by Mel Odom
“And he truly separates the world of the living from the world of the dead?” Juhg asked.
“Yes. Just as he separates the past from the present, and allows the future to trickle through in small doses rather than a deluge. His power is the only thing that separates now and then. The Book of Time was an aid he built to help him manage those things.” Craugh shrugged. “And perhaps the book was a conceit as well.”
“A conceit?”
Craugh smiled sadly. “Do you truly think a being as powerful as the Gatekeeper needs a book to help him keep his hand on the tiller?” He shook his head. “No, he only created the book because he wished the possibility to exist that one day someone might read it and know everything he had done. The Gatekeeper is vain.”
Juhg thought about that. Many writers of the histories, sciences, and other discussions—including even the romances in Hralbomm’s Wing that the Grandmagister had so enjoyed—were propelled by ego rather than a true desire to inform or entertain. The books were indulgences, made by people who created time in their lives to write them. Still, so many great things came out of their efforts.
“Unfortunately, being the Gatekeeper,” Craugh went on, “he wrote The Book of Time showing the past, the present, and the future. All of them. He lives in a place between life and death, between past and future, and outside of present.”
“Even now?”
“Yes. Even now. He tried to stop us from taking the book. We tried to kill him. Neither side was successful.” Craugh relit his pipe and smoke plumed above his head. He carefully avoided Juhg’s gaze.
Almost unconsciously, Juhg slipped his journal into his lap, took out a fresh charcoal, and began capturing the wizard’s image to the page. His hands moved slowly, long strokes that brought the image to life.
“We found the Gatekeeper through careful searching as well as happenstance,” Craugh went on. “We’d searched for years. Some of us had died during that time. Some from old age or sickness. Some at the swords of enemies.” He paused, lost in memories. “And some of us died at each others’ hands. None of us knew true loyalty. Some would say I have never learned it and that is why I am so often found alone.”
Remembering how quickly the wizard had dispatched his old “friends,” Juhg agreed. “Where was the Gatekeeper?”
“High up in the windswept peaks in the Iron Needles. At least, that was where we found the door that led us to him.”
Juhg moved on from Craugh’s image and began sketching the Iron Needles, the mountains that crawled up from Bajoram’s Pots of Flaming Pain. There were books—had been books, Juhg told himself—of explorers who had gone up into the Iron Needles, but not many of them had survived. The air couldn’t be breathed and ferocious birds and creatures that hunted each other—when humans, elves, and dwarves weren’t handy—lived all over the mountains.
“How did you know he was there?”
“A spell was made that tracked the Gatekeeper. We followed it up the mountain. More than half of us died in the ascent, from the lack of air, from monsters, and from greed that intensified when we thought we were near our goal. Once we encamped on top of the highest peak, it still took more than a year to find a way in to the Gatekeeper. More of us died from the bad air and the creatures that lived among the mountains. We were about to give up when Jazzal found a way into the place between worlds and time.”
“Who was Jazzal?”
Craugh’s voice thickened and he spoke with effort. “For a while I thought I loved her. But I was mistaken, of course. Or maybe I was only mistaken in thinking she loved me.”
Curiosity, stupid and dangerous curiosity, niggled at the corner of Juhg’s mind, insisting that he ask questions about the woman who had captured the wizard’s heart. Just as he was about to give in to the urge to ask, Craugh continued speaking.
“She was elven. Her hair was unruly and long, pale blue. Her eyes were smoky gray, depthless. She was more sensitive in her magic. It was she who found the crack that led us to the doorway of the Gatekeeper.” Craugh shook his head. “I could spend hours telling you of the years we spent in the In-Betweenness that lies between the worlds and time. Suffice to say that we saw things no one has ever seen before or since. We sometimes fought and killed things in one instant only to see them born in the next. Some of us were killed in those places, only to finish the journey with us and die once again upon re-entering the world that we had come from. Time had no meaning there. Nor did place. We often went to sleep in one area only to awaken in another. We could not tell how long day or night lasted. We sometimes passed through a year full of season, in any kind of order, between meals. We were often older and younger in the morning than we were when we went to bed.”
Juhg sat quietly, awed by the tale. He hadn’t studied the legends of the Gatekeeper often, but he knew about some of the details Craugh gave him.
“Time never exactly moved the way it was supposed to for any of us after we got out of the In-Betweenness,” Craugh admitted. “At least, not for those of us that made it out or didn’t die.”
“How did you find out about The Book of Time?”
Craugh shook his head. “No one then even knew the book existed. We went there to lay claim to the In-Betweenness. We had reasoned that such a place had to exist, and we wanted only to conquer that region and explore the potential for power there. Then, when we found the Gatekeeper, we found the book.”
“What did the Gatekeeper think of you?”
“Oh”—Craugh waved a hand—“he thought we were aberrations, of course. We existed on a level he was totally unaccustomed to. For a long time, he didn’t know what to do with us. Ultimately, I think that was the only thing that saved us for however long we were there.”
“Why didn’t he know what to do with you?”
