First, we teach our child the smallest but most important truth That which is absent has not ended Therefore, perform The Return of the Face thus: Choose a clean, soft cloth with no vibrant pattern Cover the face for three heartbeats Then reveal it with a smile and the gentle word “here.” If the child smiles or laughs, repeat the game. If the child pauses to stare, wait patiently. If the child reaches out to touch, lean forward to meet him. In this way, the child learns, before speech or thought That what is loved may pass from sight Yet is not gone forever. —The Book of Proper Beginnings, a Yunei tome on childcare translated from the original Yunese by Auldenheigh Royal Press

  Gate, the Yunei Empire, Yonguitang Earthmote 09.06.03.18.14

  There was nothing, nothing in all the world, better than hearing his son laugh.

  Deng-Bei had an infectious, bubbling giggle for everything that moved, especially if it did something unexpected like briefly hid then revealed a face he liked. And he loved his grandfather. He still wasn’t sure about daddy yet, but was warming up quickly enough that he could stand on Deng-Nah’s lap (with support to keep his wobbling from tipping him over) and laugh himself silly while flapping his arms up and down at the way his grandfather’s face would pop out from one side or another of a silk cloth with a variety of silly expressions.

  And of course, it was a distraction for everyone from the deadly darkness outside.

  Eclipse for five solid days would have been an ordeal at the best of times. Even in this perfectly lit and well-stocked house, there was something about Eclipse that gnawed at the nerves. Maybe it was the background certainty that his family’s safety hung by the thread of bright, correctly placed lighting.

  There was a Proper way to light a room for Eclipse, of course, and the work was only entrusted to servants whose loyalty was beyond question. But still…all one had to do was slide aside a door and look out into the dark to see a bleak reminder of what could go wrong.

  Playing games with the baby was a good activity for distracting the mind, but Deng-Nah was feeling the need to move. After months of living aboard the Cavalier Queen and studying the blade under the tutelage of elves, he found his limbs actually ached faintly for remaining unused.

  Bi-Ha, apparently, noticed. She caught his eye and twitched her head toward the door, inviting him for a walk. He smiled, rose, took her hand, they bowed and made their apologies to the room, and headed out.

  It was not Proper that the Shades should pollute any part of a noble house, so even the gardens were brightly lit tonight. Tiny magestones, no larger than a water droplet, hung in the trees so they seemed to glisten like dew in the morning. And of course, the fire garden had its eternal flame, and the meandering walking path among the flowerbeds was picked out in glowing cobbles too.

  If one could forget the reason for the illumination, it was magical and intimate. Especially with his wife on his arm.

  “You’re prowling like a caged tiger,” she noted, and gave him a gentle dig in the ribs. “IS fatherhood not everything you dreamed of?”

  Deng-Nah had to chuckle. “I hate to tell you this…but you may now be second in my affections.”

  She gasped, and touched a hand to her heart in mock dismay. “Stabbed! Murdered by my own husband! Oh, how cruel!”

  She gave an unguarded grin when he laughed, and kissed him.

  “You know why I’m restless, though,” he observed.

  “I do, yes. You left work unfinished out there, and so long is it remains, our son won’t be safe.” Bi-Ha leaned against him and sighed. After a moment she turned to look back toward the house. “And I fear your father may never forgive you.”

  Deng-Nah shrugged and shook his head. “I broke my promise to him. For the right reasons or not, I understand why he’s…disappointed.”

  “The promise you made was that you would not bring dishonour upon this house,” she reminded him. “And you kept that promise.”

  Deng-Nah shrugged. He’d gone over this ground with his father in private, just a few days ago. The fact was, when he’d left, he’d expected it to disgrace him, and had done it anyway. The fact that matters had changed in that regard didn’t exonerate him in Deng-Li’s eyes. And he wasn’t sure he was exonerated in his own eyes, either.

  His father was a kindly, loving man. One need only see the joy that capering for his grandson brought him to know that. But…

  He became aware of Bi-Ha’s lips brushing his cheek.

  “You didn’t hear a word I said,” she accused.

  “I…no. Forgive me.”

  “If you could step back in time like your friend Jerl, what would you do differently?”

  “I would make less incautious promises.”

  She chuckled. “A good answer. But is there anything else?”

  He looked down at her, then stooped for another kiss. “I wish I could say yes, but…nothing comes to me.”

  “Mm. It’s a restlessness of unfinished work that haunts you, really.”

  “And the restlessness of sitting still for too long. I need something to raise my pulse…” He glanced around to be sure they were unobserved, then snuck his hand down her back and squeezed. “I can think of something that might work…”

  Once again, she feigned shock, though this time her hand darted to her mouth, but her smile absolutely ruined her attempt to look playfully surprised “Oh! Husband!”

  “Is it Improper now for a man to want his wife?”

  She slipped her arms up around his neck. “Far from Improper…and I think it would be well for our boy to have siblings…”

  “He’ll have several. I’ve dreamed of it.”

  They kissed again. Then her hand was round his, and she was leading him toward their bedchambers…

  Yes, for all his restlessness, life at home was everything he could ask for.

