Time's Children

by D. B. Jackson

  26th Day of Kheraya’s Waking, Year 647

  Aside from several changes of clothes, a leather-pommeled dagger, the pistol, powder, paper, and rounds given to him by Saffern, and the sealed letter from the chancellor, Tobias had few belongings. His family had been poor, even for Redcove, and he arrived on Trevynisle wearing the only things he possessed. In nine years, he hadn’t accumulated much.

  Packing for his departure took him all of a quarter bell. Once finished, he had nothing to do. He considered rejoining his friends in the courtyard, but the memory of those final awkward moments stopped him.

  Instead, he made his way back to the middle courtyard, and the workshop of Wansi Tovorl, the palace Binder.

  Her door was shut, but at his knock she called for him to enter.

  Wansi sat at her work bench, a nimbus of pearly light surrounding her head and hands, thick spectacles perched on the tip of her nose, yellow hair pulled back in a loose plait. She spared him a glance, her attention on the golden object clamped to the table.

  “I thought you might come,” she said, a lilt to the words. “Saying your goodbyes?”

  He shut the door with care. “I suppose.”

  She furrowed her brow. “You suppose? Do you plan to take me with you then?”

  He grinned and wandered the chamber. She continued to work.

  “A new aperture?” he asked after a brief silence.

  “Aye. Miss Craik damaged hers on her last Crossing. She tried to pass through a door that had iron imbedded in it. She’s fortunate to be alive. Her aperture was ruined. And so a new one.” She peered at him over her lenses. “I trust you’ll be more gentle with your chronofor.”

  His eyes widened. “You have one for me?”

  She shook her head. “The chancellor told me you’d be given one upon your arrival in Hayncalde. I would have made one otherwise. I was prepared to.”

  He answered with a small nod and resumed his pacing.

  “Haplar Jarrett is the Master Binder in Hayncalde, and he’s as well-respected as any of my kind. He’ll Bind you a fine chronofor. I promise.”

  “I’m sure he will.”

  She sighed, put down her planer, and removed her spectacles. The glow around her vanished. “Out with it, Tobias. I haven’t time for games.”

  He didn’t answer right away, but rather scrutinized her face, her milky complexion and brilliant blue eyes. Here on Trevynisle nearly everyone was as dark-skinned as he: the palace servants, many of the masters, all of the novitiates who honed their skills in the hope of being posted to a court. Wansi stood out among them like a gull in a flock of cormorants. In Hayncalde, he would be the one who didn’t blend in, who drew stares simply by entering a chamber or stepping out into the street.

  “I’m not ready to be a court Walker,” he said at last.

  “What makes you say that?”

  He lifted a shoulder, let it drop. “I’ve gone back a day at a time. Once I went back two, but that was the most. I know that the chronofor works the same way no matter how far back we Walk. But I’ve heard people talk about the courts. Sometimes kings and queens send their Walkers back a ha’turn, or a full one. Sometimes even more. I’m not… I’ve never done anything like that. And whatever chronofor they give me will be one I’ve never used before.”

  An indulgent smile dimpled her cheek. “First of all, remember your studies. The chronofor is a tool. Nothing more. The Walker does the work. And Master Ojeyd tells me that you’re very good. True, you have much yet to learn but, from what he’s said, I gather that even your most difficult passages have been relatively smooth. You’ve never had any trouble crossing back. To my knowledge, you haven’t missed a chosen time by more than a click or two. Am I wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Vaisan has been teaching Walkers for a long time, and before that he served the court at Rencyr. He’s good at what he does, and he wouldn’t allow the chancellor to send you anywhere if he didn’t think you were ready.”

  He stared at the golden aperture on her workbench. “I know that.”

  “Then what’s troubling you?” She arched an eyebrow. “Lack of confidence has never been one of your shortcomings, so it must be something else.”

  “I– I don’t know anyone there. I’ve never sailed beyond the Sisters and the Labyrinth.” Tobias clamped his mouth shut. Already he had said more than he intended. His cheeks burned.

