The Book of Jhereg Read online

  “Good point,” I said. “Just a minute while I check.”

  I contacted one of Morrolan’s people in the banquet hall, asked, and was answered. “They’re still around,” I said.

  “Which means that they weren’t bought off by the Demon, or the assassin. Whatever reason they had for their ‘strange action,’ it was good enough for Mellar.”

  I nodded. “And that, my dearest love, is a good place to start looking tomorrow. Come on, let’s go to bed.”

  She gave me her wide-eyed-innocent look. “What did you have in mind, my lord?”

  “What makes you think I have something in mind?”

  “You always do. Are you trying to tell me that you don’t have everything planned out?” She walked into the bedroom.

  “Nothing,” I said, “has been planned out since I started this damned job. We’ll just have to improvise.”

  * * *

  I gave myself two days to complete the thing. I was aware that I was being unduly optimistic.

  I arrived at the office somewhat early the next morning, hoping to spend the day looking for a solid plan, or at least the shade of a direction. I was congratulating myself on having beaten Kragar, who is normally an early riser, when I heard him coughing gently. He was seated opposite me, with his smug little, I’ve-been-sitting-here-for-ten-minutes-now look.

  I gave him a moderate-to-dangerous Jhereg sneer and said, “What did you find out?”

  “Well,” he said, “why don’t we start out with the bad news, before we get to the bad news, the bad news, or the other bad news.”

  “Damn. You’re just full of high spirits today, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged.

  “Okay,” I said, “what’s the bad news?”

  “There have been rumors,” he stated.

  “Oh, joy. How accurate are they?”

  “Not very. No one has quite put together the rumors of something unusual going on with Mellar, and the ones about the Jhereg’s having financial trouble.”

  “Can it wait two days?”

  He looked doubtful. “Maybe. Somebody’s going to have to start answering questions soon, though. Tomorrow would be better, and today would be better still.”

  “Let me put it this way: will the day after tomorrow be too late?”

  He looked thoughtful. “Probably,” he said at last.

  I shook my head. “Well, at any rate, it isn’t me who’s going to have to answer the questions.”

  “There is that,” he agreed. “Oh, and one piece of good news.”

  “Really? Well, break out the kilinara, by Verra’s hair! We’ll have a bloody celebration.”

  “I’ll bring the dead teckla.”

  “Don’t drink yourself into a stupor yet. All it is, is that we’ve gotten that sorceress you wanted.”

  “The one who was spreading rumors? Already? Good! Give the assassin a bonus.”

  “I already have. He said it was half luck—she just happened to be in the perfect place, and he took her right away.”

  “Good. You make luck like that, though. Remember the guy.”

  “I will.”

  “Okay, now for the rest. Did you find out anything about Mellar’s background?”

  “Plenty,” he said, taking out his notebook and flipping it open. “But, so far as I can tell, none of it is going to be of any real help to us.”

  “Forget about that for now; let’s at least try to get some idea of who the hell he really is; then we’ll see if that gives us anything to work with.”

  Kragar nodded, found his place, and began reading. “His mother lived the happy and fulfilling life of a Dragon-Dzur half-breed. She wound up a whore. His father, it seems, was into a whole lot of different things, but was certainly an assassin. Reasonably competent, too. As far as I can tell, his father died during the fall of the city of Dragaera. We think the same thing happened to his mother. He hid out during the Eastern invasions, and showed up again after Zerika took the throne. He tried to claim kinship with the House of the Dragon and was rejected, of course. He tried the same thing with the House of the Dzur, with the same results.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, “you mean this was before he fought his way in?”

  “Right. Oh, by the way, his real name is Leareth—or rather that was the name he was born with. That was the name he used the first time he joined the Jhereg.”

  “The first time?”

  “Right. It took one hell of a lot of digging to find out, but we did. He was using the name Leareth, of course, and there are no references to anyone of that name in Jhereg records.”

