《Totentanz》


 Prologue

    There are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go. -- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit


    The kingdom was prepared when the monsters attacked again. Defeating them and driving them back for the third time was an easy task. Soon the last monster''s corpse was burnt and the wards were repaired again.


    No one expected the next invasion to come from their neighbouring kingdom. No one expected the new invaders to be other humans.


    The king and queen of Avallot had just made their first public appearance after spending the invasion fighting at the head of the army. The common people were just beginning to pick up the pieces, rebuild their homes, and go on with their lives. As for the mist-shrouded Laoivere Mountains and the school of magic built somewhere amidst them, who knew what was happening there? Only magicians and magicians-in-training could find their way through the mist. The school''s teachers had retreated back behind their wards as soon as the kingdom was safe. And the Great Mage Guireth-melaer-hrem¨®n[1] had disappeared into S¨®lbj?rgvegr[2] after slaying the largest monster.


    On one side Avallot bordered the sea. The monsters crawled through a hole in the sky, a gap between the realms, directly above the beaches. Some were said to have taken up residence beneath the water. To the north and west were the impossibly tall Laoiveres. And to the south was the kingdom of Miavain.


    It happened so suddenly. A horde of people came up from Miavain. People who walked for miles without stopping. People who took no notice of anything around them. People who acted more like walking corpses than real live people. They swept across Avallot in less than a day, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Buildings and fences were no obstacle to them. If they couldn''t climb over them, they would smash them to pieces with inhuman strength. They followed the lead of a man in green armour riding an eight-legged horse.


    They only stopped when they reached the capital. None of the crowd sat down or showed any signs of tiredness. None of them paid any attention to the angry complaints of the people whose houses and businesses they''d destroyed. None of them followed their leader into the royal palace.


    Queen Lanlinn was waiting for him with her sword in her hand.


    "Who are you and what do you want?" she demanded.


    The knight didn''t raise his visor. His voice filtered out, strangely distorted by the metal. "Light the eagle flare."


    Lanlinn laughed in his face. "I can defeat an enemy army without summoning a Great Mage."


    "I have no quarrel with you or your kingdom. My quarrel is only with Guireth-melaer-hrem¨®n." Perhaps it was only the helmet, but Lanlinn had never heard an anganedted sound so much like a curse. "This army with me is entirely under my command. They have no thought except what I tell them to think. And unless Guireth-melaer-hrem¨®n comes here in person, I will tell them to kill everyone in this city. Then everyone in the surrounding countryside. On and on, until there is no one left alive in this kingdom. So I repeat: light the eagle flare."


    The royal palace had twelve flares in the light-tower. Each summoned one of the twelve Great Mages. Guireth-melaer-hrem¨®n was associated with eagles, and so the one to attract her attention was called the eagle flare. Lanlinn lit it while the green knight stood by. Any normal man would have taken his helmet off long ago. Armour was neither comfortable nor meant to be worn for hours on end -- except in a battle, of course. Yet he made no move to remove it. If the heat and stale air bothered him, it was impossible to tell.


    High above them the flare exploded into the shape of an eagle. The signal hung there for hours, able to be seen all through the kingdom. It was even visible in S¨®lbj?rgvegr, the dimension Guireth-melaer-hrem¨®n had built for herself when she became a Great Mage.


    They waited. And waited. An hour after the flare was lit, an icy wind swept through the palace. It blew open the doors. It tossed aside curtains and tapestries. It chilled everyone to the bone. And when the wind had passed by, a third person stood on the light-tower.


    Mages were the most powerful of all magicians. They were next-door to immortals and could face the Fair Folk themselves without fear. Their lifespans were so long it was impossible to tell how old any of them really were. Guireth-melaer-hrem¨®n looked like a woman in her twenties. She had looked that exact age for as long as anyone could remember. In her long blue skirt and red blouse, both embroidered with flowers, she looked no different to any upper-class Avallese young woman. There was only one thing about her that showed how different she was. Her eyes were a shade of blue far more vivid than any Spiritless''[3]. And they glowed.


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    The knight unbuckled his helmet. He lifted it off to reveal a young man barely out of his teens. Lanlinn blinked and looked from the mage to the knight. At first she mistook them for brother and sister. Both had long black hair. Both had abnormally pale skin. And both had the exact same glowing eyes -- though his were gold instead of blue. On a closer look she realised they weren''t as alike as they seemed at first. The mage was considerably taller than the knight. Her eyes were larger than his, and her face was longer and more pointed. Their only non-superficial similarity was their magic.


    Guireth-melaer-hrem¨®n sneered at the knight. "Naohurgua."


    "Saedanzu," the knight said in an equally cold voice.


    Never before had Lanlinn heard adults so casually use each others'' lauln¨ªtr names[4] in public. Especially not with such contempt.


    With a flick of her wrist Guireth-melaer-hrem¨®n conjured up her soul-weapon. Lanlinn''s eyes widened. The ice-sword Saungrafn was famed in story. Minstrels and story-tellers attributed miraculous feats to it, even when not wielded by its owner. Some even claimed it was sentient. The Great Mage had used it to slay monsters only two days ago. Seen up close it looked like it really was made of ice; ice with a pale blue centre. The temperature plummeted as soon as the mage called it to her.


    The knight unsheathed his sword. It looked like just an ordinary longsword. The most notable thing about it was the pommel. It was carved into the shape of a heart. Lanlinn rubbed her eyes. She could have sworn she saw the carving expand and contract like a real heart.


    "We''ll destroy the city if we duel here," the mage said.


    The knight laughed sharply. "How nice of you to care about other people''s lives now. Where was this compassion eighty years ago?"


    Strange though it seemed, the glow of the mage''s eyes briefly dimmed.


    <hr>


    When magicians duelled in earnest they did so in their own realms, behind carefully-constructed wards so no stray magic could destroy the land around them. As far as anyone knew no mortal had ever seen a duel between two mages. Rumours abounded about what might happen if they ever did duel. Most of those rumours said they could reshape reality at will.


    Only the two participants witnessed the duel between the Eagle Mage and her former student. They fought with magic, with swords, and with their bare hands. For a week, two weeks, almost three weeks their duel continued. They fought long after any sane people would have given up. They fought long after both of them were injured and exhausted, even with their magic to heal them, and neither would admit defeat. A hundred years of hatred, jealousy, cruelty and treachery lay between them, and it drove them on and on.


    Not even mages could fight forever. Not even half-attineau[5] could shrug off wounds indefinitely. On the mountaintop in the middle of S¨®lbj?rgvegr, the mage slipped and fell. The knight''s sword plunged into her chest before she could regain her footing. At the same minute she raised her sword and rammed it straight through the knight''s left eye.


    S¨®lbj?rgvegr belonged only to Guireth-melaer-hrem¨®n. No one could get in or out without her permission. And when she died, the realm crumbled to nothing.


    <hr>


    Magic was a strange thing. It was a tool of its user, yet it had something that could be called a mind of its own. As the mage died the last flickers of her magic combined with the last flickers of the knight''s and the spirits of their swords. Magic might have a mind of its own but it wasn''t truly sentient. It didn''t matter to those two types of magic that their owners hated each other. All that did matter was keeping their owners -- and therefore themselves -- alive.


    They communicated with impressions rather than words.


    This is wrong. Try again?


    Yes. Again.


    <hr>


    The kingdom was prepared when the monsters attacked again. Defeating them and driving them back for the third time was an easy task.


    At least, it should have been.


    In full armour, the metal pure white and as icy as her sword, the common people could easily believe the bards'' wildest tales and imagine Guireth-melaer-hrem¨®n was Kalr¨ªnmorn[6] descended from the land of the gods. She fought at the head of the army, charging headlong into danger with wild abandon.


    She lopped off the largest monster''s leg. As it roared in pain she raised Saungrafn to deliver the killing blow.


    The monster''s head exploded. Its blood rained down on the mage and the soldiers around her. For one critical minute everyone was distracted. The mage took off her helmet to see what was happening.


    A knight in green armour stood on the monster''s corpse. He took off his helmet at the same time she did. The two of them stared at each other, ignoring everything around them.


    Horrified eyewitnesses reported later they saw the mage smile. Some claimed she said something to the knight. Then she raised her sword and drove it into her own chest. Legend said Saungrafn could pierce the strongest armour ever forged. Its deadly sharpness worked just as well on its mistress as on her enemies.


    The knight screamed. He leapt off the monster and fell to his knees beside the mage. She lay in an ever-widening pool of her own blood. Even in death she still smiled; a mocking, triumphant smile.


    One soldier was near enough to hear what the knight said. She repeated the words later. "I''m the one who has to kill you. I can''t have revenge unless I kill you!"


    Few people believed the soldier''s account of the knight''s words. Why would anyone want revenge on a Great Mage? What had she ever done to harm anyone?


    Whether the soldier was right or not, no one could deny what happened next. The knight picked up his own sword and tried to stab himself. His blade bounced uselessly off his armour. Before anyone could get close enough to stop him he pulled Saungrafn out of the mage''s chest and stabbed himself with it.


    <hr>


    Wrong. Try again.


    Earlier?


    Earlier.

 Book 1: The Moon on the Water

    TOTENTANZ


    German, "dance of the dead". Equivalent of the French phrase "danse macabre" -- a reminder that everyone must die.


    çRÖеĻ¨£¬Ë®ÑeµÄÔ (j¨¬ng zh¨°ng d¨¬ hu¨¡, shu¨« l¨« de yu¨¨)


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.Chinese, "a flower seen in the mirror, the moon on the water''s surface". Idiom meaning a beautiful but unobtainable dream.

 Chapter I: Der Anfang

    DER ANFANG


    German, "the beginning; the outset".


    Vimes took the view that life was so full of things happening erratically in all directions, that the chance of any of them making some kind of relevant sense were remote in the extreme. -- Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay


    Some things stayed the same no matter how many other things changed. Monsters periodically crawled up from the beach and were dispatched with relative ease. The alchemists at Laoivere Academy were always one bad decision away from blowing up the mountain range, so everyone else took precautions that would seem insane to outsiders. And a young woman named Diarnlan Kerg¨ªnelsd¨®ttir attended the academy for twelve years.


    As students went she was a good but not outstanding one. She certainly


    wasn''t a genius who knew all the answers without studying. She worked hard, passed all her exams, and was tenth in her class when she graduated.


    Then she disappeared. For years no one knew or heard anything of her. Rumour had it she was studying under one of the Great Mages. Others claimed she was a hedge-witch somewhere in the countryside. No one knew, and no one truly cared enough to investigate further.


    Until the day she returned.


    <hr>


    Some other things never changed either. A mayor offered his young son as a sacrifice to the Hraoghenn[1]. A mountain spirit took pity on the boy and rescued him. He grew up amidst the spirits and govhy[2] in his adopted mother''s home. And when he was an adult, he fell in love with a glacier-sprite. Their first son was born a year after their wedding. The boy showed considerable talent at magic, so his parents sent him to the academy on his eighth birthday.


    Half-humans were neither common nor popular. Karandren Hriatansson was always near the top of his class, always raised his hand when the teacher asked a question, and never caused trouble. Outside the classroom he was ignored, sneered at, and outright bullied.


    That abruptly stopped one day, when his most vicious bully fell into a lake and drowned. No one could prove Karandren had anything to do with it. But everyone knew what his mother was. He inherited some of her water-magic. He was a better swimmer than anyone and could hold his breath underwater for up to an hour. It wasn''t hard to draw certain conclusions.


    When he turned fourteen he began looking for a magician he could become apprenticed to, so he would never have to return to the academy. Teenagers were only allowed to become apprentices when they turned sixteen. Karandren knew that. He also knew he was a much better magician than any of his classmates. Surely someone would make an exception and take him on two years early.


    No one did.


    Then the first skryszel[3] crawled out of the sea.


    <hr>


    All the bards and poets had a great deal to say about people loyally protecting their family. Every minstrel knew a library''s worth of songs about someone willing to give up their life for a relative. Diarnlan was convinced none of those song-writers had any relatives. Certainly they had no sisters.


    This was not a good day for her in general. (People who had the dubious privilege of knowing her might be surprised to hear she had any good days.) First she woke up with a splitting headache. Her sleep had been disturbed and full of strange dreams. Then she made a mistake in brewing a potion and melted her cauldron. Now her obnoxious younger sister had come for a visit without so much as a by-your-leave.


    Since she left the academy she had gone in search of a more powerful magician willing to teach her. Diarnlan knew only too well she was naturally only an average magician. Yet with years of study, hard work, and a proper teacher -- not like those fools at the academy, who picked their favourite students and never cared about the others -- she hoped to become a much better one. But she was never going to become a better one if she couldn''t get a minute''s peace to study!


    Diarnlan continued aggressively mopping up the bubbling mess on her kitchen floor. The cauldron was a smouldering lump of scrap metal. Luckily she had a spare one. When she cleared up the remains of the failed potion she''d fetch it from the attic.


    Outside Jahanvard knocked the door again. Through the letterbox she shouted, "Diarnlan! Hellooooooo!"


    Ignore her and she''ll go away, Diarnlan thought.


    "I know you''re in there!" Botheration. "Open the door." Not a chance. "Mother''s sent you a cake." All the more reason not to let you in.


    Diarnlan shuddered at the memory of the last cake her mother had sent. It was at first glance a perfectly normal walnut cake. It continued to look like a perfectly normal walnut cake until she risked taking a bite. She''d spent the rest of the afternoon scrubbing her teeth to get the awful taste out of her mouth.


    There was a long silence outside the door. It lasted long enough for Diarnlan to wonder if Jahanvard had given up and gone away. Then...


    "Saedanzu!"


    If Jahanvard had threatened to blow the house up she couldn''t have caused more consternation. (She would probably have caused less, in fact, because she was too poor a magician to blow anything up.) Diarnlan threw down the mop and ran to the door. She hurled it open. Her obnoxious little sister had the audacity to grin at her.


    "I know that would make you answer."


    Diarnlan glared at her. "Never. Use. My. Lauln¨ªtr. Name. In. Public."


    Jahanvard breezed past her as if she hadn''t spoken. She stopped when she saw the ruined cauldron and the grey liquid pooled on the floor. "What in the Nine Realms happened here?"


    "None of your business," Diarnlan snapped.


    Like all younger siblings Jahanvard took that as an excuse to offer her opinions. "You were trying to brew a headache cure, weren''t you?"


    That was so obvious it didn''t warrant an answer. Headache cures had a very distinctive honey-like smell, in spite of their unappetising colour, and were the easiest potion to brew. Unless you were so incompetent you confused chopped ice with ground ice -- in other words, unless you were Diarnlan. Her mouth twisted into a vicious snarl.


    "Get out," she snapped.


    Again Jahanvard ignored her. She stepped over the failed potion and set a box on the kitchen table. Diarnlan glared at it with such force anyone would have thought she was trying to incinerate it.


    "Mother worries you aren''t eating enough," Jahanvard said in a disgustingly cheerful voice. Diarnlan weighed up the pros and cons of turning her sister into a frog. "It''s carrot cake. Don''t worry. She didn''t mix up the sugar and salt this time."


    "I don''t want it," Diarnlan growled. "Throw it in the bin or take it back with you. I''m busy."


    She picked up the mop again and went back to work. She steadfastly ignored Jahanvard''s presence and stream of endless chatter.


    A distant thud resounded through the room. The house trembled. The dishes in the cupboards rattled against each other. Jahanvard stopped talking. Diarnlan paused in the middle of wringing out the mop.


    "Was that an earthquake?"


    Jahanvard sounded far too enthusiastic about that possibility. Diarnlan had experienced an earthquake once, during the year she spent in Chirathivat. It was not an experience she ever wanted to repeat.


    "Don''t be such an idiot," she snapped. "We never get earthquakes in Avallot."


    Another tremor struck the house. This time one of the cupboard doors swung open. Only a hasty spell thrown at it stopped the dishes inside spilling out onto the floor.


    Jahanvard said, "It''s a volcano, then."


    "There are no volcanoes near here."


    Diarnlan''s teacher lived in Thagallbi?e -- if Great Mages could be said to live in any part of the kingdom, when they had their own separate realms. At any rate Diarnlan lived just outside her teacher''s realm, in a small house near the sea. The closest volcano was Mount Vontar, over three hundred miles away. It was theoretically possible they could feel it erupting even at such a distance. If that was what this was, then the eruption must be of catastrophic magnitude. Long ago magicians had learnt how to keep a close eye on volcanoes. If an eruption was imminent they warned the entire kingdom in advance. There had been no warning recently.


    A third, even more forceful tremor almost knocked Diarnlan off her feet. She pursed her lips and stalked to the door. When she threw it open she expected to see some fools setting off fireworks down on the beach, or perhaps heavy machinery trundling along the main road. Her mind refused to accept what she saw instead.


    There was indeed something down on the beach. It wasn''t a group of village schoolchildren celebrating the end of an exam. It was an enormous shape rising from the ocean.


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    Diarnlan blinked. She rubbed her eyes. She tried to make sense of what was in front of her. Even so, her mind stubbornly continued to interpret it as just another partially-submerged rock formation. Then the shape moved. Only then did she fully understand what she was looking at.


    It was, for lack of a better description, a monster. Its body was shaped like a frog''s, right down to the way it squatted on its back legs. Spines like a hedgehog''s coated its back and sides. At first it looked like it didn''t have a head. Diarnlan blinked again. This time she saw its back was actually a shell like a turtle''s. Its head was drawn inside the shell.


    The creature was so large it would dwarf the towers of the royal palace. And it was definitely alive. Its sides rose and fell with its breaths.


    Naturally Jahanvard decided to draw its attention. At the top of her lungs she exclaimed, "What in the gods'' name is that?"


    The creature''s head emerged from under its shell. Its head looked like neither a turtle''s nor a frog''s. Instead it resembled a starfish, complete with curious points similar to a starfish''s arms. If it had eyes, they were so small Diarnlan couldn''t see them from this distance.


    Minutes ticked by. The creature did nothing. Neither did the women. They stared at each other in silence.


    Then it roared.


    It didn''t attack them. Instead it sprang out of the water and landed with a tremendous crash on the ground almost a mile away. The impact of its landing shook the house. Diarnlan couldn''t see where it had gone from the doorway. She ran round the side of the house to get a better look. The wind carried distant screams to her. Apparently the creature had already reached the village of Haurikkep.


    In the course of her studies Diarnlan had read a considerable amount of history. She knew that the earliest records described bizarre, animalistic beings crawling out of the sea. None of those skryszel had appeared in centuries. The stories'' historicity and the beings'' existence was disputed. But the stories gave one very useful piece of information.


    How to kill them.


    A blow to the throat or the back of the head with a soul-weapon was the most reliable method. Only true mages had soul-weapons. Diarnlan would have to make do with an ordinary sword. Luckily that had precedent. Many stories told of brave young squires slaying skryszel with old swords. It would be just her luck if those stories were the unreliable ones.


    "Where are you going?" Jahanvard squeaked as she barged past her.


    Diarnlan ignored her. She grabbed her sword and ran back out of the house.


    <hr>


    From time to time one of the teachers decided to organise a field trip. Nine times out of ten it just meant they were going to run some errand and just wanted someone else to carry their belongings for them. Karandren knew at once this was one of those field trips. He volunteered anyway. Professor Thyrvul was always polite to him and never mentioned his parentage, which earned her a place on his -- very short -- list of favourite people at the academy. More to the point, she taught Charm Creation, and an exam was fast approaching. He knew better by now than to depend solely on answering the questions correctly. His test papers had an amazing talent for getting lost, damaged, or completely rewritten as soon as he handed them in. When he made an effort to stay on the professor''s good side, he at least stood a chance of having his papers properly graded.


    Three hours later and with his arms full of Professor Thyrvul''s grocery shopping, Karandren was seriously debating if the test was worth this.


    It wouldn''t be so bad if she would just get on with buying things. Instead she felt the need to stop and examine every unusual item she saw in the marketplace. Karandren would have stormed back to the academy in a huff if not for the fact Professor Thyrvul always did her shopping in her home village of Haurikkep. The academy was over a hundred miles away. And Karandren had yet to master teleportation spells.


    In the background the professor began lecturing him on the magical uses of some herb or other. Karandren pasted on a smile and made interested noises when she paused for a response. He didn''t bother to listen. His arms hurt, his boots were too small, and his new shirt was scratchy. By now he should be used to discomfort, yet once again he found he wasn''t.


    An animal roared in the distance. That caught Karandren''s attention only because he couldn''t identify what sort of animal it was. Not a bull, unless it had a sore throat. Certainly not a horse or donkey. It didn''t sound like a dog either. He puzzled over it for a minute. Then a deafening crash filled the air, the ground shook beneath him, and Karandren found himself sprawled in the middle of the street.


    If he was the only person to fall over he would have been so humiliated he''d have walked all the way back to the academy. Luckily for his pride, he saw all the other market-goers were also lying on the ground. A basket of cabbages had fallen on top of Professor Thyrvul. One hapless man had fallen right into the horse-trough, to the bewilderment of the horses that were drinking from it.


    Something was chewing very loudly. Karandren propped himself up to see if some stray dog had taken advantage of the confusion to steal from the butcher''s.


    It wasn''t a dog. And it wasn''t eating a stolen steak.


    A gigantic frog munched its way through the wine merchant''s thatched roof.


    For a split second Karandren saw an image superimposed on top of the frog -- an image of someone killing the creature. It disappeared before he saw it clearly. But it left him with a strange feeling of familiarity. Somehow, impossible though it seemed, he wasn''t really surprised to see the monster.


    The village was silent except for the creature''s chewing. Everyone needed a moment to comprehend what they saw. Then, all at once, the screams started.


    <hr>


    The mile or so to the village passed in a blur -- and not just because Diarnlan, in spite of her real and imagined failings as a magician, was capable of running much faster than non-magicians. She felt like a spirit cut loose from her body, or a spectator at a play they''d already seen twice. A surreal familiarity pervaded the entire situation.


    Without even thinking about it Diarnlan''s mind conjured up a plan of attack. It included details she couldn''t possibly know. Along with them came flashes of a long, drawn-out battle won only with difficulty. She would have wondered more about that under other circumstances. Now it seemed the most natural thing in the world.


    Avoid the skryszel''s spines. They''re covered in poison. When it feels threatened it will throw its spines at its attacker. Its eyes are on the sides of its head. Its shell blocks part of its vision. The best way to approach is from above and behind. Cut off its head before it draws back inside its shell.


    The image of her own sword slicing through the monster''s neck imposed itself over her vision. Diarnlan didn''t have to memorise it. She knew it as well as if it had happened this morning.


    When she reached the village she wasn''t surprised to see the monster eating a thatched roof. It seemed once again like the most natural thing in the world. In the same way it seemed the most natural thing in the world to cast a flight spell, soar high above its back, swoop down, and cut off its head.


    <hr>


    The effects of a terrible shock always took a while to sink in. Someone who received news of a dear friend''s tragic and unexpected death might not be grief-stricken at first. Only after disbelief had faded would the pain be felt. Someone who had just suffered a terrible injury might not even realise it until the shock wore off. In the same way the villagers didn''t react to the monster''s death.


    After its head hit the ground there was a long silence. No one moved. The monster''s body collapsed in a lifeless heap. Its slayer wiped the sticky green blood of her sword. Still no one moved. You would have thought the marketplace was empty instead of nearly full.


    Then, all at once, everyone recovered from the shock. Dozens of voices began talking almost simultaneously. The noise was unbearable. One of the villagers ran to the monster-slayer, grabbed her hand, and shook it so vigorously it looked like he was trying to dislocate her arm.


    Only one person remained silent amidst the chaos. Karandren approached the monster''s head warily. He prepared a destructive spell just in case it turned out to still be alive. Only after poking it with his foot and watching its still-open eyes was he satisfied it was indeed dead. He turned to see who the village owed their rescue to.


    Sometimes at night he dreamt as if he was falling, then awoke with a jolt to find he was safe in bed. It wasn''t night, he wasn''t dreaming, and he certainly wasn''t safe in bed, yet that was the closest comparison he knew to how he felt when he saw the monster-slayer''s face.


    Hatred, savage and all-consuming hatred, welled up in his chest. A voice at the back of his head screamed, How dare she? Then the rage disappeared as abruptly as it came. Karandren was left feeling as if he''d just been punched in the stomach. And all that was triggered by a single glimpse of the monster-slayer.


    What was that? he wondered in bewilderment.


    Nothing about their rescuer was likely to provoke such a violent reaction. She was a woman about ten years older than him, wearing an apron over what looked like an old and paint-splattered shirt and trousers. Apparently the monster''s attack had interrupted her in the middle of some chore likely to stain her clothes.


    Deep called to deep, and magic called to magic. Two complete strangers could pass each other on the street and immediately know without exchanging a word that they were both magicians. If someone''s magical aura was especially strong or agitated for some reason, other magicians could make an educated guess at how powerful they were. Karandren knew at once the woman was a fairly powerful magician. That explained how she had been able to kill the monster so easily.


    He looked thoughtfully at Professor Thyrvul. She was busy helping a girl retrieve her frightened cat from the apothecary''s roof. Her magic was all very well in its way, and creating charms was something every magician needed to learn, but when faced with immediate danger she was as frightened and helpless as everyone else. This new magician, on the other hand...


    Karadren drew nearer so he could hear what she was saying. A crowd of excited villagers swarmed her, eager to know how she had known the monster was there and how she''d killed it so quickly. Soon they moved on to asking who she was and where she came from. Her answers were short, often monosyllabic, and abrupt to the point of rudeness.


    She never changes.


    Karandren blinked. Where did that thought come from?


    The next words he heard the magician say were, "I study under a mage." At once his ears perked up. A mage? One of the ones he''d written to or one he hadn''t tried yet?


    "Which mage?" someone asked.


    "Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair."


    That wasn''t one of the mages he''d written to. A plan began to form in Karandren''s mind. While everyone was still distracted he picked up some of Professor Thyrvul''s purchases and placed them back on the stalls she''d bought them from.


    <hr>


    "What an eventful day!" Professor Thyrvul exclaimed when they got back to the academy. "I really can''t believe it. Oh, I must remember to send a thank-you gift to that young lady. Some of those herbs would be--"


    She stopped and stared at the various bags in Karandren''s arms. His face was practically hidden behind them all. He had to crane his neck just to see past them.


    "Aren''t we missing a few bags?" she asked.


    Yes, we most certainly are, Karandren thought with feeling. I should have left about ten other bags behind too.


    In his best "school-boy who only wants to be helpful" voice he said, "I don''t know, professor. I think I picked up all of them, but it was such a mess."


    "Dear me! We''ve left behind the hygningr root extract. And all those bottles of s¨ªkmyldodr! How awful!" Professor Thyrvul shook her head in dismay. "I haven''t got time to go back for them, and tomorrow I''m far too busy."


    This was exactly what Karandren had hoped for. "I could go back, professor, if you let me use the teleportation platform."


    The school rules forbade any students under sixteen from using the teleportation platform. Officially it was because anyone younger was too inexperienced to use it properly. In reality it was to stop students going on unauthorised shopping trips or visits to friends. The only exception was if someone was given explicit permission by a teacher.


    "It''s too late today," the professor said. Karandren''s face fell. "I''ll write you a permission slip and shopping list, lend you some money, and you can go first thing in the morning."


    "Thank you, professor!" Karandren chirped.


    And so the third repetition of the time loop was set on the exact same course as the first two.

 Chapter II: Der Fehler

    DER FEHLER


    German, "the mistake; the error".


    A bully with charisma and top marks is still a bully. -- Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls


    When someone relived a situation with no memory of how things had turned out because of their decisions the last time, they naturally made the same decisions. Naturally those decisions had exactly the same consequences. And naturally those consequences built up until they became something far worse than the choices that spawned them.


    Some things were out of anyone''s control. Karandren planned to visit Diarnlan, give her the professor''s gifts, and beg her to talk to her teacher about taking him on as a student. He had no way of planning for her teacher to hear about the monster attack and pay her a visit just as he reached the village. He certainly didn''t know that her teacher had noticed Diarnlan''s abrasive personality and come up with a hare-brained, ill-advised scheme to change her for the better -- or so she hoped.


    As mages went Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair was neither the wisest nor the most powerful. She was, however, the most eccentric. Her methods of teaching included posing absurd questions about ridiculous situations, such as what sort of spell was needed to rescue a cow who''d been catapulted to the moon. And now she had devised a new way to teach her long-suffering students.


    That decision was one of many small factors that cemented the course of the third time loop.


    <hr>


    "What do you mean, I have to teach some imbecilic teenager?!"


    Diarnlan had thought she was used to her teacher''s oddities. Pointless questions, riddles without answers, practicing the same spells over and over then being told to cast a completely different one... Those were all the things she had learnt to expect. She had even come to accept them to some degree. At least they made her learn something, though not quite the things she expected to learn. But this? What could she possibly learn from this?


    Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair continued to drink her tea placidly, looking as if she''d solved all the mysteries of the universe. There were times when Diarnlan dearly wanted to punch her teacher in the face.


    "It''s not just you. I''ve decided all of my students would benefit from teaching someone else for a few months. Or longer, if this works as well as I hope. It''ll give you all an opportunity to discover how much you really know. I''m going to write to the academy''s headmistress today and ask her to send students for all of you."


    Diarnlan ground her teeth.


    Her teacher frowned. "Stop doing that. It''s terribly bad for your teeth."


    Out of pure petty spite Diarnlan ground her teeth more fiercely.


    A year of teaching one of the most prickly and overly-sensitive magicians in Avallot had taught Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair a few things too. When to back down over something trivial, for instance. She shook her head like a disappointed parent but said no more about it.


    "The students should arrive in two weeks'' time. You can draw up lesson plans and decide what you''re going to focus on before they arrive. Try not to teach them anything dangerous. No meddling with dragons, no matter how much they ask. And--"


    Someone tapped the front door. Diarnlan stifled a growl. Could she never have a minute''s peace? She remained seated at the table and ignored the noise. Whoever it was could just go away.


    Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.


    Her teacher raised an eyebrow. "There''s someone at the door."


    "I know," Diarnlan said through gritted teeth.


    "It''s common courtesy to answer the door." The blasted mage had the audacity to use what her students called her lecturing voice, as if she was imparting knowledge most people would never hope to gain.


    Diarnlan had never cared for common courtesy or other people. She stubbornly refused to move.


    Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair shook her head sadly. Anyone would have thought she was surprised and disappointed by her student''s behaviour. Diarnlan knew better. She had never made any attempt to conceal her real personality. Her parents knew it, her fellow students and teachers at the academy knew it, and her current teacher knew it before she accepted her as a pupil. If the mage found her too obnoxious to deal with, she should have sent her away long ago. It was too late now to expect to change her.


    Knock-knock-knock. Whoever was at the door hit it more loudly this time.


    The mage got up and went to the door. Diarnlan watched with a mixture of exasperation and disgust. Could no one give her any peace? Was her house to be constantly invaded by unwanted visitors?


    "Hello," a voice said outside.


    It sounded like a young boy''s voice -- or perhaps a young teenager''s. Diarnlan scowled. She''d had trouble with the village boys taking short cuts across her garden before. If this little brat dared to bring the news his friends had squashed her tomato plants again, she''d throw him into the sea.


    "My teacher''s sent me with some gifts for the magician who saved us yesterday."


    In hindsight it had been a mistake to kill that monster. All day yesterday she''d had to deal with obnoxiously grateful people who''d never given her the time of day before the monster-slaying. Now there were more blasted visitors bearing useless gifts. At this rate she''d have to leave the country until they forgot about her.


    The boy continued, "Are you the magician''s maid?"


    Diarnlan had intended to pretend she wasn''t in the house. That remark startled a laugh out of her anyway.


    Her teacher made an offended noise. "I most certainly am not, young man. I am one of the Great Mages."


    For a moment the boy spluttered incoherent apologies. Diarnlan could just imagine how red his face must be. Luckily for him her teacher decided to change the subject.


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    "You say your teacher has sent gifts? Who is your teacher?"


    "Professor Thyrvul. From the academy. She''s just one of my teachers, but she was with me yesterday when the monster attacked so she thought--"


    The memory of Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair''s ludicrous scheme was all too fresh in Diarnlan''s mind. A sinking feeling filled her chest. Someone somewhere had a very twisted sense of humour. This was the sort of coincidence that should only happen in potboilers and threadbare alibis. It had  no business happening in real life, and especially not when she would be dragged into it.


    "Indeed!" Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair''s voice showed her thoughts had gone along exactly the same line. "What a coincidence. I''m about to write to your headmistress. Perhaps you can help answer one of my questions before I write. Do you know if any of your classmates would be interested in a few months of studying with a different teacher? With the magician who killed the monster, for example?"


    Oh no. Oh no, no, no. This couldn''t be happening. From where she was sitting Diarnlan was hidden from the door by part of the kitchen wall. She couldn''t see her teacher and her teacher couldn''t see her. She glared fiercely at the wall anyway, in the vain hope her displeasure would somehow travel through the brick and halt Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair before this insanity went any further.


    "Everyone would want that," said the boy. "Can I put my name down first?"


    The mage laughed. Diarnlan ground her teeth so loudly it was a miracle the other two didn''t hear. "I''ll have to talk to your headmistress first. All the details still have to be ironed out. But I''m sure you''ll be one of the students chosen if this plan goes ahead. What''s your name?"


    "Karandren," the boy chirped. "Karandren Hriatansson."


    <hr>


    That afternoon the headmistress of Laoivere Academy received a letter. She received many letters every day, but this was the first one in years from a Great Mage. She read it several times. Then she called a staff meeting and showed it to all the other teachers. Everyone exclaimed and wondered at it. There was never any doubt of what the answer would be. If a Great Mage wanted to do their students the honour of letting her students teach them for a while, then of course the academy staff would accept.


    No one ever spared a moment to wonder if the mage''s pupils were qualified to teach. That would have been downright insulting. No one asked any of the questions that should have been asked before they agreed.


    And so their fates were sealed.


    <hr>


    When the students arrived Diarnlan had not warmed up to the idea at all. She had, perhaps, resigned herself to it. But the thought of teaching a group of spoilt, selfish brats only worsened her already near-perpetually bad temper.


    True to his word, Karandren was the first of the little pests to put his name down for her to teach him. He wasn''t alone. All but one of the twenty students wanted Diarnlan to be their teacher. (The only one who didn''t was the niece of one of Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair''s other students, and wanted her aunt to teach her.) It turned out that slaying a monster was just the sort of thing to make teenagers think you were the greatest magician in the world.


    Diarnlan really regretted ever interfering with that brute.


    In the interest of fairness Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair assigned two students to each of her pupils. She only had ten, so that worked out well enough. Just to prove the world was cruelly unfair, the two Diarnlan got were Karandren and Erdreda, the student who hadn''t wanted her to teach them. She wouldn''t have been happy with any students, but these two were especially annoying.


    Karandren was by far the worst. Erdreda was an idiot who couldn''t tell the difference between a grimoire and a cookbook, but Diarnlan had expected nothing else. Karandren, on the other hand, was actually good at magic. Very good at it. Frighteningly good at it, some might say.


    On the very first day of lessons she walked into the room she''d set aside as a schoolroom and found Karandren levitating his books above his desk while he made his lunchbox fly around the room. Such control over magic took years of long, hard study to master. Diarnlan still couldn''t do it and she was at least ten years older than this arrogant little upstart.


    He had the audacity to smile at her and greet her with a cheery, "Good morning, teacher!"


    A bitter, unhappy little voice at the back of her mind said, full of self-loathing, There''s nothing you can teach this boy. He''s a better magician than you can ever hope to be.


    When she was unhappy Diarnlan knew of only one thing to do: make everyone around her equally unhappy. She glared at the boy with such fierceness an onlooker would have thought he was the vilest criminal in the kingdom.


    "Stop that absurd display at once. Your teachers at the academy might let you waste your time with this nonsense, but I most certainly won''t."


    Karandren''s smile vanished. It was replaced by a look of hurt and confusion. That only infuriated Diarnlan more. How dare he look as if she was being unreasonable? The fact she knew perfectly well she was being unreasonable just added more fuel to the fire.


    <hr>


    Once upon a time Karandren had been delighted at the thought of a monster-slayer teaching him. That was before he met Professor Diarnlan. Now he longed to be back at the academy. The teachers there at least tried to hide their dislike of him behind a veneer of courtesy. Diarnlan clearly thought he wasn''t worth that much effort.


    Nothing was ever good enough for her. If he understood a lesson as soon as he heard it she accused him of not paying attention and lying to hide it. If he went over the lesson again just to make sure he really did understand it, she complained he was taking too long. If he handed in an essay that was the required length and finished in the required time she would ask, in that horribly icy voice, "Who did you copy it from this time?"


    Displaying his ink-stained fingers only made her snort and tell him there was a sink and soap in the bathroom, and civilised people knew how to use both. The use of the word "civilised" reminded him of all his most hated classmates at the academy. The ones who thought a half-human hybrid couldn''t possibly be as good as them. The ones who actively tried to harm him when they found he was much better than them.


    There was only one good thing he could say about Diarnlan. She didn''t play favourites, unlike his teachers at the academy. She treated Erdreda with exactly the same scorn she showed Karandren. In that case her scorn was actually justified. On the very first day Erdreda botched a spell so badly she incinerated part of the floor. Some teachers would have whipped a pupil for such a catastrophic mistake. Diarnlan didn''t have to. She told Erdreda exactly what she thought of her. Mere minutes into that lecture, her hapless pupil was crying her eyes out.


    Karandren hated many of his teachers. He hated how they dismissed him at best and treated him like something they scraped off their shoe at worst. He hated how they overlooked his magic skills. He hated how they accused him of hurrying through his work when he completed a lesson long before everyone else -- for Diarnlan wasn''t the only one of his teachers who did that. He hated how they reserved all their gushing praise for some imbecile who had less magic in their whole body than Karandren had in his little finger. Above all he hated how they looked down their noses at him as soon as they heard about his parentage.


    (That was just about the only thing he couldn''t complain about Diarnlan doing. He went to considerable pains, including bribing one of the academy teachers with money he''d "borrowed" from a bully, to keep his parentage hidden. No one could tell he wasn''t fully human just by looking at him. It was both annoying and -- in a bizarre way -- slightly reassuring to find someone whose dislike of him had nothing to do with who his parents were.)


    Of all the teachers he hated, Diarnlan was the only one who he truly wanted to impress. She''d killed a monster as if it was just a pesky insect! She was a student of one of the Great Mages! No one could doubt her magical powers, while there was considerable room to doubt if some of the academy''s teachers had enough magic to light a fire. So Karandren tried harder and harder to get just one word of praise from her.


    It never came. No matter how well he followed her instructions, no matter how good his spells were, she never gave him so much as an approving nod.


    His only consolation was that she never gave anyone any signs of approval. That wasn''t much of a consolation for a boy who had never heard any teacher tell him, "Well done."


    <hr>


    Day after day, week after week this unpleasant state of affairs dragged on. Diarnlan continued to hate Karandren. Karandren continued to hate Diarnlan while at the same time miserably longing for her approval. Such a situation could never last forever. It was destined to end in an explosion.


    At last the explosion came.

 Chapter III: Der Verrat

    DER VERRAT


    German, "the treason; the betrayal".


    For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first. -- Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games


    There were places in the world where the veil separating it from the ¨®hreinnj?re[1] became thin. Sometimes they were natural. Sometimes they were formed by something on the other side attacking the veil until they broke through. The second sort were the most dangerous. No one could predict where they would appear next. And no one could predict what would come through them. The monster Diarnlan killed had probably come through one such place. People kept a close eye on the sea in case any more monsters followed.


    None did. After four months devoid of skryszel sightings everyone began to relax.


    Naturally that was when the next attack came. It didn''t come from the sea. And it wasn''t a skryszel; it was just an ordinary j?tunn. But even an ordinary j?tunn was still far larger than a human and could do considerable damage to anything in its path.


    This particular j?tunn might as well have been sent directly to cause mayhem for Karandren. In the first place it arrived on the very day after he got into an argument with another student over whether it was possible or not for a human to survive a trip to the ¨®hreinnj?re. In the second place Diarnlan had taken Karandren and Erdreda to a farm for "practical magic experience" -- in other words trying to use identification spells to tell poisonous toadstools from harmless mushrooms -- when the j?tunn tore a hole in the veil right in the middle of the farmyard.


    Karandren and Erdreda were in the kitchen garden, poring over mushrooms the farmer had collected and brought back for them to study. Diarnlan told them bluntly she didn''t trust them not to eat the mushrooms if they were allowed to hunt through the forest for them. Their oh-so-respected teacher kept a close eye on them in-between reading the latest instalment of some serial novel.


    In spite of what Karandren had assumed at first, Diarnlan did in fact have hobbies beyond making her students'' lives miserable. They included a fondness for reading some hapless author''s work for the sole purpose of mocking it and poking holes in it.


    If only she used up all her spite on those books and had none left for us, Karandren frequently lamented after each especially nasty insult.


    If it wasn''t for that book Diarnlan would have sensed the spike in dark magic long before the j?tunn broke through. Unfortunately she was absorbed in sneering at a poor choice of words and a plethora of dangling modifiers. The two teenagers weren''t experienced enough in sensing changes in ambient magic to know anything was wrong until it was too late.


    Karandren was the first to sense something. "I''ve told you a dozen times, no edible mushroom has--"


    He trailed off abruptly. An odd prickling sensation ran up and down his arms, as if insects were crawling over his skin. Growing up around ice spirits -- and being half glacier-sprite himself -- meant he was intimately familiar with ice magic. This felt like his mother''s magic and yet nothing like his mother''s magic. The similarities more than the differences were what unnerved him the most.


    "Something''s wrong," he said.


    Erdreda snorted. "Of course something''s wrong. You''re an idiot and that mushroom is perfectly safe."


    "No, I don''t mean that. Don''t you sense that magic?"


    Erdreda''s blank expression showed she hadn''t a clue what he was talking about. Karandren risked a glance over at Diarnlan. She was always furious if she thought he was slacking off during his lessons. Yesterday she boxed his ears for -- in her opinion -- not working hard enough.


    Luckily she was still absorbed in her book. Karandren got up and went to the garden gate. No sign of anything out of place in the farmyard. Wait a minute. There had been chickens running around when they arrived. Their clucks and crows provided constant background noise. Karandren had become so used to it he didn''t notice when it stopped. Where had they all gone?


    The prickling feeling intensified. With it came a strange, sharp taste in his mouth. It tasted almost like blood, but it was freezing cold. Thoroughly rattled by now, Karandren turned to call Diarnlan. Then it happened. The air rippled and distorted in the middle of the farmyard. An enormous foot stepped out of the portal and landed on the ground with a resounding thud. The rest of the creature''s body followed.


    Karandren had never seen a j?tunn in real life before. All he knew about them came from the stories his mother and her family told of them. Yet there could be no doubt of what he was looking at. The giant looked as if it was carved from a block of ice. Its presence made the temperature fall dramatically. A thick layer of frost spread over the ground around its feet.


    If he had ever thought about it at all, Karandren would have expected to be frightened if he came face to face with a j?tunn. They were terrifying monsters who had come from a completely different branch of the world-tree, taken over his ancestors'' territory in the ¨®hreinnj?re and forced the glacier-sprites into Miejangare[2], and destroyed everything in their path. Anyone in their right mind would be terrified to face one.


    Instead Karandren felt perfectly calm and oddly detached. It was like he already knew how this would end and so knew there was no need to worry. Without even thinking he gathered his magic. Acting solely on instinct, he conjured up a knife made of ice magic and hurled it directly at the j?tunn''s eye.


    That was perhaps the most anticlimactic j?tunn invasion in history. The knife sank deep into its eye-socket. For a moment time seemed to freeze. Slowly the giant''s body swayed. It fell backwards. It toppled to the ground with a crash that shook the buildings.


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    Karandren grinned triumphantly. He turned round...


    And almost collided with Diarnlan. Even when insulting him and accusing him of cheating she had never looked so furious. The look on her face made Karandren take a step back in alarm.


    Instinctively he tried to explain, even though he knew it would do no good. Explanations never mattered when someone had already made up their mind. "I killed that thing before it did any damage. Just like you did!"


    At once he knew he''d made a mistake. Diarnlan''s deadly glare intensified.


    "Tell me," she said in a quiet, even tone. "How did you know exactly where this creature would appear? How did you kill it so easily when even a Great Mage would need help? And why is your aura covered in ice-magic just like a j?tunn''s?"


    Strictly speaking a glacier-sprite''s magic was not exactly like a j?tunn''s. But a human couldn''t tell the difference between them. Karandren opened his mouth. He found he had nothing to say. Not without making his situation a thousand times worse, at any rate.


    Diarnlan turned abruptly. "We''re leaving. I''m going to ask my teacher to call a meeting of the Great Mages. This is out of my hands."


    <hr>


    The situation was out of everyone''s hands. Especially Karandren''s. Within hours of killing the j?tunn he found himself before a council of the Great Mages, half the teachers from the academy, and many other magicians. And, of course, Diarnlan. He listened in numb disbelief as she accused him of conspiring with the j?tunn and helping it break through the veil.


    In fairness to Diarnlan she didn''t say anything that was blatantly a lie. She didn''t have to. She recounted the sequence of events in the light most favourable to her, making sure to cast make Karandren''s actions seem as damning as possible.


    "I looked away for a minute--" No mention of being distracted by her book, Karandren noticed, "--And when I looked back this person had disappeared." It was amazing how much disgust she could put in an innocuous word like ''person''. "I was about to go looking for him when I sensed the tear in the veil. So I ran to the farmyard and saw him right in front of the j?tunn."


    "Did you see them talking?" Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair asked sharply.


    "No," Diarnlan admitted. She grimaced as if she would have preferred to lie. "But he didn''t act as if he was surprised to see it. He conjured a knife and killed it within seconds of its arrival."


    Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair glared first at her student then at the assembled magicians. "It sounds to me as if we ought to thank Karandren for summarily dealing with a dangerous creature before it could wreak havoc. Why are all of you acting as if he''s a criminal on trial?"


    Diarnlan glared back at her teacher. "When he conjured the knife he used a completely different sort of magic than he ever used before. It was indistinguishable from a j?tunn''s magic. There can be no doubt he''s a half-breed spy they sent to learn information about us."


    "I am not half-j?tunn," Karandren protested. "I''m-- I''m--"


    No amount of bribery could keep the truth of his parentage concealed now. The headmistress of the academy stood up as soon as the words were out of his mouth.


    "That''s true enough," she said. "His mother''s a glacier-sprite."


    In the eyes of almost all the oh-so-righteous magicians, being half-anything was cause for scorn. Being half-glacier-sprite, when everyone knew the glacier-sprites originally came from the ¨®hreinnj?re, was all the proof needed in a situation like this to declare him a spy. The assembled magicians looked at him with disgust and contempt, as if he was something they''d scraped off their shoes. Karandren had thought he was used to such looks. Now he found there was a difference between getting them from teenagers at the academy and getting them from adults who were fully-fledged magicians.


    Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair remained the only voice of sanity in the room. "Tell me, someone. Let''s just suppose he is a spy for the j?tnar. It''s highly improbable considering they despise half-breeds as much as us and they have a well-known feud with glacier-sprites. But just suppose he''s a spy. Why then would he kill a j?tunn? Is that the sort of thing that would make them trust him?"


    Diarnlan said nothing. The academy''s headmistress answered instead.


    "Obviously it was to make us laud him as a monster-slayer, just like your esteemed student here!"


