I took a deep breath, then sighed it out. I didn’t reply. I didn’t have anything to say, because victory didn’t feel like anything at all.
I felt nothing but tired.
One more thing, I told myself. I lifted my head and gazed off toward the incomprehensibly huge monolithic halls of the Crystal Labyrinth.
One more thing.
TEZZERET
I sat on the sand, tinkering with Renn’s perceptual powers while Baltrice incinerated the last few thousand zombies. To the limits of my vision around us, the desert was stained with black soot and dusted with white ash. A vast pall of smoke filled the sky above the Netherglass, casting a permanent twilight upon the Crystal Labyrinth. Given that the peculiarities of the area included a huge stationary vortex in the prevailing winds, it was possible that the smoke would be there forever. Or at least until some powerful stormcaller could be persuaded to blow it away.
I had to pause in my tinkering every so often; the clothing I had magicked for myself was not quite sand- proof. I had been more comfortable naked.
The telemin halo I’d fashioned out of Renn’s etheriumalloy body had turned out unexpectedly well. The external screening and impact cage was almost three feet in diameter; the bowed centering struts screwed into Renn’s skull had enough flex to provide effective shock absorption. I daresay within this halo, Renn was in no danger of impact damage; I could have bounced him like a rubber ball without doing more than making him dizzy. The six carry handles I had built onto the impact cage’s exterior projected far enough to prevent the halo from rolling on any surface less than a thirty-degree incline, and I certainly wouldn’t be placing Renn’s head on any slope steeper than that. He was too valuable.
A few more threads of pure etherium, similar to the one that kept him asleep, inserted into other parts of his brain allowed me to directly access his entire perceptual system-which was, I discovered, unexpectedly impressive. In addition to being able to see, smell, hear, taste, and feel what was in front of him, he could do the same with objects that were only potentially present, as well as objects that were long gone. Though as the interval increased, perception dimmed, it was still a useful talent.
Most interesting of all was his ability to see sideways in time. With the expenditure of considerable mana- easily done, given my current plenitude of etherium-he (and I, through him) could directly perceive the consequence of any given choice or string of choices, as the temporal streams bifurcated outward from each decision point. The more probable any given potential time line was, the easier it was to see.
It did not take much power at all to see time lines where Renn had won the fight.
I had decided not to tell Baltrice what would have happened to her if we’d lost. If she had so much as a hint, I could never have stopped her from killing Renn, and I was going to need him to navigate the Labyrinth.
Having left intact the magics that sustained his life and healed his injuries, I anticipated a virtually unlimited potential use-life for my Rennoscope (Rennscanner? Rennometer?). All his physical needs provided by the magics, he might well survive a century or more, which was far longer than I would need him.
Someday, perhaps, if I found myself in a sentimental mood, I might decide to rebuild him into a man. It was possible.
But not likely.
Once she had finished up, Baltrice rode her gravity sled over to where I sat with Renn’s head. She slid off and mopped sooty sweat from her face with a grimy sleeve. “Well, that’s it. Probably more inside, but no trouble. I got to tell you, I still don’t understand why our army of necromancers didn’t whip out a few thousand nasty beasties to piss on my bonfire.”
“You will. Patience.”
“Is that all you have to say about it? Patience?”
“It’s an underrated virtue.”
“Tell you what, then: you keep all of yours and take mine too. What there is of it.” She propped her hands on her hips and stared back at the featureless, opalescent enormity of the Labyrinth. “What now? Straight in?”
“No.”
“You have a better idea?”
“Usually.”
“I’ll tell you, I don’t think anything I can do will affect the structure itself. The walls don’t even pick up soot.”
“It’s not ordinary crystal. I’m not sure it’s physical.”
“Huh?”
I let one shoulder twitch in half a shrug. “It has occurred to me that if Renn’s hypotemporal shield trick were to be made a great deal more powerful-if time never passed at all at its surface, or nearly so-it could, theoretically, look like that.”
She shook her head. “Glad I’m not the one who has to figure stuff out around here.”
“You do very well at it, though. How’s your back?” I had adapted the autohealing magic Renn had built into his body to treat our various wounds-an imperfect solution, but the best we had.
She worked her shoulders back and forth a few times, then shrugged. “It hurts. But it’s not gonna kill me. How’s your face?”
“Likewise.” I gave her a lopsided smile, which was the best I could do around the swollen bruises and barely closed cuts that covered most of my head. Two of my teeth were loose enough that they might fall out before I had time to repair my jaw, but the long-term effects of the rest of my injuries would be only scars. “It hurts.”
As did my hands, my legs, my guts, and virtually every other part of my body to which I could put a name.
“Bruises and a couple new scars? Small enough price to pay for living through a scrape like that,” she said. “I won’t forget what you did today, Tezzeret. You didn’t have to come back for me. You went in knowing what he could do. Put yourself between him and me. I’m not sure I would have done the same for you.”
“If I’d left you there, I’d be dead now. Or soon.” It seemed wisest to avoid elaborating further.
“Well, I’m grateful anyway, huh?” She looked down at Renn’s head, and nudged the telemin halo with her drakeskin boot. “He dead yet?”
“No. I need him alive.”
“Isn’t he kind of excitable, though? Loses his head in a crisis, right? He like, y’ know, flies off the-”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t mock him,” I said. “Please.”
“Why in the hells not? You think he wouldn’t be gloating over us if this had gone the other way?”
“His behavior isn’t my concern. Mine is.”
“You seem pretty concerned about my behavior.”
“I’m not. But allowing you to taunt him would be rude.”
She flexed her shoulders and thrust her chin out toward me pugnaciously. “And if I decide I feel like doing a victory fandango up and down that back-shooting bastard’s face, just exactly how do you figure to stop me?”
“By asking you not to,” I said. “Politely.”
She glared at me for about a second, which was as long as she could hold the glare before she cracked a smile. “You are some piece of work,” she said, shaking her head and chuckling. “You really are.”
“Compliments on my design and construction should be addressed to Nicol Bolas.”
“I wonder if he knows exactly what he’s got here. Something tells me that behind that deadpan of yours, you’ve got a surprise or two for him, too.”
This didn’t seem to call for a reply. Out from a pocket in my magicked clothing I brought the etherium thumb
