Teckla by Steven Brust Read Free Book Online Page A

thing is, it's not even nearing a Teckla reign. I could see something like this if the Teckla were near the top of the Cycle, but they're not. It's the Phoenix, and then the Dragons if we're still alive when the Cycle changes; the Teckla aren't even in the running."
    "And in the second place, what's wrong with what we have now? Of course it isn't perfect, but we live well enough and we got it on our own. You're talking about giving up our careers, our lifestyle, and everything else. And for what? So a bunch of nobodies can pretend they're important—
    "
    "Careful," she said.
    I stopped in mid-diatribe. "All right," I said. "Sorry. But have I answered your question?"
    She was quiet for a long time, then. Our food showed up and we ate it without saying anything at all. When we'd turned the scraps over to Loiosh and Rocza, Cawti said, "Vladimir, we've always agreed never to hit each other's weak spots, right?"
    I felt a sinking sensation when she said that, but I nodded. She continued, "All right, this is going to sound like that's what I'm doing, but I don't mean it that way, okay?"
    "Go on," I said.
    She shook her head. "Is it okay? I want to say it, because I think it's important, but I don't want you to just shut me out, the way you do whenever I try to get you to look at yourself. So will you listen?" I drained my klava, signaled the waiter for more and doctored it appropriately when it came. "All right," I said.
    "Until just recently," she began, "you thought that you had found your line of work because you hated Dragaerans. Killing them was your way of getting back at them for what they'd put you through while you were growing up. Right?"
    I nodded.
    "Okay," she continued. "A few weeks ago, you had a talk with Aliera." I winced. "Yeah," I said.
    "She told you about a previous life in which—"
    "Yeah, I know. I was a Dragaeran."
    "And you said you felt as if your whole life had been a lie."
    "Yes."
    "Why?"
    "Hm?"
    "Why did it shake you so much?"
    "I don't—"
    "Could it be because you've felt all along as if you had to justify yourself? Could it be that somewhere, deep down, you think it is evil to kill people for money?"
    "Not people," I said by reflex. "Dragaerans."
    "People," she said. "And I think you've just proved my point. You were forced into this line of work, just the way I was. You had to justify it to yourself. You've justified it so thoroughly that you kept on doing
    'work' even after you no longer had to, when you were making enough money from running your area that the 'work' was pointless. And then your justification fell apart. So now you don't know where you stand, and you have to wonder whether you are, really, deep down, a bad person."
    "I don't—"
    "Let me finish. What I'm getting at is this: No, you aren't a bad person. You have done what you had to do to live and to help provide us both with a home and a comfortable life. But tell me this, now that you can't hide behind hating Dragaerans any more: What kind of Empire do we have that forces someone like you to do what you do, just to live, and to be able to walk down the streets without flinching? What kind of Empire not only produces the Jhereg, but allows it to thrive? Can you justify that!" I let her comments percolate through me for a while. I got more klava. Then I said, "That's the way things are. Even if these people you're running around with aren't just nut cases, nothing they do is going to change that. Put in a different Emperor and things will just go back to being the way they are in a few years. Sooner than that, if it's an Easterner."
    "That," she said, "is a whole 'nother subject. The point I'm making is that you're going to have to come to terms with what you do, at whose expense you live, and why. I'll help as much as I can, but it is your own life you have to deal with."
    I stared into my klava cup. Nothing in it made anything any clearer. After another cup or two I said, "All right, but you still haven't told me where you