A slightly greyed darkness surrounded him. Few sorcerers would willingly skim into the ground. Few sorcerers who were not ageless, that is, he corrected. To do so, he must be able to travel fast enough to emerge on the other side of the world before suffocating.
It was not a danger for an ageless sorcerer. The same knowledge they applied to stop ageing could be used to heal, so they could mend the damage from a lack of air when they arrived in a world. But even for the ageless, instincts rebelled against venturing deep underground. It just felt perilous.
Tyen propelled himself faster and faster. By the time he reached the other side of the world, he had gained so much speed that he shot up out of the ground and into the night sky before he could react and stop. Reversing his path, he descended most of the way to the ground.
He was above an ocean, and had to create a platform of stilled air under his feet to stand on when he emerged back into the world to breathe. When his head stopped spinning and the need to gasp for air faded, he drew in a few more deep breaths to last him for the next leg of his journey and, gathering his bearings from the stars, returned to the place between.
Land was not far away—a peninsula edged by fishing villages. In a temple on top of a promontory, he found what he was looking for: an official arrival place for world travellers. Most worlds had them as a means to locate safe paths through the place between. All but a few priests were asleep within the temple. He skimmed to the departure point, a simple stone circle, then pushed away from the world, following a familiar, well-established path. The night-shaded scene bleached to pure white, then gained form and shadow as he passed the midway point between worlds and neared the next.
He arrived in another temple, this one ruined and surrounded by snow-coated mountains. Cold air filled his lungs. He pushed onwards to another world and a small grotto with an altar and several worshippers, then skimmed across the surface of that world to a huge, empty cave where a defaced statue emerged from a wall. Marks on the floor indicated routes to four neighbouring worlds. He stepped onto one and launched himself away, travelling on to a world of mist.
From there he hopped from world to world, arrival place to arrival place. Occasionally he passed travellers in the place between. All avoided him. Sorcerers were still skittish about meeting others in the whiteness, despite it being more than five cycles since the Raen had imposed his restrictions on travel between worlds. For some, it was impossible to break a lifetime of dreading a shadow in the whiteness, and possible death as punishment for breaking the ruler of worlds’ law. For others, it was the newer fear of encountering people they had wronged, now that they could no longer rely on the Raen for protection, or the threat of sorcerer thieves and gangs who robbed travellers, or worse.
As Baluka had often said, the end of the Raen’s laws had freed the unscrupulous as well as the oppressed. In many parts of the worlds, the Raen’s allies had been replaced by new tyrants. They kept the Restorers busy administering justice and imposing new laws. Revolution hadn’t brought prosperity or freedom to all, and even those who simply hadn’t benefited from the Raen’s death to the degree they’d hoped for had grown angry or disillusioned. They demanded more of the Restorers than could ever be delivered, and Tyen did not envy Baluka the task of trying to keep everyone calm, if not satisfied.
He paused to catch his breath in a night-veiled garden. Baluka would be so happy to learn that Rielle was alive and well. It feels unfair to not tell him. I could ask her if she minds whether I do, but perhaps it is better he doesn’t know I am in contact with her. Baluka was a sorcerer of average strength—powerful enough to travel between worlds, but not enough to become ageless. That meant plenty of sorcerers could read his mind.
Tyen knew his hesitation came out of a habit of never revealing more than he had to. It was a habit borne out of spying. Though sometimes he wasn’t sure if he truly earned the title “the Spy,” given to him when the Raen’s allies had spread rumours about him to weaken the rebels. He did not actively seek information for anyone; Dahli and Baluka simply expected him to tell them whatever information he gained that they ought to know. He’d done so, for both of them, over the last five cycles. About each of them to the other too, in order to keep them both believing he was on their side.
Whose side am I on? He wasn’t sure any more. Perhaps neither. Perhaps his own. No, if I’m so selfish, why do I care about the people of Doum? Or whether there is violence and injustice in the worlds? Or that Vella had been trapped inside a book against her will?
If anyone had asked, he’d have told them that he was keeping in contact with Dahli in order to keep track of what the man was up to, and staying in touch with Baluka in order to have a reason to stay in contact with Dahli. But it went deeper than that.
If Dahli found a way to resurrect Valhan, all sorcerers would have to choose between an alliance with him or fleeing and hiding—if there was anywhere the Raen’s influence did not reach. Tyen would be one of the first to know. He could warn others.
Whatever method Dahli found to resurrect Valhan might work to give Vella a body. Though Tyen would not destroy another person in order to do so, Dahli might find a way that did not. Dahli knew Tyen wanted to restore Vella, but Tyen had made it clear he would have no part in killing someone in order to achieve it. So in order to have another reason to meet up with Dahli, he had admitted that he was keeping in contact with Baluka, and was willing to pass on information.
Baluka believed that Tyen was spying on Dahli for the Restorers. While Tyen had no qualms about spying on Dahli, working against Baluka made him uncomfortable. Baluka was the closest thing he had to a friend, after Vella. He looked forward to their meetings and reminiscing about the past. He took great care to ensure that the information he passed on could not harm his friend.
When Rielle reads all this from my mind, she’ll understand, he told himself.
Tyen passed three more worlds before stopping in a darkened room. Using a little magic, he vibrated a speck of air until it glowed. A familiar basement surrounded him. The rotting wooden shelving leaned even more precariously than it had the last time he’d visited. He ducked under and past, climbed a creaking set of stairs and opened the door at the top. Noise battered him as he joined the traffic of a narrow, crowded street. The pungent smells of a bustling city filled his nose. It was impossible to tell what time of day it was, but some instinct told him it was early morning. Not that it mattered. He’d been in this place at many times of day and never seen a change in the number of people out and about.
He let the flow of them take him far from his arrival place, then as he neared his destination, he pushed and dodged his way into side streets, across a small marketplace and into an alley so narrow all had to walk sideways to pass the people coming from the opposite direction. The flow was so persistent that it was easier to walk to the end of the alley, then join the line walking back the other way so he could simply step into his destination, a drinking establishment, when he reached it, rather than push through the oncoming people.
Within, it was quiet, only a few customers standing at the tables. He scanned their minds as he moved to the counter … and froze with his hand hovering above the bell.
It’s him! one was thinking, his heart jolting with fear and triumph. It’s the Spy. Our source was right!
As the man turned to signal to his friend, who was watching from across the other side of the room, Tyen pushed out of the world.
Immediately three shadows darkened the place between. Tyen skimmed to the nearest well-used path leading out of the world, his pursuers close behind. Once on the path, he threw the full force of his strength into travelling, propelling himself to the next world and the next, and onwards.
The shadows were gone by the second world. Still, he kept up the pace. Though he kept to established paths, they might be able to track him by guessing which direction he’d taken, and searching the minds of people near to arrival places to see if he’d been observed. Ten worlds away,
he stopped and stepped off a stone-paved arrival place into thick forest. He fought his way through the vegetation for a hundred paces or so. His time avoiding allies had taught him that the best way to throw off trackers was to use non-magical means to travel. But he wasn’t going to get very far here. He needed to use a different ploy.
He pushed a little way out of the world, then stopped and spread his awareness out around him. Drawing in some of the substance of the place between, he smoothed it over the furrow his passage had created. Moving further into the place between, he covered his trail again. The result was texture like recently raked sand, but it would soon even out. Only a sorcerer who knew this was possible would look closer and notice the signs of a hidden path.
The only sorcerer he’d known who could do this had been the Raen. Vella had no knowledge of the trick. It had taken him a cycle of experimenting before he was able to master it, and he did a poor job compared to the dead ruler.
He’d had a lot more time to practise, Tyen reminded himself. I’d be pretty good at it after a thousand cycles.
After stopping to hide his path two more times, he continued on to the next world, arriving gasping for breath. As he recovered, he considered the reaction of the sorcerer who’d recognised him. The man had been surprised, but only that Tyen had actually appeared as they’d been told to expect. Then he’d felt a mix of fear, hate and opportunism. The latter intrigued Tyen. Their reason for waiting for him had less to do with revenge for Tyen spying on the rebels than with some idea they could profit from him. Perhaps by taking him captive. Perhaps only as a trophy corpse. Perhaps they’d heard that he possessed a book containing the secret of agelessness, and hoped to take it from him.
Perhaps, together, the ambushers would have been strong enough to succeed.
Tyen doubted it though. He’d not have lost them so easily if they’d been that powerful. He should worry more that someone had told them where he might turn up. That person could only have learned the location from Baluka. Either they’d read the rebel leader’s mind or Baluka had told them.
If they knew of one location Tyen left messages at, they might know of the others. He could check these places to see if anyone was lying in wait, but even approaching the sites might be dangerous. Finding out more about Rielle would have been useful, but not vital to his efforts to help Doum. It wasn’t worth the risk.
But he would have to get to the bottom of it eventually. In future, he might have something important to tell Baluka. He would have to find another way to contact his friend. Frustrated and worried, Tyen pushed away from the world and began a long and convoluted journey back to Doum.
CHAPTER 3
The clay was cool and sticky. It smelled oddly clean for something that had been dug out of the ground, but then, it had been expertly refined before arriving at Tyen’s workshop. Stones and organic matter had been removed, as well as air bubbles. All that remained to be done before it could be worked was a light kneading. He carried it over to the sturdy table he used for the purpose, and began rolling and pressing it under the heels of his hand.
As he kneaded, his mind worried over recent events and future possibilities. It was three days since the attack on the Grand Market and he’d not heard anything from the Council. Three days. Were they taking the threat from Murai seriously? In his imagination the Muraian merchants’ thoughts still steamed with avarice and a desire to teach the makers of Doum a lesson, and the Emperor’s burned with the prospect of conquest.
If the Council was taking the threat seriously, had Tyen not heard anything because they did not trust him, as an outsider, to negotiate on their behalf? If they chose a Doumian representative, would the Emperor refuse to cooperate, as Rielle had warned?
He looked down. The clay was supple and consistent now. He peeled it up off the table and began to press and roll it between his palms.
Why hasn’t Rielle come to see me?
