Issola (Vlad Taltos) Read online

  “Sethra,” I said. “Is this it? I mean, is this going to be the cataclysmic battle between the gods and the Jenoine? And, if so, may I please he excused?”

  The Enchantress of Dzur Mountain didn’t look at me, but said, “I sincerely hope not, Vlad. This would be a bad place for such a battle; the results would be unpredictable. But it might happen. My hope is just to keep them away from the Sea and unable to use it, and to inflict enough punishment on them to discourage them from trying again. And to answer your other question, no, you may not. We may require that artifact you’re carrying, and someone who knows how to use it.”

  Wonderful.

  The Jenoine were looking around them, and, as far as I could tell, did not seem unduly disturbed.

  “All right,” said Sethra. “Let’s move in.”

  Just exactly what I wanted to do. But they all just nodded, so I did too. They all started closing in on the Jenoine, so I did too. They all put expressions on their faces like they were ready to conquer or die, so I did too.

  “Do you do everything they do, Boss?”

  “Sure.”

  “If they all jumped into the Sea of Amorphia, would you do that, too?”

  “Not again.”

  “Heh.”

  Rocza shifted on my shoulder, and I caught the psychic whispers of Loiosh telling her something—she probably didn’t like the place much. Well, who did?

  We moved closer to them—so did the gods. If I’d been attuned to more levels of magic, I have no doubt I would have detected all sorts of powerful enchantments swirling about above the place that was itself the most powerful of enchantments. I set Spellbreaker spinning a bit faster.

  “I’d really like to be somewhere else, right about now.”

  “Oh, c’mon, Boss. Where’s your sense of history?”

  “I like to read about history, not make it.”

  “You see, Boss? It’s because of attitudes like yours that there are so few human heroes.”

  “And so many humans.”

  “Heh.”

  Rocza shifted again on my shoulder.

  “How is she doing, Loiosh?”

  “She’ll be fine, Boss.”

  “Are you sure? She seems nervous.”

  “Right, Boss. As opposed to you and me?”

  “Good point.”

  We continued on, another step, two, three, closer to where the Jenoine stood, on the very edge of the Sea.

  “Boss, does this remind you at all—”

  “No. It doesn’t. Shut up.”

  I realized that I was still avoiding looking at the amorphia—sort of skirting it with my eyes. I didn’t want to look at the Jenoine, either, but I made myself. I watched them, and tried to keep an eye on our Divine allies. This really was shaping up to be one of those battles they write songs about. I wondered if I’d get mentioned—the Easterner, Jhereg, outcast, walking around unarmed except for a length of chain that was useful for blocking magic of a kind that I wasn’t going to encounter here. Maybe Teldra and I could find a quiet spot and continue our discussion of the philosophy of courtesy. I had enjoyed that. In fact, on reflection, I had enjoyed that more than I had enjoyed anything for several years. Strange, isn’t it? I hadn’t even realized it at the time, but trapped on a world not my own, perhaps in a universe not my own, held by godlike beings intent on some ineffable evil, Teldra and I had sat back and had the sort of discussion that I most enjoyed, the sort that Cawti and I had once had.

  Bugger. This was not precisely the right time to start feeling maudlin. But those were my thoughts as I moved toward destiny or whatever it was I moving toward. Destiny, a spot in a ballad, or a quick death, maybe, if the Jenoine noticed me, or if I slipped a little and fell into that.

  As deaths go, that one wouldn’t be bad.

