Hawk (Vlad) (15 page)

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.

No, “image” isn’t exactly the right word. It was more like a feel, or a taste of his presence. Not much, but it was something. All I needed to do was—

Oops.

This was where I turn the sense of presence into a psychic impression embedded in a crystal. Only I’d forgotten the part about having a crystal ready. You get out of practice with this stuff.

I could say that I held the spell together while I tried to figure out what to do, but that wouldn’t give you any idea of how hard it is to maintain awareness of something as nebulous as another’s consciousness while, you know,
thinking.
I could have dropped the spell and just done it again, but I was too irritated. I fumbled with the drawstring of my pouch and managed to find a coin. I used that.

In the end it worked fine, and I let the spell drop, feeling exhausted and embarrassed. Loiosh snickered into my mind, but didn’t say anything. I think it was his sense of self-preservation.

“Anything, Loiosh?”

“You were spotted, Boss, but no attacks.”

“Good, then.”

“Uh, going to put that thing on again?”

“In a sec. Might as well save you a trip.”

“Make it fast, Boss. They’re bound to be setting something up.”

“Yeah,”
I said.
“They always are.”

I waited a few minutes until the hour. Daymar and I had left things undecided, but maybe he was opening up anyway. I reached out for him, and yeah, there he was. Without his shields, it’s like a fish that goes for your line if it’s anywhere in the lake. (Yes, I fished once. I didn’t care for it.)

“Hello, Vlad. You require something?”

“If you aren’t busy, I need someone located. I have—”

“A psychic impression embedded in a crystal?”

“Actually, in a one-orb coin.”

“Oh? Why a coin?”

“An experiment. I’ve always wanted to try that spell with objects other than crystals, and this seemed like a good opportunity.”

“All right. Where are you?”

“My old offices.”

“I’ll be there.”

I was going to thank him, but his presence was already gone from my mind. I put the amulet back on, feeling a certain amount of tension go out of my shoulders.

“Hey, Boss, what about the other spell?”

“The oth—crap. I forgot about it.”

“Are you going to have to do this all over again?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll ask Morrolan for help. I don’t want to think about it right now.”

He let it drop. I went back upstairs to wait for Daymar.

I checked in on Kragar, who was asleep in his chair, but seemed to be doing all right. His people walked past, checking on him, milling about. I couldn’t quite read the looks they gave me, but they weren’t openly hostile. But if the only reason they hadn’t turned on me before was because Kragar had told them not to, and if he was no longer in shape to tell them not to, and if they realized that it was my fault that he was no longer there to tell them not to, things could get interesting.

That’s interesting as in, “Oh, I’m dead now and my soul has been destroyed. How interesting.”

The guy who appeared to be in charge was called Sellish. I told him a guy named Daymar might be appearing, that he was with me, and that we were going to find out who wanted Kragar shined.

“Good,” he said and seated himself next to Kragar’s desk. I’d been impressed with how well Kragar had done taking over the area, but it wasn’t until now, when he was laid up, that it really hit me how much in control he was. I made a mental note not to tell him so. But it meant there was a good chance none of his people would betray me, kill me, or do other unpleasant things.

There were a few padded chairs in front of the desk in the other room—the desk that, in my mind, I still saw Melestav sitting at. I indulged in a moment’s annoyance about him. I hate it when someone I like … yeah, skip it. Moment over. Then Daymar came tromping up the stairs. I heard the footsteps before I knew who it was.

“Hello, Vlad.”

“Daymar. Here.” I tossed him the coin. He missed it, but levitated it back into his hand before it hit the floor. I suspect he missed it on purpose, just so he could do that. He studied it.

“Hm,” he said.

“Can you use it?”

“Oh, yes. It’s surprising how well it took the impression.”

“Good.”

“His name is Havric. Right now he’s at a place called the Front Gate in Little Deathgate, having drinks with two other Jhereg.”

He waited and looked at me.

“Daymar.”

“Vlad?”

“You’re very good at what you do.”

“I know.”

“Feel like a walk to Little Deathgate?”

“Can’t we teleport?”

“Not while I wear this thing.”

“Um, couldn’t you take it off?”

“We’ve had this conversation, Daymar.”

“Oh, right. Walk, then. But what if they see you?”

“Yeah. Mind putting a bit of cloud over me?”

“Sure.”

I took the amulet off so he could work. My vision blurred, then cleared. Daymar said, “That’s odd.”

Okay, sorry, I need to explain something.

The simplest way to not be seen is an invisibility spell, making light bend around you. The better you are, the tighter the bend you can get and so the less chance there is of someone noticing a distortion, but even sloppy it’s easy to do and effective. The only trouble is, if you happen to walk by someone with a reasonable amount of skill in sorcery, you’re going to stick out like a kethna at court. Even when I’m wearing the amulet, Lady Teldra can identify an invisibility spell in the area if she’s paying any attention at all. The best way to deal with that is to plant a field around you that absorbs the sorcerous energy. It isn’t easy, because it requires getting into your mind and folding—well, skip it. It’s hard. I can’t do it. Daymar can.

“What’s odd?”

“Your head—there was a wall in it.”

“A wall? How could there be—oh, right. Yeah, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right.”

I replaced the amulet. We stepped onto the street, and I found myself staring at my left palm.

“I’ve remembered and forgotten this once before.”

“Brought back memories, did he, Boss?”

“Yeah.”

“Now probably isn’t the time.”

“Right.”

Loiosh and Rocza were flying above us, keeping an eye out. I walked next to Daymar, making sure I didn’t bump into anyone and hoping I was as invisible as I should be but didn’t feel. We turned north onto Backin, which was narrow enough that it was tricky not running into people who didn’t know I was there, so I stepped behind Daymar.

It felt like a longer walk than it actually was, what with feeling like an idiot walking in Daymar’s footsteps. The invisibility was a blessing in more ways than one.

The Front Gate was on top of a butcher’s shop. You climb three steps from the street and enter a long, thin room, with a bar running half the length. Rocza flew off to wait, Loiosh hid in my cloak. As we entered, Daymar looked around before my eyes had a chance to adjust and said, “There, in the back.”

“All right. Make me visible again.”

“Might be more fun the other way, you know.”

Daymar was surprising me in all sorts of ways.

“More fun,” I agreed, “but less efficient.”

“All right,” he said, and the air in front of my eyes swirled for a moment. We approached the table.

The three of them were looking at us as we walked up, but no one reached for a weapon. We stopped about six feet away. They remained seated. “Havric,” I said.

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.”