Time's Demon

by D. B. Jackson

  Within the palace, it was commonplace for novitiates to remove their clothing in order to Span, Walk, or Cross. Cresten couldn’t imagine doing this here in the village. He needed a place where he could practice in private, and he had no idea where to find one, or even when he might begin his search.

  That night, with the coins from Poelu jangling in his purse, he ate his customary meal at the small table near the rear of the Hound, and vowed that he would search the next evening for a place to Span.

  As he finished his first bowl of fish stew, Quinn approached his table with a second bowl. Cresten hadn’t asked for it, but hungry as he was, he wouldn’t complain, so long as the man didn’t charge him extra.

  “You look thin, lad,” the barkeep said. “Pinched. You’ve been workin’ hard and eatin’ little. Thought you might want a second bowl.”

  Cresten regarded him.

  Quinn smiled. “No charge.”

  “All right,” Cresten said.

  Quinn removed the empty bowl and slid this new one in front of him. Rather than walking away, he lingered, watching as Cresten picked up his spoon.

  “Mind if I sit?”

  Cresten shook his head. Quinn lowered himself into the chair opposite his own.

  “How are you getting on with Poelu?”

  “Fine. She paid me today. So I can pay you for the rest of the turn.”

  “That’s fine. No rush.”

  Cresten frowned, took a spoonful of stew.

  “You enjoy the work?”

  “I don’t mind it, and I’m getting better at cutting.” As an afterthought, he added, “Thank you for convincing her to hire me.” He wasn’t certain what the man wanted from him.

  “I thought maybe you’d have tired of it by now.”

  Cresten shrugged a second time.

  Quinn leaned forward, forearms braced on the table, eyes locked on Cresten’s. “I thought maybe you’d be ready to give it up,” he whispered, “and come work for me.”

  CHAPTER 14

  3rd Day of Sipar’s Ascent, Year 618

  Cresten hadn’t expected that.

  “You want me to work here, in the Hound?”

  “No, lad,” Quinn said, still keeping his low. “I have other… ventures that I’m working on. A boy with your talents might prove valuable. That is, if he’s discreet, and clever, and he doesn’t ask too many questions.”

  Cresten clenched his jaw against his rising curiosity. He was intrigued, and questions swarmed in his mind. He didn’t mind working for Poelu, but he also knew that with every turn that carried them closer to the growing season, his work in the beds would grow less bearable. He wouldn’t destroy his chance at whatever work Quinn had in mind by demanding too much too soon.

  When Quinn understood that Cresten had no intention of asking questions, he sat back and grinned. “Well done, lad.”

  Cresten took another spoonful and sipped his watered wine.

  “What sort of Traveler are you?” Quinn asked.

  “Spanner.”

  The barkeep’s eyes narrowed. “Spanner,” he repeated. “Would have preferred it if you was a Walker.”

  “You and me both.”

  Quinn stared. After a moment he laughed. “You’ve got a spine in you, and a sense of humor. Not too many like that. You any good?”

  “At Spanning?” His gaze slid away. “I’m still learning. Or I was. I need to practice, but I don’t know where to do it. I need…” He felt his face color. “I can’t Span where there are a lot of people.”

  “No, I don’t suppose. You have a sextant already?”

  Cresten faltered, but then nodded.

  “Good. In that case, I might be able to help.”

  He couldn’t help himself. “How?”

  Quinn grinned, pushed back from the table, and stood. “Finish your stew. When you’re done, find me at the bar.”

  “Should I get my sextant?”

  He glanced back in Lam’s direction. “Not yet,” he said, voice dropping again. “It would be better if Lam didn’t know you had it.”

  Quinn left before Cresten could ask him more. Cresten bolted down the rest of his stew and bread, downed his wine, and stood.

  The barkeep spotted him before he was halfway across the room, and stopped him with a subtle gesture. He pointed toward the corridor leading to his small room. Cresten didn’t respond in any way except to veer off in that direction.

