Beyond the Wall of Time

by Russell Kirkpatrick

  “Surely it would not be safe back in the forest,” Moralye said. “The wind would break branches and throw them down upon us.”

  “Break branches and uproot trees,” Robal said. “A dangerous place to be. But better the forest than the coast. I feel sorry for those trapped in the path of the storm.”

  Lenares wondered if Robal was thinking of his friends Kilfor and Sauxa.

  Kannwar—Lenares supposed she ought to think of him as the Emperor of Bhrudwo and not as the make-believe Falthan sorcerer—was plainly unhappy. “Have any of you experienced a Mala Gulf typhoon?” he asked, beckoning them all close.

  The travellers shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders.

  “We’re not safe here,” he said. “Especially if the typhoon is unnatural and aimed at us. But I have a million people to worry about, all living on the shore of the Mala Gulf. If we remain here we will lure the typhoon across a heavily populated part of the Gulf. These are my subjects: I cannot ignore them. I suggest we head south as swiftly as we can, dragging the storm away from the cities of Malayu and Doma.”

  “There is no ‘if,’ ” Lenares said. “You must not doubt me. The hole in the world is coming to eat us up.”

  “We cannot neglect the people in the storm’s path,” said Stella. What little of her face Lenares could see appeared care-worn. “The cosmographer tells us that every unnatural death enlarges the hole. How large will the hole be after a million deaths? We ought to do as Here—as Kannwar asks us, not only for the sake of the people who might otherwise die, but for our sakes and everyone’s.”

  “Aye,” Seren said. “And bring it down instead on Raceme an’ the countries of Old Roudhos. Haven’t they suffered enough?”

  Kannwar growled deep in his throat. “There are no easy choices. But whatever we do we ought to do swiftly.”

  “Are you our self-appointed leader, Destroyer?” Robal asked, bristling.

  “If anyone leads us, it is Stella,” came the impatient reply.

  “Because I won’t follow you. You say you’re following the orders of the Most High. Fair enough, I can’t prove you wrong, and if you and Stella are to be believed he did turn up and help kill the Elamaq Emperor. But where is the Most High now? Surely he could use his power to deflect the storm? Why should we follow you when we could be following him?”

  “We can have this debate on the journey south,” Kannwar said. “Every step we take away from the Mala Gulf will save lives. Should we not be on our way?”

  Lenares wished people would ask the most important questions rather than always getting themselves diverted. “Where are we going? I know you said ‘south,’ but we should confront the gods. We had a chance in the House of the Gods but didn’t take it.”

  “Oh? Who was it let the Daughter escape?”

  Cruel Kannwar, not knowing she’d had no choice. Her face reddened, and she thanked the darkness that prevented the others seeing her discomfort.

  “I thought she would help me. I made a bad mistake. But the Father should have done more. He should have killed the Son and the Daughter. Or is he not strong enough?”

  “I don’t know how strong he is,” Kannwar said. “But he is reluctant. Please, this is another issue best kept for discussion after we leave this place. As for where we should go, we need to find somewhere as far away from other people as we can, accessible within as short a time as possible. The key is to keep the gods from killing people and enlarging the breach in the Wall of Time. The House of the Gods would be ideal, but I doubt we can lure the gods back there. So south to start with, at least.”

  Seren spoke. “You want somewhere both isolated an’ reasonably close? I think I know just the place.”

  Duon opened his eyes to darkness, noise and pain. Groaning, shrieking, cursing and sobbing filled his ears as he struggled to see anything in the blackness around him. The void beyond the world? Surely he was dead and in the realm of lost souls, just reward for his mistakes and his cowardice. But no, his nose told him he was still in the land of the Padouki, unless lost souls smelled of sap and leaf mould.

  As for the sounds, Duon realised the groaning was coming from himself.

  Still alive then.

  He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

  He closed his eyes and concentrated on the back of his head. He could sense something… it was different from the spike through which Husk had tormented him… Now he focused on it, the sound of shrieking grew louder. It sounded like wind in the trees—it was wind in the trees—but it was also Husk, screaming in agony. Sweet, sweet music.

