Umber

With Varachan and Sir Borch, the adventurers embark on a final, no-retreat assault on Crater Ridge. Brin and Varachan recount the battle for the restored Hadrack.

A few miles away from the erupting volcano that was once Crater Ridge the landscape was cluttered with people and gear. The archmages involved in rescuing the party had departed almost immediately, as had the Black, but a support staff of lesser wizards and clerics that Tenser had hastily marshaled from Greyhawk, Dunthrane and Veluna were on hand, the clerics healing any remaining injuries and the wizards largely bemoaning their instructions not to venture toward the volcano to study it at closer range.

Earlier a unit of Green Jerkins had descended on the Blasted Yard of the deserted Inner Fane to retrieve the body of Unus-Aquila and strip the many corpses of their valuables, and both they and the loot were still present as well. A pair stood honor guard over the fallen eagle as Dryden sat next to him fingering the giant feathers he clutched in his other hand. The rest were eagerly taking Corwin and Vayel on a tour of the spoils, Varachan trailing a short distance behind them. Glom had gently but firmly interrupted an animated and not entirely amicable long-distance discussion Brin was having with Tenser, and now Ammitai and Borch hovered near where he was working, meticulously reattaching Brin’s mechanical hand to her arm.

Hadrack and Svengali, meeting again for the first time since their ill-fated journey to Greyhawk with Glom, stood apart from the others talking quietly. Once Svengali looked Brin’s way, gestured toward Hadrack and gave her a sardonic smile that made her blush. Seeing it, Glom said in his mild voice, “He will always say that love breeds folly. And it will always be his folly as well. It does not make us love him less. There,” he added with satisfaction. “I am finished.” He smiled faintly. “Again.”

“How is it?” Borch asked.

She wiggled the metal fingers. “Good as new.” Smiling back at Glom she said, “Of course. Thank you, again.”

“I’m glad. And now,” Borch said briskly, “I must take my leave.” He bowed deeply to Glom. “An honor to make your acquaintance, Master Gargull.” He whistled for Cloud and mounting, said to Ammitai without a trace of levity, “Let me know when the cats talk back.” Frowning slightly, Ammitai said farewell and left to join Vayel and Corwin.

Svengali and Hadrack nodded to the paladin as he passed them on their way to Glom. “Unless you want to wait until tomorrow,” Svengali said to the dwarven smith, “it’s time to go. Tenser’s orders are no one leaves corporeal. I don’t have anything like that prepared and the vapor brigade,” he gestured toward a wizard and a cleric transforming departing individuals to gaseous and cloudlike forms with spells and staves and scrolls, “is running low on power.”

“I am ready,” Glom said. He gave Brin a hug. “Be well.”

“And you,” she said affectionately.

“Hadrack?” Seeing the ranger watching the Jasian cleric Svengali muttered, “Oh, never mind.”

They made an odd pair, the seven foot man-tiger and the short, stocky dwarf, as they walked away together. Svengali paused to say to Vayel, “This is the secret of nine lives. Two, now.” Just as he was disincorporating he saluted her and winked.

Soon the crowd had largely dispersed, back to their homes and their lives. Varachan said he needed a walk and they could see him some distance away, tracing a large elliptical path at a meditative pace. Ammitai helped Dinadel put together a modest supper, and when it was ready Vayel approached Dryden. “There’s nothing to do until midnight,” she said. “Come and have something to eat.” He looked at her doubtfully, but in the end let her lead him back to the others, though when the meal was over he returned to his vigil. Corwin and Vayel pressed Ammitai into helping them inventory the remaining equipment. Dinadel retreated to his bedroll with a lantern, a massive stack of the books from the Fane and a palpable eagerness in his eyes, and Brin and Hadrack were left by the fire alone.

Hadrack looked mildly puzzled. “I was wondering, why did Svengali tell me to ask you about his aversion to oceans?”

“Of course he had to tell you – ” she snapped, then sighed, “when I thought you were gone he said – I felt – I was – well, he was right to scold me, I suppose. A lot of fretting and melodrama on my part, for what turned out to be not much of an exile.”

