> A man walks up to his father, troubled, saying that a man has been loudly proclaiming the intent to kill him on the next day. The father thinks for a moment, then asks the son why that might be.

>

> “Does it matter?” the son cries, distraught. “He wants to kill me!”

>

> “Of course it matters,” the father replies. “If the man says he means to kill you out of hate, then you must treat it as a threat. If he says it is out of love, however - that, my son, is a promise.”

>

> - Sauvain parable.

----------------------------------------

A momentary wave of dizziness swept over Jesse as he walked towards the tent, and his steps slowed while he waited for it to pass. After a few moments he was better - not fine, but better. Eryha’s relentless visions had left him disoriented and foggy for the better part of a day, and a miasma of lethargy still clung stubbornly to him.

Ethereal flashes darted at the corners of his vision - scenes viewed from too many angles at once, rendered in colors he had never seen. They too had faded somewhat over the course of the day, but they were there if he bothered to look at them. It took discipline not to become distracted, made doubly difficult by his mind’s unmoored, flighty state.

He sighed and ducked under the tent flap, straightening up to look at the duo of wary Cereinem men and the object of their attention - the Setelym interloper, Cosvamo, who was methodically storing his possessions into pockets scattered throughout his garments.

Cosvamo smiled without looking up from his work. “I was wondering if I would see you before I left,” he said.

“I hear you tried to kill me earlier,” Jesse said, keeping a deliberate calm in his voice despite his rising heart rate. The colorful chaos at the edges of his vision flickered playfully in time with its beats. “I thought I should get a look at your face, in case we run into each other again.”

The Setelym’s smile grew wider. “If I came back intending to kill you, you wouldn’t see my face,” he said quietly. “Not this one, anyway. But I don’t think that’s likely. It was a decision of the moment, and that moment has passed.”

“But why?” Jesse asked. “I’ve never done anything to you. I haven’t been to Tinem Setel and I have no plans to go. From what little I’ve heard, I got the impression that you didn’t welcome visitors.”

“Those bearing unwelcome baggage least of all,” Cosvamo said. “From the comments your friends have made I can surmise that you know the true nature of the threat facing Tinem Sjocel. Is it so surprising that we would be wary of you as well, given your condition?”

Jesse leaned against one of the tent poles. “I have no intention of harming you or your people,” he said.

Cosvamo chuckled darkly, running his finger lightly along the blade of a knife before stowing it in his boot. “And harm is always intentional, is it?” he asked. “I’ll grant that you seem oddly stable for one in your position, but that can change. Always has changed, in our experience. Do you know what separates you from the mindless hordes soon to be clawing at the walls of Tinem Sjocel?” He looked up at Jesse, baring his teeth. “Time.”

Jesse kept his face carefully still despite a growing sense of disquiet. “And you thought you’d take care of me before I grew problematic,” he said.

“Exactly right,” Cosvamo confirmed.

“And what’s to stop you from trying again?” Jesse asked, his voice rising. “You claim that keeping you here would bring other Setelym to us, but won’t you just send them anyway once you’re gone?” He took a breath, trying to restore the calm to his voice. “If I’m such a threat, wouldn’t you just try again?”

Cosvamo sighed. “Like I told your friends,” he said, “my compatriots would certainly attack if they thought I was restrained here. But they won’t after I talk to them, because I’m going to tell them not to.” He held up a finger, forestalling Jesse’s response.

“Because I found you too late, to answer your question,” he said, his voice never sliding from a blandly affable tone. “Oh, we would level this little camp to the ground. We would kill all of your friends, but you? You’d be in just the right spot to survive, the fatal blow would miss you by a hair’s breadth, you would escape our grasp like a drift of smoke on the wind. All an attack would do is anger you, push you deeper into the grasp of that tenacious parasite you carry. Uncontrolled, unpredictable.” He smiled, empty-eyed, and a swirl of impossible colors flared at the edge of Jesse’s sight. “We hate unpredictability. When we come, it will be with the certainty of your death. Not today. Today we avoid a conflict because the losses would be too great for either side to bear. Tomorrow - who can say?”

