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Night had fallen outside the Crystal Tower when G’raha Tia came in and lit the lamps. He halted at the sight of a familiar figure in the corner of his study.
’Fyfnar! I didn’t expect to see you here,’ he said.
Fyfnar sat up. ’Forgive my intrusion,’ he said. ’The revels were rather loud by the Pendants, and I—’
’Oh, Fyfnar, you need not apologise! You are always welcome in my apartments. Please, make yourself at home, and don’t mind my presence if you seek repose. Forgive the state of my study—I do not often remember to tidy things up—’ He began to bustle around, moving the books to make room for Fyfnar. ‘Might I fetch you a pillow? Or if you wish to lie undisturbed, my bedroom is at your service—’ He seemed more out of his depth than Fyfnar had ever seen him, but the delight that shone on his face made Fyfnar rethink his hesitancy and resolve to stay.
’Thank you,’ said Fyfnar. ’I’m happy to remain here, if I wouldn’t be in your way.’
‘Not in the slightest,’ said G’raha. The warmth in his gaze was pleasant to see. ‘May I offer you a cup of tea?’
It was a relief that he was so unchanged, that Fyfnar had found the kind reception he had ventured to depend on—he wouldn’t have presumed so far with anyone else, but in the smiles G’raha had directed at him and the admissions G’raha had made he had found reassurance that he might dare a little more, and meet his forthrightness with his own.
It had been years since he had known him before, and by G’raha’s reckoning far more, but in those days their camaraderie had grown out of the audacity of daring and taking. And how he’d missed that! It had never been quite the same with anyone else.
Fyfnar took the offered cup of tea, and sat back and watched as G’raha picked up the books and stacked them quickly. ‘You needn’t trouble yourself on my account,’ he said. ‘I think your study is perfect.’
G’raha laughed. ’It is, until I wish to find anything in these piles. I believe Urianger found it most horrifying.’ He picked up the last stack of books. ’I spoke with some of the visitors. They tell me that the traces of the Light’s stasis are receding from the soil in the Lakelands. And there are signs that the flora from before the flood are returning.’
The relief made Fyfnar a little light-headed. ’That’s good,’ he said.
’I understand they are anxious to express their gratitude to you. But I imagined you to be too tired, so I said I would convey their thanks to you for the present.’
Fyfnar laughed in relief. ’Much too tired,’ he said.
G’raha’s eyes softened as they rested on him. ’Of course,’ he said. ’In that case, I’m glad to have you here with me.’
He sat down, and on an impulse, Fyfnar moved over to sit by him. Then he dropped his head in G’raha’s lap. The strain of holding the fear at bay was gone, succeeded by bone-deep tiredness. And something more, too. He could tell from G’raha’s face that he understood; that was why he’d been so quick to give him a way out. Tomorrow Fyfnar would go outside, and rejoice with the companions he truly loved, but for now he was glad to lie here and not have to pretend joy.
He could feel the momentary hesitation in G’raha’s movements before his hand came up to stroke gently through Fyfnar’s hair. ’How are you feeling?’ G’raha asked.
He still shrank from speaking of it, but he didn’t wish to dismiss the question either, so he said instead, ’I’ve missed you terribly.’
’I know,’ said G’raha. He brushed Fyfnar’s hair off his forehead, fondling his ears gently.
Fyfnar gazed up at him. He hadn’t meant to speak yet, but G’raha’s touch had loosened something in him that had been bound tight. ’Why must I learn everything of you from Feo Ul and Urianger?’ he asked.
There was a note of embarrassment in G’raha’s laugh. ’Forgive me. I’ve grown accustomed to my reticence over the years, and though it is no longer necessary it isn’t easily cast off.’
’I understand, and I have no wish to press you,’ said Fyfnar. ‘There are things I haven’t learned to speak of either. But I know you dreamed of speaking without reservations, and I wanted you to know that I would treasure it too.’
’If you have anything you would know, ask, and I will do my best to answer,’ said G’raha.
Fyfnar reached up and touched the tip of G’raha’s ear. It was like warm velvet, and he felt it tremble at his touch. ’Tell me of your city,’ he said.
’As you might imagine,’ said G’raha, ’transporting me to the First was a monumental endeavour.’ He gazed at the crystal ceiling, settling into his storytelling. ’It relied on the movement of aether, so we had to match our plans to its tides, and that meant racing against the clock. We were all dead on our feet by the time we set the spell in motion. When I sealed myself in the tower, I was wrapped in a haze of anticipation that could not see beyond the present conclusion of our labours. I don’t know if I, or any of us, believed at the last that it would work—by that time, we were too tired for belief. But we did what we had to, and that was to try. When I arrived at the First, the surprise of it overcame me at first, along with all the unfamiliar sensations of a strange new world.’
