Time's Children
Page 39
“The question embarrasses you. Why? Why do humans care so much about touching and kissing, but never want to talk about it?”
“It’s… private. Kissing isn’t just pressing lips together. It’s emotional. It makes us feel exposed.”
“I kissed Tobias once.”
Surprise widened the girl’s eyes.
“I made him kiss me, really. I don’t think he wanted to. But I was curious. I’d seen him kiss you.”
“Then you know.”
Droë shook her head, solemn and a little sad. “No, I don’t think I do. Does it feel nice when you kiss and touch?”
The girl’s cheeks warmed again, and a self-conscious smile stole across her lips, but she didn’t look away. “Yes, it does. It feels nice, and a bit exciting, and even comforting, all at the same time.”
Droë pointed at the girl’s breasts. “Do you let them touch those?”
Her smile vanished, and the heat rose to the top of her scalp. “I’m not going to talk about that.”
She laughed and clapped her hands. “I thought so!”
The girl scowled and held a finger to her lips for quiet. Droë thought she might leave. Instead, she gathered herself and drew herself up to her full height. “I’ve decided to Walk back,” she said, whispering, “to try to find Tobias. If you’re still willing to help me, I’d be grateful.”
“Help you how?” Droë asked, also in a whisper.
“I need to know how far I should go. What I know of history tells me that he might have gone back as much as fourteen years, but the palace Binder isn’t certain that’s even possible.”
“It is. It would be very, very hard, but it can be done. Maybe not by you, though. You’re a Walker now – you weren’t before. You’re still new to it, though. A Walk that far could kill you.”
All the warmth left the girl’s face in a rush. “Because there’s no air in the between.”
Droë nodded her approval. “Good.”
“Do I have to do it all at once?”
Her eyebrows rose. “A clever question. No, you don’t. If you go back in stages, though, you have to make certain that you don’t bend the future along the way. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I can’t interact with too many people.”
“You shouldn’t speak with anyone at all.”
“I might need to, but only one.”
Droë shook her head. “None would be better.”
The girl took a long, shaky breath. “I’ll see what I can do. Tell me how far. Is fourteen years right?”
Droë closed her eyes and sifted back through the folds, searching for the place where this misfuture began. She knew better than to think she could find it exactly, but her conversation with Tresz, and things the girl had said gave her some idea of where to look. She opened her eyes again. The girl watched her, eager, frightened.
“Fourteen years is close. Maybe half a year more. No farther than that. You shouldn’t go back too far. You’ll make matters worse.”
“What if I don’t go back far enough?”
She shrugged. “Fourteen years is where you’ll start. This–” she gestured at the palace, the sky, the world, “–didn’t happen at once. The new path began then, but it took… time to develop. If you’re close, and you can change that path, it may be enough. Better too little than too much. Fourteen and four maybe.”
“How should I do that? Change the path, I mean.”
Droë opened her hands. “I don’t know what you’ll discover in that time, or where you’ll have to go to find Tobias. By my nature, I can sense when time has been altered. What you’re asking…” She shook her head. “That’s more than I can know.”
“I don’t know what this future is supposed to be like. I sense that it’s wrong, that certain things shouldn’t be. But what’s right?”
“I can’t see it, either,” Droë said. “That’s why you need Tobias. He knows. He’s lived the future that was lost. He knows what happened when he went back. You know how the world looks now. Together, the two of you know all you need to.”
“Which means that finding Tobias has to be my first goal.”
She said this in a voice like warm fire, a voice that sounded like kisses and touches. Envy flared in Droë’s heart.
“Yes,” she said. But she barely resisted the urge to take all the girl’s years.
Chapter 34
11th Day of Kheraya’s Descent, Year 647
Mara returned to Wansi’s chamber along the covered paths, shielded from the Oaqamaran guards, her stomach as roiled as her thoughts. It felt odd to undertake such a journey with nothing in hand save her chronofor and sextant. She was going so far – she might never come back. Yet she could take nothing with her. No mementos of this life, no weapons to keep herself safe, not even a stitch of clothing. She would emerge into a different time as vulnerable as the day she was born.
Except she would be a grown woman.
She halted, tottered, nearly vomited.
You don’t have to do this.
Wansi’s words: true only in the most literal sense.
She continued around the courtyard. Footsteps ahead of her forced her to hide in shadows. Once the soldiers had passed, she went on, quickening her pace.
The Binder sat at her workbench, a loupe to her eye, a sextant before her. She spared Mara a glance as she let herself into the chamber, but said nothing and turned back to her task, as if this were any night, as if Mara’s appearance there wasn’t worthy of comment.
Anger bubbled up in Mara’s chest.
Fortunately, before she could give voice to her irritation, the Binder removed the loupe and faced her.
“I want you to take this sextant,” she said, holding up the device on which she’d been working. “Yours is good, I’m sure. You do fine work. But you’re going to be Spanning a long way, and I want to be certain that you arrive where you expect to.”
Mara swallowed and walked to where the Binder sat. “Thank you,” she said, taking the sextant.
