“This place is weird, boss.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Have you noticed that the corpses don’t stink? “
“Yeah.”
“Maybe it’s the soul that gives off the stink, and since these guys don’t have any soul, there isn’t any smell.”
I didn’t ask Loiosh if he was serious, because I didn’t want to know. Morrolan touched the hilt of his sword and checked to be sure the staff was still with him, reminding me of why we were here. He nodded to a direction off to his right. I girded my loins, so to speak, and we set off.
I sat in my favorite slouch-chair at home and considered how I was going to kill Kynn. What I wanted to do was just walk up and nail him, wherever he was; whoever was around. As I’ve said, this is not, in general, a bad policy. The trouble was that he knew there was a war going on, so he was being careful not to be alone.
I don’t know how I got so fixed on Gruff s as the place to nail him, and in thinking about the whole thing later I decided that had been a mistake and made sure to avoid such preconceptions. I knew I could take him in a public setting if I wanted to, because when I was a kid I’d seen someone assassinated in a public place—my father’s restaurant. That was how I first met Kiera, too, but never mind that now.
I chewed the whole thing over for a while, until Loiosh said, “Look, boss, if it’s just a distraction you want, I can help.”
I said, “Like hell you can.”
We were walking through swirling fog, which was merely annoying until I realized that there was no perceptible air movement to cause the fog to swirl. I pointed this out to Morrolan, who said, “Shut up.”
I smiled, then smiled a little more as the end of a bare tree branch smacked him in the face. He deepened his scowl and we kept walking, albeit more slowly. Fog was the only thing to look at except the ground, which was soft and sandy and looked as if it couldn’t contain growing things. As I’d reached this conclusion, a sudden shadow appeared before us which turned out to be a tree, as bare as the first.
“Boss, why are the trees bare in the summer?”
“You’re asking me? Besides, if it were summer, it wouldn’t be this chilly.”
“Right.”
More and more trees appeared as if they were sprouting in front of us, and we moved around them, keeping more or less to a single direction. Morrolan stopped shortly thereafter and studied what seemed to be a path running off diagonally to our left. His jaw worked and he said, “I don’t think so. Let’s keep going.”
We did, and I said, “How can you tell?”
“The book.”
“What book?”
“I was given a book to guide me through the Paths. Sethra helped, too.”
“Who gave you the book?”
“It’s a family inheritance.”
“I see. How accurate is it?”
“We will find out, won’t we? You may have been better off without me, for then Sethra would have been able to tell you of safer paths.”
“Why couldn’t she have told you the safer paths?”
“I am Dragaeran. I’m not allowed to know.”
“Oh. Who makes up all these rules, anyway?”
He gave me one of his looks of disdain and no other answer. We came to another path leading off at a slightly different angle.
Morrolan said, “Let’s try this one.”
I said, “You’ve memorized this book?”
He said, “Let us hope so.”
The fog was thinner now, and I asked Morrolan if that was a good sign. He shrugged.
A bit later I said, “I take it there’s a good reason for not bringing the book along.”
He said, “It’s not permitted.”
“This whole trip isn’t permitted, as I understand it.”
“So why make things worse?”
I chewed that over and said, “Do you have any idea what’s going to happen?”
“We will appear before the Lords of Judgment and ask them to restore my cousin.”
“Do we have any good reasons why they should?”
“Our nerve for asking.”
“Oh.”
Shortly thereafter we came to a flat greyish stone set into the middle of the path. It was irregularly shaped, maybe two feet wide, four feet long, and sticking up about six inches out of the ground. Morrolan stopped and studied it for a moment, chewing his lip. I gave him silence to think for a while, then said, “Want to tell me about it?”
“It indicates a choice. Depending on which way we go around it, we will be taking a different way.”
“What if we walk directly over it?”
He gave me a withering look and no other answer. Then he sighed and passed around the right side of it. I followed. The path continued among the naked trees, with no difference that I could detect.
Shortly thereafter we heard wolves howling. I looked at Morrolan. He shrugged. “I’d rather deal with an external threat than an internal one at this point.”
I decided not to ask what he meant. Loiosh shifted nervously on my shoulder. I said, “I’m getting the impression that these things have been set up deliberately, like a test or something.”
He said, “Me, too.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
More howling, and, “Loiosh, can you tell how far away that was?”
“Around here, boss? Ten feet or ten miles. Everything is weird. I’d feel better if I could smell something. This is scary.”
“Feel like flying around for a look?”
“No. I’d get lost.”
“Are vou sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
I caught a flicker of movement to my right and, as the adrenaline hit me, I realized that Morrolan had his sword out and that I did, too. Then there were greyish shapes appearing out of the mist and flying through the air at us, and there was a horrible moment of desperate action and it was over. I hadn’t touched anything, and nothing had touched me.
Morrolan sighed and nodded. “They couldn’t reach us,” he said. “I’d hoped that was the case.”
I sheathed my blade and wiped the sweat from my hands. I said, “If that’s the worst we have to fear, I’ll be fine.” Loiosh came back out of my cloak.
Morrolan said, “Don’t worry, it isn’t.”
Loiosh explained to me that he was now more than a year old. I allowed as to how this was true. He went on to say that he was damn near full grown, and ought to be allowed to help. I wondered in what way he could help. He suggested one. I couldn’t think of a good counterargument, so there we were.
The next day, early, I returned to Gruff s. This time I went inside and found an empty corner. I had a mug of honey-wine and left again. When I left, Loiosh wasn’t with me.
I walked around to the back of the place and found the back door. It was locked. I played with it, then it was unlocked. I entered very carefully. It was a storeroom, filled with casks and barrels and boxes with bottles, and it could have kept me drunk for a year. Light crept past a curtain. So did I, finding myself in a room filled with glasses and plates and things one needs to wash dishes. I decided the area wasn’t arranged very efficiently. I would have put the shelves to the left of the drying racks and ... never mind.
There were no people in this room, either, but the low noise from the inn’s main room came through the brown wool curtain. I remembered that curtain from the other side. I returned to the storeroom, moved two barrels and a large box, and hid myself.
Five aching, stiff, miserable hours later, Loiosh and I decided Kynn wasn’t going to show up. If this continued, I was going to start taking a dislike to him. I massaged my legs until I could walk again, hoping no one would come through the door. Then I let myself out the back way, even managing to get the door locked behind me.
We were attacked twice more; once by something small and flying, and once by a tiassa. Neither of them could touch us, and both went away after one pass. We also came across several diverging or crossing paths, which Morrolan chose among with a confidence I hoped was justified.