“All right. I’ll trust that you and the older me know what you’re doing.”
They lapsed into a lengthy silence, broken only by Mara’s chewing and the tolling of bells in the palace courtyard. When she had eaten her fill and regained some strength, Mara climbed to her feet, the blanket draped around her.
“Thank you. I seem to say that to you a lot.”
Wansi’s smile was sad. “I wouldn’t know. What’s your name?”
“I don’t think I should tell you.”
“No, I suppose not. I’m curious about your age as well. Your true age. But knowing that could be equally… disruptive.”
“Yes,” Mara said, wondering what Wansi meant by her “true age.” She chose not to dwell on the question.
Wansi crossed back to the door. “I think it best to let you do this in private.”
“Yes, probably.”
“Until we meet again.”
Wansi left her.
Mara pulled out the turns stem and began counting. She dreaded her next journey through the between, but at least now she knew she could survive a Walk of this length. How many times, though, could she put herself through this in a single day?
She decided not to dwell on this either. With a deep breath, and a quick prayer to the Two, she let the blanket drop, clutched the sextant in her other hand, and pressed the center stem.
This time she woke to darkness, sprawled on the stone floor, naked, freezing cold, unable to move or speak. The windows of the chamber were shuttered and the faint silver of moon glow seeped in at the edges. Coals glowed and settled in the hearth, giving off little heat. She heard not a sound from outside.
This was another possibility that hadn’t occurred to her, to them. Wansi spent much of her day in this room, but she slept elsewhere. Mara had no idea of the time. It could be bells before anyone found her, and in the meantime she could die of exposure. She lay there, shivering, teeth chattering, unable to lift a finger, much less a limb. She held the chronofor and sextant, but they did her little good.
She tried to sleep, hoping to doze off and wake again when she wasn’t so helpless. But she was too cold, the floor too hard.
She wanted to shout for help, but even if she could have made a sound, she knew she couldn’t afford to alert anyone other than Wansi to her presence. What if the Oaqamarans already controlled the palace?
In time, the courtyard bells pealed. Two past midnight. By then she had sat up and stretched her legs and arms. Her recuperation from this Walk took much longer than had her recovery from the first, something she should have expected.
She stood and tried to move. Though unsteady on her feet, she could get around. Maybe she didn’t need to see Wansi at all, or anyone for that matter. If she could escape the palace without encountering any guards, she could limit the damage she might do to history. Droë would have thought this her best course of action.
As quickly as the idea came to her, she dismissed it. Exhausted, chilled, light-headed – she didn’t like her chances of escaping notice. She searched the chamber for any sort of clothing and soon found a spare robe tucked away on a low shelf. It smelled of dust, and was stiff in spots, stained with some ancient liquid, but she didn’t care. She bundled herself in the garment and placed a log on the embers. For a time it merely smoked, but she blew on the coals until the wood caught. Then she curled into a tight ball beside the hearth, and tried to sleep.
Slumber came grudgingly. Still cold, and impatient for Wansi’s arrival, she woke with every toll of the palace bells. When the chamber began to brighten, she gave up. Standing and stretching again, she surveyed the room. It wasn’t much changed from fourteen years in the future. Evidently, Wansi had long been tidy and intolerant of trainees who weren’t. She retrieved her chronofor and sextant from beside the hearth and slipped the timepiece into a pocket. She considered doing the same with the sextant, but caught a glimpse of herself reflected off the polished metal.
Her breath caught. Of course she would have aged, but she hadn’t stopped to wonder what she would look like at thirty years. Her face had grown lean, accentuating her cheekbones. Tiny lines textured her skin at the corners of her eyes and mouth, but her cheeks and brow were smooth. While her hair remained as she remembered it, seeing it swept back from that sculpted, unfamiliar face, she was forced to acknowledge something unexpected: she was beautiful. She felt vain even thinking it, though she might as well have been looking at a stranger, or a long-forgotten relative.