  

  Had I one eye that saw me as one who hateth me with furious will, And th’other as he who, though I fail him oft, doth love me still; And had I yet a third, to see no more nor less than what is true— What should I spare, or with the surgeon’s keen blade should hew? —Introspection, Lord Vale, c. 08.18.12

  Unconscious 09.06.03.18.14

  Nils became conscious that he was unconscious.

  This apparent oxymoron diverted him for a time, until it occurred to him that he really ought to be concerned about it. Why was he unconscious? Presumably there was a reason, though he couldn’t quite recall. In fact…memory seemed to be a tricky matter altogether in this state. He was thinking, and he knew certain facts such as his name, what unconsciousness was, and that it normally wouldn’t be possible to have a coherent thought at all in such a state…But actual events were elusive.

  Well…he had the power of Mind. That much, he knew. Logically, this accounted for his paradoxical lucidity.

  And…he was…being opposed. He had a grand ambition, a plan for the benefit of humanity. And it was not progressing unopposed.

  This would seem to account for his current predicament. Some foe had…knocked him out? Or sedated him. Drugged him. Something like that.

  Cunning. He’d already made contingencies for the death of his body. He…could almost remember them. Something important was involved, somebody important. Somebody he loved and was in awe of. Somebody who…who felt like….like a mother.

  Or least, like how a mother ought to be.

  He pondered this intriguingly bitter sentiment. How interesting—though he felt no particular alarm or distress about his predicament, nor any emotion at all that he could determine, that particular flash of passion had lurched up from inside like bile. Could it be…?

  He explored back along the unbidden commentary’s inner course. It didn’t yield at all easily. Like the skin of an apple lodged sideways between crooked teeth, he could feel the pressure and irritation of memory, but not actually work it loose yet.

  The point being…his presumable captors must understand his powers quite well. Rather than kill him, which would almost be a liberation, they had instead incapacitated and captured him.

  Well, that would not do at all.

  So. Inventory. He had…his mind. And that was, in fact, about the end of the list. He had only his mind, divorced from sensory input, emotion and memory. Though, those things were tantalizingly close, felt but not quite accessible yet.

  A naked intellect. A bundle of ideals and concepts, rational thought, and awareness. Truthfully, it was probably a good thing his emotions were unavailable, or else he would be in a maddening panic right about now.

  Instead…consider the puzzle in front of him. A box is locked. The key is inside the box. How does one get the key?

  Smash the box.

  …Possibly a dangerous experiment, when the metaphorical box was his own intellect. Or, possibly, an inaccurate metaphor. Metaphor being a useful aid to cognition, it was probably worth investing some time on finding the right one.

  Picture instead…a prisoner. Yes. A prisoner whose cell is designed such that only one with the use of both his eyes and his voice could normally exit…and then the prisoner is blindfolded and gagged, and his hands tied behind his back. Hopeless?

  No. Surely not. Difficult, certainly, but a prisoner with his wits about him might yet find a way. The key would be…yes, it would lie in the fact that he was a prisoner. Which meant the enemy valued him alive, at least to a greater extent than they valued him dead.

  In his case, because they feared his death. Because they knew what would happen if he became unshackled from mere flesh.

  Why hadn’t he done that yet? Presumably there’d been a reason. Some reluctance holding him back, or some pressing need to remain physically anchored. Perhaps simple animal fear-inertia had stopped him. Or greed for the pleasures his body could yet eke out.

  Without memory, he didn’t know. But…yes. There it was. There was the key to this lock. He could escape from this prison, if only he could force his body to die. And his body was still there, in that tantalizing edge-of-the-fingertips way. Which meant it might yet yield to his focused attention. Not quickly…but he wasn’t going anywhere.

  With a clarity and focus he’d never have enjoyed in the waking world, he set about his task.

  

  NOTE: one gun good, two guns better. Investigate ways for the pilot to be able to shoot as well. Where best to mount them so they don’t shred the prop? —Scribbled in the margin of the Vargursson Mk.2 airplane blueprints.

  Gwidno County, Enerlend, Garanhir Earthmote 09.06.03.18.14

  Their landing site was a field some miles behind the line. The harvest had come in a few weeks ago, leaving a thatch of reaped wheat straws that hadn’t yet been tilled under: a sturdy enough surface for the airplanes, but also soft enough to absorb some slightly rough landings.

  Jerl brought his plane down with a soft touch, and enjoyed the feel of straw and clods rumbling under the wheels as he let it run to a slow stop. Behind him, Vayada hopped lightly up out of her cockpit and vaulted overboard with the chocks while he choked the engine down until it gave a last cough and fell silent.

  He sat back, rested his head back, and chuckled.

  “Holy…shit.”

  Vaya giggled as she hopped back up onto the plane’s frame. “Fuck, you said it. I’ve never had a rush like that in any of my lives!”

  Jerl nodded slowly. With a hand that felt oddly shaky after wrestling with the plane’s tendency to twist and flip through the air for the last hour or so, he delved inside his flight jacket, produced his pipe, and started to thumb in some tobacco.

