by Gage Lee
Ishigara hadn’t been pleased about the damage to her classroom, but she let me buy my way back into her good graces with vials of purified jinsei I created after my shift in Tycho’s laboratory. The scrivening professor even let me purchase supplies from her personal stash.
“Why not purchase them from the School’s store?” she asked suspiciously.
“Yours are higher quality,” I lied.
Ishigara had to know I was lying, but she didn’t stop me. Since our work together during Xaophis’s reign of terror, she’d slowly come to accept I wasn’t the apocalypse made flesh. The professor handed me a satchel filled with what I needed and gave me a curious smile.
“Don’t blow up the School,” she said sternly.
“I won’t,” I said, crossing my fingers behind my back.
At least, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t.
Every day, after my assigned shift in Tycho’s lab, I went back to my dorm suite and scrivened talismans for the Gate of the Design. It was tedious, exhausting work, but it was the only way I’d ever get out to see Abi.
Finally, as February drew to a close and the first whispers of spring pushed their way into the School of Swords and Serpent’s halls, I was ready. The talismans I’d created weren’t perfect, and the soul scrivening kept me from using my technique at will, but I thought the rewards outweighed the risks I’d taken.
I hid all but one of the talismans in the pockets of my robes, and held the last one in my fist.
“I’ll be back soon,” I told Hahen. “Unless Abi kills me.”
The Vision of the Design had showed me the location of Abi’s assignment. The mountaintop temple of Tungnath was an isolated marvel of jinsei construction techniques. The monks and sisters who occupied its stone corridors were, according to my research, devoted to a life of serene inner contemplation.
I had no idea what would have driven my friend from his position with the Portal Defense Force into the embrace of that austere place. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to find out.
But I needed to talk to him. If the sages had tampered with his destiny like they had with Eric’s, then I needed to repair that damage to finish the quest.
More importantly, that was the least I could do for my friend.
Without a second thought, I triggered the gate technique bound into the talisman.
Unlike when I used the Gate of the Design myself, there was no sense of disorientation. One moment I was standing in my dormitory suite. The next, my feet rested on rough stone. The rich scent of incense banished the smell of coffee. Cold fluorescent light gave way to warm candlelight.
Abi sat before an altar, his head bowed, hands resting on his knees with the palms facing skyward. Smoke drifted from the bowl atop the altar, and the faces of spirits and demons leered from the engraved stone walls that surrounded us.
“Don’t freak out, Abi,” I said. “It’s me. Jace.”
Abi didn’t move for a moment. He was deep in meditation, lost to the world that surrounded him. He hadn’t quite reached the level where he’d see the Grand Design, but my friend was definitely deeper than most humans ever got. I waited patiently for him to surface. He’d find his way back when the time was right. Rushing him wouldn’t help.
The distant sound of praying monks echoed through the stone hallway outside the meditation chamber. The voices were too indistinct for me to make out their words, but a serene power filled even those indistinct syllables. The men and women who occupied this place had accepted lives of quiet contemplation, and their meditation wasn’t simply a way to increase power or restore energy.
Their inner explorations were quests for something bigger. I wondered how they’d feel if they knew that I’d been in the presence of the Empyrean Flame, and what that would say about them.
And me.
“You finally came,” Abi said.
He turned his chair to face me, the wheels making a faint shushing noise on the stone floor, palms down at his sides, showing me that he intended no threat. I mimicked his gesture, then offered him a deep bow. Of all my friends, Abi was the one I respected most. He was the wisest of us all, the least likely to lose his temper, and had an uncanny ability to make me feel like an idiot when I most needed to be reminded of that fact.
“Thanks for not trying to kill me right away,” I said with a sheepish grin. “Eric didn’t handle my appearance as well.”
As I spoke, I probed Abi’s core for any signs of tampering. I felt both excited and dismayed when I saw the amount of work the sages had done on him. Strands of sorcery wrapped around his core in a complex and insidious knot that I had no idea how to unravel.
