The Book of Jhereg (16 page)

“I see. So that’s how the Jhereg became part of the Cycle. Interesting.”

“Yes. It also ended up killing Kieron.”

“What did?”

“The bargain; the strain of forcing the tribes to adhere to the bargain after the fighting was over and the other tribes no longer saw that the Jhereg could be of any value to them. He was eventually killed by a group of Lyorn warriors and Shamans who decided that he was responsible for some of the problems the Jheregs brought to the Empire.”

“So,” I said, “we owe it all to Kieron the Conqueror, eh?”

“Kieron,” she agreed, “and this Jhereg chieftain named Dolivar who forced the deal in the first place, and then forced the others in his tribe to agree to it.”

“Why is it, I wonder, that I’ve never heard of this Jhereg chieftain? I don’t
know of any House records on him, and you’d think he’d be considered some kind of hero.”

“Oh, you can find him if you dig enough. As you know better than I, The Jhereg isn’t too concerned with heroes. The Lyorns have records of him.”

“Is that how you found out all this?”

She shook her head, “No. I learned a lot of it talking to Sethra. And some I remembered, of course.”

“
What!?
”

Aliera nodded. “Sethra was there, as Sethra. I’ve heard her age given at ten thousand years. Well, that’s wrong. It’s off by a factor of twenty. She is, quite literally, older than the Empire.”

“Aliera, that’s impossible! Two hundred thousand years? That’s ridiculous!”

“Tell it to Dzur Mountain.”

“But . . . and you! How could
you
remember?”

“Don’t be a fool, Vlad. Regression, of course. In my case, it’s a memory of past lives. Did you think reincarnation was just a myth, or a religious belief, like you Easterners have?”

Her eyes were glowing strangely, as I fought to digest this new information.

“I’ve seen it through my own eyes—lived it again.

“I was there, Vlad, when Kieron was backed into a corner by an ex-Dragon named Dolivar, who had been Kieron’s brother before he shamed himself and the whole tribe. Dolivar was tortured and expelled.

“I share the guilt there, too, as does Sethra. Sethra was supposed to hamstring the yendi, but she missed—deliberately. I saw, but I didn’t say anything. Perhaps that makes me responsible for my brother’s death, later. I don’t know . . .”

“Your brother!” This was too much.

“My brother,” she repeated. “We started out as one family. Kieron, Dolivar, and I.”

She turned fully toward me, and I felt a rushing in my ears as I listened to her spin tales that I couldn’t quite dismiss as mad ravings or myths.

“I,” she said, “was a Shaman in that life, and I think I was a good one, too. I was a Shaman, and Kieron was a warrior. He is still there, Vlad, in the Paths of the Dead. I’ve spoken to him. He recognized me.

“Three of us. The Shaman, the warrior—and the traitor. By the time Dolivar betrayed us, we no longer considered him a brother. He was a Jhereg, down to his soul.

“His soul . . .” she repeated, trailing off.

“Yes,” she continued, “‘Odd’ is the right way to describe the way heredity of the body interacts with reincarnation of the soul. Kieron was never reincarnated. I have been born into a body descended from the brother of my soul. And you—” she gave me a look that I couldn’t interpret, but I suddenly knew what was coming. I wanted to scream at her not to say it, but, throughout the millennia, Aliera has always been just a little faster than me. “—You became an Easterner, brother.”

O
NE DAMN THING AFTER
another.

I returned to my office and looked at nothing in particular for a while. I needed time, probably days, to get adjusted to this information. Instead, I had about ten minutes.

“Vlad?” said Kragar. “Hey, Vlad!”

I looked up. After a moment, I focused in on Kragar, who was sitting opposite me and looking worried.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“That’s what I was wondering.”

“Huh?”

“Is something wrong?”

“Yes. No. Hell, Kragar, I don’t know.”

“It sounds serious,” he said.

“It is. My whole world has just been flipped around, and I haven’t sorted it out yet.”

I leaned toward him, then, and grabbed his jerkin. “Just one thing, old friend: If you value your sanity, never, but
never
have a deep, heart-to-heart talk with Aliera.”

“Sounds
really
serious.”

“Yeah.”

We sat in silence for a moment. Then I said, “Kragar?”

