Steven Brust - Taltos

“The last Phoenix? There can’t be another? Then the Cycle is broken. If not now, for the future.”

“Maybe,” said Morrolan.

“Can there be another Phoenix?”

“How should I know? We have the whole Cycle to worry about it. Ask me again in a few hundred thousand years when it starts to matter.”

I could see from Aliera’s expression that she didn’t like this answer, but she didn’t respond to it. There was a silence, then she said, “What happened to me?”

“I don’t understand entirely,” said Morrolan. “Sethra managed to preserve your soul in some form, though it became lost. Eventually—I imagine shortly after Zerika took the Orb—an Athyra wizard found you. He was studying necromancy. I don’t think he realized what he had. You were tracked down, and—”

“Who tracked me down?”

“Sethra and I,” he said, watching her face. He glanced at me quickly, then said, “And there were others who helped, some time ago.”

Aliera closed her eyes and nodded. I hate it when they talk over my head. “Did you have any trouble getting me back?”

Morrolan and I looked at each other. “None to speak of,” I said.

Aliera looked at me, then looked again, her eyes narrow. She stared hard, as if she were looking inside of me. She said, “Who are you?”

“Vladimir Taltos, Baronet, House Jhereg.”

She stared a little longer, then shook her head and looked back at Morrolan.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Never mind.” She stood up suddenly, or, rather, tried, then sat down. She scowled. “I want to get out of here.”

“I believe they will let Vlad leave. If so, he will help you.”

She looked at me, then back at Morrolan. “What’s wrong with you?”

“As a living man, I am not allowed to return from the Paths of the Dead. I shall remain here.”

Aliera stared at him. “Like hell you will. I’ll see you dead first.”

It’s hard for me to pin down the point at which I stopped considering myself to be someone’s enforcer who sometimes did “work” and started considering myself a free-lance assassin. Part of it was that I worked for several different people during a short period of time during and after the war, including Welok himself, so this made things confusing.

Certainly those around me began to think of me that way before it occurred to me, but I don’t think my own thinking changed until I had developed professional habits and a good approach to the job.

Once again, it’s unclear just when this occurred, but I was certainly functioning like a professional by the time I finished my seventh job—assassinating a little turd named Raiet.

While I was thinking over this announcement and wondering whether to laugh, I realized that Verra had left us; in other words, we had no way of knowing where to go from here.

I cleared my throat. Morrolan broke off from his staring contest with Aliera and said, “Yes, Vlad?”

“Do you know how we can find our way back to where all the gods were?”

“Hmmm. I think so.”

“Let’s do that, then.”

“Why?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“I suppose not.”

As I stood, I was taken with a fleeting temptation to take a drink from the well. It’s probably fortunate that it was only fleeting. We helped Aliera to stand, and I discovered that she was quite short—hardly taller than me, as a matter of fact.

We began walking back the way we’d come, Morrolan and me each supporting one of Aliera’s arms. She looked very unhappy. Her teeth were clenched, perhaps from anger, perhaps from pain. Her eyes, which I’d first thought were green, seemed to be grey, and were set straight ahead.

We made it back to the archway and rested there for a moment.

Morrolan suggested that Aliera sit down and rest her legs. Aliera said, “Shut up.”

I saw that Morrolan’s patience was wearing thin. So was mine, for that matter. We bit our lips at the same moment, caught each other’s eyes, and smiled a little. We took her arms and started moving again, in what Morrolan thought was the right direction. We took a few tentative steps and stopped again when Aliera gasped. She said, “I can’t ...” and we let her sink to the ground.

Her breath came in gasps. She closed her eyes, her head up toward the sky; her brow was damp and her hair seemed soaked with sweat. Morrolan and I looked at each other, but no words came.

A minute or so later, as we were still standing there wondering if we would mortally insult Aliera if we offered to carry her, we saw a figure approach us out of the darkness and gradually become visible in the light of those incredible stars.

He was very tall and his shoulders were huge. There was a massive sword at his back, and his facial features were pure Dragon, as were the colors of his clothing, though their form—a peculiar formless jacket and baggy trousers tucked into darrskin boots—were rather strange. His hair was brown and curly, his eyes dark. He was—or, rather, had died at—late middle age. He had lines of thought on his forehead, lines of anger around his eyes, and the sort of jaw that made me think he kept his teeth clenched a lot.

He studied the three of us while we looked at him. I wondered what Morrolan thought of him, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the Dragonlord’s face to check Morrolan’s expression. I felt my pulse begin to race and my knees suddenly felt weak. I had to swallow several times in quick succession.

When he finally spoke, he was addressing Aliera. “I was told I’d find you here.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything. She looked miserable. Morrolan, who I guess wasn’t used to being ignored, said, “I greet you, lord. I am Morrolan e’Drien.”

He turned to Morrolan and nodded. “Good day,” he said. “I am Kieron.”

Kieron.

Kieron the Conqueror.

Father of the Dragaeran Empire, elder of the proudest of lines of the House of the Dragon, hero of myth and legend, first of the great Dragaeran butchers of Easterners, and, well, I could go on, but what’s the point? Here he was.

Morrolan stared at him and slowly dropped to one knee. I didn’t know where to look.

People should know better.

I don’t know of any case of a Jhereg testifying to the Empire against the Jhereg and surviving, yet there are still fools who try. “I’m different,” they say. “I’ve got a plan. No one will be able to touch me; I’m protected.” Or maybe it isn’t even that well thought out, maybe it’s just that they’re unable to believe in their own mortality. Or else they figure that the amount of money the Empire is paying them makes it worth the risk.

But never mind, that isn’t my problem. I was hired through about four layers, I think. I met with a guy in front of a grocer, and we talked as we strolled around the block. Loiosh rode on my left shoulder. It was early morning, and the area we were in was empty. The guy was called “Feet” for some reason or other. I knew who he was, and when he proposed an assassination I knew it had to be big, because he was placed pretty high in the Organization. That meant that whoever had told him to get this done must be really important.

I told him, “I know people who do that kind of thing. Would you like to tell me about it?”

He said, “There was a problem between two friends of ours.” This meant between two Jhereg. “It got serious, and things started getting very uncomfortable all around.” This meant that one or both of these individuals was very highly placed in the Organization. “One of them was afraid he’d get hurt, and he panicked and went to the Empire for protection.”

I whistled. “Is he giving official testimony?”

“He already has to an extent, and he’s going to give more.”