Almost everything seems to be in order in Riale's room. There's just one thing that's out of place. A book.

It's a very distinctive book.

Chains float from its spine, fanning out and fading into nothing the further they stretch from the book. Near its spine, they weave together into one great, reinforced chain weave. The cover of the book is a deep, inky black, leathery and worn in texture. It looks old, older than any book Riale's seen before. The edges of its pages are colored with age and use. Hints of scratches dot the cover, but ultimately, it's in good condition. It's easy to see the symbol on the cover of the book, pristine and clear as daylight, even in the darkened room. Its many colors swirl in an unnatural way, shifting like water in a sea, but the symbol itself is unmoved.

"...What the fuck," he repeats, staring at the book with deep suspicion.

"My, what language. I'm almost tempted to be scandalized. Is that any way to treat your book?"

He doesn't move.

"Now, now," sighs the someone from behind Riale. "Don't be that way, I can't hurt you."

He lets out his caged breath and takes another.

"If you wanted my attention, you have it," he says with studied mildness.

"Excellent! I do appreciate it." The someone floats into view, leaning lazily on air and waving carelessly. He's - well, very decorative, and clearly takes a lot of pride in perfecting that art. His clothes fit him exquisitely, oranges and reds evoking the absolute prettiest inferno of all time.

His shirt's unbuttoned just enough to reveal the beginnings of a dark chain, welded to a circular iron disc placed just in view under the collar of the shirt. The chain lazily floats off and fades into nothing, vaguely in the direction of the book. The disc looks crudely stapled to his chest, somewhere where his heart might be found, if one were to look. He doesn't seem to find it troublesome, though he flicks the chain away with a finger when it floats into his vision.

"Now, how would you react if I were to tell you that the world's going to end?"

"That... explains my observations perfectly," he says. "And... where do you and I and this book fit into the picture, exactly?"

"Not a second spent in mourning for the world, just straight to the point? Ah, well. I'd tired of the tears and disbelief years ago, anyway." He floats slowly towards the book, eyeing it with distaste. "Well, if you were hoping for a way to save this world, I can't help you. This world's doomed. Nothing you can do to save it."

He hovers over the book, looking bored.

"You can, however, be sure to make the next one a bit less unstable. Which is what this is," He flicks the book, like he flicked the chain. His finger meets a flash of orange light and is repelled, and the strange fiery man frowns minutely. The book remains unmoved. It didn't even shift from the tiny blow. "With it, you can create another world, that will live after this one dies."

"That seems... worthwhile if not entirely adequate," he says, contemplating the book.

The man laughs, softly.

"Oh, 'not entirely adequate' is such a dreadful understatement. But yes. Correct."

"Fine. Until I figure out a way to save the world I've got, I guess I'll learn how to make a new one."

He snorts a little, looking unimpressed.

Riale raises his eyebrows. "Yes?"

"Everyone always believes that they can save their world. I've long grown bored of the exercise. When you inevitably fail, please, do so in an interesting manner."

"Wait and see," he says softly, with a hint of anger like an icy crag peeking between rolling waves.

Then he inhales, exhales, and puts the anger away, leaning forward for a closer look at the book where it sits on the foot of his bed. "All right, where do I start?"

"How does anyone begin a book? Open it to the first page."

"Thanks," he says dryly.

He picks up the book and opens it.

The first page is blank.

So is the second page. So, in fact, are all the pages he flips through.

He looks up at the sarcastic apparition and raises his eyebrows again.

The sarcastic apparition smiles brilliantly back.

He floats to the end table next to Riale's bed, and picks up the lamp. He looks at it, with only a faint hint of interest.

"Think about this," he deposits the lamp in front of Riale, next to the open book, "and how it works. What it's made of, what makes it function, what it's meant to do, how it's used. And think about recording all of it in the book. In the most clear, straightforward terms you can use."

"Okay..."

He studies the lamp. It's a lamp. It has a metal base shaped like a small decorative urn, a light-stone set above the base in a three-pronged metal claw, a round metal shutter that comes up around the light-stone and a little pull-chain that operates the mechanism to move the shutter. Around that, there is a lampshade made of white glass in an iron frame, shaped like a stylized upside-down flower. He tugs the chain a few times, clicking the shutter up and down, holding the concept of the lamp in his mind as fully as he can. Then he touches the book again, on the surface of the open page.

There's a sort of pulling sensation, and ink wells up under his fingers, forming an exquisitely detailed drawing of the lamp. It looks so real you could almost pick it up and take it out of the book. He picks up his fingers and rubs them together thoughtfully: there isn't so much as a spot of ink there.

...Then he double-takes, because the lamp on the page is glowing. Its stone gives light fully as bright as the original.

His sarcastic apparition eyes the lamp on the page.

"As first tries go," he says, "that's certainly one of the better ones."

"Good to know. Okay, so I can..." (he eyes the lamp and its two-dimensional counterpart) "...put things in my book. At what point does this add up to a world? And how long do I have?"

"How can you create something you don't understand? You, dear writer, are to solve the greatest puzzle at all. Half the game is gathering all the pieces. At the end, you put them together, arranging them in a way that makes sense. How everything that makes up the world fits together, how one thing affects everything else. The more blank spaces you leave, the more that is extrapolated to fill the void. Try to keep those to a minimum, extrapolation rarely goes well. Rather leads to the instability plaguing your world." He inspects his nails, picking at them for some nonexistent dirt.

"You must have noticed by now that it's the first day of the year. The first day, of the first month, of the last year. The world will end on the last day of the last month. What year is it, by the way?"

"3645."

"Ah, so the last creator's toil was not in vain. Your predecessor would be pleased. Do try not to disappoint his legacy, that's an admirable number."

"Well all right then."

He picks up the book and flips back to the first page and stares intently at his bed. Picks up the blanket by a corner, prods the mattress, runs his free hand over the frame—and a picture of the bed shimmers into being, exquisitely detailed, on the page he's touching.

He looks at it. He blinks. He smiles a small, thoughtful smile.

"Do I have to be looking right at something, studying it at that exact moment, to put it in the book?"

"No. It will often be more detailed if it's right in front of you, but it's not a requirement. And you can go back to improve something later, if you feel you didn't do it justice."

"Handy."

So he perches on the edge of his bed and puts his hand on the next page and - pauses -

"Can people go in the book too?"

"Of course. What is a world, but for a place for people to live in?"

Something about his smile seems very sad.

He runs a quick mental calculation. He double-checks it. He sighs.

"Damn. Not even I could meet everyone in the world and put them all in the book in less than a year."

"There was a girl who tried that, once," muses the sarcastic apparition. "The world she wrote lasted a pathetic 527 years, and none of the people she wrote were how they had been. Just false copies, similar in face and name but vastly different in all that really mattered. I can't say I recommend it."

"...and is that inevitable when putting people in the book, or was she just bad at it?"

He sighs, heavily. Sort of like he's been asked this question before, and finds it annoying.

"It depends on how well you envision them. People are, to put it lightly, complicated. You could know a person for years and be unable to capture them correctly. Your parents, your lover, yourself. There have been creators that tried to write themselves into the next world, and their creations were nothing like them. But I would not say inevitable, no. The copy would have a different life, live in a different world, with none of the experiences they've had in this one, and little if any of the memories, but if you could accurately capture all that makes them who they are..." He trails off, shrugs. "You can come extremely close. But the world might suffer from your lack of attention to it."

"Hm," he says. "I should go ask Kanero how he feels about being the next world's immortal emperor, I guess." And he shuts the book and tucks it under his arm and goes looking for his shoes.

