The funniest part was that I caught Sethra glancing at Teldra. Teldra, for her part, said, “Here, I’ll wrap one for you.”
“That would be great,” I said.
She put one together for me, her long, graceful fingers nimble and precise as she measured each ingredient out on the leaf that lay in the palm of her hand; then she rolled it up in a smooth motion, and handed it to me with the least hint of a bow. I smiled at her, took it, and ate it. It was very good; the bitterwort slid through the plum sauce, and then the ginger and the red pepper sort of burst in on your tongue along with ... well, you get the idea. I had two more of them, making a point of eating slowly to give Teldra time to wrap and eat a couple of her own. Tukko came in with the next course, shuffling about and moving much quicker than it seemed he was. He gave us each what I thought was just a ball of rice, only the rice had been prepared with ginger, and saffron, and I swear a tiny bit of honey; it was quite remarkable.
“My compliments, Sethra,” I said.
“Thank you, Vlad,” which was just about the only conversation for some time.
The fruit was a selection of local berries, some of which I hadn’t run into before, but they were all good, and served with ice and thick cream, after which came thin slices of beef, just barely seared and seasoned with pepper and parsley and calijo, and served with fresh, thick-crusted dark bread. I couldn’t cut it with the knife, so I just set the meat on the bread and tore off bites of both.
It was very good.
I ate a great deal.
I noticed that I was sitting with my feet wrapped around the legs of my chair, which is something I’ve found myself doing when serious about eating. I stopped at once, of course; it’s hard to look tough with your feet wrapped around the legs of a chair. Sethra picked at her food, as she had the other times I’d eaten with her. I knew she didn’t eat much, for obvious reasons; I wondered if she enjoyed the flavors. Add that to my list of things I’ll never ask her, but would like the answer to.
Eventually, I sat back, stretched out, and said, “Okay, Sethra. Give me a couple of hours to digest, and I’ll take on every Jenoine you have, all at the same time.”
“Careful what you promise,” said Sethra Lavode.
“All right,” I said. “Let me rephrase that.”
Morrolan chuckled. So did Loiosh. I’m quite the jongleur when out of danger and with a meal inside me. Eventually we made our way back to the sitting room, and Tukko brought out a liqueur that was older than Morrolan and much sweeter, featuring the smallest traces of mint and cinnamon—an odd combination, but a successful one, and I’m pretty sure there was some honey in there, too.
I moaned softly. Sethra said, “Is the arm beginning to hurt?”
“No,” said Aliera. “That’s his moan of contentment after a good meal.”
“Now, how would you know that?” I asked her.
She gave me an inscrutable smile that she must have learned from Morrolan. I grunted and drank some more, and enjoyed the transitory sense of contentment I was feeling.
Sethra looked at my arm some more—and when I say she I looked at it, that’s what I mean. She stared at it so hard I’d say she was looking right through the skin, which is probably what she was doing, at least on some mystical level that I’ll never understand.
After several minutes, she said, “I don’t know. I’m not sure if I can do anything about it, but it looks like I may not have to.”
“How, it’ll fix itself?”
“I think so. It seems like it might be a temporary condition. I’ve been watching the signs of activity in the nerves, and it now seems clear that it is getting better rather than degenerating.”
“Degenerating,” I said. “Okay. What would that have meant?”
“Paralysis, then death, probably from suffocation when you became unable to breathe, unless your heart became paralyzed first, which would have killed you more quickly. But, as I say, it isn’t going that way, it is repairing itself.”
“Hmmm. Okay, that’s good news. Any idea how long?”
“I can’t say.”
“Remember, we Easterners don’t live more than sixty or seventy years.”
“I doubt we’re talking about years.”
“Good. Then I imagine you’re not going to ask me to do anything until I have two good arms, right?”
“I’m not sure we can wait, Vlad.”
“Oh? You mean, after two hundred thousand years, or whatever it’s been, things suddenly got urgent? When, yesterday?”
“Yes,” said Sethra. “I believe things have become urgent. They became urgent when Morrolan and Aliera were taken. Everything is at a new level now, and developments are taking place quickly.”
“But—”
“More important,” she continued, “I doubt they will give us time to do anything at all.”
“They wouldn’t attack Dzur Mountain again, would they?”
“I hope so. Anything else they might come up with would be worse, because we haven’t any preparations for it.”
“Hmmm,” I said, because that always sounds wise. “Have you spoken to the Empress?”
“Yes.”
“Well then—wait. You have?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” I said. “And, uh ... what does she say?”
“She wants me to deal with it.”
“She wants you to ... with all of her resources, she has no one else to call on except—”
“Me? And Morrolan e’Drien, and Aliera e’Kieron?”
“Uh ...”
“Go ahead, Boss; talk yourself out of this one.”
“Shut up, Loiosh.”
“I was referring to myself, Sethra,” I said.
“Ah. Well, she is calling on me, and I am calling on you “
“You are—”
“Traditionally, this is exactly the sort of thing the Empress has called upon the Lavodes for; it is what we were created for. Now, as it happens, I am the only Lavode left. Well, there’s one other, but he isn’t ready yet.”
“The Lavodes were created to fight the Jenoine?”
“The Lavodes were created to handle threats or potential threats to the Empire that were fundamentally non-military.”
“I see.” I thought about it. “But I thought the Lavodes were disbanded before the Interregnum.”
“That is true, but I always thought that was a bad idea. The Empress, as it happens, agrees with me.”
“Ah. She agrees. Well, how nice. And evidently the Demon Goddess agrees with you, too. And Aliera agrees, and Morrolan agrees. And Teldra, of course, can’t help being agreeable. So I you’ve got agreement all the way around except from the Verra-be-damned Easterner who’d really like to have his left arm working again before doing anything stupid.”
“You might have a choice,” said Sethra. “But most likely you won’t.”
“Great. So we’re going to be in for it, whether we want to or not. What do we do?”
“Do you have any suggestions, Vlad?”
“For handling rampant Jenoine? No, that has never been a specialty of mine.”
“Then, perhaps, you’d care to shut up and let us figure something out.”
“Ouch,” I said. “All right. I’ll just sit here like any good weapon, and wait to be pulled from my sheath, blunted edge and all.”
“Good,” she said. “That’s just what I want.”
That hadn’t been the answer I was looking for, but I decided to be content with it before I encouraged something worse. I fell silent, just sitting there with my left arm hanging limp and useless in my lap.