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Authors: Steven Brust

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“What’s wrong with them?”
“Huh? They’re crumbling, falling apart—”
László stood up. “Silence!”
Vilmos stared at him, puzzled. “What’s wrong, Laci? I was only saying—”
“You were parroting your brother Miklós. That is exactly what I was afraid of.”
“How am I—?”
“It seems I can’t exchange three words with you or Andor without Miklós, and his absurd claims about the Palace, coming up one way or another.” He glared down at Vilmos, his brows drawn together.
The giant tried to understand the reason for his brother’s anger
but could find no explanation for it. “I’m sorry I’ve upset you, Laci,” he said. “I didn’t mean to.”
The King sighed and sat down again. “I know, Vili. It’s just that I see the Palace as a member of the family—as if it were a person. Do you understand that?”
Vilmos tried to, but at last he shook his head.
László said, “This Palace has kept the rain off our heads. It has provided a place for our meals and allowed us to sit together as a family. It has been the center of our realm for hundreds of years. It has stood up to war, to wind, and to floods. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
The giant’s mouth worked as he tried to reason this out. At last he said, “I don’t want you to become angry again, Laci, but I don’t understand.”
Vilmos saw his brother fighting to remain calm. “What don’t you understand?” László said at last.
Vilmos spoke slowly. “The Palace has only kept the rain off our heads because I have repaired the roof. Isn’t that true?”
László made a brushing-off gesture but didn’t speak.
Vilmos continued, “It’s given us a place for our meals, but it wouldn’t if I hadn’t put the beam against the kitchen wall where it was falling in last spring. Yes?”
“But—”
“And,” said Vilmos, beginning to gain momentum, “it was the men in it who stood up to war, not the Palace. Wasn’t it? And we could have been together as a family anywhere. And sometimes the wind comes through the cracks in the door and travels all the way down to the cellar, when I’m with my norska. Yes, it has been the center of the realm, but, truly, Laci, what is that to me? Do you think I would be a member of the family any less if I were not a Prince? Or would you, if you were not King?”
As Vilmos spoke, László’s expression went from anger to puzzlement
to sorrow. When the giant had finished, László said suddenly, “What about your norska, then? You can’t deny that the Palace has provided a shelter for your—your norska.”
Vilmos wondered briefly what his brother had almost said, but didn’t comment on it. Instead he said, “No, Laci. I had to build a place for the norska. If I hadn’t, they’d have become lost in the Palace, and Cook would have used them—”
“But you built those places
within
the Palace, Vilmos.”
“They could have been anywhere. László, I’m sorry to differ with you, but I must say what I feel. To me, the Palace is where I am, and I do what I must here, but I feel no loyalty to it. It is a place. When it begins to crumble, I try to repair it. When—”
“It isn’t crumbling!”
Vilmos studied him curiously. “I think,” he said, “that we should not talk about this anymore. What was it you wished to see me about?”
László, bristling with anger, stood up. “To warn you, Vilmos. It may be, when the Queen comes into her own, that she will feel there is no room in the Palace for small, furry animals who contribute nothing and are owned by someone who fails to appreciate the sanctuary they have been given for all these years!”
He turned and strode out of the room, leaving behind a puzzled and hurt brother who stared after him with open mouth.
 
AS HE BROKE HIS FAST ALONE THE NEXT MORNING, VILMOS considered seeking out Mariska and asking her if László had any basis for his parting words of the night before. He was on the point of deciding that he didn’t know how to broach such a subject when she wandered into the kitchen’s breakfast nook. She was holding two steaming cups, over the lips of which he saw slices of orange. Her fan was cradled under her arm.
She put one of the cups in front of him and sat down in the other chair. Vilmos blew on it, then sipped, not noticing the absurd appearance his massive hand gave holding the delicate teacup.
“Thank you,” he said. “I like it.”
“It’s a red tea with cinnamon. This is how we drink it at home. The oranges come from only a few hundred miles downriver.”
“Yes. You trade them for pepper, don’t you?”
“And other things. How are you?”
