After the End: Serenity

Neal handed the young woman in blue the potion she’d bargained for. Her information was more than worth it; while most of the petitions before Revna were completely uninteresting, there was one that justified all the potions he’d given the woman for the past month, even if nothing came of it.

A two-person petition where both people reached the top of the stairs and spent a significant amount of time there talking to Revna? Even if she hadn’t granted the petition, he would have wanted to know more. The fact that she had made it even more vital.

Two hours later, Neal had to conclude that either he didn’t know enough about the incident and the people to follow their threads or there was something protecting them. The fact that it happened in the Memories’ Court near his own Throne made the first possibility unlikely. Instead, he had to conclude that the Memory of Breath had given the two men something to hide themselves from divination.

Whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t as good as one of the potions produced by a Master Brewer, much less a Master Alchemist, but it was good enough. He could see them walk into the room and up the stairs, but it was all blurry. He couldn’t hear anything and even his vision was blurry enough that all he could tell was that the first man to climb was heavily muscled and had light brownies hair while the second man was thinner with red hair. It wasn’t enough to be able to recognize them if he saw them, much less to be able to see what they said.

In fact, that might well be exactly the point of whatever Revna gave them. Neal’s guess was that it traded the strong effect that was essentially a complete block, even against people significantly higher Tier than the maker, for a weaker effect that lasted longer. That was clearly useful enough that he was going to have to talk to some of his Masters to see what they could do. They’d hate the idea of weakening the effect, but if he presented it as looking for the longest time possible, they’d come around.

It would be even better if they could find which apprentice came up with the idea. If they were far enough along in their training, a potion or brew like that could be a good Mastery project. If it was an enchantment, that would be even better; it might escape the rather nasty side effects of the strongest concoctions.

Neal definitely wanted to get whatever apprentice could think of such a thing under the banner of Mastery instead of Breath; right now, he couldn’t even blame the apprentice for taking it to his official Memory. Yes, whoever it was had to be trying for Mastery, but he probably didn’t realize that something with a lesser effect could qualify as a Master-Work.

Neal noted everything down for later; unlike the other Memories, he had no compunctions about admitting that his own memory was poor. It wasn’t really that he couldn’t remember things, it was really more that he simply wouldn’t think about them without a reminder. He’d remember them when they came up, but that was often far later than he wanted. The fact that something as simple as a list that he checked several times a day could fix that problem meant he didn’t really even have to consider it a weakness.

It was nearly time for lunch now; if he headed there quickly, he might be able to get there before Revna did and see if she said anything interesting.

When he got there, it was clear that Neal hadn’t needed to hurry. He was the first to arrive. Well, that wasn’t entirely a bad thing; it meant he could get the first choice of everything, which was a bonus he didn’t often have. All too often, he had to stop by the workshops and deal with something that made him late to any meal. Sometimes it was even cold or overcooked when he arrived.

Neal ate slowly and nodded at the other Memories as they arrived. Eternus was first; he seemed surprised to see Neal already at the table but he simply nodded, got his first serving, and took his usual ruby-encrusted seat. Dinatha was second, less than a minute behind Eternus. She seemed troubled and while she did get her meal, she only picked at it until Revna finally arrived.

The moment the door closed behind Revna, Dinatha’s tableware landed on the table next to her plate with a slight clatter. The memory of Light didn’t wait for the Memory of Breath to get food before she asked a question that Neal was certain he was going to hear in his dreams that night. “Has anyone else seen the shadow on our future?”

“Shadow on our future? Can you tell us a little more?” It was disconcerting to hear, but Eternus almost sounded pleased by Dinatha’s declaration, at least to Neal’s ears. His voice was level, yes, but there was something about the look in his eyes that said that he not only knew something the others didn’t but was amused by it.

Admittedly, Eternus always had that look. He took absolute joy in knowing things he shouldn’t, even before he was the Memory of Blood, and it only became worse once he took up the mantle. Neal was the only Memory who remembered the previous Memory of Blood. He hadn’t felt the need to do nearly as much spying on his fellow Memories when Lavenna held that post. Eternus, however, was no Lavenna. Neal couldn’t prove it, but it was certainly no coincidence that Lavenna’s fall was swiftly followed by the two Memories that could have challenged for the prime position.

