Making Friends II
THE LOQUACIOUS MADMAN IS on Czigarel Street near Undauntra, in a district with very little Organization activity. I arrived two or three minutes early with Sticks and an enforcer we called Glowbug. Kragar had said he’d be there, too, but I didn’t notice him. It is unlikely, however, that I would have noticed Sethra Lavode in that crowd. The festivities were already beginning. There were trails of cold fire traveling along all the walls; bouncing globes throughout the room, changing colors as they swirled; and ribbon trails hanging from the ceiling.
The crowd was mostly Teckla, all decked out like the bouncing globes in reds and yellows and blues, and merchants and artisans proudly wearing whatever they worked in, and brazenly flaunting their lovers, but here and there you could see the masked aristocracy of the House of the Tiassa or the Lyorn, adding a gentle touch of light blue or brown, and inserting whatever particular flavor of loud troublemaking or quiet drunkenness pleased them the most.
Which is not to say the place was crowded—yet. It’s a big place, and things were just starting to get going. It was loud, but not deafening. Either a very good or a very strange time and place to have a business meeting.
Toronnan arrived less than two minutes after I did, preceded (as was I, by the way) by a couple of toughs who checked the place over for any sign of this being a setup. It isn’t easy to tell that sort of thing, even when there isn’t a celebration going on, but it can be done. You have to look at everyone in the place, especially the waiters, and note how each one carries himself, where he is placed, and if he seems to be carrying any concealed weapons, or looks familiar, or doesn’t seem to fit in.
I had done that a few times, and the one time it really had been a setup, for a guy named Welok, I had almost missed it that one of the cooks wasn’t using his knife the way a real cook would—instead of gripping it between thumb and forefinger on the blade with the pommel resting on the heel of his hand, he was gripping the pommel like a knife-fighter. I mentioned this to Kragar, with whom I was working, who looked closely and realized that he knew the guy. The meeting was called off, and three months later I was hired by Welok to kill an enforcer named Kynn who worked for Rolaan—the man who’d called the meeting.
But I digress. I hadn’t set up anything and neither had Toronnan. Indeed—this was a very bad situation to kill someone in, because the large and unpredictable crowd is likely to surprise you, and assassins hate surprises. He sat facing me, his back to the door. I started to signal a waiter over, but he didn’t let me. “This won’t take that long,” he said.
I kept my face expressionless. It is a major break in protocol to set up a business dinner and not eat. I wasn’t certain what it indicated, but it wasn’t good. I settled back in the chair and said, “Go ahead, then.”
“This has gone up to the Council. You have powerful friends there, but I don’t think they can help you this time.”
“I’m still listening.”
“We’re sorry your wife got involved in this, but business is business.”
“I’m still listening.”
He nodded. “I was up before the Council today. They asked if you could be shined without a fight. I said not unless they could find Mario. That doesn’t mean they aren’t going to try, but you probably have a reprieve. Do you understand?”
“Not quite. Keep talking.”
“We just had a big mess between you and this Herth character, and before that you had an altercation with some teckla that ended up with the Empire stepping in, and in between was a big, bloody mess in the Hills between Be’er and Fyrnaan.”
“I heard about that. I wasn’t involved.”
“That’s not the point. The Organization has been calling way too much attention to itself and the Council is tired of it. That’s the only thing that’s keeping you alive.”
“I take it I’ve offended someone.”
“You’ve offended everyone, idiot. You don’t go around threatening the Organization representative in the imperial Palace. Can you understand that?”
“Threaten? I?”
“Don’t play stupid, Whiskers. I’m telling you to lay off. I’m telling you—”
“Why did you arrange to have those Easterners arrested?”
“You don’t ask me questions, Whiskers. I ask you questions, you answer them, then I tell you things and you do them. That is the nature of our relationship. Can you grasp that, or do I need to illustrate it?”
“Why did you arrange to have those Easterners arrested?”
A sneer began to appear on his face but he put it away. “Is there some reason I should answer you?”
“I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
“You’d never make it out of here alive.”
“I know.”
He stared at me. At last he said, “You’re lying.”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t lie. I’m cultivating a reputation for honesty so I can blow it when something big comes along. This ain’t it.”
He snorted. “Just how much bigger a thing do you want?”
