The Book of Jhereg Read online

  “Why? If it was just the one individual—”

  “This was during the reign of a decadent Phoenix, so nobody was trusting anybody. The Jhereg thought that it was the Dragons who had killed the bosses, and the Dragons thought it was the Jhereg who had arranged the escape.”

  “And then things went to Hell, you say? Right then?”

  She nodded. “The Jhereg killed enough of the right Dragonlords, including some wizards, so that a certain one, who’d been planning a coup, found himself forced to move too soon, and to rely too heavily on magic. And, without his best sorcerers, the spell got out of control, even after the Emperor was dead, and . . .” Her voice trailed off. It started to sink in. I can subtract as well as anyone can, and if the first Dragon-Jhereg war was when it was, then the second one had to be . . . decadent Phoenix . . . Dragon coup . . . went to Hell . . . spell got out of control . . . dead Phoenix Emperor. . . .

  “Adron,” I said.

  She nodded. “My father. The assassin had reasons of his own to hate the Emperor and was working with father to find a way to poison the Emperor when things fell apart. As you know, it was Mario who finally killed the Emperor, when he tried to use the Orb against the Jhereg. Another Phoenix tried to grab the throne, and father had to move too quickly. The next thing you know, we have a sea of amorphia where the city of Dragaera used to be, no Emperor, no Orb, and no Empire. It was close to two hundred years before Zerika turned up with the Orb.”

  I shook my head. Just too damn many shocks in too damn few days. I couldn’t handle it.

  “And now,” I said, “it’s going to start up again.”

  Morrolan nodded at this. We were all silent for a time, then Morrolan said quietly, “And if that happens, Vlad, which side will you be on?”

  I looked away.

  “You know,” he continued, “that I’d be one of House Jhereg’s first targets.”

  “I know,” I said. “I also know that you’d be in the front lines trying to waste the organization. As would Aliera, for that matter. And, by the way, I’d be one of the first ones the Dragons went after.”

  He nodded. “Do you think you could convince the Jhereg to let this one go?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not an Issola, Morrolan, and I don’t have that sharp a tooth. And, to tell you the truth, I’m not all that sure that I’d do it if I could. I’ve heard all the reasons why Mellar has to go, and they’re hard to argue with.”

  “I see. Perhaps you could convince them to wait. As you know, he’ll only be staying here a few more days.”

  “No way, Morrolan. It can’t be done.”

  He nodded. We sat there in silence for a time; then I said, “I don’t suppose there is any way, just this once, that you could let us have him? All you have to do is kick him out, you know. I hadn’t intended to even ask, but . . .”

  Aliera looked up, intent for a moment.

  “Sorry, Vlad. No.”

  Aliera sighed.

  “All right,” I said. “I didn’t really think you would.”

  We were all quiet again, for a few minutes; then Morrolan spoke once more. “I probably don’t have to say this, but I will remind you that if anything, anything at all, happens to him in this house, I’m not going to rest until I find out the cause. I’m not going to hold back, even if it’s you.

  “And if it is you, or any other Jhereg, I will personally declare war on the House, and I’ll have the backing of every Dragon in the Empire. We have been friends for a long time, and you have saved my life on more than one occasion, but I will not allow you, or anyone else, to get away with the murder of one of my guests. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Morrolan,” I said, “if I had intended to do anything like that, I wouldn’t have asked you about it, would I? I would have done it already. We’ve known each other for—how long?—four years? I’m surprised that you know me so little that you’d think I’d abuse your friendship.”

  He shook his head, sadly. “I never thought you would. I just had to make sure that the matter was stated clearly, and in the open, all right?”

  “All right. I guess I had it coming to me for asking you what I did, anyway. I’ll be heading off now. I’m going to have to think about this.”

  He stood as I did. I bowed to him, to Aliera, and to the Necromancer. Aliera bowed back; the Necromancer looked out at me from within her dark eyes, and she smiled. As I turned toward the door, Morrolan gripped my shoulder.

  “Vlad, I’m sorry.”

  I nodded. “Me, too,” I said.

  14

  “Oft ’tis startling to reveal what the murky depths conceal.”

  CAWTI KNEW ME BETTER than any other being that I’m aware of, with the possible exception of Loiosh. She suppressed any desire she might have had for conversation and allowed me to brood in silence as we ate. She squelched the suggestion that I take her turn at cooking since she’d taken mine, and carefully cooked something bland and uninteresting so that I’d feel no compulsion to compliment her on it. Clever lady, my wife.

  Our apartment was a small, second-story number, which had two virtues: it was well-lit and it had a large kitchen. There is one way to tell an apartment owned by a member of the Jhereg from any other kind of apartment: the lack of spells to prevent or detect burglary. Why? Simple. No common thief is going to lighten the apartment of a member of the organization except by mistake. If a mistake like that happens, I will have everything back within two days, guaranteed. Kragar may have to arrange for a few broken bones to do it, but it will get done. The only other kind of burglar there is, is someone like Kiera; someone specifically commissioned to get into my place and get something. If this happens, there just isn’t any kind of defense I could put up that would matter a teckla’s squawk. Keep Kiera out? Ha!

