by Steven Brust
I looked back through the window, and it seemed to be moving—or, more accurately, it seemed as if we were moving. My knees suddenly felt wobbly and I didn’t like it. I looked at Morrolan again, and he was still staring intently through the window. He was making aimless gestures with his hands, and there were beads of sweat on his forehead.
The mountain appeared to rush at us, and I actually felt a falling sensation. I stepped backward and looked for something to brace against. Then it slowed and stopped, and just outside the window, so close I could touch it, was a dirt path leading to a cave that looked to be about forty feet away.
My heart was still racing. I glanced at Morrolan, who now seemed entirely relaxed; only his breathing showed that he had recently exerted himself.
“What’s going on?” I managed.
“We’re going to ask—”
“We?”
“—our questions of someone who might know the answers.”
“Why ‘we’? What am I doing here?”
“Just in case.”
“I thought you said there’d be no danger.”
“I don’t expect there will be.”
He stepped through the window, and just like leaving an ordinary window of an ordinary house, he stood on the ground outside, on a rocky path, about forty feet from the entrance to a cave. I sent a suspicious look at the cave. I’ve never been that fond of caves at the best of times.
“But,” continued Morrolan, “it never hurts to have an extra blade along just in case. They can be unpredictable.”
“Who is they?”
“The Serioli,” he said. “Come on.”
“Wonderful,” I muttered, and stepped through the window.
INTERLUDE: MANEUVERS
Some things you do, you never seem to be done with; years later they come back and remind you, slap you, beat you up. Here I am telling a story of what happened years ago, trying to remember how I felt back then, and—well, forgive the digression, but it belongs here.
Just today, Sethra the Younger returned from exile (Sethra Lavode exiled her off the world a few weeks ago in punishment for, well, never mind what for) and sent word asking me to wait upon her. I don’t like her, she doesn’t like me, and I couldn’t imagine how this could be anything good. And there would be no reason for me to go if I had steered clear of Dragonlords and their business, but since Baritt died I’ve surrounded myself with them, and now I’m in love with a woman who used to associate with Norathar, who is Dragon Heir to the throne. All of which made it difficult to decline the invitation.
Sorry for the confusion—but that’s what happens when you start in the past and the present comes up and bites you. And it’s what happens when you hang around with Dragonlords. I’d always thought of Dragons, above all, as simple and straightforward—if something gets in your way, you draw and charge and keep hacking until either it’s gone or you are. This is another thing I was wrong about. Watching Sethra put together her campaign, arranging for supplies to be where they were needed, anticipating movements and preparing possible countermarches, guiding her intelligence services—well, okay, war is more complex than I’d thought, so I suppose recounting it has to be complex as well.
“What in blazes could Sethra the Younger want of me, other than my life, which I’m not prepared to part with!”
“Couldn’t say, Boss. But you know you’re going to go find out, so why not admit it?”
There wasn’t much answer to that, so I went ahead and made the arrangements, responding through proper channels, and arrived at Castle Black, where she is staying. We met in one of Morrolan’s sitting rooms. She is odd; her features remind me quite a bit of Sethra Lavode’s but all done in pastels, and Sethra the Younger was without the terrifying sense of agelessness and power; nevertheless, she has her own aura—a ruthlessness and lust for power that one might expect in a Jhereg.
She tried not to be obvious about how much she disliked me, but casual conversation was beyond her.
“The sword,” she began abruptly.
“What sword?” I asked.
“You know damned well—” She stopped, swallowed, and began again. “The sword that was recovered at the Wall of Baritt’s Tomb.”
I admired the way she put that. “Was recovered.” Whatever it was she wanted, it wasn’t enough to make her admit … oh, skip it.
“What about it?” I said.
“I have it,” she said.
“I know,” I told her. “I didn’t realize it at the time because I didn’t know you. But I figured out who you were later. It’s funny you should bring this up just now—”
“If you please, Lord Taltos,” she said, as if addressing me by title made her lips hurt.
“Yes?”
She looked at Loiosh, riding complacently on my shoulder, then looked away. I heard Loiosh chuckling within my mind.
I thought about baiting her some more, just because this conversation was so obviously distasteful to her, but I refrained, mostly because I was curious. “All right,” I said. “What does this have to do with me?”
“I want you to act as intermediary for me with the Lady Aliera.”
“You want me … wait a minute.” I couldn’t decide which question to ask first. I settled on, “Why me?”
“Aliera doesn’t care for me much.”
“Well, come to that, neither do I. So?”
“Negotiations should be handled by a third party.”
“Then why not Morrolan? Or Sethra?”
“As for Sethra Lavode, I believe she is still sufficiently vexed with me that I cannot ask her for a favor. And Aliera’s relationship with Morrolan is such that she will automatically react with hostility to anything he suggests.”
That much was true. But—“What makes you think I have any interest in doing you a service?”
She looked startled. “Oh, I’m not asking you for a service.”
“You’re not?”
“No, no. I intend to pay you.”
I carefully controlled my reaction. “I see. Well, what is this negotiation about?”
“The sword, of course.”
“Excuse me?”
“I want to offer her the sword we recovered from Fornia in exchange for Kieron’s greatsword.”