The spell the sages had cast on Eric was a solid shell, and we’d broken it with raw power. Abi’s curse was subtler. Its threads were woven through his core. Spaces in the weave allowed for expansion, and bands of reinforcement protected it from brute strength attacks.
“You seem troubled,” Abi said in a calm voice. I envied the serenity in his eyes.
“I just wanted to ask you a few things,” I said.
Abi looked around at our surroundings, then returned to the altar and replaced the incense bowl’s top, stifling the smoke. “Come with me,” he said. “This is not the place for idle chatter.”
My friend guided me down winding stone corridors and around spiral staircases, until we eventually reached an open balcony. A small stone table sat near a wooden railing that surrounded the open space. The table supported a jinsei kettle, a jug of what I presumed was water, a copper pot with a lid, and clay containers marked with ornate script. The mountain wind, cold and biting, seemed to ease as it flowed onto the balcony.
“Please,” Abi said, gesturing toward the table, “have some tea. It will settle your nerves.”
“I wish,” I said with a chuckle. I eased onto the stone chair opposite Abi, and he went to work making tea for us. I really wanted a cup of awesome coffee, but I’d take what I could get.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve talked,” Abi said. “Have you reconsidered your position?”
That was a tricky question. I had no idea what Abi and I had discussed during our last meeting, only that it had led him to choose this assignment, far from me. “I’m going to be honest with you,” I said. “I don’t remember our last discussion.”
Abi’s hand froze above the kettle, jinsei jumping between his fingers and the scrivenings around its edge. “I find that unlikely. It was one of the most memorable conversations I’ve ever had.”
The kettle’s scrivenings absorbed the sacred energy from Abi. They glowed a sullen red that grew brighter as the water within heated. Abi selected a mixture of tea leaves from the clay pots and deposited them in the brewing bowl. His aura was clear of any agitation or fear, and I admired the fact that his aura held no aspects of fear, anger, or even confusion. He seemed to float in a field of serene acceptance.
Maybe I should hang out with the monks for a while.
While the water heated up, I gathered my thoughts. I’d gone over this conversation a hundred times to prepare for this meeting, but all the words I’d picked out seemed terrible. After a few deep breaths, I decided to just jump in.
“The me that you talked to back then wasn’t really me,” I explained. “The Empyrean Flame needed my help, so it sort of split me in half. Part of it stayed at the Heart of the Design. The other piece went back to school.”
Abi’s eyes stayed on the kettle as the scrivenings grew brighter. Faint puffs of steam rose from the gooseneck spout and drifted away on the cool mountain air. “Do you think that excuses you for your part in what happened?”
“I don’t even know what happened,” I said. “But, no, that was a version of me. It wasn’t a fake, not exactly. It was just... I don’t know how to explain it.”
Satisfied that the water was hot enough, Abi lifted the kettle from its stone resting place and upended it over the copper brewing bowl. Steam obscured his face for a moment as he poured the near boiling water in a spiral patt
ern. Aromatic vapor rose from the bowl as his hand described a clockwise pattern. He said nothing until he’d replaced the kettle on its stand.
“The monks here have a theory,” Abi said. “Each of us travels our own road. Those who walk alongside can never truly walk with us. And when our roads diverge, we lose sight of those companions. In many ways they may as well never have existed.”
Abi had seen the Grand Design during our adventures. The monks’ belief was close to the truth, but also very different. In the Design, we all walked along our own paths, but we still existed in the same version of the world. If our roads parted, then came back together, we could be confident that the person we saw on our second meeting was the same as the first. But the monks’ theory, that the roads were isolated from one another, was dangerous. It meant each individual existed in their own world, where only they mattered.
That was perilously close to what Tycho believed.
“I don’t believe that’s true,” I said. “Our paths aren’t separate. Humanity is a jumbled mess of mortals all tangled together. You know that.”
