by Steven Brust
I left the tavern a bit more bulky than I went in and made my plodding way out of Northport toward the home of our dear friend, Side-Captain Vonnith, and what is a side-captain, anyway?
There’s no need to tell you about the trip out there—you did it yourself. And my compliments, Kiera, on the accuracy of the report, which gave me an excellent idea of what to expect, and when to expect it. About half a mile away, then, I took off the extra cloak, and appeared before some nameless birds and small animals as me, the old me, Vlad Taltos, Jhereg, assassin, and friend to old ladies. I continued after stashing the brown cloak in a thicket at the side of the road, and Loiosh grudgingly agreed to wait outside after making a few remarks about who got to have all the fun. I guess his idea of fun is different than mine.
Or maybe not.
Vonnith’s guards got to me as I was walking up to the front door. Two of them, flanking me as neat as you please. They made no hostile moves, so I kept walking. They said, “My lord, may we be of some service to you?”
“If you wish,” I said. “You may tell the Side-Captain that a friend is here to see her.”
“A friend, my lord?”
“That’s right. Don’t I look friendly?” I smiled at them, but they didn’t answer. We reached the door. I said, “If you wish, you may tell her that I represent the Adrilankha Eleemosynary Society.”
“The—?”
“Adrilankha Eleemosynary Society.”
“Uh, wait just a moment,” he said. He was quiet for a time, I assume making psychic contact with someone, then he looked over at his companion and nodded once. The companion hadn’t opened his mouth the entire time, but he was standing the right distance away from me, so I assume he knew his business. In any case, they both inclined their heads to me slightly and went back to their stations. I shrugged, gave a last adjustment to my brand-new clothing, and pulled the clapper.
Hub appeared, looking just as you’d described him, and gave me a greeting that made me miss Teldra. Have you met Teldra? Never mind. He showed me in and brought me to the same room she met you in, and there was Vonnith, just where she was supposed to be.
She stood up and gave me a slight bow—I don’t think she knew how polite she was supposed to be to me—and started to speak. I sat down and said, “Give me the names of all the banks Fyres was involved in. I don’t need yours, we know about those. Which other ones?”
She frowned. “Why do you need to know that? And who are you, anyway?”
“I’m not going to tell you my real name; you should know that. And I don’t have the energy to invent a good one. You know who I work for—”
“You’re a Jhereg!”
“Yes. And an Easterner. What’s your point? We need to know what other banks Fyres was involved with, and we need to know before they go under.”
“But how can you not know? How can—?” She seemed very puzzled, but I had no interest in letting her work things out; I’d made that mistake yesterday.
“Maybe we do know,” I said, and let her put it together herself—wrong, of course. It’s disgustingly easy to let people lie to themselves, and they do it so much better than you can. But as she was coming to the conclusion that this was all a test, and deciding how she ought to react to that, she wasn’t considering the possibility that I wasn’t involved with anyone except an old hedge-wizard and a notorious thief.
She said, “I don’t know them all. I know the big ones, of course.”
“Size isn’t important; I mean the ones with heavy enough investments that they’re at risk, or at any rate they’ve been seriously hurt.”
“Oh,” she said, and somehow that made things all right—perhaps she decided that she wasn’t really being tested, we just didn’t know who was heavily committed to Fyres. Or maybe she came up with some other explanation, I don’t know. But I got what I was after. She said, “Well, the Bank of the Empire, of course.”
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 teleported, 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 diat 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 Von-nith’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 clingin
g 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 mat 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.