“What in the world,” Kannikey said, “was that?”
“A sample of the visions I’ve been seeing,” Jeremy said. “At least I’ve got more confidence in my sanity since all of you have seen one too.”
“It was your vision, I expect, Time Mechanic,” said Ffip. “The three of us shared it because we were attached to you.”
“Then why were we shown the first vision about me? After all, I didn’t need to see my own history. No, I believe this experience was intended for all of us.”
“My question is why did we have to see those particular visions?” Mars put in. “They made us look weak.”
“I’m not weak,” said Kannikey.
“None of us came off as weak,” corrected Jeremy. “Vulnerable, perhaps.”
“’To be seen in strife is to be known in life; vulnerability is the essence of humanity’,” Ffip said. “According to the poet, Gusthaven.”
“That explains it then. In fact, that little poem explains everything,” sneered Mars.
“There’s no need to be sarcastic,” said Ffip.
“We’ve been moved by a set of miserable visions to do nothing at all,” Mars complained. “According to the great Time Mechanic here, we’re supposed to save the world or something. After seeing that vision I feel more like taking a dose of strong drink so I can cry unintelligibly in my cups.”
“I agree at last with something you’ve said, guardian,” said Kannikey. “What are we to do now after seeing this vision, go home feeling sorry for each other?”
“I was going to say before this happened that I had an idea of what we could go do next,” put in Jeremy. “I know of hidden farmland we need to check out. If Mars could release his drive to drink and you could wait to ponder things until later, that is.”
“You want to go see a plot of hidden farmland?” she asked.
“It’s dark outside,” protested Ffip.
“What I’m suggesting we do is best done in the dark. It’s a long walk back to Tonturin though and this farmland is miles further on the other side. Did anyone bring a carriage when they came to visit me this evening?”
“I brought one,” said Kannikey. “I suppose we can all squeeze into it.”
“Then let’s go.”
Jeremy opened the door and held out his hand. He had his boots on and his coat. He was ready to begin. When the three other people moved to obey him he grinned. He could get used to giving orders.
Chapter Eight - (In Which Jeremy Tries to Navigate Dangerous Passageways)
It was a tight squeeze to fit in Kannikey’s carriage. In fact, since she insisted on driving, there was nothing for it except that Ffip had to sit on Jeremy’s lap. It was awkward and odd, but Ffip was very casual about it. Jeremy’s cheeks reddened but he tried to take the slight weight of the fellow as nothing much to worry about. They were trying to save the world after all. And yet, while they were driving, Jeremy began to wonder about something. It was the way Ffip sat there so upright and relaxed that made him begin to suspect. He studied the engineer as Kannikey clicked up her team and directed the carriage out of the manse drive and onto the road to Tonturin.
Ffip looked from the back very much as he’d appeared in the vision. His shoulders were small and he was too thin for the baggy and overly large layers of clothing that he sported. It was almost as if he was trying to hide his physique- and the turban cap didn’t help. Jeremy realized that he’d seen very little of the man’s actual face. Jeremy frowned as the carriage bumped through a dip in the road and the curve of Ffip’s back came nearer. There was something more going on here than met the eye. He turned his face away from pondering Ffip’s back and stared out of the side of the carriage instead.
Weren’t all four of them mysterious, in a way? Even knowing Mars for most of their lives he’d rarely seen the man’s home or met his farming family. It had always been Jeremy’s home that they’d returned to, when they wanted to drink or talk or work on hobbies together; first in Jeremy’s childhood home with his parents and then when Jeremy moved to live with his uncle after that. Whenever Mars went to his parent’s farm he was expected to work, not play and so the boys hadn’t gone there very often. In fact, they would pass the land his family worked on as they journeyed tonight to check out the hidden fields he’d seen in his vision. Mars was a man who kept his private life to himself although he’d always insisted that it was Jeremy who liked to keep secrets when they’d been young.
