Of Dawn and Darkness

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Upon realizing that they had been mysteriously transported to a towering library that most likely had connections to a Great Elder, Calder’s first reaction was not fear. It was irritation.

He’d tried to leave a few people behind to protect them, but the entire crew had ended up off the ship anyway. If he’d known it would turn out like this, he wouldn’t have wasted his time worrying.

Petal’s tiny quicklamp expanded the circle of candlelight, allowing everyone to see the surrounding bookshelves in more detail. Each structure stood as tall as any building in the Capital; ten stories or more of endless books stacked to the cavernous ceiling.

After staring into the darkness for any sign of movement, Calder carefully slid a little closer to the books.

On the bottom shelf, dusty scrolls were surrounded by glass cases. On the next, the books were bound by wood and hide—he knelt to examine the spine of one tome bound in polished blackwood, and found that he couldn’t read it.

That fact alone confirmed what he’d already suspected: there were Elders involved. And not the lesser Elderspawn, like Shuffles, who seemed to have little more intelligence than animals, but the higher Elders. Maybe even a Great Elder.

It had been over a thousand years since any language except Imperial was heard among humans. That left two possibilities: either these words did not originate with humans, or they were over a thousand years old.

Either way, that meant Elders.

His memory whispered to him the name of the one sealed underneath Silverreach: Ach’magut.

Without inspecting that thought any further, he turned back to his crew. They had shown their training and experience by standing with their backs to the candlelight, weapons in hand. Even Jerri looked fierce and ready for battle, though she only held a dagger. If Elderspawn attacked, she’d last even less time than Petal, who held a stoppered bottle of acid ready to throw.

And that was a cheery thought, wasn’t it?

They were still comparing notes. “…I was on the wheel. I didn’t lose consciousness, I didn’t even blink, but I found myself here with no warning.” Jerri.

Foster had a pistol pointed off into the gloom as he scanned the shadows. “Doesn’t matter how we got here, we’ve got to go. Now. I’ve been imprisoned by crazy Elder worshipers more than enough in my life.”

“If you’d like to be the first to run off into the dark, Mr. Foster, be my guest.” Andel sounded calm, but he had one hand on his pistol and the other around his White Sun medallion.

“Might as well die out there!” Foster shouted. “It’s better than standing around here, waiting to die!”

Urzaia’s voice was even louder than Foster’s. “You will not die here! I will protect you!”

Whatever they decided to do, Calder was certain that shouting wasn’t the way to go about it. Foster started to reply, and Andel opened his mouth to cut him off, but they both froze when Calder’s cutlass cut down the middle of the group. His blade came to rest inches above the candle’s flame.

“That’s enough of that,” Calder said, his voice little more than a whisper. “Urzaia, lead the way. Foster, take the rear. Andel on the left, I’ll take the right. Walk straight down the row of bookcases. Petal, leave a mark on every row we pass.”

“Walk straight down the aisle?” Foster choked out, though at least he stayed quiet. “If they’re waiting for us, that’s right where they’ll be!”

“Or they’re waiting for us to go back the other way, or waiting for us to stay here, or waiting for the light to go out so they can take us one by one.” Calder kept his eyes locked on Foster’s as he spoke. “We might be playing into their hands no matter what we do, so we may as well try to escape while we’re at it.”

Foster grumbled under his breath, but Urzaia had already taken up his position and started a slow march. The rest of them followed.

Every few yards, Petal carefully let a drop of acid fall from her stoppered bottle. It scarred the floor with a hiss and a little wisp of smoke, leaving a mark the size of a breadcrumb in the smooth floor.

They had traveled for the better part of an hour, according to Andel’s pocket-watch, when Jerri gently rested her fingers on his arm. “Don’t look up. There’s something moving between the bookcases above us. Do not look up.”

Calder resisted the urge to throw his head back and stare straight up, keeping his movement natural. He continued to scan the shadows around them, as he had the entire time, but this time he allowed his eyes to flow a little higher.

For the first minute or two he spotted nothing, which was agonizing in its own way. The only thing more frightening than Elderspawn he could see were Elderspawn he couldn’t see, and his imagination told him that they were right behind him, descending to the back of his neck on silent threads.

But he kept his calm, and finally he caught something—a flicker of movement at the corner of one of the bookshelves, like an insectoid leg being withdrawn.