“I can guess the rest of that conversation,” he said, “well enough. I, for one, am not sorry at the abbreviated duration of my absence.” Then he grew suddenly grave. “But if the arc of your life and the preservation of your dignity demand a lengthier banishment, you might be able to coax Tenser into loaning you another cloning crèche for a century or four. I await your judgment and your pleasure.” She stared at him in shock, but his grim façade lasted only a few moments longer before he burst out laughing.

“That’s horrible!” she exclaimed, slapping him lightly.

Genuinely serious now, he squeezed the fingers of her mechanical hand. “It was a simple matter for Glom to reattach this. That didn’t make it any easier for Ammitai to strike it off.”

She sheepishly nodded her understanding, then said, “It’s good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back.” Night had come on, its darkness disturbed by the distant spurts and rivers of the volcano’s red-hot magma which cast a lurid glow on the blackened and twisted remains of diseased vegetation around them. And yet in spite of the devastation, Hadrack’s thoughts were of renewal, restoration, recovery, the possibilities of life nascent within even the most battered lands. Words of Svengali’s that Brin had repeated to him years ago came into his mind. “Sanity has been a long time coming,” he murmured.

“Indeed,” a soft voice behind them said. They turned to see the other former high priest of Tharizdun standing behing them. “If I am intruding…”

“Not at all,” Jasian and ranger replied in unison. “Varachan,” Brin said formally, with emphasis, “this is Hadrack.”

The ranger rose and the two men studied one another for a few moments, each at virtually the same moment extending a hand to the other. “A pleasure,” Varachan said.

“Although I believe we’ve met before,” Hadrack said soberly. “A few hours ago.” Varachan bowed his head slightly, and they sat down together. “I’m glad they found you, to aid them. Although I’m surprised you were able to regain your authority so quickly, given what I’d…” He stopped at Brin’s anxious look. “It’s all right,” he reassured her. “I recall moments, images, thoughts and decisions, as from a nightmare, but it’s a nightmare exposed to the full light of day. It has no power over me.” His gaze turned to Varachan. “Holds no terrors.” He looked back at Brin. “From what I saw of the spoils, you must have vanquished the entire Blasted Yard.”

“And it was more fully occupied than usual,” Varachan said. “The rituals to weaken the barriers to the elemental planes and to summon the Fire Prince Imix had begun.”

“So there were the six of you, and Varachan, and the paladin – that was Sir Borch?” he asked. Brin nodded. “An interesting man.”

“I’m not sure ‘interesting’ is the first word that springs to my mind to describe him,” she replied.

“I meant nothing pejorative – far from it. I see what you meant when you called him a force of Heironeous moving through the world. But he’s young to wear so much moral authority as easily as he does.”

“Young?” Brin said. “I thought him rather old.”

“I don’t want to know what you think of my age, then,” the ranger laughed. “But I don’t believe Borch has left his thirties behind him yet.” Her look suggested she still didn’t find Borch young, but he knew her opinion of that would change with the years. “There should have been seven nexuses of power,” he recalled. “Four fire, one each of earth, water and air; each with casters dedicated to the summoning, a contingent of arcane and divine guards, and an elemental handler to provide brute force protection should it prove necessary.”

“You didn’t want for strategic acumen in either incarnation,” Brin said reproachfully. “We spent some little while arguing over how to gain entry to the Black Spike. We’d hoped to slip inside unnoticed, but the rapidly disappearing door dashed those hopes. We assumed we had to stop whatever the casters were doing in order to halt the motion of the spike.” Hadrack winced. “Yes, well, we didn’t realize until afterward what a mistake that was. We thought at first to attack a group far removed from the others, take them out one at a time.”

“But if you were noticed…” the ranger said.

“That’s why, in the end, we decided to take over the lightning towers,” Brin said. “Dinadel, Corwin and I all had the arcane aptitude to direct and fire them.”

“A risky maneuver, spreading yourselves so thin.”

“Not really. Not initially, at least. The towers were staffed by mere minions, easily cowed by Varachan,” she gestured toward the grey elf. “We expected trouble once the priests and wizards in the courtyard realized that their own magical defenses were being turned against them, but the fighters distributed themselves among the groups to protect us: Vayel and Dryden with Dinadel, Ammitai with Corwin and Varachan, myself with Borch.” She grinned. “And Cloud, of course.”