“Wait and see.”
His teeth worked inside his mouth. Then he said, “Orders came from the Council. I don’t know who it was.”
“You could probably make a good guess if you put your mind to it.”
We matched stares, then he said, “My boss. Boralinoi.”
“Boralinoi,” I repeated slowly. “That would make sense. My area is your area is his area, and I now own South Adrilankha, so he’s responsible.”
“That’s right. And if you think you can mess with him—”
I shook my head. “I want my wife back, Lord Toronnan. That’s what it all comes down to, okay? There’s no way I’m going to let her rot in the Imperial Dungeons, so you’d better figure out a way to help me, or stay out of my way, or try your best to put me down, because I’m going to be moving.”
He stood up. “I’ll remember that, Lord Taltos. I will remember it.”
After he was gone, I moved to the other side of the table, so I could watch the musicians, who were just setting up. It took me a while to find a waiter, but I finally succeeded and ordered pasta with peppers and sausage. He seemed surprised that I actually wanted to eat; I suppose most people were just drinking. And then when he started to leave, Kragar called him back and ordered one of the same, which puzzled him even more although he tried not to show it.
“What happened?” he said.
“I seem to have made another enemy.”
“Oh? Toronnan?”
“No. The Jhereg.”
Kragar cocked his head to the side. “Tell me something, Vlad: Why do I keep sticking with you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you aren’t. Maybe you’re setting up to knife me.”
“Don’t start getting paranoid now.”
“Well, if you aren’t setting up to knife me, maybe you should be. This would be the right time.”
He stared at me very hard, no sign of banter on his face. “You’d better give me the details,” he said.
I did so, starting with my interview with Soffta, up to the conversation with Toronnan. The food arrived in the middle of it and, as I was concluding, the musicians started up. I was surprised at how well the crowd quieted down, but I was pretty sure they’d make up for it later. I hoped to be gone by then.
The food was edible, the wine quite dry but good. The singer was good. Albynn stayed pretty much in the background so I didn’t notice him too much, though I might have if I’d known anything about music. I did note the dreamy smile on his face, which reminded me of how my grandfather looked when in the middle of a spell. For all I know I look the same way.
Eventually they stopped, and Aibynn came over and introduced his partner, a relatively short Tiassa named Thoddi. We discussed inanities for a while, then they played some more. Kragar said, “What’s the plan?”
“I think I’m going to have to find this Boralinoi.”
“That could be dangerous.”
“Probably. Find out where he works.”
“What? Now?”
“Now. I’ll wait here.”
“Look, Vlad, aside from the obvious stupidities of barging in to see this guy without setting things up, how do you know Toronnan hasn’t just sent a team over here to shine you when you leave?”
“Let him try,” I said. “Just let him try.”
“Vlad—”
“Do it. Find out where he is. I’ll wait here.”
He sighed. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”
My enjoyment of the music was dampened just a little by a need to keep an eye on the door, but not too much, because there were Loiosh, Sticks, and Glowbug. Presently Kragar got hold of me again and told me where to find Boralinoi when he was working.
“He isn’t there now, Vlad. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
“I guess.”
“Why don’t you think the whole thing over, then? Maybe you—”
“Thanks, Kragar. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The crowd was just making it impossible to listen to the music when they stopped, and announced that they were finished and someone else would be playing next, which surprised me. I threw an Imperial into the jar, paid for the food and drink, and walked back home with Aibynn. We didn’t speak for a while, then I ventured, “You sounded pretty good.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That was a good one. Did you notice those fake seventy-twos I was throwing into the seventeens?”
“Uh, well, no, not really.”
He nodded. “They weren’t really seventy-twos, because you have to punch the one, the six-seven-eight, the ten, and the sixteen-seventeen of every measure, but it kind of works if you pretend every third measure is . . .” He went on, with me nodding and making interested sounds. Sticks, who was in front, fell back a bit to listen and the two of them got into a discussion of arcane matters beyond the likes of me. I still wondered who Aibynn really was, and what he was doing here, and if he was going to assassinate the Empress.
Not that I cared.
“What do you care about, boss?” said Loiosh as we walked up the stairs to my flat.
“Getting Cawti out of prison.”
“And then?”
