I stared at her. “Seriously? That was your reasoning?”
“Yes. And don’t tell me I was being an idiot, because I know that already.”
“You were being an idiot.”
She sighed. “Good night, Vladimir.”
She went off to the bedroom; I had another drink.
She was right, of course. I remembered nothing about the conversation. Until now.
I’d rented the back room of the Blue Flame for the evening and the night, and laid down fifty Imperials against drinks and breakage, though I didn’t expect any breakage; it wasn’t that kind of night. But I made sure there was plenty of wine, oishka, and Fenarian brandy, as well as Flamebrew. I, myself, was drinking the latter. That was their own beer, a golden-colored brew made, I was told, by using a lot more malt than was usual. It had a big, dense head, and tasted light and clean and kind of spicy-sweet, and was the only beer I’d ever found that I liked. They served it in big, square wooden cups filled until the head stood out of the top like a wave held still right at the point of collapse, which is something you can do in a painting but is a lot trickier in real life.
I put myself in a corner and for a long time didn’t talk to anyone. I wasn’t required to: my job had been done when I rented the place and put up the money.
About thirty people showed up, though there weren’t more than twenty at any one time. But still, a good turnout. Sticks would have been pleased. Everyone spoke in low tones, because we weren’t Dzur; and there were never any formal speeches or service, because we weren’t Dragons. We were Jhereg, and sometimes this happened, but there was no reason to pretend to be happy about it.
Most people were in groups of three or four, telling stories about Sticks, or maybe just talking. Then Narvane came up to me and sat down.
“Hey, Boss,” he said. “Hey, Kragar.”
Okay, I guess I hadn’t been alone.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked him.
“I don’t wanna get sentimental,” he said.
I bit back a reply and waited.
“But Sticks, he said he liked working for you. Thought you’d want to know.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.”
He nodded and wandered off.
“He was a good guy,” said Kragar.
I nodded. “Did you know him before he came to work for us?”
“Oh, yeah. Back in the day. He was a lot crazier when he was younger.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Vlad, you’re still younger.”
“Okay, so, I won’t be so crazy when I’m older.”
“I was with him once, we were doing some collecting for Dofer. You ever meet Dofer?”
I shook my head.
“Good guy. Retired a while ago. Not ambitious, but reliable. He sent us to collect from this Dzur.”
“They’re the worst. I sometimes wonder why I even let them go into debt.”
“Yeah. So, this woman, I don’t remember her name, but she loved clubs and public houses, you know? She had a few favorites she could be found at. Every other night you’d find her sitting around one of them, drinking, laughing, maybe getting into a fight, maybe not. So, we weren’t keen on finding her there, especially in public, because she’d feel like she had to fight, and, well, she’s a Dzur right? Who wants that? So one afternoon, Sticks says, ‘Come on, let’s get this taken care of.’ And he leads me off to one of this woman’s favorite places, a little cellar on Garshos, and we go in. It’s pretty empty, and she isn’t there, so I figure we’ll leave, right? Wrong. He starts smashing up the place. Bottles, chairs, cups. Just demolishes it. The host is screaming about the Phoenix Guards, so I go over and put a knife at his throat and shake my head. He noticed the knife. Then Sticks says to him, ‘There’s this woman, a Dzur, and every time she comes in here, I’m gonna do this again. And if you call the Guards, I’m gonna do the same thing to your body. Got it? And that’s gonna keep happening until she comes up with what she owes. Tell her that. Whether you let her in, that’s up to you.’ Then we hit two more places she liked to drink and did the same thing. Then we went home. Dofer got paid that evening.”
“Nice,” I said. “But taking a chance.”
“Yeah, and I didn’t like it. But back then, you didn’t know what he’d do.”
“He settled down though.”
“Oh, yeah. A lot. Once, a long time later, we were working for Toronnan, and we needed to see this tailor, a Chreotha. We go into his shop, and I’m all set to slap him around and give him the talk about, you know, being responsible with his debts or whatever, and—”
“You give the talk?”
“Well, I figured Sticks would do that, while I did the slapping.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“You want me to tell this story or not, Vlad?”
“Okay, go ahead.”
“So Sticks goes in, doesn’t say a word, just stands in front of the guy, puts his foot up on a chair, and starts tapping one of his sticks on the guy’s table. You know, the guy starts in with, ‘Who are you?’ and, ‘What do you want?’ and Sticks just keeps tapping on that table. The guy says to get out, and Sticks just keeps tapping. And the guy says he’ll call for help, and his voice is all shrill and he’s going, ‘Who are you? I don’t know you. What do you want?’ and, you know, Sticks just keeps tapping, and the guy says, ‘All right! I’ll have his money tomorrow by noon!’ And we turn around and leave, and I don’t know where he got the money, but he got it.”
“That sounds more like the Sticks I knew.”
Kragar nodded and lifted his cup. “Gonna miss him.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”
I pulled my eyes from the fountain. “What the—”
“A memory,” he said.
“You saw that?”
“No, but it’s how this works. As I told you. This is where the Purple Robes come to have their memories restored after they’ve served their time.”
“Oh,” I said. “Any chance of cheerful memories, or am I in the wrong afterlife for that?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “Depends on you.”
“Heh,” I said.
“Loiosh, did you see anything?”
“Just echoes of what you saw, Boss.”
“Okay.”
“You can also see past lives here,” he added. “At least sometimes. I’ve done it.”
“Just in general, or specific ones, like, you want to know about your second, or your third, or whatever?”
“If you just look at it, you’ll get some random memory, but you can sometimes direct it, if you can, well, it’s hard to explain. You don’t ask a question—there’s no consciousness there to ask. But if you focus on something, you can sort of control it.”
“Could you be a little more vague?”
He chuckled. “Once I tried thinking about a sword, and had a memory of my life as a Dragonlord.”
“How was it?”
“The me of now didn’t care for it, but the me of then seemed content enough. I also wondered if I’d once been a Hawk, so I concentrated on the symbol of the House, and recovered some memories. I tried Phoenix, but, alas, it seems I was never of that House.”
“Okay, I get it.”
“Should we go back, or do you want to see what happens?”
“Are we in a hurry?”
“I’m not.”
“Let me try something, then.”