by Steven Brust
“I got that part.”
“Okay. Set up a meeting with the Demon for me.”
He kept his face expressionless. “Are you going to kill him?”
“No.”
“I just ask because I’m sure he’s going to kill you.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you . . . okay.”
“You’ll do it?”
“Yeah.”
“Not quite yet.”
“Oh?”
“We need to wait for things to ripple in.”
“You mean, for word to get out—”
“Yeah.”
He nodded. “Is this going to work?”
“Maybe.”
“Best shot, right?”
“Right.”
He grinned. “It’s good to be working with you again, Vlad.”
“I hope you’re still in a condition to say that in a couple of days.”
He nodded judiciously. “That would be good,” he said. “Oh, by the way . . . ”
“Hmm?”
“What do I get for this?”
“I’ll buy you a meal at Valabar’s.”
“Done,” said Kragar.
14
BRISKET OF BEEF
Telnan shook his head in wonder. “How can they make food this good?”
“It’s not actually all that difficult,” I said, “if you know how to make pepper-essence and you’re a genius.”
I’d just given him a small bite of my beef. He had the look on his face of a man who had just discovered that food can be sublime. Yeah, I knew that look, and I envied him his epiphany.
I communed with the brisket for a while, which left me too busy to be envious. A little later he said, “What is pepper-essence?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“If it goes into that, yes I do.”
“Melt a couple of spoonfuls of goose-fat, stir in a few spoonfuls of powdered Eastern red pepper. Stir it, don’t let it burn. You get an intensified pepper flavor.”
“Oh. Yes, it’s very intense. It’s . . .”
He groped for the word.
“Sublime,” I suggested.
“Yeah.”
They start with a brisket of beef. I don’t know exactly what connections they had, but it was better beef than my father was ever able to get. The sauce was built with onions, garlic, Eastern red pepper, salt, and just a little tomato. And then the pepper-essence with sour cream. That’s about it.
Amazing, isn’t it? That simple, that basic, for such an effect. There’s a moral in there, somewhere.
I made it back to South Adrilankha safely, and threaded my way through familiar streets, to Donner’s Court. There weren’t many people here, and the few who were, weren’t paying any attention to innocuous little Sandor.
“Boss, what are we doing?”
“Now is when I kill the Demon Goddess.”
“Now is when you reassure me you aren’t joking.”
“I’ll be back in a bit,” I said. “Don’t go too far.”
I drew Lady Teldra.
“Boss, what—”
I laid her blade flat against the top of the shrine.
Something ripped somewhere inside and outside of me, with a grinding sound and a feeling that wasn’t painful, but seemed like it should have been. There was a space of time of unknowable duration where I saw only a terrible bright blue, and as it faded, my right hand seemed to have turned into a golden shimmering spear, which resolved itself almost at once into just my hand, still holding Lady Teldra.
“Hello, Goddess,” I said.
It worked better than I’d expected: I was standing in her Halls, just as I remembered them, and she maybe four feet away from me; and Godslayer was naked in my hand. I could see her relax a little as she regarded me.
“I hadn’t known you could do that. I must be certain to seal that portal.”
“If you have the chance.”
“If you’d planned to kill me,” she said, “you wouldn’t have spoken to me.”
“It still isn’t too late.”
“I do not bargain with mortals.”
“Even mortals who have the power to destroy you?”
“Especially those.”
“How’s that policy worked out for you?”
“Mixed. Where is your familiar?”
“Back in the real world steering clear of your wrath.”
“Good plan. So, what put a burr under your saddle?”
“A what under my which?”
“Sorry. I still think of you as Fenarian. What put a notch in your blade?”
“Some memories have returned.”
“From where?”
“From wherever you stowed them.”
“I? You give me too much credit, Fenarian. Or too little.”
“I don’t think so. I’ve remembered that you’ve been messing with my head.”
“That wasn’t me—”
“You’re lying.”
“—exactly. And don’t call me a liar. And would you mind putting that thing down?”
“I’d rather keep her in my hand. I find her reassuring.”
“Even with that, I don’t believe you can harm me. Not here, not after giving me time to prepare. And in these few moments, I have had time to prepare.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I can’t harm you. But while we consider the matter, let’s chat. I want to know what happened to my memories. To my thought processes. I want to know what you did to me, and why. And unless you feel like testing that ‘maybe’—”
“Taltos Vladimir, you cannot walk into the Paths of the Dead as a living man and expect to both retain all of the sensations you receive, and remain sane. I acted to keep you from going out of your mind.”
“There’s more to it than that, Goddess.”
“Some.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“You have a plan for me. Or I’m part of a plan involving something else, something too far-reaching for me to comprehend, and too sensitive to trust me with, and too important for me to risk.”
“That’s not impossible.”
“Tell me about it. Make me comprehend. Trust me with it. Take the risk. One of us has to take a risk. If you won’t, I will.”
