Aliera entered. “Good morning, Vlad. How are you feeling?”
“Well enough, all things considered.” Morrolan was standing in the doorway behind her. We exchanged nods.
“We would have been here sooner,” he said, “but we had to visit another of our patients.”
“Oh? Who?”
“The ‘lady’ who attacked you,” said Aliera.
“She’s alive?” I swallowed involuntarily. Being killed attempting to do a job is one of the very few things that terminates the agreement between assassin and employer; I’d been hoping that they’d both taken the trip.
“Both of them are,” she said. “We revivified them.”
“I see.” That was different. They had the option of resuming the agreement now, or not. I hoped they chose not to.
“Which reminds me,” said Morrolan. “Vlad, I apologize to you. The Easterner should not have been able to attack you. I caused ruptures in several of her internal organs, which should have sent her into shock at once. It did not occur to me to continue watching her.”
I nodded. “She’s probably a witch,” I said. “Witchcraft is good for that.” He knew that, of course; I was just needling him. “But it ended up all right. How did things go with the other one?”
“She is a very good fighter,” said Aliera. “Remarkably good. We fought for more than a minute, and she wounded me twice.”
It was nicely ironic that Aliera, who specialized in sorcery, had dueled blade to blade with the one, while Morrolan, one of the finest blades in the Empire, had used sorcery. But both were far, far above the norm at either, so it really didn’t matter.
I nodded. “When was it?”
Aliera said, “We performed the revivification as soon as we had you back. You’ve slept for two days.”
“I don’t know how to thank you—or was it Sethra?—for revivifying me.”
“It was I,” said Aliera, “and no thanks are necessary.”
“How hard was it?”
She shook her head. “The most difficult I’ve ever tried. I thought we’d lost you. It was quite a task to repair your body, even before the revivification. Then I made four tries before it worked. I slept for half a day afterwards.”
It was only then that I remembered the dream I’d had. I started to mention it, but Aliera was continuing.
“I think you should be resting now. Try to stay on your back for at least a day. Also, don’t—”
This reminded me of something else, so I interrupted. “Excuse me, Aliera, but—how did you and Morrolan happen to be there?”
“ . . . Morrolan dragged me along. Ask him.”
I turned and let my eyebrows do so.
“Kragar,” he said. “He explained that you required immediate assistance, but he didn’t know the form. I happened to be with Aliera at the time. It seems we were nearly too late. And, to repeat, I apologize for my sloppiness with the Easterner.”
I brushed it aside. “All right. I’ll take your advice now, Aliera. I think I’d like to sleep.”
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
I checked the relevant part of me, then nodded. “A bit. Perhaps when I wake up.”
“All right. I’ll speak to Sethra about it. Do you feel any nausea, or would you be up to a full meal?”
“I feel fine,” I told her. “Just tired.”
“Good.”
I bowed to each of them and sat back on the bed as they left.
“You’re no more tired than I am, boss.”
“True. But I am sore. Quiet for a minute.”
I reached out for contact with Kragar. It took a while, but eventually he responded.
“Vlad! Welcome back!”
“Thanks. It’s nice to be alive again.”
“I imagine. Aliera told me you’d taken the trip, but they’d brought you back. I was beginning to worry, though. It’s been three days.”
“I know. How are Varg and Glowbug?”
“Glowbug is okay; the dagger caught his kidney, but we got to him in time.” He paused. “Varg didn’t make it. The revivification failed.”
I cursed, then asked, “How’s our income?”
“A trickle.”
“Hmph. How about standing funds?”
“Around nine thousand left.”
“Okay. Thirty-five hundred each for anyone who brings me Wyrn and Miraf’n.”
“Boss, they’re going to be protected, you’ll never—”
“Fine. Then I won’t have to pay anything. But put the word out.”
Mental shrug. “Okay,” he said. “Anything else?”
“Yes. Tighten up. I mean, everybody. No action until I’m back, but I don’t want anybody out alone, ever. Got that?”
“Got it.”
“And blow another thousand on bumping up the protection on every place we have. I don’t want any more surprises.”
“Check. Anything else?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What tipped you off?”
“I got a message from one of those people we’ve been trying to cultivate as friends. It seems that the thing was arranged in an upstairs room of his tavern, and he decided to help us out.”
“Well I’ll be . . . . Give him two hundred.”
“I gave him one-fifty already.”
“Good. Kragar . . . all the Phoenix Guards disappeared, went away, just about the time I left the office. I can’t believe that’s a coincidence, and I can’t believe they have the Empress helping them out—or the commander of the Phoenix Guards, for that matter. Do you know anything about it?”
“Our contact said that he heard it would be ‘taken care of.’ ”
“Hmmmm. I see. Check up on it, all right?”
“I’ll try.”
“Good. And do you know who those two were? The ones who got me? They were damn good. They did half the job anyway, even after Morrolan and Aliera showed up.”
There was a pause. “Boss? You don’t know?”
“What are you talking about? How could I know?”
“Think about it, boss. Two assassins. Female. One Dragaeran, one Easterner. One with a greatsword, one with daggers. How many teams like that are there?”
“Oh . . . I—uh, I’ll be talking to you later, Kragar.”
“Sure, Vlad.”
And the contact was broken.
When you talk about assassins, good ones, the name Mario Greymist has a place by itself. He is the best there is, ever has been, or, as far as I’m concerned, ever could be. But after Mario, there are several names that come to mind, among those few who know such things: the ones who are good, dependable, command high rates, and are feared by anyone thinking of making a powerful enemy within the organization.
Most assassins work alone. I mean, murder is a very private thing. But there are a few teams. One of these teams is on the list I mentioned above. I’d heard of them, and their names have been linked to a score of jobs in the last five years. None of these tales is certain, and most are probably wrong, but still . . . . This team involved a Dragaeran, using a greatsword with all the skill of a Dragonlord, and an Easterner using a dagger. Both were women—and the Right Hand of the Jhereg has very few women. (There’s Kiera the Thief, and maybe a few others, but they are a rarity.) This pair of assassins called themselves “The Sword of the Jhereg” and “The Dagger of the Jhereg,” and no one knew anything about where they’d come from. It was very hard to get hold of them—usually, if you wanted them, you just put the word out on the streets and hoped they’d hear and be interested.