by Ramy Vance
Keiko approached us. “My sister has informed me that the soldiers are moving the Others last and that Father Time is still in his hut. This way,” she said, and she led us up a path away from the village and into the mountainside.
KAT, MEET FATHER TIME FOR THE FIRST TIME
FATHER TIME, MEET KAT … AGAIN
We trekked up the path where stone slabs had been built into the hillside as stairs, and from the overgrowth, I could tell that few people walked up here. Or down. Fresh prints from the soldiers’ boots muddied the moss-covered stairs, and from the way the tracks appeared, three sets of boots had gone up slowly and then hurried down at breakneck speed.
Father Time is scary, I mused to myself.
“Father Time is not scary—just eccentric. The soldiers would not have run away from him,” Keiko said, evidently listening in on my thoughts (the only explanation, because I’m pretty sure I’d nipped my “talk out loud” habit in the bud). We walked the last of the steps as she spoke, the stairs leveling out onto a plateau where two huts sat. Keiko pointed to the left hut. “Father Time lives there. It is the one who lives in the adjacent hut that they ran from. Come.”
She gestured for us to walk to the left hut, standing in such a way that she blocked the path to the other home. Both Jean and I looked into the other hut’s window as we walked, trying to get a sense of who lived there. We saw nothing, but that didn’t stop the hairs on the back of my neck from standing at full, terrified attention. I’d been alive long enough—well, vampire-alive, which counts!—to know what I sensed.
A hunter.
And from the way every one of my senses screamed for me to run, that was one hell of a hunter.
“Who … who lives there?”
Keiko shook her head. “That is not part of my compromise. I will not expose another to your musings.”
Jean audibly gulped. Evidently he felt the same thing. “So we won’t be speaking to the he, she or it who lives in there?”
Keiko nodded.
“Good,” he said. “That’s really good.”
↔
KEIKO LIFTED a hand to knock on the hut’s entrance and as she made to rap on the wooden door, it swung open and her fist flew through empty air.
An old man with a long beard that wrapped around his ankles stood at the threshold. At least, that’s what it looked like at first, but as he took a step into the light, I saw that the beard didn’t just go straight down to his feet, but rather large tufts of it ran over his arms, stomach and around his back. He was literally clothed in his own white beard that covered him in a furry exterior that made him look like a white-furred yeti.
Harry would love this guy, I thought.
Father Time made a come along gesture as he stepped away from the threshold. “You two may enter. The noro may not. She has broken her oath to me and therefore she is one I can no longer speak to.”
Keiko grimaced in visible pain at the words, but there was no surprise there. Others take oaths very seriously and when an oath is broken, their response tends to be harsh, final and often fatal. It was a small miracle that this guy didn’t do more than simply shun her. In the grand scheme of Other logic, he was well within his rights to demand reparations that come in all sorts of nasty ways.
“Hurry along,” he said. “I don’t have all the time in the world to wait for you. Look at me … Father Time is running out of time.” He giggled at his joke. Then his voice took an unnatural turn from jovial to deadly serious. “Hurry along. I don’t have all day to reject you.”
“Cheery,” I muttered as I followed him inside.
↔
THE INSIDE of the hut was sparse, with one simple, single bed, one pillow and no sheets. Although it was small, the sparse furnishing made it roomy enough that the three of us could stand far enough apart to swing our arms without touching each other.
A single chair and table sat at the far end of the wall. Father Time gestured for me to sit on the chair. I was about to decline, but he said, “Yeah, yeah … you won’t sit because you think I’m old and therefore my age and fragility trump your femininity when determining who is worthy of the chair.”
Looking at Jean, he added, “And your youth and maleness preclude you from being offered the chair. Or at least, that is my understanding of human culture. Chairs are offered in the following order: pregnant, old woman, old man, child, young woman. Then there are the injured and handicapped to consider. If they are sufficiently hindered, then they go above all, even a pregnant woman near bursting. There are no offerings to a young man, unless said man is exhausted. Did I get that right?”
He waved a hand before either of us could answer. “Being mortal is so confusing. I guess that is what death gives us: a simplification of everything. Personally, I can’t wait to be free of human protocol.” He lifted his head up as if speaking to the wind. “Death, wherever you are, come and get me. I’m waiting.”
Then he stopped speaking and looked at me expectantly. When I didn’t say anything, he said, “Well, on with it.”
“Ahh, OK,” I said. “We have a … situation. Seems that three dead gods are seeking resurrection and the—”
“Yes, yes, yes. War, enslavement. Bombs, armies advancing. I’ve heard it all before,” Father Time growled. “You know, we have met before.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, searching my memories of the man. I had none. I mean, how could you forget a character like this guy? Even with clothes on, I would have remembered meeting him. “I think I’d remember meeting you.”
Father Time looked at me with genuine confusion before shaking his head. “Ahh yes, you are right. I have met you before, but you have never met me.”
“OK,” I said, but before I could think of anything to say, Father Time started to laugh.
Then he abruptly stopped as if he was waiting for me to do or say something. Confused, I didn’t move. “Go ahead,” he said impatiently.
