“Are they being hurt?”
“A little.”
“A little more, then,” I said, and kept going, though it was pretty tough, and slow, and I realized I was becoming exhausted. It was what they call the point of diminishing returns when they want to sound all fancy and technical; to me it was Ia signal that I was about done.
“Boss—”
“Okay,” I said. “That will have to do,” and I pulled out of my metaphors and symbols and use of energy as a precise vagueness, and came back to the world; whatever world it was, at any rate.
“... very cold,” Aliera was saying. She and Morrolan looked be all right, so I just grunted at her, thought about using Spellbreaker, but didn’t know if it might have some additional effects, and I didn’t want any additional effects just then. I pulled from behind my back a knife with a particularly strong, heavy hilt. I flipped the knife, caught the blade, and raised it over my head, then got a good hold on Aliera’s left arm.
“What are you doing, Vlad?” asked Aliera as I brought the knife down as hard as I could on the manacle, being careful not touch the bitter cold metal with my hand. It shattered with a sound like broken pottery, rather than iron, and her wrist was free. I repeated the process on her other arm and broke the hilt of the knife as well as the manacle, leaving me staring at a blade and a tang, with a bit of bone hilt still clinging to it. Oh, well. I had more knives.
I pulled another and used it on Morrolan’s right arm, breaking the knife’s hilt and doing nothing to the manacle. I scowled and pulled yet another, wishing I carried as many as I used to, but this one turned out to do the job: there were now four lengths of chain hanging from the wall. Morrolan and Aliera stood up.
Hot damn.
“Good work, Vlad,” said Morrolan, alternately rubbing each wrist with the opposite hand. “I’ll take over now.” Figured.
I couldn’t really object; I didn’t have any energy to object with. It wasn’t the sort of exhaustion you get when you’ve just run half a mile; my breathing was easy, and I was even remembering, with occasional nudges from Loiosh, to make my breath shallow. And it wasn’t sleepiness: I wanted to lie down, but I was nowhere near sleep. No, it was its own thing, the aftermath of a spell. A lethargy that I can only compare to the aftermath of sex, and that is too obvious an analogy, and has been used too often in books on witchcraft, for me to want to push it, so let’s just say I was too tired to object.
Morrolan rubbed each wrist in turn, as if to warm them up, or to assure himself that they were still there. Then did some thing quickly with his hands, and he was suddenly holding a thin, black, polished stick in his right hand. It was about five feet long, had rounded ends, a few silver tracings on it, and I’d never seen it before.
“What is that?” I managed to say.
“My wizard’s staff,” said Morrolan. “I am a wizard. We have staves, you know. They go with the office.”
“And I’ve never seen you use it before because ... ?”
“In my own world, Blackwand has pretty much replaced it, but here, there are limits to what Blackwand can do, so I revert to my earlier skills and implements.”
“I suppose it is immensely powerful and you can do all sorts of amazing things with it.”
“Naturally.”
“And you’ve had it with you all along?”
“I always have it with me.”
“Then please explain to me why, by Verra’s skinny ass couldn’t you have—?”
“While I was fettered,” he said, “its power was nullified. The Jenoine are rather skilled in counterspells. Now I am unfettered, and, if there are no objections, I propose to use it. You don’t mind, do you, Vlad? Or have you other questions?”
“If that means you intend to get us out of here,” I said, “then I’m all for it. If you have some other plan, we’ll have to negotiate.”
“That’s my plan,” said Morrolan.
“Not, however, theirs,” said Aliera, sweetly. I followed the direction of her gaze, and saw that the two Jenoine were back.
“So,” I said to no one in particular. “I guess it comes down to negotiation after all.”
I looked at the Jenoine, then glanced back, and saw, heard, felt Pathfinder and Blackwand being drawn from their
sheaths, Morrolan first transferring the staff to his left hand. Then he set the staff spinning; it seemed very light in his hand. I hoped he was doing more than showing off how good he was at making a stick spin.
The wizard’s staff was spinning at his side, he held Blackwand in his other hand, and next to him stood Aliera, holding Pathfinder, with its point at the Jenoine’s face. In the Jhereg, we call this “negotiating from a position of strength.” I suspect the Dragons have a similar term.
I didn’t have a position of strength. I didn’t draw a weapon, because I wasn’t sure what to draw, and because I was in no condition to wield a flyswatter.
Teldra barked, coughed, grumbled, and chattered at them; one of them replied similarly. I strained to guess the tone of the conversation, then gave it up as hopeless.
“Any idea, Loiosh?”
“Sorry, Boss. Not a clue.”
“I hate sitting around while other people decide what’s going to happen to me.”
“Well, you can always do something stupid.”
“No, I think I’m over that, for the moment.”
“Note down the date.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Morrolan and Aliera took a step toward the Jenoine; Teldra kept talking.
The big, ugly thing just stood there, not appearing to notice the Great Weapons, much less the wizard’s staff, or the cold blooded, highly skilled Easterner assassin who was bravely cowering next to the Dragonlords.
“Do that thing’s eyes remind you of something, Boss?”
“Yes, Loiosh. Fish eyes. Is it important?”
“Probably not.”
From my position, I couldn’t see Morrolan’s face, but I had a partial view of Aliera’s: there was a gleam in her eye, and a sort of twisted grin on her lip. Morrolan, I was sure, was scowling. He scowled well. Aliera grinned, Morrolan scowled, and I sneered. There you have it.
They closed with the Jenoine, and I suddenly thought of the Morganti dagger in my belt. Well, I could join them. I mean, it wasn’t a Great Weapon, but it was a Pretty Good Weapon. I might do some good. I might be able to help. I might prefer to cower as far back in a corner as I could.
“Good plan, Boss. Let’s go with it.”
“Sold,” I told him. I managed to stand up, then took a step backward, stopped, drew the Morganti dagger, and went up to stand next to Morrolan.
“Boss—”
This had happened to me before—going forward into danger that wasn’t at all my type of danger, when I knew I ought to stay back, and I hadn’t then understood why I did it, and I didn’t know this time. Bugger. The Morganti dagger seemed alive in my hand. Yes, it was a dull, grey color. Yes, it did have a blood-groove. It was a narrow blade, very light and useful-feeling in my hand, about eighteen inches long, and not nearly as blade-heavy as I’d suspected it would be. It was also hungry, and, as I’d suspected, it was very powerful; I felt it and hated it.
And worried about it, as well. The Jenoine had given it to me, and now I was going to use it against them. Wouldn’t they have thought of that? Was that what they wanted me to do? Could it hurt them, in any case? According to Verra, no it couldn’t. But if not, then I didn’t have anything that could.