The Temporal Void (ARC)

by Peter F. Hamilton

  'Edeard.'

  The voice was spoken from a very long way away.

  'Edeard, this is not over.'

  He wiped a hand over his face, smearing the mud and tears and blood that were clinging to him. 'Who… oh.'

  'Edeard.'

  Through his grief he sighed in understanding, and extended his farsight to where he thought the voice was coming from. Concentrating as best he could. 'The Master of Sampalok himself,' he said with bitter affection.

  Macsen's soul smiled down at his friend. 'The briefest reign ever.'

  'The most memorable.' Edeard's farsight switched to Dinlay, who stood beside Macsen. 'I'm so sorry.'

  'There's nothing to be sorry for,' Dinlay said. 'You tried to save me.'

  'I failed.'

  'But you tried. That's what makes you the Waterwalker.'

  'Can you hear the nebulas? Can you hear the songs?'

  'Yes,' Macsen said. 'They're very strong, very beautiful. It is hard to resist their call, they promise such a glorious future within the Heart. But we will stay with you for now, we are pledged to do that, no matter how difficult it is to linger. There is one task we are honour-bound to help you with, Edeard, defeating whoever was behind this ambush. You will deliver us justice.'

  'I will,' he said miserably. 'I promise that. And thank you so much.'

  Macsen smiled sadly. 'Edeard, can you see them?'

  'See who?' He sent out his farsight, thinking some bandits might have survived.

  Macsen and Dinlay drifted towards him. 'Beside us, Edeard,' Dinlay said. 'Try, Edeard, try to see them. They're so weak now, so fragile. But they endure. For you. Dear Lady, they have lasted for over a decade and a half. You'll never know what that costs until you die.'

  'What?'

  'Focus, Edeard,' Macsen insisted. 'The same way you see us. But go further.'

  Edeard attempted to do as they asked, extending his farsight, not lengthening it, but deepening the perception. There, right on the edge of his ability, he discerned two figures. They were incredibly faint. A man and a woman, badly enervated compared to the souls of Macsen and Dinlay.

  'I know you,' Edeard said in wonder. 'Your faces. I remember them.' His thoughts went tumbling back through the years. Back to a time when he'd run through that grand old farmhouse outside Ashwell. Laughed and played all day long. Gone running happily to… 'Mother?' he gasped incredulously. 'Mother, is that you? And Father?'

  The tenuous souls smiled in unison. They linked hands.

  'Son,' his father said.

  It was a voice so frail Edeard was immediately afraid. 'You stayed?' the tears had returned as the revelation sapped his physical strength.

  'Of course we stayed, my beautiful boy,' his mother said.

  'You watched out for me. You! It was you all those times. You warned me.'

  'You are all that is left of us,' his father said. 'We had to protect you. To make sure you were safe.'

  'Oh, dear Lady. What about the songs, the call to the Heart?'

  'We love you, that's what's truly important.'

  'But, you're so… small.'

  'It would be the same if we had followed the songs,' his mother said with a gentle smile. 'They are so far away. I tell myself so few souls will ever reach the Heart.'

  'Go,' Edeard said. 'Go now. I want to meet you again on the other side of Odin's Sea. I want to tell you all I've done with my life. I want you to be safe.'

  'Too late for that, son,' his father said. 'This has been our blessing, seeing what you have become. Seeing you grow to this stature. I'm so proud, so very proud, I would never exchange this for another lifetime in the Heart. Not if I had this same choice a million times over.'

  'My beautiful son,' his mother said. 'I could never have dreamed for a child so splendid. You have led this world out of darkness.'

  'No he hasn't,' Macsen said. 'I'm sorry, but Edeard they knew we were coming. This ambush is about as clever and devious as you can get.'

  'And it didn't work,' Dinlay said firmly, then frowned. 'Not against you.'

  'Who warned them?' Macsen asked. 'Who is really behind this? Edeard, the girls! Our wives. What is happening back in Makkathran?'

  Edeard felt all the joy of his extraordinary reunion drain back out of him. 'I don't know,' he said. 'But there's someone left to ask.'