    Karandren winced. He risked a glance at Diarnlan. She didn''t look at him or anyone else. She stared at the marble floor with an unhappy twist to her mouth. For one brief, hope-filled moment he thought she would listen to her teacher. It was considered downright immoral to think you knew better than your teacher. Apart from that, no matter how much she hated Karandren, she couldn''t publicly disagree with someone as esteemed as a Great Mage.


    "A fourteen-year-old boy cannot possibly kill a j?tunn," another magician interrupted. "I don''t care what his mother is. It can''t be done. The whole thing must have been a set-up."


    Diarnlan looked up sharply. "I examined the body. Do you think I don''t know how to tell when a skryszel''s dead?"


    The magician mumbled an apology. "It must have been an old and sick j?tunn then."


    "It wasn''t," Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair said. "I checked the body myself. It was a young and healthy one."


    "That just makes it all the more ridiculous to think this boy could have killed it without foul play being involved," the headmistress said. "I don''t mind telling you that we''ve always had trouble with this boy. One of his classmates died in mysterious circumstances right after this boy picked a fight with him."


    Karandren opened his mouth. Then he closed it again. What was the use in trying to explain when everyone had already decided he was guilty? It wasn''t as if he had meant to kill that bully. He just lost his temper and held him underwater for a bit too long.


    The headmistress continued, "And of course he''s far too good at magic. No teenager is ever that good. He simply must be cheating."


    Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair looked at her scornfully. "Have you any proof he''s cheating?"


    Reluctantly the headmistress admitted, "Well, we''ve never been able to catch him."


    "Then that''s just a baseless rumour that shouldn''t be repeated as fact. I''m surprised you even mentioned it."


    Abashed, the headmistress fell silent. A long and painful silence descended on the room. Karandren hardly dared to breathe. He looked from Diarnlan to Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair for help. Diarnlan had gone back to ignoring everyone. She traced patterns on the ground with the toe of her boot and never looked up. Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair met Karandren''s gaze briefly. She gave him a pitying look and a minute shrug.


    At last one of the other Great Mages spoke up. "We have enough evidence to cast considerable doubt on Karandren''s character. For everyone''s safety, I think it''s best to exile him."


    "You are all idiots," Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair said bluntly. She looked at Diarnlan. "You know this boy is innocent. All of you," she glared at the assembly, "have cobbled together nonsensical claims just because you don''t like him. And you," she gave Diarnlan an even fiercer glare, "are going along with it because he''s hurt your pride."


    Diarnlan refused to look up. She continued to stare at the ground even as Karandren was dragged out of the room.


    <hr>


    Karandren was all but literally thrown through the portal to Miavain. He landed in the middle of an empty field, with no money, no idea where he was, and no means of getting food and shelter. All he had were the clothes he was wearing, his magic, and his burning hatred of all those magicians.

 Chapter IV: Die Rache

    DIE RACHE


    German, "the revenge".


    I will hurt you for this. I don''t know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you''ll know the debt is paid. -- G. R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings


    For years after that everything seemed to go on as normal. No one spared another thought for Karandren. No one, that is, except Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair. For over ten years she kept an eye out for any news of him. She never heard anything. He might as well have fallen off the face of the earth.


    The mage was eccentric but not stupid. She knew perfectly well what the likely result would be of throwing a teenager into a foreign country with no resources. She knew her colleagues had essentially sentenced Karandren to a slow death of starvation, exposure, or illness. At best he would be forced to beg on the streets. He didn''t speak a word of Miavish; how could he ever make a life for himself there?


    After ten years Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair officially stepped down as a Great Mage. In her resignation message she told her former colleagues exactly what she thought of them.


    Five years after her retirement, the other Great Mages elected a replacement. And who better than one of her former pupils, someone who had already proved she was a competent magician and a skilled fighter? If Diarnlan had any regrets about how she came to get her new position, she didn''t show them.


    Two years after that, another monster crawled out of the sea. Once again Diarnlan was the person to kill it. That was when she gained her title. Diarnlan Kerg¨ªnelsd¨®ttir essentially ceased to exist, and Guireth-melaer-hrem¨®n took her place.


    Did she ever spare Karandren a thought? Did his probable fate ever trouble her? No one was close enough to her to know. Whether it did or not, she refused to ever take a student again.


    <hr>


    The first year was the worst. Foreign languages with a hundred different dialects were the least of Karandren''s worries. True, he''d never studied Miavish. He''d never thought he had any need to. But he had grown up hearing his father speak his hometown dialect of Avallese while his mother spoke the dialect of the scholars she had learnt from. Her relatives spoke their own native language, which was nothing at all like Avallese or any human language. In the academy Karandren quickly picked up standard Avallese. So with all that linguistic experience behind him, he had no trouble learning enough Miavish to get by.


    If sometimes he learnt it far more quickly than anyone should, and if he occasionally found he knew words he had never even heard before, he shrugged and dismissed it. There was probably a good explanation for it. He just didn''t care enough to find out what it was.


    No, learning Miavish wasn''t a problem. Finding food and shelter was. And the biggest problem of all was staying out of the clutches of the Bone-Worshippers.


    The academy didn''t only teach magic. It also offered courses in history, politics, geography, and many other mundane things. They were mandatory for the first year and optional from then on. Karandren opted out of them as soon as he got the chance. Now he regretted that decision immensely.


    When he first landed in Miavain his mind was entirely occupied by finding somewhere to stay. He stumbled along a dirt road -- little more than a hiking trail, really -- until he saw a building in the distance.


    Karandren forgot about his anger, hurt, and fear as he ran to it, hoping desperately it was a house and someone was home. Then he got close enough to see what it was and his heart fell again. It was a house, all right. But it was a house that looked like it hadn''t been lived in since King Andin''s time[1]. All the windows were broken, the front door hung off its hinges, and part of the roof had caved in.


    An icy chill filled the air as the sun sank beneath the horizon. Like it or not, he would just have to stay here. There was no way he could get to an inhabited house before it was fully dark.


    Karandren climbed in through one of the broken windows. He looked around. This had once been someone''s living room. Flower-patterned wallpaper still clung to some parts of the crumbling wall. An old chair lay on the floor, all its legs broken. The empty fireplace looked like a gaping mouth in the half-darkness. Karandren cast his magic around the place warily. All he found were birds nesting in the roof and mice in the walls.


    On one side of the room was a strange table attached to the wall. It was covered with still-intact glass bottles. Curious, Karandren went over to have a closer look. Now he saw it was actually an altar. The bottles were candle-holders. A small indentation in the wall showed where the statue of the god would have been placed.


    Something about that altar set Karandren''s teeth on edge. He backed away slowly and examined it with his magic. There was nothing inherently sinister about it. No spells or echoes of rituals lingered on it. Yet he felt the same revulsion he''d felt when he learnt about the sorts of dark magic that required human sacrifice.


    He sat down beside the fireplace with his back against the wall and tried to remember everything he''d ever learnt about Miavain. His memories weren''t encouraging.


    Avallot had always looked down on Miavain and its inhabitants and viewed them as barbarians. Four hundred years ago that opinion became horribly justified. During Queen Aigaer''s reign the Holy and Virtuous Empire of Drekakuria invaded and conquered Miavain. They intended to use it as a stepping stone to conquer Avallot. Aigaer drove them out of Avallot but not out of Miavain. They reshaped it in their image, forcing their own horrible religion on the people and murdering anyone who refused to convert.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Ever since then Miavain had been a stronghold of the Bone-Worshippers. The priests had their claws so deeply in the country that their word was law. They told people the only way for them to get to heaven was to pay the priests half of everything they earned. They took the bones of dead criminals or even of livestock and claimed they were the bones of gods and saints. Anyone who questioned this or refused to show proper respect to the bones was declared a heretic -- and the Bone-Worshippers knew of only one way to deal with heretics. People suspected of heresy were tortured into confessing. Then they were burnt at the stake and the priests stole all their property.


    Then there was how they treated women. Karandren spared a moment to be devoutly thankful he wasn''t a woman. The Bone-Worshippers had a very narrow idea of what a woman should be. Any woman who didn''t fit that idea was considered a demon sent to tempt men. She was sent off to a convent -- euphemistically called a Place of Prayer and Reflection -- and never heard of again.


    By far the worst part was how they treated children. At some point one of their archbishops had a revelation that it was moral and right for priests to rape anyone they wanted -- including children. Karandren''s history teacher only mentioned that in passing. At the time he''d been happy not to think about it. Now he wished he knew more so he could know how to protect himself from any priestly perverts he encountered.


    His stomach twisted at that thought. It was just as well he''d eaten nothing recently or it would have made him physically sick.


    Karandren hadn''t eaten since-- Was it really only a few hours ago? It felt more like a lifetime. He and Erdreda had a sandwich before they left for the farm. Strange how he could think of the events leading up to his exile with as much detachment as if they had happened to someone else. He felt like he had been completely hollowed out and filled with nothing but cold rage and the determination to get revenge.


    He was hungry, all right. But it wasn''t the sort of hunger that could be satisfied with food. As a small child he''d heard of a starving vampire going on the rampage. Usually vampires were satisfied with draining only one person of blood. That one killed an entire village, far more people than it could ever hope to feed from without bursting its own stomach. It would have killed more if it hadn''t been killed first. Karandren''s mother said it was so mad with hunger it would kill anything resembling food just so it could convince itself it would never be hungry again.


    Now Karandren knew exactly how that vampire had felt.


    He lay awake for most of the night. Occasionally he dropped off for minutes at a time. Then some noise, real or imagined, would startle him awake. When dawn stained the horizon red he finally gave up. Staying here would do him no good. He needed to find an inhabited house -- preferably one far away from the nearest priest.


    Karandren climbed out the window and set off in a random direction. He still had no idea which part of Miavain he was in or where the nearest town was. The sooner he found out, the better he could make plans.


    <hr>


    Fate had a very cruel sense of humour. Within twenty minutes of walking Karandren came across a huge house. He couldn''t see anyone in the grounds or through the window. In spite of his own misgivings he risked going closer. There wasn''t even a guard dog. Whoever owned this place was either trusting to the point of idiocy or had some powerful magic protecting their house.


    Karandren cast every ward-finding spell he knew. None of them showed even a hint of magical protections. It looked like the owner was the suicidally trusting type. Good. Someone with such a large house would have plenty of food, plenty of money, and probably a map lying around somewhere. And if they didn''t want to be robbed, why, they should go to more trouble to protect their property.


    He cast an unlocking spell on the kitchen door. The kitchens were as large as he expected and mercifully empty. He tiptoed out of them, up the stairs, and into the main hall.


    His blood ran cold. In the middle of the hall stood an enormous altar surmounted by a sculpture of a skeleton. Candles burnt all around the altar -- candles placed in human skulls.


    Bone-Worshippers.


    Even though there was no one around Karandren dived behind one of the heavy velvet curtains. He held his sleeve over his mouth to muffle the sound of his breathing. Minutes ticked by. No one threw aside the curtain and dragged him out of his hiding place. The building remained silent and lifeless. Maybe no one was home.


    Karandren ventured out warily. He kept a sharp eye out for anyone waiting to pounce on him. Carefully he made his way out of the hall. Any thought he''d had of looking for food here had long since vanished. He began to tiptoe back down to the kitchens. Then he paused. Whoever lived here must be very rich and important. The common people of Miavain were kept in perpetual poverty by the priests leeching off them. Combine that with the ostentatious altar and it was easy to deduce he''d ended up in a priest''s house. The priests were perverts and monsters. It was practically his duty to rid the world of them.


    Unlit candles lined the walls. It was the work of a moment to light them and hold them against the curtains, the carpet, anything that would burn.


    The fire took hold immediately. Karandren scurried down to the kitchens and out the door. He kept running until he was far away from the house.


    When he looked back he saw the smoke rising from it.


    <hr>


    After that he wandered aimlessly around the country for several weeks. When he found a village he stole food under cover of darkness. He stayed out of sight and eavesdropped on conversations to pick up as much of the language as he could. When he finally reached a large town he was reasonably confident in his ability to be understood. His accent was the thing most likely to give him away.


    For over a year he lived in that town, doing odd jobs for the baker and running errands for other shopkeepers. He managed to stay well away from any priests. In his spare time he practiced his magic. He forced it to do things he had only heard of and things he had never before realised magic could actually do. Things like completely taking over someone else''s mind and making them obey his will.


    Within two years the entire town was his mindless slave. Within five years he''d expanded his reach to the other towns nearby. As the years went back he continued practicing dark magic on priests, lawyers, and anyone else who no one would miss. Soon he was in control of the whole kingdom. His control was as dictatorial and absolute as the now-overthrown Bone-Worshippers.


    It wasn''t enough. He was even more like the vampire than he realised. It didn''t matter how much blood he spilled. It didn''t matter how many priests he skinned alive with his bare hands. It didn''t matter how many people he clawed apart and stitched back together. He was still starving, and only one person''s blood would satisfy him.


    He had to kill Diarnlan.

 Chapter V: Umsonst

    UMSONST


    German, "free (of cost); for nothing; in vain"


    Die Schatten werden l?nger (The shadows become longer)


    Es ist f¨¹nf vor zw?lf (It''s five to twelve


    Die Zeit ist beinah um (The time is almost up)


    -- Elisabeth das Musical, Die Schatten werden l?nger (The Shadows Become Longer)


    Events in Miavain mattered nothing to the people of Avallot. Years ago when the Bone-Worshippers first got their claws into the country, the Mages of Avallot had put up a ward blocking Miavain off completely. No one from there could ever get into Avallot. Nor could the common people of Avallot get into Miavain. The only people who could open the wards temporarily were the magicians, and they did it only when banishing someone.


    For obvious reasons, Miavain had become their preferred place to get rid of someone without technically killing them. The exiled person would die anyway, but the magicians could claim they weren''t truly responsible. "Out of sight, out of mind" was their attitude.


    No news filtered up from Miavain. No one in Avallot had the slightest inkling there was anything unusual happening beyond the wards. Virtually no one spared so much as a thought for Karandren as the years passed. If Diarnlan ever remembered him or wondered about his fate, she never said anything.


    Years turned to decades. Magicians in general lived much longer than the Spiritless. Mages lived even longer than ordinary magicians. Eighty years passed and Diarnlan looked barely a year older than when she killed the first monster. Her ability to kill monsters quickly certainly hadn''t faded with time. The minute reports circulated about a third monster, the first one sighted in over sixty years, she took her sword and left her realm to deal with it.


    Where she got Saugnrafn was one of the many mysteries Diarnlan allowed to spring up around her. There was nothing magicians liked so much as gossiping about other magicians. Especially Great Mages, and even more especially Great Mages who refused to hobnob with the common riffraff. She''d heard no end of wild rumours about her ancestry (which she was pained to admit was not nearly as exalted as the gossips claimed), how she killed monsters so easily (anyone could kill them easily if they struck at their weak parts), and what she did when she refused invitations to social events (stayed in the palace she''d built for herself and read her favourite books, mostly).


    The ice-sword Saugnrafn was so distinctive it prompted many rumours. An astonishing number of people believed she''d ventured into the ¨®hreinnj?re and found it there. That wasn''t true in the slightest. She''d made it herself, like all mages made their soul-weapons themselves. But the rumours made people treat her with wariness and respect, so she couldn''t be bothered correcting them.


    Today started like any other day. Diarnlan woke up, had breakfast, ignored the pile of letters from her sister, and spent an hour practicing her swordsmanship. Some faint sense of unease prompted her to practice even longer than she usually did. Then she practiced casting complicated spells, like teleporting a piece of furniture from one room to another and rearranging whole wings of the palace. That kept her magic strong and her control over it sure. After that she sat down with a cup of tea and the latest instalment of a serial novel.


    All the mages could communicate with each other telepathically in emergencies. The first she knew anything was wrong was when the equivalent of a fire alarm went off in her head.


    Monster sighted on the shore! one of her fellow mages shouted. Diarnlan winced. It was like someone screaming in her ear at the top of their lungs. Biggest one we''ve seen yet!


    Diarnlan didn''t reply. Instead she did the telepathic equivalent of picking someone up by the scruff of the neck, hurling them out the door, and slamming it closed behind them. She rubbed her forehead with a pained grimace. Some people could never get the message that they didn''t have to shout when communicating telepathically. Now she had a splitting headache and a monster to kill. Wonderful. Just how she wanted her day to go.


    She summoned Saungrafn to her hand, conjured up her battle-armour, and teleported to the beach. There was only one place where the monsters came through: a gap between the worlds not far from her old house. At least it made finding them an easy task.


    <hr>


    Miavain had very few supernatural beings. Like almost everything else wrong with this loathsome place, it was entirely the fault of the Bone-Worshippers. They had gotten the idea that everything supernatural was evil and demonic. So they hunted down and killed every non-human creature they could get their hands on. The survivors retreated into the most out-of-the-way places.


    Karandren had been lonely at first. True, half-humans never really fitted in with humans or non-humans. Yet during his first year in Miavain he would have given a great deal to see someone, anyone who wasn''t human. Even a j?tunn would have been welcome.


    As time passed he delved deeper and deeper into dark magic. It chipped away at all vestiges of positive emotion until he stopped even feeling lonely. He was the undisputed ruler of Miavain. If he wanted to he could kill everyone in the entire kingdom. He knew it and they knew it too. Once-proud royals and nobles bowed and scraped before him. Commoners flung themselves flat on the ground when he passed, terrified of doing something to anger him. The remaining supernatural beings took one look at the latest tyrant to rule the kingdom, decided this was something worse and more powerful than the Bone-Worshippers, and fled en masse to other branches of the world-tree.


    He might have felt proud or happy once to know no one could ever hurt him again. But dark magic had a numbing effect. Most days he could barely even muster a vague sense of satisfaction or the faintest amusement. The only way he could make himself feel anything was to kill someone a little slower, torture them a little longer, until something similar to happiness pierced the haze that filled his chest.


    Well, technically there were two ways to feel something. He could inflict new and horrible tortures on random people to feel joy, or he could think of Diarnlan to feel rage.


    Karandren knew of no words in any of the languages he spoke to describe how he felt about Diarnlan. Hurt, betrayal, anger, hatred; all of those were easy enough to define. But they were mixed up with much more confusing emotions. Emotions like wanting her to be proud of him, something far too close for comfort to a child''s longing for someone they admired to praise them. He steadfastly refused to even acknowledge those emotions. They had no business being there.


    Like all powerful magicians Karandren had barely aged outwardly over the last eighty years. To tell the truth he had barely aged inwardly either. He was still little more than a teenager. But he was a teenager with unlimited power who had murdered his conscience and replaced it with voices that drove him to worse and worse crimes. And like normal teenagers -- the only way he was like a normal teenager by now -- he rarely looked before he leapt.


    He was the only magician in all of Miavain by now. That had two main consequences. One, none of the Spiritless dared to plot against him when he could read their thoughts and crush their minds from a distance. And two, the lack of other magic around made him especially sensitive to detecting magic being used in Avallot.


    Sleep always evaded him at night. Instead he lay awake and focused on the distant flickers of magic beyond the wards. Sometimes he could tell what sort of magic it was. One night he might sense a healer casting a spell to set a bone. The next night some hapless student would frantically conjure water to put out the fire they''d accidentally caused. The night after that a travelling performer would discreetly use a spell to make sure they could successfully pull a rabbit out of a hat.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    The ice in Karandren''s chest thawed ever so slightly when he caught those brief glimpses into some random stranger''s life. Then the day came and the ice froze again more solidly than before. He was dimly aware that this was for the best. Anything the dark magic had taken from him was something he could do without. Deep in his bones he had a suspicion that if the ice ever cracked he would be forced to face the full knowledge of all the horrors he''d committed, and that was something to avoid at all costs.


    From time to time he sensed Diarnlan''s magic miles away. That was the only way he knew she was still alive. Alive, well, and worst of all, powerful. In the blind rage prompted by reminders of her continued existence, Karandren would have preferred to know she had lost all her magic and was starving on the streets. Then he calmed down and reminded himself he could get revenge against her as long as she was alive.


    It wasn''t Diarnlan''s magic he sensed first on that fateful day. It was a completely different sort of magic, inhuman and dark. He''d sensed it before. The creatures that dwelt in the gaps between the world-tree''s branches used that sort of magic. Even Karandren would think twice about trying to fight them. He still wasn''t sure what exactly they were and he had no wish to find out.


    Diarnlan apparently didn''t share his opinion of those things. The very next thing he felt was a blast of her magic. A cutting spell, unless he was much mistaken, with enough force behind it to cut a decent-sized gorge in a mountainside. The inhuman magic faded out of existence. He shouldn''t be surprised the monster-slayer had slain yet another monster.


    Teenagers, even immortal ones and ones who were technically well over ninety years old, were never noted for their ability to think things through rationally. Karandren mused over how easily Diarnlan had killed that monster. Then abruptly he leapt to his feet.


    "Why am I still waiting here?" he asked himself aloud.


    There was no one around to answer. He lived alone in what had once been the grandest temple of the Bone-Worshippers, with wards at the doors to incinerate anyone who tried to get in without his permission. No point in inviting assassins in, after all.


    Karandren marched out of his bedroom -- it had once belonged to a high priest, whose body was pinned up on the wall like a butterfly on a board -- and headed towards the door. Ever since he was thrown into Miavain he had plotted Diarnlan''s death. Yet he had never acted on his plans. At first he''d had sensible reasons for his inaction. He wasn''t powerful enough yet. He didn''t have enough experience with dark magic. He needed to learn this new spell first, or that one, or that other one. Again and again he''d put off his attack. Now he couldn''t imagine why. He had magic, he had an army of mindless servants, and he certainly had the opportunity. Diarnlan would be gloating to anyone who would listen that she had once again killed a monster. The last thing she expected was another attack. The last thing the kingdom could repel was another invasion.


    He reached out to all the humans under his control. He forced one all-consuming thought into their heads: attack Avallot. Then he put on his armour, mounted his horse -- which was actually a statue animated by dark magic, a feat he had been absurdly proud of before he lost the ability to be proud of anything -- and set off towards the border.


    <hr>


    There were subtle differences between the third repetition of the time loop and how events had originally played out. Diarnlan''s fights against the monsters were much shorter and easier than they had been the first time. Karandren''s descent into dark magic happened much more quickly. Neither of them remembered the first time, but the ghost of a memory lingered in the backs of their minds.


    In the original version of events Diarnlan had leapt at the chance to get rid of her unwanted student. After he killed the j?tunn she told the magicians an almost completely fabricated story calculated to prove Karandren was really a traitor. A tiny voice warned her not to do that this time. Karandren''s first years in Miavain had been much harder and full of near-death experiences. Instinctively he managed to avoid the worst situations this time. Originally he and Diarnlan had met and fought several times over the years after his exile. This time he stayed in Miavain and never saw her again until their duel to the death.


    So many subtle changes should have combined to make something completely different. But there was one problem. Neither of them had really changed even though minor details had. There could be only one end to this story when both of them insisted on walking the same roads again.


    After she killed the skryszel Diarnlan intended to go back to S¨®lbj?rgvegr. She had a book to read, letters from various pests -- ahem, other magicians -- to answer, and she still hadn''t figured out how to modify a warming spell to hear the entire palace. She didn''t have time to listen to a motley assortment of imbeciles praising her for killing a creature that was really very easy to kill. But when she prepared to teleport back to the realm, some eerie presentiment of approaching doom made her stop.


    The next thing she knew she was dragged into a crowd of academy professors, all of whom wanted to shake her hand. They practically hauled her back to the village to talk to all the disgustingly grateful people who thought killing a skryszel was a mark of magical ability. Diarnlan had a horrible suspicion these villagers had come to see her as their guardian or something equally ludicrous.


    She forced a smile and put up with a never-ending parade of simpering fools. It took more patience than she''d ever known she possessed to keep her magic under control and her sword in its scabbard.


    A spike of magic flared in the distance. Diarnlan froze. So did all the other magicians. The Spiritless, idiots that they were, continued babbling away at her until they realised neither she nor the crowd of academy fools were listening.


    Skryszel attacks never came close together. This was only the third one in eighty years. Well, unless you counted the somewhat more frequent appearances of smaller skryszel. They came through the veil several times a decade. Because they were so small and easy to kill, no one was sure if they were really skryszel at all or a different sort of monster. For that matter the definition of skryszel was still unclear.


    Diarnlan stopped her thoughts there before she got distracted by pondering what a skryszel really was. This wasn''t the time or place. Especially not when it felt like another monster was about to come through the veil.


    The village was close enough to the sea for its inhabitants to get a good look at anything that barged into this world. Skryszel were hard to miss anyway. This one had antlers like an enormous deer on a body that resembled nothing so much as a shark with spider''s legs. Behind it, on the other side of the veil, Diarnlan could only just glimpse another shape waiting to come through too.


    Never before had more than one skryszel attacked at the same time. For a moment everyone was silent. Then they all sprang into action. The villagers grabbed pitchforks and anything else that could serve as a makeshift weapon. The magicians raised their wands. Diarnlan drew her sword.


    <hr>


    That was the longest battle against any skryszel. Everyone was taken by surprise, they got in each other''s way, and worst of all one of the brutes could breathe fire. It took over an hour to kill the first one and several more hours to kill the second. By the time Diarnlan sliced open its throat it had rampaged more than forty miles inland. Six different towns and more farms than she could count now lay in ruins. She could already imagine the ingrates complaining because she hadn''t managed to kill the damn thing before it could cause any collateral damage.


    Let''s see them do better, she thought viciously, wiping her sword clean on the grass.


    After all that excitement she wasn''t going to wait around for the next disaster. She teleported back to S¨®lbj?rgvegr.


    <hr>


    Gathering an army took time. Even when the army was composed of ordinary humans who hadn''t a thought in their heads except what he put in them. Karandren ordered them to drop everything and march to the border. They were still only human, so it took them hours to reach it on foot.


    Karandren summoned a sword made of dark magic and ripped open the wards. They trembled and collapsed. He urged his horse forward into Avallot. His army followed.


    After so many years he had no idea where to find Diarnlan. But he knew how to get her attention. He rode straight to the capital, the royal palace, and the light-tower.


    <hr>


    Once again their duel lasted for three weeks. Once again Diarnlan slipped. Once again Karandren stabbed her before she could recover. But one thing went differently this time. Her sword missed his eye. It inflicted only a shallow cut on his cheek.


    Diarnlan died. Karandren lived. And S¨®lbj?rgvegr began to crumble.


    No one knew what would happen to anyone who was still in a magical realm when it ceased to exist. Karandren looked up at the mountains as they disintegrated to dust. He looked down at the frozen lake as it began to boil. He looked at Diarnlan''s palace as it fell apart. He didn''t know what would happen to him, but he had a fairly good idea.


    Of course she would build herself a palace, he thought with an attempt at disgust. Instead his thoughts were tinged only with mild exasperation.


    His old hatred and bitterness suddenly seemed to have vanished. All that remained was a bone-deep exhaustion. Karandren sat down next to Diarnlan''s corpse. He looked at her apathetically. Had he really hated her enough to hunt her down after so many years? His own actions seemed hazy and unreal now. The only thing he wanted was to sleep.


    S¨®lbj?rgvegr crumbled. Karandren died.


    <hr>


    Karandren opened his eyes.

 Chapter VI: Wie Schwer Kann es Sein?

    WIE SCHWER KANN ES SEIN?


    German, "how hard can it be?"


    Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die. -- Markus Zusak, The Book Thief


    "I don''t believe this."


    Magicians witnessed and caused many strange and improbable things. They liked to boast nothing could shock them now. Diarnlan had discovered several times in the past that yes, she could still be shocked. But never before had she faced a situation like this.


    She remembered fighting her loathsome former pupil. She remembered the pain of the sword plunging into her chest. She remembered the surge of fury when she saw she hadn''t fatally injured him. She remembered dying -- well, in a way. At any rate she remembered a feeling like falling into a deep abyss. Yet here she was, on a frozen lake -- very similar to the one in S¨®lbj?rgvegr -- under a tree covered in glowing red leaves -- very like the one her teacher had in her realm -- with Karandren''s body lying a short distance away.


    There were many things wrong with this situation. In the first place, Diarnlan was uninjured and no longer wearing her armour. In the second, Karandren had survived their fight. He had no business lying there pretending to be dead. In the third, S¨®lbj?rgvegr would have collapsed as soon as she died. Karandren, that slippery bastard, would no doubt have run for his worthless life the minute he realised what was happening. In the fourth, why was he not wearing his armour either?


    Diarnlan stared blankly at his fur-trimmed dark blue overcoat. It was ever so slightly too large for him. If he was standing he would have looked like he''d borrowed someone else''s clothes. Lying down he looked as if some strange alien lifeform was enveloping him in its grasp.


    Even after so many years Diarnlan recognised that overcoat. He''d worn it on his first day as her pupil. She distinctly remembered snapping at him that it looked utterly ridiculous.


    "Most people know better than to make such a spectacle of themselves," she''d said icily. "Have you no coats that fit you properly or must you wear someone else''s?"


    The brat had the audacity to pretend to be hurt. He''d stared sadly up at her with his best imitation of a kicked puppy. "This is my coat. Dad sent me one that''s too big so I can grow into it."


    Strange. She hadn''t thought of that incident for decades. In fact she''d tried not to think of her hated student at all. Yet the memory was as vivid as if it had only happened yesterday.


    Diarnlan eyed the motionless boy dubiously. He certainly looked as if he was dead. Knowing him that might very well be an act. He might just be waiting for her to let her guard down so he could attack her. Instinctively she reached for her sword at her side.


    It wasn''t there. Instead her hand landed on the pleated knee-length skirt of her tunic. For the first time it dawned on her what she was wearing. A black tunic embroidered with gold leaves over black trousers. A matching cape, also black with gold embroidery, was no longer draped over her shoulders. It lay on the snow behind her. Apparently it hadn''t been fastened and had fallen off when she sat up. Diarnlan stared at it. Then she looked down at her clothes again. She rubbed her eyes.


    At least she hadn''t woken up in a stranger''s clothes. This outfit had certainly belonged to her once. Unless her memory was playing tricks on her, she''d worn it on the day Karandren first inflicted his presence upon her. There was just one problem. Shortly after Karandren''s... abrupt departure, she''d accidentally spilt paint on the tunic. She''d never worn it after that. In fact she couldn''t even remember what she''d done with it.


    Thoroughly rattled by now, Diarnlan stood up and looked around for her sword. At last she saw it. To her disbelief it was sticking out of the frozen lake, as if someone had stabbed it into the ice with all their might. Karandren''s sword was right next to it.


    Only one of them could explain this. Diarnlan turned and glared at Karandren''s body. She opened her mouth, ready to yell at him until he stopped playing dead. The words died on her tongue.


    Karandren''s eyes were open. He stared back at her with the same bewilderment she felt.


    <hr>


    If their swords had been within easy reach they would have resumed their battle on the spot. Luckily neither of them wanted to venture out onto possibly-cracked ice. Instead they fought with their bare hands until both of them were in too much pain to continue. Then they yelled at each other until they were both hoarse. Finally they both sat down on opposite sides of the tree to give their bloodied knuckles and sore throats a chance to recover.


    Diarnlan watched the cuts and bruises on her hands disappear as if they''d never existed. She felt the pain in her throat fade away. She looked up at the bright yet sunless sky and waited for night to fall. It didn''t. The faintly-visible stars never moved. It was almost as if time was frozen like the lake. Even though she was sitting on a tree-root covered with snow, she didn''t feel cold at all. Her breath left no steam in the air. Out of curiosity she stood up and walked in a circle around the root. Her steps didn''t leave a single mark in the snow.


    "I don''t believe this," she said again.


    "Neither do I."


    She started violently. At once she felt ashamed of herself. But how else was she supposed to react when her erstwhile pupil hadn''t the decency to make any noise as he sneaked up on her?


    All her life Diarnlan had one sure method of dealing with any unpleasant situation: blame it on someone else. She glared up at Karandren. He stood on one of the tree-roots that grew higher up. Whether by accident or design that meant he forced her to crane her neck to see him. Dimly she was aware she didn''t feel as much physical discomfort as she logically should have.


    "What have you done?" she asked through gritted teeth.


    "I was about to ask what you''ve done."


    Karandren jumped off the root and landed on the snow beside her. His ridiculously long coat got tangled around his feet. With a strangled yelp he fell flat on his face. Until now he had kept up a pretence of being an adult, complete with the insufferable arrogance of a dictator who expected his every word to be obeyed at once. The illusion shattered as soon as he fell. Diarnlan saw him for all he really was: a spoilt brat of a teenager playing at being grown-up.


    "You''re a child," she said with a snort. "Go and play with your toy soldiers and stop pretending you have any right to call yourself a magician."


    Karandren sat up and gave her such a furious glare she half expected him to try once again to murder her. Pouting, he said with a child''s petulance, "I know a lot more about magic than you do."


    Diarnlan tried to hex him just to prove how wrong he was. She failed. Whatever had happened to her after dying and -- presumably -- being resurrected had sealed her magic out of her reach. She turned away and did her best to pretend he didn''t exist.


    "What is this place?" she asked herself.


    Unfortunately she made the mistake of speaking aloud. Karandren just had to get in his tuppence-worth.


    "It looks just like your realm."


    Slowly Diarnlan turned and fixed him with her most icy glare. He didn''t even flinch. If anything he returned it with an even colder glare. "This. Is. Not. My. Realm."


    He snorted. "Are you sure? It''s as bleak and miserable as you are."


    The subject was promptly forgotten in the fist fight that ensued. At last the fight became half-hearted and gradually petered out. There wasn''t much point in punching someone when any injuries you inflicted healed within minutes. The two of them sat down and pointedly ignored each other for as long as possible.


    Leave it to Karandren to eventually break the silence once again.


    "We''re both dead."


    Diarnlan snorted. She didn''t bother looking round as she answered. "What are you talking about? I died. You didn''t."


    That little worm could wriggle off any hook. He''d survived exile. He''d survived years living in Miavain around gods-knew-what horrors. He''d survived the fight he started. She wouldn''t be a bit surprised if he survived a crossbow bolt to the heart. The brat probably wouldn''t even have a scar to show for it.


    "I did die," he said casually, as if only talking about the weather. "I dare say it was very silly of me. But now I know what happens to people in collapsing magical realms."


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    At least if nothing else she could derive some grim satisfaction from knowing she had killed him in a way. Well, her realm had killed him. That still counted as her killing him. Sort of. It wasn''t really a satisfying thought. But then, neither was anything else in this situation.


    "So we''re in hell," Diarnlan said flatly. "Wonderful."


    For want of anything better to do -- and to get away from her unwanted ex-pupil -- she got up and walked out onto the ice. It held. Judging by the reverberation of her footsteps it was at least a foot thick and wouldn''t break for anything short of a war-hammer. Nor did she see anything under the ice, waiting to burst out and attack her.


    This wasn''t quite what she had expected from hell. Yet it certainly wasn''t heaven. And of the religions commonly practiced in Avallot, only a cult who drank human blood in their rituals believed in anything in-between the two places. So where in the world was she?


    She almost expected Saungrafn to disappear when she tried to touch it. It didn''t. But it didn''t respond to her presence in the way the real Saungrafn had. Its hilt remained cold in her hand. Normally a soul-weapon came to life when wielded by its owner. Part of their soul resided within it, after all. But she might as well have been holding an ordinary sword.


    Diarnlan cast a wary glance at the ice around the blade. It looked solid enough. Still, she didn''t fancy the ice cracking beneath her. She might already be dead, but for all she knew she could still be injured. Carefully she took a step back. That meant she had to lean over awkwardly to grasp Saungrafn''s hilt.


    Pulling the sword out of the ice was a much more awkward procedure than it would have been if she was right next to it. She yanked it out an inch at a time. It scraped against the ice with an ear-splitting shriek.


    If anything''s lurking around here it''ll hear me, Diarnlan thought.


    For a minute that thought struck fear into her heart. What sort of creatures might be lurking in this strange place? She had never been religious. Death and what came after it were subjects she had never studied. Now she wished she had at least read the ancient texts about the afterlife. They might be completely wrong, but even so they might have given her so idea of what to expect.


    She shrugged helplessly. Not much use in worrying about that now. She''d retrieve her sword, get as far away from Karandren as possible, and try to find someone who could tell her what happened next. The two of them couldn''t be the only people in the entire afterlife.


    At last Saungrafn came free of the ice. It happened to suddenly that Diarnlan lost her balance. She staggered back and fell on the ice with a startled yelp. Luckily she dropped the sword as she fell. She didn''t particularly want to find out what would happen if she accidentally stabbed herself here.


    Diarnlan picked up her sword and scrambled to her feet. She pointedly refused to look back at the tree. If he was still there Karandren couldn''t have missed seeing her fall. No need to add to her embarrassment by seeing him laugh at her.


    She turned and looked towards the other side of the lake. If this had really been S¨®lbj?rgvegr the other bank would be clearly visible. Behind it there would be a mountain range. Diarnlan had created that mountain range to look just like a picture she''d seen in a book. It had been the first thing she added to her realm. In fact everything in S¨®lbj?rgvegr was based on things she''d seen in illustrations. She had been very proud of all her hard work once.


    Now that this strange place had the audacity to look like her realm, she wasn''t nearly as proud of it as she had been. Especially not when it was just similar enough to S¨®lbj?rgvegr to make the differences all the more jarring. There was no other bank. Nor could she see any mountains. The frozen lake stretched on and on into the distance until it looked more like a frozen sea.


    Deep in her chest her magic flickered back into existence. Saungrafn''s hilt turned warm in her hand. Diarnlan almost dropped it in shock. She had no time to recover from that surprise when the world became blurred like a picture seen through a dirty window.


    "What''s happening?" Diarnlan yelped, too startled to care that there was only one person around to answer -- and he was the last person she wanted to answer.


    In the distance she heard a high-pitched, childlike scream. Then the world cracked like a broken mirror. Blackness swept over her like a wave. All light and noises vanished. There was only the blackness and the silence and the feeling of being completely alone.


    <hr>


    Diarnlan awoke with a scream.


    When she calmed down enough to take stock of the situation, she discovered that the darkness around her had a very simple explanation. She''d pulled her quilt over her head. She pushed it away and winced in the unexpectedly bright light. Unexpectedly colourful light, too. There had been light in the strange realm, yes, but it was a white and cold sort of light. Even the glowing tree hadn''t given much colour to the place.


    Diarnlan''s thoughts ground to a halt. She stared around at her own bedroom. Not her bedroom in the palace, but her much smaller, more cluttered bedroom in her old house by the beach. She grabbed fistfuls of the old patchwork quilt her mother had given her. It felt as soft and warm and real as it had so many years ago. She scrambled out of bed and promptly tripped over her old slippers. At the same time she noticed she was wearing an old pair of pyjamas.


    She screamed again. Loudly and for as long as she could. She only stopped when her breath ran out. That confirmed two things. One, she needed to breathe. Two, her throat hurt after all that screaming.


    There was only one way to deal with this situation. She would have to think this through logically. But first she needed a cup of tea.


    <hr>


    No one who had ever attended Laoivere Academy would ever forget that infernal bell. It clanged to wake everyone up, it clanged to call them to meals, it clanged when lessons began, it clanged when there was an emergency -- real or imagined -- and sometimes it even clanged when a stray spell hit it. The noise it made could never be described. It was like a creature being tortured at the same time as a construction crew smashed rocks with sledge-hammers. Mentioning it to former students would prompt anguished groans. Current students spent much of their time planning to destroy the damned thing.


    Karandren jumped violently at the first terrible crash. The world turned upside and rolled over several times. When it stopped spinning he found himself on a wooden floor, tangled up in a patchwork quilt, staring up at a white ceiling.


    He blinked woozily. The floorboards remained solid and warm beneath him. The ceiling stubbornly refused to disappear. It was an all-too-familiar ceiling. He''d stared up at it every morning for the better part of a year. Ever since he''d been given his own, very small, bedroom at the academy, in fact.


    (Officially he''d been given that room as punishment for fighting with the other boys in his old dorm. Unofficially he''d been hastily shoved out of the dorm after a boy tried to sneak up on him and temporarily lost his eyes for his troubles. Not his eyesight, his eyes. Karandren was still rather proud of that curse. It took a lot of effort to invent and to make sure it would wear off. He hated all the other students, but he didn''t want to be expelled for permanently harming them.)


    Why does hell look like my old room? he wondered, still dazed from his rude awakening.


    First it looked like Diarnlan''s realm. Now it looked like a room in the academy. Maybe this wasn''t hell at all. All of Avallot''s religions must have got it wrong. There wasn''t actually any punishment for him after death.


    Outside the bell clanged again. Karandren changed his mind. This really must be hell, and that infernal racket was part of his torment.


    The floorboards shook. Ever so slightly at first, then with more force. Karandren jumped to his feet with a yelp. He promptly got tangled up in his quilt and fell down again. This time he had the luck to land on the bed. It took him a moment to realise that no, the world wasn''t about to disintegrate around him and hurl him somewhere else again. That was just the reverberation of fifty pairs of feet traipsing down to the dining room.


    Karandren got up and reached for the door. The room was so small that his arms were long enough to reach the doorknob from where he was seated on the bed -- or rather, they had been long enough when he died. His arms had somehow shrunk since he arrived here. In fact his entire body had suddenly become much smaller than it should be. He tried to step forward, found his balance was completely off, stumbled on his bizarrely short legs, and fell against the door with a startled squawk. It quickly turned to a pained groan as his chin collided with the wood.


    When the teachers chose Karandren''s new room for him they hadn''t been worried about giving him much space. They''d converted a disused storage room into a makeshift bedroom. It had enough room for a small bed, a smaller chest of drawers that was only just large enough for his clothes, and a tiny window above the bed. It certainly didn''t have a mirror. Karandren had never needed one before. If he wanted to check his reflection, there were plenty of mirrors in the halls, classrooms, and bathrooms. For the first time in his life he regretted not putting a mirror in his room. Even a small one would do. He had an uneasy suspicion of what was happening. He just needed a mirror to check.


    Conjuring a mirror should have been easy for someone with his magical powers. Karandren pictured a mirror. His mind settled on, of all things, the long and narrow mirror that had hung in Diarnlan''s living room. He remembered every detail about it, right down to the small scrapes on the frame and the spots on the glass. Then he tried to conjure a replica of it. His magic created the faintest outline of the mirror. Then it disappeared.


    Karandren tried and tried. Not only could he not conjure up a mirror, he found he didn''t have nearly as much magic as he should have. The dark magic he had studied for so many years had disappeared. He hadn''t had so little magic since...


    Since he was fourteen. Since he first became Diarnlan''s pupil. Since he left the academy. His suspicion became more and more certain.


    He scrambled onto the bed and tried to reach the window. It wasn''t as good as a mirror, but he might be able to catch a glimpse of his reflection. He failed. Not only could he not see his reflection, he couldn''t even reach the window. When he stood on tiptoe he was still too short.


    Karandren had experienced his most dramatic growth spurt when he was fifteen. During his time at the academy he was one of the shortest boys in his class -- something the other students never failed to remind him of. After he was exiled, almost overnight he shot up like a beanstalk. His clumsy attempts to get used to his new height were still etched in his memory. If there was anything that could possibly be broken, tripped over, or collided with, then he broke it, tripped over it, or collided with it. Sometimes he did all three at once. So when he found himself unable to reach a window that should have been level with his shoulders, Karandren knew there was something wrong. Combine that with all the other things wrong with this situation, and it painted a very disturbing picture.


    The bell finally stopped its horrific racket. From the dining hall came the sounds of the students having their breakfast. He would be missed soon. Someone would come to see why he wasn''t at breakfast. What could he tell them? "Sorry I''m late. I''m actually over ninety years old. I died yesterday and woke up in my fourteen-year-old body. You can see why I didn''t feel like breakfast after that."


    If he said that, he''d be shipped off to the mind healer before he could say "time travel".


    Karandren took a deep breath. He climbed down from the bed and walked slowly over to the door. Each step took much more consideration than normal. He felt like he was fifteen again and one false move away from falling over his own feet.


    Carefully he opened the door. He sidled around it gingerly. Only when he made it into the hallway without tripping did he finally relax.


    The whole way down to the dining room he told himself, All I have to do is get through breakfast. I can hide somewhere and find a way to reverse this afterwards. How hard can it be?

 Chapter VII: Das Ungl眉ck

    DAS UNGL¨¹CK


    German, "the sorrow; the misfortune; the calamity"


    Progress just means bad things happen faster. -- Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad


    The world has some laws that can never be broken. Bread will always land on the buttered side. The phone always rings at the most inconvenient moment. And no one is ever as conspicuous as when they try to make themselves inconspicuous.


    Karandren''s classmates generally tried to ignore his existence. They''d stopped outright bullying him after their ringleader died so mysteriously. After that they adopted a policy of pointedly turning their backs on him when he walked into a room. The students at the table closest to the door automatically began to turn away as soon as he entered the dining room. Then they stopped. Their heads swivelled round. Their eyes grew rounder and rounder until they were practically standing out on stalks.


    Karandren barely even noticed their baffled stares. He was too busy concentrating on trying not to fall over. Being well over a foot shorter than he had been yesterday left him unable to properly control his legs. If his shoes had been magnets drawn towards the metal table-legs he could hardly have found it more difficult to navigate the room.


    Conversations around him slowly died as more and more people noticed his extraordinary behaviour. When a student staggered around like a drunkard, nearly falling over chairs, tables, and uneven bits of the floor, it tended to attract attention. Karandren collapsed into the nearest empty seat without caring who else was sitting at the table. The students already there surreptitiously inched away from him. All of them eyed him dubiously and whispered to each other.


    One of the teachers came up beside him. Frowning suspiciously, she said, "Are you ill?"


    No, I''m just not used to being fourteen, Karandren thought. He looked up at the teacher with his best expression of wide-eyed innocence. "I put my shoes on the wrong feet."


    She stared at him with the confusion of an adult who couldn''t comprehend the way a teenager''s mind worked. "Then put them on the right feet and stop making an exhibition of yourself."


    He hummed noncommittally. Let her take from that whatever she wanted. He turned away and began to pile scrambled eggs onto his plate. Food at the academy was undeniably horrible. But it had been over fifty years since he''d lost the ability to taste anything at all. After so many years of food turning to ash in his mouth, it no longer matter how bad the food was as long as he could taste it. Karandren helped himself to the entire pot of simultaneously soggy and overcooked scrambled eggs. The other students stared at him as if he was a visitor from another planet.


    <hr>


    "Congratulations. You''re dead. Again."


    If anyone could hear her they would have scoffed and told her not to be so dramatic. Diarnlan wouldn''t have listened. It would probably have ended in an argument. Or maybe they would have just assumed she''d lost her mind. Next thing she knew she''d be locked up in an asylum.


    Diarnlan stared moodily down at her teacup and let her mind run wild. It conjured up increasingly ridiculous images of what might happen if anyone thought she was mad. Their very ridiculousness was somehow comforting. At least they were a temporary escape from reality. There was nothing comforting about the thought of facing what was really happening.


    Her thoughts turned back to the situation in spite of her attempts to keep them away. She found herself dwelling on her death even as she tried to forget about it.


    The strangest thing was how death felt so familiar. It was almost as if she''d died before. That was why she instinctively added "again" to her sarcastic summary of events. It startled her to find how natural that phrasing felt. Yesterday -- was it really yesterday when she didn''t know what day this was, or if time existed any more? -- she would have scoffed at the mere idea of someone dying more than once. Now, sitting in her old kitchen, holding a cup that had been broken but was now intact again, the only thing she was sure of was that none of this made sense.