  “The age of the airship’s supremacy really is over, though,” he mused, layering and tamping it down. “I mean…I knew it was. But to really be there for its end…”

  “Eh. Be a while before planes replace them for carrying cargo between worlds, I think,” Vaya commented. She fished inside her own jacket and produced a different vice—a small silver flask. Jerl raised an eyebrow.

  “…Wasn’t that Marren’s?”

  Vaya grinned. “He always inhales before betting on a strong hand, but holds his breath when he’s not so sure of it.”

  “Winter’s fuckin’ tits. How is it there’s anyone left on the crew who’s willing to play against you?”

  Vaya shrugged. “I do lose sometimes.”

  “Right.” Jerl produced his spare pipe and waggled it at her by way of an invitation. She nodded, grinned, took a swig of whatever was in the flask, and then handed it over by way of reciprocation.

  Brandy and a smoke. The good stuff, in both cases. He looked back to leadward as he savored the two treats, and nodded at the sight of the Cavalier Queen still hoving doggedly toward them. Derghan swore there probably was a way to safely catch the planes with thrown cables and haul them back into their cradles, but he’d been far from confident, and Jerl didn’t much fancy trying until they could be sure it was safe. Far better to land somewhere convenient and for the ship to come pick them up.

  In the meantime…he could sit and enjoy the weather, and bask in the sensation of a victory. Seeing Civorage parachute from the deck of his burning ship had been sweet.

  Seeing the bridge go down, doubly so. That was a necessary moment, a linchpin point in time. That bridge had to fall for everything to work out okay in the end. So…a treat well deserved.

  But something was tickling at him. The thought of Civorage parachuting down into the morass of mud and captured trenches below was…

  He grimaced, and touched a finger to a slight stab of pain in his temple.

  “You okay there, boss?” Vaya asked.

  “Something…unexpected is coming. Something bad. Something I…couldn’t foresee.”

  “I thought you could foresee everything?”

  “No. Not even close. Everyone gets a say. And Words cancel out Words.”

  “Talkin’ in riddles there, skipper.”

  Jerl shivered despite the warmth of the clearing day, and stood up to look back toward the battlefield again. Something over there was going wrong. Terribly wrong.

  And it had a familiar mental flavor.

  “…Civorage?”

  

  First we will sing of she who walks unseen Whose face is never known Her hand on our shoulder from behind Never she rules Never a command she gives Hail, the serving goddess —FIrst verse of an ancient hymn to the Crowns and Heralds, found inscribed on a standing stone on Stórsteinn. Translated by the Navigators, 09.06.01

  Pāpūpau?oleo Earthmote 09.06.03.18.14

  At seven years old, Kenu had already decided he was going to marry Lōei when they grew up.

  Some of the other girls in their tribe didn’t like Lōei very much. They whispered nasty things about her when she wasn’t around, or even said them to her face a few times. And maybe it was true, she wasn’t the most prettiest girl in the world, but that really didn’t matter to Kenu at all, because Lōei was better than any other girl in every other way.

  She was kind, and funny, and she was the best at climbing trees and finding interesting stuff, and she could run faster than anyone! And she never got upset at the other girls being mean, she just shrugged and laughed and went to have fun with somebody else, and a lot of the time the girl who was being mean found herself all alone.

  And when the long nights came and the tribe huddled together in the stone bothies with the fires and light-pebbles shining bright to keep out the Shades, Lōei was always the one who helped him feel better.

  Today, the sky was clear as far as anyone could see in any direction. There weren’t even any big cloud banks, and no earthmotes coming close. The grown-ups were all relaxed and laughing as the clan migrated again. The tribe was always going somewhere, as they followed the bison around.

  But today was a slow and gentle day. The horses plodded with the tents on their backs, the women sung, and the children were free to run and play so long as they didn’t stray too far from the caravan. And Lōei was spending time with him, leading him from tussock to ridge to rise and pointing out all the interesting plants they found.

  “And this one…” She stooped to point out a tiny white flower in the middle of a big splay of ragged green leaves, “…this is goldenseal. It’s good for tummy troubles or if somebody’s got a nasty cut that needs cleaning.”

  “You’re going to be the medicine woman when you grow up?” Kenu guessed.

  “Maybe!”

  “You’d be good at it,” Kenu told her loyally, feeling a faint blush at how stupid he was being. Of course she’d be good at it; Lōei would be good at anything.

  But rather than laugh at him she gave him a big smile then beckoned him to follow as she plucked the plant and went chasing off after a small growth of…yes, man’s-thigh root. He ran after her, laughing, only to nearly bowl into her as she spun around and stopped dead in her tracks, staring up into the sky with an alarmed look on her face. The goldenseal stems fell from her fingers.

  “What? What is it?” Kenu turned to look up as well, following the direction of her eyes. There was nothing weird circling in the sky, just the distant crescent shape of one of the far earthmotes, the really really big one called “Long Legs.”

  Lōei took a deep and shaky breath, then looked back down at him. “I…I need to go.” she said.

  “What?”

  “Just…run back and tell my mother I’ve done the thing again, please.”

