Kihrin insisted that the best place to conduct the ritual was at ground level, on bedrock. Which eliminated the Mother of Trees or any of the other surrounding sky trees as ritual spots. Hell, it disqualified most of the Manol Jungle, large chunks of which were twenty feet or more underwater for most of the year. True, there were parts of the jungle that weren’t flood zones, including places Janel had visited only recently, but very few that would serve their purposes. And a number of people, Janel included, refused to go anywhere near the Quarry.
So they ended up back inside the Korthaen Blight.
The fact that it made sense did nothing to lessen the sugar-sweet richness of the irony. Janel understood the logic, though; Kihrin wanted to lessen any variables that might possibly cause the ritual to veer in an unpredictable manner. Thus, similar surroundings to all the other times this ritual had been performed.
Or in this case, in the exact same place all the other rituals had been performed.
It seemed unlikely that it was exactly the same place, since the entire area was a mass of magically cooled volcanic rock that now covered the entire plain in a black stone blanket. It was difficult to say if they were in the center of the Korthaen Blight, impossible to say if they were standing on the same spot as the previous rituals. They were “somewhere within” the boundaries protected by Tya’s wall, and later cooled to stone by a combination of Ompher and Xaltorath.
Close enough.
Kihrin had given instructions to Senera and Thurvishar, since both could interact with others far more readily and safely than he could. He still had a projection at the site, but a good hundred feet from anyone else, where a loss of control would give people enough time to respond.
Janel walked over to him.
“You should stay back,” he told her.
“You should’ve thought of that before you decided Cursed God of Annihilation was a reasonable ambition,” Janel said. Then she added, softly, “Can we do this?”
She wanted so badly to hold him. To hold him and touch him and make everything okay. She hated that there was no good sure solution to this, that ultimately their plan hinged on the frailty of human nature. And humans were always so surprising in when they were weak versus when they were strong. Often they were both at the same time.
“The plan’s taken a few knocks, it’s true…” Kihrin winked at her.
She allowed herself a sour chuckle in response and didn’t even look up at the yellow sun and the shockingly blue sky. Janel knew he’d made his point, anyway.
Kihrin smiled in response. “But all plans do. We might still pull it off.”
Janel took a deep breath. “We’d better, darling, because I’m afraid Teraeth will never forgive us if we make him go through waiting another five hundred years for the chance to romance us again.” It was a poor attempt at humor. If they didn’t make it through this, odds were excellent that they wouldn’t end up in a position to be reborn. Relos Var would make it a special point to end matters for both of them. Teraeth and Janel would end up as tsali stones sitting on a shelf. Kihrin … Kihrin would have a far worse fate waiting for him. “If worse comes to worst—”
“Don’t,” Kihrin said. “Who told me ‘don’t plan to fail?’”
“—could you restart? Reloop the timeline the way Xaltorath did?”
He paused. At least Kihrin didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand, but he shook his head. “No. I used up too much power fixing the sun. But would you really want that? You’d essentially be giving Xaltorath another chance.”
Janel felt a shudder. He was right. That would be the result. But if there was nothing else …
“Don’t fail,” Janel whispered.
“Have you figured out a way to make sure the demon ritual doesn’t affect you?”
Janel looked past Kihrin and made a vague motion in that direction. “I think they’re almost finished.”
They seemed to be. In this case, that meant lying six people down on beds that Tya had made especially for them.1 She placed them into an enchanted sleep, because being gaeshed was horrible and grim whether one volunteered for it or not. Since at least one person in the group (Qown) had an active phobia about being gaeshed, it seemed only reasonable to spare him that discomfort.
“Janel,” Kihrin said, in a tone that translated as “don’t think I haven’t noticed how you didn’t answer my question.”
“I know,” she said. “Believe me, I know. But you don’t get to say a word. We’ll both do what we have to.”
“I’m going to try talking to him.”
It took her a second. Talk to him. Kihrin wanted to try to talk to Relos Var. Janel sighed. They’d been over this before, and it never made any more sense with repetition. “And do you really expect his answer’s going to change? That this time you’ll get through to him? How many bodies have to be piled up between you two?”
“Hey,” he chided. “Play nice.”
“Why? Relos Var’s certainly not going to.” Janel waved a hand. “Okay, fine. You want to bring him back to the light. I wish you luck.”
“You don’t think I can.”
“I think it’s not a contest,” Janel said. “But more than that, I think you can’t wake a man who’s only pretending to be asleep. It’s not that he can’t change, Kihrin. It’s that he doesn’t want to. He thinks he’s being reasonable. Logical. He knows he’s right. We’re the ones who’re being obdurate.”
His silhouette shifted, although she wasn’t sure what meaning she should attribute there, if any at all. Unease? Anxiety? An itch?
