Chapter LX
LX
I SPEND THE NEXT HOUR LARGELY LISTENING TO THE MIraculous sound of my father’s voice.
Laughing at his familiar straight-faced humour and shedding tears at shared memories.
Revelling in his sheer closeness, and through it all, through the haze of joy, doing my best to comprehend what he is telling me.
In the end it is simple in explanation, if not in believability.
There was a war against something our long-past ancestors created, though the records found were unclear on its exact nature.
The winning of that war not only necessitated both the Aurora Columnae and the Cataclysms, but also split the world into three separate ones: called Res, Obiteum, and Luceum.
And that by activating the ancient device beyond the Labyrinth, I, too, have been split. Copied.
Of everything my father has told me tonight, this is by far the hardest to countenance, even as it fits the pieces I already know.
I make him repeat it. Argue it, despite recognising the name “Luceum” from those branded moments leaving the Labyrinth when I lost my arm.
But eventually it sinks in. The people here have never heard of Caten because Caten does not exist here.
Another version of me is still there, in Res.
Still with Emissa and Callidus and Eidhin, or maybe left for Jatiere, if I—he—somehow won the Iudicium.
My father, I think, knows more than he says about that.
But he does not speak of it, and I do not press.
There is too much else I want to know. And, perhaps, some I would prefer not to.
Eventually, my father’s knowledge runs dry. Anyone else, and I do not think I would credit a word of it.
Which brings me to my next question.
“How are you here?” The more he’s explained, the more I’ve wondered at his presence. “Did you get away from Military and then follow me through the Labyrinth? Were you … copied, too?”
“No.” He grimaces. “When Dimidius Quiscil woke me, I told him what I knew. The Cataclysms. The weapon. Solivagus. Everything.” Shame in the admission, even as he adds, “They have a way of controlling the dead. Ensuring that you answer truthfully. It’s impossible to resist. So they were satisfied, and returned me to the dark.
And then one day, a stranger woke me. A man calling himself Ostius.
He’s tall. Thin. Has a scar along here.” He traces a line down his face.
I nod slowly. “I’ve seen him. Last year, back in Caten. He’s working with the Anguis.”
“He is using the Anguis, I think,” my father corrects me quietly. “He wanted to know what I had told Military, and then he wanted to know about you. Your personality, your weaknesses. Ways you might be manipulated. It was the first time I realised you must be alive.” He smiles at that.
I hesitate. “What did you tell him?”
“About your weaknesses? Where did I start. Your temper, obviously. Mule-like stubbornness. Rashness. Inability to believe you could be wrong about something. Hmm. What else? The fact you’re terrible when it comes to anything even approaching artistic.
Oh, and the way you used to go red and stuttery every time a pretty girl tried to talk to you—remember that? And you were very slow to pick up—”
“Gods. Alright.” My amused glower relents to a grin in the face of his. “Maybe I’ve changed?”
His smile wavers and he tousles my hair.
Nods. “So much, Diago. So much, and not at all.” He sighs.
“Ostius left me there for … I don’t know how long after that.
But when he woke me again, it was to ask for my help.
You’d made it through the Labyrinth and he would free me, so long as I agreed to keep watch over you here. ”
I frown. Shake my head. “Why you? And how did you get here?”
“How? He has the ability to jump between Res and Luceum. Not Obiteum. I don’t know how he does it.
” My father chews his lip. A habit of his, when he is thinking.
“As for the why … I asked the same thing, and he said it was because he needed someone he could trust would want to help you, not just follow the letter of his instructions.”
“You think he was lying?” I can hear the doubt in my father’s voice.
“I think he had further reasons. The best I have come up with is that he feared I might have been used against you in Res. But I also think your being here was a surprise he hadn’t figured out how to work into his plans, yet, and he was scrambling.
The druid you told me about—Cian? I was meant to smooth things over with him when he brought you to me.
He was expecting Ostius to meet him on Solivagus when someone eventually came through the Gate, but by the time Ostius found out about you, you were apparently already on the boat heading back to Fiachra.
