Interim Errantry 2: On Ordeal Read online

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright info

  Introduction to the "On Ordeal" trio

  Roshaun ke Nelaid

  Prologue: The Tale of Thahit and the Lost Aethyr

  One

  Two

  Three

  Epilogue

  Mamvish fsh Wimsih

  Prelude

  Beginnings

  The Quest

  Vish and the Wizards

  Ronan Nolan Jnr.

  Preface

  Induction

  Invocation

  Incorporation

  Intervention

  Completion

  From the same author

  Version info

  Interim Errantry 2:

  On Ordeal

  Diane Duane

  Errantry Press

  County Wicklow, Ireland

  Interim Errantry 2:

  On Ordeal

  Diane Duane

  Published by Errantry Press

  County Wicklow, Republic of Ireland

  A division of the Owl Springs Partnership

  Copyright © Diane Duane 2017

  All rights reserved. Reproduction of this material by any means, electronic or otherwise, except by the author’s written permission, is prohibited.

  Version info: IE:OO ebook edition v2.08 (27 July 2017): Minor textual and formatting corrections

  Introduction to the "On Ordeal" trio

  There are some questions for which not even being a wizard will (during one’s present lifetime, anyway) ever produce satisfactory answers.

  Leaving aside such famous and specific questions as “What is the meaning of life?”, another one that tends to come up for frequent consideration is exactly why the art and burden of wizardry comes to be settled on a given person. The only ones who know for sure, of course, are the Powers that Be. But getting answers out of them can be even more difficult than getting them out of the Transcendent Pig, and so wizards who find themselves dealing with the question are pretty much forced to fall back on conjecture.

  Any number of aphorisms in the Manual and in casual wizardly discourse deal with the subject. One says that every wizard is the answer to a question (which naturally leaves wizards in general, and each one in particular, trying at some point or another to figure out what that question is). Another variation on this theme suggests—as if from a slightly different angle—that each wizard is the solution to a given problem that could not have been solved (or could not have been most elegantly solved) without shoving that person into the middle of it and putting wizardry in their hands.

  Both these adages leave the thoughtful questioner running up against linear time and causality, and may cause more frustration than resolution. After all, the Powers in charge of handing out wizardry aren’t limited by the spatial structure and temporal flow of our dimension. They work out of more senior and central domains with far superior numbers of dimensions and much more complex spaces—places (not that the word is an adequate descriptor) from which they can step into our continuum at any desired place or time as easily as a being from our dimension might walk into one room from another.

  Past, present, future, they’re all rooms in one vast house to the Powers. Meandering from one to the next at their pleasure, they can casually examine from many physical and temporal angles the being on whom they’re considering bestowing the Art… assessing how that being seems most likely to behave in short-term crises and over the long haul of a wizardly career. But even the Powers that Be can’t make these assessments with absolute certainty. Within the timestream we occupy, no action is even provisionally certain until it’s happened (or happened at least once). And even after that, there’s a lot of wiggle room for things to not happen, unhappen, or happen differently.

  From the wizard’s own point of view the Ordeal event naturally tends to be seminal, and as a result there’s often a tendency to examine other wizards’ Ordeals (when that data is available) in search of important information about them. But this view is likely to be based on a skewed level of importance being assigned to a wizard’s first contact with wizardry simply because it’s the first. From the Powers’ point of view, mere local-timeline temporal primacy is probably the least significant kind. It’s more likely (so the more senior wizardly analysts have suggested) that the Ordeal is just one of numerous rough-and-ready diagnostic techniques that the Powers use not only to test a being’s commitment to the basic principles of wizardry. Thought to be most crucial to these is the answer to the question: Can the new practitioner of the Art rise past or above the limitations of who they have been into who they’re eventually going to have to be to use wizardry to best advantage?

  From that issue the Powers’ attention (so it’s said) most likely turns toward the breadth and depth of the wizard’s commitment to the unending battle against the destructive aspects of Entropy— specifically the way these vary during a being’s lifetime, and whether the power invested in them has a chance of being wasted due to personal traits run astray or influences the wizard is inadequately prepared to manage. A vast number of variables, it’s thought, would be weighed against one another to determine whether the Art should be offered to a given being at all. These ruthless mathematics of the most central realms might seem cruel or heartless to those of us without access to enough dimensions to make the sums reveal what result the Powers are ultimately solving for. But wizardry’s just one more kind of energy, and beings devoted to making the Universe last as long as it can will rightly do their best not to waste it.

  Uncertainty, though, lies in the paths of the Powers that Be just as it does in ours. When all the tests prove inconclusive, and the one Power presently outside their wide society seems to be paying unusual attention to some one being or situation, then the only thing to do is roll the (near-infinite sided) dice and see how they fall.

  Here are three rolls of the dice, their details made somewhat public for the first time.

