by Steven Brust
“Shortisle to dinner,” said Vlad. “That’s what’s odd about it—to dinner.”
“Huh?”
“Those notes you stole from Fyres. Here, just a minute.”
He walked into the cottage and emerged with Buddy and the sheaf of notes I’d stolen from Fyres’s place. He looked through them for a while, then held one up triumphantly. “It says, ‘Shortisle to dinner.’”
“What’s your point?”
He waved the papers in front of my face. “My point, Kiera, is that it was included in his financial notes, not his personal notes.”
“I’m sure it was a business meeting, Vlad. What does that tell you?”
“Everything,” he said.
“Huh?”
Vlad shook his head and was quiet for several minutes, and, once more, I could almost watch him working things out. It was like seeing someone assemble a puzzle, but not being able to see the puzzle itself; it was a trifle annoying. Eventually he said, “One question.”
“Yes?”
“When Stony told you he wasn’t in debt to Fyres, did you believe him?”
“Well, at the time I did, but—”
“That’s good enough for me.”
Then he frowned, and Rocza flew out of the house, landing on his other shoulder. “I’ll see you in a bit, Kiera,” he said abruptly, and started walking away from the cottage.
“Wait a minute—”
“No time,” he said.
“What about your sword?”
“It’ll just get in the way.”
“Where are you going?”
“To town.”
“But—”
“Keep an eye on Savn,” he added over his shoulder as he headed down the road toward Northport.
I watched him go, hoping he wasn’t going to do anything stupid. I had the sudden realization that we hadn’t talked about my decision to let myself be a target in hopes of flushing out whoever was behind it—back when we’d thought there was someone behind it. This mattered because, although he would come up with some reason for justifying it, especially to himself, Vlad might well feel it necessary to go and do something equally dangerous, and if I let him get himself killed, I’d never be able to explain it to Cawti.
On the other hand, I couldn’t insult him by following him. Nothing to do but worry, I suppose. Savn was awake, and looking at me.
“Hello,” I said. “My name is Kiera.”
He looked away, then closed his eyes as if he were going back to sleep. On impulse, I stood up and said, “Come on, Savn. We’re going for a walk.”
He dutifully stood, and I led the way out the door, into air that was crisp with that indefinable smell of snow that hasn’t arrived yet, but is coming, coming; and all overlaid with the ocean, fainter than it smelled in my Adrilankha, but still there.
Buddy got up and padded along after us, a few paces behind. It was odd, not having Rocza there—I’d begun to associate her with Savn even more than with Vlad; I kept expecting to see her on Savn’s shoulder. I wondered if he had a future as a witch. Odd how the jhereg seemed to be so protective of the boy. I wondered if there was a story in it.
What now, Kiera? I’d gotten him moving; should I try to get him talking? I didn’t particularly want to talk about knives.
“The jhereg, Rocza, seems very attached to you,” I said. “She spends a lot of time watching over you. I wonder why that is?” Buddy came up beside us, then suddenly lunged ahead to chase something or other through the leafless trees. After a while he came back. He’d missed whatever it was, but didn’t seem to mind, having enjoyed the chase.
“Although I suppose it’s reasonable to wonder why anyone watches over anyone. Vlad still doesn’t know why I watch over him, you know.” Savn kept walking along, oblivious to me and everything else, but at least not tripping over tree roots. “Come to that,” I added, “I’m not altogether certain myself.” The ground dropped a bit, not like a hill, but more like a small depression, and the trees here were a little more sparse. There are many things that can cause this sort of land formation; even the ground has its story to tell. Not all stories are worth listening to, however.
“Guilt, I suppose,” I said. “At least, that’s part of it.” We rose up again and were back in a part of the forest that was thicker; we splashed through a tiny brook, perhaps four meters across and two or three centimeters deep, running back past us toward the depression. “Though I doubt that Rocza has anything to feel guilty about. And I shouldn’t still feel guilty toward Vlad. It was a long time ago, and, well, we all do what we have to.
