Time's Children

by D. B. Jackson

  Once the ship had halted, Ben, Trem, Evan and the rest of the crew went below for the evening meal, urging Tobias to join them.

  He followed them into the hold, where they had prepared a small surprise for him. Fresh crane fruit, brought aboard during their stop in Codport, had been piled in front of his usual seat, along with two pieces of hard bread, salt meat, and five tankards of ale.

  “There’s no getting up till the ale’s gone,” Ben said.

  “And the food?”

  “Eating’ll take some of the sting out of the ale. We don’t want you too badly off when we give you to the sovereign.”

  Everyone laughed, including Tobias.

  It was a late night.

  Chapter 7

  13th Day of Kheraya’s Ascent, Year 647

  They fell out of the Spanning gap onto a broad, cobblestone courtyard. Orzili blinked against the glare of high haze and midday sun, his skin abraded by the gap wind, his vision blurred and unsteady.

  Still, he saw well enough to make out the soldiers surrounding them, muskets at shoulder level. Clutching his sextant, he raised both hands, indicated with a lift of his chin that the three men with him should do the same.

  One of the soldiers, a stout, pock-faced woman with hair so pale it could have been white, shouted a command in Oaqamaran. Two more soldiers hurried toward them, lowering their bayonetted weapons to waist level.

  “Let them take your weapons,” Orzili said in the Ring tongue. “But hold on to your devices.”

  His men glanced at him, but said nothing. It was a precaution, in this instance a provocative one, but necessary. He had no intention of threatening the autarch; he wasn’t stupid. So he had no compunction about giving up his weapons. The devices, though, were their only means of escape should his conversation with Pemin not go as planned. In the event, chances were they wouldn’t get away at all, but with the sextants in hand, they’d have opportunity.

  The two soldiers took a blade and a pistol from the first man, and then reached for his tri-sextant.

  “No,” his man said.

  After a flurried exchange in Oaqamaran between the commander and her soldiers, the woman turned to Orzili.

  “You are their leader, yes?”

  “I am.”

  “Tell them to give up these objects, or they will be killed.”

  Orzili lowered his hands fractionally. “No. I just ordered them not to give them up. You can hold our weapons for as long as we meet with the autarch, but the devices are ours, and they pose no threat to His Excellency.”

  “You give them up, or you do not see him.”

  He’d had similar exchanges with the autarch’s guards, though not with this commander in particular. He had asked Pemin to speak of the matter with the captain of his guard, but of course the autarch hadn’t done so. Pemin liked to keep those who served him off balance, and he often seemed to foster suspicion and rivalry among his various generals and ministers, and, yes, his assassins as well.

  “All right,” Orzili said, eliciting a frown from the woman. “Then we’ll leave. I’ll need you to do me a favor though. His Excellency summoned me here, and he’ll want to know why I wasn’t allowed to see him. If you could explain, I’d be most grateful.”

  She watched him, perhaps to see how far he would follow his own ruse.

  He nodded toward the Spanner closest to her. “If you could have your soldiers return his weapons, we’ll be on our way.”

  She hesitated before nodding to her soldiers. Orzili’s man took the offered weapons, holstered his pistol and sheathed his dagger.

  “Gentlemen,” Orzili said, “please set your sextants. We return to Aiyanth.”

  The three men around him made a fine show of recalibrating their devices and aiming them to the southeast.

  “On my count,” he said.

  “No.” The commander lowered her musket. “You stay.”

  He turned back to her, a question in his gaze.

  “No weapons, but you can keep those…” She gestured at his sextant. “Those things.”

  “Thank you, commander.” He flashed his most pleasant smile and slipped his sextant onto his belt. “You’re most gracious.”

  He had his men turn over all of their weapons, including a hidden dirk the first man hadn’t relinquished initially. This served to deepen the commander’s displeasure. Moments later, however, he and his men, now disarmed, followed the commander and a small company of guards into an arching gateway at the end of the courtyard. They passed through a set of doors and climbed a wide, pink marble stairway to a round antechamber. The floor here was pink marble as well, the walls white, and covered with portraits and landscapes by some of Oaqamar’s finest artists.