“Who,” Hadrack asked, “attracted the attention of the shadow dragon who guards the yard?”

“My group, fortunately,” Varachan replied.

Brin laughed. “Even such a formidable adversary finds itself with few resources to fall back on when a sphere of annihilation rolls through its skull.”

“Still, one sphere can’t be everywhere on a battlefield so large.”

“No – and in truth, we probably all stayed in our towers slightly longer than we should have. At first we thought to whittle down their numbers to something more manageable, until we realized that the rods planted in the ground served as some kind of foci. So we turned our attention to destroying them. We managed to take down five before the two remaining clusters of cultists mustered impenetrable force defenses.”

“Five would be enough to halt the flow of energy from the Spike through the rods. But the cultists would have been very angry at being thwarted – and by targeting everywhere on the field at once you must have stirred up quite the hornet’s nest.”

“Very much so,” she admitted. “Corwin’s group had the easiest time escaping their tower, largely because it was being dismantled about them. Dinadel transported he, Vayel and Dryden to a tower on the far side of the field. Vayel was none too happy about that – she was spoiling for a fight, and just as circumstances provided her an opponent there was Dinadel whisking her away. Only Sir Borch and I managed to leave without attracting any serious attention.”

“I assume your intent was to regroup.”

“Yes, but it didn’t work out that way. The most powerful priests and wizards, freed from their supervisory obligations, unleashed a volley of unpleasant spells from all over the yard. Like it or not, we each had to take on whatever was in our immediate vicinity. And thanks to the machinations of that vile wizard who designed the atropal scion’s sanctuary in Nulb – too stupid to realize that the apparently enormous profit he was reaping from the Tharizdunians would shortly, if they succeeded, profit him absolutely nothing – Vayel found herself trapped alone in a sphere of force with a raging fire elemental.”

“She had expressed a desire to test herself in single combat against one,” Varachan pointed out with wry amusement. “A lesson, perhaps, in being careful what you wish for.”

“Although there’s no denying that the power she gained from the encounter was invaluable to us later,” Brin replied.

“Ah,” Hadrack said. “I wondered why she was suddenly capable of calling down columns of flame.”

“We might have been able to get the situation under control,” she said, “if Imix hadn’t appeared on the scene.”

“The Fire Temple,” Varachan explained to Hadrack, “had already been at work collapsing the elemental barrier. Although the ritual was not completed, he was apparently able to come the rest of the way himself.”

Brin saw regret on Hadrack’s face, but it was a distant thing, the musings of an adult on a childhood he knows now could not have been any different and for which he has long since stopped blaming himself. “Sir Borch and I were the nearest,” she said, “so he engaged him. I healed him as best I could, but I knew it wasn’t going to be enough. Ammitai and Varachan were making their way to us as quickly as they could, but the distance was long and they were not unopposed. Corwin had exerted his – unique – authority to turn one set of priests casters agains the leader of another faction, but his followers retaliated with a barrage that brought Corwin to the brink of death. Dryden and Dinadel found themselves nearly surrounded, and their flight from the tower took them far from the heat of the fray. Unus-Aquila was coming, but was still some ways off.”

“I don’t understand,” Hadrack said. “We are here – you must have prevailed.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Varachan put in, “who that man was.”

“Our mentor, of sorts. A man called Blastir.”

Hadrack’s eyes widened. “Blastir? How? Why?”

“With Blastir, ‘how’ is a question not much of anyone can answer. As for why, for Vayel, or perhaps Dryden, or both – I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that this time, unlike at Kolyoral, he was only playing at being mad, until – well, we’ll come to that.”

“What did he want with Vayel and Dryden?”

“Vayel’s battle with the elemental had taken an unexpected turn. Enraged I expect by Ice and perhaps angered by the binding of flame to Fire, he turned his attention to sundering her blades. She was desperately trying to put them away and pull out other weapons when Blastir appeared. He suggested, in his own cryptic way, that there were worse things than letting the weapons be destroyed.”

“I’m sure she took that advice well,” Hadrack said dryly.

“Vayel has less reason to trust him than we do, and we have had precious little of late. But something of his conviction must have spoken to her, because she drew them back out.”

