The Way Into Darkness: Book Three of The Great Way (32 page)

“You would send me out into the wilderness?”

“I would.”
 

Dhe glanced at Cazia as if hoping she might retract that threat. She shrugged. “I’m sure we could find more of you out there if we looked.”
 

The Evening Person looked down at his empty bowl. “We have sometimes had visitors from other worlds. Not humans, but other beings who have ascended to the point where they show the proper cultural markers: an end to violence, living in balance with their landscape, making things with their hands rather than with the power of their will. These lesser beings are given tours, and their experience of our culture is always carefully controlled.” He paused. Cazia wanted him to get to the point, but Tejohn was doing the questioning and she was glad to let him. “My people value their privacy very much.”
 

“If these were ordinary circumstances, we could respect that.”
 

Dhe looked at the bowl in his lap again, as though wishing someone would take it from him or tell him what to do with it. “It would be better to talk with someone higher. One of the sages, maybe. Or a diplomat. Maybe a planner. They’ve been chosen for important roles for a reason.”
 

Tejohn didn’t move. “I’m sure I will talk to them as we rescue them from The Blessing. Right now, I’m talking to you. Are you going to answer my questions?”
 

“I will,” Dhe said. “I will earn my place here.”
 

“Fine.” Tejohn took a deep breath. “These anti-magic stones take The Blessing from us, but only temporarily. Will you revert to a monster again?”
 

“No,” he answered. “I have been thoroughly purged of the curse.”

“Is there a way to make them permanent for us, too?”

“I don’t think so. They weren’t made for you.”
 

“They were made for you?” Dhe nodded. “Were they made to cure you of The Blessing or as weapons to kill you?”

Dhe did not hesitate. “The latter.”

“Who made them?”
 

“I wish I could answer that, but I can not.”
 

Cazia almost jumped off the bench to pressure an answer out of him, but Tejohn had already changed his approach. “Describe your home for me. Not in depth; if your lands are anything like ours, you could talk about them for days. But for me, now, tell me what you think I should know about your homeland, so I can get a sense of it.”
 

Dhe took a deep breath. “It is not like yours. The daylight is not so burning bright. The night time is not so pitch dark. There are more moons, milder weather, and all of the land has been made, by us, to be natural.” Tejohn tilted his head at this, so Dhe continued. “I am a grower. It’s not like a farmer; I do not clear land and grow specific foods in specific places. Do you understand? There is a more natural way for our food to be created. Also, it is easy to harvest. Nothing is for sale as you have here. If you are hungry, you pick something and eat it.”
 

Cazia didn’t like that idea at all. “What if someone fears an upcoming famine and harvests everything for themselves?”

It was Dhe’s turn to tilt his head. “Sick people are cared for until they are well.”
 

“What about cities?” Tejohn prompted.
 

The Evening Person wrinkled his nose in distaste. “None. We come together for prayer, counsel, and ritual, but we live apart as much as possible. Otherwise…”
 

Tejohn leaned forward, obviously intrigued by the pause. “Otherwise what?”

“Otherwise, we face influence. We tell stories or sing songs.
 
We affect each other, changing each others’ minds. Becoming too alike. It would be dangerous.”
 

Cazia was not entirely sure what he was talking about, but she believed him.
 

“Thank you,” Tejohn said. “Tell me about The Blessing. How did it arrive at first?”
 

“It started with voices.”

“What kind of voices?”

“They were normal voices, but no one was there to speak. We can tell if someone is near, and I knew I was alone the first time I heard it. But the voices told me to meet at the…”

Something about this part of the story piqued Cazia’s memory. Where had she heard about disembodied voices before? Could Dhe be talking about the Tilkilit queen? “To meet where?” she asked, annoyed by his delay.
 

“It is a place that is forbidden to talk about, even among my own people. The name of the place is not important, and this was not the time of year to perform our holy rituals there.”

“Describe the place for me,” Tejohn said.
 

Dhe looked as though he wanted to refuse. “Sand and water meet. An ocean. There are buildings, too. It is holy.”
 

