Vallista--A Novel of Vlad Taltos

by Steven Brust

  “You could jump down, Boss, and we could leave.”

  “Jump down, maybe. Probably even survive. But how am I going to leave with two broken ankles? I’ve heard about broken ankles. People tell me they aren’t all that pleasant. Besides, you know we aren’t going anywhere until we’ve solved Devera’s problem.”

  He sighed into my mind.

  Just for the sake of completeness, though, I walked up right to the edge and climbed onto the wall at a low point. Or, rather, I tried to—without any sensation of movement, I suddenly found myself back near the door I’d climbed up from. Huh. I tried it with the other walls, and the same thing happened.

  “See, Loiosh? Even if I wanted to—”

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  I had no idea what could produce that effect, but if the mirrors didn’t have something to do with it, I’d play my next game of s’yang stones without the flat ones.

  And it was there that it smacked me in the face, what should have been obvious from the beginning: yeah, Devera had spoken about “tomorrow-me,” which indicated that, eventually, she was going to get out. But that didn’t mean I was going to get out.

  I stood there on the roof thinking about that, then I tried one of those invisible barriers again, and the same thing happened: one step forward brought me back to the somewhere in the middle of the roof.

  It’s one thing to decide you don’t want to leave; it’s another to realize that you can’t.

  Loiosh and Rocza remained still while I digested that like a half-cooked pudding. Then I swore, and Loiosh agreed.

  We went back down. I closed the door behind me because I’m a good guy that way, then walked over to the other door and through it.

  I was in a wide corridor made of rough stone. There were two doorways on either side, with no doors, opening onto small rooms with nothing in them. Storage rooms, perhaps, but to store what, and why were they empty? It hit me that a lot of what was confusing me about this place is that parts of it seemed like they’d been lived in and gotten regular use for hundreds of years, and other parts seemed like they’d just been completed, and there was no pattern to it.

  On a sudden thought, I studied the ceiling, then the ceilings in those empty rooms. Where the ceiling in the hallway was stone, these were wood, and they were sagging and cracked in places. And, yes, there were the yellowish stains that said there’d been leakage. This part was old, older than anything else I’d seen, and it made even less sense than before. The floor in these small rooms—or rather, the ground—was just dirt.

  I continued forward.

  Have you ever wished some asshole with a sword would jump out of nowhere and try to kill you, just so you’d have a problem you knew how to solve? Me neither, but I was pretty close to it about then.

  There was another doorless doorway in front of me. I stepped through it into a decent-size room filled with large objects that at first I couldn’t make out. There wasn’t much light; what there was being provided by a couple of large crystals glowing in the corners of—

  I smiled.

  “We found the wine cellar.”

  “You aren’t going to ask why we’re suddenly in a cellar?”

  “No, too busy being pleased about the discovery. I may steal a bottle. I may steal two bottles.”

  “Stealing is a crime, Boss.”

  “Good point.”

  It looked to be about a five-thousand-bottle cellar, which is pretty good as such things go. I’d always wanted a wine cellar. I’d never had five thousand bottles at the same time. I’d had five once. These bottles were covered in dust. People generally don’t dust very often in their wine cellars, but even by those standards, there was a lot. This place hadn’t seen much use in a long, long time.

  Which meant, hey, they’d never miss a bottle, right?

  I pulled out the one closest to me. By chance, it was a Khaav’n, one of my favorites. I read the date on the label and translated it to a time just past the end of the Interregnum, two and a half centuries ago. You’d think no wine could last that long, but you’d be wrong: the sorcery to let wine age to its most perfect moment, then keep it there indefinitely is, in my opinion, the Dragaerans’ greatest, perhaps only, contribution to culture.

  Now, if I’d only had wine tongs.

  Someday, I’d meet someone with a good, elegant way to remove the top of a wine bottle, and I’d kiss him.

  But in the meantime, the old-fashioned methods work best. I went over to the nearest wall, gripped the bottle, and struck the top of it a quick, sharp blow. It came off pretty clean; I’d gotten good at this over the years.

  I smiled, sniffed the wine, stopped smiling. Just to be sure, I poured a drop on my finger and tasted it. No, I wouldn’t be drinking that. I tossed the bottle aside. It didn’t break, it just rolled and glugged. I tried another bottle. Same variety, same year. I smashed the neck and sniffed. Same thing.

  I moved over a shelf and pulled out a white Morofin, about ten years more recent, this one marked by Zerika’s reign, rather than the pre-Interregnum numbering. It was bad too. I searched some more, found a Stathin, what I would call a brandy but Dragaerans call wine because they’re idiots. One sniff, and I felt like a crime had been committed. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a Stathin, but this was a crime. I sighed.

  “Okay, Loiosh. What did it?”

  “Boss? Have I just been promoted to wine expert?”

  As mysteries go, I guess this one wasn’t all that exciting; spells do fail every now and then. It’s just that with everything else, it made me suspicious. But there was no good way to figure it out now. Maybe I’d find Discaru again, and ask if he’d done the spell, and if so, why he was so bad at it. That was bound to work out well.