“Does this have some bearing on the shadow rapiers I shaw her wielding against the Triad?”

Brin nodded. “Blastir told her to promise vengeance for him.”

“For who? Presumably he didn’t mean himself.”

“No. As soon as the weapons were broken, a shadowy figure appeared.”

“The thief,” Hadrack guessed. “The one who was sealed into a room and left to die.”

“None other. He seemed at least half-mad – who knows? Perhaps that was Blastir’s interest in his fate. But not so mad that he didn’t recognize Vayel’s pendant as a thing of power, a thing with a special tie to the souls of shadow. I’m not sure what his intent would have been if she hadn’t promised him the vengeance he sought. But she did and he, in essence, leapt into her. The weapons he cherished enough to die for are now an inextricable part of her. No one will ever take them away from her – or by extension, him – ever again.”

Hadrack laughed ruefully, shaking his head.

“What?” she asked defensively.

“Forgive me. I was just thinking – it’s a wonder any of you still know who you are.”

“Perhaps they know more precisely,” Varachan suggested, “for seeing so plainly who influences them.”

“True enough,” Hadrack conceded. After a moment’s silence he asked, “What did Blastir want of Dryden?”

“He brought Unus-Aquila to him, bridging the space between them with time. Then sent Dryden back to a moment in Hommlet, when T’lar sat laughing as she prepared to pluck the secrets of the Dispatch from his mind.”

“And instead he plucked her from the inn,” the ranger mused. “So it was Dryden himself, all along. What did he do with her?”

“Brought her back to the present. She had been stunned, by the impact of Unus’ claw, perhaps, or perhaps by the abruptness of the temporal shift. Fissures boiling with magma yawned wide all over the Yard. Dryden simply dropped her into one of them to be incinerated by the lava.”

“She seemed a great enemy of yours,” Varachan said.

“Perhaps the greatest we had, Moloch excepted.”

“If you will permit me to observe…I saw your face at that moment. You appeared – disturbed.”

She rubbed her face with her hands. “I was – I don’t know. The Lady knows I’m not known for a merciful disposition – I’ve lost count of the number of times Ammitai wished I wasn’t so hell bent on killing an enemy – but something about that – shocked me. I felt as if we’d done something wrong.”

“Wrong how?” Hadrack asked. “You know what a conscious psion is capable of. And T’lar was attacking you.”

“But then, not now,” she protested. “I don’t like this time manipulation. It seems like cheating.”

“But you did heal Sir Borch in the interval this man Blastir granted you,” Varachan pointed out.

“Yes, I know. I suppose that makes me a hypocrite.”

“Or someone who hopes to live to pursue their moral quandaries at a future date,” the druid suggested pragmatically. “Similar concerns may have motivated Dryden.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Hadrack said, “although I suspect it won’t – I doubt if Dryden accomplished what he thinks he did.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Erenil told me more than once that a psion of T’lar’s strength can be extraordinarily hard to kill.”

“I saw her disintegrate in magma.”

“And? Tenser destroyed his own body beyond all possibility of repair with a retributive strike, and walks among the living again,” Hadrack pointed out. “You saw Blastir die at the Nexus, and yet Vayel spoke with him today. There are individuals who have accumulated sufficient power, of one sort or another, that death is at best an inconvenience, a nuisance. If Erenil were here I think he would say that Dryden has delayed T’lar for a few months, a year, perhaps a decade at the outside, but she will be back.”

“You’re right,” she shivered, “that doesn’t make me feel better.”

Hadrack decided it was time to change the subject. “You said that Blastir didn’t seem genuinely mad – then.”

“Not until he saw himself in Hommlet, telling Dryden in that other time frame, ‘You’ll thank yourself later.’ Although he had been playing at incoherence before, he became genuinely incoherent then, and vanished. If his last ramblings were any indication, he was on his way to Kolyoral, forcing us to relive a battle we’d already won.”

“As this one was?” Hadrack asked.

“Not yet.” Varachan spoke for Brin, who seemed distracted. “Our worst losses lay still ahead of us. It was now that the eagle fell, and Ammitai.”