    For the tenth time she pressed her fingers to her wrist. For the tenth time she felt her pulse just beneath the skin. As far as her physical body went, she was alive and perfectly healthy. Her mind and soul were another matter entirely.


    I died once, she thought, trying to reason this out. I killed myself-- Wait, what? That''s not right. That brute killed me.


    He killed me twice, her mind whispered.


    Diarnlan groaned and buried her head in her hands. How could she figure out what was happening now when she couldn''t even remember what had happened before?


    She took a sip of her tea and grimaced. It was only lukewarm. She threw the cup''s contents into the sink and poured herself another cup. She drank it slowly, staring out the window at the beach.


    The thin part of the veil was somewhere beyond those rocks. All of the monsters landed in that part of the water when they first came through. Diarnlan remembered only too well the time she and three other mages attempted to find and close the gap in the veil. They went out in a borrowed boat and cast every spell they could think of. After a full day they still hadn''t found the gap. Apparently it could only be accessed from the other side. Eventually they gave up and rowed back to the shore. Just to make a bad day even worse, Diarnlan accidentally rowed onto a rock and had to pay for the damage to the boat.


    She''d tried very hard to forget that humiliating experience. It had been years since she last thought of it. Yet now she found all the sting had gone out of it. In a way it was almost funny. What did any amount of humiliation matter when you were dead and quite possibly in hell?


    That sent her thoughts back to the problem of just where she was and what was happening here. People did not come back from the dead. They just didn''t. No amount of magic had ever managed to bring someone back to life. Time-travel was theoretically possible, but the only people who''d ever tried it had seen something that turned them into gibbering morons. No, it was simply impossible that she had somehow come back to life and been sent back in time. It was much more likely that this was some illusion created for some sinister purpose. Maybe Karandren had found a way to trap her in her own mind. It would be just like him.


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    Diarnlan set down her cup and went to explore the rest of the house. She went over everything, searching for the slightest mistake that would unravel the whole illusion. Eventually she found it. But it wasn''t at all the sort of thing she expected.


    Saungrafn stood in the hall, propped against the coat-stand like an umbrella. For several minutes all Diarnlan could do was stand and gawk.


    Why would he let me have a weapon?


    It made no sense. Whoever had created this illusion could only want to trap her here for their own nefarious purposes. Giving her a weapon -- especially her soul-weapon -- was the last thing they should do. It was like a jailer handing a prisoner the means of escape.


    It''s a fake, Diarnlan thought. That was only the only possibility that made sense. It''s just part of the illusion.


    She held out her hand. Saungrafn obligingly flew out of its scabbard and into her hand. Diarnlan made a most undignified noise half-way between a squeak and a yell. The sword-hilt warmed in her hand. At the edge of her mind she felt the magic she''d imbued in her soul-weapon waiting to be called on. If it was possible for a sword, even a magical one, to be happy to see someone, she got the distinct impression that Saungrafn was happy to see her.


    When she first started studying under Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair, Diarnlan had heard rumours that soul-weapons became sentient if you used them often enough and gave them enough magic. Her teacher had certainly treated her soul-weapon -- a scythe, of all things -- as if it was a person. She talked to it as if she expected to get an answer. Diarnlan had even seen her set it in a chair out in the garden.


    "That''s so she can look around," Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair said with a perfectly straight face. "I don''t want her to get bored."


    Diarnlan''s dignity would have taken a fatal blow if she ever acted like that towards her own soul-weapon.  When she created Saungrafn she flatly refused to talk to it, give it a chair of its own, or do anything so stupid. In its entire existence she''d never seen any indication it was sentient. Naturally she''d taken that to mean her teacher was just being her usual eccentric self. So what in the world was the meaning of this strange feeling of happiness coming from the sword?


    Diarnlan firmly pushed the feeling to the back of her mind. Dimly she felt something that was oddly like hurt and disappointment take its place. She steadfastly refused to think about that. She picked up the scabbard, tied it around her waist, and put Saungrafn back in it. This situation was bizarre enough as it was. The last thing she needed was to start thinking her sword was sentient.


    Knock-knock-knock.


    The noise sounded like an explosion in the silence of the house. Diarnlan jumped. Her hand tightened around Saungrafn''s hilt.


    Knock-knock-knock.


    Once the shock wore off she realised what it was. Someone -- or something -- was at the back door.


    All the colour drained from Diarnlan''s face. What could be outside? What sort of creatures lived in this place that looked so much like the real world but couldn''t possibly be it?


    "Diarnlan! Hellooooooo!"


    If the thing outside had spoken in an eldritch language that drove its hearers to madness, it would have frightened Diarnlan less than that did. That was her sister''s voice. She hadn''t had much contact with her family since becoming a mage, but she knew Jahanvard was still alive and well at the time of her death.


    Her first thought was to cast an exorcism spell. She got as far as preparing the spell before she had second thoughts. Anything could be out there. Exorcism spells probably wouldn''t work on it. For all she knew they might even be dangerous. No, the best way out of this was to avoid drawing its attention entirely.


    She was already only a short distance from the front door. Carefully she tiptoed over to it. She kept her right hand on Saungrafn''s hilt just in case she needed to draw it at a moment''s notice.


    At the back of her mind Diarnlan got the strangest feeling that Saungrafn was watching her actions with bemusement. She ignored that feeling like she''d ignored all the others.


    She unlocked the front door and turned the handle. The door wouldn''t open.


    Diarnlan panicked. She twisted the handle back and forth. It still refused to open. In desperation she yanked at the door. It rattled far too loudly for comfort. At the other side of the house the thing outside continued knocking the back door. It still used her sister''s voice. Diarnlan did her best to ignore it.


    After a minute of fruitlessly tugging at the doorknob she finally bothered to look at the bolt. Immediately she saw what the problem was. The door was still bolted. She slid it back and finally opened the door. As quietly as possible she tiptoed out of the house, across the front garden, and out the garden gate. Only then did she risk looking back. No sign of anyone or anything following her.


    In fact there was nothing out of place about what she saw at all. The house and its surroundings looked exactly as they had when she was still alive, on all the occasions she''d glanced back before leaving for some reason. How very strange. Even the best illusions weren''t perfect. There was always some tiny detail that was wrong. Yet she couldn''t see anything wrong here, just like she hadn''t seen anything wrong in the house itself.


    She ran along the path towards the village. In the distance she saw the roofs of the farms on its outskirts. The wind tossed her hair and tugged at her clothes. The smell of the sea filled the air. As she continued further along the path it gradually became mixed with the smell of grass and wildflowers. Long grass at the side of the path brushed against her legs.


    This was by far the most realistic illusion she''d ever heard of. She felt more and more uneasy with each minute that passed without its disintegration. What if it was real after all? What if, impossible though it seemed, she had somehow come back to life?


    Does it count as coming back to life if I''ve just travelled back in time? she wondered as she climbed over the stile by the old mill.


    If she had travelled back in time then the thing at her door might be her sister after all. Diarnlan grimaced. On second thoughts, she might prefer some monstrous denizen of the afterlife.


    There was one way to confirm or deny this hypothesis. She had woken up back in her old house. Nowhere had she seen any sign the pests -- er, students -- were expected. Therefore she had probably arrived before the first skryszel crawled out of the ¨®hreinnj?re.


    In hindsight that was when all her troubles had started. If she never killed the skryszel, she would never become famous. Her teacher would probably still come up with that hare-brained idea of bringing the pests to annoy her, but none of them would have any wish for her to teach them. They wouldn''t even know who she was. She would never have to see Karandren again. If he was banished and came back from Miavain in a hundred years to get his revenge, he''d have no reason to come after her. She could avoid repeating her first life.


    (Third life, a voice whispered in her head. She ignored it.)


    All she had to do was not kill the skryszel. That should be easy. She just had to go on an extended trip until she heard of its attack and that someone else had killed it. In fact it would be best if she left the country. Byuryan was lovely this time of year, and was separated from Avallot by the Saue¨¢rdalur Ocean. And if that wasn''t far enough away, there were plenty of countries beyond it. She could even go on a journey all the way to the ends of the earth if necessary.


    But what if Karandren has time-travelled too? That pesky little voice just had to get its tuppence-worth in.


    Don''t be ridiculous, Diarnlan thought scornfully. Time-travel is impossible. She paused, reconsidered that, and amended it to, Time-travel is highly improbable. What are the chances of both him and me waking up in the past?


    You both died.


    Clearly that voice wasn''t going to give in without a fight. Diarnlan was having a very stressful time, but she wasn''t yet at the point of arguing with her own mind. So she did the next best thing and ignored it.

 Chapter VIII: Aus Den Augen, Aus Dem Sinn

    AUS DEN AUGEN, AUS DEM SINN


    German, "out of sight, out of mind"


    She got on with her education. In her opinion, school kept on trying to interfere with it. -- Terry Pratchett, Soul Music


    The problem with being over ninety years old and pretending to be fourteen was that Karandren no longer remembered what it was like to actually be fourteen. Getting used to his new -- or should that be old? -- height was just the start of his problems. Next he had to get through classes that were interminably boring.


    He was sure they''d been boring the first time. This time they were even worse because he already knew everything the teacher was saying. It was hard to keep a straight face while he listened to someone talking about sight-enhancing charms as if they were explaining a complicated subject to toddlers.


    "The benefits of this charm are--" Professor Maholt broke off. She gave Karandren a very hard stare. "Karandren Hriatansson! Why are you laughing?"


    It had been well over seventy years since Karandren last felt the need to explain himself to an adult. He could invent an excuse, like his lie about the shoe-laces. But why should he bother going to so much effort?


    He looked Professor Maholt dead in the eye. "I''m laughing because I already know all of this."


    Until now his classmates had been surreptitiously passing notes and yawning behind their hands. Professor Maholt''s method of teaching was to give endless lectures and little practical experience. Naturally none of the students paid much attention in her class. This was the most interesting thing to happen in the entire term. They all sat up straight and stared curiously at Karandren.


    The professor turned white while the tip of her nose turned red. From past experience Karandren knew that meant she was getting angry. Everyone else knew it too. The students in the front rows tried to shuffle away without drawing her attention. When he was fourteen Karandren had found the professor intimidating. Now he was a dark magician, the once and future conqueror of Miavain, and most importantly had been Diarnlan''s student. Maholt''s fury couldn''t hold a candle to Diarnlan''s icy looks and cutting remarks.


    "All right, Mr. Smart-aleck," Maholt said pompously, drawing herself up to her full height. She probably thought she was frightening him. Karandren just thought that when he reached his full height, her head would barely be level with his elbow. "Tell us all what the benefits of this charm are."


    She might as well have asked him to give a lecture on the benefits of drinking water regularly. Karandren gave her a smile that showed just the points of his teeth. In Miavain it had terrified people out of their wits. Now, on the face of a relatively powerless fourteen-year-old, it only made her glare harder at him.


    Karandren stood up and looked around with his best air of "I''m about to say something very important so you''d all better listen", like a politician about to give a speech full of more lies than usual. "The benefits of the sight-enhancing charm are right there in its name. It makes a person''s eyesight temporarily better. Short-sighted people use it to get a break from glasses. Night-watchmen use it to see better in the dark. A person who''s looking for something might use it to spot whatever they lost. It must not be used too often or for too long or it can damage your eyes."


    Maholt looked increasingly angry with every word he said. When he finished she growled, "You copied that from the textbook."


    Instead of answering that -- of course he hadn''t copied it from the textbook; he already knew all this information off by heart from sitting through this class before -- Karandren smiled brightly at his gawking classmates. "Now I''ll demonstrate the charm."


    He picked up his wand -- all students under the age of sixteen needed wands to properly direct their magic -- and pointed it at the professor. In the time it took for his actions to register he''d already cast the spell. She only had time to yelp in alarm before it struck her.


    It was not a sight-enhancing charm.


    During his time in Miavain Karandren had learnt many painful jinxes, hexes, and curses. One of them was a spell that removed a person''s eyes entirely. He had enough sense to know a suddenly eyeless professor would attract all sorts of unwanted attention. So he modified it to a spell that would only remove her sight while leaving her eyes intact.


    Once again he overestimated how much magic he had at this age. The spell struck her. She screamed and staggered back. Her eyes began to water uncontrollably.


    "My eyes!" she wailed. "Help! Get me a tissue! My eyes are stinging!"


    Chaos erupted. The other students tried to help her. Since they were fourteen-year-olds who had never had to deal with a situation like this before, their method of helping was to wring their hands, argue over what had happened, and get in each other''s way when they tried to cast magic-reversing spells. A stray spell turned one girl a very unflattering shade of puce -- not just her hair and uniform, but her skin too.


    Amidst all the mayhem Karandren sat down at his desk and watched them all without even trying to hide his smile. All those years of not feeling anything had made him forget how much fun it was to see people panic because of him.


    Eventually someone had the common sense to remember who was actually responsible for this. One of his classmates stalked up to him. Somehow she managed to give the impression of being very tall and as intimidating as a fourteen-year-old could be, even though she was shorter than him and had somehow overturned an inkpot onto her uniform.


    "You!" she shouted, jabbing her finger in his chest. "You did this! So undo it!"


    Karandren shrugged dismissively. "How can I undo it? I don''t know what I did wrong."


    Technically that was true. He''d meant to remove Maholt''s sight. Judging by her pained groans, she could still see but he had injured her eyes in some way. Karandren neither knew nor cared how to reverse it.


    By now the noise had reached such a pitch that it could be heard in other parts of the school. The classroom door flew open and the headmistress stormed in.


    "What is the meaning of this uproar?" she yelled. She had to repeat herself twice before everyone quieted down. At once her eyes fell on Professor Maholt, huddled over her desk and groaning in pain. "Good heavens! What happened?"


    In unison all the students pointed mutely at Karandren. He shrugged helplessly and pasted on his most innocent "I''m just a clueless teenager" expression.


    "I made a mistake with a spell."


    The headmistress frowned more fiercely at him. His innocent expression must be rusty. He''d never had to use it in Miavain, after all. Or maybe she just hated him. Or perhaps it was both.


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    "You--" she pointed at him with the air of someone pointing out a horrible sight, "--go to my office. The rest of you go to your common room. Right now!" As the students all filed meekly out of the classroom Karandren heard her say, "Now, let''s see how to fix what that dreadful boy did."


    <hr>


    Fate had a very twisted sense of humour. And a terrible sense of time. And probably a personal grudge against Diarnlan. Her escape plan -- if it could be called a plan when it was just "get out of Avallot before the monster attacks" -- went smoothly until she reached the town of Thaengibekkr. Then it all fell apart.


    Thaengibekkr was the county town of Lokszkakr. It was therefore a large town, only one step down from a city, with over fifteen thousand people living in it and a constant stream of visitors entering and leaving every day. You would think that the chances of accidentally meeting someone you knew in a place full of so many people were incredibly low. You would think right -- unless you were escaping your past life''s mistakes and the last thing you wanted was to be recognised. In other words, unless you were Diarnlan.


    The way to the train station lay along the main street, the widest and busiest street in the entire town. To get there she had to elbow her way through hundreds of people standing around and cluttering up the pavement.


    She had just battled her way through a particularly rude group who refused to move when she heard a very familiar voice.


    "Diarnlan? What are you doing here?"


    It came as such a shock that Diarnlan almost tripped over her own feet. She turned and gawked at the speaker, hoping against hope they were just a figment of her imagination. They weren''t. Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair stared at her curiously. Her arms were full of children''s toys, of all things. Diarnlan stared at her teacher, then at the toys, and still couldn''t believe this was happening.


    I''m dreaming, she thought dizzily. All this stress is having a bad effect on my mind.


    "Are you all right?" her teacher asked. "You look awful."


    Yes, coming back to life does that to people. Diarnlan fought back a wild burst of laughter. Instead she demanded, "What are you doing here?"


    "Buying gifts for my cousin''s granddaughter." Diarnlan didn''t know whether to scoff or roll her eyes at that. She wouldn''t bother wasting money on gifts for her closest relatives, let alone someone so distantly related. "But what are you doing here? You said you wanted to visit the Lj¨®sbj?e[1]."


    Did I say that? Diarnlan had no memory of any such visit ever happening. It was unsurprisingly hard to remember things she''d said over ninety years ago, even though at this point they were only a few days in the past.


    "I changed my mind." I''m from the future and I came back in time after my death. The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she found she couldn''t say them.


    If there was one person anywhere in the whole wide world who almost certainly would believe her, it was Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair. The mage was already so notoriously eccentric that she was likely to believe anything. Yet the minute Diarnlan opened her mouth, a little voice piped up at the back of her mind.


    What if she doesn''t believe you?


    It was a very slim possibility. But it was still a possibility. The idea of being laughed at by her teacher of all people was more than Diarnlan could bear. So she said nothing about her time-travelling adventures and came up with an excuse instead.


    "My sister paid a visit. I don''t want to see her, so I left. She''ll never think to look for me here."


    Her teacher shook her head sadly. "You need to learn to get along with people. Especially your family. You can''t get rid of them, you know."


    Diarnlan thought about her first life (or was it her second? Her third? Why did she have so many conflicting memories of different lives and deaths cluttering up her mind?). She''d done a pretty good job of getting rid of her family and all other irritants by the simple means of secluding herself in S¨®lbj?rgvegr. What a pity her own realm no longer existed.


    Though on the other hand, she hadn''t managed to keep out all the pests. The other mages had continued to make a nuisance of themselves by telepathically contacting her when they wanted something. And then there was Karandren. He was the biggest pest of all. And he was still out there somewhere, just waiting to throw her life into chaos and kill her again...


    Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair cleared her throat. "Diarnlan, I really don''t think you''re well. You''ve been staring off into space for the last minute. And you look like you''ve seen a ghost."


    In a way that was true. She was seeing the ghost of eighty years ago. Only technically she was the ghost. This time-travel business was very confusing. No wonder everyone else who had tried it had gone mad. She felt as if she was dancing on the edge of a knife above a sea of insanity, about to fall headlong into it.


    "And there you''re doing it again. What''s wrong with you today? Surely not even you hate your sister that much."


    Diarnlan stared dully at her teacher. Again she considered telling her the truth. Again her pride refused to let her. "It''s nothing. I didn''t sleep well last night."


    Her teacher shrugged. "You can just say you don''t want to tell me, you know. I dare say I am too inquisitive for my own good. But I do worry about all my students. Even you, though you do your best to drive everyone away."


    What in the world was she supposed to say to that? Have an emotional heart-to-heart like a child confiding in their parent about some imaginary wrongdoing? Tearfully thank her teacher for being concerned about her students -- in other words, for doing what teachers everywhere were expected to do?


    You weren''t very concerned about your students, that infernal little voice whispered.


    It''s a bad idea to publicly argue with your mind, Diarnlan reminded herself just in time. She''d almost blurted out a cutting remark in reply to that.


    "Since you have nothing better to do than go on long journeys to avoid your relatives--"


    It was clear from her teacher''s voice that she didn''t believe a word of that excuse. Diarnlan felt the instinctive urge to lash out at someone, anyone, because of how this hurt her pride. She ground her teeth, but restrained herself with difficulty from saying anything.


    "--you might as well help me with my shopping. I have a lot of things still to buy."


    Diarnlan eyed the toys her teacher was already holding. It looked like she''d bought an entire shelf''s worth already. "...Are you buying them for a single child or a whole school?"


    "Who says a single child isn''t a whole school?"


    That made no sense whatsoever. Diarnlan couldn''t think of anything to say to it. When she thought about it, she realised that was probably why her teacher had said it.


    <hr>


    Karandren was no stranger to being sent to the headmistress''s office. In his first life Headmistress Rothn¨¢t had frequently summoned him to give him a lecture when his teachers accused him of cheating or when he got into fights with his bullies. Strange to say she had never given his bullies any more than a verbal slap on the wrist. She had mostly given up on lecturing him after the drowning incident. Apparently she had thought he wasn''t worth the effort any more. Or maybe she had just been too frightened of him. Now there was a thought!


    Karandren pushed his chair back so it was balancing only on two legs. Out of curiosity to see how long he could manage it he held his feet above the floor and used his magic to stop the chair toppling over. He looked around at the headmistress''s office. If she was already afraid of him, then he would have a much easier time if he took steps to make her even more afraid of him. Now, what did her office have that he could use to frighten her?


    There was the globe. That was hardly likely to scare anyone. Her desk was covered with paperwork. That could be scary, but she was probably used to it by now. In the middle of the room she had a hologram of the Nine Realms. Now that could indeed scare her. It just needed a little work--


    He was so distracted by imagining what he could do to the hologram that he forgot to hold the chair in place. It fell over backwards. Karandren fell with it. He let out a high-pitched squeak. It turned to a pained yelp when his head collided with the stone floor.


    Rubbing his head, he sat up and glared at the hologram as if it was personally responsible for his fall.


    It would take the headmistress a while to reverse the spell he''d cast on Maholt. He had enough time to make a few changes to the magic holding the hologram together. First he added a spell to make the darkness at the bottom of the world-tree more prominent. Then he began to work at shaping it until he managed to create a reasonable facsimile of a dragon''s head. It wouldn''t fool anyone who looked carefully. But by the time the headmistress thought to look carefully the illusion would have disintegrated.


    Next he created a dragon''s body to go with the head. He cast a spell on them both to make them climb up the world-tree. When the spell was activated a black dragon appeared to rise from the darkness and cover the Nine Realms. Finally he set the spell to activate in an hour, when the headmistress would be marking papers in her office.


    Satisfied with his work, he went back to his chair. When the headmistress arrived she found him sitting quietly in front of her desk as if he''d never dream of causing trouble.

 Chapter IX: Allein

    ALLEIN


    German, "alone"


    Till we can become divine, we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for change we sink to something lower. -- Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers


    It was unfortunate that Diarnlan had never thought to check what the date was. She was taken as much by surprise as everyone else when a very dusty woman barged into the grocery store and screamed, "Monster!"


    At first Diarnlan thought she meant the human variety of monster. So did several other people, judging by the chorus of voices asking, "Who?", "What happened?", and "Call the police!".


    The woman staggered over to lean against the shop''s counter. She nearly knocked over a sweet jar in the process. Diarnlan noted that clumsiness with disdain. Everyone else was too preoccupied to care -- including Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair. She dropped the chocolate bars she''d been debating whether or not to buy and didn''t even notice they had landed in someone else''s basket.


    "It crawled out of the sea," the woman said when she got her breath back. Diarnlan felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. "A horrible thing like a huge frog." The sinking sensation got worse. "It attacked a village. They tried to kill it but they just injured it. It''s gone on the rampage all along the coast. Soon it''ll be right in the midst of us. I near killed my horse trying to get here to warn you."


    In a split second Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair went from standing in front of Diarnlan to hovering next to the woman. "Where is it now?"


    "Somewhere in the countryside. I don''t know where. But it landed right on top of my house and squashed it flat! Lucky we were all at work or it''d have killed us!"


    The mage didn''t wait to hear any more. She was out the door before the woman had even finished talking.


    Diarnlan looked at the bag full of toys that she''d been handed and asked to carry. She eyed the basket full of sweets that her teacher had thrown down so abruptly. She heaved a sigh. I suppose I''ll have to pay for that.


    Luckily she could conjure money. She would have been in difficulty otherwise since she hadn''t brought any with her. (Technically it was illegal to conjure money because of the difficulty in deciding whether it was genuine or not. In practice everyone was willing to look the other way as long as you did it discreetly and in moderation.)


    She paid for the sweets, put them in a paper bag, and left the shop much more sedately than her teacher had. Now she faced a problem. Should she intervene or stand by and let Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair handle the situation?


    Obviously she should do nothing. Getting involved with these fiascos was how she got dragged into the spotlight. If she wanted to stay alive she had to avoid fame at all costs.


    She got the distinct feeling Saungrafn was unhappy with her decision. It tried to telepathically nudge her in the general direction of the monster. Diarnlan steadfastly refused to oblige it. Instead she followed at the tail end of the herd of people running for safety.


    You should do something or your teacher will be angry with you, that pesky little voice whispered.


    Diarnlan rolled her eyes. She stopped to cast a ward across the street behind the fleeing crowd. It wouldn''t stop a skryszel, but she could point to it as proof she had indeed done something.


    Eventually all of the people took shelter in temples or shrines. Perhaps they thought the gods would protect them. Perhaps they just thought those stone buildings had already lasted for centuries, so surely they''d survive a monster attack. Diarnlan neither knew nor cared. She did know that she didn''t intend to go into a crowded building just so she could be elbowed in the ribs, have her feet trodden on, and generally be pushed around by panicked idiots. Instead of going anywhere near those buildings she calmly continued on her way out of the city.


    Only when she reached its outskirts did she realise this had given her the perfect excuse to leave without being noticed. Everyone was far too preoccupied with their own worries to care anything for the disappearance of one magician. Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair would never be able to find out what happened to her. She''d be thought dead, and then Karandren would definitely have no reason to go looking for her.


    She cast a teleportation spell to send the sweets and toys to her teacher''s house. Then she set off in the general direction of the coast -- taking care to go in the opposite direction to the last reported sighting of the monster.


    <hr>


    "Your behaviour has been a disgrace ever since you arrived here. Never in all my years of teaching have I met such a trouble-maker and bully. I''ve tried to make allowances for you because you''re so young and have been brought up so badly--"


    Until now Karandren had sarcastically nodded along to everything the headmistress said, rolling his eyes and not even trying to hide his yawns. Now his head snapped up. A faint flicker of red appeared in his greenish-gold eyes. Back in Miavain everyone nearby would have known that was a sign to take cover and pray they weren''t the ones who''d bear the brunt of his wrath.


    Rothn¨¢t didn''t even notice the warning sign, much less recognise it. "I thought, the gods alone know what your parents have taught you. So we can give you more leniency--"


    "There is nothing wrong with the way I was brought up," Karandren interrupted sharply.


    If he had been older -- and if he had studied dark magic in this lifetime -- his magic would have already lashed out at his surroundings and likely destroyed most of them. Even in this much younger and less powerful body his magic filled the air like electricity before a storm. The papers on Rothn¨¢t''s desk rustled and fluttered although there was no gust of wind to disturb them. A few shadows began to creep up the world-tree hologram as his spell reacted to his fury.


    Rothn¨¢t glared at him. She continued not to notice the warning signs. That was the trouble with suddenly becoming fourteen again: no one took you seriously even when you were threatening to kill them.


    "Don''t interrupt! Well-brought-up children know not to interrupt their elders."


    That was rich. She was barely sixty while he was well over ninety. Karandren stood up to his full height, once again internally cursing how short he was, and gave her the look that had scared a Miavish priest to death. Literally; the man dropped dead of a heart attack. Unfortunately she remained completely unmoved.


    "Sit down, you spoilt brat. I haven''t finished yet. If you don''t make a real effort to improve I will have no choice but to expel you."


    "Who do you think you are?" Karandren snarled. He thought he looked as frightening as he had in his previous lifetime. Unfortunately he''d once again forgotten that to most adults a teenager in a rage only looked like a petulant child throwing a tantrum. "I am a king! I know more magic than you can ever comprehend! I won''t let anyone talk to me like that!"


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    The headmistress laughed in his face. "You? A king? You''ve been reading too many fairy-tales. All of your behaviour today has confirmed my opinion you shouldn''t be allowed to stay at this academy."


    Furious, Karandren lashed out with a spell aimed directly at her desk. It should have smashed the wood to splinters. Instead it only knocked a few papers onto the floor. The desk itself remained stubbornly intact. He didn''t leave so much as a scratch on it. Karandren gaped at it, dumbfounded. How could he have failed so badly?


    Rothn¨¢t didn''t even notice his attempt to destroy her desk. She picked up the papers, grumbling about open windows and documents that wouldn''t stay put. When she straightened up Karandren sat as still as a statue in his chair, too shocked even to move. His mind ran over everything he''d done. What had gone wrong with his magic? Surely he wasn''t that powerless?


    "As I was saying," the headmistress continued, "your behaviour has confirmed my opinion you should leave the school at once. I''ve given you a second chance, a third chance, and I believe even a tenth chance. You refuse to improve, so out you go. I''ll write to your parents now. Go to your room and start packing."


    It was a testament to how shocked Karandren was that he left without protest.


    He didn''t go back to his room. Instead he went out to the furthest part of the school-grounds, to the lake where his bully had drowned. He paced back and forth on the shore, attempting different spells until he figured out what was wrong with his magic.


    There was nothing wrong with it. It was simply a fourteen-year-old''s magic, with all the limits that came with that. He had exhausted its supply with the spells he''d already cast. Now he had none left to use. And he had just been kicked out of the academy.


    For the first time in over eighty years Karandren thought of his parents. They would be so ashamed of him being expelled. Worse, they would find out about today''s events and demand an explanation. The thought of his mother learning he had ever used dark magic struck terror into his heart.


    No, he couldn''t go home. He couldn''t face all their questions and he couldn''t pretend to be the son they''d last seen during the winter holidays. That innocent, childish boy was gone forever. A vicious old man had taken his place, and his parents would know something was wrong at once. There was only one thing to do. He''d have to leave and find another teacher. At least this time he knew to avoid Diarnlan.


    ...On second thoughts, why should he avoid her? Now he had the chance to make her as miserable as she had once made him.


    <hr>


    When Karandren''s parents arrived to collect him they found he had mysteriously disappeared. All that remained was a note placed on his pillow.


    Dear Mum and Dad,


    I''ve gone to study with a Great Mage so I can become a better magician. Don''t worry about me. I''ll be back soon.


    Karandren.


    They went straight to the headmistress to demand an explanation. They were just in time to see Karandren''s dragon spell activate.


    "Heavens above!" his mother exclaimed. "What has he been meddling with?"


    <hr>


    Karandren himself set off for Diarnlan''s house. Like almost every other decision he made lately, this one was made on the spur of the moment with no consideration of the possible outcome or consequences. When he thought about it he inevitably dismissed with a shrug all the things that could go wrong. Diarnlan might recognise him or she might not. She might take him to her teacher or she might not. They might have a full-scale fight or they might not. He wouldn''t know until it happened, so what was the point of worrying?


    As he drew nearer to the village he noticed strange markings in the fields. They looked like something very large and heavy had dug its claws into the ground. But they weren''t close together. Instead they were scattered at a considerable distance from each other. They went in roughly a straight line from the village to the sea.


    Or perhaps from the sea to the village.


    The memory of the monsters sprang into his mind. After the fiasco in the headmistress''s office he should have been more worried by that thought. Instead he remembered only how easy it was to kill monsters. Diarnlan had killed lots of them. He had become more powerful than her, so they shouldn''t be any threat to him. He continued blithely on his way.


    When he came within sight of the village he stopped and stared. What in the world had happened here? Most of the buildings were just piles of rubble. The only people around were scurrying back and forth across the destroyed main street. Some of them carried injured people on stretchers.


    Karandren eyed the chaos with bemusement. The village hadn''t been nearly this badly damaged the last time. Diarnlan must have taken too long to kill the monster. Where was she, anyway? Why weren''t they all hailing her as their rescuer?


    Eerie silence reigned over the village. No cheers from a delighted crowd, no proclamations from the self-important mayor, no sign of the monster''s corpse. He continued on his way feeling more shaken than if he''d come face to face with the monster itself.


    The road to the beach was so badly damaged it was like walking over a freshly-ploughed field that had been struck by a flash flood. His feet sank down in pools of water that collected in the furrows. The ridges of earth gave way when he stood on them. There was no solid ground to walk on. Karandren scrambled up onto the field beside the road. He promptly found himself standing in a gigantic footprint.


    The footprint was wider than many houses. Each of its toes were longer than he was tall. Karandren did some quick calculations on how large the skryszel must have been. Strange. He distinctly remembered that the first skryszel Diarnlan killed was much smaller than that. In fact it was the smallest monster ever to crawl through the veil.


    Something didn''t add up here. And it couldn''t be put down to his memories underestimating the size of the monster, because he clearly remembered standing next to the creature''s corpse. He had never been so close to a skryszel before; he would never forget how small he felt beside it. He was more likely to overestimate its size than underestimate it.


    He''d just been shaken before. Now he was practically terrified. But worse was to come. He trudged across the field, dodging the worst of the craters and trenches. There were no other footprints in sight. That was downright terrifying because of its implications. Just how large was the monster?


    When he rounded the corner he got his first glimpse of Diarnlan''s house. Immediately he sensed there was something wrong. Its shape seemed ever so slightly different than it had been before. Karandren sped up. With each step he got a clearer view. Now he saw what was wrong. Half of the house was still standing, yes. But the other half was a mound of crushed wood trampled into the ground.


    Diarnlan''s dead.


    The thought filled his mind even though he tried to fight it down. It seemed utterly impossible. Never had he considered the possibility his arch-enemy could be killed by anyone but him. Last time she''d survived so many monsters and battles and only he had been able to kill her. Surely that meant-- She couldn''t--


    Karandren vaulted over the fence that still stood around the remains of her house. The front door had fallen off its hinges and all the glass was missing from the windows. He took a step through the doorway. The floorboards creaked ominously. He thought better of it and went round the side of the house.


    For the first time he saw the full extent of the damage. Apparently the skryszel had stood on part of the roof. The roof collapsed beneath its weight and so did everything under it. All that was left was just part of the outer wall. Everything else -- roof, ceilings, walls, and furniture -- was completely crushed and smashed until it was unrecognisable. He couldn''t find any sign of a body. If Diarnlan had been in the house -- and where else would she be when the monster first attacked? -- she had been crushed like everything else.


    Never in his life had Karandren thought he would feel upset about Diarnlan''s horrible death. Technically he wasn''t upset about that; he was upset that someone other than him had killed her. But any passer-by who saw him fall to his knees amidst the rubble and bury his head in his hands would have thought he had just lost a good friend instead of an old enemy.


    In spite of what it looked like Karandren wasn''t crying. He was thinking as hard as he could. His thoughts ran so fast that they got tangled up in each other.


    Diarnlan was dead. There was no one who could stop him now. The skryszel was still out there somewhere -- probably still alive because Diarnlan wasn''t there to kill it and how could any other magician achieve what she hadn''t? Only someone who had defeated Diarnlan herself was powerful enough to kill it. Therefore he should hunt it down. After he killed it he''d become famous. He could do whatever he wanted. He could conquer Miavain again. He could conquer both Miavain and Avallot. Hell, he could conquer the whole continent, the world, the entire world-tree if he wanted to!


    He jumped to his feet. No time like the present. He just needed to find that skryszel.


    <hr>


    Meanwhile Diarnlan -- alive, well, and completely unaware of what had happened to her home or what conclusions her old pupil and enemy had drawn from it -- had just embarked on a boat for Byuryan.

 Chapter X: Durcheinander

    DURCHEINANDER


    German, "confused; muddled"


    Is it better to have your life ended by someone who hates you or someone who loves you? -- Laura Sebastian, Ash Princess


    Diarnlan had visited Byuryan exactly once in her first life. She had been sixteen and on holiday with her family. Her clearest memory of the place was how hot it was and how it was overrun with bugs. She didn''t know what sort of magic was practiced there. She didn''t know if magicians were respected like in Avallot or viewed as frauds like in Cighis. She didn''t even know what currency they used or if anyone there spoke Avallese.


    In hindsight, perhaps fleeing here in such a hurry was a very bad idea. She should have at least waited a day to do some research on the place she was going to. Then she remembered the skryszel attack, and she grudgingly accepted she had made the best of a bad situation.


    It was less than two days'' journey to Byuryan when the weather was good. Diarnlan spent most of the trip on deck. She studiously avoided the other passengers when at all possible. Questions about who she was and where she was going were the last things she needed. She hid Saungrafn in the wardrobe in her cabin to avoid exciting alarm or suspicion.


    The ship did not have a library. She couldn''t do any research on board, and she certainly wasn''t going to ask anyone. So she spent the hours staring over the ship''s side and imagining what sort of creatures lurked just below the water''s surface.


    The only important discovery Diarnlan made on the trip had nothing to do with her destination and everything to do with her magic. For someone who had lived most of her adult life beside the ocean, she was a very poor sailor. Within minutes of the ship leaving the harbour she had to cast a spell to ward off seasickness. It wore off less than an hour later. That was how she discovered her magic was much weaker now than it had been when she died.


    Yet more evidence in favour of time-travel, she thought.


    On the ship no one heard any news of the skryszel. Most of the passengers were from the capital city, which hadn''t been affected by the attack, and didn''t even know yet that there were such things as skryszel. That all changed the minute the ship reached Cueng¨¹ito Harbour.


    Merchant vessels travelled back and forth between Avallot and Byuryan every day. They were much faster than ships carrying passengers because they usually contained perishable goods; delivering their cargo quickly was all-important. And unlike passenger ships they usually went to the nearest Byuryan city instead of to the capital itself, saving themselves more than forty miles. They spread the news of the attack long before Diarnlan and her fellow passengers arrived. It spread like wildfire across the country. Within a matter of hours it reached Cueng¨¹ito, the capital, and within a day it was talked about in villages on the other side of the country.


    Diarnlan, blissfully unaware of what awaited them all as soon as the ship docked, took Saungrafn out of the wardrobe and wrapped it up in her coat. It was amazing how a sword could give the impression of being disgruntled. Saungrafn refused to react to her presence. At the back of her mind she felt a faint hum of displeasure.


    "Stop that," she said. Then she face-palmed. Talking to a sword? She might as well just check into the nearest asylum.


    Luckily Byuryan was so hot that there was nothing really unusual about carrying a bundled-up coat. Most of the other passengers were doing the same. Diarnlan did her best to make herself invisible as she waited for the gangplank to be lowered. So far no one had tried to talk to her. She wanted to keep it that way.


    The gangplank was lowered. The passengers filed off the ship. They all promptly stopped and stared in amazement. A motley group of sailors, merchants, and ordinary people thronged towards them.


    "Any news of the monster?" a chorus of voices shouted. "Has it been killed yet?"


    "What monster?" several of the passengers asked.


    They were all nearly deafened as the entire group began to talk all at once. If Diarnlan had been on the gangplank she would have tried to slip away. Unfortunately she was still on the ship, and the passengers on the gangplank weren''t leaving, so she had nowhere to go.


    <hr>


    Karandren forgot two very important things in his haste to become a monster-slayer and world-conqueror. He forgot he no longer had his sword. And he forgot that at fourteen he had avoided all weapons training as much as possible. Finding a sword was easy enough. So was finding the monster, for that matter. He just "borrowed" a sword from a now-deserted watchtower and followed the path of devastation. But he didn''t bother to practice using his new sword before he came across the skryszel.


    By now it had blundered its way almost to the capital city. All of the great mages had assembled to fight it. The problem was it was so large that it was hard to get close enough to attack its body. And the mages didn''t know where its weak spots were.


    As soon as he saw it Karandren realised it wasn''t the monster Diarnlan had killed in their last lifetime. That one had looked like a frog. This one was more like a bear. It had only two legs and a long tail. Whenever someone got too close it lashed out with its tail. Flickers of lightning danced around the fins of its tail.


    That should have been a warning sign. Unfortunately Karandren had never paid much attention to warning signs.


    The skryszel wasn''t fatally injured, but it certainly was injured. It was also exhausted, in an unfamiliar land, and surrounded by people who wanted to kill it. Nothing would frighten an ordinary wild animal more. Skryszel may not truly be animals, but in situations like this they acted like them.


    The mages drew back to consider their next plan of attack. None of them noticed a small boy hiding behind one of the few trees still standing. The skryszel continued to lumber slowly across the field. Karandren tried to sneak up on it from behind. Then he leapt at it.


    It saw him before his sword could hit it. Its tail swung round. The lightning struck him square in the chest.


    Karandren opened his eyes to the all-too-familiar scene of a frozen lake and a glowing tree.


    "Oh no!"


    <hr>


    Diarnlan felt dimly that something had gone wrong somewhere. It was the sort of feeling you got when you knew you''d forgotten an important detail but hadn''t a clue what it was. That odd sense of wrongness stayed with her as she made her way to a hotel. It was still there the next morning when she began to explore the city. And it got even worse a few days later when she heard the latest news from Avallot.


    A waiter at the hotel told everyone about it at breakfast. "The monster has finally been killed!"


    Why did it take them so long to kill it? Diarnlan wondered. She had never had any trouble killing monsters quickly.


    Saungrafn was still in her room, safely hidden under her coat, but through their strange new telepathic connection she got the distinct impression it was raising its eyebrows at her. Quite a feat, when it had no eyebrows to raise and also should not be sentient at all.


    "It destroyed ten cities and killed hundreds before the mages killed it."


    She''d always thought her fellow mages were incompetent fools. This proved it.


    Ahem, Saungrafn said. A disjointed image of a long, drawn-out battle filled her head. It was both familiar and unfamiliar. Diarnlan firmly refused to think too much about it.


    "Now they say another monster has followed it! An even bigger one!"


    What? Skryszel never came so close together. The end of her first life was an aberration that should not have been repeated. Certainly not so early.


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Have I time-travelled or fallen into another universe?


    Saungrafn remained oddly silent. It was amazing how it gave the impression of rolling its non-existent eyes without actually saying anything.


    "I''ve heard it dived back into the sea and is headed towards us right now!"


    If that blasted waiter had thrown a bomb into the dining room he could hardly have caused more panic. Guests leapt to their feet with terrified screams. Several tables toppled over. There was a mad rush for the door. How those people thought all this uproar was going to help matters was a mystery.


    Diarnlan stubbornly refused to be moved. She continued eating her breakfast. There was nothing about the breakfast that was actually worth staying for. The toast was so dry and crispy it was practically inedible. She''d have raised hell about that if she wasn''t so short of money and had nowhere else to go. The tea was insipid and only lukewarm. But she''d paid for it and she wasn''t going to abandon it in a blind panic like those imbeciles.


    It was utterly ludicrous, anyway. No skryszel had ever attacked Byuryan. They came through the veil in Avallot and they stayed in Avallot.


    She held that opinion for the rest of the week. In the meantime she began the humiliating process of hunting for a job. It turned out that Cueng¨¹ito had so many magicians you could hardly throw a stone without hitting one. All those magicians meant very little work and even less pay for most of them. She would have to leave the city and venture further inland to find enough work. But to do that she had to learn the language. Almost everyone in the capital spoke multiple languages, but once she got away from the coast she would find virtually no one who spoke Avallese.


    All her plans came to a very abrupt halt after a week in Byuryan. A skryszel attacked the harbour. The people fled in terror. Diarnlan contemplated running again. But where was she to go?


    She picked up Saungrafn and went out to fight the monster.


    <hr>


    "There you are! Took you long enough."


    Diarnlan steadfastly refused to look round. Instead she glared at the frozen lake as if it had personally offended her.


    "You know, I''m beginning to see a pattern here. We die, we end up here, then we go back in time. I think it''s happened more times than we remember. Don''t you?"


    Perhaps if she broke the ice and jumped into the water she would finally get some peace. Maybe dying forever was the only way out of hell. And this was hell. She no longer had any doubts about it. Nowhere else would she be yet again thrown into the company of her worst enemy.


    "I just don''t know why. Do you think this happens to everyone after they die? Are we just special?"


    Then again, anything might lurk under the ice. She wanted out of this mess but she didn''t want to fall into the clutches of some denizen of hell. Perhaps she should climb up that mountain and jump off the highest cliff she could find instead.


    "Hey. Hey! Are you listening to me? I''ve had no one to talk to for ages and even you''re better than talking to the tree. So listen!"


    You have nothing to say that I want to hear, Diarnlan thought. Only her determination to ignore Karandren''s existence prevented her from saying so aloud.


    "If we were just here to be... oh, what''s the word... That thing where you die and come back as someone else. Reincarcerated?"


    She almost laughed at that. Reincarceration was just what he needed. Preferably in a prison he could never escape from, where he would never come back to annoy her ever again.


    "Whatever it''s called, it can''t be why we''re here. If it was we''d have become someone else at once and never seen each other. But I had to wait here for weeks after I died before you appeared."


    Saungrafn stood propped against the tree beside her. Diarnlan eyed it and contemplated stabbing herself with it.


    "I didn''t do anything to get stuck here with you. So this must all be your fault and I want you to fix it! Right now!"


    That was the last straw. Diarnlan unsheathed Saungrafn and stood up slowly. Karandren continued to babble on in the background. She waited until he had gone off on a tangent about lightning, of all things, before she struck.


    Karandren wasn''t as distracted as she''d thought. He parried her attack with his own sword. Then he kicked her ankle. The pain made her lose her balance. He immediately swung his sword at her neck. It cut through skin and muscle all the way to the bone. But, impossible though it seemed, it didn''t kill her. For a moment Karandren and Diarnlan stood frozen in place, dumbfounded, as she remained standing while blood gushed from a wound that should be fatal. Then the cut knitted itself together and the blood stopped.


    There was a brief pause as they both considered the implications of this. Diarnlan recovered first. She raised Saungrafn and cut Karandren''s abdomen open.


    Multiple deaths preceded by battling monsters hadn''t dulled the edge of her soul-weapon''s blade. She had sharpened Saungrafn until it was as sharp as any soul-weapon could possibly be. It was able to cut through skin and bone and everything short of magically-forged armour -- or skryszel hides -- with as much ease as Death''s scythe cut through souls.


    Blood soaked the snow and trickled down to pool on the ice. Karandren''s intestines spilled out of the wound. He looked down with a mildly surprised expression.


    "Huh. That''s... I''d forgotten how disgusting that is. I thought it would hurt more. Do you think we can''t feel pain while we''re here?"


    Diarnlan wasn''t sure what was more disturbing. The fact that not even disembowelment could stop Karandren talking, or the fact he had apparently witnessed it before -- and it made so little impact on him that he forgot how disgusting it was.


    Then, like Diarnlan''s a minute ago, Karandren''s wound healed. It was like watching time flow backward; his intestines moved back into his body and the deep cut knitted itself together. Diarnlan and Karandren watched with expressions of revulsion and -- in Karandren''s case -- fascination. Within seconds there wasn''t so much as a scar to show he''d ever been injured at all. The only traces of the wound were the cut in his shirt and the blood that covered the ground.


    Karandren poked at his stomach where the wound had been. "Weird."


    Diarnlan could think of a few stronger words. "So," she said flatly. "We can''t die. We can''t be permanently injured. What in the name of all the gods is happening here?"


    Karandren shrugged. "I don''t know, but it''s interesting. Do you think there''s some way to take this power with us when we come back to life? I don''t want to be electrocuted again."


    I don''t particularly want to be impaled on a skryszel''s horns again either, Diarnlan thought. "If we could take it with us, do you think either of us would have died more than once?"


    Her thoughts turned to the possibility of living and dying yet again. Running away to Byuryan hadn''t worked. Maybe she should run further. Or maybe the best way to deal with this situation was to kill Karandren as soon as she came back to life.


    Yes, that was what she''d do. If he was dead then she would have nothing to worry about. She just needed to find a way to sneak into the academy and kill him.


    But first she had to wait for them both to go back again. She waited. And waited. And waited. Days and nights and weeks passed -- or whatever their equivalent was in this strange place where time didn''t seem to exist. Diarnlan found she never grew tired, never felt hungry, never became thirsty. At first she and Karandren fought again, more to pass the time than because they wanted to. Even arch-enemies would get tired of fighting when the wounds they inflicted weren''t permanent. So instead Diarnlan wandered off across the lake. This was where she''d been the last time she was sent back, she remembered. Maybe that was what triggered their reincarnation.


    It wasn''t. She walked all the way across the lake and was still stuck in this place when she reached the other side. For lack of anything better to do she began to climb one of the mountains. Out of boredom and a mild sort of curiosity she carried out one of her earlier ideas and jumped off a cliff.


