“I didn’t mean it as a criticism,” I stammered, blushing.
“I didn’t take it as one,” he said. “I never particularly valued complexity. Sometimes it seems paralyzing.”
Ironic, really. The simplemindedness that had made him believe everything that the Arak Drül had stood for had also made him the only one capable of destroying them. I considered this for a while, but couldn’t turn it into a useful lesson to take away. Perhaps it served to remind me merely of the extent to which all of us-Lisha, Renthrette, Garnet, Mithos, Orgos, and myself-depended on each other. Perhaps it meant nothing, and any attempt on my part to read significance from it was no better than Sorrail reading the signs of evil in the perceived deformity of a Stehnite. Perhaps it was just a warning, a reminder that when things look too good to be true, you can bet there’s something nasty and dangerous underneath, just waiting for a moment to leap out and expose your stupidity by tearing your limbs off. I don’t know.
Whatever control the “soul” in the library had exerted, not everyone had needed it. The Pale Claw cabal melted away, but within hours of the surrender it became clear that they had not simply thrown down their weapons with the rest. They had left, quiet and close to powerless, but with an unsettling deliberation. Where they were now, no one knew for sure, but there had been reports of attacks on Stehnite hunting parties in the mountains, and the newly formed city council had started compiling a list of the Arak Drül’s key courtiers, generals, and politicians who could not be accounted for. The Pale Claw had needed no hooded sorcerer to make them hate goblins, and I suspected that Phasdreille had not heard the last of them. Whether some of those still in the city were only masking their true feelings about the present détente, and how close to the throne the Pale Claw’s influence had spread, no one knew. As tidy as the end to the war had been, there were loose ends, though how far they would trail into the future, I could not begin to speculate.
I returned to the attentive Rose and my excellent beer, but our little chat was disturbed almost immediately by a knock at the door. It was Renthrette.
“We need you in the banquet hall, Will,” she said, her eyes falling on Rose. “Now.”
I scowled at her and tried to look imploring. “Right now?”
“Right now,” she answered, still looking Rose up and down unabashedly.
I sighed and muttered a promise to Rose that I would be back soon.
“I’m not sure you’ll keep that promise,” said Renthrette as we closed the door behind us.
“Why?”
“You’ll see.”
We walked along the cold corridors of the palace, through empty antechambers that had once been packed with courtiers entertaining themselves and pressing for a glimpse of the king. Inside the banquet hall, the party was gathered in a whispering huddle. At the far end of the room stood a man in black, the same man who had offered us a ride in his coach from Stavis.
“Will,” said Renthrette, “you remember Ambassador Linassi?”
I stopped in my tracks. How could I forget?
I had planned for this meeting, rehearsed my anger and outrage, mentally staged the way I would fly at him and beat him. But now that the moment had come, I forgot my lines and could not think what to do. I was corpsed. My mouth opened and nothing came out.
He looked at me, smiled his undertaker smile, and it was almost like being back with the hooded soul of the Arak Drül. But I felt his thoughts and they were at once benevolent and mildly amused. I said nothing. He looked at each of us in turn, then said, “Ready to go home?”
No praise, no thanks, no apology; just that. I found my voice again. “Oh, no,” I began. “Not that easy, mate. You’re going to do a lot of talking before I get in that magic hearse of yours. You can’t just whisk us across the world-presuming we’re still in the world-and drop us into a war from which we emerge by the skin of our teeth, having been chewed by talking bears and generally inconvenienced by an elaborate collection of things that shouldn’t exist in any rational. .”
“Shouldn’t exist?” he smiled.
I hesitated. I was suddenly overcome by the sense that I had a significant moment in my grasp, and could easily get us all into a lot more trouble by saying the wrong thing. The rest of the party seemed to be holding their breath. “Shouldn’t exist,” I said, “but apparently do. Here. Wherever that is.”
Lisha moved. I caught her eye and she nodded fractionally, as if with approval.
