Steven Brust - Jhegaala

The more I thought about him, the less I thought about anything else, which was the point of the exercise, in case I need to spell it out for you.

The butler's face turned into that of the Count himself, and I couldn't read his expression, but he didn't give the appearance of someone about to kill me. I saw him walk away with Dahni, the two of them speaking in low tones. I don't think it was paranoia to conclude that my name might have come up in that conversation. I asked Loiosh if he could listen in, but they were being careful. Still, I was pretty sure he wasn't planning to kill me.

Not that I could have done anything about it at that point anyway. I'd pitched all my flat stones and now I was going to see where the round stones stopped rolling.

They carried me up a flight of stairs, which wasn't as bad as the wagon, and put me on a soft bed. Loiosh curled up by my ear with Rocza next to him. I could feel his head moving back and forth, watching everything. I could almost hear him thinking try something; let anyone just try something. That's my last memory for a while.

Later—I have no idea how much later—there was a bearded, gray-eyed older man bending over me, looking at me with great concern and speaking—I couldn't see to whom—to a low voice in an uncouth language I'd never heard before.

I tried to take an inventory of how I felt, but all I felt was numb—not that I was complaining about that. I also felt too weak to move, but I didn't mind so much. Then I became aware that my left arm wouldn't move at all and I started to panic. The old man said, "Shhhh," and held his palm out. "It's all right," he said in a strange accent, with a sort of singsong quality to the end of his phrases. "It was me. I have tied down your hand so you can't injure it more."

I tried to ask if something was wrong with my hand, but talking seemed like a lot of work.

Confused flashes of faces and lights in my face and concerned looks, soothing voices, worried voices, one fading into the other and the smell of herbs steaming reminding me of Noish-pa while I floated there, still, things happening to me as if they were happening around me and all the time my familiar's voice in mind, saying I know not what, but soothing and warming. I slept and dreamt and I woke and, I don't know how to say it, at some point the world stopped slipping in and out of the dreamland and I started to know what was real. I think it was getting toward morning when I finally fell into a real sleep that lasted more than an hour.

I remember Loiosh asking me if I was able to carry on a coherent conversation yet. I told him I was, but I preferred not to. He didn't seem happy about it, but let me alone for another timeless time.

I won't swear to it, but I'm pretty sure everything I've mentioned was the same night, that first night I was there, all before dawn. It was an event-filled time when nothing happened, and I wouldn't care to repeat it.

Sometime later, I think it was the next day, Loiosh said, "Is it time for you to tell me how you figured out Dahni would rescue you?"

"No.”

"That's because when I hear, I'm going to panic, aren't I?"

"Yes.”

A servant I didn't recognize poked his head in while I was awake. Loiosh and Rocza instantly became fully alert, but I decided he really was just a servant. He asked if I needed anything and I couldn't speak to answer. He went out, but returned later with another. They gave me thin soup and brandy—good brandy. I refrained from asking if it had been drugged.

The next several hours went that way. They seemed to think I needed to eat every five minutes or so, but that I couldn't be permitted much when I did. I was most often served by the butler, who never let a human remark pass his lips. If I'd had more energy, I'd have worked on him. After the first time, they didn't give me any more brandy, which was a shame. If the soup had any effect I didn't notice it.

"How much time do you think we have, Boss?"

"Before what?"

"Before whatever you haven't told me about happens."

"Oh. Maybe a day, maybe two. Hard to say."

Later, the old man made me sniff something pungent and peppery to knock me out, and the amulet was removed from my chest. I know this because he told me about it when I was awake again; I have no memory of any of it. He also put some sort of powder where it had been so that the wound wouldn't mortify.

When I woke up, it was lying by my pillow, and there were fresh bandages around my chest to add to the collection. He hadn't told me what he was going to do; if he had, I might have wanted to keep it there. Think how much trouble it would save. Then again, maybe not.

I spent a day there doing nothing except being fed and looked at by the old man, and nothing bad happened that day or that night, except that I didn't sleep particularly well. The next day, two men and one woman came, introduced themselves as witches, and tried to do what they could.

They worked, and had whispered conversations, and worked some more, and, at last, tried the measure of desperation: they talked to me.

"Our spells seem unable to aid you."

"Yes," I said. "The Art has no direct effect on me. I don't know why, it's been like that all my life. My maternal grandfather was the same way."

This seemed to throw them, but they didn't question it. One said, "You say, 'direct' effect?"

"Herbs, infusions, and things of that nature, prepared with the Art, appear to work normally, it is just that they cannot be prepared by me or close to me, and a glamour cast upon me will have no effect, and my aura is invisible. I have no idea why this might be."

I lay on my pillow next to the amulet of black Phoenix Stone and looked sincerely puzzled at them.

They ended by making poultices and infusions and such. They concealed what they were doing, or I might have been able to offer suggestions, but they did seem to know what they were about except for making infusions that looked and smelled like poultices.

I drank soup and infusions, and tried to decide if the poultices smelled worse than the paper mill, and let them tend me. The Count owed me that much, by Verra's tits! I dozed off, woke up, dodged Loiosh's questions, stared at the ceiling. Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out a way to keep all of their work from being wasted.

I didn't come up with anything.

Loiosh was getting jumpier by the moment. He finally said, " Boss, if I know what I'm scared of, it can't be worse than this."

"Yes it can.”

"And I have been known to come up with an idea once in a while.”

"Okay, that much I'll agree with."

"Well?"

I sighed. "All right. Dahni said that talking to me in the dark like that would give him an edge"

"And?"

"And why would it give him an edge?"

"Because you have—oh"

"Right. How could he know that?"

"Uh, how could he know that?"

"Only one way I can think of. He'd been in touch with the Jhereg. You know how we work. You know how I work. When I'm planning to take someone down, I find out everything about him. Everything. I learn what color hose he prefers, and how hot he likes his bathwater, and—"

"The Jhereg would have learned that you have bad night vision."

"Yes."

"And told Dahni, because it might give him an edge in—"

"In taking me and hauling me out to them, so they don't have to make a stir by coming into town as Dragaerans, excuse me, 'elfs.' Much less as elfs with a Morganti weapon."

"You say 'them’."

"Probably just one"

"You're telling me that there is a Jhereg assassin here?"