Issola (23 page)

"Yes, indeed," she said.

Sethra returned and said, "Dinner will be ready in an hour." he smiled at me and said, "Will you survive that long?"

"I think so," I said. It suddenly occurred to me that, while Sethra was off giving the order for food to be prepared, Tukko, only servant I'd ever seen here, was with us. Was there a staff
of cooks I'd never met? If so, why, since Sethra's usual diet didn't feature anything that needed cooking? If not, had she gone off to arrange for some culinary ensorcellment? Of all the myriad mysteries surrounding the Dark Lady of Dzur Mountain, I knew that this one was going to bother me. Maybe I could bring myself to ask her. Sometime when Lady Teldra wasn't around. I drank my wine, and Sethra sat down next to me. "Let's see that arm," she said. I couldn't show it to her because I couldn't move it, so I just shrugged my one good shoulder and looked away. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her holding
it, rolling my sleeve back, touching it; but I felt no sensation. I said, "Evidently the nerves have been damaged, too; I can't feel your charming, cold, undead fingers."

"Mmmmm," she said. Then, "Yes, it
is
nerve damage, not muscle damage." She continued her inspection. I tried to think about other things without much success.

"Is it repairable?" I asked eventually, trying to keep my voice casual, as if I were asking if a blunted dagger could be resharpened.

"I'm not sure," she said in much the same way. Bitch.

"Good wine," I told her. "Thanks."

She smiled as if sharing a joke with herself and said, "You are most welcome, Lord Taltos." She set my arm back in my lap and said, "We'll have to see.”

I nodded. No one spoke. I cleared my throat and said, "So, all right, what's the plan?"

13

"It's too soon to talk about plans," said Morrolan. "I'm still trying to recover."

"Nonsense," I said. "It's never too soon to talk about plans. Making plans is one of the great joys of my life. Sometimes, on alazy afternoon, I just sit around and make up plans. I've often said—"

"Be quiet, Vlad."

"Feel better now, Boss?"

"A bit,
Loiosh."

"You know, Morrolan," said Aliera. "He has a point. It wouldn't hurt any to start thinking about how we're going to go after them."

"It's too soon to talk about plans," I said. "I'm still trying to recover." Morrolan favored me with a disgusted look.

Sethra said, "Lady Teldra, I assume you will grace us with your company at table?"

"That is kind of you," said Teldra. "Yes, I should be delighted." For a moment that confused me, until I remembered that she was Morrolan's servant, which fact had somehow gotten lost in the last few days.

"Good," said Sethra.

"Let me see that arm," said Aliera abruptly. She came over and knelt down next to me, picked up my arm, and stared at it. "Nerve damage can sometimes be repaired," she said after a moment. 1 S S O L A

195

"Yes," said Sethra. "Sometimes, depending on the nature of the damage. In this case, I can't quite tell what they did." This of course, made me feel great. What is it about physickers, or sorcerers acting as physickers, that makes them talk about the sick guy as if he weren't in the room?

Aliera turned to Verra and said, "Mother? Do you know how it works?"

"The one I remember worked on the muscle, not the nerve." she said.

"Well, can you help?"

"Perhaps," said the Goddess.

Perhaps. I liked that. What's the point of divinity if you can't help your devoted worshipers? I sat there, my arm hanging limp, and thought evil thoughts.

Sethra suggested I lie back down and relax until we were called to table, which seemed like a good idea, so I did, and I believe I actually dozed off for a while, to be woken by Loiosh, who is quite accomplished at waking me, explaining that he was used to surviving on scraps, but if I wanted any more than that it was time for me to be moving.

1 grunted and struggled up to my feet, which, as I've already observed and now discovered again, is harder than you'd think when shy an arm, then followed Aliera and Teldra, who were having a quiet conversation and making their leisurely way to the dining room. I sat down with Teldra on one side of me, and Sethra, at the head of the table, on the other; Morrolan and Aliera were across from us. I said, "Where is the Goddess?"

"Is that a philosophical question, Vlad?" asked Morrolan.

"Yeah, I suppose."

"She has returned to her own domain," said Aliera.

"What, she didn't like the menu?"

