The Book of Taltos (2 page)

“You sent Quion to collect the receipts from Nielar, Macham, Tor—”

“Right. What happened?”

“He scooped them up and ran.”

I didn’t say anything for a while, I just sat and thought about what this implied. I’d only been running this area for a few months, since the unfortunate
death of my previous boss, and this was the first time I’d had this sort of problem.

Quion was what I call a button-man; an ambiguous term which in this case meant he was responsible for whatever I wanted him responsible for from one day to the next. He was old, even for a Dragaeran—I guess close to three thousand years—and had promised when I hired him that he’d stopped gambling. He was quiet, as polite as Dragaerans ever are to humans, and very experienced at the sorts of operations I was running—untaxed gambling, unlicensed brothels, making loans at illegal rates, dealing in stolen goods . . . that sort of thing. And he’d seemed really earnest when I’d hired him, too.

Shit. You’d think, after all these years, I’d know better than to trust Dragaerans, but I keep doing it anyway.

I said, “What happened?”

“Temek and I were protecting him. We were walking by a shop and he told us to wait a minute, went over to the window like he wanted to look at something, and teleported out.”

“He couldn’t have been snatched, could he?”

“I don’t know of any way to teleport someone who doesn’t want to be teleported. Do you?”

“No, I guess not. Wait a minute. Temek’s a sorcerer. Didn’t he trace the teleport?”

“Yeah,” said Kragar.

“Well? Why didn’t you follow him?”

“Ummm, Vlad, neither of us has any interest in following him where he went.”

“Yeah? Well?”

“He teleported straight to Dzur Mountain.”

“Dzur Mountain,” I repeated a long moment later. “Well, I’ll be dragon fodder. How could he have known the teleport coordinates? How could he have known he’d be safe from what’s-her-name? How—?”

“Her name is Sethra Lavode, and I don’t know.”

“We’ll have to send someone after him.”

“No chance, Vlad. You won’t convince anyone to go there.”

“Why not? We’ve got money.”

“Vlad, it’s
Dzur Mountain.
Forget it.”

“What’s so special about Dzur Mountain?”

“Sethra Lavode,” said Kragar.

“All right, what’s so special about—”

“She’s a vampire, a shape-shifter, holds a Great Weapon, is probably the most dangerous wizard living, and has the habit of killing people who get near her, unless she decides to turn them into norska or jhereg instead.”

“There are worse fates than being a jhereg boss.”

“Shut up, Loiosh.”

I said, “How much of this is fact and how much is just rumor?”

“What’s the difference if everyone believes the rumors? I know I won’t go near the place.”

I shrugged. Maybe if I were Dragaeran I’d have understood. I said, “Then I’ll have to go myself.”

“You want to die?”

“I don’t want to let him get away with—how much did he take?”

“More than two thousand imperials.”

“Shit. I want him. See what you can learn about Dzur Mountain that we can count on, all right?”

“Huh? Oh, sure. How many years do you want me to put in on this?”

“Three days. And see what you can find out about Quion, while you’re at it.”

“Vlad—”

“Go.”

He went.

I settled back to contemplate legends, decided it was pointless, and began composing a letter to Szandi. Loiosh returned to his perch on the coat rack and made helpful suggestions for the letter. If I thought Szandi liked dead teckla, I might have even used some of them.

S
OMETIMES
I
ALMOST THINK
I can remember my mother.

My father kept changing his story, so I don’t know if she died or if she left him, and I don’t know if I was two, four, or five at the time. But every
once in a while I get these images of her, or of someone I think is her. The images aren’t clear enough to describe, but I’m sort of happy I have them.

They aren’t necessarily my earliest memories. No, if I push my mind back, I can recall endless piles of dirty dishes, and dreams of being made to wash them forever, which I suppose comes from living above a restaurant. Don’t get me wrong; I wasn’t really worked all that hard, it’s just that the dishes made an impression that has stayed with me. I sometimes wonder if my entire adult life has been spent in an effort to avoid dirty dishes.

One could, I suppose, have worse goals.

M
Y OFFICE IS LOCATED
in back of a psychedelic herb shop. There’s a room between the shop and the office that houses an almost continuous shereba game, which would be legal if we paid taxes, and would be shut down if we didn’t bribe the Phoenix Guards. The bribes are less than the taxes would be, and our customers don’t have to pay taxes on their winnings. The office portion consists of a set of several small rooms, one of which is mine, another of which is Kragar’s. I have a window that will give me a wonderful view of an alley if I ever decide to unboard it.

It was about an hour after noon three days later when Kragar came in, and a few minutes after that, I suppose, when I noticed him sitting there.

I said, “What did you find out about Dzur Mountain?”

He said, “It’s big.”

I said, “Thank you. Now, what did you find out?”

He pulled out a notebook, flipped through it, and said, “What do you want to know?”

“Many things. To start with, what made Quion think he’d be safe going to Dzur Mountain? Was he just getting old and desperate and figured what the hell?”