"One certainly cannot have a perfect world without an immortal emperor."

Was that sarcasm? From the sarcastic apparition? It's more likely than you'd think.

"I'm sure you've seen more worlds than I have," says Riale. He finds his shoes. He throws a long coat on over his pajamas. He opens his bedroom door. "I welcome your advice on this or any other subject."

"Oh, Saerith is going to adore you," he mutters. "It's going to be insufferable."

"Saerith?"

He strides down the stone hall, glancing out the first east-facing window he passes. The sun is halfway up Twilight, shining dawn-soft where it peeks over the edge of the continent. Realistically, a few hours either way aren't going to make that much difference, but he's still happy to be getting an early start.

Sarcastic apparition floats behind.

"Did you think I was your only coerced assistant? There are nine chains attached to this book, mine is but the first. Saerith is the spirit of air, and will adore you, and it will be insufferable."

"Coerced assistants. I don't suppose we creators are in the habit of drearily failing to solve that problem?"

"No, of course not, I wear this shackle as a fashion accessory, I thought it important to accessorize as I wake up over and over again to watch world after world die. I simply must look my best."

He looks away, expression fading.

"Most don't try. Or care."

"Well then perhaps this round will be interestingly novel after all."

He reaches a door. The door is large and wooden and guarded. He exchanges nods with the guard and steps inside. It's a small and tastefully decorated sitting room, with a curtained archway leading to a medium-sized and tastefully decorated bedroom. The bed is large and neat and unslept-in. There's a further archway, and a light shining through its curtain. Riale sighs at it.

Riale's floating fire-themed companion floats in front of a guard, lands neatly in front of him, and looks him over.

"That haircut is doing you no favors. Next time, keep your mother away from the scissors."

And with no reply from the guard, the floating companion resumes floating and following Riale.

"Sister," Riale corrects absently, glancing over his shoulder as he crosses the bedroom to the study. "Good morning, Kanero, you'll never guess what I—"

He pulls back the curtain and drops the book.

The Emperor is sitting at his desk, slumped forward in his chair, with his face in a puddle of long-dry ink soaking straight through a small stack of what were probably once important papers. The ink bottle rests under one trailing hand. He could have fallen asleep over his work, except that he could never have slept the night with a faceful of ink and his desk-lamp still lit, except that he is perfectly still, except that the world is ending.

The apparition knows enough about the concept of tact to know that he should stay silent, here. So he does.

He stares in silence for about five seconds.

Then he takes a deep breath, picks up the book, turns around, and walks calmly out of the Emperor's suite, nodding to the guard again on his way. Once he's out in the hall again, he proceeds onward along another few sections of corridor and down a broad flight of stairs until he reaches someone else's bedroom, and there he knocks.

His now-silent shadow follows behind him, watching.

He watches worlds fall apart all the time. Practically all he does, now. Doesn't mean he likes it.

After about a quarter-minute, a woman opens the door. She looks sleepy but alert, wrapped in a comfortable robe with her red hair all mussed.

"Riale. What's wrong?"

"The Emperor's dead and the world is ending."

"I mean that very literally. I've been visited by a mysterious spirit who says we've got until the last day of this year exactly, and I'm supposed to run around analyzing our world so I can design the next one. I'm planning to save it, obviously, but in the meantime we need the empire held together and I won't be able to help."

"...Do you trust your mysterious spirit?"

"Yes. He's a little obnoxious but he has good reasons for it and I don't think he's lying or mistaken."

The slightly obnoxious mysterious spirit rolls his eyes and snorts.

"Well," says Vira. "Then I guess I'm holding the empire together for the next year, aren't I."

"I'm sorry to drop this on you, but - you're really the first person who should know - it would be me if I had the time, but I absolutely do not."

"No, no - of course you came to me, it was exactly the right thing to do," she says.

"The other thing is - I can put people in the next world. Well, approximations of people. I'm including Kanero as immortal emperor, obviously, unless the advisor spirits have a brilliant alternate suggestion, but do you have any opinion on whether I should add in one of you?"

She shakes her head. "No, I - I can't even think about that. Do what you think is best. I'll keep the government functioning and the cities as riot-free as I can manage."

"Okay." He smiles sadly. "Good luck. I'm sorry."

And he hefts the book and turns and heads back to his room. Along the way, he presses his hand to the pages and adds in a light fixture, a stained glass window...

"Is there a limit to this thing, am I going to run out of pages stuffing it full of architecture?"

"No. There is no reason not to try to preserve everything you care to."

"Good. What's your name? I've been very rude and I'm moderately sorry but the world is ending and I'm on a deadline so I'm less sorry than I might be."

"Kastimund. I've dealt with worse," he shrugs. "A few times there has been shrieking and cries of 'demon!'"

"I'm Riale. And embarrassed on my predecessors' behalf."

He adds another window, a stretch of wall...

"Ranelin's the next spirit that'll wake up, and that'll happen at the beginning of the next month. Spirit of light. If this works as your predecessor intended, it should be straightforward, I know he planned to have all of the spirits wake up on the same continent. Are there any light themed locations that might house a spirit?"

"There's... Dawnbrook, I guess? How much detail work did he do, do you know?"

"As much as he could, though he didn't deign to tell me the details of it all. Describe it?"

"It's the easternmost major city on the continent. It's on a big plateau right under the path of the sun and it's not in the shadow of any major islands, so it gets a lot of light. The architecture's beautiful and they definitely take advantage of the light thing - stained glass, gardens, statues that cast different pretty shadows at different times of day, all that."

"Sounds like where a light spirit would nap. We should try to be there early next month, to meet Ranelin."

"Okay. What about the rest? One spirit per month, I assume? Fire, Light, Air, Wood, Twilight, Water, Ice, Shadow, Earth?"

"Yes. They'll be in similarly appropriate places, if all goes well. It gets very tiresome, you know, that we must wake up in the same order every time. Avasendai hardly gets to be awake at all. ... Though perhaps that is for the best."

"Avasendai is Earth? What are the rest of their names? ... Why is it good that Avasendai only gets one month per world?"

"Avasendai's the spirit of Earth, yes. In order, Kastimund, Ranelin, Saerith, Laisanni, Finnehalva, Neriantelle, Ilifalyr, Estirie, and Avasendai." He pauses, thoughtfully considering the chain tied to his heart.

"We all have our own shackles, and they take more than just our freedom. We each suffer in our own way, but while Avasendai is a fantastic artist and a brilliantly creative soul, he is also twelve feet tall and does not handle his loss of limb as well as Saerith handles the loss of voice."

"Oh."

"Does yours—"

"Never mind."

They're back at his room.

He goes in and puts the lamp back on the table and sits on his bed and flips to the next blank page and then sits there, quietly, with his hand on the book and a distant, thoughtful expression on his face.

"Ah, but I wanted to see if you would guess correctly," says Kastimund. "I have had entire cycles where the creator was unable to guess it. I must handle it the best of us all."

"Emotion," he says absently, "if you want my guess."

"Am I so transparent? My ability to act must have deteriorated over the years. I might be going senile..."

He doesn't answer.

There's a face taking shape on the page, very slowly at first, but gradually gathering speed. A calm, serious face, staring up at the ceiling with an unnerving depth of attention. Ageless, austere - but with hints of warmth, at the corners of his eyes and mouth, faint traces of a capacity to smile. The body follows the face, swiftly now, drawing itself down the page in bold strokes - folded hands atop a barely-sketched table, long legs, feet set firmly on the floor.

