UMSONST

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

Die Schatten werden länger (The shadows become longer)

Es ist fünf vor zwölf (It's five to twelve

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

-- Elisabeth das Musical, Die Schatten werden länger (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 Óhreinnjǫrð 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.

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 jǫtunn 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.

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.

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 jǫtunn 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 skrýszel Diarnlan intended to go back to Sólbjǫrgvegr. 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 skrýszel 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.

Skrýszel 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 skrýszel. 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 skrýszel at all or a different sort of monster. For that matter the definition of skrýszel was still unclear.

Diarnlan stopped her thoughts there before she got distracted by pondering what a skrýszel 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. Skrýszel 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 skrýszel 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.

That was the longest battle against any skrýszel. 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 Sólbjǫrgvegr.

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.

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 Sólbjǫrgvegr 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.

Sólbjǫrgvegr crumbled. Karandren died.

Karandren opened his eyes.