It would be tricky to manage, but Pelut could engineer a revolution that would replace Cyron with a trio of lords acting as corulers. They would impose taxes to enrich themselves and their home realms, which would beggar the merchants and slow the economic expansion. They would cancel Cyron’s current shipbuilding programs and discontinue funding any exploration. With a few well-placed hints on devoting oneself to security matters at home, he could also divide the trio into warring factions and they would collapse.
Giving him the opportunity to rise at the head of a ruling council that, unlike its counterpart in Helosunde, would not be foolish.
The brush descended and caressed the paper swiftly. Black ink bled out over the white surface and Pelut began to smile. He lifted the brush again and nodded. In a moment of inspiration, he had stroked the glyph for serenity, which is exactly what his plan would bring.
He lifted the paper from the table and realized, too late, that he had acted in haste. One droplet of ink trailed down, adding a stroke which changed serenity into ambition. Then it continued its waving trail down the page, cutting across another stroke.
Ambition became chaos.
Pelut set the paper back down again, then laid his brush beside it. A superstitious man might have read doom in the omen he’d witnessed, but Pelut Vniel prided himself on being free of superstition. He knew exactly what the drippings meant, and his smile broadened as he nodded.
Haste will be the undoing of all good. He knew Master Urmyr had written that in one of his books. And I must use better ink.
Chapter Fourteen
28th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat
9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th year since the Cataclysm
Ixyll
The moment I awoke, I knew who I was not. Moraven Tolo I had been, or, rather, he had been a part of me. He was an aspect of who I was, and perhaps a glimmer of who I could have become. He had been useful, and doubtless would yet be useful, but he and I were separate individuals.
I had no sense of how much time had passed, and the place in which I found myself served only to heighten my confusion. I had access to Moraven’s memories, but they had a dreamlike quality to them. I could not be certain which parts of them were true or which might be his dreams. I had, after all, been somnambulant while he controlled my body. Yet, even in that state, I knew time had passed.
But this place-a tomb complex clearly-showed little signs of decay, and all the signs of Imperial construction. Gathering myself, I slowly stood. I wavered as dizziness washed over me, then rested against the wall until the world stopped spinning.
When it again turned normal, I stepped forward to the nearest sarcophagus. A woman’s effigy had been raised on the lid, and the artisan had done an admirable job. I recognized Aracylia Gyrshi and caressed her cold stone cheek. Her name I knew, and her loss I felt as keenly as a fist tight around my heart. I likely could have even picked her voice out of a chorus. I definitely remembered stitching up the wound that gave her the serpentine scar on her brow.
I could not, however, remember who I was.
“Awakened, I see.”
The voice did not surprise me, though it should have. A note of the familiar ran through it, too. I looked slowly to the right and found a Soth Gloon perched on another sarcophagus. “Seven eyes do not lie. I am awake. You were once known as Enangia.”
“An old name only whispered by ghosts.” He canted his maggot-white head. “I am Urardsa now. And what shall I call you?”
“Call me the name you know me by.”
“Most recently this is Moraven Tolo.”
I refused to take the bait in his game. He knew who I was, but he would not tell me. Soth logic demanded he withhold that information, and I had neither the patience for his game nor need for the information. Names and identities meant nothing-labels at best, masks hiding doom at the worst.
“Then I shall be Moraven Tolo for a while yet.”
The Gloon fell silent, which is what they preferred to do rather than cackle insanely, as a man might in a similar situation.
“You have been trapped here for how long?”
“Long enough for empires to be forgotten and the world to be made anew.”
I shook my head. Though I did not know who I was, I did know better than to ask a Gloon questions that did not demand specific answers. I thought about the last memories Moraven Tolo had and formulated another question. “Tell me please of the disposition of my companions-their suspected locations and intentions.”
The Gloon’s gold eyes closed. “Your apprentice and the gyanridin are bound northwest on the Spice Route, hoping to find the Sleeping Empress and awaken her to save the Empire. They have no sense of what lurks out there, but one is inventive and the other desires to become a hero, so they will stumble on.”
I arched an eyebrow. “You see the future. How far do their life-strands extend?”
“Far enough for them to wish they did not.” His face tightened. “They will not emerge from their trials unscarred.”
“Keles Anturasi?”
“Gone. It is presumed Desei agents have him. Ask me not about his life-strand, for it is tangled and one loop has already been threaded through death. It is a knot I have never seen before, nor one I can untie.”
I nodded. “The Viruk and the Keru, they have gone after him?”
“As best they can.”
“And they left me with you.” I crossed from Aracylia’s bier to the small bundle of possessions that had been left for me. Rough canvas clothes meant to protect me against the magic of Ixyll had been neatly folded. Road rations, a canteen, and a small pouch of coins had likewise been left behind. All in all, it looked like meager offerings at some half-forgotten godling’s roadside shrine.
And then there was my sword.
More correctly, Moraven’s sword. I picked it up and slid the blade from the lacquered wooden scabbard. It came out clean. Single-edge, sharp, and polished until it seemed to glow all by itself, it was a pretty piece of metal. The balance was perfect, the hilt comfortable, and an unconscious smile came to my lips as I wove it through circles and loops. A single blade was not to my preference, but if I were limited to one, this would do very nicely.
I returned the blade to its scabbard and slid it into place over my left hip. “Did they leave me horses, or am I stuck here forever?”
“There are no horses.” The Gloon leaped from the bier and stood upright. “You will not be here much longer.”
“Have you foreseen that I’ll walk, or something else?”
The Gloon looked hard at me with all of his eyes. A flutter began in my stomach, but I refused to let my nervousness show on my face. His eyes narrowed, then opened again. He frowned heavily.
“There are simple people whose lives are a single, slender strand. Others have knots, or become interwoven with one or two others. Still others have many strands, many years. You have pieces. Broken pieces that pick up and leave off. They tangle with others, foul them, and there are points where your life makes the future incomprehensible. There is no predicting for you.”
I would have made to question him further save for a glow that began deeper in the mausoleum. It started as a dark blue spark, violet even, then cycled down to red. It vanished for a moment, then reversed itself, growing larger with each cycle. After five or six cycles it had become a sphere twenty feet in diameter within which I began to discern the shape of a man.
The sphere collapsed to reveal a man standing on an oblong wooden platform rimmed with gold. Around its circumference a railing ran about three feet high, and gold disks attached to the sides of the base, one at each of the eight cardinal points. Most remarkably, in front of the man sat a large globe on a gimbaled stand. While I could not see the six-foot globe clearly, I knew it had a map of the world spread over its surface. This told me I’d seen it before and, as if in confirmation, the man on the platform looked at me and smiled.