INTERLUDE 3A: ENDREN
“To be a soothsayer is to tell the truth. We must be forgiven for borrowing this cloak to hide our lies. We know better than any others the price of truth. The guise of the constant soothsayer is a luxury only those of the Church of Kultemeren might claim. We shall have to settle for being weekend soothsayers, and beg the Judge’s forgiveness in our midnight prayers. May he show mercy on our souls.”
– from ‘The Notes of Timesnatcher’, recovered after the Fall
He took her arm as they flew, bringing her into the crest of his power and letting her experience the true peaks of chronomantic inversion. They weren’t going much more than a mile – they would reach their destination in around six or seven seconds, as measured by watchers at the start-point and finish-line – but they would have around nine or ten minutes of time in which to talk.
Telepathy enchantments didn’t interact so well with time-slowing magic unless the enchanter was along for the ride too, so he began with the basics, talking aloud. There was a lot that was hidden to the arch-diviner who was just taking their first steps into the world – essential knowledge, keys that would unlock pieces of the puzzle of the future, times and places that were before nothing but dark blots on an otherwise-scintillating ocean of information.
“Lovebright had to remove an implant in your mind, tonight. And another in Feychilde’s, and one in the mind of Emrelet Reyd. Do you understand what that signifies?”
“Neverwish…?” Killstop muttered.
“Oh, do take the ridiculous scarf off your head, Tanra,” he said. “There’s no one who can see you at the speed we’re travelling, and it’s hard to hear what you’re saying.”
Tanra threw back her hood and removed the scarf, displaying the tired smile that was nonetheless fixed on her face like a skull’s grin.
This one might actually be insane, he reminded himself.
Irimar’s own mask only covered the upper part of his face, a standard face-fitting thing of leather and steel, with the gleaming twelve-pointed star at the upper part of his forehead near the hairline; the black hood hid his hair.
“You know my name, my face – I can’t see you,” Tanra replied. “This is awfully one-sided.”
That is only to be expected. But can you look beyond the now, Tanra? What is my face, if you can see my future?
“I’m the top arch-diviner in the city for a reason, you know.”
“I –”
“Neverwish has done this before; I think he expects I can’t see what he’s doing before he does it. Lovebright is actually a more-capable enchantress than she appears, and has kept up the act for a long time now. She can replace the implants, giving him the impression they’re still there, doing what he put them there for.”
“’What he put them there for’… I can’t see anything he did to me, not in any fold or crease of the past – nothing Lovebright did either.”
“You probably did see it before it happened, but can no longer remember it,” Irimar replied. “He’s far subtler than he pretends, with his boisterous exterior, his talk of brute force attacks… We’re lucky we’ve got her, checking his anti-enchantment work, pruning the worst of his barbs, but –“
“How do you know you can trust Lovebright?”
“I recruited her, before she got her powers, for just this purpose.”
He said it with a smile that was better than a mask.
He couldn’t trust any of the others, not really – especially Rosedawn. She had secrets. Hells, even Spiritwhisper probably had secrets. He’d learned his lesson with Softsmile back in the day. Another champion he’d been forced to prune.
“In any case,” Irimar went on, “it won’t be long before he figures out what we’re doing. Can you see it, Tanra? Can you see that future?”
Tanra shook her head once, slowly, her eyes never leaving his.
“Of course you can’t; I’m at the heart of it.”
He looked down from his position, surfing the crest, and saw the blank space where she had to be, below him, submerged in the wave.
Irimar sighed. He’d hoped he’d found another to join him on his lonely pedestal, or even come close. A successor. But no. It was still him – him and Duskdown.
The only one he couldn’t see at all.
Everyone knew about the potency of the heretics, of course, but he’d never made Duskdown’s incredible power public. Irimar had given Feychilde the only warning he could when he’d first met him, last week, when he directed him to the Diamond Mare. A warning of the one part he’d heard – the rest was clouded to him. It could only be that Duskdown was involved, somehow – but how would Feychilde and Duskdown come to be together, there, of all places?
