“So,” Karanos says, standing atop the half-rotten roof of a library. He leans his shoulder onto the maw of a menacing stone gargoyle. The entire city is lit by a miniature sun imitating the warm light of dawn.

The surroundings are far more beautiful in a pastel palette. I repose on the opposite side of the roof, peering out in the direction from which we came.

What does Maria think of me?

“This business has been a tangled mess,” I murmur. “I’m exhausted.”

Karanos is quiet for a moment. “I confess I’ve found it a mix of exciting and frustrating. You were far more unpredictable than I anticipated.”

I chuckle roughly. “That was all Maria and Crystal.”

I sense Karanos’ mouth curving into a smile. “Good influences, then.”

Weakness comes over me, nearly causing me to kneel. I hold my head in my hands. “How dare you?”

“Dare I what?”

“Maria just died!” I croak. “Crystal nearly did. You smile and call them good influences, like you’re some benevolent old man?”

That wipes the grin off his face. His brow furrows and he crosses his leg, shifting his weight.

“You try to murder my friends, then the next minute smile to yourself and call them good influences,” I continue. “It’s psychotic, hypocritical.”

“I don’t often need to comfort or reassure others,” Karanos confesses. “I’m not as callous as you claim, at least I don’t think I am. I’m not that far gone.” He takes a deep breath. “It’s easy to forget how different our perspectives are.”

“Enlighten me–help me understand where you’re coming from,” I mutter. It’s an excuse to let him do some talking.

Karanos remains silent for a few seconds, lost in thought. “What does it mean to be alive, Dunai? Don’t answer that now.”

Karanos conjures a light projection before us. It’s a large family with a more youthful version of Karanos at the center. Beside him is a young woman with pale green eyes and copper-colored hair and freckles, her arms wrapped tightly around his. Behind are a grizzled old couple that must be his parents. At Karanos’ left side are four siblings, two men and three women. Karanos looks to be the youngest.

“I can’t remember what my family looks like. I don’t recall the voice of my first wife. The world I came from was primitive enough that there were never any recordings–all that exists of them remains in my mind.” Karanos turns to me. “This is the best I can do, but it’s imperfect, an estimation.” He waves his hand and the illusion winks out.

“There are things we know in our bones we cannot forget, things that are foundational to who we are. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that us individuals are subject to the same forces that act on worlds. Time erodes us, just as it destroys and reforms landmasses and even planets.

“We who are eternal are caught in a pitiable state of becoming ash, dust. Like a planet, we start off so bright, burning with energy and promise, flourishing. Everything as it is is beautiful and good and we cannot imagine the change of thousands or millions of years.”

Karanos always speaks so grandly, but what’s his point?

“Tell me, what does your world look like in a thousand years?”

I can’t answer him.

“A hundred, then. That’s within a normal human lifespan, isn’t it? What does your world look like in a hundred years?”

There’s no point in speculating; he’s asking for the sake of an argument. “I don’t know.”

“What do you look like in ten years?”

I freeze at the question. “You probably look the same,” I argue.

He shakes his head. “Not me, you.”

“If you get your way, and I take Achemiss down to our world, probably dead.”

Karanos rolls his eyes. “Assuming that you live?”

“I’d hope I wouldn’t be much different than I am now. Wiser, perhaps. More jaded. Ideally unburdened from my present responsibilities. I can’t imagine even the next hundred years holds as much tumult as the past six months.”

“Think on the macro scale–thousands of years from now. Time flows like water. People come and go and you don’t mourn their passing–you don’t even remember them. Can we even call ourselves alive, preserved as we are in this chaotic dream called Eternity?”

“Does it matter?”

Karanos smiles. “It’s the most important question in the universe. Are you alive?”

“Yes?”

“But you’ve died,” Karanos retorts. “You’ve died numerous times. This body is not your own.”

I frown. “But there’s another...my original body. It’s still in the amber, isn’t it?”

“You’ve abandoned that body. If you don’t return to your home world, you might never return to it for the rest of your days. The moment you entered Eternity, your old body lost its intended purpose, becoming a vessel to shuttle yourself between the world of before and Eternity.”

“The technology that threatens my world produces a simulation populated by real souls given false bodies. You’d argue that they’re alive too, wouldn’t you?”

“What did Achemiss say?”

Achemiss’ voice echoes in my mind: “Did you even once question whether the people you killed within it were real? Of course not–it’s unfathomable. Or is it?”

“He suggested that people within the loop were real.”

“And how does being real relate to being alive? They’re quite different concepts. This building is real but unliving.”

Semantics. “He never said anything outright, but the way I interpreted his words was that the loop people were alive.”

“How is Maria different from those souls given false bodies in a false world? Maria is a soul recreated in her own flesh, in a world full of living creatures that she can act on, and whom can act upon her. She is alive, Dunai—you brought her back from annihilation.”

Is this a convoluted way of brushing what happened under the rug, lessening the impact of what he did?

Karanos groans. “I have a feeling I’m coming off the wrong way again.” In a flash he’s over on my side of the roof, standing before me. His expression is severe, his lips tight. I lean back on reflex, putting more space between us.

“Many might view creating a lich in a negative light, but there is a time and place for everything. Resurrecting a life is no small feat. It’s beyond most people’s capabilities.” He bows his head. “Congratulations.”

Congratulations?

“I recognize that I hurt you. Age strengthens and weakens immortals in equal measure–it’s a lesson on which I could use a reminder.”

I never expected anything close to an apology. Call me cautious, but I feel like he must be scheming something. He wouldn’t humble himself without something to gain, would he?

“Karanos...why do you keep going? Why not end it all?”

