Vlad Taltos, Book 7
Steven Brust
In memory of my brother, Leo Brust, 1954-1994
Acknowledgments
My thanks to the Scribblies: Emma Bull, Pamela Dean, and Will Shetterly fortheir help with this one, and also to Terri Windling, Susan Allison, and Fred A. Levy Haskell. Thanks as well to Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who recommended a book that turned out to be vital; to David Green, for sharing some theories; and, as always, to Adrian Charles Morgan.
And to the fan who actually suggested the whole thing in the first place: Thanks, Mom. Prologue
My Dear Cawti:
I’m sorry it has taken me so long to answer your letter, but the gods of Coincidence make bad correspondents of us all; I am not unaware that the passing of a few weeks to you is a long time—as long as the passing of years is to me, and this is long indeed when one is uncertain—so I will plead the excuse that I found your note when I returned from traveling, and will answer your question at once: Yes, I have seen your husband, or the man who used to be your husband, or however you would describe him. Yes, I have seen Vlad—and that is why it has taken me so long to write back to you; I was just visiting him in response to his request for assistance in a small matter.
I can understand your concern for him, Cawti; indeed, I will not try to pretend that he isn’t still in danger from the Organization with which we are both, one way or another, still associated. They want him, and I fear someday they will get him, but as of now he is alive and, I can even say, well.
I don’t pretend that I think this knowledge will satisfy you. You will want the details, or at least those details I can divulge. Very well, I consent, both for the sake of our friendship and because we share a concern for the mustached fellow with reptiles on his shoulders. We will arrange a time and a place; I will be there and tell you what I can—in person, because some things are better heard face-to-face than page-to-eye. And, no, I will not tell you everything, because, just as there are things that you wouldn’t want me to tell him, there are things he wouldn’t want me to tell you—and, come to that, there are things I don’t want to tell you, either. It is a mark of my love for you both that I keep these secrets, and trust you with those I can, so don’t be angry!
Come, dear Cawti, write back at once (you remember that I prefer not to communicate psychically), and we will arrange to be alone and I will tell you enough—I hope—for your peace of mind. I look forward to seeing you and yours again, and, until that time, I remain,
Faithfully, Kiera
Vlad knew almost at once that I was in disguise, because I told him so. When he called out my name, I said, “Dammit, Vlad, I’m in disguise.”
He looked me over in that way of his—eyes flicking here and there apparently at random—then said, “Me, too.”
He was wearing brown leather, rather than the grey and black of the House of the Jhereg he’d been wearing when I last saw him; but he was still an Easterner, still had his mustache, and still had a pair of jhereg on his shoulders. He was, I assumed, letting me know that my disguise wasn’t terribly effective. I didn’t press the issue, but said, “Who’s the boy?”
“My catamite,” he said, deadpan. He faced him then and said, “Savn, meet Kiera the Thief.”
The boy made no response at all—didn’t even seem to hear—which was a bit creepy.
I said, “You’re joking, right?”
He smiled sadly and said, “Yes, Kiera, I’m joking.”
Loiosh, the male jhereg, shifted its weight and was probably laughing at me. I held out my arm to it; it flew across the four feet that separated us and allowed me to scratch its snakelike chin. The female, Rocza, watched us closely but made no move; perhaps she didn’t remember me.
“Why the disguise?” he said.
“Why do you think?”
“You don’t want to be seen with me?”
I shrugged.
He said, “Well, in any case, our disguises match.”
He was referring to the fact that I was wearing a green blouse and white pants, rather than the same black and grey he’d once worn. My hair was also different—I’d brushed it forward to conceal my noble’s point so I’d look more like a peasant. But perhaps he didn’t notice that; for an assassin, he can be amazingly unobservant sometimes. Still, you wear a disguise, first, from the inside, and perhaps that can in part explain the fact that my disguise didn’t fool Vlad; I’ve always trusted him, even before I had reason to.
“It’s been a long time, Vlad,” I said, because I knew that to him, who could only expect to live sixty or seventy years, it would have seemed like a long time.
“Yes, it has,” he agreed. “How odd that we should just happen to run into each other.”
“You haven’t changed.”
“There’s less of me,” he said, holding up his left hand and showing me that the last finger was missing.
“What happened?”
“A very heavy weight.”
I winced in sympathy. “Is there someplace we can talk?” I said.
He looked around. We were in Northport, quite a distance from Adrilankha, but it was the same ocean, and the docks, if older, were pretty much the same. There was a small, two-masted cargo ship unloading about fifty yards away, and there was a fishermen’s market nearby; between them, on the very edge of the ocean, we were in plain view of hundreds of people, but no one was near us. “What’s wrong with here?”
“You don’t trust me,” I said, feeling a bit hurt.
I could see a snappy answer get as far as his teeth and stop there. Vlad and I had a great deal of history; none of it should have given him any reason to be suspicious of me.
“Last I heard,” he said, “the Organization wanted very badly to kill me; you still work for the Organization. Excuse me if I’m a bit jumpy.”
“Oh, yes,” I agreed. “They want you very badly indeed.”
The water lapped and gurgled against the dock that had stood since the end of the Interregnum; I could feel the spells that kept the wood from rotting. The air was thick with the smell of ocean: salt water and dead fish; I’ve never really liked either.
“Who is the boy?” I asked him, as much to give him time to think as because I wanted to know. Savn, as Vlad had called him, seemed to be a handsome Teckla youth, probably not more than ninety years old. He still had that look of strength and energy that begins to diminish during one’s second century, and his hair was the same dusky brown as his eyes. It annoyed me that I could conceive of him as a catamite. He still hadn’t responded to me or to anything else.
“A debt of honor,” said Vlad, in the tone he uses when he is trying to be ironic. I realized that I’d missed him. I waited for him to continue. He said, “Savn was damaged, I guess you’d say, saving my life.”
“Damaged?”
“Oh, the usual—he used a Morganti weapon to kill an undead wizard.”
“When was this?”
“Last year. Does it matter?”
“I suppose not.”
“I’m glad you got my message, and I’m glad you came.”
“You’re still psychically invisible, you know.”
“I know. Phoenix Stone.”
“Yes.”
“How is Aibynn?”
Aibynn was one of the last people Vlad wanted to ask about; he knew it and I knew it. “Fine as far as I know. I don’t see him much.”
He nodded. We watched the bay for a while, but it didn’t do much. I turned back to Vlad and said, “Well? I’m here. What is it?”
He smiled. “Maybe I’ve come up with a way to get the Organization to forgive and forget.”
I laughed. “My dear Vlad, if you managed to loot the Dragon Treasury to the last orb and deposited it all at the feet of the Council they wouldn’t forgive you.”