by C. E. Murphy
"The last thing he needs is another student, Lorhen. Look how well the last one turned out." Emma finished her drink in one swallow and poured herself another one, grudgingly bringing Lorhen one before she sat again.
"That wasn’t his fault. Occasionally people are simply hopeless punks. Besides, I wouldn't exactly be an average student. It's just a cover story, and I need your help to pull it off. When we're through, I'm Logan Adams, died in the early years of a new millennium, age thirty-four."
"You’re insane.” Emma sat down, eyeing Lorhen. “You actually think it could work?"
"Sure. And think: I'd be the only Timeless with two records in the Keeper files."
"Oh, for the love of…you're hopelessly vain, Lorhen.” Lorhen tilted an eyebrow in acknowledgment as she added, “And you’re wrong, too. There are dozens of records of Timeless being mis-identified as someone new."
“Those all get fixed eventually, though. Listen, I may be vain, but I'm also practical, Emma. They won't be looking for Lorhen in me if they see Logan Adams die the first time."
Emma thumped her head against the back of the chair and muttered, "I'll think about it," before glaring at Lorhen. "You can't live here."
Lorhen's eyes widened. "Would I impose on your hospitality like that?" The innocence didn't fade from his face as he added, "Can I have a blanket, by the way? The couch is comfortable, but it’s chilly in here."
"What makes you think I'm not going to throw you out on the street?"
“You let me in in the first place.”
Emma got to her feet, muttering, and looked for a blanket, asking, "What makes you think they'll assumes it's the first death, anyway? That they—we—won't figure you've been pulling the wool over their eyes all this time?"
Lorhen stood to finally shed his overcoat. "Because I'm a very good actor, Emma. I can't afford a bad performance."
Emma balled up a blanket and threw it down the length of the room at Lorhen, hitting him in the back of the head. "None of you can." Two pillows followed the blanket, Lorhen turning to catch them neatly. "Go to sleep. I'll tell you all the flaws with your hare-brained idea when I'm awake enough to think."
Lorhen shook the blanket out, grinning. "Good. We should have the whole thing done before that happens."
3
Earthquakes rolled through the water in peculiar, soft shocks. The dim rumbling and muted scraping of stone were the only sounds she could remember, aside from the distorted noise of her own screams. There was no way to mark how often either, screams or earthquakes, came to pass, in the timeless prison.
At junctures the quakes seemed to come often, sending the water quivering over her skin again and again in reverberating series. It wasn't a comfortable feeling, the concussions jarring through her bones and sending chills through her teeth. Goosebumps lifted on her skin, so rare an occasion she felts at them in wondering confusion. Any texture at all came as a fascinating alleviation to the endless litany of despair that was her only company.
The earthquakes provided rare moments of coherency, functionality in a mind that she could recognize as disturbed, if not shattered, in those cognitive minutes. Awareness was not welcome. It made the hopelessness of the situation more pressing. She could hear discordant thoughts shying away from comprehension, thoughts that seemed to belong to someone else entirely.
Nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing in the world but us, our little black room and the water. Nothing but us, nothing to fear here, nothing to hide from, here is home, here is all. Don't think about outside, it's a bad place, it's not really there at all, nothing was ever really there but the dark room and our hair, oh our hair, play with it, keep it from tangling us. Ignore! Ignore the rumblings and the shakings! Nothing is outside! We are everything, all here, all one, all safe. Nothing surrounds us, nothing at all.
She shook her head, trying to clear the frightened little voice away. The water stilled again, leaving her drifting in smooth silence. Escape, another voice whispered. Someday we will escape. We'll stay here until then, but someday, someday. We'll kill the one that did this to us, and then we'll make ourselves a home again, safe in Atlantis where the gods will favor us again. Patience. Patience is all we need. Nothing is forever. This is not forever. Smooth and calm, the voice soothed her to sleep.
When she woke again, awareness had slid from her grasp once more. She swam back and forth across the room, followed endlessly by yards of hair, infinitely patient. It might be years before the frightened one emerged again. Decades could pass before she was given another taste of herself, another hour or two of discerning between the patient one and the terrified one, and time to reach for the woman she'd once been.
