Steven Brust - Athyra

“I don’t know, exactly. But he thinks His Lordship killed Reins, and—”

“He couldn’t have!” said Polyi.

“Why not?” said Savn.

“Well, because, he just couldn’t have.”

“I don’t know. But Vlad thinks so, and I guess he liked Reins or something.”

“Liked him? Were they, you know, lovers?”

“I don’t know.”

“They must have been,” said Polyi. “I mean, you don’t go killing somebody just because he killed someone you like, do you? If people did that, we’d have killed every soldier in the army by now.”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s the same thing.”

“Why not?”

“Because ... I don’t know. Maybe you’re right.”

“I’ll bet they were lovers.”

“So now you think maybe His Lordship really did kill him?”

“Well, no, I’m not saying that.”

“Then what?”

“Well, just that maybe Vlad thinks so.”

“He seemed pretty sure.”

“So? He’s an Easterner; maybe they’re always like that.”

“Maybe,” said Savn, and fell silent.

This was, he realized, what anyone would call an adventure, and it felt like it. Yes, in a way it was terrifying, but it also had an odd, storylike quality to it—it wasn’t quite real.

Savn had never seen people killed before his eyes, and yet here was this Easterner talking very seriously of killing His Lordship. None of it had a sense of being his own memories; it was as if these were things he heard of in a song. The cave was real, and the feeling that he had embarked on something that he’d be able to tell stories about for the rest of his life; but the death and danger were off in the distance, not actually present, like when he had been standing outside of his house.

He kept coming back to that experience, he decided, because it puzzled and intrigued him, and because it seemed to mark a starting point. It had seemed, at the time, to be the beginning of something, but he hadn’t expected it to be the beginning of a time when he would be going through one thing after another that seemed unreal. In retrospect, though, it made a certain kind of sense.

He looked at Polyi. Was it real for her? She was wearing a frown of great concentration. He hoped that whatever her thoughts, they were not carrying her into a place she’d have trouble coming back from, because that would be truly, truly sad. For that matter, how was it going to affect him when it was over? Would he have nightmares for the rest of his life? Would he and Polyi wake up screaming for no reason that they could explain? He shuddered.

He caught Polyi glancing at him speculatively, and it occurred to him that she had seen him with the Easterner, and heard him agreeing that something that she might—no, would see as a great crime—was reasonable. He thought about trying to explain things to her, but realized that he really had no explanation; he was going to have to wait until she brought it up herself, if she ever did.

After a time, she said hesitantly, “Savn ...”

“What is it, Polyi?”

“Will you tell me something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you like Lova?”

“Vlad, wake up,” said Savn. “I think the food’s ready.”

“I’m awake,” said the Easterner in a voice so low Savn could hardly hear it. “Let’s see the norska.”

Savn suddenly wondered how much of the conversation Vlad had overheard, and decided it had been stupid to talk about it right in front of him in any case. He took the spit off the stones and showed it to Vlad.

“It’s done,” announced the Easterner. “Help me sit up.”

Savn and Polyi put the spit back on the stones, then helped him sit up.

“Now I want to stand.”

Savn said, “Are you sure you should—”

“And help me to the latrine.”

“Oh. All right.”

They took his arms and helped him up, and guided him to the other cave, and held him up until he was done. Then they brought him back and helped him sit up against the wall of the cave. The jhereg scampered along with him all the way. He sat there for several moments, breathing deeply, then nodded. “Let’s eat,” he said.

While they’d been helping him, part of the norska had burned slightly, but the rest was fine.

They ate in silence at first. Savn thought it was one of the best things he’d ever eaten. He wasn’t certain what Polyi thought, but she was eating with great enthusiasm.

“Do you know,” said Savn suddenly, “it just occurred to me that if there are people looking for us, and if they are at all nearby, the smell will bring them right to us.” He took another bite of roasted norska.

Vlad grunted and said, “Should my friends take that as a compliment on their choice of food?”

Savn took his time chewing and swallowing, then said, “Yes.”

“Good. I think the cave is deep enough that no smells will escape.”

“AH right,” said Savn.

Polyi was still eating and not talking. Savn tried to decide if she was looking sullen, but he couldn’t tell.

“It’s the wine that does it,” said Vlad. His voice seemed slightly stronger; at any rate, he seemed to have no trouble talking. “Cooking over an open flame is its own art, and doesn’t have much to do with oven cooking or stove cooking. I’m not really good at it. But I know that wine always helps.”

Savn wondered if it was the wine that made the norska taste so good, or if it was really the circumstances—if it wasn’t still the feeling that he was on some sort of adventure. He knew there was something wrong with thinking about it this way, but how could he help it? He was sitting in a cave with a man who spoke of killing His Lordship, and he was eating norska taken with magic—

“Vlad,” he said suddenly.

“Mroi?” said Vlad. Then he swallowed and said, “Excuse me. What?”

“I had always heard that it was bad luck to hunt with magic, except for finding the game.”

“I’ve heard that, too.”

“Well, then,” said Savn. “What about—”

“Oh, this? Well, it wasn’t exactly magic. At least, not directly.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Never mind. It isn’t important.”

Savn decided that he was probably never going to understand what Vlad thought important. The most trivial things seemed to provoke the biggest reactions, like when Savn had mentioned that His Lordship’s men hadn’t been using Morganti weapons. Savn shook his head, wondering.

All of a sudden Polyi said, “You can’t kill His Lordship.”

Vlad looked at her without speaking.

Savn said, “Polyi—”

“Well,” she said to Vlad. “You can’t.”

“Of course not,” said Vlad.

“But you mean to. I know it.”

“Polyi—”

“Just out of curiosity,” said Vlad, “why couldn’t I kill him?”

“He’s a wizard.”

“So?”

Polyi frowned. “They say that he can never die, because his magic protects him. They say that there are rooms in his keep where he just walks in and comes out younger, and that he is only as old as he wants to be. They say—”

“And how much of this do you believe?”

“I don’t know,” said Polyi.

Savn said, “If it’s true, though—”

“It’s true that he’s a sorcerer.”

“Well, then?”

“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.”

Savn couldn’t find an answer to that, so he didn’t make one. He looked at Polyi, but she was just staring angrily at Vlad. There was a sense of unreality about the entire conversation—it was absurd that they could be talking about killing His Lordship as if discussing the price of linen. There had been a time, some five years before, when he, Coral, and Lan had drunk wine until they had become sick. The thing he remembered most clearly about the incident, other than walking around for the next week hoping Mae and Pae didn’t find out about it, was sitting with his head bent over, focusing on nothing except the tabletop, slowly memorizing every mark on it. The memory came back to him with such a rush that it almost brought along the giddy, sickly, floating feeling he had had then.