    That was how she discovered she could still feel pain. A sword in the neck didn''t hurt much, but multiple fractures and several bones tearing right through her skin did. Then she had the mind-numbingly boring experience of lying in the snow and waiting for her injuries to heal.


    After all that it was both a relief and an anti-climax when the world abruptly disintegrated around her. Once again Diarnlan found herself back in her old bedroom. She immediately leapt to her feet...


    ...And promptly collapsed with a shriek as the phantom pain of all her injuries struck her at once.


    <hr>


    The trouble with magic was that it did not work logically when acting in self-defence. Karandren and Diarnlan''s magic was still linked, even though they didn''t know it, and still trying to figure out a way to save their lives. Sending them back without their memories hadn''t worked. Sending them back with their memories hadn''t worked. Perhaps it was time to send one back with their memories and the other without.


    It couldn''t think things through and consider all the ways this would go wrong. So that was exactly what it did.


    The screams of the academy bell woke everyone within hearing range. Karandren jolted awake in his little room with a headache and a strange pain in his stomach. He got up and went down to breakfast. He had no trouble getting used to his height because he didn''t remember being taller. He grumbled over the disgusting food because he had no reason to be grateful for tasting something, anything. And he went to his lessons and paid attention because he thought he was hearing the teachers'' words for the first time.


    After his lessons were over he went down to the lake to swim. The water was still much too cold for ordinary humans to swim there. It was one of the few places where he knew he could be alone. Karandren dived under the surface and swam at the bottom of the lake for almost an hour. Eventually he felt the urge to resurface for air. He climbed out of the water onto one of the rocks by the lake''s shore. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw someone moving behind him. Plenty of people passed the lake when out for a walk, so he paid no attention to that.


    The knife in his back stabbed right between his ribs and straight into his heart.


    <hr>


    It was incredibly easy to find Karandren. Much easier than Diarnlan had expected, in fact. She knew his name, patronymic, and general location. All she had to do was go to the perimeter of the academy''s walls, cast a tracking spell, and follow it right to him. He made her task very easy. For some inconceivable reason the little idiot wasn''t even trying to hide. He was outside the main wards, at the bottom of the lake. She just had to wait for him to resurface. Then she stabbed him while he was busy huffing and puffing after coming up for air.


    Diarnlan pushed the body back into the water, wiped the knife clean, and set off back to her house. That was one problem dealt with. Now she could worry about those twice-damned skryszel.

 Chapter XI: Der Tod

    DER TOD


    German, "the death"


    When everyone knows you''re a monster, you needn''t waste time doing every monstrous thing. -- Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows


    Diarnlan forgot one very important detail. The skryszel was not the only problem she faced. In fact it was the easy part. She knew by heart when and where it would appear. All she had to do was wait for it.


    The skryszel that appeared was not the frog-like one she had killed before. It was the snake-like one with antlers, the one that had killed her in the last lifetime. The memory of its antlers stabbing through her chest distracted Diarnlan from attacking it when it first reached the beach. It had begun to slither towards the village by the time she recovered.


    This time she knew to avoid its antlers. She sneaked up on it from behind and above, like she did the frog monster, and stabbed Saungrafn deep into the back of its neck.


    She didn''t tell anyone she had killed it. Instead she went to Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair with a story about seeing its corpse there when she opened the window.


    Her teacher examined the body curiously. "This is a stab-wound. Probably caused by a sword. This creature didn''t just die; someone killed it."


    Diarnlan very carefully did not think about Saungrafn, lying in a corner of her attic under a pile of old clothes. All mages were telepaths, after all. Her teacher probably wasn''t going to snoop in her head without permission, but why take the chance?


    "Did you hear a fight?" her teacher asked. She poked the skryszel''s antlers with her scythe and watched with interest as its scales flaked off. "I wonder if we can use this in potions."


    Diarnlan had a sudden vision of cutting up the skryszel''s body for potion ingredients. On the one hand it was the perfect revenge for it killing her. On the other, she distinctly remembered that skryszel blood turned acidic within a day of death. Several luckless would-be potion experts had discovered that the hard way in her first life. She considered warning the mage. But how would she explain how she knew that?


    "I didn''t hear anything," she said instead. "I just looked out the window and there the horrible thing was. It knocked my fence down and crushed my cabbages!"


    "None of that would be quiet," Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair said. Diarnlan paled. For the first time she realised her excuse had many holes in it. She waited for the pointed questions to start. "Whoever killed it must have cast a spell to reduce the noise. I suppose they thought it was the best way to avoid a panic."


    Well, that wasn''t what she expected. But if that was what her teacher wanted to believe, Diarnlan wasn''t going to correct her.


    "The question is, who killed it and how did they do it so easily? The only tracks here are the monster''s. And our footprints. If there were any other prints, no one will ever be able to tell them from ours now."


    Diarnlan breathed a silent sigh of relief. If even her teacher didn''t suspect she was involved, then no one else would either. She could avoid fame and get on with her life.


    The mage said, "This might complicate my idea."


    A sinking feeling filled Diarnlan''s chest. "Idea?" she asked sharply. "What idea?"


    "I''m planning to have you -- all of you -- teach students from the academy."


    At first Diarnlan didn''t think she''d heard right. She stared blankly at her teacher as her mind replayed those words. Again and again she went over them until she finally understood their meaning. "What?"


    In her hurry to deal with Karandren and the monster she''d completely forgotten everything else about her earlier lives. Somehow it had never occurred to her that getting rid of Karandren would not mean getting rid of the students.


    Oh no, she realised with a shudder. I''ll have to teach Erdreda again.


    If Saungrafn had been to hand she would have stabbed herself. Dying yet again and starting her life over yet again was preferable to what lay ahead for her.


    Frantically she searched for excuses. "That''s a terrible idea! I can''t teach anyone! I''m still a student myself!"


    "You''re twenty-four," Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair said. "You''re old enough and qualified enough to teach a group of children ten years younger than you."


    Technically she was well over a hundred. By now she might even be getting close to a hundred and fifty. It was so hard to keep track of her age when she couldn''t remember how many years she''d lived in all her lives. If that was a standard of how fit someone was to be a teacher, then yes, she was qualified. But Diarnlan still couldn''t picture herself teaching anyone without losing her mind.


    Her teacher saw her expression and rolled her eyes. "Don''t look like that! It''s not the end of the world, and it''s not like you''ve been sentenced to a horrible death. They''re teenagers, not monsters."


    That was debatable. Alas, Diarnlan could see it was only too clear her teacher wouldn''t be swayed. Perhaps she should consider running away to Byuryan again. ...On second thoughts, that hadn''t gone so well the last time. She would just have to stay here and hope for the best.


    <hr>


    Diarnlan''s worst fears were confirmed. Within days of the monster''s attack, she found herself saddled with two spoilt, arrogant brats who had less magic in their little fingers than Karandren had in his whole body.


    Why am I thinking about Karandren? she wondered when she realised what she''d just thought. She did the mental equivalent of slapping herself in the face. He''s dead. He''ll never bother me again. Stop thinking about him.


    That was much easier said -- or thought, in this case -- than done. In the first place, Karandren had been her enemy in every repetition of their lives. Sometimes the absence of an enemy affected a person more than the absence of a friend. Diarnlan had no friends to miss, so for want of anything better she fell back on missing Karandren. It didn''t help that she occasionally felt what might be called pangs of conscience over killing him so treacherously when he had no chance to fight back. She ignored her conscience until it stopped bothering her. After all, it wasn''t as if she''d killed an innocent child who wouldn''t hurt a fly.


    I put down a rabid dog before it could harm me, she tried to tell herself. That did not make her feel much better.


    Her new students were also not calculated to


    make her feel better. Erdreda was one of them, of course. Stupid, incompetent Erdreda who hadn''t an original thought in her head. Lazy Erdreda who outright copied her essays from the textbooks. Whiny Erdreda who ran in tears to her aunt every time Diarnlan snapped at her.


    Erdreda''s aunt was the latest of Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair''s students. Diarnlan had never spared the woman a second thought until now. She''d never even bothered to learn her name. Now she found herself receiving very angry letters every day from someone who should have treated her with the respect due her ghuanihan[1]. After the first few Diarnlan stopped reading them. She threw them in the fire as soon as they arrived. Let those brats run to Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair if they wanted. It wouldn''t make any difference to her teaching methods.


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    The second student was a twelve-year-old boy named Dakael. Once upon a time Diarnlan had thought nothing could be as irritating as a fourteen-year-old boy. She was wrong. Whatever else she could say for Karandren, he had at least pretended to pay attention during lessons. Dakael openly scribbled on his slate and read novels behind his textbooks. Then he went a step further and started scribbling on his textbooks. That was bad enough on its own, but those textbooks belonged to Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair. She''d bought them herself so her students wouldn''t have to. Diarnlan would not hand them back to her teacher looking like someone had spilt ink all over them.


    She dismissed the two of them early when she saw what he was doing. For the rest of the afternoon she painstakingly removed every spot of ink from the textbook. Sometimes she put too much magic behind her spells and erased lines of text by mistake. After the fifth time that happened Diarnlan flung the textbook clear across the room in a rage.


    "When I get my hands on that little bastard I''ll wring his scrawny neck!" she growled.


    At the back of her mind she felt Saungrafn''s presence sidle in. You wouldn''t have to worry about this if Karandren was still alive.


    "No," Diarnlan said aloud. "Instead I''d have to worry about being killed. Yet again."


    She telekinetically summoned the textbook back to her and surveyed the damage. An entire paragraph was missing the first words of each line. The second and third words were very faint, and the fourth words blurred like someone had spilt water on them. The swirly lines of Dakael''s scribbles covered the rest of the paragraph.


    "What a mess. I should have run away."


    Saungrafn said nothing. Diarnlan got the distinct feeling her sword was laughing at her. She firmly refused to think about that. Sometimes she really felt like she had gone mad and this whole thing was just a fever dream. If so, why confirm her insanity by acknowledging it more than necessary?


    In spite of herself she thought, At least Karandren never did this sort of thing. She promptly gave herself another telepathic slap. Stop thinking about him!


    This time Saungrafn definitely laughed at her.


    <hr>


    Diarnlan tried not to think about Karandren when Dakael botched a spell so badly that he broke a window. She tried not to think about Karandren when Erdreda accidentally poisoned herself by eating reifter¨ªngberry. The trouble was, it was hard not to think of him as a skilled healer tried frantically to save the wretched little fool''s life.


    Karandren warned her what that was, Diarnlan remembered. He stopped her before she ate it.


    She shook her head in disgust and pushed those thoughts away. So what if Karandren had prevented this fiasco? His other actions outweighed any good he''d ever done.


    Amidst all these attempts not to think of her former pupil she managed to forget yet another very important detail. The j?tunn attack. It was little more than a footnote after all the much more serious skryszel attacks. Indeed, Diarnlan had practically forgotten it ever happened at all. Certainly it never occurred to her that it would happen again even though Karandren was gone.


    When she arranged the trip to the farm her biggest concern was whether Erdreda would survive it. The last thing she wanted was a repeat of the poisonous berry debacle.


    "Now remember, both of you," Diarnlan said several times during the trip to the farm, "don''t eat anything. I don''t care if you think it''s safe to eat. Some mushrooms kill you within seconds. You''d be dead before anyone could help you."


    Those two brats hadn''t the courtesy to even pretend they were taking her seriously. Erdreda rolled her eyes. Dakael openly yawned. Diarnlan glared at both of them.


    If they poison themselves I''m not going to rescue them, she thought as she shooed them into the farmyard.


    All the same, she didn''t read her book this time. There wasn''t much point when she had to keep checking on the brats every other minute.


    Naturally they got into a fight within seconds of being handed the mushrooms. It wasn''t even over something important. Dakael simply decided -- for reasons beyond Diarnlan''s comprehension -- that there was something more interesting in Erdreda''s bowl than in his own. Diarnlan watched in exasperation as they got into a tug-of-war over the bowl.


    "Stop that or I''ll make you clean cauldrons with your toothbrushes," she snapped after the fight had dragged on for five minutes.


    The brats meekly settled down and went back to examining the mushrooms. For ten minutes all was peaceful. Diarnlan watched them like a hawk to make sure neither put any of the mushrooms in their mouths. She was just beginning to accept nothing would go wrong when something did.


    An icy chill filled the air. Diarnlan shivered and wrapped her coat tighter around her. For some incomprehensible reason the motion prompted her to remember Karandren''s ridiculous coat. She promptly spent several minutes silently yelling at herself -- yet again -- for thinking about him -- yet again. Meanwhile the temperate continued to drop. It dropped steadily yet so slowly that Diarnlan didn''t notice the change until she saw the steam of her breath in the air.


    She blinked. Late spring in Avallot was hardly what anyone would call overly warm, but it also wasn''t icy cold. Why the sudden--


    Wait. Once more her mind flew to Karandren. This time it went to the farce of a trial and his exile immediately afterwards. Then it went back to the j?tunn.


    Diarnlan leapt to her feet. "Children! Go into the farmhouse, now!"


    The two brats stared at her. Naturally they were too stupid to obey her without question.


    "We''re not children!" Erdreda protested, pouting like a spoilt toddler.


    "We can''t just barge into someone else''s house without permission," Dakael said -- a display of disgusting hypocrisy considering how often he barged into Diarnlan''s house without bothering to knock.


    All right, so technically he was allowed in because he was (unfortunately for all concerned, she thought with a shudder) her pupil. The point still held because the farmer had allowed them onto the farm and into the garden. And all of this was pointlessly wasting time -- time they didn''t have.


    "Shut up and go inside."


    The brats saw the look on her face and realised this was one time when they should not argue. Diarnlan watched to make sure they did indeed go into the house. As soon as the door closed behind them she walked out of the garden. The j?tunn had appeared in the middle of the yard. It would be here at any minute. Karandren had killed it with just one knife. Diarnlan conjured up a knife of her own and held it ready to throw. In the background the farm''s chickens began to squawk and flutter. A dog barked wildly. The temperature continued to fall.


    The hole in the veil opened right in front of her. For one nightmarish minute she looked through it into the ¨®hreinnj?re. Colours swirled behind the veil, colours that human eyes should not be able to see. In seconds the landscape changed from mountains to valleys to cities that defied all logic. She saw palaces built on top of enormous spindly towers. A thousand shapes rolled back and forth in the gorge-like streets.


    A pair of eyes stared back at her. They looked far too human to be a skryszel''s eyes. They were there and gone so quickly she wasn''t even sure she''d seen them properly. For all she knew they might have been her brain misinterpreting something else she saw.


    Then an enormous figure stepped through the veil and blocked her view of the other side.


    Diarnlan looked up at the j?tunn. After facing so many other sorts of skryszel she no longer felt particularly afraid of them. Instead she just felt angry. How dare this latest pest come along and make her life even harder than it already was?


    The brute hadn''t spotted her yet. She supposed that when you were taller than most buildings, it was very easy to miss someone whose head was on a level with your knee. No matter. Its obliviousness was just what she needed right now.


    Diarnlan raised the knife and took aim. She had never practiced throwing knives. But if Karandren had killed the j?tunn with one blow when he was only fourteen, then she should have no problems. All the same, she cast a spell to make sure the knife flew straight at the j?tunn''s eye.


    She miscalculated. Badly. So badly, in fact, that the knife didn''t even reach the brute''s face, let alone its eye. It scraped over its shoulder then fell harmlessly to the ground. Diarnlan watched it fall with a mixture of shock and resignation.


    Of course it wouldn''t be that easy, was her last thought before a block of ice crashed down on her head.


    <hr>


    There were few things worse than being crushed to death. Waking up in the snow again was one of them. Waking up just in time for a sword to plunge into her eye-socket was another.


    "Took you long enough," Karandren said. He sounded far too cheerful for someone who had just stabbed right through Diarnlan''s skull. "I was beginning to worry you wouldn''t come back at all, and then where would I be?"


    Diarnlan grabbed the blade, oblivious to how it sliced open her palm, and shoved the sword away. Through her one intact eye she saw Karandren overbalance and fall into the snow beside her. The cuts on her hand and her ruined eye healed themselves in the time it took him to stand up.


    "So," he said, "how did you die this time?"


    "None of your business."


    "Did someone sneak up on you while you were unarmed? Because that''s what happened to me, you know. I wonder who could possibly be low enough for such a dirty trick." He gave her a pointed glare. "They''d have to be the lowest of the low. A complete scumbag. Someone lacking all honour. An absolute--"


    Diarnlan gathered a handful of snow and hurled it at his face.

 Chapter XII: Das Schicksal

    DAS SCHICKSAL


    German, "the fate"


    And at once he went on with his burden, as though afraid that he might already have said too much in this country where the past was sharp splinters embedded in men''s minds and an ill-judged word a false step in the dark. -- Richard Adams, Shardik


    Once again Diarnlan and Karandren''s magic put their metaphorical heads together. Sending Karandren back without his memories hadn''t worked. What was left for them to try? They pondered it for a long time while Diarnlan and Karandren themselves got drawn into yet another pointless duel. Well, "pondered" wasn''t quite the right word when they had no brains. They communicated mainly by sending feelings of confused hopelessness to each other until they came up with something they hadn''t tried yet.


    We should send Diarnlan back without her memories this time, they decided at last.


    So that was just what they did. Diarnlan and Karandren yelped in surprised alarm as the world disintegrated around them while they were still mid-duel.


    Diarnlan awoke with a headache and a curious pain in her hand and eye. She stared up at the ceiling while she waited for them to fade. I''ve forgotten something important, she thought. For a while she pondered this. Is it Mother''s birthday today? That didn''t feel right. Have I missed an exam? That still wasn''t the answer. At last she remembered. I forgot to buy ink and sealing wax yesterday.


    Even that didn''t seem right, but she refused to waste any more time thinking about it. She had a potion to brew. Then she could go to the village, buy the ink and wax, and write her monthly letter to her parents. Well, it was supposed to be a monthly letter. In practice she rarely bothered writing more than once every three months. This time it was closer to four.


    She got up. The room spun around her. The next thing she knew she was lying on the floor with a splitting headache.


    I must be sickening for something, she thought in alarm.


    She tried to remember if she''d met any obviously sick people recently. Instead her mind presented her with a chaotic blur of images that could only have come from half-forgotten nightmares. Giants, sharp teeth, staring eyes, and flashes of a thousand other alien things filled her mind. A sharp stabbing pain shot through her chest. The pain in her eye returned in full force. It felt like someone had driven a knife into both her eye and her chest.


    Diarnlan grabbed the bedside table and pulled herself to her feet. She closed her eyes to stop the light hurting them even more. With one hand pressed against the wall, both for support and to tell where she was going, she staggered into the bathroom. She kept a supply of pain-killing potions in the cabinet ever since her attempts to build her own wardrobe had lead to a nasty cut. With her eyes still closed she opened the cabinet, grabbed the nearest one, and drank the vial''s contents with only a brief grimace at its bitter taste.


    Her headache and chest pain faded to a dull sense of discomfort. She stared at her reflection in the mirror as she waited for the room to stop swaying like a boat in rough weather. Goodness, she looked like she''d just seen a ghost. If she was just a little paler she''d look like a ghost herself. The feeling of forgetting something important returned in full force.


    Diarnlan scowled at the mirror. Something was badly wrong here, and she didn''t know how to fix it.


    Someone knocked at the back door. "Diarnlan! Hellooooooo!"


    Oh no. Now she had at least two serious problems, and she didn''t know how to deal with either.


    There was something eerily familiar about her sister''s unwanted visit. It was almost as if Diarnlan had known it was going to happen. But if she''d known she would have made sure she wasn''t home when the little pest arrived. Diarnlan pondered this for a minute. Then she shrugged and dismissed it as yet another of the weird things that were happening today.


    <hr>


    Karandren awoke to the dreadful screeching of that gods-damned bell. He stared up at the ceiling as he considered the situation. Obviously he was back at the academy. That meant he was fourteen again, with all the magical and physical limitations that age brought. Worst of all, it meant he had to go through lessons again and -- in light of how abruptly his last life ended -- dodge assassination attempts from a certain person.


    I need to get used to being short again, he thought.


    He also needed to get out of the academy again, study dark magic again, maybe conquer Miavain again... Oh yes, and deal with those damn skryszel again. He had a personal grudge against that one that electrocuted him.


    Claaaaaang!


    Karandren winced at the bell''s awful noise. First he would have to do something about that. Then he could worry about all his other goals. He gathered all the magic he had. It wasn''t nearly as much as he''d had as an adult. But it would do for this. He put all his strength into a spell meant to blow something up. Then he hurled it out the window and straight towards the bell.


    The explosion rocked the whole academy.


    <hr>


    It took the teachers a full half-hour just to realise the academy wasn''t under attack. By that time they''d already herded all the students into the heavily-warded cellars and had to deal with several hundred frightened teenagers who wanted answers -- answers that the teachers couldn''t give. Some of the braver ones ventured out to investigate. Minutes later they returned with the news that the school bell had exploded. Shards of it lay all over the courtyard. There was no clue to how or why.


    Amidst all the chaos no one noticed until it was too late that they were missing one student. It was only when breakfast began -- a very late breakfast, and even more unappetising than usual -- that one of the teachers realised something was wrong.


    "That chair isn''t usually empty."


    Horrified silence fell on the other teachers and the prefects close enough to hear. Everyone knew who usually sat in that chair. It was placed at the very end of the table, as far away from the other students as possible, and everyone else gave it a wide berth whenever possible. If any other chair had been empty they would have assumed its usual occupant was merely sitting somewhere else for a change. But that one? There was nowhere for its occupant to go -- or at least nowhere he would be welcome.


    All the adults looked helplessly at each other. The prefects began to exchange whispers and furtive glances.


    "He must have heard the explosion," said the Professor of Magical Theory. "Everyone knows to go down to the cellars when they hear something unusual."


    The Assistant Teacher of Extinct Languages wrung her hands. "Maybe he was injured and couldn''t move. Those shards of the bell were so large! And heavy!"


    The Professor of Magic Music scoffed. "Him? Injured? His room''s nowhere near where we found the shards. More likely he caused the explosion himself."


    By now the headmistress had realised some new mayhem was brewing. She leaned forward so she could hear what her colleagues were discussing. Her eyes widened in horror. "Karandren''s missing? Then we have to find him! At once!"


    She picked a small group of teachers. They abandoned their breakfasts -- to the envy of their less lucky colleagues, who were unable to escape the disgusting food -- and went in search of Karandren.


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    If only they had known it they could have saved themselves the trouble. He was already far away from the academy, on his way to the closest part of the Miavain border.


    <hr>


    For once Karandren did have a goal in mind. He had lived longest in the lifetimes when he reached Miavain and learnt dark magic. Therefore the best way to avoid an early death -- and Diarnlan, which was much the same thing -- was to go there as soon as possible. This time he had his memories intact. He knew how to conquer the place and what resistance to expect. None of the skryszel had ever attacked Miavain before, so he''d be safe enough from them. It was the Bone-Worshippers he had to worry about now, and the priests in particular.


    Hmm. In some ways he''d prefer the skryszel.


    It was over a hundred miles from the Laoivere Academy, in the north-eastern corner of the kingdom, to the border in the south. He had no money to take a coach or train. He could have hitched a ride for a few miles with some farmer taking produce to market. But if he did that he''d have to answer awkward questions. Questions like "where are your parents?", "how old are you?", and "why are you on your own?".


    If he''d thought to steal some vegetables from the academy garden he could have pretended he was taking them to sell somewhere. Unfortunately he hadn''t thought of that, so it was much better if he stayed away from adults who might get suspicious.


    His inheritance from his mother wasn''t only useful for accidentally-on-purpose drowning bullies. It was also very useful for catching fish. As a child Karandren had learnt how to lie very still on riverbeds and wait for fish to swim past him. Then he could grab one and swim up to the surface with it. When he first learnt how to do this his mother had been underwater with him to keep an eye on things. His father had waited on the bank, tending to the fire so they could cook whatever Karandren caught.


    Back then he''d only ever managed to catch small fish that couldn''t fight him too fiercely. Now he had more ambitious goals. At this time of year hoards of hult¨¢rniszkr were migrating from the sea to the inland lakes. They were very large fish, often as long as a grown man''s arm. One of them would be all the food he needed for his journey.


    The fishermen had nets set up at narrow parts of the rivers. Karandren avoided those parts and instead searched for a wide, calm, and above all deep stretch of water. He found one in a place where the river ran through a chasm between two small cliffs. It was narrower than he could have liked, but at least the water was calm and flowed slowly. Beneath the surface he could see the glimmer of hult¨¢rniszkr scales as the fish darted further upstream.


    He didn''t bother to check if there were any other supernatural creatures nearby. He dived in without a second thought.


    A human who jumped into that icy water would have immediately had the breath knocked out of them. Probably their muscles would seize up so badly they wouldn''t be able to swim to the surface. Karandren was only half-human. Until now he''d assumed he was immune to the cold. But never before had he been fully submerged in water quite this cold. He gasped. At once water flowed into his mouth and choked him. He struggled to the surface. For several minutes he coughed and wheezed. By the time he recovered enough to dive underwater again, all the fish were gone.


    Damn it, Karandren thought. Now I have to wait.


    He swam down, down, down until his hands touched the rocks on the bottom. He grabbed hold of the largest rock and clung to it as determinedly as a limpet. The sluggish current caught his hair and swept it back. Hopefully it would look like river-weed to the fish.


    Karandren settled down on the rock. The sunlight cast weird patterns on the riverbed. It was hard to tell if a moving shape was a fish or just a weed waving in the current. He lay on top of the rock and wrapped his arms around it to make sure he stayed in one place.


    A fish darted past his head. It was only a minnow, too small to be worth catching. Karandren waited for the larger fish to return. His fingers began to feel numb in the cold. He didn''t dare move them in case he frightened off his prey again.


    A shadow flitted overhead. He tensed, expecting to see a hult¨¢rniszkr. But the creature was gone when he looked up. He couldn''t see the sunlight reflect off its scales.


    Sharp, stabbing pain shot through his back. The sunlight faded and took on a red haze in the suddenly cloudy water. Karandren instinctively tried to gasp. Water flowed into his mouth. Only his familiarity with swimming underwater helped him stay calm and hold his breath again. He pushed himself off the rock and twisted to see what had attacked him. A pike? An eel? Some other sort of fish with sharp teeth?


    A mass of river-weed flew at his head. He dodged to the side. It abruptly stopped mid-charge and turned round. Now he saw it wasn''t a plant at all. It was a mylblaur, a river creature with a body like a fish''s, weed-like hair, and two long stick-like appendages that served as both arms and legs.


    The mylblaur settled on the rock. Its seaweed-like hair stood out on end so that it appeared twice its size. It opened its mouth, displaying a ring of razor-sharp teeth. But it didn''t charge at him again -- yet. It was just trying to frighten him away. He knew this as well as he knew that it would attack again if he didn''t leave. The cuts on his back still throbbed dully.


    Several facts ran through Karandren''s head. Mylblaur were dangerous only to humans and creatures that couldn''t breathe underwater. Their main prey was fish and small animals that went too close to the water''s edge. Their teeth were sharp but they couldn''t bite with much force. It was almost unheard-of for them to grow much larger than a spaniel. This one was smaller than that. Therefore it was not much of a threat to him when it didn''t have the element of surprise.


    During his miserable first year in Miavain Karandren had eaten anything he could get his hands on -- including rats, vegetables from other people''s gardens, and left-over food thrown out of restaurants. He wasn''t inclined to be picky about what he ate when he was hungry. And right now he was very hungry. His air was running out. The fish were long gone, scared off by him and the mylblaur. If he left now all his hunting would be for nothing and he wouldn''t have anything to eat for the rest of the day.


    Karandren feigned to swim towards the surface. As he expected the mylblaur advanced to make sure he left. He twisted and grabbed its hair before it realised what he was planning.


    The creature lashed out at him with its long arms. One of them ripped through his shirt and cut his chest. Karandren ignored the pain. He pulled his prey closer to him so it would have more difficulty striking out again. Mylblaur were not meant for close-quarters fights. They sneaked up on their prey and attacked from a distance. This one continued to try to hit him. But now he was too close, so its arms swept uselessly through the water.


    In desperation it opened its circular mouth and tried to bite him. Its teeth were meant to strip the scales off fish, not to break through human skin. It might as well have been a cat scratching him; painful, but not serious. Karandren ignored that pain too. He dragged the mylblaur even closer until he could sink his teeth into its neck.


    That was another thing he''d learnt in Miavain. When you had no other weapons, it was possible to kill someone by biting them. You just had to bite with enough force and hold on for long enough.


    The mylblaur''s blood poured out of the wound. It filled the water around them until they seemed to be suspended in a cloud of red. The creature struggled frantically. Karandren kept a hold of its hair and never loosened his grip on its throat. Water got into his mouth and nose. He snorted and spluttered, but he remembered his mother''s lessons about what to do when that happened. Don''t breathe in and don''t struggle too much. Stay calm and keep holding your breath. He doubted she''d ever thought her advice would come in handy in a situation like this one, but he followed her instructions.


    At last the mylblaur''s struggles grew weaker. Gradually it stopped moving entirely. Karandren held on it for a little longer just in case it was trying to trick him. He waited until the current carried the cloud of blood away. He waited until his lungs began to burn. Only then did he decide he''d waited long enough. He swam up to the surface and took deep breaths of the cold air. The shock of the air''s temperature was almost as bad as the shock when he''d first jumped into the water.


    Getting out of the river was much harder than getting into it. The walls of the chasm were too high for him to grab the edge and pull himself up. They were uneven enough that he could probably climb out by finding footholds. But how could he do that when his arms were full of the mylblaur''s body?


    Karandren floated at the surface and let the current carry him further downstream. It moved slowly enough that he could examine the walls for an easier place to climb out. After a while the current began to speed up. That was a bad sign. An unfamiliar river could be very dangerous.


    He craned his head to see round a bend. There was a large rock jutting above the surface in the middle of the river. On either side of it the water poured down out of sight. A small waterfall, perhaps. It would be easy enough to climb onto the rock. The gaps at either side of it were far too narrow for him to be carried through them.


    The current threw him against the rock with more force than he expected. He winced. After taking a minute to recover he tossed the mylblaur up on top of the rock. Then he clambered out after it.


    By now Karandren was much too hungry to worry about finding wood for a fire. He settled on the rock, tore off the mylblaur''s skin with his bare hands, and bit into its flesh.


    An hour later he''d eaten his fill. The rest of the creature''s meat was too tough and stringy to be worth saving for later. He threw its remains into the river. Then he knelt down, scooped up handfuls of water, and began to wash its blood off his face. Getting the blood out of his clothes was much more difficult. He took off his outer shirt and dunked it in the river. He was so preoccupied by wringing it out that he didn''t notice he was no longer alone.


    A twig snapped on the riverbank. Karandren looked up and found himself staring at Diarnlan.

 Chapter XIII: Immer Wieder

    IMMER WIEDER


    German, "again and again"


    Your own brain ought to have the decency to be on your side! -- Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith


    Like the last lifetimes this one got off to a very bad start for Diarnlan. A bad start of the skryszel-related kind, no less. She was in the middle of an argument with her sister when the invasion began. An enormous monster crawled out of the sea, attacked the village, then ran further inland after Diarnlan cut off one of its horns.


    The next few hours were a panic-filled blur. Diarnlan, her teacher, and an ever-increasing number of other magicians followed the train of destruction the brute had left. Its footprints were so huge no one could miss them. Yet somehow the skryszel itself stayed several steps ahead of them. It moved more quickly than something so large had any right to.


    A little voice in Diarnlan''s mind complained repeatedly, This is all wrong. It''s not supposed to happen this way.


    Diarnlan ignored it. Thinking about what it might mean only made her head ache.


    Five hours after the monster''s first appearance, its pursuers reached the rocky foothills of Mount F¨¢ngnern. They promptly ran into unforeseen trouble. The ground here was too hard for anything, even a gigantic monster, to leave clearly-visible footprints. And its strides were so long that they had to cover a considerable distance just to find the traces it did leave. A few uprooted trees, small boulders that had been trodden on and crushed, and splashes of water when it waded through pools; those were the only things they had to follow now.


    Teivain-rikhon-hrair took control of the situation now. "I''m going to fly up to that cliff there. I''ll be able to see for miles. The rest of you keep going in the general direction it went."


    Naturally several of the more self-important magicians -- including another of the Great Mages, proof that any idiot could become a mage if they tried hard enough -- immediately began to argue. All of them had their own idea of how to deal with the monster. None of their ideas were even remotely similar -- or practical, for that matter.


    The monster got further away with every minute they wasted in pointless bickering. By now it was probably on the other side of the foothills and heading straight for the F?nathvollir, the grasslands in the middle of Avallot where the vast majority of the country''s livestock were raised. Diarnlan could just imagine the chaos that would follow if it rampaged through the farms there. The queen would be furious if the country suffered a monster-induced meat shortage. And worst of all the magicians -- including Diarnlan -- would get the blame for it.


    She marched away from the arguing crowd. All this talk about flying around looking for the monster was just ridiculous. Up till now it had gone in more or less a straight line. Therefore it was reasonable to assume it would continue in a straight line. She just had to follow until she found its tracks again.


    Within minutes the sound of the squabbling magicians faded mercifully into the background. Soon Diarnlan couldn''t hear them at all. She walked quickly, scanning her surroundings for signs a large animal had come this way recently. From time to time she broke into a run. That lasted only a few minutes before she tripped over one of the many stones scattered across the ground. Then for a while she slowed down and paid more attention to where she was walking. Inevitably she grew too impatient to walk, so she began to run again and the cycle repeated itself yet again.


    The trouble with walking across a mountain''s foothills was that it was very difficult to walk in a straight line. You found yourself veering too much to the right, and when you tried to correct it you ended up too far to the left. After twenty minutes of walking Diarnlan had to admit she hadn''t a clue where she was.


    If I was a better magician I could fly up and see, she thought. That brought with it an old and all-too-familiar wave of self-hatred. Diarnlan instinctively grabbed her sword''s hilt. Then she became distracted from all thoughts of both monsters and her failings as a magician, because there was something wrong with her sword.


    She pulled it from its sheath and studied it closely. Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair had given her this sword after her first practice sword broke. It wasn''t a soul-weapon; she''d only get one of those if she became a much more powerful magician. It was just an ordinary sword from the local blacksmith. Swords were among the many mundane things she''d never given much thought to. As long as they were sharp enough to kill an attacker she didn''t care how ornate their hilt was or what method had been used to forge the blade. So why did she get the unshakeable feeling there was something lacking from this one?


    Diarnlan stared at the sword as if she expected it to tell her all the secrets of the universe. It remained lifeless and silent. With a jolt she realised that was the problem. Illogical though it undeniably was, she did expect the sword to respond to her touch.


    She put the sword back in its sheath and firmly refused to think any more about it.


    <hr>


    Eventually Diarnlan reached the end of the foothills. Or so she assumed; at any rate the ground was no longer quite so rocky and there were occasional patches of grass. In the distance she heard the faint splash of water. She must be near a river. Water usually meant softer ground; the sort of ground on which footprints would be visible. The chance of finding the monster''s trail had just increased.


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    She quickened her pace. The noise of the water grew louder, but she couldn''t see the river anywhere nearby. The first time she saw it was when she almost fell into it. A chasm opened right in front of her. Diarnlan stifled a yelp and jumped back.


    The river ran through the chasm. It wasn''t a fast-flowing river, but Diarnlan knew better than to try to swim in unfamiliar waters. She considered the distance to the other bank. It was too far for her to jump here. But the chasm''s walls weren''t even. Some parts of them jutted out over the water and some parts were so far back that they were more like slopes leading down to the river. No, it was much too risky to attempt getting across here. But if she went far enough downstream she was bound to find a bridge or an easier place to cross.


    I just hope it''s nearby, Diarnlan thought.


    Every minute she wasted here was another minute for the monster to keep running. If this continued for much longer it would slip through her fingers completely. Then what would she do? There would be a monster on the loose in the kingdom and she would always be known as the woman who let things get so badly out of hand.


    Diarnlan ran downstream. She paused from time to time to examine the riverbanks. There was still nowhere safe to cross.


    She rounded a corner and saw the last thing she''d ever have expected to see in this place. It wasn''t a bridge, which would have been a welcome surprise. It wasn''t a narrow part of the chasm, which was what she both hoped and expected to see. Instead it was a boy holding something underwater.


    Her first thought was that he was drowning some hapless animal. Children had a nasty tendency to do cruel things like that. She approached with her hand on the hilt of her sword.


    A twig snapped beneath her feet. The boy looked up. A host of jumbled images and memories crowded into Diarnlan''s mind. They all disappeared before she had a chance to focus on any of them. In an instant they filled her with a feeling of foreboding and intense dislike towards this strange boy.


    "What are you doing?" she demanded sharply.


    The boy straightened up and gave her a strange look. It was somewhere between shock, anger, and wariness mixed with something else she couldn''t identify. "Washing my jacket. That''s not a crime, is it?"


    Now she saw the thing he was holding under the water was indeed a very soggy piece of fabric. A soggy piece of fabric spotted with red, in fact. She eyed those spots suspiciously. Were they blood? Whose blood? Then she remembered where they were, miles from the nearest large town, and realised it was much more likely to be blood from a rabbit or bird than from a human. Anyway, it was none of her business.


    "Have you seen a monster anywhere near here?"


    The boy stared at her as if she was a monster herself. "A what?"


    Oh, of course. News of the invasion hadn''t reached most people yet. Diarnlan fought back her rising impatience and tried to speak calmly. "A monster. It looks like..." She paused, searching for the right words to describe it. "Like a giant insect, but it has tentacles growing from its face like an octopus."


    Something akin to amusement showed in the boy''s eyes. It was only there for a split second before it was replaced with bafflement. Diarnlan couldn''t explain why but she felt sure that bafflement was faked. It hardly endeared the boy to her. Neither did his next words.


    "Octopuses'' tentacles grow from their face? Huh. I never knew that before."


    Diarnlan wasted several minutes trying to figure out what in the name of all the gods he was talking about. "They don''t. I meant-- Oh, never mind. Have you seen it or not?"


    The boy shook his head. "I haven''t seen any giant insects or octopuses, with or without tentacles growing from their faces. Are you sure you aren''t looking for a creature that shoots lightning from its tail? Because I saw one of those a while ago."


    What? Another monster on the loose? Diarnlan paled. "No, that''s not it." She added, mainly because she felt her teacher would be angry with her if she didn''t, "Tell everyone you know to beware of it if they see it. Don''t go near it. It''s very dangerous."


    In hindsight she should have known better than to say something like that to a teenager. The boy brightened up as if he''d just heard it was his birthday and he would be given a gift he especially wanted.


    "I''ll come with you! I can help you kill it!" the boy chirped, as if he was volunteering to help her carry her shopping bags or to hold a door for an elderly relative.


    Diarnlan glared at him. She had only dim memories of being a teenager herself -- ironic because she had been one only five years ago -- but she was sure they were nothing but magnets for trouble. Allowing one of them to go anywhere near a monster was just asking for disaster. And tragedy. And upset parents. And all sorts of angry questions along the lines of "What were you thinking?"


    "Absolutely not. Go home to your parents."


    The boy''s face fell. His lower lip trembled. He was the picture of utter misery -- which was why Diarnlan didn''t believe it for a minute. No one looked so tragic without rehearsing their expression beforehand.


    "I don''t have parents."


    Oh no. No, no, no. She wasn''t about to let a sob story drag her into letting him tag along. She gave him her fiercest glare and said, "Then go and tell whoever you live with."


    "I don''t live with anyone."


    Now he was just making things up. Teenagers did not live on their own. Especially not teenagers who were so young they could easily be mistaken for ten-year-olds. Diarnlan''s patience ran out. She turned and walked away without another word.


    Behind her came a scuffling noise followed by the sound of running footsteps. Oh no. She quickened her pace. It was no use. The little brat caught up with her easily. He stayed alongside her but just out of reach, grinning like a spectator at a comedy.


    "I can help you kill the monster," he said cheerfully. Diarnlan wondered which god she had offended. First her sister''s unwelcome visit, then the monster, now this brat, all happening within hours of each other; they couldn''t just be coincidences. "I''m a magician too, you know."


    "Are you indeed."


    Somehow he completely missed the scepticism in her voice. He nodded as if she''d actually asked a question.


    "My name''s Karandren. What''s yours?"


    Forget just one god. She must have offended the entire K¨®egodr[1]. "None of your business."


    "That''s an odd name. Where are you from, Miss None-Of-Your-Business?"


    Diarnlan said nothing. Silently she began praying for forgiveness. She hadn''t a clue what she''d done, but now was as good a time as any to try appeasing the gods. If they were merciful they might make the brat leave -- or at least stop talking.

 Chapter XIV: Die Schatten

    DIE SCHATTEN


    German, "the shadows"


    Wie wird man seinen Schatten los? (How can you get rid of your shadow?)


    Wie sagt man seinem Schicksal ,,Nein"? (How can you say "No" to your fate?)


    Wie kriecht man aus der eig''nen Haut? (How can you crawl out of your own skin?)


    Wie kann man je ein and''rer sein? (How can you ever be someone else?)


    -- Mozart! das Musical, Wie wird man seinen Schatten los?


    At first Karandren thought Diarnlan was just pretending not to recognise him. He fully expected her to draw her sword and attack him. An hour passed. He went out of his way to annoy her. Nothing happened -- although she ground her teeth so fiercely it was a miracle they didn''t shatter under the strain.


    There was something very strange going on around here. First Diarnlan didn''t recognise him. Then she described a monster nothing like any of the ones he''d heard of before. Now she reluctantly allowed him to tag along and still hadn''t tried to kill him. This was officially their strangest lifetime so far. No doubt it would end in their deaths just like all the others. But in the meantime he could take advantage of Diarnlan''s newfound tolerance -- or amnesia -- to annoy her.


    "Why are you hunting a monster alone?"


    She didn''t answer. Karandren didn''t expect her to. He spoke mainly for the amusement of seeing just how far he could push Diarnaln before she snapped.


    "You can''t search in all the places it could be. It could have doubled back on its trail. Maybe it''s watching us somewhere and laughing at us."


    Amazingly that prompted a response. "Monsters. Don''t. Laugh."


    That was debatable. Karandren had been called a monster quite frequently in his earlier lives and he had certainly laughed about it. "How do you know?"


    Diarnlan said nothing and walked faster. Unfortunately for her she wasn''t used to this sort of terrain. Every few minutes she stumbled over an uneven patch of ground. Her feet must hurt, but she refused to react outwardly to the pain. She didn''t even let her stride falter. Karandren would have been impressed if he wasn''t so busy making a nuisance of himself.


    "How do you plan to kill the monster anyway? It''ll fight back." And then we''ll get killed, and the whole thing will start all over again. "You''ll have to sneak up on it. Do you think we could set a trap? Maybe we could catch it in a net!"


    Diarnlan threw a silencing spell at him. For the next half hour Karandren struggled to remove it while also keeping pace with her. Once again he discovered the drawbacks of being fourteen. Not only did he have less magic than he should, he had much shorter legs than he was used to.


    In the meantime the scenery changed around them. No longer were they in the bare, stony terrain that surrounded the mountain. Instead they were crossing a stretch of moorland covered with heather. It would have been a nice place for a picnic. It was not such a nice place for people hunting a monster. On the bright side there was nowhere for a large animal to hide -- but then again, there was also nowhere for them to hide if it appeared.


    Karandren paused several times to examine plants that were out of place -- mostly tropical flowers and berries that only grew in the western part of Avallot. He never had a chance to look at them for long. Diarnlan did not share his curiosity about odd flora, and she wouldn''t wait for him to study them. He could have stopped anyway -- it wasn''t as if she could get out of sight on such flat terrain -- but he didn''t intend to give her any chance to slip away from him.


    At long last he managed to break the silencing spell. "I think there are flower spirits around here."


    Diarnlan startled briefly, but recovered and continued walking as if he hadn''t spoken. Karandren would honestly have been more surprised if she had answered.


    "Most of these flowers aren''t native to here," he continued.


    "And of course you are an expert on moorland flowers," Diarnlan said dryly. "Will you never shut up?"


    "No," Karandren chirped. He grinned at Diarnlan''s scowl. "We can ask the flower spirits if they''ve seen the monster."


    Diarnlan rolled her eyes so dramatically it was a miracle they didn''t fall out. "So now you think you''re an expert on flower spirits."


    "Not really," Karandren said. It was true in a way; he wasn''t an expert on flower spirits, but he''d met many of them as a child. "I just think it''s better than wandering all over Avallot looking for something that''s miles away by now."


    "Since you dislike it so much why don''t you go home and stop bothering me?"


    Karandren opened his mouth. No sound came out. Damn it, she''d cast another silencing spell. But astonishingly she hadn''t attacked him yet. He was beginning to wonder if he''d fallen into a parallel universe.


    As he trailed along after Diarnlan a plan began to form in his mind. If they caught up with the skryszel -- highly unlikely considering Diarnlan''s idiotic method of trying to find it; she''d have better luck looking for a needle in a haystack -- they would probably both be killed. He knew from experience that he tended to live longest when he got to Miavain. He also did not want to give up on the entertainment provided by annoying Diarnlan. Solution: find some way to drag Diarnlan along with him to Miavain.


    Like the vast majority of Karandren''s plans, this was not the result of careful consideration. Or any consideration at all, for that matter. If he had he would have realised how stupid it was.


    Unfortunately he didn''t realise that. He spent the next hour gathering his magic and forcing it beyond its limits until those limits gradually increased. He called on his memory of dark magic and included some of it in his spells. To prevent Diarnlan noticing anything he cast them at the ground behind him.


    It never occurred to him that just because Diarnlan didn''t notice him didn''t mean other things hadn''t.


    In the distance he had a faint rumble like thunder far away. It grew gradually louder. The earth began to tremble beneath their feet. Diarnlan stopped so abruptly that Karandren almost bumped into her.


    "What do you think that is?" he asked. "If we were still in the mountains I''d think it was an avalanche. Oh! Do you think they get flash floods around here? We''d better--"


    "Shut up," Diarnlan interrupted. She stared straight ahead, squinting at the horizon. "Do you see that little black speck?"


    Karandren followed her line of sight. Sure enough there was a small dot on the horizon. A small dot that was getting larger. A thoroughly unpleasant suspicion began to form in his mind. To test it he threw another spell at the ground. It struck an unfortunate plant that promptly shrivelled up. The tremors increased in force and frequency. The dot hurtled towards them. Now he could begin to spot features. It was a very large animal. A very large animal that moved much faster than any ordinary animal, in fact. And it had something odd growing from its face. Something like... octopus tentacles.


    With false cheer he said, "Great! We don''t have to look for the skryszel any more!"


    Diarnlan ignored him. Like the idiot she was, all she did was draw her sword and wait for the creature. Karandren face-palmed.


    Of all the ridiculous things to do! She''ll never be able to kill it! It''ll run right over her and then I''ll be the only one for it to attack, so it''ll kill me and we''ll be right back where we started! He watched the monster draw ever nearer with the weary exasperation of someone who knew he was about to die and just wanted it to be over. I can''t kill it myself. Unless... Unless!


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    Now was as good a time as any to test his control over dark magic. He focused his powers into a cutting spell. It was a spell he''d used frequently in Miavain. Mainly to castrate priests and cut off people''s limbs and sometimes to destroy the statues in temples, rather than to kill large and angry monsters, but still. All he had to do was put all his magic behind it.


    He remembered how it felt to use this spell before. He remembered the blood, the screams, the furrow in the floor where the spell had cut through someone''s flesh and also scraped the stone below. He remembered putting too much power behind it once and cutting a man in two. When he opened his eyes they were red.


