Hawk

2

There’s a long time in there where I don’t know what happened, but I figured that either the other assassin didn’t manage to find me, or, more likely, didn’t know how helpless I was and decided he didn’t want to take on me and Lady Teldra by himself.

The other possibility, that he was going for help, didn’t cross my mind.

I know I dropped the knife I was holding, but Lady Teldra must have healed me fast enough to keep me breathing. At some point, I realized I was staring up at an empty sky, and I became aware that Loiosh and Rocza were next to me. I felt a little ill, and I knew that if I tried to stand I’d get sick, so I lay there. This stuff is hard to reconstruct after the fact.

“Boss?”

“I think we’re-” I had a moment of panic thinking of Lady Teldra, but then I connected her with the profoundly uncomfortable lump digging into my back. I rolled over. My right arm was working, so I took her into my hand. She felt warm, and almost seemed to be vibrating, though none of my senses were very reliable at that moment.

“I think we’re okay,” I said, and closed my eyes.

A little later I became aware that I was shivering.

“Am I bleeding?”

“I don’t think so.”

My left hand was working, so I reached up and felt my throat. It hurt, but my fingers came away dry. I wondered if I could do something strenuous like, I don’t know, sit up. I tried. The world spun but settled down after a while.

From time to time, Loiosh or Rocza would take off, fly around for a bit, then land again; the other would stay near me like I was a nest full of eggs.

“I think we can conclude they’re gone,” I said.

“Good call, Boss. What happened?”

I tried to get to my feet, made it as far as my knees. I sheathed Lady Teldra, then used both hands to stand up. A few feet away was the body of someone who had almost been good enough. Almost will kill you. I put him out of my mind as I tried to walk. I wobbled for a bit, and the world spun; but after a minute it seemed like I might be able to move. I tried a step. It worked. I tried another.

“Boss?”

“Just let me concentrate on walking for a bit.”

In a few more steps, I was doing all right-if I’d been seventy years old and had let myself go. But I moved. I worked my way back to the place in the park where I’d started, where I had a good view in all directions. It was dark, but lights from the City worked with the enclouding to provide a bit of illumination.

I stopped there, breathing heavily, and tried to figure out my next move.

I said, “I don’t know how they found me, but-”

“Boss, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. A bit dicey there for a minute, but it’s the first attempt I’m worried about.”

“The first attempt? How many were there?”

“Just two, I think. But-”

“You think?”

“I’m pretty sure. But-”

“Pretty sure? You’re pretty sure how many times-”

“Loiosh, be quiet for a minute. I’m trying to tell you something. It’s the first attack I’m worried about. I mean the second. The first one here, in the park.”

“Oh, well that’s good. I’m glad you weren’t worried about the one where you had to cut your own throat. No reason that should worry-”

“You were the target, not me.”

There was a significant pause, then, “Oh,” he said.

“I should have been expecting this. It’s the obvious way to weaken me. And with the second attempt, the guy went for my sword arm. His whole plan was to make me drop Lady Teldra. They know enough about me to be very dangerous.”

“We’ll have to be more careful,” he said.

“I need to find a place to hide, to hole up for a few days while I recover.”

“But if they can find you-”

“Yeah. Need to figure out how they did that.”

“Maybe figure it out before we go into a confined space without much visibility?”

“Right. Good plan.”

“So-”

“Shut up. I’m thinking.”

“It’s good to see you’re open to new experiences,” he said.

I ignored him and, standing in the park on a chilly night, weak, trembling, and distracted, I tried to work things out.

Sethra Lavode had once found me in the wilderness by tracking Loiosh, but she was Sethra Lavode; could anyone else do that? I could ask her, but that would entail its own risks. I went through the list: Sorcery required a link to the Orb, and the amulet I wore, a combination of gold and black Phoenix Stone, ought to prevent that. There was necromancy, but that was just a specialized use of sorcery. Elder sorcery? I was no expert, but I’d never heard of anyone doing anything as subtle as a location spell with it. Psychic skills? Witchcraft? The other part of my amulet should prevent those from working.

