by Greg Keyes
“We might. He just teleported somewhere, and he didn’t take the sword with him. But you have to pull it together, do you hear? In case.”
“I don’t think I can,” Attrebus said.
“I know you can,” Sul replied. “I’m telling you that you can. So do it.”
Colin returned, as he did each evening, to the room beneath the city. Letine had been gone for five days, and he was starting to believe she wasn’t coming back, so when he saw someone waiting there, his hand went to his knife.
“It’s me,” she said.
He didn’t know what to do. Should he rush over, hold her, kiss her?
“Are you okay?” he asked instead.
“I’m fine. It just took longer than I thought. The countryside was crawling with those things.”
“Did you find anything out?”
“Nice to see you, too,” she said.
“I—I was worried about you,” he said. “I starting thinking—”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Come here.”
“I didn’t find out anything about the diagram,” she told him later. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s probably nothing,” he said. “Just a stupid distraction.”
“What now?”
“I’m going back,” he said. “Back to Hierem’s quarters.”
“Why?”
“I think he may have Attrebus captive,” he said. “It’s a long shot, but if he does—”
“That would certainly be enough for the Emperor to act on.”
“I think I’m past needing to convince the Emperor of anything anymore,” he said. “Umbriel’s nearly here. I’ve got to do something.”
“That’s good,” she said. “That’s great.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ve got a few things to get together. If I don’t come back—”
“Then I’ll know why. This time, I’m going with you.”
“Letine—”
“If you’re going to do more than sneak around, you’ll need me, I promise you. No arguments.”
He saw her resolve, and knew in that instant he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Okay,” he said. “Are you ready?”
“I think I’ll get dressed first,” she demurred.
Attrebus never heard a sound, but suddenly they were there, gazing down at him, a man and a woman in dark clothing. The woman was a pretty blonde, the man rather nondescript, with brown hair and green eyes.
“Prince Attrebus?” the man whispered.
Attrebus just stared at him, wondering what Hierem was up to now. Had the minister changed his mind?
“Are you here to kill me?” he asked.
“No,” the man answered. “Is Hierem here?”
“He’s not,” Sul answered. “But he could return at any moment.”
“Right,” the man said. “Listen—we work for the Emperor. We’ve come to get you out.”
“There are more than locks here,” Sul informed them.
“I can see that,” the man replied. “Just give me a few moments of quiet.”
The man studied Attrebus’s cell. He closed his eyes, concentrating on something. Attrebus felt the hairs stand up on his neck. After a few moments the man seemed satisfied and touched the lock. It clicked, and the door swung open.
“Who are you?” Attrebus asked.
“I’m Colin Vineben,” the man replied. “If you’ll just come with me, highness—”
“Sul. Get Sul out.”
Colin studied Sul’s cell. “That will be harder,” he said. “That will require time.”
“Take it, then,” Attrebus said.
“If Hierem returns—” the woman began.
“We think he’s on Umbriel,” Attrebus interrupted. “He steps on the sigil in the next room and vanishes. He returns in the same spot. If you wait in there you might be able to surprise him.”
“That’s a good idea,” Colin said. “Letine?”
“I’ve got it,” she replied, padding into the next room.
“Hierem must have really been worried about you,” Colin remarked almost half an hour later, as the last of the wards finally succumbed.
“Not worried enough, apparently,” Sul said. “How did you know we were here?”
“I’ve been watching Hierem for a while,” Colin said. “There was rumor that the prince had been seen abducted, and I thought it was worth looking here.”
“Now what?” Letine asked.
“Now you get the prince back to his father,” Colin said. “I’ll stay here and deal with Hierem.”
“He’ll kill you, Colin,” Letine asserted.
“I’ll get him as soon as he appears.”
“No,” Attrebus croaked. He’d been sitting despondently outside of his cell, but now he stood up.
“Your highness—”
But Attrebus was talking to the Dunmer. “We can get up there, Sul,” he said. “Up to Umbriel, just as Hierem did.”
“He’s got some sort of object with him,” Sul replied. “I think it activates the portal. We’ll have to get it from him.”
“No, we won’t,” Attrebus said. “I think if we stand in the middle of the sign, we’ll go up when he comes back. I saw a rat vanish once, when he appeared.”
“Wait,” Colin said. “Listen to me. If we return you to your father, he can send a hundred men through the portal—soldiers, battlemages—there’s no point in you going, Prince.”
“What if the portal only works for Hierem? What if he’s the only one who knows the magic word, or whatever? We can’t take that risk. Sul, we have to find the sword before Hierem returns.”
“What sword? What’s this about?” Colin demanded, but Sul was already out the door. Attrebus started after him.
“I’ll explain if we have time,” the prince said.
“What if he doesn’t return?” Colin pressed, walking with him. “What if he just stays on Umbriel until this city falls?”
“I don’t know,” Attrebus said. “But I think he’ll be back. You stay here in case it’s sooner rather than later.”
“I think he’s right,” Letine said after they were gone. “I think Hierem will be here when Umbriel reaches the city.”
“Why?”
