Steven Brust: Dzur

Dzur

Vlad Taltos, Book 10

Steven Brust

2006 Prologue: Peasant’s Platter

Vili glanced up, turned his head back toward the interior, and said, with no particular inflection, “Klava with honey for Lord Taltos.” He then turned back to me and said, “Your usual table is available, m’lord.”

If Vili wasn’t going to make any observations about the fact that I had been gone for years, was missing a finger, and had a price on my head sufficient to make every assassin in the city drool with greed, well, I certainly wouldn’t either. I followed him inside.

Valabar and Sons is in a part of Adrilankha that looks worse than it is. The streets are narrow and full of ruts winding among the potholes; the dwellings are small and most of them show their age; and the population there—urban Teckla with a few Chreotha—give no appearance of wealth, or even comfort. But, as I say, it looks worse than it is. Few who live there are actu­ally destitute, most of them being tradesmen or those employed by tradesmen and most of the families having lived there for millennia, some for Cycles. Valabar’s fit right in.

You walk down three shallow steps, and if you’re Dragaeran (which I am not) or an exceptionally tall human (which I am not), you duck your head. When you raise it again, you’re immediately ambushed by the aroma of fresh-baked bread—ambushed, and you surrender. Why it is that with all of the scents inundating the place it’s the bread you smell, I don’t know; there are myriads of other smells that you notice when you’re outside. But inside, it’s the bread.

You’re in a room with eleven tables, the largest of them big enough to seat a party of six. There is a great deal of space be­tween the tables. The walls and tablecloths are white, the chairs a sort of pale yellow. On each table is a yellow flower, a small white dish with finely ground salt, and a clear glass jar with pow­dered Eastern red pepper.

I followed Vili to the other room, much like the first, but with space for only nine tables. Those two rooms were all there was; most evenings both were full. We reached my favorite table, a deuce in the back corner that I liked not for any reasons of se­curity, but just because I enjoyed seeing what everyone else was eating.

The chair felt good—familiar. I salivated and my stomach rumbled. As I sat down, Mihi came by with my klava, and I drank some, and right away I have a problem: I could spend so much time telling you about just the klava that I wouldn’t get anything else done. It tasted of cinnamon and monra and honey and heavy cream and I found myself smiling as I sipped it. Loiosh and Rocza, my familiar and his mate, were quiet out of respect for my pleasure—a rarity in Loiosh’s case especially.

Next to my chair, carefully positioned so I couldn’t bump it by accident, they placed a small brazier. In it were wine tongs, carefully kept heated. Next to the brazier was a bucket of ice wa­ter, and in the ice was a single, long white feather.

There would be wine tonight. Oh, yes.

I’d come early; there weren’t many diners at this hour, just a quad and a stiff. The quad—all Chreotha—spoke quietly. Valabar’s seems to encourage quiet conversation, though I don’t know why. The stiff looked like a Vallista. He gave me a glance as I entered, then went back to his Ash Mountain potatoes. A good choice. But then, so far as I knew, Valabar’s didn’t have any bad choices.

I had made a good choice by accident, showing up as I did in the early afternoon. I enjoyed Valabar’s when it was full of peo­ple, but being almost alone fit my mood. I sipped my klava, and found that I’d closed my eyes for a moment, savoring what was, and what soon would be. I smiled.

An hour earlier, I had been in Dzur Mountain. An hour before that, I had been fighting for my life and the soul of a friend against—

Now, right away, I have a problem. You see me, but I don’t see you. I don’t know who you are. You’re there, but invisible, like Fate if you choose to believe in it; like the Lords of Judgment even if you don’t. Do you know me? Have we met? Do I need to explain who I am, or shall I assume you’re the same individual who’s been listening to me all along?

Well, I guess there’s no point in telling you about what hap­pened before either way. If you’ve been with me before, you know; if you haven’t, you’d never believe it. I just barely believed it. But I touched the hilt of Lady Teldra hanging on my left hip, and there was such a keen sense of her presence that I couldn’t doubt, no matter how much I wanted to.

But then that was ages before—hours, as I’ve said. Now life was klava, and the klava was good, so life was good.

Klava had been part of what I now thought of as my “old life.” Every morning I’d gone into my office, had my first cup of klava brought to me by my secretary, Melestav, and begun plan­ning what crimes I’d commit that day. After Melestav was killed, Kragar, my associate and, if you will, lieutenant, who didn’t know how to brew klava and could just barely make coffee, would order it from a place down the street.

I look back to that now as a good time in my life. I was re­spected, I had power, I had money, I was happily married (at least, I thought I was), and, if every so often someone tried to kill me, or the Phoenix Guards would beat me bloody, well, that was just part of the game. At the time, I suppose I wasn’t so aware of being happy; but then, spending your time asking yourself if you’re happy is as good a way to be miserable as I know. If you want to be happy, don’t ask yourself difficult questions, just sit in a quiet, peaceful place and enjoy your solitary klava.

I was not, however, destined to enjoy my solitary klava for long.

“M’lord,” said Vili. “A gentleman wishes to be brought to your table.”

Loiosh gripped my left shoulder a little tighter.

“If he were coming to kill me, do you think he’d ask?”

“No, Boss. But who knows we’re even here?”

“Let’s find out.”

Before Loiosh could reply, I said, “What sort of gentleman, Vili?”

“A Dragaeran, m’lord. He would appear to be of the House of the Dzur.”

I frowned. That was certainly unexpected.

“Bring him over.”

Young, was my first reaction. I’m no great judge of ages of Dragaerans, but if he’d been human, he’d have barely needed to shave. He also had that sort of tall, uncoordinated lankiness that spoke of someone who hadn’t quite settled into his body yet. His House was no mystery at all: Only Dzurlords have ears like that and eyes like that, and think that black on black is the ultimate of fashionable color combinations. And if that wasn’t enough, there was the hilt of a sword sticking up over his shoulder—a sword that was probably taller than I was; a very Dzur-like sword, if you will.

The expression on his face, however, was very un-Dzur-like. He was smiling.

“Hi there,” he said, all cheerful-like. “My name will be Zun­garon someday, but for now it’s Telnan.”

It took me a moment to manage a reply. For one thing, I’d never had anyone introduce himself in quite that way. For another, Dzurlords are ... well, some of them can be ... you might find some who ...

You don’t expect to find a cheerful Dzurlord.

I stood up. If he’d been a Jhereg, I’d have remained seated, out of courtesy, but he was a Dzur so I rose and gave him a half bow. “Vladimir Taltos,” I said. “Call me Vlad.” I sat down again.