Abi smiled and lifted the copper brewing pot. He took up a filter in his other hand and laid it across the mouth of a glazed clay mug. The tea smelled delicious, scraps of leaves catching on the filter as a deep, almost wine-red drink filled the mug. He repeated the process, then gestured toward the two vessels. “Choose your drink, my friend.”
I did as he asked, then waited for him to lift his cup. We saluted one another and took a sip at the same time. A complex blend of cinnamon and cardamom, lavender and citrus, danced on my tongue. The tea was every bit as delicious as it looked.
“I used to think as you do,” Abi said. “But your existence makes me think the monks are closer to the truth. The you I once knew, that man named Jace, is not the same as the one sitting before me. Isn’t that right?”
Abi’s words had me over a barrel. He was right. My situation validated what the monks believed. I sipped my tea and decided that philosophical dilemma had to wait.
“Tell me what happened,” I said. “Between us.”
I told myself I needed to know because it would help me unravel the spell that had created the divergence. Maybe that was even true. But what felt most important at that moment was reconnecting with my friend. I’d missed Abi more than I’d known, and hearing his calm words had eased my troubled mind in a way I’d badly needed.
“It was the legs,” Abi said. “You wouldn’t take no for an answer about those stupid legs.”
His hands left the mug and curled in his lap as he spoke. Abi’s fingers twitched, as if he wanted to squeeze the dead lumps of meat and bone that had once supported him.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“You made me new legs,” Abi said. “When I told you I didn’t want them, you were angry.”
A flash of memory as vivid as a painting slashed across my mind’s eye. A pair of orichalcum legs, red-gold beauties as sleek and efficient as a pair of swords. They were works of art, true masterpieces that would have had him up and about, but Abi had rejected them.
“I see,” I said. “Why didn’t you want them?”
Abi looked out over the wooden railing. The sky was black and filled with stars. There were no other lights to spoil the stunning brilliance of that vista. The stars’ silver glow fell into the valley below us, illuminating the pine trees and the rocky slopes they clung to, showing me highlights and shadows, but no color. The Himalayas gleamed in the distance, like silver daggers thrust up at the sky.
I’d never seen anything so beautiful.
“What happened to me was meant to happen,” Abi said. “Not the legs, but what happened before.”
He winced slightly then, remembering an old pain.
Reliving his death.
A death I’d erased by rewiring his thread of fate. I’d thought I’d done Abi a favor, but he seemed to disagree.
“You can’t mean that,” I said. “Think of the good you did after you came back. Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to finish the second leg of the quest.”
Abi sipped his tea, then looked at me through the cloud of steam that had gathered round his eyes. “Did you ever think maybe that was the point? Maybe we weren’t supposed to fix the Design, Jace.”
I shook my head, then waved Abi’s words away. “You know that’s not right. The world was unraveling, Abi. If we hadn’t defeated Xaophis, if I hadn’t reignited the Flame, the entire world would be gone by now.”
Abi’s faintly bitter smile was all the answer I needed from him. “The monks would say that is as it should be.”
“You don’t believe that,” I said. “Abi, that’s not right. The sages did something to your core. They twisted your thoughts. Let me help you—”
Abi lowered his cup and placed it on the table. The faint clink of clay on stone was nearly lost in a sudden gust of wind, but to me it sounded like a hammer blow striking an anvil. The rigid control in my friend’s arm was the equivalent of a raging temper tantrum from a lesser man.
“That’s the problem with you,” Abi said. “You think you can fix everything. You think there’s a reason for every problem, but sometimes there isn’t. No one put a spell on me, Jace. I don’t care what you see, or what you think. My eyes are open. For the first time in a very long time, I’ve come to understand how the world really works. You cheated death. I was meant to die. And, now, every action I take, every piece of advice I give, puts the Design at risk. I’m an anomaly, Jace. The best thing I can do is stay here, meditate on nothingness, and hope I don’t disturb things further.”
