The Book of Jhereg (72 page)

The Phoenix Guard did so, the Teckla happily, the Dragons less so. I’ll say this for Kelly: He didn’t gloat. He just stood watching everything with his jowl set. I mean, it didn’t surprise me that much that he didn’t look relieved; I might have been able to manage that. But keeping the gloat off my face when the troops pulled back would have been beyond me.

I made my way over to where my family stood. I couldn’t read Cawti’s expression. My grandfather said, “He was pressing you, Vladimir. If he had continued, he would have had the initiative and your balance would have been not right.”

“Pressing me?”

“Each time he shifted his feet, he would end with his weight more forward. It is a trick some of these elfs use. I think they don’t know they are doing it.”

I said, “I’ll remember, Noish-pa.”

“But you were careful, which is good, and your wrist was supple but firm, as it should be, and you didn’t linger after the stop-cut, as you used once to do.”

“Noish-pa—,” said Cawti.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You shouldn’t be here,” said Cawti.

“And why should I not?” he said. “What is there to this life that is so worth saving?”

Cawti glanced around as if to see who was listening to us. I did, too. No one seemed to be.

“But why?”

“Why am I here? Cawti, I don’t know. I know that I cannot change how
you are, or what you will do. I know that girls aren’t the same in Faerie as back home, and do what they want to, and that is not always a bad thing. But I came to tell you that you can come to see me if you want, and if you want to talk about things, yes? Vladimir, he comes now and then when he is troubled, but you don’t. That is all I have to say. Yes?”

She looked at him for a moment, and I saw there were tears in her eyes. She leaned forward and kissed him. “Yes, Noish-pa,” she said. Ambrus meowed. My grandfather smiled with what was left of his teeth, turned, walked away, leaning on his cane. I stood next to Cawti watching him. I tried to think of something to say but couldn’t.

Cawti said, “Now we know why he was here; why were you here?”

“I was trying to convince that assassin to do just what he did. The idea was for me to shine him.”

She nodded. “You’ve marked him?”

“Yeah. I’ll set Kragar to work on it.”

“So you know he has your name, and you’ll have his, and you’ll be trying to kill each other. What do you think he’ll do now?”

I shrugged.

Cawti said, “What would you do?”

I shrugged again. “Dunno. Either return the money and run as far and as fast as I can, or move right away. Within the day, maybe within the hour. Try to catch the guy before he could set things up.”

She nodded. “Me, too. Do you want to drop out of sight?”

“Not especially. There are—”

The lieutenant began speaking again. “All citizens harken. The following words are from the Empress: You are hereby informed that a full investigation, as you . . . requested, is and has been taking place in accordance with Imperial procedure. You are ordered to disband at once and remove all obstructions from the street. No arrests will take place if these things are done.”

Then she turned and faced her troops. “Return to duty. That is all.” The Guards resheathed their weapons. The reactions from the Guards were interestingly diverse. Some of the Dragons gave us looks that read, “You’re lucky this time, scum,” and others were mildly regretful, as if they had been looking forward to the exercise. The Teckla seemed relieved. The lieutenant didn’t spare us another look or gesture, she simply rejoined her unit and walked away.

I turned back to Cawti, but as I did Paresh touched her on the shoulder and gestured to the headquarters. Cawti reached out and squeezed my arm once before following him. As she was disappearing, Rocza left her shoulder and landed on mine.

“
Someone thinks I need help, boss
.”

“
Yeah. Or I do. Do you mind?
”

“
Naw. I can use the company. You’ve been too quiet lately. I’ve been getting lonely
.”

I didn’t have an answer for that.

I didn’t take any chances going back to the office; I teleported, then went inside to be sick rather than waiting in the street.

* * *

“Any luck with Herth, Kragar?”

“I’m working on it, boss.”

“Okay. I’ve got another face. Ready?”

“What do you mean—Oh. Okay. Go ahead.”

I gave him the image of the assassin. I said, “Know him?”

“No. Do you have a name?”

“No. I want one.”

“Okay. I’ll have a picture made and see what I can find.”

“And when you find him, don’t waste time asking me. Have him sent for a walk.” Kragar raised an eyebrow at me. I said, “He’s the one who’s got my name. He almost had my head today, too.”

