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  “Good idea, boss.”

  “That’s what I pay myself for.”

  Then I reached Fentor and had him check into any possible external threats. With any luck, I’d know within a day or two. I turned my attention back to the others. Aliera and Sethra were deep into another discussion.

  “Certainly,” Sethra was saying. “And as far as I’m concerned, let her.”

  Aliera frowned. “We’re just getting on our feet, Sethra. We can’t afford to go off East with tens of thousands of troops until we’re sure the Empire is stable.”

  “What’s this about?” I asked.

  “You set off another argument, Vlad,” Morrolan explained. “Aliera is opposed to Sethra the Younger’s conquering the East until the Empire is stable. Sethra the Younger thinks that will make it stable, and our own Sethra,” he indicated her with his head, “feels, as I do, that since Sethra—the other one—wants to do it, why not? What harm is there? They’ll throw us out again in a few hundred or a thousand years. That was why Kieron the Conqueror left them there in the first place—so we’d have someone to fight and wouldn’t tear ourselves apart.”

  I could have said many things about this, but I let it go.

  “That isn’t the point,” said Aliera. “If we drain off enough resources, what happens if a real enemy shows up? The Easterners are no threat to us now—”

  “What real enemy?” said Sethra. “There isn’t—”

  I stood and left them to their argument. It couldn’t have anything to do with me, in any case.

  Chapter Nine

  “I guess they wanted to see you.”

  I returned to my room and decided that I wanted to see Cawti again; also, that I was looking forward to dinner that evening with Sethra, Morrolan, and Aliera. I realized that I could become very comfortable at Dzur Mountain, while Kragar kept things going at the office. In other words, while everything I’d built up went over Deathsgate Falls. Not that Kragar was incompetent, but there are certain things one must do oneself, and I’d been gone four days already.

  “Aliera?”

  After a pause, a response came. “Yes, Vlad?”

  “Something has come up. I’m going to have to return to the office right away. Please convey my apologies to Sethra and Morrolan.”

  “As you wish. But don’t exert yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it.”

  “Would you like help with the teleport?”

  “Yes, please. That would be very nice.”

  “All right, I’ll be right down,” she concluded vocally, standing in front of me. Damn show-off. I gave her an image of the alley behind a row of buildings facing Malak Circle

  , and pulled back to show where it was relative to parts of Adrilankha that she knew. She nodded.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Ready.”

  There was a twist, and a burbling in my stomach, and I was there. I could have teleported to just outside the office building, but I wanted to look around and get a feel for the area, as well as give my stomach a chance to recover.

  Walking through the streets wasn’t as risky as it may sound. Though I didn’t have any bodyguards, no one even knew that I was around. The only way Laris could really get me was to have an assassin standing around next to my office, hoping I’d walk back in. I’d never taken “work” like that, but I have an idea of the risks associated with it. The longer you stand around a place, the more chance there is that someone will be able to identify you as the one doing the job. Paying someone to do that would cost more than paying the Sword and the Dagger to just finalize the individual. So I wasn’t very worried.

  The neighborhood looked a bit subdued. It was early afternoon, and this area didn’t really get going until nightfall, but it was still too quiet. Have you ever known a part of a city so well that you could tell what kind of mood it was in? So well that the scent of barbecuing lyorn legs told you that all was not normal? So you could hear that the street-hawkers were just a little bit more quiet than usual? That tradesmen and Teckla were wearing clothes with, perhaps, just a bit less color than they normally did? Where the scented fires of a hundred passersby making offerings to a dozen gods at a score of small altars brought a sense of weariness to the heart, instead of renewal?

  I knew this part of Adrilankha that well, and that was the kind of mood it was in. I didn’t need to talk to Kragar to know that business hadn’t recovered. I thought about this, and, as I approached the office itself, I discovered something very important: Laris wasn’t worried about money.

  “Look out, boss!”

