PROLOGUE
Time is not kind to the memories of men.
Our lives are but heartbeats in Hers, whispers heard and forgotten, solitary strands upon the endless Tapestry She weaves. At the loom, where all things become, Time shuttles our threads into the patterns of a generation. Within those patterns, most threads cross. Some threads knot and join us as one. Some threads are long. Others end far too soon. Some threads lay vibrant on the pattern. Others take more subtle hues. Sadly, no matter the size, shape, or color, every thread ends as it fades into the whole of the making.
Time does not remember our names. She cares nothing for the past. Reflection is absent as She feeds the loom, crafting the present while She dreams of patterns to come. Each present becomes a past as the next takes its place. Pasts fall from the loom, forgotten by Time, consigned to our mortal memories.
But mortals die. Memories fade. History, the rote remembrance of scholars and students, fades as well. Witness the dusty volumes lining the shelves in our libraries, fodder now only for silverfish, beetles, and mites.
In the end, only legends survive. Only stories passed from parent to child, embellished and wound into myth, outlast the times they immortalize. Legends. Immortal memories. Who doesn’t know a version of Bran Staron, Duron Kerr, our own Aeron, the Narrowing, or the paradox of the Pynd? What child hasn’t lain awake in fear of dynlor and dröga? How many tales speculate what lies beyond the sea and west of the Barrier Mountains?
Legends also tell of the Cenfeal. As our chief historian, I teach their story to every newly gathered of the Order d’Shardolay. How the Cenfeal serve Time as She weaves across a universe of Tapestries and worlds remains beyond mortal comprehension. Still, if you are fortunate enough to ascend through our Order, you will discover a plethora of writings devoted to the early days of Ganelon. Some accounts name the Cenfeal the Six. Some fallacious interpretations call them the Gods.
My students will learn that I prefer the Aédain version of things. In the Aédain language, legends are t’aleesha, and it falls to the Mistress of Arcanum to keep them.
Some five summers past, I traveled west across the Spine, into Colleach, and beyond the Outposts with a journal, pens, and a sack full of ink. A willowy form with braided white hair appeared through the trees as agreed. As she approached, she shaded her eyes against the bright morning sun. Her diminutive size and smooth, pale skin made me guess she was fifteen, maybe twenty, years younger than my fifty-two summers.
Given the importance of her position, I expected her to be older.
With a smile and small curtsy, she welcomed me. “Greetings, █████████████,” she said in the common language of Ganelon, though her words sang with the lilt of the taen paéth. “May Aéda’s Forest shade you in health and happiness.”
I tapped the heel of my staff three times on the ground in the custom of the Order. “At your service, mistress,” I replied.
“Please call me Ernaén.”
With formalities exchanged, Ernaén bade me sit with her against an ancient oak on the edge of the lor’nordalus.
Is this t’aleesha unvarnished? Are the words in her tale precisely those spoken by the Cenfeal? How can one know the conversations of two millennia past? For your benefit, I asked those questions of the mistress. In response, she assured me her telling would be infinitely more interesting than the tedium routinely produced by historians of our Order.
Should I have packed up my pens and retreated across the Spine?
I will let the student decide.
What follows is her t’aleesha.
***
When the Cenfeal came to Ganelon, they found an empty land scorched by desert winds. As in every new world, primitive peoples searched and fought for basic human needs. The weak withered. The strong survived. Time pressed forward. As Her weave blossomed on the loom, the power of creation coursed across and permeated the threads. The Cenfeal used that energy, that flow, to shape the world of Ganelon. Sometimes, a gentle touch of the flow bent a river to nurture the grasslands or sent rain to feed the forests. Other times, a more forceful touch created majestic peaks or stole land from the sea.
In the end, Rai called them together in the northeast, where grassy flatlands separated the mountains from the sea. He raised his hands, causing the earth to groan as he used the flow to coax a finger of rock up from the plains. The others watched his shaping grow until it towered above them, casting a long shadow to the east. Then, with a wave of his hand, the rumbling stopped, and the rock sliced flat at the summit in a final explosion of light.
In a scene played out a thousand times on a thousand different tapestries, the Six joined hands and rose to the top of the newly formed tower. They stepped onto the summit to find a circle of inward-facing chairs.
