When my companions returned from dinner with the archons, they were exhausted and surly. Come morning, they were in little mood to discuss the night’s events. Before I was able to coax the story out of them, Thieria came to whisk them away, again.
Having told the truth of who I was – most of it, at least – to Thieria had seemed the best course of action at that time. I could hardly tell the priestesses at the Observatory less than I had a xian g`ul servant. It had been the priestesses’ decision to present me to the archons as Yma Rinlo, rather than Derrek Rowan, not my own. I had been in no position to opose that decision, and it had helped to secure us what aid we had so far received, but I also suspected that it would ultimately cause as many problems as it solved.
Some of those problems were deeply personal.
I could see in their eyes that my companions no longer knew who or what they were looking at, who or what they were speaking to. A rhu xian priestess was not a woman, any more than a rhu xian sorcerer was a man. But priestesshood was closer to womanhood than to masculinity, and I was so very, very out of practice.
I had not been Yma Rinlo in nearly forty years. Her garments were comfortable, but no longer familiar. Her bald head was cold. She did not wear the woodgrain steel bracelets of a master blacksmith, or the bejeweled rings of a wizard’s claw, or even the belt-knife that Derrek Rowan had always favored. She was master of nothing, barely more than a child; a full initiate in the mysteries but without rank or accolades. She had been judged barely fit to stand before the archons and introduce the mortals she had brought to the Holy Empire. And, since these archons somehow spoke the Vencari and elven tongues, there was no need for her, here, to translate.
So, once more, I was left to my own devices in the gorgeous guest-suite of the Lady Archon Ingmatmar, priestess of the Flame.
I considered magicking the lock open – a simple enough matter, even if the door were enchanted against a priestess of my ostensible rank and skill – but where would I go? I considered divining my companions’ whereabouts, or Veralar’s progress with the curse I had laid upon her, or the state of the mortal world at large, but could not trust that I would not be interrupted and did not wish to risk either further damage to my scrying stone or more collateral damage from having my scrying interrupted.
So, instead, I sat on the balcony, in the enchanted cocoon of warmth that I had wrapped the whole of the suite in, and composed myself in meditative trance. I had spent the last days in a state of near panic, uncertain what either my companions or the archons would think or do. I had spent the weeks before in a state of intermittent depression and anxiety, unable to guess what would happen when my two lives collided. Most of those questions were answered, now, and things were in motion. I could begin, once more, to steer the ship of my fate.
My companions did not return until after dinner that night, at which point they had little interest in rehashing the previous evening’s events. Instead, they sat down at the table where I was enjoying a final pot of tea, surrounded by the uncleared detritus of my own supper.
“A caravan is being assembled,” Elana said without preamble, “which will make the trek with us from here to Ghol Vidar. What can you tell us about the journey?”
I sipped my tea and nodded.
“Ghol Vidar is the regional capital of the province at the edge of the Great Ice Wall,” I said. “It is there where we will have to beg permission to go south and return to the mortal world. Sending us with a trade caravan, rather than a purely diplomatic envoy, will slow us down, a little, but offer us greater protection against the monsters that live in the foothills of the great mountains and offset the cost of the journey for the archons and the city of Khrigo. It is a common practice and no insult is intended. This is most likely the same route and the true means by which Dano`ar the Dragon Bard traveled across the Lightning Plains.”
Elana and Rennin nodded slowly.
“How long will the journey take, do you think?” Rennin asked. “We were not certain how to ask the archons without seeming impatient while asking for a favor.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I have never been this far east or south. I was raised in the Western Reaches, the farthest place you can get from here and still be in the Holy Empire. From Starview, the heiropolis where I was raised, the journey to Ghol Vidar was four or five weeks through mountain passes that could only be travelled on foot, or five or six weeks by caravan around the rugged foothills. On a map it looked perhaps a third of the distance between here and Ghol Vidar, but I also understand that the roads on this side are better maintained – at least to the north of here. So … I could only guess. Two months? Three? We will risk terrible winter storms, either way, but if the archons are preparing a caravan, they must have some confidence that we will make it before True Winter falls.”
“So long?” Rennin winced.
“But you have been to this … Ghol Vidar?” Elana asked.
“Yes,” I said answering both questions simultaneously. I elaborated for Rennin first, since he had asked first: “The Holy Empire is much larger than the Compact, and is not blessed by such swift trade corridors as the rivers Venn or Naam.” Then I turned to the prince: “After the Oracle of Starview pronounced me a priestess, I was taken to Ghol Vidar so that their oracles could confirm the prophesy, and offer insight into my nature and purpose. I was still very young, but I was fully conscious and recovered by then.”
Elana nodded, but Rennin pressed.
“How could such a journey not take us into the heart of winter?”
“Time and the seasons are not in perfect sync between the mortal world, the Holy Lands, and the Lightning Plains.”
Now Elana’s brow furled.
“You speak of the Holy Lands and the Lightning Plains as if they are as … different and separate as the mortal world and the Holy Lands. But we crossed no such veil or portal to get here as we did to get to the Holy Lands. And, for that matter, you have never spoken of crossing another veil to get home. Only the Great Ice Wall.”
I nodded.
“Very astute, my prince,” I said. “Not all veils and gates function the same, and there are many kinds of passage between the four worlds of the living.”