Damn, she missed this man. It was killing her that he was right here and yet literally millions of miles away.
“I’ll be careful,” Kihrin reassured her.
“I know you will.” She smiled at him and then went to join the others.
Janel contemplated what he’d just told her. She knew Kihrin wasn’t naïve. He’d lived with Darzin; he’d known more than his share of bullies. She rather suspected that the problem was S’arric, and his memories of a brother he had trusted and loved for millennia.
Where was the cutoff for redemption? At what point were the sins too great for forgiveness? The number of people in her current company—even the number of people they were about to give godlike powers to—who could be accurately described as murderers and monsters implied that their side’s requirements for atonement were generous. If Relos Var—if Rev’arric—came around and asked for her forgiveness, could she find it in herself to give it? Could she forgive all the people around her for their sins but not forgive Relos Var?
It didn’t matter. Because if Janel had one simple qualifier for forgiveness, it was this: they had to want it. Not in a cute “I’m only sorry because I was caught” way but a genuine desire to do better. It was a simple stipulation, one which she knew Relos Var would never meet. He wasn’t sorry for a thing he’d ever done. He might bemoan his failures, but he never regretted the motive that sparked those actions. He was, had always been, a blazing, shining star of self-acknowledged righteousness. Never in her existence had she known a better one-man definition of hubris.
It had drawn Janel to him once, in another lifetime. Confident, intelligent, deeply committed to the search for knowledge. He’d been appealing. It had taken C’indrol an embarrassingly long time to see beyond that, to realize that the man lived in a universe that revolved solely around himself. That he would do anything to make that universe reality.
Everyone was asleep when she reached the beds. Tya and Xivan both sat next to the others, tiny streams of light flowing from their hands to the bodies lying next to them. Her mother nodded at her. “Care to help?” She used her free hand to gesture toward a table where small talismans had been dumped in an undignified tangle.
Janel straightened. “I’ve never … uh…”
“It’s sadly not that difficult,” Tya said. “I’ll walk you through it.”
Janel hated every second of it. Not the lesson from her mother. That was fine. Pleasant, even. But just the knowledge that she could do this again—gaesh someone and so chain their soul—if the mood ever struck her. That she’d learned the specific requirements to accomplish it. It felt like dipping her hands in rancid oil. Slick and rotten.
Janel helped anyway.
When they finished, Tya took each of the gaesh control talismans and put them into a thick iron box, which she closed and handed to Khored. The box vanished the moment it touched his hands.
Janel frowned. “You didn’t destroy that, did you?”
“No. Tucked it away somewhere safe,” Khored said. “It would be a shame if it fell into the wrong hands at the wrong time.”
After that, they woke the others. Everyone began to move quickly. Kihrin kept his distance while burning ritual circle markings into the ground, tracing down the necessary patterns.
Janel kept herself busy talking with Grizzst, who wasn’t exactly her favorite person in the world, but at least remembered the second ritual they would need to do something about—the one that would wipe out half of humanity if it worked the way they suspected it might.
They were racing an invisible clock, not knowing when Var would start his own version of this ritual, or if he did, if it would take him the same length of time as it was taking them. Most of the people not involved were wandering the area, looking out of place. At one point, she heard Senera grumble that she should have asked Thurvishar to make chairs for everyone before they started.
“Once the Guardian positions are fully separated,” Kihrin explained, “your Greater Talismans should vanish as your gaeshe are healed, and the integration process will begin. Any questions?”
People had a few, but they were all in a rush. Thurvishar conducted the actual decoupling ritual, and the rest of them stood back and kept watch.
In Mithros’s case literally as he scanned the skies. At one point toward the end, he growled. “Oh, I hate this. I can feel it happening.”
“Don’t resist it,” Kihrin warned. “Remember, it’s extremely fatal if you fight it.”
“How fatal is ‘extremely fatal’?” Mithros asked. “On a scale from ‘died as an angel of Thaena’ to ‘chucked body and souls into the Nythrawl Wound’?”
Xivan turned around and gave Mithros a long, slow blink.
“About an eight,” Kihrin said. “Meaning it might be possible to bring you back, but neither Xaltorath, Relos Var, nor I have any idea how.”
“So I’d best not do that, then,” Mithros said.
“Best not,” Kihrin agreed.
A grim look crossed Mithros’s face. “He’s started.”
Janel leaned toward him. “What was that?”
“Relos Var—he’s started his own version of the ritual. I can feel the pull.” Mithros didn’t seem to be inclined to panic about it, so Janel didn’t either. “Ours is going to finish first unless something changes.”
Xivan appeared deep in thought. “I have an idea, but before I share, I’d like to confirm whether or not it’s even possible.” Xivan waved at the ritual site. “I’m not needed for this. I’m going to go back to the Land of Peace for a bit. I want to talk with the real Khaemezra.”