The patient one didn't mind.
The report of the wall shattering woke her from sleep, cracking into her bones and leaving her stunned, confused. She hung in the water, bewildered, unable to put a name to what had wakened her, but in only a few minutes she could feel the difference, fine grains of stone floating in water that had only been filled with strands of broken, dissolving hair, in the past. For a time, she reveled in the new sensation, rubbing the grit between her fingertips and tasting it against her tongue.
Hours, perhaps even days or weeks, went by before an understanding settled into her. Fingertip by fingertip, she began to explore the familiar curves of the oubliette once more, unable to do so much as hope; that had been drained out of her long ago.
Then suddenly, for the first time in memory, there was pain from something beyond her own self-inflicted injuries. She doubled over, clutching her toes in shock, a hoarse curse roughing out of her throat. The pain subsided in seconds, and she unclenched her fingers, upending herself in the water, hair flowing around her like a cloak, to search for the unexpected obstacle that her toes had encountered.
Blind fingers found the stone: wedge-shaped, rough-edged, and as large as her head, it seemed to weigh a tremendous amount to her weak arms. Clutching it possessively against her belly, she kicked up, trailing her free hand along the wall to find where the stone had fallen from.
It began as a crack, almost indiscernible, even to fingertips long familiar with the smooth stone. In inches, though, it split wider, one side of it rising away from the other fractionally. Small as her hands were, she couldn't force her fingers deeply enough into the crack to find an outside edge. After a while she gave up, kicking higher, following the split until it reached a curve in the ceiling, and there lay a divot, a space her precious rock had broken loose from.
With a shout, she smashed her stone against the hole it left, kicking hard to keep herself aloft in the water. Soft clouds of dust broke free, washing over her face. Again and again, in the darkness, she brought the stone down. Smaller shards of rock splintered away. As her hands grew numb from the repeated shocks, a slightly larger chunk dropped, falling to connect with the top of her foot as she kicked. A moment later it clicked lightly against the floor, leaving a delicious ringing pain in her foot.
Eventually she noticed the dull thud of the stone cracking against the wall was dimmed beneath a high-pitched giggling. It was longer to still before she realized the sound was her own laughter, unheard for centuries, released by the prospect of escape. It would take time to break through the wall. It would take time to make a hole large enough for her to fit through.
Time is not a problem, the patient one whispered.
4
Intense sunlight spilled over the bed, too bright and warm for dawn. Emma threw her arm over her eyes, then sat up to squint first at the clear sky and bright light beyond the window, then at the silent heap of blankets and pillows on the couch. Lorhen might sleep until all hours, but even being awakened in the middle of the night didn't usually keep her from rising with the sun, a habit formed through twenty years of military service. "You're a bad influence, Lorhen." She swung out of bed and stretched, then padded past the couch to scowl at its unmoving contents as she put coffee on and sought her tablet for the morning's news.
Chaos sown
by economic inequality, climate change, and war led the stories above the fold. Emma muttered and skipped to the lower half of the page, looking for lighter fare before a story caught her eye and, despite herself, she chuckled. "Somebody says they found Atlantis. I admit to wondering lately if you knew where they'd lost it. God," she said under her breath, "you sleep like the dead." Louder, she said, "Wake up, Lorhen. If I have to put up with you, you have to answer my questions."
The metal stairs outside rattled and a blast of cold air announced the door opening. Emma waited, eyebrows elevated, to watch a sweaty Lorhen come around the sound equipment and throw his t-shirt on the couch. There were no scars on the slim muscular lines of his torso, no physical reminders that he had survived hundreds—probably thousands—of swordfights over the centuries. The Timeless were all like that, unless they’d taken wounds before their first death; anything after that, save a killing blow, healed. In Lorhen’s case, that unmarred skin left him looking like the youthful, soft-living researcher he played at being. “Mind if I jump in your shower?”
