The man nodded. “I understand.” He turned to Delt and inclined his head. “I am Halyn. I will show you where to take your vehicle.”
She looked at him closely, no doubt reading his mind, then nodded. “See you soon,” she told Mig. “I’ll meet you when I’m done.”
As she walked away, Tyen gestured towards the Academy gate. “Let me introduce you to everyone and give you a tour.”
Mig grinned and eagerly followed Tyen to the stairs. After many introductions, Tyen freed the young man from the attention of the curious and led him up the stairs to the Grand Hall. Mig gazed around the big room, impressed by the size and richness of decoration.
“Now I wonder if you even need our help,” he admitted.
“Everyone can contribute in some way,” Tyen assured Mig. “But you must have something in mind other than sorcery.”
“Yes,” Mig agreed. “It was when I heard that you had brought inventors here from other worlds that I decided to come. I guessed that you needed clever minds.” He paused, then reached into his jacket and brought out a small, gleaming object. Tyen caught his breath as he saw it was a miniature copy of Beetle. “This does not have magic, but it can fly,” Mig explained. He turned the beetle over and twisted a small protrusion a few times, then set it on his palm and flicked at one of the antennae. Immediately the wing covers opened and inner wings emerged. These blurred into life and the insect rose from Mig’s hand, flew in circles above them, then dropped into the young man’s palm again. He held it out to Tyen.
Tyen took it and examined it closely. “That is exceedingly clever.”
“You need clever minds,” Mig said, shrugging. “I have one.”
“Do you have any understanding of mechanical magic?”
Mig shook his head.
Tyen considered the beetle. How much use was an inventor who didn’t understand mechanical magic in the hunt for a weapon against war machines? Perhaps what is a weakness will be strength. A beetle that didn’t require magic to work had an advantage over one that did, in a world with no magic.
“I may have a little difficulty convincing the others that you have something to contribute, but I will remind them that a different perspective can be beneficial,” he said, hoping that it was true and Mig hadn’t wasted a very long journey.
The young man nodded. “I’m used to sorcerers doubting my value,” he said, his voice deepening with determination. “I’ve fought that prejudice all my life.”
“Come. Let me show you around.”
Tyen led Mig down the hall and into the side corridor. Before they had walked far, Mig glanced at Tyen.
“I would love to have another look at your beetle,” he said.
Tyen nodded. “Sure. Zeke has it at the moment. I’ll tell him you can examine it.”
“Thank you.” He smiled. “It is wonderful just to be here. I’ve heard so much about this place. I am a little sad you didn’t join our school in the south, but if the threat to this world is as great as I’ve been told, it is better that you took charge here, where mechanical magic was invented. Can you tell me more about Kettin?”
Tyen filled the young man in as he showed him around. When they neared the inventors’ wing, he noticed for the first time he could have easily found it with his eyes closed. Buzzes, bangs, clangs and pipes echoed in the halls, and the smell of hot metal, oil and other chemicals tainted the air.
They found Zeke in a room full of steam. The inventor greeted Mig warmly as Tyen introduced him and explained that Mig had flown up from the south to help them.
“So, you invented that capsule-less aircart we saw flying overhead before?”
Mig nodded.
“I’d love to check it out when I have time.” Zeke turned to Tyen. “No, there’s nothing new to report.”
Tyen chuckled. “At least give me the chance to ask.”
“It saved time, didn’t it?” Zeke smiled. “Are you joining us today?”
Tyen sighed. “No. Too many Academy matters to attend to.”
Zeke shrugged. “There always are.”
“Could you show Beetle to Mig?” Tyen asked. “He has made one of his own, only it does not need magic.”
Zeke’s eyebrows rose. “Interesting.” He put a hand on Mig’s shoulder and steered him away. “I’d love to see that. Come this way.”
“Before you go,” Tyen added. The pair paused and looked back. “Mig may not be familiar with mechanical magic, but he has an impressive grasp of machines that don’t use magic. That may prove to be an advantage somehow.”