“Go ahead, what?” I said, turning to Jean for support. The soldier lifted his hands in surrender as he shook his head.
“Go ahead and make your joke.”
“What joke?”
“The joke you’re going to say. You know, I said, ‘I have met you before. You have never met me, though.’ To which you respond, ‘That makes sense, and by makes sense, what I really mean is that doesn’t make any sense at all.’ Then I laugh.” Father Time crossed his arms expectantly.
“OK,” I said, unsure. “That makes sense, and by makes sense, what I really mean is that doesn’t make any sense at all.”
Father Time didn’t laugh, but instead said, “I already chuckled at that one. Now impress me. Say something insightful.”
“Insightful, eh?” I looked at a being that was literally responsible for the birth of time and tried to unpack what was going on in his impossibly old mind. He clearly wanted me to say something. No, that wasn’t right—he wanted me to understand something. “Say something insightful,” he’d said, but just like he had laughed at a joke I hadn’t said yet, he was waiting for me to say something that had already impressed him.
I thought about my eidetic memory. Most people who don’t have it don’t understand how such a memory works. They think we recall things, but we don’t—not exactly. We recreate memories, remembering what happened by replaying the scene in our heads. And sometimes those memories can be so vivid it’s as if we’re reliving the moment again.
“You remember me,” I said as my mind struggled to formulate the thought into something coherent, “because you can remember the future. You can remember things that have yet to happen, can’t you?”
He snapped his fingers twice. “Precisely. You know, even though I remembered what you were going to say, I forgot how impressed I was going to be when you actually said it.” He shook his head. “I guess my memory isn’t what it once was. Comes from aging.” Then he shot Jean a look and started to laugh.
Jean, taking the cue, said, “Ironic that Father Time is ravaged by time.”
Jean rolled his eyes. “I haven’t heard that one before.”
“I know, I know. And you will hear it many more times before you eventually find your Mark. But he’s coming, that I promise you.”
Jean lifted an eyebrow in curiosity. “What do you mean, ‘find your Mark?’ I—”
“Not now, Jean! We don’t have time for this. Bombs are falling, gods are rising. We have work to do.”
“So you’re going to help us?”
Father Time shook his head. “No, I will not. I vowed when I became mortal that I would never lift a finger to guide the course of mortal affairs. And yes, I know that I am mortal. So no need to remind me,” he said, looking at me. “And as for you, Jean, can we skip the part about how you don’t really care, but you do love your wife Bella and you would do anything for her and how much she truly cares? And because you care for her, you in turn care for them—us.” He added the last word as if it were an afterthought.
The old man stood up and pointed down the hill toward the village. “And I know you both will try to guilt me into helping by evoking memories of the priestesses’ kindness and how this place creates a connection with the past and deserves a chance to remain. I will refuse you on all these counts and the dozen more arguments you will attempt to win me over with. So let’s skip all that.”
“Skip it?” I said. “Skip it! You can’t be friggin’ serious. You just had an entire conversation with us that we’ve never had … from memory. Your memory. A memory, might I add, that by your own admission isn’t what it used to be. Perhaps there’s a part of the conversation you’ve forgotten?”
“That may be,” he said, “but even if you were to persuade me, I cannot help. I have sworn an oath to the departed gods never to intervene in the humans’ course of time. That is why time travel is impossible. Time cannot be slowed, sped up or altered. And despite the prattling of numerous books and movies conjured by the human imagination, one cannot go forward or backward in time.”
“Tell that to Marty and Doc,” Jean muttered.
Father Time shot Jean a look and growled, “Time cannot be altered because of an oath I made before the gods brewed the primordial soup from which your ancestors emerged. I have not interfered with the mortal course of time since time began and I will not interfere now, even if it means that time may end.”
“But the gods are gone—” I started.
“And I am not,” he shot back. “I am here and intact. Ergo, my oaths are intact as well.”
I was absolutely flabbergasted. To be rejected before we’d even gotten a chance to speak was devastating. If Jean was bothered by the whole thing, he didn’t show it, simply shrugging. “OK, that’s it. We’ll be on our way then.”
Father Time didn’t say anything, but he did look at us expectantly, as if waiting for us to say something else. Something he remembered us saying. But it was more than his expectations that grabbed me. I also sensed a hint of fear in him.
Fear is a powerful motivator. It changes perspective, alters goals and ambitions, forces people to do things they’d never dream of. Things like breaking oaths.
He wants to help us, I thought as I considered Other logic. He just needs us to force him into it. But how do you force someone as ancient and powerful as the embodiment of time?
Not by threats or pleas, but with loopholes. Loopholes in the laws of the divine. And I had just the one.
“But here’s the thing,” I said, choosing my words with care. “How can you remember a conversation that is yet to happen? Also, riddle me this, Father Time: what will happen to you if we don’t have the conversation? I mean, you just remembered something that hasn’t happened yet. Surely not having the conversation will cripple you, won’t it?”