  Not again, by the teeth of Dzur Mountain! I hit the ground, rolled to my right, came up to my knees, and spotted two Jhereg that I didn’t recognize moving at me from either side. Two of them, for the love of Verra! They both held daggers. Loiosh was in front of one, buffeting his face and trying to sink his teeth into him. The other one suddenly stumbled and fell to his knees a few feet away from me, with three shuriken sticking out of him. I realized then that I’d thrown them. Not bad, Vlad.

  I scrambled to my feet and spun, looking for more. I didn’t spot them, so I turned back in time to see the other assassin fall to the ground. As he fell, I saw N’aal behind him, holding a large fighting knife with fresh blood on it. Next to him was Chimov, also holding a knife, looking around anxiously.

  “Boss!” said N’aal.

  “No,” I snapped. “I’m Kieron the Conqueror. What’s going on around here? Why do we have Verra-be-damned assassins standing outside the Verra-be-damned office in the middle of the Verra-be-damned afternoon?”

  Chimov just shrugged. N’aal said, “I guess they were looking for you, boss.”

  Some days everyone and his sibling is a Verra-be-damned jongleur. I brushed past them and stormed into the office. Melestav jumped when I came in, but relaxed when he saw it was me. Kragar was in my office, sitting in my Verra-be-damned chair. He greeted me warmly.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said.

  One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .

  “Kragar, may I please have my chair back?”

  “Oh, sure, boss. Sorry. Whatsamatter, hard day dodging assassins? I assumed you wanted some excitement, or why did you go walking into the middle of them without letting anyone know you were coming? I mean, it would have been easy—”

  “You’re pushing it.”

  He got up. “Whatever you say, Vlad.”

  “Kragar, just what is going on around here?”

  “Going on?”

  I gestured toward the outside.

  “Oh. Nothing.”

  “Nothing? You mean ‘no business’?”

  “Almost none.”

  “But what about those assassins?”

  “I didn’t know they were there, Vlad. D’you think I’d have just left them there?”

  “But they must be costing Laris a fortune.”

  He nodded. I was interrupted by contact with Melestav.

  “Yeah?”

  “N’aal is here.”

  “Send him in.”

  He came in. “Boss, I—”

  “Just a minute. Three things. First, good work taking out the one. Second, next time I’ll expect you to spot them before they spot me. Three, next time I’m almost nailed like that, if you’re around, keep your bleeding wiseass remarks to yourself or I’ll cut your bleeding throat for you. Got it?”

  “Yeah, boss. Sorry.”

  “Okay. What d’you want?”

  “I thought you’d want these.” He tossed my shuriken, complete with bloodstains, on my desk. “I remember hearing that you don’t like them left around, and—”

  I stood up, walked around my desk, and slipped a dagger out from my cloak. Before N’aal could react, I put it in him, between the forth and fifth ribs, angled up. A look of shock came into his face as I stepped out of the way. Then he fell.

  I turned to Kragar, still gripped by fear and icy rage. Also, my back and side hurt like the Great Sea of Chaos. “Kragar, you
are a very fine administrative assistant. But if you ever want to run an area, make it as far from me as possible, or else learn how to keep discipline. That guy’s no fool; he should know better than to walk in here with a murder weapon, with the corpse’s blood still on it. In the four days I’ve been gone, you’ve managed to convince everyone around here that they don’t have to think anymore, and as a result I almost got butchered out there. You son-of-a-bitch, this is my life we’re talking about!”

  “Take it easy, boss. Don’t—”

  “Shut up.”

  “Now,” I continued, “see if you can get him revivified. Out of your pocket. If not, you may have the honor of giving his next of kin the bonus. Understand?”

  Kragar nodded, looking genuinely crestfallen. “I’m sorry, Vlad,” he said, and seemed to be looking for something else to say.

  I went back to my desk, sat down, leaned back and shook my head. Kragar wasn’t incompetent, at most things. I really didn’t want to lose him. After this, I should probably do something to show I trusted him. I sighed. “Okay, let’s forget it. I’m back now. There’s something I want you to do.”

  “Yeah?”

