Ryzhan

  Aina and I on an outing was a scenario I'd imagined more than a few times, mostly in my boyhood, though none of my ideas resembled this.

  I could have never...but no, that was not right to say, was it? Who knew what could happen, in Midworld? I'd never expected Aina to be interested in the esoteric, much less willing and able to lead (not even follow) me in a journey rife with it. She'd always been so...normal.

  I wish she could've stayed that way. Or, at least, that she'd found her way to power like this without the madness entwined with it.

  Though, perhaps, that was not the best word. When one's thoughts defined reality instead of the reverse, how mad could one truly be?

  Rhetorical question. Trying to find reason in madness was about as reasonable as looking for the sea's bottom, or for altruism in most Midworlders (who'd gladly knife someone that stupid so they wouldn't meet a worse fate in the future, and as such for their own good).

  With my head full of such cheery thoughts, I could not help but think of greater reasons for joy, like my childhood friend's monstrous split personality (or it might truly have been a being of its own, fused with Aina on a whim of the Moon). But since I knew women liked mysterious men who didn't give away their thoughts (liked to see them leaving, especially), I asked, 'Are we going somewhere in particular?'

  Not that I minded following her along (you understand), but the more I spent away from my flesh, the more scenarios of it being repurposed came to mind.

  Hm...this might have actually been an occasion to test the theories of mages too paranoid to shed their bodies. How much did magic really depend on the synchronisation of mind, body and soul, really? Because, incorporeal as I was, my Gift felt no more distant or weaker than before.

  If anything it blazed brighter. But then, I had no worldly senses to distract me from my arcane one.

  My soul was unbound. And with every moment (though time's grasp was so much looser, like this) my subtle body flew free, my perception deepened, sharpened.

  Enough that I was fairly sure that if Aina told me something along the line of wherever we must, my mood would be ruined.

  Not that I expected Aina to disappoint me. Between the two of us, it was likely to be the other way around.

  And I was not wrong: her answer was more puzzling than disappointing. 'We go where we must, Ryzhan. Think you that you can hold this world and all beside it in your mind without experiencing it?'

  In any other circumstances, I might've been elated at the chance to quickly see what was worth seeing in Midworld, and at no risk to my flesh, at least. But this had the air of work, not a vacation, and that sort of cosmically significant work Ib had manoeuvred me to do, at that.

  In my mind, Midworld spread in a circle, with the Great Powers and their holdings acting as the points of a compass, while an airless void, worlds spinning around their suns, covered it like a clear but painted bowl.

  At some point, distracted somewhat by my musing as I was, I still noticed, if vaguely, that Aina had slowed down. Before I could overtake her, however, she raised a taloned hand, covered in what looked like a grey, leathery hide one moment, then scales the colour of slate the next, and stopped me.

  Well. I stopped, myself. I knew, in my heart of hearts, that her claws could rend spirit as easily as matter, if not more so, and I had no wish to test my instincts, at the moment.

  She half-turned her head to peer at me over a shoulder rippling like a disturbed pond, and her dark eye was like a pit in the face of the moon, for her own visage had turned pale as if drained of blood. With her shifting form, that might well have been true.

  'And where do you think you're rushing without us, Ryzhan?' she asked, mildly I almost missed an inhuman, low growl under the words.

  'You slowed down,' I protested, somewhat lamely, frowning.

  'To tell you that you needed to stop, and heed us.' Well, she'd succeeded, hadn't she? And without even impaling my soul.

  But I was not stupid enough to say that. 'I understand. I take it this is one of those things you can't speak of as you travel?'

  There could be arcane significance in so much as a raised brow, much less stopping halfway between the clouds and Midworld's sun as we had. Beneath me, the clouds resembled a frothing, choppy sea, and I thought they blocked my view of the sea as surely as they'd have blocked the sky, had I been looking up.

  Perhaps tempted by cheap analogy, I wondered if we mortals seemed as alien to the gods as they were to us, on some days. Perhaps that was why the deities of some faiths meddled as they did: out of a sort of cosmically dangerous, if innocent curiosity. How many insect nests did people knock over trying to study their inhabitants?

  I was not inclined to kill anything that wasn't threatening to me, but who knew a deity's mind?

  Or a Lunatic's.

  Whenever I got too comfortable around Aina, or was about to get lost in childhood memories, I reminded msyelf that no matter how kind and reasonable she was, she shared her mind with an unhinged creature that was as close as you could get to embodied insanity - leaving aside the Idea of it Ib had sometimes spoken of.

  (Were one to treat the Archetypes as relatives, sprung from the loins of a numinous, unknowable sire...would explain why Ib liked talking about its family the way I enjoyed speaking of mine. At least, from what it had deigned to share with me.)

  'Aina,' I reached out to grab her arm but was too slow and thus grasped her shoulder as she prepared to dive with a fanged grin. She turned a sour look my way, which might've looked harmless were I unable to sense the mad power within her or see the aspects of it that managed to make their way to the surface of my friend's flesh.

  I tried to meet her flat stare with a smile, but those had never come easy to me, and those that did had, more often than not, been insincere.

  I'd always thought I'd never rue the day I became a good dissembler, but Fhaalqi rend me if I wasn't kicking myself for the conman's smirk I flashed Aina before I schooled my features.

  No reason to make her, them, think I was laughing at either half of their, ah, symbiosis. That sounded more dignified than the alternatives, somewhat.

  Not to mention that cutting my throat was much safer than calling Aina's warped half a parasite to its face (if it had one). At least I knew I'd die, and how - which mattered for cheerful sorts like me. The last moment before the end was the last time (laugh, laugh) you wanted to be surprised.

  'Why'd you stop us, Ryzhan?' she asked icily, then her eyes flashed down to my hand. 'And why are you still holding us?'

  I drew my arm back as if burned, smiling in what I hoped was an ingratiating manner. She didn't rip my throat out after the attempt, which was surely more than men who'd been through that could say. 'Apologies. I was so caught up in the excitement of our outing that I forgot propriety.' Her look became even flatter, if such was possible. So soon after our reunion, and she could read me like a book. And not an impressive one, considering her expression.

  'But?' Aina prompted, sounding like she was stating more than asking something.

  'But I cannot help wonder how long we will be away, and how safe my body will be in the meantime. Also, some specifics about our destination and route would be lovely.'

  Men were expected to ask for directions in many fleets because, if one got scammed and later killed by his angry crewmates in the middle of nowhere for believing lies, the loss could be more easily replaced than if a woman asked. After all, women could only be pregnant at one time, while a man could leave many pregnant in a short while.