Jeremy thought Mars didn’t understand that no one liked to keep secrets. He clenched his fists right now as his mind skittered by the worst secret of all. Perhaps it was because he’d been shown so much since he’d been given the job as Time Mechanic that he couldn’t seem to compartmentalize his past into the safe brackets he usually stored it in, so he sat struggling to close off remembering that awful experience of the past. He pushed it away in shame and tried to forget it. What happened back then, in the months after he’d lost his parents, wasn’t his fault. He’d told himself that many times over the years. Now his mind refused to listen to him and the memory returned to him again, full force, as it hadn’t done in years.
He was a teenager and had been living with his uncle for six months after losing his parents. His uncle was married but had been estranged from his wife for many years. In fact, Jeremy had never met his uncle’s wife that he could recall, for she had left her husband when Jeremy was a toddler. No one in the family knew why and they didn’t ask, since his uncle— Jeremy’s father’s older brother— was a quiet and reserved sort of person. That he was also kind was something that Jeremy didn’t realize until he was otherwise alone in the world. When Jeremy’s parents were buried his uncle Tov came up and put a hand on his shoulder. He’d rarely spoken to the man before, who was ten years his father’s senior and had certainly never been touched by him.
“You’ll come to live with me now, boy, until you’re grown,” Tov had said. “We’ve talked about it— your extended family and me. I could use some help around the house. You’ll clean up the dishes and wash the laundry. You’ll sweep and mop the floor and empty the outhouse bucket. Do those things every week without complaint and I’ll feed you and leave you alone. I won’t bother you with rules unless you break the obvious ones. I’m not a hard taskmaster, boy. I’m private, but from what I’ve seen, so are you. We should get along well enough together until you’re ready to start on your own. Agreed?”
It had seemed perfect at the time. Jeremy’s aunts had been gushing all over him and he’d found their attention to be smothering.
“It sounds fair, sir,” he’d agreed. “I can do those chores.”
And indeed everything had proceeded as his uncle had said. The house was sparse with furniture but airy and restful. His uncle was a placid man and even had a smile for Jeremy when they ran into each other since Jeremy did his part without complaint. They spent many a quiet evening reading books by the fireplace or even playing the occasional game of Nezbitt. There was complete privacy for him to nurse the raw pain of losing his parents in peace, there in the comfortable, square room his uncle had set aside for his use at the back of the house. He even had his own entrance and would slip outside at all times of the day or night to pace around the property and stomp out his emotions on the crooked trails through the high grasses and trees. He began to heal a little.
Until the month following his sixteenth birthday; when everything changed. Darala returned; his uncle’s estranged wife. She was still in her late thirties, for she’d married Tov young, stayed with him for just a few tumultuous years, and then slipped away from him to ‘serve’ her family for a while since they ‘needed’ her.
Tov seemed pleased to see her, treated her with every kindness, and did his best to indulge her every whim. That seemed to work fine with her for a few weeks. Since she took on many of Jeremy’s chores inside the house, he moved to work outside to help his uncle. He weeded and hoed the garden to save Tov’s back. He shoveled straw for the animals and mucked out the bar
n. He dealt with the outhouse bucket too.
It was while he was in the side yard chopping wood that he first noticed Darala staring at him. He wasn’t as handsome as Mars had turned out to be, and most of the girls at school hadn’t noticed much about him. So it came as a shock to see her frozen at the edge of the house, her eyes planted on his form just as he lifted the axe high over his head to chop. He faltered at the base of the swing and left the axe planted in the wood. He pulled his shirt straight.
“Can I do something for you, Aunt?” he asked.
“Don’t call me that,” she growled in reply.
“Pardon me?”
“I’m not actually your aunt, am I? Not by blood. And I’m not old like your real aunts, either.”
“Sorry, ma’am.”
He remembered the way her eyes had narrowed in anger.
“Carry in that kindling for me,” she commanded, following too close behind him when he obeyed and transported the pile into the kitchen for her. From then on she would often order him about, going all the way outside to find him even if she only wanted him to bring her a cup from the shelf and set it on the table.