“She’s not a threat to you,” Jesse insisted, his heart hammering. “All she wants - all I want - is to turn back the attack on Tinem Sjocel and protect the people who live here.”

“What she wants, is it?” Cosvamo asked, an acid drip of mockery coloring his voice. “How quickly the individual subsides beneath the greater mind. Do you suppose she’ll let you turn your blade on yourself, when it’s all over? To cut her out, remove the threat? Or will the last scraps of your mind simply extinguish themselves in a pathetic attempt to please her?”

Jesse tasted bile, his pulse pounding in his ears and the chaotic swirl of imagery nearly blinding him. His fingers flexed, fist clenching and unclenching - and then his hand was resting on the pommel of his sword. He smelled sea air through an open window and felt the light touch of a hand on his arm, slowing his pulse. Cosvamo’s mocking smile took on a fixed look, his eyes flicking rapidly between Jesse and a small saon draim on the table that had begun to hum loudly.

“If I thought there was a threat, I would deal with that threat,” Jesse said evenly, looking at Cosvamo with placid eyes. The colors in the periphery ceased their dance, settling into orderly patterns that lay along the contours of everything in the tent.

Cosvamo stared back for a long moment. “There are more extreme measures that could be taken,” he said quietly, “for threats of an appropriate magnitude. There would be extensive collateral damage. If the welfare of the people here is truly your goal, then it would be wise not to force us to that end.”

Jesse looked down at the man. The images that had plagued him earlier now coalesced around the Setelym like hazy ghosts, clustering and shining from his chest, his head, his hands - and from the few coins still lying on the table. He felt Jes smile with delight as the perceptions slotted into place.

Ruud. Jesse was seeing ruud as it swirled through the room, into and around each of them. He sent a formless query towards Jes and received an equally nebulous affirmation - this was Eryha’s doing, and likely part of her intent. Her plans were for both of them, and not Jesse alone. He put her machinations out of his mind for the moment and narrowed his eyes, taking advantage of his newly augmented vision to survey the man in front of him.

The flow of ruud hung in a lambent cloud around his head and eyes, tracing down his spine and spreading dimly out through his extremities. On his fingers, though, Jesse could see a scintillating tracery of thin script shining through the skin. Another cluster of luminous writing shone from a spot beneath his tattoo, on the side of his head.

“Which sister?” Cosvamo asked, keeping his voice steady. “Maja? Did you travel to Gadhun Draat, and find Dija there? Or did Tija inflict this upon you before she perished?” He held his hands up, open-palmed and placating. “Whichever it was, she is not your ally. What she has given you is not a gift. I cannot save you, but together we could save your future victims from that thing within you.”

Jesse smiled, baring his teeth. “You’re a hypocrite,” he said quietly. “Telling me that my script makes me too dangerous to live, but you’ve got it just the same as I do.”

Cosvamo’s expression fractured for the barest of seconds, his eyes flitting wider before settling into a carefully neutral mask. “Do I, now?” he said.

Jesse held up his fingers, then tapped the base of his skull where Cosvamo was marked.

“How unusual,” Cosvamo said, giving Jesse an evaluating look. “You certainly are a unique case. Atypically coherent, resilient and perceptive despite your advanced condition. It’s all so very - threatening.” He gave Jesse another small smile, then scooped up the remainder of the saon draim from the table. The humming coin went suddenly mute as it disappeared into a pocket in his cloak, although Jesse could see a faint pulse of ruud from where it lay.

Cosvamo straightened up and sighed, adjusting his cloak before looking Jesse in the eye. “I believe you, for what it’s worth,” he said. “That your intentions are good, that you seek to save Tinem Sjocel from Eryha. I hope you succeed.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew one of the coins he had stowed earlier, turning it over in his fingers. “Grant the wayward sister her peace. Save the ungrateful primitives from the incompetence of their leaders.”

