by Steven Brust
"That," she said, "is a whole 'nother subject. The point I'm making is that you're going to have to come to terms with what you do, at whose expense you live, and why. I'll help as much as I can, but it is your own life you have to deal with."
I stared into my klava cup. Nothing in it made anything any clearer.
After another cup or two I said, "All right, but you still haven't told me where you were."
She said, "I was conducting a class."
"A class? On what?"
"Reading. For a group of Easterners and Teckla."
I stared at her. "My wife, the teacher."
"Don't."
"Sorry."
Then I said, "How long have you been doing this?"
"I just started."
"Oh. Well." I cleared my throat. "How did it go?"
"Fine."
"Oh." Then another, nastier thought occurred to me. "Why is it only now that you've started doing this?"
"Someone had to take over for Franz," she said, confirming exactly what I was afraid of.
"I see. Has it occurred to you that this may be what he'd been doing that someone didn't like? That this was why he was killed?"
She looked straight at me. "Yes."
A chill spread along my backbone. "So you're asking—"
"I'm not Franz."
"Anyone can be killed, Cawti. As long as someone is willing to pay a professional—and it's clear that someone is—anyone can be killed. You know that."
"Yes," she said.
"No," I said.
"No what?"
"Don't. Don't make me choose—"
"I am choosing."
"I can't let you walk into a situation where you're a helpless target."
"You can't stop me."
"I can. I don't know how yet, but I can."
"If you do, I'll leave you."
"You won't have that choice if you're dead."
She paused to wipe up the klava that had spilled from my cup. "We are not helpless, you know. We have support."
"Of Easterners. Of Teckla."
"It is the Teckla who feed everyone else."
"I know. And I know what happens to them when they try to do anything about it. There have been revolts, you know. There has never been a successful one except during the reign of the Orca, right before the Teckla. As I said, we aren't there now."
"We're not discussing a Teckla revolt. We're not talking about a Teckla reign; we're talking about breaking the Cycle itself."
"Adron tried that once; remember? He destroyed a city and caused an interregnum that lasted more than two hundred years, and it still didn't work."
"We aren't doing it with pre-Empire sorcery, or magic of any kind. We're doing it with the strength of the masses—the ones who have the real power."
I withheld my opinion of what real power is and who has it. I said, "I can't allow you to be killed, Cawti. I just can't."
"The best way to protect me would be to join us. We could use—"
"Words," I said. "Nothing but words."
"Yes," said Cawti. "Words from the minds and hearts of thinking human beings. There is no more powerful force in the world, nor a better weapon, once they are applied."
"Pretty," I said. "But I can't accept it."
"You'll have to. Or, at least, you'll have to confront it."
I didn't answer. I was thinking. We didn't say any more, but before we left the klava hole I knew what I was going to have to do. Cawti wasn't going to like it.
But then, neither was I.
Chapter 4
pr gray trousers:
remove bloodstain from
upper right leg.
Just in case I haven't made it clear yet, the walk over to the Easterners' section takes a good two hours. I was getting sick of it. Or maybe not. Now that I think back on it, I could have teleported in three seconds, then spent fifteen or twenty minutes throwing up or wishing I could. So I guess maybe I wanted the time to walk and think. But I remember thinking that I was spending altogether too much time just walking back and forth between the Malak Circle
district and South Adrilankha.
But I made it there. I entered the building and stood outside the doorway, which now had a curtain. I remembered not to clap, and I didn't feel like pounding on the wall, so I called out, "Is anyone in there?"
There was a sound of footsteps, the curtain moved and I was looking at my friend Gregory. Sheryl was behind him, watching me. I couldn't tell if anyone else was in the room. Since it was Gregory who was standing there, I brushed past him and said, "Is Kelly around?"
"Come right in," said Sheryl. I felt a little embarrassed. No one else was in the room. In one corner was a tall stack of tabloids, the same one Cawti had been reading.
Gregory said, "Why do you want to see him?"
"I plan to leave all my worldly wealth to the biggest idiot I can find and I wanted to interview him to see if he qualified. But now that I've met you, I can see there's no point in looking any further."
He glared at me. Sheryl laughed a little and Gregory flushed.
Kelly appeared through the curtain then. I looked at him more closely than I had before. He really was quite overweight, as well as short, but I somehow wanted to call him extremely chubby instead of fat. Cute, sort of. His forehead was flat, giving the impression that his head was large. His hair was cut very short, like half an inch, and he had no sideburns at all. His eyes had two positions, narrowed and squinting, and he had a very expressive mouth, probably because of the amount of fat surrounding it. He struck me as one of those people who can turn from cheerful to vicious in an instant; like Glowbug, say.
He said, "Right. Come on." Then he turned and walked toward the rear of the flat, leaving me to follow him. I wondered if that was a deliberate ploy.
The back room was narrow and stuffy and smelled of pipe smoke, although Kelly didn't have the teeth of a smoker. Come to think of it, he probably didn't have any vices at all. Except overeating, anyway. Shame he was an Easterner. Dragaerans can use sorcery to remove excess fat; Easterners tend to kill themselves trying. There were rows of leather-bound books all around the room, with black or sometimes brown bindings. I couldn't read any of the titles, but the author of one of them was Padraic Kelly.
