A terrible realization came to him. Could it be that the corruption caused by the chimes might be responsible? Had that corruption finally caught up with him and undone his gift? Rotted it away without his knowing it until it had finally failed?
But that would not explain the sensation he’d felt back in the sliph, just after he’d escaped the grip of the beast and just before he’d started drowning—the sudden sensation of some dark and furtive magic reaching out when he was most vulnerable and touching him.
Richard looked around but saw nothing other than the trees. They were dense enough that he couldn’t see beyond them in the moonlight. As a guide, he hated the feeling of not knowing where he was.
“Where are we, anyway? How did we get here?”
“When it happened, when you lost what is needed to travel, I had to bring you here.”
“And where is ‘here’?”
“I am sorry but I don’t know, exactly.”
“How can you bring me here, and not know where you are? You always know where you are and the places to which you can travel.”
“I already told you, I have never been to this place before. This place is an emergency passage. I knew of it, of course, but I have never been here before. There has never been an emergency within me before.
“That terrible beast hurt me. I was struggling to keep all of you alive. And then, there was something else that came within me. I could not stop it. Like the beast, it entered me without my permission. It violated me.”
That confirmed Richard’s sense of events, that just after the beast lost its grip on him, something else, some kind of power, had reached out and touched him with its dominion.
“I’m sorry that you were hurt, sliph. What happened to the beast?”
“After this other power came into me, the beast became no more.”
“You mean that this other power destroyed it?”
“No. The power did not touch the beast. It touched only you with its full force. After it did, then you no longer had what is required to travel. After that, the beast cast around in me for a brief time, and then vanished. I could no longer sustain you within me, so I had to find the nearest emergency portal.”
“What about Nicci and Cara? Were they hurt? Are they safe?”
“They, too, felt the pain of what happened to me, and one of them tried to use her power in me—something that is wrong to do. After I brought you here, I took them to the Keep where they had wished to travel. I told the one that used her power that it was dangerous to do so, and she must not do such a thing.”
“I think I understand,” Richard said. “It hurt me, too. Were they hurt badly?”
“They are safe at the Keep.”
“Then we must be somewhere between the People’s Palace and the Keep,” Richard said, half to himself.
“No.”
He looked over at the liquid silver face. “I don’t understand. We were going from the palace to the Keep. If you let me out, then this place here, this emergency passage out, would have to be between the palace and the Keep.”
“While I don’t know this place, I do know its general area. We are at a place a little more than halfway across the Midlands from the Keep, past Agaden Reach, almost to the wilds.”
Richard felt as if the world had just lurched and slid him far from where he had been. “But, but, that’s much, much farther from the People’s Palace than the Keep is. Why didn’t you take me to the closest place—to the Keep?”
“I do not function in that way. What to you may seem like the shortest distance between two places is not the shortest way for me. I am in many places at once.”
Richard leaned toward the sliph. “How can you be in many places at once?”
“You have one foot on that dark stone, and one on a stone that is lighter. You are in two places at once.”
Richard sighed. “I guess I get your point.”
“I travel in a way that is different from your way of traveling. This place, here, even though it is halfway across the Midlands for you, was the closest place for me. I had to get you out into your world again so that you could breathe.
“You no longer had what was needed to travel. Your lungs were filled with me. For those without the gift, breathing me is poison. It will kill them. But for you, since you were in me and breathing me already, there was a brief period when you were going through a transition, so having me in you was not instantly fatal. You would have died soon, but there was a brief time before that would happen. I knew that the time you had before you would die was not very long at all. I thought to do my best to save you, to get you to a place where you could be back in your world and hopefully recover.
“I brought you here, broke the seal, and placed you out in your world again. You were hurt, but I knew that the essence of me still within you would help sustain your life for a short time.”
“If I could no longer travel, because I don’t have the required gift, then what made you think that?”
“I was made to have properties to assist in emergencies. Those properties are within me—and thereby they were within you. They help to start the process of recovering. It is only intended for a crisis and even then I was warned that it could not be certain that it would work because there are variables that cannot be controlled.
“While you slept between worlds, and my magic that you still had within you was working to extract what had now become poison to you, I
finished taking the others to the Keep. When I returned, I waited with you until you were recovered enough to be ready to breathe again, then I helped to remind you what you must to do to live.
“For a time I did not know if it would work. I have never had to do such a thing before. It was terrible to have to wait while I watched you lying there, not knowing if you would ever again breathe. I feared that I had failed you, and that I would be the cause of your death.”
Richard stared at the silver face for a long moment. Finally he offered her a smile. “Thank you, sliph. You saved my life. You did the right things. You did good.”
“You are my master. I would do anything for you.”
“Your master. A master who can’t travel.”
“It is as puzzling to me as it is to you.”
Richard tried to think it through, tried to make sense of it, but with the pain of breathing after nearly drowning in the sliph still feeling like it was pressing heavily on his chest, he was having trouble making his mind focus on thinking.
Richard rested his forearms across his knees. “I don’t suppose there is any way for you to take me back to the Keep?”
“Yes, Master. If you wish to travel, I can take you.”
Richard sat up straighter. “You can? How?”
“You must simply acquire the required magic, and then I can take you again. Then we will travel. You will be pleased.”
Acquire the required magic. He didn’t even know how to use the magic he had—or used to have. He couldn’t imagine what had happened to his gift, and he had absolutely no idea how to get it back. There had been any number of times he’d wanted to be rid if it, but now that it had actually happened all he could think about was getting it back.
