Sunset of Lantonne (48 page)

“The man who did this to us…he wasn’t doing it on his own.”

“Likely not. Were his eyes red?”

Ilarra thought back and nodded.

“Then he was controlled. The more force their master must exert on them, the more obvious that red glow becomes. After their will is broken, you would likely never see that glow again. Then, they would willingly do all the awful things asked of them.”

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Ilarra rubbed at her face and shoved her hair back. She looked up at Nenophar. “What do you need me to do?”

“Come with me and keep an open mind.”

“Show me,” she insisted, standing up.

Ilarra reached for her heavy cloak, but Nenophar caught her wrist…a simple thing but one that surprised her. She had come to the conclusion he was entirely ghostlike and that touch proved her wrong.

Bitter winds washed over Ilarra and threw her hair in her face, blinding her momentarily. When she managed to clear her face, she found she was standing in the middle of a vast flat area covered with snow in all directions. The city and keep were nowhere to be found.

Alarmed at being so far from shelter, Ilarra looked down at herself and discovered she now wore her traveling boots and cloak. Though she had changed her clothing, Nenophar remained dressed as he had been back at the keep.

“You concern yourself with things that cannot hurt you,” he noted, reaching down into the snow. His hand passed through it, leaving no trail. “We are still at the keep, Ilarra. Your mind travels, not your body.”

“Is this how you visit me?”

“No, this is something different but similar. We are both standing in a memory of mine where we cannot change what has already happened.”

Ilarra could not help but be awed by the idea of sharing memories in such a vivid way. “I’ve heard that magic like this existed in the past,” she said, looking up at the grey sky and the snowflakes that fell all around them. “No one’s used it in so long we thought it was a myth.”

“It is still in use in some places. The Turessian council still uses this magic from time to time.”

“Where did they learn to do this?” she asked in surprise.

“I taught them. That was a long time ago, though.”

Before Ilarra could ask more questions, Nenophar raised a finger to his lips, silencing her. “There is much for you to understand. Follow me.”

Nenophar began walking away and Ilarra hurried to follow him. Once they had both begun walking, the landscape changed rapidly around them, appearing as though they had covered miles in mere minutes.

When Nenophar stopped next, they were near a small cottage, set into the foothills of the mountains. “In this human-home,” he began, motioning toward the house, “an aging human still lives. You have asked about the talk of fabric and threads…he will help you understand.”

“He can tell me about it?” Ilarra inquired, getting a rather disappointed look from Nenophar in return.

“No, he is our example. His story will explain what my mother and I mean when we speak of the fabric of the world. Please understand this is something we hold dear and do not tell outsiders of…to us, the reading of the fabric of the world is as near as we get to what your kind call religion.”

Ilarra began to walk toward the house, but Nenophar caught her by the arm, stopping her.

“I must explain one thing first. This is, as I said, a memory of sorts. They cannot hear us; we cannot touch them. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she answered quickly. “Get on with it.”

Taking the lead, Nenophar approached the house. When he reached its door, rather than opening it, he stepped through it like nothing more than a ghost.

Ilarra paused inches from the door, unsure of herself. She had seen Nenophar go through without issue, but that was him and not her. She might slam face-first into the door and make a fool of herself. When Nenophar did not come back immediately, she reached forward, finding that her hand passed through the door without any sensation at all. Satisfied she would not look stupid, Ilarra stepped forward and through the door.

The inside of the cabin was incredibly little, to Ilarra’s surprise. A single table of old, dry wood, three matching chairs, a fireplace, and several beds were all the furnishings she saw. Seated in one of the chairs was a young human man, whittling at a piece of wood and looking for all the world like he was bored to tears.

“This man’s pattern in the fabric is clear and straightforward,” said Nenophar, standing near the man’s chair. “When I look at him, I can see the outcome of his life’s actions—though not any of the specifics, only the results. On his own, he will be a fairly unremarkable human. He will find a woman; they will have children. To his own people, that is about all they will ever see in him.

“To me, there is much more. The woman will die, her thread cut short in childbirth. The man will become lost and strike out at his children. They will suffer for no fault of their own. One will die from this, her thread never touching on another outside of this family.”

“That’s terrible,” whispered Ilarra while staring at the young man’s face. “You’re sure he would do that?”

“Certain,” confirmed Nenophar. “Among your civilization, what would you do with a man like this?”

“If he’d done that to his family, he would be imprisoned or executed. The king’s laws are pretty harsh.”

Nenophar nodded. “This is why we become so frustrated with your people. Where you see the evils of this man’s lifetime, we see his impact on the whole of the fabric. The child that survives will accomplish little of his own, but when he has children, one of them will hear the stories of this terrible man coming to no justice for his actions. That child will dedicate his life to making the lives around him better and will save thousands who would otherwise have died as a result of flooding.”

“You’re saying you can see this man’s evil leads to good?”

“Not in such simple terms, but yes. This man’s lifetime will cause far greater things then would have ever come about if your king executed him. To my people, this is the reason we do not interfere…our actions can disrupt the patterns in the fabric beyond any means of correction.”

