Стивен Браст: Tiassa

“That’s it, then,” I said. “Time.”

“Pardon?”

“Pathways in space are pathways in time, when you’re going between worlds. I’m sure if the Necromancer were here she could explain it so it made sense, but that’s the best I can do.”

“I don’t—”

“It’s all about Tethia, and you, and Harro, and Gormin.”

“I’ve never met Tethia.”

“Yes, exactly. Because she died, you see.”

“When?”

“Yes, exactly. When. When and where. That’s the part that’s hard to wrap my head around, but it sort of makes sense.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“Tethia died here, in the manor, in the past, but was trapped in the now.”

She shook her head.

“Try it this way: Tethia was involved in casting those spells for a couple of hundred years. You never met her, because her part of things involved being in the future.”

“The future?”

“Uh, the then future, the now now.”

“I don’t, wait, I think I see what you mean. She did her work here, near Adrilankha, in the time and place where the manor was going to be.”

“Yes, casting the spells that would allow it to exist.”

“But how did she get here? How did she move through time that way?”

“My head hurts.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m working it out, I think. Try this: She didn’t really move through time. In the Halls of Judgment, there are a lot of times and places to choose from, maybe an infinite number, I don’t know. But while Zhayin was overseeing the building of the physical structure, Tethia was spending her time in the Halls of Judgment, making the magical connections that corresponded to it. When they were both done, the manor appeared here.”

“But Tethia was…”

“Yeah, okay. She was in the Halls of Judgment, with her spells following pathways to here and now, and she was here and now, with spells sending pathways to the Halls.”

“But you said she wasn’t traveling in time. That’s where I’m lost.”

“Yeah, me too.”

I really did feel like I was on the verge of a headache. You know that feeling that hits you when you put the pieces of a puzzle together and it all instantly makes sense? I like that better. “Okay,” I said, speaking slowly as it worked its way through my skull, “In the Halls, in the travel between worlds, time and place are part of the same thing. So, if she was in the Halls, she could find a place that was a time . That’s what she was connecting the manor to. You can think of it as a place and a time above us, that touches our own. That’s why she kept calling it a platform.”

“That sort of makes sense. But then, what happened to her?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out.”

She nodded. “There’s a sorcerer here. Maybe—”

“Discaru. Yeah. He wasn’t helpful. And I’m pretty sure he’s no longer around.”

“Oh?”

I took that as an invitation to tell her more and declined by not saying anything. She seemed to think that was an excellent choice, and did the same. I broke first. “How are you?”

“M’lord?”

“With what I told you. About Gormin and Harro. How are you doing with it?”

“It’ll take some time to settle in.”

“Will it be hard to act normal with Harro? I mean, if you even want to?”

“I don’t know.”

I shook my head. “I just don’t understand it. I can’t wrap my head around it.”

“Around what?”

“You two. You and Gormin, I mean. You’re together, all is well, then his House changes, and, boom, everything’s different. It isn’t even that his station changed, because it didn’t. It’s just his House. How can you let that—”

She was quiet for a few seconds as I broke off and stared into space. Then she said, “What?”

I shook my head, my brain spinning. “That’s it,” I said finally. “It all ties together. The Houses. The Cycle. The Empire. The Disaster. Stagnation. Catalyst. All of it.”

She waited patiently until I started to get up, then she said, “Vlad, you can’t just leave it like that.” Her tone was one of amusement, but she had a point. I sat down again.

“Sorry. Too much, too fast. And, yeah, this affects you.”

“How? What?”

“I don’t think I can explain it, except to say that you—I mean Dragaerans, all of you—have been fu—messed with. And it permeates everything you do, even who you let yourself love, and it was done deliberately by the Jenoine because they wanted to see what would happen.”

“Ah.…”

“You’re very nice. You don’t want to say ‘You’re crazy.’ That’s sweet.”

She put on an Issola smile, but didn’t say I was wrong.

“Okay, believe it or not, whatever. A lot of this I’ve known for years, some of it is new and I’m putting it together, and my head is spinning. But just tell me this: why is it so unthinkable to marry someone from another House?”

“Well, because … you wouldn’t understand.”

“No, I wouldn’t. But the odd thing is, you don’t either. You know it, you feel it, but you don’t understand it.”

She looked at me, then slowly returned her eyes to the stage.

“Sorry,” I said. “This must be making you uncomfortable.”

She said, “Maybe we should talk about your problem.”

“Sure.”

“Maybe if you explain it? I mean, what exactly you’re trying to do.”

I shrugged. “All right. There’s a girl named Devera. She was born in the Halls of Judgment. Her grandmother is a goddess, her—”

“Which goddess?”

“Verra. Her father is the shade of Kieron the Conqueror.”

“Go on.”

I blinked. All right, well, if she was just going to accept all that as if it were reasonable, I might as well tell her the rest. I went through the conversations I’d had, the things I’d seen, the oddness of the room design, my conclusion about Lady Zhayin, and about the mirrors. She didn’t say anything, but nodded at a few of my conclusions, and winced when I spoke of killing Discaru and the thing that had once been Zhayin’s son.

When I’d finished, she was quiet for a long time, then she said, “Devera.”

“What about her?”

“You described Devera appearing and disappearing. Why does she keep doing that?”

“Um. Yeah. I guess I just thought, well, because of her nature.”

“That doesn’t answer the question though, does it?”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t. You’re right.”

“So?”

“So, you’ve got me asking the right question, now how do I figure out the answer?”

“I can’t help you with that.”

“Every time you say you can’t help me, it means I’m about to learn something.”

She smiled at the stage. “I think that’s more you than me.”

“Maybe. Well, okay. It isn’t just her nature, or she’d do it all the time. And it isn’t just the manor, or it would be happening to everyone.”

“Which means?”

“It’s the interaction.”

She nodded.

I laughed. “Well, good then. In order to understand how the place works, I need to figure out why Devera keeps disappearing, which I can do as soon as I’ve figured out how the place works.”

She smiled at the stage again. I wondered if the balcony was getting jealous. She said, “Well, none of the rest of us vanish. That gives you lots of people to talk to.”

I chuckled. “That’s true. Polite of you. Except…”

“What?”

“Tethia.”

“What about her?”

“She also vanished abruptly.”

“But, isn’t she a ghost? You said she was a ghost. I mean, ghosts do that, right?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only ever met one before this.”