Steven Brust - Iorich

He didn’t an­swer, and some­where in there I fell asleep and had a con­fus­ing dream about thick walls that were in be­tween me and some­thing I want­ed, I don’t re­mem­ber what, and I kept try­ing to dig through them with the dull edge of a knife. Why the dull edge? How should I know; I was on­ly a spec­ta­tor.

I woke late the next morn­ing, feel­ing pret­ty good. Loiosh and Rocza scout­ed the area, de­cid­ed it was safe, and I went out look­ing for kla­va. Found some. Drank it. Was hap­py. I al­so picked up a warm sweet bun stuffed with keth­na, and it was good too. Then, with Loiosh and Rocza tak­ing pre­cau­tions for me, I made my way back to the Iorich Wing.

The ad­vo­cate’s door was closed and there was a note pinned to it with the ini­tial V in tight, care­ful script. I took down the note and un­fold­ed it to read, “Run­ning an er­rand; wait in my of­fice.”

I shrugged and reached for the door han­dle, and Loiosh said, “Boss!”

I froze. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

My hand brushed La­dy Tel­dra’s hilt, but I didn’t draw. Pulling a Mor­gan­ti weapon in the House of the Iorich is the sort of thing that gets you talked about, and I wasn’t go­ing to do it if I didn’t have to.

“Some­thing about that note both­ers me.”

“If you tell me you’ve sud­den­ly turned in­to a hand­writ­ing ex­pert—”

He didn’t an­swer; I could feel him think­ing, or at least do­ing some­thing with his mind, prob­ing or sens­ing in a way that I couldn’t feel. I wait­ed. I hoped no one walked by, be­cause I’d ei­ther kill him or feel like an id­iot for stand­ing out­side of this door not mov­ing. I stud­ied the note again. Was it the same hand­writ­ing I’d seen from Perisil? Pret­ty close. I start­ed to pull out the di­rec­tions he’d writ­ten out for me to com­pare the writ­ing, but Loiosh spoke be­fore I could.

“There’s some­one in­side.”

“Okay.”

“It isn’t him.”

“Okay. Any­one else around?”

“A few of the oth­er of­fices have peo­ple in them.”

“Send Rocza ahead.”

She left my shoul­der al­most be­fore the words were out of my metaphor­ical mouth. I turned and walked back the way I’d come—not too fast, not too slow, try­ing to stay alert for any sound, any flick­er of move­ment. It’s the sort of ex­pe­ri­ence that wakes up ev­ery par­ti­cle of your body. If it weren’t for the thrill of the thing, I’d just as soon skip it com­plete­ly.

“She says it’s clear ahead, Boss.”

The hall­way was much, much longer than it had been two min­utes be­fore when I was go­ing the oth­er way, and my foot­steps were much loud­er. Two Jus­ticers were walk­ing slow­ly to­ward me, deep in con­ver­sa­tion, and I gave them an ex­tra look even though I could tell they weren’t Jhereg from the frankly cu­ri­ous glance they gave me. I could feel Loiosh watch­ing them un­til they were well past.

I reached the stair­way at the far end of the hall­way with Rocza still scout­ing ahead. On the main floor I could re­lax a lit­tle; there were uni­formed arms­men there, and a few more peo­ple as well as more open space; it was a bad place for an as­sas­sin to make a move.

The same el­der­ly wom­an was in the same place near the door. Next to her was a Chreotha with a cart sell­ing food of some sort. I bought a hot and flaky pas­try filled with gar­licky pota­to. I stood off to the side eat­ing and think­ing.

I fed the re­main­ders to the jhereg; peo­ple around pre­tend­ed not to no­tice. La­dy Tel­dra would have been proud of them.

I brushed crumbs off my fin­gers.

“Okay, Boss. Now where?”

“Some­where safe.”

“Yeah, like I said.”

“This is pret­ty safe, but I think af­ter stand­ing here six or sev­en hours I’ll start to feel sil­ly.”

