INTERLUDE 3A: ENDREN
“To be a soothsayer is to tell the truth. We must be forgiven for borrowing this cloak to hide our lies. We know better than any others the price of truth. The guise of the constant soothsayer is a luxury only those of the Church of Kultemeren might claim. We shall have to settle for being weekend soothsayers, and beg the Judge’s forgiveness in our midnight prayers. May he show mercy on our souls.”
– from ‘The Notes of Timesnatcher’, recovered after the Fall
He took her arm as they flew, bringing her into the crest of his power and letting her experience the true peaks of chronomantic inversion. They weren’t going much more than a mile – they would reach their destination in around six or seven seconds, as measured by watchers at the start-point and finish-line – but they would have around nine or ten minutes of time in which to talk.
Telepathy enchantments didn’t interact so well with time-slowing magic unless the enchanter was along for the ride too, so he began with the basics, talking aloud. There was a lot that was hidden to the arch-diviner who was just taking their first steps into the world – essential knowledge, keys that would unlock pieces of the puzzle of the future, times and places that were before nothing but dark blots on an otherwise-scintillating ocean of information.
“Lovebright had to remove an implant in your mind, tonight. And another in Feychilde’s, and one in the mind of Emrelet Reyd. Do you understand what that signifies?”
“Neverwish…?” Killstop muttered.
“Oh, do take the ridiculous scarf off your head, Tanra,” he said. “There’s no one who can see you at the speed we’re travelling, and it’s hard to hear what you’re saying.”
Tanra threw back her hood and removed the scarf, displaying the tired smile that was nonetheless fixed on her face like a skull’s grin.
This one might actually be insane, he reminded himself.
Irimar’s own mask only covered the upper part of his face, a standard face-fitting thing of leather and steel, with the gleaming twelve-pointed star at the upper part of his forehead near the hairline; the black hood hid his hair.
“You know my name, my face – I can’t see you,” Tanra replied. “This is awfully one-sided.”
That is only to be expected. But can you look beyond the now, Tanra? What is my face, if you can see my future?
“I’m the top arch-diviner in the city for a reason, you know.”
“I –”
“Neverwish has done this before; I think he expects I can’t see what he’s doing before he does it. Lovebright is actually a more-capable enchantress than she appears, and has kept up the act for a long time now. She can replace the implants, giving him the impression they’re still there, doing what he put them there for.”
“’What he put them there for’… I can’t see anything he did to me, not in any fold or crease of the past – nothing Lovebright did either.”
“You probably did see it before it happened, but can no longer remember it,” Irimar replied. “He’s far subtler than he pretends, with his boisterous exterior, his talk of brute force attacks… We’re lucky we’ve got her, checking his anti-enchantment work, pruning the worst of his barbs, but –“
“How do you know you can trust Lovebright?”
“I recruited her, before she got her powers, for just this purpose.”
He said it with a smile that was better than a mask.
He couldn’t trust any of the others, not really – especially Rosedawn. She had secrets. Hells, even Spiritwhisper probably had secrets. He’d learned his lesson with Softsmile back in the day. Another champion he’d been forced to prune.
“In any case,” Irimar went on, “it won’t be long before he figures out what we’re doing. Can you see it, Tanra? Can you see that future?”
Tanra shook her head once, slowly, her eyes never leaving his.
“Of course you can’t; I’m at the heart of it.”
He looked down from his position, surfing the crest, and saw the blank space where she had to be, below him, submerged in the wave.
Irimar sighed. He’d hoped he’d found another to join him on his lonely pedestal, or even come close. A successor. But no. It was still him – him and Duskdown.
The only one he couldn’t see at all.
Everyone knew about the potency of the heretics, of course, but he’d never made Duskdown’s incredible power public. Irimar had given Feychilde the only warning he could when he’d first met him, last week, when he directed him to the Diamond Mare. A warning of the one part he’d heard – the rest was clouded to him. It could only be that Duskdown was involved, somehow – but how would Feychilde and Duskdown come to be together, there, of all places?
