Steven Brust - Athyra

“This way, boy,” said the servant.

“Yes, sir,” said Savn, and, though his knees felt weak, he followed Turi into a place of splendor greater than his mind could grasp. The walls seemed to shimmer, and were adorned with richly colored paintings. The furniture was huge and came in amazing variations, and Savn couldn’t imagine sitting on any of it. Bright light filled every corner of the room, glittering against objects of incomprehensible purpose, made of crystal, shiny metal, and ceramics that had been glazed with some unfathomable technique that made the blues and reds as deep and rich as the soil.

“Watch your step,” said Turi sharply.

Savn caught himself just before walking into a low table that seemed made entirely of glass. He continued more carefully, while still looking around, and it suddenly came to him that some of the crystal and metal objects were drinking vessels. He didn’t think he’d be able to drink from such objects—his hand would be shaking too much.

The shape and color of his surroundings changed. He had somehow entered another room, which might as well have been another world for all the sense he could make of anything around him, until he realized that every one of the objects that filled the room were books—different books—more books than a man could read in his entire lifetime—more books than Savn had thought had ever been written. There were hundreds and hundreds of them. These were cases that had obviously been made just to hold them. There were tables on which they lay, carelessly flung open to—

His gaze suddenly fell on a figure standing before him, dressed in a gleaming white shirt, which set off a bright red jewel suspended from a chain around his neck. The pants were also perfectly white, and baggy, falling all the way to the floor so that the figure’s feet were invisible. Savn looked at his face, then looked away, terrified. On the one hand, though he was big, it seemed odd to Savn how human he looked; the thought, He’s just a man, after all, came unbidden to his mind. But even as Savn was thinking this, he discovered that he had fallen to his knees and was touching his head to the floor, as if in response to something so deeply buried within him that it went beyond awareness or decision. As Savn knelt there, confounded and humbled, with the image of the Athyra nobleman burned into his mind, it struck him that His Lordship had seemed very pale. Unnaturally pale.

Savn tried not to think about what this might mean. When His Lordship spoke, it was with an assurance that made Savn realize that Speaker, with all his shouting, raving, and fits of temper, had only pretended to have authority—that real audiority was something stamped into someone from birth or not at all. He wondered what Vlad would say about that.

“What is it, lad?” said His Lordship. “My man tells me you have something to say about the Easterner. If you want to tell me where he is, don’t bother. I know already. If you are here asking about your Master, I’m not finished with him yet. If you want to tell me what sort of condition the Easterner is in, and what his defenses are like, that is another matter; I will listen and reward you well.”

Savn’s head spun as he tried to make sense out of this strange collection of ideas. Your Master. Master Wag? Not finished with him yet.

Savn managed to find his voice, and croaked out, “I don’t understand, Your Lordship.”

“Well, what are you here for? Speak up?”

“Your Lordship, I—” Savn searched for the words, hindered in part by no longer being certain what he wanted to find out, or if he dared ask any of it. He looked up, and his eye fell on someone who had apparently been there all along, though Savn hadn’t noticed him. The man, who Savn was certain he’d never seen before, stood behind His Lordship, absolutely motionless, his face devoid of the least hint of expression or of feeling, dressed in grey from head to foot, save for a bit of black lace on the ruffles of his shirt, and his high black boots. In some indefinable yet definite way, he reminded Savn of Vlad.

Below the collar of his cloak was the insignia of the House of the Jhereg, as if Savn needed that, or even his colors, to know that this was the assassin Vlad had spoken of.

Savn couldn’t take his eyes off him, and, for his part, the stranger stared back with the curiosity of one looking at an interesting weed that, though it didn’t belong in one’s garden, had some unusual features that made it worth a moment’s study before being pulled and discarded.

“Speak up, boy,” snapped His Lordship, but Savn could only stare. Speech was so far from him that he couldn’t imagine ever being able to talk again—the command of His Lordship, compelling though it was, belonged to another world entirely; surely His Lordship couldn’t imagine that he, Savn, would be able to form words, much less sentences.

“What do you have to tell me?” said His Lordship. “I won’t ask again.”

Savn heard this last with relief; at this moment, all he wanted from life was for His Lordship not to ask him to speak anymore. He thought about getting up and bowing his way out of the room, but he wasn’t certain his legs would support him, and if it wasn’t the proper thing to do, he might never get out of the house alive. The complete folly of coming here hit him fully, rendering action or speech even more impossible.

His Lordship made a sound of derision or impatience and said, “Get him out of here. Put him with the other one. We don’t have time now, anyway.”

Another voice spoke, very softly, with a bite to the consonants that made Savn sure it was from the Jhereg: “You’re an idiot, Loraan. We could find out—”

“Shut up,” said His Lordship. “I need your advice now less than—”

“Indeed,” interrupted the other. “Less than when? Less than the last time you ignored me and—”

“I said, shut up,” repeated His Lordship. “We don’t have time for this; we’ve got an Easterner to kill, and the troops should be in position by now.”

“And if they find him before morning I’ll eat my fee.”

“I’ll bring you salt,” said His Lordship. “We know where to begin looking, and we have enough manpower that it won’t take more than two or three hours.”

At that moment, rough hands grabbed Savn’s shoulders. The Jhereg and the Athyra did not seem to notice.

“He’ll be gone before you find him,” the Jhereg said.

Savn was pulled to his feet, but his knees wouldn’t support him and he fell back down.

“Unlikely, I’ve put a block up.”

“Around three square miles of caves?”

“Yes.”

Savn was grabbed once more, held under his armpits by very strong hands.

“Then he’s already alerted,” said the Jhereg.

Savn was dragged away. He got a last glimpse of His Lordship, hands balled up in fists, staring at the Jhereg, who wore a mocking smile that seemed the twin of the one Vlad had put on from time to time. His Lordship said, “Let him be alerted. I have confidence in your ...” and His Lordship’s voice was drowned out by a sound that Savn realized was his own boots scraping along the floor as he was taken off.

He was completely unaware of the places he passed through, and wasn’t even aware of who was dragging him, despite the fact that he heard a man’s voice and a woman’s, as if from a distance, telling him to walk on his own if he didn’t want to be beaten flat. The voices seemed disconnected from the hands pulling him along, which felt like forces of nature rather than the work of human beings.

They came to the top of a stairway, and the woman, laughing, suggested they throw him down. He thought, I hope they don’t, but knew he couldn’t do anything about it in any case.