“Did you go to meet there?” Tejohn asked.
 

“I did. So did many of my neighbors. It was strange to see them again so soon after the turning of the year, but we were all there. And so were
they
.” For a moment, Cazia thought he was going to pause again, but it was only a moment before he recovered and continued with his story. “They were little fanged creatures. Black and red fur. Four legs. Long tails.” He shuddered. “
Fangs
. We do not have killing animals in our lands any longer.”

“None?” Tejohn asked. “We know what happens if you take hunting animals out of a forest: the beasts they prey on grow too numerous, destroy the forest, and starve themselves.”
 

“That’s because you do not know how to control them,” Dhe said. “It’s not my task to do so, but in our lands, beasts breed at just the correct rate to replace their numbers. They don’t have to overbreed to feed predators. We have changed them to make them more comfortable and to fit better with the world.”
 

We have changed them.
The hairs on the back of Cazia’s neck stood straight up.
Transformation War
, Kelvijinian had said. Were the Evening People planning to change and control humans, too?
 

“A few of us were bitten as we fled,” Dhe continued. “I was one of them. I returned to my home convinced that I had escaped the worst of it, but I was wrong. The beasts had not intended to devour us, merely to spread the curse. I transformed beside the hearthstone of my own home, and I remember nothing more until I woke in the storeroom beside you, in your lands.”
 

Tejohn’s voice was grave. “You are far from home.”
 

“But there is a portal, yes?” A note of hope had crept into his voice. “A way for me to return to my home and my forest?”
 

“Not at the moment.” Tejohn glanced at Cazia as if expecting her to contradict him. “The portal to your home won’t open again for another twenty-three years.”
 

Dhe closed his eyes, then opened them. “As my magic returns to me, I can sense that your days and years are longer than those of my home. Still, it is a short time for someone who lives as long as I do. It is rare for one of my caste to be allowed to travel. Perhaps I will have a chance to study the local flora.”
 

Tejohn strained to be casual when he spoke next, but Cazia could sense the tension in him. “Where were you bitten? Show me.”
 

Dhe shrugged and lifted the hem of his borrowed robe. There was a scar on his right calf, a long puffy line of daffodil yellow that stood out strongly against his golden skin. Tejohn and Cazia both examined it closely.
 

“No purple hair,” Cazia muttered.
 

“No,” Dhe said. “As I said, the anti-magic stone expunged all traces of The Great Way from me—”

Cazia laid her hand on Tejohn’s forearm to forestall the question he was about to ask. “What do you mean,
expunged The Great Way?
”
 

“The stones,” Dhe said, as though describing sunlight to someone enjoying a sunny day. “They drive The Great Way out of us for a time. That is why they are deadly to my people; we can not survive when cut off from our gods. But that is also why they cure The Blessing.”
 

“Are you saying,” Cazia asked carefully, “that The Blessing comes from The Great Way?”
 

Dhe’s expression became serene and condescending. “All magic does. Is this not obvious to you? Have you never been taught about the source of your magic?”
 

The Scholars’ Guild keeps its secrets
. “I wish we had. Magic and spells come from the gods?”
 

“Not all of the gods,” Dhe corrected. “The Great Way. When you clear your mind, through mental and physical preparations, you are touching the varied and colossal mind of The Great Way. You are inviting it into you so it may act upon the world for you. If you overuse magic, you may find the god difficult to exorcise. It is a holy thing. Sacred. But like many holy things, it is extremely dangerous.”
 

Cazia glanced at Tejohn to see if he was as shocked as she was, and saw a much more complex expression on his face than simple surprise. Fire and Fury, but that presence within her, with its detached curiosity and desire to be renowned--which had driven Tejohn to kill Doctor Rexler--was her god? The actual presence of the most powerful god in existence? The one she prayed to regularly?
 

Had she thought to pray after she’d gone hollow? It occurred to her that she might have spoken directly to her god. She might have… What could she have done? Turned over her life to him? Devoutly entreated him to leave her? Asked him to share some sort of revelation?
 

