Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Eye of the Beholder

“We’re on our way.”

AVERY

Westwood Forest
Citrine (November) 5, 2012

The golem raised its weapon high, and Jace saw the grim carving of a vulture—

The lips in the empty, alien face formed one last word:

Incomplete.

“Jace, look out!”

The golem’s legs bent backwards under it, the nameless thing ready to launch itself at Jace.

But he was too fast.

Before it caught its balance, a half dozen crossbow bolts pierced its bright skin.

Legs bent, body pushed out behind it, it scuttled backwards.

Another dozen shots pierced every joint and rivet across its knees. Its legs and shapeless pelvis split away, fell. Before Jace could reload again, it had pulled itself backward with only its arms, stabbing its awful weapon into the earth to aid its escape.

Even for Jace, it was too small a target. The golem left its terrible trail and was gone. At his back, the others of its kind stood still.

When Jace at last regained his feet, he saw himself looking back—Dorsey Trent. The phantom was as real, as solid as he; smirched by a halo of greenish ghost-light.

“Well,” said Dorsey, “I guess we’re taking this whole dichotomy to the next level.”

“So much for the whole will they, won’t they thing,” Jace acknowledged wearily.

The Outrider pulled himself back into the saddle and was not surprised to feel Dorsey behind him, crossing the intervening distance in a blink he never perceived. The man was a spark Jace couldn’t blink away in his peripheral vision. He should have been younger, but no—they were alike.

Down to the moment.

“Timing is everything,” Dorsey said, clapping him companionably on the shoulder. Jace made to jerk away, but his shoulder felt no pain – just a warm, vaguely pleasant buzzing; which had just started to prickle with gathering heat when the assassin pulled his hand back.

“The feverlew,” Jace said to himself. “It must still be in my body. That explains it.” But, in the back of his mind, he could see the vague outlines of days he’d never lived— He turned to fix a manic grin on Dorsey: “Soon, I’ll bleed it all out and you’ll go away.”

“You never took it now, and besides ...,” Dorsey said sharply. “Hallucinating or not, you can’t stop here. Go!”

Without a second thought, Jace spurred Highfly on.

Mirror Lake
Tri-State Commonwealth
Citrine (November) 5, 2002

Tick. Hunger stabbed at Relic’s stomach.

Tock. He realized he could not remember eating.

Tick. Every drop of rain leeched strength from his bones.

Tock. He had not slept in ages.

Tick. He was going to die in the forest.

Tock.

“Like so many others.” he told himself, and nodded at his own conclusion. The trees grew taller with every step. There was no light: Only the rain that would flood his lungs when he collapsed. The roots were as tall as his head.

Tick. Tock. Tick.

The only thing left was the pocket-watch, warmer than his own heart—

“I can always go back,” he told himself; but when he finally looked down at the watch for the first time in days, he saw something that froze his blood. It wasn’t ticking at all, and – a wild hoot of laughter lodged in his throat – there was no way of knowing when it’d stopped.

Relic felt something he had not let himself feel for many years: Anger. He closed the useless thing in his fist and smashed it against the rock-hard roots. It burst: Its last testament, a metal-on-metal screech that echoed like a child’s distant voice.

His fury blazed, smoldered, and went ou—

Relic knew the instant his heart stopped beating.

He’d always expected to die quickly, in some conflict.

But this – this was something different.

Letting out a breath that never was.

Now, for the first time, it didn’t matter what he did.

Where he went.

He drifted, weightless, through the trees.

At the top of the slope on the far side of the valley:

A decrepit gazebo.

Relic was not surprised to find a man there, though he thought, perhaps, he should have been. He was seated with his legs curled beneath him, hands on his knees in the asana of the king. What was most astonishing, however, was his magnificent robe—

Relic’s mind passed from context to action faster than he ever imagined possible—

It was the reddest red he’d ever seen; the sleeves and hem decorated with ancient letters— Each as bright as fire.

He was sitting alone, writing in a book – no trace of his face broke the shadows of his hood. Yet, Relic could remember this figure, etched in a sheet of bronze as clearly as if he’d seen it yesterday: The first Luna Scarlet monk.

If you’ve finished your tea, wash your hands, Relic thought—

Sure enough, a little water basin sat nearby, with an ocarina resting next to that. But when Relic tried to dab his fingers in the basin, the surface did not stir. He had no more substance than a puff of air; he made not a ripple in the steaming water.

He looked down upon it—

He could not find his own reflection.

He did not even cast a shadow.

Relic turned his thoughts to the old man: Help me.

“I am helping you,” said the old man, with laughter like tiny bells. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who does! You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?”

Yet, he didn’t shift his eyes from the page he was writing in a weathered, leatherbound book.

A while on, he cupped his free hand to his ear.

“Well ... haven’t you?”

But Relic could not answer, only watch in tense, expectant silence. It took a long time before the sage finished, ending a long digression with the short stab of a period. With every ounce of concentration he could muster, the lost Outrider projected a single thought: Who?