  Whatever one might think of Pemin – and Orzili disliked the man nearly as much as he feared him – there could be no faulting his taste in art. Or, for that matter, in music, food, wine, or literature.

  The twin doors to Pemin’s chambers were inlaid with a myriad of woods, all in different shades and styled to resemble a barred lion, like those found in the Oaqamaran highlands. Its eyes were amber gems, and its extended claws were gold.

  Two heralds, both armed with curving swords, stood guard beside the doors. While Orzili waited, one of them entered the chamber. He reappeared a tencount later and indicated that Orzili could enter. His men, as well as the commander and her soldiers, were to remain in the antechamber.

  Orzili took a measured breath and stepped through the doorway, his hand straying to the empty sheath on his belt, which was hardly reassuring.

  He had been in the chambers of kings, queens, and sovereigns, not to mention dukes and other minor nobles too numerous to recall. Over the years he had grown accustomed to royal extravagance in all its incarnations, subtle or crude. Pemin’s chambers didn’t lack for opulence, but the embellishments here, as in his antechamber, were elegant and restrained: a few fine paintings, tapestries in muted tones, furniture carved and finished with practical refinement.

  These touches were, Orzili decided, much like the man himself.

  Pemin had ruled Oaqamar for nearly thirty years, following in the footsteps of his father, who had been autarch for more than four decades, and who had lost two sons to war before siring Pemin with his third wife. In the nearly twenty years Orzili had served Pemin the autarch hadn’t changed much. There was now more silver than brown in his hair, and the skin around his eyes and mouth was etched with thin lines. But he remained trim and tall, straight-backed and graceful, handsome and supremely confident. His eyes were cold, gray, watchful, and unrevealing. He wore dun breeches and a white shirt, his one concession to finery a gold and brown embroidered waistcoat that he kept unbuttoned. The entire effect was at once welcoming and intimidating. Only a man utterly at ease with himself and his authority could eschew so completely the trappings of power embraced with such ardor by lesser rulers.

  He stood now by a desk – tidy without being fastidious – near the glazed windows, a scroll in his hand, spectacles perched on his nose. These were new, and as Pemin turned at the sound of Orzili’s entry, he removed them, held them up with a self-effacing smile.

  “A conceit to age. Do you wear them yet?”

  Orzili bowed, straightened, and shook his head. “Not yet, your excellency. But I make it a point to read as little as possible lest I find them necessary.”

  Pemin’s laughter was as warm and rich. He gestured to a pair of chairs set before a second bank of windows. Taking the nearer of the two, he watched Orzili lower himself into the other.

  “You bear tidings,” he said. “And not the ones I wish to hear.”

  “You know me too well, your excellency. You always have.”

  Pemin’s features resolved into a frown. “The demon?”

  “Our contact in Daerjen says they have heard nothing. The last missive they received from the chancellor in Windhome – by way of ship and pigeon – had the Walker departing for Hayncalde within a day. That message arrived a qua’turn ag
o. If the attack had succeeded, Mearlan would surely have received word by now.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” Pemin offered a thin smile. “Indeed, I believe you predicted as much.”

  “That isn’t–”

  “Important? No probably not. Just the same, I’m grateful to you for not gloating.”

  As if he would have dared. The truth was, he had argued against sending the Belvora, but he had also understood Pemin’s decision to ignore his counsel. An assassination would have been too transparent. Everyone in Islevale would have known the order came from Oaqamar. Such a blatant attack on Windhome itself might have further inflamed passions in the Ring Isles. For now, due to Daerjen’s relative isolation, the wars in the Herjean and Aiyanthan Seas continued to go well. Any provocation might convince leaders in Kantaad, Rencyr, and even Liyrelle to join forces with Mearlan, threatening Oaqamar’s advantage. That was why Pemin had built the Travelers’ Academy in Sholiss some years back rather than simply taking the palace in Windhome.

