Taltos by Steven Brust
Failure was now, in a sense, impossible. My only options were success, or else madness and death.
My right fist touched my left hand.
A Dragaeran was approaching us at a nice, leisurely pace. His colors, black and silver, spoke of the House of the Dragon. He wore some sort of monster sword over his back. While we waited for him, I looked up at the sky, wondering whether it would be the typical orange-red overcast of the Dragaeran Empire. No, there wasn’t any sky. A dull, uniform grey, with no break at all. Trying to figure out how high it was and what it was made me dizzy and queasy, so I stopped.
When the new arrival got close enough for me to see his face, his expression seemed not unpleasant. I don’t think it could actually be friendly even if he wanted—not with a forehead that flat and lips as thin as paper. He came closer and I saw that he was breathing, and I couldn’t decide whether to be surprised or not.
Then he stopped and his brow furrowed. He looked at me and said, “You’re an Easterner.” Then his gaze traveled to Morrolan and his eyes widened. “And you’re living.”
I said, “How can you tell?”
Morrolan snapped, “Shut up, Vlad.” Then he inclined his head to the Dragonlord, saying, “We’re on an errand.”
“The living do not come here.”
Morrolan said, “Zerika.”
The Dragaeran’s mouth twitched. “A Phoenix,” he said. “And a special case.”
“Nevertheless, we’re here.”
“You may have to bring your case to the Lords of Judgment.”
“That,” said Morrolan, “is what we came to do.”
“And you will be required to prove yourselves.”
“Of course,” said Morrolan.
“Say what?” said I.
He turned a sneer toward me. “You will be required to face and defeat champions of—”
“This has got to be a joke,” I said.
“Shut up, Vlad,” said Morrolan.
I shook my head. “Why? Can you give me one good reason for making us fight our way to the Lords of Judgment, just so they can destroy us for being here?”
The stranger said, “We are of the House of the Dragon. We fight because we enjoy it.” He gave me a nasty smile, turned, and walked away.
Morrolan and I looked at each other. He shrugged and I almost belted him. We looked around again, and we were surrounded by Dragonlords. I counted twelve of them. One of them took a step forward and said, “E’Baritt,” and drew her sword.
Morrolan said, “E’Drien,” and drew his. They saluted.
I backed away a step and said, “Are you sure we can touch them, and they us?”
“Yes,” said Morrolan as he faced his opponent. “It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.”
“Oh. Of course. How silly of me.”
They came within a few steps of each other, and Morrolan’s opponent looked at the sword and licked her lips nervously.
“Don’t worry,” said Morrolan. “It does what I tell it to.”
The other nodded and took a sort of guard position, her left hand in front holding the dagger. Morrolan drew a dagger and matched her. He struck first with his sword, and she blocked it. She tried to strike with her dagger for his stomach, but he slipped around the blow and, pushing her off balance with his sword, struck her soundly in the chest with his dagger.
She bled. Morrolan stepped back and saluted.
After a moment I said to Morrolan, “Am I next, or are you doing all of them?”
One of the waiting Dragonlords said, “You’re next, whiskers,” as he stepped out, drew his sword, and faced me.
“Fine,” I said, whipped out a throwing knife from my cloak, and threw it into his throat.
“Vlad!” called Morrolan.
“I’ve covered mine,” I said, watching the guy writhe on the ground about six feet from Morrolan’s victim. There came the sound of blades being drawn. Loiosh took off toward someone as I drew my rapier. It occurred to me that I might have committed some sort of social blunder.
Morrolan cursed and I heard the sound of steel on steel. Then there were two of them right in front of me. I feinted cuts toward their eyes, flick flick, spun to get a look at what was behind me, spun back, and threw three shuriken into the nearest stomach. Another Dragonlord almost took my head off, but then I sliced up his right arm bad enough that he couldn’t hold his sword. He actually threatened me briefly with his dagger after that, which threat ended when my point took him cleanly through the chest, and that was it for the other one.
I had another throwing knife in my left hand by then, this one taken from the back of my collar. I used it to slow down the one nearest me, then charged another and veered off into a feint just outside of his sword range. His attack missed, then Loiosh flew into his face, then I cut open his chest and throat with my rapier.
I caught a glimpse of something moving, so I took a step to the side and lunged at it, then wondered if I were about to skewer Morrolan. But no, I skewered someone else instead, and was past him before he hit the ground. I got a glimpse of Morrolan fighting like a madman, then Loiosh screamed into my mind and I ducked and rolled as a sword passed over my head.
I came up, faced my enemy, feinted twice, then cut open her throat. Morrolan was dueling with a pair of them, and I thought about helping him, but then someone else was coming at me, and I don’t remember how I dispatched him but I must have because I wasn’t hurt.
I looked around for more targets but there weren’t any; just the injured dead and the dead dead, so to speak. I wondered what happened to those who died here when they were already dead, as well as those who died here when they were alive.
Morrolan was glaring at me. I ignored him. I cleaned my rapier and sheathed it, trying to recover my breath. Loiosh returned to my shoulder, and I picked up my own belligerence reflected in his mind. Morrolan started to say something and I said, “Drop dead, asshole. You may think this multiple duel business is some sort of cute game, but I don’t care to be tested. They wanted to kill me. They didn’t manage. That’s the end of it.”
