Steven Brust - Hawk

And there was a way. And it did have a chance of working. Maybe even a reasonable chance. If I could just figure out …

Resources. I was going to need a lot of resources. Both the kind you hold in your hand, and the kind that walk and talk. The latter are always trickier. Who to call on? Cawti? No, I couldn’t drag her into this without also dragging in the boy, and that wasn’t going to happen.

Kiera or Kragar, or both. Two old friends; two people still willing to help me in spite of the Jhereg, and with contacts deep enough that maybe-maybe one or the other of them could get what I needed.

The idea, you see, fell into two distinct pieces: Part one, convince the Jhereg they didn’t want to kill me. Part two, stay alive while completing part one. Tricky, because, even if this worked, word would get out-word had to get out-what I was doing. And a lot of Jhereg were very, very unhappy with me. All of which meant that there was bound to be someone-someone or someones-who was just flat-out not going to let me get away with it, no matter what. I’d made too many Jhereg too mad.

So, while I was pretty sure I had the first part figured out, the second part was going to be harder. After pacing for a while, I became convinced that I just couldn’t figure out the second until I’d spoken with Kragar or Kiera.

So, then.

I went back to the room I’d been sleeping in to make sure I hadn’t left anything there; I wouldn’t be coming back. I checked the dagger in my boot and the throwing knife up my sleeve, and the things on the harness. I strapped the rapier to my side with Lady Teldra just in front of it, and the various things in and under my cloak. I looked around the room again, and gave it a silent thank-you. Then, Rocza riding discontentedly on my right shoulder, I went down the hall and out, leaving the clammy mildewy stench of the basement for the stink of South Adrilankha.

I stopped to thank Auntie and tell her good-bye. She sniffed, nodded, and asked if there was anything else I needed.

“Do you know any place nearby I can get cleaned up a bit?”

“Nine doors down that way and across the street. It doesn’t look like it, but they let rooms, and they’ll have a pump and a basin. Give them a coin, and if they give you any trouble tell them I sent you.”

“All right. Good. Thanks. Also, do you have some koelsch leaves? I’m out.”

“They aren’t good for you.”

“I know. But neither is dying.”

She grunted, went into her house, and emerged with a small leather pouch. “Six coppers,” she said.

I handed her a silver coin. “Keep it,” I said.

She nodded. “Good luck,” she told me.

“Thanks.”

I followed her directions and found myself in the sort of flophouse I’d been staying in lately. I entered, flipped the landlady a coin without saying a word, and went up the stairs to use the pump room and get myself a little more prepared to face the world. Or Daymar, at least. The water was cold. They had a small mirror there, and I took some time to study myself; yeah, I still looked like me, except I now had a small white scar on my throat.

When I’d told Loiosh to have Daymar meet me “across the street,” I meant a place I’d discovered some weeks earlier, while wandering about South Adrilankha. They were called Len and Nieces, and they made klava and sold pastries. The pastries weren’t all that good, but the klava was excellent, and the baking and the roasting coffee overpowered the smells from outside. I walked down three steps and into the place with its seven identical round tables, and paused to take a deep breath before seating myself. There were two other tables occupied, both of them by old men and women-human, of course. That is, what the Dragaerans called Easterners, like me. Dragaerans refer to themselves as human, and I’m usually too polite to correct them.

The people at the tables were either the same ones I’d seen before, or the same type. One look at them, and you knew they spent all of their time here. I had mixed feelings about that: maybe it’s a useless waste to spend every minute of your life doing nothing more than sitting around gabbing; but maybe it’s not a bad thing at all. I don’t know.

Claudia-one of the nieces-brought me klava and a cream-filled sweet roll, as always without a word. She wasn’t used to people openly carrying weapons, and didn’t know what to make of me. The first time I’d come in, Len had asked me to remove my sword while I was there; I’d looked at him until he went back to his counter. Since then, it had become obvious that I made them uncomfortable, but it wasn’t like there was anything they could do about it. And I didn’t care that much. Does that make me a bad person? I don’t care that much about that, either.

The klava was even better than usual that day; the sweet roll was all right, but my brain was working too fast to give either of them the concentration they deserved. I kept checking the door for Daymar, which was pointless: it would be hours at best before Loiosh would be able to find him, assuming he was in the City.

I had to hide from the Orb while I did it, Daymar had said.

Every citizen of the Empire is linked to the Orb. It permits sorcery and is how you can tell time, and, if you have information vital to the Empire or are really stupid, you can reach the Empress instantly and directly. The amulet I wore was powerful enough so that I couldn’t even detect the Orb if I was too far from it, but the Orb could still find me.

I knew two ways to hide from the Orb. You could give up your citizenship, and then the Orb couldn’t find you, but you wouldn’t be able to use sorcery. The other is a short-term solution: You concentrate on blanking out your mind, thinking of nothing, imagining a big, black, empty well. I’d done that once for a little while, just to see if I could, but I didn’t think I’d be able to pull it off if I were in danger. In any case, neither of those methods would help in this case. But neither of them would have done Daymar any good either, so there might be a third way. If there was, it might have something to do with what Auntie had just told me about attuning one’s mind, which seemed reasonable, based on my experience with sorcery and my knowledge of witchcraft. And, if so, it might be just what I needed to set things in motion.

That’s a lot of maybes. And if it went wrong, I’d be dead. But if I did nothing, I’d be dead anyway-the last few days had convinced me of that, if nothing else.

I gestured to Claudia. She brought me more klava, still not looking at me. I guess something strange happens in the heads of Easterners when they’re around someone like me-they feel like I’m one of them, but not. Come to think of it, I feel the same way. The last time I went back East, I found out-no, skip it. I did a lot of reminiscing while I was waiting for Daymar, and I told myself the story of how I’d gotten into this mess, but you don’t need to hear about it.

I had just finished my second sweet roll-this one tartberry-and was drinking my fourth cup of klava when there was a pop of displaced air, and Daymar was sitting in front of me, floating cross-legged a few feet off the ground. Loiosh flapped over to me.

Daymar looked around. “Why are you holding a weapon?”

I got up off the floor and made the dagger vanish. “It would take too long to explain,” I explained.

I picked my chair up while Daymar seated himself in a more traditional way. By this time, there was only one table of old men-they were studiously not looking at the commotion. Len and Claudia were, in fact, staring at Daymar, but when I looked at them they got busy doing other things.

I turned to Daymar and smiled.