The Book of Jhereg

by Steven Brust

  Unlike the others, his first reaction was anger. I saw a scowl form on his lips, then confusion. He looked around.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “You were set up,” I said.

  He looked puzzled and shook his head. He held a hand up, and I assisted him to his feet. He looked at all of us, his eyes coming to rest on the sorceress, who was still sobbing quietly.

  He looked back and forth at Aliera and me for a moment, then asked, “Who is this one?”

  “Left Hand,” I explained. “She was retained, I expect, by whoever did the job on you. She was to make sure you couldn’t be revivified. She did it, too. But of course, whoever put the spell on can take it off again, and we convinced her to remove it.”

  He looked thoughtfully at her. “She’s pretty good then, eh?”

  “Good enough,” said Aliera.

  “Then,” said Morrolan, “I suspect she did more than that. Someone hit me as soon as I arrived at that—place.”

  “Warehouse,” I said.

  “That warehouse. Someone succeeded in stripping away all of my defensive spells. Could that have been you, my lady?”

  She looked over at him bleakly, but didn’t respond.

  “It must have been,” I said. “Why hire two sorceresses when you only need one?”

  He nodded.

  I retrieved the dagger from the floor, sheathed it, and handed it to Morrolan. He collects Morganti weapons, and I didn’t ever want to see this one again. He looked at it and nodded. The knife disappeared into his cloak.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  We headed for the exit. Aliera caught my eye, and she couldn’t quite keep the disgust from her face. I looked away.

  “What about her?” I asked Morrolan. “We guaranteed her her soul if she’d help us, but made no promises other than that.”

  He nodded, looked back at her, and drew a plain-steel dagger from his belt.

  The rest of us went out the door, none of us really desirous of seeing the end of the affair.

  13

  “The bite of the yendi can never be fully healed.”

  MORROLAN HAD CAUGHT UP to us by the time we reached the library, and his dagger was sheathed. I tried to put the whole incident out of mind. I failed, of course.

  In fact—and here’s a funny thing, if you’re in the mood for a laugh—I had done forty-one assassinations at this point, and I had never been bothered by one. I mean, not a bit. But this time, when I actually hadn’t even hurt the bitch, it bothered me so much that for weeks afterwards I’d wake up seeing her face. It could be that she laid some kind of curse on me, but I doubt it. It’s just that, oh, Hell. I don’t want to talk about it.

  Fentor was in the library when we arrived. When he saw Morrolan, he almost broke down. He rushed up and fell to his knees, casting his head down. I thought I was going to get sick all over again, but Morrolan was more understanding.

  “Get up,” he said gruffly. “Then sit down and tell us about it.”

  Fentor nodded and stood. Morrolan guided him to a seat and poured him a glass of wine. He drank it thirstily, failing to appreciate the vintage, while we found seats and poured wine for ourselves. Presently, he was able to speak.

  “It was this morning, my lord, that I received a message.”

  “How?” Morrolan interrupted.

  “Psionic.”

  “All right, proceed.”

  “He identified himself as a Jhereg and he said he had some information to sell me.”

  “Indeed? What kind of ‘information’?”

  “A name, my lord. He said that there was going to be an attempt made on Mellar, one of our guests, and that the assassin didn’t care that he was here.” Fentor gave an apologetic shrug, as if to apologize for his contact’s lack of judgment. “He said the assassin was good enough to beat our security system.”

  Morrolan looked at me and raised his eyebrow. I was in charge of security, he was saying, in his eloquent way. Could it be beaten?

  “Anyone can be assassinated,” I told Morrolan, drily.

  He allowed his lips to smile a bit, nodded, and returned his attention to Fentor.

  “Did you really think,” Morrolan asked him, “that they were prepared to start another Dragon-Jhereg war?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but thought better of it. Let him finish his tale.

  “I was afraid he might,” said Fentor. “In any case, I thought it would be a good idea to get the name, just to be safe.”

  “He was willing to give you the name of the assassin?” I found myself asking.

