There was no one to greet us when we arrived; Brän simply whispered in Kantálhin’s ear, or at least the orifice at the side of the dragon’s head that served as an ear, and we left the dragon there to contemplate the nature of the world or whatever it is that dragons contemplate when alone. As for Brän and I, she led me into a tunnel in the rock that wound upward until it emerged in a chamber that was open to the sky at the top. Here some men sat arguing loudly with one another about the comparative virtues of different forms (again I believe this was a technical magical argument), but as soon as we entered they sprang to their feet and bowed.

“Let the archon know we’re here,” said Brän, her voice suddenly as cold as ice.

Without a word one of the men went into a further room and when he returned he beckoned for us to enter. We followed him in to the room where the archon was waiting for us.

When I think back, what strikes me most about the archon is his resemblance to the king of Valax, though the latter king had worn a formidable beard while the archon was clean-shaven. But there was something in both of their faces, a combination of compassion, weariness, and authority that I have not found elsewhere. It was the eyes, I think. Certainly it’s true that when I first saw the archon, I began to wonder if there was some way the king of Valax had been able to travel back to this time, or alternatively that the archon would travel forward. Perhaps he was even an immortal of some kind, I thought. I’m fairly certain now, based on my conversations with him, that the archon is in fact a different individual, but I’m still not entirely certain.

In any case, when I first came before him, he stared at me for quite a long time, in which I had opportunity to contemplate the aforementioned questions. Then he said, and his voice was quiet, “So you’ve come at last. It would have been easier for all of us if you’d come here at first, rather than Nusgwéden where the Inquisitors rule.”

“I was under the impression that you ruled in Nusgwéden,” I remarked.

The archon chuckled. “I can’t imagine how. I don’t make much use of the sympathies myself, but from what I’ve heard there are quite a few people who would swear fealty to them over me. I shouldn’t laugh, though. Our time becomes very short.”

“Time for what?” I asked.

“What is your name?”

“Kësil.”

“I am Gárwel Dárat, and I am the archon, which means something less than it used to. But it still means that I understand more of the purposes of Heaven than most men. Do you believe me?”

“I really couldn’t say. I’ve only just met you, and what little I’ve heard of you hasn’t been flattering.”

“No, no, I suppose it wouldn’t be. In certain respects you have an advantage over me. The first I heard of you and your companion—”

“Rosédan,” I said helpfully.

“The first I heard of you and Rosédan was when Dancer Táfir sent word through one of our hierarchy’s sympathies that he would be sending the two of you on to us. I’ll tell you plainly that my first duty is to my people and the vision that Heaven has given me, but if it’s in my power to help, and you bear me and mine no ill will, I shall do everything I can for you.”

“Thank you,” I said, because it seemed like the polite thing. “Táfir said that Rosédan was being sent to someplace called Xarkív.”

“Yes, so I understand.” The sadness in his eyes was clearer than ever as he looked towards Brän with a slight nod.

“We’ll do what we can, sir,” she said. “But with that part of the country I can’t make any promises.”

“I don’t ask any more. Now, Kësil, please tell me where you’re from and why you came to Nusgwéden.”

So I told him my story, or at least the parts of it that seemed relevant at the time. I didn’t mention my sojourn with the fair folk, or much about my Bird, but I think he must have guessed a little of it from the things I left out. Nowhere, for instance, did I say how I learned the languages in which I conversed. But the archon didn’t press; he only listened and nodded occasionally. When I recounted our stay with the college of magicians in A’ula Zölkhöh, his brows drew together but he kept his silence.

Though I did my best to keep the story moving along at a quick pace, to spare my voice if for no other reason, it still lasted long enough that the archon sent Brän to bring food and drink for the three of us. When at last I came up to the point where Rosédan and I had separated at Lugwin’s house, the archon raised his hand and said, “I believe I already know the rest. Well, Kësil, you are either a remarkably talented liar or you have been through a remarkable adventure, and I don’t think you’re a liar. It is a good reminder for me. So absorbed have I been by Heaven’s concern for my own land and my own people that I easily forget just how large the world is.”

“You even believe that I was born in a time that hasn’t yet come to pass?” I asked. “That’s a fairly absurd idea, isn’t it?” I wasn’t helping my own case, of course, but I believe in being fair to one’s opponent.