“Just a feeling in my gut,” she replied. “The prince is determined—let him do whatever it is he wants to do—we’ll wait here for Hierem.”
“The prince is delusional,” Colin whispered.
“You can’t make him go.”
“Sure I can. His father will thank me.”
He heard them returning. Sul was carrying something wrapped up in cloth. It was the size and shape of a sword.
Sul and Attrebus moved to the sigil. Nothing happened when they stepped on it.
“Can you open it, Sul?” Attrebus asked.
The dark elf shook his head. “It’s not an Oblivion gate or trace. It’s beyond me.”
“We’ll wait, then.”
“Highness,” Colin said, hoping one more try would do the trick, “my charge is to get you to safety, not watch you jump into the midst of the enemy.”
“I know what you probably think of me,” Attrebus said. “To be honest, right now most of me just wants to go back to my villa and lay down on my bed, if only to die there. But I can’t. I’ll never be the man the books talk about. But I started something, and I’m going to finish it. I won’t argue about this anymore, and as your prince I forbid you to bring it up again.”
Colin drew a deep breath and nodded. “As you say, my prince.”
Attrebus and Sul took positions on the sigil. The inspector—Vineben, the prince recalled—and the woman, Letine, stood behind it. Sul unwrapped Umbra and replaced his usual weapon with it.
“What’s the plan?” Attrebus asked.
Sul’s gaze seemed even more intense than usual as he turned it on Attrebus.
“If we’re lucky, Hierem is meeting with Vuhon, and we’ll appear right in front of him. If that happens, I’ll stab him. If we’re rig
ht about all of this, the sword should reclaim Vile’s energies. That should allow me to kill Vuhon.”
“And then what?”
Sul cocked his head, as if studying some strange creature speaking an even stranger language.
“Then he’ll be dead.” He said it quietly, like a note plucked softly on the tightest wire in the world.
“But what about Umbriel? Without Vile’s power to run the ingenium, will it just fall out of the sky, or—”
“Vile said he would take it from there,” Sul said shortly. “Remember?”
“Right, but—” Then he understood. “You don’t care about anything but killing Vuhon.”
“When did I ever say otherwise?” Sul snapped.
“Well—never. But I just thought—”
“Don’t try to think for me,” Sul said. “And don’t act surprised. I kill Vuhon—anything else is up to you. You know what’s going to happen when I draw Umbra—you remember Elhul. Best get away from me when that happens, find that girl or do whatever strikes your fancy.”
“Then why do you want me along at all?”
“Because if Vuhon isn’t there when we appear, we’ll have to find him—and you’re the one with the magic bird and the friends in high places. So I might still need you. And speaking of birds …”
“Right,” Attrebus said, reaching into his bag.
SIX
He swam in black water, probing through the rotting leaves, lifting his eyes now and then above the surface to search the shallows and shore for movement. Larger things in the depths of the swamp couldn’t reach him here, amidst the twisting cypress roots; here the danger usually came from land.
Something in the mud moved, and he snapped at it with webbed paws and lifted a feathery-gilled wriggler into view. He ate it happily and searched for more, but in a short time his belly was full and he felt like basking. He swam lazily back to the gathering hole.
The old ones had already claimed the choicest perches, so he crawled onto a log already crowded with his siblings and wriggled down among them until he felt the rough bark against his belly. When his brothers and sisters gave up their sleepy, halfhearted complaints at his added company, he felt the sun on his skin and began to dream his life; swimming, basking, killing, avoiding death, the sun and moons, all mystery, all terrifying, all beautiful. Each day the same day, each year the same year.
Until the root came, and the taste of sap. Some changes were slow, others came quickly, and he—they—flowed together, found the stream of time. His old body wasn’t forgotten, but it changed, became more like things the root remembered from otherwhere; his hind legs lengthened and his spine stood up. Small thoughts in his head put out branches, and those branched also, until what had before been warmth, light, shadow, movement, fear, contentment, anger, and lust became categories instead of simple facts. The world was the same, but it seemed more, bigger, stranger than ever.
Death followed life and life death, but it all flowed through the root, each life different, each the same.
Until that, too, ended, and the root was ripped away, and he was alone. The gathering place was empty except for him—no elders, no siblings. He swam in black water, forgetting everything. Losing his form, melting away.
But in that dissolution, the illusion was also dissolved. He was many, and he was one. He sang, a plaintive tune, a remembrance, a prayer. All of his voices took it up, trembling it out through every branch and root, through heart and blood and bone.
I want to go home, he sang. I want to go home.
Glim woke gasping, spitting water from his mouth, remembering the ache closing in on his chest. He smelled his own terror, and remembered more—his heart stopping, the cold, nothingness.
And Fhena. Then he understood that he wasn’t just thinking of her—she was looking down at him anxiously.
“What?” he managed.
“You’re talking!” she said.
“Where am I?”
“You’re safe,” Fhena said. “Just know you’re safe.”
“I don’t understand,” he grunted. His skin felt tight, itchy, and he was shivering. His mind was full of shifting images and half thoughts, as if he were back home, touching the root of the City Tree but stronger, stranger, freer.
