Issola (Vlad Taltos)

by Steven Brust

  In this case, I broke the unknowns down into: the abilities of the Jenoine, the plans of the Jenoine, and the nature of this world we were in.

  I decided to start with the latter. I walked back.

  “You have no link to the Orb, correct?”

  Morrolan and Aliera nodded.

  “Your Great Weapons seem to be behaving normally?”

  They nodded again.

  “What about time?”

  “Excuse me?” said Aliera.

  “I know time works differently in different places. I’ve been to the Paths of the Dead. Exactly how differently does it work here?”

  “As far as I know,” said Morrolan, “an hour here is an hour at home.”

  I shook my head. “No, I know that isn’t true. How long have you been here?”

  “I don’t know,” said Aliera. “Several hours.”

  “Several days,” I told her. “Five, to be exact.”

  They look properly startled. Before they could respond, I said, “What about Verra’s Halls? How does time work there?”

  “What difference does that make?” asked Aliera.

  “I’m just curious.”

  Morrolan looked suspicious, and like he didn’t want to answer. I glanced at Teldra, who said, “I don’t know. I assume time flows the same there as it does at home, but I don’t actually know.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  The reason that assassins make so much money is that, first of all, there aren’t many who have what it takes to dispassionately murder someone; and, of those, there aren’t many who can get away with it. I used to be one of them. Whatever there is in me that made me able to shove the knife, I still had. What made me able to get away with it so many times—sixty—three, to be exact—was that I understood the key ingredient: knowledge. You have to know things. You have to know everything there is to know about your target, about the environment, about your weapons, about your own abilities. Then you can make a plan. A plan built on ignorance can be worse than charging in with no plan at all; if you have no plan, you might get lucky.

  I gestured toward the cube on the floor. “How do you use that thing?”

  “All you need to do is hold it,” said Teldra.

  “Vlad—” said Aliera.

  “Oh, stuff it,” I said. “Morrolan, if I get you two out of those things, will you be able to get us out of here? Back home?”

  He hesitated, then looked disgusted and shook his head. “Maybe,” he said, “but probably not.”

  Aliera said, “Can you get us out, Vlad?”

  “I’m still thinking about that,” I said. “But even if I can I don’t know how much good it will do.”

  “I would rather,” she said, “be free to act, no matter what happens after.”

  “I understand that,” I told her.

  Either way was a gamble—picking up the cube, or attempting to free Morrolan and Aliera. I don’t like gambling, especially when I don’t know the odds; or at least the stakes. When possible, I’d rather be running the game than playing it. But now the Jenoine were running it, and I didn’t even know the rules. I didn’t know how to free them, and I didn’t know if I could kill Verra. Freeing them might accomplish nothing; killing my Demon Goddess was not high on my list of ways to spend an afternoon.

  I reached down and picked up the Morganti dagger; stuffed it into my belt. It wasn’t easy to do—I’d never liked those things, and I could tell instantly that this was a particularly nasty one. Well, I suppose it would have to be, if they expected me to kill the Goddess with it.

  Morrolan snapped, “What are you doing, Vlad?”

  “Can always use a good Morganti dagger, right?”

  “Boss, you’re not going to—”

  “I’ve got to do something. I’m bored.”

  “Oh. You’re bored. Well, that’s a good reason—”

  “Drop it.”

  So I didn’t have a plan. I did, as I stood there, start to get the seeds of what might, sometime, become a vague step generally in the direction of an intention. I may be stating that too strongly.

  I took a good look around the room, noting the tall, thin metal shelves; the flat grey look of the walls; the height of the ceiling. I tried to fix it in my mind. I could not imagine what circumstances might lead me to try teleporting here, but that is the sort of thinking that goes with paying attention to details, in case you’re curious about how my mind works.

  My chest hurt. I tried to keep my breathing shallow, and to forget about how heavy I felt. It would be impossible to exert myself without taking deep breaths. I felt Aliera and Morrolan watching me. One step, and I was committed, and I still just didn’t have enough information. But the only other option was standing around doing nothing, and that would only be effective for so long.

  No, if I was going to do something, I had to have information, and there was no one here who could give it to me, which left only one option.

  I reached into my pouch and pulled out two pieces of gammon. I handed one to Aliera and one to Morrolan. “If you’re going to be helpless and miserable,” I said, “at least you can eat a little.”

  They both accepted it, and they both looked like they were trying to decide if they should thank me, but neither said anything. I flexed my fingers.

  All right.

  “Lady Teldra,” I said, “would you come here, please? Take my hand, if you would.”

  She did so, asking no questions but looking curious. Her hand was dry and cool. I reached down with my other hand, not letting her go, and picked up the small black cube.

  Aliera said, “Vlad, what are you doing?”

  The cube was very heavy for its size, but didn’t seem to do anything except make the walls of the room turn a dull, ugly white. Or, at any rate, that was my first reaction; it took a moment to realize that Teldra, Loiosh, and I now stood in the Halls of Verra, the Demon Goddess.

