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  But she said, “I’m not selling it. It’s yours.” Then, “Close your mouth, Vlad; you’re creating a draft.”

  “Kiera, I . . . ”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “But why?”

  “What a question! I’ve just handed you a fortune, and you want to know why?”

  “Yeah. Shut up, boss.” Loiosh licked her ear.

  “You’re welcome, too,” she said.

  It suddenly occurred to me, looking at the stone, that I’d seen either her, or her cousins, before. I looked at Kiera. “Where did you get this?” I asked.

  “Why in the world would you want to know that?”

  “Tell me, please.”

  She shrugged. “I had occasion to visit Dzur Mountain recently.”

  I sighed. That’s what I’d thought. I shook my head and held the stone out to her. “I can’t. Sethra’s a friend of mine.”

  Then Kiera sighed. “Vlad, I swear by the Demon Goddess that you are harder to help than Mario is to sneak up on.” I started to speak, but she held up her hand. “Your loyalty to your friend does you credit, but give me—and her—some credit, too. She can’t help support a Jhereg war any more than Morrolan can. That didn’t stop Morrolan, did it?”

  “How did you—?”

  She cut me off. “Sethra knows what became of this stone, though she’d never admit it. All right?”

  I was struck speechless once more. Before I could talk, Kiera handed me the pouch. I mechanically put the stone into the pouch, the pouch into my cloak. Kiera leaned over and kissed me. “For an assassin,” she said, “you’re a real sweetheart.” Then she was gone.

  * * * *

  Later that day, Temek reported in with a list of five establishments owned by Laris. I arranged for some wizards to appear in two of them as customers to begin infiltration. Wizard, by the way, can mean either a particular kind of very powerful sorcerer, or, in the Jhereg, someone who does any one specific job very well. If you wonder how to tell which is meant—well, so do I.

  Anyway, four of the wizards started penetrating two of Laris’s businesses, while Kragar made arrangements for the other places. We hit the first one that evening. Nine thugs, mostly from the House of the Orca and hired for two gold per, descended on the place. Laris had two enforcers there, each of whom got one of our people before he was overpowered. The invaders used knives and clubs on the customers. There were no fatalities, but no one would be wanting to visit that place for a while.

  Meanwhile, I hired more of these types to protect my own businesses from similar treatment.

  Two days later we hit another one, with excellent results. That evening, Temek reported that Laris had dropped out of sight and was apparently running things from some hidden location.

  The next morning Narvane, following up a rumor, found Temek’s body in an alley behind the first place we’d hit. He was unrevivifiable.

  * * * *

  Three days after that, Varg reported that he’d been approached by one of Laris’s people to cooperate in an attempt to get me. Two days later, Shoen found the individual who’d approached Varg, alone. The guy was coming back from his mistress’s flat. Shoen finalized him. A week after that, two of the wizards who were infiltrating one of Laris’s establishments were blown to pieces in the middle of dinner in a small klava hole, by a spell thrown from the next table.

  A week later we pulled another raid on one of Laris’s places. This time we hired twenty-five toughs to help us. Laris had built up his defenses, so six of my people took the trip, but they did the job.

  Sometime in there, Laris must have lost his temper. He had to have paid through the nose, but he found a sorcerer who could break through my sorcery protection spells. A week after my raid, my cleaner’s shop went up in flames, along with the cleaner and most of his merchandise. I doubled the protection everywhere else. Two days later, Narvane and Chimov were caught on their way to escort H’noc in to me with his payment. Chimov was quick and lucky, so he was revivifiable; Narvane was not so quick but much luckier, and managed to teleport to a healer. The assassins escaped.

  Eight days later, two things happened on the same evening, at nearly the same moment.

  First, a wizard sneaked into a building housing a brothel run by Laris, carefully spread more than forty gallons of kerosene, and lit it. The place burned to the ground. The fires were set in front on the second story and in back on the first; no one was even scorched.

