He said, "I once knew a man who spent thirty years—thirty years, attempting to—"
"Feh. That's not about vengeance, that's obsession."
"Nevertheless—"
"Thank you for the ride, Father," I told him. I hopped down from the wagon and entered the inn, Loiosh hissing laughter in my ear.
What surprised me when I walked into the Pointy Hat was how busy it was; I guess it was only then I realized that, by most standards, it was still early in the evening. I took a quick look to see if Orbahn was in. He wasn't. If I wanted to, I could decide that was suspicious, but it was too much work just then.
I took myself up to my room, removed my boots and cloak, and stretched out on the bed.
A part of it hadn't hit me until that moment: the realization I hat I wasn't going to be able to speak to them, to get to know them, to ask them who my mother was, and why she had left. A big piece of my past had just been lopped off. I was going to find who had done it, and I was going to find out why, and I was going to hurt somebody very, very badly.
"Loiosh?"
"Yes, Boss?"
"We need to find a safe place tomorrow to take the amulet off long enough for me to do something about these blisters."
“Safe? Boss—"
"Safer. Sort of safe.”
"There is no such time or place."
"Think it's safe for me to be wandering around with my hands blistered?"
"Aren't there other ways to cure it that don't involve letting the Jhereg find you?"
"Sure. That should only take a week or so.”
"We can hide for a week."
"Yes, but we aren't going to."
"Okay, Boss."
He fell silent, and I stared up the ceiling for a long time, remembering the bodies in the ruins the house, and wrapping sheets around them so we could drag them to the holes we'd dug. Oddly, my dreams weren't about that, they were about digging the holes; I dug them over and over in my sleep.
But I did sleep; I guess that's the important thing.
Steminastria
The steminastria, which can last for several weeks depending on food supply, is the most active of stages, in the sense that it is constantly moving, and constantly eating, never leaving the pond in which it was born. In seasons where there is great competition, or little food, the steminastria will often die rather than transform. . . . One of the more unusual features of the steminastria is that at this stage, when it eats far more than at any other stage (at least nine times its own weight every day), it is a pure vegetarian— living on the underwater plants and lichen. We still do not know exactly what triggers the transition to its next stage, unless it is simply that the enormous quantity of food it consumes causes it to reach a point where it must transform before it literally bursts. . . . High on the list of the steminastria's natural enemies must be itself, when considering its reckless disregard for the size and characteristics of its predators, even when based on its own experiences…
—Oscaani: Fauna of the Middle South: A Brief Survey, Volume 6, Chapter 17
5
Boraan (determined): Search! Hunt! Find it! First Student (frightened): What if it isn't anywhere? Lefitt (calm): Then it will take rather longer.
—Miersen, Six Parts Water Day Two, Act III, Scene 5
When I woke up, I hurt.
My shoulders, my arms, my back, my legs.
Why my legs? I don't know. What do I look like, a physicker?
I lay in bed moaning for what seemed a long time. If the Jhereg had found me then, they'd have had an easy target. I'm not even sure I'd have minded.
Eventually I moaned, moved, moaned, sat up, moaned, swung my legs down to the floor, and moaned.
"If I so much as suspect you are even thinking about laughing, by Verra's tits and toenails, Loiosh, I will—"
"Never entered my mind, Boss"
Putting on my boots was a test of my manhood; I just barely passed. Then I moaned some more. Eventually, I made my way to the stairs, and then down them, one at a time, slowly.
"Boss, how far can you go?"
"As far as I have to."
Inchay looked up. "Coffee?"
"Brandy," I said. "The foulest you have."
He looked startled, but didn't argue. I took the cup, downed it in one shot, and shook my head. "That's better," I said. "Now I'll have some coffee." I made my way over to a table and sat down.
After about an hour of drinking coffee I started to feel like maybe I could move. I mentally ran through the inventory of witchcraft supplies I had with me. Not many, but they'd do, and I didn't feel like going back to the shop in town and trying to actually purchase anything; I'd either kill the first merchant who looked at me wrong, or, worse, be unable to.
Okay, I had what I needed; I didn't doubt my ability to make the spell work. The only question was: Where should I do it? I didn't want to cast right there at the inn, because I had to take the amulet off, and it was bad enough giving the Jhereg a chance—slim but present—of finding the area where I was; handing them the inn I was staying at was just making their life a little too easy. I could maybe find a place out of town, but being surrounded, by people—humans—was part of my protection.
I hated that I had to do this; that I was being forced to take this risk, just because of blisters and stupid body aches that I gotten—
No, no.
Not going to be able to do any sort of spell while having dismemberment fantasies. The Art involves channeling and controlling emotion, but the emotion needs to correspond to the spell, and the emotions I was feeling right then didn't have a whole lot to do with healing.
I remembered pleasant days with Cawti, which made me a bit melancholy—okay, maybe more than a bit—but that's always a good cure for rage. I thought about what went wrong, and what went right, and made stupid plans in my head to win her back. Funny, that; they always involved rescuing her, when I knew damned well that rescuing her had been one of the problems. No one likes being rescued. The only thing worse is, well, not being rescued.
So, yeah, I played tricks with my own head until I felt like maybe I could do a Working, and by the time I'd done that, I knew where I could do it, too. And, besides, the thought made me chuckle. Loiosh would have a lot to say about it, and that made me chuckle too.
"What are you planning, Boss?"
"Just a spell, Loiosh. You'll see."
I stood up and made my way—still slowly and painfully, but maybe a little better— out of the door, and began walking down the street. Slowly.
"Loiosh, I hurt."
"We can stop for cheese."
"Oh, shut up.”
Eventually, I made it to the other end, to the other inn, and went into the stable. The stable-boy was there; he seemed to be in his early twenties, and had deep-set eyes and thin lips. He said, "Greetings, my lord, may I—" He stopped and stared at his hand, into which I had just placed three silver coins. "My lord?"
I gestured to the stable. "I need to use the space there for about an hour."
"My lord?"
"Yes?"
"The stable?"
I nodded.
"You need to use ..."
"The space. Don't let anyone in. For an hour."