COBALT 7.3: FATHER TIME
“There is no reason to fear what the new century will bring. Do your seers not agree with our own? Your forges beneath the Din Dalor shall burn as brightly as they ever have. We propose Anvil Row as a gift to your people. If the forges we build outstrip your own, think only of the excellent economic side-effects you stand to enjoy. Mull over the new tax arrangements, or lack thereof. We await your agreements forthwith.”
– from the Missive to Uthix Arax, 599 NE
The first of Yearsend dawned, and by the time it did I’d already been up for two hours and had another half-hour nap. With her (significantly increased) spending power, Xantaire had managed to order me Twelve Sorceries and a Soulfire, the next novel in an old series I’d been reading last year. I’d forgotten all about fiction books in my sudden ascent to archmagehood, what with the genuine article textbooks that had opened up to me following my transformation.
The twins and Xastur whooped and screamed around the main room, enjoying their gifts. Jaid’s favourite was the marble-sized Orb of Juvenile Delight that produced tiny animal-illusions at random, sending miniature, semi-transparent tigers and chickens prowling and hopping across the floor. Jaroan’s was his invisible knife – it wasn’t sharp, designed as it was for children, but it was tied to the will of the first person to draw it from its sheath, meaning only he could see its blade. Xastur was addicted to his self-reading story-book, the voice of a proper highborn lady vocalising the words as he moved his eyes across them. I’d studied the partial infinities fuelling these trinkets, and I knew I could replenish their stores of energy using my own. Temporary toys could be made permanent, with an arch-sorcerer of discernment in the vicinity.
With all this going on, I did my best to curl up on our new cushions and keep my eyes open, keep my new novel’s words trundling across my consciousness, but sleep was continually beckoning me; sometimes when I blinked I opened my eyes to find that ten minutes had passed, and after half-a-dozen failed attempts to get through the first chapter I set it aside and went to make breakfast. I could already tell from the first chapter that this book wasn’t going to be the last in the series, anyway – there was just too much still left hanging for a resolution to arrive within a hundred and fifty pages – and my personal experiences as a champion made it clear now just how poorly-educated the author was in matters of magic. He or she – whoever Z. B. Neffence was – had definitely taken liberties when it came to fiends, making out as though they were simple automatons, directed like puppets by an outside force… and I knew for a fact that an arch-wizard could create fire no matter how snowy it was… When I’d been giving them little thought I had missed just how bad they were; reading this one was retroactively ruining the rest of the books for me…
I stood bleary-eyed over the fire, cooking eggs.
“You didn’t get much sleep last night?” Xantaire prompted, coming up beside me with Xastur’s empty cup. It was chilly-enough at this hour that, even indoors and not twelve inches from open flames, she was still wearing the scarf I’d bought her.
“It wasn’t like that,” I said, noting her cheeky expression, arched eyebrow. “We took Ibbalat and Anathta out on a hunt. Four gods-damned darkmages, and one was an arch-druid. Took forty-five minutes to track the sod down.”
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I wasn’t going to mention Em’s drunken outburst, the way we’d all nearly ended up having a proper argument.
“Still no Nighteye?” she asked, dipping her son a fresh cup of water from the drinking-bowl.
I felt myself pale at the question. I obviously hadn’t told her anything about me and Tanra running into the former champion at the Maginox battle, for fear a random enchanter or diviner would be able to pick up some of the details – for all I knew, they’d chop off her head as well as mine if we were found-out. She had an off-the-shelf anti-glamour ring on her pinkie finger, but there were no countermeasures that would make me feel truly confident about divulging the truth to her.
So, as with Em, I had to keep my mouth shut.
“Still no Nighteye,” I confirmed, keeping my eyes on the eggs.
“Poor guy,” she replied. She turned away to stop Xastur before he set off his self-reading story-book for the hundredth time this morning, but I caught the look on her face when she glanced across me: pity.
She thought Nighteye was dead, and that I’d been deluding myself this whole time – she thought my discomfort was due to the realisation slowly creeping over me, that he was gone and was never coming back.
She was so wrong, and yet so right at the same time. Was he ever coming back?
Poor guy. It didn’t quite cover it, did it? He’d been – what, captured, mind-controlled, enslaved… warped into a walking bag of magic tricks to serve their aims, a weapon who supported death, healed the killers, worked for Everseer… Now she’d appeared with her face bared, Timesnatcher had determined that Everseer was until recently known as Hierarch Twenty-Five, one of the most dangerous heretics to stride the city’s streets these last years. If Nighteye was under her thumb – what strength did my resolution really possess? Was there even a conceivable route by which I could free him from her influence? It was an awkward situation. I couldn’t see how I could do it without Killstop’s help – the evil diviner could predict any moves I’d make well in advance, unless my fate was being influenced by someone with Tanra’s kind of power – but Killstop herself couldn’t see Everseer, couldn’t direct me to a time or place in which I could exert my own powers in Nighteye’s defence.
Was I being a bit silly? On reflection, I’d known Nighteye for less time than he’d been missing – I could probably count the times I’d run into him on one hand. There was no particular reason I should feel so wounded that he’d been subverted by the enemy – I’d lost others permanently, watched them die, and felt less grief darkening my soul. Yet the day Nighteye saved me from Termiax and Rissala’s demon, from Belexor’s shapeshift – I couldn’t shake the memory. How he’d been there to save me when I needed it most. And how he’d laughed, the night of my first Gathering, when we bullied the bullies in the Mare. How he’d been abused by his own family, Tanra telling me I didn’t want to know the details…
And now Winterprince – he too was gone. He was another one I shouldn’t have cared about, not after what he’d tried to do to me – what he did to Flood Boy…
Did he do me a favour? Ridding me of another traitorous –
“Kaaas!” Jaid was screeching –
I half-turned, almost spilling the former eggs out of the pan before realising she was shrieking at me because of the state of the eggs.
I looked down at the smoking, blackened remnants of breakfast.
“Damn it,” I muttered. “Anyone interested in a take-out?”
“At this time of the morning, on Yearsend?” Orstrum said sceptically. I could only see the top half of his body, buried as he was in the books Xastur was piling around him. “Nowhere is going to be open, my boy.”
I slipped out of phase with the world. I turned, and I could see the firelight flickering on the floor and wall behind me, through me.
“Somewhere will open for me,” I said.
* * *