“Would Atorl?”
“Perhaps.” He scowled. “No, I’ll amend that to ‘probably’, but it would take a great change of circumstance. Atorl is not ambitious. He’s too lazy to rule over others. Instead he works for whoever is in charge. And that means if someone stronger came along, he’d work for them instead.”
“Valhan knows this?”
“Of course. Nobody can hide their mind from him.”
“So why does he tolerate Atorl?”
“Allies are useful.” Dahli grimaced. “Actually, some of them are more annoying than useful. Some are too dangerous for Valhan not to have some kind of agreement in place to keep them from uniting against him.”
Rielle shivered. “What about Inekera?”
At the name Dahli’s eyebrows rose. “She is more loyal than most.”
“She tried to kill me because she thought it would please Valhan.”
“You are fortunate to have survived.”
“She left me in a desert world. Unless she meant to strand me between two worlds. She let go of me in the place between. When I managed to hang onto her she seemed frightened and pushed me away, and I drifted into the desert world. Why didn’t she simply kill me with magic?”
“Because you are too strong. She might have failed.”
“But I didn’t know how to use magic.”
“If you had an instinctive grasp of magic you might have fended her off. Even if she had taken all the magic she could, your reach may have been so great that what lay beyond was still more than she could gather. Taking you out of her world meant hers was in no danger of being stripped bare, too. By travelling through several worlds to a weak world, gathering magic along the way and eventually stopping in a weak world when she attacked you, she improved her chances of defeating you.
“I suspect she noticed you struggling to breathe and realised she could just as easily strand you between worlds. However, a stronger sorcerer is always able to take control of a weaker one’s journey between worlds. When you kept hold of her she panicked and pushed you away. That you drifted into a desert world before you suffocated was probably unintentional.”
Rielle stared at him. “Well, then. It’s a good thing she didn’t realise how terrible I am at using magic.”
His smile widened. “It is. But you are not as terrible as you believe. Or rather, there is nothing a good teacher and a lot of training can’t overcome.”
She sighed. “Then I suppose we best be getting back.”
“Yes, I suppose we should.”
CHAPTER 19
They stood in shadow. Before them were stone archways carved into an interlacing pattern. A few steps beyond stretched an equally elaborate railing. As dry air surrounded them Valhan let go of Rielle’s hand and stepped forward. She followed him into sunlight and out onto a balcony.
It belonged to a building of seven storeys stretching out along the entire length of a curving city street. It was another sprawling city she could not see the end of, yet it did not teem with activity and noise. The street below was wide, but no vehicles and only a scattering of people travelled along it. On the other side the elaborate façades of smaller, but still imposing, buildings faced them. From the high vantage point it was easy to see caved-in rooftops and vegetation growing unchecked in cracks and corners.
Valhan said nothing. In every world he had taken her to he’d instructed her to explore the minds of the locals, so she sought them out, beginning with the pedestrians below.
She read hunger. Worry. Determination. Minds were focused on acquiring the most basic necessities: food and clean water, clothing and fuel for cooking. Nothing more ambitious. Why not?
She would gain no fast answer from these people. Seeking minds unseen, she searched behind and below herself, reasoning that such a large building must be important and therefore house people with influence–or at least sufficient wealth that they had time to think about politics and history.
A scattering of servants worked at the front of the building, keeping the few rooms not abandoned in a reasonable state, or as best they could when the furnishings were old and threadbare. In one room a man sat at his desk, focused on calculations. Taxes now but he’d move on to expenditure next. Nearby a woman finished reading an appeal for investment from a merchant in a distant city. She sighed and tossed it in the growing pile of requests she’d have to reject. The Koijen Grand Elite were now so deeply in debt that she doubted they’d ever be financing new ventures again.
The word “Koijen” was familiar to Rielle, but she could not remember why. Think about why you’re in debt, Rielle urged silently, but the woman turned her mind to the next letter. She was about to search for another mind when a name drew her back.
“… and when the Raen came to Koijen at the behest of the Puht I did not own slaves, nor did my father, or father’s father. I have always paid my staff well. I hope that this will persuade you to consider my appeal above others, for surely you will see it is so worthy a task that even the Raen would…”
This was the world from which the people who had invaded Puht had come from.
The woman was not convinced by the letter-writer’s claims. She knew of him, and the pitiful conditions he expected his workers to endure. She tossed the letter onto the rejection pile without finishing it.
The empire deserved to fall, the woman thought. What our parents and grandparents did to other worlds was unforgivable. But many ordinary people had starved since the Raen had intervened and forbidden slavery. The fact that men no better than the leaders–like the author of the letter–clung on to their wealth by exploiting their own people instead disgusted her. So why don’t I do anything about it? She sighed as the familiar answer came. Because I have too little influence. All I can do is reject his appeal, which will harm his workers even more if he lowers their wages or they lose their jobs. Resolving not to linger too long on troubles she couldn’t solve, she picked up the next letter, which was from a farmer who had invented a better way of irrigating crops in the far north. Her mood improved. Here was a worthy recipient of a grant.