  “Then how—”

  “Lyorn records. It cost us about two thousand gold to do, by the way. And, it turns out, ‘someone’ had managed to bribe a few Lyorns. A lot of records that should have mentioned him, or his family, weren’t there. Part of it was just luck that we ran across something that he’d missed, or couldn’t get access to. The rest was clever planning, brilliant execution—”

  “Money,” I said.

  “Right. And I found a young Lyorn lady who couldn’t resist my obvious charms.”

  “I’m surprised she noticed you.”

  “Ah! They never do, until it’s too late, you know.”

  I was impressed, in any case, both with Kragar, and with Mellar. Bribing Lyorns to get access to records isn’t easy, and bribing them to actually alter records is almost unheard of. It would be like bribing an assassin to give you the name of the guy who gave him the contract.

  “Actually,” Kragar continued, “he didn’t officially join House Jhereg then, which was one reason we had so much trouble. He worked for it on a straight free-lance basis.”

  “‘Worked’?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t believe this, Kragar! How many assassins are we going to run into? I’m beginning to feel like I’m one of a horde.”

  “Yeah. It just isn’t safe to walk the streets at night, is it?” he smirked.

  I gestured toward the wine cabinet. It was a bit early for me, but I felt the need of something to help me keep up with the shocks. “Was he good?” I asked.

  “Competent,” he agreed, as he poured us each a glass of Baritt’s Valley white. “He did only small-time stuff, but never muffed one. It seems that he never took on anything that was worth over three thousand.”

  “That’s enough to make a living,” I said.

  “I guess so. On the other hand, he also didn’t spend very much time at it. He didn’t take on ‘work’ more than once or twice a year, in fact.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Here’s the killer, if you’ll excuse the expression: all the time he was working for the Jhereg, he was spending most of his free time studying swordsmanship.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. And, get this, he was studying under Lord Onarr.”

  I sat up in my chair so suddenly that I almost dumped Loiosh, who complained rather bitterly about the abuse. “Oh, ho!” I said. “So that’s how he got so good with the blade that he could beat seventeen Dzur heroes!”

  He nodded grimly.

  I asked, “Do you have any guesses as to why Onarr was willing to take him on as a student?”

  “No guesses—I know exactly. It’s a real sweet story, too. Onarr’s wife apparently contracted one of the plagues during the Interregnum. Mellar, or I guess he was called Leareth then, found a witch to cure it. As you know, sorcery was inoperable then, and there were damn few Easterner witches willing to work on Dragaerans, and even fewer Dragaerans who knew witchcraft.”

  “I know all about it,” I said shortly.

  Kragar stopped and gave me a look.

  “My father died of one of the Plagues,” I explained. “After the Interregnum, when they were pretty much beaten. He didn’t know sorcery. I did, but not quite enough. We could have cured him with witchcraft, either myself or my grandfather, but he wouldn’t let us. Witchcraft was too ‘Eastern,’ you see. Dad wanted to be a Dragaeran. T
hat’s why he bought a title in the Jhereg and made me study Dragaeran-style swordsmanship and sorcery. And, of course, after dumping all of our money out the window, there wasn’t any left to hire a sorcerer. I’d have died of the same plague if my grandfather hadn’t cured me.”

  Kragar spoke softly. “I didn’t know that, Vlad.”

  “Anyway, go on,” I said abruptly.

  “Well,” he continued, “if you haven’t guessed it already it was Mellar who had arranged with a witch to give Onarr’s wife the plague in the first place. So he comes up, just as she’s dying, saves her, and Onarr is very, very grateful. Onarr is so grateful, in fact, that he’s willing to teach swordsmanship to a houseless cross-breed. Nice story, isn’t it?”

  “Interesting. Some elegant moves, there.”

  “Isn’t it interesting? You’ll note the timing, I’m sure.”

  “Yeah. He started this before he tried to join the House of the Dzur the first time, or the House of the Dragon.”

  “Right. Which means, unless I miss my guess, that he knew exactly what would happen when he tried to claim membership.”

  I nodded. “That puts a bit of a different light on things, doesn’t it? It makes his attempting to join the Dragon and the Dzur not so much confusing, as downright mystifying.”