Mara set the sextant on a work table and walked away, only to orbit back to it so she could see herself again. The reflected visage fascinated her. She angled her chin this way and that, studying her features, memorizing them.
After a tencount, she put the sextant down again and deliberately moved away. Conceit had never been one of her faults, and she refused to let it become one now.
She resumed her search of the chamber, looking not for clothes, but for tri-devices. If she had come back far enough, she wouldn’t find any. As she perused the shelves, she heard the click of the doorlock’s tumblers.
Straightening, she looked to the door as it opened.
The Wansi who entered couldn’t have been much older than the reflected face in the sextant. She appeared in the bloom of youth: her skin unblemished, her hair untouched by gray, her spectacles less cumbersome than those she would use later in life.
She entered the chamber, her arms laden with scrolls, and shouldered the door closed, all without taking note of Mara.
When the Binder turned again and saw her, she jumped and gave a sharp gasp. Several of the scrolls fell to the floor.
“Who are you?” she demanded, the familiar accent doing little to soften the question. “What are you doing in this chamber?”
“I’m a friend,” Mara said, holding up both hands. She reached into her pocket and produced the chronofor. “And a Walker.”
Wansi eyed the device and then her, marking the robe she wore. Notwithstanding her initial reaction, she seemed to take Mara’s presence in the chamber in stride. “You arrived during the night?”
“Yes. I was tired and chose to wait for you. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Wansi set the scrolls on the nearest workbench and retrieved those she had dropped. “Can you tell me your name?”
“I don’t think that would be wise.”
The Binder considered her again. “How far back did you come?”
“I won’t tell you that, either. But it would be helpful to me if you could tell me the date, and… and the year.”
Wansi froze, a scroll in hand, the widening of her eyes making her look even younger. “You Walked years?” she asked, her tone hushed.
“Twice, actually. It was too great a time to cover in a single Walk.”
“You’re a child.”
“Not quite. Not anymore.”
A faint smile touched the Binder’s lips. “No, I suppose not.”
“The date?”
“This is the twenty-ninth day of Sipar’s Settling. The year is 633.”
Fourteen years. She’d made it.
“That’s what you were hoping for.”
“Yes.”
“Does this mean our palace is destined for history-changing events?”
Mara smiled and lifted the sextant from the table. “I’ll be leaving this place. I’m a Spanner as well.”
Wansi’s expression hardened. “Let me see that.”
She held it out and the Binder grabbed it from her.
“You gave this to me before I left my time,” Mara said. “You told me it was dear to you.”
“It is,” the Binder whispered. “I hope you’ve come a long way.”
Mara frowned as Wansi gave her back the device.
“It was a gift to–” She shook her head. “I hadn’t thought to see it again so soon.”
“I’m sorry,” Mara said. “I didn’t know.”
“Clearly, I did. A warning perhaps, a way of preparing myself for the los
s.” She forced another smile. “Not very discreet of me, was it?” She stepped around the workbench and past Mara to the hearth. “You must be cold. I assume you have nothing on beneath that old rag.” She piled more wood on the ash and embers and soon had a bright fire burning.
Mara joined her by the blaze, standing as close to it as she dared.
“What do you need from me?” Wansi asked.
“Help getting out of the palace and to a place from which I can Span safely, without being seen.”
“I won’t ask where you’re going, but I trust it’s far.”
“It is.”
“Word has reached Trevynisle of events in the Inner Ring. Daerjen.”
Mara held herself motionless, not trusting herself to look Wansi in the eye.
“I thought as much. I’ll help you, of course. But if that’s your destination, the between was just the beginning of the perils you’re going to face.”
Chapter 35
29th Day of Sipar’s Settling, Year 633
Wansi brought her clothing and food. Mara wouldn’t have thought that the skirt and tunic the Binder gave her would fit, but her face wasn’t the only part of her that had grown lean.