  So we sat, snug and secure, in our little kitchen, and I said, “You know what the problem is?”

  “What?”

  “Every time I try to think of how to do it, all I can think of is what happens if I don’t.”

  She nodded. “It’s still hard for me to believe that the Demon would consciously and deliberately go out and start a Dragon-Jhereg war.”

  I shook my head. “What choice does he have, really?”

  “Well, if you were in his position, would you?”

  “That’s just the thing,” I said. “I think I would. Sure, they’d chew us up and spit us out again, but if Mellar gets away with this, it’s slow death for the whole organization. If you get every punk on the street thinking that he can burn the council, one of them is bound to succeed, eventually. And then, even more will try, and it’ll just keep getting worse.”

  It hit me, then, that I was parroting everything the Demon had told me. I shrugged. So what? It was true. If only there were some way to get rid of Mellar without a war—but, of course, there had been a way. The Demon had found one.

  Sure, just kill Morrolan, he had thought. That was why he had given me that chance, back at the Blue Flame, to cooperate. Well, he was an honorable sort, after all, I couldn’t deny that.

  I wondered what his next move would be. He could take another try for me, or Morrolan, or skip it and go straight for Mellar. I guessed that he would try for Mellar, since time was becoming rather critical, with people already starting to talk. How much longer could this be held under our cloaks? Another day? Two, if we were lucky? Cawti was speaking, I realized.

  “You’re right,” she was saying. “He has to be taken out.”

  “And I can’t touch him while he’s at Castle Black.”

  “And the Jhereg isn’t about to wait until he leaves.”

  Not anymore, they wouldn’t. How would the attack come this time? No matter, they couldn’t set anything up in a day, and Morrolan had tightened his security again. It would wait until tomorrow. It had to. I wasn’t good for much of anything today.

  “Just as you said,” I told her. “Caught between a dragon and a dzur.”

  “Wait a minute, Vlad! What about a
Dzur? Couldn’t you maneuver a Dzur hero into taking him out for you? We could try to find one of the younger ones, who doesn’t know the story about him, maybe a wizard. You know how easy it is to manipulate Dzur heroes.”

  I shook my head. “No good, beloved,” I said, thinking of Morrolan’s speech earlier. “Aside from the chance that Morrolan would figure out what happened, I’m just not willing to do that to him.”

  “But if he never found out—”

  “No. I’d know that I was the one who had caused his oath to be broken. Remember, Mellar isn’t just at the home of a Dragonlord, which would be bad enough; Morrolan in particular has made a point of having Castle Black be a kind of sanctuary for anyone and everyone he invites. It means too much to him for me to trifle with it.”

  “My, my, aren’t we the honorable sort today?”

  “Shut up, Loiosh. Clean your plate.”

  “It’s your plate.”

  “Besides,” I added to Cawti, “how would you feel if you had taken the job, and the target was holed up with Norathar?”

  The mention of her old friend and partner stopped her. “Hmmmm. Norathar would understand,” she said after a while.

  “Would she?”

  “Yes . . . well, no, I suppose not.”

  “Right. And you wouldn’t ask her to, would you?”

  She was silent for a while longer, then, “No.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  She sighed. “Then I don’t see any way out.”

  “Neither do I. The ‘way out,’ as you put it, is to convince Mellar to leave Castle Black of his own free will and then nail him when he does. We can trick him however we want, or set up any kind of fake message, but can’t actually attack him, or use any form of magic against him while he’s there.”

  “Wait a minute, Vlad. Morrolan won’t let us attack him, or use magic, but if we, say, deliver a note that convinces him to leave, that’s okay? Morrolan won’t care?”

  “Right.”

  A look of utter confusion passed over her features. “But . . . but that’s ridiculous! What difference does it make to Morrolan how we get him out, if we do? What does using magic have to do with it?”

  I shook my head. “Have I ever claimed to understand Dragons?”

  “But—”

  “Oh, I can almost see it, in a way. We can’t actually do anything to him, is the idea.”

  “But isn’t tricking him ‘doing something’ to him?”

  “Well, yes. Sort of. But it’s different, at least to Morrolan. For one thing, it’s a matter of free choice. Magic doesn’t give the victim a choice; trickery does. I also suspect that part of it is that Morrolan doesn’t think we’ll be able to do it. And he has a point there. You know Mellar is going to be on his guard against anything like that. I don’t really see how we’re going to be able to do anything.”

  “I don’t either.”

  I nodded. “I’ve got Kragar digging into his background, and we’re hoping we’ll find some weak spot there, or something we can use. I’ll have to admit I’m not real hopeful.”

  She was silent.

  “I wonder,” I said a little later, “what Mario would do.”

  “Mario?” she laughed. “He would hang around him, with no one seeing him, for years if he had to. When Mellar finally left Castle Black, however and whenever, Mario would be there, and take him.”

  “But the organization can’t wait—”

  “They’d wait for Mario.”

  “Remember, I took this on with time constraints.”

  “Yes,” she said softly, “but Mario wouldn’t have.”

  That stung a bit, but I had to admit that it was true, especially since I’d come to the same realization when the Demon had first proposed the job to me.

