“She is yours,” Sa-Olm said, holding out a worn leather bag to Qall.
Qall took the bag and smiled crookedly as he tucked it into a pocket of his robe. “Actually, she isn’t. She was loaned to me. I will return her to the one she belongs to.” Straightening, he fixed the old man with a direct stare. “You have my thanks, but I doubt you wish to thank me for what I have revealed.”
Sa-Olm shook his head. “No, I do thank you. The truth is… necessary. It is not that great things have happened and will happen, but that you saving this world will have consequences, and not all of them will be good.”
“You must awaken this world to that truth,” Qall told him. “But do so with great care. Many will not like it. Begin slowly and in secret. Gather proof. I would not be surprised if there were books here that contained it. The great war that stripped this world was not so long ago that no records will have survived. Go abroad and seek out other sources of knowledge.”
“But I am old. Even with help, it would take many years to search the library here.”
Qall held out his hands. “That I can do something about.”
The old man looked at them, then reluctantly extended his own. Taking them, Qall closed his eyes.
Dark, radiating lines flashed out from him as he took magic from the world. Sa-Olm gasped and swayed, but his body instinctively recovered its balance. The sagging skin of his face began to tighten, the wrinkles losing their depth, spots fading to leave a more uniform brown. His shoulders and back straightened. His eyes grew clearer, the dull brown deepening to almost black. When Qall released his hands, the priest looked down at them, then brought them to his face. He stared at Qall in astonishment.
“A few decades of life, at least,” Qall told him. “More if you get out into the sunlight for a short while each day and eat a varied diet.”
“You really are an Angel,” Sa-Olm whispered.
“Perhaps we are,” Qall said. “But this world needs to know there are thousands more of us than it believes, and some are dangerous. It will need its own Angels to defend it. Such a task will take years. I only ask that you begin it. Find others to help you. They will carry on when you are gone.”
Sa-Olm nodded solemnly. “I will.”
Qall smiled, then quickly embraced the man. “I wish I did not have to burden you so, friend, but I know no other better suited to this job.” He stepped away, moving to Rielle’s side. “I also wish that I could remain to help you, but I cannot. I bid you farewell, Sa-Olm. Thank you for your trust and understanding.”
“Farewell, Sa… Qall. Thank you for restoring and caring for this world. And farewell, Rielle Lazuli. I hope when you next return you are willing to forgive it.”
Rielle inclined her head. “I hope so too.”
She felt Qall’s hand wrap about her own. As she looked at him, he nodded, so she gathered magic and pushed them out of the world. The priest’s eyes widened, then a wry smile creased his now-younger face as he faded from sight.
Once their surroundings had mostly disappeared, Rielle increased the speed of their journey. New shapes and patterns appeared as they passed the midpoint. Trees in a rocky landscape appeared and grew sharper. She moved so they would arrive a slight distance above a patch of bare, flat ground.
Cool air surrounded them. Qall let her hand go and looked around.
“Ah,” he said. “Magic.”
Examining this world with her senses, she detected an abundance of it. More than what her world contained. Part of her was relieved to be free, despite the fact that her world was no longer a potential trap for sorcerers.
“Did you plan that all along?” she asked.
Qall turned back to her. “What?”
“To tell him to start a new religion.”
He frowned. “Not a religion. Just a group of people who might be able to lessen the problems that will come with the return of magic.”
“They’ll make it a religion. They know no other way.”
His lower lip pushed out. “I suppose. I admit, I don’t really know. They might make it an anti-religion. Whatever it becomes, it’ll be based more on something closer to the truth than the old ways. Hopefully, in future, when women discover they have magical ability they won’t have to hide the fact.”
Rielle’s annoyance and fear faded as he smiled tentatively. He only wanted to make things better. She knew he would eventually learn the hard way how sometimes people twisted your attempts to help into a way to harm, but maybe that was better than never trying to help at all.
At once, memories of Doum and Murai returned. She knew this was how she should regard her and Tyen’s failed efforts in the two worlds, but until now she hadn’t been able to feel more than anger and disappointment. It was why she’d resisted being drawn into local conflicts since. Perhaps she should not be so reluctant to help.
“You can only try,” he told her.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Stop reading my mind.”
He grinned. “Okay.”
“So…” She rubbed her hands together and looked around. “What now?” She thought of Baluka and immediately wished she hadn’t. “I guess we should find Tyen and give him Vella.”
Qall reached into his pocket and brought out the pouch. “Why don’t you do it for me?”
She took it and looked up at him in surprise. “You don’t want to see him?”
“Yes, but I have other things to do first.”
“Like what?”
He smiled. “Private matters.”
“I see.” Rielle pushed away her disappointment and a niggling worry. She had seen his mind. He hadn’t become Valhan. Most likely he wanted to find his original world and family.
His gaze was low and distant now. Drawing in a deep breath, he closed his eyes. The magic around him stirred. He was taking it in, she guessed, but it was rich enough to smooth out instantly, so no radiating lines appeared around him as they had in her world. Then she realised his hair was lightening to a pale brown and his skin wasn’t so white. His face had become squarer, too. When he opened his eyes, they were a dark blue.
