Memory

Chapter 10

Elek had six other guests that night, five of them truckers from distant Ano who spoke in the formal style of that region, with many “ma’am’s” and “Should-it-please-you-my-lady’s” and courtly nods and smiles. We sat with them, and with Elek’s staff of twelve, at a large table in Temple Nathé’s dining hall. Throughout the meal—a feast centered on sage partridge, as fine as Elek had promised—the truckers entertained us with stories of the silver and of their lives on the road.

These truckers had with them a player called Mica Indevar, who they introduced as a scholar from a land even beyond Ano. This Mica Indevar was a stoop-shouldered cessant whose round face and smooth, hairless head gave little hint of his age, though his husky voice led me to suspect he was pushing ninety years. He seemed familiar to me, though I could not place him. I wondered if he had visited Temple Huacho, but Elek dashed that theory when she explained that Mica Indevar had sworn himself to a quest, to fare all the way around the ring of the world. It was his first time in that region, and he paid many compliments to the landscape.

This scholar had accompanied the Ano truckers all the way from the sea and I suppose in that long journey he had heard all their tales many times over, for he showed no interest in their talk. His curiosity was fixed instead on me and Liam.

He wanted to know why we were on the road. Liam would not speak to him, but my mother had taught me to be polite even in the face of rudeness. So I answered him, explaining that our reasons were personal, but this did not please him.

“What personal reason might bring someone abroad?” he mused. Apparently the question troubled him deeply, for after dinner he came to me when I was alone in the hall.

“My lady Jubilee, if I might have a word.”

To stay and speak with him was the last thing I desired. “I must return to my uncle. I promised to be back immediately.”

He smiled. “No doubt he still thinks of you as a child. But I will speak swiftly. In my journeys it has been my habit to investigate tales of the silver, and none has been more striking than a story I heard even before I reached Ano, of a lost boy who appeared from out of the silver.”

I do not know what expression my face showed. Horror maybe. Or hope. Whatever it was, it intrigued Mica Indevar. “I see you have heard such a story too.”

“You’re mistaken. I have not.”

“It’s a story I would have discounted, if I did not know the player who saw it happen, and if he did not make an image of this lost boy.” As he spoke, he drew this printed image from his pocket and he displayed it to me in a cupped hand. It was a picture of Jolly as he had been when I was ten.

I drew back. “You would show me that?”

“I was told you would know him.”

“I don’t know him!” But as soon as the lie left my mouth I countered it with a question. “Who told you?”

He held my gaze, and while no words passed his lips, it was answer enough.

I turned away, trembling.

Indevar spoke to my retreating back. “Most players believe the goddess is nothing more than the unconscious hand of chaos, but it isn’t so. Though she has been wounded in her long battle against the darkness, she is a goddess still, and her will is harsh. Still, she is not unkind. This lost boy has been sent to us to remind us of her mercy—”

I turned in sudden fury. “Do you know him?”

He drew back, a new wariness in his eyes. “No, lady. That has not been my privilege.”

“Have you seen him then?” I pressed.

His gaze faltered, as if I’d caught him in a lie. “He is lost, lady.” It had the sound of an apology.

“Then you have not seen him.”

“I seek him—”

“Then you should know that you chase a ghost! That picture in your hand—it’s of a boy seven years dead. If he had lived he would be a man now. Not a lost boy. You have been deceived.”

Apparently this was not the response Mica Indevar had expected. His face grew red. His mouth opened, but words proved hard to find. “You—” he sputtered. “You don’t know what—”

“Jubilee!”

We both jumped at Liam’s harsh voice. I turned, to see him at the end of the hall, Udondi a step behind.

“Jubilee, has this stranger offended you?” Liam’s voice was soft, but there was a chill in it that startled me. In the ruined city the bogy had mistaken him for one of the ancient queen’s own warlords. It had seemed an absurd error to me, but I realized then it might not seem so absurd to a stranger. Liam was a man of size and strong bearing, with a face that fell all too easily into a grim and brooding aspect.

It was this other Liam that Mica Indevar saw. Fury flashed in his eyes, but he stepped away from me. “I have offered polite conversation only. If that gives offense, then this is a barbaric land.”

“It is a barbaric land,” Liam agreed. Then he looked at me. “Jubilee?”

I nodded, and the three of us left together, ceding Mica Indevar the hall.

There was no silver that night, so we left Elek to the company of her other guests and we went outside to sit on the wall. I told of my encounter, while Moki patrolled the grounds around us, keeping watch against any curious scholars who might wander close in the dark. “Kaphiri sent him,” I concluded. “But why? Why do they care about Jolly? Why do they believe he is still alive?”

I wanted someone to say it was possible, that maybe Jolly was alive somewhere, and that was how Kaphiri knew him. But Liam was a harder man than that. “It’s clear now, isn’t it?” he asked. “Somehow a rumor was started about Jolly, probably because he was taken inside a temple.”

