It was Marissa Coals. She was surrounded by a group of large, coa.r.s.e men. They were generally filthy"caravan drivers by the looks of them, Aren thought"and quite obviously drunk. Normally these rowdies, as they were referred to in Opalis, kept to the taverns outside the walls where society and entertainment were generally more to their liking. But occasionally, a group of rowdies would find their way in through the gates. Usually, there was no trouble, as the townsfolk dealt with them with kindness and respect, and the rowdies most often responded in kind.

But now and then, things could go wrong.

Has someone called for the Legion? Syenna asked a bystander in the crowd.

They have been sent for, the man responded, concern and fear in his eyes. But we dont know how long before they arrive.

Marissa, tears streaming from her eyes, was being pushed back and forth among the six men. One of them was holding her money purse high above her head, taunting her.

Come on, Syenna, Aren said. We need to break this up.

You promised the Legion commander, Syenna growled at him. No trouble!

I promised not to act against the city or its citizens, Aren said, trying his sword. This is for the city.

Aren stepped forward, his sword swinging loosely in front of him. He called out to the men, using the voice that could reach soldiers in the heat of battle. The fun is over, lads. Drop the bag. Walk away.

Most of the rowdies stopped at the sound of his voice and took a step back from the weeping Marissa. The largest of them, however, still held the coin purse and turned slowly to face the approaching Aren.

Drop the bag. Aren continued to approach. Walk away.

The man had broad shoulders, a thick neck, and a sloping forehead. His nose was wide and appeared to have been broken at least twice.

Aren continue to advance, the sword in his hand. In his mind, he knew he was bluffing. As he got close, he was certain that the sword would tell him some deep secret about his opponents childhood, or that he had been unloved, that some trauma in his past had robbed him of his humanity and forced him to be a bully and a thief. Every time Aren had drawn this cursed sword, it had told him something about his enemy that had stayed his hand.

The man looked into Arens eyes.

Aren looked into the mans soul.

All he saw was darkness.

This man is a thief.

This man is lazy.

This man is cruel.

This man will kill.

A vicious smile dawned on Aarons face.

This man had earned the edge of the blade in his hand.

The man saw the change in Arens face. In a flash, the brute turned and plunged headlong into the crowd, bowling a number of them over as he fled from the street between the buildings, Marissas purse still gripped in his hand.

Aren rushed after him. At once, he found himself running in desperate pursuit through the maze of narrow alleys between the closely situated buildings. The man ahead of him was fleeing with desperation, weaving between the homes and shops, trying to shake his pursuit. Frantic, he dropped the purse, but Aren managed to pick it up without missing a step.

The man turned again, his breathing becoming labored. Aren heard the sound and smiled to himself, for he was running his prey to ground and knew it was only a matter of time.

The man ducked into a narrow alleyway between two large buildings.

Aren followed him and was halfway to the end when something appeared that made him slide to a stop.

The end of the alleyway was filled with a strange bluish-purple light. Lightninglike tendrils reached across it from its edges.

Aren could see nothing beyond it. He took a step back.

The wall of roiling blue light suddenly rushed in his direction. Aren turned and started to run back down the alleyway, but the wall of light came toward him with a speed he could not have imagined. In a moment it swept over him.

And then it vanished, leaving the alleyway completely empty.

CHAPTER.

19.

Dispossessed Aren was quite suddenly not where he had been.

He was still running, but his surroundings had changed in an instant. The dark alleyway had been replaced by a brilliantly lit hall of white marble, polished floors, and alabaster walls rising to an arched ceiling overhead. The wall of blue light that had overtaken him in the alley was now in front of him. It had washed over Aren and was rushing away from him down the hallway. Confused and disoriented, Aren tried to stop, but his boots slipped on the gleaming surface underfoot. He tried to recover, but it was too late. He lost his footing, stumbled, and then came crashing to a rolling and sliding stop in the middle of the hall.

Painfully, he picked himself up and, per his training, looked around him. The wall of blue light had come to a stop at the end of the hall about thirty feet from where he stood. Aren watched it warily for a few moments. With some trepidation, he turned around, suspicious that it might chase him once more, but it remained where it had come to rest.