  I'd never been part of a fleet enough to go through the whole process, but the habit had stuck anyway.

  Some peoples allegedly sent men into danger first because of their admiration for the fairer sex, but that was a crock of dung if I'd ever heard one. I'd seen too many expecting mothers cut open as the begininng of a boarder's indulged fantasy, and the less said of how their unborn children could be used to hurt them, physically and otherwise, the better.

  No, at best, such decisions were made because, without unnatural powers involved, men were often physically superior and, again, more easily replaced. In my case, I wouldn't bet on beating Aina in a staring contest, much less anything serious, so I was happy to let her take the lead.

  In the unlikely event we ran into something too dangerous for her to overcome, I would be able to help from behind her, instead of being shredded between blinks.

  At that moment, a part of me noticed I wasn't even planning to run while Aina fought, in order to preserve her memory or some other inane, self-serving excuse. I was proud enough of myself to stand a little straighter. It made sense: where else did I have to go, after this?

  Mharra's quest would come to an end or not, I had no more hand in that than he in my affairs.

  Ib pursued arcane plots that often involved me and others I knew, but aside from the dangers therein, did not seem to wish me ill, and could've hurt me with ease many times if it had wanted to.

  The steamer's whims were almost as difficult to puzzle as the grey giant's, but it had always struck me more as cantankerous and childish than genuinely malevolent (although with its power, even such behaviour could be dangerous). Whether we parted ways or not, I did not think it would stand in the path of my future.

  And Midworld, while full of dangers unknown and unknowable, was something I'd braved as a much weaker mage. Now, the dangers of death by thirst, starvation or exposure, or combat with most beings, were things of the past.

  I could settle down, I knew. I could carve out a realm of my own on some island , reinforce it with my magic. Capture passing ships, force the crews to become worshipper-workers and enforcers.. Rule as a warlock king.

  It was not what I wanted, not truly. I was not deranged enough to truly enjoy hurting random people, nor did I want to become that, and not just because Ib would likely show up to turn my insides into outsides if I got too bold.

  I couldn't just throw my lot in with Fhaalqi like that, after loathing him and his Unkind my whole life. The faith of Vhaarn was not structured or widespread enough to have numerous priests or official scriptures, but every believer knew there were things the god wanted or did not want them to do. Most people's boiled down to not being a bastard, which was virtue enough, far as I was concerned. I couldn't really say I'd followed that tenet, but nothing was stopping me from doing so in the future.

  Unless I died. Alone, or alongside everyone. I'd heard that sort of thing could mess up schedules something awful.

  So, for the sake of maintaining my reputation of punctuality, I supposed I could try to save existence.

  The best thing about that kind of threat was that you did not need anyone even vaguely heroic to oppose it. Self-interest alone would ne enough, as it was for many things. It was my experience that many self-styled nihilists were bloody quick to defend their lives and livelihoods once you spooked them enough.

  Thanks to my magic, and the ghostly speed of my current self, I was able to go over my thoughts in a negligible amount of time. Good thing, too: Aina did not sound like she had too much patience for my nonsense when she replied, but then, who did? My nonsense could up and die one day and no one would shed a tear.

  'Illuminaria,' Aina replied, then nodded, as if that explained everything so effectively it needed to be appreciated. But perhaps I was being uncharitable. She could have been, after all, talking to her monster. Don't we all? 'The Wrought Island.' She tilted her head in a gesture that did not quite put me in mind of a human. Her eyes were now a dark, smoky grey, and glassy, shining like flesh shouldn't have been able to. 'Have you ever wondered, Ryzhan, why it is called that, instead of a creation of the Clockwork King being granted the title?'

  It wasn't like Midworld's factions recognised an international authority, so said title was only ever used within Illuminarian culture, said society being unlikely to extend any sort of dignity to foreigners, especially foreign rivals.

  But that sort of pedantry wasn't the answer Aina was looking for, so I instead said. 'It's natural. The land, it's shaped, but not manmade. Unlike the Clockwork Court.'

  Aina shook her head (could a neck bend as far as hers had and not snap? I doubted a human's could), but favoured me with a small grin I had no heart to speed up at said sight. 'You are almost right.' Better than being completely wrong. I believed. 'The difference between art and industry, Ryzhan. Do you know it?'

  I'd never been too closely involved with either, but I'd always believed that artists were set apart from craftsmen by uniqueness and passion. After all, people who painted all the time because they had no alternative were more likely to be painting fences than portraits. I told Aina as much

  'Mass production,' she agreed. 'It is a matter of perspective, and of two pr more societies' dimensions, but in this case, it is good enough. The artifice of the Clockwork King is concerned with function before form. He believes efficiency is a beauty of its own.' There had to be some value to that. He still had a wife.

  'And the Illuminated do not,' I guessed.

  Aina laughed scornfully. 'They'd be scattered across the sea, too busy to turn people into things like they do in their nest, if they did.'

  She was, I noticed, speaking of the ruling class alone as Enlightened, not the population as a whole. When I pointed that out to her, her smirk grew wider, sharper. 'Obviously. You think those wretches - those who can still think - care one whit about anything except surviving to the next day?'

  That was a good word, surviving. You could not call that sort of thing living. I nodded, but Aina must've seen something wrong in my expression, if her puzzled frown was any indication. 'What? What is it, Ryzhan?'

  'Hm? I was agreeing with you...' I trailed off, but recovered. 'Honestly. I know I can seem sarcastic when I'm not, but I do agree with-'

  'What? What do you agree with?' At my confusion, she added. 'Illuminaria, Ryzhan. What do you think life is like there for the commoners?'

  I wasn't sure of the point of this, especially since we were going to visit anyway, but I indulged her.

  The Wrought Island was one of those nations you needed to tone propaganda down when they were the subject, to make the facts believable. Everyone knew about the huddled masses, skulking in the dark to get one more mouthful of gruel or slop or scraps, to see one more dawn. About how your thoughts and future were both watched, so that you could be seized for thinking the wrong think, or there being a possibility you would do so. About how you could be dragged the street on a warlock's whim, to become ritual fuel or raw matter or spare parts for some eldritch experiment.

  Aina let me rattle off the horror stories I'd heard from other sailors, then asked, 'And you genuinely believe that?'

  I laughed gruffly. 'Forgive me, Aina, but Illuminaria of all nations is not what I'm willing to give the benefit of doubt. All the other Great Powers I've met turned out to be about as kind as your typical fleet.' I shouldn't have been surprised, really. You did not make a name for yourself on Midworld by being a nice person.