  Kenu blinked. There had been something very grown-up in Lōei’s voice just then.

  “Lōei—?”

  She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Go. Tell her. Please.”

  Then she was…gone. She darted away from him, slipped past him while his mind was still numb with happy shock, and when he turned she was nowhere to be seen. There was nothing nearby she could have hid behind, though just for a moment on the air he thought he caught the silvery scent of mist.

  Stolen story; please report.

  He stood in the long grass looking around for her, then squatted to find her tracks like his father had taught him. But they just ended. One step, a second step, then nothing.

  Numbly, he wandered back down to the caravan and found Lōei’s mother Yāla among the women. She looked down at him with a smile when he tugged at her skirt, then her expression fell as she saw the look on his face.

  “Lōei said to tell you she’s doing the thing again,” Kenu told her, meekly. “And then she—she…” he couldn’t bring himself to say it. She’d think he was making up stories or something. “She ran away,” he finished lamely.

  Yāla frowned at him, then sighed. “I see.”

  “What—?”

  “Don’t worry. She’ll be back.” She paused, then ruffled his hair. “She just…does this sometimes.”

  “Does what?”

  “Vanishes. But she always comes back.”

  “But—”

  “It’s alright, Kenu. Thank you for telling me. Did I see you two picking herbs up there?”

  “Uh…yes.”

  “That’s good. But don’t leave them lying there. It’d be a shame to kill the plants then not honor their life by using them, wouldn’t it?”

  “Oh! Yes ma’am.”

  She jerked her head up the hill. “Good boy. Go on.”

  Kenu went running back up the hill to retrieve the dropped medicines, and felt better somehow. Okay, so this was…normal? It didn’t feel normal. But Yāla wasn’t worried, and mothers always worried about stuff. So he wouldn’t worry either. It was just…something else Lōei was good at. He’d ask her when she came back.

  But deep inside, he knew she wouldn’t tell him.

  

  “We do not talk to the Shin Yi. They are outcasts and criminals, repenting through service. They are…bad luck.” —Conversation between Enerlish troops and Yunei troops, overheard in the Ox & Barge, Auldenheigh

  Cantre foothills, Gwidno County, Enerlend 09.06.03.18.14

  To be Shin Yi was to devote oneself utterly to the perfection of just one thing: silent death.

  To that end, the Shin Yi renounced all comforts and memories. Their initiation into the order began with casting their name into the fire, and the ritual forgetting of all their past crimes and imperfections. They were born anew as Shin Yi, lived as Shin Yi, were known only as Shin Yi, and never showed their faces again, not even to each other. The goal was for any one of them to be indistinguishable from his brothers.

  Perfection in the art of silent death brought with it commensurate skill in related arts. The art of, for example, silent abduction. Sometimes, the necessary end for a foe was that he vanish from his castle leaving no blood, no mark, no clue as to his fate. So in theory, the Shin Yi should have had no particular trouble with today’s assignment. Capture the enemy general, drug him, deliver him into captivity. A mission they had all trained for many times.

  Nothing in their training had prepared them for this.

  The prisoner was leaking a vapor.

  It coiled off his skin like fog from a river on a cool morning. Neither the silvery-white of water vapor, nor black and shadowy, yet somehow both at once. The Shin Yi leading the strike team, known to his brothers only as “Heron,” knew his studies at poetry would prove woefully inadequate when he came to describe this, later.

  Something about the mist was slick and greasy. If the target hadn’t already been rope-bound up in a fetal ball and lashed to brother Ox’s back, he would have been getting increasingly difficult to carry.

  But the mist lingered. It fell from the captive’s body and pooled wherever there was even the slightest hollow in the ground. A footprint, a dried puddle, the cup of a tree root. And it didn’t yield to their attempts to disperse it. They might as well have been dribbling paint for a pursuing force to follow. This was anathema to the Shin Yi way.

  They discussed it as they ran through the woods, using their traditional sign language.

  “Serpent?” one suggested. The Shin Yi had shorthand names for many evasive strategies, and the Serpent’s Path was simply the act of creating false trails to mislead trackers.

  Heads shook: The mist would give away the true path. Heron replied for all of them, and signed “Badger.”

  Nods and repetitions of the sign. Badger. Fierce and fearless, known to prefer to turn and fight rather than flee. Several hands came up to volunteer. The team leader, Lion, selected Heron and two others, then signed “horse” to the remainder—swift, but its hard hooves left obvious marks in the ground. The command to push the pace at the expense of stealth.

  Heron and his chosen brothers melted back from the pursuit as their brothers fled further up the mountain foothills. Within seconds, the only lingering sign of their presence was the unnatural vapor still pooling here and there.

  Sure enough, men weren’t far behind. Men and dogs, in fact. At the back of the group, a well-built woman with a shaved head, dressed in white and silver, urged the red-coated soldiers on, looking quite distressed.

  “Hurry, hurry! They’re getting further away!” she hissed, as one of the dog handlers was forced to stop and comfort his whimpering charge. The animal had sniffed at the prisoner’s emanations and flinched away with its tail between its legs.