It would require further meditation. He couldn’t act until he knew more. He could see beyond that meeting, could see the changes it wrought in the sorcerer… but the moment eluded him. He had to abandon the future-lines, enter the trance and hope the right vision came to him…
“And you mentioned Redgate. He’s a bad guy too?” Tanra asked. “I didn’t have chance to explore his future when we were all together, back there. It felt tough… a… a hard fabric.”
“All you need to know for now is that he was no one to take advice from, and that’s putting it mildly. I wish I’d got to Direcrown before I did, but I fear he was always a lost cause. Together Leafcloak and I kept up the act – we never took sides between Dustbringer and Redgate after Hellbane fell – and if Redgate had a chance to be the city’s premier arch-sorcerer the situation might’ve turned a little… difficult.”
“You’re speaking of him like it was him that died, not Dustbringer.”
Irimar looked down at Sticktown, its walls of smoke seemingly frozen in time, not a wisp uncoiling as they slowly coursed through the air above the roofs. The silence of the city brought its own kind of indescribable serenity. Even the insects in the air were stilled, trapped in invisible amber.
“Redgate is going far, into darkness, to face a dragon. A dragon of far greater power than he expects. I believe he will die.” That was all he could tell her without risking everything. “For that reason alone I ensured the petitions of Phanar of N’Lem, the leader of the expedition, were thrown out by the majority of the interested parties.”
Her smile merely intensified. “Redgate was that bad? You’re send him off to become dragon-fodder?” Then she stuck her tongue out. “How do you know you can trust me? I don’t fancy being something’s snack –”
“Honestly, I don’t. Not completely. The futures where I tell you, trust you, turn out better than the ones where I don’t. Take that as you will. But I can have your support when we make a move against Neverwish, yes? I’m getting some anti-enchantment pendants made for you and Feychilde before it happens, as well as a new one for Starsight. We can’t trust Neverwish’s work.”
Tanra nodded, with a wariness about the motion that he immediately committed to memory, filing it away with all the other little details he’d picked up from her responses.
She was just a kid. He had to ensure she didn’t stray into the darkness too early, or she’d bring it out with her when she emerged, almost certainly. The last thing he needed was another uncontrolled, uncontrollable dark arch-diviner out there.
He drew a deep breath, then removed his own coverings.
“I am Irimar Nemmeneth.”
She stared at him.
“Now that you know the identity of the city’s top arch-diviner, it’s awfully one-sided the other way, don’t you think? I ask you not to betray me, Tanra.”
Her smile never changed, but he saw it in her eyes – the shock of such easy acceptance into his confidences, and the reciprocal opening-up, the lowering of her defences… It was enough for him to feel that he’d made the right decision.
Then she looked up at him coyly through her eyelashes, the smile becoming faint, seductive, and he started to change his mind.
“I’m spoken for,” he said at once, “my dear child.”
He was only five years Tanra’s elder, but it was like an immeasurable gulf in terms of maturity.
She almost pouted. “Lovebright?”
He laughed, and only shook his head, enjoying the way her response shocked him.
“Let’s move faster. I don’t like what you get up to when you’re bored.”
He kept a firm hold of her arm and relaxed his power, letting the wave of time crash upon the shore; their speed steadily increased, approaching the ‘normal time’ an outsider would notice.
“Oh?” she asked.
“In a couple of years you’ll be so adept at wrapping men around your little finger, I’ll look back at this moment and say to myself, ‘that’s when I could’ve done something, if only I’d said the right thing’.”
“You want to make an honest woman of me?” Tanra managed to make a shocked ‘o’ with her mouth despite the smile. “I’m flattered, Irimar, but ‘Tanra Nemmeneth’ just doesn’t have that ring to it, and I’m not sure I’m accepting proposals from strange men who want to tell me how to live my entire future.”
“I – you – argh…”
“Speechless? Oh, I could rename myself Wordsnatcher, and tell everyone this story…”
Why does my power tell me that trusting her is a good idea again, exactly?