  5

  PLEASANTRIES WITH DEITIES

  Everything was too big and too white. The ceiling too high, the walls too far apart, the pillars spaced along the walls too big around, and everything the same uniform, ugly, chalky, pasty color. It was huge. It was only a hallway.

  The next thing I noticed was that it was easier to breathe, and I didn’t feel as heavy and sluggish as I had a second ago. It was only then that I realized that the little black cube had, after doing its job, neatly vanished.

  “I got to get me one of those,” I remarked. My voice sounded funny; it took me a second to realize it was because there was no echo—it was as if the corridor was absorbing the sound.

  “I’ll pass one along next time we get a shipment,” said Teldra. Her voice sounded odd, too.

  I had to look at her before I knew she was kidding. It was a very un-Teldra-like remark; I guess she was rattled too.

  She said, “Where are we?”

  “Where we’re supposed to be. Or where we’re not supposed to be, depending on how you look at it. But this is the home of Verra. I’ve been here before. Straight up ahead there, through those doors, is where I’ve seen her.”

  “You’ve been in her presence, then?”

  “Yes, a couple of times. Once here, once elsewhere. Or maybe more often than that, if you use ‘presence’ loosely enough.”

  “We are surrounded by the color of illness; not very encouraging.”

  “I think it means something else to her.”

  “I suspected as much. But what?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. Is it important?”

  “It is something I ought to have known.”

  “As Morrolan’s High Priestess, you mean?”

  She nodded. “Something like that can be important. And just in general, the more I know of the gods, the better.”

  “You must already know a great deal; maybe there are things you ought to tell me about Verra, before we go through those doors.”

  “Perhaps there are,” she said. “But one thing I know, my dear Easterner, is that to you she is th
e Demon Goddess, and to me she is Verra, and we know her differently. Whatever I know might not be useful; indeed, it might mislead you.”

  I grunted. “Are the walls white?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see them that way, too.”

  “Point taken.”

  “Then let’s hear it.”

  “On the other hand,” she said, smiling a little, “it may be that I can’t tell you anything useful, and you’re just procrastinating, because you aren’t in a hurry to go through those doors.”

  “Point taken,” I said, and started walking toward the doors.

  “Wait,” she said.

  I waited.

  “A god,” said Lady Teldra, “is the living, sentient embodiment of a symbol.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, that clears up everything.”

  “Your people, Easterners, might speak of a god of life, a god of death, a god of mountains, and so on. Isn’t that true?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “I think so. My education was a bit spotty.”

  “Those are all symbols.”

  “Death is a symbol?”

  “Certainly. Very much so. Death, in fact, is a very powerful symbol because it defines life.”

  There were many things I could say to that, but I settled for, “All right, go on.”

  She looked around, gesturing to the walls. “We stand in the halls of a very powerful being; one with skills and abilities that surpass those of any mortal. By tradition, she represents the random arbitrariness of life.”

  “That’s the rumor.”

  “Well, look around. Does her home appear random and arbitrary?”

  I grunted, because I don’t like giving obvious answers to pointed questions. “What are you getting at?”

  “That she isn’t just a symbol, she’s also a person.”

  “Uh …”

  “The tradition isn’t wrong,” said Teldra, “it is merely imprecise. She—” Teldra stopped and frowned, as if looking for the right words. “Your goddess,” she said at last, “is capricious. At any rate, that is her reputation. It may be only that we expect a being with her power to behave with a certain consistency and decorum, whereas she follows her whims as much as any of us do. But don’t depend on her.”

  “I shan’t,” I said. “I never have.” That wasn’t strictly true. At one time I did, but I had learned.

  “Then that is all I can tell you,” said Teldra.

  “All right,” I said. “Thanks. Let’s go.”

  And we went, for several paces, until we reached doors that made Morrolan’s look diminutive, and there we stopped, because, unlike Morrolan’s, these didn’t open as we stood before them.

  “Maybe we’re supposed to say something,” I suggested.

  “Maybe we aren’t supposed to go in,” said Teldra.

  I studied the massive doors, and the corridor behind me. “Last time I was here,” I told her, “there was a sort of fog in the hallway. Now there isn’t. Do you suppose it means something?”

  She shook her head; the sort of head shake that comes in answer to a question one doesn’t know the answer to. I cursed under my breath, and, just because I couldn’t think of anything else to do, clapped at the door.

  Nothing happened.

  “Too bad, Boss. She’s not home. Guess we’d better—”

  “Shut up, Loiosh.”

  I then pushed at the door, because I’d have felt stupid if they opened inward and weren’t secured. It didn’t work, leaving me feeling stupid. The doors were filled with designs, all white-on-white, abstract designs reminiscent of embroidery from my ancestral homeland. All very nice. There were no handles on the doors. The space between the doors was wide enough to admit a pry-bar, or a knife blade, but I didn’t have a pry-bar, or a blade with me that wouldn’t snap from the weight of those doors. On the other hand, I had some spare knives. I pulled a stiletto from my boot, and was about to insert it between the doors when Teldra said, “Vlad.”

  I turned my head without moving the knife. “Yes?”

  “Are you quite certain that breaking in is a good idea?”

  “You’re afraid I’ll offend her?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “You don’t think killing her will offend her?”

