by Aaron D. Key
I didn’t think today would be that day. I needed a clear head to sort out facts from suppositions. I began to rifle through the rest of that diary without noticing anything more interesting than how unhappy my predecessor had been. I had not noticed this unhappiness when I was younger, with the absolute selfishness of youth. I had confidence from her diary that Rael had been there when she had died and had managed to do something to help her just as I hoped I had for him. I quickly looked through the other volumes as well. There was no other mention of Rael or of anything else that would help me make sense of what was going on.
CHAPTER TEN
Arranging One’s Own Conception
I needed to get out of this room. Although it was not as bad as when I first came back from the desert, my mind still felt sticky, heavy. I needed to swim to clear my head and give myself time to think. I made my way out to the lake and was about to wade in when I heard my name being called. I turned back to see Koa walking towards me.
In the bright daylight of Herron, he seemed a pale imitation of the person I remembered. His clothes were shabby and unflattering but there was an air of quiet self-confidence that outward appearances could not dent.
“Are you going for a swim?” he said. “I’d love to come with you.”
I mourned the quiet thinking time I had craved but not for long. We walked into the shallow sloping water together and began to swim. The water was pleasant, although there were currents of warmer water and ice-cold shafts. We began with our heads down – no time for talking – but then I twisted round and floated to speak, remembering our last conversation.
“I hope that you are finding being here less boring than the desert?”
“It’s early days, but it’s as beautiful as your memory made it seem. Is it good to be home again?” He sounded like a hungry man asking another at a feast how it tasted.
“I’ve not been myself. I don’t know how to explain it to you, but time is wrong. Something needs to happen, and until it happens I won’t be able to rest, but I don’t know what it is.”
“I wondered why you chose Glant to look after you. I did not want to push myself forward, but I thought I might be better able to help you if you were unwell. But if it was a matter of metaphysics, I would have been useless to you.”
“I didn’t choose him. I think he chose himself.” I laughed.
I wanted to share all my worries with Koa, confess my sins so he knew what the unadulterated me was like.
“You know I killed the man who contained Glant’s madness. He was called Aeth. I have never killed a man before.”
Koa said nothing though he looked sympathetic, so I carried on.
“I think Glant has been under Aeth’s influence for so long he needs space to recover who he really is, space to escape all those people who blame him for Aeth’s sins.”
Koa began to swim again. He knew what we were aiming for – the low grassy island – and when he climbed out of the water he turned to me and said, “What were you saying about time being wrong? I didn’t really understand it. Why don’t you tell me all about it?”
We lay on the grass. The issue of time seemed to be a large subject, I discovered as I tried to summarise all I knew. It was useful to repeat it to another. It seemed to put each section of the past in its own clear box waiting to be slotted into the puzzle.
Koa spoke, processing what I had said. “You don’t know how Rael managed to produce the child that became your ancestor. You said that you thought he would be infertile after a few months with the power, right, even though his son was born at least a year after this? It seems likely from your story that his wife, Elena, travelled in time with the sole intention of conceiving his child. That is what should have happened because that happened in your past. How did it happen?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed.
“And has your meeting with Glant stopped that happening?”
“Elena’s part in this story is hard to understand. When I met her in the tower, she said she had no children.”
“And now she has disappeared completely,” Koa said. “Do you remember my mad theory that Elena and Glant are the same person? Did Glant ever provide any explanation for Elena?”
“I forgot you said that. It seemed almost impossible. Yet there is nothing in this situation that is simple. I never asked Glant that question, though in the desert he said she was never real: a ghost he and Aeth created.”
“Perhaps you need to ask him more directly,” Koa said. “If Rael’s wife is here masquerading as Glant – not in the past, as she should be – that would affect time, that would affect you.”
“Even more so if I am Rael’s son,” I agreed.
“And if Elena says she had no children – even if she was a ghost or memory – is it some indication that you need to intervene – to make sure your own conception happens?”
I groaned.
“The one job no child has ever been called on to do before. I could make it happen. I have been shown how to do it – that’s easy. What I don’t know is the impact this action would have. Would Elena still choose to leave Rael to travel over the desert? She said she left him because she couldn’t give him children. If she had children and chose not to leave, would I still have met Rael? I need to rescue him from torture, bringing him to this world. Aeth might still leave Herron, might still merge with Glant and become mad. Glant might still send Cailo to torture Rael so we meet as we should … But it’s a lot to gamble with – though at the moment it’s feeling like all is lost if I do nothing.”
“It seems more likely that action will improve things, given the problems you seem to have when you don’t have a plan,” Koa said. He sounded too cheerful for my liking.
“Do I seem out of sorts still?” I asked.
“I don’t know you enough to know if this is normal for you but I have to say you don’t look as well as you did that time on the golden beach. So, four things for you to do. Talk to Glant, find Elena, arrange your own conception – and ensure your ancestor is born as well.” He laughed. “Nothing too much to worry about.”