I glanced at Khanaarre. I was mostly curious if she was listening, or if she was familiar with planar theory. She seemed to take it as one of my old challenges, though, and just rolled her eyes. Fair.
“The whole of creation,” I went on, “is like a light passing through three glasses, such as those used in the theater. Just this side of each glass, there is a pure light of that hue – call them yellow, green, and violet. Those sections of pure light are the Lightning Plains, the Holy Lands, and the Shadowrealm. The stage where those three lights meet and blend is the mortal world. The four worlds are all so close together that there are places where one fades into the other. Some of those places are only passable at certain times. Others require certain keys. Still others are always there.”
Elana nodded slowly. Rennin looked like I had revealed a cosmic horror.
“What of the celestial spheres,” Khanaarre asked. “How do they relate to your three lights?”
I held up my hands in a gesture of ignorance.
“They don’t,” I said. “The lights are a metaphor. The four worlds exist, separate but overlapping. The celestial spheres exist, and the stars move through them. How those two facts interact is an utter mystery to me. I am a priestess, yes, and a wizard, but I am more a thaumaturge than a theologian, and more a poet than a grammarian.”
Khanaarre laughed. So did Elana and Rennin.
“Well,” said Elana, “with those mysteries of the universe explained, and not, I am to bed. Our caravan leaves in two or three days. I intend to spend as much of that time as possible in bed or in the bath.”
I nodded.
“Your grace,” I said, watching her retreat into her room.
Rennin stood as well, clearly intending to follow her.
“You two,” he said, “get your shit sorted.”
We looked after Rennin as he followed his prince and lover, then faced each other over the remains of my dinner. Neither of us spoke, at first. We just looked each other up and down. It was surreal to see her dressed in the styles of a rhu xian sorcerer – for that was the costume she’d picked for the evening, consciously or not, instead of the priestess’ robes she had also been given – loose pants under a knee-length tunic, belted tightly at the waist, all bright colors and elaborate embroidery. I could only imagine how strange and threatening it was for her, with me bald-headed, not just in a priestess’ informal dalmatica, but the white-on-black robes of my order.
She wasn’t beautiful by human standards or elven – too thin and too muscular at the same time for the tastes of most humans; her eyes and her ears too large and long for the standards of either – but she was striking, and to trained senses she radiated power. More importantly, to me, she had demonstrated loyalty and humility, compassion and cunning, audacity and ambition.
“How can I ever trust you again,” she said after a long moment.
I took a deep breath, and I sighed.
“I could give a stirring speech,” I said. “I could be wily and charismatic. I could be the version of myself that lived and thrived as a wanderer in the Compact before I ever came to Vencar. I could speak of how you have earned my respect and affection. Every word of it would be true, but …”
I shook my head.
“But you deserve better than that,” I told her. “The truth is that you can trust me, now, exactly as much as you could trust me when you and the prince first came to So’renner. You can trust my self-interest. You can trust my will to survive. You can trust the promises that I have made to you all, to get you to the Blade of Xadaer and to get you all back home, where Elana and Rennin can confront the Usurper.”
As I spoke, I stood, and went to get us glasses. We had rarely drank any, let alone all of it, but each night our host’s kitchen had sent a decanter of wine for us. Tonight was no exception, and I filled us each a glass.
“I cannot promise that I have no more secrets,” I said. “I am a wizard and a priestess. I am made of secrets. A few of them are even my own. I can promise that I will share more of them with you, Khanaarre, when I can. When the war is over and the fate of the Rorgoth Throne is decided, if not before.”
Khanaarre listened, watching my face carefully as I spoke. When I was done, she sipped her wine and didn’t speak for long minutes.
“I am a wizard, too,” she said slowly. “I have secrets of my own, some of which I suspect you have inferred or divined. I am grateful for your discretion in those matters, but in this …”
She sipped her wine, sighed, and shook her head.
“In this I am more elf than wizard. My heart is neither frozen nor adamant. Feelings are not always slow to rise in us, but they are usually slow to fade.” She met my eyes again. “I, too, could speak of respect and affection, earned and now possibly lost. I am hurt, Derrek. I am angry. I am scared. It will be some time before I know in my own heart which of those feelings will be the longest lasting.”
I closed my eyes and dipped my head.
“I will have many questions for you, before and after we return to the mortal world,” she went on. “But, for now, my only question is this. How are you still so young? I know that some djuunan age more slowly than others, especially wizards, but you … If I know anything of djuunan mortality, the youth you wear now looks like what you must have worn before you ever began to study wizardry.”
I nodded.
“You are quite right,” I said. “I had already begun to slow when I made the decision to seek my human roots. I do not know for certain, because the rhu xian are near-immortals, but I believe that wonderworking – particularly as a priestess of the Stars – preserves mortal youth, much as wizardry can, when used wisely and sparingly. But I also believe that I looked and felt older than I do now, when Aemillian and I formed the syphons and became the Great Wizards. I think that I may look and feel younger, now, since I have spent the last of my mortal blood, than I did when I first came to the Compact. Or even when we crossed into the Holy Lands.”
She looked me over carefully.
“Yes,” she said. “I believe that you do.”
Khanaarre finished her wine. She stood and looked at me, the coldest look that she had ever given me.
“I hope that we can be friends, again, Derrek Rowan,” she said. “But in this moment, I really do not know.”
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