Everything Riale has added to the book so far has been a true copy, rich in detail, shimmering with rightness. This one is no different. More so, if anything.

A tear lands on the page, just missing the Emperor's shoulder. Riale wipes it away quickly and shuts the book before the next one can fall.

"I would say 'I'm sorry' if I could mean it at all," says Kastim. "I could offer a hug if you want one, I suppose. There's nothing impeding the truth of that."

"Thank you," he says quietly.

"I - do you know - is there a way to tell how accurate it is, just from the picture...?"

"If you make one that isn't perfect, I believe you'll notice the contrast immediately."

"Okay." (Sniffle.) "Good. Thanks."

"Ah, spare me your thanks, I'm inherently incredibly selfish. I demand that everything around me at least attempt to not cry at the sight of my splendor in my presence. I'm just trying to restore order. Please, return to basking. It's much more becoming."

He cracks a smile.

But then giggles dissolve into sobs and he curls up around the book and cries into his pillow.

Kastimund looks at him, impassively, and doesn't feel much of anything. There's only so far decent acting can take you.

"Do you have paper and a pen?" he asks, instead. Because there is something he knows how to handle.

He retains enough presence of mind to point at the small desk across the room, which has a few drawers that might contain such items. If Kastimund rummages, he will find paper and pens and ink in short order.

He rummages.

He finds all such items, and he sits down and starts writing something inscrutable in a long-dead language.

He leaves Riale to mourn.

Riale spends about fifteen minutes crying, quietly and intensely.

Then he sits up again.

"I'm going to get dressed, in case you care about that," he says, putting the book down beside the lamp and getting up to put together an outfit. Optimized for practicality, but he doesn't own any actually ugly clothes, at worst they're a little boring. And after that he can pack for an indefinite trip - well, a year, but a year traipsing around currently-unknown parts of the continent. He should find a map and come up with his best guesses about where all the spirits are going to be, plot a route in advance, figure out what landmarks he can hit along the way... and sink a few minutes into figuring out whether it's better to set out for Dawnbrook now or tour the capital analyzing everything in sight first... after he plots the route, in case the capital will be on the way from one elemental to another...

"Not particularly," says Kastim, not looking up from his writing. "I'm sure the view's impressive, but I really don't care anymore." 'About anything' goes unsaid.

"Before you go on the proper analyzation spree, I recommend aiming at me. It'll help."

So he gets dressed. And -

"Oh?"

"Did you think me merely a pretty face chained to a book? I am Kastimund, spirit of fire. The ultimate being of chaos and soul, the heart of creation, the beginning. The crucible by which things ignite. If you think it wise to create a world without me, well. It will be a very short-lived world indeed."

"I wouldn't dream of trying to leave you out."

"I don't believe you could even if you tried," he muses. "Such is the nature of the chain. I am bound eternal, to help create that which will be destroyed."

"This is a really annoying system," says Riale.

"You have no idea."

"I'm definitely beginning to get the picture. So - on what level am I supposed to analyze you for the book? I don't know you well enough to put your personality in like I did with Kanero... is there some kind of special magic thing where analyzing spirits is different?"

"There is a 'special magic thing' going on, yes. Even superficially analyzing spirits is beneficial."

"All right."

He sits down and studies Kastimund, with his hand on an empty page.

The drawing that takes shape is startlingly realistic, but... it doesn't look alive. It lacks the vibrant shimmer of perfection. The only hint that it's not an ordinary drawing made of ordinary ink is the touch of fiery red-orange light glimmering from behind the iron disc that covers the drawn spirit's heart.

"I see what you mean about noticing the—"

And the ink finishes blooming in the page, and his mind fills with fire. For a moment, it's like he can sense all the heat in the world, from the magma in the core of the continent to the sun climbing the surface of the sky. The intense, precise knowledge fades almost as soon as it arrives, but it leaves behind a deeper understanding of the element of fire.

He blinks a few times.

"—contrast," he finishes.

"And also why you should analyze me, I imagine," says Kastimund, a little ruefully.

"Yes. That too."

"The other spirits will offer similar benefits. You should analyze them all, at least a little."

He folds up the paper he was writing on, and carefully tucks it into his jacket. He floats to look at his page in the book.

His drawing is expressionless, looking away from the reader, towards something unseen. The body language is casual, relaxed, but something in the visage looks terribly empty. Like someone that's terribly lost, or too empty to be lost. The deep black drawing of the chain stands out against the careful shading.

"You know," he says, reaching out to trace the chain with a finger. Before his finger touches the page, it's stopped by a thin, fiery barrier, the same color as the light emanating from behind the disc on the drawing. He traces the shape of the swirling chain, leaving a dissipating red-orange trail. "I always found it terribly petty that our representations in the book come with our shackles. It's already chained us, it doesn't need to rub it in." His finger reaches the disc, and he puts pressure on the finger. The barrier's light brightens, but he gets absolutely nowhere.

He removes his hand. The glowing barrier fades, leaving only the glow from behind the disc. "It's downright tacky."

"I have a lot of complaints about the design sense of whoever came up with this system," say Riale.

"'They were desperate people under the ultimate time crunch, and they came to the wrong conclusions about several very important things and handled all of them badly, but they did ultimately allow a chance for there to be a balanced world,'" recites Kastim, sounding very much like he's quoting someone else.

"Fair enough. I still think I would've done better," says Riale.

"Yes, well. It's not like we could go back."

"Yeah. So, onward."

He pulls out a map of the continent and lays it on the desk and stares meditatively at it.

Kastimund sits floating in the air, looking at the map contemplatively. Waiting to be addressed.

"...Highpoint has to be it for Air," he says, pointing it out. "It gets the most air traffic of any city in the empire, because it has three continents sitting on top of it. And Wood's bound to be somewhere in Wildwood province... maybe Glittering Meadow, it's definitely the prettiest forest town available... Not sure about Twilight. Nightwatch or Gloaming, maybe? No, I bet Nightwatch is Shadow, which leaves Gloaming for Twilight. Water is definitely somewhere on the Laughing Lake, either Little Island or Brightwater... probably Little Island. Ice will be in Glass Lake somewhere, probably on or near the actual Glass Lake... and that leaves the Earth site, which could be anywhere in either of our two enormous mountain ranges... but I'm tempted by Sunset Ridge because it's such a neat counterpart to Dawnbrook and it's right in between the two sets of mountains."

"As the spirit gets closer to waking up, the book will point towards where they'll be located. If you're not sure. Otherwise - it all sounds rather easy, won't that be novel. Perhaps we'll even manage to wake some of them up early."

"It's possible to wake them up early? That sounds like a good idea," he says. "Straight to Dawnbrook it is."

"It's tricky, but possible, if you don't mind the ever so charming mix of guesswork and a bit of wandering. Lucky for you, I've got some measure of practice with both."

"I feel very lucky."

"You are. Your predecessor was very dedicated, usually this is a bit more - well. Typically it's less clear where to go."

"What was he like?"

"I don't believe I would know, the man threw everything he was into making this world. There was little left for him to have or me to witness. Ranelin took one metaphorical look at him, and decided to take care of feeding him. He was grateful, and spent the extra time also working on the book. Dedicated and brilliant, is perhaps all I can truthfully describe."

"Huh," says Riale. "Well. I'm grateful for his dedication and brilliance, then."

"I might be mistaken, my memory is hardly faultless, but I believe this is the oldest world yet. Grateful, indeed."

"Grateful and impressed."

And packing. No reason to waste time.

