As we walked on, I mentioned the little I knew about the Gathering of Champions. If Tanra was only half as serious about playing the role of champion as she seemed to be, she’d torture me if she found out later that I let her miss a meeting like that – though it felt strange to pass on the information without having actually ever been to such a meeting myself. She probably knew more about it, with her powers, than I did.
“So – what is a Gathering of Champions, really?” I asked her.
She returned a blank stare. “How am I supposed to know?”
“I thought you could –” I waved a hand in the air “– you know…”
She looked off at the (building-occluded) horizon, then back to me. She gave a single shake of her head.
She couldn’t intuit anything about other arch-diviners, but she could see what I was going to say next… It was curious, how it all worked.
“The foreknowledge of the others like me stops me seeing them – and stops them seeing me,” she replied, almost with a questioning tone there at the end.
“That’s what I reckon,” I responded cautiously.
She didn’t reply to that, but I could hear her muttering under her breath.
“… infinite regress… ‘What’s he going to do? Oh, I’ll do this…’ ‘So she’s going to do that? I’ll do this…’ So perfect prescience is impossible…”
I shuddered at her words, the opacity of their implications. I hadn’t even known how prescience was pronounced until she said it.
There wasn’t much farther to go. We crossed paths with a single truncheon-twirling watchman, who quickly abated his truncheon-twirling and crossed out of our path when he saw me and my eldritch. By the time we arrived at the shrine, only a few of the supplicants strewn about the street outside had awoken. A near-motionless swarm of snoring, sprawled-out unfortunates, mostly using sacks for sleeping-bags – the river of the sick and the wounded went stretching on up the road before us, along the high wooden fences that loomed over us all.
There were plenty with missing fingers and a few with missing limbs, but the majority were diseased. Swollen, splinterwinced legs. Gangrenous wounds, weeping sores like cradlecrib, and several afflicted with mournbud, the oozing rash of the face and scalp. Perhaps some were maladies the monthly cleansing wouldn’t affect, or the victims were simply too poorly to travel to Hightown to partake in the ritual, left alone, abandoned by mankind to the mercy of the goddess Wythyldwyn’s chosen representatives. I was pretty sure sleeping in the mud wasn’t doing them any favours.
Either way, they were here, a portion of them languishing upon the narrow strip of boardwalk running past the iron-wrought gates of the shrine – most of them were sleeping on the road itself. But the awake ones were staring at us, and in particular my sylph, Xaba still lying in repose across his toned bronze arms. Avaelar, for his part, had a disconsolate look slapped across his face – probably his reaction to the fact he was covered in muck to the shins.
“What’s the plan, exactly?” I asked Tanra as we stopped. The closed gate of the shrine was about a hundred feet away, but we’d gone as far as we could; now hundreds and hundreds of ragged-looking people blocked our passage.
“The plan?” She looked at me, nonplussed.
“I mean…” I gestured at Xaba.
“Oh. Put him down?”
“You’re going to – just leave him here?”
She gave a half-shrug. “He’ll only be waiting twelve hours. A particularly zealous holy woman is going to notice that he hasn’t moved up with the others who’d been near him, and go over to inspect him. Don’t you think I’ve had a look ahead? He’ll be fine… mostly.”
I ignored the bait, failed to rise to it. I put my hand on her elbow and looked her right in the face – her eyes were still shining wetly, the dark, burnt-oak irises almost making her pupils look even more dilated.
I had to have another attempt at getting through to her.
“Look, I think some very bad things have just happened to you, okay? It sounds like you took a powerful drug, watched your dad die, watched your boyfriend nearly die, then nearly ended up dead yourself.” She was just staring at me. “You’ve detached yourself from your feelings. I should know, right? But it’s okay to feel the pain.”
She shook her head vehemently, a display of humanity that made my hopes soar.
“There must be a myriad of possibilities here. You said you want to be a champion? Well this is your first step! You should be saying, ‘Let’s just go over the fence!’ or something! You care about every innocent, never mind someone you know – someone you love?”
