anything fancy. I looked at them; they shrugged and lowered their weapons.

  “See you,” I said, and made tracks, aware of the weight of Loiosh clinging to my cloak, and to the increasing wetness against my side.

  It was a long, long way to the main road, Kiera, but nothing untoward happened before I reached it. I headed back toward Northport, ducking into the woods as soon as there was enough woods to duck into.

  “I think we might make it, Loiosh,” I said.

  Then, “Loiosh?”

  I stopped where I was, and if every assassin in the Empire had shown up just then, I don’t think I would have noticed. He was gripping the inside of my cloak, and the first thing I noticed was that his chest was still rising and falling, and there was still blood seeping from the two wounds. I took the cloak off and spread it on the ground, then I gently spread his wings so I could look at the injuries. They didn’t seem very deep, but the one near his wing was jagged and ugly. I spent a great deal of time looking for slivers of glass, but I didn’t find any, which was good.

  I didn’t know what to do, so I cut the Jhereg cloak into strips and bandaged him up as best I could, binding his left wing tight to his body. Then I looked at the other wound and scowled mightily. I’d made jokes before, especially with Kragar and Melestev, about how they should be prepared to put a tourniquet around my throat if anyone cut it, but now that I was faced with the absurd problem of trying to put a bandage around Loiosh’s snakelike neck, there wasn’t anything funny about it. In the end, I just used a great deal of cloth and kept the wrapping loose enough so it wouldn’t stop his breathing, and then I pressed my hand against it and held it there.

  “Loiosh?”

  No response.

  I picked him up and made my way through the woods, doing my best to keep track of where I was, but I’ve never been a good woodsman.

  Some animals, I’m told, will fall into a deep sleep in order to heal themselves. I didn’t know if jhereg did that. Isn’t that funny? Loiosh and I had been together since I was a kid, and there were so many things I didn’t know about him. I wondered what that said about me, and whether it was something I wanted to hear. No doubt Savn—the old Savn, before he went away—would have had a great deal to say about it. He was a sharp kid, was Savn. I hoped that Savn wasn’t gone forever. I hoped Loiosh wasn’t gone forever. Caw
ti, the old Cawti, the woman I’d married, was probably gone forever. How much of all of this was my fault?

  These were my thoughts, Kiera, as I tried to make my way to Northport, moving as fast as I could with the bundle of my familiar in front of me and thicket all around me. Good thing it was still daylight or I’d have killed myself; too bad it was daylight, because the Jhereg would have an easier time finding me. Where were they now? Had they arrived in force, and were they combing the woods, or had they not yet learned that I had escaped? They must, by now, have realized that Stony was dead, and at least they’d be sending someone to investigate.

  There was a flapping above me, and I looked up, and there was Rocza. She landed on my shoulder and looked at me. Okay. I can take a hint.

  I stopped, spread out the cloak, and removed the bandages from Loiosh’s wounds. Rocza waited patiently while I did so, then gave me a look of stern disapproval and began methodically licking the wounds clean. I don’t know if there’s something about jhereg saliva, or if she was using her poison and there’s something about that, but the bleeding had stopped by the time she was done. I reached out to pick up Loiosh, but Rocza hissed at me and I stopped. She picked him up in her talons, flapped once, and took to the air, though it seemed with a bit of trouble.

  “Okay,” I said. “Have it your way.”

  She flew in a careful circle, just over my head.

  “I hope,” I said aloud, “that you can lead me back home. And that you want to, for that matter.”

  I don’t know if she understood me, or if she thought of it on her own, but she began flying, and she did such a good job of letting me stay in sight that it can’t have been accidental. From time to time she would carefully lay Loiosh down in a tree limb, rest for a moment, and then fly around as if to scope out the area—maybe that’s what she was doing, in which case Loiosh had certainly taught her well, because we didn’t run into anyone. Once, when she had deposited Loiosh, another jhereg came and sat near him. Rocza returned and spread her wings and hissed with great enthusiasm, and the other jhereg flew off. I applauded silently.

  Eventually the woods gave way to grassland, and I felt rather naked and exposed walking through it, except that by then it was growing dark, so I delayed a little while to give the darkness more time to settle in and get comfortable. Rocza didn’t like that, and hissed at me, but then she probably decided she needed the rest, too, so she set Loiosh down in the grass and licked him some more, and when the light had faded enough we started off again.