A wash-basin and cloth had been left outside her door, along with a change of clothes: undergarments – the Two be praised – a linen tunic, soft woolen hose, a skirt, also made of wool, and a thick overshirt. She washed and dressed. After pocketing her chronofor and the stolen blades and coins, and placing the sextant in a large pocket within the overshirt, she left the room.
An initiate in gray robes waited for her outside the dormitory and led her to the refectory. Nuala was there, dining with several more initiates. She beckoned to Mara and indicated an empty space beside her on the bench.
Mara joined the woman, eyeing those around the table as she sat.
“This is Mara,” Nuala said. “Please make her welcome.”
The other women greeted her with smiles and bobs of their head.
“Help yourself,” the priestess said, indicating the platters spread across the table.
There were boiled eggs, fresh breads, sweet and savory, with clotted cream, stewed fruits, and fried ham. Mara tried to eat slowly, but she was ravenous and cleared her first dish in a rush, only to fill and empty it again in as little time.
Bells pealed from the spire, prompting the initiates to stand and file out of the refectory. Servants hurried to the table to clear their places, but Nuala waved them away. They retreated to the kitchen, leaving Mara and the priestess alone.
“You slept?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“Good. I’d like to know whence you’ve come and who sent you.”
“I came from Trevynisle, and no one sent me. Only one person knew of my Travels, and she’s far from here, in leagues and years.”
“Why did you come?”
“To help Tobias.”
Nuala frowned. “Yes, so you’ve said.”
“I can’t tell you what you want to know. It’s enough to say that the future I knew is not the right one. The world changed when Tobias came here. History changed. I seek to return it to a more proper path.”
“Who’s to say what’s proper?”
Mara had asked the same of Droë, not so long ago, though it seemed another life.
“I am.”
“That’s not a satisfactory answer.”
“I’m afraid it will have to be,” Mara said, amazed at her own presumption.
Nuala stared, frost in the look. “Perhaps you’re not as young as I first thought.”
She thought it best not to respond.
“As I promised,” the priestess cotinued, “I’ve been in contact with people who may be able to help you. When I told them you were a Traveler, they were most interested, and they suggested that they were near to discovering what happened to Tobias.”
“Do they think he’s alive?”
“They didn’t say. But they want to meet you.”
Mara couldn’t believe her good fortune. “You trust these people?”
“I do. They have ties to the late sovereign, which is enough to convince me of their sincerity.”
“All right. When can I meet them?”
“At dusk. They’ll be waiting for you outside the city walls. You’ll leave with the evening bells.”
“Won’t the gates be closed?”
Nuala smiled. “Leave that to us.”
With nothing to do, Mara spent several bells walking the temple grounds. She was impatient to meet these people of whom the priestess spoke and, of course, to find Tobias. Yet once again, she had no choice but to wait, to wish away time she didn’t have. When the sky began to darken, she returned to the refectory. There she was met by the priestess and a lone warder in white. Nuala gave her bread and cheese for her journey, and a purse that contained a few gold rounds and silver treys.
The warder led Mara through the city, keeping to narrow lanes and avoiding soldiers, until they came to a small stone house in a hidden courtyard. The structure concealed an entrance to a dank tunnel, which ran under Hayncalde’s eastern lanes and ended at a hidden door in the city wall.
From there, the woman led Mara along the waterfront, across the road connecting the wharves to the city, and onto the same strand to which Mara Spanned the previous night. She watched for the men she’d fought, but didn’t see them. Eventually they halted at the mouth of a rocky cove beyond sight of the main gate.
“You’re to wait here,” the woman told her, the first words she had spoken since leaving the temple.
Mara looked around, expecting to see assailants converging on her.
The warder might have sensed her unease. “You’ll be safe. I don’t think you’ll have to wait long. I can leave you my sword.”
Mara pulled one of the knives from a pocket. “I’ll be all right.”
The woman nodded. “Sipar keep you safe.”
Mara wasn’t sure how to answer; she was used to blessings that invoked both God and Goddess. “And you,” she said, after too long a pause.
The warder nodded again and started back toward the city.
Mara moved closer to one of the large boulders and surveyed the coast, shivering with apprehension more than the chill air. Vapor billowed each time she exhaled, and reflections of moonlight shifted like quicksilver on the surface of Daerjen’s gulf.
Before long, footsteps approached from farther south, crunching on the rock and sand. Whoever it was seemed to care little for stealth, which put Mara at ease. She stepped away from the boulder and spotted the stranger. She hesitated, then raised a hand in greeting. The stranger waved back.
Mara thought it a man, but realized her error as the woman drew near. She had short dark hair, a handsome, square face, and pale eyes that might have been blue. The woman smiled and put out a hand, which Mara gripped.
“You’re the Traveler.”
“Yes. Mara Lijar. And you are?”
“Gillian Ainfor, formerly minister of protocol to the sovereign of Daerjen.”
Chapter 36
30th Day of Sipar’s Settling, Year 633
It was the second time in two days she had learned of survivors from an attack none were thought to have survived. This offered her a shred of hope that she could accomplish what she had come back to do.
