I guess you don't make sense of it, you just deal with it. There's a lot of stuff like that.
I went out into the evening and walked west down the road. A few steps and I was out of the town; I continued about a quarter of a mile the way I'd first come. It was amazing how alone I was. The few lights from Burz did nothing to break up the darkness. There was a breeze in my face and no stench. I looked up. Stars, small lights against the dead black of the sky of these human lands, glittered.
How long I was out there, I don't know, but eventually Loiosh said, "Someone's coming, Boss." A moment later I heard footsteps. I probably should have been ready, had a dagger in my hand or something, but I was in a mood. In any case, I wasn't attacked.
The footsteps stopped. Someone had good night vision. "Lord Merss?"
It was a male voice, and not one I recognized. I didn't turn around. "Yes," I said.
"I've been looking for you."
"And you've found me. You must tell me how you do it. I haven't found anything I've been looking for since I set foot in this bloody town."
"You weren't that hard to find. Call me Dahni."
"Good to meet you, Dahni. What's your part in all of this?"
"Ah, there's the question, isn't it?" he said. "Too many factions and none of them to be trusted."
"I couldn't have said it better myself. There's something about your speech that—"
"No, I'm not a native of this country. I'm from a small kingdom to the east where the women are prettier but the food isn't as good."
"Choose the food," I said. "Can't go wrong that way."
"And so I did."
"Wise."
"Yes, indeed. But, speaking of wisdom, you've put yourself into a bit of what you'd call a situation, haven't you?"
"Have I? And here I thought things were going swimmingly."
"I can help."
"All right, I'm listening."
"First, you're going to want to know why you should listen to me."
"Not at all. I'm listening to you because I like your accent."
He laughed. "You and I could get along, Lord Merss. All right, then, why you should believe me."
"That's going to take some work, yes."
"I'm here as a favor for a friend."
"What's his name?"
He laughed again. "You don't expect me to answer that, do you?"
"Not really, no."
"So then, this friend thinks you might be in a position to do him some good, and that he could do you some good in exchange."
"I'm still listening."
"I'm guessing that what you need more than anything is information."
"Good guess."
"Well, here I am. Ask me things. Preferably things you can check."
Nice idea, that. Only it wasn't so simple: You can learn a lot by what someone wants to know, and I wasn't inclined to let this guy learn a lot. So far, he'd done exactly nothing to convince me I could trust him.
"Anyone else around, Loiosh?"
"No, Boss.”
"Okay," I said. "Tell me why this town is so strange."
"Mmmm," he said. "Haven't been in Fenario long, have you:
"No."
"This town isn't any more strange than any other in this country. Each has its idiosyncrasies."
"Idiosyncrasies."
"The King rarely exerts much control over the counties. They go as they go, and whatever oddities crop up, determine the nature of that county. Now, if you want to see a really odd place, head all the way east into the mountains, not far from my country. There's a place called Tuz where they train goats to smuggle by getting them to—"
"All right," I said. "I get the idea. Each county is on its own."
"Yes. And this one took a turn, oh, I don't know, a few hundred years ago, maybe, when some peasant turned up an old recipe for making really good paper, and making it in quantity. He sold it to the Count—probably in exchange for a wagon and two horses to get himself out of town—and since then—"
"Tell me what you can about this friend of yours. What does he imagine I can do for him?"
"You have a common enemy, that's always a good basis an alliance of some sort."
"All right. Who is the enemy?"
"Don't you know?"
"Don't play games with me, Dahni."
"Eh, this is all a big game, Lord Merss. That's why I'm here; play games well, because I can always find the cracks in the rules."
"And you're careful never to spell out what the rules are to any other players who don't know."
"Exactly."
"Good, then. I'm happy for you. Have your fun. Who is the enemy?"
"I'm sorry, Lord Taltos."
There are any number of ways of dealing with someone who is trying to get information from you, and who you think might be good enough to pull it off. I thought about the simplest one: I almost killed him right then and there. I could have, too. I couldn't see him, but Loiosh knew where he was. I came very close. It would have been a mistake, certainly—I had no real reason to, and if I had, things would have gone, let's say, differently. But I wanted to.
"Turn and walk away," I told him.
I guess he must have picked up something from my tone, because he didn't say another word. I heard his boot-steps receding.
"Loiosh, keep track of him. I want to make sure he isn't waiting somewhere"
He flew off and did so, reporting that he'd gone back to town, and was last seen entering a house. Loiosh marked which house it was, then came back. He also made sure I was walking the right way back to town.
The light from the inn grew quickly, until it was hurting my eyes. I walked more slowly to give my vision time to adjust.
"Well now. That was certainly interesting. Did we get more information than we gave away?"
"You're the expert on that, Boss. I'm just eyes with wings."
"And a good sense of the arcane." We had reached the door of the Hat.
"Is that a question? No, I haven't picked up any witchcraft."
"All right.”
I muttered. The strange practice of the Art in this strange town was one of the things I needed to know about.
There were only a few people in the inn by this time, and the host was having a quiet conversation with a couple of them.
The barmaid had left, so I interrupted Inchay long enough to get a cup of the summer ale he was so proud of. I was hungry but I didn't feel like eating; I was tired but I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep; I was angry but I didn't have anyone to kill. Random killings, power-hungry guilds, witches with practices—or at least beliefs—that made no sense. It was irritating. There was just too much going on. I didn't know the details of any of them, and I didn't know which ones fit together, or how. I took out a dagger and started flipping it, chewing my lip, trying to make sense of the whole thing.
"Boss. . . ."
The host was staring at me. I gave him a warm smile and put the dagger away. It was either that or carve him with it, and I didn't feel like standing up.
"How many days have we been here, Loiosh?" "Years, Boss. We've been here years." "It does sort of feel like that, doesn't it?" "Does that mean you're thinking about leaving?" "Not yet." "Okay.” "How is Rocza doing?" "Picking up my moods, Boss. Sorry." "It's all right. This is tough for all of us." "But why—" "I need to do this." "You could always just go poking around and stirring things up with no plan and see