When they reached Alvin's chamber, he closed the door and wove a Yellow/Blue shield to keep their words from leaving the room.
"Don't tell me you trust him," Faina said, leaning against his desk. She still had trouble thinking of him as Halarik. He was Alvin, the priest who'd been kind to her.
"I don't trust him," Alvin said. "He has his own goals, and he'll only work with us as long as he needs us. After that, he will probably try to kill us." He smiled. "But I'm a god. I'm not so easy to kill."
"I'm just an ordinary Fireweaver," Faina said. "He could kill me easily."
Alvin put a hand on her shoulder. "I won't let that happen to you."
Faina wished she could feel so sure about that. Ever since she'd met Kadin, she had taken on challenges far beyond anything she'd thought she could handle. Yes, she'd been a force in the criminal underworld, but she'd never taken on the truly dangerous missions. She'd always known her limits, and her crime lord had never forced her to push past them.
Now she felt she was heading into that territory. The smart choice would have been to abandon all this insanity, but she couldn't. Kadin was somewhere in the Realm of Shade, and she would not leave his fate in the hands of others.
"We should prepare," Alvin said.
They gathered food and other supplies from the temple. By now, the chaos had died down, but Sun Guards still patrolled the corridors, telling people they should return to their chambers. Alvin and Faina ignored them, and none of the Sun Guards pressed the issue.
Faina strapped a sword and a couple of daggers to her back. Fireweaving was useful, but she had always felt more comfortable with physical weapons. If you knew how to combine them with Fireweaving, they could be very useful, and Faina had the right experience and knowledge.
She had a restless night of sleep, wondering when Teravin was going to tell them that portal was ready, worrying that Teravin would use the portal as a means to kill them. Through the night, she slept for only ten or fifteen minutes at a time. When the sun rose the next morning, she rolled out of bed, giving up the fight.
She felt groggy, but a sense of excitement coursed through her as well, overcoming her sleepiness. She paced near the bed in Alvin's chambers, waiting for him to wake up. When he did, she was relieved to see he looked tired as well.
Perhaps even gods had trouble sleeping every now and then.
A couple hours passed with no signal from Teravin. Faina grew more and more anxious, unable to sit down, pacing feverishly. Alvin watched her with a smile but said nothing.
At last, Faina felt a disturbance in her thoughts. A Blue/Purple weave.
Teravin was contacting her.
It is ready, Teravin sent. He said nothing more.
"I assume you just got the same message I did," Alvin said.
"I wish he'd tell us something more. I feel that something is off here. Atarin said he can see the future. What if he's deliberately understating his ability to read these futures? I think everything he does is cold and calculated, based on these futures, and I don't know what he's going to do in the end."
"I can only guess," Alvin said. "Shall we go, then?"
Faina nodded, and they left his chambers. They made their way through the corridors, which had calmed down completely by now, and returned to the room where Teravin had set up the portal. As soon as they stepped inside, Faina saw it.
It glowed with every color imaginable, the colors forming an intricate swirling pattern. Through that swirl, she could see a misty landscape. Different images flashed by. Rocky terrain. Mountains. Even rivers of lava. All of them contained that thick mist.
"Ready?" Teravin asked, standing beside the portal.
Faina nodded. Her mouth felt too try to speak. She could see it in Teravin's eyes. The darkness. The betrayal. The willingness to do anything to achieve his goals.
She held his gaze too long, and he noticed it. He smiled faintly.
He knows I suspect something, Faina thought. But what could she do? Could they back out now that they knew so much? Teravin was not the kind of man to let his secrets travel far and wide. If they tried to escape this plan now, he would surely have them killed.
"Step into the portal when I tell you," he said. "We must make sure I send you to the right part of the Realm of Shade. Otherwise, our plans will not work out.
Our plans? No, I think you mean your plans.
Again, he smiled as if he could read her thoughts. She glared back at him, but he showed no response.
"It's almost time," he said. "Stand next to the portal."
Faina and Alvin did so, though Faina was sure she was making a horrible mistake. But she had to go there. If there was any chance of finding Kadin and the others, she had to take it. If there was any chance of freeing Aralea and restoring the sun, she wanted to be part of it. Once, she would have thought such goals were insane. In a way, she still did.
But she'd already accomplished so much.
What was a little more insanity?
"Now," Teravin said. Faina almost didn't react in time, but Alvin took her by the hand and dragged her through the portal. She didn't know what to expect when she stepped through, but it felt merely as if she'd walked through any normal doorway.
Once she was on the other side, however, she turned around to see that the portal was gone. They stood atop uneven, rocky terrain, a thin mist swirling around them. Up ahead, perhaps a hundred feet in the distance, rivers of lava cut narrow channels through the landscape. Faina shuddered. Why in the Core would Teravin have sent them here?
"Seems a rather inhospitable place," Alvin said.
"Do you know where we are?"
"I think so. It has been a long time since I've been to the Realm of Shade, but I believe we are perhaps a week's travel from the Source. I'm not sure why Teravin chose to send us here. Perhaps it was the closest place he could find with a portal."
