The Book of Taltos (16 page)

T
HE FIRST THING
I noticed was the sky. It was still the ugly reddish, orangish thing that hangs over the Empire, but it was higher and somehow cleaner. We were surrounded by grasses that reached my waist. There was not a tree or a mountain or a building in sight.

We stood there for a few minutes, Morrolan politely remaining silent while I took several deep breaths, trying to recover from the aftereffects of the teleport. I looked around, and something occurred to me. I tried to figure it out, then said, “All right, I give up. How did you get a teleport fix on a spot with absolutely no distinguishing features?”

He smiled. “I didn’t. I just fixed on approximately where I wanted to go, visualized the area, and hoped nothing would be there.”

I stared at him. He smiled back at me. “Well,” I said after a while. “I guess it worked.”

“I guess so. Shall we begin walking?”

“What direction?”

“Oh. Right.” He closed his eyes and turned his head slowly from side to side. He finally pointed off in a direction that looked like any other. “That way,” he said.

Loiosh flew overhead. The breeze was cool but not chilly. Morrolan cut back on the length of his strides so he wouldn’t keep getting ahead of me.

I tried not to think of the whithers or the wherefores of the journey, but the staff in Morrolan’s left hand kept reminding me.

The object of my desire was there, and I needed it here. I had forged most of those links already: there was represented by a quivering knife, here was the glowing rune. But more, I had to break a spatial barrier and cause a thing to exist that did not, while destroying a thing that did, yet in fact do neither of these, merely cause a spatial readjustment.

If that sounds confusing to listen to, try doing it.

I had become a thing of rhythm and wave, sight and sound, of a wavering landscape and a humming knife and a glowing rune and a pulse.

They were united in my will and in the symbols before me. Think of it as a cosmic juggling act in the mind, and you’ll have about the right idea.

I was getting to the hard part.

W
E RESTED UNDER THE
open sky that night, which sounds romantic but wasn’t, and ought to have been chilly but Morrolan fixed that. I don’t like the hard ground, but it was better than it could have been. Morrolan doesn’t snore, and if I do he never mentioned it.

We didn’t have any cooking gear with us, but we didn’t need any, what with Morrolan being along. I drank tea from an invisible glass and ate bread
that hadn’t been with us the night before and berries that were growing all around us, nice and ripe.

I stared at the slowly diminishing cylinder of liquid in my hand and said, “Now, that’s the sort of magic I’d like to be able to do.”

Morrolan didn’t deign to answer. The good stuff is always difficult. We resumed our walk. It was a nice warm day, and I saw the distant peaks of mountains.

I said, “Is that our destination?”

Morrolan nodded.

I said, “How long a walk would you say that is?”

“It doesn’t matter. When we get close enough to make out a few details, we’ll teleport again.”

“Oh.”

It was, I have to say, hard to stay hostile to the man next to me, if only because the day was nice and the walk so pleasant. Birds sang, the wind rustled, and all that sort of thing.

Loiosh flew above me and occasionally disappeared for brief intervals when he found something to scavenge. I could feel that he was enjoying himself. From time to time I would catch sight of wild jhereg, flying high above us, but Loiosh and I ignored them.

We stopped around midday, and Morrolan conjured more food for us. I don’t know whether he was creating it from thin air or teleporting it from somewhere. I suspect the former because it tasted pretty bland. As we ate, Morrolan studied the mountains that were slowly growing before us as we walked. As we stood up, he announced, “Not yet. We need to be closer.”

That was fine by me. We resumed our walk, and all was well with the world.

I wondered if I’d be dead by this time tomorrow.

I
GOT A MESSAGE
the next day to see Nielar. This time I was to meet him at his office—in back of the shereba game, which was in turn in back of a small sorcery supply shop. I was admitted at once, without having to identify myself (“When the Easterner shows up, let him in”), and Nielar nodded me to a chair.

He said, “Let’s wait for Kragar.”

Kragar said, “I’m here already.”

We both did double takes, then Nielar cleared his throat. “Right,” he said. “Well, here’s four imperials for you two to split. And, Vlad, here’s another four for your first week’s pay. You work for me now, all right? I want you here tomorrow evening to keep an eye on the shereba game.”

