“Then why not teach me elsewhere?”
Dahli shrugged. “I guess Valhan decided it was time to abandon this place. He may as well use the remaining magic for something worthwhile.”
His tone was light, but the line between his eyebrows had returned. She searched his face for clues, but as he noticed her scrutiny he looked away, quickening his steps. As he steered her towards the Arrival Hall she gathering up her scarf from around her neck and draped it over her head.
“What about everyone else here?” she asked.
“Already gone.” His back straightened as he passed through the archway into the Hall. “Raen,” he said, his voice suddenly heavy with respect and admiration.
Rielle followed. Valhan stood a few paces away. A shiver ran over her skin. The ruler of worlds’ knowing gaze moving from Dahli to her, and back again.
“Congratulations,” he said. “To both of you.”
As Dahli somehow managed to stand even straighter, she resisted a smile.
“He is an excellent teacher,” she said, happy to have been the reason for his pride.
Valhan’s gaze returned to hers. “And you a worthy student.”
“Ah… thank you for… for everything,” she said, abandoning the dignified speech of gratitude she had planned to give.
His smile was small and brief, but enough to tell her he was pleased. “You must have many questions, but they will have to wait.”
She doubted she had any questions left to ask after the long walk back with Dahli. Valhan extended one hand to each of them. Together, she and Dahli stepped forward to take hold of them.
Valhan looked at her. “You no longer need to take a deep breath before travelling between worlds, Rielle, but you will have less damage to repair if you do, and avoid staying too long between them.”
She took the hint and inhaled. The Arrival Hall brightened and faded to white.
The now familiar combination of worlds flashed in and out of sight, followed by a stream of unfamiliar ones. Briefly she wondered how he could take them out of his world when so little magic remained within reach, then realised the answer was obvious: he had arrived holding enough to leave again.
So when he came to my world, all those years ago, he must not have had enough left over to escape. I wonder… if someone else, or several others, had entered my world holding as much magic as they could, would they have been able to free him?
“Yes.” His voice was clear but, as before, his mouth did not move. “But none of my followers or allies knew where I was.”
“Not even the friends of the rebel who lured him there,” Dahli added.
Rielle looked at her teacher, noting that his mouth did not move either. Colours and shapes formed around them, and as they resolved into objects she gaped in astonishment.
They stood on a ledge built on the crest of a narrow ridge. Like an enormous vertical curtain frozen in place, the ridge interlocked with others to form a strange, lattice-like mountain range. Except this range was not stone, she realised, but the trunks of huge trees woven together, foliage bursting from the upper edge except where it had been cleared around the arrival place.
Stretched between the living walls were thick, metal cables, and along these supports huge translucent structures were suspended, as if a giant insect had left behind a crystalline cocoon. Seeing movement on the cables she looked closer. People were walking along them, passing through a tiny doorway where the cable penetrated the structure.
Each building could have housed a hundred people or more. The scale of it all made her dizzy even before she looked down, to where the living curtain wall disappeared into a gently swirling mist.
“This is my new palace,” Valhan said.
She could only nod. It was astonishing. Dazzling. Beautiful. It was more like what she’d expect an Angel’s realm to look like.
The thought tempered her wonder, replacing it with discomfort. Had he chosen or made this place because of her? She hoped not. It didn’t seem fair that he could be changed into something he wasn’t by the expectations of others.
“Make the arrangements,” Valhan said. Dahli nodded and moved to the edge. Only then did Rielle give the surface below her feet a closer look. Like the buildings, it was made of a crystalline material. It was covered in a random pattern of grooves. Dahli moved off the edge, floating on an invisible floor towards one of the crystalline buildings. Valhan turned back to her. She found she had recovered her ability to speak.
“It is beautiful. What is it called?”
“Cepher.”
“Did you make it?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“The ancestors of the occupants. I have made many palaces, but it is always more interesting to see what other minds have invented.”