“Wow,” Timesnatcher said, finishing his cup of Flood Boy-provided wine.
“I know.”
“’Save the world’? Really?”
“I wish I caught the rest of her words – it was the sphere’s fault… She thought she had it all figured out. Or her husband did, at least.”
“Those who dabble in darkness oft come away half-blinded,” he murmured, looking down at the cracked paving of the square beneath us. “Gods know I’ve partaken of enough in my time. Today… You saw clearly where I saw only shadows, Feychilde.” He shook his head slowly.
“I don’t know about that,” I replied. “The Green Tower just called to me, is all. If Direcrown hadn’t been there already to help me, I doubt I’d have achieved much.”
“I don’t know about that. The vampire, and the Prince’s manifestation, clouded much of the future I could perceive.”
Didn’t seem to trouble Killstop, I noted.
“… I had no idea they could bring the night like that; never once did I see it. I’ll have to go back, study the mechanisms of the clock… But you saw the way, the true path, without the gift. I hope your little friend was helping you?”
Zel hadn’t come forward to speak to me during this whole conversation, which wasn’t entirely unusual, but it was almost as though she were hiding – and the fact she didn’t intrude in this very moment to make some kind of snappy remark, about being called my ‘little friend’ or about my doubts, was telling.
“I – don’t – like – arch-diviners!” she whispered, her tone cutting.
“To be honest, she wasn’t actually active… I suppose I might borrow insights via her power…” I frowned, thinking about it.
Is that why I’ve had such funny dreams lately? I wondered.
He looked away towards the west, towards the tower district. We were sitting together on the edge of the roof of one of the big buildings surrounding the Winter Door’s plaza, far enough from the portal that I wasn’t afflicted with the teeth-aching background hum. We could speak plainly – we were alone up here. The others had already retired to Mund, and the magisters who’d entered the moment they went through reporting our victory were now roaming far from us. And, of course, there were now no undead within the city’s bounds.
The green mist that had enveloped everything faded in minutes, leaving behind not a single inhabitant, corporeal or not-so-much; by the time I’d extricated the unconscious Shadowcloud from the sunken cavern and flew him out, it was already passing and my undead-senses were as quiet as they’d been when we first arrived in Zadhal.
I’d leave it to someone else to test whether we’d turn undead, using portals here. I’d taken enough stupid risks for one day, as far as I was concerned.
“They brought the night, but we brought them to a whole new realm,” I said at last. “We freed their souls, Timesnatcher. Or at least gave them the opportunity. And we did it together. Whoever made the sphere, whether it was this ‘Saphalar’ person the lich mentioned or just someone he knew – they understood the problem. It was them who did it, really.”
“The fountain?”
I nodded. “Whoever made the sphere planned it so that it could be dropped into place. It was like the fountain was casting a spell on them, all day, every day. Gods-damned Magisterium…”
“It was centuries ago, Feychilde. Let it go.”
“Why do you think Zakimel made everything go wrong for us? He got Rosedawn killed! And we would’ve risen again just like them, if we’d fallen.”
“I know. I had Rosedawn’s… remains… taken away for burial.”
My jaw dropped. “See, I hadn’t even been thinking about that. Good work, man.”
His jaw set in frustration. “Can you stop doing that, please?”
“Doing what?”
“Congratulating me. Thanking me. Praising me. Are you trying to belittle me, or is it just happening unconsciously?”
Belittle…? It couldn’t have been further from my mind.
“I… suppose it’s happening unconsciously,” I said slowly, trying to weigh his mood from the set of his frame. Perhaps the wine had had the opposite of its intended effect. “My apologies… I get that you’re frustrated – today didn’t go how you hoped – but…”
“No,” he cut me off, shaking his head again. “Never mind, Feychilde. I’m just whining because… because today you were our leader. You have to let it go, though. You can’t fight Zakimel.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“I’m… erm… doing the eyebrow thing again.” I pointed at my mask’s right eye-slit.
He chuckled dryly, and I could sense some of the tension in him melting. “I can’t believe you actually said that to them… well, I can, obviously, I can see it now, but…”
“Oh, you should take a look at what I said to some of their bosses… there was this bit, before I headbutted the vampire…”
“Kastyr,” he said softly, and I hushed instantly. “Kastyr, you must understand this. The Magisterium… they’re beyond our remit. We can’t interfere.”
I shrugged. “I disagree. We’re champions. The gods sanction us, not men.”
“You saw that thing tonight, same as I. Gods are corrupt.”
I shook my head, remembering Nentheleme. “And men aren’t?”
“I didn’t think I’d hear you arguing on the side of divine authority. Do you think the ability of men to make their own decisions, rule their own fates, is a disadvantage? Would you have it all prescribed and proscribed from on-high?”
“No,” I said at once. “But a servant complaining about an abusive master should have a law to go to, to seek justice… When the law itself is the abusive master, who else is there to turn to but the gods themselves?”
