A Path to Coldness of Heart (23 page)

“And I have to get back to being mistress of this mad empire.”

...

Ragnarson settled for the night feeling renewed and too excited to sleep. He obsessed over the wonderful trivia he had seen. His happiest recollection was of lightning bugs in their courtship dances.

He was amazed that they had fireflies in the east, too.

...

Shih-ka’i asked, “Did we gain anything tonight?”

“Nothing knowledgewise. He did demonstrate a renewed ability to master his emotions.”

“For what that is worth.”

“You are a sour one lately.”

“That I cannot deny, Illustrious.”

“What do you need? A new war in which to shine? I can’t give you one for a generation.”

“Illustrious, I prefer the struggle for peace. Sadly, we don’t live in a world where such thinking is practical.”

“What do you want, Shih-ka’i?”

Lord Ssu-ma marshaled his courage. “A suite here. In this tower.”

“For your own hideaway? Or for an enemy you want bound without hope?”

“There is someone I want to install in a place that respects his standing while assuring an absence of contact with the world.”

“You make it sound deliciously mysterious.”

Shih-ka’i shrugged. “The reality is quite banal.”

“Make it happen quickly. We have the final peace terms to dictate to Matayanga.”

“I’ll be there when you need me.”

...

Shih-ka’i transferred to the island, he hoped for the last time. Though Ehelebe never much impacted his life he traversed the installation as though it had been the scene of significant childhood events. As though he wanted to reinforce memories of places he would never see again. He did little things as he wandered about.

He found Kuo Wen-chin and the crazy man making breakfast. The island was that far east. Kuo was pleased to see him.

“I know it hasn’t been but it seems like a long time since you visited.” Kuo eyed Shih-ka’i expectantly.

“I haven’t yet dropped your name into conversation but I have been given permission to use a particular piece of property as I see fit.” He explained.

“I would be a prisoner in that tower instead of here.”

“It’s the best you can expect.”

Kuo smiled a tired smile.

“Somewhat less than optimal for you,” Shih-ka’i said. “The food will be better.”

“And what would be the attitude of the Empress toward Kuo Wen-chin these days?”

“She has none. She never mentions you.”

Both Tervola glanced at the old man. Though he moved slowly he did his share. He hummed as he began clearing away. The tune was catchy but unfamiliar.

Kuo said, “I can’t abandon him.”

“Uhm?”

“He’s better than he was but he’s not ready to take care of himself.”

“I wouldn’t leave him. He may be a link to the history of this place.” Shih-ka’i paused briefly. “Magden Norath is dead. A serendipitous thing. This was his headquarters, once.”

The old man ceased humming. “Ehelebe,” he said, then got lost in his own mind again.

“I can’t divine the past,” Kuo said. “I’m sure there is interesting historical stuff to be found here. If I could. Unfortunately, a clever man might use the same tools to manage long distance communications.”

Shih-ka’i replied, “You would know better than I. I’m not the technical sort.”

“I’ll move if my friend comes, too.”

“Definitely not a problem.”

“On the other hand, permitted the tools, I could make a career of exploring this island’s yesterdays.”

“We might consider that after the Empire relaxes and persons of stature have become less paranoid about what ancient sorceries potential rivals might be unearthing.”

Kuo Wen-chin sighed. “I understand. I don’t like it, but my likes are irrelevant. It isn’t just Norath and Ehelebe, either. This place is ages older than that. This may have been the Star Rider’s base before the Pracchia betrayed it and the Deliverer drew attention to it.”

The old man, moving glacially, twitched or winced each time Kuo said a name. Neither Tervola missed that. And neither believed the old guy understood why he responded that way.

Shih-ka’i said, “I do think it’s a good idea to keep him close.”

“Yes. I’m ready to leave when you are.”

“We should disguise you. The transfer operators might recognize you.”

Kuo said, “I’ll be a bodyguard. The old man can be a prize we’re moving for safekeeping.”

...

The timing was coincidental but the Star Rider visited the eastern island shortly after its evacuation. He had not been there since the flight of the prisoner Ethrian, who had become the Deliverer. He expected the place to have been abandoned. The evidence argued otherwise.