Udondi nodded. “That seems likely. And Kaphiri would want to know if there was another like him. He would investigate that kind of rumor.”

But the night I met Kaphiri, he had spoken as if he knew my brother: Why does he hide from me? He should know that I am his father now.

The white wall of Temple Nathé gleamed faintly under starlight. I stood upon it and looked for the remains of my father’s truck at the bottom of the slope, but it was too dark. I could not see it. Behind me, Liam spoke to Udondi. “Will you come back with us to Temple Huacho?”

“I think not,” she said. “I am known to his followers. I would not want to bring his attention back to your family.”

Guilt touched me. “That’s why you gave a different name to Elek, isn’t it? I gave you away.”

She shrugged. “This Mica Indevar likely knew of me anyway.”

“I feel like I’ve seen him before,” I mused, sitting down beside her. But I could not remember where. So I asked a new question. “What is known of Kaphiri? Udondi, do you know where he comes from? You told me before that his history goes back four hundred years. How can that be? And what is there in his past to make him hate the world?”

“There is shame,” she said softly. “That is the spur, though I think the heart of it is something different. A flaw in his nature. It is my guess he was not made like the rest of us.”

She hesitated. She had kept her own counsel for years, and I think it was hard for her to speak aloud the knowledge she had gathered in her long pursuit of Kaphiri. But after a few seconds, her soft voice took up the tale:

“Each of us, we have existed since the beginning of the world. We cannot remember our past lives, but we always remember the lover we were made for. For us, there is only one. But for Kaphiri it was different. His lover found another.”

I felt dread stir in me then, for no reason I could define, but I said nothing.

Udondi continued to speak. “This is his story as I have pieced it together. Over two lifetimes ago, three hundred and eighty years, he was known by a different name, Owinca Najar. His parents kept the main kobold well in a large enclave that existed then in Lish, near the Reflection Mountains. He was raised in rank and privilege, and he was called lucky, for he had been wayfaring less than a year when he found his mate. He brought her home to Lish and they lived there six years, though without children. There were never any children. In the sixth year, she left him. A wayfarer had come to the enclave, and she recognized him at once as her true lover. That same day she put aside her marriage and she went away with her true mate.

“Never had anyone in that enclave heard of such a thing. Owinca Najar had taken a false lover. That was the conclusion, and the lack of children was held up as proof. I do not have to speak of the bitter shame that family must have felt. The young man fled, and it was the belief of all in that enclave that he had given up his life to the silver.

“I think he tried to. Who would not? Given the despair he must have felt… how tempting to leave behind the shame, even the memory of shame, and embark on a new life. So yes, I think he tried to end his life in the silver, but the silver would not have him.”

A little laugh escaped her. “Did he feel like a monster then? Even more than before? Or did he feel like a god?” She shook her head. “In either case he did not return to Lish for nearly three hundred years. Where he went is not certain, though there is evidence he found a new home in the south. It was only some sixty years ago when he came again to Lish, though of course all who had known him before were long gone.”

“Then how do you know it is the same man?” Liam asked.

“It is him. He is a man outside his time, with the mannerisms and habit of dress common in that ancient enclave. His face is the face of Owinca Najar that I found recorded in a library in Lish, and his anger is the same. Too, he preaches celibacy, so that he has become an icon of the cessant cults. And I have his fingerprints. They are the same as that sad young man of Lish. He has nursed his hurt for over three centuries and a half while the silver floods have grown steadily worse. It is his oath that he will see the world drown in silver.”

I was keenly aware of the ruin of my father’s truck in the darkness below us. “Why does he believe Jolly is alive? He must believe it. Why else would he keep watch on Temple Huacho?”

Udondi shifted, her eyes glittering in the faint starlight. “Has he been watching?”

“Not himself. Not that we’ve seen. But this morning Jacio surprised a savant in the forest. We pursued it all the way to the highway. It’s why we’re here.”

“Where it self-destructed,” Liam added. “And how will Kaphiri react to that? Perhaps he’ll think we have something to hide after all.”

Udondi leaned back against one arm. “Actually,” she said, “that savant was mine.”

“Yours?”I whispered it so that I would not shout. “The savant we pursued? You know about it?”

She nodded. “I was in Dalanthé that day I first spoke to you. I came as fast as I could, but it’s a long journey and I was worried Kaphiri, or one of his servants, might return before I could reach you. So I had a friend, a trucker, release the savant as he passed the Kavasphir Hills. It was set to watch all comers, and it would have delivered a warning to you if anything suspicious turned up, but it was otherwise instructed to remain hidden—I didn’t want to upset you without cause. That’s why the savant retreated, and why it finally destroyed itself.”

I couldn’t think what to say. I’d been so sure the savant belonged to Kaphiri, or at best someone who served him, like Mica Indevar, or that player who had watched me in the market…

I slapped my thigh. “It was him! In the market. It was Indevar who was watching me. That time I went to see you, Udondi. He was there.”

