The return trip was no easier for the repetition, and it was a subdued group that marched out of the Slipstream and into the Silhouette’s bay. Thankfully, Qora had not been asked by the captain to report on the experience, nor did Shanelle demand details when he showed up in the engine compartment. She’d patted his shoulder and put him to work with the air of someone who’d dealt with her own troubles in similar ways more than once. He was grateful.
Two weeks to Qufiil: the final weeks he’d spend on the Silhouette. This place had not become home, but he liked these people. The revelations of the void bridge had affected them powerfully, and to see them sobered sent sympathetic pangs rippling through him. He sat in on their talks as they sorted through the data dug up by Patrick about the planet-killers, and though it was not their work to design defense systems, they tried anyway. He was no engineer, for all his mechanical aptitude, at least not at the level required to plan complex world-shielding architectures… but he contributed to those discussions without prompting, and thought wryly of how formerly he might have held himself aloof and armored himself with cryptic comments. He did not feel less confused about his role as an Eye, and as a Faulfenzair abroad in the galaxy, but it no longer felt quite so easy to shift his discomfort with that confusion onto other shoulders.
Daqan made himself available for conferences if asked, but kept to himself in the cabin assigned to him. Qora was grateful for that. Mostly. He sat by a window on the observation deck, watching the projected stars speed past, and felt the approach to Qufiil, not like an ending, but like something more intimidating… like a door through which he would pass and into a future he couldn’t guess the shape of. He would have to live in that future, somehow. His only consolation was that he’d retrieved the Voice and was bringing him to the WorldDancer, as commanded. To give over responsibility for making sense of prophecy and legend to greater powers than his would be a relief.
* * *
The day before they translated out of the Silence, Laniis chimed for entrance to his cabin. As he expected, she was accompanied by the Liaison when she stepped inside, and he was glad, as it would make things easier. “We came to help you pack, but… you don’t have much, do you.”
“We travel unencumbered by clothes,” Qora said. “It makes things easier.” He canted his head at the dragon. “Did you truly come with her for that purpose?”
“No,” the Liaison answered. “I could not imagine what you would need help packing.”
Laniis laughed. “Fine. It was an excuse to have a chance to tell you that I’ve enjoyed having you aboard and learning Faulfenzair from you and trying to Da—oof!”
Qora grinned as she recovered from her surprise and hugged him back. As she’d promised, she was stronger than she looked… and the happy noise she muffled against his chest charmed him. She was nothing like the Others he’d already claimed as friends and he valued the reminder that more than one kind of person could survive hardship and evil. That people might find more than one solution in response to a problem. Machines were more straightforward to troubleshoot, but what could best a person in the potential for resiliency? Stepping back, he said, “You have taught me a great deal. It was a fair trade, I think.”
“A gift,” Laniis said. “Because we’re friends. We are, aren’t we?”
“Yes.” Turning to the Liaison, Qora said, “And as I have hugged Laniis, we have met the conditions for your gift as well. If you still want the Faulfenzair shape.”
The dragon offered a hand in answer, and Qora took it. Like his Emperor, the Liaison was no novice to grope for a pattern. He’d barely grasped Qora’s hand before the fur was flying up his arm and wrapping his body in the shape of a brother. That was what he had to conceive of the shapeshifted Chatcaava as, wasn’t it? Because the God so obviously had plans for them all.
The Liaison was an attractive slate gray with lighter gray ventrals and his same, muted blue-gray eyes. It made the vermillion brilliance of his fire surfaces a shocking suggestion of hidden passions and intense dreams. He touched himself with wonder, patting his torso and then his face. “You are such a strong people! I am so heavy! How do you move your legs?”
“With muscle built up on a heavy gravity world,” Qora said with a laugh.
“The real question is how are you heavier than you were before you shifted shape, if you’re also taller than usual?”
“A mystery of the Living Air,” the Liaison said. “Perhaps our scientists will learn now that they have resumed studying the Change.” He flexed his hands. “Your people can make fire, yes? Oh! My hands are warm!”
Laniis touched them and laughed in delight. “That’s fantastic.”
Watching them made Qora think of Sediryl setting the pirates on fire. Of the Attendant, who’d been the first to learn his shape, and the Emperor, who’d been the second. He no longer thought it strange that Others might know the MindFire. Not in the slightest. “That is Faulza’s gift, granted by our God so that we might have defense against evil. Use it well, Liaison.”
“I am honored,” the dragon said. “And I will. Thank you, Qora. I will forever carry a piece of you in my spirit.”
