Teckla

by Steven Brust

  I nodded and didn't say anything. The waiter came and poured more klava. I added cream and honey and used the napkin to hold the glass. Glass. Why not a cup? Stupid Easterners; can't do anything right.

  I said, "Do you know any of the Jhereg who operate around here?"

  She shook her head. "I know there are some, but I wouldn't recognize them. There are a good number of Dragaerans, and a lot of them are Jhereg, but I couldn't tell you that guy works for the organization,' or something."

  "Do you know what kind of things they have going on?"

  "No, not really."

  "Are there places to gamble?"

  "Huh? Oh, sure. But they're run by Easterners."

  "No, they're not."

  "How do you know?"

  "I know Herth."

  "Oh."

  "Are there prostitutes?"

  "Yes."

  "Brothels?"

  "Yes."

  "Pimps?"

  She suddenly looked, perhaps, the least bit smug. "Not any more," she said.

  "Ah ha."

  "What?"

  "What happened to them?"

  "We drove them off. They're the most vicious—"

  "I know pimps. How did you drive them off?"

  "Most of the pimps around here were really young kids."

  "Yes. The older ones run brothels."

  "They were part of the gangs."

  "Gangs?"

  "Yes. Around here there isn't much of anything for kids to do, so—"

  "How old kids?"

  "Oh, you know, eleven to sixteen."

  "Okay."

  "So they formed gangs, just to have something to do. And they'd wander around and make trouble, break up stores, that kind of thing. Your Phoenix Guards couldn't care less about what they do, as long as they stay in our area."

  "They aren't my Phoenix Guards."

  "Whatever. There have been gangs around here for longer than I've been alive. A lot of them get involved in pimping because it's about the only way to make money when you don't have any money to start with. They also terrorize a lot of the small shopkeepers into paying them, and steal a little, but there just isn't that much to steal and no one to sell it to."

  I suddenly thought about Noish-pa, but no, they wouldn't mess around with a witch. I said, "Okay, so some of them got into pimping."

  "Yes."

  "How did you get rid of them?"

  "Kelly says that most of the kids in the gangs are in because they don't have any hope of things being better for them. He says that their only real hope is revolution, so—"

  "Fine," I said. "How did you get rid of them?"

  "We broke up most of the gangs."

  "How?"

  "We taught them to read, for one thing. Once you can read it's harder to remain ignorant. And when they saw we were serious about destroying the despots, many of them joined us."

  "Just like that?"

  For the first time she glared at me. "It's taken us ten years of work to get this far, and we still have a long way to go. Ten years. It wasn't 'just like that.' And not all of them stayed in the movement, either. But, so far, most of the gangs are gone and haven't come back."

  "And when the gangs broke up, the pimps left?"

  "They needed the gangs to back them up."

  "This all fits."

  She asked, "Why?"

  I said, "The pimps worked for Herth."

  "How do you know that?"

  "I know Herth."

  "Oh."

  "Have you been involved for ten years?"

  She nodded.

  "How did you—"

  She shook her head. We sipped our klava for a while. Then she sighed and said, "I got involved when I was looking for something to do after my pimp was run out of the neighborhood."

  I said, "Oh."

  "Couldn't you tell I used to be a whore?" She was looking hard at me, and trying to make her voice sound tough and streetwise.

  I shook my head and answered the thought behind the words. "It's different among Dragaerans. Prostitution isn't thought of as something to be ashamed of."

  She stared at me, but I couldn't tell if she was showing disbelief or contempt. I realized that if I kept this up, I'd start to question the Dragaeran attitude too, and I didn't need any more things to question.

  I cleared my throat. "When did the pimps leave?"

  "We've been chasing them out gradually over the last few years. We haven't seen any around this neighborhood for months."

  "Ah ha."

  "You said that already."

  "Things are starting to make sense."

  "You think that was why Franz was murdered?"

  "All the pimps gave some portion of their income to Herth. That's how these things work."

  "I see."

  "Was Franz involved in breaking up the gangs?"

  "He was involved in everything."

  "Was he especially involved in that?"

  "He was involved in everything."

  "I see."

  I drank some more klava. Now I could hold the glass, but the klava was cold. Stupid Easterners. The waiter came over, replaced the glass, filled it.

  I said, "Herth is going to try to put the pimps back in business."

  "You think so?"

  "Yes. He'll think that he's warned you now, so you should know better."

  "We'll drive them out again. They are agents of repression."

  "Agents of repression?"

  "Yes."

  "Okay. If you drive them out again, he'll get even nastier."

  I saw something flicker behind her eyes, but her voice didn't change. "We'll fight him," she said. I guess she saw some look on my face at that, because she started looking angry again. "Do you think we don't know how to fight? What do you think was involved in breaking up the gangs in the first place? Polite conversation? Do you think they just let us? Those at the top had power and lived well. They didn't just take it, you know. We can fight. We win when we fight. As Kelly says, that's because all the real fighters are on our side."

  That sounded like Kelly. I was quiet for a while, then, "I don't suppose you people would consider leaving the pimps alone."

  "What do you think?"

