The Book of Taltos (44 page)

Dealing with Middle Management II

O
NE OF THE EASIEST
and yet most effective offensive uses of sorcery involves simply grabbing as much energy from the Orb as you can handle without destroying yourself, channeling it through your body, and directing it at whomever or whatever you want to damage. The only defense is to grab as much energy as you can handle without destroying yourself and use it to block or deflect the attack.

It so happens that I’ve acquired a length of gold chain which, used properly, acts to interrupt any sort of spell sent against me, so I’m pretty safe from this kind of thing. But once, in the middle of a battle I should never have been in, I was hit from behind.

It felt like I was burning from the inside, and for what seemed like minutes I could feel veins, arteries, and even my internal organs burning. Every muscle in my body contracted, and I felt the muscles in my thighs attempt to break both of my legs and almost succeed. A Dragon warrior who was standing about fifteen feet in front of me was struck by an arrow at about that same time, and I spent minutes watching him fall over. I smelled smoke, and saw that it was coming from under my shirt, and realized with a horrible sick feeling that the hair on my chest and on the backs of my arms was burning. I knew that my heart had stopped, and my eyeballs felt hot and itchy. All
sound vanished from the world, and returned only very slowly, beginning with a horrible buzzing, as if I’d been stuck in a bee’s nest. It amazed me that there was no pain, and amazed me even more when I realized that my heart had started beating again. Even then it wasn’t over, because for a while I couldn’t stand up; efforts to move my legs only made them twitch. When, after several minutes, I was able to stand, I remember trying to pick up my sword and being unable to, because trying to take a step toward it led me off in a different direction, and efforts to extend my hand caused it to reach somewhere I had not intended. It was twenty or thirty minutes, I believe, before the effect wore off, during which time I was in the grip of a terror the like of which I’d never felt.

Since that time, the memory has come back at odd times, and always very strongly. It isn’t like pain, which you don’t really remember—the incident was burned, and I think I mean that literally, into my brain—so sometimes all the sensations wash over me, and I can’t breathe and I wonder if I’m going to die.

This was one of those times.

The incident on Greenaere was the fourth time I’d been imprisoned. The first was the hardest, just because it was first, but none had been easy. By removing someone’s freedom of movement, you remove some measure of his dignity, and the thought of this happening to Cawti, to the woman whose eyes crinkled when she grinned, and who threw her head back when she laughed so her dark, dark hair rippled across her shoulders, to the woman who had guarded my back, to the woman who—

—to the woman who didn’t know if she loved me anymore, to the woman who was throwing away her happiness and mine for a pail full of slogans. It was almost more than I could stand.

“You all right, boss?” said Sticks, and I came back to an awareness of him, staring up at me and looking worried.

“After a fashion,” I said. “Get Kragar.”

I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. Presently I heard Kragar’s voice. “What is it, Vlad?”

“Shut the door.”

The latch, Kragar’s footsteps, his body settling into the chair, the rustle of
Loiosh’s wings, my own heartbeat. “Find me detailed plans of the dungeons of the Imperial Palace.”

“What?”

“They’re below the Iorich Wing.”

“What’s going on?”

“Cawti’s been arrested.”

Abreak in the conversation stretching out to the horizon, infinite, timeless.

“You can’t be thinking of—”

“Get them.”

“Vlad—”

“Just do it.”

“No.”

I opened my eyes, sat up, and looked at him. “What?”

“I said no.”

I waited for him to continue. He said, “A few weeks ago you lost control and almost got yourself killed. If you lose control again you’re on your own.”

“I haven’t asked you—”

“But I’m not going to cut wood for your barge.”

I studied him carefully, my thoughts running quickly, although I don’t recall the substance. At last I said, “Get out.”

He left without another word.

I
DON’T REMEMBER ANY
nausea following the teleport to Castle Black, nor do I remember what Lady Teldra said in greeting when I came through the portals. I found Morrolan and Aliera in the front room of the library, where the chairs are the most comfortable and he most enjoys sitting. It is the largest of the rooms, but has fewer books than the others, with more room for browsing, sitting, or pacing.

Morrolan sat, Aliera stood, I paced.

“What is it, Vlad?” he said after I made a few trips past him.

“Cawti’s been arrested. I want your help in breaking her out.”

He marked his place with a thin strip of gold-inlaid ivory and set his book down. “I’m sorry she’s been arrested,” he said. “With what is she charged?”

“Conspiracy.”

“Conspiracy to what?”

“It isn’t specified.”

“I see. Will you have wine?”

“No, thank you. Will you help?”

“What do you mean by breaking her out?”

“What does it sound like?”

“It sounds like what we did to get you off of Greenaere.”

“Exactly.”

“Why do you wish to do that?”

I stopped pacing long enough to look at his face, to see if this was some form of humor. I decided it wasn’t. “She broke me out,” I told him.

“It was the only way to free you.”

“Well?”

“I would suggest, with the Empire, that we try other methods first. Her former partner is the Heir, after all.”

I stopped. I hadn’t thought of that. I allowed Morrolan to pour me some wine, which I drank and didn’t taste. Then I said, “Well?”

“Well what?” said Morrolan, but Aliera understood and excused herself from the room. I sat down and waited. We didn’t speak until Aliera returned, perhaps ten minutes later.

“Norathar,” she said, “will do what she can.”

“What is that?” I asked.

“I hope enough.”

“Had she known?”

“That Cawti was arrested? No. It seems there has been quite a bit of trouble in the Easterners’ quarter, though, and that group she’s in has been in the middle of it.”

“I know.”

“There are several such groups, actually, all over South Adrilankha, and the Empress is worried about the potential for destruction.”

“Yes.”

“But Norathar has some influence. We shall see.”

