The Evolutionary Void

Inigo’s Forty-seventh Dream: The Waterwalker’s Triumph

IT WAS MATTUEL who had the privilege of helping Edeard up the long winding steps to the top of the tower. Edeard wouldn’t put up with it from any of his other children, or grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, or even the great-great-grandchildren and certainly not the great-great-great-grandchildren, most of whom who were just children. And Grolral, the first of his fifth-generation offspring and one whom he adored, was only seven weeks old and really not interested in much apart from feeding and sleeping. But Mattuel was the favored son, mainly because he’d been born so much later than the others, four and a half years after Finitan’s guidance. That shouldn’t have made him any more special-and by that time none of the first seven cared about such things-but Edeard always regarded him as proof of success in living this life as he’d sworn to do. By the time the four Skylords appeared in Querencia’s skies, events across the planet weren’t going too badly this time around. Each town and most larger villages had a big park designated for the gathering of those who sought guidance. The open areas were based on the Waterwalker’s solemn advice that the Skylords didn’t really like the towers of Eyrie and used them only out of respect for the bygone race that had sculpted them in the first place. Simple and cheap, the parks prevented any economic problems and petty rivalries. That also meant nobody trekked across half the continent to the towers of Eyrie, with all the problems that entailed.

Except that today Makkathran was once again host to crowds not seen in a hundred years. The last time so many had thronged its streets was when the eight huge galleons of the flotilla had returned from their exploratory voyage circumnavigating the world. Edeard had sailed with them, enjoying the occasional bout of nostalgic sadness as they discovered the coastlines and seas he recalled from over a century before on his own private time line. This time he’d made sure the problems afflicting Querencia in the wake of the Skylords were well and truly eliminated before setting out. There were no more attempts to dominate and bind people to a cause or family or individual. The newer generations of stronger psychics were welcomed and integrated into a society whose prosperity was on a steady climb thanks to the expansion of the Eggshaper Guild and an abundance of genistars. New lands were being opened in what once had been the western wilds. Even the youngsters of Makkathran’s Grand Families were encouraged to seek their fortune amid the fresh opportunities to extend the old estates and businesses, though that process was clearly going to outlast him by some considerable period.

This day was the day when Querencia paid tribute to the Waterwalker for transforming their world to one of enlightenment and potential. Already his era was being proclaimed the planet’s golden age.

“I hope to the Lady they’re right,” he’d muttered to Kristabel as they woke together that last morning.

She’d given him a warning stare as one of their great-great-granddaughters helped comb her thin strands of white hair. “Don’t give me the Ashwell optimism now. Not today.”

Amusement and appreciation made him smile, which triggered a nasty bout of coughing deep in his chest. Two of the Novices attending him eased him forward on the bed. One proffered a steaming potion for him to inhale. He almost refused out of pure age-driven obstinacy but relented when he recalled Finitan’s last days. The sweet girls were only trying to help. He breathed the vapor down and was relieved to find the muscle quakes subsiding. “Yes, dear.”

“Ha!”

He smiled again. One of the Novices started unbuttoning his bed shirt. “I can still manage that, thank you,” he told her smartly. Of course he couldn’t, not with his hands, horrible swollen, gnarled things that they were now. The potions the doctors made him drink did nothing for his terribly arthritic joints anymore. But thankfully, his third hand remained more than capable. Finitan had remarked on something similar, he recalled.

When he blinked and looked around, everyone in the big room was staring anxiously at him. “What?” he asked.

“You drifted off there again,” Kristabel said.

“Honious! Let’s hope I last till they arrive.”

That earned him another disapproving stare from Kristabel while the Novices drew sharp nervous breaths and assured him he would. “Actually, I was thinking of Finitan, if you must know,” he told a bedroom full of too many people.

“Goodness, I can’t even remember what he looks like anymore,” Kristabel said regretfully.

“It was nearly two hundred years ago,” Edeard reminded her. “But we’ll be seeing him again soon enough.”

“Aye, that we will.”

Edeard smiled at her again, blocking out the awful indignity of their well-meaning attendants bustling around. His farsight found the rest of his family assembling in the lounges on the upper floors of the ziggurat, all of them abuzz with conflicting emotion. Contrary to expectation, their presence actually comforted him. There were so many, and all had done well-or at least hadn’t turned to the bad. That was his true measure.

