The Book of Taltos (53 page)

“All right. Give the old man my regards.”

“I will.”

“And be careful, Vlad. Just because I can guess where you’re going doesn’t mean Boralinoi’s people can, but it doesn’t mean they can’t, either.”

“I’ll be careful, Kragar. And good luck with your new job.”

He snorted. “I’ll need it,” he said.

I followed him out, still thinking about Sticks. Something occurred to me, and I stopped and asked Melestav to find the names of the freighters that had gone down. It was unlikely
Chorba’s Pride
was one, and I couldn’t do anything about it, anyway, but I wanted to know. And I guess, somehow, I’d have felt better knowing that Trice and Yinta were still alive. He agreed to do so, and I sent Loiosh and Rocza out ahead of me, to make sure it was safe to go outside.

There was a thump behind me, and at first it didn’t register that anything was wrong. Then I saw Melestav facedown on the floor and I moved away, drew a dagger, and looked around. I didn’t see anything. Loiosh came back and landed on my shoulder, also looking anxiously around. I was not attacked.

Then I noticed that Melestav had a dagger in his hand and realized from his position what he’d been up to. It was only after that that I noticed Kragar, standing above my secretary’s body.

“Shit,” I said.

Kragar nodded. “You were set up perfectly, Vlad.”

“But he didn’t notice you.”

I started shaking and cursing at the same time. That had been as close as I’d ever come. I looked down at his body. He had not only saved my life more than once, he had
died
doing it, and now this. Now he’d tried to shine me, and for what? Money? Power?

If you want to push it back, he’d tried to shine me because I’d had to go
and threaten the Imperial representative, and then threaten someone on the Jhereg Council. I couldn’t blame anyone but myself for this. I kept staring at the body until Kragar said, “No point in standing around here, Vlad. I’ll take care of things. Get somewhere safe.”

I did so without another word.

T
HE BELLS IN MY
grandfather’s shop went
tinga-ling
as I pushed aside the rug that he used as a door. “Come in, Vladimir. Tea?”

“Thank you, Noish-pa.” I kissed his cheek and said hello to his familiar, a short-haired white cat named Ambrus. The tea had a distinct lemon tang and was very good. My grandfather’s hands shook, just a little, as he poured. I sat in a canvas chair in his front room while Loiosh and Rocza, after greeting Noish-pa, settled down next to Ambrus for conversation on subjects I could only guess at.

“Where are your thoughts, Vladimir?”

“Noish-pa, what are they doing around here? I mean, the Empire, and these rebels.”

“What are they doing? You come to an old man like me for this?” But he smiled with his few remaining yellowed teeth and settled back a little. “All right. The elfs want to go to war, for what reason they do not tell me. They want sailors for their ships, so they pull in young men and women for it. They send in gangs who grab people and take them, without even saying farewell to the family, and bring them to the ships, which sail away. Everyone is upset, some throw things at the elfs who want to take them. Now, these
forradalomartok,
they say that the war is a, what is the word?
Urugy.
”

“Pretext?”

“Yes, a pretext, to bring in soldiers. The
forradalomartok
organize against this, and everyone says, ‘Yes, yes, we fight,’ and then they arrest this Kelly and now everyone says, ‘Let him go or we will wreck your city.’”

“But it all happened so fast.”

“That is how these things happen, Vladimir. You see all your peasants smile and look sleepy and they say, ‘Oh, this is our lot in life,’ and then something happens and they all say, ‘We will die to keep them from doing this to our children.’ All in a night it can happen, Vladimir.”

“I guess so. But I’m frightened, Noish-pa. For them, and for Cawti.”

“Yes, she still walks with these people. You are right to fear.”

“Can they win?”

“Vladimir, why do you ask me? If soldiers come into my shop, I will show them how old I am. But I will not go looking for them, and so I know nothing of such things. Perhaps, yes, they can win. Perhaps the soldiers will crush them. Perhaps both at once. I don’t know.”

“I have to decide what to do, Noish-pa.”

“Yes, Vladimir. But there is little help I can give you.”

We sipped tea for a while. I said, “I don’t know, maybe it’s good to have this problem. It means I don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen afterward.”

He didn’t smile. “It is right not to worry now. But is it possible for you?”

“No,” I said. I stared at my hands. “I know you don’t approve of what I do. The trouble is, I’m not sure I approve of it anymore.”

“As I told you once before, Vladimir, killing people for money is no way for a man to earn a living.”

“But, Noish-pa, I hate them so much. I learned that I used to be one, and I thought that had changed things, but it hasn’t. I still hate them. Every time I come to see you, and smell the garbage in the streets, and see people who have lost their sight, or who have diseases that could be cured by the simplest sorcery, or don’t know how to write their own names, I just hate them. It doesn’t make me want to fix everything, like Cawti; it just makes me want to kill them.”

“Have you no friends, Vladimir?”

“Hmm? Well, yes, certainly. What has that to do with it?”

“Who are your friends?”

“Well, there’s—oh. I see. Yes, they’re all Dragaerans. But they’re different.”

“Are they?”

“I don’t know, Noish-pa. I really don’t. I know what you’re saying, but why do I still feel this hate?”

“Hate is part of life, Vladimir. If you cannot hate, you cannot love. And if you hate these elfs, then that is what you feel and you cannot deny it. But
more foolish than this hate of elfs you have never met is to let it rule you. That is no way to live.”

“I know that, but I—” I broke off as Amrus jumped into Noish-pa’s lap, mewing furiously. Noish-pa frowned and listened.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Be still, Vladimir. I don’t know.”

