The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series)

by Heather Blackwood

  “You would be afraid too,” said Pangur Ban, “if you had to go to the Library. I don’t think she’ll be able to make a new Door, but it’s not out of fear. I’ve known Astrid since she was a child, and she’d do anything for her cousin, even at great risk to herself. Oh, it looks like someone is coming.”

  Yukiko rose to look out the window, and her shadow fell across the carpet.

  “What happened to your tail?” asked Huginn. Yukiko was a Kitsune, a fox spirit, and even when she was in human form, her tail cast a shadow.

  He knew immediately from the look Pangur Ban and Yukiko gave him that he had said something wrong. “You’re still young,” he said, trying to be diplomatic. “You’ll get one after a century. Isn’t that the way with the Kitsune?”

  “Shush, Huginn,” said Pangur Ban.

  He flapped over to the back of the sofa, looking out the window. Outside sat a familiar car, the one belonging to the Coyote, Santiago. He opened the passenger door and a young blonde woman in a long skirt and shawl stepped out. Yukiko grumbled something and returned to her chair.

  Something stirred in Huginn’s memory at this image of a man and a woman walking together up the front walk. He held very still, watching them, waiting for the memory to come. When the girl looked up at the man, he felt a memory break loose, like a chunk of melting ice cracking and falling into the sea. The memory bobbed into consciousness, and he remembered a place in the cold North, his homeland. It had been dark for a large part of the year. He remembered a young couple walking together outside a building. Inside, celebrating people feasted, drank and sang songs in a language old and now forgotten. There was no more to the memory than that.

  “What are you thinking?” asked Pangur Ban.

  “I remember a festival, or a feast. There were people from long ago, from the cold North.”

  Pangur Ban did not say anything, but he knew she was considering what he had said. He relied on her to remember things for him, and he wondered how this piece of information might connect with others she knew.

  The man and young woman entered the house without knocking, and Huginn remembered that the girl, Sister, lived there. She waved hello and then headed upstairs. The man, Santiago, glanced around, and finding only Yukiko, Pangur Ban and Huginn, he addressed Yukiko.

  “You need to help Sister,” he said.

  “You seem to be doing a decent job of that yourself,” said Yukiko. “You spend an awful lot of time with her.”

  “Jealous?” he said, with a sly grin.

  “Hardly. I’m just worried about her. She’s young, and we all know how you are with women, especially inexperienced ones. She’s too attached to you.”

  “I’m trying to help her. The poor child lived a lifetime in slavery. I thought you, with your rigid code of morality, would find my assistance commendable.”

  “I would, if you were actually helping her. Instead, she’s just becoming more dependent upon you.”

  “I agree.”

  Huginn watched Yukiko as her lips parted in surprise. For Santiago to agree with her was rare. The two of them were always at odds. Huginn imagined it was because they were both canines, and were territorial. Thankfully the other people around him were not so irrational.

  Santiago sighed. “Sister is struggling. She needs someone to help her survive in human society.”

  “I’m not human, in case you forgot,” said Yukiko.

  “I’d never make that mistake, Kit. But you’re more human than I am.”

  Huginn thought that his words made no sense. Both of them were canines who lived among humans. Sure, Santiago was much older, but Yukiko, tailless as she was, was still a Kitsune.

  “I told Sister that I’m leaving town for a little while,” he said. “I need to make sure there’s someone to look after her, who will stay with her and not leave. Will you do it?”

  “I’m not planning on leaving any time soon, but why are you asking me? There are plenty of other people around.”

  “Yeah, an amnesiac raven, a talking cat, a pirate queen who comes and goes, a new psychopomp who will probably get sucked through one of her own death Doorways and a professor who is fascinated with digital watches. Not to mention whatever the hell Neil is.”

  “Felicia is human and sane. She’s reliable.”

  “Sister doesn’t need humans,” he said.

  “I disagree,” said Pangur Ban. “The other day, Sister referred to my kittens as her littermates. And she still hasn’t chosen a proper name for herself.”

  “See, that’s exactly it,” said Santiago. He then turned Yukiko. “Since you’re a Kitsune, you have to concentrate to fit in with the humans. You have to consciously remember their rules and customs. That’s why you can help Sister. She has to learn the rules, because she doesn’t automatically know them.”

  Huginn was surprised at Santiago’s understanding of human nature and of Yukiko’s as well. Perhaps he was more insightful than he seemed.

  “She needs someone to take her out shopping,” said Santiago. “To learn to use money, and she needs to learn more American Sign Language, not this weird one she brought back from the Unseelie world.”

  “Sounds like you have this all planned out,” said Yukiko. But Huginn knew that she cared about Sister. Now she was just resisting Santiago out of habit.

  “I need someone I can trust,” said Santiago. “You’ll do it?”

  Huginn then understood something. Santiago did not need to leave for a few days. He was ancient, and though he generally stayed in Southern California, sometimes heading as far east as Las Vegas or into Arizona, he was never forced to go where he did not wish to. Without admitting it, perhaps he agreed with Yukiko that Sister was becoming too attached to him. That must be why he wanted Yukiko to help Sister instead of doing it himself.