Eventually he and Kristabel were dressed in their finest robes without too much assistance. He’d decided against the Waterwalker’s black cloak; at his age it would have made him look ridiculous. Besides, after eleven tenures as Mayor, he felt the robes of office were more appropriate.

Edeard managed to walk out of the bedroom to the first big lounge, but that was about as far as his muscles could manage without a decent rest. Mattuel’s third hand steadied him as he sank down into a tall straight-backed chair. He was about to throw the youngster an angry look but relented. In truth, he’d needed the support. Landing on his ass at the start of this ceremony would hardly be dignified.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. Not that Mattuel could ever be considered a youngster anymore; his own two hundredth birthday had been celebrated a few years back. Edeard couldn’t quite remember when.

One by one, the family came up to him and Kristabel for one last embrace and a few words of comfort. The tradition had grown up in the last century and a half. It was a good one, he decided. Clears the air, allows reconciliation for any too-hasty words and stupid feuds. Not that I have any. That particular harsh lesson had been learned two hundred years ago and learned well.

So now he could greet them all gladly and receive their wishes for a safe journey without any regrets. If there was sorrow, it was from seeing how his children had aged. Rolar and Wenalee, who surely would be seeking guidance themselves the next time a Skylord visited. Jiska and Natran and their huge brood of eleven children, fifty-seven grandchildren, and he didn’t know how many after that except this morning they had to be accommodated on the eighth floor and longtalk their farewells-there was simply no room on the tenth. Marilee, Analee, and Marvane, still together, and with eighteen children between them. Edeard clutched the merchant captain warmly when it was his turn. “You can still come with us if you like,” he offered with a chuckle. “I expect you could do with the respite.”

“Daddy, that’s horrible.”

“He doesn’t want a respite.”

“We treat him nicely.”

“When he’s good.”

“And better when he’s bad.”

Marvane spread his hands wide. “You see?”

“I’ve always seen,” Edeard told him fondly.

Marakas and Jalwina were next. Happily married these last forty years. But then, Marakas had plenty of practice; she was his seventh wife, after all. Even then, he was still way behind Dinlay’s count.

Taralee in her own grand mistress robes, even though she had resigned from the Doctor’s Guild Council thirty years before. “Are you all right?” she asked in concern. “I have some sedatives, ones from the folox leaf.”

“No,” he said firmly.

“You’ll do all right,” she said with a grin. “Goodbye, Daddy.”

“See you soon.”

See you soon. It was a murmur that swept around the lounge, followed by a chorus of well-wishing that was taken up by those on the ninth floor and farther, all the way to the third. And nowhere in the ziggurat was Burlal. He at least was spared the indignity of age; his brief years were always those of happiness.

Edeard was doing his best not to cry as his dynasty said its final formal farewell. He and Kristabel were lifted gently by third hands and carried down the central stairs with hundreds of their family leaning over the railings and now cheering them raucously.

“You know, we really did bump your dear old Uncle Lorin out of here in the end, didn’t we?” he said as he waved at the blur of faces.

“Thank the Lady for that,” she said.

The largest family gondola was waiting for them at the ziggurat’s mooring platform on Great Major Canal. They sat on the center bench and looked around. The entire canal was lined with people who had come to wish the Waterwalker well on his way. They waved and clapped and cheered as he and Kristabel set off on the very short journey down to Eyrie’s central mooring platform. All were dressed in their best clothes, transforming the route to a splendid color-washed avenue.

“Remember the flower boats from the Festival of Guidance?” he asked his wife. “They were as colorful as this. That used to be such a lovely day. It’s a pity they had to end it.”

“Not a lot of point to it after the Skylords started arriving,” Kristabel said. “And I’m hardly likely to forget. That’s the day we met, remember?”

“Mirnatha’s kidnapping,” he said, remembering a few details of the day. He hadn’t thought of it in decades, probably longer. “Bise was holding her in the House of Blue Petals.”

“We never found out exactly who took her, and they held her in Fiacre.”

Owain, he knew. Owain and his clique ordered her kidnapping, but I could never tell Kristabel that. I would have needed to explain what had ultimately become of Owain, and Bise, and-Lady forgive me-Mistress Florrel. And why it was essential they were eliminated. What would she say if she knew the secret of this universe? What would she do? What would any of them do?

“Wake up,” Kristabel chided. “We’re here.”

