by Steven Brust
I could say that I held the spell together while I tried to figure out what to do, but that wouldn’t give you any idea of how hard it is to maintain awareness of something as nebulous as another’s consciousness while, you know, thinking. I could have dropped the spell and just done it again, but I was too irritated. I fumbled with the drawstring of my pouch and managed to find a coin. I used that.
In the end it worked fine, and I let the spell drop, feeling exhausted and embarrassed. Loiosh snickered into my mind, but didn’t say anything. I think it was his sense of self-preservation.
“Anything, Loiosh?”
“You were spotted, Boss, but no attacks.”
“Good, then.”
“Uh, going to put that thing on again?”
“In a sec. Might as well save you a trip.”
“Make it fast, Boss. They’re bound to be setting something up.”
“Yeah,” I said. “They always are.”
I waited a few minutes until the hour. Daymar and I had left things undecided, but maybe he was opening up anyway. I reached out for him, and yeah, there he was. Without his shields, it’s like a fish that goes for your line if it’s anywhere in the lake. (Yes, I fished once. I didn’t care for it.)
“Hello, Vlad. You require something?”
“If you aren’t busy, I need someone located. I have—”
“A psychic impression embedded in a crystal?”
“Actually, in a one-orb coin.”
“Oh? Why a coin?”
“An experiment. I’ve always wanted to try that spell with objects other than crystals, and this seemed like a good opportunity.”
“All right. Where are you?”
“My old offices.”
“I’ll be there.”
I was going to thank him, but his presence was already gone from my mind. I put the amulet back on, feeling a certain amount of tension go out of my shoulders.
“Hey, Boss, what about the other spell?”
“The oth—crap. I forgot about it.”
“Are you going to have to do this all over again?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll ask Morrolan for help. I don’t want to think about it right now.”
He let it drop. I went back upstairs to wait for Daymar.
I checked in on Kragar, who was asleep in his chair, but seemed to be doing all right. His people walked past, checking on him, milling about. I couldn’t quite read the looks they gave me, but they weren’t openly hostile. But if the only reason they hadn’t turned on me before was because Kragar had told them not to, and if he was no longer in shape to tell them not to, and if they realized that it was my fault that he was no longer there to tell them not to, things could get interesting.
That’s interesting as in, “Oh, I’m dead now and my soul has been destroyed. How interesting.”
The guy who appeared to be in charge was called Sellish. I told him a guy named Daymar might be appearing, that he was with me, and that we were going to find out who wanted Kragar shined.
“Good,” he said and seated himself next to Kragar’s desk. I’d been impressed with how well Kragar had done taking over the area, but it wasn’t until now, when he was laid up, that it really hit me how much in control he was. I made a mental note not to tell him so. But it meant there was a good chance none of his people would betray me, kill me, or do other unpleasant things.
There were a few padded chairs in front of the desk in the other room—the desk that, in my mind, I still saw Melestav sitting at. I indulged in a moment’s annoyance about him. I hate it when someone I like … yeah, skip it. Moment over. Then Daymar came tromping up the stairs. I heard the footsteps before I knew who it was.
“Hello, Vlad.”
“Daymar. Here.” I tossed him the coin. He missed it, but levitated it back into his hand before it hit the floor. I suspect he missed it on purpose, just so he could do that. He studied it.
“Hm,” he said.
“Can you use it?”
“Oh, yes. It’s surprising how well it took the impression.”
“Good.”
“His name is Havric. Right now he’s at a place called the Front Gate in Little Deathgate, having drinks with two other Jhereg.”
He waited and looked at me.
“Daymar.”
“Vlad?”
“You’re very good at what you do.”
“I know.”
“Feel like a walk to Little Deathgate?”
“Can’t we teleport?”
“Not while I wear this thing.”
“Um, couldn’t you take it off?”
“We’ve had this conversation, Daymar.”
“Oh, right. Walk, then. But what if they see you?”
“Yeah. Mind putting a bit of cloud over me?”
“Sure.”
I took the amulet off so he could work. My vision blurred, then cleared. Daymar said, “That’s odd.”
Okay, sorry, I need to explain something.
The simplest way to not be seen is an invisibility spell, making light bend around you. The better you are, the tighter the bend you can get and so the less chance there is of someone noticing a distortion, but even sloppy it’s easy to do and effective. The only trouble is, if you happen to walk by someone with a reasonable amount of skill in sorcery, you’re going to stick out like a kethna at court. Even when I’m wearing the amulet, Lady Teldra can identify an invisibility spell in the area if she’s paying any attention at all. The best way to deal with that is to plant a field around you that absorbs the sorcerous energy. It isn’t easy, because it requires getting into your mind and folding—well, skip it. It’s hard. I can’t do it. Daymar can.
“What’s odd?”
“Your head—there was a wall in it.”
“A wall? How could there be—oh, right. Yeah, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“All right.”
I replaced the amulet. We stepped onto the street, and I found myself staring at my left palm.
“I’ve remembered and forgotten this once before.”
