Lord of Dust

by Erme Lander

  “You’ve come! She won’t talk to me. You will, won’t you?” His Talia was stood in the middle of the room looking miserable. Daniel raised his eyebrows at her and she nodded, she remembered this place. He allowed the child to sit him down and start showing him a complicated clapping game. The window darkened as Bronin climbed in.

  “You hungry?” She started putting together ingredients without waiting for an answer.

  “We don’t want to leave you short.”

  She shrugged, “There’s always the sea, it provides a lot for those that know where to find food. Your friend doesn’t say much.”

  Daniel risked a glance at his Talia. She’d hunched herself up, hugging her knees and staring around. He got the impression she was drinking in the surroundings. “She was brought up in a similar place, it’s a bit like home.” He hoped Bronin wouldn’t ask more, he wasn’t sure he could keep that line going. He tried to change the subject, “How are things with the people on the hill? We have problems with them keeping goods.” He missed a hand and the child shrieked with laughter.

  “Things haven’t improved in the last few years. There’s always those that want more than the rest and can stop us by hoarding the best bits. I remember the green meadows up on the mountain being open to everyone. We’d go up to meet Father after his week’s shift work. Now they’re building their wall to keep us out.”

  The first hint of Bronin’s past, Daniel breathed lightly, not wanting to disturb her train of thought. “How did you eat?”

  “We grew most things. The marshes kept trade to a minimum, there weren’t many ways through and people got lost in the mist if they strayed. Now there aren’t many boats because there aren’t enough trees. Wood’s expensive.” She gave a wry smile, “Yes, I’m not from this time.”

  “There are woods on the slopes in my time.” Talia had her chin on her knees, staring into nothing.

  “We’re not from this time either.” Daniel didn’t like to say he wasn’t even from this world.

  “Where are you from?” He’d almost forgotten the younger Talia, tapping her hands automatically.

  “A long way away.” He smiled at her.

  “Can I go there?”

  “Not for the moment.” Daniel hoped she wouldn’t try, her bright eyes were far too interested.

  Bronin changed the subject, handing out food and lighting a few candles as the dusk darkened into night. Daniel was surprised when her daughter curled up against him and closed her eyes after eating.

  Talia hesitantly joined in the conversation as Bronin talked, asking for details about her mother’s life, defined as it was by the shores of the ocean. She’d worked in the factories, cutting fish, doing everything she could to stay alive. She’d learnt to live off her wits – she was good at finding things and had been taken on by someone to do just that. The tower was her own place now and she mused on having her own eye on others she could train. No one bigger than herself, she didn’t want to end up in the same place as her mentor.

  “What place was that?”

  Bronin smirked, “In the gutter with his guts hanging out. He didn’t realise when I say no, I mean it.” She tapped her knife and Daniel stared, horrified. Talia sniggered and then looked panicked at her mother’s next comment. “You remind me of my man.”

  Daniel intervened, “Talia’s actually related to you.” He mentally crossed his fingers. “Your daughter jumped through to the future.”

  “I’ve wondered about jumping further ahead. There are so many trackways here, it’s dangerous. If there are less people around who can jump then there’s less chance of being surprised.”

  Daniel looked at his Talia, “The Grey Lord might be weaker too.”

  Bronin snorted. “Maybe. It would just be nice to relax and eat and trade without constantly looking over my shoulder. I can only stay close to the shoreline. My Talia doesn’t help.” As if hearing her name, the child flung an arm out in her sleep and Daniel tucked it back in against him. Bronin looked tired as she rubbed her face, “I keep her as safe as I can. She doesn’t listen though. She doesn’t understand how easy it is to die.”

  “You mean the grey men? They follow through the holes we make.”

  “They don’t just follow, they use the trackways. They pop out when you’re least expecting it, they don’t need someone to come through first, they use existing ones. They’ve been hunting us for years. We’ve survived by staying away from everyone who can do this, by keeping to ourselves.” Bronin sounded bitter. “They’ll get us in the end.”

  “How do you know they’ve been hunting you?”

  “Too many coincidences. They come through and fix on me or Talia. That’s why we live here. It’s an easy place to get away. The mud below holds them until they dissolve, all you have to do is tread water.”

  Talia asked, “How do you know they won’t come through into this room?”

  “We’re safe, no trackways come through at this tower. I try to get my Talia to understand not to jump here. She’s so young and she jumps naturally, it’s hard.” Jumps naturally, Daniel thought. Something had scared her into not jumping or even remembering.

  It was full dark outside, the candles gave out a soft glow. The time seemed right to Daniel, so he asked, “What was it like where you lived, before you came here?”

  “We were surrounded by marshes,” Bronin’s voice was dreamy. “Our lives were fixed by them and by our fathers working in the mines. They ran for miles in the rock under the marshes. Only certain families had access to the mines, others came to make use of our hard work. Traders would come for the gems and metals our families mined. Food was always grown on the plateau. Luxuries were brought in on the roads through the marshes, bridges built across the streams and rivers. We had everything we needed, the city was built off the miners backs and we lived in the large houses close to the plateau that are now in ruins.” So much for Kenderick’s underclass, thought Daniel.

