Time Sight

by Lynne Jonell

  “Please?” Nan begged.

  “All right,” said Will. “But I won’t have to,” he added hurriedly. “It’s a good plan. It ought to work perfectly.”

  Breet was in position, the reins in her hands and her head turned, waiting. Will took a deep breath and allowed his gaze to blur. Now that he’d had time to rest his eyes, his head didn’t hurt so much, and Nan’s armband, so close to him, was a powerful connection to the past. The threadlike tracks of his passage through time became stronger, glimmering faintly at the edge of his vision. There, right there, was a clear trace to the moment when he had last opened the window—a jagged sort of track that felt like fear.

  “Better hurry,” Nan murmured at his elbow. “Breet looks like she’s having trouble keeping the horses still. Why aren’t you facing her?”

  “Just checking to make sure I’ve got the right time.… Yes!” he breathed. “There’s Gormly, see? Her rope has just been cut, and she’s running from the Roman tent up the hill toward us—”

  “Oh, brilliant,” said Nan with fervor.

  A bubbling elation fluttered in Will’s chest. He had opened it perfectly. Slowly he turned his head, bringing the window around toward Breet; the stout trees of Pictish times moved past one by one. He was going to do it—it was all going to work—

  There was a sudden movement in the window, low down. Will caught a glimpse of a broad black-and-white snout emerging from a wide hole in the ground, followed by two bright eyes. Nan gave a faint shriek and clutched his shoulder. The picture blurred slightly, and Will made a heroic effort to snap it back into focus.

  “Don’t do that!” he said through his teeth. “You almost made me lose the window!” His headache, never really gone, grew into a dull pressure behind his eyes. The light through the window seemed to have dimmed—was his vision going?

  “Sorry,” said Nan. “It startled me, that’s all.”

  “What was it?” Will stopped the motion of his head long enough to look at the hole. It was largish—over a foot wide—but the creature was gone.

  “That same badger Gormly chased before, I think.” Nan glanced up the hill to where Breet was waiting patiently to go back to her own time. “Never mind, it’s gone. How are your eyes doing? Can you make the window big enough for the chariot?”

  “Yes.” Will ignored the strain in the small muscles of his eyes; he tried to forget about the pulse that was beginning to throb at his temples. Just a little more effort, and he would be done with Time Sight forever.

  Slowly, with infinite care, he enlarged the window. When it was big enough for Breet to drive through, he carefully slid it through the air until it was directly in front of the girl and her chariot.

  “Breet, go!” he shouted, wincing as the sound pierced his head.

  The blue-painted girl looked at them steadily for a long moment. Then she joined her hands together in a double fist and thumped them against her chest.

  “We’ll miss you, too!” Nan called, waving.

  “She can’t understand you anymore,” Will said.

  “I don’t care. She knows what I mean. Oh, good-bye!” Nan cried.

  Breet raised her hand in a tentative wave, and her teeth flashed in a sudden grin. Then, calmly and without fuss, she walked the horses through into her own time and was gone.

  Will pulled the window gently around in the other direction. “Your turn now, Nan,” he said, holding the focus steady in spite of the pain. He could do this. It was only for a minute more.

  “But where’s Gormlaith?” She peered past his shoulder.

  “Oh, for—” Will bit off a word and held his focus with determined concentration. The dog should have been right there.…

  Will turned slowly in a circle, searching. He blinked quickly, moistening his eyes, keeping the focus intact.

  “There! What was that?” Nan pointed. “Go back a bit.”

  “What?” Will couldn’t see anything but a rock and some pine branches … wait. Something was sticking out behind the rock. Something pale and feathery; it almost looked like Gormlaith’s tail, but it wasn’t wagging. It wasn’t moving at all.

  “Something’s wrong,” Will said slowly. His eyes, already strained, began to burn. “She was running up the hill just a minute ago. What could have happened in that time?”

  “Get closer!” Nan’s hand gripped his elbow, urging him on, guiding his steps.

  Will paced forward over the rough ground, his headache growing fiercer with every step. He longed to close the window, but he couldn’t, not until they knew if the dog was dead or alive. He stepped around the rock. Nan gasped.