His heart pounded, his breath came faster, and he feigned a stumble to grab onto Urzaia’s shoulder. When the Champion looked at him, surprised, Calder whispered the situation to him.

Urzaia’s face darkened, and his hands tightened around his hatchets, but otherwise he gave no sign that Calder had spoken. He continued marching down the hall as Calder and Jerri conveyed the information to the others.

Even as he whispered to Andel, Calder’s thoughts buzzed frantically. The position of the Elderspawn left them with very few helpful options. They’re above us, so they’re tracking us. They’ll see everything we do. We have to reach the end of this room at some point, so will they drop down on us then? Will they wait so long?

They had seen enough curve of the ceiling at this point to realize that the room did in fact have an end; they weren’t sealed in some sort of Elder-generated dream world. The room had walls, though they were unbelievably far apart. In the back of Calder’s mind, he wondered if the bookcases acted as columns, helping to support the weight of the chamber.

If they stood and fought, the terrain didn’t favor them. How could it, against an enemy capable of leaping down on their backs from above?

Since they couldn’t stop, that left only one option: move forward as fast as they could.

Calder increased his pace, and as soon as the others realized, they matched him. Within ten more minutes, the crew had effectively doubled their speed, and was all but running down the library aisle. They maintained complete silence, so only the pounding of their shoes and their harsh panting breaths cut through the quiet.

Overhead, the flickering movement of the Elderspawn hurried to match them. Calder began to catch them more often, even when he wasn’t focusing, as they hurried from case to case. With enough fragmented pictures—jointed, alien legs and eyes that waved on flexible stalks—he confirmed what he’d already suspected. These were the spawn of Ach’magut, the ten-legged spiders with innumerable eyes. The same ones that had haunted Silverreach four years before. The Inquisitors.

But this time, they were keeping their distance, watching. Observing. Calder was forcibly reminded of Ach’magut’s title: the Overseer. It made sense that any minions of his would keep their distance and watch before engaging, but if that was the case…

Why hadn’t they done so last time?

On the crew’s last visit to Silverreach, the Elderspawn had attacked outright, forcing them into the hands of the cultists. They were acting differently now, more cautiously. What had changed?

It was sheer madness to try and guess the mind of an Elder, but Calder had a disturbing thought. What if they had acted this way, four years ago? What if the two Inquisitors they saw were just the Imperial Guard of their kind, sent to take them into custody, while hundreds more watched?

An image formed in Calder’s mind, of Silverreach above with its streets of “empty” buildings. He was beginning to see the town differently now.

Not a town at all. A hive.

But ultimately this was all just speculation, and in reality, the Inquisitors hadn’t attacked yet. The sooner they reached the end of the room, the sooner they could find an exit. The ceiling had curved down low enough now that they should come upon the end any second.

No sooner did the thought come to him than they reached the end of the library, the ceiling flowing down to meet the floor in a polished gray wall. The light of Petal’s quicklamp spilled onto the wall in front of them, illuminating a vast door of bronze.

He wasn’t sure it was a door, at first. There were no hinges he could see, and the bronze was almost a perfect circle. It only made contact with the floor at one point. Its surface was covered in symbols and diagrams, interacting in a way that reminded Calder of ancient astronomy texts. Like someone had charted the movements of the stars on this ancient panel of bronze.

It was only when he extended a hand, intending to Read the panel for instructions, that he became certain it was a door. Its Intent flooded his mind, hammered his awareness, as though this was the very picture of a door and anything that he had once recognized as a doorway was only a feeble delusion of his pitiful mind. This was a door, and all else was but a pale copy.

He trembled at the overwhelming gut-punch of Intent, sucking in a deep breath.

The others had begun to quietly debate what this bronze circle was, and what the diagrams on its surface meant. Maybe they were a map, maybe directions, maybe a dire warning to travelers.

“It’s a door,” Calder said, walking up to it.

“Are you sure?” Urzaia asked doubtfully.

Calder’s nose tingled, as though it was about to bleed, but he put two fingers to his face and they came back dry. The aftermath of his attempt at Reading. “I have never been more sure of anything in my entire life,” he said.

He quested around the edges of the bronze doorway until he found three symbols in a row—like human thumbprints, though the lines were too twisted and irregular. Calder pushed on them, only the slightest application of force, and the door began to slide upwards into the wall.