  'Ryzhan,' she sighed, 'you should know by now that you shouldn't believe everything you hear, any more than you can trust gut feelings.' She gave me a meaningful look at that, and I kept my shoulders from slumping at the reminder of my past paranoia (but let us speak of my future paranoia instead). Barely. Closing her eyes, she added, 'That being said, the Enlightened would be willing to do some of the things you've listed, in certain circumstances.'

  'But not as a matter of course?'

  'Nay. Nor all the time, obviously.' She gave me a hooded look. 'Human societies cannot persist in such a state for too long, magic or no magic. Eventually, something gives. Always.'

  Bloody shame for everyone who was born and died before such inevitable improvements.

  'Are you telling me to, what, raise my expectations?' My smile was half teeth and less honesty. 'Aina, if we're going to a disaster of a civilisation, I won't be shielding myself through optimism.' I'd feel more than helpless if I was ever reduced to that.

  She tapped my forehead with a clawed finger. Every poke felt like it was coming from a man much larger and more muscular than me. 'I'm telling you to keep an open mind. Pure disdain for others, like apathy, will only make everything fall apart.'

  I'd have said they'd already done a good job of that in Midworld, but something in Aina's worlds made me think she spoke of more profound matters than relations between the ocean's polities. 'Ib. Have you spoken to it?'

  Walking on air, she looked at me over her shoulder. 'You believe I needed to?'

  She was right. I knew she'd watched our mishaps before our arrival to the court, and while a part of me disliked that she hadn't intervened, another reminded me that altruism was as common as hen's teeth on the sea. My desire to keep living was simply glad she hadn't tried to intervene while in an unstable state of mind.

  I floated to catch up with her. 'Ib told me all of creation is a dream and the dreamer will wake up and forget everything into nonexistence if I don't do something involving memories.' That was leaving aside the result of another series of manipulations centred on a hapless sap, but that was not for me to intercede in. 'But it's always been frustratingly vague about it.'

  What, was I supposed to think really hard about my past and hope this cosmic dreamer would be impressed enough to spare us? I wasn't willing to bet a meal on how interesting my life had been, much less all of creation.

  Then again, maybe I could bore this thing into going back to sleep. Though Ib had laughed in my face when I'd brought that up, and probably not because it had been such a funny joke.

  'I see,' Aina replied.

  I'd walked into that. 'Aye, but can you tell me anything about it? Anything at all? Aina, I'd rather not have this sort of thing kept as a surprise...'

  If I was only told the specifics right before I needed to do whatever I was meant to, I'd fail. And my general dislike for that would be nothing next to the consequences.

  'A surprise?' she repeated. Something squirmed under her skin, around her spine. 'That is not a wrong way to look at it.' She turned, and I wasn't sure if it was to spare my sight or if she'd just stopped noticing such changes. 'Ryzhan, we know it sounds ridiculous, but it really is better for you if you do not learn your purpose beyond the appointed time. The ripples across existence aside, you might well focus on it too much and fail.'

  I refrained from rolling my eyes. 'Am I supposed to take that on faith? Even from you, Aina, I...'

  Had my life been one of those bodice rippers they sold at the dockside, that was the moment she'd have moulded her body to mine while whispering (sultrily, of course) about what she would do if I listened, or otherwise tried to seduce me.

  Instead, she laid a rough hand on my shoulder, and I managed to neither shiver nor buckle. Doubtlessly awestruck by the epitome of manhood I was proving to be, Aina said, 'Ryzhan, whether you believe me or not, nothing changes. You must not know too much, for your own sake.'

  'And thus, everyone's?' I asked drily.

  A corner of her mouth quirked up. 'You're learning already.' Letting go, she continued. 'Ryzhan, I know you and your captain - did you know we met once? Before your time on his crew; he knew naught of me, of course - I know you two have already begun wondering about your legacies, about whether leaving behind something that could help others is worth it, given you have the means to aid so many.'

  'Might be we're sensing the end coming, but I think it's my towering egotism at work, most likely. Be nice to be appreciated and thanked by people who've never met you.' I smiled self-deprecatingly, and shared my earlier thought about empire-building.

  Her laugh reminded me of storms and thunder more than anything else. 'Leading people? You, Ryzhan? As if we don't know how quickly even another person tires you out.'

  I mock-glared at her. 'Talk like that will have you barred from my shores, woman.'

  Her gesture told me what I could do with my shores.

  'Be that way. You don't even know what you're giving up.'

  As an aside to lighten the mood: there was this tendency, in some cultures, of representing certain acts using images of ones that are dubious in other, unrelated ways. This breed of visual metaphor had led to the persistent image of a scantily-clad (or naked but for chains or other bindings, placed to preserve virtue, if the painters are to be believed) woman clutching the leg of a musclebound, hairy warrior or king, usually while kneeling or on her side.

  I was fairly sure about what such women were supposed to be doing below such men's belts, but some didn't want their hero-worshipping children exposed to vulgarity at too tender an age. It was strange how easily people could convince themselves images and in-depth descriptions of gory deaths were appropriate for young boys, but anything involving the uncovered human form wasn't. I suppose ugly people didn't want to feel self-conscious, too.

  In my imaginary kingdom's case, I could only imagine such a scenario involving the man and woman's roles reversed. I could not picture Aina letting me take the lead except maybe to faceplant in a comedic manner.

  And that was just her human part. I was sure she, as a whole, would've worn me out to dust, one way or another, if not for my importance in the coming disaster...

  No. It was not fair to think of her that way, was it? She'd only hurt me to prepare me, and she hadn't berated me about my past. She clearly exerted some measure of control on the moonspawned creature. Until something happened, I could not keep thinking she'd rip me apart the next time I breathed wrong.

  No problem. Aina was a woman with plenty of things to focus on. Plenty of each, too. So to speak.

  * * *

  When we stopped above the picturesque expense of Illuminaria, Aina looked down at the Wrought Island, like a garden rising atop a shaped mountain, and folded her legs under her, kneeling on air.

  For an absurd moment, I thought she was inviting me to lay my head in her lap, but this wasn't one of our childhood picnics. Doing such a thing unprompted would be startling at best, not endearing, and we weren't here to relax, anyway.

  Speaking of...

  'Wait,' I said when she rose, after examining whatever had drawn her attention. 'We're entering...? Aren't their defences wrapped tighter around their land than Fhaalqi's maws around the guilty's throats?'

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  She looked amused, eyes glittering like the gems they resembled at the moment, facets and all. 'Oh, I'm not here. Not any more than the moon is where its light falls. Nor are you.'

