We Have to Go Deeper

below the horizon. There was no sign of Taslin.

  The archway that had spat them out into this strange limbo stood facing the knot, as incongruous and solitary as the door that marked Federas' Sherim. There was no wall meeting it at either side, just the fine and oddly fragile pillars of fitted stone, bending over to meet at the top. The whole looked as if the faintest breath of wind would topple it. Certainly it didn't look like it would get them home, or even back to the Court.

  Cautiously, still not wanting to risk Clearsight, Rel eased himself to his feet. Pevan stood more smoothly, the look on her face one she normally reserved for marching to battle against Wildren encroaching on Federas. As one, they headed for the arch.

  It held only air. They peered carefully through from both sides, silently hoping that some familiar quirk of Second Realm logic would have preserved its connection to the Court. Though the archway gave off the familiar, rippling, not-quite-real aura of all fixtures formed by the imposition of human concepts on Second Realmstuff, no amount of trying new perspectives made the passage reappear.

  Rel let out a careless, frightened yelp as Pevan, shrugging, stepped through. While the sound whisked past her ear, Rel clapped a hand to his mouth. Pevan singularly failed to disappear, and instead turned to look at him through the archway. She made no attempt at a half-serious remonstration, sure sign that she was badly shaken.

  She turned her palms upward and shrugged, the sign for What now?

  He swallowed, shook his head slowly. No idea. Realmspace seemed to pick up his uncertainty, the not-air around them wavering for a moment. He considered the idea of trying to use his Clearsight to navigate a path back to the Court, but every Clearseer knew that Clearsight and Guiding were not equivalent powers. It would make an acceptable last resort, but not a good idea overall. He pressed three fingers to the inside of his right wrist, then formed his thumbs and index fingers into an awkward diamond. Wait for help.

  Pevan nodded, face drained of all emotion. Rel hovered on the verge of pulling her into a fierce embrace - God knew, they both needed it - but she walked a little way away from the arch and sat down, facing away from him.

  Guided by a need for contact so suddenly powerful as to be almost painful, Rel followed her, his boots leaving deep, sharp prints in the mud. He sat down with his back against hers, and she leaned her head back until it met his. The impact of skull on skull sent a jab of pain through the dull ache of his fatigue, but it felt good to lean there and close his eyes. He reached back a hand and found her fine, delicate fingers.

  Seated like this, they could talk, provided they kept it calm. But what to say? "Atla and Quilo..."

  "Chag." If there was an emotion in the human spectrum that Pevan didn't manage to squeeze into the single syllable of the thief's name, Rel couldn't think of it. He could feel her bitterness and resignation - after all, if this was some sort of Separatist trap, surely Van Raighan would have been involved - but there was hope there too, and longing.

  And at least one question he didn't know the answer to. He let the silence hang, playing back visions of the little man on the insides of his eyelids.

  Eventually, quietly, Pevan said, "He did it all for me."

  "You trust him?" Rel let the words come as they wished. In a situation like this, Pevan would see through any false politeness, and anyway there wasn't much point in dishonesty.

  "I really do." She wriggled her fingers in his. "Whatever else, he loves me."

  Rel's throat tightened, just slightly. "And you?"

  "I wish I knew." The words fluttered around their heads, in and out of Rel's field of vision. "If he hadn't done all this... If I'd gone to Tendullor on a mission and met him there, maybe. The Separatists did a good job of selling us our own hopes."

  "You think there might have been some Coercion?" He squeezed her hand gently. The skin on her fingers tingled against his, and the faint hint of his own sweat at the points of contact made him grimace.

  Pevan's voice stayed gentle, wistful. "No. They just phrased it all carefully. How they knew to do that, I don't know."

  "We all make mistakes." The words felt like ash as he spoke them, worthless and shallow. Carried out into the air by his breath, they crumbled like dry leaves.

  "Even you?" Pevan's smile, old and wise despite the light that would be dancing in her eyes, rang through her words.

  It was a fair question, really. "Me more than most these days, it seems."

  She didn't answer immediately, shifting against him as she took a deep breath and let it out again. Though the sound she made was undeniably a sigh, it seemed a peaceful, painless one. Rel found tears in his eyes, his teeth clenched tight together. He swallowed, sniffled a breath, letting his head drop forward. Pevan's head, still leaning on him, came to rest on the back of his neck. A few of her hairs slipped inside his collar and tickled his back.

