The Gloon rose from his crouch and paced to the window. The owl moon’s bright light limned him. “Frustration is not my goal, Master Soshir. Once I, too, was blind to the future.”

“I remember. You were Enangia. You came on the Turasynd expedition. You fought, and well.”

“In the city are many life-threads. Too many. And too many end quickly.”

“Mine included, I assume.”

The Gloon grunted. “There is more to life-threads than beginnings and ends. Colors and textures. Patterns. The pattern could continue, or it can change. Something old, something new, or nothing.”

He stared at me. Though shadow hid his face, his eyes glowed. “Nelesquin would repeat the pattern of the past. Cyron, the Empress, they would make a different pattern. The past we understand. It has problems for which we know solutions.”

I frowned. “The problems of the past are never the same as those in the future.”

“If you know this, then why do you believe you are the solution now?”

I started to answer, but words stuck in my throat. Nelesquin and I had been friends who grew to be rivals. I had chafed beneath his superior attitude-which had been born out of nothing but his birthright. This had led me to resent him, resent my father, and desire power for my own. I knew the stories of my past, and I had been every bit the petty tyrant Nelesquin was.

But this time it was different. I was no longer Virisken Soshir. My sense of who I was had been shaped by my training and the years I’d spent as xidantzu. Soshir had spent his life in service to the Empire and himself. I had served many, shielding them from evil and misfortune.

It struck me that I really did feel Virisken Soshir was another person. I could not escape responsibility for who he had been and what he had done, but I didn’t need to be imprisoned by it, either. Nelesquin might well have been an old problem, but applying an old solution would only kill me along with him.

I regarded the Gloon carefully. “I am the solution because Nelesquin will never make himself vulnerable to another. No one else could even get close. He wants to defeat the Empress, but he wishes to crush me personally. It’s the only way he corrects the mistake that killed him in Ixyll.”

“This explains access, but not reason.”

“The reason I am the solution is that I will stop him to save others, not for myself.”

“You may well succeed.” He cocked his head to the side.

“What? What do you see? Tell me.”

“I see the futures, Master Soshir. I do not decide them.” He shrugged. “But if you wish to succeed, remember, this mission can only be accomplished by those who should be dead.”

TheNewWorld

36th day, Month of the Eagle, Year of the Rat

Last Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th Year since the Cataclysm

Shirikun, North Moriande

Free Nalenyr

Keles did not come fully awake until someone dragged him upright in the bed. The xunling roots had done nothing to keep the shadowed stranger away from him, which was odd. They never let anyone near him until ordered back, not even Geselkir or Jasai.

Who?

The man wrapped a sheet around him and lifted Keles into his arms. Being carried like that felt at once alien and yet normal. He worked a hand free and rubbed his eyes. Keles stared at the man, then knew he must be in a fever dream. The square jaw, the beard, the half smile-all very familiar.

“You look like my father.”

“I am your father.” As untrue as the words had to be, the voice triggered all sorts of memories. “Easy, Keles, don’t struggle. I don’t want to drop you.”

“You can’t be. My father’s dead.”

“Not dead. Just lost, for a time. In time.”

The man carried Keles to his suite’s antechamber. A wooden platform with a gold railing and eight gold disks filled the room. Pieces of furniture had collapsed beneath it. A huge globe, six feet in diameter, on a gimbaled stand dominated the platform.

“What is this?”

“Your grandfather has his map. You have your book. I have this.” He lowered Keles to the platform, then sprang over the railing and got a chair. He placed Keles in it, then ran back to the bedroom and dragged the heavy blanket to drape over him. “It can get cold.”

Keles weakly shoved the blanket off. “I can’t…I have to wake up.”

“Keles, you have to trust me.”

“Trust you? I don’t know you. I don’t know this thing. I am delirious. This is a dream.”

“No, it’s not, son.” The man started the globe spinning. A sphere of brilliant light surrounded the platform. It became opaque, hiding the world. Keles’ stomach lurched. They were moving, and the tingle of magic pricked his flesh with needles.

The word “son” resonated through him, distracting him. He’d heard it said in that tone, in that voice, over eighteen years before. Ryn Anturasi had bent down, smiled reassuringly, and used that very sentence to quell Keles’ fears about his father’s last voyage.

“You never came back.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Mother is dead.”

“I know.”

Keles looked over at him. “How?”

“I did something I was not supposed to do. I saw things I was not supposed to see.” Ryn Anturasi slowly shook his head. “One of them was your mother’s death.”

“But…”

“It happened in the future, yes.” Ryn rested his hands on Keles’ shoulders. “My father sent me to the Dark Sea not to kill me, as many have supposed. He sent me to look for something very specific. He knew it was out there, on one of the islands, buried deep in the ruins of a Viruk fortress. I went, I dug, and I found it. It was an opaque sphere as big around as my head. I was told to find it, put it in two sacks, lock it in a chest, and bring it to him. You know how Qiro gives orders.”

Keles nodded. “You disobeyed.”

“I did.”

“Jorim takes after you.”

“And you after your mother.” The man’s voice caught. He squeezed Keles’ shoulders. “I studied the stone. I caught visions. I saw many things from the past, all fascinating, and then I dared look into the future.”

“What did you see?”

“Nothing.”

“How can you see nothing? Doesn’t it work?”

“It works too well.” Ryn came around and sat back on the railing. “I was looking too far, so I refined my vision. I saw the future we are in now. I saw your mother die. So I looked for other futures, but she always died. So I began to look into the past.

“There was a god, Nessagafel, the first god among the Viruk. The creator. His children cast him from the Heavens and trapped him. On the earth, Virukadeen was destroyed. Nessagafel was no more, or so everyone believed. But it wasn’t true. Down through the years he has attempted to engineer plot after plot to free himself so he could start over. There are dozens of people-human, Viruk, Soth-whom he has used as his agents. Prince Nelesquin was one and your grandfather is another.”

“Have you seen us here, now, together?”

“No, which is why we can be here, now, together.” Ryn smiled. “I took the stone and used it as the heart of my timeship. I can use it to slip into places where there are no observers because once something has been seen, it exists. Your grandfather makes things exist by putting them on maps or imagining them in his head. I look for open places where I can venture. Since I last saw you, I have slipped in and out of time, working to balance Nessagafel’s influence.”

“Couldn’t you have just gone back and prevented your father from becoming an agent? It happened when he traveled to the Wastes, yes?”

“Yes, but that was before I was born. As tempting as it might have been to kill him then, I wouldn’t have existed.” Ryn frowned. “I was able to spend time with him on that trip. One night, in a teahouse in Sylumak. We were just travelers talking. He was so enthusiastic about his journey. He was a different man.”