Steven Brust - Jhereg

He smiled a little. “I’m surprised Morrolan asked,” he said, which told me something. Not much perhaps, but it confirmed that he knew that I worked for Morrolan. File that away.

“He didn’t,” I said. “I was just curious myself.”

He nodded, and the smile came on again briefly.

We made small talk for a while longer, each letting the other be the first to commit himself to revealing how much he knew in a gambit to learn what the other knew. I decided, after a while, that he was not going to be first. He was the one with only a little to gain, so—

“I understand Aliera introduced herself to you.”

He seemed startled by the turn of the conversation. “Why, yes, she did.”

“Quite remarkable, isn’t she?”

“Is she? In what way?”

I shrugged. “She’s got a good brain, for a Dragonlord.”

“I hadn’t noticed. She seemed rather vague, to me.”

Good! Unless he was a lot sharper than he had any right to be, and a damn good liar (which was possible), he hadn’t realized that she’d been casting a spell as she was speaking to him. That gave me a clue as to his level of sorcery—not up to hers.

“Indeed?” I said. “What did you talk about?”

“Oh, nothing, really. Pleasantries.”

“Well, that’s something, isn’t it? How many Dragons do you know who will exchange pleasantries with a Jhereg?”

“Perhaps. On the other hand, of course, she may have been trying to find something out about me.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I didn’t say I thought so, just that she may have been. I’ve wondered myself as to her reasons for seeking me out.”

“I can imagine. I haven’t noticed that Dragons tend toward subtlety, however. Did she seem irritated with you?”

I could see his mind working. How much, he was thinking, should I tell this guy, hoping to pull information out of him? He couldn’t risk a lie that I would recognize, or I wouldn’t be of any further use to him, and he couldn’t really know how much I knew. We were both playing the same game, and either one of us could put the limit on it. How much did he want to know? How badly did he want to know it? How worried was he?

“Not on the surface,” he said at last, “but I did get the impression that she might not have liked me. It ruined my whole day, I’m telling you.”

I chuckled a little. “Any idea why?”

This time I’d gone too far. I could see him clam up.

“None at all,” he said.

Okay, so I’d gotten a little, and he’d gotten a little. Which one of us had gotten more would be determined by which one of us was alive after this was over.

“ Well, Loiosh, did you find out anything? ”

“ More than you did, boss. ”

“ Oh? What in specific? ”

Mental images of two faces appeared to my mind’s eye.

“ These two. They were watching you the entire time from a few feet away. ”

“ Oh, really? So he has bodyguards, eh? ”

“ At least two of them. Are you surprised? ”

“ Not really. I’m just surprised that I didn’t pick up on them. ”

“ I guess they’re pretty good. ”

“ Yeah. Thanks, by the way. ”

“ No problem. It’s a good thing that one of us stays awake. ”

I made my way out of the banquet hall and considered my next move. Let’s see. I really should check in with Morrolan. First, however, I wanted to talk to one of the security people and arrange for some surveillance on those two bodyguards. I wanted to learn a bit about them before I found myself confronting them on any important issue.

Morrolan’s security officer on duty had an office just a few doors down from the Library. I walked in without knocking—the nature of my job putting me a step above this fellow.

The person who looked up at me as I stepped in was called Uliron, and he should have been working the next shift, not this one. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “Where is Fentor?”

He shrugged. “He wanted me to take his shift this time, and he’d take mine. I guess he had some kind of business.”

I was bothered by this. “Do you do this often?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, looking puzzled, “both you and Morrolan said it was all right for us to switch from time to time, and we logged it last shift.”

“But do you do it often?”

“No, not really very often. Does it matter?”

“I don’t know. Shut up for a minute; I want to think.”

Fentor was a Tsalmoth, and he’d been with Morrolan’s security forces for over fifty years. It was hard to imagine him suddenly being on the take, but it is possible to bring pressures down on anyone. Why? What did they want?

The other thing I couldn’t figure out was why I had such a strong reaction to the switch. Sure, it was coming at a bad time, but they’d done it before. I almost dismissed it, but I’ve learned something about my own hunches: the only time they turn out to be meaningful is when I ignore them.

I sat on the edge of the desk and tried to sort it out. There was something significant about this; there had to be. I drew a dagger and started flipping it.

“ What do you make of this, Loiosh? ”

“ I don’t make anything of it, boss. Why do you think there’s something wrong? ”

“ I don’t know. Just that there’s a break in routine, right now, when we know that the Demon wants to get at Mellar, and he isn’t going to let the fact that Mellar is in Castle Black stop him. ”

“ You think this could be a shot at Mellar? ”

“ Or the setup for it. I don’t know. I’m worried. ”

“ But didn’t the Demon say that there wouldn’t be any need to start a war? He said it could be ‘worked around.’ ”

“ Yes, he did. I hadn’t forgotten that. I just don’t see how he can do it— ”

I stopped. At that moment, I saw very clearly how he could do it. That, of course, was why the Demon had tried to get my cooperation and then tried to kill me when I wouldn’t give it. Oh, shit.

I didn’t want to take the time to run down the hall. I reached out for contact with Morrolan. There was a good chance that I was already too late, of course, but perhaps not. If I could reach him, I would have to try to convince him not to leave Castle Black, under any circumstances. I’d have to . . . I became aware that I wasn’t reaching him.

I felt myself slipping into automatic—where my brain takes off on its own, and lets me know what I’m supposed to do next. I concentrated on Aliera, and got contact.

“ Yes, Vlad? What is it? ”

“ Morrolan. I can’t reach him, and it’s urgent. Can you find him with Pathfinder? ”

“ What’s wrong, Vlad? ”

“ If we hurry, we might be able to get him before they make him unrevivifiable. ”

The echo of the thoughts hadn’t died out in my head before she was standing next to me, Pathfinder naked in her hand. I heard a gasp from behind me, and remembered Uliron.

“Hold the keep for us,” I told him. “And pray.”

I sheathed my dagger; I wanted to have both hands free. If I don’t know what I’m going to run into, I consider hands to be more versatile than any given weapon. I longed to unwrap Spellbreaker and be holding it ready, but I didn’t. I was better off this way.

Aliera was deep in concentration, and I saw Pathfinder begin to emit a soft green glow. This was something I despised—having to sit there, ready to do something, but waiting for someone else to finish before I could. I studied Pathfinder. It shimmered green along its hard, black length. Pathfinder was a short weapon, compared to most swords that Dragaerans use. It was both shorter and heavier than the rapiers I liked to use, but in Aliera’s hands it was light and capable. And, of course, it was a Great Weapon.