ÜBERLISTEN

German, "to outwit; to dupe"

There are all kinds of darkness, and all kinds of things can be found in them, imprisoned, banished, lost or hidden. Sometimes they escape. Sometimes they simply fall out. Sometimes they just can't take it any more. -- Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

Diarnlan had been in Byuryan for all of two hours before she made an important discovery. She didn't like it. In fact she liked it even less than she'd liked Miavain. There was no immediately obvious reason for this. She puzzled over it several times as she traipsed to various tourist attractions.

Maybe it's just the capital. I'll like the rest of the country better.

It was the middle of the tourist season. There were people from every known country and a few unknown ones wandering around. She watched the groups of tourists to see what they were doing. And when she saw that many people were going on scenic train journeys -- journeys that, as far as she could tell, were just expeditions to places popular with sightseers -- she decided that she might as well go on one too.

Four hours later, watching as the train passed yet another waterfall, Diarnlan had to admit she was still bored. These waterfalls weren't even as impressive as the ones in Avallot. Why, in western Avallot there were purple waterfalls that glowed in the dark.

Saungrafn watched all of this with an air of disapproval and disappointment. If it had a body it would have been tut-tutting and shaking its head. Diarnlan felt absurdly as if she was being scolded by her mother. When she was safely in her hotel room and away from people who'd think she was mad she confronted Saungrafn about it.

"What's wrong with you?"

Saungrafn sighed and slumped against the wall. You're being an idiot.

"And what do you suggest I do instead? Go back to Miavain? To let Karandren annoy me to death?"

What about Teivain-ríkhorn-hrair? What about Erdreda?

That gave Diarnlan pause, though not quite in the way Saungrafn had wanted to. "Erdreda? That imbecile? You must be joking!"

She was your student too.

"A terrible one!"

No worse than you were as a teacher.

Diarnlan glared at the sword. It did a very good impression of glaring right back.

You left everyone to fend for themselves without even a warning. You know there will be more skrýszel.

"If I stay and fight them I'll just get killed again."

Who says you have to fight them?

That was such a ludicrous question that it left Diarnlan spluttering incoherently for an embarrassingly long time. When she recovered from the shock she gave Saungrafn a positively murderous look. "They're monsters! They destroy and kill everyone in their path! You saw that one kill me when I was here last!"

Why?

Diarnlan didn't answer out of sheer confusion. She looked around the room just to make sure she wasn't asleep and dreaming this whole conversation. Her eyes fell on an unbelievably ugly drawing of what was possibly meant to be a girl holding flowers. The artist couldn't draw to save their life and had chosen a bright red shade for the flowers and a salmon pink shade for the girl's skin. The result looked more like a pig wallowing in blood, as seen by someone who was both short-sighted and incredibly drunk.

That convinced Diarnlan she was awake. She had a vivid imagination, but not that vivid. She turned and glared at Saungrafn. "Why? Why? What do you mean, why?"

Has it never occurred to you to wonder why the skrýszels attack? What do they get out of it? Nothing but their own painful deaths. So it's logical to assume there's a reason they keep attacking in spite of all their failures.

"They're animals! They don't have reasons any more than a bear has a reason for killing sheep!"

Yes, but the bear needs food to survive. The skrýszels usually don't eat people.

Oh. She hadn't thought of that before, and it was a shock to realise it was true.

"If they aren't coming for food, why are they coming?"

Precisely.

That conversation preyed on Diarnlan's mind for the rest of the night. When she finally fell asleep her dreams were full of monsters and cities and staring eyes. In the morning she woke with the vague feeling of having made an important discovery in her dreams but then having completely forgotten about it.

After another boring day of sight-seeing Diarnlan decided enough was enough. She checked out of the hotel and bought a ticket on a boat back to Avallot. For most of the journey home she stayed on deck, staring down at the water and half-expecting a skrýszel to leap out at her.

Her house looked like no one had visited since the day she and Karandren left. Was it really just over a week ago? It seemed much longer. Her garden was still a sorry mess where the skrýszel had crushed everything. Once again her poor tomato plants were ruined.

One of these lifetimes I'm going to dedicate my whole time to protecting those tomatoes long enough to enter them, she vowed to herself.

When she reached her back door she discovered the house hadn't been left quite as alone as she thought. Stuck to the door was a letter. Diarnlan recognised her teacher's handwriting at once.

Diarnlan, what happened? Called four times and no sign of you. Come and see me as soon as you're back.

Well, it seemed she had a choice. She could try to explain everything to Teivain-ríkhorn-hrair and put up with yet more nonsense about talking to Karandren. Or she could run away again and spend the rest of this lifetime being hopelessly bored.

She'd been tricked into buying some picture-postcards in Byuryan. Why not get rid of them by pretending they were a gift for her teacher?

