Time's Children

by D. B. Jackson

  For a long time, he stared at the spot where she had been. Finally, as he heard bells toll in the distance, he exhaled and began the long walk back into Belsan.

  He left her clothes there, for her return.

  Chapter 14

  4th Day of Sipar’s Settling, Year 633

  Lenna bustled through the flat, pulling on her woolen overshirt, bronze hair tied back from her face.

  “I won’t be gone long,” she said, making her way to the door. “I want to check the market again, in case they’ve come in.”

  He sat at the table, watching her, making no effort to hide his amusement. Below the tiny room they rented, the thud of the cooper’s mallet shook the entire building.

  “You understand that this is for show,” he said. “It’s like the bees. You’re not going to make any more gold as a seamstress than you will cultivating honey.”

  She halted, set her fists on her hips. “You don’t know that. And the bees will make money. Just not in winter; certainly not in Kantaad.” She stepped closer to him. “And you might consider,” she said more quietly, “that spending coin the way we do, you ought to have a skill that you can show off as well. I’d rather not explain to our landlord that we make our rent money assassinating court nobles.”

  It was a fair point.

  “I don’t know how much longer we’ll be in Fanquir.”

  “That’s fine,” she said. She rubbed her arms. “Frankly, I’ll be glad when we leave. In the meantime, I’m going to look for those bolts of cloth. I’d suggest you figure out what you want to be when you grow up.”

  He grinned. She stooped and kissed him on the cheek before leaving the room and descending the stairs, each step on the worn treads rattling the ancient building nearly as much as the strokes of Skav’s hammer.

  A few spirecounts later, he heard her on the steps again, returning to the room. The door opened.

  “That was quick.” He swiveled in his chair. “Did you forget–”

  The rest of his question caught in his throat. Lenna stood before him, though not the Lenna he knew. Not one he had ever seen. Broad streaks of silver mingled with the bronze of her hair, and deep lines marked the skin around her mouth and eyes. She wore an ill-fitting gown, faded but thick, warm, and partially covered with a woolen cloak, also tired. She was still a beauty. She always would be. But the years written in her face, and in the skin on her hands and neck, daunted him.

  Neither of them spoke. After a tencount, she turned and shut the door.

  “I saw her leave,” she said, facing him. “Me, I mean. I figured it was safe.”

  He nodded, speechless.

  “Gods, I’d forgotten how beautiful you were. Not that you’re any less handsome now, but when we were young…” She shook her head. “How long will I be gone?”

  “You’ve… you’ve gone to the market. A bell maybe. Not much more. What are you doing here?”

  “We have work to do, you and I. A Walker to kill.”

  “How far back have you come?”

  She frowned, canted her head. He read sympathy in her eyes, loss, grief.

  “I don’t think I should tell you that. I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t have to. He could calculate it in his head, adding years lived to years lost in the Walk back. Not with precision – a guess only, but close enough. If she’d come back a year she would look much like the woman who had left this room moments ago. If she had come back twenty she would be even older than this woman standing before him. So ten years. Maybe a few more.

  “Don’t be angry,” she said, misinterpreting his silence.

  “I’m not. I’m just… You’ve come a long way.”

  “Yes. In years and in leagues. I’ve been in this time for nearly a ha’turn. I needed passage from… from elsewhere.”

  “More secrets.”

  “More things you shouldn’t know yet. It all has to unfold the way it’s intended.”

  “Except you’ve come back to kill a Walker, who, I would guess, has come back to change things in ways someone doesn’t like. Pemin?”

  She hesitated, nodded.

  “So why hide things from me?”

  “I don’t care about the rest of the world. Not really. I mean, I do, and that’s why I’m here. But our life together, that’s… I don’t want to change that. Not any more than I have to. Do you understand?”

  He did. “Yes.”

  “Good. Because we’re about to tear to pieces everything else between the oceans.”

  She drew forth from within her cloak three golden objects.