He nodded me into a stiff wooden chair and sat in another one behind a rickety-looking desk. I pointed to the book and said, "You wrote that?"
He followed my pointing finger. "Yes."
"What is it?"
"It's a history of the uprising of two twenty-one."
"Where was that?"
He looked at me closely, as if to see if I were joking, then said, "Right here, in South Adrilankha."
I said, "Oh." I cleared my throat. "Do you read poetry as well?"
"Yes," he said.
I sighed to myself. I didn't really want to walk in and start haranguing him, but there didn't seem to be a whole lot else to talk about. What's the use? I said, "Cawti's been telling me something about what you do." He nodded, waiting, "I don't like it," I said, and his eyes narrowed. "I'm not happy that Cawti's involved." He kept staring at me, not saying anything.
I sat back in the chair, crossed my legs. "But all right. I don't run her life. If she wants to waste her time this way, there's nothing I can do about it." I paused, waiting for him to make some sort of interjection. When he didn't, I said, "What bothers me is this business of teaching reading classes—that's what Franz was doing, wasn't it?"
"That, and other things," he said, tight-lipped.
"Well then, I'm offering you a deal. I'll find out who killed Franz and why, if you drop these classes, or get someone else to teach them."
He never took his eyes off me. "And if not?"
I started to get irritated, probably because he was making me feel uncomfortable and I don't like that. I clenched my teeth together, stifling the urge to say what I thought of him. I finally said, "Don't make me threaten you. I dislike threatening people."
&nbs
p; He leaned over the desk, and his eyes were narrowed more than usual, his lips were pressed tightly together. He said, "You come in here, on the heels of the death of a man who was martyred to—"
"Spare me."
"Quiet! I said martyred and I meant it. He was fighting for what he believed in, and he was killed for it."
He stared hard at me for a moment, then he continued in a tone of voice that was softer but cutting. "I know what you do for a living," he said. "You don't even realize the depths to which you've sunk."
I touched the hilt of a dagger but didn't draw it. "You're right," I said. "I don't realize the depths to which I've sunk. It would be really stupid of you to tell me about it."
"Don't tell me what is and is not stupid. You're incapable of judging that, or anything else that falls outside the experience of your tiny world. It doesn't even occur to you that there could be anything wrong with selling death as if it were any commodity on the market."
"No," I said. "It doesn't. And if you're quite finished—"
"But it isn't just you. Think of this, Lord Killer: How much of what anyone does is something he'd do willingly, if he didn't have to? You accept that without thinking about it or questioning it, don't you? While Easterners and Teckla are forced to sell half their children to feed the rest. You think it doesn't happen, or do you just refuse to look at it?"
He shook his head, and I could see his teeth were clenched in his jowls and his eyes were so narrow I'm surprised he could see out of them. "What you do—mankind doesn't get any lower. I don't know if you do it because you have no choice, or because you've been so twisted that you like it, but it doesn't matter. In this building you will find men and women who can be proud of what they do, because they know there will be a better future for it. And you, with your snide, cynical wit, not only refuse to look at it, but try to tell us how to go about it. We have no time for you or for your deals. And your threats don't impress us either."
He paused, maybe to see if I had anything to say. I didn't.
He said, "Get out of here."
I stood up and left.
"The difference between winning and losing is whether you feel like going home afterwards."
"Not bad, boss. So where are we going?"
"I don't know."
"We could go back to Herth's place, spit in his soup and see what he says about that."
I didn't think this was at all a good idea.
It was still afternoon, and the Easterners' section was in full swing. There were markets every few blocks, and each was different. This one was yellow, orange, red, and green with vegetables and smelled like fresh things and the sound was a low hum. That one was pale and pink and smelled of meat, most of it still good, and it was quieter, so you could even hear the wind rattling around inside your ear. The next one was mostly fabrics and the loudest, because no one bargains like a fabric merchant, with screams and yells and pleading. They don't ever seem to tire of it, either. I get tired of things. I get tired of lots of things. I get tired of walking around Morrolan's castle to check up on his guards, traps, and alarms. I get tired of talking to my associates in codes that even I don't understand half the time. I get tired of breaking out in a sweat every time I see the uniform of the Phoenix Guards. I get tired of being treated with contempt for being a Jhereg by other Houses, and for being an Eastern
"You have to find an answer, boss."
"I know. I just tried."
"So try something else."
"Yeah."
I found that I had wandered over to the area near where my grandfather lived, which couldn't have been an accident although it felt like one. I walked through his doorway and set the chimes ringing. They were cheerful. I actually started feeling better as I stepped over the threshold. Chimes. Now, there's a witch for you.
He was sitting at his table, writing or drawing with a quill pen on a big piece of parchment. He was old, but very healthy. A big man. If Kelly was chubby, my grandfather was portly. His head was almost completely bald, so it reflected the little lamps of the shop. He looked up when he heard the chimes and gave me a big grin with his remaining teeth.