And that made the elder sigh—the mingled disappointment and satisfaction of being right.

“I am someone you should know quite well—we’ve met here many times.” He looked up at the space where Relic should have been, a thoughtful hmmm under his breath. “If you insist, I’ll help a bit more – but you might not like what it will require me to—hmmm—do.”

They both expected Relic to wink out of existence – but no; there he remained.

“Well, I suppose it’s too late to run now,” the man said wryly. “You’ve awakened the gazebo.” With a nod, the old man braced his palm together and spoke two dreadful words.

Jace Dabriel!

In an instant, the fear of flesh rushed back into Relican Avery.

He felt it, instant by instant, molecule by molecule.

His bones stood up where he had left them. Ligaments and muscles leapt over to clothe them. A haze of light reconnected his flesh and even his clothes – but with his first breath came the nameless terror only his blood drowned out.

The old man had averted his eyes respectfully.

But now, his tone was heavy with regret.

“Thus is the pain of division ...” He waved; a wordless, compassionate gesture Relic understood perfectly.

With his second breath, that insight vanished like a dream.

“You’re my enemy,” Relic spat.

He made to rush forward, but stumbled, still weak.

“Oh, yes indeed, Captain Avery. Yes, indeed, I agree – your greatest enemy by far!” Relic hadn’t expected this answer; he stood poised on the brink of decision. “Would you like to see the face of that enemy, captain? I expect you would.”

Relic flapped his hand irritably to give his leave, feeling the solidness of it—

The smiling monk drew back his hood to reveal his face:

That of Relican Avery.

Westwood Forest
Citrine (November) 5, 2012

Giddy elation tap-danced across Jace’s burning-numb veins when saw the sentry house waiting. Just as Dorsey predicted, the walls would offer some respite – they were higher than the golems’ heads, higher even than the span of their arms. And still untouched, though they reeked of death.

The Outrider had been forced to stand on the side of the road while he did his best to cut a makeshift bandage from his cloak and tie it around the wound in his side. The blow was horrific, jagged—it needed help. In a matter of hours, fever would spread from it. Yet, he had been smiling.

“Maybe we can use that stupid hat of yours as a bandage,” Dorsey had said, gazing at the rotting shadow blossoms on the roadside while Jace worked. The rest of the journey was spent in silence—but when they reached the gate, Jace realized Dorsey was mumbling to himself.

He looked up.

His skin was clammy, his eyes bright.

“Sorry,” Dorsey said with a thin smile. “I was just ... thinking.”

“Well, think faster,” Jace said—and put a hand on his shoulder, just as before.

As they make contact, a searing pain shoots through Jace’s temples. When he closes his eyes, the darkness explodes like a violet sunburst. For just the space of a thought, he can see a trophy rack hung with a hundred razor-sharp blades, one decorated with a twisting onyx snake.

Jace fears the worst, but when he forces his eyes open—

—Dorsey was not even looking his way.

Indeed, he’d left the Outrider behind.

Jace watched as he slowly, but purposefully, pried open the gate, then turned to wave to him.

“It’s all clear,” he said, and Jace was forced to step lively to catch up.

A touch closer and Jace saw the inner doors had been ripped away, leaving gouges and cuts where they once stood. Only the outermost door could still be secured; the bolts for the rest were gone.

“We’ve got to move quick, Jace. Look for supplies—find some real bandages,” Dorsey went on.

Jace paused, letting his head rock down briefly.

“We don’t have to do a thing, considering I’m the only one here.”

Dorsey turned to look over his shoulder, murmured:

“Are you, now?”

As Highfly looked on, Jace closed up the main gate; sealed it. He sprinted quick as he could up and down the halls, finding chairs and stacking them up. It was a futile gesture, he knew, but a moment later, his tension melted away into focus.

“It’s not so bad,” he said to himself—

—but he hadn’t noticed Dorsey was back.

Where did he go?

Can he go anywhere at all?

The assassin asked: “How do you figure??”

Jace shrugged, a gesture both understood.

The worst that could happen already has.

He moved deeper into the sentry house.

Mirror Lake
Tri-State Commonwealth
Citrine (November) 5, 2002

“Can’t you tell? I’m you, but stronger.”

Indeed, Relic couldn’t deny the resemblance—the face, though weathered with three decades’ passing, was his own; the hair, his, turned white as moonlight. The eyes were unmistakably his eyes, sharp yet earnest. Just above and between those eyes sat a great, pale pearl, stretched slightly as if pressed upon by the hand of God.

It was secured in no way Relic could see.

“I guess Mac was right,” Relic groused. “Thirty isn’t so bad.”

“You don’t like to look in mirrors,” said the not-Relic. “The monks always said you shouldn’t. Yet, you recognize yourself just as well. You want to raise your hand to my face, but you’re afraid – something is holding you back.”

The young Outrider drops into in his seat—

“If you are ... me, then why am I here?”

“Well, that’s simple – you’ve run out of time, Relican.”

“I’m dead?”

“No. That would be a lot simpler.”