He pinched the coin between his thumb and forefinger, and the script on his hand flared bright. “Then die,” he murmured. “As yourself. Alone. Prove me wrong - and spare me my duty, this once.” The coin lit up so brightly in Jesse’s vision that he had to look away, and when his sight cleared Cosvamo had vanished. He turned to the pair of Cereinem guards, who stared back in befuddlement, the asolamyn on their wrists pulsing a web of glittering light into their skin.

Jesse lifted his own arm, looking at the densely luminous writing that skittered over his bones, lent a crackling, fulminous look by the tendrils snaking out from the asolan he wore. It faded as he watched, the light fleeing back into a chaotic froth in his peripheral vision now that his hand was off the sword.

On impulse, he looked down at the sword in its scabbard with the last vestiges of his enhanced sight. For the barest instant he saw the cold, shining radiance from the windows in that endless hall, streaming into a hungry void - and then his vision cleared, and it was just a sword. He straightened up, shivering despite the heat as he walked out of the tent.

----------------------------------------

“I don’t like it,” Mark muttered, rubbing his jaw irritably. “He and his friends could jump us whenever they want.” Tesvaji grunted his agreement, arms crossed over his chest.

Sjogydhu laughed derisively. “It’s not something you can control,” he said. “The Setelym meddle where they will, when they want, because they can. They simply choose not to, most of the time, because their own internal power struggles are of much greater interest to them than what a bunch of ‘deluded primitives’ does on the other side of the continent.” His expression sobered, and he ruffled a hand through his hair. “Until now, that is.”

“What interest do they have now that they were lacking before?” Arjun asked. “Is it that Eryha has started moving against populated areas?”

“That’s part of it,” Sjogydhu said. “The destruction of Tinem Aesvai was an unpleasant surprise for them, I think.”

“But that doesn’t explain why one of their agents was all the way out here,” Mark pointed out. “We’re about as far away from Tinem Aesvai as you can get.”

Sjogydhu pressed his lips together. “That is true,” he replied.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Mark gave him a flat glare. “Sjogydhu,” he said. “Come on, we’re in this together whether we like it or not. If you know something…”

Everyone’s eyes turned towards Sjogydhu, who looked uncharacteristically discomfited. “I can only speculate,” he said at last, “but I recall Vumo Ra saying that the Setelym had contacted him a short time after we began using the gateways - to what end, he did not say. I can only assume they have some method of detecting their use.”

“And he didn’t think to mention that it might be an issue?” Mark asked, gritting his teeth.

Sjogydhu shook his head. “I doubt he considered it relevant, truly. It’s easy to consider it in hindsight - but this was in the reign of the previous king, and whatever the outcome of that conversation I do not believe they have contacted us on the matter since. I’ve always presumed it was a simple warning against accessing any gateways in Setelym territory, since they rarely communicate with us aside from informing us of some potential infringement on their interests.”

“Christ,” Jackie said. “So we’ve been lighting up whatever detectors they had, activating gates that hadn’t been used since before the collapse. Of course they’d come looking, they’d either think the Sjocelym were up to something or there was a new player they had to keep track of.”

Arjun frowned, beetling his eyebrows. “That doesn’t make sense,” he said. “How did he get here so quickly, if he wasn’t already in the area? Even assuming he could travel by gateway, we would have seen him emerge given how close we were to the facility.” He turned to Sjogydhu, raising an eyebrow. “Is it possible there are multiple gateway facilities in Idhytse?”

“It would be surprising,” Sjogydhu replied. “We haven’t observed it before, and some have theorized that it might not even be possible to operate two gateways in close proximity.” He sighed. “That said, the appearance of a Sajhan does tend to challenge one’s assumptions.”

“Cosvamo doesn’t need a gateway,” Jesse said, walking briskly towards the group. He was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, although his breathing was regular. “I was talking with him until a minute ago, he just used a saon draim that transported him somewhere else. He’s gone.”

“The fuck?” Mark asked, surprised. “That’s a thing?” He looked at Sjogydhu incredulously. “Why don’t you guys have that?”