She could hardly bring herself to look the Binder in the eye. If her instincts were so poor on a matter as simple as this, how could she trust herself to change the flow of history?
“You spoke with the Tirribin?”
Mara exhaled. “She said fourteen years and a few turns.”
“The Two have mercy.”
She ignored this. “She also said I don’t have to go back all at once. I can go back some years and then go back more. I just have to take care not to interact with people along the way. And she told me not to go back too far. ‘Better too little than too much,’ she said.”
Wansi frowned at this. “Do you know why?”
“If I go back too far, I risk affecting events leading up to whatever Tobias did.”
“Thus compounding the problem.”
“Yes.”
The Binder stood, sighed. “Very well. Are you ready?”
No. “As ready as I’m likely to be.”
“How far will you go?”
“I don’t know. Fourteen years–”
“Is too much for you to risk right now. You’re still an inexperienced Walker.”
“Seven years then? And two turns?”
“Even that could be too far.”
Mara couldn’t argue. A day struck her as too far. This… this was impossible. But she couldn’t go back a day at a time.
“Each time I show up in this chamber, I risk changing history. I can’t go back in too many increments.”
The Binder’s expression sharpened, but she dipped her chin. “You’re right.” She held out her hand. “Give me your chronofor. I want to adjust it.”
“You adjusted it only a few days ago.”
Wansi kept her hand extended, and raised an eyebrow. Mara pulled the device from her pocket and gave it to her.
Perching on her stool again, and setting the loupe in place, Wansi opened the back. “You know,” she said as she worked, a glow of power surrounding her, “seven years is pro
bably a good number. That long ago, you were too young to work in this chamber. Much less than seven years, and you risk meeting yourself here.”
“You’ve spoken of that before. What happens if a Walker meets herself?”
Wansi paused to look her way. “Honestly, I don’t know. Some say such interactions can cause insanity. Others claim they can upset the balance of a life forever, creating as much dissonance in one person’s existence as you perceive in the world right now. And some are certain that nothing bad will happen at all. I’ve never met a Walker who had this sort of encounter, but it seems a terrible chance to take.”
Mara murmured her agreement.
The Binder made another small adjustment in the chronofor and closed the back with an echoing click. Her glow receding, she handed the device back to Mara.
“All set,” she said, with forced brightness.
Mara set the chronofor and her new sextant on the table beside her and removed her robe. As she took off the rest of her clothes, Wansi rose from her workbench and stepped to the window.
“Seven years, then,” she said, staring out at the night.
“And two turns, I think.”
“And two turns, of course.”
Too soon Mara stood naked and shivering in the chamber, staring at the Binder’s back. It occurred to her then to wonder how her actions in the next few moments might change the Binder’s life. Wansi, of course, was too circumspect to say anything of this, and it seemed to Mara that she had come too far to reconsider. But that didn’t stop her from doubting herself yet again.
“Droë told me her true name,” she said, in a shaking voice, “so that she’d know to help me in the past. Do I need something similar for you?”
“I think not. You’re here in this chamber, carrying a chronofor and a sextant of my own design, the latter a device I first constructed some eighteen years ago. That should be credential enough.”
Mara eyed the sextant. It resembled others she had seen in the chamber. She wondered if the younger Wansi would recognize it.
“You know what to do?”
“Eighty-six clicks back,” Mara said. “With the turns stem.”
“Just so. Farewell, Miss Lijar. Our world depends on you.”
“Thank you for all you’ve done.”
The Binder pivoted slightly, just enough to reveal the smile on her lips. “It has been my distinct pleasure. Thank you for all you’re about to do.”
Mara pulled out the right-most stem and began to turn it, counting with care, her fear rising with each metallic click. Her fingers grew slick with sweat. Several times she paused to wipe her hand on the clothes piled before her. When at last she twisted the stem for the last time, she glanced at Wansi. The Binder stood like a statue, her back to Mara, her arms crossed.
Mara could think of nothing more to say. She filled her chest with a deep breath and pressed the center stem.
The tug in her gut felt no different, no more or less insistent for the distance she would Walk this time. It yanked her back into the between, irresistible and merciless.
Besieged by the inchoate clamor, the flare of countless visions, the foul accretion of scents and flavors, the abrasion of her flesh, she could do nothing but wait and pray to the Two that seven years’ of sensation would pass before her lungs failed her. She wanted to scream, to weep, to squeeze her eyes shut and cover her ears. She held the chronofor in one hand and the sextant in the other.
On it went. Her chest tightened. Her throat burned. She staggered; had there been anything here with her, she would have grabbed hold of it to keep from falling. The between held her upright, even as it slowly killed her.
Light. Sound. Smell. Taste. And no air. Unrelenting. Too far. She should have known better. She should have heeded Wansi’s warnings. Who was Tobias that the lure of his affection should cost her so much?
She released the breath she held, tried to draw another. But, of course, that had been her last. Her vision swam. The sounds and smells retreated.
Still it didn’t end. Yes, too far. Darkness took her.
Distant voices brought awareness: the din had gone. An ache in her throat; solid ground under her back. Cool air on her cheek, filling her. The beat of her own heart.