    The spell was the most powerful one he''d cast in all of his recent lifetimes. It struck the monster in the middle of the face. Its skull split open, pouring blood and brains on the ground. The spell kept going, slicing through its neck and body. Finally it lost power and fizzled out. The skryszel collapsed. It was cut almost completely in two.


    Utter silence fell. Karandren took stock of his magic. The dark magic writhed in his chest like a living thing. His ordinary magic retreated from it, out of his reach unless he fought through the dark magic. Diarnlan stood so still she almost looked like she''d been turned to stone.


    Slowly she turned to face him. She flinched and looked away when she saw his face. Karandren blinked.


    "What''s wrong?"


    Diarnlan''s voice was very cold. "Why are your eyes red?"


    Oh. He''d forgotten about that side-effect of dark magic. "It''s a long story. You see--"


    "How did a child like you manage such a powerful spell? Why do you reek of dark magic?" she interrupted. Karandren couldn''t help remembering the incident of the j?tunn. Her attitude and her questions were eerily similar. She finished with an icy, "Who are you?"


    When in doubt, tell the truth. It was a maxim his father had tried to hammer into his head as a child. Karandren had let it fall by the wayside over the past... however long it was when you included all his many lives. He found himself thinking of it now.


    "I''m your arch-enemy who you''ve killed at least twice already. And I''ve killed you a few times too. And both of us get killed by those things--" He gestured to the skryszel''s body, "--more times than I like to remember."


    Unsurprisingly she didn''t believe a word of it. "You''re mad."


    Karandren grinned, showing all his teeth. "Probably. So are you. Reliving the same events over and over will drive anyone mad."


    Diarnlan spun round and began to walk away. As usual Karandren didn''t think. He acted. He sprang forward and grabbed her sleeve. She tried to punch him. All she succeeded in doing was almost overbalancing because she forgot she was still holding her sword in her other hand. While she was distracted he summoned his magic for a teleportation spell.


    <hr>


    On the scale of terrible and ill-thought-out plans, this one ranked just slightly below the "charge at a skryszel that can electrocute you" catastrophe. Even Karandren had to acknowledge that. On the bright side, neither of them was dead yet. And they were in Miavain, which wasn''t really bright yet because he still had to conquer it. More to the point, they''d ended up in the abandoned house where Karandren had spent his first night of exile. He recognised the place in the wall where the statue would have stood.


    The force of the teleportation spell dragging them through space and past the wards left the two of them feeling rather dizzy. Karandren tried to sit up. His stomach roiled and the room turned upside down. He lay down again until he felt less like he''d just been thrown into a whirlpool.


    Diarnlan hadn''t moved at all. Karandren risked looking over at her. At first he saw six of her, then two, then just one -- one that kept drifting in and out of focus. His head began to ache. He closed his eyes again and waited to stop feeling so sick.


    <hr>


    Today was full of unpleasant surprises. The giant monster, the strange boy who wouldn''t leave her alone and who turned out to be a lunatic, and now this kidnapping.


    Let that be a lesson to me never to speak to anyone ever again, Diarnlan thought.


    Off to the side she heard her kidnapper try to sit up. He promptly lay down again with a pained whimper. Probably he''d used too much magic. Painful experience had taught Diarnlan that would leave anyone with a splitting headache and feeling like they were on an out-of-control carousel. His state was a relief for two reasons. First, because he wouldn''t be able to cast any more spells for a while. If he was an ordinary teenager it would have taken him the better part of a week to recover. Based on what she''d seen so far, Diarnlan had a nasty suspicion he was much more powerful than many adults, let alone teenagers. No one should be able to cut a monster in two and then teleport themselves and someone else away from the scene immediately afterwards. So for all she knew it might only take him a day to recover. Why, he might be almost fully recovered right now.


    That lead to the second reason. She had a chance to escape before he got up.


    Diarnlan opened her eyes. She examined as much of her surroundings as she could without noticeably moving her head. A ceiling covered with cracks, walls with mouldering paper, and no furniture. Apparently her kidnapper had dragged her to some abandoned house. Was this where he lived? If so, no wonder he was so deranged. No one could stay sane if they had to live in such a dilapidated place.


    The memory of his words after killing the monster returned unbidden. "I''m your arch-enemy who you''ve killed at least twice already. And I''ve killed you a few times too." It was nothing but the rambling of a madman. There was no other possible explanation.


    So why did she have to force herself to believe that? Why did his words make her think of things that flitted into her mind and promptly disappeared like half-remembered dreams?


    Thinking about it made her head ache. Diarnlan gritted her teeth and pushed those thoughts out of her mind. She had to get out of here while she still could. When she was safely away then she could wonder about whether or not her mind was playing tricks on her. Then, and not before.


    Some of the floorboards were solid, but others sagged beneath her weight. They would almost certainly creak when she moved. Diarnlan moved her head only about an inch, first to the right and then the left. She took note of where the windows were -- on her right, near the juncture of two walls, both of them glassless and large enough to climb through -- and where the doorways were. There was one behind her, a dark and empty gap in the wall that led further into the house. She put that down on her list of "avoid at all costs". Possibly she could escape that way, but why take the risk of getting lost in an unfamiliar house that looked like it might collapse at any minute?


    The door to the outside was just out of sight beyond one of the windows. She couldn''t tell if it was open or not. The whole place was so cold and draughty that an open door really wouldn''t have made any difference. But if it was closed she''d waste precious minutes trying to open it.


    Best to climb out the window, she thought.


    She glanced over at her kidnapper again. He hadn''t moved. His skin was so pale it was practically translucent. He certainly wouldn''t pose a threat to her in that state. Now was as good a time as any.


    Diarnlan jumped to her feet, sprinted over to the window, and climbed out through the empty frame. It proved more difficult than she''d thought. Fragments of grass remained in the frame. One of them sliced open her palm when she accidentally grabbed it. She ignored the pain and jumped down into the garden. It was so overgrown and weed-infested that it could barely be called a garden. She shoved her way through the long grass. Her foot caught on a branch buried in the undergrowth. Pain shot through her ankle. Again she ignored it and kept running.


    When she reached the few remaining fragments of the house''s fence she looked around wildly for the best place to go. The road running past the house was almost completely hidden beneath grass and weeds. No one had come this way for ages. She couldn''t see any other houses nearby.


    She also couldn''t see any herds grazing in the fields around her. That struck her as odd, but she didn''t have time to consider why it was. Her kidnapper might catch up with her at any moment.


    Diarnlan picked a direction at random and started to run. Her chosen route took her over the empty field beside the house and towards a few trees growing together at the bottom of the field. All the time she expected that little bastard to run up behind her and grab her. She wouldn''t have any trouble fighting off an ordinary fourteen-year-old, but one who had far too much magic and was also completely insane? And had killed a monster bigger than Diarnlan''s house? The thought of what sort of spells he might send after her chilled her to the bone.


    At last she reached the trees, unharmed except for the pain in her hand and ankle. She dived behind one of the trunks. It was wide enough to hide her from the sight of anyone looking out of the house.


    It''s no use at all when he knows where you''ve gone, a little voice whispered in her head. She ignored it.


    Silence fell over the field. Diarnlan clasped her uninjured hand over her mouth to muffle her breaths. She strained her ears for any sound of footsteps or the rustle of someone moving through the grass. Nothing. Just the faint creak of the branches blowing in the wind and the twittering of birds overhead. She risked peeping out from behind the tree. No sign of anyone out in the field. But then, it was a field with fairly long grass. Someone could creep along on their hands and knees and the grass would hide them until they were right in front of her.


    Diarnlan looked down at her clothes. Her grey trousers, grey waistcoat, and the white sleeves of her shirt couldn''t possibly have been more out-of-place in the middle of all the green around her. On the bright side, they blended in surprisingly well with the silvery trunk of the trees.


    As soon as she caught her breath she scurried to the next tree. From there she moved on to the one beyond it, and the one beyond that. In this way she managed to reach the end of the group of trees without stepping out into the open fields in front of and behind her. No point in giving away her position until she had to.


    For a while she waited, crouched amidst the roots of the last tree, for any sign of pursuit. Still nothing. She looked around at the field beyond. If she ran in a straight line she''d have to cover at least eighty saulgr[1] of open ground before she reached a place where the ground sloped downwards. If she ran diagonally, on the other hand, there was a cluster of hedges much closer.


    She ran for the hedges. When she risked a glance back towards the house she saw something that made her blood run cold. A small figure stood outside it. She was too far away to see them clearly, but she felt sure they were staring directly at her.

 Chapter XV: Der Plan

    DER PLAN


    German, "the plan"


    It was foolish indeed -- thus to run farther and farther from all who could help her, as if she had been seeking a fit spot for the goblin creature to eat her in at his leisure; but that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of. -- George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin


    Pushing though the twigs and leaves of the bushes left both of Diarnlan''s hands stinging and cut. The gash from the window was still bleeding sluggishly. Her trousers and shoes had become so dirty that they provided some measure of camouflage. Her hair was full of enough leaves to cover a small bush. Worst of all, her ankle throbbed dully when she wasn''t putting weight on that foot, then became sheer agony as soon as she did put weight on it.


    She collapsed on the grass as soon as she was on the far side on the hedges. For a minute she stared up at the sky, in too much pain to even consider moving. Then she remembered the figure watching her. She thought of the lunatic who''d kidnapped her. The gods alone knew what he was planning. His deranged ramblings had shown he believed he''d already killed her, so it was easy to deduce he intended to kill her yet again.


    An image intruded in her mind; an image of herself stabbing a boy in the back and shoving him underwater. It was so vivid that Diarnlan had to rub her eyes just to make sure she wasn''t actually seeing it right now.


    This is ridiculous, she thought. His insanity is beginning to rub off on me.


    She sat up and looked around. Nothing but fields and hedges and trees as far as the eye could see. No sign of any houses, herds, or people. She couldn''t even spot any roads.


    This doesn''t look like eastern or central Avallot. And it certainly isn''t the northern counties.


    Unfortunately those were the only parts of her homeland she had been to. The logical conclusion was that she was in either western or southern Avallot, but she didn''t know enough about either to make an educated guess. The lack of farms or livestock suggested the southern counties. The only problem was the southern counties were full of mines. Diarnlan hadn''t given much thought to what they looked like, but she certainly didn''t expect them to have so many fields and no mines in sight.


    Amidst a group of trees she spotted a flicker of grey. She looked again sharply. No, her eyes weren''t playing tricks on her. That really was smoke. And smoke meant a fire, which meant people and probably a house. She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the stabs of pain that shot through her ankle, and ran towards those trees.


    Ahead of her a path came into view. Diarnlan sped up. By the time she reached it her ankle had become so sore that she couldn''t run any more. Instead she hobbled along the path. On either side of it grew trees of some sort she hadn''t seen before. She stopped to catch her breath leaning against one. Her ankle now ached even when she wasn''t standing on it. If she had the time to wait she would have cast a healing spell. She wasn''t good at them, but at least she could stop the pain until she got to a doctor.


    Even with the shelter provided by the trees she was still too conspicuous. Anyone who approached from behind would see her at once. Diarnlan limped on until the path rounded a corner. The trees were replaced with large bushes that someone had sculpted into shapes. Humanoid shapes, in fact. And some artistically-talented gardener had clipped the foliage at the top into something that looked like a face.


    Diarnlan stared up at them with an odd feeling of foreboding. She''d never heard of anyone doing that to bushes in Avallot. The art of tree-sculpting had been invented by the empire of Drekakuria. They''d introduced it to other places, but it had never caught on in Avallot. No one wanted to practice a style of gardening associated with their enemies and would-be conquerors.


    She went on, more warily now. Around the next corner she found a huge iron gate. Across the middle of it was an iron plate with writing on it. Her heart sank. That wasn''t Avallese writing. It was a sort of writing she''d seen only once before -- in a Miavish document from before its fall to the Bone-Worshippers.


    It was impossible. No one could teleport through the wards around Miavain. No one could even teleport from central Avallot to the Miavish border. Anyone who tried would probably kill themselves. The wards were specifically designed not to let people through. Or was it that they were only supposed to keep the Miavish people in? Diarnlan wasted several minutes puzzling over this.


    She approached the gates as gingerly as if she expected them to come to life and attack her. As far as she could tell she hadn''t set any alarms off yet. Carefully she peered through the bars. What she saw just made her heart sink further. The path widened into a cobbled courtyard in front of a huge house. The house was built in a semi-circle shape so it curved around the courtyard. Its windows were a very distinctive circular shape. On the walls around the front door were coloured tiles in an equally distinctive fan shape.


    Diarnlan had seen those shapes before. She''d seen them in a history book about Miavain before the fall. Miavish architects had used them for palaces, courthouses, and and other important buildings.


    The memory of all the horrors she''d heard about the Bone-Worshippers rushed into her mind. She staggered away from the gate and collapsed behind one of the bushes. A horrible idea of what might lie before her filled her head -- being burnt at the stake as a witch, being locked away in one of the hellish places they called convents, being sacrificed to their gods, being raped by their priests. Horror followed after horror until she wanted to scream.


    She shoved the branches behind her aside and clambered into the hollow under the bush. She had no idea how long she lay there, trying to come up with a plan to get home safely.


    The first thing to do was try to contact her teacher. Telepathically Diarnlan reached out in search of Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair -- or any other magician who might happen to overhear her and reply.


    Hello? Hello! Can you hear me?


    For several minutes all she heard was the telepathic equivalent of static from a malfunctioning radio. Her stomach tied itself into knots as she waited. At last, just as she was about to give up hope, she got a response. A very garbled one, but it was a response none the less. Best of all it was her teacher''s voice. Diarnlan could have jumped for joy if not for her ankle and the branches crowding her on all sides.


    ...lo? Diarn... is ...at you?


    Yes, she said. I can''t hear you properly; can you hear me?


    Another long silence. Then, slightly clearer than the last time, she heard, Your voice is very faint. Where are you?


    In Miavain.


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    She got the distinct impression her teacher had just done a double-take. When she replied Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair sounded half-way between alarmed and incredulous. Sorry, something''s interfering with my telepathy. It sounded like you just said Miavain.


    I did. It''s a very long story, but I met a madman and he dragged me to Miavain. I don''t know where I am in it. There''s a house here but I don''t want to go too close.


    There was an even longer silence this time. I didn''t catch all of that. What''s this about a madman''s house?


    Diarnlan groaned silently. Never mind. I''ll explain it when I get home. Can you sense where I am? How far away are you?


    Can''t tell. The wards are blocking me.


    Wonderful. Just wonderful. Diarnlan buried her face in her hands and wondered who she''d offended to end up in this situation. All right. I''ll try to find my way back on my own. I''ll contact you again at-- She peered up at the sky through the branches. She couldn''t see the sun, but the sky was bright enough for her to guess it was mid-afternoon at the latest. I''ll contact you some time tomorrow.


    All right. Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair sounded so worried anyone would have thought Diarnlan was a defenceless child. In spite of everything else she had to face Diarnlan found the time to be offended by that. Be careful.


    Diarnlan didn''t bother to answer. She closed the telepathic channel and began to make plans. Her ankle was still sore. Now was as good a time as any to heal it.


    Hiding under a bush was not the most comfortable place in the world. Nor was it particularly convenient for anything that required sitting up, like examining her ankle. Diarnlan got tangled up in the branches over her head, then bumped her elbow against the ones to her left, and finally managed to tear part of her trouser leg on a sharp twig to her right. Exasperated, she weighed up the pros and cons of leaving her hiding place for a few minutes. She hadn''t heard or seen anyone approach. It should be safe enough as long as she didn''t waste time.


    She crawled out onto the grass and sat up. And promptly found herself unable to move at all. Her body froze as if she''d been turned to stone. Even amidst her immediate surge of panic Diarnlan recognised this.


    It was a paralysing spell.


    Someone moved behind her. She couldn''t look round to see who they were. As it turned out she didn''t need to, because they came to stand in front of her.


    "Found you," the madman said with a far-too-wide smile. A smile that showed teeth far sharper than a human''s should be.


    <hr>


    Karandren had two advantages over Diarnlan. He wasn''t panicking, and he knew where he was. He also knew where the nearest house was and who lived there. He watched Diarnlan just to make sure she was heading towards the house. Then he set off towards it too -- but he made sure he approached it from the back.


    The last time he''d been here it had been early morning. (His memories of the first lifetime were faint and unclear, so he hadn''t a clue what time he''d arrived then.) No one had been around to see him. And it had been on a different day. He didn''t know how many people might be around now. But he knew that if there was no one in the kitchen he could get in the servants'' entrance and sneak around the house unseen. He could kill the priest and everyone there. Then he could leave the front door open wide, practically inviting Diarnlan in. She might be suspicious, but eventually she''d come in and he could capture her.


    As for what happened next, he had no idea. He hadn''t thought that far ahead. Some day soon he''d conquer Miavain. That was his main goal. Diarnlan''s presence was a coincidence he hadn''t planned for. He hadn''t a clue what to do about it, but the thought of continuing to annoy her into insanity was a highly entertaining one. Far too entertaining to let this chance slip through his fingers.


    He made his way to the servants'' entrance. As he drew nearer he heard the unmistakeable sounds of pots and pans rattling. Beneath that noise was the faint hum of conversation. He stopped. Obviously the kitchen was occupied. If he had his sword he could have killed them all. Unfortunately and for reasons unknown his sword hadn''t come back with him in this lifetime. He briefly got distracted by wondering why that was. Only when someone opened the kitchen door did he realise the stupidity of standing around outside an enemy''s house. He dived behind the nearest statue and began making a new plan.


    Who said he had to wait until he killed the house''s inhabitants to find Diarnlan? By that time she might have wandered off somewhere else and he''d have to waste time searching for her. Besides, she''d be much more wary of him if she was there to see him kill them all.


    Karandren doubled back and made his way around the outside wall. Soon he reached the main gates. He looked around for any sign of Diarnlan. When he didn''t see anything he cast a spell to check if someone had been here recently. It showed him a set of footsteps leading up to the gate, then turning and heading over to one of the nearby bushes. Karandren followed them. They led to a small hollow under the bush. He couldn''t see clearly past the branches, but he caught a glimpse of grey and white in the hollow.


    No one would stay in such an uncomfortable place for long. He waited just out of sight until Diarnlan emerged from her hiding place. Then he cast a paralysing spell.


    Now to deal with that pesky priest. It was roughly the time for Miavish people to have their evening meal. This was as good a time as any to barge in and kill them all.


    When he told her his plans Diarnlan stared at him as if he''d announced his intention to move to the moon. She made an angry, garbled noise through gritted teeth. Unfortunately for her she couldn''t open her mouth to speak properly because of the spell. And Karandren did not intend to waste time removing the spell just to hear anything she had to say.


    He cast another spell to unfreeze her legs so she could walk, and another to make her follow him. All this magic use began to make him feel slightly light-headed. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and forced that feeling down. He couldn''t afford to show any weakness now. Diarnlan would exploit it as soon as she got free.


    "Come along," he said brightly.


    He got up and marched towards the main gate. Diarnlan followed unwillingly. He paused just outside it, turned abruptly, and pulled Diarnlan''s sword out of its sheath. She gave him the most deadly glare she could manage when her face was mostly frozen.


    "Don''t look at me like that. I need a weapon. I''m not going to kill you." As he turned back to the gate he added, "Probably."


    He got the distinct impression Diarnlan was trying to kill him with her glare.


    <hr>


    The priest had no guards. He didn''t let any of his servants carry weapons. He had no reason for either; the common people lived in such terror of the Bone-Worshippers'' clergy that they would never dare attack him. And like all tyrants he deeply distrusted the idea of allowing his subjects the means to defend themselves. There was too high a chance they might some day decide to use their weapons against him. Karandren was all too familiar with this sort of person. He''d met them again and again during his last stay in Miavain.


    Karandren marched up to the front door as if he owned the place. Well, he was going to own it in a few minutes anyway; why should he sneak around like an intruder? Diarnlan trailed reluctantly after him. He still felt her scowl, a prickling sensation between his shoulder-blades as if she was trying to burn a hole right through him. She hadn''t been able to remove the spell yet. Give her enough time and she''d probably manage it at the most inconvenient moment for him.


    He stopped with his hand on the door-knob. He wasn''t enough of a fool to think no one would try to fight back. The priest had at least twenty servants. If all of them attacked at once not even a sword would be of much use against them.


    I need to magically freeze them, he thought.


    But could he cast more paralysing spells while still keeping the one on Diarnlan? Especially when she was trying to break free? No, he couldn''t risk it. Karandren pulled the door open and swept into the entrance hall. Diarnlan followed, looking like she''d much rather jump into shark-infested waters than put up with this for a minute longer.


    He looked around for a convenient place to lock her up for a few minutes. His gaze fell on the small closet full of raincoats. That would do. It didn''t have a lock, but... He took stock of the furniture nearby. That heavy marble statue would keep the door closed if he propped it against it.


    Karandren opened the door and waved for Diarnlan to go in. She did so very reluctantly.


    "Don''t worry, you won''t be in there long," he said cheerfully. The look she gave him said plainly what she thought of this.


    He closed the door behind her and -- with a little help from his magic -- shoved the statue in front of it. As soon as it was secure he removed the paralysing spell. He promptly got treated to a lesson in how many ways there were to inventively insult someone''s ancestry, sexual preferences, and ultimate destination. He listened out of amused curiosity for a while before he realised someone else might overhear and come to investigate. Then he cast a muffling spell on the door. Diarnlan''s swearing faded into a mere mumbling in the background.


    Now to deal with that pesky priest.

 Chapter XVI: Das Versprechen

    DAS VERSPRECHEN


    German, "the promise"


    Over the course of my life I''ve been to lots of places. Shadowed places where things have gone wrong. Sinister places where things still are. I always hate the sunlit towns, full of newly built developments with double-car garages in shades of pale eggshell, surrounded by green lawns and dotted with laughing children. Those towns aren''t any less haunted than the others. They''re just better liars. -- Kendare Blake, Anna Dressed in Blood


    Diarnlan spent at least fifteen minutes screaming herself hoarse. At last she stopped -- but only because she ran out of insults. She leant against the door with all her might and tried to force it open. She might as well have been trying to move the whole house. Whatever that little bastard had shoved against the door it was much too heavy for her to move.


    She tried to think calmly. It was very difficult when from outside she heard occasional cries and screams that were hastily cut off.


    Her kidnapper had taken her to Miavain. That should be utterly impossible, but clearly it wasn''t. However he''d done it, she couldn''t teleport herself back. She tried. She couldn''t even teleport out of this horrible cramped cupboard. Her magic was behaving very strangely. It was still there, still within her reach, but she couldn''t make it do anything.


    That bastard''s cast some sort of curse on me, she thought, fuming.


    There was nothing else for it. She''d have to find a weapon somewhere -- preferably her own sword, but the gods alone knew how she could get it back from that lunatic -- and kill him with that. Then she''d find a map and make her way back to Avallot.


    The noises outside had stopped. Eerie silence reigned over the house. Then Diarnlan heard footsteps approaching. They came closer and closer to her prison. Finally they stopped right outside. She looked around for something to defend herself. There was nothing but a collection of coats draped over a rail. They didn''t even have any hangers that could serve as makeshift weapons.


    Screeeeeech went the statue as someone pushed it away from the door. Light flooded the little room as the door was yanked open. Diarnlan winced. Her eyes stung so badly she had to cover them, even though she knew that left her vulnerable to a surprise attack.


    When the light stopped hurting her eyes she looked up warily. Her blood ran cold. The madman stood in the doorway. His clothes and face were dotted with blood. The sword in his hand -- her sword, damn him -- was completely covered with blood. It dripped down to splash on the floor.


    "Come on," the madman said, impatiently tapping his foot on the tile. "We haven''t got all day."


    He sounded exactly like a customer in a shop exasperated with how long the person in front of them was taking to pay for their purchases. It was such a surreal tone coming from such a deranged person, especially under such horrible circumstances. Diarnlan stared at him in disbelief. She found herself wondering if she was unconscious in a hospital somewhere and this whole thing was a medication-induced nightmare. Had she been knocked out when the monster first appeared? Had there ever been a monster at all or was it part of her dream?


    The madman''s patience ran out. He grabbed her wrist and tried to physically pull her out. Diarnlan yanked her hand away, then slapped him across the face. He had the audacity to yelp and clutch his cheek as if she''d seriously injured him.


    While he was distracted she shoved past him and tried to run for the door. Of all the times her ankle could have picked to give out, it chose the least convenient one. Sharp stabbing pain raced through her leg. A dizzy, painful moment later the world cleared and Diarnlan found herself lying on the floor.


    The madman looked down at her and mock-pityingly shook his head. "You''re a complete idiot."


    <hr>


    Diarnlan''s kidnapper was surprisingly strong -- physically as well as magically -- for someone whose head barely reached her shoulders. He hauled her to her feet and half-dragged, half-carried her across the hall. Diarnlan made a point of doing nothing to help him. She leant on his shoulder as heavily as she could and took care to make him support her whole weight.


    He grumbled under his breath as he dragged her down the hallway. It took a great deal of self-control for Diarnlan not to deliberately trip him up. Well, self-control mixed with the knowledge she couldn''t stand on her own so it wouldn''t be in her own interests to make him fall.


    The madman kicked open a door. "Here we are!" he announced brightly, as if they were sight-seers visiting some notable place.


    He practically shoved Diarnlan down into a chair. As soon as he was no longer the only thing holding her up she kicked out at his feet. Alas, he had expected it and dodged the blow.


    Diarnlan looked around warily. She wouldn''t have been surprised to find herself in a torture chamber surrounded by corpses. She was surprised to find she was in a large ornate hall, without any corpses or instruments of torture to be seen. A long table stood in the middle of the room. At the far end of it was a chair on a raised dais. In the chair sat a middle-aged man, so fat he looked more like a round dumpling than a person, wearing the most gaudy clothes Diarnlan had ever seen. His shirt, jacket, and the curious little cape draped over his shoulders were all eye-watering shades of green and purple. Worse, they were covered in so many frills and ruffles that it was impossible to tell where the clothes ended and the decorations began. Perched on his head was a bizarre hat shaped like a child''s kite. It was decorated with dozens of tassels. Many of them fell over the man''s face and hid it from view.


    This spectacle almost took Diarnlan''s breath away. She gaped at the man for several minutes, trying to comprehend how anyone outside an asylum could wear such monstrosities. Even her kidnapper, whose grasp on reality was as tenuous as a politician''s grasp of truth, didn''t walk around looking like a tailor''s worst nightmare.


    She was so distracted by his clothes it took her a while to realise the man wasn''t moving. He sat still as a statue in his chair. The chair had obviously been intended for someone taller; its back towered over his head and added to how ludicrous he looked. She wondered if he was a clown from the local circus who had somehow ended up in this house at the worst possible time. It would explain his clothes and how still he could sit. Then she watched his face and saw how it barely moved. He hardly even blinked. Oh. A paralysing spell. Of course.


    Diarnlan turned and gave her kidnapper the iciest frown she could manage. She was disgusted to see he looked absurdly pleased with himself. As if abduction, murdering random people, and casting spells on helpless bystanders was something to be proud of!


    "What is the meaning of this?" she demanded, using her best imitation of Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair in one of her rare rages.


    The madman brightened up even further, as if he''d just been praised by someone he especially wanted to impress. "I''m so glad you asked! This--" He waved at the clown. That unfortunate man couldn''t make facial expressions any more, but he somehow managed to convey abject terror without moving a muscle, "--is this house''s former owner."


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    Diarnlan blinked and tried to reconcile the sorry figure before her with the idea of him owning such a grand house. She failed.


    "He''s a priest of the Bone-Worshippers."


    Any sympathy Diarnlan felt for the man disappeared immediately. She eyed him as if he was an especially loathsome insect. He quailed even further beneath her glare.


    "This is the third time I''ve killed him."


    And there he went again, rambling nonsensically. Diarnlan didn''t know why she was surprised. She didn''t know how to deal with lunatics, and she would like to get out of this alive, so she just pretended not to hear him. Unfortunately the madman continued in this vein until it was impossible to ignore him.


    "I know you don''t believe me. You don''t remember, but this is just the latest of many times we''ve repeated our lives. I don''t even know which number this is. They all blur together after the first two."


    Diarnlan couldn''t stay silent after that. "You''re mad."


    The madman smiled. It was an odd smile, not quite angry and not quite mad; as if he was laughing at a private joke that not even he found funny. "I suppose I am. Wait till it''s one of your lifetimes and you find I don''t remember you any more. You''ll see then."


    What under heaven am I supposed to say to that?


    Luckily for Diarnlan she didn''t have to say anything. Karandren continued without waiting for a reply.


    "I suppose you don''t even remember my name."


    "Of course I do," Diarnlan said without thinking. Then she stopped, bewildered, as she found it was true. How could she possibly know that? "...You told me, didn''t you?"


    That explanation didn''t quite fit. Karandren had told her, but she hadn''t paid any attention. She''d forgotten until now. An uneasy suspicion settled at the back of her mind. She refused to examine it. Some things were best left alone.


    Karandren grinned humourlessly at her. She got yet another uneasy suspicion that he knew what she was thinking.


    "Anyway, this is the third time I''ve killed him. Or it will be soon enough. Then I''m going to conquer Miavain and Avallot. Some day I''ll have to find a way to stop the skryszel getting through the veil. Then I''ll find a way to break this curse so we won''t have to keep reliving our lives. And then I''ll kill you and rule the world."


    Diarnlan rolled her eyes. She''d seen better villainous plans in the worst-written trash published by certain newspapers. "Good luck."


    Karandren stared at her incredulously. For a moment she wondered if he thought she was sincerely wishing him well. Then he shrugged and picked up her sword. Diarnlan watched in mingled horror and disgust as he approached the priest. She briefly considered intervening. Then she remembered the crimes committed by the Bone-Worshippers, and decided it wasn''t worth the effort. She looked away as Karandren swung the sword.


    <hr>


    "What do you mean, your student''s in Miavain? No one can teleport into Miavain!"


    Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair closed her eyes and counted to ten. "Look, I''ve already told you she contacted me and told me herself. I think we can trust Diarnlan''s judgement on where she is. She''s one of my best students, you know."


    Not that I''d ever tell her to her face, the mage thought with a shudder. She could just imagine how insufferable Diarnlan would be if she did.


    The other magicians continued to look unconvinced. For the umpteenth time one of them said, "I don''t care how smart she is; no one can teleport to Miavain!"


    Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair gestured to the monster''s corpse. "No one can cut something this big in half either. But here it is, and it has something to do with Diarnlan being kidnapped."


    Someone scoffed. "Oh, so now she''s been kidnapped? And how pray tell can such a good magician get kidnapped?"


    There were times when Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair wanted to knock her fellow magicians'' heads together. It seemed nothing else would get any sense into them.


    Drefar-noraie-tirok, the oldest of the mages (and one of the few who in Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair''s opinion had any braincells), stepped in before anyone else made a fool of themselves. "It''s a reasonable assumption when there are two sets of footprints here. As for teleporting to Miavain, it''s highly unlikely and we''ll have to wait to ask Diarnlan herself. Going in search of her is out of the question when we don''t know where to start. In the meantime, what will we do about this corpse?"


    After that Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair had to suffer through yet more bickering about the proper way to dispose of a dead monster. She ignored the arguments as much as possible. Instead she searched telepathically for Diarnlan''s consciousness. When that failed she tried hunting for any trace of her magic. Nothing. Diarnlan might as well have been on the other side of the world for all her teacher could tell.


    I promise I''ll find you, she said anyway, just in case Diarnlan''s telepathy picked her up.


    <hr>


    Diarnlan was all too familiar with fictional kidnapping plots. They were a favoured plot twist of stupid authors with no better ideas. Sometimes it was an excuse for the hero to oh-so-heroically rescue his or her love interest from the dastardly villain''s clutches. Sometimes the hero themselves was the victim and the whole thing was an excuse to show off their intelligence and resourcefulness. Invariably it ended with the kidnapper defeated, the kidnappee rescued, and everyone lived happily ever after. She''d never given much thought to how a kidnapping would go in real life. Certainly she''d never expected to find out first-hand.


    "Well, that''s that," Karandren said brightly. He wiped the sword clean on the chair''s upholstery. When he turned to face Diarnlan he found the priest''s head lying in front of him. He kicked it away without even looking at it as he continued, "At least I don''t have to cook anything today. Look at all that food!"


    The table in front of the priest''s chair was loaded with food -- gravy, potatoes, vegetables, and a huge chunk of meat. The servants must have just brought it out to the priest when Karandren killed him. No doubt it would have been appetising about twenty minutes ago. Now it was cold, the gravy was congealed, and just looking at the stuff turned Diarnlan''s stomach.


    Karandren was bothered by no such feelings. He picked up a carving knife and attacked the meat with as much viciousness as if it was his worst enemy. Diarnlan watched in disgusted disbelief as he sawed off a slice, cast a heating spell on it, and tore into it like a starving dog.


    He paused when he realised Diarnlan wasn''t eating. With his mouth still full he mumbled, "Well? Aren''t you hungry?"


    An hour ago maybe she had been. Right now she felt as if she never wanted to see food again. "No."


    He shrugged and went back to attacking the meat. Diarnlan took advantage of his distraction to sneak out of the dining room. She ran to the front door and tried to pull it open. The handle turned round and round uselessly. The door didn''t budge. It wasn''t locked and there was nothing jamming it. A locking spell. She might have known.


    She gave up in disgust. Next she tried the window beside the door. It wouldn''t move either. She went around all the rooms on the ground floor, trying every window she found. None of them would open. Nor would any of the doors.


    In the kitchen and the halls around it she stumbled upon the bodies of the servants. One especially unlucky servant had apparently tried to fight back. The carving knife embedded in his chest showed how well that had gone.


    In a large room near the dining room she found something even more disturbing than the dead servants. A huge altar took up nearly the whole room. Piled on it were skeletons. Human skeletons. Some of them far too small to be adults. On spikes at the top of the altar were human hands with the flesh still on them. They were unmistakeably children''s hands. The smell of death and decay filled the room.


    Diarnlan had dissected many animals -- and a few humans too. She''d witnessed gruesome injuries. She''d seen the monster crawl out of the sea. None of those sights had ever made her physically sick. This one did. She fell to her knees and retched until her stomach''s contents came up.


    "I''m glad it makes you sick." She started at Karandren''s voice. When she turned she saw him standing in the doorway. He looked at the bones as if they were just a foreign curiosity. "I didn''t know anything could do that." In a voice that was almost mournful he finished, "Nothing makes me sick any more."


    "Try arsenic," Diarnlan suggested sarcastically. "I hear it''s very good at making people sick."


    Karandren pretended not to hear. He stared at the bones for another minute. Then he shrugged and turned away. "Tomorrow I''m going to find the other local priests and kill them too. But now I''m going to bed. It''s been a very trying day."


    Diarnlan gawked at him. As he left she shouted after him, "You''ve had a trying day? What sort of day do you think I''ve had?"


    She heard him walk up the stairs. He slammed a door somewhere above her head. Then silence fell on the house. Diarnlan immediately went back to hunting for a way out. She tried doors. She tried windows. She even tried to magically blow a hole in a wall. Nothing worked. At last she had to face the facts. Karandren had cast some sort of spell on this house to keep her in and block her magic. She couldn''t get out on her own. She''d just have to wait until he deigned to lift the spell.


    By now she was exhausted. Her ankle never stopped throbbing. Even though her every instinct warned her it was dangerous to sleep here, she couldn''t stay awake any longer. She found a small bedroom in the servants'' quarters, pushed the wardrobe in front of the door, and collapsed onto the bed. She was asleep within minutes.

 Chapter XVII: Die Sehnsucht

    DIE SEHNSUCHT


    German, "longing; yearning; nostalgia"


    Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was always just red. -- Kait Rokowski


    The wards around Miavain kept its people from realising anything unusual was happening in Avallot. Along the shore the fishermen noticed a mysterious absence of fish and an abnormally high tide, but nothing that couldn''t be explained away naturally. Near the Avallese border a few scattered farmhouses felt faint tremors like a distant earthquake. When days passed and nothing else happened they dismissed the tremors and promptly forgot all about them.


    People in Avallot didn''t have the luxury of forgetting about them. Every day they had to deal with what caused them.


    At first they thought the monster was an anomaly never to be repeated. Everyone else that idea for well over a month. Teivain-r¨ªkhon-hrair was much too busy trying to find Diarnlan to keep an eye on the veil, and none of the other mages lived close enough to it to monitor it every day.


    The second monster''s arrival went unnoticed until it barged headlong into a city. It took all of the Great Mages and half of the Avallese army to finally kill it. By then it had laid waste to the whole city. Only two buildings remained standing. Hundreds of civilians were confirmed dead, thousands were missing, and thousands more were injured and homeless.


    The third and fourth monsters arrived the very next day. They charged right across Avallot until they reached the capital. But they didn''t stop there. They ran right through it, destroying everything in their path, and continued on their way. A magician in western Avallot was fortunate enough to kill one of them. The other one was still at large.


    Ships reported sighting a fifth monster swimming towards Byuryan. Rumours came from kingdoms to the west of a monster wreaking havoc among them. No one knew if it was the fourth monster or a sixth one. Everyone lived in constant terror of the next arrival.


    Meanwhile in Miavain the people had a different sort of monster to deal with. It started with the disappearance of all the priests in Olhai Province. All over the province the townspeople woke up to find their priests'' heads impaled over the town gates -- a punishment reserved for traitors and heretics. The news quickly spread. Factory workers in southern Miavain talked about it during the breaks. Priests-in-training in the ornate academies began to worry about their futures. The High Priest flew into a rage and hurled his ceremonial crown at the unfortunate messenger who brought him the news.


    "I want this heretical murderer dead!" he roared. Later in his public address to the capital''s inhabitants he said, "I will bestow a sainthood on anyone who captures the murderer and brings him to me."


    In spite of his promises and the government''s offered rewards, no one caught the murderer or could offer any information about him. Weeks passed and brought with them many more dead priests but no leads. No one dared say it to the High Priest''s face, but everyone noticed an especially disturbing fact about the murders.


    They were moving closer and closer to the capital.


    Three months after the murders first started was the Day of Muimatorven, one of the biggest festivals celebrated by the Bone-Worshippers. The High Priest''s palace in the middle of the capital was the centre of the festivities. At noon exactly the High Priest would walk out onto the raised platform above the watching crowd and would publicly burn any book or piece of writing considered heretical.


    A few of his followers dared to bring up the question of the murderer on the loose. He scoffed at their concerns. "No one would dare attack me in public!"


    When the day came he walked out onto the platform alone. He lit the fire and threw the books into it. The smoke billowed up until it could be seen from all over the city. Smoke from other fires was visible in the distance; proof that other people were obediently destroying anything that could by any stretch of the imagination be considered heretical. All of that smoke might as well have been a beacon.


    An icy wind swept through the palace. It blew open the doors. It tossed aside curtains and tapestries. It knocked over the huge statue in the main temple. It chilled everyone to the bone. And when it was gone, three people stood on the platform.


    The common people down below saw what was happening before the High Priest did. A chorus of gasps arose. That was what alerted him. He turned away from the fire and saw the figures standing behind him. The books fell from his hands.


    If the gods themselves had descended from on high the gathered people could hardly have been more dumbstruck. They hardly noticed anything about the newcomers themselves; they were much too distracted by the blood-stained sword one of them had in their hand and the large box the other held to their chest. The High Priest looked around for his guards. They were supposed to stay in the palace out of sight, but to keep an eye on proceedings from the windows. If anything untoward happened they should have rushed out to defend him. So where were they?


    Their absence put him in an awkward position. He and all the other priests never missed a chance to boast they had no guards and trusted to the gods and saints to protect them. He couldn''t call for his guards without revealing he was a hypocrite. There was nothing else for it. He would have to deal with these interlopers himself.


    At first glance there was nothing very intimidating about either of them. Both of them were wearing armour, but that on its own didn''t mean they were dangerous. The one holding the sword was a young boy barely into his teens. Why, the sword itself was almost too large for him. He looked like he''d fall flat on his face if he tried to swing it at anyone. The High Priest glanced at him and promptly dismissed him as not a threat.


    The one holding the box, on the other hand, looked like she might well be a threat. She was at least ten years older than the boy and almost a full head taller. The Bone-Worshippers had spent the better part of five hundred years preaching that women were helpless and incapable of defending themselves. The High Priest believed virtually none of the dogmas he propagated, but he had never questioned that one until today. He knew enough about his guards'' training to recognise when someone was ready for an attack, and he couldn''t help seeing she held herself exactly like a warrior before a duel.


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    Never before had the High Priest faced a situation like this. He knew he had to say something, but what?


    The boy saved him the trouble. "You wanted me brought to the capital, so here I am." In the background the woman rolled her eyes and muttered something in a foreign language. With a wide and not-quite-sane smile the boy continued, "I think we''ve had enough of priests of all sorts, don''t you?"


    He held out his hand. The High Priest''s chain of office lifted up and tore itself off him, scraping the skin off the back of its neck. It flew over to the boy and landed in his hand. He closed his hand around it. Before the High Priest''s astonished eyes it burst into flames and fell apart. Murmurs arose from the watching crowd.


    The woman opened the box. A human head fell out. The boy picked it up calmly and held it out. The murmurs turned to screams as the audience realised what it was. The High Priest found himself frozen in place. He couldn''t have moved if his life depended on it.


    That was the Prime Minister''s head.


    "I am taking over Miavain," the boy announced, as matter-of-factly as if he was only talking about a school subject he wasn''t particularly interested in. "There is no place in my kingdom for your cult."


    He raised the sword. The woman rolled her eyes again and held out her hand. The High Priest never had a chance to realise what she was doing. Her spell sliced right through his neck. His head landed in the fire amongst the ashes of the books.


    <hr>


    "You are an absolute idiot."


    Karandren scowled at Diarnlan. "What are you talking about? You were the one who made me look stupid by cutting off his head like that."


    She rolled her eyes yet again. She''d been doing that so often over the last months that she wouldn''t be a bit surprised if some day soon her eyes fell out. "You had already made yourself look stupid by your ridiculous speechifying. You should have just killed him and taken over the government without making a spectacle of yourself. The people wouldn''t have noticed a thing for weeks. And how did you intend to behead him from the other side of the platform anyway? You haven''t a clue how--"


    He hit her with yet another silencing spell.


    <hr>


    For the next month or so things went smoothly for Karandren. They did not go so smoothly for Diarnlan. Karandren, for all his grand proclamations about taking over Miavain, was still just a fourteen-year-old. A fourteen-year-old who barely remembered how to run a country, and certainly couldn''t be bothered to learn. He spent most of his time practicing dark magic on the politicians he''d captured. He would have happily let the country run itself -- into the ground, most likely. Diarnlan was the one saddled with the responsibilities of actually ruling Miavain and undoing the damage done by the Bone-Worshippers.


    It was bad enough that she had to trawl through centuries''-worth of government records just to find the answer to things like "how does the court system work" and "what''s the normal price of linen". It was even worse that she was imprisoned in the High Priest''s palace -- or Karandren''s palace, as it was now -- and couldn''t go outside. Karandren, for all his ignorance about politics, had the intelligence to realise handing the country over to his worst enemy would backfire on him if he didn''t make sure she couldn''t plot against him.


    As a student at the academy Diarnlan had studied Old High Miavish to read documents from before the Bone-Worshippers'' reign of terror. Now she discovered that Old High Miavish might as well have been a completely different language to modern-day Miavish. They used different alphabets, had different grammar rules, and shared at most one word in a hundred. Worst of all, the words she did recognise had changed meaning drastically over the years. There were spells to help people learn foreign languages. Unfortunately Karandren had sealed her magic so she couldn''t use spells of any sort. Sometimes Diarnlan wanted nothing more than to bash that brat''s head in with one of the ugly statues this place was still full of.


    She found a handful of scholars who understood Old High Miavish and used them to translate things for her while she tried to learn the modern language. Things went on in this extremely inconvenient way for what felt like centuries. Diarnlan gave up trying to keep track of days. The palace''s main hall had no windows, and that was where she spent most of her life now.


    The first clue something was going wrong came with a crash that shook the entire city. Bells rang wildly in the towers. Plaster crumbled from the palace roof. Some of the statues overbalanced and fell to the floor so heavily they shook the palace again. The noise was the first thing in days that drew Karandren out of the basement. He emerged with his eyes glowing red and dark magic clinging to him like a garment.


    "What was that?" he asked, rubbing his eyes and squinting in the lamp-light.


    Diarnlan shrugged. She didn''t even bother to look up from studying the Miavish alphabet. Strange sounds and miniature earthquakes were par for the course now Karandren was doing gods-knew-what with dark magic. This was just the first time the effects had extended outside the palace. "How should I know? Find out yourself."


    Screams arose from the city. Distant thuds sent faint tremors through the building. Karandren conjured up his sword and ran to the main door. Diarnlan followed, more out of boredom than curiosity. She was long past being surprised by anything.


    When she reached the platform where the High Priest had died she stopped in her tracks. She didn''t have to look all over the city for the cause of the screams. Five enormous silhouettes towered over the buildings. And they were slowly but steadily approaching the palace. One of them looked like a giant frog.


    The sight of it snapped something in Diarnlan''s mind. A storm of memories swept over her, disorientating and frightening in their intensity. She saw that same monster on the beach outside her house. She saw herself killing it. She saw other monsters crawling out of the sea. She saw eyes staring back at her through the veil. The pain of her deaths hit her all at once.


    She fell to the ground, too dizzy to remain standing. She knelt on the platform for several minutes. And by the time she stood up again she had a plan. It wasn''t a good plan. It wasn''t really a plan at all. It was just a series of facts and the conclusion she drew from them.


    I can''t kill all of those monsters. One way or another I''ll die today. That thought led to, I want to die on my own terms. From there it was an easy step to, As soon as we both die we''ll be sent back again. That wasn''t really a comforting thought. At least I''ll go back to Avallot. Even that thought wasn''t as comforting as it should have been.


    Karandren stood with his back to her, all his attention taken up by the skryszels. Diarnlan had no magic and no weapon, but the monsters'' footsteps had shaken loose the plaster in more places than the ceiling. The platform was lined with sharp spikes where heretics'' heads had been displayed. Now the priests'' heads were displayed there instead. Diarnlan took note of which heads hung lower and at more of an angle than the others. Those spikes would be the easiest to dislodge.


    She pulled the head off the loosest spike and wrenched it free. Karandren was busy trying to conjure up some sort of dark magic. He didn''t notice as she walked up behind him. He had no chance to defend himself when she plunged the spike between his ribs.


    Diarnlan had planned to kill herself after Karandren was dead. She was spared the trouble. Karandren''s spell lashed out at his killer as he died. The last thing she saw was one of the monsters crashing through the palace gates. Then the spell struck her. Diarnlan died.


    <hr>


    Diarnlan opened her eyes.


    END OF BOOK ONE

 Book 2: The Golden Bridge

    ARANHY¨ªD


    Hungarian, "the golden bridge". Means the sun''s reflection as it shines on water.


    (Advance warning: my motivation and inspiration both disappeared half-way through writing book two, so unfortunately it ends very abruptly. Yet another problem to be fixed during editing, I guess. And this would be in the author''s note section if RR would allow me to post the book title alone like Wattpad does.)


