The Sea of Time - eARC

by P. C. Hodgell

  “Maybe, maybe not. Everyone, clear the foredeck.”

  While the others retreated to the waist (Timmon, reluctantly), Jame ransacked her memory for master runes. The Book Bound in Pale Leather was out of her hands, still hidden in the cave behind Mount Alban where the thing that was once Bane sat guard over it. In her mind, however, she flipped over its pages, quickly so as to recognize but not accidentally animate any of its dire sigils.

  Nothing, nothing, nothing…

  Then it came to her: the Great Dance, which even now her mother had perverted, the one intended to direct the power of the temples, of their god itself. Trinity, how long it had been since she had first learned that fearsome variant of the Senetha in Perimal Darkling, taught by golden-eyed shadows. More recently, she had danced in the Tastigon temple after its priest Ishtier had lost control of it.

  Child, you have perverted the Great Dance as your namesake did before you, the Arrin-ken Immilai had said in the Ebonbane afterward, passing judgment on her. You have also usurped a priest’s authority and misused a master rune. We conclude that you are indeed a darkling, in training if not in blood. On the whole, your intentions have been good, but your behavior has been reckless to the point of madness and your nascent powers barely under control.

  Three days before, she had nearly destroyed Tai-tastigon.

  Then there was Karkinaroth crumpling behind her, but that had been Tirandys’ fault for sealing its temple’s priests in until they died.

  Darkling… No one had called her that in a long time. Tentir had almost made her forget. Nonetheless, she still was one, as the Arrin-ken had said, in training if not in blood.

  The dust billowed closer. Lightning flashed within it from cloud to cloud and blue fire crept, crackling, up the boat’s rigging. Jame snapped her fingers, and smiled ruefully at the resulting spark.

  Tai-tastigon had survived her.

  Karkinaroth hadn’t been her fault.

  “Your friend Marc warned me that I would probably find the Riverland reduced to rubble and you in the midst of it, looking apologetic.”

  Tentir had only been slightly damaged.

  Langadine was dying anyway. No one could blame her for that—could they?

  G’ah, don’t think of it.

  She might be both a darkling and a potential nemesis, but destruction had its role to play too, as Granny Sit-by-the-Fire had said. Her duty now lay with those still alive.

  She could feel the power looming over her. Rather than the fierce torrent that she had experienced with other temples, it was thick and clogged with the debris that made it visible, as if the newly awakened edifice were expelling its own afterbirth. The moon and stars dimmed, then disappeared. Jame saluted the on-rolling darkness, turning the gesture into one of defiance. Time to dance.

  Glide, dip, turn…

  Each move summoned power and expelled it. Violet flames ran down her limbs and crackled at her fingertips. Freed of its cap, her braided hair cracked like whips as she spun. Blue lightning snapped from the ship’s rigging to be met by a blinding return stroke from the roiling clouds. As one, the moas flopped over to hide heads under wings. Jame barely noticed. Darkness arched over the boat and pressed down. The mast groaned, but the light flaring at its tip held the shadows at bay. Her dance was creating a space within the clouds, a partial haven from their crushing weight.

  An oar shattered. Cadets hastily withdrew and shipped the rest, then went back to holding their ears against the relentless pressure.

  Whomp!

  Suddenly they were falling, but only a few feet. The sea had been driven back, leaving their keel on its salty bottom among flopping fish.

  Just as abruptly, the weight lifted. Jame fell to her knees on the prow. Dark stars splashed between her shaking gloved hands: her nose and ears were bleeding.

  “Mommy, is it over?” asked Lanek in a piping voice through a mask of tears and snot.

  “Not quite,” said Gorbel, looking out to sea. “Hold on. Here it comes!”

  The sea was returning in a towering wave, flinging whitecaps and fish off of its crest as it came. It rolled under the boat’s stern, pitching it upward and nearly flinging out its passengers. The moas screamed. So did Lady Kalan.

  The wave rolled on, driving the clouds before it up through the broken tiers of the city. Then back it came, dragging the dead with it. Jame clung to the rail staring down into all of those blank, smashed faces. The ship bobbed in a sea of corpses. Over all, power still roiling about its base, loomed the black temple crowned by the gibbous moon.

