Steven Brust - Hawk

“We should get something to eat, Loiosh.”

“Good idea, Boss.”

An hour later, Deragar was back with bread, cheese, wine, and river-fried herring, which I gobbled down furiously. He joined us, and looked pleased when I complimented him on the cheese selection. He talked about it for a while, but I don’t remember what he said.

As I ate, I studied him. He had broad shoulders, a square head with barely a noble’s point, and astonishingly thick wrists. He looked like someone who could break any bone you cared to name with his bare hands. In a strange way, he reminded me of a guy named Sticks I used to know. Not physically, but in the sense of always having a sort of half-asleep look that I knew was deceptive. He also reminded me of someone else, but I couldn’t quite figure out who.

“Deragar,” I said. “Did you ever work for me, a few years ago? I don’t remember you.”

“Not directly,” he said. “I was collecting for Gasto until, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. So, how did you end up with this job? I mean, helping me.”

He looked at me.

“Oh,” I said. “Right.”

“The job is keeping an eye on you.”

“Of course.”

“For your protection, I mean.”

“Yeah. What happened to Gasto?”

“Throat cut first, then-”

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean, why? Who’d he piss off?”

“I don’t know. Maybe just a power struggle. Might’ve been personal. Never heard.”

“All right.”

Around then one of Kragar’s people came in and handed me a sealed piece of paper. I looked at him and waited. “Just delivered,” he said.

“From?”

“A messenger.”

“Uh. All right.”

On the outside was written “V. Taltos” in expensive blue ink. I broke the seal, unfolded it, and read: “Come. I can help.” The signature was a stylized dzur. I’d seen it before.

“Trap, Boss?”

“Nope.”

“How can you be-”

“Loiosh. No one, I mean, no one is going to be so stupid as to fake this.”

“Uh. Yeah.”

If I knew anything, I knew the note was real.

Leaving me only the problem of figuring out how I was going to make my way to Dzur Mountain, the home of Sethra Lavode.

Teleportation was the obvious choice, and only required doing what I’d been doing an awful lot lately-removing the amulet that kept me invisible to any Jhereg looking for me, and immune to anyone trying to cast a spell on me. Now, admittedly, I also had Lady Teldra to protect me from random spells meant to kill me from a distance. Still, if I kept taking the amulet off, someone was going to come up with a way to sneak past her. Which meant I needed to be wearing that amulet. And I was beginning to get irritated about the whole thing. I very much wanted this plan to work, if for no other reason than I could get rid of that bloody damned amulet. Even having it hanging around my neck was starting to annoy me.

I came up with several ways to reach Dzur Mountain without removing the amulet; unfortunately, they required between three days and three weeks to work. Deragar said he hadn’t made much progress on finding how to take a shot at Terion, but had left some messages and hoped to be getting word. I grunted and continued trying to figure a safe and fast way to get to Dzur Mountain, which was tricky because there was no such thing.

Oh. Unless-

I smiled. Why not?

“Deragar,” I said. “Feel like teleporting to Castle Black?”

“Not really,” he said. “I prefer my skin whole.”

I removed a ring from my pouch-no, not the ring I’d just acquired, the other ring: the one with my seal as an Imperial nobleman-and handed it to him. “Show them this. It’s proof you came from me.”

“And that will matter to them-why?”

“Trust me.”

“All right. Then what?”

“Then get a message to Lord Morrolan.”

He listened; I told him the message. He looked confused, but repeated it to make sure he had it right. “Anything else?” he said.

“When you’re done, ask him to teleport you back here. It’ll be less traumatic that way.”

“I can trust him to bring me here, and not to somewhere a mile deep in the ocean-sea?”

“Yes,” I said. “Probably. Almost certainly. Yeah.”

He looked doubtful, but nodded and headed out. I settled in to wait.

“Okay, Boss. Not bad.”

“Glad to hear it.”

You see, the Lord Morrolan e’Drien, who is such an arrogant little shit that he calls his home Castle Black, has a tower full of windows, and each window can be a doorway to wherever he wants, including to some places that don’t exist in the same reality as the rest of us-and don’t ask me what I mean by that; I’m quoting the Necromancer. The point is, it isn’t teleportation, it isn’t even sorcery. It’s something else. I’d used those windows before. And Morrolan, for whatever reason, was usually inclined to help me out when I needed it.

It was less than half an hour after Deragar had left that the air in front of me started shimmering. In a few seconds, there was a man-sized ring of golden sparks in front of me. I stepped into it.

Yeah, remember the part where I said it couldn’t be a trap? What happened next will take some explanation.

The point is, I stepped into the shower of golden sparks and then things happened fast. Too fast for me to react to. Even too fast for Loiosh.

I hate it when that happens.

Here’s what I figured out later: Picture, if you will, this idiot Easterner stepping through a necromantic gate, mind in the clouds, no weapons ready. My first warning was that unmistakable feeling that indicates the presence of a Morganti weapon. If you’ve never felt it, you’re lucky. It’s like a horrible, gray oppression settles over you; but that isn’t right, it doesn’t settle, it smacks you down, it beats at you. There isn’t anything else like it.

At the same moment, Loiosh screamed, “Boss!”

But of course, by then, it was already too late.

Apparently, some bright fellow had figured out that if I wanted to travel without removing the amulet, a necromantic gate would be the only way to do it; confirmed that Morrolan had such a thing; and decided, correctly, that sooner or later I’d use it. I had one thing right: No one had forged a note from Sethra. Instead, they’d watched Morrolan’s tower, waiting for a gate to open between there and Kragar’s office. Then they opened their own gate over it, and I stepped into it.

Well, it isn’t that simple, really. It required a skilled necromancer. I hate to think what it had cost. But it was money well spent, in the sense that when I appeared, there was a guy with a Morganti sword, and he was in a good position to put a permanent, final, all-done-with-it-forever shine on me.

I had enough time to see the sword, and to get a vague impression of someone tall, dressed in gray and black.

I had enough time to see the blur as he took a step in toward me and swung, cutting down and to the left.

I had enough time to realize what was about to happen.

I had enough time to feel terror such I had never before felt in my life-the kind of terror where, however much practice you’ve had, you freeze. Your limbs lock, you can’t breathe, and you can’t even formulate the wish to be elsewhere; but you have the strong desire to be curled up on the ground.

It’s strange how, at moments like this, you seem able to experience so many different and contradictory emotions at once. And while you don’t have time to move, you have time to be aware of each emotion you’re feeling.