The neighborhood looked a bit subdued. It was early afternoon, and this area didn’t really get going until nightfall, but it was still too quiet. Have you ever known a part of a city so well that you could tell what kind of mood it was in? So well that the scent of barbecuing lyorn legs told you that all was not normal? So you could hear that the street-hawkers were just a little bit more quiet than usual? That tradesmen and Teckla were wearing clothes with, perhaps, just a bit less color than they normally did? Where the scented fires of a hundred passersby making offerings to a dozen gods at a score of small altars brought a sense of weariness to the heart, instead of renewal?
I knew this part of Adrilankha that well, and that was the kind of mood it was in. I didn’t need to talk to Kragar to know that business hadn’t recovered. I thought about this, and, as I approached the office itself, I discovered something very important: Laris wasn’t worried about money.
“Look out, boss!”
Not again, by the teeth of Dzur Mountain! I hit the ground, rolled to my right, came up to my knees, and spotted two Jhereg that I didn’t recognize moving at me from either side. Two of them, for the love of Verra! They both held daggers. Loiosh was in front of one, buffeting his face and trying to sink his teeth into him. The other one suddenly stumbled and fell to his knees a few feet away from me, with three shuriken sticking out of him. I realized then that I’d thrown them. Not bad, Vlad.
I scrambled to my feet and spun, looking for more. I didn’t spot them, so I turned back in time to see the other assassin fall to the ground. As he fell, I saw N’aal behind him, holding a large fighting knife with fresh blood on it. Next to him was Chimov, also holding a knife, looking around anxiously.
“Boss!” said N’aal.
“No,” I snapped. “I’m Kieron the Conqueror. What’s going on around here? Why do we have Verra-be-damned assassins standing outside the Verra-be-damned office in the middle of the Verra-be-damned afternoon?”
Chimov just shrugged. N’aal said, “I guess they were looking for you, boss.”
Some days everyone and his sibling is a Verra-be-damned jongleur. I brushed past them and stormed into the office. Melestav jumped when I came in, but relaxed when he saw it was me. Kragar was in my office, sitting in my Verra-be-damned chair. He greeted me warmly.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said.
One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .
“Kragar, may I please have my chair back?”
“Oh, sure, boss. Sorry. Whatsamatter, hard day dodging assassins? I assumed you wanted some excitement, or why did you go walking into the middle of them without letting anyone know you were coming? I mean, it would have been easy—”
“You’re pushing it.”
He got up. “Whatever you say, Vlad.”
“Kragar, just what is going on around here?”
“Going on?”
I gestured toward the outside.
“Oh. Nothing.”
“Nothing? You mean ‘no business’?”
“Almost none.”
“But what about those assassins?”
“I didn’t know they were there, Vlad. D’you think I’d have just left them there?”
“But they must be costing Laris a fortune.”
He nodded. I was interrupted by contact with Melestav.
“Yeah?”
“N’aal is here.”
“Send him in.”
He came in. “Boss, I—”
“Just a minute. Three things. First, good work taking out the one. Second, next time I’ll expect you to spot them before they spot me. Three, next time I’m almost nailed like that, if you’re around, keep your bleeding wiseass remarks to yourself or I’ll cut your bleeding throat for you. Got it?”
“Yeah, boss. Sorry.”
“Okay. What d’you want?”
“I thought you’d want these.” He tossed my shuriken, complete with bloodstains, on my desk. “I remember hearing that you don’t like them left around, and—”
I stood up, walked around my desk, and slipped a dagger out from my cloak. Before N’aal could react, I put it in him, between the forth and fifth ribs, angled up. A look of shock came into his face as I stepped out of the way. Then he fell.
I turned to Kragar, still gripped by fear and icy rage. Also, my back and side hurt like the Great Sea of Chaos. “Kragar, you are a very fine administrative assistant. But if you ever want to run an area, make it as far from me as possible, or else learn how to keep discipline. That guy’s no fool; he should know better than to walk in here with a murder weapon, with the corpse’s blood still on it. In the four days I’ve been gone, you’ve managed to convince everyone around here that they don’t have to think anymore, and as a result I almost got butchered out there. You son-of-a-bitch, this is my life we’re talking about!”
“Take it easy, boss. Don’t—”
“Shut up.”
“Now,” I continued, “see if you can get him revivified. Out of your pocket. If not, you may have the honor of giving his next of kin the bonus. Understand?”
Kragar nodded, looking genuinely crestfallen. “I’m sorry, Vlad,” he said, and seemed to be looking for something else to say.
I went back to my desk, sat down, leaned back and shook my head. Kragar wasn’t incompetent, at most things. I really didn’t want to lose him. After this, I should probably do something to show I trusted him. I sighed. “Okay, let’s forget it. I’m back now. There’s something I want you to do.”
“Yeah?”
“N’aal was not completely wrong. I should not have left the shuriken in the body; but he should not have brought them back to me. I don’t know that the Empire ever employs witches, but if it does, a witch could trace that weapon back to its wielder.”
Kragar listened silently. He knew nothing about witchcraft.
“It has to do with body aura,” I explained. “Anything that’s been around me for any length of time is going to pick up a sort of psychic ‘scent’ that a witch can identify.”
“So, what do you do about it? You can’t count on always taking the weapon with you.”
“I know. So what I’m going to do is to start changing weapons every couple of days or so, so that nothing is on me long enough to pick up my aura. I’m going to make a list of all my weapons. I want you to go around and get ones to match. I’ll put the ones I’m done with in a box, and you can use them for trade next time, which should cut down on the cost a bit. Okay?”
He looked startled. Well, I wasn’t surprised. I was putting a lot of trust in him to tell him what weapons I had concealed about me, even if, as he would suspect, I were keeping a few back. But he nodded.
“Good,” I said. “Come back in an hour and I’ll have the list made up. Memorize and destroy it.”
“Check, boss.”
“Good. Now go away.”
“Boss . . . ”
“Sorry I snapped at you, Loiosh. And good work with that assassin.”
“Thanks, boss. And don’t worry about it. I understand.”
Loiosh had always been understanding, I decided. It was only then, as I began writing, that it really hit me just how close I’d come once again. I reached the trash bucket just before my stomach emptied itself. I got a glass of water and rinsed out my mouth, then had Melestav empty and clean the bucket. I sat there shaking for some time before I got to work on the list for Kragar.