  “I’ll do it,” said Yukiko, “for her sake. Not for yours.”

  “Oh, I’d never ask you for anything for myself, Kit.”

  Chapter 7

  At a knock on the door, Elliot slapped his book closed. A small stack of its companions sat beside his bedroll. He wasn’t supposed to take books, but since he had not removed them from the Library, he did not consider his temporary ownership of them as theft. He was not sure if Malachy agreed with his assessment, but the tortoise had not objected to his collection.

  “They need us downstairs,” said the woman named Imee from outside the door.

  “You can come in,” he said and she cracked the door.

  “It’s late. What do they need with us?”

  “There’s a delegation of Greeks. They want coffee.”

  “Fine, I’ll be down in a little bit.”

  Imee disappeared. She was also a human refugee and his only friend aside from Malachy. Elliot sighed and shoved the door closed with his foot. The small upstairs room, more of a closet really, contained his bedroll, an old-fashioned wooden milk crate, a round window looking out into the void and another one on the opposite wall that let in diffused light. The space was tiny, only slightly larger than his bedroll, but he was glad of it. There was no reason for anyone to come visit him or want to share his quarters.

  He pulled a shirt and pair of pants from a pile inside the milk crate and changed, tossing his pajamas onto his bedroll. When he had first arrived, Malachy had provided him with a few changes of clothing and a bedroll, but no shoes. Servants went barefoot. It was some sort of traditional rule.

  Three weeks had passed since his arrival, and feelings of déjà vu still occurred regularly, but he had learned to ignore them. He already knew he was outside of time and space. Over time, he had settled into a routine. The Library kitchens were huge, and various people came and went, but the core staff remained. He was one of them. He spent his days peeling potatoes and carrots, washing dishes and carrying the garbage to a covered hatch a
few floors down that emptied into an unknown place. He thought it might drop into the void, but he wasn’t sure.

  Heading down the dark, narrow servants’ staircase, he entered the kitchen. It was a strange anachronistic mishmash of modern equipment, like a microwave and walk-in refrigerator, and older things, like a wood-burning stove and iron pots and pans. An ancient metal coffee pot called an ibrik hung on the wall and was used with a coffee grinder that resembled a huge pepper grinder with a geometric pattern of decorative dents covering its metal surface. He took the grinder from the shelf and set it on the counter.

  “They say we have fifteen people in the delegation,” said Imee.

  “Why do they have to come in the middle of the night?” he grumbled. But he knew the answer. The Library did have set mealtimes for visitors, but it existed outside of time. Night and day did not exist here. The humans, Elliot and Imee among them, preferred to live by a twenty-four-hour clock. Other beings, like Malachy, kept their own hours.

  “How’s your book?” asked Imee.

  “There’s nothing in it,” he said, knowing she would understand. Both of them were trying to find a way out of the Library, and neither had given up hope that a way out could be discovered through exploration and research. After spending weeks exploring every nook and cranny they could discover, and finding the Library limitless, they had turned their focus toward research. Still, in their spare time, they continued searching the corridors and rooms, opening doors and exploring hidden spots, hoping for an exit.

  “Did any of the members of the delegation look promising?” Elliot asked Imee.

  “I haven’t seen them yet. Malachy told me to get coffee and cakes ready.”

  Visitors, almost all of them scholars, came from the outside world to visit and research. It was Elliot and Imee’s job to cook for them and serve them in a large dining hall adjacent to the kitchen. Since these individuals returned to their homes eventually, Elliot and Imee had tried repeatedly to find a way to travel back with them. This, of course, would only work with humans, as they did not wish to be taken to the worlds of the Unseelie, Seelie or one of the various lands of the otherkind. They had asked many scholars, but all assured them that they could not go back with them. It was impossible.

  Imee sniffled behind him, and Elliot wondered if she was coming down with a cold. After the third sniffle, he turned to look at her. She was crying silently and staring into the pot of boiling water.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll find a way home. The Time Corps is searching for me. I know it. And my cousin is too. I promise I’ll take you with me.”

  Imee was from the Philippines in 1972. From their conversations about history, including the first man on the moon and dates of wars, they had concluded that they were from the same home world. That made things easier. She could simply return with him and he could take her back through time to her family.

  One of the oddities of traveling between worlds was the lack of human duplicates. Imee would never find her family in any world but the one of her origin. Each individual person existed in only one world, so one could never meet one’s alternate version. Duplicates simply did not exist. But some people, typically ones who were significant to history, existed in similar versions. For example, Lincoln was president in most worlds during the Civil War, but they were not the same man. Jacob Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln and Obadiah Lincoln were all elected president, while Ezekiel Lincoln had been poisoned before he became a senator.

  It posed an interesting set of questions about the universes. Why were some events and personalities fixed while others were flexible? And did that imply the existence of a power controlling it all? Just as Neil could travel within ten miles of himself while the rest could not, some things were difficult to explain.

