The air went from cool and damp to cold and dry in the matter of ten paces, and I could barely see. Then a faint blue light began to illuminate my path, coming from the other end of the tunnel, and after thirty seconds or so I emerged into the central area of the hollow tower.

The throbbing azure crystal that was worked into the outside of the three black walls – some of that radiant material was also worked into the interior, strings of the stuff imbued into the rock, serving to light the space – if only dimly. I saw there were three dark openings leading outside, one for each side of the Tower.

Not a defensive structure, then. Something for show. Something… highborn.

In the very middle a wide stair of small, easy steps, built from the plainer grey stone, ascended towards a dark ceiling high, high above me. It wasn’t quite a spiral staircase – instead, each flight went straight for ten or so steps, then twisted, mirroring the triangular shape of the walls.

“The stair goes down as well as up, Kas.”

I went around to investigate and saw that she was correct. The stairway was hewn directly into the rock, but it seemed to copy the same triangular pattern – the first flight heading down was the same distance, ten or so steps, before it turned off.

That’ll be the way to the foundations, then.

“I suppose it will.”

What can you tell me about what’s down there? I asked as I approached the stairway and started on my way down.

“A door. You’ll be descending for a few minutes, though – I’d be surprised if this doesn’t go deeper than the tower is tall. Beyond that… I don’t know. I suspect there’s a few arch-diviners down there. It’s just a big wall of fog.”

I’m definitely in the right place, then…

I found it interesting that I hadn’t seen anyone else. I tested my wings. They still worked, even if the air was dead, but they wouldn’t serve me well descending narrow flights of stairs; they were nowhere near as responsive as one of Em’s aeromantic spells. It was pitch black down here without the benefit of the blue-threaded stone to light my way and the wings didn’t really illuminate anything, so I created a smattering of floating witch-light using my gremlin essence and counted on Zel to not let me make a misstep.

I seemed to be walking down the flights for longer than just a few minutes. With every footfall I felt my sense of anticipation grow, serving only to extend the perceived duration of this interminable descent. Time flowed slowest when my mind was in a state such as this, filled with wonder and nervousness.

At last, the stairwell terminated in a short tunnel, at the end of which I could see a crack of light where double-doors were shuttered.

Did I need to knock?

I was spared the embarrassment of a mistake thanks to the two big, metal doors swinging open inwardly at my approach. As they did so, by the light of the floating orbs in the room beyond I saw that they were made of brass, and were engraved with curling, vine-like patterns that formed the letter-rune of Illodin.

The foundations of the Tower of Mourning…

I let the witch-light fall away by accident, gaping.

The place was vast beyond my wildest dreams.

A broad granite terrace welcomed me, stretching off into an abyss, like I stood on the shelf atop a mountain in darkness. Only one of the floating globes, wandering out over the drop, served to illuminate the edge of the plateau and the far wall of the chasm. Water streamed from the ceiling of the cavern in dozens of places, pooling here and there or flowing out over the cliff.

Most remarkably, there was a forty- or fifty-foot tree of living glass standing there in the centre. The water poured down through its crystalline leaves, light reflecting and refracting through it in a rainbow of myriad colours that bewitched my fey-sight.

Beneath its branches I saw some familiar faces, or familiar masks at least, staring back at me as I emerged into the room: Timesnatcher, Leafcloak and Lightblind were about sixty or seventy feet from me.

Other than the trio, no one else was present.

Timesnatcher was hooded in his black, white-hourglass-covered robe, his star-browed mask covering his upper face. Leafcloak wore her patched, iridescent green robe, yellow leaves protecting her identity, her grey-white hair flowing over her shoulders.

It was Lightblind I’d never seen up-close before – she was tall and slim, and wore her pristine white robe covered in the black eyelashes of a closed eye. Her mask was the featureless gleaming pane that inherently made it look like she couldn’t see – not with her mortal eyes, in any case – but for all I knew there could easily have been some trick to the mask that let her peer through. Her shortish hair was half pitch-black, half shining white, as though she’d dyed it to match the rest of her outfit. The belt, gloves and boots of white Drathdanii leather completed the ensemble.

“Good evening, Feychilde,” Timesnatcher called.

I walked towards them, looking around and marvelling at this place. You could’ve fit thousands of people into the space, so long as some didn’t mind standing near the ledge of a sheer drop-off into nothingness.

“Evening all,” I said when I got close. “Am I too late? Where is everyone?”

“Quite the contrary.” Lightblind’s voice was musical, with just a trace of a highborn accent. “You were almost the first here.”

“There was no time on the invite,” I said sardonically, reaching out to shake their hands.

Timesnatcher clasped mine readily, and Lightblind seemed to have no problem finding my hand despite the full-facial covering she wore. I noticed that she was dark of complexion, displayed only by her earlobe poking out through her hair – there were no other patches of skin she’d left visible.

“The Slave and the Sorcerer,” she said in a musing tone.

