“No, not angry. Crazy with madness. Lost from now.” He patted at Aithagg’s chest again. “It happens with the elders who can not stand eternity.”
“How does she get their teeth? Do they pull them out when they are mad?” The youngster held his hands over his mouth.
“Some say Eterili finds them and takes them. Others say the teeth crawl back to her, she is mother of all and even our teeth must return to her.” Father looked away from the youngster and gazed towards the rock wall of the room. “The sun is coming up soon. I need to rest.” He stood and pulled the covers back to Aithagg’s chin. “You too.”
They said their goodnights and Aithagg drifted off to sleep filled with fitful dreams of teeth crawling across the rock floor to scratch at the wall.
***
Iskeho, Aithagg’s father, walked quietly through the passage. The cave walls were close but not such to cause him to stoop. The coolness did not bother him as it did the children. He walked until he came to his chamber, a domed room; here he stooped slightly to enter the roughly circular room. The ceiling, 20-foot overhead, had a small opening not even large enough for a mouse. From the mouth of the opening, a long sheet of limestone hung like frozen drapery. It glistened with moisture.
“It does not get easier, this flash of time where we grow them, teach them and then, what, shove them out into the universe and expect them to know it all?” She sat with her back to him. Her voice was a whisper.
His wife: Kei-tha. From the angle of her back he knew she was worrying a piece of something in her lap. She would turn the fabric or stone or claw over and over in her hand until it turned smooth or disintegrated from her abuse.
“Why can it not be different?” She turned to him, eyes blazing, and then continued, “Why can we not let them sync with their time and then go there and teach them properly? Watch them grow, be a part of one another’s lives?”
Iskeho paused in the entryway and looked at their bare makeshift room. This time, this place, was not theirs. They had formed their union thousands of years ago and lived together synced to another time in another part of the world. They returned to this place to raise their young.
This place. He looked around again at the domed rock-walled room, deep inside the cave system which was longer than many rivers. Their room was one of a hundred such rooms spread out through the vast network of passages caused by rivers of water that had once flown through the limestone rock, when the ice had melted and Eterili had slept under the earth. He did not speak, only sat on the straw bed near his wife.
She leaned her back against his. “I do not care that it is the way,” she whispered. “We should find a new way.”
“Quiet woman. You speak against the tribe with this.” Iskeho pulled at a burr irritating his leg. “Though I do not care for the dirt and grime that sticks when synced with time.” He worried the bur with a fingernail until it dislodged.
“You should bathe. I dislike the dirt.” She turned and kissed his shoulder gently. “My soul, I fear for him.”
Iskeho turned his head to kiss the top of hers and silenced her. “He will survive. It will not be like the others. He will survive. Almost all of our children survived the ritual. Focus not on the few we lost.”
They did not speak again as they prepared to rest. Each lay back upon their straw mat, closed their eyes, fell to sleep, and disappeared.
***
The next evening the sun had set and the small ones had been fed. Kei-tha stood with Aithagg at the edge of the circle. The fire had not been built for the evening yet. The previous evening’s fire still smoldered. No hint of worry or emotion from the previous evening marked her face. However, the rock hidden in her smock’s pocket testified to her concerns; she had worked it nearly smooth with her worried hands. She stood strongly, arms at her side, feet at shoulder width. Her long, wild hair fell in raven black rivulets of curls around her angular face. Coal eyes blazed.
“We have gathered at this circle since Eterili first led us from the lands that touch the sea, thousands of winters before this time. We stand here, now, in this home-time. The universe moves forward and carries with it the time stream where Linears are trapped to sync and die in their short fashion. You and I are in time like Linears right now. Though we are in the past. One day you will be able to remove yourself from time and move to any other times that you can see. Today we practice seeing.”
“Mother,” Aithagg whined.
“Do not interrupt, Aithagg.” Her voice was stern but loving. “I want you to practice with me before you go with the others for today’s lessons.”
“Catha does not have to do extra lessons,” Aithagg pouted under his breath. “With her mom,” he added.
“Shush now,” she warned. “Now look here at the smoldering fire.”
Aithagg focused on the fire as told.
“You can see the smoldering sticks as they are now. Look closely and let your thoughts open. Can you see the fire as it was last night?” Kei-tha pointed to the edge of the ash. “There, the stick that Eterili threw back into the fire. It had burst into flame and was consumed. Can you see it?”
Aithagg squinted and sighed. Disappointed he said, “I do not see it. Only now.”
“Keep looking. It will eventually be as easy as blinking your eyes. For now, think about what you saw last night then look for it in front of you.” She walked to the other side of the fire and sat down on a log. “Remember, I sat here.” She stood and moved away from the log. “Look, can you see me sitting there last night?”
Aithagg squinted again and then relaxed his gaze. “Oh, but it is not.” He paused then squinted again. “It is not like now. It is like a mist.” He gaped at the translucent version of his mother from last night, perched on the stump, worry imprinted on her face, hands in her smock pocket. More images of her became clear, each image like an imprint seen after looking at the fire too long then glancing away, images one over another until his vision clouded. “Too many.”