Cazia clasped her hands together to keep them from trembling. A Tilkilit stone—she didn’t want to call them with the name of her friend, not now that she knew this—had driven her god away. Was that blasphemy? Would she be permitted to remain on The Way now that she had the knowledge that came with becoming a wizard but without the presence of that Other that was so dangerous?
 

Unliving but intelligent
. Fire and Fury, her magic came from The Great Way, the embodiment of every aspect of a natural life, and when it entered into her, the Tilkilit had driven it out.
 

Just as she had done to Prince Ghoron.
 

Cazia realized that she was breathing hard and that sweat was running down her forehead. She took a deep breath. Had she blasphemed against her most powerful god by freeing Ghoron Italga from his celestial influence? Maybe so. Still, if The Great Way wanted to remain inside the man, he should have made him take a bath once in a while. Or clean his tower. If he wanted the man to stay hollow, he should have made going hollow seem less like madness.
 

“Anyway,” she said aloud, mostly to herself, “the deed is done. Tell me, Dhe: is it blasphemy to drive out the presence of The Great Way?”
 

“Not to us,” he answered simply. “I don’t know how the gods feel about it.”
 

“I’ve gone hollow,” Cazia said. When Dhe looked confused, she took a deep breath and composed her thoughts. “I’ve overused magic. I’ve felt the presence of The Great Way within me. It was… It was awful.”
God is not supposed to be awful
. “I wanted to take things apart to learn about them, and I wanted to do great things that would make me famous. Well, no, it wasn’t me that wanted to do those things, it was…”
Unliving but intelligent.
 

“The presence,” Dhe finished for her. Cazia nodded, and the Evening Person continued. “Those are two sides of the same thing, don’t you see? The Great Way wants to know and to be known. It’s made out of us. Out of travelers. It is part of the world but only connected through the portals. It—”
 

“Portals?” Tejohn interrupted. Cazia wanted to slap him on the shoulder for interrupting.
 

“Yes.” Dhe shifted on his bench slightly. “The Great Way is the portal. The single portal that exists in my places and times. There’s only one Great Way, only one not-space not-moment, filled with everyone who has ever passed through. But! That single not-space not-moment opens into many places in many distant lands. You have an unusually high number of them here. Our theologians believe that our god is searching all the lands of distance and patience for something, but we do not know what it could be.”
 

The Door in the Mountain
. And not just the Door in the Mountain, but the portal The Blessing had come through, and however many more were out there in the world. “You said you can sense things,” Cazia said. “Can you sense the portals?”
 

“Oh, yes, there are several within a day’s flight in one of your carts.”

Tejohn bolted off the bench in surprise. “Tell me where they are.”
 

Dhe flinched as though he expected to be struck, then shrugged and continued reasonably. “There is one in the sky, west of here, above the mountain range. It’s one of the stable portals.”
 

“Could we--” Tejohn licked his lips and sat on the bench again. “Could we simply fly through it?”
 

“Not in the carts you have now,” Dhe answered. “Your vehicle could not withstand these winds at their source.”

“Source? What source is this?” Tejohn asked, the tone of surprise gone from his voice. Cazia had the uneasy feeling that he was asking to confirm something he already suspected.

“The world this stable portal connects to,” Dhe said. “In that place, the air is very dense. It flows through the portal like water from a leaking bucket.”

Cazia jumped up and peered through the mouth of the cave. The Sweeps wind… “That’s why this wind in the Sweeps never stops, and why it smells odd. It’s coming from another land.”

Dhe nodded. “Yes, exactly.”

“Old Iskol was right,” Tejohn said for some reason.
 

“There are others, too. One is buried deep in the stone and has borne few living things through. Others are high in the mountains here, bringing salty sea water from other places into your land.” Dhe touched the bench beside him. A seashell had been carved into it. “Others lie below the surface of the waters, connecting your shores with places of terrible blood and venom. And…more.”