Vallista--A Novel of Vlad Taltos

by Steven Brust

  You must already know what I’m going to say, yes?

  I fell asleep. Or, I suppose, “nodded off” is more precise. I was watching the child, and I closed my eyes, and then suddenly came awake, my heart pounding, as happens at times like that. The child was gone and the door open.

  He wasn’t in the hallway outside the nursery. He wasn’t in the kitchen. Later, I was asked why I didn’t at once raise the alarm, and I can only say I didn’t think of it. And as I ran about like a madman looking for him, imagining him scalding himself in the kitchen, or severing a finger in the armory, I say, to my shame, that the knowledge that whatever happened would be my fault was as terrifying as my fear of what that disaster might be. Were I to live for a Great Cycle, I would never experience such terror.

  Could anything make it worse? Yes, because as I left the armory and began to run toward the Great Hall, I saw that the doorway to the stairs up to the tower was open. In the castle, you understand, there was no glass on the windows, much less the unbreakable glass we have here; the vision of him falling from the tower was all that filled my mind.

  May Triharunna Nagoray forgive me for saying it, but maybe it would have been better if he had.

  I reached the top of the stairs. The west tower of the castle was large and square. It contained a small room where my lord kept his magical equipment, and a necessary room, and many windows; but the door that was open led up to tower’s cap, which is where my lord carried on his magical studies and experiments.

  Was it a capricious god who determined the moment the child would enter? Perhaps Verra; it is the sort of thing she would do. Maybe when I reach the Paths I will ask her.

  Lord Zhayin was engaged in necromancy. I am not sufficiently familiar with the art to explain exactly what he was doing, but I do know that he was reaching into the Great Sea of Amorphia to attempt to touch a place where the laws of nature are different. There were three rods placed about the room, all white, waist height, as thick as my wrist, and each was emitting both a sound and a light. The result was an odd sort of music, low, discordant, unsettling; and where the lights came together in the center of the room it had the same effect on the eye: one couldn’t focus on it without feeling unsettled.

  For a moment—perhaps the worst moment of the entire ordeal—my panic ebbed, because the child wasn’t there, and my lord was continuing his work, looking like the conductor of an orchestra, hands weaving back and forth, eyes closed, face distant, reflecting a mind that was far, far away.

  I made myself look into that place, where the light and sound met. It was hard, the way it is hard to stand in a high place, but I made myself look into the swirling emptiness. I remember the sweat on my hands, and how it seemed that my ankles were about to give way. I kept looking. Sometimes it seemed patterns would form in the light, and sometimes I was sure it was my imagination. I kept looking. I felt like whatever it was, was actually entering me, working its way into my head, changing me. I kept looking.

  And I saw him, I saw the child. He had wandered into the midst of it, into the very focus of the spell.

  I know I screamed, or made some inarticulate sound of denial and rage against the gods.

  I remember moving toward the child, but when I screamed, my lord opened his eyes, saw me, and released the spell.

  Of course it was too late then.

  Sometimes I think his refusal to kill me, or even discharge me, is a form of punishment—that he wishes to make me live with my failure. Sometimes I think it is a kindness, a way to let me know that I’m forgiven. Of course, I’ve never asked.

  My apologies, sir. You wanted to know about the child, and I have been speaking of myself. It is difficult not to, both because the event remains in my consciousness, and because speaking of the child is painful, and I suppose I was avoiding it.

  The child was damaged. I suppose “damaged” expresses it as well as any other word.

  What happens when a body is subjected to forces designed to change the nature of the world where they are focused? And what happens to a mind? I am not a sorcerer, still less a necromancer; I can tell you nothing of why or how, but what you saw was the result. We care for the child as best we can, and see to it he is unable to harm anyone.

  Yes, I understand that you saw him. I don’t know how he came to be loose. My lord keeps a sorcerer on staff just to prevent that from happening. But whatever happens, we are forbidden to speak of him. And I wouldn’t have, except you—you looked like you meant it. Would you have really killed him? Yes, I think you would have. You’ve killed before, I can see it in you.

  That is all I have to tell, m’lord. I hope it satisfies you.

  * * *

  Satisfied isn’t exactly the way I’d put it, but it was nice to get a few answers. “Yeah,” I said. “That’ll do.”

  “Then,” he said, “would you mind…?”

  “What? Oh.” I hadn’t realized I was still holding the dagger, testing the edge with my thumb. “Sorry,” I said, and made it vanish.

  “If that will be all, m’lord?”

  Okay, I gotta give it to him: I’d just terrorized him, then dragged out his darkest secret, and he was like, “If that will be all, m’lord?” That’s impressive, isn’t it?

  “Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”

  He gave me a stiff and almost military half-bow, turned abruptly, and went away, presumably to collapse somewhere where he could do so privately.

  “Well, okay, Boss. That was some, uh, something. What now?”

  “Now we explore some more. And if we see a big, ugly, whitish, drooling thing, we run.”

  “It was drooling?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “I agree with the running part. Or, you run. I’ll fly.”

  Down the hall, past the kitchen. I ducked my head in to see if it was any different; it wasn’t.

