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“Zunidh loves you,” his Radiancy mentions one day, and it hits Cliopher like a brick to the face.
Somehow he manages a polite smile. “My lord?” he prompts, and hopes the lurking thought is wrong.
His Radiancy turns. There's something fond in his wisp of a smile. Usually Cliopher would be pleased merely to see that expression. He keeps up a demeanor of curiosity to hide the sickness in his stomach. “I felt it the very first day you came to my office,” his Radiancy says idly. “It is an odd reaction; I can only conclude that the world knows how much you do to benefit her, and all Our people.” The Sun-on-Earth shakes his head.
And then his lord adds, like an idle musing, “If you only had just a drop of magic... I wonder how you’d feel her.”
“But I do not,” says Cliopher, who knows this is all meant as a compliment.
“I have never felt anything like it,” the Lord of Rising Stars says, “except in other Lords Magi; you should never doubt your contributions to this world, Cliopher.”
Cliopher loves his lord. Any other day he would leave in a state of euphoria after hearing such effusive praise.
At the end of his workday Cliopher makes obeisance. He leaves the Tower. He finds the nearest washroom, closes himself into a stall, and breathes hard for two quarter-bells before he can force himself to stagger toward the Alinorel wing. Then he sends a page to the office and tells them he’s ill.
He knows he's being ridiculous. Nothing has changed. He isn’t even surprised, really; some part of him always understood.
There was a terrible sickness that swept through Tahivoa when he was a boy. It was a slow and lingering malady, staggering workers and keeping them ill. Then the first person died – an old man. Next was a young baby, one of Cliopher’s cousin, who would have been the sixtieth in his generation. A great-aunt. Others that he didn’t know.
There were not many deaths. That was because Cliopher bargained for the cure.
People didn’t believe him when he said that. He was six, of course, so it was understandable. He ran to the beach when he learned his older sister was ill. He loved Vinyë, and she’d been the one taking care of their mother after she got sick.
Navalia promised him they would both be fine. For weeks she’d been busy circling the whole island with the other trainee-healers. But Cliopher knew she was lying, because for days and days he’d overheard her whispering with visitors, talking about how no one recovered.
So Cliopher ran to the sea. And he met an old man there, and a woman in the water who said she’d come for a special occasion. He knew who they were; Cliopher could feel it.
The world told him things, sometimes. But no one ever believed that either.
But those two did. Cliopher felt the yawning chasm of their power and planted his feet. He demanded the islands back. His sister and mother, his unborn cousins, the strangers, all of them.
The Old Woman shouldn’t be greedy, he said. She’d get them eventually. She didn’t need them all now.
Watch your tone, boy, she countered. Respect your elders.
He said he would, but respect was earned, and she wasn’t being very nice.
She thought that was funny. So did the man, who laughed like a kookaburra and held Kip tight.
What would he give, she asked, in exchange for the health of these islands?
Everything, he said, because that was before Buru Tovo’s lessons, and the stories, and learning to bargain and win. I’ll give up the world.
And she agreed.
Everyone said it was such a good thing that the sickness passed after all; they expected it would be much worse. It should have been worse. They thought it would be an epidemic. And no one did anything but smile and nod when Kip tried to explain.
Why, after all, would the gods make such a bargain for the minor-gift of a child’s magic? A power so fragile he lost it as he grew?
They would not. But to trade the future of a world…
What an imagination, they said all the time, until after a year or two it was: stop it, Kip. People died. It wasn't a game. Quit talking nonsense.
If Cliopher had not made that trade, perhaps he would have been drawn to the Tower and the ringing bells when Jivane woke the Emperor.
Perhaps the Emperor would have never woken at all.
Alone in his quarters, Cliopher sits with that thought as the sky grows dark. He nurses it. Breathes.
Cliopher loves his lord; he does not regret the world they have built together. There is nothing he regrets.
It still hurts.