  What? I'd eat my coat if Illuminaria didn't have defences against spirits. In fact, they likely doubled as traps, so said apparitions could be broken down for mages. I knew that was what I would do, were I a grasping warlock.

  ?'Aina,' I said, 'I might as well be, as far as their wards are concerned.' I could feel them on the edge of my perception, as if I were brushing against giant shields or siege walls just by thinking about them. 'And I don't have much faith you can quietly pass through either, whether you're sending a projection of yourself or something more substantial.'

  She wrapped a hand around my forearm, and I wondered whether she was going to throw me through the wards - which would've been hilarious to watch, were it to happen to anyone else.

  She did not dash my hopes, or my spirit against the wards. Instead, she said, 'You have yet more to learn about this realm.'

  * * *

  Despite the ominousness of Aina's words before our descent (it sounded like the right word, descent; more fitting than arrival, which was what one said upon reaching normal places, not Pits on the sea like this), we were not mangled beyond recognition by Illuminaria's defences, nor did we set off some hidden alarm, thus drawing hordes of monsters spawned by the blackest sorcery.

  We simply floated down and went about our way. Behind me, I could sense the globe of arcane force that surrounded the Wrought Island, as stalwart as ever. No one would've thought we went right through.

  It was so bloody unlikely I expected a catastrophe at every step, to balance how smoothly we'd made our way here. My eyes darted at every corner, nook and shadow, and I'd begun suspecting the most unlikely things. Was Aina allied with the Hierarchs and delivering me to them? Was I the bargaining chip between Great Powers?

  But...no, surely I wasn't that valuable. Illuminaria was the foremost magical stronghold on the seas, so my Gift couldn't have amounted for much. It had been rare in the fleet I'd grown up in, but that had been a backwater.

  Even as we made our way across city-spanning streets - of smooth stone that caught and turned light, broad enough to fit a whale from snout to tail - I saw work crews shaping raw stone into buildings rising several floors, each menial warping thousands and thousands of times their weight in rock, alongside the ground and earth around it, so that rows of buildings stood as if they had been there for years, in moments.

  The stories might've been true, then. If so, here, every mage could control all facets of reality, not just what their Gift aligned with. Matter, energy, mind, spirit, space, time, the laws of nature and nothingness and the processes that facilitated interactions between them.

  My magic could do some of the same, by proxy, but I hadn't been born with such power, with the ability to project raw mana and shape it into constructs.

  Few mages were, besides the Enlightened. To my knowledge, it took generations for such potential to build up in one's bloodline, or very powerful parentage.

  Aina looked one of the buildings up and down. It didn't look any different from the handful of others it had been created alongside: white with a tiled black roof, rectangular, with three tall oval windows on every floor, at least from where I could see.

  I couldn't glimpse any preternatural significance in the building's shape or composition, beyond the most basic. My image of Illuminaria being dotted with mage towers surrounded by the hovels of the masses was falling apart: most of this city looked like this, except for the sections obviously dedicated to one craft or another.

  It was...normal. As mundane as anything made through magic could be.

  Aina, having cleared the building as easily as if hopping onto a curb, stood up straight on its flat roof, knuckling the small of her back while looking around. 'New enough,' she muttered. 'Good view...get up here, Ryzhan.'

  With a hesitant nod (though I could not deny I was becoming curious), I tensed my legs for a leap. A needless mortal affectation, but it got me where I wanted.

  Aina gave me a sidelong glance, looking on the verge of laughter. 'Did you just...? Ryzhan, you're practically a ghost. Why'd you cross any distance to get here? Why did you not just appear?'

  ?'I didn't think of it,' I admitted. 'But what does it matter?' I'd chosen to leap because I still thiught like a human, if an inhumanly powerful one. Teleportation...

  Aina shook her head, smiling tightly. 'Not good enough. Again.'

  Her shove did not send me crashing through the street, but only because I was immaterial.

  I only recovered by the time I was deep enough to see molten rock flowing sluggishly around me. For a moment, I fancied I could feel its heat on my skin, and as if in response, I felt myself choke, though I had no throat or lungs.

  No! I was going to bury myself, thinking like that. Ghosts only had what limitations they thought they had. It was why so many haunted certain places until some condition was satisfied: they could see no way out of such a predicament, so there wasn't one.

  I imagined taking a deep breath, but with a clearer mind, there were no false sensations wracking my fleshless self.

  The only chains dragging me down were those I laid upon myself. Now more than ever, that old mage's adage rang true.

  I imagined myself elsewhere, and was standing next to Aina as if I'd never left, as if no time had passed between desire and result. Perhaps it hadn't. I'd certainly perceived no delay.

  'You are learning already.' She dipped her chin, sounding pleased. 'Before we leave, this will seem like the least of your deeds here.'

  Any deeds in Illuminaria that did not involve leaving or casting the island into the sea were a waste of time, as far as I was concerned. But it wasn't like I could retrace my steps and return to the Clockwork Court: the route Aina had dragged me along on was already fading from my mind, and the parts I could recall were jumbled and nonsensical.

  'Lead the way,' I said tightly.

  * * *

  The way, as it turned out, did not lead farther than the middle of the building's rooftop. It being level, there was no highest point to stand upon while drawing upon powers above the world.

  Aina watched my every step until I sat down, legs crossed. She didn't blink once, and taking a better look, her eyes didn't even seem to have lids at the moment. It granted her something of an owlish aspect. The sort of owl that beat eagles to death to steal their food, that is.

  'Expand your senses,' she told me as soon as I was seated. 'Glimpse the past, then grasp it.'

  What the... 'Aina, I'm not- my magic isn't like that. I work with my own memories. I can't see the past any more than I can see the future.'

  She was undeterred. 'Can you meld your memories with someone else's?'

  'Perhaps if said person had powers mine could work alongside, but I don't-'

  'Magic grows stronger when its wielder withstands tribulations, yes or no?'

  'Obviously,' I allowed. 'But unless you're going to beat me half to death then revive me a few dozen times, I don't see how you're planning to cause a shift in power like that.' The nature of a catalyst was also likely to influence the way a mage's power changed, but that didn't always happen. If you could control water, being burned until you fainted wouldn't let you throw fireballs after you recovered. It'd just strenghten your control over water.

  What Aina wanted would need a catalyst related to perception or discovery, and a strong one at that. One that'd bend my mind out of true, more likely than not.

  Aina's hands were clasped in front of her, but she raised a finger. 'Do you know the most useful part of our visit here?'

