by Steven Brust
“Needed each other?”
“Each needed another to keep the third in check.”
I gave him a moment for that. I could see him going over things he knew, looking at them from that viewpoint. Finally, he gave a hesitant nod.
“And that is the situation I, the most suspicious-looking fellow this town has seen in a hundred years, walked into, all innocence. Meehayi, do you know what ‘paranoid’ means?”
He shook his head.
“It’s a mind-sickness. It’s when you think that everything going on is a conspiracy against you.”
He thought that over and nodded. “And that’s what you believed?” “Not enough. No, that’s what everyone believed about me.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“The Count believed I had come to town to steal the secret of paper-making. The Guild, seeing my familiars, assumed I was with the Coven. And the Coven, when they realized that witchcraft wouldn’t work on me, jumped to the conclusion that I was working for the Count.”
“Oh. How did you figure out all of, well, that?”
“From the questions they asked me. The Count had me first, and his questioner drugged me and asked me things that indicated he thought I was there to steal his secret.” I snorted.
“Oh. But you couldn’t tell them anything.”
“No, and the questioner finally believed that, at which point he turned me over to the Guild. He’d worked with them to get me in the first place.”
“How do you know that?”
“Orbahn was part of the set-up. And so was Tereza. They both work for the Guild.”
“But you said Orbahn worked for the Coven, too.”
“Yes, he reported to them, but he wasn’t in on their councils, just a paid spy in the Guild. But that’s how he learned that my jhereg would have to be distracted, and about making sure the amulet I wear had to stay on me.”
“So, His Lordship was working with the Guild?”
“That far, yes. A deal. Probably something like, ‘You help me take him, and I’ll question him and tell you what I learn.’ ‘What if you don’t learn anything? ’ ‘Then you can have him, I don’t care.’ Probably a lot like that. And he carried out his bargain. The Guild’s questioner had me when Saekeresh’s was done.”
He looked away. Then he said, “What did the Guild think?”
“At first they were afraid I was from the King; that the kingdom finally started caring about what happened out here in the West. Then they didn’t know, and set about trying to find out. Of course, they didn’t believe that I’d just come to visit my family. A flimsy story like that, who’d believe it? And the more I stuck to it, the more frightened they got.”
He nodded.
“The other thing that helped me put it together was just the way they got me. It involved all of them: Saekeresh to lure me there, the Guild to play out a little comedy to distract Loiosh and Rocza, and the Coven, though all unknowing, to give Aybrahmis the knockout drops to slip into my glass on behalf of His Lordship.”
He stared at me. “The physicker?”
I nodded. “I surprised a flush out of him when he wasn’t expecting it. And I knew the Coven wasn’t involved directly, because they wouldn’t have made the mistake of telling me my familiar was dead without confirming it. But a witch was certainly involved on some level, because they recognized at least some of what my amulet did and made sure I couldn’t remove it. Anyway, after that, it was just a matter of confirming it, and fixing it.”
“Fixing it,” he repeated.
“Yes. After I was taken out, we were playing a little comedy. His Lordship isn’t a bad fellow, really, and when he saw what had been done to me, which he’d never planned on, he actually wanted to help me recover. The Guild didn’t dare do anything, because Saekeresh was watching them, all ready to send his troops in. The Coven couldn’t do anything, because everyone was suspicious of them for Zollie’s death, and if I died too things could get ugly for them. They sent their youngest witches to help Aybrahmis; witches who wouldn’t know enough to ask about why the Art wouldn’t work on me, but—”
“Why won’t it?”
I shook my head. “Long story. Never mind. But the witches did their best to cure me, and the Guild stayed out of the way, and all of them hoped this would just blow over and things could go back to normal. It didn’t. Like I told—I mean, it was like a stool with three legs, you know? Kick one in, it all goes down.”
He thought that over. He finally said, “Why didn’t Count Saekeresh destroy the Guild before?”
“They were protected by the witches.”
“I thought the Guild didn’t like the Coven?”
“They don’t, but they needed each other to fend off Count Saekeresh. Saekeresh could take the Guild, but he knows his family history. His grandfather had a lot of trouble with witches, and he didn’t want the same sort of trouble.”
“Well, but why did the Coven need the Guild?”
I smiled. “They didn’t exactly need them. The Guild knows that—excuse me for this—that peasants, even when they may practice witchcraft, don’t trust Covens. They, you, tend to blame them for things. According to my grandfather, that’s why the leaders of most Covens stay secret, because sooner or later there will be a bad year for crops and it’ll be taken out on the Coven. So the Guild had managed to discover at least some of the leaders of the Coven, and so they had that to hold over their heads. Whenever they needed to keep the Coven in line, someone would die with a ‘witch’s mark’ on him.”