He paused with a smile, but his heart wasn’t in it.

“Now, imagine the possibility that time is like a fluid—it fills spaces exactly, and it can flow from one location to another. When it isn’t perceived, it’s inert. It can be taken from one person and given to another, or even from one place and given to another.”

Relic listened with his chin on his fist, all the while struggling to recall where he’d been before—

“You have reached the other side of time – a place where all the moments that ever will be have already been spent. This is the only place for you to go without having your life extinguished. In total, I’d say you’ve spent about thirty-five years here, always at the end of this night.”

“Jace,” Relic said suddenly. “There’s something I have to do for Jace!”

“Jace Dabriel ... you mean ... the prince?”

“Prince?” Relic felt his heart leap in his throat; his blood ran cold. Something awful was lurking in the haze at the edge of his vision; something in the trees. It was like a green—

“Jace Dabriel does not – and has never existed. He is a fiction, Relican; a made-up character.”

“You’re lying!”

“I think you know that’s not true. Only a made-up character could be quite so ... charismatic.” The not-Relic raised his hand; now, for the first time, Relic could see the black bracelet he wore; the chain, the same color as midnight, that bound him bodily to the book he had been writing in. “I’ve watched your suffering for so long ... you could use some help to change things, hmmm?”

But Relic was not listening; his eyes were fixed on the cover of that book, blocking everything else out. Slowly, his memories began to sharpen again. The woman he’d seen; the mirror; the howling wind. That book—

“I don’t know if I can believe you, but – that woman ...”

“Jaden,” the old man supplied.

“She was – her book – it was my life story, wasn’t it? That’s why she never stopped writing.”

She was taking notes!

“You’re growing wiser, Relican. More perceptive. You may finally be ready to claim your place in this world. But you must be prepared to see beyond that man’s treachery, even if it hurts. He is Dorsey Trent, the boy-prince of Sindell. And you are the only one who can stop him.”

Relic was breathing heavy, each one hard-won—

“Jaden wrote your story as it has been; I, my friend, am writing it as it could be.”

Relic saw his reflection in the great pearl and heard the next words clear as day—

But only you can decide how it ends.

Westwood Forest
Citrine (November) 5, 2012

Jace and Dorsey crept into the antechamber back-to-back, sweeping the circular room in wide arcs. For a moment, it was so quiet Jace that couldn’t hear their breathing, nor even his own heartbeat.

The horse just outside was still as a statue.

When this is all over, Jace thought, he’s earned his retirement. A nice field somewhere. Something clattered in the distance, and Jace leveled his weapon instantly. With full military honors, he added as the echoes died away.

Jace knew he’d said nothing out loud – but Dorsey glanced his way and grinned.

All around them were tables piled high with scattered paperwork and half-eaten meals. Spigots, still polished to a high sheen, stood out on the walls. Some were still running, red well-water gushing and foaming down the drains. Jace remembered the sights and the smells of this place, their impressions on his mind like woodcuts on wet clay.

But when he reached back for anything useful ...

A dark, hungry void was slurping at his feet.

“I thought this was an orderly withdrawal,” he said.

“That’s what Calloway told you, isn’t it? I don’t think he was being straight with you.”

Jace let Highfly’s reins go slack, giving the horse’s mane a calming pat.

I’m alone here, Jace was thinking, and the idea sat heavy on his limbs. What do I need to do?

He went slowly from one side of the room to the other; then did it again. In the corner of his eye – so long as he never looked straight-on – he could see Dorsey watching him. It wouldn’t take long for the specter to work out what he was thinking—

No one is here to do it for me.

No one can pick up the slack or do what I can’t.

Jace frowned thoughtfully, bringing his fist up to his chin as he eyed one stained sink.

“What are you waiting for?” Dorsey asked.

“Just looking for water,” said Jace—gingerly tapping the faucet as if to test it.

“I thought Outriders only shower when the mission is over,” said Dorsey.

When the mission is over—

“Yeah, yeah,” said Jace, but his eyes never stopped searching.

Along the far wall, there was a sleek stone ledge.

And upon that—

A massive book with heavy metallic covers, chained down.

It was worn and battered, yet they could glimpse flecks of gilt all along the pages. Jace raised his eyebrows; ran his fingers over the edges, too ancient to cut flesh.

He stared for a moment.

He rested his palms on the cover, eyes closed, then pulled it open.

The logbook, he knew, leafing through it with all the frantic energy of a starving man at the foot of a desert oasis. But the book wouldn’t surrender any secrets: Most of the entries didn’t even make sense to him. Only at the very end did he find something terribly familiar.

Thean’s own handwriting – arranged in a code he’d taught Jace, but never used. Jace mouthed the words silently as he read them: In accordance with orders of Sapphire 12 by Const. Thean, sentry house is to be supplied for a siege of six months.

Jace peered over at his mirror image in the gloom.

“Could Thean have thought we were gonna be attacked ... six months ago?”

“That old drunk?” Dorsey answered. “It doesn’t seem too likely.”

