The Undying Man had not been exaggerating the magical requirement for forming solid matter from air. It required a gathering of the air itself, compressing it until it was strong enough to support a man’s weight. Two men’s weight. It made no sense—the air was an in-substantial nothing, surely? But she thought of the wind, and could understand that a breeze was the movement of something.
Hah, she said, as the work suddenly became easier. Part of the problem was in imagining it correctly. Now she saw air as just another substance, albeit a thin one, she got on much more effectively. Just as well, as she had to support her men over a gap of twenty steps.
“How much more?” Duon gasped.
Arathé had drained those around her rather deeply. She shrugged.
As much as you have to, Duon said. She smiled gratefully at him.
A short while later Noetos and Anomer emerged from the thickening smoke and Arathé hugged them both. The others leaned against the warm stone wall, as far from the edge of the floor as possible.
“He holds the door,” Duon said to Noetos.
“The door wants to open to the pull of the fire below,” the fisherman said, and drew his sword. He wedged it in a crack in the seal of the door, then nodded to his son and daughter. “See if you can lift the latch even a fraction.”
“We don’t have much magical power remaining,” Anomer said.
“Just a fraction,” his father repeated.
Duon drew his own blade and found another place to wedge it.
Both men leaned on their swords and Anomer saw the blades begin to bend. With a grunt he drew on everything around him.
The fire, Arathé. We can draw from the fire. It is alive, after a fashion.
Her eyes widened.
The door crashed open, broke free of its hinges and tumbled across the floor towards her.
“No!” came the cry from at least three throats.
She ducked, but it took her in the lower back, knocking her off her feet, along the floor and out into the vast open space of the tower.
Terror. She closed her eyes and waited to hit the ground.
Opened them again to find herself suspended in midair.
The Undying Man stood in the middle of the floor, one arm outstretched. The hand was missing, she noticed muzzily.
“You tried to fall to your death once before,” he said to her. “You’re persistent, at least. Family trait.”
She found herself floating pleasantly to the floor. When she tried to stand up, she fell back to the ground.
“I suppose you think this pays your debt,” Noetos said into the silence.
The man gave him an ironic smile. “Yes, I do, as it happens.”
“We lost Cyclamere,” Noetos added.
“I felt him fall. He was too far away for me to help.”
The travellers reassembled in the room.
“Not long, I think,” Duon said, his hand resting lightly on the stone. “The tower is close to collapse.”
“Then perhaps you might like to try this rope I’ve hauled up here,” said the Lord of Bhrudwo.
The problem of how to anchor the rope was solved by Anomer, who used magic to punch out two sections of the wall on the far side of the room. He then threaded the rope through both holes and made it fast.
“Sailor’s hitch,” he said to his father, the ghost of a smile on his face.
“I’d better check it then,” Noetos replied.
“As always,” said Anomer.
But their banter was light of heart, and Arathé knew something new had grown between them—or, at least, something old had died.
The climb down the rope was forever blurred in Lenares’ memory. Exhausted from lack of food and drink, chronic fatigue and sleeplessness, drained by the events of this night, she could do nothing but cling to the rope as it was let down. A dozen people paid out the rope and she was in no danger of falling as long as she retained her grip, but she could not shake her fear.
She filled her mind with a simple count of the rows of stones as they moved up past her. She debated for a while whether to count the three rows that had collapsed together, and noted with interest the scorch marks on her tunic from where she’d had to scramble outwards over the molten stonework.
Then it was over, with a suddenness that took her by such surprise she collapsed to the ground, close to fainting away.
A familiar face bent over her.
“Lenares, are you hurt?” Torve asked.
“Yes,” she said truthfully. “My hands are sore from the rope and I have burns on my knees. But I will recover from these things.”
The Omeran laughed. Rather than picking her up, he snuggled down beside her and held her close.
“You are the bravest and cleverest person I have ever seen,” he said, his breath hot in her ear. “And I have seen explorers, dukes and emperors.”
“Torve,” she said, easing herself onto an elbow so she could better look into his dark eyes. “You love me.”
His lovely eyes widened a little. “I do,” he said, a smile breaking out on his broad face. “But it is traditional to let the man tell rather than be told.”
“I don’t care about tradition,” she said. “I only care about you.”
A short while later she unfastened her mouth from his. “Cylene has given me some very interesting advice. Perhaps when we’ve recovered a little I will share it with you.”
Torve nodded happily. “I will listen,” he said.
Lenares was woken by a hand on her shoulder. After a short while stretching her limbs, easing out the cricks and kinks, she fought her way to her feet and looked about her.
It was morning. Just before dawn, to be precise: the glow in the east made the oily sea look like it was on fire—
Lenares snapped her head around. She had been lying on a blanket placed on soft turf, perhaps a thousand paces away from Andratan. Five-towered Andratan still, but the Tower of Farsight was on a lean.
“You would not have forgiven me, love, had I not woken you to see this,” Torve said, coming to stand beside her.
“Did we all get down safely?”
