Pyramid Song

Ambrose's spell takes the two men to one of their father's favorite places in Uxmal: the very top of the Magician's Pyramid. From there, they have an excellent view of the temple compound dedicated to Smoking Mirror. It's a beautiful courtyard, much as Brennan remembers it, except for the battle currently taking place in it.

Smoke rises from small fires throughout the complex. Warriors meet, thrusting, parrying, and falling to each other's obsidian weapons. The cries of frightened women can be heard among the screams of the dying.

Ambrose curses, draws his blade, and begins running down the steps of the pyramid. His sword glows with an unnatural purple hue in the light of the crack'd full moon.

Brennan almost sighs, and draws one blade as well with his right hand, but instead of charging down the stairs immediately after his brother, he steps over close to the edge of the tall, narrow structure.

Running into a battle, waving a sword, when you aren't sure who is fighting who is usually an extremely bad idea. So, by the light of the moon and the lightning bolt that sizzles down uncomfortably close to where he's standing, Brennan takes a moment to survey the scene, looking to see who is battling who, how they are marked, if either side seems to have a commander... but most importantly, which side Ambrose seems to be aiding.

And to make sure that no one brought along a lurking cthonic horror to add to the mayhem.

It doesn't take a genius to suspect that whatever remains of Smoking Mirror's temple gaurds are going to be on the defense from the forces of some raggletaggle petty godling feeling full of piss and wind in Brand's absence, and that Ambrose will be assisting the defense.

He keeps his one sword drawn, and although it doesn't glow in the nighttime dark, its steel catches the light of moon and lightning in a way that obsidian never will.

After a moment, when he's got the sense of the battle and picked a strategy for ending it, he follows his brother down the stairs.

It does indeed seem that some petty godling has taken advantage of Brand's absence, and Ambrose's, to attack the temple of Smoking Mirror. Brennan can see her directing the attacking forces. Flames fly from her hands occasionally and lick man or structure with a burning caress.

Does he recognize her?

No.

Brand's defenders are led by a temple guard. Brennan doesn't immediately recognize him, although he recognizes the insignia of rank. His mother is nowhere in sight.

Ambrose stops partway down the stairs and draws an obsidian dagger. He tosses it at the goddess, and it vanishes. Brennan sees it reappear within a few feet of her and strike her. By that time Ambrose has already started running down the stairs again. He's using the farstepping trick that Brennan saw Madoc use to make double-quick time down the long stairway.

As Ambrose releases the knife (wouldn't want to spoil his aim) Brennan calls down, "Deal with the Insect, I'll mind the battle!"

He uses an Uxmali term both diminutive and insulting that Brand typically applied to the lesser Uxmali pantheon-- a type of insect far more annoying than dangerous.

Once he's at the foot of the stairs, Ambrose wades into combat on the side of the defenders, calling to the partisans of Smoking Mirror. They are heartened by his sudden appearance, and the tide of the battle, which had been running in favor of the attackers, suddenly becomes much less certain.

Well, Ambrose has sorcery, but Brennan has long legs, natural athleticism, and a tendency toward swashbuckling. Pity there are no chandeliers hanging above the structure.

Brennan follows Ambrose down as fast as the muscle memory of his legs allows him to navigate the staircase, one steel blade drawn to catch the light. When he reaches the bottom, he does what he does best: He takes command of the battle in his location.

Given the hair, the eyes, the steel blade, and his arrival at the same time as Ambrose, there shouldn't be any doubt at all as to Brennan's identity; if anyone balks at his commands, Brennan is as brutal as any god of Uxmal in making his point. If that happens at all, it doubtless only needs to happen once. During the short window that it exists in, Brennan makes good use of the view of battle he'd gotten from above.

No one challenges him. If they don't recognize him, they know he is of the Great God's blood, and he is allied with the Great God's son--his words are Law.

The men of Uxmal are wise.