So, perhaps it had been Loiosh someone found a way to locate. But in that case-

“Loiosh?”

“Maybe, Boss, if it happened while I was sleeping. But I’m pretty sure I’d notice someone casting a spell on me or Rocza.”

“Sethra managed without you knowing.”

“She’s Sethra.”

“I’m going to have to ask her, aren’t I?”

I didn’t like it that they’d taken a shot at Loiosh. I didn’t like that at all.

There was a mild breeze, a bit chilly, and carrying the scent of pine needles. I had sheathed Lady Teldra, but I still had the park and the nearby streets to myself. It was sort of eerie, being alone in a place that was usually crowded. For a while, it was like time stopped, held its breath waiting for something to break. Loiosh and Rocza perched on my shoulders; they, too, were unmoving. The place had cleared because I’d drawn Lady Teldra-I held something so terrifying that it could clear a park and the surrounding streets.

So why was I so bloody scared?

I suppose it might have something to do with the fact that they’d come so close to killing me that I’d had to cut my own throat as the only alternative to dying.

There was a bronze plaque on the ground not far from me, naming the place as Kodai Park; who Kodai was I have no idea. Be nice to have a park named after you. I hope whatever he did was worth it. I hadn’t realized that it really was a park-I thought it was just a place no one had built on. Nice that there are parks, don’t you think? I heard sounds from some distance away-cries, maybe; violence perhaps. But they weren’t coming any closer so I ignored them.

I don’t know how long I stood there-maybe a quarter of an hour, maybe more-but eventually foot traffic started up again, and a few people walked through the park. Soon someone would find the body, and either scream or ignore it; and maybe inform the Phoenix Guards, who might or might not bother to look at it.

“Boss?”

“Yeah, we should move.”

“And soon.”

“The question is, where to?”

“Well, Boss. Out of the park might be a good start.”

“I need some sort of destination.”

“Just pick-wait. Something…”

“Loiosh?”

“Something’s coming toward us.”

“Some thing, Loiosh?” Well, I decided. This can’t be good. I put my hand on Lady Teldra’s hilt, wondering if the effort to draw her would make me fall over.

Loiosh said, “It’s … oh.”

I saw it. A dog-the big, loping kind, coming up to me, tail wagging. I’d seen that dog before, fairly recently, so I waited. It sniffed at my feet, then my hand, then wagged its tail some more.

“Hello, Awtlá,” I said aloud. It came out in a whisper, and ragged, like there was something wrong with my throat. I almost cleared my throat, but realized in time that doing so was probably not my best move. I tried speaking again. “If I knew how you found me, would I know how the Jhereg found me?” It didn’t hurt to talk, I just sounded bad.

Awtlá seemed very happy to see me. My feelings were more mixed. It was a very, very bad sign that I could be found. But Awtlá was one of the familiars of a warlock-of the Warlock-who as far as I knew was friendly. More significantly, I was in absolutely no condition to either defend myself or run away. So I decided to wait for further developments. Loiosh flapped his wings and hissed at Awtlá, who jumped up on his back legs to either eat him or lick him; I backed away because having a dog on my chest would make me fall over.

The next thing that ought to happen was the appearance of a cat. I looked around.

“There, Boss. By that hedge.”

Yeah, I could just see it. It wasn’t approaching me; it seemed to be giving itself a careful bath.

Then he himself appeared. I couldn’t see him all that well in the gloom, but well enough to recognize him. He looked me over. I nodded to him.

“Hello, Lord Taltos,” he said.

“How did you find me?”

“You really need to stop wasting so much time with small talk,” he said.

I waited.

He shrugged. “You were found by the will of the Empress.”

I licked my lips. “You aren’t making that up, are you?”

“No. She used the Orb.”

“And, what, it was just coincidence that the Jhereg found me on the same day?”