  The kindness in Wansi’s look did little to ease his thoughts. “I forget sometimes how young all of you are.” She canted her head to the side and considered him through narrowed eyes. “Your training is meant to conceal it, I think. The sovereigns who buy your services are paying for diplomats and ministers, not children. And so we train the youth right out of you. Or at least we try. Perhaps we’re not as thorough in that respect as we’d like to believe.”

  “It’s not that I’m a child,” he said, aware of how sullen he sounded.

  “No. It’s that you’re normal. You’re alive, you feel things, in this one small way you’re terribly, charmingly ordinary.”

  He frowned, unsure if she was mocking him.

  “What do you remember of your home?” she asked.

  “You mean in Redcove?”

  “Aye.”

  “Not much: scattered images mostly. I haven’t been there since I was five.”

  “Precisely. This is the only home you’ve ever really known. I’d find it hard to leave, and I first came here as an adult. Naturally it’s harder for you. It would be for any of the… any of your fellow novitiates.”

  Tobias had thought along similar lines since speaking with the chancellor, but hearing Wansi speak of these feelings made them easier to accept. He released a breath he hadn’t known he held.

  “You’ll be just fine. It won’t be long before you’re the most famous young man in Hayncalde: the sovereign’s new Walker – handsome, brilliant, exotic. People there will clamor to make your acquaintance. The greatest danger I foresee is that all this attention will go to your head, and make you even more insufferable than you already are.”

  A smile came unbidden. “I wish I could take one of your chronofors with me.” He raised a hand, anticipating her response. “I’ve no doubt that Master Jarrett will Bind me a fine device. But still, I’ll always prefer yours to anyone else’s.”

  Wansi reached for her spectacles and planer. Tobias thought he glimpsed the shimmer of a tear in one eye.

  “That golden tongue of yours will serve you well, Mister Doljan. Flatter the sovereign this way, and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

  “I wasn’t–”

  “I know,” she said, her eyes fixed on the golden device before her. “You should be on your way. Miss Craik’s aperture won’t Bind itself, and I’m sure you’ve other farewells.”

  “Yes, mistress. Thank you.”

  He crossed to the door, pulled it open.

  “I wouldn’t object to a missive now and then.” The soft gleam of her binding power enveloped her again. “When you’ve the time, of course.”

  “Of course,” he echoed, and left her.

  He returned to the Leeward Keep, the boys’ dormitory in the Upper Courtyard, and sat on his pallet intending to draft a missive to his parents. He hadn’t seen them in the nine years since his arrival here, but he had sent them messages now and again. For the first several years he had received gifts from them on his birthdays: toys of a sort he hadn’t played with since leaving home; overshirts and breeches sewn for a smaller body, as if they couldn’t fathom the rate at which he had grown; bound volumes, no doubt far more dear than they could afford, and yet written for a common child rather than for a future Traveler educated in Windhome Palace.

  He sent messages of thanks each year, but despite his efforts to infuse the missives with enthusiasm, they might have sensed a growing distance in what he wrote. Last year he received nothing. No gift had come this year, either.

  The note he penned struck him as inadequate to the occasion:

>   Dear Mother and Father,

  I write today with glad tidings. I am to be posted as a Walker to the Court of Daerjen in Hayncalde. I will serve the sovereign himself.

  I hope you, Bale, and Comas are well. I miss you all.

  With love,

  Tobias

  He should have written more, but no other words came, at least none that he could bring himself to write. I am leaving Trevynisle forever. In all likelihood, I will never see any of you again.

  After staring at the page for some time, he rolled it up, sealed it with wax, and placed it in his sack. Someone at the wharf would be able to deliver it for him.

  The chancellor attended the evening meal in the refectory, as he did whenever a novitiate received a posting. He spoke ever so briefly.

  “Tobias Doljan will be leaving Trevynisle tomorrow morning for a posting in Daerjen. We wish him well, and ask that the Two bless him in all his endeavors.”