“Don’t worry,” Zeke assured him. “We have a saying here: no ideas are bad ideas.” He made a shooing gesture. “Go away, Tyen. We have work to do.”
On the way back to his office, Tyen spied a clock and marvelled that the day had barely begun, yet plenty had already happened. Qall leaving. Mig and Delt arriving. Having two southerners helping the Academy would be, at the least, good for relations between the two regions. That reminded him that he ought to have sought the Emperor’s permission before allowing someone from outside the empire to work within the Academy. Then there was the matter of housing Mig and Delt. He realised that he hadn’t given Halyn instructions on that matter. Well, the man would no doubt come to the office straight after finding a place to stow the glider.
As Tyen neared his office he saw the door was slightly open. He didn’t know how his assistant had managed to get the glider into the hangar and return so quickly. Smiling to himself, Tyen pushed through.
Instead of his assistant, it was Rielle waiting in the room. She rose from the chair she had been waiting in.
“Tyen,” she said. “Has Qall gone?”
“Yes. He was disappointed you weren’t there when he left.”
She sighed and shook her head. “It’s petty, I know, but I’m still angry at him.”
“He isn’t just concerned about losing a Maker,” Tyen pointed out gently. “He does care about you.”
She met his gaze, then smiled crookedly. “But it is his job to worry more about stopping Kettin than my safety. Do you agree with him?”
He moved to his chair and sat down. “On what, exactly?”
“That I shouldn’t attempt to become ageless,” she clarified, returning to her seat.
Tyen considered how to reply. “I do and I don’t. Losing the worlds’ most powerful Maker would be a terrible setback right now. Even if we had another way to fight Kettin, I’d hesitate to say it was worth that risk. Many worlds will need restoring, whether we win or not. We don’t know how long it will take you to learn how to separate worlds. You might succeed, only to find Kettin has used the time to take control of all the worlds.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line and her brow creased.
“But,” he continued, “it would be better if the worlds’ most powerful Maker could heal herself and not easily suffocate between worlds. As you said yourself, the instructions appear to be for a Maker who has never learned pattern-shifting. You have regained your Maker ability before, so if all you achieve is to relearn pattern-shifting you ought to be able to become a Maker again.”
“And if I somehow lose both?”
“I’ve been thinking about ways to reduce that risk. Qall or I could copy the pattern of the part of your mind that contains the Maker ability into magic, as you did with Valhan’s pattern during the first part of his resurrection. If you fail, then that pattern could be imprinted on your mind again.”
Rielle’s eyes widened. “That’s brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that?” She rose and began to pace the room. “That lessens the risk considerably.” She stopped and turned to him. “We have to go after Qall. Surely this would convince him.” Then she shook her head and turned away again. “No. We wouldn’t catch up before he left this world, and we’d risk attracting attention to it.” Once again, she rounded on him. “Would you do it? Would you help me make the change?”
Tyen blinked, then nodded. “Yes.”
She frowned and returne
d to her seat. “Without waiting for Qall’s agreement?”
“Yes.”
Her eyebrows rose. “But what of your work here?” Her brows knitted together. “And we’d have to leave this world.”
“It would be worth the risk if you succeeded.”
She paused, then leaned forward. “Is there a world nearby that would be suitable for us?”
He nodded. “I believe so.”
“But… if you left this world it would be vulnerable.”
Tyen spread his hands. “If Kettin invaded now I doubt I could stop her. Still, I wouldn’t want my people to think I’d abandoned them. The Emperor will need to know what we’re doing and why. Someone must be able to fetch us quickly, and rescue us in case your transformation fails and we end up stuck in a dead world.”
Rielle nodded. “Who?”