“So I’m told,” I replied, releasing her hand, moving on to shake Leafcloak’s.

The old druid’s grip was firm – beyond firm – quite how she’d stepped into my shield with this in mind I wasn’t sure –

“Aii! I don’t suppose – Timesnatcher told you –”

“He told me,” she said, in a somewhat-amused tone of voice. “Saving your family. That’s just about the only reason I’m not using you like a chew-toy right now.”

She released my hand and I bravely resisted the urge to hop around, shaking my fingers out and saying ‘ow’.

“Point made,” I said, wincing. Did she know I had a regeneration effect? She hadn’t broken anything but damn. I was pretty sure that without Zel I’d have needed tending-to by a druid…

“Next time, my dear, if I have to kill you, I will,” she said sweetly. “I can always bring you back, so long as I’m quick and I don’t do too much damage.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

This was the mentor who’d harangued Nighteye about nearly killing his opponents?

My eye crossed to Timesnatcher, who wore a wry expression on his face.

“Let’s pray there’s never a ‘next time’,” I replied.

She shrugged. “You pray. I quite like chew-toys.”

I laughed, and it sounded just a trifle nervous to my ears.

“Come on, Leafcloak, enough teasing,” Lightblind said, turning her face towards the druidess as though she could see her. “We don’t want to scare off the newbies. You know Henthae wants him to wear the ten-pointed star.”

“Of course she does.” Leafcloak sounded dismissive. “She wants every new archmage. Sometimes I wonder if she’s trying to replace us.”

“She’s not quite that stupid,” Timesnatcher said. “She would be much happier in those futures where she weakened us, though. Forced us to come to the Magisterium for support, instead of the other way around. I half-suspect she wants access to this place…”

I looked back at the wall of the cavern, the brass doors which had silently closed behind me.

“You mean, she can’t just…”

“Only a self-avowed champion can enter here,” Lightblind supplied. “No ulterior motives. It has something to do with Illodin and Glaif, as far as we’ve been able to determine.”

“So we’re in a literal ‘thank the gods’ kind of situation?”

She nodded in response, seemingly unfazed by this fact.

As much as I could joke about it, it did fill me with a certain sense of… pride? Grandeur? To know that the gods themselves had taken an interest in you was to know that you mattered.

“Don’t let it go to your head.” Timesnatcher put his hand on my shoulder in a friendly fashion, smiling grimly. “They let us in. They also let us die.”

Dustbringer. Smouldervein. At least one of the Binding Brothers.

“I remember,” I said.

“I know you do.” He dropped his hand and retrieved a silver chain from the folds of his robe. “And this is to stop other people deciding what goes to your head.”

He held it up so that I could see the bluish, leaden pendant dangling from it: four spikes radiating from a central circle, like an ‘x’ or four-pointed star.

“I can trust it?” I asked, taking it from him and untangling the chain.

“Absolutely. Its maker wasn’t present at its examination.”

Anti-enchantment protections?

“Looks that way.”

And I really can trust it?

“I’m not getting any sense of danger from it.”

That’s reassuring.

“Timesnatcher’s got a better chance of seeing if there’s something wrong with it.”

But do I trust him?

“I… I think you have to.”

“Feychilde?”

“Sorry – I always wanted one of these.” I had my hood and mask to consider, so I wrapped the chain around my right wrist and tucked in the pendant so it wouldn’t come loose. (My left was housing my explosive dagger, and I didn’t fancy seeing how the two ensorcellments interacted.) “I’ll put it on properly later.”

“Good call,” Lightblind said. “We’ve got company.”

I turned, but whoever it was hadn’t yet arrived – and my hearing couldn’t penetrate the brass double-doors with the water dripping down everywhere.

“They’ll just be a minute,” Timesnatcher said. “Would you like the grand tour?”

“Erm – I suppose?”

“Good. This is the Ceryad, the Stone of Amplification. The First Wonder of Mund. Don’t touch it. Don’t talk about it.” He waved first at the tree, then turned and gestured over at the edge of the cliff. “That’s the cliff. An ordinary cliff, but, still… Don’t walk off it.” He looked back at me, smiling. “Here endeth the grand tour.”

I nodded, adopting a thoughtful expression. “I liked it. Well worth the money. I felt like you padded it out a bit much in the middle, though. Trim some of the fat next time.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” His smile twisted further.

I turned aside and headed towards the drop, keeping out of the streams that coursed like miniature waterfalls over the cliff. It made me swoon when I got a couple of steps from the edge and I cautiously peered over, suddenly feeling like I wanted a rope or rail to hold onto.

“I said not to walk off it?” the arch-diviner yelled.

“These are my wings,” I called back without turning, and twitched my gleaming appendages at them. “You actually can’t touch them. Like, really.”

For all my outward confidence, I still experienced the dizzying sensation. It was fifty feet or more to the sheer wall on the far side of the abyss – and far, far more than fifty feet to the bottom. Too deep for me to penetrate with my sight. Several hundred feet, certainly. My wings could sense the light breeze drifting through the chasm, streaming through imperceptible cracks in the cavern-walls…

The door opened, and I took a step back before turning around.