She considered me the way I might consider a brisket of beef into which I was about to stick sharp things. She was taller than a Dragaeran, which meant much taller than me. Her features were angular, her hair dark and swept back, and there was an extra joint on each finger. Eventually she said, “I have said all I choose to say, and threats will not compel me to say more. Attempt to carry out your threat, and I will destroy you utterly. You are in my Halls, Easterner. Don’t make me show you what I can do.”
It was odd. I had this terrible anger in my belly. I wanted to see about that “maybe.” I wanted to in the worst way. I didn’t care if I got her, or she got me, I just wanted to start the show. But there was something else going on; something that kept the lid on. Something that kept my voice calm. Something that—
Something that was Lady Teldra.
As if from a distance, I wondered if I was glad or sorry she was there.
“You owe me, Goddess. I’m not sure what for, or how much, but you owe me.”
“That is a way of looking at it. There are others.”
“Goddess, there are stories among my people about you and the Jenoine.”
“What of them?”
“Would you treat me as they treated you? Or expect me to respond differently?”
“Don’t even start. The cases are nowhere near each other.”
“It seems to me—”
“But on reflection . . .”
I stopped and waited for her to continue.
“I admire your courage in coming here like this,” she said after a moment. “It is unlike you.”
“I’ve been hanging around Dzur.”
“But you didn’t come here to destroy me. What do you really want?”
; “An explanation.”
“You know you aren’t getting that. What do you want?”
“I—”
“Don’t play me, Taltos Vladimir. You need help, and you’re too angry to beg me for it, as is traditional. Well, I’m inclined to help you for several reasons, mostly because, as you know, I have use for you. But you must cooperate. You must tell me what it is you want. Otherwise, I can’t do it.”
“Goddess, you don’t know me as well as you believe you do.”
“Were you actually intending to kill me?”
“What do you think?”
“What do you wish of me?”
“We’re not finished with this, you know.”
“I know that better than you. In the meantime, what do you wish?”
I actually hadn’t thought about it. But . . .
“I’m not sure. If I were to walk into a house filled with sorceresses of the Left Hand, all determined to kill me, could you protect me?”
“I can’t interfere with internal matters of one of the Great Houses.”
“Great.”
“At least, not directly.”
She smiled, did the Goddess.
“If you know an indirect method for getting me out of there alive, I’d be glad to hear it. I had been thinking in terms of breaking a teleport block.”
“No, that would be direct.”
“Then I suppose a divine manifestation is out of the question?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Well then?”
“I’m rather good at sending dreams.”
“Yeah. You’ve sent me a few, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“The last one sent me off East and cost me a finger.”
“That wasn’t the last one.”
“Oh.”
“Well? What about it?”
“I think I see what you’re getting at.”
“And?”
“All right.”
“Then I’ll return you.”
“Well, tell me what’s going to—”
That’s as far as I got before Verra’s Halls were gone from around me, and I was once more standing next to her altar in South Adrilankha.
15
DUMPLINGS
My father spent hours and hours trying to teach me to make good dumplings, but I guess there are just some things I wasn’t cut out to do. On the other hand, even if they had been good, they wouldn’t have had the perfect consistency of Valabar’s.
The thing about dumplings, more than perhaps anything else I’ve ever tried to prepare, is that they take patience: patience to get the mix exactly right, patience to push out each individual dumpling, patience to make sure to pull them from the water at exactly the right moment. I used to put about the same amount of work into preparing to put a shine on a guy, but guess I must have enjoyed that more or something.
Since I’ve been spending so much time making analogies between murder and cooking, I ought to dwell on patience for a bit, because it really is a key factor in both. It’s funny, but until I got into this line of work, I had thought I was by nature an impatient person. It turns out that, when it came to committing murder, I had no trouble sitting around waiting for the perfect moment before striking, or standing outside someplace watching for someone, or following some guy around for days and days to track his movements.
I’m not sure why it is that I’m able to exercise great patience with some things, but with others I get jumpy, jittery, and eventually just curse under my breath and declare the task finished, or else convince myself that it’s good enough.
With cooking and murder, there really shouldn’t be a “good enough.” You need to get as close to perfect as possible, otherwise find another line of work. Which, in fact, I did.
I studied Telnan, who was working on his kethna, accompanied by Valabar’s cabbage, about which I could say a great deal if I felt inclined. One of the arts of putting together a meal—and one that Valabar’s has completely mastered—is determining what goes well with what. I guess it’s like selecting the proper weapon to finalize someone; it goes along with all the other factors, like the individual’s particular skills, and the right time and place.
So there is another similarity between murder and cooking, to accompany my thoughts about the need for patience when making death or dumplings. But these are my thoughts now—well after the meal and all that followed it. At the time, I was just eating, I wasn’t thinking about murder at all—though I guess I did have a few passing thoughts about how I’d never been able to make dumplings to my father’s satisfaction. Or my own, for that matter.
