A Breach in the Heavens

by NS Dolkart

  “So she… left?”

  “She left. She said you were going to start a school here and bring academic wizardry back to the world, and that the best way to make sure the place didn’t burn down first was to go. Is that true?”

  “That I’m going to start a school of academic wizardry?” Phaedra thought of Dessa, and of all the seekers of magic who might come after her, and she nodded. “Yes. I will. You’ll help me, though, right? We can found that school together?”

  “I can move books,” Hunter said. “I can’t teach anyone magic.”

  She laughed and kissed him again, and threw her arms over his shoulders. “Oh, Hunter, this is going to be such a good life.”

  He nodded. “Long and meaningful. That’s what my father said when he came back from the Oracle of Laarna: that if I left on that fishing boat with you, my life would be long and meaningful. Did you know that’s the one prophecy I never really believed?”

  “But you believe it now?”

  “How could I not?”

  Phaedra beamed and took his hand, and they walked through the open archway together.

  43

  Psander

  The elf-magic she had stolen from her enemies proved useful for more than just driving the queen away: it gave her the power she needed to pull her full fortress – what remained of it, anyway – through the gate to Tarphae.

  There was no time to reverse her wards, to turn them from projecting the sensation of Godly protection back to concealing the fortress from those Gods Themselves. The most she had time for was to ward her body – and her body alone – against the Gods’ sight, and even that wouldn’t last more than an hour or so. It was time, at long last, to go out and meet her fate.

  The villagers had fled already by the time she gave Hunter her instructions and struck out into the forest. She had no destination but “away,” no distance she had to travel besides “far enough,” and for the first and last time since early childhood, Psander’s mind was quiet. At long last, the days of planning her next move were over.

  It was a curious thing that now that she had mere minutes to live, she suddenly felt she had time. Time to reflect, to breathe in the fresh, vaguely-salty air of the island and admire the way the sun shone through Tarphae’s tall, straight guardian trees. She could hear birds trilling audaciously up above, just far enough away to be unconcerned with Psander’s presence. For decades she had dealt in the sort of magics that altered one’s natural aura in ways that animals found unsettling; she hadn’t heard such nearby birdsong in ages. No wild or feral animal would bother her here, not unless some God chose to make the wildlife Its weapon. Especially compared to those in the elven world – the former world, that was – the forests of Tarphae were so gentle and benign. It was a shame she had never visited this place before.

  But then, she would never have appreciated it back then, not unless she had felt resigned, as she now was, to her life’s end. Some things, one needed perspective for.

  She thought she had done well in this life, all things considered. She had certainly succeeded in her original goal to become a master wizard the same way her uncle had been a master glassblower, to surpass all others in her craft. She hadn’t only surpassed all the others: she had outlived them by decades, plundered their libraries whenever she had the chance, and built perhaps the finest collection of books the world had ever known. Her magic had defied Gods, and her ideas had reshaped worlds. She couldn’t have asked for a much greater legacy than that.

  She had high hopes that her legacy would live on in Phaedra and whatever students she could attract. Phaedra might have despised Psander for her methods, but she was an even-handed woman, and she would not fail to honor the wizard who had rescued academic wizardry from its many enemies and preserved such a library that its study could be revived within a generation.

  Yes, Phaedra had a lot to thank her for, if she had in fact survived the worlds’ merger. Phaedra’s aspirations, her learning, even her ability to pursue magical knowledge and a lover at the same time, she owed to Psander. Psander didn’t think she would forget.

  It was a shame to be leaving the world just as the Gods’ influence on it was about to wane, but Psander knew that influence couldn’t possibly recede fast enough to save her. In any case, no human had ever yet achieved immortality. One was bound to leave this place sometime.

  It was strange the way anxiety vanished when death stopped being a possibility and became a certainty. When she had invited the elves into her home, the anxiety had been almost unbearable. Now, ambling away to meet her doom, Psander was calm.

