I will not marry an acrobat,
I will not marry an acrobat,
He’d always think that I’m too fat.
Hi-dee hi-dee ho-la!
Step on out . . .
AT LAST VLAD BROKE the silence. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe I’m no better than your Baron. But all I know is that he’s killed someone who once helped me. And years ago he nearly destroyed a close friend of mine. And now he is cooperating with a Jhereg assassin who plans to kill me—”
It took a moment before Savn realized that when Vlad said Jhereg he meant the House, not the animals. Then Savn gasped. “What?”
“That’s what Fird told me, though I’d already guessed it. There’s an assassin staying with Baron Smallcliff at the manor house, and I don’t think he’s here because he likes linseed-flavored wine. The Baron is cooperating with the Jhereg to assassinate me.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Savn.
Vlad shrugged.
“Why would he do that?” said Savn.
“They both hate me; it makes sense that they’d work together.”
“The Jhereg hates you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Why?”
“I picked an unfortunate method of terminating my relationship with them.”
“What do you . . . you mean, you’re a Jhereg?”
“I used to be.”
“What did you do?”
Vlad took a deep breath and met Savn’s eyes. “I killed people. For money.”
Savn stared at him, but couldn’t think of anything to say.
“I reached a point where I couldn’t do it anymore, and I left. In the process, I killed someone important, and I threatened the House representative to the Empire—sort of like your Speaker. So now they want to kill me. I can’t really blame them, but I’m hardly going to cooperate, am I?”
“I don’t believe you,” said Savn.
“Then I doubt I can convince you. But don’t you wonder why the Baron attacked me?”
“Because you killed Reins—or because he thought you did.”
“Is that the way justice usually works around here? If someone is suspected of a crime, your Baron Smallcliff sends his soldiers to kill them? You’ll notice they made no effort to arrest me.”
“I don’t know,” said Savn. “I never said I understood everything. But I know His Lordship wouldn’t hire an assassin.”
“Not hire,” said Vlad. “Merely help.”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“Why is it that, just at the time I happen to be coming by, Loraan decides to leave his home and take up residence in his manor house, which just happens to be near the place I’m passing by? You think this has nothing to do with me?”
“I don’t know.”
“And then Reins dies, which is enough to keep me here—”
“I don’t believe you.”
Vlad sighed and shook his head. “Why does everyone only see what he wants to?”
Savn twitched, started to speak, then realized he had no answer. He sat on the floor of the cave, looking down.
At length, Vlad broke the silence. “What are you going to do?” he said.
“About what?” said Savn.
“I’d like to know if you plan to tell your Baron where I am, or perhaps the townspeople.”
“Oh. Well, you never told me your plans; why should I tell you mine?”
Vlad chuckled. “Well taken. Whatever you decide, you should probably get home soon.”
“What difference does it make?”
“I would think,” said Vlad, “that your Maener and Paener would be getting worried by now.”
Savn looked at him closely. “Is it that easy?”
“To undo? Yes. The spell, at any rate, is easy to undo. And there shouldn’t be any direct aftereffects.”
“What do you mean, ‘direct’?”
“I mean that they’ll probably figure out that they’ve been under a spell. I don’t know what that will do to them. Maybe nothing.”
Savn glanced at Polyi, who was staring at the ground and frowning.
“Do you want to go home?” Savn asked her.
She looked up. “Do you?”
“Not right now. I want to stay for a bit and—”
“See how it comes out?” said Vlad ironically.
Savn shrugged and asked Vlad, “What do you intend to do?”
“I’m not sure. It depends how much time I have. If I had to teleport right now, I might be able to. Then again, I might not. I’d rather not have to. If I can get a couple of days to recover, I’ll have the choice of getting out of here to someplace safer. If, on the other hand, I’m found, I’ll have to try to escape as best I can.”
“So your intention is to get out?”
“Oh, no. That’s only if I have no choice. You know very well what I want to do.”
“You’re crazy,” said Polyi. “You can’t kill His Lordship! No one can.”
