Issola (Vlad Taltos)

by Steven Brust

  I was used to trusting Loiosh; over the years, I’ve gotten pretty good at it.

  I concentrated, and pulled at imaginary skeins of fabric until it rolled over me, covered me, and I felt like I was going to drown in it; the chill on my wrists beginning to feel like heat, and insisting more and more on my attention; but I still had a bit left in me when the whole thing was shattered—quite literally—and I was pulled back to a hazy sort of half consciousness, vaguely pleased that my wrists were now free, noting that Teldra’s were as well, and hoping that I wouldn’t have to do anything strenuous like moving for at least a year or so.

  She said something, but I didn’t quite catch it. I tried to ask her to repeat it, but that, too, was beyond me.

  In case you’ve missed it, I was more than a little exhausted. I closed my eyes, leaned against the wall, and concentrated on keeping my breathing even and shallow.

  “I imagine,” I said after a while, “they ought to be showing up any second.”

  “The Jenoine?” asked Teldra. “Or our friends?”

  “Both, I should imagine. At the same time, presumably. That’s how it ought to work out.”

  “You’re just saying that, Boss, because you know if you say it it won’t happen that way.”

  “I’m an Easterner, chum. I can be superstitious if I want to.”

  I rested, and recovered, and felt hungry. I found some more dried gammon in my pouch and offered some to Teldra, who gratefully accepted; then I watched her attempt to eat it daintily. She succeeded. I’d have been more astonished if I could have spared the energy for astonishment.

  “Well,” I said, “the longer it takes them—any of them—to show up, the better for us.”

  She nodded, and continued being dainty with dried gammon.

  I wondered why she didn’t make me feel rude and uncouth, but I suppose that was part of her talent. Or magic. You can always say it’s magic if you don’t understand it; and, who knows, you might be right.

  While we stayed there—free of the chains but unable to move (in my case, unable to move for a number of reasons)—my imagination took flight. I wondered what Morrolan and Aliera were doing. They must be with Sethra, talking things over, making plans. Had they made contact with Verra? Was she going to take an active role in this? How about the Necromancer?

  I pictured the lot of them, sitting in the library at Castle Black, or in one of the sitting rooms at Dzur Mountain, or in Verra’s Hall; planning, scheming, debating.

  Or maybe they’d all just gone and decided to take a nap, figuring, hey, what’s one Issola and one Easterner? Maybe they’d just leave us here.

  Or maybe they were eating, the bastards.

  Meanwhile, in this structure, or near it, perhaps the Jenoine were coming up with their own schemes, or chuckling about how well this one had worked (did Jenoine chuckle? I couldn’t imagine it). Perhaps they, too, had forgotten us. Perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, we didn’t matter. Verra had as much as told me that I mattered because she was going to make me matter. I had mixed feelings about this.

  Eventually, various needs brought me to my feet; I carried one of the chamber pots into a corner of the place and relieved myself, feeling like a drunk who’s just staggered out of Coriaton’s Public House. Then I made it back, drank some water, and waited.

  Time dragged, and my imagination soared, and I considered my Fate. Teldra remained silent, perhaps aware of my thoughts and not wishing to disturb them, or perhaps she was busy with her own thoughts. Even Loiosh remained still.

  But I considered who I was, and whether, when all was said and done, I would make a difference in the world. I had rarely had such thoughts—lately I hadn’t had time for them, and before that they had never occurred to me.

  But had Fate included me in its plans?

  Did I even believe in Fate?

  “Teldra, do you believe in Fate?”

  My words shattered the stillness, like a sorcerous explosion, but she hardly blinked.

  She said, “In a sense.”

  “Yes?”

  “I believe in paths and choices. I don’t believe in an inescapable fate, but I believe we are each given several possible directions, and sometimes we choose one without being aware of having made the choice.”

  I nodded. “I think I understand.”

  “But at other times, we know. Sometimes you realize you cannot stand still, and to move forward, or move back, or move to the side will set you on a new path.”

