Time's Children

by D. B. Jackson

He sensed her holding something back. “But?”

  She stopped again, this time in the spot where she first appeared. “I choose to stay. And I think you should, too.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll be safer here. She’ll be safer with you here.”

  A chill pebbled his skin. “Have you seen something?” he asked. “Is something going to happen to me, or to Mara?”

  She shook her head, solemn as a cleric. “Our powers don’t work that way. I know you’re safe here, and you’ll remain so if you stay. As to the girl…” She shrugged. “You can’t stop me from taking her years if you’re not here. Not really.”

  “You promised!”

  “No, you insisted. I never agreed.”

  Fear crested in Tobias’s chest. He could beg, he could rail at her, but he couldn’t bind her to his will or to any promises she made. He might be safe from her predation, but Mara was not.

  “I wouldn’t take all her years. Just a few, maybe enough to make her a little less pretty in your eyes. If she’s too old for you, maybe you won’t like her so much.”

  “Please don’t,” he said, cursing the flutter in his voice.

  She laughed again, capricious as the wind. “I could spare her. For a kiss.”

  Tobias froze. The thought of kissing the demon sent his stomach into a lazy, unsettling somersault. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  She glared. “Why not?”

  “I– I won’t give you any years.”

  “I didn’t ask for any. All I want is a kiss. Like you gave to her.”

  “No.”

  The demon studied him, her pale eyes guarded. “Maybe you don’t love her after all.”

  If he angered her, she would take her revenge on Mara. He had no doubt. But while Tirribin couldn’t attack a Walker, they could take years freely given, and he didn’t know if consenting to a kiss might be construed as an invitation to feed.

  “I’ll kiss your cheek,” he said. “A kiss of friendship.”

  “As opposed to passion.” Her tone was mocking, but her eyes searched his. She was trying to understand. In some ways she truly was a child.

  “Yes.”

  She considered this, her head canted to the side. “All right.”

  Tobias stepped forward, and Droë tipped her face up to his, eyes wide with moonlight. He leaned in to plant a quick kiss on her cheek.

  At the last instant she turned her head, pressing her lips to his. They were as cold as ocean water. Her teeth grazed his. Her breath stank of decay.

  Tobias staggered back, shuddering, wiping at his mouth. Her laughter spiraled into the night.

  “That was fun! I might have to kiss her, too. Just to see what it’s like.”

  “You will not take her years.” He tried to sound forceful, but his voice shook.

  “So you’ve told me,” she said, imperious, a demon’s rasp in the words. “You try my patience, Walker.”

  Tobias didn’t answer. They eyed each other. A nighthawk cried overhead.

  “I need to sleep,” he said at last. “I leave with first light.”

  Droë nodded, haughty, wounded. Tobias regretted everything about this final encounter. He had enjoyed their conversations over the years. With no other Walkers in the palace, she had been the one… being aside from Master Ojeyd with whom he could discuss his abilities. Despite all that separated them, he did consider her a friend.

  “I’m… I hope we’ll meet again.”

  “If fate allows.”

  He frowned, turned from her with some reluctance, and started to pick his way through the courtyard toward the Leeward Keep. After a few strides, he stopped, the demon’s name on his tongue. But she had vanished, leaving only windswept grass and the faint luminance of the moon and stars.

  From his perch on the tower wall, he marked every movement of the two humans – the Walker and the female who had lured him into the night, as if she were doing so for him. He listened to every spoken word, took the measure of the Walker: his size, his smell, the way he moved. Distance was no matter. On a night like this, with a gibbous moon brightening the courtyard below and the air still, he could have determined their eye color from twice the distance, and heard them from twice as far. Such were the advantages of being a creature of prey.

  He scented magick in both of them. They were rich with it. He could manage two kills with a single, swift stoop. He’d done so before.

  But he had his instructions, and though it rankled answering to humans, his kind had found value in this alliance. He would do as they demanded.

  He had already. He didn’t like clinging to shadows, concealing himself from the humans who patrolled only a few hands above him. A kill or two would have made what followed much easier. Again, though, those who sent him wanted this done a certain way.