“Good. Now relax and look again. Concentrate on seeing a few images, not all of them. But do not concentrate too hard. You will eventually be able to go to that time, but that is a skill for another day. It is dangerous until you know how. Very dangerous.” She sat again on the log. “See me now and last night. Focus on the times of me here. There will be many.”
There were many. Aithagg saw her, the log, the log gone, other logs, other people. It made his head hurt and he shut his eyes from it.
“Relax. It can be overwhelming at first. Focus on me now. Here in time with you.” She folder her hands in front of her. Short, haggard fingernails hinted at her worries.
Aithagg focused on her fingernails. He knew his mother worried and why. It was a subject no one spoke of. He had heard his parents speaking in hushed tones about the other siblings that did not survive the ritual. Aithagg resolved to make his mother proud. The ragged fingernails became the only thing visible. The misty versions of his mother and all times past receded until they were barely noticeable.
“I see you, now,” he whispered. Then he relaxed his eyes. His mind opened, like releasing a muscle which had been tensed for too long. The misty versions came back, but not overpoweringly. They were there and not there, he saw through them to those short, bitten fingernails. “I see you, then.”
“Good. Do not focus too much on the thens. Keep them misty,” Kei-tha warned. “Because you have not unsynced with time yet—it is a little more difficult. Your body will naturally want to sync into linear time. After you are older and go through the ritual, it will inverse. You will naturally want to be unlocked with time and have to concentrate to sync in.” She chuckled then said, “Eventually, time will be an abstract concept. Something beyond us.”
Aithag
g barely heard her; he was busy dialing time in and out of his vision. She was there, now. She was there last night. She had been there many times. He looked up and around the circle, mesmerized at the throngs of past misty visions of the tribe which had been here.
“How long have we been coming to the circle?” Aithagg sauntered—looking at the faces and then came to his own. There he stopped for a moment, tilting his head to the side in wonder.
Aithagg looked at his own face, younger than he was now, smiling and laughing with his father. He focused for a moment so the other crowds of misty visions receded and he saw only himself.
His mother’s voice came to him from a distance. “We have been here at this circle for 10,000 winters watching the young ones grow and go off into the world. Pushed by the ritual, they go off to claim their place in time. That time is only theirs. It is no more than a blink, the time they lock into.” Her voice was quiet, wistful. “We usually do not visit each other there. We stay in solitude.”
“Unless your promised one syncs with you to that time?” Aithagg queried.
“Yes.”
“Like you and father?”
“Yes.”
Aithagg found other misty versions of his parents with other children, hundreds of children through the ages. He looked at the ground to clear his vision. The ground itself was here and now, then and different. The immenseness of time was overwhelming and his head swam.
A hand touched his shoulder and Aithagg looked up into his mother’s blue eyes. “How far back did you see?” she asked kindly.
“You had hundreds of children over the ages?” Aithagg asked, his voice a soft whisper.
“I and your father have helped raise 152 young ones since coming to this circle, yes.” Kei-tha smoothed his wild curls with an expert touch. “You are seeing much further than most at this age. That is good.”
“How far will I be able to see?” He held her hand briefly then let it go.
“Until there was darkness, if you concentrate hard enough,” she answered.
He hesitated as if wanting to ask something.
She pulled him in tightly and wrapped her arms around him. She answered the unasked question, “Five.” Hoarseness strangled her voice. “Five did not survive the ritual.” She smoothed a curl on his head. “Of those that survived, one is near lost to the madness.”
“You can see them here,” Aithagg stated. It was not a question. He scoured the misty visions of times past around the fire and sought his lost siblings and their curly locks.
“For all of eternity.” She hugged him tighter.
“Can you not go back to their time and tell them?” He looked up. “Change it?”
“That is not the way.” Her answer was curt but not stern.
“But,” he protested.
“We must protect time and not adjust it to our own needs. Else we are no better than the Manipulators we work to save time from.” She hugged him even tighter, almost painfully, then let go.
Aithagg looked again at the circle and let the misty images of the past come into view. “Can we see forward?” he asked.
“We can see as far as where time is still unfolding, about 26,000 winters from now. Main-time. The winters are shorter and milder then. The land changes, wildlife changes.” Her voice trailed off as if distracted. She continued, “but we can not see past that. Only Eterili can see into the untold future.”
Relentlessly he asked, “But we can change things. We can.”
“Eterili will have your teeth, willful child. Yes, you can change things in time. It is a fool’s path.” She took his hand and led him from the circle. “It hurts, a horrible pain when time is manipulated. It is not something you will want to do. It is not.”
He interrupted her, “It is not the way.” His shoulders slumped slightly. As they left the circle, Aithagg turned once more to look at the past ghosts of children taking their oaths; their parents watching on. He wondered which of those ghosts had been his siblings who did not survive.