Hadrack looked over at Unus-Aquila and Dryden with a sorrowful expression and, shaking herself, Brin took up the narrative again. “Dryden was determined to bring down the wizard from Nulb. Astride Unus he bore down on him, but he had forgotten to account for a cluster of wizards and clerics who had taken refuge in the same location. They were waiting, and launched volley after volley not at Dryden, but at the eagle. Sir Borch seemed furious over it.”

“Attacking a mount is a cowardly act,” Hadrack said. “No honorable combatant would think of it, though we know the Tharizdunians care nothing for honor.”

“Unus withstood the onslaught longer than I would have thought possible, but in the end his luck ran out. Dryden had his quarry, but the price was high.”

“You can revive him, can’t you?”

“At midnight, yes. We were more fortunate with Ammitai – though he fell, Corwin was able to reach him before his life force failed utterly. Sir Borch retaliated against his assailant in a methodical act of vengeance. After that it was just a matter of mopping up. Most of the air and earth forces fled when they saw the tide turning. Which was just as well, because by then we realized that disrupting the ritual had not, as we’d expected, halted the spike’s descent – and the door’s along with it – but instead had rapidly accelerated it.”

“It was a carefully timed sequence of events,” Hadrack said. “When all the advance preparation was done and there was no need for further comings and goings from the Spike, a sustained surge of energy would drive it downward toward the center of Oerth, out of reach from interference. Some of that energy would be siphoned off to weaken the elemental barriers, but that was only a temporary thing. Once it was disrupted – ”

“We found ourselves looking at just enough door to squeeze through, and we weren’t even sure it would open for us.”

“Even when I was titular high priest,” Varachan said, “I was never permitted entry unescorted.”

“We had originally thought to blast a hole in it with the sphere – ”

“But left unsealed behind you,” Hadrack continued, “magma would pour in and fill the spike’s interior.”

“And to add to our troubles, full moons started rising all around us, increasing the urgency of leaving the Yard.”

“Seek the heart of each of the four moons,” Hadrack murmured. “Yes, what does happen to were confronted by four full moons at once?”

“Neither Corwin nor Vayel were interested in finding out.”

“But if you couldn’t use the sphere, and Varachan couldn’t pass the door’s interrogation alone, how did you – ?”

“Varachan didn’t have to,” Brin replied. “You did.”

Hadrack looked startled, then laughed. “Corwin. Of course. But even I needed a reason. No one was granted free passage save the Doomdreamers, and they came and went very seldom.”

“A reason, I could concoct,” Varachan said. “Many threads were weaving themselves into a complex tapestry. If only one were to snarl, everything might unravel. I suspected the Spike would err on the side of caution, especially on the counsel of so well-trusted a servant. Corwin carried off the deception with authority, and your passion for secrecy worked in his favor – no one seemed to realize that the ‘real’ Hedrack had been spirited away. And so we gained entry.”

“I saw Ammitai wielding the talisman of good,” Hadrack said. “I’m glad you retrieved it, and the prisoners being tormented to fuel its slow corruption.”

“It was a devilish trap set around it. It took all of Corwin’s skill, plus a boost from the Lady, to puzzle it out. But we did retrieve the talisman.”

“The construction of that room’s devices predated my time there,” Hadrack said.

“And mine,” Varachan said. “The corruption of an artifact of that nature takes a very long time.”

“I presume, given your cautious natures, that you didn’t venture into the chamber beneath the one where the talisman was held.” Brin shook her head. “Just as well – it was, in fact, nothing but an elaborate trap, for the greedy and the unwary. Occasionally someone was sent there as punishment. No one has ever emerged.” Again a look of distant regret. “And then you entered the Dreaming Stone.”

“It wasn’t what I expected,” she admitted. “When we had to take potions to gain entry, as our bodies became permeable and flowed through the matter of the Stone, I thought the experience inside would be more surreal – like Tikka Ti’Jarra.”

“The Doomdreamers have already achieved the mental state required to commune with Tharizdun,” Hadrack said. “The Dreaming Stone is both – and merely – lens and womb. It amplifies their existing tie to the dark god while freeing them from the distractions of the body and the external world.”

“And providing significant defensive capabilities to essentially helpless individuals,” Varachan added.

Brin laughed in wry agreement. “Like Sir Borch grumbled to me, it’s damnably hard to move around in.”

