Free The Desecrator: A Tor.com Original by Steven Brust

 
    I’m guessing you knew the desecrator would be there, and just didn’t tell me because, well, for your own reasons.
    Sorry, sorry. In order, then. From the beginning?
    You were the one who said sarcasm was—Yes, m’lady.
    It was several days ago that you sent me—Barlen’s balls. All right.
    It was early in the morning of the third day of the month of the Phoenix in the 230th year of the Reign of Her Glorious Majesty Zerika the Fourth that you sent me to meet the desecrator. Well, sorry! You sent me to the place where I ended up meeting the desecrator. Is that better? I don’t know what you know. That’s kind of funny when you—okay, I’ll just say that I left Dzur Mountain on the third day of the month of the Phoenix in the 230th year, all right?
    I had to walk a long way, and there was still snow on the ground; deep snow at the top. It was cold. No, that is not a complaint, it is a detail. You said I was to include details of what I was feeling and—thank you.
    As I walked, I thought about the mission you’d given me and how I would carry it…
    Okay, I won’t lie. I thought about how cold I was, and how annoying it was to have to walk. My sword was light on my back, but the cross guard kept smacking the back of my head when I climbed down off rocks. I tried to adjust it, but couldn’t find a position that worked.
    Eventually I made it down the mountain and found the cottage of a Teckla family. They groveled and all that. I identified myself properly, as Lord Telnan, House of the Dzur, and said I would be spending the night. They didn’t have a problem with it. They had a lot of kids—I could never quite count them—who were all too loud. The mother didn’t even seem to notice the noise. Every time she’d slap a spoonful of pulped tubers on a plate, she’d make some remark, like “grow those bones,” or “this will make your hair curly,” or “you need more muscles.” She was one of those laughing, happy peasants that you hear about but never actually meet. Now I’ve met one. It wasn’t as big a thrill as you might think. I got some sleep on a lumpy bed while they slept on the floor next to the hearth, and I paid them half an imperial for their trouble, and I didn’t kill any of them.
    Do I really need to give you every day? It isn’t like anything happened.
    All right, all right.
    Your rules were: no teleporting, no magic, no Imperial conveyances until I reached Adrilankha, so I got a ride on an oxcart from another peasant, a young one. He wasn’t interested in conversation; just grunting in response to whatever I said. But he was willing to take a few coins in exchange for letting me stay in his cottage that night. He lived alone.
    The next day I walked as far as the inn in Yalata, and slept in a real bed.
    My next ride was on a wagon drawn by a pair of oxen. This was from a merchant, a Jhegaala. When he finished groveling and shaking, he got talkative: he chattered about exchange rates, and margins, whatever they are, and quantity discounts, and how changes in the weather and major events can affect sales. It was annoying, but he’d given me a ride, so it would have been rude to disembowel him. He brought me all the way to the city.
    You never indicated there was any hurry, so I spent three days in Adrilankha, enjoying civilization. When I sobered up and recovered enough to feel like I could teleport, I used the location you gave me and arrived in Lansord an hour after dawn.
    Have you ever been to Lansord, Sethra? There’s not much to it: a speaker’s house, two silos, a store. There’s no physicker closer than Bringan, ten miles to the east. I saw two old men and an old woman, none of whom gave me so much as a glance.
    The ground rises steadily as you look west, to the foothills of the Kanefthali Mountains. Mount Durilai is closest; as you start west it rises over your head; I’d have liked to climb it. Maybe I’ll go back someday and do that. Sometime when there’s less snow.
    I