Vlad shook his head. “I’m going to kill him. The only questions are when and how. If I can’t do it now, I’ll have to wait for a better time. But now would be best. I’d like to have it over and done with.”
“Heh,” said Polyi. “You won’t feel that way when it is over and done with.”
Savn knelt down next to Vlad and felt his forehead. He was relieved to find that it was still cool, though his face seemed a trifle flushed. Vlad watched him intently.
“How do you feel?” said Savn.
“Tired. Weak. Not bad other than that.”
“You should rest.”
“I doubt I can,” said Vlad. “There’s too much on my mind.”
Savn was suddenly and comically reminded of how he would explain to Maener that he was too excited about Pudding Morn to go to sleep, and how she would smile and tell him that he should just rest his eyes then, and how he would fall asleep. He said, “That’s all right, just close your eyes and—”
Vlad laughed. “Very good, Paener. I get the idea. Wake me if they come to kill me.”
He slid over to his blankets, threw one arm over his eyes, and, as far as Savn could tell, went instantly to sleep.
* * *
THEY WATCHED HIM SLEEP for an hour or two; then Savn decided they should talk. He whispered to Polyi, and she agreed, so he took a torch and guided her back through the cave until he was certain they were far enough away that Vlad couldn’t hear them.
“What should we do?” he said.
“I think we should go home,” said Polyi. “If Mae and Pae really are worried—”
“What will we tell them?”
“The truth,” said Polyi.
“Oh?”
She frowned. “Well, it isn’t our problem, is it? Savn, you heard him. Now we know he wants to kill His Lordship. I mean, we know he can’t, but what if he does?”
“Well,” said Savn. “What if he does?”
“We have to stop him, that’s all.”
“Do we?”
“You heard what he is. He’s an assassin. He kills people for money. He—”
“He used to be an assassin. And what about His Lordship?”
“You don’t believe all that stuff he said, do you?”
“I don’t know. Why would he admit to being an assassin, then lie about everything else? It doesn’t make sense.”
“He’s an Easterner; maybe it makes sense to him.”
“That’s no answer.”
“Why not? Do you know how they think?”
Savn didn’t answer; in his mind, he kept hearing Vlad’s voice, echoing his own: Why do people only see what they want to? An unanswerable question, certainly. If Master Wag would even admit that it was true, he’d just say that it didn’t matter. And maybe it didn’t; maybe it was always going to be frustrating for someone who knew things that most people didn’t want to know. Maybe it was the way of the world.
But if what Vlad said was true, then, within a day, he’d been on both sides of the problem. He didn’t much like either one. How were you supposed to know what to believe, anyway?
“Come on, Polyi,” he said, and started back to the cavern where Vlad slept.
“You want to stay here?”
“I don’t know, but right now I want to talk to Vlad.”
“You know,” said Polyi, “I’m getting tired of this cave.”
Savn was tempted to tell her that she was along by her own choice, but decided it wouldn’t be nice. He wedged the torch once more into the rocks and sat down next to Vlad. The jhereg, at first watching him carefully, seemed to relax and go back to resting. Funny how they knew he didn’t intend to hurt Vlad. Maybe they had some means of knowing the truth. Maybe they were the only beings in the world who knew what was really going on, and they were secretly laughing at everyone else.
He laughed at the thought, and Vlad’s eyes opened.
“What’s funny?” said Polyi.
“I’ve just had a revelation,” said Savn. “Truth is in the eyes of the jhereg.”
Vlad blinked and shook his head. “Water?” he croaked.
Savn got him some, and said, “How do you feel?”
“Better,” he said. He drank more water, then looked at Savn patiently.
“Vlad, how do you know what the truth is?”
The Easterner didn’t laugh. He considered for a moment, then said, “Help me sit up.”
Savn did so, then helped him to the wall, which he rested against for a few minutes, recovering his breath. To Savn’s eye, he seemed to have made some improvement.
“Very often,” said Vlad, “I learn what is true by trying something and having it fail.”
