Chapter 5 #3
“Of course it doesn’t.” She was absurdly pleased with herself.
“No doubt you can think up some rational explanation that doesn’t involve the divine or the diabolical.
Maybe I’m linked into a massive network of invisible carrier pigeons.
Maybe I’ve read Sulpician’s Concerning the Hazards of Travel, which contains all the wisdom of the empire about predicting natural hazards, but which was lost in the Great Fire of Mezentia, nine hundred years ago.
Mind you, that wouldn’t explain how I know there’s a dozen bandits operating out of a derelict tollgate about ten miles down the road from here.
” She grinned. “Feel free not to believe me. She’d love an opportunity to massacre a dozen bandits.
And it’d be fine with my bosses, because these are strict Orthodox bandits, slung out of the Order of St Varangian for heresy.
Please let’s carry on this road. Go on, please. ”
Three miles further on, we branched off the road and took a shortcut through the valley. It meant climbing up a steep pass on the other side, but it saved us half a day.
And so on, all the way to the Devil’s Chair.
Don’t know if you’ve ever been there. What it is, in fact, is a thousand-year-old imperial theatre, all that remains above ground of the city of Eremia.
The Aram Chantat sacked and burned the city, but the theatre was half a mile out of town, up the mountain, and mostly built of stone, and the Aram were on a schedule, so there it still is.
Basically it’s a semicircle of steeply raked granite benches, looking down on a raised platform where the stage used to be.
The acoustics are unbelievable. From the back row, you can hear every word someone says on the stage, speaking in his usual voice.
The locals (there aren’t many of them) reckon that it was built by the devil, and the doors that lead to underground passages below the stage are one of the twelve gates of hell –
“Which is true,” she said, out of the blue. “Well, up to a point. We used to have our regional HQ here for years and years, until there was a change in the Plan and we had to evacuate.”
“Bullshit. And please don’t read my mind. It’s rude.”
“Sorry. Try not to think so loud. And it’s not bullshit.
The underground passage that leads from the OP side of the stage to the green room now has a fork in it, so if you turn left instead of right, eventually you find yourself in a place where you really don’t want to be.
We put up a sign, of course, but who bothers to read signs? ”
I reined in my horse, dismounted and sat down on the edge of the stage. “What are you doing?” she said.
“That’s it,” I said. “I’ve had enough. I’m staying here. You go on without me.”
“Don’t be silly. Get back on the horse this instant.”
“Make me.”
I could feel anger. Good, I thought. “I could,” she said. “You wouldn’t like it.”
“I don’t like any of it,” I said. “And I’m not sure you can.”
“Believe me,” she said. “I can make you do anything I like.”
“Yes, by hurting Svangerd, so you keep saying. All right then, go ahead. You can start by cutting off an ear.” I waited. She didn’t move or speak. “Want to borrow my knife?”
“You’re bluffing,” she said.
I took the knife from my belt and offered it to her, hilt first. It wasn’t actually mine, it belonged to a salt merchant.
Waste not, want not. “Go on,” I said. I counted to ten under my breath.
“You can’t do it, can you? Mutilating Sister Svangerd isn’t part of the plan. You need her for something, undamaged.”
She climbed down off her horse. “For coercing you,” she said. “Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe you,” I said. “I think, if Svangerd arrives home missing an ear and three fingers, it’ll screw up getting you inside Mother Tysapherna’s head.”
“No.”
“Yes,” I said. “Which means you have no hold on me. Which means I’m staying right here while you go on and do whatever it is you feel you have to do.
I promise I won’t interfere in any way. But you won’t have me to kick around all the way back along the Great North Road.
Find someone else to torment. I’ve had enough. ”
“You don’t understand.” Was there just a hint of panic in her voice? “You’re needed for the Plan, but I don’t know why, so I can’t adapt or modify to compensate, and they won’t give me instructions. Deal with it, is all I get from them. Use your initiative.”
“My heat bleeds. But I’m right, aren’t I? You daren’t touch a hair on her head.”
I could feel the anger, and fear as well. “You clown,” she said. “You do realise, it’s you and her who’ll suffer for it, not us. Not me. I’m doing my level best to make this as clean as I possibly can.”
I made a vulgar noise. She didn’t like that at all.