  “Does it matter to you if you make a difference in the world?”

  “I do make a difference, Lord Taltos.”

  “Vlad.”

  “Very well. Vlad. I make a difference whether I wish to or not. I hope to make a good difference, if only in a small way.”

  “I wonder,” I said. “I wonder whether a small way is enough for me. And I wonder if a big way is too much.”

  “Hmmm. What brought this up, if I may ask, Vlad?”

  “I don’t know. Too much time on my hands, boredom, and remembering my conversation with Verra.”

  “What about your conversation with Verra?”

  “What she said about me being a tool.”

  “Oh,” said Lady Teldra. “There is another thing about the Goddess.”

  “Yes?”

  “Sometimes, when she speaks to us, we do not hear the same thing.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It has been said that she speaks in words we can each understand, and that we will each understand her in our own way.”

  “Isn’t that true of everyone?”

  “Perhaps. But I didn’t hear anything about you being a tool; I heard … well, it doesn’t matter what I heard.”

  “Hmmmm,” I said wisely, and didn’t press the matter, though I wanted to badly. “I think,” I said, “that I may be approaching one of those decision points you were talking about.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But I suspect, my lord, that you made your decision some time ago, and are just now beginning to understand its significance.”

  I let that one float around for a bit, then felt myself snarling. “All right, there’s only so much of this I can take. I need to be doing something.”

  “You’re feeling better, then?”

  I considered, then said, “Yes, in fact, I am.”

  “Well then,” said Teldra, “I am ready. But I don’t know what we ought to be doing.”

  “It’s not like I have a plan or anything,” I said. “But it seems to me that, if we aren’t going to just wait for our friends or our enemies, we should see if we can get out of this room.”

  “But then, will they be able to find us? Our friends, I mean.”

  “I hope so.” I shrugged. “One would think that they could reach us psychically, if they were close enough.”

  I stood up, moving slowly and carefully, and walked across the room to where my rapier lay, all unnoticed and neglected. I checked it—it was fine. I returned it to my sheath. Then I walked over to the Morganti dagger. I thought for a while, made a decision, then hesitated because I didn’t want to, then made myself pick it up and put it into its sheath.

  “I don’t see any doors,” said Teldra.

  “Of course not,” I told her. “That would make everything too easy.”

  I stretched a bit—pleased to be up and around and walking. Teldra walked next to me, Loiosh on my shoulder, a rapier at my hip, a very strong Morganti dagger in a sheath next to it, Spellbreaker around my wrist, and my remaining couple of daggers concealed about my person. I felt ready for anything, as long as it wasn’t too threatening.

  We walked around the big, almost empty room, looking at walls, floor, and ceiling. It took a fair bit of time, but I didn’t mind; I was pretty much recovered—though I felt generally sore and rather tired, and Loiosh had to keep reminding me to take shallow breaths. Except for the empty shelves placed here and there, seemingly at random, there wasn’t much to see. Everything was very plain, flat, featureless—d
epressing.

  Eventually we made it back to the place where we had been shackled. I said, “There’s no way out.”

  Teldra nodded.

  “Which answers the question about whether the Jenoine have sorcery, I imagine.”

  “Sorcery,” agreed Teldra, “or, at any rate, something very much like it. But I thought that had been answered when they first appeared.”

  “Yeah. Or when they knocked me out. Okay. So, now what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She didn’t say, “Coming up with plans is your job,” but I had the feeling she was thinking it. I didn’t scowl, but she probably had the feeling I wanted to.

  I said, “If I felt able to perform a spell, I might test the solidity of the wall.” I pushed against the nearest wall, demonstrating, then said, “Hmmmm.”

  “What?” She pushed against it too. “What is it, Vlad? It feels like a wall.”

  “Yes, but what if it isn’t everywhere?”

  “Illusory walls?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But I was thinking real walls, but a doorway made to look like a section of wall.”

