Dzur

Dzur

Vlad Taltos, Book 10

Steven Brust

2006 Prologue: Peasant’s Platter

Vili glanced up, turned his head back toward the interior, and said, with no particular inflection, “Klava with honey for Lord Taltos.” He then turned back to me and said, “Your usual table is available, m’lord.”

If Vili wasn’t going to make any observations about the fact that I had been gone for years, was missing a finger, and had a price on my head sufficient to make every assassin in the city drool with greed, well, I certainly wouldn’t either. I followed him inside.

Valabar and Sons is in a part of Adrilankha that looks worse than it is. The streets are narrow and full of ruts winding among the potholes; the dwellings are small and most of them show their age; and the population there—urban Teckla with a few Chreotha—give no appearance of wealth, or even comfort. But, as I say, it looks worse than it is. Few who live there are actu­ally destitute, most of them being tradesmen or those employed by tradesmen and most of the families having lived there for millennia, some for Cycles. Valabar’s fit right in.

You walk down three shallow steps, and if you’re Dragaeran (which I am not) or an exceptionally tall human (which I am not), you duck your head. When you raise it again, you’re immediately ambushed by the aroma of fresh-baked bread—ambushed, and you surrender. Why it is that with all of the scents inundating the place it’s the bread you smell, I don’t know; there are myriads of other smells that you notice when you’re outside. But inside, it’s the bread.

You’re in a room with eleven tables, the largest of them big enough to seat a party of six. There is a great deal of space be­tween the tables. The walls and tablecloths are white, the chairs a sort of pale yellow. On each table is a yellow flower, a small white dish with finely ground salt, and a clear glass jar with pow­dered Eastern red pepper.

I followed Vili to the other room, much like the first, but with space for only nine tables. Those two rooms were all there was; most evenings both were full. We reached my favorite table, a deuce in the back corner that I liked not for any reasons of se­curity, but just because I enjoyed seeing what everyone else was eating.

The chair felt good—familiar. I salivated and my stomach rumbled. As I sat down, Mihi came by with my klava, and I drank some, and right away I have a problem: I could spend so much time telling you about just the klava that I wouldn’t get anything else done. It tasted of cinnamon and monra and honey and heavy cream and I found myself smiling as I sipped it. Loiosh and Rocza, my familiar and his mate, were quiet out of respect for my pleasure—a rarity in Loiosh’s case especially.

Next to my chair, carefully positioned so I couldn’t bump it by accident, they placed a small brazier. In it were wine tongs, carefully kept heated. Next to the brazier was a bucket of ice wa­ter, and in the ice was a single, long white feather.

There would be wine tonight. Oh, yes.

I’d come early; there weren’t many diners at this hour, just a quad and a stiff. The quad—all Chreotha—spoke quietly. Valabar’s seems to encourage quiet conversation, though I don’t know why. The stiff looked like a Vallista. He gave me a glance as I entered, then went back to his Ash Mountain potatoes. A good choice. But then, so far as I knew, Valabar’s didn’t have any bad choices.

I had made a good choice by accident, showing up as I did in the early afternoon. I enjoyed Valabar’s when it was full of peo­ple, but being almost alone fit my mood. I sipped my klava, and found that I’d closed my eyes for a moment, savoring what was, and what soon would be. I smiled.

An hour earlier, I had been in Dzur Mountain. An hour before that, I had been fighting for my life and the soul of a friend against—

Now, right away, I have a problem. You see me, but I don’t see you. I don’t know who you are. You’re there, but invisible, like Fate if you choose to believe in it; like the Lords of Judgment even if you don’t. Do you know me? Have we met? Do I need to explain who I am, or shall I assume you’re the same individual who’s been listening to me all along?

Well, I guess there’s no point in telling you about what hap­pened before either way. If you’ve been with me before, you know; if you haven’t, you’d never believe it. I just barely believed it. But I touched the hilt of Lady Teldra hanging on my left hip, and there was such a keen sense of her presence that I couldn’t doubt, no matter how much I wanted to.

But then that was ages before—hours, as I’ve said. Now life was klava, and the klava was good, so life was good.

Klava had been part of what I now thought of as my “old life.” Every morning I’d gone into my office, had my first cup of klava brought to me by my secretary, Melestav, and begun plan­ning what crimes I’d commit that day. After Melestav was killed, Kragar, my associate and, if you will, lieutenant, who didn’t know how to brew klava and could just barely make coffee, would order it from a place down the street.

I look back to that now as a good time in my life. I was re­spected, I had power, I had money, I was happily married (at least, I thought I was), and, if every so often someone tried to kill me, or the Phoenix Guards would beat me bloody, well, that was just part of the game. At the time, I suppose I wasn’t so aware of being happy; but then, spending your time asking yourself if you’re happy is as good a way to be miserable as I know. If you want to be happy, don’t ask yourself difficult questions, just sit in a quiet, peaceful place and enjoy your solitary klava.

I was not, however, destined to enjoy my solitary klava for long.

“M’lord,” said Vili. “A gentleman wishes to be brought to your table.”

Loiosh gripped my left shoulder a little tighter.

“If he were coming to kill me, do you think he’d ask?”

“No, Boss. But who knows we’re even here?”

“Let’s find out.”

Before Loiosh could reply, I said, “What sort of gentleman, Vili?”

“A Dragaeran, m’lord. He would appear to be of the House of the Dzur.”

I frowned. That was certainly unexpected.

“Bring him over.”

Young, was my first reaction. I’m no great judge of ages of Dragaerans, but if he’d been human, he’d have barely needed to shave. He also had that sort of tall, uncoordinated lankiness that spoke of someone who hadn’t quite settled into his body yet. His House was no mystery at all: Only Dzurlords have ears like that and eyes like that, and think that black on black is the ultimate of fashionable color combinations. And if that wasn’t enough, there was the hilt of a sword sticking up over his shoulder—a sword that was probably taller than I was; a very Dzur-like sword, if you will.

The expression on his face, however, was very un-Dzur-like. He was smiling.

“Hi there,” he said, all cheerful-like. “My name will be Zun­garon someday, but for now it’s Telnan.”

It took me a moment to manage a reply. For one thing, I’d never had anyone introduce himself in quite that way. For another, Dzurlords are ... well, some of them can be ... you might find some who ...

You don’t expect to find a cheerful Dzurlord.

I stood up. If he’d been a Jhereg, I’d have remained seated, out of courtesy, but he was a Dzur so I rose and gave him a half bow. “Vladimir Taltos,” I said. “Call me Vlad.” I sat down again.

He nodded. “Just checking. Sethra sent me.”

“I see. Why do they call you Telnan?”

“Sethra says I haven’t yet earned the name Zungaron.”

“Oh. What does ‘Zungaron’ mean?”

“She hasn’t told me that, either.”

“What does Telnan mean?”

He thought about that. “I think it means ‘student’ but I’m not sure. May I join you?”

I held up two fingers to Vili, who nodded and went back about his business. Telnan sat. I don’t know how he managed with that thing slung behind his back that way, but it seemed easy and natural. Maybe that’s something Dzurlords study. He said, “Sethra was worried about you.”

“That’s a kind thought on her part, but are you trained to handle Jhereg assassins, assuming one shows up?”

He smiled like he’d just been ordered into battle against over­whelming odds with half the Empire watching. “Not yet.”

“Oh. So this is training for you?”

He nodded.

“I don’t know about you, Boss, but I feel worlds better.”

“Uh huh.”

Mihi brought klava for Telnan. I drank some more of mine. “Have you known Sethra long?” I asked Telnan.

“No, not really. Around twenty years.”

Not long. More than half of the time I’d been alive. “Odd I’ve never met you before.”

“It was only a year and a half ago that I was permitted above the dungeons.”

I blinked. “Uh, if you don’t mind my asking—”

“Yes?”

“What did you do in the dungeons for most of twenty years?”

He frowned. “Why, I studied wizardry of course. What else?”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “Of course. What else?”

He nodded agreeably.

“You know, Boss, I don’t think this one is the brightest candle in the sconce.

“That looks like a sort of uniform you’re wearing.”

He lit up like the skies on Ascension Day. “Oh, you noticed?”

“I picked right up on it,” I said. From his reaction, I knew I was supposed to ask, and the klava had temporarily removed my normal contrary streak. “What sort of uniform is it?”

“The Lavodes.”

Well, that was interesting.

Presently Mihi, a pleasant, chubby Easterner with great, gray bushy eyebrows, approached again. This time holding a large, wooden platter that I knew well. He gave me a sort of conspira­torial smile, as if he knew what I was thinking. I imagine he did. The platter contained a block of granite, smooth, about a foot round, and heated in a bread oven. Mihi set the platter on the table, and took a small stoneware pitcher from his apron. He gave it a quick, practiced shake, then removed the cork from the pitcher.

The bottle had oil—a mixture of grape-seed, olive, and peanut oil to be precise. The aroma it gave off as it spread over the heated granite was mild, slightly musky. I sat back in my chair. It had been so long. The last time I was at Valabar’s, I was—

I was still married, but let’s not go there.

I wasn’t yet on the Organization’s hit-list, but let’s not go there either.

I still had all ten fingers, but let’s &c.

Years. Leave it at that.

Telnan gave the platter a curious glance, as if wondering what was to come. Around it were leafs of lettuce—red, green, and yellow. Between the lettuce and the granite were thin strips of raw beef, smoked longfish, raw longfish, poultry, lobster, and a small pair of tongs for each of us. All of these except the tongs had been marinated. Hey, they marinate the tongs too, for all I know. I’d give a lot to know what’s in the marinade, but it cer­tainly contains lemon.

Also on the platter were three dipping sauces: hot mustard, sweet lemon sauce, and garlic-horseradish-crushed-mustard-seed sauce. I don’t generally use the sweet lemon sauce; something about that combination of flavors bothers me. The other two I al­ternate between.

You take beef, or the fish, or whatever, and move it to the middle of the granite, where it cooks in about ten seconds on a side—the waiter will do that for you, if you wish. Then you take it with the tongs, dip it in the sauce of your choice, and go to work. With the beef, I wrap it in a piece of lettuce. I started to show Telnan how to do it, but Mihi was faster and better. Telnan paid close attention to Mihi’s instructions.

“You know,” said the Dzur, “this is really good.”

“You know,” I said, “I believe you’re right.”

“Don’t forget to save some for the Planning Committee, Boss!”

“Do I ever forget?”

“About half the time when you eat here.”

“You have a long memory for wrongs.”

“Just looking out for the lady, you know.”

“Think Rocza will appreciate the food?”

“I’ll let you know.”

Telnan was frowning at me. “Are you talking to the, uh, to the jhereg?”

“Yes,” I told him.

“Oh.”

He had no more to say about it, but I enjoyed giving him something to think about.

When we were just finishing up the peasant’s platter, I got two things: The first was a basket of what in my family we called “langosh,” which is an Eastern garlic bread. The second was another visitor.

I really liked the bread; I’ll get to the visitor in a moment.

As I reached for a garlic clove, a little tingle went up my left arm—the lingering effects of a recent injury, even more recently healed by an expert. That was fine; five hours earlier I hadn’t been able to use the arm at all; I’ll take a little tingle.

Telnan and I didn’t talk for a bit. I was concentrating on the process of rubbing garlic on bread when Loiosh tightened his talons on my right shoulder, followed almost immediately by Rocza tightening her claws on my left. I looked up, which gesture alerted Telnan, who turned his head and half turned his body, while reaching for his sword. An elderly, plainly dressed Dragaeran was walking up to the table, with no hint of effort at concealment or speed. If he had hostile intentions toward me, he wasn’t very good; I had time to drop the bread, wipe my fin­gers, and take a dagger from my boot. I kept the dagger under the table. Telnan must have reached a similar conclusion because he didn’t draw. I studied the fellow as he approached.

He was a bit small for a Dragaeran, and, though I’m not all that good at their ages, I’d have put him at over twenty-five hundred years. I couldn’t identify a House either from his cloth­ing, or from his features.

He showed none of the signs of being a Jhereg—by which I mean that I got no sense that he knew how to handle himself, or was looking around for danger, or that, well, he was anything except an elderly merchant. Naturally, I assumed he was there to kill me.

It took him something like six seconds to get to my table, which gave me time to remember Lady Teldra, so I pushed myself just a bit back from the table, re-sheathed the dagger in my boot, brought my hand back up, and let my right forefinger rest against the hilt of Lady Teldra on my left hip. Lady Teldra is—but we’ll go into that later. For now, let me say that, as before, touching her hilt gave me a comforting sense of her presence. The thought came to me that if this individual was going to disrupt my meal, I would be more than a little annoyed.

Vili frowned and started to approach but I waved him off—I’d hate myself forever if Vili got himself shined trying to valiantly defend my right to a quiet dinner.

It’s funny how time seems to stretch out when you think you’re about to have to defend your life. As he came closer, I was able to make a few more snap observations about him—he had a pleasant, slightly round, almost peasant-like face in spite of the noble’s point, with bright, friendly eyes and thin eyebrows. His hands were the only thing that struck me as dangerous, though I can’t say exactly why I thought so; they were just hands: neatly trimmed nails, fingers about average, though perhaps a bit stubby. I stood; Telnan did as well. If it was rude, I didn’t especially care.

The visitor didn’t keep me in suspense. In a pleasant baritone, he said, “My name is Mario Greymist. May I join you, Lord Taltos?”

When I could talk again, I said, “So, correct me if I’m wrong: You’re not a myth, then?”

“Not entirely, at any rate. May I join you?”

Telnan hadn’t appeared to recognize the name.

“By all means, if my friend doesn’t mind. His name is Telnan, by the way.” I trust my voice was even, and I sounded sufficiently calm.

“Hi,” said Telnan, smiling.

Mario Greymist inclined his head and smiled back.

I addressed my familiar: “Loiosh, you’re about to draw blood.”

“Sorry, Boss.”

He relaxed his grip on my shoulder. Vili shuffled a chair over from another table, placing it to my left and Telnan’s right. If Mario Greymist decided to join us for dinner, the table would be crowded. The three of us sat down.

“Boss, if he’d wanted to kill you ...”

“I know, I know.”

“I take it,” said Mario, “that you’ve heard of me?” He smiled. The smile of a downstairs neighbor who has just thanked you for loaning him half a pound of coffee.

“Yeah,” I said. I was at my cleverest.

“I haven’t,” said Telnan.

Mario and I looked at the Dzurlord. I said, “Uh ...”

“Never mind,” said Telnan.

“Don’t let me interfere with your meal,” said Mario.

I looked at him. He seemed to be sincere. I said, “Feel like having something to eat?”

“No, thank you. I won’t be here that long.”

I almost said, “Good,” but caught myself. Mihi approached and asked the same question of Mario, and got the same answer. He then asked me if we’d care for wine. We would. He could recommend—fine. I trusted him, just bring whatever he thought best. He bowed.

Mario.

He was to assassins what Kieron the Conqueror was to soldiers. Except that Kieron was dead. Mario had assassinated an Emperor before the Turning of the Cycle, at least according to the stories. When the Phoenix Guards couldn’t solve a murder, they’d say, “Mario did it,” meaning the case would never be solved. There is a story (probably not true) of a guy who was told that Mario was after him who simply brought himself to Death-gate and threw himself over the Falls.

And Mario was sitting across the table from me, and smiling a friendly sort of smile.

It was almost enough to put me off the food.

“Hey, Boss.”

“What?”

“How do you know he’s really Mario?”

“Hmmm ... good point. But do you know anyone who’d claim to be Mario if he wasn’t?”

“Well, no. But still.”

“Yeah.”

He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. It was about as non-threatening a position as he could take, without making it painfully obvious that he was trying to look non-threatening. He said, “Of course, you’re aware that you’ve annoyed some people.”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s been made clear to me.”

Telnan turned to me. I didn’t feel like giving explanation to a Dzur, so I didn’t.

Mario said, I guess to both of us, “There are two things you don’t do: talk to the authorities about the association, and—”

“Association?” I said.

He smiled. “An old term. The Organization? The—?”

“I see.”

“I don’t,” said Telnan.

“Tell you what, Loiosh. You take the Dzur out and explain to him.”

“Uh huh.”

Out loud, Mario and I ignored him. I nodded. Mario continued, “Talk to the authorities about us, and interfere with our Imperial representative. You did both. Well, one and a half, anyway.”

“I didn’t tell the Empire anything about the, uh, Association. Not really.”

“Close enough to annoy people.”

“I suppose.”

“But you know that.”

I nodded. “In the last few years of wandering the world dodg­ing them, it’s become more-or-less clear. I assume, at some point, you were offered the job?”

He looked directly at me. At the same time, I felt an odd little twinge from somewhere in the back of my head, as if there were a voice whispering just too softly for me to hear. I decided now wasn’t the time to think about that twinge, and what it implied.

“Sorry,” I told Mario. “Improper question.”

His nod was barely perceptible. He said, “You’re taking something of a chance coming here, aren’t you?”

Loiosh shifted slightly on my shoulder; in response, Rocza shifted on my other. Telnan said, “I’m here.”

“Yes,” said Mario. “Of course.”

“Not so much,” I said. “You know how we ... that is, you know how things are done. By the time word gets out that I’m here, and someone sets something up, I’ll be far from the city.”

“That’s why you were so relaxed when I walked in.”

“Yeah, that’s why.”

He nodded. “There are rumors that you’ve acquired a rather formidable means of defending yourself.”

I felt the length of Lady Teldra hanging from my left hip, just in front of my rapier. I didn’t touch her, though I wanted to. “No,” I said. “They aren’t rumors. You were flat-out told, and from a reliable source.”

“Well, that too.”

Which, I figured, was as close as I was ever going to get to confirming the stories I’d heard—that the most famous assassin in the history of the Dragaeran Empire was the lover of Aliera e’Kieron, second in line as Dragon Heir, and head of the most prestigious line of the House of the Dragon. It was amusing. Or something.

So as I sit here, between Valabar’s Kermeferz and the Jhereg’s Mario Greymist, and await my wine with a strange Dzurlord for company, maybe I should tell you a little bit about myself. Hmmm ... then again, maybe not.

Mihi showed up with the wine, asking me to approve the bot­tle. I nodded. I was sure it was a bottle. He used the feather and, with the aid of a thick glove taken from his back pocket, the tongs. He opened it and poured without flourish. Jani, my other favorite waiter, always made it look like opening the bottle was an occasion for major triumph. It’s the little stylistic things that differentiate us, don’t you think?

I leaned back in the chair like I didn’t have a worry in the world and said, “Care for some wine?”

Telnan did, Mario didn’t. Mihi poured and left the bottle. I nodded, sipped, and waited for Mario to go on.

“Good wine,” said Telnan. I doubted he’d know the differ­ence. But I could be wrong.

Mario shifted in his chair, and, for just a moment, looked un­comfortable. Before the shock really had time to register, he said, “You know Aliera.”

Well, yes, I knew Aliera. That is, I knew her as well as any “Easterner” (read: human) could know a “human” (read: Dra­gaeran). I knew she was short, as Dragaerans go; not much over six feet tall. I knew she had a lethal temper and the skill in sorcery to back it. I knew, well ...

“Yeah,” I said. “I suppose, in some measure, anyway.”

He nodded. “She asked me to speak with you.”

That was certainly worth an eyebrow. “She’s concerned about my safety?”