“It’s the easiest thing in the world,” the Heironian contradicted her, “if you surrender.” His face darkened for a moment.

“You understood,” Brin said to Varachan.

“No,” he replied. “I understood nothing of that place. I acted. If I had understood, I might have warned you away from that faint, pulsing thread of life in the center of the room.”

“Still,” she replied, “we knew then what we had to do – not think about moving to a destination, in order to move. Vayel and Sir Borch each made for one of the dreamers’ guardian hags. And found out the Doomdreamers weren’t so entirely helpless as they seemed.”

“They will protect their own,” Hadrack said, “instinctively, reflexively. It does not require them to awaken. But when they do awaken…”

“Our frustration, perhaps, overrode our prudence,” she admitted. “Certainly mine, at the least. The hags seemed as if they could nibble away at our strength all day. The dreamers summoned as much of their wandering attention as required to heal the hags, over and over again. It wasn’t a sophisticated calculus to see how that would turn out. Ammitai and Corwin thought to whittle down the number of dreamers – but after Corwin killed one of them, that awakened them all. And so, as far as I was concerned, the only reasonable course of action was to aid Dryden, who was attacking the purplish, pulsing thread which seemed to bind them all to each other.”

“Aid him how?” Hadrack asked.

“Dinadel and I had conferred about its nature. It was not entirely present, as if a piece of a coextensive plane were touching our own. I cast a spell to force it manifest, but the spell inverted itself somehow.” She held up her mechanical hand. “Into this. So I reached out, and touched the thread. Next thing I knew I was being pulled upward, away from Sir Borch and Cloud, away from everyone. Then Svengali appeared, and Glom. And you.”

“As if you were Torment,” the ranger murmured, “on the plane of Shadow.”

“On Shadow,” Varachan said, “the blade served as a kind of key. But the Doomdreamers had another in mind in case that one failed. One not so easily brought to heel by the will of its anointed wielder. Corwin is the master of Torment, but among you,” he gestured to the Jasian and the ranger, “mastery is anathema. And there,” he added to Hadrack, “is I think the answer to your question of how I regained my authority so quickly. I was meant to serve as an unwitting escort, to lead all of them into the Dreaming Stone. We would wreak havoc on the way, we might disrupt every other plan for Tharizdun’s return that they had set in motion, but they are accustomed to havoc. I suspect they were confident that they could sway at least one of the four of you.”

Hadrack looked surprised. “But I thought – ”

“That you were the only one?” Varachan said. “That is not Tharizdun’s way. Something was offered to each – and it would have taken only one to say yes. Am I wrong?” he asked Brin.

“No.” Her face was grave. “When – he – came, only the tiniest piece of him, farther away than Oerth is from the outermost of the Outer Planes, and taller and more massive than the highest, largest mountain ever seen on Oerth, I felt – I felt that to call him a god was to completely miss the essence of what he is.”

“What did he offer you?” Hadrack asked.

“Knowledge.”

“Of what?”

“Everything.”

There was what struck Hadrack as an unpleasantly non-dismissive tone to the word. “Moments before he takes ‘everything’ away.”

“Perhaps. But even if not, I wouldn’t have wanted it. And I’m almost grateful to him for that.”

“Grateful?” Hadrack was incredulous.

“Truly,” she insisted. “I had never realized before he offered it to me that knowledge is, in a way, the enemy of mystery. That it is, in a way, close kin to ignorance.” She closed her eyes, struggling for words. “I see them…frozen lakes, barren deserts, dead places where nothing moves, nothing grows. The destinations that make you forget the journey. The cessation of striving, in confidence or in defeat. My Lady does not live in darkness on Ocanthus because she values blindness, and yet…” She shook her head and opened her eyes. “I can’t explain it. But I feel it.”

“In any case, it would have been a lie,” he snapped.

“I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “I don’t think he lies. I don’t think he needs to.” She interrupted him as he began to speak. “You did want an end to suffering. He was going to give you exactly what you asked for.”

“And Svengali? What did he want?”

“I don’t know,” she said impatiently. “Svengali and I don’t pretend to understand one another. Most of the time we don’t even pretend to like one another. And if you’re going to ask me what Tharizdun did to tempt Glom – ” her face softened, “I think the answer is there was nothing he could do. There,” she murmured to Hadrack, “is your incorruptible individual. Although I don’t understand how it’s possible.”

