by Steven Brust
“A fugitive. Someone we wanted in connection with our ongoing investigation into the death of Lord Fyres. We think he was a Chreotha,” she added.
“I see,” said Vlad. “What else is new?”
“I spoke to, uh, to certain persons in the Empire, and was told to leave well enough alone.” She looked like she’d just eaten a jimmberry thinking it was a rednut.
“So Vonnith goes free?” said Vlad.
“Free? Yes. Free and clear. And still rich. And still the owner, or manager, of three or four banks. We can’t touch her.”
“And Reega?”
“The same.” She shrugged, as if Reega didn’t much matter to her, which was probably true; Reega hadn’t been involved in Loftis’s death.
Vlad shook his head. “Not the way I’d have preferred them to end up.”
“Nor I,” said Timmer. “But then”—she spread her hands—“it isn’t my choice.”
“And?” said Vlad. “In exchange?”
She nodded. “Cooperation. They’re both going to do what they can to minimize the damage to the Empire. That, after all, is what’s important.” In her voice was a trace of the same bitterness that Vlad had described in Loftis’s voice when he spoke about having betrayed his chief.
“What else?” said Vlad.
She nodded, and, from a pouch at her side, pulled a rolled-up piece of parchment, which she handed to Hwdf’rjaanci. She took it hesitantly, looked at Timmer, then at the document. Her hands trembled a bit as she undid the ribbon with which it was tied and broke the wax with which it was sealed and unrolled it. She read it slowly and carefully, her lips moving, and I saw that there was a tear in her eye.
Vlad loudly cleared his throat, stood up, and said, “Does anyone want klava?”
No one did. Vlad sat down again.
I said, “Timmer.”
“Yes?”
“Vonnith and Reega now know, or can easily learn, who it was who—”
“No,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. This old woman’s continued health is now my business.”
Hwdf’rjaanci looked up and said, “What was that? My health?”
“Never mind,” I said.
She looked at the three of us one at a time, harrumphed softly, and went back to reading the deed to her land.
“Okay,” I said. “I trust you.”
“So do I,” said Vlad. “Only . . .”
“Yes?”
“Do me a favor, and don’t tell anyone how you found me. I don’t think the Jhereg would figure it out on their own in a million years, but—”
“Right,” she said. “Don’t worry.” She stood up. “I think that’s it, then.”
“Yes,” said Vlad. “Good luck.”
“And to you,” she said. She looked at me and we nodded to each other, then she turned and left and it was over.
“It’s over,” said Vlad.
“Not quite,” I said.
“Oh?”
“Care to take a walk with me?”
He frowned, then he shrugged and stood up. We stepped outside. Buddy followed us, and Loiosh was on Vlad’s shoulder, but there was no one else there. We walked into the woods near the house. “What is it, Kiera?” he said.
“How long have you known?”
“Known what?”
“I’m not stupid, Vlad, and I don’t think you are, either.”
“I—”
“Vlad, how long have you known?”
“I hadn’t been planning on talking about it,” he said. “What gave me away?”
“That’s my question.”
He laughed. “I suppose it is. But you go first. When did you know that I knew?”
I shrugged. “Just now, a few minutes ago. You’re sometimes very careless with your life, Vlad—especially when you’re annoyed. But you’re never careless with other people’s. Even when you were in the Jhereg—”
“Who’s life was I careless with?”
“No one’s. That’s the point.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you? Think about it.”
He did, and I could see him going back over the last hour in his mind; then he nodded. “I see.”
“Yes. You told me to get the boy and the woman somewhere safe. You asked me to, uh, stash them somewhere. Where could Kiera the Thief stash anyone that would be safe? It didn’t occur to you to ask if there was a teleport block up, you just assumed there was, because the Jhereg, or the Empire, was coming to get you, and you can’t tell if there is one or not with the Phoenix Stone you wear. So how could Kiera the Thief break through a teleport block?”
“Right,” he said. “I was scared—”
“Sure. For Savn and Hwdf’rjaanci. And then there was the remark about the knife, which is what really convinced me.”
“Yeah. I was panicking, I guess.”
“I guess. So, your turn. How did you find out, when did you find out, and who have you told?”
“I haven’t told anyone, Kiera.”
“You may as well call me by my real name.”
“All right, Sethra. I haven’t told anyone. You should know that.”
I nodded. “Yes, I guess I know that. When did you figure it out?”
He shrugged. “I’ve known you in both guises, you know—I mean, known you well. And there can’t be many of us who have.”
“No one. Only you.”
He bowed his head as if he felt he had been honored; which he had been, of course.
“How long have you known?”
“Not long. Since yesterday. No, today, I guess. I don’t know.”
“What did I do yesterday?”
He shrugged. “It was an accumulation of little things.”
“What? I’m curious. You know, I never cheat. I mean, when I’m Kiera, I only do Kiera things—”
“You almost cheated tonight.”
“Oh, you noticed that?”
“I sort of guessed, at any rate—just before we realized there was only one person coming, I was expecting to see Iceflame in your hand.”
