Steven Brust - Yendi

A month before this business with Laris started, a certain Dzurlord had borrowed a large sum from someone who worked for me, and was refusing to pay it back. Now this Dzurlord was what you call “established”; that is, he was considered a hero by the House of the Dzur, and had earned it several times over. He was a wizard (which is like a sorcerer, only more so), and more than just a little bit good with a blade. So he figured that there was nothing we could do if he decided not to pay us. We sent people over to plead with him to be reasonable, but he was rude enough to kill them. This cost me fifteen hundred gold for my half of the revivification on one of them (the moneylender, of course, paid the other half), and five thousand gold to the family of the second, who couldn’t be revivified.

Now I did not consider these sums to be trifling. Also, the guy we’d lost had been a friend at one time. All in all, I was irritated. I told Kragar, “I do not want this individual to pollute the world any longer. See that this is attended to.”

Kragar told me that he’d hired Temek and paid him thirty-six hundred gold—not unreasonable for a target as formidable as this Dzur was. Well, four days later—four days, mark you, not four weeks—someone stuck a javelin through the back of Lord Hero’s head and pinned his face to a wall with it. Also, his left hand was missing.

When the Empire investigated, all they learned was that his hand had been blown off by his own wizard staff exploding, which also accounted for the failure of all his defensive spells. The investigators shrugged and said, “Mario did it.” Temek was never even questioned . . .

So I brought Temek and Varg in the next morning and had them close the door and sit down.

“Gentlemen,” I explained, “I am going to a restaurant called ‘The Terrace’ in a few hours. I am going to have a meal with a certain man and speak to him. There is a chance that he will wish to do me bodily harm. You are to prevent this from happening. Clear?”

“Yes,” said Varg.

“No problem, boss,” said Temek. “If he tries anything, we’ll make pieces out of him.”

“Good.” This was the kind of talk I liked. “I want an escort there and back, too.”

“Yes,” said Varg.

“No extra charge,” said Temek.

“We leave here fifteen minutes before noon.”

“We’ll be here,” said Temek. He turned to Varg. “Wanna look the place over first?”

“Yes,” said Varg.

Temek turned back to me. “If we aren’t back on time, boss, my woman lives above Cabron and Sons, and she’s got a thing for Easterners.”

“That’s kind of you,” I told him. “Scatter.”

He left. Varg dropped his eyes to the floor briefly, which is what he used for a bow, and followed him. When the door had closed, I counted to thirty, slowly, then went past my secretary, and out into the street. I saw their retreating backs.

“ Follow them, Loiosh. Make sure they do what they said they were going to. ”

“ Suspicious, aren’t you? ”

“ Not suspicious; paranoid. Go. ”

He went. I followed his progress for a ways, then went back inside. I sat down in my chair and got out a brace of throwing knives that I keep in my desk. I swiveled left to face the target, and started throwing them.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

Three

“This Laris teckla is no teckla.”

“ Hey, boss! Let me in. ”

“ Coming, Loiosh. ”

I wandered out of the office, into the shop, and opened the door. Loiosh landed on my shoulder.

“ Well? ”

“ Just like they said, boss. They went in, and I watched through the doorway. Varg stood and looked around, Temek got a glass of water. That ’ s all. They didn ’ t talk to anyone, and it didn ’ t look like they were in psionic communication. ”

“ Okay. Good. ”

By then I was back in the office. I consulted the Imperial Clock through my link and found that I still had over an hour. It’s the waiting that really gets to you in this business.

I leaned back, put my feet up on the desk, and stared at the ceiling. It was made of wooden slats that used to be painted. A preservation spell would have cost about thirty gold, and would have kept the paint fresh for at least twenty years. But “God-boss” hadn’t done it. Now the paint, a sick white, was chipping and falling. An Athyra would probably have taken this as a sign. Fortunately I wasn’t an Athyra.

Unfortunately, Easterners have always been superstitious fools.

“Boss? Varg and Temek.”

“Send them in.”

They entered. “Right on time, boss!” said Temek. Varg just looked at me.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s go.”

The three of us left the office, went into the shop. I was heading toward the door when—

“ Hold it a minute, boss. ” I knew that tone of telepathy, so I stopped.

“ What is it, Loiosh? ”

“ Me first. ”

“ Oh? Oh. All right. ”

I stepped to the side. I was about to tell Varg to open the door when he came up and did it. I noted that. Loiosh flew out.

“ All clear, boss .”

“ Okay .”

I nodded. Varg stepped out first, then I, then Temek. We turned left and strolled up Copper Lane. My grandfather, while teaching me Eastern fencing, had warned me against being distracted by shadows. I told him, “Noish-pa, there are no shadows near the Empire. The sky is always—”

“I know, Vladimir, I know. Don’t be distracted by shadows. Concentrate on the target.”

“Yes, Noish-pa.”

I don’t know why that occurred to me, just then.

We reached Malak Circle and walked around it to the right, then headed up Lower Kieron Road. I was in enemy territory. It looked just like home.

Stipple Road joined Lower Kieron at an angle, coming in from the southwest. Just past this point, on the left, was a low stone building nestled in between a cobbler’s shop and an inn. Across the street was a three-story house, divided into six flats.

The low building was set back about forty feet from the street, and there was a terrace with maybe a dozen small tables set up on it. Four of these were occupied. Three of them we ignored, because there were women or kids at them. The fourth, close to the door, had one man, in the black and gray of House Jhereg. He might as well have been wearing a sign saying “enforcer.”

We noted him and continued. Varg walked inside first. While we waited, Temek glanced around openly, looking like a tourist at the Imperial Palace.

Varg came out and nodded. Loiosh flew in and perched at the back of an unoccupied booth. “ Looks good, boss. ”

I entered, and stopped just past the threshold. I wanted to let my eyes adjust to the dim light. I also wanted to turn and bolt back home. Instead, I took a couple of deep breaths and walked in.

As the inviter, it was up to me to select the table. I found one against the back wall. I sat so I could watch the entire room (I noticed a couple more of Laris’s people in the process), while Varg and Temek took a table about fifteen feet away. It had an unobstructed view of mine, yet was politely out of earshot.

At precisely noon, a middle-aged (say around a thousand) Jhereg walked into the room. He was of medium height, average girth. His face was nondescript. He wore a medium-heavy blade at his side and a full cloak. There were none of the telltale signs of the assassin about him. I saw no bulges where weapons were likely to be hidden, his eyes didn’t move as an assassin’s would, he didn’t hold himself with the constant readiness that I, or any other assassin, would recognize. Yet—