A second later, the door of the cabin exploded inwards, sending shards of wood flying past and through Ilarra. She screamed and covered her face, forgetting for a moment that nothing here could affect her.

Looking up, Ilarra saw dozens of rotted corpses were rushing into the cabin. They went straight to the man, who tried desperately to reach an old rusted sword nearby, and caught him before he had quite gotten to it. The undead tore into him, ripping flesh from bone and dragging him, still screaming, from the cabin.

“His thread is thus ended,” noted Nenophar once the screams stopped. “Seven lives tied directly to his thread are removed from the fabric of the world, and thousands will end earlier than they should have. This, I could not see. This was not part of his pattern.”

Ilarra was shaking, unable to stop staring out the doorway into the snowy lands beyond where a wide trail of blood marked the passing of the undead.

“Those creatures, the animated bodies of the once-living, are an annoyance for my people.” Nenophar picked up a sheet from the bed, somehow interacting with the world around them. “Take this badly woven blanket as the fabric of the world.”

Laying the sheet down on the room’s only table, Nenophar picked a seemingly random spot where the threads were so badly put together they were all clearly visible.

“The man should have been this thread, interlacing with all the others during the whole course of his life—the length of the thread,” he explained, tracing the thread. “Today, his thread is plucked from the fabric, breaking off at the point his life ends. All mortal lives end, but when things like these are involved, patterns do not always go as planned.”

“Then magic interferes with the fates of people around it?”

Nenophar gave Ilarra a look of complete disappointment. “Not at all. Magic pushes or pulls on the fabric, but does not change the whole directly.” He emphasized by picking up the sheet and poking a finger into it. “You can see the threads more clearly when magic is in use and threads may end more dramatically, but it changes nothing about the pattern. A magical death is no different than one at the tip of a sword to the fabric of the world, though it sometimes can push other threads around somewhat.”

Ilarra looked back out the door in the direction the undead had gone. “How are they different from any other magic?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

“They aren’t. Mortals have used the remains of other mortals as tools for all of time. What makes these different is what controls all of them.”

“The Turessians.”

“Yes. They have found a way to cheat the fabric. Like other timeless beings, they are outside the fabric, their own threads yanked from the whole but not removed. At a whim, they insert themselves back into the fabric and disrupt all that would have existed there. It is no different than if I sought to disrupt the pattern myself.”

Ilarra leaned onto the table, bringing her face near Nenophar’s. “What are you?”

“Immortal. That much you can know,” he answered, not looking up at her. “That and worried about a mortal man finding a way to disrupt the entire fabric. The leader of the Turessian forces can change the intended course of Eldvar’s history, and if this person can do that, then they can destroy my people as well.

“We never concerned ourselves overly much with the matters of mortal men, Ilarra. They do foolish things that endanger themselves, but rarely us. The one who leads the Turessians is different…I don’t know for certain who he or she is, but this person has the potential to do far more than I would like to believe.”

“How bad could it be?” she asked, lifting a corner of the sheet. “No matter how powerful they are, how much damage could one person do?”

Nenophar finally looked up at her as he touched the sheet on the table. As his finger brushed the old cloth, the entire sheet burst into flame. “To disrupt the plans of one outside the fabric, it will take someone outside the fabric. My people are somewhat distanced from it, but anytime we interfere with mortals, we imprint ourselves briefly on the fabric’s pattern. This endangers us as a people and will likely play into the Turessian’s plans. The Turessians, in turn, are outside the fabric at will, allowing them to strike at us or the pattern.”

“Then what?”

“We need someone like them to fight against their actions, to undo as much damage as possible. With our ability to see the patterns within the world’s fabric, there might be hope of guiding one who is already lost into making the right choices…or so a friend once told me. I still do not entirely believe, but I am seeing fewer options each day. My life is being written into the pattern of the world more with every event that occurs.”

“Lost…outside the fabric…” Ilarra watched the smoldering sheet and thought back to Mairlee’s dramatic removal of a thread from her own sheet. “You want someone that’s dead. That’s the only way someone can be outside the fabric.”

“Correct, in a sense.”

“Then why did you bring me…no. I’m sick, Nenophar. I’m not dead.”

The man stared at her coolly. “You already know the answer. The disease the Turessians inflicted on you is killing your body, removing you from the pattern entirely. It draws off magic, consuming what is left of your mortal spirit and replacing it with magic tied to other Turessians. The weaker your body gets, the stronger your magic will be…and the less mortal you will become. This is what you needed to know. You are already one of them, but your bond with Raeln has kept their influence at bay for the moment. Eventually, that will change. Already I can see their beliefs and anger growing in you as your body withers.”

“I will not listen to any more of this!” Ilarra shouted, backing away from the table. Drawing the patterns of magic across her mind, Ilarra hurled a gout of flame at the area where Nenophar stood and scorched the house. She raised her hand to strike again, but the man had vanished. She found herself back in the Lantonnian keep, staring at the burning remains of a table.