  Tri-sextants. He had never seen one before, but he knew immediately what they were. Binders were working on these in Sholiss, and elsewhere. Some worked for Pemin, some didn’t. To his knowledge, none had perfected the devices. Not yet. Not to this degree.

  “Do they work?” he asked.

  “Yes. As I understand it, the Spanners who use them will need to be trained. I know enough to help with that. Thanks to you.” She flashed a smile, and the years melted from her face.

  “I lose you, don’t I? You’re here, and I have some idea of how far back you Walked.” He dragged a hand over his face. “The return could kill you. At the very least you’ll–”

  “Please don’t.” She drew a breath, and he regretted what he’d said. Their goodbye would have been brutal for both of them.

  “I’m here,” she said, “and there’s nothing to be done about the years I’ve spent. More to the point, we haven’t much time. An irony, I know, but there it is. A Walker is coming in less than a turn, and we have to be in Daerjen when he arrives. In Hayncalde.”

  “To kill him.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And what do I tell her? The younger you.”

  “Tell me the truth, at least as much as you can. That you’ll be spending the next turn with me, that we have a task to complete, and that you’ll be home when it’s done, so that we can be together for years more.”

  “Do you know what all this is about?” he asked. “Can you tell me?”

  That, of all things, drew a laugh. The same laugh he knew so well, that set his heart on fire every time he heard it.

  “It’s about Pemin, of course. Pemin and his wars. Isn’t it always?”

  He chuckled as well. Their mirth soon spent itself, leaving them gazing at each other. Her eyes hadn’t changed.

  “I don’t like this,” he said.

  She shrugged. “I can’t help that. I don’t like it either.” She glanced toward the door. “I should go. It’s dangerous for Walkers to meet themselves across the years.”

  “Right.” He stood.

  “I need a place to stay. I managed to steal some coin when first I arrived in this time, but I used most of it getting here.”

  “Of course.” He retreated to the table by their bed and pulled several treys and a few rounds from his purse. “There’s a boarding house near–”

  “I remember.”

  He returned to her, handed her the coins. Her skin was cool.

  “I shouldn’t come here again,” she said. “I’ll wait for you in the boarding house. We should leave tomorrow. The next day at the latest. You have enough Spanners among the men who work for you?”

  “I have two,” he said. “For now I can be the third. I’m sure we’ll find another before the time comes.”

  “All right, then.”

  They eyed each other again, as if unsure of how to say goodbye. At last Lenna pocketed the coins, turned, and let herself out of the room.

  He stared after her, a dull ache in his chest. But already his thoughts churned. They would go to Qaifin first. Pemin had set all of this in motion sometime in the future. He would want to know that this Lenna was here. And the autarch would pay them before they did anything more. He and Lenna would insist.

  After that, they would make their way to Daerjen and Hayncalde. He knew the city, but not as well as he should. And time was short.

  Chapter 15

  21
st Day of Sipar’s Settling, Year 633

  A fury of light and color. Voices and notes and every variety of noises, blaring, skirling, assailing. Sweet scents, savory aromas, foul odors, all blended in a noisome cloud that enveloped him. Vile assault on his tongue, as if every morsel he had ever eaten sought revenge. Violent abuse of his flesh: battering, poking, burning, freezing; even the most gentle caress would have made him cry aloud.

  If only he could draw breath.

  Tobias writhed and flailed, desperate to break free, knowing all the while that no bonds held him, no walls confined him. Only time swooping past, tearing at his mind, his senses.

  The deep breath he’d taken had already spent itself, and he sensed that he had years left to go. His chest ached, his heart labored. His lungs had been set ablaze.

  Legs trembling, vision swimming, he would have collapsed to the ground had the between not held him in place, a mercy and a torment. And still it went on. He ached to breathe, to relieve the intolerable pressure on his chest.

  The storm buffeting his senses started to fade. The light dimmed; the roar grew more distant, the smells and tastes and touches lost their intensity. He grew cold, but if the rest left him alone, he could live with that. Or die with it.