He frowned. “Well no, not really.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“There are others she’s concerned about.”

“Are you going to make me guess?”

He sighed and looked unhappy.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m guessing. Since she sent you, it has to have something to do with the Organization, since Aliera would never publicly demean herself by admitting she had anything to do with criminals.”

Telnan and Mario both glanced at me, and I felt myself flush­ing. “Uh, I hadn’t meant to exactly include you in that,” I told Mario.

He nodded. “Continue, then. You’re doing well.”

Unfortunately, having gotten that far, I drew a blank. If Aliera was in trouble with the Organization, which I couldn’t imagine, Mario could do anything I could do. And if the Organization was in trouble in some way, it was no longer a concern of mine; I no longer had any interest or connections in their doings, with the possible exception of—

“Cawti,” I said.

He nodded, and something slammed down in the pit of my stomach.

“South Adrilankha,” I said.

He nodded again.

“My fault, then.”

He nodded again.

“Uh ... care to explain?” said Telnan.

“No,” I said.

I made a few other remarks, these with more emotional than rational content.

“I suppose,” said Mario. Telnan looked puzzled.

I felt Loiosh’s presence in my mind, the way I sometimes do when a spell threatens to get out of control. I concentrated on my breathing, like during a fencing exercise.

In case we haven’t met before, I used to run a small area of Adrilankha. That is, when anything illegal happened there, I ei­ther got a piece of it, or made arrangements for someone to regret that I didn’t get a piece of it. I also, eventually, acquired some similar interests in the Easterners’ Ghetto, what was called South Adrilankha. At this time, I was happily married. To the left, my wife, Cawti, was unhappily married at the same time, mostly because she had some sort of moral objection to making money off Easterners the same way we made it off Dragaerans. Who knew?

Then she was in danger, and I heroically saved her and all like that. In the course of doing so, I made a few enemies and a quick escape. The last thing I did before leaving my career, my friends, my wife, and everything else, was to give Cawti all my in­terests in South Adrilankha as a kind of going-away present.

At the time, I thought it was funny, in a sick sort of way.

Now it was sounding sick, in a funny sort of way.

Mihi wanted to know if I was ready for—no, I wasn’t. He could return after our guest left, as our guest didn’t care to dine. Mihi understood and vanished into that place waiters and credi­tors go when they aren’t in front of you.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s hear it.”

He nodded and smiled. Like the guy who lived downstairs, as I said before. Or else maybe the old man who pinches the pretty girl in the market, but she smiles back instead of smacking him. That guy.

“The Dagger started out by—”

“She isn’t called that anymore.”

He gave me an odd look, and said, “That’s what I call her.”

“Eh,” I said. “Okay.”

“She started out by trying to dismantle the Organization in South Adrilankha entirely.”

I nodded. “And, of course, it popped back up, only outside of her control.”

“Yes.”

“I could have told her that would happen.”

He tilted his head a little. “Some things are easy to see when you aren’t in the middle of them.”

“I suppose. What next?”

“She managed to get back some control of the area, and tried running it—” He frowned. “More gently, I suppose you’d say.”

I grunted. “That’s what I’d have tried first.”

“It didn’t work either. As I understand it, debts went uncol­lected, profit margins were too small—”

“I get the idea.”

He nodded. “So, well, various individuals started smelling opportunities. You know how that works.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t,” said Telnan brightly. We ignored him.

Mario said, “She tried to hang on to what she had, but, really, she didn’t have an organization; just herself and her reputation. That only goes so far.”

I nodded.

“Then she started getting help. A few button-men turned up dead, and—”

“Help from whom?”

“That’s the big question.”

I gave him a look.

“No,” he said. “I had no part in it.”

“Then who ...? Oh.”

He nodded. “Her old partner.”

“The Sword of the Jhereg.”

“Yes,” he said. “At least, that’s the rumor.”

“The Sword of the Jhereg, now Dragon Heir to the Throne.”

He nodded. “And not just her personally, but she included various friends and retainers.”

“Aliera?”

“No. Just some Dragonlords who felt obligated to help her, no matter what.”

“That could get ugly.”

“Yes,” he said.

“If word gets out that the Dragon Heir is involving herself in—”

“Exactly.”

I rubbed my chin. “They’ve just gotten over the last near-scandal with her. But I can see it. Norathar and Cawti—” it still gave me a twinge to say her name—“are friends. Norathar can’t just let it alone.”

“Precisely. And it’s upset Aliera more than a little.”

“She mentioned nothing about it to me.”

He frowned. “I don’t know the whole story, but it seems to me that when you last saw Aliera—”

“About two hours ago,” I said.

He nodded. “It seems she had other things on her mind.”

“Yeah, I suppose she did.”

“And then you left rather abruptly.”

“I suppose I did. Has anything been heard from Kiera the Thief in all this?”

His brows came together. “Why would it concern her?”

“No reason that I know of. Just wondering.”

He shook his head.

I leaned back in my chair. “So, Aliera would like me to see if I can help out.”

Mario nodded. “As long as you have returned to the area anyway.”

“Yeah, as long as I’m here.” I didn’t quite roll my eyes. I said, “I admit that, in some ways, I’m in a position to help. At any rate, I know the principles rather well.”

He nodded again.

“And I can’t argue that the whole situation isn’t my fault.” He nodded again, which was uncalled-for.

“But there’s the issue that, if I stay around this area for more than a few hours, my life isn’t worth a rusted copper.”

“That’s where we come to the new resources you are reputed to have.”

Telnan twitched a little when he said that. He had, it seemed, mostly been lost during the entire conversation, but he must have guessed something about what we spoke of there.

I ignored him and said to Mario, “Not enough to take on the whole Jhereg, thank you very much.”

“And an additional resource you may not know about.”

“Oh?”

“Me,” he said.

I stared off into space for a while. Then I said, “Sure you don’t want something to eat?”

“Positive.”

I nodded, and cleared my throat. “Uh ... shall I call you Mario?”

“It’s my name.”

“Okay. Look. I have some idea of how good you are, but—”

“But?”

“We’re talking about the whole Jhereg being after me.”

“Not the whole Jhereg. Just the Right Hand, as it were.”

“Oh, well, that’s all right, then.”

“And it’s the Left Hand that is moving on South Adrilankha.”

I stared at him. “The Bitch Patrol?”

He chuckled, as if he’d never heard the term before. “If you like.”

“What do they want in South Adrilankha?”

“You’ll have to ask them that.”

I sat back, remembered my wine, and drank some. I don’t remember how it tasted.

Loiosh said, “Boss, this is all kinds of not good.”

“Thank you,” I said, “for the profound observation.”

I sat there and considered what I knew about the Left Hand of the Jhereg, which was not nearly as much as I should have known. The Right Hand, what I usually just called “the Jhereg,” or “the Organization,” was almost entirely male—Kiera, Cawti, and No­rathar being exceptions—and it was involved in, well, all the stuff I knew: untaxed gambling, unlicensed prostitution, selling stolen goods, high-interest loans, and other fun things. I had known that the Left Hand, mostly women, existed; but I’d never been exactly clear on what they did. Well, that isn’t completely true; I mean, I know if you need to purchase some artifact of Elder Sorcery, they’re the ones to see. If you need a quick bit of sorcery to help you make someone dead or insure that he stays that way, you go to them. And if you need a piece of information that is only stored inside someone’s head, then a Jhereg sorceress is your best bet.

But I also knew that couldn’t be all the extent of their interests.

What could they want in South Adrilankha?

“What else can you tell me?” I said at last.

He sighed and shook his head. “It’s unfortunate, how little the Right Hand knows what the Left Hand is doing. I wish I could tell you more.”

“Whatever details you have.”

“Yes. Well, at this point, we know that the Dagger has been given warnings to leave South Adrilankha alone. So far as we know, they’ve taken no particular steps.”

“How do you know it was the Left Hand delivering the warnings?”

He reached into his cloak. I tensed involuntarily and my hand twitched toward the stiletto I’d replaced in my boot. Telnan seemed to tense as well. Mario pretended not to notice, and emerged with a neat little square of paper, which he passed to me. The handwriting was simple and clean, almost without personal­ity. It read, “We thank you for your interest in and contribution to this part of our city. Now that your work here is done, we hope you will accept our kind wishes for your continued good fortune and good health.” It was signed, “Madam Triesco,” and had the sym­bol of House Jhereg at the bottom.

“Madam Triesco?” I said. “Never heard of her.”

“Nor have I.” He shrugged.

“Yeah, well, I agree. It seems clear enough.”

He nodded.

I drank a little more wine.

He said, “So, are you in?”

“Of course I’m in.”

He nodded. “Aliera said you would be.” He stood up. “Where will you be?”

“I could go to Castle Black, but I’m not in the mood to start another Dragon-Jhereg war. So how about Dzur Mountain?”

“That will be fine.”

“Umm ....”

“Yes?”

“If I should wish to get in touch with you, is there any—?”

“Aliera will be able to find me.”

“Uh, it is unlikely that I’ll be able to reach Aliera.”

“Oh?”

I tapped the chain I was wearing around my neck. “Well, as I see it, I won’t want to remove these—”

“Oh, right.”

He frowned for a moment, glanced at Telnan, then leaned across the table and whispered in my ear. Telnan politely pretended not to notice.

I sat back and stared at him.

“You’re kidding.”

He shook his head.

“Uh ... I’m not sure if I need to kill someone.”

“It would probably be a bad idea,” he said.

“Yeah, well. All right. I have it. If I need to reach you, I know what to do.”

He nodded and stood up. “I’ll be in touch,” he said. And, “Enjoy your meal,” he added to both of us.

“We’ll try,” I answered for both of us. Telnan gave him a friendly smile.

As he walked away, Mihi approached, appearing from that place where waiters and creditors &c. There being nothing else to do at the moment, I turned my attention back to food. 1. Dry Red Wine

When Mario was gone I was able to concentrate on the wine. I will deny being any sort of wine expert, but I liked it. It was dry, of course, because sweet wines are for dessert, but it had all these hints under­neath that made me think of grassy hills with orchards and wind blowing through them and poetical stuff like that. Knowing what was coming later in the meal, the wine was setting me up, trying to tell me my mouth was safe, and that I shouldn’t worry. Nasty, evil wine. I don’t know what Telnan thought about it; he didn’t say anything at that point, and I wasn’t interested in conversation.

I had told Mario that he could find me at Dzur Mountain; now I considered that. Did I have any other options? My grandfather was no longer in the city, and I wouldn’t have wanted to stay there anyway, with the whole Jhereg after me. I’d been right about Castle Black. And the idea of clapping at Cawti’s door and saying, “Mind if I sleep on the couch for a few weeks?” made my skin crawl. No, Dzur Mountain was my only option.

Dzur Mountain.

Home of Sethra Lavode, the Enchantress, the Dark Lady. I don’t know, we’d always gotten along pretty well; she likely wouldn’t mind. And Telnan hadn’t responded when I’d suggested it. It would at least give me a safe place to stay while I figured out what to do.

I’d do what I always did: figure out what was going on, come up with a plan, and carry it out. No problem. Nasty, evil wine.

Some hours later, I got up from the table feeling pleased. More than that, satiated, the way only an exceptional dinner, where all the pieces come together, and each piece by itself is a work of art, can make you feel. As I remarked to Loiosh, if they got to me now, at least I’d managed to get in one good last meal. A very good last meal. Loiosh suggested that that was just as well, as I was too slow at the moment to save myself from an infant who attacked me with a perambulator. Uphill. I suggested he shut up.

Besides, Telnan was there to protect me, if he wasn’t in the same state.

I sent Loiosh and Rocza out the door ahead of me, to make sure no perambulators were waiting. None were, so, after giving and receiving warm good-byes from several of the staff and after I paid the shot, including Telnan’s, we stepped outside.

Nope, no one tried to kill me.

I looked around. It was late afternoon, and the world was quiet and peaceful. Telnan said, “You’re going to Dzur Mountain?” I nodded.

“Shall I—?”

“Please.”

I removed the chain from around my neck (long story), slid it into a small box I carry just for that purpose, and nodded to the Dzur. He nodded back, and then there was a slight tingle at the base of my spine, accompanied by the odd sensation you always get when, in the space of a blink, the world looks different around you. I stumbled a bit as the chill hit my skin and the scent of evergreens filled my nose. Dzur Mountain was all about me. A few years earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to have that spell performed on me without undoing everything that I’d just accomplished in Valabar’s. But now—nothing but a bit of a stum­ble and a twitch. I replaced the chain around my neck, and when the stone lay against my skin pulsing in time to my heart-beat, I relaxed a bit. Safe.

Relatively safe.

Comparatively safe.

Safer.

“No one’s around, Boss.”

“Okay. Thanks, Loiosh. I guess Telnan didn’t accompany us.”

“I guess not. Uh, I know we’re safe, Boss, but let’s get inside anyway.”

There was a slight coating of snow on the ground, so I left footprints leading up to the door. My friend Morrolan had doors that opened as you approached them. It was very impressive. I’ve never figured out about Sethra’s doors: sometimes they opened, sometimes you had to clap, sometimes you had to search just to find them. On one occasion, I’d waited outside like an idiot for an hour and a half. I had intended to make some comment to Sethra on the subject, but somehow I never got around to it.

This time, the door didn’t open, but neither was it locked. I walked in. I had been there just often enough to make me think I could find my way in without getting lost, but not often enough to actually do so. Loiosh, fortunately, had a better head for such things, and after a few twists and turns and smart-ass remarks from my guide of the moment, we were in one of Sethra’s sitting rooms; the one where I’d first met her, in fact. It was a dark-painted, narrow room, remarkably bare, with comfortable chairs set at odd angles, as if Sethra preferred her guests not to look di­rectly at each other. As I was coming in, I heard what sounded like bare feet running away, and I almost thought I heard a giggle, but I didn’t give it too much of a thought. This was Dzur Moun­tain, where anything might happen and you could hurt your brain trying to figure out the little mysteries, let alone the big ones. I picked a chair and settled into it with a sigh.

Sethra’s servant, whose name was Tukko, showed up, glanced at me with an expression that fell somewhere between disdain and disinterest, and said, “Would you like something, Lord ‘altos?”

“No,” I said. In the first place, I had the feeling that I would neither eat nor move again as long as I lived. And in the second, I wanted nothing to interfere with what was still lingering on my tongue. “But can you tell me if Sethra is about?”

He grunted. “She’ll be along presently.”

Tukko shuffled off, fingers twitching, without giving any sign that he cared either way. He was slightly bent as he walked, and there was a twitch in his right shoulder as well as his fingers. Every once in a while I wondered if it was all an act; if the old bastard was actually in perfect health. I’d never seen any indica­tions of it, but I wondered from time to time. I closed my eyes and spent a while in happy reverie, recalling all of what Valabar’s had just done for me.

I heard Sethra’s footsteps, but didn’t open my eyes. I knew what she looked like well enough that the only question would be the expression on her face, and if I guessed somewhere be­tween sardonic amusement and mild surprise I’d probably have that down, too.

“Hello, Vlad. I hadn’t expected to see you back so soon.”

“I hope it isn’t a problem,” I said.

“Not in the least. How was Valabar’s?”

“You can’t improve upon perfection.”

“And you made good decisions?”

“Easy decisions, all of them.”

“I take it you decided to honor me with your presence while you recuperated?”

“Not exactly.” I hesitated, not sure quite what I wanted to say.

I opened my eyes. Sethra was in front of me, looking like Sethra. I was right about the expression, too. “You sent me protection.”

“Yes. I hope you aren’t offended.”

“You know me better than that.”

She nodded. “I trust he was a good dinner companion.”

“An interesting one, certainly.”

“Oh?”

“Dzurlords are more complex than I’d thought they were.”

“Vlad, everyone—”

“Yeah, I know. But still.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Many things. The food, for one. But also ... Sethra, you know Dzurlords.”

“I would say so, yes.”

“What I didn’t get is, I don’t know, how much work goes into it all.”

“Yes. Don’t feel bad, though. That confuses almost everyone who isn’t a Dzur. They think the Dzurlord only wishes for the ex­citement, or for the chance of a glorious death against impossible odds. As you say, it’s more complex.”

“Can you unravel the complexities?”

“Why the interest?”

“I don’t know. Your friend, or rather, student, Telnan—he in­terested me.”

She pulled one of her inscrutable Sethra smiles out of her pocket and put it on.

“So,” I said, “if it isn’t the excitement, or a chance for a glori­ous death, what is it?”

“Depends on the person. Some enjoy the righteous feeling of being in a small minority.”

“Yeah. Those are the ones I want to smack.”

“And some just want to do the right thing.”

“Lots of people want to do the right thing, Sethra. I try not to let them bother me too much.”

“Dzurlords won’t bother with the right thing unless everyone else is against it.”

“Hmmm. I’m surprised I didn’t see one or two defending the Easterners during the excitement a few years ago.”

“In fact, it wouldn’t have been impossible. What’s so funny?”

“The idea of the Dzur hero defending the Teckla. The Em­pire would have hated it, the Guards would have hated it, the House of the Dzur would have hated it, and the Teckla would have hated it.”

“Yes,” said Sethra. “That’s why it could have happened.”

I mulled that over, then, “So,” I said, “how is everyone else handling the aftermath of the excitement?”

“Who in particular?”

“Morrolan.”

“Living, breathing, and returned to Castle Black.”

“How did he take the news?”

“About Lady Teldra? Not well, Vlad.”

I nodded and touched my fingers to the hilt again. And again I felt something—a presence that was at once comforting and distant.

“And Aliera?”

“She left with Morrolan.”

I cleared my throat. “And the Empress?”

Sethra frowned. “What of her?”

“I was just wondering if she wanted to give me an Imperial dukedom for my heroic—”

“None of this is what you returned here for, Vlad.”

“Yeah.” Eventually I managed, “Something has come up.”

“Oh? Tell me.”

“I’m not certain I can.”

She nodded. “The Northwestern tongue—that is, what we are at present speaking—is a head-last uninflected language, not perfectly capable of expressing all the nuances of emotion and familial connection that, for example, Seriolaa is; yet it can express fine distinctions in its own right, and, with time, a skilled speaker can usually convey the sense of his intention.”

It took me a moment to realize that she was turning my bait; I suppose the meal had slowed my thinking some. Eventually, I said, “It’s a Jhereg matter, and a personal matter.”

Living as long as she had, she had somewhere learned the value of silence. I thought I had, too, but she was better at it than I was.

At last I said, “Cawti. South Adrilankha.”

“Ah,” she said. “Yes. I think, with what my sources in the Jhereg tell me, I can start to put it together.”

I didn’t make any remarks about what her “sources in the Jhereg” might be. She said, “How did you hear of it?”

“Mario,” I said.

She gave me an eyebrow. “I see.”

Of course, she must have made the same connection I did: Mario to Aliera to Norathar to Cawti; but she saw no reason to mention it. “What are you going to do?”

“I’d ask for your advice, except I don’t think you’d give me any, and I’m probably too stubborn to take it even if you did.”

“Correct on both counts. Have you been in touch with any of your people?”

“Sethra, you are my people now. You, and Morrolan, and Aliera. And Kiera, of course.”

Sethra Lavode looked vaguely uncomfortable for a moment. This doesn’t happen every day. “You must have some contacts in the Jhereg who are still willing to talk to you.”