  I wasn't sure why the Pit we hadn't been tracked down by the Enlightened Order's Enforcers, to be honest. That had kept me from wondering about much else.

  'Don't worry,' Aina waved my misgivings off after I shared them. 'If you fail now, we'll all have much worse to worry about than mutilation and brainwashing.'

  'How reassuring,' I deadpanned. 'But Aina, again, I really don't think-'

  It was like a window I'd never noticed had cracked open, allowing sunlight to stream into the dark room that had been my world. The magic around me, it...

  I was immediately suspicious. 'What did you do?' I quietly asked Aina. 'You think you can rummage around in my mind as if it were your toolbox?'

  She did not reply right away, instead inspecting the talons on her splayed fingers. It reminded me less of a woman checking her nails and more of some predator gauging how easy the next meal would be to rip open.

  I'd be damned if I let something like that happen. My foci might've been far away, and my magic strange and warped by my incorporeal state, but I was not going to let my thoughts be changed on a whim.

  'I did nothing,' she replied calmly, lowering her hand, before meeting my eyes. 'You are getting a feel for the flows of power around us, I see. That will make for a good foundation, if you stop doubting.'

  ...She was not wrong. About the ambient mana, I meant. Had I not known better, I'd have said I was inside a spell's radius.

  Perhaps I was. Even if not constantly cast, any spellwork that could warp an island like this would echo to a mage's senses for lifetimes upon lifetimes.

  I felt like I was beginning to grasp the shape of this journey's purpose. But it could not be this simple.

  'Sharper senses do not mean additional ones,' I pointed out to Aina, whilst trying to keep my attention on her. I felt like I could hear the heartbeat of every fly on this island, feel every gnat's movements. 'Even if I could see the past - what am I meant to be looking for? Do you expect me to guess my way through Illuminarian history until I find something vaguely important?' I asked her coolly.

  She took it in good humour, since I did not become a cloud of shredded ectoplasm. 'Think of this as a springboard,' she replied casually. 'You will need a broader perception to understand what is to come.'

  And where better to train that than Midworld's magical capital?

  Oh, yes. I was beginning to grasp the shape.

  * * *

  The Enlightened Order, in the tendency of oligarchies with extravagant names, was only close to the people it governed when it was spying on them.

  Oh, Illuminaria was not a cauldron of terror, no. Or, if it was, it was a quiet sort of terror, the sprt that could be found in those states that reflected the callousness of the Pit rather than its cruelty.

  To put it delicately, the Order could not be arsed to torture people to death in the public square for whispering that, maybe, their rulers weren't flawless living gods. They'd evolved, a little, as I saw whilst casting my gaze backwards through time.

  (Now, it must be reminded that time is relative. One does not need superhuman speed to notice that; an unusual attention span is enough.

  But more than that, the perception of time as a river with a beginning, middle and possible end was a construct, chiefly a human one. In truth, no moment was different from others, if they could even be said to exist.

  But such constructs were useful to mages who dealt with time, for they provided useful frames for the looking glasses that were said mages' senses.)

  There had been a time, many natural lifespans long, when saying, thinking or even having a chance of thinking the wrong thing would've had you flayed and hanged by your own guts. But the Hierarchs (who governed sections of Illuminaria and were chosen to do so by their fellows, based on their ability to beat down any possible dissidents from said region) and the Ministers (who were at least chosen for their ability to manage agriculture, finances and things that did not depend on being the most powerful spellslinger around, though of course other Ministers were the ones to appoint them) had learned that you couldn't keep things going like that indefinetly.

  Sooner or later, a mage would slip through the cracks, escape Compulsion and grow stronger through strife, until they could not be stopped. They, like practically every ruler in the history of society, loathed the thought of an unstable territory.

  What could be done? Shackling the thoughts of everyone who might one day begin thinking to become a threat was not practical. Not in the sense it was impossible (their augury network was more than precise enough for that and had been for centuries at least), but in the sense most of the population would need to be rendered harmless, and so did a number of Order members.

  So it was that in modern day, and previous decades as well, you could curse the Order all you wanted, as long as you did not actually attempt or encourage others to attempt something revolutionary.

  There were nuances to this, of course. Vandalism was taken as a disruption to public order and thus a lack of respect against the Enlightened elites (for whose buildings were defaced?). Doing such a thing could lead to concerned citizens who were certainly not undercover enforcers dragging you away to join a work crew, in order to make up for your crime.

  I saw a man being pressganged like this after spitting upon the fence around his regional governor's home (for it did not make sense to him that being able to warp the world by thinking guaranteed leadership, as if said qualities were intertwined). I doubted he'd enjoy painting fences until he died of old age and was reanimated or repurposed as a flesh automaton.

  As I looked and walked away from the scene, which must've happened when I'd been a toddler, I reflected that Illuminarian culture held great love for "fitting punishments." Steal and you'll be forced to manufacture and carry whatever you stole. Murder and you could become a living target or punching back in the enforcer and military schools. Rape and you would be made to spread or bear new life, depending upon your constitution.

  Idly, I wondered what happened to those people who forced themselves upon animals, here. I knew some cultures considered that a sickness of the mind rather than malice.

  Around me, my perception rendered time into a tunnel of something like stained glass, at least on the inside. What I perceived as light came from the outside, passing through transparent walls and splitting as it did. And yet, I could not perceive anything beyond the walls of time, much less the source of this light. In some moments, my tunnel felt both constricting and all-encompassing, as though there was naught but this crushing passage, though I knew it could not be so - was the light not proof?

  I knew my spectral self would be kept safe by Aina as my thoughts wandered, just like my flesh was back in the Court - where, if was interpreting her words correctly, most of her being resided at the moment.

  A century passed, after enough steps. I saw the room and board reforms.

  The Illuminarians' magical prowess enabled them to produce enough food, drink and space for everyone, and had done so since the beginnings of their history. But it had taken them ages to move beyond the stage of giving people their basic necessities as rewards for backbreaking work.

  The modern Wrought Island had learned bread and circuses meant there was less dissent for the enforcers to crack down on, so everyone who mattered could forget about the chaff and focus on the arcane research they cared about.

  Further back. How many centuries had the Wrought Island stood untouched? How many millennia?

  Few knew enough to make remotely confident statements about the age of mankind, but surely the Illuminarians' had watched most of it from their shaped abode.

  As I continued walking, shoulders stiff but not trembling under the weight of ages - aye, ages I could perceive as clearly as if cradling the history books detailing them in my hands, for my arcane sense had wrapped around my baser ones and pushed them truly open - I thanked Vhaarn for the fact Aina and I could still speak.

