Chương 175: AF Chapter 174 – The Source of All Your Goals

Forgive me for being presumptuous and asking this, but how familiar are you with the ability of Sources to Make Fate?" I asked Princess Kristie firmly. It was her turn to raise an elegant dark eyebrow.

"Well, two brothers and a father who are Sources…" she hinted at me, and I just shook my head.

"I'm not denigrating them or you, but you aren't a Powered, and your ability to sense Fate and events is limited to a local spiritual level.

"Let's just say that the reason Viamont died and Briggs and Sama, your folks, are now Emperor and Empress, is probably because your dad got just that pissed and figured it was time to take things in hand and get them done his way.

"Everything else extended from that one promise, a Source Oath, probably to make Viamont pay for its asshattery, and his own resolve not to let the world fall into shit afterwards, because the Briggs I know is a pretty responsible guy." She looked at me and pursed her lips.

"Huh," she said after a minute.

"That's… wow, okay, the concept is there, but I never actually thought of dad as the cause of all of it, given how mad mom was at them…"

"Nulls don't Make Fate, they reinforce it. They can stand against a river and turn a Source's efforts to nothing, or they can make of them a mighty avalanche few can stand against. Your dad started the effort, your mother increased the flow, you kids chipped in, people swelled behind the new course of Fate, and together you changed the whole damn world."

From Shamira's memories, it was easy to see the ripple effects going out, the way efforts to help establish what Briggs was doing flourished, and those that opposed him faltered and failed, sometimes by accident, sometimes for lack of motivation, and sometimes by someone with sharp knives cutting an unwanted cross-current short. Making Fate was a massively subtle and powerful engine of change, or lack of change, depending on the Source involved.

"Why bring that up?" Kris asked me, frowning.

"Someone is out there waiting for me, and I'm going to find her." Her pale violet eyes opened really wide, and she broke out in a dazzling smile that really lit up her entire face.

"Oh!" she managed to say around all that whiteness.

"He's going to find me, even if it looks like I'm going to find him!"

"Unless he's specifically got another focus in his life, it's kind of the default." I favored her with a shake of my head.

"Let's be frank here, Kris. Sending you on in alone was a very stupid thing to do. Your younger brother and sister would have been a better match and team, but nobody objected when you said you were going to go in, probably all gung-ho about it, and you didn't even know why or think to question it." Those big violet eyes got really, really intense, and she leaned forwards sharply.

"He's HERE?" she almost shrieked, but held it back to a deadly whisper.

"There was an erratic Portal network out there dumping random people here willy-nilly all over the place," I pointed out.

"That kind of shit is basically tailor-made for Source Fatebending doing its thing. Portals can bring people who are VERY far apart together very quickly. He might even have beat you here, as a future home with his woman would be part of the dream for any proper man, right?"

"And mom and dad already are going to have to work with Ispar!" she agreed quickly.

"A new world would be perfect for us, and it's right here waiting!" Now the four sets of canines were becoming prominent, looking ready to bite and tear.

"Oh, oh, oh!" She was starting to get excited.

"Where is he? Where could he be? Wouldn't he have found his way here somehow, where the only Isparians are remaining?"

"Well, obviously it's not where the only Isparians are remaining," I reminded her. She froze, unnaturally still, like a statue, not breathing or blinking, or moving in the wind, just caught and held like someone had put her in stasis for a moment.

"Oswald's little sanctuary in the north," she murmured, and her fingers twitched just so, black nails cutting at the air, and the air seemed to protest just a little bit. I nodded slowly.

"My guess."

"We're dropping that notice for the Green Hunter tomorrow."

"Yes, that sounds like a good plan."

It was just a spur of a hill on the edge of the Linvaks. It was technically visible for miles, and there was absolutely nothing special about it. It sort of came to a peak, it had no distinguishing features, it was an offshoot of the much larger and steeper mount to the west of it, and it didn't even have part of the unnatural snow level on it. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

There were also only two convenient ways up it, both were very exposed, and he knew each and every place someone might hide. He came in Invisibly, appearing out of literally nowhere, rather bored at what should be just another trip. He had given Borelean the contract and details of it a long time ago, and honestly didn't know if the boy had torn it up and thrown it out, forgotten it, lost it, or simply was still holding onto it, wondering if there would ever be a proper time to use it.

Oswald the Green Hunter didn't really care. It had been almost twenty years now, and he still came to check on the drop point, once a month. It took him no effort to do so, just a few minutes of his time, and carefully checking the nearer ways into and around the peak to make sure it wasn't an ambush. There wasn't anybody around, and whatever effort the Isparian forces of the Vesayans were putting into effect hadn't reached here yet, not that there was anything here of interest to anyone.