“The ones I could trust are the ones I wouldn’t do that to.”

“Do what to?”

“Put in an awkward position by asking them to help me.”

“Even with information?”

I grunted. “I’ll think about it. Where did you find the Dzur?”

“Telnan? Iceflame found him.”

“Oh.”

“Or, rather, Iceflame found his weapon.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Yes, but I don’t want to tell you.”

“What if I torture it out of you?”

“That isn’t as funny as you think it is.”

“But you are resurrecting the Lavodes, it seems?”

“Slowly, yes. Why? Think they might be useful for your problem?”

I gave her a short laugh. Loiosh was strangely silent; I guess he knew what was going on better than I did. So did Sethra. Chances are, so did the owner of the pawnshop on Taarna Road. “So, how are you, Sethra?”

She said, “Vlad, I’ve been alive for a long, long time, however you choose to measure time.”

“Well, yes.”

“I have learned patience.”

“I imagine so.”

“I can sit here as long as necessary, but don’t you want to get around to asking about whatever it is that’s on your mind?” I sighed and nodded.

“Tell me about Cawti,” I said.

“Ahhh,” she said.

“You didn’t know what I was going to ask about?”

“I should have.”

I nodded.

“Well, what do you want to know, exactly?”

“Start with, how is her health?”

She frowned. “I don’t see her often. Fine, so far as I know.”

“Who does see her?”

“Norathar.”

“That’s all?”

“At least, among those I know.”

I nodded. “And who sees Norathar?”

“Aliera.”

“Okay. And I suppose, if I’m going to see Aliera, there’s no way to avoid Morrolan?”

“You wish to avoid Morrolan?”

I touched the hilt of Lady Teldra by way of explanation. As I did so, I felt something, like a pleasant breeze with a hint of the ocean blowing across the face of my soul. And, yes, I know how stupid that sounds. Well, you try getting that feeling and see if you can do a better job of describing it.

“If you’d like, I will ask the Lady Aliera if she is available to visit me.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

She nodded, and her face went blank for about a minute. “Well?” I said when she looked at me once more.

She nodded.

About two minutes later Aliera came floating into the room. Well, walking or floating or some combination; her gown, a sil­very one with black lacing about the neck and shoulders, dragged along the ground, so I couldn’t tell if her means of locomotion were a graceful walk or a jerky levitation. On her lips was a smile. At her side was Pathfinder. In her arms was a fluffy white cat.

She kissed Sethra on the cheek, then turned to me. “Hello, Vlad. How good to see you. How long has it been? Four, five hours?”

“Thanks for stopping by, Aliera. Did she tell you what I wanted to ask you about?”

“No,” they both said at once.

I nodded. “I need to find my ... I need to find Cawti.”

“Why?” said Aliera. She was still smiling, but a bit of frost had crept into her voice.

“Jhereg trouble,” I said. “You don’t want to know about it. You know, Dragon honor and all that.”

She ignored the barb and said, “Cawti is no longer involved with the Jhereg.”

“Actually, she is. That’s the trouble. Or maybe she needs to be involved in them to keep from being involved with them; that might be a better way to put it.”

She frowned. “Vlad—”

“Here it comes, Boss. Her hands would be on her hips if she weren’t holding that cat.”

“I know, I know.”

“You vanish for years, then suddenly show up, lose our friend’s soul in a weapon, make my mother fear for her existence, threaten the very fabric of creation, and now you want to stir up trouble be­tween the woman you walked out on and the gang of criminals she’s managed to extricate herself from? Is that what I’m hearing?”

Well, I suppose some of that was partly true, from a certain perspective. From my perspective, of course, it was so far wrong that you couldn’t find right on the same map.

“That’s about it, yes,” I said.

“Okay. Just checking,” said Aliera. She stroked her cat. Loiosh made some sort of remark in my head that didn’t quite form itself into words.

I said, “Does that mean you’ll tell me how I can reach Cawti?”

“No.”

I sighed.

“However,” she said. “I’ll let her know you wish to speak with her.”

“When?”

“Is it urgent?”

I started to say something witty, tossed it away, and said, “I’m not sure. There are things going on, and, well, they could take forever, or blow up an hour from now. That’s part of the problem; I don’t know enough.”

She nodded. “Very well. I’ll be seeing her and Norathar later this evening. I’ll mention it then. But how can she reach you when you’re wearing that, that thing you wear?”

She was referring, of course, to my Phoenix Stone, hanging from the chain about my neck. “If Sethra doesn’t mind, I’ll just stay here, and she can let Sethra know.”

Sethra nodded.

“Very well,” said Aliera. Then she said, “Sethra, there are things we should discuss.”

I moaned softly, and they both looked at me.

I said, “If you’re implying I should move, I’m not certain I can.”

Aliera frowned again; then her face cleared and she said, “Oh, Valabar’s. How was it?”

“Beyond all praise.”

“I should eat there sometime.”

She had never ... ? I stared at her, but words failed me. Maybe she was lying.

“Come, Aliera,” said Sethra. “Let’s take a walk.”

They did, and I took a nap, one of those naps where you don’t actually fall asleep, you just lie there, filled with food, a stu­pid smile on your face.

Yeah, sometimes I love life.

“Hello Vlad,” said Cawti. “I’m sorry to wake you, but I was told you wished to speak with me.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” I said.

“Of course not.”

She looked good. She’d gained a few pounds here and there, but they were pleasing pounds. She was wearing a gray shirt with long, sharp collars, and maroon trousers that tapered down to her pointed black boots. She carried a dagger with a plain leather-wrapped hilt, but no other weapons that I could spot. And I’m good at spotting weapons.

“Mind if I sit down?”

“Uh, I hadn’t known you needed my permission.”

Loiosh and Rocza were both twitching.

“Go ahead.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

He flew over to her hand and rubbed his face on hers. She smiled and said hello to him. After a moment, Rocza flew over and landed on her shoulder. She scratched and cooed at them. It was obvious she’d missed them. I could have felt good and sorry for myself if I’d wanted to.

She said, “I heard about your hand.”

I glanced at it. “From?”

“Kiera.”

I nodded. “Nice to know you’re still in touch with her.”

She nodded. “How did it happen, exactly?”

“Kiera?”

“The finger,” she said, without cracking a smile.

“I went back East for visit, and forgot to pack it when I returned.”

“Have you actually been back East again?”

I nodded. “I learned to ride a horse, but not to enjoy doing so.”

That got a bit of smile. Then she said, “So, what’s on your mind?”

“South Adrilankha.”

“You’ve heard about that?”

“Yeah.”

“From Aliera, no doubt.”

“Indirectly.”

“So, let me guess, you’re going to come into town and save me like a Dzur rescuing a helpless maiden.”

“That isn’t exactly what I had in mind.” Actually, it had been pretty much spot-on, damn her. “Are you going to claim that everything is fine, and you don’t need any help?”

“Just what help can you offer, Vlad? And I don’t mean that rhetorically.”

She called me “Vlad.” She used to call me “Vladimir.”

“I know people. Some of them will still be willing to do things for me.”

“Like what? Kill you? You know how much of a price the Jhereg has on your head?”

“Uh ... no. How much?” Odd that it hadn’t occurred to me to wonder at the exact amount.

“Well, I’m not sure, actually. A lot though.”

“I suppose. But, yeah, there are people I can ask questions of, at least.” Before she could answer, I said, “So, how are things with you?”

“Well enough. And you?”

I made a sort of non-committal sound. She nodded, and said, “Have I grown a wart?”

“Hm?”

“You keep looking at me, and then looking away.”

“Oh.”

Loiosh flew back to me. Cawti scratched Rocza behind the head. “You’re in trouble,” I said.

She nodded.

“I can help.”

“I hate that. What?”

“Nothing. I thought you’d been about to say ... never mind. The fact is, I can help.”

“I don’t hate you, Vlad.”

“Good. Does that mean I should go ahead?”

Tukko came in then, and asked if we wanted anything. We both said, “Klava,” and Cawti said, “Extra cream in his, but not much honey. You know how I take mine.”

Tukko grunted as if to say either he knew how we both took ours, or that we’d take them as he made them and be happy.

“I hate it that I need your help,” she said.

“You said that already. I understand.”

I got up and paced, because I think better that way. She said, “What is it, worried, or unhappy?”

“Because I’m pacing?”

“Because your shoulders are hunched forward, and you’re slouching. That means worried or miserable.”

“Oh.” I sat down again. But she could probably tell things about how I sat, too. “Both, I guess. Worried about whether you’ll let me help you, unhappy that you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t suppose I could convince you to charge me for the service?”

I started to laugh, then stopped. “Actually, yes. There is a fee I could suggest.”

She gave me the look someone gives you who knows you very well, and she waited.

“A piece of information,” I said.

“And that is?”

“Tell me what that look meant.”

“What look?”

“When I mentioned South Adrilankha.”

She frowned. “I can’t imagine what look I could have given you.”

“It looked like relief.”

“Relief?”

“Yes. Like you were afraid I was going to mention something else.”

“Oh,” she said.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

Tukko returned with our klava. Once, long ago, I had asked Sethra how old he was, and she’d said, “Younger than me.”

He set the klava down and turned away. I said, “Tell me, Tukko, how old is Sethra, exactly?”

“Younger than me,” he said, and shuffled out again. I should have predicted that.

Cawti drank some of her klava.

“Do you wish payment in advance?” she said at last.

“It doesn’t matter.”

She bit her lip. “What if I say it’s too much?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll do it anyway.”

She nodded. “Yes, I expected that’s what you’d say.” Loiosh rubbed his head against my neck.

Three sips (for her) later, she said, “All right. Go ahead.”

Suddenly, I had something to do. Maybe, if I were lucky, I’d have someone to kill. I felt better right away.

“Let’s start with names,” I said.

“Name,” said Cawti. “I only have one.”

“Madam Triesco.”

She stared at me. “Aliera didn’t know that.”

“I said the information came from her indirectly. My source—”

“Who?”

“Does it matter?”

She continued staring at me in that way she had—not squinting, but with her eyelids just a little lowered. I knew that look. “Okay,” I said. “It matters. But I’d prefer not to say just now.”

“Was it your friend Kiera?”

“As I said, I’d just as soon not say.”

After a moment, she gave me a terse nod. “Okay,” she said. “Yes. Triesco.”

“What do you know of her?”

“The name,” said Cawti.

“Do you know she’s Left Hand?”

She shrugged. “I assumed, just because it’s a she.”

“Okay. Where, exactly, do operations stand in South Adri­lankha?”

She winced. “Out of control,” she said.

“You have people?”

“No, I let them go. I tried to shut it down, and—”

“Yeah, I heard. Any of them you can get back aboard?”

“None that I’m willing to.”

I knew that tone; I didn’t even consider arguing. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll do a little checking around.”

“If you were to get yourself hurt doing this, I would hate it a lot.”

“So would I.”

“Don’t joke about it.”

“You know, that’s a much more difficult request than merely taking on the Left Hand of the Jhereg.”

A corner of her mouth twitched a bit.

“One small victory, Loiosh.”

“If you say so, Boss.”

She said, “I’ve been hearing stories.”

“Of?”

“You. Jenoine. Lady Teldra.”

Almost involuntarily, my hand brushed across the hilt of the long, slim dagger at my side. Yes, she was still there. “They’re prob­ably true,” I said. “More or less.”

“Is Lady Teldra dead?”

“Not exactly.”

She frowned.

“You were involved in a battle with Jenoine?”

“More of a scrap than a battle,” I said. “But yeah, I guess that part is true.”

“How did it happen?”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing. A series of accidents, I suppose.”

She drank some more klava, and gave me her slow, contem­plative look. “I’m not sure what to talk to you about anymore.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It shouldn’t be that difficult. Say something about oppressed Easterners to put me on the defensive. That should work.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything.

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe I should just be about this business. That will give you time to think up a subject of conversation.” She didn’t say anything.

I stood up. Even now, hours later and after a nap, it was some-thing of an effort. I hoped no one attacked me; I’d be slow.

“You’re always—”

“Shut up, Loiosh.”

“Okay, Cawti. I’ll be in touch.”

“Do,” she said.

I left the room without ceremony, or a backward glance, mostly because I didn’t trust myself to say anything. After a bit of search­ing, I found Tukko. “Would you be good enough to ask Sethra if she’ll do a teleport for me?”

He didn’t quite scowl.

I have a small backpack I travel with, which contains a spare shirt, some socks, undergarments, and a couple of different cloaks that I switch between depending on the weather and other fac­tors. I unrolled the gray one, and filled it with a few weapons that Morrolan had dug up for me the day before. I put it on, made sure it was hanging right, and took a deep breath.

Sethra came in and nodded to me. I took the amulet off and put it away.

“Good luck,” she said.

I nodded.

An instant later I was standing at the east end of the Chain Bridge, in South Adrilankha. 2. Garlic Bread

Mihi told me what Mr. Valabar had prepared that evening. Of course, that evening was early afternoon, but let’s not worry about trifles. It was house pepper stew, brisket of beef, Ash Mountain potatoes, roast kethna stuffed with Fenarian sausages, anise-jelled winneasourus steak, and triple onion beef. Then he stepped back a bit and waited. I had always been puzzled by this behavior, until I realized that he was giving us time to think about it, while being available to answer questions.

“What do you recommend?”Telnan asked me.

“Anything. It’s all good.”

I ate some of the garlic bread.

“Langosh” isn’t like anything else in the world. My grandfather makes it too. Loyalty demands I say my grandfather makes it better, but we won’t stress the point.

It consists of a small, round loaf of slightly, very slightly, sweet bread that has been deep-fried. It’s served with a clove of garlic. You bite the garlic in half, then coat the bread with it, burning your fingers just a little. Then you take a bite of the garlic, then you wait, and, as it’s exploding in your mouth, you take a bite of the bread. It’s all in the timing.

I decided on the brisket of beef, Telnan ordered the roast. We told Mihi, who smiled as if we were the cleverest two customers he’d ever had. Telnan studied my technique with the bread, copied it, and broke out in a delighted grin.

A Dzurlord with a big grin on his face. Very odd. But I was glad he liked the food.

“So,” I said, picking up the conversation from some time before. “You’re studying wizardry? Good. Maybe you can tell me just what a wizard is, then. I’ve been wondering for some time.”

He grinned like his schoolmaster had just asked him the very ques­tion he had prepared for. “Wizardry,” he said, “is the art of uniting with and controlling disparate forces of nature to produce results unavailable from, or more difficult to obtain with, any single arcane discipline.”

“Ah,” I said. “Well. I see. Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, sounding sincere. “What do you do?”

“Hmmm?”

“Well, I’m a wizard. What do you do?”

“Oh.” I thought about it. “I run in terror, mostly.”

He laughed. Evidently, he didn’t believe me. Probably just as well; if he had, he’d have been required to be scornful, and then I’d have been required to kill him, and Sethra might not like that. It did, however, effectively kill the conversation.

I took another bite of garlic, waited for the explosion, then the bread. Perfect. Each bite of garlic was like a new discovery, exciting even in its confusion; each bite of bread the epiphany that completes it. And the combination took me away from all that had happened in the last few years, and into that time when things were simpler. Of course, they were never really simpler, but, looking back on them now, my senses filled with garlic and fresh bread, it seems like things were simpler then.

Stepping off the Chain Bridge was also a step into the past, as it were. It made me think of a time before I had met Cawti, before I had begun working for the Jhereg, when I was just an Easterner, living along Lower Kieron Road, but walking across this bridge, or else along the waterfront to Carpenter, several times a week to visit my grandfather. My grandfather no longer lived here; now he lived in a manor house just outside of the town of Miska, near Lake Szurke. I’d visited him once a couple of years ago; I decided I should probably do so again, if I could get this matter settled without becoming dead.

My memory told me that all of South Adrilankha stinks all of the time. That isn’t really true. You have to reach the Eastern­ers’ quarter to get the smell, and the Easterners’ quarter is a large part of South Adrilankha, but by no means all of it.

I took the roads that were as familiar to my feet as langosh was to my tongue, though nowhere near as pleasant.

It was a little chilly in Adrilankha, but the cloak kept the ocean breeze off me. Loiosh and Rocza shifted on my shoulder; I could feel them looking around.

I tapped the hilt of my rapier, just to reassure myself that it was there. Lady Teldra hung just in front of it.

My boots were a fine, soft darr skin; quite comfortable, and good for walking across grasslands, and even feeling your way carefully along rocky mountain passes; but they didn’t suit the stone streets of Adrilankha. My old boots, however, were gone with my old life.

I made it to Six Corners, which is as much the heart of the Easterners’ district as anywhere, and looked around. I was sur­rounded by humans, by my own kind; I felt the easing of a tension I hadn’t known was there. Even being by yourself isn’t quite the same as having your own people around you.

Now, it’s never been all that clear who my own people are, but I’m telling it to you as it felt at the time.

Six Corners is, as they say, no place to found a dynasty. I’m told that, before the Interregnum, it was an area frequented by the higher class of merchant, but it was destroyed by fire and never rebuilt. As no one wanted it, the Easterners moved in, migrating from, well, from the East. After that, it was built up slowly and haphazardly; no one cared what happened there, or what things looked like. Or, for that matter, who did what to whom. The pa­trols by the Phoenix Guards were cursory during the day, and non-existent at night. Not, I suspect, because they were scared to be there; just because they didn’t much care what happened.

A few walls that had once been painted green, a roof that was sagging in the middle, and a doorway covered by a torn burlap cur­tain led the way into the abode of the finest bootmaker in South Adrilankha, maybe in the Empire. Since this wasn’t Valabar’s, Jakoub stared at me with undisguised astonishment, before say­ing, “Lord Taltos! You’re back!”

I agreed that I was. “How are things, Jakoub?” I knew it was a mistake the instant the words were out of my mouth.

“Well enough, Lord Taltos. We’ve had a bit of rain, you know, and that always means an increase in custom. And Nickolas in­jured his hand, a few weeks ago, and still isn’t able to work, so most of his regulars are coming to me now. Of course, Lady Ciatha has chosen to let half her land lie fallow for the season, so I’m not getting any—”

“Good to hear,” I said, before he could get really warmed up. He took the hint, praise be to Verra. “How are you, my lord?”

“Well enough, thanks.”

He glanced down at my feet. “What are those?”

“Darr skin,” I said. “I’ve been spending a lot of time walking through wilderness.”

“Ah, I see. And, because it’s the wilderness, your arches won’t collapse? Your heel won’t callus? Your instep—”

“Do you still have my measurements?”

He looked hurt. “Of course.”

“Then make me something suitable for travel outdoors or on paved streets.”

He looked thoughtful. “For the soles, I can—”

“I want to wear them, not hear about them.” I tossed him enough silver to make up for the second hurt look.

He cleared his throat. “Now, uh, your special needs ....”

“Not as much as in the past. Just a knife in each, about this size.” I made one appear and showed it to him.

“Can I keep it?”

I set it on the counter.

“Nothing else? Are you certain?”

“Nothing else for the boots, but I also need a new sheath for my rapier. The last one you made for me was, uh, damaged.”

He came around the counter, bent over, and inspected it. “It’s been horribly bent. And the tip’s been cut off. What happened?”

“It got stuck in me.”

He stared at me, I think wanting to ask how that had hap­pened but not daring. I said, “It was an apprentice physicker, and I have no clear memory of just what he did or why, but I guess it worked.”

