INTERLUDE 6B: A MOTHER’S CARE
“It is too easy to say all this, so let me speak on. Love is divisive. Love is exclusionary. For each tension, there is an equal tension in opposition. Even as it is the greatest positive force ever experienced, this is only made possible by the fact that it is the greatest negative force ever experienced. Love says: this is worthy of the High; let all else be laid Low, but I shall be satisfied. Love is the narrowing of vision that comes with focus, erasing all else that exists, removing its relevance. Love is giving without taking, yes – but it is only given to one being at a time. It is for this reason that we admonish our adepts to self-limit their exposure to love. Find the tranquillity within yourselves that shares a fragment of love with each and every mortal being equal in their part.”
– from the Exalted’s Address at the Temple of Compassion’s 996 Induction Ceremony
1st Yearsend, 827 NE
“This…” Kayn tried not to recoil from the pain but the growl in Draconic that burst free of her throat came out more like a yelp. “This is… too much, Malas.”
His hollow snarl returned from behind glittering teeth. “Hold. A moment longer.”
When she screamed the flame that burst from her throat would’ve been enough to engulf a farmstead, cook its inhabitants down to charred bones.
The mottled grey cavern walls of her current residence did blacken, even melted a little, but were relatively unharmed. Her children watched from the corners, their eyes wide, frightened.
At last the sorcerer released his grip on her mind and she sank her great head back down to the rock.
“Quite the Yearsend gift, is it not?” he asked conversationally, lifting his jet-black spellbound crown with a claw and sliding it back atop his horns.
“Is this what Ulu Kalar has brought me?” she gasped.
Kayn inspected her cousin as she fought to restore her composure, not meeting the gleaming eyes. His rotten body, the tremendous ribcage of pale bone visible through thin, almost transparent scales. The once-glorious purple fins and horns bedecking his cheeks, forehead, neck – all turned ashen, chipped with time’s inevitable attrition. The folded wings looked barely usable in their tattered state.
The stench wasn’t so bad, not anymore, at least. He’d dried out considerably over the decades since his transformation.
And he has grown in power considerably, too, she thought with just a little niggle of worry. There are so few of the true bloodlines left – to take this step, this risk…
Whatever he had done to himself in pursuit of his goals, it had clearly paid off for him. She had no idea what eldritch-joining permitted him to counteract her control, anchor himself to her mind as he had done.
Though, she had to admit to herself, it had been a necessity. She didn’t have the resolve to cling on through that turmoil, without him binding them together as he had done.
“What have you just put in my mind?” she asked, lifting her head again until she was level with him.
“Everything,” Malas replied gloatingly, eyes flaring.
She hissed her displeasure – it was an automatic reflex – and turned her gaze inward.
“No,” she snapped after even a cursory glance. “There is too much, and I will not retreat into that place until you are gone. I do not trust you, cousin.”
Malas shook his head. “You must, Tyr Kayn. You must believe in the vision, the vision Ulu Kalar brought forth long ages past. I have found the memory – I have passed it to you! Look!”
“I am all for bringing back Tyr Devas,” she said carefully – the last thing she wanted was him passing along the verified memory of her voicing blasphemy to the likes of Ord Ylon or Nil Sorog. “But to recreate the Dracofont – that was my mother’s fantasy, not mine. It is a dream, Mal Malas, a story. No more.”
“A dream, a story no more,” he laughed, letting black, noxious fumes pour from his lipless maw without a care.
“Malas!” Kayn called on her fire and sprang towards him, a few hundred tons of metal muscle set into instantaneous motion, rocking the cave, sending coins spilling in an avalanche. The light in her mouth spilled orange radiance over the dracolich. “Some of us still have to breathe, fool.”
She was thinking primarily of her brood, still young, all-too-vulnerable; when she was angry like this, emotions at their peak and gargantuan body extended, she was larger than the dracolich, capable of eliciting a little fear even from him. He was older than her, but he’d been dead long enough for her to have overtaken him in size, now.
Malas bowed his head deferentially and even went so far as to flop down lightly onto his side, exposing his neck. “My apologies, princess.” He spoke the word sarkalak, the proper form of Draconic address for one of her station, his voice suddenly dripping honey. “I come as a guest into your abode and – mistakenly – threaten you and yours. I ask only that you spare my life.”
She saw the twinkle in his eye, the sardonic grin splitting the non-existent ancient lips.
“Oh, get up, fool,” she relented.
She retracted her neck, then swished her tail nonchalantly as she turned back towards her bed of treasures. She moved more softly now, and no longer rocked the foundations of her home.
As she lowered herself back down into a position of comfortable repose, long tail curled about her midriff, he shifted slightly so as to better regard her.
“Do you truly not believe, then, princess?” The sorcerer’s dead tongue flicked out, a cold, gleaming blue thing, licking the dust from his gleaming teeth. “After all this time, all you have seen? The lower animals tore down our cities to make their hovels; they cover the face of the earth like the locust swarm –“
“The Dracofont – they were defeated. This world is not of our making, Mal Malas, but of the making of our ancestors.”
“They were defeated by the Founders! The Founders, who are gone, eliminated from the planes! They are long-since Celestium’s; it is as was prophesied. Would that Ulu Hariskar still lived to convince you… would that I might find her body, or her soul…”
“You search for her spirit?”
“I search for them all. I hope only that they have not passed beyond my reach.”
“All? Then you seek my mother, Tyr Draem, who spent her life’s blood on such a fool’s quest! Listen to me – they are dangerous, and I –”
“No, listen to me, cousin!” Malas’s sudden intensity shocked her. “This world is nothing but that which they foresaw, that which Ulu Kalar knew would come to pass all along. And he said we would do it. We would bring him – all five of them – back to Materium, with all their powers! Mund would be ours, a feast beyond imagining, a hoard beyond belief. A triumph beyond compare. A Return.”
She made her displeasure known, hissing again. “He said we would do it? Forgive my scepticism, dear cousin, noble sarkalor; but I do not believe you. The baldness of your deceptions only belittles my intelligence.”
Malas’s smile only grew wider. “This is no deception, princess! You are named.”
She tried not to show her shock, but her flaming eyes must’ve widened like his smile.
“Consult the visions I have bestowed upon you – there is no lie to be found there, and you should know it.” He levered himself back to his feet with his tail, the visibly-damaged wings creaking as though he were thrice his age. “I shall give you the distance you require, and return to you presently. We’ll discuss your response before I proceed, yes? Your pet creatures will permit me to pass?”
“So long,” she replied, “as you do not mention my doubts to Ord Ylon or Nil Sorog. Swear it on the bones of Mal Tagar!”
“But Mal Tagar left no bones, as well you know.” Malas’s amethyst eyes shone again. “Would they have us raise him in his own carcass?”
“On the bones to come,” she said.
Your bones, sorcerer.