Kragar whistled. “How’d you get out of it?”

“I was ready for it. I guessed someone was after me, so I gave him a pattern to my movements to sucker him out.”

“And then you didn’t manage to shine him?”

“A little matter of seventy or eighty Phoenix Guards in the area. Also, he wasn’t as surprised as I’d hoped, and he was pretty good with a blade.”

Kragar said, “Oh.”

“So now I know what he looks like, but not his name.”

“And so you give me the fun part, huh? All right. Do you have anyone in mind?”

“Yeah. Mario. If you can’t find him, use someone else.”

Kragar rolled his eyes. “Nothing like specific instructions. All right.”

“And bring me a new set of weapons. Might as well do something with my hands while I wait for you to solve all my problems for me.”

“Not all of them, Vlad. I can’t do anything about your height.”

“Go.”

He went out and left me with Loiosh, Rocza, and my thoughts. I realized I was hungry and thought about having someone bring me some food. Then it occurred to me that I was going to be teleporting everywhere for a while now, so maybe that wasn’t a good idea. Loiosh and Rocza hissed back and forth, then started chasing each other around the room until I opened the window and told them to do it outside. I was very careful to stand to the side when I opened it. I don’t know of an assassin who would choose to try to get someone from across a street, but the guy was probably pretty desperate by now. At least, I would have been. I shut the window and drew the drapes.

I could at least accomplish a few things that I’d been too busy for.

“Melestav!”

“Yeah?”

“Is Sticks in the office today?”

“Yes.”

“Send him up here.”

“Right.”

A few minutes later Sticks sauntered in and I handed him a purse with fifty Imperials in it. He weighed it without counting it and looked at me. “What’s this for?”

I said, “Shut up.”

He said, “Oh. That. Well, thanks.” He sauntered out again.

Kragar came back in with a new set of toys for me. I shut the door after him and set up about changing weapons. I took off my cloak and began removing things from it and replacing them as I went. When the cloak was done I started digging things out of the ribbing of my jerkin and other places. While I was removing the dagger from my left sleeve, I noticed Spellbreaker. I guess I’d been avoiding thinking about it since that night, but now I let it fall into my hand.

It hung there, just like an ordinary chain. I studied it. It was about eighteen inches long, golden, made of thin links. The gold didn’t seem to be plating; it had never scratched or anything. But the chain didn’t seem heavy enough for solid gold, and it certainly wasn’t soft. I tried digging a fingernail into one of the links and it felt like a fine steel.

I decided that I really ought to try to find out what I could about the thing, if I lived through this. I continued changing weapons while I thought about that. What would it take to live through this?

Well, I’d have to kill the assassin, that was certain. And Herth. No, correct that: I was going to have to kill Herth
before
I killed the assassin, or Herth would just hire another one. I thought about hiring someone to kill Herth. That would be the intelligent thing to do. For one thing, then I’d know that he’d go down even if I did. And I still had all of that cash lying around; more than I’d ever dreamed of having. If Mario decided to show up and walk into my office, I could even meet his figure.

The trouble was, not many assassins besides Mario would agree to take on the job. Herth was a boss—a much bigger one than I. He was the kind who doesn’t take a pee without four or five bodyguards there in case his pecker decides to attack him. Shining someone like that requires getting to at least one or two of his bodyguards, or Mario, or finding someone who doesn’t mind dying, or a great deal of luck.

I could forget Mario; no one even knew where he was. Maybe Kelly knew someone who wanted to make a suicide attack on a Jhereg boss, but I don’t hang around with that sort of individual. Getting to his bodyguards might be possible, but it takes time. You have to find the ones who will take, check them out afterwards to make sure they’ve taken, and set up a time when both you and they can do it with a minimum of risk. I didn’t have that kind of time before the assassin made another attack.

That left luck. Did I feel lucky? No, I didn’t.

So where did that leave me?

Dead.