“Why should I doubt you? I, to whom Heaven has revealed the grand sweep of time, from centuries long gone to centuries that are to come, and the tapestry into which all things are woven? No, I don’t doubt you in the least. Ah, but as I said, Ghadáreim’s time grows short. We will do what we can to reunite you with your Rosédan and return you home, but I fear we may not be able, not in the few months or years that are allotted us.”

“I am grateful beyond words in any case,” I replied. I made a guess that a bow would be appropriate etiquette at this point, and since neither the archon or Brän seemed particularly shocked or offended, my guess seemed to be right. To be honest, the archon’s response seemed to me too good to be true, so that I began to scrutinize his face carefully, wondering if it was only a mask concealing some hidden design.

“For now all that I can do is welcome you to Mexesnód. Once it was built to defend us against a threat out of the west, but that threat is gone.”

“The Amikni?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head with a soft smile. “They had not yet risen, and no matter how much they bark, it will be a while before they can bite. By which time all Heaven’s plans for us will be complete.”

I didn’t much like the sound of this. It seemed to have a vaguely menacing air. I pondered what piercing questions the Hawk of White Mountain would ask in a situation like this to get to the bottom of the matter, but before I could frame anything definite in my mind, the archon went on.

“I can arrange a bed for you, though it may be crowded. I’m sure you want to go with Brän to look for Rosédan, but I’m afraid that an untrained dragon rider would only make things more difficult for her.” I said I quite understood. “So for now you’ll be a guest of the archon himself,” and he laughed suddenly. “And I’ll be delighted to talk more with you, Kësil. I spoke so grandly about what Heaven has shown me, but no man can hope to see the totality of the world. Your perspective will be invaluable to me.”

This was my first meeting with the archon of Ghadáreim, and at the time I was perhaps too credulous of his words. But in my defense I was quite tired at the time. The way stations that had been set up for dragon riders were serviceable, but even less comfortable than Lugwin’s roof had been. I was looking forward to the bed the archon had promised me; my readers can imagine my dismay when it turned out to be little more than a narrow cot on a bunk, several inches too short for me, crammed into a gallery with a hundred others.

I should explain that this galley was not, as one might expect, in the fortress of Mexesnód, but in one of the great ships moored offshore, for ships I knew them now to be. “Soon the archon’s prophecies will be fulfilled,” Brän told me as we stood together on the cliff overlooking those vast vessels. “Soon we’ll leave this land for the better place in the west that he’s promised us.”

“How are the ships to be moved?” I asked. “I don’t see any sign of sails or of those holes where the oars stick out.” (Whatever nautical terminology I had picked up in Edazzo was now utterly forgotten.)

“Have you already forgotten that we are the masters of magic? You don’t think these are simple boats like the Zamara use? Magic will drive them to their destination.”

It all sounded very vague to me. Indeed, given what I had seen of Ghadári magic so far, it didn’t sound like the kind of thing it could accomplish. But what was important to me at the moment was the prospect of a bed and a good night’s rest.

My rest that night was, sad to say, nowhere near as good as I had hoped. Of my four neighbors, one snored, one talked in his sleep, one sang in his sleep, and one tossed from side to side with such violence that he struck me in the face several times. But nevertheless there was something about that gallery that I cannot explain in words, something that lulled me into a genuinely restful slumber.

I was awakened the next morning by the man who had been singing in his sleep. “Hey you,” he said, and the fact that he wasn’t singing was enough to stir me awake. “I haven’t seen you before. Where are you from?”

It was still pitch black in the gallery. In the early evening there had been light filling the room with no obvious source, but then a bell had rung twelve times, and on the twelfth peal the light had gone out in an instant, which took me completely by surprise. I had in fact just stood up to stretch my legs, and in the resulting disorientation and confusion I count myself lucky to have found my own bed again. I was therefore confused by my neighbor’s question until it occurred to me that he might have seen me last night before the light vanished. “That,” I said, “is a complicated question, with a number of possible answers.”

“It can’t be that complicated, can it?” he said with an odd note of irritation in his voice.

“In my case it can.” I had been frank and straightforward with the archon, inspired perhaps by his resemblance to the king of Valax to assign to him the same degree of trust. But I was inclined now to treat my neighbor’s questions with my usual caution. As I may have remarked, my story is not a believable one on the face of it. “But my name is Kësil, I came to Mexesnód yesterday.”

“So you are a foreigner. Kësil doesn’t sound Zamara and you didn’t look Zamara either. Amikni?”

“No,” I said simply.

“But you believed the archon. Such faith is remarkable.”