“Don’t ask difficult questions, Loiosh.”
I asked Sticks and Glowbug if they wanted some wine before they took off. Glowbug didn’t, but Sticks knows the kind of wine I keep around the house, so he was right behind me when I went through the door.
What impressed me the most, I think, was how quickly Toronnan had moved. It was, what, half an hour, maybe, since I’d left him. The assassin was waiting just inside the door of the flat, and neither Loiosh nor I had any inkling. But Sticks, as I said, was right behind me, and when the dagger came slicing toward the back of my neck, he acted, pushing me sideways and forward into the room. I rolled and came up in time to see Sticks holding his clubs, connecting with the guy’s head, very hard. The guy went down. I felt a burn along my neck, touched my hand, and found blood. I hoped his blade hadn’t been poisoned. I discovered I was trembling.
“Good work,” I told Sticks. His only answer was to slump to the floor. It was only then that I noticed the stiletto that had gone completely through his throat and out the back of his neck.
Aibynn came into the room then and knelt next to Sticks, whose eyes were open and glassy. Loiosh landed on my shoulder and nuzzled my ear. I inspected the corpse of my enforcer and saw that his backbone had been neatly severed. What you call in the business a lucky shot.
AN HOUR OR SO later the bodies were gone, and Kragar was sitting in the living room with me while I gradually stopped trembling. “Right in my house, Kragar,” I said for about the ninth time.
“I know, boss,” he said.
“You don’t do that.”
Aibynn was in his room, drumming, he said, to pull himself back together. Kragar said, “I know why they did, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember a few weeks ago? Didn’t you go busting into someone’s house to get information from him?”
I took a very deep breath. “Yes,” I said.
“There you have it. You broke the rules, they broke the rules. That’s how it works, Vlad.”
“I should have known.”
“Yeah.”
Not more than a month before, Sticks had refused an offer for my head. His refusal had made him a target, and I’d saved his life, just as he’d saved mine before. And for what?
“I don’t think you should stay here, Vlad.”
“I’m not going to, Kragar. Thanks. I’m all right now.”
“I’ll wait until you leave, if you don’t mind.”
“Yeah, okay.”
I suggested to Aibynn that this might not be a safe place to stay tonight. He said, “No problem. I have a friend I can stay with.”
“Good. I’ll see you sometime.”
Kragar escorted me down the stairs and left me when it looked safe.
“Where are we going, boss?”
“An inn I know, on the other side of town.”
“Why there?”
“It’s across the street from where Boralinoi works.”
“Ah. What about Toronnan? He was the one who—”
“Fuck Toronnan. Fuck revenge. I’m getting Cawti back.”
It was a good three-hour walk, but I think it did me good.
I WAS UP EARLY the next morning, waiting just outside the inn where I’d spent the night. I stood in the shadow of the doorway, waiting. Rocza flew around looking harmless and terrorizing all the local, city-bred jhereg while Loiosh waited with me. I had six good hours of sleep inside of me, followed by three cups of klava and crumb-bread with goat cheese. Asharp, steady wind came up the hill from my left, smacking me in the face and giving rise to reflections on the passing away of the old and the unfathomable nature of the new.
Not a bad day to kill, not a bad day to die, if either came to pass.
While I didn’t know what Boralinoi looked like, I had no trouble spotting him by the two enforcers who preceded him, the one on either side, and the two who followed him. They were good, too. I idly went through possibilities for nailing him as he walked down the street, and came to the conclusion that I’d have to bribe at least two, perhaps three of those enforcers to have a reasonable chance. They really were attending to business, and I had to do some fast shifting to avoid being spotted. Boralinoi was dressed expensive and walked like he knew it. I thought he’d look good in court, with his perfect black curly hair, rings on all his fingers, and delicate precise steps. He looked like he was probably perfumed, and doubtless had a scent-cloth next to his collar, lest he meet with someone whose breath he didn’t like.
He went into the leather shop that housed his offices in back. I gathered Rocza to my other shoulder and followed him in. I’ve always loved the smell of fresh leather, though here it was a bit overpowering, I suppose due to the admixture of scents of various oils and unguents used by this mysterious trade. In the front part of the store hung vests and jerkins, and when I slipped past to the back, there was an old Vallista laboriously pushing a heavy needle and thick thread into the seam of what looked like a leather flagon. Why anyone would wish to drink from a leather flagon, I don’t know.