  “So, what do we do now?” the autarch asked a moment later.

  “I’ll do whatever you wish, your excellency, as always.”

  “Do we know when the lad will reach Mearlan’s court?”

  “They expect him any day.”

  “And you would have me send you and your assassins.”

  Orzili hesitated.

  “It’s all right, Quinnel. Speak your mind.”

  “Very well, your excellency. You pay us a good deal of gold for this very reason. You built the facility at Sholiss to provide the autarchy with the means to combat Windhome and its Travelers. Let us do what you brought us here to do.”

  Pemin’s brow knitted. “Killing the Walker in Hayncalde is barely a step shy of killing him on Trevynisle. It could bring a response from within the Ring.” He cast a glance at Orzili, tapping a finger against his lips. “Mearlan’s navy barely has a pulse. I don’t want to give him any hope. Not now, when we’re so close.”

  “All the more reason to kill the Walker.”

  The autarch conceded the point with a twitch of his lips and the dip of his chin. “You trust your assassins to do this?”

  “I trust myself.”

  “So you would go,” Pemin said, a statement, but clearly one he wanted confirmed.

  “For something so important? Of course.”

  “It would have to be done quickly.”

  “I expect word from Daerjen will be sent the moment his ship docks. We can be there that night.”

  “Fine,” the autarch said, sounding less than pleased. “Make your arrangements. But I want plans in place in case this doesn’t work. The woman is prepared to follow this lad back in time?”

  The woman. “You mean my wife?” Orzili said, none too wisely.

  Pemin stared, his expression icy. “I mean my Walker,” he said, the words honed like steel.

  Orzili looked away first. “Yes, your excellency, I believe she is.”

  “Make sure of it.” His tone hadn’t changed. “It might be better to do this in the past. The boy will be careful when Walking not to interact with too many people, and Mearlan will be cautious as well. A killing in another time would suit our purposes best.”

  Orzili bit back his first response. Angering the autarch once had been foolish. Doing so twice could be fatal.

  “You disagree?”

  I don’t want her to lose any more time. “I would prefer to put my planning to the test,” he said. “We have the tri-devices. We can find the boy, kill him, and be gone before anyone is the wiser. Perhaps blame will fall on someone within the castle.”

  Pemin’s glare sharpened.

  “Not our contact,” Orzili continued. “A guard perhaps. They don’t like Northislers in the Ring.”

  “Their queen is dark-skinned. You think they’ll resent a court Walker more than they do her?”

  “I think resentment of the queen might be expressed in many ways.”

  The autarch smirked. “Not your most compelling case, Orzili. You wish to spare your wife a lengthy Walk. I understand. I even sympathize.”

  He’d been too transparent – never wise in conversation with anyone as perceptive and shrewd as the autarch, especially when allowing personal considerations to twist his counsel. He expected a “but” to follow what Pemin had said, but the man surprised him.

  “Very well. Take your assassins. But be clear: I want the boy dead within a day of his arrival in Hayncalde. Later than that and we might as well send her back now. I understand your concerns, but if this attempt fails I want her ready to follow the boy into the past, wherever – and whenever – Mearlan sends him. Even if that means going with you and your men to Daerjen when you make your attempt.”

  Brilliant though he was, Pemin had limited understanding of the rudiments of Walking and Spanning. Again, though, pointing out his lack of knowledge would have been a grave mistake.

  “I don’t believe that will be necessary,” was all Orzili said.

  Even that turned out to be too much.

  “And I don’t care what you think,” Pemin fired back, voice rising. “If it means she catches up with the boy sooner, if it gives him less of a chance to do what Mearlan is sending him to do, then she will go with you. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, your excellency.”

  Pemin glared a moment longer before his expression eased.