  No air. Nothing. He sensed his grasp on memory slipping. Walkers, it seemed, were not meant to go back so far. It was too much. Not his fault. Giving in to the darkness was not surrender, so much as acknowledgment. He had reached too far.

  All went black.

  Sensation returned piecemeal. The pressure of cold stone against his back. The scratch of warm wool on his legs and arms, chest and neck. The clean scent and taste of precious air. The smooth, gold back of the chronofor pressed to his palm.

  And voices. Not a clamor of them, but individuals, one speaking, and then another.

  “…the question though, is from when.” A man. The sovereign?

  “A long time, I should think, given his condition. This was no simple journey.” Also a man. This time Tobias knew the voice, the drawl, the lazy assurance in the words: Osten Cavensol.

  He forced his eyes open, blinked against the brightness, tried to lift a hand to shield his eyes. He couldn’t move. For a moment he wondered if, unsure of his origins and wary of his sudden appearance, they had bound him. But he felt no rope, no silk, no iron, only the blanket.

  He opened his mouth, but couldn’t make a sound.

  “He’s trying to speak,” the sovereign said.

  Mearlan leaned over him, peering down at his face. Tobias stared back. He looked so young! No gray lightened his brown hair. The skin around his mouth and eyes was smooth. Care had worn a line or two in his brow, but otherwise he appeared to be in the prime of youth, a far cry from the worn man Tobias knew in his own time.

  The Seer was also much changed. He stood straighter, his features those of a younger man. Tobias caught the scent of Tincture hanging in the air, but Osten’s eyes were clear.

  “Can you tell me your name?” the sovereign asked, enunciating loudly.

  Tobias wanted to tell him his hearing wasn’t impaired. He tried again to speak, managed a small sound, deeper than he had expected, but inarticulate.

  The sovereign sighed, straightened. “Fetch him some clothes.”

  Tobias heard the door open and close.

  Mearlan and his Seer continued to talk about Tobias as if he weren’t there, which, he decided, was probably fair. He couldn’t add to their conversation, though as their speculation about him carried them further from the truth, he grew ever more agitated. He tried repeatedly to form words, to move his limbs, to do anything more than lie there, mute, helpless, naked.

  The door opened again, and someone stepped into the chamber. Footsteps approached him and a woman came into view. A beauty, short-haired, with a square face and eyes of sky blue. Tobias couldn’t keep his eyes from widening.

  “He recognizes you, minister,” the Seer said. “Perhaps someone from your future.”

  She paled at this, but tossed a smirk at Osten. “I was given to understand he’s from all of our futures, Seer.”

  The Seer answered with an enigmatic smile and a twitch of his shoulder.

  “We’ve sent for clothes,” the sovereign said. “You should wait in the antechamber.”

  “Can’t I remain until they do? He’s quite decent right now.”

  “Very well.”

  “T– Tobias,” he managed, the effort leaving him short of breath. His voice definitely sounded different, lower. He should have expected this, but still it struck him as odd.

  “Your presence works miracles,” Osten said. “I really must wonder about you two.”

  “Do shut up, Seer.” She looked down at Tobias again. “I’m Gillian Ainfor, minister of protocol. But you know that already, don’t you?”

  “S- State.”

  Tobias said this with somewhat less effort than he had expended on his name, and he spoke without thought. He regretted it the instant the word crossed his lips. Going back in time a bell or a day, or even twelve days, gave him little power over future events. In this instance, he had come farther than anyone in Windhome would have permitted. He was a force of history. What else might he change, for good or ill, with a careless word or deed? He would need to be more careful.

  “It seems there’s a promotion in your future, minister,” the sovereign said. He wore a frown, perhaps concerned as well by what Tobias had revealed.

  The minister’s cheeks remained ashen. “How far have you come?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  Tobias tried to answer, but couldn’t form the words. While he made the attempt, the door opened once more, and a guard handed a pile of clothes to the sovereign.

