Jhereg (19 page)

"So we still don't have anything," I said.

"Not necessarily," said Aliera. She turned to Fentor. "You say you heard voices?" He nodded.

"Were any of them female?"

He squinted for a moment, trying to remember, then nodded.

"Yes. There was definitely a woman there."

She reached forward again and placed her hand on his forehead.

"Now," she instructed, "think about that voice. Concentrate on it. Try to hear it in your mind."

He realized what was going on and looked over at me, his eyes wide. No one, no matter how innocent, enjoys being mind-probed.

"Do it," I said. "Cooperate."

He dropped his head back and closed his eyes.

After about a minute, Aliera opened her eyes and looked up. "I think I've got it," she said. She drew Pathfinder, and Fentor gasped and tried to draw away. At about that moment, there was a small popping sound, and I heard Kragar's pseudo-voice say, "
Okay, here it is.
"

I saw a sheathed dagger at my feet.

"
Good work,
" I told him, and cut the link before he could get around to asking any questions.

I drew the dagger and studied it. The instant it was out of the sheath, I recognized it as Morganti. I felt the blade's sentience ringing within my mind, and I shuddered. It was a large knife, with a point and an edge. Two edges, in fact, as it was sharpened a few inches along the back. The blade was about sixteen inches long, and had a wicked curve along the back where it was sharpened. A knife-fighter's weapon. The hilt was large, and quite plain. The handle was a trifle uncomfortable in my hand; it had been made for Dragaerans, of course.

I sheathed it, and hung it on my belt, on the left side. It was next to the sword, in front of it, and set up for a cross-body draw. I tested it a few times, to make sure that its placement didn't interfere with getting to my sword. I looked over at Aliera and nodded that I was ready. "Fentor," I said, "when you're feeling strong enough, contact Uliron; he'll arrange to get you back. Consider yourself temporarily suspended from duties." He managed a nod, as I felt the gut-wrenching twist of a teleport take effect. Some general pointers on assassination and similar activities: Do not have yourself teleported so that when you arrive at the scene, you are feeling sick to your stomach. Particularly avoid it when you have no idea whatsoever as to where you're going to end up. Failing these, at least make sure that it isn't a crowded tavern at the height of the rush hour, when you don't know exactly where your victim is. If you do, the people around you will have time to react to you before you can begin to move. And, of course, don't do it in a place where your victim is sitting at a table surrounded by sorceresses. If, for some reason, you have to violate all of the above rules, try to have next to you an enraged Dragonlord with a Great Weapon. Fortunately, I wasn't here to do an assassination. Well, not exactly.

Aliera faced one direction; I faced the other. I spotted them first, but not before I heard a shout and saw several people go into various types of frenzied actions. If this was a typical Jhereg-owned establishment, there could be up to a half-dozen people here who regularly brought bodyguards with them. At least some of the bodyguards would recognize me, and hence be aware that an assassin was now among them.

"
Duck, boss!
"

I dropped to one knee, as I spotted the table, and so avoided a knife that came whistling at my head. I saw someone, female, point her finger at me. Spellbreaker fell into my hand, and I swung it out. It must have intercepted whatever it was that she was trying to do to me; I wasn't blasted, or paralyzed, or ... whatever. A problem occurred to me just then: I had recognized the table because there were a lot of people at it that I knew to be with the Left Hand, and because they had reacted to my suddenly showing up. One of them, therefore, must have understood what I was doing there (which was confirmed by Aliera's presence), and acted accordingly. I could safely kill all but her. But which one was it? I couldn't tell by looking at them. By this time, they were all standing up and ready to destroy us. I was paralyzed as surely as if a spell had hit me.

Aliera wasn't, however. She must have asked Pathfinder which one it was as soon as she had seen the table--just a fraction of a second after I did. As it happened, she didn't feel like stopping long enough to let me in on the secret. She jumped past me, Pathfinder arcing wildly. I saw what must have been another spell aimed at me, and I swung Spellbreaker again--caught it.

