by D. T. Kane
“No!” He tried to hoist himself up, clutching at the Angel’s robes for purchase. But it was no good. Still too disoriented from whatever the Angel had done to him, he collapsed back to his knees, eyes stuck to the spot where she’d been. Would the Path never cease to rob him of those he cared for?
The Parents, temporarily stunned by the collapsing roof, finally reached him. One punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground. Blood trickled into his beard. Grief and fury welled within him. He reached for the shadow to—
His guts wrenched once more and the Temple’s dim interior was suddenly replaced by blinding light. Where there had been smooth tile beneath him a moment before, now there was rough stone, coarse dirt. His innards roiled and he rolled to one side just in time to retch once more.
“Would you stop that,” Taul spluttered through a mouth still full of acid. He squinted up at the Angel through the glare of the sun in a hazy sky. A sky almost entirely red.
Devan, still upright and apparently unphased, looked down and shrugged at him.
“I could send you back if you want.”
Taul considered telling the man just where he could send him, but kept his mouth shut for fear of losing more of his insides. Instead he looked for Jenzara. For a moment, before his eyes adjusted, he feared the Angel had left her behind. Devan was certainly capable of such depravity. But then he saw her, a few paces away. Ferrin had her head cradled in his lap. Taul half staggered, half crawled over to them.
Her breathing was ragged, but he was amazed to find her breathing at all. She was whiter than a Parent’s robe, save for ashen patches beneath her eyes. Her lids were squeezed shut, as if to look upon the light of their new surroundings would be death. She was bleeding from a laceration above one of her eyes; bruising on her arm suggested a break; and one leg was twisted at a ghastly angle. But her harried breaths and pallid constitution suggested some far greater ill than mere physical trauma.
“No, no,” Ferrin was mumbling, looking into her face. “I only meant to kill Valdin. You weren’t supposed to be hurt.”
It had been the boy who’d channeled that hex? Taul stared at him, torn between amazement that Ferrin had summoned such power and rage that he’d been such a fool to use it indoors. Both emotions, however, quickly fizzled. Neither would help Jenzara.
“What’s wrong with her?” Ferrin shouted, accusing glare darting between Taul and Devan. “She’s a few broken bones, sure. But she’s barely breathing.”
The Angel stepped towards Jenzara, no urgency in his movements. An overwhelming urge to strangle him burned in Taul’s mind. The Angel could at least pretend to care for something other than the True Path. Devan glanced down at Jenzara and arched an eyebrow.
“You’re right,” he said, sounding mildly surprised. “She doesn’t have any life-threatening physical injuries. Incredible. Almost as if the Path didn’t want her to die.” These last few words trailed off and Devan remained silent for a time, placing a finger to his lips as if considering some unspoken possibility. But then he just shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter. The harm was done to her before the roof fell.” Taul turned to Devan with a start. His voice was suddenly sad and resigned. A disconcerting sound coming from the typically flippant Angel.
“What do you mean?” Ferrin practically moaned. “I saved her!”
Taul blinked, looking from Ferrin to the Angel. What in Agar’s name were they talking about?
Devan sighed. “You didn’t save her, lad. You just changed how the Path will take her. I told you when I first arrived—she’s already been killed.”
“No,” Ferrin murmured, looking down into Jenzara’s gaunt face. “No, I stopped him.”
The whispered image of Shinzar impaling Jenzara pulled at Taul’s mind once more. He rubbed at his temples as realization began to wash over him.
“Blinding suns,” he muttered. “I really did see her run through, didn’t I?”
The others’ silence supplied all the confirmation he needed.
“Ferrin here is more powerful than we thought,” the Angel finally said.
Taul was still recovering from the disorientation of the Angel peregrinating him not once, but twice in the space of no more than a minute. But after a few moments the implication of the words crashed into him like an avalanche. He spun to face the Angel.
“You mean to tell me the boy altered time?”
“Well, altered is a strong word,” Devan said, running a hand over his face. “More like nudged it to a slightly different course.”
Taul leveled a glare at the Angel. Devan took a step back, speaking quickly while raising his hands.