  The huge boulder was exactly where Edeard had left it, perched on the lip of the ledge. Its immense weight crushing the bandit leader's lower legs beneath it. Despite being trapped, despite the immense pain, the desperate man had managed to reload his rapid-fire pistol. His third hand had gathered up several extra magazines full of bullets. All he needed was a clear shot.

  Edeard felt the man's farsight on him as he scrambled up to the ledge. He walked calmly round the boulder, and the bandit opened fire. Edeard stood there grinning as the incessant bullets pummelled uselessly at his shield.

  'A truly terrible weapon,' Edeard said when the bullets were exhausted. 'Your enemies will surely be deaf for a week after that.'

  'Go to Honious, Waterwalker.'

  'A long time after you, I suspect.' Edeard's third hand snatched the gun away. 'You never did tell me your name. But now I recognise that nose, it's very distinct. Just how far down the Gilmorn family tree are you?'

  'Your friends are dead. All of them, I farsighted that. You're all alone in ways you cannot imagine.'

  'Really?' Edeard applied his third hand. The Gilmorn screamed as the boulder rolled forwards; his knees crunched. 'Who told you we were coming?'

  'It's over, you fucking freak,' the Gilmorn yelled against the pain. Cold sweat was seeping down his face. 'We won, even after this, we won.'

  The boulder turned fractionally again. The scream of agony was terrible as more of his legs were destroyed beneath the stone. 'Who won?' Edeard asked calmly.

  'You can't win, not now,' the Gilmorn wailed.

  'An inch at a time,' Edeard warned, and moved the boulder again. 'And you're a tall man.'

  'Nooooo,'

  Edeard thought the Gilmorn might have damaged his throat the tormented cry which followed was so loud and prolonged. 'Is this how the villagers begged and pleaded? How many have you slaughtered over the years, Gilmorn?' Edeard rolled the boulder up closer to his hips.

  The bandit began thrashing about, banging his head back frantically against the ledge in an attempt to split his own skull open, to end the torture. Edeard's third hand swiftly immobilized him.

  'It was necessary,' the Gilmorn gurgled. He was having trouble breathing now, sweat was soaking his clothes.

  'Necessary?' a disgusted Edeard asked. 'Necessary for what? You have killed - murdered - hundreds of people. Thousands. You have brought ruin to whole villages.'

  'One nation.'

  'What?' Edeard though he had misheard the phrase. The Slogan. Owain's slogan. Owain.

  'We have to be one.'

  A furious Edeard edged the boulder round again. The man's hips burst.

  'Owain!' Edeard yelled, his voice full of hatred.

  The Gilmorn laughed manically, allowing blood to foam out of his mouth. 'One world, one nation, ruled by those of us who were born with destiny in our blood.'

  'You did all this to crown an emperor? You… you… Dear Lady, for this?' Edeard rolled the boulder forwards and kept it going until the screams and snappings ended abruptly. 'Lady, no,' he murmured in anguish.

  'For all your strength, you're so weak,' the Gilmorn's soul said contemptuously.

  Edeard spun round.

  The bandit's spectral essence stood above the puddle of his own blood spreading out from under the boulder. He gave Dinlay and Macsen a scornful glance. 'You could have joined with us, Waterwalker. Cousin Ranalee offered you the world. A whole people united in veneration of your strength. And you turned her down. For what? Them? What can these pitiful tragedies ever give you?'

  'Honious awaits you,' an incensed Macsen said. 'Do not tarry.'

  The Gilmorn started to ascend. 'And guess what, Wat
erwalker, my family still gets to fuck your little Novice whore.' His shape blurred as it shot upwards to be lost amid the glowing beauty of the nebulas.

  'Salrana?' Edeard murmured in dismay. 'Kristabel!'

  'Kanseen,' Macsen said. 'Edeard, what is happening in Makkathran? If Owain is to be emperor, this trap for us can only be a part of his madness.'

  'Lady damn it,' Edeard spat. He scurried down the slope, and began to run along the gully.

  Several of the bandits' terrestrial horses were still tethered to their posts. They were skittish, but Edeard's skilled longtalk calmed them. He found a saddle among the packs and threw it over the first horse.

  'Six days since we left,' Macsen said. 'What can they have done in six days?'