Sethra smiled at that, but gave no response; nor was one needed, because Tukko came in at that moment, carrying a large silver platter in each hand. He set one of them down between Morrolan and me, the other between Teldra and Aliera.

"Oh," said Sethra, in a tone I'd never heard from her before.

I looked up, and she was staring at the food with a look of distress on her face. I tried to remember when I'd seen her distressed before.

"Vlad, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't realize what was being prepared." I looked at the food again, frowned, and then figured it out and chuckled. "Oh," I said. "That's funny, in a grim sort of way."

My father had never approved of what he called "half-prepared food," of which this was a sample. I don't have a problem with it, myself - it's sort of fun to put things together yourself, adjusting the quantities, and so on. But my father believed that a good chef made all the decisions about food; if the guest added even a bit of lemon or salt to something my father had built, then, he believed, there must be something wrong - either with the food or with the guest.

I think this says more about my father than about food.

The item before us consisted of treska leaves - fresh, green, and curly. One would spoon a tiny bit of plum sauce onto a leaf, add a minute quantity of dried kethna, a morsel of diced leek, a piece of lime, a slice of bitterwort, a sliver of ginger, and a dusting of dried red pepper. One then rolled the thing up and popped it whole into one's mouth. I'd had versions of this before - most of the islands had something like it, using dried seafood of some kind in place of kethna, as a lovers' snack. Cawti and I had once - but never mind that. The point is, you need two hands to prepare it, and Sethra had just realized that it was exactly the wrong thing to serve just then, and she was mortified. I was amused. Hungry, but amused.

The funniest part was that I caught Sethra glancing at Teldra. Teldra, for her part, said, "Here, I'll wrap one for you."

"That would be great," I said.

She put one together for me, her long, graceful fingers nimble and precise as she measured each ingredient out on the leaf that lay in the palm of her hand; then she rolled it up in a smooth motion, and handed it to me with the least hint of a bow. I smiled at her, took it, and ate it. It was very good; the bitterwort slid through the plum sauce, and then the ginger and the red pepper sort of burst in on your tongue along with . . . well, you get the idea. I had two more of them, making a point of eating slowly to give Teldra time to wrap and eat a couple of her own. Tukko came in with the next course, shuffling about and moving much quicker than it seemed he was. He gave us each what I thought was just a ball of rice, only the rice had been prepared with ginger, and saffron, and I swear a tiny bit of honey; it was quite remarkable.

"My compliments, Sethra," I said.

"Thank you, Vlad," which was just about the only conversation for some time. The fruit was a selection of local berries, some of which I hadn't run into before, but they were all good, and served with ice and thick cream, after which came thin slices of beef, just barely seared and seasoned with pepper and parsley and calijo, and served with fresh, thick-crusted dark bread. I couldn't cut it with the knife, so I just set the meat on the bread and tore off bites of both.

It was very good.

I ate a great deal.

I noticed that I was sitting with my feet wrapped around the legs of my chair, which is something I've found myself doing when serious about eating. I stopped at once, of course; it's hard to look tough with your feet wrapped around the legs of a chair. Sethra picked at her food, as she had the other times I'd eaten with her. I knew she didn't eat much, for obvious reasons; I wondered if she enjoyed the flavors. Add that to my list of things I'll never ask her, but would like the answer to.

Eventually, I sat back, stretched out, and said, "Okay, Sethra. Give me a couple of hours to digest, and I'll take on every Jenoine you have, all at the same time."

"Careful what you promise," said Sethra Lavode.

"All right," I said. "Let me rephrase that."

Morrolan chuckled. So did Loiosh. I'm quite the jongleur when out of danger and with a meal inside me. Eventually we made our way back to the sitting room, and Tukko brought out a liqueur that was older than Morrolan and much sweeter, featuring the smallest traces of mint and cinnamon - an odd combination, but a successful one, and I'm pretty sure there was some
honey in there, too.

I moaned softly. Sethra said, "Is the arm beginning to hurt?"

"No," said Aliera. "That's his moan of contentment after a good
meal."

"Now, how would you know that?" I asked her.

She gave me an inscrutable smile that she must have learned from
Morrolan. I grunted and drank some more, and enjoyed the
transitory sense of contentment I was feeling.