  The wind returned in a swirl of tattered gold, not quite landing on the deck beside her.

  “You were right,” said the Old Man in a tone of wonder. “It didn’t hurt at all.”

  “You think not? Look.”

  The Tishooo stared down, his seamed face going slack with shock, then taut with outrage. “Oh, my poor people, my poor city! Who has done this terrible thing?”

  That, thought Jame, was a good question. Hers was supposedly a sentient god, yet his actions seemed mindless. All of this destruction—to what end? A temple had come to life, and in the process had slaughtered an innocent population. Where was the justice in that? Never mind that he might be said to have saved his own people through her actions. But honor didn’t only apply within the Kencyrath, whatever some Kencyr like Caldane believed—did it? Not to her understanding. Was such an action any worse than what Perimal Darkling had done to the previous world, through the agency of the Master and the Dream-weaver? Were they also only tools, and if so, of whom? What difference was there, after all, between the Shadows and the Three-Faced God? Did her own people also worship a monster?

  “There,” she said, dragging herself upright and pointing at the tower.

  The Tishooo breathed deep, and the air flexed with him, in and out of her own lungs until her head spun.

  Then he was gone.

  Jame couldn’t see his progress directly, but the clouds around the base of the tower recoiled. Something buffeted them, then drove them back round and around the temple’s black shaft, higher and higher. The embedded dead seemed to rise with the blast as if they were storming their destroyer. The wind drew tighter and grew faster, dispersing the clouds of god-power. The tower cracked. Massive shards toppled off of it, plummeting into the chaos below. Then it shattered and fell.

  “Good,” said Jame, and collapsed.

  III

  Jame woke to a still night, broken only by the dip and splash of oars. She still lay on the foredeck, but now under an assortment of cadet jackets with one rolled up under her head. Trinity, how long had she been asleep? The moon had set and the stars were obscured by haze. Glassy water stretched out on all sides of the boat to a featureless horizon.

  Brier stood nearby, at the prow. At least they had managed to turn the vessel around. The Kendar gave her a stiff nod as Jame joined her, clutching a coat around her shoulders. It wasn’t cold, but she couldn’t stop shivering.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Somewhere in the Great Salt Sea, north of Langadine.”

  “Oh. Helpful. Where’s our seeker?”

  Brier glanced toward the waist. Kalan huddled at the mast’s foot between the rowers with Lanek clutched in her arms, having at last cried herself to sleep over her four lost sons.

  “Don’t worry,” said Brier. “We’re on course.”

  Following her gaze, Jame peered down into the water before the prow. Something pale swam there, the barest glimmer under the smooth water.

  “Is that…”

  “I think so.”

  The boat’s side rose too far above the water to reach down into it, as Tori had done.

  “Will you join her?”

  “Should I leave you? Besides, you know that I can’t swim. Go back to sleep. You need it.”

  Jame yawned, wide enough to hear her jaws crack. “You’re right. Wake me when we get there.”

  “Yes, lady.”

  Back in her nest of
jackets, still shivering, she burrowed down to the wooden deck. Oars splashed. The boat glided forward. In the morning, she would think about what she had done, or not. Whatever.

  It seemed that all but Brier eventually slept, even the cadets at their oars. At dawn, laughter woke them. The child Lanek capered about the deck, stomping on it, but it gave back no more echo than a stone, for stone it had become. They were on the petrified remains of a boat in the middle of a dry salt waste.

  “Is this what Tori saw, after Rose drew him to the far shore?” Jame asked Brier.

  “Probably.”

  The Kendar’s eyes were bloodshot from her sleepless watch, her movements stiff as she turned to stare back at what had been a sea and the memory of what it might have held.

  “I’m sorry,” said Jame.

  Brier shrugged, dismissing old grief. “My mother died a long time ago. Now, where are we?”

  Kalan hobbled up onto the foredeck, cramped from her night’s sleep on hard planks and still red-eyed with weeping.

  “Kothifir lies that way,” she said, pointing north-northwest, “and your camp there.” Her finger swung straight ahead, in line with the prow. Wherever she had come from, wherever she had gone, Rose Iron-thorn had aimed them true.

