The Sea of Time

by P. C. Hodgell

  “You see how an heir’s very existence poisons me. Learn from it. They say that you have named your sister as your successor. That was foolish. She may seem hardly more than a mouthful, but she has unexpected qualities. How long can you keep a step ahead of her, eh? Oh, your father would laugh to see you now. Can’t you hear him?”

  What Torisen heard were distant voices calling his name. Would his people find him in this murk? Did he want them to?

  The grass behind him rustled. Grimly slipped out of it to his right, Yce to his left, both in their complete furs.

  “Ah,” breathed the Gnasher.

  “Grimly, take her away,” Torisen said over his shoulder to his friend.

  “No.”

  They all looked at Yce. None of them had ever heard her speak before.

  “My father,” she said, showing white teeth. “My fight.”

  “Ah,” said the Gnasher again, with a breath of laughter. “Ah, ha, ha, ha . . .”

  Torisen started to rise, but Grimly slipped forward to block him. “Wait.”

  The two wolvers of the Deep Weald circled each other within the ring of ancient stones. One was barely half the size of the other, but she moved with fluid grace while he dragged his shattered limb behind him. He lunged at her, jaws agape, and bowled her over. Pinning her with his weight, he snapped at her throat, but missed. She twisted under him. Her teeth closed on his ear and shredded it as he reared back.

  “You little bitch!”

  Yce grinned.

  He came at her again, half-blinded by a mask of blood. She ducked under his charge and snapped sideways at his sound hind leg as he passed. Bones crunched. The Gnasher screamed and dragged himself around to face her with iron fingernails that gouged into the ancient pavement.

  “All right,” he panted, raising himself. “Meet your siblings.”

  Whorls of light gathered around him, tracing the patterns in his ragged coat. The line of an infant jaw, the curve of a muzzle, blue eyes barely open, small paws, scrabbling . . . How many pups he must have slain and devoured, litter upon litter. They covered him now like a moving coat, their edges limned with a purer light than his own. Milk teeth bared, and bit. The wolver king yelped with surprise and pain as red tears opened in his hide. He was bleeding from a dozen gashes, a hundred, and still those tiny teeth worried into his flesh, laying bare muscle, gnawing at bone.

  Yce sat and watched. Once or twice, she licked her black-fringed lips.

  The Gnasher writhed on the ground, snapping at himself, doing more harm. With a savage slash, he laid open his own guts, which spilled out onto the ground.

  Torisen put his hand on Grimly’s shoulder and levered himself to his feet.

  “Enough,” he said.

  Thunder boomed closer. The phantom interior of the old hall faded and the mist within it became tinged with a foretaste of rain. Drops splattered into the growing pool of gore, thinning it until it ran deep into the circle’s network of cracks. The Gnasher gathered up his steaming entrails and regarded them with disbelief. He raised what was left of his face.

  “Am I going to die?”

  “Yes. Hold still.”

  Torisen gripped Kin-Slayer with both hands and raised it. As the ring and the hilt touched, lightning raked the sky. Down came the blade, and the ancient circle split in two. Thunder rocked from side to side of the river valley. Almost unnoticed in that rolling cacophony, something bounced away down the slope into the shadows.

  Yce stood opposite Torisen by a sundered, smoking stone, her slim, white figure ghostlike in the gloom. Crossing to his side, she slid her arms inside his coat, around his waist. He felt the warmth of her body, the firm pressure of her small breasts against his chest. With one hand, he gingerly held Kin-Slayer clear. With the other he returned her embrace.

  “I will miss you,” she breathed in his ear.

  “And I, you.”

  When she disengaged and drew back, not hands but paws rested on his shoulders. The wolver girl bared white teeth in a grin and licked his cheek. Then, dropping to all fours, she loped off into the downpour.

  “She’s going to return to the Deep Weald to claim her father’s place,” said Grimly. “I’ll escort her—not that she needs it—and return as soon as I can.”

  Then he too was gone.