The idea is to bring order and morale to the temple defenders as quickly as possible, leaving Ambrose free to deal with the Insect. Once the situation is stable enough, Brennan intends to shift from simply shoring up morale to mounting a counteroffensive. He does this as soon as possible, and although a general's position is typically to direct from the rear, Brennan needs to break that rule, this time-- if the Insect is more than Ambrose can handle alone, Brennan needs to be able to move quickly to support.

Consequently, he keeps himself much, much farther forward than his own doctrine would usually advise.

If there's really enough time, Brennan starts, and lets the defenders take up a long, sinuous Uxmali battle chant-- the old-school kind, composed over centuries, that are really just coil after coil of serpentine, outward-spiralling chant. They take centuries to compose because of the monstrous complexity of the beasts.

Brennan is too busy watching his brother and fighting to take up any war chants.

Ambrose is a reasonably good fighter by Brennan's standards--no slouch, but nothing special in the company of their cousins, when those who fight at Lilly's level are included. Brennan thinks that in a straight-up Marquis of Queensbury fight, he'd wipe the floor with his brother.

His brother would never let him have that straight-up fight. Brennan has seen Bleys fight this way from horseback in the battle--clearing his way with sorcerous flame or freezing his opponents where they stood and charging over them. Ambrose does the same in melee, and it's almost frightening to watch.

The way Ambrose integrates his magic and his bladework suggests he's been trained in ways that Brennan might have enjoyed, had Good Dad had the time and inclination to teach him. The fact that he does it so masterfully and brutally, with no hesitation, suggests he's had quite a bit of field experience.

As time and circumstance permit, Brennan watches this display and keeps mental notes. It's likely to be the way Dara and Cleph would fight... not to mention any Sorcerors that the High Marshall might have in his stables.

Of course, Brennan couldn't possibly have been thinking forward to a possibility when he and Ambrose might end up on different sides of a battle.

No, of course not.

Ambrose slices his way across the field to the goddess, leaving dead attackers by the score in his wake, and they meet, obsidian against steel. The knife-blow she suffered earlier has done little to weaken her, and she deflects Ambrose's initial attack. They circle, and Brennan sees them clash several times without coming to a conclusion.

This, too, Brennan observers with care, watching the styles of both.

Although Brennan has the troops well in hand, and they're heartened by his presence and Ambrose's return, it seems unlikely that the defenders will carry the day until the goddess is driven off. She is no mere Insect, that's clear, for she can hold her own against Ambrose.

And Ambrose, for whatever reason, is holding back against her.

Brennan idly considers forcing his will upon the men of Uxmal and forcing them to carry the day, as it were. There are ample benefits for that course of action.

The downside, of course, beyond that it might not work, is that it might also result in Ambrose's death. And that would be unfortunate, since Ambrose can still be useful.

There are benfits to rescuing his baby brother, too.

Not to mention, now that the blades are in his hands, having a target for his frustrations is really somewhat appealing.

So, once the lines are stabilized, Brennan delegates command to the most capable commander there, with instructions to make a push as soon as the right moment comes. He should know when that is.

With that, Brennan sets off across the battlefield to crush this interloping goddess with his brother. If the field between Brennan and Ambrose is crowded with raging battle, he'll take an appropriately sized gaurd to make sure he's not delayed over much. No banner; no sense in alerting everyone.

If the field between them is not thick with battle, he'll go it alone. If possible, he'll come at an angle where Ambrose can see him, but this interloper cannot, the better to avoid getting accidentally sprayed in Sorcery. If not, he'll improvise.

Brennan has to take a guard, and it means he can't get as clear of a strike at the goddess as he likes. It would have been difficult at best, given the clear space around them and the way they circle each other.

[There was that, too, but I hate cluttering a post with too many conditionals.]

The goddess knows he's coming, but so does Ambrose. Ambrose doesn't spray Brennan with Sorcery.

Ambrose, being a man of Uxmal, is wise.

But when [Brennan] falls on that goddess, he strikes like a viper in a stormwind.

Unless it becomes immediately clear why Ambrose is holding back, or Ambrose communicates a good reason or a strong desire, Brennan does not.