"Or he wants us to die in the lava," Faina said.
"There are surer ways to kill us."
Though Faina hated to admit it, she couldn't argue with that. "All right, where do we go from here?"
Alvin pulled a compass from his pocket. "We are currently east of the Source, so as long as compasses still work properly down here, we should be able to follow the right path."
The mist had begun to thicken. Faina didn't like it at all.
"How do these compasses work?" she asked.
"It's a bit complicated," Alvin said. "Do you know how some materials are attracted to each other? Iron, for example."
"I've seen that."
"It's the same kind of principle, but on a much larger scale. This is due to a principle known as magnetism. Back on my home world, our sciences became much more advanced than yours. That's actually part of how magic came to be, through deep understanding of the laws of the world, which allowed us to create abilities that seemed to break them."
Faina shook her head as they crossed the cracked landscape, keeping a good distance between themselves and any of the rivers of lava. Perhaps she shouldn't have asked a question if she didn't want to hear the entire long-winded answer.
"But that's probably a bit too much for you to understand," he said. "Perhaps I'll explain some of these things if we have enough time. It looks like we might be here awhile after all." He chuckled as he kept a quick pace. "You were asking about compasses. Well, just as some materials exhibit this property known as magnetism, so does the entire world. In fact, every world has what we call a magnetic field. This attracts the iron in the compass, and that makes the arrow point to the north, though that can vary by world. Not all worlds have a magnetic pole situated perfectly to the north."
Faina was completely lost.
"I can see it in your eyes," Alvin said. "You don't understand a thing I'm saying."
She opened her mouth to protest.
"Relax. I don't think you're unintelligent. This is not easy material to understand when you've never been exposed to it before. I wouldn't expect you to understand, though
I think you are quite an intelligent young woman."
That was a strange compliment, but Alvin was a strange person—no, god—and she had to expect statements like that from him. She was beginning to see how he could be Halarik. In fact, she should have seen it at first. He'd always known too much. She'd merely thought he was curious and good at sneaking around, but he was much more than that.
"Tell me more about this world you came from," she said. "I want to understand."
He walked a few moments in silence. "I don't think this is the time or place."
"We're all alone with nothing but mist and rocks. What better time is there?"
He stroked his chin. "Hmm, I suppose you might be right. What do you want to know? I'll try to explain, but I'm afraid you won't understand much of it."
"Only if you're not a very good teacher."
"I don't have much experience in that regard," he said. "Most of my life, I've been hiding who I truly am. You can't explain much when you can't risk anyone knowing the truth."
Faina glanced to her right, where one of the widest rivers of lava cut through the jagged landscape. The lava flowed a good distance below them, but she thought she could feel its heat. She'd never seen lava before, but she'd heard it described. Some of the mountains in the Snow Knife range erupted from time to time.
"Well, I know the truth," she said, returning her attention to Alvin.
"But I'm still not sure you need to know any of this. Most of this is ancient history. It isn't relevant to what we're trying to accomplish now. And unless you're a Traveler, you'll never see any of these other worlds. So why would you want to know about them?"
"I'm curious. Isn't that enough?"
"Let me think about it," Alvin said. "For the moment, we should focus on our surroundings. The Realm of Shade is full of monsters. They can come without warning."
"I don't see anything." Faina fought back her frustration. "Besides, aren't you a god? You should be able to handle a few monsters."
"I have no doubt that I could survive the encounters. It's you I'm worried about."
"Are you saying you care about me?"
"Is that such a strange thing?" he asked.
"You're a god. I'm one person. I'm not even a Firelord."
"And why should that make you any less important? Every person in this world is important to me. Once, that wasn't the case. But now it is. Fireweaver, Sunweaver, Lightless—I don't care. They all deserve a chance at something better."
Alvin—or Halarik—wasn't at all what she'd expected from a god. He seemed like a normal person—more powerful perhaps, but not that different from herself. She couldn't pretend to understand everything he'd done, everything he'd been through. But she could see the man he was now, and she respected that man.
But was it right to think of him as a man? He was a god, wasn't he?
"Why didn't you ever reveal yourself?" she asked, finally voicing a question that had been lingering in her thoughts. "You could have saved the world a lot of trouble. Countless Fireweavers have lost their lives while you've been hiding."
"It wouldn't have changed anything. It might have even made things worse. If I'd revealed myself, Vardin would have found out about it. He would have challenged me, and while I might be powerful, I am nothing compared to him and his brother."
Faina shook her head sadly. "Why do the bad people always seem to be more powerful?"
"It's the nature of power," he said. "It corrupts those who wield it. Some can resist this corruption, but for many, the thrill of power is too much. They enjoy feeling as if they're special. They don't care about those beneath them. I know because I was once that kind of person."
He looked away, as if suddenly losing himself in deep and troubled thoughts. Faina walked in silence, sensing that he didn't want to be disturbed. She surveyed her surroundings again. Everything looked the same. The mist had thickened, so she could barely see the channels of lava cutting through the rocky landscape.
