Neither I nor my companions were sanguine about our chances of survival, but we’d not voiced our doubts. I staggered to my feet and Ciras gathered my swords. I glanced at Nelesquin and made no effort to hear what Jekusmirwyn was whispering in his ear. “Will he remain dead this time?”
Kaerinus nodded. “This time there is no escape. Back then he had me separate his soul and hide it in a vessel. With it removed from his body, he couldn’t be fully dragged into the Hells. I’d put it in a ruby. Others transferred it from item to item until one of the vanyesh, in honor of Nelesquin, bound it to his gilded skull.”
The magician pointed at Qiro Anturasi, who lay slumped, drooling, against the wall. “Qiro visited Tolwreen and was given the skull to bring back here. He labored under its influence and created the place where Nelesquin could be brought back to life. Neither he nor Nelesquin knew where the soul resided, however. I did not know until recently-Qiro’s own magic masked the work on the skull. I still would not have known, save that I saw it in Qiro’s trophy room.”
Ciras frowned. “Why didn’t you destroy it then?”
“It would have killed me to do so-such was the magic I’d used in the first transfer.” Kaerinus opened his hands. “I had once worked for Nelesquin, and willingly. I began to doubt him after I worked the spell and he began to murder those who took custody of his spirit after me. Then I returned to the Nine and saw what had been unleashed, but by then I could do nothing until I located the person who could kill him.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Who was that?”
“The boy, Dunos.” Kaerinus smiled.
The Gloon’s words came back to me. This mission can only be accomplished by someone who should be dead.
“You recognized how special a child he is, Virisken. He destroyed the skull. That broke the link between Qiro and Nelesquin.”
Another voice, a familiar one, spoke. “It also broke the link between Nelesquin and a fallen god, Nessagafel.”
My jaw dropped open as the man materialized before us. “Prince Cyron?”
“In part, yes.” He clapped his hands once to emphasize how he had changed. “Nelesquin somehow fell under Nessagafel’s sway. His works in the mortal realm aided Nessagafel’s campaign to upset Heaven and start creation all over again.”
“How do you know…?” That question seemed ridiculous. “Your arm?”
Cyron smiled. “There have been many changes, my friends.” He gestured and Nelesquin’s body rose in the air. “Do you mind if I borrow this?”
“If it pleases you.”
“For the moment it does.” He plucked the head from Jekusmirwyn’s bloody hands. “Thank you.”
I, like the others, bowed.
By the time I straightened up, he had left the tower and grown to the size of a giant. He soon dwarfed the largest of Nelesquin’s creatures and kept growing. Until we moved toward the portal in the north wall, all we could see was his kneecap and the black robe festooned with stars that covered him.
Cyron’s voice boomed. “Behold Nelesquin, the man who would have been Emperor.”
The corpse rested in the palm of his hand, with an arm and both legs dangling from between his fingers. We could not help but stare as the head floated above the body. Nelesquin looked like a broken toy, void of all power and pride, but suited to pity.
“He strove to upset the balance on earth, and thus sought to overthrow the reign of the gods. For any man to do thus is a crime against the Heavens, the Hells, and the mortal realm. His efforts have not pleased us. Those who supported him were deceived. Unto them no blame or guilt attains. All should realize that their own sins are known to Nirati the fox, and when they are taken, she will mete out justice in ways wonderful and terrible.
“Those who opposed Nelesquin are heroes. They have pleased us and their rewards will be in keeping with their efforts.”
Cyron, whose robe contained the circle of constellations on the breast, reached up into the sky, plunging his hand into a mass of stars between Quun and Chado. Cyron’s fingers stirred them. They blurred, then slowly resolved themselves into a new constellation-a crown. A different-color star burned on each of nine spikes to the crown, but at the brow, other stars formed an eye.
A wave of nausea twisted my guts. I looked up again. The stars on Cyron’s breast matched the Heavens. And though I thought I remembered having seen him stir the stars, even more strongly I had the impression that the stars had always been that way. In fact, the legend of the stirring of the stars was just that-forever connected with the god of the New Year’s Festival.
A woman in a robe with a bat crest caressed my brow and my confusion ebbed away. “There is value in many legends-so much so that the truth beneath them is often unimportant.”
I bowed. “Praise to thee, Tsiwen.”
The goddess of Wisdom returned the bow. “You will go to Anturasikun and rescue your companion. There you will see a map of the world. Master Dejote already knows of the Helos channel. The land north of it is being overrun by the Turasynd. You will lead an army of xidantzu, kwajiin, and Imperial soldiers to repel them. In gratitude, the kwajiin will be given Deseirion.”
“And after that?”
Tsiwen smiled. “I have found it the height of wisdom not to ask what the future holds, but to venture forth and discover it. There is a new order in Heaven, and on the earth. This does not mean, however, that the need for heroes has vanished, nor that villainy has disappeared. The new world, you will learn, has much in common with the old.”
Chapter Sixty-one
4th day, Month of the Bat, Year of the Rat
First Year of the Restoration of the Imperial Court
1st Year of the Jade Dynasty
Shirikun, Moriande
Imperial Nalenyr
Keles listened to what the god Cyron had said and felt magic wash over the world. He still retained the sense of reality he’d had when traveling with his father, but it seemed as if a thin veil had been laid over everything. Cyron had been a Prince in Nalenyr, but Keles seemed to remember that the Prince had been named for the leader of the gods.
He fought to retain his memory of the world as it had been. The Gold River had been wider. Virukadeen had not always been there. Nirati had been his sister. These were facts, and should have been immutable, yet the world seemed to want him to remember things differently.
The door to his chamber opened and the Empress Cyrsa walked in. “I am glad to see you awake. I thank you for what you did.”
“How do you know?”
She smiled. “Mystics are always attuned to jaedun. You dragged the moon from the sky.”
“I had to make the world right again.”
“And yet, you sense the changing, too?”
“Cyron is now a god and no longer a Prince. My dead sister is now the goddess of Death?”
“There will be many more changes.” Cyrsa smiled easily. “When I returned to the Nine, I paid the finest minstrels to write songs vilifying Nelesquin and creating a certain picture of who I had been. The truth of what happened back then no longer mattered. People acted on what they believed happened.”
She gestured toward where Cyron had stood astride the river. “By the time you have grandchildren, the story of the world will have changed. Nelesquin will be remembered, but only as a dissident Virine noble who sought to overthrow the Empire. He was, of course, insane. He claimed he was the Nelesquin of legend.”
“This will become the new truth because you will spend money to make it so?”
“In part, yes; and I do not regret the expense. Consider me vindictive if you will, but my efforts will really not amount to that much. You have been trained to observe. You pay attention; but for many people the world extends no further than their daily travels take them. Though they know the Five Princes exist, show them a map and they could not locate them. What does not immediately affect their lives does not matter. It comforts them to assume that things have always been the way they are now.”