It was a pair of druids, their raiments visibly damp from the rain. I’d never met either of them before, but I could tell they were druids from their attire, unless I was much mistaken. The first through the door was a slim, wide-hipped woman wearing earthy brown; her mask was a thing of living green wood, bark-covered, with jagged holes for eyes, nostrils and mouth. The second was of indeterminate gender but I suspected the tallness and slender frame were those of an elven male – his robe was the yellow-red of autumn leaves and his mask was a curious fox-like face of hardened leather.

I was introduced to Petalclaw and Wanderfox (who was a male elf), and by the time I was done greeting them more and more champions were arriving – first some mage-champions I’d never seen before, then Shadowcloud and Nighteye, then the Rainbow’s Edge mages and three more archmages I didn’t know –

“We’ve got something to discuss,” Timesnatcher said, approaching me. “Come over here.”

I looked around at the other champions.

“We’ve got time, I’ll make sure of it.”

I followed him to the corner farthest from both the door and the cliff, and once we were safely sequestered in the darkness he turned to me and spoke telepathically.

“Glancefall’s set us up, private link. There’s a couple of things to discuss with you before it all gets going.”

I had to admit, I was intrigued. “Go for it.”

“Neverwish is a traitor.”

“Neverwish?” The dwarven enchanter was a little difficult to get along with, but a ‘traitor’? “What do you mean?”

“In the last months he has committed at least eight acts of violence on the unprotected minds of new champions. Lovebright has been assisting me in ensuring no permanent effects will be experienced by his victims. He invested heavily in Starsight, and believed himself to have found a useful ally. You are lucky, Feychilde, to carry such a passenger. Lovebright informs me that you have some measure of innate protection against the tricks he could employ?”

He was digging for information about Zel – I recalled his surprise when he realised I had her within me, the first time we met…

I merely nodded.

“In any case, yourself and Killstop and Ms. Reyd –“

“Emrelet!”

“I’m afraid so, but please don’t be alarmed – as I implied, all traces of his crimes have been washed away.”

I frowned. As reassuring as it was to know the three of us hadn’t been turned into his unwitting agents, erasing the evidence hardly sounded like the first step on the path to proving Neverwish’s guilt.

“What was he…”

“What was he doing to you? Tiny adjustments to outlook and attitude. Miniscule ones, in your case, given your defences. He’s a very jealous person. If it weren’t for Lovebright, you might’ve found yourself having an inexplicable argument with Emrelet, for instance…”

My frown became a scowl.

“And might she have started to find herself inexplicably attracted to dwarves?” I asked, barely keeping the rage from my mind-voice.

“I don’t know why, precisely, but it’s very important that you know this. It’s very important that you’re the one to call Neverwish out.”

“Me? Why do I have to do it?”

“I don’t know, for sure.”

I stared at him.

“I wish I could tell you but – it’s complicated.”

I cast about, looking at the others in the cavern. They were moving more slowly than usual, the sounds of their voices blurred.

“I’m sure we’ve got time… Snatcher.”

“I can’t take us much faster, or the link we’re using will stop working, and out loud other diviners will be able to overhear us.”

“You don’t want them to hear us?”

“I can’t be certain of every moment of every arch-diviner’s life, you know.”

Suddenly I felt cold, like the cavern had been filled with a wintry gale that bypassed my wings to stream right up my spine.

“There could be more traitors?”

He chuckled aloud. “Of course there could, Feychilde. We’re archmages. There are about fifty thousand hundred ways we can mess with each other. Don’t look at me that way, I’m just trying to demonstrate the reasons we must employ caution.”

I continued to stare.

“Okay, okay… You. Neverwish. If we do it right, there comes a time when you and he… I can’t tell you much. If I say certain words to you, it won’t happen, and things will be worse. What I can’t see I can infer from the consequences. I just…” The arch-diviner suddenly looked weary as he stared right back into my eyes. “I wish I could make you trust me, but I wouldn’t even if I could. I just hope you do – some day, if not right now.”

“Why does it have to be me…?”

“If it isn’t you, we know who it will be, and things would be worse. Far worse, in the end. Even if I were to do it…”

He spread his hands in a gesture of hopelessness.

I nodded again, slowly, and looked down at the floor.

I couldn’t help but get the vibe that he was being sincere. The anti-enchantment pendant… Lovebright’s magic, presumably. I ground my teeth a little. It was impossible, in this world, this role, to trust anyone.

Neverwish… Redgate?

I looked back at him. It would be possible to fake it, to feign trust, until it came – if it ever did.“Okay, Timesnatcher. I’ll do it.”

“Good, good. Thank you. Just be yourself. The cogs in the machine are well-oiled. Now, just to pre-empt you – about Redgate, and Direcrown…”

* * *