by D. T. Kane
“Not at all. I know the future to the extent there are set, indisputable events that must come to pass. Like major landmarks on a map. But ever since the Cataclysm, the way we arrive at those points is always changing. Rogue strands that can only be resolved by creating permanent change on the Path are not uncommon. So my existence is far from static; far far from boring. You just have to change your narrow, three-dimensional view of things. For me, the excitement lies not in the destination, but how I arrive there.”
“So you almost have to craft time? Like a blacksmith works his heated metal?”
“Well, not exact—”
“A time smith.”
“That won’t...” Devan paused. That actually had a ring to it. He smiled.
“So you can’t alter time,” the lad continued, oblivious to the point in his favor he’d just scored. “Fine. Can you just send us back about two hours? I’m sure we can handle the rest.”
Devan’s smile withered.
“Ferrin, no,” Erem interjected.
The lad pushed on.
“Jenzara. The third member of our party.” He held up a hand as a rattling spasm of coughs took him. After several moments of hacks that made Devan’s own throat ache, he finally choked out, “The Parents took her; we need to save her.”
Erem growled. “Have you listened to nothing the Angel’s said?”
Devan barely heard Erem.
“Jenzara? Raldon’s ward? She was with you?” He cast a glance at Erem, but his eyes were impossible to read through those stupendously stupid solar spectacles.
“Yes!” the lad exclaimed. “I thought you could see the past and future.” He then succumbed to a fresh round of coughing.
Devan shrugged. “The Path’s not in the best of shape at the moment.” That had been another astute observation on the lad’s part. If this had been the True Path, he would have had a near-perfect sense of what the future held. The fact that the lad noticed he didn’t was quite interesting. Who was he?
The lad waved his comment away. “So will you take us? Maybe you could even help. Just a little. Between Erem’s shadow, my blade, and your—” the lad motioned at his rings, “—that group of Parents wouldn’t stand a chance. Not even Valdin.”
“Valdin?” Devan said it with surprise, though he immediately realized he shouldn’t be. Not after the plans he’d laid.
“Sure. He and I have a bit of history. You might even say he’s chasing me, in fact.”
What? Val was after this lad? Nothing his old friend was doing seemed to make any sense.
“But don’t change the subject,” Ferrin went on. “Are you going to help us rescue Jenzara or not?”
The mention of Val had almost wiped the lad’s ridiculous request from his mind.
“Help you— Jenzara—” Devan spluttered, shaking his head. “Absolutely not. I told you—no crossing your own timeline.”
The lad looked like a child who’d just been denied his favorite toy. “Do you know where I can find another of you, then?”
“Excuse me?”
“Another of you. There’s more of you. More Aldur. Right? Maybe one of them would be willing to help.”
Devan stared at the lad, for once at a loss for words. The silence between them grew like a tumor. Erem began to say something, but suddenly Devan blurted, “There are no others.”
“What?” The lad sounded as though he were being sold cheap steel.
“What?” Erem said at the exact same time, genuine surprise in his typically brusque voice.
Devan shut his eyes. He hadn’t intended for that to come out. Busted Paths during a funeral procession! And yet, some tension had eased from him as soon as he’d said it. The extinction of his people had been a heavy burden to bear alone.
“Val killed them,” he finally managed.
The lad’s eyes widened. His mouth moved but issued no sounds.
Erem bowed his head, then he reached out and clasped Devan by the shoulder. The gesture recentered him somehow, and he gave the man a nod of gratitude.
“Come on,” the lad said, cutting short Erem’s gesture. “Valdin’s great at channeling and all. But you can channel all the elements. And time travel. And you’re immor—” Ferrin furrowed his brow. “How old are you anyway?”
Devan shrugged. “I lost count around 1,500.”
“Years?” The lad was stunned into momentary silence. But only a moment. “Right. An immortal race who can channel all five elements and time travel. And you’re telling me a single man killed all of them? Except you?”
Devan rubbed at his temples with thumb and middle finger.
“Valdin’s no ordinary man,” Erem interceded. “He was an Aldur, just like Devan here.”
