The Born Queen

"How did you know-?"

"Oh, I can see them all now, like constellations in the sky. That's one of the particular gifts of Virgenya Dare's secret faneway."

"Then you can walk them all?"

"I tried walking one near the Witchhorn," Stephen said. "It's not enough. Take my analogy that the faneways are like constellations. Now imagine the night sky is a black board with thousands of small holes drilled in it, and the light shining through those holes from behind is the real source of the sedos power. It's not all the little holes you want to control; it's the one light behind them. What we call the Alwalder, I suppose. That's what I'm after."

"But why?"

"To save the world. To bring order and balance to its eldritch principalities."

"I thought you just said the sedos power was the source of all of our problems."

"The source and the solution. Virgenya Dare never saw that. She imagined the problem would just go away, but it was already too late. Still, she must have had an inkling. She made a shortcut for her descendants."

"What?"

"Never mind that. See, it's the lack of control and imprecise vision that's led us to where we are. If someone-one person, not two, or three, or fifty, but one-could control the source of the sedos power, one person with a clear vision, all of this could be fixed. I'm sure of it."

"And who will do this fixing? You?"

"Right," Stephen said. "Without the mistakes of last time. I think I just got frustrated back then. Ruffled some feathers."

"What are you talking about?" Fratrex Pell asked. "What other time?"

"I told you, already. Choron found himself. I found myself. Me."

"You're Choron?" Pell asked incredulously.

"Yes. Or yes and no. Like everything, it's a little complicated. See, time is a fu

"Are you saying you are Choron reborn?"

"No. Imagine a plucked lute string. It vibrates side to side, a blur that appears wider than the string, and in doing so produces a tone. Let's say Stephen is the farthest reach of that vibration on the left and Choron is the farthest reach of it on the right. But it's the same string, the same tone. We're one and always have been, even before the string was plucked."

"This is a lot to ask me to take on faith."

"Oh, I don't care if you believe me. After all, you're Revesturi, always questioning. That's fine. And I won't say there wasn't some fiddling with things to bring them along. As Choron, I broke the law of death and made myself immortal, hoping to survive long enough to find the throne. Of course, my enemies found a way to destroy my body, but I already understood about my echoes in the past and future, and at some point they all understood about me, so together we managed-this. It's all really very interesting."

"So you aren't Stephen anymore."

"You really aren't listening, are you?"

The fratrex frowned. "When you talk about Choron becoming immortal, breaking the law of death, being defeated-"

"Yes!" Stephen cried. "I was wondering how long it would take you. This is every bit as much fun as I imagined it would be."

"You're the Black Jester."

"I never called myself that, you know. I think it was suppose to be a bit of an insult."

"Saints," the fratrex breathed.

"Phoodo-oglies!" Stephen breathed in imitation. "I just made that up," he confided. "They aren't real, either."

"You can't be the Black Jester and at the same time Stephen Darige," he said. "Fratir Stephen is good, incapable of the evil things the Jester did. If you are whom you claim to be, I believe you have possessed Brother Darige. Either that or you are merely Brother Stephen gone mad."

"That's disappointing," Stephen said. "You talked so fine about the intellectual purity of the Revesturi, about how your method of reasoning sets you apart from your rivals, and yet here you start with good and evil. It's sad, really. Was Choron a good man? And yet I promise you, I walked into the mountains as Choron, and a few years later I was the Black Jester. The difference is in power; him you call Stephen is merely the Black Jester without it. But at our center we are the same. Good and evil are judgments, and in this case judgments made without understanding."

"The Black Jester strapped razors on children's heels and elbows and made them fight like cocks," Fratrex Pell said.

"I told you, I was frustrated," Stephen said. "Maybe to the point of being a little mad."

"A little?"

"It doesn't matter. Things have changed, and I see the way clearly now."

"And what do you see?"

"The sedos throne is emerging again, as it never did in Choron's time. In fact, it has already emerged in a sense-the waxing of the power has reached its peak. But the complete claim of it by any one person isn't possible yet. I control a lot of it. The other Fratrex Prismo, whoever he is, also has a strong claim. The strongest is that of A

"Why?"

"I don't know. Perhaps she thought a descendant of hers would follow in her footsteps, deny the power, hide the throne for another two thousand years."

"Maybe she would."

"In the first place, that's not enough this time. The law of death is broken. The Briar King is dead, and the forests of the world are dying, and when they are dead, we will certainly follow. But do you never see? Don't you have visions?"

"Of course, at times."

"But you haven't seen what the world will become if A

"No. I've not sought such a vision, and none has come to me."

"A three-thousand-year reign of terror that makes my small epoch look like a child's party. And at the end of it, the world passes into nothingness."

Pell looked troubled but shrugged. "I have only your word for that," he said. "And visions do not necessarily come to pass."

"That's true. And that's why I'm here."

"Why?"

"Well, two reasons, really. Like the others who have walked one of the greater faneways, I can see you, at best, in a cloudy fashion."

"You just said you saw A

"Only after a fashion. I can see the world she will make. Were you always this obtuse?"

"I-"

"Rhetorical question," Stephen said, waving him down. "It's you I'm talking about now. I wasn't sure who you were, how much you knew, who you are allied with. So I came to discover all of those fascinating answers."

"And the other reason?"

"To strike a bargain. You don't control enough of the sedos power to challenge A

"Walk the faneway of Diuvo, then."

"It doesn't really work that way, and I think you know it. The power is finite. With minor faneways like that of Mamres or Decmanus, tens or hundreds might have gifts at once and never be diminished. But those such as we have walked are different. For me to gain strength, you must relinquish your gifts to me-a simple process that won't do you any real damage-or I can take them from you, which will unfortunately involve your discorporation."

"I can either give you, who claim to be the Black Jester, the power you need to seize the greatest power in the world or die? Are those my only two choices?"

"I'm afraid so," Stephen said apologetically.

"I see," Fratrex Pell said, brows lowering.

It wasn't a long fight, and when it was over, Stephen felt the new gifts settle under his skin. Then he called his captive demon and made it fly from the tower and for several leagues to the south. As he had expected, Pell had unleashed the same explosive power on him that he had on the waurm, and although he could protect himself from that, he didn't want to risk Zemle or his faithful Aitivar.