Savn felt his stomach turn at the word. At the same time, he noticed that the two jhereg were watching Polyi with, it seemed, great intensity, and he remembered that they were poisonous—it was certainly best that Polyi be kept from attacking Vlad, even if Vlad was, as he claimed, “almost tempted.”
The Easterner continued. “In any case, I wasn’t about to put a spell on your sister. I wasn’t doing anything except, maybe, trying to intimidate her a little.”
“Why should I believe you?” said Savn.
“Why indeed?” said Vlad. “At any rate, I haven’t denied what I did to your Mae and Pae.”
“No, but you’ve lied about everything else.” Vlad shook his head. “Very little, in fact,” he said. “I’ve mostly refused to answer because I really don’t like lying to you. Although I’m willing to do so, if it will preserve my life and my soul.”
His voice hardened as he said this, but Savn refused to be put off by it. “How did putting a spell on Mae and Pae help preserve your life?”
Vlad sighed and looked away. “I’m not sure it did,” he said eventually. “I was being careful. How could you tell there was a spell on them? And, for that matter, how did you know it was me?”
Savn snorted. “Who else could it have been? And it wasn’t very difficult to see they’d been enchanted. They’ve been acting like they’re living in a dream-world. They haven’t seemed to care what Polyi and I do. They—”
“I see,” said Vlad. “I overdid it, apparently.”
“What were you trying to do?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He looked at Polyi, who hesitated, then sat down and looked at the Easterner expectantly.
Vlad took a deep breath and nodded. “I thought I might need your help,” he said. “And, in fact, I did, though not the way I had anticipated.” He smiled a little, looking down at himself as if to inspect Savn’s work.
“How had you anticipated you’d need my help?”
Vlad shrugged. “Once I knew what had happened to Reins, I thought I might need the eyes, ears, and memory of a local. And I did, but it didn’t turn out to be you, because I found Sara and Fird.”
Polyi said, “What does that have to do with putting a spell on Mae and Pae?”
Vlad sat up, resting his back against the stone wall. He spread his hands. “If I wanted you to look around for me, I couldn’t have you disturbed by parents wanting to know where you were and what you were doing. It wasn’t supposed to be that strong, however.”
Savn nodded. “You did it when you brought me home that night, didn’t you?”
“That was when I triggered it, you might say, but I’d already set it up.”
“How? You weren’t anywhere near them before that.”
“Yes.” Vlad sighed. “Remember that green stone I gave you?”
“What green stone?”
“Remember when we met?”
“Sure. On Manor Road, by the Curving Stone.”
“Yes. I gave you something.”
“I don’t remember ... Wait. Yes. You said it was the custom of your land—” He broke off suddenly. “Why had I forgotten that? What did you do to me?”
Vlad winced, then looked away. After a moment he shook his head, as if to himself. “Not very much, actually,” he said. “You can blame my friends here”—he gestured at the jhereg on the ground, who were still watching Polyi and Savn—”for not keeping good watch. You saw me doing something I didn’t want known, so I gave you that stone, and through it, I suggested that you not talk about me, and that you not remember the stone. And I used the stone to work the other spells, the ones you noticed. When I took you home that night, I’d already prepared—”
Savn stared. “You’ve been putting spells everywhere, haven’t you?”
“It may seem like that—”
“What did you do to Polyi?” he said fiercely, ready to strangle the Easterner, jhereg or no.
“Nothing,” said Vlad. “But, as I said, I did use the stone to cast a spell on your parents, through you, that would allow you to be more useful to me. So if you’re looking for a grievance, you have one.”
Savn spat, then glared at the Easterner. Vlad met his eyes calmly.
“Well, I’ve been useful, haven’t I?” said Savn bitterly. “I’ve saved your life—”
“I know.”
More implications began to sink in. He said, “I assume you made me physick you? That was why I found you so easily?”
“No,” said Vlad.
“What do you mean, No?”
Vlad adjusted his position against the wall. “I was unconscious, and even if I wasn’t, it wouldn’t have occurred to me that you’d be able to heal me.” He paused. “How did you find me?”
“I remembered what you said about spells to make tele-ports easier, and I remembered what you’d been doing in the road, and I thought about how quickly you’d tele-ported, and I just put it together.”
Vlad gave one of his characteristic laughs—a small chuckle that never left his chest. “Virtue, I’ve been told, is its own reward.”
“What does that mean?”
“I almost blocked out your memory of what I’d been doing, but I didn’t want to do more to your memories than I had to.”
“That’s bleeding noble of you,” said Savn.
“So to speak,” said Vlad.
“How can you do things like that?” said Polyi, in a tone more curious than reproachful.
“I’ll do what I have to, to save my life,” said Vlad, giving her the briefest of glares. “Who wouldn’t?”
“I wouldn’t,” said Polyi firmly. “Not if to save my life I had to go into people’s heads and change them. That’s evil. It’s better to just kill them.”
“Maybe it is,” said Vlad. “But if they’re alive, they can change again, and perhaps recover. If they’re dead, it’s all over.”
“But—”
“But yes, I know, altering someone’s mind is an ugly thing to do. Don’t think I don’t know it. But don’t think that you can pretend these questions are easy, because they aren’t, and anyone who says they are is lying.”
“You’d know a lot about lying, wouldn’t you?” said Savn.
“Yes,” said Vlad. “I’ve done a great deal of it. Also killing. Also, tricking people into doing what I wanted them to do. I’m neither proud nor ashamed of any of this—I do what I must.”
“It sounds,” said Polyi, “like you’ll do anything to anyone, as long as it’s useful to you.”
Vlad took a deep breath, as if he was about to shout at her, then let it out slowly. “You may be right,” he said.
“Is that why you taught me witchcraft?” said Savn. “Because you thought it would be useful to you?”
Once again, the chuckle. “No.” Vlad shook his head and closed his eyes. Savn waited. After a moment, the Easterner sighed. “I guess, what with one thing and another, I owe you the truth.”
Savn nodded, but didn’t say anything. He felt Polyi looking at him, but she, too, waited.
Vlad said, “The first time, here in this spot, I didn’t teach you anything. I just put you to sleep for a while so I could explore.”
“I don’t understand. Why did you bother putting me to sleep?”
Vlad turned his palms up. “I didn’t want your company while I explored.”
“Then why have me along at all?”
“You knew where this place was,” he said, gesturing at the cave around them.
“This place? I don’t understand.”
“I knew there had to be an underground waterway, and Dark Water can be useful against the undead, and I was looking for a way into Loraan’s manor house. I thought you might know how to find it, so I—”
“So you asked me leading questions until I found it for you.”
“Yes,” said Vlad. “That’s right.” He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, his face was, once more, without expression.