"I should take Kanero's swoop," he muses. "Nobody's going to have a better use for it than I do."

"No, but do please remember that writing the next world will not be made easier if you're a fugitive from the law. If that should be likely to be a result of taking the Emperor's expensive toy shortly after he dies."

"No fear of that. Vira will sort it out."

"Hm. How reliable is the 'swoop'?"

"Very. Did they not have those in the last world? Soars are big and slow and expensive and they move people and cargo between faraway locations, usually on different landmasses. Swoops are small and fast and expensive and they move rich people and government employees between whichever places they are and want to be."

"Magic has the habit of existing in each world even if creators attempt to avoid it, but 'reliable' is not a word I would use to typically describe it. Very lucky, indeed."

"I just keep hearing new reasons to be impressed with my latest predecessor."

"He put everything he had into this world. I would hope that it could at the very least be described as 'impressive,' else the sacrifice seems rather senseless."

"What was his name?"

One bag packed, on to the second.

"Esere. The last name escapes me. Ranelin or Saerith might know, and if they don't, Ilifalyr's notes would certainly have it."

"Notes?"

"Once, Ilifalyr had a perfect memory. Now, she is lucky to remember any details of a conversation she had half an hour ago. There are few things we can do to compensate for what's been lost to the book, but still we try."

There's that iceberg hint of anger again.

He packs his second bag, quietly.

Kastim floats, silently watching. Ah, how the humans act so appalled at the spirit's situation, and what little good it's done any of them.

By the time he finishes bag number two, the anger has subsided, leaving no trace of its passage.

"Can you carry one of these, and would you mind doing so?" he asks, indicating the two bags.

"I can, and I don't care. Though you might, it will be visible for a little while after I sling it over my shoulder, floating in the air."

"I don't care if people see me being followed by a floating bag. I'm sure they'll have more important things to worry about."

With transportation secured, he packs a third, smaller bag, picks up that and the first, gestures to the second, and heads back out into the hall.

Around the first corner in the direction of Vira's rooms, they encounter a middle-aged woman in a plain blue dress. "Lord Kazegann," she says, eyeing the floating bag, "Viralenn wants to know if you need anything immediately."

"The Emperor's swoop, provisioned for a year's journey around the continent, soonest. And an imperial seal."

"... I'll tell her," says the woman.

"Thanks."

The woman looks at the floating bag again, declines to comment, and strides off. Riale takes a different turn and heads through new sections of the palace, filling the book as he goes.

Kastimund smiles brilliantly at the woman as she stares at the floating bag. "Please," he says, pointlessly. "My eyes are up here."

He follows Riale out. "Is there anything fragile in this bag?"

"I would appreciate if you didn't abuse it too badly, but it's mostly clothes, it won't suffer much."

"Excellent, thank you."

He then proceeds to dangle the bag alarmingly in front of guards they pass, watching their reactions.

The guards, every one of them: look at the bag, and look at Riale leading it through the palace, and shrug or shake their heads or glare at him.

Riale finds this highly entertaining.

Kastimund finds this almost amusing, which really makes it worth the effort. He decides to experiment with the bounds of their exasperation, taking the bag in neat circles around one guard, lifting it up and down in front of another, dangling it invitingly in front of one before dashing off. He can get creative. Why not? He wants to see just how much they will attribute this to Riale.

And all of them get variously exasperated with Riale and don't otherwise react.

They proceed through a courtyard. Riale pauses to put a huge and beautiful oak tree in the book. After a few more corridors, they go up some stairs and emerge onto a low roof, where half a dozen people are bustling around loading supplies onto something like a sleek elegant winged boat.

"Lord Kazegann!" says the first one to catch sight of them. "The swoop will be loaded in a few minutes—Simm, show him the inventory—"

A uniformed man holding a clipboard comes over to show it to Riale. Riale looks it over and nods encouragingly. Someone comes to take his bags; he hands them over, still reading the checklist. The same person comes back and reaches out uncertainly for Kastimund's floating bag.

Kastimund hands it over, of course. Why wouldn't he?

He was getting bored of the joke, anyway. There's only so much entertainment to be found in dangling a bag in front of people, especially if they all barely react.

"It's all right," says Riale without looking up from the checklist, and the person nods dubiously and carries the bag onto the swoop without further comment. "Yeah, this looks good, thanks."

"Should I ask why they all look to you when strange, inexplicable things occur?"

"Experience," murmurs Riale.

"What was that, Lord Kazegann?"

"Nothing." He surveys the loading of the swoop and nods consideringly. "Good work." The people doing the loading all brighten up immediately.

"Hm," says Kastimund. And that seems to be all he has to say on the subject.

Is there a good place from which to survey the surrounding area? Kastimund believes it time to look upon this latest world.

There is! This roof has a good view of part of the city, and if he ascends the wall behind Riale, he'll find another roof where the view is even better.

Meanwhile, Riale hands the checklist back to Simm, who verifies recently loaded items and then gets back to checking them off as they come in.

He looks out at the city that will be lost with everything else at the end of the year.

Esere did good work.

He retrieves the notes and pen and begins to write again, while they wait.

This will involve a floating stack of papers and a pen appearing out of nowhere, and then functioning on their own. On the roof, but still.

The city is beautiful. Lush gardens, broad streets, cozy houses and elegant towers. The palace is especially lovely, but it seems... very much a part of the city, more like a flower blooming on a vine than a gem set in a ring.

Riale squints up at Kastimund as the last couple of boxes are packed away into the swoop's cargo compartment. Simm hands him the finished checklist, and someone else asserts that all the vehicle's mechanisms have been checked over and verified to be in good working order. Last of all, a messenger comes out onto the roof and hands over a wrapped paper package, which Riale tucks in his pocket.

Kastimund finishes writing whatever it was he was writing, and floats down to sit in the swoop. The paper and pen disappear into his fiery clothing. He'll write more as they fly, he thinks, but for now he'd like to avoid the questions.

Riale climbs the ladder up the side of the swoop, closes and latches the trapdoor into the cargo area, and settles himself in the pilot's seat at the front.

"Where are you going?" someone calls up to him.

"To save the world!"

Grins break out on every visible face. "Good luck!"

"Thanks!" he says, grinning back down at them, and then he starts flipping switches. A ripple of magic spreads out over the swoop's hull, a pale green glimmer, lingering particularly in the wings. It hums softly and rises into the air. Riale hauls on a lever; the swoop turns east.

Kastimund considers commenting on the wisdom of telling people that are doomed by fate that Riale's going to save the world, and then decides against it.

He retrieves the papers again, and resumes writing. He looks at the city and the swoop, both.

As he writes, he asks, "Are we to go to Dawnbrook as quickly as possible, without stopping to examine anything on the way?"

"Probably. Depends what we see on the way."

As soon as they're high enough to clear all visible roofs by a very generous margin, Riale checks a compass and a map and adjusts the swoop's heading one more time, then opens the book in his lap and starts putting remembered items into it, every one flawless and shimmering. Even the books. It's a rare creator who can make a true copy of a book, even one that's right in front of them, let alone one that's presumably sitting in some palace library while Riale pulls it from his memory.

His chained fire spirit companion studies him occasionally while he works. When Riale makes the first book, he raises his eyebrows slightly.

"Is it important to you in some way?"

"Mm?" he asks distractedly.

"The book you brought to life. Is it important to you, or just a book you read years ago and remember well enough to put to its fellow?"

"Oh. More the latter. ...I guess that's probably impressive, huh?"

