Steven Brust - Jhereg

I envisioned her dissolving, dissipating, vanishing. All of the sorcerous energy I had summoned and been unable to use, I threw, then, and my rage and frustration guided it.

I have heard, since, that those who were looking on saw a stream of something like formless, colorless fire shoot from me toward the tall sorceress with the finger pointing off into the air, who never saw it coming.

As for me, I suddenly felt myself drained of energy, of hate, of everything. I saw her fall in upon herself and dissolve into a swirling mass of all the colors I could conceive of, and several that I couldn’t.

Screams reached my ears. They meant nothing. I found that I could move again when my head suddenly hit the floor, and I realized that it had been up at an angle. I tried to look around, but couldn’t raise my head. I think someone yelled, “It’s spreading!” which struck me as odd.

“ Boss, get up! ”

“ Who—? Oh. Later, Loiosh. ”

“ Boss, now! Hurry! It’s moving toward you! ”

“ What is? ”

“ Whatever it was that you threw at her. Hurry, boss! It’s almost reached you! ”

That was odd enough that I forced my head up a little bit. He was right. There seemed to be almost a pool of—something—that more or less centered where the sorceress had been standing. Now that was strange, I thought.

Several things occurred to me at once. First, that this must be what happened when something dissolved into chaos—it spread. Second, that I really should control it. Third, that I had no idea at all of how one went about controlling chaos—it seemed rather a contradiction in terms, if you see my point. Fourth, I became aware that the outermost tendrils were damn close to me. Finally, I realized that I just plain didn’t have the strength to move.

And then there was another cry, from off to my side, and I became aware that someone had teleported in. That almost set me off laughing. No, no, I wanted to say. You don’t teleport in to a situation like this, you teleport out.

There was a bright green glow off to my right, and I saw Aliera, striding directly up to the edge of the formless mass that filled that part of the room. Loiosh landed next to me, and began licking my ear.

“ C’mon boss. Get up now! ”

That was out of the question, of course. Much too much work. But I did succeed in holding my head up enough to watch Aliera. That was very interesting, in a hazy, unimportant sort of way. She stopped at the edge of the formless mass and held out Pathfinder with her right hand. Her left hand was raised up, palm out, in a gesture of warding.

And, so help me Verra, it stopped spreading! I thought I was imagining things at first, but no, it had certainly stopped spreading. Then, slowly, it assumed a single, uniform color: green. It was very interesting, watching it change. It started at the edges and then worked in until the entire mass was a sort of emerald shade.

She began gesturing with her left hand, then, and the green mass began to shimmer, and slowly it turned blue. I thought it was very pretty. I looked closely. Was it my imagination, or did the blue mass seem a bit smaller than it had been? I looked around the edges of where it had been and confirmed it. There was nothing there, now. The wooden floor of the restaurant was gone, and it pulled back to reveal the edge of what appeared to be a pit. I looked up, and discovered that part of the ceiling was missing as well.

Gradually, I began to see the blue mass shrinking. It took on the form, slowly, of a circle, or rather a sphere, about ten feet in diameter. Aliera was moving forward, levitating over the hole in the floor. The ten feet became five feet, then a foot, then Aliera’s body obscured it completely.

I felt strength returning to me. Loiosh was still next to me, licking my ear. I heaved myself up to a sitting position as Aliera turned and came toward me, appearing to walk over the nothingness below her. When she reached me, she grasped my shoulder and forced me to stand up. I couldn’t read the expression on her face. She held out her hand to me when I was stable on my feet again. In her hand was a small, blue crystal. I took it, and felt a warmth from it, pulsating gently. I shuddered.

She spoke for the first time. “A bauble for your wife,” she said. “Tell her how you got it if you wish; she’ll never believe you, anyway.”

I looked around. The room was empty. Hardly surprising. No one with any brains feels like rubbing shoulders with an uncontrolled mass of raw chaos.

“How—How did you do it?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Spend fifty or a hundred years studying it,” she said. “Then walk into the Great Sea of Chaos and make friends with it—after assuring yourself that you have the e’Kieron genes. After you do all that, maybe, if you absolutely have to, you can risk doing something like what you did.”

She stopped for a minute, and said, “That was really incredibly stupid, you know.”

I shrugged, not feeling a whole lot like answering just then. I was, however, beginning to feel a bit more like myself. I stretched, and said, “We’d better get going, before the Imperial Guards show up.”

Aliera shrugged, made a brushing-off motion, and started to say something when Loiosh suddenly said, “ Guards, boss! ” and I heard the sound of feet tromping. Right on cue.

There were three of them, pulling their grim, official faces, and holding greatswords. Their eyes focused on me, not seeming to notice Aliera at all. I could hardly blame them, of course. They hear about a big mess in a Jhereg-owned bar, come in, and see an Easterner in the colors of House Jhereg. What are they supposed to think?

I had three weapons pointing at me, then. I didn’t move. Looking at them, I gave myself even odds of fighting my way out, given that Loiosh was there and these fools generally don’t know much about dealing with poison or thrown weapons of any kind. I didn’t do anything about it, of course. Even if I’d felt in top shape and there was only one of them, I wouldn’t have touched him. You do not kill Imperial Guards. Ever. You can bribe them, plead with them, reason with them; you don’t fight them. If you do, there are only two possible outcomes: either you lose, in which case you are dead; or you win, in which case you are dead.

But this time, it turned out, I had no reason to worry. I heard Aliera’s voice, over my shoulder. “Leave us,” she said.

The guard turned his attention to her, seemingly for the first time. He raised his eyebrows, recognizing her for a Dragonlord, and not quite knowing how to take all this. I felt tremendous amounts of sympathy for the fellow.

“Who are you?” he asked, approaching her, but keeping his blade politely out of line.

Aliera flung back her cloak, and placed her hand on the hilt of Pathfinder. They must have sensed what it was immediately, for I saw them all recoil somewhat. And they knew, as I knew, that there was all the difference in the world between an Imperial Guard killed by a Jhereg and a fight between Dragons.

“I,” she announced, “am Aliera e’Kieron. This Jhereg is mine. You may go.”

He looked nervous for a moment, licked his lips, and turned back to the others. As far as I could tell, they didn’t express an opinion one way or the other. He turned back to Aliera and looked at her for a moment. Then he bowed and, without a word, turned and left, his fellows falling in behind. I would be very interested in hearing what they put in their reports, I decided.

Aliera turned back to me. “What hit you?” she asked.

“A complete external binding, as far as I can tell. They didn’t get my ears, or for that matter, my heart or lungs, but they got just about everything else.”