The Sea of Time

by P. C. Hodgell

  Glancing at the Rose Tower, she saw that Lord Merchandy had fallen prostrate on the steps and that Lady Professionate was bending over him. Lord Artifice apparently had fled.

  Which way should she go, after the kidnappers or up the tower? The Karnids were gone. On the stair, the plump girl looked wildly around for help, none of which was forthcoming.

  “Take the ten and try to track down the Karnids,” Jame told Brier, shouting to be heard over the uproar, gripping the Kendar’s collar so that they wouldn’t be torn apart. “Free the Tishooo if you can.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m needed elsewhere.”

  Jame used water-flowing to make her way through the seething mob to the foot of the stair. Then she bounded up the steps. Merchandy and Professionate hadn’t moved. The old man lay panting and his color, from what Jame could see, wasn’t good.

  “Help us!” the girl gasped.

  Between them, they raised and dragged him, stumbling, up the steps. Tattered clouds revealed Kothifir’s ring of desolation, then the gilded heights above, already looking perilous as the glamour below them faded. A catwalk took them across the plaza, over a nightmare scene, to a white tower. All Merchandy’s servants had fled. Here in an inner chamber draped with creamy silk was his bed. They laid him down on it and Professionate loosened his clothes while Jame watched, unsure what else to do.

  “What’s the matter with him?” she asked.

  “An old illness, potentially fatal in his current state.”

  “He’s mortal again?”

  “Yes. So am I.”

  As Jame had guessed, the Kencyr temple had failed. The acolyte Dorin had said that a mere change in the weather might trigger its collapse, and this was so much more.

  The girl sat on the edge of the bed, holding a hand like a bunch of twigs. Merchandy gasped for breath, the cords in his skinny neck standing out, his pale blue eyes glazed with effort. Given that bone structure, he must once have been a very handsome man. Now he looked like an animate corpse in need of immediate burial. Professionate brushed thin, sweat-darkened hair off his brow and looked at Jame.

  “We met once before,” she said, with an obvious effort to be polite. “In the Undercliff. But we weren’t introduced. My name is Shandanielle. My friends call me Dani. This is Mercer.” She gave an unhappy little laugh. “By name and by nature, he would say.”

  “I’m Jamethiel Priest’s-bane. Call me Jame. Will he recover?”

  “Perhaps. If he wants to.” With her free hand she dipped a cloth into a bowl of lavender water and wiped his face with it.

  “He has been in pain for a long time. Being immortal doesn’t stop that. If anything, it makes things worse. And he has been greatly shaken by the failure of the trade mission.” A note of petulance crept into her voice. “I told him that it wasn’t his fault, that the city, that I need him, especially now; but he insists on blaming himself for our current dilemma.”

  Jame shifted uneasily. Had the fall of Langadine been in any way her fault or, like Mercer, had she simply grown used to taking responsibility for everything?

  “How will the Change affect you?” she asked.

  Dani laughed again and wiped her eyes. “Maybe this time I will outgrow these damned pimples.”

  Jame remembered that this girl had been mired in adolescence for nearly thirty years. What a horrible fate.

  “Would you like to remain mortal?” she asked.

  “Oh, I would love it, at least until I catch up with myself. It’s maddening to have an adult mind in a thirteen-year-old body—if I really am an adult. How does one know when one is grown up?”

  Jame took the question seriously. “From what I can tell, some people never mature, however long they live. Others are born old.”

  “And you?”

  “A little of both. That seems to be the way with the god-touched.”

  “Ah, I knew it! You too. I think we could teach each other much, whether or not I regain immortality. Oh, but what if I don’t? Who will be the next Lord or Lady Professionate? It could be an architect or an engineer or, heavens save us, a lawyer. I suppose each would be good for the city in a different way, but could any of them keep Mercer alive? I think we really need him now that Kothifir must alter in order to survive. Besides, all these years he has been so kind to me, as if I were the daughter that he lost as a baby, when his wife died. My own parents sold me to the physician for whom I worked before I came into the white.”

  “I didn’t know that there were slaves in Kothifir.”