“Eh ... yes, m’lord. The new sheath—”

“Use the same design.”

“And all of the additions?”

“May as well.”

“Very good, m’lord.” He bowed very low.

“How long will it take?”

“Four days.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Day after tomorrow.”

I nodded. “Good. Now let’s chat.”

“M’lord?”

“Close up the shop, Jakoub. We have to talk.”

He turned just the least bit pale, though I had never, in our long acquaintance, either harmed or threatened him. I guess word gets out. I waited.

He coughed, shuffled past me, and hung a ribbon across the door. Then he led the way into his back room, filled with leather, leather smells, oils, and oil smells.

Jakoub had a full head of black hair, brushed back like a Dra­gaeran trying to show off a noble’s point (which Jakoub didn’t have). I’ve never been able to determine if it’s a hairpiece, or his own hair that he dyes. He was missing a couple of lower teeth, which was made more noticeable by a protruding jaw. His eye-brows were wispy gray, in sharp contrast to his hair, and his ears were small. His fingers were short and always dirty.

He pulled out the one stool and offered it to me. I sat down. He said, “My lord?”

I nodded. “Who has been running things, Jakoub?”

“My lord?”

I gave him Patented Jhereg Look Number Six. He melted, more or less. “You mean, who collects for the game here?”

I smiled at him. “That is exactly what I mean, Jakoub. Well?”

“I deliver it to a nice young gentleman of your House. His name is Fayavik.”

“And who does he deliver it to?”

“My lord? I wouldn’t know—”

He cut off as I leaned toward him just a little.

Before I’d shown up to run things, Jakoub had had a piece of everything that happened around Six Corners, and had ears that extended even farther. His piece might be smaller now, but it was still there. And his ears would still be in place. I knew it, and he knew I knew it.

He nodded a little. “All right,” he said. “A few weeks ago, everything changed. More of you—that is, more Jhereg showed up, and—”

“Men or women?”

He frowned. “Men, m’lord.”

“All right.”

“And they started, well, just being around more. It made all of my friends nervous, so I started asking questions.”

“Uh huh.”

“It seems there was someone else in charge. Someone from the City.”

I nodded. “The City” was how people in South Adrilankha re­ferred to the part of Adrilankha north of the river. Or, well, west of the river.

“I’ve heard,” he said, “that there is some group called the Strangers Group that gets the money.”

“Named for Stranger’s Road, or some other reason?”

“Stranger’s Road. They work out of a private house there.”

“Whose house?”

“I don’t know.”

I gave him the narrowed-eyed quick glance, and he said, “I really don’t. It used to belong to an old lady named Coletti, but she died last year, and I don’t know who bought it.”

“Okay,” I said.

It’s funny how my mind works: it at once jumped to who I could get to bribe the appropriate clerk to check ownership rec­ords, forgetting that, well, I didn’t have any “who”s anymore. Af­ter being gone for years, I was only back for one day and I was thinking like a Jhereg again.

This could be good or bad.

All right, now I knew the place. What next? Check it out? Sure, why not? What could possibly happen?

“You’re starting to second-guess yourself, Boss. Careful.”

“Yeah. I’m not used to this sort of thing anymore. Crime requires constant practice.”

“Write that down to pass on to your successors. In the meantime—”

“Yeah.” Point taken.

“What about collections?”

“My lord?”

“Do runners go to them, or do they send a bagman?”

“Oh. Runners go to the house. That’s what I do.”

“Are runners going there every day, or just once a week?”

“Every day, m’lord.”

I nodded and considered a bit more. They certainly weren’t making a secret of what they were up to. Did they want someone coming after them, or was it just that they felt so secure that they didn’t care? Or were they doing it in order to be seen to be doing it?

That way lieth the headache.

“Okay,” I said. “Oh. About those boots ....”

“Yes, m’lord. Warm in the cold, but let the air in. Soft, com­fortable above all, good support. I can put in enchantments to ward against blisters as well. That will help when you break them in.”

I nodded.

“Day after tomorrow, my lord.”

I touched the hilt of Lady Teldra and gave him as warm a smile as I could manage, which probably wasn’t very. Hey, I get credit for trying, don’t I?

Jakoub held the curtain aside for me. Loiosh flew out and scanned the area quickly, let me know it was safe, then returned to my shoulder as I stepped outside. The curtain closed behind me, taking away the smells of leather and oils and returning the smells of South Adrilankha, about which the less said the better.

The walk to Stranger’s Road was short. I stopped in front of a dirty gray pawnshop forty or fifty yards shy of the place, and looked it over. The house was a three-story old red stonework thing, with a wraparound wooden porch that seemed to have been an after-thought. It had a pair of glass windows on each of the first two floors, and a single one on the top story.

I leaned against the pawnshop and practiced patience. It was evening, just shy of darkness. Over at Six Corners, things would be just starting to get busy with the usual nighttime activity; here there were few pedestrians, just an old man walking a short, ugly dog and a few children kneeling on the street intent on some game or another.

“Loiosh?”

“We’re on our way.”

They left my shoulders and flew up, making a spiral above the house, then slowly circling around it, lower, then lower again, then returned.

“No activity, Boss. And all the windows are curtained.” He sounded mildly offended.

“I’ll speak to them about that.”

The “no activity” part changed abruptly. The door opened, and someone in Jhereg gray—someone Dragaeran and female—stepped onto the porch. She stood there, with something like a rod in her right hand, and looked about the street. I pulled myself in close to the pawnshop, so I could no longer see the house, which meant she couldn’t see me. Loiosh peeked his head out from around the corner.

“What’s she doing, Loiosh?”

“Just looking around. Oh, and now she’s making gestures with that stick.”

“What sort of gestures?”

“Small ones. She makes a little circle, changes direction a bit, then—she’s moving around the side of the porch now. She’s out of sight.”

“Well, I think we’ve established two things, at any rate. The Left Hand is, indeed, controlling this area, and they can tell when I’m nearby. Unless you want to chalk it up to coincidence that she came out right now.”

“How could they tell, Boss? They shouldn’t be able—”

“Lady Teldra,” I said.

“Oh.”

Even I am aware whenever a Morganti weapon is nearby, un­less it is in a sheath that dampens the psychic effect of the thing. With a weapon as powerful as Lady Teldra, yeah, any skilled sor­cerer would be sensitive enough to at least be aware that there was something in the area.

“You know, Boss, this is going to mess with your general sneakiness.”

“Yep. I’ll have to see about an improved scabbard for her, or something.”

“Another one just came out. Time to make an exit?”

“Or an entrance.”

“Boss?”

“Don’t worry. It’s tempting, but not yet. I need to know more.”

“Good. I was going to start worshiping Crow.”

“Crow?”

“His dominion is things that fall?”

“Where did you pick up that bit of information?”

“A few minutes ago, passing by a shrine. I heard some people talking.”

“I never knew?”

“You’re pretty distracted.”

“I prefer to call it ‘concentrating.’”

“Whatever you say, Boss.”

“Okay, let’s move.”

We didn’t speak during the long walk across the river. I suppose the visit had been productive; I’d at least confirmed that the Left Hand was, indeed, running things. And I’d ordered boots and a new scabbard for my rapier.

I walked along the right-hand side of the Chain Bridge while the water swirled under me. I glanced upriver, speculating on who and what might live there; all of those people being born, living, and dying along its banks. Maybe, if I lived through this, that’s where I’d go next; just follow the river and see where it brought me. The East Bank, of course.

When the two miles or so of the bridge were behind me, I found a cabriolet and had myself brought north to a district that overlooked the docks. A few miles away, on the other side of the river, were the slaughterhouses; on this side were houses: public, private, and ware, as well as the stalls of the poorer craftsmen and the shops of the more prosperous ones.

It was becoming dark as I entered a house whose sign de­picted a ship’s lantern hanging from a mast. There would, I sus­pected, be a lot of Orca in here. There were a lot of Orca in all the taverns in this part of Adrilankha, so it wasn’t a terribly daring guess.

It was a long, narrow room. I spotted a door on the far end that would, no doubt, lead to smaller rooms. Near the door was a small raised area for musicians. And standing near it was a pale-looking Dragaeran in blue and white, holding some sort of instru­ment with lots of strings and an oddly curved body.

Years before I had made a deal with the Minstrels’ Guild; expensive, but one of the smarter things I’d done. You don’t need to hear the whole conversation. I showed him a ring I carry, asked him a couple of questions, got a couple of answers, and slipped him some coins. Then it was out the door quickly, before some of those looks I was getting from the assembled Orca turned themselves into action which would result in more attention than I cared for.

I followed the musician’s directions, which took me west a bit less than a mile. I want to say something like, “No one tried to kill me,” just to let you know that the whole being killed thing was never far from my mind; but it’ll be played out pretty fast, so if I don’t say anything about it, you can assume I didn’t get killed.

This house, marked by a newly painted sign showing a sleeping dog, was a bit larger than the last and more nearly square. The stage was off to the left, and the fellow I was looking for was stand­ing next to it, holding a wide, curved drum.

“Aibynn,” I said after the twenty steps or so between the doorway and the stage.

He blinked a couple of times, as if the word were in some for­eign language, then gave me a smile. “Hey, Vlad,” he said. “I got a new drum.”

“Yeah,” I told him. “That’s why I came back.”

“Oh? You’ve been away?”

“Uh, yeah.”

Aibynn was thin even for the thin Dragaerans, and as tall as Morrolan. He was not native to the Empire; I’d met him on an island while involved in a complicated business involving a god, a king, an empress, political conspiracies, and other sundry enter­tainments. Of all the Dragaerans I’d ever met, he was the one I understood the least, but also one of the few I was certain had no interest in using me for his purposes.

We found a table and sat down. A barmaid gave him something clear, batted her eyelashes at him, and then remembered to ask if I wanted anything. I didn’t.

Aibynn said, “You sticking around for the show? I’m playing with this guy—”

“Probably not,” I said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t actually like music.”

“Yeah, neither do I,” said Aibynn.

“No, I mean it,” I said.

He nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

Aibynn was a musician. I wasn’t.

I said, “It’s not like I’m tone-deaf or anything. And, I mean, there are some things I like. Simple tunes, that you can hum, with words that are kind of clever. But most things that people call real music—”

“Yeah,” said Aibynn. “Sometimes I want to be just done with the whole thing.” As he spoke, his fingers were drumming on the tabletop. I don’t mean tapping, like I might do if I were bored, I mean drumming—making complex rhythms, and doing rolls, and frills. He seemed entirely unaware of what his fingers were doing. But then, Aibynn usually seemed entirely unaware of most of what was going on.

“I don’t think he’s going to get it, Boss,” said my familiar.

“I think you’re right, Loiosh.”

“Anyway,” I said, “I actually came because there are some questions I wanted to ask you.”

“Oh.” He said it as if it had never before occurred to him that he might know the answer to any conceivable question. “All right.”

“You used to go to South Adrilankha fairly often. Do you still?”

His eyes widened slightly, but from him that didn’t mean much. “Yes, I do. The Easterners have an instrument called—”

“Is this guy bothering you?”

We both glanced up. A particularly ugly specimen of Orca­hood was speaking to Aibynn. Funny how differently people react to you when you aren’t dressed as a Jhereg.

Aibynn frowned at the fellow, as if he had to translate. I reached for my rapier, but my hand came in contact with the hilt of Lady Teldra instead. I leaned back in my chair, and waited for Aibynn to answer.

He said, “No, no. We’re friends.”

The Orca gave him an odd look, started to say something, then shrugged and shuffled off. Five years ago, there would have been blood on the floor. Ten years ago, there would have been a body. I guess I’d changed.

I returned my attention to Aibynn.

“Do you know the area called Six Corners?”

He nodded. “I used to play at a place there called, uh, I don’t know what it’s called. But, yeah.”

“Good. That was going to be my next question.”

“What was?”

“Never mind. Tell me about the place.”

“Well, the acoustics are really nice because—”

“No, no. Uh ...”

Eventually I managed to get the information I wanted, and even to communicate what I wanted him to do. He shrugged and agreed because he had no reason not to. I got out of the place without any untoward incidents, and slipped around behind it to give myself time to figure out my next move.

“Think that’s going to do any good, Boss?”

“Any reason not to have it set up, just in case?”

“Well, no, I guess not. Rocza is hungry.”

“Already?”

“Boss, it’s been hours.”

“But it was Valabar’s. Doesn’t that count extra?”

“I’m sure it does in some ways—they’ve found you, Boss?”

“Huh?”

“Boss, someone just found you.”

“How ... what?”

“I don’t know. I felt something. You’re being looked at.”

“Through you?”

“I don’t know?”

As we were talking, I was moving—walking as quickly as I could without appearing to rush. I passed a few tradesmen and Teckla, none of whom paid any attention to me. I turned right onto a street whose name I didn’t know.

I carried a charm that prevented anyone from finding me by sorcery. I was also protected against witchcraft, just on the off-chance the Jhereg would use it. There are other arcane disciplines, to be sure, but could they be used to track me? I wished I knew more.

Sethra Lavode had once located Loiosh. That was one possi­bility. But there weren’t many Sethra Lavodes in the world. Could they have tracked Lady Teldra, even inside her sheath? If I were given to muttering, I’d have muttered.

Loiosh and Rocza took off from my shoulders, to keep an eye on things from above, and so that, if it was Loiosh who had been located, I wouldn’t be in his immediate proximity. I guess it was having the Bitch Patrol on my mind, but I kept seeing visions of some sorceress showing up in front of me and blasting me to pieces before I could move.

Okay, I had three choices. I could find an alley where they had to come at me from one direction, and wait. I could gamble that I could remove the amulet and complete a teleport before they showed up. Or I could keep moving until I thought of something else.

I went for option three.

I took another street to the left, and wished I still had Spellbreaker.

Well, that was silly. I did still have Spellbreaker.

I reached past my rapier, gripped Lady Teldra, and drew her. Then I stared at her.

Like me, she had changed. 3. Shamy

I slipped Loiosh and Rocza the remains of the bread (neither expressed any interest in the garlic) as Mihi brought the shamy. I’ve never come across shamy anywhere but Valabar’s, and I have no clue how it is made. It is mostly ice, crushed or chopped very fine, flavored, and with, well, with something else in there so it holds together. Maybe a cream of some kind, maybe egg. The flavor is very subtle, but reminds me of certain wines that Morrolan favors—wines that tingle on your tongue. Shamy has no such tingle, but it does have just a bit of the flavor.

“Who was that fellow, Vlad?”

“Hmmm?”

“That fellow who came in before and sat with us.”

“Oh. That was Mario.”

“I got his name, but who is he?”

“Mario Greymist. You never heard of him?”

He shook his head.

“He, uh ... he’s a Jhereg.”

“I saw that. But I was polite to him. Did you notice?”

“Yes. It showed great restraint.”

Telnan smiled.

“You notice I kept my face straight, Loiosh?”

“Yeah, Boss. It showed great restraint.”

“So, why would I have heard of him?”

“The story is, he assassinated the Emperor right before the Inter­regnum.”

“Oh! That Mario.” He frowned. “I thought he’d been killed.”

“I guess not. Or else it didn’t take.”

He nodded.

The shamy melted on my tongue, taking with it the taste of the garlic, but not the memory.

The idea, as Vili explained it to me long ago, is to keep your mouth from lingering too long on what has just happened; to prepare your senses for what comes next.

Telnan seemed to like it. I know I did.

A good meal, you see, is all about unexpected delight: it’s one thing for food to simply “taste good,” but a real master can make it taste good in a way that surprises you. And for that to work, you have to start from a place where you can permit yourself to be surprised. And, in­terestingly enough, the person eating has to cooperate for that to really be successful.

I’m a decent cook. I’m an outstanding eater.

For a long time—say, three or four seconds—I forgot that I was being pursued, and just stared at Lady Teldra; even the sensations that rushed through me from having her in my hand took second place to looking at her.

A long, long time ago—about thirteen hours, more or less—I had held in my hand a long, slim Morganti knife, and with it, I had undergone, uh, certain experiences that had transformed it into what those with a flair for the over-dramatic called Godslayer and I called Lady Teldra. But it had been a long, slim Mor­ganti dagger.

She didn’t feel any different; she still caressed my hand the way shamy caressed my tongue. But she was no longer a long knife; now she was a smaller knife, about ten inches of blade, wide, with a slight curve to her; a knife-fighter’s weapon. I’m no knife-fighter. Well, I mean, I can defend myself with one if I have to, but—

“Boss!”

Someone was standing about thirty yards in front of me. How she’d gotten there, I don’t know; there is slight shimmering in the air the instant before an individual arrives from a teleport, and a sort of aura effect for a second or two afterward. I didn’t see anything like that. Maybe I was distracted by staring at Lady Teldra. But there she was, in Jhereg gray, and she was pointing a finger at me, as if accusing me of something.

There was this knife in my hand. I couldn’t reach her from here, and if there was ever a knife that wasn’t designed to be thrown, this curving thing was it. So I spun it in my hand, which I’d learned as a trick for impressing girls back when impressing girls was the entire goal of my life. Once, twice around, much like in the old days, when I’d had a gold chain I’d called Spellbreaker, and a very familiar tingle ran up my arm, just like the old days. Two spins, then I held it out in front of me, and the sorceress crumbled and dropped to the ground.

There were wisps of smoke coming from her clothing. My goodness.

I wasn’t exactly sure what had happened, but whatever it was, I felt neither the deep weariness that accompanies witchcraft, nor the momentary disorientation that often goes with casting a sor­cerous spell.

“Boss, what just happened?”

“I didn’t get killed.”

“Okay, I think I understand that part.”

“Beyond that, I’m not sure. Except I’d like to get somewhere safe.”

“Good thinking, Boss. Dzur Mountain?”

“Just my thought.”

I stared at Lady Teldra, then glanced at the sheath. It had changed too; it looked just right to accommodate a curved knife with about an eleven-inch blade. I put the one into the other and resolved not to think about it just then. I removed the amulet from around my neck, put it into the box I carried at my hip, shut the box, and performed the teleport as quickly as possible without risking turning myself into little pieces of Easterner scattered all over the landscape.

It was chilly on Dzur Mountain, but once the amulet was around my neck again, I felt safe.

The door was unlocked. I let myself in and eventually made my way to the sitting room. I badly wanted something to drink, but there was no sign of Tukko. I sat down and considered what had just happened, and what I had yet to do, and all I didn’t know. In particular, all those things I didn’t know that might make the difference between living and dying.

In the midst of my pondering, Sethra came in.

I stood up. “Sorry, Sethra. I had some trouble and needed a place—”

“You know you are welcome here, Vlad.”

“Thank you. Uh ...”

“Yes?

I cleared my throat. “Do you know how, uh, how I might be able to reach Kiera the Thief?”

She raised both eyebrows. I didn’t answer all the questions she didn’t ask.

After a moment, she gave an almost imperceptible shrug, and said, “I expect her to be by shortly.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“For what?”

There was no possible way to answer that, so I didn’t. Sethra left, and I sat there being bored and restless for about half an hour. I passed the time as well as I could by recalling details of the meal at Valabar’s, at the end of which time Kiera slid into the room.

“Hello, Vlad.”

“Kiera. I appreciate you stopping in to see me.”