“Well enough. And you? How are preparations for the wedding?”
“They are—good day, Sándor.”
Vilmos turned and saw the wizard at the same moment the wizard saw him. Sándor stopped for just a moment, as if he were afraid to come too near Vilmos. But he came up anyway.
“I won’t hurt you,” said Vilmos.
Sándor’s face darkened.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” said Vilmos quickly. “I wasn’t trying to mock you, I—never mind.”
“I actually meant to speak to you later, Vilmos. But if now is a good time …”
“As good as any.”
“Should I leave?” asked Mariska.
Vilmos gestured noncommittally; Sándor gave no sign.
“What did you want to speak to me about?” asked Vilmos.
“It has to do with the upcoming wedding. There are things that ought to be done that you can do.”
“Such as?”
“The ceiling of the Queen’s chamber is sagging. The workmen need help holding it up while they put a support beam in place. Also—”
He was interrupted by the giant’s laugh. “Did László ask you to speak to me about these things?”
Sándor seemed puzzled. “No, although I’m certain he would appreciate your help. Why?”
“It is nothing. He and I had words yester eve. No, Sándor, I am afraid I will be unable to help László make repairs that aren’t needed.”
“Aren’t needed?”
“So says my brother.”
Mariska put a hand on his arm. “Vilmos.”
“Yes?”
“Be patient with him. He’s still upset about Miklós.”
Vilmos snorted.
“Please?” said Mariska. “As a favor to me?”
Vilmos looked at her, then sighed. “Very well. The ceiling. What else?”
“There is also that strange growth in the cellar.”
“What growth?” asked Mariska.
“Why not use your powers?”
Sándor studied the floor for a moment, then said, “I tried. For some reason it is impervious to the Power of Faerie.”
“Ha! When you sent me—”
“Please.”
Vilmos sighed once more. “Very well,” he said. “Let me finish my tea, and I’ll go into the cellar and pull the roots.”
“Thank you, Vilmos,” said Mariska, smiling gently.
Vilmos nodded, and turned back to Sándor. “Will you be there to help?”
“No, I’ll be gone for most of the day, I think.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, I have an errand, with Andor.”
“What errand is that, wizard? Will you take him to meet the Demon Goddess?”
Sándor shook his head. “No. We’re going to find Miklós. We are going to bring him back.”
I
T HAPPENED WHEN I WAS A LAD OF NINE OR TEN. THERE was a fellow who worked in the mines in Bajföld. His name was Péter, and he came to visit us from time to time. One day we learned that he was dying, so my father took me to see him. We sat down and took out the
pálinka
, honey muffins, and stuffed apples that my mother had prepared. He couldn’t eat anything because he was so weak, but he drank some of the
pálinka
. He was so happy that we had come to visit him that he said, “Now I will tell you what I have never told another soul, so that when I am gone you will remember and pass it on to your children.” Then he began his story.
“I had only been working the mine for a year or so when I saw a small vein of black stephenite along one of the walls. Well, said I to myself, somehow no one has found this yet, so I’ll just go see where it leads and maybe find a big fresh deposit. Then we’ll see what the Count has to say to me (for we worked for the Count of Bajföld then as now, but it was the old Count then).
“So I went following it with my little oil lamp and, sure enough, it ran to a part that we weren’t working anymore. I moved the
boards that were set up over the tunnel and went through, still following the vein. Well, I just kept following the tunnel and following it for what must have been three days, when I fell through a hole, right in the floor of the tunnel.
“I don’t know how long I fell, but I must have been knocked right out of my senses when I landed because the next thing I remember I was sitting on the floor of a wide hallway made of the purest crystal you have ever seen, with lamps of glass all around me.
“I went looking around a bit, and the first thing I saw was a tree growing right up through the floor, and instead of leaves it had pots of pure silver. I was looking at it, just staring, when up comes a demon, as calm as you please. I knew right away it was a demon because it was only as tall as my waist and had bright red skin, a pointy little head, and a tail it could wrap around itself six or seven times without stretching.
