Midnight Tides
‘Yet her sacrifice has stranded the T’lan Imass here, hasn’t it?’ Udinaas asked.
‘Yes. But Ulshun and his people are content.’
‘Vi truh larpahal. Ranag, bhed, tenag tollarpahal. Kul havra thelar. Kul.’
‘This land is a path, what we would call a road,’ Found said, frowning as he struggled to make sense of Ulshun’s words. ‘Herds migrate, back and forth. They seem to come from nowhere, but they always come.’
Because, like the T’lan Imass themselves, they are ghost memories.
‘The road leads here?’ Feather Witch asked in halting traders’ tongue.
‘Yes,’ Found said.
‘And comes from where?’
The boy sighed, crossed his arms in frustration. ‘Ulshun says we are in an… overflow? Where the road comes from has bled out to claim the road itself. And surround this place. Beyond, there is… nothing. Oblivion. Unrealized.’
‘So we are within a realm?’ Feather Witch asked. ‘Which Hold claims this place?’
‘A evbrox‘l list Tev. Starvald Demelain Tev.’
‘Ulshun is pleased you understand Holds. He is bright-gem-eye. Pleased, and surprised. He calls this Hold Starvald Demelain.’
‘I do not know that name,’ she said, scowling.
The T’lan Imass spoke again, and in the words Udinaas sensed a list. Then more lists, and in hearing the second list, he began to recognize names.
The boy shrugged. ‘T’iam, Kalse, Silannah, Ampelas, Okaros, Karosis, Sorrit, Atrahal, Eloth, Anthras, Kessobahn, Alkend, Karatallid, Korbas… Olar. Eleint. Draconean. Dragons. The Pure Dragons. The place where the road comes from is closed. By the mixed bloods who gathered long ago. Draconus, K’rul, Anomandaris, Osserc, Silchas Ruin, Scabandari, Sheltatha Lore, Sukul Ankhadu, and Menandore. It was, he says, Menandore who saved me.’ The boy’s eyes suddenly widened. ‘She didn’t look like a dragon!’
Found nodded. ‘All right. He says you should be able to pass through from here. He looks forward to seeing you again. They will prepare a feast for you. Tenag calf. You are coming back, aren’t you?’
‘If we can,’ Feather Witch said, then switched to Letherii. ‘Aren’t we, Udinaas?’
He scowled. ‘How would I know?’
‘Be gracious.’
‘To you or them?’
‘Both. But especially to your son.’
He didn’t want to hear any of this, and chose to study the faceted tower instead. Not a single path, then, but multiple doorways. At least twelve. Twelve other worlds, then? What would they be like? What kind of creatures populated them? Demons. And perhaps that was all the word ‘demon’ meant. Some creature torn from its own realm. Bound like a slave by a new master who cared nothing for its life, its well-being, who would simply use it like any other tool. Until made useless, whereupon it would be discarded.
Growing too fast. Was that the trait of dragons? No wonder the T’lan Imass women were frightened. He sighed, then said, ‘Found, thank you. And our thanks as well to Ulshun Pral. We look forward to a feast of Tenag calf.’ He faced Feather Witch. ‘Can you choose the proper path?’
‘Our flesh will draw us back,’ she replied. ‘Come, we have no idea how much time has passed in our world.’ She took him by the hand and led him past the stone figure. ‘Dream worlds. Imagine what we might see, were we able to choose…’
‘They’re not dream worlds, Feather Witch. They’re real. In those places, we are the ghosts.’
She snorted, but said nothing.
Udinaas turned for a final glance back. The boy, Found, get of a slave and a draconic-blooded woman, raised by neither. And at his side this rudely fashioned savage who believed he still lived. Believed he was flesh and blood, a hunter and leader with appetites, desires, a future to stride into. Udinaas could not decide which of the two was the more pathetic. Seeing them, as he did now, they both broke his heart, and there seemed no way to distinguish between the two. As if grief had flavours .
He swung round. ‘All right, take us back.’