“It was no trouble; I was in the neighborhood. I assume you wish something stolen?”

“Actually, no. Not this time.”

“Then what’s on your mind?”

“The Left Hand of the Jhereg.”

“Oh? You thinking of joining?”

“Not this week. But I think one of them just tried to send me to that place from which none return except for those who do.”

“Hmmm. You’ve annoyed someone.”

“I’ve annoyed just about everyone in the Jhereg. That is, our side. Would the Left Hand care?”

She frowned. “Now that, Vlad, is a splendid question.”

“Hey, thanks. Now I feel all smart.”

“I don’t know as much about the relationship between the two organizations as you might think I do.”

“You know more than I do; that’s good for a start. For exam­ple, you just spoke of two organizations; they really are entirely separate?”

She nodded.

I said, “What about the Imperial Representative?”

“Officially, he represents the House, not any organization.”

“And unofficially?”

“I.’m not sure. He may represent both sides, or the Left Hand may have another representative in the Palace that I don’t know about.”

“If he represents both sides, that would explain why the Left Hand just tried to kill me. The—”

“You’re sure it was them?”

“Female, Jhereg colors, sorcerous attack.”

“That’s pretty conclusive, yes.”

“So either they want me for the same reason the Jhereg wants me, someone in the Jhereg hired them, or they already know what I’m up to, which is awfully fast work.”

“What you’re up to?”

“Uh ... yeah. I may be bumping heads with them over South Adrilankha.”

“Ah. I see. When did this come up?”

“A few hours ago. I got a, uh, request.”

“And you’ve already been attacked? By a sorceress?”

“Yes.”

“What happened? How did the attack take place?”

“I don’t know, a spell of some kind.” I shrugged. “Lady Teldra handled it.”

She frowned. “Lady Teldra? But I heard she—”

I tapped the weapon. I kept expecting Kiera to know things she couldn’t, even though she did.

She nodded. “Ah. Yes, that’s right. I heard something about that.”

“In any case, I find that I need to know more about the Left Hand than I do. One way or another, I seem to be involved with them.”

She nodded. “I wish I could tell you more.” She frowned. “Well, as you said, the attack on you may have simply been hired, by the Council. You know the Left Hand does that.”

“Yes, I know. It’s possible. Only the Council wants it Morganti.”

She shuddered. “Yes, that’s true. And, so far as I know, there’s no way to achieve that effect with sorcery.”

“I’m sure some Athyra somewhere is working on it.”

“No doubt. But in the meantime, we’ll assume it wasn’t at the order of the Council.”

I liked it that she’d said “we.” That was first hopeful thing I’d heard in some time. A lovely word, “we.”

Tukku finally showed up, and set something recently dead on a table in the corner. My familiars flew over and began eating. I hadn’t mentioned anything about them being hungry to either Sethra or Kiera, and I hadn’t seen Tukko. Sometimes I wonder about these people.

Then he asked us if we wanted anything. “No, thank you, Chaz,” said Kiera. I asked for wine. He shuffled off.

“The Left Hand,” she said softly, almost under her breath. “I’ve tried to stay away from them, you know.”

“Me, too,” I muttered.

“They began recently, as I understand it. That is, recently in terms of Imperial history. Perhaps in the Fourteenth Athyra Reign, when sorcery took such large leaps, and when the Jhereg—­the Right Hand, if you would—was relatively impoverished.”

I nodded, and listened.

“Five women, sorceresses, started it. The odd thing is, they were not women associated with the Organization before, as far as I know.”

“Interesting.”

“Yes. Why women? I don’t really know. I’m inclined to think it was more than coincidence, but I’ve never heard a good expla­nation for what else it could be.”

Tukko showed up, set a glass of wine down next to me, and

“Moreover,” she continued, “they were not Jhereg. I mean, not only were they not in the Organization, they weren’t even in the House.”

“Eh?”

“I believe two were Athyra, two were Dragons, one a Dzur.”

“But—”

“All thrown out of their Houses, of course, once their activities were discovered.”

“And, what, they bought Jhereg titles?”

She nodded. “They’d been working together, studying, and so on, and their work led them into illegal areas. Pre-Empire sorcery, and a few other things the Empire isn’t fond of.”

“And they weren’t arrested?”

“They were. And tried. That’s mostly how I know about it, it was a very famous trial.”

“Well?”

She shrugged. “The Empire was unable to prove their guilt, they were unable to prove their innocence. So they were all ex­pelled from their respective Houses, and were given various pun­ishments from branding to flogging. Of course, without proof of guilt, they could not be put to death.”

“Right. And so, they just went back to work?”

“One of the Athyra, the leader, I believe, suggested they join House Jhereg, and tried to interest the higher-ups in the idea that there was money to be made in illegal sorcery. Those who ran the Jhereg weren’t interested, but she kept trying until she died. Then—”

“Died? How, exactly?”

“Indigestion.”

“Uh huh. Arranged by whom?”

“No one. It really was just indigestion.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not at all. Chronic indigestion, of all the deaths there are, and no other.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. And, after she died—”

“Let me guess: The remaining four gave up on joining the Jhereg, and just set up on their own. I see.”

She nodded. “Exactly right. And they’ve been around ever since.”

“What a charming story.”

“They have their own structure, about which I know nothing. And their own enforcement arm, about which I know little. And, really, they have almost nothing in common with our side.”

“Except that they’ve taken over South Adrilankha.”

“Yes. Which makes no sense to me. I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

“Well, what is the gossip about it in the Jhereg? I mean, in the Right Hand.”

“No one has ever heard of anything like it. Everyone is upset, and no one is too certain what to do about it, if anything.”

I nodded. “If anything. Okay, seems like I’ve landed in the middle of something interesting, doesn’t it?”

“As usual.”

“As usual.”

“Is there talk of war?”

“War? You mean, between the Left Hand and the Right Hand? No, there’s no talk; everyone is too scared of it happening to talk about it.”

I sipped my wine. I don’t recall what it tasted like.

“So, I need to find out what they’re after in South Adrilankha. And I need to do it without any way to get inside information on them, and while both sides of the Jhereg want me dead. Is that pretty much it?”

“Sounds like it, yes.”

I drank some more wine. “No problem.”

“Would you like some help?”

“Thanks, Kiera, but this is likely to be ... no thanks.”

She nodded. “So, what’s your plan?”

“Plan. Yes. Good idea. I should come up with a plan.”

“How about the one where you stumble around until something happens, Boss? And then you almost get killed, and have to be rescued by—”

“How about the one where you shut up and let me think.”

He could have made a number of responses to that, I suppose, but he just let it lie.

“So, Kiera, if you needed to find out what was going on in the Left Hand, how would you go about it?”

She frowned. “I have no idea.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“What are you thinking, Vlad?”

“Thinking? I’m trying to figure out what to do.”

“I’m just wondering if ...?”

“Yes?

“If you’re going to do something foolish.”

“Me?”

“Uh huh.”

“What I’m going to do, is try to learn something about what I’m up against. Once I know, I’ll be able to figure out if there is a sensible way to go about doing what I have to do.”

“And if there isn’t?”

“I assume the question is rhetorical.”

She sighed and stood up. I stood as well, and sketched her a sort of bow.

“Thanks for taking the time, Kiera.”

She smiled—a distinctly Kiera smile, that didn’t look like anyone else’s. “You’re most welcome, Vlad. Be careful.”

“Yes. I’ll try.”

She drifted out. I sat down and realized that I’d finished my wine. There was no sign of Tukko. I cursed.

“Yeah, Boss. It’s rough when you have a city full of sorceresses try­ing to kill you, and you have no idea what they want or what they can do but you have to stop it, and there’s no one around to bring you more wine.”

“Exactly!”

By the time Tukko showed up again, I hadn’t solved the other problems, but shortly thereafter I had more wine. This didn’t cheer me up as much as it might have.

Presently Sethra returned. “Did you see your friend?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And was she helpful?”

“Somewhat.”

She nodded.

“Tell me something, Sethra. Does Iceflame ever, uh, change?”

“In what sense?”

“In any sense.”

“Certainly. My weapon—” she touched the blue hilt at her waist—“is very sensitive on certain levels, and will respond to a number of different ...” Her voice trailed off. “I believe you lack the vocabulary.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I do.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Earlier, when I was attacked, I drew Lady Teldra, and she was different.”

Sethra frowned. “Different how?”

“Size. Shape. Weight. She was a small curved knife.”

“Now that is interesting,” said Sethra.

“I thought so, too.”

“Judging by the shape of the sheath, she isn’t anymore.”

“No, at some point she changed back. I didn’t notice either change. The sheath changed as well.”

“The sheath changed?”

“Yes, to fit the new shape of the weapon.”

“Where did you get the sheath?”

“The Jenoine gave me the knife in the sheath.”

She considered. “The most obvious explanation ... would you mind removing your amulet for a moment?”

“Uh, sure.” I did so. “What are you doing?”

What she was doing was making small, subtle gestures in my direction. Then she shook her head.

“No,” she said. “So far as I can tell, you’ve had no illusion cast on you.”

“Well, that’s good.” I replaced the amulet.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Vlad.”

“Okay.”

“Well, I can tell you one thing, as a piece of advice.”

“Oh?”

“Keep that amulet on.”

“Uh, I do.”

“During those few seconds you just had it off, someone attempted a sighting.”

“Oh, good. Did it succeed?”

“I can’t be sure, but I think so.”

“Great. So they know where I am.

“They’ll not find it easy to get to you while you’re here, you know.”

“That’s something, anyway.”

“But—”

“Yes?”

“Vlad, consider what it means that, just in those few seconds, they found you. They are very, very determined.”

“Yeah. Well, that just brightens the hell out of my life.” She let a smile flick over her lips, probably for form’s sake. “What could you tell about the sighting?”

“It was sorcerous.” She shrugged. “Fairly straightforward.”

“Dzur Mountain has no protections against that sort of thing?”

“I’ve never needed any.”

“Uh. I suppose not.”

“I’ve never seen you do that before, Vlad.”

“What?”

“Chew on your thumb.”

“Oh. I must have picked up the habit from my friend Kiera. She does that when she’s thinking.”

“Ah,” said Sethra. “I see.”

That was utterly untrue, and Sethra knew it, but she couldn’t admit she knew it.

“You’re a real bastard, Boss.”

“Uh huh.”

“Speaking of the amulet ...”

“Yes?”

“How strong is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“How much protection does it give me? I mean, could you blast through it, with sheer strength?”

She frowned. “I’m not sure. Shall I try?”

“Uh, no thanks.”

“All right.”

I cleared my throat. “We were discussing Lady Teldra.”

“We were?”

“I was. Or, rather, Great Weapons in general. It’s slowly dawn­ing on me that I have one.”

“Yes, you do indeed.”

“Ummm ... what can they do?”

She frowned. “They are different, of course.”

“Yes, but they have certain things in common.”

She nodded. “They can all kill Jenoine. Also, gods.”

“Right. Well, killing gods and Jenoine is not a big priority in my life. What else?”

“They will act to preserve your soul, and possibly your life.”

“Possibly?”

“Possibly. But, in your position, with what the Jhereg wants to do to you, a weapon that will preserve your soul should be of some comfort.”

“True enough. You said ‘act to preserve.’ There’s an implica­tion there it will try.”

“Yes.”

“How reliable is that? I mean, can I count on it?”

“Well, if you know it’s coming, and the weapon has time to prepare, it’s more likely. You remember the incident with Aliera in Castle Black.”

“It would be hard to forget.”

“But don’t bet your life on it. I know of at least three times when the wielder of a Great Weapon had his soul taken by a Mor­ganti weapon.”

“All right.”

“Also ... I’m not certain exactly how to say this.” She chewed on her lower lip. I keep forgetting how sharp her teeth are. “Also, by possessing a Great Weapon, you have a connection, if you will, to something that goes beyond this world. Does that make any sense?”

“I’m not sure. You mean, another world in the sense that the Necromancer means it?”

“Do you understand how the Necromancer means it?”

“Well, no.”

“I mean something that you might term ‘fate.’”

“I hate that word,” I said.

“I’ll try to find another, if you like. It refers—”

“I hate the whole concept behind it, so another word won’t help. It implies that I’m not free to do as I wish.”

“It isn’t that simple,” said Sethra.

“Nothing ever is.” I sighed. “I really just want to know what I can expect from Lady Teldra. What she might do, what I can try with her that I couldn’t before, what chances it might be reasonable to take with her that I wouldn’t have taken before.”

“Oh? Are there chances you wouldn’t have taken before?”

“Funny, Sethra.”

She shrugged. “As for your weapon, well, there are stories and legends, but I don’t actually know anything.”

“Leaving me pretty much where I was before.”

“I’m afraid so. Although—”

“Yes?”

“I’ve never heard anything that would account for the strange behavior you referred to.”

“Wonderful. Well, would you care to let me in on the stories and legends?”

“Are you sure you want to know? The things I’ve heard all have to do with destiny.”

“Wonderful. Yeah, I guess I’d like to know anyway.”

“Very well. The weapon is supposed to destroy Verra.”

I nodded. What with one thing and another, that didn’t surprise me.

“Hmmm. Sethra, could the Jenoine know about that?”

“Certainly, Vlad.”

“Okay, that would explain a couple of things. Anyway, what else?”

“There is also something I heard years ago, all wrapped in metaphor, that implies Godslayer is designed to, uh, cut out the diseased flesh in the world.”

“Okay, well, that’s clear enough. Any idea what it means?”

“Not really.”

I sighed. “Okay, mind if I change the subject?”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you know anything about the Left Hand of the Jhereg?”

“I thought you wanted to change the subject.”

“Eh?”

“Never mind; it was a joke.” She considered. “I’ve had a few encounters with the Left Hand over the years.”

“What can you tell me?”

“They’re very secretive, as you probably know.”

“Yes.”

“They do have magic no one else has. I know that the Athyra in particular are always attempting to insinuate someone into their organization, just to discover how some of their spells operate.”

“Attempting?”

“They haven’t had much success, so far.”

“So far is a long time, Sethra.”

“Well, yes. From what I’ve picked up, those in the Jhereg—­that is, the Left Hand—rarely even tell each other how to perform some of the more obscure and difficult magics.”

“I think I might have seen one of those.”

“Oh?”

“You know how much I know of sorcery, so I could be wrong, but the one who attacked me, when she appeared, well, it didn’t look like any teleport I’ve seen before.”

“Interesting. What was different about it?”

I described what I’d seen, and what I hadn’t seen, as best I could. Sethra looked thoughtful.

“I don’t know what that could be. I wish I did.”

“If you ask nicely, maybe she’ll teach you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Would you like to sleep here tonight?”

“Please, and thank you. And, yeah, I’m pretty tired. It’s been quite a day.”

She nodded. “Tukko will show you to your room.”

Tukko appeared and led me to a room where once I had awoken after death; he left a candle burning and shut the door. I laid myself down in a very soft bed—the kind that wraps you up like a blan­ket. Not my favorite sort of bed, but I appreciated the feeling just then.

The only decoration in the room was a painting, which showed a battle between a jhereg and a dzur, in which they both looked pretty banged up. I’d never seen a jhereg like that in real life; it was smaller than the giant ones that hover near Deathgate Falls, but much larger than any of those that scavenge in the jungles and forests and even sometimes in Adrilankha. Maybe the nameless artist had never seen a real one. I couldn’t say about the dzur, I’d never seen one close up. Nor was I in any special hurry to; they were larger than the tiassa, black, wingless, and, by all reports, very fast. And they had claws and teeth and were reputed to fear nothing.

Things that fear nothing scare me.

When I’d studied the painting before, I had been pulling for the jhereg to win. Now I wasn’t sure. Now maybe I was for the dzur.

I blew out the candle, and let a good night’s sleep clear my mind the way a good shamy will clear the tongue. 4. Mushroom-Barley Soup

There were several different soups that could have appeared at this point, of which I passionately enjoyed all except the beet soup. Today was one of my favorites; I smelled the mushroom-barley before Mihi arrived with it. The bowls were wide, white, and there was wonderful steam coming out of them.

Valabar’s mushroom-barley soup is something I can almost build. At least, I can come closer to achieving the right effect than I can with most of their menu.

First, I quarter a whole chicken. Then I throw the carcass into a pot with onion, garlic, celery, salt, pepper, and a bit of saffron. I clean the stock and dust it with powdered saffron. I cook the barley in the same pot (which took me a bit to figure out) , and throw in some chopped garlic and shallots that I’ve sauteed in rendered goose fat un­til they’re clear, and wood mushrooms, nefetha mushrooms, or long mushrooms, whatever looked good at the market that day. Then I just cook it until it reduces.

That’s almost like Valabar’s. I’ve never quite identified the differ­ence. I mean, I’ve found some of it. I tried sea-salt instead of mined salt, and got closer. Then I used white pepper instead of black pepper, and that helped too. I had to play with the amount of saffron, and I think I finally got it about right. But there’s still something that isn’t quite the same. It might be how they saute the onions: a subtle differ­ence in time there can change a lot.

It was a bit of an annoyance, but not enough to prevent me from en­joying what was in front of me. That first taste just hits you, you know, and as the aroma fills your nose, the broth—just the tiniest bit oily from the goose fat—rolls around on your tongue.

It’s wonderful.

“This is really good,” said Telnan. “How do they make it?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “Glad you like it, though.”

“So, you live around here?”

“I used to. Why?”

“Well, just because it seems like you know this place.”

“Ah. Yes, I’ve eaten here many, many times.”

“Where do you live now?”

“Hmm. An interesting question. I own some land around Lake Szurke, but I don’t live there. I live ... uh, nowhere, really.”

“Nowhere?”

“I’ve been doing some traveling.”

“Oh, I see. I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“Much joy may it bring you.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Where is Lake Szurke?”

“East. Near the Forbidden Forest.”

“I’ve heard of that place. Why is it called the Forbidden Forest?”

“I asked Sethra about that once. She said it used to be owned by a duke who was especially snotty about poachers.”

“Aren’t they all?”

“I guess he was particularly determined about finding and prose­cuting them.”

He nodded.

“But then,” I added, “Sethra might have been lying.”

The point of the soup, at this stage, is, I guess, like the final setup. You aren’t in desperate need of food, because you’ve had the platter and the bread. And then you’ve prepared yourself for what is to come with the shamy. Now the soup appears, and as you linger over it, it just starts to dawn on you what sort of experience you have entered into. You are simultaneously anticipating more than ever what is to come next, and are able to await it more patiently. The soup is warm, and it’s, if I may, sensual, and it provides a certain amount of comfort.

And as it vanishes, spoonful by happy spoonful, you discover that you are in the perfect condition for whatever might come next. All is now ready.

Vili brought us a bottle of wine, showed it to me, opened it, and poured us each a glass. We hadn’t made more than a dent in the last bottle, but I learned long ago that it is a mistake to try to finish all the wine. Sometimes, a certain amount of waste is just a necessary part of maximizing one’s pleasure.

While I slept, I had a confusing dream, in which Valabar’s was all mixed up with the Left Hand, and parts of Six Corners appeared in the courtyard of Castle Black. Other than a general feeling that I was in danger, with no specific cause that I noticed, or at least that I remembered after waking, there wasn’t anything to connect the dream to what I was involved with. And if the dream intended to let me know I was in danger, it was a wasted effort; I’d already figured that part out.

