“If anyone can do it, you can,” Baluka said. He sighed. “Take me back to my rebels, Tyen.”
They found a small group of the fighters several worlds away, locked in battle with a pair of allies. As Tyen and Baluka appeared the enemy fled.
Baluka turned to Tyen. “I’ll join these fighters. You go do what I asked you to do. And Tyen…” Baluka’s smile was tired but genuine. “Thank you.”
Tyen looked down. “Good luck,” he said lamely. “Travel safely.”
As the fighters and Baluka faded from sight Tyen staggered over to a boulder and sat down. So much had happened. So many people dead. Everything had changed in an instant. One abrupt and fiery ending. The Raen was dead. The worlds were no longer ruled by one powerful sorcerer. And he was no longer a spy.
He drew Vella out of her pouch.
I’m sorry, he said. With the Raen dead we are no closer to restoring your body than we were at Liftre.
Her fine handwriting appeared on the page. There is no need to apologise. As you know, I cannot feel emotions so I cannot be disappointed, she reminded him.
Yet you know that what was done to you was wrong, he reminded her.
I do. And it would make sense that the person I was would want to live again, if given the choice.
He sighed. Everything I did was to right that wrong, but everything I did was wrong–and for nothing.
If the Raen was not lying about his experiments, something of them must exist somewhere.
Tyen’s heart lifted. She was right. There would be notes and remnants of experiments–like the child’s head, if the Raen hadn’t destroyed it already.
Where would they be? He got to his feet as the obvious answer came to him. The palace! And if I return I can look for clues to where Rielle went. He thought of the allies trapped there. He would not have left them to die, but then he’d not seen how they’d killed the last rebels.
They might know something about the experiments.
They might. But if the Raen kept the experiments a secret I doubt any but the closest of the Raen’s friends know of them. He recalled the lone man hurrying to open the box of instructions. Someone the Raen had trusted an important task to. Was he stranded there, too? Tyen hadn’t noticed another mind when he’d sought Baluka’s, but then, he hadn’t needed to search for long.
He nodded to himself. I guess the palace is as good a place to start as any.
Putting Vella away, he moved out of the worlds and headed back towards the path to the palace again, gathering magic along the way. He flashed past the six dead worlds, amused to find they were no longer at all intimidating.
As he neared the Raen’s world no detail of the hall appeared, only darkness. Guessing that the allies had left it to scavenge for food, he arrived an arm’s length above the level of the floor to avoid materialising within an object.
His precaution proved to be wise, as when he dropped he stumbled on something soft and uneven. Catching his balance, he created a bright light, and found his guess was right: he’d landed on a corpse. Looking around, he noted how little blood he could see. While some bodies lay twisted in disturbing ways, with limbs bent in ways they shouldn’t be or heads half crushed, others showed no signs of what had, ultimately, killed them.
Magic could be a tidy killer.
His stomach churned, disturbed by the reek of burning flesh and wood still permeating the room. His eyes were drawn to the dais. The Raen’s death had a neatness to it as well. No body to rot away. Nothing but a hand, if that’s what it was. He found himself walking towards the raised end of the hall. Fixing his eyes on the pile of ash and charred wood, he recalled the Raen’s last moments.
Why didn’t you run? Why didn’t you fight, for that matter?
Had the Raen killed himself? Were the rebels only supporting characters for an exit that would be remembered for the next thousand cycles?
Or had the Raen underestimated the rebels or overestimated his strength?
Thinking about what he’d read from the minds of the stranded allies in the hall, he considered another possibility: that the allies had deliberately delayed coming to support the Raen in the hopes that the rebels would kill him.
And what of the mysterious sorcerer hurrying to open a box containing instructions. Had he failed, and therefore failed the Raen?
The only other possibility Tyen could think of was that the man the rebels had killed had been a stand-in. Why, then, hadn’t Tyen been able to read his mind? Had the Raen been blessed with a friend willing to die for him who was similar enough in appearance and powerful enough to hide his mind, and therefore the deception taking place?
He knew me, Tyen thought, remembering how the Raen had met his gaze and nodded. Whoever it was, he recognised me.
As he reached the pile of ash he saw it had been disturbed. Footprints scuffed the black dust around the remains, leading to the seat cover, which had been moved. No disembodied hand lay where it had been.