Tannour should’ve felt nervous—he was risking his A’dal and the Nadori commander, never mind himself—but he walked ver’alir, and the emotions that coursed the Blind Path, of themselves tumultuous and passionate, left no room for unease. He hadn’t dissembled, though. He had no idea if it would work.
He took a moment to focus his intention—he was attempting to do things with Air that no airwalker to his knowledge had ever done—but his mind kept straying with thoughts of Trell.
Tannour finally understood Loukas’s fervent adoration for their A’dal. There was much to be said for a leader who expected impossible things of you. Trell made you want to rise to the challenge. You became more than you were because of him.
Taking a deep breath of resolve, Tannour sent a binding of Air in an arrow shot towards the tower. He made his arrow loop through a shattered window and boomerang back towards him out another. He caught this end as it returned.
One end of this ephemeral rope he kept firmly in his grasp. The other end he secured around Trell and the Nadoriin.
“That feels…interesting.” Lazar remarked.
Tannour kept his eyes on the tower. Already its integrity was starting to fracture beneath the pressure of his binding. He prayed it would last them long enough. “Now’s the time to pray to your gods, Commander.” And without giving him time to do so, Tannour hauled on the air-binding.
Lazar and Trell both swung up past him. Soon they emerged through the cavern’s opening into free air, their boots dangling inches above the water.
Everyone watching either gasped or cursed.
Tannour ignored the storm of startled consternation that followed—soldiers yelling to each other, debating whether or not to try to reach the A’dal, despite Tannour’s admonishment not to—and concentrated instead on pulling.
Slowly, Trell and Lazar floated towards the lines of Converted. Tannour clenched his jaw and mentally hauled on his pulley, trying not to think about all the things that could go wrong, or how fethen angry Loukas would be if he dropped the A’dal to get sucked back down over the waterfall.
Air brought him waves of elemental discord emitting from the tower—plaster, wood and stone in fractious contention. Every inch of force he applied weakened the collapsed tower, so that groans of wood and cracking mortar soon reached his awareness, even if no mortal ears might yet hear them.
Tannour kept steadily pulling until his charges were within reach of Loukas and the men, whereupon he released his air-binding. Trell and Lazar splashed down well behind the point of safety.
But the backlash of releasing the binding whipped through the tower. The structure gave a great, heaving shudder and just…melted in a tumble of stone and chalky water.
Tannour had no choice but to cast himself upwards on Air. He shot out through the hole in the wall before the debris from the collapsing tower blocked him inside. But he’d underestimated the force needed to propel himself far enough to reach the Converted. He saw even before he splashed down in the water that he wouldn’t clear the current—it would drag him right back under, just in time for an avalanche of stone to fall atop him.
Tannour cursed his mis-estimation as he hit. The waves from the collapsing wall shoved him further afield of his aim. Then another wave overwhelmed him and he lost Air completely.
Prepare yourself to meet the Ghost Kings, Tannour Valeri—
A hand closed around his wrist.
The current dragged at him, but the hand held him firmly. Submerged, blind, Tannour strained to grab for the another handhold. Finally, his fingers closed on the man’s other hand. He heard a fractured shout, broken by water’s refraction.
A force began pulling him against the current.
He surged to the surface with a gasp.
The hands dragged him close…clutched him close. Tannour felt himself and the other being hauled back, as if on a roped line, while water deluged his face. Finally the hauling eased and Tannour found his feet. He slung wet hair from his eyes and looked to the man who’d saved him.
“Fiera’s breath, Tannour.” Loukas’s green eyes were voluminous with meaning: remarks he didn’t dare say, feelings he didn’t dare confess, sorrows they both knew too nearly—all that history over all those years; the experiences they’d shared, the lashes Tannour had endured, which had cut far deeper than any flail he’d wielded in return, Loukas’s rejection as acute punishment…
And then Trell was at his side, shouting his praises, with what seemed like a thousand other men, and Tannour let the world carry him away from Loukas n’Abraxis’s pinioning gaze.