“I was led to believe that all in the sovereign’s court were lost.”
The minister’s expression sobered. “Not quite all.”
Mara thought the woman intended to say more. When she didn’t, Mara said, “The high priestess indicated that you might know about another Walker who came here.”
“I do, but you’ll have to forgive me: with all that’s happened, I’m not yet sure I can trust you.”
“I understand.”
“You know this Walker’s name?”
“Tobias.”
“And his family name?”
“I don’t know.”
The woman frowned. “Can you tell me how far back you’ve come?”
Mara’s hesitance deepened the minister’s displeasure.
“If I’m to help you – if we’re to help each other – you need to trust me. I know Tobias. I’m trying to find him, and I believe I’m close. But I want to be sure this isn’t a Sheraigh ruse.”
“Fourteen years,” Mara said. “That’s how far I Walked.”
Gillian smiled again. “Tobias told us he came back just as far. Come along.”
She led Mara along the coast, following the waterline through the cove and emerging from it onto another bouldered beach. They crossed this strand as well, climbing over huge rocks. Mara soon realized they were headed toward a rift in the coastal cliffs, which glowed with the warm light of fires.
“Is that where we’re headed?” she asked, pointing.
“Yes. It’s called the Notch. You’ll be safe there.”
On they walked, silent save for their footsteps and the rasp of their breathing as they clambered over the boulders. In time, they reached a stone stairway that had been carved out of a broad rock shelf.
“Just up here,” the minister said, with a glance back and another smile.
The climb prov
ed longer and more difficult than Mara had anticipated. Though low compared to the surrounding cliffs, the face of this outcropping had to be five hundred hands high. The stairs were uneven; several times, Mara nearly tripped. In time they reached the top. Or Gillian did. She held out a hand, signaling for Mara to stop, then put a finger to her lips.
She peeked over the edge of the cliff, only to duck back down and shake her head. They remained there for several spirecounts, allowing Mara to catch her breath. At last, Gillian checked again, nodded to Mara, and stepped on to the shelf. Mara followed.
She saw a few people on the expanse of stone: couples in intimate embraces, sprawled figures who might have been asleep or drunk, people curled up around a bright blaze burning in a round pit gouged out of the rock. She looked to the minister in alarm, but Gillian appeared unconcerned.
“It’s all right. This way.”
They walked into the rift, passing shelters made of canvas, some of them businesses, others apparently homes. Mara had never seen its like.
“What is this place?”
“I told you: it’s the Notch.”
“Yes, but–”
“It’s a refuge for people who can’t afford to live in the city proper, either for lack of coin or out of fear for their safety. They mind their own business, and they ask few questions.”
Mara heard a warning in the words.
They didn’t have to go far. They came to a curtain of cloth that defined the edge of a cavern. Mara couldn’t tell how deep it was.
Gillian halted before the canvas, glanced in both directions, and pulled a section of the curtain aside.
“Quickly,” she said, waving Mara inside.
Mara stepped through the opening into a spacious room shaped by still more hanging cloths. Additional chambers beyond this one? Several candles burned around the room, illuminating a table and two chairs, a small collection of pots and pans piled around a cooking fire, and an array of tools, familiar in design. A man sat with his back to the entrance, bent over something Mara couldn’t see, haloed by a glow of binding magick.
Gillian cleared her throat, causing the man to start. He glanced in their direction and, as the glow receded, shoved something into a cloth sack at his feet.
But not before Mara caught a glimpse: shimmering gold in graceful arcs, a glass eyepiece.
“That’s a tri-sextant,” she said without thinking.
The man stared at her, then shifted his gaze to Gillian behind her.
“How inconvenient,” the minister said, her tone dry.
Mara started to turn, intending to ask what she meant. Before she could, pain exploded at the back of her skull, and she fell into darkness.
Consciousness brought throbbing pain, nausea, and, after a few heartbeats, the awareness of bindings on her wrists and ankles. Mara opened her eyes, and her world heaved and spun. She twisted her head to the side and vomited.
“You shouldn’t have hit her.” A man’s voice. The Binder. The one who’d been working on the tri-sextant. She made herself focus on him, the world around her still shifting in a way that roiled her gut. He was tall, dark-haired, with a trim goatee and mustache.
“She was trained on Trevynisle.” That was Gillian. “She knows how to fight. Were you going to subdue her?” Mara heard mockery in the question.
“Who are you?” Mara asked.
A smirk hardened the lines of the minister’s face. “My answer hasn’t changed.” She tipped her head in the man’s direction. “This is Bexler Filt, once Daerjen’s Binder.”
“Why have you done this to me?” She strained against the rope chafing her wrists. “I’m a friend. I came to help.”
“Such a narrow view of the world. I expected more of a Traveler. Even the other Walker wasn’t this dense.”
Understanding crashed over her, as bracing as an ocean wave. The woman was right: it should have been clear.
“You’re traitors.”