Pages crackled under Jace’s hand – for a moment, he seemed no slower despite his wounds. And then he found it, reading the entry out loud:

“Retrofit of tunnels through Fairlawn Rail System on schedule: Three tons steel, one-eighth ton old world silver en route for collapse-resistant reinforcement.”

Jace cast his gaze to the floor.

It was the one place he knew he’d never looked.

“Down below – where the enemy wouldn’t find it even if they occupied the sentry house.” Dorsey began to pace, as if testing the distance between them and the tunnels. “At least until they broke the code. Maybe a few months – maybe a week. After all, they’ve already been in here.”

“That’s ...” Jace started, excitement climbing into his voice. “That’s our—my ticket out of here.” He went on: “Those things can surround me in here, but even if they break through, they’ll never find me in time. I’ll use the tunnels, find one that comes out near their camp. And then—”

“Don’t do it, Jace. You’re bound to regret it.”

Jace closed the book with a great clap, leaning with his palms on it as he peered at Dorsey.

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t risk another injury like the ones you’ve got ... and it’s clearly a trap. Either this is a setup or Thean – Thean! – knew war was coming. Knew it before anyone else, and didn’t tell anyone.” Jace straightened, gently knocking his hand into his closed fist to brace himself. “That’s a bridge too far, even for him,” Dorsey pressed. “He’d have nothing to gain.”

It all made sense to Jace. And yet—out of the corner of his eye, he couldn’t accept it.

“Something must be about to change,” he said slowly, “if you’re trying to stop me.”

But Dorsey wasn’t deterred—he pushed into Jace’s face, and the halo around him faded.

“Yeah, and here’s what it is: You’re about to die, idiot. Someone left you false information ... someone like Calloway, who was compromised before the attack even started.” Dorsey flicked his hand out toward the logbook. “Doesn’t it say the sentries were sick? Exhausted? Reporting nightmares and hallucinations—so witless they couldn’t even lie about it?”

Suddenly, what had bothered Jace all along burst into full view of his consciousness.

“You—” Jace stuck out an accusing finger.

“Me,” Dorsey challenged.

Jace’s epiphany surged out in a single breath:

“You don’t know anything I don’t know. You can’t tell me anything new. You knew what Calloway said, but you don’t know what really happened to him. You knew this logbook was here, but nothing about this message – because I’ve never seen it before right now.” He sucked in a breath at last. “You don’t exist.” Dorsey lapsed into a sullen silence, which only emboldened Jace to go on. “Even the golems – bookshelf could have told me th—”

“What?” Dorsey said, raising his eyebrows in faux surprise. “Forget something?”

Wasting no time, Jace seized Dorsey by the shoulders.

“Where is he?”

Palms together, Dorsey raised his hands and broke Jace’s grip in a flash.

“Everything stays just where you left it,” he said.

In a blind, panicked rage, Jace swung his fist—

And Dorsey caught it.

“I do know a lot of what you know ...” He released Jace’s fist. “But I’m as real as you are, Jace. And at least until this is all over, you can’t get rid of me. So try to pick your allies wisely, man.”

“I’ll remember that,” Jace said as he turned his back and continued to walk— One hand rubbing his sore fist all the while.

“In the future,” said not-Relic, “I will be called Raven. You may call me that, if it’s easier.”

Relic nodded, accepting this.

“Better than Pelican, I suppose ...” he said slowly.

The tight-lipped smile that met this showed Raven was in no mood for jokes.

“Relic, listen to me. Prince Dorsey will betray you and Veil’driel. But you might yet stop him.”

Relic stood, made to pace, but stopped himself. He considered the words, then said:

“With the book. Somehow, with that book—” He thrust a finger out to indicate it. “I’ll be able to prevent the mistakes I’ve made. Do things differently. Change what happens. Is that right?” Raven nodded solemnly, and Relic crashed back into his seat, his strength expended. “There’s been so many,” he said miserably.

“You have done this so many times,” Raven said, a tone of sadness – reconciliation – hope? “Each time he’s dragged you through this night, your mind and spirit have grown stronger. While his, at least it seems, have weakened considerably.”

“Why? Why would he go through this same night again and again?”

“He’ll make a mistake,” Raven said stiffly. “It’ll bring an end to his ambitions – but to you, too.”

“What do I need to do?”

“I cannot simply give you the book – it is bound to me by magic. If we lose it ... we’ll have to start all over again.” He smiled ruefully. “But, if you are ready, there is a way to undo the bindings. Then you will go back to the beginning – with the book in hand.”

“And if I fail? Will I die?”

“No ...”

Raven raised his face to the leaden sheet of clouds that had begun to roll in from beyond the forest. Relic mimicked the gesture, perhaps unconsciously. It was going to rain—perhaps in an hour, perhaps just a few minutes hence.

One more day before the storm, Relic found himself thinking. But his attention was caught again when his older self—Raven—leaned across the table that separated them, holding the young man’s gaze in his mirror-image one.

“You will suffer, but only I will die. Still, that is a risk I’m willing to take.”