***
With the hole into the caverns blocked by the collapsed tower, the water levels in the lower city started rising quickly. A stormy dawn observed this filling pool. The coming rain would turn the aqueduct’s waterfall into a torrent.
Trell tasked Gideon with moving the soldiers up onto the walls for safety, while Lazar saw to his own men. All other contentions were momentarily set aside in lieu of the two commanders’ pact beneath Jai’Gar’s eye. Trell was himself half-hobbling, half-swimming for the nearest stairwell when something changed in the water.
He perceived the riversong the instant before She spoke to him.
Trell of the Tides…
Trell stilled. Everyone stilled.
Had they all heard Naiadithine’s summons because they stood within the swarming waters of Her domain? Or because She’d simply willed it so?
The flood waters began swirling. Men cleared from the path of this vortex with alacrity, backing themselves into buildings and each other to give the water its way. Soon a great whirlpool spun before the startled eyes of the men. As the waters turned, ever widening, silt drained away until the whirlpool became as glass and mirror-clear.
And within this mirror, Naiadithine showed them—
Battle as Trell had never seen, viewed from within a wide pool, as a window onto another world. Except this world was familiar to him. He recognized the sacred pool several breaths before the Converted started murmuring aggressively among themselves, a full minute before one of them dared say in hushed awe, “It’s Raku.”
Was it because She showed them the battle filtered through Her perspective—a god’s perspective to which they were now privy, embraced as they were within Her auspices—that they couldn’t look upon the scene with a view to glory, only with a sense of grave dismay as men were cut down and fell into the pool, staining its sacred waters with their lifeblood?
Or maybe it was because everywhere among those men, demons ran, spreading chaos. Travesties of men, they cut and slashed or merely tore mortals limb from limb. Trell recognized their likeness to the thing that had accosted him at Darroyhan, the same thing that had cast deyjiin into Vaile.
And then a new type of consternation beset Trell, as a man tumbled into the pool amid clouds of blood. As his turning body sank beneath the surface, his face came into view…
Dannym’s soldiers gave a collective gasp.
Trell felt his heart sinking along with his father’s form. Why was he still in Raku? He was meant to be in Nahavand by now!
Do you see? Naiadithine asked him—asked them.
And though She did not say the words but spoke in concepts in the way of gods, they all knew She was asking: do you see the blood of men shed for the greed of men? Do you see the blood shed for the grace of gods who care nothing for the vanities imposed upon them? Do you see the harm done to the tapestry? The frayed threads, the broken lines, designs in the pattern that simply end, forever unfinished?
Do you see what war has wrought?
Then the vision faded, the whirlpool stilled, and all of the men who’d stood witness to that moment were left only with the combined horror that had echoed from her essence into their own.
And a final warning, spoken to all, spoken to one:
Trell of the Tides…you must end this war.
Whereupon Trell knew at last what the Goddess required of him in return for her many graces.
/> Seventy-six
“When you can see beyond the curve of consequence, the path becomes clear.”
–The Adept wielder Arion Tavestra
When Rafael moved himself, Tanis and Sinárr from his own universe to the outskirts of the Warlock universe known as Wylde, Tanis experienced a moment of disorientation. But as Rafael realigned his starpoints, swirling darkness resolved into space—starless, yet far from empty.
The lad found himself standing between the two Warlocks on a translucent bridge, facing a wall of worlds. The latter shifted before them in veils of color and perspective, each one layered over the next, as a vast window comprising hundreds of stacked panes of glass. Starpoints framed the ‘corners’ of each pane, making them all unique.
Far distant of the wall of worlds, beyond view but not beyond perception, another set of starpoints framed the space the worlds occupied. If the worlds were a book, these latter starpoints would’ve been the table upon which the book was lying.
“They have built much since last I viewed Wylde.” Sinárr sent his bridge unfolding towards the wall of worlds.
Rafael looked to Sinárr with golden embers sparking in the raven flames of his hair. “It is an ingenious collaboration, but I find aspects of its existence unsettling.”
