City of Light (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy)

by Wight, Will

  I'll tell him, Rebekkah said casually. He needs to know.

  It was a good life while it lasted, Lilia sighed.

  The Eldest told us not to! Angeline put in.

  A few of the others started to argue, until it sounded like a whispered twelve-sided debate in the middle of a windstorm.

  Finally, Caela's voice cut through the rest. Actually, I believe I've thought of a solution, she sent, her mental voice pleased.

  The others stopped for a second, and in the moment of quiet they all seemed to come to some sort of agreement.

  Oh! That's a good point.

  If anyone would know, he would.

  I'm sure he's not afraid of the Eldest.

  What would he have to be afraid of?

  Finally, Simon cut in. What are you talking about?

  There was a brief silence, which Simon felt certain was filled with condescending pity.

  Think about it, Simon, Caela said. Who knows everything there is to know about Valinhall? Who would gladly tell you anything the Eldest won't?

  Then Rebekkah jumped in, as subtle as ever: Who is currently stuck in the graveyard with nothing to do but answer your questions?

  Simon felt like an idiot. I should have asked Valin these questions a long time ago, right?

  You're learning, Otoku said.

  I'm surprised it only took him this long, another doll sent.

  He may be slow, but at least he's... Lilia's voice trailed off.

  Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Simon leaned back against his pillow and sighed. Now if only I could move.

  ***

  It had only taken Simon about six hours to climb to his feet, according to the clock beside his bed. Someone had pounded on the door a few hours before, but since Simon was physically incapable of shouting or rising to answer it, the mysterious person was on their own. It was probably Andra anyway.

  The dolls had taken turns entertaining Simon with their favorite stories during his paralysis, some of which had involved Kai. Many of them were embarrassing incidents featuring him. For some of those, he hadn't even had a doll with him.

  He almost called steel so that he would turn into an Incarnation and be done with it. By the time he was strong enough to limp to the hallway, he almost wept with relief.

  You're welcome! Otoku called, cheerily, as Simon left.

  He breathed a sigh of relief as he reached the hall, though it took all his concentration and both hands against the wall for him to stay upright, much less walk.

  To his surprise, Overlord Feiora was waiting for him. She wore solid black, though her armor from the day before was missing, and her blunt face hardened on seeing him. “Good, you're awake. You need to take me back.”

  “Sorry,” Simon said, pushing himself a few feet down the hall. “I can't help you right now.”

  “You can and you will,” she said. “I have business that can't wait.”

  “Same here.” Maker, how long would it take him to get down this hallway? It had never seemed so long before.

  Feiora stared at him as though she couldn't figure out what he was talking about, and was stuck deciding whether or not to break his legs. “It's an order from an Overlord, Traveler.”

  “Not from Damasca,” he said. “Sorry.” Later, he would probably regret talking to her like this, but he had spent hours being bullied by the Eldest and embarrassed by his own advisors. He wasn't exactly in the right mood.

  “You're from the village of Myria,” she said. “I'm an Avernus, and I like to know who I'm working with. Myria is as much a part of the kingdom as Bel Calem.”

  “Who says?”

  “Centuries of tradition! Thousands of maps!”

  “Get new maps.”

  That didn't even slow her down. She started talking about how the kingdom could be falling apart, and he was stopping her from saving lives, and he couldn't imagine what was at stake, and a few other things that he didn't much pay attention to.

  He'd known that he shouldn't have tried being clever with her. It never worked. So he resorted to his old habit: saying nothing. Simon pulled himself along the wall, through the House, and into the garden.

  Overlord Feiora didn't stop until he shut the door to the rain garden almost on top of her. She couldn't open it, but she did pound on the stone for a while, shouting something muffled that sounded like curses.

  Simon was already relaxing in the beautiful sounds of the steady rain and the wind through the nearby plants—and the glorious lack of anyone speaking to him—when he realized that, since the graveyard had moved, the courtyard wasn't directly accessible through the rain garden anymore. He had gone the old way. If he wanted to do this without doubling back, he was going to have to cross through six rooms, and in at least three of them he'd have to fight his way through.