  He nodded. “He said that he was desperate for money, and had come across it, and knew Morrolan would be interested.”

  “I don’t suppose,” said Morrolan, “that it occurred to you to bring this information to me before you tried to do anything yourself?”

  Fentor was silent for a moment, then he asked, “Would you have done it, my lord?”

  “Most assuredly not,” said Morrolan. “I would hardly submit to anyone’s extortion.” He lifted his chin slightly.

  (Be still, my beating stomach.)

  Fentor nodded. “I assumed that you would have that reaction, my lord. On the other hand, it’s my job to make sure nothing happens to your guests, and I thought I’d need any advantage I could get, if there really was an assassin who was going to try for Mellar.”

  “How much did he want?” I asked.

  “Three thousand gold Imperials.”

  “Cheap,” I remarked, “given what he was risking.”

  “Where did the gold come from?” Morrolan asked.

  Fentor shrugged. “I’m not really poor,” he said. “And since I was doing it on my own—”

  “I suspected as much,” said Morrolan. “You will be reimbursed.”

  Fentor shook his head. “Oh, I still have the gold,” he said. “They never took it.”

  I could have told him that. After all, we were dealing with professionals.

  Fentor continued. “I arrived at the teleport coordinates they gave me and was hit as soon as I got there. I was blindfolded and then killed. I had no idea what had happened, or why, until I got up, after Aliera revivified me, and saw—” he choked for a minute, and looked away “—and saw your body, my lord. That was when I arranged to have us teleported back.”

  I felt a momentary twinge of sympathy for him. We probably should have let him know about Morrolan’s corpse a few feet away, but then, I hadn’t exactly been in the mood for polite chit-chat, nor had the time for it.

  Morrolan nodded sagely as he finished.

  “I’ve temporarily relieved him from duty,” I put in.

  Morrolan stood up, and went over to him. He looked down on Fentor for a moment, then he said, “All right. I approve of the motivations behind your actions. I understand and sympathize with your reasoning. But there is not to be a repetition of this action in the future. Is this understood?”

  “Yes, my lord. And thank you.”

  Morrolan clapped him on the shoulder. “Very well,” he said. “You are restored to duty. Get back to work.”

  Fentor bowed and left. Morrolan shut the door behind him after seeing him out, sat down, and sipped his wine.

  “No doubt,” he said, “you are all hoping to hear what happened to me.”

  “You guessed it,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I received a message, from the same individual who contacted Fentor, most likely. Fentor, he claimed, was being held. I was instructed,” he said the word as if it tasted bad, “to withdraw my protection of the Lord Mellar and remove him from my home. They told me that if I didn’t, they would kill Fentor. They threatened to use a Morganti blade on him if I made any attempt to rescue him.”

  “So naturally,” I said, “you went charging right in there.”

  “Naturally,” he agreed, ignoring my sarcasm. “I kept him talking long enough to trace where he was, put up my standard protection spells, and teleported in.”

 
“Was Fentor alive then?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yes. While I was trying the trace, I made them put me in contact with him, to verify that he was alive. He was unconscious, but living.

  “In any case,” he continued, “I arrived. That, uh, lady we just left threw some kind of spell. I assume it was preset. I didn’t realize that it was her until just now, of course, but whatever it was removed my protections against physical attack.” He shook his head. “I’m forced to admire their timing. You would have appreciated it, Vlad. Before I was really aware of what had happened, something hit me in the back of the head and I saw a knife coming toward me. Most unpleasant. I had no time to counterattack in any way. As they intended, of course.”

  I nodded. “They knew what they were doing. I should have figured it out sooner.”

  “How did you catch on at all?” asked Aliera.

  “Certain parties had mentioned that they had found a way to kill Mellar without bringing the whole House of the Dragon down on their heads. It took me way too long, but it finally occurred to me that the one way to do that, without getting Mellar to leave Castle Black, would be if Morrolan were to turn up conveniently dead. Then, of course, there wouldn’t be a problem, since he’d no longer be Morrolan’s guest, as it were.”

  Morrolan shook his head, sadly.