Silence, though Devan could see the cogs of understanding twirling in the lad’s mind. Yet rather than comprehension, indignant rage rose to Ferrin’s face. He looked from Erem to Devan, then back again.
“You mean to tell me, you knew Valdin was a being of such power as, as...” the lad was tripping over words in a rage. “As this Angel, and yet allowed Jenzara to face him without telling her?” The lad spoke with the quiet rumble of an earth shake. Devan was surprised to actually see Erem grimace.
“He is no longer of the Aldur,” Devan said, trying to draw the boy’s ire away from Erem. “He lured my people into a trap, then murdered them. A cowardly act; not one of power. Then I defeated him, stole his powers. A fate worse than death for one of my people, though still better than he deserved.”
The lad hadn’t seemed to hear. He was quaking.
“How could you?” he asked, eyes still trained on Erem. “What did you expect to happen when we faced such a man?”
Even in the dying fire’s dim light, Devan could see Erem’s face go pale.
“Ferrin, I’m sorry. I—”
Devan felt Ferrin’s fire channel begin before the lad even raised an arm towards Erem. Reacting without conscious thought, Devan sprang over the firepit, casting a psychic shield out like a net. He was quick enough to save Erem, but a portion of Ferrin’s hex took Devan in his right arm. The stench of cooking meat flooded Devan’s nostrils and the pain that shot through his arm was brilliant in its intensity. But he hardly reacted. After what Val had done to him, this was bearable. Devan remained crouched there in front of Erem like a cat ready to pounce, expecting the lad to attack again. But Ferrin was stooped over and panting, clutching his shoulder, though his eyes were still locked onto Erem.
Devan nearly launched into a tirade. The lad had no idea the sort of calamity he’d nearly visited upon the Path. But one of Stephan’s old sayings stayed his tongue. Meet rage with rage, you’ll get more the same. Use calm instead, the anger you’ll tame. An easing of tensions was the better plan of attack. At least to start. He’d have plenty of harsh words for this impudent youth later.
“So you know Val?” Devan asked.
For a moment he didn’t think the lad would respond. Ferrin remained standing with hands on his knees, almost wheezing, still staring at Erem, face painted in burning shades of incredulity. Erem, who had succeeded in extinguishing the flames on Devan’s right arm (he’d have to thank him later), remained seated on a rock behind him. Devan channeled a spark into their fire, returning it to a healthy blaze. This seemed to snap the lad from his enraged torpor.
“You could say we’ve a bit of history together,” Ferrin said. “He’s Elsewhere bent on killing me. Just showed up to Ral Mok not a week past with two dozen or so Parents with him. Said they were searching for a reported shadow attuned in the area.”
Devan nodded, hiding a satisfied smile. That meant Ral Mok’s Master at Elements had received the invitation and spoken with Val. Or Val had forced words from him, at least.
“Wait a minute.” The lad’s face was still bright with angry color, but he’d regained some of his composure, not breathing as hard.
“If Valdin is—was—one of you, what is he doing leading the Temple in a crusade against the North and all shadow att
uned?”
Devan opened his mouth, then paused. It took an effort to keep his eyes from widening. Val had been orchestrating some plan to keep the Path from mandating his love’s death. Then he’d lost his shadow power, and his ability to manipulate the Path along with it. And now here was this lad, clearly strong in the fifth element, and Val was chasing him. How had he not seen it sooner?
“He’s trying to regain his full powers.”
“What?” Erem asked from behind him, voice still not entirely steady. “You said you’d taken them from him, like slicing off a limb. That doesn’t sound like something one can regain.”
“There are ways. Just depends what you’re willing to sacrifice,” Devan said. “And to regain his power, I’m sure Val is willing to do just about anything. Let’s see.” He was almost muttering to himself now. “No way he has access to a shadow Link, so it must be,” he scratched at his brow. “Must be a death exchange he’s after.”
The lad narrowed his eyes. “A death exchange?”