“You can’t possibly have turned into a morning person, Logan, you were perpetually late for early meet…” She trailed off at his growing smile, then bared her teeth and looked across the kitchen. “Logan Adams isn’t a morning person, but Lorhen the Ancient is,” she said to the wall, voice gone sharp with frustration. “Is that it?”
“That’s it, although Lorhen would like to never hear ‘the Ancient’ appended to his name again. And whichever man I am, I just went for a five mile run and need a shower.” Lorhen pointed a thumb toward the bathroom at the far end of the room, his eyebrows lifting.
Emma rubbed her hand across her forehead. “Yeah. There are clean towels on the top shelf in there. You want coffee?”
“Please.” Lorhen grabbed his duffel and went into the bathroom as Emma poured him a cup. Lorhen emerged again, dressed but barefoot and with wet hair, after just long enough for the coffee to cool to a drinkable temperature. He had a sip, then made an effort to be a decent house guest by neatly folding the couch’s blankets. “What’s for breakfast?”
“Granola.”
Lorhen looked up from folding blankets in visible dismay. “That sounds hideous.”
Emma brightened. “You could mix it with plain yogurt.”
“You have got to be kidding.”
“Not at all. When did you take up running?”
“Me? I don’t know. Probably the first time something chased me, about five and a half thousand years ago. As for Logan Adams, he’s has always been a runner. He usually goes out late at night instead of in the morning, but I slept on the plane and thought I’d work the kinks out.” Lorhen finished tidying the couch and came to watch Emma mixing the threatened cereal and yogurt. “You’re not really going to eat that, are you?”
“I am. Some of us have to worry about our cardiovascular systems, you know. You sure you don’t want some?”
Lorhen shuddered. “Positive. Do you have anything that’s not good for you around here?”
“Eggs in the fridge. Maybe some frozen bacon. I don’t live here, remember.” Emma poured herself a second cup of coffee, then pulled a stool to the edge of the counter and sat down. “Did you see the news?”
Lorhen, with more easy familiarity in her kitchen than seemed warranted, dug around for a frying pan and rooted through the freezer until he found the bacon. “No, why?”
"Somebody's claiming to have found Atlantis." Emma nodded at the tablet. "Some Turkish archaeologist. I haven't finished the article yet.”
“Seems unlikely. It sank a long time ago. What's his name?" Lorhen put the bacon in the microwave to thaw and started juggling the eggs, drawing Emma’s half-astonished attention.
"I didn't know you could juggle."
"You don't know lots of things about me. What's his name?"
“Must you remind me?” Emma pulled the tablet toward herself, skimming the article. “‘His’ name is Mary Kostani, you sexist pig. 'The artifacts are carbon-dated at more than five thousand years old, and are of a superior workmanship than examples from other contemporary civilizations. The legends of Atlantis suggest a more advanced civilization than those surrounding it….' It goes on like that. There's bread in the freezer, too, if you want toast."
Lorhen put the eggs down in favor of finding the bread, took the bacon out of the microwave, and dropped it into the already-hot frying pan. Sizzles and rich scent made Emma reconsider her cereal. Lorhen caught the glum look, grinned, and dropped another half dozen pieces into the pan. “Is there a picture?"
"Of what? Atlantis?"
"No, the archaeologist." Lorhen dropped bread into the toaster, then made a face over his shoulder. "Yes, the ruins. Ow!" He shook bacon grease off his hand, glaring at the frying pan.
"One, of some of the pottery they've found. Here." Emma scooted the tablet toward the edge of the counter and stirred her yogurt again. "Don't get bacon grease on it. Sheff ghibbng a—"
"Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to talk with your mouth full? Oh, she's giving a lecture in Chicago." Lorhen used his elbow to scroll the news story and read the end of the article. "I'm sure she didn't find Atlantis. That stuff could be from anywhere." He squinted at the pictures. "Well, anywhere with delicate five thousand year old pottery. That's pretty nice stuff."
"It'd be the find of the century. Even if it's not Atlantis, she'll get enormous publicity."
"Yeah, but she shouldn't have claimed it was Atlantis. It'll embarrass her department when she's wrong. I wish they'd published the location."