  There are things I’ve gotten good at over the years, like saffron rice with kethna dumplings, roasted fowl with plum sauce, and killing people. I guess figuring out what made weird houses weird was something I’d have to work on. Bugger. What was I missing?

  I tried to make myself pay attention to what the floor was like, to smells, to the dimensions of a room, to lighting, and any furniture or objects that might hold useful information. But it was hard, and mentally exhausting in a way I wasn’t used to.

  I considered knocking over the racks just out of spite, but there might be a good bottle in there somewhere.

  “Boss?”

  “It’s all right, Loiosh. Just need to regroup, re-form the line, and prepare for another charge.”

  “What, now you’re a soldier again?”

  “Don’t you miss those days? Just a little?”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Yeah, neither do I.”

  Well, standing here wouldn’t do anything. I tapped Lady Teldra’s hilt and shifted my cloak a little. I’d figure things out later. For now, onward. The far end of the room had a doorway, and about halfway there, on the other side, there were three steps leading up to something I couldn’t see clearly. I went that way, scowling at the four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-six worthless bottles, and up to the steps. What they ended in was one of those freight doors, installed at an angle, so the top was above me and the bottom was in front of me. It seemed to open out (which was good, because otherwise opening it would have given me a sharp knock on the head), but the odd part was that there seemed to be no lock. There were double iron loops, as if for a padlock, and there were brackets that looked like a bar would go there, but neither lock nor bar was to be seen.

  I took hold of the door and pushed, and—nothing. Not even a hint of give, as if I were pushing into solid stone. Could it be stone? How could I know? If rooms were on the wrong side, and up took you down, and a stairway deposited you into some random place, how are you supposed to tell where you are relative to the land the building is set on?

  I tried a couple more times, then gave up. I continued to the far end of the wine cellar, then through the doorway and into a very large empty room, which I guess was there in case anyone needed a big empty room
for something. There were four pillars in it, evenly spaced, all of them made of the same stone as the floor and walls.

  “Loiosh, does it seem like we’ve gone down a lot? Like, we’re below ground level?”

  “Rocza was just saying the same thing, Boss. She picks up on that stuff faster than me. Better ears.”

  Well, sure. Why shouldn’t a step forward have taken us underground?

  “How deep?”

  “She isn’t good with measurement, Boss, but I think not too far. We’re still above sea level.”

  I nodded and continued forward, going slowly, looking around. There wasn’t much to see. My feet kicked up dust, but it looked different from the dust upstairs, lighter, chalkier. I was pretty sure that meant nothing at all, but I felt proud to have noticed. To the left, my boots were getting dusty. That warlock, Laszló, he didn’t have dusty boots.

  There was something green on the far wall. And as I got closer, there was a reek in the air. Not strong, but definite, like rotting vegetation. Once, when I was about six and decided that re-forming produce boxes into a castle was a better idea than mulching the garbage, my father had dragged me to a place where a pile of garbage had collected and pushed my face into it so I would understand how he did not want his kitchen to smell, ever. I hadn’t forgotten that odor.

  I continued back toward it. The smell got stronger, but not intolerable. When I reached the end I was able to deduce what caused the smell of rotting vegetation: there was a bunch of rotting vegetation. Vines that looked like they’d once been creeping up the wall, what looked like the remains of stunted trees complete with dead leaves around them, and dead plants that I’m sure I could have identified if they’d been alive and I knew anything about plants.

  I stood there, looked, sniffed, tried to figure it out. No, I was hardly an expert, but I was pretty sure these things had been alive less than a year ago. Probably a couple of months ago.

  “Great, Loiosh. Another mystery, because we don’t have enough.”

  “Maybe this is where they grew all the food they didn’t have in the kitchen.”

  “Clever, but it doesn’t address the mystery.”

  “What mystery is that? You mean, what killed everything?”

  “The mystery isn’t how they died, it’s how they lived.”

  “What?”

  “Those things don’t grow indoors.”

  “Oh.”

  “So this place, this platform wasn’t built here, it appeared.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  I wanted to ask Sethra Lavode if it were possible to teleport a building. For one thing, she’d know; for another, I’d treasure the look on her face. But I wasn’t wholly ignorant. I had some skill in sorcery. And from what I knew, no. I mean, sure, it was possible in theory to teleport a building, but in practice, the balance it would be necessary to maintain, and the details it would be necessary to manipulate, and the power it would be necessary to hold, just, no, I didn’t think even Sethra could manage it.

  But if it hadn’t been teleported here, or built here, then—what?

  I scowled at the walls and ceiling. Every question I answered brought up two more. It was getting old.

  In the far right corner was a doorway, and I could just see the beginning of a stairway, and a mirror hanging loosely from a torch bracket.

  I glared at the mirror.

  Could I really fix this thing and release Devera—and myself—just by smashing a few mirrors? I didn’t know if that would work, but it was time to find out.

  I let a dagger fall into my hand, flipped it, took a grip so the pommel was sticking between my first two fingers, and punched the nearest mirror.

  The shock went up my arm, to my elbow and my shoulder.