“Why?”

“To give you something that no one else has ever given you ... a choice.”

Relic sat back; he could not help the smile spreading across his face, nor the warm feeling in his stomach. Even as he prepared to face what might come, the fear he had known for all too long faded away before a bright, burning resolve.

“What do I need to do?” he asked again.

Raven raised his free hand to the table, pronouncing a single word with uncanny resonance: Poterzebie!

Instantly, clay figures sprang up as if created on the spot. A pristine new surface of checkered slate washed over the old wood. When the transformation was complete, Raven sought Relic’s eyes again.

“You must play the game,” he said – and his smile encompassed the world.

“I’m ready,” said Relic.

Once Relic had time to survey his handiwork, Raven asked:

“Do you know it?”

The game board was set.

In its dark squares, Relic could see nothing.

In the light ones, he glimpsed his own face – pale and wan and stretched.

In the center of the board, four stones of obsidian were lovingly carved into royal figures:

Three men and one woman.

Around them stood eight foot soldiers, identical in all respects—

And in the corners of the board, four massive titans loomed, each the size of many men.

“This is regicide,” said Relic, examining the board critically. “It’s very ancient, isn’t it?”

“Yes ... you will play the court, seeking to escape to safety. I will play the titans ...”

The old man closed his eyes and bowed his head over the board. As he did, beautiful paint and cloth clung to the royal party, though their footmen were still formless and naked. The precision and detail were like nothing Relic had ever seen in life. “But this game is played by the house rules, friend—here, we call it kairos. Because ...” He reached into his robe and withdrew a pocket-watch exactly like Relic’s own.

“It’s about seizing the right moment,” said Relic. “To put it in the language of the commons, timing is everything.”

Tick. Tock.

“A General Creed born in a ditch,” said Raven. “A Relican Avery born blind and deaf – a Jace Dabriel born a woman. Would history not have passed them by? Would others not have held them back? There are no great men, Relican. Only right moments.”

Raven gave the board a sedate and gracious wave, and Relican looked down—

But he could not shake the thought: Blind and deaf.

Here in this place, it felt like that Relican was close at hand. So close he could feel the other’s breath; he could wonder if, bereft of everything he had known, if that Relican was afraid.

Or even truly the same per—

Tick. Tock.

Relic’s fingertips hovered over the king – the only piece that needed to survive to win. As the shadow of his hand fell over it, the thing gazed up at him and he saw the truth. The king was Jace Dabriel: Its cocksure expression one he’d seen a thousand times. Raven watched the goings-on in intense silence – his gaze even, level, measuring. Relic rested his forefinger upon the hat Jace wore in place of a crown.

Instantly, his mind was overwhelmed – one drop in a boundless, churning ocean.

Dragging him down—

Westwood Forest
Citrine (November) 5, 2012

The tunnels were dark, fathomless, featureless.

But Jace had found a torch—

And he only needed to go in a straight line, chasing the echoes to the enemy camp. But instead, he stopped and waited a long time, eyes trained on the guttering flame.

“What are you waiting for?” Dorsey asked. “You know what you want to do. Do it.”

“You know? I was just thinking.”

“A dangerous habit,” Dorsey said, though paced closer to Jace.

“I was thinking,” Jace went on. “What would Relic say about this?” Slowly, empathically, Jace stuck his forefinger on the right side of his chin, onto a small scar Dorsey didn’t have. “He wouldn’t say why is he here? That’s too easy for the Librarian. He’d say ... he’d say ...”

With that, Jace let himself go quiet for a few long moments.

“What?” Dorsey asked irritably.

Now a smirk lit up Jace’s face—but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“He’d say: Does it think?”

Dorsey blew a breath in his palm, and Jace noticed the many rings on his fingers for the first time. He couldn’t recognize any of them, but he felt sure that if he got a little closer, he would, even if he had never seen their like before.

The idea terrified him.

“If you know me so well, you know you won’t be able to stop me,” he said to Dorsey. His form, wreathed in otherworldly light, took up the whole world at Jace’s back. “And you know why I have to do it. So – don’t try to get in my way.”

Jace closed his eyes, layering darkness upon darkness, and listened to his breath.

Not this time, said the voice of Dorsey Trent. But sooner or later—

Jace walked forward into the abyss; he sensed, rather than saw, Dorsey fall behind. He’d taken a hundred paces before he rotated, ever so carefully, to peer backward. But there was no sign of anything there. Jace smiled in the dark—it was small, but genuine.

“I guess there’s some things more important than having the last word,” he whispered voicelessly, pushing air past his lips just enough to feel its reassuring touch.

Soon after, the dirt under his feet gave way to the warbling cry of aging metal.

When he emerged from the tunnel, Jace found he could see explosions of color through the trees. As he expected, he was closing in on the wood’s edge; he had bypassed, in a matter of mere minutes, whatever horrors lie in wait to ambush him on his way to the invaders’ base.

