Vaelin sighed, casting a final look at the still-smouldering ruins before moving to take Erlin’s hand, then drawing back in alarm as it turned to dust before he could grasp it. The vortex returned in a heartbeat, taking Erlin with it. There seemed to be a new ferocity to the swirling dust now, the colours changing, a more complex dance to the spiral of chaos. It faded as quickly as it had come, revealing the mountain top above the Lathera village. Except now he was alone and it was night, the clouds above turned into a roiling orange roof by the glow from the fire mountains. Their fury seemed brighter now, his eyes picking out a gout of molten rock amidst the flame and smoke, a small tremor pulsing through the rock beneath his feet.
“So,” a voice said. “Do you have happier tidings for me?”
Lionen walked towards him from the cluster of dwellings. He was older, his long hair mostly grey, his face still lean but also lined. He paused a few feet away, frowning as he took in Vaelin’s appearance. “Ah. It has only been moments for you, has it not?”
Vaelin nodded. “My friend . . .”
“This memory is not for him.” Lionen turned, extending a hand towards the dwellings. “I was about to have supper. Would you care to join me?”
“Your knowledge of my language has improved,” Vaelin observed, following Lionen to one of the larger dwellings. He noted the others were all silent, the windows absent any light.
“I have had many years to study it. And several others, though I find it my favourite. Less flowing than Seordah but more poetic and functional than Volarian.” Lionen stood aside at the door to his house, gesturing for Vaelin to precede him. Inside the air was warm, the chamber sparsely furnished with a low wooden bunk and some scrolls stacked in the corner. A small iron pot steamed over a fire, the smoke escaping into a narrow channel in the roof.
“I would offer you some stew,” Lionen said, taking a seat beside the fire. “But it would be a redundant gesture.”
“I can feel,” Vaelin said. “But not touch. Why?”
“The stone captures place and the time, but they are unchanging. As is our conversation. It has already happened, even though for both of us it appears to be happening now. What has happened cannot be changed, and so you cannot touch it. Change is the province of the future.”
He lifted the lid on the stewpot, tasting a sample with a small spoon. “Quail with wild thyme and mushrooms,” he said. “Pity you can’t have any. I’ve had a great deal of time to perfect the recipe.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Fifteen years since I built this miniature city. I had companions then.”
“What happened to them?”
“Some left, bored with my inactivity. Others disappointed by my lessons and seeking wisdom elsewhere. The remainder I sent away. I find youth tedious these days, they’re always so terribly earnest.”
“The stone outside, you carved it, filled it with your memories.”
“And more besides. The stones were not simply repositories for memory. They were also a means of communication, each one connected to the other. A useful innovation for a civilisation that spanned half the world.”
“All brought down by your sister’s husband?”
“Yes. Whilst I roamed the ice searching for the impossible, he had other work in mind.”
Vaelin recalled the cave paintings, the three visitors who became two. “Your sister died saving the ice people. You brought sickness and she healed them, though it cost her life.”
“She was a healer. She saw it as an obligation, though we begged her to stop.”
“Is that what changed him? Made him hate what he built?”
“Essara’s death may have darkened his soul, but I suspect his first steps along the path to what he is now were taken long before. It was the disappointment, you see, the constant dissatisfaction. He tried so hard to build his perfect world, a civilisation that would see humanity ascend to something greater. But people are still people, however comfortable their surroundings. They lie, they feud, they betray and however much you give them, they always want more. Without my sister’s influence it grew harder and harder for him to keep giving, keep guiding in the hope they would one day fulfil his great vision. And so, having proved themselves unworthy of the world he had crafted for them, he resolved to bring it all down.”
Lionen took a bowl and began filling it with stew, from the aroma Vaelin judged his liking for the recipe to be well-founded. “Tell me,” he said, settling back, bowl in hand, “did the Eorhil woman find the stone I left for her?”
Vaelin recalled Wisdom’s tale of her journey to the fallen city, the meeting with the shade of Nersus Sil Nin. “She did, with help from a blind woman who shared your gift.”
“Ah, the blind woman.” Lionen smiled fondly as he ate. “Often seen in my visions, but never spoken to. Such a comely thing in her youth, I should greatly have liked to meet her.”
“You crafted the stone that gave Wisdom her name,” Vaelin said. “Knowing she would find it one day.”