He stepped over to the crack in the rock, and froze. There was a stone wedged into the narrow fissure in the stone, barely visible in the faint moonlight. For a minute or two he just stared at it, marveling over his own reaction, wondering if this moment meant vindication or a final, much-deserved rejection. After all, he had waited closing in on two decades for this moment, and now that it was here, he was surprised at his own emotions.

"It seems I have invested more than I thought into this," he murmured to himself, shaking his head at all the odd feelings running through his head, forcibly recovering his calm. He couldn't see or feel any magic about the place yet, carefully probing for it. He reached up and pulled out the stone, which gave way easily. He let it drop, seeing the glitter within, and reached in to draw out the black tube he'd left behind on a young king's nightstand so many years ago. Years, before the Fall.

Steeling himself for the words, he unscrewed the ends of it, still wary, still assessing his surroundings, and took out the rolled paper within it. He opened it up, the lines short and direct. Master Oswald, we'll be there in a few minutes. Don't go away. And then the words Burned away in magic. Instantly he grabbed at space and attempted to flee the area…

and found the lines in space, the path of his life, suddenly closed, the strings staying in place as if they were bars of steel, not threads he'd been able to bend and play and travel along lo these many years, giving him an ability to travel this island that no other force here could rival.

Reeling back from the mental equivalent of slamming his head into a stone wall, he could only watch as a line of stone, merely ankle-high, rose from underneath the rock all around him in a fairly complex pattern, and glowed ever-so-slightly. Trapping him, the infamous elusive assassin and hunter-of-men, Oswald the Green Hunter, in a circle a mere ten feet across.

"Well," he murmured with both steely detachment and amused cynicism, "It appears I'm not the only one who learned a few new tricks." He looked around, finding no motion in the area.

"A few minutes, eh?" He wondered where they would be coming from. He'd heard that the mages of the Vesayans had discovered how to fly, and his trips there had become much more cautious after the word of the new magicks had leaked out. Especially Divination magicks that were capable of seeing the invisible and otherwise unseen, which had folded up a lot of previously-undetectable assassins operating in the island who'd thought themselves untouchable, and done so with a speed they had been completely unprepared for.

Master Oswald clasped his hands behind his back, and waited for his captors to arrive, honestly wondering what was to become of him after so long.

The Mick, Kris, and I shimmered into place not thirty feet away from the master assassin. He turned to look at us, probably feeling the spatial ripples given off as the greater Interdiction faded, but the local one about his containment Seal stayed in force. No lights came on, everyone capable of seeing easily in the night.

"Aye, that's the old fart, sure enough," the Mick drawled easily, staring at a man who seemed not much older than himself inside the Circle there, gone prematurely white, with a lean build and poised air of holding himself that bespoke a master of self-control, and a confidence in his own capabilities that was unfeigned. A dangerous man, and he knew it.

"A nice trap, McMikal," the assassin replied to the assessment, and naturally recognizing the newly famous Black Aluvian paramount.

"What happens now?" The Mick snorted once.

"We see if yer sincere, is what." He kicked a rock there, and it bounced off the ground, and up over the Sealing Circle, popping the containment instantly as it crossed the threshold, clattering to a halt behind the startled assassin. Master Oswald paused in surprise, clearly not expecting the move.

"Interesting," he finally judged, letting his hands fall to his side, especially as we maintained our distance and kept our hands away from any weapons. Well, I was still holding Crown, but I wasn't being threatening or anything.

"Did the king send you?" he finally asked, looking at each of us in turn. No need for introductions, he plainly knew who we were.

"Not so much. He gave me leave t' employ yer services if I cared to, an' in doing so washed his hands of what were t' happen. Mind, he did give me leave t' kill ye if I thought to, but that were likely not his desire. I didnae ask, after all," the Mick responded affably, clearly not worried about anything here, a confidence which gave even the experienced assassin pause. The complete lack of fear and paranoia from us was something to be wary of, too.

"Well, then. What is your reason for invoking that contract, then?"

"As ye can see, the Vanguard has launched. We be shutting down all the Summons in the southeast here, save a scant few t' be reserved for future training purposes. We're going t' be rooting out the Hea an' Gotrok positions, securing everything south o' the Blackmire, an' we're going to finally shut down the shite happening at Tou-Tou." Oswald lifted an incredulous eye at the claims, but the completely blasé expressions on all three of our faces did more to convince him than any excited fervor.

"I trust this isn't a recruitment pitch, Lord Mick," he said dryly.