  The rope the Romans had put on Gormlaith was tangled around the pine tree and caught in the low-reaching branches. The dog had clearly tried to free herself but had only succeeded in getting one leg caught up inside her collar, a strange, wide leather affair with metal spikes. She lay almost flat, with her head lifted slightly at a strained angle, and her eyes were closed.

  “Gormly!” Nan breathed. In an instant she was through the window and ducking under the branches, crawling on her hands and knees to Gormlaith’s head.

  The dog opened her eyes, dull and glazed with pain. In that moment, Will noticed that the earth all around her hind legs was gashed deep, as if she had scrabbled mightily with her paws for a very long time.

  Nan was having trouble. She dragged the heavy dog a few inches forward, to slacken the tight rope, but as soon as Gormly got more air, she began to struggle. Will’s head felt like a gong beating, but in spite of the pain, he could see that the more the dog struggled, the tighter the rope grew and the more impossible it was for Nan to untangle.

  Why didn’t she use her penknife? As if Nan had heard his thoughts, her hand fumbled in her pocket, but came out empty. She looked up, despairing, in the general direction of the window. “It’s gone!”

  Suddenly Will remembered where it was.

  Warily, slowly, he turned around, keeping his focus on the Pictish forest but losing his view of Nan and Gormlaith. He felt strangely guilty for turning his back on them, but he was still keeping the window open. He slid his feet forward, carefully feeling the ground ahead, never able to look down. The hole Jamie had dug should be just … about … here.…

  He felt around with his foot for what seemed like an eternity. At last his toe dipped into a depression, and he knelt with great care to grope with his hand. He had to use all his concentration to keep the window open now.… His fingers closed around smooth metal, and his thumb felt a sharp edge.

  He stood, he turned, barely hanging on to his focus. He had planned to toss the knife through to Nan, but he could hardly see anymore. Black dots swirled in his vision, and he was nauseated from pain. He had only a few seconds left, and he had promised.…

  Will stepped into the time of the Romans and Picts, and stumbled toward the pine tree where Nan and Gormlaith still struggled. “Here,” he gasped, pressing the knife into Nan’s outstretched hand. Then he fell to his knees and was sick.

  When at last he lifted his head, it was the light he noticed first. Slanting in low from the west, it furred the leaves on the hill with gold. Then, in a moment, the golden shafts were gone and the forest turned somber. Will looked to the upper branches to see the sun still lighting the treetops. That, too, would go in another minute.

  How could the sun be setting? His head felt full of nails, and he was half-dazed, but he was sure it had been midafternoon when Gormlaith had run away from the Romans.

  A few steps away, Nan cradled Gormlaith’s head in her lap. The dog’s chest rose and fell in reassuring rhythm, and her brown eyes, no longer glazed with pain, were fixed on Nan’s. The rope and spiked collar lay curled in the pine needles that covered the ground.

  “She’s breathing fine now,” Nan said in a low voice. “Let’s get out of here before any more Romans come.”

  Will ripped up a handful of grass to wipe his mouth and scanned the surrounding forest. “Wait.” He squinted at the bit of brightly painte
d wood showing through a gap in the trees. “Isn’t that Breet’s chariot? Why hasn’t she gone back to the hill fort?”

  “How would I know? I’ve been busy with Gormlaith!” Nan frowned. “Hurry up—open a window to our time!”

  Just thinking about opening a window made the spots swirl in front of Will’s eyes again. He couldn’t do it—not yet. “I need a minute,” he said, glancing again at the bit of painted wood farther up the hill. “And I want to check on something.”

  “Are you crazy?” Nan hissed. “Come back here!” But Will was already gone, slipping quietly from tree to tree as he moved toward the painted chariot. He was almost there when suddenly a hand was clapped over his mouth and his arms were pinned to his sides.

  “You!” said his captor.

  It was the tattooed man with the wolfskin cape; his chest scars were plain even in the dwindling light. “I thought you had gone,” the warrior said, releasing his hold. “Have you come to bring your magic to aid us in battle?”