  She continued, “The marshes were treacherous if a person didn’t know what to look for. There were mud holes where you could boil an egg, it stank like one too.”

  Daniel looked up at the plateau shrouded in mist and shuddered. That’s why the sea was warm, even though the air was cold. All this land must be volcanic. The moon couldn’t help either, it was probably pulling all sorts of tectonic plates about. He asked, “Did the sun shine then?”

  “It was always misty down here. That was what the slopes were for, growing food and feeding animals. They got the sun up there.” Her face turned sour, “That was before they scarpered.”

  “What do you mean, who scarpered?”

  “What I mean is, before all this came. It was their fault. The nobles in charge.” Bronin swung a hand at the black waters outside.

  “How can anyone be responsible for this?” He had a vague twitch tickle his mind that she was wrong, it disappeared before he could analyse it.

  She shrugged, “Dunno. They all disappeared though. Left us to deal with it. People were spreading rumours about them not coping with the grey bastards. The city came to a stop about a week before this happened.”

  “You were there?” Talia’s voice was awed.

  Bronin lent over to check on her daughter, Daniel moved away slightly to let her and the child disturbed, muttering. “I was out with Gian on the marshes. The city went down further in those days, the houses were smaller further out, the ground wasn’t solid enough to take the weight of the factories. We’d been fishing for the day, a treat. We were on our way home when all of a sudden, there wasn’t any water in the river. It was so quiet and we heard this rumble coming towards us. There was a wind, it blew the mist away.” Bronin’s voice carried on in it’s toneless way, reliving the horror. Daniel could see them running from the sight of the wave coming across the marshes, Bronin heavily pregnant. The watchtower on a strip of higher ground, people scrambling to get in when the wall of water hit. The debris of lighter buildings, trees, dead bodies carried with it.

  She fe
ll silent.

  “You got into the tower?” Her head ducked. Daniel remembered the tower covered in seaweed, the gaping holes for windows and with no furniture apart from the home made stuff, crude and simple. “You jumped.” Fear glazed her face. “You jumped to a safe place and ended up in this time didn’t you. This,” he waved his hand at the room, “this didn’t happen eight years ago.”

  Bronin’s face struggled between fear and anxiety. She buried her face in her hands, shaking her head, “It’s gone. It’s all gone and I can’t go back.” Daniel glanced at Talia, she was riveted, staring at her mother as though she was an alien being. Her mother was from that time in Kenderick’s books.

  “What actually happened?” He tried to sound as soothing as possible.

  “We both jumped.” Both? Bronin sniffed and wiped her cheeks. “He could too. Our fathers had been miners, years before I was born. They’d come off the shift before...” Her voice trailed off.

  “Before they’d dug up the Grey Lord.”

  She nodded, “They were ill for weeks. I was told many of my father’s friends didn’t survive. The balance of power changed and the merchants took over. A new class, they called themselves nobles,” Bronin snorted. “Mines were shut, many families didn’t survive. It was a hard time. Some men went back to work and then there was another accident...”

  “And they escaped by wishing for safety and coming through the void,” Daniel finished the sentence for her.

  The words came pouring out, a flood like the one she’d escaped herself. “People started to experiment and then the grey men came hunting. Rumours happened and my Mamin worked out that they were tracking people through the holes they made. She made us promise never to try and we hid by never being around those who jumped.”

  “But that day you had to jump, to save your life.”

  “We reached out together and ended up in water.” Her face fell forwards into her hands, “A grey man came through as we were pulling ourselves through the window. Gian had just shoved me up, I was too heavy to help myself much and he was dragged under. It had climbed up the side of the tower behind him. I could see it. It coated him and walked away under the water, gold sparks showing under his skin… I couldn’t save him.” Tears ran down her cheeks again. “Then the tides came over the top of the tower I was on. I’d jumped in time, not space.”

  “Why didn’t you jump again?”

  “I was frightened.” The snarl made him start. “I ended up trying to swim, hoping I’d get to dry land. I got swept out, the tides are strong here. I was lucky, a fisherman saw me as I went past the seaweed pontoons.” Her voice was bitter.

  “There’s nothing past them but sea.” Talia sounded awed.

  “As I said, I was lucky. I’ll have her now.” She bent to pick her child up from Daniel’s side and put her on the rugs in the corner and curled up, the conversation over.

  Chapter 24

  Daniel woke to the child Talia flicking water into his face. She giggled silently and put a finger to her lips. He leaned on an elbow and smiled as she drank the rest of the water from the cup and hopped onto the window ledge. She clipped herself onto the rope and disappeared with a wave.

  “I’ll need to get you to shore. I’m working on the pontoons today, it’s a very low tide due to the moon and they’ll need more people to clear things up out there.” Daniel swung his head to see Bronin stretching. “She’s gone?” She carried on at Daniel’s nod, “She’ll be fine, I keep that rope there so she doesn’t need me to get in or out.”

  Daniel walked over to see the shore, a thick band of mud showed and very little water. “I can see the bottom. Doesn’t it affect your safety in the tower?”

  “No, it’s still far enough out that they can’t get through.”