I wasn’t sure quite what to say to this. I may have mumbled something in reply about the archon’s eyes. (They had, after all, been remarkably sad.)

“But you should be careful to put your faith in the proper object.” At this moment the bell began to ring again. “Archon Gárwel certainly holds an honorable position, but not everything he says is worthy of the same honor. Do you understand me?” Then there was light again, so that I had to blink fiercely for a minute. When I could see again, I confess that I was startled by the face that loomed over mine. It was not a handsome face, but the Flame knows that I’ve seen plenty of ugly faces in my travels. What startled me the most was the look on that face. It was the look not of a man but of an avalanche. My readers may be startled by this metaphor, but let me explain that when I was a child I saw, from a safe distance of course, the snowy side of a mountain break loose from its grip on the rock and swallow the buildings below. Absolutely nothing could have stopped it, not the highest wall or (I am convinced) the strongest magic.

The man’s face was like that. He was glaring in such a way that it seemed that nothing could diminish the force of that glare. Everything in the set of his eyes and the shape of his nose suggested it. As soon as I recovered from my surprise, I asked him his name. It seemed the polite thing to ask an avalanche.

“Me? I’m Grúlan, and you’re luckier than you know. It was the working of Heaven that gave you that empty bed.”

“I suppose it was.”

“Brän herself brought you here, so you must be favored by the archon.”

“I suppose I am.”

Grúlan’s face vanished as he sat up. I yawned, stretched and was about to go for a walk around the ship when Grúlan grabbed my wrist and said, “Let me show you what the archon has planned for Ghadáreim. Then you’ll understand.”

I have encountered many madmen in my travels, and in my experience it is better to go along with them until one has an opportunity to get away. If not humored, the madman may decide that his aims are best served by violence, which is unpleasant for everyone. So I went with Grúlan. It was impressive to see how everyone moved out of his way, or, which is much the same thing, were pushed aside by the force of his stare.

I had been looking forward to exploring the ship, so I was rather pleased when Grúlan’s madness seemed to take the form of guiding me around it, explaining various parts of its construction. It was all very technical, both from a shipbuilding and a magical point of view. I understood little of it, until finally Grúlan took me up onto deck.

The entirety of the ship seemed, or perhaps was, carved out of a single material that resembled gold in its color and shine but felt more like wood. The previous evening it had been too dark for me to make out the details of the exterior decorations, but now, as the sun’s light shone on us out of the east, I could see the figures. Leaf-covered branches entwined with one another and faces peered out from between them. Circle-topped arcs confused me for a moment before I realized they were meant to symbolize the sun and its path across the sky. Each arc formed the edge of the wing of a great bird, its head wreathed in flames. My eye traveled from picture to picture, caught by one and drawn to another.

“It began with the dreams,” said Grúlan, sighing heavily as he joined me at the edge of the deck. I took several steps prudently backwards in case his madness took the form of a sudden urge to push people off said edge. “Wherever you’re from, you may not know that my people are sometimes visited by gifts from Heaven, by seers who dream of things that are yet to come. Our archon’s late wife was such a seer. She saw, or she claimed that she saw, disaster sweeping over our land, the curse of Heaven falling upon us for our sins. Many of us are sympathetic to such claims, but the archon took it further. He said that there was nothing we could do to avert Heaven’s wrath! Nothing but flee into the west on these marvelous ships. The way of the phoenix, he calls it. The way of the sun, traveling from east to west.

“I believed him at first. So many of us did. The archon is a great man—not even the rebels deny that—and his wife is a true seer, but the difficulty of visions is always in their interpretation. He says that Heaven moves us to leave, but the archon is far from the only one who can read the signs of Heaven. Temple Pétlas, for example. When Heaven has filled the tree with living sap, the cautious man is slow to take his ax to it.”

“But what about when the tree is withered and dead?” I asked. A lot of what Grúlan said was over my head, but I understood trees, at least.

“Ah, that’s the question, don’t you see? How much living sap remains in Ghadáreim? Enough, I think, to light the whole tree on fire when Heaven strikes it with thunder.” This seemed to me to be mixing metaphors in a most unfortunate way, but the avalanche was heading towards me and there was nothing I could say to stop it. “I honor the archon, more than anyone alive, believe me! But he wants us to sail off into the middle of nowhere, as if the visions can be interpreted in such a literal way. It’s insane, believe me!”