“Qall,” she said quietly. “Is this your original body?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly. The changes are superficial, and I’ll have to maintain them. It’s likely that the less of Valhan’s pattern I have, the less of his strength I’ll keep.”
“Ah. But you can’t travel around looking like him or people will try to kill you.”
“Or become my followers.” He shrugged. “Eventually they’ll forget him.”
She grimaced. “Not me. Or Tyen.”
“No, and I’m sure you’d rather not be reminded of him whenever we meet.”
He sounded grim and grown up. An unexpected lump formed in her throat. “Are you sure you want to do whatever you plan to do alone?”
He nodded. “For now.”
She took his hands and squeezed them, then let them go again. “Take care of yourself, Qall.”
His smile was sudden and bright. “I will. Don’t worry. You’ll see me again.” Then he paused, and she saw the young man he truly was reflected in his face. “Thank you for coming to check on me, cycle after cycle. Thank you for believing that I’d still be me, but making sure I was. Say ‘hello’ to Tyen from me.”
He bent forward and kissed her on the forehead. Reaching up to touch his face, she found her hand passing through it. His features were fading fast, but before he had moved too far from the world for her to see him, he winked.
And then he was gone.
She was alone.
Again.
She looked down at the pouch in her hands, fighting disappointment and sadness. This must be what it was like to see a son or daughter leave home to begin their own life. It wasn’t so surprising, in that context, that he wanted to explore the worlds on his own. Who’d want a mother tagging along? The thought of her own mother following her about made her shudder, and she hoped she’d been a better guardian-figure for Qall.
&n
bsp; She took a deep breath and stowed Vella in her pack. The thought of approaching Tyen made her hesitate, but strangely not as much as returning to Baluka. Should she let the Restorers know Qall had returned to the worlds? Qall hadn’t said whether she should tell them or not. There was no danger of them seeing someone who looked like Valhan and trying to kill him now.
No, she decided. They don’t need to know. I will seek out Tyen first. Though that may not be easy, if he’s trying to hide from Liftre. Still, there’s an obvious place to start.
Pushing out of the world, she headed for the only person who might know where her former lover might be.
PART TWO
TYEN
CHAPTER 1
The city of Turo stank, as only a metropolis without good plumbing could stink. The waste from each house was piped to an open drain in the centre of the closest street – if you could call the gaps of varying widths between buildings “streets”. In some places these thoroughfares were so narrow that only a small ledge allowed pedestrians to hop along, from one side of the drain to the other, until they reached a wider part.
And yet, at night the city was breathtakingly beautiful. All walls were rendered with a pigment that retained light, and once darkness fell the city glowed a silvery blue. Turo needed no street lamps, and no dark corners existed for thugs and thieves to ambush their victims from. That didn’t mean no crime existed, of course. Successfully tricking money out of others was a source of pride among the citizens. Many of the laws seemed to have been written by someone who regarded cheating as a game and challenge. Often only the ability to read minds kept Tyen and his friends and students from being parted from their limited savings.
Tonight he’d seen an even darker side of this city. He’d set out at dusk to the home of one of the Elders, having been hired to do the sort of menial magical tasks that paid the rent. On arriving, he’d discovered the Elder had been murdered.
Nobody in the household knew why or had seen anything, but from the minds of the servants Tyen learned that the body had been found in a locked room, with no obvious signs of the cause of death. Since sorcerers were known to be able to move through walls, the man’s brother had been a little suspicious of Tyen until he’d questioned everyone and the timing of events had been established. The Elder had been alive and in company just before Tyen had arrived, and Tyen had been talking to a door guard at the time of the murder.
Everyone had been questioned, so Tyen was late returning home. When he finally pushed through the main door of the large house he rented, he found all was as quiet as he expected, and started towards his room. But as he glanced in the open doorway of the dining room, two students leapt from the chairs by the fire.
“Master Tyen!” one said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“We’re worried about Regur.”
“He’s locked himself in his room. We tried to talk to him, but he says nothing.”
Tyen nodded and started down the corridor to Regur’s room. The young man was a former student of Liftre. Many of Tyen’s students were, but Regur was the one most traumatised by his time there. Liftre was a harsh place now. While the teachers were not yet refusing admission to those who didn’t fit with their ideals and prejudices, they, and their approved students, made such entrants feel unwelcome and unsafe.
If these newcomers then left, they had few remaining choices for sorcerous training. Liftre’s new founders had declared to the worlds that they would not tolerate the existence of other inter-world schools of magic. Though the Restorers had refused to support Liftre’s position, the tactics Liftre’s sorcerers used to enforce their “law” had forced many smaller schools to close.
Some of the students driven to leave Liftre, or left teacherless when other schools had closed, sought out Tarren, but the old man could not take on many students and turned most away. He sent them to other teachers he knew of, and those students with a superior understanding of and skill with mechanical magic he sent to Tyen.
These were perhaps the bravest students of all. The machine makers at Liftre had decided they owned all knowledge of mechanical magic and were fiercely protective of it. They had formed a kind of guild and enforced their compulsory membership with threats and violence. This had not curbed the production of war machines, but instead promoted and boosted it.
