The Rogue Knight (28 page)

Cole crossed the room to a small window on the far side. Looking out, he had a bird's-eye view of the crystalline grounds around the castle, as well as the towering wall of blackness that prevented any view beyond the outer fence. It looked like somebody had carved a glittering kingdom out of dark nothingness.

Cole sat on a cushion by the table. The crystal surface felt cool against his palms. He wondered how long the torivor would make him wait. Would Trillian come to his room or summon him? What was a torivor, anyhow? What if he looked like a giant spider? Or a gooey slug? Would he speak Cole's language? Was Trillian already talking with Jace?

As time passed, Cole became drowsy. There wasn't much to do in the bare room. He wandered over to the bed and tried it out. He couldn't believe how soft it was! He laid down and sank into a cool comfort like he had never experienced. Despite how yielding the mattress felt, he didn't end up in an awkward position that might lead to a kinked neck. It was less like lying and more like floating.

The comfort of the bed begged him to sleep. His eyes felt heavy. How would the torivor react if he entered to find him dozing? But what else was he supposed to do? Sit at an empty table? Trillian had given him a room with a bed. Why not steal a little nap? His sleep lately had been on the ground or in rickety cots. This bed was more relaxing than any he had ever known. It would be a crime to waste it.

Some part of him warned that he shouldn't let his guard down in an enemy castle. But that objection stayed remote, a concern of the waking world. Effortlessly, Cole slipped into the embrace of dreams.

C
HAPTER

 28 

TRILLIAN

C
ole stood in a posh chamber. Full of warmth and color, it was less sterile than other rooms in the castle. Precious metals and deep-blue stones decorated the floor in an elaborate pattern. Thick wooden beams added character to the walls and ceiling. Fine paintings and tapestries hung in abundance. The center of the room featured a generously open space, but the perimeter had furniture of exotic shapes and materials.

Cole failed to notice the man until he moved. His age was difficult to gauge, somewhere between a young man and a grandfather. He wore a loose golden robe with fur on the collar and at the end of the sleeves. He seemed a product of many ethnicities, with Asian the most prominent among them. Light suffused his skin, as if his entire body gently glowed from within. The man walked slowly, almost carefully, all the while regarding Cole with penetrating eyes and a cryptic smile.

“Hi,” Cole said. “How did I get here?”

“Think back to your arrival,” the man suggested. Cole heard the words with his ears, but also in his mind, as if the message might have arrived even with his ears covered.

“I'm asleep,” Cole said, recalling the bed.

“I've been waiting,” the man answered simply.

“You're Trillian,” Cole realized.

The man gave a slight bow. “I have that honor. And you are Cole Randolph.”

Cole felt some relief that Trillian didn't look like a giant spider. He was also glad that he seemed polite. “This doesn't feel like a dream,” Cole said. “I feel awake. This room almost seems more real than the room I was in.”

“Perhaps it is more real,” Trillian said.

“But it's a dream,” Cole replied.

“Must a dream be less real than the waking world?” Trillian asked.

“Dreams go away when you wake up,” Cole said, confident in his answer.

“Must something be permanent to be real?” Trillian asked. “You dwell in a temporary reality. Everything you know will end one day—your body, your possessions, the entire world where you were born will one day cease to exist as it presently does. Does that mean your life has not been real?”

“I guess it will all end someday,” Cole conceded. “But it lasts longer than a dream.”

“Does it?” Trillian asked. “Dreams sustain many through their entire lives. For some, dreams are their most personal and permanent possessions. The world I come from is much more like a dream than what you consider reality. My world existed long before your world, Cole, and it will endure long after your world crumbles. Mine is an eternal world, and I am an eternal being.”

“You've lived forever?” Cole asked incredulously.

“Time is irrelevant where I come from,” Trillian said. “I have always existed, which means I truly exist.”

“Are you saying I don't exist?” Cole asked, ready to argue.

“On the contrary,” Trillian said. “Your current state will end, but part of you is eternal and will move on to other states of being after your body dies. That part of you exists as much as I do.”