  Then her hand tightened on his, and he knew she was close to crying herself, contentment at his admission or no. It was in her voice, too, when she said, "Why did you leave Ciarive?"

  The great Clearseer of the North, the only person Dieni ever acknowledged as superior. Rel's mentor, until he'd fled his training while it was still incomplete, unable to bend himself to the old man's harsh discipline. Officially, that training remained incomplete and uncertified, but with Dieni and Ciarive both dead, there was no-one who knew Clearseeing better than Rel to pass him.

  And yet... "Does it matter, now?"

  "It mattered to Wolpan." Pevan's voice seized up on the Four Knot's name, and all the heat drained out of Rel's body. Carrying messages and warnings all across the North, Pevan had probably met more Gifted than anyone else alive, and everyone knew about Federas' rebel Clearseer. He'd been proud of that, once.

  He swallowed again, realised that Pevan had lifted her head away from his. He managed, "Is it always bad for you?"

  A dozen feet away, shimmering amber flowed in a stream whose subtle turns had the kind of elegance only nature could produce. Rel stared at it, letting it slide past his eyes. His dry eyes. The tears that he had no right to had fled, leaving only a faint, prickling discomfort. The limpness of Pevan's grip where their hands clasped weighed on his arm like a brimming water-bucket, despite the fact that his knuckles rested in the soft ground.

  After a long time, Pevan shifted against him again, and as one they leaned back until their heads met again. This time, there was no painful knock. She whispered, "And I had to pick the only man in the First Realm with a worse reputation than you..."

  "You've picked him, then?"

  "Boys are stupid." Most of the venom in her tone was a joke. "I don't know. You're supposed to be the one with the answers."

  Since Dora wasn't around to do it, he rolled his eyes. "That worked out well."

  Pevan squeezed his hand.

  Rel sighed, letting his eyes fall closed. "I... Thank you for giving me the chance to apologise. Sorry it took so long to get round to."

  "We'll make it right again." The words embraced him, forgiving and kindly. He relaxed into them, into shared silence with his sister.

  Much later, at least as it seemed, a human voice intruded, bright and crisp. "Sorry to spoil the moment."

  Rel blinked, head snapping around to face the sound. Pevan, always faster from a cold start, spun and coiled into a ready crouch, her fingers wrenching at his as she pulled free.

  A white-clad man stood by the floating knot, limned in warm honey light that melded almost perfectly with the streams twisting past him. His face had a hollow-cheeked quality that momentarily put Rel in mind of the Van Raighans, but the new arrival was tall, broad, majestic in a way that even Rissad was too rangy to approximate. His hair, black and long enough to rest lightly on his collar, was straight and glossy.

  Rel rose to his feet as smoothly as he could, and Pevan matched him. He said, "Who are you?"

  The man took a couple of steps forwards, his aura fading. "For now, I play the role of Fate. It is my intention that you should not die here, nor fall
into the hands of the Separatists again."

  "You're not a Wilder." Pevan made the sentence an accusation, not a question. The words shot out at Fate and shattered inches from his face. He didn't even blink.

  He smiled, eyes mournful. "That's mostly true. As such, I recognise that you have little reason to trust me. Nor can I risk telling you anything which might give you grounds for trust, since I cannot afford to take liberties with my own history. The business of absolute control over time and destiny is surprisingly limiting."

  A sudden constriction in Rel's throat made him frown. "Do you... What happened here? Where's Taslin?"

  Fate waved the twisting, dancing shapes of the words aside. "The Separatists ambushed you. They have taken Taslin of the Gift-Givers captive, and are long gone, though the Gift-Givers are searching the inner Court for you at the moment. Do you know what this place is?"

  Pevan started to say something, but fell silent. Rel looked past Fate to the knot, then up at the looming Court. "It's... the foundation of the Court?"

  "It would be as accurate to say it was the founding of the Court, but yes. It is from here that the building's stability flows."

  "We're outside?" Pevan's voice wavered.

  "It is not easy to describe in human concepts." Fate shrugged, and there really was absolutely nothing inhuman in the motion. "If nothing else, this is where work on the Court was begun. The passage you arrived by was a late addition so that the