Eventually, a passage went off to the right, so I turned to follow it.
“Boss, shouldn’t we be seeing more servants, or guards, or something?”
“Yeah.”
After a while, there was a large and very ornate door opening to my right. I sniffed, but didn’t smell any food, so I kept going. The hallway continued for a long way before there was another door; this one also on the right, and just as big. I reminded myself that I couldn’t count on “left” and “right” meaning anything, but I smelled fresh-baked bread, and I figured that was liable to mean something.
I opened it, and it gleamed with marble counters and sinks, with stone ovens and steel shelves. It was a kitchen, and it was a good one. I studied the layout and very much wanted to stop and cook something. There were gleaming racks of copper pots, whole tables that were cutting boards, a bread oven (which I checked; it was empty and cold), a coldbox (which I checked; it was empty and warm) and a wood stove with two separate burners, one big and one small. They were also cool to the touch.
And wedged into a corner, up against the ceiling, was a round mirror of about two feet in diameter.
“There’s no food, Boss.”
“Everything has to be perfect for you.”
I sniffed again. It still smelled like fresh bread. I love the smell of fresh bread. The kitchen led to a pantry, which was also empty, except for a bucket of apples. It seemed to me that people here probably lived on more than apples. I took one anyway, and ate it. It wasn’t a variety I was familiar with, but it was good—a deep red, very crisp, very tart. I ate another, giving the cores to Loiosh and Rocza. Not what I’d been looking for, but it helped.
You know, it’s funny—I’ve beaten, robbed, and killed over the course of my career, but wandering around the place stealing apples, I felt enough like a criminal to make me uncomfortable. Not that it stopped me.
I explored the pantry a bit more, making sure I’d missed nothing, then went through the kitchen again. There were some good knives, stuck into a wooden block. My father had never used a block like that—he’d always kept his knives in a leather case, each wrapped up in a thick towel, lovingly cleaned and put back after each use. There was also a very nice spatula; it looked to be made of silver. I considered taking it, but it’s hard to conceal a spatula about your person so I left it there.
Here’s the thing, though: I know kitchens. I know big kitchens, and I know what’s involved in cleaning them, and either there was a god of kitchen cleaning and someone had invoked him, or no one had ever used this kitchen for anything. I was betting on the latter, though where was the smell of bread coming from? I very much doubted anyone had invented invisible bread. But unless there was invisible food around here, everyone was living on apples. It was strange. I was still thinking about invisible bread when someone screamed.
“Loiosh, where—”
“Pretty close, Boss. Other side of the door.”
I ran through my assorted weaponry to make sure everything was in place, then opened the door back into the hall.
Directly across from the door was a woman, her mouth open, her eyes filled with terror. My brain instantly did the work of fitting her into the various categories: Dragaeran, Teckla, old. It did that quickly, my brain, because my eyes had already moved on, down the hallway to my right, where I caught only a glimpse of something massive and very white that vanished down another hallway before I could figure out exactly what it was.
“Barlen preserve our souls, G’mon preserve our minds. It is free,” she said, staring me in the face.
“What is? What was that?”
She shook her head, her eyes wide.
“Who are you?” I asked her.
She stared at me for a moment, as if the question made no sense, then said, “Odelpho. I was named Odelpho. It’s from the place my grandmother came from, Delpho, which means ‘home of the bear’ in—”
“That’s great,” I said. “What was that thing?”
“Thing?” she said, as if she’d forgotten it. Then her eyes widened again, and she screamed and fled down the hall in the opposite direction, running a lot faster than I’d have thought she could.
“Boss—”
“I have the same questions you do, Loiosh, and no answers to any of them.”
I looked to my right, the way I’d seen the thing go, whatever it was.
“This can’t be good,” said Loiosh.
I re-sheathed my rapier and a fighting knife—not actually aware of when I’d drawn them.
“Yeah,” I said brilliantly, still watching the hallway.
I tried to reconstruct what I’d seen, but I just hadn’t gotten a good look at it. It was big, though. I was sure of that. I had the impression it just barely fit between the walls, and had been hunched over because the ceiling was too low.
“Are we going after it, Boss?”
“After it? Are you nuts? What if we caught it?”
“I love it when you break out in common sense.”
I kept walking.
“Boss, you said—”
“We aren’t going after it. We’re just going in the same direction.”
“I can’t—never mind.”
I reached the end of the hall undecided about whether to turn left or right.
“Boss. Someone’s there. Around the corner.”
I almost drew my sword again, but stopped myself. I mean, I was a guest, right? Meeting strangers with weapons drawn is frowned on in some circles. I admit, I don’t usually frequent those circles, but here I was.
I stepped around the corner and someone tried to kill me.
If I’d had time, I’d have made some appropriate remark to Loiosh—you know, about how now I felt more at home. I didn’t though—I turned the corner, and Loiosh yelled into my mind just as something came at me and I threw myself to the side. It went past me about the time I realized—more by the after-effect it had on my eyes than by seeing it—that it had been a very bright light. Have I ever mentioned that I don’t enjoy going into a fight with spots in front of my eyes? It’s irritating.
Lady Teldra was in my hand.
No doubt everyone in the place felt it when I drew her—felt threatened, or terrified, or at least disturbed in some indefinable way. Those who were more sensitive to magical energy would have felt it especially keenly. Me, I felt better.
My attacker said, “Wait,” which I guess is a reasonable thing to say when someone you just tried to kill pulls out a Great Weapon. But all right. I still wasn’t seeing too well, so a little delay before we continued our conversation was fine with me. He was about fifteen paces from me, and had a dark complexion and a high forehead, and stupidly long, straight hair that you’d think would get in his way when he started throwing spells around. He wore the red and white of the House of the Athyra, and the badge on his jerkin was Athyra. The hands he held palms-out toward me had long fingers.