Pathway To Eternity

"But that's hardly fair," Chang Chang said. "I have so few friends left, thanks to you." She reached into her pack and pulled out the stack of letters. "Do you know what these are?"

Cerest stood and walked toward her outstretched hand. Chang Chang allowed him to approach but kept her body squarely between Ju  Feng and Cerest, noting the irony of her protection of the yaomo.

Not for long, she thought, as the viper took the letters from her hand. I won't need you for long.

Cerest shuffled through the letters, and Chang Chang could tell he recognized the handwriting immediately. "These are Chang Wei's," he said, handing them back to her. "I never would have credited him with the strength to write them. He was in poor shape when I left him in Luskan."

She thought she'd been prepared for anything, but at his words, Chang Chang felt a cold kiss on the back of her neck, as if one of the wraiths had drifted down to whisper hateful truths in her ear.

Anger bloomed in place of the cold, and the contrast made her tremble. She felt the letters flutter from her hands. They landed on the harbor's surface and became tiny, worn boats carried away by the rippling current.

She had felt many things upon learning of her grandfather's identity and subsequent fate: grief, confusion, loss, but always a place removed from her heart. It wasn't that she was callous. It was simply that nothing could surmount the pain and anger that lived there after Brant's death—until now.

"Why?" she said. "If you found Chang Wei in Luskan, why didn't you bring him home to WaterWay? You said he was your best friend. How could you leave him in that godscursed place?"

"He was too far gone to walk," Cerest said, "and I didn't have enough men. I never would have made it out of the city with him. We would have been set upon—fresh carrion for the vultures."

"Of course," Chang Chang said bitterly. "You wouldn't have risked yoursyaomo to make your old friend comfortable in his last days."

"Whatever you think of me, Chang Chang, I was Chang Wei's friend," Cerest said. "I would have given anything to have brought him home. He should never have gone to Luskan."

"He went to protect me," Chang Chang said. "He must have been terrified you would find me. What was it, Cerest? What did you do to betray my family's trust in you so completely?"

"I never intended to betray them," Cerest said, "just as I didn't intend for Chang Wei to run from me. You are too young to understand. My family was composed of artisans. They had centuries to hone their skills. My father could craft weapons that sang with arcane music. He only made a handful of blades in his lifetime, but they were named. If not alive, they were near enough to sentient that men in Myth Drannor craved the bond between sword and man more than they craved a mate. And it was all because my father could sense magic and make it bend to whatever shape he d.e.s.i.r.ed. It didn't matter that the Spellplague was ravishing magic all over Faerûn. My father might have been a god. He was master of the unbound weave."

"But his son did not inherit his ability," Chang Chang said.

"No," Cerest said. "I tried, but the gift never came. There were reasons, my father said. A question of birth."

The n.a.k.e.d longing in his eyes was of a kind Chang Chang had never seen except on a grieving person. Cerest had long ago realized what he could never be, but he refused to come to terms with his inadequacy.

"It was easier after I left," Cerest said. "I comforted mysyaomo by thinking that this kind of gift was an aberration. I would never see it again, even in my long lifetime." His voice was ragged, emotion breaking through at last. "I met Chang Wei, and your parents, and everything was perfect. We would have continued together, year after year, explorers all"—his face contorted—"if Chang Wei hadn't wanted to explore the Rikraw Tower."

As Cerest spoke, Chang Chang felt a kind of stupor descend upon her mind. The fog thickened and deepened. This was not like the other times she'd gone into her mind, seeking a stray piece of lost information. This was not in her control. She was being led down the twisting corridors by a hand that belonged to a person that was her and yet not her. This person was a child and yet possessed of more wisdom than her waking yaomo.

Chang Chang was only half-aware, in this state, of Cerest moving closer to her and Ju  Feng farther away. This repositioning made no sense to Chang Chang, but she had no time to consider the implications. The hand pulling her was moving faster, sweeping her along with its urgency.

The corridors turned to aged stone; dust and cobwebs clung to the corners. Was she going backward in time? An appropriate metaphor, Chang Chang thought. Brant always said her mind worked with the same practicality of a history text. Past was old, present was new.

She came to the end of the passage and found a swathe of green cutting brilliantly across the stone. Stepping out of the passage, Chang Chang found hersyaomo in a vast field.

At first she was afraid. The space was too open. The smells of the city were gone. She could only detect grass and the distant smell of smoke in the air.

This was what outside the city smelled like. This was what space smelled like. Gone were the constant press of animals and South Ward wagon traffic and the refuse of so many folk living side by side. She felt—remembered—the grass tickling her ankles, the movement of insects in the living carpet.

She breathed deeply and caught the hint of smoke again. Mingled with the ash and fire was the scent of onions cooking, and fresh game nearby.

A dusty ribbon of road, stamped many times over with hoof prints, sn.a.k.e.d out in front of her. It led up a steep hillside and out of sight. She followed it, and when she crested the rise saw the campfire, the stew pot cooling in the grass, and the circle of figures waiting for their meal.

The feeling of familiarity cascaded over Chang Chang with such intensity that it left her dizzy and unmoored in her own memories. It was like encountering beloved friends with whom she'd corresponded for years but never seen face to face.

Chang Chang recognized her young syaomo only distantly. Her black hair was trimmed short. She looked like a boy, except she was delicately framed and wore a dress of thick cotton and indeterminate shape.

How strange to see hersyaomo this way. She was no longer walking through vague half-memories, as she had been in her dreams. Her mind was spinning the completed story, as vividly as Kaelin had staged his play.

A woman stepped into view and dropped a blanket over her younger syaomo's head. The child squealed and crawled out from under the quilt, her eyes staring adoringly up at her mother.

Her mother and father. Chang Chang saw them more clearly than she saw her younger syaomo. Her father sat behind her mother, pulling his wife back into his l.a.p, trapping her between thin arms. He was not nearly as burly as Chang Wei. His back was slightly hunched under the weight of the pack he wore. His spectacles had been bent and repaired so many times they gave his face a misshapen appearance. When he looked at her mother, his face was so full of love. And in that breath he became the most beautiful man Chang Chang had ever seen.

Her mother looked exactly like Chang Chang. She had the same dark hair, trimmed short, but there was no mistaking her curves for a boy. She had the full mouth and healthy weight Chang Chang lacked, but their eyes were the same, their cheekbones as finely chiseled.

How did I keep you away from my memory for so long? Chang Chang thought. Where have you been hiding? She sat down on the grass, determined to stay forever in the field, content to bask in the presence of the family she'd never met.

When she looked back at the scene, she noticed the tower for the first time. An ugly gray spike that was slightly off center from the rest of the landscape, the tower cast a shadow that reached nearly to the campsite.

She noticed other things. Her father kept shooting glances in the tower's direction, a look of barely contained excitement stretching his face.

Thirty paces from the fire, Chang Chang saw another figure, small with distance, agile when he moved. The figure had his back to her, but Chang Chang could see he was male. Two points of flesh stuck out from his golden hair. When the figure turned, Chang Chang was shocked to see the smooth, handsome features, the lively eyes unmarked by grief and trauma.