  They unloaded the sleepy moas and set out, four birds short. Kalan and Lanek led the procession, the little boy in high glee, his mother rigid in the saddle as if sure that at any minute her feathered mount would bolt. This, of course, made it more likely to do so, until Brier took its reins in a firm hand and led it. The rest followed, trading off who walked and who rode to accommodate Ean and Byrne.

  At first they saw nothing, and wondered how far from the ancient shore they were. Gorbel had had the foresight to bring sacks of fresh water, but not enough for a long trek. Hours passed. It was so hot that sweat dried on the brow and gave no relief. The sun rose, beat blindingly down against the white salt plain, then tilted toward the horizon. In its wavering glare, the mirage of mountains appeared to the northeast and to the west—hopefully the curving Tenebre and Urak ranges. A dot appeared on the horizon ahead. Bit by bit, it grew into the single, bedraggled palm that overlooked the tiny oasis.

  “We wondered if we would ever see you again,” said Onyx-eyed as they limped into camp at dusk.

  Jame kicked her bird’s shoulder, obliging it to kneel. “How long were we gone?” she asked, swinging stiffly down.

  “Only two days, as it turns out. I see that you found the seeker.”

  “Yes, and she found you. I’m afraid she and these other two are all that’s left of the caravan. The rest drowned. Also, Langadine has been destroyed.”

  The randon eyed her askance. “You’ve been busy.”

  “It wasn’t my fault, dammit it—or at least not most of it. Anyway, that establishes where we are now. As to when…”

  “Back in our own present, I assume. The east wind blew through last night and this morning the sea was gone again. We’ll only know for sure when we return to Kothifir. In the meantime, eat. Sleep. Tomorrow—if we’re still here—we have a long trek home.”

  CHAPTER XII

  A Season of Discontent

  Winter 16–65

  I

  The trip back to Kothifir proved blessedly uneventful if strenuous. All the lambas had gone with the caravan and subsequently had drowned, so the moas were pressed into service as draft animals, to their loud disgust. Rations consisted largely of rhi-sar meat preserved in salt and water from the ancient sea while it had remained fresh. Since both flesh and fluid came from the past, there was no telling how long either would stay in the present. It was a gamble whether they would be consumed before they disappeared, and what that disappearance would do to the host bodies.

  The white rhi-sar hide was hitched raw side down to a team of protesting birds to serve as a sledge, onto which more provisions were piled.

  “A good scrape will start the tanning process,” Gorbel told Jame. “One thing about rhi-sar leather: it doesn’t stain. White is an unlikely color for armor only because it’s so rare. You’ll need to get King Krothen’s blessing on it, though, before it’s worked.”

  At Sashwar they exchanged the moas for their horses and Gorbel parted, grumbling, with more golden coins to pay for the lost lambas.

  Nine days later they came to the Apollynes and climbed them. The Mountain Station sent ahead a heliograph message to announce their return as they passed. Thus they found a considerable crowd waiting on the training field outside the camp to greet them. Jame had been dreading this sparse homecoming. No one would believe at first that they were all that remained of that huge caravan sent out thirty days before with such high hopes. Then the wailing began, but not from all.

  Kalan cuddled the baby daughter whom she had left behind so long ago as the child cooed with delight.

  “Oh, my dear, my precious, I thought that I had lost you forever, but here you are barely a month older. Oh, look at those tiny hands, those tiny feet. This is your half-sister!” she said, presenting the infant to her wide-eyed young son. “No, Lanek, you are too young to hold her.” She turned to the nearest Kendar, who happened to be Brier, and slid the infant into her arms. “Support her head just so.”

  “But…but…”

  “Only for a moment. Here comes my late husband’s brother, Qrink, Master Paper Crown.”

  As Kalan rushed to meet a tall, bald man, the rest of the ten-command laughed at Brier’s expression and at the ginger way she held her sudden charge, as if afraid that it would break. The child grabbed a hanging lock of her dark red hair and pulled it, crowing with glee.

