“All right, let’s try.”
“Don’t make up your mind quite yet.” She took another sip. “The sacred texts warn that the ritual is dangerous and should only be attempted to achieve something of extreme importance.”
Aoth smiled a crooked smile. “More important than saving the hide of one devil-worshiping Thayan, you mean.”
“Yes. But if your survival or learning the truth about the dragonborn is necessary to keep Chessenta from falling to the armies of an undead dragon, then perhaps I would be justified. I’ve prayed and meditated, and I don’t feel Amaunator telling me no.”
“How reassuring.”
“If it’s not good enough for you, you may also want to consider that I’ve never tried this before, or even watched anyone else do it.”
He shrugged. “You understand Amaunatori mysteries better than I ever could. If your instincts say go forward, then I’m game.”
She smiled, and it struck him again just how much he liked her round, impish face. “Then shall we do it now, before we come to our senses?”
“Right now?”
“The sun is bright and high in the sky. I just came from worship. I’m about as powerful as I’m going to get.” She picked up an old book bound in crumbling yellow leather, then waved her hand at a wooden chest. “You carry that.”
It turned out to be heavier than he expected, enough that it was awkward to manage it and his spear too. He had a feeling she was waiting for him to grunt and stagger, and he did his best to hide the fact that he was straining.
Cera led him through the temple to the door that opened on the garden. She instructed an acolyte to stand watch and make sure no one disturbed them, and then they stepped out amid the winding paths, green grass, and fresh red and yellow blossoms.
Aoth set the chest on the bench he and Cera had used on the night of the attack. She opened the box, and when she unpacked the four items inside and removed their velvet wrappings, he saw what had made it so heavy. About as tall as his forearm was long, each of the objects was a golden statue of Amaunator standing with an hourglass, a calendar stone, or some other device emblematic of time. The sculptor had fashioned the figures in an elongated style that made the god look skinny.
“I trust you can find the cardinal points,” Cera said.
“My men and I would have spent a lot of time wandering around lost if I couldn’t.”
“Then set the icons out on the ground to define a circle. It doesn’t matter how big, as long as we can both fit inside comfortably.”
He did as she’d directed. “Now what?”
“Now I stand at the center of the circle, you stand toward the edge, and you don’t speak or move till I say you can.”
They took their places.
Cera stood up straight and took a breath. Up until then, despite the fact that she and Aoth were engaged in serious business, there’d been an edge to her that might have signified playful teasing, lingering anger, or a mixture of the two. Now, even though she’d stopped talking, he somehow felt that quality fall away. Suddenly she almost seemed like a holy image herself, her whole being focused on drawing down the power of her god.
She opened the old yellow book and started to read aloud. At first Aoth only heard the words. Then, though a kind of synesthesia, he also perceived them as pulses of warmth and light.
Even he shouldn’t have been able to see the latter in a garden already awash in spring sunlight. Nor should he have seen the arcs of radiance that flared into existence to delineate the sacred circle, and the lines that stabbed outward through the grass. But, as if they were more real than anything around them, the magical phenomena possessed a transcendent vividness that would have made them visible in any circumstances whatsoever.
The icon to the east shimmered and faded away. Then the ones to the north and south disappeared, and lastly the figure in the west. The ritual had consumed them like fire ate wood.
Suddenly, Aoth felt light as air and sensed his essence trying to rise. For a moment something held him like sticky strands of spiderweb, but then the adhesion broke and he floated clear of his body. Which stood like a statue beneath him-except with the heart and lungs still working, he assumed.
Cera flowed up out of her body. Her spirit wore a semblance of her vestments and carried an analogue to the yellow book just as he still appeared to possess his mail and spear. “Do you feel disoriented?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’ve experienced astral travel before.” At the Dread Ring in Lapendrar-he hoped this venture would prove less dangerous and more productive than that one had.
“Then let’s get outside the walls.” She soared over the one on the east and disappeared behind it.
He willed himself after her, and simple intent was enough to launch him like an arrow from a bow. The sensation of effortless, weightless flight was as exhilarating as he remembered, for the instant before he touched down in the street.
Several boys were playing catch in the center of the thoroughfare while a black dog scampered around their feet. A man-a potter, judging from the clay stains on his hands and clothing-scowled, apparently at the momentary inconvenience of having to detour around the game.
Nobody reacted to Cera and Aoth’s arrival. Because no one had the magic or spellscarred eyes that would have allowed him to perceive disembodied spirits.
“What now?” asked Aoth.
“If I performed the ritual properly,” Cera replied, “it should work more or less on its own from here.”
The leather ball halted in midair, then flew back into the hand that had thrown it. Putting his feet exactly where he had before, the potter backed up.
At first, even though everything was regressing, it didn’t move any faster than it normally would. Aoth wondered if he and Cera would have to wait for what would feel like actual days before they reached the dragonborn attack.
But then the world sped up until all he could see was flickers and blurs in the street. Occasionally he felt a cool tingle as something streaked through his insubstantial body.
The sun dropped toward the eastern horizon, and dawn gave way to night. The darkness only lasted a few moments, and when the sun rose in the west it was racing even faster. Daylight and star-dappled blackness alternated as quickly as the beat of clapping hands.
Until he felt the rapid regression come to a sudden halt. It left them in the dark, which was a good sign. Still, he asked, “Are we where-or rather when-we need to be?”
Cera smiled. “Listen.”
He did. He could just make out the rippling music of the harpist she’d hired to play at the feast.
“When the dragonborn appear,” she continued, “I think I can back up time a little more, at its normal speed. Then we can follow the assassins back to their lair.”
“This is… impressive.”
“I certainly am. I’ll bet you’re sorry you trampled on my maidenly feelings now, aren’t you?”
He was still trying to figure out how to respond to that when his eyes throbbed. He grunted and raised a hand to them.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not in pain. But I have a strange sensation.”
“Let me see.” She came closer and peered up into his face.
“It doesn’t hurt. It’s not interfering with my vision either. It’s just-”
The sky resumed flickering from night to day and back again. Then Cera and Aoth hurtled upward like leaves in a tornado. He instinctively tried to resist, but the force that gripped them was far stronger than his ability to move or stay by force of will.
In fact, he was afraid it would rip Cera and him apart. She plainly had the same concern, for she reached out at the same instant he did. He grabbed her hand, pulled her close, and wrapped his arm around her. Caught between them, the sacred book pressed into his chest.