“It’s dark stuff. Harvesting, some call it. Kill the victim slowly and channel away his power as the life force drains. Not unlike a leech drinking its victim’s blood. Though it only works if the victim is a powerful shadow attuned. Much power is lost in the transfer, so the subject must have quite a bit of it for the robbery to succeed.”
Erem cursed under his breath.
“What?” Devan said, turning to look over his shoulder. He still hadn’t left his position, crouched in front of Erem. The lad seemed unlikely to erupt again, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
Erem’s brow was a ragged mess of quiet outrage. “If what you say is true, Angel, that means this whole crusade against the shadow, the whole war, is—”
“Just an excuse for Val to regain his powers, yes,” Devan finished. “He’s rounding up every shadow attuned he can find in hopes of finding one powerful enough to feed his desires. As I’ve said, he’s despicable.”
“Bloody boulders,” Ferrin muttered.
“We’ll have far more to worry about than some bloody boulders if Val succeeds,” Devan said. “He knows of your attunement, I presume?”
“Yes. Submitted the whole town to elemental exams.”
Devan raised his eyebrows. “Raldon permitted him to do that?”
Erem and the lad exchanged a look Devan didn’t very much care for.
“Not willingly,” the lad said. “Valdin was using enchantment on him. I’m almost certain.”
Trees on the path with no way to clear them! It seemed no rule was too sacred for Val to stomp upon. But it made sense, didn’t it? Probably how his once friend was controlling the Temple as well.
“Raldon’s dead, Angel.” Erem’s tone was flat, but Devan could sense emotion waiting to creep in if he spoke any further.
“Dead? No, surely not.”
Certainly Erem was mistaken. Master Keeper Raldon Everbright might be a Linear, but he should have been able to stand up to Val, powerful as he was.
“I would not jest of such things,” Erem replied. “Sacrificed himself so the boy and Jenzara could escape.”
“Why would Raldon have done that?” Devan demanded.
Ferrin’s eyes were like daggers and Erem growled at the back of his throat. But Devan only shook his head, voice heated.
“No, I mean it. These are turbulent times we’re in, and the Aldur are gone save for me. We’ll need every man like Raldon there is if we’re to survive the coming storm.” Now it was Devan who felt a quake of anger tremoring within. He insisted to himself it had nothing to do with the fact that he’d supplied the impetus for Val to go to Ral Mok in the first place.
“The exam,” Erem said, as if that provided a complete justification for Raldon’s idiotic self-sacrifice.
Devan waved an exasperated hand back towards the man. Why dwell on this irrelevancy?
“Yes. Yes. Val had a seer with him, the lad touched it, turned black. Some red too apparently.”
“That’s not exactly right,” Ferrin said. He’d sat down, pallid as ever. “At first it was four colors: red, blue, green, white. Then the darkness overtook them all. I think it must have been because I was resisting the thing initially, trying not to show Valdin the true result. I must have managed to fool it for a time.”
Devan felt the color drain from his own face until it must have been pale as the lad’s.
“What?” Ferrin demanded, staring at him with narrowed eyes. “Erem reacted the same way when I told him that.”
Erem was about to speak, but Devan held up a hand to silence him. The boy was arrogant enough without knowing the significance of what the seer had disclosed. He’d need to return to his memory parlor to study and confirm this issue.
“Nothing,” Devan said. “Likely means the seer Valdin had was faulty. Such relics are often unreliable.” Devan hoped the stench of the lie didn’t reach the lad’s ears. He’d already proved himself a perceptive one. Erem gave him a look but remained silent and, thankfully, the lad did the same, seeming to consider the deception long enough for Devan to shift the flow of conversation.
“Erem, we really must discuss why I’m here.”
The man’s voice hardened. “I’ve no interest in you attempting to lecture me again, Angel.”
Path help him, the man was like a stick in solidified slag.
“After what I told you at our last meeting. About—” he eyed the lad, who seemed lost in thought. Or perhaps drowsing, his eyes drooping. “About what evil has risen in the North? Surely you’ve come round to seeing your duty in this matter?”
Erem snorted.
