Free Issola by Steven Brust

anything from anyone for a while, okay? Except you, Teldra, I want you to answer a question or two: Did they say anything about how long I had to make up my mind?"
    "It wasn't mentioned," she said.
    "Did they say anything about feeding us?"
    "No."
    Aliera opened her mouth to make another passionate and irritating plea, so I turned and walked away to the far side of the room. What I needed was time to think; usually needing time to think only happens when you haven't got any, but this time I at least had the chance to work a few things through in my head: Aliera and Morrolan wouldn't subject themselves to the indignity of yelling across the room, Teldra was too polite to say anything, and, for a miracle, even Loiosh gave me some peace.
    So I ran a lot of stuff around my brain, for whatever that would do. The fact is, I don't think all that well when I'm just standing and thinking; I need to be talking, or doing something active, then the thoughts flow. But I did my best, and eventually sorted the matter out into several categories of things that I didn't understand. This was progress. Categories, if you'll excuse a brief digression, are a useful way to get a handle on things you don't understand, as long as you don't get too attached to them and forget that things like to pop out of one category and into another, and that sometimes the whole category turns itself inside out and becomes something different. It's useful, for example, to categorize your target as a sorcerer, if he is one; but if you get too attached to your category it'll leave you embarrassed when he suddenly pulls a knife on you.
    Just thought I'd share my reflections on categories.
    In this case, I broke the unknowns down into: the abilities of the Jenoine, the plans of the Jenoine, and the nature of this world we were in.
    I decided to start with the latter. I walked back.
    "You have no link to the Orb, correct?"
    Morrolan and Aliera nodded.
    "Your Great Weapons seem to be behaving normally?"
    They nodded again.
    "What about time?"
    "Excuse me?" said Aliera.
    "I know time works differently in different places. I've been to the Paths of the Dead. Exactly how differently does it work here?"
    "As far as I know," said Morrolan, "an hour here is an hour at home." I shook my head. "No, I know that isn't true. How long have you been here?"
    "I don't know," said Aliera. "Several hours."
    "Several days," I told her. "Five, to be exact."
    They look properly startled. Before they could respond, I said, "What about Verra's Halls? How does time work there?"
    "What difference does that make?" asked Aliera.
    "I'm just curious."
    Morrolan looked suspicious, and like he didn't want to answer. I glanced at Teldra, who said, "I don't know. I assume time flows the same there as it does at home, but I don't actually know."
    "Okay," I said.
    The reason that assassins make so much money is that, first of all, there aren't many who have what it takes to dispassionately murder someone; and, of those, there aren't many who can get away with it. I used to be one of them. Whatever there is in me that made me able to shove the knife, I still had. What made me able to get away with it so many times - sixty-three to be exact - was that I understood the key ingredient: knowledge. You have to know things. You have to know everything there is to know about your target, about the environment, about your weapons, about your own abilities. Then you canmake a plan. A plan built on ignorance can be worse than charging in with no plan at all; if you have no plan, you might get lucky.
    I gestured toward the cube on the floor. "How do you use that thing?"
    "All you need to do is hold it," said Teldra.
    "Vlad—" said Aliera.
    "Oh, stuff it," I said. "Morrolan, if I get you two out of those things, will you be able to get us out of here? Back home?"
    He hesitated, then looked disgusted and shook his head. “Maybe," he said, "but probably not." Aliera said, "Can you get us out, Vlad?"
    "I'm still