“Deathsgate opens up. The matter is taken out of my hands, my body turns up somewhere, and I miss out on a fine Dragon-Jhereg war. You get to see the war. Lucky you.”
She gave me a nasty grin. “I might enjoy it,” she said.
I smiled back at her. “You might at that.”
“However,” she admitted, “it wouldn’t do the House any good.”
I agreed with that, too.
“On the other hand,” she said, “if I kill him, there’s no problem. The two Houses don’t fight, and only the Dzur are hurt, and who cares about them, anyway? Well, maybe we can think of some way to intercept the information about them before it gets out.”
“They aren’t the problem,” I told her. “The problem is that you end up dead, or having to kill Morrolan. I don’t consider either possibility to be an ideal outcome.”
“I have no intention of killing my cousin,” Aliera stated.
“Great. Then you leave him alive, with his reputation dead.”
She shrugged. “I am not unconcerned about my cousin’s honor,” she informed me. “It’s just that I’m more concerned with precedence than Morrolan.”
“There’s another thing, too,” I added.
“Oh?”
“To be honest, Aliera, I’m not convinced that you can take Mellar. He’s got two experts guarding him, both of them good fighters, and both good sorcerers. I’ve already told you who trained him as a swordsman, and remember that he was good enough to fight his way into the House of the Dzur. He’s determined that only a Jhereg is going to get him, and I’m afraid he may have what it takes to back that up. I’m not at all sure that you’ll be able to kill him.”
She listened patiently to my monologue, then gave me a cynical smile. “Somehow,” she said, “I’ll manage.”
I decided to change the subject. There was only one other thing I had to try—and that was liable to get me killed. I didn’t really feel like doing it, so I asked, “Where is Sethra, by the way?”
“She’s returned to Dzur Mountain.”
“Eh? Why?”
Aliera studied the floor for a while, then turned her attention back to the cat. “She’s getting ready.”
“For . . . ”
“A war,” said Aliera.
Just wonderful. “She thinks it will come to that?”
Aliera nodded. “I didn’t tell her what I plan on doing, so she’s assuming it’s going to happen.”
“And she wants to make sure that the Dragons win, eh?”
Aliera gave me a look. “It isn’t our custom,” she explained, “to fight to lose.”
I sighed. Well, now or never, I decided.
“Hey, boss, you don’t want to do that.”
“You’re right. But it’s what I’m paid for. Now shut up.”
“One final thing, Aliera,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed; I guess she picked up something from the tone of my voice. “And that is . . . ?”
“I still work for Morrolan. He pays me, and I therefore owe him a certain amount of loyalty. What you propose doing is in direct violation of his wishes. I won’t let you do it.”
And, just like that, even as I finished speaking, Pathfinder was in her hand, its point level with my chest. She measured me coolly with her eyes. “Do you think you can stop me, Jhereg?”
I matched her gaze. “Probably not,” I admitted. What the hell? Looking at her, I could see that she was prepared to kill me at once. “If you do, Aliera, Loiosh will kill your cat.”
No response. Sheesh! Sometimes I think Aliera has no sense of humor at all.
I looked down the length of the blade. Two feet separated it from my chest—and my soul, which had once been her brother’s. I recalled a time, it seemed like ages now, when I had been in a similar position with Morrolan. Then, as now, my thoughts had turned to figuring out which weapon was closest. A poison dart would be a waste of time. My poison works fast, but not that fast. I’d have to hit a nerve. Fat chance. I was going to have to go for a kill—anything else wouldn’t do. My odds that time had been poor. This time they were worse. At least Morrolan didn’t have his weapon out.
I looked back to her eyes. A person’s eyes are the first things that let you know when he is about to make a move. I felt the hilt of the dagger up my right sleeve—point out. A sharp, downward motion would be required, and it would be in my hand; an upward motion after that would have it on the way to her throat. From this range, I couldn’t miss. From this range, neither could she. I’d probably be dead before she was, and they wouldn’t be able to revivify me.
“Just say the word, boss. I’ll be at her eyes before—”
“Thanks, but hold, for now.”
That last time, Morrolan had changed his mind about killing me because he’d had a use for me, and I’d stopped just short of mortal insult. This time, I felt sure, Aliera would not change her mind—once she decided on a course of action she was as stubborn in pursuing it as I was. After all, I thought bitterly, in an odd sort of way we were related.
I readied myself for action—I would have to get the drop on her to have any chance at all, so there was no point in waiting. It was odd; I realized that everything I’d been doing since I’d spoken to the Demon had been directed either at finding a way to kill Mellar, or risking my life to prevent someone from solving my problem.
I timed my breathing and studied her. Ready, now . . . wait . . . I stopped. What the Hell are you doing, Vlad? Kill Aliera? Be killed by her? What, by the Great Sea of Chaos, would that solve? Sure, Vlad, sure. Good thinking. All we need now is for you to kill a guest of Morrolan’s—and the wrong one at that! Sure, all we need now is for Aliera to be dead. That would—
“Wait a minute!” I said. “I’ve got it!”
“You’ve got what?” she asked coolly. She wasn’t taking any chances on me—she knew what a tricky bastard I was.
“Actually,” I said in a more normal tone of voice, “you’ve got it.”
“And what, pray tell, have I got?”
“A Great Weapon,” I said.
“Yes, I certainly do,” she admitted, not giving an inch.
“A weapon,” I continued, “that is irrevocably linked to your soul.”
She waited calmly for me to go on, Pathfinder still pointed straight at my heart.
I smiled, and for the first time in days, I actually meant it. “You aren’t going to kill Mellar, my friend. He’s going to kill you!”
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16
“The adding of a single thread changes the garment.”
There was absolutely no question about it: I was doing too much teleporting these last few days. I forced myself to take a few minutes to relax at the teleport area for my office building, then went charging up the stairs like a dzur on the hunt. I skimmed past my secretary before he had time to unload mundane business on me and said, “Get Kragar up here. Now.”
I stepped into the office and plumped down. Time for some hard thinking. By the time my stomach had settled, the details of the plan were beginning to work themselves out. Timing would have to be precise, but that was nothing new. There were a few things I would have to check on, to make sure they could be done, but these I’d make sure of in advance, and maybe I could find a way around any problems that turned up.
I realized that I was also going to have to depend a lot more on other people than I was at all comfortable with, but life is full of risks.