"I will not hide here for eternity, coward!" Elleral howled.
"We do not need to hide here, but we do need to hide. Some of us. At least until it is over."
"What are you saying, brother?" Keratoll, the Learned, would probably be the toughest to convince. It was in his nature to resist movement and change. In was in his nature to resist Aerolis.
"Here in our own realms, there are no rules but those we design," Aerolis said. "We are free of consequence. If the Rand die while we are here, we will be free from the bond that takes us with them."
"But there is no way to kill the Rand while we are here. Our power does not stretch outside these boundaries." There was greed in Vainfold's tone. Desire. Hope for a way to break the rules. He always did love to cheat.
"By proxy, there is," Aerolis said, tightening the noose. "Our sisters have given us the very tools we need. By trying to save themselves, they have created creatures who are sensitive to our power. These Sourcerers…"
"Aberrations!" Geneus' word seared into life between them all.
"Yes," Keratoll agreed in a grinding of rock. "They absorb our dead and use them to steal our power." For the Djinn who prided himself on knowledge, Keratoll knew so little.
"But they can be useful," Aerolis said. It was easier than pointing out where his brothers were wrong. "When they come in contact with one of our pocket realms, it is possible for us to usurp control of their bodies, while remaining safely inside our own worlds. Free from the consequences of Ovaeris' rules, but still able to influence it." He let the possibility sink in for a few moments before continuing. In these moments, Aerolis saw his brothers stepping willingly into the trap he and Mezula had laid. "They act as conduits for our power."
"This will work?" Elleral howled into the void. Glory and hope mixed together to form a torrent of wind that would have torn forests away had there been anything besides nothing surrounding them. "We can destroy our sisters for good and then emerge from our realms to gloat." Of course, Elleral could think of nothing but gloating over those too dead to care.
"It is not enough." Of course, Geneus saw the flaw in the plan. "No conduit can transfer power without loss. There are some rules beyond the world. They are written in the fabric of the greater. Without our full power, we cannot hope to defeat our sisters."
Mezula had seen the argument coming, and Aerolis had provided the answer. "Then, we will turn their other tools against them. The creatures they created, the ones they call terrans and pahht and tahren. We can teach them to make weapons from our prison. Weapons that can kill the Rand. We arm them and send them against their own creators."
Elleral laughed, a booming gust of wind. "I love it. Just as they perverted our creation, so we will do to theirs."
Keratoll let out a grumble of stone. "If these weapons can kill our sisters, they can also kill us."
"Once we have killed the last of the Rand, it will be simple to take those weapons away from such lesser creatures" Aerolis said. "They are no threat to us. And we will rule Ovaeris, free of our sister's influence."
Arnae did not appear convinced. The workings of time ground within his form. Geneus, too, was uncertain. Geneus was always uncertain when the plan was not his. They needed a push. "We must put this plan into action, brothers," Aerolis said. "We lose power with every death. We are strongest together, working in concert. With only six of us remaining, we can no longer reach Sevoari. Our own world is lost to us. How long before we cannot even reach our pocket realms? The longer we wait, the more we assure our own destruction."
All attention turned to Geneus. Regardless of the time or place, he would always be the leader. No one had chosen him as such, he had just assumed the mantle, and none were left to challenge him. However, even the Guiding Light could be led where Aerolis wanted, as long as he closed off enough of the other paths. He and Mezula had planned for everything.
When I came to, I had no idea how much time had passed. It has always been the way when I absorb memories through Arcmancy. At times, no more than a moment has passed, at others, entire days may have been lost to me. I think, perhaps, it is determined by the source of the memories, or perhaps by the way they are drawn out. It is not a study I have ever put much thought into. But Aerolis was gone. I sat in front of the great tower of Do'shan, its rotating light still gazing out over the city, and I was alone save for the horror.
"Did you see those memories as well?" I asked.
Yes. How?
"I don't know." The fact that Aerolis was gone convinced me of one thing, though. The Djinn considered his debt paid. He had promised to teach me how to use Sources to their full potential, and somehow those memories were the key.
They conspired together. Ssserakis sounded unsure, as though the very idea of it was beyond comprehension. I suppose it was, in many ways. For as long as anyone had been alive, the Rand and Djinn had been at war. Only they themselves remembered a time where there was peace. And yet the proof was in Aerolis' own memories. He and Mezula had conspired to be the last of the Rand and Djinn. Yet they still fight. They still try to kill each other. They still hate each other.
"I need to know more." The words were as much for myself as for Ssserakis. It was not just the obvious, as Ssserakis had seen. There were answers hidden within the memories the Djinn had shared with me. I now knew how Aerolis and Mezula had ended up the last of the Rand and Djinn. I knew why and how the surviving Djinn had ended up trapped in their pocket realms. But the answers posed yet more questions. First and foremost on my mind was how those memories could teach me to use Sourcery more effectively? But I also longed to know where and how the Djinn had once been trapped? Why had Aerolis and Mezula conspired to kill the last of their siblings, and why did the peace between them end?
Aerolis will not willingly give you more. Do not offer him any more deals, Eskara. You have already been cheated twice.
"Maybe there's another way. There's one other person here who might know the truth."
He cannot remember his own yesterdays; we cannot trust him to remember the truth.
I stood and scooped the two Sources from the ground. Necromancy and Impomancy. I now held all the magic I was attuned to. Not since the fall of Orran had I had access to so much power. And if I could just unlock the secrets that Aerolis had shared with me, I would know the truth of how to use it as well.
Send me home, Eskara. My shadow rippled with the words in my head. Ssserakis' excitement eclipsed its desire to learn the truth with me. I could feel the tug, trying to pull us both out of my body and back to the Other World.
"No." I resisted, faintly at first, my mind still a whirl.
What?
"I said NO!" I clamped down on the horror, trapping it inside of me. My shadow stopped rippling and settled back to the flat, natural darkness.
You promised me! We made a deal in the darkness. I stop killing your people, and you would send me home.
Truth is ever a tougher thing to swallow than lies. The horror had been with me all this time under false pretence. It was time for Ssserakis to learn the truth. "I don't know how to send you home, Ssserakis. I never did."
I expected the horror to rage inside, the equivalent of destroying a room in a fit of anger. I braced myself for it, ready to contain the anger and violence. What happened was far worse. Silence. Cold silence. Nothing. I looked inside and I felt no presence of the horror. Ssserakis was still there, but it had withdrawn, coiled itself into a tight ball around my heart. I shivered, cold spreading through me despite the flame of Pyromancy I carried inside. My breath misted, and then it didn't, which was even worse. Fear stabbed at me and my heart beat faster, but even then, the cold grew worse.