Blue, orange, red, and green drenched the world—

Jace dropped in rhythm with the light, using it to search for hidden foes in his path. He could smell the faint scent of sulfur hanging on the air. He knew he was closer to the enemy stronghold than anyone had ever been; the thought spurred him forward.

He was about to find out just how close he was.

Jace had only taken a few steps when a blinding violet flare pounded against his eyelids—

—snapped closed in an instant.

Before it had even burned away, Jace was on his feet—taking a running leap up the hill before him. He never slowed, clearing the obstruction and breaking easily through the thinning trees.

There he saw, for the first time, the phantom enemy laid bare. They were spread over the plain in formations that appeared to be “séance circles,” each group identical.

There were dozens of troops, perhaps over a hundred, and their assembly stretched on for miles.

But even more importantly:

They had no idea they were being watched ...

Jace’s logbook had gone untouched so far – but now, he had no one else to rely on. His quill flew across the page: Here a cluster of notes, there a sketch depicting the identical formations: Ten in all; ten circles, ten gangs of parlor magicians; ten attacks every hour?

It had to be so—

Jace slid back as he saw one of the hooded figures below startle and look in his direction. He had no time to think about it; simply bent his knees and skidded down the slope into the thick bushes at the foot of the hill, concealing himself.

He held his breath, waiting for approaching footsteps, but none came.

With bone-deep caution, a caution virtually unknown to Jace before, he raised his head.

Mirror Lake
Tri-State Commonwealth
Citrine (November) 5, 2002

Relic came back to himself when he heard his own voice, sharp and hard.

“When did you lose your sense of smell, Relican?”

But it was not his voice – it was coming out of ...

Raven. It slowly (tick) came back to him (tock) where he was and what he was doing. His move – he looked down at the board to survey it. Sure enough, Jace Dabriel had fled by a handful of paces toward the brush, straight for freedom. The Titans still stood idle; it remained Relic’s turn.

“I don’t remember,” he muttered into his hand as he looked down— The others, just as he’d feared: Cedwyn. Isabelle.

Himself.

For a while, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

And then he noticed—

There was another piece on Raven’s side of the board; one that should not have been there. The powerful, aging man on horseback had been far behind enemy lines, in plain sight, all along. Yet Relic almost hadn’t realized, simply because he was not looking.

Steeling himself, grim-faced Relic let his hand settle on Cedwyn’s shoulder—

Instantly, there was a scramble of images he could not interpret, centered on a mighty tree. Relic eased Cedwyn into an oblique flanking move to intercept the waiting horseman.

Raven nodded and waited only a blink before he spurred one of the Titans to life: The giant of the North Wind, all fur and bone and frozen muscle. It stomped its way toward the standing stones that were all that remained of King Jace’s stately palace. “You must remember it – it was the first thing that ever happened to you.” Relic let his eyes close for a moment. Yes, he thought. I should remember— Tick. Tock. Tick. “This is the place where the tides of time eddy. All historical knowledge of those you know is right here before you, distilled to its finest essence. But it will be for naught if you cannot bring yourself to use it, Relic.”

Relic nodded again, his downcast eyes never shifting from the board.

The Isabelle that stood guarding her little onyx square was not the armored warrior he knew, lance at the ready. Her hair was bound in its customary tight braid, but she wore a courtly gown as if play-acting in her role.

Relic was seized with embarrassment—

When he touched the piece, however, it was cold. Inert.

Then his mind flooded with her most cherished memories.

He could remember the first moment she met Jace at the training camp. Through her eyes, he felt his stomach flutter with the thought – then, a heartbeat later, heard the furtive whispers Isabelle and Jace had shared—felt the heat of ... he released his grip, pushed himself away from the table.

“I can’t do this!” he said. “They never told me any of this – I can’t take this from them.”

Raven’s face was impassive.

As he shifted, the pearl fused within his forehead glimmered.

“You must, Relic. This is the only way to complete your analysis. To know what happens.” Relic gazed down at his own face reflected in the mirror-bright ivory squares— “Let them be game-pieces to you. Use their knowledge to get where you need to go.”

With an effort, Relic slid Isabelle across the board.

The impossible scent of rose-water—

“Is that all?” Raven demanded, as if there should have been more.

“Yes,” Relic choked.

Raven nodded.

He did not move a muscle, but the rider burst into a gallop across no man’s land, overtaking those Titans who had not begun their approach.

Relic began to see the outlines of what would soon become a masterful trap, as inexorable as fate.

Tick. Tock.

“Let me pose a question to you, young man.”

“Say it,” Relic answered, forcing flint into his voice.

“If you had died and gone to Hell, how would you know?”

Relic tried not to answer, tried not to think, but his mind raced ahead of him, painting grotesque frescos of fire and torture.

Great, hideous machines belched smoke, and he imagined the cruelty of a God whose unblemished holiness made Him coy and passive in the face of such suffering.

“I don’t know,” Relic said, but pain gave him the strength to go on—

He gripped the footmen, three at once, and they screamed in answer.

These are the men who history will forget.

They don’t even have names.