“You mean I'll go to heaven?” Cole asked.

“Those specifics are beyond my view,” Trillian answered. “But there is more to reality than you presently understand. There are circumstances when a conversation in a dream can leave a deeper impression than a conversation in the waking world. This is one such circumstance.”

Trillian waved a hand, and the walls and ceiling fell away. The room re-formed into a small ship. They sailed on calm, turquoise waters, a mountainous jungle coast in view on one side, distant islands barely visible on the other.

“See,” Cole said. “Dreams change too easily.”

“Do you not hear the water lapping against the bow?” Trillian asked. “Do you not feel the breeze on your face? Smell the salt in the air? Is your mind foggy? Is the experience dulled in any way?”

“It seems very real, and I feel awake,” Cole admitted. “The illusions enchanters make seem real too.”

“Who is to say they are not real?” Trillian asked.

“Me,” Cole replied, “when I walk through them.”

“I see,” Trillian said. “Things must be tangible to be real. Light is not real. Neither is knowledge. Neither is love.”

Cole gave an exasperated sigh. “You're saying dreams and illusions are real?”

“Nothing matters more than what happens in our minds,” Trillian said. “Your experiences in what you consider your real life in the real world only exist in your mind and in the minds of others. The mind is everything. And dreams are the playground of the mind.”

“Your world is a dream?” Cole asked doubtfully.

“It's the best comparison I can give you,” Trillian said. “When you want to change something in what you consider to be the real world, you must first think the matter through and make a decision, then you physically take action. When I want to make a change in my home world, I simply exert my will. The shaping here is like a dim shadow of what I could accomplish where I come from.”

“I heard you were a shaper,” Cole said.

Trillian waved his arm. The boat was gone. They stood in a warm, humid greenhouse with a roof and walls of glass. The air smelled of fresh leaves and blossoms. Beyond the windows stretched a snowy expanse of tundra.

“I am
the
shaper,” Trillian said. “Where I come from, shaping is a way of life, as intuitive and natural as breathing is to you.”

“Where is Jace?” Cole wondered.

“He'll be along later,” Trillian said. “For now I would prefer to keep this between the two of us.”

“I'm a little surprised you speak English,” Cole said.

Trillian laughed. “You should not be surprised. Have you ever met somebody in the Outskirts who did not speak your language?”

“No,” Cole said. Some people had accents, but everyone he had met spoke English.

“In the Outskirts, we all hear our native languages,” Trillian said. “It takes great effort not to be understood here. I know why you came to me.”

“You do?” Cole asked.

“You hope to take Honor away from here,” Trillian said.

“Did Jace tell you?”

“You're scrambling for the best arguments to use,” Trillian said. “Don't bother, child. Assume I know everything that you know. I know about Morgassa and the threat that she poses. I know what Stafford did to his daughters. I know about the shapecrafters and Jenna and your family back home in Mesa.”

“How do you know all that?” Cole asked, feeling off-balance.

Trillian smiled. “This is a meeting of minds. Yours is open to me. It opened as soon as you entered my domain.”

“You can read my mind?” Cole asked.

“Effortlessly,” Trillian said. “Where I come from, there is no verbalization. Not like here. All communication is mind to mind. There are no secrets. No lies. Cole, I know details about you that you have long forgotten—places, events, people. Also things you have not recognized or refuse to admit. Please feel free to speak openly. You can hide nothing from me.”

Cole hated the thought of anyone poking around inside his mind. What embarrassing things had Trillian seen? All the selfish, cowardly thoughts. All his fears. Every daydream about Jenna. All on display.

“The brave thoughts, too,” Trillian said. “The fond memories. The good intentions. Not to mention the hidden power.”

“What can you see about my power?” Cole asked, genuinely curious. He had begun to doubt whether it was really there.

“It's there,” Trillian assured him. “And it's significant. Your power is much more interesting than Mira's or Honor's. Their gifts are not small, but yours is unique. Under other circumstances, I would endeavor to unlock that potential.”

“What do you mean?” Cole asked.