Mal Malas straightened at that, the dracolich’s atrophied musculature suddenly suffused with a touch of the nethernal energy that made it so formidable despite its weakened appearance.
“Princess,” he said solemnly, all trace of jest gone in an instant – even the one word alone was acquiescence. “Ord Ylon I won’t tell, but I must advise you: Nil Sorog is no more.”
Kayn’s own smoke came from her maw then.
“My apologies once again; I thought you were aware.”
“I was not,” Tyr Kayn roared.
“A human archmage slew her, and now uses her skull as his throne.”
“She… she has truly fallen?”
“Lower than any of her forebears.” Malas affected a shrug, the torn wings flapping slightly. “I will bring her back, when the hour is upon us. Once Nil Nafrim inhabits her remains, Ord Yset will coat her in flesh. Before we each get new bodies, of course. With their power, nothing shall stand before them, no concept beyond actualisation.”
She ignored her revulsion at the notion of becoming undead. That would matter little against reclaiming the world from the rodents who’d inherited it from them… Especially if she could have living flesh surrounding the amethyst eyes which went with a nethernal essence…
“The hour?” she asked, then clawed at her bed of wealth, realising that she was getting her hopes up despite her better judgement. If the vision did not call for her to leave before her brood was grown, well-established as the powers to fear here in her subterranean domain, then perhaps this idea had true merit.
The sorcerer’s wily voice tried the flattery one more time. “Are you certain, princess, you would not consult the vision…?”
“Begone, cousin!” she snarled. Then, belatedly, offered: “And return in haste.”
Malas nodded his head. “One year, princess. One year. I will see you next time the seasons die, and then we will determine whether we can proceed.”
One year, she mused. It was a good length of time in which for her to make such a momentous decision.
She watched him turn and make his way through the rocky opening that would lead him through her lair, the hewn-out halls where her host of faithful fire-giant worshippers and her droves of enchanted monsters lounged.
With a command, she could have him slain – have his bones turned to dust – but he would probably still find a way to return next year. She knew her cousin well – or at least, she had known him well, before his great, irreversible change. He would turn up as a spectre if he had to, as though nothing had happened, politely attendant upon her answer.
And if she disagreed, if she turned on him the next time she saw him, he would turn on her.
She was not certain she could survive that encounter.
But whether or not she believed in her strength, she knew what her answer would be.
Whether or not she trusted him, she knew what her answer would be.
Whether or not she wanted to commit to the same great, irreversible change…
She knew what her answer would be.
There were so few, so few left of lineage. It had been years – centuries – since last she was so infuriated.
It was what set dragonkind apart. What made them better. The commitment, across the ages, down the endless days. The unchanging code.
Blood for blood.
The lust for vengeance, settled for long decades by the need to procreate, suddenly flared once more within her slow-stirring soul, like magma surging from a volcano.
Was it time? Could she abandon it all? Follow her mother into the madness?
So many of them had been drawn to Mund, lured by lies. But to be slain by a single human? To suffer that disgrace – it was outrageous!
To what new low have we fallen?
They… slew… Nil… Sorog!
* * *
28th Chraunost, 992 NE
Tyr Kayn coasted the hot summer airs above Hilltown, ruefully eyeing the swarming insects far below who could not see or feel her shadow as it crossed them. Her seeming, down there in the midst of the battle, was the most beautiful illusion she had ever created, perfect in its ever-changing verisimilitude, a labour of love that had cost her decades of intense workings. Quietsigh was as busy as one of those insignificant little bees down there, occupied in ingratiating herself with the local champions, the roach-kings of humanity. Unfortunately Kayn needed to devote a repulsively-large share of her focus on the events occurring beneath her – not only maintaining the seeming itself but, almost as importantly, the control she’d exerted over those archmages who’d already been brought under her sway. She barely had enough left to keep herself hidden, especially when she landed. She had to take such care, even with the Ceryad’s power flowing through her.
Her role in the prophecy had sounded valiant, requiring cunning and bravery heretofore inconceivable – that was how Malas’s visions had seemed to have things play out – but in truth she was a manager. Every day was a constant, endless dance of thoughts. The hopes and dreams of over two dozen pathetic champions: humans and gnomes, dwarves and elves – they all revolved inside her head, a swirling, nauseating mixture of frustration and flirtation and ego. Mother Mekesta! the ego of these creatures…
Were ants the same? If she were to take one of the druids under her spell and have them inspect the beliefs of, say, termites, would they be found to be so filled with overweening arrogance as these little meat-sticks scurrying across the city? She suspected not. She suspected it was an aspect of humanity and its halfbreed offshoots, a kind of careless self-importance that had nothing to do with actuality, wrapped up in their selfish imaginations.
Her kind was different. Dragons – every one of them had at least some access to abilities which only the greatest among men were lucky enough to receive. Every one of them, chosen by the gods to inherit the earth, every one of them a powerhouse of uncontainable physical strength. It was a mark of shame that Mund had existed so long, that her lesser cousins had failed so pathetically in their attempts to topple it into ruin.
Following so many simultaneous lines of thought at once left little attention over for musing on the nature of dragon and man, for enjoying the sun’s warmth. Everseer was speaking, using the telepathic link Kayn – Quietsigh – had set up. Everseer most of all she could ill-afford to lose control around. Even arch-enchanters were less of a nuisance than arch-diviners.
Regretfully, she allowed her awareness to sink back down to the ground, where she was nothing more than one of the champions…
Looking through her avatar’s eyes, Kayn noticed that their meaningless fight was almost over. Quietsigh had stayed well clear of the carnage, sending duplicates into the fray in her place, illusory images that were fit for little more than distraction against such experienced foes. In truth, the champions wanted little from her beyond her links and the bittersweet ‘protections’ she offered them. Nonetheless, from her position on the rooftop she could see the remnant of the Chaos-Lord’s paltry retinue, trapped in ice. Glassgrief, his long white hair streaming with frost, kept packing it on top of their sorcerer’s shield and the Chaosmakers’ sole archmage no longer had the energy-reserves to resist him. Everseer was testing the barriers with her blades a thousand times a second, Fingersnap moving only slightly less swiftly; Splinterwing was in his dire raven form above, directing his plant-golems as they shambled into and over the demonic eldritches that had been summoned into the street.
Quietsigh casually reviewed the last communication; Everseer, asking for confirmation that their enemies were all here, that none had escaped their efforts to corral the Chaosmakers. The sight of the seeress would only miss something like this one time in a million, but she wasn’t the city’s chief diviner just because she was powerful – she was decisive and she was a double-checker; she never let anything slip through her net.
Except Kayn, of course.
The dragon directed the magic down and let the spell itself flow through her avatar, mentally scanning the area.
“Yep, you’ve got them all, Everseer!” Quietsigh said chirpily. “Their archmage is thinking so hard about holding up the shield, I can hear it through his wards without even trying!”
“Good to know,” her ‘leader’ replied with a touch of aplomb. “See what he thinks about this!”