“Yeah, boss?”

I bit my lip. I’d never broached this subject before, but . . .

“How did you feel when you were kicked out of the House of the Dragon?”

“Relieved,” he said, with no hesitation. “Why?”

I sighed. “Never mind.”

I tried to force the mood and the contemplation from me and almost succeeded. “What’s on your mind, Kragar?”

“I was wondering if you found out anything,” he said, in all innocence.

Did I find out anything? I asked myself. The question began to reverberate in my head, and I heard myself laughing. I saw Kragar giving me a funny look; worried. I kept laughing. I tried to stop, but couldn’t. Ha! Did I learn anything?

Kragar leaned across the desk and slapped me once—hard.

“
Hey boss
,” said Loiosh, “
cut it out
.”

I sobered up. “
Easy for you to say
,” I told him. “
You haven’t just learned that you once were everything you hate—the very kind of person you despise
.”

“
So? You haven’t just learned that you were supposed to be a blithering idiot, except that some pseudo-god decided to have a little fun with your ancestors
,” Loiosh barked back.

I realized that he had a point. I turned to Kragar. “I’m all right now. Thanks.”

He still looked worried. “Are you sure?”

“No.”

He rolled his eyes. “Great. So, if you can avoid having hysterics again, what
did
you learn?”

I almost did have hysterics again, but controlled myself before Kragar could slap me again. What had I learned? Well, I wasn’t going to tell him that, or that, uh, or that either. What did that leave? Oh, of course.

“I learned that Mellar is the product of three Houses,” I said. I gave him a report on that part of the discussion.

He pondered the information.

“Now that,” he said, “is interesting. A Dzur, eh? And a Dragon. Hmmm. Okay, why don’t you see what you can dig up about the Dzur side, and I’ll work on the Dragons.”

“I think it would make more sense to do it the other way around, since I have some connections in the Dragons.”

He looked at me closely. “Are you quite sure,” he said, “that you want to use those connections just at the moment?”

Oh. I thought about that, and nodded. “Okay, I’ll check the Dzur records. What do you think we should look for?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. Then he cocked his head for a minute and seemed to be thinking about something, or else he was in psionic contact. I waited.

“Vlad,” he said, “do you have any idea what it’s like to be a cross-breed?”

“I know it isn’t as bad as being an Easterner!”

“Isn’t it?”

“What are you getting at? You know damn well what I’ve had to put up with.”

“Oh, sure, Mellar isn’t going to have all the problems you have, or had. But suppose he inherited the true spirit of each House. Do you have any idea how frustrating it would be for a Dzur to be denied his place in the lists of heroes of the House, if he was good enough to earn it? Or a Dragon, denied the right to command all the troops he was competent to lead? The only House that would take him is us, and Hell, Vlad, there are even some Jhereg that would make him eat Dragon-dung. Sure, Vlad; you have it worse in fact, but he can’t help but feel that he’s entitled to better.”

“And I’m not?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I suppose,” I conceded. “I see your point. Where are you going with it?”

Kragar got a puzzled look on his face. “I don’t know, exactly, but it’s bound to have an effect on his character.”

I nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Okay, I’ll get started right away.”

“Fine. Oh, could you try to get that crystal with Mellar’s face in it back from Daymar? I may want to use it.”

“Sure. When do you need it?”

“Tomorrow morning will be fine. I’m taking the evening off. I’ll start on it tomorrow.”

Kragar’s eyes were sympathetic, which was rare. “Sure, boss. I’ll cover for you here. See you tomorrow.”

* * *

I ate mechanically and thanked the Lords of Judgment that it was Cawti’s night to cook and clean. I didn’t think I’d be up to it.

After eating, I rose and went into the living room. I sat down and started trying to sort out some things. I didn’t get anywhere. Presently, Cawti came in and sat down next to me. We sat in silence for a while.

I tried to deny what Aliera had told me, or pass it off as a combination of myth, misplaced superstition, and delusion. Unfortunately, it made too much sense for that to work. Why, after all, had Sethra Lavode been so friendly to me, a Jhereg and an Easterner? And Aliera obviously believed all of this, or why had she treated me as almost an equal on occasion?