"Vladimir!"
"Hello, Noish-pa."
We hugged and he kissed my cheek. Loiosh flew off my shoulder onto a shelf until we were done, then flew to Noish-pa's arm for some chin-scratching. His familiar, a large furry cat named Ambrus, jumped into my lap when I sat down and poked his nose at me. We got reacquainted. Noish-pa hooked a small card onto the string that held the chimes and motioned me into his back room. I smelled herb tea and started feeling even better.
He served us, tsking when I put honey in mine. I sipped it. Rose hip.
"So, how is my grandson?"
"So-so, I guess, Noish-pa."
"Only so-so?"
I nodded.
"You have a problem," he said.
"Yeah. It's complicated."
"Simple things are never problems, Vladimir. Some simple things are sad, but never problems."
"Yeah."
"So, how did this problem start?"
"How did it start? Someone named Franz was killed."
"Ah! Yes. A terrible thing."
I stared at him. "You know about it?"
"It is on everyone's tongue."
"It is?"
"Well, these people, his… what is the word? Elvtarsok?"
"Friends? Associates?"
"Well, these people are everywhere, and they talk about it."
"I see."
"But you, Vladimir. You are not one of these people, are you?"
I shook my head. "Cawti is."
He sighed. "Vlad, Vlad, Vlad. It is silliness. If a revolution comes along, of course you support it. But to go out of your way like this is to put your head on the block."
"When has revolution come along?"
"Eh? In two twenty-one."
"Oh. Yes. Of course."
"Yes. We fought then, because it was what we did, but some can't forget that and think we should be always fighting."
I said, "What do you know about these people?"
"Oh, I hear things. Their leader, this Kelly, he is a fighter they say."
"A fighter? A brawler?"
"No, no. I mean he never quits, that is what I hear. And they are getting bigger, you know. I remember I heard of them a few years ago when they had a parade of twenty people, and now they have thousands."
"Why do people go there?"
"Oh, there are always those who aren't happy. And there has been violence here; beatings and robbing of people, and they say the Phoenix Guards of the Empire don't stop it. And some landlords raise their rent because some of their houses burn down, and people are unhappy about that, too."
"But none of that has anything to do with Cawti. We don't even live around here."
He shook his head and tsked. "It is silliness," he repeated.
I said, "What can I do?"
He shrugged. "Your grandmother did things I didn't like, Vladimir. There is nothing to be done. Perhaps she will lose interest." He frowned. "No, that is unlikely. Cawti does not lose interest when she becomes interested. But there, it is her life, not yours."
"But Noish-pa, that's just it. It's her life. Someone killed this Franz, and now Cawti is doing just what he was doing. If she wants to run around with these people and stir up trouble, or whatever they're doing, that's fine, but if she were killed, I couldn't stand it. But I can't stop her, or she'll leave me."
He frowned again and nodded. "Have you tried things?"
"Yes. I tried talking to Kelly, but that didn't do anything."
"Do you know who it was who killed this Franz fellow?"
"Yeah, I know who."
"And why?"
I paused. "No, I don't really know that."
"Then you must find out. Perhaps you will find that there is nothing to worry about, after all. If there is, perhaps you will find a way to solve it without risk to your wife."
Your wife he said. Not Cawti
this time, it was your wife. That was how he thought. Family. Everything was family, and we were all the family he had. It suddenly occurred to me that he was probably disappointed in me; I don't think he approved of assassins, but I was family so that was that.
"What do you think of my work, Noish-pa?"
He shook his head. "It is terrible, what you do. It is not good for a man to live by killing. It hurts you."
"Okay." I was sorry I had asked. I said, "Thank you, Noish-pa. I have to go now."
"It was good to see you again, Vladimir."
I hugged him, collected Loiosh, and walked out of his shop. The way back to my side of town was long, and I still didn't feel like teleporting.
When Cawti came home that evening, I was soaking my feet.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"My feet hurt."
She gave me a half-smile. "Somehow this doesn't surprise me. I mean, why do your feet hurt?"
"I've been walking a lot the last few days."
She sat down across from me and stretched out. She was wearing high-waisted gray slacks with a wide black belt, a gray jerkin and a black vest. She'd hung up her half-cloak. "Anywhere in particular?"
"The Easterners' section, mostly."
She turned her head to the side a bit, which was one of my favorite things to see her do. It made her eyes seem huge in that beautiful, thin face with her perfectly sculpted cheekbones. "Doing what?"
"I went in to see Kelly."
Her eyes widened. "Why?"
"I explained that he should make sure you weren't doing anything that might put you in danger. I implied that I'd kill him if he did."
The look of curiosity changed to disbelief, then anger. "Did you really," she said.
"Yeah."
"You don't seem nervous about telling me about it."
"Thank you."
"And what did Kelly say?"
"He said that, as a human being, I rated somewhere between worthless scum and wretched garbage."
She looked startled. Not upset, startled. "He said that?"
"Not in so many words. Quite."
"Hmmm," she said.