  Eventually, the female ran off – an interaction he didn’t entirely understand. Her departure left the Walker alone. An opportunity. He shifted, crouched, fingers splayed against the rough stone surface. He had gone so far as to spread his wings, when he heard another voice below.

  A human child, female.

  No. A Tirribin.

  He smelled her magick as well, felt it tug at him. This he would have resisted regardless of orders. Such kills were frowned upon among his kind. Settling back against the wall, he listened again, understanding little more of this conversation than he had of the last.

  Soon enough, the Walker was alone once more. The human turned to walk toward the next courtyard. Again, he readied himself for flight. Only to be forestalled a second time.

  He heard scrabbling on stone, behind him, above. Then a voice – that same voice. The Tirribin.

  “They don’t like Belvora here. You should know that.”

  He turned his head to stare back at her. She sat above him, neatly fitted within a crenellation, knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around them, very much like a human child. Golden hair, not unlike his, glimmered with the moon. Her eyes were so pale that even with his keen sight they seemed to glow, colorless, ghostly.

  “Do they like Tirribin any more?”

  “Most don’t. He does.”

  He went still at that. “I don’t know who you mean.”

  She pointed at the retreating figure of the Walker. Far now. Perhaps too far, at least for tonight. “I mean him. And you knew that already.”

  He turned his body, eyes fixed on her, wings settling against his back. He had questions, but first he checked the position of the nearest guards.

  “They can’t see me right now,” she said. “Any more than they can see you. They’d have to be looking for us, and that doesn’t seem likely, does it?”

  “What are you doing up here?”

  “What are you doing up here?”

  He scowled. “A child’s answer, and you’ve probably lived longer than I have.”

  “I want to know why you’ve come for him.”

  He canted his head, regarding her, his hunter’s gaze penetrating shadow. “Is it the time journeying? Is that why you would take such interest in the fate of a human?”

  “I could ask the same,” she said. She waved a hand, indicating the entire palace. “You can hunt any of these. You could have taken the girl. I wouldn’t have minded that so much. But you waited for him. You watched him.”

  “My kind prey. We have appetites, desires. Spanners and Crossers are common fare. A Walker…” He let the implication hang, hoping it would mask a half-truth. Less than half, really. But she didn’t need to know what he had discerned sifting through the scents that wafted up to him. “Now, will you answer my question?”

  She faltered, discomfited. “Yes, we share an affinity for time. Hence my interest in him.”

  “I sense more than that,” he said, a gambit.

  The Tirribin didn’t answer, confirming his suspicions.

  “I compel your silence,” he said. “I invoke the Distraint and demand that you tell him nothing of me, nothing of this encounter, nothing o
f my intentions. Do you hear and acknowledge my invocation?”

  She glowered and bared her needle teeth. “You’re canny for a Belvora. Most of your kind are dull-witted.”

  He refused to be goaded. “Do you hear and acknowledge?”

  “I hear and acknowledge,” she said, sullen and grudging.

  “You will accept punishment if you’re found to have violated this oath?”

  “I will.”

  He stared, saying nothing.

  The Tirribin heaved a sigh. “I will accept punishment if I’m found to have violated my oath.”

  He nodded. “Good.”

  “I hope you choke on him,” she said. “I hope he hears your wingbeats and shoots you in the heart before you can take him.”

  At that he laughed. “He won’t. Have you never seen a Belvora on the hunt?”

  She flipped her hair in annoyance, then pitched forward out of the nook in which she’d been sitting, and scuttled like a spider down the stone wall to the grass. Once on the ground, she left at Tirribin speed. In moments, he could no longer hear her or smell her power.

  The Walker was gone as well, safe within the walls of the palace. That was a small matter. The human would be out again come the morning. I leave with first light, he had said.

  Indeed.

  And I will be waiting.

  He ruffled his wings, hunched against the breeze to sleep. Only as he closed his eyes, though, did it occur to him that the oath he demanded of the Tirribin had been too specific, too narrow. He hoped she hadn’t noticed.