On the face of it I was inclined to agree with him. The one time I had embarked on a lengthy sea voyage, it was not of my own volition and had in fact been a miserable experience all around. Admittedly, these ships were much larger than mine had been.

By now we were no longer alone as our sleeping companions filed out of the lower decks. I noticed how many of then kept their distance from Grúlan and me, which led me to suspect that Grúlan and his views were not the most popular in Mexesnód. But I was stuck with him, at least for now. When the avalanche is upon one, one can hardly complain about snow.

“It’s absurd for us to think we should simply abandon Ghadáreim. It’s absurd for us to think we should cut ourselves off from our brothers, and the sympathies for that matter. We’re only hurting ourselves by remaining ignorant. You’ve heard the parable of the salamanders?”

I hadn’t, I said.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

“It goes like this. There were two salamanders living in a rotting log. One complained to the other that their home was infested with mushrooms and was beginning to crumble around the edges. He declared that he was going to leave the log and find a new home somewhere else, somewhere clean and dry. He left the log, and it wasn’t long before he came across a blazing fire. ‘This is clean and this is dry,’ he said, and he entered the fire and was burned to ashes.”

“An interesting story,” I said when it seemed that the parable was over.

“Here, I’ll show you how I keep myself from wandering too far.”

I began to follow him, but suddenly someone grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the path of the avalanche. It was Brän, and she was giving me a look that combined amusement with dismay. “I see you’ve met Grúlan,” she said.

“We have met!” said Grúlan, turning back to face us. “I was just going to show him the sympathies.”

“Well, you can do that later. The archon wanted to have a word with Kësil this morning.”

“Oh, really? That’s very interesting. And you’ve taken quite an interest in this Kësil. What does he have to do with the archon’s dreams? I wonder if maybe he isn’t from the land in the west where the archon promises to take us? A lot of things are falling into place.”

“Let them fall,” said Brän, shaking her head. “But Kësil is coming with me.”

I suppose that one way of avoiding an avalanche is to fly above it, on a dragon or some such creature. For all Grúlan’s grumbling, he wandered off to talk with someone else while I accompanied Brän to meet with the archon again. This time he wasn’t in his chamber in the fortress, but on a balcony looking out over the shipyards. I was comforted by the fact that the archon at least did not seem capable of pushing me over the edge.

“Kësil,” he said. “And Brän, I have little to offer you in exchange for everything you’ve done in my service, other than the blessing of the archon,” He said this last part with a rueful smile. Whatever this man’s flaws, pride didn’t seem to be one of them.

“It’s more than enough,” said Brän. “I’ll find Rosédan, I promise.”

“And Télhreus too?”

“Télhreus made his choice and I made mine. Nothing he can say could sway me from what I’ve promised to do.”

“Ah, Brän. That isn’t what I meant. But we must as Heaven moves us.”

Brän bowed to the archon and left us. I saw her, a few minutes later, when her dragon circled above us in the, a human figure on its back. At least I think it was her, but the figure was very small at this distance.

The archon sighed again after a while. He sighed a great deal, I had noticed. It seemed to be the occupation of half the time we spent together. “l won’t ask you what you might know of the fate of Ghadáreim in the years to come. I already know some of it and the rest I am content to leave to Heaven.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” I said.

“Oh?”

“To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what became of Ghadáreim. Before I met Rosédan, I’d never even heard of it. Though it’s hard to believe a land as marvelous as this could be forgotten.” While it was certainly true that Ghadáreim was marvelous, it couldn’t do me any harm to describe the archon’s land in glowing terms.

“I agree, and I am curious. But there are greater issues for me to deal with than my own small curiosity. I wanted to talk with you because you mentioned briefly that you have been present, in various places and times, at the end of an age. For the sake of my land and my people, I want to hear about what worlds you have seen come to an end before mine.”

My readers will already be aware of what I saw and experienced, so there’s no need for me to detail the entirety of my conversation with the archon. There were some questions he asked and statements he made that may be of interest to philosophers and theologians, and perhaps I will recount them at some future point. But our conversation turned eventually to magic and how it differed between Alka’ales and Ghadáreim. I made some inquiries about the Ghadári magic and he seemed troubled at first, but after some contemplation he said, “I suppose you are a special case, after all. It won’t do you any harm to learn a fragment of what’s taught in our schools.” He stared up towards the sky, or towards Heaven, before beginning to speak. “The key to magic is simple. But maybe I should say the key to our magic here in Ghadáreim. It is, as you know, a very large world stretched out under Heaven.