“Vlad, too,” I added. “He’s a good person, you know. In spite of many things, including his own opinion, he’s a good person. Maybe a bit conceited, overbearing, and arrogant, but then, people without a trace of these diseases aren’t usually worth one’s time.” I heard myself chuckling. “Or maybe I’m talking about myself, there.
“It’s odd, Savn, addressing someone who doesn’t respond. It’s uncomfortable, but it also frees you up in a way: you can say things and pretend it doesn’t matter, that no one is really hearing them, but, at the same time, you’ve said them, and you don’t really know what you think until you’ve found a way to get your thoughts outside of you, in words, or some other way. And so, my friend Savn, while it may seem that I am speaking for your benefit, to help you overcome whatever it is that pulls you away from us and from the world outside of your head, in fact, I should be thanking you. And I do.
“But enough self-indulgence. We have a problem, Vlad and I, and I’m not certain what to do about it.” We had been moving in a large circle because I didn’t want to get too far away from the cottage; now I caught a glimpse of it, blue and ugly, through the trees. Savn didn’t look at it, he just kept walking, one foot in front of the other, careful not to trip. He was doing fine, I suppose. If there was nothing more to life than walking without tripping, I’d pronounce him cured on the spot.
I headed us away from the place, though not quite so far this time. I wondered what Vlad was doing. Buddy bounded about here and there, energetic for as old as he was. A good dog, probably a good companion for a woman like Hwdf’rjaanci, just as Loiosh was a good companion for an assassin. Or an ex-assassin, or whatever he was now.
Game, that’s what he was. Hunted game. The target of the Organization he’d worked for and been a part of, but, in my opinion, never really belonged in. It’s not his fault, but he’s not human, and he doesn’t have whatever it is within the genes of a human being that makes a Jhereg.
But whether he had ever belonged or not, now they were hunting him, and he was off doing something improbable that might make it easier for them. What? “What do you think he’s up to, Savn? I doubt he’d go after Vonnith again, after how close it was last time. Endra? Reega? I just don’t know. And there’s nothing I can do about it, anyway, except wait and see what he comes up with. I don’t like being responsible for other people, Savn; present company excepted. I don’t like having to rely on them. I think that’s the big difference between me and Vlad: he’s always liked people, and I’ve always liked being by myself. So, of course, the way things worked out, he’s the one who has to take off and spend his short lifetime away from everyone he cares about. Feh. No sense complaining about fate, though, Savn; it never listens. When there’s nothing you can do except worry, that’s a good time to worry. I don’t remember who said that. Maybe me.”
We made our way back to the house, Buddy preceding us through the door. Hwdf’rjaanci was washing some sort of tuber that would probably feed us later. Savn sat down near the hearth, facing out, rather than looking at it. Buddy poked his nose at Hwdf’rjaanci’s leg, was petted, wagged his tail, and sat down by Savn. I said to Savn, “Are you hungry?”
He shook his head.
I nodded, pretending that having him respond to a question was the most natural thing in the world, but I realized that my heart was pounding. There was no question, we’d made progress. On the other hand, we deserv
ed to, because we had paid for it. Or, more precisely, others had paid for it.
Fyres was dead.
Stony was dead.
Loftis was dead.
I looked at the boy, who had closed his eyes and was resting easily. At least Vlad wasn’t dead. But there was still too much death. Death follows Vlad around like another familiar, and sometimes I wondered if he even noticed, much less cared. I knew what that felt like, and what it could do to you, but it wasn’t supposed to happen to Kiera the Thief, who had never killed anyone, and who didn’t enjoy being around when things like that were going on, and who especially hated it when she couldn’t do anything about it. But this was too big for Kiera the Thief. Much too big for Kiera. And much, much too big for Vlad.
On the other hand, it was clear he had figured something out, there at the end. What? And why hadn’t he told me? I hate it when he does that. If he managed to return in one piece, though, I’d be able to tell him that there was progress—that the boy had responded to a question that had nothing to do with knives, and that there was probably hope for him. Vlad would think it worth whatever trouble he’d been through; oddly enough, I thought so, too.
Buddy’s head came up, and he padded out the door, his tail giving a couple of perfunctory wags. I heard the sound of a familiar walk, and something in me relaxed, and I was able to look entirely normal an instant later when Vlad walked in, looking smug.
