Wheel of the Infinite (37 page)

All sound stopped and she could hear nothing, feel nothing. She felt the Adversary poised on the brink and thought,
Please don’t let it betray me
.

No
, it told her,
all that is over with
.

“We can make a bargain,” the creatures said again. Melded with the Adversary, Maskelle could hear their individual voices, keening, unhuman. “We can give you—”

I don’t bargain with otherworld demons
, the Adversary said as Maskelle felt it flow through her.
I eat them
.

* * *

Someone was shaking Maskelle’s shoulder. She opened her eyes to see an unfamiliar face leaning over her. It was a young face, a girl’s face, no more than thirteen or fourteen years, with olive Kushorit skin and features, but the hair tumbling down around her ears was light brown, and her eyes were green. In a light voice, she said, “Is this my temple? Is it supposed to look like this? Do I have to stay here?”

Maskelle closed her eyes briefly.
Ancestors, he did it
. She said, “No, yes, and no. Help me up.”

A strong hand under her arm hauled her to her feet. Maskelle looked around, trying to get her bearings. The great chamber was empty, silent, still.
They’re gone, dead, every one
, she thought, still taking it in. Rian still lay sprawled unconscious nearby. Rastim was just climbing to his feet. “They’re gone,” the Ariaden said, baffled. “How did— And who’s that?”

To the girl, Maskelle said, “Wait here,” and went to kneel by Rian. She touched his face anxiously and his eyelids fluttered, but his breathing was shallow.

“I can fix that,” the girl said.

Maskelle looked at her anxious face. “Can you?” When the Ancestors had been in human form they had all been great healers.

“I know how. My father told me.”

Her father. For the first time Maskelle let herself feel the emptiness at the core of her being. For the first time since all those years ago in Rashet when it had first spoken to her, the Adversary was gone, truly gone. When she had been under the curse, she had thought herself cut off from it, but it must have always been there, an undercurrent flowing through her own thoughts, even if it hadn’t spoken aloud and denied her the visions. Now she knew what its absolute absence really felt like. “Go ahead.”

The girl looked down at Rian, concentration making her childish brow furrow. She held out one hand and Maskelle felt a surge of pure power as strong and sharp as when she had drawn lightning from the sky. It hadn’t come from the temples, it had come from inside the girl, where all the power of what had been the Adversary was now stored. Maskelle blinked and shook her head.

Rian drew a sharp breath suddenly, though he didn’t wake. He was already less pale.

“All fixed,” the girl said happily.

Nervous, Rastim asked, “Is he all right?”

“I think so,” Maskelle whispered. She brushed the sweat-soaked hair back from his brow.

Rastim stripped off his tunic and handed it to her. “For my sake?” he asked, his tone pleading, nodding toward the girl.

“What?” Maskelle took the garment automatically, staring at him. “Oh, yes.” She handed it back to the girl and said, “Put this on.”

She held it upside down, looking it over curiously. Rastim took it away from her, saying, “No, here,” and managed to get it over the girl’s head and far enough down that she caught on and pulled it the rest of the way on. “Who is she?” Rastim demanded again.

“She’s what’s left of the Adversary. It remade itself into her.”

Rian stirred a little, then grabbed his head and muttered, “Ow.”

The girl tugged on her sleeve. “It’s happening.”

“It’s happening,” Maskelle repeated vaguely. The Marai, the Wheel, sunset. “It’s happening! Come on.” Maskelle dragged Rian’s arm over her shoulder and hauled him up, panic giving her the strength.

Rastim helped support him from the other side, asking tensely, “What do we do?”

“Climb up here,” Maskelle explained, planting her foot on the fragment of wooden flooring carefully. “Don’t touch the Wheel.”

“I could fix,” the girl said helpfully.

“I know you can, but not just now.” With Rastim and the girl’s help she got Rian up on the flooring. Maskelle sat down heavily, pulling her head into his lap, Rastim crouching on one side of her and the girl on the other. There was just enough room for them. “Everyone watch their fingers and toes,” she breathed.

She could feel it coming, like an immense heart about to beat. Rastim started to say something, then time paused and stilled, silence filling the void. Then silence rushed away and Rastim said, “When is it going to . . .”