  “Want to hear my nightmare, Loiosh? It’s that we’ll figure all of this out, deal with it, and the thing with the kitchen will have nothing to do with it and I’ll never understand it.”

  “My nightmares are a bit worse than that, Boss. They have more to do with a giant, white, slobbering thing.”

  “It was slobbering?”

  “Sure, Boss. Why not?”

  “Yeah. Hey, do you actually get nightmares?”

  “Not really.”

  After the kitchen, when the hallway ended, I turned right; I hadn’t gone that way before. On the other side of the wall to my right should be the kitchen, and for all I knew, maybe it was. Part of what made this place, this platform, so weird is that sometimes things were just where they should be, which made the other times even more unsettling.

  There was a stairway leading up. In a normal place, you can tell a lot about where you’re going by the stairway, or, at least, you can tell if it is expected to be used by those who live there, by guests, or by servants. This one was white marble, but not excessively wide, and didn’t have much in the way of decoration—if you don’t count the inevitable mirror perched on the wall as a decoration—so I would have figured it was for residents. But that was in a normal place; here, I couldn’t be sure of anything. I started climbing. It went up, then doubled back, which left me one floor up facing back the way I’d come, in a hallway that was much too short for what ought to be there.

  There was a door on either side, and at the end of the hall a pair of sconces—and, yes, a mirror. I took the ten necessary steps, grasped the sconces, and played with them. The one on the right turned to the right, then the one on the left turned to the left. As secret passages go, it wasn’t hard to find. The room was small and comfortable, with a large Eastern rug in red and blue on the floor and several chairs, a small bookcase, some tables, and a cabinet that was a bit taller than I was. There was a hand pump over a deep sink, and in the corner a mop, a broom, and a pail. So, in other words, it was a fairly typical servant’s closet appointed and set up for one of the residents to relax in. If that makes no sense to you, then you’re just where I was.
An iron chain with a handgrip hung from the ceiling. Also, there was no mirror. I didn’t know if I should be pleased or worried about that.

  I checked the cupboard. It was unlocked, so I opened it and was hit with a blast of cold air. This mystified me for an instant, until I saw there were cuts of meat, steaks, hanging from hooks, like the cupboard was a miniature meat locker, evidently with a cold spell set into it to preserve the meat.

  I didn’t find anything else interesting, so I pulled the chain. The back wall opened with a sound like stone sliding over stone. Does that sound familiar? Yeah, me too. But by the time I recognized it, it was already open.

  “Uh-oh,” I said cleverly. Loiosh gripped my shoulder.

  I only had time to get the impression of stone walls before I saw the thing in the room, and it was looking at me. Its face, if you can call it that, was distorted, its head seemed too small for the rest of it, its shoulders were lumps of muscle or bone, its legs were squat and seemed bigger around than my body, and it was as pasty, ugly white as I’d first thought. It had two horns, like those of a goat, coming out of its head, and irregular splotches of dull white fur here and there about its body. It was naked, too, except for the fur, and I guess I’d still call it a he; its sex was incongruously minuscule on that frame. No, not it, he. It’s a person, or at least was once. His mouth was full of yellow, misshapen teeth, and I was right, he drooled. Or, okay, slobbered. Fine.

  I’ve heard people say that when something scary happens, your first reaction is to either fight it, or run away. I guess sometimes, but more often—I say as someone who has been the something scary that happened—people first freeze up. That’s pretty common. But it isn’t true of me. By now you should have figured that a lot of what permits me to survive is that I’m not controlled by reflexes; I look at the situation, figure out what the right move is, and then—

  Oh, crap. You won’t believe me anyway. Yeah, I froze.

  5

  AT THE FOUNTAINS OF SADNESS

  I stood there, unwilling to even draw a weapon until I knew what it was going to do.

  Over the years, as I’ve told you of these things, I’ve talked about people who didn’t show fear when they should have, about those who can keep the appearance of calm, and even disdain, when they think they’re about to die. Sometimes, that’s been me. It isn’t just an accident, you know. There’s a reason for it that’s as practical as a leather hilt. In the Jhereg, it matters for your career, and for your life. You have to be able to stare someone down when he’s got you dead to rights, when you’re sure you aren’t going to get out alive. You do it because, if you do get out of it alive, if someone saw you turn into a quivering, shaking ball of terror, no one in the organization will respect you again, and you’ll either need to get out of the business or mess up a lot of people tougher than you to get your reputation back. It’s practical, okay? And by now, for me, it’s become a habit. No, I’m not without fear; I’ve just learned that it isn’t safe to show how scared I am.

  So, if you’d been looking at me, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have looked like I was about to piss myself.

  It—he? I kept going back and forth on that in my head. It stood up and made a snarling sound, staring at me. Well, now what? I drew Lady Teldra, hoping that the power emanating from her might make the thing cower into a corner long enough for me to close the door. It didn’t seem to notice; it just stood there, snarling. Its eyes were tiny even without the squint.

  Then it moved. And it was fast.