"Probably," he agrees, and then he goes back to writing whatever he's writing, uncaring.

Riale snorts.

He continues filling the pages with remembered objects. Piece by piece, he builds up the palace; eventually he has enough pieces to assemble a true copy of the entire palace itself, which is an interestingly novel variant on the process but pretty straightforward to accomplish.

He puts this swoop in the book. This gets him on a magic objects kick - he is not himself a professional witch, he only barely knows the principles behind a standard wand, but he's curious enough to be in the habit of soliciting explanations for how things work, so his knowledge of interesting magic objects he has seen in his life is complete enough to satisfy the book.

"How does the magic work?" Kastimund asks, when he's done writing. For now.

"I'm missing a bunch of the specific practical details, but the basic idea is, with time and effort and slightly weird rituals you can turn stuff into magic stuff. Most really useful magic items, like the light-stones in the lamps, need a bunch of other magic items in the rituals to make them, so it gets kind of involved. Swoops and soars are ridiculously complex that way, part of the reason they're so expensive is because it takes something like three months of complicated ritual to build one once you have all the tools and some of the tools take a month to make and aren't useful for anything other than making flying vehicles."

"How..." he pauses to search for the correct word to describe what he thinks. "Tame. I would almost call it a pity. Some of the magics of the previous worlds were not so tidy."

"Yeah? The same ones that were really unreliable?"

"Ha. Some of them, yes. But many of them were there when it counted. They would play tricks on new practitioners, jest with the old ones. But when there was need..." He has a somewhat far off look in his eyes. "They'd twist and bend for their mortal charges, a wild force scarcely at their practitioner's call. But come, they would."

"That does sound appealing. But it's also nice to have something that just works," he says.

"I did say almost a pity. But I am free to mourn the death of the more adventurous magic. I suppose I'll get to see something less tamed eventually."

"Maybe so," he says serenely. A beautiful chandelier he remembers from one of the First City's libraries goes in the book.

It's hard to toy with Riale's anger when he's not being angry at all. Kastim is slightly disappointed.

He sighs. "So, what adventures did you have in the palace? You seemed memorable."

"I was a huge pest as a kid. Constantly in search of bigger trouble to get into. Taking apart magic stuff to see how it worked, trying to dig a tunnel out of the palace basement... it got to the point where it was practically reflex among the palace staff, anytime something weird happened: 'where's Riale?' And now that I'm not twelve anymore, it's gradually becoming my job to solve bizarre problems rather than create them."

"Ah, but creating them is the best part. But if anyone would know how to solve them, it would be someone that once caused them. Or does still."

"That's more or less the idea. So now, if something bizarre is happening and I'm obviously handling it, no one worries."

"Hm. Convenient." He considers. "I wonder if Esere managed to write it that way."

"Managed to write it what way?"

"In the way to cause the next creator to be experienced in the bizarre. I don't believe he could, but it's certainly a thought."

"How much detail can I put into a world...? I didn't get the impression it was that much. Like, things yes, events no. Do correct me if I'm wrong."

"You aren't. But he was brilliant, and he might have considered it worth his time, to ensure that his work wasn't lost if the book fell to an imbecile." He shrugs. "Just something to think about."

"I'm definitely thinking about it."

Kastimund shrugs again.

"I suppose the best advice I can give is; do not go mad with power. It never ends well."

"Can't say I feel much of a temptation there."

"No? Not secretly harboring desires to write a world where everything is a very fetching shade of green, never giving the other colors a chance to shine?"

"I'm going to save the world, and if I can't do that, I'm going to write one that's even better than this one."

"A fine goal. Should you choose a single color to focus on to the exclusion of all others, would you like me to hit you? See if you'll snap out of it?"

"Somehow I don't feel like that would help."

"Ah, but it might be fun! Well. As close to fun as I have, anyway."

"As much as I support the cause of you having fun, I'd really rather you didn't hit me to get it."

"Ah, fine. If I must, I suppose I'll find amusement some other way."

"Thank you."

"Mhmm," he hums, floating to a stand to give an overly formal bow.

And then he falls easily back onto the swoop to watch the world move below.

Riale watches the scenery and populates the book with childhood memories.

Very pretty, this world. Kastimund can allow himself to be distracted by it for a little while.

Then when he gets bored of that, he decides to paint the sky with fire. Just a little bit of fire, trailing after his index finger as he lazily traces swirls. The little sparks disappear quickly enough, swallowed by the wind.

Something to do. Marginally better than doing nothing at all.

"That's lovely," Riale comments.

"Thank you," he says, a bit caught off guard.

Riale smiles at him and goes back to book-filling.

After a slight pause, Kastimund resumes tracing fiery shapes in the sky. He tries to understand why a simple compliment unnerved him so. The fire he draws dissipates, like everything else he makes. The swoop sails over a beautiful land, and he doesn't find his answer.

Riale slows their flight once, so he can study a river as they pass over it. He puts the river in the book. It's a true copy, and beautiful.

Of course it is. Kastimund isn't even surprised anymore.

He has a dark satisfaction that his visage is the only thing in the book that isn't utterly perfect.

"How long until Dawnbrook?" he wonders, after a while.

"Depends how fast I fly. Not more than a day; at this leisurely pace, we'll be there by around dusk. Do you eat? I brought food."

"I can, but don't need to. I'd just as soon go without, it matters very little to me anymore."

"All right."

Well, Riale has breakfast. (And records everything in the book before he eats it.)

Kastimund gets bored of silence soon enough.

"Are you estranged from your family, or? I have not seen their likenesses in the book."

"Orphan. My parents were close friends of the Emperor, so he more or less raised me."

"Ah." Kastimund considers. "You realize that you could be from a play. Prepare yourself for the second act when your father reveals himself from behind the mask of your greatest enemy."

"I don't have any enemies."

"No? Not even death itself? I would have thought that to be the first."

"Death, the cycle of worldly destruction, whatever chained a bunch of spirits to this book... somehow I don't think my father is any of those."

"Whoever," corrects Kastim absently. "Not whatever. Your sense of your own mundanity disappoints me. Have you no love for the chance to be the son of death and destruction, come to usurp your father from his throne?"

"Mundanity has nothing to do with it. I've never met my parents but I heard enough about them from Kanero to know that it would be really highly implausible for my father to have been some kind of personification of death."

"Mother, then? No need to focus on the male line."

"Also no."

Kastimund sighs dramatically.

"You wound me with your dedication to reality."

"Sorry."

More remembered items go in the book.

More swirling lines of fire, then:

"You know humans were the ones to shackle us."

"Caught that implication, yes. Why?"

"The first world was very different to what now is. Magic was - I have called the previous worlds' magics wild, but they are tame in comparison to what was. The shifting of the continent pales in comparison to the shifting of the faces, of the world that churned and boiled under the terrifying onslaught of what reality was. It was caught between the edge of everything and nothing, balanced precariously on the sharpest knife's edge. Creating balance from something like that was impossible, at least in a single step. But they thought after enough iterations, it could be refined to something resembling stability. Those that lived then could not save themselves, but they made sure to ensure that something could be."

"...So they intended for saving the world to eventually be possible, then?"

"That was their intention, certainly. And in the meantime, they wanted every shackled spirit to suffer. Perhaps they hated us enough that an eternity in torment was a worthy price for a world that would continue to live at all. Instead of everything unraveling forever."

"...yeah, I am extremely disappointed in these people on so many levels."

"Disappointed is one word to describe it. The last thing I recall feeling was unfathomable fury, myself."

