Steven Brust - Hawk

“Goodness me,” I observed. “A lot of magic flying around. I hope no one gets hurt.”

They all ignored me. Of course, it’s what I would have done. I was the target. My job was to die. Nothing I had to say could make any difference.

Now me, I had a whole different take on matters. But even if I couldn’t participate in the discussion, I found it interesting.

“All right,” said Poletra. “Let’s kill his beasts, first.”

“They’re gone,” said someone behind me. “Flew away as we were moving in.”

“I see,” said the Demon. He gave me a speculative look. I could see he had questions; he knew he wouldn’t get answers if he asked them. Then he looked at someone over my right shoulder and said, “How long is his shielding spell going to last?”

“Can’t say,” said the sorcerer called Farthia, who had apparently moved to somewhere behind me. “He’s using pure psychic energy, probably from the hawk’s egg. It’s pretty solid. Might be hours.”

“I can’t hold for hours,” said Illitra.

The Demon frowned. “Did anyone,” he said, “think to bring chains?”

“I have some rope,” said Poletra.

“No good,” said the Demon. “He’s carrying too much edged hardware. We need chains, fetters, manacles, locks.”

“I can have a set here in two minutes, if you’ll drop the teleport block.”

“No,” said the Demon.

“How far out does the block extend?”

“Not far. A couple of hundred yards,” said Farthia.

“Ten minutes then.”

“I can hold him for that long,” said Illitra.

Ten minutes. What could I do in ten minutes? Not much, in fact, what with not being able to move and all.

In the past, I’ve pulled off some capers that depended on exact timing. I was always proud of that. This time, I had been pleased that I didn’t need to know exact timing-that I had like half an hour of slack built into the schedule.

But, you see, I had just squished that egg. My head was filled with psychic energy like it had never been before. And, while I didn’t actually know how to manipulate psychic energy, I am something of an accomplished amateur witch, and psychic energy is what we use.

Which is why I was still alive-I was, quite literally, holding the knife back with my mind. Nice trick, huh? Wouldn’t be able to do it for long, but they didn’t know that. Now, if they hadn’t been so determined to make it Morganti, they could have used that same paralysis spell to stop my heart. I think I could have used that same energy to keep my heart pumping-maybe. If they’d done that and come at me with the knife at the same time, I think I would have had problems. And, certainly, if the first attack had been to kill me instead of to make me fall asleep, they’d have had me before I was aware of it.

But they wanted it Morganti, and I could keep the knife away for a while longer. I was not, in other words, quite as helpless as they thought I was.

“Don’t go thinking he’s helpless,” said the Demon. “I don’t know what he had planned, but I know he planned for this. He always does. Be careful.”

Bastard.

Meanwhile, the enforcer turned suddenly and tried to nail me with the stiletto again, but my grandfather didn’t raise idiots; I’d kept the barrier up.

I hadn’t made any progress beyond just staying alive by the time one of Poletra’s enforcers came in with chains, padlocks, and no expression on his face. So I sat there, unable to move, while they stood me up, as I couldn’t do it myself, and I was oddly pleased that when they did my back straightened; having me sitting there hunched over would have made me feel absurd.

They attached the manacles to the fetters in front of me, and several padlocks went click, click. Then the sorcerer released me, and, at the same time, passed his hands over each one of the locks; without my amulet on, I was able to detect a simple, basic enchantment-because enchanting an object to remain in a certain position is an entirely different matter from keeping a person that way. Like I said before: It’s one thing to cast a spell on an object, another matter entirely to cast it on a person. I mean, without killing him. And by the way, almost everyone I know agrees it’s bad form to kill someone by accident; and if you want to do it on purpose, there are better ways than by deliberately messing up a spell that’s intended to do something else.

“I think we should get him out of here,” said the Demon. “Whatever he had planned must have been set up for this place.”

The older guy, Diyann, who hadn’t said a word this entire time, now said, “Why?”

“I didn’t realize it, but when he set the conditions for the meet, he wanted this exact room, this exact building. I should have caught on before. He might even have done something to my head so I picked this place. If he has something set up, it’s for here. So let’s get him out.”

Look, I never claimed the Demon was an idiot.

They started dragging me toward the door, and that made it time for me to move. There was still all that power running around in my head, but I could feel it diminish. To the left, however, the guy wasn’t trying to stab me anymore. I’ve always preferred those times when no one is trying to stab me.

The two guys hauling me took their job seriously-their grip on my arms was brutal. I was going to need to get clear of them before anything else. I was considering this when Poletra suddenly said, “Wait.”

They stopped just as they were about to start dragging at me.

“Taltos,” he said. “What’s your game?”

I couldn’t think of anything to say that would be to my advantage, so I didn’t say anything. Rare for me, but it happens from time to time.

We all stood there, motionless, while he tried to see inside my skull; which was kind of funny, considering what we’d just been through. He didn’t manage, however.

“What are you playing at, Taltos?”

I remained mute.

“Your little friends haven’t done anything. Why? You always…” His voice trailed off as he stared at me. “The Demon is right. You have something planned.”

I said, “You can just let me go. We’ll say this never happened.”

“Do you even have any idea why we’re doing this, you fucking Easterner bug?”

Well, yeah I do. I even expected it.

“Feel free to tell me,” I said.

“You know what you did. Everyone knows what you did. And you never learned your place, Easterner. And I hate the hair on your face, and the smirk on your lips. And some of the people you stepped on on the way up were friends of mine. Money? You think money will make up for everything you’ve done? Do you?”

“Uh, sorry. Did you ask me something? I drifted off there for a bit.”

The Demon shrugged. “He’s speaking for himself. Me, I’ve always liked you, Taltos. But business is business.”

Yes, it is. To a Jhereg or an Orca. They were thinking like Orca, which happens a lot. If this worked, it meant they were also seeing things like a Hawk.

Because that’s the thing about Hawks. They can spot a norska from miles away, but the guy holding the snare never enters into their calculation. With a Hawk, it’s never about what they see, it’s about what they don’t see.

Meanwhile, I think if Poletra had clenched his jaw any harder, it would have broken. “We can find out what you’re planning. We can hurt you. We can hurt you in ways you haven’t had nightmares about.”

“I don’t know. I have some awfully vivid nightmares. When we’re done, I’ll tell you how you did.”

“Bring him,” he said.

I’d like to tell you that it was cold calculation to get him to do what I needed him to do, but that’d be crap. I didn’t need him to do anything. If he’d walked away, I’d have been fine with that, and Loiosh and I would have had many delightful conversations about whether it was all the preparation that produced the result of not needing it, or it was all a big waste. No, I’d just been needling him because he’d pissed me off.