“I have trained all the Ellowine enchanters of any consequence over the past several centuries, including the Grand Shaper Callista. You would be a fascinating pupil.”

Cole remembered the warnings about Trillian from Skye. He was evil and had been trapped here for years. Why would he help train shapers? Was he telling the truth? Was he just acting courteous and reasonable until he sprang his trap?

“Go ahead,” Trillian said, his eyes grave. “Ask me.”

Cole wasn't sure how exactly to put it. “Why? You know what I'm thinking.”

“We're having a conversation,” Trillian said. “Ask me.”

“You're a prisoner here,” Cole said. “Aren't you dangerous? Why would people let you train them?”

“I am extremely powerful,” Trillian said. “Dangerous? I suppose that accompanies power. If I had come to the Outskirts today, I would rule unchallenged. But as fortune had it, when I arrived, there were some shapers of astonishing might here, including some who helped frame the different kingdoms. I wielded great power, but this place was different from my world, and before I could master using my abilities here, they had me.”

“Are there others like you?” Cole asked.

“Many,” Trillian said. “An entire world of us. Only one other torivor journeyed here with me. Ramarro. He must have been captured as well, or else he would be ruling. I could not perceive his fate after I was caught, and those I sent abroad found no trace of him. I cannot see beyond my prison, except dimly on the Red Road. What I know I learn from my traveling servants or from people who come here, like you have today.”

“Why haven't other torivors come?” Cole asked.

“The shapers who imprisoned me sealed the way to my world,” Trillian said. “I do not expect others of my kind to find their way here in the foreseeable future.”

“Why'd they imprison you?” Cole asked. “Did you attack the shapers?”

“I interacted with them,” Trillian said. “Some of them tested themselves against me. They feared my power. Hostility erupted. They tried to harm me. I fought back. They couldn't kill me, but they did imprison me.”

“You can't get free?” Cole asked.

“Not for lack of trying. The shapers knew their craft. They not only shaped a prison to hold me. They shaped me. I am not as you see me now. I am bound deep beneath this place. But my power remains active inside my domain.”

Cole wondered how much of what he was hearing was true.

“I cannot lie,” Trillian said. “I can mislead, or evade questions, but I only speak the truth. It is more than a matter of honor. It is an essential part of what I am, where my power comes from. If I lied, I would be undone. If you could perceive my true nature, you would see that it is so.”

“If they hadn't imprisoned you, would you have taken over the Outskirts?” Cole asked, testing his honesty.

“Yes,” Trillian answered. “I would have bound the other torivor and ruled unthreatened until the end of this place or until I chose to move on. I would have reshaped this entire realm into a paradise. All who served me would have prospered under my rule. You suspect I'm telling you this because I want you to free me. Rest assured, you lack the ability to release me.”

“If you got free, what would you do?” Cole asked.

“I would rule as the highest shaper the Outskirts has known,” Trillian said. “Any who opposed me would fall. I would remake the boundaries between the kingdoms. I would unlock the true potential of this realm between realms.”

“The boundaries between the kingdoms can be changed?” Cole wondered.

“You glimpsed this when you used the Jumping Sword against the Rogue Knight. Others have tested the possibilities as well. There have not always been five kingdoms, nor have mortals always dwelled here. The five kingdoms were made. They could be remade.”

Cole tried to imagine what it would be like if Trillian got free. Would the people come to accept him as their king? Could it be a good thing? With the kind of power he was describing, he would be a dictator. It mostly depended on whether he was really good or not.

“I would be demanding, but I could also make life easier in many ways,” Trillian said. “I confess that I have no deep love for mortals. You're all so fleeting, though a number of you intrigue me. I would not be your servant. Your genie. You would serve me and work to make the Outskirts the paradise that I envision. A higher mind would govern you. Some people would resent me, and I might toy with them. I crave a measure of revenge for my incarceration. I cannot predict for certain how much you would enjoy my rule. I come from an eternal realm where I dwelt among equals. Here, I would be in a temporal realm, ruling over lesser beings.”