But, more than that was the undeniable fact that it
felt
true. That was the really frightening thing—somewhere, deep within me, doubtless in my “soul,” I knew that what Aliera had said was true.

And that meant—what? That the thing that had driven me into the Jhereg—my hatred of Dragaerans—was in fact a fraud. That my contempt for Dragons wasn’t a feeling of superiority for my system of values over theirs, but was in fact a feeling of inadequacy going back, how long? Two hundred thousand years? Two hundred and fifty thousand years? By the multi-jointed fingers of Verra!

I became conscious of Cawti holding my hand. I smiled at her, a bit wanly perhaps.

“Want to talk about it?” she asked, quietly.

That was another good question. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk about it or not. But I did, haltingly, over the course of about two hours. Cawti was quietly sympathetic, but didn’t seem really upset.

“Really, Vlad, what’s the difference?”

I started to answer, but she stopped me with a shake of her head. “I know. You’ve thought that it was being an Easterner that made you what you are, and now you’re wondering. But being human is only one aspect, isn’t it? The fact that you had an earlier life as a Dragaeran—maybe several, in fact—doesn’t change what you’ve gone through in this life.”

“No,” I admitted. “I suppose not. But—”

“I know. Tell you what, Vlad. After this is all over and forgotten, maybe a year from now, we’ll go talk to Sethra. We’ll find out more about what happened and maybe, if you want to, she’ll take you back to that time, and you can experience it again.
If
you want to. But in the meantime, forget it. You are who you are, and whatever went into making that is all to the good, as far as I’m concerned.”

I squeezed her hand, glad that I’d discussed it with her. I felt a bit more relaxed and started to feel tired. I kissed Cawti’s hand. “Thanks for the meal,” I said.

She raised her eyebrow. “I’ll bet you don’t even know what it was,” she said.

I thought for a minute. Jhegaala eggs? No, she’d made that yesterday.

“Hey!” I said. “It was
my
night to do the cooking, wasn’t it?”

She grinned broadly. “Sure was, comrade. I’ve tricked you into owing me still another one. Clever, aren’t I?”

“Damn,” I said.

She shook her head in mock sadness. “That makes it, let me see now, about two hundred and forty-seven favors you owe me.”

“But who’s counting, right?”

“Right.”

I stood up then, still holding her hand. She followed me into the bedroom, where I paid back her favor, or she did me another one, or we did one for each other, depending on exactly how one counts these things.

* * *

The servants of Lord Keleth admitted me to his castle with obvious distaste. I ignored them.

“The Duke will see you in his study,” said the butler, looking down at me.

He held out his hand for my cloak; I gave him my sword instead. He seemed surprised, but took it. The trick to surviving a fight with a Dzur hero is not to have one. The trick to not having one is to seem as helpless as possible. Dzur heroes are reluctant to fight when the odds aren’t against them.

I’d been proud of the scheme that had led me here. It was nothing unusual, of course, but it was good, solid, low-risk, and had a high probability of gain. Most important, it was very—well—
me
. I’d been worried that my encounter with Aliera had dulled my edge, somehow changed me, made me less able to conceive and execute an elegant plan. The execution of this one was still unresolved, but I was no longer worried about the conception.

I was escorted to the study. I noted signs of disrepair along the way: chipping grate on the floor, cracks in the ceiling, places along the wall that had probably once held expensive tapestries.

The butler ushered me into the study. The Duke of Keletharan was old and what passes for “squat” in a Dragaeran, meaning that his shoulders were a bit broader than usual, and you could actually see the muscles in his arms. His face was smooth (Dzurlords don’t go in for wrinkles, I guess), and his eyes had that bit of upward slant associated with the House. His eyebrows were remarkably
bushy, and he would have had a wispy white beard, if Dragaerans had beards. He was seated in a straight-backed chair with no arms. A broadsword hung at his side, and a wizard’s staff was leaning against the desk. He didn’t invite me to sit down; I did anyway. It is best to get certain things established at the beginning of a conversation. I saw his lips tighten, but that was all. Good. Score one for our side.

“Well, Jhereg, what is it?” he asked.

“My lord, I hope I didn’t disturb you!”

“You did.”

“A small matter has come to my attention which requires that I speak with you.”