I was aware that Koa seemed to be taking more pleasure in my company than I had expected. This could just be in contrast with his dull days spent in the dark though. I stood up reluctantly. The tingling of my skin as hairs stood up and goose pimples rose reminded me that I was alive: that in spite of the power I was still a man. Still, there was a pain in the back of my head, a great thumping pain that warned me time was ticking – taking away the pleasure of the moment.
We made our way back to shore. As we climbed out of the water, we saw Monta and Herai lying in the shade of a tree. They were asleep peacefully.
“They look like they’ve settled in better than I have,” Koa said. “Such a contrast to my old life! There I had a role. I knew how to occupy my time. Here it is like an interlude with the prospect of normality waiting to claim me. I don’t seem to be able to rest. Perhaps I could help you in your task, come with you to the world that Rael came from?”
I looked at him carefully, considering this request with furious calculations of the risks and benefits. In the end I couldn’t see a problem and there was one definite advantage for me, apart from his company. If I was sensible and followed the rules, he could talk to my ancestor for me. So after making ourselves look presentable, we returned to Rael’s Hill.
This time when we entered the trees it was night inside. The sky was completely black, starless; a round mottled moon shone, illuminating the hill and leaving the blackness around it solid, palpable.
Koa looked as nervous as a man had a right to be for his first excursion into the wider universe. I was also afraid in case I was wrong and my interference was making things worse, but I had to rely upon my instincts, which were telling me this was the way.
I concentrated and the light changed. The moon was now the merest sliver of light wit
h the rest of its shape only seen in the shadow left upon the darkness.
We left the shelter of the trees hurriedly. I ensured that neither of us could be seen. Outside it was daylight, an early morning. Herron looked different. There were more windows that looked unloved, unused. The gardens were partially cultivated but not finished or mature, like a project that had just been started.
“What’s the plan?” Koa asked in a hushed voice as we walked quickly along.
“Rael has gone away for the morning. Elena is in her room, the same one that will be my room, and most people are just rising. We need to see her and convince her to join us.”
We made our way up the stairs of the central tower and emerged into my room. In this time it was different. I was expecting it to be more basic but it looked more like the tower in the desert while the illusions were working. There were rugs and tapestries hanging down to separate different areas. There were more personal belongings. It was warm, rich, and comfortable.
“This is almost unrecognisable,” Koa said.
“I’m going to make you visible,” I said. “Do you want to see if you can convince her to come with us? It is best if I limit my contact, so I’ll wait over here out of the way.”
I was determined as far as possible not to interact in any way with this bit of my past, but I could not help turning to look as Koa met Elena and began to explain. I wondered if I had told him enough, but his explanation was coherent and eventually persuasive. Eventually they both stood in front of me. Koa said, “We are ready.”
Elena looked excited and guilty, as if unsure of the morality of our plan. I felt a shiver.
“I need to see you before I go anywhere with you,” she said into thin air.
I reluctantly let her.
“You look like Rael,” she said with enthusiasm, and I knew this helped her feel confident of my motives.
We returned to Rael’s Hill together. Koa and Elena talked as I concentrated. Once inside the tree branches, the new moon sliver shimmered, faded, and we were back in the city in the broad daylight.
We all stood on a bridge in the sunshine, looking down into the river; the colour of ice and oxygen intermingled into a churning pale blue froth, like a real mountain stream but constrained and tamed by stone.
We were invisible to people on this world but I allowed Elena to be seen with just a faint air of recession so that most people would be aware of her presence but not notice her in detail. Following Koa’s prompting, she was about to hurry down the steps to catch up with her younger self currently walking by, but she looked around quickly to ask, “When will I meet you again to take me home?”
“Rael leaves your house in the early morning,” I said, remembering my previous visit and the younger woman’s wistful look.
“The younger me waited and waited,” she answered me with an unfocused expression, as if thinking of the past, “hoping to return to my own bed. I gave up about two. Come and get me at nine in the morning. Rael was definitely gone then because I went home and it was empty.” She ran down the stairs as I looked round and saw Rael, just as I had seen him the first time, now looking down with interest at the younger Elena.
I decided to trust her to manage events as they needed to be and to return myself and Koa home. The feeling of time wrapping itself around me channelling all my energies into one route made me feel like the churning, icy river trapped by stone, powerless to choose its own path. It was a deflating feeling that made me long for home, long for something just out of reach.
I closed my eyes and silently thought that going back was easy. As if the longing for it in my heart called me home without any effort or thought. In the circle of trees, Koa stood still and expectant. He looked more alive than I remembered seeing him before – beautiful, even – in one of my loose shirts he had changed into before we left. I imagined that for him even the grey and dingy world that Rael came from was something of interest, perhaps even something of beauty compared to the dark caverns of his home. I, on the other hand, felt deadened, and the pain in my head had come back, not worse but not better. I was surprised. I had expected some improvement in my condition from the restoration of the past. At the very least I should have felt a great relief that there was a world to return to – that Koa still existed. Perhaps we had not yet succeeded in our task.
