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Good.
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Is he going to have alarms in his flat?
Huh? Oh. Stay away from his flat.
Why?
You don t do that.
Why not?
He looked at me for a moment, then said, Look, he s a Jhereg, right?
Right.
And you re a Jhereg, right?
Right.
You don t do that.
Okay.
You also don t go near him while he s in or around a temple, an altar,
or anywhere like that.
All right.
He s married, too. You don t touch him while his wife s around.
All right. Do I get to use both hands?
Don t be funny.
I don t get to do that, either, huh?
Loiosh, who d taken to wandering around on my shoulder, stared at
the drawing and hissed. I guessed he was picking up on more than I
thought. My boss started at this, but didn t comment. He handed me a
purse. I took it and it seemed very heavy.
I said, What s this?
Your payment. Twenty-five hundred imperials.
When I could speak again, I said, Oh.
We built a fire considerably back from the river and cooked the last of
the meat from the kethna. We ate it slowly, in silence, each busy with
his own thoughts. Loiosh sneaked out of my cloak long enough to grab
a morsel and dived back in.
We rested and cleaned up after eating, then Morrolan suggested we
rest some more.
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Some have said it is bad luck to sleep while in the Paths. Others have
said it is impossible. Still others have said nothing on the subject. He
shrugged. I see no reason to take chances; I should like to be as well
rested as possible before we begin.
Later I watched Morrolan as he fashioned a harness to hold the staff
to his back, so he could have both hands free for climbing. I
unwrapped my chain from around my left wrist and looked at it. I
swung it around a few times. It was behaving just like any other chain,
which was either because of where we were or because it hadn t
anything else to do. I put it away again, considered testing what
Morrolan had said by attempting sorcery, changed my mind.
I caught Morrolan staring at me. He said, Have you named it?
The chain? No. What s a good name?
What does it do?
When I used it before, it worked like a shield against whatever that
wizard was throwing at me. How about Spellbreaker?
Morrolan shrugged and didn t answer.
I like it, boss.
Okay. I ll stick with it. I have trouble being all that serious about
giving a name to a piece of chain.
Morrolan said, Let s be about it, then.
I nodded, put Spellbreaker back around my wrist, and stood up. We
walked back to the falls, our voices once again drowned by proximity
to the falls. I noticed there was a pedestal quite close to the edge, and
saw an athyra carved on it. Morrolan tied one end of his rope around
this pedestal which some might think in poor taste, I don t know.
The rope seemed thin and was very long. He threw the other end
down the cliff. My mouth was dry. I said, Is the rope going to be
strong enough?
Yes.
Okay.
I ll go first, said Morrolan.
Yeah. You go down and hold em off while I set up the ballista.
He turned his back to the falls, wrapped his hands around the rope,
and began to lower himself. I had this momentary urge to cut the rope
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and run, but instead I gripped the rope tightly and got ready to go
over. I turned and yelled down over the roar of the falls, Any last-
minute advice on this, Morrolan?
His voice was barely audible, but I think he said, Be careful, it s wet
here.
I left my payment for the work in my flat and wandered toward Gruff
s. On the way over, I wondered what I d do there. My first thought had
been to find him there, wait for him to leave, and kill him. In
retrospect, this wouldn t have been that bad a plan, as the sight of
death tends to make witnesses confused about those who cause it. But
I was worried that, as an Easterner, I was likely to stand out in the
crowd, which meant he d notice me, which I knew wasn t good. By the
time I got there, I still hadn t figured out what to do, so I stood in the
shadow of a building across the street from it, thinking.
I hadn t come up with anything two hours or so later, when I saw him
leave in the company of another Dragaeran in Jhereg colors. Just
because it seemed like the thing to do, I concentrated on my link to
the Imperial Orb and noted the time. I waited for them to get a block
ahead of me, then set out after them. I followed them to a building
which I assumed was the home of my target s friend.
My target.
The words had peculiar echo in my head.
I shook off the thought and noted that Kynn and his friend seemed to
be saying good-bye. Then the friend went upstairs, leaving Kynn alone
on the street. This could be good luck for me, because now Kynn had
to walk back to his own place alone, which gave me several blocks to
come up behind him and kill him.
I fingered the dagger next to my rapier. Kynn seemed to waver for a
moment, then he became transparent and vanished.
He teleported, of course. Now that was just plain rude.
Teleports can be traced, but I m not a good enough sorcerer to do so.
Hire someone to do it? Who? The Left Hand of the Jhereg had
sorcerers good enough, but they charged high, and Kiera s warning
about them still echoed in my ears. And it would involve standing out
there waiting for him on another occasion, as no sorcerer can work
from a trail that cold.
I settled on cursing as the appropriate action, and did so silently for a
moment. I d wanted to get it done today, which on reflection was
stupid, but I had the feeling that the money wasn t really mine until
I d done the work, and I could use that money. I could move to a nicer
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flat, I could pay for fencing lessons from an Eastern master, and
sorcery lessons from a Dragaeran, which never came cheap, and
No, not now. Now I had to think about how to earn it, not how to
spend it. I returned to my flat and considered the matter.
The next time I climb down from somewhere on a rope, I think I m
going to try to arrange for it to be somewhere dry. I also want to be
able to see the bottom.
Come to think of it, I d rather not do it at all.
I don t care to guess how long the way down was. I suspect it was
different for Morrolan than for me, and I don t want to know that. I ll
admit I m curious about what would have happened if we d marked
the rope, but we didn t.
The climb down was no fun at all. I tended to slip on the wet rope, and
I was afraid I d land on Morrolan, sending us both crashing down.
First my hands stung from gripping the thing, then they ached, then I
couldn t feel them, which scared me. Then I noticed that my arms
were getting sore. We won t even mention the bruises and contusions
my legs and body were sustaining from hitting the rocks on the side. I
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