I wondered, for an instant, why I was taking no joy in my success; then I decided that it probably had something to do with not knowing if I’d live to use it. But there was still somewhere the sense of triumph for having done something no witch had ever done before, and a certain serene pleasure in having succeeded. I decided I’d feel pretty good if it didn’t kill me.
Dying, I’ve found, always puts a crimp in my enjoyment of an event.
I’d love to see a map of the Paths of the Dead.
Ha.
We followed the wall to the left, and it kept circling around until we ought to have been near the thrones, but we were still in a hallway with no ceiling. The stars vanished sometime in thee, leaving a grey overcast, yet there was no lessening in the amount of light I thought had been provided by the stars. I dunno.
The wall ended and we seemed to be on a cliff overlooking a sea. There was no sea closer than a thousand miles to Deathgate Falls, but I suppose I ought to have stopped expecting geographical consistency some time before.
We stared out at the dark, gloomy sea for a while and listened to its roar. It stretched out forever, in distance and in time. I can’t look at a sea, even the one at home, without wondering about who lives beyond it. What sorts of lives do they have? Better than ours? Worse? So similar I couldn’t tell the difference? So different I couldn’t survive there? What would it be like? How did they live? What sorts of beds did they have? Were they soft and warm, like mine, safe and—
“Vlad!”
“Uh, what?”
“We want to get moving,” said Morrolan.
“Oh. Sorry. I’m getting tired.”
“I know.”
“Okay, let’s—Wait a minute.”
I reached around and opened my pack, dug around amid the useless witchcraft supplies I’d carried all this way, and found some kelsch leaves. I passed them around. “Chew on these,” I said.
We all did so, and, while nothing remarkable or exciting happened, I realized that I was more awake. Morrolan smiled. “Thanks, Vlad.”
“I should have thought of it sooner.”
“I should have thought of it, boss. That’s my job. Sorry.”
“You’re tired, too. Want a leaf? I’ve got another.”
“No, thanks. I’ll get by.”
We looked around, and far off to our right was what seemed to be a large rectangle. We headed toward it. As we got closer, it resolved itself into a single wall about forty feet high and sixty feet across. As we came still closer, we could see there was a large circular object mounted on its face. My pulse quickened.
Moments later the three of us stood contemplating the Cycle of the Dragaeran Empire.
Raiet picked up a carriage at the Imperial Palace the next day and went straight to the home of his mistress. A Dragon-lord rode with him, another rode next to the driver, and a third, on horseback, rode next to the carriage, or in front of it, or behind it. Loiosh flew above it, but that wasn’t part of their arrangements.
Watching them through my familiar’s eyes, I had to admire their precision, futile though it was. The one on top of the coach got down first, checked out the area, and went straight into the building and up to the flat, which was on the second floor of the three-story brick building.
If you’d been there watching, you would have seen the rider dismount smartly as the driver got down and held the door for the two inside while looking up and down the street, and up at the rooftops as well. Raiet and the two Dragons walked into the building together. The first one was already inside the flat and had checked it over. Raiet’s mistress, who name was Treffa, nodded to the Dragon and continued setting out chilled wine. She seemed a bit nervous as she went about this, but she’d been growing more and more nervous as this testimony business continued.
As he finished checking the apartment, the other two Dragons delivered Raiet. Treffa smiled briefly and brought the wine into the bedchamber. He turned to one of the Dragons and shook his head. “I think she’s getting tired of this.”
The Dragon probably shrugged; he’d been assigned to protect a Jhereg, but he didn’t have to like it, or him, and I assume he didn’t. Raiet walked into the bedchamber and closed the door. Treffa walked over to the door and did something to it.
“What’s that, babe?”
“A soundproofing spell. I just bought it.”
He chuckled. “They making you nervous?”
She nodded.
“I suppose it’s starting to wear on you.”
She nodded again and poured them each a glass of wine.
When he hadn’t appeared after his usual few hours, the Dragons knocked on the door. When no one answered, they broke the door down. They found his lifeless and soulless body on the bed, a Morganti knife buried in his chest. They wondered why they hadn’t heard him scream, or the window opening. Treffa lay next to him, drugged and unconscious. They couldn’t figure out how the drugs had gotten into the wine, and Treffa was no help with any of it.
They were suspicious of her, naturally, but were never able to prove that Treffa had actually taken money to set him up. She disappeared a few months later and is doing quite well to this day, and Treffa isn’t her name anymore, and I won’t tell you where she’s living.
It is commonly believed that if anyone had the strength to take hold of the great wheel that is the Cycle and physically move it, the time of the current House would pass, and the next would arrive. It is also commonly held that it would require enough strength to overcome all the weight contained by the forces of history, tradition, and will that keep the Cycle turning as it does. This being the case, it seems a moot point, especially when, as I stared at it, it was hard to imagine anyone with the strength to just move the bloody great wheel.
That’s all it was, too. A big wheel stuck onto a wall in the middle of nowhere. On the wheel were engraved symbolic represenations of all seventeen Houses. The Phoenix was at the top, the Dragon next in line, the Athyra having just passed. What a thrill it must be to be here when it actually changed, signaling the passing of another phase of Dragaeran history. At that point, either the Empress would step down, or she would have recently done so, or would soon do so, or perhaps she would refuse and blood would run in the Empire until the political and the mystical were once more in agreement. When would it happen? Tomorrow? In a thousand years?
Everyone I’ve asked insists that this thing is the Cycle in every meaningful way, not merely its physical manifestation. I can’t make sense of that, but if you can, more power to you, so to speak.
I glanced at Morrolan and Aliera, who also stared at the Cycle, awe on their faces.
“Boss, the kelsch won’t last forever.”
“Right, Loiosh. Thanks.”
I said, “All right, folks. Whatever we’re going to do, we’d best be about it.”
They looked at me, at each other, at the ground, then back at the Cycle. None of us knew what to do. I turned my back on them and walked back to look out over the sea again.
I won’t say that I’m haunted by the look in Raiet’s eyes in that last moment—when the Morganti dagger struck him—or his scream as his soul was destroyed. He deserved what happened to him, and that’s that.
But I never got used to touching that weapon. It’s the ultimate predator, hating everything, and it would have been as happy to destroy me as Raiet. Morganti weapons scare me right down to my toes, and I’m never going to be happy dealing with them. But I guess it’s all part of the job.
The whole thing gave me a couple of days of uneasy conscience in any case, though. Not, as I say, for Raiet; but somehow this brought home to me a thought that I’d been ignoring for over a year: I was being paid money to kill people.
No, I was being paid money to kill Dragaerans; Dragaerans who had made my life miserable for more than seventeen years. Why shouldn’t I let them make my life pleasant instead? Loiosh, I have to say, was no help at all in this. He had the instincts of an eater of carrion and sometime hunter.