  'It'll be another two before I can get back,' Edeard said in anguish as he mounted up. 'Perhaps Owain is waiting to hear this ambush was successful and I am dead. He knows I can stop him, that the city sides with me.'

  'Yes,' Dinlay said. 'We must hope for that.'

  Edeard pictured a map, trying to work out the shortest way back to the main road through the mountains. Disheartened, he realized it was back the way they'd come, past Mount Alvice. But before, they'd ridden carefully, lumbering along beneath trees and in deep ravines so as to avoid notice. Now he had no such inhibitions. He spurred the horse on, and instructed the others to follow.

  Dawn found him already long way past Mount Alvice. By mid-morning he was back on the road, and speeding east. He had to switch horses before lunch, the one he'd ridden from the ambush was nearly dead from fatigue. The next one was gone in the middle of the afternoon. Edeard himself was worn out, but sheer determination kept him going. The next two horses only lasted a couple of hours each.

  He came to a village as the sun began to dip towards the mountains, knowing full well he looked like something straight out of Honious. They might have been nervous about his appearance, but the villagers knew of the Waterwalker, and gold coinage spoke a welcome language everywhere. He paid a ridiculous amount for three fresh horses, and raced off into the evening.

  Despite the cramped muscles, the bruised and bloody chafing on his thighs he kept on going through the night. Morning saw him arrive at the foothills of the Donsori range, with the Iguru Plain spread out below. Makkathran sat on the horizon, the gold sunlight already catching the tips of its towers. He let out a sob of relief at the sight of it, even though he was completely exhausted.

  'I have to know,' Macsen said, and with that he was gone, flashing on ahead through the warm winds blowing off the land.

  'I will stay with you,' Dinlay promised.

  Edeard urged his last tired horse down the switchback road. That was when he met the caravan winding its way up into the mountains. It was unusual for a caravan to be moving so early in the day. He stopped to talk with the master.

  'The city is in chaos,' the old man told him nervously. 'There are men with guns on every street claiming to represent the new Mayor. The militia regiments marched in two days ago, and the constables tried to stop them. There was fighting. I have never seen so many dead.'

  'No,' Edeard groaned. 'Oh Lady no. Wait! The Mayor called in the regiments?'

  'Yes, but not Finitan. He's dead, and nobody knows how that happened. Owain has claimed the Orchard Palace, and the gunmen supported him.'

  Edeard desperately wanted to know about Kristabel, but the caravan master wouldn't know. 'I need fresh horses. I can pay.'

  The old man gave him a grim look, then eventually nodded. 'We won't be back this way for a year, probably more, so I suppose we will be spared retribution.'

  'Retribution?'

  'The Upper Council has declared you outlaw, Waterwalker. I… we heard you were dead.'

  'Not yet,' Edeard said through gritted teeth. 'They have already found it is not that easy.'

  'Good. We will swap your horses. I don't need money from you.'

  'Thank you.'

  'Finitan dead,' Dinlay said sombrely as Edeard rode across the Iguru Plain on a long-legged ge-horse. 'How dare they commit such an act? The people elected him.'

  'This has been years in the making,' Edeard answered numbly.

  'All the bandit attacks, the fear in the provinces, even the gangs loose in the city; all designed to force Querencia to accept a single government, one with Owain at its head. And then I arrived. How ironic is that, his own campaign of terror made me flee to the city.'

  'But what can you do now?'

  'Throw him out of the Mayor's office, restore the rightful government.' Even as he spoke it, he knew how false it sounded.

  'Good,' but the spectre's tone was uncertain. 'That's good.'

  Edeard didn't bother with concealment, nor even a seclusion haze. He didn't care that people saw him. He wanted word to spread into the city. He wanted people to have hope again. To know the Waterwalker was coming.

  All would be put right.

  There was a lot of traffic on the road. All of it heading away from Makkathran. Ragged groups stopped to stare as he galloped past. Several cheered, but the majority shook their heads in dismay at the sight of him. Longtalk rippled along the length of the road.

  'The Waterwalker is still alive.'

  'The Waterwalker is coming back.'

  'The Waterwalker will stop this.'

  'The Waterwalker is too late.'

  'Too late.'

