After she had put a good distance between herself and their entry point into the world, she pushed out of the world again. Sensing no other presences in the place between, she began to skim rapidly across the surface. The ocean continued unbroken. They passed through a storm and, blinded by the thick black cloud and flashes of lightning, emerged far higher above the water than before. When it was behind them, she slowed to a stop.
“I’m beginning to wonder if this world has no land.”
“It has magic,” Zeke pointed out. “Not much, but enough to supply sorcerers heading to and from Kettin’s base.”
She looked at him. “Is that why she didn’t destroy some worlds?”
“Yes. None of her sorcerers are powerful enough to travel through a few dead worlds in a row. These worlds form stepping stones in and out of Kettin’s territory.”
“I see.” Rielle looked around. “Do you know the paths? Do you know where we are?”
“I’ve been memorising fragments of what I’ve overheard or seen in the minds of the guards. There is only one world containing magic next to Kettin’s, so it must be this one. There will be dead worlds beside this.”
Rielle nodded. “That is good. They’ll expect me to head along the stepping stones. We’ll go sideways instead. I need to travel around the worlds surrounding Kettin’s world to find the one we reached it from. Then we can find the meeting place.”
As she drew in a deep breath, he did the same. Pushing out of the world, she headed into the whiteness. They hadn’t travelled far when she sensed something – someone – in the far distance. They were so far away that it was probable they couldn’t sense her. Passing the midpoint, she watched a new landscape appear, as alert for signs of people in it as in the retreating whiteness.
The landscape glistened below them, waterlogged and patched with vegetation of several muted colours. She stretched her senses. “No magic.”
Searching downwards, she found traces of magic deep below the earth. “There’s magic far below. That suggests the world was once imbued with it – therefore occupied. Let’s go look for an arrival place.”
They stopped twice to catch their breath before they found a ruined city clinging to the sides of a rocky spire emerging from the bog. At the top of the spire was an arrival place, moss already starting to fur the stone surface now nobody was scrubbing it clean. Rielle pushed into the place between worlds and started down a path that was easily sensed from possibly centuries of use, despite not being used in some months.
The next world had been destroyed, but the traces of human life reminded Rielle of the survivors and returned refugees she’d seen earlier. In the next she recognised a distinctly shaped tree of the kind that had grown around the lake with the crescent island. Rising as high as she could without the air growing too thin, she criss-crossed the land until a water body caught her attention. Sure enough, a small crescent-shaped island lay at its heart. She descended. The island was unoccupied but she arrived there anyway, creating a strong shield in case the enemy had followed Dahli and now lay in wait for her.
A moment later, a blur in the place between warned her of a figure approaching rapidly from across the lake. She braced herself, then relaxed as the ghostly man stopped several paces away and rapidly grew solid.
“Zeke,” Dahli exclaimed as he arrived.
“Dahli!” Zeke’s face lit up with joy.
Rielle let her shield dissipate as the pair hurried towards each other. They embraced tightly, Dahli’s relief so plain that Rielle felt her heart lighten. She reminded herself that Dahli had killed a man since they’d left the Restorers, but her disappointment and anger in him remained muted as Dahli searched Zeke’s gaze.
“Are you all right?”
Zeke shrugged. “I am now. I hoped you’d come and get me – but I didn’t want you to, in case they killed you.”
“They didn’t… obviously,” Dahli replied, releasing Zeke reluctantly and turning to Rielle. “We can’t stay here. I lost them only a world away, and it’ll only be a matter of time before they look here.”
“No sign of Tyen?” Rielle asked.
His expression was grim as he shook his head. Rielle’s heart skipped a beat. She looked around at the forest fringing the lake. Even if the world had been full of magic, she wouldn’t have been able to sense Tyen’s mind if he was hiding. She started searching the ground for an etched stone like the one he’d left for her, long ago, when he’d been forced to leave the world he was learning to become ageless in.
“He wouldn’t have left without leaving a sign he’d been here,” she said.
“I know,” Dahli said. “I’ve looked.”
Her stomach was growing heavier as she tried not to imagine what had happened to him. “He left before us. Something must have delayed him. You go on. I’ll look for him.”
Dahli shook his head. “We might need you if they catch up with us.”
“I’ll make more magic for you now.”
He paused, then slowly nodded. “If you are sure.”
“I am.” She looked at him, weighing up all the options she had and the possible consequences. Could she trust Dahli to take Zeke to the Restorers? If she put herself in Dahli’s place, she would take her lover and flee to a safe place. I ought to stay with them to make sure he doesn’t do that. The Restorers needed Zeke to tell them what Kettin was capable of.
But they also needed Tyen. He was too powerful to lose. He was smart. He was in charge of an entire school of sorcerers who understood mechanical magic. And I can’t abandon him. It would be too great a betrayal of their friendship. And she couldn’t bear to lose yet another person she loved.
Love? Do I love him? She frowned. Was she willing to be in love with Tyen? Part of her resisted the idea. Part of her didn’t. Another screamed at her to stop dithering and find him. Do I love him romantically or as a friend?