Daring to broach a taboo subject, he gently asked, “If I survive, will I go mad like Icaeph?”
“Your brother?” Kei-tha said mostly to herself as she turned to look at her children gathered around the fire in the past: misty memories that would never fade.
Her eyes lingered for a moment near the fire pit. Aithagg followed her gaze and tried to find the past ghost she looked upon with wistfulness. There were so many times to wade through until Aithagg saw: his mother in the past knelt at the side of the fire, nearly in the same spot repeatedly. Over a hundred times she knelt at the side of a child and pressed something into their hands. They then turned and took their place with the others around the fire, ready to proclaim their allegiance to the Vechey and to protect time. One instance, the youth did not accept the gift from his mother and instead patted her on the shoulder before turning to walk away.
“Is that him? He didn’t take the gift from you.” Aithagg tried to focus tightly on the memory to see clearly.
His mother’s tug disrupted him. She tugged on his hand again and urged, “Do not dwell on it. We live too long to mewl over lost moments. To worry on things that cannot be changed is to invite a thirsty beast into your being. That is the way of madness. Come along.”
Aithagg tried to protest but stopped short when his mother’s eyes glared at him.
She said, “Icaeph was rebellious from the start. He still lives, though barely, on the brink of madness, I am to understand. It hurts me that I should not go to him and he will not return to here to be promised to another, to raise children of his own, to be a part of us.” She paused, then patted Aithagg’s hand. “We are a people alone, forever, across time. It is a long time and you have to protect yourself from the madness that can creep in.” She glanced back to the memories around the fire. “Perhaps it is a blessing more than a curse.”
She startled, realizing she had spoken aloud when Aithagg asked perplexed, “The madness?”
Kei-tha looked at Aithagg sharply. “Eterili will have our teeth. Let us dwell no further on things that we can not change lest we court madness ourselves.”
7 MADNESS
He lie there in darkness. His mind whirled in circles, pain pulled at his very being. Was it day yet in main-time, the present? Was it night? Was the moon up, the sun? Incoherent as agony filled his core, he sat against the rock wall willing the swirling around him to still. It did not abate.
Icaeph tried to muster the energy to crawl forward. He lacked enough to move his arms. Instead, he slid sideways until his face touched the ground. Turning his head, he lay his cheek against the cold earth. His body drew energy from the ground, greedily. He tried to concentrate on main-time, where the weight of the sun’s rays would pull at him. He had forgotten to eat, to take sustenance. His body, lacking enough fuel to move, began to shut down. Icaeph welcomed the thought of an end. He closed his eyes against the darkness. He would rest. Perhaps he would rest a little more and seek food when he awoke.
Pain, an aching, pulsed through his bones, his hair, his eyelids.
At some point his body slowed and relaxed, its pulls of energy from the dirt became deep, rhythmic. Icaeph began to drift into slumber. The moment he inhabited was thousands of winters before main-time. This time is where his body had synchronized to, after he had come of age and went through the ritual. Here is where time froze for him and he came and went as he pleased. This cave he slept in provided a safe place for him and the soil in it and around it provided enough sustenance to keep him alive. He would need to eat to thrive but the energy found in the earth itself—the rock, the dust—would keep him from perishing. He stretched further out on the rock floor and lay his arms and palms on the ground, pu
lling more energy. He relaxed further and fell asleep.
With sleep, his body disappeared from his frozen-time. It shifted throughout time, appearing 20,000 winters before, in main-time, 60,000 winters before, near his frozen-time and so on. The chamber he slept in had been open for a million years, though the height of the ceiling had shrunk over the millennia. Thus, he shifted through time safely without colliding into solid stone.
Appearing, reappearing, disappearing throughout the ages; unbothered in his dark, earthen tomb.
A noise in the distant brought him to consciousness. Icaeph struggled to find out whether he was in his time, main-time, or some other time. He shook his head to clear it as if shaking off cobwebs. It only made the world spin about him more. The noise registered again to his ears. As if through mounds of furs, a thought came to him. Sound. Hearing sound. Not in frozen-time—sound does not carry there: nothing moves or makes a sound. Synced with time then. Is it now or then? He pondered and searched for the sun’s path, which had always been so clear to him. Unable to find the sun, Icaeph’s limbs hung numb and thick. Another thought made it through the wet mounds of fur in his head; perhaps he should go find food and his head would clear. He needed to feed.
Icaeph rolled onto his side. Skin scraped across dirt and pebbles. A distant sound again—what was it? He listened intently.
Click.
Tap. Tap.
Scrape.
Scritch.
Scraaaape.
Click. Tap. Tap.
A sound of rock against rock.
Sccccraape.
Click.
Clack. Click. Click.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Scraaape.
He oriented his ears towards the sound and began to move closer, making no sound himself. The scraping and clicking continued in long and short bursts punctuated by staccato tapping sounds. Icaeph’s weary body, numb and heavy as stone itself, inched forward towards the tapping sound.
When Darkness Begins Page 4