I quickly checked the door and found that it was bound with sorcery. I gave a flick of my right wrist and Spellbreaker, two feet of thin gold chain, came into my hand. I lashed out at the door and felt the spell fail. I put the chain away as the door was flung open again.
The guy’s eyes narrowed and he started moving toward me. I smiled at him. “I’d like to speak to the proprietor, if I may.”
“I see,” he said, “that you’re going to need help getting down the stairs.” He moved toward me again.
I shook my head. “It’s sad that you can’t cooperate with a simple request, dead man.”
He moved in, and my right sleeve dagger was in my hand. Then I was past him, ducking under his arms. Six inches of steel were buried, at an upward angle, between his fourth and fifth ribs, twisted to notch on the sternum. I stepped into the room as I heard vague moaning and coughing noises from behind me, followed by the sound of a falling body. Contrary to popular myth, the guy would probably remain alive for over an hour. But contrary to another popular myth, he would be in shock and so wouldn’t be able to do anything to keep himself alive.
The room was small, with only one window. There were three tables of s’yang stones in action, one with five players, the other two with four. Most of the players seemed to be Teckla, a couple of Jhereg, and there was one Tsalmoth. There were two other Jhereg there, just as Kragar had told me, who seemed to be working for the place. They were both moving at me quickly, one was drawing his sword. Oh me, oh my.
I put a table between myself and one of them, then kicked it over toward him. At that moment, the window broke and Loiosh flew straight at the other. I could forget about that guy for a few minutes, anyway.
The one I’d kicked the table at, scattering coins and stones and customers, stumbled a bit. I drew my rapier and cut his wrist as his arm was flailing around in front of me. He dropped the blade, and I stepped in and kicked him between the legs. He moaned and doubled over. I brought the pommel of my blade down on his head and he dropped.
I moved to the other one. “Enough, Loiosh. Let him alone, and watch my back.”
“Right, boss.”
The guy tried to get his blade out as I approached and Loiosh left him, but mine was already out. I touched his throat with the point and smiled. “I’d like to speak to the manager,” I said.
He stopped moving. He looked at me coldly, with no trace of fear in his eyes. “He’s not here.”
“Tell me who he is and you’ll live,” I said. “Don’t, and you’ll die.”
He remained silent. I moved the point of my blade up until it was opposite his left eye. The threat was clear: if his brain was destroyed, he wouldn’t be in any condition to be revivified. There was still no sign of fear, but he said, “Laris.”
“Thank you,” I told him. “Lie down on the floor.”
He did so. I turned to the customers. “This place is closed,” I said. They began heading for the door.
At that moment, there was a woosh of displaced air, and five more Jhereg were in the room, swords drawn. Oops. Without a word being spoken, Loiosh was on my shoulder.
“Kragar, take off.”
“Right.”
I drew recklessly on my link and tried to teleport, but failed. I sometimes wish teleport blocks could be outlawed. I lunged at one of them, scattered a handful of sharp pointy things with my left hand, and jumped through the already broken window. I heard cursing sounds behind me.
I tried a quick levitation spell, which must have worked a little bit since landing didn’t hurt. I kept moving, in case they had sharp pointy things, too. I tried the teleport again, and it worked.
I found myself on my back, right outside the door to the shop containing my offices. I threw up.
I climbed to my feet, dusted off my cloak, and went inside. The proprietor was looking at me curiously.
“There’s a mess on the street outside,” I told him. “Clean it up.”
“Laris, eh boss?” said Kragar a bit later. “One of our next-door neighbors. He controls about ten square blocks. He only has a couple of operations that face our territory, so far.”
I put my feet up on my desk. “More than twice as much area as I have,” I mused.
“It looked like he was expecting trouble, didn’t it?”
I nodded. “So, is he just testing us, or is he really trying to move in on me?”
Kragar shrugged. “Hard to say for sure, but I think he wants to move in.”
“Okay,” I said, sounding a lot calmer than I felt. “Can we talk him out of it, or is it war?”
“Are we up to a war?”
“Of course not,” I snapped. “I’ve only had my own area for half a year. We should have been expecting something like this. Damn.”
He nodded.
I took a deep breath. “Okay, how many enforcers do we have on our payroll?”
“Six, not counting the ones who are permanently assigned to someplace.”
“How are our finances?”
“Excellent.”
“Then that’s something, anyway. Suggestions?”
He looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know, Vlad. Would it do any good to talk to him?”
“How should I know? We don’t know enough about him.”
“So that,” he said, “ought to be our first step. Find out everything we can.”
“If he gives us time,” I said.
Kragar nodded.
“We have another problem, boss.”
“What’s that, Loiosh?”
“I’ll bet you’re really horny, now.”
“Oh, shut up.”
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Two
“I’m going to want protection.”
When I entered the organization, some three years before, I was working for a guy named Nielar as what we call a “muscle.” He controlled a small gambling operation on North Garshos Street. He paid his dues to Welok the Blade.
Welok was a sort of mid-level boss. His area went from Potter’s Market Street in the north to Millennial in the south, and from Prance in the west to One-Claw in the east.
All of these areas were pretty tentative and, when I went to work for Nielar, the northern edge, along Potter’s, was very tentative. The first time I “worked,” and the third, were to further the Blade’s desire to make this border more certain. His northern neighbor was a peaceable kind of guy named Rolaan, who was trying to negotiate with Welok because he wanted Potter’s but didn’t want a war. Rolaan became more peaceable after he fell from his third-floor office one day. His lieutenant, Feet Charno, was even more peaceable, so the problem was resolved nicely. I’ve always suspected Feet of arranging Rolaan’s death, because otherwise I can’t account for Welok’s leaving Charno alone, but I never found out for sure.
That was three years ago. About then I stopped working for Nielar, and went to work for the Blade himself. The Blade’s boss was Toronnan, who ran things from the docks in the east to the “Little Deathsgate” area in the west, and from the river in the south to Issola Street in the north.
About a year and a half after Rolaan took the trip to Deathsgate Falls, Welok had a dispute with someone in the Left Hand of the Jhereg. I think the someone was working in the same territory as Welok (our interests don’t usually overlap), but I don’t know exactly what the problem was. One day Welok just vanished, and his spot was filled by one of his lieutenants—a guy named Tagichatn, whose name I still can’t pronounce right.