Steven Brust - Dzur

Loiosh and Rocza daintily picked up the last of the bread-crumbs with their feet, balanced on the other foot, and brought them to their mouths. It’s the least reptilian thing they do. I love watching them eat.

“We done for the night, Boss?”

“Not quite. I want to get an idea of how much action is going down in Donner’s Court. There didn’t used to be any at all.”

I felt something like a psychic sigh.

“Yeah, I know. You’re worked to death. Shut up.”

I put Sandor back on and walked through the doorway as they flew out the window. Donner’s Court was a fair walk from my place, and most of it mildly uphill. The streets twisted here, but were generally wider than in much of Adrilankha, and it had a more prosperous look. This was where Sandor, were he really a clerk for a slaughterhouse, would be dreaming of living, in his own house purchased with his own money, with a tiny garden. He’d grow carrots, peas, and onions, and he’d find a fat little wife and raise children whom he would teach to respect the Empire above all. If rebellion should happen to break out, he would hide under his bed and he would never exactly tell his children that the poverty all around them was the fault of the poor, but he would talk a great deal about personal responsibility. Not, you understand, that I particularly give a damn about the poor; but at least I can be a bastard without hypocrisy. Sandor, though, would be extremely proud of his peas, terrified of everything beyond the confines of his yard, and I’d hang myself within six weeks.

These, at any rate, were Sandor’s thoughts as he made his way up the gentle inclines of South Adrilankha to the Donner’s Court district. There was little street traffic, and most of that by footcabs, because footcabs are seen as a sign of almost-wealth, ly­ing somewhere between walking and owning a coach. The almost-wealthy are always more concerned with appearances than either of the extremes.

The Donner’s Court area takes its name from a fairly small courtyard which is all that is left of what was once a sizable temple to Barlen, built, oddly enough, by an Easterner named Donner. A street named Harvoth leads into the court, and various shrines and altars to different deities line the quarter of a mile between the court and Donner’s Circle, where the local market is. This evening, there were a few people praying or making small offer­ings at these altars, and that seemed to be almost the only activ­ity in the area. If the Left Hand was making money from this district, which they must be because I’d seen the delivery, then I had no idea where it was coming from.

I walked along near the shrines, trying to look respectful, and trying to figure out what big moneymaking operations for the Jhereg could be. There was a sudden movement behind me and to my left, and my hand slipped under my coat to touch the hilt of Lady Teldra, but even as that pleasant, reassuring warmth went through me I saw that it was only a bird taking flight, and relaxed. I kept my right hand on Lady Teldra’s hilt under my coat, just because it was pleasant to be in touch with her. I had seen Morrolan and Aliera caressing the hilts of their Great Weapons fairly often; now I understood why.

There was a small icon next to me, about four feet in height, in the form of a rounded tower of black marble. I rested my left hand on it while I considered matters.

This is not important, Taltos Vladamir, let her touch your thoughts as she will. However it may look, it doesn’t matter; let it drift into the shadows where your own demons dance about spots of light like the laughter of innocence. It doesn’t matter, because it is not real.

It isn’t real? What did you mean when you said it wasn’t real, Goddess? I remember now; I remember your voice that went past my ears into my head, echoing there, and I don’t think you ever intended me to. But I remember the sounds that came like water, to drown me, and I was screaming denials inside my head, and you just kept droning on and on.

Bitch.

It was strange seeing Morrolan on his knees. It was stranger when there came a flicker, too clear to be my imagination, running along the length of the sword at which he stared; a sword made of marble, and held by a marble hand.

Yes. That’s right. The statue had its own kind of life, and I intended to ask Morrolan if the spirit of Kieron dwelt within the marble, or if it was a life of another sort. But I never did ask him. Because of that voice? Yes, because of that voice. And there was another voice, too, only for a moment.

I’m sorry, Uncle Vlad. I have to. But it isn’t lost, and you’ll have it all back someday.

Yes. There it was. And who do I trust now? She sounded so harmless; the epitome of all that could be trusted: sweet and inno­cent. But she was older than I, and she was Verra’s granddaughter. I had other memories of her, too, and many of them came rushing back, begging to be reinterpreted, with all my natural cynicism let loose on them. And I could feel the part of myself that wasn’t crippled fighting it, wanting to believe, fighting through those images as a swimmer fights a strong current

There is pool of clear water in the Paths of the Dead, before the tall arch that leads to the Halls of Judgment, and you must immerse yourself in it before you pass through, as if to be purified. But it does not pu­rify you; it just removes from you that which might balk at accepting what you have just seen as real. It holds the secrets of the Paths, which is why you are warned not to swallow any of the water. By the time you are dry, you have forgotten how you got wet.

Yeah, that’s how it began. There, in that pool. Perhaps a nat­ural part of that place, only now I knew that it hadn’t been oper­ating alone. The Goddess had dipped her hand into it, and into my head, and done what she had chosen to do for her own reasons. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to have remembered that pool, either. Maybe I only remembered it because she had tried to make me forget so many other things. Maybe she was being undone by her own deviousness.

Around me are walls of white, white, white. I’m wondering why they are white, when I suddenly realize that the question should be: Why do I perceive them as white? And to ask it that way is to answer it, and then comes the touch again.

That’s right! I had returned to her halls. I could hear myself asking her questions, demanding answers, and she just shook her head and started talking; I was seeing her distorted, as through a rippling pool, and as she spoke, I realized that how I was hearing her had nothing to do with my ears. I felt myself trembling all over again. Yes, it was coming back. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, and opened them again, trying to remember.

Several people were staring at me, some of them asking if I was all right.

“Boss? Say something, dammit!”

“Uh ...”

“That’s a start.”

I was on my back, and the people around me were standing, looking down.

“What happened, Loiosh?”

“I have no idea.”

Someone else asked if I was all right. I nodded, because I wasn’t sure if I could speak.

“What happened?” said someone.

I closed my eyes.

“He’s been touched by the Demon Goddess,” said someone else, a touch of awe in his voice.

“Drunk, more likely.”

“Are you drunk?”

“He doesn’t look drunk.”

“Who is he?”

“Who are you?”

I opened my eyes again, looking up at the circle of half a dozen faces staring down at me with expressions ranging from worry to suspicion.

Who was I? Okay, that was a good place to start. I was Vlad, only I was calling myself Sandor right now, while involved in a tricky business to get Cawti out of trouble. The Left Hand of the Jhereg. Lady Teldra. I’d had a meal at Valabar’s yesterday. All right, my memory still worked.