“Oh,” said Savn. “I know about that. Master Wag talks about learning from errors.”
“Yes. I don’t recommend it.”
“You don’t?”
“No. It’s far better not to make mistakes, at least when your life is on the line.”
“Well, yes.”
Vlad chewed his lower lip. “It’s not that I’ve never thought about it,” he said. “I have. That happens when you associate with philosophers. The trouble is, you get different answers depending on whether you really want to know, or if you just want to argue about it.”
“I don’t want to argue about it,” said Savn.
“I suspected that. That makes it harder.”
Polyi said, “Savn, what are you doing?”
Vlad answered for him. “He’s trying to make a very difficult decision.”
Polyi snorted. “Savn, you’re going to ask him how to decide whether you should turn him in? Well, that really makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“I think it does,” said Savn. He turned back to Vlad. “What were you saying?”
Vlad was frowning at the floor. He didn’t look up. “I wasn’t saying anything. I was thinking.”
“Well?”
Then he did look up, squinting at Savn. “Let’s start with this,” he said. “Suppose everyone you know says there’s no cave here. Is that the truth?”
“No.”
“Good. Not everyone would agree with you, but I do.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Vlad thought for a moment longer, then suddenly shook his head. “There’s no easy answer. You learn things bit by bit, and you check everything by trying it out, and then sometimes you get a big piece of it all at once, and then you check that out. I know what your problem is. Everyone thinks that your Baron can’t be killed, and, furthermore, he’s a great guy, and here I am with a different story, and you don’t know who to believe. I understand the problem. Sorry, I can’t give you any answers.
“But,” he resumed suddenly, as if a thought had just occurred to him, “I can point out a few things. First of all, the only reason you think he’s so wonderful is because you know people from Bigcliff, who have a real scum of a Dzurlord. So what makes your Baron so great is that you have someone horrible to compare him with. As I recall, you weren’t very impressed when you learned that I could have done worse things to you than I did, and you were right. As far as I’m concerned, saying someone could be much worse is not much of a recommendation.”
Savn shook his head. “But he’s never done anything to us.”
Vlad’s eyebrows twitched. “Doesn’t he come by and pick the best portion of your crop, and take it for himself?”
“Well of course, but that’s just—”
“I don’t want to argue it,” said Vlad. “There’s no point in talking about all of the things you take as the natural order of life that I don’t think are. But that’s part of the answer to your question, which is just to ask questions of everyone, and of yourself. Try to identify the assumptions you make, and see if they stand up. Master Wag, you said, scoffs at witchcraft, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Well, why do you chant to drive fevers away? The incantations you use resemble witchcraft more than a little.”
“Maybe they do,” said Savn. “But I know witchcraft works, so why shouldn’t the chanting?”
“Sure,” said Vlad. “But how does Master Wag explain it?”
“Well, it’s because the Fever Imps—”
“How do you know there are Fever Imps at all?”
“Because the chanting works.”
“Fair enough. Why, then, do you also use herbs, and why go to such effort to keep me cool?”
“You need all those things.”
“Are you sure? Maybe the herbs would work by themselves. Maybe the chanting would work by itself. Maybe all I’d need is to be kept cool. How do you know?”
“Well, I assume, since it’s been done that way for years—”
“Don’t assume, find out.”
“You mean, I can’t know anything until I’ve proven it for myself?”
“Hmmmm. No, not really. If someone learns something, and passes it on, you don’t have to go through everything he learned again.”
“But, then—”
“But you don’t have to accept it on faith, either.”
“Then what do you do?”
“You make certain you understand it; you understand it all the way to the bottom. And you test it. When you both understand why it is the way it is, and you’ve tried it out, then you can say you know it. Until then—”
“But can you ever really understand something?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Savn fell silent. Eventually, Vlad cleared his throat and said, “I’m afraid I haven’t helped you much.”
Savn looked up at his odd face, with the thick black hair down in front of his ears and above his thin lip, more dark hair falling in waves inelegantly to his shoulders, with wrinkles of age on his forehead where none should yet be. Savn wondered how many people he had killed, and how rich he had become doing it, and why he had stopped.