Rielle brought her attention back to her immediate surroundings and looked at Valhan. His head was slightly turned away, his narrowed eyes focused on something within the building.
She jumped as a shadow detached from the doorway. It moved forward and become a middle-aged man as it emerged into the sunlight.
“Raen,” he said, dropping to his knees. “Ruler of worlds.”
Valhan turned to face the man. Curious, Rielle delved inside the stranger’s mind. His name was Doeh, and he was the assistant of the man in charge of agricultural laws. He was trembling with excitement and anticipation.
Valhan did not speak and as the silence stretched the assistant gathered the courage to look up. His gaze flickered from Valhan to Rielle and back. “I… I… I have been told you will grant a favour to those who ask. Is… is this true?”
“It is,” Valhan replied.
The assistant swallowed and looked down at the floor. “There is a man.” He paused, then rushed on. “He gains pleasure from blocking every attempt I make to better myself and my family. Would you…?” He glanced back into the shadows of the room behind, then lowered his voice. “I can see no other way. Would you kill him for me?”
Rielle caught her breath. The man Doeh wanted to kill was his employer, Beva. Doeh believed he would be chosen to replace him. There is nobody else, he was thinking. Only I understand his system of record-keeping, and know all the tithe-collectors. It would mean a doubling of his wage. He could afford the fancy house his wife admired so much.
“What do you offer in return?” Valhan asked. Rielle glanced at him. Surely he would not agree to this.
“I have little to offer now,” Doeh replied, spreading his hands. “But if you do this I should soon have a great deal to give. Perhaps I could… owe you?”
Valhan’s chin rose a fraction. “A favour such as this requires one of equal value.”
The
man blinked, then his eyes slowly widened as he realised what that meant. A murder for a murder? Surely not! I may as well murder Beva myself. Though perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard to get away with murdering a stranger than my own superior. There’d be no motive, no connection between us. “Ah…” he began and drew breath to voice his agreement, then stopped as something else occurred to him. Yet when would I have to do this other murder? Now? Later? I don’t think I could sleep knowing what I’d have to do. And if the Raen kills Beva they might still guess someone asked him to, and suspect me…
Rielle resisted the temptation to tap her foot. She wondered if Beva was keeping Doeh’s ambitions in check because he was a little slow. Assuming Beva didn’t already know his assistant wanted to kill him.
“Ah…” Doeh said again. “I… I withdraw my request. Please forgive me for interrupting.” He took a step backwards, then another, then turned and fled.
“We had better warn Beva,” Rielle said.
Valhan shook his head. “It is unlikely Doeh will gather the courage to kill him, and probable that Beva will replace him as soon as a smarter assistant is available.”
She frowned at him. “But should we leave that to chance?”
He smiled faintly. “Warning him may have greater repercussions. Consequences we can’t predict.”
Doeh would be executed, she realised. Perhaps saying nothing to Beva was better. Doeh had a chance to reconsider how far he was prepared to go to fulfil his ambitions.
“What would you have done if he’d agreed?” she asked.
The smile deepened. “That depends on whether I needed someone murdered.”
A shiver ran down her spine as she realised she wasn’t sure if he was serious or joking. Looking away, she grimaced at the view. Don’t ask questions you know you might not like the answer to, she told herself.
“Fortunately, I don’t,” Valhan continued, turning back to face the city. “Murder is an unreliable way of solving problems. As is war. There is something else I want to show you.”
He extended his hand. She looked at it and paused. The hand of a killer. Well, what right do I have to be so judgemental? My own hands have blood on them, too. She grasped it and drew a deep breath.
The balcony and ruined city bleached into white. It was replaced by a wide circle of white paving stones in the centre of a convergence of streets. Hundreds of people made their way along these thoroughfares and around the circular road, avoiding the central pavement despite no physical barrier to keep them out. Lone men hauled strange little vehicles of one seat suspended between two big wheels. Sets of four or more carried platforms bearing one or two people. Some even carried others on their backs. If not, they carried other burdens–from small objects to ones large enough to bend them almost double. A few only carried whips, flicking them at one or two of the overburdened carriers.
Nobody paid her and Valhan any attention.
The air was heavy and moist, and smelled of vegetation though she could see no sign of plants. From the angle of the shadows it was either early morning or nearing dusk. Reaching out into the sea of minds around them, she learned it was the former. She caught glimpses of other parts of the city through the eyes of its citizens: inside homes, the abundant fields beyond the city edge, other crossroads like these from which sorcerers left this world, or arrived within it. The city was huge, though not as big as the ones she had seen in Puht and Koijen.
She slipped from mind to mind, seeking someone whose thoughts might reveal why Valhan had brought her here. In the mind of an ambassador from another world, living in a house a few streets away, she found answers.
The man was preparing for a meeting with the Emperor of Malez, who ruled most of this world. He was not looking forward to it. Every day the Malezans grew more like their former masters, the Koijen–corrupt, cruel and greedy. It’s fortunate, he thought, that I am strong enough that the local sorcerers can’t read my thoughts right now. He shuddered to think what might be done to him and his family if they could. It is not right that anyone should be killed for merely thinking unflattering thoughts about others. But it had happened.
