“It wasn’t sorcery?”
“No.”
“So you’re thinking it was psychics?”
“Can that be done?”
“Well, no, not exactly. You can’t use psychics to find where someone is. I mean, in a physical sense.”
“But you can locate him in a non-physical sense?”
Daymar nodded.
I carefully kept my face expressionless. “What does that mean, exactly? I mean, if you can’t locate him physically, what can you do?”
“Locate him mentally.”
“Ah. I see. You locate him mentally, but that doesn’t tell you where he is physically.”
Daymar nodded. “Exactly.”
“Quite vivid, Boss.”
“Hmmm?”
“The image in your mind of Daymar with his intestines spread all over the room.”
“Oh. I didn’t know you could pick up on that.”
“I usually can’t, but that one was pretty strong.”
“Yeah.”
I cleared my throat. “Daymar.”
“Hmmm?”
“Are you related to Aibynn?”
“I’m afraid I do not know him.”
I nodded. “Okay, let’s try again, and see if you can help me understand.”
“Understand what?”
I sighed. “What it means to locate someone without knowing where he is.”
“Oh.”
Daymar looked faintly befuddled. I guess that’s his other expression. After a moment he said, speaking slowly, “Well, you’re familiar with the tendency of psychic accumulation to form a spiritual gridwork, yes?”
“I assure you, in the small fishing village from which I come, it forms almost the sole topic of conversation.”
“That wasn’t funny the first time you said it, Boss.”
“Shut up, Loiosh.”
“Good then,” said Daymar. “Well—”
I sat down on the bed. “But it wouldn’t hurt for you to review it for me.”
He blinked. “All right.” He folded his arms. Floating above the floor with his arms folded made him look slightly ridiculous. He said, “Each mind capable of producing a significant amount of psychic energy creates a sort of image that an adept can sense. Enough of them within the same psychic location create something not unlike a grid—”
“Hold on.”
He cocked his head. “Yes?”
“I think that term, ‘psychic location,’ is somewhere near the heart of my confusion.”
“Oh. Shall I explain?”
“No. I love being confused.”
“All right.”
I closed my eyes. “No, explain.”
“Each mind that emits energy, does so with its own characteristics.”
“Okay, I can accept that.”
“One characteristic is how strong it is. My own is, well, rather strong.”
“Uh huh.”
“Another characteristic has to do with the feel of the mind—that is how you are able to reach someone telepathically after you know him well.”
“All right.”
“Another has to do with shape, or the way your mind grasps his, which is used ... never mind. Still another is, well, call it flavor.”
“All right, I will.”
“You can think of it as relating to not what the mind is like, but what the energy it produces is like. The energy comes in waves, and when you train yourself mentally, you are training to detect and work with those waves. You’re lost now, aren’t you?”
“Not quite. Go on.”
“Okay, when I speak of flavor, I’m talking about how much space there is between those waves. There are a large variety of possibilities for the amount of space, but it isn’t an infinite number. All right?”
“Uh ... sort of.”
He nodded, paused, and said, “Okay, then. Imagine a building of many stories.”
“All right, I can do that.”
“Minds capable of emitting energy—that is, almost any mind—can do so on any of a number of stories. When there are enough of them on a particular story, that story can be seen by an adept.”
“All right.”
“Imagine each flavor as being its own story.”
“You’re hurting my head, Daymar.”
“Sorry.”
“Continue.”
He nodded. “A psychic location means finding the story, and where on the story a particular mind is.”
I considered. “Do you know, I think I understood some of that.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll try again.”
“No, no. Go on.”
“I know, Vlad. That was a joke.”
“Oh. I didn’t think you did that.”
“I do sometimes.”
“All right. So, is there a way to go from this, uh, psychic location to a physical location?”
“Certainly.”
“How?”
He gave me a curious look. “I don’t know, Vlad. You’re the one who did it.”
“I did?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Not long ago. Remember, I mentally located someone? And you fixed his mental location in a crystal, so I could convert it to a physical location?”
“Oh. Right. That’s what that was?”
“I thought you knew.”
“Uh. I guess I did, in a way. But I didn’t know about the building.”
“The building?”
“With all the stories.”
“Oh.”
“All right, then. Let’s get back to this thing that happened.”
“The effort to locate Loiosh?”
“Yes. If they can’t go from, uh, the building to a physical location, then what were they doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you find out?”
“I could take a look into Loiosh’s head.”
I nodded. “That’s sort of what I was thinking.”
“Boss ...”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
“You’ve had it done?”
“Well—”
“Okay, Boss. You owe me one.”
“Yes.”
“Go ahead, Daymar.”
Daymar frowned. “I need him to move a little away from you.”
“Boss—”
“I know. But do it anyway.”
My familiar flew over to the windowsill. Daymar nodded and glanced at him; then a look of surprise spread across his features, and he said, “That’s interesting.”
“What, you did it already? What did you find out?”
“That was it?”
“I’m not sure,” said Daymar.
“I admit that gives me a certain amount of satisfaction.”
“Hmmm?”
“Nothing. What can you tell me?”
“Someone attempted a spell I’ve never encountered before.” He sounded almost pleased.
“Can you determine what it was supposed to do?”
“Well, to find Loiosh. But I don’t understand how she intended to make the transition from ment—”
“She?”
“Yes.”
“You know the caster was female?”
He blinked. “Certainly.”
“What else can you tell me about her?”
“What would you like to know?”
“Does she like trout?”
“Yes.”
“Was that another joke?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I want to know if she is in the Left Hand of the Jhereg.”
“What’s that?”
“Okay. Then can you tell me anything about her state of mind?”
“Cold rage,” said Daymar.
“Really? You can tell that?”
He nodded.
“Cold rage,” I repeated.
“Boss, that makes it sound personal.”
“Yeah, that’s just what I was thinking.”
“Who have you offended lately?”
“Daymar, I think.”
“Daymar, if she had succeeded in locating Loiosh, could she have attacked me, through him?”
He frowned. “Maybe. I suppose that is possible. I don’t know enough about the nature of your connection to Loiosh.”
I nodded. “Okay, anything else you noticed?”
“Well, I can find her again, if you wish.”