Aliera had her left hand in front of her. I could see multicolored light striking it. Pathfinder connected with the head of a sorceress with light brown, curly hair, who would have been quite pretty if it weren't for the look on her face and the dent in her forehead.

I shouted over the screams as I rolled along the floor, hoping to present a difficult target. "Dammit, Aliera, which one?"

She cut again, and another fell, her head departing her shoulders and coming to rest next to me. But Aliera had heard me. Her left hand stopped blocking spells and she pointed directly at one of the sorceresses for a moment. It was someone I didn't know. Something seemed to strike Aliera at that moment, but Pathfinder emitted a bright green flash for an instant and she continued with the mayhem.

My left hand found three shuriken, and I flipped them at one of the sorceresses who was trying to do something or other to Aliera.

You know, that's what I hate most about fighting against magic: you never know what they're trying to do to you until it hits. The sorceress knew what hit her, however. Two of the shuriken got past whatever defenses she had. One caught her just below the throat, the other in the middle of her chest. It wouldn't kill her, but she wouldn't be fighting anyone for a while.

I noticed Loiosh, about then, flying into people's faces and forcing them to fend him off, or else heal the poison. I began to work my way toward our target. Grab her, then have Aliera teleport us out and put up trace blocks.

The sorceress beat us to it.

I was on my feet and moving toward her. I was perhaps five steps away when she vanished. At the same moment something hit me. I discovered that I couldn't move. I'd been running and I wasn't especially in balance, so I hit the floor rather hard. I ended up on my back, in a position where I could see Aliera, torn between helping me and trying to trace and follow the vanished sorceress.

"
I'm fine!
" I lied to her psionically. "
Just get that bitch and stuff her somewhere!
" Aliera promptly vanished, leaving me all alone. Paralyzed. What the hell had I done that for? I asked myself.

At the edge of my line of sight (the paralysis was complete enough that I couldn't even move my eyeballs, which is remarkably frustrating) I saw one of the sorceresses pointing her finger at me. I would, I suppose, have prepared to die if I had known how. She didn't get a chance to complete the spell, however.

At that moment, a winged shape hit her face from the side, and I heard her scream and she fell out of my line of sight.

"
Loiosh, back off and get out of here!
"

"
Go to Deathsgate, boss.
"

So where did he think I
was
going?

The sorceress was back in my line of sight, now, and I saw a look of rage on her face. She held out her hand again, but it wasn't pointed at me this time. She tried to follow Loiosh with her hand, but was having problems. I couldn't see the jhereg, but I knew what he must be doing.

I couldn't move to activate Spellbreaker, much less do something meaningful. I could have tried to summon Kragar, but it would all be over before I could even contact him. Witchcraft also just took too damn long.

I would have screamed if I could have. It wasn't so much that they were going to kill me; but, lying there, utterly helpless, while Loiosh was going to be burned to a crisp, I almost exploded with frustration. My mind hammered at the invisible bonds that held me, as I recklessly drew on my link to the Orb for power, but there was not a chance that I could break the bindings. I just wasn't a sorcerer of the same class as they were. If only Aliera were here.

That was a laugh! They wouldn't have been able to bind her like this. If they had the nerve to try, she'd dissolve them all in chaos....

Dissolve them in chaos.

The phrase rang through my mind, and echoed through the warehouse of my memory.

"I wonder how genetic heritage interacts with reincarnation of the soul."

"Oddly."

I was Aliera's brother.

The thoughts took no time whatsoever. I knew what I had to do then, although I had no idea how to do it. But at that point I didn't care. Let the whole world blow up. Let the entire planet be dissolved in chaos. The sorceress, who was still within my range of vision, became my whole world for a moment.

I envisioned her dissolving, dissipating, vanishing. All of the sorcerous energy I had summoned and been unable to use, I threw, then, and my rage and frustration guided it.

I have heard, since, that those who were looking on saw a stream of something like formless, colorless fire shoot from me toward the tall sorceress with the finger pointing off into the air, who never saw it coming.

As for me, I suddenly felt myself drained of energy, of hate, of everything. I saw her fall in upon herself and dissolve into a swirling mass of all the colors I could conceive of, and several that I couldn't.