When his gift had failed, the beast had apparently lost him in the sliph. As consolation to losing his gift, it seemed the beast would be one less problem he had to face at the moment—his gift, after all, had been the mechanism by which the beast was keyed to him, the way in which it hunted him. There was supposed to be balance in magic; perhaps that was the balance to losing it.
Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. “At least Nicci and Cara made it through and are safe.” He looked up at the sliph. “You’re sure that they’re all right?”
“Yes, Master. They are safe. I took them to the Keep, where they had wished to travel. They had what was required to travel.”
“And you told them where I was. You told them what had happened.”
She looked surprised by what had sounded more like a mandate than a question. “No, Master. I would never reveal what I do with another.”
“Oh, great,” he muttered. He worked to keep his exasperation in check. “But you’ve told me about others.”
“You are my master. I do things with you that I would not do with anyone else.”
“Sliph, they are my friends. They’re probably frantic with worry for me. You must tell them what they need to know.”
The silver head tilted toward him. “Master, I cannot betray you. I would not.”
“It’s not a betrayal. I’m telling you that it’s all right to tell them what happened.”
The sliph looked like she thought this was just about the strangest request she had ever had. “Master, you wish me to tell others about us, about what we do when we are together?”
“Sliph, try to understand. You are no longer a whore.”
“But people use me for their pleasure.”
“It’s not the same thing.” Richard raked his fingers back through his hair, trying not to sound angry. “Listen, wizards in ancient times changed you from who you were, from what you were.”
The sliph nodded solemnly. “I know, Master. I remember. I was the one it happened to, after all.”
“You’re different now. It’s not the same. You can’t equate the two things. They’re different.”
“I have been given a duty to serve others in this capacity. My nature is still within me.”
“But there are some of us who use you who greatly value your help.”
“I have always been valued for what I do.”
“This is different from what you did before.” Richard didn’t want to be having this argument. He had more important matters to worry about. “Sliph, when you travel with us you are often helping to save lives. When you traveled with us to the People’s Palace, you were helping me to end the war. You are doing a good thing.”
“If you say so, Master. But you must understand that those who created
me made me the way I am. They used what I once was to create me as I am now. I can be no way other than the way I am. I cannot wish myself to be different, any more than you can travel now simply by wishing it.”
Richard sighed. “I suppose not.”
With one hand he snapped dry twigs in half as he thought it over. He shared a long look with the beautiful face watching him, hanging on his every word. Finally, he spoke softly.
“There are times when there is no other way, and you must trust others. This is one of those times.”
Something about his words clearly struck home. The beautiful, liquid face came a little closer.
“You are the one,” the sliph whispered.
“The one? Which one?”
“The one Baraccus told me would come.”
The hair on the back of Richard’s neck stood on end.
“You knew Baraccus?”
“He was once my master, like you are, now.”
“Of course,” Richard whispered to himself. “He was First Wizard.”
“He is the one who insisted that I possess the emergency elements I told you about. He also directed that there be this emergency portal. Had he not done those things, you would have died. He was very wise.”
“Very wise,” Richard agreed as he stared wide-eyed at the sliph. “You said that Baraccus told you something about one who would come?”
The sliph nodded. “He was kind to me. His wife hated me, but Baraccus was kind to me.”
“You knew his wife, too?”
“Magda.”
“Why would she hate you?”
“Because Baraccus was kind to me. And because I took him away from her.”
“You mean, you took him away when he wished to travel.”
“Of course. When I would tell him that he would be pleased, she would fold her arms and glare at me.”
Richard smiled a little. “She was jealous.”
“She loved him and did not want him to leave her. When I would return with him after we traveled, she would often be there, waiting for him. He would always smile when he saw her, and she would smile in turn.”
“And what was it that Baraccus said about me?”
“He told me the same thing that you just did, that there are times when there is no other way, and you must trust others. Those were his words, just as they were yours. He said that one day another master would say those exact same words, and then add exactly the same words you did: ‘This is one of those times.’
“He told me that if a master ever said these words, that meant that they were the right one and I was to tell them some things.”
Richard could feel every hair on his arms stand on end.
“You took Magda Searus somewhere, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Master. After that I never saw Baraccus again. But before, when he told me that someday someone would say those words, he told me to tell them his message.”
“He left a message?” When she nodded, he rolled his hand. “So what is it?”
“‘I am sorry. I don’t know the answers that would save you. If I did, please believe that I would give them eagerly. But I know the good in you. I believe in you. I do know that you have within you what you must to succeed. There will be times when you doubt yourself. Do not give up. Remember then that I believe in you, that I know you can accomplish what you must. You are a rare person. Believe in yourself.
“‘Know that I believe you are the one who can do it.’”
Richard sat frozen. The words echoed around in his head. They were oddly familiar.
“I’ve heard almost those exact words before.”
The sliph glided a little closer, her features tightening. “You have?”
Richard concentrated as he ran the words through his mind again, trying to recall…
And then he did. It was right after Shota had told him about Baraccus. Just before she left, she’d said those very words to him. There was something about those words, spoken by Shota, that had aroused an indistinct memory.
“It was Shota, the witch woman,” Richard said as he frowned in recollection. “She told me those words.”
The sliph retreated. “I am sorry, Master. You have failed the test.”
Richard looked up at her. “What test?”
“The test Baraccus just gave you. I am sorry, but you have failed his test. I can tell you nothing more.”
Without further word, the sliph abruptly vanished into the black hole in the stone.
Richard threw himself down on his stomach, leaning down into the hole. “No! Wait! Don’t leave!”
His own voice echoed up out of the empty, black shaft.