  “In any case,” she went on, “there’s only one Mario.”

  I nodded sadly.

  “And what,” I asked her then, “would you and Norathar have done, if the thing had been given to you?”

  She thought about that for a long time, then she said, “I’m not really sure, but remember that Morrolan isn’t that close a friend of ours; or at least he wasn’t when we were still working. Chances are we’d put some sort of spell on Mellar to get him to leave and make damn sure Morrolan never found out.”

  That didn’t help, either.

  “I wonder what Mellar would do? I understand he was a pretty fair assassin himself, on his way up. Maybe we’ll invite him over some time and ask him.”

  Cawti laughed easily. “You’ll have to ask him at Castle Black. I understand he isn’t getting out much these days.”

  I idly watched Loiosh nibble at the scraps of our meal. I got up and wandered into the living room. I sat there for a while, thinking and looking at the light brown walls, but nothing came.

  I still couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that I’d gotten when I’d been talking to Morrolan. I tried to recall the part of the conversation that had triggered it. Something about bodyguards.

  “Cawti,” I called.

  Her voice came back from the kitchen. “Yes, dear?”

  “Did you know that Mellar has a couple of bodyguards?”

  “No, but I’m not surprised.”

  “I’m not either. They must be pretty good, too, because they were watching me while I talked to Mellar, and I didn’t notice them at all.”

  “Did you mention them to Morrolan?”

  “Yes. He seemed a little surprised.”

  “I suppose. You know you’re free to do them, don’t you? Since they obviously sneaked in, they aren’t guests.”

  “That’s true,” I agreed. “It also proves how good they are. Slipping into Castle Black isn’t the work of an amateur, if our protections are half as good as I think they are. Of course, we hadn’t increased the guards then, but still . . .”

  She finished up her cleaning, and sat down next to me. I rested my head on her shoulder. She moved away from me, then, and patted her lap. I stretched out and crossed my legs. Loiosh flew over and landed on my shoulder, nuzzling me with his head.

  There was still something about those bodyguards that seemed funny. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, which was incredibly frustrating. In fact, there was something strange about this whole affair that I couldn’t quite see.

  “Do you think,” said Cawti a little later, “that you might be able to buy off one of the bodyguards?”

  “What do you think?” I said. “If you have a whole organization to choose from, don’t you think you could find two people in it who were completely trustworthy? Especially if you had an extra nine million gold to pay them with?”

  “I guess you’re right,” she admitted. “On the other hand, there are other kinds of pressures we could bring to bear.”

  “In two days, Cawti? I don’t think so.”

  She nodded, and gently stroked my forehead. “And,” she said, “even if we did, I don’t suppose it would really help. If we can’t take him anyway, it won’t do any good to convince one of the bodyguards to step back at the right time.”

  Cling! I had it! Not much, perhaps, but I suddenly knew what had been bothering me. I sat up on the couch, startling Loiosh, who hissed his indignation at me.

  I leaned over and kissed Cawti, long and hard.

  “What was that for?” she asked, a little breathlessly. “Not, you understand, that I mind.”

  I gripped her hand, and locked eyes, and concentrated, letting her share my thoughts. She seemed a bit startled at first, but quickly settled into it. I brought up the memory of standing at the entranceway, and past it, running, and the sight of the dead assassin with a Morganti dagger in his hand. I played over the whole thing, remembering expressions, glimpses of the room, and things only an assassin would have noticed—as well as things an assassin should have noticed if they’d been there.

  “Hey, boss, want to run by the part of me getting the guy one more time?”

  “Shut up, Loiosh.”

  Cawti nodded as
it unfolded, and shared it with me. We reached the point where Morrolan handed me the dagger, and I broke out of it.

  “There,” I said, “does anything strike you as odd?”

  She thought it over. “Well, Mellar seemed pretty calm for someone who has almost been killed, and with a Morganti dagger. But other than that . . .”

  I brushed it aside. “Chances are, he never realized that it was Morganti. Yes, it was odd, but I don’t mean that.”

  “Then I don’t see what you’re referring to.”

  “I’m referring to the strange action of the bodyguards at the assassination attempt.”

  “But the bodyguards did nothing at the assassination attempt.”

  “That was the strange action.”

  She nodded, slowly.

  I continued. “If the Dragon guard had been just a little bit slower, Mellar would have been cut down. I can’t reconcile that with our conclusion that they are competent. I suppose Mellar might have had time to get a weapon out, or something, but he sure didn’t look like it. The bodyguards were just nowhere to be seen. If they’re as good as we think they are, they should have been all over the assassin before Morrolan’s guard had time to show steel.”

  “Ahem!”

  “Or Loiosh had time to strike,” I added.

  “They couldn’t be that fast.”

  Cawti looked thoughtful. “Could it be that they just weren’t around? That Mellar sent them on some kind of errand?”

  “That, my dear, is exactly what I’m thinking. And if so, I’d very much like to find out what it was that they were doing.”

  She nodded. “Of course,” she said, “it could be that they were there, and were good enough to see that Morrolan’s guard was going to stop him.”

  “That is also possible,” I said. “But if they’re that good, I’m really scared.”

  “Do you know if they are still with him?”