  “Not as such, and only among certain old sects where females are considered chattel. The guilds call them apprentices, and not all are sold or ill-treated. You don’t know what it was like, though, to be the least of servants, at everyone’s command. My master took advantage of that. So did his chief assistant.” She shuddered. “A gross man, that. His weight nearly crushed me. Then I became a god, still as a child, and I dealt with both of them. That taught me that revenge hurts all involved in it. I have never misused my powers again, even when my parents demanded my return, saying that they had been cheated out of a valuable asset. However, Mercer refused them and King Kruin supported him. Now they are old and my younger brother is full-grown. I still get letters from them from time to time, demanding money or other favors.”

  The floor seemed subtly to shift, although the bed curtains didn’t sway. Mercer twitched and groaned. Jame tottered, cursing. Of course, if the Kencyr temple was down, Krothen was no longer a god-king with control of his city’s heights.

  “How long is this apt to go on?”

  Dani shrugged plump shoulders, looking helpless. “Once it lasted for half a year, or so I’m told. That was when most of the outer towers fell. But Mercer can’t survive that long now. Oh, what are we going to do?”

  Jame didn’t know. First, she had to determine the status of the temple. With that in mind, she bade Dani good-bye and started down the stairs.

  Someone was coming up them with a heavy tread.

  Jame slipped into an alcove. A large man in worn worker’s clothes passed her, his expression set in a determined scowl. On impulse, she followed him up to the chamber where the former Lord Merchandy lay and the former Lady Professionate tended him.

  “So there you are,” he said, standing framed in the doorway. “What price godhood now, uh? Come on. You belong at home.”

  He crossed the room and seized her arm. Dani struggled in his grip. “No! He needs me!”

  “Your family needs you more.”

  “Then why did you sell me as a child?”

  “We needed the money to buy my apprenticeship. Don’t you see, you silly chit? That way, both of us were provided for.”

  “But you failed your tests and had to become a common laborer.”

  He snarled at her. “The guild master wanted a bribe. That’s all. You could have provided it.”

  “I keep telling you: I never ask a price for my services. People donate what they can.”

  “The more fool you, but all of that is over now.”

  Jame slipped up behind him.

  “Let her go.”

  The brother gave her a contemptuous look over his beefy shoulder. “Who are you, to interfere with family matters?”

  “Some family,” said Jame, and pinched the nerve in his elbow. He let his sister go as his arm went limp and turned, furious, on Jame.

  “Why, you little bitch . . .”

  “Right sex, wrong species.”

  He lunged at her, and she slid past him in wind-blowing, giving him a kick in the pants as he staggered past. He ran headfirst into the bedroom wall. Then back he came as furious as a dazed bull. Jame swept his feet out from under him and he plowed into the marble floor face first. Blood spread around his head as he lay there, inert, snoring.

  “With luck, it’s only a broken nose and a concussion,” Jame told Dani, who stood by horrified, hands over her mouth. “If he thought you were vulnerable, how long before Master Needham comes looking
for Lord Merchandy? I think, on the whole, that you two should go Undercliff, where Fang, Kroaky, and Mother Vedia can look after you.”

  “I think . . . on the whole . . . that you are right.” Mercer gasped from the bed.

  Dani returned hastily to his side. “But can you make the journey?”

  He dragged himself upright. “With help. I must.”

  Dani took one arm and Jame the other. He rose between them like an injured stork and tottered, panting, out of the room.

  CHAPTER XV

  Winter’s Tales

  Winter 80

  TORISEN ARRANGED THE FUR ROBE over his outstretched legs and snuggled back into its folds. A cup of hot spiced wine gave welcome warmth to his hands, assuaging the scars’ ache. It was a cold night, full of drifting snow, but Marc’s two glass furnaces kept the great hall at Gothregor pleasantly warm, even with wind whistling in through holes in the as yet uncompleted stained glass window. At least, it was much better here than in his tower study above.

  The wolver curled up before one tower kiln, Yce before the other. Marc ground ingredients at the head of the table nearest the window which he had appropriated as his work space. To one side, Burr was teaching Kindrie how to darn his well-worn socks using a wooden egg.