Teivain-ríkhorn-hrair opened the door within seconds of Diarnlan's knock. "There you are! Where on earth did you go?" She stared at the postcards Diarnlan held out silently. "Where did you get these? Why do they say 'Byuryan' on the label?"

"I went to Byuryan," Diarnlan said shortly. "And Miavain. I'd have brought you something from Miavain but I didn't think I was coming back."

Her teacher's mouth opened and closed like a goldfish's. She stood frozen in place as if she'd been turned to stone.

Diarnlan raised an eyebrow. "Well? Are you going to let me in?"

The mage stepped aside wordlessly. She didn't speak until Diarnlan was seated at the kitchen table.

As she put the teapot on the stove Teivain-ríkhorn-hrair finally managed to squeak, "Miavain? Miavain?" She examined Diarnlan's face with a worried expression. "You're very pale. Are you sickening for something? Did you hit your head?"

After so many lifetimes of confusion Diarnlan felt rather like spreading the confusion to someone else. Calmly she said, "I'm caught in a time-loop with my oldest enemy. This is the second time I've told you about it. He's currently ruling Miavain after kicking the Bone-Worshippers out."

Teivain-ríkhorn-hrair gasped and spluttered for several minutes. "You-- What-- This is very serious. Is it an illness or a curse? Can you tell me when it started?"

Diarnlan glared at her. "I'm not sick, cursed or mad. If you don't believe me just go and look at the dead monster outside Boroeyrr Forest. And my ruined garden, too. Oh, and there's a hole in the veil somewhere out at sea near my house. More monsters will come through it unless it's blocked up."

Her teacher collapsed into a chair. She promptly jumped up again because she'd left her knitting needles and a half-finished scarf on the seat. "I think you'd better start from the beginning. What's all this about time and monsters?"

When Diarnlan finished her teacher was silent for a long time. She looked even more shocked this time than the last time she'd heard the story. "So you've died horribly many times before, you're likely to die horribly again, and this is normal?"

Diarnlan nodded. "You get used to it after the first few deaths."

"And your friend has taken over Miavain and is turning it into a civilised country again?"

"He's not my friend," Diarnlan snapped. "He's as far away from a friend as you can get. And he's more likely to make the country ten times worse than to have a remotely civilising effect on it."

Teivain-ríkhorn-hrair gave her a look. It was the sort of look her mother used to give her when Diarnlan -- with crumbs on her blouse -- insisted she hadn't eaten any of the cookies. "You lived with him for two years without killing him. You willingly went with him to Miavain. That doesn't sound very antagonistic to me."

"We spent most of those two years trying to poison each other. And I only went to Miavain because he promised they had rare spell-books. Which reminds me." Back in Byuryan she had tried to stave off boredom by typing out all of the spells she'd found. She fished the paper out of her suitcase and handed them over to her teacher, who scanned them first briefly and then with much more attention. "These are some of the spells from Miavain."

Teivain-ríkhorn-hrair stared at Diarnlan with her mouth hanging open. "Some of the spells? You mean there are more? Don't you know how important this is? These are the key to a magic system that went extinct centuries ago! We all thought it was lost forever! Did you bring any of the books themselves?"

"Of course not," Diarnlan said. "They're still in the palace. If you want to see them you'll have to ask Karandren, and to do that you'll have to get the queen to re-establish diplomatic relations with Miavain. I refuse to go back there for any reason. I want to get through this lifetime without ever seeing him again, thank you very much."

Her teacher hardly seemed to hear her. She studied the spells intently, muttering to herself. Diarnlan waited until it became obvious her presence had been completely forgotten.

"Are you going to do anything about the veil?"

"The what?"

"The veil. Where the monsters come through."

Teivain-ríkhorn-hrair shrugged, apparently not paying much attention. "I'll assemble a team to go and look for it."

That had never worked before. Diarnlan decided against saying so. Obviously she wasn't going to get much help from her teacher now. She shouldn't have shown her the spells until after asking her what she thought the monsters wanted. "Well, I'll be off."

Finally her teacher looked up. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know yet. Somewhere far away from Karandren and other sorts of monsters."

Over the many lifetimes that had passed since he first arrived in Miavain, Karandren had forgotten much of how he had originally ruled the place. But he distinctly remembered that he had taken over the minds of all the important people and turned them into his puppets. He also remembered that he had tortured people for fun.

So he tried both of those. The first one very quickly became a nuisance. It was just plain inconvenient to have to put thoughts in other people's heads. Not to mention how he damaged their minds so badly that without his influence they were nothing but brainless imbeciles, theoretically alive but unable even to feed themselves. Torturing the priests was slightly more entertaining. But soon even it became boring. There were only so many times you could watch someone die horribly before the novelty wore off.

In the past he'd studied dark magic to defeat Diarnlan. But now he no longer needed to get revenge on her. She'd disappeared to who knew where and wasn't bothering him any more. So what use did he have for dark magic? Without his quest for revenge what use did he have for conquering Miavain in the first place?