The reward for doing the dumplings right is that you have the perfect accompaniment for the Valabar’s brisket of beef. I mean, you bite into one and you get an explosion in your mouth of the pure sauce that it’s been absorbing. It’s magnificent.
The only problem is that by this time, you really have to pace yourself; there’s been just too much food in too short a time, and you are very much aware that soon you’re going to reach the end of your capacity.
I think Telnan made a couple of comments that I didn’t hear during all of this, or else that I heard at the time but no longer remember; I think they were about the way the sausages worked with the kethna, but I’m not sure. What with the beef, the sauce, and the dumplings, I just didn’t have a whole lot of attention to spare.
Another similarity, if you will, between committing murder and indulging in supreme pleasure: Both take one’s full concentration.
“Boss!”
“Damn.”
“What is it, Boss?”
“All is well, Loiosh.”
“If you ever do that again, I’ll bite you. I mean, really, really hard.”
“Understood. How long was I gone?”
“Forever. Almost an hour.”
I checked with the Orb. I’d been gone about twenty minutes.
“Okay. Let’s go home.”
I returned to the sanctuary of my room, and settled in to wait. The waiting lasted about three minutes before I realized that sitting there doing nothing would drive me nuts.
“You know, it could be days, Boss.”
“It could be weeks.”
“You can’t just walk around for weeks.”
“I’m not just walking around. I have a destination in mind.”
“Oh, all right. Where to, then?”
“Anywhere.”
We went out and walked anywhere, Loiosh and Rocza staying above me, but pretty close. I guess Loiosh was nervous.
Mostly what I remember from that day are faces, passed in the street. The faces of Easterners, of my people: old and young, one who seemed pleased about something, a couple who appeared unhappy, several who were lost in thought, a couple who were looking around. One guy, about my age, made eye contact with me and gave me a nod. I remember nothing of where I saw them, or what I was doing—just walking, I suppose. But I remember the faces.
“There is a moment,” Telnan had told me, “when you either attack with everything you have, or you do something else. That moment, right before you commit yourself, that’s when you learn who you are.”
“Okay,” I had told him. “What if you don’t like yourself?”
He’d laughed, like I was kidding with him. But what I ought to have asked was, how do you survive the interminable seconds, or hours, or days, that lead up to that moment? If I saw him again, I’d ask, but it was unlikely the answer would do me any good. Whatever I was, I wasn’t a Dzur.
“So tell me, Boss. Do you plan to just wander around South Adrilankha for however many days or weeks it takes?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Oh, joy.”
A few hours later, I swung by Ristall Market. It was full of people buying and selling things. So, at least that part of the operation was working. While I was there, I picked up a bag of pecans and chewed on them as I walked. Pecans don’t grow near Adrilankha, they have to be imported from, uh, from
somewhere. They’re ridiculously expensive. I think that’s why I like them so much.
Eventually I returned to the room and got some sleep.
Then I was holding a dagger, then Loiosh told me it was okay, then Loiosh yelled, then I woke up. It was another one of those things where what I remember isn’t what actually happened, only now those were beginning to bother me more than they used to. Was it because of Verra, or does everyone goes through that when his familiar wakes him in the middle of the night to warn that someone is about to kill him only to then tell him no, don’t worry, it’s only your friend the assassin?
Hmmm. Let me rephrase that.
On second thought, skip it.
“It’s Mario,” said Loiosh. “Sorry to scare you.”
“Better that than the alternative.”
Aloud I said, “Come in, Mario.”
The curtain moved and he entered. I lit the lamp and pointed to the chair.
He sat down and said, “Sorry to awaken you.”
“I wasn’t sleeping. What’s up?”
“It’s done.”
I yawned and nodded. “Hmmm?”
“It’s done.”
“It’s . . . oh.” I wrapped my head around that. “What happened?”
“Excuse me?”
I cleared my throat. “What’s the word on the street? Or, what will it be?”
“Oh.” He considered for a moment. “The sorceress was stabbed to death by a person or persons unknown as she emerged from a teleport in the middle of the night at Di’bani Circle near the Imperial Palace. The cause of death was a single stroke by a large knife administered to the back of her neck, severing her spine. There were no witnesses. No doubt, after a thorough and lengthy investigation, the Phoenix Guards will shrug and say, ‘Mario did it.’ ” He didn’t smirk as he said it, which must have required great restraint.
I said. “Uh huh. I get it. No, wait. As she emerged from a teleport?”
“Sure. There’s always an instant’s disorientation when you—”
“Yes, but how did you . . . never mind.”
Mario smiled.
“Thanks,” I told him.
“Least I could do, under the circumstances. Anything else you need?”
Now there was a question.
“Feel like putting a shine on the whole Jhereg? And half the Left Hand?”