Corin’s shoulder. “My time is nearly done. We know that much already.”
“But…but that was in another dream. In this one, you’re still alive.”
“And I still must move the city. The consequence will be the same.”
“Then don’t move it! Now you know the cost, so make a better choice.”
“And watch how many of my people slain? No. I cannot bear that.”
“Perhaps they won’t be slain. Perhaps they’ll win!”
“Against Ephitel’s guns? Against an immortal god?”
“He can be hurt. Ogden’s pistol slowed him for a while. And if we recover Aeraculanon’s sword…that can kill him, right?”
“It should. It should. I suspect he’s bathed himself in the waters at Aubrocia, just as the heathen Memnon did. Aeraculanon quenched his sword in those same waters, and so slew Memnon.”
“And so will I slay Ephitel!”
“It doesn’t matter! Nothing really changes. This is just a memory.”
“I don’t know what that means!”
“It is…a brief time. Limited. Delaen would call it a parallel time stream, or something of the like. The things you do in this world will not carry through to yours. You do not change your past, only the things that I remember.”
“Be that as it may, you say my past was just a dream. And this is just a memory. I see no difference between the two! Let that one burn, and save this one instead. You have a chance.”
Oberon considered Corin for a while. “Let that one burn? A whole universe would die. Your reality. Are you prepared for that?”
“If I could kill Ephitel?”
“Even if you could, is that worth losing Iryana?”
“I don’t…” Corin couldn’t finish the sentence. “What are my other options?”
“Leave this place. Go back to your world, rescue your pretty slave girl, and remember me. Remember the dream and keep it alive. You alone, in all the world, will have that power.”
“But if I choose this world?”
“You cannot choose this world. That is not an option.”
“But—”
“I know how much it aches, but there is the difference between memory and dream: I cannot change what really happened.”
“Things here have changed. You said yourself—”
“You changed them. You were not here before, so you are not bound by history. But I must act out my own doom.”
“But things can change.” Corin sprang to his feet. “I can change them. I can kill Ephitel and then go home.”
“He would remain unscathed within your world. Nothing in this dream will change the future as you know it. The friends you’ve made here will not know you, even if you find them—”
“But I could change your future,” Corin said. “Even if it’s just a memory, I could change it. I could leave you a world with no fear of Ephitel’s guns. Maurelle would not have to give her life in darkness. Avery and Kellen…what became of them?”
“As you heard, Kellen became my new lord protector. He trained the resistance to fight and to survive. And Avery was mayor of New Soelig, though I believe he left the post when Maurelle never arrived. He wasted years in an attempt to find the cave again, but it was well hidden.”
“It was well hidden,” Corin said. “I suppose that was when he brought the Nimble Fingers to the lands of men, while he was wandering in search of you.”
Corin shook his head. “There. That is another tragedy I could avert. Avery could have his sister, and she could live her life. Kellen wouldn’t have to raise some secret army. You give me every reason to see Ephitel dead before I go.”
“It is a senseless risk. I cannot guess how long this memory might last, but it will not be a thousand years—”
Corin snorted. “I would gladly trade another hour here to buy some peace for those good souls for a thousand years. I would trade an hour for an hour, if it meant the chance to murder Ephitel. Even if it’s just a dream.”
“That would be a foolish risk indeed!”
“What risk?”
“The risk of dying in the attempt.”
“But…I thought this was a dream!”
“Reality’s a dream, and you are in it. Death is death, and more for you than most. If you die—in this dream or any other—you die for real. And all the world dies with you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Corin sank down on the grass again and wrapped his arms around his knees. “I…I do not want this burden.”
“I never meant to lay it on you,” Oberon said. “Nevertheless, you have it. And with it, all my sympathy.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“And I can’t tell you,” Oberon said. “Although I know this much: