Successor''s Promise

  He would find a way. He was determined to achieve both. If the Claymars gave him the opportunity.

  The clay was ready now. Smooth and malleable. He placed his fingertips on the top of the mound and pressed downwards until he had created a hole that reached almost to the turntable surface. Sprinkling in enough water to keep the newly exposed clay wet, but not so much that it formed a puddle, he began to pull outwards. His hand on the outside guided the shaping of the cavity, telling him how even the walls were. As his fingertips reached the top, he ran them over the edge to round it. Then he wet his hands and returned to the centre of the bowl, checking and adjusting the shape as he worked up to the rim again.

  After a third working he stopped. A simple bowl now sat upon the wheel, its base still affixed to the turntable. He reached down to a hook on the side of the wheel and lifted off it a length of wire with two sticks attached to either end. Holding the sticks, he stretched the wire between his hands and pressed it close to the turntable surface with his thumbs, then pulled the wire through the bottom of the bowl, slicing through the clay. As it came through the near side, the vessel caught and slid with it to the turntable edge, but Tyen stopped before it could topple off.

  He scooped the bowl up and carried it to drying shelves nearby; then he stepped back to consider his work.

  It was an unremarkable bowl by an unremarkable potter. At least, it would be if it survived the firing and glazing process. It might rise above its humble beginnings, if the glazing turned out well, but he knew that it was barely any better than the pieces his teacher sent to her tub of rejected work, destined to be dissolved into a slip for casting moulded pottery.

  But I’m not running a famous pottery business, so it will do for me. He sighed, shrugged and began cleaning up.

  After he’d left Baluka and the rebels five cycles ago, he’d sought a place to live quietly, away from the chaos created by the death of the Raen. A vague idea about doing good to balance the bad had led him to Faurio, the world of healers, but when he was recognised by a former rebel he’d had to leave.

  He’d had no aptitude for healing either. When struggling to focus on studying, he had daydreamed about Doum, where he’d met Baluka and the Raen a few times. A world with an abundance of clay and potters. He needed a way to earn a living other than sorcery and mechanical magic. Pottery appealed. It was a literal connection to land. Down to earth. Humble. So he found a country in Doum where the people had similar stature and colouring to his, and he paid someone to teach him.

  Things had not gone quite as he’d hoped.

  Even when he’d gained a reasonable skill with and understanding of clay, it was clear he had no talent for it. In a place where the existing potters’ skills had been developed to a level unsurpassed in most worlds, nobody wanted to buy the pots of an average, unremarkable potter—and less so when they learned they were made by an outsider. A pot made in Doum by an otherworlder was not a true Doumian pot.

  While Tyen had learned and practised, his attention had strayed to the tools the potters used, especially the wheels, and his mind became distracted by ideas for improving them. He questioned every feature, or lack of them. Eventually Porla, his teacher, had grown tired of his complaints and given him an old wheel to modify as he pleased. Thinking he would only try a few ideas, he started to work. Within days, he’d created a potter’s wheel that used magic, not water, animals or people, to power it.

  He’d hidden it for nearly a whole cycle, afraid that if otherworld merchants saw it they’d talk about it in their worlds, and eventually someone would recognise the work of the “inventor” of mechanical magic and come to Doum to deal with “the Spy.” But during his journeys out into the worlds to visit Baluka and Dahli, he’d seen more and more instances where mechanical magic had been applied to ordinary tasks, and soon realised his wheels would be just another example among many. So he demonstrated his prototype to his teacher.

  Porla had been impressed but cautious. She had him make one for her, and a boiler, and teach one of the sorcerers who ran her kilns how to heat the water. Soon they’d worked out how to utilise the heat of the kilns to run the wheels. Within a few months, Tyen had his own workshop and was training employees to make the wheels and boilers, and install his system across the world. By the end of his fifth cycle in Doum, he had a comfortable income and a small amount of local fame.

  He’d come to Doum expecting to be covered in clay most of the time. Instead it was grease he washed off every night. To avoid losing his hard-won pottery skills, he tested every wheel the workshop produced, even though it meant he had to thoroughly clean it before presenting it to the customer.

  With the last traces of clay wiped away, he dumped the cleaning cloths in the sink, dried his hands, hung up his apron and started up the stairs. Usually he spent his evening eating with friends at one of the many inns. If no social gathering was planned, he’d tinker with machine parts, making small, harmless insectoids to give to the children of employees or friends. In the three days since the market attack, most Albans had stayed home, afraid to be in public places, so he’d been eating out alone.

  As he reached the top stair, a sudden rapping made him jump. He turned and descended. As the sound came again, he located it and headed to the main door of the workshop. Seeking the mind beyond, he was relieved and intrigued to find a messenger waiting. He opened the door.

  The sack hanging over the man’s shoulder was slack, so this was probably one of his last deliveries of the day.

  “A message for Tyen Wheelmaker.” He held out a small parcel in both hands.

  “Thank you,” Tyen replied, taking it and giving the man a coin.

  He closed the door and turned the parcel over in his hands. It was an all too familiar weight and size. He tore open the wax-soaked fabric. A small glazed tile fell out into his palm. On it a small insect had been painted.

  Well, he thought, this is badly timed.

  Venturing out into the worlds was the last thing he wanted to do when news from the Council and Rielle could come at any moment. But then, it was unlikely that the Council would contact him at night. Or Rielle, when he considered it. She could easily find out what time it was in Alba. Since trade was common between the two worlds, calendars showing how the days, seasons and years of both aligned were available in both worlds. The merchants of Murai prided themselves on memorising such details of the worlds they traded.

  So really, there was nothing stopping him from answering Dahli’s request for a meeting.

  The tile was green, which meant the matter wasn’t urgent. Yet Dahli rarely sought Tyen out. As long as Tyen met up with him every quarter cycle or so, and promptly reported anything important, he was satisfied. The few times Dahli had initiated a meeting, it had been to warn Tyen of a threat, and now, after the ambush, Tyen could not afford to risk that Dahli’s reasons for summoning him weren’t related.

  Ascending to his bedroom, he changed and moved Vella from an inner pocket he’d sewn into his work trousers to the satchel made to stow her in. As he slipped her under his shirt, the reassuring warmth of her cover touched his skin through the holes in the satchel fabric. Through this contact, she could see through his eyes, and they could converse when between worlds. Checking other pockets, he found Beetle still inside the coat from his earlier trip.

  He gathered magic and pushed away from the world. The room faded like old cloth left in the sun. As before, he took a fast and convoluted route around the city and dove through to the other side of the world before leaving Doum. Hopping from world to world, he backtracked, looped in circles and stopped to hide his path—precautions he hadn’t made a habit of for a long time, but which the failed ambush made seem necessary again.

  Though Baluka had always denied the rumour that Tyen had been a spy for the Raen, it hadn’t stopped some rebels from believing it. The fact that Tyen had not submitted himself to tests to prove his innocence damned him in their eyes. For the first few cycles after the Raen’s death, a
trip through the worlds was as likely to include evading pursuit as not. Gradually these chases had grown less common, then rare, and he’d not had to shake off pursuit for a long time now. Either those previous pursuers had learned that he was always going to be faster than them and had given up trying to find him, or more important matters than revenge had distracted them. Or perhaps they finally believed Baluka.

  If only he was right. Tyen felt a familiar guilt, not dulled by time, followed by a dogged certainty that agreeing to spy for the Raen had been the only sensible course of action at the time. If he hadn’t agreed to, the man would have killed him. Tyen had used his influence with the rebels to prevent a confrontation between them and the Raen and, when he could no longer hold them back, he’d worked to minimise the deaths.

  Yet despite the guilt, he continued spying. All the reasons and excuses circled through his mind. Keeping an eye on Dahli. Staying friends with and protecting Baluka. He had to admit to a little pride. He was good at gaining people’s confidence and convincing them to trust him. Aside from making insectoids, it might be the only natural skill he had. He may as well use it for a good purpose.

  Does that purpose also include preventing Valhan’s return? he asked himself.

  He knew from his time scouting for the rebels that as many people in the worlds would welcome the Raen’s return as wouldn’t. The man had been both loved and hated, monster and saviour, master and servant. The worlds had benefited and suffered from his death, and would again if he returned.

  If he considered only how it would affect him, Tyen had to acknowledge that the Raen had been, and would be again, both a potential threat and benefactor. Valhan had not killed Tyen when they’d met, when he was known to kill new powerful sorcerers. He’d struck a bargain: Tyen would spy for him in exchange for Valhan seeking a way to restore Vella. The Raen might have died before he had a chance to fulfil his side of that deal, but Tyen knew from Dahli that the ruler had made progress and intended to finish the task after he was resurrected.

  Dahli, too, was proof that the Raen did sometimes spare powerful sorcerers who were useful and loyal.

  If Valhan returned, Vella had a better chance of regaining her body. But was the cost too high? Did the Raen’s bad deeds outweigh his good? Surely it was better to do less harm than good—and Tyen could not say that Valhan had achieved, or even aimed for, that. The worlds might be in upheaval now the Raen no longer controlled them, but they might be better off without him in the long run.

  Or they might continue to descend into chaos and more would die as a result, and Tyen, by refusing to help Dahli resurrect Valhan, would be to blame.

  What do you think, Vella? Am I doing the right thing?

  “I think you are doing your best to not take a side,” she replied, her words sounding clear in his mind since they were between worlds. “Positioning yourself so that you can minimise the harm done if Dahli succeeds while maximising the chance to benefit from it.”

  You make it sound so calculated.

  “Think of it as ‘carefully considered.’”

  He was nearly at his first destination—a crowded temple where people left requests to their gods painted on tablets and hanging on the branches of ancient trees. Arriving in a secluded corner, he paused to catch his breath before joining the crowds. On a younger and therefore less popular tree, he found coded instructions from Dahli on where to go next. Another journey through the worlds took him to a ruined ancient city emerging from the sands of a great dune, where a tiny change to a depiction of a feast carved into a wall told him his next step. Several more of these instructions followed. Unlike Tyen, Dahli had powerful sorcerer friends able to set up these complicated paths for him, and guards to watch for and warn against anyone seeking him out.

  Each time Tyen returned to the place between, he stopped to hide his path. It slowed his journey considerably, but then some of Dahli’s instructions required Tyen to travel by non-magical means, which was also time-consuming. The number of worlds he must visit to find Dahli always varied. Sometimes he travelled through a handful of worlds, sometimes several dozen.

  Directions given by a butcher in a small rural town had him walk to the next village to a small cottage. He’d have taken it for abandoned if smoke had not been filtering out of the reed-covered roof. So when Dahli answered the door, Tyen paused in surprise. He’d expected to have to travel much further than this.

  Though Dahli had altered his appearance, grown a beard and turned his hair white, Tyen knew him even before he looked into the man’s mind. Dahli’s way of standing and moving always remained unchanged, as did the way his gaze never wavered where most people would look away out of politeness or respect.

  “Yes, it’s me,” Dahli said, then stepped aside and held the door open.

  Tyen moved inside. The cottage interior was a single room with a dirt floor strewn with bundles of the same reeds that formed the roof. A bed hung from a sturdy beam at one end, a table and two stools occupied the other. In the centre, a fire burned within a simple ring of stones, the smoke lingering beneath the rafters before it found its way outside.

  It was not Dahli’s home, of course. He was only borrowing it from the owner for a few hours. The man waved to one of the stools, then sat on the other. For a long moment after Tyen had settled, Dahli sat rubbing his hands together lightly, his expression thoughtful as he considered how to begin. All of which made Tyen tense and impatient, despite being able to watch the man’s deliberations.

  “Do you have anything to tell me?” Dahli eventually asked, raising his eyebrows.

  Tyen shook his head, then stilled as he remembered that he did. “Actually, yes. A few days ago I tried to leave a message for Baluka at one of my usual places and found three sorcerers lying in wait for me.”

  Dahli’s frown was the only outward sign of his surprise. “Do you know how they discovered the location?”

  “No. I didn’t stay long enough for them to think about it.”

  “Would Baluka betray you?”

  “Perhaps, if he had been given proof of my true role among the rebels.”

  Dahli nodded, and Tyen was relieved to see the man had not, as far as he recalled, arranged for that to happen—though it was possible he had, then blocked his memory of it, as he had done to his memories of where the records of the Raen’s experiments with resurrection had been hidden.

  “So why have you arranged this meeting?” Tyen prompted.

  Dahli’s jaw tightened. “It has been five cycles.”

  Tyen nodded. He could see Dahli’s frustration. Valhan said … no, he hinted, that if Rielle would not bring him back to life, Tyen might, Dahli was reminding himself. Tyen is the only sorcerer I’ve encountered as strong as her.

  “The boy is now an adult, physically,” Dahli continued. “I have come to agree with you that we must find Valhan another vessel.”

  Tyen had never felt comfortable speaking the Raen’s name aloud. It seemed too informal. Yet it sounded right coming from Dahli, who had been closest to the ruler of worlds—known as the Raen’s “most loyal.” Though not as close as he wished to be. Dahli’s genuine love for the Raen, though unrequited—perhaps only because it was unrequited—somehow made it much easier for Tyen to sympathise with him. That, and the tearing grief he could see the man still suffered. Is that partly why I don’t find it too arduous spying for him? It would be easier to refuse him if he was a man with no conscience or emotion. I see his regrets for what he has done for the Raen. I think he would be a good person, if it weren’t for Valhan, and yet I respect his dedication to the man.

  “I never said that exactly,” Tyen corrected gently but firmly. “I said we must find another way. I will not destroy someone in order to give the Raen a new body.”

  “Yet you would for Vella.”

  Tyen shook his head. “No. The Raen and I discussed other options for her. I suspect he chose the boy because he was short of time. If faking his death hadn’t been part of his plan, he would h
ave explored alternatives.”

  Dahli did not agree, but he did not voice his doubts.

  “He would have,” Tyen insisted. “It was a part of our deal.”

  If Tyen was honest, he could not remember the exact terms of the deal now. Perhaps he hadn’t been that specific. Yet he did recall the Raen warning Tyen that there might be no way to restore Vella without harming anyone, and then it would be up to Tyen to decide whether to proceed.

  Dahli let out a long, heavy sigh. “Well, he is not here to attempt it. If you wish to continue his experiments and apply them to Vella, then you may have your chance to. I will restore my memory and give you all the information he recorded in exchange for your help in resurrecting the Raen. But you must work on her restoration only after he is alive and intact.”

  The flush of hope that had surged through Tyen immediately ebbed away. “I won’t kill someone in order to learn how to not kill someone.”

  Dahli spread his hands. “You need only do it the once.”

  “No.” Tyen held back a growing anger. He kept his voice firm and steady. “I will help you resurrect the Raen when I have a method that will not destroy a person. I know I am asking you to trust me more than you are asking me to trust you, but that is how it must be. I will not murder anyone to bring him back.”

  “Many more will die the longer we wait to restore him,” Dahli warned. “The worlds grow ever more dangerous and destructive. Wars are already raging. How long before they combine to bring strife to all worlds? And I do not …” He paused, then shook his head and continued on though he worried that it was unwise to share the next piece of information. “I do not know how long Valhan’s hand will survive. It appears to have shrunk a little. To have withered more.”

  Tyen regarded Dahli with doubt and sympathy. He read from the man’s mind that he had woken the memory of the hand’s location recently so that he could check that it was safe, but it had taken a few days for the recollection to form. Dahli also feared that he might permanently block his memories of its hiding place, as well as all the other information needed to resurrect the Raen. Suppressing memories was an inexact, dangerous process.