“The key is the union of the Idea with the Form. If I want to construct an artifact that allows me to see a great distance, as an example, then the Idea comes out of my imagination. I envision such an artifact, the path of light from place to place, the effect on my eyes, and so on. It sounds very dry, but in practice is far from it. You cannot bring such an Idea into being unless you understand it with all your heart. Unless you have seen countless vistas, ridden a dragon for miles, spent hours simply staring into the distance meditating on the concept of distance, your Idea will be a pale shadow of what it should be.

“As for the Form, it is simpler. It is a material object to which the Idea can be attached, though the choice of object isn’t entirely arbitrary. There are certain principles connecting the two that must be obeyed, not all of which are intuitive. It is difficult, for instance, to make the sympathies in a different shape than the one we’re familiar with.”

“Rings seem able to do a great deal,” I remarked, thinking of Rosédan.

“Yes. Rings and spheres are especially versatile.”

“It must have taken a long time to figure all this out.”

“Centuries, and our work still continues.”

“But there must be more to it than just picking up an object and thinking at it. I’m fairly certain I’ve done that before without creating a magical artifact.”

“You’ve thought at objects?” the archon asked, raising his yellow eyebrows. I wasn’t sure why he was so surprised. Since one clearly can’t talk to objects out loud, thinking at them seems to be the obvious thing to do. Not that I’m deluded enough to think that inanimate objects have thoughts and languages of their own, but conversations can be productive even without one side’s participation. I started to explain all this, but the archon cut me short with a wave of his hand. “It doesn’t matter. You’re right that the original discovery of magic was something different. Our people came into Ghadáriem from a land in the west, or so our stories say. It was there that the first magicians began their work. There are preparations that make one a magician and certain ways of thought that create the Idea and attach it to the Form, but how they were first discovered is lost in the distant past. There are stories and legends, of course, but I put little credence in them myself.”

“I’d be interested in hearing some of them,” I said.

“They are fanciful,” said the archon, “and would offer you little enlightenment.”

“Nevertheless,” I began to say, but at that inopportune moment a servant or attendant or something came up to the archon and said that he was needed at some meeting or other. So I was left alone to look out at the ocean and the ships and to wonder what the archon was thinking. Certainly he seemed sincere enough. It occurred to me then that I had forgotten to ask him about his wife and her visions. I would have to be sure to do that in our next conversation, whenever that would be.

For the time being, I decided to explore Mexesnód from top to bottom. I was, at that moment, standing somewhere in the middle, and it seemed best to me to climb up to the top first and save the easier descent for later. It would have been easier yet with a dragon, of course, but I was aware of no free dragons at the time. So I walked back across the open courtyard, the inner wall looming over me at the far end like a thundercloud. I had the sudden feeling that I was being watched by someone, or for that matter something, but it faded after a moment and so I ignored it. One has these sudden feelings, which are generally caused by an undercooked meal, though certainly my fare thus far in Mexesnód had been pleasant enough. (I should remark here that Grúlan informed me of a belief of his that the food of Mexesnód was so good only because of the long journey that was to come, and the bland and repetitive diet that was expected.)

Throughout the inner wall were stairwells constantly illuminated by the steady magic light that was so common throughout Ghadáreim. There were symbols painted on the steps that I can only assume were meant to communicate information about the various levels I passed, though my Bird could tell me nothing about such symbols.

Perhaps halfway up I heard the sound of voices chanting and I paused in my ascent. I peered through the open doorway and saw seven men in white robes facing a window, singing in unison. The gist of their song, at least as my Bird relayed the words to me in shockingly unpoetic language, was this:

“We look through the glass of the iris and see what is near to us.

“But clouds fill the glass and the leagues fall away.

“Leagues of water between us and our home.

“What sin was it that drives us hence?

“Heaven drives us with its storms.”

One of the men noticed me then and raised his hand to stop the singing. He took brisk strides towards me and spoke in an equally brisk voice. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you before.”

“Likewise,” I said. “But I’m a traveler from quite far away. I only arrived in Mexesnód recently. Yesterday, in fact.”

“Travelers are rare, these days. Too rare for my tastes, but very little is to my tastes in these dark times. I am Temple Halád, not that it matters.”

His keen glances and energetic way of speaking were, it struck me, at odds with his lugubrious words. I introduced myself, without giving too many distracting details, and he bowed.