I woke up and blinked away the dream. The painting reminded me that I was at Dzur Mountain, and I gradually recalled what I had agreed to do. I thought about getting up, decided I’d rather lie there and plan the day, realized I couldn’t make plans without some klava in me, and grumbled to myself about the necessity of finding klava in someone else’s house.

I am, you see, a lousy houseguest, mostly because I have a terror of being a lousy houseguest. I worry about whether I’m go­ing to dirty a towel unnecessarily, or move someone’s footstool, or empty someone’s boiler, or use the last of the kerosene. I can’t really relax. Once, I found myself traveling with a young Dra­gaeran, and when I returned him to his family they insisted I stay with them for a few days on the floor of their little cottage, and I hated the experience more than I’ve hated several attempts on my life, including one or two successful ones. This was Sethra, whom I called a friend, but I still dreaded the thought of getting up and rummaging through her kitchen for klava.

So I remained in bed for a bit, giving myself a few minutes to remember yesterday’s meal, which put me in a better mood. Then I rose, dressed, and shuffled off through the corridors of Dzur Mountain, in search of the elusive Tukko, which was known to dwell near klava nests.

“You’re really weird when you wake up, Boss.”

“It’s taken you how many years to figure that out?”

I eventually treed the Tukko near the kitchen, and mumbled the secret password that would produce klava. As I stumbled back to the sitting room, I realized I had been hearing the sputter of the klava-boiler before I asked. The sitting room became brighter as I entered, though I could not identify where the light was coming from. That’s another one of those tricks I really like, although it was a bit brighter than I’d have chosen.

Ten very long minutes later a cup was in my hand, the steam coming up as wonderful in its own way as Valabar’s soup. Ten min­utes after that, I realized that I was beginning to wake up.

“We going back to South Adrilankha today, Boss?”

“I don’t see any way around it.”

Rocza launched herself from my shoulder (I hadn’t even been consciously aware she was there, but that’s just because I’m used to her) and flew around the room a couple of times, before perch­ing on the back of a chair.

“Loiosh?”

“She’s just restless.”

“Okay.”

I took a moment to recall what weapons I had secreted about my person. It wasn’t like years before, when I had dozens and knew exactly what and where each was without thinking about it, nor the more recent period when I carried only a couple of knives. This was an uncomfortable in-between time.

I drank klava and considered my next move, which led in­evitably to a consideration of everything I didn’t know. My hand caressed the hilt of Lady Teldra; like before, a certain sense of her calm, warm presence made its way up my fingertips. Of all the things I didn’t know, she was, perhaps, the most important. One part of me believed that, so long as she was with me, I could walk anywhere in safety, that the Jhereg couldn’t hurt me. But there were Sethra’s words from yesterday, and, more than that, my mem­ory kept returning to the sight of Morrolan, lying dead on the floor of an Adrilankha public house. He carried Blackwand. He’d been assassinated.

By a sorceress from the Left Hand.

And Aliera had been killed by a simple, old-fashioned dagger to the heart, while Pathfinder was with her.

And Sethra herself had returned, undead, from beyond Death-gate, so something must have killed her at some point. These statistics were not entirely encouraging.

To the left, there were those remarks Telnan had made, which kept going through my mind. He seemed much too simple to have been dissembling. Yes, I know, it could all be very clever decep­tion. But I didn’t think so.

“Tell me, Teldra. Just what can you do?”

She didn’t answer. I’m not sure what I’d have done if she had.

Okay, best to assume, in spite of yesterday’s experience, that I was on my own as far as getting out of trouble was concerned. That way, any surprises would be pleasant ones, which I’ve always felt are the preferred sort.

I finished the klava and looked around for Tukko so I could ask for more. He wasn’t around. I made my own way to the kitchen, found what I needed, and engaged in the klava-preparation ritual, then returned to the sitting room, sat, and pondered the immedi­ate future.

I moved away from grand strategy, as it were, and considered practical details for a while.

“Good morning, Vlad. I’ll get Tukko to clean that up and bring you some more. Did you burn yourself?”

I put my dagger away. “Good morning, Sethra. Not noticeably, and thank you.”

“You were quite lost in thought there. Or just jumpy?”

“Both,” I said. I sat down. Loiosh returned to my shoulder. Rocza gave me an offended look and remained perched on a chair. “Yeah, I was trying to figure out how I’m going to leave here. I don’t really want to remove the amulet while they’re look­ing for me, and that means I can’t teleport.”

She frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that. Morrolan’s window can get you back to Adrilankha easily enough.”

“How far is Castle Black from here?”

“A day’s ride.”

“Ride?”

“I keep a few horses stabled here. You’re welcome to borrow one.

“Ah. Yes. Horses.”

“Shall I have your trousers cleaned?”

“No, thanks. It’s just klava.”

“And klava stains don’t count?”

“You know, Sethra, sometimes I forget that you’re a woman.”

“There is no way I can possibly respond to that.”

“Um. Yeah, forget I said it.”

Tukko showed up with another cup, set it down next to me, gave me a look, and began cleaning up the broken crockery.

“Whatever you do, it might be easier if you made Castle Black your base of operations, though you’re certainly welcome here any t—”

“I won’t do that to Morrolan.”

“Do what?”

“A Jhereg, on the run from the Jhereg, taking refuge at Cas­tle Black. Does that sound familiar, somehow? If not, ask Kiera. She’d understand.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “Yes, I see the problem.”

I nodded.

“She’s right, Boss.”

“About what?”

“You have started chewing on your thumb.”

I stopped chewing on my thumb.

“Sethra, can you do, I don’t know, something to keep them from spotting me for a bit while the amulet is off?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Getting back there without spending weeks at it, and without being killed the instant I appear.”

“You mean, teleport you somewhere, and leave them confused about your location long enough for you to wear it again?”

“Well, long enough for me to wear it, and then get some dis­tance from where the teleport landed me, yeah.”

“How much time are you thinking?”

“Twenty minutes?”

She looked doubtful. “I might be able to do that.”

“How about ten?”

She nodded. “I can give you ten.”

“That should work, then.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I need to think about that. Somewhere where I can be hard to find ten minutes later.”

“But South Adrilankha, I presume?”

“Yes. Somewhere with a good supply of shops, but not Six Corners, because that’s where I’ll probably end up.”

She nodded as if she understood. Most likely she did.

I rubbed the purse I carried inside my cloak, feeling coins there. Yeah, I was okay; it would be embarrassing to run out of money, and gaining access to the rest of my hoard would be at least annoying, and maybe problematical. So, all right.

“Yeah, I know a place.”

“Whenever you’re ready, then.”

“Okay. When I finish this klava. Either drinking it, or spilling it.”

“Have you thought about getting back here?”

“I don’t believe I can do that safely anymore. I plan to remain in town until this is settled.”

“Is that safe?”

“I think I can manage to make it safe. I hope so.”

“Ah. You have a plan.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“All right.”

I drank my klava. Sethra was silent while in my mind I went through every step of the few minutes I’d have available to me once I arrived. Then I went through it again, reconstructing the look of the doorways I’d have to cross. I had killed people with less planning than this. It was late morning, not a terribly busy time in South Adrilankha. That should work to my advantage.

Tukko hadn’t stirred the klava thoroughly; some honey had accumulated at the bottom of the cup. I set the cup down and stood up. I took a couple of knives out of my cloak, putting one of them in my boot-top; the other I set on a table. I took my purse out and tied it to my belt. I ran my hands over the cloak to make sure I hadn’t left anything in it, then bundled it up and set it next to the knife.

“Okay,” I told Sethra. “I’m ready.”

She nodded and drew Iceflame. I almost flinched, out of reflex, because being in the presence of a naked weapon like that does things to one’s mind. And, indeed, it did things; but this time it was a different sort of thing than it had been before. In the past, it had been a naked threat, the feeling of being in the presence of some hostile and unbelievably powerful force, as if a dragon were charging me, with me unarmed and with nowhere to run.

But now I felt something different. No less powerful, the threat was still there, but now it wasn’t directed at me. I knew it, felt it, but it was like a guard dog in the home of a friend you’ve known for years; you give him a sniff of your hand, then you stop worrying about it.

More than that, though, there were overtones, subtleties of flavor. I could feel, albeit from a distance, Iceflame’s connection to Sethra, to Dzur Mountain. It was, well, it was all very confus­ing for a simple Eastern kid.

I got so involved in trying to sort out these strange sensa­tions, that I pretty much missed what Sethra was doing, which I believed involved making twitching motions with her fingers and muttering under her breath. Then I was suddenly very much aware that Iceflame had gotten involved in the proceedings, and the next thing I knew Sethra was saying, “Here we go, Vlad.”

“All right.”

“Vlad, that means you need to remove the amulet.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Now, concentrate on the place you want to end up. As clear a vision as possible, and any other sensory impressions you have of it—smells, sounds, anything. With the interference I’m generating, I need it especially clear to make sure you don’t end up a thousand feet under the ocean, or somewhere else you’d prefer not to be.”

Very convincing, is my friend Sethra.

I slipped the amulet over my head, paused briefly to make sure the plan was still in my head, muttered a thank-you to Sethra, and put the thing into its spell-proof receptacle. Then my vision blurred. At least, I thought my vision was blurring, but after a mo­ment, it became apparent that it wasn’t my eyes, but rather something was happening to the light in the room. At the same time, I became aware that I was hearing odd noises, like a low-pitched “thrumb” accompanied by some very faint squeals.

I stood outdoors in a small market area in South Adrilankha. I stumbled a bit but recovered quickly. I think a couple of people­—humans—glanced at me as I appeared, but I couldn’t see well enough to be certain.

“Directly behind, Boss.”

“Okay.”

I put the Phoenix Stone amulet back around my neck, waited until I felt it pulsing, then turned around and began walking quickly. Loiosh guided me; either he was unaffected by Sethra’s spell, or he was able to use other means.

“I just have better eyesight than you.”

“Shut up.”

I had almost reached my destination when my vision abruptly cleared, and the sounds disappeared from my ears; whatever Sethra had done had worn off.

I pushed past the curtain of a doorway to my left, took a quick look around, and grabbed a long brown coat with big pockets. I also picked up a beret. I tossed the shopkeeper a coin, told him to keep it, and left. It took about a minute. The next shop was about ninety feet away and supplied me with a white shirt and some baggy pale green breeks. The public house next to it had a private outhouse that stank horribly but was big enough for me to change clothes. I transfered a few things into the coat, then changed. My shirt went to where I’d never want to retrieve it again. The spare knife went from my boot-top to a pocket of the coat. My purse went into the inner pocket.

“No one’s around, Boss. I think it worked.”

I pulled the beret down so it almost covered my eyes, and stepped out, taking a grateful breath of the rank-but-less-rank air of South Adrilankha.

Vlad Taltos: Master of Disguise.

“Okay, Loiosh. You and Rocza need to keep overhead. Or at least not with me. You’re too recognizable.”

“Check, Boss. We’ll be around.”

They flew off as I stepped back onto the street.

I was able to relax a bit now, so I strolled over toward Six Cor­ners, stopping just across a narrow street from a place I knew well. It had changed: the little porch with rugs on the floor and partly surrounded by curtains was gone, and there was a new door into the shack. It had also received a new coat of paint. There was nothing, really, to say who now lived there.

I didn’t doubt that if I were to make my way inside, or even over to where the porch had been, I’d feel psychic traces of my grandfather; he’d lived there many years before I managed to convince him to relocate to lands I’d never seen. I wondered if he missed being surrounded by his own kind, or if he was enjoying playing the part of lord of the manor. That’s the tricky part of do­ing a kindness for someone; you can’t always be sure it really is a kindness.

“Boss, what, exactly, are we doing here?”

“Feeling maudlin.”

“Oh. Good. How long are we planning on doing that?”

“Don’t you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?”

“What?”

“Never mind!”

I turned away, feeling pleased that I had finally gotten one past Loiosh. I headed toward Six Corners, then skirted it to the north on a small street with no name. In a few hundred feet, I came to a two-story wood house with a small sign hanging over it. I squinted at the sign. Yeah, something had once been painted on it, and I suppose it could as easily have been a horn as anything else. I went in. I’d have blended in effortlessly with the customers, except that there weren’t any customers.

The host was a dumpy fellow sitting behind a sort of counter, his head down, and a large lower lip protruding as he snored. I cleared my throat. He sputtered, opened his eyes, wiped some saliva from the corner of his lip, and said, “Yes?”

“My name is Sandor. You have a room for me for a night or so?”

“We don’t usually rent them by the night.”

“I said, my name is Sandor.”

“Eh? Oh. Yes. That’s right.” He considered. “No playing of instruments after dark.”

“Of course.”

“Three and three per night.”

I gave him enough for a couple of nights, and suggested he let me know when he needed more. He grunted an agreement and closed his eyes again. I cleared my throat, and he opened them.

“The room?” I suggested.

“Oh.” He frowned. “In back, up the stairs, second door on the left. Do you need help with bags?”

“No. Thank you,” I said. “Sleep well.”

I followed his directions, and arrived in the room that would be my home for at least the next few days.

There was a small window. Loiosh and Rocza flew in and landed on my shoulders. I looked around the room to see what else was there.

“It has a bed, Boss. That’s something.”

“And a washbasin. That implies there may be water somewhere. An actual door would have been nice, though.”

Rocza shifted uncomfortably on my shoulder.

“Tell her to get used to it, Loiosh.”

“I already did, Boss.”

I looked out the window. The view was of the blank wall of the house next door, about three feet away. It had once been painted red. On the ground below were various bits of wood that seemed to have once been a chair, the remains of an old mattress with signs of having been burned, and various other things I didn’t care to investigate too closely. I’d have drawn the curtain if there had been one.

“I think next time I’ll have to give Aibynn more specific instructions.”

“Next time, Boss?”

“In the meantime, it’ll do.”

“It will?”

“It will. We’re going to be heading out now. You two need to still keep your distance from me while we’re out.”

“Admit it, you’re just ashamed to be seen with us.”

I left the room without touching anything, and spent the day buying a few extra changes of clothing and hiring a couple of boys to give the room a good cleaning. I had a local witch drive out any small animal life that might have taken up residence in the bed. I bought a cheap chair, mostly to give Loiosh and Rocza a perch, and a little end table to set the washbasin on, and a whetstone and honing oil.

As much as anything else, I wanted to practice my new look and new personality. I worked on walking differently, holding my head differently, and above all, trying to look harmless, cheerful, and a bit timid. I had a few conversations with people in the neighborhood, and discovered because I heard myself saying it that I was a clerk for one of the slaughterhouses. I wasn’t exactly sure what a clerk for a slaughterhouse did, but I knew there were such things, and I didn’t expect it to be a profession that would generate a lot of questions. Staying? At the Hunting Horn for now, because there had been a fire in my old rooms. I’d either be moving back there soon, or find a new place. Do you know of any rooms for rent? I require it be clean, you know, and not too far from the slaughterhouse district, because it is amazing how it can eat into one’s income to have to be conveyed to and from work every day, like I am now. Married? No, I have not yet met the right woman. Why, do you know someone? I’ve always felt a man ought to have a family, don’t you think?

And so on. I smiled at everyone, and put on Sandor like a suit of clothes.

I picked up some bread and sausages and a jug of cheap red wine from a street vendor. Hauling the chair and other things through the jug-room didn’t earn me so much as a raised eyebrow from the host (now vaguely awake) or the two Easterners he was speaking with. I put the chair near the doorway and the end table below the window.

I shared the bread and sausages with my familiars when they came in the window and settled on the chair.

“Not bad, Boss.”

“Kind of pales next to mushroom-barley soup, though.”

“You never gave me any of the soup.”

“You wouldn’t have appreciated it.”

“No, I wouldn’t have. Barley isn’t food. Barley is what food eats.”

“Uh huh.”

“Rocza agrees with me.”

“Well, that settles it, then.”

“Good sausage, though. And I like the bread, too.”

“Yes. Very good bread. I wonder if there’s barley in it.”

“You’re just really funny, Boss.”

“Part of my charm.”

I took out the whetstone and oil and put an edge on all my knives, more to be doing something than because they needed it.

“What’s the plan for now, Boss?”

“I’d rather surprise you,” I said.

“Uh, Boss? Are we really safe here?”

“I wish I knew. We’re safer than if I weren’t disguised, didn’t have the Phoenix Stone, and were in the heart of Adrilankha. More impor­tant, though, we have a place to attack from.”

Loiosh flew over to the window, stuck his long, snake-like neck out, then turned around and gave a sort of hop back over to the chair, settling in next to Rocza. Their necks twisted and they looked at each other. I wondered what they were saying. Probably best I didn’t know.

I took a good couple of drinks of the wine. It was different enough from what Valabar’s served that it seemed wrong to use the same term to describe them. But Sandor wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference, so I pretended I couldn’t, either.

I put on my ugly coat and hat and, as Loiosh and Rocza went through the window, I pushed the curtain aside and went out into the evening.

About half a mile away was a red brick house on Stranger’s Road. Sandor headed in that direction as if he had not a care in the world, and certainly no reason to anticipate danger. 5. White Wine From Guinchen

To give credit where it is due, my father did know a great deal about wine; certainly more than I know. He once explained to me that anyone can find good wine—all you have to do is pay a lot of money. The rea­son for learning about wine is so you can find a wine you like without paying a lot of money. The curse of the small businessman, I guess: everything is expressed in terms of making or losing a few coppers.

But still, he’s right.

Mihi knew my taste in wine probably better than I did. Properly (as he once explained) mushroom-barley soup was served with a white wine like a Doe Valley Bresca or a Pymin; the trouble with those is that I don’t care for the hint of sweet apples that goes with a Bresca or of apricots that goes with a Pymin. When I’m eating, any trace of sweet­ness is too much, even when dominated by that pleasant acidity that the real wine experts love so much. So what he brought was a Lescor from Guinchen. To me, the traces of goslingroot and of green pepper, of all things, made it fit perfectly with the soup. That’s me, though. Mihi knew, so he brought it. That’s Mihi.

Telnan just drank it, and I believe never gave it a thought. Well, in fact, there’s no reason he should have; it’s supposed to make the experi­ence more enjoyable, not provide a topic for hours of conversation.

Unless you don’t have anything else to talk about, and Telnan appeared to have a never-ending supply of things to talk about. After discussing where I lived, he proceeded to give me more details than I wanted about living in Dzur Mountain, and what the food was like there (compared to Valabar’s mushroom-barley soup) and the difficulties—primarily boredom—of Lavode training. The subject of food (ever on my mind) brought up the issue of who did the cooking there. I asked him, and he gave me a puzzled look and said it had never occurred to him to wonder.

“How many of you are there?” I asked him.

“Hmm? I don’t understand.”

“Are there other Lavode candidates, or trainees, secreted away in the bowels of Dzur Mountain?”

“Oh. No, just me.” He drank some wine, frowned, and added, ‘As far as I know. She’s only training me because of, well, my weapon. And I don’t think there are that many around.”

“Your weapon. Yes.” I glanced at the hilt sticking above his shoulder, and wondered again how he managed to sit, with all appearance of comfort, with that massive thing strapped to his back.

“Maybe there’s no sword at all, Boss. Just a hilt that he wears to look good.”

“Uh huh. Think I should get one?”

“Oh, certainly.”

“What is it about your weapon?”