  Shortly after reaching his room, Quinn joined him there. “Again, lad, well done. I think you’ll work out nicely. Grab your device and follow me.”

  Cresten retrieved the sextant from his sack and joined Quinn as he unlocked and pushed through a small door near Cresten’s room. This opened onto a second corridor, one Cresten had never seen before. It was narrow, and cold, and it smelled of urine and rotting wood. Light shone from a doorway at the far end, which opened onto a small enclosed area, roofless and windowless. Shards of glass and dove droppings covered the compacted dirt; the stone walls were badly in need of mortar and paint.

  “What is this place?”

  “A courtyard we never use. Just the sort of place where you might practice your Spanning.”

  Cresten eyed the space critically. “It’s small.”

  “That it is. Start in the corridor and finish at the far end of the courtyard. You should be all right.”

  He was right.

  “Don’t look so surprised, lad. I told you, I was once a novitiate.”

  “Can I practice my sword work here, too?”

  Quinn handed him the key. “No one uses this place. Lam and I

  – and now you – we’re the only ones who know about it. Lam rarely comes back here. If he troubles you, show him the key, tell him I gave it to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. If you can Span, you can work for me. This is no favor I’m doing, you catch? This is business, between you and me.”

  Cresten didn’t shy from his stare. “All right.”

  “In the meantime, you keep working for Poelu. Fewer questions that way. You can keep the coin she gives you. For now, we’ll consider your room and meals your pay. Later, when you’re workin’ for me full time, we’ll make other arrangements. Sound fair?”

  It did, though the offer also gave Cresten pause. Quinn was being uncommonly generous with him while revealing nothing at all about this work he’d be doing. How could he not be suspicious? Especially since the barkeep had warned him already about asking questions.

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “It’s not that. I think… Yes, it sounds fair.” Too fair.

  “You’ll understand in time. You have my word on that. In the meantime, practice, enjoy your extra coin, and don’t speak of this to anyone.”

  Right. “Yes, sir.”

  Quinn slanted a look his way, as if searching for signs that Cresten was mocking him. Seeing none, he left.

  Cresten didn’t allow his doubts to keep him from taking advantage of the privacy the man had found for him. Once Quinn had closed the door on that narrow corridor, he cleared areas of broken glass, removed his clothes, and calibrated his sextant. As Quinn suggested, he started his first Span in the corridor. He aimed with as much care as he could and made certain before thumbing the release that his body was oriented squarely forward.

  Still, the moment he activated the device and was pulled into the gap, panic took him. He had never Spanned through such a narrow space. The gap was harrowing enough under the most benign conditions: a violent wind, an assault of light and color, smell and sound. Here the gale was different. It bounced off the confines of the hallway, buffeting him from all sides, threatening to hurl him against one wall or the other.

  It probably lasted less than a fivecount. When it was over, he stood at the far end of the courtyard, his face only a hand or two from the stone wall, his skin tender from the abrasion of that gap wind.

  He steadied himself with a few breaths, but then returned to the shadows of the corridor to
try again. He thought the precision demanded by this particular Span would help him hone his skills. If he didn’t kill himself in the process.

  That first night, he navigated the gap several times before giving in to weariness. He didn’t once hit either wall in the corridor, and he found himself wondering if he even could. As frenzied as the gap seemed, Komat, the palace Binder, had instilled in his novitiates an implicit trust in the precision of their devices.

  Cresten learned the limits of that trust the following night. After a long day in the gaaz beds, he ate his dinner, and snuck back to the corridor and courtyard. He Spanned three times without incident, and so might have been careless with his fourth journey. He set his stance, aimed the sextant, and prepared to thumb the release. As he did, he heard a sound behind him, in the corridor on the other side of the door. He peered back. At the same time, his thumb slipped and he activated the sextant.

  He was yanked forward, his neck and shoulders wrenched. He flailed, trying in vain to straighten himself, to control his trajectory. He slammed into one wall, careened into the other, bounced back the other way and scraped along that wall for some distance. Upon emerging from the corridor into the courtyard, he fell farther off his line.