“But, look,” I began. “I still don’t understand a lot of this. That’s a state of mind that I’ve gotten quite used to. But the fact is that I think we need some explanations. I mean, we were prophesied to be here, or something. Now what’s all that about, for a start?”
“I don’t think there was ever a real prophecy,” said Orgos. “Not in the sense you mean.”
“But they knew we were coming,” I said. “They said we would have a hand in their war and they were right.”
“There’s nothing in the library,” said Lisha. “I’ve been looking. I think the prophecy was just a rumor that came from paranoia and xenophobia. The world of the Arak Drül was defined against the Stehnites. It makes sense that the one thing they might fear above anything else was people who would not fit in either camp, outsiders who would not see good and evil in the ways they wanted. Such people might erode the Arak Drül’s sense of order just by being here.”
“So they learned to watch for strangers,” agreed Orgos, “for anyone who wasn’t ‘goblin’ but didn’t see the world as the Arak Drül did.”
“That’s it?” I said. “No prophecy? No cosmic hand writing us into the future? No promise that we were destined to shape the world?”
“No,” said the ambassador, simply.
I thought for a moment and then nodded.
“Good,” I said. “I don’t believe in destiny.”
Everyone looked to the ambassador to see how he would respond to this, and when, after a tense moment, he smiled, you could feel everyone breathing out with something like relief. I caught Lisha’s eye and she nodded again, but this time the approval held a note of warning. I was being told that what I had said thus far was plenty, and now I should shut up. I thought about it, and shut up as requested.
“Then we are ready to move on,” said the ambassador.
I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, and was suddenly struck by a reluctance to leave at all. Rose was waiting for me in my room, I thought. I was a hero, an honored guest.
But “guest” was right. I didn’t belong in this land of sorcery and chocolate-covered birds. I didn’t know where I did belong, but it wasn’t here.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”
There was a tiny ripple among the group, a kind of resolution that did not come easily, but came definitively.
“My coach is outside,” Linassi said. “As is your stallion.”
“Tarsha!” exclaimed Renthrette, and everything else, the pain of parting from Toth and his people, the strangeness of all we had seen, and the various extreme feelings that accompanied all we had done since we had got here was forgotten. As soon as Renthrette imagined meeting her beloved warhorse, her memories of Sorrail and what, if anything, she had felt for him evaporated as only the memories of old love can. I defy any man to compete for her affections with that bloody horse.
We didn’t even get to say good-bye, though that was probably a blessing. I had been popular briefly enough that I wasn’t sure I knew how to leave those who valued me, if only as someone who had done Significant Things. I wouldn’t even be leaving any friends, not exactly. I was on the verge of getting to know Rose, and I no longer jumped a foot in the air when Toth showed up at my door, but I had spent too much of my time here alone to have made lasting acquaintances.
I left Rose a book of poems that I had been carrying about with me. They were addressed to people with dark eyes, but I didn’t think she’d mind. It was odd to think that a few weeks before she might have been revolted by them.
Toth was there to see us off, but no one else knew we were leaving. He bowed to each of us in turn, including me, and embraced Orgos and Mithos. Then the coach was moving off, silent and dark as before, with Renthrette mounted on Tarsha at our rear and Garnet sitting beside the coachman. Orgos’s eyes met mine and he smiled. “Worried, Will?”
“Always,” I answered, honestly.
Mithos grinned, a real smile that split his face so you could almost see his teeth. It was like glimpsing a very rare bird, and within moments I had convinced myself that it had been a trick of the light. I peered out of the window as Phasdreille, white and glorious, receded slowly behind us and we got onto the road proper. It was a clear, cold day, and the early afternoon light was turning the city to gold as it had been when I first saw it. Back down the road, a familiar silver wolf with a flash of white on its throat was loping easily after us. The ambassador touched my arm and I leaped in my seat.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I muttered. “It’s like rolling over and finding you’re in bed with the grim reaper. No offense.”
“None taken,” he replied. “I was merely going to suggest that you pull your head inside the carriage. I think I hear a storm coming.”