His eyes widened a little, and he suddenly reminded me of Aibynn. “You don’t know?”

Several remarks came and went, but, in the interest of a compan­ionable meal, I said, “No, I don’t.”

“Oh. It’s one of the Seventeen.” He frowned. ‘Are you familiar with the Seventeen Gr—”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve heard of them.”

He nodded. “Like Iceflame.”

“Yes.”

“You know much about them?”

“I’m not sure what qualifies as ‘much; but I’m pretty sure the answer is no however you mean it.”

“Ah. Too bad.”

“Why? You thought maybe I could tell you things Sethra can’t?”

He grinned. “That Sethra won’t. And I was hoping?”

“Oh. Well, I’m pretty sure you know more than I do.”

We ate some soup, drank some wine. A couple more people, Lyorn, drifted into Valabar’s and took a table at the far end of the room.

“I don’t know much,” said Telnan, “except what everyone knows. I mean, that they have their own life, and you have to come to an agree­ment with them, and at some point there will be a test of wills, and that if you have one it is a bridge between you and the powers beyond the world.”

“Uh. Yes. Certainly. Um, everyone knows that?”

He nodded, looking very sincere.

“What does ‘powers beyond the world’ mean?”

“Just what it says.”

“You asked for that, Boss.”

“I suppose I did.”

I tried again. “I’m not familiar with powers beyond the world, or even what world we’re talking about being beyond, and what is be­yond it.”

“Uh, I didn’t quite follow that.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“Um.”

“Your phrase about ‘powers beyond the world’ leaves me confused, that’s all. I’m not sure what that means.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Neither am I.”

I wasn’t certain what to say, so I drank more wine. It was good wine, providing a nice counterpoint to the conversation, as well as to the soup. No question, Mihi knows what I like.

The house on Stranger’s Road hadn’t changed. I studied it from a little farther away than I had last time, to see if they became aware of my presence from here. Loiosh and Rocza circled above it, then perched a short distance away.

Let’s say some time passed here. Then some more time. And still more time.

“Boss?”

“Yeah, okay. I’m pretty well convinced they haven’t detected me.”

“Good. What now?”

“Now we get to wait some more.”

“Oh. Do we know what we’re waiting for this time?”

“Yes.”

Whatever was going on in South Adrilankha, it either had its center there, in that house, or at least that was the nearest ten­dril. Since I’d first seen the place, I’d had the urge to draw Lady Teldra, walk in the door, and just start cutting. Loiosh had felt that urge in me, and was afraid I’d give in to it. But I didn’t survive as hired muscle, a hired knife, and eventually a low-level boss by giving in to urges like that. Especially when I had no way of knowing if, in the unlikely event that I survived, it would get me any closer to solving the problem.

“So, uh, care to let the reptile in on the warm-blooded secret?”

“I’ll tell you when it happens.”

“Oh, good.”

It was about five minutes after that conversation that it hap­pened: A pale little Easterner, about my age, came walking almost right past me, and up the stairs of the house. He was carrying a small satchel. He started to pound on the door with his fist, stopped, set the satchel down, and clapped his hands. The door opened, and he entered.

“So, was that what we were waiting for, Boss?”

“Yep, that was it.”

“It was very exciting.”

“I thought so.”

“Well, good. Now what?”

“We wait some more.”

“I was expecting that.”

The Easterner was still holding the satchel when he left, just a couple of minutes later. He walked past me again.

There is an art to following someone, and I’m afraid I’ve never mastered it. I’ve done it, and done all right, but I haven’t gotten exceptionally good at it because I’ve never had to.

“Okay, Loiosh.”

“On it, Boss.”

“Can Rocza stay here, and keep watching the house?”

“Sure.”

Loiosh followed the runner, and I followed Loiosh. We skirted Six Corners, taking Stranger’s Road as it meandered northeast past shacks and cabins and small markets. Few people paid any atten­tion to me. I got a hopeful look from a skinny, dark-haired beggar who was sitting on the ground next to a pastry shop holding a tin to collect coins in and a small frying pan whose purpose was known only to himself. A stooped old man whose head was wrapped in a scarf leaned on a walking stick and looked like he was going to speak to me, but he must have changed his mind because he turned away and yelled something unintelligible to a fat woman on the other side of the street. Without turning her head, she called him something that sounded like a “fits” and made various obscene suggestions to him. Their conversation continued as I followed Loiosh’s directions and soon I couldn’t hear them anymore. A small group of street dancers danced for tips; the musicians, with violins and pipes, played a fiery chardosh that brought me back to the East for a while. The girls were pretty. I didn’t stop to tip them.

The runner eventually made his way into a hatter’s shop. I didn’t follow him in because I didn’t want him to see me, and I already had a hat.

“Now we wait some more, right?”

“No, let’s head back.”

“I don’t know if I can take the excitement, Boss.”

“Nothing going on there, right?”

“No one in or out, so far.”

We returned to Stranger’s Road, and waited some more, and eventually another runner entered the house with another satchel, then came out, and I followed him, and got another place.

By the end of the day, I had reacquainted myself with much of South Adrilankha: Potter’s Gate, the Drumhead, Donner’s Court, the Round. I had also identified six runners, and six loca­tions they lived in, worked out of, or at least visited. I had no idea if this information would be useful, but it at least gave me some vague idea of the amount of money involved in the operation. That’s one nice thing about the Jhereg: Almost all the time, you can measure the importance of any activity by its weight in gold and be pretty sure you’re right.

How big was this operation?

I’d seen six runners, all carrying satchels that were moderately heavy, no doubt with silver. Six a day, five days a week ... yes, that was a big enough operation to be worth a life here and there.

And, yes, the Left Hand was now very definitely involved in an operation that had, until now, been reserved for the male side of the Jhereg.

I picked up different bread and different sausages from a dif­ferent street vendor, returned to my room, and shared the meal with my familiars while I considered matters. The sausage was greasy, but I kind of like it that way.

Loiosh and Rocza daintily picked up the last of the bread-crumbs with their feet, balanced on the other foot, and brought them to their mouths. It’s the least reptilian thing they do. I love watching them eat.

“We done for the night, Boss?”

“Not quite. I want to get an idea of how much action is going down in Donner’s Court. There didn’t used to be any at all.”

I felt something like a psychic sigh.

“Yeah, I know. You’re worked to death. Shut up.”

I put Sandor back on and walked through the doorway as they flew out the window. Donner’s Court was a fair walk from my place, and most of it mildly uphill. The streets twisted here, but were generally wider than in much of Adrilankha, and it had a more prosperous look. This was where Sandor, were he really a clerk for a slaughterhouse, would be dreaming of living, in his own house purchased with his own money, with a tiny garden. He’d grow carrots, peas, and onions, and he’d find a fat little wife and raise children whom he would teach to respect the Empire above all. If rebellion should happen to break out, he would hide under his bed and he would never exactly tell his children that the poverty all around them was the fault of the poor, but he would talk a great deal about personal responsibility. Not, you understand, that I particularly give a damn about the poor; but at least I can be a bastard without hypocrisy. Sandor, though, would be extremely proud of his peas, terrified of everything beyond the confines of his yard, and I’d hang myself within six weeks.

These, at any rate, were Sandor’s thoughts as he made his way up the gentle inclines of South Adrilankha to the Donner’s Court district. There was little street traffic, and most of that by footcabs, because footcabs are seen as a sign of almost-wealth, ly­ing somewhere between walking and owning a coach. The almost-wealthy are always more concerned with appearances than either of the extremes.

The Donner’s Court area takes its name from a fairly small courtyard which is all that is left of what was once a sizable temple to Barlen, built, oddly enough, by an Easterner named Donner. A street named Harvoth leads into the court, and various shrines and altars to different deities line the quarter of a mile between the court and Donner’s Circle, where the local market is. This evening, there were a few people praying or making small offer­ings at these altars, and that seemed to be almost the only activ­ity in the area. If the Left Hand was making money from this district, which they must be because I’d seen the delivery, then I had no idea where it was coming from.

I walked along near the shrines, trying to look respectful, and trying to figure out what big moneymaking operations for the Jhereg could be. There was a sudden movement behind me and to my left, and my hand slipped under my coat to touch the hilt of Lady Teldra, but even as that pleasant, reassuring warmth went through me I saw that it was only a bird taking flight, and relaxed. I kept my right hand on Lady Teldra’s hilt under my coat, just because it was pleasant to be in touch with her. I had seen Morrolan and Aliera caressing the hilts of their Great Weapons fairly often; now I understood why.

There was a small icon next to me, about four feet in height, in the form of a rounded tower of black marble. I rested my left hand on it while I considered matters.

This is not important, Taltos Vladamir, let her touch your thoughts as she will. However it may look, it doesn’t matter; let it drift into the shadows where your own demons dance about spots of light like the laughter of innocence. It doesn’t matter, because it is not real.

It isn’t real? What did you mean when you said it wasn’t real, Goddess? I remember now; I remember your voice that went past my ears into my head, echoing there, and I don’t think you ever intended me to. But I remember the sounds that came like water, to drown me, and I was screaming denials inside my head, and you just kept droning on and on.

Bitch.

It was strange seeing Morrolan on his knees. It was stranger when there came a flicker, too clear to be my imagination, running along the length of the sword at which he stared; a sword made of marble, and held by a marble hand.

Yes. That’s right. The statue had its own kind of life, and I intended to ask Morrolan if the spirit of Kieron dwelt within the marble, or if it was a life of another sort. But I never did ask him. Because of that voice? Yes, because of that voice. And there was another voice, too, only for a moment.

I’m sorry, Uncle Vlad. I have to. But it isn’t lost, and you’ll have it all back someday.

Yes. There it was. And who do I trust now? She sounded so harmless; the epitome of all that could be trusted: sweet and inno­cent. But she was older than I, and she was Verra’s granddaughter. I had other memories of her, too, and many of them came rushing back, begging to be reinterpreted, with all my natural cynicism let loose on them. And I could feel the part of myself that wasn’t crippled fighting it, wanting to believe, fighting through those images as a swimmer fights a strong current

There is pool of clear water in the Paths of the Dead, before the tall arch that leads to the Halls of Judgment, and you must immerse yourself in it before you pass through, as if to be purified. But it does not pu­rify you; it just removes from you that which might balk at accepting what you have just seen as real. It holds the secrets of the Paths, which is why you are warned not to swallow any of the water. By the time you are dry, you have forgotten how you got wet.

Yeah, that’s how it began. There, in that pool. Perhaps a nat­ural part of that place, only now I knew that it hadn’t been oper­ating alone. The Goddess had dipped her hand into it, and into my head, and done what she had chosen to do for her own reasons. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to have remembered that pool, either. Maybe I only remembered it because she had tried to make me forget so many other things. Maybe she was being undone by her own deviousness.

Around me are walls of white, white, white. I’m wondering why they are white, when I suddenly realize that the question should be: Why do I perceive them as white? And to ask it that way is to answer it, and then comes the touch again.

That’s right! I had returned to her halls. I could hear myself asking her questions, demanding answers, and she just shook her head and started talking; I was seeing her distorted, as through a rippling pool, and as she spoke, I realized that how I was hearing her had nothing to do with my ears. I felt myself trembling all over again. Yes, it was coming back. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, and opened them again, trying to remember.

Several people were staring at me, some of them asking if I was all right.

“Boss? Say something, dammit!”

“Uh ...”

“That’s a start.”

I was on my back, and the people around me were standing, looking down.

“What happened, Loiosh?”

“I have no idea.”

Someone else asked if I was all right. I nodded, because I wasn’t sure if I could speak.

“What happened?” said someone.

I closed my eyes.

“He’s been touched by the Demon Goddess,” said someone else, a touch of awe in his voice.

“Drunk, more likely.”

“Are you drunk?”

“He doesn’t look drunk.”

“Who is he?”

“Who are you?”

I opened my eyes again, looking up at the circle of half a dozen faces staring down at me with expressions ranging from worry to suspicion.

Who was I? Okay, that was a good place to start. I was Vlad, only I was calling myself Sandor right now, while involved in a tricky business to get Cawti out of trouble. The Left Hand of the Jhereg. Lady Teldra. I’d had a meal at Valabar’s yesterday. All right, my memory still worked.

“Sandor,” I said. “My name is Sandor.”

My voice still worked too.

“And I’m not drunk,” I added.

“What happened?” said one of the faces.

“I don’t know.”

I struggled to my feet, receiving kindly assistance I didn’t want, but at least learning that, yes, my legs were working. I smiled as pleasantly as I could, and slipped away, moving back toward Six Corners.

Someone yelled for me to wait a minute. I chose not to.

“Is anyone following me?”

“No, they’re just staring.”

“Good. They can stare.”

I made it back to my room without incident, though my head was spinning to the point where it was a bit tricky to keep my eyes focused, and to remember where to go. When I finally made it, I threw off my coat and flopped on the bed as Loiosh and Rocza came through the window.

“You okay, Boss?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What is it? What happened?”

“I’m not sure. Something. My head. In my head.”

“I know,” said Loiosh. “Me, too.”

There was an edge of panic to Loiosh’s voice. I tried to think of something reassuring to say, but I was having trouble focusing my thoughts. Loiosh perched on the chair, and either there was something in the way he held himself that made him appear pensive, or else I was just picking it up from him. Rocza perched next to him, rubbing her neck against his.

“What happened, Boss?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to make sense of it.”

Sethra once told me that, when overwhelmed by the mysti­cal, start with the physical and mundane, and work both inward and outward from there. I never did understand the “inward and outward” part, but the advice still made sense.

“Okay, the last thing I did was touch an altar of the Demon Goddess.”

“You’ve done that before, Boss.”

“Yeah.”

“This didn’t happen before.”

“Yeah.”

“What was different?”

“I didn’t have Lady Teldra?”

“Yes, but were you touching her when you touched the altar?”

“No, but—wait. Yes, I was.”

“You were?”

“Yes. I’m sure of it?”

“Oh. Well. Isn’t it nice when we can solve mysteries so easily, Boss?”

“Yeah. It’s great.”

I relaxed onto the bed and closed my eyes. The bed was both lumpy and too soft; they must have paid extra for it.

“Okay, I know some of what just happened: I just got some mem­ories back.”

“Boss, that’s ... I don’t know what that is?”

“Yeah.”

I tried to concentrate; to work it out.

Verra, the Demon Goddess, patron of my ancestors, had arranged for my perceptions to be altered, and for some of my memories to be suppressed. The best way to control someone’s actions is to control the information upon which he makes his decisions. Some methods of controlling someone’s information are nastier than others.

None of which addressed the questions of what she wanted me to do, or to not do, and I wanted to know so that I could cross her, just out of spite.

I realized that I was shying away from considering exactly which memories had been taken and were now restored, I guess for the same reason that, on a long-ago occasion when I’d been stabbed, I had tried not to picture the piece of steel that was inside of me. The whole idea was—

“You’re trembling, Boss.”

“Yeah, well. How are you doing?”

“Not so good. What they did to you, they did to me, too.”

“Not they. Her.”

“That doesn’t help?”

And the other thing was, I didn’t know which memories were taken, and which had come back. It’s been weeks now, and I still don’t know. Memory doesn’t work like that. Sometimes you can dig around in your memory looking for something the way you’d dig through a desk drawer, and maybe even find it. Sometimes you can just explore your memories like going through the old trunks in an attic, and find interesting things. Sometimes you can follow memories, one to the other, like a twisty corridor, just to see where they lead.

But you can’t investigate your own memory to see what is there that used to be missing.

And in a way, that was the horror of the whole thing; that’s what still is. What memories, or memories of memories, are back, waiting to bite me? And what is still missing?

I brought myself to a sitting position, lit a candle, found the jug of wine, and drank some. It had that taste that reminds me of old shoe leather. I’m told that wine experts really like that taste, when there’s only a little of it. That isn’t as silly as it sounds; there are any number of things that are good when you have a little, and bad when you have too much; like the way we sometimes for-get things that are either unpleasant, or not worth remembering. A little bit of that is okay.

There was way too much taste of old shoe leather.

I set the jug down.

“Not getting drunk, Boss? I’m impressed.”

“Loiosh, when was the last time you saw me drunk?”

“Yesterday, when you left Valabar’s.”

“I wasn’t drunk, I was just happy.”

“So happy you almost passed out right outside of Sethra’s door.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Okay, other than that. No, never mind.”

I sat back on the bed again, leaning against the wall. I had touched the altar. Okay. I’m no expert on how those things work, but I could believe that this would give me some sort of connection to the Goddess. Only I was wearing the Phoenix Stone amulet, which ought to make that impossible. And, even if it wasn’t, what sort of contact with the Goddess could restore memories she had taken away?

It was hard to concentrate on that. The idea of her messing around inside my head like that was

“You’re grinding your teeth, Boss?”

I stopped grinding my teeth, sat back again, and tried to relax. I cursed Verra under my breath for a while. That helped. Besides, if the Phoenix Stone was working, she couldn’t hear me.

I wanted to get up and walk somewhere, because I think better that way. I also didn’t want to leave the safety of my room. Or maybe I should say the security.

I took a knife from my boot and threw it into the wall. I made a loud, echoing “thunk.” I hoped I’d get some complaints from management. Then I could slap management around and explain what I thought about the quality of the room. That would make me feel better. I found another knife, and sent that one to join the first. It landed about four inches away. I used to be better.

I got up, retrieved the knives, sat on the bed, and threw them again. The results were about the same, but now there were four nice gashes in the wall. By the time the count was up to a score, I had improved a little and become convinced that no one was going to complain about the noise, so I stopped and replaced the knives. I had another sip of wine, then threw the jug out the win­dow. It made a good crash when it hit the ground. Someone yelled something unintelligible. I would have answered, but I didn’t have anything unintelligible to say.

“Not thirsty anymore, Boss?”

“That really was terrible wine.”

“I see?”

“Remind me not to buy it again.”

“All right.”

“It has to be Spellbreaker.”

“Boss?”

“Spellbreaker. It’s now part of Lady Teldra. And I was touching Lady Teldra, and the altar at the same time. Somehow Lady Teldra broke whatever enchantment was messing up my head.”

“How could it do that?”

“I have no idea?”

“Oh. Well, good then. That’s settled.”

I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I should have paid the boy to clean the ceiling, too. Shadows from the chair, and Loiosh, and Rocza all flickered across the walls as the candle flame danced. Loiosh must have blown it out. Or maybe flapped it out. All of which means that eventually I must have fallen asleep. 6. Sertalia Cheese

You make cheese out of the milk of some animal like a cow or a goat.

Okay, now you know everything I know about cheesemaking.

No doubt there is a whole art to it, and I’m told that the Teckla in every region of the Empire have their own special sorts of cheese, but or the life of me I have no idea what the subtle differences are, or how they might go about flavoring them, or why one sort crumbles when you look at it funny, while another hangs together like roofing mud.

What we were served after the soup was a Valabar tradition called Sertalia—a very soft cheese that you spread, rather than slice, and that had a flavoring reminiscent of wild savory, and a bit of sweetness. It also produced just the least tingle on the tip of the tongue.

It was served on a cracker about which nothing can be said, because it had no flavor at all—it was a blank slate upon which could be written whatever sort of cheese one wished.