  The gap released him and he sprawled onto the stone, rolling until he hit the far wall.

  He remained there for at least a tencount, breathing, assessing the damage. His shoulders hurt from hitting the walls, and the skin on his left arm had been scraped raw and bloody. He bled from a hundred small cuts – the damned glass. The rest of his body ached from his impact with the stone at the end, but he didn’t think he had broken any bones. He examined his sextant, afraid he had marred it beyond use. Aside from a scratch or two, it appeared no worse for the ordeal.

  Cresten sat up, wincing at the pain in his back.

  “What in the God’s name are you doing?”

  He craned his neck, gasped at another ache.

  Lam stood at the mouth of the corridor.

  Cresten crawled to his piled clothes, which he had left near the outer wall, and pulled on his breeches. He tried to keep the sextant hidden, going so far as to hide it under his shirt, which remained on the ground.

  “I asked you a question!”

  “Quinn said I could use this courtyard to train,” he said, climbing to his feet.

  “Train for what?”

  “Practice,” Cresten amended. “As a novitiate I was learning sword work and… and other things. He said I could work on those here, that no one ever used this courtyard for anything.”

  “And what were you doing just now? You didn’t have on a stitch. What’s that about?”

  Cresten wasn’t certain how much he ought to say. He wished Quinn was there.

  “Some of what we do in the palace… we have to be naked to do it.”

  Lam’s eyes narrowed. “What was that thing you had? I saw something golden.”

  Blood and bone. “It’s my sextant. I’m a Spanner. I need that to Travel from one place to another. That’s what I was practicing.”

  Lam’s gaze dropped to his bloody arm. “Guess you’re not all that good at it, are you?”

  Cresten bit back the first reply that came to mind, which would only have angered the man further.

  As their silence stretched, Lam glanced around the courtyard, his features settling into a scowl.

  “I don’t want you using this place for anything anymore. You hear me? It’s bad enough you’re leasing that room for next to nothing.”

  “You’ll have to talk to Quinn about that.” These might have been the bravest words Cresten had ever spoken.

  Lam took a step in his direction. They remained separated by several paces, but still Cresten had to resist the urge to back away from the man. “I’m talking to you about it.”

  “And you’re telling me the opposite of what Quinn said, so you should talk to him.”

  Lam sneered. “You palace boys think you’re so smart. You wouldn’t survive a day out here without Quinn helping you. If he wasn’t working one of his schemes again, you’d probably be dead by now.”

  He wanted to ask what kind of schemes Quinn worked, but he was too stung by the rest of what Lam had said.

  “What’s this?”

  They both turned. Quinn stood behind Lam, arms crossed over his chest. Slight as he was, he looked formidable.

  “You tell him he could use this place?” Lam asked.

  “I did. You have it in mind to use the courtyard, too?”

  Lam’s expression shifted from belligerent to sullen. “No. Heard him out here, is all. Wanted to know who it was and why.”

  “And now you’ve seen.”

  “You should’ve told me he was using it. Should’ve asked me if I minded.”

  “He’s using it. You mind?”

  Lam cast another glare at Cresten. “Fine then.” He stalked past Quinn, back down the corridor, and through the door.

  “He saw the sextant,” Cresten said, once he was confident that Lam couldn’t hear.

  “He was bound to. Don’t fret about it. He talks a lot, but the truth is he’s too timid to do much. He won’t bother you, and I don’t think he’ll try to steal it. Still, keep your door locked when you’re gone.”

  Quinn crossed to where he stood, eyeing him critically. “What happened to you? You look a mess.”

  “It was a bad Span. I’m all right.”

  The man raised an eyebrow, but said no more. He made to leave.

  “Lam said something about you needing me for ‘another one of your schemes.’ What did he mean?”

  Quinn peered over his shoulder. “Didn’t we have an agreement about questions?”

