Steven Brust - Athyra

“What difference does it make?”

“I would think,” said Vlad, “that your Maener and Paener would be getting worried by now.” Savn looked at him closely. “Is it that easy?”

“To undo? Yes. The spell, at any rate, is easy to undo. And there shouldn’t be any direct aftereffects.”

“What do you mean, ‘direct’?”

“I mean that they’ll probably figure out that they’ve been under a spell. I don’t know what that will do to them. Maybe nothing.”

Savn glanced at Polyi, who was staring at the ground and frowning.

“Do you want to go home?” Savn asked her.

She looked up. “Do you?”

“Not right now. I want to stay for a bit and—”

“See how it comes out?” said Vlad ironically.

Savn shrugged and asked Vlad, “What do you intend to do?”

“I’m not sure. It depends how much time I have. If I had to teleport right now, I might be able to. Then again, I might not. I’d rather not have to. If I can get a couple of days to recover, I’ll have the choice of getting out of here to someplace safer. If, on the other hand, I’m found, I’ll have to try to escape as best I can.”

“So your intention is to get out?”

“Oh, no. That’s only if I have no choice. You know very well what I want to do.”

“You’re crazy,” said Polyi. “You can’t kill His Lordship! No one can.”

Vlad shook his head. “I’m going to kill him. The only questions are when and how. If I can’t do it now, I’ll have to wait for a better time. But now would be best. I’d like to have it over and done with.”

“Heh,” said Polyi. “You won’t feel that way when it is over and done with.”

Savn knelt down next to Vlad and felt his forehead. He was relieved to find that it was still cool, though his face seemed a trifle flushed. Vlad watched him intently.

“How do you feel?” said Savn.

“Tired. Weak. Not bad other than that.”

“You should rest.”

“I doubt I can,” said Vlad. “There’s too much on my mind.”

Savn was suddenly and comically reminded of how he would explain to Maener that he was too excited about Pudding Morn to go to sleep, and how she would smile and tell him that he should just rest his eyes then, and how he would fall asleep. He said, “That’s all right, just close your eyes and—”

Vlad laughed. “Very good, Paener. I get the idea. Wake me if they come to kill me.”

He slid over to his blankets, threw one arm over his eyes, and, as far as Savn could tell, went instantly to sleep.

They watched him sleep for an hour or two; then Savn decided they should talk. He whispered to Polyi, and she agreed, so he took a torch and guided her back through the cave until he was certain they were far enough away that Vlad couldn’t hear them.

“What should we do?” he said.

“I think we should go home,” said Polyi. “If Mae and Pae really are worried—”

“What will we tell them?”

“The truth,” said Polyi.

“Oh?”

She frowned. “Well, it isn’t our problem, is it? Savn, you heard him. Now we know he wants to kill His Lordship. I mean, we know he can’t, but what if he does?”

“Well,” said Savn. “What if he does?”

“We have to stop him, that’s all.”

“Do we?”

“You heard what he is. He’s an assassin. He kills people for money. He—”

“He used to be an assassin. And what about His Lordship?”

“You don’t believe all that stuff he said, do you?”

“I don’t know. Why would he admit to being an assassin, then lie about everything else? It doesn’t make sense.”

“He’s an Easterner; maybe it makes sense to him.”

“That’s no answer.”

“Why not? Do you know how they think?” Savn didn’t answer; in his mind, he kept hearing Vlad’s voice, echoing his own: Why do people only see what they want to? An unanswerable question, certainly. If Master Wag would even admit that it was true, he’d just say that it didn’t matter. And maybe it didn’t; maybe it was always going to be frustrating for someone who knew things that most people didn’t want to know. Maybe it was the way of the world.

But if what Vlad said was true, then, within a day, he’d been on both sides of the problem. He didn’t much like either one. How were you supposed to know what to believe, anyway?

“Come on, Polyi,” he said, and started back to the cavern where Vlad slept. “You want to stay here?”

“I don’t know, but right now I want to talk to Vlad.”

“You know,” said Polyi, “I’m getting tired of this cave.”

Savn was tempted to tell her that she was along by her own choice, but decided it wouldn’t be nice. He wedged the torch once more into the rocks and sat down next to Vlad. The jhereg, at first watching him carefully, seemed to relax and go back to resting. Funny how they knew he didn’t intend to hurt Vlad. Maybe they had some means of knowing the truth. Maybe they were the only beings in the world who knew what was really going on, and they were secretly laughing at everyone else.

He laughed at the thought, and Vlad’s eyes opened.

“What’s funny?” said Polyi.

“I’ve just had a revelation,” said Savn. “Truth is in the eyes of the jhereg.”

Vlad blinked and shook his head. “Water?” he croaked.

Savn got him some, and said, “How do you feel?”

“Better,” he said. He drank more water, then looked at Savn patiently.

“Vlad, how do you know what the truth is?”

The Easterner didn’t laugh. He considered for a moment, then said, “Help me sit up.”

Savn did so, then helped him to the wall, which he rested against for a few minutes, recovering his breath. To Savn’s eye, he seemed to have made some improvement.

“Very often,” said Vlad, “I learn what is true by trying something and having it fail.”

“Oh,” said Savn. “I know about that. Master Wag talks about learning from errors.”

“Yes. I don’t recommend it.”

“You don’t?”

“No. It’s far better not to make mistakes, at least when your life is on the line.”

“Well, yes.”

Vlad chewed his lower lip. “It’s not that I’ve never thought about it,” he said. “I have. That happens when you associate with philosophers. The trouble is, you get different answers depending on whether you really want to know, or if you just want to argue about it.”

“I don’t want to argue about it,” said Savn.

“I suspected that. That makes it harder.”

Polyi said, “Savn, what are you doing?”

Vlad answered for him. “He’s trying to make a very difficult decision.”

Polyi snorted. “Savn, you’re going to ask him how to decide whether you should turn him in? Well, that really makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“I think it does,” said Savn. He turned back to Vlad. “What were you saying?”

Vlad was frowning at the floor. He didn’t look up. “I wasn’t saying anything. I was thinking.”

“Well?”

Then he did look up, squinting at Savn. “Let’s start with this,” he said. “Suppose everyone you know says there’s no cave here. Is that the truth?”

“No.”

“Good. Not everyone would agree with you, but I do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Vlad thought for a moment longer, then suddenly shook his head. “There’s no easy answer. You learn things bit by bit, and you check everything by trying it out, and then sometimes you get a big piece of it all at once, and then you check that out. I know what your problem is. Everyone thinks that your Baron can’t be killed, and, furthermore, he’s a great guy, and here I am with a different story, and you don’t know who to believe. I understand the problem. Sorry, I can’t give you any answers.