Steven Brust - Issola

Exactly what the differences were was harder to say, except that Pathfinder didn’t seem to be quite as, well, aggressive as Blackwand. Morrolan’s weapon gave me the feeling that it would love to have the chance to swallow my soul if I’d just come a little closer; from Aliera’s weapon I got the feeling that it would devour me without a second thought if I gave it the chance, but it wouldn’t go looking for me, either. Also, Blackwand gave me a strong sense of a female personality, wherein from Pathfinder I got no clear indication of a sex. Aliera’s sword, it seemed, was more patient, perhaps more protective, and there was a sense of inquisitiveness; while from Morrolan’s blade I picked up feelings of arrogance, of strength, of the desire to get to smashing things. And there were other, more subtle differences, too, that I couldn’t exactly identify but was now aware of.

I also became aware that Morrolan had said something. “Excuse me,” I said. “I was distracted. What was that?”

“I said that is a good idea, Vlad. You may need it.”

I almost said “Need what?” before I realized that I had allowed Spellbreaker to fall into my hand. It was dangling, inert, about a foot long, with tiny little links. For a second I stared at it; then I recovered and grunted something at him, and fingered it.

Aliera held Pathfifider out in front of her, the blade at about a forty-five-degree angle toward the ceiling. Her eyes were al­most but not quite closed—reminding me, crazily, of how Aibynn looked when playing his drum. I waited, sort of expecting Pathfinder to start glowing or something, but nothing of the kind happened.

After a while, Morrolan said, “You need to find—”

“Shut up, cousin,” said Aliera pleasantly.

Morrolan clamped his mouth shut, and Aliera returned to doing whatever it was she was doing. As I waited, I felt a stirring in my left hand, as if Spellbreaker were trembling a little.

“Something is happening with that thing, Boss.”

“Noticed that, did you?”

“I’m not sure I like it.”

“I just wish I understood what it meant. Any Serioli around to ask?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. We’ve got everything else.”

“Okay,” said Aliera suddenly. “I’m getting something.”

|Her eyes were a little more open now, and she was focusing in front of her, in the middle distance—I followed her glance, but there was nothing there, so she was probably seeing things not apparent to a regular pair of unenchanted human eyes. I happened to look at Verra, then, and she had an expression on her face of the sort you’d associate with any mother seeing her daughter pulling off a difficult task. If I’d let myself, I could have gotten very distracted thinking about just how bizarre that was. Then I noticed that the tip of Pathfinder was trembling, very lightly. I don’t know how much you know about the science of defense, or about Aliera’s skill as a swordsman, but, believe me, that hint of movement at the tip of her blade bespoke more intensity of magic and power than a roomful of pyrotechnics. “Here we go,” said Loiosh.

I wanted to be holding my rapier, or a dagger, or something, but I didn’t know what, so I just waited.

“They aren’t far away,” said Aliera. “This world, within a few thousand feet, in fact. But ... barriers. There are barriers of some kind. I don’t yet know of what kind, or how strong. Stand closer to me.”

We did so. I made sure Teldra was between me and the Goddess, not for any particular reason except that I didn’t feel like standing next to her.

I said, “Does anyone know what we’re going to do when we get there?”

“We’re going to attack them,” said Morrolan.

“Oh.”

“We should have surprise working for us,” he added.

“Do you really think so?”

He didn’t answer. Verra said, “The theory, my little East­erner, is that they don’t actually want to kill us, or they’d have done so already.”

“What if what they wanted is to kill you, Goddess?”

“They may find that difficult.”

Aliera was murmuring under her breath—the sort of murmuring one might expect of a rider urging his horse over a dif­ficult jump.

“Can you get through them?” asked Morrolan.

“Of course,” snapped Aliera. “Now let me concentrate. Be ready.”

Be ready.

They were always saying stuff like that. Just exactly what does that mean, anyway? Be ready. Like, have your eyes open? Be certain you’ve had a good meal and used the chamber pot? Now is the wrong time for a nap? Make sure you aren’t sneezing when it happens? What, exactly? It means nothing, that’s what it means. An empty noise. “I’m ready,” I said.

“As am I,” said Morrolan.

“Yes,” said Teldra.

Verra did not deign to speak, and no one expected her to, I suppose because being a goddess means never needing to sneeze.

I was watching the trembling at the end of Pathfinder, so I saw it when it happened: A tiny spark appeared on the very tip of the blade. The trembling caused it to jump around, leaving diminutive golden trails in the air; I couldn’t tell if they were really there or were just products of my vision. Not, I suppose, that it mattered. There began to be a sensation of motion—the kind of motion that happens in dreams, where nothing changed, and my feet didn’t move, but there was the feeling as if my stomach had suddenly been left behind and needed to catch up—not the wrenching nausea of a teleport, fortunately, but still unsettling.

The sense of motion increased.

“Shallow breaths, Boss.”

“Right.”

Sometime in there, Morrolan had drawn Blackwand—it tells you how messed up my senses were that I hadn’t noticed, still didn’t feel it; all I was really aware of was the sensation of motion, as if something had pulled me from the bottom of a hill and I start up up up rolling and spinning and being everywhere at once and no place at all happening at the same time and time again you’ve been through this before you realize that you’ll never forget everything you thought you knew about moving from one place to another flash of light flickering and still mov­ing past and present and future filled with unknown dangers appearing from everywhere nowhere somewhere somehow what when where was I and how did I get here from there we are slowing down down down stop.

There were four of them; maybe two of them were the same ones we’d seen before, but I couldn’t tell them apart well enough to say. Two were standing, two sitting on what appeared to be an uncomfortable-looking couch. I’d been among humans, Dragaerans, Serioli, cat-centaurs, and gods. One way or another, they were people—but these were things. They looked like things, and I thought of them as things, and I really wanted to put them away like things.

The first bit of bad news was, the things didn’t seem startled by our presence. If we were counting on surprise, we could be in real trouble.

One of the sitting ones was holding something that appeared to be some sort of tube, with projections that fit nicely into its hand. If it was a weapon, we could be in real trouble.

It was clear that two of them, including the one with the tube, were looking at Verra. It was possible that their idea all along was to kill her, and now that we had brought her, the rest of us could simply be disposed of. If that was their thinking, we could be in real trouble.

I had no time, just then, to pay attention to surroundings—I think I noted that we were indoors, and that was about it. Things happened so quickly that I just had no time to note the sort of details that can save your life; we might be in the Jenoine equivalent of someone’s parlor, or of a sorcerer’s laboratory, or the weapon room of their Imperial Guard for all I knew. We might be surrounded by Jenoine food and drink, Jenoine books, or Jenoine death traps. If the latter, we might be in real trouble.