’And what did you do first?’
G’raha smiled faintly. ’Well, the first thing I did when I staggered out of the tower was to lie face-down in the dirt and weep for half a day. I hardly knew if I wept from despair or relief. I was sick from travel, and in my exhaustion I was beset by doubts—so much had been sacrificed to send me on my way, and the chances of my succeeding were so very miniscule. And there I was, in this strange, bright, ruined world, irreversibly sundered from everyone and everything I loved and would never see again.’ At the sight of Fyfnar’s expression, he took his hand and pressed it lightly between both of his, cool crystal and warm skin. ’You needn’t look so distressed. I’d known what I was embarking on, and it was over a hundred years ago. In any case, once I tired of self-pity, it occurred to me that I was terribly hungry and thirsty, so I got to my feet and stumbled through the trees towards the smoke of a settlement I could see in the distance.
’As you might imagine, the sudden appearance of the tower had caused quite a stir in Norvrandt. Then as now, the lands around were but sparsely inhabited, but a few daring souls from the further parts of Lakeland made their way over to investigate, and two of these people found me.
’I cannot do justice to the kindness they showed me. I knew I could not tell them the truth of my antecedents, but I hadn’t had the foresight to think of a cover story, and my thoughts were too muddled for coherent artifice, so I had no answers to any of their questions. However, they did not press me. They cared for my hurts and made me welcome, and made no further reference to my origins when they found I would not speak of them. I can but imagine the restraint it took them not to speculate in my presence on the appearance of that wondrous edifice of crystal on the horizon.
‘I had known but little of their history when I left, for as you might imagine, such materials were not easy to find on the Source. I had reviewed all the materials I could obtain on the Calamity, but most of it had little to say of the First; even in that time, it was not common knowledge. To fill the gaps in our knowledge, I communed with Ascians and voidsent and those who had to do with them. I recall at least one interview with a voidsent that, ah, took a rather hostile turn.’ He winced and rubbed his neck. Fyfnar made a mental note to ask him for the story later.
‘In any case,’ he continued, ‘you may well conjecture that I was but little prepared for the world I encountered, and in those first days I feasted my eyes upon the sight of things that no-one from the Source had ever experienced. Everything from the hue of the grass to the cry of the birds was a treasure to me. I wished often in those days that I had devoted more time to the study of natural history, for there was so much to be learned! I have been atoning for that in recent years, but there is ever more knowledge to be sought.
‘But when I began to talk to the people of their doings, there I found much for the historian to glory in, and yet more to grieve. There had been entire histories there, peoples and empires and cultures, and now there was no-one left to remember them. Every scrap I could find of their past was a treasure of the greatest rarity, and yet everything I witnessed brought tears to my eyes as fresh proof of how much more I would never see.
‘I had not made definite plans before I set out, for I had not known what sort of a world I would find on my arrival. I only knew two things: that I was to save this world, and find the means to summon you. I had thought long and extensively on how those goals were to be accomplished, and arrived at no conclusions. But how keenly I felt the egotism of my plan, the absurdity of my lofty ambitions to save a world I had never lived in! And I was determined that I should not be like those emperors who sought to force their salvation on a world weary of it—I should not emulate Gaius, or Varis, or their ilk.
’The idea of founding a city was at first a nebulous one. You recall that the Allagans of old gifted me with the memories of ancient Allag, and in the long years of my slumber I walked the streets of those memories, learned to comprehend them, watched their colours shift and transmute into things new and fantastical. I saw wonderful things then, and terrible ones; I drowned in dreams too dizzying for my comprehension, and not even in drowning could I wake.
’Though I had now awoken, I had not yet learned to be among the waking; my dreams were yet more vivid than those of most men, and when I was awake the truer struggle of life was sometimes a paler thing, something I was a step removed from. In truth, perhaps that had always been the case for me, in every age. Sometimes it troubled me, that it was easier for me to turn to dreams than to confide in those I truly esteemed and loved. It seemed a deception of those who had reposed their trust in me, and given so freely and unstintingly of their kindness.’
’No-one who has seen your city,’ said Fyfnar, ’could doubt your love for the people of the waking world. And what you have accomplished—my friend, the humanity, the fellowship of the world you have built knows no equal that I have seen.’ In the old days he had, perhaps, glimpsed a little of what G’raha spoke of—that he had walked wrapped in dreams, with his eyes on things beyond the ken of others and their lives—it had been one of the mesmerising things about him, his air of latent possibilities. And how splendid had been the fulfilment of them!
A lovely flush rose to G’raha’s cheek, and he smiled, more halting and joyous than Fyfnar had seen him yet.
’But I interrupt you,’ said Fyfnar. ’Tell me more of your city.’