“No. She became aware that you’d been attacked.”

“She was right about that.”

“She wasn’t certain you’d survive.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“The Jhereg found you?”

“Kinda,” I said.

“There were more looking for you,” he told me.

“Were?”

He said, “Have you noticed we look alike?”

“Human, dark hair, mustache, yeah I’ve noticed.”

“That would explain it.”

“You met some Jhereg?”

“Three. Not far from here. They met Awtlá and Sireng. One had a Morganti weapon.”

If you’ve been paying attention, that was where I realized that the guy had gone off to get friends. “Yeah, Morganti,” I said. “A lot of those around lately. They should be illegal.”

“They are illegal.”

“Oh, right. Nothing personal, but I’m glad they found you instead of me. I’m not in any shape to-”

“I can see that.”

I nodded. “But wouldn’t they have been embarrassed to find out they’d destroyed the wrong soul?”

The Warlock nodded. “Yeah, that would have been bad. Glad I was able to save them from that.”

“So you don’t know how they found me?”

“No. You have a lot of blood on you.”

“Your powers of observation-”

“How much of it is yours?”

“A lot of it.”

“I see. How are you?”

“Glad to still be on my feet, what with one thing and another. But, overall, I’d say pretty poor.”

He was silent for a moment, then his two familiars began to move. They started walking in large circles around the park. I watched them for a few moments, and, yeah, there was a wolf and a dzur where a dog and a cat had been. I really wished I knew how they did that.

He said, “You know I can’t heal you while you wear that amulet.”

“Yeah.”

“I could give you some basic emergency care.”

“Lady Teldra has handled that already, thanks.”

“Lady-? Oh. Yes, of course. You know about the limitations on that, right?”

“Pretend I don’t for a minute and tell me.”

“A device like that can-”

“Device like this?”

He shrugged. “Any energy-magic conversion device.”

“Ener … Um. Okay.”

“It can only do so much until it receives more energy.”

“Receives more energy,” I repeated. “By which you mean-kills someone, destroying his soul?”

“Yes,” he said.

“That doesn’t make sense. When I carried Spellbreaker-”

“Were you wearing that amulet then?”

“Um.”

“If she can draw energy from the Orb, she doesn’t need to feed.”

“So, if I can find a safe place to take the amulet off, she’ll be all right again?”

“Maybe. It depends on how awake she is, how much awareness she has to pull in energy to use later. That isn’t something I’d know.”

“You know a lot about this sort of thing for an Easterner.”

“I try to be useful to Her Majesty.”

I bit back an observation that would have been vulgar and said, “I suppose. So, how did the Jhereg find me?”

“Sorry, no idea.”

“Just when I was sure you knew everything.”

“Not everything. Not even most things. Just a lot of things.”

“I was thinking they put some sort of spell on my familiars.”

He looked at Loiosh. Rocza flapped her wings and hissed; Loiosh hissed at her and she settled down.

After a moment, he said, “No.”

I very much wanted to say, “Are you sure?” But I resisted; it would just have annoyed him. I muttered.

“What?” he said.

“It would be very, very convenient to figure out how the Jhereg found me. That way, I could maybe, you know, keep them from doing it again. I’d prefer to avoid another attack, even if I manage to recover from this last one.”

He shrugged. “My guess is they followed you.”

“Yeah, not likely.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’ve been watching for it.”

“This is outside my area of expertise, but, you can’t follow someone who’s watching for it?”

“It’s pretty damned hard without a whole lot of people.”

“And does the Jhereg have a whole lot of people?”

“I…”

“Yes?”

“You really think it’s that simple?”

“I don’t know. Have you been somewhere they could have expected you to be? Somewhere they could pick you up?”

“Yes, but-”

“Hmmm?”

“Gods of the Paths! They’d have needed five, six different people with the way we were watching for it, all of them with illusions so they looked human. And they’d have to pay each of them for several days to make sure they caught me when I finally showed up, plus paying the sorcerer. Do you have any idea how much that would cost?”