  “Do they know of your tri-devices?”

  “Does who know, your excellency?”

  Pemin waved a hand vaguely toward the window. “Mearlan and his people? The Travelers in Windhome?”

  “I don’t believe Mearlan knows, though our contact in his court might. I think it likely that some in Trevynisle know, but I can’t say how widely that knowledge is shared, or how detailed their understanding might be.”

  “Are you prepared for that to change?”

  It might have been a more complicated question than Pemin knew. The development of the tri-devices had been fraught with mistakes and dead ends. They should have been known to the wider world years before now, and Orzili was impatient to show all of Islevale what he and the others in Sholiss had accomplished.

  Yet he also knew that the moment other Travelers and Binders learned of the devices, and recognized the truth of their relative simplicity, they would race to replicate them. The initial invention had consumed more than a decade. The spread of tri-sextants and tri-apertures to every isle between the oceans would take a fraction of that time. Such was the nature of advances like these.

  “I am, your excellency,” he said, answering Pemin’s question. “I suppose the real question is, are you? They were developed at your expense, by those in your employ. Once others know of them, they’ll build their own, and your exclusive access to them will be gone.”

  The smile that curved the autarch’s lips could have rimed a window in mid-summer. “If you and your assassins do what I ask of you, in the manner I demand, it won’t matter what those others do. A year from now Oaqamar will be the preeminent power in Islevale, and all the tri-devices in the world won’t make a bit of difference.”

  Orzili and his men Spanned back to the open pasture outside Aiyanth’s royal city, whence they had initiated their journey to Oaqamar. He collected their tri-sextants and concealed them within a sack he’d left in a corner of the field, and the four of them returned to Belsan.

  As they neared the central gate, the road grew more crowded with farmers, day-laborers, and peddler’s carts.

  “Time to separate, lads,” he said, his voice low. “Beginning tonight, we gather at the Whistle by sundown each evening. Don’t expect to leave before midnight bell. We might only get one chance at this, and I don’t want to go back to Qaifin with word that we missed our opportunity because one of you was out whoring.”

  He flashed a smile to soften the words, drawing grins from his men. But they knew he spoke in earnest, just as he knew they would be at the tavern as ordered. He’d chosen this small company with care.

 
They walked on, but strung themselves along the column of traders and workers streaming toward the city. Within a spirecount, no one would have guessed that they knew each other. By the time Orzili passed through the gate and into the city, he had lost track of the others.

  He wound through the crooked lanes west of the castle, to the flat he and Lenna had leased for the past year. It was empty when he arrived. Lenna would have been at the market, or perhaps at the waterfront. Their true occupations, and the autarch’s insistence that his Traveling assassins remain a mystery to the rest of Islevale, required that they have secondary talents. He had some skill as a binder of books, and she kept bees in a field near the one to which he had spanned a short while ago. She sold her honey to several of the brewers here in Belsan, a city renowned for its fine mead. No one who knew them, not even those who lived in the apartments directly above and below, would have guessed that they made most of their coin as assassins.

  He’d barely had time to stow the sack holding the tri-sextants when the door to the flat opened and closed again.

  Lenna set a jar of honey on the table in the common room, her cheeks flushed to a warm russet. Strands of silver blended with the bronze of her windblown hair, and lines crinkled the corners of her eyes, but she remained as lovely as he remembered from their tumultuous days in Windhome so long ago.

  “I saw you come through the gate,” she said, music in the voice.

  She was his love, his desire, and, as he’d been reminded more than once during this day’s encounter with the autarch, his greatest weakness, the one element of his life that could unman him at any moment.

  “It went well with Pemin?”

  “Well enough,” he said, trying to keep his tone light. And failing. Of course. No one knew him as she did.

  “Which is to say, not well at all.”

  “It wasn’t that bad. He wants it done quickly, as soon as the lad reaches Hayncalde, which could be any night. And he’s willing to risk having us seen with the tri-sextants.”