“That was many days ago,” Liam said. “Kaphiri could have returned many times to Temple Huacho… so why wait for Indevar to come instead? Why? If it still mattered to him?”

“You’re thinking Indevar may be less than he seems?” Udondi asked.

Liam grunted. “Perhaps he is not so much serving Kaphiri, as desiring to serve… or at least to be noticed. By his reaction I would guess he had no idea that picture of Jolly was seven years old.” Liam shook his head. “Whatever it was this Kaphiri hoped to find that night at Temple Huacho, he was disappointed. He’s probably forgotten us… and Kedato.”

Udondi said, “For the sake of your family, I hope that is so.”

For myself, I could make no sense of it, but there were other things I wanted to know. “Why are you hunting him, Udondi? Youare hunting him. Is it for revenge?”

“It did start that way.”

“You were in that last temple at Phau, weren’t you?”

In the darkness I saw her nod. “That was a long time ago. For years after, Kaphiri was only a phantom of Lish. The players there call him a ghost and some make shrines and offerings to him so he will not bring the silver. I used to tear these down, but as my anger grew colder I started to ask myself questions instead. Was Kaphiri a man? Could a man control the silver? Had any man ever done so?”

“Fiaccomo,”I whispered.

Udondi turned to me in surprise. “Have you worked that out already? You’re faster than I am.”

“Or luckier,” Liam muttered, and he described our visit to the ruined city.

“A world without silver,” Udondi said. “I’d heard such stories, but I didn’t believe them. Fiaccomo was a legend, a magical hero created for the amusement of children. Then my journeys took me to a temple high in the Reflection Mountains.” Her voice grew softer. “I hope neither of you ever has to visit those peaks.

“Silver is a constant hazard in those elevations. Almost every day the peaks are hidden in heavy, dark clouds that the sun cannot break through. Under that shelter, silver will often rise up from ravines even in the daytime so that traveling only a short distance is dangerous. Then, too, there are no roads and no antennas, for any structures are wiped out within days. That’s why the temple I sought had no market link. It’s why I had to go there in person—but it was worth the journey.

“In that mountain temple I found a brief, handwritten document, very old. The temple keeper helped me with the translation. This is what I read:

“Fiaccomo was the author of this account. This tale of how he discovered his affinity for silver is a little different from the story we tell to children, no? Not as pretty. But the talents Fiaccomo reportedly possessed—passing unharmed through the silver, and summoning it at will—those were the same talents Kaphiri had displayed in Lish.”

Liam stirred. “Are you thinking Fiaccomois Kaphiri, in another lifetime?”

“It’s something I’ve wondered.”

“But Fiaccomo is known for restoring the world, and for creating the first kobolds.”

Udondi said, “He is also known for bringing the silver back into the world.” She shook her head. “The silver moves in cycles. In some ages it can hardly be found, but for us the silver is common, coming more often, and in deeper floods than anyone can remember. Already players have begun to wonder how bad it might be. Kaphiri tells them it will be the end of all we know.

“He has Fiaccomo’s talents, but he does not speak of saving the world. Instead, he preaches that the goddess has given him the task of unmaking the world in a great flood of silver… and I fear he is learning how to do it. Just this year, something has changed for him. Before, he was only a ghost of Lish, preaching annihilation to a handful of unhappy cessants. Now he has been seen in far-scattered enclaves, proclaiming the wrath of the goddess and promising that all the world must soon drown in silver. Clearly, the silver is rising. And if all drown, none will ever be reborn again, no? So it is the bitter end. But Kaphiri offers this hope: that he will shelter those who accept his protection, and that when the final flood recedes, they will emerge from the silver into a world remade, the world the goddess had always intended for us, without the flaws of this one. A world in which birth and death have been discarded, and lifetimes go on forever, and where every player may become the lover of every other. But only those who serve him now will ever reach this place.”

“Can he guide players through the silver?” I asked.

“No. His cessants are consumed by the silver as easily as anyone else. I have seen it. But desperate players will believe what they will. At his command they will open the gates of enclaves and allow the silver to enter. They will poison kobold wells. How hard could it be to destroy every last shelter in a world on the brink of drowning in silver? In past ages when the silver has risen, some few players have always survived. But not this time. Not if Kaphiri has his way.”

In my mind I saw a night when there was no hill or tower high enough to escape a rising silver flood, and only a handful of enclaves strong enough to hold it back. But if the gates of these enclaves should be opened? If Kaphiri himself should visit each stronghold and call the silver in, even past the temple walls? Then all that is must drown.

Morning would still come to such a world. The ring of the world would turn, the sun would rise, and the silver recede, but there would be no one to see what follies had been brought forward in time, or to celebrate the renewal of the land.

“So you’ve set yourself to stop him,” Liam said.

Udondi nodded. “I have already seen enough drowning in this world.”