Before he noticed me, I got past him and was facing a stairway leading up. At its top were two Jhereg who didn’t look friendly. They studied me and seemed to be wondering if they should challenge me or just drop me where I stood. I reached the top alive and said, “Vlad Taltos to see Lord Boralinoi.”
The shorter of the two said, “Appointment?”
“No.”
“Wait there, then.”
“Yes.”
He concentrated for a moment, nodded as if to himself, and said, “What do you want to see him about?” He had a voice like a metal file; it set my teeth on edge.
“So make a sacrifice.”
“Whom do you suggest?”
He smiled a little. I wondered if he kept his teeth crooked on purpose, just for the effect. He concentrated again, then said once more, “Wait.”
After a minute or two of standing there regarding the toughs who were regarding me, he said, “Go on in, the boss will give you five minutes.”
“Oh, happy day,” I said, and went past them.
There were five more in the next room, one at a desk and four lounging around. I knew them all for killers at once. The one at the desk nodded to me, the others looked me over much the way I look over a game hen before I loosen its skin to fill it with mushrooms, garlic, and tarragon.
There were three doors. I pointed to the middle one, asked a question with my eyebrows, received a nod, and went through. His desk was big, and he sat behind it like he belonged there. There were two Jhereg in the room with him, one quiet-looking wisp of a man with a pinched-in face and a dimple who was either an accountant or a sorcerer, and another tough, this one with the cold look of someone who would kill anyone, anytime, for any reason at all. When I came in he shifted his shoulders and ran a hand down his chin, in a gesture I recognized as checking to make sure the surprises under his cloak were all in place and ready. I automatically ran a hand through my hair and adjusted the clasp of my cloak. All of mine were set.
There were no windows in the room, and, so far as I could tell from a quick glance, no other exits. I’d give odds that there was a hidden door somewhere, because that’s how these people work, but I couldn’t find it. Loiosh shifted uncomfortably on my shoulder; he didn’t like the lack of an escape route, either. Rocza, on my other shoulder, picked up some of his nervousness. Boralinoi’s eyes rested on each of the jhereg in turn, then he looked at me.
“I’ve heard of you, Lord Taltos,” he said.
“And I, you, Your Lordship.”
“You wanted to speak to me. Go ahead.”
“It’s a private matter, Your Lordship.”
Without taking his eyes from me, he said, “Cor, N’vaan, don’t speak of this to anyone.”
That was the best I was going to get, then. I said, “I’m coming to you for advice about my marriage, Your Lordship.”
“Sorry. I’m not married.”
“A shame, Your Lordship. Marriage is bliss, you know. But I believe Your Lordship might be able to help me, anyway.”
He took a scent-cloth from his collar and waved it in front of his face, dabbed it against the corners of his mouth, crumpled it up in his hand, and leaned back in the chair. “You’re talking about the woman who’s been working with those troublemakers in South Adrilankha.”
“She’s the only wife I have, Your Lordship. I’d sure hate to lose her.”
“Why do you come to me?”
“It was by your orders that those people were arrested. I would think you could have one released.”
“What makes you think I arranged it?”
“A dream I had last night, Your Lordship. We Easterners always believe our dreams.”
“I see.” He leaned forward and stared at me. “Listen to me, Baronet Taltos, so I don’t have to repeat myself. Those troublemakers are making trouble, and not just in South Adrilankha. The trouble they’re making affects what happens in the rest of the city and beyond its borders. We’ve already had noticeable cuts in our profit in several areas, traced directly to Teckla getting too smart for themselves. If a thing like that happens on its own, so be it; I wouldn’t interfere. But it isn’t happening on its own, these people are making it happen. And who’s right in front of making it happen? Your wife, Taltos. A Jhereg. The Empire has come to us, through our representative, and complained. They’ve denied petitions of ours because of the trouble stirred up by this Jhereg Easterner wife of yours. We can’t have that.
“Yes, I got them arrested. I’ll even tell you how, Taltos. I had a sorcerer of mine blow up a watchstation in South Adrilankha, and leave messages all over it that looked like they’d done it. Does that shock you? It shouldn’t. They needed to be put away, and I’ve put them away. If I haven’t done it thoroughly enough, then I’ll go back and do it again.