The sorcerer was using some kind of strange fey to limit chronomantic fields, but it didn’t make much difference to diviners of their calibre. Everseer doubled, trebled her speed – Fingersnap seemed to borrow some momentum from her, increasing his own velocity almost to the same extent –
And the shield came apart.
Multi-coloured steel and waves of super-cooled frost left the Chaosmakers in white-ice chunks, frozen flesh and bone and clothing all neatly diced.
It was just a trifle troubling, Kayn supposed. She could admit that much to herself. Seeing champions in action, knowing that they weren’t even really pushing their potential half the time… Their lives of unceasing confrontation left them in no doubt of their abilities, left them with little fear of even the most impressive foes.
Not that the Chaosmakers (or Rebels, or Unclean, whatever they were going by) were impressive. Kayn had long-since infiltrated their organisation, and took over a few of their minds, finding nothing there but Ulu Kalar’s design. ‘Organisation.’ It was a disorganisation, and the turncoats who entered the Thirteen Candles were soon wallowing in their insignificance. It amused her now to abide by the prophecy and simply let them be, howling their opposition to Ulu Kalar’s plans like wolves at the moon. She could only enslave the minds of so many, after all, and there had to be an outlet for those who discovered a shard of the truth. The darkmages were so very wrong about most things. Their paranoia about the purposes of Infernal Incursions was a source of much hilarity to her. As though the fiends had ever needed or wanted such a banal thing as purpose.
No, it was those same demons – the armies of the Incursion that impressed her, that made her wonder at these champions. These chosen of the gods of light. The defenders of Mund worked together with such worrisome finesse, laying low ageless entities in the matter of seconds. If the heretics could band together properly they could wipe out the champions in a matter of days, but they’d never had a leader with straight lines in their minds. No, being a champion meant something. And their kind had slain so many of her kind, too, not just demons. Kayn’s mother and at least two of her brood-sisters, that much was for certain – probably her father and her brood-brother too… The Mage Wars had been a messy time. Those particular champions, the murderers of her kin, would be long dead by now, of course. But that didn’t diminish the sting of the losses – it was a series of wounds that only worsened over time, an ever-widening, gaping sore that had to be treated. Treated, so that the healing could begin.
It made sense to her now. Why so many dragons had given their lives in the service of Ulu Kalar’s goals.
Victory. Beyond life. Beyond death. Irrefutable, irreversible victory.
We will feast on you all, slowly, she swore, and hoard your bones until the end of time.
But that wasn’t anything even close to what her avatar needed to say.
“I think he thought he didn’t like it,” Quietsigh chirped.
High above, Tyr Kayn scowled, the vast jaws clenched, teeth grinding at awkward angles. But she was a creature of habit despite her temptations, and recalcitrance was not in her nature.
Duty called.
When the sun sank and the air’s heat slowly began to evaporate, rather than sending Quietsigh back to her house as she did almost every night, she dispelled the seeming instead and headed north. Keeping Quietsigh active at such distance would drain her reserves, and she would have need of those tonight.
Beyond Mund, the Five Peaks loomed. Dark rock faces still shimmering with warmth, she climbed above them, chasing the dying sunlight. At last, alighting on the highest point of the mountains above the clouds, where even the richest of Mund’s gentry dared not build their expensive cabins, she lay down and closed her eyes.
Here, in her solitude, she could almost relax, but she could never let her glamours fade, even for an instant. A single stray bird, whispering word of her presence to another, and another, until the message was brought to single meagre druid – it would bring the plan crashing down, perhaps unrecoverably.
Her brood, so far away – she had almost forgotten their scents now. She wanted to speak with them, but tonight the power had to be spent on less frivolous tasks. Instead she plunged herself back into her memories, entering them as though they were reality, almost heedless of the reckless stupidity entailed in such an act of letting go.
If she lost years in the remembrance, it would not be for the first time.
The magic that ran in the lava of her veins enabled perfect recall. It wasn’t even recall, really. It was a re-experiencing, a second (or third, or thirtieth) chance to live those moments again. There was no newness. No new decisions, no changing the choices that had long-since been made. But, in this moment, she could forget that. She felt the newness, even if it were an illusion of her own making.
When she thought of the bodies of her wyrmlings, the scaly steel of their flesh coiled about her belly and the base of her tail for warmth – she was there.
The locust-humans, living and dying in their swarms, could never understand. Their time on this plane was so fleeting. How could they comprehend the bond between a mother and her children? They raised theirs for but a decade and a half – if they were lucky! She’d had over ten times that with Dreng and Akarda, with Vidar and Faiyn. Teaching them the intricacies of language and illusion, the subtleties employed by greed and envy and jealousy and hate. Bringing them in seeming to witness the histories of far-flung lands. Showing them how to fight the lesser drakes for play and territory. Watching them eat their first kills – elk, except for Akarda who’d been lucky enough to find a herd of big, filthy swine…
Even in the memory, there was the twinge of guilt – knowing their first kills should’ve been humans. Scared little humans, running, screaming. As her first kill had been.
And she’d been apart from them now for so long that the pain was more than emotion, more than suffering.
Is this how Mother felt, when she left us and went into the arms of Mekesta? Do the Chaosmakers’ nightmares come from you, Mother? I feel their strength. I feel…
The ties of family were strong – they were physical and psychic, stronger than time, death…
Stronger than memories.
She shook herself out of her reverie, then tapped the Ceryad-tree again, something that had only been made possible thanks to almost five years of plotting. The runestone one of her sorcerers had unknowingly secreted in its crystal roots was highly-experimental. The diviners and enchanters amongst the champions who unknowingly kept the runestone hidden required careful arrangement.
She took that unfathomable source of power, the life-force of the tree of magic, and cast it out, like blowing on a falling feather to direct its course.
“Malas!” She whispered the name with her mind, casting it out with all her prodigious might. “Mal Malas. Heir to Mal Tagar. Prince Deathwyrm… Cousin! Please, please heed me…”
But even if her wings were splayed out to touch the branches of a whole grove of Ceryad-trees, her thoughts would never cross the great chasms between the planes. She would never reach him, whichever dark winds he rode.
Bring back the ghosts of our dead soon, cousin, she thought, then opened her eyes, adding: as Mekesta wills it be!
She turned her face towards the south, then, and sent out her thoughts once more – to the target who would not refuse her. The only true companionship she could keep amongst her peers. She didn’t sweat when she was nervous; her natural response was to cool, shiver. Ordinarily her internal furnaces would’ve kept her feeling hot through the worst snow-blizzards the Mundic peaks could threaten – grounded on the empty mountain-top, she had to fight for a moment to still the quivering flesh that could start a landslide if she wasn’t careful.
“Ord Ylon. Tyr Kayn would speak with you.”
