Steven Brust - Hawk

“This is Lord Taltos,” said the Demon.

Illitra twitched a little, I suppose at the “lord.” It made me want to shove something big and dull into a small orifice, but I did my best to hide it. He did his best to hide his warm and affectionate feelings toward me, and he was good at it.

Three Jhereg walked in about then, and they may as well have had “muscle for hire” written on their foreheads. They looked around, one glanced back and nodded ostentatiously, and a Jhereg I didn’t know, wearing clothes of an expensive cut, came in and took a seat.

He smiled to the Demon, and either he actually liked him, or the guy was a good actor. The Demon introduced him as Farthia, and he was kind enough to bestow a quick glance on me. I felt all honored and shit. He had to be one of the sorcerers, because he couldn’t be on the Council, though I’m starred if I can tell you how I knew that. That meant the bodyguards weren’t actually with him, but with the next guy to show up. They walked back out. I waited.

The other two sorcerers continued glaring at each other, but Illitra added a sneer, so I thought he had the edge. I didn’t know which sorcerer worked for whom, but I didn’t need to know. The point is, this really wasn’t a trick. It was going to have to work. I was going to have to do what I claimed. A shame I hadn’t been able to actually, you know, test it or anything.

“How many more are we waiting for?” I asked.

“One,” said the Demon.

He arrived just about then. Jhereg tend to be as punctual to a business meeting as a Dzurlord is to a duel. This was someone else I’d never seen before. He was one of those older, quieter Jhereg who made you think that he lived a sedate life in a little barony where all the Teckla were always cheerful and the fishing was good. So far as I know, those places don’t exist, but he looked like he belonged there. The Demon introduced him as Diyann, and he nodded gravely to me. You couldn’t imagine him ever being unpleasant to anyone.

Jhereg like that scare the shit out of me.

He sat down next to the Demon. No one’s bodyguards were in the room. My heart thumped as it hit me yet again.

It had been so long. And now I was close. So close. All this had to do was work, which I was fairly certain it would. I looked at the others in the room. How would it come, and from which direction? Had I made the opening to my heart as I thought, or had I made the worst-and last-miscalculation of my life? Still, no point in worrying about that; hadn’t been for a few days now. I had committed myself with the visit to the Demon. Now it was just a matter of playing out the scene.

Oh, and not fucking up.

The Demon was looking at me. I caught his eye. “Nervous?” he said.

“Why would I be nervous?”

He let a smile almost appear. I tried to decide whether I was glad no one had brought wine, or sorry. It would go down well, but I didn’t think I’d be able to drink it without my hand visibly shaking.

This wasn’t like waiting for the perfect moment to strike. This wasn’t like anything I’d done before.

“A lot of that going around, Boss.”

I didn’t reply, but having him speak to me right then, even from outside, was just what I needed. I felt my shoulders dropping, my back relaxing.

The Demon turned to the rest of the table.

“Here’s the deal,” he said without preamble or greeting. “First, to restate, as of right now, until we’re done here, no one kills or injures Lord Taltos. Are we all clear on that?”

Several very high-powered Jhereg said they were clear on that, and I felt myself relaxing maybe just a little more.

The Demon nodded and said, “All right. We give him an hour to prove his idea works, and works consistently, and is practical enough for us to make a lot of money on. If it is, the contract on him is off, he gets to keep his soul and his skin, and, if he keeps his bread buttered from here out, no one comes after him. Are we all clear on that?”

There were nods.

“And you can all answer for your people?”

There were more nods.

“No,” he said. “Sorry, but I need you to state your agreement.”

They each allowed as to how they would abide by the terms as he’d stated. Then he turned to me. “And together, we speak for the Council. Good enough, Lord Taltos?”

“Yes,” came out of my suddenly dry throat.

“Then you may begin.”

I stood up. “All of you have someone prepared to send you a message?”

There were nods from the the three bosses. The sorcerers-two of them, at least-managed to pull their dislike from each other and redirect it my way. “Presumably,” I said, “you took precautions to make sure I couldn’t hear what was said by any mundane means. It should also help that, except for my lord the Demon, I didn’t know who was going to be here. You sorcerers will be monitoring the spells used, and thus be able to describe and duplicate the technique.”

I stopped and sized them up. I had everyone’s attention, even the sorcerers’. Diyann had no expression, but you could see the flicker of greed in his and everyone else’s eyes.

“Any questions before I start?”

“Yeah,” said the sorcerer called Farthia. “When you do this, how far into the boss’s head do you get?”

“I don’t get into his head at all,” I said. “Or rather, just the very, very surface, enough to become aware that he’s receiving psychic contact. But even if he were to concentrate really hard on the name of his first mistress, I couldn’t tell you what it was unless he actually sent it to someone. Assuming he remembered.”

There were a couple of obligatory chuckles, then he said, “What if you’re lying?”

“You’re going to get the technique, so you’ll know yourself. If I’m lying about that, the deal is off.”

He grunted and nodded.

“Anything else?”

There wasn’t anything else. Except, of course, still another of those thumps my heart had been giving since I started in on this whole thing.

I pulled out the wand and set it on the table. Then I picked up the euphonium case, opened it, took out the instrument. I kind of wanted to go through an elaborate ritual of tuning it, just for effect, but I didn’t even know how to pretend to do that, so I skipped it. No one made any remarks about having a concert, though I’m sure a few of them wanted to; that’s how we work.

I took the egg out and set it next to the euphonium. “These things should not be necessary,” I said, “for those of you with stronger brains than I have, but you know us weak-minded Easterners.” I kept talking before anyone could say anything. “The point is, the egg will increase my mental strength enough for me to cast the spell. This device,” I indicated the wand, “will turn the psychic energy into a form I can use for the spell, and this-” I nodded to the euphonium, “has been enchanted with the necessary spell itself. I’m sure you sorcerers will get the gist of it once I start going, otherwise I’m not sure why you’re here. But my object is to show you that you can accomplish the same effect without these tools. Or, rather, for you to detect it on your own.”

Oh, just to be clear: That was all true, except about the wand, which was there in case someone cast a sleep spell at me, which was one of the more likely ways things could go down.

“The idea is, each of you-that is, you three gentlemen, not the sorcerers-is to receive a message. You don’t know what it will consist of. I don’t know who you arranged to have send it to you. Once we’ve done that, each of you will receive a second message from someone else. Finally, each of you will send a message to someone. By this time, your sorcerers should be able to assure you that they can duplicate it.”