“What would you call this place, Aéda?” Rai asked the woman to his left.
“In the taen paéth? In the language of the first world we shaped? In the language still spoken by all living creatures I shape? In the taen paéth, I would call this place nar Cenfeal,” she replied. “Rock of the Shapers.”
“Then so it shall be called.”
Rai bade them sit. “The shaping of this world is almost complete,” he said. “Now comes the time to claim and shape her creatures.”
“Shall we choose as always?” Aéda asked.
“As always,” Anuk agreed, pressing his massive shoulders against the back of his chair. He tightened his grip on the hammer resting between his habitually tapping feet. “We will choose by age, eldest to youngest.”
Pynd’s nod sent her snow-blonde hair afloat on a non-existent breeze. “As always—”
Gorath leaped to his feet. “No!” His cry launched birds from the treetops below. “Again, you cheat me. You five choose and leave the dregs to me. Do you conspire against my youth? Do you make so little of my right to stand among you?”
“We do not conspire,” Pynd answered in her whispering voice. “You know it is the way.”
“It does not—”
Rai cut him off with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It is the way, Gorath,” he said, “from the beginning until the light leaves our eyes.”
Gorath’s cheeks burned, but he held his tongue. The others turned to Anuk, who claimed to be the eldest in the millennia defining their lives.
Anuk extended a heavily muscled arm and pointed southwest. “I choose those mountains,” he said, “and the empty lands beyond.”
“Aéda?” Rai asked.
Aéda rose from her chair to gaze theatrically to the west. In their corporeal forms, the others appeared like you and me, but Aéda always came forth petite and thin, her sharp face suggesting a fox more than a woman. Short red hair spiked from her scalp and reached a point at the nape of her neck.
“Many times, I have chosen,” she said, “And so I choose again. I will take the soft moss, trees, and deep shadows of the forests I will name the lor’nordalus.”
“The north forest and the creatures who dwell there?” Rai asked.
“The creatures who dwell there, yes,” she answered, then added, “and any others I can entice to learn the ways of the first world.”
Rai bit back a scolding of her habitual seductions. “Now the choosing falls to my brother and me,” he said instead. “We will take the valleys and hills east of the mountains to the sea. Roth will take the lands south of the great river. I will take the lands to the north.
Roth, who never spoke in any form in any world, nodded his agreement.
“The frozen lands in the farthest north?” Anuk asked.
“I do not claim them,” Rai said. “Perhaps Pynd will take them.”
“You know I will not.” A wry smile crossed her face as she pointed a slender finger at the sparkling waters just visible on the eastern horizon. “As in every world, I covet the seas and the creatures within.”
“So be it.” Rai turned finally to Gorath, who still balled his fists in anger. “To the youngest,” he said, “go the frozen lands in the north and the birds of the air.”
Gorath glared back. “How often have I watched you five divide and claim the things I so richly deserve?” he answered. “This time will not be the same.”
He wound his cloak around him. Then, with a mock bow, he stepped off the ledge.
Aéda saw him appear in the valley and gave chase, but she returned alone, hair slicked to her scalp for the effort.
“He’s gone,” she said.
“No matter,” Rai answered. “We have seen this before. In time, his petulance will wane. Then he will return to our work.”
The others set out to finish the shaping of Ganelon. None heard from Gorath the Youngest save the occasional mischief and disruption caused by the sporadic, distant use of his power. They could not know in his exile, in a place beyond their knowing, Gorath plotted revenge.
Gorath knew his power could not match the others combined, so he drove deeper. West of the nar Cenfeal, in the winding caves we now call the pah grimand, Gorath became a student of Time. He studied the loom and found empty spaces between the threads of Her Tapestry. In those spaces, Gorath tested the forbidden powers of creating. In the pah grimand, he used the coursing power of time’s passing—the flow—to weave between the threads. In each space, he cast a reflection of the thread beside it, creating a mirror world, a Saéthenghal, within the fabric of Ganelon.
Gorath knew overuse of the flow would attract the attention of the others. The strength of the flow in the pah grimand provided enough energy to weave a mirror image of all things inanimate. To bring life to his world, he needed more. As he wove, he joined the tapestries of Ganelon and Saéthenghal with thousands of . . .
