by Steven Brust
“The Merss family?”
“Yes. The ones who weren’t killed yesterday.”
“But they left years ago.”
“I know. Why?”
“I don’t know. It was years ago. Before I was born. I just heard about it.”
“What did you hear?”
“They were the last of the followers of the dark way.”
“What do followers of the dark way do that followers of the light way don’t?”
“They practiced forbidden magic.”
“What magic is forbidden?”
“They summoned demons.”
As far as I could tell, she actually believed that. She was a witch, and she believed that. How can you practice the Art and yet remain so ignorant of it? It was nonsense, of course. There are such things as demons, and, yes, they can be summoned, but not by witchcraft. To summon a demon requires breaking through the barriers that separate realities—and no, that makes no more sense to me than it does to you, unless you happen to have studied necromancy, in which case you know a lot more about this stuff than I do so why are you asking me? But the point is, the art of the witch is simply to use the energy of the mind to manipulate probabilities, and there are strictly limited ways in which that can be done. Yeah, one time I caused a small object to be transported to me from thousands of miles away using witchcraft, and I know you aren’t supposed to be able to do that, either; but that is a lot different from bending the entire shape of reality within a given space to make a rift in something that doesn’t exist in the first place.
Besides, I was desperate that time. I don’t want to think about it.
What mattered here wasn’t whether the “dark” witches had actually done this, what mattered was that this woman thought they could. And this whole “dark” and “light” business had a smell to it that reminded me a lot of the mill—meaning it stank, if that was too subtle for you. The dark way? The light way? Who thinks like that? Who sees the world in those terms? It isn’t something to be believed by anyone with any sense, it’s something to convince the gullible of.
Which was the answer, wasn’t it? Someone was trying to put one over on a lot of people. And, to judge from this woman, it was working.
So, then, why? In whose interest was it to believe that there were a group of people with this sort of power? Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to sell one hell of a big lie, and there had to be a reason for it.
And my family had been the casualty of a big lie; at least, those who hadn’t gotten out—
“Wait, you said they left before you were born?”
She nodded.
“I thought they had only left ten or fifteen years ago.”
“Oh, them. I don’t think they were witches. They just left because, well, because having the name Merss isn’t easy around here. I think they went to the City. It wasn’t me!” she said suddenly, looking frightened again. “I mean, I didn’t do anything to them, or even say anything about them. It was the others, you know.”
“What about the ones who were witches?”
“They left the country. Some say they went West to sell their souls to the elfs.”
Yeah, some would say that.
“And the ones who were killed—who did it?”
“I don’t know!” She sounded close to panic.
“I’m not accusing you. But you must have an idea, a theory. You heard about it, you must have had a thought about who it was.”
She shook her head.
Was there any way to get more information out of her? Probably not. I could spend an hour getting her calmed down and she still wouldn’t want to name anyone. And if I applied pressure, she’d be much more likely to lie than to point the finger at someone who deserved it. That still might be useful information, though. I was in a sort of mood to apply pressure anyway, just for the satisfaction of seeing someone sweat. But I had something to do, and I’d get more pleasure out of squeezing when I knew it was the right person being squeezed.
Which brought me back to the point that this woman might well know who that was, if only I could find a way to convince her to tell me. Without spending all night at it. Damn, damn, damn.
“Are you going to kill me?”
I realized that I’d been standing there for quite a while, not saying anything. “No,” I said. “The Coven, where does it meet?”
“East of town, in the woods. I don’t know exactly. We come to a place near the creek, then they blindfold us and take us one at a time.”
Yeah, they would.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m done with you. Feel free to tell anyone you want about my visit, and about the questions I asked. No doubt someone will be angry and some people will come after me. When they do, I’ll kill them. Then I’ll come back and kill you. If you think that’s a good argument for keeping your mouth shut, you’re probably right, but it’s up to you. In any case, I would suggest you remain here and not leave the house or make a sound for at least an hour or so, but that’s also up to you. Meanwhile, rest well.”
I put my knife away and walked out of the room. The fellow on the floor was now snoring. I gave serious consideration to kicking him, but didn’t; I went past him, out the door, and into the star-studded night of Fenario.
“Well, Loiosh?”
“Well, what, Boss? If you want to summon a demon, I’m afraid you’re on your own.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I’m up for that. That was a lot of information. I have to think about it, about what it means. If anything. Loiosh, didn’t Sethra once say something about a lie being temporary? How did she put it?”
“I don’t remember. But, Boss, I don’t think the lie is your problem.”
“No, I guess not. It’s just another thing to add to the list. It’s getting to be a pretty long list, Loiosh. And I am going to find out the name that needs to go at the top of it.”
“Left here. There, that light on your right is the inn.”
