Steven Brust - Hawk

“You knew him well?”

“I knew him well enough to know he would want me to help you.”

“I’m pleased to hear you say so.”

She nodded. “Very well, young Taltos. I will keep you hidden for two days. After that, we’ll see.”

“Auntie, do you know from whom you’re hiding me?”

“No,” she said. “Now, come along.”

She led the way out of the tent. In a few steps, we were in front of a dilapidated wooden ironware store. We went in. Auntie had a key, which brought up some questions I never found the answers to, but meant we didn’t have to wake up a clerk. She led me through the place and out the back into an alley that was so narrow I rubbed against the walls on both sides. It was only a few paces, however, and then we went through a door and down several steps. After a moment, I smelled kerosene and there was light. She was holding a lantern, and I was in a narrow hallway of rough stone. It went thirty or forty paces before we came to a wooden door on the left. She opened it, and hung the lantern next to the door.

“Here,” she said. “I’ll bring you food and water, and a bucket so you needn’t leave.”

“All right.”

“And blankets.”

“You are kind.”

She scowled. “Take off your clothes, I’ll see they’re cleaned.”

“You are very kind.”

She sniffed. “Do not do anything foolish, young Taltos. Or rather, anything else foolish.”

“I’ll try not to, Auntie. And I can pretty much promise that I won’t at least until I have my clothes back.”

She looked at Loiosh, sitting calmly on my right shoulder, and nodded. They were communicating. Not psychically, just-you know-communicating. I suspect if I’d had a better idea of what they were telling each other, I wouldn’t have liked it, so I didn’t ask. I stripped down and handed her my blood-covered clothes; fortunately, the cloak hadn’t been in the way of the blood, so I didn’t have to show her most of my weaponry. She saw the harness, and determinedly ignored it while I removed it.

Yeah, yeah. I was wearing the harness you gave me, with the fancy strange sticky stuff you can pull off and put on again, and I had a few weapons attached to it. There. Are you happy?

She left. I sat down, mostly naked, with my back against the wall, and closed my eyes. Presently, she came back with a pile of bedding and a bucket, then left without a word.

“Boss?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you really hide down here, doing nothing, for two days?”

“It’ll make me crazy, but a different kind of crazy. I figure, right now, that’s an improvement.”

“Didn’t think you had it in you, Boss.”

“Never underestimate my sense of self-preservation.”

“Boss, I’ve been with you all along, remember? You just barely have a sense of self-preservation.”

“Shut up.”

I threw the blankets onto the hard floor, stretched out, and shook for a little while. When I was done with that, I closed my eyes. Sleep didn’t come, but I didn’t mind so much; it was good just to lie there. I did nothing for, I don’t know, maybe a couple of hours, and I think I dozed off for a bit in there.

I sat up, my back to the wall, legs stretched out.

“Boss?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m bored. Rocza is bored.”

“Get used to it. Remember when I was in jail?”

“Which time?”

“The first time. It was a lot like this.”

“Tedious?”

“Exactly.”

“How much longer?”

“Loiosh, don’t start counting the hours. It’ll make it worse.”

“What then?”

“I’ll get the door. You two head out. Fly around. Eat dead things. I’m going to stay here.”

“Just leave you here?”

“Loiosh, all I want to do for a while is nothing. There isn’t any good reason for you two to do nothing. The whole idea is for nothing to happen.”

“I know that’s the idea, Boss.”

“Go.”

I walked down the hall, opened the door, and let them out.

“And be careful,” I said.

“You telling me that is pretty funny,” he said.

I went back to the room, stretched out on the blankets, closed my eyes, and did nothing for a while.

Oh, relax. I’m not going to make you listen to how I did nothing for two days. It was hard enough to make myself go through it once; I have no interest in living it again. I did the things you do when your life involves sitting around and waiting. That my prison term was self-imposed helped a little; I always knew I could walk out if I wanted to.

The next day she came back with my clothing. I felt less helpless wearing clothes, although I know how stupid that is. While I dressed, I said, “Why can I still speak with my familiar, when I can’t send or receive psychic messages, or perform witchcraft?”

“You think I’m an expert on Phoenix Stone?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, I’m not.”

“So it was just a wild guess when you identified it so quickly.”

She glowered for a moment. Then she said, “You are bonded with your familiar.”

“Yes.”

Her face twitched, and I realized she was trying to find words to describe something that words weren’t good for. “If you removed the amulet, I could show you,” she said.

“I think I’ll pass.”

She nodded. She frowned, then said, “When you communicate with your familiar, it is more like speaking with your own arm than it is like psychic communication.”

“I don’t use words when I speak with my arm.”

“I’m surprised you can use words at all.”

Okay, I asked for that.

She said, “Psychic messages for the elfs can come through their device-the Orb-to make it easier for them. Or directly, mind-to-mind the way we do. Either way, it is a question of attuning your mind to resonate with the mind of the other.”

I was right, she knew something about this stuff. It would be amusing-on several levels-to hear a conversation between her and Daymar. Alas, I was denied that pleasure.

“I think I’m with you,” I said.

“The Phoenix Stone interferes with and changes how your mind emits the vibrations on the psychic levels, so none can hear you, and, at the same time, you cannot reach out.”

“And when I communicate with Loiosh?”

“He does not receive the vibrations of psychic energy. He is part of what emits them.”

I spent some time trying to make sense of that. Then I said, “All right, so knowing someone well enough to reach him psychically means knowing how his mind works well enough to permit your mind to be in sync with it, whereas you’re bound to your familiar in such a way that he is almost thinking your thoughts with you.”

“Yes.”

“That’s why he can help with spells.”

“Yes. For a witch, the training is the opposite.”

“I don’t-”

“Hush. When communicating with another, you must learn to alter your brain’s emissions enough to adjust to another. When communicating with your familiar, you must learn to separate your thought from his enough to hear and send words.”

“I understand,” I said. “Well, I don’t, but I understand more than I did. Thank you.”

She sniffed, nodded, and went back upstairs.

She came back a few more times and we had a few more conversations. Some of them were interesting, but that is the only one that had any effect on the matters we’re discussing today, so I’m afraid you must go the rest of your life without learning what they are. If that bothers you, feel free to write a letter. Fill it with threats and obscenity and send it to Sethra Lavode, Dzur Mountain. Let me know how that works out for you.