“Well, quick as you please, I hid myself behind the tree to see what it was going to do. It went right up to that tree and pulled a bucket from it, then went back down the hall. I followed after it, a good distance behind, and pretty soon, it came to a big room where there were thirteen old women sitting in a circle around a fire. I sat and watched them, and there was a whole string of demons coming to them with buckets full of silver. The demons were throwing the silver onto the fire, and pretty soon this black stuff would come pouring out, and I could see it was pure stephenite. More demons were collecting it in more buckets and running off with it.
“Well, by now I was mighty curious. As soon as I could, I grabbed one of the demons around his neck, and I held up my pick. I said, ‘Look, you, you’d better tell me what’s going on around here pretty quick.’
“Well the demon started gibbering, but then it said, ‘This is where we make all the silver for you to find up there.’
“‘Why do you do that?’ I asked.
“Well, it didn’t want to tell me, but it could see that I meant business with the pick, so it finally said, ‘The witches want to bring you down here so they can suck all your souls, to make themselves young again.’
“When I heard that, I can tell you I was scared enough! I tied that demon up with his own tail and took off down the hall. When I came to the tree, I picked a bucket of silver, then I started climbing. Pretty soon I looked down, and there must have been five hundred demons climbing after me.
“Well, I don’t have to tell you that I climbed as fast as I could, but there were still a few who caught up with me, and I had to stop and use my pick to send them back down where they belonged. When I was finally shut of them, I was back in that same tunnel I’d been in before. That’s when I saw that I’d dropped all of that silver from right out of the bucket. But I wasn’t about to go down there for it! Not for anything!
“But if you want to yourself, you can try to find it because we’re still finding silver in that mine, so I guess the tree is still there.”
So that was old Péter’s story. I know it is true because before he died, he showed my father and me the bucket he had carried up. I’ve never tried to find the tree myself, but now that you know, you can go looking if you want to.
The Meeting
T
HE RIVER HAD MANY SONGS, MIKLÓS REALIZED. FARTHER upstream it sang in rippling joy, almost a tinkling laughter. Near the Palace it hummed in sweet harmonies. Here, it sang a tranquil song of healing.
He sat with his back against the same oak, and saw again that the River had healed him. He shook his head. How long could this go on? Once before, he had left the Palace injured and in fear of his life, and the River had brought him, alive and well, to this spot.
And yet it was different, too. This time he had received a lesser injury than before, and he was less puzzled—or at least puzzled in different ways. He had seen and learned much since then. The River itself? The water wasn’t the same. Even the River’s shape had changed, subtly. Perhaps more of the roots of the oak were exposed now, though it was hard to tell for certain. As before, he had fled his brother. But that time, his brother’s anger had been a senseless thing. This time—? Overhead, there were no jhereg circling either; merely a few songbirds.
“Things repeat,” he muttered aloud, “but they are never the same.”
He studied the landscape more closely than he had before. The River was wide here, gently curving away from him; the opposite bank perhaps a quarter of a mile distant. The grasses were long and were nearly the only flora of the region, save the oak. He looked upon a green-swept plain. Someday it would be settled, cleared, and peppers would grow here. He stood up and looked across the River. No, nothing. Only the unending sameness of grasses as tall as he was and sand along the Riverbank. In the distance, to his right, he could almost see a few more scattered trees. All around was the clean smell of growth, yet not so overpowering as it had been in the Forest.
Well. What to do now? Perhaps he could—
He heard a thud from behind him and caught a simultaneous flash of movement. Perhaps it was fear from having just escaped with his life, but reflexes he didn’t know he had came into play. He spun away from the oak, crying aloud. The Pathway to the Source was there well before he could have thought to ask for it, and lightnings danced from his fingertips, hissing and crackling in the air and playing about the sudden form that loomed before him in the mid-afternoon sun.
Then he stopped as suddenly as he had attacked.
“Bölk!”
“Yes, master,” said the horse. “I see you have learned from your stay in Faerie.”
“I’m sorry, Bölk. Have I hurt you?”
“No, master. That is not how you could hurt me.”
