Wheel of the Infinite (36 page)

“We know about Mirak.” Rian sounded annoyed.

“We found out the hard way,” Rastim added. “But the Adversary said to stay here.”

Rian threw him an impatient look. “Yes, that’s the last thing it said before it couldn’t decide if it was evil or not.”

“That was because you talked to it.” Rastim glared back at him. “I didn’t think you should—”

Maskelle stared, then thumped Rian in the chest. “What about the Adversary?”

“It was here,” Rian explained. “It acted a little funny.”

Rastim snorted. “That’s putting it mildly.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” Maskelle stepped away from him, keeping one hand on his arm but testing her balance. “This place is in the same spot where the Palace would be if it was still here, so the Wheel is here too. This illusion or memory is just keeping us from seeing it.” Maskelle concentrated on what she had seen of the chamber, trying to make the veil lift. Fixing your mind on the reality was the simplest way to break an illusion, and the only way open to her now, cut off as she was from the temples. But this was no ordinary illusion.

Rian watched her uneasily. “When the Adversary was here, I had the feeling . . . We were bait in a trap. Was that what happened?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I’m just not sure if the trap was for me or—” She gestured at the blurred forms of the beings in the city. “Them.”

“Isn’t the Adversary on our side?” Rastim asked, nervously rubbing his hands off on his dusty shirt.

“It’s on its own side now.” Maskelle closed her eyes, pushing at the illusion around them. Nothing happened and she swore. She stepped further away from Rian and paced a few steps, thinking it over. “When you were thrown in here, did you see anything of what this place looked like before this appeared?” she asked them.

Rian shook his head. “I was out.”

“It was . . .” Rastim hesitated. “There was a heavy mist, bluish-white.” He looked at the ground and scuffed at one of the paving blocks with a boot. “And all this was jumbled up rocks. Then this place just gradually began to appear.” He shivered.

Maskelle frowned. “That’s what I saw. There has to be something else. If the Wheel is here, it has to be on a flat surface, like a platform or a dais.”

“Does it matter if it’s square or round?” Rian asked.

“No, as long as it’s flat.”

“If it was in Mirak’s chambers ...”

“Oh, wait.” She ran her hands through her hair. “The surface under their Wheel should be the same as it was in our world.”

“So somewhere in here there’s a flat surface that looks like the floor in Mirak’s quarters.” Rian looked around at the illusion, eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

Maskelle closed her eyes. “It’s been years. It was lacquered wood, large panels.”

“What color?” Rian asked at the same time Rastim said, “Any carving?”

“Light yellow, carved with flowers. I think.”

“What kind of flowers?” Rastim persisted.

“Just flowers.” Maskelle glared. “Give me a moment, will you?” She tried to fix the image in her mind, but it had been too long. She had never been Mirak’s friend and had only been to the extensive quarters he kept in the west building of the Celestial Home during the banquets he gave for the major festivals.

I remember
, the Adversary whispered in her head.

Of course it could remember. It walked in and out of her memory at will.
As if I could trust you
, she told it bitterly.

The image that appeared before her eyes was of a light yellow lacquered wood floor, with colored inlay forming tiny round flowers on the edge of each square panel.

Why
? Maskelle demanded angrily.
Why trap me down here and then help me
? She realized it was idiocy, asking reasons of a mad creature.

I’m not as mad as all that.

Of course you’re mad. You let this . . . thing destroy you.

Funny, I don‘t feel destroyed. To do this we both had to be here, at their center.

“Maskelle?” someone said urgently.

She blinked and found herself facing Rian, who was watching her worriedly. “The Adversary,” she said. How she was going to explain to him what the Adversary had done, she didn’t know. She pushed it away from her now, fixing her mind on the image it had given her.

She split her awareness, the way she did when she used her spirit body. With her eyes she could see the relic of the living city, with her mind the image of what must really be here somewhere: the fragment of flooring with the second Wheel laid out on it, surrounded by the rocks and debris that filled the rest of the place. The Wheel would look like the fragment that had kept intruding on their Wheel, dark and dangerous, threatening storm and ruin.
Storm and ruin are the symbols of this world
.

The city in her eyes shimmered and began to dissolve.

