Vallista--A Novel of Vlad Taltos Page 2
“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.”
“Oh.”
I reflected on how interesting it was that I sort of cared that I didn’t care about how I cared that I didn’t care.
“Boss, can you shake out of it?”
“No, but maybe I can push through it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Maybe—
I considered. It didn’t actually matter, but it might work anyway, you know. So why not? I sat down in a random chair, back to the door, leaned back, closed my eyes, tried to let myself open up, if that makes any sense: I permitted my mind to drift, encouraging any spells, visions, or enchantments that wanted to show up. Come on. If you’re there. Want to play with my head? Fine. I’m not using it anyway.
“Who are you?”
I opened my eyes. Or, rather, I thought about opening my eyes. I couldn’t summon up the will to actually open them.
A woman sat across the table from me, and at some point as I looked at her I realized that I had, in fact, opened my eyes.
“My name is Vlad,” I said. “Pleased to meet you. Or I will be, when I’m capable of feeling pleased again. Can you tell me anything useful about what’s happening to me?”
“Sorry, it’s the room. My fault. And I’m Tethia.” She said it as if she expected me to have heard of her. When I didn’t respond, she looked significantly at Loiosh and Rocza as if expecting me to introduce them. I didn’t.
“Tethia,” I repeated, and looked at her clothing. She was wearing a loose-fitting yellow blouse, and some sort of thin, loose-fitting pants of a bright red. “Vallista?”
“Yes. I designed this platform, obviously.”
“Uh, yeah, obviously,” I said. And, “Platform?”
“What would you call it?”
“I’d probably give it a portentous name I’d regret later.”
“It is called Precipice Manor.”
“You’re way ahead of me. Someday I’ll have to introduce it to Castle Black and they can compare notes. Is this real?”
“Is what real?”
“Are you actually here, and is this really happening?”
“No, and yes.”
“Fine, then. How do I fix it?”
“Your reassurance is—”
“Please. Why are you here?”
“Um. I was hoping you could tell me that.”
“You’re an Easterner, and, though you don’t wear the colors, you have the aura of a Jhereg.”
“The first is true, the second is close enough, I guess.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Good. That makes me feel less lonely.”
“Loiosh, what are you sensing?”
“There’s something there, Boss. It feels like, uh, remember that time we spoke with a ghost?”
“Not pleasantly. All right, then.”
“You were communicating with your familiar,” said Tethia.
“Yes.”
“How can you do that, when you wear protection against psychic phenomena?”
“I’ve been hoping someone can tell me.”
“There are any number of things I can tell you,” she said. “But you have to ask the right questions.”
“What am I doing here?”
“Having visions, or communing with the dead, as you please.”
“You’re dead?”
“Yes. At least, I think so. I don’t remember dying, but then, I don’t remember being born, either.”
“What are you doing here? How are you here if you’re dead?”
She looked around. “I designed this place. It’s more me than I am.”
“I don’t understand.”
She shook her head. “It is what the Serioli call a rigna!theiur.”
“Ah, yes, that helps a great deal.” My heart thumped. I realized how vulnerable I was, and I didn’t like it.
“There,” she said. “You see? The effects are wearing off already.”
“Why did I feel them at all?”
“I designed the room this way, to relax people, to make them more reasonable, willing to negotiate. The effects were stronger than I’d thought they would be on you—perhaps because you are an Easterner.”
“I can see where it might be useful, though.”
She frowned. “Useful wasn’t my intention.”
“No?”
“Well, maybe. I’d say helpful, more than useful. In intention.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I wasn’t using it to accomplish something, I just thought it would be a good thing to have available in case of negotiations.”
I wondered if I could gather some high-powered Jhereg in this room and convince them not to kill me. Probably not.
“Why?” I said.
She frowned. “I explained, I thought—”
“No, why did you build the place at all?”
“The platform?”
“Yes.”
She gave me an odd look. “It’s just how we are, I guess.”
“Vallista?”
“Humans. We build things. We make things. All of us, or at least, most of us. I mean we, humans, Dragaerans, we just have that need. Maybe it’s different for Easterners.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant.”
“Then—”
“Why this building?”
“It was a problem that needed solving,” she said.
Okay, this wasn’t going anywhere. I tried a different approach. “When did you die?”
“I don’t know. I feel as if I’ve been here, part of this room, part of this platform, forever, but I know that I wasn’t.”
“Do you know when this platform was built?”
“It was begun during the Interregnum, but took a long time to complete. Centuries.”
“Um. I was here a few years ago, and this place wasn’t.”
“Yes.”
“That confuses me.”
“I don’t blame you,” she said.
For an instant she wavered, as if she were about to vanish, but then she came back. I wished I knew what to ask.
“How did you die?”
“I told you, I don’t remember dying. My mother died during the Interregnum, or so I’ve been told. I think it may have been in childbirth. During the Interregnum, many women died that way.”
“I’m sorry,” I told her, because that’s what you say.
She nodded and turned her head.
I wanted to ask more about her death, but I don’t know proper etiquette for dealing with ghosts; I should have asked Teldra at some point. I said, “I’m not sure what to ask you. I’m just trying to learn enough of what’s going on to ask the right questions.”
She waited. After a moment, I said, “I don’t know a great deal about how being a ghost works. It’s outside of my area, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m not a ghost,” she said. “Not exactly. I think.”
