The Manor of Lost Time

by Richard Parks

  “Stop lying to me, Sahel! I told you I know illusion, and this is not an illusion! I’m not merely seeing this, I’m there! I’m myself and yet I am with them. I know what that girl sewing the dress is thinking, I know what she’s feeling. I’m watching it all, yet the thread is in my hand and I feel the sting from the needle’s point! If you don’t tell me what this means right now, our bargain is ended. And I do know the way out.”

  She wasn’t bluffing. I’d thought the lie might make things easier, but this was Driana I was dealing with, and let me confess frankly that I was only just then beginning to understand what that meant. I abandoned the lie.

  I don’t know the true name of this place, Driana, if it has one. I call it ‘The Manor of Lost Time.’ Humans and demon-kin alike generate a nearly infinite cache of lost possibility for every path not taken. This is the place where all the ‘might have beens’ reside. That is what you’re experiencing now. The potential was there, but it was thwarted, for better or worse. What you’re seeing and feeling now, and knowing now, did not happen. You’re right—it’s not an illusion, but it’s also not real, and never can be real.

  “I lost this the day my parents died,” she said simply.

  I nodded, forgetting for the moment that she could not see me. Yes, I said.

  “What will I see next?”

  I truly do not know, Driana. Perhaps something horrible, or something painful and sad, but also perhaps something wonderful, joyous. Whatever it may be, it is something you’ve lost forever. That’s what is waiting behind every door. Fortunately, only a limited number of doors block your path to me, but I do not know exactly how many, or why the ones that appear are the ones that do appear. I’m trapped in a room of my own lost time, and I cannot see my door, or you. You’ll have to cross your own lost time to reach me, and find the door I cannot see.

  I’m not sure what I expected then. I halfway expected her to flee from both myself and Ledanthos, binding spell or no. But after a very long silence, I heard her voice again.

  “Makan. I was going to marry Makan. I rather suspected that.” Maybe it was my imagination, but I think there was a touch of relief echoed in her words.

  He wasn’t your choice?

  “He was… Makan. A year older than I was. He was tall and strong and pig-headed, and he cheated at ring-toss. I liked him well enough when I didn’t actually hate him. Yet when I’m sitting with my mother sewing my wedding dress, I love him more than anything. I’ve never been in love or lost a love, but I do know what both feel like, to love and lose in the exact same moment. Thanks to you, Sahel.”

  I’m sorry.

  “No you’re not, and you may go to blazes. But not until after you honor our bargain. I see the next door. I’ll open it now,” she said, and that’s what she did.

  I’m not going to tell you everything she saw behind every door. Partly because there are some she never spoke of, even to me, but mostly because it’s beside the point. I told you the first because you need to understand what this was costing her. What it would cost anyone. How would you like to see your lost chances and potentials paraded in front of you, forced to live through every single one, the good and the bad, but all never to be? There are few humans who wouldn’t be reduced to a blubbering mess within an hour’s time.

  Not Driana, though I’m honestly not certain how many more she could have taken before she finally walked into a bit of lost time that was not her own: an image of a celestial city and a street located just this side of what you might refer to as the Abode of the Gods.

  Yes, it was mine.

  For creatures with the lifespan of mayflies, relatively speaking, humans have quite a gift for focusing attention on the matter at hand, whatever it may be. It was only when she found my lost time that Driana stopped concentrating on the next door and paused to wonder just what the hell she’d gotten herself into. Fortunately for me.

  “What are you, Sahel?”

  Demon-kin. I told you that.

  “This place belongs to no version of a hell I’ve ever heard of.”

  An expert on hells, are you?

  “The truth, Sahel. For our bargain to work I need to know I can trust you. Tell me the truth. Who are you? How did you get here in the first place?”

  Yes, she did finally ask me that. I do think it would have been wiser on her part if that question had been asked earlier, but I guess it was better the way things were. That’s always a comfort to cling to, when dealing with lost time. I imagine there’s a new room in the Manor now, of what would have happened had she asked those questions earlier. I will avoid it.

  Again, yes, I’m going to tell you what I said, else nothing else that follows will make sense to you. And do remember—you asked.

  Just over a year ago there was a war on the western border of this country, I said.

  “I know, Sahel,” Driana said grimly. “I was there.”

  Just over five hundred years ago, there was a war in the Abode of the Gods, and I was there.

  “By Sethis—”

  Stop saying the wretch’s name. How many times must I repeat that?

  “But… the demon-kin are far older than that,” she said in protest. “And long-since banished to infernal planes of existence. Assuming there was such a thing, what business would it be of yours?”

  I said I was demon-kin, and so I am. What are demons but gods who have lost their place in the heavens? What makes you think that one war ended all of them?

  I knew she was thinking about it, though I still could not see her, nor even the lost time that she moved through now. My lost time. I think it would have been a nice touch if I’d been allowed to see and experience it rather than just knowing it was there. A bit of torture, perhaps. Only that the point had never been to torture me. Or any of us. Maybe Sethis thought that made everything all right.