The howling rose again, the angry wail of the creatures that had once been these people. Instead of distracting her, it firmed the picture in her mind and she remembered the dead smell of the chamber and the feel of the cold mist on her face. It was a battle of all their minds against hers, but she could feel she was winning.
If I was that strong, we wouldn‘t be having this problem in the first place
. The Adversary was helping her.

She could see two images now, the city and the chamber, cold and empty except for the debris and the Wheel. “Can you see it?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Rian reported tensely. “But the picture is getting thin and flat. It doesn’t look real anymore. I can see the walls of the chamber through some of the buildings.”

She said, “Be ready. As soon as you see where it is, destroy it.”

“Oh, that will make them happy,” Rastim moaned. “What should we do to it?”

“It’s only sand,” Rian told him impatiently. “Just mess it up.”

“Mess it up, all right.”

The veil didn’t fall, it ripped abruptly. Suddenly they could see the chamber, the swirl of living clouds around them, the rocky floor torn apart by the endless motion of the air, and in the very center the section of lacquered wood floor and atop it the Wheel. Rian flung himself at it, Rastim gamely struggling after him. Maskelle started after them, awkwardly stumbling on the sharp edges of the broken stone.

Rian was almost to the edge of the wooden platform when he stopped abruptly and stumbled back. Rastim and Maskelle reached him a few moments later and Maskelle felt the invisible barrier, a hardening of the air around the Wheel. Rian swore and slammed his fists against it. “It’s like the barrier they put around your room in the Palace that night,” he said.

“No,” Maskelle said grimly. “It’s like the barrier around the Marai. This is the Adversary.”

“Is there a way through it, like the one around the Marai?” Rian asked immediately.

“Probably not.”

“Then . . . Now what?” Rastim asked helplessly.

Maskelle started to reply, but the howling of the winds was almost drowning their voices out. She looked back and realized there was a second barrier, this one around the outer edge of the chamber, preventing the creatures from reaching them. They flung themselves against the invisible barrier and she could feel their ravening hunger.

“Don’t.”

Ilian was standing next to her again. She said aloud, “I suppose you have a good reason that won’t make any sense to me.”

“You’ll need it to get back home.” He smiled.

She knotted her fists and wished she could hit him. “We’re not going to get back home. We’re going to die. You made sure of that.”

Rastim muttered, “I’m glad we got that out in the open.”

“It’s here again?” Rian asked. Neither man would be able to see the Adversary in this form unless it wanted them to.

“It never left,” Maskelle said, not taking her eyes off the Adversary.

Ilian stepped close to her and touched her face. His fingers felt cool. He said, “I have to remake myself. This isn’t working. It’s time for me to die, too.”

It’s still mad
, she thought.
It can’t die
. Humoring it, she asked, “Why didn’t you do this before now? Why wait?”

“I needed them.” It gestured around at the creatures clustering against the invisible wall. “This will take all their lives.” It looked back at her, must have read her expression and explained, “It’s for the best. They’re broken. They died long ago and they don’t know it. I’m broken too. I need to die.” It shook its head, gave Ilian’s familiar shrug. “It’s time to try something different. The next Adversary needs to be a spirit that was once human, like the other Ancestors. Then it won’t need a Voice like I needed you.”

She shook her head.
Is it serious
? “That’s why you did this? So you could use them to destroy yourself?”

It stepped back, its expression turning angry. “You know why you don’t want to trust me? Because I’m you. You’ve given me all your fears, all your pain, all your little betrayals. You can’t trust me because you can’t trust yourself.”

“All right.” She turned away from it. “Stop.” She buried her face in her hands, searching for calm. “You say you want to remake yourself and you’ll kill these creatures to do it. Why didn’t you say this before?”

Ilian’s hands rested on her shoulders. “They would have heard me.”

She took a step away, shaking him off. She didn’t know what Rian and Rastim were making of all this. She said, “What’s stopping you?”

“I need your help.” When she turned to look at him, he shrugged, with an apologetic expression. “And I need another body.”

“A dead one?” she demanded. “You should have thought of that earlier.”

“This is getting worse all the time,” Rastim commented to Rian.

“Not dead,” the Adversary corrected her gently. “Living. Living is always better. Rian—”

“No!”