They passed the next few minutes in silence. Faina kept opening her mouth, then deciding against asking him more questions.
When she couldn't take it any longer, she said, "Why do you think Teravin sent us through without following himself?"
"He has his plans. It's impossible to know if he means well for us."
"I highly doubt it."
"I share the same suspicions," Alvin said. "But there's nothing we can do about whatever Teravin's planning. We should focus on our own survival."
"What is our plan?"
"We should go to the Source," Alvin said. "That's where Kadin, Deril, and their father would go. It's the only way to survive in this place." He shook his head slowly. "That is, if they aren't dead already."
"They can't be," Faina said. She couldn't bear the thought of Kadin dying. There was something about him that made her want to spend time with him. She could see the way he felt whenever he looked at her, though she didn't know if she loved him as he loved her.
She certainly cared for him, and that was enough for now.
An orange glow disturbed her from her thoughts. Something was floating in the mist, growing closer. Her heart began to pound. "What is that?"
"Don't worry about it. I can handle it."
They continued toward the orange glow. Faina's legs felt heavy as she walked. At last, the creature came into view. It had a long thin body about three feet in length, and fire encircled that body. It floated through the air in spiraling patterns, looking relaxed, as if it didn't care about their presence. Faina was both fascinated and terrified.
"These are called fire drakes," Alvin said. "They're generally not aggressive. We should still give it some room, though. Don't want to trespass in its territory."
They took a path to the left, which led them close to one of the cliffs at the bottom of which the lava flowed. Faina glanced over the edge, mesmerized by the lava. Even from this height, she could feel its heat. She'd never felt air so warm.
"Is this what the world will feel like once the sun is restored?" she asked.
"It will be an adjustment. That's certain. Everyone is accustomed to the cold. When it suddenly gets warm, it will throw everything into chaos. In the end, it will be a good thing for the world, but it won't be a smooth transition."
Faina had never thought about that. In her mind, if there was a way to restore the sun, it had to be done. But what kind of chaos would that bring to the world? She could imagine it now. People would have to travel farther north or south if they couldn't handle the warmth. Every facet of society would be uprooted, and there was no telling when things would stabilize.
It was a lot to think about.
The next few days passed without incident. Faina and Alvin walked and walked, growing closer to the Source, or so Alvin's compass said. Soon they left the lava fields behind, and then the landscape became even more repetitive. Nothing but rocks. The only variation came in the cracks that ran through the rocks, as well as the occasional small hill.
The mist was everywhere, clinging to Faina. She kept brushing at the dampness as if she could make it disappear. The more time she spent in the Realm of Shade, the more she felt trapped by this mist. Occasionally, they ran across monsters, but Alvin proved his powers as a god. Faina didn't even have to take part in the battles.
A few days after entering the Realm of Shade, they reached a road that cut through the landscape. Small metallic objects at the sides of the road held glowing blue crystals. The objects resembled large candles more than anything.
"Those are wards," Alvin said. "They come from a Realm of Shade that belongs to another world. Travelers like Teravin brought them here."
"What do they do?"
"They keep monsters from getting onto the road. Most of the time."
"That's not very reassuring," she said.
"It wasn't meant to be."
"How much farther to the Source?"
"I'm not sure," he said, "but I think we should head north along this road. It has been a long
time, but this looks like the road that leads to the Source."
"That's not very reassuring either."
"It wasn't meant to be."
Faina couldn't help but smile. Humor was the last thing she'd expect from a god, but the more time she spent with Alvin, the more she realized he wasn't the god she'd always thought. He wasn't anything like a god at all. Were these people even gods?
"Do you consider yourself a god?" she asked as they started to the north. The mist was a bit thinner for the moment, revealing the flat road stretching for a long, long time.
"Gods are supposed to have divine origins," Alvin said. "I did not. Nor did any of the people you might consider gods, on this world or any other. No, we were once normal people. But we had the innate potential for various forms of magic. When we discovered the ability to grant people magic like this, we became some of the most powerful, and when people become powerful, it is only natural that those with less power might view them as gods."
Faina finally summoned the courage to ask a question that had been bothering her for a long time. "Is there an Almighty? People within the Brotherhood of Fire seem to think so, but I've seen no evidence, and I need evidence to believe something like that."
He walked a few steps in silence before saying, "I don't know the answer to that. It's comforting for people to believe there is a supreme being, someone who can watch over all the chaos and protect humanity. But I'm like you. I can't believe that such a being exists without some evidence. Maybe He does exist, but I'm not going to pray to Him and hope He answers my prayers. No, I prefer to handle my problems myself."
"I hope there's an Almighty out there."
"As do I," he said. "But I've never seen His hand in anything."
"We can only depend on ourselves."
"Precisely."
It was difficult to tell how much time was passing, but it felt as if a day passed as they walked along the road. Eventually, they came to a valley in which there was a small city. At the other end of this valley, a giant fortress loomed tall.
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