He shut the memories away as Tonturin came into view. He didn’t want to remember that old pain now, except he felt his cheeks heat as one thing occurred to him; his cheeks which were still sore from when Fiasca had slapped him earlier in the evening. How was it he hadn’t realized the correlation before? Fiasca and Darala, they’d both ordered him around just to watch him obey. And they’d both become enraged when he hadn’t given them everything they’d demanded.
Suddenly Kannikey spoke, breaking the long silence that had fallen on the carriage. The streets of Tonturin were lit by fluttering lanterns as they drove through the town, and raucous sounds of catcalls and laughter drifted from a few taverns.
“Where do I go?” she asked, her voice breaking his deep distraction so he jumped.
“Uh…” he faltered, trying to clear his thoughts. “Outside of Tonturin on the west road, towards the farms.”
Kannikey guided the carriage and Ffip looked down at him for a second. Jeremy wondered. He might keep secrets but he tried not to lie to people. In the end, he didn’t like being taken in. And he didn’t like it when someone pretended to be one thing when they were actually something else. If what he suspected about Ffip was true…
“Where are we going on this side of town, Jeremy?” Mars demanded from beside him. “There’s my parent’s farm now.”
“Further out, I’ll tell you when to stop, Kannikey.”
Silence fell in the carriage again for the next twenty minutes, and Jeremy kept his errant thoughts thoroughly in check. He craned to see out the side of the carriage, thankful that there was a strong moonlight to help once they left the distant lights of Tonturin behind. He couldn’t make out much from the landscape but he could catch the occasional glint of the river and he watched its curve, bringing his vision from earlier back to mind.
“There!” he said, waving an arm at Kannikey. “It’s coming up just ahead. Pull the carriage over, if you please. We’ll walk from here.”
Kannikey pulled the carriage off the road, made a sweeping turn so they were facing the other direction pointed back towards Tonturin, strapped the reins down and the horses panted out air from their nostrils before bending their heads to search for grass. Jeremy was relieved when Ffip climbed out first and got off his lap. He got out next and stood on the road and tried to see under the fellow’s turban cap. But Ffip kept his head turned to the side. When the other two got out of the carriage and joined him Jeremy put Ffip out of his mind so he could focus.
“Follow me,” he said to them. “No talking please. Try to keep things quiet.”
The four of them left the noisy surface of the road and walked through the uneven grasses at the side. He led them towards the tall wall of brambles and spindly tree branches that blocked the view of the miles towards the distant hills. He could see Mars sending him a questioning glance from the side but the man didn’t say anything. Jeremy closed his eyes for a moment and trusted he’d find what he was seeking. Somehow with that vision he’d been given earlier also had come a sort of memory that told him exactly where to look… a memory that wasn’t his own.
Nevertheless in a few minutes he discovered the movable wall of vines. He shifted the swinging curtain to the side and waved the rest of the team over. They stumbled forward in the near darkness and ducked down the darkened lane of thorny weeds after him when he showed them passage.
It wasn’t very far to go till they found the fields, less than a quarter of a mile he guessed. But he slowed the procession way before then. In fact he didn’t need to warn the others to be careful. They all could see the twinkling of lantern lights a few hundred feet ahead of them. He crouched instinctively and so did they. In this way they all crept forward to the end of the green passageway.
Chapter Nine - (In Which Jeremy Confronts a Foe and a Female)
They peeked past the brambles into the open area of the fields beyond. Jeremy felt surprise for he’d expected to see the fields as he’d been shown them in his vision— dragged clean of crop and lying fallow with just a few straggling lines of weeds or dead grasses. But that wasn’t what appeared before him now, instead he saw growing in row after distant row of waving plant-like health, a bursting crop of he didn’t know what that appeared soon ready to harvest, if the leaning dead-purple berries were anything to go by. He crept forward, craning to see past the fluttering lantern light that was posted to either side of the passageway they stood in. How had these fields grown so tall already, and just how long ago had that conversation he’d seen in his vision taken place?
In his confusion and the long weariness of the day he failed his teammates. His senses pointed out movement from the side but he was too slow to action.