His rumble returned almost at once, and even after all this time she still hadn’t gotten used to it. The sound of his mind’s merest whisper was threatening, even to her: her, his friend and confidante, his co-conspirator. Even here, thousands of miles from him, the clash of armies in battle that was his voice made her scales shake.
More than she feared fighting Mal Malas to the death, she feared spending one minute in the face of Ord Ylon’s wrath. Thinking of speaking to him was one thing, but actually doing it was another entirely. Reality had an unimaginable quality which every attempt at imagining failed to take into account – even for her.
“Ord Ylon hears you, daughter of Tyr Draem.”
“O mighty Ord,” she began, restraining the stammering that constantly tried to spring into her telepathic vocalisations. “Forgive my interruption. Mighty Ord, I have once more attempted to contact Mal Malas. Still he eludes my touch.”
“There is nothing to forgive. The years grow thin, princess, but do not doubt him. Malas will return to us ere the Time of the Twins.”
“And if he does not, my lord? If he –“
“If he does not return, I shall depart to recover the remains of my beloved as the vision appoints. I shall break not one twig nor bend but one whisker of this prophecy, princess. See to it that you do not either.”
“My lord.”
When he said nothing more, she allowed the link to relax, then shook her great head wearily. She wanted to stay here, sleep here, but that wouldn’t do. The sleep cycle shouldn’t be back upon her for another decade, and by then everything would be changed; but these last years had been so exhausting – the most exhausting of her long life.
No. Quietsigh might’ve been needed in the city already, and she was getting a little peckish. She’d check things out before grabbing a snack from the camps outside the walls. Ten or so would do, today. She hadn’t built up that much of a hunger; her power was waxing strong.
She turned aside and spread her vast red-gold wings, angling herself, allowing the now-chilled air to send her back to Mund.
Just a few more years.
* * *
30th Orovost, 998 NE
“They have slain Chalibros,” Ord Ylon whispered.
Kayn had known for a week that Phanar and his friends had slain Ylon’s son, and didn’t mention it, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t find out. But he’d grown paranoid after the first two had died. He’d been and checked.
The first time he had roared and raged, like a forest fire that might consume half the world. The second time he had shrieked, screamed, like a storm-wind of such force to rip away every single blade of grass that lived, whittle mountains down to nubs as though they were carved of wood.
Then he had found Ulu Hariskar, and in his absence another of his brood had fallen.
This, the third time – he had changed again, and so still she had no concept of how to respond. Her children were safe; she checked on them weekly. The thane of her fire-giants was a man who’d never met her in person, inheritor of the title from his father, and his father before him; but they were used to her mental intrusions, and the current thane was only too eager to report those things her own sons and daughters declined to mention in their conversations. She knew everything that happened in her ancient abode, from Vidar’s attempts to suborn the cerberi to Akarda’s infatuation with a lesser drake from the next mountain range over.
She would never have sent them out to fight. Yes, they were grown. Yes, they could do battle. But their inherent magic was still developing, slower than hers had done. And she wouldn’t let them enter combat with foes such as these, dedicated to the kill. What did it matter if they did it without archmagery? They still slew her kind.
It mattered. In her soul, she knew it mattered. She couldn’t imagine being incapable of destroying such a rag-tag band of adventurers, not at any age.
This is why we need the Dracofont, she thought. Without them we weaken… with them we will be strong again!
“My lord – have you been able to recover his body?”
It took some time for the reply to come, and when it did he spoke in a quiet voice: “Enough of it, I hope. Enough at least to retrieve his shade. But even if it serves, it shall make a sorry shell for such a prideful spirit, and with him… with him my line is ended.”
“Your line shall live on in you, and your father, and Yset before him! And all your sons and daughters will be restored to the flesh, for the great Returning, as Ulu Kalar foresaw…”
“How long until the sorcerer is here? You are certain he departed with them?”
“My lord –“
“And he is powerful? Strong enough for our purposes?”
“My lord, Redgate is the most powerful sorcerer in Mund. There is no other I could choose for you. And yes. I watched him depart with more than one set of eyes.”
“Good. I shall enter the sea and be sure of it.”
“You are…” She didn’t quite know how to phrase it; she couldn’t insult him by asking if he was confident in his ability to do what he had to do. Not when he’d just discovered that he was responsible for the end of the Ord line, if anything went wrong with the plan. “You must prepare for this confrontation, my lord,” she said in the end. “The archmage is not only powerful – he is wily. Timesnatcher takes steps in anticipation of the sorcerer’s return, despite the fact he seems certain Redgate will perish. A… a diviner’s mind is far harder to follow than it is to control.”
She said this last in a half-apologetic tone, and even using it, she knew she did wrong.
His response was still quiet-voiced and not unfriendly, but with a laziness that bespoke a building anger: “Do you mean to test my patience, Tyr Kayn?”
“No, my lord,” she replied at once, an automatic response. “I mean only to ensure our victory.”
“Do not look to me, but to yourself, princess!” he hissed. “Nil Sorog and Ulu Hariskar will rise ere the new moon, or I’ll be much aggrieved. You must prepare to do your own part – all that it encompasses. You shall have to move with all haste when the twins appear, lest they penetrate your spell.”
“I will – my lord. I have the piece on the board in preparation for the crucial moment.”
She waited – waited –
“I am Kayn, Heir to the Line of Tyr. I will make the world’s destiny, or break it in the attempt. I… I am named.”
She took advantage of his satisfied silence, dropping the link, the fatiguing use of the Ceryad’s Wellspring, and peeled away from the mountain peak, heading back to Mund.
If only Malas had returned from the distant dimensions – none of this would’ve been necessary. Ylon still probably wouldn’t have permitted her to slay Phanar and his cohort – he wanted that for himself, and his reasons were eminently comprehensible – but this business with Redgate troubled her. Timesnatcher’s visions had been uncertain, what little of them she’d been able to properly compute. And now he had this stupid business with Zadhal on his mind again…
She wouldn’t be able to reach him in there. But it could present an interesting opportunity, especially where Feychilde was concerned; he could be moved further along the path if Zakimel behaved correctly… Dancefire was no issue; the half-orc was too wrapped-up in his delusions to be a threat. But Rosedawn – that whole fiasco could be brought to a climax! She could linger about the Winter Door, catch Timesnatcher and any other errant diviners upon their return, and in the meantime take every advantage of the situation to her own ends.
Scattering an illusion of the evening sky above so that it stretched across her flesh, Kayn soared over the grounds teeming with mages. As she went she busied herself with reaching out and plucking away those few thoughts that were of dread, of seeing something vast and incomprehensibly-threatening – and then she landed nimbly on the magically-reinforced roof of the world-famous Maginox Library.
After a quick check around she sent out her projection.