Aren slipped his sword back into his scabbard. The hall down which he had just run had two enormous doors set on either side. Beyond those, the hall opened up into a rotunda. At three equally s.p.a.ced points around the circular room, statues stood against the walls, each one bowing slightly inward as though the overhead dome were supported on their backs and its apex were too low for them to stand. One of the statues was of muscular man, his hand raised in a defiant fist. The second was of a different man, this one with his hand raised palm open as though swearing an oath. The third was a remarkable woman, her hand placed over her heart. In the center of the room, on a raised pedestal, stood eight smaller statues that appeared to be facing outward in a ring, but each of these was covered in black cloth.

Aren stepped up to one of the draped figures. He reached a tentative hand upward toward the shroud.

Aren Bennis.

Aren had heard the voice. It was a deep tone, so quiet that he might have questioned hearing it if it had not penetrated his bones. It seemed to come from every direction at once.

Welcome, Son of Ruin.

The voice was somewhat louder now and undeniable. Aren stepped cautiously into the rotunda. Beyond the great central statue, he could see a curving hallway between two of the eight statues at the edges of the circular floor. To his left was another hallway, this one wider than the others, with great columns on either side. It was also considerably shorter, ending in polished bronze doors as wide as the hall was long and reaching to the full forty-foot height of the ceiling.

Welcome, Son of Hope.

The voice was coming from beyond the bronze doors. Aren stepped carefully down the square hall. The handles were set into the door nearly fifteen feet above his head. Aren considered them for a moment as he stood at the base of the double doors.

Let us hear you.

t.i.tans, Aren thought. He had searched around the base of the citadel and, as Trevan had told him, there were no openings in the wall and no apparent way to gain their audience. It was obvious to him that one did not speak to the t.i.tans until they wished to be spoken to. And now that time had come.

Aren pressed a hand against each of the doors and pushed.

The doors swung inward in silence and with surprising ease.

Three t.i.tans sat upon their thrones opposite the door at the end of the great hall. They were colossal beings, dwarfing the captain as he entered, and looking down at him as he stepped into the room before them. Two of them were male in form, muscular and powerful, while the third was a female of exquisite beauty and perfection. Each of them was dressed in beautiful flowing robes, but it was the first of them who held in his hand a towering ornate staff. The filigree ornate carvings along the shaft appeared to move and change on their own. The head of the staff branched into three p.r.o.ngs between which eight spheres of different-colored light revolved around one another in constant motion. The base of the staff, pressed against the floor, pulsed with a bluish-purple light similar to that which encompa.s.sed Aren and brought him here.

Aren stood before them in silence. They had brought him here. Given the circ.u.mstances, he thought it wise to let them ask him questions before he ventured any of his own.

Captain Aren Bennis. It was the voice of the first of the t.i.tans, the male to his left. You have brought an artifact of the past.

Of despair continued the second male t.i.tan.

Of promise, finished the female t.i.tan.

Why have you brought this destiny to Opalis? asked the first t.i.tan, the staff turning in his right hand.

Aren spoke to the faces looking down on him. His voice sounded small and insignificant in the expanse of the room. To learn of the sword, its origins and powers.

That is why the loremaster of Etceter has brought you here, said the female t.i.tan. That is why the shieldmaiden Syenna brought you here. It does not answer our question.

Aren licked his dry lips, considering for a moment. I did not choose to come here; I was forced to come here against my will.

You are a skilled warrior, said the second t.i.tan. You are both cunning and resourceful. Had you wished it, you could have found some means of escape.

Even now, said the female t.i.tan, during the time you have been in Opalis, you have been given your freedom during the day, and yet you remain in the city. You have not come to Opalis for the loremasters reasons, nor for the shieldmaidens reasons. Nor have you truly come against your will. Tell us, Aren Bennis; why have you come?

Aren furrowed his brow. Because I needed to know.

What did you need to know? asked the first t.i.tan.

Why this blade chose someone like me, Aren said in a voice barely above a whisper, as though hed rather not have anyone in the room, including himself, hear the words.

Answers come only to those who are capable of comprehending them, said the second t.i.tan. Asking the question is not the same as understanding its underlying truth.

However, our need is desperate and requires your immediate enlightenment, said the third t.i.tan.

The first t.i.tan nodded in agreement as he moved the towering staff into his ma.s.sive left hand. Then we are in agreement. Aren Bennis, if you would be so good as to show us this sword that troubles you so, I believe we can help you down the path of enlightenment.

Aren drew in a breath and turned to look down on the scabbard at his side. He reached across his body to take the hilt of the ancient sword in his right hand. The blade rang slightly as it slipped from the scabbard.