He thought that over, and finally said, “Oh.” Then he frowned. “But you—”
“Yes. I gave myself the witch’s mark, just as the Guild gave it to Zollie. Probably almost the same way, too, if I had to guess.”
“So you used me to—”
“Yes.”
He looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read. Then he shook his head. “How do you know all this?”
“I confirmed it in different ways, talking to different people. I wasn’t sure about the connection between the Guild and the Coven until I learned there are certain diseases common to prostitutes that aren’t a problem here. To prevent it takes a witch. There you have the foundation of a business arrangement.”
After a while he said, “But who, who was it who actually, that is, who—?”
“Who killed my family? Who lit the fire? That was witchcraft; natural fires don’t burn that way. I couldn’t say who did the Working. Maybe Orbahn. It was the Coven, though.”
“But I don’t understand why.”
“None of them trusted each other. They were always watching each other, finding each other’s spies, pushing for advantages, careful none of the others got advantages. So I came in with an obvious lie about looking for my family, they all ‘knew’ I was up to no good. And that was fine, they just watched me, none of them daring to touch me until they knew whose side I was on. I might, after all, be from the King, and getting the King mad at them wouldn’t be in anyone’s interest.”
He was watching me, his eyes fixed to my face, listening in silence.
I said, “When I started asking questions about the Merss family, they thought it was just to look good, and they kept watching me to see what I’d do. But then—okay, here I’m speculating, but it makes sense. The Guild pointed me at Zollie. It was a test, I think—they wanted to know how far I’d push my cover story, or else they wanted to see what I’d do when I’d used that up by finding them. So they arranged for me to see Zollie, who they knew would direct me to the Merss family and answer my questions.
“The Coven heard about this, through their spy, Orbahn, and became scared. The Merss family, after all, had been, years and years ago, their enemies, and now a man they couldn’t touch or investigate with witchcraft was about to make contact with them. They didn’t know what I had in mind, but it couldn’t be good, and so they acted.”
He nodded. “And Zollie?”
“The Guild.”
> “Why?”
“For the same reason they killed Tereza later. Once the Merss family was killed, they panicked. They were still afraid to touch me and they knew I was going to come back to Zollie and ask more questions. They were pretty well convinced now that I was working for the King, and that I had wanted to see the Merss family to learn the history of the area—and they didn’t want me to know it. Bastards always hate people knowing history. It scares them. So they had Zollie killed, and tried to make it look like the Coven had done it. Not to fool Count Saekeresh, but to fool, well, you.”
“Me?”
“People. Peasants. The mill workers.”
“What could we do to them?”
“You could make things uncomfortable for the merchants, for one thing. For another, you’re always a threat against the Coven, a good chance to keep them in line.”
He chewed on his lower lip, then nodded. “How did you figure all of this out?”
“What you should be asking is, why didn’t I figure it out sooner? I don’t know. I guess because I’ve spent so much time around Dragaerans, that—”
“Who?”
“Elfs.”
“Oh.”
“I didn’t think my people—humans—would be a serious threat. There is an entire family dead because I didn’t start asking the right questions soon enough. I have to live with that. You think I’m bad because I killed those responsible. I think I’m bad because I didn’t kill them earlier.”
He looked down. “What are you going to do now?”
“Well, if you don’t kill me, I’m going to hide until I can move again.”
“Hide? From who?”
“The people who’ve been chasing me all along.”
“Who are they?”
“I made an enemy of a large criminal organization among the elfs. They want my head.”
“Oh.”
“So I’ll hide for a while, and when I can move again, I’ll leave here and go back where I belong, back where I know the rules, and the only people I get killed are the ones who deserve it. I’ll be a bad man among other bad men.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” he said.
“That’s good to hear. Because it might be that you could right now, and there aren’t many I’ve said that to.”
“But what you did is still wrong.”
“Is it? Why? Who says someone should be permitted to hurt me with impunity?”
“It’s bad to carry hate around with you.”
“I’m not carrying it around. I got rid of it. I put it to good use.”
“All those people you killed.”
“What about them?”
“They had family. Mothers. Brothers. Lovers. People who cared about them, and who didn’t do anything to you, and who you’ve hurt.”
“Let them come for me, if they care to try. In a year or so, anyway.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“I know.”
I dropped it there, because I didn’t have a good answer. I still don’t. I won’t play the hypocrite and make some crap-filled remarks about how sometimes people get hurt and it’s just a necessary part of the cost. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I know those bastards couldn’t get away with what they did, and they didn’t, and I’m happy about it. Whatever that makes me is what it makes me. You decide; I’m done thinking about it.
“Do you want some more food?”
“In a while. Right now, I just want to close my eyes.”
I did so, and presently I heard his footsteps, then the door closing.
“Was that true, Boss?”
“Eh? Most of it.”
