A body—one that I hadn't put there—was lying on the floor. I noticed that Cawti had a dagger out, held down to her side. Herth still hadn't moved. I checked the body to make sure it wasn't anything more than that. It wasn't. It was Quaysh. There was a short iron spike protruding from his back. Thank you, Ishtvan, wherever you are.
I stood up again and turned to the messenger. "Get out," I said. "If those two bodyguards outside start to come in here, my people outside will kill you." He might well have wondered why, if I had people outside, they hadn't killed the bodyguards. But he didn't say anything; he just left.
I took a step toward Herth and raised my dagger. At this point I didn't care who saw me, or if I was going to be turned over to the Empire. I wanted this finished.
Kelly said, "Wait."
I stopped, mostly from sheer disbelief. I said, "What?"
"Don't kill him."
"Are you nuts?" I took another step. Herth had absolutely no expression on his face.
"I mean it," said Kelly.
"I'm glad."
"Don't kill him."
I stopped and stepped back a pace. "Okay," I said. "Why?"
"He's our enemy. We've been fighting him for years. We don't need you to step in and settle it for us, and we don't need an Imperial, or even a Jhereg, investigation into his death."
I said, "This may be hard for you to believe, but I don't really give a Teckla's squeal what you want. If I don't kill him now, I'm dead. I thought I was anyway, but things seem to have worked out so that I might live. I'm not going to—"
"I think you can arrange for him not to come after you, without killing him yourself."
I blinked. Finally I said, "All right, how?"
"I don't know," said Kelly. "But look at his situation: You've battered his organization almost out of existence. It's going to take everything he has just to put it together. He is in a position of weakness. You can manage something."
I looked at Herth. He still showed no expression. I said, "At best, that just means he's going to wait."
Kelly said, "Maybe."
I turned back to Kelly. "How do you know so much about how we operate and what kind of situation he's in?"
"It's our business to know everything that affects us and those we represent. We've been fighting him for years, one way or another. We have to know him and how he operates."
"Okay. Maybe. But you still haven't told me why I should let him live."
Kelly squinted at me. "Do you knew," he said, "that you are a walking contradiction? Your background is from South Adrilankha, you are an Easterner, yet you have been working all your life to deny this, to adopt the attitudes of the Dragaerans, to almost be a Dragaeran, and more, an aristocrat—"
"That's a lot of—"
"At times, you affect the speech patterns of the aristocracy. You are working to become, not rich, but powerful, because that is what the aristocracy values above all things. And yet, at the same time, you wear a mustache to assert your Eastern origins, and you identify with Easterners so much that, I'm told, you have never plied your trade on one, and, in fact, turned down an offer to murder Franz."
"So, what does this—?"
"Now you have to choose. I'm not asking you to give up your profession, despicable as it is. I'm not asking you for anything, in fact. I'm telling you that it is in the interest of our people that you not murder this person. Do what you want." He turned away.
I chewed on my lip. amazed at first that I was even thinking about it. I shook my head. I thought about Franz, who was actually pleased to have his name used for propaganda after he died, and Sheryl, who would probably have felt the same, and I thought about all that Kelly had said to me over the last few times we spoke, and about Natalia, and I remembered the talk with Paresh, so long ago it seemed, and the look he'd given me at the end. Now I understood it.
Most people never have the chance to choose what side they're on, but I did. That's what Paresh was telling me, and Sheryl and Natalia. Franz had thought I had chosen. Cawti had I had reached a point where we could choose our sides. Cawti had chosen, and now I had to. I wondered if I could choose to stay in the middle.
It suddenly didn't matter that I was standing in a crowd of strangers. I turned to Cawti and said, "I should join you. I know that. But I can't. Or I won't. I guess that's what it comes down to." She didn't say anything. Neither did anyone else. In the awful silence of that ugly little room, I just kept talking.
"Whatever this thing is that I've become is incapable of looking beyond itself. Yes, I'd like to do something for the greater good of humanity, if you want to call it that. But I can't, and we're both stuck with that. I can cry and wail as much as I want and it doesn't change what I am or what you are or anything else."
Still, no one said anything. I turned to Kelly and said, "You will probably never know how much I hate you. I respect you, and I respect what you're doing, but you've diminished me in my own eyes, and in Cawti's. I can't forgive you for that."
For just an instant then he was human. "Have I done that? We're doing what we have to do. Every decision we make is based on what is necessary. Is it really I who has done this to you?"
I shrugged and turned toward Herth. Might as well make it complete. "I hate you most of all," I said. "Much more than I hate him. I mean, this goes beyond business. I want to kill you, Herth. And I'd love to do it slow; torture you the way you tortured me. That's what I want."
He was still showing no expression, damn his eyes. I wanted to see him cringe, at least, but he wouldn't. Maybe it would have been better for him if he had. Maybe not, too. But staring at him, I almost lost it again. I was holding a stiletto, my favorite kind of weapon for a simple assassination; I longed to make him feel it, and having him just stare at me like that was too much. I just couldn't take it. I grabbed him by the throat and flung him against a wall, held the point of my blade against his left eye. I said some things to him that I don't remember but were never above the level of curses. Then I said, "They want me to let you live. Okay, bastard, you can live. For a while. But I'm watching you, all right? You send anyone after me and you've had it. Got that?"
He said, "I won't send anyone after you."
I shook my head. I didn't believe him, but I figured I'd at least bought some time. I said to Cawti, "I'm going home. Coming with me?"
She looked at me, her forehead creased and sorrow in her eyes. I turned away.
As Herth started to move toward the door, I heard the sound of steel on steel from behind me, and a heavy sword came flying into the room. Then a Jhereg came in, backing up. At his throat was a rapier, and attached to the rapier was my grandfather. Ambrus was on his shoulder. Loiosh flew into the room.
"Noish-pa!"
"Yes, Vladimir. You wished to see me?"
"Sort of," I said. I had some mad in me that hadn't washed away yet, but it was going. I decided I had to get outside of there before I exploded.
Kelly said, "Hello, Taltos," to my grandfather.
They exchanged nods.
"Wait here," I said to no one in particular. I walked out into the hall, and the bodyguard I had wounded was still moaning and holding his stomach, although he had removed the knife. There was another one next to him who was holding his right leg. I could see wounds on both legs and both arms and a shoulder. They were small wounds, but probably deep. I was pleased that my grandfather was still as good as I remembered. I walked past them carefully and out into the street. There was now a solid line of armed Easterners and an equally solid line of Phoenix Guards. There were no Jhereg bodyguards there anymore, however.
I walked through the Guards until I found their commander. "Lord Khaavren?" I said.