“I wasn’t asleep,” he complained as the gondola was being tied to the mooring. Up above the canal, the crooked towers of Eyrie were jabbing up into a cloudless summer sky. Those who sought guidance were already being aided to their places on the upper platforms. Mattuel and a few of the third-generation relatives were already on the street above, looking down, readying their third hands to lift Edeard and Kristabel. They’d all hurried over behind the gondola, walking across the surface of the canal; they were all strong enough to do that.

The streets between the towers were packed solid with representatives from across the world who had come to honor the Waterwalker and bid him farewell. They cheered and waved. On the steps of the Lady’s church, the Makkathran Novice choir began to sing. The verse and chorus were taken up by the entire city.

Edeard asked Mattuel to pause a moment as the tune rang across Makkathran, allowing him to savor the music one last time. It was Dybal’s “Bittersweet Flight,” the old musician’s last and finest composition. Both simple and haunting, it had become quite the anthem since he was guided by a Skylord some eighty years ago.

“Respectable at last,” he murmured as the song ended. All around him, people were bowing their heads, standing still for the customary minute’s silence.

“How poor Dybal would hate that,” an amused Kristabel replied.

“Yes. I must tell him when we get there.”

Friends were well placed amid those circling the tower itself. Edeard managed a weak wave at several familiar faces. There was no Salrana, for which he still felt remorse, though it was dulled now by the centuries; she’d taken guidance over ten years ago. Edeard had observed from the hortus as the Skylord swooped across the city, anxious that her soul be accepted. He was sure it had been, for which he was glad. Even though they had never been reconciled, she had found her own fulfillment in the end.

Ranalee, too, had gone, contemptuous and antagonistic to the very end. In her own way she had accomplished much, with a host of descendants whose successful avaricious enterprises extended their influence far and wide.

Edeard closed his eyes as he was gently elevated upward. This is when I must make my choice. It has been a good life; today is proof of that. Not perfect, but it never could be. Do I go back and live it again? And what would be the point of that? I know I can only live those centuries again if I do it differently. Perhaps now would be the time to go back beyond Owain’s death. I could go right back to Ashwell and stop my parents being killed. Salrana would never be corrupted … He shook his head with only the mildest regret. That was not the life for him. Too many bad events would have to be played out again in one form or another so that the final two centuries could be lived in the peace and hope he’d enjoyed this time around. He would have to make things different to make them remotely bearable. The risk was immense.

I will take guidance.

The central stairway winding up the tower was too cramped for an entourage, so it was Mattuel who performed the honor of carrying his father to the top, accompanied by the Pythia herself. Honalee carried her grandmother, and the rest of the family surrounded the base of the tower.

“Dear Lady, I haven’t been up here since the day Finitan was guided,” Edeard said as they neared the top.

“Yes, Father.”

“You know, this is the same tower which Owain’s thugs pushed me off.”

“I know, Father.”

Edeard smiled softly to himself as they rounded the last curve and went out into the bright sunshine. Eight tall spires guarded the edges, their tips bent inward slightly. As always, the wind was a lot stronger on the open platform than it was down on the ground. It whistled faintly as it blew around the spires.

A gaggle of Novices and Mothers were clustered around the entrance to the stairs, each of them openly anxious to see the Waterwalker as he was settled onto a pile of comfortable cushions. They had escorted the others who sought guidance, of whom there were fifty on the platform. Most of them were resting on similar cushions, though a few were stubbornly insisting on standing to face the Skylord’s arrival.

“About time you turned up,” Macsen said.

Edeard tipped two fingers to his old friend. Even as he did, he wondered how on Querencia the Mothers and Novices had ever gotten the enormous master of Sampalok up the tight stairwell. Macsen seemed to be almost globular these days; he hadn’t managed to get out of bed unaided for over four years.

Edeard looked around at his friends, humbled and delighted that they would all be traveling together. Kanseen on a bed of cushions next to Macsen, her terribly frail frame struggling to breathe. Dinlay, standing, of course, gaunt yet with a straight back, his Chief Constable’s uniform immaculate, dignified at the last. He was by himself; to everyone’s amazement, his last marriage had lasted thirty-two years (a record) and remained current, but his wife was eighty-seven years younger.

“Everyone together,” Edeard said.

“No matter what,” they all chorused.

