Steven Brust - Issola

She came over and inspected it, Loiosh doing the same from my shoulder.

“Pure amorphia,” I said, “but in a form that can be worked with.”

“If you say so,” said Teldra.

“I say so.”

I slipped it into my pouch as if it were no big deal.

Teldra nodded as if it were no big deal, and said, “All right, then, Vlad, what next?”

That was a good question. But I now had Spellbreaker, a powerful Morganti dagger, a chunk of amorphia, my training as a witch, and my native wit. Might as well use them for something.

I said aloud, “Patience my ass; I’m going to go out and kill something.” 9. How to Break Unwelcome News

Teldra frowned. “Excuse me?”

“Never mind; an old Jhereg joke. Let’s go back.”

“Back, Vlad?”

“To our prison.”

I watched her face, and decided she was struggling between courteously agreeing and rudely asking if I had lost my mind. I politely cut in before she had to choose.

“This place”—I gestured aimlessly—“gives me the creeps. I don’t mean just here, I mean this whole area. The Jenoine will be able to find us anywhere on their world, if they want to, so being out here will only make it harder for Morrolan and Aliera to find us.”

“Ah,” she said. “You’ve resigned yourself to being rescued, then?”

“Heh. I’m still thinking about it.”

“And you have another idea, don’t you?”

“Hmmm. Sort of a plan.”

She smiled. “That’s good enough for me,” she said, and we headed back for the building that had been our prison. I should, perhaps, have been surprised that it hadn’t vanished while we were out of sight, but it hadn’t, and the door was still where we’d left it. We went back inside. The door vanished as we stepped through, but I wouldn’t give it the satisfaction of being startled by that.

“What’s the plan this time, Boss?”

“If I told you, you’d just laugh.”

“Probably.”

“You could learn a lot from Teldra.”

“The ocean says the river is wet. The snow says the ice is cold.”

“Is that like, the jhereg says the yendi is a reptile?”

“Shut up, Boss.”

I studied the big, empty room on the big empty world, considered my predicament, thought over my idea, and tried to be optimistic. I glanced over to where the shackles still hung on the wall. The Jenoine could put us back in them easier than I’d gotten out of them. But why should they? After all, the whole reason—

“Teldra, do you think I’m paranoid?”

She blinked. “Lord Taltos?”

“I keep seeing devious plots everywhere, and thinking that everyone must have two or three layers of subterfuge behind every action.”

“I recall, my lord, your affair with the Sorceress in Green It seems to me you were correct on that occasion.”

“She’s a Yendi.”

“And these are Jenoine. Much more worrisome. With a Yendi, one at least knows everything is subterfuge and misdirection. With the Jenoine, we don’t understand them, and we don’t know if they understand us.”

I nodded. “Okay, a point.”

She continued, “I think it reasonable to wonder if we’re doing what they want us to—if they have everything planned, and each step we have taken is in accordance with their wishes. Didn’t Sethra say as much? Yet it is uncertain, because we behave unpredictably, and we don’t yet know to what extent they can anticipate and understand us. I’m working on that,” she added.

“You’re working on that?”

“Yes.”

I wanted to ask her in exactly what way was she working on it, but if she had wanted me to know, she’d have told me. All right, then. I’d go ahead and assume I was right in my surmises until I found out I was wrong—by which time it would probably be too late, and I wouldn’t have to worry about it. There are advantages to fatalism.

“Hungry, Teldra?”

“No, thank you.”

I grunted and shared a bit of jerky with Loiosh. Teldra went over to the wall and sat down, her knees up, arms around her knees—she managed to make the position look dignified and graceful.

I said, “Teldra, what, exactly, is the soul?”

“I hope you’re asking rhetorically, Vlad. I’ve never studied magical philosophy. I only know the mundane answer—that which is left after the death the physical body—the life essence—the personality, separated from matter.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I’ve never studied magical philosophy eith­er. I guess I should have, at some point.”

“Is it important?”

“Yes.”

She looked a question.

I touched the Morganti dagger at my belt and said, “These things destroy souls. It would be very useful right now to know exactly what they destroyed, and how they did it, and what it all means. I’m trying to avoid being embarrassed at a critical moment.”

“I see. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

She had already helped. I leaned against the wall next to her and pondered the soul.

“Boss, why is it you always get philosophical just when—”

“Shut up, Loiosh.”

He snickered into my mind; I ignored him. To think of the soul as a field of sorcerous energy usually anchored to a living body might be incomplete, but also might be close enough to be useful; at least, to the best of my knowledge , that was how a Morganti dagger treated it. It said nothing about how such a nebulous thing as a personality could be contained in a field of sorcerous energy, but Morganti weapons are notoriously unconcerned with personalities.

If it was good enough for a Morganti dagger, it was good enough for me.

Heh.

Teldra was looking at me.

I cleared my throat. “I assume you want to be let in on what my plan is.”

“That’s up to you, Vlad. If you think I should know, tell me. Otherwise, not.”

I stared at her. “You really do trust me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said.

“By the Halls of Judgment, why?”

“Because you keep surviving, Vlad.”

She said it so matter-of-factly that I was almost convinced “Heh,” I said. “I’m just being saved for some spectacularly awful death.”

“If so,” she said, “I’m sure you’ll comport yourself with dignity.”

“Dignity? Me? Not bloody likely. If I go down swinging, it’ll be because I think swinging is more likely to get me out of it than running. If I go down running, I won’t be surprised.”

She gave me a smile as if she didn’t believe me and said, “I hadn’t meant to turn the conversation morbid.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, Teldra. Most of my thoughts are morbid. I think it comes of having spent so long killing people for a living. Strange way to live, when you think about it, so I try not to, but I can’t help it. On the other hand, you work for a guy known for sacrificing whole villages, so I guess I’m a bit of a piker by comparison.”

“More like hamlets than villages, Vlad. And he was at war against them at the time, you know.”

“Oh. Actually, I hadn’t known that. I just chalked it up to another example of how charming my dear Goddess can be.”

“It was while he was consolidating his power and retaking his ancestral homelands. They worshiped Tri’nagore, a God you don’t hear from much anymore, and had overrun Blackchapel, killing everyone in it. Morrolan returned the favor, and sent their souls to his Patron Goddess.”

“I see. They don’t tell that part of the story.”

“The Lord Morrolan refuses to be put in the position of defending his actions. He considers it undignified.”

“So he’d rather everyone thought him a bloodthirsty butcher?”