“An ugly word.” She didn’t deny it, though.
“Sand isn’t good for your chronofor,” the Binder said. “Or for the sextant, for that matter.”
With effort, Mara shifted her gaze in his direction. He was cleaning her time piece with a small brush. Wansi’s sextant rested on the table beside him. She feared she might be sick again. Without the devices, she was lost.
“Are they yours?” the minister asked.
Mara opened her mouth to answer, only to realize the woman hadn’t been speaking to her.
“No. Even in the future, I won’t Bind like this. I’d guess they come from Windhome, probably from a Binder who hasn’t assumed his duties yet. Or hers.”
Gillian nodded and turned back to Mara. “Who sent you?”
Mara returned her stare, refusing to speak.
“Don’t,” the minister said. “You think you’re being clever and brave. You’re a child in a woman’s body, and based on what I know of Trevynisle, I’d say you’ve been coddled much of your life. You study and you play with weapons. But you’ve never known a single day of true discomfort. I don’t expect you’d hold up very well under torture.”
Cold spread from Mara’s chest through her stomach, her limbs, her neck and face.
A matching smile curved Gillian’s lips. “As I thought. Now, who sent you?”
“I came here myself.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“I know exactly what you meant. I’m telling you it was my idea.”
The minister heaved a sigh and produced a small, curved blade from within her coat.
Mara shrank back. “It’s true. I had help from a Tirribin, and the Binder gave me a chronofor, but the rest was me.”
Gillian hesitated, glancing once more at Filt. “A Tirribin?”
“Yes. She sensed that our time was wrong. I sensed it, too. She knew of Tobias and knew that he’d gone back. She convinced me to go after him.”
The minister walked to where Mara sat and loomed over her. “Let me understand. You don’t know Tobias?”
“Not really. I know of him. I know he came back and that history changed when he did. The world as I know it doesn’t include him.”
“And you sensed the change in history? On your own?”
Gillian looked to the Binder again.
“Kill her now,” he said. “It’s too risky to let her live.”
Mara drew her bound hands and knees to her chest, her body quaking violently. Tears slid down her cheeks. She couldn’t bring herself to make a sound.
The minister shook her head. “Not yet. It may be our only choice before long, but not yet.”
“She saw the tri–”
“That was unfortunate.”
“It’s more than that. She knows what it is. She might tell others. I’m not the only Binder who can make them, you know.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you were, brilliant though you are, my dear.”
He frowned.
“She’s not going anywhere. We can afford to keep her alive for a while longer. I was hoping she might know Tobias, but he’s soft-hearted enough to care about her life, even if they haven’t actually met.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“That happens so seldom.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“If I’m wrong, we kill her and no one’s the wiser. But I think she still has value.”
Mara held her breath.
“Fine,” he said. “We should tie something across her mouth to keep her quiet, and put her in the back room.”
“An excellent idea. See to that, will you?”
He stood with a huffed breath and stalked to her, wrinkling his nose at the mess she’d made. “You going to clean that up?”
Gillian grimaced as well. “I suppose.”
He pulled Mara to her feet and dragged her across the room to the back chamber. After flinging her onto a bare pallet, he retrieved a piece of cloth from a battered wardrobe and tied it across her mouth and around her head. He was none too g
entle in doing so. He started to leave, but then checked the ties at her wrists and ankles. Satisfied that the knots remained tight, he left her without a word or a backward glance.
Mara didn’t believe that Nuala would have betrayed her intentionally. The minister and Binder had the priestess fooled as well. She wondered how many others they had deceived. Clearly they intended to use Mara as a cudgel against Tobias, but she thought it likely they would first lure him here under the guise of friendship.
At least he was alive, though. She knew that for certain now. More, neither Gillian nor the Binder had mentioned the princess. Maybe they didn’t know she had survived.
These were hardly enough to give her hope; her life hung by a thread, and Tobias was in more danger than he could know. But they were something at least. They were all she had.
It festered in Droë’s mind like a wound. She didn’t know him. She had only just met the woman. Still the thought remained: vivid, alluring, frightening, thrilling.
Do I love him?
What might that mean? Loving a human. It wasn’t something most Tirribin would consider or want. Droë, though, had long felt uncomfortable among her kind. Most Tirribin traveled in pairs or groups. Not her. She didn’t like to hunt in packs. She thought she preferred to be alone. That was what she’d told herself for so long. Alone was better. Alone, she was content.
What if she’d been wrong? What if she wished to be apart from her kind, but not alone after all?
He didn’t exist in her mind. She couldn’t imagine his face, or the taste of his years. But the woman – girl, really; Droë had tasted her years – had spoken true. Curiosity about love consumed her, had for centuries. She had seen humans in the act of love, had watched, fascinated, as encounters that appeared by turns tender and rough, joyful and unpleasant, passionate, animal, at times violent, brought such racking pleasure. How could that be? What would it be like to allow someone so close?
Not for us, other Tirribin would say. We aren’t human or Arrokad. That isn’t our way.
Time's Children Page 42
