Steven Brust - Hawk

“Ah. Well, thank you.”

She nodded and stood up. She gestured toward Kragar and vanished. He stirred.

“Ouch,” he suggested.

“Yeah, I imagine. Be right back. Don’t move.”

I went into the next room-actually, his office-and let his people know that it was safe to come out. They did, giving me odd looks which I ignored.

Kragar turned himself over, then tried to stand up; failed. A couple of his guys helped him up and assisted him to a chair. He looked very, very pale.

“Remember the part about not moving?” I said. “That was moving.”

“What happened?” he said.

The guy with the shoulders picked up the knife and handed it to him. He stared at it, but didn’t touch it. After a moment he looked at me and said, “Did they miss?”

I shook my head. “Aliera,” I said.

“Really?” He laughed, then winced. “She must have loved that. What did you have to promise her?”

“That she could kill you when you were done helping me.”

“Seems reasonable.”

“Kragar, how did they notice you?”

“Vlad, you notice me. Sometimes. Eventually. I mean, it isn’t impossible. Just tricky.”

“Heh. I’d always figured … never mind. Does it hurt?”

“Not really. More like a stiff back than real pain. I’m exhausted, though. Did Aliera leave any instructions?”

“No.”

He chuckled. “Of course not. Well, if I keel over, I leave you that funny chair you left me.”

“Who was it? Who got you?”

“How should I know? It was in the back.”

“Other than helping me, have you done anything to piss anyone off?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“All right.”

“Vlad, it isn’t going to help for you to blow your top.”

“I’m not going to-”

“How does your hand feel?”

“My-”

I forced myself to relax the grip on my rapier. Now that I thought about it, the hand was sort of cramping up. Painfully. “My hand is fine,” I said.

“Uh-huh.” He grimaced. “So’s my back. But there’s no point in being mad because they took a shot at me. They know I’m helping you, they want to get you. It’s how things work.” He punctuated it with a shrug, then winced.

“I’m not mad.”

“Or short,” he agreed.

I called him a name; he nodded.

“Give me the knife,” I said.

He looked at me. “You can find who did it?”

“They don’t usually protect against witchcraft. It’s worth trying.”

“Okay, Vlad. But I don’t know what that will give us. It’ll just be hired muscle.”

“I have some ideas.”

“All right. Take it.”

“Is my lab still intact?”

“Never touched it.”

“See you in a while,” I said.

He nodded and closed his eyes.

I started to walk away, stopped, looked at him sitting there. I had all kinds of thoughts and memories. I don’t know how long I stood there.

Eventually, I decided that if he opened his eyes again and saw me there, it’d be uncomfortable for both of us, and Barlen preserve me from ever being uncomfortable.

I walked out and headed down the back stairway.

Back when the office and the area were mine, I’d had a special place in the basement for performing witchcraft, which I called by a traditional Eastern term I don’t understand. It was much as I’d left it, give or take a few layers of dust. I stood there for a few minutes, sneezing at old memories.

“Been a while, Boss. Sure you’re up to this?”

“This is you building my confidence, right?”

“You’re pissed off, and trying to do a spell, that’s-”

“Loiosh, I’m fine. You-”

“This is my job, Boss.”

After a while I said, “Yeah, it is, isn’t it? All right.”

“Take some time, Boss.”

“Okay. But we don’t have a lot-”

“We can take half an hour.”

“All right.”

So I sat on the dusty floor and leaned my head back and pretended I was trying to sleep. At least they hadn’t tried to make it a Morganti killing; that was something. Morganti is ugly. That’s how the Jhereg wanted me. Dead, dead, dead: no soul to reincarnate or go to Deathgate, just the end of everything. A big void. I couldn’t conceive of it; I couldn’t help trying.

I remembered a guy named Faloth back in 241. He was an enforcer with more pride than sense, and when he couldn’t pay off his debt, he’d hinted that he’d go to the Empire if he wasn’t left alone. Worse, when he wasn’t left alone, he actually did. He made a serious amount of trouble for a lot of people.

Turns out, the reason he needed the money in the first place was to buy presents for his lover, a Chreotha who had too-expensive tastes. After the Jhereg had threatened him, he started visiting her at different times, and taking different routes; sometimes even teleporting to be really safe. Only he couldn’t teleport, so he had to have it done for him by a sorcerer who lived just one street over from him. I caught him just outside the sorcerer’s door. It was very fast. It has to be. I mean, it always has to be fast, because you don’t want the target to have a chance to fight back. But with a Morganti weapon, it needs to be exceptionally fast, because anyone can sense the power that comes out of those things. You have to keep it in a sheath with special enchantments, and then draw and use it fast. I had the sheath on my left hip for a cross draw. And I was fast enough, taking him in the left eye and into his brain. He looked surprised. They always look surprised.

I don’t know who or what will finally get me, but I’m pretty sure that when it happens I’ll look surprised. And, if it’s Morganti, after that will be nothing, nothing, nothing.

“Okay, Loiosh. I think I’m ready.”

“Let’s go then, Boss.”

I emptied the brazier and filled it again from the bucket of charcoal. I found the candles, and placed them, black and white, around the brazier. Then I took the amulet off. I mean, they knew where I was anyway, right?

“Loiosh, don’t monitor the spell. I need you checking for anyone about to show up and ruin my party or anything coming from outside that might, you know, hurt me.”

“I can do that, Boss. But…”

“Yeah?”

“Sure you’ll be all right, Boss? It’s been years since-”

“Yeah, I think so. It should be pretty straightforward.”

There wasn’t all that much in the way of supplies, but a spell like this didn’t call for much; I found what I needed and arranged it in front of the brazier.

Since I had my link to the Orb back, I used it to light the charcoal, and then the candles, moving wrongwise around the circle. I took the knife in my left hand, gripping it by the blade, the hilt held over the fire. Fennel and caraway went in, along with a little rosemary just because it smelled good. It’s a lot like cooking. Well, no, it isn’t at all like cooking, but you use some of the same things.

I sat cross-legged in front of the brazier, watching the coals glow and inhaling the smoke. The knife felt slightly heavy, but that’s because I’m a little guy, at least compared to Dragaerans. The blade in my hand no longer felt cold. I was touching Kragar’s blood, the smoke was curling around sweat and skin oil of whoever had used the weapon.

My breathing was even and deep: in through the nose, out through the mouth. My breath disturbed the dark gray smoke billowing up, wrapped up with traces of someone, someone who killed for money, just like I do, I mean did, but if you kill, I mean, if you actually go out and just put a knife into someone, does it make that much difference why? There were whys drifting in the smoke, in my eyes. I was no longer in the musty basement, I was gone, lost in my head among a corridor of whys. It doesn’t make any difference to the guy you’ve just shined why you did it. Money. Honor. Duty. Or maybe the pleasure of knowing that, just for a second, you’re the most important thing in someone’s life. I’ve known guys like that. Worked with them. Hired them. What did that make me? Bullshit question. I reached to secure the connection to my target, to give it tangibility. Some things you have to do-you either do them, or live with the Empire’s foot on your head. I didn’t choose to live that way, so I did what I had to. Maybe this guy was like that, too. Or maybe he killed for one of those other reasons. It didn’t matter, but then again it did-it mattered because I had to secure him, to bring him to me, to turn wisps of dark gray smoke harsh and burning in my nose, my eyes, in the air, in my mind, floating, drifting, letting it happen, no longer aware of my heartbeat, my breathing, my body, turn that into who and what he was. Nothing and nowhere, everything and everywhere, and I was studying the image that had formed in my head before I was consciously aware that it was there.