“I share your unease.” Sinárr clasped hands behind his back and morphed his dark bridge into a viewing platform. “There are too many linked determinisms beneath Baelfeir’s own.”
Tanis walked to join them at the railing that was forming as they spoke. He felt like Sinárr’s entire bridge was tilting sideways. “What do you mean by linked determinisms?”
Sinárr turned his golden gaze to Tanis. “Baelfeir invited the Warlocks to build worlds within his starpoints—a collaboration they’ve named Wylde, the first of its kind. You might consider it the Warlocks’ attempt to mimic the Thousand Realms of Light. This idea is how he convinced many of them to join in the effort.”
He placed a hand on Tanis’s shoulder. “As soon as the Warlocks created space within Baelfeir’s starpoints, however, their starpoints became Baelfeir’s. A Warlock could decide that within his world he wanted a certain structure and intent, but ultimately, if in conflict, its rules would bow to Baelfeir’s.”
Rafael placed his hand on Tanis’s other shoulder—Tanis was starting to feel a bit like an amphora they each wanted to claim. “Essentially, young Tanis, Baelfeir has coincided every starpoint within his framed space. This makes it impossible for anyone in the worlds to coincide his exterior-most starpoints in return.”
Tanis turned with a puzzled frown. “Why?”
“Baelfeir’s starpoints are not representative of a single determinism anymore.” Starlight limned Sinárr’s dark complexion, imparting a silvery cast to his features and accentuating the furrow marring his brow. “To coincide Baelfeir’s starpoints, you would have to duplicate also all of the starpoints beneath them. This is nearly impossible, for they represent too many determinisms all linked together—much like your Alorin, where millions have agreed upon the same illusion to create a lasting reality.”
Rafael’s wings twitched, shedding a rustling starfall. “Duplicating Baelfeir’s exterior starpoints will allow us to move in and out of Wylde and its worlds, but we will only be able to make limited changes to those worlds, since we haven’t actually coincided all of the starpoints.” He settled a telling look upon the lad. “There is only one god of Wylde.”
Tanis gulped disconcertion. “Baelfeir.”
Two sets of unearthly eyes pinned on him in voluminous acknowledgment.
Tanis looked with misgiving back to the shifting veils of worlds. They really were like a book to his perception, a closed book whose hidden story yet beckoned. Tanis duplicated Baelfeir’s exterior-most starpoints and then, without really understanding what he was doing, he opened the book of Wylde and began shifting through the pages—rapidly. Worlds riffled past.
Rafael turned a wide-eyed stare at Sinárr.
The latter shrugged. “The boy just intuits it.”
“Tanis,” Rafael shifted his wings agitatedly, dripping deyjiin stars, “you must reconsider my proposal. Being bound to only three immortals is an underwhelming accomplishment for one of your talent.”
Tanis stopped the pages at a desert world. Suddenly it seemed as if Sinárr’s bridge was trying to dump him down into it.
“Tanis, the floor…”
But the lad missed whatever Rafael said, for he was already grabbing the starpoints of that world as though they were two hanging rings, and swinging himself inside.
When his slight disorientation settled, Tanis found himself on a saucer-shaped rooftop overlooking an alien city. Much of the place lay in ruins, while what had at first seemed a blackened plain turned out to be a mass of eidola-like creatures. They’d overtaken the rubble of the city and were swarming around one of the tallest mounds. It took a few seconds of focusing through his bemusement to realize that a battle was occurring there.
“Are those—” Sinárr came up behind Tanis with smoke wreathing his form.
“Revenants, yes.” Rafael appeared on Tanis’s other side with his wings fully extended.
Sinárr cast his golden gaze across the melee. “They seem to have collected here from many different worlds. Without coinciding Baelfeir’s exterior starpoints, we won’t be able to efface them back into the aether.”
“You chose an oddly immutable world to visit, Tanis,” Rafael remarked. “The aether here is nearly petrified.”
Tanis was staring at the seething mass of revenants and feeling as unnervingly bounced and jarred as if Destiny had roped him to a runaway coach. “I think they chose it, sir.”