  I continued. “As soon as I found out that Fentor and Uliron had changed shifts, I knew something was up. I figured out what it had to be, contacted Aliera, and, well, you know the rest.”

  He didn’t, of course, but I wasn’t really in the mood to tell him how I almost managed to dissolve myself—and half of Adrilankha—in raw chaos.

  Morrolan looked at me hard. “And who,” he asked, “is this person, who came up with this marvelous scheme?”

  I matched his stare, and shook my head. “No,” I said. “That information I can’t give even you.”

  He looked at me a moment longer, then shrugged. “Well, my thanks, in any case.”

  “You know what the real irony is?” I said.

  “What?”

  “I’ve been trying to come up with some way to prevent another Dragon-Jhereg war myself, and when one drops right into my lap, I chuck it out.”

  Morrolan allowed himself a small smile. “I don’t really think they’d go that far, do you?” he asked.

  I started to nod, stopped. Damn right they’d go that far! And, knowing the Demon, he wouldn’t waste a lot of time being about it!

  “What’s wrong, Vlad?” asked Aliera.

  I shook my head and contacted Fentor.

  “Yes, my lord?”

  “Are you back on duty?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Run a full check on all our secure areas. Now. Make sure nothing’s been breached. I want it done an hour ago. Move!”

  I held the contact while he gave the necessary orders. If I were going to take out Mellar, how would I get past Morrolan’s security system? I ran it through my mind. I’d set the damn thing up myself, however, so of course I couldn’t see any flaws in it. Ask Kiera? Later, if there was time. If it wasn’t already too late.

  “Everything checks, my lord.”

  “Okay. Bide a moment.”

  Morrolan and Aliera were looking at me, puzzled. I ignored them. Now . . . forget the windows—no one gets in that way. Tunnel? Ha! From a mile in the air? When Morrolan can detect any sorcery done around the castle? No way. A hole in the wall? If they weren’t going to use sorcery, which they shouldn’t be able to, it would take too long. Doors? The main door had witchcraft, sorcery, and Lady Teldra. Forget that. Rear doors? Servants’ entrances? No, we had guards.

  Guards. Could the guards have been bribed? It would take, how many? Damn! Only two. How long did he have to set this up? Not more than two days. No, he couldn’t find two guards who would take in only two days, without finding one who would talk first. Kill all the ones who said no?

  “Fentor, any deaths of guards within the last two days?”

  “No, my lord.”

  Okay, good. No one was bribed. What else? Replace a guard? Oh, shit, that’s what I’d do.

  “Fentor, do we have any new guards working today? People who have been on the payroll less than three days? If not, check for servants. But check for guards first.”

  That’s what I’d do, of course. Take a job as a guard, or a servant, and wait for the perfect moment. All I’d have to do is arrange for the right guard to be busy, or ill, or to need sudden days off, maybe bribe one person, maybe not even have to, if I could get access to the records and slip my name in.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. We have someone new outside the banquet hall. The guard who normally has that duty—”

  I broke the link. I was already running and half out the door before I heard Morrolan and Aliera shouting after me. The Necromancer, who hadn’t said a word the entire time, remained behind. After all, what was another death, more or less, to her?

  I charged down to the banquet hall at full tilt. Loiosh, however, was faster. He was flapping his way about ten paces ahead of me when I saw the two guards outside the door. I saw that they recognized me. They bowed slightly and came to alert as I started to get close. I noticed, from fifty feet away, that one of them had a dagger concealed under his uniform, which is very un-Dragonlike. Thank Barlen, we were in time.

  Morrolan was close to my heels as I approached. The guard with the concealed dagger locked eyes with me for a moment; then he turned and bolted into the room, Loiosh close behind him. Morrolan and I raced after him. I took out a throwing knife; Morrolan drew Blackwand. I cringed involuntarily from the things that that unsheathed blade did to my mind, but I didn’t let it slow me down.

  There were shouts from inside the hall, doubtless in response to Morrolan’s psionic orders. I ran past the door. For a moment, I couldn’t see him, obscured as he was by the crowd. Then I saw Loiosh strike. There was a scream, and I saw a sword flash.

