The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series)

by Heather Blackwood

  “Just tell me where the drake might be. Do you know?”

  “Across the river,” said the bark creature. “Past night’s Plutonian shore.”

  “Everything is across the river,” said the stone creature.

  “It asked.”

  “All right,” Astrid said. “I go across the river. What then?”

  “Did you love him?” asked the moss creature. “Is that why you came? There was a singing man once, like you, who came for someone he loved. Don’t look back, that’s the lesson he learned. You’d do best to heed too. Now, do you love him?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. Then made up her mind. “Yes.” There was more to say, but she decided that simplicity was best.

  The creatures put their heads together again.

  “But I don’t know.”

  “You don’t, but we do.”

  “Bring your lump of a head closer.”

  “Are you sure we should be helping it?”

  “And why not? Might be interesting.”

  “The cracks in the sky are interesting.”

  “Not the same thing. Now let me touch your head.”

  They went silent for a minute, touching one another, and then turned to her in unison.

  “Cross the river. Follow the path until it splits and go to the left three times. There’s a big valley up over the far hills and sometimes drake spirits like to fly about there.”

  “What about humans? Where do they go?”

  “The same place, but farther on still. It’s all the same place here.”

  “But vast.”

  “Did you see the drake yourself?” she asked.

  “We did. But far off, in the distance. He had a body, we saw. He didn’t come through this gate. Now, this gate doesn’t open. Not for diggers or flyers or walkers. None can get through. Not anyone.”

  “I got through.”

  “We know. We saw. You’re a Door. And you said you wouldn’t eat us.”

  “I won’t.”

  She thanked them and took off, crossing the wide, slow river and keeping an eye on the thin path below. There was no sun here, only a dim, ambient light, and she couldn’t make Doors to the place on the horizon to speed her trip, or she might lose the path. It took most of the day, at least by her own internal reckoning, for her to reach the third forking of the path.

  She soared up and over a high range of hills and paused to rest on the edge of a long, tree-filled valley. She was about a third of the way along the valley, but both edges were so far away that they were difficult to make out. Here and there flitted smoky shapes, long and undulating and slender. Some were clearer than others, forming into sharp bodies with wings and tails while others were more indistinct.

  She felt for Sevilen, reaching out with her mind like she had done with Elliot and others. She waited a long while, but felt nothing. She took off, deciding to fly from one end of the valley to the other, starting at the closest end, making Doors here and there to cover more ground quickly.

  The closer side of the valley was hilly, and a large lake had formed from hillside runoff. She thought she spied large shapes moving beneath the water, but did not swoop lower for fear something might leap from the water and catch her. The center of the valley was filled with trees and the occasional set of hills, dipping and creating smaller shady vales where drake spirits flew or walked, some glancing up at her as she flew past.

  The far end of the valley was rocky, filled with boulders as if there had been a great rock slide long ago. Some of the spirits lay on the rocks, basking, while others slithered into deep crevices between the giant stones at her approach.

  Sevilen had not lived in lakes or rock caves, but preferred his house and his island. Perhaps he was far away on an island in the sea she had smelled. Or maybe he lived among the humans. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

  She searched around the caves, peeping into a few, finding sleeping drakes and angry ones, and some that scuttled back into the darkness. Some were larger than Sevilen and some smaller than she was. She emerged from one cave and blinked to adjust to the light.

  A great dark shape was flying toward her. It was solid and bluish black and she knew him on sight. She took off and met him in midair. He turned, and the air current from his wings forced her to angle her wings and adjust her path so she would not be knocked from the sky.

  “I heard that an owl was flying about,” he said. “I came as quickly as I could.”

  Astrid tried to make a Door to her world, but the image in the center of it fluctuated between the path she had followed, the valley, the river and the area with the three little creatures. She tried again with the same result.

  Sevilen’s great eye swiveled toward her, though he did not speak.

  “I can only make Doors within this place,” she said.

  “This purgatorial place or the others?”

  “There are others?”

  “I haven’t seen them, but yes. This one is a place to get prepared for the next one. It’s temporary.”

  She tried again, attempting to make a Door to the place she had entered the afterlife, but failed. It was the gate. She was sure of it. Something about the gate kept her from passing through.

  “We’re going to take a roundabout way,” she said.

  Many of the drake spirits were moving toward them now, rising from the trees and poking heads from hidden dens. A few were moving fast, streaking toward them at alarming speed.

  “Best hurry,” said Sevilen. “I made a few questionable promises. I told a few of the other spirits that if they informed me when an owl or a human woman came into this place, then she would help them return to the world of the living.”

  “How many did you promise?”

  “Not that many. The rest must feel that you are a living rip, like the ones in the sky. They’re attracted to it.”