And he watched G’raha’s face as he continued; his eyes were bright with the sight of things far away. ’The idea was a nebulous one at first. In my dreams I had seen visions of cities rising up to the sky, of cities spreading along the horizon: centres of learning and building and conversation, cities that were the crystallisation of a world’s spirit and the catalyst of its ambitions. One morning, as I lay in the Lakelands and gazed up at the Crystal Tower rising towards the clouds, it seemed to me that for a moment I saw a city take shape around it, bright as cloud and crystal and wreathed in flowers.
’Such visions came to me often in those days, for the veil between dreaming and waking was for me a thin one. I believe serious thoughts of founding a city did not enter my head until a few moons later, when I was at a festival of the Lakelands. As I gazed at the joyful bustle of the people around me, I saw the vision again, but this time it was a warm, breathing thing, where people walked with joy.
’Of course building a city took a great deal more than that, but once I had seen it that was a vision I could not but strive for.
‘When I told them I wished to found a city, I imagine they did not find my manner especially convincing at the first. I did not find it especially convincing. But I stayed among them, and I learned a good deal about the land and its climate, and the people and how they lived. Most of all, I sought to learn of their desires. In those days there was but little leisure for dreaming and building, but the Light had not served to extinguish people’s reserves of arcane and curious knowledge, or the varied and wonderful skills they had perfected. The Light might tint the tone of people’s dreams, but it could not extinguish them.
‘I had brought a strain of madness with me from the future, an impossibility made real in the shape of a tower for their eyes to wonder at. And as I learned to use the powers invested in me, the tower let me accomplish things that had not been possible before. It was not much then, but it was enough to stimulate us to daring and wondering, and of such things are visions born.
‘It was not until I met a man at the next festival who liked to build things that our vision for the city began to take shape. The ale flowed freely about us, though I did not dare partake of it, for my head was weak from the transference. Others joined in our conversation: farmers, craftsmen, a former soldier—perhaps it was the joy of indulging in impossibilities that drew them to us at first, but the delight of finding ways they could be realised was headier still.
‘But there was so much to do, and so few of us! How short our mortal lifespans seemed.’
’So, then,’ said Fyfnar, ’you weren’t…’
’Aye. I had not bound myself to the tower then, though I had taken the first faltering steps towards it. It was years later that I became the Crystal Exarch, though in truth the process did not have a simple conclusion; over the years, I gave more of myself to the tower, and took more of its essence into myself.’
Taking even himself by surprise, Fyfnar reached up and touched G’raha’s face, brushing his fingers against the vein of crystal that snaked up the curve of his cheek. G’raha’s eyes widened, and then he smiled, and clasped Fyfnar’s hand with his crystal one. The touch of the crystal was cool and sweet, and it caught the light when he smiled.
’I like your city,’ said Fyfnar. He didn't have the words to tell him just how much he liked it, its neat contours, the friendly way its halls opened into one another, the joyful bustle and warm fellowship of its people, and the glow of it when the lights turned on in the dusk. But he would, another day.
G’raha’s eyes were bright when he said, ’I cannot tell you how much joy that brings me.’
Fyfnar lay there, and thought of how much he liked to hear G’raha talk; his voice shaped words into music and dreams, and held the hectic pace of the world at bay. Fyfnar longed, too, to hear him speak more of the erudite and the arcane; he had so little leisure for the pursuit of knowledge, and the things he saw through G’raha’s eyes filled him with undefined yearnings. But most of all, he was awash in the joy of G’raha’s presence, of finding him near and warm after all those years.
G’raha’s tale was lovely, but just now the joy of it stirred his heart in a way that was very like sadness—he felt near to tears, without quite knowing why. The people in G’raha’s tale were gone now, and in a different way so were the people whose labours had combined to bring him here. And G’raha, who felt and treasured things so deeply—how much he had witnessed, and lost.
‘Are you well, my friend?’ G’raha asked. He scratched Fyfnar’s ear lightly, in a way that made him laugh and squirm.
‘To tell you the truth,’ said Fyfnar, ‘I’m not certain.’
’Did he say something to you?’ G’raha asked, his voice suddenly gentle. ‘At the end. Forgive me, if you would rather not speak of it—but it pains me to see you troubled.’
Fyfnar turned his face into G’raha’s lap, winding his arms around his waist. ’G’raha,’ he said, his voice muffled in his robes. ’When we were down there, we walked through the streets of ancient Amaurot, and we met its people. And they were so kind, it broke my heart. They were phantoms from another age, another world, and yet they saw a lost child, as they imagined, and their first thought was to help, as ours would have been. And to think he created them—he built a whole city, out of his own memories, for all it had been a thousand ages since they lived. He made them kind. He made them speak, as real people did. And all I could think of was that over the years since you fell into slumber, I hadn’t remembered the sound of your voice quite right. How did he remember? How do you remember, after so many hundreds of years? And before he… faded…’ It was easier to say it that way. ‘He asked me to remember. That they… once lived.’