  Torisen became aware that the shattered ruins were surrounded by silent, watching Kencyr. His people had found him after all. Kin-Slayer tingled in his left hand, light rolling up and down its rain-washed length. He sheathed it, to a long sigh from the shadows.

  “Has someone brought me a letter from the Southern Host?” he asked.

  A bedraggled postrider approached, drawing a folder from her dripping leather pouch.

  “Are you sure you want to read it here, now, my lord?”

  Torisen wished no such thing, only that the long day be over at last, but that was impossible until he had finished every piece of business related to it.

  He drew out Harn Grip-hard’s missal and unfolded it. Judging by the familiar, crabbed script, the Commandant hadn’t trusted his response to a clerk’s fair copy, which was just as well. Torisen read the message three times, memorizing it, before the rain washed it away. Then he tore up the sodden paper and let it drop into the mud. Those watching could make little of his expression except, perhaps, that they had never seen him look more like his father.

  “Get something to eat and rest while you can,” he told the rider. “My answer will be ready by dawn at the latest.”

  The Kendar was startled. “What, all the way back south?”

  “Yes. To Kothifir.”

  CHAPTER XXI

  Before the Storm

  Winter 120

  A GHOSTLY GIBBOUS MOON had just risen above the eastern horizon, signaling midafternoon on the last day of winter. Most of the Southern Host was busy in the training fields south of the camp, as usual. Dust rose there, and steel glinted through it in mock battle.

  So much practice, to what end? wondered Harn Grip-hard as he stood on his balcony, looking south over the inner ward and the red tiled roofs of the Host’s camp. The Kencyrath had many foes, but at that moment, the war he feared most brewed within it, between brother and sister.

  Blackie’s latest message lay on his desk. It was written on a scrap of parchment with jerky, dark red letters that looked like dried blood. So, Harn expected, it was. The Ardeth cadet who had presented it to him three days ago with a bandaged hand had looked quite unwell.

  “The Highlord asked Lady Kirien to send this to me to give to you, Ran,” he had said. “Torisen wasn’t previously aware that the Ardeth had a far-writer among the Southern Host.”

  Harn hadn’t known that either. One tended to overlook the Shanir until they suddenly became indispensable. How much time might have been saved if he had known about this earlier—except it was a surprise that Blackie had stooped to using a Shanir at all. He must feel very strongly about this message.

  Harn remembered when the first letter had arrived by the usual postrider fifteen days ago:

  “Something is wrong with Brier Iron-thorn.”

  He had summoned the Kendar, of course, and there she had stood before his desk, dark red hair aglow, green eyes cautious in an immobile, sun-darkened face. He had known her since she was a stocky, inscrutable child, and her mother before her.

  “Well, Iron-thorn. You’ve done something to upset the Highlord. What?”

  “I suppose,” she said slowly, “it’s because the bond between us broke.”

  Harn was shocked. “Why? What did he do?”

  “Nothing. It’s just . . .” She floundered for words. “He’s so gentle.”

  Harn sat back, absorbing this. He knew how gingerly Torisen dealt with those bound to him, as if they were all at his mercy—which, of course, they were. Raised by Kendar, he had never really understood the Highborns’ sense of entitlement. Harn valued that freedom. Others, especially those like Brier raised under tight control, might mistake such care for weakn
ess.

  “Still,” he said, “that’s no reason to break from him.”

  “It wouldn’t be, except . . .” She had paused, a frown gathering as she thought. “His sister . . . I don’t really understand it, especially in one who seems so fragile and, well, peculiar, but there’s an iron core to her. She can also be merciful. I was in great distress over the death of the seeker’s baby. Torisen wasn’t there. She was.”

  “So she bound you.”

  Brier raised somber eyes. “One might almost say that I bound her.”

  Now, that had been a tricky message to convey. Torisen’s answer had come back virtually overnight. Harn wondered that the blood in which it was written didn’t smolder.

  Below in the ward he saw eight figures emerge from the streets of the camp, some walking together like the Brendan and the Jaran, others aloof like the Randir. They crossed the grass. Soon they would be at his door. It was, of course, only a regular meeting with the barracks’ commanders.