  I mean, dying in pain has never been high on my list of desires. But, on the other hand, I’m not real fond of the death that comes on you out of nowhere, not even giving you time to realize that you’re going. When I had thought about it—and, in my line of work, I had found my thoughts often straying toward that most morbid of all subjects—I had often felt that I wanted to go peacefully, while awake, not in pain, but aware that I was going—with time to say goodbye to life, so to speak, even if it were only to be a temporary goodbye until an awakening in the Paths or in a new incarnation. But then, I wondered, what if I got that, and, in the event, proved craven? The last moments of life have always seemed to me to be a good time for a last mental balance sheet—a chance to say to yourself: Okay, how did I do? How terrible to arrive at that point reasonably happy, only to find that in your last extremity you lost your dignity with your life, and that your whole image of yourself was proved to be only a lie! Rather than that, I’d prefer to go in my sleep, which I’ve always dreaded; or even by the sudden hand of an assassin, as has seemed most likely for the past several years, or perhaps by a wrong step into amorphia.

  Sorry to drag you along for all of this, but, as I say, those were my thoughts at that moment, and if I had to live through them, you have to as well. Deal with it.

  Ummm … would you be mad at me if, after all of this buildup, nothing much happens? Heh. Don’t worry about it. Stuff happens.

  Distantly, in the back of my head, as it were, I was aware of Loiosh communicating with Rocza, who seemed to settle down a bit.

  We were walking directly toward the Jenoine, but the Lords of Judgment weren’t—they were instead spreading out, as if to protect against a retreat. Myself, I was all in favor of permitting the Jenoine to retreat if they wanted to. But why did we have to be the group that moved toward them? Two answers popped into my head at once: first, we had the Great Weapons, and, second, I had no doubt that it was Sethra Lavode who was giving the orders.

  There was even someone or something above the Jenoine—at least, there seemed to be a hovering sort of darkness about fifty feet up that appeared thick enough either to contain something sentient, or perhaps even to be something sentient, though if it was it was nothing I wanted to get to know personally.

  Aliera said, “Sethra, look.”

  We all stopped and looked, and discovered that we were, in fact, not the only ones moving directly at the Jenoine: the dragon was, too.

  “Well, that is hardly surprising,” said Sethra.

  “Who is it?” asked Aliera.

  “You don’t know?”

  “No, should I?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well then, who—”

  “Not now,” said Sethra. She frowned, and finally said, “Very well. Leave her alone, we’ll adjust.”

  I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that, but it wasn’t my decision. There is a certain relief that goes with knowing that someone else is making the decisions. Maybe if I were to live two or three thousand years I might get to the point of liking that feeling. Watching Sethra, I got the impression that she was in psychic contact with someone or other, maybe with all the gods at once, so she could direct the battle. I don’t know.

  The closer we got, the bigger they looked. And the scarier. They didn’t look so large out here as they had when surrounded by walls; but they were big, and so bloody alien. Their arms were awfully thick, and their hands looked capable of crushing a human skull without too much work, and even from this distance their eyes seemed to glitter with intelligence, and with powers beyond my comprehension. I guess the problem was, I just had too much time to think about things. In my own line of work it was different—either it was an unexpected attack, in which case I was too busy to be scared until it was over, or, preferably, it was something I had planned out to begin with. This was just all wrong.

  Sethra turned to us suddenly and said, “She did it.”

  I was about to ask who did what, but Aliera said, “The Necromancer?”

  Sethra nodded.

  “Good,” said Morrolan.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “They’re already here. What’s the point of—”

  “She has blocked
their passage out,” said Sethra. “They have no choice now but to flight.”

  I looked out over the Sea of Amorphia, then looked away. “Good place for it,” I said.

  “Yes, in some ways it is,” said Sethra. “In spite of the unpredictability of the results, if they fail to achieve their link, then they have an additional threat, with no compensating advantage.”

  I had been being ironic, but I didn’t explain that to her.

  At that point the Necromancer herself shimmered into existence a few feet away, walked over, and joined us, as if she were taking her constitutional. She nodded to Sethra and ignored the rest of us. Apparently she was the one being in existence who was immune to Teldra’s powers.

  We continued our stroll toward the Jenoine: Teldra, me, Aliera, Morrolan, Sethra, the Demon Goddess, and the Necromancer. We kept getting closer, and they still didn’t act, though now I could hear them jabbering away in their own language, probably deciding which of them got to eat which parts of which of us. There was no indication that they were worried.