  “Minister, give us a moment, will you?”

  Once Gillian was gone, the guard and the Seer propped Tobias up and maneuvered him into the clothes. Tobias could do little to help, but once they were finished, and had lifted him into a chair, he had enough control of his muscles to keep his head upright and to flex his fingers.

  His hands were bigger than he remembered, his arms thicker and covered with more hair. He felt large and heavy and awkward. The sovereign walked around his desk and sat, eyeing Tobias the entire time. Tobias followed his movements with his head and eyes.

  “I sense you’re doing better.”

  “Y- Yes, my l- liege.”

  To the guard, Mearlan said, “Bring the minister back in.” Of Tobias, he asked, “Are you ready to tell us how far back in time you’ve Walked?”

  “F- F- Fourteen years, my l- liege.”

  “Did I hear that correctly?” Gillian asked from behind him. “Fourteen years?”

  The sovereign stared unblinking, his mouth open in a small “o”. Even the Seer appeared stunned.

  “Yes,” Tobias said. “F- Fourteen.”

  “And I sent you,” Mearlan said. “I must have. As I understand it, a Walker moves through time, but remains in the space where his journey originated.”

  “Th- That’s right.”

  “So you come with a message, from me, to me.”

  Tobias glanced toward the guard.

  “I think you all should give the Walker and me some time alone.”

  The soldier regarded Tobias with mistrust. “But, my liege–”

  “He can barely move, and we know he’s not concealing any weapons.”

  “N- Not the minister,” Tobias said. “Or th- the Seer.”

  “Very well.”

  As the guard left the chamber, Gillian and Osten took seats on either side of Tobias. His chronofor rested on the sovereign’s desk, where the Seer had placed it when they dressed him. Tobias reached for it, managed to grip it and slide it into his pocket. The Seer watched him.

  “All right, then,” Mearlan said. “What is it you’re to tell me?”

  “You m- must not go to war with the Oa- Oaqamarans.

  The sovereign’s gaze flicked toward the Seer before settling again on Tobias. “And why not?” he asked, his
voice hardening.

  This was not the sovereign Tobias knew. He heard as much in the tone of the question, saw it in the dangerous flash of those indigo eyes. Youth might serve him in other ways, but it would make him stubborn, leery of any who questioned his judgment.

  “It goes p- poorly, my liege.”

  “Poorly, in what way?”

  “I expect we’re losing,” Gillian said.

  Mearlan shot her a quick glare. “Is that it?” he asked Tobias. “We’re losing? And so I sent a Walker back to talk me out of fighting?” He shook his head. “That’s doesn’t sound like me.” He considered Tobias. “How do I know I’m the one who sent you? It could have been someone else, someone I ought not to trust.”

  “You told me to tell you something – a ph- phrase your father used to use. ‘Blinders don’t become you, and neither does mistrust.’”

  The sovereign’s face fell.

  “At least we know who sent him,” Osten said after a lengthy silence.

  “You knew how hard this would be for you to b- believe.” Tobias pressed on, despite the awkwardness of the syntax. “But you paid a good deal of gold to bring me to your court. And then you s- sent me back, costing me fourteen years of my life. Actually, twenty-eight.”

  “Costing you… What do you mean?”

  “Gods,” the minister whispered. “He’s right, my liege. The Binder has told me this, but I’d forgotten.”

  “Forgotten what? Explain, please.”

  They watched him, expectant, all clearly unnerved by his arrival.

  “When I left this chamber a short time ago – when I began my journey back – I was fifteen years old. The Walk aged me fourteen years. Returning to my own time will do the same.”

  The sovereign pushed back from his desk and stood. “You mean to tell me you’re a boy?”

  “I was a short while ago. I don’t think I am anymore.”

  “And you say you’ll… you’ll be in your forties when you get back?”

  “Yes, my liege. Your older self thought the magnitude of that sacrif- fice might convince you to take my warnings seriously.”