“The Halls of Judgment.”
“Yes. Time there isn’t the same as time here.”
“So, I could go there, and come back at a different time?”
She shook her head. “No, but it’s possible the Necromancer could. I don’t know. She isn’t foolish enough to try.”
“When I visited there before, and emerged, time hadn’t done anything strange.”
“Hadn’t it?”
I tried to remember. I don’t get how memory works. Some things that happened ages ago are sharp and clear, and some have gotten foggy, and I don’t know why. I can usually count on my memory, for most things, or at least for anything that hasn’t been messed with by—
“Such language, Vlad,” said Sethra. “What is it?”
“Verra. My Goddess. She did things to my memory. I hate that. And I think the whole thing with the Paths of the Dead and the Halls of Judgment are part of it. May her—”
Morrolan cleared his throat.
“Oh, right,” I said. “She’s your friend.” I shrugged. “Sorry.”
He nodded.
“It’s possible,” said Sethra, “that it has nothing to do with the Goddess. Mortal minds are not meant to understand the Halls of Judgment.”
“Yeah, so, back to that.”
“Yes. Time. The Paths of the Dead are another world that touches our own, with Deathgate Falls providing the point of connection.”
“With you so far.”
“Of course, time on another world doesn’t have to match time on our own.”
“Of course,” I said.
Sethra ignored my tone and said, “Different worlds, different laws, different time streams.”
“All right.”
“The Halls of Judgment permit contact among many of these worlds. That is how the Lords of Judgment created it. Multiple worlds, and time streams, have that point of contact.”
I considered that. “But if they’re different time streams, uh, whatever that means, it can’t have any influence on ours, right?”
“You have understood exactly,” said Sethra.
“Which means, it doesn’t matter, because it has no effect on anything I’m likely to run into.”
“Yes.”
Morrolan coughed.
Sethra looked at him, then back at me. “All right, it’s a little more complicated than that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “For one thing, there’s Devera.”
“Devera. Well. You might say she was born in a state of timeless flux.”
“Just what I was about to suggest,” I said.
Morrolan was polite enough to chuckle. “You need to decide,” he put in, “whether you want to know how time works, or how Devera works, because it isn’t the same conversation.”
I looked over at Sethra, who nodded. “Oh,” I said. “Well, okay, Devera then.”
Sethra nodded. “She—oh, hello, Aliera.”
She nodded, resumed her seat, and poured us all wine. “What are we discussing now?”
“Time,” said Morrolan. “Its nature, its variations, and how we swim along in it.”
“Ah. We should have the Necromancer here.”
Everyone there liked the Necromancer, so I didn’t say she gave me the creeps. Actually, I kind of liked her too.
“What you need to understand,” said Sethra, as if just picking up where we’d left off, “is that place and time are intertwined. If the time in one place does not correspond with time in another, that does not mean you can move between places at the same time, or between times in the same place.”
“Unless you’re my daughter,” said Aliera, looking smug. Then she said, “Why the curiosity, Vlad? Did you have somewhen you wanted to be?”
I drank some more wine. “No, just trying to make sense of my visit to the Halls of Judgment.”
“That was years ago,” said Aliera. “A long time, for you.”
“There,” I said. “You see? It’s all about time. Everything is about time. Time to do this, time to do that, need to get the timing right, this happened before that did. Time is everything. If sorcery were to provide a way to control it—”
“It doesn’t,” said Sethra.
“Okay. Too bad.”
She frowned. “Vlad, is there something going on?”
“No,” I said, because I didn’t think there was. “I’m just, I don’t know, fascinated.”
“You’re fascinated by everything,” said Aliera, as if that were a bad thing.
“Yeah. Part of being an Easterner. No telling what odd directions our curiosity will take us.”
Aliera nodded. “Yes. Lack of discipline in thinking. That’s probably why you keep getting conquered.”
“No, we just keep running out of time,” I said, and the conversation drifted off onto other things.
* * *
I stared out at the ocean-sea, then up at the cliffs.
“Boss?”
“That isn’t supposed to be there.”
“What?”
“That chunk of rock, up there, sticking out from the cliff. It shouldn’t be there.”
“I don’t—”
“It fell. During the Interregnum.”
“Oh,” he said. Then, “When are we?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, except that it’s before or during the Interregnum.”
My first thought was to remove my amulet and see if I had my connection to the Orb. It should be safe, right? If I was back in time to before the Jhereg was after me, they wouldn’t be looking for me yet. And they certainly wouldn’t look for me in the past.
I almost did it, but then I hesitated. Just how confident was I that I wasn’t still inside the manor, even though strange paths took me through time? Not all that confident, when I thought about it.
I looked out at the restless water again and considered.
9
THE MISERIES OF ODELPHO
I can tell you, from having lived near it all my life, that the air does funny things around the ocean-sea. Gusts come from odd directions, and the prevailing wind changes for no discernible reason, sometimes whipping around in circles, so that when you watch the leaves, they seem like they’re caught up in a shield spell. Being on a cliff in front of a cave mouth looking directly out over the surf doesn’t do anything to reduce the effect. My cloak opened and closed in spite of the hardware weighing it down, and my hair kept slapping different sides of my face or getting in my eyes, reminding me that I should have tied it. I had gotten into the habit of tying it many years ago, when I came near to bungling a job because it got in my eyes at the wrong moment, but I prefer it free, and hadn’t had a need to worry about it for some time.