  “Dammit, Loiosh. I wish they wouldn’t just stand there, waiting. I wish they’d do something.”

  “Sure, Boss. What would you like them to do?”

  “Well, jumping in the Sea would be nice.”

  “Heh.”

  “Or they could even surrender to us. That would be fine.”

  I probably shouldn’t have said anything, because it was right about then that they went into action. Well, okay, it probably had more to do with the Necromancer, and even more with the fact that we were barely twenty feet away from them, but it seemed that way.

  The way things had developed, there’s no way I should have been caught by surprise, but I guess that’s one of the problems with surrendering the initiative—they moved very fast, and for a second I froze—Spellbreaker flopped there, swinging back and forth a little. From their position, facing out in all four directions, they moved suddenly, and as if they’d trained for the maneuver for years. They seemed to grow larger, and one of them reached out for us, as if to grab and crush us, though more likely he was going to—

  “Vlad!” said Sethra sharply, and I started Spellbreaker swinging again.

  “Left!” said Loiosh, and I moved to the left, though I’m not sure what I was avoiding. I bumped into Teldra and we both stumbled. Teldra kept her balance, but I ended up on one knee, automatically raising my hand so I could keep Spellbreaker spinning. Spellbreaker obligingly shortened itself—I felt it vibrating in my hand, looked at it, and saw the links become larger. When I looked back up, my view was blocked by Morrolan and I don’t know what happened, but Sethra was holding Iceflame up above her head, and there was lightning and flashing and all that sort of stuff going on somewhere in front of me—it was really shaping up into one of those big sorcerous battles they always talk about. What was I doing here?

  I wasn’t even aware of how loud things had gotten until I saw Aliera shouting but realized I couldn’t hear her—not that it mattered, she was probably yelling some sort of Dragon war cry or something. She was also moving Pathfinder around in some sort of pattern—I wanted Pathfinder to be emitting flashes, sparks, lights, but whatever Aliera was doing with it didn’t show.

  Blackwand, on the other hand, was doing everything I could have wished—he would point it, and it would flash, and he’d point it somewhere else, and it would shoot out something black and scary-looking.

  Verra was writhing and gyrating, as if possessed by something that made her arms flail and her body twist from side to side.

  The Necromancer stood very still, her arms at her sides.

  The noise, I eventually realized, was a sort of constant, rolling thunder; it seemed to come from everywhere. I concentrated on keeping Spellbreaker moving and tried to stay aware of what was going on, and watch for anything that might come at me, though it was hard, because Morrolan was in front of me blocking my view—and he may, of course, have been blocking more than my view.

  Then Morrolan stumbled and went down in front of me, and I realized that one of the Jenoine was close. Very close. Too close. Way too bloody close—like maybe ten feet away. I wanted to look at Morrolan, to see if he was bleeding, or showed any apparent signs of injury—but I couldn’t take my eyes off the Jenoine.

  Well, okay. Score one for their team.

  As far as I could tell, the Jenoine wasn’t looking at me; it was concentrating on Verra. Frankly, I’d be more concerned with a God than with a one-armed Easterner too. Aliera knelt down next to Morrolan, Sethra turned away, I guess concentrating on one of the others, and there was a tremendous flash of light from directly overhead that left me seeing spots just as I was wondering if I should get involved somehow. I kept seeing flashes out of the corners of my eyes and couldn’t tell what was from the Sea and what was caused by our friends and what was caused by our enemies. The air had that queer tang it gets after a heavy thunderstorm.

  “What was that, Loiosh?”

  “Something from that guy overhead, I think, Boss.”

  “Good. Did it accomplish anything?”

  “I don’t know. But one of them is down.”

  I saw it, then—one of the Jenoine was down indeed, and wouldn’t be getting up again, and there was no mystery about what had taken it out: the dragon was holding it down with two paws and tearing chunks out of the thing with its teeth, and scattering it in all directions, as if to tell us that good, old-fashioned gore did, indeed, belong in a battle of gods, demigods, and wizardry.