  Gradually the music faded away into silence and darkness.

  When next Duon came to, someone was speaking. He couldn’t hold us all, came the voice, a beautiful voice that brought tears to his eyes, the voice of an angel. He spread himself too thin trying to keep us alive. He believes he should have let us all fall to our deaths. He regrets it now.

  Arathé? Is that your voice?

  Yes, Duon. The connections Husk made seem to work still, even though he no longer sustains them.

  It worked then?

  Perfectly, it seems. The joy sparkled in her voice.

  You sound beautiful, like a god. Did you die? Are you a god?

  She laughed, and tears rolled down his cheeks at the sound. No, I’m just Arathé. You sound magnificent yourself. I think it is just how everyone sounds when we bypass the body and communicate directly, mind to mind.

  Husk didn’t.

  No, he didn’t, she agreed. Nor did Anomer or my father—but perhaps Husk had distorted their voices too.

  Duon knew there were more important matters to discuss, but right now he felt reborn, overwhelmed by sensation. There was something of the eager child in him.

  I felt that way too when I awoke, Arathé said.

  You can read my thoughts?

  Just as Husk could. Any thought you shape into words is clear to me, while the images and colours and memory fragments underneath are just blurs. I’m sure you can read my thoughts in just the same way.

  No, no, I don’t think I ought—can Conal read our thoughts? He was suddenly shy, uncomfortably aware of how unpleasant a place his mind must be to a visitor.

  No, he can’t. Sadness communicated itself along their link.

  Oh, Duon thought, reading her mind without meaning to. I see. He cannot read our thoughts because he is dead.

  Yes. When you went over the bluff with Conal, I threw myself over the other side. I decided that was our best chance of overtaxing Husk’s strength. It wasn’t bravery, she added in response to his sudden admiration. I didn’t care to live on if we’d failed, his lone slave. He ought to have let us all fall, but he couldn’t let go of his plans quickly enough. I felt him try to strengthen my body against the impact, then attempt to do something with the air around me to cushion my fall. Whatever he did worked in my case, but you and Conal had fallen a few seconds earlier and he didn’t have as much time. I’m sorry.

  Why are you sorry? he asked, and read her answer.

  Oh.

  The beauty of her voice and the wonder of her mind had all but blinded him to the pain, but now she recalled him to it, he could feel his leg pulsing with a slow, grinding ache.

  You’ve broken it, she said, in the same place you broke it before.

  How did you know—he’d have to stop asking her that. Of course she knew.

  I don’t think you will be able to walk. I’m not sure whether to wait here with you or get help.

  How do you know Conal is dead?

  I’ve checked his body. It’s broken.

  The poor man.

  Yes. He died swiftly, hopefully without pain. She held out her memories.

  He died only a little while ago?

  I tried to help him, but it was too late.

  Duon chose not to examine her memories, even though she made them available to him.

  Don’t wait for me to get better. You need to find your family. Send someone back for me when you rejoin
the others. Someone with magic enough to heal. That Heredrew, perhaps; he healed me the last time.

  Ah, she thought. I have a little magic. Perhaps I could heal you.

  Her thoughts sounded doubtful and Duon could see her annoyance and confusion. She’d never been taught to heal people. It would be like working in darkness; she might do more harm than good.

  As to that, I have an idea. More of a hope really. He opened his mind to her.

  It might work, she said. But what if he’s waiting for us to make the attempt? Might he not ensnare us again?

  Perhaps. But can we afford to ignore such a possibility? We can both hear him: he’s obviously in agony. We’ve done him serious harm, as was our intention. Why not see if the connection can be exploited?

  I need to rest before I try anything, she admitted. And then there’s Conal. I’m not leaving his body lying here to attract whatever animals live in these parts. An image of Duon fighting off wolves came into her mind, associated with anxiety and a sense of loss.

  We’ll decide in the morning, he said, not so much ending the discussion as echoing her thoughts.

  The decision made, Duon relaxed, allowing the comforting darkness to roll over him.