Janel did a poor job of hiding her distaste, because Xivan immediately snapped, “I’m not her biggest fan either, but there’s something I want to find out if we can do, and if so, how. She’s the person to ask. I don’t think Khae will know.”
Janel nodded. “Then that’s probably a good idea.”
“Can I come along too?” Talea asked brightly.
Xivan smiled fondly at the other woman. “Of course you may.” They both vanished.
“You didn’t ask what she wants to do?” Kihrin’s shadow seemed focused on her.
“It’s Xivan,” Janel said. “She’ll tell me when she’s ready. There’s little point in trying to pry it out of her earlier than that. And she has Talea along to keep her out of too much trouble.”
“True.” Kihrin shook himself and then backed up. Backed way up. “Sorry about that. I didn’t realize I’d drifted so close.”
“You don’t seem inclined to disintegrate anything, so I’m feeling magnanimous,” Janel said. She tried not to show the pure longing seizing her. She wanted to hold him. And that was unwise for a dozen reasons. “How long have you gone this time?”
“A while,” Kihrin said. “Let’s just hope—” His words cut off as he shifted to one side, visibly clutching his side and bending over. Then Kihrin laughed harshly. “I see what you mean, Mithros. I’m feeling it too.”
Janel felt a thread of something that might have been hope. “It’s going to work?” The moment she said that, the hope dropped away, replaced by panic. What if his connection to the concept of “energy” was the only thing keeping him alive? What if stripping him of that link killed him? What if this was in fact the worst possible mistake? They were trusting Xaltorath, Xaltorath’s memories. Xaltorath! If her memory was so perfect, she wouldn’t have needed the damn prophecies!
Kihrin still had a hand to his chest, but he held out the other one as if to forestall her protests. “It’s fine. I understand how this whole process works a lot better now. It won’t kill me. I don’t even think it will affect my powers, although wouldn’t that be lovely?”
Janel swallowed down regret. It had indeed been too much to hope for, but yes, it would have been lovely.
Groans rang out from all around the chamber as the ritual came to a close. Tya, Khored, and … No. Irisia and Mithros were both bent over, suffering through it the best they could. Kihrin stood taut and straight, the rigidity communicating better than words that he was hurting too.
For just a moment, three glowing balls of light appeared in the center of the room, hovering in midair. They lasted for perhaps a second, probably less, before they brightened in color and then spread outward in an expanding ring of light, fading as they traveled outward until nothing remained.
“It’s done,” Thurvishar said.
Mithros had a rueful look on his face, and Janel’s mother, Irisia, was only slightly better. But Janel’s attention was almost entirely focused on the third person who was the focus of the ritual—Kihrin.
“Fuck,” Kihrin said, with feeling. He’d bent over, holding himself as though injured.
“How are you feeling?” Janel couldn’t keep the panic from her voice. “Is there a problem?”
“A little bit of one,” Kihrin agreed. “Looks like Xaltorath misunderstood something. I guess that answers whether Relos Var would have included me in the ritual. He must have always intended this.”
So, something had happened. Something bad.
“Spit it out, damn it,” Teraeth snapped. “What’s wrong?”
Kihrin raised his head, although he hadn’t yet straightened up. “I can’t feel the dragons.”
“What?” Janel blinked at him. “What do you mean—”
“I mean, I can’t feel any of the dragons. Something about breaking the link between S’arric’s powers and Vol Karoth’s also severed the link to the dragons. I can’t feel them—and that means I can’t control them.” He laughed. “And just when it didn’t matter if I did so openly or not anymore.”
“That you don’t control the dragons, that means he does,” Janel said. “Relos Var.”
Kihrin nodded. “Remember how I said he wasn’t going to have those dragons on his side?”
“Fuck,” Teraeth said. “He will.”
“So that’s a problem,” Thurvishar agreed. “Good to know.”
“Where’s the sword?” Mithros asked his grandson.
“The sword? I just had—” Teraeth looked down at his belt, now devoid of any weapon larger than a dagger. “I had it a second ago.”
“It’s working,” Tya said.
“Great,” Kihrin (or rather his projection) said. “Now we move on to the next part.”
“What is the next part?” Mithros asked.
“Oh, you know. The next part is where we keep Relos Var from wiping out half of humanity,” Kihrin said. “But at least finding him should be easy. Because once he realizes that someone’s beaten him to stripping the Guardians of their powers, he’s going to know something’s up. And being Relos Var, he’ll seek out a nice primary source who might know something.” Kihrin pointed at Irisia and Mithros.
“So in other words”—Janel looped an arm around Teraeth’s waist and leaned in—“he’s coming to us.”