That threw me. I sat there for a minute, trying to figure out what it all meant, and then, to kill time as much as because I was curious, I said, “So far as I know, the sword we recovered from Fornia has nothing special about it. At least, insofar as any Morganti weapon has nothing special about it. Why do you think she’d be interested?”
“You know as well as I that there is more to the sword than that. If I don’t know precisely what, that is because, well, that is because I have not yet taken the time to find out.”
Because you aren’t up to the job? I thought to myself. But that wasn’t fair, of course. Several people, including Fornia, hadn’t been up to the job. But it pleased me that, after snatching it, she hadn’t been able to solve the problem either. I speculated that she’d been too proud to ask Sethra Lavode for help, but I had no way of knowing; maybe the Enchantress of Dzur Mountain had drawn a blank, too.
What I said was, “What would you do with Kieron’s greatsword?”
I could see her trying to decide if I deserved an answer. At last she said, “Conquer the East. It would be a tremendous symbol for the leader of—”
“Spare me,” I said.
She cleared her throat. “Yes, certainly. But you must see, you are the perfect choice. She trusts you, and even has some bizarre affection for you. And you could put it in terms that would make her see the mutual advantages. I don’t know what the going rates are for such a service, but I have sufficient means to—where are you going?”
“To drink seawater. It’ll leave a better taste in my mouth than this conversation. Excuse me.”
And that was what Sethra the Younger wanted to see me about. It is, you see, all part of the same picture. It is not a picture I’d care to have
on my wall.
Which doesn’t keep me from continuing to paint it.
7
WHAT WAS THE QUESTION?
Loiosh said, “No one’s noticed you, yet.”
“Good.”
I trotted to the top of the hill and took a good look around. The field on which my messmates were fighting was behind me, and farther behind me was the Wall; a long way off to my right was a match of cavalry against cavalry, and to my left was a company of bad guys marching at quicktime. They might be reinforcements coming to attack my own unit; I couldn’t tell yet, and didn’t want to wait around to find out. Ahead of me, about two hundred yards away, was a slightly higher hill, and on it was a body of soldiers, I guessed around twenty or thirty, standing alert and, I was fairly certain, protecting the sorcerers, in the center of whom would likely be what I was after.
“Okay, Loiosh. Forward at a march.”
“You march, Boss. Ill just sort of hang around.”
“Or you could fly overhead and let me know if you see Ori in that group.”
“Whatever you say, Boss.”
He left my shoulder. I headed toward the hill, wishing I had some sort of plan. But, after all, there were only twenty or thirty of them; what was there to worry about?
I’d covered about a hundred and fifty yards when Loiosh said, “They’ve noticed you, Boss.”
“Great.”
I kept moving, because stopping would have been worse, although I didn’t enjoy it. I was, not to put too fine a point on it, terrified. My brain was working hard trying to come up with what to say, what to do that would not only leave me alive but let me finish what I set out to do, but each step took an effort, as if my feet had their own idea and wanted me to stop and reconsider the whole idea of forward motion.
I’d had the same reaction, now that I thought about it, to stepping through Morrolan’s window; I hadn’t wanted to go, but I did. And both times, in a way, I was driven by the same thing: the desire not to look craven in front of a Dragon. Why should I care? There’s another mystery.
I knew, as I stepped through that window, that if I looked around there would be no window behind me, but I had to look anyway. No, there was no window; there was, instead, a breathtaking view of three mountain peaks, laid out as if they had been built just for how they looked from where I stood. Two of them were capped with snow, stretching out before me, too far away to pick out details. There was a purple sheen to them, and it took a moment to realize I was looking down on them. Then I noticed the sharpness of the air, and the fresh tang. I pulled my cloak closer around me.
“Let’s go, Vlad.”
“I’m admiring nature,” I said, but I turned and followed him up the path.
I bent my head as we entered the cave—I suppose from some odd instinct, because it was large enough for Morrolan to enter unbowed, which he did.
The light failed quickly; after ten paces I could no longer see. Morrolan and I stopped and he made a light spell that caused a radiance to shine out from his hand, not too strong to look at but very bright wherever he pointed. We continued. The cave became narrower and the ceiling lower. “Watch your head,” he suggested.
“Notice anything odd, Boss?”
“No, Loiosh, it seems just like every other time I used a necromantic window to step through onto the top of a mountain and walk into a dark cave to meet someone of a half-legendary magical race. What are you talking about?”
“What do you smell?”
“Ah. Okay, point. I owe you a fish head.”
What I smelled was brimstone. What it meant I couldn’t say, but I doubted it was a natural smell in that cave, at least as strong as it was. I glanced at Morrolan, walking steadily and emitting light from his hand. I could read nothing from his expression.
About fifty paces in from the mouth, the cave abruptly ended in a natural-looking wall that could not have been natural. Morrolan stood there, frowning at it, and I said, “What now?”
“I am uncertain of the custom,” he said. “Whether we should wait or—”
There was a rattling sound, as of pebbles rolling on metal, followed by a low rumble, and a portion of the wall before us gave back, showing a narrow stone stairway heading downward.
“I think waiting is appropriate,” I said.