  But right now, none of that mattered. Imee would not care about the intricacies of time travel. She simply wanted to get home.

  Imee sniffled. “My grandma used to make coffee every morning and it just got to me, that’s all.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders, not sure if she wanted the contact or not. She was reasonably attractive, if a few years older than he was, but Elliot could only think of her in unromantic terms. She seemed content with this arrangement, and though they spent many hours working side by side, their relationship remained platonic.

  “You never asked me how I came here,” she said.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d want to talk about it.”

  Any time they had broached personal topics, Imee had grown quiet and sullen, so Elliot had stopped asking. She shrugged, and he took his arm away, removing the pot from the stove. He found a cloth napkin and gave it to her to wipe her eyes and nose. Some girls looked pretty when they cried. Imee was not one of them. It made her seem even more pitiful.

  “I was visiting Manila,” she said. “I grew up an hour away from the city. My girlfriends and I all went to the city for a weekend trip, just for fun. There was this curio shop full of silly tourist knickknacks and we went in. I had to use the restroom, and I went to the back of the shop. When I opened the door, it was just an ordinary restroom. So I flipped on the light and closed the door, and the instant the door closed, the room changed. I was in the Library, in a room far, far upstairs from here. And right next to me was a door, right where the restroom door had just been. I have checked that door over and over, hoping it would open to the curio shop. But it never does.”

  Elliot put together trays of food and brewed the coffee while Imee patted a cold, wet cloth on her eyes. They served the Greek delegation in the dining hall, Imee bringing trays of cakes and Elliot pouring steaming cups of coffee for all of them. He listened in on their conversation as he worked.

  Most of today’s scholars were so ordinary looking they would not merit a second glance from anyone in Elliot’s world. Some could easily hide their physical differences, if they so chose. At the end of one table sat a small man with a forked serpent tongue, conversing with a woman with a third eye at the base of her throat. She closed it and pulled a gauzy green silk scarf over it when she caught Elliot watching her. Other non-human scholars were easier to spot, like the gray-skinned girl in a giant feathered hat and tailored purple suit who ate six little cakes within the first five minutes. Elliot served each person, listening to everything.

  Imee and Elliot continued for two more weeks, exploring, reading and listening. But every time they found a new area of the Library or a promising book, they came up empty.

  One day, Imee stood alone beside him in the kitchen, chopping leeks and singing softly under her breath in Tagalog. Elliot understood the words, as all languages were comprehensible in the Library. It was a cheery song about a bird.

  “Malachy said I’m to go to the market tomorrow,” she said, smiling. “I’m supposed to do more of the meal planning.”

  “Well, congratulations,” he said, not knowing how else to respond. If she wanted to make the best of her situation, taking on additional responsibility and finding some joy in it, then who was he to rain on her parade? “I hope you’ll enjoy it.”

  “You’re dumb sometimes,” she said. “I don’t care about the shopping, though it will be nice to get out of this building now and then. See, there’s a passageway. That’s where most of the scholars enter, at the end of the bazaar. I’ve heard them talking.”

  “And you think you can get through?”

  “I won’t go without you,” she said. “I’ll just take a look. I’ll see how it works.”

  Elliot was skeptical, but any new idea was a good idea. He hadn’t learned anything new in weeks, and if the row of market stalls held some secret, he was as eager as Imee was to discover it.

  The morning of market day, Imee entered the kitchen with a wide-brimmed straw hat and an old, hand-pulled rolling cart. One of the other kitchen staff, a boy who had been raised in the Library, washed cu
ps at the sink. They could not talk about the market in front of him, and Imee adjusted her hat and grabbed the handle of her cart, giving Elliot a wink. He went about the day, serving, cleaning and listening with a lighter heart.

  After his duties were completed and he lay on his bedroll, reading by the light of the alabaster window, there came a knock at his door. He jumped up and yanked open the door, eager to talk with Imee and discover everything she had learned. But instead, Malachy blinked up at him.

  “I had a friend, a man, like you,” Malachy said. “He came to the Library after I did. And he wanted to get out, to return to his wife. I told him that he could have a good life here. I have lived here many years in contentment. But he would not be satisfied. He went to the marketplace one day, to the very end. And I never saw him again.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He was gone. He did not come back. You can have a good life here, Elliot. You too can be content.”

  “I want to go home. You know that.”

  Malachy looked past Elliot, toward the small round window facing out into the void. Elliot tried not to look through that window, as it pulled at his mind in an uncomfortable way.

  “You need to understand,” said Malachy, “this place is not like other places. Like water flowing downhill, all information flows to the Library eventually.”

  “I’m not concerned with that. Tell me what happened to Imee.” But Elliot’s insides twisted. He already knew.

  “The market day job is now yours.”

  Chapter 8

  “Is there anywhere we can go where we won’t be observed?” Gopan asked Astrid. “I need to make a Door.”