Sethra looked at my arm some more - and when I say she I looked
at it, that's what I mean. She stared at it so hard I'd say she
was looking right through the skin, which is probably what she
was doing, at least on some mystical level that I'll never understand.

After several minutes, she said, "I don't know. I'm not sure if I can do anything about it, but it looks like I may not have to."

"How, it'll fix itself?"

"I think so. It seems like it might be a temporary condition. I've
been watching the signs of activity in the nerves, and it now
seems clear that it is getting better rather than degenerating."

"Degenerating," I said. "Okay. What would that have meant?"

"Paralysis, then death, probably from suffocation when you became unable to breathe, unless your heart became paralyzed first,
which would have killed you more quickly. But, as I say, it isn't going that way, it is repairing itself."

"Hmmm. Okay, that's good news. Any idea how long?"

"I can't say."

"Remember, we Easterners don't live more than sixty or seventy years."

"I doubt we're talking about years."

"Good. Then I imagine you're not going to ask me to do anything until I have two good arms, right?"

"I'm not sure we can wait, Vlad."

"Oh? You mean, after two hundred thousand years, or whatever it's been, things suddenly got urgent? When, yesterday?"

"Yes," said Sethra. "I believe things have become urgent. They became urgent when Morrolan and Aliera were taken. Everything is at a new level now, and developments are taking place quickly."

"But—"

"More important," she continued, "I doubt they will give us time to do anything at all."

"They wouldn't attack Dzur Mountain again, would they?"

"I hope so. Anything else they might come up with would be worse, because we haven't any preparations for it."

"Hmmm," I said, because that always sounds wise. "Have you spoken to the Empress?"

"Yes."

"Well then - wait. You have?"

"Yes."

"Oh," I said. "And, uh... what does she say?"

"She wants me to deal with it."

"She wants you to ... with all of her resources, she has no one else to call on except—"

"Me? And Morrolan e'Drien, and Aliera e'Kieron?"

"Uh . . ."

"Go ahead, Boss; talk yourself out of this one."

"Shut up, Loiosh."

"I
was referring to myself, Sethra," I said.

"Ah. Well, she is calling on me, and I am calling on you "

"You are—"

"Traditionally, this is exactly the sort of thing the Empress has called upon the Lavodes for; it is what we were created for. Now, as it happens, I am the only Lavode left. Well, there's one other, but he isn't ready yet."

"The Lavodes were created to fight the Jenoine?"

"The Lavodes were created to handle threats or potential threats to the Empire that were fundamentally nonmilitary."

"I see." I thought about it. "But I thought the Lavodes were disbanded before the Interregnum."

"That is true, but I always thought that was a bad idea. The Empress, as it happens, agrees with me."

"Ah. She agrees. Well, how nice. And evidently the Demon Goddess agrees with you, too. And Aliera agrees, and Morrolan agrees. And Teldra, of course, can't help being agreeable. So I you've got agreement all the way around except from the Verra-be-damned Easterner who'd really like to have his left arm working again before doing anything stupid."

"You might have a choice," said Sethra. "But most likely you won't."

"Great. So we're going to be in for it, whether we want to or not. What do we do?"

"Do you have any suggestions, Vlad?"

"For handling rampant Jenoine? No, that has never been a specialty of mine."

"Then, perhaps, you'd care to shut up and let us figure something out."

"Ouch," I said. "All right. I'll just sit here like any good weapon, and wait to be pulled from my sheath, blunted edge and all."

"Good," she said. "That's just what I want."

That hadn't been the answer I was looking for, but I decided to be content with it before I encouraged something worse. I fell silent, just sitting there with my left arm hanging limp and useless in my lap.

"I wish," said Aliera abruptly, "that we could find a way to carry the war to them." Morrolan looked at her. "Since that is such an obvious observation that you could not possibly have any reason for making it, I must assume you have an idea as to the particulars."

She smiled sweetly at him, and suggested where he might put his assumptions, but caught herself, glanced at me, and eventually said, "No, as it happens, I was musing. I can't think of any way to do so." Morrolan nodded. "If we're speaking of wishes, I wish we understood them better."