“Will there be food?”
“Shut—actually, yeah, good question.”
“Will there be food?”
“Of course, sir. I’ll bring you something as soon as you’re settled.”
“I might live after all.”
I followed him out into the corridor. “I am instructed,” he said, “to let you know that you are free to visit any room along this hallway, save the lieutenant’s office when she’s not there. This is the library, where you may find something to divert you. This will be your bedchamber, should you be with us overnight.”
“How very civilized,” I said. He didn’t know how to take that, so he didn’t respond.
He showed me into a small withdrawing room, complete with chairs and tables. “If you care to wait, I will bring refreshment.”
“Tell him to hurry.”
“No.”
There wasn’t much to see in this room, so I concentrated all of my attention on how hungry I was. After about twenty minutes and a thousand years, Gormin returned with a tray balanced on one hand and a napkin wrapped around his other arm, with a wine bottle in the free hand. I started salivating.
He set the tray on the table with almost the flourish of a Valabar’s waiter. “Rice and vegetable soup,” he said. “Sliced kethna in cream sauce. Cherry tubers covered in corn meal and roasted, and a poppy-seed roll.”
“Thanks,” I said.
He didn’t show me the bottle, but he did announce it as a ’31 Khaav’n, and poured it.
It was the same sort I’d found in the cellar at the manor; for all I knew, it was out of the same cask.
Gormin bowed and left. Loiosh, Rocza, and I attacked the food without ceremony. It takes real skill to time peas in soup so they are at the point of maximum sogginess but haven’t yet fallen apart, and drying out kethna that much isn’t as easy as you’d think. I devoured everything, and even sopped up the too-sweet soup with the flavorless bread. It was wonderful. While Loiosh and Rocza licked the crumbs off the plate, I enjoyed the wine. Now that I could concentrate on it properly, it was good, one of those red wines that are almost purple and that experts describe as “full-bodied”—as opposed to, I don’t know, skinny wines. Anyway, I liked it, and had another glass, and then Gormin returned.
“Have a chair,” I said.
“Sir,” he replied with a bow and remained standing.
“Okay, then,” I said. “What now?”
“Sir?”
“Am I going to be interrogated again?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
Loiosh stumbled on my shoulder, then caught himself.
“Loiosh? Are you all right?”
Rocza stumbled.
I looked at Gormin. “You son of a bitch,” I said, and let a dagger fall into my hand, which then continued unceremoniously onto the floor, where it stuck. Nice point on that one, I thought.
He took a step back and the light from the candles on the mantelpiece got in my eyes expanded turned thin and became strips turning back on themselves brush of cloth over my face a soft breeze makes the hiss of wet charcoal as the lines go sideways now and maybe I can control them make them slow slow a voice a yell steel screeches a piercing sound that turns blue in the bitter taste of coffee that’s too old and too strong and too busy to sort things out make the lines change wider or thinner still nothing voices all blending maybe if it would just go dark yes yes dark working quiet want quiet voices fading no! Verra leave me alone alone just me not just me why is my heart pounding head pounding are my eyes even open foul stench of jhereg shit Loiosh! “Loiosh!” “We’re okay.” “What…” What was I saying thinking doing seeing no it was okay Loiosh was fine something there focus concentrate concentrate focus focus focus.
There were four of them. Three of them. Four of them. It was hard to tell with the room spinning so hard. I tried again to pull a dagger and succeeded in holding on to it, held it out in front of me as menacingly as I could manage. I tried to say something threatening, but realized that the only thing coming out of my mouth was saliva.
Two of them. There were two, and they were both standing there, armed, but hadn’t attacked me yet. Why? My head was a little less fuzzy, but my eyes and hands didn’t want to do what they were told. No, there were three of them, but one was the officer, standing in back, waiting.
She said, “Can you take him?” but she’d said it seconds ago, and it was only now penetrating my brain. I felt myself getting dizzier and thought I was going to pass out, and somewhere in there realized I was still in the chair.
I dropped the dagger—this time on purpose—and drew Lady Teldra. I felt an odd jolt travel up my arm to my head and then it seemed like there was a sparkly, bright blanket being thrown over me and—
Loiosh was nuzzling my ear.
“Boss?”
“Are you okay?”
“We’re fine. It made us woozy for a bit. And incontinent. And they had to clean it up.”
I opened my eyes. I was in the same room, the same chair, but the dishes and the wine bottle had been taken away.
“How long was I out?”
“A few hours.”
“What did they do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Boss, your hand?”
I looked at it, blinked, and then started to re-sheathe Lady Teldra, then stopped because holding her made me feel better. “What—”
“They wanted to question you.”
“Oh. How did that work out for them?”
“They eventually decided to just let you sleep.”
I felt stiff and uncomfortable, like I’d fallen asleep in a chair, maybe because I had. Also, my head felt like it wasn’t fully connected to my body. After a few more minutes, I went ahead and sheathed Lady Teldra, and it took work; my hand was shaking. I wanted to get up and escape, but I was in no shape to walk, much less fight if—
“Anyone guarding the door?”
“I’ve heard some shuffling and throat clearing. It sounds like there are two of them.”
I closed my eyes and tried taking a few deep breaths to see if that would clear my head. I woke up sometime later after a confused dream in which it was very important to light some charcoal on fire and it was raining.
“Loiosh?”
“A couple of hours. There was a guard change outside the door. Definitely two of them.”
I tried standing up, keeping a grip on the chair. My knees were a bit wobbly, but they held me, so I tried a few steps. Not bad. I went back and forth a few more times, and started feeling like, if there came an argument, I would have at least as good a chance of hurting the other guy as myself.
I quickly ran through the list of poisons I knew about. I didn’t know all of them, but I knew many; had even used one once. I don’t care for poison: people react to it too differently for it to be reliable, and it’s much too easy to accidentally poison the wrong target. To the left, however, it has the advantage that you can be leagues away at the time of death. So, let me see: joflower requires much stronger-tasting food to hide it in. So do cyanide and sandsnail venom. Buttonweed was possible, except I’d still be waiting for it to work. I tested my tongue to see if there was any aftertaste. There wasn’t, so that eliminated a few others. Hmmm. Strange.