“Go get Tyen,” Zeke told her. “I’ll make sure Dahli takes me wherever you need me to be. Which would be to join the Restorers, right?”
She nodded and smiled. “Thank you, Zeke.”
“So, make us some magic – and quickly.”
She did, by filling the air with an intricate pattern of light, but not so bright it would be visible from a distance. The magic that poured out from her immediately flowed towards Dahli and Zeke as they took it.
“Is that enough?” Zeke eventually asked Dahli. The man shrugged and nodded. As Rielle stopped, Zeke wrapped an arm around Dahli’s waist. “I hope you find Tyen, and we see you soon. Let’s go, lover.”
“We will wait for a while in Orgajika,” Dahli added. “In case you are able to catch up.” He glanced at his companion and a faint, fond smile curled his lips, then his expression returned to the grim one he had worn for the entire expedition and the pair vanished.
Taking a deep breath, Rielle pushed out of the world and found the older path she, Dahli and Tyen had taken when approaching Kettin’s world. She sought presences in the place between. Before she had passed the midpoint, she heard voices. They were too faint to make out, so she cautiously approached the speakers, hoping she would get close enough to make out the words before the strangers detected her.
“… if he’s still alive, he might ambush us if we get closer.”
“If he has enough magic left for that he’d have left the world already.”
“We found no path. We couldn’t see much underground, and while there are cavities, they are too small to risk arriving in.”
“Then he’s still there. Either he’s dead from the fall or he’s too weak to leave.” A pause. “Stay and watch, but be careful – there are more of them about.”
The presences parted. One continued towards the midpoint between worlds, then moved away from Rielle. She followed, conscious that she must return to a world soon or she would suffocate. Fortunately, the sorcerer travelled at a steady pace, and when he or she suddenly became undetectable Rielle guessed they had entered the world.
By now Rielle
could make out a bizarre landscape. Long, narrow pieces of stone were piled up on top of each other, some standing vertically. She skimmed higher and entered the world far above, creating a supporting shield as her lungs sucked air in and out and her head slowly stopped spinning. As soon as the dizziness retreated, she searched for magic and found none. Below, flying creatures were circling an area of fallen stones.
She looked closer. Not creatures, people.
Based on what she’d heard, she guessed they were hovering over the place they’d last seen the man they sought. Was it Tyen? Who else could it be? Was he dead? The sorcerers between worlds had spoken of him falling. They hadn’t found any sign of a path leading out of the world.
She could try skimming through the piled-up columns in the hopes of finding the cavity Tyen was within, but if it was dark in there, she would never see him. And even if she found some way to let Tyen know she was nearby, how could he signal to her in a way that wouldn’t attract the enemy’s attention? She considered that for a while, finding no answer. Remembering Tarren’s lessons, she thought of one of his sayings: “When the obstruction can’t be removed, accept and go around it.”
If I can’t find him or contact him without attracting attention, then I must plan to attract attention.
Having decided that, she considered how to proceed. She doubted she could lift the stones without others slipping. It would be all too easy to crush Tyen, if he didn’t have enough magic left to shield himself, or was unconscious.
If he’s conscious… Rielle drew in a quick breath. If he’s conscious, all I have to do is create magic and he will get himself out of there. Then she sobered. If I create magic Kettin will know I was here and probably took part in Zeke’s rescue. Nobody else in the worlds can do what I do, as far as I know.
Did that matter?
Not as much as Tyen’s life.
She smiled. Drawing upon her magic, Rielle heated the air and started a light show that the sorcerers below her would never forget.
CHAPTER 17
To her surprise, Kettin’s sorcerers didn’t attack. Instead they hovered between her and the ground and drew in magic. She assumed this was in order to prevent magic reaching Tyen, but when she looked into their minds she only saw a guilty greed. Kettin did not like her sorcerers collecting too much magic. They weren’t sure how much was too much, but each had decided they would not stop until one of their fellows did.
So distracted were they, that none saw the ghostly figure skim past them. It shot towards Rielle and she froze in alarm, but as it slowed down to meet her, she recognised it, and her heart lifted. Tyen.
He smiled, and she grinned in reply. Taking what remained of the magic she had created, she pushed into the place between worlds, grabbed his outstretched hand and propelled them away.
If the sorcerers followed, they did so too slowly, as she sensed nothing of them. Not a presence between the worlds or a mind within one. She decided to avoid the trail she, Tyen and Dahli had created on their approach to Kettin’s worlds, in case they led the sorcerers to Dahli and Zeke. Knowing, now, that the machine army was a great ring, expanding as fast as worlds could be conquered and machines made, she simply headed outwards, figuring they would pass through the front line eventually.
As before, they travelled near enough to arrival places that they could be sure they were heading for habitable worlds, but far enough away that no other travellers would detect them. The same pattern of dead worlds broken by the occasional untouched but weak one continued. The only change was that the dead worlds grew slowly more freshly devastated. But on this route, perhaps because the journey inwards hadn’t been through worlds so badly damaged, or because she had been too distracted by the challenge of rescuing Zeke, the ruination and suffering were harder to ignore.