  “Huh,” he muttered, under his breath.

  Some fifteen minutes later they were seated about the round table in Harn’s cramped conference room. Genjar had adopted the southern style of lounging on pillows. Harn and Torisen before him had preferred northern formality, although Harn frequently prowled around the room while the others sat, saying that it helped him to think.

  “Where’s Coman?” he asked.

  “He’s expecting a report from his outriders,” said the Edirr, with a grin.

  The others smiled indulgently. The young Coman commander was responsible for gathering information on Kothifir’s external foes. Raids from Gemma aside, though, what enemies did the city possess? However, as one of the Kencyrath’s smallest houses, the Coman always made a fuss about whatever they did to inflate their own self-importance. The Coman commander had been hinting since late summer that Gemma was up to something.

  “All right,” said Harn. “What news from the Overcliff?”

  The Ardeth commander folded his thin, aristocratic hands, gathering his thoughts. “The Change hasn’t yet resolved itself,” he said. “Life goes on in the city, but in a bumpy fashion without the authority of king, guild lord, or grandmaster to steady it. More towers have fallen. Krothen remains in seclusion. Merchandy and Professionate are in hiding. Ruso, the former Lord Artifice, has taken up quarters with the former Master Iron Gauntlet, Gaudaric. Grandmasters like Needham are trying to gather followers . . . on what basis in his case I don’t know, given that the silk trade seems to have ended forever. Prince Ton and his mother Princess Amantine are also looking for supporters. Politics aside, I don’t know what natural laws are in operation here.”

  “I’ve always said that we don’t adequately understand Rathillien religions,” said the Jaran commander, leaning forward.

  The Caineron snorted. “You and your scholar’s obsession with native cultures. What is there to understand? We know the truth.”

  “As we see it, yes. Our Three-Faced God is behind everything. Has it ever occurred to you, though, that his power is in short supply on this world?”

  “Blasphemy,” growled the Caineron. “Our lords stand, do they not?”

  “And our priests,” murmured the Randir, Frost.

  “Oh, leave them out of this,” snapped the Danior. His home keep, after all, was across the river from the Priests’ College at Wilden, too close for comfort. “What good do they do any of us?”

  “Here in Kothifir, they seem to benefit the natives more than us,” remarked the Jaran. “The current mess started when our temple disappeared. And if you can explain how that happened, you will have my full attention.”

  Harn raised his big hands to stop the wrangle. Religion was the last thing on his mind at present.

  “What about the treasure towers?” he asked.

  “We share guard duty there,” said the Brandan. “Everyone knows that control of them equals control of the city. Needham and his followers are constantly threatening to storm them, while Prince Ton wants to distribute their wealth to buy himself support.”

  “And the Rose Tower?”

  “Krothen prefers native guards, or so we hear,” said the Brandan. “These days, nothing comes from him directly.”

  The others stirred uneasily. Krothen was the Host’s paymaster, but he had paid no wages since the beginning of the Change. The Kencyr quartermaster had been reduced to buying rations on credit in the common market.

  “I still say we should break into the towers and take what’s owed us,” grumbled the Caineron.

  “If we do that,” said the Brandan, “how can we justify keeping others out? We are sworn to protect Kothifir, not to loot it. Anyway, it would start a riot.”

  Harn waved away this troubling subject as he had that of Kothifiran religion. “What about the rumor of Karnids in the city?”

  The Ardeth shrugged. “No question, they are there in the shadows, biding their time.”

  “Until what?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “How many of them?”

  “We don’t know that either.”

  The Caineron snorted.

  There were other, more mundane subjects to discuss: class schedules involving the training fields, a clash between cadets and regular troops, thieves sneaking into the camp. Harn started to relax as the usual wrangles played themselves out.

  “If that’s all . . .” he began, rising to dismiss the council.

  But the Randir Frost didn’t move. “There is one other thing,” she said, examining her nails. “What are we going to do about the Knorth Lordan, Jamethiel? She’s been absent without leave for—what? Twenty days?”

