Стивен Браст: Tiassa

“Yes, my lord.”

“Good. Okay, tell me something else, then. Why did you stay? To be near her, because you liked the work, or just inertia?”

“All of those, I think,” he told the floor between his feet.

The floor didn’t seem impressed.

I looked at him; he avoided looking at me. “Never mind,” I said. “I think you’ve managed to make yourself more miserable than anything I could do. Go be miserable. Don’t say anything, just get out of here, and do whatever it is you do. If I want anything, I’ll ring.”

He didn’t even say “Yes, my lord,” which might give you an idea of what kind of shape he was in.

The door closed behind him. I hoped this would all be over soon; I was hungry.

I gave Harro time to get clear, then left the room and made my way back to the ballroom, then up to the balcony, and to the door to the theater. I stood in front of it, took a breath, and opened it.

And I was sitting down.

That transition was one of the hardest to get used to. I wasn’t in the same seat as before, but almost; maybe one forward and two to the side or something. That, by itself, would mean a great deal to someone who wasn’t me.

There was no sign of Hevlika, so I settled in to wait. I’m not sure why I was so convinced that sooner or later she would show up, but I was, and in maybe a bit less than half an hour, she did; just walking onto the stage. She noticed me at once, because she always noticed her audience. She’d said so.

She jumped down from the stage, walked up, and sat down in the chair next to me. As per protocol, she stared straight ahead.

“You really don’t recognize me?” I said.

“Of course I do. You were here yesterday.”

“I mean from before.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We met before, at a house called the Seven Jewels.”

She frowned for a minute, then turned and looked at me. “That was you?”

I nodded.

She scrutinized my face with no sign of recognition—maybe we really do all look the same. Then she glanced at my left hand, and said, “Yes, I remember.”

I nodded.

“How is it possible?”

“It’s complicated.”

“But Easterners—”

She broke off.

“Yeah,” I said. “We don’t generally live that long. I cheated.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either, entirely. But that conversation we had a few hundred years ago? That was a few hours ago for me.”

“The manor.”

“Yeah.”

“Who are you?”

“Vladimir Taltos, Count of Szurke by the grace of Her Majesty, former Jhereg, current traveler, nehixta , and connoisseur of fine food and drink.”

“I don’t recognize that one word. Is it Serioli?”

“No, one of the languages of the cat-centaurs. I was called that once. She translated it to ‘one who cuts himself twice on the same knife.’”

“It doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

“I got the feeling it was mostly used of children who won’t learn to stay out of things they should leave alone. Somewhere I’m sure there is a desecrator who could explain the full cultural significance and get it entirely wrong.”

“I don’t recall much of our last conversation. Just that you asked a lot of questions.”

“And I warned you not to trust Harro.”

She frowned. “Yes, I sort of remember that. I know I don’t trust him.”

“He’s the one who got Gormin expelled from the House of the Issola.”

She turned and looked at me again, and this time didn’t look away. “Why would he do that?”

“He’s in love with you.”

The look on her face was mostly disgust, with an overlay of disbelief. I turned my head so I was facing the stage and waited while it sank in.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. It seemed like something you should know. Besides, I sort of liked Gormin before he drugged me and tried to interrogate me.”

“I can’t believe he’d do that.”

“He was acting under orders.”

“When did this happen?”

“A few hundred years ago. Or earlier today, depending on how you look at it.”

“Gormin,” she said. “He…”

“Is it hard, living under the same roof as him?”

She cleared her throat and turned back to the stage. “That’s a little personal.”

“We got more personal than that, back before.”

“Did we? I don’t remember. And I can’t think why I would.”

“Neither can I. It didn’t seem very Issola-like.”

“Perhaps that was close to”—she looked for the words to get around saying what she didn’t want to say—“to when things happened with Gormin. I wasn’t myself, then. What is it?”

“Hmmm? What is what?”

“Your fingers are twitching.”

I looked at them and made them stop. “I feel like killing someone, but there’s no one I’m sure needs killing. Harro’s a bastard, but not enough of one for me to put a knife into his eye.”

“I … can’t imagine what that must feel like.”

“Really? You can’t? You’ve never been angry?”

“Well, yes, of course I’ve been angry.”

“That’s what it feels like.”

“All right.”

We didn’t speak for a little while after that.

“Back then,” she said at last. “Did you ever explain what you were doing?”

“Sort of.”

“Want to try again? If I can help you, I will.”

“All right. Do you know about the mirrors?”

“The practice room? Of course. I work out there every day.”

“No, the other mirror room.”

“Oh. I’m not to go in there.”

“It’s pretty much the magic focus for the entire place.”

“I guess it could be. But I don’t know any details. I haven’t made much of a study of sorcery, beyond what everyone knows.”

It’s hard to explain to someone what you don’t understand yourself. “Okay,” I said. “I’ve got some of it. The manor wasn’t built here, it appeared here. I put that together when I saw all the dead plants—never mind. I found a cave, with sorcerous markings on it, that was, well … think of it as an anchor, all right? They built it, and one of the parts of it had to—”

I broke off.

“What?” she said after a moment.

“I think I have it,” I said. “Paths, hallways, doors, necromantic mirrors. The mirrors provide a way to turn physical motion into motion through worlds, which sometimes means through time. That’s how it got here. There are places it is anchored—like the cave under the cellar, and the Halls of Judgment, and the place in the past where they started construction. The mirrors work like Morrolan’s windows—”

“What?”

“Uh, never mind. The thing is, all the pathways in the manor, controlled by the mirrors, are sort of, well, think of it like they’re stacked on top of each other. Zhayin’s idea is to be able to make additional pathways to different worlds, that you can reach just by opening a door or walking down a hall.”

I felt myself frowning. “Only, he hasn’t done it yet. All he has is a way to reach the Halls, the future out from the courtyard, and the past—the anchors. He hasn’t built any of the pathways, just a lot of places where they can go, which is why right now they turn into just odd rooms placed in strange places; it’s like he set up a bunch of sheaths but hasn’t put the daggers in them yet. Why hasn’t he? Oh, right. Harro said the manor had just recently been completed.

She nodded. “Two days ago is when we shifted. I’ve been living in the manor for years and years, but it was next to the old castle, by the river, and then we were suddenly here.”