by Devan Skyles
“And what would a human girl be doing with one the master timekeepers?”
“I— I don’t know, sir,” he answered truthfully.
“Well, I’m very impressed. How did you manage to get it back from Redwing?”
Rhydian and Auram looked at each other nervously.
“Um, we—” Auram stammered.
“I killed him, sir,” Rhydian admitted.
Corvus seemed taken aback. “You killed him?”
“Yes, sir, to save our lives.”
Corvus stood and paced the room in fervent thought, his hand on his chin. “Do you have the timekeepers with you?”
“Just the one we took from Redwing,” Auram said, holding out the piece.
“Very good,” Corvus replied, taking it. “And what about yours, Rhydian. Is it somewhere safe?”
“It’s hidden.”
“Can you take me to it?”
Rhydian was slightly perplexed. “Sir, shouldn’t the priority be arresting Nicodemus? Redwing had a lot of support from other Council members. What if one of them tries to continue his plan?”
“Well, first we need to secure the master timekeepers. That’s the only way to ensure that it never happens.”
“But sir, they were originally given to different people so they would never be together in one place. I think—”
“Rhydian, my boy, you need to trust me. I know what is best for my people. I didn’t get to be where I am for nothing. Now, please tell me where you’ve hidden the timekeeper.”
Rhydian wasn’t sure what was going on. Why was he not more concerned about Nicodemus?
“General,” Auram cut in, “I think Rhydian is right. We need to keep them separate.” Rhydian nodded his agreement.
Corvus ran his hand through his hair in distress. “This all could have been so much easier if you’d simply accepted the officer’s commission I offered you.”
Rhydian was confused now. “What?”
Corvus tore the page into pieces and stared into Rhydian. “I tried to bring you in on this, Rhydian. I never wanted to turn you into a fugitive. It was all the doing of Redwing’s clumsy, foolish techniques. Sending his thugs after you, having you arrested. I told him from the beginning that was not the right way handle the situation, but he had so little patience. He couldn’t imagine gaining anyone’s loyalties without manipulating them or paying them off.”
Rhydian’s heart sunk. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Wait— you? You’ve been working for Redwing?” he said incredulously.
“Ha! Me working for that dim-witted, narcissistic bureaucrat? I’d sooner die! I carefully orchestrated every detail of this plan over the last twenty years! Redwing was merely a pawn to help secure the support I needed from the Council. Of course, as soon as I brought him in on it, he imagined the whole thing was all his brilliant idea. Ironically, his death will be just the thing to scare the rest of the Council into declaring a state of military emergency and granting me complete authority over the Fleet. Really quite a beautiful development, actually. I wish I’d thought of it myself.”
Rhydian felt like he’d just been hit by a sledgehammer. “But, how could you do this? You were my father’s closest friend? He made the deal that would have solved the ilïmbalm crisis. If we’d made peace with the ground-dwellers, we’d have access to all the threshold land we needed. This all goes directly against what he stood for.”
Corvus placed both hands on Rhydian’s shoulders. “My boy, your father was like a brother to me. I loved him dearly, but he was a foolish, misguided idealist. His plan would have sacrificed countless Ilimíri lives. We could never coexist with those soulless, ground-dwelling savages! And he wanted to trust them with our peoples’ legacy; our birthright. We both presented our plans to the Council, and of course, they sided with his. It was less callused and promised peace, they said. But it would be a peace I knew would never last.”
“So you betrayed him!” Rhydian spat.
“I knew it was only a matter of time before the ground-dwellers broke the treaty, so I merely convinced the troops that they already had. I had no way of knowing that Gideon would turn on his own people and side with the enemy! I was among the only Ilimíri to leave the battlefield that day, so when I returned home, I made sure everyone knew my friend as the hero, the martyr; that his name would always be known for his valor and courage. We differed on a great many things, he and I, but I always regarded him as a brother.”
