Timediver's Dawn

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “No. Nervous.”

  “I know. I’ll be ready in a minute, but I haven’t had anything to eat since dawn. Trying to explain Frost Giant migration patterns takes a lot of effort when Odin Thor doesn’t really want to hear. But he finally got the point.”

  “Which was?”

  “Migration patterns, by themselves, mean that there are probably many more Frost Giants lurking around and that it isn’t wise to act until you know exactly how many. That’s because they react to temporal and energy disruptions. Destroying Frost Giants will create both.” She took a last bite of the sandwich, chewing it thoroughly, unlike me.

  “How long will he wait?”

  “Maybe ten days . . . unless we can find several other clusters of Giants.”

  “You know—“

  “I know. You can’t find weapons and track Frost Giants simultaneously. And you’re the only one who can see clearly enough from the undertime.”

  “You can . . .”

  “Not quite as well, and, besides, we agreed not to let him know that.”

  I shook my head. Concealing things from Odin Thor was always a two-edged sword.

  “I’m about ready. Will I need anything special?”

  “A medical kit . . . maybe . . . But I think it’s too late . . . was too late a long time ago.”

  “Is this an off-system, backtime injury case?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Just a moment.” She left the kitchen.

  I waited, but before I had a chance to grab another chunk of cheese she was back, strapping a small case to her equipment belt.

  “And stay away from the cheese.”

  I shrugged, flushing slightly in spite of myself. “Then let’s go.” I extended my hand.

  “Wait.” Both her arms went around me, and she pulled us together, holding me tight, and somehow warming part of the chill inside me. “I know . . . I know . . .”

  She knew me all right, too well, but she was also right, and I stood there and hung onto her, while her fingers crept up my back and kneaded away some of the tightness in my shoulders. After a time, she lifted her head from my shoulder and brushed my lips with hers. “All right?”

  “Yes. Much better.” I tried to smile, but took a deep breath instead.

  Then we held hands and slipped undertime, crosstime toward Inequital. The thin crimson dive-line was still there, like a slash of blood at right angles to the Frost Giant tracks.

  Perhaps Wryan tensed as I guided us along that line. I felt she did, but since our physical condition remained exactly the same as when we entered the undertime, any tension had to be strictly mental.

  What I did not understand about the crosstime track was its intensity. All tracks faded over subjective time. At least all those I had run across did. Time-diving is a subjective mental feat. Only entry and breakout actually have an objective reality.

  So why was this track so unfaded? I thought I knew, and I was scared.

  All I could do was try to match our dive with that of the crimson track, trying to trace it to the end.

  Reaching the end of the track was not that difficult, except that the diver had never broken out back into the now. The crosstime slide ran from somewhere west of Inequital through Bremarlyn and into Eastron . . . and stopped, as if the diver were suspended.

  In peering into that backtime view of Query, I could only see a hazy view of the “then,” a view of a cave of some sort, high in the Bardwalls, a cave filled with old-fashioned cabinetry and wardrobes and other objects I could not make out. Certainly, more than a cave.

  Investigating the cave would not solve the problem of the suspended diver, and the screaming of the crosstime track that tore at both heart and soul.

  With a mental shrug, I tried to look through the barrier that separated me from the endlessly fading energy that had to be another timediver. All I could gather was an endless scream, a mindless feeling of agony, that blotted out any sense of description.

  I could sense the shakiness coming on for me, and, looking for a breakout point, chose the closest one—the current time position of the equipment cave.

  Legs trembling, I glanced around the room, lit through a pair of diffused and hidden skylights, and took a deep breath. That was a mistake.

  I knew . . . and my legs would not hold me, not while I shuddered and wept in the darkness. Not while Wryan held me and said nothing, though I could feel her tears mingle with mine.

  Less than the thinnest of barriers separated us from that endlessly dying diver I knew too well, and that barrier might have been the length of eternity, for all that I could not cross it.

  Nothing . . . nothing had I suffered, nor would I ever suffer, in comparison, even should I find some way to break that endless dive of agony.

  In time—how long I did not know—I finally managed to gather myself together, shaking from more than one cause, and to sit up in the dim light. I could not look at anything too closely, especially not at the wardrobe with the one open door, as I grasped for my pack and a small chunk of hard bread. Offering Wryan a piece silently, I broke off a small chunk and chewed it slowly, thoroughly.

  “How . . . terrible . . .”

  I nodded. Banal as the word “terrible” was, what other word was there?

  “To be trapped in an endless death . . . without the strength or consciousness to break out . . . even to die . . .”

  “. . . dying forever . . .”

  “Sammis . . . I’m . . . sorry . . .” Her voice said more than the words. So did her hand as she squeezed mine. “You knew?”

  “No . . . felt it. . . guessed it . . . I think . . .” I took another bite of the hard bread, trying to get enough energy back into my system to stop the shakes, to allow me to think.

  One way or another, thought was all I had. Thought was all I had.

  Wryan and I eventually chewed through the entire loaf, the cheese, the dried fruits and meats, although most of the bites were mine. By then the sun was dropping over the Bardwalls and the cave was lit only by some sort of emergency lamp that functioned still.