  Well, okay. Score one for our team.

  Aliera turned her back on Morrolan and took two steps, which brought her next to the Demon Goddess her mother—the two of them stood facing one of them—perhaps the one that had laid out Morrolan. I watched, motionless.

  The three of them began moving in a circle, and as far as I could tell, not doing anything else. I glanced around, trying to get an idea of what else was going on. Another of the Jenoine stood on what I have to call the shore for lack of a better term, staring out over it with its hands extended—probably, I suppose, doing whatever it was they came here to do in the first place.

  I supposed I should do something to stop it. Heh.

  Another continued to be dismembered and gutted by the dragon, who wanted to make a thorough job of it, and the remaining one stood with its back to the one on the shore, making sweeping gestures with its arms while the gods stood around it, trying to close but unable to—Barlen, in particular, was scraping his huge reptilian feet in the dirt as if scrabbling for a purchase. It is not every day that one gets to see the gods stymied; I might have even enjoyed it if I weren’t part of the whole thing.

  Judging from the sparks and flashes that occurred in front of the Jenoine, the gods were throwing all sorts of things at it that didn’t get through, and there was that god overhead, dominating everything, making flashes of light that made the daylight seem brighter than bright. It was all very magical and stuff.

  I tried to watch everything at once. I was conscious, once more, of how relaxed I was now that the time for action was at hand. My fear was somewhere behind me—I recognized it, but it was as if it were someone else’s fear. I don’t know, maybe that’s how heroes feel. If I ever meet a hero, I’ll ask.

  Teldra knelt down next to Morrolan and bent over him. The Jenoine facing Aliera and the Demon Goddess moved toward Verra, and she moved toward it, and there was a flurry of activity, and Aliera gave a yell or a scream that I saw more than heard. Sethra turned toward Morrolan and Teldra, as if noticing them for the first time, and yelled something to me that I couldn’t hear over the other sounds, which had done nothing except gotten louder—the roaring was almost painful.

  Then Sethra pointed Iceflame at the Jenoine that was tussling with Verra and moved into the maelstrom. Aliera took a step in that direction, fell, stood up, took another step, fell again, stood up again, and fell once more. The Jenoine stood over Aliera, both of its hands raised in fists over its head, looking like it wanted to pumm
el Aliera physically, which couldn’t possibly have done her any good. The dragon, which had finished its meal and was now trying to get at the Jenoine who was holding off the Lords of Judgment, turned toward us, then, its mouth open, showing teeth the size of Blackwand, and began to move in our direction.

  Then, just as if things weren’t weird enough, Morrolan’s right arm, still holding Blackwand, raised itself until it was pointed at the Jenoine—apparently without any direction from Morrolan himself, who gave every appearance of lying senseless on the ground, Teldra still kneeling next to him, bent over him. It was downright disconcerting.

  Blackwand gave out some sort black flash, and the Jenoine reeled for an instant and took a step backward. Aliera rose to her feet and pointed Pathfinder at its breast. Maybe Morrolan was alive after all. The dragon, for no reason that I could see, stopped as if it had struck a wall, rolled over—something that big does a lot of rolling over when it rolls—and then came to its feet once more, and shook its head in a very human gesture.

  I took a step closer to Morrolan, so I could get a clear view of his face.

  “He looks dead, Boss.”

  “I think so, too. I hope it doesn’t discommode him.”

  Then Teldra stood up and looked at me, and if there had been any doubt about Morrolan’s condition, Teldra’s expression would have removed it.

  If you ever feel like torturing yourself, playing the “if only” game is a good way to go about it. If I had heard what Sethra had been yelling at me, or had managed to guess it. If I had known what they were doing. If I had moved a little quicker—or a little slower. If, if, if. You can kill yourself with ifs.