It was a question without answer. He could see her, yes – the degree to which her power bent her future was not so great that he couldn’t overcome some of the gaps in his vision – but there were many, many more which were black holes, pits devoid of meaning, whole wasteland-oceans of dark, empty water…
“Fine, fine,” she relented. Apparently his silence had done its own work. “So where are we going, exactly? This is… North Lowtown.”
“It’s something you need to see.”
“Me in particular?”
“Yes, you in particular. Do you see anyone else here?”
“Why me?”
“Because I want you to live that couple of years. Grow up, become… whoever you’re going to be.”
“And you think – what? – I’ll die without your intervention?”
“Oh, that I know will happen. I wouldn’t be here on a hunch.”
He felt satisfied as he saw her shiver. She knew the way future-sight worked. She knew he wouldn’t speak as lightly as she would of her death.
She believed his lie – such was the price of trust.
Better to lie, and live with the consequences, than the alternative.
They replaced their face-coverings, and he descended with her into the street. As they approached the mucky ground they slipped back into the mortal world – the reality where birds didn’t hang suspended in the air with wings mid-beat, where the din of the city came through in a thousand clashing sounds.
The roads and alleys were empty – the Bells might’ve stopped, but the people wouldn’t venture out now until morning, waiting for the magister-bands to retire for a well-earned rest. There was always mopping-up of stray demonoids to be done, obstructed streets to be cleared.
They didn’t go as far as the mucky ground, though. Irimar settled them down on a fifth-floor balcony, before a shabby wooden door.
“Say nothing at first, Killstop. Just watch, and listen. You’ll understand.”
He rapped gently on the door.
“Where in the Hells are we? I don’t like this darkness, Timesnatcher. The… the person who used this door…”
He didn’t respond, carefully adjusting his thoughts to his task.
The most arduous task of the evening. He’d done it before, mercifully rarely, but it was one that his powers couldn’t really help him with. Every eventuality was bleak, and he could see them all now. Leafcloak, who’d taken on the other task of this nature to be completed tonight, didn’t have that problem. The druidess didn’t have to see the infinitude of the despair her words would spark throughout the possible realities. Would that make it harder for her, or easier?
A woman in her mid-to-late thirties with long blonde hair answered the door, a candle upon the stand beside the doorway. He could see by the flickering light that she already knew – the way she’d dressed hurriedly in her heavy gown, the way her face was contorted with fear.
He’d seen her in his visions but he never saw these events before tonight, never saw the way her blood drained upon recognising him. Never saw the horror in her eyes as she fell back, sitting down in her hallway and staring at his shadowed eyes.
Never saw the tears streaming down her face as he uttered meaningless words.
“No,” she said in a cold voice.
“I’m so, so sorry, Mrs. Solosto. We did everything that we could. It… it was his time. You should know… He died a true hero’s death, in battle, to save thousands from something that was beyond the power of just a few to fight. And the creature was defeated – it fled from Materium. He did what he set out to do, ended the threat.”
He’d tried to meet Wenya Solosto’s gaze, but failed while he spoke – at last, in the silence left behind by the words, he could find the courage to do so.
She sat sprawled on the floor, tears still rolling down her cheeks – but her demeanour was proud, her chin raised, as though defying him to look away from her eyes now he’d met them, defying him to notice her indecorous posture, comment with his glance upon her predicament.
“Ma’am,” he murmured, feeling an urge to step across the threshold, offer her a hand – which was strange: such urges were usually accompanied by certainty, replaced by decision –
Killstop slipped in before him and helped her to her feet, which Wenya seemed to accept without remark.
The girl didn’t have a smile on her face beneath her scarf anymore, he could tell.
“Won’t you come in,” Dustbringer’s widow said in a voice of glass, leading them into a cramped main room filled with couches, cushions and a small firepit.
Killstop shot him an unreadable glance as they entered the room, but he just shook his head softly.
“Can I bring you anything from the kitchen?” Irimar asked. “Water? I could make something.”
“Nothing.”
Wenya’s voice was hollow. She collapsed in a seat, and the two champions stood there out of politeness for a few seconds until she jerked her head savagely at them, her eyes now locked on the empty fire-grill.
