Steven Brust - Yendi

“No,” said Morrolan. “As I have explained to you, I will have nothing to do with any Jhereg war, directly or indirectly.”

“Yeah, okay.” I was pleased to see Aliera shoot him a brief look of disgust. It occurred to me then that the easiest thing to do would be to create something real that would make the Empress want to pull the troops out. What could it be? Civil disturbance? Threat of an invasion of some sort?

“ Kragar .”

“ Yes, Vlad? ”

“ See if there was anything going on in the city that would have called for Phoenix Guards to handle. ”

“ 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.

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.