Steven Brust - Jhereg

“Then why haven’t they found him?” she asked, pointedly.

“Distance. Before they can break down the block, they have to find the right general area. That takes time. Even a standard teleport trace spell can be difficult if the person teleports far enough away. That’s why the Demon is figuring the East. Using just standard tracing spells, it could take years to find him, if that’s where he went.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she conceded. “But I’m nervous about the thing.”

“Me too,” I said. “And that isn’t all I’m nervous about.”

“What else?”

“Time. The Demon wants this done a lot faster than I like to work. What it boils down to is that I have to make sure Mellar is taken out before everyone in the Jhereg finds out what he did. And that could happen any day.”

Cawti shook her head. “That’s bad, Vlad. Why, by the Demon Goddess, did you accept the job with a time limit? I’ve never heard of one even being offered that way.”

“Neither have I. I took it that way because those were the terms. And it isn’t really a time limit, as such, although he implied it could come to that later. It’s just that I have to move as fast as I can.”

“That’s bad enough,” she said. “You work fast, you make mistakes. And you can’t afford to make a mistake.”

I had to agree. “But you understand his position, don’t you? If we don’t get him, we’ve just shot the reputation of the Jhereg council. There won’t be any way to keep House funds secure, once people get the idea that it can be done. Hell, I just put sixty-five thousand gold into a room in the office and forgot about it. I know it’s safe, because there isn’t anyone who would dare touch it. But, once this gets started . . . ” I shrugged.

“And the other thing,” I went on, “is that he told me straight out that if one of his people finds Mellar before I do, they aren’t going to wait for me.”

“Why should that bother you?” she asked. “You’ll still have the payment.”

“Sure. That isn’t the problem. But think about it: some clod goes up to Mellar to take him out. Who is it going to be? It’s not going to be a professional, because the Demon is going to want to say, ‘Hey, you, go nail this guy here and now,’ and no professional will agree to work that way. So it’s going to be some two-silverpiece muscle, or maybe a button-man who thinks he can handle it himself. Then what? Then the guy bungles it, that’s what. And I’m left trying to take Mellar out after he’s been alerted. Oh, sure, the guy might succeed, but he might not. I don’t trust amateurs.”

Cawti nodded. “I see the problem. And I’m beginning to understand the reason for the price he’s paying.”

I stood up, after making sure that Loiosh had finished his meal. “Let’s get going. I may as well try to get something done with the rest of the day.”

Loiosh found a napkin, carefully rubbed his face in it, and joined us. I didn’t pay, of course, since I was a part owner, but I did leave a rather healthy tip.

Out of habit, Cawti stepped out of the door an instant before me and scanned the street. She nodded, and I came out. There had been a time, not too long before, when that had saved my life. Loiosh, after all, can’t be everywhere. We walked back to the office.

I kissed her goodbye at the door and went up, while she headed back to our apartment. Then I sat down and began going over the day’s business. I noted with some satisfaction that Kragar had found the punk who’d mugged the Teckla the other day, at a cost of only four hundred gold or so, and had carried out my instructions. I destroyed the note and picked up a proposal that a new gambling establishment be opened by one of my button-men who wanted to better himself. I felt somewhat sympathetic. I’d gotten started that way, too.

“Don’t do it, Vlad.”

“Wha—? Kragar, would you cut it out?”

“Give the guy at least another year to prove himself. He’s too new for that kind of trust.”

“I swear, Kragar, one of these days I’m going to—”

“Daymar reported in.”

“What?” I switched modes. “Good!”

Kragar shook his head.

“Not good?” I asked. “He shouldn’t have been able to tell this quickly that he couldn’t find the guy. Did he change his mind about helping us?”

“No. He found Mellar, all right.”

“Excellent. Then what’s the problem?”

“You aren’t going to like this, Vlad . . . ”

“Come on, Kragar, out with it.”

“The Demon was wrong; he didn’t go out East after all.”

“Really? Then where?”

Kragar slumped in his chair a little bit. He put his head on his hand and shook his head.

“He’s at Castle Black,” he said.

Slowly, a piece at a time, it sunk in.

“That bastard,” I said softly. “That clever, clever bastard.”

The Dragaeran memory is long.

The Empire has existed—I don’t know—somewhere between two and two-and-a-half hundred thousand years. Since the creation of the Imperial Orb, back at the very beginning, each of the Seventeen Houses has kept its records, and the House of the Lyorn has kept records of them all.

At my father’s insistence, I knew at least as much about the history of House Jhereg as any Dragaeran born into the House. Jhereg records do, I will admit, tend to be somewhat more scanty than those of other Houses, since anyone with enough pull, or even enough gold, can arrange to have what he wants deleted, or even inserted. Nevertheless, they are worth studying.

About ten thousand years ago, nearly a full turn of the cycle before the Interregnum, the House of the Athyra held the throne and the Orb. At this time, for a reason which is lost to us, a certain Jhereg decided that another Jhereg had to be removed. He hired an assassin, who traced the fellow to the keep of a noble of the House of the Dragon. Now, by Jhereg tradition (with good, solid reasons behind it that I may go into later), the target would have been quite safe if he’d stayed in his own home. No assassin will kill anyone in his house. Of course, no one can stay in his house forever, and if this Jhereg tried to hide that way, he would have found it impossible to leave, either by teleporting or by walking, without being followed. It could be, of course, that he didn’t know he’d been marked for extinction—usually one doesn’t know until it’s too late.

But, for whatever reason, he was in the home of a Dragonlord. The assassin knew that he couldn’t put up a trace spell around the home of a neutral party. The person would find out and almost certainly take offense, which wouldn’t be good for anyone.

There is, however, no Jhereg custom that says that you have to leave someone alone just because he’s over at a friend’s house. The assassin waited long enough to be sure that the fellow wasn’t planning to leave right away; then he got in past the Dragonlord’s defenses and took care of his target.

And then the jaws of Deathsgate swung open.

The Dragons, it seemed, didn’t approve of assassins plying their trade on guests. They demanded an apology from House Jhereg and got one. Then they demanded the assassin’s head, and instead got the head of their messenger returned to them in a basket.

The insult, reasoned the Jhereg, wasn’t that great. After all, they hadn’t destroyed the poor fellow’s brain, or done anything else to make him unrevivifiable. They were just sending the Dragons a message.

The Dragons got the message and sent back one of their own. Somehow, they found out who had issued the contract. The day after the messenger was returned to them, they raided the home of this fellow. They killed him and his family, and burned down his house. Two days later, the Dragon heir to the throne was found just outside the Imperial Palace with a six-inch spike driven through his head.