“If so,” she said, “I’m sure you’ll comport yourself with dignity.”
“Dignity? Me? Not bloody likely. If I go down swinging, it’ll be because I think swinging is more likely to get me out of it than running. If I go down running, I won’t be surprised.”
She gave me a smile as if she didn’t believe me and said, “I hadn’t meant to turn the conversation morbid.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, Teldra. Most of my thoughts are morbid. I think it comes of having spent so long killing people for a living. Strange way to live, when you think about it, so I try not to, but I can’t help it. On the other hand, you work for a guy known for sacrificing whole villages, so I guess I’m a bit of a piker by comparison.”
“More like hamlets than villages, Vlad. And he was at war against them at the time, you know.”
“Oh. Actually, I hadn’t known that. I just chalked it up to another example of how charming my dear Goddess can be.”
“It was while he was consolidating his power and retaking his ancestral homelands. They worshiped Tri’nagore, a God you don’t hear from much anymore, and had overrun Blackchapel, killing everyone in it. Morrolan returned the favor, and sent their souls to his Patron Goddess.”
“I see. They don’t tell that part of the story.”
“The Lord Morrolan refuses to be put in the position of defending his actions. He considers it undignified.”
“So he’d rather everyone thought him a bloodthirsty butcher?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, I guess he would at that.”
To the left, I reflected, he could be bloodthirsty enough, however much Teldra downplayed it. I recalled an incident at Castle Black. I wasn’t paying much attention, being involved in some rather nasty squabble with another Jhereg at the time, but I remember him challenging another Dragonlord to a duel, and ... doing everything to the guy except making him unrevivifiable—I mean he dismembered the poor bastard, and seemed to take great joy making the fellow’s death as slow and painful as he could. This was a memory I didn’t care to dwell on; I don’t enjoy such scenes. But it was certainly impossible to deny that that side of Morrolan existed. I wondered—
“Teldra,” I said suddenly. “Do you recall a certain Lord Vrudric e’Lanya whom Morrolan fought a few years ago?”
She looked at me quizzically and nodded.
“Can you tell me what that was about?”
“You don’t know, Vlad? Vrudric was casting aspersion on Adron’s character.”
“Adron? Adron e’Kieron?”
“Yes.”
“That’s it? Morrolan did that to him because he was casting aspersions on the character of the guy who was either so greedy, or so incompetent, or, at best, so misguided that he destroyed the whole Verra-be-damned Empire and dissolved Dragaera City into amorphia? That guy?”
“Adron is one of Morrolan’s heroes. I thought you knew that.”
“No,” I said. “I hadn’t known that. But Adron ... okay. It’s strange, but I guess I can get used to it. Hmmm. Morrolan e’Drien. Who was Drien, anyway?”
“A contemporary of Kieron the Conqueror, perhaps the first Shaman who was a warrior, or the first warrior who was a Shaman. From what I gather, he or she was brilliant, fiery, talented, creative, powerful, and emotionally unstable.”
“‘He or she’?”
“As I understand it, Drien was born female but transformed herself into a man around the time of the founding of the Empire. Or it may have been the other way around. I don’t know if the man or the woman had offspring, or both; and perhaps the story isn’t true, but that is the tradition.”
“I see. Hmmm. But then ... never mind. What about the other story? I mean the one about Morrolan charging up to Dzur Mountain when he found out that there was someone in his domain who hadn’t paid him tribute.”
“Oh.” Teldra smiled. “Yes, that one is true.”
I chuckled. “Oh, to have been there to witness that conversation. I don’t suppose you went along?”
“Hardly.”
“Did he ever say what happened?”
“No. But it can’t have been anything too horrid; they’ll’ been friends ever since.”
“Oh yeah? Does she pay him tribute?”
“I don’t know,” said Teldra, smiling.
“I’ll be sure to ask him. Sometime when we’re not in the middle of trying to batter our way out of a trap set by demigod. Which reminds me, I had an idea about that. I’ll give you the rough outline of—”
“Boss!”
I spun around. Morrolan and Aliera were back, both holding their swords in their hands, and looking like I felt—that is, full of the desire to kill something.
“Welcome,” I said, “to our temporary abode. I’m afraid our hospitality may be—”
“Where are they?” said Aliera.
I shrugged. “They forgot to say where they were going when they left. Actually, I forgot to ask them. I was napping at the time, as I recall. Oh, by the way, Morrolan, I’m curious about whether you get any tribute from Dzur Mountain.”
“Vlad,” said Morrolan, “do you have any idea what we had to do to get back here? To even find the place, much less break through, required the Necromancer to spend twelve hours pulling memories out of Blackwand—memories she didn’t know she contained. After that—”
“How long has it been, in your world?”
“Not long. A couple of days. A very busy couple of days, I might add.”
I nodded. “A few hours, here. Did you bring any food? Jerky and gammon are getting old.”
Morrolan and Aliera looked at each other. “No, sorry,” said Morrolan.
“Perhaps it would be best to get going, then.”
“Yes,” said Aliera. “That’s the idea.” Morrolan was frowning his frown of concentration—I hoped and believed doing what was necessary to get us out of there.
“That is,” I added, “if the Jenoine will let us. Do you think they will?”
“Perhaps not,” said the Lord of Castle Black, looking up suddenly. “But we are prepared for them to attempt to stop us. Unfortunately, the gate has shut again. I’m going to try to open it.nHe did that thing with his hands again, and he was once more holding his thin, black wizard’s staff. This time I noticed something: a blue ring that he always wore on his left hand was no longer there, yet I had been certain he had been wearing it an instant before. Okay, it was a nice trick, and it had some flash. I could always respect flash, if it didn’t conflict with practicality.
I looked at Morrolan, as if seeing him for the first time, with all that Teldra had told me buzzing around in my head. Adron? He certainly was far more complex than I had ever thought him. It suddenly flashed into my head to wonder if he and Sethra were currently or ever had been lovers. Now that was an interesting thought, and one that would probably come back to me on many cold nights—assuming, of course, that I would have the opportunity to have many cold nights.
Which brought me sharply back to the present. I said, “Sethra is in on this, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Morrolan. “And she’s at Castle Black, in the Tower, waiting to assist us.”
I nodded. “Knowing, I’m sure, that her help is likely to be either insufficient or unnecessary.”
“Yes.”
I felt myself scowling, and my stomach growled, just to make sure I understood how it felt, too.
“Got it,” said Morrolan suddenly. “Over here, quickly.’’
There was a shimmering waviness in the air, gold colored, about six feet behind Morrolan.
“Very well,” said Aliera, walking toward it. “Let’s do it; the gate won’t remain open forever. Teldra, you first. Hurry, Vlad.”
“They’re late, Boss.”
“Seems like.”
Teldra and I took a step toward her. Sometimes, things are so close—almost this, or just barely that; one thing and another, balanced just so, that there seems to be an instant where they are both happening, and neither happens, and each path is fully realized, like a psiprint, held in place by the strength of mutual impossibilities. Sometime lives—your own or another’s—depend on decisions that come within a whisper, a hair, a fraction of breath, of going one way or the other. Have you the strength of will to do what you know – know—is the right thing, or will your appetite rule the moment? Will you allow the anger of an instant to command your tongue, and make a breach that can never be healed, or will you manage to hold ire in check for just long enough—a tiny portion of a second—to escape?