He stood and approached the horse, surprised to find a lump in his throat and his eyes moist. “Bölk,” he whispered again.
“Yes, master. I have awaited you.”
“You knew that I would be here?”
“Someday.”
Miklós considered. “You were right,” he said. “I am.”
Bölk nodded his great head. Miklós sat down with his back against the oak once more. The horse moved around so they could study each other.
“You’ve changed,” said Miklós. And he added, “Of course.”
“Yes. But little. My coat is darker, I think. And I’ve grown thinner. But I always change. There was a time, not too long ago, when I was a bull. This is nothing.” He laughed.
“It is good to hear you laugh,” said Miklós.
“It is good to feel myself laugh,” said Bölk. “We have a long road ahead of us, master, and I may not have the chance again. Yet I am pleased to see you, and to see you so well. Physically, at least.”
Miklós, for the third time since Bölk had appeared, bit back the urge to say, “What do you mean?” In some things, at least, he was sure the horse wouldn’t have changed.
“I was just reflecting,” said Miklós, “that things repeat themselves, but are never the same. It seems that this is true of you, too.”
“Yes, master. I am glad not all things repeat, however. It is better that you don’t run off to Faerie a second time.”
Miklós chuckled.
Bölk continued, “But when things repeat, they don’t have to repeat fully. We are able to control them.”
“Yes. It is surprising what we can control. And what we can’t.”
Bölk’s nostrils flared. “There is
nothing
we can’t control.”
“Indeed?” said Miklós. “What about others, who, in turn, wish to control us?”
“You quibble,” said Bölk.
“I don’t think so.”
Bölk was silent for a moment, then he stated, “You have fought with your brother again.”
“Yes.”
“Over what?”
“It seems that, for some reason, any small thing I say criticizing the Palace is taken for a deadly insult.”
“For him, it
is
a deadly insult. The most deadly insult.”
Miklós stared at him. “Why?”
“You have been to Faerie, have you not?” Miklós nodded. “Then you know that, by comparison, Fenario is not much of a kingdom, nor is the Palace much of a palace.”
Miklós nodded. “I remember reading, years ago, descriptions of the ‘fortress’ that was here before ours. The historian became excited recording that it had a stairway and a window with glass.” He chuckled. “By the standards of Faerie, we have hardly improved over that. Our little Palace is to them a fortified house—and poorly fortified at that.”
Bölk nodded. “But consider that, to your brother, it is the center of a kingdom—the mightiest kingdom he has ever known. To him it isn’t a mere building, it is the heart and mind of this kingdom, and he takes his responsibilities for it seriously. Perhaps there is no rational reason for him to feel as he does, but then, there is no reason for him to be rational. When you make light of the condition of the Palace, you, a Prince, who should be one of the kingdom’s staunchest guardians, are striking at its heart and, to his eyes, weakening it.”
“Then why doesn’t he simply repair the damage? Then the subject wouldn’t come up.”
“Suppose it cannot be repaired? It is old, master. There may be nothing he can do that would help beyond delaying the inevitable for a few years. Perhaps he is aware of this. If so, then isn’t he better off pretending not to see it?”
When Bölk fell silent, Miklós considered for a long time. At last he said, “What you say echoes much of what he has said. Perhaps I
should speak to him of this. Perhaps if we understood one another better—”
“It wouldn’t help, master. This may be difficult for you, but understanding isn’t the same to everyone.”
Miklós blinked. “I don’t see what you mean.”
“You are a scholar by nature. You see a thing, and you think of the general thing; the group of things to which it belongs. You see a swallow, and think bird, flying animal, then animal. You try to understand it and the rules by which it functions. Others don’t. Others see a thing and act upon it instinctively. In you this is a weakness and a strength. In others, the same. But you must try to understand that merely pointing something out to someone such as your brother will not move him. He will not take it as you intend—he is too firmly committed.”
“What you say about me may be right, but how is it a weakness?”
“You are too little committed.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know that too.”
“I—”
“Wait, master. Someone approaches.”
