Steven Brust - Teckla

"What did you do?"

"I found another inn, this one on the Dragaeran side of town. Since Dragaerans can't tell how old we are anyway, and the owner thought I was 'cute,' they let me serve customers. It turned out that the last waiter had been killed in a knife fight the week before. I guess that should have told me what kind of place it was, and it was that kind of place, but I did all right. I found a flat just on this side of Twovine, and walked the two miles to work every day. The nice thing was that the walk took me past a little bookstore. I spent a lot of money there, but it was worth it. I especially loved history—Dragaeran, not human. And the stories, too. I guess I couldn't tell them apart very well. I used to pretend I was a Dzurlord, and I'd fight the battle of the Seven Pines then go charging up Dzur Mountain to fight the Enchantress all in one breath. What is it?"

I suppose I must have jumped a bit when she mentioned Dzur Mountain. I said, "Nothing. When did you meet Kelly again?"

My klava was cool enough to pick up and just barely warm enough to be worth drinking. I drank some. Natalia said, "It was after the head tax was instituted in the Eastern section. A couple who lived downstairs from me also knew how to read, and they ran into a group of people who were trying to get up a petition to the Empress against the tax."

I nodded. Someone had come to my father's restaurant with a similar petition years later, even though we lived in the Dragaeran part of the city. My father had thrown him out. I said, "I've never understood why the head tax was even instituted. Was the Empire trying to keep Easterners out of the city?"

"It had to do largely with the uprisings in the eastern and northern duchies that ended forced labor. I've written a book on it. Would you like to buy a copy?"

"Nevermind."

"Anyway," she continued, "my neighbors and I got involved with these people. We worked with them for a while, but I didn't like the idea of going to the Empire on our hands and knees. It seemed wrong. I guess my head was just filled with those histories and stories I'd read, and I was only fourteen, but it seemed to me that the only ones who ever got anything from the Empress had to ask boldly and prove themselves worthy." She said "boldly" and "worthy" with a bit of emphasis. "I thought we ought to do something wonderful for the Empire, then ask that the tax be lifted as our reward—"

I smiled. "What did they say to that?"

"Oh, I never actually proposed it. I wanted to, but I was afraid they'd laugh at me." Her lips turned up briefly. "And of course they would have. But we had a few public meetings to talk about it, and Kelly started showing up at them, with, I think, four or five others. I don't remember what they said, but they made a big impression on me. They were younger than a lot of those there, but they seemed to know exactly what they were talking about, and they came in and left together, like a unit. They reminded me of the Dragon armies, I guess. So after one of the meetings I went up to Kelly and said, 'Remember me?' And he did, and we started talking, and we were arguing again inside of a minute, only this time I didn't walk away. I gave him my address and we agreed to stay in touch."

"I didn't join him for another year or so, after the riots, and the killings. It was just about the time the Empress finally lifted the head tax."

I nodded as if I knew the history she was speaking of. I said, "Was Kelly involved in that?"

"We were all involved. He wasn't behind the riots or anything, but he was there all the time. He was incarcerated for a while, at one of the camps they set up when they broke us up. I managed to avoid the Guards that time, though, even though I'd been around, too, when the Lumber Exchange was torched. That was what finally brought the troops in, you know. The Lumber Exchange was owned by a Dragaeran; an lorich, I think."

"I hadn't known that," I said truthfully. "You've been with Kelly ever since?"

She nodded.

I thought about Cawti. "It must be difficult," I said. "I mean, he must be a hard man to work with."

"It's exciting. We're building the future."

I said, "Everyone builds the future. Everything we do every day builds the future."

"All right, I mean we're building it consciously . We know what we're doing."

"Yeah. Okay. You're building the future. To get it, you're sacrificing the present."

"What do you mean?" Her tone was genuinely inquisitive rather than snappy, which gave me some hope for her.

"I mean that you're so wrapped up in what you're doing that you're blind to the people around you. You're so involved in creating this vision of yours that you don't care how many innocent people are hurt." She started to speak but I kept going. "Look," I said, "we both know who I am and what I do, so there's no point pretending otherwise, and if you think it's inherently evil, then there isn't anything more to say. But I can tell you that I have never, never intentionally hurt an innocent person. And I'm including Dragaerans as people, so don't think I'm pulling one on you that way because I'm not."

She caught my eye and held it. "I didn't think you were. And I won't even discuss what you mean by innocent. All I can say is that if you really believe what you've just said, nothing I can say will change your mind, so there isn't any point in discussing it."

I relaxed, not realizing that I'd been tense. I guess I'd expected her to lambaste me or something. I suddenly wondered why I cared, and decided that Natalia seemed to be the most reasonable of these people that I'd yet met, and I somehow wanted to like, and be liked by, at least one of them. That was stupid. I'd given up trying to make people "like" me when I was twelve years old, and had the results of that attitude beaten into me in ways I'll never forget.

And with that thought a certain anger came, and with the anger a certain strength. I kept it off my face, but it came back to me then, as a chilly, refreshing wave. I had started down the path that led me to this point many, many years before, and I had taken those first steps because I hated Dragaerans. That was my reason then, it was my reason now, it was enough.

Kelly's people did everything for ideals I could never understand. To them, people were "the masses," individuals only mattered by what they did for the movement. Such people could never love. Not purely, unselfishly, with no thought for why and how and what it would do. And, similarly, they could never hate; they were too wrapped up in why someone did something to be able to hate him for doing it.

But I hated. I could feel my hatred inside of me, spinning like a ball of ice. Most of all, right now, I hated Herth. No, I didn't really want to hire someone to send him for a walk, I wanted to do it myself. I wanted to feel that tug of a body as it jerks and kicks while I hold the handle and the life erupts from it like water from the cold springs of the Eastern Mountains. That's what I wanted, and what you want makes you who you are.

I put .down a few coins to pay for the klava and the tea. I don't know how much Natalia knew of what was going on in my head, but she knew I was done talking. She thanked me and we stood up at the same time. I bowed and thanked her for her company.

As I walked out, she picked up her two companions by sight and they left the place just ahead of me, turned, and waited for her by the door. As I left, the Easterner looked at my gray cloak with the stylized jhereg on it and sneered. If the Teckla had done it I'd have killed him, but it was the Easterner so I just kept walking.

…remove cat hairs…

The chimes sounded, light and tinkling, as I stepped into the shop. My grandfather was writing in a bound tablet with an old-fashioned pencil. As I came in he looked up and smiled.