The Pythia bowed to Edeard. “Waterwalker, may the Lady Herself bless your journey. She will greet you soon, I’m sure. What you have done for this world is beyond praise. The Heart awaits you with eagerness, as do your friends who dwell there now. You go there with the undying thanks of all of us who live on Querencia, whose fulfillment you have worked so hard toward.”

Edeard looked up into her face, kind and stern, as all the Pythias seemed to be, but radiant with concern. A concern that extended a great deal further than the tower. Should I tell her? Somehow, he couldn’t risk the woman’s disapproval, so all he said was: “Thank you.”

The Novices and Mothers began their walk back down the tower’s spiral stair.

Macsen let out a comfortable groan as he slumped back onto the cushions. “Right, then we’ve got a minute. Anyone bring some booze?”

“I think you’ve had enough now, dear,” Kanseen longtalked quietly. Watching her juddering breaths, Edeard knew it was willpower alone that kept her body alive. Dinlay came over and perched beside Edeard. The lenses in his glasses were like balls of glass, they were so thick. Edeard knew very well he was virtually blind; it was only his farsight that allowed him to move around these days.

“Do you think Boyd got there?” Dinlay asked.

Edeard smiled wistfully. “If he didn’t, we’ll have to organize a search of the Void for him.”

“I’m sure a Skylord would help,” Kanseen longtalked. “He deserves his place in the Heart.”

“Wouldn’t that be something?” Kristabel said. “A voyage across the universe, a bigger version of our trip around the world.”

“Yes, my love, it would be quite something.”

He saw her head turn to stare at him, eyes narrowing in that oh so beautifully familiar expression. “Is there something wrong?”

“Not wrong, no. But tell me this, all of you: If there was something you knew, an ability you had which could change everything, the way you lived, your beliefs, the way you thought, even, would you keep it to yourself?”

“What ability?” Macsen asked keenly. “The way you talk to the city?”

“No, something much greater than that.”

“Would it change things for the better?” Kristabel asked.

“It just brings change. How it is applied, for better or worse, depends on the user.”

“You cannot judge people,” Dinlay said. “Not even you, Waterwalker, have that right. We have our courts of law to maintain order, but to decide the nature of a person’s soul is not something we are worthy of. The Heart alone decides.”

“If the ability exists, it exists for a reason,” Kanseen longtalked.

“I thought so,” Edeard said.

Down below, the city gasped and then cheered as the Skylord rose above the horizon. The tremendous flood of rapturous blessings directed from Makkathran’s crowds rose to a crescendo. It was enough to bestow Edeard’s body with a final surge of strength. He reached out with his third hand and drew his friends to him. They held hands as the Skylord swept in across the Lyot Sea. Wind rushed on in front of it, causing their robes to flap about. All around them, the spires of the tower began to glow, a vivid corona of light that spilled out across the platform, filling the air with sparks, as if the stars themselves were raining down.

“Will you accept us?” Edeard asked of the Skylord. “Will you guide us to the Heart?”

“Yes,” the giant creature replied benevolently.

Tears of gratitude seeped down Edeard’s cheeks as the light grew stronger and the shadow of the Skylord slid across Eyrie. This was his last chance.

The light flared, overwhelming his eyes. He sensed his body starting to dissolve into whatever force the towers unleashed. Yet his mind remained intact. If anything, it grew stronger, his thoughts clearer than they had been in decades. His perception expanded, taking in the whole of the city.

“I have one last gift for you,” he said to the glittering enraptured minds below. “Use it well.” And he showed them how to travel back through their own lives to begin again where they chose.

“That’s how we always won?” a laughing Macsen asked.

Edeard’s soul shone with happiness. Rising beside him into the giant fluctuations of light that ran through the Skylord’s body, Macsen’s spectral form had returned to his handsome adolescent self.

“Not always,” he promised his friends. “And not for two hundred years. I swear upon the Lady that your achievements here are your own.”

“Whatever will they do with it?” Dinlay asked, looking down at the world shrinking away below the glare of their disintegrating bodies.

“The best they can, of course,” Kanseen said.

“You did the right thing,” Kristabel told him.

Edeard cast his perception up, growing aware of the songs calling down from the nebulae. They seemed to speak directly to him, a promise of such glory that he was filled with wonder and anticipation. “They’re so beautiful,” he exclaimed. “And we’ll soon be there.”