She was on her third generation, now, and each had been a marked improvement on their predecessors. Created much more quickly, and with an even greater investment of native power – this model could even be left exposed to the Knights of Kultemeren and other such holy seers without causing a fuss. That maniac, Everseer, had slain Quietsigh, and the memory of the moment had been so ingrained in the diviner’s mind that Kayn had been unable to permanently erase it, even with the Ceryad’s assistance. The same had happened with Softsmile, her replacement, when Timesnatcher took the reins of the Gathering from Everseer’s ‘dead’ hands.
It was only then that she’d come up with the notion of letting the young new arch-diviner find her latest incarnation, discover the seeming as a pre-archmage. Now, whenever Timesnatcher thought about the spell he was under, she quietly had him remind himself that he saw Lovebright before she even gained her gifts, and without fail his mind immediately fell back under her sway.
She’d almost lost her grip whenever she’d had dealings with Neverwish and Rosedawn, the last problematic enchanters remaining amongst the champions, but their downfalls were well underway now. Feychilde was vexing; she still wasn’t certain about that cursed eldritch inside the sorcerer’s head. Hellbane had been just the same, actually talking to his internal company on a regular basis – but at least he’d been disposable. Feychilde, on the other hand, was going to be perfectly positioned to slay those she dared not; every vision she’d collected agreed that he would be instrumental in the Dracofont’s re-emergence onto the Material Plane. But carefully controlling both sides of conversations, impersonating both the fairy and the host, was a serious tax on her mind – not to mention her power. She’d been glad when Hellbane and his Lera had been disintegrated, but this Zel character? It was not so simple.
And removing Neverwish and Rosedawn from the game-board would only rearrange her priorities, turning Lightblind into her most-pressing issue. Hence her visit to Henthae and Zakimel today – she would get out in front of the crisis, head it off before it developed into a cataclysm.
Crossing the bridge, one of the charmed waywatchers got a glimpse of Kayn’s future. Cursorily looking the girl’s mind over, Kayn quickly realised this Tialya was one of the few to have already had a glimpse of the end times – her memories still showed the marks where Henthae herself had scrubbed it clean, scoured away the vision.
Her cover had already been blown, so it didn’t hurt to let her true self out for a moment or two. She sliced away the memories of the guards, of course, and gave the girl a stern talking-to for the intrusion. Then Lovebright entered the Maginox.
The climb up the stairs was so pointless she actually cheated, her seeming disappearing once she went around a corner where few were looking, and reappearing near Magicrux Altra. Henthae was on one of the floors just below the magicrux, and Lovebright took the appropriate exit-bridge, entering the corridors, nodding to the mages who greeted her as she went.
Within moments she was letting herself into the room.
“Tervos will just be a minute,” Henthae said. “Won’t you take a seat?”
“With pleasure,” Lovebright replied, removing her mask and hanging it from her belt before taking the indicated chair.
“Myrielle white?”
“You know me so well, Keliko.”
“I think you’ll like this vintage in particular, Joceine. It’s especially dry.”
She didn’t actually pick up the glass, of course. She left it where it was on the table and created an illusion to raise to her lips. At the same time, she placed a smear in Henthae’s recollections so that she’d later grant ownership of the full glass to Zakimel, when Kayn and Lovebright were gone and the untouched wine would inevitably be found. Zakimel would know what to do with it.
Thinking of every little detail was so tedious, but it was important to do it this way, by which the meeting happened for real. If she did everything in their minds, the next time Zakimel thought about this little get-together he’d have a fit.
“Acidic – just a hint of citrus,” she said, plucking the assessment from Henthae’s mind and adding her own twist to it. “Delicious.”
“Isn’t it just?” Henthae took a deep sip of her own glass. “So, what would you like to discuss today?”
“It would be easier to wait until Tervos arrives. Is there anything you would like to discuss?” Lovebright glanced down at Henthae’s right hand, at the second ring on her middle finger; Kayn studied it through her avatar’s eyes for a moment, re-attuning herself to the ring’s magic, then met the magister’s gaze once more. “Anything?”
The cheery, almost fawning look on Henthae’s face slowly morphed into one of horror.
Her mouth a distended oval, rapid gasping making her chest into a heaving piston, Mistress Keliko Henthae produced nothing more than a high-pitched bleat, her aghast eyes rolling back in her head.
“Oh, never mind.”
She turned it back on and Henthae relaxed again.
When Tervos Zakimel arrived and seated himself, he looked a little flustered. He folded his legs, occupying at most half of the chair.
“How are we today, Tervos?” Henthae asked.
“Never better,” he responded, characteristically moody, abrupt. He sucked his glass down in a single draught then blurred to the bottle, blurred back again, pouring himself another.
Kayn had given him quite a taste for the stuff – it dulled his senses, allowed her to be a little less precise with her safeguards when she went nosing around in his fascinating, future-revealing mind. He used to be a bottle-a-night-man; now he was a three-bottle-a-day-man. He used to go to bed with a headache; now his migraine was a persistent, living thing, feeling to him like a heavy snake coiled around his brain.
“Is it something we can help with?” Lovebright asked sweetly.
“Nothing three hours of frantic post-midnight banging my head against the desk won’t solve. Of course, that’ll be days of work in your schema.”
Henthae smiled sympathetically. “The time has arrived, I fear.”
“Oh?” Lovebright looked between them.
“The new Illost training rotas for the magister-bands,” Zakimel murmured. “Someone in Ongoing Development messed up. Believe me, I will find out who, even if they’re trying to hide. Over three thousand magisters, each in need of thirty-six hours of upskilling. I have to find a way to place them all in training centres that aren’t too far from their places of residence, or arrange transportation, and ensure any missed shifts are covered, and if I delegate even one bit of it –”
“Okay, okay.” Lovebright sighed. “Gods, Zakimel, you’re so dry I should be drinking you.”
That got a smile from both of them, which surprised her; she wasn’t even having to exert her influence. Kayn was just letting off steam.
She felt a little embarrassed, and that made her feel a little angry.
Perched atop the library, she sent a jolt of her power shooting out, into her seeming.
Lovebright straightened in her chair, and simultaneously the two arch-magisters slumped, entering the semi-trance state, ready to accept their instructions.
“It’s time we step up the pace. I need distractions, lots of them. We are entering a critical period of time. I’m going to increase the inkatra flowing into the city again. Ignore Neverwish and Rosedawn; I have them in hand. The problems are Lightblind and Dimdweller, and perhaps this Killstop child – I need a better read on her, Zakimel. Also, I’ll be bringing Leafcloak in with me next month, and I’ll need you to be ready – I want a few more of your… ‘friends’ to get new faces. You have… three weeks. I need them to get caught again but for the gods’ sakes don’t make them get caught down there.” She gestured in the vague direction of the waywatchers. “Somewhere more credible. Also, Henthae, I’ll need a window for unleashing Dreamlaughter. She’ll start forgetting how to ply her trade if I don’t keep her active. Let’s see, what else is there? Oh yes, Reyd – you’ve got to make her a fully-committed champion. You’re allowed to not like it, but you’ve got to do it. We need her in position to accelerate things with Feychilde; you’re to make the changes to her mind, you understand me? It can’t bear my signature. I’ve adjusted my spell on her pendant in preparation.