“Hey!” a rough voice bellowed. “What are you doing there?”
Jeremy scrambled backwards like a fool, as the sound of running footprints approached them.
“Fall back,” he managed to hiss.
The others, picking up on his urgency ducked and tried to hide in the sides of the green passageway. At last Jeremy sorted himself and produced a clear thought. If they tried to run some of them might be caught and questioned by unknown men.
“Hurry out of here!” he added, and then moved back to the opening to distract and give his team time to escape.
And just as he reappeared the voices that had called to him reached the spot. Two large men, no doubt paid guards, ran up and bumped into him. He was knocked but he kept his feet. The larger man grabbed onto the lapels of his coat. He had a shock of near white hair which due to the short cut stood straight up, and even in the darkness Jeremy could see very brown tanned skin. The man’s eyes were ice blue.
“Who are you?” the man grunted. “What are you doing here?”
Jeremy tried to think. There was no point in trying to make up a story about how he’d found this pathway by accident. No one would be taking a pleasure jaunt this far from town in the dark of the night.
“I was sent here, of course,” he lied. “By your bosses!”
The thug’s face paused for a second of doubt, but the man soon overcame it. The fellow didn’t bother trying to question him further. He just shoved him hard with one hand while whipping out a blade from a sheath on his leg with the other. He threw a swipe so fast that Jeremy barely avoided it.
“Wait,” he gasped, and his new senses kicked in. Suddenly, without any training at all besides the wrestling matches him and Mars used to partake in when they were ten years old, his fists came up and he knew what to do. Jeremy used to lose to Mars every time, for Mars had an inborn ability to fight to such a degree that Jeremy used to tease him that he’d missed his calling in life being a shopkeeper. But now Jeremy felt he’d been given the training to fight in the same way that Mars knew by instinct. The man he was facing came at him again with his knife and Jeremy swung his body in a duck to the side, made a complete t
urn, and then backhanded the villain on his way around. He followed that up by bringing his arm down on the man’s wrist and then twisting, causing the knife to skitter to the ground a few feet away.
Beside him a leaping movement showed him why the second thug wasn’t attacking him with the first; Mars had intervened. His old friend stood arms down like a bear— big and threatening except for his wide-open eyes filled with either excitement or alarm.
“Jeremy!” he bellowed, raising one of his large hands and popping out a punch so fierce that his opponent fell right over backwards.
Meanwhile the first thug with the knife had regained his feet but was drifting away from him. He was whacking at something out of the side of Jeremy’s vision. He turned in surprise. Ffip had entered the fight and was wildly clinging to the enemy’s arm, adding a high-pitched shriek as the thug tried to dislodge him. He saw Ffip’s legs trip the both of them up, watched as they somersaulted to the side, and then lifted a hand in muted protest as both Ffip and the thug fell into the nearby river.
“Jeremy!” Mars repeated, reaching his side.
There, on the ground, the second thug lay rolling back and forth on his side, nearly unconscious. Mars had apparently punched him twice. All of a sudden the fluttering lamplight was extinguished just as the first thug rose from the river, thrashing and dripping in his soggy clothes. Right before the lantern light snapped off Jeremy caught sight of Kannikey reaching up to douse it. The glint of her light clothing headed towards the green passageway was difficult to make out in the near darkness. He grabbed Mars’ arm.
“There,” he said, pointing. “Go after her, Mars, before one of these thugs do! You see where she went, right? Go protect Kannikey; I’ll retrieve Ffip from the river!”
“Just hurry up!” Mars panted in reply, but at least he ran off in the right direction after Kannikey. Jeremy ran too; under the now cover of darkness and using the skills being the Time Mechanic had given him. He ran the path near the edge of the farmland, free of clotting vines and swishing bushes to give his noise away. He passed the sloshing first thug, who’d gotten out of the river and was roaring for the second man to bring him his knife so he could destroy the interlopers. He never noticed that Jeremy had run by him.
The Time Mechanic Page 6