“Wait,” Andel said, as the door began to move, but it was too late.

If Calder had thought his impressions of the entrance were overwhelming, if he thought the previous wave of Intent was too much for his senses, they were nothing compared to the seething ocean of information that violated his mind now.

On the other side was a writhing, pulsing, squirming mass of limbs, eyes, tendrils, ears, appendages without name and without number.

On the other side was a vast book of endless pages, containing all the knowledge of countless years, such an unknowable repository of truth that a thousand humans could not hear it all with a thousand lifetimes of study.

On the other side was a world unto itself, a complex and ancient dream more real than waking.

On the other side was Ach’magut.

Calder stood frozen, all his senses consumed in the Overseer, but in many ways he was more aware than before. He knew when Foster broke free of the spell binding him, turning to flee from the Great Elder, only to come face-to-face with an army of Inquisitors.

He knew that Petal’s fear was crystallizing into the knowledge that she could not fight Ach’magut, which brought with it a measure of relief.

He knew Andel’s revulsion, which was matched only by a bizarre knowledge. The former Pilgrim was disgusted by Ach’magut’s existence, but he was still on the lookout for something to gain from this. As though he could turn Ach’magut’s knowledge against the rest of its kind.

He knew Urzaia’s grim resignation, as the Champion realized that some things could not be fought.

And he knew Jerri was terrified and excited all at once, as though she’d come face to face with everything she’d ever wanted…and it could kill her at any second.

All this, Calder knew in an instant.

The Great Elder’s tentacles slithered between them and among them, analyzing their emotions, their pasts, their physical compositions. He knew them, weighed them, factored them into his plans.

And within Ach’magut, at the nexus where all the tentacles originated, a single eye opened. It was human in shape, but bigger than Calder’s head, with an iris of hypnotic, poisonous blue.

INTERESTING.

The voice scoured Calder’s mind like a desert wind, carrying with it all the meaning one word could possibly have.

YOU ARE THE RESULT OF A DEVIATION.

From that sentence, Calder learned more than he wanted to know about how he’d ended up in Silverreach.

Centuries ago, Ach’magut had allowed an alteration to his grand, cosmic plan. He’d been willing to risk a small change that might disturb the future, in the hopes of opening up new facts and new results. That deviation had resulted in everything in Calder’s past, from the personal to the very distant—everything from the death of the Great Elders to the formation of the Empire, and everything from the meeting of Calder’s specific parents to his birth to his expulsion from the Blackwatch. Everything, as moment toppled into moment, was the inevitable result of Ach’magut’s action in the distant past.

The Elder could see it, could read the potential paths of his choices as easily as Calder could predict how a ball would roll across the floor. But the world was more interesting when it was unpredictable, as the Overseer knew well.

And Calder had ended up in this room, at this moment, with this precise group of people. Which Ach’magut had not predicted.

All this and more, Calder learned from what was essentially a single sentence. He didn’t feel like part of a conversation, he felt like a student desperately trying to keep up with a ferocious lecture from an ancient Witness.

THIS OPENS NEW PATHS. NEW DOORS. NEW ANOMALIES.

Calder tried to respond, to barter for his life, but this was nothing at all like bantering with Kelarac. This had more in common with being flattened underneath a collapsing building.

He could feel it when the Great Elder turned his attention from Calder to the others, as though the point of a sword had been taken away from Calder’s throat. To each of them, Ach’magut spoke.

Petal trembled, facing something that was so much more than her that she felt like a grain of sand that would soon blow away. She clutched her quicklamp to her chest as though it might protect her somehow, and the subtle warmth on her fingers was only a distant comfort.

Her one hope, which she clung to even more desperately than her light, was that she was too far beneath Ach’magut’s notice. Maybe the Great Elder would overlook her entirely, as she deserved, and allow her to go on her way. Even if his Inquisitors killed her, it would be better than what the Overseer could do to her.

Then his attention fixed on her, spearing her through the middle, and she knew with a bone-deep certainty that he spoke to no one else but her.

YOU HAVE FOUND YOUR HOME.

That was all, but she read volumes into that single sentence. Her body shook with an involuntary sob.

When the Great Elder said it, she could more easily doubt her own name. Her home wasn’t in the streets, where she’d spent her childhood. It wasn’t in the Guild that had rejected her, or in the box where she’d hidden for years.