I nodded. “And you almost did, especially since I knew that you knew. Which brings us back to the question: how did you know? What were these little things that accumulated?”
He spread his hands. “I’m not sure if I can even identify them all, Kie—Sethra.”
“No, call me Kiera. It’ll make it easier.”
“Are you trying to confuse me? Don’t answer that. Kiera. Yes. As I say, it was a lot of little things. This is the first time we’ve worked this closely together, but we’ve known each other for a long time, and I’ve always wondered why you gave a damn for a little Easterner kid. Now I know, of course.”
“Of course.”
“And I’m still grateful. Only . . .”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know. I keep thinking of things, like the way you recruited me to find Aliera.”
“There was no other way, Vlad.”
“I understand that, but still. And what was that whole business with the blood of the goddess? Not that I haven’t figured out who the goddess is.”
“I can’t tell you that, Vlad. She said it was important for you to have that vial, and that she, herself, didn’t know why.”
“The ways of the gods are mysterious.”
“Don’t be sarcastic.”
“Why not?”
I shrugged. “I want to know what gave me away, Vlad.”
“It was simple, really. You see, I’ve known you and Sethra for a long time, but I’ve never seen you at the same time or in the same—”
“Cut it out. I’m serious. This matters to me. I want to know.”
He nodded. “All right.” He got his considering look on his face and said, “Well, for one thing, you got upset once, when you were talking about how we’d been fooled, and your speech patterns changed. Come to think of it, that happened more than once. I remember when I first told you things that implied that the Empire was involved, you, uh, y
ou talked different.”
“My speech patterns slipped,” I said, shaking my head.
He nodded. “Not very often, or for very long, but it was one of the things that got me thinking.”
“I suppose it would be. Damn. After two thousand years, you’d think . . . never mind. What else?”
“What else? Oh, how little you ate was probably part of it, though by itself it didn’t mean anything. But I know that Sethra is undead, and lives on, well, on other things, so she doesn’t eat much. And, by the same token, there was the way the dog reacted to you, and—how did you fool Loiosh, by the way? He can usually tell the undead with one sniff.”
“He’s not as good at it as Buddy, apparently,” Loiosh hissed and I heard myself chuckle and I suspected that Vlad was never going to let Loiosh forget that. “But,” I continued, “there are ways to conceal the fact that one is undead. It’s difficult, but—”
“But you’re Sethra Lavode. Right. I keep forgetting that.”
“How else did I give myself away?”
“I heard you muttering something about battle shock when you first saw Savn, and I thought it was odd that Kiera would recognize battle shock.”
“Cracks and shards. I’m an idiot.”
“No, I just know you well.”
“Okay, keep going.”
“Well, you knew stuff that I couldn’t see how Kiera knew.”
“Like what?”
“Like what ‘he didn’t break the stick’ meant, and, more than that, what it feels like to have a spell-stick discharge in your hand. And you knew more about Imperial Signets and secret Imperial organizations than seemed reasonable for your basic thief. Or even your extraordinary thief.”
“Oh.” I shook my head. “It’s starting to sound like a miracle that no one else has figured it out. That must have been what you meant when you said you got more than you wanted.”
“Did I say that?” He shrugged. “But remember: no one else knows both of you. And you are a very effective Jhereg—I’ve known you since I was a child, and I never suspected that you were anything but what you seemed to be. But then, as I said, we’ve never worked together before. You, Kiera, have never worked closely with anyone, have you? And that’s the reason, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Continue, then.”
“Okay.” He was getting warmed up now. “When you first met with Loftis, there was something odd in the way you reported the encounter.”
“Odd? How?”
“Like you left something out—like you didn’t tell me everything that happened.”
“What didn’t I tell you?”
“The part where you were first bluffing him, you talked about mentioning a few details about some activities the Tasks Group had done, but you wouldn’t tell me what the activities were. Later, when I was putting things together, it occurred to me that maybe that was because they were things that would make you seem knowledgeable to him, but would connect Kiera with someone else for me—like something Kiera couldn’t know about, but Sethra could. Am I right? Or maybe just things Kiera couldn’t know about. I don’t know. I think it was one of the things that first made me think there was something funny going on, although I didn’t really pay too much attention at the time. But it was a hole in your report and it only made sense later.”
The Jenoine at Dzur Mountain. I nodded, while trying not to think too much about the experience itself; it was one I hadn’t enjoyed, and I’d been damn glad to have the help of the Tasks Group at the time. And, of course, I’d had to leave out all the other incidents that Sethra knew about from having been Warlord, but Kiera couldn’t. Damn.
“All right,” he continued. “What else gave you away? It’s hard to think back on it this way, because I wasn’t really trying to put it together; it just happened. Oh, well, I remember one thing. You—that is, Sethra—once told me that you were originally from the Northwest.”
“So what’s your point?”
“How easy you found it to say the old woman’s name.”