  “Hear us,” intoned the rest of those in the hall.

  That was all. Following the chancellor’s example, everyone took their seats and began to eat. Tobias sat with the older novitiates, as always, but the conversation at their table meandered over familiar territory – the day’s training, rumors of trysts among various masters and mistresses in the palace, the latest from the wars in the Aiyanthan and Herjean Seas. No one spoke of Tobias’s impending departure, and he contributed little to their discussion. Mara sat across from him, but refused to meet his glance. She excused herself from the table long before the entire meal had been served.

  Tobias remained through the dessert course. Ojeyd, the Master Walker, came to the table to tell Tobias that he would accompany him to the wharves at dawn. A few of Tobias’s other instructors took the occasion to offer their congratulations and good wishes, but he had already said goodbye to Wansi and Saffern, who were, along with Vaisan, his favorites. When servants filed into the hall to clear the tables, Tobias fled into the night, wishing only to be alone.

  Or so he thought.

  Mara stood at the western end of the lower courtyard, a dark silhouette, arms crossed over her chest, still except for her hair, which rose and fell in the gentle wind blowing off Safsi Bay. In truth, it could have been any of the older girls, but he recognized the curve of her neck, the taut lines of her back and shoulders.

  Torches burned on the ramparts where guards paced, but below there was only moonlight silvering the grass.

  “What are you doing out here?” he asked as he neared her.

  “When’s your birthday?” She kept her back to him and didn’t move. Her voice seemed to come from far away.

  “What?”

  “Your birthday? When is it?”

  “I’m a Walker. My birthday is meaningless. Once I get to Hayncalde, I’ll be sent back and forth so many times I won’t be able to keep track. Pretty soon I won’t remember how old I am.”

  She faced him, the moon reflected in her bright eyes. She was a year older than he, but already he stood a hand taller. “That’s later. You know how old you are now. When is it? Please tell me.”

  He sighed, knowing better than to argue with her. “Twenty-seventh day of Kheraya’s Waking.”

  Mara blinked. “That’s tomorrow.”

  “Yes.” He shivered, rubbed his arms. “It’s cold. Don’t you want to go inside?”

  “Does the sovereign of Daerjen have a Spanner?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If he doesn’t, you should tell him to request me.”

  Tobias opened his mouth, closed it again. “Um… All right.”

  “I’m good. And I’m almost sixteen.”

  “I know you’re good. And I know how old you are. I just… I thought you wanted to be posted to Aiyanth. That’s what you’ve always said.”

  She shrugged, gaze wandering. “Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Mara–”

  Before he could say more, she closed the distance between them with a single step, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him down into a kiss. His first. He wasn’t sure what to do. He touched her hair, her shoulders, and finally settled on holding his hands to her back. Her lips caressed his and he did his best to kiss her back in the same way. He was aware of her breasts pressed against him, of the pounding of his heart, and of hers.

  Too soon, she pulled back, her eyes still closed.

  “Tell him,” she whispered. “If he needs a Spanner.”

  She spun away from him and ran toward the middle courtyard and the Windward Keep. Tobias could only watch her go, his head spinning, his lips still tingling with the memory of that kiss.

  He swallowed past a thickness in his throat and thought he might be on the verge of tears. Yet it was all he could do not to laugh aloud. He felt himself balanced on the point of a clock hand, caught between a past that already seemed to belong to a stranger, and a future he couldn’t imagine. It was an odd sensation for someone who could Walk through time.

  Chapter 4

  26th Day of Kheraya’s Waking, Year 647

  Tobias was still thinking about Mara and their kiss when a voice behind him said, “She’s very homely.”

  A child’s voice.

  Tobias tensed, his mood shattering. “Droë.”

  “I think she’s horrid.”

  He turned, keeping his movements slow, steady. She stood closer than he’d expected; he resisted the impulse to back away.

