Rielle caught her breath. “Does he want to leave?”
“No.”
“What does he want?”
Ankari chuckled. “To be able to laze about all day, like all youngsters. But beyond that …” Her smile faded. “He knows some of what he can’t be and can’t have. He thinks he can’t be a Traveller unless he marries one, when the truth is we can’t allow him to marry into our family because then we cannot return to the Traveller way of life. We have, by necessity, treated him a little differently because of his great magical strength too. Though we have told him our family is hiding, we haven’t told him why, and he can’t help but wonder if he is the cause. We have been stricter at enforcing the rule against reading minds with him as well, but to prevent him rebelling we had to promise him that the truth would be revealed when he came of age.”
“Which must be soon, or he will break the rule?”
“Yes. I’d prefer you to be with him when we do, to explain what we can’t.”
Rielle nodded. “So it is time to tell him what was done to him, and what they tried to make him into.” She had never told the Travellers whose memories were supposed to have replaced Qall’s, but it had become clear as the boy grew older. His body had been changed to the same pattern as Valhan’s, so now that he was an adult he looked exactly like the man. Fortunately, only Lejihk and the healer, Ulma, had seen Valhan in person. Some of the rest of the family had seen him in other people’s memories, and all had seen the occasional statue. Those who saw the resemblance wondered if Qall was a relation of the Raen’s—or of the same race. A few had speculated on why Qall’s memories had been erased, and some had even guessed the reason, but all had complied with Lejihk’s command that Qall’s origins never be speculated on openly. They hadn’t, which was a sign of how deeply they respected him.
Ankari met Rielle’s gaze directly. “We have not yet conferred on it, but I know the minds of the family. When Lejihk and I first took him in, we all agreed that once he was of age our part was over. It is time you took on his care, Rielle.”
Fear rushed through Rielle’s veins. She wanted to object, to say, “But I know nothing of raising children!” but she swallowed the words. He was no child now. He was a young man. She could not expect Lejihk’s family to live outside their traditional ways for his entire life.
Qall won’t be content living with them if he is never truly one of them. It’s amazing he hasn’t succumbed to curiosity and read a few minds, and discovered who he looks similar to.
And now she must tell him. She must explain who he was, warn him of the danger he was in and teach him how to survive in the worlds. The Travellers had taught him almost everything else, so she had only to fill in the gaps in his knowledge and ensure he could use his extraordinary magical strength to defend himself. Put that way, the task didn’t sound as difficult.
“Does he know who I am?” she asked.
“Only that you are a sorcerer who rescued him and brought him to us. He regards you as something akin to a mother.”
Rielle winced. This is going to be very strange. “When do you want me to come and collect him?”
“Straightaway would be best, but I expect you need to make arrangements wherever you have settled.”
“Yes and no. The world I was in is now at war, so I was already seeking a new home.” She considered what this meant. She would have to take Qall somewhere he wouldn’t be recognised as Valhan. That might mean travelling a very long way. Which probably meant she would not see Tarran again for many years.
At least Tyen will be able to ensure the old man stays healthy, she thought. If Tyen is successful at learning pattern shifting, that is—and does return as he promised.
By the time he did, she might be far, far away. Her heart sank as she realised this was the end of their time together. Though … perhaps once she’d found a safe place for Qall she could contact Tyen and arrange a meeting.
No. I still don’t know him well enough yet to trust him with something as important as the location of the boy Valhan created to be his vessel.
Her time with Tyen had been wonderful, but it was over. Her responsibility to Qall was greater. But she wouldn’t leave Tyen wondering what had happened to her, as he had done to her.
“I’d have to send a message to Tarran,” she said.
And what about Timane? Should I take her with me, or find her a home now?
It might be good for Qall to have a second person, nearer to his age, around to keep him company. Would Timane see him and think he was Valhan? The Muraian Emperor had destroyed all portraits and statues of Valhan after his death, deciding it was better to not risk offending the Restorers. That had happened before Timane’s arrival at the palace, so the girl probably didn’t know what Valhan had looked like. I’ll check, but if she hasn’t seen images of the Raen I will bring her with me.
“I have a travelling companion, who is waiting a few worlds away. Will it be a problem for the Travellers if I bring her to your camp?” Rielle asked.
Ankari paused to consider, then shook her head. “It will be no problem. The time for secrecy is over. If anyone follows your trail back to us, they will find us gone. We will be leaving as soon as Qall does, to begin our new trading circuit.”
“You have one planned out?”
“Yes. Lejihk has been working on it for the last cycle. It will be good to get back to a normal life.” The woman sighed again. “We will miss Qall though. He is a good boy. I wish we did not have to send him away—and I know he won’t be happy about it.” She bowed her head, then wiped at an eye. “But it will be better for everyone.”
“Oh, Ankari. I wish I didn’t have to tear him away from you.” Rielle hugged the woman. “Thank you for all that you and the family have done.”
Ankari managed a smile. “I’ll stay here and pack up the tent while you retrieve your friend.”
“I’ll look after him as best as I can,” Rielle promised. She got to her feet. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”
Drawing magic, she pushed out of the world and started the journey back to Timane.