But they squirmed as he placed them down, positioning them to face the Titan—

“A stalling tactic,” said Raven. “It takes four men to slay a Titan. Why only three?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” Relican said.

His smile was defiant now—

Tick. Tock.

“Very well.”

The Titan swung its mighty club, crushing two of the troopers with one great swipe. The last was crushed twice – once against the club and a second time against the ground.

Where they fell, the board stank of death.

Yet the other pieces still gazed straight ahead.

Never seeing the sacrifices made in their name.

“Who is that woman called Jaden?” Relic asked.

“A meddler,” said Raven. And when he sensed this was not enough: “Can’t you tell?”

Relic held his thoughts aloof, his next words like an iron wall:

“No. Tell me.”

The first droplets of rain began to pound the thirsty earth.

“She is Isabelle's mother."

Relic had just raised his hand from the Isabelle-piece once more.

“You said his ambitions will end—but she will survive?”

“No,” said Raven. “There is a reason Thean would not send her.”

When Relic realized what this could only mean, he screamed.

“You’re still trying to save her,” said Raven. “But you can’t save her if you can’t save yourself.”

Relic’s hands burned cold where he had touched the figures; all of them by now, the footmen and the Outriders. Every time he did, he knew more and saw more. Yet there was still something he could not see.

Not enough time, he thought—

Tick. Tock.

If he chose, he could have it all.

But he had to find the missing piece—

“You must continue,” said Raven. “When did you lose your sense of smell?”

“I don’t know!” Relic roared, but even in his anger, his mind had begun to work in new ways. He saw himself, creeping with his danger raised; he saw Cedwyn, much younger, awaiting the guest of honor at a banquet of unparalleled majesty. He saw that each one—

Tick. Tock.

—had powers unknown, untapped. Even him; he could be even greater than Raven. But what about the ordinary men?

With a gasp of mingled pain and shame and anguish, Relic rested his hand on a pike-bearing soldier and pressed him forward to bear the brunt of the roaring Titan. But this time, awareness snaked up his hand and into his blood:

He knew in a heartbeat he had sacrificed Hobson.

His dead body on the road—

“They are the same,” Relic said. “They are all the same—”

His elder self was smiling a bitter smile—

“Your sentimentality leads you to your familiar mistakes.”

“Then help me!”

“I am helping you, you jackass! When did you lose your sense of smell?”

Calloway’s body crunched like chitin, and Relican Avery wondered if all those other Relics felt his fear and confusion and shame. There was only one thing he could do: He placed his hand on his own figure and held it as tight as he could.

Instantly, his long-denied anger flared to life—

“Are you only a servant to that boy-king?” Raven asked.

“No,” Relic whispered, and now memories roiled up on him like a vision.

Consider young Relican, creeping along in the perpetual silence and twilight of the Outriders’ stealth training camp at Long Halo. There he stands; brave and confident like he will never be again. He stalks his prey in the endless quiet, unleavened by song or word or breath—

But now Relic knows, as he never has before, that Jace has just come from Isabelle’s room. That’s why, when they cross each other’s path, Jace is slow and weak. That’s why he falters—

Yet Relic cannot shake what he has seen: In the light of the Red Moon, Jace is someone else—

The second prince of Sindell: Dorsey Trent.

Relic knows this and won’t be persuaded otherwise.

His knife sinks into his friend’s back—

“I tried to kill him,” said Relic, his eyes snapping open.

When his vision clears, he can see clearly the green ghost-lights hanging in the trees, and each one – each and every one – contains his face. This one old, this one young; this one a man, this one a woman. And everything else—

Yet all are him.

All are watching.

“You tried to kill him,” said Raven, “because you knew. You knew he was the enemy – not just any enemy, the enemy prince! You knew, and how did they repay you? They beat you like a dog, beat you so hard it broke your soul in two – you’ve never been the same, never been the man you could have been! Because you knew—they made a slave of you!”

“I forgot all about it,” said Relic. “Like it never even existed.”

“I know.”

“I’ve never trusted myself since.”

Relic’s voice was the smallest whisper.

Raven’s answer was scarcely stronger – uncried tears lingered in it.

The rain was getting worse.

“Now you can complete your analysis. There must be a reckoning. It cannot be delayed forever.” With a rattle of chains, Raven shifted the hand that was bound to his book and took Relic’s own. “If you bring yourself to win this game, no failure can humble you. No enemy can contain you.”

“If I betray him – he’ll die.”

“Yes. But what’s more: He never need live. You can keep his shadow from your life. You can be the greatest Outrider – you can be Isabelle’s – you could be constable or consul or anything else of your dreams; you need never make yourself lesser for him. If you choose!”

Relic gazed at his own face for a long time.

Don’t look—

“That’s what she was trying to tell me.”

“Hmmm?”

“Jaden – she wanted to tell me – if I don’t stand with him, he’ll die.”

“Perhaps.”

Tick. Tock.