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

 Chapter I: Die Zukunft

    DIE ZUKUNFT


    German, "the future"


    Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there''s no room for the present at all. -- Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited


    Diarnlan opened her eyes. She promptly wished she hadn''t. Once again she saw the only-too-familiar tree. Its gold leaves glinted and flickered as if laughing at her. She glared up at it. For a while she couldn''t be bothered to move. What was the point? She would just run into Karandren again no matter where she went. Even being sent back wouldn''t guarantee she''d avoid him. It was like he was her shadow. Everywhere she went he would turn up too, and no matter how far she ran she could never escape him.


    Nothing happened. Eventually she grew tired of lying in the snow. She sat up, looking around warily for any sign of her hated ex-pupil. At least he had the decency to be nowhere in sight.


    Wait a minute. Where was Saungrafn?


    Diarnlan leapt to her feet. She looked around in increasing alarm. Saungrafn had been right beside her when she last ended up here. Now it was nowhere to be seen.


    She rounded the tree trunk and stopped in her tracks. Her mouth fell open.


    There was an expanse of flat ground beyond the tree. Karandren was there, practicing sword-forms. The sword in his hand was only too familiar.


    "Get your filthy hands off Saungrafn!"


    He spun around. Absently Diarnlan noted his feet didn''t sink into the snow, instead gliding on top of it like a skater on an ice rink. Karandren bowed mockingly, at the same time tossing Saungrafn into the air with one hand and catching it with the other. Diarnlan half-expected him to drop it or accidentally stab himself. Unfortunately he didn''t. He twirled it around and around like a juggler at a carnival. It would be difficult enough to do that with an ordinary sword. There was a reason real jugglers used wooden swords, after all. But with a soul-weapon? That was only supposed to let itself be used by its creator?


    Diarnlan glared at Saungrafn. "You traitor. What''s wrong with you? You should at least have the decency to cut his hand off."


    She got the distinct impression that if Saungrafn had a head, it would have shaken it disapprovingly.


    "Oh, shut up," Karandren said with his usual politeness.


    Diarnlan glared at him. Through gritted teeth she said, "I know it''s expecting too much of you to behave like a human being, but don''t you know it''s rude to touch someone else''s soul-weapon? How would you like it if I grabbed part of your soul?"


    There was a brief silence. Karandren stopped spinning the sword around and looked at her expectantly.


    "Well? Aren''t you going to say it?"


    Diarnlan blinked. "Say what?"


    Karandren shrugged. "I expected you to say something about my not having a soul."


    That hadn''t even occurred to her until now. Strange. A few lifetimes ago she would have said it long ago and wouldn''t have needed him to mention it.


    "What''s the point in stating the obvious?" she asked instead.


    Karandren shrugged again. He raised Saungrafn and flung it at her face. Only the reflexes created by several lifetimes of being attacked prevented her from having her skull split open by her own sword. She glared at it as it sailed past her head and landed in the snow. Behind her there was a muffled sound like a yelp hastily cut off. She ignored it. Probably Karandren had just cut his own hand on the sword. Serve him right if he had.


    "You traitor," she said to Saungrafn. "Why did you let him touch you at all?"


    She got the impression Saungrafn would have shrugged sheepishly if a sword had been able to shrug.


    You two need to learn to get along, the dratted thing had the audacity to say.


    Diarnlan glared at it even more fiercely. It sank deeper into the snow as if hoping to disappear entirely.


    "As soon as my next life begins I''m going to melt you down and sell you as scrap metal to the rag-and-bone man."


    Saungrafn said nothing. Diarnlan had an uneasy feeling it was doing the soul-weapon equivalent of nodding along like an adult tolerating a child''s foolishness. She firmly put that thought out of her mind.


    When she turned round Karandren was gone. Diarnlan froze. She scanned her surroundings for any sign of where he was hiding. The ground was too flat around her for him to be nearby. He must be behind one of those mounds of snow that marked where the ground became uneven.


    Or perhaps he had found a way to tunnel under the snow. Perhaps he was under her feet right now, ready to jump out at her.


    This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    Diarnlan held out her hand. Saungrafn sprang out of the snow and flew to her. She held it out in front of her as she turned slowly in a circle. When she was sure Karandren wasn''t sneaking up on her over the ground she plunged Saungrafn into the snow. Again and again she stabbed it until she knew there was no chance Karandren was hiding under it.


    He''s gone, Saungrafn said.


    "I can see that." Maybe he''d decided to go mountain-climbing like she had a few lifetimes ago. Diarnlan remembered the pain of falling and breaking her bones. With any luck he''d suffer the same fate and she wouldn''t have to see him again until the gods (or fate, or the universe, or whoever was to blame for this mess) saw fit to shove them back into their old lives.


    He''s gone back, Saungrafn said insistently.


    At first Diarnlan didn''t know what it was talking about. Then she realised. Her eyes widened in outrage. "You mean he''s been brought back to life while I haven''t? This is outrageous!"


    <hr>


    While Diarnlan and Karandren had been busy arguing over Saungrafn, their magic had been just as busy trying to figure out what to do now.


    How about we send only one of them back?


    Yes, let''s try that.


    So Karandren found himself abruptly yanked out of the strange in-between afterlife and back into the body of his fourteen-year-old self. He stared woozily up at the ceiling while his mind processed what had just happened.


    Claaaaaaaang! went the academy bell.


    Karandren almost jumped out of his skin. That more than anything brought him back to reality. He glared in the general direction of the bell and gathered his magic for a spell. Absently he noticed that he still didn''t have all the magic he used to. Then he cast the spell.


    For the second time in as many lifetimes the bell exploded into smithereens.


    <hr>


    This time Karandren didn''t run away after destroying the bell. He trooped into the school basement with all the other students while the teachers ran around in a panic. While the other students chattered amongst themselves he stood off to the side in silence. No one spoke to him. Barely anyone even noticed he was there.


    His thoughts chased each other round in circles. What should he do now? Stay at the academy and refuse to have anything to do with Diarnlan? Run off to Miavain again but make sure not to bring her with him this time? Or -- and this idea kept coming back to him after all the others had disappeared -- why not try something completely different this time? All his previous attempts had ended in skryszel-related disaster, so why not deal with the skryszel before they could become a problem?


    He did some quick calculations. Assuming this was the day when the first skryszel attacked, then he had roughly ten minutes before it came through the veil. Everyone was distracted by the exploding bell. This was the ideal time to slip away.


    No one paid any attention to Karandren as he slipped out of the basement. As soon as he reached the top of the stairs he bolted in the direction of the teleportation platforms, pausing along the way to steal a sword from a suit of armour in the hallway.


    The teleportation platforms were behind the school and just inside the walls. There were three of them, each circular and built on top of four pillars. Stone steps led up to them. All of them were large enough to hold ten people at a time. The magicians who built them many years ago had designed them to respond only to the presence of the academy''s residents. When a new student or teacher arrived they had to cast a spell to make it recognise them.


    Karandren ran up the closest flight of steps and skidded to a halt in the centre of the platform. Nothing happened. For the first time it occurred to him that his magic might have changed enough to stop the platform recognising him. Experimentally he conjured up a flower made of ice, taking care to use the lightest magic he knew.


    The runes around the platform''s edges began to glow. A map of Avallot appeared in mid-air right in front of him. Karandren tossed the flower aside and examined the map. Diarnlan''s house wasn''t marked on it, but he could make an educated guess at where it was. He tapped his finger against that part of the coast. The map changed from one of the entire country to one of the north-east coastline. He noticed where the village was marked and used it as a reference to find Diarnlan''s house. He pointed at the chosen location for ten seconds. That triggered the runes to lock onto that destination.


    The platform activated. A flash of light, a dizzying feeling of being dragged forwards, and Karandren was standing on the beach.


    He looked around. At once he saw this wasn''t quite the right place. The roof of Diarnlan''s house was just visible over a small hill. He walked along the beach until the house came fully into view. There was no sign of Diarnlan herself. Probably she''d run away again as soon as she came back. Nor was there any sign of the skryszel.


    Karandren scanned the beach. No footprints, no claw-marks, nothing at all except a lot of sand and a tree growing a short distance from the water. He sat down on the grass at the edge of the beach and waited.


    The thin part of the veil was somewhere out at sea. He dimly remembered hearing that no one had been able to find it. Perhaps it was underwater. If so he would be better able to find it than anyone else. He filed that thought away for future reference, just in case he failed to kill the skryszel this time.


    A faint tremor ran through the ground. Karandren tightened his grip on the sword''s hilt. He scanned the sea. Nothing. Not even a seagull.


    The tremor came again. His eyes landed on the sea. There were ripples on the surface, yes, but they weren''t coming towards the beach. They were heading away from it, as if caused by something on the land rather than in the sea.


    Karandren looked around suspiciously. Still nothing in sight but the tree-- Wait a minute. Trees didn''t grow on beaches.


    He jumped up and raised his sword. The monster gave up all pretence and charged right for him.


    <hr>


    At first the in-between realm was peaceful. Diarnlan had a leisurely walk around the lake, pausing to take note of all the differences between this place and her realm. But this very quickly became boring. Now she found the drawbacks in being stuck here without Karandren.


    For want of anything better to do she began to build a snowman. She was in the middle of rolling a snowball into place when Karandren reappeared. He popped into existence right in front of her, tripped over his own feet, and fell on top of the snowball.


    Both of them were frozen in place for a minute. Diarnlan recovered first and scooped up another handful of snow. When Karandren finally clambered out of the ruined snowman he immediately got hit in the face by another snowball.


    "Well?" Diarnlan asked. "How did you die this time?"


    Karandren gave her the sort of look that suggested he had just seen things man was not meant to know. He didn''t even seem bothered by the snow; at any rate he hadn''t brushed it away yet. "Trees should not have teeth!"


    Diarnlan blinked and tried to make sense of that. "Huh?"


    He didn''t elaborate. He just turned and stormed off, still muttering about trees and teeth. Diarnlan watched him go. Then she turned and gave Saungrafn a baffled look. She got the impression it was shrugging in equal confusion.


    Under her breath she said, "What happened, and why did it have to happen when I wasn''t there to see it?"

 Chapter II: Zur眉ck

    ZUR¨¹CK


    German, "return; back"


    The future came and went in the mildly discouraging way that futures do. -- Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens


    Once again Diarnlan''s and Karandren''s magic sat down -- metaphorically -- to find an answer.


    Maybe we should send them back earlier.


    We tried that.


    I mean even earlier.


    But when?


    They considered various times. Diarnlan''s time as a student at the academy, perhaps? But then Karandren had been only a small child. It was ridiculous to send an adult''s soul into the body of a six-year-old.


    Let''s send Diarnlan back alone.


    Yes, we''ll try that.


    <hr>


    After Karandren''s mysterious reappearance and even more mysterious remark, Diarnlan had gone back to building her snowman. She was just putting the head in place when the world disintegrated around her.


    "Here we go again," she grumbled as she opened her eyes.


    She did a double take. This wasn''t her bedroom. This was a colourless, cheerless place that was she had thought was no more than an unpleasant memory. She stared up at the blank white ceiling. She examined the thin quilt with its cover that had been washed so many times there was no colour left in it. She dropped her head back down on the lumpy pillow. The hard mattress squeaked in protest. One of its springs dug into Diarnlan''s shoulder-blade.


    No one who had been unlucky enough to sleep in the academy''s dormitories would ever forget them. it had been eight years -- give or take a few lifetimes -- since Diarnlan had last suffered through an uncomfortable night in her old bed. The memory of it had stayed with her so vividly that she recognised where she was at once.


    I don''t believe it. What am I doing back here?


    She climbed out of bed, shivering at how cold the room was, and tiptoed over to the door leading to the bathrooms. All around her the dormitory''s other occupants slumbered on, so tightly wrapped up in their quilts that they looked like nothing so much as corpses laid out in winding-sheets.


    Each dormitory was meant to house twelve students. Attached to the dormitory but separated from it by a door was a long bathroom with twelve cubicles, each housing a bath, sink, and toilet. Diarnlan opened the door and stepped into the narrow corridor between the cubicles.


    There were lights along the ceiling that were spelled to only turn on when someone entered the room. They all lit up at once. The sudden brightness hurt Diarnlan''s eyes. She winced and shoved open the door of the nearest cubicle. Over the sink was a small mirror, spelled to light up when someone looked in it. Mercifully for her growing headache, its lights were much dimmer and gentler than the ones outside.


    Diarnlan leaned over the sink and stared at her reflection. It confirmed what she had already deduced. She was at least ten years younger than she had been when she died.


    Why did I get sent back so early this time?


    It made no sense. All the other lifetimes had started on the same day at the same time.


    A thought struck her. If I''m fourteen that means Karandren is only four.


    She burst out laughing. Her laughter had a distinctly unhinged edge to it. Even she could tell that. But if she didn''t laugh she''d scream.


    I can''t kill a four-year-old!


    A little voice that sounded very like Saungrafn whispered, You had no problem killing a fourteen-year-old.


    Diarnlan glared at her reflection. Forgetting that someone might overhear her she said aloud, "That was different. He was a threat to me. A four-year-old isn''t a threat to anyone, with memories or without them!"


    The little voice fell silent. Diarnlan turned on the tap and splashed cold water on her face. It didn''t help with her headache, but it woke her up and brought home the reality of the situation.


    "I have ten years before the first monster arrives," she told her reflection. "Ten years. That''s enough time. I''m going to get out of here, go to my teacher, learn as much magic as I can, and seal off the gap before anything can get through the veil."


    And what about Karandren? the little voice whispered.


    Diarnlan shrugged. "If he leaves me alone I''ll leave him alone."


    She left the cubicle and paused to look at the clock over the wall. It was just after six. The bell wouldn''t ring until seven.


    Diarnlan slipped back into the dormitory. None of the other girls stirred as she went over to her bed and rifled through the cabinet beside it. She chose the warmest clothes she had, ran back into the bathroom to change, then tiptoed across the dormitory and out into the hall.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    To her own surprise she found she remembered the way out perfectly. Along the short corridor outside the dormitory, down the flight of stairs to the ground floor, across the entrance hall and out into the courtyard, down the stairs leading to the front door, then across the driveway and down to the gate.


    The gate was closed, but she cast an unlocking spell and it opened easily. That was when she discovered that even though she remembered how to do complicated magic, she no longer had as much magic or as much control over it as she had before.


    Diarnlan ran as fast as she could away from the academy. When she reached the main road she paused and took stock of her location. The horizon was just starting to turn pink with the first rays of the sun. Behind her were the Laoiveres, ahead of her was the road to the capital. About fifteen miles away another road branched off this one and led to the sea. That was the way she would go, then. She''d go to Thagallbi?e, find Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair, and-- Well, she''d figure out what to do next when she got that far.


    I''m not going to tell her the truth, she thought. She''d think I''m mad.


    It was going to be hard enough convincing her teacher to let her stay without complicating matters with stories about time-travel and multiple deaths.


    <hr>


    All magicians could run much faster and for longer than ordinary humans. In her previous lifetimes Diarnlan could have travelled the fifteen miles in about fifteen minutes. In this lifetime, with less magic and a slight but noticeable difference in height, it took her closer to fifty minutes. When she finally reached the road she was out of breath and had a stitch in her side.


    Diarnlan collapsed onto the grass beneath the signpost pointing to the sea. She promptly leapt up again with a yelp. The sun was fully risen now, but it hadn''t dried up the dew yet. Diarnlan leant against the signpost instead while she caught her breath. She glared at the grass.


    An idea occurred to her. Now would be as good a time as any to start practicing her more complicated spells. Why not use a clothes-drying spell to dry the grass?


    She cast the spell. For a minute nothing happened. A few faint wisps of smoke began to rise from the ground. Then a square of grass burst into flame.


    Diarnlan screamed and sprang back. The fire began to creep outside of the square and onto the rest of the grass. She tried casting a fire-extinguishing spell. A few flames went out, but they were immediately replaced by new ones. She pulled off her heavy coat and beat the fire.


    Several stressful minutes later there were no flames left, but there was a large patch of burnt ground. No one travelling on the road could possibly miss seeing it.


    Diarnlan groaned. She didn''t dare try any more spells. In spite of her tiredness she resolutely marched off towards the sea before anyone came along and asked awkward questions.


    <hr>


    The entrance to Thagallbi?e, Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair''s realm, was only two miles from Diarnlan''s old home.  That had been the reason she chose her house. Most of her teacher''s other students still lived with their families and teleported to her realm for lessons. But Diarnlan had never gotten on well with her family, so she had bought a house of her own and chosen it specifically so she didn''t have far to teleport.


    As she neared the seaside Diarnlan paused and looked in the direction of her future house. Was there any point in going to see it? Logic told her it would be just a waste of time. Someone else was living there, and she could hardly go in and ask for a cup of tea. But somehow the urge to go and see it anyway was too strong to resist.


    She turned to the right and followed the lane that ran beside the sea. To the left there was a fence stopping anyone from falling into the water. In the distance she could hear cows mooing. The wind carried the smell of smoke to her. After the debacle with the burning grass Diarnlan was in no mood to face any more fires. It was with considerable relief that she saw the smoke was coming from a chimney.


    Not just any chimney; her chimney. A surge of outrage filled her before she remembered this wasn''t her house now and there wasn''t someone trespassing.


    She stood on the hill and stared down at the building. It was painted a bright cheerful orange. When she bought it she''d thought the orange was garish so she whitewashed the whole place. Strangely, now she found the orange paint wasn''t as garish as she''d thought before.


    Whoever lived there now had flower-boxes on the windows. They didn''t have a vegetable garden. Diarnlan thought wistfully of her tomato plants. Thanks to these time-loops it looked like she would never get to win the best tomato prize at the village vegetable show.


    Before leaving she looked warily out at the sea. It looked perfectly peaceful. Not a monster in sight, and a school of dolphins just visible on the horizon.


    She turned and walked back towards Thagallbi?e. It took her the better part of an hour to reach the entrance to her teacher''s realm. Like most gateways to magical realms it was placed between two trees growing close together. So close together, in fact, that Diarnlan had to turn sideways to get through. That inconvenient gateway had always gotten on her nerves before. Now it was a relief to find it exactly the way she remembered.


    Unlike Diarnlan, Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair hadn''t built herself a castle in her realm. Instead she''d built an average-sized house that floated above the ground. A flight of stairs made of clouds went from the door to the path below. Diarnlan''s realm had been eternally winter, while this one was eternally late summer. The leaves on the trees were just starting to turn brown. Flowers bloomed all over the ground. A river ran in front of the house. Instead of the path going over the river, the river went over the path. It formed a tall arch that flowed without any concern for the laws of physics.


    Diarnlan walked up to the door and knocked loudly. She waited for a minute. No answer. She knocked again. An upstairs window was pushed open and her teacher''s voice -- sounding rather harried -- issued from it.


    "If you''re the witch bringing the arrowroot, just leave it on the doorstep. I can''t come down yet."


    Diarnlan stepped away from the door and shouted up at the window. "I don''t have any arrowroot. I''m here to ask for help."


    "Oh dear," Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair said. "Can you wait for a few minutes? I''m dealing with a spider infestation."


    With a shudder Diarnlan remembered the sort of spiders that lived in her teacher''s realm. She turned the door-handle. It opened. She marched into the house, grabbed a mop that was propped against the wall, and went upstairs to help.


    Just as she''d thought. She found her teacher embroiled in a staring contest with a giant spider. When the spider tried to move, the mage waved her scythe threateningly.


    Diarnlan gave the spider the glare she''d perfected from lifetimes of dealing with Karandren. "Get out!"


    The spider shrank back. It turned and scurried out the window as if its life depended on it.


    Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair looked from Diarnlan to the window and back. "Thank you. Now, what do you want my help with?"


    Diarnlan set down the mop. "It''s a long story." In spite of her previous idea she decided abruptly to tell the truth. "I''m stuck in a time-loop and it resets every time I die."


    Her teacher blinked. "...You''d better come down to the kitchen. I think we both need tea for this conversation."

 Chapter III: Die Niederlage

    DIE NIEDERLAGE


    German, "the defeat"


    ...it''s my curse


    To try and make it right, but by trying make it worse


    -- The Amazing Devil, Farewell Wanderlust


    When Diarnlan finished her story Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair sat in silence for a long time. The teapot bubbled on the stove and the clock chimed on the wall. Diarnlan waited. She tried to be patient, but as the minutes passed she grew more and more annoyed.


    "Well? Can you do anything to break this curse?"


    Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair started as if she''d forgotten Diarnlan was there. "You think it''s a curse, then, do you?"


    Diarnlan scowled. What a ridiculous question. "Of course. It can''t be anything else."


    "I''m not so sure. I''d think of it as more a second chance." She paused and frowned thoughtfully. "Or perhaps a tenth chance would be more apt in this case. At any rate, I''d say it''s a chance to atone for the past."


    It took a great deal of self-control for Diarnlan to not throw something at her teacher. "Atone for what? I have nothing to atone for!"


    Her teacher nodded solemnly. "I suspect it''s that attitude that keeps you stuck in this time-loop. Consider. By your own admission you lied about a young boy -- your student, no less -- and got him sent to what you thought was certain death. In the next lifetime you stood by and let the same thing happen. Both times you tormented him before then. From then on you''ve killed him... how many times?"


    "Twice," Diarnlan said through gritted teeth. "You make him sound like an innocent victim. Aren''t you forgetting that he killed me too?"


    "And that, I think, is why he''s in the same situation. You both have plenty to atone for."


    This was starting to sound disgustingly like the twee sentimentality Diarnlan expected from the village priest. "What, do you think everyone who''s ever done something wrong is forced to relive their life again and again? If so I think it would have become common knowledge long ago."


    Her teacher shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe this does happen frequently. The people experiencing it would be reluctant to talk about it. Most of the world would think they''re mad. At any rate, it''s happening now. How and why it started aren''t really important at the minute. The question is, how do you stop it? And for that I think you should talk to Karandren."


    Diarnlan suppressed the urge to throw her teacup at her teacher''s head. "Right now Karandren is four. I''ve no idea where he lives. And do you seriously think I''m going to have a friendly chat with a man who''s killed me, kidnapped me, held me prisoner?"


    In a maddeningly patient tone Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair said, "He hasn''t done any of that in this lifetime. Why don''t you try looking at each repetition of the loop as a clean slate? A chance to start over and forget everything that happened before?"


    Oh, for the love of-- Diarnlan felt as if she was back in her kitchen converted into a classroom, struggling to get very simple concepts through Erdreda''s thick skull. She picked up her teacup, marched over to the sink, and began scrubbing it fiercely. It was either that or give into the temptation to throw it at the idiot still sitting at the table.


    A large spider, its body as long as her arm, crept up onto the windowsill. Diarnlan glared at it until it went away. She dried the teacup and left it on the counter. Only then did she feel calm enough to resume the conversation.


    "Not one more word about Karandren or I''ll leave right now," she warned.


    Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair shook her head sadly. "You really should do something about your temper."


    Diarnlan ignored her. "Whatever caused this can wait. The most important thing right now is to stop the monsters coming through the veil. I need every piece of information that''s ever been written about the veil. And I''ll need a boat." She paused, thinking for a minute. Searching for the rift in a boat had been an exercise in futility the last time. "Actually, I think I might need a spell to fly and a spell to breathe underwater as well."


    Her teacher blinked. "...I can find the spells, but you''ll have to go to the academy librarian for information on the veil. There isn''t that much, you know."


    "I know," Diarnlan said grimly. "And now I''m going to find somewhere to stay in Gr?nager."


    It was a pity she couldn''t just go and move back into her own house. The rooms above the village inn would be adequate for the time being, but she would have to find a more permanent home soon. She had at least ten years ahead of her, after all.


    Her teacher interrupted her thoughts by asking, "Do you have any money?"


    It was Diarnlan''s turn to blink. "Do I have any--" She checked her pockets just in case her past self had helpfully left a few coins in them. "No. I''ll write to my family and... ask..."


    For the first time it dawned on her that she was now only fourteen. In all of her past lives she had been twenty-four, owned her own house, made money from selling potions and spells, and had enough power that no one bothered her. In this lifetime, on the other hand, she''d be seen as nothing but a runaway student. Her parents could come along and force her to go back to the academy. They certainly wouldn''t be happy to give her money. No one would believe her if she told them the truth. Even Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair had listened with incredulity at first.


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    She looked sheepishly at her teacher. Even though the words almost choked her she forced herself to say, "Could you lend me some money for a while? I''ll pay you back with interest as soon as I can."


    Her teacher went over to a cupboard and took out a large sack of coins. Diarnlan gawked as she handed it to her. This was far too much money!


    "Don''t worry about paying me back," Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair said. "Or, if you must, go and talk to Karandren. Try to reach a compromise even if you can''t become friends. That will do for repayment."


    Diarnlan eyed her dubiously, too confused to be properly insulted. "Why do you want me to talk to him so much? What do you get out of it?"


    "The two of you working together have a better chance of killing the monsters than anyone else. And the more quickly the monsters are killed, the better for everyone."


    That couldn''t possibly be the whole reason. But Diarnlan had far too much to think about without dwelling on it any longer.


    <hr>


    Very little happened in the town of Gr?nager. It wasn''t large, important, or in a place that attracted tourists. The arrival of a stranger was the most excitement that had happened in months. Within minutes of the stranger arriving at the inn the news was all over town. People abandoned their work or idleness to go and investigate. Never before had the inn had so many customers at once.


    All of them were disappointed. The stranger went up to her room as soon as she checked in and didn''t come down again for the rest of the day.


    Their curiosity would have been even greater if they could have seen what was happening upstairs. Diarnlan locked her door, filled the sink, and spent hours practicing the spell for underwater breathing. By the time night fell she could breathe underwater for five minutes at a time.


    <hr>


    Meanwhile, back in the in-between realm, Karandren was bored. He''d tried everything he could think of to pass the time. Climbing the tree got him nothing but a nasty fall and a few bruises that healed within seconds. Ice skating had failed because his shoes made very poor makeshift ice-skates. Exploring had failed because there was nothing to discover in this place. It was nothing but snow, snow and more snow.


    So now he was back at the lakeside, waiting for Diarnlan to reappear. With every minute that went past without her he became more and more annoyed. How could she possibly stay alive longer than he had?


    Out of spite he kicked the remains of her snowman. Then he had an idea. Why not build his own snowman? And make it much better than her stupid one? He set to work immediately. When he finished the first snowman he began making another.


    <hr>


    Once upon a time Diarnlan had thought the villagers were at their most annoying when they were being obnoxiously grateful to her for killing a monster, Now she learnt just how wrong she was. They were at their most annoying when they kept barging into the inn to gawk at her as if she was some freak of nature. She couldn''t even eat her breakfast in peace without people coming up to her and asking where her parents were.


    "I''m eighteen," she said through gritted teeth for the umpteenth time.


    Also for the umpteenth time, the latest person to annoy her looked dubious but said nothing more. It was just as well that she was tall for her age or her excuse would never have worked.


    As soon as she finished her breakfast she set off for the seaside. If she remembered correctly there was a sheltered cove about a mile from her old house. She hadn''t gone there often, but neither had anyone else. If she was lucky it would be deserted and she could practice her spell there.


    For once she was lucky. There was no one in sight anywhere near the cove. She waded out into the water until it was up to her neck. Then she cast the spell and dived underwater. Two minutes later she resurfaced, coughing and spluttering.


    What went wrong? she wondered, spitting out the water that had gotten into her mouth.


    She tried again. And again. And again. She was so preoccupied by her efforts that she didn''t notice the tide was coming in. The water moved higher and higher up the beach. There was only a thin strip of sand left. It shrank with each minute.


    Diarnlan, still treading water in-between diving beneath the surface for minutes at a time, only realised something was wrong when she tried to stand up. Her feet didn''t touch the bottom. Her startled yelp was cut off as she fell underwater. When she resurfaced it finally dawned on her that the beach was gone.


    Goddamn it, she thought. I was finally getting somewhere and now I''ll have to leave it until tomorrow.


    She swam towards where the beach had been. The cove was connected to the road above by a narrow path running down the side of the hill. It should have been easy for her to climb out of the water onto the path. But as soon as she got close a wave caught her and drove her towards the rocks off to the side.


    For the first time Diarnlan realised the danger she was in. The water was getting deeper with every minute and it was driving her towards the shore too quickly. If she hit something at this speed it would be extremely painful. She tried swimming towards the path again. There was a section where there weren''t any sharp rocks. If she could reach it...


    A wave crashed over her head and knocked her underwater. When she struggled to the surface again she found she''d been carried dangerously close to the rocks at the other side of the cove.


    Cast the spell! she yelled at herself.


    She cast it and dived underwater again. There was a channel leading out to the open sea without any rocks in it. But going that way would just replace one problem with another. She couldn''t stay in the water all night. She couldn''t swim to shore even if she did get out to sea. And she was already getting tired.


    I''d rather drown than be thrown on the rocks.


    Keeping that thought in mind she began swimming towards the channel. Unfortunately she hadn''t considered the current. It caught her and dragged her towards the rocks again. She no longer had the strength to fight it.


    <hr>


    The first thing Diarnlan saw when she opened her eyes was the frog-like skryszel. She screamed bloody murder before she realised it was oddly white. The real monster had been grey. And it had shorter legs. And its shell came further over its head.


    She glared up at the snow sculpture. Beside it was another sculpture of a skryszel. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a third.


    Diarnlan stood up and found herself in the middle of a tableau of snow skryszels. There were twelve of them, including some she hadn''t seen before. Bizarrely, all of them wore hats and scarves made out of snow.


    Only one person could be responsible for this. She turned and wasn''t really surprised to find Karandren grinning at her from behind a sculpture of a tree with... was that a mouth? With teeth?


    "So," Karandren asked cheerfully, as if only talking about the weather, "how did you die this time?"


    Diarnlan broke off one of the snow-tentacles from one sculpture and threw it at him.

 Chapter IV: Der Waffenstillstand

    DER WAFFENSTILLSTAND


    German, "the ceasefire; the truce"


    When you put a rat in a small space and make it starve, it acts desperately and bangs its head against the wall. Do you think people would be any different? -- The Devil Judge (2021)


    The snowball fight degenerated into an undignified scuffle that ended when Karandren dropped a sculpture''s head on top of Diarnlan. As she struggled to free herself she kicked him and sent him flying into another sculpture.


    They both clambered out of the snow and took stock of the damage. Most of Karandren''s snow-skryszel were in pieces scattered over the ground. Karandren looked around in dismay.


    "I spent ages working on those," he grumbled.


    Diarnlan''s instinctive reaction was to say, "They were awful." But the memory of her teacher''s words stopped her. "...go and talk to Karandren. Try to reach a compromise even if you can''t become friends. That will do for repayment."


    Her first urge was to throw something at Karandren again, since Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair wasn''t here and she couldn''t throw something at her. She forced that urge back. If there was one thing she hated, it was feeling indebted to someone. She took a deep breath and considered her next words.


    Slowly and through gritted teeth she began, "We need to come up with a plan of what to do in our next lifetime."


    Karandren stopped moping over his ruined statues. He turned and gawked at her as if she''d become a skryszel herself. "We?"


    "We haven''t been very successful so far--" What an understatement. "--so it seems that to survive we must..." Diarnlan paused. Having her skull bashed in by a rock again sounded vastly preferable to continuing this sentence. "...We must consider what we''ve already tried. See what worked longest and what got us killed at once."


    Silence fell. Karandren stared at her with eyes almost as wide as dinner-plates and his mouth hanging open.


    "Are you a fish?" she snapped. He shook his head mutely. "Then close your mouth."


    He closed it. Then he took a step closer, staring at her suspiciously. "Who are you and what have you done with Diarnlan?"


    Why that little-- She scooped up a handful of snow and hurled it at him. This time he side-stepped it easily.


    "Alright, I suppose you really are Diarnlan. What happened? Did you hit your head?"


    Even though there was no way he could know about how she died, that sounded like a nasty joke at her expense. Enraged, Diarnlan summoned Saungrafn and lunged at him. Karandren stepped back, tripped over the remains of a statue, and fell headlong into the snow. Diarnlan stabbed him in the chest. He looked at most mildly irritated.


    "Well?" he asked, propping himself up on his elbows and ignoring how this drove Saungrafn deeper into his chest. "What were you saying about us trying to survive?"


    Diarnlan pulled Saungrafn out and slid it back into its sheath. It did the telepathic equivalent of nudging her to speak when she would much rather stay silent. "I said... I thought that we should go over what happened in our past lifetimes. See what got us killed quickest. Then come up with a strategy to avoid those things."


    Karandren hmmed under his breath. "That''s easy. The times I''ve lived longest are when I go to Miavain and don''t take you with me. But aren''t you forgetting something? Every time we go back we have to face the skryszel. And it''s a different one in each lifetime. I think they''re caught in the time-loop too and trying different ways to conquer the world."


    Diarnlan stared at him. At the back of her mind she felt Saungrafn was equally startled. This didn''t fit in with Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair''s theory. She couldn''t decide if that was a good or bad thing. "Do you seriously think the skryszel have the intelligence to do something like that? They''re animals!"


    Karandren shrugged. "I don''t know. The one that killed me last time was pretty smart. What about the one that killed you?"


    "...It wasn''t a skryszel that killed me," she admitted reluctantly, and only because Saungrafn''s telepathic nudging was getting on her nerves.


    He raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Did you finally annoy someone else into murdering you? Did Erdreda grow a spine and cut your throat like I know she wanted to?"


    Diarnlan unsheathed Saungrafn again. Karandren retreated several steps.


    During her most recent lifetime she''d assumed Karandren had also been brought back and shoved into his four-year-old self''s body. The discovery of the statues, which couldn''t have been built quickly, and his ignorance of when she had ended up disabused her of this notion. He had obviously been left behind like she had during his most recent lifetime. Which meant she had to explain the sudden difference in time.


    "I went back to being a teenager and had an unfortunate accident," she said shortly. Without giving him any time to reply to that she continued, "The accident will never be repeated. I know how to avoid it."


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    "What a pity."


    She raised Saungrafn warningly. Karandren sighed. "You do realise that thing isn''t much of a threat? It doesn''t even hurt me much." Damn it. "Anyway," he added in a cheerful tone, "what sort of accident was it? Painful? Gory?"


    Diarnlan stabbed him in the stomach. Then she swung Saungrafn at his neck. Bizarrely it cut through the skin and muscle but bounced off the bone. While Karandren choked on his own blood she took advantage of his inability to speak.


    "If the next lifetime is the same as mine was, we''ll have ten years before the first skryszel attack. Even better, you''ll be a toddler and won''t be able to get in my way."


    "Not fair," Karandren complained. Blood streamed from his mouth. He wiped it away with his sleeve as he continued, "Why do I have to be a toddler? Why not you?"


    "Because I''m older than you."


    He shook his head. "No, I think we''re the same age now. Put all our lifetimes together and we''re both well over a hundred. Hey, do you think we could claim an old age pension?"


    Diarnlan cut his throat again just to stop him talking. "If the skryszels attack ahead of schedule, then we''ll know if your theory is true. If not, it''s just a coincidence that they keep changing things."


    "Hell of a coincidence," Karandren muttered.


    Diarnlan raised Saungrafn. He jumped back before she could cut his throat for the third time.


    "As soon as we go back I''m going to make a soul-weapon of my own," he said. "Then I can cut you up for once." Diarnlan advanced on him menacingly. He leapt out of her way again. "We need to decide where to meet!"


    "Meet? What are you talking about?"


    "If we go back ten years we''ll have to meet early. I can''t travel to your house as a four-year-old."


    Diarnlan stared at him blankly. "Why do you think I want to meet you?"


    "So we can work together to stop the skryszels, of course! And--" Karandren grinned. "--so I''ll be there to see it if you die in another accident." He hurried on before she could reply. "I grew up in Hjaroarvatn, on the farm on the hill above the town. You can''t miss it because it''s painted bright blue. If I wake up as a four-year-old I''ll wait at the end of the lane for you to collect me."


    Diarnlan threw Saungrafn at him. He dodged, which didn''t improve her mood. "You idiot! Do you think I want to get arrested for kidnapping?"


    "That would be funny." Karandren grinned again, then saw the look on Diarnlan''s face and quickly sobered up. "Don''t worry. I''ll leave a note telling my parents I''ve run away."


    Why did every conversation with this imbecile leave Diarnlan feeling like she was hitting her head against a brick wall? "A four-year-old. Leaving a note. Saying he''s run away. Don''t you think your parents will be just a little worried about you?"


    Then again, maybe he was such a nightmare that they''d be glad to get rid of him.


    Karandren shrugged. "Well, it''s likely this next lifetime will end with us both dying horribly and then everything starts all over again, so nothing we do really matters, does it? No one will remember it in our next lives. And besides, I refuse to spend ten years pretending to be a child. It''s hard enough pretending to be a teenager."


    <hr>


    Time was a very strange thing in the in-between realm. It dragged by very slowly while they were arguing then flew by after they stopped. Diarnlan sat down under the tree and waited for something to happen. It seemed like only seconds had passed when she looked up and saw Karandren had already rebuilt two of his statues. She almost asked, "Why are you doing that?" But then she considered how much of Karandren''s stupidity she had already dealt with today, and decided the last thing she wanted was to talk more to him.


    A few more seconds passed. Now Karandren was almost finished the third statue. That was when the world disintegrated again. Diarnlan was so used to this by now that she only sighed and waited to see where -- or when -- she ended up this time. When she opened her eyes she found herself staring up at an all-too-familiar white ceiling.


    So. She was fourteen again, which meant Karandren was now four and would be waiting for her in Hjaroarvatn.


    I could just leave him there. What can he do? Hunt me down?


    After all, it wasn''t as if she''d promised to go and look for him. Why, no matter how she looked at it there was no way this would end in anything but disaster.


    She climbed out of bed and put on her warmest clothes. This time she went to the headmistress''s office before leaving. The school safe was kept under a floorboard beneath the headmistress''s chair. Since she wasn''t going to Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair this time she needed to get money from somewhere, and it wasn''t as if she was going to face any consequences when she would die sooner or later.


    The office door was locked with a spell that couldn''t be undone by the students. But Diarnlan still had her memories of being an adult and the magic she had learnt then. She opened the door easily. A few minutes later she had her pockets full of coins. On the way out she paused to look at a map of Avallot pinned to the wall.


    Hjaroarvatn was in northern Avallot, about fifty miles away from the academy. Too far for her to walk. That settled it then. Karandren could wait as long as he liked. She wasn''t going to go for him.


    What about the teleportation platforms? that pesky little voice whispered.


    Diarnlan froze half-way out the door. She weighed up her options. Either she left Karandren and tried to figure things out by herself, or she collected him and tried not to kill him before they figured out how to stop the skryszels. It should be an easy choice. And yet...


    As she headed towards the teleportation platforms one thought kept repeating over and over. I must be out of my mind!


    <hr>


    The farm on the hill was indeed very easy to spot. When Karandren said it was bright blue he had been telling the truth -- in the same way someone would be telling the truth if they said an inferno was warm. The house was such a vivid shade of blue that it could be seen from miles away. Looking at it made Diarnlan''s eyes water.


    The teleportation platform had sent her to just outside the town walls. To her right a road led off towards the farm. She walked along it until she came to the foot of a hill. Above her was the farm with a narrow lane leading up to it. Beside her was the farm''s letter-box. But where was Karandren?


    If he''s made me come all this way for nothing I''ll skin him alive!


    "Ahem," a high voice said somewhere near Diarnlan''s feet.


    She looked down. Then she looked around. There was no one in sight. "What--"


    A small shape detached itself from the side of the letter-box. In the dim light it took Diarnlan''s eyes a minute to understand what she was seeing. Then the shape resolved itself into a child whose head barely reached her knee, so wrapped up in a thick woolly coat, scarf and hat that they looked like a walking snowball. They craned their neck back to look up at her.


    It turned out that when he was a toddler, Karandren had a very round face and eyes that seemed too large. If Diarnlan''s classmates at the academy could have seen him they would have immediately cooed over him and declared him the cutest thing they''d ever seen.


    Diarnlan, being a very different sort of person, burst out laughing.

 Chapter V: Die Kinder

    DIE KINDER


    German, "the children"


    Do you burn because you remember darkness? -- Ruth Awad, In the Gloaming, in the Roiling Night


    Once upon a time Karandren had thought nothing could be more uncomfortable than waking up as a fourteen-year-old. He had been wrong. He had been amazingly, unbelievably wrong. Nothing could be more uncomfortable than waking up as a four-year-old and trying to adjust to a body that was tiny. Worst of all was how the rest of the world seemed enormous. Stairs he could easily climb as a teenager were now almost insurmountable obstacles.


    He stumbled out of bed and very slowly pulled on his warmest clothes. Then he made his way downstairs, pausing on every step to regain his balance. He scribbled a note and left it on the table. Unfortunately his body was still learning to write and refused to properly form letters. The finished note read, "am  gOing tOOO  See   wOrLD! DOntwOrrY!"


    In addition to the irregular spaces and capitals, the letters ran into each other and wavered up and down the page. He could just imagine what Diarnlan would say if she saw the note. With a grimace he left it on the kitchen table.


    Karandren pulled on his boots and stood on tiptoe to open the front door. He toddled down the steps and across the yard. That was yet another drawback of this new lifetime. It took him ages to get anywhere on foot. Walking down the lane left him out of breath within minutes. His feet hurt and his clothes were too heavy.


    Somehow this is Diarnlan''s fault, he thought, huffing indignantly as he stopped to catch his breath.


    When he finally reached the end of the lane he half-leant and half-collapsed against the letter-box. No sign of Diarnlan yet. Karandren sat down and folded his arms. He waited with increasing annoyance as the minutes passed.


    At last he heard footsteps in the distance. They grew closer until Diarnlan came into view. She stopped and looked around. Her gaze passed right over Karandren without seeing him. He bristled indignantly.


    "Ahem!"


    She jumped and stared in every direction but the right one. Karandren stepped away from the letter-box. Diarnlan finally noticed him.


    There was silence for a moment. Then she burst out laughing.


    Karandren marched up to her. Well, he tried to march. His legs were so short and his coat was so heavy that it was more of a gentle trot than a march. When he stood in front of her he was dismayed to find he only reached her knees and had to crane his neck to glare up at her.


    This is an outrage! How do I lodge a complaint?


    His thoughts went off on a brief tangent about who was responsible for this mess and how he could complain to them. Maybe he would just have to wait until he died for real, and then he could punch whatever god he found waiting for him.


    Diarnlan was still laughing. Karandren scowled.


    "Shut up!" he yelled in his now strangely high-pitched voice. To his horror he realised he only sounded like a toddler throwing a tantrum.


    Diarnlan certainly thought so too. She stopped laughing, but her grin was almost worse. In a disgustingly sugary tone -- and it was downright surreal hearing that coming from Diarnlan, the least sugary person he''d ever met -- she asked, "Aww, is the little baby upset?"


    Karandren kicked out at her ankle. He overbalanced and sat down abruptly. Diarnlan just laughed harder.


    <hr>


    When the sun rose its rays fell on two small figures trekking along the road to Gufufjoror. Diarnlan walked ahead and left Karandren to keep up as best he could. He was far too out of breath to speak for most of the journey.


    At last they paused at the signpost that read "Two miles to Gufufjoror". A bench carved out of stone had been helpfully placed at the side of the road. Unfortunately it was meant for adults, not small children. Karandren struggled to climb onto the seat. Diarnlan sat down and watched his efforts with the superior expression of someone who didn''t have to deal with being three feet tall.


    He grabbed hold of her coat and used it to haul himself up beside her, ignoring her yell and her efforts to push him away. When he was safely seated on the bench he stuck his tongue out at her.


    "That hurt!" she grumbled, rubbing the back of her neck where the coat had dug in.


    "Good." Karandren scooted over to the other side to avoid a punch. "Where are we going?"


    Diarnlan looked at him as if he was very stupid. "To Gr?nager, of course. To stop the skryszel attacking again."


    Karandren looked at the road. He followed it with his eyes until it disappeared into the distance. "You''d better hire a cart because there''s no way in hell I''m walking all the way to the coast." An unpleasant suspicion occurred to him. "Do you have any money?"


    "Of course."


    "...Who did you steal it from?"


    Diarnlan glared at him. "Why do you think I stole it from anyone?"


    "Because you can''t have much of your own."


    He was amused to see she started to nod before she caught herself.


    "Well, as it happens, I borrowed some from the headmistress."


    It took Karandren a minute to put two and two together. His first instinct was to laugh. Then he realised what that meant. He buried his head in his hands. "Idiot! She''ll never let you get away with that!"


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    Diarnlan rolled her eyes. "I believe it was you who said the things we do in our lifetimes don''t matter because they''ll all be erased."


    "But they damn well matter now!"


    She opened her mouth. Then she closed it again. She turned and stared at him incredulously. "Are you complaining about theft? You? A kidnapper and murderer?"


    It was Karandren''s turn to open and close his mouth wordlessly. When he finally thought of something to say he snapped, "Well, if I''m going to get arrested I want it to be for something worthwhile! Not because you stole a few coins!"


    "Five hundred kr¨®nur, actually," Diarnlan muttered.


    Karandren screeched in outrage. "She''ll notice that much money has gone! You''re going to get us arrested, and we''ll be thrown in jail, and--"


    Diarnlan cast a silencing spell. His wild predictions faded into indistinct mumbling.


    "Congratulations," she said dryly. "You''re even more annoying as a child than as an adult. Now come on, and if you''re too slow I''ll leave you behind. Don''t you dare think I''ll carry you."


    <hr>


    They reached the city of Gufufjoror after walking for another hour and a half. Diarnlan would have continued on towards Gr?nager without stopping, but Karandren was having none of that. Being stuck in the body of a toddler had some benefits. He sat down on the pavement and began to cry at the top of his lungs. Diarnlan stared at him in a mixture of horror and disgust as a crowd of sympathetic old ladies rushed over to comfort him.


    "What''s the matter, poor little dear?" one woman asked, patting his head in a way that infuriated him.


    "Have you hurt yourself?"


    "Did you fall?"


    Karandren pointed tearfully at Diarnlan. "My feet hurt and she won''t let me rest!"


    At once Diarnlan found herself on the receiving end of many disapproving looks. There was much head-shaking and tut-tutting from the women.


    "You should be more considerate of your little brother," a woman told her sternly. "Let the poor child rest!"


    Diarnlan spluttered indignantly. Karandren dodged past the overly-sympathetic hands that kept patting his head and grabbed hold of her leg.


    "Please let''s get ice cream," he pleaded, gazing up at her with tear-filled eyes.


    If looks could kill he would have been reduced to a pile of ash on the pavement. Unfortunately for Diarnlan, all of the old ladies immediately took Karandren''s side. Unless she wanted to cause an even bigger scene, she had no choice but to give in.


    Diarnlan gritted her teeth and scooped Karandren up. He yelped and tried to struggle. She tightened her grip warningly.


    "One more word out of you and I''ll throw you in front of a carriage," she threatened in an undertone.


    She stalked off towards the nearest caf¨¦. Karandren waited until she set him down on a chair. Then he bit her hand. She swore and moved as if she was about to strike him. A waiter approached at that minute and she pretended to just be adjusting Karandren''s hat instead.


    Five minutes later Karandren was happily shovelling ice cream into his mouth. Diarnlan glowered at her cup of tea as if it was responsible for everything that had happened.


    "So," Karandren said with his mouth full. He ignored the disgusted look Diarnlan gave him. "What do we do when we get to Gr?nager?"


    Diarnlan picked up her cup and drank in silence for a minute. At last she answered. "We''ll find somewhere to stay. Then you can beg on the streets while I try to find the hole in the veil."