“And now, the most important bit. The Time of the Twins is upon us. We have two, maybe three days before it starts – I want to hear the second either of you hears anything. Anything. And ensure they’re… welcomed into the Magisterium’s arms. We’re going to have to move quickly once it begins – I don’t want anyone seeing through me, you understand? I’ll prepare Feychilde to kill them. If I can confirm my suspicions as to the reason for his role in all this, I will inform you.”
“Shall I arrange the death of his brother and sister?”
“No, no. He’ll do it himself when the time’s right. Are you hearing me?”
“I hear you, Lovebright,” they said almost in unison, Henthae just a split-second behind the diviner.
The champion made a sound like clapping her hands without actually clapping them, then sat forwards. “This has been so pleasant.” The seeming smiled and set down her glass, smearing it over in their minds by instinct. “Shall we catch up again in a week’s time?”
“That would be lovely,” Henthae gushed.
“Always a pleasure, ma’am,” Zakimel said, taking her hand and raising it towards his lips in a gesture of deep devotion – a transference from his latent feelings for Henthae.
Another annoyance she had to smear over.
She sent Lovebright on the laborious trek back through the corridors, down the stairs, across the bridge. It was easier to let the seeming keep up appearances than pull her out – that would mean inserting memories of seeing her leave into the minds of some students, and the waywatchers…
Zakimel, kissing Lovebright’s hand. Sometimes she wondered whether she’d gone too far – then she caught herself.
She was pulling the strings of the most important locusts in the hive, all by herself. Of course she’d gone too far – she’d left that shore behind ten thousand leagues back. She was changing history – she was at the top of her game, and she knew it. Even this meagre exploitation – manipulating them, moving the cretins around like her pawns, lining them up to be knocked down – it was almost as satisfying as eating them would be.
Will be, she promised herself.
When Lovebright reached the bridges she used the same one she’d crossed initially, and it was only then that Tyr Kayn realised the perceptive, frightened little girl had already fled her post. It was just Najraine and Hinnefer now.
Smiling, the red dragon took flight, heading towards Treetown.
Time to mess with Irimar’s mind some more.
Poor Alandrica.
* * *
14th Illost, 998 NE
Leafcloak and Lightblind were gone, events beyond Kayn’s control, beyond her wildest dreams. For certain, the death of the most-skilled shapechanger in the city was a loss to her Facechanger plot, but that arch-druid had also been fearsome, and the fact it took a miniaturised god to take her down after all the endless encounters she’d survived told Kayn she was better off with the crone dead. Besides, the Facechanger plot was only initially conceived as a distraction for the damnably-perceptive Lightblind – and, thanks to the fully-bloomed Duskdown, she’d been removed from consideration with far more finality. Even Nighteye going missing was a blessing in disguise – something else to occupy the champions’ attention. Timesnatcher was so certain that Duskdown was involved that he was no longer thinking clearly – and while he was under this shadow he would never even begin to question Lovebright, not the way Lightblind had done. She couldn’t have planned it better herself.
Things were moving into place – but where were the twins the prophecies spoke of?
She deliberately flew north-west after the meeting concluded, following after the fateful trio, crossing high above Ekenrock Road deliberately so as to better assess her slave’s antics.
Everything appeared to be going smoothly. Kastyr and Emrelet were entwined in Dreamlaughter’s spells and Tanra was frantically trying to save them along with the populace.
Perfection. Dreamlaughter has lost none of her creativity.
The dragon wondered why the tractable enchantress was the way she was. So ready to accept Kayn’s commands. So cunning in the application of her magic. Someone had blanked her ancient mind at one point, and very little cognitive function remained. Yet she remained a kindly mother to her pawns, and a formidable foe to Kayn’s enemies.
My enemies… The dragon couldn’t help but admire the trio too. The way they worked together, once they snapped out of it and started saving people. Kas and Em and Tanra were a force to be reckoned with. Petty tasks like this were a distraction that could in no conceivable way lead back to Kayn herself, and would leave her free to focus on other areas. On the one particular thing occupying her thoughts.
On the revivifications to come this night.
She wanted to claw at the rooftops, let out her anticipation in a scream, swell it with her magic so that everyone in the city could hear her.
It happens today!
At last, as midnight loomed she could withstand it no longer – she ascended back to her accustomed eyrie, her seat above the clouds. Looking up at the fierceness of the stars, white pupils in the purple darkness, she sent out the thought:
“Ord Ylon! My lord! How do you fare?”
She waited. He was sometimes engaged, instructing his hosts of creatures – or perhaps he was out of his lair, feeding…
Not tonight! Tonight!
He must be engaged in the battle, she realised. She hurriedly squashed the urge to send another telepathic message, an apology, or a blessing – her previous words could be forgiven so long as she didn’t compound upon the problem by adding more.
I will wait, she said to herself.
She spent a day in ceaseless furtive flight, rolling in the air against her growing unease; she didn’t return to the mountain peak until the next night, and then, when her link again found no anchor in his responses, she burned a week’s worth of Ceryad power on searching his lair.
No thoughts in Draconic.
No thoughts in Mundic, or any of the tongues of men.
None even in Kobold, where there should’ve been thousands…
Only the silence of the dead, and the despairing echoes of her voice, diminishing and disappearing inside the vaults of her own mind.
* * *
17th Illost, 998 NE
For the third night in a row, she came back to her seat to plead with the stars, wring her wings against the staggering futility of it all.
“Uncle! Ord Ylon, prince of princes, King of Dragons! Hear me, heed me, please!”
It was too much for her to bear, by this point. She could hardly depart from Mund, not now – if the predictions contained within Mal Malas’s visions were accurate, the Time of the Twins should’ve been imminent.
“Ord Ylon! How do you fare? Speak to me, uncle! Speak to me!… Curse you!”
And then, the very moment she blasphemed and voiced a word of treachery – for the first time, a psychic response came from the dragon’s mind.
A link was formed.
Not Ord Ylon.
Not any voice, any mind she recognised.
Soft – almost hesitant, yet a dragon’s.
“I apologise, but your uncle is no longer to be found at this address; might I forward a message?”
Is this my… my punishment… for cursing my lord?
“M-Malas?” she asked, half-hoping, half-terrified.
But the voice never spoke again, no matter how many times she cried out.
* * *
20th Illost, 998 NE
“Why were we forgotten? None of their stories contain their proper endings. There is no mention in any tale of men, no mention of the Dracofont’s last battle, of the Chains of Woe they walk past every day. Nothing, cousin. Our greatest… just faded away. Only the shadows of their names, their deeds, trickle down in ode and song. Even you, Deathwyrm, Rotwyrm, have more acclaim! We have been passed-by, abandoned, out of time… They traipse along past the bonds that bound our forebears, ankle and wrist and throat! throat! and fasten crude, lesser beasts to them, never knowing, suspecting, caring… I have been. I have looked. I have counted them – twenty-five chains. The humans – they are like us!