’Dearest,’ said G’raha. The warmth in his voice took Fyfnar by surprise; his arms encircled Fyfnar, holding him close. He cleared his throat. ’We who are tasked with remembering bear a heavy burden. I am the last remnant of a future that did not come to pass, and I consider it my task to remember and record it. It is a task peculiarly suited to the historian: to remember their mistakes, aye, and avoid them; but also to remember their joys, the beauties of that time that could only arise from its evils, to love even those who failed, who did not manage to inherit what we have but who strove so hard that we might. To love the world whose existence was an error; how natural as a feeling, and how daunting as an undertaking! I have attempted to chronicle the events of that world, but there is so much to write down. How do you put down the span of a world, an age, in a book? Even when you have a hundred years to do it.’
’Feo Ul said something to me in Il Mheg,’ said Fyfnar. ’They said the beauty of our people was to strive for a future we would never see. And how gloriously the people of your future have realised that!’
‘My old friend’s wisdom is as lovely as the flowers,’ said G’raha, and his eyes were a little misty. He paused. ’In the years since I awakened, the memory of you has been the most precious of gifts. Sometimes I struggled to hold on to it, through the years. I clung to the tales people told of you, and the stories I’d recorded, but all the while I was desperately afraid that talking of you would change something, that I would lose the part of you that wasn’t a story but a living, breathing man.’ Fyfnar turned to look at him then, and he smiled down at him. Tears were shining in his eyes; the expression in them was almost unbearably bright and kind. ’And then I saw you again, and you were more than I could ever have remembered or imagined, and I could not imagine a greater gift than that, either. Thank you for holding me in your heart, old friend.’
There was nothing Fyfnar could do then but pull him closer, and murmur his name. ‘Raha, Raha, how could I not?’
Raha stroked his ears with a gentle hand. ‘But here I have been talking unceasingly, without a thought to my duties as host. Would you care for another drink? Or should we seek a quiet corner outside?’ He had remembered, then, that Fyfnar sought the outdoors when he was troubled. The thought made Fyfnar’s face glow.
’I don’t wish to go outside just yet,’ he said, ’but I should like to see the night sky. This tower doesn’t have windows, does it?’
’I have often wished it did,’ said Raha. ’The Allagans understood many things, but not the simple human need to look out of a window, and be reassured of the breadth of space outside. If you are not too tired, why don’t you accompany me to the top of the tower instead? We can feel the air on our faces there.’
Fyfnar was tired, but his tiredness was not proof against such an adventure; he never could resist one of Raha’s ideas. ’Now that you mention it, I have been curious to see it again,’ he said.
’Come, take my hand,’ said Raha, and when Fyfnar gave him his hand he drew it comfortably through his arm, and dragged Fyfnar with him into the wide corridor.
He had placed lamps here and there, but for the most part the twilight of the vast tower was unbroken. By some trick of the crystal the upper reaches of the tower were lighter, with the vast spaces and dizzying stairs open to them, gold and crystal gleaming in the gloom.
’It’s a new experience, not having to fight our way in here,’ said Fyfnar.
’There are reaches of the tower even I haven’t explored,’ said Raha. ’I venture into the rooms with a torch sometimes, but there are places so remote I have never found my way in, whose mechanisms I haven’t puzzled out yet, where I dare not imagine what might still be hiding. A century was not enough to fathom the mysteries of this place. However, we are quite safe here, in the centre of the Tower where we can see our way to the top.’
Fyfnar’s ears had pricked up at the story, and he said, ’Perhaps I’ll regret this suggestion, but that sounds like an adventure I would like to share in.’
The echoes of Raha’s laugh filled the golden halls. ’I should be glad of your company, my friend. Who knows what beasties and apparitions might lie in store for us?’ His glance was bright, as it had been before they fought the sin eaters in Kholusia, standing shoulder to shoulder and matching step for step.
Their footsteps echoed as they made their way up the winding stairs, and after an interminable climb they emerged into the silent sunlight. The upper terrace was wide and swept by breezes, and below them the stars were ranged in a bright silent host.
Fyfnar threw his head back, savouring the breeze. Then he leaned out over the railings and gazed into the night. The graceful expanse of the Crystarium spread out beneath their feet, the friendly curve of its buildings limned by the soft glow of a hundred lamps.
’It’s a heartening sight, isn’t it?’ said Raha.
Fyfnar turned from the lights to the figure of his friend, the Crystal Exarch, haloed gently by the light thrown off the crystal and the soft glimmers of the city below. He stood in the shadows, and his smile was an elusive, mysterious, lovely thing.
‘Yes,’ Fyfnar said. ‘It is.’