Michael Stackpole - Chartomancy

“It’s nothing.”

“Tell me.”

She looked up into his eyes and saw them brimming with compassion. “I have died, and I cannot remember why or how.”

He nodded slowly. “I have died as well, and I do recall the circumstances. Be comforted that you do not.”

“Yes, my lord.”

He lifted her chin. “I have been remiss. There is a task I’ve meant to perform, but I have neglected it. I beg of you forgiveness and permission to act.”

Nirati frowned, puzzled. “To do what, my lord?”

“To do for you what I have been doing for myself.” He gestured with his left hand, closed it, then opened his fist. A beautiful green butterfly with wings edged in black flapped peacefully there.

Nirati smiled. “Oh, my lord, it’s lovely.”

“And it shall serve you well.” He raised it to his mouth, whispered something she could not hear, then launched it skyward. The insect fluttered about for a moment, then began a lazy, meandering flight toward the north.

“What is it doing?”

“I have been devoting myself to righting the wrong that destroyed the Empire. Now I’ve just set about righting the wrong of your death.” He bent his head and kissed her. With his lips brushing hers, he added, “The person who killed you will soon find himself dead.”

Nirati kissed him back, softly and fleetingly. The idea of violence being done in her name bothered her, but slaying the person who killed her did seem just. “It will be quick?”

“From one perspective, yes.” Nelesquin pulled back and smiled. “From his, probably not.”

She considered for a moment, then nodded. “Thank you, my lord.”

“It is my pleasure.” He stood and pulled her to her feet. “Come, my love, I shall show you the grand cabin we shall share as we sail north. This ship shall take us home and allow me to reclaim the throne that has long been meant to be mine.”

7th day, Planting Season, Year of the Rat

10th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Maicana-netlyan, Caxyan

Had it not been for his facility with languages, Jorim would have spent the rest of his life on the floor of the Witch-King’s home, staring at the silver-white slab. As that thought came to him, he smiled, because what he had learned might guarantee he did. I’ll be here eternally if this does not work.

Cencopitzul helped as he could. While sympathetic to Jorim’s plight, he did not enjoy languages. He politely listened to Jorim’s discoveries-and having to explain his conclusions helped Jorim immeasurably. He would have been angry that he was not getting more help from Cencopitzul, but one discovery provided a reason why that might have been impossible.

Jorim had looked up from the slab and its shifting scripts. “You made a comment about time not always flowing in one direction here.”

The Witch-King had nodded. “I relive days-the boring ones, alas. When something interesting happens, I enjoy it, but then I fall back into a cycle of tedious days. It has occurred to me that when I focus, I am able to counteract the effects of timeshifting, and when I am bored I surrender to it.”

Jorim nodded, then pointed at the slab. “I think this is the source of the timeshifting.”

“What do you mean?”

The Naleni cartographer pointed to a pile of skins on which he had written words in charcoal. “We’ve been watching the sigils change over the face of the slab, and we have assumed that the characters are shifting their shape. I think there is another solution. We’ve identified five different scripts, and there are two others we can’t identify.”

Cencopitzul nodded. “The Viruk variant and the Writhings.”

“Right. Now the same message appears to be written in each language, and covers the slab entirely. While the words appear randomly in time, they always show in the same spot on the slab.”

“Exactly. The same phrase is repeated endlessly and the phrases revealed themselves at different times.”

“I’ve figured something else out.” Jorim stretched. “The slab has eight surface layers: one for each language and a blank one. We see portions of each surface at different times-a Viruk word, then Imperial, then a blank. We see all the layers at the same time, but only little pieces of them.”

The vanyesh had stopped to consider that. “It’s conceivable that could happen, but the power and control it would have required is almost unbelievable. It’s certainly beyond the ability of a man to do it.”

“But not a god, right?”

“I would not presume to define a god’s power.” The Witch-King shrugged. “I think your analysis is sound, however. The magic would also explain the timeshifting problems.”

Jorim had painstakingly written down and checked the messages. They’d managed to identify five scripts: Imperial, Viruk, Soth, Amentzutl, and an Imperial variant that the vanyesh said had been used by the sorcerers for recording magic formulae. Jorim could only translate the Imperial and Amentzutl, and Cencopitzul agreed that the vanyesh message matched.

In Imperial, the phrase consisted of two lines and six words: Open in out/Closed out in. The formulation marked it as an old Imperial puzzle and the format had survived to Jorim’s childhood. In fact, every child over the age of five knew the answer was door.

That realization left Jorim little better off than before. “It could mean the obvious, or have many meanings.”

The Witch-King had sliced a green fruit in half, revealing a large seed and a fragrant orange flesh that dripped with sweet juice. “Assuming for a moment that you are Tetcomchoa and you decided to leave something here for yourself, would you want to make the solution simple, or complex and incredibly idiosyncratic?”

“Both, probably.” Jorim had taken a bite of the fruit, then licked juice from his hand. “We both know this was a riddle because we’ve seen that style of thing in the Nine. Do the Amentzutl have that same riddling tradition?”

“Not in that format. Their riddles are usually six lines or twelve, and they usually have two answers.”

“So, Tetcomchoa leaves this message here, knowing he’s going to found an empire and someday he will return to the world through the person of someone born in the Nine, who will come here and discover he’s left a riddle.” Jorim winced. “That’s assuming an awful lot.”

“What if a god only knows that things will work, but not how or when or even why?”

“You mean just trust that door is the key and not worry about anything else?”

Cencopitzul lifted his chin and sucked juice off his lower lip. “Is that what you meant yourself to think?”

“You’re not much help.”

“Forgive me. I think door is the portal to the solution. It’s simple enough to reach, but unlocking the truth of it is going to be more difficult. That might be something that only Tetcomchoa’s reincarnation can manage.”

Jorim had almost dismissed that comment as glib persiflage, but something in it started resonating. Perhaps only he could work the solution to the problem the slab presented. Not knowing exactly how to define that problem made things more difficult, but Jorim did know that hidden within or beneath the slab lay something he was meant to have. I have to get in there.

This realization took him back to the puzzle again. He analyzed it, then watched the slab, and finally saw something he’d not seen before. He caught it in the Amentzutl script, and in the Soth. Both languages dealt with pictograms that remained very graphic and recognizable. The Imperial script, like the Viruk, also dealt with pictograms, but they had become highly stylized and no longer looked like the words they represented.