Scents flooded in first, incense and warm damp air. The roar of a faraway crowd, the chamber suddenly much smaller, only a few feet larger on each side than the wheel. Maskelle found herself staring at an exquisitely carved Kushorit hunting scene with warriors and nobles mounted on elephants, and a wicked-looking tiger stalking through wooden trees. They were in one of Chancellor’s Mirak’s rooms in the Celestial Home.

“... begin,” Rastim finished.

Rian would never have thought the hot damp air of Duvalpore would feel good, but now it was as welcome as a cool breeze.

They were at a trader’s post on the very outskirts of the great city, outside the outer wall and across one of the barrier canals. Rian was sitting on a fallen log near the cold firepit while Rastim lay on one of the grass mats nearby. The post was mostly empty, with all the traders inside the city for the festival. They had a good view of the wall across the water, with the heavy vines creeping up stone stained red and gold by the sunset, and the high domes of the temples floating above it in the evening mist. The Ariaden’s wagons were drawn up under a cluster of tall palms, and the actors were all mostly asleep, recovering from their ordeal and the precipitate exit from the city.

No one seemed to be aware of the change except for those who had been in the Marai and experienced it. As soon as Maskelle had spoken to the guards and servants still present in the Celestial Home, it was obvious that those two days spent in that strange place had gone by in a heartbeat for everyone left behind in the city. Fortunately there was no one in the place of a high enough rank to demand an explanation from the Voice of the Adversary as to what she was doing in Chancellor Mirak’s private quarters.

Maskelle had commandeered another boat from the Palace docks so they could return to the Marai. Once there she had gone inside and sent out the other Ariaden, and Rastim had hurried them back to the guesthouse to collect their wagons and the rest of the group and then they had worked their way out of the crowded city. That was earlier today and Rian hadn’t seen her since.

The Ariaden were still confused, and Rian and Rastim hadn’t had much time for explanations for them; Rian still wasn’t sure he understood what had happened himself. It was a little hard to comprehend that a few hours ago they had been trapped in a limbo with the whole world at stake, and now they were sitting in a trader’s post in the warm twilight waiting for Maskelle to return.

Rastim, who must have been thinking along much the same lines, commented, “Hard to believe it wasn’t all a dream.”

“Well, we do have some evidence,” Rian said wryly.

They both looked at the girl.
Going to have to think of a name for her
, he thought. She had been wandering along the edge of the treeline, investigating the flowers and ferns and admiring the insects and birds. As the twilight lengthened, she had come back to where he and Rastim were sitting. Rian thought she was watching the barges and boats go down the canal, but now she edged closer to him and seemed a little nervous.

He asked, “What’s wrong?”

She gestured at the colors streaking the darkening sky. “Is this supposed to happen?”

He looked up at Rastim, who shrugged his bewilderment. Rian asked, “Is what supposed to happen?”

She pointed up again. “That. The light going away.”

Rian realized what she meant and smiled, shaking his head a little in amazement. “It’s night. That’s supposed to happen.” The Adversary had given her much of the knowledge it thought she needed to survive, but it seemed to have left out a few key facts.

“Oh. That’s all right then.” Reassured, she leaned against Rian’s knee.

Rastim stood up suddenly. “There she is.”

Rian looked up to see the Celestial One’s boat coming toward them from across the canal, the white fabric of the awning drifting gently in the breeze.

“Who’s that?” the girl said excitedly.

“That’s the Celestial One,” Rian told her as he got to his feet. He could see Maskelle now, sitting next to the old man, and felt relief wash over him.

“Trouble?” Rastim asked worriedly.

“I don’t think so.” There was no one else in the boat but the boys who poled it. The Celestial One hadn’t even brought his usual attendant priest. “Wait here.”

Rian went down the gentle slope of the bank to the post’s dock as the boat was drawing up. He saw the “wait here” had worked on Rastim, but the girl had followed him, bouncing along happily at his side. He looked down at her, lifting his brows, and she said, “My father said if Maskelle wasn’t here I was supposed to stay with you.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” Rian let out his breath. The Adversary had apparently planned for every contingency.

One of the boys jumped out of the boat to tie it off, and Rian helped Maskelle lift the Celestial One out.

“Ah,” the old man said, looking around and sniffing the fresh air. “It is good to be alive again.”

The last time Rian had seen the Celestial One he had been a corpse. It was still hard to believe they had survived it all.