“It won’t hurt him. It’ll just be for a moment.” Ilian’s brows lifted. “You trust me with yourself, but not with him?”

“I don’t trust you with myself, either!”

“What is he saying?” Rian demanded. “I heard him say my name.”

“Nothing,” Maskelle snapped.

“What did he say?” Rian repeated.

“I wouldn’t harm a life from my world,” Ilian said.

“You wouldn’t?” Maskelle demanded. “What about Veran, what about Igarin? And Mirak and the others Marada killed or used. You could have prevented their deaths and you did nothing.”

“And for that I deserve to die. ‘Those who are pleased to hurt living beings are to be punished without mercy.’ ” Ilian stepped forward and took her hands. “So let me die.”

Maskelle felt it touch her mind again and suddenly she was seeing the Adversary as it saw itself. It was a pattern in the Infinite like the Wheel, but its symbols were far more complex and their attachment to the real world was only tenuous. She saw it hadn’t been lying to her; there was a section of the pattern missing, torn out as if by force, leaving an empty darkness in its place.

It was in the same place as the dark blot in the Wheel of the Infinite.
That wasn’t a reflection of Marada’s Wheel. It was a reflection of this one, of the Adversary itself
. It was a warning, an appeal for help.

It made a terrible sense. If this had happened when the Voices had tried to close the Aspian Straits to prevent that long ago invasion, if they accidentally sent the Sakkaran cities away, they had sent part of the Adversary with it. It hurt, she realized, a deep pain, an injury that never healed. It had allowed corruption to creep in; if it had been whole, Marada and her people would never have been able to enter the world. The Wheel of the Infinite had done this to the Adversary, and the Adversary would never have used the Wheel again if it hadn’t absolutely had to.

And this
, she reminded herself,
could all be a lie
.

“Is it helping us or not?” Rastim asked, frightened by what he had heard of Maskelle’s half of the conversation.

She said slowly, “It needs help. It’s been damaged, and it needs to die, so it can remake itself.”

They both stared at her. Gesturing out at the creatures surrounding them, Rian said, “It could have picked a better time.”

She shook her head. “It needs them. It’s going to kill them all and use their power to do this.”

Rian hesitated. “Then what’s it waiting for?”

“It also needs my help, and it needs to be inside you for a moment.”

Rian stared at her. “What?”

“Sorry you asked?” Rastim breathed.

Rian looked confused. He looked at the Wheel, past the barrier they couldn’t break, and then at the creatures that were howling for their blood around the perimeter of the chamber. It was obvious they were running out of time. “Is that... Should I do it?”

He must have seen the anguish on her face, because he said immediately, “I’ll do it.”

The Adversary waited, and Maskelle closed her eyes. There was no other choice.
It brought us all to this point solely for this. I can stop you
, she told it.
All I have to do is refuse.
I can pay you in kind for everything that you did to me
.

I’ve accepted my failure
, it replied with brutal truth.
Accept yours. Forgive me. Or forgive yourself, it’s the same
.

She opened her eyes and felt the tears. “I can’t.”

Ilian was watching her gravely. He gestured to the clouds of dust and hate, all that were left of their enemies.
Look at them
. His expression sour, he shook his head.
Trapped in the past. Is that what you want? I’m a mad, damaged spirit, and I choose death over that. What do you choose
?

She looked at them. “Not that.”

Then let it go. Let me go.

Is that it
? Maskelle wondered.
I don’t want to let the Adversary die
? It had been there all her life. Hate, love; after so many years strong emotions blended into each other. Should she hold the Adversary like these creatures were held, trapped by memory and old pain? And condemn not only yourself to death, but Rian and Rastim too?
Let it go. Let me go
. “Then go.”

Ilian vanished and the Adversary flowed into Rian’s body. He looked startled, stepped toward her, then started to collapse. Maskelle stepped forward and caught him, feeling her legs tremble. The Adversary hadn’t been in a real body before, only Gisar’s wooden one, and the effort it was taking to dampen its power, to keep from hurting Rian, was terrible.
This has to be done quickly
, Maskelle thought desperately. She felt that it needed more contact between them to make this work. Holding Rian as tightly as she could, she kissed him.