"Not now, old man." Niki slung the backpack over his shoulder. "Get us out of here!"
"All right. Jack, give me your hand."
He held out his right hand then yelped when the letter opener sliced through his palm. "Why are you hurting me all the time?"
"It's necessary. I can't explain right now." Mr. Allen repeated the process with Niki's hand. "Jack, swipe your blood on that tattoo of yours and hope for the best. Close your eyes, then take Niki's cut hand and let the mark do what it does. If that coin put that tattoo on you, then it already knew what you were because of your blood. Do it now, boys."
"Is this some kind of satanic worship stuff?" Jack grimaced." I'm not interested."
"It's not that. And it's not optional." Mr. Allen seized Jack's wrist and slammed his bloody hand onto the tattoo, smearing the blood over the black lines. He took Niki's hand and pressed it into Jack's. "Now, close your eyes, Jack, and let it take you. Good luck, boys. Wherever and whenever you end up, stay safe."
With tears of fear stinging in his eyes, he clasped onto Niki's hand as hard as he could and focused on the burning that radiated from the hourglass tattoo, up to his shoulder, then into his chest where it grew overwhelming. He screamed, but kept his eyes clenched shut. Streaks of rainbow lightning and bursts of colors invaded his vision, dancing and swirling with a rushing sound overwhelming his ears until they popped and there was only silence. He couldn't even hear his own shouting. He shook and fell to his knees where he screamed until the pitch black darkness wrapped itself around his mind and cut off his consciousness.
Chapter 2
The darkness began to fade with blotches of colors streaking through Jack's vision as if he was in some kind of feverish dream. He groaned with the massive headache pounding on his forehead which only grew worse when he opened his eyes. He gasped for air, filling his burning lungs with much-needed oxygen they had been denied. Jack sat up with his chest heaving and a clammy sweat covering his body. He blinked through the warm sunlight that beat down on him to take in his surroundings.
Grassy fields spread out in all directions from where he was sitting next to a giant granite boulder that was speckled with lichens. Far on the distant northern horizon, the misty peaks of dark mountains could be barely seen in the cloudless sky. The bleating of scraggly, unsheared sheep and the squawking of small white birds soaring overhead were the only sounds that broke through the ringing in Jack's ears until a familiar voice spoke to him from his left.
"Jack, you okay?"
He smiled at Niki who was standing there with his hands on his hips, as naked as the day he was born with a goofy look on his face. Jack held up his hand to block out the sight of his more muscular and not as self-conscious friend's body. "What are you doing?"
"Saving us."
"You're naked."
"And you're about to be as well. Stand up and get those clothes off. Mongols don't wear jeans, Jack."
Had he heard him correctly? "Huh? Mongols?"
"Yep. Welcome to the Steppes of Central Asia, around the year 1300 or so."
"I . . . what?" Jack rubbed the feeling of deep sleep from his eyes. "Where are we really? Is this a joke?"
Niki looked him straight in the eyes. "No."
"But that would mean that time travel is-"
"Time travel is real. That mark on your arm allows you to use your special blood to move through time. You're a Chronomancer, Jack Carter. It's time you accept that, face it, and move on. I can't sit here with you in a field with the Golden Horde a few hundred yards away while you go into shock and question your life's purpose. We're in danger here, so we need to go see if the Mongols will help us out with some acceptable clothing."
"Chronomancer?" Jack looked up at the sky, his mind filling with wonder. "Like, as in . . . magic?"
"More or less. It's a complicated force that is embedded in your DNA and the DNA of your ancestors, dating back to near the beginning of the world. You come from a very long line of Chronomancers who traveled the world and through the eras. You were born to be a Chronomancer. I was born to be something else."
"What were you born to be, exactly? You've been hanging around me my entire life. Then you volunteered to be a human shield back there at school. Who does something like that? That's not normal. And how do you know so much about all of this? Mr. Allen seemed to know what was going on as well. Did he teach you this stuff?"