They sat down opposite her.
“I understand Dustbringer had –“
“Endren. Call him Endren.” Her voice softened, and she turned back to look at him. “Please.”
“Of course.”
“He is a man. Not a spectre. Not that mask he wears. Not the job he does. He is – was…”
She swallowed in a dry throat, closed her eyes –
He left the room quietly, found the kitchen and scooped her a cupful of water, returning before she had time to look back at his empty chair.
She accepted the drink wordlessly, gulping it down, then mopped at her face with the corner of a blanket that had been lying atop one of the cushions.
“He was a husband and a father first – the rest came second…” Then she almost chuckled. “Who am I kidding? He was a father first, a husband second; the rest third…”
Irimar looked at Killstop. Her face was downturned, eyes puzzling out the carpet.
She’s trying to distract herself, he thought. Either that, or it’s already working.
“That’s what I was meaning to come onto, if you’d forgive me interrupting?” he said. “I knew he had a daughter. I know he took his fees from the Magisterium exclusively in the form of druidry. He told no one, and I respect that. He had his rules around privacy, never wanted to put you and Elaset in danger.”
She was really staring at him, scrutinising him, now.
He went on, “I know that those payments will stop now he has passed from this world. I realise… the last thing I want you to think is that I’m here out of pity –“
“But you are, aren’t you?” she asked bitterly. “You pity me, pity us.”
“Yes, he does,” Killstop said suddenly. “Is that… is it such an evil?”
She removed her hood and scarf. She looked completely different without the mania playing across her features.
I didn’t see any of this, he marvelled.
“Who are you?” Wenya asked. “I know him – know of him, anyway,” she jabbed a finger in Irimar’s direction, “but you? I haven’t heard of you, have I?”
“I only – only met your husband tonight,” Tanra replied.
“You were there when…?”
“Yes.”
“And was it as he told me?” She inclined her head at Irimar. “Did he… did he die a hero’s death?”
What will she say to that? Timesnatcher wondered.
Tanra nodded. “More than I can express in words. You’re… no more pitiful than anyone, Mrs. Solosto, but you still deserve our pity. Everyone in your position does. There are… oh gods… there are thousands of you tonight…”
Wenya drew a deep breath, turning back to stare again at the cold hearth.
“Your daughter’s treatment,” Irimar interjected, knowing it was the perfect phrase; “we can help with that. Could I learn what afflicts her? My vision isn’t quite clear.”
“It’s the brickblood. There is no cure. Even arch-druids have tended her. All they’ve done is buy her time. A year of extra life, they say. But she…”
Wenya’s head turned, almost involuntarily, as though she could look through the walls to her daughter’s room, check on her.
Brickblood was a magical disease, transmitted by sight. Elaset would’ve been kept blindfolded when in the company of others, to ensure she couldn’t set eyes on them, pass them the ailment. Her veins running dry – every parcel of flesh itching as it slowly swelled up, the hard, rough boils of brick-red stone erupting over every inch of her skin…
“Can…” Tanra stood suddenly, and when he looked up he saw that her eyes were wet. “Could you please excuse me?”
He understood. This was it.
“Your mother’s still awake, and the flight-spell won’t run out before you get home. Be gentle with her, Killstop, and think about what Feychilde said when you first met him.”
Tanra covered her face once more as she left the room, and, with a muttered, “Goodnight, Mrs. Solosto,” the door was closed behind her.
“Killstop,” Wenya murmured, and chuckled again in a slow, distracted manner as she continued to gaze into the fireless fireplace. “That’s a stupid name. She didn’t live up to it, did she?”
“Many more are alive in Mund due to her actions,” he replies.
“I don’t care about the ‘many more’ right now, Timesnatcher!” she snarls, speaking his name with scorn, mockery. “I care about the one who won’t return! The one whose killing she couldn’t stop!” Then she glares at him. “I want to see him. Show me the body of my…”
“Killstop,” Wenya murmured, and chuckled again in a slow, distracted manner as she continued to gaze into the fireless fireplace. “That’s a stupid name. She didn’t live up to it, did she?”
