Steven Brust: Taltos

Taltos

Vlad Taltos, Book 4

Steven K. Z. Brust.

THE PROBLEM WITH RUNNING YOUR OWN BUSINESS ...

“Why didn’t you follow him?”

“He teleported straight to Dzur Mountain.”

“Dzur Mountain,” I repeated a long moment later. “Well, I’ll be dragon fodder. How could he have known the teleport coordinates? How could he have known he’d be safe from what’s-her-name? How—?”

“Her name is Sethra Lavode, and I don’t know.”

“We’ll have to send someone after him.”

“No chance, Vlad.”

“Why not? We’ve got money.”

“Vlad, it’s Dzur Mountain. Forget it.”

“What’s so special about Dzur Mountain?”

“Sethra Lavode,” said Kragar. “She’s a vampire, a shape-shifter, holds a Great Weapon, is probably the most dangerous wizard living, and has the habit of killing people who get near her, unless she decides to turn them into norska or jhereg instead.”

“There are worse fates than being a jhereg boss.”

“Shut up, Loiosh.”

I said, “How much of this is fact and how much is just rumor?”

“What’s the difference if everyone believes the rumors? I know I won’t go near the place.” I shrugged. “Then I’ll have to go myself.”

Acknowledgments

My thanks to Nate, Emma, Kara, Pam, and Will.

Special thanks are due Gail Bucich for help in keeping my history straight, and thanks, as always, to Adrian Morgan.

The Cycle: Dragon, dzur, and chreotha; athyra, hawk, and phoenix; teckla and jhereg.

They danced before my eyes. The Dragaeran Empire, its population divided into seventeen Great Houses, each with its animal representation, seemed to unfold in my hands. Here was the Empire of Dragaerans, and here was I, the Easterner, the outsider.

It wouldn’t get any easier.

The eyes of no gods upon me, I began.

Some two hundred miles to the north and east of Adrilankha there lies a mountain, shaped as if by the hand of a megalomaniacal sculptor into the form of a crouching grey dzur.

You’ve seen it, I’m sure, in thousands of paintings and psiprints from hundreds of angles, so you know as well as I that the illusion of the great cat is as perfect as artifice or nature could make it. What is most interesting is the left ear. It is fully as feline as the other, but is known to have been fabricated. We have our suspicions about the whole place, but never mind that; we’re sure about the left ear.

It is here, say the legends, that Sethra Lavode, the Enchantress, the Dark Lady of Dzur Mountain, sits like a great spider in the center of an evil web, hoping to snare the true-hearted hero. Exactly why she would wish to do this the legends don’t make clear; as is their right, of course.

I sat in the center of my own evil web, jiggled a strand, and caused it to bring forth more particulars about mountain, tower, and lady. It seemed likely that I was going to have to visit the place, webs being the fragile things that they are.

Of such things are legends made.

I was going over a couple of letters I’d received. One was from a human girl named Szandi, thanking me for a wonderful evening. On reflection, I decided it had been pretty nice at that. I made a mental note to write back and ask if she’d be free sometime next week. The other was from one of my employees, asking if a certain customer could have an extension on a loan he’d taken out to cover gambling losses to another of my employees. I was thinking about this and drumming my fingertips when I heard Kragar clear his throat. Loiosh, my familiar, flew off his coat rack and landed on my shoulder, hissing at Kragar.

“I wish he’d stop doing that, boss,” said Loiosh psionically.

“Me, too, Loiosh.”

I said to Kragar, “How long have you been sitting there?”

“Not long.”

His lean, seven-foot-tall Dragaeran frame was slouched in the chair opposite me. For once, he was not looking smug. I wondered what was bothering him, but didn’t ask. If it was any of my business, he’d tell me. I said, “Do you remember a Chreotha named Fyhnov? He wants to extend his loan from Machan, and I don’t know—”

“There’s a problem, Vlad.”

I blinked. “Tell me about it.”

“You sent Quion to collect the receipts from Nielar, Macham, Tor—”

“Right. What happened?”

“He scooped them up and ran.”

I didn’t say anything for a while, I just sat and thought about what this implied. I’d only been running this area for a few months, since the unfortunate death of my previous boss, and this was the first time I’d had this sort of problem.

Quion was what I call a button-man; an ambiguous term which in this case meant he was responsible for whatever I wanted him responsible for from one day to the next. He was old, even for a Dragaeran—I guess close to three thousand years—and had promised when I hired him that he’d stopped gambling. He was quiet, as polite as Dragaerans ever are to humans, and very experienced at the sorts of operations I was running—untaxed gambling, unlicensed brothels, making loans at illegal rates, dealing in stolen goods ... that sort of thing. And he’d seemed really earnest when I’d hired him, too.

Shit. You’d think, after all these years, I’d know better than to trust Dragaerans, but I keep doing it anyway.

I said, “What happened?”

“Temek and I were protecting him. We were walking by a shop and he told us to wait a minute, went over to the window like he wanted to look at something, and teleported out.”

“He couldn’t have been snatched, could he?”

“I don’t know of any way to teleport someone who doesn’t want to be teleported. Do you?”

“No, I guess not. Wait a minute. Temek’s a sorcerer. Didn’t he trace the teleport?”

“Yeah,” said Kragar.

“Well? Why didn’t you follow him?”

“Ummm, Vlad, neither of us has any interest in following him where he went.”

“Yeah? Well?”

“He teleported straight to Dzur Mountain.”

“Dzur Mountain,” I repeated a long moment later. “Well, I’ll be dragon fodder. How could he have known the teleport coordinates? How could he have known he’d be safe from what’s-her-name? How—?”

“Her name is Sethra Lavode, and I don’t know.”

“We’ll have to send someone after him.”

“No chance, Vlad. You won’t convince anyone to go there.”

“Why not? We’ve got money.”

“Vlad, it’s Dzur Mountain. Forget it.”

“What’s so special about Dzur Mountain?”

“Sethra Lavode,” said Kragar.

“All right, what’s so special about—”

“She’s a vampire, a shape-shifter, holds a Great Weapon, is probably the most dangerous wizard living, and has the habit of killing people who get near her, unless she decides to turn them into norska or jhereg instead.”

“There are worse fates than being a jhereg, boss.”

“Shut up, Loiosh.”

I said, “How much of this is fact and how much is just rumor?”

“What’s the difference if everyone believes the rumors? I know I won’t go near the place.”

I shrugged. Maybe if I were Dragaeran I’d have understood. I said, “Then I’ll have to go myself.”

“You want to die?”

“I don’t want to let him get away with—how much did he take?”

“More than two thousand imperials.”

“Shit. I want him. See what you can learn about Dzur Mountain that we can count on, all right?”

“Huh? Oh, sure. How many years do you want me to put in on this?”

“Three days. And see what you can find out about Quion, while you’re at it.”