  “Oh. Yes, that would be possible.”

  “You go that way, I’ll go this way.”

  She nodded agreement, and we went around the room, pushing at the walls everywhere. If they were illusion, the illusion included the tactile, and didn’t give when pushed.

  “So much for that,” I said, when we were back to where we had started.

  She nodded. “Next idea?”

  “You sure it isn’t your turn?”

  Her smile flicked on and off.

  “You know, Boss, they don’t actually have to have a doorway at all.”

  “I know, I know. But that’s what they say about the keep of an Athyra wizard. And we know better.”

  “Just because it wasn’t true—”

  “I know, Loiosh. Now shut up and let me think.”

  He refrained from any cracks about that. I have come to appreciate the small blessings in life.

  I considered matters for a bit, then said, “All right—if we’re going to test it, we’re going to test it.”

  Teldra gave me a look of inquiry. I let Spellbreaker fall into my hand. I could see Teldra wanting to ask what I was up to, but she didn’t, and I didn’t volunteer the information—if I was going to look ridiculous, at least I didn’t have to explain why.

  I struck Spellbreaker against the wall above where we had been chained up. It gave off a dull ringing sound.

  “Vlad?”

  “Get used to that sound, Teldra.”

  “Very well,” she said.

  I took a step to the right, and struck the wall again. It sounded just the same. I took another step, and another, and so on.

  It was a big room, and it took a while, but I just told myself I was killing time until either the Jenoine reappeared, or Morrolan and Aliera showed up to rescue us, or something else happened.

  Move a step—whap. Move a step—whap. Move a step—and then, when I found it, I almost missed it anyway. I was about a third of the way from where I started when I struck the wall, and started to move past it, but noticed that Spellbreaker had changed again. It was shorter, the links smaller. I stopped, looked at it, then at the spot of blank wall I was facing.

  I struck the wall again, and a light tingle went up my arm, and I was looking at a doorway. Not even a door: rather a large stonework arch, maybe twelve feet high at its top, and big enough for four of me to walk past arm in arm. It was just there, as if to say, “What took you so long?”

  I glanced back at Lady Teldra, who had been walking beside me to keep me company.

  “Yes,” she said. “I see it, too.”

  I not only saw it, but I felt the wind through it. Through it, mostly what we could see was darkness, except for the points of light in the sky.

  “Stars,” said Lady Teldra.

  “I know them,” I said. “They have them in the East, too.”

  “I know,” she said. “I remember.”

  “I don’t know exactly what they are; some say the homes of the gods.”

  “Some say each is a world,” said Teldra. “That when we go through a necromantic gate, we are stepping onto one of those points of light, from which we could look back and see our own world as a point of light. I like that notion.”

  “I’m not entirely certain that I do,” I said. “I’ve never liked stepping into the unknown.”

  She refrained from any of the obvious observations she could have made to that, merely falling silent and waiting with me. Even as I watched, I realized that it was becoming brighter; it was dawn wherever we were, and I started to be able to make out features of the landscape.

  It took several long moments before I was able to bring myself to step through the archway, toward the strange world, the emptiness, and the stars of the heavens.

  8

  FISHING ETIQUETTE

  Here’s a quick story for you, before we go any further:

  In the earliest days of the World, Darkness mated with Chaos and produced three daughters. The first was Night, the second was Pain, and the third was Magic. Now Chaos went on and mated with the Sky, producing a son who was Evil. One day, Evil, being jealous of his stepsisters, captured Magic and took her away to his secret fortress beyond the World. But Magic called upon her Mother, Darkness, who heard her cries, and, seeing everything, saw what Evil had done.

  Darkness then summoned Chaos and said, “Look what your son has done! He has taken Magic from the World.”