    Karandren was about to throw his spoon at her before he realised that she was wearing the wry and rather grim expression that marked her attempts at humour. Wonder of wonders! She''d actually tried to make a joke! To him, of all people!


    "I''ll give a false name, of course," she continued. "And you''ll have to go to school." Karandren opened his mouth to protest. She interrupted with, "Do you think the village gossips will hold their tongues if they see a young boy who doesn''t go to school?"


    Karandren sank back down in his chair with a disgruntled expression. "This lifetime is awful. I can''t go to school! Everyone will know there''s something odd about me!"


    Diarnlan raised an eyebrow. She said nothing, but he got the message. He stuck his tongue out at her.


    They sat in silence for a while. Diarnlan finished her tea. Karandren finished his ice cream. Then he picked up the bowl and licked it just to see the look on Diarnlan''s face. She snatched the bowl out of his hands, picked up a napkin, and scrubbed the ice cream off his face.


    "I have an idea," Karandren said as they got up to leave. Diarnlan groaned. He pushed on regardless. "Why don''t we go and stay in your old house?"


    "There are other people living there."


    "Then why don''t we just kill them and move in like we did in Miavain?"


    Diarnlan stopped. She counted to ten under her breath. "I wasn''t joking about throwing you in front of a carriage."


    He shrugged and gave up on that idea. "Then let''s find an empty house somewhere. Think about it. If we live somewhere outside the village, we won''t have to explain where we came from and I won''t have to go to school."


    Diarnlan stayed silent for the rest of the journey to the train station. Karandren assumed that meant she disapproved of this suggestion as much as the other. But when they got on the train she spoke as if the conversation had only ended a minute ago.


    "We''ll see if there are any empty houses along the coast. If not, we''ll stay in the village and I don''t want to hear any more bright ideas from you."


    <hr>


    The train didn''t go directly to Gr?nager. Instead it went to the nearest large town. Diarnlan and Karandren made their way on foot towards the village. Karandren stumbled over the rough ground. After his fifth near-fall Diarnlan sighed in exasperation. She bent down, picked him up, and tossed him over her shoulder as if he was a sack of potatoes.


    Karandren was taken so completely by surprise that he couldn''t think of anything to say until they''d travelled a good distance. He opened his mouth.


    Diarnlan must have sensed it because she immediately snapped, "Not one word. I''m sick of you holding me up. That''s all."


    He fell silent and let her carry him the rest of the way.


    <hr>


    It turned out there was an empty house near the shore. It was an old and very small house with only four rooms, broken windows, a door hanging off its hinges, and a complete lack of insulation.


    Diarnlan set Karandren down outside and stepped through the door. He waited for a few minutes before following her inside. He found her in the kitchen, frowning at the very rusty sink.


    "A bit of magic will fix that," he said cheerfully.


    She frowned at him. "Everything in this place needs magic to fix it. I don''t have much magic and you have even less."


    "Then let''s start practicing!"


    <hr>


    By the end of the day the living room was the only part of the house that was somewhat habitable. Diarnlan had cast cleaning spells, warming spells and repairing spells all over the place. In spite of all her efforts it was still a gloomy place. The floorboards sagged and the wallpaper was hanging off the walls.


    While she was busy Karandren had been practicing magic on a few bricks. He''d turned them into a chair, a table, and now he''d managed to turn them into two mattresses. Rather hard and lumpy mattresses, but better than sleeping on the floor. He presented them proudly to Diarnlan, and was pleased to see her grind her teeth at how he''d managed something she hadn''t.


    She placed her mattress as far away from his as possible. Their coats made fairly good makeshift blankets. The lack of food was the only problem, but Karandren had often gone to sleep hungry while in Miavain. He curled up and went to sleep.


    In the middle of the night his magic wore off. The mattresses turned back into bricks. Diarnlan and Karandren got a very rude awakening when they found themselves lying on the floor.


    There was silence for a minute. Then, "Karandreeeeeeen!"


    Funny. He''d never heard Diarnlan sound so angry before. Not even when he killed her.


    "It was an accident," he said sleepily. "Can''t be helped now."


    Diarnlan said nothing. Maybe she''d gone back to sleep.


    Then a bucket of icy water emptied itself over his head.

 Chapter VI: Der Haushalt

    DER HAUSHALT


    German, "the housekeeping"


    Sometimes, Tiffany thought, I am so fed up with being young. -- Terry Pratchett, The Shepherd''s Crown


    Diarnlan lay awake for most of the night. As soon as the sun rose she got up and set to work on the kitchen. To avoid using too much magic she used only simple cleaning spells, but she cast them again and again until the place was spotless.


    She turned the tap on. Nothing happened. There wasn''t so much as a rattle from the pipes.


    I''m not going to waste money hiring a plumber, was her first thought. Her second was, I wonder if there''s a well.


    There was no back door to the house. She went into each room to check. In the process she got a good look at the bathroom for the first time. Never in all of her lifetimes had she seen such an appalling sight. The sink was broken in half and the half lying on the floor had a nest of mice in it. They scurried away when she opened the door. The bath was coated in grime and sand. Some mysterious plant grew out of the grain. And as for the toilet... Well, the only way to make this place fit for use would be to set it on fire and build a new bathroom.


    Diarnlan forgot about looking for a well in the face of this much more serious problem. She cast anti-fire spells on the hallway and walls outside. Then she set up a containing spell around the bathroom door and window. Finally she conjured up the strongest fire spell she could manage and hurled it straight into the room. The place exploded into flames. None of them got through the containing spell, but the heat they created certainly did. Diarnlan staggered back, feeling as if she''d just stepped out of a snow-drift and into an oven.


    The fire blazed in the bathroom, destroying everything it touched. Diarnlan left it to do its work while she went in search of a well.


    <hr>


    Karandren awoke slowly. His eyes opened long before his mind started working. For ten minutes he blinked blearily at his surroundings, understanding as much of them as he would of a book written in a foreign language. Gradually his memories returned. A sinking feeling filled his chest. He sat up and looked down at himself. It wasn''t a dream. He really was stuck in the body of a toddler.


    In disgust he picked up a brick -- one of the ones he''d used for his ill-fated mattress-making attempt -- and hurled it at the wall. When it struck it caused a minor avalanche of plaster. Karandren watched in alarm as cracks appeared on the wall and ceiling.


    "We''ve got to get out of here before the roof falls on our heads," he said. Diarnlan didn''t answer. He looked over at where she''d slept and was annoyed to see she was gone. "If you''ve run off and left me here--" He broke off and sniffed. "Smoke? Diarnlan! What have you done?"


    No one answered. Karandren got up and went to investigate. He didn''t have to search for long. He stepped out of the living room and found himself staring into an inferno.


    If he was older and taller he would have run into the kitchen to get water. Unfortunately he couldn''t reach the sink in this body. All he could do was scream for help. "Diarnlan! Diarnlan! Call the fire brigade!"


    The front door opened and Diarnlan scowled at him. "What are you yelling about? Can''t you see it''s under control?"


    Karandren gawked at her. Then he looked at the fire. To his embarrassment he saw the flames were trapped behind a barrier. "What happened?"


    "I''m doing some renovations."


    Diarnlan swept past him into the kitchen without elaborating further.


    Karandren looked at the fire, warily examined the walls to make sure they weren''t about to collapse, then followed her.


    There was no sign of any food in the kitchen. Half-humans and magicians could do without food for much longer than ordinary humans, but the last thing Karandren had eaten had been his ice cream yesterday. He''d been looking forward to some sort of breakfast.


    "What''s for breakfast?"


    Diarnlan didn''t look up from casting cleaning spells on all of the cupboards. "Who do you think I am? Your mother?"


    All right then. If she wanted to go without food, let her. But Karandren didn''t intend to starve. He went back into the living room. Diarnlan had left her coat lying on the floor where she''d slept. He picked it up and went through the pockets. They had spells woven into them to make them larger. After rummaging for several minutes he found a heavy sack that clinked when he pulled it out. He opened it and helped himself to a handful of coins.


    Diarnlan was still busy in the kitchen. The fire was starting to dwindle in the bathroom. Karandren slipped out the front door and headed for the village.


    <hr>


    As it turned out he didn''t need to buy anything. The butcher had very carelessly left his door open while he went over to the post office. Karandren went in, climbed onto a chair so he could take a steak off the counter, wrapped it up in paper, and left before the butcher came back.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    Next he went to the greengrocer. The boxes of apples outside were unattended. He grabbed one and ate it as he walked back to the house. When he finished it he tossed the core in a ditch. Then he paused. Why not try practicing magic now, when Diarnlan wasn''t around to stop him or interfere?


    Instinctively Karandren fell back on dark magic. Through his various lifetimes he had used it much more than light magic. The problem was that dark magic didn''t make things grow. He tried and tried to make the apple seeds turn into an apple tree. All he succeeded in doing was making the seeds, the grass around them, and the fence beside the road wither and crumble to dust.


    On the bright side, now he had some control over dark magic. Not nearly as much as he used to, but it was a start.


    <hr>


    After the bathroom was reduced to ash Diarnlan extinguished the fire and cast spells to blow the dust away through the window. The walls were still standing, but the plaster had been ripped off them and there was nothing left but bare stone. She examined the remains of the room. A new bathroom could be created by magic, but not by a fourteen-year-old. She''d have to hire someone who specialised in magic related to interior design.


    Why don''t you ask Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair? a little voice whispered.


    Diarnlan ignored it. Going to her teacher hadn''t helped much in her last lifetime. But then, it had taught her that breathing-underwater spell. She still remembered how to do it. Now she had plenty of time to practice, and the nearest part of the sea was open and conspicuously devoid of rocks.


    She left the house and ran down to the beach. It was a considerable distance away from the house although it could be seen from the front door. When she reached it she found it was covered with shingle rather than sand.


    So much the better, she thought. No one will come to swim here.


    She waded out into the water and cast the spell.


    <hr>


    Karandren opened the front door and promptly had a coughing fit. The house was so full of smoke it was almost impossible to breathe. He propped the door open. It didn''t help much. He dived into the kitchen, left the steak on the table, and ran back outside before he suffocated.


    "Diarnlan? Diarnlan! Where are you?"


    She didn''t answer. Damn it, that meant he had to figure out how to cook the steak himself. Karandren growled imprecations under his breath.


    Years and lifetimes ago he had learnt how to cook at the academy. But then he''d been exiled to Miavain and never cooked again. At first because he had no opportunity or resources -- he''d survived by stealing from people''s kitchens or catching rabbits and eating them raw -- and later because he had no need. He''d just forced the palace cooks to make his meals for him. Still, it couldn''t be too hard to cook a steak.


    Karandren took a deep breath, steeled himself for the misery of the smoke, and went back into the house.


    <hr>


    Like all people who lived near the sea Diarnlan knew how to swim. She hadn''t done it often, but she still remembered how. She dived under the surface and cast the spell. While it worked she took stock of her surroundings. There were rocks underwater, but they were far from the shore and too small to be a danger as long as she was careful.


    She stayed down for two minutes and twenty-four seconds before the spell wore off. On her next attempt she managed just under six minutes. By the time she swam back to the shore she''d reached eight minutes and fifty seconds.


    A bit more practice and the spell will work for twenty minutes. Now all I need is a boat.


    That pesky little voice just had to pipe up again. What if the hole in the veil isn''t underwater?


    Now that she was back on dry land Diarnlan found herself shivering even though the air wasn''t cold. Then I''ll find a spell for flying and search the air.


    As for what she''d do when she found it... Well, she''d figure that out later. No point in worrying too much about that yet.


    <hr>


    Karandren shoved a chair against the cooker and climbed onto it. There were no pots in the house, so he made do by taking a baking tray out of the oven and putting it on the stove. Nothing happened when he turned the stove on. Instead he cast a heating spell on the baking tray itself. Then he dropped the steak on it and waited.


    <hr>


    When Diarnlan returned to the house she found Karandren poking at a lump of black... something. She eyed it suspiciously.


    "What''s that? Charcoal?"


    He shrugged helplessly. "It was a steak. I think I cooked it too long."


    She risked venturing closer. The thing reeked so strongly of burnt meat that she could smell it over the smoke from the bathroom. It looked as edible and appetising as a plateful of clay.


    "I hope you didn''t waste any of my money on that."


    He shook his head. "Don''t worry, I stole it. Should we bury it or throw it in the sea?"


    Diarnlan snorted. "Throw it in the sea? We''d poison all the fish for miles around. Go and bury it in Old Radulf''s garden." Karandren blinked at her in non-comprehension. Diarnlan sighed and explained. "His tomatoes always got first prize and mine never did. Make sure you bury it near his tomato plants."


    <hr>


    Life settled into a very odd sort of routine. Karandren practiced all the spells he could remember, both dark and light. Diarnlan continued practicing the breathing-underwater spell and spent ages searching for any sign of the hole in the veil. They got water from a river which Diarnlan diverted to flow closer to them -- in the process accidentally flooding the house. They stole food from the village shops and accidentally started rumours about unusually hungry ghosts. Karandren measured himself against the kitchen doorpost every day and lamented that he''d grown only an inch in two weeks.


    It was peaceful and quiet and boring beyond belief. If this lasted for much longer Karandren would go stark raving mad.


    So he fell back on a tried and true way of amusing himself: annoying Diarnlan. But this time he went a step further.


    When Diarnlan opened the kitchen door she screamed and jumped back. The knife balanced above the door fell harmlessly at her feet. She stared at it. Then she turned and glared at Karandren.


    "What are you trying to do, you lunatic?"


    He shrugged innocently. "Assassination attempts. So you won''t forget how to fight."


    Dinner that day tasted funny. Karandren took a few spoonfuls before pushing his bowl away. One look at Diarnlan''s badly-hidden smirk told him all he needed to know.


    "What sort of poison did you put in the soup?" he asked conversationally.


    She said nothing and continued to eat her own soup. He learnt the answer a few hours later when he started seeing pink caterpillars climbing the walls. The drug took a full day to wear off. It was the most surreal day of Karandren''s life.


    From then it was war.

 Chapter VII: Der Schein Tr眉gt

    DER SCHEIN TR¨¹GT


    German, "the appearance deceives"


    I''m standing on an empty road all by myself. The sun is shining brightly. And the clock that''s never wrong says it''s twelve. Then I wonder, is it noon or midnight? -- Awaken (2020)


    Weeks turned to months. Months turned to a year, then two years. In between dodging each other''s assassination attempts, Diarnlan and Karandren continued the search for the hole in the veil. The underwater hunt proved futile. Now they''d moved to searching the air.


    "I''m just saying, it would be much easier if--"


    "No. We''re not getting a hot air balloon."


    Karandren pouted and went back to stirring his porridge. Diarnlan waited for him to eat it. He waited too. There was a brief silence.


    "Did you poison the porridge?" Karandren asked, eyeing his bowl suspiciously.


    "Not this time. Did you?"


    He shook his head and shovelled a spoonful into his mouth. At once an expression of utter disgust crossed his face. He got up, stalked over to the sink, spat out the porridge, and rinsed his mouth out. Diarnlan watched with a smile. She pointedly ate a spoonful of her own porridge.


    Karandren turned and glared at her. "You said you didn''t poison it!"


    "Pepper isn''t poisonous."


    He picked up the pepper pot and threw it at her bowl. She knocked it aside easily.


    Karandren glared again and stormed out of the kitchen. Diarnlan waited for his inevitable retaliation. Minutes passed and nothing happened. She took another spoonful of porridge. Then she yelled and dropped it.


    The spoon and her bowl were crawling with worms.


    She picked it up gingerly, stalked down the hall to Karandren''s room, and flung it through the door.


    <hr>


    There was only one good thing about being sent back to an earlier time. The skryszel didn''t attack. Diarnlan woke up every morning expecting to hear the only-too-familiar crash of their footsteps. Every morning she heard nothing but the sea and the birds flying overhead -- and sometimes Karandren doing gods-knew-what in his room. Judging by the metallic screeching and earth-shaking explosions that issued from it at random moments, he was doing his best to blow them sky-high.


    "This disproves your theory," Diarnlan said during one relatively peaceful meal. (Relatively peaceful for them meant no poisoning attempts, nothing added to the food, and no efforts to murder each other with the cutlery.) "The skryszel aren''t aware of the time-loop."


    Karandren pouted. "We don''t know that yet! Maybe they''re waiting to lull us into a sense of false security before they strike!"


    He struck the table to emphasise his words and knocked his plate of mashed potatoes onto his lap. Diarnlan rolled her eyes.


    <hr>


    Diarnlan borrowed a boat -- or "borrowed" since she didn''t bother to ask permission -- one evening and searched around where the skryszel had always appeared. She cast spells to pick up any trace of unusual magic. All she got out of it was a nasty cold.


    Surprisingly Karandren didn''t try to kill her while she was bedridden and sniffling. Instead he sat beside her and talked about every stupid idea that came into his head. She would have preferred an assassination.


    "I think we should find a dragon and get it to fly us over the sea."


    Diarnlan''s throat was too sore to speak. She glared at him, trying to telepathically broadcast how utterly ridiculous this idea was.


    "Think of it. Even if we didn''t find the hole in the veil, we''d have a dragon to kill the skryszel for us."


    And how do you intend to find a dragon? Diarnlan mouthed.


    Karandren either didn''t understand or simply refused to answer. "And anyway, I like dragons."


    Diarnlan picked up an empty box of tissues and threw it at his head.


    <hr>


    Things went wrong so quickly that it was impossible to point to the moment when they started. Diarnlan and Karandren were so busy bickering amongst themselves and keeping an eye on the place where the skryszel usually appeared that they completely forgot about all the other holes in the veil. The one in the farmyard, for example, and the j?tunn that came through it.


    Both of them avoided notice as much as possible. Instead of going to the village for food they went to the nearest large town, or even further afield if they thought someone might recognise them. They were technically runaways, after all, and Diarnlan would be in trouble for theft if anyone from the academy caught her.


    On the day when things went badly wrong Karandren dragged a lump of scrap metal out of his room.


    "Look at this!" he shouted.


    Diarnlan looked at it. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about it. "Are you setting up shop as a scrap metal dealer?"


    Karandren scowled. "It''s a mechanical dragon. Only instead of mechanics it''s powered by magic. Watch!"


    He placed his hand on the metal. Diarnlan watched in a mixture of exasperation and alarm as the lump of rubbish uncoiled like a snake. A long neck with a misshapen head formed at the front. A long tail formed at the back. Four legs that looked more like a seal''s flippers took shape underneath it. The rest of it remained a mass of rusty old iron. There was nothing particularly dragon-ish about it. Even its head looked like nothing so much as a potato.


    If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    "Very intimidating," she said dryly. "What exactly do you intend to do with it?"


    "Use it to fight the skryszel, of course!"


    Diarnlan pictured what would happen if Karandren actually sent this movable scrap-heap up against a skryszel. She rolled her eyes. "It would be destroyed within seconds, idiot."


    He refused to be daunted. "It isn''t ready yet, but when it is it''ll be an actual dragon. With fire and wings and everything!" He noticed her badly-hidden smile and his tone changed. "Wipe that stupid grin off your face or you''ll be the first person it kills."


    Diarnlan rolled her eyes again. "I''m going shopping. It''s your turn to wash the dishes, and if they''re not done when I get back I''ll melt down your dragon and pour it over your head."


    <hr>


    Five miles away on the other side of the village, a gigantic figure stepped through the veil. It paused and sniffed the air. Almost all full-blooded monsters had the ability to sense when something similar to them was nearby. ("Nearby", depending on the monster, could mean anything from one mile to one hundred.) The j?tunn sensed the presence of something that wasn''t quite a monster but also wasn''t human.


    It followed that presence towards the coast.


    <hr>


    After tinkering with his invention for a little longer Karandren reluctantly got up to wash the dishes. Physically he was unfortunately still only a child, so to reach the sink he had to pull a chair over to it and stand on it.


    For ten minutes he entertained himself by pretending he was back in Miavain and the dishes were priests. He held them under the water and imagined a drowning person''s death throes. In the process he deliberately splashed as much water onto the floor as possible just to annoy Diarnlan when she got back. At last he tired of that and washed the remaining dishes as quickly as he could.


    A distant thud made the plates rattle. Karandren blinked. His first thought was a skryszel. Then the thud came again. Whatever it was, it came from inland and not from the sea. Thud. Thud. Strange. It sounded almost like... footsteps.


    Karandren jumped off the chair and ran outside. He paused to tap his dragon on the head. It came to life and stumped out after him. He hadn''t gotten around to giving it proper legs yet. But it had teeth -- several rows of them, made out of old rail spikes. He''d had gone to an awful lot of trouble to get his hands on them without Diarnlan finding out. If there was anything sinister going on around here, the dragon''s teeth would soon put a stop to it.


    The thuds continued. They grew louder and closer with each one. Karandren and the dragon waited. A huge figure appeared on the hill behind the house. It was more than twice as tall as Karandren would be when he reached his full height. Right now it looked as big as a mountain compared to him.


    He glared up at the j?tunn. "Not you again."


    J?tnar were not known for their intelligence -- indeed there was some dispute over whether or not they could be considered sentient or simply animate blocks of ice -- but this one managed to convey surprise and utter confusion as it stared down at Karandren.


    "I suppose this proves my theory," he muttered to himself. "Dragon! Attack!"


    The dragon''s legs weren''t really designed for running. Karandren had to help it along with a bit of dark magic. But it certainly knew how to use its teeth. The j?tunn stared at it blankly as it hurtled towards it. Then the dragon opened its mouth and sank its teeth into the brute''s leg. Blood sprayed everywhere.


    The j?tunn roared. It raised its other leg and brought its foot crashing down on where the dragon had been a minute ago. It missed. Karandren directed the dragon to jump at the creature''s throat.


    It leapt. Time seemed to slow down as it hurtled towards the j?tunn. Karandren helped it on with a steady stream of dark magic. Then the j?tunn''s enormous hand closed around the dragon. Karandren watched in horror as it crushed his creation into fragments of metal.


    He was too young to effectively use a weapon even if he managed to get his hands on one. His only option now was to run. So he ran.


    The j?tunn caught up with him before he''d gone far.


    <hr>


    Diarnlan reached the turn onto the main road before she realised she''d forgotten her shopping list.


    "Damn it," she grumbled as she turned back.


    A distant and very faint tremor ran through the ground as she turned. She barely noticed it, dismissing it as some construction work in the village. Only when she was about half-way back to the house did she realise something was truly wrong. A terrible and animalistic roar pierced the air.


    Diarnlan almost jumped out of her skin. Instinctively she looked back, expecting to see some wild beast charging towards her. Then she realised. The noise had come from in front of her, from the direction of the house.


    What has that idiot done this time?


    She didn''t quite run, but she walked as quickly as possible. When the house came into view she was briefly relieved to note it was outwardly intact. Then she saw the bright red stain on the road. And in the middle of the red was... something small and crushed almost beyond recognition. A pile of metal lay on the hill, next to a pool of viscous blue fluid.


    Diarnlan skirted around the red thing, refusing to look too closely at it. She examined the metal and recognised it as the remains of Karandren''s dragon. The blue liquid smelled like blood. A line of enormous footprints led away from the house and the-- The--


    She forced herself to look at the blood and the mangled body lying in it. The face was too badly damaged to recognise, but she knew as well as she knew her own name that it was Karandren.


    Cold fury welled up in her. I''m the only one who can kill him! I''m the only one allowed to kill him!


    She went into the house, retrieved the sword she kept in her bedroom, and followed the footprints. When she caught up with the j?tunn it had just killed a hapless cow. While it was distracted by eating the cow she sneaked up behind it and stabbed it in the back.


    The sword bounced off its skin without piercing it. The j?tunn roared. It swung its arm round and hit Diarnlan in the head.


    <hr>


    "I''m sick of this place," Karandren announced flatly, staring up at the glowing tree. He turned to stare at Diarnlan. "How''d you get here so quickly? Did that brute kill you too?"


    She nodded and didn''t elaborate. "I suppose two years is a good record for us."


    Karandren snorted. "Two years? Remember when we managed over ninety years? That only happened when I went to Miavain. I think it''s the key to surviving."


    "Go to Miavain as many times as you like," Diarnlan snapped, "but don''t drag me along next time."


    "Why not? I think we worked pretty well together in our latest lifetime. We didn''t even kill each other this time. And my theory was right. The skryszel are aware of the time-loop." In response to Diarnlan''s disbelieving look he explained, "The j?tunn shouldn''t have attacked for another eight years. Something happened to make it change its plans."


    Diarnlan glared at him. "Until I see actual solid evidence of the skryszel changing their plans in response to our actions, I won''t believe that theory."


    Karandren shrugged. "Suit yourself. Now, what are we going to do in our next life? I say we should go to Miavain and stay there. Don''t get involved with the skryszel at all. And we''ll see how long we live then."


    "And what if you''re sent back as a child again?"


    "Then I''ll make you do most of the conquering for me."


    Diarnlan picked up Saungrafn, which was lying beside her as if it had been there all along, and whacked him with the blade''s flat side. Karandren held up his hands.


    "All right! We''ll split it fifty-fifty. You can deal with the priests and politicians and I''ll deal with everything else."


    She whacked him again.

 Chapter VIII: Der Teufelskreis

    DER TEUFELSKREIS


    German, "the vicious circle"


    The universe was bad enough without people poking it. -- Terry Pratchett, Soul Music


    The next lifetime got off to an auspicious start -- compared to the last two, anyway. Diarnlan woke up in her own bed, in her own house, in the body of her twenty-four-year-old self. Her first reaction was joy. It was quickly replaced with dread. If she was back at her normal age then the first skryszel attack was about to happen. And Karandren was a teenager. He''d been bearable -- at times he''d even been decent company, bizarre though the thought was -- as a child. But as a teenager?


    Someone knocked at the back door. Oh no. That was her sister come to torment her again. Diarnlan pulled the quilt over her head and pointedly ignored the knocking. It continued uninterrupted for several minutes.


    "Diarnlan! Open this door right now!"


    That wasn''t her sister. Diarnlan shoved the quilt back and stormed downstairs, not bothering to change out of her pyjamas. She threw the door open.


    Karandren had the audacity to look surprised to see she wasn''t happy to see him. "Well? Change your clothes and let''s go!"


    "Go where?" Diarnlan asked in her most icy tone.


    "To Miavain, of course!"


    She slammed the door in his face. Unfortunately he simply opened it again.


    "Come on, you said I could go to Miavain if I wanted."


    "I distinctly remember also saying that I wouldn''t go with you."


    "But I won''t kidnap you or hold you hostage this time!"


    Diarnlan stalked out of the kitchen without answering. Karandren, damn him, trailed after her like a puppy begging for attention.


    "Come oooooooooon," he whined.


    Damn it, even his eyes looked like a puppy''s now. To her own horror Diarnlan found herself wavering in the face of that pleading gaze.


    "Do you seriously think I''m going to help you conquer Miavain?"


    Karandren shrugged. "You can do whatever you want as soon as we get there. But it''d be faster if we work together to take over. And then we''ll see how long we survive by avoiding the skryszel altogether."


    Diarnlan''s grandmother was fond of an old saying: never speak of wolves or one will come to your door. Karandren might as well have laid down an "All Skryszels Welcome" sign and thrown a greeting party for them. The house shook at a distant thud. Diarnlan groaned. Karandren had been about to speak again and stopped with his mouth still hanging open.


    "What''s that?" he asked, proving once again that he had fewer brains than a dormouse.


    Diarnlan went back to her room and hunted for Saungrafn. She found it in the bathtub, of all places, and stormed downstairs to face the latest monster. Karandren was leaning against the kitchen window, staring out with a bug-eyed expression.


    "It''s a skryszel!" he announced as if this was completely unexpected news.


    She ignored him as she went outside. From her garden gate she got a good view of the creature. It was the frog-like one, the first one she''d ever killed.


    This doesn''t prove Karandren''s theory, she told herself, partly because she hated the idea he might be right about anything and partly because the skryszels going through their own time-loop was too strange and disturbing to think about.


    The creature''s starfish-shaped head emerged from under its shell. Its eyes were too small to see from this distance, but Diarnlan got the feeling it was staring right at her. Abruptly its eyes widened and became visible. There was one on the end of each starfish-arm-esque point of the skryszel''s head. And they were all focused on Diarnlan.


    Years ago, before she ever met Karandren or got dragged into the time-loop, when she was still just a child living with her parents, Diarnlan had been sent to a neighbouring farm on an errand. She decided to take a short-cut through a field. Half-way across she discovered the field was home to a very unhappy bull.


    Was it possible for animals to glare? She was sure the bull had managed it. And now the skryszel was looking at her in exactly the same way the bull had. Diarnlan''s instinctive reaction was to flee. Instead she forced herself to stand still and think.


    Perhaps the skryszel recognised her. Perhaps it didn''t. Either way the best way to kill it was to attack its eyes-- Wait a minute. She distinctly remembered that the first skryszel''s eyes had been on the side of its head, not on the points of its face. Diarnlan stared suspiciously at those five eyes. Were they only eye-spots meant as a decoy?


    The skryszel chittered like a swarm of insects. It crouched down on its back legs. Diarnlan tightened her grip on Saungrafn. If it sprang at her she would have to attack its underbelly. Its armour might be thin enough for her to cut through. At any rate she could hurt it enough to distract it while--


    It sprang. Diarnlan forgot everything she''d been planning. She threw herself out of the way. The skryszel landed with a tremendous crash in the middle of her garden. It squashed her gate, fence, and vegetable patch. She gasped in outrage. How dare it destroy her garden?


    Throwing caution to the wind she stabbed Saungrafn into its foreleg. The brute wailed and hopped back. Its five eyes fixed on Diarnlan and glared balefully. Strange. Now she could see that it didn''t have eyes on the side of its head.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    Is this a different monster? she asked Saungrafn. All she heard in reply was the telepathic equivalent of a baffled person scratching their head.


    After so many lifetimes fighting with Karandren she had developed a sort of sixth sense for when he was around. While the skryszel groaned and licked its wound she fell back to the side of the house. As she watched it she sensed him come up behind her.


    "Why haven''t you killed it yet?" he asked, as if killing monsters she wasn''t familiar with was an easy task and the work of a few minutes.


    She turned and gave him her most unimpressed glare. "I''m trying to figure out where its weak spots are."


    "Attack its eyes, idiot!"


    "Which eyes?"


    "What do you mean, which ey--" Karandren broke off. He stared very hard at the skryszel. "I don''t remember it having that many eyes."


    "My point exactly."


    They stared at each other. Diarnlan could see Karandren''s thoughts run along the same lines as hers had. Then she felt utter horror, because how had she gotten to know his expressions so well she could tell what he was thinking?


    "You have to admit it now," Karandren said. "I''m right and they really do send a different monster every time."


    Diarnlan could think of several things she could say to that. They included "We already know that and it doesn''t prove anything" to "And what do you suggest we do about it?". But saying any of them would do nothing but start an argument. Meanwhile that damned monster was still squatting on the ruins of her garden and one of them had to kill it before it decided to attack the village.


    "Remember the insect octopus monster?" Karandren asked.


    She''d faced so many monsters that it took Diarnlan a minute to remember that one. "What about it?"


    "Remember how I killed it?"


    Yes, she did remember. She was never likely to forget seeing that thing cut in two. "Are you planning--"


    "--To do the same thing again?"


    Karandren gave her a terrifyingly cheerful grin. Diarnlan considered the methods of killing this monster. Cutting it in half, although brutal, would certainly be effective.


    <hr>


    Five minutes later, when they were running for their lives and pursued by a very angry monster that was somehow still moving even though its head hung by a strip of sinew, it didn''t seem effective at all.


    "What did you do?" Diarnlan yelled.


    "I don''t know! It should be dead!"


    As if to prove how decidedly not-dead it was, the monster let out a blood-curdling roar and brought its foot down where Diarnlan had been a minute ago. She leapt out of the way just in time.


    "What do we --" Karandren ducked to avoid a swing of the skryszel''s tail "--do now?"


    "Keep running and hope it dies of blood loss."


    "What sort of plan is that?"


    "Have you got any better ones?"


    <hr>


    The skryszel didn''t die of blood loss. It chased Diarnlan and Karandren all the way to Boroeyrr Forest. Everyone they encountered along the way took one look at the skryszel and fled for their lives. Diarnlan could just imagine the sort of stories being passed around the county''s gossip chain.


    Magicians could run much faster than ordinary humans. So could skryszel, but this one had the disadvantage of its injured leg. Diarnlan outran it easily. Karandren, damn him, had taken to teleporting around the place to distract it.


    When they reached the shelter of the trees it stopped outside and bellowed in rage. Its eyes scanned the forest, but it made no effort to continue chasing them. The two of them dived behind the tree trunks and paused to catch their breath.


    "Why didn''t it follow us?" Karandren asked in a whisper.


    "Maybe it''s afraid of trees. Quick, let''s


    kill it before it goes away."


    When she suggested killing it Diarnlan had an idea of attacking it with Saungrafn. Karandren had other ideas. He conjured up a red ball of magic that writhed like a living creature. Painful experience of his magic made Diarnlan retreat to a safe distance.


    "If you set the forest on fire I''ll feed you to the next skryszel that comes along," she warned.


    He ignored her and threw the ball at the skryszel. It turned into wisps of smoke that disappeared beneath the creature''s shell. For a minute nothing happened. Then the skryszel exploded. Blood and body parts rained everywhere.


    Diarnlan got soaked by a spurt of blood. She yelled, partly from the shock and partly from horror as she realised what this meant. "You idiot! Where''s the nearest river?"


    Karandren blinked owlishly at her. "River?"


    From his tone anyone would have assumed he''d never heard the word before. Diarnlan took a deep breath and explained through gritted teeth.


    "Skryszel blood turns into acid after death. Now where''s the nearest river?"


    If she had been less preoccupied she would have noticed Karandren conjuring up yet more magic. But she didn''t notice anything until a wave of icy cold water crashed over her head.


    <hr>


    "I hate you."


    "The feeling''s mutual. Now are we going to Miavain?"


    "Why the hell do you like Miavain so much? It''s a nightmare!"


    "But it''s home."


    "Not to me it isn''t. I''ve had enough of priests and bones and dark magic to last me a hundred lifetimes!"


    "There''s a library of spell-books buried under the High Priest''s palace."


    "...There''s a what?"


    "It has spells that haven''t been used for over five hundred years."


    "..."


    "I even saw a spell that turns a person''s brain to molten lead."


    "Why would anyone want--"


    "Just think of using it on the skryszels that killed us!"


    "..."


    "..."


    "All right. But I''ll leave as soon as I see those spell-books."


    <hr>


    Miavain didn''t improve the second time around. Karandren insisted on dragging her around all of the places he had visited in his lifetimes like some sort of demented tour guide, but all Diarnlan could think was, This place should be razed to the ground.


    It wasn''t just the Bone-Worshippers'' temples decorated with carvings of bone until they looked like a mass grave. It wasn''t just the priests'' houses, ridiculously large and without a single trace of good taste. It wasn''t even Karandren himself and his absurd fondness for the place. The very atmosphere set Diarnlan''s teeth on edge. Looking up at the High Priest''s palace made her stomach twist. Walking out onto the platform where she had died once before made her feel as if she was being torn in two between past and present.


    On the bright side, Karandren hadn''t been lying about the spell-books. They''d been the contents of the Imperial Library before the country fell to the Bone-Worshippers. How they had survived when those lunatics hated magic of all sorts was probably a testament to the hypocrisy of the High Priests.


    Diarnlan read all of them. She took note of the most useful spells. And when she was finished she packed her bags -- before agreeing to this trip to Miavain she''d gone back to her house and taken some of her belongings -- and prepared to leave.


    Karandren had once again set up shop in the palace basement. When she went to tell him of her departure she found him surrounded by a heap of scrap metal.


    "Are you rebuilding that ridiculous dragon?"


    "Of course!" Karandren looked at her as if she was very silly. Then he saw the suitcase in her hand and his face fell. "You''re leaving?"


    Judging by his tone anyone would have thought he was about to lose an old and dear friend.


    "I hate this place," Diarnlan said bluntly. "And I think I have a better chance of surviving alone."


    Karandren snorted. "Let me know how well that goes."


    <hr>


    Diarnlan had left Avallot with a suitcase, a sword, and her oldest enemy. She returned with the suitcase and the sword, and felt oddly as if she''d just said goodbye to an old friend. She went to the coast and got on a ship for Byuryan again. No skryszel showed up to disrupt her plans. Nothing out of the ordinary happened on the voyage. Nothing went wrong when she arrived in Byuryan.


    That was what bothered her.

 Chapter IX: 眉berlisten

    ¨¹BERLISTEN


    German, "to outwit; to dupe"


    There are all kinds of darkness, and all kinds of things can be found in them, imprisoned, banished, lost or hidden. Sometimes they escape. Sometimes they simply fall out. Sometimes they just can''t take it any more. -- Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals


    Diarnlan had been in Byuryan for all of two hours before she made an important discovery. She didn''t like it. In fact she liked it even less than she''d liked Miavain. There was no immediately obvious reason for this. She puzzled over it several times as she traipsed to various tourist attractions.


    Maybe it''s just the capital. I''ll like the rest of the country better.


    It was the middle of the tourist season. There were people from every known country and a few unknown ones wandering around. She watched the groups of tourists to see what they were doing. And when she saw that many people were going on scenic train journeys -- journeys that, as far as she could tell, were just expeditions to places popular with sightseers -- she decided that she might as well go on one too.


    Four hours later, watching as the train passed yet another waterfall, Diarnlan had to admit she was still bored. These waterfalls weren''t even as impressive as the ones in Avallot. Why, in western Avallot there were purple waterfalls that glowed in the dark.


    Saungrafn watched all of this with an air of disapproval and disappointment. If it had a body it would have been tut-tutting and shaking its head. Diarnlan felt absurdly as if she was being scolded by her mother. When she was safely in her hotel room and away from people who''d think she was mad she confronted Saungrafn about it.


    "What''s wrong with you?"


    Saungrafn sighed and slumped against the wall. You''re being an idiot.


    "And what do you suggest I do instead? Go back to Miavain? To let Karandren annoy me to death?"


    What about Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair? What about Erdreda?


    That gave Diarnlan pause, though not quite in the way Saungrafn had wanted to. "Erdreda? That imbecile? You must be joking!"


    She was your student too.


    "A terrible one!"


    No worse than you were as a teacher.


    Diarnlan glared at the sword. It did a very good impression of glaring right back.


    You left everyone to fend for themselves without even a warning. You know there will be more skryszel.


    "If I stay and fight them I''ll just get killed again."


    Who says you have to fight them?


    That was such a ludicrous question that it left Diarnlan spluttering incoherently for an embarrassingly long time. When she recovered from the shock she gave Saungrafn a positively murderous look. "They''re monsters! They destroy and kill everyone in their path! You saw that one kill me when I was here last!"


    Why?


    Diarnlan didn''t answer out of sheer confusion. She looked around the room just to make sure she wasn''t asleep and dreaming this whole conversation. Her eyes fell on an unbelievably ugly drawing of what was possibly meant to be a girl holding flowers. The artist couldn''t draw to save their life and had chosen a bright red shade for the flowers and a salmon pink shade for the girl''s skin. The result looked more like a pig wallowing in blood, as seen by someone who was both short-sighted and incredibly drunk.


    That convinced Diarnlan she was awake. She had a vivid imagination, but not that vivid. She turned and glared at Saungrafn. "Why? Why? What do you mean, why?"


    Has it never occurred to you to wonder why the skryszels attack? What do they get out of it? Nothing but their own painful deaths. So it''s logical to assume there''s a reason they keep attacking in spite of all their failures.


    "They''re animals! They don''t have reasons any more than a bear has a reason for killing sheep!"


    Yes, but the bear needs food to survive. The skryszels usually don''t eat people.


    Oh. She hadn''t thought of that before, and it was a shock to realise it was true.


    "If they aren''t coming for food, why are they coming?"


    Precisely.


    That conversation preyed on Diarnlan''s mind for the rest of the night. When she finally fell asleep her dreams were full of monsters and cities and staring eyes. In the morning she woke with the vague feeling of having made an important discovery in her dreams but then having completely forgotten about it.


    <hr>


    After another boring day of sight-seeing Diarnlan decided enough was enough. She checked out of the hotel and bought a ticket on a boat back to Avallot. For most of the journey home she stayed on deck, staring down at the water and half-expecting a skryszel to leap out at her.


    Her house looked like no one had visited since the day she and Karandren left. Was it really just over a week ago? It seemed much longer. Her garden was still a sorry mess where the skryszel had crushed everything. Once again her poor tomato plants were ruined.


    One of these lifetimes I''m going to dedicate my whole time to protecting those tomatoes long enough to enter them, she vowed to herself.


    When she reached her back door she discovered the house hadn''t been left quite as alone as she thought. Stuck to the door was a letter. Diarnlan recognised her teacher''s handwriting at once.


    Diarnlan, what happened? Called four times and no sign of you. Come and see me as soon as you''re back.


    Well, it seemed she had a choice. She could try to explain everything to Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair and put up with yet more nonsense about talking to Karandren. Or she could run away again and spend the rest of this lifetime being hopelessly bored.


    She''d been tricked into buying some picture-postcards in Byuryan. Why not get rid of them by pretending they were a gift for her teacher?


    <hr>


    Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair opened the door within seconds of Diarnlan''s knock. "There you are! Where on earth did you go?" She stared at the postcards Diarnlan held out silently. "Where did you get these? Why do they say ''Byuryan'' on the label?"


    "I went to Byuryan," Diarnlan said shortly. "And Miavain. I''d have brought you something from Miavain but I didn''t think I was coming back."


    Her teacher''s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish''s. She stood frozen in place as if she''d been turned to stone.


    Diarnlan raised an eyebrow. "Well? Are you going to let me in?"


    The mage stepped aside wordlessly. She didn''t speak until Diarnlan was seated at the kitchen table.


    As she put the teapot on the stove Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair finally managed to squeak, "Miavain? Miavain?" She examined Diarnlan''s face with a worried expression. "You''re very pale. Are you sickening for something? Did you hit your head?"Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    After so many lifetimes of confusion Diarnlan felt rather like spreading the confusion to someone else. Calmly she said, "I''m caught in a time-loop with my oldest enemy. This is the second time I''ve told you about it. He''s currently ruling Miavain after kicking the Bone-Worshippers out."


    Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair gasped and spluttered for several minutes. "You-- What-- This is very serious. Is it an illness or a curse? Can you tell me when it started?"


    Diarnlan glared at her. "I''m not sick, cursed or mad. If you don''t believe me just go and look at the dead monster outside Boroeyrr Forest. And my ruined garden, too. Oh, and there''s a hole in the veil somewhere out at sea near my house. More monsters will come through it unless it''s blocked up."


    Her teacher collapsed into a chair. She promptly jumped up again because she''d left her knitting needles and a half-finished scarf on the seat. "I think you''d better start from the beginning. What''s all this about time and monsters?"


    <hr>


    When Diarnlan finished her teacher was silent for a long time. She looked even more shocked this time than the last time she''d heard the story. "So you''ve died horribly many times before, you''re likely to die horribly again, and this is normal?"


    Diarnlan nodded. "You get used to it after the first few deaths."


    "And your friend has taken over Miavain and is turning it into a civilised country again?"


    "He''s not my friend," Diarnlan snapped. "He''s as far away from a friend as you can get. And he''s more likely to make the country ten times worse than to have a remotely civilising effect on it."


    Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair gave her a look. It was the sort of look her mother used to give her when Diarnlan -- with crumbs on her blouse -- insisted she hadn''t eaten any of the cookies. "You lived with him for two years without killing him. You willingly went with him to Miavain. That doesn''t sound very antagonistic to me."


    "We spent most of those two years trying to poison each other. And I only went to Miavain because he promised they had rare spell-books. Which reminds me." Back in Byuryan she had tried to stave off boredom by typing out all of the spells she''d found. She fished the paper out of her suitcase and handed them over to her teacher, who scanned them first briefly and then with much more attention. "These are some of the spells from Miavain."


    Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair stared at Diarnlan with her mouth hanging open. "Some of the spells? You mean there are more? Don''t you know how important this is? These are the key to a magic system that went extinct centuries ago! We all thought it was lost forever! Did you bring any of the books themselves?"


    "Of course not," Diarnlan said. "They''re still in the palace. If you want to see them you''ll have to ask Karandren, and to do that you''ll have to get the queen to re-establish diplomatic relations with Miavain. I refuse to go back there for any reason. I want to get through this lifetime without ever seeing him again, thank you very much."


    Her teacher hardly seemed to hear her. She studied the spells intently, muttering to herself. Diarnlan waited until it became obvious her presence had been completely forgotten.


    "Are you going to do anything about the veil?"


    "The what?"


    "The veil. Where the monsters come through."


    Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair shrugged, apparently not paying much attention. "I''ll assemble a team to go and look for it."


    That had never worked before. Diarnlan decided against saying so. Obviously she wasn''t going to get much help from her teacher now. She shouldn''t have shown her the spells until after asking her what she thought the monsters wanted. "Well, I''ll be off."


    Finally her teacher looked up. "Where are you going?"


    "I don''t know yet. Somewhere far away from Karandren and other sorts of monsters."


    <hr>


    Over the many lifetimes that had passed since he first arrived in Miavain, Karandren had forgotten much of how he had originally ruled the place. But he distinctly remembered that he had taken over the minds of all the important people and turned them into his puppets. He also remembered that he had tortured people for fun.


    So he tried both of those. The first one very quickly became a nuisance. It was just plain inconvenient to have to put thoughts in other people''s heads. Not to mention how he damaged their minds so badly that without his influence they were nothing but brainless imbeciles, theoretically alive but unable even to feed themselves. Torturing the priests was slightly more entertaining. But soon even it became boring. There were only so many times you could watch someone die horribly before the novelty wore off.


    In the past he''d studied dark magic to defeat Diarnlan. But now he no longer needed to get revenge on her. She''d disappeared to who knew where and wasn''t bothering him any more. So what use did he have for dark magic? Without his quest for revenge what use did he have for conquering Miavain in the first place?


    The history books were full of many conquerors. Some of them had been good rulers, some had been tyrants so terrible their names were used as curses long after they died, and some had left surprisingly little impact on the places they ruled. But never before had there been one who conquered a kingdom and then didn''t know what to do with it.


    Once the initial shock wore off, and once Karandren stopped torturing priests and left off studying dark magic, some politicians who were either more ambitious or stupider than the others came to him with a suggestion.


    "Why don''t we form a parliament to handle the government?"


    Karandren knew exactly how his past self would have reacted. He would have killed them all and put their bodies on display so everyone knew never to interfere with his rule again. But now that he thought of it, had he ever ruled Miavain well? It had been in a sorry state under the Bone-Worshippers, and he couldn''t honestly say that things had improved once he took over. A parliament could hardly make things worse.


    "Go ahead," he said. "But keep me informed of everything you do. And if any of you annoy me I''ll skin you alive."


    They all nodded fearfully. Everyone knew that wasn''t an idle threat. The flayed body of a priest was on display at the palace gate.


    <hr>


    Queen Lanlinn of Avallot was thunderstruck when she received a missive from -- she had to read it twice to know she wasn''t dreaming -- the parliament of King Karandren of Avallot. She immediately summoned the Great Mages to find out what was going on.


    The only one not astonished at this turn of events was Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair.


    "I thought Diarnlan made him sound much wore than he was," she remarked, to the mystification of everyone else. "I''m glad to hear he might turn out to be a decent ruler yet."


    "What are you talking about?" the oldest Great Mage demanded.


    "Would you believe me if I told you the king of Miavain''s life is entwined with one of my students''?"