“Because we were bound by time even though the worlds around us were not. That fact alone caused the Gatekeeper great consternation. He lives for balance, a … fairness, if you will. From what I saw, he never takes sides, he never influences. He merely … observes.”
“And keeps the worlds and time separate.”
“Yes.”
“What did he look like?”
Craugh shook his head. “Everyone that you ask, apprentice, who lived through that ordeal would have a different answer. To me, he was a strong warrior, a young man in his prime, but who had ageless eyes. To me, he always comported himself with grace and dignity, though Jazzal found him to be feminine and raucous.”
“Not even the gender could be agreed upon?” Juhg was surprised. He was also surprised at how much the wizard’s tale had pulled him into its thrall. The events were beyond his ken to a degree, but he found images flying from his mind to his fingers, defined by swift strokes of the charcoal across the pages of his journal.
“No.”
“How did you find out about The Book of Time?”
“I don’t know. That remains a mystery, you see.”
“I don’t understand.”
“After we met the Gatekeeper, maybe even before, or maybe by the time we came to recognize The Book of Time for what it is, it was as though we’d always known about it. The power, however, was surprising.”
“Why would the Gatekeeper put the power to affect all of time and the distance between worlds into a book?”
“I don’t believe he meant to. It was just something that happened because of the nature of the book. Sometimes, apprentice, magic enters into an object unintentionally. Places tend to have magic all their own, but objects acquire it through exposure or intent. The Book of Time is part of the Gatekeeper. As much as the eye that Hallekk keeps in his captain’s quarters is still a part of the monster that took Captain Peggie’s leg.”
“You and your friends stole The Book of Time?”
Craugh nodded toward Juhg’s journal. “Friends is not a word you should use when you write about this, apprentice. Call them acquaintances. Better yet, call them accomplices, for that was all we truly were for each other in the
end.” He paused to take a sip of wine. “And yes, we took The Book of Time. For all I know, we would have stayed there with the Gatekeeper for all of eternity. Every occasion we talked with him, he showed no sign of noticing that time had passed. I think that we went a little insane then, too.”
“Why?”
“We must have. Even though the world around us was mercurial, our minds were not. At times, we could go out into the Gatekeeper’s garden and watch flowers blossom. They would open into the sun in a matter of heartbeats, then die and drop off before you could touch one of them. At other times, they blossomed backward, the flowers furling and twisting themselves back into buds. Still others seemed frozen into a single moment, never changing. A year’s worth of seasons vanished in the space of a drawn breath. Staying there was out of the question. We were tempting madness. We took the book and ran.”
“How did you get the book?”
“We took it from his study.”
“While he was away? The Gatekeeper left the book unguarded?”
Leaning back against the ship’s railing, Craugh sighed. “There are so many inconsistencies with what you just said, apprentice.”
“What inconsistencies?”
“First of all, the Gatekeeper was never away. Yet, at the same time, he was always gone.”
“I don’t understand.” Juhg felt thickheaded and perplexed.
“When time and place don’t exist, all things are possible and impossible at once.”
“If he was never gone, how did you steal the book?”
“Because he was always gone as well.”
This line of thinking made Juhg’s head hurt.
“Think upon this, apprentice. You see the stars in the sky.” Craugh pointed upward.
Struggling to understand, Juhg looked up and glimpsed the stars between the masts, sails, and rigging.
“Those stars occupy a place outside this world. But where does that place end? Or does it not end?”
“Tupulok wrote about the vastness of the Starry Expanse in his philosophies, Away from the Mortal Coils of Flesh, or Unleashing the Power of Thought. You’re familiar with him?”
“Of course. Mathematician, scholar, and king.”
“Tupulok believed that the Starry Expanse was somehow twisted, so that it met itself, and so that the inside was the outside and vice versa.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I know that if the Starry Expanse ends somewhere, then there must be something that exists outside of it. Then, reaching the end of that, something else must then occupy the space beyond.”
“And on and on again.”
Juhg blew out a breath. He hated thinking about the Starry Expanse and what it could mean. Too much was uncertain, and the whole existence of the idea of limitless area was almost impossible to think about.
“With that before you,” Craugh said patiently, “then you can imagine that the Gatekeeper was there and not there at the same time. Just as we escaped and didn’t escape all at once. We fled, those of us that could, and we managed to escape back into this world.”
“With The Book of Time?”
“Yes.”
“Did the Gatekeeper come after you?”
“He tried, but in the end he could not.”
“Why?”
“Because he can’t exist beyond the In-Betweenness. If he left that place, he would die. Or never be born. We were never sure how that worked. He tried to come after us, but he could not span the barrier.”
“But you had The Book of Time.”
“We did. And even though we were near death and madness, or perhaps because of it, we fought. Finally, after days of battle with magic as well as weapons, nine of us stumbled from the Iron Needles.” Craugh paused. “One of them was my son.”
“Your son?”
Craugh’s voice tightened. “Born to Jazzal while we were exploring the In-Betweenness.”
“How could a baby survive such a thing?”