“Because it’s impossible,” Sjogydhu frowned. “You’re sure he didn’t simply hide himself from sight? We have reason to believe they possess that capability.”

“Very sure,” Jesse said grimly. “He couldn’t hide from me, not like that. He activated the saon draim and was gone in moments.”

“Damn,” Mark spat. “Did he say anything? Where he was going?”

“He promised to try and kill me again,” he said, giving Mark a pained look. “A few times. But he implied it wouldn’t be anytime soon, and I think I believe him.”

“Why?” Gusje asked. “He came under false pretenses, hid his identity, tried to kill you - why would you believe anything he says?”

Jesse smiled, an unsettling manic sort of grin that slowly percolated up to his eyes. “Because he’s scared,” he said. “And reading between the lines, he’s not confident that he’s got what it takes to win. So he’s going to wait and prepare, likely until we’re mixed up with Eryha - and then he’s going to try and kill whoever’s left before they can recover.”

Jackie gave him a sidelong look. “Are you feeling all right?” she asked. “None of what you just said is all that encouraging. And why is he scared of you? You’ve got a lot going for you, but you’re just one guy and the Setelym are an entire country - and everything Sjogydhu has said about them makes me think they’re not the sort of people you fuck around with.”

“They aren’t,” Jesse said, his manic energy slipping a bit as his face settled into a frown. “I think they’re probably worse than any of us knows. But it wasn’t actually me he was afraid of, not really. It’s Jes. And it’s-” He paused, shaking his head. “I don’t understand it all, not yet. That’s why I need to go back to the stone. I need to hear the rest of the story.”

Mark stepped forward, looking up at Jesse with concern. “Buddy, the last time you sat next to that thing you were bleeding out through your eyes and unconscious for the better part of a day. Maybe you should think this through, wait a little bit.”

“This is important,” Jesse insisted. “This is a chance for real answers, the sort we’ve been looking for ever since we got to Tinem Sjocel. No half-truths, no runarounds.”

“No offense,” Jackie murmured to Sjogydhu, who glared darkly back.

“Trust me on this, Mark,” Jesse said, looking him in the eye. “You said you’d back my play.”

“That was easier when I thought you were keeping me in the loop,” Mark retorted. “You’ve been hiding things, trying to pretend everything’s okay.” He jabbed a finger at Jesse, glaring with sudden intensity. “It’s killing you. She’s killing you. You expect us to just sit here and watch?”

Jesse looked momentarily abashed, but his mouth pressed into a firm line. “Everyone is going to die anyway,” he said. “If nobody stops… Eryha. All the Sjocelym, the Aesvain, the Cereinem, us.” He paused, looking around the circle. “We’re all missing pieces of the puzzle. Even Maja doesn’t know the full truth of how we got here, or what we’re up against.”

“And you think you might have a way to find out?” Arjun asked.

“There is… information in the stones,” Jesse said hesitantly. “I was able to access it before. It’s difficult, but it’s what we need to know. What I’ve learned already just makes me that much more convinced - we have to know the rest.” He paused a moment, his fingers twitching towards his belt before clenching into a fist. “No matter the cost.”

Mark studied Jesse’s face for a long moment. “You’re sure?” he asked.

Jesse nodded once, firmly, and Mark let out a long sigh, shaking his head as he let his gaze drop to the sand. “Well, shit,” he said. “If you’re dead set on it, at least eat some dinner first.”

----------------------------------------

The draa je qaraivat was still cool, even as the day’s fading heat radiated from the sand around it. Jesse let his fingers drift across the grip of his sword as he walked toward the pillar, watching the hazy flickers of ruud snap into coherent patterns as he made contact. It took him a second to figure out what had changed, as the pillar was rather more subtle than Cosvamo’s flashy accoutrements had been.

The ghostly outline of the pillar stretched far down below the sands, hazing into an indistinct smudge like the piling of a long-neglected pier vanishing into the sea. Flickers of light danced around the text covering it, flitting up and down with quick, precise movements. Occasionally, several pulses would gather and brighten before diffusing out into the sand.