  Roshaun ke Nelaid

  Prologue: The Tale of Thahit and the Lost Aethyr

  There once was a sun of ancient sequence and lineage that was golden and kind, and all its worlds prospered. But then into its life and the lives of those who depended upon it came the Aethyr who Went Apart, the one who chose to become the Darkness at the Heart of Things; and in the wake of Its coming, all things went ill.

  Here is one way the tale is told.

  In the time just after beginnings but well before any endings, the billion worlds were still so new that for some eons the Lost Aethyr did not have time—even in the timeless time that the Aethyrs use—to get around to them all. And this was a good stretch of years upon years, when the creatures of Wellakh lived together without trouble and in great joy. So glad and peaceful was this long stretch of sunrounds that for months at a time not a spot was to be seen on the face of the Sun, and it was as smooth and untroubled as a mirror of polished bronze.

  For all this blessed while so well did matters go that wizards were few, and wars there were none; and among all the worlds that were, almost no one had ever heard of Wellakh. And all its people felt this was just as things should be.

  But nothing lasts forever, least of all the inattention of the Lost Aethyr. And when Wellakh eventually came to the attention of the Lost One, and It heard of the unstained Sun, It began to think of how best It might do it a mischief.

  Swiftly but secretly the Lost Aethyr came to Wellakh. It went up and down in the world and round about it, and came to know its people and its beasts and all its creeping things and Wellakhit life in all its forms. And dearly It hated the peace and plenty of that world, and how all things went well under that quiet sun. Soon enough the Lost Aethyr though
t in Itself, Here then I see a way in which all things here may be made wretched.

  So It went and spoke to the Sun, and tempted it, saying, “The beings who live in this system do you dishonor and disrespect. For all life on these worlds derives from you. Without you the air would be stone and the water would be ice and the earth of the worlds would be cold as space. Yet the beings here go about their lives as if you were nothing, and honor not you but the Aethyrs, who promiscuously and irresponsibly create, and then abandon to their own devices those things that They have made. You give of your very core’s power and shed it in radiance on this world day by day, each day drawing you a little nearer to that day when you will swell and burn the last of your fuel and fade to a warm dark cinder. But who notices you? You ought to put forth your strength and make known to these worlds who rules them, and who truly holds over them the power of life and death.”

  Now at first the Sun laughed these blandishments to scorn. But the Lost Aethyr had time. Again and again It returned to the system, and each time spoke long in the Sun’s secret ear. Long centuries of this passed by one by one, mounting themselves up into millennia. Several of these passed as well, and through them the Sun shone as steadily as it might. But slowly in the wake of the Lost One’s attentions spots began to creep across the Sun’s surface, and ever so gradually the calm glory of its corona changed and became more ionized and erratic.

  Then the Lost Aethyr knew Its murmured policies were well embedded in the roil and tumult of the star’s plasma, and sooner or later would rise from the depths to trouble its surface with prominence and spicule and flare. Nor did It rest in Its labors, but continued to return again and again. Steady as clockwork these visits became, so that those on Wellakh whose business it was to watch the Sun saw plainly how at times its breath grew heated and frantic and its surface troubled, and at other times that surface mostly quieted and only a few sunspots cruised across it. Gradually the sunwatchers on Wellakh learned to graph these periods and know when the Sun’s mood would be troubled and when it would be less so.

  For many centuries so matters went, and the low points of that cycle grew less so, more troubled than ever, as the Lost Aethyr visited that star again and again, whispering doubts and instigations; and the active parts of the Sun’s activity curve grew wilder than ever, the depths less quiet. Feeling sure the star was soon about to finally succumb to its dark intimations and destroy its system in nova fire, again and again the Lost Aethyr returned during this upswing of the Sun’s angry cycle, each time pressing Its suit. It whispered ever more urgently how the star should nourish ingrates in its neighborhood no longer, but flood its spaces straight out to system’s edge with cleansing fire, and let all peopled planets know thereby that they should give proper respect to the primaries that had birthed their worlds and sustained them.

  Away the Lost One went again to let the Sun mature its dreadful advice… for though It could feel the star trembling on the edge of some mighty action, It wished to be sure that the Sun thought whatever it was about to do to its worlds was its own idea. Indeed some beings cozened so by the Lost Aethyr went on to be hilariously certain that everything they did to others was the others’ fault. The Power that Went Astray was never willing to do anything that might derail this delicious result. Ever the Lost Aethyr loves to be able to claim that It is quite innocent of any wrongdoing, and that others had unexpectedly become unstable under the stress of events, or had misconstrued it, or (an old favorite) that it had been misquoted.

  And so it was that while the Lost One had taken Its attentions elsewhere so as not to (further) prejudice the Sun’s behavior, on a time in its cycle of breath—or rather at the bottom of it—came something most peculiar: a time when its surface slowly became unmarred and day by day slid by in utter quiet, without a single stain. The wizards who watched the sky from Wellakh and had learned the Sun’s patterns and moods were at first confounded, and then increasingly disturbed by this.