  At the thought, he almost cried.

  ***

  Two hours later, panting and covered in shallow slashes, Simon arrived at the graveyard.

  Valin wasn't there.

  The sheets of emerald lightning rolled overhead, lending the usual green cast to the headstones and ivy-shrouded pillars. Simon usually saw Valin sitting on one of the tombstones, or else locked in combat with Kai.

  Today, he saw no one.

  Simon walked forward on shaky legs, concentrating on not falling over. Valin wasn't behind the first stone column, as he had half-suspected, nor was he behind the second. He glanced over behind the first row of graves...

  And there he saw Valin, crumpled in a pile of tangled limbs. He couldn't have been sleeping; no one could sleep with their legs twisted at different angles. Besides, one hand was outstretched toward the hilt of a sword that rested a foot away on the grass. Either he had been crawling toward it, or he'd dropped it when he fell.

  Simon collapsed to his knees by the Wanderer's body, feeling the man's neck for a pulse. Nothing. His skin was waxy and cold, and his gray eyes stared blankly into the dirt.

  So he's dead, Simon thought. Again. I wonder if it will stick this time?

  The strangest thing, to him, was that he couldn't see any obvious wounds. He would have thought that, if a room guardian were killed, it had to be the result of someone challenging the room. But if Kai had killed his former master at last, there should be some evidence of it. Blood, sword wounds, something.

  Maybe the Eldest Nye's resurrection technique had been temporary, and Valin had simply returned to his natural state. That would make sense, but if that were the case, why had the Eldest given him a position as a room guardian? He should have known that Valin could pitch over dead at any time.

  Then Valin heaved a great breath and bolted upright, his eyes widening.

  Simon almost fell backwards, startled but not surprised. He hadn't really expected the Wanderer to stay dead.

  Valin squeezed his eyes shut, at the same time pulling a dagger away from Simon's throat.

  That, on the other hand, surprised him quite a bit. He hadn't even noticed that Valin had a knife.

  “How long has it been?” Valin rasped, his throat sounding caked with dirt.

  “I saw you yesterday,” Simon responded. “Or...maybe the day before, I'm not sure.”

  Valin blinked his eyes open and gave Simon an easy smile. “At least it wasn't twenty-five years, this time. Are you here for training?”

  Simon eased himself onto a gravestone, trying not to fall off. “I met the Eldest today.”

  “Oh, I get it.” Valin pulled one arm over his head, stretching sore muscles, then he cracked his neck with a sharp sound that made Simon wince. “You've got questions.”

  “Yeah. My first one: does this happen to you every time? The dead thing, I mean.”

  Valin rolled his chain-wrapped shoulders, working them loose. “I'm only around when the room needs me,” he said. “Usually, that's when a Traveler's here. When nobody's around, I get weaker and weaker until, eventually, I keel over and die.” He paused for a moment, then added, “It got worse after what I did for you the other day, cal
ling on my old power for a few minutes. Turns out that wasn't such a good idea. Who knew?”

  “So you're not...” Simon stopped. He wasn't even sure what question he wanted to ask, much less how he was supposed to say it.

  The older man flexed his fingers, opening and closing his fists. “I don't understand how the Eldest brought me here. I wonder, sometimes: was I actually dead? I feel like myself, and yet...thin, somehow. Sort of hazy, like a ghost.” The Wanderer looked off into the distance, far past Simon. “I don't know how he did it, but I wish he hadn't.”

  Simon waited, wary of saying something to set him off.

  “But I'm here now,” the man continued, brushing dirt from his pants. “And I don't think you have to worry about ending up like me, so you can relax. I'm Valinhall's Founder; it's as much a part of me as I am of it. Not to mention that I was an Incarnation at the time, so...”

  He shrugged. “Was that it? Were you worrying about having to share a room with me? I have it on good authority that I don't snore while I'm dead.”