Screams reached my ears. They meant nothing. I found that I could move again when my head suddenly hit the floor, and I realized that it had been up at an angle. I tried to look around, but couldn't raise my head. I think someone yelled, "It's spreading!" which struck me as odd.

"
Boss, get up!
"

"
Who--? Oh. Later, Loiosh.
"

"
Boss, now! Hurry! It's moving toward you!
"

"
What is?
"

"
Whatever it was that you threw at her. Hurry, boss! It's almost reached you!
" That was odd enough that I forced my head up a little bit. He was right. There seemed to be almost a pool of--something--that more or less centered where the sorceress had been standing. Now that was strange, I thought.

Several things occurred to me at once. First, that this must be what happened when something dissolved into chaos--it spread. Second, that I really should control it. Third, that I had no idea at all of how one went about controlling chaos--it seemed rather a contradiction in terms, if you see my point. Fourth, I became aware that the outermost tendrils were damn close to me. Finally, I realized that I just plain didn't have the strength to move.

And then there was another cry, from off to my side, and I became aware that someone had teleported in. That almost set me off laughing. No, no, I wanted to say. You don't teleport
in
to a situation like this, you teleport
out.
There was a bright green glow off to my right, and I saw Aliera, striding directly up to the edge of the formless mass that filled that part of the room. Loiosh landed next to me, and began licking my ear.

"
C'mon boss. Get up now!
"

That was out of the question, of course. Much too much work. But I did succeed in holding my head up enough to watch Aliera. That was very interesting, in a hazy, unimportant sort of way. She stopped at the edge of the formless mass and held out Pathfinder with her right hand. Her left hand was raised up, palm out, in a gesture of warding.

And, so help me Verra, it stopped spreading! I thought I was imagining things at first, but no, it had certainly stopped spreading. Then, slowly, it assumed a single, uniform color: green. It was very interesting, watching it change. It started at the edges and then worked in until the entire mass was a sort of emerald shade.

She began gesturing with her left hand, then, and the green mass began to shimmer, and slowly it turned blue. I thought it was very pretty. I looked closely. Was it my imagination, or did the blue mass seem a bit smaller than it had been? I looked around the edges of where it had been and confirmed it. There was nothing there, now. The wooden floor of the restaurant was gone, and it pulled back to reveal the edge of what appeared to be a pit. I looked up, and discovered that part of the ceiling was missing as well.

Gradually, I began to see the blue mass shrinking. It took on the form, slowly, of a circle, or rather a sphere, about ten feet in diameter. Aliera was moving forward, levitating over the hole in the floor. The ten feet became five feet, then a foot, then Aliera's body obscured it completely.

I felt strength returning to me. Loiosh was still next to me, licking my ear. I heaved myself up to a sitting position as Aliera turned and came toward me, appearing to walk over the nothingness below her. When she reached me, she grasped my shoulder and forced me to stand up. I couldn't read the expression on her face. She held out her hand to me when I was stable on my feet again. In her hand was a small, blue crystal. I took it, and felt a warmth from it, pulsating gently. I shuddered. She spoke for the first time. "A bauble for your wife," she said. "Tell her how you got it if you wish; she'll never believe you, anyway."

I looked around. The room was empty. Hardly surprising. No one with any brains feels like rubbing shoulders with an uncontrolled mass of raw chaos.

"How--How did you do it?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"Spend fifty or a hundred years studying it," she said. "Then walk into the Great Sea of Chaos and make friends with it--after assuring yourself that you have the e'Kieron genes. After you do all that, maybe, if you absolutely have to, you can risk doing something like what you did."

She stopped for a minute, and said, "That was really incredibly stupid, you know." I shrugged, not feeling a whole lot like answering just then. I was, however, beginning to feel a bit more like myself. I stretched, and said, "We'd better get going, before the Imperial Guards show up."

Aliera shrugged, made a brushing-off motion, and started to say something when Loiosh suddenly said, "
Guards, boss!
" and I heard the sound of feet tromping. Right on cue.