In one world, they glimpsed a vast, fresh graveyard. Graves at the edges were still being dug by people who had returned to their home world to give the dead a proper funeral. The air was tainted with the sickly scent of rot, even high above the ground.
In another, they entered a silent, smoking city of broken walls. Bodies filled the streets, a thick ring of them around the arrival place. The stench made them both gag and she quickly pushed on.
In the next, they found an idyllic agricultural landscape dotted with still-twitching bodies of domestic animals and a colourfully garbed people.
In the following, machines cluttered the sky. The unearthly sound of countless voices, mingled in terror, pain or plea, rose from a large town.
“Wait,” Tyen said. She looked at him in surprise.
“Do you want to help them?” she asked, hoping that he would agree but seeing many reasons why they couldn’t stop here.
He blinked, then his expression was grim as he met her eyes. “I didn’t even think of that. What is wrong with me? Have I become too used to the carnage already? All I thought was that I could learn something about their strategy.”
“Which would be good, too, but you also know we risk too much by lingering,” she told him. “We have to find Dahli and help him get Zeke back to the Restorers as quickly as possible, so you and he can find a way to stop this happening, or it will be the fate of all worlds.”
He seemed to not hear her. His mouth had slackened into an expression of shock, then hardened into disgust and he looked away.
“These people are preying upon each other even as they die. Let’s go.”
She pushed out of the world, bearing him away from the scene, thankful for the emotion-damping effect of the place between. The next world was occupied by only a few small tribes, clinging to life in a savage ice world weak in magic. The one after was more populated, with three small cities within a day’s walk of the arrival place. Once again, Tyen spoke.
“Let’s warn them. I will feel better about not helping the other world if we give these people a chance to evacuate.”
Rielle nodded. “You skim from here.”
His grip on her hand tightened, and their surroundings faded a little, then blurred past. Tyen brought them down into the closest city, in front of a large building that finely dressed people were entering and leaving. Their arrival attracted some interest and, from the minds of those who paused to look at them, Rielle learned that otherworld visitors had become more common recently, and that this was where the leader of the land resided.
Walking inside, they requested an audience and were granted one immediately. The local ruler, a middle-aged woman, greeted them warmly.
“What the people of Pwain can do for you?” she asked in halting Traveller tongue.
“We ask and need nothing of you,” Tyen replied. “We only come to warn you that an army greater and crueller than any the worlds has faced is coming this way.”
“If you begin organising now, you may be able to evacuate all of the people of this world in time,” Rielle added.
The Queen shook her head, her expression sad and resigned. “We thank you for your warning, but we know of this threat. Many have warned us. We have sought refuge in other worlds further from the threat until the army has passed and we can return and rebuild, but all have refused us.”
Tyen scowled. “That is shameful.”
The Queen nodded. “We ask nothing more than what we did for the people of Yoomtk. But all worlds know they face the same fate, and do not wish to squander their stores of food and water on feeding refugees when it could be stockpiled to sustain those of their own people who survive.” She sighed. “Have you any advice on how we might endure this invasion?”
Tyen shook his head. “Only to not be here when the machines arrive. They cannot be bargained with or bribed.”
“I have heard that they leave some worlds untouched,” the woman said. “The only common feature of these worlds is that they contain little magic. Do you think the machines would ignore our world if it was stripped of magic?”
Tyen’s eyebrows rose as he considered. He looked at Rielle. “What do you think?”
She considered t
he idea carefully. The last world they had passed through was a natural candidate for Kettin’s sorcerers to use as a stepping-stone world, and if this one contained any resources, she doubted the lack of magic would save it. But who was she to rob these people of hope, or a slim chance of saving themselves?
“It is worth trying,” she replied. “Do you speak for all of the people of this world?”
The Queen spread her hands. “I did when we sought a safe haven. If it works, they will not mind me making the decision. If it doesn’t, there will be nobody left to resent it.”
Rielle sighed. “I fear you are right.” She looked at Tyen. “I see no wrong in trying.”
He nodded.
“Then I ask that you take all the magic of our world,” the Queen said, a glint of hope igniting in her eyes as her back straightened. “And whatever payment you ask for in return we will give.”
“No payment…” Rielle and Tyen both said simultaneously. Then Tyen smiled and glanced at Rielle. “We will consider the magic more than enough exchange.”
“And I will return one day, when I know it is safe to do so, and restore your world,” Rielle added.
The Queen’s eyes widened. “You are her?” she said in a hushed voice. “The Restorer?”
Rielle inclined her head.
“I am honoured to meet you.”
“Thank you.” As an old, familiar discomfort returned, Rielle turned to Tyen. “We cannot delay much longer, Tyen.”
He nodded. “This will not take long.” He bowed to the Queen. “I hope, for the sake of all your people, that this does dissuade Kettin’s army from destroying your world.” He bowed. “Good luck, your Majesty.”
The Queen inclined her head, her eyes still wide as she regarded Tyen, thinking that maybe he was another legendary figure of the worlds. The name was familiar…
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