CHAPTER 3
When a familiar style of wagon emerged from the whiteness of the place between worlds, a wave of nostalgia and happiness washed over Rielle. Nearby, two lom, the enormous beasts that drew the wagons, grazed in a field. As she, Ankari and Timane arrived in the world, icy, dry air surrounded them.
The wagon door opened, and a familiar young woman emerged holding three long, fur-lined coats. Though Ulma was not a member of Lejihk’s family, she had visited them once a cycle since they had begun hiding, to help teach Qall. Perhaps Ulma’s assessment of Qall’s progress had led to the Travellers deciding it was time for Rielle to take on the responsibility. That was a comforting thought, as Ulma was unlikely to advise it if Qall was not ready.
“Rielle,” Ulma said, smiling. “It is good to see you again. It must be more than half a cycle.”
“Ulma,” Rielle replied. “How are you?”
“Well and happy,” the healer replied.
“This is Timane, my travelling companion.” Rielle gestured to the girl.
Ulma nodded. “Hello, brave Timane.” She handed them the coats, which they donned with appreciative haste. Timane looked mystified, not familiar with the Traveller word for “brave.”
“How is your daughter, Oliti?” Rielle asked.
Ulma’s gaze softened. “Time claimed her, during the last cycle.”
“Oh! I am sorry to hear that.”
The healer sighed. “It is a strange and unnatural thing, outliving your offspring.” Her mouth twisted into a sad smile. “But the time spent in love and joy outweighs the sadness. That is why I chose to bear her and the pain of her inevitable loss—and will do so with another, when I am ready to.”
Rielle could only nod, all too aware that she faced that choice and its consequences as well. Ulma was the only ageless Traveller Rielle had heard of. All desire to have children had left Rielle since leaving the
Travellers. The two times in her life when she had faced the prospect of motherhood, it had been a consequence of wanting something else: first because it would make Izare happy; then because it had been expected of her if she married Baluka.
Perhaps in the future, when she had no other obligations, and had found a safe place to live—and a husband—she would be ready to raise a family, if she was not put off by the thought that they might age and die while she stayed unchanged. None of Ulma’s children had been powerful enough sorcerers to become ageless. Strong parents didn’t guarantee strong offspring.
“Come inside and warm yourselves,” Ulma invited. “I’ll make you a cup of oali to drink while I harness the lom.”
Once they all had a steaming mug of the spicy drink to sip, the woman disappeared outside. Rielle turned to Timane.
“Ulma is ageless,” she explained in Muraian.
Timane nodded. “Ah. What did she call me?”
“Brave.”
“Me? Why?”
“You left your world and everything you know,” Rielle pointed out. “Most people are too afraid to do that.”
“I’m not completely without fear,” Timane admitted. “But I don’t want to go back. Even if Murai wasn’t at war. It’s not a nice place.”
“There are worse places. Far worse.”
The girl’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to scare me into going back?”
“No, but a little fear isn’t a bad thing. It keeps you alert and wary.”
Timane glanced around the wagon. “Can you tell me why we’re here yet?”
Rielle and Ankari exchanged a look. The older woman nodded. “There is nothing to be gained from silence now.”
“Several cycles ago I rescued a child,” Rielle told the girl. “I asked the Travellers to raise him. Now that he is grown, it is my turn to look after him.”
Timane’s eyebrows rose. “You’re accumulating travel companions.”
“You could say that.” Rielle chuckled.
The door opened and Ulma smiled in at them. “Ready to go. Rielle, would you join me?”
Setting aside her empty mug, Rielle rose and climbed out onto the driver’s seat. Once she and Ulma had settled, the Traveller spoke a command and the lom began to walk, jerking the wagon into motion. They travelled in silence for a while, following a road that wound through gentle hills covered in a variety of plants, including one that had vertical branches shaped like corkscrews.
“While Qall lives,” Ulma said, “there will always be a danger Valhan’s memories will be imprinted on his mind.”
Rielle glanced back at the door.
“Don’t worry. They won’t hear us.”
Relaxing a little, Rielle looked at the healer. It was the first time Ulma had confirmed that she knew who Qall was meant to become. “So you don’t think that he is too old now?”
“Age can be altered.”
“Ah. Of course.” Rielle grimaced and looked at the road again. “Then I should have killed him.”
“Yes. As we should have. But what stays our hand is what makes us better than those who would have used him.”
“Is a kindness to one person worth endangering all the worlds?”
“Yes.”
Ulma’s confidence was reassuring, yet Rielle’s doubts lingered.
“Isn’t that selfish? Aren’t we endangering many people for the sake of our own sense of morality?”
“Everything we do is selfish.” Ulma shrugged. “When we act to save others, we do it so we feel good about ourselves. When we make a moral decision it is because we have convinced ourselves or allowed ourselves to be convinced that our morality is better than others’.” She glanced at Rielle. “But our selfishness is a kind of self-preservation. Killing changes a person. If you or I had killed him, what would stop the person we became then using the same reasoning to justify other deaths? You could say ‘only this once,’ but when you live indefinitely, how long before you are faced with the same dilemma? Having reasoned that way once, it is easy to do it again. By not killing we preserve who we are now.”