  “Husha!” said another Pict near him. Will looked around. Hidden among the shadows and behind trees were the forms of other tattooed Picts, women as well as men. Of course. They had planned to storm the Roman camp at sunset.

  Some extra time must have slipped by, somehow, when Will had opened the window into Pictish time. He remembered how the window had blurred for a moment when the badger had startled him, coming out of its hole.

  Breet was speaking to her father in low but clear tones. “Yes, I saw the ruins that you saw,” she said, “but listen to me. The hill fort was only deserted because our people had built bigger, better dwellings.”

  “And how do you know this?” the chieftain demanded.

  Breet raked a hand through her hair, dragging it back from her forehead. “Will took me there, with his magic. I have seen chariots like smoking dragons, racing faster than the fastest horses, over roads as smooth as a pool of water on a windless day.”

  There was a low murmur from the listening Picts. Will’s eye was caught by the gleam of a strange brass object on top of what looked like a pole. He squinted and decided it was a boar’s head—or something like it.

  “I have seen proud dwellings, towering high above the trees, many times the height of our tallest hut, built of stone squared like Roman walls, yet built by our people they tell me—built on the very spot of that Roman camp!” Breet pointed down the hill.

  “Is this possible?” whispered the Pict standing next to Will.

  “And I have spoken with a man of that time, Father. He told me—” She flung back her head, her face alight. “He said that the Romans may have beaten us on the open plain, at the Battle of the Bloody Hands, but that they could not win among these, our own hills, where we can attack without warning and retreat into hidden places where they cannot follow. They will be gone soon, Father!”

  The chieftain’s eyes seemed to grow darker. “And you believed this man?”

  Breet clasped her hands and thumped them on her chest. “As much as I believe you. He was a wise man, a druid, I think, one of our descendants; I looked him in the eye, and there was no lie in him. He swore it, Father! In one or two winters, no more than three, he said the Romans will abandon the fort at Inchtuthil and never trouble us again!”

  The chieftain’s face lit up with a fierce joy. “Then we fight, not to destruction, but to victory!” He raised his spear and shook it. All around him, his warriors did the same, silently but with a sort of breathing exaltation.

  The chieftain lowered his spear and looked around the circle of waiting Picts. “When the carnyx sounds, strike your blows, then disperse into the hidden glens and caves. They will follow, but they will not follow far, for they do not know this land as we do. We will meet again at moonset and strike another blow when they expect it not!”

  A low, fierce growl went around the circle. The man holding the brass boar’s head lifted it higher.

  The chieftain turned to Breet. “Though some may die today, not all will die. Take this news back to your mother, Breet. Tell her that no life need be taken in the village. Then stay with her, and stay safely.”

  Breet pouted. “But I want to come back and join the battle. We are not like the Romans; our women can fight.”

  “Strong women,” said her father quietly, “will always join in the fighting, if they are not caring for children or the old and sick. But you are still just a girl.”

  “I’m a strong girl,” Breet insisted.

  Her father’s voice was stern. “You are brave, my daughter, but you have your task, and your orders. Go now, go silently—and if the gods are kind, we will meet again!”

  Will hurried back to Nan and Gormlaith. He had to open a window before the battle started.

  Down between the tents, torches were being lit; a Roman guard stared up the hill as if looking for someone. Will squatted behind the boulder, breathing quickly.

  Gormlaith was on her feet now, whining, and Nan used all her strength to hang on to the dog. “Can you open it now?” she begged. “It’s hard to hold Gormly, and I think the Romans might have heard her.”

  Will nodded. He was not exactly calm, and his head still hurt, but once he got the window open, they only needed a few seconds to get through.

  He shut his eyes, took a breath, and opened them again. The trees around him blurred as he focused, not on anything he could see, but on what he couldn’t. The air before him wavered slightly—the gossamer threads of their movements through time shimmered, faint and golden in the dusk. There. There.