Niki shrugged his shoulders. "I've known what you are and the blood you carry. It's because of the other blood I carry that I'm who I am and the reason I'm here with you. From what history I know, ancient Chronomancers were worshiped as oracles, priests, mages, or soothsayers in many different cultures. Each Chronomancer was protected by a sentinel, a Time Knight. Each Time Knight was given to the temples or the tribes as a living sacrifice, all from the same bloodline. The Time Knight would enter into binding service to their bonded Chronomancer as a bodyguard and slave."
"And you're my Time Knight?"
Niki nodded his head before crossing his arms on his chest and looking down at his bare feet in the tall grass.
Jack grimaced. "I don't like that word."
"Hmm?"
"Slave. I don't want you to be my slave or serve me. You're my friend."
Niki flipped his white-tipped hair out of his face. "It's the way things are and the way they have always been. Like it or not, you're stuck with me, Jack."
"This is so much to take in. How did you handle it when you found out about it all?"
"I don't know. I was an infant. I grew up knowing that I would probably, eventually, end up in a different time and place with a Chronomancer. You weren't born yet, but when your father came to Allen and told him your mother was pregnant with you, he knew that I would be your knight. When Allen tested my blood and he found out that I came from the Avelayan people, he knew he had to train me. I think that's probably why he married my mother. He never had the guts to adopt me, though."
"Avelayan?" Jack asked, pulling himself to his feet with the help from the nearby boulder. "I don't know what that means."
"I'm an Avelayan. You are Iskaydrian. I can't say I'm not jealous."
"I've never heard of either of those."
"Because that's the way the Inquisition of Purity wants it. They want to cover it up and make it appear like you Chronomancers never existed. Time travel is supposed to be the stuff of science fiction books and fairy-tale magic, right? They hunt your people down, burn them as witches, interrogate and torture them, strip them of their identity by forcing them to assimilate into their idea of a perfect culture ruled by fear and lies. Why do you think so many great thinkers and writers have had such a lingering fascination with traveling through time? Because they knew it existed, that it had to exist. History changes a little every day. The Inquisition does its hardest to keep that fact concealed."
His brain was too overloaded to process it all at that point, so Jack settled on something simpler. "I think this is the most you've ever said at one time."
"I haven't had a reason for so many words until now."
Jack bit his lip. "Oh, God. I just thought of something."
"What's that? I told you I don't have the patience to deal with you having a crisis."
"No, it's just . . ." Jack bit his lip. "How do we get home?"
"Don't ask me. I'm just here to make sure you don't get yourself killed. You're the Chronomancer. You tell me how to use that tattoo of yours."
"But I don't know anything yet."
"Then you'd better get learning." Niki raised an eyebrow. "I do know that there are some signs I'm supposed to look out for with you that mean you can't take us anywhere else for a bit, though. How are you feeling?"
"I have a headache. It's over my entire head and I have small shocking feelings in my nerves."
"Yep. That means we're stuck here until you recharge, basically. Even if you were in perfect shape, you have no way of selecting a set destination. So, until you figure out how to warp us back to th
e present, we're gonna have to get to know our Mongol neighbors. Get those clothes off and hide our pack behind this boulder. This is serious stuff, Jack."
Jack frowned. "We can't just waltz up to their tents naked."
"Yurts. They're called yurts. And naked is the only way to do this. Get over it. Being bothered by nudity is the least of your concerns at this point. They may have pity on us and want to take us in."
"And if they think we're an enemy and they decide to kill us?"
"Then . . . we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, okay?" Niki flashed a halfhearted smile, but it was not enough to prevent Jack from clutching his hair and nearly hyperventilating.
"I can't do this. Niki, I can't!"
Niki seized Jack by his hoodie and forced him to look at him, even though he was two inches shorter than him. "Get a hold of yourself before I have to do it for you. If you don't want me to beat some sense into that goody-goody head of yours, then you're going to calm the hell down and do what I say. Do you understand?"