“When has that—”

“Of course, it might be fun to stand here un­til the as­sas­sin gives up and leaves, and then give him a big smile as he goes by.”

“Sure, Boss. What­ev­er floats your cas­tle.”

“The oth­er idea is not to do that.” I re­viewed a list of more prac­ti­cal pos­si­bil­ities, then ap­proached the wom­an be­hind the desk with a short bow. “Is there a com­mon wait­ing area?”

She frowned. “If you wish to see an ad­vo­cate, they each have of­fices.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’d rather wait else­where, if you don’t mind.”

She looked like she want­ed to ask why, but on­ly ges­tured to her right, say­ing, “Fourth door on the right. It should be open.”

“Can a note be de­liv­ered to Lord Perisil?”

She frowned again. “Would that be High Coun­sel Perisil?”

“Yes,” I said, while the ghost of La­dy Tel­dra prob­ably tsked at me for not know­ing the prop­er ti­tle and at her for cor­rect­ing me.

The clerk was kind enough to let me use a piece of coarse pa­per and a cheap pen­cil. I wrote a short note and hand­ed it over, not even both­er­ing to fold it. “I do not know the cus­toms of your House,” I said. “I trust this will go to his hand, and nowhere else?”

“That is cor­rect,” she said, a bit con­temp­tu­ous­ly. She prob­ably hat­ed her job, sit­ting there hour af­ter hour send­ing peo­ple one way or an­oth­er. I won­dered how long she’d been do­ing it. Since the In­ter­reg­num end­ed, to look at her.

She took the note and put it ca­su­al­ly on her desk un­der what looked like a piece of pol­ished stone. I turned away from her slow­ly, scan­ning the room: A few peo­ple, most­ly Iorich, were pass­ing by on busi­ness of their own. The jhereg got some cu­ri­ous glances.

The place she’d di­rect­ed me to was big and com­fort­able, most­ly done in a pale blue that was prob­ably cal­cu­lat­ed to make me feel some­thing or oth­er.

“You know, Boss, for some­one who hates wait­ing—”

“Oh, shut up.”

Not that he wasn’t right. I found a chair against a wall be­cause all of the chairs were against a wall. I stretched my legs out, closed my eyes, and tried to re­lax. Some­where be­low me, there was a Jhereg ex­pect­ing me to walk in­to Perisil’s of­fice so I could be killed. Was Perisil in on it? Un­like­ly. The Jhereg don’t like to use ad­vo­cates for il­le­gal stuff; and be­sides, if he’d been in on it the note wouldn’t have looked fun­ny.

Here’s the thing: Any­one can be shined. That’s just how it is. If you want some­one bad enough, you can get him. But if he knows you’re af­ter him, he can pret­ty much keep out of trou­ble as long as he stays alert. Which makes the ques­tion sim­ple: How long can some­one stay alert, al­ways watch­ing al­ley­ways, aware of any­one who is care­ful­ly not look­ing at you, keep­ing an eye out for a good place to make a move. How long can you keep that up?

For most peo­ple, the an­swer is: hours, maybe a day or two.

But it turns out that you can do it a lot longer if you have a pair of jhereg tak­ing shifts for you.

Did that mean I was safe? Not hard­ly. Soon­er or lat­er they were bound to get me. But thanks to Loiosh and Rocza, I had a pret­ty rea­son­able chance of mak­ing it lat­er rather than soon­er as long as I didn’t do too many stupid things.

I know what you’re think­ing, and you’re wrong; I’ve gone for months with­out do­ing any­thing stupid. Did I just sur­vive this time be­cause the as­sas­sin got slop­py? Maybe. I’d like to think that if it were me I’d have been more care­ful with the note. Per­haps not, though. No one can do ev­ery­thing per­fect­ly; mis­takes hap­pen. But we’re as­sas­sins: when we make mis­takes, peo­ple live.