Phoenix

"Still here. With that drummer guy. Can you eat again?"

"Drummer guy? Oh, right. I remember. What do you mean 'again'?"

"He's fed you three times since you collapsed. You don't remember?"

I thought about it, decided I didn't. "How long have we been here?"

"A little more than a day."

"Oh. They haven't found us?"

"No one's come close."

"Odd. I'd have thought I left a trail a nymph jhegaala could follow."

"Maybe they haven't found the bodies."

"That can't last long. We should move."

I sat up slowly. The drummer looked at me, nodded, and went back to whatever it was he'd been doing when we got there. He said, "I changed your dressing again."

"Thanks. I'm in your debt."

He went back to concentrating on his drum.

I tried to stand up, decided early on in the process that it was a mistake, and relaxed. I took a couple of deep breaths, letting tension out of my body. I wondered how long it would be until I could walk. Hours? Days? If it was days, I might as well roll over and die right now.

I discovered I was very thirsty and said so. He handed me a flask which turned out to contain odd-tasting water. He tapped his drum again. I lay back against the tree and rested, my ears straining for sounds of pursuit. After a while he put a kettle on the fire, and a bit after that we had a rather bland soup that was probably good for me. As we drank it, I said, "My name is Vlad."

"Aibynn," he said. "How did you come to be injured?"

"Some of your compatriots don't take to strangers. Provincialism. There's no help for it."

He gave me a look I couldn't interpret, then he grinned. "We don't often see anyone from the mainland here, especially dwarfs."

Dwarfs? "Special circumstances," I said. "Couldn't be prevented. Why did you help me?"

"I've never seen anyone with a tame jhereg before."

"Tame?"

"Shut up, Loiosh."

To Aibynn I said, "I'm glad you were here, anyway."

He nodded. "It's a good place to work. You aren't bothered much—what's that?"

I sighed. "Sounds like someone's coming," I said.

He looked at me, his face blank. Then he said, "Do you think you can climb a tree?"

I licked my lips. "Maybe."

"You won't leave a trail that way."

"If they see a trail leading here, and not away, won't they ask questions?"

"Probably."

"Well?"

"I'll answer them."

I studied him. "What do you think, Loiosh?"

"Sounds like the best chance we're going to get."

"Yeah."

I could, indeed, climb a tree. It hurt a lot, but other than that it wasn't difficult. I stopped when I heard sounds from below, and Loiosh gave me a warning simultaneously. I couldn't see the ground, which gave me good reason to hope they couldn't see me. There was no breeze, and the smoke from the fire was coming up into my face. As long as it didn't get strong enough to make me cough, that would also help keep me hidden.

"Good day be with you," said someone male, with a voice like a grayswan in heat.

"And you," said Aibynn. I could hear them very well. Then I could hear drumming.

"Excuse me—" said grayswan.

"What have you done?" asked Aibynn.

"I mean, for disturbing you."

"Ah. You haven't disturbed me."

More drumming. I wanted to laugh but held it in.

"We are looking for a stranger. A dwarf."

The drumming stopped. "Try the mainland."

Grayswan made a sound I couldn't interpret, and there were mutterings I couldn't make out from his companions. Then someone else, a woman whose voice was as low as a musk owl's call, said, "We are tracking him. How long have you been here?"

"All my life," said Aibynn with a touch of sadness.

"Today, you idiot!" said grayswan.

"At least," agreed my friend.

Someone else, a man with a voice that sounded like a man's voice, said, "His tracks lead to this spot. Have you seen him?"

"I might have missed him," said Aibynn. "I'm tuning my drum, you see, and it requires concentration."

Grayswan demanded, "You mean he could have walked right by you? Cril and Sandy, look around. See if you can find any tracks leaving." There came the sound of feet moving near the base of the tree. I remained very still, not even waving the smoke away from my face; it wasn't very thick, anyway.

Aibynn said, "This part of preparing the drum is very difficult. I must—"

Musk owl said, "You're Aibynn of Lowporch, aren't you?"

"Why, yes."

"I heard you drum at the Winter Festival. You're very good."

"Thank you."

"That's a new drum you're making?"

Grayswan: "We don't have time to—"

Aibynn: "Why, yes. This is the shell of the sweetclam. The head is made from the skin of a nyth, as big a one as you can find. The beater is made from the jawbone, wrapped in nythskin and cloth. To prepare the head, you make a fire of langwood, and season the fire with rednut shells, drownweeds, clove, dreamgrass, silkbuds, the roots of the trapvine—"

Another voice, a man's I hadn't heard before, said, "Nothing. He must be around here somewhere."

Aibynn said, "This one is almost done. I'm just tuning it. You can also change the pitch when you play it. This knob, you see, I hold in my left hand, and when I turn it this way the head becomes tighter and the tone rises. This way lowers the pitch." He demonstrated.

"I see," said musk owl.

Grayswan said, "Look, this dwarf has killed four of the King's guards, and we have every reason to think he—"

Aibynn continued demonstrating. The sound produced by the drum was a single smooth pulse, out of which rhythms began to emerge. I noticed an odd, sweet smell drifting up to me, probably from the treatment he had given the drumhead. The pulsing became more and more complex, and I began to hear beats within it, and I became more aware of the variations in tone. The sweet smell grew stronger.

As he played, he said, "You have to play the drum for a few hours after it's seasoned, to allow the head to work into the shell." His voice wove in and out of the pulses, the rhythms, sometimes riding high above them, sometimes supporting them from beneath, and I wondered idly if it was changing pitch and tone or if the drum was, and were those voices mixed in with it? "Then the straps must be moistened with an emulsion made from the sap of a teardrop elm ... they will respond to long pulses and slow pulses ... so the rhythm emerges from the drum itself ... the Lecuda calls the dance, or the spell, which is really the same ... some of the oldest drums sound the best because the shell itself begins to absorb the sound, so after many years ... the last time I tried one of those, I had borrowed a drum. ..."

Loiosh said, "Boss, did he say dreamgrass? Boss?"

Then I felt like lying down, then I was falling, and felt like I was passing right through the branches without touching them. I heard someone say, "Look!" but I don't remember hitting the ground.

Lesson Four

HANDLING INTERROGATION

To a dzurlord, civilized means adhering to proper customs of dueling. To a Dragonlord, civilized means conforming to all the social niceties of mass mayhem. To a Yendi, civilized means making sure no one ever knows exactly what you're up to. In the land of my ancestors, civilized means never drinking a red wine at more than fifty-five or less than fifty degrees. The islands had their own notions of civilization, and I decided I liked them.

"We're civilized here, Jhereg," said my interrogator, beneath brows you could have planted maize in. "We do not beat or torture our prisoners."

Of all the responses that sprang to mind, I decided the quick nod would be safest. His mouth twitched, and I wondered if I'd get to know him well enough to know what that indicated.