“Every one of us,” Torve said. “Though it was very difficult for the last three or four. They had to clamber down the rope rather than be lowered. Noetos was the last, and he tore the skin from both hands in trying to hold on.”
Torn skin seemed a small thing. “Is he—”
“His daughter healed him.”
Smoke billowed out of every window in the tower, including the one at the very top. The lower windows glowed red.
“Where are the others?” she asked.
“Taking breakfast in the banqueting hall. Arranged by Bregor and Consina, apparently. They have convinced the castellan that we are allies of the Undying Man, and for now we are being treated as nobility.”
An audible groan came from the direction of the tower.
“Is the Undying Man himself not ordering things?”
“He is still in the tower.”
“Oh.” He means to die there.
“Noetos told us he begged the man to come down the rope, but he would not leave the dead queen’s side. The fisherman thinks he has gone quite insane.”
“A characteristic of emperors,” Lenares said.
Another groan, followed by a loud crack. The tower settled visibly lower.
A thought crossed her mind and she turned to the west, where the last of the night still resisted the incursion of day. Yes, there it was. The hole in the world, now a circle of stars, a new constellation set in the sky, as though a new piece of fabric had been sewn in by a master tailor. And a gifted seamstress, if she read the numbers she could see correctly. For a moment a patch of mist drifted across the scene and she clicked her tongue in anger, but within minutes the sky cleared and she peered at the stars with nearly closed eyes.
“Torve,” she said, reaching out and taking his hand, “the work is nearly finished.”
“What do you mean?”
“The last thread is being sewn into the repair even as we look. Can you see?” She pointed to the sky.
“No,” he said. “But I can imagine it. Tell me what you see.”
She had begun to cry. “I see two threads—no, three threads woven into the hole. One is golden, so beautiful. That would be the Father. The second is white, much more pliant than the golden thread, woven in a delicate but strong pattern. It binds the golden thread to the sky.”
“Stella,” Torve said. He too was weeping.
“Yes. And, Torve, there is a third thread. It is blue. There isn’t much of it, and it is very thin, but it is the finest weave of all. Oh, oh, I recognise it.”
He shook his head. “I cannot guess, love,” he said.
“She is… she is so beautiful. The weave is exactly in the pattern I wove when I trapped Umu. I can see her!”
“Your mother,” Torve said, and her heart loved him for it.
“Now the hole is sealed, she no longer has to thwart Keppia’s return to Cylene. Oh, I hope Cylene is still alive.”
“I can’t imagine Noetos allowing the Father to cut off the magic necessary to keep Cylene alive, can you?”
They both laughed amid their tears.
A loud rumble signalled the end of the Tower of Farsight. Their heads turned in time to see the tower topple, falling to the right, away from the fortress proper and towards the sea. Smoke climbed to the heavens as the structure fell. The stone spire struck the ground, and a moment later the wumph! arrived at the same time as the shaking of the earth. The roar seemed to grow in volume, dying away slowly.
Small figures emerged from the gates of the fortress, drawn by the sound. As they drew closer, Lenares recognised them.
The smoke and dust began to settle, revealing a long, low pile of rubble extending from the fortress right to the ocean’s edge. The very tip of the tower had landed in the sea.
“Lenares,” Torve said, a strange edge to his voice. Awe, perhaps. “Look at the sky!”
She turned back to the newly patched hole. In the centre, blossoming even as she watched, was a new star. For a moment it rivalled the sun in intensity, then it faded slowly, though still the brightest star in the sky. As they watched, awaiting the arrival of their friends, the sun began to chase the stars from the sky, one by one. But it could not quite remove the newest star of all.
“Goodbye, Stella,” Lenares said.
There is very little of Husk left. He has been gradually eroding away, as though he is a sandbank in spring. He has given up trying to reconnect to his mind. His body has already ceased all meaningful movement.
The fire has finally made it to the room. He can sense when the floor ignites: the flash of heat sears his already corroded flesh. He feels the floor move, beginning to buckle.
And still the Lord of Bhrudwo does not move.
The man’s fate consumes Husk now. He has nothing else to fix on: he has no hope of personal survival. But he wills, with the little he possesses, the Undying Man to remain where he is.
Fall with your tower. Let your life collapse in ruins.
The body lying beside the man is dead, and has been dead for most of a night, yet has not begun to corrupt. There is still magic at work. Inaccessible to him.
There is a rumble from far below and the floor lurches, then settles back. And lurches again—and this time does not settle, continuing to fall.
Too late, fool, Husk says, his gloating the last act of his life.
He rises from the floor, his soul still trapped in a dead body, as the tower descends. He wills his own death, not wanting to end in pain—
There is movement in the room. The crash blots out all sensation. He loses all contact with his body. Awake in a tiny universe of darkness the size of his soul. He will never know whether his hated adversary chose to escape.
He begins to scream.