“No,” he said. “You’ve helped me a great deal.”
Vlad gave a terse nod.
Savn said, “Would you like to tell me what you’re going to do now?”
“What, before I know whether you plan to help me or betray me?”
“Haven’t you been asking me to trust you, in spite of all the reasons you’ve given me not to?”
“I suppose I have,” said Vlad.
“Well, then, why shouldn’t I ask you to trust me, in spite of those very same reasons?”
Vlad looked at him for what seemed to be a long time. Never before had Savn wished so much to know what someone’s thoughts were; he was very much aware of the two jhereg, sitting patiently at Vlad’s side, with their poison fangs barely concealed by their reptilian jaws. Then, abruptly, Vlad laughed. “Well taken. I can’t argue, so I concede. But what about you?” he added, looking at Polyi.
She stared back at him, then turned to Savn. “Whatever you do, I’ll go along with it.”
“Are you sure?” said Savn.
“Yes.”
Savn turned back to Vlad. “Well?”
The Easterner nodded. “If you follow the waterway, you’ll find it seems to run into a wall. If you go under the wall, it splits into several streams, none of which has much water, and all of which end in identical walls that look natural. Some of these—four, as far as I can tell—actually lead into the basement of the manor house. They are probably sorcerously controlled.”
“Can you get past them?”
“Yes, given enough time.”
“How?”
“You mostly wear your way through with diligence, patience, and a chisel.”
“Can’t you knock it down with sorcery?”
“Not without alerting him; he’s very good.”
“Then why can’t he find you?”
“Because I’m very well protected against being found.”
“So is that what you’re going to do? Break through the wall and . . . and murder him?”
“Not a chance. He may be expecting me to do that, he may not, but he’ll certainly be guarding against it. I might, however, make him think that’s what I’m doing. It’s the obvious way in.”
“Then what will you do?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I’ve got a few things going for me, but I haven’t figured out how to make them work.”
“What things?”
“The assassin. He’s not getting along with Loraan at all.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he’s been there for more than a week, and Loraan made that attack on me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The Jhereg,” said Vlad, looking straight at Savn, “want me to be killed with a Morganti weapon. Loraan’s attacks were not bluffs—he tried to kill me and almost succeeded. He—”
“Wait a minute. Attacks?”
“Yes. There have been two so far.”
“I only know of the one at Tem’s house.”
“The other happened the day before. I got careless and allowed myself to be seen too close to his manor house, and he made a sorcerous attack on me.”
“And it failed?”
“I have,” said Vlad, “a few tricks up my sleeve. I was really sloppy in staying at Tem’s house long enough for them to find me. My only excuse is that it’s been some years now since I’ve had to worry about that sort of thing. In any case, neither attack would have been Morganti; neither would have satisfied the Jhereg. So my conclusion is that Loraan is just barely cooperating with them, and they are just barely cooperating with him. They need each other, because this is Loraan’s area and because the Jhereg have the expert assassins. But neither of them like it. That’s what I hope to use. I’m not certain how to go about it, though.”
“I see,” said Savn.
“Have I answered your questions?”
“Yes.”
“Then, do you care to tell me what you’re going to do?”
“I won’t turn you in,” said Savn.
That seemed to satisfy Vlad, who closed his eyes and breathed deeply, leaning against the wall.
“You tire easily, don’t you?”
“I think,” he said, “that I’ll be able to begin healing myself in a day or two. After that, it shouldn’t be long.”
“So the idea is to keep you safe for two days.”
“More or less. Less, I hope.”
“Do you think this place is secure?”
Vlad frowned, then looked at the jhereg, who rose and flew out of the cave. “Maybe,” said Vlad. “But, in any case, we will now be warned of anyone approaching, so, as long as they don’t put a teleport block up over the entire area, I’ll have a chance to get out.”
“A what over the area?”
“Never mind. Loraan would either have to know exactly where I was, or be willing to use a great deal of power to cover the entire area.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Skip it. I’m saying that whatever happens, at least we’ll be warned.”