“This is she?” the Celestial One asked, eyeing the girl.

“No other,” Maskelle told him.

The Celestial One took the girl’s arm and let her lead him up the short distance to the camp.

Rian hung back with Maskelle, asking, “What did you tell them?”

She sighed and pushed her braids back. “That the Adversary was injured by the change, that it needs time to recover and until then there will be no Voice.”

“They believed that?”

She shrugged a little, smiling ruefully. “They don’t have a choice. Besides, it’s mostly true.” She said slowly, “When the Voices used the Wheel to close the Aspian Straits and made the Sakkaran cities vanish, they damaged the Adversary. The Ancestors are all spirits who were once people, but the Adversary was the world itself, the way the Wheel is the world. A part of itself went with those cities. It had to wait until now to remake itself, but it was growing weary, and a little mad. It didn’t always remember what it was it had to do. It gave me a false vision and told me to destroy Raith so I would be exiled. So all the events it foresaw would fall into place. It spoke to Marada when she came to this world and pretended to need her help. She told me
The Book of the Adversary
was the one Koshan text she didn’t need to read. She thought she knew all there was to know. But none of us knew.”

Rian looked at the girl again. “So she’s like one of the original Ancestors. When she dies . . .”

“Her spirit will join the Infinite and become the new Adversary.”

Maskelle drew her robes around her and they went up to the Ariaden’s camp. Rastim was a little nervous at being left alone with the Celestial One and looked relieved to see them. They took seats near the firepit and the girl moved immediately to settle at Maskelle’s side.

“You have a great responsibility,” the Celestial One said, looking up at Maskelle, his tone solemn.

“I’ve always had a great responsibility,” Maskelle told him. “This is nothing new.” She looked down at the girl fondly. “Well, it’s a little new.”

The old man snorted in annoyance, but only said, “What will you do?”

Rian looked at Maskelle. They hadn’t exactly discussed this.

She shrugged. “I don’t know.” She gave Rian a faint smile and he realized that she didn’t particularly care where they went.

The Adversary was dead, and though she had the guardianship of its successor, this was the first time in many years that she had been free. Rian smiled back.

“Stay with us for a time,” Rastim said suddenly, leaning forward. “We can tour the larger cities in the Empire. The roads are good and the audiences love us. When things calm down in Duvalpore we can come back.” He rubbed his chin and added speculatively, “If we’re still popular, I’m thinking of opening a theater, a permanent one. We’re all getting older and it would be nice to have a home.”

The Celestial One shook his head. “She should stay close to the temples.”

“She should have as wide an experience of the world as possible,” Maskelle countered firmly. She lifted her brows and added, “That’s what the Adversary wanted.”

“Hmph.” The Celestial One sat back with a disgruntled expression and looked inclined to argue.

Rian suspected this argument had been going on since Maskelle had returned to the Marai. Maskelle continued, “It wanted her to live as a person, to learn compassion and morality, the way the Ancestors did when they were human. And besides,” she gave him an arch look, “she’s half Sitanese, so it’s not your decision. The Adversary is a warrior and she needs to learn about that from Rian.”

Everyone looked at Rian, except for the girl, who, never still for long, was wandering back toward the patch of grass where the oxen were grazing. Rian tried to look enigmatic. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about all of this, but even after only a few hours’ acquaintance he liked the girl. He could see a great deal of Maskelle in her already, and the occasional glimpses he caught of himself were startling.

“You’ll take care of her?” the Celestial One asked him, his voice gruff.

“Taking care of people is what I do,” Rian told him.

The Celestial One sighed and folded his hands, looking away. “Well?” Maskelle prompted. “I was raised in the temples at a high rank and it didn’t do me any good. With her power it would be worse for her.”

“You have told me that it isn’t my decision,” the Celestial One said stiffly.

“I’m humoring you.” She smiled.

He shook his head at her, but he couldn’t keep the amusement from showing in his face. He asked “What will you call her?” and it appeared the decision was made.

Maskelle looked at Rian, who shrugged. He had never had to name any children before. She said, “What about ‘Siri’? It’s the Sitanese word for a type of sword.”

The Celestial One eyed the girl, who was stroking the forehead of one of the oxen. He said wryly, “That will probably do very nicely.”