Gideon added, “But my teacher knew before I did.”
“How did he know?”
“Because of my power. As I dedicated myself to my training, my strength grew. To me, it just seemed to be the result of studying and learning. But later, after I knew the truth about myself, he said that he had known for some time, because he’d only ever seen one other hieromancer as powerful as I was.”
“Ah. The one who had given him the sural all those years ago.”
“Yes. A long time before it happened, he believed my Spark would be ignited and I would become… what I became.” Gideon said, “So he prepared me.”
“He told you what you were?” she asked.
“No. He told me about our kind, and about the one that he had known. He related what he knew about the Multiverse, the?ther, and the Blind Eternities. How to prepare for a walk. How to survive it.”
“So you knew what was happening?”
“Yes. I was fully conscious of what was happening.”
“Did you know before it happened?” she asked in astonishment.
“Not exactly. But when I felt my Spark ignite, I understood. It was…” He hesitated. “I killed someone,” he said quietly. “Someone very powerful. Very dangerous. I knew I shouldn’t have lived through that confrontation. Not logically. I was shocked at how much power I had accessed. I sensed a clarity in the world around me. I felt an intensity of experience, an awareness of simply being that I had never known. I had a moment, however fleeting, where I understood everything around me. I understood the Multiverse on a fundamental level, if you can imagine such a thing, so that when I slipped into the?ther I knew where to go.”
“Is it like that every time?”
“No,” he said. “As soon as I had landed on another plane, it was gone. I have tried to achieve that state of awareness for most of my life since then, but I have yet to come close.” He let out a slow breath. “But the planeswalk worked. Very much the way my teacher had described it. And also by following his teachings, I found my way back. So that I could tell him what I was.”
Chandra felt a mingled surge of wonder and envy. “I can’t imagine
…”
“Imagine what?” he asked.
“What my first walk would have been like, if I had known those things. If someone had told me.”
“You didn’t have any idea what was happening to you?”
“None,” she said. “I’d never even heard of a planeswalk.”
Chandra blinked as she realized they’d become indiscreet. She looked uneasily at the goblin walking ahead of them, its hands bound behind its back. But Jurl seemed to be paying no attention to them. Instead, he seemed jumpy, anxious, and wholly focused on their surroundings, as if expecting an ambush at any moment.
“That must have been hard,” Gideon said.
“I didn’t experience anything like you. I thought I was dying,” she admitted. “Or dead. Or… I don’t know. It was very painful. And, um, terrifying.”
She didn’t know why she was telling him this. She had never told anyone, not even Mother Luti. She’d never had a teacher except for Luti, and she had not known her long. Chandra had never even met another planeswalker before her most recent encounters. All that she knew about planeswalking, she’d taught herself, and all that she learned about her kind, which wasn’t a lot, she learned from Mother Luti.
“Some combination of desperation, survival instinct, and…” Chandra shrugged. “Sheer luck, I suppose, helped me find my way out of the?ther and onto a physical plane that first time.”
“And will,” he said.
“What?”
“Will,” Gideon said. “You have a very strong will. That makes a difference in who survives a walk like your first. And also like the one that brought you here.”
“How did you follow me?” She knew it couldn’t have been easy.
“Actually, you leave a pretty bright trail.”
She supposed that was why that mind mage with the cerulean cloak had been able to find her on Regatha.
“But the trail was erratic and seemed to…” He searched for the right word “… bounce all over the place. I could tell it had been a rough journey.” He added, “And to come here of all places…”
“I didn’t exactly choose it,” she said.
“I knew even as I approached that it was a bad destination.”
“So why did you follow?”
“Why did you steal that scroll?” he countered. “Twice?”
“Why did you steal it?”
“I didn’t exactly steal it.”
“Then where is it?” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Now that there is no Sanctum of Stars to keep it in, I suppose it’s somewhere in the Prelate’s palace, under lock and key.”
“No, it’s not,” Chandra said. “The Prelate’s pets were going to torture me to find it.”
“That was before you escaped. Since then, the scroll has been found.”
“What?”
“Don’t even think about it, Chandra,” he said. “If it’s in the palace, you might get inside alive, but you’d never get back out. Not even you. They’ll be watching for you. And now they know they made a mistake by not killing you the moment they identified you. They won’t be that careless again.”
“You gave back the scroll?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe you!”
They walked along in silence for a few paces.
“You gave it back?” she demanded.
“Yes.”
“No, you didn’t!”
He said nothing.
Her thoughts whirling, she said, “Why did you give it back?”
“It seemed like the most sensible thing to do. You know, to calm things down after you left.”
“That’s It?”
“More or less,” he said. “More or less of a reward?”
“Well, there was a reward.”
“So that’s why.”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I didn’t precisely give it back.”
“If you didn’t give it back, then what did you do. Precisely?”
“I left it where it would be found by someone who would recognize it and turn it in for the reward.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “You stole it from me. You didn’t keep it. You didn’t sell it. You didn’t take credit for retrieving it, and you didn’t collect the reward.”
“Actually, you seem to understand perfectly.”
“If you didn’t want it,” she said, “why take it in the first place?”
“I thought that if the Prelate didn’t have the scroll and didn’t know where it was, then she wouldn’t execute you immediately. She’d want to find it before she killed you. And since you didn’t know where it was, there would be some delays.” Gideon concluded, “I thought that would give you time to try to escape.”
“You wanted me to escape?” She felt bewildered. “Why didn’t you help me instead of manipulating me with your passive little ploy?”
“I didn’t know about the Enervants,” he said. “Or I might have been a bit more proactive.”
“If you didn’t want them to execute me, then why did you help them capture me?”
“Because you were about to start a battle with those soldiers in a street full of innocent people.”
“In a… I was…” She realized what he was saying.
“You were thinking about yourself,” he said. “I was thinking about the dozens of people who might get killed.”
“Whatever.” After a few long moments of tense silence, she said, “So you didn’t want the scroll.” When he didn’t bother responding, she said, “And you don’t want me to go back to Kephalai.”
“I think it would be stupid.” He added, “And fatal.”
“Then what are you doing here?” she demanded. “Why did you follow me? Why were you looking for me on Kephalai? Who are you?”
Jurl said, “Stop talking.”
“What?” Chandra snapped.
The goblin raised his head, his pointy ears perked alertly.
“He hears something,” Gideon said in a low voice.