  She was small, slight, dressed in a loose tunic that might have been white, and dark, worn breeches that reached to her calves. She appeared to be no more than seven or eight – an illusion, one common to her kind.

  “That’s not a nice thing to say,” he told her.

  “I don’t care.”

  She had looked just this old the first time he met her, several years before, when he’d been but a boy himself. He’d thought her a child then. At the time, he had never encountered one of the Tirribin.

  She had the palest eyes Tobias had ever seen. Her irises were faintly gray, but so light they nearly blended with the whites of her eyes. Initially, during that first encounter, he wondered if she was blind. In every other way, she was beautiful. Her yellow hair shimmered like satin with the glow of the moon, and her warm brown face was perfectly oval and unblemished. She had high cheekbones, a slightly upturned nose, full lips. Notwithstanding the rags she wore, she looked like royalty; even her hands were elegant – slender, long-fingered. But the smell of death clung to her, cloying, noisome, though as subtle as a whisper.

  When he described her for Wansi, all those years ago, the mistress had been deeply alarmed.

  “A novitiate was killed by a Tirribin some time back. Before I was here, but within the last few decades. You need to be careful with them. I can’t imagine how she evaded the guards.”

  Having seen her, Tobias could imagine it. She didn’t look dangerous. To any who saw her from the walls, she would have appeared as another child among so many. Strange, to be sure, with those spectral eyes, but harmless.

  “I thought Walkers were immune to their attacks,” he said, trying to mask the fear Wansi’s words kindled in him.

  “Not immune, no,” Wansi explained that day. “Time demons aren’t drawn to your years the way they are to those of others. Something in the changes wrought by Walking. Nevertheless, they’re still a threat. And you’re certainly not immune to their charms. So you might want to have a riddle at the ready. Tirribin can be distracted with riddles. Make sure, though, that it’s a good one, just in case.”

  Wansi’s warnings had kept him wary throughout his subsequent conversations with the demon. He had come to realize, though, that regardless of whether Droë was the Tirribin who killed that novitiate so long ago, she was less dangerous than the Binder suggested, at least to him. Droë never threatened him or tried to steal his years. On the contrary: her actions suggested she was enamored of him. Too much so. She spoke with venom of anyone she believed might come between them – Mara most of all. He should have known that
on his last night in Windhome she would find him.

  “I don’t know how you can stand to look at her,” she said in the darkness and the wind. She held her hands behind her back as she circled him, her steps airy, effortless.

  “I don’t think she’s ugly at all.”

  A scowl twisted her features. “Her skin is too dark.”

  “It’s no darker than mine. For that matter, it’s not much darker than yours.”

  “And her hair – it’s coarse, like dried grass.”

  He brushed his fingers with the tip of his thumb, recalling the gossamer touch of Mara’s hair. “No, it’s not.”

  “She’s… She’s womanly.” She said this with distaste.

  He didn’t like the turn their conversation had taken. The memory of that embrace remained too vivid.

  “You’ll leave her alone, Droë. Even after I’ve gone.”

  She halted, standing now near where Mara had been. “Yes, you’re leaving. For Daerjen. I heard.”

  “You were listening?”

  The demon nodded. “And then you kissed her. What was that like?” She edged closer to him.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  She scowled and resumed her circling. “I’m to leave her alone.”

  “That’s right.”

  A pause, and then, “Do you love her?”

  He shifted his weight, stared at his own shadow on the moon-touched grass. “I don’t know.” I’m leaving. I’m not even fifteen.

  Droë clapped her hands and laughed, exposing tiny teeth, white like sheep’s milk and as sharp as the serrations on a bread peddler’s knife. “I think you do.”

  “What do you want?”

  She grew grave. “To say goodbye. I saw you and I wanted to chat. I like it when we chat. But now that I know you’re leaving…”

  “We’ll see each other again.”

  “Will we?”

  He hesitated, marking her orbit. “You tell me.”

  “Perhaps. I’m not bound to this island or these waters any more than you are.”