“No, about hiding for a year, then going back.”
“Oh. Almost.”
“Almost?”
“I’m not quite done with the town of Burz. There’s still Saekeresh.”
“Boss—”
“Relax. It’ll be half a year at least, probably more before I’m in shape. And I know the town now. No one will even see me.”
“Okay, Boss. If you have to kill him, okay. But—”
“I’m not going to kill him, Loiosh. That would be much too kind.”
I think I fell asleep somewhere in there; when I woke up again, we had arrived in the City.
Epilogue
TADMAR: Noble Boraan and good Lefitt have
Once again this eve
Shown that murder cannot prevail—
If that’s what you believe.
Our criminal led off in chains
The stern Magistrate to face;
While here the jars of gratitude
Are in their accustomed place.
For when all the lines have been spake
Though to distant towns we’ve ranged
We return you now to a theater plain
Amused, we hope, and changed.
We introduce the players now
Who have delivered each their lines
So we may at last get off our feet
And you off your—chairs.
—Miersen, Six Parts Water
Curtain Call
I like to think the Jhereg assassin—whoever he was—had something all set up, and if I’d remained in town an hour longer he’d have had me. I like to think that. It appeals to my sense of the dramatic. In fact, I have no idea; all I know is that I got out of town still breathing.
That was three years ago, and they haven’t gotten me yet.
Meehayi helped me find a hiding place—not that hard in a big city—and stayed with me until I could walk well enough to find one he didn’t know about; then I gave him some gold and sent him traveling. I suggested he wait at least a couple of years before returning to Burz.
Apparently one of the things the witches had been giving me was for pain, and when they stopped giving it to me things got unpleasant. There are a few months in there that don’t bear thinking about or talking about, but I got past it.
It was, in the end, just about a year that I was in hiding in Fenario, before I felt like myself again. Then I returned to Count Saekeresh’s manor, and snuck in one night, found the vault in the basement, opened it, took what I wanted, and left. I honestly have no idea if Her Imperial Majesty Zerika the Fourth has the least interest in a process for mass-producing high-quality paper, but it is now in her hands, courtesy of the Imperial Post, and the idea tickles me. I think even Meehayi would approve; not that I care.
In all, it was a year and a couple of weeks from when I had stood on Mount Saestara and failed to see the future that I stood there again, and, I imagine, did no better. But I was well and whole; well, almost whole. For as stupid as I was, I guess I got off lucky.
“Loiosh, do you remember that peasant who helped us bury the Merss family?”
“Sure, Boss.”
“He started to say something about them. About how one winter they did something or other.”
“I remember.”
The wind was very cold.
“I wish I’d let him finish the story,” I said.
I stood on the mountain and didn’t look back. Looking ahead, I couldn’t see my future at all, which I figured was probably just as well.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Dr. Flash Gordon for medical consultations, and to Anne K. G. Murphy for a very useful emacs macro. Thanks to my first readers, Kit O’Connell and Reesa Brown, for much useful feedback. And a very warm thank-you is due, as always, to Robert Sloan, who created so very much of the background of Dragaera.
THE CYCLE
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
The novels of Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos series do not tell Vlad’s story in simple chronological order. The order in which they were written and published is Jhereg, Yendi, Teckla, Taltos, Phoenix, Athyra, Orca, Dragon, Issola, Dzur, Jhegaala, Iorich, and Tiassa. But to read the events of Vlad’s life in their chronological order, one would read Taltos, part of Dragon, Yendi, the rest of Dragon, part of Tiassa, Jhereg, Teckla, another part of Tiassa, Phoenix, Jhegaala, Ath
yra, Orca, Issola, Dzur, Iorich, and a third part of Tiassa. Many readers of the Vlad novels argue that the books are best read in the order of their composition and publication, and the organization of the omnibus editions from Ace Books and Tor Books reflects that view. The author has opined that the choice is up to the reader.
BOOKS BY STEVEN BRUST
The Dragaeran Novels
Brokedown Palace
THE KHAAVREN ROMANCES
The Phoenix Guards
Five Hundred Years After
The Viscount of Adrilankha,
which comprises
The Paths of the Dead,
The Lord of Castle Black,
and
Sethra Lavode
THE VLAD TALTOS NOVELS
Jhereg
Yendi
Teckla
Taltos
Phoenix
Athyra
Orca
Dragon
Issola
Dzur
Jhegaala
Iorich
Tiassa
Other Novels
To Reign in Hell
The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars
Agyar
Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grille
The Gypsy (with Megan Lindholm)
Freedom and Necessity (with Emma Bull)
About the Author
Steven Brust is the bestselling author of Issola, Dragon, The Phoenix Guards, Five Hundred Years After, and many others. A native of Minneapolis, he currently lives in Las Vegas. You can sign up for author updates here.
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