  Cresten dropped his gaze.

  “You’ll know soon enough, lad. I promise, no harm’s goin’ to come to you.”

  He left the courtyard.

  Cresten was too sore to think about Spanning again. He put on his shirt, retrieved the sextant, and returned to his room. That night he began to hide his sextant and sword in the hay of his pallet rather than in his carry sack.

  Over the next ha’turn and more, he continued to cut gaaz by day and work on his Spanning in the evenings. Occasionally he brought his sword into the courtyard as well, and in between Spans he performed the drills Albon had taught him. Quinn was right: he’d grown lean since leaving the palace. His work in the beds had strengthened him. He didn’t tire as easily as he used to. The sword felt almost weightless in his hands. He worked himself to a sweat almost every night, enjoying the exertion.

  Soon the courtyard grew too small. He wanted to Span farther. So one night, after his meal, he placed the blade and sextant in his sack and left the inn. Making sure that no one followed him, he made his way to the shoreline and followed it to the gaaz beds. With the sun setting, and the work day long since over, the strand was deserted.

  Cresten halted at the near end of a crescent of beach, set down his sack, and stripped off his clothes. Then he calibrated and aimed his sextant, and activated it. He soared over the sand and then over water. The gap wind bit at his skin and whipped his hair around his face. A rainbow of color danced with him across the shallows. The smells of brine and fish and cooking fires assailed him. But he laughed at the sheer joy of that motion. Freed from the confines of the courtyard, he felt like an eagle. He fell out of the gap on the sand at the other end of the arcing shoreline and gave a whoop of laughter. With the work he had done at the inn, he had made himself into a Spanner. An accomplished one.

  His father had been right after all. He surprised himself with the thought, and with the one that followed: His father might have been proud of him, of what he had taught himself to do. He might even have forgiven Cresten for being expelled from the palace.

  He aimed again, and thumbed the release on the sextant. Once more, he stepped out of the gap into joyous laughter. Who knew that Traveling could be such fun?

  He Spanned a few more times, until the sky began to darken and the first stars emerged in the indi
go above him. He leveled and released the sextant once more, and soared back to where he’d placed his sack and clothes.

  “You’re very loud when you do that.”

  Cresten whipped around, gasped. Droë stood only a few steps away.

  He gaped, unsure of what to say or do. His heart thudded in his chest.

  “Are you supposed to be loud? To laugh and cry out that way?”

  Still he stared. Her gaze dropped to his privates, and belatedly he grabbed for his clothes to cover himself. Droë sauntered closer.

  “Boys look strange down there. A little ugly, actually. And yours is quite small. I suppose that’s because you’re young still.”

  “It’s not small,” he said, finding his voice. “Not for my age. As you said, I’m young. And it’s really not polite to look, much less comment that way.”

  She gaped at him, stricken, eyes wide. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  Cresten wondered if all Tirribin were as odd as she. One moment she was menacing, in the next she was coy and disturbingly knowing, and in the one after that, she seemed, as she did now, to be truly a child: innocent, desperate to be liked.

  “I know you didn’t,” he said. “Just… Look away while I get dressed. Please.”

  She gave another sly grin and tried to see again what he was hiding. Finally, she turned her back. Cresten pulled on his breeches and shirt. When Droë faced him again, he was slipping on his shoes.

  “You look older,” she said. “Your years haven’t changed, but you look like you’ve Walked.”

  He wasn’t sure what to say. “Thank you.”

  She started to walk around him, hands held behind her back. “You left the palace because of me, didn’t you?”

  He faltered. He feared angering her, but couldn’t deny that much of what had befallen him in his last days in the palace had happened because of her.

  “It’s all right,” she said, still orbiting. “I promised your friend I wouldn’t hurt you, and I won’t.”

  “Yes, I had to leave because you killed Tache. And… and when you talked to Lenna and me about… about being in love, it embarrassed us both. We weren’t as close after that.”