  Neither impossible distance nor the gulf of time was obstacle enough to stay her moon-touched speech - and mine went to her, fast as my thoughts could form, floating on the currents of ages.

  'Aina. How did we make it through the wards? Why did no one approach us?' I had seen Illuminaria at wall, the wards flaring to repel anyone whose presence was unwanted by the Enlightened. 'It was as if we were expected...to...'

  * * *

  I had journeyed to Illuminaria (not that I'd known where I'd been going at the time, but this changes naught) with certain ideas filling my head, as if they had already been proven true. While some had, that did little to diminish my disappoitment in my earlier self.

  It was not that the Enlightened Order had built up some paradise of a society. Their Wrought Island was still a polished garbage heap.

  'It's not fair!' the indentured miner shouted as he was dragged to the processing station by a pair of overseers. The knife he'd improvised to end himself had fallen moments before they'd shackled his hands with antimagic bindings. 'What is the point - you treat us like lumber as soon as we breathe our last! What's the bloody difference if I try to end it...now...'

  ?

  His shoulders slumped as his head lowered. He knew what they were doing, that they were never going to respond to or even acknowledge him. Treating people as something between furniture and animals temded to demoralise them, especially when they couldn't fight back.

  ?

  He knew what was going to happen now, with the quiet certainty that often came at the end of despair. There was no worry about overworking menials when they could be reanimated as tireless labourers in a heartbeat.

  ?

  He knew, too, that he shouldn't have let his brother's death get to him, not to this extent. But damn him, damn them all, his bentbacked corpse hadn't even had time to stumble before necromantic energy had turned it into an undead worker.

  ?

  He could've overlooked those vacant, staring eyes, maybe. From a distance. But they hadn't even bothered to move the creature to a different chain gang. And he could always hear its rasping, feel its cold breath on his...

  ?

  They'd called it a botched resurrection, the overseers. Botched, but not so badly it needed to be undone, or redone. A tendency to breathe? Harmless. Who cared...

  ?

  He'd always thought the thing had been left like that to scare them into behaving, but him especially. And now...

  ?

  Now, he would join it.

  ?

  ?Case in point.

  A man with a minor, specialised Gift: damaging manmade things. Choosing to test it on a causeway had been unwise, his second to last mistake. His twin's attempt to bribe the enforcers into letting him go had been his last.

  But I digress. I had wondered why anyone would design such an oppressive society in such a safe, bountiful area (besides the obvious answer of human nature being what it was). It had seemed so...thoughtless.

  For I knew it had not been accidental. The legends were vague about what mundane means had been used to try and build an utopia before the Enlightened had put their spin on it, but there had been an attempt.

  Hah. How often could that be said, about much of mankind's history? "There had been an attempt."

  That feeling had only been compounded by the impossibility of our ingress. Aina's coyness, which might've been endearing in other situations, was simply irritating right now. I had the feeling she was teasing me, and not even in an enjoyable way. I disliked being strung along on principle, but not knowing why, and the dangers that might result if I failed whatever trial was meant to strengthen my magic here, made it worse.

  But it looked like I was finally approaching an answer, literally. Aina had told me to walk the line of time backwards, until the beginning. I'd hoped she hadn't meant the beginning of everything, and mercifully, Vhaarn had answered my prayer.

  The man who crouched before me was dressed in the manner of those who, having just discovered agriculture, were yet to exchange furs for spun fabrics.

  He was a short but stocky sort, at least as wide as me, though his shaggy head scarcely reached my skin, and his arms looked thicker than my thighs. His eyes were the same light brown as his skin, a shade taller than that of Illuminarian commoners.

  Sone joked that the island was called that because the sun beat down on it all year long; that the Enlightened could control water and thus made sure everyone was sweating their hearts out all the time.

  Whatever their purposes, the Wrought Island enjoyed (or endured, in accordance with one's inclinations) a perpetually sunny climate. This fellow, being less dusky than most Illuminarians, but lacking the inhuman features of many Hierarchs and Magisters, must've been an ancestor of the former.

  He was still quite far away, on something that resembled a horizon, for all that my perception should've made my destination look as if it were at the end of the corridor I was striding down.

  The ancient man was working on something I could not see, fingertips extending past my sight whenever he reached out. I had a feeling distance and perspective, and not in the literal sense, were at play here.

  Every now and then, he spoke to his project. I could not make out the words, and I doubted I'd have understood them if I could've, but I knew.

  I knew he was not thinking out loud.

  I knew he was not talking to himself.

  And I knew the thing he had wrought was answering.

  I could feel it, in a way that bypassed my senses but settled into the core of my being. It felt about as pleasant as a flaming serpent coiling about my heart, but that only added to the certainty.

  Eventually, I came close enough that the man could see me. When our eyes met, his flashed in recognition, of all things.

  For all that he had to crane his neck to meet my gaze, I felt like he was looming over me, solid in a way that had little to do with his bulk.

  I blinked when I realised I hadn't seen him rise to his feet. His mouth split into a slow, lazy grin as he looked at me, revealing thick, flat teeth. His canines were bigger than mine, and duller as well.

  'I am [First of Hierarchs],' he placed a hand over his bared chest as he spoke, furred cape shifting. His voice crackled with something that put me in mind of the wordless, soundless way his creation communicated in. He must've been using magic to fill in some of the gaps in his knowledge, to facilitate understanding. 'You come as [said before]. This is [made land], not grown of yet.' He nodded to himself, tugging on thick, dark beard that covered his jaw and nothing else.

  I supposed I should've been grateful our languages were similar enough that not everything needed to be translated like this. 'You heard it foretold that I would arrive?' I asmed, hoping he'd get the gist.

  He looked mildly affronted. 'Not heard! [Said before.] I!'

  'You were the prophet,' I tried, and he agreed enthusiastically. 'That's marvellous, really, but did you, ah, see anything else? Before?'

  He briefly looked confused at that, but nodded. 'Yes? I have [tidewalked] before. Those who [lack past] do not understand what is fore...told.' He spoke the word slowly, trying it out. 'It is called so? In the time after?'

  'Yes, but I-' I explained to him, as briefly as I could, that I was on a vision quest (enough cultures partook in such rituals that he'd hopefully get what I meant) to strengthen my magic, or else the sky would fall and all the tribes of man and other folks would be driven under the sea, never to return.

  'Yes, it was seen,' the First of Hoerarchs applied. 'I prepared the land made, yes? You were waited.' He grinned again, brighter this time. 'You walked back! Aye, aye!'