It would require further meditation. He couldn’t act until he knew more. He could see beyond that meeting, could see the changes it wrought in the sorcerer… but the moment eluded him. He had to abandon the future-lines, enter the trance and hope the right vision came to him…
“And you mentioned Redgate. He’s a bad guy too?” Tanra asked. “I didn’t have chance to explore his future when we were all together, back there. It felt tough… a… a hard fabric.”
“All you need to know for now is that he was no one to take advice from, and that’s putting it mildly. I wish I’d got to Direcrown before I did, but I fear he was always a lost cause. Together Leafcloak and I kept up the act – we never took sides between Dustbringer and Redgate after Hellbane fell – and if Redgate had a chance to be the city’s premier arch-sorcerer the situation might’ve turned a little… difficult.”
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“You’re speaking of him like it was him that died, not Dustbringer.”
Irimar looked down at Sticktown, its walls of smoke seemingly frozen in time, not a wisp uncoiling as they slowly coursed through the air above the roofs. The silence of the city brought its own kind of indescribable serenity. Even the insects in the air were stilled, trapped in invisible amber.
“Redgate is going far, into darkness, to face a dragon. A dragon of far greater power than he expects. I believe he will die.” That was all he could tell her without risking everything. “For that reason alone I ensured the petitions of Phanar of N’Lem, the leader of the expedition, were thrown out by the majority of the interested parties.”
Her smile merely intensified. “Redgate was that bad? You’re send him off to become dragon-fodder?” Then she stuck her tongue out. “How do you know you can trust me? I don’t fancy being something’s snack –”
“Honestly, I don’t. Not completely. The futures where I tell you, trust you, turn out better than the ones where I don’t. Take that as you will. But I can have your support when we make a move against Neverwish, yes? I’m getting some anti-enchantment pendants made for you and Feychilde before it happens, as well as a new one for Starsight. We can’t trust Neverwish’s work.”
Tanra nodded, with a wariness about the motion that he immediately committed to memory, filing it away with all the other little details he’d picked up from her responses.
She was just a kid. He had to ensure she didn’t stray into the darkness too early, or she’d bring it out with her when she emerged, almost certainly. The last thing he needed was another uncontrolled, uncontrollable dark arch-diviner out there.
He drew a deep breath, then removed his own coverings.
“I am Irimar Nemmeneth.”
She stared at him.
“Now that you know the identity of the city’s top arch-diviner, it’s awfully one-sided the other way, don’t you think? I ask you not to betray me, Tanra.”
Her smile never changed, but he saw it in her eyes – the shock of such easy acceptance into his confidences, and the reciprocal opening-up, the lowering of her defences… It was enough for him to feel that he’d made the right decision.
Then she looked up at him coyly through her eyelashes, the smile becoming faint, seductive, and he started to change his mind.
“I’m spoken for,” he said at once, “my dear child.”
He was only five years Tanra’s elder, but it was like an immeasurable gulf in terms of maturity.
She almost pouted. “Lovebright?”
He laughed, and only shook his head, enjoying the way her response shocked him.
“Let’s move faster. I don’t like what you get up to when you’re bored.”
He kept a firm hold of her arm and relaxed his power, letting the wave of time crash upon the shore; their speed steadily increased, approaching the ‘normal time’ an outsider would notice.
“Oh?” she asked.
“In a couple of years you’ll be so adept at wrapping men around your little finger, I’ll look back at this moment and say to myself, ‘that’s when I could’ve done something, if only I’d said the right thing’.”
“You want to make an honest woman of me?” Tanra managed to make a shocked ‘o’ with her mouth despite the smile. “I’m flattered, Irimar, but ‘Tanra Nemmeneth’ just doesn’t have that ring to it, and I’m not sure I’m accepting proposals from strange men who want to tell me how to live my entire future.”