Jack whimpered and nodded his head in agreement.
Niki released his grip then turned away. "Undress, will you? There's no reason to drag this out. We're both men."
With apprehension bubbling up in his already upset stomach, Jack stripped off his hoodie and tank top, but paused at his jeans. "I really don't want to do this. I hate being naked."
"Wanna know what I hate? The thought of finding myself being butchered because these people see our strange clothes and think we're witches or aliens or any number of other things."
"What about Mr. Allen?" Jack asked.
"What about him?"
"If the police know he helped us-"
Niki interrupted him with a hiss. "You don't have the luxury of thinking about that right now. My old man can handle himself. Stop procrastinating and get naked. We have work to do."
With eyes clenched shut, he shoved his pants and boxers to his ankles and kicked off his sneakers. "Happy?"
"There. That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Jack mumbled under his breath as he followed closely behind his friend, down into the valley where brown tent-like structures covered in furs spotted the fields. Women sat around a fire pit where they tended to a spit of roasting lamb while long-haired children ran wild with the sheep or practiced riding horses with their fathers. Men wearing the same kind of belted silk robe as the women were gathered outside the large white yurt in the middle of their camp where a bearded man with long black hair was speaking to them. A golden falcon had perched on his shoulder and was eyeing Niki when they approached the outer row of yurts.
At once, the entire camp froze. Men, women, and children all stopped what they were doing to stare at the two teenagers who walked into the middle of their encampment, invading their lives. Being stark naked did little to make them blend in.
Niki glared back at Jack and winked at him, as if that was supposed to calm his nerves.
Jack ground his teeth together and held his hands in front of himself to help cover his nudity. He offered a small smile to the mongols who returned neither friendliness nor anger. He waited, shifting on his bare feet in the grass that tickled his calves, while Niki stepped into the group of men and bowed to the leader with the falcon on his shoulder. Much to his surprise, Niki began speaking in a different language. When the leader appeared confused, Niki tried a different one. This time, the man smiled and placed his calloused hand on Niki's shoulder and motioned for Jack to approach as well.
Since when did Niki know different languages? Jack hardly remembered the rebel being in school a day in his life when he wasn't sitting in the principal's office or being escorted out of homeroom by campus police officers. Hardly a dedicated scholar, Niki was held back at least once and was nearly twenty years old without a diploma.
Jack pushed any questions into the back of his mind before moving closer to the Mongol leader. His freckled cheeks burned in embarrassment and his mouth went dry, but he stood as proud and tall as he could, despite being terrified and unclothed in a foreign land. He did as Niki had done, bowing to the man who broke out into a fit of boisterous chuckling.
Niki said something with a grin on his face before the leader pushed open the flap of his yurt and led him inside.
The smells of leather, spices, and cooking meat enticed him, drawing his eyes to the platters of juicy mutton that were laid out on woven wool blankets. Bowls of brown gravy with specks of unidentifiable vegetable matter steamed next to the small fire. He was surprised when one of the warriors in a green silk robe held out his hand, leading the two of them to cushions on the floor in the back corner. A blue robe was draped over his shoulders and an orange one around Niki's. Jack followed the warrior and sat down next to Niki, smiling when a bowl of the thick stew was placed in each of their laps and a bowl of water was poured for them to share.
Jack whispered to his companion over the sound of the flowing notes of violin-type music that was being played outside. "What's going on here?"
"We are honored guests here in the khan's yurt. Khan Berdi Beg accepted us into the clan so we can have food and clothing."
"They're not going to kill us? I thought the Mongols were warrior people."
"They are, but they are far from savages." Niki scooped a spoonful of the hot stew into his mouth and munched on it as he continued. "Hospitality is important on the steppe. No great Khan would ever turn away two unarmed travelers who came to him asking for help. Stop panicking. If they were going to kill us, they would have done it already. Plus, they wouldn't have given you food and clothes. Eat, Jack. You need to gain your strength back if you're going to get us out of here and back home."