Rielle nodded. “I often wondered if Valhan became who he was through such justifications.”
“You know that we Travellers do our best to avoid involvement in the strife of the worlds we trade in. Valhan said it was a form of selfishness; I say it is preservation. Our own survival means more to us than helping others. I told him he would do the same when his own survival was threatened. He was only able to help others because he was so powerful. That was before he had made too many deals with too many allies.” She gave a low laugh. “I was proven right, I think.”
Rielle turned to stare at Ulma. “You met Valhan?”
Ulma smiled. “Oh, yes. A very long time ago. We were … not exactly friends. He said I was the oldest ageless he’d met. He asked lots of questions.”
“How old …?” Rielle stopped, unsure if it was polite to ask, or even her business to know exactly how old Ulma was.
The woman shrugged. “Older than Valhan was. To be honest, I don’t know precisely.”
“Are you the reason he allowed the Travellers to trade between worlds?”
“Yes.” Ulma glanced back at the wagon. “Though only you and I know that now, and it is best kept that way. These days, people judge you badly if you’ve negotiated a deal with the Raen. It wasn’t always that way.”
“Can I … can I ask what he got in return?”
Ulma chuckled. “Information. Knowledge. Some long and stimulating arguments. Sometimes I made him very angry, but he always came back.” Her smiled faded. “Though obviously not the last time.”
“Did you part on bad terms?”
Ulma shook her head. “No, we had nothing left to offer each other. There’s only so many times you can talk to someone without repeating yourself endlessly, even when you’ve lived for thousands of cycles.”
Rielle thought of Tyen. She had wondered how long two ageless people could remain together without becoming bored with each other. Were ageless lovers doomed to eventually part? Perhaps it was better not to begin in the first place.
A gloom settled over her. The road cut between two hills ahead. Beyond, she could see wagons and people moving about among them.
“Almost there,” Ulma murmured.
Rielle found herself examining each of the distant figures, trying to make out familiar Travellers, and looking in vain for a dark-haired young man with pale skin. Her stomach fluttered, then sank, then fluttered again.
“How much like Valhan does he look?”
“Physically, exactly the same.”
“It must be strange for you.”
Ulma chuckled. “Hmm, yes it has been. You will get used to it, as I did.”
“I hope so, but not so much that I forget what others will see.” Rielle frowned. “I wondered if I should have tried to alter his pattern again to change his appearance, but I didn’t think of it until after I left him with you.”
“He was already confused and distressed,” Ulma said. “It took a long time to settle him. Once we had … well, it could have wiped his memory all over again.”
Which means I can’t do it now without risking that either, Rielle realised. The best I can do is to teach him pattern shifting so he can create and maintain a new appearance himself.
“Is there anything you need to know before we arrive?” Ulma asked.
Rielle considered. “He has learned only three of the five applications of magic: stilling, moving and mind reading. Not world travelling. Not pattern shifting.”
“That is correct.”
“Have you taught him any fighting methods?”
“Enough to defend himself and others. We don’t need knowledge of waging war, so it’s not something we preserve or teach.”
“If he was a Traveller, would you consider his training complete?”
“As much as any Traveller boy of his age—barring how to travel between worlds.”
Rielle considered what else she cou
ld ask. “Where do you suggest I take him?”
“As far from the worlds the Raen ruled as possible, which may be a very long way. It may take you into the edges of the habitable worlds.” A note of warning entered Ulma’s voice. “You’ll need to do more than gather enough magic to leave a world again. Don’t trust the environment even if it looks safe. When a world is unpopulated, there’s always a reason.”
As Ulma’s wagon emerged from between the two hills, Rielle saw that the family’s wagons were arranged in a large circle beside the road. Plants had grown up around the wheels. Several of the Travellers were striding forward to greet their visitors. The foremost was Lejihk, smiling briefly as his gaze met Rielle’s before returning to his customary seriousness.
“Well, we’re here now and everyone can hear us,” Ulma said, giving Rielle a warning look.
“Thank you for coming to meet us.”
Young children ran past the adults to circle Ulma’s wagon, while the older youngsters remained beside the wagons, their ages defined as much by whether they feigned indifference or were openly curious. Rielle looked at each older boy carefully, but none resembled Valhan at all.
Lejihk had reached the wagon now. He had put on a little weight, she noted. So had many in the family. No doubt it was the result of five cycles staying in one place rather than ceaseless travelling and trading. He nodded to Ulma, then offered a hand to assist Rielle in climbing to the ground.
“Welcome back, Rielle,” he said. “Are you well?”
“I am,” she replied. “Are you and your family?”
“Fit and healthy.” He looked over her shoulder. “You have brought a friend.”
“Yes.” Rielle turned to see that Timane was emerging from the wagon, and introduced her. “She was my servant in the world I just left. A war has begun there. A war I tried but failed to prevent.”
Lejihk grimaced in sympathy and turned to help Timane reach the ground. “It is to your credit that you tried.”