  Kragar nodded.

  “And another thing,” I said. “It would appear that his planning goes back a lot longer than the ten years we were thinking of. It’s more like two hundred.”

  “Longer than that,” said Kragar.

  “Oh, that’s right. He started during the Interregnum, didn’t he? Three hundred, then? Maybe four hundred?”

  “That’s right. Impressive, isn’t it?”

  I agreed. “So continue.”

  “Well, he worked with Onarr for close to a hundred years, in secret. Then he fought his way into the House of the Dzur when he felt he was ready, and from there you know the story.”

  I thought it over a bit, trying to sort it out. It was too early to see if there was anything there that I could use, but I wanted to try to understand him as well as I could.

  “Did you ever find any clues about why he wanted to get into the Dzur, the second time, when he fought his way in?”

  Kragar shook his head.

  “Okay. That’s something I’d like to find out. What about sorcery? Has he studied it at all?”

  “As far as I can tell, only a little.”

  “Witchcraft?”

  “No way.”

  “Well, so we have something, anyway, for all the good it will do us.”

  I sipped my wine, as the information began to sink in, or rather, as much of it as I could handle just then. Studied under Onarr, eh? And fought his way into the Dzur, only to leave and join—or rather, rejoin—the Jhereg, and get to the top, and then lighten the whole council. Why? Just to show that he could do it? Well, he was part Dzur, but I still couldn’t quite see it. And that business with Onarr, and all that plotting and scheming. Strange.

  “You know, Kragar, if it ever comes down to any kind of straight fight with this guy, I think I’m in trouble.”

  He snorted. “You have a talent for understatement. He’ll carve you into stew.”

  I shrugged. “On the other hand, remember that I use Eastern-style fencing. That could throw him off a bit, since he’s one of you hack-hack-cut types.”

  “A damn good one!”

  “Yeah.”

  We sat there for a while, in silence, sipping our wine. Then Kragar asked, “What did you find? Anything new?”

  I nodded. “Had a busy day yesterday.”

  “Oh, really? Tell me about it.”

  So I gave him an account of the day’s events, the new information I’d gotten. Loiosh made sure that I got the part about the rescue right. When I told him about the bodyguards, he was impressed and puzzled.

  “That doesn’t make sense, Vlad,” he remarked. “Where would he have sent them?”

  “I don’t have the vaguest. Although, after what you’ve just told me, I can see another explanation. I’m afraid I don’t like it much, either.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It could be that the bodyguards are sorcerers, and that Mellar figures that he can handle any physical attack himself.”

  “But it didn’t look like he was doing anything at all, did it?”

  I shook my head. “No, I have to admit it didn’t. But maybe he was figuring to beat the guy only if he had to, and was counting on Morrolan’s guards to stop him. Which, after all, they did. With help,” I amended, quickly.

  Kragar shook his head. “Would you count on someone else to be quick enough?”

  “Well, no. But then, I’m not the fighter that Mellar is; we already know that.”

  Kragar looked highly unconvinced. Well, so was I.

  “The only thing that really makes sense,” he said, “is if you were right originally: he had some mission for them and they happened to be off doing it when the assassin came in for his move.”

  “Maybe,” I said. Then, “Wait a minute, I must be slipping or something. Why don’t I check it?”

  “What?”

  “Just a minute.”

  I reached out for contact, thinking of that guard who I had talked to in the banquet hall. I’d made a mental note of him, now, what was his name?

  “Who is it?”

  “This is Lord Taltos,” I said. (Let us be pretentious.)

  “Yes, my lord. What is it?”

  “Have you been keeping an eye on those two bodyguards of Mellar’s?”

  “I’ve been trying, my lord. They’re pretty slippery.”

  “Okay, good. Were you on duty during the assassination attempt last night?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Were the bodyguards there?”

  “No, my lord—wait! I’m not sure. . . . Yes. Yes, they were.”

  “No possible doubt?”

  “No, my lord. I had them marked just before it happened, and they were still there when I found them again just a few seconds afterwards.”