Neal was no fighter. He was a crafter, a good one, and even better at managing other crafters than he was at making things. He also knew it, which was probably the only reason he was still alive. He wanted to keep it that way, and that meant staying out of Eternus’s way. At the same time, he needed to know enough to advance his position; power that was no threat was safe under Eternus. Becoming powerless would only make him a target.

He helped out Revna when he could, but it was best that she stayed the weakest; her position was the most dangerous to Eternus if she grew the confidence and strength to try to stand against him.

Dinatha, on the other hand, could stand on her own two feet as far as Neal was concerned. Yes, she was an excellent Seer, but that wasn’t why she was the Memory of Light. That was Eternus’s doing, and she repaid that one favor with a slavish loyalty that disturbed Neal. The fact that she expected the same of her followers didn’t help; Neal knew the value of having people who would stand up to him at times.

Dinatha nodded rapidly at Eternus’s question. She seemed a bit relieved that he took her seriously. “This morning was the peak of the Great Moon’s light above us; I always try to spend that morning taking a long look forward. I want to find problems before they reach us. This time, problems was all I saw. There was a massive dark thunderstorm breaking up the floodplain of Eadsyt. As I drew closer, all I could see was that which was lit by the lightning.”

Dinatha took a deep breath and stared directly at Eternus. Even though she’d waited for Revna to arrive, she didn’t bother to glance at the other woman. “I saw a great winged ship swoop down on the Mound and destroy everything with great beams of fire and light. I saw darkness spread across the world; as it reached something, it died. Human, animal, or plant, it didn’t matter; it simply fell. I saw a fleet of ships like the first one descend into the air and turn the ground to glass. I saw dragons flying through space towards a place that I knew was Eadsyt. Every vision was worse than the last.”

“Hm.” Strangely enough, the first reaction wasn’t from Eternus; it was from Revna. “Did you see something else? A challenge, perhaps, where you died?”

“You’ve seen it too!” Dinath’s words were a tight whisper, clearly shocked.

Neal had to agree. The Memory of Breath was a seer, of course; they all were. She wasn’t a particularly good seer, however. Her Sight tended to be limited to very short-term events that were important to her or the people around her. Neal couldn’t deny that it was useful but it was nowhere near as powerful as Dinatha’s Sight.

Even so, if Revna had Seen such a fight, it meant it was close. Neal did not like that idea. Anything that involved both the Memory of Breath and the Memory of Light would probably involve him, too, and he was extremely unlikely to See anything that would help. Like the Memory of Breath, he had only a limited form of Sight.

His Sight allowed him to see how anything that was made by hand could work or fail, which was far more useful most of the time but was not useful for this. Other than that, he could only See things where he could follow a specific thread into the past. The seer who trained him was puzzled by the pair of abilities, but it made sense to Neal: he was always following a thread through Time, even if that thread was an object. More than that, the past was fixed in a way the future wasn’t, so he could only see the future for things that were present and even then it was limited.

“No,” Revna’s words shattered the fear that had momentarily gripped Neal. “I had an extremely interesting pair of visitors last night. They petitioned me for redress of a wrong, yet what they asked was limited. They claimed that there had been four attacks on a woman, wife of one of the petitioners, without reason. All they asked was that the attacks stop and that we never attack them or theirs again. When I asked what they would do if I did not grant the petition, if we all did not grant the petition, they stated that was the plan: a challenge where the husband would kill those they knew were involved, even if that was all four of us. I believe that he would succeed.”

Neal didn’t know what to say to that. This had to be the two petitioners he’d heard about from Revna’s attendant, but he’d never have guessed that two people who could make it to the top of the Trial of Steps would threaten the Memories. It was nearly inconceivable; defeating the Memory of Light would be hard enough, but defeating Eternus should be nearly impossible.

Even less conceivable was that Revna would support them in their claim unless she truly believed they had the right to ask for what they wanted. She truly believed in the Mimir’s calling, but she would stand against the Memories’ judgment for what she believed in. Neal thought that was foolish, even if he admired it. He hated the fact that he’d given up on that level of principle.

Revna’s brow wrinkled as she frowned. “Oh, there was one other thing they asked. The husband, Serenity, said that he wouldn’t permit any plans to have most of the people in the universe killed for power. He couldn’t say why he thought we were planning that, but I told him I’d add it to the petition.”

Eternus’s fist cracked the solid wooden table where it connected.

Neal could only stare in horror. Eternus wouldn’t have reacted that way unless he did have that sort of plan; what could that possibly mean?