Well, it might have something to do with her startling green eyes. As Brennan himself has noticed, they do tend to get some interest.

Brennan tries very hard to keep the "Aw, crap," expression out of his glittering greens.

In the moment when Brennan gets that first, astonished look at the goddess' face, Ambrose says to her in a loud voice that carries in a way that must be sorcerous in nature, "You might withstand me, Chantico, but you cannot withstand us both. Flee today and you will live until the morrow."

While Ambrose is talking and making with the sound effects, Brennan's mental schematic of Family and Uxmali theopolitics fills in a few blanks, and the web of relations becomes notably richer and more complex. It's the sort of viewpoint-expanding experience that Brennan usually enjoys, but not on the field of battle.

Most of it gets pushed away for later use, but this whole situation has suddenly become much more interesting. Downright fascinating, in fact.

Brother Ambrose suddenly has a great deal more to explain than before.

The goddess hisses at Ambrose, and gestures with her flame-wreathed blade, but doesn't strike at either Brennan or Ambrose.

Brennan isn't sure whether Ambrose's bullhorn effect extends to him or not, but he doesn't feel like bellowing this parley across the battlefield at the top of his lungs.

"You've been given a choice," he growls. "Make it."

Self-preservation instincts run strong, especially amongst Redheads, but so help Brennan, if she spits anything at him, much less acid (or does anything else threatening) Brennan will throw her heart into the sacrificial fires himself.

It should go without saying that both blades are already drawn. The shorter one in his left hand twitches, barely, in a clear, "Scram! Beat it!" fashion.

Chantico rises on the balls of her feet, then rocks back. "Feathered Serpent," she says to Ambrose in a loud voice equaling his own, "your parlor tricks have saved the day for you this time. But a day will come when I cut your heart out and feed it to the fires."

It occurs to Brennan that Chantico and Ambrose are not using sorcery at all. They are using their Divine Voices, the way his father would have.

Chantico steps back and calls to her men to withdraw. She does not turn her back on Ambrose and Brennan. Her own retreat is slow, step by step, as her men disengage and depart from the temple of Smoking Mirror.

When she and her men have withdrawn a sufficient distance, Brennan sheathes his blades and makes a few short gestures, directing the commander (or commanders, if the forces involved were large enough) to stand down, regroup, but remain wary.

This appears to be over.

Ambrose remains on guard, but does not impede her. The temple guards of Smoking Mirror do not pursue Chantico and her men.

Which leaves Brennan regarding Ambrose with the carefully flat stare that all the Family men seem to develop after their first hundred years or so. Not hostile, but waiting rather implacably; not asking a question, but letting the subject wonder what he considers most important and what he already knows.

Perhaps Ambrose has bigger things on his mind than Brennan's opinions. He certainly doesn't seem to respond to the flat stare.

Perhaps that's a mistake on his part.

After a few minutes, when a scout reports back that Chantico's men do not appear to be regrouping for another attack, he does give his attention to his brother. "Come," he says, "our mother is waiting." He turns toward one of the temple buildings, walking toward the smooth white stairway that leads into it.

"I'm very sure she is, brother," Brennan says, walking along side him. By Brennan's lights, she's been waiting five hundred years.

"Be advised, before you speak contrary, that I don't intend to stay long, this time, although I may likely return. Like you," he looks around at the battle he just tipped in Ambrose's favor, "I have situations that require my attention, and no way of knowing how far out of hand they've gotten while I was in Court Clarissa."

Ambrose nods. He says, quietly, as they walk up the stairs and out of earshot of the men below but before they come into earshot of the door guards, who have returned to their station, "Be kind to her. She's dying."

It's Brennan's turn to nod. Whatever emotional impact that may have on him is hidden. That may limit the scope of acceptable conversation, though, and Brennan needs to know before that conversation starts.

So, after a moment, he asks softly, "Chantico?"