His face went white and he took a step toward me. “You never learn, do you?” He raised his sword until it was pointed at me.
I held my hand out. “Killing a man who isn’t even holding a weapon? That would hardly be honorable, would it?”
He glared at me a moment longer, then spat on the ground. “Let’s go,” he said.
I left my various weapons in whatever bodies they happened to have taken up residence and followed him farther into the land of the dead.
I hoped the rest of the dead we met would be more peaceful.
* * * *
There are times, I guess, when you have to trust somebody. I would have chosen Kiera, but I didn’t know where she was. So I gave Kragar some money and had him purchase, discreetly, a stiletto with a seven-inch blade. It took him an afternoon, and he didn’t ask any questions.
I tested the balance and decided I liked it. I spent an hour in my flat sharpening the point. I shouldn’t have taken an hour, but I was used to sharpening edges for vegetables or meat, not sharpening points for bodies. It’s a different skill. After sharpening it, I decided to put a coat of dull black paint on the blade and, after some thought, on the hilt, too. I left the actual edge of the blade unpainted.
When I was done it was already evening. I went back to Gruff s and positioned Loiosh in the window of the place. I took up a position around the corner and waited.
“Well, Loiosh? Is he there?”
“Ummm ... yeah. I see him, boss.”
“Is he with his friend?”
“Yeah. And a couple of others.”
“Are you sure you’re out of sight?”
“Don’t worry about it, boss.”
“Okay. We’ll wait, then.”
I went over my plan, such as it was, a couple of times in my head, then settled back to do some serious waiting. I amused myself by thinking up fragments of bad poetry for a while, which put me in min
Anyway, she was good for me, even though it didn’t last long. She wanted to be rich, and classy, and she was an argumentative bitch. I was working on keeping my mouth shut when Dragaeran punks insulted me, and she helped a lot because the only way to get along with her was to bite my tongue when she made her outrageous statements about Dragaerans or the Jhereg or whatever. We’d had a lot of fun for a while, but she finally caught a ship to one of the island duchies where they paid well for human singers. I missed her, but not a lot.
Thinking about her and our six-hour shopping sprees when I had money was a good way to waste time. I went through the list of names we’d called each other one afternoon when we were trying to see who could get cute enough to make the other ill. I was actually starting to get melancholy and teary-eyed when Loiosh said, “They’re leaving, boss.”
“Okay. Back here.”
He came back to my shoulder. I stuck my head around the corner. It was very dark, but in the light escaping from the inn I could see them. It certainly was my target. He was walking right toward me. As I ducked back behind the building, my heart gave one quick thud, there was a drop in my stomach, and I felt I was perspiring, just for an instant. Then I was cool and relaxed, my mind clear and sharp. I took the stiletto from its sheath at my side.
“Go, Loiosh. Be careful.”
He left my shoulder. I adjusted the weapon to an overhand grip because Dragaerans are taller than we are. Eye level for Kynn was just a bit over my head. No problem.
Then I heard, “What the—Get that thing away from me!” At the same time, there was laughter. I guess Kynn was amused by his friend’s dance with a jhereg. I stepped around the corner. I can’t tell you what Loiosh was doing to Kynn’s friend because I had eyes only for my target. His back was to me, but he turned quickly as I emerged from the alley.
His eyes were on a level with the blade, but the knife and my sleeve were dark, so his eyes locked with my own, in the tiny instant when the world froze around me and all motion slowed down. He appeared slightly startled.
It wasn’t as if I hesitated. The motion of my knife was mechanical, precise, and irresistible. He had no time to register the threat before the stiletto took him in the left eye. He gave a jerk and a gasp as I twisted the knife once to be sure. I left it in him and stepped back into the alley as I heard his body fall. I crouched between two garbage cans and waited.
Then I heard cursing from around the corner.
“I’m away, boss, and he’s found the body.”
“Okay, Loiosh. Wait.”
I saw the guy come around the corner, sword out, looking. By this time I had another knife in my hand. But I was hoping that, knowing there was an assassin around, the guy wouldn’t be interested in looking too closely for him. I was right, too. He just gave a cursory glance up the alley, then probably decided that I’d teleported away.
He took off at a run, probably to inform his boss of what had happened. As soon as Loiosh told me it was safe, I continued through the alley and, walking quickly but not running, made my way back to my flat. By the time I arrived I wasn’t trembling anymore. Loiosh joined me before I got there. I stripped off all of my clothing and checked for bloodstains. My jerkin was stained, so I burned it in the kitchen stove. Then I bathed, while thinking about how to spend my money.
* * * *
Our friend from the gate—the Dragonlord with the flat forehead—joined us again. He glared at me and I sneered back. Loiosh hissed at him, which I think unnerved him just a bit. We won the exchange, though it was close. He turned to Morrolan, who actually seemed a little embarrassed.
Morrolan said, “My companion—”
“Do not speak of it,” said the other.
“Very well.”
“Follow.”