"I generally try to avoid getting angry. It makes me less effective."

"I'd offer to lend you the shackle, were it possible."

"Tempting. But if I mess with my motivations, the world might end."

Kastimund doesn't say 'It's going to end no matter what you do,' because - well, he isn't quite sure, actually. But he doesn't want to. So he just thinks it. Very loudly.

"We'd have traded shackles with each other if we could have, anyway. It's not that they are necessarily unbearable for anyone. They are very personalized tortures."

"The temptation is not 'an emotionless existence, what fun'; the temptation is 'maybe if I got a closer look I could figure out how to take it apart'."

"You are free to study my shackle if you'd like."

"I might, if I had the slightest idea what to look for."

Kastimund shrugs.

"I wouldn't know."

"It's a problem, and I hate not being able to solve problems."

"I apologize for upsetting you with the unsolvable state of my ongoing eternal torture."

"Charming, but unnecessary."

"Mm," is his reply, and he turns away to watch the scenery again.

The scenery is lovely. Esere did good work.

Riale puts trees and rocks and small hills into the book as they pass. He's getting faster about it.

Good for him.

Kastimund doesn't seem like he'd like to engage in any conversation.

Then they can fly to Dawnbrook in silence.

The sun climbs the sky, passing from the Twilight face ahead of them up into Light above. Riale doesn't see any scenery he needs to stop for. When the sun peaks at noon, he eats lunch. In the afternoon he starts filling the book with people. Every single one is a true copy.

Apparently a whole few hours is as long as Kastimund can tolerate the silence before boredom wins out against being sullen.

"Do you tire of getting everything in the book perfectly on the first try?"

"Do you expect me to?"

"It seems like it might get old, after a while."

"I truly can't imagine why."

"Magnified sense of achievement when you do reach perfection?"

"Mm. No. I don't have time to be less than perfect."

"Fair enough." Sigh. The end of the world: why does it mess with proper narrative structure. Why.

"Besides, there's still one imperfect picture in this book."

Smile.

"Indeed."

"Has anyone ever gotten any of the spirits into the book perfectly?"

"No."

"Hm."

Kastimund raises his eyebrows slightly.

"I wonder if it would help."

"Experiment with one of the others first. Saerith, maybe. Or Laisanni. I don't believe I'd like my page to match its fellows."

"Yes."

"Thank you."

He shrugs.

Kastimund considers several things he could say. 'I find being known to the point where you could make a perfect entry for me in the book to be invasive and I have little boundary left that I can even enforce anymore,' or 'You're just going to die anyway and it won't even matter,' or 'I don't sincerely believe anything would help anymore,' or 'Thank you for at least respecting me as a person instead of just ignoring my preferences like most creators.' But he doesn't have to justify himself. He doesn't want to justify himself.

Back to silence.

It's going to be a quiet flight, apparently.

The hours slip by. The sun descends along the edge between Fire and Air, casting a lengthening shadow in front of the swoop. Riale pours memory after memory into the book, filling its pages with things he's seen in his life.

Neat. Kastimund will just leave him to it this time.

He looks at the scenery, at the sun descending from the sky, and he writes. Inscrutably.

As they get closer to Dawnbrook, the architecture starts to become more visible. There's a lot of glass. Every building tall enough to see at this distance has huge windows, often colourful, many depicting scenes of rising suns or clouded skies.

"Ah," says Kastimund, when they're within proper view of the place. "Yes, that is where Ranelin would be."

"Thought so."

"Let's hope your other hunches are as correct."

"We'll see."

"That we will."

He considers the city.

"I believe I'll need to be on the ground to find Ranelin. The view from the sky is dazzling, but the angle's wrong. Ranelin would be looking up at the world, not down upon it."

"All right. I'll find us a place to land."

They're really getting close now. Riale has to slow down a little to search for a good landing spot. Eventually he finds one - there's two swoops tethered there already. Down they go.

Kastimund considers the position of the sun, and how much daylight they have remaining.

"This will be next to impossible in the dark. It'd be easiest at dawn, but we might still have enough time to set a record for waking up the littlest spirit. I don't recall ever managing it on the first day." It's the sort of challenge that he would find fun, if he could find things fun anymore. As it is now, it's just an interesting intellectual exercise. But he's smiling anyway without quite meaning to.

"Sounds like fun," says Riale.

He takes the imperial seal out of his pocket and extracts it from its paper package and puts it on. A bronze cylinder on a steel chain, with the radiant-world-in-silhouette symbol on one end, glittering faintly with magic.

When they land, a tall man wearing a lot of red silk comes out onto the rooftop landing pad to greet them. He seems surprised to see the swoop, much more surprised to see the pilot, and still has some surprise left over to spend when he sees the seal around Riale's neck.

"Welcome to Dawnbrook, ah...?"

"Riale Kazegann. Urgent Imperial business," he says, tapping the seal; its faint glitter brightens to a silver-white glow, then fades as he takes his hand away. "Staying at least one night, maybe more. I assume you have room?"

"Yes, of course. Right this way, my lord."

"I'll come back when I've finished my errands for the day. For now, I just need you to give me a map of the city and show me to the street."

While Riale talks to the tall man, Kastimund floats up into the air to map out possible locations for finding Ranelin. He hums thoughtfully, imagines how the light would filter through the windows at dawn, and narrows down several likely candidates.

"This way," he says, floating to ground level and towards the appropriate direction. He waits for Riale to follow, but not very patiently.

Riale goes that way. Kastimund need not fear him dawdling.

Excellent, they are fighting the clock, and also Kastimund has a challenge to accomplish and he'd be annoyed with Riale if he got in the way of completing that. It's convenient that he's not.

He lands and walks briskly and without a care for the various people on the streets. Several walk through him. He doesn't seem to mind, or even notice. His eyes are towards the sky and the buildings, watching for the light and how it scatters through the glass, and calculating how it would change throughout the day. He stops if Riale seems like he'll fall behind, but otherwise, doesn't slow down. Riale is led to some of the largest, most impressive landmarks first, but Kastimund doesn't lead him inside any of them. In fact, after a quick survey of the streets around them, he makes a disappointed humming sound, and immediately leads away from it. They keep away from the main streets soon enough, through crowded alleyways and forgotten side streets. There's a pattern to the places Kastimund searches - small, overlooked places that get little traffic but are bathed in light from nearby wonders.

After winding through what must be half of the alleys in the city, as the light from the sun begins to redden with the hues of sunset, Kastimund stops. The overgrown courtyard he stops in is badly sized and awkwardly placed, a long ways away from any street that could be called a major one, and found through a confusing network of cramped, darkened alleyways. Still, the place itself is striking. Even as the sun sinks in the sky, light streams down at just the right angle through several nearby buildings, casting dappled multicolored rays throughout the little forgotten garden. The noise of the city is distant, hushed but not absent.

"Here," says Kastimund, with absolute certainty. "This is where the little firefly sleeps."

He looks quite pleased with himself.

Kastimund never has to spare a single moment to wait for Riale.

Their journey through the city is fascinating. He's been to Dawnbrook once or twice before, touring the empire, but he's never seen it from quite this perspective. The way Kastimund looks for his friend, the things he turns toward, turns away from... Riale has no idea what Ranelin even looks like, besides small and bright and blind, but just from watching Kastimund's search, he feels like he knows enough to start a page in the book already.

He doesn't say so. All he says, when Kastimund finds the place at last, is: "Nicely done."

"No trouble at all," he assures. "Now, if you will please keep quiet and watch me work."