They placed the crackers, on their little plates, and the cheese in their little tubs with little knives, on the table right before the fish; in other words, right before the first real, substantial part of the meal—before the meat, if I might use a metaphor in an almost literal sense. It’s your last, deep breath before the plunge, and it comes just when you’ve adjusted to the water.

But don’t eat very many. There is a great deal left to come, and you can’t fill up now, or you’ll have no room to be surprised by what is surprising, and delighted by what is delightful.

I slept badly, waking up several times. This is unusual for me, but I was in an unusual situation. However, each time I woke I felt Loiosh and Rocza’s presence, which was reassuring. At some point, though I don’t remember doing it, I must have removed Lady Tel­dra’s sheath from my belt and set it next to me on the bed. When I finally woke to see morning filtering in through the little window, my hand was on the hilt, and my thoughts were of the time she had found me in the middle of nowhere, asking for my help, and setting off the train of events that had led to her death.

There was a terrible sadness there, but it didn’t come from her; it was all mine. While I felt her presence, it wasn’t as if she had any thoughts or feelings, although Sethra had implied that someday she would “wake up.” I wondered what that would be like. It could get awful crowded inside my head, what with one thing and another.

I got up and said, “Klava. I must find klava.”

A few minutes later I was dressed as Sandor. I didn’t see anyone as I left the inn, and not too many as I made my way to a klava vendor down the street. He also had fresh muffins. Ten minutes later, I was ready to face the world, more or less.

“Okay, Boss. What’s the plan? Or am I asking too much?”

“You’re asking too much.”

It was just a few steps back to Six Corners and the little shop. I walked in and called out, “Jakoub!”

He emerged from the back area, frowned at me, and said, “What is it?”

I thought his tone rather brusque, almost impatient. I said, “I believe you have some things for me.”

He looked at me from under the frown, I think finding something familiar about my voice. I took my beret off, and the change in his facial expression was quite gratifying; I guess I really can do a decent disguise. “My lo—”

“Yes, yes. Do you have my things?”

“They’re ready, m’lord.”

“Excellent. I’ll wear the boots, but wrap the sheath up in something.”

“At once, m’lord.”

Sandor had never expected to be treated with that much respect.

Jakoub reached under the counter, and produced the boots, as promised, then went off to get my new sheath. I went around the counter and sat on his stool, pulled off my old boots, and put the new ones on. Even as I was struggling with the left, the right was fitting itself to me, adjusting to the form of my foot. It tickled, especially when it worked its way up my calf. Jakoub watched my face carefully to see if I was happy with them, or else to catch me giggling.

We hardened, cold-blooded killers don’t giggle very much.

It took only about two minutes for both of them to finish their adjustments; Jakoub really was very good at what he did. He returned with the sheath. I inspected it, making sure all the nice lit­tle extras were in place and worked the way I expected them to. They did. I nodded and returned it to him. He bowed and wrapped it in the sort of paper they wrap fresh fish in at the market.

“Will that be all, m’lord?”

“Not quite,” I said. He tensed only a little, and waited.

“On what day do you make deliveries to that house on Stranger’s Road?”

“Homeday, m’lord.”

“Do you ever run into anyone else making deliveries that day?”

“Occasionally, m’lord.”

“So I can assume that there are several people showing up there with money every day. That is, you know nothing to con­tradict that?”

“No, m’lord.”

I looked at him, trying to see if he was holding anything back. I can never tell, but I always look anyway. I nodded and tossed him a few extra coins, then left his shop.

A quick trip to the room to drop off the sheath was enough time to convince me I was going to like the boots. Jakoub did good work. I hoped I wouldn’t have to kill him. I headed out, in-tending to go back to Stranger’s Road to see who else would show up there. I made it about halfway.

“Boss—”

“Hmm?”

“Someone’s ...”

“Loiosh?”

“I ...”

My stomach did a flip-flop and my brain shut down, but my feet took over, leading me into the first small side street I came to, and then into a doorway, so I was pretty much out of sight.

“Can you come to me?”

He didn’t say anything, but there was a flutter of wings, and Rocza landed on my left shoulder, Loiosh on my right. I felt a lit­tle better for a moment, until I realized that I was picking up feel­ings of panic from Rocza. If Rocza was scared, I was scared.

“Loiosh, what is it?”

“Fighting ....”

He wobbled on my shoulder, and gripped it harder. I tried to think to Rocza, to ask her what was going on, but I didn’t sense that she understood. I felt her fear and confusion, an echo of my own. I touched Lady Teldra’s hilt. Then I must have drawn her, because she was in my hand, and I was looking around the empty street. A tingling—not unlike what I used to feel from Spellbreaker—ran up my wrist, my arm, my shoulder, to—

“Thanks, Boss. That helped. I’m okay now.”

“What helped? What did what? What happened?”

“Someone tried to find me.”

“And you stopped him? How?”

“I don’t know.”

“I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Neither did I. And I almost couldn’t.”

“Can you tell me anything about what sort of spell it was?”

“You mean, on account of I know so much about magic?”

“Loiosh, you know how witchcraft feels.”

“Well, it wasn’t that.”

“Okay.”

“... Exactly.”

I sighed.

“It’s hard to describe, Boss. It felt a little like that, but—”

“Okay. Back to the room.”

I sheathed Lady Teldra as Loiosh and Rocza launched themselves into the air again. I took a couple of steps, then stopped; I knew what I wanted to do. I dug out a stub of pencil and scrap of paper, and scribbled out a note.

“Loiosh.”

He landed on my shoulder and accepted the paper.

“Get this where it needs to be.”

“Then what?”

“Then you act as guide.”

I could feel some objections forming in my familiar’s mind, but he left them unsaid, and just launched himself into the air. Rocza remained in the area, keeping a lookout for me. I wandered around a bit, as I figured it would take Loiosh a couple of hours.

I made it back to the room without incident. By the time I got there, Loiosh had completed his mission, as evidenced by the fellow floating cross-legged about six inches off the floor. I took just a second to close my eyes. The preliminaries were over; the meal was about to begin.

“Hello, Daymar,” I said. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting.” 7. Fish

There is a god named Trout who dwells in the Halls of Judgment. I know he’s there, because I’ve seen him, but that’s another story. In truth, I know very little about him, except that the way his name is pro­nounced and the symbols used to represent those sounds are identical to the fish.

No gods were brought to the table at Valabar’s; just fish. But then, there are those who have claimed that tasting the fish is akin to com­muning with the gods. On reflection, that can’t be true. I’ve communed with the gods, and eating the trout atValabar’s is a much richer, more rewarding, and more enlightening experience.

And certainly more pleasant.

I don’t know any of the rituals that accompany the worship of the god named Trout, but the ritual for the fish at Valabar’s begins with a young man who unobtrusively removes your soup bowl, then returns a moment later and sets down a white plate with a tiny blue flower painted on the edge that he sets away from you. When you see that plate, there is at once a slight quickening of the pulse; you don’t yet know what sort of fish will be showing up, but the plate tells you: This is serious, it’s time to get to work.

Next, after an interminable wait of perhaps half a minute, Mihi hows up holding a silver platter in his left hand and two serving spoons in his right. On the platter are two large fish and several spears of goslingroot.

Telnan looked curious. I sat back and smiled. Mihi winked at me, which was not part of the ritual, but that was okay.

“Freshwater trout,” announced Mihi, “from the Adrilankha River, stuffed with carrot slivers, fresh rosemary, salt, crushed black pepper, a sprinkling of powdered Eastern red pepper, minced garlic, and sliced lemon wedges. Accompanied by fresh goslingroot, quick-steamed in lemon butter.”

Then, wielding the serving spoons like tongs, he reverently deliv­ered some fish and vegetable onto our plates.

I reverently started eating.

I can’t tell you a lot about the trout, other than what Mihi said, ex­cept that Mr. Valabar had once let slip that it was double-wrapped in a heat-resistant parchment so that it was steam that actually cooked it. If I knew more, I’d make it myself, as best I could. A great deal of the art of Valabar’s, of course, consisted in putting astonishing amounts of effort into making sure that each ingredient was the freshest, most per­fect that could be found. It’s all in the details, just like assassination. Though with a good fish, more is at stake.

“If you’re going to be a hero,” I said, “I imagine it’s important to pay attention to the details.”

“Hmmm?” said Telnan.

“Uh, nothing. I was just thinking aloud.”

“Oh. This is really good.”

“Yes.”

“The most important thing about heroics is preparation.”

“Hmmm?”

He swallowed and said, “If you’re going to march into a place hor­ribly outnumbered, the big thing is to work yourself into a state where you don’t mind dying, but can work to prevent it, and to have all of your spells prepared in your mind, and to make sure, well, that everything youcan do is done and ready. It’s the preparation they talk about. Is that what you meant by heroics?”

I nodded, even though I hadn’t meant much of anything. But my mind chewed over his words as my mouth did the same with the fish. “The only thing I can’t figure out,” I said after a while, “is why.”

Telnan swallowed and said, “Why?”

“Why put yourself in a position where you’re unlikely to survive?”

“Oh?” He shrugged. “It’s fun,” he said, and ate some fish.

I should tell you about Daymar. I should, but I’m not sure if I can. Daymar was of the House of the Hawk, and typified much of the House: perceptive, clever, and, as they say, with a head so much in the Overcast that it had seeped in. He was tall, lanky, and, stooped a bit when he walked. He liked me for reasons I’ve never understood, especially when I recall our first meeting. His skills—but you’ll pick those up as we go.

“Hello, Vlad. A few minutes, no more. What can I do for you?”

“Loiosh.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Loiosh. That’s what you can do for me.”

He raised an eyebrow, which is just about his only expression. “What about him?”

“Someone attempted some form of location spell on him.”

“What form?”

“That’s the problem. I don’t know.”

“It wasn’t sorcery?”

“No.”

“So you’re thinking it was psychics?”

“Can that be done?”

“Well, no, not exactly. You can’t use psychics to find where someone is. I mean, in a physical sense.”

“But you can locate him in a non-physical sense?”

Daymar nodded.

I carefully kept my face expressionless. “What does that mean, exactly? I mean, if you can’t locate him physically, what can you do?”

“Locate him mentally.”

“Ah. I see. You locate him mentally, but that doesn’t tell you where he is physically.”

Daymar nodded. “Exactly.”

“Quite vivid, Boss.”

“Hmmm?”

“The image in your mind of Daymar with his intestines spread all over the room.”

“Oh. I didn’t know you could pick up on that.”

“I usually can’t, but that one was pretty strong.”

“Yeah.”

I cleared my throat. “Daymar.”

“Hmmm?”

“Are you related to Aibynn?”

“I’m afraid I do not know him.”

I nodded. “Okay, let’s try again, and see if you can help me understand.”

“Understand what?”

I sighed. “What it means to locate someone without knowing where he is.”

“Oh.”

Daymar looked faintly befuddled. I guess that’s his other expression. After a moment he said, speaking slowly, “Well, you’re familiar with the tendency of psychic accumulation to form a spiritual gridwork, yes?”

“I assure you, in the small fishing village from which I come, it forms almost the sole topic of conversation.”

“That wasn’t funny the first time you said it, Boss.”

“Shut up, Loiosh.”

“Good then,” said Daymar. “Well—”

I sat down on the bed. “But it wouldn’t hurt for you to review it for me.”

He blinked. “All right.” He folded his arms. Floating above the floor with his arms folded made him look slightly ridiculous. He said, “Each mind capable of producing a significant amount of psychic energy creates a sort of image that an adept can sense. Enough of them within the same psychic location create something not unlike a grid—”

“Hold on.”

He cocked his head. “Yes?”

“I think that term, ‘psychic location,’ is somewhere near the heart of my confusion.”

“Oh. Shall I explain?”

“No. I love being confused.”

“All right.”

I closed my eyes. “No, explain.”

“Each mind that emits energy, does so with its own character­istics.”

“Okay, I can accept that.”

“One characteristic is how strong it is. My own is, well, rather strong.”

“Uh huh.”

“Another characteristic has to do with the feel of the mind—that is how you are able to reach someone telepathically after you know him well.”

“All right.”

“Another has to do with shape, or the way your mind grasps his, which is used ... never mind. Still another is, well, call it flavor.”

“All right, I will.”

“You can think of it as relating to not what the mind is like, but what the energy it produces is like. The energy comes in waves, and when you train yourself mentally, you are training to detect and work with those waves. You’re lost now, aren’t you?”

“Not quite. Go on.”

“Okay, when I speak of flavor, I’m talking about how much space there is between those waves. There are a large variety of possibilities for the amount of space, but it isn’t an infinite num­ber. All right?”

“Uh ... sort of.”

He nodded, paused, and said, “Okay, then. Imagine a build­ing of many stories.”

“All right, I can do that.”

“Minds capable of emitting energy—that is, almost any mind—can do so on any of a number of stories. When there are enough of them on a particular story, that story can be seen by an adept.”

“All right.”

“Imagine each flavor as being its own story.”

“You’re hurting my head, Daymar.”

“Sorry.”

“Continue.”

He nodded. “A psychic location means finding the story, and where on the story a particular mind is.”

I considered. “Do you know, I think I understood some of that.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll try again.”

“No, no. Go on.”

“I know, Vlad. That was a joke.”

“Oh. I didn’t think you did that.”

“I do sometimes.”

“All right. So, is there a way to go from this, uh, psychic location to a physical location?”

“Certainly.”

“How?”

He gave me a curious look. “I don’t know, Vlad. You’re the one who did it.”

“I did?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Not long ago. Remember, I mentally located someone? And you fixed his mental location in a crystal, so I could convert it to a physical location?”

“Oh. Right. That’s what that was?”

“I thought you knew.”

“Uh. I guess I did, in a way. But I didn’t know about the building.”

“The building?”

“With all the stories.”

“Oh.”

“All right, then. Let’s get back to this thing that happened.”

“The effort to locate Loiosh?”

“Yes. If they can’t go from, uh, the building to a physical location, then what were they doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you find out?”

“I could take a look into Loiosh’s head.”

I nodded. “That’s sort of what I was thinking.”

“Boss ...”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“You’ve had it done?”

“Well—”

“Okay, Boss. You owe me one.”

“Yes.”

“Go ahead, Daymar.”

Daymar frowned. “I need him to move a little away from you.”

“Boss—”

“I know. But do it anyway.”

My familiar flew over to the windowsill. Daymar nodded and glanced at him; then a look of surprise spread across his features, and he said, “That’s interesting.”

“What, you did it already? What did you find out?”

“That was it?”

“I’m not sure,” said Daymar.

“I admit that gives me a certain amount of satisfaction.”

“Hmmm?”

“Nothing. What can you tell me?”

“Someone attempted a spell I’ve never encountered before.” He sounded almost pleased.

“Can you determine what it was supposed to do?”

“Well, to find Loiosh. But I don’t understand how she intended to make the transition from ment—”

“She?”

“Yes.”

“You know the caster was female?”

He blinked. “Certainly.”

“What else can you tell me about her?”

“What would you like to know?”

“Does she like trout?”

“Yes.”

“Was that another joke?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I want to know if she is in the Left Hand of the Jhereg.”

“What’s that?”

“Okay. Then can you tell me anything about her state of mind?”

“Cold rage,” said Daymar.

“Really? You can tell that?”

He nodded.

“Cold rage,” I repeated.

“Boss, that makes it sound personal.”

“Yeah, that’s just what I was thinking.”

“Who have you offended lately?”

“Daymar, I think.”

“Daymar, if she had succeeded in locating Loiosh, could she have attacked me, through him?”

He frowned. “Maybe. I suppose that is possible. I don’t know enough about the nature of your connection to Loiosh.”

I nodded. “Okay, anything else you noticed?”

“Well, I can find her again, if you wish.”

“Um, yes. But for definitions of ‘find’ that don’t include an actual location?”

“Well, yes. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you can do that thing you did before.”

“What thing?”

“When you used that Eastern magic to find someone—”

“Oh, that.”

He shrugged.

“Unfortunately, that’s impossible just now.”

“Oh. All right.”

I sighed.

“Okay, Daymar. Thank you for showing up.”

“Why?”

“Uh, why? Well, it helps me to know what—”

“No, why is it impossible?”

“Oh.”

I tapped the pendant on my chest. “As long as I wear this, I cannot perform witchcraft.”

“Oh. Is that why I can’t feel your psychic presence?”

“Yep.”

“Oh. Uh, why don’t you take it off?”

“Valid question, Daymar.”

“And?” I think “and” and “yes” must be Daymar’s favorite words; he lingers over them the way I linger over Valabar’s trout.

“If I remove it, I die.”

“Oh.”

I waited patiently for the inevitable question after he’d chewed that over. I could have gone ahead and answered it before he asked, but I guess in a sick way I was enjoying myself.

“What will kill you?”

“The Jhereg is trying to find me and kill me.”

“Oh.

“Morganti.”

“Oh.”

I nodded.

“Why?” he said.

“I annoyed them.”

He nodded. “You must remind me,” he said, “not to annoy the Jhereg.”

“I’ll have Loiosh make a note. He handles things like that.”

“Shut up, Loiosh.”

“I—”

“Of course,” said Daymar, “if you want to, I can shield you while you perform the spell.”

“You can?”

“Certainly.”

“You can do what this amulet does?”

“Well no, not exactly. But I can keep your location from be­ing known.”

“I don’t understand. What, exactly, are you talking about?”

“I mean that I can keep them from finding you if you take that thing off.”

“Finding me in the, uh, building? Or in this room?”

“Both,” he said, with more confidence than I felt.

“It also blocks sorcery; can you keep them from finding me that way?”

“Oh,” said Daymar. “No, I’m afraid there my skills fail.”

I pondered. “I suppose I can separate the two parts of the amulet, and just leave—”

“Boss—”

“Hmmm?”

“This is Daymar.”

“What’s your point?”

“Boss, what is he good at?”

“What’s your point?”

“And what will happen when you take the amulet off?”

“Oh. Good thinking, chum.”

“Daymar, I have an idea.”

“Who had the idea?”

“What’s the idea, Vlad?”

“Tell me if this will work. When I remove the amulet ...”

I explained. He blinked. I couldn’t tell if it was the “I should have thought of that” blink, or the “I’ve never met anyone so stupid” blink.

“Well?”

“I can do that.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

I leaned back. “Well.”

“But what about sorcery?”

“We take our chances. Make it fast.”

He nodded. “Fast it is. Would you like to do it now?”

“Give me a moment.”

He nodded.

I leaned back and considered the various ways this could go wrong. Other than the possibility of a horrible death if Daymar had overestimated his skill, I couldn’t come up with any. And I did trust Daymar; often in spite of myself, but I did trust him.

I did trust him.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this thing.”

Daymar nodded. “Take the amulet off,” he said. 8. Steamed Goslingroot

When steaming, less is more, and this applies more to goslingroot than, perhaps, to anything else. Of course, it isn’t that easy, especially because you can never find two spears that are the same thickness, not to mention length, which means that steaming them to perfection requires, in its own way, as much feel as is required of a broiler-man.

The flavor of this root is subtle by nature, and, to be frank, not all that interesting. But it’s wonderful for absorbing butter, or for taking one of those cheese sauces that are so popular in certain kinds of Eastern cuisine. But too much of anything can turn it into mush.

Valabar’s didn’t put a cheese sauce on it; just lemon-butter and salt. And it goes without saying that they didn’t over-steam it. And its very simplicity made it a perfect accompaniment for the fish.