“His face is of a man,” Varachan said quietly, “who has discovered his immanence, and so transcended. An ancient oak may be diseased, but it cannot be corrupted. A mountain may be leveled, but it cannot be tempted to reach out arms for soil and stones to rebuild itself.”

Hadrack looked unconvinced. “Even if what you’re saying about Tharizdun were true, how was he going to grant you omniscience?”

“Perhaps by reducing the scope of knowledge to a single point – I don’t know. I’m only saying that our lack of imagination, our inability to grasp the vastness of his mind, doesn’t make him a liar. I’m not saying,” she interrupted him again, “that I want him here. If I did, he would be, wouldn’t he? I had my opportunity.”

Varachan spoke into an uncomfortable silence. “It was good that Vayel freed Svengali, Dryden Hadrack, Ammitai you, from the ties that bound you to Tharizdun. He would have kept asking, found different weaknesses, until one among you succumbed. As it was, you all wanted other things more.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“In your case, didn’t you think to wonder how Hadrack managed to reach the Dreaming Stone?”

“I assumed that Tharizdun – that is – actually, I don’t know,” she replied.

Varachan looked at Hadrack. “Do you?”

“I recall coming to consciousness in the resurrection crèche. I knew, in some sense, where I was, that I couldn’t escape. I remember thinking that dying was the only way out, that then I could be restored within one of the Black Cysts.” He shuddered. “And then everything would be all right.”

“By finishing what you started?” Varachan asked.

“I suppose, yes – no – I – ” he shook his head. “That, but not only that. I thought – ” he looked at Brin. “I heard – I felt – you were afraid. I couldn’t reach the father, and I couldn’t reach the child – I didn’t even know why I thought that, but it was the thought that was in my mind – so I willed myself to die.”

Brin frowned. “That’s impossible. Unless some force unmade the curse, which is certainly not inconceivable, I suppose even likely – ”

She felt Varachan’s gaze on her, and meeting it stabbed like knives. “But,” he said coolly, “completely unnecessary, I think.”

Hadrack saw her discomfort and said stiffly to Varachan, “What is that supposed to mean?”

Varachan continued to stare at Brin. “You tell me. What were your thoughts, bound to that thread of Tharizdun within the Dreaming Stone?”

“I was thinking about…boats.” She looked away, at Hadrack. “Do you remember? Once at the river you made little ships, out of twigs and bark and leaves.”

“I remember,” he said. “You were no more than four or five.”

“You gave them to me, to set in the water. It was fun, watching them float away on the current, so tiny and yet so sturdy.”

“You almost laughed that day.”

“I might have – but – there was a chipmunk on the bank, stuffing nuts in his cheeks. A kestrel soared in and struck. One tiny shriek of terror, and the chipmunk was gone.”

“I was afraid that you’d gone mad. You started screaming, didn’t seem able to stop. You tried to throw yourself into the river, and fought me as I held you back.”

“Do you remember what you said to me?”

“I said I would never let anything hurt you. That you were safe. That you’d always be safe with me. I wasn’t even sure you understood what I was saying, and in later years I thought that was just as well.” Sighing heavily, he said, “It was the rash vow of a foolish man who didn’t consider the utter impossibility of keeping his word.”

“I understood you. And I believed you,” she said earnestly. “I’ve always believed you. I still do.”

“Yet look at what you’ve suffered,” he protested. “And what I’ve made you suffer myself.”

“The child simply took you at your word.” She waved her hand impatiently. “But now – I’m not foolish enough to believe that success is the measure you deserve to be judged by. You’ve always tried, and that’s all that has ever mattered to me.” She turned back to Varachan. “I know what you think, and you’re probably right. I was afraid, and I wanted him, and so I let him come. At the crucial moment, I was weak. I should have let the Inquisitor take on the task in my stead, when he offered. My grim devotion to duty was, in the end, little more than pride. And it nearly unmade everything.”

“It’s good to be aware of what you’ve done,” Varachan replied. “But as for the rest, that doesn’t follow at all. For he,” he gestured to Hadrack, “is here, and the dark god is not.”

