When Picarr finally appeared on the horizon, the ruins of my former home again brought pangs of melancholy. The time Josef and I had spent up on Braggart's Tower, watching the city live out its day beneath us. Trading a show of magic, little more than tricks for Sourcerers of our power, for sweet rolls or coffee. We didn't need to, of course, the academy provided us with as much food as we wanted, but it felt good to trade our skills for something tangible. The time I showed off to all the apprentice blacksmiths by stoking the fire far hotter than all of them working together on the bellows could have. How was I to know the forge fires needed to be kept at manageable temperatures? The blacksmith chased me out with a hammer raised above his head, all to the whistling approval of his apprentices. A deep melancholy for things lost, better times gone by. People I once knew, now nothing but bones and fading memories, their faces already long forgotten by the world.
What is there in the past you long for really? Easy days? You would be bored with ease. People long dead? You of all people know that death is a cycle which can be interrupted given the correct application of power. Anonymity? Fool others or yourself, Eskara, but I know the truth. You bask in your reputation. The fear and awe of your name give you a greater power than any Source. It's good to rule.
We drew up to the ruins, close enough I could see the ghosts milling about, indistinct blurs floating around, doomed to repeat their final days in isolation until not even the memories of them remained. I could have spent time unravelling all those ghosts, but there were so many of them. An entire city, thousands upon thousands upon thousands. They floated toward me as I came close to the city limits, drawn by the fear Ssserakis held inside.
We dismounted and tied our birds to a nearby tree. Hardt and Tamura would need theirs again soon. We sat by a stream and ate a final meal, dried meats and stale bread, washing it down with fresh water warmed through by the afternoon sun. Silence reigned over us, even Tamura, and we all knew what was to come.
"The world changed the day Lokar and Lursa finally embraced," Tamura said, his voice having fallen into the storyteller's tone he used in taverns. "For years beyond counting, they had moved through the sky, watching Ovaeris. People like to say Lokar chased his mistress, but it was always the other way around. Lursa, larger of the two and red as life's blood, chased while Lokar fled. They were never lovers. Lokar was prey and Lursa predator, locked in an endless chase.
"When Lursa caught her prey, the embrace was both catastrophic and wonderful. From Ovaeris, the people, garn and mur alike, looked up at the sky and saw the surface of both moons cracking as they twisted and crushed into one another. Even Lursa, with her greater bulk, could not come out of such conflict unscathed. The surface of both our moons cracked and pieces were thrown out into the space between our world and the moons. Rocks the size of cities fell to the ground and catastrophe struck. So much was the violence, that the dust flung into the sky blotted out the sun, stars, and moons. A permanent night fell upon Ovaeris."
That sounds preferable to your sun's light.
"But things cannot grow without the sun. Life here cannot exist without the light. Creatures came up from the depths, venturing into a world they seldom tread. Grey monsters with cracked skin that oozed yellow, and teeth sharpened to points. Others, little beasts with mangy fur and no eyes, crawled from cracks in the earth to inflict their savage presence on the world they had so long hidden underneath. The collision of the moons had put into motion a cataclysm that none would survive. Seas boiled and mur died in the thousands. Jungles burned, and for the first time in existence the garn ceased their endless warring to die together."
"There a point to this, old man?" Hardt asked, a grin betraying his feigned annoyance.
Tamura sighed and rolled his eyes. "The tahren have no eyes, yet they are not blind. Why?" He cupped a hand over his ear.
With light this bright, it's a surprise you aren't all blind. There was camaraderie in Ssserakis' mocking. I realised then that my horror wished to join in, to be a part of the group. It had been with me for so long, had spent almost as much time with Hardt and Tamura as I had. As much as any embodiment of fear could, Ssserakis regarded them as friends. Only they had no idea it even existed, let alone counted them as such. Well, maybe they knew but they would never admit it. I wondered then, on the loneliness that Ssserakis felt, trapped inside with only me for company. And I was not always the best of company.
Don't pity me. Camaraderie quickly replaced by indignation. I am a lord of Sevoari. Friends are a concept of Ovaeris. Your world of light and bonds.
"Who are you trying to convince?" Ssserakis had no answer for me, but I found Hardt and Tamura both watching me. "You were telling a story, Tamura."
The old Aspect grinned and slipped back into the story as though the interruption had never happened. "The end of days had come. Garn Astromancers had predicted it. The mur Hydrobinders, even with their combined might, had been powerless to stop it. Ovaeris was dying, and the creatures of the dark had risen to claim its corpse.
"But in the darkest hour of our world came a new light; one that had been freed by the same cataclysm that wrought the end of the world. Only it was not one, but two lights. Two that had ever been at odds with the other, linked in both life and hatred. Two that had been separated and imprisoned for the chaos they might cause if left unchecked. Power came to Ovaeris, the likes of which both garn and mur had never seen before, had never dreamed possible. Their power left the Astromancers and Hydrobinders in awe. And then these now powers worked together to put the world right."
The Rand and Djinn do not work together.
"I thought Sevoari was the first time the two had worked together?" My words were almost an echo of my horror's.
Tamura shook his head in that way he had. His matted grey locks tumbled against each other and he let loose a wide smile, his eyes seemed to look through me and I had the suspicion then that he saw exactly what I harboured inside. "Sevoari was a failure because they worked apart, each trying to out manoeuvre the other to create something new. Ovaeris already existed, in peril. And the only way to save it? Unity of purpose. Working together to a common goal."
Unity of purpose.
"The final augury."
Tamura grinned. "The most important one. The one the Rand and Djinn never learned, refused to learn. In saving Ovaeris they combined their powers. The Djinn scoured the dust from the air and calmed the earth and seas. The Rand took the monsters rampaging across the surface, made bold by the failing light, and changed them into creatures of thought and peace. They saved the world by changing the world. Together."
"But it didn't last. Even with that success they couldn't abide one another."
Tamura looked at me and nodded. "Consider the coin." With a flick of his wrist, a gold coin appeared in Tamura's fingers. An old Terrelan mint, some long dead emperor's name on one side, a depiction of the moons on the other. "One thing, but two sides, always opposed and never able to meet."
"What about the edge?" Hardt asked.
Tamura snorted and sent a sidelong glance at Hardt. "We are the edge."
"I'm still not seeing the point of this story, old man."
Tamura sighed and pulled his gaze from Hardt, instead directing it toward me. "All things have value, but all value is subjective. One woman's pit, is another man's kingdom." He grinned.