I made it back without mishap. I had to bang on the door to convince the host to let me in. I could have picked the lock in the dark, but I had no interest in letting it be known that I could do that. He glowered at me as he opened the door; I gave him a warm smile and went past him up to my room, where I stripped off my outer garments, and threw myself onto the bed. The last thing I remember was Loiosh and Rocza, perched next to each other on the chair, twining their necks around each other. It reminded me of something painful, but I fell asleep before I could remember exactly what it was.
9
B O R A A N Nothing is confusing once the facts are assembled and the proper conclusions drawn.
L E F I T T Nonsense, darling. All the facts and conclusions about a confusing situation simply confirm the confusion.
B O R A A N You think so?
L E F I T T I’m afraid I do, though I do hate to dispute your lovely epigram.
B O R A A N Your lovely epigram, my dear. I was quoting you during the affair of the Fisherman’s Lamp.
L E F I T T Yes, my love, only I said it after we had solved the crime.
—Miersen, Six Parts Water
Day Two, Act II, Scene 3
I’d forgotten to close the shutters again, and so woke with the Furnace burning painfully into my eyes. I cursed for a little while, then got up and closed them, because it is better to close the shutters than curse the light, or however that goes. I tried to sleep some more but it didn’t take.
I dressed and went downstairs for coffee. The host’s wife was behind the bar, and she gave me a look that indicated she wouldn’t have been there if her husband hadn’t been woken up in the middle of the night to let me into the inn. But she didn’t say anything, so I kept my thoughts on the subject to myself and just drank my coffee: bitter on the tongue, but it works just as well as good klava when it hits the belly. That’s the difference, I guess: klava is a pleasure, coffee is merely physic.
Pretty effective physic, though. As it started working, my attitude got a little better—or, rat
her, less bad—and when I got some toasted bread and cheese from her I tipped her well. This cheese, unlike what I’d had last night, turned out to be sharp and musky and neither crumbly nor salty, which I could have considered a reward from the gods for my generosity. I fed some to Loiosh and Rocza, who seemed to agree with my preference.
“Got a plan for today, Boss?”
“Part of one. I’m going to sit here and find out if our friend from last night kept her mouth shut.”
“What if she didn’t?”
“Then I will engage in acts of violence and mayhem.”
“Oh, good. I’ve been missing those.”
A little later the host came down and walked up to me. For a minute, I thought I was going to be evicted, and wondered how I’d respond, but he put a folded and sealed paper in front of me, saying, “This arrived for you from His Lordship,” and stalked off with no other remarks.
I opened it. In four times as many words as it should have taken, it told the “Daylord” (whatever that might mean) to see that I was given full access to the mill and treated with all courtesy due to an honored friend of &c &c and to the boat crew to provide, to and from, transportation such as was available and befitting &c &c.
“Well, there it is, Boss. We going to visit it today?”
“Maybe. Not right away.” I folded up the paper and put it away for later consideration.
I drank enough coffee to convince myself that no group of enraged citizens or dour law-enforcement officials were going to charge into the inn with the intention of pulling me out to face justice for my criminal actions of the night before. I think I was relieved.
“Okay,” I said. “That’s enough. Let’s take a walk.”
“Anywhere in particular?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there.”
“That means no, which means we’re going to the dock.”
“Shut up.”
I headed for the dock, and stood looking out at the mill, churning away, smoke rising and dissipating and meandering off to the northeast. The smell wasn’t quite as bad today. I wondered if there were people living to the northeast, and how they were liking the breeze about now.
“What is, Boss?”
“Hmm?”
“You muttered ‘trap.’”
“Oh, did I?”
The mill across the river was squat and long and built of stone, and I didn’t see one single Verra-be-damned window in the place.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know if it is, but it looks like one.”
“I see what you mean. Let’s not go there.”
“Not until we know more, anyway.”
It was well before noon, and the Furnace cast long shadows of the houses to my left. My grandfather had once mentioned something called “Shadowreading,” which involved somehow seeing portents and omens in the shape of shadows of various objects at certain times. I never learned much about it, because he thought it was nonsense.
I wondered what he’d tell me about this. He approved of the idea of me finding out something about my mother; I know because he said so, and because he gave me that note. But I’d dearly love to hear his thoughts on “light” and “dark” forms of the Art, and all of the strange politics of this place.
He’d tell me not to be distracted by the shadows, but to concentrate on the target. And I’d tell him that all I could see were the shadows. And he’d point out that shadows need a light source, and a real object to define the shape.
Well, okay, Noish-pa. I’ll describe the shadows, and you tell me what object has a shape like that, eh? We have a Count who owns a paper mill. We have a family killed because I was asking questions about them. We have a coachman killed because he answered the questions. We have Dahni, who carries on conversations in the dark and wants to recruit me to his side, but won’t say which side is his, or even what the sides are. We have Orbahn, in the bright blue vest, who gives me vague hints and warnings and then vanishes. We have a Merchants’ Guild that runs the entire town, and the rest of the county too, for all I know, and may or may not be tied into bizarre customs of witchcraft, one of which forbids the summoning of demons, which, in turn, is impossible to begin with. Which parts are shadow, and what is casting them, Noish-pa?
