“What do you want?” he said. His voice was hoarse.
“Take your clothes off,” I said.
His eyes widened.
“What do you think—”
I walked toward him until the point was inches from his face. “Take. Your. Clothes. Off.”
He was shaking. He had every right to. He stood up, undid the belt of his robe, and let it fall off his shoulder. He wore thin yellow pants under it. I let him keep those.
“Hand me the robe,” I said.
He stared down the length of Lady Teldra, then picked up the robe and handed it over.
“Sit down,” I said.
He did.
I sheathed Lady Teldra, and he visibly relaxed. “What are you—”
“Shut your mouth or I will cut out your tongue,” I suggested.
I drew a small throwing knife from inside of my cloak, found a piece of purple thread on the robe, and cut it. Then I looked Zhayin in the eyes, and started pulling on the thread. He swallowed. It all came out in one long tear; it took maybe a minute. When I was done, there were pieces of yellow silk on the floor, and a length of purple thread in my hand. I dropped the thread, and as I did so I heard, as if from far away, a deep metallic “click.”
“There,” I said. “Now the door is open.”
He started to speak, but someone else did first. “Uncle Vlad!”
“Hello, Devera. This is Lord Zhayin, who murdered his own daughter and trapped you here.”
She turned and looked at him, then turned back to me. “I don’t like him very much,” she announced.
“Yeah, that’s two of us. But you’re free now.”
“I know.”
“And so is the woman who brought you here.”
She nodded.
“I should get going now, Uncle Vlad. I need to go back to yesterday and find you.”
“Of course you do,” I said.
“Are you, are you going to hurt him?”
“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t.”
“Well, thank you, Uncle Vlad.”
“You’re welcome, Devera.”
She vanished, like she does. I moved a chair so it was facing him and a little too close. Then I leaned forward. I said, “I know what you did, I just want to know why you did it. I have a suspicion, but I hope I’m wrong, because I don’t want there to exist anyone who—never mind. Start talking.”
He didn’t speak.
I said, “Tethia solved the problem, didn’t she? She figured it all out, how to cut through the Halls of Judgment to permit travel to other worlds.”
He grunted, which I took as a yes.
“But you’re not there yet. You just put the touches on the basics of it, and now you’re ready to extend the platform to wherever you can find access points. And you had a friendly demon lined up to help with that, except now you’ll have to find another, because he accidentally fell on my Morganti knife when he was trying to kill me. I feel bad.”
He went back to glaring.
“Or maybe I’ll kill you, in which case you won’t have to worry about it. But, here’s my question: Why is Tethia dead? And not only dead, but trapped here, locked into this place? Oh, I know how you did it. You bound her to the Paths of the Dead with your key, that robe. I get that part. But why? Did you need a soul in order to make it work? No, you didn’t. Was it a tragic accident that the monster you accidentally created happened to get loose just at the point when her work was done? No, it wasn’t. Was it some fluke of her having designed the place that, after she died, she was unable to leave? No, it wasn’t.
“You control the door to the thing’s lair, don’t you? You released it first when I showed up, but—and here’s the part that took me the longest to figure out—you failed to tell Discaru, so he thought it escaped and recaptured it. That’s pretty funny, when you think about it. You’re really bad at this stuff. Then you released it again when I started messing with the mirrors, only this time there was no Discaru, so I put it out of its misery. If that makes you sad you’re the worst hypocrite this sad Empire has ever produced. You used your son—what remained of him—to kill your daughter, didn’t you? Only this time your friend the demon was in on it with you. You’d sealed the entire structure so no one could leave, but he opened it up just enough for her to jump off it, didn’t he? That way she’d be dead and you wouldn’t even have a mess to clean up. He was a good friend to you, always ready to do your dirty work. I’d say I’m sorry I dispatched him, but I’d be lying.
“Only that wasn’t the end of it. After she died, Discaru bound her to the manor, so you could keep her here. He used the front room to contain her soul, to keep her trapped. I know he did it, and I know he did it for you, but why? That’s my question. Why did you kill your own daughter, and then prevent her soul from moving on? What did you get out of it?”
“If you’re going to kill me, just—”
I pulled the dagger from my boot. Not Lady Teldra, not this time, but a nasty stiletto. “Answer the question.”
“I don’t like answering people who are threatening me.”
“Okay, fair enough. I won’t threaten.” I transferred the blade to my other hand, then slapped him across the face. His head rocked, and when it came back, I transferred the dagger again and slapped him with the other hand. He put his arm up and slid forward and I gut-punched him. He doubled over on his knees on the floor and started retching.
I sat down again and waited. After a minute, I said, “There. You see? No threat. Would you like me to not threaten you again?”
After a minute he looked like he could maybe form words. I got up and assisted him back into his chair; he flinched when I moved, but sat down.
“I’m listening,” I said.
“What do you want?”
“Why did you have your own daughter killed?”
He raised his head and looked at me. “I’d been working on it all my life.”
“It? You mean—”
“Creating a crossplanar platform. A place to live through which one could walk the halls and visit worlds as if they were rooms.”
“Well, at any rate, you’ve managed a place where you walk into rooms and end up in places that make no sense.”
He shook his head. “That is nothing, trivial. A matter of adjusting the mirrors. The principle is there, it works; that is how you can reach the Halls of Judgment, and the Housetown castle. It works.”
“Okay, I believe you. It works. And?”
“All my life. More than three thousand five hundred years I devoted to this. That is a hundred times as long as your kind lives.”
I didn’t correct his arithmetic, or comment that it explained why he was having trouble adjusting the mirrors. I said, “Okay, whatever. That doesn’t explain—”
“Three thousand, five hundred years. And after all of that, she, my own daughter, would get all the credit.”
“But she solved the problem, didn’t she?”