Devan could only shake his head. “I thought for sure when I noticed you’d left the clearing it meant you were finally ready.”
“There was little choice left to me,” Erem said. “Once the shades attacked us there and injured the boy, attempting to bring him North was the only option. Otherwise, I might as well have run him through then and there.”
“Shades?”
“Of course, shades,” Erem fumed. “You think tonight is the first time we’ve seen them? Been harrying us since we left the clearing. Almost as if they’re working with the Parents.”
Immediately, Devan’s thoughts flashed to the shades and the Parents guarding what waited at Ral Falar. Was it possible Val actually had control of the creatures?
“And the dreams?” Devan demanded. “They’ve been getting worse, yes? You don’t even need to answer, I know they have.”
Erem remained silent, gripping at the ring he wore, though seeming not to realize it.
“Look, I still don’t have a complete picture yet,” Devan said, “but I do know the dire threat that exists in the North, and the one who may be working with that dread power is in Agarsfar’s highest position of authority. Bloody footprints on a path leading into darkness! He’s started a whole war on a selfish whim.” Devan rose, looking down at Erem, who remained seated. “Come man, can’t you see the potential consequences?”
Erem looked away. Devan waited, holding his breath as he sensed the man about to speak. The reply eventually came not from Erem, but from the lad behind him.
“Would you forget the war already?” he said. “I care for it as little at the moment as Erem.” He rose to his feet unsteadily, voice raising with urgency. “What matters to me is what we’re going to do about Jenzara. She’s in the clutches of, apparently, the most dangerous man in Agarsfar. Maybe one of the most dangerous men to ever—”
Ferrin never finished the sentence. Suddenly his eyes bulged. A disquieting burble emanated from the back of his throat and he clutched at his shoulder. Then he collapsed to the ground and sprawled there, twitching.
“Light, no!” Erem sprinted over the firepit to the fallen figure, practically flinging Devan from his path. He knelt beside Ferrin’s spasming form. Devan felt him channel, probing into Ferrin’s wound. A moment later, Erem gagged and sunk away from the lad.
“I cannot,” he gasped. “Cannot do anything more for him. I have
taken in as much of the corruption as my body can bear. The close contact with the Terror must have overwhelmed his injury. You must help him, Angel.”
Devan frowned. Linears and their weak bodies. Such a hassle.
“Rend’s tears,” Erem practically wailed, as if he could hear Devan’s thoughts. “Don’t look at him like a broken branch lying in your way.”
Devan flinched at this. He wasn’t that heartless. Was he?
“He was right, you know,” Erem went on. “What an idiot I was, letting the pair of them go against a band of Parents that inevitably would have been led by Valdin. But I’d given them some training over the past few days. I thought that gave them a chance. And I would be there, to protect them. But now, Jenzara’s gone, the boy dying. My mere presence seems to bring death to all those around me.”
The man was nearer to blubbering than Devan had ever expected to see him.
“I have told you before,” Devan replied, hoping he sounded calm, “my channeling is not like yours. I cannot heal, at least not in any sense that you mean.”
Erem growled in between gasps for air. “The boy cannot die. Do something.”
Devan sighed, turning his gaze to Ferrin’s slumped form. He didn’t need to touch the lad to sense the corruption bubbling within him, but he did anyway. Linears always expected some external sign that he was channeling.
The wound was a nasty thing. Full of hate and fear, whispering suggestions of deceit. Maiming. Murder. Nothing good, that was for sure. And certainly nothing his meager channeling abilities could heal. But there were other things he could do to perhaps buy the lad more time. And if what the lad had said about the elemental exam was true, there was reason to preserve him.
The corruption had come from the Lesser Terror, or one of its minions anyway. So it had origins in the Elsewhere. Devan inhaled—another unnecessary physical display for Erem’s benefit—and drew power from Stephan’s chronometre and the moonlight above. Then, he injected the same channel he’d used to banish the Terror into Ferrin’s shoulder. But whereas he’d driven the channel into the Terror like a knife, here he dabbed at Ferrin’s shoulder, like he was handling a newborn.