Father Time considered this. Then his eyes widened. “I completely forgot this part. And yes, you’re right—to not have this conversation would be akin to having a memory ripped from my mind. Very bad for the mortal condition. Not sure what would happen, but I hypothesize that to lose a memory in such a manner would bring on early-onset insanity.” He shook his head as his lips trembled with fear. “I’m too young to go insane.”
“And what would happen if you went insane? Certainly Father Time losing his mind would be detrimental to the very fabric of reality.”
The old man considered this. “Perhaps I would do something horrible,” he mused, “like alter the flow of time.”
“Go back to before the gods left, for example?”
“Perhaps. Yes. Possibly. Probably.” His eyes widened again. “Definitely.”
“And that would be interfering with the mortal flow of time?” I said.
“Indeed. I would be breaking my oath.”
“Then help us,” I said.
“No. That, too, would be breaking my oath. You must plead with me and go through all the reasons for me to help you so that I may reject you.”
“No,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.
Father Time looked at Jean with pleading eyes.
Jean, seeing my plan, folded his arms before nodding in my direction. “What she said.”
“But, but …”
“There must be a way you can help us without breaking your oath.”
Father Time considered this. “There is a way, but it would be too close to the edge of the perimeters of my oath. Too, too close.”
“Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades … and Blackjack,” Jean said.
Both Father Time and I shot Jean an undignified look.
“Well, it’s true,” he muttered to himself like a sulking child.
Ignoring Jean, I said, “It’s better to be close to the line and not cross it than cross the line, is it not? Help us and we’ll help you. We’ll have the conversation.”
“But, but …” he stammered.
“You know the deal. Surely at this point you remember it, don’t you? You know how this whole thing is going to unfold. Help us and we’ll help you.”
Father Time began clicking his tongue like the seconds on an old grandfather clock before nodding. “Very well,” he said with a smile. “You have tricked me, placing me in a bind that forces my hand in order to maintain my vow. I shall help you. But not by shifting the sands of time. I shall instead impart a great secret to you that may, perhaps, if properly used, help you.”
Then the creature who even the gods feared wrote something down on a piece of paper and folded it. Father Time handed it to Jean. “Open this when the time comes.”
Jean started to protest, but he lifted a silencing finger. “And you will know when that time is. Trust me.” Then he handed an ordinary hourglass in a wooden frame to me. It looked like a kitchen egg timer. “The sands of time, my young lady. Use them wisely.” And with that, Father Time folded his arms. “Now let us have our conversation once more. And this time with feeling.”
NO TIME LIKE ANY TIME BUT THE PRESENT
We had our conversation. As for having it with feeling, I had to admit that even I was surprised by that part. And I’m not referring to what I said, because I was rather robotic in my role.
But Jean was another story. Sure, he started out robotic enough, just going through the motions, but as soon as he started talking about his wife, Bella, everything changed. He spoke about his love for her, her love for him … and how she had a heart so big that it loved everyone. And the more he spoke, the more we could feel his passion. He wasn’t kidding when he said he loved her and would do anything to make her happy. To keep her safe. To help her on her mission to help Others. Jean might not have cared for Others in the way his wife did, but he cared enough for her that it spilled over into caring for them as well.
We stepped outside Father Time’s hut. I held the hourglass, and Jean had the piece of folded paper that supposedly had something written on it that would help that would supposedly help us defeat the gods.
If t
his was “Mission Accomplished,” then I’d hate to have gone through the mission-crashed-and-burned scenario.
Keiko, who had been sitting on a rock outside the hut, stood up as soon as we came out. She gave us a look that simultaneously prayed for hope mixed with a resolve that we’d go on even if there was none. How she managed to say all that with a look, I’ll never know, but there was no denying Blue’s presence in her granddaughter. If Keiko was half of who Blue was, she’d be a force to be reckoned with.
I gestured for us to walk down the path before saying anything. Once we were halfway down, Jean broke the silence with, “Well, that was special. I mean, I’ve met eccentric Others before, but this guy wins the beauty pageant for weird.”
“I don’t know,” I said, “he was just working with what he had. He’s an Other who used to live in all times at once. And now that he’s mortal and stuck on the same temporal timeline as everyone else … well, it’s a miracle he’s not insane.”
“You call that ‘not insane?’ ” Jean said, cocking a thumb up the path.
“I call that surprisingly coherent. You saw what he did. He wanted to help us while not compromising his oaths. That’s a big deal for normal Others, so I can only imagine how epically huge a deal it is for a creature with cosmic powers. But he played the conversation exactly how he needed to to get us to threaten him and—”
“You threatened him?” Keiko said, anger in her voice.
I waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, but only because he wanted us to.” And I told the noro priestess everything that had happened in the hut, ending with the folded paper and hourglass. “We don’t know what this says or what the hourglass does, but he insisted we would know when the time comes.”
“Does this mean he’s seen the future and knows our outcome?” Keiko asked.
I considered this. Truth was, I had no idea.
Jean shook his head. “I don’t think so. The way he spoke, the things he said, I gathered that the future isn’t set and that there are many outcomes.”