Steven Brust - Hawk

Um. How to describe him?

Imagine, for a moment, that you’re walking through a forest and you come across a woodsman’s hut. You clap, you enter, and there, in this one rustic room, you see someone wearing the full Phoenix regalia: gold garments with tall collar, flared hem, courtier sleeves, and ruff-top boots. Well, a visit with Tippy always seemed a bit like that. He wore the gray and black of the Jhereg, but everything was either silk or velvet, and there were bits of lace at his throat and wrists and his boots gleamed in the light of a pair of wall lamps. He had rings on every finger, pendants, and he had poked holes in his ears and other parts of his face to hang more jewelry from, which is a custom that, I’m told, was lost with the Interregnum.

Other than that, he was young, a bit short, with an angular face, a strong chin, and a sharp nose. And very white teeth that he displayed whenever possible. I have a theory that the delay he always insisted on as part of the meeting protocol had nothing to do with security, but was all about giving him time to dress. I don’t know.

“Hello, Vlad. Can I offer you anything?”

“No thanks,” I said.

“I assume you need money that clinks?”

I nodded.

“How much?”

“Two hundred.”

“How soon?”

“Thirty hours, if necessary. Now would be best if you can do it.”

“Thirty hours will be two-twenty for two. Now is two-fifty for two.”

“All right. Now.”

He pulled out an inkpot, quill, sand, and a blank draft. I filled it out and passed it to him.

“Anything else?” he said.

“One thing.”

“Yes?”

“You’re good with money.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean, you know how money works, in and out of the Jhereg. You understand finance.”

“Up to a point. Mostly I know how to move money around so it can end up somewhere without appearing to come from where it came from.”

“Yes, yes. But you have an idea of Jhereg business, and what it earns?”

“All of it? No.”

“No, not all of it, but-”

“Vlad, what are you getting at?”

“Suppose I had an idea for a new business venture.”

“For the Jhereg?”

“Yes.”

“Big enough that they might, ah, that it might change your situation?”

“Exactly.”

He whistled. “That would have to be…”

“Yeah.”

“All right. What about it?”

“Who in the Council would have the authority to make that decision?”

“A majority vote. The others would have to go along with it. Though it’d be smart to arrange for all of them to get a slice, if you can manage it.”

I nodded. “The real question, though, is who is the big one. Who do I need on my side?”

“I have no idea. That isn’t at all my area.”

“All right. Just checking. I’ll see you next time I need money that clinks.”

“Watch your ass, Vlad.”

“I will.”

I left him with that thought and headed back out into the Adrilankha night.

“Boss? You knew he wouldn’t know that.”

“Yeah. I just need a rumor to get started in a few places.”

“Aren’t you just the clever one. All right. Jewelry store next, then?”

“I’m going to hold off on that for a little. There’s something I need to do first, because if it doesn’t work, I can just stop before I waste all my time.”

“So, what then?”

“A visit to an old friend.”

“Which old friend?”

“An old friend who wants to kill me.”

“That doesn’t limit it all that much, Boss.”

I kept to the poorest-lit areas, because it made me feel safer. It was a long way to the south and a little east, and took me through parts of the City I didn’t know; that made me feel less safe.

It eats at you all the time, when you’re being hunted. When you’re moving, you see them everywhere; when you’re holed up, you imagine them figuring out where you are. After a long enough time, it wears you down, you start seeing-

“Quit whining, Boss. Where are we going?”

“Somewhere safe.”

“Was that sarcasm?”

“Yeah.”

“Just checking.”

The homes hereabouts were bigger, more luxurious, and many of them had fences and grounds. There were fewer Jhereg, but more patrols of Phoenix Guards. Suspicious Phoenix Guards: I had to show my Imperial signet twice.

I stopped just short of a particularly big house, surrounded by a high fence, with a pair of alert-looking fellows in the colors of House Jhereg. They wore cloaks, and no weapons were visible; but either they were guarding the house or a pair of random strangers just happened to be standing by the gate looking very alert for no reason.

“Boss, this is-”

“Yeah.”

“We need to-?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Brash, or sneaky?”

“Yeah, that’s the question, isn’t it. What do you think?”

“If brash doesn’t work, they’ll be alerted to sneaky, if sneaky doesn’t work, you can’t pull off brash.”

“Well done, Loiosh. You’ve managed to state the problem.”

“Flip a coin?”

“Take a fly around the perimeter for me; let’s see if sneaky is even possible.”

“Am I reporting, or are you coming along?”

“I’ll come along.”

Across the narrow street and down a short distance was a place between two of the smaller houses where, by pulling my cloak around me, I could effectively be invisible. I crossed and waited there with Rocza, who kept shifting from foot to foot on my shoulder while Loiosh took wing. I relaxed, and fell into a sort of half-awake state, letting the images from Loiosh enter: guards in pairs, looking annoyingly alert; little knobs every fifteen feet on the fences, almost invisible sparkles around the doors, a vision distortion around the windows. Also, really thick-looking bars. One vision of the lock on the back door. Kiera could have handled the lock. I could handle the spells with Lady Teldra, only not without alerting every one of those guards, which in turn would make things bloody, as opposed to sneaky.

I returned to my own body. Loiosh returned.

“Brash, then?” he said.

“Brash it is.”

“Then let’s go.”

“A moment. It takes me a little while to build up to brash.”

“Since when, Boss?”

There was no answer to that, so I went back across the street, right up to the pair of Jhereg flanking the gate.

They were good. One took a step forward, no weapon drawn; the other immediately began scanning the rest of the area and, I had no doubt, alerting someone. Bad guards either under- or over-react, and either can be exploited by sneaky types. Yeah, brash was the right choice this time.

I walked up until the short one-he was still a head taller than I was-was right in front of me, somewhere between sword range and dagger range. If you do enough fighting, you’ll start to automatically notice distances. The point here wasn’t that I did, it was that he obviously knew what he was doing. He had the dead eyes of someone who’s done “work.” He didn’t show fear, or curiosity, or, well, anything. His boss had been able to afford good help, and had gotten it.

“I want to see your boss,” I said. “Let him know Vlad Taltos is here and wants a meeting.”

He couldn’t keep his eyes from widening a bit. Yes, he’d heard of me. And that meant he knew he could become rich right here and now. I watched the wheels spin in his head as he weighed the pros and cons; it wasn’t what he was being paid to do. And I might not that be that easy to take down.