I pulled my cloak closed and stared out over the water. There were fewer wrecks on the shore, fewer tops of masts sticking out of the water, than in my day—the collection of small vessels that get smashed on the rocks and forgotten. That, as much as seeing Kieron’s Watch jutting out like it hadn’t a care in the world, convinced me I had left my own time and entered another. That is not something I was expecting the day before yesterday when I went to the market for javorn sausage. In a life full of weird things, this was—well, it was one of them.
“Boss? Uh, what do we do?”
“I have no idea.”
Rocza shifted nervously on my other shoulder. I guess she was picking up on how upset Loiosh was, because he was too much in tune with me not to be pretty disturbed. I’d never messed with time before, and the concept was scary. Maybe the Necromancer could deal with it, and probably Sethra would at least have a good idea of what not to do, but I didn’t. I stood there, afraid to move. I mean, if I walked forward and climbed the cliff, could I travel East, find an ancestor of mine, and kill him? No, no. I had no intention of doing that, but just the idea that I could was immobilizing. And if I couldn’t? How would that work? And if I could meet an ancestor, did that mean I could meet myself? What would I say to myself? What would myself say to me? We probably wouldn’t get a
long very well.
Part of me refused to believe any of this was possible, but I couldn’t come up with a reason why not, so it just made things worse. I felt like I was standing in a bubble of impossibility.
There was room for a couple more steps before an almost sheer drop. To my left was a sort of path going up among the rocks that looked like it might be possible to climb. Did I want to?
That Loiosh wasn’t saying anything at all gave me a good idea of how this was affecting him. I licked my lips. I dropped the torch to free my hands for climbing, took a step forward, turned, and set my foot on a rock that was just outside the mouth of the cave, at the beginning of what I hoped was a path that would lead all the way to the top.
And I was inside again.
I exhaled slowly, and realized that this was good. No, I could not go back in time and prevent myself from existing. I didn’t know why, but I knew I couldn’t, and you can laugh at me as much as you want, but just knowing that made me feel better about the world I was living in. Even more, it meant there were a whole lot of things that I didn’t want to think about that I could happily ignore.
I looked around: I was in someone’s bedroom.
It was big enough for a family of Easterners to live comfortably. Two families: one of them could live on the bed. In addition to sheer size, the thing that tells you you’re in the bedroom of someone rich is the lack of clothes. They always have walk-in wardrobes, or even whole other rooms for dressing—nothing you’d need is ever nearby. Being rich means making everything inconvenient. Remember to attribute that when you quote it. T-A-L-T-O-S.
There were glass windows, big ones, that looked out on the ocean-sea. I was relieved, though not surprised, that Kieron’s Watch was missing, just like it was supposed to be. I wondered if it had been arranged for all the walls to face the ocean-sea, then stopped thinking about it when the headache threatened. And at first I didn’t see a mirror, which surprised me, but then I realized that there was one built into a long, dark reddish vanity, and I hadn’t noticed it as a mirror because, well, vanities have mirrors, right? I felt a little foolish.
I looked around the room again. Yeah, someone once lived here, but it hadn’t been used, or cleaned, in a while. Whoever had lived here was important, just judging by size and the furnishings and by the psiprint of a youngish Dragaeran girl in shadow, only a quarter profile visible, hair blending into the darkness: it wasn’t the sort of artwork you’d leave in a guest room—you had to want to fall asleep looking at it. I could probably spend an hour looking everything over carefully and make a few deductions about whomever it was who slept here, but it wouldn’t help me solve the mystery. I assumed it was probably Zhayin himself, because why not?
So, fine. I had stepped out from a cave, started to climb a hill, and in one step had moved forward two hundred years and ended up in a bedroom. Sure. Why not have a magical connection of unknown properties between a sheer drop to the ocean-sea and your bedroom? You can spend a nice day watching the waves a few hundred years ago, then to bed. It’s like adding a porch.
Back to business. The room I’d arrived in had only one door, and I didn’t remember coming through it.
“Loiosh? Is this the door where we entered?”
He hesitated, then said, “I don’t know.”
“Huh.”
I looked again at those glass windows—no, not windows exactly; they were a series of doors that were all glass except for a wood frame. Whoever built this place had way, way too much money. I ignored them and walked over to the regular one, then hesitated.
Magical connection of unknown properties.
I know what a teleport is like, because it takes a couple of seconds and I can feel it, and besides, the amulet prevents it from working. I know what a necromantic gate is like, because it’s like your body moves first and then your soul catches up with it and there are all these golden sparks all around you, only they aren’t really there, and—crap. I can’t describe it, but the point is, you can’t mistake it. However I’d gotten from the cliff to here, it was neither of those, and I’d wager Loiosh’s next meal that it was somehow connected to whatever was trapping Devera.