  CHAPTER 6

  CORATA PIT

  “IT’S CALLED CORATA,” Seren said, breathing heavily. His bandy legs struggled to keep pace with Kannwar’s long strides. “One of the Factor of Malayu’s dirty little secrets. Can’t believe y’don’t know about it, pardon my forwardness, yer ’onour.”

  “No pardon necessary,” Kannwar said, but Lenares could tell he had been angered by the man’s familiarity. “You don’t associate with outsiders much, do you?”

  “No, m’lord, it’s bin either down the pit or workin’ on the Altima Road e’er since I was old enough to hold a pickaxe. Plain speakers, us miners. No point in wasting words when any of ’em might be your last, eh?”

  Lenares found herself fascinated by the exchange. Kannwar was succeeding in keeping his temper in check, but the miner was definitely provoking him, and Lenares felt certain the provocation was deliberate. Did Seren know the risk he was taking? Kannwar was a murderer, a man steeped in blood, whose idea of truth was to say whatever he thought would advance his own interests. Seren ought not to be placing himself in the path of such a man.

  “Then tell me about Corata and the Factor of Malayu,” said Kannwar, “and speak plainly.”

  The miner cleared his throat. “Corata’s the biggest mine in Bhrudwo, far bigger’n Eisarn Pit where I come from. It’s a mountain o’ granite that sits on the land like a stone in a bowl o’ porridge. Three leagues wide, it is, or so young Dagla told me; his family came from there, he said. They cut the stone out an’ use it for all manner o’ buildings. Not round here; the peasants can’t afford it, seemingly. In Malayu City and other big places. Seems that it was t’ be kept a secret from the bigwigs in Andratan—that’s yourself, sir—because of the hope they’d find huanu stone there. The Factor wanted it for himself, Dagla said.”

  “How did your friend Dagla know what the Factor intended?”

  “Dunno, sir. It’s widely known, that’s all.”

  “Hearsay then,” Kannwar said. “Evidence enough, however, to ensure I will ask my Factor of Malayu a few questions.”

  The look on his face frightened Lenares: all the animation had drained from it, leaving a blank mask.

  The travellers now numbered eleven. Phemanderac they had buried with tears and many regrets, but rather than returning to Dhauria, Moralye had elected to stay a while longer with Stella and Robal, the only Falthans left in the party. Conal was lost, along with Arathé and Duon, and Sauxa and Kilfor had abandoned them. Kannwar now led the Bhrudwans. At least, none of that young or ill-educated lot had yet challenged his authority. Anomer was the liveliest of them, while the two miners, Seren and Tumar, said little even when spoken to. Sautea and Mustar, the fishermen, said nothing at all, awed, perhaps, by the Undying Man. They awaited their master Noetos’s return from the search for his daughter.

  Lenares and Torve were the only people remaining from the Amaqi expedition. She wondered what the Alliance leaders would think now, seeing a half-wit and an Omeran animal acting as their empire’s representatives in the most important endeavour in thousands of years. Likely they would seek Torve’s death, and Lenares they would bundle off home.

  The travellers traversed a land almost completely foreign to one brought up in the desert, as Lenares had been. Every hour she had to remind herself that Elamaq, not this abundant land, was the unusual place; apparently, most of the known world was covered in smothering vegetation, this creeping greenery. It was hard to bear, the shrouding of clean rock; hard, also, not to feel it as some kind of metaphor. Her distaste did not come from the land’s lack of beauty. Rather, the land was profligate: water cascading from the escarpment they’d climbed down that morning, gathering in unremarked pools; trees and bushes growing in every possible niche short of sheer cliff-faces; and rain tumbling from the sky at an ever-increasing rate. It was all so wasteful that it made Lenares feel guilty, as though she was again in the Garden of Angels observing the Emperor’s private extravagance.