Rhydian was trembling with fury. “How can you even bring yourself to say his name after what you did? How can you live with the knowledge that you caused Ilimíra’s suffering?”
“We don’t all have the luxury of seeing the world in black and white the way my old friend did. War is messy, son.”
“Don’t you dare call me ‘son’, and don’t you EVER refer to yourself as his friend! You betrayed him!”
“I’m sorry you see it that way, Rhydian. Look, my offer still stands. I can make you one of my own lieutenants. We can do this together, and restore prosperity to our people, heal our land. You’d be a hero to your people, just like your father.”
“No!” he declared. “You don’t get to mention him! I will never let you get away with this! I’ll finish what my father started, no matter what it takes!”
Corvus fluffed his pitch-black feathers, a disappointed look on his face. “Well, Rhydian, I really hoped it wouldn’t come to this. Guards!”
The front door opened and the two guards rushed in, spears extended. Rhydian and Auram both reached for their swords, which of course weren’t there. Panic began to set in as the soldiers approached. Then a concerned look appeared on Corvus’s face.
“Guards! Behind you!” he shouted.
The soldiers had no time to respond, as a silent Taya slunk in behind them, sword drawn. She came down hard with the pommel of her sword on the back of one of their heads and he dropped instantly. The other tried to swivel around with his long spear, which of course was like slow motion compared with Taya’s quick reflexes. She pommeled him square in the forehead before he could even get the point of the weapon forward, knocking him out cold.
“I’ve never been good at standing by the sidelines,” Taya said.
“GUARDS!” cried the General, arming himself with a sword and shield from the wall.
Outside, a number of soldiers could be heard hastily rallying to the General’s cry.
“Come on!” Taya urged. “We have to get out of here!”
“He’s still got the timekeeper!” Rhydian contended.
“Rhydian, any second now, this house will be swarming with Fleet soldiers! We need to get out of here NOW!”
He hesitated for a moment, but hearing the shouts of soldiers approaching, he nodded and dashed out the door. They flew hard and fast into the night, leaving the General standing outside shouting orders.
“It’s the fugitives! Get after them!” he shouted as several soldiers landed nearby.
“You don’t want to do that, General,” coughed a feeble voice from the shadows.
Corvus turned and saw a pale Desmond hobbling towards him, a bloody wound in his chest.
“And why is that, young man?” he retorted.
“Because, if they’re being chased, they’ll never lead you to the third timekeeper,” he reasoned. “Besides, I already know where they’ll be going. And Gideonson will be guaranteed to have the device on his person.”
Changeling
“Why aren’t they chasing us?” Auram wondered.
“I don’t know, but let’s not give them the chance to catch up,” Rhydian replied.
“Where do we go then?” said Taya. “Maybe the rally point in the alcove?”
Auram shook his head. “Too close to the city.”
Rhydian stated the obvious. “Back to the other side.”
“Are you crazy?” said Auram. “They already know you’ve been hiding there, remember?”
“No, Desmond and Redwing knew I was hidi
ng there. They’re both dead.”
The others fell silent, thinking it over. Ultimately, they decided it was the best choice they had, so they flew down the canyon to the cave.
Meanwhile, Ellie sat by the light of a campfire just inside the mouth of the cave. She had been studying her mother’s research with fervor. She thought that if she read it enough, she might start to make some sense of it, but it only served to further frustrate her.
She sat with a cup of water from the stream, dipping the divining stone every time it began to dim. At one point, she left the pendant in the water, which turned deep red, and took a reluctant sip. To her surprise, it tasted very sweet and refreshing.
Suddenly, the glow of the gem grew in intensity, until it was so blindingly bright that she had to close her eyes. When it finally dimmed, she opened her eyes and saw three figures walking towards her from the inside of the cave. But how? She couldn’t understand how anyone could possibly have gotten through the solid cave walls. She’d spent hours searching for any kind of passageway and was satisfied that there wasn’t one. As the figures stepped into the firelight, she realized that she recognized them as Rhydian and two of the others that had saved them from Desmond’s men.