He steps into the center of the courtyard, clearing his throat theatrically.

"Ranelin!" he calls, his voice echoing through the small space. He barely raised his voice, but it cuts through the quiet with clarity and distinction. "Little light that outshines every sun. You've slept too long, dearest firefly. Three thousand years is too long for the brightest jewel to hide! Come, join us, illuminate this newest world with your shining heart. Help us create a greater world than this. Wake up."

For a moment there isn't a sound but the lingering echoes of Kastimund's voice. The courtyard is quiet and still, and empty of everyone but Riale and Kastimund.

And then a small, shining spark of light coalesces in the air into a tiny form, not more than nine inches tall. The light that the figure gives off burns white, and then fades. Revealed is a slight creature dressed in a shimmering iridescent raiment that looks white until its wearer moves, and then hints of blue and green and yellow glitter in the fading sun. She - he? it's hard to tell, Ranelin lacks any distinguishing characteristics of either gender - turns, and looks towards the direction of the voice. Though 'looks' isn't the correct word to use - the shackle for the light spirit covers both eyes like a blindfold, a dark stain on the otherwise glittering spirit.

"Kastimund?" says Ranelin, smiling. "How - it's so early! And the world's so old - what year is it-?"

"3645, on the first day of the year." He smiles, and reaches out a hand, nudging his companion gently in the arm with a finger. "Welcome to the waking world, firefly."

"That's the oldest one yet! And you've found me so early! How did you even-?"

Ranelin takes hold of the offered hand, grinning.

"Ah-ah, Ranelin, you've missed the most important detail of all."

He gently leads the little spirit to his shoulder.

"What's that?"

And from the shoulder he gets a very tiny hug. Hug!

"In this latest language, your name," he says, with great gravitas, "is a pun."

"Wh- oh! Oh it is!" The spirit giggles. "'Linn' for rain and 'faralinn' is rainbow!"

"Yes. I thought you'd like it."

Giggle-nod.

"Now, allow me to introduce you - Ranelin, this is Riale, the latest creator. Riale, this is Ranelin."

"Delighted to meet you," he says, bowing formally to the tiny spirit. "How do you feel about saving the world?"

"Oh, I, I would like nothing more than to break the cycle into itty bitty pieces! Kastim, could you -?"

Kastimund gently leads his tiny charge off of his shoulder and in front of Riale, carefully expressionless.

"Hello!" Ranelin calls up to Riale, aiming for the direction of his voice. "Likewise - how much has Kastim told you, has he mentioned the Blade of the Void yet? Probably not, he never does, but maybe you talked him into it?"

"We haven't talked much. Do tell me all about the Blade of the Void. Is it as ominous as it sounds?"

"Yes. It's what destroys the world."

"Well. Anything else?"

"It's meant to help end the cycle somehow, but I'm not sure how. It's only appeared in the final moments of the final day."

"How inconsiderate of it."

"Yes."

"But!" insists Ranelin, chin lifting with stubbornness. "If any world has a chance so far, it's this one."

Kastimund is wearing a long suffering expression that says his opinion of the proceedings, but he stays silent.

"Yes," says Riale, "I think so too."

"So, I think I'm going to wander around Dawnbrook recording things in the book for a while, then stay the night at the inn where I left the swoop and set off for Highpoint in the morning to look for Saerith. Sound like a plan? And do you mind if I start your page first?"

She nods.

"That all sounds okay," she agrees. "And I can help with my page, I know the things that confused the other creators about me."

"What things confused the other creators about you?"

"The biggest one was whether I was male or female. A few of them were too afraid to ask about it and tried to guess or figure it out through some weird methods. Kastim just let them be confused and I didn't realize it mattered." Pause. "I'm neither, I'm a spirit, I just am. But if you need to pick one, I think female's closer than male because I help make worlds, and that's kind of like making children?"

"I mean, men help make children too, I've heard," says Riale. "But I see what you mean."

"You can use whichever one you think's best," shrugs Ranelin.

"Putting things in the book requires me to see them as they are," says Riale. He flips to an empty page. "Were there any other common sources of confusion?"

"The way I look at things tends to confuse them too, but I'm not sure how to describe what confused them about it."

"I would describe it as a disinclination to pay attention to how other people work and attempt to fit in. Combined with a truly impressive amount of blunt force trauma, applied directly through conversation."

"I think I might be too small to properly apply blunt force trauma," says Ranelin. "The force would be too directed and it just becomes piercing."

"Also very literal."

"Hmm," says Riale, smiling at the page.

Ink blooms under his fingers, spreading out and settling into the shape of a little spirit. Depicted at actual size - the book's big enough.

He doesn't know Ranelin well enough to put down a true copy yet, but he thinks he could. It might not even take him very long.

The light that shines from the image's iron-covered eyes is much brighter than Kastimund's glimmer of fire.

"Two imperfect pages," he says when he lifts his hand. "But I think I have you down better than Kastimund. Not bad for my first day."

"Oh, all of your other pages are perfect?" says Ranelin, surprised.

"They are. And - yes, you do. Despite the element, her page is not naturally brighter than any other."

Riale lifts the chunk of filled pages away from the cover of the book and drags his thumb up the stack of their edges, freeing them rapidly to settle back against the cover and producing an extended riffling sound that might give Ranelin an idea of how busy he's been today.

"Oh my." And then a large grin breaks out on Ranelin's face, directed straight at Riale.

"You've been busy!"

"It was a long flight here from First City and I didn't have much else to do!"

"What was the saying for the trouble with leaving your mouth open?" wonders Kastim. "Something about catching insects..."

Ranelin closes her mouth.

"How did you do that from memory?" she asks, amazed.

"I mean, not all of it. But - I don't know, I just think about my memory of something familiar, and then I tell it to the book. And I don't try to put in anything that I don't remember well enough. I'm definitely getting better at it; I think this morning when I'd only done it a couple of times I wouldn't have been able to go straight to building the whole imperial palace."

"Putting in something you don't remember well enough to get perfect is better than not putting the thing in at all."

"When I run out of things I remember well enough to get perfect, I'll go back for the rest."

"Well, okay. Whatever works for you. You're doing well, anyway."

"Thanks. I try."

He turns the page and puts in the garden. It's a lovely garden, and looking deeply at things is second nature already.

Ranelin can't, of course, see this.

"Do we know where to go to look for the others? Esere had wanted it to be easy."

"We have some idea, yes. It seems like it will be as easy as he wanted. At least for now."

"Oh. Good."

"I know what city to look for Saerith in, and I've got Laisanni narrowed down at least to the province and probably the town, and I've got a good guess at the town for Finnehalva - it's right near where I'm expecting to find Saerith, actually, but I get the impression we can't do this out of order?"

"It would be much easier that way, which of course is why we cannot."

He shrugs. "I'll worry about that if we take longer than a day to find Laisanni," he says, and looks around for something else to put in the book. There's a lovely stained glass window over on that building! He steps closer to inspect it.

"... Where are you going?" wonders Ranelin.

"He's distracted capturing the beauty of where you woke up in the book."

"Oh."

Kastimund immediately regrets his word choice, because -

"What does it look like?"

He closes his eyes briefly, then:

"The city we stand in is called Dawnbrook, and I think the name apt. Even now, as the sun begins to set, every building is bathed in light, but they do not let it die upon their surface. Every building has windows, catching and altering the light from every angle. Stained glass is common place, casting flecks of color that paint the streets in kaleidoscopes and rainbows. Gardens garnish near every side street, flowers just beginning to bloom, even so early in the year. This is a place of warmth, elsewhere winter hasn't even begun to consider departing, to give way to spring. Here, it abandoned its hold near immediately." His voice is soft and smooth, and doesn't waver as he speaks. Perhaps it's a blessing that comes with his curse, or perhaps he's just naturally gifted in oration.