  I never considered standing my ground and letting it impale itself on Lady Teldra. On reflection, if I had, it probably would have gotten its hands around my throat and broken my neck in its death throes, but whatever; I threw myself backward before making any sort of conscious decision. As I did so, Loiosh and Rocza flew at its face.

  I guess they made it flinch, which gave me time to scramble back.

  “Careful, Loiosh!”

  “Tell me about it!”

  Throwing a knife at the thing would just annoy it. I scrambled back some more. Loiosh and Rocza were making quick dives at its head while it batted at them, getting a lot closer than I liked. There would have been several options involving sorcery, but that would have required removing the amulet, which was very likely a death sentence itself, because once it wasn’t around my neck, the Jhereg could find me, and I knew they were trying to.

  Well, crap.

  I looked for a vulnerable area as I stood up. Maybe, if Loiosh and Rocza could keep it facing the other way long enough, I could hamstring it. I drew my heaviest fighting knife. I didn’t much like my chances. Maybe—

  “Excuse me, Lord Taltos. Let me.”

  I recognized the voice: the Athyra sorcerer I’d just met, Discaru. I moved to the side. “Yeah,” I told him. “By all means.”

  “Loiosh, make some distance. Sorcery happening.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I moved farther to the side, and the beast let loose a horrid screech and cowered back into the corner. Loiosh and Rocza flew out of the room, and Discaru moved past me and pulled the chain. The door rumbled shut and I breathed again.

  “There,” he said, turning around and smiling as if it were no big deal, which maybe it wasn’t to him. Me, I don’t embarrass easy, but right then I wanted to be sand in Suntra, if you’ll excuse the cliché.

  “I was exploring,” I managed.

  “Of course,” he said, as if it were completely reasonable for me to be wandering around unescorted in this manor where I didn’t know anyone and half the rooms were enchanted and they kept a monster hidden in one.

  “How did you know?”

  “Hmm? Oh. I sensed your weapon being drawn, and came to see why.”

  “That took some guts.”

  He bowed his head briefly.

  “Does this happen often?”

  “Him getting out? No, almost nev—”

  “No, strangers getting trapped in this place and wandering around opening doors.”

  “Ah. No, this is the first time that has happened.”

  “Pleased to give you a new experience, then.”

  He didn’t seem quite sure how to take that.

  I said, “What are you going to do?”

  “About you?”

  “About it.”

  “That isn’t my decision to make. I think what we have been doing all along: keeping it alive, and keeping it safe.”

  “Necromancy,” I said.

  “Hmmm? No, no. I just used—”

  “No. Necromancy. You’ve studied it, haven’t you?”

  “It’s not a specialty, but yes, certainly. Why?”

  “I’m trying to figure out how to get out of here, which means figuring out how this place works, and I’m starting to think figuring out necromancy has something to do with that. I’ve been doing a lot of figuring.”

  “Well, yes, of course.”

  “So I was thinking about asking you some questions about how necromancy is used in this, uh, ‘platform.’”

  He stared at me. “Where did you hear that term?”

  “Platform?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, that’s what it is, isn’t it?”

  He took a step back. “Why have you come?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “Don’t—” He cut himself off. There’s a limit to how forcefully you can give orders to someone who’s just shown you a Great Weapon. He tried again. “I don’t know. But I’m curious.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Short version: I’m here by accident, and I’d like to leave.”

  Yeah, I was lying. I do that sometimes. The idea was to keep him talking. What I’d have done if he’d shown me, say, a secret way out that worked, I don’t know. But he didn’t. “I could teleport you out,” he said.

  “No, you couldn’t.”

  He frowned and studied me. “Oh. Yes. I see. Well, if you remove—”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “All right,”
he said.

  “I just need to figure out how this platform works.”

  “If you don’t know how it works, how do you know it’s a platform?”

  “Uh, I guessed?”

  He waited. I suppose I could have intimidated him. I mean, I had the means. But he’d just finished solving a problem for me, and threatening him seemed like bad form. I suppose carrying Lady Teldra around for so long has had an effect on me.

  “So,” I said. “A trade, then? I answer your question, you answer mine?”

  He barely hesitated. “Answer mine first.”

  “All right. Tethia told me.”

  “Who?”

  Had there been a flicker of shock at the name that he’d covered up like a professional? I wasn’t sure, so for now I played it straight. “She called herself Tethia. Obviously a Vallista.”

  “I don’t know her.”

  “She seemed to be a ghost.”

  “A ghost of whom? No, sorry, stupid question. Where did you see her?”

  “No, no. My turn. What do the mirrors do?”

  “They reflect necromantic energy and redirect it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “My turn. Where did you see this ghost?”

  “I walked in the front door, and on my right was a small antechamber that let into a room that had a great view of the ocean-sea that should have been on the other side. She was there.”

  “When you were in the room, did you experience—”

  “I think it’s my turn now.”

  He closed his mouth, then nodded. “What do you want to know, exactly?”

  “How does this place exist? Why do doors go where they can’t go and take me to places they shouldn’t? How was it built? And why is the kitchen empty?”

  “That’s a lot of questions.”

  I shrugged. “Pick one.”