Ellie stood as they approached not sure what to say. “What are you doing here?”
“We didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Rhydian said, his eyes cast toward the ground.
“Did you come to leave more dead bodies on my property?” she asked, realizing afterward that she was blaming the people who’d saved her life earlier that day.
“If you have a shovel, we’ll bury them for you,” Auram offered gently.
She nodded and Auram and Taya went past her out of the cave.
Rhydian lingered. “Listen, Ellie— I’m really sorry I lied to you. I was going to tell you today, but I should have been honest with you from the beginning.”
Ellie developed a lump in her throat, and she looked down to avoid eye contact. She wasn’t sure how to respond. She wasn’t even sure how she felt.
“Anyway, I hope you can forgive me.” He hung his head and made his way toward the opening of the cave.
“How did you get through?” she said before he could leave.
“What?” he said, turning back.
“You want to be honest with me? Tell me how you go back and forth through the threshold.”
Rhydian hesitated only a moment, but quickly nodded and returned to the fireside. He pulled out his timekeeper, which was emanating its sunset glow in the wake of the threshold.
“I told you about my father’s timekeeper,” he said.
“Yes, Rose has one like it. I went back to talk to her.”
“Well, when I wind this in the presence of a threshold, it allows me access.”
“So what is this for then?” she asked, holding up her necklace.
Rhydian looked surprised, seeing the gem glow in her hand. “That must be a divining stone. There’s one in my timekeeper, which you can see lights up to show the presence of a threshold, but unless it’s installed in a timepiece, it won’t help you get through.”
“Then I need you to help me get through,” she stated simply.
“Ellie I— I can’t. Humans can’t go into Ilimíra.”
“Why not?” she asked desperately. “It’s against some laws of Ilimíra or something? You’ll get into trouble for letting me in?”
“Well, I’m already in trouble,” he replied. “I don’t think that would stop me at this point.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Look, Ilimíra is a dangerous place right now. And you wouldn’t be yourself there. Everything changes through the barrier, Ellie, everything.”
“Like you,” she said. “You turn human when you come here.”
“Well, I don’t exactly turn human, but yeah, I change. I look human.”
“So, if I went through, I’d become like your kind?”
He shook his head. “No, you’d look the same, but you’d still change. Your senses would become less acute. Your mind would be slower. Your body would be clumsy and heavy. Humans just aren’t meant to exist there.”
“I don’t care! My mom wanted to find it! And now that she’s gone, it’s up to me to finish her work. I want you to take me through.”
“Look, right now there are men hunting me down on the other side of this threshold. If I let you through, you’d be in even more danger than me. And even if that wasn’t the case, the only thing on the other side of this gateway is a sheer cliff, and last I checked, you can’t fly.”
She hung her head in defeat, trying hard not to cry.
“I’m really sorry, El,” he said in a soft voice. “Nothing would make me happier than to take you to see my home. I mean that. But I was ready to give it all up to be here with you.”
He touched her gently on the cheek as he walked out. No longer able to contain herself, she broke down in tears.
“So what’s the plan now?” asked Taya when Rhydian caught up with them.
“Now, I think we might be stuck here,” he replied. “Our only hope of stopping this was with Corvus. That was our only plan.”
“Well then we need a better one,” Taya said defiantly. “I’m not living the rest of my life as an other-sider!”
“Well, whatever we do, I’m keeping my father’s timekeeper out of Ilimíra. It’s the only way I know to stop this.”
“And I guess we’ll just have to go back and continue to spread ‘Auram’s word,’” Taya replied. “Maybe if we can get enough support, we can fight off Corvus.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Auram said. “Even if it doesn’t work this time around, you can bet they’ll try again ten years from now, and if that doesn’t work, someone else will try in twenty.”