  Second, Varg came to see me about something important. Melestav informed me; I told him to send Varg in. As Varg opened the door, Melestav noticed something—he still doesn’t know what—and yelled for him to stop. He didn’t, so Melestav put a dagger into his back and Varg fell at my feet. We checked, and found that it wasn’t Varg at all. I gave Melestav a bonus, then went into my office, shut the door, and shook.

  Two days later, Laris’s people staged a full-scale raid on my office, complete with burning out the shop. We held them off without losing anyone permanently, but the cost was heavy.

  Narvane, who’d taken over from Temek, found one more source of Laris’s income. Four days after the raid on me, we hit it—beat up some customers, hurt some of his protection people, and set fire to the place.

  By which time certain parties had had enough of the whole thing.

  * * * *

  That day, I was standing in the rubble in front of my office, trying to decide if I needed a new place. Wyrn, Miraf’n, Glowbug, and Chimov surrounded me. Kragar and Melestav were there, too. Glowbug said, “Trouble, boss.”

  Miraf’n immediately stepped in front of me, but I had time to catch sight of four Jhereg walking toward the ruined building. It appeared that there was someone in the middle, but I couldn’t be sure.

  They reached the place and the four of them stood facing my bodyguards. Then a voice I recognized called out from among them, “Taltos!”

  I swallowed, and stepped forward. I bowed. “Greetings, Lord Toronnan.”

  “They stay. You come.”

  “Come, Lord Toronnan? Where—”

  “Shut up.”

  “Yes, my lord.” One of these days, bastard, I’m going to do you.

  He turned and I began following. He looked back and said, “No. That thing stays, too.” It took me a moment to figure out what he was saying, then: “Get ready, Kragar.”

  “Ready, boss.”

  Out loud, I said, “No. The jhereg stays with me.”

  His eyes narrowed and we matched stares. Then he said, “All right.”

  I relaxed. We went north to Malak Circle

  , then headed east on Pier Street

  . Eventually we came to what had once been an inn, but was now empty, and went inside. Two of his people stopped by the door. Another was waiting inside. He carried a sorcery staff. We stood before him, and Toronnan said, “Do it.”

  There was a twisting in my bowels, and I found myself with Toronnan and two of his bodyguards in an area I recognized as Northwest Adrilankha. We were in the hills, where the houses were damn near castles. About twenty yards in front of us was the entrance to a pure white one, the great double doors inlaid with gold. A real pretty place.

  “Inside,” said Toronnan.

  We walked up the steps. A manservant opened the door. Two Jhereg were just inside, their gray cloaks looking new and well cut. One of them nodded at Toronnan’s enforcers and said, “They can wait here.”

  My boss nodded. We proceeded inward. The hall was bigger than the apartment I’d lived in after selling the restaurant. The room it emptied into, like a sewer into a cesspool, was bigger than the apartment I was living in. I saw more gold invested in knickknacks around the place than I’d earned in the last year. None of this went very far to improve my mood. In fact, by the time we were ushered into a small sitting room, I was beginning to feel more belligerent than frightened. Sitting there with Toronnan for more than ten minutes, waiting, didn’t help either.

  Then this guy walked in, dressed in the usual b
lack and gray, with bits of gold lacing around the edges. His hair was graying. He looked old, maybe two thousand, but hale. He wasn’t fat—Dragaerans don’t get fat—but he seemed well-fed. His nose was small and flat; his eyes, deep and pale blue. He addressed Toronnan in a low, full, harsh voice: “Is this him?”

  Who did he think I was? Mario Greymist? Toronnan only nodded.

  “Okay,” he said. “Get out.”

  Toronnan did so. The big shot stood there staring at me. I was supposed to get nervous, I guess. After a while I yawned. He glared.

  “You bored?” he asked.

  I shrugged. This guy, whoever he was, could snap his fingers and have me killed. But I wasn’t about to kiss his ass; my life isn’t worth that much.

  He pulled a chair out with a foot, sat in it. “So you’re a hardcase,” he said. “I’m convinced. You’ve impressed me. Now, you wanna live, or not?”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” I admitted.

