“Not again.”
“Heh.”
Rocza shifted on my shoulder, and I caught the psychic whispers of Loiosh telling her something—she probably didn’t like the place much. Well, who did?
We moved closer to them—so did the gods. If I’d been attuned to more levels of magic, I have no doubt I would have detected all sorts of powerful enchantments swirling about above the place that was itself the most powerful of enchantments. I set Spellbreaker spinning a bit faster.
“I’d really like to be somewhere else, right about now.”
“Oh, c’mon, Boss. Where’s your sense of history?”
“I like to read about history, not make it.”
“You see, Boss? It’s because of attitudes like yours that there are so few human heroes.”
“And so many humans.”
“Heh.”
Rocza shifted again on my shoulder.
“How is she doing, Loiosh?”
“She’ll be fine, Boss.”
“Are you sure? She seems nervous.”
“Right, Boss. As opposed to you and me?”
“Good point.”
We continued on, another step, two, three, closer to where the Jenoine stood, on the very edge of the Sea.
“Boss, does this remind you at all—”
“No. It doesn’t. Shut up.”
I realized that I was still avoiding looking at the amorphia—sort of skirting it with my eyes. I didn’t want to look at the Jenoine, either, but I made myself. I watched them, and tried to keep an eye on our Divine allies. This really was shaping up to be one of those battles they write songs about. I wondered if I’d get mentioned—the Easterner, Jhereg, outcast, walking around unarmed except for a length of chain that was useful for blocking magic of a kind that I wasn’t going to encounter here. Maybe Teldra and I could find a quiet spot and continue our discussion of the philosophy of courtesy. I had enjoyed that. In fact, on reflection, I had enjoyed that more than I had enjoyed anything for several years. Strange, isn’t it? I hadn’t even realized it at the time, but trapped on a world not my own, perhaps in a universe not my own, held by godlike beings intent on some ineffable evil, Teldra and I had sat back and had the sort of discussion that I most enjoyed, the sort that Cawti and I had once had.
Bugger. This was not precisely the right time to start feeling maudlin. But those were my thoughts as I moved toward destiny or whatever it was I moving toward. Destiny, a spot in a ballad, or a quick death, maybe, if the Jenoine noticed me, or if I slipped a little and fell into that.
As deaths go, that one wouldn’t be bad.
I mean, dying in pain has never been high on my list of desires. But, on the other hand, I’m not real fond of the death that comes on you out of nowhere, not even giving you time to realize that you’re going. When I had thought about it—and, my line of work, I had found my thoughts often straying toward that most morbid of all subjects—I had often felt that I wanted to go peacefully, while awake, not in pain, but aware that I was going—with time to say goodbye to life, so to speak, even if it were only to be a temporary goodbye until an awakening in the Paths or in a new incarnation. But then, I wondered, what if I got that, and, in the event, proved craven? The last moments of life have always seemed to me to be a good time for a last mental balance sheet—a chance to say to yourself: Okay, how did I do? How terrible to arrive at that point reasonably happy, only to find that in your last extremity you lost your dignity with your life, and that your whole image of yourself was proved to be only a lie! Rather than that, I’d prefer to go in my sleep, which I’ve always dreaded; or even by the sudden hand of an assassin, as has seemed most likely for the past several years, or perhaps by a wrong step into amorphia.
Sorry to drag you along for all of this, but, as I say, those were my thoughts at that moment, and if I had to live through them, you have to as well. Deal with it.
Ummm ... would you be mad at me if, after all of this buildup, nothing much happens? Heh. Don’t worry about it. Stuff happens.
Distantly, in the back of my head, as it were, I was aware of Loiosh communicating with Rocza, who seemed to settle down a bit.
We were walking directly toward the Jenoine, but the Lords of Judgment weren’t—they were instead spreading out, as if to protect against a retreat. Myself, I was all in favor of permitting the Jenoine to retreat if they wanted to. But why did we have to be the group that moved toward them? Two answers popped into my head at once: first, we had the Great Weapons, and, second, I had no doubt that it was Sethra Lavode who was giving the orders.
There was even someone or something above the Jenoine at least, there seemed to be a hovering sort of darkness about fifty feet up that appeared thick enough either to contain some thing sentient, or perhaps even to be something sentient, though if it was it was nothing I wanted to get to know personally.
Aliera said, “Sethra, look.”
We all stopped and looked, and discovered that we were, in fact, not the only ones moving directly at the Jenoine: the dragon was, too.
“Well, that is hardly surprising,” said Sethra.
“Who is it?” asked Aliera.
“You don’t know?”
“No, should I?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, who—”
“Not now,” said Sethra. She frowned, and finally said, “Very well. Leave her alone, we’ll adjust.”
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that, but it wasn’t my decision. There is a certain relief that goes with knowing that someone else is making the decisions. Maybe if I were to live two or three thousand years I might get to the point of liking that feeling. Watching Sethra, I got the impression that she was in psychic contact with someone or other, maybe with all the gods at once, so she could direct the battle. I don’t know.
The closer we got, the bigger they looked. And the scarier. They didn’t look so large out here as they had when surrounded by walls; but they were big, and so bloody alien. Their arms were awfully thick, and their hands looked capable of crushing a human skull without too much work, and even from this distance their eyes seemed to glitter with intelligence, and with powers beyond my comprehension. I guess the problem was, I just had too much time to think about things. In my own line of work it was different—either it was an unexpected attack, in which case I was too busy to be scared until it was over, or, preferably, it was something I had planned out to begin with. This was just all wrong.
Sethra turned to us suddenly and said, “She did it.” I was about to ask who did what, but Aliera said, “The Necromancer?”
Sethra nodded.
“Good,” said Morrolan.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “They’re already here. What’s the point of—”
“She has blocked their passage out,” said Sethra. “They have no choice now but to fight.”
I looked out over the Sea of Amorphia, then looked away. “Good place for it,” I said.
“Yes, in some ways it is,” said Sethra. “In spite of the unpredictability of the results, if they fail to achieve their link, then they have an additional threat, with no compensating advantage.”
I had been being ironic, but I didn’t explain that to her. At that point the Necromancer herself shimmered into existence a few feet away, walked over, and joined us, as if she were taking her constitutional. She nodded to Sethra and ignored the rest of us. Apparently she was the one being in existence who was immune to Teldra’s powers.
We continued our stroll toward the Jenoine: Teldra, me, Aliera, Morrolan, Sethra, the Demon Goddess, and the Necromancer. We kept getting closer, and they still didn’t act, though now I could hear them jabbering away in their own language, probably deciding which of them got to eat which parts of which of us. There was no indication that they were worried.