"What did you say to him?"
"To the Khan? I told him we were lost, that we were tried and hungry, and that we would appreciate a place to sleep for the night. That's it."
"And he took us in without question?" Jack lifted his spoon to his mouth and cautiously licked the stew. He gasped then greedily began devouring it. "What language was that?"
"I tried Russian at first, but he didn't seem to understand much, so I tried Chinese. That's the one that clicked."
"Hold on. You speak Chinese?" Jack asked, eyeing his friend he thought he knew.
"Mandarin, mostly. I speak many languages. It was a necessary part of my Time Knight training. I could understand English, Farsi, and Italian by the time I was five."
"But you failed ninth grade. You dropped out last year."
"Just because I suck at school doesn't mean I'm an idiot. I just didn't see a reason to work so hard for something that wouldn't matter to me. I'm not going to be a surgeon or a philosopher or a scientist. I decided early on to devote my time and energy to what actually mattered. You don't understand how big this is, Jack. It's not just a boy with a magical tattoo who can hop around in time. There are forces and people out there who will stop at nothing to get their hands on you. I don't know much either, but I do know that my old man has been warning me for as long as I could remember. Allen might not be my biological father, but he has always cared like he was."
"I know he cares about you-" Jack looked up at the face of the Mongol leader when the broad shadow fell over him, separating him from the warmth of the fire. "Oh. Niki?"
Niki smiled and offered a bow to the khan before speaking to him. The khan pointed at Jack's arm with his bushy eyebrows furrowed.
"What is he doing, Niki?"
"He wants to see your tattoo."
Jack rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm. The black lines of the hourglass had reduced in swelling, but continued to throb with his heartbeat. "Why?"
The khan nodded and roared with laughter, causing the rest of the men in the yurt to join in, seemingly mocking Jack. After a few moments, Khan Berdi Beg pounded his fist against his chest and knelt down in front of Jack. He was inches away from him, smelling of fermented milk, roasted lamb, and pungent spices. The intimidating man's voice became softer as his mirth faded below his long mustache. He smoothed Ja
ck's curls with his knuckles as he spoke to him, glancing to Niki every other word.
Jack swallowed hard. "What is he saying?"
"At first, he made fun of your tattoo, saying it was a weird mark for a warrior to have. He asked if you were branded as a slave and you escaped from your owner. He asked if I was your owner."
"And? Tell him the truth."
Niki patted Jack on the back as he talked with the khan. The others in the yurt had put down their bowls of stew and were leaning forward, taking in every word that was said. The looks on their faces varied from surprise to pity and even sorrow. They hung their heads and a few whispered to each other while nodding towards Jack.
Jack shifted uncomfortably. "What did you tell him? Niki!"
"I told him you were an escaped slave who I saved from starvation, but we were attacked by bandits who took our clothes."
And that was somehow better? "Why? Now they think I'm a slave."
"Because the truth would probably get us killed. It's best if we keep the true nature of your tattoo a secret. We need to lie low and blend in as best as we can. If that means creating cover stories, then so be it. Berdi Beg says they don't return escaped slaves to their masters because every man is free on the steppe. Freedom is the one thing they value most."
Khan Berdi Beg stood and stretched his muscled arms above his head before turning to his men and giving them orders. The Mongols jumped to their feet and raised their fists in the air, their voices becoming one in a unified chant.
Jack leaned back on his hands and watched the women enter the yurt with clay jugs of horse milk on their hips. There was a certain friendliness there, a common brotherhood that fell over the place around the flickering fire with the sparking orange embers drifting up towards the opening in the ceiling where the smallest slivers of sky could be seen, transforming from the dusty light blue of afternoon to the glowing amber of the first tendrils of evening that spread out from the setting sun. The temperature began to drop, but he was warm and safe inside his robe with the uncommon hospitality of a people he had only just met.
Chronomancer Page 3