It hadn’t been long in bells since her last meal, but her Walks had left her famished. She ate nearly everything Wansi gave her and probably could have eaten more. She chose instead to take the rest with her.
As she chewed and washed down the salted meat and bread with watered wine, the Binder told her of events in Hayncalde. Word of Mearlan IV’s assassination had reached Windhome by pigeon within the last day. Cryptic reports from the Inward Sea said that his entire family had been lost: the sovereign queen, Mearlan’s son and namesake, and the sovereign princess, who was but a babe. Soldiers from Sheraigh controlled the city, and Noak was expected to name an interim authority until a duke could be chosen. Wansi said nothing about another Walker, and Mara didn’t ask.
Upon leaving the chamber, the Binder made no effort to avoid being seen. “We’re likely to fail, and being discovered will raise questions. Better we should appear unconcerned.”
Mara agreed, but she remained tense as they walked to the lower gate. She saw, though, that the guards atop the palace walls wore uniforms of purple and black, rather than Oaqamaran brown. There were no Belvora. Her tension eased.
The Binder prattled on about the palace, speaking to Mara as she would a visitor from afar. Mara affected interest. Once they were beyond the palace walls and in the winding streets of Windhome, they headed northward away from the waterfront, which surprised her.
“Where are we going?”
“To a promontory overlooking the bay. If you were traveling by ship, I’d take you to the piers, but this is better for Spanners, and few know of it.”
They crossed the city and followed a narrow, overgrown track that cut through brush and brambles and then a copse of cedar. Finches and jays scolded from above, and a timbercat eyed them before melting into the forest. The path, which wound on for more than a league, showed few signs of human traffic. By the time they emerged onto the headland, Mara was breathing hard and had sweated through her clothes.
Standing on the outcropping, staring over the water, Wansi said, “You should be quite safe here. In all the times I’ve come, I’ve never encountered a soul. Deer use the path. I’m sure people must, also, but I haven’t seen them.”
“Thank you. This is perfect.”
“You say you’re a Spanner as well as a Walker. But do you need help using the sextant?”
Mara shook her head. “I’m a Spanner first, actually. I’m more adept with the sextant than with the chronofor.”
Wansi cast a glance her way. “Yet you Walked years. You must have been a very impressive young woman.”
Mara blushed. “I have a friend – a Tirribin. I intend to speak with her before I Span. So I’m afraid I can’t return your clothes right now. I’m sorry.”
The Binder waved away her apology. “No matter. The clothes are old, and I’ll be back soon enough. I love this place.”
Mara could see why. Safsi Bay glittered below them in the hazy sunlight, ships on sweeps arrayed around the wharves, and others, their sails unfurled, carving through the water at the mouth of the inlet. Windhome was nestled against the cliff face, the white and gray walls and red slate roofs a mosaic in the midday light. A tawny falcon hovered on narrow wings just off the edge of the cliff, and sea eagles circled over the gulf.
“I should leave you.”
Mara’s eyes stung. She doubted she would see the Binder again.
“As far as you’re concerned, we’ve only just met,” she said. “But you’ve been a valued friend and–” She stopped herself before saying anything about Wansi’s mentoring. “And I’m grateful.”
“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” the Binder said. “You’ve sacrificed a great deal to come so far. I believe we all owe you our gratitude.” She proffered a hand, which Mara grasped. “Farewell. May the Two guide and protect you.”
“And you.”
Wansi left her, treading the path and soon disappearing from view amid the trees and shadows. Mara sat at the edge of the promontory and gathered the folds of the robe against the wind, thinking about Nat, Delvin, and the others. Even Hilta. Her fellow trainees would be with Saffern by now, or maybe in the refectory. She couldn’t quite believe that life was lost to her. She knew she looked different, but she felt the same; it was easy to convince herself that if she returned to the palace, she could be a trainee again. A thirty year-old trainee. She didn’t know whether to laugh at the thought or weep.