“Our history is a long one here in Ghadáreim, and there are many happy and prosperous eras in that history, but as you may have gathered from our song, this is not one of them. The storm is upon us, and it remains to be seen whether we shall survive it.”

“You don’t sound optimistic,” I remarked.

“That’s because I’m not. Don’t misunderstand me, I have the highest respect for the archon and for his wife, may Heaven give her peace. But the hope that they offer is a flickering candle on a very cold night. Some of the younger people look forward to discovering a new world across the ocean, but I can’t help but mourn the world we’re losing here. And if the archon’s words are interpreted literally, the Ghadári have never in their history suffered a greater disaster than we are about to go through.”

“What exactly does he say?” I asked, drawn as I think we all are to hearing stories about disaster. The greater the disaster the greater the fascination, in my experience.

Halád’s glances became, if anything, even keener. He turned back to the other priests and dismissed them with a few words, then took my arm and drew me back into the stairwell. “No doubt you’re aware that for some time the eastern regions of Ghadáreim have been afflicted by heat and drought to such an extent that most of the farms and towns there have been abandoned. Everyone agrees that this is Heaven’s judgment on us, though most say that this is the extent of it, that soon Heaven will have mercy again. But the archon takes a gloomier view. He describes the dreams of his wife in extremely vivid detail. Rivers of fire, dragons tearing each other apart in the sky, hundreds and thousands falling dead in an instant. So even though I am a priest, and I love the law of Heaven more than anyone, I wonder that our sins are great enough to warrant it. But I am not Heaven’s judge, happily.”

“A little bit more than a rotting log,” I remarked. “Maybe the salamander had a point after all.”

He gave me a look that I am well accustomed to receiving. It is the look of a man who is overcome with awe at the quickness of my wit. “I suppose so,” he said. “But I have my prayers to attend to right now. Perhaps we’ll have opportunity to talk more about salamanders later.”

“I look forward to it,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, and ducked back into the room with the window.

I continued my climb, reflecting on what I had heard. Ideally I would talk with Rosédan about everything I’d seen and heard, but until she returned with Brän I would be forced to make do with whomever I could find. And I was curious as to how Grúlan explained the vivid prophecies that Halád had described.

I abandoned my plans to explore Mexesnód from top to bottom. Instead I returned to the ships in the hope that I would find Grúlan there. And indeed, as I stood on the deck of the nearest vessel, contemplating the horizon and the nature of the earth, I head a familiar voice behind me. “Back so soon, my friend?”

“I was hoping to talk to you, actually,” I said.

“The archon’s words failed to satisfy you? I’m not surprised by that, not in the least.”

“No, I mean I was wondering more about the salamanders.”

He had come around to stand alongside me, and when I said this he leaned in close and clapped me rather painfully on the back. “The salamanders? Let me tell you, Kësil, you’ve come to the right man. No one knows more about the salamanders than I do.”

I was beginning to grow perplexed as to the precise role salamanders were playing in our conversation, so I judged it best to drop the topic altogether. I said instead, “What do you make of the archon’s visions?”

“Ah, yes, his wife’s visions.” Grúlan faced me, and I saw that he was pale and that his brow was sweaty. “But there are many ways to interpret visions, aren’t there? These things are symbols.”

“Even the symbols sound pretty terrible.”

“It’s in the archon’s interest to make them sound terrible, isn’t it?” He ran a hand over his brow. “He needs as many people as possible on his ships.”

“And why is that?”

“The basilisks,” Grúlan whispered.

“I see,” I said, though I didn’t. “Do you think they’re to blame for what’s happening in the east?” I suspected that I already knew his answer.

“Ah, you’re talking about the desertification. Let me tell you, Kësil, the basilisks are everywhere, not just the desert. They crawl up and down the walls and jump from rock to rock. And they don’t care about desert or farmland. They care about crawling inside our heads.”

On the face of it this sounded insane, but I had seen enough insane things in my travels that I didn’t want to be immediately skeptical. “I see,” I said again.

“Oh yes, Kësil, the basilisks want to pull our strings, make us into puppets.”

“But why? Why do we matter to them?” It seemed to me that, whatever kind of creatures these basilisks were, their powers over the world were such that they didn’t have much need of us, even if some of us were magicians.

