I heard footsteps outside, getting closer, then—“Look!” “Duck!” “They’re his, he must be nearby.” “Follow them!”
“Good call, Loiosh. I should have thought of that. Where are you leading them?”
“Back toward the village.”
“Perfect.”
I remained still for a long time, though I’m sure less time than it felt like—if you want to screw up your sense of the passage of time, sit in a dark room with no sound except the very faint lapping of water some distance away. When I felt like it was safe, I opened the door again.
My eyes had adjusted more than I thought they could: I was able to make out objects now. There was a large bench, some casks, some boxes, ceramic bowls, glass jars, some empty, some stoppered and full of liquid that, from what I could tell, was clear. Against one wall was a stack of what I at first thought were planks of wood, but after checking proved to be sheets of glass—beautifully made, too: flat and smooth and even. They couldn’t have been made here; I didn’t know of more than two or three glaziers who could do that kind of work even in Adrilankha in my own day. I at once thought about the windows in the manor, and wondered if this is where they were processed, made unbreakable. That meant that construction on the manor had already started.
There was a lantern hanging by the door. I pulled the cover off, managed to get it lit, covered it again, and looked around some more. A ceramic jar held fine, white powder. I don’t recommend tasting every random white powder you come across in a building where magic or construction or something is taking place, but it looked so much like well-sifted flour, I just had to know. No, it wasn’t flour—it was sugar, ground down to an incredibly fine consistency—that kind of work is why bakers’ apprentices have such powerful shoulders. But—sugar? I couldn’t make sense of it. At the back of the room was a large brick oven, a smokestack leading up from it; next to the oven was a cauldron no bigger than a cooking pot. The incongruity of size between the cast-iron cauldron and the massiveness of the oven was at least as strange as the sugar. I studied it a little more, and realized that, no, it wasn’t an oven, at least not the way I thought of an oven; it was more of a kiln. Next to it was charcoal; someone needed to get something very hot for some reason. I felt the brick and it was cool to the touch, so whatever it was hadn’t been used for a while.
A little more exploring revealed a crate with two shiny bricks. I picked one up, tapped it, tasted it, weighed it in my hand: silver. I set it down after only briefly considering stealing it and looked around some more. I had even less idea what the other things were: one jar was full of some kind of crystals, and yet another, a glass jar, had the unmistakable and not at all pleasant odor of ammonia. Maybe you can put all this together and make sense of it, but I couldn’t.
“Boss!”
“What is it?”
“They haven’t given up; they’re starting to head back toward you. I think they might have figured out what we’re doing.”
“All right. I’m going keep heading along the river the way I was. Catch up when you can.”
I put out the lantern and hung it up again, stepped back into the night, and pulled the door closed behind me. That place had to have something to do with construction, but I sure couldn’t think of what it might be.
I made my way back to the riverbank and turned to continue following the long curve. I was just in the process of asking myself how far I was going to go when, just like that, it happened: it didn’t feel any different, but as I crossed some invisible boundary, my next step took me back to the other side of the river, just before the bridge, with the river on my right and the castle somewhere out of sight over the hill to my left.
“Loiosh, where are you?”
“Heading back to you now.”
“No, continue the way you were going.”
“Oh. All right.”
He sounded dubious about it, but a moment later he appeared and landed on my shoulder.
“That’s a little strange.”
“Tell me about it.”
Rocza appeared then and landed on my other shoulder. Her wings continued flapping.
“She’s upset.”
“Yeah.”
“She thinks that’s kind of weird.”
“Me too.”
She settled down and I studied the area and considered my options. I was assuming that since all the nice people chasing me belonged here, they wouldn’t be subject to whatever boundaries I was. I hoped I wasn’t wrong; it would be embarrassing. But assuming I was right, I could head to where I’d first entered this, uh, this area, and maybe somehow find my way back.
“Loiosh?”
“I’m not sure, Boss. We noted it, but we’ve moved around a lot. I guess sort of back toward the castle, kind of?”
I’d been very clever, you see, in memorizing the exact spot where I’d appeared, because I’d realized I might have to find it again. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d have to find it coming from some whole other direction, and in the dark at that. I didn’t like my odds.
“See what you can do.”
“Right.”
“And let me know if you see those guards coming back.”
“Oh, good thing you mentioned that. Otherwise, I’d have kept it as a surprise.”
They took off from my shoulder again. I took my best guess as to the direction of the castle. A couple of jhereg passed overhead, wild ones, none of my business. Loiosh had a sort of superior attitude to them. There were also a few nocturnal birds flying low above the river, but I couldn’t see them well enough to identify them.
I set off, Loiosh guiding me with instructions like “I think it might be more that way,” and “that kind of looks familiar,” and other confidence-boosting remarks. I still wasn’t sure we were even going generally the right way when I saw a figure looming up in front of me. I stopped, waited; whoever it was, was also waiting. I tried to make out details, but it was too dark. I took a wild guess.
“Hello, Discaru. I was wondering if I’d see you again.”
“I was hoping you’d find your way here.”
“Right. If I die in the past, I just vanish, right? I mean, no body to worry about.”
“You’re very clever.”
“Why haven’t you transformed?”
“It seems we can’t communicate when I’m in my natural shape. And I wanted to make you an offer.”
“An offer? Why not just kill me? Not sure you can pull it off?”
“Exactly. I think I can, but I’m not certain, so why take the chance?”
“How very rational of you.”
“Do you want to hear my offer, or am I wasting my time expecting sense from you?”