  He was enthusiastic if inarticulate, but that was better than hostility. Bloody Pit, I was glad I even understood what he was saying. I could've ended up having to guess the meanings of foreign words by tone, or resorting to rudimentary sign language.

  Seeing he loved to talk, and especially about his clairovoyance, I said, 'You know, you might not feel such cheer, were you to know what your...Made Land will grow into.'

  At this, his smile grew smaller, sadder, but he shook his head. 'Nay. I reckon. Yoked bodies, yoked minds, no? Grand burdens. Yet there is need.'

  I barely stopped a sneer from curling my lips at that. He knew and was going, had gone, forward with it? I knew the Great Powers were often disappointing once you learned of them, but had they always been?

  Hmph. Perhaps they had. Some histories spoke of a coalition of polities, in whose descriptions one might see the forebears to today's powers, uniting to rip the heart out of Midworld's most peaceful scholarly culture.

  I had to remember that, even if it were only an allegory or cautionary tale. Which I doubted. Though I could definitely see the Clockwork King plundering anyone he could for lore and resources, no matter how "polite" he acted around those he received as guests.

  Had this man captained one of the ships that had sunk the Yvharnii for good? Would it matter, if I inquired? Either it had already happened, or it would. Considering he had no reservations about Illuminaria developing as it had, I doubted he'd hesitate about stealing from pacifists so he could lay its foundation.

  Seeing my expression, he repeated, 'There is need. The deeds, they are sieging your thoughts, yes? Though you have not seen all. This, too, was seen before.'

  'Is this the part where you apologise for the inevitable conclusion of what you allowed to happen?' I asked sarcastically.

  The thick, weathered skin around his eyes crickled. 'Eh? I should be sorry for what? Only the mad selfish put the few before the many, no? Then who is so mad to put the one before all?'

  He worked his teeth in a way that made me think he must've usually chewed on something. Twigs or stalks, perhaps, since I doubted humans had cigars in his day. Eventually, the First let out a self-deprecating laugh. 'This clumsy mouth, what charms it holds? May our knowledge unbound touch instead?'

  I almost turned and left, but then the veil over his power slipped a little, and I needed several moments before I could form a coherent thought, for all my fleshless state's uncanny speed.

  There was nothing I could've done to stop the first from melding his mind to mine. Except, mayhap, after remembering far more power than I'd ever had, but even then, the fraction of his I'd sensed made me doubt that would work.

  Not to mention, he did not seem the sort to let people who might threaten him prepare themselves.

  So, when he extended a rought, blunt-fingered hand, I grasped it.

  * * *

  'There we go, Ryzhan of the Yldii,' the first said smoothly, once we were in a shared mindscape. His half changed between rising and sinking island to vast quarries and architects' workshops, the transitions unheralded, seamless, and irregular.

  I kept mine blank.

  The ancient mage gave the featureless expanse a disbelieving look, as if he couldn't accept that anyone could be so uncaring of anything.

  Or so given to keeping secrets.

  'Like your woman said,' he went on, proving that reading the future and reading the room are unrelated skills (as a look at the average eccentric mage could prove), 'my Wrought Island truly is the best place for your Gift to blossom.'

  'It's the weather, isn't it?'

  He threw his head back, the mindscape behind him rippling in rhythm with his belly laugh. 'And she's not my woman,' I added irritably, when his laughter quieted down to booming chuckles. It hadn't been that funny, anyway.

  'The weather...' he rumbled, then gave me a lidded look. 'Hm? Not your woman? Ah! You are her man, perhaps, nothing wrong with-'

  'No,' I cut in. 'Listen. This is a bloody childish divergence from what you should be telling me, but to the Pit with it. Do you even know what our last meeting before we reunited was like?'

  He dipped his chin. 'Lunacy. Gone, not as bad as it could have.' The fur-clad man clapped rough hands, then pulled them apart. 'Your tribe gone, into memory. At her hands. Yes?' He shrugged. 'Worth that much? I'd venture no. You think if you stayed and they pushed to punish you, she wouldn't have gone mad? Hah.'

  'That isn't the point. I was getting to the fact we can be called friends at best. Whether that will or can grow into anything else is a matter for another time. One that does not concern you.'

  He snorted, rubbed his nose. 'Right. Then, this woman who is not yours at all, like you are not her man - I've always seen balance as the best path in this and most things, but anyone with eyes or hears can figure who takes charge between you two - so, this acquaintance of yours, she is not wrong.'

  At a flick of his wrist, a squat stone pillar, reaching to about his chest (whose hair intertwined with his beard and thus his mane, in an impressively hirsute alliance) rose from the tides of his mindscape. He walked on water to reach it with the swagger of a barbarian king, leaning one elbow on the stone to adress me. In his other hand, he held a stick of chalk and one of charcoal.

  'You are not wrong that you entered the island I wrought with ease beyond the common,' he said, sketching Illuminaria on air with the chalk, before drawing a dark halo around it. 'The walls unseen I raised, think you they have gone faulty with time, like a man long in the tooth? Yes? It would be witlessness itself to claim such.'

  He thickened what I supposed was meant to represent Illuminaria's wards with the charcoal. 'I do not make faulty things, or when they are made so by things I have not with hand, I rip the faults free. My children, how many sick ones think you grew up ill and hopeless?'

  Was this the setup for some tasteless joke about killing weak children? Vhaarn knew cultures more advanced than his still threw misshapen newborns overboard, as if they were stillborn.

  But the First of Hierarchs said, 'None. The gift that is behind my flesh and thought, think you it goes unused? Like an unbloodied club? No, no, you are full of wit, I figure.'

  He placed his drawing stick on flat stone, and his other elbow as well. 'Ryzhan of the Yldii, I saw you walking to me long seasons 'fore your grandfathers' grandfathers were born. The spells strewn about my land, think you they were made thoughtlessly? Or were they forged like glass-steel of the mind, open to those who must pass yet closed to all others?'

  I rubbed my brow. 'You created those wards to let me pass in case...so long ago? And the Illuminarians never noticed and altered them?' I laughed weakly, a little forced. 'I'm sorry, but you'll have to work my mind over before I can even begin thinking about believing that.'

  The First waved a contemptuous hand. 'Pah. What do they choose? The shields unseen? I take mine away, they build new ones, but are they better? Eh? They are even as good, they will be lucky.'

  He bared his teeth. 'Ryzhan the mage...why am I the First of Hierarchs? Believe you that you know? Think you that you can guess? Hm? Shall you try?'