"Why?"
Lorhen shrugged, flipping eggs. "So I could see how close she was."
Emma put her spoon down. "You do know where Atlantis is."
Lorhen glanced at her, expression bored. "Doesn't everyone?"
“Lorhen, how can you keep that kind of knowledge secret? That's criminal!"
"It's surprisingly easy. All you have to do is not mention it.”
Emma set her teeth together. “Is there anything about you that isn’t going to constantly remind me that you’re an arrogant six thousand year old Timeless?”
“Probably not, particularly since almost no one knows the truth and it’s nice to be able to let my hair down a little.” For a moment he looked up, cross-eyed, at his hair. Emma’s gaze went to it, too: not quite brush-cut, enough length to be shaped, but nowhere near long enough to be let down. “Anyway, one of the advantages to being my age is you remember where all the great stuff that everyone else has forgotten about is."
"No one has forgotten Atlantis, Lorhen."
"Maybe they should." Lorhen slid bacon and eggs onto a plate. The toast popped, and he danced it on his fingertips while buttering it, chanting, "Hot hot hot!" under his breath, before pushing it all toward Emma. Emma stared first at it, then at Lorhen, in astonishment. He spread his hands. “Don’t tell me it’s not more appealing than yogurt-covered granola.”
“I didn’t even know you could cook, and now you’re feeding me. Are y—you are. You’re trying to butter me up.”
“Is it working?”
“No.” Emma sounded sincere, even to herself, but she couldn’t fight off a rueful smile of appreciation as she looked at the plate of food again. “Maybe a little. Tell me about Atlantis.”
Lorhen turned back to the stove, cracking more eggs into the bacon grease and dropping more bread into the toaster. “I should say no, and make you wonder.”
“Lorhen, you may have six thousand years of mortal combat under your belt, but I have a pistol under this counter and I’m not afraid to use it. You wanted to die, right?”
“Only with an audience.” Lorhen cast a glance over his shoulder, eyeing the counter. “Do you really? You probably do, don’t you.”
“If I’ve learned anything in sixteen years of being a Keeper it’s not to hang out unarmed around Timeless, any more than you would. I can see the outline of your heartstrike knife under your shirt.”
“You can see the outline of on
e of my heartstrike knives,” Lorhen corrected. “And if you tell anybody I’ve got more than one I’ll never cook for you again.”
“It’s bacon and eggs, Lorhen. You're going to have to do a lot better than that to bribe me. Atlantis?”
Lorhen finished getting his breakfast ready and sat to eat it. "All right, all right. Even if they did find it, it's not going to have all the wonderful knowledge they're looking for. They wrote on paper, Em. Really fine paper. It's been underwater for thousands of years. It'll all be dissolved. Even if it's not, nobody but me knows the language."
"They figured out the hieroglyphics," Emma pointed out.
Lorhen snorted. "Some of them. Occasionally I have to suppress the desire to tell them where they got it wrong. At any rate, some of the stories about Atlantis are dead on. It was a culture unlike anything else of its time. There was a ruling elite, but people moved in and out of it. More of a meritocracy than a democracy. The population was small and educated enough that it actually worked. Competence was the primary requirement for any sort of job, and that was it. They had a, what do we call it these days. A strong work-life balance, and gender largely wasn't an issue. Nurturing men and women both stayed home with children, less nurturing sorts all found work of some kind or another. There were a lot of good things about the place, but it's still a bag of ashes that shouldn't be stirred."
Emma spread her hands expectantly. Lorhen shrugged. "The immortality crystal our unfriendly neighborhood Keepers were after? The Atlanteans made that."
“What?" Emma lifted her hand, stopping Lorhen before he spoke again. “Wait. It was a crystal?”
“Yes, a big awkward hunk of rock that didn’t work the way any of them thought it was going to. Keep up, Emma, that’s not the point. The p—”
“Lorhen,” Emma interrupted softly, “you are not nearly far enough into my good graces right now to be rude. I opened the door to you last night. Don’t imagine I won’t put you out it again.”