She looked thoughtful, but didn’t respond, finally saying to Hadrack, “When you came, you were so afraid. I didn’t understand – ”

“It was the hold Tharizdun had on you,” Varachan said to Hadrack.

“But how? Why?” she asked.

“I can answer that question, now,” the ranger said. “All I have ever asked of power is the strength to protect the things I love. But even in that desire there was a seed of fearfulness, the fear that I would fail those things, that I would lose them. In Moloch’s grasp that seed sprouted into a choking vine that flourished even after I died and returned to life in Tenser’s keep. I feared for Clement as he struggled to hold his kingdom together. I feared for Blasingdell as its citizens sunk into apathy and dullness under the influence of the corrupted tree. I feared for every agent of the Dispatch as I sent them on their missions.” He took her hands in his. “And perhaps most of all I feared for the children who walked into my inn charged with a task so far beyond their abilities that I didn’t see how they could ever succeed. It was that fear that blinded me, that convinced me the only way to make the world safe was to sweep it away. And now that fear is gone.” He looked to Varachan. “Thanks to you.”

“I did only what was done for me. In a simple building with walls of paper and latticework, by a dark-haired woman in a red silk robe. Not as effectively as she did,” he said ruefully. “I nearly lost myself within it.”

“I am in your debt,” the ranger said.

Varachan rose. “We have both suffered. And emerged from that suffering, perhaps, more whole than before. Let that be enough.” He nodded to Brin, then disappeared into the darkness.

“It’s getting late, isn’t it?” she said. “I’ll need to attend to my devotions soon. I don’t want to keep Dryden waiting another day for Unus-Aquila’s return.”

She stood as well, Hadrack rising with her, stopping her as she turned away. “I have a question for you,” he said. She waited expectantly. “When the gateway was broken, as the dark figure slipped away from our multiverse again, I saw you turn quite white. Did he say something to you as he vanished?”

She didn’t reply immediately. “Yes,” she finally said. “He said, ‘He will always come for you. And so will I.’”

Hadrack’s jaw tightened. “I dared to hope that this was over.”

“In the sense you mean, I think it is over,” she said, “although I’ve been wrong before. But I don’t think he’d try to exploit the same perceived weakness twice. Not now that he knows it was no weakness at all.”

“Then what kind of threat did he intend?”

“I don’t know – at the time, I was terrified. But now, looking back on it, I’m not sure it was even a threat at all.”

The ranger gripped her shoulders. “You’re beginning to worry me.”

“If you mean that you think now I’m under his influence, I can assure you that’s not the case. And if you don’t believe me, come to Greyhawk and ask the Inquisitor. I’m sure he’ll have questions for me – I would, in his position. If you don’t see me again, you’ll know that I was wrong.”

“So you think – what? That he was offering to be your friend? I’ll pass on being included in that cozy little circle.”

“Of course I don’t think that,” she snapped, shrugging out of his grasp. “I don’t know what he meant.”

“He has no goal but to bring about the end of all existence.”

“I know that. And we who value the existence that we have don’t want to see that happen. Anything other than a fervent belief in the necessity of our own continuance would make for a very unstable world. But from another perspective – outside of our own – that doesn’t make an occasional reckoning, a sweeping away, inherently evil. Especially if we who wish to live have become so weak or corrupt that we’re unable to prevent it.”

“I had no such thoughts of Tharizdun,” Hadrack said, almost angry.

Brin sighed. “I know. And I can see why you would feel the way you do. I brushed against Tharizdun only for a fleeting moment, not over a span of years. But even so…this is what I was saying, about the dangers of thinking that, in knowing, you understand.”

His anger faltered. “I didn’t – I don’t – understand what you mean. For me, mystery is only darkness.”

Taking his hand, she turned it palm up on her own. “It’s gone, isn’t it?”

He knew without asking what she meant. “Yes.”

“I’m glad. The killing touch never suited you. It’s your nature to be turned, always, toward the sun. You would never have chosen the shadows, they were forced on you.” She touched her fingertips to his. “Wee Jas’ home is the single point of light in the darkness of Ocanthus. I’ll be ever grateful for mine.” She kissed him on the cheek, then took up a place near Unus-Aquila and bowed her head in prayer.