  The Langadine boy would also need King Krothen’s blessing, Jame reminded herself. Soon. Or risk at the first scratch crumbling to red dust as his cousin Lanielle had.

  Evensong pushed her way through the crowd followed by Gaudaric, anxiously searching for her husband and son. She didn’t recognize the former at first with his white-streaked hair and lined face, then gasped and threw herself into his arms. Byrne looked doubtfully down at Gaudaric.

  “Grandpa? Oh, I have so much to tell you!”

  “I’m sorry,” Jame murmured under the young man’s bubbling spate of news. “I got to them as quickly as I could, but time moves strangely in the Wastes.”

  Gaudaric sighed. “His first lesson at the shop, his first guild run at the summer solstice, his first apprentice piece…I have lost his childhood. Thanks to you, though, I have him back, and my daughter has Ean. Never think I’m not grateful for that.”

  His gaze fell on the rhi-sar hide rolled up in a wagon obtained at Sashwar.

  “Is that…it is! An Old One, and in prime condition too. I’ve never seen an entire cape before, much less complete with head and feet. Look at those teeth, those claws! Oh, what fun I could have with those! You’ll let me work it for you, won’t you?”

  Jame grinned. “I was afraid to ask.”

  II

  Two days later Jame was requested to attend King Krothen’s court. This was quick for a royal summons, making her suspect that the king wanted to hear about the failed trade mission firsthand. She went, taking Kalan and her son Lanek. Her ten-command also came with her to carry the rhi-sar hide. It required six Kendar to bear its weight, much of it located in the skull with its fearsome array of teeth. The other Kendar carried the four feet, spreading them from side to side of the street. Awed Kothifirans made way for them as if for a parade. While the small lizards that constituted modern rhi-sar were common, the hide of an ancient one hadn’t been seen in many years.

  They climbed the Rose Tower and muscled their way into the uppermost chamber, jostling the back ranks of those already there. Krothen was having another shouting match with his aunt, the princess Amantine, or rather she was booming at him and he was listening with raised eyebrows.

  “This is serious, dammit! Do you know how many people have been ruined by this lost mission? What’s more, they tell me that there will be no more in future. And whom do they blame? You and Lord Me
rchandy, that’s who!”

  “We regret the city’s misfortune,” the king said in his nasal voice. “True, Mercer and I promoted the venture, but we also warned our traders not to be overwhelmed with greed.”

  “P’ah. No one remembers that now. They see their losses, and they want someone to blame.”

  “What, then, would you advise?”

  “You have towers full of treasure. Distribute them to the people.”

  Krothen pursed his rosebud lips. “So your son has proposed. To everyone, though, or only to those whose avarice brought about this catastrophe? What, then, would be left to pay the Southern Host for its protection? In future days we will need that, as never before, now that Kothifir has been so weakened. Gemma and the other Rim cities are already licking their lips. Perhaps I shouldn’t have hanged those Gemman raiders, even if they did kill a seeker.”

  Jame thought that that last was probably true. Killing people in ambiguous circumstances rarely did any good.

  As for the Host, it was preparing for what might come. That morning the camp had been shaken out of bed early by the blare of the alarm horn. Everyone had rushed to the inner ward, to be told that it was only a drill, but they had still been too slow.

  Amantine stomped, regaining Jame’s attention. “Oh, you and your precious toy soldiers! Prince Ton promises to raise a militia that will do every bit as well.”

  “Does he propose to lead it himself? Riding what two draft horses, or shall we find him an elephant? Speaking of which, what have we here?”

  He had spotted the rhi-sar’s fearsome head bobbing behind and above the last rank of his attendants. Courtiers turned to stare, then to back away, some in fright, some holding their noses. The great beast smelled worse dead than alive. The Kendar bore it forward and let its hide sprawl at Krothen’s feet as if in obeisance. He clapped his pudgy, beringed hands in admiration.

  “Your Magnificence,” said Jame, bowing. “Would you deign to preserve our prize with your touch?”

  Brier lifted one of the flayed forearms and extended a talon as if it were reaching out to the king. He dabbed at it, then paused thoughtfully, twiddling his sausagelike fingers. Jame could see that he was tempted to claim the entire hide as royal booty.