  It disheartened him simply because it matched his own suspicions. Apart from Kristabel and a few friends, what was there for him really? He was never going to save the city and the world from Owain's kind. All that was left now was a rescue attempt, and a life in exile.

  It was afternoon when he reached the final approach to the city; riding hard under the fanciful variety of trees lining the road. He was the only traveller now, and his farsight swept out to review his reception.

  When he burst out from the end of the ancient partition of trees even the sheep had vanished from the quarter-mile band of grassland encircling the crystal wall. The North Gate was closed. A quick farsight check showed the other two gates shut as well. Half a regiment of militia was drawn up in a protective semi-circle around the mighty gate, a hundred pistols lined up along the road. At the front of them was a squad of guards in the uniform of the Weapons Guild. They carried rapid-fire guns.

  Owain's farsight fell upon the lone figure urging his horse forward, one strand among many thousands. 'Turn around, Waterwalker, there is nothing left for you here. Turn around. You bring only death, for these fine men will kill you no matter how many of them your strength claims at first. You cannot wipe out an entire city of adversaries.'

  'It is not your city,' Edeard longshouted back.

  'As you wish. May the Lady have mercy on your soul.'

  When he was barely three hundred yards from the first ranks of the militia Edeard suddenly turned his ge-horse off the road, and curved away parallel to the crystal wall. A cavalry platoon charged through the militiamen and raced after him. Any other time, Edeard would have laughed defiance, now he simply gritted his teeth and asked the city to allow him entry. He turned his horse again, and set it pelting directly at the crystal wall. The cavalry altered track to intercept him.

  Edeard kept a steely control over his mount's fluttering thoughts as it pounded closer and closer to the wall. It never faltered, not even at the end when it was going far too fast to ever stop in time. A few yards short of the vertical barrier Edeard spurred it to jump. It leapt forwards, and to the astonishment of the cavalry in hot pursuit, it passed straight through the wall as if the tough substance were nothing more than a thin mist. They could even see it though the tinted crystal as it came down to land on the other side and continue its charge forwards. Only then did the Waterwalker pull its reins back. He swung off the saddle and stood on the ground of Low Moat for a second before swiftly sinking straight down through the grass.

  * * * *

  Edeard emerged in the centre of the courtyard at the base of the Culverit ziggurat. The city's senses had a
lready revealed what he would find: a long row of bodies wrapped in white cloth. And Buate, dressed in the robes of a Haxpen District Master, supervising ge-monkeys and cowed tearful staff on how he wanted the corpses disposed.

  Just for an instant, Edeard's fright lifted as he perceived Kristabel standing there. But as he began to race forwards, arms open wide to greet his love, Dinlay's soul cried: 'No, Edeard, she is gone like me.'

  And Kristabel turned towards him as he stumbled to a confused halt. Then he finally acknowledged she was gone, that he was farsighting her soul as it stood vigil over her body.

  'I'm so sorry,' she told him with a forlorn smile.

  Edeard's whole body was trembling with shock and anger. He turned inexorably to face Buate who was slowly backing towards the mansion's main entrance. His guards were also edging away, none dared raise their weapons against the Waterwalker.

  'I… I had no choice,' a pale Buate cried. 'Owain ordered me to claim the Haxpen Mastership for myself. There was a fight. Many were killed on both sides.'

  'Who did this to you?' Edeard whispered, the words barely coming out of his mouth.

  'His men came at dawn three days ago. Homelt and our guards fought valiantly; but the guns, Edeard, they had these terrible guns. None could stand against them. They killed our guards; my cousins and the maids were raped, old and young, they spared no one as they made their way up the mansion. They forced their way on to the tenth floor. Daddy and I tried to hold them off, but they were too strong. Edeard… I jumped. I wasn't going to let them do that to me. All was lost. Daddy and I and Mirnatha held hands and jumped from the very top of the stairs. Did we do wrong?'

  'No, my love, you did no wrong. I should have been here to protect you. I am the one who failed.'

  'Daddy and Mirnatha have gone to the nebulas in search of the Heart, Edeard, they follow the songs. Mummy will be there waiting for them. I stayed. I knew you would come. I had to see you one last time before I go.'