  Wryan looked like hell, which was better than I felt.

  “You knew your mother hadn’t died in the fire, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. I couldn’t explain why.”

  “You were close to her.”

  “Not exactly. We never spoke much. We just did things together. My father did all the talking.”

  “Could you tell when she was around? Could she tell when you were near?”

  I had to think about that. In some ways, that had been another lifetime. “I think so.”

  She snorted. “You think so? How did you know she was here? And why did you insist I come, with a medical kit?”

  Wryan definitely had me there.

  “All right. I knew.”

  “That’s important. There might be one way . . .”

  “How? We can’t touch her. We can’t merge, and we’re from two separate times.”

  “Whose mind controls the dive?”

  “Hers . . .”

  “So all you have to do is reach her thoughts . . . that’s all.”

  “That’s all? That sounds like reaching across eternity.”

  “Sammis.”

  I knew what she meant. I just wasn’t sure about meshing with that agony again. Especially meshing and keeping my own sanity. The whole idea was insane. The thought of leaving anyone— let alone who that forever-dying diver was—in such endless agony was even worse.

  “I’ll be with you,” Wryan added, taking my hand.

  “Let’s go.” I closed my pack.

  “What are you going to do . . . exactly?”

  That was a good question, and one for which I had no ready answer. So I sat down on the floor. I didn’t really want to touch anything. “I’m not sure. But I have to push as close as I can, try and force the barrier . . .”

  “. . . and . . . ?”

  “. . . don’t know. Do I send reassurance? Or encouragement? Or s
trength?” I sighed. “Hell! I don’t even know if this will work. How can I make her feel anything?”

  “I don’t know. It may not work.”

  “I know. But I have to try.”

  “We have to try.”

  I scrambled around in that dawn-lit retreat until I could hug her again. Then I pulled on my pack and checked my equipment.

  “Ready?”

  Wryan just nodded, and we took each other’s hands, and eased under the now toward that endless scream.

  The second time was worse.

  In that undertime, drawn by the crimson line like an iron filing to a lodestone, the thin black curtain seemed to fade into dark translucence.

  They say you can’t smell in the undertime, but the odour of burning cloth and flesh seared my nose, throat, and lungs.

  Somehow my thoughts reached for my mother, who had left to do her duty and never made it back, and—

  . . . find the darkness . . . the shelter. . . no leads . . . must not. . , cannot. . . lead them back . . . not to Sammis . . . burns . . . Verlyt! Just hold on . . . just another instant. . .

  Images flew at me and through me.

  . . . Standing on the point of a narrow rock jutting out over a canyon, where a blue ribbon wound through dust-crimson rocks below, watching a night-eagle launch itself into the first flight of twilight, listening to another woman . . .

  “You have a responsibility, Meryn. It will last longer than you can possibly conceive, past the fall of Eastron, perhaps beyond the fall of Westron. And should you let anyone know what you are, you will be called ‘witch’, and worse, and every man, every woman, and every child will rise against you. You will see most of your children die of old age . . .”

  . . . Appearing from the shadows, slipping across the hard-packed dirt path to the stacked barrels and placing one flare, then another, then lighting them, both and dropping into the no-time place, feeling the explosions in the Westron camp from undertime, and knowing that the delays would be futile . . .

  . . . Looking down at the inlaid casket of the duke, remembering the unlined face of years past, the blond hair before it silvered, the capable hands—before the onslaught of the ConFederation Marines of Westron, ignoring the whispers of the three women at the other side of the chapel . . . “How could she? After all the years, and looking like that. She has to be a witch . . . why he never remarried . . .”

  . . . Running the wooded path, feet set quickly and silently in place, breathing easily and leaving the flat-footed soldiers of the empress gasping far behind, taking the trails where the steamers could not follow, enjoying the pure physical effort, the ability to leave the empress’s best with their mouths gaping . . .

  . . . Nodding at the round-faced solicitor, whose decency could not be disguised by his profession and position, wondering whether it would be a kindness or a mistake to accept his proposition, wondering if, this time, there would be a child, and hoping, again, that there would . . . “On my terms, Aldus? That is more than generous . . .”

  . . . Looking down at the blond-haired boy infant, with the elfin face even so soon after birth, wanting to cry after so long, yet not daring to, and knowing that the long toll of years would be ending. “. . . forever may a she-witch live, until she is with child and mortal . . .”

  . . . Seeing the fire, the flames, the shells from the ConFeds, and the crumpled body of a round-faced solicitor; knowing that Aldus wore the same puzzled expression in death that he had in life; seeing the houses of the Westron gentry fall, fired and shelled; seeing the empire crumple with each shell . . .

  . . . Walking through the Fountain Court toward a single sentry; seeing the lone guard as a sacrifice against the mob howling toward the Palace walls; wondering what sacrifice would be called for; asking whether she could; knowing that her son would understand . . .

  “No!” THOUGH I could not utter the word, I screamed it in that undertime prison, and the barriers between the three of us shivered—but did not shatter nor break.

  . . . break out. . . now. . . somehow. . . Sammis . . .