Morrolan shot me one more glare for good luck and we set off behind him. The area seemed empty of trees, rocks, or buildings. Every once in a while, off in the distance, we would see figures moving. As I continued looking, trying to avoid looking at the sky, it seemed that things were shifting a bit, as if our steps were taking us over more ground than just a footstep ought to, and the position of landmarks would change out of proportion to our rate of movement. Well, this shouldn’t surprise me. I went back to concentrating on our friend’s back.
Then someone else came toward us—a woman dressed in a robe of bright purple. Our guide stopped and spoke quietly to her, and she turned and went off again.
“Boss, did you get a look at her eyes?”
“No, I didn’t notice. What about them?”
“They were empty, boss. Nothing. Like, no brain or something. “
“Interesting.”
The landscape began changing. I can’t be precise about when or to what, because I was trying not to watch. The changes didn’t make sense with how we were moving, and I didn’t like it. It was almost like a short teleport, except I didn’t get sick or feel any of the effects. I saw a grove of pine trees and then they vanished; there was a very large boulder, big and dark grey, directly in front of us, but it was gone as we started to step around it. I’m sure there were mountains not too far away at one point, and that we were walking through a jungle at another, and next to an ocean somewhere in there. In a way, this was more disconcerting than the attacks we’d endured earlier.
It started raining just as I was getting dry again after the soaking we’d started this journey with. I hate being wet.
The rain lasted only long enough to annoy me, then we were walking among sharp, jutting rocks. Our path seemed to have been cut through the stonework, and I’d have guessed we were in a mountain.
It was then that a dragon appeared before us.
* * * *
I ran into Kragar the next day. He cleared his throat and looked away in the particular way he has and said, “I heard that one of Rolaan’s enforcers went for a walk last night.”
I said, “Yeah?”
He said, “No one saw who did it, but I heard a rumor that the assassin used a jhereg to distract the guy he was with.”
I said, “Oh.”
He said, “I’d almost think of you, Vlad, except you’re so well known for having a pet jhereg that you couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to do something that obvious.”
I suddenly felt queasy. Loiosh said, “Pet?”
I said, “Shut up,” to Loiosh, and “that’s true,” to Kragar.
He nodded. “It was interesting, though.”
I said, “Yeah.”
My boss sent for me a little later. He said, “Vlad, you should leave town for a while. Probably a month. You have anywhere to go?”
I said, “No.”
He handed me another bag of gold. “Find somewhere you’ll like. It’s on me. Enjoy yourself and stay out of sight.”
I said, “Okay. Thanks.”
I got out of there and found a commercial sorcerer with no Jhereg connections to teleport me to Candletown, which is along the seacoast to the east and is known for food and entertainments. I didn’t even stop home first. It didn’t seem wise.
* * * *
It is really hard to conceive of just how big a dragon is. I can tell you that it could eat me, perhaps without the need for a second bite. I can mention that it has tentaclelike things all around its head, each of which is longer than I am tall and as big around as my thigh. I could let you know that, at the shoulders, it was around eighteen feet high and much, much longer than that. But, until you’ve seen one up close, you just can’t really imagine it.
Loiosh dived under my cloak. I’d have liked to have followed. Morrolan stood stiffly at my side, waiting. His hand wasn’t resting on his sword hilt, so I kept my hands away from my rapier.
Anyway, just what good is a rapier going to do against a drago
“WELL MET, STRANGERS.”
What can I say? It wasn’t “loud” as a voice is loud, but, ye gods, I felt the insides of my skull pounding. Earlier, when the athyra had spoken to us, I had the impression that it was carrying on simultaneous but different conversations with Morrolan and me. This time, it seemed, we were both in on it. If I ever actually come to understand psychic communication I’ll probably go nuts.
Morrolan said, “Well met, dragon.”
One of its eyes was fixed on me, the other, I assume, on Morrolan.
It said, “YOU ARE ALIVE.”
I said, “How can you tell?”
Morrolan said, “We are on an errand.”
“FOR WHOM?”
“The lady Aliera, of the House of the Dragon.”
“OF WHAT IMPORTANCE IS THIS TO ME?”
“I don’t know. Does the House of the Dragon matter to you, Lord Dragon?”
I heard what may have been a chuckle. It said, “YES.”
Morrolan said, “Aliera e’Kieron is the Dragon heir to the throne.”
That was news to me. I stared at Morrolan while I wondered at the ramifications of this.
The dragon turned its head so both its eyes were on Morrolan. After a moment it said, “WHERE STANDS THE CYCLE?”
Morrolan said, “It is the reign of the Phoenix.”
The dragon said, “YOU MAY BOTH PASS.”
It turned around (not a minor undertaking) and walked back out of sight. I relaxed. Loiosh emerged from my cloak and took his place on my right shoulder.
Our guide continued to lead us onward, and soon we were back in a more normal (ha!) landscape. I wondered how much time had actually passed for us since we’d arrived. Our clothing had pretty much dried before the rain and we’d had a meal. Four hours? Six?
There was a building ahead of us, and there seemed to be more people around, some in the colors of the House of the Dragon, others in purple robes.