“I think I know,” said Relic, and he surged out of his seat before Raven could say anything. The wind howled at Relic’s back and knocked the ghost-light images of him around in the trees. “I think I know the answer – if you died and went to hell, how would you know? Suffering.”

“That is far too simple, Relican,” Raven said. “For everyone fights a hard battle. You, I—”

“Yes, but you don’t understand – if you were in Hell, you wouldn’t just suffer. You’d believe it was just. You’d believe you deserved it.” Relic swung his hand at the Titan of the North Wind; but where he expected it to fly off into the distance, his knuckles shattered against it.

“Perhaps,” Raven conceded, bowing his head as he contemplated it. “Or perhaps you would know nothing – no explanation. Forever.” He held the new idea in his mind for a long while; but whatever senses he’d gained here told him, clear as sight, that something in Relic had shifted.

His eyes were hard when he trained them on Relic, and the Outrider bore up to look defiant.

Raven said: “You must continue. You cannot stop what you’ve begun. It might sacrifice us all.”

In Relic’s dream, he is the tyrant—radiant and faultless, sure and steady.

“I will not.”

Bright with a predator’s instincts, incapable of even imagining failure.

“You have no choice!” Raven roared, and the thunder rolled behind him—

His was the maddening visage whom all proud men would someday face.

“I’ve been trying to figure it out – the one thing that’s really mine,” said Relic.

He could shatter the trap.

All he had to do was look; think it so, and it would be.

Raven’s eyes were alien now; they burned ghost-green.

All he had to do was sacrifice the necessary lives.

“Is your fear of losing Isabelle greater than your fear of losing all you could ever be?”

The fiery orbs ticked down as Raven thought.

Even now, Relic recognized something undeniably familiar:

A moment of realization, of knowing something crucial had been overlooked.

“Do you know what it is, Raven? The one thing?”

The old scholar cupped his forehead glumly in his hands.

Then he looked up.

“She is not yours,” he said. “And neither is he. To think otherwise is folly.”

But Relic forced himself into the space between his heartbeats—

As he did, an intense energy began to uncurl from the base of his spine.

“What do I have – that I share with all of them?” Relic raised his arms in a beatific gesture that encompassed all the Relics in the trees – all the Relics in creation. “I know what it is – something I share even with you, Raven: My breath. And I don’t think you realize, even with all this knowledge ...”

“What is it?” Raven demanded, leaning forward—

Relic raised an eyebrow.

“You are not your thoughts.”

Raven’s flesh was melting away from his face, his breath like steam from a forge congealing into misty blue light around him. Yet – as Relic had guessed – he did not strike, even as the storm wailed and screamed—

Beware! This is the place where children are lost!

“If the past is a memory and the future is a dream ... then so is thought.”

Tick. Tock.

“Breath is all you have. Now is all you have, all you’ll ever have—” ... tick ... “Now is all that no one can take away. You don’t even exist, Raven.”

The pocket-watch stopped.

Relic felt a symbol of water blaze on his forehead.

His gaze did not waver in the least, but he reached for his opponent’s hand.

“You survived. You endured. But you have to let me go my own way.”

“Don’t you understand?” said Raven, pulling his hand back. “I am where the road leads!” His voice boomed, throwing a thousand echoes; but motes of ghost-light were spilling off his body in torrents. “If you won’t face your fear, I’ll make you do it! I have no choice!” As he rose from his seat, his body – too tall and slender to be human – turned the world into a cauldron of shadows.

Relic tensed to move—

But when Raven saw the Outrider look down, he whipped the book, chain and all, into his cloak – patched together from the burial clothes of lost children. And in those patterns, he could see the times he had died alone in the forest—

Twenty-two times.

“The devil with no reflection,” Relic said, his body shaking—

Afraid now, as he had been since he was a small child, of Papa Bones.

Yet, with that, he smashed his fist against the board to draw the demonic gaze down—

To the pale mirror-surface of the table where he ought to have seen Raven’s image all along.

But there was nothing there.

Or perhaps there was Nothing there.

And there was certainly no child-snatching devil.

The trees were just trees; the shadows, just shadows. And Relic was just Relic. His flesh was afraid, but he was not.
As he realized it, he breathed out – and a ripple of rest ran over the monstrous image before him.

The nightmare vision of Raven slammed its hand down on the table to keep its balance.

Relic closed his hand around the pocket-watch—

And with his other hand, he drew the short sword he knew would be there—

There is no greater enemy to God than time.

And plunged it into the loathsome creature.

There it jammed, buried to the hilt—

In the leatherbound book.

Instantly, time began to rush in and Relic felt past and future change around him. Converging on this single moment—

He felt the heat of Jaden’s gaze, but when he opened his eyes again, he was alone.

“Will he be okay?” Relic asked her.

“You will,” she told him.

Across a bright chasm, light gouged in light, their fingertips touched one last time. As the strange dream began to clear away, Relic saw sunlight break through the storm.

“We’re on our way,” he said.

STATIC

Chapter Sixteen  (E) The Blood of Cu Chulainn #2190478 by Dan Hiestand