“We have forgotten ourselves, cousin… We are no longer what we once were and we shall never see its like again. That is how their empire surpassed, exceeded our own – we lost ourselves in clinging to the past. We tell the tales of Eldervane’s duel with Nil Nafrim because to us it means something. It matters that we were defeated, that she hung in defeat from his glacier-sword. Devas, lost in the madness of Nimmenvyl’s devisings… Litenwelt’s shadow-arms… Our generations are so slow in the taking – thus we look only for a restoration of what came before. Ulu Kalar saw their Return, written on the winds of the future, but it is only a backwards-looking. Only the humans really look forwards. And did Arreath Ril write a single word of warning?
“No. No, the Dracofont’s last battle meant nothing to them, and we know that the human was the greater seer. Why, then, cousin? Why did they not leave it in their legacy? Is it because they fear us? No – it is because they do not care. Ha! The heretical fools have it so wrong. They forget us. What was my mother’s task, in truth? They forget us, because we are no longer what we were. What we could have, should have been. Many amongst them know what we purpose. They know, and they would stop us. I could kill them all. Yet if I stray from the path by so much as a claw, I will doom us. I only think I could kill them all…
“Are we not doomed already? You have left me alone to bear this burden. I am here – I have done everything that you said, everything that Ulu Kalar would have of me. Still, I have nothing. The Twins have not arrived. For the first time since you came to me, granted me this vision, I doubt. I doubt!
“If I had to do it alone – I would. Even if it should cost me my life, my children would know my name and never fear to hear it spoken. But there is nothing – nothing. It is the Time of Emptiness, the Era of Utenya Borskalach. Ulu Kalar was wrong. Do you hear me, cousin! He was wrong at the last. And what is there for my brood now? What is their future? Should I give my life anyway, slay as many as I can before I fall? Or should I return home, tail between my legs, defeated through no fault of my own?
“… You give better advice in your absence than ever you did in person. At least your silence cannot counsel me to waste a century of my life. To waste… my life…”
She felt the pulse; the Ceryad was almost drained.
“Goodbye, cousin, and farewell, wherever you are. I’ll call to you no more.”
She left her eyrie, and never came back.
Duty calls.
* * *
22nd Illost, 998 NE
What had happened? How had she let the bard’s song envelop her so? She swooned, and swayed out of existence for a few moments, borne up like flotsam on a wave of soft, melancholy melody.
The kobold’s shaft cold in my chest
I beat and bleed and die my best
As I approach the ghost I still recall
That hallowed eve from time of yore
How in my youth I saw them sway
As elms at dusk while perished day
For my eyes I hope to keep
Their darkness
And take it with me to my sleep
Under the bowers of dark Drathdanis
Gathered tall elves in starlit masses
Swords sheathed at hand in shadows true
Yet in their eyes it seemed blades glew
Without motion spell or sound
They stand or sit on branch or ground
And Orovon’s silence on the wind
Across leaves on softly-sighing limbs
Where the twilight dwelt
In dark Drathdanis
Morning’s song will choke the air
Purple clouds they gathered there
In knotted fur and unkempt hair
As the ranger’s arrow wingwise coursed
Riven earth by old roots burst
Still they gathered there
Beneath the graceward threshes
As night’s cloak fell in blood
Across the skies
But not their eyes
In dark Drathdanis
I sailed away and never returned
Immortal lessons never learned
But I beat and bleed and die my best
This thrice-cursed arrow in my breast
Yet in my eye as I near my rest
I hold the darkness
And remember Drathdanis
Lovebright was supposed to pick out a Master, but instead she caught herself looking around at her friends with fresh vision. She wanted to cry almost constantly, and it was only by an act of will that she kept her voice from throbbing when she spoke, stopped the corners of her eyes leaking miserably.
I am leaving, she told herself again. Still, it didn’t feel real. There was too much to be done – so many aspects of the fading visions that were still awaiting her touch –
But it was relief that was flooding through her. Like a prisoner held for execution being pardoned and freed after years of agony, waiting, waiting for death. And, in stepping out through the cell-door into the sunlight, was it so strange that she would feel a kind of melancholy, a kind of fondness, for the physical structure in which she’d been housed for so long? Was it so strange that she’d look on these faces and feel the part she’d played for real this time?
The truth was, she was needed here. She protected the champions from the darkmages, didn’t she? She had done good work in their company. Her amulets had saved Feychilde and Shadowcloud from destruction at the hands of an arch-lich in Zadhal… Without her wards, Mountainslide would’ve fallen to Vowtaker’s demons that time… She’d partaken in Incursions, if only in seeming; she’d been useful, hadn’t she?
Had she balanced out those she’d eaten? If she stayed, could she do better to even the numbers?
Where else was she needed? She had no desire in her to explore the ruins of Ord Ylon’s home, search out his remains, those of Ulu Hariskar and Nil Sorog, those of his children. What good would it do anyone? They could not be raised. Malas was gone. The code was broken. Let them lie with their killers, and good riddance to the lot of them.
And why would she return home? The truth was that she had abandoned her domain long ago. She had gambled, and she had lost. Her children had inherited her territories and if she was honest with herself, that was all she had wanted for them all along. Her return would only displace them, cast them adrift – send them far from home to form their own realms, or, worse, set them plotting her downfall.
“… see, vhen zere is a high-rise on fire things are not so simple – you must vork viz ze air. If you flood ze ground you risk bringing ze whole building down – and if you bring too much vater onto each floor you risk zem buckling…”
“Come on, Jo,” Irimar said from beside her. “Whatever you pick, I’ll pick something to complement it.”
The enchantress brought out the Arbiter card, and found the correct figurine to place outside one of her Holds. She was getting used to the game, even enjoyed it. She was good at this kind of thing.
“How’s that?” she asked.
“Excellent.” He threw down the Pyromancer card and placed its figurine as close to hers as he could manage, per the rules. “Stay close to me – I’ll keep you safe.”
He didn’t catch her smile, but that was okay. It was only for her anyway; it probably would’ve embarrassed her if he’d seen. Or maybe he did catch it – she couldn’t tell, wasn’t rifling through his mind. Reading minds during fortify would be cheating and, although deception was second nature to her, she wouldn’t want to dilute the challenge of the match by reading her opponents’ strategies out of their heads. Nor would she want to second-guess her ally, overwrite his plans; compromise was the art of the game – wherein half the mastery lay.
That was what Lovebright was telling herself.
The battle unfolded much as she’d suspected it would. She played her best game yet, but Irimar left himself exposed in his attempts to defend her, dooming the both of them.
She felt it was an omen.
Again – relief. She was leaving it behind. Leaving it all behind… even if she stayed.
