Steven Brust - Hawk

The one with short, red hair cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “Something I can do for you, Taltos?”

“A pleasure to be recognized,” I said. “Yeah. Who paid you to put a shine on Kragar?”

Nothing. No reaction at all. “I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” he said.

I gave Daymar an inquiring look.

“Got it,” said Daymar.

They all looked at him. Loiosh climbed out of my cloak and positioned himself on my shoulder.

“Sorry for the mix-up,” I said. I smiled, bowed, and turned around, listening hard for any scary sounds. There were none; we made it out onto the street, Daymar made me vanish again.

“I hope this’ll be enough,” I said. “We aren’t going to be able to pull that off again.”

“Enough?”

“I hope the name you got will be enough to get me there.”

“Get you there? I have the person who hired him.”

“I know. I hope that’s enough.”

“I don’t understand. Isn’t the person who hired him what you want?”

“No, I want to know who hired the guy to hire the guy to hire him.”

“Seems awfully complicated.”

“That’s how Jhereg do things.”

“Why?”

“Did you know that assassination is against the law?”

He hesitated, considered, nodded.

“The Empire becomes very sad when you kill someone for money. They do all sorts of things to discourage that kind of behavior. This leads to those who want it done taking some pains to be sure that the Empire doesn’t know they did it. Am I going too fast for you?”

“No, no. I’ve got it so far.”

“That’s why it’s so complicated. So the guy who orders it doesn’t want it known that he ordered it, so he has someone else get someone else to get someone else to do it.”

“Oh.” He considered. “Makes sense.”

“That’s a relief. What name did you get?”

“Yestac. Know him?”

“Yeah.”

“Know who he works for?”

“Yeah.”

Yestac worked for Taavith, also called “Flatstones.” Flatstones had a big section of Adrilankha running from the South Hills all the way to Overlook, and as far inland as the Terrace. He gave a percentage to a guy named Krasno, who was on the Council. I didn’t know a lot about Krasno, and I didn’t have Kragar to collect information. Bugger. I thought about it as we walked, and for a wonder, Daymar was quiet and let me think.

We made it back to Kragar’s place without any trouble. Daymar asked if he could do anything else for me, and I bit my tongue and just said no. Then I thanked him, politely, because that’s the kind of guy I am.

I went up to see Kragar. He wasn’t there. I was just settling in for a good panic attack when one of Kragar’s people stuck his head around the corner and said, “Sellish said to tell you we’ve taken the boss home.”

“His home?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I-”

“The boss said you were welcome there, if you want.”

My heart returned to its normal speed.

“We could take you there,” he said, and I had an image of myself walking down the street to an unknown destination surrounded by guys who could make enough to live in luxury for the rest of their lives just by putting a shine on me, or even stepping aside while someone else did.

“Sure,” I said.

He nodded and gathered up three others, and they escorted me down the stairs and out onto the street.

“For someone worried about the Jhereg, you sure are spending a lot of time parading in front of them.”

“I have absolutely no fear. Oh, come on, Loiosh, it wasn’t that funny. Last time I was invisible. This time I have protection.”

“If you have protection.”

I had no answer for that.

We didn’t have far to walk; in ten minutes we were at a tidy little rooming house on Garshos. We entered the front door, and Sellish went up to the first door on the right. He clapped, then opened the door.

My first thought was, I wonder what he does with all of his money? He certainly didn’t have any of it invested in his home. He was lying on the bed-one of three pieces of furniture in the place. The others were a single chair, and a table; neither of them looking like they cost more than six coppers.

“I see why you spend so much time at the office,” I told him.

“This isn’t where I live, Vlad. It’s just where I sleep.”

I nodded. “Right. The other place is where you stash your various mistresses and the Kathana paintings and the big wine cellar.”

He looked over at me, then turned his head back to stare at the ceiling. He was flat on his back, but his eyes were clear. He gave me an appropriate answer.

“I don’t bend that way,” I said. I grabbed the chair, pulled it up next to his bed, sat down, and crossed my legs. “So, how are you feeling?”

He used a bad word.

“Good to hear,” I said.

“You aren’t here to check on my health. What is it?”

“I’m here to check on your health.”

“Right.”

I shrugged. “I can make something else up, if you want.”

“Yeah, I’d like that. It would help my recovery.”

“Okay. Can I borrow six tablespoons of Eastern red pepper?”

“No.”

“All right.”

“Vlad, do you remember when it meant something to be a Jhereg? When there was honor, and-”

“Kragar?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Seeing if I could convince you I was dying.”

“You had me half convinced you were off your head; does that count?”

“Better than nothing. What have you learned?”

“About what?”

He turned his head to look at me.

“The shiner was a guy named Havric.”

“Hired by?”

“How would I know that?”

“Vlad-”

“Yestac.”

“Don’t know him,” said Kragar. “Can’t think of anything I ever said about his mother.”

“Flatstones,” I said.

“Ah,” said Kragar.

“Yeah,” I said. “That means Krasno.”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Kragar. “It means Terion.”

“Huh?”

“Flatstones used to work for Terion, and they’re still close.”

I opened my mouth to ask Kragar how he knew that, then shut it again. Finding out things like that is what Kragar did before I sort of donated the area to him; what possible reason could he have for stopping?

But. Terion.

Not long ago, during a conflict over South Adrilankha, I’d come close to putting a shine on him. I’d started in to do it, too, only, in the end, events had dictated otherwise. Matters had gotten complex. I’d had to-no, never mind. That really is a long story.

The point is, I’d been running into him for years. We didn’t like each other, and we kept getting in each other’s way. Now he’d taken a shot at Kragar, and it would have worked if I hadn’t known one of the Empire’s leading experts in healing magic.

I was suddenly convinced that he was the one who was spending so much money to get me. Because he could. I had no evidence, but I knew I was right.

I was getting tired of the guy.

“Terion,” I said aloud. “He really does seem to keep popping up in my life. Is it personal, do you think?”

“Does it matter?”

“It might. Tactically.”

He shrugged, then winced; I could see him deciding not to do that anymore.

Terion. The guy kept showing up and getting in my way. He didn’t like me. And he could seriously mess up this thing I was working on.

Loiosh spoke into my mind. “We could, I don’t know, kill him.”

… You could always kill someone high up in the Organization.

Yeah, and then what? Would I have to kill Krasno too, if they were friends? Could I, in fact, kill either of them? And what would happen afterward? Occasionally, killing someone is the natural culmination of a complex series of events; more often it’s the midpoint-it has repercussions. Consequences flow out from it. When I was just taking someone’s money to do a job, they weren’t my consequences, so I didn’t have to worry. I was just a tool.