She’d found it on a Navigator’s ship.

Somewhere in her mind, Petal had planned to leave once they made port at a place that felt right. She still wondered if the rest of the crew wanted her around, if they even needed her for anything.

With the Elder’s words, that possibility died.

Foster had his eyes squeezed shut, with his Reader’s senses even more tightly closed. He didn’t want even a hint of this monster’s Intent leaking through, because it would crush him to dust.

Then Ach’magut spoke to him, and Foster knew he might as well have saved his effort. He couldn’t shut out the Elder’s Intent any more than he could shut his ears against the sound of an erupting volcano.

THEY ARE GONE, Ach’magut said, and Foster’s eyes opened wide.

He stared into the Great Elder’s single, gigantic eye as though he sought clarity there. But the Overseer had been perfectly clear.

His family, his former wife and his children whom he hadn’t seen for years, were gone. He should abandon them. He may as well give up, because the future did not allow them to survive.

Foster’s heart clenched, but sheer stubbornness took over his mind. He would throw himself into the Aion Sea before he let an Elder tell him what to do. Now, he’d have to find his family again if it killed him. He would prove to himself that the future could be controlled, could be denied, and that Dalton Foster would be the one to do it. But in his soul, he knew the truth.

Ach’magut had predicted this.

Urzaia had put up his hatchets. There was no point in resisting, any more than he could resist a crashing wave with the power to capsize The Testament. Sometimes, a man faced forces so far beyond him that defiance became an absurdity.

But laughter bubbled up inside him, and he let it show on his face. The Great Elder could do what he wanted, but he could not make Urzaia Woodsman despair.

The eye focused on him, a strange bulb on a stalk rattled next to Urzaia’s ear, and Ach’magut spoke to him.

YOU WILL DIE BEFORE YOU SEE DEFEAT.

At that, Urzaia did laugh.

Andel grabbed his medallion in his fist so hard that he wondered if his palm would bleed. The Luminian Order encouraged hatred of the Elders, but he knew the truth: the Elders were not manifestations of pure evil, but so chaotic and foreign that they might as well have been. Each of the Great Elders was unique in purpose, and they would be true to that purpose.

Everything Ach’magut said would be factually correct, and Andel could rely on its predictions of the future. He knew that as surely as he knew up from down.

Ach’magut’s words would be correct. But they would not be the truth.

WHAT CAUSE DO YOU SERVE? For a moment, Andel couldn’t take a breath.

He’d given up the cause of the Luminian Order, but he had never abandoned the teachings of the Unknown God. Even this job, as an aide and supervisor to Calder Marten, gave him the opportunity to guide a young man forward. Without support, Calder would be headed for a future more destructive than Andel could imagine.

Still, Andel’s Imperial supervisors intended him to guide the young Navigator back into the folds of the Empire, and Andel wasn’t sure he wanted to. He’d seen enough in his life to know that even the Emperor couldn’t be trusted, not fully.

If the Guild couldn’t be trusted, and the Empire couldn’t be trusted, what did the God want him to do?

Jerri trembled before the Overseer, one of the two Great Elders her father had always sought to meet. Anyone in the Sleepless would give their left leg for this chance, but now that she was here, she saw how futile all her plans were. She’d dreamed of this moment before, had actually charted out the questions she’d ask and how she would interpret the potential responses.

But she was nothing more than a tiny longboat on a storm-tossed sea. She did not chart her course, she merely tried to survive until the ocean stopped.

YOUR FATHER WOULD BE PROUD, the Great One said, and every nuance of meaning flowed into her mind. Her father was dead, as she’d suspected for years. May his soul fly free. Ach’magut’s words told her that, if he were alive, he’d be proud of what she’d done. Proud of her.

And in the future, he would be proud of the woman she’d become. She would accomplish more than her father had ever dreamed.

Seconds had passed as Ach’magut turned his gaze from one member of his crew to the other, and though Calder heard the words, they meant nothing to him. The Great Elder did not speak through vibrations in the air, but through a language of Intent so subtle and complex that Calder couldn’t catch a glimpse of its mechanisms. If the Overseer did not want Calder to know his words, that was how it would be.

But now, the strange wave of Intent broadened. Ach’magut addressed them all as a crew, as he had at the beginning. His words were for Calder, but every living thing in the great library—from the human crew to the innumerable Inquisitors—served as a witness.