“Well, no,” he said.

“A lot.”

“And do they want you badly enough to spend a lot?”

I didn’t answer. They did, of course. Was it really that simple? They’d picked me up at Cawti’s, followed me, set up an attack at the flophouse, and, when that didn’t work, followed me until they could set up another?

Someone was spending a lot of gold. I mean, a lot.

“Loiosh? What do you think?”

“I can believe it, Boss. You did really annoy them. But you know them better than I do.”

Yeah, I really did annoy them.

“You’ll thank Her Majesty for me?”

“She said to tell you no thanks are necessary. You hold an Imperial title. That makes it her duty to render aid when needed, and if she notices.”

“Uh-huh. You’ll thank her for me?”

“I will.”

“And, ah, thank you as well.”

“I serve Her Majesty.”

“Yeah. About that. Think Her Majesty might manage to forbid the Jhereg from trying to, you know, kill me and stuff?”

He shook his head. “She’d like to. She is not, of course, unaware of your situation. But that’s an internal House matter, and she can’t interfere.”

“But she can send a rescue party?”

“That’s different. They tried to kill you. That’s illegal.”

“But-”

“If they’d just be kind enough to admit they were trying to kill you, she could tell them not to.”

I shook my head, which I ought not to have done. “Yeah, I get it.”

His cat and his dog-just a cat and a dog now-came back. The dog curled up by his feet, the cat rubbed his leg then sat down and started licking itself. Loiosh hissed at the cat, I guess just on general principle; the cat pretended Loiosh didn’t exist.

“You should get somewhere safe,” he said.

I nodded. “That’s next on my list. Right after I figure out where.”

“I could escort you to the Palace.”

I shook my head. “That’s the last place I want to be.”

“Then maybe you should see how far from Adrilankha you can get how fast?”

“No, I’m sticking around. And that means-”

“Why?”

“Why? Why am I sticking around?”

“Yes.”

“He asks good questions, Boss.”

“Shut up.”

Aloud I said, “They’ve threatened my son.”

“We’re watching out for him, and for your ex-wife.”

“And I’m tired of running from them. I want this settled.”

He started to speak, then just nodded.

I said, “I need to stay in South Adrilankha, at least until I’m feeling better. Dragaerans stand out here a bit more, Jhereg in particular. It’s easier for me to vanish, and harder for the Jhereg to be sneaky.”

“How’d that work out today?”

I shrugged.

“All right,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced. “If you know of a place where you’ll be safe.”

“I’m still thinking about-oh.”

“Not bad, Boss. Sort of safe at least.”

“Thanks for the reassurance.”

“You’ve thought of a place.”

“I think so.”

“Need an escort?”

“There are no Jhereg around now, are there?”

“No.”

“Then no, thanks. I’d as soon keep this private. No offense intended to you or Her Majesty.”

“None taken. Best of luck to you, Lord Taltos. That is, Count Szurke.”

He turned away, his familiars following. I really hoped he was right about there being no Jhereg around, or I was going to feel very foolish for a short time.

I started walking east, then turned north. I was still slow, but getting better. Above all, I was hungry: very, very hungry. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that the Warlock was right-that it was nothing more than a bunch of Jhereg following me around, and taking whatever shots at me they could. It didn’t have to be any one of the big bosses committing that much money. A group that big? Sure. The amount being offered for me was so high that a group of eight or nine could conceivably get together and agree to help each other and split the bounty afterward. It was hard to imagine a group that size trusting each other to the point where they could see each other starred-the main reasons assassins work alone is because no matter how much pressure the Imperial Justicers apply, no one can testify to something he doesn’t know about.

But, yeah. Sometimes you need to take a leap and accept that the improbable has happened. Sometimes you even need to accept that the impossible is more possible than you’d thought. I considered this and all its implications as I made my slow, painful way through South Adrilankha.