  “Let’s go then,” she said and made a Door to the place with the three creatures. The two of them flew through and the little creatures shrieked in terror as the great drake appeared in the air over them. She closed the Door. High above, other spirits turned toward them. More came over the nearby hill, spirits of humans, but also other things, some animal and some unrecognizable.

  She made a Door to pass through the gate and Sevilen followed her through.

  “The gate ought to hold them,” she said as they flew toward the place she had entered the world. If she had come in at that spot, then it was their best bet for getting out. “They can’t pass through the gate.”

  Sevilen did not answer. They flew lower.

  “Grab my clothes,” she said, and Sevilen reached his great clawed paw and snatched them up and continued flying.

  She tried to make a Door, and they had to circle the area three times before she succeeded in creating a Door to Luna Park. Of course it was Luna Park. That place was a borderland, an instability. Naturally it would be the easiest place to come through from this world. She expanded the diameter of the Door and Sevilen flew through.

  Before she followed him, she glanced behind her. The spirits had indeed clustered around the gate, obscuring it. But something happened as she watched. The spirits tumbled out, some intertwined, some shooting off toward her on their own.

  Through the thick tangle of souls she saw it. She had broken one of the cardinal rules of her kind, that no psychopomp could bring someone back from death. There were consequences for such an act.

  The iron gate now hung open.

  Chapter 35

  Felicia pulled out the green fuzzy handcuffs, attached one end to her left wrist and yanked open the front door. The instant she recognized Janeiro, she clapped the other end on his right wrist and tightened it down.

  “Now, take me to my son,” she said.

  He sho
t a dirty look at Santiago. “You didn’t tell me she’d be here.”

  Santiago shrugged with a half grin.

  “He didn’t like that you stole my baby,” said Felicia.

  “I doubt he cares too much about that. Now, take these off of me.”

  “Can’t. Don’t have the key. You can search my bag.”

  Julius rummaged halfheartedly through her bag and a few moments later, Janeiro got a strange look. Through their months together, she had seen him happy and sad, thoughtful and excited, but she had never seen that look before. It was a look of fear and surprise.

  “A Door just opened at Luna Park,” he said. “I have to go.”

  “Nice try. But no.”

  “I can’t just ignore this. It’s an unstable location.”

  “I told May we never should have allowed her to build that place,” said Julius.

  “You couldn’t have stopped her,” said Santiago. “May never would listen to any of us. She was such a wild girl.” He got a fond smile. “So very wild. A fast runner too. Liked to make me chase her.”

  Julius gave him a disgusted look.

  “If I don’t go, something terrible will happen,” said Janeiro. “It’s not an ordinary Door that opened.”

  “Let him go,” said Julius to Felicia. “He isn’t playing. This is serious.”

  “And so am I. You want to go? Then take me along. And then we’ll go to my son.”

  “I can’t take you. You’ll be in danger.”

  “It didn’t bother you to put a newborn baby in danger.”

  “He’s safe. He’s been safe for a long time now.”

  “A long time? What time did you take him to?”

  An earthquake rattled through the house, and something small shattered upstairs.

  “People may die because you’re preventing me from going,” he said, looking down at her, now with a concern she thought might be genuine. “You’re a doctor. You don’t cause death. You’re a healer.”

  “I’m a mother.”

  “Your child was never meant to exist. With parents from two separate worlds, he couldn’t exist. You know that. The void wyrms could sense that he’s a living instability, and they followed him, attracted to it like they are to all rips between worlds. The boy will tear apart the worlds. My siblings and I are doing what we can, according to our abilities, but you are trying to stop us.”

  “So where did you take him if he’s so dangerous? And why can’t you take me there?”

  “You need to tell me where the key is.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “No. We’re all siblings.”

  She wasn’t sure who the “we” was, but if the Twelve had other siblings, then she wouldn’t be surprised. Nothing could surprise her at this point.

  Janeiro’s phone rang. It was Red Fawn, and Felicia heard the woman telling Janeiro that the Door that had opened at Luna Park was not from any living world.

  “Call November. I can’t help,” he said and hung up.

  Julius looked on the verge of panic. “What if we can’t find November?”

  “You’ll have to,” said Janeiro. “I can’t work attached to a human like this.”

  “You can find bolt cutters at the hardware store,” said Santiago.

  “I thought you were helping me,” said Felicia. “Whose side are you on?”

  “He’s on his own side,” said Julius.

  “You want to come along with me?” said Janeiro. “You want to see your unnatural child, you selfish woman?” His expression was dark with fury. “Then we’ll go visit him.”

  Chapter 36

  For a whore and a murderer, Seamus thought that he and Hazel made a good pair. Both of them excelled at reading others and used the talent to be near invisible or to get what they required without a fuss.

  Today, they required a hired carriage to take them to the town of Fintona. Ordinarily, Seamus would have been content with an open trap or even the back of a cart, but today’s ride would be long, and he had a woman along. He knew Hazel would have been perfectly happy in the open air. She would have preferred it. But one had to keep up the appearance of normality, and ordinary women did not wish to become freckled and windblown.