Ambrose slows his pace slightly, so that he is walking at Brennan's side rather than a step or two ahead. "She doesn't know what she is. She doesn't know the other either. Don't let on. When we're done, we'll have time to talk about it all in privacy."

Brennan nods. Otherwise, proceed to Tayanna at will.

Ambrose leads Brennan into the temple pyramid where their mother awaits.

Brennan has walked this walk dozens of times as a child, but it is the first time he has done it as a man, and the place seems smaller and diminished from the place it was in his memories.

In the temple proper, his father's throne is empty. His mother is seated in her place, beside and below him.

When Brennan and Ambrose enter, she rises with a soft cry and runs to them, throwing her arms around her younger son. All her attention is focused on Ambrose for a moment. Ambrose returns her embrace, but Brennan can see his troubled expression as Tayanna cannot.

When Tayanna releases Ambrose, he holds her at arm's length, examining her for a moment as if to make sure she is well. "Look who I brought to see you, mother," he says, and turns her to face Brennan.

It was probably just as well that Tayanna seemed to have eyes only for Ambrose. That way, she probably missed the slightly drawn down brows and slightly narrowed eyes at her appearance; and the recovery, too, as Brennan made a good quick guess at the situation.

"Tayanna," he said quietly. "You... haven't changed a bit."

There is tension in his stance, if you know him well enough to know what to look for. He can't quite make himself reach out to embrace her, but if she does, he'll return the gesture.

Tayanna takes a moment to regard her elder son, and extends her hands a touch awkwardly to him. "Brennan," she says. "How are you?"

She glances at Ambrose, who nods quietly at her.

The gesture made, Brennan reaches out and takes both of her hands, stepping a little closer to her. The only piece of jewelery he's wearing on his hands is the ring of the Order of the Ruby.

"I've been... well enough. I've travelled, here and there. Grown. Learned. Endured. Taken my place and responsibilities with Brand's family. It's a challenging enough life.

"What has happened here, since I left? How have you fared?"

"I have missed you, my son," Tayanna says, and pulls him close, offering him an embrace equalling the one she gave his brother.

After they embrace (or, if he is reluctant, after he makes it clear he'd rather not)...

It's awkward, all things considered, but he allows it and even returns it. The last time this happened, Brennan was a bit shorter than Tayanna, after all. And he had still been in Brand's shadow, as well as Shadow.

...she says, "It has been a long time. Much has happened. You see that you have a brother."

Ambrose, beside them, swallows, not too audibly.

"Yes," [Brennan] says simply. "I see that I have a brother.

"And it seems we can work well, together."

"And," Tayanna continues, "your father is gone ... but if you were with his family in the Final Battle, you know that already." She squeezes his hands. "Do you know if he succeeded? Did he make the city in the sky whole again?"

"Yes," he says, "I already know." Fortunately, she's done hugging him by then, so that when she mentioned it, she can't feel the muscles in his back stiffen up.

"As for the city... that's not clear, yet."

Tayanna's face falls. "It meant a great deal to him, that and the old man," she says quietly. "I hope he did not die in vain."

She looks at Ambrose for a moment, then her gaze comes back to Brennan. "We wait to see which god we shall worship, now that Smoking Mirror is dead. The Hearth-Dweller would claim his crown, but I will not permit it."

Tayanna's expression hardens. "If it is to be one of the gods who lives in Uxmal now, it will be Feathered Serpent. Unless you want to rule the gods here, my son, as your brother does not."

If Tayanna is between Brennan and Ambrose, so that she has to look at Brennan in order to speak to him, so much the better. Brennan subtly adjusts his posture so that it stays that way.

"The old man was well when last we spoke," Brennan says, "If I'm thinking of the right old man. But Brand kept his plans for the city close to himself. Perhaps he mentioned something to you that he did not chance to reveal to me."

If Tayanna doesn't recognize the unspoken prompt to tell Brennan what she might know on the subject, there's something wrong with her.

Brennan's look takes in Ambrose as well, but he expects Tayanna to be a bit more malleable.

