by Steven Brust
“Here we go,” I said aloud. “Keep your eye on this thing; there should be something flying out onto the shore behind me.” I executed, or perhaps I should say released the spell as I lowered my arm so the bottle splashed into the stream.
The first good news was that I didn’t fall in; but I hadn’t really expected to.
The second good news was that the stream didn’t splash on me; I’d been afraid of that, but couldn’t think of a good way to avoid it.
The third good news was that the leather suddenly felt lighter in my hand, and a glance told me that there was nothing hanging on the end.
But the real good news was that Teldra cried out, “I saw it! Something flashed. It went off that way.”
I followed her pointing finger, dropping the leather just in case there were unpleasant things clinging to the end of it.
The grass here wasn’t terribly long; it only took five minutes or so before I found it. I reached down and picked it up, just as if doing so didn’t scare me.
It took the form of a small stone, perfectly round and about an inch in diameter; it was very heavy for its size, and had a sort of milky hue somewhere in between blue and purple. “Got it,” I said, holding it up.
She came over and inspected it, Loiosh doing the same from my shoulder.
“Pure amorphia,” I said, “but in a form that can be worked with.”
“If you say so,” said Teldra.
“I say so.”
I slipped it into my pouch as if it were no big deal.
Teldra nodded as if it were no big deal, and said, “All right, then, Vlad, what next?”
That was a good question. But I now had Spellbreaker, a powerful Morganti dagger, a chunk of amorphia, my training as a witch, and my native wit. Might as well use them for something.
I said aloud, “Patience my ass; I’m going to go out and kill something.”
9
How to Break Unwelcome News
Teldra frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Never mind; an old Jhereg joke. Let’s go back.”
“Back, Vlad?”
“To our prison.”
I watched her face, and decided she was struggling between courteously agreeing and rudely asking if I had lost my mind. I politely cut in before she had to choose.
“This place”—I gestured aimlessly—“gives me the creeps. I don’t mean just here, I mean this whole area. The Jenoine will be able to find us anywhere on their world, if they want to, so being out here will only make it harder for Morrolan and Aliera to find us.”
“Ah,” she said. “You’ve resigned yourself to being rescued, then?”
“Heh. I’m still thinking about it.”
“And you have another idea, don’t you?”
“Hmmm. Sort of a plan.”
She smiled. “That’s good enough for me,” she said, and we headed back for the building that had been our prison. I should, perhaps, have been surprised that it hadn’t vanished while we were out of sight, but it hadn’t, and the door was still where we’d left it. We went back inside. The door vanished as we stepped through, but I wouldn’t give it the satisfaction of being startled by that.
“What’s the plan this time, Boss?”
“If I told you, you’d just laugh.”
“Probably.”
“You could learn a lot from Teldra.”
“The ocean says the river is wet. The snow says the ice is cold.”
“Is that like, the jhereg says the yendi is a reptile?”
“Shut up, Boss.”
I studied the big, empty room on the big empty world, considered my predicament, thought over my idea, and tried to be optimistic. I glanced over to where the shackles still hung on the wall. The Jenoine could put us back in them easier than I’d gotten out of them. But why should they? After all, the whole reason—
“Teldra, do you think I’m paranoid?”
She blinked. “Lord Taltos?”
“I keep seeing devious plots everywhere, and thinking that everyone must have two or three layers of subterfuge behind every action.”
“I recall, my lord, your affair with the Sorceress in Green It seems to me you were correct on that occasion.”
“She’s a Yendi.”
“And these are Jenoine. Much more worrisome. With a Yendi, one at least knows everything is subterfuge and misdirection. With the Jenoine, we don’t understand them, and we don’t know if they understand us.”
I nodded. “Okay, a point.”
She continued, “I think it reasonable to wonder if we’re doing what they want us to—if they have everything planned, and each step we have taken is in accordance with their wishes. Didn’t Sethra say as much? Yet it is uncertain, because we behave unpredictably, and we don’t yet know to what extent they can anticipate and understand us. I’m working on that,” she added.
“You’re working on that?”
“Yes.”
I wanted to ask her in exactly what way was she working on it, but if she had wanted me to know, she’d have told me. All right, then. I’d go ahead and assume I was right in my surmises until I found out I was wrong—by which time it would probably be too late, and I wouldn’t have to worry about it. There are advantages to fatalism.
“Hungry, Teldra?”
“No, thank you.”
I grunted and shared a bit of jerky with Loiosh. Teldra went over to the wall and sat down, her knees up, arms around her knees—she managed to make the position look dignified and graceful.
I said, “Teldra, what, exactly, is the soul?”
“I hope you’re asking rhetorically, Vlad. I’ve never studied magical philosophy. I only know the mundane answer—that which is left after the death the physical body—the life essence—the personality, separated from matter.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’ve never studied magical philosophy either. I guess I should have, at some point.”
“Is it important?”
“Yes.”
She looked a question.