  The driver snapped the reins and they rode out, through the town and onto the long road to Fintona. Hazel pulled out a book while Seamus sat with his notebook, working through some calculations that Oren had written down and that Hazel had brought along with countless other note pages and pieces of equipment.

  Now that Oren was gone, Seamus often dreamed of him, of their inventions and failures, of their good times and narrow escapes. But there were dreams of a more disturbing nature as well, of a terrible betrayal, of Oren stealing one of Seamus’s designs, of a great machine destroying the city of New Orleans. The dreams revealed something about his friend that he did not like to consider: that Oren was a decent man so long as he had no power. But once he had money and opportunity, he might transform into something else.

  Seamus felt like a traitor, as if his dreams were defiling the memory of his loyal friend. He didn’t want to mention them to Hazel for that very reason. But he ought not to dwell on these thoughts. He had equations to work through before they arrived.

  The village of Fintona was small and unremarkable. Seamus paid their driver, and they checked into the town’s only inn, posing as cousins. They took their things to their rooms and then crossed the street for lunch.

  “We’ll have to be canny about this,” said Seamus over plates of lamb with greens and potatoes. He pushed the potatoes to one side and cut into the lamb. “We’re only going to the cloister to take readings, but we can’t go in broad daylight, or we’ll be noticed. You can ride all right?”

  “Well enough.”

  “I mean, can you ride like a man? If I were to hire two horses and one was a sidesaddle, they’d notice. They’ll both have to have ordinary saddles.”

  “I can manage. I can put on a pair of your trousers under my dress, cinch them at the waist and be decent.”

  “Very well. I figure we should go between the times when the nuns are up praying, between Matins at midnight and Lauds at dawn. So long as the sisters are sleeping, we’ll be well enough. But tomorrow is All Saint’s Day, and neither of us should be seen missing Mass tomorrow morning. People like the innkeeper might notice. You sure you’ll be all right with such a late night?”

  “Late nights don’t bother me,” she said, but softly, and he regretted bringing it up. Of course she was used to being up late, but he hadn’t thought of her as the sum of her past deeds, and he supposed she didn’t think of him in those terms either. Friendships were strange things that way, making reprobate people into ordinary folk.

  Late that night, Seamus brought two hired horses around the back of the inn where Hazel waited with an unlit lantern and a few pieces of Seamus’s equipment packed into two bags. Seamus took both, figuring Hazel would have enough trouble riding in a dress. But small as she was, she managed to mount on her own, and he saw his own trousers, rolled thick at the bottom, covering her to the top of her sturdy walking boots.

  They rode, Seamus stopping to study the little hand-drawn map of the outlying areas around town that a man in a bar had sketched for him. Once he was sure of their path, they rode on.

  When they arrived, he found that the cloister was larger than he would have thought, but the great rectangular building must have enclosed not only the women’s living quarters, but a garden and a yard for walks or recreation.

  “What if the spot is inside the cloister?” asked Hazel.

  “It couldn’t have been. If Oren had come through there, I don’t think the women would have been so keen to feed him and give him a bit of money. They’d have thought he was a burglar.”

  “Where
then?”

  They rode closer to the cloister, and Seamus spotted the chapel, a small building with a peaked roof, attached to the far side of the cloister. Behind it rose a number of simple headstones inside a fenced yard.

  “He said he was here to pay homage to Epona,” said Seamus. “If this place was a temple in his world, perhaps this little chapel might be the spot.”

  “You’re going to break into a church?”

  “It’s a chapel, and no. I’m going to get some readings nearby.”

  He tied the horses to the nearest tree and lit the lantern. He got out his equipment and took a few readings here and there and discovered that the oddest signals came from the graveyard.

  “I’m sure we’ll learn nothing,” he said, pulling his remaining equipment from his bag. “But I want to be certain.”

  “You’re only saying that so you won’t be disappointed.”

  He didn’t answer, but asked Hazel to open up his notebook and read out some of the numbers for him. He calibrated the handheld machine and checked the tiny electrical power source. He was inordinately proud of the little thing, erratic as it was. It hummed, and he waited for the arm on the dial to stop jerking and steady itself. Hazel set down his book and followed his instructions on taking readings from a second machine, kneeling on the ground while Seamus held his high as he could while still being able to discern the readings.

  “You there,” called a voice. A young woman wearing a novice’s white veil stood at the doorway leading from the cloister to the graveyard.

  “Are you grave robbers?” she asked, approaching, and Seamus immediately admired the girl. She was neither afraid nor repulsed, but as calm and firm as could be.

  “No, we’re not disturbing anyone’s grave. We’re performing a scientific experiment.”

  The novice looked over the machinery, the wiring and the open notebook, pages flapping in the night breeze, and must have believed them.