“He didn’t. He walked from the In-Betweenness as we did, and he was a fully grown man when he did it.” Craugh looked at Juhg. “Time flowed differently over there, as I have said. He grew up with us, and he grew up without us. To remain alive and sane, he concentrated only on himself, coming to believe that he was the center of all that was.” The wizard was silent for a time. “Perhaps he was. None of us had time or wanted to take time to care for a child. Jazzal named him Chrion.”
Juhg’s mind reeled. One impossibility followed another. “That’s a Laurel Tree elven name. It means ‘middle child.’”
Craugh nodded. “Usually it is reserved for the middle son in a family. Jazzal thought it was appropriate in Chrion’s case, given his birthplace.”
Thoughts flew through Juhg’s mind. “No one ever mentioned you had a son.”
A hint of sadness surfaced in Craugh’s green eyes for a moment then faded away, like an ember that had caught a fresh breath of air that caused it to burn itself out. “No one,” he stated heavily, “has ever before known. The last two people who knew died two days ago.”
“What of Jazzal?”
“Chrion killed her.”
Juhg’s stomach turned sickeningly. The flat tone with which Craugh delivered the shocking news caught him off guard.
“Why would he kill his mother?” Juhg, who had barely known his own mother, could not believe such a thing could happen outside of the goblinkin.
“Because he was blood of bad blood,” Craugh whispered. “It was my son who stole The Book of Time from us. Jazzal worked to decipher the book while the rest of us went forth to secure our places among the empires of the mainland. She was the one most gifted with reading the confusing text that changed on every page. We went to trained sages at the time—elven, dwarven, and human—and showed them The Book of Time. Some of them killed themselves because they saw their own destinies writ out before them. Some of them went mad because they could not comprehend everything that was written. Others couldn’t understand anything that was there.”
The mournful cry of a seagull sounded off in the distance. Critter screeched an obscenity at the bird from high up in the rigging.
“What did you do to Chrion?” Juhg asked.
“We went after him, those of us that lived,” Craugh said. “If we had caught him, we would have killed him. But he was too clever for us for many years. Eventually, though, we caught up with him. During the battle that raged, his goblinkin forces against the armies of the empires that we all ruled, The Book of Time was lost to him. And to us.”
“Chrion took up with the goblinkin?”
“Yes. Haven’t you ever noticed the goblinkin don’t speak of history?”
“They do upon occasion.”
“That’s because they were changed during the war that purged the books from the mainland. They learned what they fought against, and even though they had no real use for it, they came to learn about history because they questioned the warriors they fought against. Have you ever read much about goblinkin before the Cataclysm?”
“Only a little. They weren’t written about much. Mostly the human, elven, and dwarven books only mentioned them as monsters. There was no real description of their culture, only that they were savage and bestial and ate their enemies.”
“In the early years, goblinkin had no concept of time. That was why Chrion felt so at home with them. They didn’t strive under the weight of the past or look with disfavor toward the burden of the future. They only lived in the now, locked in the events that surrounded them.”
“As Chrion had grown up with.”
“Yes.” Craugh put his pipe away. “We trapped Chrion and decimated his armies. And we earned forever the enmity of the goblinkin.”
“But The Book of Time was lost.”
“Yes. We questioned Chrion for months, employing some of the best torturers we could buy. At the end of that time, he was put to death.”
Juhg’s breath caught at the back of his throat. “You had your own s
on executed?”
“There was nothing to be done about it.” Craugh looked away. “I know that some think that I am evil, that I am too forceful in my ways.”
Juhg silently agreed. He’d been among mainland towns and villages where the wizard was feared, though he did not know why that was so.
“I have earned that reputation over the years, and that is the curse of having a long life.” Craugh paused. “Nothing you’ve ever done—nothing evil—is ever truly forgotten. It lies ever waiting to spring forth and call attention to itself again. Nothing lasts so long as the evil that people do to each other in the name of whatever they choose to make their excuse.” He cleared his throat because it had gotten tight. “For every bit of evil that I was, and perhaps still am, Chrion was ever more.”
“But you did look for the book?”
“Of course we looked for the book, apprentice. We searched for it for centuries. All to no avail. But the worst was yet to come. Chrion was not dead as we believed.”
Juhg scarcely drew a breath. Pieces fell together in his mind. “He rose once more, didn’t he? And he again united the goblinkin.”
Craugh looked at him and nodded. “So you have figured it out, then.”
“Chrion went by another name. Or maybe it was only a name adulterated by the goblinkin tongue.” Juhg couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “Your son was Lord Kharrion.”
“Yes.” Craugh’s voice was the thinnest whisper.
“How did he live?”
“As I told you, after our exposure to the In-Betweenness, none of us lived normal lives. Years no longer seemed to matter. None of us that went to that place and returned ever died of old age. It was as though we were somehow placed outside of time. Only violence or sickness—or suicide as when Capul could no longer take the strain of living on past his loved ones over the centuries—could end our long lives.”
“Why did Chrion, Kharrion, seek to destroy the books?”