  Chaos then turned on his son, Evil, and cast him out, and rescued Magic, restoring her to the World. Then Evil cried out, saying that he repented his act, and praying that his father not abandon him. Chaos could not turn his heart from his only son, so he relented and permitted Evil into the world as well, but from that moment on, Magic has mistrusted Evil, though Evil still pursues Magic; and Darkness watches over them both, so that wherever you find Evil, you will find Darkness there, watching; and Chaos will sometimes be found in the aid of Magic, and sometimes in the aid of Evil.

  Do you like it? It is an old story of my people, and there are some who believe it literally. I myself think there are elements of truth in it, because another name for Magic is Verra, the Demon Goddess, and, who knows, perhaps the Jenoine really are Evil. Beyond that, I don’t care to venture; if there is a personification of Darkness, not to mention Chaos, then I don’t want to know about it.

  So here we were, maybe in the power of Evil; at least on their world, and maybe Magic would help us, and I was very much afraid that, if the Jenoine didn’t get me, I’d trip over my own metaphors and break my neck.

  These were my thoughts, then, as we stepped out of the door, and I don’t know how it was for Teldra, but for me there was a shock: the sudden realization that the entire world was not that one room of that one building.

  “Anything or anyone, Loiosh?”

  “Not as far as I can tell, Boss.”

  We walked twenty-five or thirty feet away from it, and looked back; I was half expecting it to have vanished, but it was still there, the outside looking quite a bit like the inside, except that the surface was rougher—it seemed to be just chunks of rock stuck together. A closer look indicated an odd shape to the structure—it was hard to tell from this close, but it seemed that it had an angle to it; that it wasn’t quite straight up, and there were bits of projections sticking out. Was this significant of anything? Stupid question. What was significant and what wasn’t with these beings?

  I turned my attention to the landscape, and eventually thought of Dzur Mountain.

  There was nothing there that actually looked like Dzur Mountain, mind you, but—

  Okay. A stream, maybe fifty or sixty feet wide, cut across and dominated the landscape, flowing diagonally toward me from my right to my left, about a hundred yards away at its nearest point; a few spindly trees with stubby branches and massive leaves all along their lengths dotted the banks on both side
s, and what seemed to be a stonework bridge appeared not far away. To my right were a couple of low hills, all brown and rocky, and to my left the ground was flat but sloping gently down, maybe dipping to meet the stream, maybe not. And above it all (quite literally) was this terrible, bright object burning down on everything. I’m not trying to be mysterious—I had been to the East, and I knew damned well that it was a Furnace, just as we had in the Empire, only here, as out East (and a few places in the far West), it wasn’t hidden by a constant overcast. But I had forgotten how painfully bright it was, and how dark were the shadows it caused when it met anything else. It was low in the sky, a little to my left as I stepped out of the door, and, among other things, it highlighted everything else, including the few white puffy bits of overcast in a sky that was otherwise as blue as the sky above Fenario, giving me a very strange feeling of homesickness that juxtaposed with the harsh certainty that I was in a world that, perhaps, no other human had ever set foot on before.

  So Teldra and I studied all of this, and that’s when I thought of Dzur Mountain. It was a very nice mix of natural elements, here, and I’d swear someone had crafted it. I don’t know why—I’m not sure what the indications were; but it looked for all the world like someone had sat down and said, “Okay, the river runs this way, straight, then we’ll put a curve in here. How ’bout a couple of hills?” and like that.

  “You’re right,” said Teldra.

  I looked at her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Dzur Mountain,” she said.

  “Oh. I hadn’t realized I’d spoken out loud.”

  “You muttered it under your breath.”

  “Hmmm.” I wondered where I’d developed the habit of doing that? Probably from being alone so much of the time. I was going to have to watch out for that; it wasn’t a good habit.

  “Nothing lives,” murmured Teldra.

  I started to ask what she meant—I mean, there was grass, and there were trees and such. Then realized: I saw no birds in the air, no small animals hopping around, much less big ones; looking at my feet, I didn’t even see any insects. “You’re right,” I said. “We seem to be the only living things here.”

  “Oh,” she said, smiling. “That time I did it.”