“Well, that is done,” I said, relieved.
“We still need to get Elena back and you need to talk to Glant. Which one first?”
“I think I need to talk to Glant, in case he says anything important I’ve missed so far.”
“I’d better let you do that alone. I think you’d get on better without me. In a strange way, Glant and I were once friends. Not a romantic attachment, despite what people thought, but good friends. Now I think he sees me as competition. He has grown so very beautiful.” Koa sounded wistful and I couldn’t see his point.
“Competition for what?” I asked, puzzled.
“If you do not know the answer to that I see that there is no competition.”
I didn’t understand him and he left without an explanation with a pensive expression. As soon as he walked through the barrier of the trees, he disappeared. Until I joined him, he would be in another time and space, which seemed like a good metaphor for our relationship.
I felt I should follow him before I went to look for Glant. He sounded melancholy and I was still feeling guilty about dragging him out of his home for my own pleasure.
I stepped out into the real world and he was still there.
“What am I missing?” I said. “I can tell from your looks that I am missing something.”
“Monta, Herai, and I are worried that Glant is trying to attract you,” he said, as if reluctant to admit his thoughts.
“Is that what Herai was doing in my room the other day? What would Herai have done if Glant had succeeded and we had been having sex?” I laughed at the thought.
“I’m sure that a subtle retreat would have been in order, and a report back to me and Monta that it was too late,” Koa said.
“But we weren’t,” I said blankly. “No suggestion of the sort has been made.”
“Just be aware that it may be.” Koa looked embarrassed and rushed off down the hill, and I returned to the embrace of the blood berry trees.
* * *
I needed to talk to Glant and to disabuse him of any such notion. I used the power to go where Glant was. I appeared somewhere I did not recognise, although the view looked familiar. He was lying on a daybed with elaborate patterned cloths, looking melancholy. The whole scene reminded me of Elena’s tower room or Glant’s hut in the wood. I was in a Chinese-style tea garden shelter. As I orientated myself, I realised the solid back faced Herron, latticed walls were on each side, and an open front faced the mountains and the lake I loved. I was on my island. My first thought was anger that this space, which I thought of as my own, had been invaded and changed. Before I had chance to express my anger, Glant leaped up.
“Damon Ich, I was not expecting you … You are dry!”
“I was looking for you. I didn’t swim.”
“I was trying out an idea. I wanted to give you a gift. Something that would bring you pleasure. If you like it, it can stay. If you don’t like it, I will remove it as if it had never been here.”
My anger deflated. Glant moved to a small table at the side with a silver teapot on a tray with glass cups.
“Would you like a mint tea? This pot will always be refreshed, always hot. I thought that it would be a welcome treat at the end of your swim.”
The change in his physical appearance had produced a change in my perception of his character, I realised with a sense of unease. Was that just prejudice? Or was it a further step in understanding his nature? When he had been an old man, I imagined that he was looking for somewhere to live out the remainder of his life in peace and the comfort of comp
any. Now, I saw that he was biding his time ready for the next adventure, ready for all life could offer him. He had no responsibilities, I thought with envy.
I had been avoiding him and I could see that he was lonely, but I wasn’t the only person on this favoured planet. And I was sure I needed to avoid him for the future’s sake. The brewing problem with time seemed to get worse when we were close.
There was a connection between us that no one else could share. We both carried the power, and that provided a bond. How much of a bond did I want, though, knowing what I did about his history? These were tricky questions, all crowding into my head at the sight of him, and the greatest question of all was how long could two potent power-bearers live together in the same place without conflict?
“Yes, I’d like some tea,” I said, knowing that I’d given the simple question too much time for consideration.
He poured it out, lifting the pot up high, letting the stream of liquid fall like a waterfall into the cups. He handed me one with a smile. His smile felt old although his face denied it.
“Your appearance has changed since we left the city,” I commented, trying to explore this point. “Is there any reason for that?” I asked him, expecting him to wriggle out of the question as he had tried to wriggle out of the suggestion to leave my room.
“Why would anyone want to look like an old man when they could choose to be young?”
“But you always used to look old?” I niggled at this answer as I sat down next to Glant on the daybed with tea in hand.
“When I looked old, I was not me, not completely. It was Aeth’s idea. I was poisoned by Aeth. He lurked in my mind and dragged away all the pleasure of life. I am trying to recall the person I used to be … so many years ago … trying to remember what life could be like. I would like to be loved, if truth be told, although I see quite clearly that my reputation is against me. Perhaps, though, with patience, someone might be brought to see the true me and appreciate it.”