“I knew all along I was bound to Zyger. And I knew before I moved against Direcrown that I would be caught, that I would go there. I knew you could get me out. I knew I needed you to.”
My mouth went dry, even though it was insubstantial. The anger, the old, old anger, was still there inside me.
All of them, playing with me.
“I didn’t take advantage of you. I didn’t even lie to you, not after I threatened your brother and sister. I knew I would’ve had to kill you, if I couldn’t persuade you not to fight me.”
“And Direcrown?”
“I would’ve found another way to finish him, I’m sure, when the time came.”
“You did finish him, though! With your own hands! And –“
He held up those murderer’s hands for peace and I stopped.
“Kas. It’s been – I haven’t had a friend in years. I know we’ve only really talked shop, so to speak, but I haven’t – haven’t talked to anyone for so long… Don’t think ill of me, please. I’m… pleased fate brought our paths together. Even Irimar Nemmeneth wanted you gone –“
“No.” I didn’t care if I was confirming his suspicions – I was too angry, with the lot of them. “He gave me the way out. Grip the brand tightly.”
He furrowed his brow as he looked at me. “Truly? Yet he wouldn’t know of my release…”
“All of you, constantly messing with me!” I felt my face contort. “It’s not fate that brought our paths together. It’s you, all of you, toying with us – we’re just puppets. No responsibilities!” I laughed, and looked down at my hand – my hand that’d struck Emrelet’s father in the face, my hand that had directed the magic that split open Shadowcrafter’s throat. “No responsibilities. I was bound to go there too. You’re right, though: I don’t think he knew you’d come back with me. I just think he heard the mizelikon scream. I’m pretty sure if I go and look it up in a book there’s only one way to get that kind of reaction – exposing its essence’s nexus-point… They’re just second rank, after all… But I doubt it’s called a ‘brand’; that’ll be a phrase of Timesnatcher’s invention. Something to make me approach the fire first, maybe. I think Vardae heard him…”
“I’ve skipped ahead,” Rath said. “Yes. You could look it up. ‘Upon contact with the foreign sorcerous implement, the runic nexus of the mizelikon will unravel, its essence to dissipate in seconds unless the implement is linked with a vessel of sufficient capacity to receive the power.’ From ‘Demonic Assassins: Their Uses and Their Weaknesses’ in the sixteenth edition of Anilzar’s Key to Modern Sorcery, volume two.”
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“Your power…” I just shook my head at the futility of trying to talk to someone like him. Like him, and Irimar, Tanra, Vardae… They were all impossible. Just impossible.
“So, he really wanted you free? But… I don’t understand…”
His voice dropped away, and the limits of his omniscience were laid painfully bare just moments after I’d been reminded of his boundless knowledge.
They’re not gods, I told myself, not for the first time.
“We’re not going to give him a chance to find out that I’m free. Or you. Any of us. What are we going to do? Fight the Magisterium? They sure as hell don’t want me free. They know I know what they are, they know I could be a dreadful enemy of theirs if I chose to be…”
I could imagine it, now, with these murderer’s hands stuck on the ends of my wrists. How I could raise the shield and the blades that slashed at Zakimel, watch the moustached face twisted in agony at the tips of my invisible weapons. How I could watch the all-knowing smirk on Henthae’s face be replaced by the slack-jawed look of a corpse. All those highborn, watching us crawl around in the muck, in the drop and the blood and the bones…
When I thought of Emrelet, I clenched my unfeeling fists and panted.
“So you’ll want me to give you a path out of Mund.”
I returned my focus to him, swallowed down my anger and smiled. “If you pick the direction, even the destination, that gives me better odds, right? And you can tell me how to approach getting my brother and sister?”
Rathal nodded slowly. “I’m sorry you’re going, but I think you’ll be back.”
I gave him a sceptical look, but he just shrugged.
“I said I would be honest with you. I’m not getting this from my power, not at all, but I still think you’ll be back.” He said it more firmly the second time, then got to his feet. “He’s finished.”
I only realised what he’d meant when he blurred towards Temcar.
To my surprise, when he halted and raised a huge rock as if to bring it down upon the back of the enchanter’s skull, he was ostensibly standing six feet to Tem’s left.
The real Tem is invisible, I realised.
“And now it’s time,” Rath called.
From the way he was staring into the empty space right in front of him, I could tell Tem must’ve been there, paralysed, shocked to realise the arch-diviner could find him despite his tricks. The fake Tem was looking over to his left at Rath, the same paralysis and shock I imagined on his real face evident on the false one.
“I’ll let you make the decision, Kas, but I can tell you now that he’s going to betray us – he has my identity, he has the keys to our minds – the consequences will be very messy indeed, and so I will end up killing him in a far more brutal fashion than this before it’s too late.”
For a second or two I felt appalled – then I understood.
I had an insight now into how the mind of this diviner worked. How he manipulated. I knew that unless Duskdown said these exact words, performed these precise actions, it was indeed very likely that Ripplewhim would end up betraying us. But now – now, maybe he wouldn’t.
“Give him his chance,” I called back.
Rath grunted, and lowered the rock.
“You’re a wanted man, Herreld,” he said into empty space. “You’ll get yourself out of Mund as quickly as possible, if you know what’s good for you.”
The enchanter vanished, and then Neverwish appeared; the little blocky guy was sitting on a rock about thirty feet from the diviner.
* * *