Loiosh returned to my shoulder. Noish-pa got up and walked into the front of the shop. I was about to follow him when he returned, holding a sheet of white parchment. He took a quill pen from an inkwell, and with a few quick slashes drew a sideways rectangle. He dipped the pen again, not blotting it at all, and made sloppy signs in the corners. I didn’t recognize the symbols.

“What is this?”

“Not now, Vladimir. Take this.” He handed me a small silver dagger. “Cut your left palm.” I did so, making a cut right next to the tiny white scar I’d made only two days before. It bled nicely. “Collect some blood in your right hand.” I did that, too. “Scatter it onto the paper.” He held the paper about three feet in front of me. I tossed the blood onto it, making an interesting pattern of red dots. Then he threw me a clean cloth to bind my hand up. I did, concentrating a little to stop the blood and begin the healing. I wished, not for the first time, that I’d troubled to learn basic sorcerous healing.

Noish-pa studied the red dots on the parchment and said, “There is a man outside, near the door. He is waiting for you to come out so he can kill you.”

“Oh. Is that all? All right.”

“You know how to find the back door.”

“Yes, but Loiosh will be taking it. We’ll handle this our way.”

He looked at me through filmy eyes. “All right, Vladimir. But don’t be distracted by shadows. Concentrate always on the target.”

“I will,” I said. I stood and drew my rapier. “I know how to make the shadows vanish.”

Advanced Survival Skills

“
O
KAY
, L
OIOSH
. Y
OU KNOW
what to do.”

“What about Rocza?”

“She can wait with me, just in case.”

We went into the back room, past the kitchen, and I let Loiosh out, then returned and stood waiting near the doorway, blade in hand. Rocza landed on my shoulder. She was heavier than Loiosh, but I was getting used to her.

“I don’t see him yet, boss.”

“No hurry, chum. Lots of places to hide out there the way things are packed togeth—”

“Got him!”

“Let me see. Hmmm. Don’t recognize him.”

“How should we play it?”

“Has he seen you?”

“No.”

“Okay. Out the door, three steps, I’ll take a left so we can get him away from the shop. I’ll let him catch up a bit, you hit him when he starts to move, and I’ll join you then.”

“Got it.”

I put my sword away since I wouldn’t be using it at once and kissed my
grandfather good-bye. He suggested once more that I be careful, and I allowed as to how I would. I walked through the doorway, made a show of looking around, then headed to my left.

“He’s following.”

“Okay.”

I scouted the area, looking for a place with enough people, but not too many. After about two hundred yards I found it. I slowed down, checked for an escape route or two, and finally stopped in front of a fruit stand and picked up an orange. I dug around in my purse for a coin.

“Here he comes, boss.”

I paid for the orange, took my dagger from my belt, cut the orange in half, and palmed the blade while looking like I’d put it away. I started sucking on a half.

“He’s behind you, walking between a pair of humans. They aren’t with him, so don’t worry. He’s getting close. He’s got a weapon out . . . now!”

I turned and threw the orange at him. At the same time, Loiosh struck at his knife hand and Rocza left my shoulder to attack his face with her talons. His knife hit the dirt of the street as he backed away. Loiosh got him turned around and I put my dagger in the middle of his back all the way to the hilt. He screamed and fell to his knees. I took another dagger out, grabbed his chin, slit his throat, and dropped the knife. Since he was now unable to scream, some local did it for him, and quite well, too.

I walked around the side of the fruit stall, careful not to make eye contact with anyone, and slipped between two buildings, where Loiosh and Rocza joined me. We zigzagged our way past a couple more streets, then went into a tavern, where I found water to clean orange and blood from my hands. I hate it when my hands are sticky.

We emerged into South Adrilankha midday, with gaggles of young men leaning against buildings surveying passersby, and tradesmen out in front of their shops eating. The standard meal seemed to be long loaves of bread which they dipped into something in a wooden bowl, while holding a bottle between their knees. As I relaxed a bit, since there seemed no sign of pursuit, I began to get the feeling that all was not normal here, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how.

“Can you figure out what it is, Loiosh?”

“I’m not sure, boss. It’s subtle.”

I continued walking, heading generally toward the area where Kelly’s people had their headquarters. I noticed a group of a dozen or so Easterners, men and women, trotting past me. On their faces was a strange mixture of determination, confidence, and fear. No, not fear, maybe nervousness. Two of them had homemade pikes, one had a large kitchen knife, the others were unarmed. I wondered where they were going. For some reason, my heart beat faster. It seemed to fit in with whatever else I was unconsciously noticing.

“They’re waiting for something, boss. It’s like everyone smells that something is going to happen.”

“I think you’re right, Loiosh. I wonder.”

Not far from the new headquarters was a small park, shaped like a diamond with an arc cut out of one side. It was called the Exodus, which had something to do with the arrival of masses of Easterners to Adrilankha during the Interregnum. There were a few clumps of half-starved trees, a pond full of water and algae, and unkept grass and weeds with several paths cutting across them. I crossed the Exodus on a path that took me near the small rise by the arc. I stopped there for a while and watched.

There was a pack of about two dozen boys and girls, most of them nine to eleven years old, who were industriously turning trees into spears. They had a pile of perhaps fifty already, and the work was neatly divided up: Some cut down the saplings, others trimmed and shortened them, another group removed the bark, while others smoothed and polished them, and yet another group put points on them. They were all filthy, but most of them seemed to be enjoying themselves.

There were a few who seemed grimly intent on their jobs, as if they considered themselves to be involved in matters of high importance, and some, especially the ones cutting up the logs, just seemed tired.

I watched them for a while as the significance washed over me. It wasn’t so much that they were making weapons, it was the systematic way in which they were going about it. Someone had put them up to this and explained exactly what to do. Yes. Someone.