Aren lifted his face to look back at the t.i.tans.

His face immediately fell to the picture of chagrined disbelief.

Oh, you have got to be joking! he blurted out.

The outrageously huge hall around them now appeared to be of the more common size. The thrones remained before him, as did the t.i.tans, but all three of them were now only slightly taller than Aren himself. For a moment, Aren could not decide whether they had shrunk or he had grown to their size.

The first two t.i.tans still looked much as they had a few moments before, but what had previously appeared as G.o.dlike physiques were now more naturally strong rather than exaggerated. The third t.i.tans beauty was still evident, but no longer of the unworldly quality that had impressed Aren a few moments before.

The staff of the first t.i.tan had also changed somewhat, in its appearance as much as its size. What had looked like ornate filigree down the shaft, Aren could now see were intricate mechanisms that shifted and turned in constant motion. The base of the staff still contained the orb of bluish-purple light, but Aren could now see streaks of purple lightning dancing across its surface, much like he had seen on the citadel dome as they approached the city.

Aren had the look of someone who had just discovered he had been cheated at cards. Youre the t.i.tans?

The first of them stepped forward, the mechanical staff still in his left hand. We are what remains of the t.i.tans. My name is Grannus. This is my brother, Boreus, and our sister, Sequana.

But youre just people, Aren said, shaking his head. Humans, just like anybody else.

That is not true, Boreus said with a severe look. Our origins are not found among the circles of this world. Our ancestors walked different sands on different sh.o.r.es.

You mean, across the oceans. Aren blinked, trying to comprehend.

Much farther still, Sequana gently corrected him. We lived in a place far beyond your shattered moon, beyond your stars and sky.

The civilization of our world was great and produced many marvelous and powerful devices, Grannus said, but in the end, even those marvels could not save us from the Fall.

The Fall? Aren shook his head, trying to understand. I thought you said your lands were far away. The Fall was here.

The Fall was not in your world alone; it came to many places and many worlds in some far worse than others, said Sequana, her face troubled.

Sequana walked over to the polished bronze doors"now appearing to be a more reasonable size"and pulled them open. A much shorter hall opened into the rotunda, which, to Arens surprise, had remained the same size as he remembered it.

Nowhere was it worse than in our world beyond your sky, Sequana continued as they stepped into the rotunda. A darkness fell with no hope of dawn; a noise with no hope of music. The Avatars were known among us, too. Our people had come to know of their means of walking between the worlds and had managed even to duplicate the technique with our inventions. In the end, perhaps, we brought the Fall upon ourselves.

That was our parents guilt talking, Boreus argued. They were farmers whose knowledge was limited, far removed from those who might truly know.

Aren saw now that the central statue was that of a woman. She was reaching into the dome above. The captain looked up and saw that the dome was filled with a fresco of stars around a central circle whose edges depicted a portal to a pastoral scene of farmland and peace. The other eight statues were reaching upward as well.

Our plantation was remote, far from our cities. We had many devices for our convenience and protection, but none of us fully understood the principles behind their functions. We could operate them, even repair them on some level, but we never understood them. As chaos descended upon our world and the fabric of its being was unraveling, our parents attempted to use these devices to save our family.

What happened? Aren asked.

Something went wrong, Sequana said.

Perhaps it had something to do with the world coming apart at an elemental level, or maybe the devices simply were broken, Boreus said. We cant know. What we do know is that we escaped through a gateway from our world into this one. We had hoped that the Fall was like a storm that we could wait out here and then return to our home. Our ancestors never expected that the calamity in our own world would be mirrored in this one. We arrived only to find the gate back to our world was shut. We do not know if our world survived.

Thats what we have been doing here, Grannus said, cradling the staff now in his crossed arms. The devices of our forebearers are failing. We do not understand entirely how they work, and the technology of this world is unlike our own. For centuries we have been gathering all the knowledge of your world that we can so we might adapt its devices to our own, struggling ever since to find the means to return home.

Centuries? Aren turned a skeptical look toward Grannus.

Travel between the worlds changes time, Grannus said. The Avatars spoke of it as well, how time in this world pa.s.sed differently than time in our own or in theirs.

Avatars! Aren said at last. Back again to these Avatars! This is all a very charming"if entirely bizarre and unbelievable"tale, but what has any of this to do with me?

You hold the sword of an Avatar, Sequana stated as though the thought alone were sufficient.