I took the eight coins and gave Kragar two of them. I had just earned, in one day, more than I would have taken in at the restaurant in several weeks. I said, “Right, boss.”

M
ORROLAN STOPPED SUDDENLY
,
WITH
no warning, and he stood still, staring off ahead and a little to his left. I looked in that direction and saw nothing except unbroken plain, with more mountains in the distance.

“Check it, Loiosh.”

“Right, boss.”

We stood there for most of a minute, Morrolan continuing to stare, Loiosh flying off in the indicated direction. Then Loiosh said,
“Boss, you’ve got to see this.”

“Very well. Show me.”
I closed my eyes and let Loiosh fill my brain.

Yeah, it was quite a sight.

There were these beings, maybe two dozen of them, and I’ve never seen anyone or anything run so fast. They had four legs and from the waist down appeared to be feline, smaller than the dzur, perhaps the size of the tiassa but without wings. From the waist up they appeared human. They carried spears.

“Cat-centaurs, Loiosh?”

“I guess so, boss. I hadn’t known they were real.”

“Nor had I. Interesting.”

“I think they’re heading toward us.”

“Yeah.”

I broke the connection, and by now I could see them with my own eyes, as a gradually resolving blur in the distance. Verra, but they were fast. I noted that Morrolan had not touched his sword, and I took some comfort from that. I began to hear them then; a very low rumble that made me realize
I ought to have heard them some time ago. They were awfully quiet for their size.

They were suddenly stopped before us. The butt ends of their spears rested on the ground as they looked at us through human faces with expressions of mild curiosity. The spears had worked metal heads, which I decided was significant. I had the impression that they ran just because they wanted to. None of them were breathing hard. They stared at us, unblinking, like cats. They wore no clothing, but many of them carried pouches, tied around their backs and hanging down the sides. The muscles around their back legs were impressive as hell.

I said, “So, what else do you do for fun?”

Morrolan turned and glared at me. The cat-centaur who was at their head, and who was emphatically female, looked at me and smiled a little. “Chase things,” she said. She spoke Dragaeran without any trace of accent.

Loiosh landed on my shoulder, and the leader’s eyes widened. I said, “My name is Vlad Taltos.”

Morrolan said, “I am Morrolan.”

She said, “I am called Mist.”

A cat-centaur with red eyes said, “That’s because when she throws her spear—”

“Shut up, Brandy.” There was some laughter, which included Loiosh, though only I was aware of that.

Mist said, “The jhereg on your shoulder—he is your friend?”

I said, “Yeah.”

“Jhereg feed on dead cat-centaurs.”

I said, “Dead men, too,” which seemed to satisfy her.

She said, “What brings you to the Forever Plains?”

Morrolan said, “We journey to Deathgate Falls,” and the entire collection of cat-centaurs took a step back from us. I stooped down and picked and ate a strawberry, waiting.

After a moment, Mist said, “I assume you have good reason.”

Morrolan started to answer, but another cat-centaur said, “No, they’re just out on a lark.”

Mist said, “Keep still, Birch.”

I said, “Say, are those
real
spears?”

Morrolan said, “Shut up, Vlad.”

Loiosh seemed about to have hysterics. Some of the cat-centaurs appeared to be in the same situation. Me, too. Morrolan and Mist caught each other’s eyes and shook their heads sadly.

Mist said, “If you wait here, we’re following a very large wild kethna. When we bring it down, we’ll share it with you.”

“We shall get a fire going,” said Morrolan. Then, “Um, you
do
cook your meat, do you not?”

Brandy said, “No, we prefer to let the raw, fresh blood of our kill drip down our—”

“Shut up, Brandy,” said Mist. “Yes, a fire would be nice.”

“See you soon, then,” said Morrolan.

“Quite soon, I expect,” said Mist, and they turned and sped off the way they’d come.

T
HERE WAS A GOOD
tailor who lived near my flat. I went to see him late in the afternoon of the next day and ordered a full, grey cloak. I also ordered a new jerkin, with ribbing parallel to the collarbone. I lusted after a hat with a tall plume, but didn’t get it.