Kragar said, “I’ve reconstructed his movements for the past year or so, and—”

“In three days?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s fast work for a Dragaeran.”

“Thanks too much, boss.”

Loiosh, perching on his coat rack, sniggered into my mind.

“So, what were you saying about his movements?”

“The only really interesting thing I found was that about a month before he started working for you he was sent on an errand to a certain Morrolan.”

I chewed this over, then said, “I’ve heard of Morrolan, but I can’t remember how.”

“Big-shot wizard of the House of the Dragon and a friend of the Empress. Lives about a hundred and fifty miles inland, in a floating castle.”

“Floating castle,” I repeated. “That’s it. The only one since the Interregnum. Bit of a show-off, then.”

Kragar snorted. “To say the least. He calls the place ‘Castle Black.’”

I shook my head. Black is, to a Dragaeran, the color of sorcery. “Okay. What does Morrolan have to do with—”

“Technically, Dzur Mountain is part of his fief. It’s about fifty miles from where his castle usually is.”

“Interesting,” I said.

“I wonder how he collects taxes,”
said Loiosh.

“It’s the only thing that stands out,” said Kragar.

I nodded. “Mountains have a way of doing that. But all right, Kragar. It’s a connection, anyway. What else do you know about Morrolan?”

“Not much. He spent a good portion of the Interregnum out East, so he’s supposed to be tolerant of Easterners.” Easterner means human, like me. But Dragaerans call themselves human, which is plainly ridiculous, so it can get confusing.

I said, “Well, I could start with visiting Morrolan, if he’ll consent to see me. What did you find out about Dzur Mountain?”

“Bits and pieces. What do you want to know?”

“Mostly, does Sethra Lavode really exist?”

“She certainly did before the Interregnum. There are still accounts of when she was a regular at court. Deathgate, boss, she was Warlord more than once.”

“When?”

“About fifteen thousand years ago.”

“Fifteen thousand years. I see. And you think she might still be alive? That’s, what, five or six times a normal life span?”

“Well, if you believe the rumors, fledgling heroes from the House of the Dzur like to chase up the mountain every so often to fight the evil enchantress, and they’re never heard from again.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But the question is, do we believe the rumors?”

He blinked. “I don’t know about you, Vlad, but I do.”

I ruminated on moldy legends, enchantresses, dishonest button-men, and mountains.

“You just can’t trust anyone anymore,”
said Loiosh who flew down onto my right shoulder.

“I know. It’s a sad state of affairs.”
Loiosh snorted psionically.
“No, I mean it,”
I said.
“I trusted the son of a bitch.”

I took out a dagger and started flipping it. After a while I put it away and said, “All right, Kragar. Send a message to the Lord Morrolan, asking him if he’d deign to receive me. Whenever he wishes, of course; I’m not—say! How do you get there, anyway? I mean, if it’s a floating castle—”

“You teleport,” said Kragar.

I groaned. “Okay. Try to set it up, all right? And get the coordinates to Narvane. I don’t feel like spending the money on the Bitch Patrol, so I’ll just live with a rough ride.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself, then?”

“Not
that
rough.”

“You getting cheap, boss?”

“What do you mean, getting?”

“Will do, Vlad.”

Kragar left the room.

N
OW THAT
I
HAVE
a few years’ perspective, I have to say that I don’t think my father was cruel to me. The two of us were alone, which made everything difficult, but he did as well as he could for who he was. And I do mean we were alone. We lived among Dragaerans, rather than in the Eastern ghetto, so our neighbors didn’t associate with us, and our only other family was my father’s father, who didn’t come to our side of town, and my father didn’t like bringing me to Noish-pa’s when I was an infant.

You’d think I’d have gotten used to being alone, but it hasn’t worked that
way. I’ve always hated it. I still do. Maybe it’s an instinctive thing among Easterners. The best times were what I now think must have been slow days at the restaurant, when the waiters had time to play with me. There was one I remember: a big fat guy with a mustache and almost no teeth. I’d pull his mustache and he’d threaten to cook me up for a meal and serve me with an orange in my mouth. I can’t think why I thought that was funny. I wish I could remember his name.

On reflection, my father probably found me more a burden than a pleasure. If he ever had any female companionship, he did a good job of keeping it hidden, and I can’t imagine why he would. It wasn’t my fault, but I guess it wasn’t his, either.

I never really liked him, though.

I suppose I was four years old before my father began taking me regularly to visit my grandfather. That was the first big change in my life that I remember, and I was pleased about it.

My grandfather did his job, which was to spoil me, and it is only now that I’m beginning to realize how much more he did. I must have been five or six when I began to realize that my father didn’t approve of all the things Noish-pa was showing me—like how to make a leaf blow slightly askew of the wind just by willing it to. And, even more, the little slap-games we’d play that I now know to be the first introduction to Eastern-style fencing.