“Hwdf’rjaanci? That’s a Kanefthali name. There are lots of people who can pronounce Kanefthali names.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But there are even more who can’t; you’ll notice that Timmer didn’t try.” I started to speak, but he held up his hand. “Okay, maybe it didn’t mean anything by itself, but it was another piece, all right?”
I scowled at him.
“And you were too sensitive to magic—you kept reminding me of Aliera, the way you’d pick up on spells. In fact, I wasn’t really convinced until you detected that teleport just now, and knew right away how many there were.”
“That was stupid, too,” I said, or, I suppose, growled.
He said, “Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Why, Kiera? Or, rather: Sethra, why Kiera?”
“You mean why the name? In the old form of the language there are female endings of—”
“No, not the name. Although, now that I think of it, that should have tipped me off, too—a very, very old feminine version of ‘Kieron.’ But, no. I mean, why does she exist at all?”
“Oh, why did I invent her?” I shrugged. “At first, to keep in touch with the Underworld—it was part of the job of the Lavodes to keep track of what the Jhereg and various others were up to. After that, well, I got to like it. It was different, it was a challenge, it was scary at a time when it was hard for anything to frighten me—”
“Yes,” said Vlad, his face twisting into part of a smile. “You’d hate never being frightened, wouldn’t you?”
I smiled back. “As I say, I never cheated when I was being Kiera. I never used, well, anything that Kiera didn’t come by herself, or any skill that wasn’t Kiera’s own. I’ve gotten to like her.”
“And no one knows?”
“Only you.”
He licked his lips. “Uh, Sethra—”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay.”
I smiled. “I still like you, you know.”
“That’s a relief.”
“Kiera has never killed anyone, and I decided long ago that keeping that secret wasn’t worth a life.”
He shook his head. “Sethra doesn’t value life as much as Kiera does, I think.”
“I don’t think you know Sethra as well as you know Kiera,” I said.
“Maybe not, maybe not.”
He didn’t say anything for a while. Trying to keep my voice casual, I asked, “What now?”
He pointed to his upper lip.
I said, “Right. In addition to growing your facial hair back.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I’m going to bring Savn back home.”
“Teleport?”
He shook his head. “It’ll take a long time to get back there, and, with any luck, by the time we make it he’ll be better. Some better, anyway. Better enough that he can see his family again.”
“How will they react to you?”
He smiled. “I don’t think I’ll want to settle down there. Although, come to think of it, there is an Issola minstrel in the area I could stand to see again.”
I shook my head. “I wish . . .”
“Yeah. Me, too. Wait here,” he said. He went back into the cottage and returned a few minutes later with his backpack, Savn trailing along behind.
“That was a short goodbye,” I said.
“I don’t think the old woman likes me,” he said. “But don’t tell her I know. I think it would hurt her feelings.”
“Vlad—”
“And, look, give my regards to, uh, to people, all right? And look in on Noish-pa when you can.”
“I will,” I said.
“Then that’s all,” he said.
“I doubt it very much,” I told him.
He smiled, nodded, and began walking down the road, Savn keeping pace. Buddy and I watched them. I petted Buddy, who didn’t seem to mind.
Being Vlad, and thus needing to get in the last word, he turned arou
nd just before reaching the road, and called back, “We all need work on our disguises, don’t we?”
They were gone before I could think up a good answer.
Epilogue
My Dear Cawti:
It was delightful, as always, seeing you, although perhaps you don’t feel the same way. If not, I can certainly understand. Maybe you were upset by what I didn’t tell you, yet you know there are things that I had to leave out, both on Vlad’s behalf and on my own. I had hoped I told you enough for your peace of mind. On the other hand, perhaps it bothers you not to tell Vlad those things you have chosen to keep from him, and perhaps it should bother you; I am hardly one to judge what another person’s secrets ought to be.
You seemed concerned about the boy. I know no more than I told you, but do not be discouraged. You cannot expect such a complex ailment to be cured at once in its entirety. There has been clear progress, and I feel confident that, in time, his cure will be effected. As for what will become of Vlad—that is a more difficult matter to judge.
And yet, as I said yesterday, he is well, and in this matter he emerged unscathed. You cannot reach him, and I cannot reach him, and we accept this because we also know that the Jhereg cannot reach him. Of course, he always takes chances, yet he is being very careful and that is a consolation to us; and Loiosh is watching over him, and that is another consolation to us; and now I believe there may be another, of whom I cannot speak, who has found a way to watch over him. No, you must not ask what I mean, Cawti, you must simply trust me. That is what trust is, you know: if we never had secrets from our friends and loved ones, there would never be any need for them to trust us.
There is little more I can say, my dear, except that I’m sorry to have caused you any distress, and I hope you can understand that I have done my best in a very difficult situation.
Let us give it some time, and then we’ll meet again, and if you have any more questions you may ask them, and if you feel the need to berate me, well, I will listen and take it like a trooper. In the meantime, you know that you can always call on me if you are in trouble, and I will repeat that it was a joy to me to see you and Vlad Norathar, who seems to already have the good looks of his father and the iron will of his mother.