I glanced hastily out of the window and saw that the land around me was darkening fast. Overhead, I heard the distinct rumble of thunder. Then the heavens opened and a great torrent of rain came crashing down upon us, lashing the carriage and the horses. As the lightning flashed hard and white, I remember thinking that so much water might just wash the world away.
“Brace yourself, Will,” said Orgos. “We’re going home.”
“That,” said the ambassador, “remains to be seen.”
I was about to ask him what the hell he meant by that, when there was another brilliant flash which seemed to linger impossibly, and then I was thrown face-first onto the carriage floor. When I opened my eyes and got up to my knees, everything had changed. There was no storm, and the light from outside had dropped to almost nothing.
I fought with the latch on the carriage door to get out of that oppressive darkness and bundled myself out into the dim courtyard of the Fisherman’s Arms, the tavern where we had first met the ambassador.
“Stavis,” I muttered to myself. “We’re back in Stavis.”
“Like we never left,” said Mithos, cautious, as he stepped down from the carriage behind me.
“But we did,” I said. “Right? You’re not going to give me that ‘and-I-woke-up-and-it-was-all-a-dream’ bollocks, are you? Because that is the single worst ending to a story ever.”
“No,” said Orgos, wonderingly. “It was real. I can still feel the ache of my wounds.”
I felt my face, but the bruising Sorrail had given me had healed long before the ambassador had showed up in Phasdreille. I glanced wildly around, expecting to have lost some of the group, but they were all there, Garnet still sitting beside the driver with a dazed look, Renthrette sliding out of Tarsha’s saddle, Lisha stock still, her spear somehow ready.
“The same place,” said Orgos, still in an awed whisper, “and the same time.”
“What?” I said. “What do you mean?”
I was trying to sound defiant, dismissive, but a part of me knew what was coming and guessed he was right. He was staring at the corner of the sky where a quarter moon was beginning to rise.
“This is how it was when we left,” he said.
“Oh my God,” I said. “There will be Empire troops all over looking for us. We’re right back where we were!”
“Almost,” said the ambassador, stepping down from the carriage.
I had assumed he was gone, and his voice made me jump, but I recovered quickly.
“What do you mean, ‘almost’?” I said.
“Times change,” he answered. “See for yourself.”
As he was speaking, the door into the tavern had been thrown open and a bored-looking stable boy trudged out with a bag of oats. Orgos, ever stealthy, ducked behind the carriage, reaching for his sword. Mithos and Lisha followed. The boy, who was about fourteen, frowned at us.
“Oh,” he said to me. “I didn’t know anyone was here. I’ll get my master.”
“Wait,” I insisted. I had no idea how to proceed. “So,” I said. “How’s business? Busy night?”
He frowned again, then shrugged.
“Same as usual,” he said.
“Any excitement in town?”
“Excitement?”
“Commotion,” I said, speaking through a fixed and wholly unconvincing smile. “Tumult. Uproar. Hullabaloo. People running around and shouting. .”
“Sir?”
“Are the streets quiet?” said Renthrette, like she was wading in to save a man drowning in two feet of water. “Or is there a lot of Empire activity?”
Subtle, I thought, and waited for the boy’s face to cloud with suspicion. Instead, his bafflement seemed to increase.
“Empire?” he said.
“Empire,” repeated Renthrette. “The Diamond Empire. Are there more than the usual patrols, or?. .”
But the kid was shaking his head, brow still furrowed.
“What Empire?” he said. “What do you mean?”
“The people who run Stavis,” Garnet called, jumping down from the carriage.
“Run Stavis?” the boy repeated. “Not sure who runs Stavis. Depends who you ask, I suppose. The Merchants Guild control half the city council, my master says, but it’s supposed to be freely elected. .”
“But who controls the city?” I inserted. “Who polices it? Who makes the laws and suppresses rebellion? Who is the power here? Who are you scared of?”
The boy hesitated and something uneasy shot through his eyes.
“There’s the Fraternity,” he offered. “They are the police. They keep the bad people out.”