  “Okay, that’s all. Good work.”

  I broke the link and told Kragar what I’d found out. He shook his head, sadly.

  “And another nice theory blown through Deathsgate.”

  “Yeah.”

  I just couldn’t figure it. Nothing about this business made sense. I couldn’t see why he did it, or why his bodyguards seemed so cavalier about the whole thing, or any of it. But nothing happens for no reason. There had to be an explanation somewhere. I took out a dagger and started flipping it.

  Kragar grunted. “You know the funny thing, Vlad?”

  “What? I’d love to hear something funny just around now.”

  “Poor Mellar, that’s what’s funny.”

  I snorted. “‘Poor Mellar!’ What about poor us? He’s the one who started this whole thing, and we’re going to get ourselves wiped out because of it.”

  “Sure,” said Kragar. “But he’s dead anyway, one way or another. He started this thing, and there isn’t any way that he’s going to survive it. The poor fool came up with this truly gorgeous scheme to steal Jhereg gold and live through it, and he worked on it, as far as we can tell, for a good three hundred years. And, instead of having it work, he’s going to die anyway, and take two houses with him.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’m sure he wouldn’t cry about taking the two Houses with him—” I stopped. “The poor fool,” Kragar had said. But we knew Mellar was no fool. How can you come up with something like this, spend hundreds of years, thousands of Imperials, and then trip up because you didn’t realize that the Jhereg would take an action which, even to me, seemed logical and reasonable? That wasn’t just foolishness, that was downright stupidity. And there was just no way I was going to start thinking that Mellar was stupid. No, either he knew some way of coming out of this alive, or . . . or . . .

  Click, click, click. One by one, things started to fall into place. Click, click, wham! The look on Mell
ar’s face, the actions of the bodyguards, the fighting his way into the House of the Dzur, all of it fit. I found myself filled with awe at the magnificence of Mellar’s plan. It was tremendous! I found myself, against my will, filled with admiration.

  “What is it, Vlad?”

  “What is it, boss?”

  I just shook my head. My dagger had stopped in mid-toss, and I was so stunned I didn’t even catch it. It hit my foot, and it was only blind luck that the hilt was down. But I expect that even if it had landed point first in my foot, I wouldn’t have noticed. It was so damn beautiful! For a while, I almost wondered whether I had the heart to stop it, even if I could think of a way. It was so perfect. As far as I could tell, in the hundreds of years of planning and execution, he hadn’t made one mistake! It was incredible. I was running out of adjectives.

  “Damn it, Vlad! Talk! What’s going on?”

  “You should know,” I told him.

  “What?”

  “You pointed to it first, a couple of times, the other day. Verra! Was it only a day or two ago? It feels like years. . . .”

  “What did I point to? Come on, damn you!” Kragar said.

  “You’re the one who started telling me what it would be like to grow up a cross-breed.”

  “So?”

  “So we still couldn’t help thinking of him as a Jhereg.”

  “Well, he is a Jhereg.”

  I shook my head. “Not genetically, he isn’t.”

  “What does genetics have to do with it?”

  “Everything. That’s when I should have realized it; when Aliera told me what it really meant to be of a certain House. Don’t you see, Kragar? But no, you wouldn’t. You’re a Jhereg, and you—we—don’t look at things that way. But it’s true. You can’t deny your House, if you’re a Dragaeran. Look at yourself, Kragar. To save my life, you had to disobey my orders. That isn’t a Jhereg thing to do at all—the only time a Jhereg will disobey orders is when he’s planning to kill his boss. But a Dragon, Kragar, a Dragon will sometimes find that the only way to fulfill his commander’s wishes is to violate his commands, and do what has to be done, and risk a court-martial if he has to.

  “That was the Dragon in you that did it, despite your opinion of the Dragons. To a Dragaeran, his House controls everything. The way he lives, his goals, his skills, his strengths, his weaknesses. There is nothing, but nothing that has more influence on a Dragaeran than his House. Than the House he was born into, no matter how he was raised.