“What?” I said.
“It’s done,” he said.
“What, everything?”
He glanced quickly at Savn and said, “Almost everything. Everything we can take care of, at least.”
“I have good news on that front, too,” I said.
“Tell me,” he said, almost snapping out the words.
“You first.”
“No, you.”
“I—all right.” So I told him about Savn not wanting to eat, and Vlad was every bit as pleased about it as I was. Then Hwdf’rjaanci came in, and I had to tell her, too, and she grew a smile, too.
When I’d waited as long as I could, I said, “All right, Vlad. Your turn.”
“Sure,” he said. “Let’s go outside.”
Hwdf’rjaanci sniffed, and Vlad winked at her. Then we went outside and he told me about his day.
15
I HID AS BEST I could, which was pretty well, in a doorway across the street from City Hall—maybe the same place you hid, Kiera—and I waited for the day to fade. I didn’t feel especially safe. Loiosh wasn’t fit to fly, so Rocza was doing the watching, and I was getting the information from her through Loiosh, which is too indirect for my taste, and Rocza wasn’t trained for this kind of work. Loiosh attempted to reassure me, without much success.
Eventually Domm left the building. I gritted my teeth and watched him go by. He took a few steps away from the door and teleported. I kept waiting. Things were shutting down and people were going home from work. Had I missed her? Had she gone out a back way, or not been there at all, or teleported from inside the building? These are the questions that inevitably go through your head when you’re doing what I was doing, and you don’t have a partner. When I was with the Jhereg, I made sure people doing this sort of thing always worked in pairs, at least one of whom was a competent sorcerer. I was a competent sorcerer, but as long as I wore the gold Phoenix Stone, it didn’t help a bit, and whenever I removed it, even for an instant, I was risking rather more than my life—the Jhereg are tenacious, I know because I was one, and I was as tenacious as any of them, damn them to Verra’s coldest hell.
Timmer came out, walked a few steps down the street, paused, no doubt to teleport, then stopped as Rocza flew down, almost into her face, then away. She reached for a weapon, frowning, and looked for her; then she saw me walking toward her, hands in front of me and open.
Rocza landed on my shoulder. Timmer waited, her hand still on her blade. “Let’s talk,” I said.
“We have nothing to talk about.”
“Oh, no, my lady. We have a lot to talk about. If you try to arrest me, which I know you’re thinking about, you’ll get nothing. If you don’t, you’ll find out who killed your associate, and why.”
She looked like she was starting to get angry, so I added, “I didn’t do it. I had no reason to do it. I suspect you don’t know who did. I do. Give me a chance and I’ll prove it, and what I want in return is something I don’t think you’ll mind giving me at all.”
“Who are you this time?”
“Someone who’s all done playing games, Ensign. I’m not asking you to trust me, you know. Just to listen. Can you afford not to?”
Her face twitched, and she said, “Inside, then.”
“No, not there. Anywhere else, as long as it’s public.”
“All right. This way, then.”
We walked about a quarter of a mile, past two or three public houses, and then we entered one; she was being careful, which I approved of. The place was just starting to fill up, but we found a corner, anyway. She didn’t drink anything, or offer to buy me anything, either. She took out a dagger, set it on the table. She said, “All right, let’s have it. All of it.”
“That’s my intention,” I said.
She waited. Loiosh and Rocza sat on my shoulders like statues, drawing stares from everyone in the place except her. That was all right. I said, “I’m betting a great deal on a single glance, Ensign.”
She waited.
I said, “The Surveillance Corps and the Tasks Group. I’m betting that you’re with the latter and that Lieutenant Domm is in the former, and I’m basing this guess just on the way you looked at him that time at the Riversend. Care to tell me if I’m right?”
“You talk,” she said. “I’ll listen.”
“Okay.” I was beginning to think she didn’t like me. “My name is Vladimir Taltos. I used to work for the Jhereg, now I’m being hunted by the Jhereg.” I stopped to give her a chance to respond, if she cared to.
