The Book of Taltos

The Book of Taltos by Steven Brust Page A

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Authors: Steven Brust
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desk. Loiosh flew onto my shoulder and rubbed his head against my ear.
    “You okay, boss?”
    “Well . . .”
    “What is it?”
    “It’s hard to explain, Loiosh. Want to become a thief?”
    “How’d it go, Vlad?”
    “The good news is that no one hurt me.”
    “And?”
    “And Sethra Lavode is certainly real.”
    He stared at me but said nothing.
    “Well, what happened, boss?”
    “I’ll get to it, Loiosh.”
    “Kragar,” I said, “this is going to get complicated.” I paused and considered. “All right, sit back and relax; I’ll tell you about it.”

    I T WOULD BE NICE if I could identify the point when I stopped fearing Dragaerans and started fighting back, but I can’t. It certainly was before my father died, and that happened when I was fourteen. He’d been wasting away for quite a while, so it was no surprise, and, in fact, it didn’t really bother me. He’d picked up some sort of disease and wouldn’t let my grandfather perform the cures, because that was witchcraft and he wanted to be Dragaeran. He’d bought a title in the Jhereg, hadn’t he?
    Crap.
    Anyway, I can’t really pinpoint when I started hating Dragaerans more than I feared them, but I do remember one time—I think I was twelve or thirteen—when I was walking around with a lepip concealed in my pants. Lepip? It’s a hard stick or piece of metal covered with leather. The leather keeps it from cutting; it’s for those occasions when you don’t want to leave scars, you just wantto hurt someone. I could have used a rapier effectively, but my grandfather insisted that I not carry it. He said it was asking for trouble, and that drawing it would signal a fight to the death when otherwise someone would only be hurt. He seemed to feel that life should never be taken unless necessary, not even that of an animal.
    In any case, I remember that on this occasion I deliberately walked through some areas where toughs of the House of Orca liked to hang out, and yeah, they started harassing me, and, yeah, I creamed them. I think they just didn’t expect an Easterner to fight back, and a heavy stick can make a big difference in a fight.
    But that wasn’t the first time, so I don’t know. What’s the difference, anyway?

    I LEANED BACK IN my chair and said, “Kragar, I have another research project for you.”
    He rolled his eyes skyward. “Great. Now what?”
    “There is a wizard named Loraan, of the House of the Athyra.”
    “Never heard of him.”
    “Get busy then. I need a complete drawing of his keep, including a floor plan, and a guess as to where he’d do his work.”
    “Floor plan? Of an Athyra wizard’s keep? How am I supposed to get that?”
    “You never let me in on your methods, Kragar; how should I know?”
    “Vlad, why is it that whenever you get greedy, I have to risk my hide?”
    “Because, in this case, you get ten percent.”
    “Of what?”
    “Lots and lots.”
    “Say, that’s even more than ‘quite a bit,’ isn’t it?”
    “Don’t be flippant.”
    “Who, me? Okay, when do you want it? And if you say ‘yesterday,’ I’ll—”
    “Yesterday.”
    “—have to hurry. Spending limit?”
    “None.”
    “I thought it might be one of those. I’ll get back to you.”

    I DON’TREALLY KNOW when I killed a Dragaeran for the first time. When I’d fight them I was pretty casual about where and how hard I’d hit them, and I know that, more than once, there would be one or two of them stretched out on the ground when we were done. Thinking back on times I’d crack them on the top of the head with my lepip, I’d be surprised if none of them died. But I never found out for sure.
    Every once in a while that bothers me. I mean, there’s something frightening, in retrospect, in not knowing whether you killed someone. I think of some of those fights, and I remember most of them quite clearly, and I wonder where those people are today, if anywhere. I don’t spend a lot of time wondering, though. What the

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