Savn stared at the place where the jhereg had disappeared into the narrow corridor that accompanied the subterranean stream. “Yes,” he said. “At least we’ll be warned.”
* * *
SAVN AND POLYI CLEANED up the cooking pot, which Savn put back into the bag. He carefully wrapped the good kitchen knife. They assisted Vlad once more to get to his blankets; he needed less help than he had before.
It didn’t seem to matter that outside the cave, which was already beginning to feel like another world, it was early afternoon; Polyi claimed to be tired, and so lay down among her furs, and soon began to breathe evenly. Savn lit fresh torches and tidied up the area. Was it Endweek again? If he were at home, would he be cleaning? What would Mae and Pae say when they saw him again? Were they really worried?
Could he trust anything Vlad said?
While Vlad and Polyi slept, Savn thought over all that Vlad had told him. What if the herbs were unnecessary to combat fever, and they’d just been used from the custom of years uncounted? What if any custom could be wrong? What if His Lordship was undead?
He considered truth and knowledge and trust, and responsibility, until they whirled around in his head empty of meanings, only occasionally coming to light on some real example of deceit, ignorance, betrayal, or neglect, which would give him some hint of understanding before vanishing once more into the whirlpool of half-understood platitudes and questionable wisdom.
He kept returning to one phrase the Easterner had let fall: “Don’t assume, find out.”
He thought about this very carefully, feeling the truth in the phrase, and asking himself if he was trusting the Easterner, or logic.
Even after he’d decided, he hesitated for some time before taking the obvious next step.
* * *
SAVN STOOD AT THE Curving Stone for a long time, staring down the road that led to the door of His Lordship’s manor house, which was itself out of sight behind a curve in the road. A score of years before, he and his friends had played on the grounds, hidden from all the glass windows except the one in the highest dormer, enjoying the feeling of danger, though safe in the knowledge that the manor house was empty.
Now His Lordship was in residence, and now Savn, though he wasn’t certain what he was doing, was not playing. He walked on the road as if he belonged there, step by step, as if he were himself a visiting noble, although he had heard that these people teleported instead of walking, even when they only needed to go ten or twenty miles.
The manor house came in sight—a wide, tall building, full of sharp angles. In the years since he had seen it up close, he’d forgotten how big it was, or else decided it was only the exaggeration of a child’s memory. Now he stared, remembering, taken again with the feeling that the magnificence of the house must reflect the power of he who dwelled within.
The roof looked like the edge of a scythe, with dormers on either side like wisps of straw. The brick of the house itself was pale green, and high on the front wall were wide windows made of glass—Savn could even see light creeping around the edges of the curtains inside. He strained his eyes, looking for movement. He looked for and eventually found the gully he had daringly played in so many years ago, as close to the house as one could get without being seen. There were glass windows on that side, too, but he remembered quite clearly that if you kept your head down you were only visible from the one lonely window high on the side.
Oddly enough, it was only then, looking at all the windows, that he realized it was becoming dark, and was surprised once more by how fast time went by in the cave. At that moment, more light began to glow around the far side of the house. He stopped where he was, and soon a servant appeared from around that side. Savn watched as the servant walked around the house using a long match to light lamps that were stuck onto the house at various points. When he was finished, the entire house was lit up as if it were burning.
When the servant was gone, Savn watched the house a little longer, then resumed his walk along the road, directly toward the house, and up to the large front door. He felt very much as he imagined a soldier would feel marching into battle, but this was another thought he didn’t care to examine closely.
He stood before the door and stared at it. It seemed like such a plain door to be part of His Lordship’s manor house—just wood, and it opened and closed like any other door, although, to be sure, it had a brass handle that looked too complicated for Savn to operate. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, opened them, and clapped.
Nothing happened.
He waited for what seemed like several hours, although in fact it was hardly more than a minute. Still, he felt his courage slipping away. He tapped his foot, then stopped, afraid someone would see.
Why didn’t someone come to the door?