“Stupid,” she said, “that’s what you are.
You think that just because you’ve read more books than anyone else, you’re smart.
But in fact you’re so stupid it makes me sick just talking to you.
You have no idea how hard I’m having to work to keep you safe and well and out of harm’s way.
And her,” she added quickly, “because it amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?
If I hurt her, I hurt you. That’s why I can’t cut her stupid ear off.
Because if she came to harm because of something you did or said, you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself. ”
I stared at her. I really, really didn’t want to believe she was telling the truth. But there are some miracles of not-believing that are beyond even me. “Garbage,” I said.
“Idiot.” I shrank back, sure that she was about to attack me.
“You just don’t get it, do you? I’m going out on a limb because of you.
I could get in serious trouble. Not that I expect you to give a damn about that.
As far as you’re concerned, I’m just the enemy.
You can’t help that, you’re little more than a child, you don’t understand.
How could you? You don’t know the facts, you couldn’t begin to grasp the bigger issues.
Think of it this way. I am to you as you are to the peasants in the fields.
At least you realise you’re ignorant, you know that once upon a time, before the Fall—” She hesitated.
She’d tripped over something painful. “I can remember,” she said.
“What it was like before the Fall. I was there. And now I’m here, trapped in a bubble of stinking flesh, trying to explain myself to you.
You know the worst thing about being immortal?
You can’t duck out of it by simply slitting your wrists.
If you could, I’d have done it ten thousand years ago.
But you can’t. You just have to deal with it and soldier on. Swell.”
Before the Fall – I looked at her. “How would it be,” I said, “if you could just stop ragging me all the damn time?”
She looked up and grinned at me. I noticed that there were tears in her eyes. “Look who’s talking.”
“You what?”
“Svangerd. You rag on her all the damn time.”
“I—”
“And your brothers,” she said. “Ever since you were a little kid. You were smarter than they were, so you tormented them. So they thumped you, so you tormented them some more. That’s true, isn’t it?”
“They started it.”
She shook her head. “You’ve forgotten,” she said, “or chosen not to remember. They were your brothers, they wanted to love you. But you had to be a smart-arse. You realised that you were superior, and you enjoyed rubbing it in their faces. So they belted you. Of course they did. And maybe now, after you’ve had the pleasure of my company for a sustained period, you might just begin to realise how they felt. ”
Oftentimes, to win us to our harm the instruments of darkness tell us truth.
Yup. Quite possibly the deadliest weapon in their arsenal; certainly the most exquisite torture imaginable.
“Touché,” I said, after a long pause. That made her laugh.
Svangerd wouldn’t have laughed at that. “Admit it,” she said. “I’m right.”
“Yes.”
“I know you,” she said. “I know everything about you. I understand you. I know why you hated your family, and why you don’t believe in the Invincible Sun.
I even know what you really, truly want.
I know all that, and the very worst I’ve done to you is tease you a little.
Because, I thought, he likes teasing, he does it to other people, he does it to the woman he loves, so surely—”
“Yes,” I said. “All right. You’ve made your point.”
“Not quite yet. You still don’t get it, do you? Over a truly innocent man we have no power whatsoever. We can’t hurt him. All we can do is punish people for their transgressions. I believe the technical term for that is justice.”
“I don’t believe in justice. It’s just revenge in a horsehair wig.”
“More fool you, then. Justice is what we do. What He does is mercy.” She waited for me to respond, then shrugged. “You’ve got a deal,” she said. “You stop trying to make me hurt Svangerd, I’ll stop teasing you. How about it?”
I looked at her. “I have no idea what you are,” I said. “That makes it difficult negotiating with you.”
She sighed. “I don’t have to negotiate, I can just take. The fact that I choose not to ought to make you think, surely.”
“Not a deal,” I said. “A truce.”
She rolled her eyes. “An accommodation. Whatever. You know what? For someone who doesn’t believe in good and evil, you’re incredibly self-righteous.”
“An accommodation,” I said. “But I want to make it absolutely clear. I’m going to get you out of there, and then I’m going to find some way to hurt you. A lot. Not because you’re evil incarnate, not because of justice. Simple revenge.”
I watched her while I said all that. I saw disappointment. “Fine,” she said. “You’re welcome to try.”