  “Good. I’m Terion.”

  I stood and bowed, then sat. I’d heard of him. He was one of the big, big bosses, one of the five who ran the organization in the city of Adrilankha (and Adrilankha had about ninety percent of the business). So I was impressed.

  “How may I serve you, lord?”

  “Aw, c’mon, boss. Tell him to jump in chaos, stick out your tongue, and spit in his soup. Go ahead.”

  “You can lay off your attempts to burn down Adrilankha.”

  “Lord?”

  “Can’t you hear?”

  “I assure you, lord, I have no desire to burn down Adrilankha. Just a small part of it.”

  He smiled and nodded. Then, with no warning, the smile vanished and his eyes narrowed to slits. He leaned toward me and I felt my blood turn to ice water.

  “Don’t play around with me, Easterner. If you’re going to fight it out with this other teckla—Laris—do it in a way that doesn’t bring the whole Empire down on us. I’ve told him, now I’m telling you. If you don’t, I’ll settle it myself. Got that?”

  I nodded. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Good. Now get the fuck outta here.”

  “Yes, lord.”

  He got up, turned his back on me, and left. I swallowed a couple of times, stood, and walked out of the room. Toronnan was gone, with all of his people. Terion’s servant showed me the door. I did my own teleport back to my office. I told Kragar that we were going to have to change our methods.

  We didn’t have time to do so, however. Terion had been right, but he had acted too late. The Empress had already had enough.

  Chapter Six

  “I’m going to take a walk.”

  When I say “Empress” you probably get an image of this old, stern-looking matron, with iron-gray hair, dressed in gold robes, with the Orb circling her head as she issues edicts and orders affecting the lives of millions of subjects with a casual wave of the sceptre.

  Well, the orb did circle her head; that part is right. She wore gold, too—but nothing as simple as robes. She would often wear . . . but, never mind.

  Zerika was a young three or four hundred, which is like mid-twenties to a human. Her hair was golden—and if I’d meant “blond” I would have said “blond.” Her eyes were the same color, rather like a lyorn’s, and deeply set. Her forehead was high, her brows light and almost invisible against very pale skin. (Notwithstanding the rumors, however, she was not undead.)

  The House of the Phoenix is always the smallest, because they won’t consider you a Phoenix unless an actual phoenix is seen to pass overhead at the time of your birth. The Interregnum had eliminated every Phoenix except Zerika’s mother—who died in childbirth.

  Zerika was born during the Interregnum. The last Emperor had been a decadent Phoenix, and since this was the seventeenth Cycle, the next Emperor had to be a Phoenix too, since a reborn Phoenix is supposed to follow a decadent Phoenix every seventeen Cycles. So far as I can tell, by the way, a reborn Phoenix is an Emperor of the House of the Phoenix who doesn’t become decadent by the end of his reign. Anyway, since Zerika was the only Phoenix living at the time, this meant it had to be Zerika. (All of this business about “what makes a Phoenix” is very strange when combined with aspects of the relationships among Houses—such as genetics. I mean, it seems absurd to have the opinion that most Dragaerans seem to have about cross-breeds, when there is, at the moment, no other way to produce a Phoenix heir except through cross-breeding. I may go into this at some point.)

  In any case, at the tender age of one hundred or thereabouts she came to Deathsgate Falls and passed, living, through the Paths of the Dead and so came to the Halls of Judgment. There she took the Orb from the shade of the last Emperor and returned to declare the Interregnum at an end. This was about the time my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather was being born.

  That business about descending Deathsgate Falls, by the way, is quite impressive. I know, because I’ve done it myself.

  But the point is that this background gave Zerika a certain understanding of the human condition—or at least the Dragaeran condition. She was wise and she was intelligent. She knew that there was nothing to be gained by interfering in a duel between Jhereg. On the other hand, I guess what Laris and I had been doing to each other was too much to ignore.

  We woke up the morning after the meeting with Terion to find the streets patrolled by guards in Phoenix livery. Notices were posted explaining that no one was allowed in the streets after nightfall, that no groups of more than four could assemble, that all use of sorcery would be carefully observed and regulated, that all taverns and inns were shut down until further notice. There was also the unspoken statement that no illegal activity of any kind would be tolerated.

  It was enough to make me want to move to a better neighborhood.

  * * * *

  “Where do we stand, Kragar?”

  “We can keep up like this—supporting everything and not earning—for about seven weeks.”

  “Do you think this will last seven weeks?”

  “I don’t know. I hope not.”

  “Yeah. We can’t reduce our forces unless Laris does, and we don’t have any way of knowing if Laris will. That’s the worst part of it—this would be the perfect time to start infiltrating his organization, but we can’t because he doesn’t have anything running, either.”

  Kragar shrugged. “We’ll just have to sit tight.”

  “Hmmmm. Maybe. Tell you what: why don’t we find a few places he’s connected to that are legitimate—you know, like restaurants—and make friends with some of the management types.”

  “Make friends?”

  “Sure. Give them presents.”

  “Presents?”

  “Gold.”

  “Just give it to them?”

  “Yeah. Not ask for anything. Have people hand them money, and say it comes from me.”

  He looked more puzzled than ever. “What will that do?”

  “Well, it works with court advisors, doesn’t it? I mean, isn’t that the kind of thing the connections do? Just maintain good relationships so that if they need something, people will be well-disposed toward them? Why not try it here? It can’t do any harm.”

  “It costs.”

  “Screw that. It might work. If they like us, that makes it more likely they’ll tell us something. And maybe they can tell us something useful. If not right away, then someday.”

  “It’s worth a try,” he admitted.

  “Start out with five hundred, and spread it around a bit.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  “Next: we really should get some idea of when we can open something up. Do you have any guesses at all? Days? Weeks? Months? Years?”

  “At least days, maybe weeks. Remember—those guards don’t like this any more than we do. They’ll be fighting it from their end, and all the merchants who aren’t involved are going to be fighting it from their end. Also, it goes without saying that all the organization contacts in the Palace will be working on it. I
don’t think it can last more than a month.”

  “Will it stop all at once, or gradually disappear?”

  “Could be either way, Vlad.”

  “Hmmph. Well, could we open, say, one game, in a week?”

  “They might let us get away with it. But once you open up a game, what happens the first time a customer runs short of cash? We need to have someone to lend him money. And then maybe he gets behind on his payments, so he starts stealing. We need a cleaner. Or—”

  “We don’t have a cleaner in any case.”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “Oh. All right. But yes, I see your point. It’s all tied in.”

  “And there’s another thing: whoever opens up is going to be pretty nervous. That means that you should really make personal visits—and that’s dangerous.”

  “Yeah.”

  “One thing we could do is find a new office. I can still smell the smoke in here.”

  “We could, but . . . do you know where Laris’s office is?”

  “I know, but he doesn’t go there anymore. We don’t know where he is.”

  “But we know where his office is. Fine. That’s where my next office will be.”

  He looked startled, then shook his head. “Nothing like confidence,” he said.

  * * * *

  Narvane was in touch with me pretty constantly that week, and was slowly getting a feel for the work. After what had happened to Temek, he was being careful, but we were accumulating a list of places and a few names.

  I tried doing a small witchcraft spell on Laris, just to see if there was any point in attacking him that way, but I got nothing. That meant that he was protected against witchcraft—and indicated that he really did know me, since most Dragaerans don’t think of the art as anything to bother with.

  I had enforcers following those people we knew, trying to get their movements down so we could use this information later. We approached a couple of them with large sums, hoping to find out where Laris was hiding, but we didn’t get any takers.

  The project to make friends with Laris’s people went better, although just as slowly. We got nothing useful, but there were indications that we might in the future. I had some people speak to the Phoenix Guards. We learned from them that they weren’t happy about the duty, didn’t expect it to last long, and that they were as impatient to start earning their gambling money again as we were to start needing to pay them. I considered the matter.