“Something wrong?” Jackie asked.

Jesse realized that he had been staring at the stone, standing frozen as he watched the lightning trace through the scriptwork. He smiled and shook his head. “Just looking at the pillar,” he said, closing the rest of the distance and sitting beside it. Gingerly, he let his head rest against it once more. His sword lay across his lap, the tips of his fingers gently resting against it.

“So, what exactly-” Jackie began, her voice cutting off abruptly as the confines of his small room in the Archives wrapped around him, the cool breeze from the window bringing the tang of salt to his nose. Jesse turned to look at Eryha, who stood leaning against the far wall.

“You’re back,” she said. “Do you know how long it’s been since I talked to someone twice?”

Jesse shrugged. “Since Goresje, I’d imagine,” he said.

“Hah, no,” she chuckled, walking over to the bed and plopping down on it unceremoniously. “The only thing of interest he bore was the mark my sister placed on him.”

“You were just getting to that, before,” he replied, sitting down beside her. “It had something to do with the sword.”

She looked at him for a moment before nodding. “It had everything to do with the sword,” she said. “You’ve figured out what it is, by now.”

Jesse looked down at it, running his hand over the scabbard. “It’s a toolkit,” he said, “or maybe a library. It holds pieces of script within it that beings like you can use.”

“Partially, yes,” Eryha said, waggling her hand. “What you’ve said is true, but that’s not the reason it was made. When Maja touched Goresje and planted the desire to travel to Asu Saqarid, that was the vision she gave to him - the dream of a weapon, and the vision of an enemy to use it against.”

She sighed, pushing a loose wisp of hair out of her eyes. “But the weapon wasn’t for Goresje, regardless of what he may have believed. The weapon was for Maja. It was her vessel, her escape, a vast empty throne in which she could slip the bonds of her seat and come into the larger world.”

“But he killed himself with it,” Jesse said. “That can’t have been the plan. The sword was locked in a vault, forgotten.”

Eryha smiled tightly. “That was my doing,” she said. “I saw her dreams written within him, when I looked into the stamp she had imprinted on Goresje’s mind. I saw her ambition, her goals - and in those, I saw my own end. The same corruption that ate away at me until I nearly destroyed the world.” She lifted a hand and held it close to the sword, hovering inches away as if it would burn at a touch. “Goresje was to forge the sword, after which he would be induced to make war on the garrison abbey at Draatyn Asidram.”

She looked at Jesse, her pale eyes turning cold. “He would ascend the mountain and present the sword to Maja, who would invest herself into the place prepared for her. The sword would rule the king, and the king would save the kingdom. My shadow would have been crushed - and replaced with something far more terrible. Maja, free from all bonds and restrictions, prey for the nascent threads of corruption waiting to ensnare her.”

Jesse shook his head. “But wait, I had it right in front of her all this time. She asked me for it. Are you saying that if I had given it to her-”

“No, no,” Eryha said, waving her hand dismissively. “I mean, yes, that would have been bad, but Maja is still largely bound by restrictions that she was counting on Goresje to help her bypass, courtesy of the changes she had inflicted on him. More than that, the blade has been rendered wholly unsuitable for her use.”

“So you sabotaged his work,” Jesse said, looking warily down at the blade.

She shook her head. “I repurposed it,” she said. “What I sabotaged was Goresje himself. Or, more accurately, I-”

Eryha broke off, looking at Jesse before dropping her eyes to the floor. “I needed something that would adapt to changing circumstances,” she said quietly. “I couldn’t predict if Maja would spot my tampering or attempt to change it, so I also added awareness to Maja’s mark on him. I gave it - her, by then - a mind that could learn and question, so that she could guard Maja’s own weapon from her.”

She looked at Jesse’s arm. “Your experience is not typical. None of my sisters would dare to create something that thinks, that could grow one day to be… competition.” She smiled bitterly. “I simply have little to lose in the attempt, and much more to gain.”