***
The mistress paused. “Carduyn, the word for the connections Gorath created does not translate well,” she said. She held up a slender finger. "The carduyn are narrower than my finger, small enough to escape the notice of the others but large enough to draw the flow from Ganelon.”
“Some words require no translation,” I said.
Her smile made her green eyes sparkle. “Just so,” she said. “Just so.”
She closed her hand and shifted against the oak. Comfortable again, she continued.
***
As the flow rushed into Saéthenghal, Gorath brought life to his world. One for one, always in balance, ever conscious of the delicate cloth he worked, Gorath made Saéthenghal whole. Every creature, every place, every moment. There would be no lots to draw. All would be his—an untouchable dominion seamed in the workings of Time.
Centuries passed.
When the last thread of Saéthenghal fell into place, Gorath called the others back to nar Cenfeal.
Atop the tower of rock, Rai drew his sword in rage. “Only Time creates,” he roared as he pointed the tip of Glaédryn at Gorath’s chest. “What have you done?”
Gorath pushed the sword aside with his finger. “What have I done?” he said as he tapped the same finger on his cheek, feigning deep thought. “I have done everything,” he told them. “The almighty creature standing before you is no longer Gorath the Youngest. You will now call me Gorath the Creator, Lord of the Reflection, God of Saéthenghal.”
“God!” Anuk sprang from his chair, hammer poised to strike.
“Forbidden!” Pynd cried as she leaped up with a slender blade in each hand.
Gorath knocked the two back with a surprising wave of power. “You would take the light from my eyes, sister?” He barked a laugh. “And you, Anuk, our doddering ancient? I think not.”
In the silence, Gorath flashed a mocking smile. “Shall we begin again?” he asked, raising a finger. “First, I command you to extol my accomplishments.” He raised a second finger. “Second, invite—no, beg—me to replace Rai. Beg me to lead the Cenfeal in this world and beyond.”
Rai brought the tip of Glaédryn to Gorath’s throat. “This talk of god makes you naught but a swaggering fool,” he said. “We are not makers. How dare you corrupt this Tapestry? How—”
A clap of thunder knocked Glaédryn aside. Gorath laughed, then spread his cloak with a flourish. “I am beyond Time,” he said. He turned his face thoughtfully to the sky. “Perhaps I should push Her aside and take Her place at the loom.”
From the left, a sword swept toward Gorath’s head.
Rai used Glaédryn to deflect Roth’s killing blow. “No, brother,” Rai said evenly. “We will not take the light from his eyes. Such punishment is reserved for Time alone.”
Despite Gorath’s newfound strengths, Rai brought his face close. “But we can ensure the Youngest never creates again. From this day forward, he becomes Gorath the Bound.”
A dozen t’aleesha describe Gorath’s binding. Some say it lasted years. Some say decades. Gorath could have bested them individually but underestimated his ability to face them all. Still, he resisted mightily. The destruction caused by his capture spoiled great swaths of Ganelon. The lands to the west of the Barrier Mountains became arid and stark. Ice flowed from the frozen lands, destroying much of Rai’s far north and encroaching on Aéda’s lor’nordalus. An earthquake ripped Ganelon from the sea to the mountains, leaving black, fetid swamps in her heart.
In the end, the five prevailed. Gorath howled and spat while Anuk held him fast. Aéda tore a black square from Gorath’s cloak and wound it around his face. Rai ran Glaédryn across his own forearm. As the blood welled up, a hawk landed in his outstretched palm. Taking a feather from the bird, Rai dipped the quill in his blood and scribed the first runes of binding into the mask.
Gorath tensed, then stretched up, straining his covered face closer to Rai’s. “You can bind me,” he rasped, “but you cannot take the light from my eyes. If you sever my thread, you might as well cut your own. The weave needs six threads to survive. If you make it five, this Tapestry will surely unravel.”
He brought his face closer still. “The Tapestry of every world might unravel.”
While Gorath spoke, Anuk took a knife from his belt and sliced the palm of his hand. Rai passed him the quill.
Gorath thrashed as Anuk drew his runes. “Know this,” he said as his voice faded against the growing strength of the binding. “I wound her thread tight to mine. If you sever hers, you will surely sever mine.”
