“Are you sure?” said Savn. “Yes.”
Savn turned back to Vlad. “Well?” The Easterner nodded. “If you follow the waterway, you’ll find it seems to run into a wall. If you go under the wall, it splits into several streams, none of which has much water, and all of which end in identical walls that look natural. Some of these—four, as far as I can tell—actually lead into the basement of the manor house. They are probably sorcerously controlled.”
“Can you get past them?”
“Yes, given enough time.”
“How?”
“You mostly wear your way through with diligence, patience, and a chisel.”
“Can’t you knock it down with sorcery?”
“Not without alerting him; he’s very good.”
“Then why can’t he find you?”
“Because I’m very well protected against being found.”
“So is that what you’re going to do? Break through the wall and ... and murder him?”
“Not a chance. He may be expecting me to do that, he may not, but he’ll certainly be guarding against it. I might, however, make him think that’s what I’m doing. It’s the obvious way in.”
“Then what will you do?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I’ve got a few things going for me, but I haven’t figured out how to make them work.”
“What things?”
“The assassin. He’s not getting along with Loraan at all.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he’s been there for more than a week, and Loraan made that attack on me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The Jhereg,” said Vlad, looking straight at Savn, “want me to be killed with a Morganti weapon. Loraan’s attacks were not bluffs—he tried to kill me and almost succeeded. He—”
“Wait a minute. Attacks?”
“Yes. There have been two so far.”
“I only know of the one at Tem’s house.”
“The other happened the day before. I got careless and allowed myself to be seen too close to his manor house, and he made a sorcerous attack on me.”
“And it failed?”
“I have,” said Vlad, “a few tricks up my sleeve. I was really sloppy in staying at Tem’s house long enough for them to find me. My only excuse is that it’s been some years now since I’ve had to worry about that sort of thing. In any case, neither attack would have been Morganti; neither would have satisfied the Jhereg. So my conclusion is that Loraan is just barely cooperating with them, and they are just barely cooperating with him. They need each other, because this is Loraan’s area and because the Jhereg have the expert assassins. But neither of them like it. That’s what I hope to use. I’m not certain how to go about it, though.”
“I see,” said Savn. “Have I answered your questions?”
“Yes.”
“Then, do you care to tell me what you’re going to do?”
“I won’t turn you in,” said Savn. That seemed to satisfy Vlad, who closed his eyes and breathed deeply, leaning against the wall. “You tire easily, don’t you?”
“I think,” he said, “that I’ll be able to begin healing myself in a day or two. After that, it shouldn’t be long.”
“So the idea is to keep you safe for two days.”
“More or less. Less, I hope.”
“Do you think this place is secure?” Vlad frowned, then looked at the jhereg, who rose and flew out of the cave. “Maybe,” said Vlad. “But, in any case, we will now be warned of anyone approaching, so, as long as they don’t put a teleport block up over the entire area, I’ll have a chance to get out.”
“A what over the area?”
“Never mind. Loraan would either have to know exactly where I was, or be willing to use a great deal of power to cover the entire area.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Skip it. I’m saying that whatever happens, at least we’ll be warned.”
Savn stared at the place where the jhereg had disappeared into the narrow corridor that accompanied the subterranean stream. “Yes,” he said. “At least we’ll be warned.”
* * *
Savn and Polyi cleaned up the cooking pot, which Savn put back into the bag. He carefully wrapped the good kitchen knife. They assisted Vlad once more to get to his blankets; he needed less help than he had before.
It didn’t seem to matter that outside the cave, which was already beginning to feel like another world, it was early afternoon; Polyi claimed to be tired, and so lay down among her furs, and soon began to breathe evenly. Savn lit fresh torches and tidied up the area. Was it Endweek again? If he were at home, would he be cleaning? What would Mae and Pae say when they saw him again? Were they really worried?
Could he trust anything Vlad said?
While Vlad and Polyi slept, Savn thought over all that Vlad had told him. What if the herbs were unnecessary to combat fever, and they’d just been used from the custom of years uncounted? What if any custom could be wrong? What if His Lordship was undead?
He considered truth and knowledge and trust, and responsibility, until they whirled around in his head empty of meanings, only occasionally coming to light on some real example of deceit, ignorance, betrayal, or neglect, which would give him some hint of understanding before vanishing once more into the whirlpool of half-understood platitudes and questionable wisdom.
He kept returning to one phrase the Easterner had let falclass="underline" “Don’t assume, find out.”
He thought about this very carefully, feeling the truth in the phrase, and asking himself if he was trusting the Easterner, or logic.
Even after he’d decided, he hesitated for some time before taking the obvious next step.
Savn stood at the Curving Stone for a long time, staring down the road that led to the door of His Lordship’s manor house, which was itself out of sight behind a curve in the road. A score of years before, he and his friends had played on the grounds, hidden from all the glass windows except the one in the highest dormer, enjoying the feeling of danger, though safe in the knowledge that the manor house was empty.
Now His Lordship was in residence, and now Savn, though he wasn’t certain what he was doing, was not playing. He walked on the road as if he belonged there, step by step, as if he were himself a visiting noble, although he had heard that these people tcleported instead of walking, even when they only needed to go ten or twenty miles.
The manor house came in sight—a wide, tall building, full of sharp angles. In the years since he had seen it up close, he’d forgotten how big it was, or else decided it was only the exaggeration of a child’s memory. Now he stared, remembering, taken again with the feeling that the magnificence of the house must reflect the power of he who dwelled within.
The roof looked like the edge of a scythe, with dormers on either side like wisps of straw. The brick of the house itself was pale green, and high on the front wall were wide windows made of glass—Savn could even see light creeping around the edges of the curtains inside. He strained his eyes, looking for movement. He looked for and eventually found the gully he had daringly played in so many years ago, as close to the house as one could get without being seen. There were glass windows on that side, too, but he remembered quite clearly that if you kept your head down you were only visible from the one lonely window high on the side.
Oddly enough, it was only then, looking at all the windows, that he realized it was becoming dark, and was surprised once more by how fast time went by in the cave. At that moment, more light began to glow around the far side of the house. He stopped where he was, and soon a servant appeared from around that side. Savn watched as the servant walked around the house using a long match to light lamps that were stuck onto the house at various points. When he was finished, the entire house was lit up as if it were burning.