Miklós stood and looked upstream, surprised to find that the Pathway to the Source was sharp and ready. Bölk’s ears had picked up the sound of footsteps before the person was in sight, but Miklós recognized her as soon as she appeared.
“Brigitta!” he called.
She looked up and ran to him. “Miklós! I’ve found you! Ah! It is good that you have a horse.”
Miklós almost began laughing but contained himself. “Hardly,” he said. “Brigitta, meet Bölk. Bölk, this is Brigitta, a friend of Las-zló’s.”
“Good afternoon, Brigitta,” said Bölk.
She stared, looked back and forth between Miklós and Bölk, then silently mouthed the word,
“táltos.”
“Yes,” said Miklós.
She started to curtsy, then stopped, looking puzzled. “I don’t know what to say,” she said finally.
Miklós laughed. “Yes, I usually have that problem with him.”
“Speak of your problems,” said Bölk.
Brigitta looked startled and almost insulted. “I would have no reason to lie,” she said.
“What?” said Miklós.
“But you dwell, for now, within the Palace,” said Bölk. “And, within the Palace, everyone’s life is interconnected. We cannot address one problem without addressing all, for good or ill.”
Brigitta considered this, then nodded. “I see what you mean, then,” she said. “But I can’t always tell what I’m feeling. Sometimes I do things, then decide why afterward.”
Bölk nodded, and Miklós wanted to ask what was going on but was somehow afraid to. Instead he said, “Why are you here, Brigitta?”
She turned to him as if she’d forgotten he was there. “Oh, yes,” she said, blinking. “I want to warn you. Sándor and Andor are coming for you. They’re only moments behind me. I slipped out of the Palace when I heard them preparing to leave.”
“I see,” said Miklós. Then, “Why?”
Bölk turned to him. “To warn you,” he said.
Miklós was about to answer that he knew that but wanted to know why she wished to warn him. He was distracted by Brigitta, who, at Bölk’s words, blushed and muttered, “There was no need to say that.”
Bölk said, “It is the truth.”
Brigitta said, “You didn’t?”
Miklós said, “What, in the name of the Demon Goddess, is going on around here?”
Bölk turned back to him. “What is going on is that two persons from the Palace are coming, presumably to take you back. What do you wish to do?”
Miklós glanced at Brigitta, who was nodding. Then he said, “I can run, or I can wait for them.”
“Yes,” said Brigitta. Bölk nodded.
“I’ll wait, then.”
“Very well,” said Bölk.
“I’ll wait with you,” said Brigitta.
Bölk trotted over to the Riverbank, looked up it, and came back. “I can hear them,” he said. “They’ll be here soon.”
“All right,” said Miklós.
Brigitta shot Miklós a quick, puzzled glance; then said, “I don’t know. Perhaps the same way I did.”
“A reasonable plan,” said Bölk.
“I just followed the River and hoped,” said Brigitta.
As she finished speaking, Andor and Sándor appeared from behind the bend. Miklós, Bölk, and Brigitta turned to wait for them, the afternoon sun forcing them to squint to see the new arrivals.
“Good day, wizard,” said Miklós. “Brother.”
Andor tried to meet his brother’s eyes, but couldn’t. “Miklós,” he began, “I—”
“Keep silent,” said Sándor. “I’ll speak to him.”
Without being aware of making a decision, Miklós found that he had stepped forward and slapped Sándor across the face. The old man stepped back, his eyes wide.
“Have a care how you speak to my brother,” said Miklós softly.
Andor winced and took half a step back, as if he were the one
who had been struck. Sándor glared at Miklós. “You are not making this any easier on yourself,” he said.
“I’ll learn to live with that,” said Miklós.
“Will you, indeed?” said Sándor. He didn’t quite sneer.
Andor seemed to notice Brigitta for the first time. “You!” he said. “Why are you here?”
Brigitta smiled cynically. “I felt such distinguished visitors required someone to announce them.”
Sándor snorted. “Yet it seems he didn’t take advantage of the announcement to flee.”
“I have fled twice already,” said Miklós. “I think that is enough. Besides, I have fled from the King. I don’t see that I am required to flee from his lackey as well.”

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