Hers?
Anuk passed his blade to Roth. Rai’s brother drew blood and scribed his runes. Aéda did the same. Despite Gorath’s breathless threats, their symbols soon filled the mask. When Pynd finished, Gorath fell silent. She put her ear close to the rune-covered mask. “He is bound but still lives,” she said. “What now?”
***
The mistress loosened her braid and shook out her white hair. “Do you grow weary of the scribing?” she asked.
I shook my head to say I did not. She pressed her fingers thoughtfully to her lips. “The next part is difficult,” she said at last. “██████, do you teach your students of Time as a Tapestry?”
I loved the way she said my name. “Metaphorically,” I replied.
“A single continuous weave?”
I nodded.
“What,” she asked me, “would constrain Time to something so linear? Why not a dozen looms? Why not infinite looms?”
“But the Cenfeal?” My hesitation must have signaled my confusion.
“The Cenfeal are singular, unique in their purpose.”
“But how?” I asked. “How can the Tapestry go on with the warp threads removed?”
She tried to describe how Time knotted six Guardians—Daéfinlyr, she called them—to the warp threads of every Tapestry so the Cenfeal could leave to shape a new world while the old remained stable. I am an educated man, steeped in the histories of Ganelon, but her explanations escaped me. Even now, my pen hovers over the page. I can’t begin to record her description.
The mistress smiled and patted the back of my hand. “Shall we continue?”
“Please.”
***
The five remaining Cenfeal agreed the binding would end Gorath’s ambition. They were less sure about the world he’d created.
“Let’s leave this place,” Anuk said as he walked to the edge of nar Cenfeal and looked over the valley. “His nearness sickens me.”
“We can’t leave him here,” Pynd replied.
“We can,” Anuk said without turning around, “And we will never return to the place.”
“Gorath is bound, but the Tapestry wavers,” Rai said.
Aéda nodded her agreement. “It may be best to return him to Saéthenghal.”
Rai cast a quizzical look.
“He called the world he created Saéthenghal,” Aéda explained. “In the taen paéth, the language of the first world, Saéthenghal means reflection.”
“How?” Anuk asked, impatience rising in his voice. “How do we send him back to this Saéthenghal?”
“Cast your mind forth, Anuk, and you will know,” Aéda answered. “You will feel them. The carduyn are all around us.”
Anuk squeezed his eyes shut. A frown crossed his face. “I feel them,” he said. “What are these carduyn?”
“The carduyn connect Ganelon to Gorath’s mirror world.” Aéda put a finger to her lips. “Gorath used them to draw Ganelon’s flow for Saéthenghal’s making.”
Anuk slapped his hammer into his open palm. “We should have taken the light from his eyes.”
Rai ignored Anuk’s impatience. “I feel them now,” he said. He put his forefinger close to his thumb. “They are tiny, almost imperceptible. And they are hollow. There is genius in the Youngest’s malfeasance. He used the carduyn to draw the flow from Ganelon without us knowing.”
“Not the Youngest,” Anuk snapped. “The Bound. Did we not see—”
Rai cut him off with a wave of his hand. “We will use the carduyn to return the Bound to Saéthenghal.”
Anuk drove his hammer into the ground. In the fading echo, he turned to Rai and made the same gesture with his finger close to his thumb. “And how will we pass through something so small?”
Rai drew a deep breath and placed his hand on Anuk’s shoulder. “We are the Cenfeal, Anuk,” he said. “If these carduyn are a thing of this world, we can shape them.”
“Shape them how?” Pynd asked.
“We will open one of them wide enough to create a passage,” Rai said as he pressed his hand into the air, searching for signs of the carduyn.
“Not here,” Aéda said. “Not atop the nar Cenfeal. If Saéthenghal is a true reflection of Ganelon, will not the mortals on the other side find him here?”
Silent Roth nodded his agreement.
Anuk answered with a shake of his head. “Find him? Up here, atop this towering rock?” he asked skeptically.
“Or course atop this rock, Anuk,” Pynd said. “Are you blind? Nar Cenfeal stands like an immense invitation in the middle of this grassy plain. This rock screams to be climbed.”