Perhaps the Emperor was as reluctant for an outsider to speak on his behalf as the Council was for one to act on theirs. Rielle had hesitated at the prospect, and may have decided against suggesting it to the Emperor. Either way, he had hoped she would tell him in person, whatever the news was. He wanted to see her again, though he had to admit, the prospect filled him with as much anxiety as eagerness.
She is, as far as I know, the most powerful sorcerer in the worlds. More powerful than me. That makes her potentially dangerous, not least because I can’t read her mind and she can read mine. I should avoid her. I have too many secrets. She is sure to learn, eventually, that the rumours about me are true. Mostly.
And yet, if she did find out by reading his mind, she would also know why he had done what he’d done. She would understand that he had acted without alternative choices, or with good intentions.
She was the one person he knew of in the worlds who was like him too. Not just because they were both strong sorcerers, able to read the minds of nearly everyone they met. He knew that, like him, she had come from a world so weak that too little magic existed in it to transport a sorcerer out of the world. The Raen had taken the last of it from hers, and he suspected that, between himself and Kilraker, the only strong source of magic in his world had been drained when he’d left and Spirecastle fell.
Like him, she was a fugitive. They were both considered traitors outside their home worlds. They were both young and lacking in experience when compared to most ageless sorcerers of the worlds.
If the leaders of Murai and Doum knew all this, they would never choose us to be their negotiators.
He sighed. What would they do instead? Would the Emperor heed Tyen’s warning or ignore it? Would the Council forbid Tyen to carry out his threat of draining Murai of magic if the Emperor invaded, preferring war to accepting the help of an otherworlder?
The clay was now a smooth, perfectly round ball. He considered the weight of it in his hand, then judged the distance to the wheel. Slamming it down onto the turntable was satisfying. Even more so when his aim proved good, as it was now, lodging the clay right in the centre. Drawing some magic, he applied it to the boiler he’d installed under the floor. Pistons and cogs began to turn, the motion transferring through an arm to the wheel. The clay started to revolve.
Wetting his hands and a rag, he squeezed a generous amount of water over the mound of clay, then again, and once again to be sure. He braced his elbows on his knees, leaned down and pressed the spinning clay between his palms.
What right do I have to interfere? he asked himself. Does five cycles of working towards making a life here justify harming another world to ensure this one stays the way I like it?
He couldn’t go home, so he had no choice but to try and make a new one somewhere, but wherever he went, wherever humans could survive or thrive, people had made a prior claim to the land. That left only two choices: live by their rules or disrespect them. He’d settled for living in a place with rules he could live by, hoping that he would eventually earn the locals’ trust and acceptance.
Five cycles was nothing compared to the countless generations the local artisans here had spent developing their skills and styles. Surely those men and women would rather a friendly sorcerer protect them than face an invasion of Muraians who considered them nothing more than unimportant servants.
They may want to try standing up for themselves first. Doumians don’t like owing anything, money or favours, to anyone as well. I admire them for that, even if it is a source of annoyance.
Perhaps it would help if he reassured them that all he asked for in return was to live a quiet life in their world. A letter perhaps. Or would it be better said in person?
Continuing to douse the clay with water, he gently and firmly persuaded it into a smooth dome. Once satisfied that it was perfectly centred, he began to squeeze and elongate it, then squash it down into a mound again, over and over. Like the kneading, this worked the clay to a more even consistency, but also introduced more water. Slowly the clay grew supple and pliant.
Wha
t if the Council do decide to accept me as their negotiator?
His hands twitched, and he had to re-centre the clay.
What was it that Rielle had said? “I have no experience or training in this kind of thing.” Neither did he. Though he had led the rebels for a while, there had been little need for negotiation among people who had one goal, with no room for compromise. Rielle, on the other hand, had lived for a time among the Travellers, who were skilled barterers. Did that mean she was more likely to be better than he at negotiations? Perhaps she had been bluffing when she’d claimed to be ignorant of such things. Though her ability to read his mind was her greatest advantage—by far.
What could she learn that she could turn against him? That he had a magical book of immense knowledge? Baluka and Dahli knew of it. Since a sorcerer stronger than Baluka could read his mind and learn about Vella, Tyen hadn’t expected her existence to remain a secret. Instead he’d relied on remaining hidden, and his greater strength, to keep her from being taken from him. Rielle was strong enough to steal Vella. He could only hope she wouldn’t.
Rielle could tell the Emperor that Tyen had spied for the Raen, but since the ruler had benefited from agreements with Valhan, that would only raise Tyen in his eyes. She could tell Baluka, but Tyen could counter that by revealing to his friend why he’d done it. He was sure Baluka would understand. He hoped so, anyway. He doubted Rielle would risk approaching Baluka, when Dahli might have spies watching the Restorers.
What advantages might Tyen have over her? He could tell Dahli where she was. He could tell the Emperor that she had prevented the resurrection of the Raen.
I can’t tell him either. She would never speak to me again. I can’t even threaten to tell him that. He would not take advantage of her in any way.
But what if doing so was the only way to protect Doum? While she might prefer to steer the two worlds towards peace, the Emperor would expect her to produce an agreement that was as profitable to him as possible. Tyen remaining on good terms with her as well as protecting Doum would not be easy.