Orb Sceptre Throne

Paradise would be a city where pearls cobble roads and gems serve as playthings for children. And why? Not because all will be so wealthy, but because its citizens will have recognized that such things truly are toys.

Words of the Street Prophets, Compiler’s name withheld

There were times when Kiska was dozing in the cave half asleep in the dim phantom light of night when she thought she heard weeping. The sound came drifting in over the surf, faint, wavering, and she would have dismissed it as a scrap of dream had she not heard it more than once.

The sound grated like a blade down her spine, for she knew who it was. If Tayschrenn was not dead as Leoman insisted, then it could be none other. His mind was gone — or, more accurately, she had destroyed his mind by playing into the hand of the Queen of Dreams.

The scheming bitch. She saw it all now. The elegance. All the hallmarks of her plotting. She, Kiska, naive agent, would find the archmagus and deliver to him the poison supplied by her. And once that happened whatever reaction it was would be unleashed and he would be stricken.

And she the brainless dupe. Gods! Every time her thoughts returned to that she bashed the heels of her hands to her forehead. She would escape from here if only to track the damned Enchantress down.

And Agayla? No — she too must have been ignorant of the Queen’s intent. Must have.

Gods above and below, forgotten and forsworn! When would she ever learn? Never trust anyone. Never. That had been her mistake. She’d trusted and been used. As it is for everyone everywhere. You are no different, woman.

She groaned again and wrapped her head in her arms, pulling it down between her knees.

Further into the cave Leoman stirred. ‘Don’t beat yourself up, child,’ he said. ‘You … we … had no way of knowing.’

‘Shut the Abyss up.’

She heard pebbles striking the wall as he tossed them one by one. ‘It stings now but that will pass. I should know. And it wasn’t even on purpose. So never mind. What’s done is done. There’s no sense worrying about it.’

She raised her head to stare at him, incredulous. ‘Says the man who murdered thousands in a firestorm he deliberately set!’

He shrugged. ‘It was war. I was fighting for my life.’

‘Why should your life be worth more than anyone else’s in that city?’

The man tossed another pebble. ‘It is to me.’

She turned away. ‘Gods. You’re beyond hope.’

‘Just honest.’

From the cave mouth came the dragging uneven footsteps of the rescued creatures. Kiska and Leoman shared a glance. He rose, brushed dirt from the tattered Seven Cities robes he still wore over his mail. Kiska pushed herself to her feet.

‘You may exit,’ came a weak quavering voice. ‘Follow us.’

She ducked from the cave, followed by Leoman. The creatures had hobbled off towards the shore. ‘Come,’ one called.

They descended the strand of black sand. Kiska glanced about, searching for the giant, Korus. He seemed nowhere about. The enormous faint silhouette of Maker was visible, larger than any mountain, labouring somewhere on the distant shoreline.

Then she saw someone at the shore and she froze. Her heart lurched as if it had been hammered. She clamped a hand to her mouth. Him. Standing. Standing. Staring out at the bright Vitr sea. Oh, my Queen — I have wronged you so.

She ran all the way down to him only to stop just short. She reached out as if to touch him but yanked her hand back, afraid she shouldn’t. Or that he might not be there. He turned to her and she flinched, catching her breath. For he was Tayschrenn yet he wasn’t. Gone was the sharp questing gaze that could flense flesh from bone. And gone also was the guarded mien — immobile, almost mask-like. He smiled now, studying her in turn. Yet the sight made her heart ache even more so sad was it, so melancholy.

‘You are … healed?’ she asked, her voice catching.

‘Healed? Yes, Kiska. I am healed.’ He reached out to brush her hair from her face. ‘And harrowed. Cut through to the core.’

‘I don’t understand.’

He invited her to walk with him along the shore. ‘You restored me, Kiska. Though I wonder whether I should thank you for it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean I was — am — Thenaj still. Just as I am also Tayschrenn. And I find that I was everything Thenaj loathed. Yet I am both still. And now I must choose who to be.’

‘You are both? Be both then. Who you are.’

Again the wintry smile as he walked, his long thin hair loose. ‘Always the hard choice with you, hey, Kiska? Easier just to deny the one or the other. Blot it out. Pretend it never was … but instead you counsel conciliation. The difficult third path of adaptation and growth.’

He held his long-fingered hands out in front of him, turned them over as if studying them for the first time. ‘So be it. I shall be both — and neither.’

‘And,’ Kiska asked warily, ‘what will you do?’

‘Yes. What to do. I cannot return to the old now that I am not who I was … Yet one possibility does beckon. A possible place for me. One perhaps only I can fill …’

‘And that is?’

He turned to face her, square on. Shook his head. ‘We shall see. I may not be strong enough to take it on. For now it is enough that we will be going. I am finished here.’

‘So — we are leaving? You are coming with me?’

‘Yes.’

Kiska felt as if she had shed ten stone. ‘Thank the gods!’

‘Do not thank them,’ Tayschrenn snapped in a manner something like his old self. ‘Terrible, unforgivable things are stirring and it could be argued that they are to blame. They’ve stuck their hands into the furnace once too many times and now they find they cannot pull them out. So do not thank them. But perhaps we can find it within us to pity them.’

Kiska did not know what to make of that — most of which seemed directed more at himself, in any case. But it wasn’t important. She’d heard the words she’d wanted to hear. He was returning. She had succeeded. Sent on a mission across creation to find someone cast into Chaos — and she had succeeded!

And now she wondered: was that in truth what mattered to her? Was it that which had been gnawing at her all this time? Not concern for Tayschrenn; not fear of her own fate. Was it just that she couldn’t stomach failure? Not a flattering piece of self-revelation.

Perhaps, as Tayschrenn suggested, she should just blot that one out.

He led her back to where Leoman stood waiting, hands on his belt, next to the gathered creatures.

Tayschrenn stopped in front of the man and frowned. ‘Leoman of the Flails. You have some nerve standing here before me.’

The man gave an insouciant shrug. ‘All that is the past.’

The mage’s gaze narrowed, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes deepening. ‘Funny you should say that …’

‘Thenaj …’ one of the unformed asked, its thin voice trembling. ‘What is happening?’

‘I am sorry. But — I am leaving.’

‘Leaving? Going?’ The creatures set up a clamour of murmuring and crying.