Chapter 29

"Hello, Aela," McAllister said, as he stepped through, into the clearing.

"McAllister," she squealed, and threw herself at him, the belly protruding under the coat preventing her from getting as close as she might have preferred.

"I will be back to meet our son, someday," he promised her, and she squealed again.

"You've won, then!" she said, happily, then, after raining kisses on him. "You need to pay more attention to your horse," she told him, seriously, and she rained kisses on Sable. Sable, for her part, returned the embrace.

"Yes," he said, "I should have known Arianne would tell you what was happening. You are on post here?" After her nod, he indicated the lamps at the top of the hill. "We need to go speak with Arianne and our other friends," he told her.

"Go, you two," she told them. "Visit when you can," and she made shooing motions.

"I'll need to take my troop off this world, but I've promised to return. I would ask a favor in the meantime."

"You have only but to ask," Arianne replied. It was, perhaps, a measure of McAllister's friends that none thought the response was unusual, and he was grateful for it.

"There is a girl, one Agata, who may come to visit with her grandmother, visiting Madelle in Marcelon. I'd like her to have guidance and some friends."

Arianne studied McAllister for a few moments, and the man withstood it with good grace. Finally, she nodded, uncharacteristically quiet. "I will," she said.

"Now, there is a matter you should tend to," the four-armed god spoke in Denarian, floating in the center of the library. It was, perhaps, a measure of McAllister's friends that none thought the unheralded arrival and casual greeting of such an individual was unusual, either. McAllister smothered a smile wondering if perhaps the bright silvery spark floating in the room beside him made the occurrence more mundane.

McAllister turned to see who the god indicated, and his eye fell on Carus. "Ah," he said, then, while he sorted out his feelings on the man. Aloud, he mused, "You did attack. Appearances can be deceiving, but the action was true. You had in your possession that which had the means to harm me. The simple explanation is you were betraying me, but nothing about this life is simple."

McAllister sighed, then, and turned his palms up toward Carus. "I don't feel as if I can't trust my back to you. I don't understand your motive," and here his gaze moved from the two gods floating in the room to Sable, "though I trust my senses on the matter."

"It's an easy decision to make," the Mother told him, with silvery laughter in her voice to match the silvery spark, "with three gods in the room with you, when none has taken an action against him."

"Still, you judge as we did," the four-armed god told him, and a slight movement of his hand showed McAllister the eye floating in the god's lap.

"I had hopes of sabotaging the demon's grip on Sable," Carus said, quietly. "I don't know the Lady," and he nodded his head to her. "I have ears, and heard much the sea-dragon said, in Bhangda and in Marcelon," and McAllister's face tightened at the mention of Kira. "My plan was to foil the plans of the grotesque one. If I had the horn and not McAllister, it could be used to retrieve McAllister from Hell." He squared his shoulders, and finished, "I was aware of what it would be construed as, yet there was no time to offer the plan to McAllister."

"Why?" McAllister asked, then, simply.

"You broke the binding the Rod of Irel held on my bones," Carus answered, just as simply, "and you allowed me to walk on the surface of the world again. How could I not repay you? It is not as if I were risking much, only death."

Nasic blew the air in his lungs out heavily, then, and Arianne sniffed, her expression mysterious. If Carus hadn't noticed her before, he certainly did now, as she moved to stand at his side and claimed his arm in her own. Sable snorted, softly, by McAllister's side.

"This is good craftsmanship," the four-armed god said to Shan Hu and Azer, now floating near the workbench, on the far side of the room. "Come, McAllister, you should recognize good work. Does this seem familiar?" the four-armed god, the one who named himself 'Transformer', asked in the sudden grey light that marked the world when seen from outside of time.

With the view McAllister had then, of the bookcases, the desk, the lamps, and the telescope in the corner all washed in grey, he caught his breath. Meeting the eyes of the god floating in the space inside the moment out of time, McAllister slowly removed the ivory baton tied to his breast with the small laces. McAllister tore his eyes away from the god, then, and met the shocked eyes of the figure in the baton. The drawing of the room the figure occupied was a perfect rendition, minus a few details, of the room before McAllister.

"Why didn't you say anything?" McAllister asked it, silently.

"I didn't know," it, he, Shan Hu's likeness, replied. "I knew I had a soul, how could I know it was only an impression of his?"

"You are older than Shan Hu," McAllister said, then, as the four-armed god returned them to the flow of normal time.

"McAllister, the God of the world you came from does not allow sorcery," the four-armed god told him. "Magecraft is usually tolerated in small amounts, and you should have with you as many friends who can use it as possible." McAllister wondered at the timing and significance of the words.

"There is something about that artifact you hold," the Mother said to McAllister, her voice considering.

"I would like to study your design," the serene four-armed god said to Shan Hu, just then, interrupting. "I will take it with me when I go. You should sign your masterpiece," and Shan Hu, an abashed look upon his face, walked to the table.

Azer started to speak, but then kept his silence, and with a twisted smile simply watched the flush of pride and emotion wash over the young Mage's face.

"How far will the device move if the main reservoir is detached?" the four-armed god asked. As McAllister watched, Shan Hu next to him, the god handed Shan Hu a fine knife, with a slender tip.

"Anywhere from four hundred to about fourteen hundred years," Shan Hu replied distractedly, as he bent to carve his chop on the board the device was built upon.

A brief blurring happened then, too fast for McAllister to make out. He felt the interest from the stick in his hand spike, and a second later, a sense of awe came to McAllister from the artifact.

"Look," the figure in the ivory carving said, in wonder, to McAllister. On the apple branch which Shan Hu had hacked into shape and spent so much time managing a magic flux through, there was now a crudely-carved outline of a face.

Shan Hu apparently did not notice his hand had been used for something other than he had intended in a moment outside of normal time.