“And this Fraternity is an army? White cloaks with a diamond motif. .”
“There are twelve of them,” said the boy. “There is no army.”
“Wait,” I said. “Are you saying that the Diamond Empire has no presence in this city?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the boy. “I don’t know what the Diamond Empire is. Is it a trade league? There’s a Goldsmiths’ Guild. Maybe it’s part of that.”
“No,” I insisted. “I mean an army. A massive military and political presence which came south from Aeloria. They took Cresdon and Bowescroft, then Cherrathwaite, remember? Then they came here. They built a road across the Hrof and they took Stavis, which is now their easternmost frontier. There was a big troop buildup here a few months ago when there was fighting over in Shale and Graycoast. Right? The Empire. The Diamond Empire. Ring any bells?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the boy. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Cresdon was conquered by an army from the north? No chance! We might be a bit far afield, but we would have heard. When did that happen?”
“Almost twenty years ago!” I exclaimed.
“Oh,” said the boy, as if he was finally understanding a joke we had been making at his expense. “All right. I get it. Stavis is a long way from anywhere and we don’t know what’s going on in the world. A big army could take over the whole area and we wouldn’t notice because we’re too busy counting our money. Very funny. You know, if you’re going to be here long, I’d get that kind of humor out of your system quickly. People won’t like it. So, you need your horses stabled or what?”
“Yes,” said the ambassador, stepping forward. “Perhaps you could fetch the innkeeper. We may need rooms for the night.”
The boy, looking surly, returned to the inn and I got a brief glimpse inside: a few patrons at tables eating and drinking. No crowds. No soldiers. No Empire presence of any kind.
“What the Hell is this?” I said.
Orgos, Mithos, and Lisha emerged from the shadows behind the carriage.
“The boy is deluded,” said Garnet. “Or dim.”
He said it loudly, throwing out his chest as if defyin
g the world to contradict him, but there was something in his eyes, a flicker of uncertainty. Even he knew there was more to it than that.
“Open the street door,” said Lisha.
“Lisha,” Renthrette cautioned, “if there are Empire troops on the road outside. .”
“Will,” Lisha said. “Open the door. Carefully.”
I wanted to ask why it had to be me, but I also wanted to know. I walked across the inn yard, lifted the bar across the door and cracked it open. It was dark out, but I could see all the way down the road. There were shops and houses, and taverns, mainly closed for the day, and a few people wending their way home to bed. There were no soldiers. I opened the door wider and realized that something was missing.
“There’s no tower,” I whispered into the night.
“What?” said Garnet, striding up behind me.
“There was a stone watchtower just down there,” I said, pointing. “It was a small fortress for the Stavis garrison. The Empire must have built it when they took the city. It’s not there anymore.”
“Maybe they pulled it down,” said Garnet.
“No,” I said. The beginnings of the truth had started to register. “They never built it. Did they?”
That last was aimed at the ambassador, who was watching us, smiling in his cryptic and unnerving way.
“That’s right,” he said simply.
“That’s not possible,” said Garnet. “It was there. I saw it. How can they have never built it?”
“Because the Empire isn’t here,” I said. “The Empire doesn’t exist.”
“What?” sputtered Garnet. “What are you talking about?”
“Where did we just come from?” I asked the ambassador.
“From the city which was once called Phasdreille,” said the ambassador.
“And when did we come from?” I asked.
Garnet started to protest but Lisha silenced him with a gesture.
The ambassador stood there saying nothing for a long moment and his eyes moved over us as if he was deliberating how much to say. When he finally spoke, it was in a low, even voice like someone delivering the epilogue to a play.
“You came from four hundred years in the past. You came from Phasdreille in the mountains of Aeloria, from a place where, once upon a time, a mighty Empire was born. The Arak Drül were conquerors who assimilated other cultures into their own through a combination of military might and sorcery. They drove out other peoples before them, though in time they became simply a war machine, funded by the natural resources they had taken from others, funded, in particular, by their control of the mining and trade of diamonds.”
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