Steven Brust - Teckla

He went back to reading. I noticed that he seemed to be fading. I watched for a while, and the effect continued slowly but detectably. I said, "Look, I want to find people and let them know you're around, all right? Can you sort of keep an eye on things? I'm sure if anyone comes in you can scare him to death."

He smiled. "All right. Go ahead."

I nodded and went back out the way I'd come, through the kitchen and out the door.

" I thought we were going to kill them all, boss ."

" So did I ."

" Couldn't you have gotten rid of the ghost with Spellbreaker ?"

" Probably ."

" Well then, why— "

" He's already been killed once too often ."

" But what about the rest of them ?"

" I changed my mind ."

" Oh. Well, I didn't like the idea any way ."

" Good ."

I teleported to a point a block from my house. There were lamps in the street that provided enough light to tell me I was alone. I made my way home very carefully, checking for the assassin.

" Why did you change your mind, boss ?"

" I don't know. I have to think about it some more. Something about Franz, I guess ."

I made my way up the stairs and into the house. The sounds of Cawti's gentle breathing came from the bedroom. I removed my boots and cloak, then went in, undressed, and climbed into bed carefully so I wouldn't wake her.

As I closed my eyes I saw Franz's face before me. It took longer than it should have to fall asleep.

plain gray cloak: clean and press

I slept late and woke up slowly. I sat up in bed and tried to organize my thoughts and decide how to spend the day. My latest great scheme hadn't worked at all, so I went back to an earlier one. Was there any way, really, to convince both Cawti and Herth that I'd been killed? Herth so he'd leave me alone, Cawti so she'd kill Herth for me. I couldn't think of anything.

" You know what your problem is, boss ?"

" Huh? Yeah. Everyone wants to tell me what my problem is ."

" Sorry I brought it up ."

" Oh, go ahead ."

" You're trying to find a good trick to use, and you can't solve this with tricks ."

That stopped me. I said, " What you do mean ?"

" Well, look, boss: What's been bothering you is that you're running into all these people who think you shouldn't be what you are, and you have to decide whether to change or not ."

" Loiosh, what's bothering me is that there's an assassin out there who has my name and— "

" Didn't you say yesterday that we'd been in worse places before ?"

" Yeah. And I've come up with some trick to get out of them ."

" So why haven't you this time ?"

" I'm too busy answering questions from jhereg who think that the only problem is great sorrow with my lot in life ."

Loiosh giggled psionically and didn't say anything else. That's one trait Loiosh has that I've never found in anyone else: He knows when to stop pushing and let me just think about things. I suppose it comes from sharing my thoughts. I can't think of any other way to get it.

I teleported to the office. I wondered if my stomach would ever get used to the abuse. Cawti once told me that when she was working with Norathar they teleported almost everywhere, and her stomach never adjusted. They almost blew a job once, she said, because she threw up on the victim. I won't give you the details; she tells it better than I do.

I called Kragar into my office. "Well?"

"We've identified the assassin. His name is Quaysh."

"Quaysh? Unusual."

"It's Serioli. Means, 'He Who Designs Interesting Clasps For Ladies' Jewelry.'"

"I see. Do we have someone on him?"

"Yeah. A guy named Ishtvan. We used him once before."

"I remember. He was quick."

"That's the guy."

"Good. Who recognized Quaysh?"

"Sticks. They used to hang around together."

"Hmmm. Problem?"

"Not as far as I know. Business."

"Yeah. Okay, but tell Sticks to stay alert; if he knows that he knows who he is, and he doesn't know he knows—"

"What?"

"Just tell Sticks to be careful. Anything else important?"

"No. I'm putting together information on Herth's bodyguards, but it's going to be a while before we know enough to approach one."

I nodded and sent him about his business. I scratched under Loiosh's chin. I teleported—again—to South Adrilankha. I made my way to Kelly's place to see what was happening there. I stayed away from the corner I'd occupied before and took up a looser position down the street. Now the object was not to be noticed.

People who don't know this business seem to overrate the importance of looks in general and clothing in particular. This is because that's what one notices. You don't usually notice the way someone is walking, or the direction he's looking, or his movement through the crowd; you notice his appearance and his clothing. Nevertheless, that isn't what attracted your attention. You see people every day who look funny but don't attract attention. I mean, you certainly can't expect someone to say, "I didn't see this guy who looked funny," or, "There was someone wearing really weird clothes but I didn't notice him." An oddly shaped nose or unusual hair or a strange way of dressing are what you remember about someone you notice, but they aren't usually what calls him to your attention.

I was dressed oddly, for that area, but I was just being me, in the middle of the street where everyone else was, doing what everyone else was doing. No one noticed me, and I kept an eye on Kelly's flat to see if there was anything unusual going on. That is, I wanted to know if they'd discovered Franz.

After an hour or so I couldn't tell, so I made my way a little closer to the building, then a little closer, then I slipped around to the side, up against another one just like it. I pressed my ear against the wall. It was even thinner than I'd thought, so I had no trouble hearing what was going on inside.

They weren't talking about Franz at all.

Kelly was speaking, something about, "It's as if you're saying, 'I know you aren't interested, but-' under your breath." His voice was biting, sarcastic.

Cawti said something, but it was too low for me to hear. Too low for Kelly, too, because he said, "Speak up," in a tone that made me wince. Cawti spoke again, and I still couldn't hear her, and then Paresh said, "That's absurd. It's twice as important now. You may not have noticed, but we're in the middle of an uprising. Every mistake we make now is twice as deadly. We can't afford any errors."

Then Cawti muttered something else and I heard several exclamations, and Gregory said, "If you feel that way, why did you join us in the first place?" Natalia said, "You're looking at it from their view. You've been trying to be an aristocrat all your life, and even now you're trying. But we aren't here to change places with them, and we aren't going to destroy them by accepting their lies as facts." And then Kelly said something, and others did as well, but I'm not going to relate any more of it. It isn't any of your business, and it isn't any of mine even though I heard it.

I listened, though, to quite a bit of it, getting redder and redder. Loiosh kept squeezing his talons on my shoulder and at one point said, "Rocza's pretty upset. " I didn't answer because I didn't trust myself to speak, even to Loiosh. There was a door right around the corner from me, and I could have gone in there and Kelly would have died before he knew what hit him.

It was hard not to do it.

The only thing that distracted me was that I kept thinking things like, "How can she put up with that?" And, "Why does she want to put up with that?" It also occurred to me that all! of the others were either very brave or very trusting. They knew as well as I did that Cawti could have killed the lot of them in seconds.