  We stopped. Mellar was now in plain view, looking not at all concerned. He favored Morrolan with a look of inquiry. At his very feet was the “guard.” The latter’s head was a few feet off to the side. A real guard stood over the body, his longsword bare and dripping. He looked up at Morrolan, who nodded to him.

  Morrolan and I walked up to the body and removed a dagger from the outstretched hand. He took it and studied it for a moment. He said “good job,” to the guard.

  The guard shook his head. “Thank the jhereg,” he said, looking at Loiosh with an expression of wonder on his face. “If he hadn’t slowed him down, I’d never have made it in time.”

  “Finally, someone who appreciates me.”

  “Finally, you do a day’s work.”

  “Two dead teckla on your pillow.”

  We ignored Mellar completely and walked back out of the room.

  “All right,” snapped Morrolan as we left. “Get this place cleaned up.”

  Aliera appeared beside us, and we headed back toward the library. Morrolan handed me the dagger. I touched it, and knew at once that it was Morganti. I shuddered and handed it back to him. There were just too damn many of those things floating around, lately.

  “You realize what this means, don’t you?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “And you knew this would happen?”

  “I guessed it. When the attempt to nail you didn’t work, they had to go ahead and get him anyway.

  “We’ve been lucky,” I added. “I’ve been too slow to pick up on most of this. If Mellar had happened to walk by the door any time in the last hour, it would be all over by now.”

  We entered the library. The Necromancer nodded a greeting to us and gestured with her wineglass, the strange, perpetual half-smile on her face. I’ve always liked her. Some day I hope to understand her. On the other hand, perhaps I’d better hope not to. As we seated ourselves, I said to Morrolan, “I’ve been meaning to get around to talking to you since I found out about the bodyguards.”

  “Bodyguards? Whose? Mellar’s?�
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  “Right. As far as I can tell, he has two of them.”

  “As far as who can tell, boss?”

  “Shut up, Loiosh.”

  “That is rather interesting,” said Morrolan. “He most assuredly had no bodyguards when he arrived.”

  I shrugged. “So they aren’t on your guest list. That makes them fair game, doesn’t it?”

  He nodded. “It appears that he doesn’t especially trust my oath.”

  Something about that bothered me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

  “Possibly,” I said. “But it’s more likely that he doesn’t trust the Jhereg not to start another war, just to get him.”

  “Well, he’s correct in that, is he not, Vlad?”

  I nodded, and looked away.

  “Whoever this Mellar was in the Jhereg” said Morrolan, “he certainly must have hurt some pretty big people.”

  “Big enough,” I said.

  Morrolan shook his head. “I just can’t believe that the Jhereg would be that stupid. Both Houses were very nearly destroyed the first time, and the last time—”

  “‘Last time’?” I echoed. “It’s only happened once, as far as I know.”

  He seemed surprised. “Didn’t you know? But of course, it wouldn’t be something the Jhereg would discuss excessively. I wouldn’t know myself if Aliera hadn’t told me about it.”

  “Told you what?” My voice sounded faint and hollow in my own ears.

  Aliera cut in. “It happened once more. It started the same as before—with a Jhereg killed by an assassin while he was a guest in a Dragonlord’s home. The Dragons retaliated, the Jhereg retaliated, and . . .” She shrugged.

  “Why haven’t I heard of this before?”

  “Because things went to Hell after that, and it never got really well recorded. Briefly, the Jhereg who was killed was the friend of the Dragonlord, and he was helping him out on something. Someone found out what he was doing and put a stop to it.

  “The Dragons demanded that the assassin be turned over to them, and, this time the Jhereg agreed. I guess House Jhereg felt that he should have known better, and also it may have been a private quarrel on some level. In any case, the assassin escaped from the Dragonlord’s home before he was killed. He killed a couple of Dragons on the way out, then he killed a couple of the Jhereg bosses who had turned him in. He was killed himself, later, but by then it was too late to stop anyone.”