“So what if they climb?” Anuk protested. “We made the bindings.”
“Who knows what skills might evolve in this Ganelon?” Rai answered. “Could a mortal find the quill and learn to dissolve our runes? We must place him somewhere where none can find him in either world.”
“I know a place,” Pynd said.
The rest, even Anuk, saw her logic as she described it.
“If the people of Ganelon will not venture to this island, nor will those in Saéthenghal,” Rai agreed with a nod. “Take us there.”
They made a circle around Gorath and linked hands. Rai felt them rise. In his mind’s eye, he saw them swoop down from the summit of nar Cenfeal and fly south across the plains. He watched his people work rows of crops as he passed above. The river came next. As they passed over the tribes of Roth, he turned to the east and saw the beginnings of a city by the sea. Next came more fields and then the ruin caused by Gorath’s capture. The sea rushed into the torn land, spreading marshes and swamps into the lowlands.
The land rose, gentle hills, then flat again as they approached the southern coast. They went out over the water, blue, then almost black with the depth, sparkling crystals below as waves rose to catch the sun.
The island appeared as a dot on the horizon and grew as they drew closer. Jagged rock formations spiked up to menace the shoreline, then gave way to a thick, green jungle.
Rai opened his eyes to a patch of white sand surrounded by rocks. He smiled at Pynd.
“None shall find him here,” she said.
Anuk threw Gorath’s limp body onto his shoulder. They made their way through thick brush and trees twisted and stunted by the relentless winds until they reached a clearing at the island’s center.
As he had atop nar Cenfeal, Rai pressed his hand into the air before him, feeling for signs of the carduyn. Amid the swirl of the flow coursing through Ganelon, he felt a narrow stream moving with purpose. “A carduyn is here,” he said. “I can feel it.”
He followed the stream with his hand until his finger disappeared into the carduyn. He stretched the opening with both hands, and the flow whistled into the entrance. Then he felt something pushing back.
“It will open no further,” he told the others.
Roth and Aeda came to his side, gripping the edges he created. The carduyn squealed like rusty hinges. Pynd joined them. When she found an edge, she pulled with all her strength.
With another teeth-rattling scream, the carduyn ripped open.
Pynd stumbled. Before she could find her balance, the flow pushed her into the emptiness.
Falling prone to avoid being pushed further into the expanding passage, Pynd threw her hands to her ears against the roar of the flow racing past. “Rai!” she cried, halting, uncertain, and for the first time in the millennia that measured her life, afraid.
No answer came as the heavy, almost liquid air swallowed her words and carried them toward Saéthenghal. Pynd felt herself slide back, skidding through the dense warmth of the carduyn floor. She dug for purchase with her elbows and knees but found none. The flow tore at her. She tried to shape it but found nothing familiar in its feral strength. She reached out for Time but could not feel the Weaver. In the end, Pynd abandoned hope, counting the heartbeats pounding in her chest, waiting for the tide to carry her away.
Waiting for the carduyn to take the light from her eyes.
Gradually, the current subsided, and Pynd opened her eyes to a mist carried on a gentle breeze. She blinked and swept the thin white hair off her shoulders.
Four figures approached.
“Is the light gone from our eyes?” Pynd asked when Rai appeared. “Are we dead?”
Rai hesitated, then placed his hands on his chest. “The light is not gone,” he said, “though we waver.”
“Why has all gone quiet?”
“The current of the flow stretches the passage beyond,” Rai told her. “The pressure subsides.”
“What is this place?” Pynd asked, her voice still trembling.
“A place we do not belong,” Anuk groaned from beneath Gorath’s weight.
“We are here for a purpose,” Rai said. “I will lay down a path. We will find Saéthenghal and forever banish the Bound to the world he created.”
The Cenfeal have experienced many things in the tapestries of many worlds. Nothing prepared them for what lay beyond as the flow pressed gently on their backs and hummed in their ears, leading them closer to Saéthenghal.
Anuk carried Gorath forward. The bound one’s cloak swept out before them like a sail. Aéda came next; an arrow knocked against her bow. They followed Rai for what might have been moments. It might have been centuries. For the first time, the five’s conversations were nervous and strained.