  “N’aal was not completely wrong. I should not have left the shuriken in the body; but he should not have brought them back to me. I don’t know that the Empire ever employs witches, but if it does, a witch could trace that weapon back to its wielder.”

  Kragar listened silently. He knew nothing about witchcraft.

  “It has to do with body aura,” I explained. “Anything that’s been around me for any length of time is going to pick up a sort of psychic ‘scent’ that a witch can identify.”

  “So, what do you do about it? You can’t count on always taking the weapon with you.”

  “I know. So what I’m going to do is to start changing weapons every couple of days or so, so that nothing is on me long enough to pick up my aura. I’m going to make a list of all my weapons. I want you to go around and get ones to match. I’ll put the ones I’m done with in a box, and you can use them for trade next time, which should cut down on the cost a bit. Okay?”

  He looked startled. Well, I wasn’t surprised. I was putting a lot of trust in him to tell him what weapons I had concealed about me, even if, as he would suspect, I were keeping a few back. But he nodded.

  “Good,” I said. “Come back in an hour and I’ll have the list made up. Memorize and destroy it.”

  “Check, boss.”

  “Good. Now go away.”

  “Boss . . . ”

  “Sorry I snapped at you, Loiosh. And good work with that assassin.”

  “Thanks, boss. And don’t worry about it. I understand.”

  Loiosh had always been understanding, I decided. It was only then, as I began writing, that it really hit me just how close I’d come once again. I reached the trash bucket just before my stomach emptied itself. I got a glass of water and rinsed out my mouth, then had Melestav empty and clean the bucket. I sat there shaking for some time before I got to work on the list for Kragar.

  * * * *

  I gave Kragar the list, and he took off to fill it. Shortly after that I got a message from Melestav.

  “Boss . . . there are some people here to see you.”

  “Who?”

  “People in uniform.”

  “Oh shit. Well, I shouldn’t be surprised.” I made sure there was nothing incriminating on my desk. “Okay, send them in.”

  “How bad do you suppose this is going to be, Loiosh?”

  “You can always claim self-defense, boss.”

  The door opened and two Dragaerans dressed in the golden uniforms of the House of Phoenix came marching in. One looked around the office contemptuously, as if to say, “So this is how the scum live.” The other looked at me with a similar expression, as if to say, “So this is the scum.”

  “Greetings, my lords,” I said. “How may I serve the Empire?”

  The one who was looking at me said, “You are Baronet Vlad of Taltos?” He pronounced it “Taltoss,” instead of “Taltosh,” so he must have had written orders, for whatever that was worth.

  “Baronet Taltos will do,” I said. “I am at your service, lords.”

  The other one turned his glance to me, snorted, and said, “I’ll bet.”

  The first one asked me, “What do you know about it?”

  “About what, my lord?”

  He shot a glance at the other, who closed the door of my office. I took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly, knowing what was coming. Well, it happens sometimes. When the door was shut, the one who’d been doing most of the talking pulled a dagger from his belt.

  I swallowed and said, “My lord, I’d like to help—” which was as far as I got before the hilt of the dagger, held in his palm, smashed into the side of my head. I went flying out of the chair and landed in the comer.

  “Loiosh, don’t do anything.”

  There was a pause then, “I know, boss, but—”

  “Nothing!”

  “Okay, boss. Hang in there.”

  The one who’d just hit me was standing over me now. He said, “Two men were murdered just outside of the door of this place, Jhereg.” He made it sound like a curse. “What do you know about it?”

  “Lord,” I said, “I don’t know oomph!” as his foot took me in the stomach. I’d seen it just in time to move forward, so he missed my solar plexus.

  The other one came up then. “Did you hear him, Menthar? He don’t know oomph. How about that?” He spat on me. “I think we should take him to the barracks. What do you think?”

  Menthar muttered something and kept looking at me. “I’ve heard you’re a tough one, Whiskers. Is that true?”

  “No, lord,” I told him.

  He nodded and said to the other one, “This isn’t a Jhereg; this is a Teckla. Look at him squirm. Doesn’t it make you sick?”