"You slept near the heart of this city of radiant light and color. Not in the impersonal or enormous monuments to human creation, but in a quiet courtyard found off of half a dozen cluttered alleys, in view of them all. A little world that has been left to grow as it likes, without the oversight of a custodian. Here, one can look without being overwhelmed by awe or majesty. Here, one can sit and bask in the beauty of the life that grows under the care of the sun, and the beauty of the life that grows to transcend it. Here is a place of quiet, where one can stop to catch their breath."

"Oh," sighs Ranelin. "It's beautiful."

Tears leak from under the spirit's shackle, but a smile graces her face.

"Did you expect anything but?" asks Kastimund, brushing away stray tears.

"No." Ranelin wipes at her face, sniffling.

"I think I'm going to wander around putting things in the book for a couple of hours now. Do you want to come along or what?"

"I, um. Do you mind if I come with you?"

"I'd be delighted."

"Okay. Do you mind if I sit on your shoulder?"

"Not at all!"

"All right." Her tears are mostly dry now, and Kastimund dutifully guides her to Riale.

"Firefly?" asks Kastimund, once his charge is safely on Riale's shoulder.

"I'm okay."

"Then I believe I'll see what there is to see of the city."

"Okay. Have fun."

And Riale wanders off toward the nearest interesting landmark.

"Do you want me to tell you about the things I'm putting in the book?"

"If it's not too much trouble," demurs Ranelin.

Kastimund departs.

"No trouble at all!" he says. "So the window I put in just now, it was this huge kind of oval-shaped thing showing a waterfall in a forest. Lots of green and blue, really amazing detail work. Landscapes are just about my favourite kind of visual art, I'm not sure why, it's hard for me to pin down what I think about art in a way I can articulate... there were little bubbles in the white glass around the waterfall, I'm pretty sure it was on purpose because there weren't flaws like that anywhere else in the piece. Made it sparkle. It's a west-facing window so it's still in the sun a little; I think I caught it at exactly the right time to see it at its best."

Ranelin listens raptly. "I like landscapes and architecture," she says. "Large sweeping pieces where you can see for miles. And then if you have more than one in the same room, it's like you can step to different worlds." She smiles. "I think you saw it at the right time, too, too much light directly on stained glass from the outside can make it all seem dull and flat. From the inside of the building, it's a bit different."

"Architecture is cool," says Riale. "Ooh - that's Rose Mountains granite, what's it doing all the way over here? The Rose Mountains are a mountain range in the northwest, lots of beautiful pink granite, I can't imagine how much it must have cost to fly this much of it all the way across the continent but I also can't argue with the results... it's a big stone building made of rough granite blocks with huge arched double doors, I think that's mahogany, what is this, a library—? No, it's a museum. Dawnbrook Museum of Natural History. You know, I bet a natural history museum is a great place to look for things to put in the book."

"I bet it is!" she agrees, clearly delighted with his commentary. "Shall we go look?"

"Let's!"

The museum is just closing. Riale explains that he's on urgent Imperial business and needs to look around inside. Can his urgent Imperial business not come back tomorrow? No, he's setting off for Highpoint first thing in the morning. Well, all right then, in you go. This isn't anything dangerous, is it...? He assures her that it's nothing she needs to worry about, and promises not to disturb any exhibits or leave any lights on. As soon as the door shuts behind them, he starts describing the front hall to Ranelin.

"Huge windows, of course, on all sides, mostly plain glass but they've got the panels set in this lovely honeycomb pattern. There's a skylight, too, same style, this place must be incredible around midday, I wonder if it's right under the sun's path...?" He checks his city map. "No, looks like we're on the south end of town, so there'd be a bit of an angle. And there's other buildings blocking our view of the Twilight face out the east side, so it's probably nothing special at dawn, you'd need to wait until around midmorning before it started getting direct sunlight... Dawnbrook being Dawnbrook, though, I'm sure even the indirect light makes for an amazing show. The floor's all polished granite, I have no idea how they keep it this shiny, it might be enchanted. Who had this much money to spend building an extravagantly gorgeous museum? Whoever they are, I love them and want to be their friend."

Ranelin giggles, then considers.

"I think I can make enough light to send through the windows. Do you want to see what they're like when they're lit up? I can probably only do one at a time, and I'll need to know where it is..."

"That sounds amazing," he says. "I can bring you to them - here..."

He goes up to the east-facing window.

She carefully floats up to touch the window, keeping a steadying hand on Riale's arm.

And then dazzling white shines through it, iridescent and glittering. The honeycomb pattern catches a thousand shifting colors, brilliant and radiant.

"Does that work okay?" she asks. "Not too bright?"

"It's amazing."

"Good!"

"I'm putting it in the book like this."

He does that. It's gorgeous.

Ranelin smiles brilliantly, looking delighted.

"Let me know when you want me to do another!"

"I bet the doors will be even better—they're over here—"

Doors.

Light!

"I was right! They're even better!" He puts them in the book. "...It occurs to me that people might be weirded out by the glowing museum and we should maybe cut it out and go look at elephant bones!"

"Oh. Yes, that might be alarming." She dismisses the light, and returns to Riale's shoulder.

"Worth it, though. That was so pretty."

He continues into the museum.

"Aww, they've got a stained glass model of the world's shell with all the faces coloured appropriately, that's cute, I'm putting it in the book... you can really tell this is a Dawnbrook museum..."

Ranelin giggles.

"I like it."

"Dawnbrook's a good place."

He keeps going.

"Oh, that's lovely... there's another model of the world, and it's, really tall? Like, it's in the middle of this big open space where there's stairs up to the second and third floors and it's like a balcony all around, and this hollow glass world goes all the way up almost to the roof, and it's got glass continents hanging inside it... I'm gonna go up the stairs so I can see the top of the mainland properly."

"Oh," murmurs Ranelin. "That sounds amazing. If very delicate. Esere must have done something to keep weather very mild, or they've made advances in architecture for stability - probably both, you've had more time than most worlds..."

He climbs a flight of stairs.

"From the second floor I can see the mainland... the whole world's hanging from a chain attached to the ceiling, it looks pretty well anchored, but Golden Plains has the mildest weather in the whole empire anyway, and they don't get earthquakes, I bet it's not a huge concern... anyway, so the continent. They don't have anything political marked, it's all just geography, but I can still tell where everything is. Golden Plains is along the eastern edge, it's pretty flat and grassy, lots of green and yellow, and then the Dawnbrook plateau coming up in the northeast, right in the path of the sun. Over to the southwest is Dusty Hills, which is rockier, more greys and browns - wow, they didn't just make it bumpy to represent the hills, I think those are all to scale... there's only one mountain in Dusty Hills province but it's a big one, that's where we'll find the city of Highpoint tomorrow. Up above Highpoint there's three province-sized continents pretty close by; Heron River in the northeast, then Jeweled Sea a little higher up in the southeast and Rainmere a ways higher up in the west..."

"Do you know if they have smaller models, somewhere? Maybe not made of glass, but shaped and textured like the continent."

"They might... let me get this in the book and then we can go check." He's quiet for a few seconds. "There."

"If they don't, I can show you how to make one from the copy you have. Did Kastim mention you can do that yet?"

"No. I can do that?"