” He shakes his head. “In the end, though, Ostius’s real motives didn’t matter.
Not to me. The reason he gave me was enough.
I only asked that he let me say goodbye to the version of you in Res, and then we came here. ”
I’m silent, then, “You spoke to me? The other me?”
“For far shorter a time than I wanted. And he was … recovering. I’m not even sure he will remember it.” His smile is rueful. “It was selfish. I just … it felt wrong, to just leave him. To leave you without saying goodbye.”
“But you chose not to come to me, here?” The faintest hint of hurt to the other question that’s been plaguing me.
I still sense that strange pulse from him.
“I know you were at Loch Traenala, warned me of that raiding party. And before that, at Didean, when Lir came. You could easily have met with me then. Why tonight?”
“Those were because of what was coming—things I could draw your attention to, but not prevent. Now, it’s because of where you are going.”
“Fornax?”
“Caer áras.” He pauses. Takes a deep breath. “You cannot go, Diago.”
I murmur a half laugh. Sure he must be joking, but the hope fades as I see his expression. That, too, is familiar. “Why?”
“Why do you think?” He gives me a sad smile.
“I have just told you that you may be the key to preventing a world from dying. I’ve told you that I have been brought back from the dead in order to protect you.
You are marching toward not just a war—a war, Diago—but the very men who are hunting you!
And from all I have seen along the path here, they are going to win.
If you do not fall in battle then they will capture you and they will sacrifice you to their gods, and either way, an entire world will be lost.”
I stare at him. “I have already given my word that I will be there. They are my friends. I have to go.”
“No, you don’t. If they are your friends, Diago, and they knew what we know—they would surely tell you the same.” Gentle. I feel the weight of his expectation all the same.
“It’s not their decision.”
“You have a greater responsibility.” An edge to his voice. Perhaps not expecting resistance, here. “A prince should—”
“I am no longer a prince.”
The silence lingers, after that. The anguish of the statement in his expression as much as burning in my chest. I said it with anger but it is loss that leadens it, grinds the conversation to a halt from which neither of us seem to know how to recover.
Eventually, I stir. “I ran, five years ago. Did you know that? Cari died and I made it out and I ran, while you and Mother and Ysa were still prisoners. I made a choice and I survived the ones I loved.” I look up.
Ignore the welling in my eyes and put all of my determination into my words. “Never again.”
My father’s eyes mirror my sadness and he smiles through the pain at me. “That was the choice the ones you loved wanted you to make. Are so, so glad you made. Believe me.” He crouches in front of me and wraps me fiercely. “I would not ask this of you if there was anyone else.”
“But there could be. It doesn’t have to be me. It’s just … poor luck, that I’m in this situation!”
“Poor luck?” He holds me back to take me in once again.
“No. Poor luck is being the Octavus who sees the truth of the Hierarchy. It is being the farmer, or soldier, or merchant who comprehends the absurd power of those above them, but has no way of convincing them to act. It is being those of us who know these great and terrible dangers are coming and cannot do anything about them. Poor luck? Poor luck is being powerless, Diago. Poor luck is being without choice. So many of us are aware of these currents, but are able only to drown in them. Millions upon millions of people have poor luck. But you are not one of them.”
He finishes with stern emphasis, and I say nothing. Gut-punched by his firm, calm belief, and perhaps more tellingly, the truth I know is behind it.
My father retreats to his seat on the other side of the fire, and sighs.
“Do you remember about … I don’t know. Six months before the invasion, maybe,” he says suddenly. “When you and Ysa were learning about the political structures of Cymr?”
“Um. Vaguely?” I’m thrown by the turn in conversation.
“She was waiting for me one afternoon. I finished in the Great Hall, and we went into the dining room, and as soon as we were alone she burst into tears. You just picked up things so much more easily than her. She would struggle and you would barely blink.”
My brow crinkles. “I … didn’t know,” I say softly.