“Then I too am honored,” Qora said, surprised to discover he meant it.
“Has it been long enough?” the Liaison asked Laniis.
“I think so.” Laniis threaded her arm through Qora’s, an act that required her to position his to her satisfaction. “This way, Qora.”
They led him to the engineering compartment, where Shanelle shouted, “Surprise! You are surprised, aren’t you? We had to explain the concept of surprise parties to the Liaison and we weren’t sure it would work—”
The Liaison had resumed his dragon shape and was squinting as Patrick attempted to place a conical paper hat on his head. “I understand feints. But I do not understand the purpose of the hats.”
“It’s a party,” Patrick said. “You wear hats at parties. It’s a human thing.”
“You deserved a going-away party. You’ve been an honorary member of the crew for nearly a year,” Osgood said.
“And you’ve done most of your time down here in the mines!” Shanelle exclaimed. “Of course I’m hosting.” She passed him a plate. “We’re gonna miss you, Qora.”
“Especially me,” Na’er said, grinning. “Because now I have to take over your shift.”
“I’m not sure who to feel more sorrow for,” Qora said. “You or Shanelle.”
“Hah!” Shanelle dipped a ladle in a steaming pot and stirred it. “Me, obviously. Now, since we have it on good authority that Faulfenza can’t taste sweet things—”
“They can’t,” the medic said from the corner.
“I’ve improvised! Because improvising is what we do best. With some of the best party food in the universe. Fondue!”
The Liaison said, “What… is that?”
“Melted cheese. You dip things in it, like vegetables and bread!”
“Ah, I see. We have a similar dish.”
“I wonder what Chatcaavan cheeses taste like?” Patrick said.
“We do not use cheese—”
“It’s the blood of their enemies,” Na’er said, wiggling his fingers dramatically.
“Yes!” the dragon said. “Exactly!”
Amid the eruption of laughter, Osgood said to the Aera, “You walked into that one.”
“Didn’t I!” Na’er shook his head before lifting a cup. “A toast. Mission complete, and this time we didn’t wreck one third of the galaxy!”
“We’ll have to try harder next time,” Patrick said.
Qora had no idea what toasting was, and neither did the Liaison, but they found cups and raised them, and repeated the ‘hear hear,’ and it was good. This was good. He would miss these people.
“Don’t worry,” Laniis said to him. “I doubt this is the end of the road for us. We’ll meet again.”
“I hope so,” Qora said.
* * *
Much later, he thought about Daqan and how no one had apparently invited him. Was that always the way with the God’s chosen? The memory of their conversation on the Slipstream returned, and with it a surge of something too painful to feel like sympathy. Had the FireBorn been Daqan’s only source of normal interaction? Or had those Chatcaava at the base of the cliff on Akana Ris treated him the way they would anyone else? The way the crew of the Silhouette had treated Qora, without knowing or understanding that he was an Eye of the God?
He truly would miss them. But he needed, needed to be done. He had spent too long away.
* * *
To return to Qufiil after the passage of so much time only to find the season nearly the same was jarring, as if he hadn’t left… as if he hadn’t chased the Voice across every planet the last messiah had trod, including the wasted birthworld of their people. Reminding himself those events had occurred didn’t help, because it brought into abrupt and desperate focus that he’d been gone too long. He couldn’t even say why he felt that way, only that he did. What had happened while he was away?
Qora tucked himself into Daqan’s wake as the Voice strode toward the place-of-meeting. If there were other Faulfenza present, he did not see them for the lone figure standing at the threshold, the wind tugging at her white mane. Daqan halted before her, and for a breath, the silence was more powerful than any sound. Held histories Qora would never know. Spoke of promises made and kept, and Promises to come.
Their embrace made Qora feel like a voyeur, except that Faulza insisted that this was, once again, the right place to be.
“You’ll want the letters at scrolls-keeping,” Jan said.
“Yes. But I wanted to see you first.”
“I’m glad.” Jan glanced past him at Qora and smiled. “Well done, Qora.”
Qora inclined his head as one of the Others might. “My duty, WorldDancer. Unless there’s anything else, I will leave you and the Voice to your conference.”
Daqan was now standing alongside the WorldDancer, and to have two such powers considering him made Qora feel uncomfortably like a stripling again. Jan’s brow ridges lifted. “Leave and go where, I wonder?”
The words popped out of his mouth. “Back to the Eldritch world.”
“Ah.” Jan nodded as an Other would. “Yes. You’ll go there after you finish the Voice’s errands.”
