Steven Brust - Dzur

“From where?”

“From wherever you stowed them.”

“I? You give me too much credit, Fenarian. Or too little.”

“I don’t think so. I’ve remembered that you’ve been messing with my head.”

“That wasn’t me—”

“You’re lying.”

“—exactly. And don’t call me a liar. And would you mind putting that thing down?”

“I’d rather keep her in my hand. I find her reassuring.”

“Even with that, I don’t believe you can harm me. Not here, not after giving me time to prepare. And in these few moments, I have had time to prepare.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I can’t harm you. But while we consider the matter, let’s chat. I want to know what happened to my memories. To my thought processes. I want to know what you did to me, and why. And unless you feel like testing that ‘maybe’—”

“Taltos Vladimir, you cannot walk into the Paths of the Dead as a living man and expect to both retain all of the sensations you receive, and remain sane. I acted to keep you from going out of your mind.”

“There’s more to it than that, Goddess.”

“Some.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“You have a plan for me. Or I’m part of a plan involving something else, something too far-reaching for me to comprehend, and too sensitive to trust me with, and too important for me to risk.”

“That’s not impossible.”

“Tell me about it. Make me comprehend. Trust me with it. Take the risk. One of us has to take a risk. If you won’t, I will.”

She considered me the way I might consider a brisket of beef into which I was about to stick sharp things. She was taller than a Dragaeran, which meant much taller than me. Her features were angular, her hair dark and swept back, and there was an extra joint on each finger. Eventually she said, “I have said all I choose to say, and threats will not compel me to say more. Attempt to carry out your threat, and I will destroy you utterly. You are in my Halls, Easterner. Don’t make me show you what I can do.”

It was odd. I had this terrible anger in my belly. I wanted to see about that “maybe.” I wanted to in the worst way. I didn’t care if I got her, or she got me, I just wanted to start the show. But there was something else going on; something that kept the lid on. Something that kept my voice calm. Something that—

Something that was Lady Teldra.

As if from a distance, I wondered if I was glad or sorry she was there.

“You owe me, Goddess. I’m not sure what for, or how much, but you owe me.”

“That is a way of looking at it. There are others.”

“Goddess, there are stories among my people about you and the Jenoine.”

“What of them?”

“Would you treat me as they treated you? Or expect me to respond differently?”

“Don’t even start. The cases are nowhere near each other.”

“It seems to me—”

“But on reflection ...”

I stopped and waited for her to continue.

“I admire your courage in coming here like this,” she said after a moment. “It is unlike you.”

“I’ve been hanging around Dzur.”

“But you didn’t come here to destroy me. What do you really want?”

“An explanation.”

“You know you aren’t getting that. What do you want?”

“I—”

“Don’t play me, Taltos Vladimir. You need help, and you’re too angry to beg me for it, as is traditional. Well, I’m inclined to help you for several reasons, mostly because, as you know, I have use for you. But you must cooperate. You must tell me what it is you want. Otherwise, I can’t do it.”

“Goddess, you don’t know me as well as you believe you do.”

“Were you actually intending to kill me?”

“What do you think?”

“What do you wish of me?”

“We’re not finished with this, you know.”

“I know that better than you. In the meantime, what do you wish?”

I actually hadn’t thought about it. But ...

“I’m not sure. If I were to walk into a house filled with sorcer­esses of the Left Hand, all determined to kill me, could you pro­tect me?”

“I can’t interfere with internal matters of one of the Great Houses.”

“Great.”

“At least, not directly.”

She smiled, did the Goddess.

“If you know an indirect method for getting me out of there alive, I’d be glad to hear it. I had been thinking in terms of break­ing a teleport block.”

“No, that would be direct.”

“Then I suppose a divine manifestation is out of the question?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Well then?”

“I’m rather good at sending dreams.”

“Yeah. You’ve sent me a few, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“The last one sent me off East and cost me a finger.”

“That wasn’t the last one.”

“Oh.”

“Well? What about it?”

“I think I see what you’re getting at.”

“And?”

“All right.”

“Then I’ll return you.”

“Well, tell me what’s going to—”

That’s as far as I got before Verra’s Halls were gone from around me, and I was once more standing next to her altar in South Adrilankha. 15. Dumplings

My father spent hours and hours trying to teach me to make good dumplings, but I guess there are just some things I wasn’t cut out to do. On the other hand, even if they had been good, they wouldn’t have had the perfect consistency of Valabar’s.

The thing about dumplings, more than perhaps anything else I’ve ever tried to prepare, is that they take patience: patience to get the mix exactly right, patience to push out each individual dumpling, patience to make sure to pull them from the water at exactly the right moment. I used to put about the same amount of work into preparing to put a shine on a guy, but guess I must have enjoyed that more or something.

Since I’ve been spending so much time making analogies between murder and cooking, I ought to dwell on patience for a bit, because it really is a key factor in both. It’s funny, but until I got into this line of work, I had thought I was by nature an impatient person. It turns out that, when it came to committing murder, I had no trouble sitting around waiting for the perfect moment before striking, or standing outside someplace watching for someone, or following some guy around for days and days to track his movements.

I’m not sure why it is that I’m able to exercise great patience with some things, but with others I get jumpy, jittery, and eventually just curse under my breath and declare the task finished, or else convince myself that it’s good enough.

With cooking and murder, there really shouldn’t be a “good enough.” You need to get as close to perfect as possible, otherwise find another line of work. Which, in fact, I did.

I studied Telnan, who was working on his kethna, accompanied by Valabar’s cabbage, about which I could say a great deal if I felt inclined. One of the arts of putting together a meal—and one that Valabar’s has completely mastered—is determining what goes well with what. I guess it’s like selecting the proper weapon to finalize someone; it goes along with all the other factors, like the individual’s particular skills, and the right time and place.

So there is another similarity between murder and cooking, to ac-company my thoughts about the need for patience when making death or dumplings. But these are my thoughts now—well after the meal and all that followed it. At the time, I was just eating, I wasn’t thinking about murder at all though I guess I did have a few passing thoughts about how I’d never been able to make dumplings to my father’s satisfac­tion. Or my own, for that matter.