  I dropped the dagger and shook my hand.

  “Boss?”

  “I’m okay. I just wish I hadn’t done that.”

  Just like the windows, then. Someone had too much bloody magic. Or money. Or both.

  So much for that idea. I waited until my arm felt better, recovered my dagger, and approached the stairway. It seemed safe and normal. I climbed. There were torches burning on the walls, so at least I could see. The stairway wrapped around a couple of times, then let me off in a cave.

  “Rocza says we’re lower now, almost sea level.”

  “Of course we are. I just went up, why wouldn’t we be lower?”

  There was no light in the cave, but there was another burning torch right behind me.

  Why were there burning torches? Did some servant come and check them every so often? And if so, where were all the servants? I’d run into three, total. I cursed under my breath and grabbed the torch from its bracket.

  The cave was your basic rocky cave, but I could smell sea-water. A few steps later I determined that it was coming from the right, so I turned to the left.

  I followed the cave into the cliff for a long way without seeing anything but more cave in flickering torchlight.

  “Are we looking for something in particular, Boss?”

  “No, something in general.”

  The ground was hard and uneven, difficult to walk on. It would be even harder to fight on, so I hoped that wouldn’t come up. Not that I often hoped it would come up.

  “I mean, Boss, we’re no longer even in the house.”

  “That should make you happy. Why doesn’t it make you happy?”

  “Guess I’m getting hard to please.”

  Just after that the cave ended. There were no bones, or abandoned nests, or dens, or any other signs that there might once have been life here. I don’t know what kind of animals live in caves, but none of them had ever been here.

  I studied the walls, holding the torch close, and felt myself smile.

  “What?”

  “There are marks here, just where I thought there might be.”

  “So, when you said you weren’t looking for anything specific—”

  “I was lying. Ouch.”

  “Sorry, Boss. I slipped.”

  I wished I had some paper. I should start carrying a notebook, just in case I ever again find myself in a cave with a tenuous connection to a magical house, and I need to write down the obscure symbols carved into the rock. But I at least knew what they were, if not what they meant. They were sorcery runes, the kind of marks a sorcerer would use to help maintain concentration during difficult or complex spells. All sorcerers started that way, using them for even the simplest spells. It’s how you use the energy from the Orb without burning out your brain and destroying yourself, which would interfere with further lessons. I had often used them when teleporting, just to make sure I didn’t do something embarrassing. Expert sorcerers use them when doing something they find difficult. This specimen was one I’d never seen before.

  “How did you know it would be here, Boss?”

  The torch flared, then guttered for a moment. Time to go back. I took another good, long look at the runes, then turned around and started walking.

  “Because of the dead vegetation, of course.”

  “Want me to bite you again?”

  I chuckled. “If this house suddenly appeared, it was either purely random, or there had to be an anchor.”

  “Anchor?”

  “A way to magically connect to the manor’s previous location, so it could be brought here.”

  “So, you think it was teleported?”

  “I think necromancy, and wish I understood it better. But if you’re moving an object around among dimensions, then you need to establish a position so it doesn’t get lost. A tunnel into the side of the cliff would be perfect, because it would be fixed, out of the way by a good distance, and easily found. Loiosh, I’m so smart, sometimes—”

  “What about the torches?”

  “I’m still working on that.”

  I made my way to the stairway, hesitated, continued past it.

  After about twenty or thirty steps and a long curve, I saw daylight ahead. I walked out into it
and blinked. When my eyes had adjusted, I took a good look around. The mirror that had to be there was big, and fixed to the top of the cave with iron bars.

  Well.

  “Boss—”

  “I know. Let me think.”

  I didn’t so much think as remember.

  * * *

  “I have a question,” I announced to the Enchantress of Dzur Mountain.

  We were in the library of Castle Black: Sethra, Morrolan, and me. In a short time, my life would be turned upside down and my marriage would explode and I’d end up running for my life, but I didn’t know that, so life seemed pretty good. Aliera had just ducked out, muttering about important business, which meant she was visiting the necessary room or killing someone. Her leaving provided a break in the conversation, and let me ask about something I had been nervous asking about with her there. To wit: her daughter.

  “Oh?” said Sethra.

  “It’s about Aliera’s daughter. Devera.”

  “You’ve met her?” said Morrolan.

  “A few times.”

  Sethra nodded and looked very knowing, but then she always looked very knowing, possibly on account of knowing stuff. “What about her?”

  “Things she’s said make me wonder.…” I stopped, considered, reconsidered, and said, “Is it possible to teleport to a different time, instead of a different place?”

  “No,” said Sethra.

  “Okay, then.”

  Morrolan cleared his throat. Sethra looked at him, they exchanged some sort of communication, and Sethra shrugged and said, “I guess it can’t do any harm.”

  “Hmmm?”

  She turned back to me. “No, it is impossible to travel to a different time, as if one were traveling to a different place. We travel through time at a rate of one second each second, forward, and that’s that.”

  “I hear a ‘but’ coming on.”

  She nodded.

  “There are places that are—I don’t know how to say it. Warped, perhaps.”