Steven Brust - Taltos

We passed through the gate once more, the purple robe leaving us there, and we came once more before the throne of Verra, the Demon Goddess. She was smiling.

The bitch.

I could have done most of my planning without ever leaving my flat, and I almost decided to. But I was getting more and more nervous about this whole Morganti business, so I decided to take the precaution of verifying some of the information on the fact sheets.

I’ll make a long, dull story short and say it all checked out, but I was happier seeing it myself. His imperially assigned protection consisted of three Dragonlords who were always with him, all of whom were very good. None of them spotted me while I was following them around, but they made me nervous. I eventually sent Loiosh to trail him while I studied the information, looking for a weakness.

The problem was the fact that the bodyguards were of the House of Dragon. Otherwise, I could probably bribe them to step out of the way at the crucial time. I wondered if the Dragons might have other weaknesses.

Well, for the moment, assume they did. Was there a good, obvious place to take him? Sure. There was a lady he liked to visit in the west of Adrilankha, past the river.

If there is a better time and place to nail someone than his mistress’s, I don’t know what it is. Loiosh checked the area out for me and it was perfect—rarely traveled in the early morning hours when he left her place, yet with a fair share of structures to hide near. All right, if I were going to take him there, what would I do? Replace the cabman who picked him up? That would involve bribing the cabman, who’d then know about the assassination, or else killing or disabling him, which I didn’t like.

No, there had to be a better way.

And there was, and I found it.

She said, “I greet you again, mortals. And you, Aliera, I give you welcome. You may leave this place, and the Easterner may accompany you, on the condition that he never return. The Lord Morrolan will remain.”

“No,” said Aliera. “He returns with us.”

The goddess continued to smile.

“All right,” said Aliera. “Explain to me why he has to stay here.”

“It is the nature of this place. The living are simply unable to return. Perhaps he can become undead, and leave that way. There are those who have managed this. I believe you know Sethra Lavode, for instance.”

“That is not acceptable,” said Aliera.

Verra smiled, saying nothing.

Morrolan said, “Let it lie, Aliera.”

Aliera’s face was hard and grim. “That’s nonsense. What about Vlad, then? If it was the nature of the place, he couldn’t leave either. And don’t tell me it’s because he’s an Easterner—you know and I know there’s no difference between the soul of an Easterner and the soul of a Dragaeran.”

Indeed? Then why weren’t Easterners allowed into the Paths of the Dead, assuming we’d want to be? But this wasn’t the time to ask.

Aliera continued, “I couldn’t leave either, for that matter. And didn’t the Empress Zerika manage? And for that matter, what about you? I know what being a Lord of Judgment means, and there’s nothing that makes you so special that you should be immune to these effects. You’re lying.”

Verra’s face lost its smile, and her multijointed hands twitched—an odd, inhuman gesture that scared me more than her presence. I expected Aliera to be destroyed on the spot, but Verra only said, “I owe you no explanation, little Dragon.”

Aliera said, “Yes, you do,” and Verra flushed. I wondered what it was that had passed between them.

Then Verra smiled, just a little, and said, “Yes, perhaps I do owe you an explanation. First of all, you are simply wrong. You don’t know as much about being a god as you think you do. Easterners hold gods in awe, denying us any humanity. Dragaerans have the attitude that godhood is a skill, like sorcery, and there’s nothing more to it than that. Neither is correct. It is a combination of many skills, and many natural forces, and involves changes in every aspect of the personality. I was never human, but if I had been, I wouldn’t be now. I am a god. My blood is the blood of a god. It is for this reason that the Halls of Judgment cannot hold me.

“In the case of Zerika, she was able to leave because the Imperial Orb has power even here. Still, we could have stopped her, and we nearly did. It is no small thing to allow the living the leave this place, even those few who are capable.

“Your Easterner friend could never have come here without a living body to carry him. No, the soul doesn’t matter, but it’s more complicated than that. It is the blood. As a living man he could bring himself here, and as a living man he can leave.” She suddenly looked at me. “Once. Don’t come back, Fenarian.” I tried not to look as if I were shaking.

Verra went on, “And as for you, Aliera ...” Her voice trailed off and she smiled.

Aliera flushed and looked down. “I see.”

“Yes. In your case, as perhaps your friends told you, I had some difficulty in persuading certain parties to allow you to leave. If you weren’t the heir to the throne, we would have required you to stay, and your companion with you. Are you answered?”

Aliera nodded without looking up.

“What about me, boss?”

Shit. I hadn’t thought of that. I screwed up my courage and said, “Goddess, I need to know—”

“Your familiar shares your fate, of course.”

“Oh. Yes. Thank you.”

“Thanks, boss. I feel better.”

“You do?”

Verra said, “Are you ready to leave, then? You should depart soon, because if you sleep, none of you will live again, and there are imperial rules against the undead holding official imperial positions.”

Aliera said, “I will not leave without my cousin.”

“So be it,” snapped Verra. “Then you will stay. Should you change your mind, however, the path out of here is through the arch your friends know, and to the left, past the Cycle, and onward. You may take it if you can. The Lord Morrolan will find his life seeping away from him as he walks, but he can try. Perhaps you will succeed in bringing a corpse out of this land, and denying him the repose of the Paths as well as the life which is already forfeit. Now leave me.”

We looked at each other. I was feeling very tired indeed.

For lack of anywhere else to go, we went past the throne until we found the archway beneath which we’d first met Kieron the Conqueror. To the right was the path to the well, which was still tempting, but I still knew better. To the left was the way out, for Aliera and me.

I discovered, to my disgust, that I really didn’t want to leave Morrolan there. If it had been Aliera who had to stay, I might have felt differently, but that wasn’t one of my options. We stood beneath the arch, no one moving.

I opened the box. The sensation I’d felt upon touching it became stronger. It contained a sheathed dagger. Touching the sheath was very difficult for me. Touching the hilt was even more difficult.

“I don’t like this thing, boss.”

“Neither do I.”

“Do you have to draw it before—”

“Yes. I need to know I can use it. Now shut up, Loiosh. You aren’t making this any easier.”

I drew the dagger and it assaulted my mind. I found my hand was trembling, and forced my grip to relax. I tried to study the thing as if it were just any weapon. The blade was thirteen inches, sharp on one side. It had enough of a point to be useful, but the edge was better. It had a good handguard and it balanced well. The hilt was nonreflective black, and—

Morganti.

I held it until I stopped shaking. I had never touched one of these before. I almost made a vow never to touch one again, but careless vows are stupid, so I didn’t.