“Then what are you?”
“I’m … Tethia,” she said, looking faintly puzzled.
“Do you know Devera?”
“Who?”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“Who is she?”
“Now, that’s a question I’m not qualified to answer. She’s someone who is here, though.”
“Here? She came here?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Also, how?”
“I don’t know why. I’m following her. How? It wasn’t difficult; we just walked in.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.” Then she vanished, which I thought was rude. Lady Teldra wouldn’t have approved. I remained still for a couple of minutes to see if she’d reappear, but she didn’t.
“Okay, Loiosh,” I said. “We’ve just learned something. I have no idea what, but something.”
“I’m sure that’s really useful, Boss. Now what?”
“I’m feeling better. I mean, in the sense that I care, and I’m not quite so willing to just go along with whatever happens.”
“Good. So what do we do?”
“Go along with whatever happens.”
“How is it that I didn’t see that coming?”
“Let’s move,” I said.
2
THE MYSTERY OF ELVEN FOOD
I took a last look around the room, but there wasn’t much to see, so I went back to the corridor and continued. There were three psiprints on the wall, big ones. I didn’t recognize the artist or the subject. They were all portraits or studies of faces, and all three were caught in one of those expressions where you can’t tell what the subject is feeling: is that a scream, or a laugh? Is that one joy or surprise? And the other one, opposite the door—is she pursing her lips in disapproval, or trying not to laugh? If whoever owned this place picked those psiprints, it was probably an important clue to something-or-other, and someone smarter than me would no doubt find it insightful. Me, I was worrying about directions: If I opened the door on my left—the south—would it lead north? Up? Down? To another city? Another world?
Right on cue, there was another mirror. This one was small, and attached to the ceiling. That at least settled the question of their purpose: you do not put a mirror on a Verra-be-damned hallway ceiling for any reason but a magical one.
As I stood in front of the door, about to touch the knob, I heard footsteps to my right. I turned. There was Devera again, maybe fifty feet away and running toward me. “Help me, Uncle Vlad,” she said, then vanished again.
Well.
I walked through the space where I’d last seen her, passed it, turned, went through it again. I didn’t disappear, she didn’t reappear. I stood there for a minute, trying to decide what to do, then turned back to the door that I was now in front of again, opened it, and stepped through like I belonged there.
A man sat by a fire, reading a book. He looked up as I entered and said, “How did you get in here?”
“A pleasure to meet you as well,” I told him. “I’m Vlad Taltos. And whom do I have the honor of—”
“I asked you a question!”
He was an old man, I would guess past
his four thousandth year, when Dragaerans start looking like they’re about to dissolve into a pile of dust so killing them seems pointless. He wore a yellow robe that was probably silk, with intricate embroidery in purple. He seemed frail. I considered putting something sharp into him to teach him manners, but that doesn’t work as often as you’d think. I said, “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”
He glared at me. “Lord Zhayin of Housetown, and I ask you again, how did you get in here?”
“It’s the craziest thing,” I said. “I walked in the door. This door. Right here. See it?”
“Rubbish.”
“I’d have clapped but I didn’t see a clapper.”
“The door to the manor!”
“Oh, that one. It wasn’t locked, and there was no clapper there, either.”
“Impossible,” he suggested. “You can’t have—” He broke off and glared.
“Uh-huh.” There was another chair, also facing the fire, and a small table between them, holding a cup. He didn’t invite me to sit down or offer me wine. What would Lady Teldra have said?
“Are you a necromancer?” he demanded.
“That’s sort of a personal question, don’t you think? I hadn’t meant to intrude; the place didn’t look occupied.”
“‘The place,’ as you put it, is called Precipice Manor, and it is most definitely occupied, and I’ll ask you to leave at once, before I call the servants to have you removed.”
Unless there were a lot of servants, and they could handle themselves in a brawl, I didn’t like their chances of taking me anywhere I didn’t care to go, but I didn’t say that. “Leave?” I said. “I just got here.”
“And do you habitually walk into people’s homes?”
“You’re asking personal questions again. Maybe we can talk—”
I stopped, because he was yanking on the pull-rope near his hand. You can get some idea of how big a place is by how well you can hear the bell when a pull-rope is pulled, and that time I didn’t hear anything at all. I looked around the room. It was small, considering the size of the manor, the size of Dragaerans, and the tendency of aristocrats to make everything four times as big as it needs to be. Next to the hearth was a door, and on the opposite wall was a portrait that was almost certainly a younger Zhayin. There were also several framed certificates: one from the Oldcastle School of Design saying he was an honorary professor, another something about an award that mentioned the Silver Exchange, another showing that he had been graduated from Pamlar University. Presumably this was his room, and he liked being watched over by himself. At one time, I’d wanted to buy a castle, but I don’t think I’d have gone so far as to sit around with a portrait of myself. From his expression in the painting, he hadn’t been noticeably more cheerful when he was younger. I also, just in passing, noted which pieces of furniture I could throw, what tables might be overturned, and how much room I’d have to maneuver if things got interesting. One of the tables contained a clear glass bottle that, from the color of the liquid inside, looked like it might have contained alcoholic tincture of murchin, which I only noted for its possible use as a projectile; Zhayin’s addiction wasn’t my concern. I relaxed and waited.