“Keep talking,” she said.
“There’s a boy, a Teckla boy. He has brain fever—”
“Stay on the subject.”
“If you want to know what’s happening, Ensign, don’t interrupt. He has brain fever. I’ve arranged for him to be cured. The woman who’s working on him is a victim of a very minor land swindle that you may or may not know about, but it’s what led me into this. I believe I need some wine.”
She got the attention of the host, who had a servant bring a bottle and two glasses. I poured some for myself, Timmer declined. I drank and my throat felt better. “The land swindle isn’t really important,” I said, “but it is, as I said, the piece of the whole thing that got me involved. And it isn’t even a swindle, really—I’m not certain it’s illegal. It’s just a means of putting some pressure on a few people and raising prices a little—inducing panic. In an atmosphere of general panic, where everyone is wondering how bad he’s going to be hit, everyone is susceptible to—”
“Go on, please.”
“You know how the land thing works?”
“Go on.”
“I don’t think she likes you, boss.”
“What was your first clue, Loiosh?”
I collected my thoughts. Someday I hope to have them all. I said, “Let’s start with Fyres, then. I assume you’ve heard of him.”
“Don’t be sarcastic with me, Easterner.”
Her hand was casually near her dagger. I nodded. “Lord Fyres,” I said, “duke of—of whatever it is. Sixty million imperials’ worth of fraud, left to a not-grieving widow, a son who probably doesn’t even notice, a daughter who intends to continue the tradition, and another daughter who—but we’ll get to her. Fyres was worth about sixty million, as I said, and almost none of it was real, except for a bit that he’d put into legitimate shipbuilding and shipping companies, most of whom have now gone belly-up, as the Orca say.
“Now, Ensign, allow me to do some speculating. Most of what I have is based on fact, but some of it is guesswork based on the rest. Feel fre
e to correct me if I say something you know is wrong.”
“Go ahead.”
“All right. Fyres was getting fatter and fatter, and more and more large banks were involved, and many of them—many of the biggest—were so heavily involved that, when he came to them and said he’d need another fifty dots—excuse me, fifty thousand imperials—or he’d go under, they had no choice but to give it to him, because if he defaulted on his loans, the banks would go under, too, or at least be pretty seriously crippled. This included the Bank of the Empire, the Orca Treasury, and the Dragon Treasury, as well as some very large banks and some extremely powerful Jhereg about whom I suspect you don’t care but you ought to.”
“Stony?”
“No, oddly enough. As far as I know, he wasn’t directly in debt to Fyres at all. But, yeah, he’s in this—mostly because he wasn’t in debt.”
“How is that?”
“Wait. I’ll get to it.”
She nodded. I tried to read her expression, to see how she was taking this, but she wasn’t giving me anything. So be it, then.
“Eventually Lord Shortisle realized what was going on. One of his accountants found out first, but agreed not to say anything about the bank he knew was in jeopardy. He did this, you understand, in fine old Orca tradition, in exchange for having his pocket lined.” I considered, then said, “Maybe several of them did this, but I only know about one. And that poor bastard had no idea what scale this was on, or he wouldn’t have tried it. For all I know, this was happening all through Shortisle’s department, but it doesn’t matter, because eventually Shortisle found out about it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, frankly. I suspect he has ways of knowing when his accountants are spending more money than they ought to; it was probably something like that.”
She shrugged. “All right. Go on, then.”
I nodded. “So Shortisle spoke to this mysterious accountant. I’m speculating now, I don’t know the accountant’s name, but I’m sure he was important in Shortisle’s organization because Vonnith always referred to him as a ‘big shot.’ At a guess, then, the conversation went something like this: Shortisle bitched him out, and informed him he was dismissed from the Ministry and was probably going to face criminal charges. The accountant said that if he was dismissed, the news would come out about why he was dismissed and the bank would fail. Shortisle asked why he should care about one bank. The accountant, who by now had at least a glimmer of what was going on, pointed out that, once that bank failed, others might, and maybe Shortisle should find how big the problem was before creating a scandal that would result in a general loss of confidence. Shortisle was forced to agree that this was a good idea.