  An Encircled. And from the look on her face, quite desperate, almost in pain. As she looked around, she looked right at Heron’s location, but failed to see him. The dark grey-green of his clothing was just a shadow under the trees, and the fine silk mesh of his hood prevented his eyes from gleaming or the shapes of his face from standing out.

  She put a hand to her temple and staggered at something Heron could neither hear nor feel. One of the soldiers stepped forward to assist her, only to be swatted back angrily.

  “What’s the damn holdup?!” she demanded.

  “The dogs’re…confused, ma’am,” one of the soldiers said. Very, very slowly, Heron inserted his blowpipe under the flap of his mask and put it to his lips.

  “We don’t need the damn dogs!” the Encircled snapped. “Look! There’s a trail here, as clear as—”

  She stepped forward into the perfect position.

  There was a Proper way for an ambush like this to go. One the SHin Yi had practiced until it was as natural as breathing. There was no confusion as to which of them would strike which target. Three darts hissed from the trees to bury themselves in exposed flesh, and then Heron pounced forward, drawing his blackened knife. One of the two men not darted turned to face him, raising a weapon, but the blade came around in a straight slice so perfectly aligned along its edge that Heron barely felt any resistance. Blood sprayed, and the man fell in a faint, to bleed out.

  A moment’s stillness. An examination of his surroundings. The Encircled and her escort were dead, either cut down or fatally poisoned by the venomed darts. The dogs cringed back, whimpering as they sniffed at their handlers, then fled.

  They cleaned their blades, then faded back into the undergrowth. This was surely just the foremost scouting party. There would be many more coming to reclaim the captured general. Perhaps in sufficient numbers that the Shin Yi would be overwhelmed and slain in turn.

  If that was the Proper way of this fight, so be it. But they would not die stupidly, nor cheaply.

  But there was also valuable intelligence, here. The Encircled had known which direction her master was in, and how far. This was news Lion should know. They chose among themselves in the traditional way, and little Duck sped off through the woods to report.

  Meanwhile, Heron and his remaining brother, Gull, moved back along the course of their original trail to set up a new ambush. There was terror value in the scene of a massacre, good for slowing pursuit. But this was still too close. They needed to widen the gap further, so they set up again, and waited.

  This time, the group that came running up the hill was a sizeable force, some thirty or more. Again, they had an Encircled among them. Again, the Shin Yi struck. But this time, they took only two targets—the Encircled, and the group’s captain. The soldiers responded with commendable speed, firing back and counterattacking almost instantly…but the two Yunei scouts had already gone the second they puffed their blowpipes.

  After this, the advancing force were slow and terrified, jumping at every random noise among the trees. When they came upon the sight of the first ambush, they balked entirely and paused to send back for reinforcements. Heron and Gull nodded to each other, their duty done, and took off up the hill in pursuit of their brothers.

  With good fortune, they had bought enough time.

  Unconscious mind 09.06.03.18.14

  What was a mind? Philosophically speaking?

  Take a person. Strip away their body, their senses and their memories. What remained, once you’d done that? It must be a sensible, distinct concept or else Mind the Word of Creation wouldn’t exist...

  And yet…it was not, in fact, strictly necessary for life.

  Moths were alive, after all. Yet nobody who’d ever seen one frantically orbiting a magestone, battering against the glass of a lantern or plunging suicidally into a candle flame would honestly conclude that moths were possessed of a mind. Likewise for slugs, and ants, and the tiny wriggling things revealed in every drop of pond water by a microscope.

  Dogs though…sometimes you could see a dog thinking.

  A mind was the difference between response and action. A mind was the ability to understand, to plan, to project a course beyond the immediate stimuli. A mind was…A process.

  It was the process of creating reality, in a way. Or at least, creating a scale model. The greater the mind, the greater the reality it could create. For ordinary human minds, the model was both incomplete and distorted: lavishly detailed in the wrong places, barren save for vague sketches in others. Even other people weren’t real unless they were close kin and comrades.

  Things in the model were given names. Mother and father, brother, friend, pet, possession…the lines and labels on a map, describing and naming the territory without being it. In the end, the things a mind contained were all illusions for the sake of navigation.

  Including the self?

  …Yes. Including the self.

  Nils Civorage was a story, described by a series of habits and relationships. If one could grind the entirety of creation down to the finest atomic powder and sift it through some perfect filter to sort and catalogue its every last constituent, the final accounting wouldn’t find even one lonely mote of real, elemental Nils-Civorage-ness.

  Likewise for love. Likewise for fairness, and justice, and freedom, and happiness. Likewise for all cloying illusions. In the most real way, Nils Civorage did not exist: he was just a shorthand, a story told to himself in an infinite paradoxical loop. He represented nothing but the constraining shape into which something far greater had been poured.

  The thread was there to be pulled, but an abundance of caution paused him. Nils had always prided himself on preparing meticulously before taking any big step, and some warning instinct told him that this was a moment to be especially thorough.

  What, he wondered, were the constraints for? Why wrap a mind in layers of comfortable illusions then stick it in a confining, limited, dying body which would only reinforce and crystallize them?