  One fragmentary thought—that was all—and the crimson thread I had held on to, locked my soul to, was gone, nothing more than a fast-fading memory.

  You did it. That second thought was warmer, closer.

  But . . . how . . . ?

  I don’t know. Isn’t it better than diving in silence?

  It was. Much better.

  Shall we check the retreat?

  No. Leave her there. One death is enough.

  Wryan knew what I meant. There was no way to save her, and to find her dust and bones where they lay somehow was wrong. Wrong for me, anyway. I had my goodbye. Years late, but that’s usually the way the ones that hurt come to you.

  LIX

  I WAS SHAKING again when I staggered into the kitchen of the cottage.

  Wryan may have been, also, but I wasn’t in the best of conditions to determine that as I slumped into one of the heavy wooden chairs.

  Thump. Wryan hit the other chair harder than I had landed.

  I put my head on the table, trying to sort it all out, from the memories of Eastron that were not mine to the views of me seen through my mother’s eyes. I knew I had never been female, but I shivered at the memories of having been so, at the recollection of joy at my own birth, and the desperation . . .

  “. . . Verlyt . . .” The exclamation stumbled from numb lips. Too much was happening— again—all too quickly. I lifted my head to look at Wryan.

  Her face was pale. Mine probably was, too. Looking at her features was like looking at mine. Same elfin face. Same green eyes. Same not-quite-blond but sandy hair. Same wiry muscles.

  “How long . . . ?” I asked. My mouth was dry.

  “How terrible . . .”

  I realised Wryan had not even heard my question, and I could see the darkness in her eyes. “The memories . . . ?”

  “Just through you . . . mainly feelings, and that was more than enough.”

  It was hard just keeping my head up, splitting as it was with memories that were not mine, and yet that would always belong to me. I shivered again.

  “How long?” I asked again, not wanting to deal with the memories or the still-raw remembrance of pain, and stench of burning flesh that clung to my nostrils.

  “How long for what?”

  “Look at me. What do you see?”

  “I see you.” Despite the pain in her voice, the wry warmth was still there.

  “I look at you, and I see me. Just like my mother saw me.”

  “I know. I knew that from the day you arrived with Odin Thor. But you had to see for yourself. We’re probably related, but how I couldn’t tell you.”

  “How long?” I asked for the third time.

  Wryan sighed. “Persistent, aren’t you?”

  “You’re not?”

  She shrugged, and it was eerie, seeing for the first time, really, myself shrug. “Not so long as your mother. About a century, give or take a year or two.”

  “So I’m in love with my mother’s sister?”

  “You never said you were in love.”

  “I am, and you know it, and I’m scared.” I pushed back the chair and stood up, walking toward the window. The thin sunlight was dimming into dusk. Diving around the planet can play hell with your biological clocks. “I don’t think you are. You’ve waited so long and hoped, and here I am.”

  “How do you know you’re in love? And not looking for your mother?”

  “Because I found her, and she’s dead.” Outside, a grossjay hopped along the raised brick curbing, looking for something to scavenge.

  “I never knew your mother, Sammis.”

  “But the three of us all look alike. Too much alike for mere coincidence.”

  Wryan sighed. “All witches look alike.”

  “Then why don’t all timedivers look alike?”

  “Witches are timedivers, plus some different traits. Odin Thor is probably a stronger diver than either one of us,
although he couldn’t navigate his way from one side of the planet to the other without help.” She stood up and went over to the cooler.

  I followed her. Witches or timedivers or both, we were always hungry.

  “Not much here.”

  “You didn’t answer my questions.”

  Wryan took a bite from a pearapple and chewed it slowly. The colour began to return to her face almost instantly. So I took out the last one and took a bite from it, hoping for some near-instantaneous rejuvenation myself.

  “I can’t. I grew up in the Southpoint orphan home. My mother was the captain of a Southpoint coaster, an independent woman who did as she pleased. But she died after I was born—or so the Ladies of Mercy told me. I asked about her when I was old enough to get away from the home’s walls. Some of the oldsters remembered her—with a tinge of admiration and envy. But no one could or would say what happened to her, not to her daughter, or to any fifteen-year-old girl.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  Wryan took several more bites from the pearapple before attempting to answer. “Long enough. I could be your grandmother in some ways, but it doesn’t make any difference.”

  I had to shake my head. “Doesn’t make any difference? Compared to you, what I know wouldn’t fill a thimble, and you’ll still be young centuries from now.”

  “So will you.”

  There was that. I chewed some more of the pearapple, trying to digest everything. My stomach was doing better than my mind.

  “Sammis.” Wryan’s voice was soft.

  I stopped and looked at her.

  “What you are is more important than what you know. Especially now, because the whole world is changing.”

  I thought about that. The world was changing. More and more people with the time-diving ability. Even with fewer people after the onslaught of the Frost Giants, the infrastructure of Westron was tottering because of the continuing failure of fragile high technology. “Changing or collapsing?”

  “That’s up to us.”

  “And Odin Thor. He wants to build a military dictatorship.”

  She looked at me, and I looked at her, and I could see the darkness behind her eyes. What scared me then was the thought that she saw the same darkness behind mine.