I finished changing weapons while I thought about it. I looked at it from a few other angles. Could I somehow convince Herth to cease hostilities? Laughable. Especially since I
still
had to make sure he wouldn’t kill Cawti. I mean, that’s what had gotten me into this mess, I might as well—

Was it? Is that why I’d gotten involved in all of this nonsense? Well, no, not at first; at first I had wanted to find the murderer of this Franz fellow whom I’d never met. I’d wanted to do that to help patch things up with Cawti. Shit. Why was
I
trying to patch things up with
her
? She was the one who’d gotten involved in all this without mentioning it to me. Why did I have to go sticking my nose into a place where I wasn’t wanted and I didn’t want to be? Duty? A pretty word, that. Duty. Doo-tee. Easterners—some of them—made it sound like doo-dee; the kind of thing you hum to yourself while changing weapons. Doo-dee-da-dee-dee-do. What did it mean?

Maybe “duty” can’t just hang there in a void; maybe it has to be attached to something. A lot of Easterners attached it to Barlan, or Verra, or Crow, or one of the other gods. I couldn’t do that; I’d been around Dragaerans too long and I’d picked up their attitudes toward gods. What else was there? The Jhereg? Don’t make me laugh. My duty toward the Jhereg is to follow its rules so I don’t get shined. The Empire? My duty toward the Empire is to make sure it doesn’t notice me.

That left it pretty small. Family, I guess. Cawti, my grandfather, Loiosh, and Rocza. Sure. That was a duty, and one I could be proud to do. I thought about how empty I’d felt before Cawti came into my life, and even the memory was painful. Why wasn’t that enough?

I wondered if Cawti had felt this way. She didn’t have the organization; she just had me. She used to have a partner and they’d needed each other, but her partner had become a Dragonlord and heir to the Orb. Now what did she have? Was that why she’d gotten involved with Kelly’s people? To give her something to do, so she’d feel useful? Wasn’t I enough?

No. Of course not. No one can live his life through someone else, I knew that. So what did Cawti have to live for? She had her “people.” This group of Easterners and an occasional Teckla who got together to talk about overthrowing the Empire. Cawti hung around with them, helped build barricades in the streets, stood up to Phoenix Guards, and came home convinced that she’d done her “duty.” Maybe that’s what duty was—something you do to make yourself feel useful.

Fine. That was Cawti. Where was
my
duty? Doo-deedle-deedle-dee. My duty was to die, because I was going to anyway, so I might as well call it a duty. You’re getting cynical, Vlad, stop it.

I had about finished changing my weapons so I just sat there, holding a dagger that was destined for my right boot. I leaned back and closed my eyes. All of this was really beside the point if I was going to be killed soon. Or was it? Was there something I ought to be doing, even if I were dying? Now that would be a good test of “duty,” whatever I meant by it.

And I realized there was. I had gotten myself involved in this thing up to my neck mostly with the idea of keeping Cawti alive. If it was really as clear as all
that that I was going to die, I’d have to make sure that Cawti was safe before I let anyone kill me.

Now there was a pretty little problem.

Doo-dee-deedee-dee-dum. I started flipping the dagger.

A
LITTLE LATER, WITH
the seeds of an idea taking shape in my head, I called for Kragar, but Melestav said he was out. I gnashed mental teeth and kept thinking. What, I wondered, would happen if I was killed and Cawti wasn’t? My cynical half said it wouldn’t be my problem. But beyond that, I guessed that my grandfather and Cawti would be able to look out for each other. There had been some sort of communication going on between them on the street there, something that had left me out. Were they going to get together and talk about how terrible I was? Was I going to die of paranoia?

Ignoring all of that, however, Cawti would be faced with an interesting problem if Herth killed me: She’d want to kill Herth herself, but she didn’t want to be an assassin anymore. Or at least, after the way she’d spoken to me I assumed she didn’t want to be an assassin anymore. On the other hand, it couldn’t hurt Kelly any to have his biggest enemy taken off the stage. Too bad I’d have to die to pull it off. Hmmm.

I idly wondered whether there would be a way to convince Cawti I was dead long enough for her to kill Herth. My reappearance afterwards would certainly be fun. On the other hand, it could get very embarrassing if she chose not to go after him, and even more embarrassing if Herth found out I was alive.

Still, no need to dismiss it out of hand. It was better—