Tyen considered. “It would have to be someone who knows how to travel between worlds, who is strong enough to enter and leave a dead world. Not one of the sorcerers working on the machines or training Academy sorcerers, as we need them focused on that.” He frowned as he realised there was only one sorcerer who wasn’t. “It’ll have to be Dahli.”
Rielle’s brow wrinkled. “Do you trust him?”
He nodded slowly. “We can trust his desire for Zeke to be safe. What do you think?”
“I… think we can.” She grimaced. “Mostly because of Zeke, but he does genuinely appear to have changed. He does want to help the worlds.”
“This will be his chance, then.”
She said nothing, her expression suddenly full of doubt.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.
Her shoulders rose and fell, then she sighed. “It does frighten me. But then, I know I’ll try it eventually. Why grow old and die if I don’t have to? Especially now we know it wouldn’t destroy the worlds if I did. The power it might give me scares me too, but there is the potential for good as well as bad in it. I also like that it gives us a way to stop Kettin that doesn’t involve killing.” She looked at him. “Do you want me to try it?”
He met her gaze levelly. “No. But that’s only fear – and a purely selfish one.”
“What do you mean?”
The urge to look away came. He resisted it. “I don’t fear you will fail as much as I fear you will succeed, and no longer be you.”
She leaned closer, her gaze intense and questioning. “So why are you helping me?”
“Because it’s your choice,” he told her. “Your life. Your body. Your risk to take. You’re not just the Maker. You are Rielle.”
A look of wonder came into her eyes. She stared at him for a long moment, then her eyes began to sparkle and her mouth spread into a broad smile.
Then she stepped out of her seat, leaned over the desk and kissed him.
PART NINE
RIELLE
CHAPTER 21
In the centre of the hall a small, tense crowd had gathered. Rielle would have preferred for her and Tyen to leave discreetly, but she understood it was important that he did not seem to be sneaking away. Impatience rose as Tyen spoke to each of the men who’d come to see them depart, but she suppressed it. This was his world. Whatever time he needed to ensure everything here would keep running smoothly in his absence she would never begrudge.
A deep feeling stirred within her, part respect, part admiration, and she studied it carefully. Like her, he feared becoming too involved in the problems of a world, yet here he was, involving himself not just in any world’s troubles, but in his own world’s. The potential for heartbreak was even greater.
It wasn’t that he didn’t care about the consequences to himself, or felt he had no choice. He had voluntarily accepted the personal risks of his involvement. Which was an act of bravery she wasn’t sure she was capable of. Although she had interfered in her own world, she was already exiled from it. Tyen had a lot more to lose.
For some mysterious reason, it made her want to help him. To support him when things went badly, and console him if it all went wrong – or, better still, watch him succeed, with her help or without it, and celebrate when he did.
And he was willing to help her, even though it meant leaving his world, even though he was not sure if it was the right thing to do.
Which was why she had kissed him.
Was she in love? She did not feel the same way towards him as she had before, but she definitely wanted to be with him. Perhaps different was a good thing. If everything was the same, it would end the same way.
Halyn had arrived soon after the kiss, before she and Tyen could get over their surprise. Since then, Tyen had been too busy organising to leave. They’d had no private moment to broach the subject. She kept finding herself musing at how Qall would want to know if they were together again. He was becoming almost as much of a nosy gossip as Tarren.
Almost.
“Keep training them,” Tyen told Tarren. “Push them hard. I’ve done everything I can to avoid attracting attention to this world, but if Annad found his way here without help, then one of Kettin’s followers could do the same. I fear it is only a matter of time before she finds us.”
Tarren nodded. “We will watch the skies for invaders, day and night.”
Tyen turned to Zeke. “I wish I could stay and join you but, in all honesty, I have had little time to apply myself to invention these last five cycles, what with teaching and Liftre’s inventors constantly chasing us. You are far better suited to the task.”
“I don’t agree,” Zeke replied, “but if whatever you’re doing now can only be done by you, then you must do it. Just do it quickly.”