I touched the Morganti dagger at my belt and said, “These things destroy souls. It would be very useful right now to know exactly what they destroyed, and how they did it, and what it all means. I’m trying to avoid being embarrassed at a critical moment.”
“I see. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
She had already helped. I leaned against the wall next to her and pondered the soul.
“Boss, why is it you always get philosophical just when—”
“Shut up, Loiosh.”
He snickered into my mind; I ignored him. To think of the soul as a field of sorcerous energy usually anchored to a living body might be incomplete, but also might be close enough to be useful; at least, to the best of my knowledge, that was how a Morganti dagger treated it. It said nothing about how such a nebulous thing as a personality could be contained in a field of sorcerous energy, but Morganti weapons are notoriously unconcerned with personalities.
If it was good enough for a Morganti dagger, it was good enough for me.
Heh.
Teldra was looking at me.
I cleared my throat. “I assume you want to be let in on what my plan is.”
“That’s up to you, Vlad. If you think I should know, tell me. Otherwise, not.”
I stared at her. “You really do trust me, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said.
“By the Halls of Judgment, why?”
“Because you keep surviving, Vlad.”
She said it so matter-of-factly that I was almost convinced “Heh,” I said. “I’m just being saved for some spectacularly awful death.”
“If so,” she said, “I’m sure you’ll comport yourself with dignity.”
“Dignity? Me? Not bloody likely. If I go down swinging, it’ll be because I think swinging is more likely to get me out of it than running. If I go down running, I won’t be surprised.”
She gave me a smile as if she didn’t believe me and said, “I hadn’t meant to turn the co
nversation morbid.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, Teldra. Most of my thoughts are morbid. I think it comes of having spent so long killing people for a living. Strange way to live, when you think about it, so I try not to, but I can’t help it. On the other hand, you work for a guy known for sacrificing whole villages, so I guess I’m a bit of a piker by comparison.”
“More like hamlets than villages, Vlad. And he was at war against them at the time, you know.”
“Oh. Actually, I hadn’t known that. I just chalked it up to another example of how charming my dear Goddess can be.”
“It was while he was consolidating his power and retaking his ancestral homelands. They worshiped Tri’nagore, a God you don’t hear from much anymore, and had overrun Blackchapel, killing everyone in it. Morrolan returned the favor, and sent their souls to his Patron Goddess.”
“I see. They don’t tell that part of the story.”
“The Lord Morrolan refuses to be put in the position of defending his actions. He considers it undignified.”
“So he’d rather everyone thought him a bloodthirsty butcher?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, I guess he would at that.”
To the left, I reflected, he could be bloodthirsty enough, however much Teldra downplayed it. I recalled an incident at Castle Black. I wasn’t paying much attention, being involved in some rather nasty squabble with another Jhereg at the time, but I remember him challenging another Dragonlord to a duel, and ... doing everything to the guy except making him unrevivifiable—I mean he dismembered the poor bastard, and seemed to take great joy making the fellow’s death as slow and painful as he could. This was a memory I didn’t care to dwell on; I don’t enjoy such scenes. But it was certainly impossible to deny that that side of Morrolan existed. I wondered—
“Teldra,” I said suddenly. “Do you recall a certain Lord Vrudric e’Lanya whom Morrolan fought a few years ago?”
She looked at me quizzically and nodded.
“Can you tell me what that was about?”
“You don’t know, Vlad? Vrudric was casting aspersion on Adron’s character.”
“Adron? Adron e’Kieron?”
“Yes.”
“That’s it? Morrolan did that to him because he was casting aspersions on the character of the guy who was either so greedy, or so incompetent, or, at best, so misguided that he destroyed the whole Verra-be-damned Empire and dissolved Dragaera City into amorphia? That guy?”
“Adron is one of Morrolan’s heroes. I thought you knew that.”
“No,” I said. “I hadn’t known that. But Adron ... okay. It’s strange, but I guess I can get used to it. Hmmm. Morrolan e’Drien. Who was Drien, anyway?”
“A contemporary of Kieron the Conqueror, perhaps the first Shaman who was a warrior, or the first warrior who was a Shaman. From what I gather, he or she was brilliant, fiery, talented, creative, powerful, and emotionally unstable.”
“‘He or she’?”
“As I understand it, Drien was born female but transformed herself into a man around the time of the founding of the Empire. Or it may have been the other way around. I don’t know if the man or the woman had offspring, or both; and perhaps the story isn’t true, but that is the tradition.”
“I see. Hmmm. But then ... never mind. What about the other story? I mean the one about Morrolan charging up to Dzur Mountain when he found out that there was someone in his domain who hadn’t paid him tribute.”
“Oh.” Teldra smiled. “Yes, that one is true.”
I chuckled. “Oh, to have been there to witness that conversation. I don’t suppose you went along?”
“Hardly.”
“Did he ever say what happened?”
“No. But it can’t have been anything too horrid; they’ll’ been friends ever since.”
“Oh yeah? Does she pay him tribute?”
“I don’t know,” said Teldra, smiling.
