<u>21</u>


    He could fly now, using magic to lift himself up in the air and then soar aloft, but there were limits. It was a spell, requiring manna and concentration. The sudden, wild joy of pushing away from the prisoning ground had to be balanced against the spell’s rapid, inexorable drain. He had to keep an eye on the nearest safe landing spot in this place of faltering manna. Also, flight left him extremely visible from below, vulnerable to attack from all quarters.


    …But that’s why the gods made shield spells, and there were less hazardous altitudes. Just once (a ridiculous waste of manna) he’d gone high enough to develop a light coat of glistening frost and to run out of air, but holy flame, what a view!


    Up where the stars shone uncloaked and the moon could have placed a hand on his shoulder, Miche saw the world’s full, ragged circle; just a green-brown-blue patch on a vast rocky sphere, encircled by a tightening, staticky noose. That living patch was shrinking away like a droplet of water on battle-hot armor. Marget had asked, and now he knew. There was nothing behind the data-wall but sterilized glass.


    There were no wind-sprites in that near void, but he saw long, drifting creatures made of green and violet light. They came to examine him, forming faces and bodies to sign utter nonsense. Their crackling touch scrambled his thoughts and topped up his manna, making him laugh with no sound at all. It seemed to help Firelord, too, rousing the god from his drained, weary slumber; giving both of them strength, for the news wasn''t good.


    Beyond that contracting light-wall was nothing but bare, scoured rock. Its surface was crazed with the outline of islands, trenches and mountains; forming cracks that still glowed from within. The oceans had boiled completely away. Miche stared, looking for anything… any shape that he recognized. Then the sun rose, sideways. Lord Oberyn’s dawn came, more brilliant and purer than anything else he’d seen in his six months of life.


    The day star’s glow was a physical force, up here. It prickled his skin, made his smoky hair drift away from his face; filled him with fierce, irresistible light. Poison, in his current state, but the former elf would not flee or stop looking. Reached out with both clawed hands to that greatest, last god. Preferring to burn than to live on in shadow.


    He lost consciousness and fell, waking to find himself the tumbling ball in some game between wind sprites and cloud nymphs. Midway down, where it was warmer, and the tops of the clouds held pale, lacy castles and bustling cities. Miche ruined their sport by leaving the game, but his glide path scored a cloud nymph goal rather than one for the sprites (because the nymphs were pretty and kissed away frost-burn).


    After that, Miche dropped down to a level that felt like warm soup. Went back to watching out for attack, with the craggy Lone Mountain directly ahead and below. It looked rumpled and square from this vantage point, with a structure on top like a bright metal button. He could have just spiraled right onto it but wanted time to sort out his faerie pockets and spells. Also, he needed water and something to eat.


    That’s why Miche plunked himself down, tailor-fashion, at the edge of a very beautiful amethyst geode lake. Its water was crystalline pure, swarming with two kinds of fish: sleek, brilliant gold or steaming and bubbling lava-rock. Curious, he used magic to pull two of them out of the lake, each fish contained in a watery globe. Didn’t eat them, just had a good look, then released the creatures back into their home. His reflection broke up and reformed, showing nothing at all that he recognized. Looking closer, Miche saw coarse dark hair, golden eyes, rounded ears, a thin, pallid face and clawed hands. He shook his head, watching the fish dart away through bright water, rather than look anymore at himself. He had hoped…


    Nothing. Nothing, at all. Miche turned away from that sparkling lakeshore. Set his wards, built a small fire, then ate a light meal of ship’s biscuit and day-brew. Watched smoke curl into the sky in that place of cold wind and shrill bird calls. Rested and thought. Firelord left him to bathe in the flames, batting at Miche’s forefinger, when the transformed elf tapped his small god. That was one.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    After a moment, he took a deep breath then lowered the wall between his mind and Erron’s recorded memories.


    “I am sorry,” he said, jumping a bit at the sound of his own voice on that wild, lonely mountain. “I needed time… but I also need you, because I am not what I was.”