Moving into another room, he worked a lever to draw warm water into a bowl. At least some of what we learned from the Koijen was beneficial. Is it possible for a world to gain good plumbing and not be changed for the worse? Does cleanliness on the outside just chase foulness inside? He grunted in sour amusement at the thought.
Rielle sought other minds, confirming the ambassador’s opinion and learning more. The Malezans, inspired by the Puht, had also sought the Raen’s help. It had taken a war–the one the people of Puht had assisted in–to remove the Koijen from their world. The conquerors had united most of the world under one system of governance, which the Malezans had retained, and with the common enemy removed, old grievances and prejudices had resurfaced, with many local peoples remaining as subjugated and exploited as they had been as slaves.
Someone has to do the dirty jobs, one Malezan princess thought as she watched servant women bent double, carting enormous baskets back from the washhouse. And my people have always been better suited to tasks that require leadership and good taste than menial work.
Turning to Valhan, Rielle searched his face for signs of regret and found none. “Did you know this would happen?”
“I have never met anyone who could predict the future.”
“But surely after a thousand cycles…?”
“I only know the most likely outcome, but that is no guarantee it will be the one. Forcing a people to develop in a certain direction is difficult and time consuming–and impossible to maintain for extended periods.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Is that what happened in your world?”
“The fewer people to control, the easier it is to control them.”
“So…” She looked around at the constantly moving traffic. “You can’t know that what you do–the favours you grant–will not do more good than harm?”
“There is always harm done. Every gain comes at a cost.”
“Will you try to correct things here?”
“No.”
She waited for him to explain why, but he remained silent. “Because… because nobody has asked you to?”
“That, and because this world is of no risk to others yet. Further interference may lead to the kind of shortages in food and other essentials that forced the Koijen to plunder other worlds to begin with.”
Rielle sighed. It was all so complicated. When the whole picture was considered, Valhan did seem to have good intentions. But his limitation is that he is one person, who can’t be everywhere at once. He is, at best, nudging the worlds into a more ordered state. What would happen if he didn’t interfere at all? Would the result be more chaotic and ugly? Or would the worlds sort out their problems more carefully, if people knew they couldn’t call on the Raen to fix them?
The elegant hand extended in her direction again. She took it. Worlds flickered by, eventually in a familiar sequence. The Arrival Hall appeared and his grip loosened, but he did not let go. A vibration ran through the floor. Dahli hurried into the room–clearly he had been waiting close by. She saw his gaze drop to her hand, still in Valhan’s, and his smile faded for the briefest moment, before his attention returned to his leader’s face.
Valhan let go of her hand. “It is time, Dahli, that you taught Rielle pattern shifting.”
Her teacher’s self-possession slipped again, only this time, instead of the hint of suspicion, his jaw dropped.
“But you always…” he began.
Whatever he had meant to say turned into a sigh of resignation. The ruler of worlds had vanished.
PART SIX
TYEN
CHAPTER 16
Leaning on the window sill, Tyen said a mental goodbye to the city. From above, the city of Glaya looked like a vast dried-up pond, the surface broken into odd-shaped plates of mud curling upwards at the edges. The walls beneath these quirky rooftops were rendered, roughly on t
he outside, smoothly on the inside, with the fingerprints of their makers still visible. Generations of hands had shaped them, adding another layer at the end of every wet season when the silt that was swept downriver in spring floods had settled into an elastic clay.
Clay was also the trade of the city, and the greatest source of wealth in the world of Iem. At the edges of this and many other cities workers dug the raw matter from the ground and delivered it to local artisans. These men and women shaped the warm, sticky substance into all manner of objects, from the practical to the artistic, rustic to impossibly fine. Set aside to dry, the creations were refined and carved, dipped and painted, and finally fired by sorcerers whose knowledge of temperature, timing and what to add to a kiln to change the result was as complex and refined as that of the chemists of the Academy.
Each region had at least one style it was famous for, and that was constantly evolving where innovation was encouraged. Tyen had browsed the markets and the workshops of many, marvelling at the diversity and skill. He had watched potters and firers, and seen a Maker at work for the first time. Seeing the magic flowing from the young man, a shout compared to the whisper most artisans made, he understood why a sorcerer would want to keep one around. He wondered how quickly a Maker could restore a world poor in magic, like his home world. He thought of Baluka’s lost fiancée. Was she strengthening the Raen’s world? Did she knew what her former betrothed was doing now, because of her?
Drawing away from the window, Tyen sighed. He had grown fond of this world. At first it had been a place to stay for a few days before a pre-arranged meeting with Baluka. A place to rest, eat good food and catch up on sleep. The people had been so friendly, and the climate in Glaya so agreeable, that he’d stayed several days longer. But if he did not leave now any delay while travelling would prevent him arriving in time to meet the rebel leader. He turned away from the window… and froze as he saw the man sitting on the other side of the room.