Use by the Dread Empire was clear. The fortress reeked of Tervola. It was an excellent place to operate quietly. They would be back.

Old Meddler’s nerves had not yet recovered from the shock of Norath’s murder. Inimical anarchy lurked in every shadow, lately. Experience left him confident that his jumpiness was justified. Ahead lay an age where all the survivors would hammer their imaginations for inventive ways to kill him.

He rested briefly, then cleared out before he stumbled into any of the booby traps certain to be cleverly disguised.

...

Mist reviewed the current status of the portals installed inside Kavelin over the decades. Technicians tended to be apolitical and kept good records. But search results were not encouraging.

The chief of technical research told her, “Those people were quite skilled at finding and destroying portals once you left.”

“I know that, Lord Yuan. Portals that aren’t there now don’t interest me. How many survived? Must I have new ones smuggled in?”

“Several remain but we’ve only just started trying to reconnect with them. I have my cleverest man, Tang Shan, doing the work.”

“Where would they be?”

“One is in the caverns behind Maisak. One is in the attic of the house you occupied in exile.”

“I can’t see them not finding that.”

“It was a bolt hole type carefully disguised.”

“And the others?”

“One more, in the mausoleum of Queen Fiana. It was a sleeper, never activated.”

“How grotesque. I want the exact status of each by the end of the day.”

“As you will, Illustrious.”

...

Varthlokkur had spent several interesting hours with Ethrian. He did so most mornings, now. This particular morning the boy had sustained his half of a simple conversation. He had asked about Sahmaman no more than a dozen times and appeared to get it when Varthlokkur explained.

But he did not retain the information.

The wizard had gotten the boy to practice writing lists of nouns using a charcoal pencil.

Impatient Scalza demanded, “How soon can we go to the Wind Tower? I want to use my scrying bowl.”

The boy had blood power. It would be amazing if he did not, with his antecedents. He had learned to manage the scrying bowl in two lessons. With it he did more than spy on his mother. Varthlokkur had given him a watch list of interesting operators to follow.

Scalza was of an age where peeping tom efforts were an attraction, too.

Varthlokkur hoped the boy never caught his mother sporting, though he suspected that Mist had lost interest after Valther’s demise.

“Patience is the first skill the young wizard must master,” Varthlokkur said. “We’ll go after lunch.”

Scalza headed for the kitchen to find out how long he had to remain patient. Ekaterina trailed him, saying, “Told you so.” Loftily, from the eminence of her superior years.

“Be quiet, brat.”

“Ha ha!”

Varthlokkur watched. The children squabbled constantly, yet remained inseparable. He could not recall one ever being more than ten feet from the other. They would not sleep in separate rooms. When nightmares moved in they ended up in the same bed.

Varthlokkur worried more than did Nepanthe. She had grown up with a tribe of brothers, younger and older, none of whom treated her different from one another.

“Varth? Is something wrong?”

“Nepanthe? No. I got caught up in the old nightmare about what happened to my mother. Again.”

Nepanthe massaged his shoulders. “Lunch is ready. The children are in a hurry to go upstairs.”

“Of course. I’m coming. But I… I wonder why I still have trouble with what happened. Only a lunatic would believe that a boy as young as I was could have done anything to keep them from burning a woman who frightened them.”

“But still you obsess.”

“I do. Obsession drove me to avenge her. Obsession drove me to win you. And now, despite time-won wisdom, I suffer an intermittent obsession focused on the past.”

“Come have lunch. It will improve your spirits. Then you can focus on better rat traps.”

Varthlokkur did as she suggested. A half hour later, in the Wind Tower, he could not remember what he had eaten. Mist’s rascals were too distracting.

His efforts with Ethrian were paying off but he preferred time spent in the Wind Tower. There he felt like he was getting somewhere in his quest to create that better rat trap.

He surrounded himself with notes reminding himself that he was not the first. A mobile hung above his work table. Its strings bore twelve cards, each recording known details of a failed effort to rid the universe of the Star Rider. He would find more as he developed more tools to mine truth from the deep past.

