“Can you teach me that?”
She gave me a look I can’t possibly describe.
“Never mind,” I said. “I suppose we should get out of here. Tell me though, the Halls of Judgment, that’s where you were born, right?”
She nodded.
“And would someone else who was born there be able to do what you do?”
She frowned. “You mean make spinnysticks?”
“Um, no. I mean walking around in different times.”
“Oh! Maybe. Is this about why I’m stuck here?”
“I think so. A demon seems to have arranged for someone named Tethia to be born there, and Tethia did something, made something, that permitted that kind of travel.”
“Where is the demon, Uncle Vlad?”
“He’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Um. I killed him, and you just made him vanish.”
“Oh!” Devera nodded, the expression on her face incongruously mature. “She’d have had to raise it up above the normal plane of existence, so it could reach other places.”
“I don’t understand.”
Her face twisted up, and it reminded me of Loiosh once when I’d asked him to explain how he flew. “The world is a place, and there’s another place next to it, okay? But you can’t get from one to the other unless there’s a way to get to somewhere else that you can get there from.”
“Uh, yeah,” I said as if I understood that. And then suddenly I did. “Yes, she made something above the normal world. A platform.”
Devera nodded. “So that—” She stopped and looked around and above her. “It’s collapsing,” she said. “We need to go.”
“All right.”
“Boss?”
“It’s okay, Loiosh.”
“I ran into something.”
“I know.”
“That guy—”
“He’s dead now.”
“Oh. Good.”
Some distance away, I heard a shout of “What’s that? Over there?”
“Come on, Uncle Vlad,” said Devera.
How could I refuse? Still holding Loiosh, I followed her through the shimmering area, and found myself, once more, back by the fountain—not the one in the Halls, the one that looked like it.
“Thank you, Devera. Now maybe you can explain—”
I was talking to the air. I should have seen that coming.
Part Two: Synthesis
15. This Smooth Magic
Since I’d left the castle, it had gone from afternoon to dusk and now it was back to evening. All of this random messing around from night to day and back was going to do serious damage to my sleep cycle. The drugs they’d given me probably wouldn’t help much either. I was probably going to have a long, long, nap after this was all over; maybe a couple of days’ worth. For now, though, I didn’t feel tired. I did feel warm, however; I shrugged my cloak back off my shoulders, only now realizing that it’d been colder at the other place. Temperature is one of those things I notice when I’m not busy with anything else.
Loiosh stirred in my cloak, then, without saying a word, made his way up to my shoulder. I felt him grip and flap as he nearly lost his balance.
“You sure you’re all right there?”
“I feel better here.”
“All right.”
“What now?”
“I think we backtrack, and keep an eye out for Discaru.”
“I thought you killed him.”
“In a different time. He’s a demon, remember? I only banished him from that place.”
“But it’s connected, and—”
“Yeah, I know. And maybe he’s gone from here. I just don’t want to count on it and be surprised.”
“Yeah. Good thinking, Boss.”
To be clear, I thought he was probably right—I was pretty sure Discaru was gone from this world; but if I was wrong, things could get ugly. One reason I’m still around to tell you these stories is because when I’m doing big things that are crazy, I try to play it safe with as much of the little stuff as I can. It’s worked so far, right? Of course, “It’s worked so far, right?” do pretty well as last words, so let’s not get cocky about it.
I took a look around the courtyard area in case there was anything I’d missed, but if so I missed it again. And then it was back into the passage, and back around, making tedious but necessary stops to pick the locks on the other doors just to make sure that, yes, they really did lead back into the same courtyard, just like they appeared to.
Eventually I came back to where I’d first entered the passage. What now? Retrace my steps the whole long, bloody way? To where? To do what? I had my answers now, at least some of them, but I didn’t know what to do with them. I know what I wanted to do: go find Zhayin and smack him around a little just on general principle. But that probably wasn’t the best way to get my answers and solve Devera’s problems. What was?
Okay, I’d start by retracing my steps, just for lack of a better idea.
Once more, then, into the bedroom. I frowned at the strange window-doors; I wasn’t sure that was the way I’d come in, but how else?
I tested the doors, they opened, and I stepped through.
And I was back on the cliff. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to this.
I took a few steps down, and I was outside the cave again. There was an extinguished torch at my feet. I picked it up, tried to light it, failed, then stepped into the cave out of the wind and managed to get it going. The stairway was where it was supposed to be; I followed it up and was back in the cellar beneath the manor. I deliberately avoided looking around too much as I went through it; I didn’t want any more distractions. It was a long walk, all in all, up and down, and through scary rooms of sorcery and boring hallways, but then I was back to—
There. That was the room where Discaru had brought me to the Halls of Judgment. Would it work without him there? Or was he still there, waiting for me, really annoyed at me for having shoved a Great Weapon up under his chin? There was also the question of did I want to visit the Halls of Judgment again. That was easy: no, I didn’t. I like it when there are questions I know the answer to.
I went farther down the hall until I stood in the room with the fake wall, with the thing on the other side. It didn’t come bursting out while I stood there, which I thought was kind of it. I stared at the wall. One way or another, I don’t think you and I are done with each other, my friend. I turned and went back through the door and continued down the spiral stairway that emerged—I’m tempted to say as usual—on the wrong side of the hall.
I walked down the hall, remembering where things were, or should be, or might be but probably weren’t. Like, directly above me should have been the room where I’d reached the Halls of Judgment, the little room where I’d seen Discaru, then the hidden cell that contained the beast. Like I said, that should have been above me, but where was it, really, relative to where I was? It was slightly crazy-making. I kept trying, pointless as it was, to fit it all into my head. What was past the beast room? The balcony above the ballroom? No, that should be farther back. The armory, then. No, the mirror room.