“I’m sorry it’s your wife who’s involved, Lord Taltos, I really am. But that’s just your hard luck. Let her out? She was the one I most needed to get. So live with it. Go out and find someone else. If I have my way, she’ll rot in the Imperial Dungeons until the Great Sea of Chaos floods the Empire. That’s all I have to say. Happy New Year.”
“Easy, boss.”
“I know, Loiosh. I’m trying. Keep Rocza under control, will you?” I didn’t say anything for a moment, trying to check my temper, and to keep the effort off my face. Then I spoke very slowly and carefully, to make sure there was no mistake.
“So you arranged for my wife to be arrested by the Empire?”
“Yes.”
“That is, my wife in particular?”
“Yes.”
I looked him up and down once, and said, “You know, I believe I’m going to mess you up.”
“No, you’re not,” he said, and concentrated very briefly. The door behind me opened, and, as I turned my head, five of them came through. They were all of them holding daggers; no doubt they’d been waiting for this. I turned back and saw that Boralinoi had pushed his chair back and the two who’d been standing there stepped between him and me. The tough one drew a shortsword. There was an awful stillness, as if the time between heartbeats had stretched across an ocean of movement, holding the world exactly as it was for just one instant that took forever.
“You’re right,” I said at last. “I’m going to kill you.”
Interestingly enough, if there’d been fewer of them I might not have gotten out of there. But the room wasn’t really big enough for all of them to work together, as long as I got the jump; and I did. Loiosh let me see what was behind me well enough for me to throw a pair of daggers into the stomachs of the two directly behind me, which slowed them down a great deal, and at the same time Rocza flew at the most dangerous of them, the sorcerer.
I spun away throwing a handful of darts randomly in the general direction of the three between me and the door, then pivoted away from whatever those behind me might be up to. I was through the door before they could recover. Loiosh went flying down the hall to find out what was up ahead while I turned back to the door.
I had just time to draw my rapier, which is sometimes a handicap against the huge Dragaeran longswords, but worked very nicely indeed against the Jhereg with the dagger who charged out at me. I cut his knife hand and scored his neck in two quick movements of the wrist that would have made my grandfather proud, then backed up a few steps.
I took a throwing knife into my left hand as Rocza flew out the door and past me to help Loiosh in case he was in trouble. Verra, my goddess, what a team we were that day! The tough one with the shortsword appeared in the door and took my knife directly in his chest. He didn’t go down, which was ideal, since he blocked the door quite effectively. Loiosh gave me the all-clear for the next room, and I was through it and down the stairs.
I’m not much of a sorcerer, but it doesn’t take much of a sorcerer to fuse a door shut, and the few seconds that gained me made all the difference.
“Two toughs in here waiting for you, boss. We’re distracting them, but—yikes!”
“You all right, Loiosh?”
“Near miss, boss.”
“Tell me when.”
“Wait . . . wait . . . .” I took Spellbreaker into my left hand, wishing I’d had a third hand to hold some darts. “Now!” and I charged through the door, point-first.
Loiosh and Rocza had, indeed, distracted them, and the point of my rapier through a throat distracted one of them more. The other, slashing desperately at Rocza, concentrated on me and gestured, but Spellbreaker, spinning wildly, handily stopped whatever it was. I slashed in his general direction just to give him something to think about, then I was through the door. Loiosh and Rocza beat him out of it, I shut it, did my little fusing thing again, and ran like hell down the stairs.
The leatherworker seemed to be just a leatherworker, because his only reaction to seeing me appear with a blooded sword was to squawk and cower, and then I was in the street, across the street, behind a building.
“We’re teleporting, folks.”
“What if they trace it?”
“Watch me.” And I put forth my power and appeared in the courtyard of Castle Black, where a guest is always safe, as I’ve good reason to know. I didn’t throw up, but the aftereffect of the teleport had me on my knees and the world spinning. Seeing the ground a mile below didn’t help, either, but knowing I was safe, if only for a moment, more than made up for the discomfort.
After a time, I got to my feet and headed for the great double doors, my knees vibrating like Aibynn’s drum.