  At last the then-Sunlord, oldest and wisest of them, who had seen many cycles since her birth, called the sunwatchers together and told them, “There is nothing wrong. Nothing at all.”

  Those who knew her best—and this Sunlord, one of the then-new Ruiiliat line, was a cranky and obstreperous being well known for her opinion that there was always something wrong, somewhere—fell silent in shock.

  Afterwards the other wizards went home from this meeting and quietly, casually, but to some extent covertly, observed the Sun, and drew their own conclusions. And then, in haste, but all in secret, they began to make plans. When they spoke to each other, a strange phrase began to emerge: “All things are well, indeed everything is well, and all manner of things are well.”

  For they knew what the Lost Aethyr had never suspected they might. And so when the Sun flared and burnt half of Wellakh to a scorched and slagged-down cinder, they knew what the Sun knew: that when the Lost One’s eye is on you, you must be make sure you have reason to say, “We had no idea,” or “Who could ever have known this might happen?” When the whole planet seemed to be in utter crisis, and the atmosphere flashed into fire on the flare side and wizards died sealing the border between it and the rest of the world, when millions of Wellakhit died in grievous pain and panic, neither then nor afterward could there by any means be any revelation of the truth: that plans to save the planet had begun being laid the day after the Sun’s surface was seen to be reliably stainless.

  Long centuries were spent grieving the many millions who died the day the Sun flared. Yet many fewer died than might have done, for the wizards of Wellakh understood well that resistance takes many forms, and must sometimes (as with an enemy such as the Lost One) be seen to be accidental, lest it take vengeance far worse upon a world than subterfuge makes it possible to escape with.

  They knew too that their star dared not do otherwise than it had done. For even as the Lost Aethyr has sometimes snuffed stars out, so it was also in Its power to inflame one past resisting. Whispers had long slid through subspace of how It had goaded stars into novae before their time, punishing them for failing to show It proper respect and fear—for burning as they pleased and not burning cold and faint and small as It would have desired.

  So Wellakh suffered, and so very many died, a third of all that planet’s lives. It became a byword among worlds, one whole side destroyed, the other one barely surviving—and though it remained the heart of a great civilization, yet it remained also deeply scarred by what it had survived. At the sight of the scar, the Lost One, going Its ways among the times and the worlds, laughed quietly to Itself and passed by.

  So it was that the Lost Aethyr’s full intention was turned aside not by mighty action—though that was brought to bear as well—but by the subterfuge of apparent inaction and silence, which the Lost Power’s bent towards impatient violence and display left It less well-suited to comprehend. Had the sun not gone quiet in covert warning, both sides of Wellakh would have been destroyed and all its life snuffed out. But so it also came to pass that the Sun, which had had no name till then, was afterward given by the wizards a calling-name, Thahit, the One who grew Quiet: and so it is still known to this day.

  The wizards keep watch and also keep silent, knowing that should the Lost One come to suspect that Its will had been flouted or it had been played, much more evil would follow. But the universe is broad, and the Strayed One bores easily… so all who know the tale take care to say nothing openly but that the name Thahit is a superstitious usage, a propitiation, primitive and full of fear.

  This—should the Lost Aethyr hear It—will please it well, just as It would be enraged by the truth: that silence or even the semblance of acquiescence may be as clear as a shout of warning, and those who listen attentively enough to silence may yet be saved, though the Lost One Itself decree their ruin.

  One

  It was exactly like any other day, right up to and including the assassination attempt. But then things went a bit differently.

  ***

 
The day was fair with a warm breeze, even the highest sky settled into that particular shade of blue-green that boded well for the days to come. As he passed out of the sunshine and into the feathertrees’ shade, Rho breathed in deep and had to smile, even though until now he hadn’t particularly felt like it.

  Spring in the southern airt of Wellakh’s eastern hemisphere could be very pleasant when the weather patterns were set right, which for a miracle they were right now. The park Rho walked through on the way to his parents’ city house was full of the tall crimson feathertrees that came out in blossoms this time of year, spreading that particular spicy aroma of theirs far and wide. Here, under the trees and out of the direct eye of the sun, it was possible to forget things for a little while and just enjoy the day.

  It was always good to be coming back from the chilly formal building where his public lessons were held and into this pleasantly natural and neutral space, where Rho had time to relax a little from the way he had to hold himself at lessons, and where no one could easily pick him out for what he was. In the plain dark russet overrobe and loose trousers that everyone at public lessons wore, Rho stood out hardly at all. And since only in the most general way was there a look to being Sunborn—the det Nuiiliat line being well scattered across the planet, so that there were plenty of people as yellow-haired as Rho or as red-haired as his father—he rarely got more than a second glance.

  His lady mother, of course, was another story. She had the pale silver hair of the very highest nobility—“its gold comes only from Thahit”, as the saying went, “and thus not from flesh but from fire.” People stopped in the street to stare at her as she headed home from some meeting, or else they paused in the middle of their shopping to make one of the ceremonial gestures of honor…