“I – you – argh…”
“Speechless? Oh, I could rename myself Wordsnatcher, and tell everyone this story…”
Why does my power tell me that trusting her is a good idea again, exactly?
It was a question without answer. He could see her, yes – the degree to which her power bent her future was not so great that he couldn’t overcome some of the gaps in his vision – but there were many, many more which were black holes, pits devoid of meaning, whole wasteland-oceans of dark, empty water…
“Fine, fine,” she relented. Apparently his silence had done its own work. “So where are we going, exactly? This is… North Lowtown.”
“It’s something you need to see.”
“Me in particular?”
“Yes, you in particular. Do you see anyone else here?”
“Why me?”
“Because I want you to live that couple of years. Grow up, become… whoever you’re going to be.”
“And you think – what? – I’ll die without your intervention?”
“Oh, that I know will happen. I wouldn’t be here on a hunch.”
He felt satisfied as he saw her shiver. She knew the way future-sight worked. She knew he wouldn’t speak as lightly as she would of her death.
She believed his lie – such was the price of trust.
Better to lie, and live with the consequences, than the alternative.
They replaced their face-coverings, and he descended with her into the street. As they approached the mucky ground they slipped back into the mortal world – the reality where birds didn’t hang suspended in the air with wings mid-beat, where the din of the city came through in a thousand clashing sounds.
The roads and alleys were empty – the Bells might’ve stopped, but the people wouldn’t venture out now until morning, waiting for the magister-bands to retire for a well-earned rest. There was always mopping-up of stray demonoids to be done, obstructed streets to be cleared.
They didn’t go as far as the mucky ground, though. Irimar settled them down on a fifth-floor balcony, before a shabby wooden door.
“Say nothing at first, Killstop. Just watch, and listen. You’ll understand.”
He rapped gently on the door.
“Where in the Hells are we? I don’t like this darkness, Timesnatcher. The… the person who used this door…”
He didn’t respond, carefully adjusting his thoughts to his task.
The most arduous task of the evening. He’d done it before, mercifully rarely, but it was one that his powers couldn’t really help him with. Every eventuality was bleak, and he could see them all now. Leafcloak, who’d taken on the other task of this nature to be completed tonight, didn’t have that problem. The druidess didn’t have to see the infinitude of the despair her words would spark throughout the possible realities. Would that make it harder for her, or easier?
A woman in her mid-to-late thirties with long blonde hair answered the door, a candle upon the stand beside the doorway. He could see by the flickering light that she already knew – the way she’d dressed hurriedly in her heavy gown, the way her face was contorted with fear.
He’d seen her in his visions but he never saw these events before tonight, never saw the way her blood drained upon recognising him. Never saw the horror in her eyes as she fell back, sitting down in her hallway and staring at his shadowed eyes.
Never saw the tears streaming down her face as he uttered meaningless words.
“No,” she said in a cold voice.
“I’m so, so sorry, Mrs. Solosto. We did everything that we could. It… it was his time. You should know… He died a true hero’s death, in battle, to save thousands from something that was beyond the power of just a few to fight. And the creature was defeated – it fled from Materium. He did what he set out to do, ended the threat.”
He’d tried to meet Wenya Solosto’s gaze, but failed while he spoke – at last, in the silence left behind by the words, he could find the courage to do so.
She sat sprawled on the floor, tears still rolling down her cheeks – but her demeanour was proud, her chin raised, as though defying him to look away from her eyes now he’d met them, defying him to notice her indecorous posture, comment with his glance upon her predicament.
“Ma’am,” he murmured, feeling an urge to step across the threshold, offer her a hand – which was strange: such urges were usually accompanied by certainty, replaced by decision –
Killstop slipped in before him and helped her to her feet, which Wenya seemed to accept without remark.
The girl didn’t have a smile on her face beneath her scarf anymore, he could tell.
* * *