He closes his eyes. “Because I believe that the world is good, and I don’t want it to end. Not something as small as any one world, but all worlds that have existed and ever will. That is my purpose.”

He clenches his hand into a fist. “Achemiss is a force that makes the world worse–I intend to destroy him. To do that, I need your help. I realize that this is how I should have approached you from the beginning–not as a pawn, but as an equal.”

“This all sounds nice, but why the change in attitude?”

“You are wild and desperate, Dunai.”

Thanks, Karanos.

“But you’re also strong: With your back against the wall, you rise above yourself. You’re passionate, and decisive enough to risk the things that matter to achieve your aims.”

“The same could probably be said for most ascendants.”

“You may not be able to see yourself in ten years, let alone a hundred or a thousand, but I can,” Karanos continues, his momentum continuing to build. “The person I see you becoming is a far better friend than enemy.” He narrows his eyes. “The choice is ours. At least for now...truce?”

He holds out his hand expectantly.

I struggle to keep my composure as I wrestle with my thoughts. The obvious answer is to take his hand–but is doing so just taking the easy path?

No. There’s a difference between taking a path because it’s convenient, and selecting it in good faith with hope for the future. We can never see the full landscape of opportunities and choices; ultimately, we just need to do our best. Still, I feel uneasy: Karanos has framed the moment such that there are no viable alternatives.

Crystal would take his hand. I think Maria might say no, just for the sake of it, to dig in her feet. Karanos killed her, after all.

As for me?

“I agree to a truce, but I don’t need your hand. Show me that I’m more than an expendable weapon to launch at an enemy, that you’re serious when you say you’d like to one day be companions.”

When Karanos retracts his hand, his eyes crease at the corners, as though he’s laughing. I’ve never seen any such expression reach his eyes. “I’ll enjoy teaching you, Ian. From my perspective, I’ve been with you for less than a day. Hopefully we can get off on the right foot tomorrow.”

—

Traveling with Karanos is better than going it alone, if only for the light that follows his path, lifting the plane’s gloom. The light isn’t necessary to see our way, but its atmospheric effect is significant. It’s also easy to go on autopilot: Karanos is a good navigator and leads the way back by memory. He doesn’t consult any maps as far as I can tell.

We alight on the ground next to Maria and Crystal. Maria is angled against Crystal’s side, the fish adjusting position to allow the lich some semblance of comfort.

In Karanos’ light, Crystal’s scales shimmer, while Maria’s complexion appears more lifelike. Illuminated, her skin almost has a blush to it, and her hair is shiny, unchanged by death. As I look at her, I can’t help but see her as a broken doll...a mistake. Can she even move? I tried to act confident when I performed the ritual, but I had no idea what I was doing. What if I did it wrong?

“Hello, Maria,” I say, hesitant. Karanos remains in the background, giving us a moment.

“Ian,” she rasps, stumbling to her feet like a newborn fawn. Crystal stabilizes her with a paw to the lower back.

So she can move after all. “How are you feeling?”

Horrible. Y’jeni, I died. “As can be expected.”

Can I still hear her thoughts? “Maria, can you think your next response? What’s two plus two?”

Four. You can understand my thoughts, can’t you? You seemed to hear them earlier.

I bite my lip. “I wasn’t sure if that would stick.” I turn to Crystal. “From your recollections, is this normal?”

“I do not know.”

I frown. “I’ll work on a way to fix this. For now, apologies for the lack of privacy.”

Maria’s head tilts to the left in an awkward approximation of a headshake. “There’s no use complaining. Thank you for bringing me back, Ian. I don’t know what kind of life I’ll be able to live like this, but anything is better than death.”

Relief washes over me like a tidal wave.

“You and Karanos must have had a productive conversation,” Crystal interjects. “I sense minimal animosity.”

“I was exhausted fighting him,” I explain. “It feels like we’ve been at war for months. Before we returned, he pointed out something that struck me. From his perspective, it’s been less than a day since we left Nuremvark.”

“Why is that so extraordinary? This is a plane with dilated time.”

“I know it’s rather obvious, but it never sank in until now. All our struggle and effort reduced to minutes and seconds. I think we all tried to ascribe greater meaning to what was going on, but in reality, Karanos never even got the chance to get started with his plans.”

I assist Maria with my practice, buoying her in the air. I walk over and kneel before her. “I’m sorry, Maria–we were so close to victory. Getting the return beacon and leaving would have been the fastest way to return, but...”

“It was always a long shot,” Maria whispers, turning rigidly to the side. She bends down awkwardly, like a rusty marionette. Her hands brush over my head. “You torture yourself needlessly. We are all here, for better or worse.”

I peer up at her, tears beading in my eyes, my jaw trembling. “I know what I’ve done to you,” I whisper hoarsely. “How are you so calm?”

Crystal has been a calming presence. Maria steps back and places a hand on the fish sapient. “I can wallow, or I can move forward,” she says, voice stern, though still raspy. “I don’t wallow.”

Sometimes I feel like all I do is wallow, I muse. How different we are.

Karanos chooses this moment to reenter the conversation, seeming to appear out of thin air. “Now that you’re no longer on a timer, I have no qualms teaching you, Maria. You will be useful.”

I sense nebulous fury coursing through Maria’s body, though none of it shows on her face. I swore an oath to help you, Ian, she states. I do not go back on my word, even in undeath.

She smiles politely at Karanos. “I will learn all that I can.” Consider what you see now a lesson in diplomacy. I fear it might end up being your most important tool upon returning home.

Karanos doesn’t verbally address Crystal, but the two nod at one another. “First things first,” he says, his eyes roving over our small group. “Loathe as I am to say this since we only just got started, but you all need a break.”