  Who outside Illuminaria knew anything of its leaders' history, or that of the island in general? 'Would I be wrong to think you founded the Enlightened Ord-'

  'Aye! You would!' He pointed the chalk, larger than my thumb, at me. 'Mage of the time after, when one's power arcane opens so many doors, how do you think one might become grandest chief of the land I made?'

  'You are not the first to be a Hierarch,' I replied. 'Just the most powerful.'

  It was an obvious deduction, but he grinned as if proud of me. 'And still. In the time that is not yet, my being is wrapped around the walls of power I crafted. Alter my design, you say? Who would dare?'

  He began twirling the charcoal in one hand. 'I made a chiefly gift to those who followed me, and I made a sacrifice too, which you might call a gift to the world. Believe you it was in honour to some god grasping for offers? Hm? No, witless you are not.'

  * * *

  How much can a human bear until the mind snaps, and the body and spirit revolt in sympathy?

  ?

  There is much to be said about the potential stolen from creation's inhabitants when life became stunted, following the brashness of its Idea, now sealed and mutilated beyond recognition.

  ?

  It was a timeless moment, as impossible to measure as to place on a calendar, yet some have tried to chronicle it.

  ?

  The lore therein has no direct bearing on what followed. But, sufficient to say, one could not strengthen their mind indefinitely and retain their humanity as well.

  ?

  See now, the man who cut his name out, like an evolved creature with a vestigial organ. Does he feel more than he has been? It is difficult to say, in a way any of his former kin may understand.

  ?

  He certainly does not feel more. For all the bluster he shows the World Between, any memory of what once brought him to tears of joy or grief is all but gone, as faded as the faces of his family.

  ?

  He would not recognise them, were they to pass each other on the road, nor would he know to name them. He does recall the good he has done by them, and that is enough for him.

  ?

  He would say.

  ?

  This man with no name and thus no burdens, this mage untethered, he feels adrift even after he makes of himself the bedrock of his project.

  ?

  He knows he will never leave Illuminaria's defences until they are cast down. A man might go mad at the thought, much less the experience, but the First Hierarch has moved beyond such things as sanity and madness.

  ?

  In fact, from where he is standing, they are difficult to even tell apart.

  ?

  But he has greater things on his mind than what its state might be called, a trait common among philosophers (and madmen).

  ?

  He has seen all that was, is and will be, all possibilities and impossibilities of creation, fall apart and fade like a dream, never to be rembered. His sight extends not beyond that, for what could there be to see?

  ?

  But it extends to the beginning of the end. Like the echoes of words shared with his wife, this is enough for the First Hierarch.

  ?

  The greater working, put into motion an eternity ago, yet also still to begin, is not for him to intervene in, only ponder.

  ?

  What can a man do about such? Worrying about the impossible is not only as pointless as giving up, it is also far more tiring.

  ?

  But the working within the working, the mortar between the bricks? That, he can arrange. And he does.

  ?

  He knows that there is a way for the Dream to keep going, and yet all might fall to ruin, even if all made things choose to work together. Some might be betrayed by flawed memories, or forget their purpose or nature.

  ?

  Someone will have to stand by, bind their wills as needed...the First Hierarch almost imagines himself doing so, but as soon as he begins, he knows it is impossible.

  ?

  It is not a matter of power. If only things were so simple. It is a matter of natures most profound, and his is unsuited to the taks yet to come.

  ?

  Yet his heart is not rent by these two claws of despair. For, he knows, he can prepare the man who will do what must be done.

  ?

  But this cannot be done right away. The man who might remember what mustn't be forgotten is yet to be born, and will not be for more years than the First has hairs on his body.

  ?

  He almost roars at the thought, out of anger, but his wrath goes unspent.

  ?

  A trial, then. A trial to bear, and a trial to prepare, for the one who might be the key to unlock the trap that is the Dream. He can do this.

  ?

  It will involve crafting a nation fiercer, crueller, than any tribe of man or pack or troop or flock of beasts. He knows this, and he can already feel the future echoes of his deed, the minds shackled, shredded, their wails sent backwards through time to rend his will, his being.

  ?

  He can sense them because it will be under his aegis that all those cruelties will unfold. It will be to his stretched, worn spirit that the tattered spirits of Illuminarians departed will go, to plague him forevermore. Only oblivion shall have even a chance to silence the shrieks.

  ?

  His breathing quickens, deepens. A man could not bear this for even the time between heartbeats...but then, men have names. Things to lose.

  ?

  He knows that the society needed to create a rich enough area of properly-aligned mana would balk at the thought of being treated like an unknowing tool. That its members would hate him, disown him, curse him, in every sense of the word.

  ?

  He knows that, should the moment of necessary unity pass, the Enlightened will despise the man of remembrance, as they will every mage not under their yoke. He sees the lengths they may go to, to chain or destroys him.

  ?

  He knows what must be done.

  ?

  And so, he begins workings of his own.

  ?

  ??* * *

  '...so you understand, Ryzhan,' Aina said as she slowly circled me, a dark grey eye tracking me from her shoulder, 'that this was not meant solely as a history lesson.' The eye, previously lacking lids, narrowed at me in amusement. 'Though you doubtlessly appreciated the material for your tome.'

  I did not reply, nor open my eyes, nor move at all. I could see through my lids as though they were the clearest glass, though should I wish for darkness when I blinked, I only needed to think about it.

  I did not distract myself with such things, however. This was an exercise in concentration, and I knew Aina was fishing for a reaction, in case a better method than meditation needed to be applied.

  I saw the Illuminarians moving across their island, wherever they were. I saw the dust and packed earth under paved streets, and heard flies' footsteps on the other side of the Wrought Island.

  Though Illuminaria was much noisier than the natural island used as its skeleton, after the disastrous attempt to create a perfect civilisation by mundane means, I felt as if I were simultaneously next to everything.

  It felt almost like something out of a riddle. The more I cut myself off from Midworld, the easier it was to reach and understand it.

  Almost like separation was the blinders we passed upon ourselves.

  'I do hope you got a good look at the First's memories, Ryzhan,' Aina went on. 'Next you see them, you will be living through them as well.' Her expression was pitying. 'And a creation's worth more.'

  I gritted my teeth, but held onto my focus.

  I was no hero, Vhaarn knew. But even the most selfish monster would surely fight to have a world in which to keep what they valued. I had to believe that. Lack of altruism was no excuse for inaction. It was better to fight for oneself, and thus help all others, infinitesimally, than to do naught.

  I had to remember that. And everything existence needed.