“Semantics, semantics. You’re right. Anyway, what matters is what I’ve been trying to tell the lad all along, namely that he hasn’t really changed anything at all. The Path will end up in the same place.”
“So the boy’s one of you?” Taul demanded. “An Angel?” He shot a look at Ferrin, but if he’d heard it didn’t show. His sole focus remained on the unmoving form of Jenzara. The only indication that she still lived was the occasional rise and fall of her chest.
Devan cocked his head. “I don’t say this often,” he responded finally, “but I don’t know. Being able to channel all five elements makes him a Quintis certainly, but not necessarily Aldur. It takes years of training and even then we ultimately just have to wait and see if the subject is ever able to grasp the ability to temporally peregrinate. That’s the only way a Linear is able to separate himself from the inevitable forward movement of the Path and become Aldur.”
Taul wanted to shout that this was all nonsense. But then he thought back to what the boy had told him about his first encounter with Valdin. The elemental seer, what it’d shown. His mouth stayed shut.
The Angel scratched at his chin. “What Ferrin did wasn’t strictly peregrination. It was a... well....” He let out an exasperated sigh. “Your language is so limiting. We called it a motus—a stopping and rewinding of time. It’s a skill more advanced than even peregrination—many, perhaps even most, Aldur never gain the ability at all, which is good since it ought never be used. And I’ve certainly never heard of one performing a motus before demonstrating peregrination.”
“Enough of this prattling,” Ferrin berated. “Do something for Jenzara.”
Devan shook his head, but Taul spoke before the Angel could say anything further to upset the boy. The Angel’s prognosis for Jenzara might be true, but Taul didn’t wish to hear Jenzara was dying any more than the boy did.
“We need to get her indoors. Where...” He paused, looking about once more. Where had the blasted Angel taken them? He took in his wider surroundings for the first time now that his eyes had adjusted. Rock the color of rusty swords; plants that seemed dead for years. Harsh, dry wind. It suddenly seemed so obvious. Of course the Angel would have taken him here. He was always thinking about his precious Path above all else.
“Let’s get her into the Stronghold,” he said, motioning at the great stone walls off in the distance. Glofar Stronghold, seat of House Glofar, one of the oldest families in Agarsfar. It protected Morte Valley, the sole land avenue in and out of Trimale City.
Devan gave him a look that said you know that won’t make a bit of difference. Taul met the look with a steady glare and Devan finally huffed.
“Yes, a perfect idea, Grand Master. I’ll carry the girl. Why don’t you lead the way?”
Without waiting for a response, Devan fixed his gaze on Jenzara and she began to rise off the ground, away from Ferrin. The boy started, but then seemed to quickly realize what the Angel was doing and gave him a curt, if not appreciative, nod.
So they trudged towards the stone walls of Glofar Stronghold, Taul trying to ignore the burning cramps in his legs. Devan followed, Jenzara hovering just above his outstretched arms, Ferrin walking along side, dabbing cold sweat from her brow with a scrap of cloth that even a young child would have deemed filthy.
When they finally reached the gate,
Devan shouted up at the guard. The dwarf peered down quizzically without reply. The Angel fumed.
“Just go get the High Emissary,” he shouted up at the guard once more.
“Who did you say you are again?”
Devan gave a frustrated grunt. Taul stepped in front of him.
“Tell High Emissary Nellis that the Grand Master Keeper requests entry. And he’s brought friends and wounded.”
The guard’s eyes widened and he scurried away.
Devan slapped a palm to his forehead. “Deep ruts, why did I never think of that. Just tell them I’m some fancy Grand Master and they’d let me waltz right on in.”
Taul ignored the Angel and looked into Jenzara’s face. It brought no comfort. She was now clutching at her chest, as if something pained her greatly, though he could neither see nor sense anything wrong with her there. He almost reached for the healing power of light out of instinct, then realized what he was doing and looked away from her. The Angel glanced at him.
“Metaphysical injury,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“What?” Taul snapped.
Devan looked up to the sky as if someone had just asked the Blade Master Keeper if he knew the difference between a broad sword and claymore. “We all exist in two planes—the physical and metaphysical. Ferrin may have saved her from physical death, but the metaphysical transcends paltry things like linear time. It incorporates everything that’s happened to you in every strand of time in which you’ve ever existed.”
Taul looked at him blankly.
“Déjà vu? That feeling you get where you think something’s happened to you before? Well, it’s not just a feeling—it’s a true memory of something that happened to you in another timeline, usually a rogue strand. Typically they don’t have actual impact on your physical self, because the rogue strand in which the memory occurred has resolved back into the True Path. When that happens, it’s just like the event never occurred. Like a rivulet that’s been filled in. That’s why it’s possible to die in a rogue strand but not actually end your life on the Path.
“But with the current break in the Path—caused by the paradox involving you, Grand Master—we’re already in a rogue strand. So when the lad performed the motus, he simply created a further break in an already fractured part of the Path. Nothing has been resolved—the strand holding her death still exists. It has, in fact, happened. So her metaphysical death will eventually seep into the physical.”
Ferrin glared at the Angel. Devan held out his hands, as if to say I don’t make the rules. He looked ridiculous with the girl floating right in front of him, arms outstretched.
“Don’t look at me. Even I can’t touch the metaphysical. You might as well ask me to raise the moon during the day.”
Further debate was cutoff as the Stronghold’s gates swung open. Nellis waddled out to them, followed by a small coterie of Northerners, several wearing blue and gold Keepers’ tabards. A cheer rose from the crowd, murmurs of “Grand Master, Grand Master,” coming from many of them. Several children carrying bouquets of fire orchids hurried past Nellis. They stopped before Taul and offered up the flowers, faces beaming. He tried to smile back, but from the looks in their eyes he’d failed to convey any warmth. With Jenzara in her current state, it was difficult to generate much joy. He took the flowers and the children scurried away.
“Grand Master; Aldur Devan,” Nellis greeted them in his gruff northern accent. “What brings ye here? Ye look terr’ble.”
“It’s a long story, friend dwarf,” Taul said, bending at the waist to rest a hand on Nellis’s shoulder. A dreadful wave of exhaustion suddenly swept over him and he nearly staggered. “And one of our companions is badly injured.”
Nellis looked to Jenzara’s writhing form, concern clouding his face. Then he glanced over his shoulder at the welcoming party. Face reddening, he shooed them away.
“O’course, o’course. This way.”
The group who’d followed Nellis out of the gates parted. Many looked crestfallen at what seemed disregard for a joyous reunion, but Taul was in no mood to care for their disappointment. Nellis led them through Glofar, past barracks and forges and into the winding passages of the main keep.
Glofar Stronghold was like the rest of the North. Dreary. Bleak. A stronghold in fact as well as name. The expanse just within the walls was littered with dwelling huts, made mostly of brick and straw. The entirety of the Stronghold was surrounded by a limestone parapet wall—there were no outlying houses or fields. The walls were so thick several men or dwarfs could walk abreast the battlements with ease. Dwarvish children, long hair not yet having grown in, rushed past, enthralled in a game of slink and snoop.
“’Pologies for the ex’itement,” the dwarf muttered as they walked. “If I’d known ye had wounded, I would’ve stopped ’em. All the guard told me was that the Grand Master had returned. Ye’ve become somewhat o’ a legend after ye began sending the food all those years ago.”
Taul felt his face heat. “I asked you not to tell anyone.”
The dwarf didn’t look at him and said nothing more. But Taul would have sworn he was smiling.
After much convincing, Ferrin allowed several dwarfs to take Jenzara away to rest and have her injuries tended. Nellis then led the three of them to a courtyard not unlike the one in the Second Symposium at Trimale where Taul had spent so much time training in the days before the Angel had whisked him away to Falume. Devan began to pace as soon as Nellis stopped leading them, seemingly oblivious to their continued presence.
Being back in the North brought with it a sad familiarity. It was here he’d come to grips with the loss of his light attunement; slowly grown accustomed, if never comfortable, with his shadow powers. Grappled with the fact that he’d gone from a universally respected, if somewhat divisive, figure in society, to the scum on the underside of Agarsfar’s boots. Finally having his story known after what had transpired over the past day in Tragnè City ought to have been a relief, a release of the frustration that had eaten at him these past fifteen years. But after seeing what had become of the Symposium and City in his absence, personal vindication seemed a hollow victory.
“I still don’t see what a bunch of dwarfs are going to do for Jenzara. She needs real healing.”
Nellis narrowed his eyes at Ferrin, mustaches drooping. “We’ve some o’ the most pow’ful light attuned in all the land here, lad. No dif’rent then you men in that regard. ’Cept we don’t lose our minds ’round shadow ’tuned.”
Ferrin reddened.
“You’ll have to forgive him, Nellis,” Taul cut in, saving the boy from further embarrassment. “It’s been a rough stretch for him these past few days. For myself too, truth be told.”
He briefly recounted their capture, the trial and Devan’s projection of his testimony, and the harrowing ordeal in the Temple nave. Taul had faced plenty of horrors in his day. But kneeling there helpless as Shinzar prepared to kill those under his protection? It would haunt his dreams forever.
He left out the part about Ferrin potentially being an Aldur, partly because he didn’t believe it himself and partly because, if it was true, the dwarf would start fawning over the boy same as he did Devan. Ferrin hardly needed his head enlarged any further.
Once he’d finished, Nellis was silent for a time. When he did speak, his voice was like rainwater over gravel.
“What ye saw, in yer testimony. Ye know what that means?”
Taul frowned at the dwarf. Valdin had tried to murder him with the shadow heart, and the failed attempt had spawned the paradox of which the Angel never ceased to remind him. Or, at least, the Angel’s intervention had caused the paradox. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around the possibility that he’d died, yet hadn’t. But Nellis knew all that already. Taul gave the dwarf a questioning glare, causing him to yank at his mustaches.
“He stabbed ye with the heart, then channeled four o’ the elements into it. Ye said ye’self: the waters swirled, torches guttered; the surr
oundings darkened and earth shook.”
In all the long years since Riverdale, he’d never thought of that. But now that Nellis had said it, it seemed so obvious. Taul began to feel ill as he anticipated the dwarf’s next words.
“And then a creature o’ the Elsewhere hit ye wit’ the fifth element. All five elements into an object o’ the Elsewhere pierced in the flesh o’ a man from teh Path? Do ye see?”
Taul did see, and somehow he’d always known, though he’d never been able to consciously accept it until now. It explained the dreams, the single specter with the many voices, Devan’s allegations of what awaited at Ral Falar. Even so, he still didn’t want to admit it.
“What is it?” Ferrin demanded, voice dripping with irritation.
“What Nellis just described,” Devan cut in, apparently having deemed them worthy of his attention once more, “is the process for returning the Seven from the Elsewhere.”
“What?” Ferrin let out a cross between a snigger and a snort. But when he saw no one else was laughing his eyes grew wary.
“You can’t be serious. It says right on the mosaic in the Angelic Chapel at Ral Mok: Never again to walk the Path against its people’s will.”
“Yes,” Devan agreed. “But one of the Path’s people has willed them back.”
Ferrin gaped at the Angel, but quickly recovered and furrowed his brow. “If that’s true we should all be dead. There’s no way the Seven have returned. Things aren’t great. But they’re not that bad.”
Devan nodded. “You’ve got it partly right. They haven’t returned, at least not fully. Val had planned for the Grand Master to serve as their host. And he even succeeded. For a time. He killed the Grand Master, murdered him with that shadow heart you saw in his testimony. Permitted the Seven to tear free of the Elsewhere and into his body.”
Ferrin’s face was painted in shades of incredulity. He looked to Taul, obviously expecting him to refute the Angel’s words. And oh how he wanted to. Wanted nothing more than for them to be some sick joke. But he couldn’t, because now he didn’t only know them to be true, he’d admitted the terrible truth to himself. So instead he only gave a deferential nod to Devan, causing the boy’s eyes to widen.