    "Of course not!"


    Teivain-r¨ªkhorn-hrair shrugged and refused to say anything more.


    <hr>


    There were places in the world where the veil separating it from the ¨®hreinnj?re became thin. Sometimes they were natural. Sometimes they were formed by something on the other side attacking the veil until they broke through. The second sort were the most dangerous. No one could predict where they would appear next. And no one could predict what would come through them. But all of the holes in the veil had something in common. They were one-way-only. Some of them were passages to Miejangare, some were passages to the ¨®hreinnj?re, and none were passages to both.


    When the skryszels came through the veil they could never go back through it. Or at least they could never go back the way they''d come. They would have to either tear open a new hole or find one that worked the opposite way. But even though a rift might not allow someone through, it could still be detected. And if someone knew how, they could look through it and see into the other world.


    <hr>


    In her many lifetimes Diarnlan had only visited three foreign countries. Now, for want of anything better to do, she went on a tour of every country she could think of and learnt as much about their magic as she could. First she went to Valu?on, famous for its never-ending variety of spells related to making bread. Then she went to Oureviedo, where a magician had recently invented a spell to make vegetables grow overnight. She took note of that spell to use on her tomatoes some day.


    Her third destination was Guraisi, which claimed to be the only place that had invented a perfect translation spell. From the moment she stepped off the train she felt sure someone was watching her. The feeling persisted all day. When she woke up the next morning and still felt it she decided enough was enough.


    "Damn it, Karandren, what are you doing? Go away and leave me alone!"


    If it really was Karandren he would have revealed himself to make some idiotic remark. Diarnlan was sure of that. So when minutes passed and he didn''t appear -- and she still knew someone was watching her -- she began to feel rather uneasy.


    She got on the first train out of the capital city. It didn''t matter where she ended up as long as this stopped. But it didn''t stop. Her invisible stalker stayed with her through five cities and a tour of an underground cave system.


    Am I going mad? Diarnlan asked Saungrafn.


    I sense it too, Saungrafn whispered back. That was reassuring in one way and horrifying in another.


    Diarnlan tried everything she could to get rid of the feeling. She cast concealing spells on herself. She mingled in the busiest crowds she could find. She even went to a church service just in case the watcher would be driven away by religion. But nothing helped.


    Eventually she ended up on in a town that she didn''t learn the name of, on a bridge near the town centre, watching as boats went up and down the river. In the distance she could hear Saungrafn saying something. But its voice was very quiet and the wind was very loud. And there was magic around the river. She could hear it singing.


    Barely even aware of what she was doing, Diarnlan climbed over the bridge''s railing. The singing grew louder. It drowned out Saungrafn and the alarmed shouts of the passers-by. There was nothing beneath her but empty air and the river below.


    She leant forward and let go of the railing. The river was suddenly concealed behind a layer of fog. A pair of eyes stared at her out of the fog.


    Diarnlan came back to herself with a start. She yelped and tried to grab hold of the railing again. But it was too late. She lost her balance.


    She fell.


    <hr>


    For weeks afterwards a puzzling story went around the town. It said a woman had jumped off the bridge then disappeared in mid-air before she hit the water. The townspeople searched the river but never found her body.


    It was as if she''d fallen into another world.

 Chapter X: Ansehen

    ANSEHEN


    German, "to watch; to look at"


    But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that''s going to be Human and isn''t yet, or used to be Human once and isn''t now, or ought to be Human and isn''t, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet. -- C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe


    My head hurts, was Diarnlan''s first and rather muzzy thought. She drifted closer to consciousness and promptly wished for oblivion. Her head didn''t just hurt, it ached. It felt like someone was trying to prise her skull open with a crowbar from within. Gods above, how did I die this time?


    Wait, that wasn''t right. No matter how painful her deaths were the pain never lingered after death. She was faced with the very unwelcome realisation that she was alive.


    What did I drink last night?


    Her last clear memory was of the spell to make vegetables grow quickly. Everything after that was a blur. For some reason she''d been on a bridge. And was that a church?


    Diarnlan risked opening her eyes. Then she squeezed them shut and groaned in anguish. The world was far too bright and colourful. And it was spinning.


    Saungrafn? Saungrafn, what''s happening? Where am I?


    No answer. In fact Diarnlan couldn''t sense her soul-weapon''s presence at all. For the first time she felt a flicker of unease. Slowly she cracked open one eye. The confused blur above her head swirled and resolved itself into a collection of pale blue and orange stones stuck to the ceiling to form geometric shapes.


    Diarnlan opened her other eye and squinted. This wasn''t a style of architecture she''d ever seen before. Perhaps it was like the painted ceilings in the palaces of Iubia-Capreae. But how could she have gotten to a place that used the architecture of a country on the other side of the continent?


    She sat up. That was when she realised she was lying on a very large mattress that covered the room''s entire floor. No, wait. It wasn''t a mattress. It was... a cloud? Diarnlan rubbed her eyes and looked again.


    Whatever the thing spread over the floor was, it certainly did resemble a cloud. In appearance it was like one of the light, fluffy clouds that looked like wisps of smoke, but unlike them it was a strange bluish-greenish-purple. The colour changed every second and sometimes it was a shade Diarnlan had never seen before and couldn''t find the words to describe.


    She lay down again, took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. All right. Something had happened yesterday. Maybe she''d drunk too much and the hotel staff had put her somewhere until she sobered up. Whatever the reason, she''d fallen unconscious and been brought to this strange place. Probably she was still somewhere in...


    Where was I last?


    She tried to remember. Oh yes. She''d gone to Guraisi. And someone had watched her the whole time.


    Diarnlan sat bolt upright at that memory. Suddenly the entire situation took on an even more sinister twist than simply getting drunk and being left to sober up. An invisible person had stalked her all around Guraisi. She had fallen off something. Was this a hospital? Or had her stalker kidnapped her?


    She shoved back the heavy quilt. It was warm and soft, but an unpleasant smell clung to it. A smell almost like blood and rotten meat. Scale-like patterns covered it, changing colour like the walls.


    The room was completely empty apart from the mattress and quilt. Its walls were covered with the same stone patterns as the ceiling. There were no lights anywhere and not even a tiny crack of a window. Yet there was light in the room; a sort of cold white light that seemed oddly artificial. It wasn''t warm like a conjured light or a gas-lamp. It seemed to emanate from the walls themselves while also filling the air as if it was somewhere overhead.


    Diarnlan searched the room for any sign of a door. She pulled up the mattress -- it was strangely insubstantial and cold to the touch, as if it really was made out of clouds -- and examined the floor for a trapdoor. The floor was black and shiny, like it was made of obsidian or coloured glass, but it didn''t reflect anything.


    After hunting for several minutes she felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. The sensation of being watched was back.


    Saungrafn! she yelled telepathically.


    Only silence answered.


    There was nowhere in the room for anyone to hide. Nor was there anything they could watch her through unless they had a window concealed by magic. But the feeling wouldn''t go away.


    Diarnlan stood in the centre of the room and glared around at the walls. She tried to sound more self-assured than she felt. The minute she heard her own voice she knew she''d failed. "Show yourself, whoever you are!"


    One of the walls distorted. A ripple ran across it as if it was made of water. Then it drew back like a curtain and melted into the rest of the walls, leaving a doorway that opened onto a corridor. The corridor was brightly lit with the same cold light. It had no corners and not even the slightest shadow for anyone to hide in.


    Diarnlan waited until it was obvious no one would come to her. She weighed up her options. Whatever waited for her at the other end of that hallway might be dangerous. But she had no way to defend herself if it decided to come into this room, and maybe she would find a way to escape once she was in the hallway. There had to be a window she could climb out somewhere.


    She tried to cast a spell to detect danger. Nothing happened. Her magic was sealed and she couldn''t touch it. Panic gripped her for a minute before she forced it away. Only very powerful magicians could block someone else''s magic like this. That explained why Saungrafn was missing. Probably she had fallen into the hands of some foreign magician who wanted to know more about the Avallotish magic system and had taken Saungrafn to study it.


    Very rude of them, she thought grimly. I''ll give them a piece of my mind as soon as I find them.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    No use putting it off any longer. Diarnlan marched through the odd doorway and down the hall. The floor looked like stone, but her feet sank down into it and her shoes made no noise. It was as if she was walking on carpet. In spite of the light and the lack of hiding places she had an uneasy feeling that something was about to jump out at her. She looked back over her shoulder to make sure no one had sneaked up on her from behind.


    The corridor seemed to stretch ahead endlessly, but abruptly it rippled like the wall had and she found herself in another room. It looked exactly like her kitchen in her old house. Diarnlan felt as if she''d just had cold water poured over her head. This was much worse than a very rude foreign magician. Someone had been spying on her for so long that they could recreate her kitchen right down to the cracked tile beside the cooker.


    "Karandren! What is the meaning of this?"


    Was it not enough that she could never escape him permanently? Did he have to stalk her and torment her even when she was staying out of his way?


    In the distance a faint voice repeated her words. Diarnlan started and looked around for the speaker. Then she realised it was an echo of her own voice. Judging by the sound and the time that elapsed before the echo began, she was in a room much larger than her kitchen.


    Something on the table caught her eye. I know that plate wasn''t there a minute ago.


    It was a very large, very deep plate that was nothing like anything she owned, which in an odd way was the most comforting thing she''d seen since waking up. At least her kidnapper hadn''t recreated her plates in addition to everything else. The fish on it was steaming as if it was freshly out of the oven. Very warily Diarnlan approached the table and held her hand over the fish. No warmth rose from it in spite of the steam. Its head was still on and its stomach was intact, suggesting that whoever brought it here knew nothing about how to cook fish.


    When she looked away from the fish she saw a glass set beside the plate. In the glass was a sapphire liquid. A slice of some foreign fruit floated on the surface. She recognised the drink -- it was roak, a popular drink in Byuryan -- but not the fruit. If it resembled anything, it was a cherry in the shape of an orange segment.


    Diarnlan considered the situation. Whoever had brought her here -- and it looked less and less like Karandren was responsible; he wasn''t patient enough to go to all this trouble -- obviously expected her to eat and drink. They were just as obviously completely insane.


    She picked up the glass and poured its contents onto the floor. To her surprise she saw the liquid sink into the floor as if...


    As if the floor was drinking it.


    That thought was just too disturbing to contemplate. Diarnlan picked up the fish and threw it onto the floor, where it also disappeared, then sat down on one of the chairs and waited. The feeling of being watched had never gone away. Now it had changed slightly. If she had to guess she would say it felt displeased and offended.


    Diarnlan picked a section of the wall at random and gave it her most unimpressed frown. "Can we please dispense with the games? Tell me who you are, what you want, and why you''ve brought me here!"


    Either the watcher had really been behind that part of the wall, or they simply decided it would be easiest to appear there. The wall rippled. Diarnlan jumped to her feet and picked up the chair. It wasn''t as heavy as the chairs in her real kitchen, but it would make a good enough weapon if necessary.


    In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, deep down she had expected Karandren to step through the wall. And if not him, then surely it would be someone she recognised. One of the other Great Mages, perhaps, or one of the many magicians she''d clashed with in her various lifetimes.


    Her expectations were completely wrong.


    If seen from a distance the person would have looked human. But seen up close? Diarnlan instinctively recoiled. A reanimated corpse would have unsettled her less.


    The person had long black hair and a feminine face, but their height and flat chest suggested they were male. Their -- his? hers? its? -- skin was white. Not pale, white like flour. There wasn''t even a faint reddish tinge to show they had blood beneath their skin. Their eyes were inhumanly wide and round -- and purple. Diarnlan had read many a bad novel that described its heroine as having purple eyes. This was the first time she''d ever seen someone who really did have them. It was a deeply disturbing sight. Their clothes were dark blue and glistened in the light. It was difficult to tell what sort of clothes they were because they seemed to shift and distort when you looked at them for any length of time. But Diarnlan was certain she''d never seen either the fashion or the material before.


    The person''s movements were inhumanly smooth as they walked towards her. She raised the chair and held it in front of her like a shield. They stopped and looked at her. Their face stayed expressionless for a moment before contorting into exaggerated surprise.


    "Are you not hungry?" they asked in perfect but strangely toneless Avallese. Their voice was definitely male.


    If she''d been less unsettled Diarnlan would have laughed in their -- his? -- face. "Hungry? Hungry? Do you really think I''ll eat anything in this place?"


    The person looked confused. His expressions didn''t move naturally like a human''s, and seemed to be the result of conscious thought. Diarnlan ran through the list of every supernatural creature she knew. None of them fit this one -- unless he was one of the Fair Folk, and in that case she was worse than dead.


    "Humans need food and drink," he said as if reciting facts he''d learnt. "Fish is a staple food in Avallot. Why did you not eat?"


    "Because I don''t accept food from strangers," Diarnlan snapped. This situation was so bizarre she could almost believe it was a dream she would wake up from. "Who the hell are you?"


    The person paused. "You want my name?"


    "Of course!"


    "R?????????????e???????????????n???????????????????????????i???????????????????????t????????????????????????????????????????a??????????????????????????????????????h??????????????n???????????????u????????????????????????????s????????????????????s????????????????????????????????l?????????????????????????????????????????i??????????????????e????????????????????????????????d??????????????????????????????a?????????????????????????????????????????s????????????????????????e??????????????????????l??????????????????????????????."


    Ringing filled Diarnlan''s ears. Her head ached. In the distance someone was screaming. It came as a shock when she realised she was the one screaming. Her throat hurt but her voice seemed to come from very far away. She was holding her head and there was something wet trickling between her fingers.


    The world gradually came back into focus. The first thing she heard was a panicked voice crying, "I''m sorry! I''m sorry!"


    Years ago Diarnlan had eaten bread that had gone off. She''d spent days feeling sick to her stomach and utterly miserable. That was exactly how she felt now.


    She opened her eyes and glared up at the man. To his credit he looked as shocked and horrified as she was. It was the first genuine emotion she''d seen him display.


    "What the hell was that?" she demanded.


    He shrugged helplessly. "Human ears aren''t meant to hear our language. I didn''t know how badly it would hurt you."


    Diarnlan took a deep breath and wiped the blood away from her ears. "What are you? What do you want with me?"


    "I''m curious," he said, which was never a promising beginning. "You looked through the veil. You saw me. And you have died but not died more than any human has before. I want to know how."


    His words jarred a memory loose in her mind.


    The hole in the veil opened right in front of her. For one nightmarish minute she looked through it into the ¨®hreinnj?re. Colours swirled behind the veil, colours that human eyes should not be able to see. In seconds the landscape changed from mountains to valleys to cities that defied all logic. She saw palaces built on top of enormous spindly towers. A thousand shapes rolled back and forth in the gorge-like streets.


    A pair of eyes stared back at her. They looked far too human to be a skryszel''s eyes. They were there and gone so quickly she wasn''t even sure she''d seen them properly. For all she knew they might have been her brain misinterpreting something else she saw.


    Diarnlan''s headache intensified. She pressed her hand to her forehead, leaving a bloodstain in the process, and took a deep breath.


    "Start from the beginning." An idea that it might be best to be polite prompted her to add, "Please. Tell me who you are, and in the gods'' names don''t you dare use that language again!"

 Chapter XI: Abscheulich

    ABSCHEULICH


    German, "hideous; abominable; horrible"


    We are all someone''s monster. -- Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows


    "My name is," the man began, then stopped short and looked mildly uncomfortable. "My mother''s name was Vanadel. You can call me that."


    "Vanadel is a woman''s name," Diarnlan said flatly. An Avallese woman''s name, at that. Just what was this man? A half-glacier-sprite like Karandren?


    "Well, of course," the man said. He sounded as if he thought she was very stupid. "My mother was a woman."


    Diarnlan decided it wasn''t worth the effort of trying to make him understand. "A human woman?"


    He nodded. "She found her way through one of the rifts in the veil. For over a year she survived on the outskirts of the city, attacking everyone who came too close. My father was sent to stop her. They fought for days before their battle finally ended in a draw. My father brought her back to the city and they were married soon after. I was born a year later."


    "Has she never tried to leave?" Diarnlan demanded suspiciously. The idea of a human willingly staying in this place -- and marrying one of these things; if Vanadel Junior was half-human then she didn''t even want to imagine how unsettling the full-blooded ones were -- just didn''t seem plausible.


    Vanadel made a strange motion with his arms that suggested he was trying to shrug but didn''t quite know how. "I don''t know."


    "Have you never asked her?"


    "I can''t. She died when I was born. My father killed himself after her death." He saw Diarnlan''s shocked expression and explained, "It is our custom that a married couple must die together."


    And what about their son? Diarnlan thought indignantly. Who do they expect to look after him when his surviving parent re-enacts Sioria and Ghirmar[1]?


    She''d encountered some stupid customs in her time, but this one was by far the stupidest.


    "I have always wanted to visit my mother''s homeland. But my grandparents won''t let me go in person until I''m two hundred. Until then I can only look through the veil. And that was how I saw you. It confused me at first, why you kept repeating the same days over and over. So I looked closer and noticed the time-loop. And you saw me."


    Diarnlan had read enough atrocious novels to have a horrible suspicion of where this was going. A strange man interested in a woman who was unique for some reason, and whose interest prompted him to kidnap her? It was a premise favoured by many imbeciles who believed they were romance novelists and didn''t realise they were much better at writing horror stories.


    "If the next words out of your mouth have anything to do with love I will throw this chair at you," she warned him.


    Vanadel just looked blank. "Why would I say anything about love?"


    "You didn''t kidnap me to propose to me or hold me prisoner until I agree to marry you?"


    Now he looked appalled. "Certainly not! That''s a j?tnar custom. We don''t do it."


    This seemed like as good a time as any to ask, "What are you?"


    He opened his mouth, coughed awkwardly, and said, "The best approximation in your language is Khaicinae. We have another name in our language, but... well..."


    He made another attempt at a shrug. Diarnlan''s ears began to ache again at the mere memory of his language.


    "Alright," she said slowly, going back to the most important part. "I saw you, you saw me, so you decided to kidnap me. Why? Why didn''t you kidnap Karandren? He''s also caught in the time-loop."


    "But he didn''t see me. He''s never tried to find the hole in the veil. You have. So I want to find out more about your magic. How can you, an ordinary human, live and die again and again? How can you look through the veil when your eyes should not be able to see it?"


    I don''t know, Diarnlan thought. She suspected he wouldn''t believe her if she told him so. "And how exactly do you intend to find the answers to any of those questions?"


    "By restarting the time-loop and seeing what happens."


    Vanadel raised his hand. He held a knife that she knew he hadn''t had a minute ago. Suddenly it dawned on her what he meant by ''restarting the time-loop''. Diarnlan''s eyes widened. Dying by skryszel or Karandren was one thing. Being murdered by this lunatic was another.


    She threw the chair at him. It disappeared before touching him.


    Internally Diarnlan screamed every swear word she knew. Externally she tried to stay calm. "Wait! Wait just a minute! This is the ¨®hreinnj?re, isn''t it? Well, how do you know what effect that has on the time-loop? It might not work at all here and I refuse to let you kill me permanently!"


    "It will work," Vanadel said calmly, as if he was only discussing the weather. "Can''t you see the magic still clinging to you? It''s part of you."This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    That was a very disturbing thought but one she refused to think about until she''d dealt with this knife-wielding maniac. "What about the skryszel?" she demanded to distract him. "Why do they keep attacking us?"


    "Skryszel?" Vanadel repeated, as if he''d never heard the word before.


    "The monsters! The things that come through the veil!"


    "Oh, those. They''re our pets."


    Everyone who''d ever encountered the skryszel could think of a hundred descriptions of them. Never in a thousand years would they have included the word "pets" in that list. Diarnlan tried to comprehend that. It was a very difficult task when her mind insisted on picturing the frog-like skryszel being taken for walks on a lead.


    "Pets?" she repeated faintly. "Pets?" Anger quickly replaced shock. "Can''t you people keep your pets contained? Have you no kennels or fences here? Look at the chaos they cause when they get out!"


    Vanadel didn''t seem remotely concerned by this. "Of course we keep them contained. Some of their owners send them through the veil deliberately."


    Diarnlan felt as if the floor had dropped out from beneath her feet. "What?"


    "It''s like your horse races," he explained cheerfully. "The owners send their pets out, then assemble their friends and make bets on how far the pet will go before you humans kill it."


    Diarnlan grabbed hold of the table to steady herself. It wasn''t much help because it turned out to be made of something soft and with the texture of marshmallow, even though it looked like wood. In a strange way the shock of that discovery helped her deal with the shock of all the others. "You mean your people deliberately send their pets to be killed? And to kill everyone in their path?"


    "Of course. Just like your people send their dogs to fight bears."


    "That''s outlawed in Avallot," Diarnlan snapped. "What will make you stop?"


    Vanadel shrugged. "I''m not involved in it. For the people who are, it''s their main source of entertainment. Why take it away from them?"


    "When I get my hands on them I''ll take a lot more than that away from them!" Diarnlan was already picturing exactly what she''d do to them. By the time she was finished they wouldn''t be in a condition to watch anything ever again.


    Vanadel looked mildly surprised at her reaction. "But why does it bother you? You have killed the... the sha-kroy-shels," he stumbled over the unfamiliar word, "so many times that their owners are losing money. If you keep this up they''ll eventually stop of their own accord."


    "It bothers me because your bloody pets have killed me so many times I''ve lost count!"


    Diarnlan took a deep breath and tried to consider the situation calmly. She knew deep down that there was no way she would leave this place alive. Either Vanadel would kill her for the sake of his curiosity, or she would find a weapon and kill herself. Vanadel claimed the time-loop was part of her. It was safe to assume it was also part of Karandren too. So would it be possible to exploit that?


    Ever since producing the knife from who-knew-where Vanadel had held his arm out in front of him with the knife aimed directly at Diarnlan''s chest. A human would have long since gotten tired of holding their arm in that position. Vanadel didn''t even seem to notice.


    Maybe it didn''t make much difference in the end, but Diarnlan would much rather die on her own terms than be killed by someone else.


    "I have one more question," she said. Vanadel waited patiently while she tried to find the right words. "How does the time-loop affect you people?"


    "It doesn''t."


    Diarnlan took several steps forward until the knife was level with her heart. "What do you mean it doesn''t?"


    "Time works differently here. The sha-kroy-shels die in your world and immediately reappear in ours. Some of their owners make alterations to them in the hope they''ll be more successful next time."


    So that''s why the skryszels looked and behaved differently. Diarnlan filed that information away for future use. She took a deep breath and tried to focus her mind on Karandren.


    I''m not going to that in-between place. I''m going to Karandren, she told herself firmly. Then grimly, This is going to hurt.


    Then she grabbed Vanadel''s wrist and pulled him forward. The knife sank into her chest.


    None of her other deaths had been quite like this one. None of them felt like being ripped out of her body and thrown around like a ragdoll.


    I''m going to find Karandren, Diarnlan repeated over and over again. I''m going to find Karandren.


    The pain and confusion finally faded. She opened her eyes and found herself in the only-too-familiar main hall of Karandren''s palace in Miavain. Once again there was a priest''s mutilated body on display at the door. Surprisingly there was only one this time. The last time she''d been here there had been twelve, all killed in different ways. And the stench of dark magic that had hovered around the place was now conspicuous by its absence. But in spite of the unexpected differences this was definitely the right place.


    It worked! was her first thought. Her second was, Wait. Why am I so high up?


    <hr>


    Within days of the politicians forming some sort of government, Karandren began to have serious second thoughts about this ruling-a-country business. It was much more work than he remembered. Every day someone came to him with yet another urgent matter he needed to hear about. Karandren had never given any thought to tax systems or judicial reforms before. Nor had he ever expected to spend days reading dull old textbooks on trade and economics.


    At first he made the mistake of leaving all of it to the politicians. That idea ended very quickly when he learnt some of them were robbing the people under the pretence of taxes. There were now seven fewer politicians in the parliament and seven corpses hanging from the palace walls. At least their friends'' deaths had taught the other politicians not to try a similar stunt. None of them dared to do anything without first telling Karandren all about it and ensuring he knew everything they did was legal.


    Not that legality meant much. In Miavain under the Bone-Worshippers it had been legal for priests to kidnap children from their parishioners and keep them as sex slaves. Karandren had abolished all those laws, but the damage done in five hundred years couldn''t be undone in two weeks.


    Running away and leaving the politicians to sort the country out on their own was an increasingly appealing idea. But he knew only too well that if he left them to their own devices they would go right back to how things were before.


    When not arguing with politicians he continued work on his dragon. There was plenty of metal lying around the palace in the form of statues and shrines, so he very quickly had a dragon that actually looked like a dragon. It stood in the middle of the main hall, twice as tall as Karandren would be when he was fully grown, with its mouth open wide and all its carefully-crafted teeth on display. All he had to add to it now was its wings. Then he could move on to making it breathe fire.


    After sending the politicians away for the day, Karandren gathered together several candelabras and the metal boxes formerly used to hold fragments of bone. He brought them down to the main hall. Spread out in front of the dragon was his blueprint. He set down the metal and studied his drawing of the wings.


    Clank. Creeeeeeeak.


    Karandren froze. That sounded as if-- But it was impossible! Right now the dragon was just a mass of scrap metal! He hadn''t used any magic to animate it!


    He raised his head and came face to face with the dragon. It had lowered its head until it was nearly on a level with his. And its eyes were glowing an unnaturally bright shade of blue.


    Karandren screamed bloody murder.

 Chapter XII: Der Drache

    DER DRACHE


    German, "the dragon"


    Noble dragons don''t have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive. -- Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!


    Karandren''s screeches echoed off the walls. Diarnlan winced and wanted to cover her ears. It was a pity that in this form she both couldn''t cover them and technically didn''t have ears to cover anyway.


    "Will you shut up?" she yelled. "You''re the most ridiculous creature I''ve ever had the misfortune of knowing! You''ll face skryszel and j?tnar without flinching but you''re terrified of something you yourself created?"


    Karandren finally shut up. She suspected it was more because he''d run out of breath than because he''d calmed down. He gawked at her as if he''d never seen this ugly lump of metal before. Really, of all the places she could have ended up, why did it have to be the bloody dragon? Being an ordinary ghost would have been preferable!


    Though come to think of it, were there such things as ordinary ghosts? Diarnlan briefly got distracted by pondering this. By the time she brought her thoughts back to the present Karandren had also recovered.


    "...Diarnlan?" he asked faintly.


    She glared at him. "No, I''m the Dragon God[1] come to drag you down to the underworld for creating this monstrosity."


    For a moment there was silence. Karandren stared up at her with a bug-eyed expression that suggested he believed her. Diarnlan began to reconsider her choice to come here. Being sent back to the in-between place would have been much less irritating.


    "You''re joking?" Karandren asked. With more certainty he continued, "Of course you''re joking. But what are you doing in my dragon?"


    "It''s a very long story," Diarnlan snapped.


    "And? We have plenty of time. The politicians won''t bother me until tomorrow. I''ll boil them in oil if they try."


    Diarnlan tried to raise an eyebrow in confusion. She failed because the dragon didn''t have eyebrows to raise or any ability to change its expression at all. "Politicians? Since when does Miavain have politicians?"


    She distinctly remembered that she''d had to recruit some very confused and frightened law students to become makeshift politicians the last time she''d been here.


    "Since I started trying to turn this into a civilised country."


    Diarnlan stared at him. Then she looked around at the room to make sure she wasn''t dreaming. No, she couldn''t possibly imagine such ugly tiles on the floor. "Civilised? You? Did you hit your head or is all that dark magic finally taking its toll?"


    Karandren glared at her. "Remember that I created that dragon and I can melt it down again with one spell. What do you think will happen to you if I do that?"


    She tried to shrug and only succeeded in scraping the dragon''s claws over the floor. It was an improvement, considering that she''d partially obscured one of the incomprehensible drawings -- was it meant to be a bird or a snail? -- on the tiles. "I don''t know but it can''t be any worse than what''s already happened."


    Karandren waited expectantly. Diarnlan sighed and filled him in on the events of the last few days. Had it really only been two days since she first felt someone was watching her? It seemed so much longer.


    "You must be making some of that up," Karandren protested several times during her story.


    Only the determination to finish telling everything before she got side-tracked again prevented her from starting an argument over that. When she finished Karandren looked more baffled than she''d ever seen him look before.


    "The skryszel are pets? Pets? So we could defeat them by just throwing them a bone and calling them a good boy?"


    Diarnlan imagined them doing just that. It was an even more surreal picture than her thought of taking them for walks. "I doubt that would work."


    "Then what will work? Because according to you they''re going to keep coming through the veil no matter how many times we relive our lives and there isn''t a damn thing we can do to stop them!" He paused and considered this. "What about that Vanadel person? He''s like me, isn''t he? Maybe I could talk to him and convince him to stop this."


    "He was going to kill me!"


    "That''s another thing he and I have in common."


    Diarnlan snarled. To her surprise she actually managed to make the dragon''s face contort into a snarl too. Alas, Karandren looked completely unconcerned.


    "He isn''t human at all. I don''t mean genetically, I mean in his behaviour. He''s nothing like you; at least you know how to pretend to be human. He''s more likely to want to kill you too."


    Karandren shrugged dismissively. "And if he kills me I''ll just go back and start over again. Without the trouble of ruling Miavain, too."


    "I thought you wanted to rule Miavain."


    "I did until I tried it."


    That didn''t make sense. He''d tried several times and had never seemed to mind it before. Diarnlan wondered just what had been happening in Miavain since she left.


    "He''s not interested in you," she said instead. "If he was he would have kidnapped you too. He just wanted to study me like some sort of zoological specimen."Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Karandren grinned and opened his mouth. Diarnlan interrupted before he could speak.


    "If the next words out of your mouth are any sort of joke I''ll bite you in half."


    "You can''t do that."


    "I can try."


    <hr>


    So many strange things had happened in Miavain lately that one would think nothing could shock the politicians any more. One would think wrong.


    When they arrived in the room set aside for their discussions they stopped and gawked at the statue in the middle of the room. It hadn''t been there yesterday. Nor was it anything akin to the statues normally found in Miavain. It was made of at least twelve different kinds of metal -- gold, silver, iron, copper, and goodness knew what else. It glittered many different colours when the light struck it. And it was a dragon. The Bone-Worshippers had never made statues of dragons. They viewed the whole species as embodiments of evil.


    The politicians gathered around the statue and murmured amongst themselves.


    "It must be a gift from Avallot. Those barbarians will make statues of anything," someone suggested.


    "I think it''s meant to scare us," someone else said.


    "What idiot made this thing? Those metals don''t belong together!"


    "It''s garish."


    "It''s tasteless."


    "I think it''s a practical joke."


    All the comments and grumblings came to an abrupt and horrified halt. The dragon moved its head. It looked down at all of them, focusing its glowing blue eyes on each of them in turn. A chorus of frightened gasps and whimpers rose from the politicians. Everyone froze as they waited to see what it would do next. Nothing happened for several nightmarish minutes. Then the statue -- or was it a real dragon? -- snorted and shook its head.


    "No wonder he doesn''t want to deal with you," it said in a distinctly female voice with a foreign accent. A foreign accent that was similar to their new king''s, but stronger and harder to understand. "All of you sit down. Your king--" It -- she? None of the politicians knew how to refer to the dragon -- put a sarcastic emphasis on the word. One of the politicians could have sworn he saw her roll her eyes, "--has decided not to bother talking to you today. Instead you''ll tell me all your bright ideas. I warn you, do not waste my time."


    Quite a few politicians immediately decided the matters they''d wanted to raise weren''t so important after all.


    "Well?" the dragon snapped after a minute passed and no one moved. "Sit down!"


    They scurried to their assigned seats, feeling like they were schoolchildren back under the thumb of their most hated teacher.


    <hr>


    "So, how did it go?"


    "I hate you. I hate them too, but you''re the one who dragged me into this farce."


    "It didn''t go well, then."


    "They want to create a tax on windows. Windows. I told them that if they dislike the things so much I''ll happily have them locked up in a windowless dungeon."


    "That''s the way to deal with them! Show them who''s boss!"


    "Shut up or I''ll have you locked up in a windowless dungeon."


    "You can''t do that. This is my palace, and you can''t even move that statue on your own."


    "Yet. I can''t move it yet."


    <hr>


    It was unfortunately only too true that Diarnlan couldn''t move the statue. Karandren could control it with his magic, but it didn''t respond to hers. She could move its head and open or close its mouth, but apart from that the most she''d managed to move it was to occasionally shift one foot. She couldn''t lift its feet off the ground, leading to many new scrapes on the floor. With any luck she''d soon destroy all of those ugly tiles.


    She practiced trying to control it. A week passed and nothing changed. Nor could she remove her spirit from the dragon. Somehow she''d managed to get herself well and truly stuck to it. It was at times like this that Diarnlan really believed fate had a grudge against her.


    Karandren made things much worse, of course. He took advantage of her inability to leave to talk at her about all of his hare-brained schemes. They ranged from reanimating the bodies of the priests and using them as his guards to trying to open a hole in the veil right in the middle of the palace.


    "If you want to meddle in necromancy make sure you tell me beforehand," she said in reply to the first suggestion. "I want to watch. From a safe distance."


    The second one was much worse. Diarnlan''s immediate reaction was a horrified scream. "You''re out of your mind! Imagine what would happen if a skryszel appeared in the palace!"


    "But I might be able to get through the veil then go and talk to Vanadel," Karandren protested.


    Since her death and arrival in the statue Diarnlan hadn''t sensed Vanadel watching her again. That didn''t necessarily mean he wasn''t watching. The idea made a chill run down her spine. But if he was, then he already knew Karandren wanted to meet him and was in no hurry to grant his wish. That was probably the only good decision Vanadel had made in his life. Diarnlan didn''t even want to imagine what would happen if those two ended up in the same room under any circumstances. They''d probably bring about the destruction of the universe.


    After two weeks of being stuck in the statue Diarnlan was seriously considering suicide again. For want of anyone else to talk to she asked Karandren about it. "How do you think I could die in this form?"


    He thought for a minute. "An exorcism spell?"


    "Try one. Please."


    Karandren shook his head emphatically. "It might damage my dragon."


    Diarnlan tried to punch him. All she managed to do was scrape the floor again.


    <hr>


    Like all of the other lifetimes it was inevitable this one would end under skryszel-related circumstances. Diarnlan wasn''t even surprised when news came from Avallot that two monsters had come through the veil and were making their way towards Miavain.


    "Why are they coming here?" Karandren wondered.


    "Because their owners know we''re here and are betting on how quickly we''ll kill them." Diarnlan considered this for a while. "I wonder how much money they''ll lose if we just refuse to fight."


    Karandren didn''t seem to hear her. He was too busy issuing orders to the very confused guards -- human guards, thankfully, since he had given up that terrible idea of using necromancy to turn the priests into guards.


    Diarnlan thought more about her idea while everyone waited for the monsters to arrive. Karandren had very foolishly agreed to give her control over breathing fire -- only because he wanted part of the palace demolished and didn''t want the bother of doing it himself, but the point was that she now had a weapon. She also had a great deal of spite towards the world in general and the skryszels'' owners in particular.


    "You''re planning something," Karandren said suspiciously. How he''d managed to figure that out when she still wasn''t capable of facial expressions was a mystery. "If you''re going to kill yourself again, wait until I leave the palace. I''m sick of being killed by you."


    Diarnlan rolled her eyes. "How is being killed by a skryszel better?"


    "It isn''t. I just have a better chance of getting revenge and permanently killing the damn things."


    That seemed like an utterly ludicrous explanation to her. But even so she waited until he went out to confront the approaching monsters on his own. The guards left to evacuate the civilians. Soon Diarnlan was alone in the palace.


    She wasn''t remotely surprised when one of the skryszels appeared at the palace gate. It wasn''t one she''d seen before. Unlike the others it looked like a walking tree rather than an animal.


    It stalked into the palace, crashing through doorways and walls. Diarnlan waited until it was far enough into the building to be trapped when the roof fell. Then she set the whole place on fire.


    Judging by its cut-off roars the skryszel died quickly. Diarnlan had to wait until the ceiling collapsed on top of her. It crushed the statue into a misshapen hunk of metal.


    <hr>


    Diarnlan opened her eyes and sighed wearily when she saw the tree. "I''m getting sick of this place."


    A snowball flew over her head.


    "Damn it, how did I miss?" Karandren muttered somewhere off to the side.


    Diarnlan sat up before he could throw another one. "Well? How did you die this time?"


    "Trampled by a skryszel. You?"


    "Crushed by a roof."


    "Well, at least that''s a new and unique way of dying."


    He dodged Diarnlan''s punch, but he overbalanced and fell into a snowdrift in the process.

 Chapter XIII: Hin und Her

    HIN UND HER


    German, "back and forth; to and fro; there and back"


    Tried to run but my feet were frozen


    Tried to scream but there was no sound


    -- Blackmore''s Night, 25 Years


    "We need a plan. A proper plan this time, that doesn''t involve hunting for the hole in the veil." Karandren thought for a while. "What about setting up some sort of alarm system to alert us as soon as a skryszel appears? Then we can kill it on the spot before it goes on the rampage."


    Diarnlan rolled her eyes. "Yes, because we''ve done so well against skryszel before. Remind me how you died most recently."


    "But the two of us working together have a better chance of killing them."


    "Are you joking or just stupid? We''d kill each other before the skryszels ever showed up. I''ve had enough! As soon as we go back I''m running away to the other side of the world, and if any more monsters show up I''m going to kill myself again!"


    Karandren stared at her. "...Are you all right?"


    What sort of question was that? "No!"


    There was a long and awkward silence. Diarnlan lay down, closed her eyes, and tried to go to sleep. She pretended not to know Karandren was giving her an oddly worried look. It was downright hypocritical of him to be worried about someone else''s sanity considering the state of his own.


    "All right then," he said at last. "We''ll both go on holiday."


    Diarnlan craned her neck to give him an incredulous look. "We? Why do you think you''re coming?"


    "Because I didn''t enjoy ruling Miavain last time. I don''t think I''ll try that again. So I need something else to do, and travelling the world will do as well as anything else."


    She glared at him. "Travel the world if you want to, but not with me! I hate you and you hate me! It would be a complete disaster!"


    Karandren actually had the audacity to throw himself down in the snow beside her. He folded his arms behind his head and stared up at the stars as he spoke. "Yes, I hated you. I wanted to hurt you as much as you hurt me. Because you did hurt me, you know. I understand why now -- you''re just a cruel bastard to everyone, including yourself--"


    "Hey!"


    "--but it doesn''t change the fact that I was a child who didn''t understand why his teacher hated him so much. Between the two of us, I think you started out as the most guilty."


    Diarnlan found she couldn''t argue with that. It left a bitter taste in her mouth. "What do you want? An apology? Don''t you think it''s a bit late for that?"


    "Yes."


    Silence fell for a long time. Diarnlan watched the stars move back and forth overhead. They didn''t follow any of the paths that real stars did.


    Abruptly Karandren broke the silence. "I don''t hate you any more."


    It took a minute for his words to register with Diarnlan. Then she sat bolt upright. "What do you mean you don''t hate me? I killed you! You kidnapped me!"


    There were very few constants in the time-loop, but Diarnlan had thought there were some things she could rely on. The sun would rise and set every day. The tide would come in and go out. And Karandren hated her as much as she hated him. Now he''d thrown that certainty into disarray. It was as shocking as if she''d seen the sun rise in the west or the sea cease to move.


    Karandren never looked at her while he spoke. "I used to hate you. I swore I''d never forgive you. But what''s the point in hating you now? We''re stuck with each other and we can''t get free. Not yet and maybe not ever. I''m tired of hating you." He laughed humourlessly. "You know, I never realised it was possible to get tired of hate."


    Diarnlan wanted to reply with something biting and sarcastic. But all of her words got stuck in her throat. She was tired too, she realised. It was a sort of bone-deep weariness that made her just want to lie here and sleep for a thousand years. She knew she couldn''t. For better or for worse she and Karandren would be thrown back into their old lives, left to act out parts they were sick of playing and trying to find ways to change the script. What use was hate? It didn''t change anything and it certainly didn''t make anything better.


    In the end she said nothing. Neither did Karandren. They lay side by side in silence and waited for their next life to start.


    Waiting for the curtain to rise on the next act, Diarnlan thought, and smiled bitterly. Did normal actors ever get tired of playing the same role night after night? Did they ever want to scream and throw things at the playwright?


    The world disintegrated again. She sighed mentally and prepared for her next cue.


    <hr>


    Once again Diarnlan woke up in her old bedroom in her old house. She got up and made herself a cup of tea while still in her pyjamas. Then she went back to bed, pulled the cover over her head, and went to sleep with the grim determination to ignore the entire outside world. If the skryszel''s owners wanted to send it to attack again, she would leave it for someone else to kill.


    She awoke several hours later to the smell and sound of fish sizzling in a frying pan. Diarnlan leapt up at once, instantly alert. Not even her sister would have the audacity to break into her house and help herself to her food. Which meant it could only be...If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    She got changed and went downstairs to find Karandren staring at the frying pan as if it held the secrets of the universe.


    "Oh, you''re still here," he said when he saw her. "Did I add too little oil? I don''t think there are meant to be so many black bits."


    Diarnlan checked the frying pan long enough to be confused. Whatever he''d put the fish in, it didn''t look or smell like cooking oil. In fact it smelled more like...


    She closed her eyes and counted to ten. "Please tell me that''s not furniture polish."


    Karandren looked blank. "Furniture polish? I just used that bottle of oil there. It''s next to the cooker so I thought it must be for cooking."


    Diarnlan glanced at it, saw the only-too-familiar label depicting brightly-shining furniture, and contemplated throwing the frying pan at his head. "Look at the label, imbecile. How could you think it has anything to do with cooking?"


    Karandren shrugged. "I''ve never used oil in cooking before."


    That explained an awful lot about the inedible meals back in the lifetime when they were children. She took the frying pan off the stove, opened the window, and hurled the pan out into the garden.


    Karandren watched his handiwork disappear with a mildly upset expression. "What are we going to eat now?"


    Diarnlan stormed past him into the larder. She took a cloth bag off the wall and began filling it with biscuits, loaves of bread, and other foods that would stay fresh for months under the influence of the preserving spell woven into the bag.


    "What are you doing?" Karandren asked, which was the most unnecessary question Diarnlan had ever heard.


    "Bringing food so we don''t starve on our travels."


    A surprised look appeared in Karandren''s eyes. "We?"


    Diarnlan pointedly refused to look over at him again. "Well, if another monster appears I need someone to throw at it so I can get away."


    <hr>


    If anyone had been near Diarnlan''s house that day they would have seen two figures leave it and disappear in the direction of the nearest port-city. When Diarnlan''s sister arrived she found the house in darkness and the front door locked. There was no note left or any sign that Diarnlan ever intended to come back.


    <hr>


    Improbable though it seemed and irritating though it was, Karandren turned out not to be as unbearable a travelling companion as Diarnlan had expected. He didn''t try to kill her beyond the occasional token attempt to stab or poison her -- and those attempts were so blatant that he obviously wasn''t truly trying to kill her. When other people were around he did nothing to attract unwanted attention. Most startling of all, he actually produced money from somewhere -- probably some unlucky passer-by''s pockets -- and paid for his own food.


    The main problem with his company was his inability to keep his mouth shut. Every time a thought came into his stupid head he just had to tell her all about it.


    One minute it was, "Look at those statues! How did they ever put them so high up?" The next, "Hey, that man''s money is counterfeit." A little later, "Look! A clockwork shark!"


    He rabbited on and on, never saying anything remotely interesting, until Diarnlan considered killing him just to shut him up.


    Unlike her previous attempt to travel the world, they went in a completely different direction. Instead of east they went south, to the Gisengenmda Empire. Karandren developed a sudden and incomprehensible fondness for Gisengenmdese historical artefacts and monuments. Diarnlan tagged along, utterly baffled, on his trips to various sites he considered interesting. It was only when she flipped through a guide book that light began to dawn.


    An old legend claimed that a long-ago emperor of Gisengenmda had been warned by the gods of impending danger -- different versions of the legend disagreed on whether it was an invasion, an earthquake or a volcanic eruption -- and granted the ability to relive his life until he found a way to protect his people.


    It was probably nothing more than a legend. But it had enough similarities to their current predicament to make her wonder just how common time-loops really were.


    "How exactly did Emperor," Diarnlan paused to check the guide book, "Emperor Tsamde-basyel get out of his time-loop?"


    Karandren shrugged. "None of the stories agree. This book says he destroyed a volcano. Yesterday I read another book that said he gathered his army and drove the invaders away."


    The two of them looked at each other for a moment.


    "Are you thinking what I''m thinking?"


    "That we could get out of the time-loop if we stop the skryszels?"


    <hr>


    "We need a plan of attack," Diarnlan declared as soon as they''d bought a notebook and found a quiet place to sit. The rest of the museum was full of tourists gawking at artefacts; two people staring at a notebook wasn''t particularly conspicuous. "And don''t suggest going into the ¨®hreinnj?re. Or blocking the hole in the veil. We''ve tried both and neither works."


    "I haven''t gone into the ¨®hreinnj?re yet," Karandren muttered.


    Thank god for that. The mere thought of the chaos he could unleash there made her shudder.


    "Why don''t we raise the alarm? Tell the whole kingdom about the monsters then leave and let everyone else deal with it?"


    Diarnlan considered this. "But the monsters follow us around."


    "They haven''t followed us in this lifetime."


    Both of them paused to listen for the tell-tale thud of skryszel footsteps. Nothing. The only noise was the clamour of the tourists.


    "We need to defeat the skryszel so definitively that their owners will never send them through the veil again. We need... Oh, I don''t know. Some sort of ward that would kill them as soon as they step into this world. Hey, do you think we could manipulate a skryszel into attacking its owners?"


    Diarnlan shrugged. "How exactly do you intend to do that?"


    Karandren frowned down at their scribbled notes as if he expected to see the answer there. "Mind control?"


    Her instinctive reaction was, That''s very dark magic, you idiot. Just in time she remembered who she was speaking to. Instead she asked sceptically, "Do you think those brutes have any minds to control?"


    "I don''t know, but I can find out when one attacks." He blinked and looked around. "Speaking of attacks, isn''t it odd that there hasn''t been one? I mean, usually those brutes follow us around. Their owners must have cast some sort of tracking spell on us."


    Diarnlan pushed aside the disturbing image of a skryszel''s owner -- since she didn''t know what they looked like she pictured them as an even bigger, nastier skryszel -- tracking their every move. "Perhaps there are limits to how far they can track us. Or perhaps they''ve simply given the whole thing up. Vanadel said something about that."


    Karandren pouted. "That''d be a terrible anti-climax."


    She pretended not to hear him. "So there''s really just one thing left for us to decide. Do we continue with this life and wait for a skryszel attack that might not come, or do we start over and prepare for an attack that''s almost certain?"


    They both considered this.


    "I''d rather start over," Karandren said.


    Diarnlan stared at him. "What? Why?"


    "Because I''m bored and I''d like to start work on an anti-skryszel trap as soon as possible. And I want to see if I can mind-control them."


    On the one hand Diarnlan didn''t particularly want to die again. On the other she also didn''t want to continue with this life. What she really wanted was to finally be able to rest, and she didn''t particularly care if that meant permanent death or a skryszel- and Karandren-free lifetime.


    "All right," she said. "How are we going to die this time? Stabbing? Drowning?"


    "How about poison? We''ve tried just about everything else."


    "...Poison will do. As long as it''s quick and relatively painless."


    END OF BOOK TWO