Though Regur was undeniably brave and studious, the constant threat of the Liftre machine makers finding him meant his moods swung towards the bleak and paranoid on a regular basis. Thinking back over the last few days, Tyen considered what might have sparked this one. If anything, Regur had been in good spirits lately. Normally he started to get jumpy before succumbing to melancholy.
Reaching the young man’s room, Tyen stopped at the door. It was the largest of the rooms and would normally be used by the head of the household, but Tyen had selected it for Regur because the young man wasn’t always the best companion for other students, and Regur had noted that the route out of the building was the shortest from it. Some of the newer students had been a bit jealous at first, but if they did not understand Regur’s fragility they soon decided his brilliant mind earned him the right to a little favouritism.
Tyen knocked on the door. The sound was odd, as if something heavy lay against the other side. No reply came, so Tyen called Regur’s name, gently but loud enough to penetrate the door. A long silence followed. Tyen tried opening the door. The handle would not move. His heart skipped a beat.
Locked from within. No reply to knocks or calls. Just like the Elder. Had Regur been murdered, too?
Stop it, he told himself, but his concern did not fade. He didn’t like to invade his students’ privacy without a good reason, and had forbidden them from reaching each other’s thoughts, but this was no time for scruples. Searching beyond the door, he soon found the young man’s mind.
Immediately he regretted his rule of mental privacy. If the other students had known the true situation, they’d have sent someone to get him. Regur was sitting up in bed, trying to be as still as possible, staring at a lump under the blanket beside him – a war machine, set to explode if it sensed sound or movement.
A chill ran through Tyen’s body. The young man looked at the far wall and resolutely thought about other things. Soothing memories, like the sound of his sister singing or the gentle landscape around the house he’d grown up in. This was keeping him calm, but was no good for Tyen. He needed to know everything about this bomb if he was going to save Regur.
The student would reveal what he knew if he realised Tyen was watching. Tyen called Regur’s name again, but the young man didn’t hear it. He hadn’t heard Tyen knocking, either.
Quiet, quiet, Regur thought. Keep quiet.
Understanding came. Regur had created a shield around the room to prevent the sounds from the other students setting off the bomb. Tyen could smash down the door, but Regur wouldn’t hear it.
But he would see it. And Tyen didn’t need to smash down the entire door to get Regur to see him.
Drawing a deep breath and some magic, Tyen spread his hand over the wood in front of him. He created a small ring of heated air and pressed it into the surface. Smoke billowed out and the two students hovering behind him began to cough. The ring slowly penetrated, then reached the other side all at once. The circle of wood did not fall through, so Tyen quickly pulled it out. He leaned close to the hole, looking through and searching for the young student.
Regur stared back at him from the bed. Tyen looked down at the blanket and back to meet the student’s eyes, then nodded.
At once, Regur’s thoughts filled with recent memories. A stranger had appeared in the room not long after he had settled into bed to read. The man had said that no more warnings would be given, then placed the machine on the bed, explaining that it would explode if it detected movement, sound or the depletion of magic around it. Then the stranger had disappeared.
Tyen frowned as questions crowded his mind. This happened some time ago. Was it before or after
my customer was killed? The Elder hadn’t been blown up, however. Tyen didn’t recognise the stranger in Regur’s memory, but the man did not look like the local people. No more warnings? Tyen had received no warnings from the locals.
But he had from Liftre. He sighed. It never seems to take long for them to find us these days. He occasionally scanned his students’ minds, but had found no evidence that any were spies. That is a puzzle for another time. I need to get Regur or the bomb out of here.
Gesturing for Regur to wait, Tyen turned to the two students hovering nearby, both on the edge of asking questions.
“Get everyone to shield themselves and leave the building as quickly as possible,” Tyen instructed. “And do it quietly, making as little vibration as possible.”
The two stared at him as they comprehended the threat, then hurried away. Tyen turned back to Regur and sought the young man’s mind again.
I guessed the machine wouldn’t start sensing anything until the sorcerer was gone, Regur explained. Just after he began to fade, I threw a blanket over it. Tyen nodded to show he understood. It had been a smart move, but it meant it was impossible for him to examine the object and seek a way to defuse it. I’m nearly out of magic. Regur swallowed hard. Get everyone away and tell them to stop making noises.
Tyen nodded again to show that it was being done. He could hear the shuffle of many feet and the occasional voice rise in question, only to be abruptly silenced. Ignoring the exodus, he concentrated on the dilemma posed by the lump under the blanket.
As far as he knew, no mechanism could sense magic beyond its physical structure, as humans could. Most likely the sensor worked by using some of the magic it encountered to keep the trigger disengaged. That meant that the bomb itself was depleting the magic around it. Fortunately, the magic here was plentiful and flowed in to replace what the mechanism used faster than it could take it.
The movement and sound detectors were more dangerous. Most likely simple disruption devices, they would be set off when a part was knocked out of place. They couldn’t be too sensitive, or Regur’s breathing would have set them off already.
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