  “You catch up an edge of the hole, see? Then draw the thread across the bulge of the egg to the other side. Stitch into that side. Back and forth, back and forth. Then change direction. Now weave the thread over and under the original warp . . . good. Keep going.”

  Grimly stretched and yawned. Paws in the air and furry belly exposed to the furnace’s heat, he shifted his mouth for human speech.

  “You look as if you should be purring.”

  Torisen sipped his wine. “I had a good day.”

  Grimly wrinkled his nose. “What, helping muck out the stables?”

  They had been snowed in for a fortnight and the walls were starting to clamp down on them all. With little to do except keep the fires going, eat, and sleep, tempers had grown short. However, nothing stops a horse’s digestive tract except starvation, and provisions for both man and beast were still excellent. Moreover, the entire remount herd was currently lodged in subterranean stalls, all faithfully producing manure that must be shoveled out at least once a day.

  “What did your Kendar think of you lending a hand?”

  “They didn’t like it, of course. What, their precious Highlord to waste his time on so menial a chore? But I had to do something.”

  “Better than catching up with paperwork,” Kindrie murmured to Burr, who snorted.

  Torisen cocked an eyebrow at them. “What’s more depressing than being left with the last thing that you want to do? Anyway, afterward there was the race.”

  Kendar had shoveled a path around the edge of the inner ward and cartloads of manure had been emptied into it to cover the ice. Every day, the horses were brought up fifty at a time and given the run of the course for exercise. Today had been Storm’s turn. The black, quarter-bred Whinno-hir had burst off the ramp with head high, eyes bright, and nostrils jetting steam like a dragon. He had pawed at the snow, then looked at Torisen askance and whickered.

  The invitation was clear.

  Torisen hadn’t ridden in what felt like forever. He grabbed Storm’s mane, up he swung bareback, and off they went, thundering down the northern straightaway with snow flying from the black’s hooves. Someone whooped behind them. More horses acquired riders and it became a race. Around the northwest corner, down parallel to the western walls, up the southern side . . . Storm’s ribs heaved between Torisen’s knees. A bitter wind laced with snow blew in his face while Storm’s mane whipped against his hands. A crash behind them on the southeast turn: one of the horses had slipped and fallen, bringing down several in his wake. Now they were pounding home with the towers of the old keep swinging overhead. Kendar lining the way cheered. Torisen pulled Storm to a stop just short of the slippery ramp down into the stables and let out his breath: Ah . . .

  He didn’t think that the Kendar had let him win on purpose.

  “How is Cron?” he now asked Kindrie.

  “The fall fractured his leg, but he should be up again soon. Meanwhile, he can tend to their new baby while his mate Merry handles his chores as well as her own. That shouldn’t be hard, just now. I didn’t know that male Kendar could breast-feed if necessary.”

  “Oh, the Kendar are full of surprises. We Highborn don’t take their talents half as seriously as we should.”

  Ever since Cron and Merry’s young son had broken his neck and Torisen had administered the White Knife to him, he had been interested in the pair. Somehow, they seemed to represent the health of his Kendar garrison. A new child was good, and it had been born under his protection, guaranteed a place in the Knorth. That couldn’t be said of every Kendar who wanted to join, not because Torisen didn’t wish it but because he was only able to bind so many and no more without weakening his hold on all. He had learned that the hard way with the suicide of Mullen, whose death banner now hung in a place of honor in the Knorth hall. Cron had come to him at an opportune moment to request a new child. Just the same, he was sorry that the Kendar had injured his leg.

  Chunks of limestone rasped in an ironwood mortar as Marc ground them into dust. To this he added dried spice-bush and sand from the Wastes. The sound and the tang of the bush reminded Torisen of the last postrider before the snows to bring news from the south and, incidentally, a score of small bags containing raw material for Marc’s window.

  Grimly noted his change of expression and rolled over on his side with a thump. “What?”

  “You heard that Kothifir is undergoing a particularly rough Change at the moment. I was just hoping that Harn would restrict Jame to the camp for the duration.”

  “Did he say that he would?”

  “No.”