Because he couldn’t be heard, of course; the door was too thick.
Well, then, how was someone supposed to get the attention of His Lordship’s servants?
He looked around, and eventually saw a long rope hanging down in front of the door. Without giving himself time to think, he gave it one long, hard pull, and almost screeched when he heard, from inside, a rattling sound as if several sticks or logs were rolling against each other.
His heart, which had been beating fast for some time, began to pound in earnest. He was, in fact, on the point of turning and bolting, when the door opened and he found himself looking up at a slight, sharp-featured man in the livery of Baron Smallcliff. After a moment, Savn recognized him as someone called Turi, one of His Lordship’s servants who occasionally came into town for supplies. Come to think of it, Turi had been doing so ever since Reins had quit—
He broke off the thought, and at the same time realized he was staring. He started to speak but had to clear his throat.
“Well?” said the servant, frowning sternly.
Savn managed to squeak out, “Your pardon, sir.”
“Mmmmph.”
Savn took a breath. “May I request an audience with His Lordship? My name is Savn, and I’m the son of Cwelli and Olani, and I—”
“What do you want to see His Lordship about, boy?” said Turi, now looking impassive and impenetrable.
“If it please His Lordship, about the Easterner.”
Turi slowly tilted his head like a confused dog, and simultaneously raised his eyebrows. “Indeed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have information for His Lordship?”
“I . . . that is—”
“Well, come in and I will see if His Lordship is available. Your name, you said, is Savn?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you are a peasant?”
“I’m apprenticed,” he said.
“To whom?”
“To Master Wag, the physicker.”
At this Turi’s eyes grew very wide, and for a moment he seemed at a loss for words. Then he said, “Come in, come in, by all means.”
The inside of the house was even more magnificent than the outside, especially when it became clear to Savn that the room he stood in—which contained nothing but some hooks on the wall and another door opposite the one he’d come in—existed for no other purpose than as a place for people to wait and to hang up their cloaks.
“Wait here,” said the servant.
“Yes, sir,” said Savn as Turi went through the inner door, closing it behind him.
He stared awestruck at the fine, dark, polished wood, realizing that this one, unfurnished room must have cost His Lordship more than Savn’s entire house was worth. He was studying the elaborate carved brass handle on the inner door, trying to decide if there was a recognizable shape to it, when it turned and the door opened. He braced himself to face His Lordship, then relaxed when he saw it was Turi again.
“This way, boy,” said the servant.
“Yes, sir,” said Savn, and, though his knees felt weak, he followed Turi into a place of splendor greater than his mind could grasp. The walls seemed to shimmer, and were adorned with richly colored paintings. The furniture was huge and came in amazing variations, and Savn couldn’t imagine sitting on any of it. Bright light filled every corner of the room, glittering against objects of incomprehensible purpose, made of crystal, shiny metal, and ceramics that had been glazed with some unfathomable technique that made the blues and reds as deep and rich as the soil.
“Watch your step,” said Turi sharply.
Savn caught himself just before walking into a low table that seemed made entirely of glass. He continued more carefully, while still looking around, and it suddenly came to him that some of the crystal and metal objects were drinking vessels. He didn’t think he’d be able to drink from such objects—his hand would be shaking too much.
The shape and color of his surroundings changed. He had somehow entered another room, which might as well have been another world for all the sense he could make of anything around him, until he realized that every one of the objects that filled the room were books—different books—more books than a man could read in his entire lifetime—more books than Savn had thought had ever been written. There were hundreds and hundreds of them. These were cases that had obviously been made just to hold them. There were tables on which they lay, carelessly flung open to—
His gaze suddenly fell on a figure standing before him, dressed in a gleaming white shirt, which set off a bright red jewel suspended from a chain around his neck. The pants were also perfectly white, and baggy, falling all the way to the floor so that the figure’s feet were invisible. Savn looked at his face, then looked away, terrified. On the one hand, though he was big, it seemed odd to Savn how human he looked; the thought, He’s just a man, after all, came unbidden to his mind. But even as Savn was thinking this, he discovered that he had fallen to his knees and was touching his head to the floor, as if in response to something so deeply buried within him that it went beyond awareness or decision. As Savn knelt there, confounded and humbled, with the image of the Athyra nobleman burned into his mind, it struck him that His Lordship had seemed very pale.