  Even after she blurred through the palace gate, past guards who couldn’t see her when she moved at speed, Droë didn’t slow. She was too angry, too frightened.

  She had sensed the Belvora the moment she entered the first courtyard. Initially her awareness had been vague, an elusive, formless presence that unsettled her. When at last she put a name to what she felt, fear seeped into her. Not for herself. Even Belvora wouldn’t harm a Tirribin. But for Tobias.

  This Belvora was spying on them. Once she knew what it was, she smelled it. A moment later, still speaking with Tobias, circling him, she spotted it: a pale shape pressed into the dim recesses of the palace wall.

  She said nothing to the Walker, did nothing to draw his attention to the creature above them, for that would have meant his death. Instead, she bided her time, spoke to the Belvora herself.

  A mistake.

  It never occurred to her that a Belvora would be clever enough to invoke the Distraint. Most of them were thick-headed, and single-minded in their pursuit of the kill. Not this one, though. This one had been quicker than she.

  Among creatures of their kind – Tirribin, Belvora, Arrokad, Shonla, and others whom humans in their ignorance referred to as demons – the Distraint was highest law. Punishments for violating a Distraint could be extravagantly painful. Or so she had heard. She had never fallen afoul of an invoked oath; she had been subject to only a few in the hundreds of years she’d been alive.

  So how had she allowed this creature to trap her in one? If other Tirribin learned that she’d been ensnared in this way, by a Belvora of all creatures, she would be humiliated. More incentive, as if she needed it, not to violate her oath.

  Fortunately, the Belvora had been quick, but not thorough. Already she saw ways around the promise he had wrung from her.

  She slowed, took a breath. Yes, he had left paths open to her. She could give Tobias a chance to live without bringing harm to herself. If he died despite her efforts… well, then perhaps there was less to him than she had credited.

  Halting, she found herself on a narrow lane leading to Windhome’s waterfront. The Belvora would do nothing until dawn, which gave her several bells. Enough time to feed, and then return to the palace.

  Footsteps echoed nearby. Another lane over. A brisk gait. A man, she guessed, young, ripe with years.

  Droë eased along her lane, a hunter herself, in pursuit of this evening’s meal.

  Tobias’s journey to Hayncalde began the following morning, before daylight. Master Ojeyd came for him, bearing a single candle, his eyes glinting with pride and flame, as if he couldn’t imagine a better way to begin his day than to escort a young Traveler to the wharves.

  Tobias hadn’t slept at all. Thoughts swarmed in his head: Droë and Mara, Wansi and Saffern, memories of his parents and anticipation of the Daerjen court.

  Upon hearing the master’s approach, he swung himself off his pallet and grabbed his sack from the floor. He paused to scan the chamber. Most of the boys slept still, but Delvin was awake and had propped himself up on one arm. He nodded once, offered a small smile, which Tobias returned.

  “Come on, then,” Vaisan whispered. “Your ship sails with first light – a merchant ship, and I doubt the captain will wait.”

  They stepped out of the Leeward Keep into the murky light and cool, damp air of dawn. The moon still shone low in the west, and a few stubborn stars clung to a clear, brightening sky.

  “A fine day to begin your voyage,” the master said, flashing a smile. “I envy you, Mister Doljan.”

  Tobias glanced his way, intending to thank him. For the kind words, for years of guidance and wisdom and friendship.

  He never got the chance.

  Someone shouted a warning from across the courtyard. Tobias couldn’t say why he looked up, instead of behind or to the side. He did, in time to see a huge, pallid shape dropping toward him. Tapered falcon-like wings, membranous, aglow with moonlight. Arms stretched toward him, clawed hands reaching.

  Tobias couldn’t bring himself to move, or scream. He had time to think, I’m dead.

  A hard shove from Master Ojeyd unbalanced him. He sprawled to the ground. The creature shrieked, rage and thwarted desire in the sound. It swerved, a slight twist of its body. Another scream, and Vaisan went down in a fury of limbs and wings.