Was there more? Qora’s resignation must have been too obvious because Daqan laughed. “It won’t be so bad, young Eye. We go to the revelations that will make sense of all that confuses you. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“I’m not sure we should get what we want,” Qora said.
“Wise beyond his years,” Daqan said to Jan, who chuckled.
“Go rest in the atrium, Qora. The shuttle leaves in two hours.”
* * *
Though he had been fostered on Quafiirla, the fishing village where Qora had spent his thirty years had been too far from its capital to visit, and had never joined those who made it the object of their pilgrimages. Like most Faulfenzair adults, he’d only heard of scrolls-keeping, not seen it. Arriving to it now in the company of a legend from the age of the third FireBorn, after having visited the remains of Quzen, Qora saw it as part of the same story that had driven entire generations of Faulfenza into space. It made him think of the Eldritch saying about the endings of things being implicit in their beginnings.
Steeling himself, Qora followed Daqan into scrolls-keeping, where the OverDancer was waiting to greet them. It said something about his journey that he could meet the second of the Faulfenza’s world leaders with aplomb, or at least, with a numbness that could pass as it. What was one more great power among the many he was apparently destined to fumble his way through interacting with? And really, what was the OverDancer compared with the ghosts of history that he could sense like a pressure against his skin as he wound up the ramp to the topmost floor of the building?
The chamber to which he was escorted… he’d expected an archive, but most of the space was taken up by the Dance circle, lit by skylights with shafts of sun that evoked the columns of Other temples. So focused was he on the impression that the sound of a box thumping onto a table behind him startled him.
“I’ve set yours on top. I leave you to it.”
Before Qora could ask, Daqan descended the ramp, like a shadow melting before light. For once, Qora didn’t want him to leave. The burning sense of being where he should be was so powerful he was afraid… afraid that he was about to cross a threshold, and beyond it… what? Change. Knowledge. Other things he wasn’t comfortable with, like power. He didn’t want to be important, or so he’d told himself over and over as a Faulfenzair Painted as one of the God’s Eyes but without the accompanying sight. Better to go unremarked. Better to dismiss and explain away his lack of talents. Better to believe the God had made a mistake than that He had been willfully cruel.
Qora covered his face as the shudder traveled his body.
Move, Son of mine.
He walked to the table, looked down. A folded parchment, sealed with wax. On it, above the seal, a name. His name.
That second shudder was so intense he had to sit on the stool to keep from falling. Before he could lose the will to plunge on, he seized the letter, broke the seal, and forced himself to read the first words, after which the next unspooled, on and on, spilling and crashing into him, intersecting with the right-place-right-timeness until the latter shattered into a shining kaleidoscope of lights.
Qora Paunene Zela:
Blessed are you, who have trained my successor in fire and given her the tools to speak and to use the God’s gift though she was born to a different world and a different race. Faithful servant, your patience and your love for the Other will change the worlds and give all of the living the chance to see the Golden Age… yes, and all the dead, too, watching from beyond the Shoulders.
Do you doubt still? That your impulse to teach an Eldritch the sacred Dance would lead you here? But I have seen it, and your face. I know your griefs as well. But you were never meant to be an Eye to the Faulfenza, Qora. Your insight was meant to serve the Others, and your princess in particular. The God crafted you purposefully, with love, and you are exactly what you were designed to be. Never doubt it, or His love.
As you read this letter, know that your work is not yet done, because the FireBorn’s isn’t, either. Return to her and resume your role as her helpmeet. Be her friend, Qora, because her task is vast and terrifying, and only she can do it.
Be steadfast, and we will throw down the eaters of worlds, set fire to the galaxy, and link it forever in a web of love and time and flame. Know that you have already served well, and let that be your wellspring.
You are exactly where you are supposed to be.
Zafiil
The paper fell from his nerveless hands as the memories swept it from his vision. Sediryl pacing the cabin of the pirate vessel. Sediryl facing down the Chatcaava on the Vault of the Twelveworld. Sediryl attempting to contort herself into the word for ‘promise.’
Setting the pirate stronghold on fire.
Limp in his arms when he walked through the holocaust to retrieve her.
Wan in the medplex, recovering from the catastrophic release of her powers.
Aghast on learning that he intended to train her to standards better than the Eldritch high priest’s.
Laughing with him. Yelling at him. Teasing, working, striving.
“Firedancing God,” he whispered. “O, Faulza!”