The history books were full of many conquerors. Some of them had been good rulers, some had been tyrants so terrible their names were used as curses long after they died, and some had left surprisingly little impact on the places they ruled. But never before had there been one who conquered a kingdom and then didn't know what to do with it.

Once the initial shock wore off, and once Karandren stopped torturing priests and left off studying dark magic, some politicians who were either more ambitious or stupider than the others came to him with a suggestion.

"Why don't we form a parliament to handle the government?"

Karandren knew exactly how his past self would have reacted. He would have killed them all and put their bodies on display so everyone knew never to interfere with his rule again. But now that he thought of it, had he ever ruled Miavain well? It had been in a sorry state under the Bone-Worshippers, and he couldn't honestly say that things had improved once he took over. A parliament could hardly make things worse.

"Go ahead," he said. "But keep me informed of everything you do. And if any of you annoy me I'll skin you alive."

They all nodded fearfully. Everyone knew that wasn't an idle threat. The flayed body of a priest was on display at the palace gate.

Queen Lanlinn of Avallot was thunderstruck when she received a missive from -- she had to read it twice to know she wasn't dreaming -- the parliament of King Karandren of Avallot. She immediately summoned the Great Mages to find out what was going on.

The only one not astonished at this turn of events was Teivain-ríkhorn-hrair.

"I thought Diarnlan made him sound much wore than he was," she remarked, to the mystification of everyone else. "I'm glad to hear he might turn out to be a decent ruler yet."

"What are you talking about?" the oldest Great Mage demanded.

"Would you believe me if I told you the king of Miavain's life is entwined with one of my students'?"

"Of course not!"

Teivain-ríkhorn-hrair shrugged and refused to say anything more.

There were places in the world where the veil separating it from the Óhreinnjǫrð became thin. Sometimes they were natural. Sometimes they were formed by something on the other side attacking the veil until they broke through. The second sort were the most dangerous. No one could predict where they would appear next. And no one could predict what would come through them. But all of the holes in the veil had something in common. They were one-way-only. Some of them were passages to Miðjangarð, some were passages to the Óhreinnjǫrð, and none were passages to both.

When the skrýszels came through the veil they could never go back through it. Or at least they could never go back the way they'd come. They would have to either tear open a new hole or find one that worked the opposite way. But even though a rift might not allow someone through, it could still be detected. And if someone knew how, they could look through it and see into the other world.

In her many lifetimes Diarnlan had only visited three foreign countries. Now, for want of anything better to do, she went on a tour of every country she could think of and learnt as much about their magic as she could. First she went to Valuçon, famous for its never-ending variety of spells related to making bread. Then she went to Oureviedo, where a magician had recently invented a spell to make vegetables grow overnight. She took note of that spell to use on her tomatoes some day.

Her third destination was Guraisi, which claimed to be the only place that had invented a perfect translation spell. From the moment she stepped off the train she felt sure someone was watching her. The feeling persisted all day. When she woke up the next morning and still felt it she decided enough was enough.

"Damn it, Karandren, what are you doing? Go away and leave me alone!"

If it really was Karandren he would have revealed himself to make some idiotic remark. Diarnlan was sure of that. So when minutes passed and he didn't appear -- and she still knew someone was watching her -- she began to feel rather uneasy.

She got on the first train out of the capital city. It didn't matter where she ended up as long as this stopped. But it didn't stop. Her invisible stalker stayed with her through five cities and a tour of an underground cave system.

Am I going mad? Diarnlan asked Saungrafn.

I sense it too, Saungrafn whispered back. That was reassuring in one way and horrifying in another.

Diarnlan tried everything she could to get rid of the feeling. She cast concealing spells on herself. She mingled in the busiest crowds she could find. She even went to a church service just in case the watcher would be driven away by religion. But nothing helped.

Eventually she ended up on in a town that she didn't learn the name of, on a bridge near the town centre, watching as boats went up and down the river. In the distance she could hear Saungrafn saying something. But its voice was very quiet and the wind was very loud. And there was magic around the river. She could hear it singing.

Barely even aware of what she was doing, Diarnlan climbed over the bridge's railing. The singing grew louder. It drowned out Saungrafn and the alarmed shouts of the passers-by. There was nothing beneath her but empty air and the river below.

She leant forward and let go of the railing. The river was suddenly concealed behind a layer of fog. A pair of eyes stared at her out of the fog.

Diarnlan came back to herself with a start. She yelped and tried to grab hold of the railing again. But it was too late. She lost her balance.

She fell.

For weeks afterwards a puzzling story went around the town. It said a woman had jumped off the bridge then disappeared in mid-air before she hit the water. The townspeople searched the river but never found her body.

It was as if she'd fallen into another world.