Стивен Браст: Tiassa

The clapping sound was repeated.

I gave up on trying to stop him, but I at least beat him to the front door. I took a step to the side and gestured for him to get behind me. Then I took a deep breath and opened the door.

On the other side was what appeared to be a little girl.

“Hello, Uncle Vlad,” she said.

“Hello, Devera,” I said after a moment, when I found my voice again. “Uh, would you care to come in?”

She shook her head. “Oh, I mustn’t. Can you come out?”

Her wanting me to step outside made me check the area behind her for places an assassin might be hiding; but that was just an instinctive reaction. Devera wouldn’t be out to hurt me. She was—

She was—

She was not a normal child. I’d met her a couple of times, and seen her a few more. Some of those times might not have been real. She was kind of like that. It says something, I suppose, that it never occurred to me until now, as I tell this, to wonder how she’d found me. Anyone else, anyone, that would have been my second question, right after Am I about to die? But with her, I don’t know, I just accepted it.

I started to walk out, hesitated, then said, “One moment.” I went back in.

Imry said, “What is it?”

“A friend,” I said, which was true, I think, sort of. I threw on my cloak and said, “Thanks for everything,” then stepped outside and closed the door.

We took a couple of steps into the stench of South Adrilankha and she said, “It’s going to rain. We should hurry.”

I looked up. The sky was the same orange-red it always was, but I didn’t doubt her. “Where are we going?”

Any answer she might have given was drowned out by a truly impressive crack of thunder, followed almost immediately by a torrent of water from the sky that would have soaked me in as much time as it took to draw a breath, except that Devera made a gesture with her hand, and we found ourselves in a sort of bubble of dryness. If I hadn’t been wearing the amulet, I could have done that. Maybe not that fast.

But it was a remarkable downpour. Adrilankha is usually kind and not very interesting when it comes to weather, certainly when compared to somewhere like Candletown, but every once in a while she reminds you that she’s on the coast, when big storms that begin out on the ocean-sea roll into port like a skybender loaded with pandemonium. The wind bent the thinner trees and stripped branches off the thicker ones, while houses vanished in the deluge. Whatever Devera had done protected us from the wind, too, or we wouldn’t have been able to stand.

“See?” she said. “It’s raining.”

“I guess,” I said. “Where are we going?”

“Follow me.” And she took off down the street, giving me the choice of staying with her or becoming very, very wet. I followed, and wondered. Was she doing something for me? Did she want my help? She looked like a kid, and more often than not, she acted like one. But was she just playing at it, knowing that looking and acting like that could get her what she wanted, or was she just what she seemed? Which was weird enough, for all love. I hadn’t made up my mind. Her mother, Aliera e’Kieron, was the daughter of the goddess Verra and Adron e’Kieron, who was a sorcerer so powerful he, like, destroyed the Empire. And Aliera was friends with Sethra Lavode, the most powerful sorcerer, well, ever, and also a friend of Morrolan e’Drien, who was at least as good a witch as me. My point is, what could I do for her that they couldn’t?

I had no idea, so I just went with it, protected from a truly impressive rainstorm by her magical bubble. I didn’t figure anything out there that couldn’t swim would survive.

“Hey, Loiosh, why don’t you fly around and—”

“I will bite you, Boss. You know that.”

“Heh-heh.”

Devera led, I followed. We made it to the paved roads before the mud made it impossible to walk, and then we were stepping around puddles, and then there was no place to step around them, so we were wading through them. At one point, she jumped up in the air and came down and made a splash. Then she stopped and looked guiltily at me as the water soaked through my shirt and trousers. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” I said, and we continued.

It would have been a strange walk in anyone’s company. The rain continued all around us, making the edges of everything fuzzy and indistinct. It was like walking through a different world, one where the world I knew was nearby, but disconnected. I wasn’t worried about anyone taking a shot at me, because I couldn’t imagine anyone finding me in all of this. Okay, that’s not true; I was still worried, because it had become a habit, but I was aware of how irrational it was. We didn’t see another soul in all of South Adrilankha. Loiosh and Rocza rode quietly on my shoulders.

And it went on and on.

We reached the Stone Bridge, crossed it, and made our way through the City—the area where Dragaerans lived—but we still saw no one. It was kind of creepy.

Hours passed, I think. If you’ve ever wondered how long it takes to go, on foot, from one end of Adrilankha to the other, I can confidently tell you that it feels like a long time. As we left the City, going west along Kieron Road, the ground started rising, and the water came gushing down in thick, heavy streams, threatening to carry us away with them if we strayed into the deeper water near the gutters. At last, we came to a place way out west beyond the City. The cliffs were about fifty yards to my left. The ground was rising more sharply now. I’d been here, but not often, and not recently.

“Devera, where are we going?” I asked again.

“Come on,” she said, giving as responsive an answer as her mother might have. I followed her up the road.

When we reached the top of a rise, I recognized exactly where we were; very close to Kieron’s Watch itself—a place with all kinds of history for Dragaerans, and where there’d once been an outlook over the ocean-sea. What I didn’t recognize was an immense structure just off the road, right up to the edge of the cliff. A few years before, last time I came this way, it hadn’t been there. I’m sure of that. I remembered walking along here as I left the City, hoping I had enough of a head start on those who wanted to kill me, and that I’d be able to find a place to hide. The structure hadn’t been there.

It was big, and the pure white of marble, and had graceful, swooping curves along the roof. It towered over me and was very impressive. There was a line of glass windows that I could just see on the side facing the ocean-sea, and a large double door facing the road. I hadn’t heard any thunder for a while. The rain had eased up a little, but was still coming down hard.

“In there?” I said.

Devera nodded.

“What’s in there?”

“Hurry,” she said, and ran ahead of me to the door, where she turned and waited, looking at me with big, brown eyes.

“Boss,” said Loiosh into my mind.

“Yeah?”

“This seems like a bad idea.”

“Yeah.”

“Devera,” I said. “What is this about?”

“I need your help, Uncle Vlad,” she said. I walked up to the door. There was a large carving of a vallista, half on either side. Those things always make me think of insects. I mean, I know they aren’t, but something about the four legs plus two little arms thing seems insectoid. I’d seen one once, briefly, in the jungle, and it had moved very fast—just a sort of yellowish-red flash, and that weird prehensile tail. I’d never looked at one up close, though. And I didn’t want to now. I looked for a clapper next to the door, didn’t see one, glanced at Devera, shrugged, and clapped. No surprise: nothing happened.