  “Wise Harn. If something interesting is going on, there’ll be no keeping your sister away from it.”

  Torisen sighed, remembering Jame’s bright, curious eyes and her talent for finding herself in absurd situations. Even as a child, she had had that knack.

  “True,” he said.

  “D’you remember the first time we met?” asked the wolver, perhaps to distract him. “That was during the big Change when King Kruin died and Krothen came to the throne.”

  “I remember.” Torisen eased into a laugh. “It surprises me that you do, given how drunk you were at the time.”

  Kindrie looked up, intrigued. “What happened?”

  Grimly untangled limbs grown long, lanky, and human. “If you like, I will tell you.”

  “From the beginning, please,” Torisen said. He and Burr knew the story. The others didn’t.

  “Very well. One day long ago when I was just a pup, King Kruin came to the Grimly Holt to hunt wolver. We hid and watched while he set up camp in the ruined keep that was our den. A poet sang to the king in Rendish that night, but the king was too drunk to listen. I did, though, from the cover of a nearby bush. The poet saw me but said nothing. That was his revenge against his inattentive master.

  “Well, come the dawn Kruin set off into the forest, but the deep wood is dangerous and the Deep Weald wolvers are ingenious. We watched Kruin’s men die in clever ways all day. Finally we offered to lead him out. He wasn’t exactly pleased by our assistance, but he accepted. In return, he offered a place in his court to any wolver who cared to present himself there.”

  “What,” said Marc, with a smile through his graying beard, “on his trophy wall?”

  “That was our first thought. We didn’t know it then, but a Deep Weald wolver had followed us out and was also listening. He took up the king’s offer first.”

  Yce’s ears twitched. She rolled over and regarded Grimly with unblinking frost-blue eyes.

  “When I came of age,” he continued, “I went south and found the poet whom I had heard sing. He was old by then, out of favor and fashion, but I didn’t know that. When he offered to present me at court, I was over
joyed.”

  Grimly paused and sighed. His joy in storytelling dimmed. “Why are the young such fools? We see the bright path before us and romp down it.”

  “You were neither a fool nor a cynic,” Torisen said. “Then or now. In Kothifir, you were a novelty. He used you to work his way back into favor.”

  “Of course I know that now. Then, they laughed at me.” The old hurt whined in his voice. He coughed and shook his head, but the past still had him by the throat. “All of those years learning how to compose in Rendish, waiting to perform, and they laughed. So I began to clown and to drink in order to stand myself. ‘The Wildman of the Woods,’ they called me. That was who Rose Iron-thorn tackled that night in the plaza: a drunken buffoon.”

  “Still, if you hadn’t told me that the Gnasher was performing above for Krothen in the Rose Tower, we wouldn’t have been in time to save him.”

  And if the Gnasher hadn’t served Kruin before that, Torisen thought, he would never have gotten the idea that immortality lay through killing off all of one’s heirs. In that case, he wouldn’t be searching for Yce, his daughter, now.

  “Ah well,” said Grimly, giving himself a shake. “I’ve told my tale. Your turn, old friend.”

  “What d’you want to hear?”

  The wolver looked at him askance, perhaps sensing that he was relaxed enough to part with some of his long-held secrets.

  “Answer a question or two, then. How did you escape from Urakarn as a boy?”

  Torisen considered his cup of steaming wine, now nearly empty. Burr rose without a word and refilled it. They were waiting for him to speak. Well, why not?

  “You know the basic story,” he said, and took a sip. Burr had chosen a heady vintage for someone more accustomed to hard cider. It laced his veins with warmth and plucked at the knots of his reticence.

  “That you, Harn, Burr, Rowan, and Rose Iron-thorn fled into the Wastes, found a stone boat, and sailed it across the dry salt sea, yes,” said the wolver. “That’s all plain enough. But how did you get free of Urakarn in the first place?”

  “That I can’t tell you. I was chained in a room of changing sizes and then I wasn’t. Chained, that is. They had fitted my hands with white-hot wire gloves and the burns had become infected, y’see. My mind was none too clear. Perhaps I slipped off the cuffs myself. Perhaps someone freed me.”