Unnaturally pale.
Savn tried not to think about what this might mean.
When His Lordship spoke, it was with an assurance that made Savn realize that Speaker, with all his shouting, raving, and fits of temper, had only pretended to have authority—that real authority was something stamped into someone from birth or not at all. He wondered what Vlad would say about that.
“What is it, lad?” said His Lordship. “My man tells me you have something to say about the Easterner. If you want to tell me where he is, don’t bother. I know already. If you are here asking about your Master, I’m not finished with him yet. If you want to tell me what sort of condition the Easterner is in, and what his defenses are like, that is another matter; I will listen and reward you well.”
Savn’s head spun as he tried to make sense out of this strange collection of ideas.
Your Master.
Master Wag?
Not finished with him yet.
Savn managed to find his voice, and croaked out, “I don’t understand, Your Lordship.”
“Well, what are you here for? Speak up?”
“Your Lordship, I—” Savn searched for the words, hindered in part by no longer being certain what he wanted to find out, or if he dared ask any of it. He looked up, and his eye fell on someone who had apparently been there all along, though Savn hadn’t noticed him. The man, who Savn was certain he’d never seen before, stood behind His Lordship, absolutely motionless, his face devoid of the least hint of expression or of feeling, dressed in grey from head to foot, save for a bit of black lace on the ruffles of his shirt, and his high black boots. In some indefinable yet definite way, he reminded Savn of Vlad.
Below the collar of his cloak was the insignia of the House of the Jhereg, as if Savn needed that, or even his colors, to know that this was the assassin Vlad had spoken of.
Savn couldn’t take his eyes off him, and, for his part, the stranger stared back with the curiosity of one looking at an interesting weed that, though it didn’t belong in one’s garden, had some unusual features that made it worth a moment’s study before being pulled and discarded.
“Speak up, boy,” snapped His Lordship, but Savn could only stare. Speech was so far from him that he couldn’t imagine ever being able to talk again—the command of His Lordship, compelling though it was, belonged to another world entirely; surely His Lordship couldn’t imagine that he, Savn, would be able to form words, much less sentences.
“What do you have to tell me?” said His Lordship. “I won’t ask again.”
Savn heard this last with relief; at this moment, all he wanted from life was for His Lordship not to ask him to speak anymore. He thought about getting up and bowing his way out of the room, but he wasn’t certain his legs would support him, and if it wasn’t the proper thing to do, he might never get out of the house alive. The complete folly of coming here hit him fully, rendering action or speech even more impossible.
His Lordship made a sound of derision or impatience and said, “Get him out of here. Put him with the other one. We don’t have time now, anyway.”
Another voice spoke, very softly, with a bite to the consonants that made Savn sure it was from the Jhereg: “You’re an idiot, Loraan. We could find out—”
“Shut up,” said His Lordship. “I need your advice now less than—”
“Indeed,” interrupted the other. “Less than when? Less than the last time you ignored me and—”
“I said, shut up,” repeated His Lordship. “We don’t have time for this; we’ve got an Easterner to kill, and the troops should be in position by now.”
“And if they find him before morning I’ll eat my fee.”
“I’ll bring you salt,” said His Lordship. “We know where to begin looking, and we have enough manpower that it won’t take more than two or three hours.”
At that moment, rough hands grabbed Savn’s shoulders. The Jhereg and the Athyra did not seem to notice.
“He’ll be gone before you find him,” the Jhereg said.
Savn was pulled to his feet, but his knees wouldn’t support him and he fell back down.
“Unlikely, I’ve put a block up.”
“Around three square miles of caves?”
“Yes.”
Savn was grabbed once more, held under his armpits by very strong hands.
“Then he’s already alerted,” said the Jhereg.