After the long walk back to the fortress, and the equally long walk along the corridors to the quarters assigned them, Lenares wanted to shout at everyone to go away. Everyone but Torve. They had told her to take a bath—a bath, with hot water!—and make herself ready for a banquet in their honour. Servants fussed over her, showing her this dress and that, wanting to do things to her hair, telling her how pretty she was. She told them not to touch her, but they didn’t seem to have proper ears in this part of the world.
The problem was, she was awash with emotions. How could one body hold all these feelings? Her Torve had kissed her in front of all their friends, and Cylene had hugged her tight. Everyone but poor Cyclamere had survived the tower, she was told. That had been enough to be going on with, as Mahudia would have said, but there was much more. She had seen the hole in the world repaired, the Most High and Stella sacrificing themselves to keep it closed forever. She had wept as Stella’s star shone brighter and brighter. And Mahudia had been honoured too. Lenares knew from the pattern of Mahudia’s thread that this in part reflected her own bravery, and that in itself was as much glory as she could bear. Her deeds were known. She was not just some pig-girl from the alleyway.
All she wanted to do now was to lie down by herself in a darkened room and think about these things, working them through her mind, turning each one over and over as though they were precious stones. Carefully studying the patterns they made.
Well, perhaps not by herself.
But her sister came for her when she was only half-dressed, and helped her choose something she swore was beautiful on her. Lenares didn’t know if it was beautiful, nor did she care. But she did not want to offend her sister, so she went along with all the fuss.
The banquet room was filled with servants and soldiers, the latter standing to attention, the former hovering around the single table set at the room’s heart. All her friends were there, already seated—was she so very late? She looked for him, for his curly black hair, found him and saw the empty chair beside him. Detaching herself from Cylene, she made her way across the wide wooden floor, remembering a similar walk at the Court of Talamaq.
She’d known nothing then. Of course, she acknowledged, she knew next to nothing now. Her thirst for knowledge would never be satisfied.
To her astonishment, every guest at the banqueting table stood and applauded as she drew near. She looked around to see if someone else had entered the room. Her friends, they were clapping her.
“Why?” she called out. “I did nothing! At the end it was Stella who saved us all. Well, and Noetos helped. Stop clapping me!”
Nothing she said had any effect.
She hurried to her seat and sat down. The others sat as she did, and the applause finally ceased. Cylene took another of the empty seats, between Noetos and Arathé, facing Lenares, and grinned at her.
“What’s so funny?” Lenares asked her in a voice perhaps a little louder than she intended.
One last person came to the table, dressed in servant’s livery. Oddly, all the other servants bowed to him.
“What’s so funny, cosmographer, is that you have absolutely no idea what is about to happen.”
Two surprises jerked her upright. The first was the identity of the speaker.
“I thought you died in the tower,” she said.
The Lord of Bhrudwo bowed to her, looking incongruous in servant’s garb. “I did, in a manner of speaking. But now is not the time for my tale. We are gathered here for yours.”
The second surprise was that she could not read his numbers. Or any of the numbers of those sitting at the table, her friends.
“What has happened?” she asked.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Noetos said from across the wide, food-laden table. “We are assured your—ahm, how did he put it?—your diminution of faculties, yes, that was it, is only temporary.”
The others laughed and smiled at her. But it wasn’t the horrible laughing-at-her kind. It was something else. Lenares began to realise that love was a far broader word than she had ever considered.
“We know a secret,” Cylene said.
&nb
sp; “Don’t tease the girl,” Noetos said in a gruff voice, placing a hand on Cylene’s arm. But he wasn’t really angry at her, only playing.
How did she know this, if her numbers were gone?
She wasn’t an animal after all. She lacked nothing. She just had different abilities. Lenares had known this in her mind, but now, for the first time, she felt it in her heart. She began to cry.
“Not yet, Lenares,” Cylene said. “But soon.”
The cosmographer turned to Torve. “Do you know what is going on?”
“I got here just before you,” he said, “and they clapped me like they clapped you. I know nothing more than you do. Less, probably.”
The Undying Man stood behind Noetos and waited for silence.
“My story is brief, Lenares and Torve, and as everyone else here has heard it at least once, I will make the barest mention of it. As you know, I remained in the tower, heartsick over the death of Stella. I ought not to have been so troubled, I told myself, but she had become a nexus for me—for us all. I saw in her death my own failure, my overweening pride having led me to believe she had been called to be by my side. I never envisioned for a moment I might have been called to be by hers. Had I accepted the role the Most High had planned for me, Stella would be alive today.
“This I learned through the long night as I kept watch beside her body. I knew the Most High had not finished with me as her body did not begin to decay, and I could sense at least a part of them lingering nearby. So I waited. As much to protect her body from whatever spark of life remained in Husk.
“I received my message. It will remain forever secret between myself and the two messengers. I had a decision to make, and I made it at the last possible moment. I removed myself from the tower as it fell, and returned to the fortress.
“But I was given a message for two other people, and a choice for them to make, a choice much different from my own. Lenares and Torve, the Most High has something he wants to ask you.”
Beyond the Wall of Time Page 53
