were more like streets. They had shops and houses built on them. Men sat at the base of the pillars, fishing with rods and nets, trying to catch something for supper. Once he thought he saw a corpse bobbing in the river. He doubted that anyone would want to swim on a day like today. The sky was clear and blue but the wind was cold and air and water both held a winter chill.
He felt as if someone was watching him, and turned to see that Asea’s eye was upon him. “Yes?” he said.
“You look happy,” she said. “You don’t look happy often.”
He smiled. “I have just discovered that I like leaving places.”
“I have never felt much that way myself,” she said. “Not since the Exile, not since we left Al’Terra.”
“What was it like?” he asked. “Did you have cities like this?”
At first he thought she was not going to answer. Her gaze was fixed on a point in the distance, as if she was looking at something far off in time, as well as distance.
“Bigger,” she said. “With taller towers, lit by magic, and strengthened by spells and steel so that they were tall enough to touch the clouds. Air chariots and flying ships moved between them, common as the little boats on this river.”
He could almost picture it in his eye. “Did dragons draw them?”
“No, they were powered by magic. Folk rode dragons for sport mostly, and for war.”
“Was it cold like today?” She shook her head.
“The climate was kinder on Al’ Terra, Rik. At least where I lived. It never got really cold, although near the world’s waist it could get very warm. Magic kept our palaces cool in the summer and warm in the winter. We had so much power and we did not even know it. We took it all for granted.”
“What happened? Did the Princes of Shadow steal your magic?”
“No. It was fading before ever they appeared. Afterwards some said that the failure of the great spells was a portent of their coming. I am not so sure. I sometimes think it was a coincidence. If there was a connection I think it was subtler.”
“In what way?”
“This is not the time or the place to discuss such matters, Rik.” She smiled, lovely as a girl and for a moment he forgot that she was the most powerful and terrifying sorceress he was ever likely to meet. “Ask me of something happier?”
He tried, but being put on the spot like this, his mind went blank. “Were you happy there?” he asked.
“Happier than I have ever been since we came to this world — that is a certainty. Magic was easier to work there. Even at its worst, when magic was failing, there was more power there than here.”
“I was thinking more of friends, and family.” These things had been rare in his life before he had joined the army. They were a treasure he thought he could understand, made all the more precious by their rarity.
She laughed. “I am a sorcerer, Rik. Magic is my art, my addiction, my passion. The quest for knowledge and the ability to shape tau, those were the things that drove me then, and still drive me now, even after all these centuries.”
He heard the truth of that in her voice. He envied her it as well.
“But there was all the other things as well; friends, lovers, laughter, light, joy. Children?”
A shadow passed across her face, and he thought he had perhaps been too impertinent. The smile vanished. “There were.”
There was something in the tone of her voice that told him that it would not be a good idea to ask what had happened to them. Very, very few Terrarchs indeed had made the passage to Gaeia. Only ten thousand according to scripture. Asea has been describing a city bigger than Halim, and he had read that there had been many hundreds of cities on Al’Terra.
“The Princes of Shadow took from us far more than you can know, Rik.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have the talent. Here using it is so difficult. You must sometimes draw on the life force of your own body to work spells. It kills you slowly unless you are very careful. On Al’Terra, magical energy flowed freely through the very air. You could reach out and shape it and sculpt it into wonderful things. You could heal the sick, summon creatures from other planes, build ships that flew and not worry that you might kill yourself by overdrawing on your power.”
“It sounds wonderful,” he said, and meant it. What would it be like for him to live in such a world? He resigned himself to the fact that he would never know. And it dawned on him, that given his heritage, he had lost something, a thing that he had never even known he had lost until she had told him. So much of his life seemed like that, and he resented it.
“It was wonderful.”
“Do you think you will ever go back?”
She shook her head. “I fear though that it has followed us here.”
“The Princes of Shadow?”
“Or their agents at least.” He glanced around just to be certain that no one had come within earshot since they had started their conversation.
“Lord Malkior?” he said.
“I would be very surprised if he were not one of them.”
He shivered. If she was right and Malkior was his father he had a direct lineal connection to the very lords of evil. “But there is the possibility you are wrong.”
“There is always that possibility, Rik. Only a fool thinks otherwise.”
She fell silent, studying the city as it fell away behind them. He leaned against the boat's wooden railings and did the same, content for the moment to let the world just drift by. It grew dark and Asea went below.
Chapter Eighteen
The night air was clear as crystal. Overhead the stars burned coldly. The chill wind bit like a blade. Rik heard footsteps behind him. Turning he saw the tall, spare figure of Lieutenant Sardec emerge. Not so long ago Sardec had ordered him whipped for infractions of regimental discipline. Now Rik’s position as Asea’s protege and rescuer of Queen Kathea, made him safe from that at least. He still carried hatred and resentment for Sardec and he was sure the Lieutenant felt the same about him, but under the circumstances there was not anything either of them could do about it. Given the dangerous nature of their mission, it might be best for them to come to terms with each other, but Rik was damned if he was going to make the first move. The business with Rena still rankled, all the more because he was certain that the officer did not even know what she had once meant to him.
Sardec noticed his glance. “Good evening,” he said politely. “I had thought I was going to be alone up here, given the cold and the hour. Everyone save the watch is asleep.”
“I like to look at the stars,” said Rik.
“Is it part of your apprenticeship?”
“Apprenticeship?”
“Some people think you are Lady Asea’s new apprentice. They mean it as a joke, but I am starting to wonder if it is something more.”
“Why?”
“I have seen you making signs. I have noticed the amulets you wear.”
Sardec was quicker than he looked. “You object?”
Sardec paused for a moment, then shook his head. “What Lady Asea chooses to do is her business. And after what you did at the Serpent Tower, I think she might be right to do it.”
There was no hostility in Sardec’s voice, and not the least hint of condescension. He talked to Rik as if they were equals. Sometime, somewhere, the Lieutenant’s attitude to him had changed.
“She asked for you specifically to command her guards,” Rik said, because he could think of nothing better to say.
“I know. This will be the third time I have done so. I pray that it is more auspicious than the first.” He raised