Savn was dragged away. He got a last glimpse of His Lordship, hands balled up in fists, staring at the Jhereg, who wore a mocking smile that seemed the twin of the one Vlad had put on from time to time. His Lordship said, “Let him be alerted. I have confidence in your . . .” and His Lordship’s voice was drowned out by a sound that Savn realized was his own boots scraping along the floor as he was taken off.
He was completely unaware of the places he passed through, and wasn’t even aware of who was dragging him, despite the fact that he heard a man’s voice and a woman’s, as if from a distance, telling him to walk on his own if he didn’t want to be beaten flat. The voices seemed disconnected from the hands pulling him along, which felt like forces of nature rather than the work of human beings.
They came to the top of a stairway, and the woman, laughing, suggested they throw him down. He thought, I hope they don’t, but knew he couldn’t do anything about it in any case.
However, they continued to drag him down the stairs, and then through a dimly lit corridor, until at last they arrived at a large wooden door, bound with iron strips, with a thick bar across it as well as a locking mechanism. They leaned Savn against a wall, where he promptly sagged to the floor. He heard sobbing and realized it was his own. He looked up for the first time, and saw who had been dragging him—two people in the livery of the Athyra, both armed with large swords. The woman had a heavy-looking iron key. She unlocked the door and removed the bar. They opened the door, picked up Savn, and pushed him inside, where he lay face down.
The door was closed behind him, and he could hear the lock turning and the bar falling. At first it seemed dark inside, since there were no lanterns such as there had been along the corridor, but then he realized there was some light, which came from a faintly glowing lightstone—a device Savn had heard about but never seen. It was high up in the middle of the ceiling, which was a good twelve feet overhead. In other circumstances Savn would have been delighted to have seen it, and studied it as best he could, but for now he was too stunned.
He saw now that what he’d at first taken to be a bundle of rags was actually a person, and he remembered His Lordship saying something like Put him with the other. He looked closer, and as his eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room, he recognized Master Wag. He approached, and realized there was something wrong with the way the Master’s arm was lying above his head. He stared, hesitating to touch him, and was gradually able to see some of what had been done to him.
The room spun, the light faded in and out. Savn could never remember the next few minutes clearly; he spoke to the Master, and he shouted something at the closed door, and looked around the room for he knew not what, and, after a while, he sat down on the floor and shook.
* * *
She flew low, well below the overcast, starting out near to her lover, then gradually getting further away as their search took them apart.
The Provider had told them to be careful, to be certain to miss nothing, so they covered every inch of ground below them, starting in a small circle above the cave-mouth and only widening it a bit at a time.
She was in no hurry. Her lover had relaxed, now that the Provider seemed to be out of danger, and it was a fine, cool day. She never forgot what she was doing—she kept her eyes and her attention on the ground below—but this didn’t prevent her from enjoying the pleasures of flight. Besides, her feet had started hurting.
She recognized the large rock, the nearby house, and the winding, twisting road as things she’d seen before, but they didn’t mean a great deal to her. For one thing, there was no meat there, living or dead. At the same time she could feel, in her wings and her breath, the difference in the feel of the air when she flew over fields or over forests, over water or over bare ground where only a stubble of growth was now left. All of these added to the pleasure of flying.
She could always feel where her mate was, and they spoke, mind to mind, as they flew, until at last she looked down and saw one of the soft ones below her. This seemed strange, and after thinking about it for a moment, she realized it was because he could not have been there a moment before, and she ought to have seen him approach. She swept back around, and there was another, and no more explanation of how this one had appeared. She recalled that the Provider could do something like this, and decided that she ought to mention it. She came back around again, and by now an entire herd of the soft ones had appeared, and they were walking along the road that cut through a thin, grassy forest.
She called to her mate, who came at once. He studied them, knowing more about their habits than she; then he told the Provider what they had discovered. They watched a little longer, until the herd left the road and began to walk down the narrow, curving path that led toward the caves.
Then they returned to the Provider, to see what he wanted them to do.