  In the back of his mind, he was aware of increasing noise—a rumble, a vague sound of movement, a voice shouting—but no matter, he had the window to their own time open. There, through the window, was Nan’s satchel with the Magic Eyeball book still half tumbling out; there was the hole again where Jamie had unearthed the helmet.

  “Now,” he said urgently. “Go on through.”

  BRRRAAAANNNGGGH! BRANG-RANG-RAAANNNGGH!

  The noise, wild and brazen, bellowed through the trees like the sound of a metallic beast in a furious rage. Will clenched his jaw and stifled an almost uncontrollable instinct to turn around and look. “Now, Nan!”

  “I can’t!” Nan had both arms locked around the dog’s midsection. “Gormly’s scared, she’s trying to run off! And I’m not touching you, I can’t even see the window—”

  “It’s right in front of me. Nan, shove her through!”

  Gormlaith squirmed as Nan tried to push her. Suddenly the dog turned around, breaking Nan’s hold, and anxiously licked the girl’s face. Nan laughed wildly.

  “Are you insane?” Will demanded. “Laughing, at a time like this?”

  “No,” Nan gasped, “but I just figured out what to do—Gormly, stay!” she said firmly in the dog’s ear. Startled, Gormlaith froze for a moment. “Fetch!” Nan cried, and threw a pinecone straight through the window that led to their own time.

  Gormlaith leaped after it, her tail flying as she cleared the window.

  The thunder of charging warriors was loud in Will’s ears. “GO!” he shouted, but suddenly Nan yanked hard at Will’s shirt. The window disappeared as she pulled him down behind the rock and a spear whizzed by where his head had been.

  A man holding a long sort of trumpet that ended in a brass beast’s head strode past, blowing fiercely into the mouthpiece, his cheeks distended. Will clapped his hands over his ears as the bellowing sound seemed to pierce to his bones. That had to be the carnyx—the “great loud beast horn” that Breet had described. It was supposed to strike the fear of death into Pictish enemies. Will wasn’t an enemy, but he was terrified all the same.

  Hooves pounded, shaking the earth; there was a whinny like a scream, rising above the brazen howl of the carnyx. Will and Nan huddled together behind the boulder as a horse reared above them, its helmeted Roman rider fighting to control it. Then, faster than Will could take it in, a spear flashed, blood spurted, and the Roman rider toppled, his cloak tearing loose from its pin. His bronze helmet
fell off, hit the ground with a clang, and rolled into the badger’s hole.

  Nan was saying something; her mouth moved, but Will could hear nothing over the roar of battle. He pulled at her, and they crawled away through the undergrowth.

  “That’s the helmet Jamie found!” Nan said breathlessly. “It rolled into that hole—and stayed there for two thousand years! And his cloak pin, too!”

  Will was shaken to his core. Breet had been right—the reenactors’ battle was nothing like a real one. “We’ve got to get to a safe place,” he said. “A quiet place.”

  Nan glanced over her shoulder. “Let’s go to Saint David’s Well.”

  “Will it still be there?” Will wondered aloud, but he staggered after his cousin up the path. The well was there. The flat stone slabs were not yet placed, but the water brimmed up over earth and moss, and the sheer cliff and the apron of turf were just the same. The cup-marked stone they had picnicked on was there, too, and Will sat down upon it, breathing hard, his knees strangely weak.

  Nan looked nervously over her shoulder. “At least Gormly’s safe. Better open a window for us now.”

  “Just … let me catch my breath.”

  “Do it fast,” Nan advised. “I hear someone coming.”

  Will’s hands pressed down hard on the rock as he tried to concentrate. He glanced involuntarily to one side as two tattooed warriors raced silently past them up the path. Were the Picts dispersing already?

  Nan’s hand on his shoulder was shaking, as if she had a chill. “Aren’t you going to stand up so we can walk through?”

  Will got to his feet with reluctance. He felt as if his muscles had turned to water; he longed to sit back down on the cup-marked stone. He had the strangest feeling that the stone itself was exerting a force, drawing him back.… He took a few steps away from the stone and shook his head, to clear it. Now he could hear the sound of someone running—louder, coming closer, with creaking leather and the clank of metal armor—