"As to ruling here, I had not thought to sit in Brand's throne. There are other responsibilities." It's not a denial, but it's a chance for Ambrose to either give a facial expression of his opinion without Tayanna seeing it, or to interject if he chooses.

Ambrose is silent, but his expression works a little when the question of Brand's throne comes up.

Ambrose is going to have to be less subtle than that, but since he and Brennan will be speaking about all this shortly, there's no need to push it.

Tayanna says, "I did not understand the details of his plans, my son, but I know he wanted to put right the sky-city. He thought that it would heal the old man." She turns to Ambrose. "You have been reading your father's notes, haven't you, Ambrose? Perhaps you could tell Brennan more of what he seeks to know."

Ambrose nods. "Yes," he says. "We'll take a look at them, won't we, Brennan?"

Brennan doesn't even pretend that he'd drawn a connection between the infamous Tir Project and Dworkin's madness. He even blinks once or twice at the quaint irony of Brand trying to cure someone's madness, but that's just too breathtaking in its enormity to grab onto all at once.

Into the mental satchel of puzzle pieces to be pushed around later.

"A private plan, then," Brennan muses.

Then, looking at Ambrose and focussing on those words, he agrees, "Looking forward to it. Tomorrow morning soon enough?"

"Yes," says Ambrose, and Tayanna interjects, "Tonight we must have a feast, celebrating the return of my sons and the defeat of the Dweller in the Hearth." She claps her hands, and people begin to scurry about, doing her bidding.

Summary mode seems appropriate....

What is left of the day passes quickly. Brennan is shown to a chamber where he can refresh himself after the battle. A change of clothes, not perfectly fitting but close enough, is provided. Servants provide him with a bath, and a maiden comes to scrub his back and provide any other services he might desire.

Oh, the clothes probably fit with just a tug or two.

In the highly unlikely event hat this is not so, that maiden will get a chance to practice her tailoring.

When he comes down to dine, Brennan sees Ambrose conferring with some of the temple's war-leaders. He gathers that is who they are by their dress, that is, because none of them are known to Brennan. Nor, for that matter, are any of those gathered to honor him; the only ones he's ever seen before today are his mother and brother.

The feast is much like those Brennan remembers from his youth. The food is a bit less rich and plentiful, and many of those celebrating are wounded. And there is an absence which dominates as surely as the presence did in his childhood.

Brennan fills the absence with himself, to a comfortable degree. He spends his time generally learning names, understanding roles, and getting a clearer model of the history of the place since his absence. His puzzle-solving mind is working fairly well to fill in the blanks and ask questions that give good payoffs.

Things he is particularly interested in:

How long has he been gone?

His departure in time whereof memory runneth not. Several centuries.

How old is Ambrose?

Young. 20s.

Who is this Chantico chick, and does she have allies?

She is a young goddess, and rebelled against the Smoking Mirror. Since Smoking Mirror vanished, and is believed dead, many petty godlings have flocked to her banner. But none save her dare move openly against Feathered Serpent.

Who have Brand's favored guests tended to be?

In the last few decades, which is mostly what the warriors know, nobody much that Brennan knows, other than Bleys and Fiona. Certainly nobody else that he recognizes from the descriptions given.

Since he's talking to warrior type people, he will attempt to draw them out by asking about battles they may have fought in, and then draw the surrounding details out from there. This will also let him demonstrate that he knows which end of a sword to hold when he comments on the larger engagements.

The warriors are duly impressed.

When the eating and drinking and entertainment are all done, the guests depart for the evening. Brennan need not retire alone if he wishes; many young women of good estate are eager for his company.

Ambrose leaves the banquet alone.

Sorry, girls, Amber's inventory of petty godlings is bursting at the seams right now. It's more trouble than it's worth, trust me.

At some point either during an opportune moment during the banquet, or more likely after the banquet, Brennan will draw Tayanna aside, because he has another question for her. Ideally, this will be when Ambrose is occupied, but if he hovers like a hawk, that's okay.

