Steven Brust - Dzur

“I know who he is.”

“Okay. Well, the fellow I was with—a Dragon—prostrated himself before the statue. Then, a little later, he started talking, mumbling, like he was having a conversation with it. Then he got up, and said he knew how to get through the Paths, which he hadn’t before.”

“Hmmm. Okay.”

“Well, you see, I didn’t remember any of that until a couple of years later.”

He nodded. “I can see where that would be upsetting.”

“Yeah, well, so that’s what’s been going on.”

“Is there more?”

I shrugged. “Now and then, a few little things come back. It’s—”

“Upsetting,” he said.

I nodded. “You tend to think of what’s inside your head as your own, no matter what anything else is. Even Kiera can’t steal that.”

“Who ?”

“Never mind. The point is, it keeps messing with me. Every time I think about it, I get distracted, and mad, and I want to find the Goddess and, well, you know.”

“Any practical effects?”

“Hmmm?”

“Other than how you feel about it, have you forgotten anything that mattered?”

“Well, that’s just it. I don’t know. I need to ....” I tried to find the words. He waited. “With what I do, I need to have confidence in my decisions. I need to find out everything I can, and then come up with a plan of action that’s as good as I can contrive. That’s how I operate.”

“I understand that.”

“Well, but the thing is, now I can’t be sure if there are impor­tant things I don’t know. And worse, what if it isn’t just memo­ries? What if the, I don’t know, the mechanism of my thinking has been messed with? How can I commit to any sort of action, when I can’t be sure if the Goddess hasn’t been screwing around with how I make decisions?”

“Why would she do that?”

“Why would she do anything? How should I know? Maybe she has plans for me.”

He gave a humorless laugh. “That’s a comforting thought.”

“Uh huh. But, you see the problem.”

He nodded. “Did you know my people were peasants?”

“Hmmm?”

“When I was boy, we worked the land not twenty miles from here, for Lady Drenta.”

“Okay ....”

“One day Pa sent me out to plow a furrow. He put me at the right spot, then pointed to our old nag, Chalkie. He said, ‘Start here and aim at for where Chalkie is. But Rico—’ I said, ‘Yeah, Pa?’

“‘If Chalkie moves, you’re going to have to change your mark.’” He laughed, and I gave him a courtesy chuckle.

A little later, he heaved a contented sigh, and pushed back from the table. I nodded, and we headed back to his place, where he made up a list with names, addresses, and best time to find each one.

“Thanks, Ric.”

“Will you let me know how it all turns out?”

“If you hear I’m dead, it didn’t work so well.”

He shook his head. “I guess, all in all, I’m glad I do what I do, not what you do.”

“Proving,” I said, “that you aren’t a Dzur.”

“I’m not sure what that means, but guess it’s good.”

“It’s good,” I said. “And good to see you again, Ric.”

“You too. And Vlad—”

“Yeah?”

“It’s easy to consider everyone a sucker who cares about things you don’t care about. So who does that make the sucker?”

“Uh, I don’t see what that connects to.”

“No, but you probably will before I do.”

I wished him a good evening.

I ducked into the first public house I came to in order to read the list. The first thing that surprised me was that I knew South Adrilankha better than 1 thought I did. I mean, he had notations like, “Third house south of Wrecked Bridge, on the east,” and I knew at once where that was.

There were a couple I could see right now, and I had no rea­son to delay.

“Still staying with me, chum?”

“What else is there to do? I don’t like this business of you wander­ing around without me.”

“I don’t like it much, either. Once this is over—”

“Yeah.”

Someone named Ernest was usually home in the evening, and didn’t live too far away. In the City, there were globes at various points to provide light; I’d gotten so used to them that I never thought about them. Here, though, the only light was what spilled out from houses, public and private. It was enough to keep me from tripping over ruts and dips in the road and from stumbling into people, but not much more. Still, from Ric’s description, I was able to find it: one of those place built to hold ten families of Easterners in the same space that would hold maybe three Dragaeran families. And families of Easterners are usually bigger.

I went to what should be the right door and hit it with my fist. After a moment, the door opened a crack, a pair of eyes peered out, and someone said, “Yes?”

“Ernest? My name is Sandor, and I’m a friend of Ric.”

“A friend of who?”

“Ricard. The cimbalon player.”

“Oh!”

The door opened more and he grinned. “Come on in. If you’re a friend of Ricard, you must have brought something to drink.”

“Actually, I didn’t, but I’ll buy you one, if you’d like.”

“I’ll get my coat.”

It crossed my mind that if I kept buying drinks for people at this rate, I wasn’t going to be good for much by the end of the day. But if you’re going to be dealing with Ricard, and people Ri­card knows, you had best be ready for serious drinking. If I dared remove the amulet, I could do a sobering spell. If I dared remove the amulet, a lot of problems wouldn’t even exist. I mentally shrugged; I was all right at the moment.

We found a place, sat down in a back corner, and I bought him a brandy and water. I had a mug of bad pilsner, so I could nurse it. “Thanks,” he said.

I nodded. He was short and stocky, with big shoulders that made his arms hang out, and had the same look in his eyes as those Orca punks who used to beat me up just because they could. I in­stinctively didn’t like him. To the left, there must be something decent about him, or he wouldn’t be Ric’s friend. But then again, maybe Ric was hoping he’d get killed.

“My name is Sandor. Ric gave me your name, because I need some help with a project, and I have some money to throw around to get it done.”

“Oh? How much money?”

“A fair bit.”

“What’s—”

“Maybe we should talk about what I want you to do, and then, if you think you like the idea, we’ll try to work out the money.”

He shrugged. “All right.”

“I know you know who the Jhereg are. Have you ever heard of the Left Hand of the Jhereg?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Who are they?”

“They’re sort of like the Jhereg, but they use magic, and are involved in different sorts of things.”

“Like what?”

“That’s what I want you to find out.”

“Huh?

“I need someone—actually, a few people—to find out what they’re up to.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never—”

“I hadn’t thought you had. I’ll tell you what to do.”

“What sort of, I mean—”

“I need you to ask around, without making a big deal out of it. But, you know, talk to friends, pick up gossip, that sort of thing.”

“Uh, how exactly? I mean, who do I talk to? Who would know?”

“I’ll point a few people out to you, people called runners. Once you—”

“Runners?”

“People who run errands for them, and deliver things to them. Once you know who they are, you sort of hang around them, see if they feel like talking to you. Or you find people they are talking to, and talk to them. Pick up whatever you can.”