“He was trying to defend her from the creature when it happened. Defend both of us, actually. He was incredibly brave, Mrs. Solosto. I’m afraid he left only ashes… Though the battle raged on, I did bring him back for you. I’m sorry; I know it’s not enough…”
He placed the pouch containing what he’d recovered of Dustbringer’s remains on a cushion in her peripheral vision, with a handful of plat and gold beside it.
“I’m going to be sending an arch-druid in the next couple of days. His name’s Nighteye, and he’s just about the most trustworthy person I’ve ever met. Speaking professionally. He’s going to help you, okay? Provide an assessment? We can go from there.”
Wenya nodded. “You can – please leave now.”
He could tell she was barely keeping a lid on her emotions.
Irimar nodded back, then, as he stood, said, “We’ll be in touch. If there’s anything you need…”
“I’ll let you know.” This was an almost-silent whisper.
“Mrs. Solosto,” he said respectfully in parting. He wouldn’t risk saying goodnight as Killstop had done.
He shut the door behind himself and waited five minutes until he heard it lock before setting off for his own bed. There’d been a few different ways that Wenya might’ve gone after hearing the news, but the fact she’d chosen the path of locking the door told him she would be alright, in the end.
He’d fought alongside Dustbringer over two dozen times. He’d known the man well, respected him, relied upon him.
This was the worst of all possible times in which to lose him. Netherhame would have to take over his duties. He’d been informed that Shallowlie would make a full recovery from the several injuries she’d suffered, but even with another year’s training she wouldn’t build a shield like Dustbringer had – and Direcrown and Redgate were lost causes, as far as he was concerned.
Could Feychilde step up? The sorcerer was promising, quick-witted. But how proficient would he become, and how quickly? Dustbringer had recognised his potential, it’d seemed, but the newcomer’s own fate was no more certain than Redgate’s.
No, Irimar couldn’t rely on him. He would test him, but the sorceresses had to step up. He’d have a talk with Netherhame at the next Gathering, before putting Feychilde under her tutelage. They’d have to be ready for next time.
The Incursion’s been over half an hour and I’m already planning for the next?
He laughed at himself. But of course he was planning for the next. He was an arch-diviner. If he wasn’t planning for the far-future, he wasn’t living up to his position.
When he arrived in Treetown he performed a routine check of the future-lines, ascertaining his way was clear, his route home peril-free.
He got a strange response from the Winter Door. Not a facet of his future – the seas before him were calm, free of reef and rock – but a shrouded island lurking in his past. It was old and powerful, intelligent.
If he put his hand on the tiller, adjusted the course he sailed through the mists of time – amethyst oceans awaited him.
Something did get through the Box, he realised. The tavern…
He wanted to investigate, meditate, but she never easily forgave him if he took longer than he needed to reach her after an Incursion. It would wait until tomorrow. He knew he’d have to put his Zadhal plans in motion now Redgate was gone, or it would be too late for Mund.
The Prime Concatenation remains strong, whether I investigate or not.
He angled for home instead.
It only took him seconds to get there and he didn’t cling to them, didn’t experience them; he blurred right through them, and they blurred through him. He flew directly in through the open third-storey window of their bedroom like it was nothing.
Perrinthe was lying atop the blue-silk sheets of their four-poster bed wearing only her undergarments, her robe discarded on the floor – she startled, tossing the brand-covered slice of oak aside and almost rising to her feet before she realised it was him.
“Damn it, Irimar.” She recovered, gathering the news-sheet back into her dark-skinned hands. “You know I don’t appreciate things like that when I’m reading.”
“Just keeping you on your toes, darling,” he replied. He swiftly divested himself of blades, pouches, robe, shirt and shoes, then walked around the bed to reach the far side.
She removed her hands from the thin wooden tablet, turning her unseeing eyes to follow his movement around the room.
“You can’t hide it from me, ‘darling’. What happened? I told you I should’ve come.”
He hopped up onto the bed, joining her.
