The Book of Dzur: Dzur ; Jhegaala by Steven Brust

Author:Steven Brust
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2018-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

2

LEFITT: But that’s a body!

BORAAN: I had already come to the same conclusion, my dear.

LEFITT: But, how long has it been there?

BORAAN: Oh, not more than a week, I should say. Two at the outside.

LEFITT: A week? How can it have been here for a week?

BORAAN: Well, the servants must have been dusting it, or you would certainly have noticed and spoken to them quite sharply about it.

—Miersen, Six Parts Water

Day One, Act I, Scene 1

Loiosh was silent for a moment, and then he said, “Okay, Boss. What did you see that I didn’t?”

“Not saw; heard. Or rather, what I didn’t hear. What he didn’t ask.”

It took him a few seconds. Then he said, “Oh. Right. He should have asked what you were doing here.”

“Exactly.”

“Maybe he’s just polite.”

“Loiosh, no one who lives in a small, out-of-the-way town can have a conversation with a stranger without asking what brings him there. It defies the laws of nature.”

“Which means he knows, or he thinks he does. You’re pretty smart for a mammal.”

“Thank you ever so much.”

“The Jhereg, you think?”

“I intend to assume so until I have a reason not to.”

“So, then, what about tomorrow?”

“What’s your guess, Loiosh?”

“What we should do is be out of here tonight. But knowing you—”

“And then we’d have him after us and not know where we stood. No. I want him where I can keep an eye on him.”

“You’re the boss, Boss.”

I got up and walked out into the stench and the dark streets, mostly to see if he’d have me followed. As soon as we were outside, Loiosh and Rocza took to the air. I didn’t need to tell my familiar what I was doing; we’d been together for a while. My rapier tapped reassuringly at my side. I’d had to reduce the weight I carried before trying the mountains, but I still had a few little surprises concealed about my person; I didn’t plan on being easy prey.

The street was pretty quiet, and looked entirely different in the dark. Not sinister, but, well, more like it had secrets it wanted to keep. Lights came from the houses, diffused by the oiled paper. Many were entirely dark, either because there was no light within, or because here in the East, where it is so much brighter during the day, they had perfected shutters. I could hear the tap-crunch of my boots against the well-packed stony dirt of the street. The reek from the paper factory had diminished, though it was still present; it had probably seeped into all the walls and the dirt of the road itself.

“Anyone?”

“Not a soul, Boss.”

“Good.”

Sometime while I was walking the wind shifted, and the smell, while still present, became easier to bear. In the stillness, I heard the river lapping against the docks not far away, and chittering of insects. I shivered a little.

This was where my mother had come from; or her people, at any rate. Why had they left? Famine? Disease? Tyranny? Powerful enemies? But whatever had made them leave, this is where they were from, and in a sense, this is where I was from.

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