23. STEP FIVE: WHEN NECESSARY, CONSULT EXPERTS

Kihrin’s story

Grizzst’s Tower

Afternoon

Finding Thurvishar was easier said than done. Not because Thurvishar was difficult to find but because, well, Vol Karoth.

I was still running around as a man-size hole cut into the fabric of reality, picking up random stones and trying with all my might not to disintegrate them. Hardly ideal for a clandestine meeting with one’s coconspirators.

Fun fact: I was also a naked man-size hole cut into the fabric of reality, although I doubt anyone who met me would notice what with all the screaming and running away. I had zero desire to roam around letting it all fly free, but I didn’t have a choice; see once again the part where I kept disintegrating anything I touched, which included clothing. If hunger got the better of me or I became distracted, everything within a few dozen feet paid the cost.

Which meant I ideally needed to find Thurvishar without being closer than a few dozen feet to the man. Even better, without being closer than a few dozen miles.

This is where that whole mental projection business really came into its own. The trick of it was making sure that the mental projection on the other side didn’t also start destroying everything around it (which I already knew I was perfectly capable of doing) and also that said projection looked like something other than a big, naked silhouette.

That last part took the most practice. Teraeth would have been so much better at this. Or his father, Doc. Alas, neither of them had been cursed millennia ago to exist as perpetually hungry incarnations of the void, so I was forced to deal with what I had.

I practiced. Made sure I could hold up my end of a conversation without accidental mass murders. Then I projected an image to Grizzst’s Tower on Rainbow Lake. It was midday in Eamithon, a gentle lullaby of a day where nothing terrible could ever happen and nothing ever hurt. The titular lake sparkled in the sun, flashes of feldspar shimmering underneath crystal waters. The wind rustled through a bamboo forest on the shore, although an ugly wound of trampled greenery spoke of recent violence.1

I could see and hear, but not smell or touch. The lack of sense created a disconnected feeling, like I was dreaming.

Senera was pinning pieces of paper to a large map on one of the first floor walls.

I cleared my throat from just inside the doorway I would have entered had I’d been physically present.

She jumped, which I’d expected. What I hadn’t expected was the look of absolute horror that scuttled across her face before a blank expression slammed down over it. “Who are you?”

I cocked my head. “What do you think—?” I glanced down at myself.

All that practice. I’d still shown up looking like S’arric.

“Ah,” I said. “Let me fix this.” I shifted the illusion to look like myself again. That had been a sloppy mistake. There was always a chance that Relos Var or one of his people might notice me in two places at once. Awkward, and it would raise questions.

But not nearly the questions that would be raised if someone saw me who recognized S’arric.

Senera deflated as my appearance changed, a heavy sigh of relief escaping her. “Veils. Don’t do that. You scared the hell out of me.”

I grimaced. “Sorry about that.”

Senera rubbed the back of her neck. “I didn’t realize you two looked so much alike.”

That made me pause.

She was right. Rev’arric and S’arric looked a lot alike—if one ignored the way we wore our hair and dressed and spoke and virtually everything about our personalities. When we’d been kids, we were often mistaken for twins by someone who’d only seen us from afar. (No one who knew us made that mistake. Attitude was everything.) But it had been a long, long time since Relos Var had run around looking like Rev’arric. If my brother had one weakness above all others, it was his need to make sure everyone knew he was the smartest man around—and being exceedingly pretty didn’t help that goal.

I squinted. “How do you know what Relos Var really looks like?”

A faint blush rose on her skin. “One time, I used the Name of All Things and drew a portrait of him. I never told him that I’d done it. I didn’t think he’d have approved.”²

“I think you’re right.” I purposefully ignored the implications about Senera’s feelings for Relos Var. My time at the Lighthouse at Shadrag Gor had confirmed that their relationship had been more emotionally convoluted than “mentor figure” in spite of Senera’s insistence that she had no interest in romantic relationships.

I was going to go with “tangled mess” as the most appropriate descriptor.³

I avoided touching anything. Between Thurvishar and Senera, they’d done a commendable job of organizing the place. Given another five years or so, I imagined it might even be possible to find something one needed in a timely manner.

“Is Thurvishar here?” I asked her.

“Yes,” Senera said. “You’re not, though, are you? Really here, I mean.”

I grinned. “Be honest: Was your first clue the fact that you’re still alive to ask me that question?”

“That’s a rather big clue, yes.” She dug a knuckle into her temple. “How’s godhood treating you?”

“Unlimited power turns out to be a lot more limiting than I’d expected. Someone should really revise the god-king tales to reflect that.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Senera stretched her fingers out in front of her and wriggled them as if imagining casting a spell. “Let me tell Thurvishar you’re here—”

“No need.” Thurvishar opened the doorway from the stairs leading to one of the lower levels of the tower. “Kihrin? Why aren’t you down in the Manol?” He asked the question like an accusation. Thurvishar didn’t look happy to see me.

I understood. If I was really Talon, then I’d departed precipitously from the plan. And if I was really me, then I’d torn the plan to shreds and lit it on fire.⁴ I could hardly blame the man for being upset. As much as I knew that our plans needed to stay flexible (on account of how much of it I was making up as I went along), I also knew Thurvishar was less comfortable with that idea.

I bet Thurvishar couldn’t sense me telepathically either, which had to be tripping every warning bell the wizard had.

“Something came up,” I said and purposefully didn’t grin as his expression darkened. “And yes, it’s really me. But I figured out what demons are.”