“If I can, I will. But before we go: how is Mig?”
Zeke shrugged. “We are pursuing a new idea, thanks to him. His belief that the solution to the war machines wouldn’t involve magic received scepticism at first, but nobody could argue against the fact that machines that don’t need it would have an advantage over those that do in a dead world. Whether that theory can work in practice is another matter. Especially as this idea we are pursuing would require us to make several machines for every one of Kettin’s.”
“It is the use of a great number of weapons that would individually be no threat that allows Kettin to defeat sorcerers,” Tyen pointed out. “The same principle may work for us against machines.”
Zeke nodded, then smiled. “See? You do still have something to contribute.”
Dahli chuckled. As all eyes shifted to him, the man’s expression became serious. “I will protect your world as best I can, if the need arises,” he assured Tyen. He turned to Rielle. “I wish you success. Not only because the worlds need you to help fight Kettin, and repair the damage she has done if we win, but because they will be diminished without you. I hope the cost for attempting to save them is not too high.”
Rielle blinked in surprise. Expressing such sentiment was so uncharacteristic of the old Dahli, she immediately looked into his mind for deceit. Instead she saw only genuine affection. She managed a smile. “Thank you, Dahli.”
She turned to Tyen. Surely all that needed to be said had been said. “Are you ready to go?”
He nodded and held out his hand. “I will transport us for the first leg, if you like?”
She took his hand, drew in a breath and nodded to show she was ready. He pushed them out of the world. The Grand Hall and its occupants vanished as he followed the path leading away.
Tyen took over directing their journey when they reached the ruins of Spirecastle. Once they were out of his world, he forged a new path between worlds, avoiding arrival places. Every moment they spent in the place between, she stretched her senses for other presences, but found only the occasional distant traveller, too far away to detect her. In each of the worlds they passed through, they paused to check nearby minds. The few who saw them were not Kettin’s followers, did not recognise her and Tyen, and had no intentions of tracking anyone.
How dangerous had the worlds become since the Restorer base had been de
stroyed? Rielle would not be surprised to learn Kettin had gained many more followers as the news spread that Affen was now a ruin and the Restorers scattered. People would conclude that former alliances were over and many would try to make new ones with this frightening new power, in the hopes of saving their worlds from her machines.
After three worlds, Tyen brought them close to a city to search the minds within. They learned of a rumour that Kettin wanted to find the Maker and the leader of the Restorers. Tyen offered to change her appearance, but Rielle was wary that any alteration to her body’s pattern might affect the transformation. They moved on.
“This is it,” Tyen said a few worlds later. “A small world, weak in magic. It was powerful a few hundred cycles ago, when it was the base world of a civilisation. I spent a few days here during my original journey to Liftre. You can find remnants of their food crops growing wild, so we can add fresh fruit and vegetables to our supplies. Other travellers occasionally stop here for the same reason, so we should keep an eye out when gathering food and stay away from the arrival place.”
He led her across the paved circle – an oasis of tidiness in a ruin overrun by plants – and out into the abandoned streets. Within a few hundred steps, they were well hidden behind vegetation and crumbling walls. Tyen continued on and after some time they reached a wall. Passing through a gap where the rusty remains of gates still protruded, they entered a sparse forest, fine grasses like fur growing in the space between trunks.
Narrow winding paths led in all directions, marked with animal prints. From time to time they passed signs of past human habitation in the undergrowth: a crumbling cottage, a long-fallen bridge, and even a broad circular space surrounded by a short wall on which carved figures engaged in a forgotten ball game. She had been in many ruined cities and they always fascinated her. It was like walking in a vast puzzle.
But she had no time to study this one. As they walked she searched for other minds but found none. They were the only people between here and the horizon in all directions, but even in this former rural area, the marks of people gave the world an eerie feeling. The rustle of wind in the grass and chirp of animals meant it was not silent, and yet the absence of human noise made it seem very quiet.
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