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He
Hi
“For four and a half centuries, Hi
Tier sat up, yawned, rubbed his eyes, and looked at Hi
“I see why you chose to stay here,” he said after an awkward moment.
Seraph looked, too, but Hi
Hi
Tier shook his head. Whatever he saw must have been bad, because his reply was without the touch of humor he usually threw in. “My apologies, Hi
If Tier said he wouldn’t tell them what he had seen, he would not. If she was not to know what had happened to Hi
“If you did not teach him how to steal the Orders, how did he find out?” she asked.
“It was the Stalker,” said Tier.
“The Stalker?” said He
“Who else could it have been? I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”
“The Stalker is not evil,” Hi
“I didn’t say that he was. You told us the Elder gods’ powers are constant, almost involuntary. If there are holes in the veil that keeps the Elder gods from destroying the world, then I believe it is possible for a wizard to feed off the Stalker’s power without the Stalker’s consent. You also told Seraph that the Stalker is caught behind the veil against his will.”
He
“The Weaver told me His brother did not care if the world died,” He
She patted the ground beside her, and Hi
“The substance of the veil is the power of both of the Elder gods: what else could restrain Them? If the Stalker had agreed, He and the Weaver could have re-created the veil Themselves after my consort died. Instead, the death of Colossae served as proxy for the power of the Stalker—taken from Him by force. The Weaver wove the other half of the veil Himself.”
“The Stalker wants free,” said Seraph.
“That’s what the Weaver told me on the night we decided that Colossae and her gods would die.”
“So why would…” Seraph’s voice faded off as she saw what Tier had seen yesterday. “The Stalker couldn’t stop the Shadowed from feeding off his power, so he might as well make use of him. Willon was an illusionist, angry at the limits of his magic. So the Stalker offered to show him how to steal the power, of the Travelers. Why didn’t he tell him of the Guardian Order?”
“A lot of the Ordered gems don’t work,” said He
“No,” said Tier. “Because the Stalker doesn’t care if the Orders are useful or not. He just wants them bound to inert objects rather than Order Bearers. Because the Orders do serve a purpose.”
“They keep the balance,” Hi
“Ah,” said He
“Clever people, those Colossaen,” said Toarsen, as they left the Owl’s temple.
It was later than it ought to have been, because they’d spent a couple of hours in the Merchant District, where the entrances to the shops had been curtains rather than doors. Most of the curtains left a space above the floor that they could slide under.
Some of the shops had been just like their counterparts in Taela, some had not. Phoran had been particularly struck by the mercantile that had fabrics the like of which he’d never seen before. There were brocades and velvets, but also some sort of shiny fabric with a luster like a silk, but it changed colors from gold to green, depending on what angle he viewed it from.
Toarsen teased Phoran because of his fascination with some of the more exotic fabrics—but he’d always had a flair for fashion and saw no need to change his mode of dress simply because he’d become respectable. His only regret was due to the nature of the spell holding Colossae, all of the fabrics were stiff as wood, and it was impossible to tell how they would feel against skin.
“They had knowledge that was too dangerous,” continued Toarsen, and Phoran pulled himself away from his daydream. Some men dream of fair women, he thought with self-directed humor; he dreamed of fabrics.
“Speaking the true names of the gods is a bad thing—” Toarsen continued as self-appointed lecturer. “—but not being able to call upon them if you needed to was equally bad. So they engraved the names on the Owl’s dais backward and colored it so most of the indentations aren’t easily seen. Then we come along with a white shirt—”
“My white shirt,” said Rufort in a not-quite-whining tone. “I hope that char comes out because I only brought one other shirt.”
“I can clean it,” said Ri
“At least she doesn’t make you butcher the pig,” said Lehr.
“—With Rufort’s white shirt,” continued Toarsen cheerfully over the top of all the others, “and a charred piece of firewood, and now we have the names of the gods.” He held the shirt up so they could see them more clearly.
“Ielian,” called Lehr, “you’re going the wrong way.”
Phoran looked away from the shirt and saw Ielian ahead of them. He must have kept walking while Toarsen paused to admire the rubbings on Rufort’s shirt. Ielian must not have heard Lehr’s call because he disappeared down the street he’d chosen without pausing.
“Remind me not to bet on Ielian if he decides to run in a maze race,” said Kissel in disgust. “I suppose we’d better go get him.” He looked down. “Come, Ri
“It’s Seraphsdaughter,” she told him in a patient voice.
He nodded. “But Tier is the one people really need to worry about—and I suspect that there will be a lot of young men worried about you one of these years, lady.”
Ri
They came to the street Ielian had taken and found him engrossed in the elaborate carving on the door of a house that stood next to a narrow ally.