PART ONE
RIELLE
CHAPTER 1
The arrival place was surrounded by three low walls, each a little higher than the last, as if they were seating around a performance area. A large slab of rock dominated the centre. As Rielle moved sideways within the place between worlds, so that her legs would not fuse with the slab when she arrived, she stared at the dark stain covering the top and tried not to imagine it was blood. When air surrounded her, she breathed in, and her heart sank at a familiar scent.
It was blood.
Shivering, she looked around. The land around her was flat, and divided into fields. The road leading to the arrival place – or was it a sacrificial altar now? – was empty of travellers, and weeds were encroaching on either side. The fields were occupied by workers, however. None had seen her yet. She did not recognise the crop, and the cool air held none of the scent of the plants she had helped harvest last time she had been in this world. Her senses told her that there was very little magic about. That did not worry her. She’d brought enough with her that becoming stranded was very unlikely.
She had not been to this world for five cycles – a cycle being the measurement of time similar to a year in most worlds. When she had left it, she’d forged a new path, but it was unlikely any trace would remain after so much time. The most reliable way to find her way back here had been to follow the traces of what had once been well used as a route; then, on arrival, seek out the area she had lived in before.
Judging by the plant species, she’d arrived in a very different part of the world to the one she remembered.
She had learned that the sudden removal of power could have unpredictable effects on civilisations, with violence and chaos all too common. Without magic to call upon, the local sorcerers would be no threat to her. Nor would ordinary people. Yet she’d hesitated to return here, fearing that her brief visit might have changed this world for the worse, and that the inhabitants would blame her for those changes.
Because she was to blame.
She had been chasing Qall, the young man whose body was meant to hold the mind of the Raen, former ruler of all the worlds. The ruler’s most loyal servant, Dahli, wanted to attempt another resurrection and had sent out his followers to find and abduct Qall. When one did, Qall had chosen to cooperate with his enemy in the hopes of finding a way to resolve the situation. To stop Rielle following and complicating the situation, he’d removed all the magic of a world in order to trap her there.
But the people of that world didn’t know that. All they knew was that she had arrived at about the same time. The more sensitive of them might have felt the flood of magic she had created several days later, when she had given up agelessness in order to become a Maker again, so that she could generate the magic needed to escape this world. They’d have sensed someone take that magic, and the workers and managers of the clothing factory saw her fade out of sight straight after. It wouldn’t have taken much for the local sorcerers to work out she’d had something to do with it.
Taking hold of the lozenge-shaped pendant that hung on a chain around her neck, she twirled it between her fingers. She’d had to replace the bristles of the brush concealed inside three times since she’d begun restoring worlds, wearing them out while painting in order to generate magic. Thinking back to the image she’d made in the grime of the fumigation room at the factory, she sighed. She had depicted the workers living free and prosperous instead of held in near-slavery by sorcerers. Sympathy and anger had moved her to paint it, but she had regretted it every day since. If the workers had rebelled, it was likely that violence had followed. Though the sorcerers among them had no magic, they still had physical methods of persuasion and punishment. She looked down at the stained slab. It was unlikely they’d have given up their power without spilling blood.
Meddling in the affairs of worlds was dangerous. She and Tyen had learned that when they’d attempted to negotiate peace between the two worlds of Murai and Doum. They’d discovered their task had been designed to distract them as the leaders of Doum planned their invasion of Murai. They’d both decided never to become involved in the affairs of a world again.
And then she had, here, in the world she now knew was called Infae.
A shout brought her attention back to her surroundings. One of the workers had seen her, and was pointing in her direction. She sought his mind but found nothing. A certain amount of magic must imbue an area in order for minds within it to be accessible. She could release enough of it to be able to, but the closer she was to a person the less magic was required. So she moved to the edge of the circle, stepped over the stone walls, and started towards them.
The workers were gathering together. The way they hoisted their harvesting tools spoke of determination and defensiveness. At a signal from one, they began walking towards her, fanning out to surround her. She did not have to see their faces to know they meant to do her harm.
She stopped, let magic spill out and read their minds.
Her breath caught in her throat. They had decided she was a sorcerer by her strange clothing and because she had appeared within the stone circle. Sorcerers were to be killed – sacrificed to the goddess Rel, who had stripped Infae of magic.
The goddess Rel?
The group were afraid as well as determined. They knew she could have arrived carrying magic. Sorcerers didn’t submit to being sacrificed without a fight. She couldn’t help admiring their bravery, even as she felt horror that this world had come to this. They knew if they failed, the priestesses and priests in the nearby city would deal with her. If not … they would be paid well when they brought this woman’s head to them.
Rielle’s stomach turned. She drew a deep breath, pushed out of the world and, as the first of the deadly harvesting scythes passed through the air she had occupied a moment before, skimmed away.
A sense of the direction the city lay in had been in their minds. She headed for it, moving herself higher so she could see the area better. The land was flat in all directions, except where outcrops of rock thrust up from the earth. Quite different to the landscape she had visited the last time she had entered Infae, five cycles ago. The local city was definitely not the one she had known, sprawling around a delta river system. Here, one particularly large outcrop dominated the plain, its surface covered in buildings and roads.
She increased her speed, deciding she would not emerge in the world to breathe before arriving in the city. Descending to the rooftops from above, she positioned herself over the top of an empty circular tower built of bricks so dark they were almost black.
The air that surrounded her was humid and tinged with smoke. As her feet touched the tower roof, a wave of dizziness told her she had spent longer out of the world than she had realised. No physical sensation could be felt in the airless place between worlds, so she could never tell how close she was to suffocating. Having given up the ability to pattern-shift – to heal her body with magic – in order to become a Maker again, she could not survive there any longer than she could hold her breath.
A muffled sound of shouting drew her attention down to the streets. Nearby, smoke and flames were billowing from the half-collapsed roof of a large building. Where streets were visible she could see people carrying buckets of water up the hill in a seemingly futile effort to quench the fire. Bright orange lights caught her attention, and she glimpsed a group of twenty or more people carrying torches striding past an alley entrance, their manner full of satisfaction and threat. It sent a chill down her spine as she stretched forth her senses to look for the source.