Irimar walked her home. No moon-glow reached through the wooded glade surrounding her house, and she brought no light forth, enjoying the darkness, the companionship; but he placed his hand on her arm to better guide her all the same, and she caught herself looking down in surprise, alarm.
There was… not just gentleness… affection in his touch.
This was not something she had done – and a glance at the diviner’s mind, swallowed in a melancholy that extruded between every fold and crease and seam of his thoughts, only told her that the two of them were alike.
He is in pain.
She struggled with her keys when they reached the doorstep.
“Jo.”
She fumbled, almost dropped them –
“Joceine Tamaflower.”
She put the key in the lock, turned it, flung open the door before whirling to confront him –
He was gone. She stood alone on the threshold.
She stood there for a long time. After a while the wintry breeze stirred her hair, and an hour after that she shivered with the cold.
Eventually she went inside and fell against the door, slamming it shut bodily. She leaned her head back against the heavy oak, feeling its reassuring hardness.
The wave of panic just wouldn’t stop.
I’m real, she reminded herself. I’m me.
It was almost sunrise before she could bring herself to lock the door, and she crawled upstairs to the bedroom, pulled herself up onto the bed.
What is it? she questioned. What’s happening to me? Has Dream done something?
It was like her dad always used to say, before her mum took her away in the middle of the night, stole away with her on the ferry, heading south towards Mund.
‘Always question ever’thin’, Jocey. You don’t know ef yer getten tripe or steak in yer pie till yer tasted it, an’ be then it’s offen too late!‘
Jocey. She’d almost forgotten that name. She smiled, and sighed.
It was a shame. Perhaps Irimar had fled because he thought she was in a rush to get away, get into the house, get rid of him. Perhaps he’d thought she was put off by the fact he was clearly rebounding hard after Lightblind’s demise.
The truth was, she had no idea what she’d been about to do when she turned around – admonish him, spurn him; or press herself against him, usher him inside.
* * *
23rd Illost, 998 NE
“You’ve almost got him, Tanra!” Jocey said excitedly.
“I have got him,” the seeress replied. “It’s just a matter of time.”
Kas, sitting beside Killstop, had a beatific smile on his face; opposite the sorcerer, Em was staring at him, a careful non-expression fixed like a mask across her features. Jocey got the impression the Liberator of Zadhal was going to pay for his boastful demeanour later in a more-private setting.
When the careful manoeuvring of a mountain allowed Kas to take one of Em’s prized pieces, the sorcerer crowed in delight; on the very next go, Tanra finished Irimar off, executing the Sow Matriarch’s complex triple-move flawlessly.
“You should give the poor chap a chance one day, young woman,” said a gentleman standing nearby, one of their regular audience – he was clapping along with the others, though, and while he clearly thought Tanra’s accent too lowborn to win her the appellation ‘young lady‘ his smile wasn’t disapproving.
Jocey clapped along with them, but then she gave Irimar a hug, testing his reaction, testing her own.
There was electric between them – she didn’t know if he felt the same, but she felt it. She sensed him tremble, a judder running through his flesh.
“Don’t tell me I make the city’s greatest diviner nervous,” she whispered in his ear.
“I – I’m sorry,” he responded quietly. “And last night – I don’t know what’s come over me –”
“Later,” she said, drawing away a little to look into his face. “Walk me home, again? I wasn’t trying to get away from you.” She moved the wavy curl of hair out of the way of his eyes. “Not ever. Hehe.”
He pulled her close again, to drink in the electric – she knew it.
Her eyes were almost closed, head buried in his neck, but she caught the glance of Neko over his shoulder.
The druid in particular should’ve had a disapproving frown on his face, what with Lightblind only having passed recently – respecting the dead was a druid’s prerogative and Jocey knew that this hardly looked good, in that light – but Neko was just smiling like he’d been drugged.
She moved about, getting a glimpse of Sol. The druidess’s eyebrow was raised, but that was all.
Maybe they’d just be seen as good friends. Maybe people didn’t have to know about them for a while. She’d be alright with that. She would have Irimar – she could wait. She wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. She – they – could wait as long as they needed to.
After they finished the round and tidied up the game boards, Em left for work; Kas went to see his fortify opponents off to bed; Sol and Neko went off on their Nighteye shift; and Tanra was hardly surreptitious when she excused herself two minutes after Bor left.
“Poor Bor.” Irimar grinned tightly. “The boy’s got no idea what he’s bitten off there.”
“Really,” Jocey said archly.
Suddenly she shivered, feeling uncomfortable, fearful for some reason.
The arch-diviner put his hand on hers. “Are you alright, Jo?”
She looked, for the first time, squarely into his eyes. Deep into them. Watery blue irises, oceans of meaning, surfaceless and bottomless.
Pupils large, unnaturally black…
“Do you see me?” she whispered.
“I see you.” His voice was quiet, husky.
“And – do you –“
She waved a hand. She had no idea what she meant.
When he kissed her, fast, hard, she knew what she’d meant.
He took her home, and between one blink and the next they were in her room.
Flesh. It was a marvellous thing.
Jocey was no maiden, but, whether it had something to do with his powers or something to do with her own, this one night was like an abyss of time, brimming with unlimited sensations, an abyss into which they entered, together. It never ended, horizons of perception rippling outwards in every direction and dimension, drowning her in an inconceivable array of experience, time and again – his eyes, his eyes, she was drowning in them, in their forgotten oceans – a day had passed, and another; and then moons were rising and falling, yet still they were together, still lost in their moment of simultaneity, as years turned to dust and the stars of millennia went crashing through her, breaking her mind, her soul, laying her bare in her essence –
* * *
24th Illost, 998 NE
Irimar stilled, and she felt his displeasure, even though she had no idea what was wrong.
Then he was apart from her, dressed in his robe and mask, a thin spectre in black and white.
“Zakimel,” he spat.
She hurriedly threw on her robe, fixed her own mask in place, before accompanying him out of the room.
“Zakimel?” she called down from the rail.
“Lovebright!” came the cry from the hall below.
With a whip-crack, the aged magister appeared there, standing right in front of them on the landing, arms folded across his chest.
“What do you want, Tervos?” Irimar asked. “I begin to tire of you. Your appearance is always to my detriment.”
“It could not wait – you’ve been ignoring our attempts to link, our glyphstone communications –“
“Slow down, Zakimel,” Jocey said. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“Well – it’s –“ The magister looked from her to the tall, severe figure of Timesnatcher, who had also crossed his arms, then back to her again. “Can we speak of this with him present?”
“I beg your pardon?” Irimar intoned.
“Of course we can!” Jocey laughed, but inside she felt an awful void, a place in her mind devoid of context.
What does he mean? she wondered, perplexed.
“Lovebright – it’s the twins. The twins have appeared.”
She stared at him. Stared hard.
The twins?
* * *
It’s happening. It’s actually happening.
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