Teckla Read Free

too—my emotions at the time, filtered through a reptilian mind that was linked to my own.
    "Stop it, Loiosh!"
    "You asked."
    I sighed. "I suppose I did. But why did she have to get involved in something like that? Why—?"
    "Why don't you ask her?"
    "I did. She didn't answer."
    "She would have if you hadn't been so—"
    "I don't need advice on my marriage from a Verra-be-damned… no, I suppose I do, don't I? All right. What would you do?"
    "Ummm… I'd tell her that if I had two dead Teckla I'd give her one."
    "You're a lot of help."
    "Melestav!" I yelled. "Send Kragar in here."
    "Right away, boss."
    Kragar is one of those people who are just naturally unnoticeable. You could be sitting in a chair looking for him and not realize that you were sitting in his lap. So I concentrated hard on the door, and managed to see him come in.
    "What is it, Vlad?"
    "Open your mind, my man. I have a face to give to you."
    "Okay."
    He did, and I concentrated on Bajinok—the fellow I'd spoken with a few days before, who had offered me "work" that would be "just my style." Could he have meant an Easterner? Yeah, maybe. He had no way of knowing that to finalize an Easterner would defeat the whole purpose of my having become an assassin in the first place.
    Or would it? Something nasty in my mind made me remember a certain conversation I'd recently had with Aliera, but I chose not to think about it.
    "Do you know him?" I asked Kragar. "Who does he work for?"
    "Yeah. He works for Herth."
    "Ah ha."
    "Ah ha?"
    "Herth," I said, "runs the whole South Side."
    "Where the Easterners live."
    "Right. An Easterner was just killed. By one of us."
    "Us?"said Loiosh. "Who is us?"
    "A point. I'll think about it."
    "What does that have to do with us?" asked Kragar, introducing another meaning of us, just to confuse us. Excuse me.
    I said, "I don't know yet, but—Deathgate, I do know. I'm not ready to talk about it yet. Could you set me up a meeting with Herth?" He tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair and looked at me quizzically. It wasn't usual for me to leave him in the dark about things like that, but he finally said, "Okay," and left. I took out a dagger and started flipping it. After a moment I said to Loiosh, "She still could have told me about it."
    "She tried. You weren't interested in discussing it."
    "She could have tried harder."
    "It wouldn't have come up if this hadn't happened. And it is her own life. If she wants to spend half of it in the Easterners' ghetto, rabblerousing, that's her—"
    "It hardly sounds like rabble-rousing to me."
    "Ah," said Loiosh.
    Which shows how much good it is to try to get the better of your familiar.
    I'd rather skip over the next couple of days, but as I had to live them, you can at least put up with a sketch. For two solid days Cawti and I hardly exchanged a word. I was mad that she hadn't told me about this group of Easterners, and she was mad because I was mad. Once or twice I'd say something like, "If you'd—", then bite it back. I'd notice that she was looking at me hopefully, but I'd only notice too late, and then I'd stalk out of the room. Once or twice she'd say something like, "Don't you even care—", and then stop. Loiosh, bless his heart, didn't say anything. There are some things that even a familiar can't help you work out. But it's a hell of a thing to go through days like that. It leaves scars. Herth agreed to meet me at a place I own called The Terrace. He was a quiet little Dragaeran, only half a head taller than I, with an almost bashful way of dropping his eyes. He came in with two enforcers. I also had two, a fellow who was called Sticks because he liked to beat people with them, and one named Glowbug, whose eyes would light up at the oddest times. The enforcers found good positions for doing what they were paid for.
    Herth took my suggestion and ordered the pepper-sausage, which is better tasted than described.
    As we were finishing up our Eastern-style desert pancakes (which, really,