Over the next few bells, her thoughts careened in a hundred different directions. She shed tears for her mother and father, her brothers and friends. She wondered where Tobias was and, if she managed to find him, whether he would know how to stop the wars and steer history back toward the right trajectory. She wondered as well if she ought to go back a bit farther in time, to the days before the assassination of Daerjen’s sovereign. Might that help Tobias? Or would it further tangle events? She knew so little about him, and why he had gone back. On this thought, she heard again Droë’s ominous words. Better too little than too much… She remained in this time.
As the sun began its descent to the west, painting the high clouds over Safsi Bay in shades of yellow and orange and pink, she ate the last of her food. Then she pulled out her sextant and calibrated it for the journey she would make come nightfall.
She remained close enough to the palace to use the distances Wansi had made them commit to memory. The coordinates for Islevale’s major isles and cities had been drilled into her for years. She knew them the way she did the date of her own birth. With the device ready for her Span, she set it aside and waited.
Mist gathered in the trees at her back and drifted over the headland, until torches in the streets below and on ships scattered across the bay appeared only as obscure points of light. A gibbous moon shone through the thin clouds and dancing fog, lighting the promontory and casting her pale shadow across the damp ground. The air chilled, making Mara wish she had asked the Binder for an extra overshirt. She didn’t relish the idea of Spanning naked across the Aiyanthan and Inward Seas even this late in Sipar’s Settling.
When she was satisfied that the western sky had darkened enough, she climbed to her feet and said, “Droë.”
A tencount later, the Tirribin winked into view in disquieting proximity to where Mara stood. Mara fought the impulse to back away. The demon hadn’t changed over fourteen years: the golden hair and perfect features, the wide eyes of lightest gray, the waiflike form.
“You summoned me,” she said, icy menace in her tone. “Summoning Tirribin carries a price. Do you offer your years freely?”
“No,” Mara said. “I name myself your friend, Droënalka.”
Droë had crept closer, but she halted at this, genuine surprise in her gaze. “Who are you?” Before Mara could speak, she said, “Your years are wrong. You’re a Walker.”<
br />
“Yes. You and I know each other in the future. I’ve come back because of you.”
The Tirribin’s expression turned coy. “Still, there is a cost.”
“Which I’m repaying by helping you. This was our agreement when I agreed to Walk back and you confided your true name.”
Annoyance curled the demon’s lip. “Yes, very well. What brings you back, Walker?”
“My name’s Mara. And maybe you can answer your own question. What do you sense in the flow of time?”
Again, it seemed the Tirribin hadn’t expected this. Droë eyed Mara with doubt, but approached the overlook and closed her eyes. She stood motionless, her face tipped to the moon, the rush of surf against the rocky shore below measuring out the spirecounts. Eventually, she turned back to Mara, her brow creased.
“I feel it,” she said. “A beginning only, and still vague. All isn’t as it’s supposed to be. Another Walker?”
“Yes. His name is Tobias. I never knew him, at least not that I remember. You claim to care about him a great deal, and you tell me he and I were friends in a different future.”
The Tirribin shook her head. “I know nothing of this, and I can’t Walk through years as you do. What do you want of me?”
“I wanted you to confirm that I came back far enough. You’ve just done that. And…” She lifted a shoulder. “I wanted you to know that I’m here, that I’m doing something about it.”
“Is he on Trevynisle?”
“No. He’s in Daerjen, at least that’s where he went after leaving the palace.”
Droë glanced at the sextant on the ground at Mara’s feet. “You’re going there.”
“Tonight.”
“You’ll be beyond my help when you do.”
“Can’t you travel?”
“Not as you do. I suppose I could voyage, if that’s what you mean. Then again, what ship’s captain would welcome a Tirribin aboard?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I shouldn’t have summoned you.”
“You’ve made me aware of a growing misfuture. Your debt to me is paid.”
Time's Children Page 40