“But he isn’t innocent.” She stood very still now, and her voice held a new composure. “He’s a killer.”
I froze too.
“You said…” I started.
“I said he wasn’t one of them. And I wasn’t then what I am now. He never told me.” Her voice dropped even lower. “My father wasn’t his first.”
“You…” I took a deep breath. “You can see the whole of the past, just like that?”
“The whole of the past?” she scoffed, then, low-voiced again, continued: “No. Just… relevant bits. Parts of Xaba’s past. Intersections of time’s streets. Echoes resounding between realities. Stitches across stitches. He’s a killer.”
“You denied his innocence, but you didn’t deny that you love him,” I pointed out.
“I…” She looked across at his prone body. “I do love him.”
“Then –“
“But I’m a champion.” She looked back at me, and this time there was no denying the mystical hold of her words: “How many hours a day do you wear that thing?”
She looked pointedly at my mask, my curled horns.
I didn’t need to answer, or hear her next retort. I knew where she was going. I was shirking my duties, by having people I loved, people I wanted to protect? Was that really what she was getting at?
“It doesn’t suit you when you’re frowning,” she prodded.
I was frowning because of Morsus, not her, damn her –
Morsus.
I wanted to protect him.
Three years in his company had almost made him feel like, well, an uncle, I supposed.
He was gone. Forever. And what had I – what had the famous champion Feychilde – gone and done?
I went on a crusade, threatening half-a-dozen lowlife scum until I got Telrose’s name and his likely whereabouts, then used my overwhelming powers to completely wreck a warehouse full of gangers, almost killing one of them in the process.
‘It doesn’t suit you when you’re frowning.’ That’s what she said. She meant more than the mask. She means… everything. The champion.
Feychilde can’t do this; Feychilde can’t be an archmage going around using his magic to enact some personal vendetta.
But she was wrong about not caring. It wasn’t the caring that was to blame here. It was only the anger. I should’ve known better than to go out of the house fuelled by such a longing for retribution.
“I… understand,” I found myself murmuring.
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I didn’t know if this was the lesson she meant to teach me or not, but I’d learned something either way.
I looked around me, as if suddenly realising where I was. Where I needed to be.
“I leave him in your care, then. Do as you will.” I turned to Avaelar, and a quick command later Xaba was lying face-up in the mud.
I couldn’t yet get my illusory black-out wall to completely surround me, but it was good enough to hide my rejoining with the sylph from the eyes of the few who were watching. It wasn’t widespread knowledge that sorcerers could put extra-planar entities inside their bodies, and I imagined there was probably a very good reason for that; I had no intention of shaking that lantern. Anti-sorcerer prejudice was bad enough already.
“You’re leaving,” she said.
I manifested my sylph-power, the blue translucency slowly extruding from my back, forming the shapes of six wings. I could sense the awe-filled eyes of the wounded and diseased supplicants on me and did my best to keep from meeting any of their gazes.
“You’re leaving too,” I replied blandly. “You thought I’d do otherwise? I’ve got somewhere to be, and, frankly, your words were pivotal to my realisation.”
“But – we could walk, and talk more?”
She tried a coquettish smile – it looked more than a little dangerous, with the shining eyes.
“I’m sorry to decline your offer, but I’m taken,” I said somewhat archly, flashing a grin in return.
I somehow felt more like myself again already.
I looked over my wings, flapped them gently, then more forcefully as I judged they were nearly complete – I sailed up into the air above her.
“Until we meet again, then,” she called up to me, turning away from Xaba and walking away, keeping her gaze on me hovering there thirty feet over her head.
It was disturbing to think that she probably had a pretty good idea of when that would be. “Till then,” I called back a bit dismissively, then turned away, propelling myself upwards with the otherworldly appendages, high enough for me to get my bearings and turn myself towards home.
She wasn’t getting my help – no more than I’d offer another champion, anyway. I wasn’t going to waste my time watching over her, caring what happened to her. She was capable of looking after herself, if she put in the effort. And if she didn’t, it’d be on her own head. I couldn’t hold myself responsible – by her own arguments, I should put aside my personal interests, and do my ‘job’ to the best of my ability.
