Steven Brust - Iorich

A tod­dler tod­dled be­hind her. He wore short pants and a gray frock, and his dark hair was neat­ly brushed. His eyes were huge and re­mind­ed me of Cawti’s. She said, “Vlad, this is your fa­ther.”

The boy stared at me for a mo­ment, then turned and pressed him­self against Cawti’s legs. She gave me an apolo­get­ic smile. “He’s bash­ful around strangers,” she said. I nod­ded. “Just ig­nore him,” she said. “He’ll come around.”

Ig­nore him. Yeah. “All right,” I said.

“Come on, Vlad. Shall we find your tur­tle?”

He nod­ded in­to her knees. She took his hand and led him over to a long, red­dish wood­en box un­der the win­dow. I knew that box; it had once held weapons. Now, it seems, it held a cloth tur­tle stuffed with I know not what.

I ex­pect­ed him to hug it, but he didn’t; he walked in­to a cor­ner, sat down, and be­gan study­ing it. Cawti sat on the edge of a short couch I didn’t rec­og­nize and picked up her glass. We watched him.

“What’s he do­ing?” I asked in a low tone.

“Fig­ur­ing out how it’s put to­geth­er,” she said.

“Oh. Is it that dif­fi­cult?”

“It’s a sort of puz­zle. The cloth folds over in cer­tain ways to make a tur­tle, and if you un­fold it right you get some­thing else. The first one was a ly­orn, the sec­ond a day­ocat. I don’t know what this one is. I guess we’ll find out.”

I smiled. “He solved the first two?”

“Quick.”

I smiled more. “Where did you find the toy?”

“A lit­tle girl makes them, and brings them around. I don’t know why, but she seems harm­less.”

“A lit­tle girl? Does she have a name?”

“De­vera.”

I nod­ded.

“Do you know her?” she asked.

“Um. Yes and no. But you’re right; she wouldn’t hurt him.”

That seemed to sat­is­fy Cawti. We watched my son a lit­tle more. If he was aware that we were watch­ing him, he chose to ig­nore it. It was hard to talk about him as if he weren’t there. Prob­ably a bad idea, too.

Vlad No­rathar walked over to his moth­er and pre­sent­ed her with an ob­ject. “That’s very good,” she said. “Do you know what it is?”

“It’s a horse,” he ex­plained.

She nod­ded. “Show your fa­ther.”

He turned and gave me an eval­uat­ing look; I wished I could have de­cid­ed what ex­pres­sion to have on my face. I set­tled on try­ing to look in­ter­est­ed but not de­mand­ing, and it must have worked be­cause he marched over and showed me the horse.

“That’s very good,” I said. “But the tur­tle must be pret­ty crunched in­side it.”

He frowned and con­sid­ered that. “You’re sil­ly,” he ex­plained.

I’d nev­er been called sil­ly be­fore; I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Good, I think.

He tucked the horse’s ears back in and out a few times, sat­is­fy­ing him­self that he had the se­cret, then he went over and sat on the box and set about turn­ing it in­to a tur­tle again. Cawti and I watched him.

“He’s very bright,” I said.

She smiled.

We watched Vlad No­rathar a lit­tle longer. With no warn­ing, he turned to me and said, “I have a hawk.”

“I’d like to see it,” I said.

He dug in the box and came out with a porce­lain fig­ure about a foot high, and very life­like. He walked over and hand­ed it to me with­out hes­ita­tion. I stud­ied it care­ful­ly. At last I said, “This is the bird that is called a vah­ndoor in the lan­guage of our an­ces­tors.”

He stud­ied me. “Are you be­ing sil­ly?”

“Not this time,” I said. “There are lots of lan­guages. Peo­ple speak dif­fer­ent.”

“Why?”

“Now that is a fine ques­tion. Maybe be­cause they in­vent­ed talk­ing in dif­fer­ent places, or else moved away from each oth­er so far that they start­ed talk­ing dif­fer­ent­ly. In this lan­guage, the one we’re speak­ing, there is on­ly one word for all sorts of birds of prey. In Fe­nar­ian, each sort of bird has its own name.”

“Does each bird have its own name too?”

“If some­one names it.”

“Don’t they name them­selves?”

“No, they don’t. Well, maybe they do, come to think of it. I’m not sure.”

“What sort of bird is that?”

“Okay, now I’m in­sult­ed.”

“It isn’t a bird, it’s a jhereg. A sort of fly­ing rep­tile that eats dead things and makes sar­cas­tic com­ments.”

“What does that mean?”

Me and my big mouth.

“It means some­times he says things he doesn’t mean be­cause he thinks they’re fun­ny.”

“He talks?”

“In­to my mind.”

“What’s he say­ing now?”

“He isn’t say­ing any­thing just this minute.”

“Does he like me?”

“How would I know? I haven’t tast­ed him.”

“Don’t.”

“Sor­ry, Boss.”

“You can touch him if you wish.”

“What is that, pun­ish­ment?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head fu­ri­ous­ly, his eyes wide. I smiled. “It’s all right.” I went back to study­ing his hawk. I hand­ed it back to him. He took it and brought it over to Cawti, and spent some time study­ing Rocza, perched on her shoul­der. Af­ter a mo­ment, Rocza stretched her neck out to­ward him and low­ered her head. He hes­itat­ed, then reached out a fin­ger and touched her head as if it were a hot stove. When she didn’t move, he stroked the top of her head once.

“I’m try­ing to fig­ure out if I should be jeal­ous,” said Loiosh.

“Let me know when you’ve de­cid­ed.”

“I want one of my own,” an­nounced Vlad No­rathar.

I looked at Cawti, who looked back at me and shrugged. “These are very spe­cial an­imals,” she said. “You have to study a long time to be able to have one.”

He looked stub­born.

“If you want one,” she con­tin­ued, “we’ll start you on the train­ing.”

He looked at her and nod­ded once, then went back to his box of toys. Was he too young to start train­ing as a witch? Maybe. It wasn’t my de­ci­sion.

“You’re look­ing good,” I said.

“Thank you.”

Vlad No­rathar turned around from the box and said, “Why aren’t you liv­ing with us?”

I met his eyes, which was more dif­fi­cult than a lot of oth­er eyes I’ve had to meet. “There are peo­ple who want to kill me. If I stay here, they’ll find me.”

“Oh,” he said. He con­sid­ered it care­ful­ly. “Why don’t you kill them in­stead?”

I stroked the hilt of La­dy Tel­dra in­side my cloak and said, “You know, I’ve asked my­self that same ques­tion.”

Cawti said, “You can’t al­ways solve prob­lems by killing some­one. In fact, as your fa­ther can tes­ti­fy, most of the time killing some­one just makes things worse.”

“That,” I said, “is un­for­tu­nate­ly true. But, hey, it’s a liv­ing.”

“Your fa­ther is teas­ing,” said Cawti.

I nod­ded. “I do that some­times.”

“Why?” said Vlad No­rathar.

“An­oth­er good ques­tion,” I said.

“I could an­swer it,” said Cawti. “But I shan’t.”

“Prob­ably best.”

He looked puz­zled for a mo­ment, but let it go—a trait that he’d cer­tain­ly find very use­ful lat­er in life. He said, “Why do they want to kill you?”

I start­ed to say some­thing about break­ing the rules, but Cawti cut me off with, “He was sav­ing my life.” Was there an edge of bit­ter­ness when she said it, or was it pure­ly my imag­ina­tion?

“He did?”

“Yes,” she said.

“They want to kill him for that?”

“Yes.”