  She showed me a smile. “Vlad, we both know you have no intention of killing her.”

  “Do we know that, Boss?”

  “Well, Teldra does, at any rate.”

  I turned back to the door, slipped the knife in, put some pressure on it, and promptly snapped the blade. The sound was dull and, like our voices, didn’t echo. I stared at the hilt and the inch and a half of of blade left in my hand, shrugged, and discarded it. It made more of a thump than a clatter as it fell to the floor.

  “Okay,” I said. “Next idea.”

  “You could pray to her,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But what if she answered?”

  “Do the gods answer, when you pray?”

  “Sometimes. I’ve had her answer once, at any rate, and maybe twice. Or there may be other occasions I’m forgetting about. That’s the sort of thing I’d like to forget. How do we get in here?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “You’d know better than me; you’ve had personal contact with her.”

  “Yeah. From which I know nothing except—” I put my face up against the door and yelled, “Verra! It’s me, Vlad! You’ve had your joke, now open the bloody damn door.”

  The door began to swing inward. The last time I’d been here, the doors had opened outward. At least, I think they did. But this time they opened inward, and mists and fogs rolled out; the mist that had been in the corridor last time was now in the room.

  “You can get the same effect with dry ice,” I told Teldra.

  “What’s dry ice, Vlad?”

  “It is an Eastern secret for keeping things cold. I learned of it from Valabar’s.”

  “Witchcraft?”

  “I guess so.”

  She nodded. “Shall we go in? I believe we’ve been invited.”

  “Yeah, sure, all right,” I said, and stepped into the fog.

  I walked forward with more confidence than I felt. I walked a long time, reminding myself that distances seem greater when you can’t see, and the room was plenty big without help.

  “Wall, Boss.”

  I stopped and cursed under my breath. Then I said, “Verra—”

  There was a chuckle that seemed to come from all around me, and the fog cleared away and vanished—not going anywhere, just thinning out until it was gone, a process that took about five seconds. I was standing at the far end of the room; Verra sat on her chair, or throne, or dais, about twenty yards to my left and behind me. I made my way to the front of it and, while Teldra made some sort obeisance, I said, “What was that all about?”

  She gave me an ironic indulgent look, if you can imagine such a thing. On the throne on the dais (all of white), she looked even taller than she was. She wore a hoodless robe that was mostly pale red with black embroidery. Her fingers were long and had an extra joint to them. Her hair, this time, was shoulder-length and wavy: a subdued brown with red highlights, and very thick, so it seemed to have an iridescent quality. Her eyes didn’t glow, but it seemed like they ought to have.

  She was my God—insofar, at least, as I had one. When I was a child, my grandfather had spoken of her, but given few details of the sort that might be useful, and my father never mentioned her at all, but it had been impressed upon my young mind that one made the proper observances at the proper times of the year. More than that, her power and presence were so deeply ingrained in me that all through life my thoughts would flash to her briefly at times of danger, or in moments of despair; and even in moments of great joy or triumph I would think of her, sending her my gratitude and the hopes that I would not be punished for enjoying my happiness.

  When I had first met her in person, so many years ago, the shock had been so great that I couldn’t assimilate it.
At other times, I had felt her presence, but didn’t know how often this feeling was only supplied by my imagination, and how often she had truly been with me. There were occasions, such as my one experience as a soldier of the line, when I could not imagine how I had survived without her having some hand in the matter, but she had never told me she actually did. Of course, I hadn’t asked, either.

  To know her as real—that is, a flesh-and-blood individual with whom I had spoken—was something I could never reconcile with the idea of a presence watching over me; perhaps watching me at times I didn’t want to be watched. I had buried my own reactions, only to have them emerge as hatred some time later when she had visited misfortune upon my head, or maybe allowed misfortune to visit me, whichever. Since then I had tried not to even think of her, but in this I had failed, and now here she was, and to rescue my friends, I had to destroy her.

  “Well?” I said. “Why the games?”

  “An odd question,” she said. I had forgotten the peculiar sound her voice had: not exactly an echo, but more as if there were two of her speaking, mostly in unison, but sometimes they’d fall a bit out of synchronization. She continued, “How can you complain of my treatment of you, when you are only here to assassinate me?”

  “There is that,” I agreed. “Goddess, may I be permitted to put a question?”

  “Very well, assassin,” said the Demon Goddess.

  “Was this all your doing?” And, for a second, I actually had made Verra look astonished. Then the expression was gone. I continued, “The last time, if you recall—”

  “Yes, Taltos Vladimir, I remember. But no, this was none of my doing. I did not arrange this, nor expect it. I did not expect you to arrive here; I did not think you would be able to do so without my assistance. Tell me, how did you manage that? I can’t believe the Issola standing next to you accomplished it for you.”

  I wanted to say something like, “It’s a trade secret,” but even I have limits beyond which I won’t go.

  Teldra said, “Goddess, it was the Jenoine.”

  Verra nodded, slowly. “Yes,” she said. “It had to be. Do you know who? Or which faction?”

  “I was unable to learn, Goddess. I can tell you that one addressed the other by the honorific ‘ker.’”