“Brought back memories, did he, Boss?”
“Yeah.”
“Now probably isn’t the time.”
“Right.”
Loiosh and Rocza were flying above us, keeping an eye out. I walked next to Daymar, making sure I didn’t bump into anyone and hoping I was as invisible as I should be but didn’t feel. We turned north onto Backin, which was narrow enough that it was tricky not running into people who didn’t know I was there, so I stepped behind Daymar.
It felt like a longer walk than it actually was, what with feeling like an idiot walking in Daymar’s footsteps. The invisibility was a blessing in more ways than one.
The Front Gate was on top of a butcher’s shop. You climb three steps from the street and enter a long, thin room, with a bar running half the length. Rocza flew off to wait, Loiosh hid in my cloak. As we entered, Daymar looked around before my eyes had a chance to adjust and said, “There, in the back.”
“All right. Make me visible again.”
“Might be more fun the other way, you know.”
Daymar was surprising me in all sorts of ways.
“More fun,” I agreed, “but less efficient.”
“All right,” he said, and the air in front of my eyes swirled for a moment. We approached the table.
The three of them were looking at us as we walked up, but no one reached for a weapon. We stopped about six feet away. They remained seated. “Havric,” I said.
The one with short, red hair cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “Something I can do for you, Taltos?”
“A pleasure to be recognized,” I said. “Yeah. Who paid you to put a shine on Kragar?”
Nothing. No reaction at all. “I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” he said.
I gave Daymar an inquiring look.
“Got it,” said Daymar.
They all looked at him. Loiosh climbed out of my cloak and positioned him
self on my shoulder.
“Sorry for the mix-up,” I said. I smiled, bowed, and turned around, listening hard for any scary sounds. There were none; we made it out onto the street, Daymar made me vanish again.
“I hope this’ll be enough,” I said. “We aren’t going to be able to pull that off again.”
“Enough?”
“I hope the name you got will be enough to get me there.”
“Get you there? I have the person who hired him.”
“I know. I hope that’s enough.”
“I don’t understand. Isn’t the person who hired him what you want?”
“No, I want to know who hired the guy to hire the guy to hire him.”
“Seems awfully complicated.”
“That’s how Jhereg do things.”
“Why?”
“Did you know that assassination is against the law?”
He hesitated, considered, nodded.
“The Empire becomes very sad when you kill someone for money. They do all sorts of things to discourage that kind of behavior. This leads to those who want it done taking some pains to be sure that the Empire doesn’t know they did it. Am I going too fast for you?”
“No, no. I’ve got it so far.”
“That’s why it’s so complicated. So the guy who orders it doesn’t want it known that he ordered it, so he has someone else get someone else to get someone else to do it.”
“Oh.” He considered. “Makes sense.”
“That’s a relief. What name did you get?”
“Yestac. Know him?”
“Yeah.”
“Know who he works for?”
“Yeah.”
Yestac worked for Taavith, also called “Flatstones.” Flatstones had a big section of Adrilankha running from the South Hills all the way to Overlook, and as far inland as the Terrace. He gave a percentage to a guy named Krasno, who was on the Council. I didn’t know a lot about Krasno, and I didn’t have Kragar to collect information. Bugger. I thought about it as we walked, and for a wonder, Daymar was quiet and let me think.
We made it back to Kragar’s place without any trouble. Daymar asked if he could do anything else for me, and I bit my tongue and just said no. Then I thanked him, politely, because that’s the kind of guy I am.
I went up to see Kragar. He wasn’t there. I was just settling in for a good panic attack when one of Kragar’s people stuck his head around the corner and said, “Sellish said to tell you we’ve taken the boss home.”
“His home?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I—”
“The boss said you were welcome there, if you want.”
My heart returned to its normal speed.
“We could take you there,” he said, and I had an image of myself walking down the street to an unknown destination surrounded by guys who could make enough to live in luxury for the rest of their lives just by putting a shine on me, or even stepping aside while someone else did.
“Sure,” I said.
He nodded and gathered up three others, and they escorted me down the stairs and out onto the street.
“For someone worried about the Jhereg, you sure are spending a lot of time parading in front of them.”
“I have absolutely no fear. Oh, come on, Loiosh, it wasn’t that funny. Last time I was invisible. This time I have protection.”
“If you have protection.”
I had no answer for that.
We didn’t have far to walk; in ten minutes we were at a tidy little rooming house on Garshos. We entered the front door, and Sellish went up to the first door on the right. He clapped, then opened the door.
My first thought was, I wonder what he does with all of his money? He certainly didn’t have any of it invested in his home. He was lying on the bed—one of three pieces of furniture in the place. The others were a single chair, and a table; neither of them looking like they cost more than six coppers.
“I see why you spend so much time at the office,” I told him.
“This isn’t where I live, Vlad. It’s just where I sleep.”
I nodded. “Right. The other place is where you stash your various mistresses and the Kathana paintings and the big wine cellar.”
