Стивен Браст: Tiassa

“Well, that’s that,” said Loiosh. “Let’s go.”

“Seriously, Loiosh. Has that ever worked? Can you imagine me turning and leaving now?”

“Of course not. I just want to be able to say I told you so.”

Devera giggled. I glanced at her and started to ask, but then decided I didn’t want to know.

I tried the doors. They opened.

Devera walked inside and I followed her into a wide hallway, with an arched doorway about twenty feet ahead. She took three steps toward it and vanished.

The doors closed behind me with a thump, followed by a click so loud it was more of a clunk. The echo of that sound came back like it was trying to send a message. Bugger messages.

“So—”

“Shut up, Loiosh.”

It was surprisingly warm; I wasn’t shivering, in spite of my wet clothing.

I turned back to face the double doors. I wouldn’t have bothered to try them, if it wasn’t for how stupid I would have felt if they hadn’t been locked. They were locked. I studied the lock, and, yeah, it looked tough. I spent a little time on it, even playing around a bit with my heaviest lockpick, and the mechanism was either very tough indeed, or broken. Or, of course, there may have been sorcery involved; let us never forget that possibility. I’ve managed a few times to take doors off their hinges in cases like this, but unfortunately these hinges were set too far into the wall. Well, all right, then. While Kiera the Thief could probably have opened it easily, I’d have to use brute force, and it would take a while and still might not work. I mentally shrugged and turned my back to the hallway.

“Are you going to try to find Devera, Boss?”

“What am I, her governess?”

I checked Lady Teldra, my rapier, and a few of the surprises I carry around in case I need to explain manners to impolite persons. Then I went forward through the archway.

I guess I expected something odd to happen, like me disappearing, or everything around me shifting into some alternate dimension, or maybe, I don’t know, a fluffy kitten tea party. Nothing, though. I was in a wide hallway, with dark tile floors, wooden walls, arches overhead. To my left was one of those oval mirrors in a wooden frame, head height and head size. To my right was a door. I tested it, and it opened, and I entered. There was a long, long table, comfortable chairs all around it, like the place a count might have to meet with all of his vassals at once. At the far end of the room was the set of glass windows looking out over the cliff and the ocean-sea that I’d seen before I entered the building. Rain pounded on them with a constant tapping, punctuated by irregular thumps, just like it should have for a day like this.

Except that the windows should have been on the wall behind me. I had turned right from the hall, and the windows should have been in a room on the left.

Well, great.

I continued looking around, feeling queasy.

“Loiosh, is this as upsetting to you as it is to me?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

I thought about the mirror in the hallway just opposite the door. I know sorcerers can do things with mirrors that I don’t understand, but, well, I don’t understand them. Years ago, when life had been much simpler, there’d been an incident with a mirror that I still didn’t care to dwell on. I went over to the windows and stared out. They were so close to the cliff edge that I could see the waves breaking on the rocks; then I felt dizzy and backed away. I walked around the room, looking into empty corners, examining the chairs and the walls, and finding nothing even remotely interesting except that the windows were fastened in really well.

Just to verify what I suspected, I picked up a chair and swung it, hard, at one of the windows. It bounced off.

“Boss, are we just going to stay in this room?”

“Is anyone trying to kill us in here?”

“Well, no.”

“And can you guarantee that in the rest of the building?”

“Um, but—”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.”

The table gleamed with polish, and the wood was sort of pale, but I couldn’t tell you what kind it was. I also couldn’t tell you why I was looking so hard. I had the feeling that I wasn’t done in this room, that there was something I was missing. I’m leery of anything that feels like premonition, so I assumed there was something the back of my eyes were seeing that the front hadn’t quite caught onto yet. Loiosh, for all of his sarcastic comments, was also fully alert.

I returned to the window and watched waves crash against rocks. The rain was now a steady drizzle. It really was a remarkable view. Whoever had built this place had put a lot of thought into the fine points of standing there and watching the ocean-sea. For just a moment, I wondered what it would be like to devote yourself to making things, to creating. Like if I’d ended up a cook.

“You’d be bored, Boss.”

He was probably right. But still. There was, I don’t know, a place in my mind, or my imagination; a what-could-have-been where my only worry was some apprentice failing to grind the salt finely enough, or over-whipping the cream; where I’d have a place to come home to every day, and where someone I loved also lived. I thought about Cawti, mother of my son. She’d have liked living with a cook—except, of course, that we’d have never met if she hadn’t been paid a large sum to kill me.

“Boss?”

“Yeah, I need to get my head out of—”

“No, it isn’t that. I think what’s happening to you is coming from outside. I mean, outside of your head.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s something about this place that’s doing that; I can almost see it, like the air is twisting up.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“I know.”

“What can you tell me about it?”

Somewhere in there, I became aware of the effect—that is, I realized I didn’t care much that something was happening to me. I’ve had my head played with before, and I was inclined to become irate when it happened. This time, I just sort of accepted it with a kind of, “Oh, that’s interesting,” attitude. Whatever was doing it, that’s what it was doing.

Loiosh hesitated, then flew off my shoulder, getting more distance from the amulet I wear that would have been interfering with his perceptions, and should have interfered with whatever was invading my head.

“Anything, Loiosh?”

“I don’t know. It’s the place itself.”

“Loiosh, that isn’t helpful.”

“I’m trying, Boss. This isn’t—I think we need to find Daymar.”

“That’s something I never thought to hear you say.”

“Believe me, I’m as surprised as you. Right now, though, other than giving you strange ideas, and distracting you, is this place doing you any real harm?”

I thought about it. I had a strange feeling of not caring; of being willing to let anything happen. Knowing it originated from outside of me wasn’t making it go away. I think someplace, way, way inside of me, I was becoming both terrified and furious; but I couldn’t touch the feeling—that was happening way over there. Here, now, I was just accepting whatever it was.

“It’s getting through the amulet, Loiosh.”

“Not exactly, Boss. It isn’t getting through anywhere; it’s more like you’ve walked into a place where things are just like this.”

“Then why isn’t it affecting you?”

“It is,” he said. “Just not as much.”