"A question occurs to me, Tayanna, of enough importance that I should ask before we are all swept up in events once more. At one point, Brand was in the company of a youth or a young man," and he gives a good description of our boy, Ossian.

"Does this sound familiar to you?"

Ambrose is occupied with someone else, but Brennan isn't sure that he can't overhear the discussion.

"No, Brennan, I have not heard of such a youth." Tayanna frowns. "I do not think he came here, for I would have known of him."

And so Brennan, too, leaves the banquet and returns to his chambers alone. When he arrives, he lights the lamps and paces liesurely for a time in contemplation.

Eventually, he sits at a desk and begins to write. The first page is crumpled with a grimace after the first three symbols, when Brennan realizes he's writing Uxmali. The second flows more smoothely.

When he finishes, Brennan takes out his Trumps and sorts through them, once, twice, before setting two side by side. He considers flipping a coin, then, as always, considers the absurdity of a Scion of Amber using a coin as a decider, and forces himself to choose.

Turning the other over, he concentrates on Caine's image.

There is no stirring of response.

Frowning, Brennan flips Caine over and uncovers Fiona, concentrating the image.

[The player expects unavailability, but you never know. The character, of course, has his reasons.]

Fiona is, alas, also unavailable.

Failing to contact either Caine or Fiona, Brennan destroyed the paper he had written on and prepared for bed, the budding ritual of his preparations in Amber altered for his stay-- hopefully a short one-- in Uxmal.

He put his two swords on the rack that had been placed there earlier, realizing that this was probably more steel than most Uxmali were ever likely to see in one place. Still, he was hardly worried that someone was going to come along and swipe the swords of the God's Elder Son. The boots came next, then the vestments that befit his status. "Too many damn feathers," he muttered to himself. "Reason I left Uxmal, number one hundred twenty nine in a series."

Then, in deference to the oppressive heat and humidity, he sponged himself off liberally with the cold water someone else had thoughtfully left him, and threw the window open, hoping for a breeze.

"Climate: Number fourteen."

And so muttering, he lowered himself down on the mattress, thinking, as the darkness closed around him, how nice it was not to have to worry about Grandmother dropping under the eaves of his dreams.

He found himself in the midst of a summer night's storm, the skies clouded, but pouring with rain and lightning. He looked around. Visibility was almost zero, except when the lightning flashed, but off in the distance and below him, the wavering lights of the City were a landmark. His destination was somewhere above him. Far above him.

(Huh. It's been a long time. I should have expected this, all things considered.)

So far, it didn't look as though anyone was following him from the Castle. That much was good news. And he didn't think he'd be looking for him just yet. But if there was a silver lining behind the clouds, it was that at least all the hot summer rain would make him that much harder to track as he guessed his way up the slopes on the basis of old stories from Bleys and Fiona.

(Wait. It was early spring, wasn't it? Of course it was. Freezing rain.)

Somehow, hours later, he found himself under an overhang soaked to the skin in warm water with his hands wearing raw. But the rain was letting up, and the sky was clearing as the sun came up. He took the chance to rest for a few hours and eat something, but not to build a fire. No point making himself visible.

When the sun was high enough to have burned off the lingering steam and fog, he got out from beneath the outcropping and climbed a little higher to a good vantage point. He had only the vaguest idea where he was, but he knew what he was looking for. With any luck at all, it would be visible from here.... ah. That was it.

That had to be it, right?

He assumed that was it, then took a much longer look around, not only upward, but downward, plotting a route to get there that wouldn't get him killed. He'd planned this long enough, he wasn't about to go tumbling down a mountainside to his death, now. It just wouldn't do.

(Hurmph. Thought like Bleys then, too.)

Hours passed. The sun continued its ascent, hovered mercilessly overhead, then finally, finally started its slide eveningward, by which time Brennan had made significant progress. Not without some close moments, but definite progress. He'd make it by nightfall.

Now, if the clouds would stay away.

(But I thought the scent of snow was in the air.)