* * *
Daqan found him inert on that stool after who knows how much time had passed. Qora couldn’t have said, though he should have been able to observe how the sunlight had changed in the chamber. It felt like he’d always been here, and also that no time had passed. He once again felt a vague sense of being in the right place, as if nothing had happened in the intervening time… and yet, everything had shifted so irrevocably he had no idea how to move from here.
Some of that must have been in his face, because Daqan’s smile was gentle. “Now you understand a little of why a dragon might Dance prophecy.”
Because if the fourth FireBorn was an Other, why not her Voice? And if the Hand was Eldritch, what better than to have her prophet be a member of the species with whom the Eldritch had the most troubled relationship? Qora touched his face with a trembling hand. “I need to go back. Except… I don’t know what to tell her.”
“Nothing,” Daqan said. He lifted one more letter. “This one is hers. You’ll know when it’s time for her to read it. You’ll bring her to scrolls-keeping. Jan will be here too, to help.”
“And you?”
“I will be busy with the Chatcaava. That’s my role… and part of why I involved myself with Tristan Liferiver and his endeavors.”
Qora digested that. Then said, “Part of?”
Daqan smiled a little. “The other parts being that we both loved her. And because I wanted to. The God does allow us that. He knows us so well, Qora, that our choices feel like inevitabilities, because He planned our paths to suit us that carefully.”
What did it say about him that his path had led him here? ‘Your love for the Other will change the worlds.’ He swallowed. “So… so where do we go from here?”
“I go to the Chatcaavan Throneworld. I have tasks there to complete.”
“And me?”
“And you go back to the messiah, and stay with her.”
No visions erupted at this declaration, but a faint hiss sizzled through his mind, like fire eating a piece of paper. “And… then… we wait. Me with the princess, and you… wherever you end up.”
“Yes. But not long. Certainly not by our standards, or the Eldritch’s. Indeed, we might wish we had longer to prepare.”
“War,” Qora murmured.
“With the unmakers.”
The whimper that escaped him would have shamed him had it been uttered in contemplation of anything less terrifying than a galactic confrontation with creatures that destroyed worlds.
Daqan set a hand on his arm. “We were born for this. We were always born to this. The God fitted us with the gifts to undertake it. Never doubt it.”
“The FireBorn said that in her letter to me. But I do doubt it. I do, and I’m afraid.”
“The former FireBorn.” When Qora’s head jerked up, Daqan repeated, deliberately, “The former FireBorn said so. But you have trained the current FireBorn, Qora. Would she shirk from her task?”
“No!”
“Back away from any challenge?”
“No—”
“Tell me, Eye of the God… does she doubt her gods, herself, and everything?”
Qora choked on a laugh. “She would be the first to say so.”
“Then follow her, and her example.”
Qora found himself smiling. “I’d say ‘I’m not ready,’ but so would she. And then she’d do whatever needed doing anyway.”
“She sounds like a most exemplary person.”
“Will you meet her?” Qora asked suddenly. “Will you come to the Eldritch homeworld?”
“I will, yes. When I arrive, then events will be truly in motion.” Daqan stood. “Do you need more time?”
Did he? But now that he knew the truth, the need to return to the Eldritch homeworld was almost unmanageable. Had Daqan said he’d already been important to history? God on the Shoulders! He’d taught the fourth FireBorn to Dance! To use fire! And that fire would scour the void bridges, the way Zafiil’s had, and Faullaizaf’s, except…. he looked up at Daqan. “She’s going to have to cleanse them all. That’s why she’s not one of us. We were never able to.”
“Say rather that the task of igniting the network of bridges is one better suited to a multi-species effort, and the reasons will be made clear to us when we need to understand them.”
A fire endowed by their God to another species but trained to the standards of a Faulfenzair? And… what else? What roles would the other species of the galaxy play? The Liaison’s troubled eyes floated to mind, and the Emperor’s complex ones. Even Laniis and her captain and the others on her ship, and Vasiht’h and the other Pelted he’d met through the Chatcaavan War. Yes… he didn’t have to have literal visions to see the number of moving pieces in this puzzle. And at their apex, the Other female he’d made his closest friend, little realizing where that friendship was about to take them both… because of course, he would accompany her, wherever that road led them.
Qora folded his note and returned it to the box. “Let’s go.”
“Not going to take it?”
“No,” Qora said. “I’ve learned what I needed from it. Now the evidence belongs to history, and scrolls-keeping is more likely to be safe than wherever I end up.”
Daqan canted his head, smiled. Indicating the ramp, he said, “After you.”