“No! I did! I solved it by bringing her to the Halls to be born! That was my idea! I arranged for her to have the power, to be able to walk from world to world, bringing reality with her as if it were a length of string, tied in one place, carried to another. The House gives an award, you know. An award for superlative design, for building something no one else has been able to build. For all time, that award—”
“Which you’d cheated to get?”
He snuffled like a puppy. “Cheated,” he said. “I didn’t cheat. I restored things to the way they should have been.”
“Fine, you did all that amazing stuff,” I said, “I’m sure if I were an Athyra I’d understand that, and if I were a Vallista I’d care. But I’m just a humble, simple Easterner. So I just say, so what?”
“So what? So what? Didn’t you hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard you. You had the bright idea to forge your daughter as if she were a tool, and it worked, and all you car
e about is whose name gets in which history books. I heard it, I just don’t believe it. What sort of worthless waste of skin and bones cares more about that than his own daughter? Not to mention your wife; you got her killed too, didn’t you. Because of reasons that are none of your business, I get to see my son every month. Maybe every week if I’m lucky. Those are the best days I have. And, hey, maybe family isn’t the most important thing to everyone. Fine. But you had your own daughter killed, and are now trying to erase the memory of the thing she … you know, you just might be the most disgusting, worthless specimen of a Dragaeran I’ve ever seen, and I’ve killed dozens of you guys, all of whom deserved it. I’m impressed.”
I might as well have saved my breath for all the effect it had on him. “There’s no point in trying to make you understand,” he said.
“No,” I agreed. “There isn’t.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to go home, find someplace where they let Easterners stay, and take a long bath and try to scrub your filth out of my soul.”
He couldn’t come up with an answer to that, so he just looked disgusted.
“And that isn’t all, is it? You sealed the place. No one can get in or out? You kept all of your servants in the past, where there was no one to tell, except three, and your pet dancer who is too good for you. And you sealed the doors to make sure they couldn’t leave. Only I got in, and you never could figure out how that happened.”
“Tethia—”
“She’ll be fine,” I said. “As for you, I’m not so sure.”
“Do what you will,” he said. “The manor still stands. I accomplished what no one else has before.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And if that had been enough for you, I wouldn’t be standing here deciding whether to kill you before I leave.”
EPILOGUE
Reader, I murdered him. I know I’d said I might let him live, but I meant that might. I hadn’t made up my mind. The smug look on his face made it up for me.
He seemed more offended than frightened. I think he was going to say something, but I put the dagger into his left eye and twisted, and the sounds he made had no more significance than an award falsely given. He stopped twitching and I left him there to rot and stink up the place; they could move him if they felt like it. For all I know, he’s still sitting in his chair, my knife in his eye, and some justification still on his lips.
As for Precipice Manor, well, it’s still there, overlooking the ocean-sea. Back in the past, servants still prepare food, and, not knowing what they do, carry it forward into the future, then clean up the trays. An empty wizard’s chamber collects dust, and wine that is already bad becomes worse. On a stage that is on the first floor but reached by the second, an Issola still dances, and a Teckla who was once an Issola watches her as she spins, jumps, and with every movement, gradually allows her body to injure itself more and more, in the name of art, in the name of love. Whether it is worth it is none of my business, or yours.
I walked down the hallway to the entry. I still had to deal with all that crap Verra had laid on me. But no, forget it. Not now. Now was the time to just concentrate on surviving, because the instant I left the place, I’d be back in a world where people were trying to kill me, and for now, that was enough to worry about. If the Mighty Hand of Destiny had something planned for me, it could either squash those who were threatening my life, or make itself into a fist and strangle itself. Ideally, both.
The doors opened for me, and I began the long walk back to Adrilankha, the pitiless ocean crashing in my ears.
BOOKS BY STEVEN BRUST
The Dragaeran Novels
Brokedown Palace
THE KHAAVREN ROMANCES
The Phoenix Guards
Five Hundred Years After
The Viscount of Adrilankha,
which comprises
The Paths of the Dead,
The Lord of Castle Black,
and
Sethra Lavode
THE VLAD TALTOS NOVELS
Jhereg
Yendi
Teckla
Taltos
Phoenix
Athyra
Orca
Dragon
Issola
Dzur
Jhegaala
Iorich
Tiassa
Hawk
Vallista
Other Novels
To Reign in Hell
The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars
Agyar
Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grille
The Gypsy (with Megan Lindholm)
Freedom and Necessity (with Emma Bull)
The Incrementalists (with Skyler White)
The Skill of Our Hands (with Skyler White)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
STEVEN BRUST is the author of Dragon, Issola, Jhegaala, and the New York Times bestsellers Tiassa and Dzur, among many other popular fantasy novels. He currently lives in his native city, Minneapolis. You can sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
Tom Doherty Associates ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Part One: Analysis
1. Devera the Wanderer
2. The Mystery of Elven Food
3. The Phantom of the Dance
4. The Legend of Sleepy Harro
5. At the Fountains of Sadness
6. In the Past Darkly
7. The Turn of Discaru
8. Withering Depths
9. The Miseries of Odelpho
10. Waters Below the Ground
11. Gormin’s Guest
12. The River at Housetown
13. The Star of the Seven Jewels
14. A Short Fatal Hate Chase
Part Two: Synthesis
15. This Smooth Magic
16. On the Night of the Surly Mood
17. Zhayin’s Heir
Epilogue
Books by Steven Brust
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
VALLISTA
Copyright © 2017 by Steven Brust
All rights reserved.
Edited by Teresa Nielsen Hayden
Cover art by Stephen Hickman
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-2445-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-4699-5 (ebook)
eISBN 9781429946995
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at
[email protected].
First Edition: October 2017
Steven Brust, Vallista--A Novel of Vlad Taltos
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends