Wheel of the Infinite

by Martha Wells

  Rian realized what she meant and smiled, shaking his head a little in amazement. "It's night. That's supposed to happen." The Adversary had given her much of the knowledge it thought she needed to survive, but it seemed to have left out a few key facts.

  "Oh. That's all right then." Reassured, she leaned against Rian's knee.

  Rastim stood up suddenly. "There she is."

  Rian looked up to see the Celestial One's boat coming toward them from across the canal, the white fabric of the awning drifting gently in the breeze.

  "Who's that?" the girl said excitedly.

  "That's the Celestial One," Rian told her as he got to his feet. He could see Maskelle now, sitting next to the old man, and felt relief wash over him.

  "Trouble?" Rastim asked worriedly.

  "I don't think so." There was no one else in the boat but the boys who poled it. The Celestial One hadn't even brought his usual attendant priest. "Wait here."

  Rian went down the gentle slope of the bank to the post's dock as the boat was drawing up. He saw the "wait here" had worked on Rastim, but the girl had followed him, bouncing along happily at his side. He looked down at her, lifting his brows, and she said, "My father said if Maskelle wasn't here I was supposed to stay with you."

  "Oh, he did, did he?" Rian let out his breath. The Adversary had apparently planned for every contingency.

  One of the boys jumped out of the boat to tie it off, and Rian helped Maskelle lift the Celestial One out.

  "Ah," the old man said, looking around and sniffing the fresh air. "It is good to be alive again."

  The last time Rian had seen the Celestial One he had been a corpse. It was still hard to believe they had survived it all.

  "This is she?" the Celestial One asked, eyeing the girl.

  "No other," Maskelle told him.

  The Celestial One took the girl's arm and let her lead him up the short distance to the camp.

  Rian hung back with Maskelle, asking, "What did you tell them?"

  She sighed and pushed her braids back. "That the Adversary was injured by the change, that it needs time to recover and until then there will be no Voice."

  "They believed that?"

  She shrugged a little, smiling ruefully. "They don't have a choice. Besides, it's mostly true." She said slowly, "When the Voices used the Wheel to close the Aspian Straits and made the Sakkaran cities vanish, they damaged the Adversary. The Ancestors are all spirits who were once people, but the Adversary was the world itself, the way the Wheel is the world. A part of itself went with those cities. It had to wait until now to remake itself, but it was growing weary, and a little mad. It didn't always remember what it was it had to do. It gave me a false vision and told me to destroy Raith so I would be exiled. So all the events it foresaw would fall into place. It spoke to Marada when she came to this world and pretended to need her help. She told me The Book of the Adversary was the one Koshan text she didn't need to read. She thought she knew all there was to know. But none of us knew."

  Rian looked at the girl again. "So she's like one of the original Ancestors. When she dies..."

  "Her spirit will join the Infinite and become the new Adversary."

  Maskelle drew her robes around her and they went up to the Ariaden's camp. Rastim was a little nervous at being left alone with the Celestial One and looked relieved to see them. They took seats near the firepit and the girl moved immediately to settle at Maskelle's side.

  "You have a great responsibility," the Celestial One said, looking up at Maskelle, his tone solemn.

  "I've always had a great responsibility," Maskelle told him. "This is nothing new." She looked down at the girl fondly. "Well, it's a little new."

  The old man snorted in annoyance, but only said, "What will you do?"

  Rian looked at Maskelle. They hadn't exactly discussed this. She shrugged. "I don't know." She gave Rian a faint smile and he realized that she didn't particularly care where they went.

  The Adversary was dead, and though she had the guardianship of its successor, this was the first time in many years that she had been free. Rian smiled back.

  "Stay with us for a time," Rastim said suddenly, leaning forward. "We can tour the larger cities in the Empire. The roads are good and the audiences love us. When things calm down in Duvalpore we can come back." He rubbed his chin and added speculatively, "If we're still popular, I'm thinking of opening a theater, a permanent one. We're all getting older and it would be nice to have a home."

  The Celestial One shook his head. "She should stay close to the temples."

  "She should have as wide an experience of the world as possible," Maskelle countered firmly. She lifted her brows and added, "That's what the Adversary wanted."

  "Hmph." The Celestial One sat back with a disgruntled expression and looked inclined to argue.

  Rian suspected this argument had been going on since Maskelle had returned to the Marai. Maskelle continued, "It wanted her to live as a person, to learn compassion and morality, the way the Ancestors did when they were human. And besides," she gave him an arch look, "she's half Sitanese, so it's not your decision. The Adversary is a warrior and she needs to learn about that from Rian."

  Everyone looked at Rian, except for the girl, who, never still for long, was wandering back toward the patch of grass where the oxen were grazing. Rian tried to look enigmatic. He still wasn't sure how he felt about all of this, but even after only a few hours' acquaintance he liked the girl. He could see a great deal of Maskelle in her already, and the occasional glimpses he caught of himself were startling.

  "You'll take care of her?" the Celestial One asked him, his voice gruff.

  "Taking care of people is what I do," Rian told him.

  The Celestial one sighed and folded his hands, looking away. "Well?" Maskelle prompted. "I was raised in the temples at a high rank and it didn't do me any good. With her power it would be worse for her."

  "You have told me that it isn't my decision," the Celestial One said stiffly.

  "I'm humoring you." She smiled.

  He shook his head at her, but he couldn't keep the amusement from showing in his face. He asked "What will you call her?" and it appeared the decision was made.

  Maskelle looked at Rian, who shrugged. He had never had to name any children before. She said, "What about 'Siri'? It's the Sitanese word for a type of sword."

  The Celestial One eyed the girl, who was stroking the forehead of one of the oxen. He said wryly, "That will probably do very nicely."

  About the Author:

  Martha Wells is the author of over a dozen fantasy novels, YA fantasies, and media tie-ins, including The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air, The Gate of Gods, The Element of Fire, and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer. Her newest series, The Books of the Raksura, beginning with The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, and The Siren Depths, was published by Night Shade Books. She has had short stories in the magazines Black Gate, Realms of Fantasy, Lone Star Stories, Lightspeed Magazine and Stargate Magazine, and in the Tsunami Relief anthology Elemental, The Year's Best Fantasy #7, Tales of the Emerald Serpent, and The Other Half of the Sky. She has essays in the nonfiction anthologies Farscape Forever and Mapping the World of Harry Potter from BenBella Books. Her web site is www.marthawells.com.