“Hey—”
“Shut up.”
Okay, Vlad, think it through: if different places were in different times, that meant necromancy, even if it didn’t feel like a gate. Something was going on that involved connection to other worlds—
No, not to other worlds, through other worlds.
The Halls of Judgment.
The manor—the “platform”—had been designed to provide gateways to other worlds, and doing this had resulted, by accident or design, in sections of the place wrapping back on itself in odd ways and at different times, and it was somehow all tied to the Halls of Judgment. From what Sethra had said, the Halls of Judgment were easy—as such things go—to reach from our world, and from others. And this connection had somehow trapped Devera.
I badly wanted to have a nice, quiet chat with the Necromancer. Or Devera, if she’d stick around long enough to answer some questions.
I thought about how pleasant it would be to pull out a knife and rip up the bed, scatter the pillow stuffing everywhere, smash the furniture, and break the windows, just to do it. I guess I was getting more frustrated than I realized. I didn’t actually rip anything up, though.
I thought about taking the amulet off just long enough to teleport. I had risked taking it off a couple of times and gotten away with it. Yeah, it was a gamble, and every time I did it, the risk increased. But still. Get to Castle Black, find the Necromancer, have a long talk about how the world was put together, then come back.
“Come back, Boss?”
“You know we’re going to solve this thing one way or another, Loiosh.”
“But—”
“Devera.”
He sighed into my mind.
No, I wasn’t going to remove the amulet. Not yet. Not unless I was desperate. And I couldn’t be desperate, there were still doors I hadn’t opened. You’re not desperate until you’ve opened all the doors. T-A-L-T-O-S.
I scowled at the door in front of me. Fine, then. I took a step forward and pulled it open. It might be the same hallway I’d first entered, or just one that looked the same. Might as well find out. It would be annoying to bump into Harro again and have him give me the sad eyes about staying put, but if all else failed I could always cut off his ears, right?
In ten steps I was pretty sure where I was: a few more steps would bring me back to the room where I slept, and beyond that Zhayin’s room, and the strange meeting room, and the front doors.
I took a few more steps and I was elsewhere and I was annoyed. Abrupt, irrational shifts going through doors was one thing, but between two steps in a normal hallway seemed unfair.
It was no mystery what kind of room I was in. As soon as I recovered from the surprise of the transition I recognized it: a large room full of bunk beds in neat rows, with hooks all about, and uniforms hanging from the hooks, a sword and a halberd on a stand next to each bed. This was a barracks. There were mirrors above each door, angling down. Anywhere else, the far door would lead to a training yard; but anywhere else, the near door would have led to a convenient corridor that permitted actually getting somewhere useful. I counted a total of thirty-two beds, which was not an unreasonable number.
The weapons were clean and sharp and in good condition, of similar make to the ones I’d found in the armory upstairs, though perhaps a bit more modern, judging by the forward curve of the ax, and the narrowness of the spear blade on the halberds.
Which is to say there wasn’t that much to see. The other door led to a room with a slightly larger bed, a desk, a chair, and a cabinet, with several blank sheets of paper and two pencil stubs on the desk. There were no other doors, windows, or surprise exits.
I went back through the barracks and into the hallway. I turned around, and there was no door behind me, and no sign of one existing. Creepy. I shrugged and continued
in the only direction I could. After a few paces, there was a door on the right, just past the bedroom from which I’d emerged. I opened it without hesitation, and said, “Oh, pardon me. Uh, Odelpho, was it? We met in the hall when you were running in terror.”
“Yes, m’lord. Of course.”
“I’m just, I was looking … so, what is this room?”
“The old nursery, m’lord.”
“Oh. Of course.” There was a crib there, and walls painted deep blue, and there were hooks in the ceiling where things had once hung over the crib. “Mind if I ask what you’re doing?”
“M’lord?”
“Just wondering why you’re here. If you don’t mind telling me.”
“M’lord? Where else would I go?”
“Don’t you have your own room?”
“Oh, I see. Your pardon, m’lord, I misunderstood. I thought you meant … I just like to come here and remember.”
“To remem—ah, the child.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I should have been there.”
“But you were ill?”
She nodded. “I thought I was going to die. Now—yes, m’lord.”
“Harro feels terrible about what happened.”
“He told you about it?”
I nodded. “I sort of made him.”
Her face did something odd, like she couldn’t make up her mind about what sort of expression she should wear. “He was such a good boy. It was horrible. And poor Lord Zhayin. And poor Harro.”
I nodded.
“And then, his daughter.”
“Pardon me?”
“You didn’t know about his daughter?”
“I only knew he had a son.”
She shook her head. “I probably shouldn’t speak of it. My Lord Zhayin is, well, he is a very private person, you know.”
Daughter. Yes. Of course. I’m an idiot.
I nodded. “Yes, I understand. I’m sure he wouldn’t want you speaking to a stranger about poor Tethia.”
She nodded. “You know about her, then?”
I was afraid if I said I’d met her, the conversation would go off the road, so I said, “Only a little. Her father—Lord Zhayin—doesn’t like to talk about her.”