“Bad news.”
“How bad?”
He regarded her. The childhood illness that had robbed her of her sight had been as nothing before whatever force chose her, filled her with magic, ten years later. Her all-white eyes were the only clue to the outside observer that she was blind – well, that and the fact that when she wanted to read the news-pages she had to pore over the ubiquitous-but-expensive wooden tablets with her fingertips. The industry had been developed by those highborn too rich to have their blind children go without learning their letters, but too poor to afford the druidry that would save their sight. And, as Perrinthe had learned the hard way, the longer you were broken, the harder you were to fix.
He didn’t quite know how she did it – the curse of the diviner was remembering everything that ever happened to you, and so the pain, the panic of those first days as a blind child were always with her. Certainly Perrinthe now had plenty-enough wealth to have a hundred children cured of blindness – and she gave enough of the proceeds of her victories to the Temple of Compassion that some of it had gone towards just that. But there was now no druid or priest who could heal those pearly-white eyes, give her back what she’d lost so young, no matter the money they threw at it.
She seemed to have embraced an outlandish appearance, however, in the years since she chose the path of the champion. She wore her night-black hair in a boyish cut, shorter than his, and had bleached and re-bleached one side so that it gleamed white, for reasons he couldn’t quite fathom.
But that was the point of their relationship. Being intimate with a mere mortal would have been pretty disgusting, knowing how to manipulate, move them like a fortify-piece into the perfect position at every juncture… After him and Duskdown, Lightblind and Zakimel rode the next-highest wave of power. Perrinthe could train with him – push him to be better – understand him – surprise him. Surprise was a commodity in scarce-supply to the arch-diviner.
And it was the only thing that made true love possible.
He sighed again before speaking. It was his fate to deliver ill-tidings tonight, and this was all part of a future that he’d never foreseen, that’d become his past so swiftly it made no sense that he couldn’t just go back and change it, choose a different route, plan it all well in advance…
Surprises were not always for the best.
“Out with it, Irimar. You’re starting to make me nervous.”
“Dustbringer fell to a high-ranked demon.”
She whirled, twisting the sheets beneath her. “Endren? No!”
But once he said it he knew the feedback she was getting through her own powers would confirm it for her. His involvement had occluded the events in the obsidian tower from her powers, but once he gave her the key to what occurred she would unlock it all in a flood of information.
“Starsight’s lost his mind, too – some demonic spell. Neverwish,” he said the name in a hard tone, “has taken him to Leafcloak… Then she’s got to tell Smouldervein’s… oh, damn, Perri, I shouldn’t be back here like this…”
“Hush,” she said, holding him, pressing her fingers into the taut muscles in his neck. “You’re not going back out there, not now you’re home.”
She moved her hands up to his shoulders and dug them in a few times, kneading his flesh like bread; and all his thoughts of leaving, of duty and responsibility and mourning – they all dissipated between one moment and the next. Nighteye and Glimmermere had healed him, suffused him with strength-enough to fight the battles… but nothing was as good as a back-rub.
“I’ll do you… after…” he murmured, letting her push him down on his front.
“Of course you will.”
They couldn’t really read each other’s futures – to a greater or lesser degree – but both of them knew there was no chance of him rubbing her back tonight.
The last thing he remembered before sleep claimed him was the look on the eolastyr’s white, triangular face while she gloated over Dustbringer’s almost-bisected body.
“In a moment we’ll be done, and say farewell. But it’s not goodbye – not for three of you at least.”
The last thing he remembered was how glad he’d been to know that she didn’t mean him.
But it didn’t help. The nightmare took him, the same as it did almost every night now.
The seas shadowed. The crest of the wave plunged into darkness. Darkness so absolute that the memory of light became a madness gnawing at the soul.
He stood on the crest of the wave, and for the first time he did not look ahead – he looked up.
And in that impenetrable darkness the seas gathered, swelling away from him; up, up above him – and he beheld the Wave, the Shadow on the horizon, dwarfing his world, making of him an ant that trembled on the path before the boot fell, obliterating it forever.
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