    “Which of us is?” responded the elf-lord, shrugging. “This place will just have to make do with ‘good enough’.”


    Erron had taken a quasi-physical shape again, materializing to sit across the small, snapping fire from Miche. And that was two. He had long brown hair, hazel eyes and the faint traces of horrible wounds, Miche saw. Like the world, seen from above, Erron was terribly scarred. They both were.


    “This change was forced from without, through no choice of your own. It does not define who you are, Miche. That path is still yours to walk, in whatever direction you choose,” said the data-ghost, leaning forward. “I will help any way that I can. I owe this monster a terrible, lingering death… but not if the doing brings harm to you or endangers your quest. I can think beyond vengeance, the same way that you can act for good, though you’ve been tainted by shadow.”


    The former elf drew his knees to his chest and encircled them tight with both arms, feeling his boots scrape over rocks and thin soil. Slowly he said,


    “I have been mostly reacting. Going from shrine to shrine, getting hit, striking back. Thinking, I guess, that if I could settle things here, I might be welcomed back there… wherever I came from. But… what if there’s no home to go back to, Erron? What if whatever I did made an end to all that I knew and cared about?”


    Erron flickered, which was (maybe) his version of a very deep breath.


    “Then you pick up the pieces and start over. I am a coward who cursed himself to death rather than struggle on as a husk and a ruin, but I’ve been given another chance, and so have you. Whatever happened is done. It is gone. The next step begins now.”


    Miche thought a bit. Then he nodded and rose.


    “I can live with that,” he decided. Next, glancing up and across at the cloud-wreathed peak of Lone Mountain, “I am rested enough to move on, if the two of you are prepared.”


    Erron unfolded to a standing position. He sank a bit into the ground at first, then adjusted, blinking out and reforming to stand as though braced upon rock. Firelord absorbed their small blaze, meanwhile, growing a bit in the process. Still a child, but closer to tween years than infancy. Armed as well, with a glistening knife and a sling.


    “Honor and courage,” said that slim, shining god. “Not good or evil, which depend very much on circumstance. If you are still mine... if you love me, Valerian, do what is right in my eyes.” His voice made the lake surface ripple, sending loose amethysts plunging down into the water.


    Valerian. One of those other selves was named ‘Val’. The second had no name at all. Both were him, but not quite. Miche answered his god, saying,


    “If that’s who I was, things have changed, My Lord… but I swear myself to your service as I am here and now. I will be sword-arm of Firelord, and I will not fail in courage or strength.”


    The Shining One inclined his head and then streamed back inside of Miche, causing sparks and heat-ripples to rise from the transformed elf. Miche glanced over at Erron, who was dressed now for battle in tight-fighting, circuit-shot armor.


    “It may be unworthy to say so, but I hope that Meg and Glass-cat can outwit the Dark Cloud. I hope to see them again and explain myself, Erron.”


    The elf-lord faded to a cloud of shimmering symbols, then reformed himself, saying,


    “I can scan only so far, but I think that you may get your wish, Lad. The Dark Cloud returns. It is not yet near but is moving at speed.”


    …Which was the best news he’d had in a while. Miche nearly smiled, replying,


    “Right. I expect that the orc will be angry. We will probably come to blows over my actions, but I will be glad to see her. Just… stop us if we lose control and try to kill each other.”


    “Of course,” grumped Erron, as Miche turned away. “And after that, I’ll clap my hands together and restore this world to its former beauty. I’m a ghost… the last recording of General Erron’s data. Strategy, counsel, yes. You want miracles, apply to your private deity.”


    “He’s a war god. Lord of Battles, remember? He’d place a bet and throw fuel on the fire, not halt things,” Miche explained, as they made their way up the Lone Mountain’s bare flank.


    Four candle-marks later, they’d climbed to the peak, sometimes toiling over rock and ice, sometimes soaring a bit through the air. Glimpsed Rainbow Bridge through the clouds and stopped short to stare.