  “Not quite,” Simon said. The thought of ending up like Valin had never occurred to him, but it didn’t sound so bad. No matter what the Wanderer said, working as a room guardian in Valinhall still had to be better than dying. “The Eldest mentioned that you were the Founder, and I'd never heard that before today. What does that mean, exactly?”

  Valin glanced in his direction, and then away. He stepped forward, putting his short sword through a casual three-part combination that de-limbed and decapitated an invisible opponent. While he moved, he spoke. “He's setting you up as the Founder's heir, is he?”

  “Uh, yes. Yes, he is. I was hoping you could tell me what that means.”

  At the end of a thrust that skewered another non-existent man through the heart, Valin shrugged. “I'm not too surprised it's you. From what I hear, Kai hasn't done much in the past two and a half decades, and there had to be some reason why the Eldest gave the Nye essence to a new kid. Why do you think he picked you? Instead of, say, Denner or Indirial.”

  Valin was picking up speed, slashing imaginary opponents behind him, to either side, and even above. Simon took one prudent step back; the Wanderer seemed to think that friendly, good-natured violence was all in good fun, and he was more that capable of attacking without warning. As he had proven often enough in the past.

  “The Eldest said everyone else had turned him down,” Simon responded.

  “That ought to tell you something, don't you think? If the Nye passed up two—well, Kathrin's still alive, so three—highly trained and experienced Travelers, and he's trying to put you in charge...I can only think of one reason.” Valin spun, his sword blurring to a halt in front of Simon's nose. Simon didn't flinch; for Valinhall, this wasn’t worth noticing.

  “He wants a Founder who will do what he says. Seven stones, I never listened to him, and it seems like Kai isn't listening to anybody. Kathrin would do what she wanted even if the Eldest had his chain around her throat, Denner takes every chance he can get to leave the House, and Indirial would probably bring everything to his Queen first.” Valin spat to one side. “That leaves someone new, preferably someone young and ignorant enough that he'll do whatever the Eldest tells him.”

  Simon bristled at the comment about his ignorance, but he cast his mind back over his early conversations with the Eldest. It seemed to fit. He had always known that the Eldest was trying to scam him into a bad deal, but his real question remained: how bad of a deal was it, really?

  “He hasn't asked me to do anything terrible, so far,” Simon said. “Nothing I might not have done on my own.”

  Valin propped one leg up on a headstone and leaned down on it, stretching out the muscle. “I know how he works. You've done exactly what he wants, but somehow you always end up deeper in his debt than before. Am I right? You brought him some new artifact or something, and then he acted like he was doing you a favor by letting you use it.”

  Simon thought back to the mask. “Yes, actually.”

  The Wanderer laughed, shaking his head. “When you get to be a few centuries old, I guess you never change. Listen. All the Eldest wants is the expansion of Valinhall at all costs, because the healthier and stronger this Territory is, the more power he's got. He'll want you to raid other Territories for weapons and creatures, find enough bearers for all thirteen Dragon's Fangs, anchor the deep rooms so that they're passable again, and ideally bring a population of human servants here to work under the Nye. It's a lifetime of work, and he'll never be satisfied.”

  “He did ask me to find the lost Dragon's Fangs,” Simon said. “That was one of the first things he asked me to do.”

  Valin whirled on Simon, sword clenched in one fist. “Lost Fangs? Plural? They're not here, in the House?”

  Simon shook his head.

  The bald man plopped down on a gravestone, driving his sword into the ground with more force than necessary. “How many do we have left?”

  “Six, I think,” Simon said. “Indirial, Denner, Andra, Kai, and I all have one. Plus Kathrin is supposed to have one, but I've never met her.”

  “They lost half my swords!” Valin exclaimed. “More than half! I don't—all right, kid, look. The Eldest is right about some things, and he's wrong about others. He may be old and mysterious and creepy as a Strugle—”

  A what? Simon wondered.

  “—but he can be wrong, like everybody else. He's right that, if things keep going as they are, Valinhall's going to drift apart. It'll end up like I found it, and that's...” He shuddered. “Believe me, nobody wants that. And if he thinks we need a Founder to prevent that, he's probably right. But listen to me, and listen close.”