By dusk, he was there-- the highest crop, with three stairs formed crudely out of stone. Now all that had to happen was the sun needed to go all the way down, the moon needed to come part of the way up, and the clouds needed to go away and come again some other day.

Waiting for all that to happen was the point of maximum danger. It wasn't impossible he'd think ahead and still find Brennan. It wasn't impossible that he'd show up ahead of him, either.

In time, all of those necessary conditions came to pass. The sun went down and the air lost some of its heat. The skies cleared and stars shone. And finally, slowly, the moon maed her lazy way into the sky, and then Brennan saw it. One moment, the sky was full of stars. The next, the moonbeams wove them all into a spectral likeness of the City below, with vast imponderable ghostly ships floating into her harbors and a fragile stair of stone and light leading upward.

He leaned back and looked for long moments, suddenly beginning to realize what he was about to do. A sensible boy would have turned around and gone somewhere else. But somewhere else, behind him, his father was waiting and possibly already raging at his deception and absence. It was too late to be sensible. There was only Tir-na Nog'th.

So he climbed into the night sky, his vision alas constrained forward by the high walls of the stairs on either side.

(...Walls?)

After a time that he couldn't possibly have judged, he came to the halfway point of the stairs, then to the next halfway point, and the third and the fourth. After a sequence of these that he couldn't possibly count, he found himself at the top, tired, even exhausted, but not winded.

He stopped for a moment and turned around to face where he had come from, looking down on the sacrificial fires of the City below, burning bright in the night.

(What?)

No, he was definitely not happy, was he?

As enchanting as the image was, though, he hadn't time to waste. You can never waste time if you have a deadline-- daybreak-- but can't judge the passage of time. So he turned again and faced inward and saw it before him almost immediately.

His heart almost stopped with the majesty of it, and the power of it, calling him and pushing him back like tides washing against his soul. It was perfectly beautiful, shining in the moonlight. From below, it seemed that the place took its light from the moon, but from here he could see that the red moon was only reflecting the light of this, the Pattern.

His heart was racing, racing now, centuries per beat.

This was it. This was his bloodright. This was what Brand told him would kill him if he set foot on it. This was why Brand told him he was born. This was the only way to be free of Brand, truly free.

There was nothing for it but to move forward, approach it. He willed his legs to move, and they moved. He new the start of it instinctively, like he knew the start of one of those old Uxmali serpent hymns, but he couldn't see to the center obscured in some trick of the moonlight.

He took a deep breath for each of the Veils he'd heard Bleys and Fiona speak of, then stepped forward. It sparked red at his footstep.

(!!)

No, no, this was all wrong. It was bluish. It was blue. It was silvery blue, giving its light to the moon! It was milky, pearly blue in the moonlight!

It was red. Like blood. In the moonlight.

This was all wrong. Wrong enough that he almost forgot to take a second step.

(If you stop in your dreams, do you die in your sleep?)

But now there really was nowhere to go but forward. He wasn't where he thought he was, but "behind" was something that might as well not even exist.

So.

A step. A hundred heartbearts.

A step. Two hundred heartbeats.

More steps, more arithmetic lessons as he realized just how terribly wrong things were going, and how he had neatly removed all his options. Multiplication lessons, when he realized that the Pattern bore more than a passing resemblance to an Uxmali hymn that he couldn't quite make out the glyphs of. When he realized the hymn had no center, trigonometry. Then he saw the context of the hymn, the only possible glyph that could fit, and he saw the meaning of all the layered octaves of the chant.

"Sacrifice."

He took a sharp, deep breath and held it as his eyes snapped open. Held it. Counted to thirty. Let it out slowly and made his muscles relax. How long had he been asleep?

Long enough for the cold water to evaporate, replaced by sweat. He rolled his eyes. Long enough for that damned red moon to rise and shine through the window and into his eyes. He swore viciously under his breath.

Sleep was pointless, so he sat up, swung himself off the mattress and sponged himself off, again, in the warmish water that remained.

"Reason number one," he muttered.