“I used to think that. But you controlled others’ fates. The choices you made have manipulated me, and Arlo, and the telepath whose mind and body you’ve stolen. How many others? By what right have you imposed your will on us?”
“By the most basic of rights, Jorl. Because I can. Prophecy is first and foremost a self-serving gift. I used mine to gain power, but not just for me. What I have done has preserved Barsk for generations. And with your help I have obtained a closure in death that I knew I would never possess in life. Can you truly find fault in that?”
“Yes, I can. You just admitted that your sight wasn’t complete. You don’t know what might have happened if you’d done nothing. How much of what you feared actually came about because you inadvertently set it in motion? You created the Speaker’s Edict. You helped craft the Compact that Bish and others in the Alliance would come to resent. You created the aleph which empowered Arlo’s drug. And you didn’t do any of these things because they were necessarily good unto themselves, but because you saw them as means to shape events to serve your own ends. The entire legacy of the Matriarch is the exploitation of others like pieces in some great game.”
She laughed in his face. “You can see it that way if you like. The weak usually do, if they see it at all. But you disappoint me. Despite your study of history, you fail to understand power. It’s obvious you never will.”
Margda turned from him then, her feet not quite touching the floor as she carefully crossed to the middle of the room and let a hand hover just above the surface of the large globule of water floating there.
“There’s really only one choice you ever have to make in any act of creation. Will you be the instrument or the artist? If you’re only now coming to realize that you’ve been a tool all your life, there’s no one to blame for it but yourself. If you don’t like that state of affairs, then act! Impose your will upon the world and walk your own path. If you don’t, you’ll just end up being a token in someone else’s game; you’ll continue to be used as they see fit. That’s how the universe works. You don’t have to like it, but you’d do well to get used to it.”
He shoved himself from the wall, relying in part on old reflexes from emergency drills and mind-numbing training from his days in the Patrol. He rotated in mid-air and he struck the far wall feet first, bending at the knee to absorb the impact and launch himself along a new vector. Arms and trunk reaching out in front of him, he passed through the room’s watery sphere. As he emerged through the far side, his momentum carried him into the Otter, tackling her, and eventually pinning her against the floor where he grabbed at an edge of the bedclothes to prevent any further rebounding.
“No, maybe that’s the way the world looks once you’ve already decided to take your path. Or maybe it’s just you’re so jaded, or you’ve bought into your own delusions. I don’t know which, and I don’t care. Those aren’t the only choices: use or be used. There is more than being tyrant or servant. I reject both options and I reject you. You’ve been dead for centuries, Margda, it’s about time you accepted that.”
Jorl closed his eyes, not bothering to invoke any ritual or to summon up a mindscape. He saw the concentration of Margda’s nefshons that had embedded themselves throughout the golden fabric that were the living particles of the telepath Lirlowil. What he had done before, out of fear and without limit, he now did with careful and delicate control. Instead of calling the nefshons of the Matriarch to him as he might in an ordinary summoning, he drew them exclusively from the Otter. He began with those particles that she had originally summoned herself when she broke the first rule of the Edict, and then took away all the others that represented her memories of the experiences that had followed. And yet still they clung together, some after effect of the imprint Margda had forced, or possibly just some lingering effort she’d set in motion with the last of her usurped telepathy.
Jorl would have none of it. He imposed his will on the particles, giving each its own direction and push, and forced their diffusion. As simply as that, the Matriarch was gone.
“Pool of my birth, isn’t it enough I’m being forced to study and summon you ugly people, do I have to wake up to find one in my bed as well?”
Jorl opened his eyes and found himself face to face with the Lutr. She bore an expression that was equal parts disgust and annoyance, but otherwise showed only exhaustion to indicate she had ever been possessed by the long-dead Matriarch.
He glanced over his shoulder to get his bearings, and then shoved himself in the direction of the entrance to the outer room.
“My apologies. This was just a, uh, professional visit. One Speaker to another.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s not important. I came to tell you that your work here is done.”
The look on her face brightened with an expression of hope. “I get to go home?”
Jorl smiled. “Unless you can think of a better place to be.”
* * *
AFTER finishing with the Lutr, Jorl paid a visit on the Bos. Bish had exhausted himself shouting commands into a comm system that ignored him, issuing ineffective orders to the Ailuros guards that had brought him a meal, and in general ranting. When the Pandas had opened the door to allow Jorl to enter, Bish had pulled himself together and treated him to a haughty glare, but there was little strength to it.
“I hadn’t intended to do it, but I’m not making any excuses. I can’t even say I did it in self-defense. It’s my fault, and it’s something we’ll both have to live with.”
“What are you yammering about?” said the Yak.
“You’ve been forgotten. No one remembers you, or anything you did, any connections you made, any interactions they had with you. Any relationships. You have all your own memories still, all your talent and skill, but any effect you had on any other person has been lost.”
“Utter nonsense. Even if what you say is true, there are records. I’ve written legislation, struck down laws, the senate may not remember me, but I can point to what I’ve done and it will come back to them.”
“Memory doesn’t work that way. If you marched in with an annotated history of all your accomplishments it would only confuse the memories they’re already trying to resolve. Which is why I’m not taking you back to Dawn.”
“Why don’t you just say it. You’ve come to kill me.”
Jorl fanned his ears, embarrassment coloring his face. “I’m not a murderer, despite having killed your past. I’m taking you where you’ll be no threat to Barsk but can have a chance to build a new future.”
“Why would I want a new future when I’m not done with the one I’ve planned? Even if no one else remembers me, I still recall all of them. I know the strengths and weaknesses of powerful people on a hundred planets. It doesn’t matter where in the Alliance you drop me, I’ll maneuver myself into a position to come after you in time.”
“I thought of that. If anything, armed with that kind of knowledge, you’re more dangerous to those people because they won’t have a clue. Which is why I’m not taking you to any world in the Alliance. On the other hand, there are independent colonies at the farthest edges of Alliance space where your spirit and strength might do some good. It’s a long trip, and you’ll be kept in this cabin as a prisoner until the ship arrives, but at least you’ll have a chance to make a new start.”
The Yak scowled. “And if I choose not to?”
Jorl shrugged. “As far as anyone remembers, you’re no longer a citizen of the Alliance. No one cares what you do any more. Least of all me.”