  "Yeah. What happened to the tags?"

  "The what?"

  "The girls who worked for the pimps."

  "I don't know. I joined the movement, but that was a long time ago when things were just starting. I don't know about the rest of them."

  "Don't they have a right to live, too?"

  "We all have a right to live. We have a right to live without having to sell our bodies."

  I looked at her. When I'd spoken to Paresh, I had somehow gotten past his rote answers to the person underneath. With Sheryl, I couldn't. It was frustrating.

  I said, "Okay. I've found out what I wanted to, and you have some information to take back to Kelly."

  She nodded. "Thanks for the klava," she said.

  I paid for it and we walked back out to the corner. Paresh was there, arguing loudly with a short male Easterner about something incomprehensible. Loiosh flew back to my shoulder.

  "Learn anything, boss?"

  "Yeah. You?"

  "Nothing I wanted to know."

  Paresh nodded to me. I nodded back. Sheryl smiled at me then took up a stance on the corner. I could almost see her planting her feet.

  Just to be flashy, I teleported back to my office. What's a little nausea compared to flash? Hen. Vlad the Sorcerer.

  I wandered around outside of the office until my stomach settled down, then went in. As I went down the hall toward the stairs, I heard Sticks talking in one of the sitting rooms. I stuck my head in. He was seated on a couch next to Chimov, a rather young guy who I'd recruited during a Jhereg war some time before. Chimov was holding one of Sticks's clubs. It was about two feet long and had a uniform diameter of maybe an inch. Sticks was holding another one, saying, "These are hickory. Oak is fine, too. It's just what you're used to, really
."

  "Okay," said Chimov, "but I don't see how it's any different from a lepip."

  "If you hold that way, it isn't. Look. See? Hold it here, about a third of the way from the back. It's different with different clubs, depending on length and weight, but you want to get the balance right. Here. Your thumb and forefinger act like a hinge, and if you catch the guy in the stomach, or somewhere soft, you use the heel of your hand to bounce it off. This way." He demonstrated, bouncing the club off thin air, as far as I could tell.

  Chimov shook his head. "Bounce? Why are you bouncing it, anyway? Can't you get more power into it holding it all the way back?"

  "Sure. And if I'm trying to break a guy's knees, or his head, that's what I do. But most of the time I'm just trying to get a message across. So I bounce this off his head ten or twelve times, then mess up his face a little and tap his ribs once or twice, and he understands things that, maybe, he didn't understand before. The idea isn't to prove how tough you are, the idea is to convince him that he wants to do what you're being paid to make him do."

  Chimov tried a few swings.

  "Not like that," said Sticks. "Use your fingers and your wrist. If you go flailing around like that you'll just wear yourself out. There's no future in it. Here, watch…"

  I left them to their conversation. I knew that kind of conversation because I'd had plenty of them myself. Now it was starting to bother me.

  Maybe what everyone had been saying to me was starting to affect my thinking. Worse, maybe they were right.

  Chapter 6

  …and dirt from knees.

  I nodded to Melestav as I walked past him, and plopped into my chair. Someday I'll have to describe how you go about plopping into a chair while wearing a rapier at your hip. It takes practice.

  All right, Vlad. You've just made a hash of things, going in and killing that bastard, getting Herth on your tail when you didn't need to. That's done. Let's not make it worse. This is a problem just like any other problem. Find a bite-size piece of it and solve that, then go on to the next one.

  I closed my eyes and took two deep breaths.

  "Boss," said Melestav. "Your wife's here."

  I opened my eyes. "Send her in." Cawti entered the room like an angry dzur, and looked at me as if I were the cause of her anger. Rocza was on her shoulder. Cawti shut the door behind her and sat down across from me; we looked at each other for a while. She said, "I spoke with Sheryi."

  "Yeah."

  "Well?"

  "I'm glad to see you, too, Cawti, How's your day been?"

  "Stop it, Vlad."

  Loiosh shifted uncomfortably. I decided he didn't really have to hear this, so I got up, opened the window and let him and Rocza out. "In a while, chum."

  "Yeah, boss." I left the window open and faced Cawti again.

  "Well?" she said again.

  I sat down and leaned back. "You're angry," I said.

  "My, but you're perceptive."

  "Don't get sarcastic with me, Cawti, I'm not in the mood for it."

  "I don't really care what you're in the mood for. I want to know why you felt the need to interrogate Sheryl."

  "I'm still trying to learn exactly what happened to Franz and why it happened. Talking to Sheryl was part of that."

  "Why?"

  "Why am I trying to find out about Franz?" I paused and considered telling her that I wanted to save her life, but decided that would be both unfair and ineffective. I said, "Partly because I said I would, I guess."

  "According to her you spent the entire time mocking everything we believe in."

  "According to her, perhaps I did."

  "Why was it necessary?"

  I shook my head.

  "What," she said, biting out each word, "is that gesture supposed to mean?"

  "It indicates the negative."

  "I want to know what you're doing."

  I stood up and took half a step toward her then sat down again. My hands opened and closed. "No," I said. "I won't tell you what I'm doing."

  "You won't."

