Steven Brust - Yendi

“Uncle Vlad?” she said, like a litany.

Oh, that’s right. “Vlad.” Me. I was dead. The Easterner, the pain, Loiosh. But he’d been alive, so maybe . . .

“Uncle Vlad?”

I shook my head, and tried speaking. “I don’t know you,” I said, and heard that my voice was strong. She nodded enthusiastically.

“I know,” she said. “But Mommy’s awful worried about you. Won’t you please come back?”

“Come back?” I said. “I don’t understand.”

“Mommy’s been trying to find you.”

“She sent you to look for me?”

She shook her head. “She doesn’t know I’m here. But she’s really worried, Uncle Vlad. And so’s Uncle ’Rollan. Won’t you please come back?”

Who could refuse a request like that? “Where am I, then?”

She cocked her head to the side, looking puzzled. Her mouth opened and closed a few times. Then she shook her head again. “I don’t know, but just come back, okay?”

“Sure, honey, but how?”

“Follow me,” she said.

“Okay.” She moved away a few feet, stopped, and looked back. I found myself moving toward her, but I didn’t seem to be walking. I had no sense of how fast we were traveling, or from where to where, but the grayness gradually darkened.

“Who are you?” I asked her as we moved.

“Devera,” she said.

“I’m pleased to meet you, Devera.”

She turned back to me and giggled, lighting up her face. “We’ve met before, Uncle Vlad.” That triggered some more memories that I couldn’t quite place, but—

“Oh, Uncle Vlad?”

“Yes, Devera?”

“When we get back, don’t mention to Mommy that you saw me, okay?”

“Okay. Why not? Aren’t you supposed to be here?”

“Well, not exactly. You see, I haven’t really been born yet . . . .”

Wherever we were became completely black, and I felt suddenly isolated. Then, once more, I was bathed in green light, and I remember no more.

. . . the dzur had scored a long scratch in the jhereg’s wing. The jhereg’s jaws were going for the dzur’s neck, but the dzur nearly had its mouth around the long, snakelike neck of the jhereg. The jhereg was of the normal breed, not one of the nonpoisonous giant ones that dwelt above Deathsgate Falls, yet it was one of the largest I had ever seen, and should be able to give a good fight to—I blinked. The scene hadn’t changed. The orange-red sky was right, but I realized that I was inside, on a bed, in fact. I was looking at a painting that filled the ceiling above me. Someone’s idea of a joke, no doubt, to have me wake up to that sight. Could I view the painting so that it appeared the jhereg was winning? I could and did. It was a nice painting. I took a deep breath and— I was alive!

I turned my head and looked around the room. It was spacious, as far as I was concerned—twenty-two and a half feet in the direction of the bed, maybe fourteen the other way. No windows, but a nice circulation of air. There was a fireplace centered in the wall my feet pointed to, with a cozy little fire crackling away in it and sending occasional sparks into the room. I twisted and saw that a door was centered in the other wall. Black candles were scattered throughout, providing most of the light. Yet there were enough of them to give the room a bright appearance despite the black walls.

Black, black, black. The color of sorcery. Lord Morrolan, Castle Black. Yet, he wouldn’t have used black candles unless he were doing witchcraft, and I felt no traces of a spell. Nor would he have a painting like that. So—Dzur Mountain, of course.

I leaned back against the pillow (goose feathers, a luxury!) and slowly set about moving my limbs. I made each one move, and each finger and toe. They responded normally, but it took some effort. I saw my cloak and clothing neatly folded on a stand three feet from my head. I noticed with amusement that whoever had undressed me had left Spellbreaker wrapped around my wrist, which was why I hadn’t immediately felt undressed.

I heaved myself to a sitting position. I became aware of a general sense of weakness and pains throughout my body. I welcomed them, as more signs of life, and swung my feet over the edge of the bed.

“ Going to say hello, boss? ”

I spun, and spotted Loiosh high on top of a tall dresser in the far corner of the room. “ Good morning, or whatever it is. I ’ m glad you ’ re all right. ”

He flew down and landed on my shoulder; licked my ear. “ That goes double for me, boss. ”

There was a chamber pot in one corner of the room, which I made a much-needed use of. I dressed slowly, finding several of my more obvious weapons neatly laid out beneath the cloak. Most of the contents of the cloak itself hadn’t been disturbed. Dressing was painful. Enough said.

There was a soft clap at the door about the time I finished. “Come in.”

Aliera entered. “Good morning, Vlad. How are you feeling?”

“Well enough, all things considered.” Morrolan was standing in the doorway behind her. We exchanged nods.

“We would have been here sooner,” he said, “but we had to visit another of our patients.”

“Oh? Who?”

“The ‘lady’ who attacked you,” said Aliera.

“She’s alive?” I swallowed involuntarily. Being killed attempting to do a job is one of the very few things that terminates the agreement between assassin and employer; I’d been hoping that they’d both taken the trip.

“Both of them are,” she said. “We revivified them.”

“I see.” That was different. They had the option of resuming the agreement now, or not. I hoped they chose not to.

“Which reminds me,” said Morrolan. “Vlad, I apologize to you. The Easterner should not have been able to attack you. I caused ruptures in several of her internal organs, which should have sent her into shock at once. It did not occur to me to continue watching her.”

I nodded. “She’s probably a witch,” I said. “Witchcraft is good for that.” He knew that, of course; I was just needling him. “But it ended up all right. How did things go with the other one?”

“She is a very good fighter,” said Aliera. “Remarkably good. We fought for more than a minute, and she wounded me twice.”

It was nicely ironic that Aliera, who specialized in sorcery, had dueled blade to blade with the one, while Morrolan, one of the finest blades in the Empire, had used sorcery. But both were far, far above the norm at either, so it really didn’t matter.

I nodded. “When was it?”

Aliera said, “We performed the revivification as soon as we had you back. You’ve slept for two days.”

“I don’t know how to thank you—or was it Sethra?—for revivifying me.”

“It was I,” said Aliera, “and no thanks are necessary.”

“How hard was it?”

She shook her head. “The most difficult I’ve ever tried. I thought we’d lost you. It was quite a task to repair your body, even before the revivification. Then I made four tries before it worked. I slept for half a day afterwards.”

It was only then that I remembered the dream I’d had. I started to mention it, but Aliera was continuing.

“I think you should be resting now. Try to stay on your back for at least a day. Also, don’t—”

This reminded me of something else, so I interrupted. “Excuse me, Aliera, but—how did you and Morrolan happen to be there?”

“ . . . Morrolan dragged me along. Ask him.”

I turned and let my eyebrows do so.

“Kragar,” he said. “He explained that you required immediate assistance, but he didn’t know the form. I happened to be with Aliera at the time. It seems we were nearly too late. And, to repeat, I apologize for my sloppiness with the Easterner.”