He began going down the stairs.
There were only twenty steps, and those shallow, until they reached another stone doorway, this one standing open, and we continued, walking on flagstones that echoed sharply. The hall was narrow and the ceiling low; I took a certain pleasure in seeing Morrolan walk with his head bowed. The smell of brimstone grew even stronger.
“I wonder what’s for dinner?” said Loiosh.
The hall ended without ceremony, leaving us in a nearly circular cavern about forty feet in diameter. The walls were rough and cave-like, the floor polished smooth, and the ceiling just high enough for Morrolan to stand straight. There was no furniture of any kind. A short person stood at the far end, looking at us with what would have been an expression of curiosity in a human or a Dragaeran. We approached until we were about six feet away, and then stopped. The being was skinny and ugly, wore what appeared to be blue and red silks in the form of layers of scarves, and as far as I could see, had no hair whatsoever.
He—I thought he looked like a he—gave no courtesy, but spoke abruptly, in a pleasant, flutey voice. His accents fell in odd, almost random places, and there was a certain clipped quality to his consonants, but there was no difficulty understanding him. He addressed Morrolan with the words, “Greetings, brother. Who are your friends?”
“Did you hear that, Boss? Friends?”
“Shut up, Loiosh.”
“Good day to you,” said Morrolan, adding a sound at the end that was either the last cough from a man with Juiner’s Lung or the name of the Serioli we faced. “His name—your pardon—the Easterner’s name is Vlad Taltos, the Jhereg is called Loiosh.”
“You don’t mention the fourth, because we’ve met already; but why do you leave out the fifth? Because she is not altogether here?”
Morrolan frowned and looked at me. I gave him a helpless shrug. I said, “I take it you two have met before?”
“Once,” said Morrolan. “Far from here, but he told me where to find him.”
There was a story there, but Morrolan wasn’t much given to storytelling, and now wasn’t the time to ask. I studied the Serioli, the only one I’d ever seen, and tried not to look as if I was staring. He wasn’t so polite; he was looking at me, and at Loiosh, as if an odd specimen of vegetation had just occurred in his garden and he wasn’t certain if it were flower or weed.
His complexion was very pale, almost albino, and his face was more wrinkled than my grandfather’s. His hair was thin, wispy, and white, his eyes a pale, watery blue.
Morrolan said, “Who is the fifth?”
“Who indeed,” said the Serioli, nodding sagaciously, as if Morrolan had said something wise.
Morrolan glanced at me again as if wondering if I had any idea what the Serioli was talking about. I shrugged with my eyebrows.
“You don’t understand?” said our host. “How droll. But leave it for now.”
“We’ve brought wine,” said Morrolan, which was news to me. “Would you care for some? It is from the East.”
“Grateful,” said the Serioli. “Shall we sit?”
Morrolan sat himself down on the floor, leaning against the wall, legs stretched out, looking absurd. I sat next to him, but I don’t know how I looked. Our companion walked around a wall that I hadn’t seen was there—it blended into the back of the cave—and emerged with three handsome wooden goblets. Morrolan produced a bottle of wine and glass-cloth from somewhere, broke off the neck with a practiced hand, spread the cloth, and poured. Then he hauled out some sweet biscuits wrapped in cloth and spread those out on the floor. I ate one. It was all right. I wondered if it was the custom among the Serioli for guests to bring the refreshments; I made a mental note to ask
Morrolan later, but I forgot.
I watched the Serioli eat and drink. I couldn’t tell for sure if he had any teeth, but I almost became convinced he had no bones in his arms. I thought he looked graceful, Loiosh thought he looked silly. What good these observations did is, of course, a perfectly valid, if inherently rhetorical, question.
“You’ve brought good wine,” said our host after eating and drinking for a few minutes. “And questions, too?”
“Yes,” said Morrolan. “We’ve brought questions, but first there’s the one we didn’t bring, but found waiting for us when we arrived.”
“Yes. You did not know of whom I was asking.” Then he looked at me with his head tilted and his funny little eyes narrowed. “And you, too. Or are there secrets I am giving away?”
“None that I know of,” I said. “Besides, I trust the Lord Morrolan completely as long as he has nothing to do with my business.”
The Serioli made a wheezing sound accompanied by his whole face pinching up; I assumed he was laughing. He spoke in his own language, a clicking, snapping sound that seemed like one long word full of consonants and digestive trouble; it flowed naturally from his face, as if he ought to speak like that. Morrolan chuckled.
I looked at Morrolan and said, “All of which meant?”
“Three can keep a secret if two are dead.”
I raised my glass to the Serioli, who said to Morrolan, “Let me then answer your question. You may be unaware of it, but by your side, descendent of Dragons, is—?” Here he croaked, coughed, and clicked something in his own language.
“Which means?” I said.
Morrolan answered, “Magical wand for creating death in the form of a black sword.”
“Oh,” I said. “Is that what it is?”
“Close,” said the Serioli. “I should not, however, translate it as ‘creating death.’” He paused, as if wanting to formulate the sentence before embarking on it. “It would be more precise to say ‘removing life-substance.’” He paused again, “Or perhaps ‘sending the life-substance to—’”