Free Dragon (Vlad Taltos) by Steven Brust Page B

you.”
    “I’m not all that fond of surprises.”
    “I understood that you wanted to exact payment from our friend Fornia for what he did to you.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Well then, come along and let’s do so.”
    I sighed. “All right, lead on. But … skip it.”
    He led the way. As we approached, I spotted Aliera off to one side; she stood out as the shortest individual in the crowd. She spotted us and waved. A few others noticed us; I caught some double takes, and suspected I was now the object of a great deal of conversation among a few score Dragonlords. I had mixed feelings about this, but it wasn’t all unpleasant. Morrolan, who had brought me, after all, was wearing the dexter half of a smile.
    I said, “You enjoy being talked about, don’t you?”
    He smirked outright, but gave no other answer.
    We reached Aliera, who nodded to me and looked a question at Morrolan, who said, “He is considering joining our cause.”
    “Against Fornia?” I nodded, and she said, “You’re taking this a little personally, aren’t you?”
    “I think I will soon begin to take personally everyone telling me I’m taking things personally.”
    “Do that,” she said. Then, to Morrolan, “But why bring him here?”
    “I have reasons, my dear cousin. A little patience and you will know.”
    I could see Aliera deciding whether to take offense; eventually she gave a hint of a shrug and turned away. I was standing
in quite a crowd of Dragons, many of whom were giving me looks; more of whom were glancing at Morrolan. He appeared to be enjoying the attention. I spotted a familiar figure: Ori. He was looking at me.
    “Vlad!” said Morrolan sharply.
    “What?”
    “This isn’t the place.”
    I almost asked “For what?” before I realized that my hand was on my sword hilt. It took a deliberate effort to drop my arm back to my side. Ori was standing next to a very old Dragonlord, who had dressed himself in the simplest military fashion: black everything with buttons and hems of silver. His face was wrinkled as a prune, and his slitted eyes were studying me.
    I said, “Fornia?”
    “Yes,” said Morrolan.
    I studied the man, then turned once more to Morrolan. “Well, here you both are.”
    “Yes?”
    I shrugged. “Why don’t you just kill him?”
    He graced me with a scaled-down smile. “There are more reasons than I have time to expound upon.”
    “Name three.”
    “All right. One: We are at a ceremony where violence would be improper. Two: If I initiated violence at this ceremony, everyone would take his side and we’d be outnumbered about three hundred to one. Three: I want to see what happens if he’s left alone.”
    I grunted. The second answer seemed convincing enough. And what happened was that Fornia and Ori approached us. Morrolan bowed deeply, Fornia acknowledged; I assume the difference in the bows had to do with respective age. Fornia looked me over and said to Morrolan, “What is he doing here?”
    “Taking your measure, Lord Fomia. He seems to have developed a grudge against you, and I permitted him to accompany me so that he might get a good look at you. For later,” he added.
“I’ve just explained to him why he ought not to do anything improper just at the moment.”
    This seemed to be my cue, so I gave Fornia a big smile.
    Fornia turned his head and spat.
    I said, “In the desert culture of my people, to spit in a man’s presence is to demonstrate loyalty. Am I to assume that you are my vassal?”
    “You’re making that up, aren’t you, Boss?”
    “What do you think, Loiosh?”
    Ori said conversationally, “I should have killed you.”
    “Yes,” I said promptly. “You should have. Your mistake. You won’t be permitted another.”
    He took a step closer, so that he could look down on me. “Are you threatening me, Easterner?”
    I grinned up at him. “Yes, but not as an Easterner; as a Jhereg. That’s an entirely different matter, isn’t it?” At that point Loiosh, who has always