  "That is correct. You saw no need to tell me when you got involved with these people, and you didn't see any need to tell me what you were doing yesterday; I see no need to give you an account of my actions."

  "You seem to be doing everything you can to hurt our movement. If that isn't the case, you should—"

  "No. Everything I could do to hurt your movement would be a lot simpler and be over much more quickly and leave no room for doubt. I am doing something else. You aren't with me on it because you've said you weren't. I've been trying to investigate Franz's killing on my own, and you've done everything to keep me out of it except put a knife in me, and maybe that's next. You have no right to do that and then try to interrogate me like the Imperial Prosecutor. I won't put up with it."

  She glared. "That's quite a speech. It's quite a lot of crap."

  "Cawti, I've made my position clear. I need not, and will not, put up with any more of this."

  "If you're going to stick your nose into—"

  "Gel out of my office."

  Her eyes widened. Then narrowed. Her nostrils flared. She stood motionless for a moment, then turned and walked out of my office. She didn't slam the door.

  I sat there, trembling, until Loiosh came back. Rocza wasn't with him. I decided Rocza must be with Cawti. I was glad because I knew Cawti would need someone.

  After letting Loiosh in, I walked out of the office and let my feet carry me where they would, as long as it wasn't to the Easterners' section. I felt a ridiculous urge to find the oracle I'd spoken to a couple of weeks before and kill him; even now I can't think why I wanted to do that. I actually had to talk myself out of it.

  I didn't notice where I was going. I paid no attention to direction, or people around me, or anything else. A couple of Jhereg toughs saw me, took two steps toward me, then went away again. It was only much later that I realized that they had been two enforcers for an old enemy, and probably felt they had something to settle with me. I guess they changed their minds. By then Spellbreaker was in my left hand and I was swinging it as I walked, sometimes smacking it at buildings and watching parts of the walls crumble away, or just flailing wildly, hoping someone would get close enough. I don't know how much time went by, and I've never asked Loiosh, but I think I walked for over an hour.

  Think about that for a minute. You've just made an enemy who has the resources to keep a tail on you wherever you go, and you've made him mad enough to kill you. So what do you do? Walk around without any protection for an hour making as big a spectacle of yourself as you can.

  This is not what I call intelligent.

  One cry of, "Boss!" was all Loiosh had time for. As far as I was concerned, it was like waking up from sleep to find yourself surrounded by hostile faces. Several of them. I saw at least one wizard's staff. A voice came from somewhere inside of me. It sounded absurdly calm, and it said, "You're dead now, Vlad." I don't know what that triggered, but it enabled me to think clearly. It was as if I had only an instant to do something, but the instant stretched out forever. Options came and went. Spellbreaker could probably break the teleport block they must have put around me, but there was no way I could teleport out before they had me. I might be able to take a few of them with me, which is a good thing for a Dzur hero to do if he wants to be remembered, but it felt quite futile just then. On the other hand, you don't send a group of eight or nine if you want to kill someone; maybe they had something else in mind. No way to guess what, though. I put all of the force of command I could muster into a p

  I felt him leave my shoulder and was ridiculously pleased. Something tingled in the back of my neck. I felt the ground against my cheek.

  The first thing I heard, just before I opened my eyes, was, "You will note that you are still alive."

  Then I did open them and found that I was looking at Bajinok. Before becoming aware of anything else, I remarked to myself what a perfect thing that had been for him to say. The timing, I gues
s, is what really got to me. I mean, just as I was becoming conscious, before I even noticed the chains holding me onto the hard iron chair or the feeling of being caught in a net of sorcery. Before, in fact, I noticed that I was naked. The chair was cold.

  I looked back at him, feeling the need to say something, but not able to come up with anything. He waited, though. Just naturally polite, I guess. The room was well lighted and not too small—about twelve paces on the sides I could see (I didn't turn around). There were five enforcer types behind Bajinok, and from the way they stared at me, their hands on various pieces of hardware, they took me seriously. I felt flattered. In a corner of the room were my clothing and assorted junk. I said, "As long as you have all of my clothes in a pile, could you be a pal and have them cleaned? I'll repay you, of course."

  He smiled and nodded. We were both going to be cool professionals about this. Oh, goody. I stared at him. I became aware that I wanted, almost desperately, to break the chains that were around my arms and legs and get up and kill him. Strangle him. Visions filled my brain of the enforcers battering me with their swords and spells which bounced off me or fell harmless as I squeezed the life out of him. I fought to keep this wish off my face and out of my actions. I wished Loiosh were there with me while I was glad he wasn't. I have strong opinions about ambivalence.

  He pulled up a chair and sat facing me, crossed his legs, leaned back. He could have chosen to be in that position when I regained consciousness, but I guess he liked dramatic gestures as much as I do. "You are alive," he said, "because we need some answers from you."

  "Ask away," I said. "I'm feeling awfully cooperative."

  He nodded. "If I told you that we'll let you live if you give us the answers, you wouldn't believe me. Besides, I don't like to lie. So instead I will tell you, quite truthfully, that if you don't give us the answers, you will very badly want to die. Do you understand this?"