I still felt she was wrong. Doing my job to the best of my ability meant caring. It meant doing my best such that I’d still want to do it again tomorrow, and I’d burn out in days if I just let everything go. Being Feychilde full-time, making Kas into the champion, would mean having no time to do normal things, no time to be a part of my family. I couldn’t lose my identity that way.
But I already wanted a separate place to live, didn’t I? So that I wouldn’t get them into a dangerous situation I couldn’t get them back out of, just like had happened with Duskdown?
I was already making the sacrifices she’d been speaking about.
I looked down on the slowly-waking streets of Sticktown as I soared over the buildings, and for the first time, I felt detachment. It had stolen over me while I distracted myself with getting platinum, with my new girlfriend, with my anger over Morsus – it was quieter than any night-time arch-diviner assassin, more corrupting than any raving giant-spider-making heretic.
It wasn’t the kind of detachment that came because I no longer felt like I was one of them – I did still feel that way. Every iota of my essence screamed at me that I was still the poor, skinny Mud Lane bookworm I’d always been. But the truth was that I wasn’t one of them anymore, no matter how much I wanted to be. My concerns had been destined to diverge from theirs the moment I put on the robe and mask.
For now, they weren’t so different. I just wanted some money – food, family, the roof over my head. Sure, I wanted to be liked. Was that so radical? Not much had yet been made of me being a sorcerer, from what I’d heard and read at least – probably because I wasn’t running around with hordes of creepy undead or demons. The careers of people like Dustbringer, even Redgate, were plagued with public standoffishness. My fey-use had let me come off as pretty normal, I hoped, in comparison with the competition.
Flying above them, though, I was forced to accept that after the Gathering my concerns would probably start to shift. Food, shelter – they wouldn’t be problems anymore. Sure, my priorities would still be the same – I couldn’t see me moving Jaid and Jaroan off the top of the list for anything – but I’d probably drop something else in the blink of an eye if it was going to help me do my job.
Sometimes that’d mean getting paid, and maybe sometimes not, but I’d be fine with that. Firenight Square had put a lot of things into perspective, and the words of Duskdown still haunted me. ‘The ones you really need to be chasing don’t have bounties out on them.’ And I’d refused to swallow the consequences, the changes it’d make to my life if I did.
The change in me.
Perhaps the seeress saw that more clearly. Who was I to contradict an arch-diviner?
The sun was coming up. I’d been out all night. The tenements of Helbert’s Bend came into view. The boundaries were indiscernible even when you were down there with your feet in the excrement, never mind from up here – but I knew this place like the back of my hand. The traders were trickling into Knuckle Market to set up their stalls, off on my right, but I didn’t need the clattering of their wagons and crates to orient myself. This morning I felt as though I knew every building, every scrap of scaffolding. I was coming up over Giblet, not far from Lossen; I would be approaching Mud Lane in seconds, and from there to Bagger’s Alley would only be a matter of a heartbeat –
A cry caught my attention, and as I focussed the exact source of the sound came into my consciousness.
The sheer desperation of the whimpering thrust aside any sigh that might’ve escaped my lips, any impetus to rush back to Morsus.
I descended into the alleyway, azure wings in full view, and the three watchmen let their truncheon arms fall slowly this time, the weapons going slack in their hands to mirror their lower jaws. The boy, coiled in the drop between them with a damaged arm haltingly raised to protect his face – even he quietened.
I didn’t do anything consciously to augment my voice, but my frustration carried the words from my tongue.
“I really don’t need this right now.”
One of the trio lost his boot in the muck as he fled, and upon realising this seemed almost to hesitate mid-sprint, nearly falling when he twisted to look over his shoulder –
“Leave it.”
And the three bullies were gone, around the corner and into the street.
I looked down at the kid. A fair-haired, scruffy-looking slime-dweller just like me. Well, like I’d been four or five years back. He was on his side, now cradling his tender arm. Some of his fingers were broken, and, from the way he was holding it, his elbow had been struck hard.