I reached out for my friend’s hand, but he pulled it back. “I’m sorry, Jace. I’ve been waiting to tell you that for a long time. And if I stay with you any longer, you’ll change my mind. I can’t risk that. It’s too dangerous. Not just for me, but for everyone.”
Abi rolled his chair back from the table and gestured toward the tea. “This is a place I come often, but the monks prefer to stay indoors. Stay as long as you need. Drink your fill of tea and enjoy the peace. Maybe meditating here will enlighten you in ways that my words couldn’t.”
He left after that, never looked back. He wheeled his chair away from me. I wondered if the faint sound of his wheels against the stone would be the last I ever heard of my friend.
I sipped the tea, enjoying its spiced warmth, and watched stars wheel in the sky overhead. For a little while, at least, I could rest.
Abi’s words stung, but there was no fighting him. This quest had asked a lot from each of us, but maybe the most from him. He’d died, and I’d wrestled him back from the grave. Maybe he was right. Maybe that mistake had unraveled sections of the Design and led to this disastrous time. I contemplated that for a while but didn’t believe it.
“You’re wrong, Abi,” I murmured. “One day, I hope you see that.”
As the rays of dawn clawed their way over the horizon, I stopped my meditation and reached out for the dragon lines that flowed through the wild and untamed wilderness below me. I wanted to give Abi something to remember me by.
To remember us.
My mind drifted back to the happier times, when Abi, Eric, Clem, and I were so much younger. I fixed those moments in my thoughts and reached out to a mountain slope visible from the balcony. I raised my hands, and the ground there shifted and burst upward into the red sunlight. Elements bent to my will, and figures began to take shape.
I smiled at my handiwork, three young men and a woman, their arms around each other’s shoulders, smiling up at the rising sun. In that statue, Abi stood, and my eyes weren’t black. Eric didn’t have a scar, and the worry was missing from Clem’s eyes.
“Remember us, Abi,” I whispered and plucked a talisman from my robes.
It was time to go.
I had a lot of work to do.
The Vault
I WAS GRATEFUL THAT Hahen wasn’t waiting for me when I returned from my trip to the temple. Though the rat spirit meant well, he would have
wanted to talk about what happened. My heart wasn’t ready for that.
One of the things I’d meditated on while drinking Abi’s tea was Tycho’s revelation. It had taken me time to process that bombshell, and I’d been reluctant to give the information to Elder Dusalia. There was a very real danger that she wouldn’t believe my outrageous story. Not to mention the possibility that she was in Tycho’s pocket and would immediately report back to him once I divulged the truth.
After visiting Abi, though, I knew it was time to make a choice. There was no way to see the end of every possible road. The best I could do was trust Dusalia and hope the information I brought to her would forge an alliance against the sages’ insanity.
I scratched out a quick message on her paper: “I’ve got something.”
Then I rolled up the sheet of parchment, tucked it inside my robes, and made my way down to the dining hall with my Guardians in tow. My internal time clock was shot to pieces after visiting Abi, and it was still the middle of the night. The baskets of fruit were on the serving trays, though, and I ate an apple and an orange. The food wasn’t important. I could survive on jinsei if needed, but the simple act of eating had a way of making me feel, if not normal, at least human.
With my simple meal finished, I took the parchment out and took a peek at it, pretending it was my homework. Dusalia was eager to meet. Her response was terse. “East courtyard, dawn.”
The Guardians watched me from their posts on either side of the dining hall’s doorway. Their black visors showed me nothing but a distorted reflection of the world. I waved to them and kicked back in the chair to bide my time until the sun came up. If they wanted to watch me meditate, more power to them.
A few minutes before dawn I sat up and marched toward them. “Hi, guys,” I said. “Or gals? Hard to tell with you. Off for a meeting with my clan elder. You’re welcome to tag along, but I promise you it’ll be boring.”