“I’ll be sure to ask him. Sometime when we’re not in the middle of trying to batter our way out of a trap set by demigod. Which reminds me, I had an idea about that. I’ll give you the rough outline of—”
“Boss!”
I spun around. Morrolan and Aliera were back, both holding their swords in their hands, and looking like I felt—that is, full of the desire to kill something.
“Welcome,” I said, “to our temporary abode. I’m afraid our hospitality may be—”
“Where are they?” said Aliera.
I shrugged. “They forgot to say where they were going when they left. Actually, I forgot to ask them. I was napping at the time, as I recall. Oh, by the way, Morrolan, I’m curious about whether you get any tribute from Dzur Mountain.”
“Vlad,” said Morrolan, “do you have any idea what we had to do to get back here? To even find the place, much less break through, required the Necromancer to spend twelve hours pulling memories out of Blackwand—memories she didn’t know she contained. After that—”
“How long has it been, in your world?”
“Not long. A couple of days. A very busy couple of days, I might add.”
I nodded. “A few hours, here. Did you bring any food? Jerky and gammon are getting old.”
Morrolan and Aliera looked at each other. “No, sorry,” said Morrolan.
“Perhaps it would be best to get going, then.”
“Yes,” said Aliera. “That’s the idea.” Morrolan was frowning his frown of concentration—I hoped and believed doing what was necessary to get us out of there.
“That is,” I added, “if the Jenoine will let us. Do you think they will?”
“Perhaps not,” said the Lord of Castle Black, looking up suddenly. “But we are prepared for them to attempt to stop us. Unfortunately, the gate has shut again. I’m going to try to open it.n He did that thing with his hands again, and he was once more holding his thin, black wizard’s staff. This time I noticed something: a blue ring that he always wore on his left hand was no longer there, yet I had been certain he had been wearing it an instant before. Okay, it was a nice trick, and it had some flash. I could always respect flash, if it didn’t conflict with practicality.
I looked at Morrolan, as if seeing him for the first time, with all that Teldra had told me buzzing around in my head. Adron? He certainly was far more complex than I had ever thought him. It suddenly flashed into my head to wonder if he and Sethra were currently or ever had been lovers. Now that was an interesting thought, and one that would probably come back to me on many cold nights—assuming, of course, that I would have the opportunity to have many cold nights.
Which brought me sharply back to the present. I said, “Sethra is in on this, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Morrolan. “And she’s at Castle Black, in the Tower, waiting to assist us.”
I nodded. “Knowing, I’m sure, that her help is likely to be either insufficient or unnecessary.”
“Yes.”
I felt myself scowling, and my stomach growled, just to make sure I understood how it felt, too.
“Got it,” said Morrolan suddenly. “Over here, quickly.’’
There was a shimmering waviness in the air, gold colored, about six feet behind Morrolan.
“Very well,” said Aliera, walking toward it. “Let’s do it; the gate won’t remain open forever. Teldra, you first. Hurry, Vlad.”
“They’re late, Boss.”
“Seems like.”
Teldra and I took a step toward her. Sometimes, things are so close—almost this, or just barely that; one thing and another, balanced just so, that there seems to be an instant where they are both happening, and neither happens, and each path is fully realized, like a psiprint, held in place by the strength of mutual impossibilities. Sometime lives—your own or another’s—depend on decisions that come within a whisper, a hair, a fraction of breath, of going one way or the other. Have you the strength of will to do what you know – know—is the right thing, or will your appetite rule the moment? Will you allow the a
nger of an instant to command your tongue, and make a breach that can never be healed, or will you manage to hold ire in check for just long enough—a tiny portion of a second—to escape?
Sometimes it is so close, so very close.
I took a step forward, and—
—as my footstep faded, I could almost hear—
—an infinitely extended moment, nothing happening, taking forever, but much too fast—
—was instantly aware—
—voices whispering in the silence, with the silence, not disturbing it—
—a foot almost descending, simultaneously in one place and another—occupying two places at once, but that’s what movement is all about—
—that Loiosh was no longer with me. Even before—
—leaving perception, without the awareness of whence it sprang except—
—all life is movement, which is to be here and not here and the same time, or here and there simultaneously, or to deny time, or to deny place—
—I realized that my surroundings had changed, that I was uncertain where I was, that—
—that it came from outside of self, if such a distinction is valid without time or place to hang it from, and the voices—
—is to be, in fact, nowhere, and nowhere is—
—Teldra and Aliera and Morrolan had cross-stepped while I lunged, I knew—
—came with eyes, and ears, and other things that—
—everywhere is here and there and there ought to be a way—
—that I was out of touch with my familiar and it—
—gave me the feeling that I was being studied, scanned, analyzed, and ultimately—
—to seize control, or at least to act, or at the very least to make a decision—
—had been years since I had come so—
—discarded, and permitted—
—to be holding a chain of gold light, in my mind if nowhere else so that in and through the shield of swirling gold which suddenly—
—close to panic—
—to stop, or resume—
—seemed to me to be a place, not a thing, that I could—
—but that, like so much else, is self-defeating, so I—