  Mind was many things, but here and now it was the ability to think forward and model the outcomes. Remove a mind from its body and what did you have? You’d have a mind without senses to perceive the world or form with which to influence it.

  You’d have this, in fact. Or something very much like it.

  Shrive a mind of its illusions and what would you have?

  …A Shade. Or something very much like it. That was why he had power over the Shades. There was hardly anything to them but a naked spark of identity, shorn of all guiding purpose and personality. Remove a man’s illusions and you removed the man.

  That wouldn’t do at all. There was no sense in rescuing himself by destroying himself. But there were things he could…loosen.

  Fear could be the first to go. He would no longer need it, after this ascension. Second…yes, second would be the misplaced notion of compassion. A person was just an illusion, so why be constrained by its self-referential dreams of preference? People didn’t know what was best for them anyway!

  Doubt? What was doubt but a kind of fear? And what was guilt but the gnawing consequence of lingering doubt?

  Ambition, though…Nils was nothing if he was not ambitious. And his sense of responsibility, his desire to rid the human race of its woes by putting it under a proper management, that needed to remain intact.

  Selectively, item by item, he catalogued his illusions until he had discriminated the important ones from those which stopped him from being his fullest and truest self.

  And, having made his selections, he began to free himself.

  

  The events depicted herein are a dramatization based on real events. Some details, locations and names have been changed, omitted or exaggerated. This book is intended for entertainment rather than education, and should not be taken as a historical document. —Disclaimer at the front of Wullem de Tredleck’s novels.

  Cantrese foothills, Gwidno County, Enerlend 09.06.03.18.14

  When they had the chance, Wullem thought, the Particulars were going to train like buggery for moving quick over rough terrain. His men could fight like demons, no doubt, and there was no impugning their fitness. But looking back down the column he could see most of them were doggedly plodding on rather than really thriving on this otherwise quite pleasant hike in the foothills.

  Welll…okay, this otherwise quite challenging fell-run in the foothills. Wullem enjoyed such things, but a lot of the Particulars were city-dwellers. The best fighting unit in the Enerlish military needed to be able to handle something steeper than city streets.

  A job for later. And if Adrey was right, they were about to get their chance. If the Shin Yi really had captured Nils Civorage, then the war was over.

  …Right?

  Dear reader, I knew the thought was romantic nonsense the instant I had it. Most of the men who had fought and died today had no idea who our captive really was. Would their dukes and commanders suddenly be freed? Had the circle already collapsed?

  What kind of a hapless optimist would even entertain such a fantasy?

  Well, every novel required a sting in the tail. It would hardly be dramatic if the villain was simply shipped off to Brackishmarsh and the world went back to normal, would it?

  He glanced aside at Adrey. The Colonel had a ground-eating long-legged stride, and an endurance that had surprised him several times. If she was feeling the pain of their hard march, she wasn’t showing it…much. She did glance back at him, and gave him a pinched, dedicated grimace.

  He understood her well enough.

  Up ahead, the rendezvous point waited. Garanhir had, of course, seen a great many wars over its long history, going all the way back to the great game-wars of the Ordfey, in which legions of human slave-soldiers had dutifully marched into pitched slaughters over nothing more important than the fleeting whims of their elvish masters.

  In addition to reminding Wullem he had it reasonably good in the long view, that fact also explained the string of old watchtowers, forts and castles that strung every mountain range and guarded every pass across the earthmote. Ruins haunted every hilltop with a decent view, and it was to one of these that the Particulars were making their way.

  This particular one was five-hundred-and-some years old, built atop the ruins of an older elvish fort, and reputedly haunted.

  It certainly felt haunted. My skin crawled just to look at the place, though for any money I could not say why. The stones were mundane, albeit tumbled down where the ivy had failed to reinforce them. In the bright, clear light after the storm’s passing, it should have looked quaint or even romantic.

  Perhaps it was simply anticipation that made me dread the place. But I did dread it, far more than I had dreaded the recent batle.

  Okay, enough of that. He shook his thoughts off and turned back to look down the hill at the column of his men coming up behind him. A chill, wet breeze reminded him the storm was not long past, but it also peeled aside a limb of cloud on the slope below him revealing the edge of the woods and the party of Shin Yi jogging doggedly up from their depths. They were maybe a hundred yards away, with only a last stretch of rocky moorland and clinging heather bushes to navigate.

  But with them…

  “…The fuck?”

  Beside him Adrey raised her binoculars to take a better, closer look. “…I have no idea,” she said quietly.

  “None at all?” Wullem was shocked. He’d never heard her sound uncertain before.

  “No…”

  The wrapped body on the largest Shin Yi’s back was leaking an oily fume, which drifted down to swirl around their ankles as they ran. None of the men’s faces were visible, but Wullem didn’t doubt the expressions of disgust and fear his imagination filled in behind those masks.

  “Mind?” He suggested.

  “Has to be. Words interfere with each other. I can’t guess what’s going on, so…it has to be his Word. But doing what?”