  Deep in the woods, the dragon was waiting for her.

  It was enormous, far larger than she had imagined, but lither too. It had knocked down a few trees, but had mostly settled itself between them, its long tail snaking out of sight. It studied her with coal-black eyes, specked here and there with gold.

  “You must be Salemis,” Psander said. “I have heard much of you, but never thought I’d get to meet you. What are you doing here?”

  The dragon lifted its enormous head and answered her, in a series of perfectly-coherent hisses, “You have come to ask something of my God. I am here to help you.”

  Psander smiled ruefully. “I am in no position to ask your God for favors. I have never served God Most High, only my own principles, and I have no leverage to speak of. If you leave me here, the other Gods will smite me before your back is fully turned.”

  “You have come here to sacrifice yourself,” the dragon prophet answered her. “I am not mistaken. But you would offer that sacrifice without atoning or giving thanks, without even a request? I did not come here to dissuade you, wizard. I have come to accept your sacrifice on behalf of my God, so that your spirit will rise to meet Him and not lie at the mercy of your enemies. So tell me: there is a reason you have not stayed in your home, but instead came here to find me. Make your request.”

  Psander’s eyes widened as Salemis spoke, then filled with inexplicable tears. She had never expected this. Never in a thousand years.

  “I do not deserve this offer of yours,” she said.

  “Nonetheless, I am here.”

  “You would come to meet me here, knowing that I have come to die at the Gods’ hands as their enemy, and offer to sanctify my death? What have I done to elicit such generosity?”

  “You changed the heavens and the earth, Psander. Phaedra did not conceive of her plan alone – you have always been the unseen force, hiding where no one but those children could reach you. You gave them the help they needed to rescue me, the knowledge they needed to make peace between my descendants and their neighbors, and when I thought we had arranged everything so that the world’s repentance would save it from the Yarek, it was you who gave Phaedra her plan to unify the Yarek and ask it to repent too.”

  “I never said anything to her about repentance.”

  “You altered my God’s plans and extended more of His mercy into the world. Your intentions are not my concern.”

  Psander stared long and hard at the dragon prophet. “Are you here on your God’s behalf, or on your own?”

  “God Most High will grant me this favor. It is with His permission that I came to wait for you.”

  “Then here is my request of your God: let this all be worth it. Let the library remain, and let Phaedra find it; let her school flourish and may God Most High send her no students unworthy of her tutelage. Let my home become a place of learning and not of hiding, free of the fear and mortal danger that drove me to build it. Can your God grant me that?”

  Salemis nodded his big head once. “He can.”

  Psander wiped the tears from her eyes. The dragon had not promised that his God would grant her request, only that He could. Even so, it couldn’t hurt to ask for what she wanted; not when she had the opportunity to sanctify the sacrifice she had already chosen to make.

  “Then I am ready.”

  Her mentor Pelamon had once told her that true dragon fire was so hot, a d
irect blast could melt a person’s flesh in a near-painless instant. It was only one among many claims that she had never believed she would have the chance to verify.

  It was quite the legacy she had. Surely the finest academic that ever lived.

  44

  Ravennis

  This is worse than it was when I got here. I finally had a system that was working, You know. I was classifying souls as they came in, and my angels were separating them into their places and harnessing the power of the useful ones to keep the whole system running smoothly. I was well prepared to handle the extra load. Now I don’t even know how many souls got out.

  They will all come back to you eventually, Ravennis.

  You nearly killed me.

  You nearly deserved it.

  Can You blame me? I could see what You were doing, but not one thread of fate showed the Yarek repenting. What was I supposed to do?

  Trust in Me that it was possible. Let the Yarek make its choice.

  And what then? If it didn’t repent, I’d be gone and You would be battling for control again, when all that was supposed to be settled. There was too much at stake.

  The Yarek deserved its chance.

  I knew You would say that. That’s why I tried to keep Phaedra from reaching it: I knew You were too lenient.

  Has it turned out so badly for you, Ravennis? Are you so angry that the Yarek stands?

  I’m angry that You told me it wouldn’t. You encouraged me to go against Your will, so that I further endangered myself. I, the Keeper of Fates, was fed a lie.

  You were not. The threads of fate were My plans from the beginning of days, but things have changed since then. The world has changed, the Yarek has changed, and so have I. I did warn you, Ravennis, that I had seen an end to all things once planned.

  You gave that message to Salemis, not to me.

  I knew you were watching. You never failed Me before.

  Be clearer next time. You gave the Yarek more of a chance than You gave me. If it hadn’t been for Narky and his prayer, I wouldn’t even be talking to You right now.

  Then perhaps you should learn humility from the experience. The prayers of your servants are not to be dismissed.

  You would say that.

  You are still angry.

  The Yarek didn’t deserve Your mercy! What good is it doing now? I can see its influence spreading over the world, weakening my own influence and the others’ too, sealing us in our realms. Destroying it would have been worth the death of the world. What is there that couldn’t have been rebuilt, and rebuilt even better than before? You betrayed us, and all for a world that was flawed from the start.

  Did you create the world that you would have seen destroyed? Who are you to tell Me which creations are worth abandoning?

  Nobody. Just a servant.

  Yes, indeed.

  Epilogue

  The expedition from Ksado arrived two weeks after Phaedra, not in Karsanye but at a much smaller cove on the island’s northern shores. The landing parties made their way across the island, making note of abandoned villages and farmlands long since returned to nature, an empty homeland waiting for new life.

  It was not entirely deserted: the farther they traveled toward the southwestern tip of the island, the more people they spotted, but these seemed to be surveying the island too. The few people who were seen farming were mostly of Essishan descent. A few, thankfully, spoke Estic, though their speech was heavily accented and full of regional variations – bastardized almost beyond recognition, really. Nevertheless, when the scouts reported back to Kvati, they were able to give her a full and complete report.

  On the advice of one of the farmer-slaves, the flotilla circled the island until it came to the port that had once been named for Karassa. Fifty ships, ten thousand souls, came to shore on the island of Tarphae, with Kvati as their leader. At her command, a thousand troops swept across the island, freeing slaves and executing any who opposed the measure. Essisha had abolished the barbaric practice of slavery at the same time it had eliminated its wizards, and Kvati had no interest in re-learning this western savagery.

  At last, her scouts returned with the Wizard Phaedra herself. The two women embraced, and said nearly simultaneously, “I’m glad you’re here.”

  Phaedra’s news came first: there would be no shattering of the world, no crashing of the sky. The cries of those who had begged her God Above All for their lives had been heard, and even the ancient monster Phaedra had planted had echoed their call. Had Phaedra meant to end the world, as Tnachti had believed, it would have ended weeks ago. As Kvati had expected, her armada had come too late.

  But there was no turning back now: the duchess had ordered half her ships dismantled and repurposed into building materials for her people. This would be their home for the next hundred years, and the next thousand. The twenty-five warships that remained would be more than enough to overwhelm a weakened Atunaean navy, for all that the city across the strait was apparently the strongest regional power. The west was lucky no one had thought to expand westward in a thousand years.

  Some changes would have to be made, Kvati told her young friend. This port capital, once called Karsanye, could no longer be named after the Goddess who had tried to drown the expedition in storms. Phaedra had smiled at that and told the duchess – they were calling her the Queen Auntie now – that she had pushed out the Goddess’ influence herself. This change would be a welcome one.

  They named it New Ksado, since the island itself had a name already, and sent Kvati’s soldiers and their families to reclaim the farms, orchards, and shipyards that had once made this island great. Phaedra was declared Royal Wizard, and her fortress was rebuilt from its former ruin into a tower of learning. Soon, hopeful students were arriving from all over the archipelago and the continent too, begging to be taught.