Rafael followed Tanis’s gaze to the mound boiling with revenants . “Ah…” Understanding colored his exhalation. “This reeks of Shailabanáchtran’s particular malodor.”
Sinárr inquired, “Who is the mortal?”
Tanis swallowed. “Prince Ean.”
“Your Prince Ean?” Sinárr arched brows. Then he frowned. “That is very peculiar.”
Urgency now had Tanis doubly unbalanced. “We have to get them out of there.”
“They seem rather firmly ensconced.”
“The Malorin’athgul has anchored himself.” Rafael shifted his wings. “I can retrieve the mortal, but—”
Tanis felt like the world was sliding off its axis. “We have to help both of them.”
“Darshanvenkhátraman is no friend to Pelas.” Rafael arched his velvet wings threateningly behind him, framing his golden torso with darkness, forging a striking display. “Let him find his own way.”
Tanis held his gaze. “This won’t please Pelas, sir. He’s forgiven his brother.”
Rafael drew back, staring hard at him. “No…you would not lie to me.” He looked back to the melee and exhaled a sigh. “I fear we must do this tedious thing, Sinárr.” A powerful stroke of his great wings propelling him into the air, a gilded demon, a fallen angel, both terrible and darkly beautiful. Deyjiin streamed behind him in a sparkling wake.
Tanis looked somewhat desperately to Sinárr. “I can’t think for the—”
Sinárr placed a hand on his shoulder. “I perceive the tumult that has you unbalanced.” He dissolved into smoke and whisked towards the fray.
Yet Rafael had barely reached the horde before the revenants began attacking him as furiously as they’d been after Darshan. They threw themselves into the air, so that the black sea became choppy with revenant spray. Rafael spun, dove and dodged, trailing silvery whorls of deyjiin that stilled every revenant they touched, but Tanis saw quickly that even with such power as this, Rafael would have to fly for hours—days—back and forth across the horde to dispel them all.
He was hovering now above the mound, trying to reach Prince Ean and Darshan inside what amounted to a funnel of revenants, for every time the Warlock swooped in close, the creatures made ladders of each other to reach him.
Sinárr meanwhile whisked through the ranks. Ye
t even without form, they managed to cling to him. When too many had accumulated, Sinárr would solidify and then vaporize again, dragging the revenants into nothingness with him.
Every few minutes, Darshan would release a pulse of deyjiin and force the revenants back, but this only gave him and Prince Ean a moment to breathe and room to swing their weapons. No room for Rafael to land. Not enough space for escape.
Tanis watched this frenzy feeling like he was clinging to a skiff in a hurricane sea. That unbalanced sense had become nearly overwhelming. He leaned against the side of the dome and clung to the tiles, lest the precariously wavering tower tip him off into the revenant waves.
And yet in truth, what had him most reeling was the absurdity of the situation.
In a universe where anything could be anything, a boundless place without scope or limitation, it seemed utterly unreal to him that this was the only solution they could find—to fight these creatures as mortals, with force and effort and blunt aggression.
Sinárr had told him early on that to control anything, you had to be willing to be it entirely. This was a theory underlying the duplication and coinciding of starpoints, as well as effacement—it was practically one of the Laws of Shadow, if such could be said to exist.
‘You cannot control something you cannot duplicate,’ Sinárr had said, ‘all you can really do is fight it.’
And that was all they were doing—fighting these revenants—because the Warlocks were unwilling to duplicate a thing they found so repulsive, so offensive to their moral sensitivities; unwilling to be them, to understand them. Unwilling even to try to communicate with them or ken them with any sort of intimacy—certainly not with the intimacy required to duplicate and share each other’s starpoints.
It occurred to Tanis in a moment of violent seasickness that perhaps the Balance wasn’t inclining him towards Prince Ean and Darshan at all, but towards these others—these forgotten, discarded beings, the produce of indifferent gods, who no one in all of creation would ever try to help.
Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4) Page 120