  There was a new billow of vapor off the prisoner. Unconscious and bound though he was, he tipped his head back and exhaled a long streamer of smog that twisted high above him, and—

  Adrey cursed, and jumped up on the rock wall next to her to wave frantically at the Shin Yi. “Drop him! Drop him and run! Jiye! Jiye ka! Run you stupid fucks!”

  It was too late for the man carrying Civorage. The smoke twisted around and reached down and suddenly it wasn’t smoke at all but a great humanoid figure, distorted and shadowy but as solid as midnight. The pressure of its hand un-made the unfortunate Yunei warrior, who died in eerie silence even as he thrashed to escape.

  Adrey spun and screamed a command. “TAKES! GET YOUR ARSE UP HERE!”

  The desperation in her voice lit a fire under Trapper’s lagging feet: he sprinted up the slope while the apparition out on the hillside below them lashed out, licking back and forth with fingers of shadow. Wherever they struck, another of the Shin Yi fell apart in a shower of dust, leaving behind…

  Leaving behind a Shade. But one that stood out in the clear daylight.

  Wullem drew his pistol, took aim, and fired at Civorage’s wrapped body. Moving with superhuman speed, one of the new Shades intercepted his bullet. “Volley fire! Volley fire, lads! Get your guns up, come on!”

  The Particulars took aim and fell into their well-drilled “mad minute” routine, sending a pelting hail of bullets down the hillside. The Shades flickered back and forth, eating them up as the last of the Shin Yi fell to those sweeping misty talons and joined the screen around Civorage’s body.

  “Steady, Trapper…” Adrey put her hand on the marksman’s shoulder. “One shot. When I tap your back. Wait for it, for your life. Clear?”

  “Aye, ma’am.” Takes’ voice was icy cold and calm as he settled. “…Set.”

  Wullem knew his role without having to ask. He stood tall, blazing away all of his ammo. The wrapped body in the grass was still human, for now, if they could just overwhelm the fallen assassins’ ghosts with enough weight of fire, then—

  It worked. For just a second, all the Shades were concentrated in one place, and Adrey poked Takes in the spine. His finger tightened, and Wullem saw Civorage’s body sprawl sideways in a spray of quite conventional red mist. A clean shot, right through the temple. The rampant smoky figure dissipated on the breeze, and the Shades went with it.

  The hillside fell silent, save for the returning echoes. Wullem didn’t lower his pistol.

  “…Okay…?” he ventured, after a second. “Did we just—?”

  The corpse on the hillside burst.

  A tide of supernatural nimbus boiled up the hillside in a way nothing natural could ever have done, and wave of unthinking terror flowed before it. Around him, men lost their nerve and turned to flee, but Wullem found himself watching with an almost curious detachment as his body simply stood there and watched his doom come on.

  So this is it, he thought, calmly. Too bad I’ll never get to write it down…

  Something struck the mountainside halfway between himself and the onrushing wave. Something moving so fast and violently that it landed before the shattering krack-boom of its arrival reached his ears and made him flinch back.

  Except…she hadn’t struck at all. Lady Haust had simply come to a dead stop with her bare toes en pointe some two feet above the heather, perfectly still in body while her white robes and veils fluttered in the gale that accompanied her arrival.

  The unholy mists broke against her like a flash-flood striking a dam. They flowed aside, trying to search around, but the Crown raised her hand palm out in a gesture of commanding denial, and the miasma recoiled as though stung…but rather than fleeing her, it circled like a man with a spear waiting for his moment to lunge in and stab dangerous game. As it did so, it coalesced back into the same humanoid form as before. Larger and more diffuse than a man…but the features were still Nils Civorage’s.

  Haust’s sigh was full of disappointed pain as she turned to follow him. “Oh…you poor fool. What have you done to yourself?”

  FREE/EMANCIPATED/RELEASED/UNLEASHED

  Pure imagery and concept slammed Wullem’s mind with all the force of a serjant bellowing next to his ear, and he flinched. The movement drew the Civorage-thing’s attention and it started toward him, only to recoil as Haust conjured up a veil of wholesome mists of her own.

  “It’s not too late, Nils,” she said. “But this is the very last chance. If you let go and move on, I think you might yet find the journey continues, even for a damaged soul like yours. But this? This ends only in oblivion for you, one way or another.”

  SCORN/DISMISS/SKEPTICAL/DOUBT

  “I know. You always have. But I’m begging you, Nils…don’t do this to yourself. Please.”

  There was a good deal of telepathy behind her words. Concepts, ideas and emotions flowed freely, supporting and explaining her request. Wullem gasped and nearly fell to his knees as he caught a glimpse of just how beautiful was the Promise that Haust herself had not yet walked but could see ahead for them all…

  But the terrible wraith that had once been their foe was unmoved. The inky pits that might have been its eyes narrowed at Haust…and then he struck at her.

  The Crown staggered. Her graceful pose floating above the ground failed and she touched down. Rain-sodden black earth stained her feet and the hems of her skirts as she recovered and pushed back. There was a flash of ghastly light, a shocking crack of thunder, and Wullem saw a section of the hillside away to his right ripple, shiver, then begin to slide down into the valley below.