After taking an hour to make a ten-minute walk, we reached an area that for reasons I’d love to discover someday is called the Noose. I took Calf Lane to stay off the main thoroughfares. The houses here were wooden, old, rickety, three-story, and held eight or nine families each, and they all smelled bad. There were piles of refuse and rats to scurry around them, and here and there well-controlled fires in the middle of streets where someone was risking a conflagration in order to reduce his trash for a while. Some of the buildings had once been shops but now held families; a few of the houses now sported signs indicating a smith, a cobbler, a physicker, a tailor. I passed the place my grandfather had once lived, but I didn’t stop; I didn’t want to see what it had become.

A little past it was a tiny cottage with a tent attached to the front, looking both out of place among the larger buildings and absurd just by itself. The entrance to the tent was covered with a quilt that had floral patterns in red and blue. Often the home of a witch is indicated by any of several symbols that depend on which culture the witch came from; but a witch who is well known in the neighborhood needs no sign.

I pushed the quilt aside and entered.

She looked up at me from an odd legless chair-like a cushion with a back-where she sat with her knees drawn up, reading. She was around fifty years old but looked older: her face weathered, her hair stringy and mostly gray. Her eyes-a deep, penetrating brown-fell first on Loiosh and Rocza, then on the sword at my side, then on my face.

“You’re the young Taltos boy, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Auntie,” I said. My voice was still pretty raspy. I again almost cleared my throat, and again remembered in time to not do that.

“Tea?”

“Please.”

I sat silently while she puttered. She served us a strong herb tea with hints of cinnamon and orange. I waited while she tasted hers, looking me over with narrow, evaluating eyes. A few wisps of hair fell over her forehead. I was pleased that I could swallow the tea without discomfort. Thank you, Lady Teldra.

“Well,” said the old woman said after a moment.

“Thank you for the tea, Auntie.”

“What do you bring me?”

“Gold,” I said.

She sniffed. “Gold gold, or copper?”

I drew an imperial from my pouch and passed it over. She studied it, and I could see her trying not to show how impressed she was. Eventually she gave up the struggle, and let herself smile. She still had many of her teeth, though they were yellow.

“Are you hungry?”

I managed a dignified nod that understated my hunger by a great deal. She disappeared, then came back with large bowl and a small one.

“Oh my,” I said. “Are those what I think they are?”

“Probably.”

“Who grows red mushrooms around here?”

“I do,” she said and offered me the bowl. I took one, dipped it into the garlic butter, and took a bite. The burn spread over my tongue and mouth and I grinned. The last person I knew who grew red mushrooms had been my father, years and years ago. He had served them lightly steamed, coated in garlic butter, and with a scallion wrapped around each. These were just steamed and dipped in garlic butter, which is all you need. In a pinch, you can skip the garlic butter. I felt my face flush, I started sweating, and I ate another one.

I think it was just about there that I remembered that my clothes were covered in blood.

“Auntie,” I rasped. “About my appearance-”

“Eat first,” she snapped, as if annoyed that she had to explain something so obvious. I didn’t argue.

The burn from red mushrooms (which, fortunately, affects the front of the mouth and not the throat) hits immediately, but it also accumulates, so by the fifth one my mouth was seriously concerned that I was trying to get information from it, and it would have told me anything I wanted to hear if it had only known what to say. She brought out some langosh, however, and that helped.

“Thanks,” I said.

She sniffed. “I’m not a laundry service. You’ll have to find your own way to clean up.”

“I know, Auntie.”

“You need rest.”

I nodded.

“But that isn’t why you came to me. Nor was it for red mushrooms.” She sniffed again, as if red mushrooms were the only reason any right-thinking person would visit her.

I shook my head.

“Well?”

“I need a safe place to stay,” I said. “Just for a day or two, while I recover.”

She studied me, her eyes unblinking. “How is your grandfather?”

