“I just want to get out of here, boss.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
I said to Aliera, “You seemed to recognize him.”
She said, “So did you.”
“I did?”
“Yes.”
I chewed that over for a moment, then decided not to pursue it. Presently a pair of what seemed to be monuments appeared before us. We passed between them and found ourselves back amid the thrones of the gods. We kept going without taking too close a look at the beings we’d just blithely stepped past.
A bit later Morrolan said, “Now what?”
I said, “You’re asking me? Wait a minute. I just thought of something.”
“Yes?”
I looked around and eventually spotted a purple robe passing by. I called out, “You. Come here.”
He did, quite humbly.
I spoke to him for a moment, and he nodded back at me without speaking, his eyes lifeless. He began leading us, adjusting himself to our pace. It was a long walk and we had to stop once or twice on the way while Aliera rested.
At last we came to a throne where was seated a female figure the color of marble, with eyes like diamonds. She held a spear. The purple robe bowed to us and turned away.
The goddess said, “The living are not allowed here.”
Her voice was like the ringing of chimes. It brought tears to my eyes just to hear it. It took me a moment to recover enough to say anything, in part because I’d expected Morrolan to jump in. But I said, “I am Vladimir Taltos. These are Morrolan and Aliera. You are Kelchor?”
“I am.”
Morrolan handed her the disk he’d been given by the cat-centaurs. She studied it for a moment, then said, “I see. Very well, then, what do you wish?”
“For one thing, to leave,” said Morrolan.
“Only the dead leave,” said Kelchor. “And that, rarely.”
“There is Zerika,” said Morrolan.
Kelchor shook her head. “I told them it was a dangerous precedent. In any case, that has nothing to do with you.”
Morrolan said, “Can you provide us with food and a place to rest while Aliera recovers her strength?”
“I can provide you with food and a place to rest,” she said. “But this is the land of the dead. She will not recover her strength here.”
“Even sleep would help,” said Aliera.
“Those who sleep here,” said Kelchor, “do not wake again as living beings. Even Easterners,” she added, giving me a look I couldn’t interpret.
I said, “Oh, fine,” and suddenly felt very tired.
Morrolan said, “Is there any way in which you can help us?” He sounded almost like he was begging, which in other circumstances I would have enjoyed.
Kelchor addressed Aliera, saying, “Touch this.” She held out her spear, just as Mist had done for me. Aliera touched it without hesitation.
I felt the pressure of holding her up ease. Kelchor raised the spear again, and Aliera said, “I thank you.”
Kelchor said, “Go now.”
I said, “Where?”
Kelchor opened her mouth to speak, but Aliera said, “To find Kieron.”
I wanted to say that he was the last thing I wanted to see just then, but the look on Aliera’s face stopped me. She let go of our support and, though she seemed a bit shaky, walked away on her own. Morrolan and I bowed low to Kelchor, who seemed amused, then we followed Aliera.
Aliera found a purple robe and said in a loud, clear voice, “Take us to Kieron.”
I hoped he’d be unable to, but he just bowed to her and began leading us off.
When I felt it, it was almost as if I heard Noish-pa ‘s voice saying, “Now, Vladimir.”
“Now, Vladimir.”
It is much too long a phrase for that instant of time in which I knew to act, but that is what I recall, and that is what I responded to. It burst.
There was no holding back, there were no regrets; doubts became abstract and distant. Everything had concentrated on building to this place in time, and I was alive as I am never alive except at such moments. The exhilaration, the release, the plunge into the unknown, it was all there. And, best of all, there was no longer any point in doubting. If I was to be destroyed, it was now too late to do anything about it. Everything I ‘d been saving and holding back rushed forth. I felt my energy flow away as if someone had pulled the plug. It spilled forth, and, for the moment, I was far too confused to know or, for that matter, to wonder if my timing had been right. Death and madness, or success. Here it was.
My eyes snapped open and I looked upon bedlam.
Even if my life depended on it, I couldn’t tell you how we ended up there, but the purple robe somehow led us back to the white hallway through which we’d approached the gods. There was a side passage in it, though I’d noticed none before, and we took it, following its curves and twists until we came to a room that was white and empty save for many candles and Kieron the Conqueror.
He stood with his back to the door and his head bowed, doing I don’t know what before one of the candles. He turned as we entered and locked gazes with Aliera.
“You are standing on your own, I see.”
“Yes,” she said. “And now that I do so, I can explain how proud I am to be descended from one who mocks the injured.”
“I am glad you’re proud, Aliera e’Kieron.”
She drew herself up as best she could. “Don’t—”
“Do not think to instruct me,” he said. “You haven’t earned it.”
“Are you sure?” she said. “I know you, Kieron. And if you don’t know me, it’s only because you’re as blind as you always were.”
He stared at her but allowed no muscle in his face to change. Then he looked right at me and I felt my spine turn to water. I kept it off my face. He said, “Very well, then, Aliera; what about him?”
“He isn’t your concern,” said Aliera.
I leaned over to Morrolan and said, “I love being spoken of as if—”
“Shut up, Vlad.”
“Polite bastards, all of them.”
“I know, boss.”
Kieron said to Aliera, “Are you quite certain he isn’t my concern?”
“Yes,” said Aliera. I wished I knew what this was about.
Kieron said, “Well, then, perhaps not. Would you care to sit?”
“No,” she said.
“Then what would you like?”
Her legs were still a bit unsteady as she approached him. She stopped about six inches away from him and said, “You may escort us out of the Paths, to make up for your lack of courtesy.”
He started to smile, stopped. He said, “I do not choose to leave again. I have done—”
“Nothing for two hundred thousand years. Isn’t that long enough?”
“It is not .your place to judge—”
“Keep still. If you’re determined to continue to allow history to pass you by, give me your sword. I’ll fight my own way out, and put it to the use for which it was intended. You may be finished with it, but I don’t think it has finished its task.”
Kieron’s teeth were clenched and the fires of Verra’s hell burned in his gaze.
He said, “Very well, Aliera e’Kieron. If you think you can wield it, you can take it.”
Now, if some of this conversation doesn’t make sense to you, I can only say that it doesn’t make sense to me, either. For that matter, judging from the occasional glances I took at Morrolan’s face, he wasn’t doing much better at understanding it than I. But I’m telling you as best I can remember it, and you’ll just have to be as satisfied with it as I am.
Aliera said, “I can wield it.”
“Then I charge you to use it well, and to return to this place rather than give it to another or let it be taken from you.”
“And if I don’t?” she said, I think just to be contrary.
“Then I’ll come and take it.”
“Perhaps,” said Aliera, “that’s what I want.”
They matched stares for a little longer, then Kieron unstrapped swordbelt and sword and scabbard and passed the whole thing over to Aliera. It was quite a bit taller than she was; I wondered how she’d even be able to carry it.