  Kvati was especially pleased with Phaedra’s choice of husband. He was a quiet man, and loyal to a fault, but he was useful for more than making his wife happy: he was also well versed in the local military history, and able to advise Kvati on the various regional powers. He humbly insisted that his information was at least a decade out of date, but a military advisor with his level of knowledge was worth more than ten years of gossip. Besides which, she was sure the man would bring himself up to speed quickly.

  Most valuably for Kvati’s new nation, Phaedra and her husband had close ties to one of the newer continental powers – and, through a renowned witch, also had a line of influence to the Great Tree on the horizon. It was this tree, Phaedra explained, that had nearly ended the world, and more than any nation of men, its power would be growing.

  Kvati’s people were very much attached to their old Gods and their old ways, but the Queen Auntie herself was a pragmatic woman, and adopted her wizard’s God for her own. She was glad when Phaedra did not advise her to take up the local practice of sacrifice, but instead encouraged her to worship this oldest God in a new way. It would not only be more comfortable but useful too to meld the cultures of Essisha and Salemica together. Over time, at their own paces, more and more of Kvati’s people would take up the worship of God Most High – and, one might hope, God Most High’s older worshippers would gradually move away from animal sacrifice. One could ask for a God’s blessing without paying a life for it.

  Increasingly, Kvati felt that her people did have God Most High’s blessing. They had left on their voyage in the hopes of convincing Phaedra to spare their lives, and here they were now, bringing new life and new justice to Phaedra’s homeland while the wizard brought forth old magics and new wisdom from her school. As Kvati told her husband and children, these were the makings of a great nation – and great nations were the foundation of a new world.

  Or as the old Essishan saying, the one that had replaced sacrifice, went: Praise God.

  Acknowledgments

  This was a year of change, much of it for the better but none of it easy. Our trials were many and I struggled to meet my wordcount goals until by
stroke of good fortune we managed to make the switch we’d been dreaming of for years: my wife found a job that could provide for our family, advance her career, and allow me to become the stay-at-home assassin trainer dad I’d always hoped to be.

  It was this switch that made it all possible, and so this time Becky gets thanked first. Thank you so much for bringing home the (kosher turkey) bacon, for giving me the life I dreamed of, and for the five-plus years that you toiled in these dark and lonesome child mines before leaving the easy part to me. That metaphor is absolutely over-the-top ridiculous, but you know what I mean.

  The funny thing is, I had never imagined that being a stay-at-home parent would make me more productive. But that’s because I hadn’t anticipated all the family and institutional support that would allow me to write during daylight hours. It turns out that if somebody you trust is watching your children for a few hours a week, you can get an awful lot of writing done in a very short time.

  So next I’d like to thank my parents and in-laws, who were once more incredibly generous with their time. They played for hours, gave insightful comments on drafts, and encouraged me when finishing seemed impossible.

  To the rest of my family beta readers, Nathan, Becca, and Miriam, thanks for all your feedback and support. It means so much to know that there are brilliant, thoughtful people waiting so eagerly to read each draft. Having in-house fans is the best.

  I must also thank the Shaloh House preschool, its Chabad director Rabbi Menachem Gurkow and preschool director Marilyn Rabinovitz, and its many wonderful teachers. Their warmth and generosity allowed me to dedicate many mornings to putting one word in front of the other without worrying about my children’s welfare. They made my children happy and my writing goals attainable, and they deserve my utmost thanks.

  You know who I haven’t thanked before, but who really, really deserves thanks? Andreas Rocha, who made all three of the absolutely gorgeous covers for this series. He has an amazing knack for taking a short descriptive paragraph and making it look exactly the way I imagined, except better. They say not to judge a book by its cover, but thanks to Andreas I won’t mind if you do. Good covers have the power to introduce readers to authors they don’t know, and when I started out, nobody knew me. Thanks for your help in changing that.