“I wish,” said Aliera abruptly, “that we could find a way to carry the war to them.”
Morrolan looked at her. “Since that is such an obvious observation that you could not possibly have any reason for making it, I must assume you have an idea as to the particulars.”
She smiled sweetly at him, and suggested where he might put his assumptions, but caught herself, glanced at me, and eventually said, “No, as it happens, I was musing. I can’t think of any way to do so.”
Morrolan nodded. “If we’re speaking of wishes, I wish we understood them better.”
“I have a few guesses about them,” said Aliera, “based on what we’ve just been through, and what I’ve picked up from Sethra and my mother.”
“All right,” said Morrolan. “Keep talking.”
Sethra leaned forward attentively; I pretended to be bored with the whole thing.
“My first guess is that, whatever their long-term plans are, their next objective is Verra. We know that she has been then enemy for her entire existence, and everything that has happened can be seen that way—even the nonsense about trying to convince Vlad to kill her might be second-level deception, or even a straightforward attempt to convince him to do so.”
“Yes,” said Sethra. “I agree with your reasoning. Go on.”
“All right,” said Aliera. “My second guess is a little more daring.”
Morrolan muttered something under his breath.
“I believe,” said Aliera, “that their second target is the Orb.”
Sethra stirred. “The trellanstone?”
Aliera nodded. “The best way to attack the Orb would be with a device with similar properties.”
“Then why,” said Morrolan, “were we allowed to see it?”
“You think you were allowed to?” said Sethra. “I thought you had managed to penetrate their illusions, and see it in spite of them.”
“That’s what I had thought, too. But if the trellanstone is important, then why, of all the places in the Universe, would they put us near it, illusions or no? In fact,” he continued “there’s been too much of that going around with these things. Too many coincidences. Too many times we have to ask ourselves, ‘Why would they do that?’ All the way from asking Vlad to kill Verra, to doing nothing while Vlad broke us out of the manacles, and doing nothing again while he broke himself and Teldra out, and then allowing us to see the trellanstone, and—”
“My Lord Morrolan,” said Lady Teldra suddenly.
He stopped, and turned to her. He’d forgotten her, as had the rest of us. Her eyes were just a trifle wide.
“I know that look, Boss. She just got something. You get the same look when you finally figure out the obvious.”
“How would you know what I look like? You’re on my shoulder.”
“We have ways.”
Meanwhile, Teldra was holding up a finger, asking us to wait, making little nods to herself as pieces fell into place. Then she said, “If I may be permitted to express an opinion.”
Morrolan nodded impatiently.
“I think, perhaps, you do not understand the Jenoine.”
He chuckled. “That, my dear Teldra, is hardly news.”
Her smile came and went like a straight shot of plum brandy, and she said, “I learned something of the Jenoine years ago, most especially their language. I’m sure you are all aware that language holds the key to the thinking of a culture. And, of course, one cannot spend time in such illustrious company as my Lord Morrolan, Sethra Lavode, and such gods as they come in contact with from time to time, without learning more. And then, I spoke with them.”
She paused. I wondered if she got her sense of drama from Morrolan, or if he hired her because of it. “When you speak of place, you are speaking in terms that would not make sense to them. They have a concept of ‘place,’ but it is used in their mathematics, not in their daily lives.”
“All right,” said Aliera. “You have our attention.”
“I have heard some—including you, Aliera—speak as if the Jenoine had come to our world from another place. This is not entirely true. I—please bear with me, this isn’t easy to describe.” She hesitated. “The clearest way to say it is that they do not move as we do, nor do they remain stationary as we do. That room in which we were held captive is, in an important sense, the only ‘place’ they have. At least, as we would use the term ‘place.’ The world that Vlad and I explored was, to them, the same place as the room. When we shattered the enchantment that kept us from seeing some of what was in the room, what we did was the equivalent of breaking out of that room and exploring other places in the structure. When we physically left the room to explore the world outside that room, we were, in their view, spirit-walking. Well, that isn’t exactly right—it isn’t such a perfect reversal, but it is something like that.”
“Well,” said Aliera. “That makes everything clear.”
Teldra frowned. “Let me try again.”
“Take your time,” said Morrolan, giving his cousin a dirtv look.
“Think of them this way: They are to us as amorphia is to normal matter. To them, our world and the place where we were held captive are the same place, differing only as states of being. I ...” Her voice trailed off.
“I’m sorry to say,” said Morrolan, “that I don’t understand.”
I was glad I wasn’t the only one.
“The Necromancer,” said Sethra suddenly.
“Ah,” said Teldra. “Yes.”
Morrolan said, “Shall I summon her?”
The mere mention of her name explained some of it—it meant we were dealing with the sorts of mind-bending things that are beyond the powers of normal people to understand.
“I’m not certain,” said Aliera, “that I could survive that just now.”
I thought about making a comment about Aliera’s delicate emotions, but good sense prevailed. A lot of my best wit is shared with no one except Loiosh and you, so I hope you appreciate it; he usually doesn’t.
Teldra took her comment seriously. “It requires an adjustment in thinking that doesn’t come naturally. I began to get glimpses of it when I studied their language, but I didn’t actually understand it until speaking with them. Yes, the Necromancer must necessarily understand these things, and I’m certain she could explain it better than I.”
Morrolan cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose,” he said, “that you could explain the, uh, practical ramifications.”
“I believe I can,” said Sethra Lavode.
Teldra shot her a look full of gratitude. Meanwhile, I was thinking, “Wait a minute; how is it Teldra knows this stuff and Sethra doesn’t?”
She answered the question before I could decide if I wanted to ask it aloud.
“What you are saying, my dear Teldra, makes sense of many things I have almost understood. Yes. It explains why they were able to achieve access to Dzur Mountain just when they did. It was not, as I thought at the time, a failure of my mundane defenses, nor of the magical ones. It was an attack from a direction that was unexpected, because, if you will, I didn’t know the direction existed.”
Teldra nodded. “To themselves, they would say they redefined your defenses.”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” I said. “Good. Now I understand everything.”
“In practical terms,” said Sethra, as if I hadn’t spoken, “it explains at least some of the peculiar behavior you witnessed while confined. In particular, the place they kept you is, as you said, the only place they have. The world the only world, the building the only building, the room the only room. They were, in that sense, in there with you the entire time. You didn’t see them or hear them when their attention was focused elsewhere. They—”