  “No, Nils. I will not let you.”

  FUTILE

  Haust’s reply was to…sing.

  It seemed a total non-sequitur to Wullem, but the knowledge arose in him as though from outside that of course a psychic battle could be *anything…*and Haust was taking her foe seriously enough to use the idiom that suited her best. **The Crown spread her hands out to her side and let out a pure, beautiful note that leapt off the mountainsides more clearly and cleanly than any gunshot.

  It was the wraith’s turn to stagger now, flailing as the eerie echoes came back to batter it from multiple angles. Haust strode across the scrubby grass toward it, drawing a round drum from inside her robes that never should have fit there. She beat on it with her palm and fingers, setting a simple, primal rhythm, and Wullem shivered as the power of it sliced through his soul and made tears pour unbidden down his cheeks to soak his beard.

  He could do nothing but watch and hear as the Red Lady’s song twisted and layered back on itself until it felt like the very earthmote was shivering and the air was vibrating, as though the bones of the world itself were her instruments.

  There were no words in her song. There could be no words to it, it was just…life. Pure life, distilled into music. He’d never be able to do justice to this moment on the page, not if he spent all his remaining days trying to perfect the words…so he just gave up and felt alive, felt the simple joy of being as he’d never felt it before.

  Rivulets of black energy lanced out from the wraith’s twisting form, clawing toward her only to be shoved aside by the force of her voice. They lashed at the awestruck Particulars, only to boil away under the beat of her drum. Where they touched the earth, grass withered and purple heather browned and died.

  The music rose.

  And rose again.

  Haust’s voice soared, climbing higher and higher until Wullem’s mind could hold nothing else. He closed his eyes in ecstatic surrender and swayed to her drumbeat. To even be near this was unbearable—to be part of it felt like it would destroy him.

  But it didn’t.

  He felt wrapped in protection, in love, and the certainty that she was doing this to save them. However much she hurled at Civorage, she was holding back enough to spare the mortals.

  But if she had not…to be unmade by her voice would have been the best possible way to die.

  The end, when it came, was both a relief and a terrible wrench. Haust’s voice reached its highest, loudest, belting note, and the Civorage-wraith could defy her no longer. It bowled back away from her as though she had wrenched it loose from its anchor and now it was as helpless as an airship in a hurricane.

  Not destroyed, though. Wullem knew as much, though he couldn’t think quite how he knew. Wounded, weakened and beaten, but not destroyed, the thing Nils Civorage had become fled to lick its wounds.

  Haust ceased beating her drum and chanted for a further twenty seconds or so before finally falling silent. The music she had made rung from the hills awhile longer, then it too faded and the only remaining sounds were the buffet of wind over bare stone and the sobbing of overwhelmed men. Wullem included.

  As the Crown turned to face them, the Particulars to a man made shows of deference. Most knelt or genuflected, some bowed and touched their forelocks. Some few simply stared at her in an awed daze.

  She considered them all for a moment, then stepped forward to lift those who’d knelt back up to their feet, dry their tears, or simply say something to them.

  When she came to Wullem, she smiled and stroked the moisture from his cheeks while looking him up and down. He stared into her veil, not able to see her eyes, but perceiving the kindly love in them regardless.

  “Don’t worry,” she told him, in a gentle murmur that only he heard. “The words will come.”

  And then she was gone.

  This simple act of healing pulled Wullem back together. He cleared his throat, stooped, collected his dropped pistol, reloaded and holstered it. As he looked back down the hill, he saw three surviving Shin Yi stagger out of the woods and begin to climb up the broken track of loose scree left by the landslide.

  A touch on his arm was Adrey. They stared at each other for a few seconds, and Wullem decided that he was never going to mention the haunted redness in her eyes if she never mentioned his.

  “Get…” Adrey tried, then had to pause to clear her throat. “Get the men organized, major.”

  Wullem inhaled, but he was glad of the normalcy. It fell into the aching gap in his heart where Haust’s song would now forever be, and let him bear its absence again.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Not long thereafter, they were on their way back down the hill again to regroup with the Enerlish regiments at Sewin Bridge. And from there…fuck knew. Wullem had absolutely no idea what this all meant for the war, or what came next. Whatever it was Civorage had done to himself to become that, he was still out there. Unless the Crowns planned on destroying him now?

  Time would tell.

  For now, he marched home, and thought of nothing else.

  Also by the author:

  - a three million word epic HFY story set in the near future, when humanity makes first contact with aliens and quickly discover that, actually, we're the ones to be feared...

  Dandelion - co-authored with Justin C. Louis. The story of Amber Houston, a young interstellar settler who becomes stranded and quickly discovers that she has inherited an incredible, and terrible, legacy of leadership.

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  The Nested Worlds is ? Philip Richard Johnson, AKA Hambone, Hambone3110 and HamboneHFY. The copyright holder reserves all commercial rights and ownership of this intellectual property. The events and characters portrayed in this story are fictional and any resemblance to actual persons or events is accidental. The author does not necessarily share or endorse the opinions and behaviour of the characters.