  “That is house business,” Harn growled, and began to pace around the table. Here was the topic that he had feared most. “Also remember: this isn’t a meeting of the senior Randon Council. Our authority is limited to the Southern Host.”

  “Which is where she belongs,” said the Randir. “What are you going to do about her?”

  Ran Onyx-eyed, the Knorth commander, had barely spoken during the meeting, but that was her way. Now she looked up. “We’ve made inquiries, of course,” she said mildly. “Our patrols have visited all the places in Kothifir she might be, without success. She does have a record of disappearing, though, as noted during her career at Tentir.”

  “Might she be dead?”

  “No,” said Harn. Brier would have told him if that were true. For that matter, he suspected that he himself would have known, given his link to the Knorth.

  “With any other cadet, such behavior would merit being sent home in disgrace. Are we to judge lordan by a different standard?”

  “We did your Randiroc,” snapped the Danior. “Ancestors know, he was as peculiar a cadet as ever won his randon’s collar.”

  Frost’s smile turned brittle. “We won’t discuss the so-called Randir Heir, thank you very much.”

  “There is also such a thing as detached duty,” remarked the Jaran. “Your cadet Nightshade has been assigned to Ran Awl this entire year. And she’s missing too, along with a dozen others of your house.”

  Harn continued to pace as they wrangled. From the beginning, he had sensed that Jameth, or Jamethiel as he supposed he must learn to call her, had other duties than most cadets, first with the Merikit hill tribe and now here in Kothifir. He was aware of her unique status as the only other Highborn besides Torisen to possess pure Knorth blood, discounting for the moment rumors about their cousin Kindrie. The Knorth had led the Kencyrath from the beginning. To disrupt their fragile hold now felt to him like the end of the world.

  “You put great faith in your two remaining Highborn,” said Frost, as if reading his mind. “Do they really merit it?”

  Onyx-eyed stirred. “At Gothregor, Torisen opened a door that to all others was locked. In the camp, on her first day here, his sister did the same. I don’t quarrel with such power. You should think twice before you do.”

  Hasty footsteps sounded on the stair, and the Coman commander burst i
nto the room, red-faced, panting.

  “I told you,” he wheezed, hands on knees, pausing to regain his breath. “I said Gemma was up to something. My scouts report a Gemman army on its way to Kothifir.”

  “By what route?” snapped Harn.

  “Along the Rim.”

  “How strong?”

  “At a guess, twenty thousand, composed of Gemmans, raiders, and any other opportunists they’ve been able to hire. Kothifir’s weakness draws them. Besides, I always said that Krothen shouldn’t have hung that assembly man’s son. They will be here by dusk with horses, chariots, and mounted war lizards.”

  Everyone had risen.

  “The livestock is a challenge,” said the Jaran, “but we should be a match for the rest. We’ve got to get everyone on top of the Escarpment and outside the city walls to meet them. There are four lift cages, but only one of them is big enough to accommodate horses.”

  “So, no horses,” said Harn.

  He could see the battlefield laid out in his mind. The Gemmans would lead with their thunder lizards, not as big as rhi-sars but quite large enough to rout an unprepared foe. The Kencyrath, on the other hand, had clashed with such beasts before. The rest, discounting chariots, would be hand to hand. It could indeed be done, if enough Kencyr could be conveyed to the battlefield in time.

  “We need to move,” he said. “The cadets should stay in camp, though. For one thing, we haven’t time to get everyone Overcliff. For another, someone has to watch our back door. Commanders, see that your second-in-commands stay behind to monitor them.”

  Thus the Kencryath rose to war and streamed through the city streets toward the wall, watched by many dark eyes. In their wake, as the sun set, the shadows began to move.

  CHAPTER XXII

  The End of Many Things

  The Feast of Fools

  I

  THE STEP-FORWARD TUNNEL snaked through the earth, one side of it plunging down into an abyss with a pulse of fire in its depths. Rising heat made the air dance. The lichen which had provided Jame with light before now crunched to powder underfoot. Everything trembled.