Finally, Aeda put words to their fears. “There is no Time in this place,” she said. “The Weaver knows nothing of this carduyn.” Her tone darkened. “This passage isn’t part of Ganelon. Nor does it belong to Gorath’s world of Saéthenghal. We Cenfeal are creatures of Time. And now we stand in a carduyn n’ryth, a timeless connection between the two worlds.”
“It’s why my body rattles,” Pynd said. “It’s why I struggle to breathe. In this space between Tapestries, we have no tether. The warp threads don’t exist.”
“Pynd speaks true,” Aéda said. “Anuk also spoke true. We don’t belong in this place. If we aren’t careful, this carduyn n’ryth will take the light from our eyes.”
“If we stay too—” Rai was about to say “long” when the mist suddenly lifted. He took another step and stumbled into a clearing. As the others came through, he nodded to each in turn. When all five stood firmly in Gorath’s Saéthenghal, Rai swept his arms around the clearing. It looked identical to the one they left behind in Ganelon, save for the colors. Saéthenghal’s flickering sun cast the world into colorless grays.
“Gorath’s creation isn’t as perfect as he claimed,” Rai said. “The flow is weaker here than in Ganelon. See how the sun struggles.”
Pynd shaded her eyes and looked to the sky. “Are you sure that same star warms Ganelon?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” Rai replied. “I wish to know more.”
Anuk lay a hand on Rai’s shoulder. “I know you want to explore, but let’s finish with this.”
Rai nodded acquiescence. “Roth,” he said to his brother. “We need something to rest him on. We will never forgive Gorath's transgressions, but a Cenfeal deserves better than a cairn of dirt and wet leaves.”
The others stepped back as Roth drew a large rectangle in the sand with his sword. He closed his eyes and tipped his chin to his chest. In a few heartbeats, the sand within the lines began to boil. As the steam thickened, Roth pointed the blade toward the ground. A rumble came from below. Fire erupted, shooting sparks into the air. In Ganelon, the melting sand would have glowed orange and yellow, but here in the shadow world of Saéthenghal, it shone white as it stirred beneath Roth’s circling blade.
When the area within the rectangle collapsed, Roth sheathed his sword and brushed embers from his coat. Then he held his empty hand palm up. As he tightened his fingers into a fist, a block of translucent glass the color of rain clouds rose from the earth. Roth lowered his arm and nodded to Anuk when the top of the block reached his waist.
The eldest hefted Gorath off his shoulder and dropped him on the stone. Pynd went to straighten the bound one’s cloak, but Anuk waved her away with a scowl. “Leave him,” he said, “we’ve already done enough.”
The path Rai put down in the carduyn n’ryth eased their return to Ganelon. Still, fear was a new emotion as they pressed silently into the breeze. Though it ran far lighter than the torrent that threatened her earlier, Pynd squeezed Aéda’s hand and again counted heartbeats.
Then, mid-beat, in an explosion of color, she felt the warmth of Ganelon.
Anuk blew out a loud breath. “Never again,” he said.
While Pynd followed Aéda and Roth back to the shore, Rai tried unsuccessfully to close the carduyn n’ryth. He was about to call the others for help, but Roth pulled him away. The look on his brother’s face said he wanted no more of this place. Again, Rai acquiesced, turning his back to the carduyn n’ryth, not knowing this thing undone would forever change the course of Ganelon.
Back on the shore, Pynd stood in the surf. Dark clouds answered her soft words and encircled the island. The wind whipped her hair around her shoulders. The sea rose. Where the tide once lapped lightly to shore, angry waves now crashed into the jagged rocks.
Rai went to stand beside her. She took his hand as lightning sizzled across the sky. An instant later, thunder boomed through the trees.
“Those we shaped will eventually learn to ply the seas,” Pynd called out in the echo.
Rai gave her an approving nod.
“I thought to add torrential rain, but we need the island to stand,” she told him.
“Well chosen,” Rai said as he surveyed the thickening storm. “This should deter the curious.”
***
The mistress leaned against the tree and pulled a clay flask from her pack. “Speaking t’aleesha is thirsty work,” she said before she took a long pull.
When she offered me the flask, I hesitated.