“What happened to me?” he said. “I’m not the same. The trees—”
“You hear them now,” she said. “Like I do.” She touched him, and her face changed to an expression of purest wonder. “No,” she said, “not like me. Better—more—it’s like you’re one of them, Glim.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m me. I’m me.”
He fought back the thoughts invading his head.
“What happened?” he demanded. “I thought I died. I was sure I died.” He felt at his side, then his face. “Where are my wounds?” There weren’t even any scars.
“She did it to save you,” Fhena told him. “To keep you safe.”
“Did what?” Glim asked, starting to feel hysterical.
“I killed you,” another familiar voice said. “I killed you.”
The face was Annaïg’s, but the words made no sense juxtaposed with it.
“She did it to save you,” Fhena murmured, laying her hand on his shoulder.
“Neither of you is making any sense,” he snarled.
“Be calm, Glim,” Annaïg said in their private cant. “Just be still and let me explain.”
Annaïg watched Glim’s face as he listened to her, as she tried to explain to him that he was still Glim, still the friend she had grown up with, that she had rescued him, not murdered him.
But his face wasn’t exactly the same. It looked younger, which made sense, but there was also a little something different about the shape of it; the same for his coloring, which had more rust in it now. If she had seen this body a few months ago, she would have thought it one of Glim’s brothers, but she wouldn’t have mistaken it for him.
But inside, he had to be the same. He had to. Sure, he seemed somehow more distracted than the old Glim, seemed to have a hard time focusing on what she was saying, but surely that was a side effect of the incubation process. To go from a worm to an adult with eighteen years’ worth of memories in a few days had to be a shock.
But Glim didn’t come to that conclusion.
“You’re saying I’m not me anymore,” he said, in as strange a tone as she had ever heard him use. “I’m a copy.”
“No,” Annaïg said. “You have the same soul, Glim. The poison I made caught it before Umbriel could take it away.”
Glim scratched at his flesh. “But this isn’t my body. It isn’t even a Saxhleel body. It’s grown from a proform. I’m not—” He jerked to his feet.
“This is all I’ve ever been to you, an experimental subject! ‘Drink this, Glim, you’ll turn invisible, this will let you fly, this will kill you and bring you back to life,’ but not quite right, never quite right!”
Annaïg felt as if layers of cloth were wrapped around her, muffling everything, hiding what Glim ought to be able to see, trapping anything she could say that might help in dense warp and weft.
“I’m sorry, Glim, it’s all I could think of,” was the best she could do, and she saw now that it wasn’t good enough, might never be good enough.
“Listen,” she said, reaching to soothe his spines, “I know this is a lot right now. I know you may hate me. But I need to tell you a few things, about what I’m planning—”
“No,” Glim said, jerking away from her touch. “I’ve had it with your plans, with doing things your way. I’m finished with it.”
“Glim, listen,” she said, but he turned and stamped from the room. She went after him, but his wet footprints led to the balcony and ended there. She stood looking down at the spreading ripples far below, while Fhena came and stood by her.
“Go back to the Fringe Gyre,” she told Fhena. “I’m sure he’ll find you there, if he doesn’t get killed again immediately. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”
; Fhena nodded and padded silently away, leaving Annaïg staring out at the wonder and madness that was Umbriel.
Her locket chimed.
She held it up and stared at it for a moment, then flipped it open.
Attrebus looked like he hadn’t slept in a month.
“Hello,” he said. “How are you?”
“As best as can be expected,” she replied.
“Look,” he said, “I may not have long. Sul and I think we’ve found a way to get up there. I’m not sure exactly when it will happen or where we’ll be.”
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Hierem, my father’s minister—he’s in league with Umbriel. We think he’s been traveling up there and back using a magical portal. We’re hoping when he comes down, we’ll go back up.”
The threads about her seemed to tighten.
“What can I do?”
“We’re going to try to use the sword, as we discussed earlier,” he said. “I’m not exactly sure what will happen then, even if we manage it. But I thought you should know, so you can be ready if—if any chance for escape comes.”
“What about you?”
“When it’s all over, Sul may be able to take us into Oblivion again.”
To her ear, it almost sounded like he didn’t care if he survived.
“Attrebus,” she said, “I’m sorry if I seemed angry before—”
“It’s okay. I think … I think maybe you had a right to be. I think we might have to talk about that someday.”
“Right,” she said. “Someday.”
“I’m going to put Coo up now—I need to be ready to fight whenever this happens. I just wanted you to know what was going on. If I have a chance to contact you after we get there, I’ll try.”
“Do that,” she said.
The locket went dark.
She took one last look at the vista beyond the balcony and then began striding purposefully toward her kitchen.
Hours passed, and Attrebus began to fear that perhaps Vineben was right, and Hierem had no intention of returning to the Imperial City. The wait did provide the time for a fuller exchange of information, but beyond that it was sheer torture. His mind kept trying to return to the feelings Hierem had violated him with, and he feared if he let that happen he would be useless in any confrontation, and so pressed for more conversation when he could.