A long, awkward silence stretched between us, punctuated by faint dripping noises from one of the machines and a steady hiss from one of the cauldrons.
“Dworkin—” I finally said. “Or should I call you Dad, like Aber and the others?”
He shifted uneasily. “Either one is fine. Perhaps Dworkin is best… I have never been much of a father to you. Though ‘Dad’ does have a nice ring to it…”
“So be it—Dad.”
“What else have you found out since you arrived?” he asked softly.
“Not as much as I would have liked.” I swallowed, my mouth dry, and for the first time in my life I suddenly found words difficult. I had a lump in my throat the size of an apple; it was hard to speak to him calmly with all I now knew. “Apparently you have enemies in the Courts of Chaos, at least one of whom is trying to destroy your bloodline. Unfortunately, I seem to be included.”
He nodded. “Two attempts have been made on my own life in the last year. And seven of my children—two daughters and five sons—are now missing, I assume murdered.” He shook his head. “I do not know who to blame, but I have been gathering the rest of you from all your scattered Shadows, bringing you here, protecting you while I investigate… and preparing to defend Juniper if we are attacked.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded, rising and pacing the floor. I simply couldn’t sit still any longer. “I had a right to know you were my father!”
“Your mother wanted it this way,” Dworkin said softly, “to protect you. She knew you would never rest easily if you discovered your true nature. You would want to meet the rest of your family, pass through the Logrus and master Shadows—”
“Damn right!”
“I became a friend of the family,” he said, “so that I could be near you, guide you, watch you grow.”
“You made sure I learned what I needed to learn,” I said, guessing the truth. “You prepared me for a life in the military. And apparently you have been secretly watching and perhaps even guiding my career all these years.”
“It is what any dutiful father would have done.”
“No.” I glared at him. “A dutiful father would have told me the truth!”
“And ignored your mother’s wishes?”
“She was dead, I wasn’t. You abandoned me! Your own flesh and blood!”
“I promised her. I do not give my word lightly, Oberon… I loved her too much for that.”
“Loved her?” My voice raised to a shout. “When you sired how many more sons on other Shadows? How many wives do you have, anyway? Ten? Twenty? No wonder you never had time for me!”
He recoiled as though struck across the face. I’d hurt him more with those words than I could have with any physical blows, I realized. Perhaps I’d meant to do it—I certainly didn’t feel sorry for him now.
“You don’t understand the way of Shadows,” he said. “And I’m older than you realize. Time moves differently on each world—”
I turned away. I didn’t want him to see the tears welling up in my eyes. Soldiers don’t cry. It was all happening too fast. I needed time to think, to sort through the strange unfolding secrets and half-truths that made up my life.
Dworkin—Dad—my father—came up behind me. He put a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m here now,” he said softly. “I cannot change the past, but I can apologize for it. Perhaps I should have told you sooner. Perhaps I should never have made that promise to your mother. But what is done cannot be undone. Make the most of it. You have your heritage now. You have… a family. Embrace us all.”
I faced him. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“You must have questions. Ask them.”
I hesitated, trying to decide where to start. “Tell me about the—what did you call it? The Logrus?” I said, trying to remember his words. “Tell me about Shadows and how to move among them like you and the others do. I want to learn how.”
“It’s… difficult to explain.” He frowned. “Think of a single world, a place at the center of the universe… a primal source of life and power and wisdom.”
“The Courts of Chaos?”
“The Courts are built upon it there, yes. They are a part, but not the whole. Now, imagine time and the universe as a lake so huge you cannot see the shore when you are in the middle. The Courts of Chaos float at the center of this lake, casting reflections into the water. And every reflection is a world unto itself, a shadow of the Courts.”
“All right,” I said, not sure what he was leading up to. “How many of these reflections are there?”
“Nobody knows. Millions. Billions. Perhaps more than can ever be counted. Each is separate and distinct—a world of its own, with its own languages, peoples, customs. The farther you get from the Courts, the more different these worlds become, until you cease to recognize them. We call these worlds Shadows. Anything you can imagine exists in one, somewhere. Any many things you cannot possibly imagine.”
“And Juniper is just a Shadow,” I said, brow furrowing. “And Ilerium… everything I’ve ever known?”
“Yes.”
I felt stunned. With those few words, he had completely undone my view of the universe—and of my place within it. No wonder Ilerium now seemed a distant, fading memory. None of it mattered. None of it had ever mattered.
And yet… every fiber of my body told it had mattered. I had loved Helda. I had given my heart and soul to serving King Elnar and Ilerium. It had been my whole life… my whole reason for existing. It had been real… at least to me.
Now, suddenly, Dworkin reduced all I had ever known to a single mote of dust floating in a great ocean of a universe, a place so vastly, unimaginably huge that I could only just begin to take it in.
“But it felt so real!” I whispered.
“The Shadows are real. People live and breed in them, build cities and empires, work and love and fight and die, all the while never knowing anything of the greater universe that lies beyond.”
“And the Logrus? Is that what controls it?”
“No. The Logrus is—” he hesitated, as if searching for the words to describe the indescribable. “It is a key to finding your way amongst all the Shadow worlds. It is like a maze. By traversing its length, from start to finish, someone born of Chaos may have the Logrus imprinted on his mind forever. It frees your perceptions, allows you to control your movements. You can pass freely through the Shadows and find your path among them.”
Freda’s words on the journey in the carriage came back to me. “That’s what you did on the way here.”
“Yes. We traveled through many Shadows. We took an indirect route.”
“When can I go through this Logrus?”
“Soon. The Logrus is difficult and dangerous. It is not something to undertake lightly, and you must prepare for it. And, afterwards, it leaves you disoriented… sick for a time.” He hesitated. “Besides the ability to travel through Shadows, it confers other powers, too.”
Other powers? That caught my attention.
“Like what?” I asked cautiously.
“This.” Dworkin reached into the air and suddenly plucked a sword from nothingness.
I gaped at him. “How—”
“I had it in my bedchamber. I knew where I left it, and I used the Logrus to reach for it… to bridge the distance between my hand and where it lay. A kind of mental shortcut, if you will, between here and there.”