He looked over at me, then turned his head back to stare at the ceiling. He was flat on his back, but his eyes were clear. He gave me an appropriate answer.
“I don’t bend that way,” I said. I grabbed the chair, pulled it up next to his bed, sat down, and crossed my legs. “So, how are you feeling?”
He used a bad word.
“Good to hear,” I said.
“You aren’t here to check on my health. What is it?”
“I’m here to check on your health.”
“Right.”
I shrugged. “I can make something else up, if you want.”
“Yeah, I’d like that. It would help my recovery.”
“Okay. Can I borrow six tablespoons of Eastern red pepper?”
“No.”
“All right.”
“Vlad, do you remember when it meant something to be a Jhereg? When there was honor, and—”
“Kragar?”
“Yeah?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Seeing if I could convince you I was dying.”
“You had me half convinced you were off your head; does that count?”
“Better than nothing. What have you learned?”
“About what?”
He turned his head to look at me.
“The shiner was a guy named Havric.”
“Hired by?”
“How would I know that?”
“Vlad—”
“Yestac.”
“Don’t know him,” said Kragar. “Can’t think of anything I ever said about his mother.”
“Flatstones,” I said.
“Ah,” said Kragar.
“Yeah,” I said. “That means Krasno.”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Kragar. “It means Terion.”
“Huh?”
“Flatstones used to work for Terion, and they’re still close.”
I opened my mouth to ask Kragar how he knew that, then shut it again. Finding out things like that is what Kragar did before I sort of donated the area to him; what possible reason could he have for stopping?
But. Terion.
Not long ago, during a conflict over South Adrilankha, I’d come close to putting a shine on him. I’d started in to do it, too, only, in the end, events had dictated otherwise. Matters had gotten complex. I’d had to—no, never mind. That really is a long story.
The point is, I’d been running into him for years. We didn’t like each other, and we kept getting in each other’s way. Now he’d taken a shot at Kragar, and it would have worked if I hadn’t known one of the Empire’s leading experts in healing magic.
I was suddenly convinced that he was the one who was spending so much money to get me. Because he could. I had no evidence, but I knew I was right.
I was getting tired of the guy.
“Terion,” I said aloud. “He really does seem to keep popping up in my life. Is it personal, do you think?”
“Does it matter?”
“It might. Tactically.”
He shrugged, then winced; I could see him deciding not to do that anymore.
Terion. The guy kept showing up and getting in my way. He didn’t like me. And he could seriously mess up this thing I was working on.
Loiosh spoke into my mind. “We could, I don’t know, kill him.”
… You could always kill someone high up in the Organization.
Yeah, and then what? Would I have to kill Krasno too, if they were friends? Could I, in fact, kill either of them? And what would happen afterward? Occasionally, killing someone is the natural culmination of a complex series of events; more often it’s the midpoint—it has repercussions. Consequences flow out from it. When I was just taking someone’s money to do a job, they weren’t my consequences, so
I didn’t have to worry. I was just a tool.
But still, this was different. It was all about me, and anything that happened would be my problem. Killing Terion could, for all I knew, set off a chain of events that would be as bad as …
As not killing him.
But I’d already said I needed something to stir up the Jhereg, to distract them.
Well, okay; two reasons to kill him, about ninety against.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s kill him.”
Nothing. Then, “Boss, you mean it?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve been waiting for this day. I’m so proud of you. I knew that eventually—”
“Shut up, Loiosh.”
“Shutting up, Boss.”
I looked over at Kragar. “Can I get you anything?” I said.
Sellish cleared his throat.
I looked at him. “Sorry,” I said.
He nodded.
Kragar said, “It’s all right, Vlad. Just don’t make any more trouble for me, all right?” He frowned. “No, forget I said that. I changed my mind. Make more trouble. I’m in a mood.”
“I can do that,” I said.
“Let me know how it comes out.”
“Oh, you’ll hear,” I said, and headed out. The toughs who had escorted me over escorted me back. There was no trouble, but I could see the tension in their shoulders. It was good to get back to Kragar’s office, where I felt safe. Safer. A little safer.
“I think I liked Dzur Mountain better, Boss.”
“Who didn’t? But it’s a bit too far from the action.”
“What action?”
“Killing Terion.”
“Oh, right.”
I was sitting there, trying to work out exactly how I was going to do that, when one of Kragar’s people came up to me. “Sellish says I’m supposed to ask if you need anything,” he said.
A few sarcastic comments came to mind, but he was big and his shoulders were very wide and he was dressed to conceal and I saw no signs that he had a sense of humor.
“What’s your name?”
“Deragar.”
I nodded. “Ever heard of a guy named Terion?”
He nodded. “I know who he is.”
“Can you find out where he lives? Where he goes, and when he goes there? What kind of—”
He was holding out some paper. I took it. Three leaves, closely written, with perfect penmanship. I looked them over. Favorite place to drink and what he liked to drink there. Friends and lovers, where they lived, where he liked to meet them. Who cut his hair, who made his clothes. His bodyguards, and where they lived, and more. Substantially more.