Those voices – they set off alarm bells in her mind. Voices were bad, dangerous. She’d arrived during a lesson. She heard no sounds from outside, but thought she could make out the low crackle of a fire burning in the hearth. One of the colder turns, then.
Mara opened her eyes, squinted against the glare. Faces peered down at her. Trainees her own age, and one person she recognized. The blanched skin and bright eyes. Wansi. Her hair was auburn, save for a few strands of white at the temples. Her face and forehead were smooth, but the spectacles remained: thick, distorting her eyes and the skin around them.
“Let’s allow her to breathe, shall we?” she said, the lilt in her voice as welcoming as an embrace.
Mara couldn’t move. She gripped the sextant and chronofor; cold metal bit at her cramped fingers. A blanket covered her, and cloth cushioned the back of her head. She had been here for some time, unconscious. The trainees backed away as Wansi instructed, but they continued to stare, clearly fascinated by her and what she might represent.
She shifted her gaze back to the Binder, hoping to convey in her glance that they needed to be alone. Wansi stared back and after a fivecount gave the slightest of nods.
“I doubt we’re going to accomplish much more this morning,” she said, encompassing her students in a sweeping gaze. “You should be on your way to the refectory. You can get a head start on the younger trainees. I hear there are fresh rounds of cheese from north Oaqamar, delivered just last night.”
Mutterings of protest met her suggestion.
“I’d like time alone with our guest,” the Binder said. “Please be on your way.”
“You’ll tell us what you learn about her?” asked one young man.
“Probably not. Still, I imagine there will be stories aplenty by the time night falls, all told with an improbable air of authority.” She thinned a smile. “Now, go.”
The young man frowned, as did his companions. They put away their tools and half-completed devices and exited the chamber. When they were gone, Wansi closed and locked the door.
She walked back to Mara and knelt beside her. “How are you feeling?”
“C- cold,” Mara said. Her tongue felt thick and sluggish, and her voice sounded strange, a shade deeper than she remembered. “Tired, t- too.”
“I don’t doubt it. Can you tell me how far you’ve come?”
“What year, what day?”
The Binder gaped. “What year?” she whispered. “You poor thing. It’s the fourth day of Kheraya’s Waking. The year is… It’s 640. How far?”
Mara couldn’t help but be pleased. The chronofor had worked as it was supposed to. And she’d survived. “S- Seven years,” she said.
Wansi rocked back on her heels, her eyes as wide as apertures. “Seven.”
“And two t- turns.”
“Indeed. You carry a sextant I made, one that is quite dear to me. And here you are in my chamber. So I trust that I sent you back. But why?”
Mara faltered. This was something she and the Binder hadn’t discussed. How much could she tell Wansi herself? It wasn’t a question of trust. How much could she confide without giving information that might twist the future?
“Not sent,” she finally said. “H- Helped.”
Wansi’s brow furrowed. “I’m not certain I understand the difference.”
“You d- didn’t want me t- to go.”
Her frown grew more pronounced. “I see. Still, that doesn’t answer the question of why.”
Mara held her gaze, but didn’t reply.
Recognition flashed in the vivid blue eyes. “Ah, you have no intention of telling me, do you?”
“I’m sorry.” Mara had begun to recuperate. She tried to sit up, but her arms weren’t yet working well.
“No.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “I don’t know how matters stand seven years from now, but in this time we tend to cover ourselves when walking around the palace.”
Mara grinned briefly. “I’m sure. But I’m not staying long.”
“What do you–” Wansi knelt again. “You mean to say you’re going back farther?”
“Several years more.”
The Binder pondered this, her face more ashen than usual. “You’re right not to tell me how much more. It could have been a mistake to tell me as much as you did. I’m not certain.” She squared her shoulders. “What do you need before you can Walk again? Food? Something to drink?”
“A bit of both, I think.”
“All right. I’ll return shortly. If anyone knocks on the door, don’t make a sound.”
Mara gave a shaky nod.
Wansi let herself out of the chamber, and Mara lay back, closing her eyes.
Next thing she knew, the door opened again and Wansi slipped into the room, hands full.
“You slept.”
“Yes.” She tried once more to sit up and managed it this time. She sensed subtle differences in her body. She was leaner, harder. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to see herself in a mirror. She adjusted the blanket to keep herself covered and eyed the bundle Wansi held. Her stomach rumbled.
“Bread and cheese,” the Binder said. She held up the carafe she carried in her other hand. “And watered Miejan red.”
As Mara ate and sipped the wine, Wansi perched on a stool, regarding her.
“It would be best if you didn’t arrive in the middle of another lesson when you Walk again.”
“I know,” Mara said around a mouthful of bread. “Traveling so far, I can’t help it. I left at night, and, if I’m right, arrived near midday. Chronofors aren’t exact over so much time.”
“That’s because they weren’t meant to be used in this way. There’s a reason they have stems for bells, days, and turns, but not years. You’re Walking too far.”
“I know.”
Apparently Wansi had expected an argument. Mara’s agreement deflated her.