THE THRONE WILL SOON BE EMPTY.

Calder didn’t need the volumes of explanation that came along with the Elder’s voice to tell him what those words meant. The Emperor was going to die. Soon.

And Ach’magut was telling him.

Hope and feverish expectation surged up in equal measure, as Calder dared to resurrect a foolish dream that he had carried since childhood.

A rustle came from behind him, as of a thousand sticks falling to the floor. He turned to look, as he was sure he was supposed to, and saw fields of Inquisitors bending forward. They’d folded their first legs and pressed their jaws to the floor.

It took him a moment to realize what the hordes of Elderspawn were doing, and when he did, his breath died in his lungs.

They were kneeling.

To him.

HAIL THE EMPEROR OF THE WORLD, Ach’magut said, and Calder stared incredulously into the Elder’s one giant eye. Never, in his most distant dreams, had he ever dared to imagine this.

The crew was looking at him now, and he could feel their reactions as easily as his own. Awe, fear, disbelief, hope, and sheer, mind-numbing shock.

But Ach’magut had one more thing to say, and he delivered it with a finality that made Calder wonder if the Great Elder would ever speak again.

SHOW ME THE FUTURE.

Calder’s return to The Testament felt like his first trip to Ach’magut’s library—that is, it felt like nothing at all. It wasn’t as though he’d fallen asleep, but as though he’d forgotten the journey.

He returned to awareness seated on a sack of beans with his back leaning up against the railing. He had traveled there from the library, he was sure, but no matter how he searched his memory he couldn’t recall the slightest detail of the time between.

The last thing he remembered were the words of Ach’magut. Those, he couldn’t forget.

The rest of the crew was strewn around the deck as though they’d been dropped there out of the sky, and they started to stir at the same time he did. Urzaia was on his feet and inspecting his armor, maybe checking himself for injuries, before Calder managed to stand up.

As soon as he did, he stumbled to the wheel and sent his Intent into the ship. He’d woken with an inexplicable certainty: that they should leave Silverreach as soon as possible. Not that he needed any supernatural urging to do that; he had already planned to show this town the back of his sails and never return.

The trick would be convincing the Lyathatan to stir. Calder had worked the Elder unusually hard over the past few months, and it had begun to let him know that it deserved a rest. Typically, it did so by sending him images of a broken ship littered with human bodies.

Today, the impression he received from the Lyathatan was very different.

The servant of Kelarac strains at its chains, eager to haul its cargo into the ocean. If it were allowed, it would depart without the human passengers, but a greater will consumes it. Not the will of the Lyathatan, nor the will of Kelarac, but the will of another Great One.

The Lyathatan knows it is in danger, that all the plans it has laid for the future will come to nothing if they cross the plans of Ach’magut.

With the closest thing to fear that Calder had ever sensed from the creature, the Lyathatan hauled The Testament out to sea. The acceleration made him clutch the wheel and sent Petal tumbling shoes-over-shoulders across the deck until Urzaia caught her. The Champion stood with his feet planted on the deck as though a hurricane couldn’t budge him.

In minutes, they left Silverreach behind. The town and its unlit lighthouse were swallowed up by the night, until the whole world was nothing more than the starlit waves, The Testament, and the submerged shadow pulling them forward.

That was when the ocean trembled.

A ripple shot across the surface of the water, like someone had dropped a pebble into a bathtub. Seconds after that, Calder heard a great roar, and sudden waves blasted them from behind. The aft half of the ship lifted up and slammed down, sending a creak of pain through Calder’s Vessel.

Petal started to tumble the other way, but Urzaia grabbed her out of the air and tossed her onto his shoulder.

The ocean shook with the wrath of a storm, but the Lyathatan neither faltered nor fumbled, dragging them forth as a team of dogs drags a sled. Calder mustered enough focus to wrap ropes around the entire crew, steadying them and ensuring he wouldn’t lose them overboard.

While he did, he considered the explosion behind them. At first, he wished he could extend his senses far enough to pick up some Intent, but he had to admit the truth to himself. He knew what had happened. Silverreach had been destroyed.