Thurvishar shared a look with Senera. “Really you? Really you, jeopardizing the whole plan, you mean?”

“Oh, if Relos Var’s eavesdropping on us, we’re already fucked,” I said. “Anyway, this is more important.”

“And this is why I haven’t been sleeping well,” Senera said. “What do you mean, ‘what demons are’? We already know that.”

“Do we.” Thurvishar’s expression turned contemplative, pensive. Also, still very annoyed. Thurvishar was a man who believed in order, and I was messing with it. “Perhaps you should first let us know why this is so important you had to drop everything else and jeopardize all our plans to come tell us?”

“They’re humans.” I raised a hand as Senera opened her mouth to object. “They’re the humans we left behind when we migrated from our old universe to this one. Except they evolved. They shed their bodies and devoured … everything. And then they followed us here.”

The two wizards stared at me.

“That…” Senera blinked. “That is interesting. And horrible. But could you please get to why we care right now?”

“How do you know this?” Thurvishar pressed.

“I found out from the demons,” I answered. “And no, they didn’t willingly give up the information. But here’s where I need your opinion, because of all of us, I think we are the three who know Relos Var best. Do you think he’s figured this out?”

Senera squinted at me. “Why?”

“Because do you really think that Var’s plans don’t include getting rid of the demons? He can’t just seal off the Wound as long as the demons are still here. They might be capable of ripping open another hole, which will put us right back where we started. He has to eliminate them.”

They both stared at me. They weren’t telling me that I was wrong, they clearly just didn’t have a clue why it was important. Or rather, why we shouldn’t be cheering the bastard on, at least about this one thing.

“Okay, let me try this a different way,” I said. “Demons are amalgams of all the souls that they’ve eaten. But we assumed, everyone assumed, that the first demons who came here were singular entities. Each demon a single soul, at least until they declared it dinnertime on the human race and started adding on to themselves like snowballs rolling down a hill. With me so far?”

“Don’t be condescending,” Senera snapped.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said. “Well, we were wrong. That assumption was … okay … maybe incorrect is the wrong term, but incomplete. The demons who invaded were never individuals. It would be like looking at a mosaic on a wall and saying, ‘Yes, that is a single piece of art.’ Which yes, sure. That picture is a single thing. But it’s also made up of thousands of individual bits of tile, and each of those tiles is also an individual piece. This idea of unity was an illusion; each of those invading demons was never a single soul at all. And why this is important is because of the Font of Souls.”

I knew they didn’t yet understand, but they seemed willing to listen, so I continued. “From the start, we had a problem with what to do with a demon once we defeated one. Tossing them into the Nythrawl Wound meant nothing—they’d just come back through. But eventually, we realized that we could get rid of a demon by throwing them into the Font of Souls. It was the perfect solution. Demons would be trapped in the Font forever, because they are spiritual beings with no physical counterparts in the Living World to reincarnate into. As far as we’ve ever been able to tell, the Font exists to channel souls from the Afterlife to reincarnate in the Living World. And it works along racial lines! Daughters of Laaka are reincarnated as Daughters of Laaka. Elephants only reincarnate as elephants. Humans only reincarnate as humans…”

“But you just said demons used to be…” Senera’s eyes widened.

Thurvishar looked like he’d just eaten a bug.

“Human. Exactly right. Which means demons haven’t been staying inside the Font after all. They’ve been reincarnating as humans, because they do have physical counterparts. Us. But—” I raised a finger. “It gets worse.”

“How?” Senera growled.

“Because people aren’t being born demons,” I explained. “If a demonic soul—an entirely spiritual entity that doesn’t require a physical body in any way—was shoved into a newborn baby’s body, it would stay there for about two seconds and then would likely kill everyone in the room, starting with the mother. That doesn’t happen. And the only reasonable explanation that I can come up with for why that doesn’t happen is that the Font of Souls is breaking every demon down to component parts. Smashing the mosaics so each individual tile can … well … I admit I lose the metaphor here, but my point is that not only is it likely that some humans are in fact reincarnated demons, but … it’s probably a large number.” I shook my head. “I’m not even sure that the Font has ever created human souls at all. I want to talk to Galava about this, and I’m annoyed that I can’t.”

Thurvishar started to nod. I saw the moment the realization hit him, when his eyes widened in horror. “You think Relos Var is going to use a sympathetic magic ritual to target the demons.” It wasn’t a question.

“What can I say? My brother loves his rituals. Except I’m wondering what the odds are that sympathetically targeting ‘demon’ souls won’t also get all the souls that have been reborn as normal human beings since.”

“How many—?” Senera’s voice cracked. She started over. “Let’s assume for the moment that you’re right. This universe isn’t responsible for creating any human souls. That everything we have, we either brought with us or have unwittingly recycled from demons. That would make every single soul—” She covered her mouth with a hand, and I honestly wondered if she might be sick. “Founders’ souls make star tears when they’re tsali’d. Do you have any idea how few souls form a star tear? The vast majority don’t by a large percentage.” Senera turned to Thurvishar. “Gadrith was constantly doing that to people. How often did you see a star tear?”

“Almost never,” Thurvishar said numbly. He shook his head as if to wake himself. “Maybe once or twice? It was rare.”

Senera swallowed as she returned her attention to me. “You’re right, of course. Relos Var is planning to do this. Which I didn’t think was a problem. Why would I? Do you realize how many people would die?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “Almost everyone. Now do you understand why this is important?”