  His partner said, “What about those two murders, Teckla? You sure you don’t know anything about them?” He reached down and hauled me up, so that I was against the back wall. “You real sure?”

  I said, “I don’t know what—” and he caught me under the chin with the pommel of his dagger, which had been hidden in his hand. My head cracked against the wall and I felt my jaw break. I must have lost consciousness for an instant, because I don’t remember sliding to the floor.

  Then Menthar said, “You hold him for me.”

  The other guard agreed. “But be careful. Easterners are fragile. Remember the last one.”

  “I’ll be careful.” He looked at me and smiled. “Last chance,” he said. “What do you know about those two dead men outside?”

  I shook my head, which hurt like blazes, but I knew trying to talk would hurt more. He hefted his dagger, hilt up, and swung his arm back for a good windup . . .

  * * * *

  I don’t know how long the whole thing lasted. It was certainly one of the worst I’d been through, but if they’d chosen to take me back to their barracks it would have been worse. Phoenix Guards are never ordered to beat up Jhereg, or Easterners, or anyone else, but some of them don’t like us.

  This beating was peculiar. I’d been bashed around before; it was one of the prices I paid for living according to my own rules instead of the Empire’s. But why this time? The two dead men were Jhereg, and the usual attitude of Imperial Guards to such things is: let ’em kill each other off, for all we care. It could have been just another excuse to beat up an Easterner or a Jhereg, but they’d seemed genuinely angry about something.

  These thoughts came to me through a thick haze of pain as I was lying on my office floor. I was concentrating as hard as I could on figuring out the reason behind the beating so that I could avoid thinking about how every inch of me hurt. I could tell there were people around me, but I couldn’t open my eyes to see who they were, and they were talking in whispers.

  After a time, I heard Melestav say, “Here she is, move back,” followed by the sound of a long garment dragging across the floor. Thi
s was followed by a gasp. I decided I must be quite a sight.

  The newcomer said, “Get away from him.” I recognized, with surprise and some relief, Aliera’s voice. I tried to force my eyes to open, but they wouldn’t.

  I heard Kragar say, “How bad is he, Aliera?” but she chose not to answer him. That didn’t necessarily mean that I was in bad shape; Aliera so utterly despised Kragar that she preferred not to speak to him whenever possible.

  “Kragar . . . ”

  “Are you all right, Vlad?”

  “No, but never mind that. They seemed mad about something in particular. Any idea what?”

  “Yeah. While they were . . . while they were here, I got Daymar to do a mind-probe.”

  “Kragar, you know I don’t like Daymar to know—never mind. What did he find out?”

  We were interrupted by Aliera saying, “Sleep, Vlad.” I was going to argue, but I discovered that she wasn’t just making a suggestion. I saw a pale green light, and I slept.

  * * * *

  Aliera was there when I woke up again, as was the picture of the dzur and the jhereg. This led to the realization that I could see again. I took stock of my various body parts, and found that, while I still hurt, it was mostly dull aches instead of flaming agony. Aliera is a very good healer.

  “I might as well move in here,” I said.

  “I heard what happened, Vlad,” said Aliera. “On behalf of the House of the Dragon, I apologize.”

  I grunted.

  “The one who beat you—his name is Menthar? He is off duty in four months.”

  I felt my eyes trying to widen. I studied her. Her lips were pressed tightly together, and her eyes were gray. Her hands were in fists, at her sides. “Four months,” she repeated, “and then he’s fair game.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate the information.”

  She nodded. Dragonlords were Dragonlords, and usually hated Jhereg and Easterners both—but they didn’t approve of attacking people who couldn’t defend themselves, and Aliera knew enough about how the Jhereg operated to know that if a representative of the Empire wanted to knock around a Jhereg, the Jhereg would just have to take it. But, I suppose, there’s something about being in the guard, and watching us get away with everything we get away with, that frustrates them. For my part, I didn’t feel any moral outrage at what had happened to me. I just wanted to tear that guy’s arms off . . . Four months.