“Refreshing,” she assured me. “Not medicinal. I know your Order forbids strong drink.”
It tasted of crisp apples and finished sour on my tongue. We passed the flask a few times before she shared some delicate cakes. They tasted nutty and sweet, but I couldn’t place the flavor.
She must have sensed my uncertainty. “Acorns,” she said. “The flavor is acorns. You must take care to leach them properly. Otherwise, they can be quite bitter.”
I picked a few crumbs from my shirt. The mistress allowed herself a smile before her face grew serious. “The her Gorath spoke of is Bethesela, of course,” she said. Her eyes settled on something in the distance, and she continued her t’aleesha.
***
In his mirror world, Gorath not only defiled the weave of Time, but he violated the most fundamental prescript of the Cenfeal. In Saéthenghal, Gorath took a wife and made her immortal through their union. The others discovered this digression when they began to feel the imbalance.
Once again, the five came together atop nar Cenfeal.
“We must do something,” Pynd said. “Am I the only one feeling the wrongness of things?”
“Gorath is bound. The Tapestry of Ganelon still wavers on the loom,” Aéda said.
“Has he made this Bethesela one of us?” Pynd asked.
“Not one of us,” Rai said, “but a thread strong enough to disrupt the weave.”
“Then take the light from her eyes,” Anuk said firmly. “As we should have done to Gorath.”
They all spoke at once, agreeing with Anuk on the need but disagreeing on the method. Finally, Rai stood to silence them.
“Gorath warned me her thread wound tight to his,” he said. “While he lives, his thread is still one of our six. No matter the maleficence he created, we dare not threaten Time’s Tapestry. We cannot destroy Bethesela.”
As Anuk muttered his displeasure, Aéda went to the ledge. She ran her hands through the spikes of her short red hair as she stared into the valley. “We must even the balance,” she said at last. “We must find Bethesela’s reflection in Ganelon and do what is needed to make her immortal.”
“Breeding with the creatures we shape is forbidden,” Pynd said. “We must not do it.”
“We can’t,” Anuk repeated in agreement. He planted his hammer firmly between his feet to prove his resolution.
Roth stared at the ground, his answer clear, even in silence.
Aéda turned back to face them. “It’s no secret I would leap at the digression. But I assume this union needs to be with a mortal female?”
While the others fell into arguments juxtaposing the protection of the Tapestry and the rules governing their actions, Rai’s thoughts drifted to the task. “I will search this world for Bethesela’s reflection,” he said.
“And then?” Aéda asked.
“I will even the balance.”
Rai found Nohrjane in the village of Rythop Dell, just north of the Ribbon.
***
The mistress paused to take another sip from the mug. “My t’aleesha winds down,” she said. “Before I finish, you should know I hate the Cenfeal for what they did. You might see things differently. You might see Rai’s actions as justified in protecting the Tapestry. But I ask you to consider Nohrjane. How could it ever be right to saddle—no, trick—an innocent woman into such responsibility?”
I knew other versions of the story.
I started to say, “For the good of all,” but the mistress touched my lips and swept away my protests.
“Hush,” she said. Her green eyes found mine. “I quite like you. Please don’t ruin it.”
I nodded, and the mistress continued.
***
Thirty days after consummating their marriage, Rai returned to the village and found his wife in her simple home. If Saéthenghal contained a reflection of every living creature in Ganelon, it was easy to see why Gorath chose Bethesela. Uncommonly beautiful and brilliant, Nohrjane steeped herself in the knowledge of Ganelon and grew skilled in healing using herbs and plants. Rai gave her a simple silver pipe to celebrate their wedding. Within days, she created music to rival Aéda, whose tunes forever lured men from the plains to her forests.
The concept of immortality did not escape Nohrjane, but she did not embrace it. Rai tried his best to ease the transition. “Gorath is no longer a threat,” he explained while she ground a plant into powder, “but Bethesela is part of his Tapestry. While she lives, she will relentlessly seek her husband’s release.”
“Then you should bind her as well,” Nohrjane said.
“Binding Bethesela is beyond our skill,” Rai explained. “The methods we used on Gorath would kill her.”
“Then you should kill her,” his new wife replied.