  “You’re saying you were a god?!”

  Not ‘were,’ Driana. ‘Am.’

  Excuse me, but if your mouth has fallen open in surprise, I do wish you’d close it. I find the thought very distracting. Ummm? Well, I advise you to get over your astonishment. There’s more.

  “But once you lost…” Driana began.

  I know the rules, Driana. A new born demon, to seed to the Infernal Plane? There’s just one problem with that assessment—I wasn’t on the losing side.

  “But… then why are you here?”

  Because it was my charge to drive the last four rebels from the Abode of the Gods. Because as I was so doing, Sethis, Lord of the Heavens and Commander of Lightning, lost his divine nerve. He sealed the portal with all five of us inside. The loyal and the traitorous alike.. Neither Heaven nor Hell; simply sealed away. Each of us in our separate houses of lost possibilities, until the end of time… which may come sooner than he thought..

  You want to know what she said? She said what you’re obviously thinking. That I was lying.

  The thing is, as you may have noticed, I’m not a very good liar. It’s not my nature, but Driana is very good at knowing a lie from the truth. So Driana said that she didn’t believe me, but of course she did. Just as you do. I had to make sure she continued to believe me, so I continued to tell her the truth, just as I’m doing to you now.

  You’re standing within my sphere of lost time. I do not know what it shows you, but you know it is none of yours. Isn’t that true?

  The answer came softly. If it had been spoken with any less force even I would not have heard it.

  “Yes.”

  You see the doorway that is hidden to me. Is that not also true?

  Again the answer came, “Yes.”

  Know this, Driana—I will do as I have sworn. I will serve you in all things for a term of five years. You can train your magical skills with a god for a tutor. At the end of that time, I will take my leave of you and use my freedom to track down the four who were imprisoned at the same time I was. When I find them, I will set them free. Together we will storm the Abode of the Gods.

  “But if y
ou lose….”

  I did not lose before, and I will not lose this time. Lord Sethis, if he is very lucky, will soon reside in a prison of his own lost time, and in his case I will not conceal the door but I will bar it against him, and he will contemplate what will never come to pass for the rest of eternity. I swear that this is so. Do you believe me?

  “Yes, Sahel. I believe you.”

  You’ve heard my choice, Driana. Now make yours—open the door and free me, or return the way you came, to your master, Ledanthos. You’ll likely be rid of him on your own, sooner or later.

  Now then. You must admit that was a very silly question on your part. You know what Driana did, or this conversation would not be happening. You can well imagine Ledanthos’s surprise when she emerged from nothing leading a being of light and fire like a little lost child. The shock killed him, which is a pity—I wanted to do it.

  As for me, I’m not quite done with my plans. These things take time. Three of my brothers and sisters are free now. Soon we all will be.

  Umm, no, I do not think you will be offering any prayers to Sethis. See, he still doesn’t know. We wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise, would we? No, no sense in squirming. You did ask. And no, I said your barrier would hold for a while. I think it lasted up until just before the part where Ledanthos left Driana and me alone for the second time. If you’ve got any more questions, I suggest you ask them now.

  Am I responsible for Driana’s final disappearance? I did not harm her, if that’s what you mean. I swore not to, and I’m a being of my word. Besides, why should I? She’s been a great help to me over the years. She found two of the other rebels on her own.

  Loyalty to her god? What do you know of that? While it’s true Driana swore by Sethis out of habit, in her heart she was furious with him, not the least for letting her parents die. Finding them again in the Manor of Lost Time only made that worse, I’m afraid. Gods often forgive humans, in the stories. There’s no rule that says a human must forgive a god. Just between the two of us, I think she hates him more than I do.

  Yes, that’s right. Hates. There are many legends about Driana’s death, and I assume that’s why you asked that silly question. They’re all nonsense, because she hasn’t died. When time came to weigh on her too heavily, she merely returned to the Manor of Lost Time. She lives there now, and acts out her lost potentials. She’s young when she chooses, old when she takes the whim. She marries that lout Makan or doesn’t. She has borne children, fought demons, and even inherited Ledanthos’s amulet business in one well-lost bit of possibility. But mostly I think she spends the lost time with her parents.

  I think she regrets losing their potential most of all.

  No, I said I will have no prayers, and I meant it. You won’t need them since I’m not going to hurt you. I am, however, going to put you somewhere safe until all this is over. You may thank me later. You’re going in the way I did, my first time, so you won’t be able to find the door. If you have any more questions, you can put them to Driana directly. I’m sure you’ll run into each other sooner or later.

  By the way, she won’t show you the way out, and if I were you I wouldn’t try and force her. Even if she’s not in the mood to call down lightning on your head, she still carries that knife of hers and the legends don’t begin to do justice to her famous temper. But ask her politely and she might just show you where to find your own lost time.

  Which starts now.

  © Copyright 2014 Richard Parks