Whether Ach’magut had blown the town to pieces for secret reasons known only to the Elders, or whether something they’d done had led to the town’s collapse, Calder had no idea. But the Overseer had sent them away with an urge to flee only minutes before an explosion came from the direction of Silverreach. Either the town was gone, or they’d been deceived by the most coincidental earthquake of all time.

Calder knew which way he’d bet.

The night passed before the Lyathatan started to slow down, and Calder had enjoyed no sleep at all. He doubted anyone else had either. His bunk remained steady enough, though it was pitched at a fifteen degree angle thanks to the ship’s speed, and he was certainly exhausted. But the Great Elder’s words haunted him, prodding his consciousness like red-hot needles.

The throne will soon be empty, he’d said. And, Hail the Emperor of the world.

If there was ever anything to be excited about, inheriting the entire Empire would count. Calder spent the entire night turning the Elder’s intentions over in his mind, trying to find the angle. The hidden agenda. He knew beyond a doubt that Ach’magut had a plan, and a Great Elder wouldn’t care if that plan involved exalting Calder or crucifying him. One human life was simply irrelevant, on the Overseer’s scale.

So there was every possibility that the prophecy might doom him, which was how every folk tale of Elder prophecy usually ended. But one thing Calder never doubted: the Great Elder wouldn’t be wrong.

He might be playing Calder for the benefits of a game millennia in the playing, but he wouldn’t be wrong.

Which meant that Calder would get revenge for his father after all.

At the first glimmer of dawn, the Lyathatan finally slowed to a crawl, and Calder bolted from his bunk. He threw on some clothes, replaced his hat, and shot outside.

The crew was already waiting for him, and they looked worse than he did. Foster’s hair and beard had escaped his control entirely, hanging around him like an angry stormcloud. Petal leaned against the railing, holding her knees to her chest. Jerri paced back and forth, muttering, and Andel stared into the distance with his hat in his hand.

Urzaia, by contrast, beamed at the rest of them. “How wonderful is sleep after an adventure!” he said, and Foster glared.

When Calder emerged, they all turned to him. For a second, no one spoke, so Calder cleared his throat to break the silence. “So. I suspect we have a few things to talk about.”

Foster turned his glare to the Captain. “You think so? About what?”

Calder looked from him to Petal to Urzaia. “Jerri and Andel know my story already, and I’m sure you’ve picked up pieces of it. But in light of recent events, you deserve some…context.”

So Calder told them. He told them about his childhood, the sale of Imperial relics, his father’s arrest, his time with his mother and with the Blackwatch, and his own mistakes that had led to his banishment to the Navigators. To his father’s execution.

“I know the Emperor as well as anyone alive,” Calder said. “I’ve tracked his movements to get to relics, I’ve Read a relic or two myself, and I’ve even met the man. He doesn’t care about us. He’s so far distant he might as well be an Elder himself.”

He kept an eye on their faces as he spoke, looking for disgust or rejection. He was speaking blasphemy, essentially, but he had to know they could handle this much. What he saw pleased him. Andel’s face was a mask, Foster looked like he agreed, and Petal stared wide-eyed like a child hearing a story.

“When I was a child, I realized that the Empire needed to change. And it wouldn’t, as long as the Emperor remained in charge. Well…it looks like he won’t be there much longer. Now’s our chance to steer the Empire where we want to go, and if I get a chance, I intend to take the wheel.”

Foster snorted. “You can’t do a worse job than the old man.”

Urzaia, unsurprisingly, laughed. “Wherever you go, Captain, I will stand in front of you. You keep your promises, and the Emperor does not.”

“I want to stay here,” Petal whispered.

Jerri practically danced over to him, where she threw her arms around him. “This is perfect! Oh, light and life, I could never have imagined it…The Emperor has no official duties, the government works without him. He’s a figurehead with the absolute power to indulge his whims, so you won’t even have to do anything. Just…whatever you want!”

“I appreciate your faith in my ability to do nothing,” Calder said dryly, but he had to force back a smile.

It wasn’t time for celebration yet; the biggest obstacle of the day stood in front of him. One person had yet to respond.

Andel replaced his hat. “Don’t plan your coronation yet. Until the Emperor dies, if that can even happen, you’re just a young man past his ears in debt. And even if he does die, I doubt he considers Ach’magut’s recommendation reason enough to name you his heir.”

Calder deflated a little. Andel was essentially right; there was a long road between him and the throne.

But he’d get there. That, he never doubted.