“Don’t ask me,” he said with what I thought was unnecessary querulousness. “I’m not a basilisk. But I do know that even the archon’s household, which should be the stronghold of Heaven against their designs, isn’t free from their deceptions, their insinuations. And I’m positive that they want to destroy Ghadári magic, which is our only hope. I’d warn you, Kësil, to be on your guard against the basilisks and their influence.” He then surprised me by inviting him to meet his family. I had met eccentrics like him in Edazzo and they had to a man lived a rather solitary life. But Grúlan, it transpired, had a wife who worked as a cook for the archon’s household. And Grúlan himself was an honored magician, or so his wife told me.

She showed me a trinket, a crescent of a deep emerald color, that she wore around her neck. “It’s to protect me.”

“From basilisks?” I asked.

She chuckled. “Well, that too. But there are flesh and blood mortals who might want to attack my mind, and this amulet will protect me.”

All in all, my meeting with Grúlan’s family was a surprising one, and I left it inclined to take his warnings of the basilisks much more seriously. I spent the rest of that day going up and down the coast with Grúlan as he explained in more detail the archon’s plans. It was fairly convoluted, and I wasn’t sure he was interpreting the archon’s motivations, so I didn’t pay close attention. I do remember the very end of our conversation, when he looked around nervously before saying, “Yet he trusts you. Take this and always keep it with you.” He pressed something into my hands and walking hastily on ahead of me.

I opened my hands and saw a little ruby attached by a chain to a silver ring. It meant absolutely nothing to me, but I put it in my pocket, thinking that perhaps Grúlan would explain later.

I had several more conversations with the archon over the next week, conversations that were illuminating on both sides, I hope. I’m afraid that I was perhaps distracted by my worry for Rosédan and unable to tell the archon everything he wanted. I was thinking about the basilisks, too.

I do recall that when I asked him about the basilisks, he told me that they were a superstition of the people. He then explained to me the nature of the world and its creation: how the Ideas wielded by magicians were shadows of the Ideas in a realm above ours, which had been used in the fashioning of our own. But I was still wondering about the basilisks and how they fit into all this.

As for Rosédan, I would regularly ask the archon if he had word from Brän and he would reply that he hadn’t yet, but it might take some time for her to find Rosédan. “Another week,” he said, “and then you can worry.” Sound advice, no doubt, but when it came to Rosédan I wasn’t inclined to take it.

One day the archon introduced me to a tall, broad-shouldered, stern-faced, and altogether imposing man. “This is Árkein, who stands at the head of the Césalh family,” he told me. Árkein bowed to me and I bowed back, though I fear that even his bow was an imposing one. “He tells me that some of the elders still remember the story of the girl who went into the mountains and vanished. It’s a pity Rosédan wasn’t able to contact him earlier, but most of the family is here is Mexesnód and they don’t use sympathies.” (I don’t believe Árkein said one word while I was with him; his pride and dignity were unalterable.)

So I come, reluctantly, to the events that took place yesterday. I had been summoned by the archon to discuss something or other, probably Rosédan and the rebels. I remember that he was sitting in his chair while I was standing off to his side. “It’s still a marvel to me how all these things are accomplished,” I was saying. “I can’t help but wonder how much my people would be able to do if we had magic like this. Already we have a great empire, but with power like yours we could double its size, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure of it too,” the archon said. “But that’s not why Heaven—”

He was interrupted by a strangled cry from outside the room. That is to say, someone outside the room cried out as if they were being strangled. Grúlan entered then, holding something in his hand that resembled the silver rod with which Táfir had struck me, but black in color and twisted in shape. “Listen to me, Gárwel Dárat,” he said. “The Ghadári people have had enough of your lies. It is magic that made us what we are, the magic of Ghadáreim! It is the sympathies that defeated the Night King! But you want to destroy them both! What I do is for Ghadáreim.”

He pointed the twisted rod at me, much to my alarm. I imagine that my face was as pale as his as we stared at one another. Then at last he let the rod fall from his hand.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “What did you do with the artifact I gave you?”

“The ruby?” I asked. I had to think for a few minutes before I remembered. “Of course, I forgot it in my bunk this morning. You didn’t expect me to sleep with it around my finger, did you?” Grúlan was still laughing when the guards took him away.

As I understand it, the twisted rod was meant to interact with the ruby in such a way that, as the investigating magician put it, ‘burn with fire the minds’ of everyone except the ruby’s wearer (in this case, me). While I don’t claim to understand the matter fully, this does sound rather unpleasant. But it’s a shame about Grúlan. You never can tell, I suppose.