“We have spoken of the workings of these mirror worlds, Nohrjane. I know you understand. Every living thing in this world of Ganelon has another exactly like it in Gorath’s shadow world of Saéthenghal. One for one, always in balance. If Bethesela dies to satisfy the balance between the worlds and preserve the weave, Time will also take your life.”
“I understand,” she said with a dismissive hand wave. “You know I do. You also know what to do.”
Rai shook his head sadly. “At first, the others thought it best to kill her. I dismissed the idea because we needed to return to Saéthenghal to find her. The carduyn n’ryth is no place for the Cenfeal. I won’t risk another crossing. My concern is different now. If Gorath escapes after we leave, he will surely take both worlds. The damage to the Tapestry would be incalculable.”
“After you leave?”
His eyes widened, surprised by her question. “We always move on,” he said. “Our work here is done. Time feeds many looms. She begins another Tapestry and beckons us to shape it. We are the warp threads—the Cenfeal—that bind and shape the weft of every pattern.”
She searched his face to understand. “But you took me for your wife.”
“I had no choice,” he said, more abruptly than intended. “The preservation of the Tapestry so demanded.”
In harsh realization, tears filled her eyes. She bowed her head. “Then draw your sword and end me now.”
Rai reached down and put his fingers beneath her chin to raise it. “I will not.” His free hand closed on Glaédryn, the sword belted at his side. “But you are right. Only the weapons of the Cenfeal can take the light from the eyes of an immortal. Surely, Bethesela knows this.
“While Glaédryn stays in this world, Bethesela will remain in Saéthenghal. Her spirit might cross, but she won’t risk her flesh and immortality.”
“Then why—”
“In time,” he said, “Bethesela will discover the only way to free Gorath is to come to Ganelon. Glaédryn will keep her from doing so. While you live, Gorath will remain bound. That, my wife, is what you must do.”
“Live?”
He nodded his head. As she rose, his eyes found hers. “You must live so you can hold Bethesela at bay.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came.
Then all came at once.
“How can I take Glaédryn? And even if I could take it, how could I wield it? I am just taller than the blade,” she said as she lifted her hand to the top of her head. “It is probably heavier than me by half.”
Rai took her hand. “Come, I will show you.”
He led her north of the town to a field where a house-sized rock stood alone in the tall grass.
“Stay here,” Rai said as he strode into the grass and unsheathed the blade.
He spread his feet for balance when he reached the boulder and hefted Glaédryn above his head. He swung down. A flash of light filled the sky. A heartbeat later, the thunderous impact knocked Nohrjane on her back.
When her vision cleared, Rai stood above her.
In his right hand, he held Glaédryn, now broken along the centerline from the tip to a point halfway down the blade. He had the missing piece in his left hand, a gleaming two-foot metal shard from beyond the world of Ganelon.
He handed it to her gently. “This is Glaédryeal. Aéda would name it better and more precisely, but it means something like the child of Glaédryn. You will need to fashion a hilt.”
He drew a feather from inside his robes, blood-stained at the quill. “You must also take this. We used it to scribe the runes of binding on Gorath’s mask. Unlike Glaédryeal, this quill is a thing of your world. To remove it would be to have those runes dissolve. Bethesela will do everything in her power to obtain it. If she destroys this Quill of Binding, the runes will dissolve, and Gorath will be free.”
He brushed back her hair and slid the quill above her ear. It fell in among the curls when he let her hair fall.
She touched it, and though confusion and sadness threatened to bring more tears, she forced a smile.
“It suits you,” he said.
When he turned to leave, she realized the finality of it. “So, I alone am to protect this world?”
He stopped, but he didn’t look back. Nohrjane saw the sag in his shoulders. She heard the crack in his voice. “This part is not something I expect you to understand or even believe,” he said haltingly, “but as Time bends our threads to her next Tapestry, she will knot six mortals to the warp threads of Ganelon. Aéda calls them the Daéfinlyr. To you, they will be the Guardians. If you need them, you will know them.”
She stood motionless and watched as his figure shrank into the distance and finally disappeared.
No one on Ganelon ever saw the Cenfeal again.
And so, with blade and quill, the vigil of Nohrjane the Watcher began.
And so, newly gathered of the Order d’Shardolay, began the Time of Men.