  Valin leaned forward, and Simon found himself unable to look away. The Wanderer's gray eyes shone with a hint of metallic silver, as though the Incarnation of Valinhall spoke through him. “If we need a leader, we need one who knows what he's getting into, and who chose to do it. This Territory was left in the hands of four people who didn't want to take responsibility for it, and it's falling apart. Using lies and traps to snare a Founder won't work. We need someone to step up, do you understand?”

  He did, and the words sounded great in theory, but he was worried about something a little more practical. “How am I supposed to say that to the Eldest? Right to his face...er, his hood.”

  Valin grinned and leaned back. “The Eldest forgets that, if he puts you in charge, then you get to be in charge. Ultimately, that means you do what you want. Not what he wants. Sometimes, you have to remind him of that.”

  Simon sat in place for a moment, mulling it over. He didn't want to lead Valinhall. Ideally, Kai or Indirial would do it. But the Eldest wanted him to lead, and that meant that, for once, he had some leverage.

  He stood and, after a moment's hesitation, bowed to Valin like one of the Nye. “Thank you,” he said simply.

  Valin waved away the thanks. “Don't forget to come by and resurrect me every once in a while, okay? I don't want to wake up and find out I've missed a quarter of a century. Again.”

  Simon left the room, heading for the Nye's lair. The Eldest had taken something from him, and if he wanted to start acting like he was in charge, he needed to take it back.

  ***

  As soon as the kid was gone, Valin rose back to his feet and called out, “So what did you think?”

  A patch of shadow slid out from behind a column, resolving in to the figure of the Eldest Nye. “You told him far too much,” the Eldest rasped. “And you are turning him against me.”

  Valin gave him an insolent grin, purely out of spite. The Eldest hated being mocked. “I thought you'd like that.” With one hand, he tossed his sword high into the air, almost high enough to hit the lightning that danced on the ceiling. “I'm right, and you know it. He can't be what we need if he only does what you tell him.”

  “If he does not do what I tell him, he will not survive,” the Eldest snapped. “I will move him like a puppet if I must, but I will not go back to what
I was. Little more than a shadow.”

  “He seems like he's coming along,” Valin said, catching his sword by the hilt as it came down. “Correct me if I'm mistaken, but it seems like he doesn't have much of a life outside Valinhall. Right?”

  The Eldest said nothing, which Valin took as agreement.

  “Well, then. That's the game half-won. He has nothing to lose by doing what you want. Maybe he won't do it the way you want, or when you want, but he'll be working with you instead of against you.”

  Slowly, the Eldest shook his hood. “You do not know him as well as you think. At times, the son of Kalman is a boulder rolling downhill. He decides that he must do something, and he lets nothing stop him. Even when it would be wiser to stop. But that is only sometimes. The rest of the time, he is a leaf in a breeze. He does not know what he wants, so he does what others tell him. It is an irritating combination.”

  Valin stared up at the lightning crackling on the ceiling. The Eldest had argued against the construction of this very room, but it had always been one of Valin's proudest achievements. “There's your mistake, Ka'nie'ka. You're trying to keep him from deciding, so that you can steer the leaf wherever you like. I don't want a leaf. I want a boulder. We don't want to stop him from making up his mind, we want him to make up his mind in a way that helps us.”

  He looked back down to see the Eldest looking thoughtful. He decided to press his advantage. “You're well on your way. In a year or two, perhaps as many as five, he'll be ready. You've got to win him over, instead of tricking him into serving you.”

  “Kai stands in the way,” the Eldest rasped, but he sounded contemplative rather than angry.

  “You're worried about Kai? The Kai I remember might have been a problem, but that Kai would have made an excellent Founder. This one...”

  Even more than seeing the state of his Territory, even more than realizing his students had betrayed him, even more than remembering how he betrayed his students, Kai had been the greatest disappointment to Valin. He remembered an eccentric genius who practically radiated potential, not this...broken wreck who wanted nothing more than to play with his dolls.

  But then, it was Valin who'd broken him.