“Yes.”

I brooded for a while, staring at the floor between my feet, until Loiosh
said,
“Careful, boss,”
at the same time Aliera said, “Who is ‘she’ and who is ‘he’?”

“Eh?”

“You just said something about why did she want him dead.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize I was speaking aloud.”

“You weren’t exactly, but you were broadcasting your thoughts so strongly you might as well have been.”

“I guess I’m distracted.”

“Well, who is she?”

I shook my head and went back to brooding, being a little more careful this time. Morrolan read, Aliera stroked a grey cat who had set up shop in the library. I finished the wine and refused a second glass.

“Tell me,” I said aloud, “where the gods come from.”

Morrolan and Aliera looked at me, then at each other. Morrolan cleared his throat and said, “It varies. Some are actually Jenoine who survived the creation of the Great Sea of Chaos. Others are servants of theirs who managed to adapt when it occurred and use its energy, either while it was happening or during the millennia that followed.”

“Some,” added Aliera, “are simply wizards who have become immortal, and acquired the power to exist on more than one plane at the same time.”

“Well, then,” I said, “how are they different from demons?”

“A matter of interpretation only,” said Morrolan. “Demons can be summoned and controlled, gods cannot.”

“Even by other gods?”

“Correct.”

“So if a god were to control another god, that god would become a demon?”

“That is correct. If we were to learn of it, we would begin to refer to that god as a demon.”

“It seems pretty arbitrary.”

“It is,” said Aliera. “But it’s still significant. If a god is just a force with a personality, it makes a big difference whether it can be controlled, don’t you think?”

“What about the Lords of Judgment?”

“What about them?”

“How do they get there?”

“War,” said Morrolan, “or bribery, or from friendship with other gods.”

“Why do they want to?”

“I don’t know,” said Morrolan. “Do you, Aliera?”

She shook her head. “Why all the questions?”

“Something to talk about,” I lied.

“Do you wish to become a god?” asked Morrolan.

“Not particularly,” I said. “Do you?”

“No. I don’t care for the responsibility.”

I snorted. “To whom are they responsible?”

“To themselves, to each other.”

“Your Demon Goddess doesn’t seem particularly responsible.”

Aliera jerked upright, almost stood, and her hand almost went for Pathfinder. I drew back. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think you’d take it personally.”

She glowered at me for a moment, then shrugged, Morrolan looked at Aliera, then turned back to me and said, “She is responsible, though. She’s unpredictable, and capricious, but she rewards loyalty, and she won’t cause a servant to act in a way that will harm him.”

“What if she makes a mistake?”

He looked at me closely. “There’s always that danger, of course.”

I said no more, but considered what I’d been told. It still felt just a bit scandalous to be speaking of my patron goddess this way, as if she were a mutual acquaintance whose strengths and weaknesses of character we might bandy about for amusement. But if what they’d told me was true, then either she had some sort of plot going which would, perhaps accidentally, make everything come out all right, or else something had screwed up at, let’s say, a very high level.

Or Morrolan and Aliera were wrong, of course.

Lady Teldra appeared at the door and announced the Princess Norathar: Duchess of Ninerocks, Countess of Haewind, et cetera, et cetera, and Dragon Heir to the Throne. Not as tall as Morrolan, not as strong-looking as Sethra, yet she had a grace about her movements.

Ex-assassin was left out of the list, but as an assassin, she had worked with Cawti as part of one of the most sought-after teams of killers in the
Jhereg, hard as that was to believe listening to either one of them now. I knew something about her skills as a fighter; she’d killed me once.

Norathar walked over to the tray of strong liquors, found a brownish one that she liked, and poured herself a tumbler full. She took a good third of it off the top and stood facing us. She said, “The Empress has given leave for the Lady Taltos to be released. The Lady Taltos has refused.” She sat down then and had some more of her drink. Loiosh, on my right shoulder, squeezed with his talons.

“Refused?” I said at last, in what I think was a steady voice.

“Yes,” said Norathar. “She explained that she would wait with her companions until they were all free.” I could now hear the strain of her voice, as she worked to speak clearly and calmly. She was a Dragonlord down to her toes, like Morrolan and Aliera, and in the time since she’d been made the Heir, she had changed, so these days she seemed more tightly controlled than either of them. But now this control was frightening, as if it only barely held in check a rage that could destroy Castle Black.

I noticed all of this with the back of my mind, as I concentrated on keeping my own temper in check, at least until I could decide at whom it should be directed.

Then, suddenly, I realized who that should be, and I said, “Lord Morrolan, you have a room, high up in a tower, with many windows in it. I would like to visit that place.”

He looked at me for a long moment before he said, “Yes. Go, Vlad, with my blessing.”

Left out the door, down the hallway to the wide, black marble stairway leading to the Front Hall. Down the stairs, out of the Hall toward the South Wing, then up, jog past the lower dining room, past the southern guest rooms, up a half-flight, turn around, around, through a heavy door that opens to my command, since I work for Morrolan and helped set up the spells that guard it.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, boss?”

“Of course not. Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“Sorry.”

Aroom all in black, lit by candles made from tallow from fat rendered from the hindquarters of a virgin ram, with wicks made from the roots of
the neverlost vine, the whole scented with cradleberry, so the room smelled like the last dregs of a sweet wine just starting to turn to vinegar. Four of them were lit, and they danced to celebrate my arrival.

Artifacts of Morrolan’s experiments in witchcraft littered small and large tables, and his stone altar, black against black, was just barely discernible at the far end. Here I had lain helpless while Morrolan battled a demon that had taken his own sword from him. Here I had parlayed with spirits from my ancestral home for the release of the Necromancer’s soul. Here I had battled with my own likeness, come to take me to that land from which none return.