Rhydian nodded, fiddling with the timekeeper hanging from his neck. “There will always be someone trying to get their hands on this.”
They spent much of the evening digging graves out in the woods so they could bury the bodies that lay in the yard. When this was done, they passed the time sparring, using the swords that had belonged to Desmond’s men. Ellie eventually left the cave and joined them for a little while, avoiding awkward eye contact with Rhydian. Taya taught her some basic sword technique, which she picked up on quickly.
“Hey, Rhydian, your girlfriend’s a natural!” Taya exclaimed.
Rhydian and Ellie exchanged uncomfortable glances. He thought he saw a subtle hint of a smile on her face, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Figures,” Auram joked. “Talent is wasted on the wrong people.”
“I could teach you how to shoot if you want,” Ellie offered, patting her dad’s old six shooter at her hip.
Auram looked intrigued, but at that moment, a set of headlights shone from down the dirt road. Everyone tensed up. As the lights grew closer, it was apparent that there was not just one set of lights, but four, and they were fast approaching. They all suddenly wished they’d stayed close to the house, where the two rifles leaned against the fence.
Ellie handed the sword off to Auram and drew her revolver, drawing back the hammer.
“More spies?” she asked.
“Can’t be sure,” Rhydian replied.
Soon, three black SUVs and Desmond’s sports car sped in and surrounded them. In a flash, people piled out of the vehicles and pointed a combination of swords, guns, and bows at them.
“How did they find us?” Auram exclaimed.
The driver’s side door of the sports car opened, and out climbed Desmond.
“That’s how,” Ellie replied with disdain.
A man ran and opened the passenger side door of one of the SUVs and out stepped General Corvus. He appeared human, of course, but he was unmistakable. Rhydian’s heart quickened and he concealed the timekeeper beneath his shirt.
“Rhydian,” Corvus spoke. “I don’t think we had quite enough time to talk in my quarters earlier.”
“I think we said all we needed to,” Rhydian contende
d.
“How about you put down your weapons and we can talk like friends.”
“We’re not friends, Corvus!”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Rhydian. Your father would never have forgiven me if I did.”
“I think that ship sailed when you betrayed him.”
“Okay, we’ll do this your way then,” he said, and turned to one of his men. “Shoot the human.”
“No!” Rhydian said, stepping in front of Ellie and lowering his sword.
“Your choice, Rhydian,” Corvus said with a shrug. “Throw down your weapons and no one has to get hurt. You have my word.”
Rhydian paused, then nodded to the others, who tossed their weapons on the ground one at a time.
“Very good,” said Corvus, indicating for his men to lower their own weapons. “Now we can have a real conversation. Why is it you’re opposed to my plan, Rhydian? Is it just because your father was? You can still love him without holding to the same political ideals he did.”
“Political ideals? You’re talking about killing thousands, possibly millions of innocent people!”
“Yes, it’s not ideal, but collateral damage is an unfortunate reality in any war.”
“But the humans didn’t start this war!”
“Rhydian, what you don’t understand is that we must do whatever it takes to ensure the survival of our people. That is something, I’m sorry to say, your father couldn’t bring himself to see.”
“I told you, you don’t get to talk about my father! You were NOT his friend!”
Corvus smiled and shook his head. “Look, I can see that we’re not going to agree here, so why don’t you just hand over the timekeeper so we don’t have to take it by force.”
“You’ll have to kill me first.”
Corvus nodded and a man behind them grabbed Ellie, dragging her over to the General.
“Give me one of the… what do you call it?” the General said.
One of the men handed him a pistol. “It’s called a gun, sir.”
“Yes, a gun,” he said, pointing the pistol in the air and pulling the trigger. The gun went off with a loud BANG! Corvus cringed uncomfortably. “So unnecessarily loud! I’m glad these things will no longer work after the rift. Still, it does have a certain appeal, doesn’t it?” He pointed the gun at Ellie’s head. Her face filled with dread and she fought futilely to get away.