  “Thank you for telling us some of your past.” He saw a movement as Talia stood, Daniel guessed she’d been awake from the moment the child had moved.

  “I miss the old days. Everyone had their place, it all worked. There was a man sorting things out for everyone here. He disappeared recently.” Bronin snorted her opinion of this. “They’re closing everything down and systems are breaking apart, people are trusting less than they used to.”

  Daniel raised his eyebrows and this was from a woman who didn’t appear to trust anyone. “Can we talk more tonight?”

  “Wait on the shore, I’ll pick you up later.” She took them back one by one and they watched the slender figure paddle back to the tower and climb up the wall.

  “How do you feel?” Daniel asked.

  Talia shrugged, “It’s like I’m seeing things for the first time, but I’m remembering them as well. It’s weird.”

  “How are we going to persuade your mother not to jump?”

  “Dunno. The question is why did she jump in the first place? They’re safe where they are.”

  Daniel felt curiously flat. They’d made contact with Bronin and yet they’d not really made progress in working out how to save her. How could they stop events that had already happened? Bronin’s future – their past. They turned to walk up the hill and were stopped by a shriek floating across the water from the tower. Another scream and they stood rooted to the spot as they saw Bronin appear at the window, something in her arms. A string of swear words in their direction when she spotted them on the shore.

  “What’s happening?” Daniel swung his head wildly. The rope he’d seen Talia whizz across was far too slender for him but his Talia might make it…

  “Mamin!” Talia’s cry was anguished.

  Daniel finally made sense of the load in Bronin’s arms and saw the child’s legs dangling as Bronin paused and threw herself out. His mind worked frantically, “She’s holding you… but how?” They’d both seen Talia leave this morning.

  Bronin tumbled towards the too shallow water and he felt his stomach lurch with her fall. A hand flicked out at the last moment and a rip appeared. Both woman and child disappeared into nothing. They were left gaping at the empty patch of water.

  “Why?” Talia’s voice was tiny.

  In answer to her question, another figure appeared in the window. Daniel couldn’t see properly at this distance but could imagine the nightmare face with bulging eyes. It stepped from the window and plummeted downwards. It landed in the shoulder deep water and stayed, raising its arms above its head.

  “They’ve got into the tower, how did they do that? She said there weren’t any holes.”

  “Shouldn’t it be melting in the water?” Her hands were over her mouth.

  “The Grey Lord’s strong here, they don’t...” Daniel’s words dried up as another grey man appeared and stepped out of the window to land on the first. A slight crumpling of the figure in the water and they saw the rift opening again.

  “It’s gone to get Mamin… she’s going to die.”

  “We could try...”

  “We can’t.” Talia rounded on him, tears streaming down her face. “We tried, remember? It didn’t work.” Helpless, they watched open mouthed and within a few minutes, all that was left was a grey lump slowly dissolving.

  “That’s it. There’s no one left here.”

  An emptiness filled him, they’d failed. Bronin would die and Talia would be raised by Dodie. Anger rose at the thought of those bright eyes wiped into blankness. He reached to touch Talia and she broke away, running hard from the shore and into the city. Daniel swore and ran after her, trying to keep her figure in sight and finding it harder with his larger size to dodge through the groups of people.

  He stopped at an intersection having lost her and had the vague feeling of recognising the place. Daniel caught a someone’s sympathetic eye and gave them a brief description. They waved him towards a small alleyway, the contrasting brickwork showing in bright patterns. He found Talia in front of a door, leaning against the wall and coughing. This time when he wrapped his arms around her, she leant against him.

  “I’m sorry.” He rested his head on top of hers until she pulled herself out of his
arms.

  “This was my home.” Daniel looked around, not understanding until she pointed at the sturdy looking door, “My cellar.” She linked her fingers into his and walked them away.

  Daniel let her walk without speaking, allowing his own thoughts to run through his mind, no coherence to them. They couldn’t beat the Grey Lord here. Estrella had been right, he was too strong, they’d been idiots to try. The viaduct marched overhead, deepening the shadows they walked through. They needed to go back to safety, there wasn’t anything left for them here. Such a difference in the city, Bronin had jumped a long way forwards. Narith must have been a fabulous place in Bronin’s original time. He imagined traders, miners, and smiths all rubbing shoulders in the wide streets. It was still magnificent, any damage from the flood waters was minimal in this part.

  They came to a meeting place where two streets joined. The viaduct had pipes running down to provide water in barrels and people stopped to talk while filling containers.

  Talia stopped dead. “Look.” Daniel couldn’t work out what she’d seen. “She’s there. How?”

  Daniel finally saw the small figure – it was Talia. The child caught his eye and waved. Horror struck him. “Your mother’s not here. She doesn’t know.” Talia was looking glazed. He felt the same, time travel was beginning to do his head in. “We need to look after her.” Daniel watched Talia skip towards them without a care in the world.

  A distinct pop sounded in his ears and he froze. Talia hissed a swear word and tightened her grip on his hand. The people around began to move slower, anxiety clouding their faces. Where was it coming through? Bronin had said they’d fixated themselves on her and Talia. The child slowed, twisting her head. Daniel could see her trying to work out where the noise had come from. She still showed no fear, just curiosity.