  The Padouki lands ended with the escarpment, but the lower land, though sprinkled with cattle and sheep, still looked wild. Mounds of hard rock jutted out from the soft green pasture grass, standing in the fields like giant, unmoving sheep. Swift streams sliced the fields in two, their waters running close to flood levels because of the tumbling rain of the last week. An occasional farmhouse and rare village punctuated the flatter areas. The travellers were working slightly north of east through this lowland, despite Kannwar’s original intention to lead the storm south. Seren’s idea had thoroughly persuaded him.

  The Undying Man had approached Lenares to ascertain whether the miner was telling the truth about Corata Pit. It felt good to know even this demigod needed her wisdom, and she noted Anomer nodding at her during the exchange. She had replied with care. “He believes what he is saying. That may not be the same as the truth.”

  “I understand the nuances at play here,” the magician had shot back. “His information is second-hand. However, it still seems the best hope we have.” He looked at her with his keen eyes. “How close is the storm now?”

  “It nears the coast,” she replied. The hole in the world burned the edges of her mind, and she could work out to a reasonable degree of precision how fast it progressed. “Perhaps a day from lying overhead were we to remain where we are.”

  “It is speeding up then. Intensifying, no doubt. I can feel its enormous power.”

  She nodded, one hand pressed against her temple. The red pain was there all the time now.

  “Point to it,” he commanded.

  She stretched out an arm behind herself, moving it until it bisected the storm’s approach.

  The Undying Man grunted. “It will come ashore right over Pouk Peninsula. I will try to retard its momentum a little. I can do no more, not against such power.”

  Not entirely the truth, she knew, but she did not pursue the matter.

  The land tended gently downhill the rest of the day. A fortunate thing, Lenares considered later that afternoon, as the wind had risen to such an extent that its strongest gusts threatened to blow them off their feet. Certainly it impeded their attempts to move forward. Branches were already breaking off trees either side of their path, a narrow, rutted road of shingle and mud. The sheer intensity of the storm frightened her. Elamaq held no natural terrors like this, save perhaps the fire mountains far to the south. Its weather was slower-acting, if no less deadly in the long run. The sun took longer to kill its victims, but they died nonetheless.

  The sky became an unrelenting sea of bruised grey cloud, whipping diagonally across their path from the north. Stella did most of the work of keeping branches and other airborne objects from doing them harm, her illusory hand constantly flicking back and forth. With the roaring of the wind and the crashing of branches, conversation b
ecame next to impossible.

  Torve walked beside Lenares now, his gait rather narrower, as though he was still in pain. He had assured her that he no longer suffered, but said nothing about his amazing recovery. He did not need to; Lenares could tell his healing was not natural, that one of the party had healed him. She knew who it had been, and was aware of the healer’s dark secret. She nursed the knowledge, wondering when best to use it.

  Healed he was, but Torve was by no means restored. She wanted to talk to him about that, to find out how much his loss mattered to him. Though the cosmographers had been taught about the ways of men, she had not paid much attention to the lessons. It had not sounded very interesting, to tell the truth: a plumbing puzzle at best, something quite unpleasant at worst. Don’t touch me! Fortunately, cosmographers were allowed to remain unattached. In fact, the Emperor had encouraged it. Fewer mouths dependent on the public purse, Nehane had said. Lenares had not cared about the reason back then, not able to imagine sharing such awkward intimacy with any man. Now, however, she wished she had listened more carefully rather than playing with her numbers at the back of the room.

  Mahudia had encouraged her inattention, of course. No chance the half-wit would attract a mate. Except she had.

  She could not ask Torve. Love would compel him to say something other than the honest truth. She would think of someone else to ask.

  Light leached slowly from the sky, though there were hours remaining until sunset. What replaced it wasn’t darkness exactly, rather a grey blurriness that took the sharp edges from everything, a water-borne haze that left the travellers wading as much as walking. They were drenched, of course, but the air was strangely warm, and apart from the constant chafing they were not uncomfortable.

  They met the first refugees from the storm soon after. An old man, his possessions on his back, head down, shoulders hunched, and unwilling to answer their hail, heading away from the approaching weather. He was followed by others: younger men at first, moving swiftly, then families with few possessions. Kannwar tried to get them to turn around, but they were having none of it.