Стивен Браст: Tiassa

I went back, all the way around the balcony, and flung open the first set of big double doors like I had every right to.

Sure, there’s no reason a place like this shouldn’t have a big dining room. In fact, if I’d thought about it, I’d have assumed it did have a big dining room. Only not here— not on the second floor, leading off a balcony like this. And where was the pantry? The hallway with the sitting rooms ought to be right below me, and it didn’t seem like it could work. I looked behind me, and the balcony was still there. Ahead of me was a long table—maybe twenty seats on a side. And doors opposite. And really, was it possible to have a dining room any farther from the kitchen? How do you get food there without it getting cold? Or were there magic doors or something that led from one to the other?

It was big enough that I had to spend some time making sure it was empty, then I had to fight the temptation to sit down at the head of the table, just to see what it felt like.

Did I mention there was a pair of mirrors built into the walls? No, but you probably guessed it, didn’t you?

“It’s a big empty room, Boss.”

“Yeah.”

“With a table. And some chairs.”

“Yeah.”

“Bet we can learn all kinds of things.”

“Shut up.”

I got closer. The table was empty except for half a dozen candle holders, none of which had lit candles. This made me wonder where the light was coming from, and it was only then I noticed several windows high on the wall to my right. It was still daylight outside. I tried to figure out how long I’d been there to see if that made sense, but gave up. It took me a while studying them to see that they were covered with glass—even there, way up where no one could reach them. Whoever built this place had too much money.

It hit me that I should have grabbed some paper from the study while I was there and tried to make a diagram—maybe I’d have seen something, like, I don’t know, the hallways formed the sorcery rune that means “This is stupid.”

“There are doors at the other end, Boss.”

“So I see. Probably open onto mid-air, and I’ll fall into the ocean-sea.”

“But you’re going through them anyway, aren’t you?”

“Of course. Unless something jumps out of the walls and eats me between here and there. Which isn’t all that unlikely.”

“You’ll probably just go mad before you get there.”

“This is the place for it, isn’t it?”

“Unless you already are mad. I hope not, because—”

“Then you are too?”

“Yeah,” he said. I kept my eye out for anything interesting, but it was just a big room with a long table. Not much you can do with that. I mean, if there’s nothing there—

“Loiosh.”

“Boss?”

“Big fancy doors at one end.”

“Yeah?”

“Big, fancy doors at the other.”

“Your powers of observation, Boss, are—”

“So where does the food come from? Where is the entrance from the kitchen? Where do the servants go? You know they can’t use the doors the important people use.”

“Hmmm.”

“I thought this room was too normal.”

The walls were blank—some decorative lamps and candle holders, and strips of a darker wood here and there, but nothing else. Secret passages? Maybe. But I looked for them, and it’s pretty hard to conceal an opening in a blank wall from someone looking for it; that’s why most secret passages are behind bookcases or in slatted floors or something. And if they were servants’ entrances, why conceal them? In a way, the lack of servants’ doors was the most bizarre and inexplicable thing I’d yet come across, and that’s saying a great deal.

Verra take it, then.

The doors at the opposite end were the twins of the ones I’d first come through. I went up and flung them open. It was dark on the other side.

“Boss—”

I stepped forward into the darkness.

Unlike any other transition, this was accompanied by a sense of dizziness, a moment of fuzzy vision, and even a low roaring my ears. Then everything cleared, and I was—

Sitting.

Well, that was interesting.

The chair was hard and wooden, and there were more chairs, empty, in front of me, and to both sides. Many of them. Directly in front of me, past all of the chairs, was—

I was in a theater. A big one, given that it was inside another building: a quick bit of compound addition from my years of schooling told me that there were more than three hundred seats. The stage was the traditional six-sided figure, raised about four feet, and well lit from all sides. Now, you understand, there was no way a theater of this size could have fit beyond those doors I’d opened—for one thing, it would have extended down to the floor below. By now, I shouldn’t have been upset about the place not making sense, only I was. I looked for the inevitable mirrors, and found them, above each door.

You had to be some kind of theater lover to build your own three-hundred-seat theater in your house. Did Zhayin have guests often? I returned my attention to the stage. It was now occupied, which it hadn’t been an instant before. Well. That was interesting.

In the center of the stage was a woman I didn’t recognize. She stood there, motionless. I didn’t move either, or say anything, for what felt like most of a minute. Then the music started. I didn’t see anywhere for music to come from, and I certainly didn’t see anyone playing it, but it started—big, orchestral. She began to dance.

I don’t know much about music, and even less about dance, but I can tell you how it felt: it was like the grasslands to the north, when a strong wind comes up and the grass lies down flat, like it’s bowing. And it was like the forests to the west, when the snow is first melting and the streams run black against the white blanket. Her movement never stopped—her hands drawing patterns in the air, her legs bending, straightening, leaping, collapsing; her torso moving like a snake’s, her head erect and balanced and it seemed like even the twitches of muscle above her eyes were planned, and precise, and perfect.

I became aware that I was holding my breath, and let it out.

Look, I’m sorry to get all poetic on you. We both know that isn’t what I’m about. My point is, it’s the only way to tell you what happened, and that by itself should tell you something, all right?

So I sat there in that empty theater, and I watched her dance until, after I don’t know how long, she stopped, her body twisted up into a position that was impossible in its beauty, the lights went down, and the music ended. Then I sat there for a little longer. I was just coming back to myself enough to wonder what it all meant when she jumped down from the stage and approached me, working her way through the aisle, then over to my row. Her movements were like water, or, you know, something that flows. She was short for a Dragaeran—maybe half a head taller than Aliera, and the term “willowy” might have been invented to describe her.

I sat and waited. She took the chair to my left. She didn’t look at me; her eyes were focused ahead, on the stage she’d just left. She said, “My name is Hevlika.”

“Vlad. You’re an amazing dancer.”

“Thank you.”

“I can’t imagine the hours of training to learn to do that.”

She nodded, still staring straight ahead. “I’ve been studying the art for four centuries. I started when I was barely forty.”

“Dancing before you could crawl.”