“What did you do?” I asked.
He met my eyes through the mask.
“Nothin’!” he gasped.
I did my little trick, and within moments Avaelar was tending his injuries.
I gave him time to get over his astonishment, let him wipe his eyes, then answered his several questions by repeating my own:
“What did you do, really?”
“Nothin’! I swear, sir. I… I looked at ‘im funny.”
I considered his sincerity. Either he was a far better liar than I was used to encountering, or he was telling the truth.
Sticktown kids had plenty of reason to mistrust the watch. But, frankly, the watch had plenty of reason to mistrust us. They had the power, and they abused it, for sure. There wasn’t a single law enforcement organisation in a single book I’d ever read that didn’t.
Deception. In the end, that was the only weapon with which we could fight back. And it was courage, to lie to a mage. The kind of courage I admired.
I smiled at the kid, feeling a bit better about myself all of a sudden. If I hadn’t fled, if I hadn’t gone in search of Morsus’s killer… this little mirror of myself might’ve ended up with worse than a busted hand.
I helped him stand, and even walked him part-way home, but I knew what I had to do. Where I had to be.
The kid waved me farewell with his non-numb arm as I soared up and away into the morning gloom. I didn’t want to give any indication as to my destination, so I flew westwards before circling back around. My wings were far too visible, even through the smog-clouds.
It was with more than a little trepidation that I entered my home about ten minutes later, dressed as Kas. But I was myself once more.
The door was unlocked. Orstrum was the only one present, still sitting by his son’s corpse, still awake, if just barely.
She isn’t here, I thought in relief. Out with the kids?
No, I could hear them breathing, three troubled little sets of snoring coming from my room. The twins had let the little boy sleep with them for tonight.
“Orstrum,” I said, my voice twanging.
Rheumy eyes gleamed in my direction from the crevasses in his leathery skin.
“Kas…” he said hoarsely, then coughed, a grinding, phlegmy sound. “Did you find what you sought?”
“I… I don’t know, honestly,” I replied, seating myself opposite him.
I looked down into my friend’s peaceful face. He’d been washed – by his sister, I was sure – and his ripped clothing had been replaced; his hair was towel-dry but still visibly damp, his shirt free from any blood stains. He almost looked like he was sleeping.
Almost. I couldn’t escape the fact he was dead and that I could sense him. Couldn’t escape the fact I’d done what I’d done before I’d fled into the night.
“What did my daughter say to make you leave? I heard her, but I couldn’t make out the words.”
That was a lie. The walls wouldn’t keep out the squeaks of a mouse – as I knew from repeated personal experience – and Xantaire hadn’t been trying to keep her voice down.
No, he just wanted to check he had it right, before speaking his mind.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” I said, shuddering, throat feeling almost too thick for me to talk. “I don’t – I can’t –”
A gnarled old hand reached out across Morsus’s unmoving chest and clasped my own, quelling its trembling.
“It’s okay, lad,” he husked. “I know you’d never do that. Not deliberately.”
I couldn’t imagine Xantaire’s horror, her brother’s body jerking around like that under my unconscious direction.
“I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop it and every moment I tried and failed it got worse. If I stayed just a few seconds longer he – he might’ve, I don’t know, got up or something…” I looked down at my feet.
“And you didn’t find who killed him.”
“That was me. I killed him. I killed him with a platinum coin!”
I felt Orstrum’s eyes burning into the top of my head while I stared at the tips of my shoes – then, at last –
“I see.”
There was no anger, no challenge in the old man’s voice. Only resignation and bitterness.
He understood his children. He knew what I’d meant, I was pretty sure – and there would be plenty of opportunity once Xantaire got home for me to explain in as much detail as they wanted.
I did have the name.
But for now, we sat in silence, waiting for Xantaire to return, or for the kids to wake up, or anything at all to happen. For now, it didn’t matter.
I held the old man’s hand. It helped me. I could only hope it helped him too.
* * *