He wanted to dive all the way down to the beginning of the world. To do that his first great task would be to find a means of breaking through barriers set to prevent that, without being noticed. He believed he was making headway. The research, so far, had not been as difficult as expected. The magic of the Winterstorm, and of the Unborn, were key. The grand challenge was to remain undetected.

Others had believed that the answers could be found hidden in deep time. Several master sorcerers of yesteryear had tried mining the secret histories of the world. They had failed. Their digging had hit a tripwire at some point.

How? Wizards delved the past regularly without drawing fire.

He began by investigating the investigators. He was a loner. They had been loners. He knew how his mind worked. Their mental processes would have been similar. And he had a big advantage over them.

He had time. Centuries, if he needed them.

“Hey, Uncle Varth! Something’s going on in that tower of Mother’s.”

“What?”

“They’re bringing in new prisoners.”

Which likely meant nothing. But he owed Scalza the courtesy.

Ekaterina leaned on her brother’s left shoulder, enthralled by the quicksilver surface. Scalza, seated, elbows on the table and chin in his hands, was completely engrossed, too.

Varthlokkur saw nothing remarkable initially. Then he recognized the tallest man: “Kuo Wen-chin! He’s supposed to be dead. I’d better study this. Thank you, Scalza.”

The boy’s bowl offered visual access only. He could not eavesdrop. That was intentional, so Scalza would not be eavesdropping on his elders.

Most far-scryers, though, suffered from that handicap. Sound was difficult to capture.

The device Varthlokkur activated presented a three-dimensional image and did transmit sound, unreliably. As it came to life it revealed something more amazing and exciting than an unexpectedly healthy Kuo Wen-chin.

Varthlokkur laughed softly, wickedly. This was priceless. More than priceless if Old Meddler did not know.

That old man might be just what he needed.

And Ethrian might be the key to that old man.

Ethrian would be getting a lot more attention now.

†

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

1017 AFE:

GHOSTS OF TANGLED DESTINY

Y
asmid had gone to her father’s tent again. Elwas had claimed a serious breakthrough. She had been excited. He made it sound like El Murid was back.

Her father disappointed her again. He disappointed Elwas and swami Phogedatvitsu, too. Both really believed that the victory was at hand. El Murid proved them wrong. Yasmid was confident that the sabotage was deliberate.

“I know what you’re doing, Habibullah. It won’t work. I was there. I saw what I saw. He may be my father. His seed may have quickened my life. His early ministry may have given that life meaning. But the soul inside the man we saw tonight is not that of God’s True Messenger.”

Habibullah shrank into himself. “More than you do, now, I believe in the foreigner. He will lure the Disciple away from the insidious sway of the Evil One, I am confident.”

It had grown dark while they were inside her father’s tent. They were returning home now. Light from fires on the field below the New Castle, to their right, and from torches born by Invincible bodyguards, illuminated them. A chip of moon sometimes shone briefly through the grand flocks of clouds cantering westward over the Jebal. Somewhere out there, once the temperature dropped, they would dump their moisture.

Passing the pilgrim camp, Yasmid observed, “Not much interest in shrines anymore, is there? Pilgrims came by the thousands when I was young.”

“They tire. The world tires. Many of those pilgrims there now live off the charity of the Believers.”

A voice from the waste called, “Hai! Is truth unknown to…”

Whatever followed got snatched away by a gust that promised rain, but those words, in that rhythm, seized the imaginations of Yasmid and Habibullah, both. They stared at one another. Then Yasmid ordered, “Find that man. Whoever he is.”

Minutes later Invincibles descended on the pilgrim camp.

...

Haroun bin Yousif had not survived so long by being slow to recognize his own mistakes. Somehow, suddenly, he had become interesting to some passing Invincibles.

He faded away immediately, resurfaced in a different guise, amongst people he had believing that they had known him longer than the few days that was the truth.

Scowling Invincibles with bad scars and parts missing took turns interrogating pilgrims. They were looking for someone but had no idea who. They hoped their quarry would give himself away. Haroun had to relate his life’s story all the way back to his great-grandfather.