  A rush of air from the creature’s dive battered Tobias, carrying the stench of rotted meat. He heard another cry, truncated. Then the rending of flesh.

  He rolled to his knees.

  “Stay down!”

  That voice again, closer this time. Then a spurt of flame and the deafening roar of a musket. The creature shrieked again. It tumbled off Vaisan, spread its wings.

  A pistol shot followed, and the creature fell.

  Saffern strode past Tobias, tossing his firearm aside with one hand and drawing a sword with the other. Reaching the winged form, he hacked at it with the blade once, twice. Its head rolled free, trailing dark, noisome blood.

  Saffern straightened.

  Shaking, Tobias crawled to where Master Ojeyd lay. The man breathed still, each gasp shallow and desperate. Blood coursed from a ghastly wound on his neck, and from five long, parallel gashes along each side of his face and jaw. Tobias swallowed hard to keep from vomiting. Tears blurred his vision. The master’s wide eyes found Tobias’s. Vaisan groped for his arm with a bony, trembling hand. Finding it, the master pulled him nearer.

  “We’ll get a healer,” Tobias said. He looked up. People were emerging from the towers, drawn by the weapons fire and shouting. “We need a healer,” he said, raising his voice.

  Vaisan’s fingers gouged his arm. “No. No healer. I’m dead.”

  “That’s not–”

  “Listen!” the master said, the sharpness of the word shocking Tobias silent. “Belvora… don’t choose.”

  Tobias frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Predators. Mindless. They don’t choose.” His voice had fallen to a whisper. The gush of blood from his neck had slowed. “They don’t wait. No subtlety. But this one…” He closed his eyes, then forced them open again. “This one, I fear, wanted you.”

  Loath as he was to believe this, Tobias knew better than to doubt the man. Belvora were also called Magick Demons, because they preyed mostly on those who possessed powers – Travelers, Seers, even Binders. It was no surprise that one would hunt in Windhome Palace. Except they rarely did. They had been driven from Trevynis
le long ago; they were said to be extinct here, which meant that this one had come from elsewhere. For him?

  He sifted through his memory of the attack. The warnings, the shove, the booming reports of Saffern’s weapons, and the violence of the Belvora’s collision with Ojeyd. The master had saved his life. So had Saffern. And now Ojeyd was dying. Because that creature had wanted Tobias dead? None of it seemed real. Yes, he was a Walker, and bound for the court of a powerful isle. But he was one man, and barely old enough to be considered that much. Why would his life and death matter so?

  The palace healer reached them and dropped to her knees on the other side of Vaisan’s body. By then, the master’s grip on Tobias’s arm had slackened. The healer felt for a pulse, her lips thinned. She placed a hand on Vaisan’s neck wound, and was enveloped in a faint halo of magick, not unlike the glow Tobias had seen on Wansi. After a tencount, she glanced up, looking past Tobias and above him. She gave a small shake of her head, and the light of her power faded.

  Vaisan’s hand dropped to the ground.

  “Blood and bone,” Tobias breathed, shaking again. A tear fell from his cheek, darkening the master’s overshirt.

  A hand grasped his shoulder.

  “Come on then, lad,” Saffern said. “There’s nothing to be done.”

  Tobias stood, but didn’t follow the weapons master. Not yet. He walked to the body of the Belvora. He had never seen one before, and hoped never to again, though he sensed that these creatures might well be part of his future.

  It was muscular and would have been tall if it stood. One of its wings lay open at an odd angle. Blood, black in the dawn light, glistened on its side and chest where Saffern had shot it. The head, golden-haired, with elongated, pointed ears and blunt features, had come to rest some distance from the corpse, a spiral of blood leading from one to the other.

  “The guards should have killed it,” Saffern said from behind him. “He should never have gained entry to the courtyards.”

  Tobias offered no reply.

  “Come along, Tobias.”

  He turned at that. He couldn’t remember the last time Saffern had used his given name.

  “We still have to get you to your ship.”