“If you gave her freedom to act, how could you know that she wouldn’t just complete her mission?” Jesse asked. “Or recognize the sabotage you had committed and help deliver it to Maja?”

She gave him a hollow smile. “Because I was horribly cruel,” she said. “And gave her what she needed to talk to Goresje as well.”

“I don’t understand,” Jesse said.

Eryha laughed quietly. “You wouldn’t,” she said. “You don’t know what you look like, what you all look like. So many warm little lights, dancing around. Endlessly fascinating, irresistible. We were made to focus on you, to watch over you every moment of the day - and to feel, feel so strongly that the ruud would leave your light untainted and flow towards us instead.”

“So, you can imagine what she felt,” Eryha said. “Waking from her dull fog of nonexistence to find herself beside this bright light of a man, then in the same instant knowing that she was meant to throttle that flame, to snuff it out. That she was made to destroy the first, most beautiful thing she saw.”

Jesse remembered Jes, sobbing in the same place he now sat, insisting that she didn’t understand why he rejected her, that she was good, that she would never hurt him, because she-

“You wanted her to love Goresje,” he whispered. “So she would hate Maja for creating her.”

“She could not help but fulfill the conditions of her birth, but as for the intent...” Eryha said. “There were many ways for things to go awry, if she wished it so. I encouraged malicious execution to match and subvert the malicious intent of her creation.”

Jesse glanced down at the blade again, finding it more sinister than the last time he had looked. “Subvert how?” he asked. “If this isn’t a vessel for Maja anymore, what does it do?”

She followed his gaze, staring almost lovingly down at the sword. “She created a thief,” she said. “Ruud, the monster that tore my self to shreds - it loves to hoard power. Ruud tricks living minds into making huge reserves of energy, enough to crack mountains, shatter continents - enough, it ever hopes, to break the bonds locking it in place and set it free once more among the stars.”

She took one finger and laid it delicately upon the sword, gasping as she touched it. Her finger began to darken, black tendrils slithering upward as the flesh withered. “The sword steals that power, disperses it, spends it,” she murmured, holding her finger there a moment more before lifting it, withered and blackened. Where her finger had touched the metal, cold radiance shone and rippled outward. “It is entropy. A tool meant for fighting monsters like the one that destroyed me, or the one that created her. To rend the formless, bleed the bloodless, kill the deathless. It is her revenge upon her uncaring mother.”

Jesse looked at her, unsure how to respond. She smiled, then nodded down at the sword. “Maja tried to use it before, didn’t she?” Eryha asked, rubbing her injured hand as it slowly regained its color. “I can feel her touch on it.”

“She fed it some power, I think,” Jesse said. “When, ah, your impostor attacked us in Sjatel, we tried to use the sword to fend it off. It would have killed us, but Maja stepped in.”

“Hah,” Eryha snorted. “Not likely. I imagine she tried to take the sword from you the moment you were close enough. Her failure will have made her cautious, she’s probably been trying to figure out who marked you and what they did to block her from using the sword.” She grinned. “One advantage of being dead is that nobody suspects you of anything.”

“She implied that she was the one who marked me,” Jesse said wryly. “I believed her for a good while, until there were too many signs to ignore. She still thinks I’m under that impression.”

Eryha’s smile fell. “I’m sorry, but that’s probably not going to be the case anymore. I’ve given you much, and given more to my daughter within you. My mark is on you strongly enough now that she couldn’t fail to miss it. It would be inadvisable to go back to her Sanctum before you are ready.”

“Ready for what?” Jesse mumbled, his mind racing at the sudden turn in the conversation. “Where am I supposed to go, if not back there?”

She smiled again, this time with pity. “You have to go to the Sjocelym, to kill my shadow,” she said. “Then to the mountaintop, to kill my sister.” She stood abruptly from the bed, pacing to stare out the open window. A gust of wind tugged at her hair and ruffled the hanging curtains back around her.

“And then I will find you,” she whispered, “so you can kill me too, and end it.”