“Is that how you see the magisters?” His eyes were keen, glinting, seeming almost coppery-coloured through the slits in his mask. “Abusive masters?”
I waved a hand at our surroundings. “They destroyed this. And they kept it from us, keep it still. They’re the shepherds and we’re the sheep – they keep half the flock well aside while they cull those with the thinnest wool for their meat.” Timesnatcher was smiling ingratiatingly at my metaphor, so I concluded, “And, sorry and everything, but I’m not really including you in the ‘we’ there. You’re the ‘they’.”
“Because I’m rich?”
“It stops you from being able to understand. I like you, Timesnatcher, and if it’s worth anything I certainly think you led us today – when you gave me orders and I ignored them, you didn’t tell me off… You’re a good leader, the right kind of leader, one who sees his mistakes, doesn’t hide from them… Everyone makes mistakes…” I thought of my rampage through the underworld after Morsus’s death, my overconfidence when I went hunting the vampires… Charging Vaahn… And Leafcloak and Dustbringer, thinking the same old tactics would work against superlative foes. “But you can’t know what it’s like to be me. I can’t know what it’s like to be you –“
“If your investments come along as nicely as I think they might, you may find out sooner rather than later what it’s like to be rich…”
“Maybe. But I won’t forget. I can’t forget.”
“I’ve been through the lives of the poorest in the city,” Timesnatcher replied wistfully, “and I can’t forget, either.”
“But you can’t be them, Timesnatcher. I doubt even an enchanter could pull off a trick that’d give them the true experience, what it’s like to actually grow up in the drop.”
The arch-diviner lowered his face, then when he looked up again his expression brightened. “And while you say you can’t know what it is to be me, you think you understand the highborn? You think you understand the burden of responsibility –“
“No, I don’t, but –”
“I do not imagine they toppled Zadhal lightly, my young friend. I imagine it was the last in a long line of ever-more-desperate attempts to stop the Heresy.“
“Mixing bloodlines? That’s what the Heretics hate?”
“Amongst other things…” he replied, pursing his lips uneasily.
I thought it over. It would make a certain amount of sense, given what the girl in Firenight Square had said.
‘Look at us.’
It was already plain that all archmages shared the blood of the Five, distant connections to nobility and whatnot. A lot could happen over a thousand years. But I shuddered to think that someone would find this reason-enough to seek to slaughter people indiscriminately.
“They think that mixing the bloodlines will result in more archmages,” I said. “Or less-controllable archmages, at least. In that I can hardly say they’re wrong –“
“In that case, on that topic you ought to hold, and say no more,” Timesnatcher reminded me gently. “Heresy may not be attended or repeated or interpreted, on pain of death.”
“On pain of death?” I said, rather shrilly.
“Nor ought one agree with them aloud,” he went on urbanely, “even if one has been under extraordinary pressure for the last several hours…”
“Hey, now – I wasn’t actually saying I wish there were less archmages, or that the blood of the Five only ran in the highborn families – obviously,” I gestured vaguely at my mage-robe, “but I just want to understand what they want to –“
“And therein lieth the crux of the problem.” He sighed. “In understanding, one becomes a heretic. Do you want to become a killer?”
“I… I don’t get it,” I confessed. “It’s a magical disease, is it? You listen to what they say, and you just… change?”
“Precisely.” The arch-diviner chuckled dryly. “The magical disease called persuasion.”
“You mean…?”
“It might be that there is nothing inherently magical to what the heretics do to their converts. It is said that those who follow the Heresy are shown a vision; they are not put under an enchantment, but their beliefs cannot be removed – nothing so straightforward, oh no. Unfortunately, every enchanter who has turned their hand to fixing a heretic has ended up one themselves. At the school, young diviners live in fear of seeing something that will drive them to kill and kill and kill… I think it is akin to this.”
I stared at him in shock.
“No,” he went on, “their creed, or their vision, is persuasive. Apparently the way of life that means killing every innocent you can get your hands on is incredibly compelling, once someone’s shown it to you.”
I swallowed in a dry throat. “Maybe we should do something… I mean, what if they’re right? About part of it, I mean. What if –“
He laid a steady, sturdy hand on my shoulder. “When you lead the Gathering, and must weigh the counsel of dozens of champions, many of whom you’ve saved from certain death a dozen times, and who have saved you in kind – then you will remember Zadhal, and our conversation. Then, you will understand the value of your hypotheticals, and what we did here today.”
I reeled, trying to recover from this – prophecy?
Is he actually saying I will lead the champions?
He couldn’t know that, surely – other diviners would interfere with a vision like that – wouldn’t they?
“Do you see the danger in them now?” He laughed, then flashed to his feet. “Come on – let’s go find this Aidel’s book. One touch of my power will tell me if it’s safe to read or if it’ll turn you into the massacrer of children.”
I let him go ahead, and followed him on uncertain wings.
* * *