I paced, and stared at the mill across the river, and listened to water lap against the dock. As I stood there, the Furnace rose, and the shadows became shorter. It was becoming warm, and I thought about going back to the inn and getting a lighter cloak, but transferring even those few surprises I still carried with me seemed like too much work. I really wanted someone to attack me, so I could hit something and watch it bleed. The sight of the Merss farm, burned and smoking, fixed itself in my mind’s eye, superimposed over the river and the smoking mill.
A sort of boat—long and ungainly—set out from the mill and began to work its way downriver, mostly drifting with the current. There were two or three figures on it, though what they were doing I couldn’t say. I watched it until it was out of sight, then turned my back on the river.
A few women, some with babes, went into shops along the street; a few children played here and there. Everything looked innocent. Whatever was going on, it was well concealed.
Damn this town. Damn this country.
All right, then.
I could allow myself a certain amount of moaning and complaining and wishing the world were something other than it is, but enough is enough. Besides, I had to tell myself to stop feeling sorry for myself before Loiosh got around to it.
Sometimes if you can find a thread, you can take it and start following it to see where it leads. When I thought about it, I realized that the trouble wasn’t lack of threads, but rather too many. So: Pick one, grab hold, see where it goes, and hope someone tries to stop me because that will give me someone to take my frustrations out on.
Dahni.
He’d come out of nowhere, in the middle of the night, talking in all sorts of vague circumlocutions. He wanted me to do something but wouldn’t say what it was: therefore, he knew something, and I needed to know it.
“Loiosh.”
“Dahni’s house, Boss? Keep a watch on it?”
“Yep.”
“On my way.”
I could have gone back to the inn and waited there, but I was getting tired of the bloody place; and besides, I had the feeling that the host and I were reaching the point where something would happen, and unless he turned out to be a key player in all of this (after all, anyone might be), that would just be a waste of perfectly good violence. So I went over to the west side of a warehouse a few steps from where I’d been watching the mill, squatted down in its shade, and waited.
After about half an hour, Loiosh said, “Either he isn’t here, or he’s asleep. I haven’t heard a sound.”
“All right. Stay with it.”
That’s how I spent the morning and the afternoon. Well, how Loiosh spent it; I was able to run off and get some bread and sausage, whereas he was stuck there. I mention this because Loiosh did. Repeatedly. I gave Rocza some sausage and sent her to Loiosh, but this just barely diminished the remarks I was getting. When Rocza returned she seemed amused, which meant that either I was finally beginning to get some level of rapport with her, or I was imagining things. I’d call it fifty-fifty.
But for the most part, I just sat there, under the shade, watching nothing happen in several directions. This time, there wasn’t a friendly tag showing up to offer me her services and sell me information. Information aside, I’d have welcomed the distraction.
As it got toward evening the wind shifted, now coming directly at me from the mill. You can imagine how pleased I was about that. But then half an hour or so later it shifted again, now blowing back toward the mountains, which doesn’t make sense, but I’ve never claimed to understand weather.
Loiosh wanted to know how long he was going to have to sit there. So did I, which answer pleased him about as much as you’d expect. We were getting on each other’s nerves, I guess; which
is surprising only when you consider how rarely it had happened over the years. I was aware of it, and tried not to push things; for his part, he did his job.
There was still plenty of light left in the day when he said, “Here he is, Boss. Just coming home.”
“Walking?”
“Nope. A small coach and two, Boss. Unmarked.”
“Hmm. Means nothing.”
“Boss? I think I recognize the guy driving it.”
“Give me a look. Ah. Good one, chum.”
“Who—?”
“Can’t really see the red hair in this light, but he was one of the Count’s men-at-arms outside the manor.”
“Okay, Boss. Now what?”
“Now I get to say ‘ah ha.’”
“Good. Say it. Then you can explain what it means.”
“I haven’t gotten that far yet. One ah-ha at a time.”
“I’m just saying, it doesn’t prove he’s working for the Count. He might have been on an errand to—”
“I know. But it’s something to start with.”
“Sure, Boss. Do I watch for Dahni to leave again, or are you visiting him at home?”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Boss, you might want to wait until full dark; it’s awfully exposed here. Lots of shacks in the same place, all looking at each other, and people coming and going.”
“You know that leaves you stuck there watching until I can make it?”
He sighed into my mind, which I took as a yes, so I settled back to wait some more. Presently, as the darkness came, the docks across the river began to come to life as the boatmen prepared to bring the mill workers back to this side of the river. I wondered why none of them seemed to have built houses on that side, and saved themselves the trip twice a day. Maybe because of the stench, or because the Count forbade it. The latter was more likely.