“Well. He’s in an Eastern province, just this side of the mountains. Lots of wildlife, lots of privacy. He likes it.”

“You’ll give him my regards?”

“I will.”

She considered a little longer, and I waited for her to decide.

Let me explain: Stabbing someone to death isn’t easy. I know how often you see it in the theater, but on the street, it doesn’t work like it does on the stage. You can’t simply put steel into someone and expect him to become dead. People just naturally don’t want to die, and have bodies that are designed to keep on living. If you have a thrusting sword like a rapier, or even better, a shortsword, and you can nail the heart, you’re going to be all right; but it needs to be perfect, and it’s hard to use anything as big as that without giving the target enough warning that it could turn into a fight-and you don’t want it to turn into a fight, because then it won’t be perfect, which means something might go wrong. That’s why most “work” is done with knives, and killing someone with a knife requires knowing what you’re doing.

There is a significant difference between a fight and an assassination. Usually, when I’m fighting, I try for wounds that will slow my enemy, or throw him off, or make it more difficult for him to fight me. That’s why I cut so much-cutting someone’s face, or arm, or belly, or leg, will interfere with his plans even if it won’t kill him. The times you can actually get in a perfect killing strike are rare in a fight. The whole point of assassination, in fact, is to get the target into a position where you can take one perfect shot for a vital spot, and hit it. Even then, a great deal of the time, the victim won’t die instantly; he’ll just lie there, in shock, until he bleeds to death or his organs shut down. I mean, it often isn’t even clear exactly when death occurs. But most of the time, it doesn’t matter. Nail a guy’s brain, and he’s dead, even if he’s still breathing for a bit. Generally speaking, that’s good enough.

But I didn’t have a pattern of movements, and I certainly wouldn’t agree to a meeting, which made it very hard for anyone to set me up with a perfect shot; it didn’t give them a lot to work with. In a situation like that, if I’d even agreed to take the job, I’d have just exercised patience and waited for the target (me, if you’re paying attention) to make a mistake. But the Jhereg wanted me really badly, and I was skilled enough to make it hard for them-so someone had just put out the word that anyone who managed to stick a Morganti blade in me would make a lot of money. They were spending a lot of money on having people watch for me, and they’d made some arrangement to get out word when I was spotted.

I mean, the death thing-if it’s a Morganti blade they’ve stuck into you, that’s different. Doesn’t much matter where you’re hit, you’re dead. Really dead. All the way dead. Depending on how strong the blade is, probably pretty fast, too.

The result was that a lot of incompetent people were taking shots at me. And that meant two things: one, that there were going to be a lot of attempts that were less than expert; and, two, sooner or later they were going to get me unless I got out of town really fast. It also meant that all of the places I usually went would be watched: Kragar’s office, Cawti’s house-for all I knew they were even watching Castle Black and Dzur Mountain.

I’m explaining this to you; it isn’t what I was thinking about then. I sort of knew it, and I was sort of too messed up to care. Yeah, sometimes things are complicated.

What I did know was that I needed to be somewhere safe for a few days; to rest, to build up my strength. Just for a while. Someplace they couldn’t find me, at least until I was in shape to maybe survive another attempt.

Just because you figure that one of them is going to get you eventually is no reason to make it easy for them.

Well, is it?

She raised a hand, studied me, then let it fall.

“You cannot remove that amulet even long enough to be healed?”

“No, Auntie. If I do, I’ll be found.”

She sniffed. “You need longer than a few days. You’re already falling apart. You’ve been foolish, and are being more foolish every hour, and you need rest.”

“Yeah,” I said.

She considered. “Your grandfather would want me to help you.”

“You knew him well?”

“I knew him well enough to know he would want me to help you.”

“I’m pleased to hear you say so.”

She nodded. “Very well, young Taltos. I will keep you hidden for two days. After that, we’ll see.”

“Auntie, do you know from whom you’re hiding me?”

“No,” she said. “Now, come along.”