The Branches of Time

by Luca Rossi

  “I understand, priestess. I know I shouldn't have done what I did and I humbly ask you to forgive me. The weight of my responsibilities keeps me awake at night. Your people have lost their lives. But tell me, please, to alleviate my grief and guilt, even just a little – were any of them spared? Did anyone survive on the island along with you? I can't bear to think you've been condemned to solitude.”

  “Don't you worry about me. And it's none of your business whether or not any people of the island have survived. The only thing you need to worry about from now on is coming here at least once a week and telling me everything that happens inside of that palace. I want to know about every move Obolil makes. Now go.”

  “Priestess, I humbly ask for your forgiveness.”

  “The Goddess does not pardon incompetence.”

  Miril lifted her hands out of the black liquid. In the secret room, hidden within the foundation of the royal palace, her figure vanished. The fog turned grey and became denser in front of Tuirl's eyes, now full of relief.

  22

  King Beanor sat at the table. His sole reason for dining was to enjoy the show he had arranged for himself.

  A few days earlier, walking around the perimeter of the palace, he had noticed the gorgeous shape of a young maiden moving through the hovels down below. Immediately infatuated, he had sent the royal guards to go fetch her.

  Upon his orders, the maiden was entrusted to his other wives, so she could be properly trained. A few hours later, however, Beanor had decided he could no longer wait, ignoring Aleia's protests, who tried to convince him that the girl was not ready.

  Watching her, the king decided that she did indeed need more preparation before she could truly be called a dancer. Yet this was a minor detail the king was happy to overlook for the time being.

  With a wave of his hand, still clinging onto a chicken leg, he motioned for the musicians to stop.

  “Come here!” he ordered the young woman, as he continued chewing with gusto.

  Cautious and a bit intimidated, the girl obeyed. When she was close to the monarch, he calmly placed a hand on her hip and roughly spun her around.

  “Hmm...” he lowed. “Put your hands on the table and bend over!” He carefully scrutinized her rear end, prodding it methodically.

  “Interesting. Young, firm, perfect in every aspect.” Beanor was thoroughly enchanted by the perfect rotundity of her gluteals. He caressed them and pawed at them for several moments, then slipped his hand between her thighs, moving until he could feel her sex.

  “They promised me you were a virgin. Stay that way and one of these nights we'll have a little fun, just you and me.”

  He explored her vulva with a finger. “Just look how tight you are! Not bad...not bad at all!” He brought his finger to his nose. “What a lovely smell...Guards!” he shouted.

  The young woman tried to stand back up but, with a hand on her back, he forced her to remain bent over. “Call the advisor over here.”

  One guard left the room and came back a few moments later with Tuirl, who found King Beanor intent upon his examination.

  “Advisor, look at this ass. What do you see?”

  The elderly man quietly came forward to get a better look. “Your majesty, this young lady appears to be quite lovely. And I believe she would make an excellent addition, if that's what you wanted to know.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. But take a good look. Bend down, if your eyes are too weak.”

  Doing his best to hide his annoyance, Tuirl obeyed.

  “Your majesty, it appears to me as if her physique is extremely lovely.”

  Slapping the woman's behind, Beanor exclaimed: “It's small! Don't you see? Don't you understand? It's a young and compact ass, just how I like them. How is it possible that all of my wives enter the palace with asses like this and then let themselves go?”

  “Your Majesty, I believe that...the abundance and variety of food you provide your wives helps them to take on more...generous proportions. But I can assure you that, in my opinion, all of your companions have retained their charms.”

  Do I have to order them to eat less? Beanor wondered. Then would they be...less energetic in bed? “Fine, right. I don't know why I bother asking you these things. I've never seen you go around with anything attractive on your arm!”

  Tuirl refrained from commenting.

  Noticing the advisor's uneasiness, Beanor decided to continue with his rant.

  “I've heard what people are saying around the palace. Some think you're plotting something behind my back! What do you have to say about that?”

  Tuirl turned pale. He can't possibly know about me going down to the secret room. Nobody saw me, nobody knows.

  “I see you've turned pale now,” the king provoked him.

  “Your Majesty. You know I could never have anything to do with such a crime. I've served you faithfully for many years, and before you, I served your father. If such rumors do indeed persist, I would appreciate it if you could tell me who they're coming from, so that I can take the appropriate measures to set the record straight.”

  King Beanor seemed thoughtful. With one hand, he continued prodding the rump that remained, immobile, in front of him, and with the other hand, he grabbed some meat from a platter. Biting into a lamb chop, he let his intelligence shine forth from his mouth, still full: “Your reaction is hardly convincing. I wonder if these voices are actually telling the truth, then?”

  He only said that to provoke me, and I fell like a fool into his trap.

  Tuirl replied in a firm and resolute manner: “Your Majesty, there is absolutely no reason and no way I could possibly plot anything without you knowing about it.”

  Beanor remained unconvinced.

  “And, with regards to your first question, perhaps it would be best to no longer deprive yourself of the pleasure this young lady arouses in you,” Tuirl continued.

  Beanor's attention immediately returned to the rump which, during the discussion, he had continued to poke and prod.

  “Don't tempt me, advisor. You know that even the king has to respect tradition. Until I take her as my wife, I can't...help myself.”

  “Well, why don't we officiate the wedding now?”

  Beanor froze, holding the lamb chop in mid-air. “Officiate the wedding? Now?”

  “Why not, sire? I can order the royal guards to notify the girl's parents and make the necessary arrangements for the celebration. This girl could be in your bed in just a few hours, ready to satisfy your pleasures.”

  Beanor appeared to be conflicted: he couldn't recall another wedding being officiated so quickly. He observed the rotundity in front of him. I can't, I can't wait any longer.

  Observing the king's distant gaze, Tuirl smiled to himself. But I still need to find out who accused me.

  “Guards!” the king shouted. “Take her to the wives. Have them get her ready for our wedding. And go call her relatives. I want everything ready in less than three hours.”

  On her way out, the young woman shot Tuirl a look full of hatred.

  23

  In his laboratory, the wizard Aldin looked about furtively, preparing to pronounce the words of the spell.

  A wooden board slid away, displaying the contents of a small closet full of a wide range of objects and scrolls. Aldin pulled out a scroll. He blew the dust off of it, unrolled it, and placed it upon the counter, then double-checked all of the elements he had previously laid out across the table. It's all here. It took decades of work, but now I have everything I need. He picked up one thing at a time and used each object to write words in a sacred language through the air. At the same time, he began singing a melody that used those same words, never taking his eyes off of the scroll spread out on the table.

  After several long minutes, he felt his body grow lighter. The tone of his voice and the speed at which his hand moved grew in intensity. His hands and arms started to lose their density, becoming transparent. Aldin continued, absorbed in the ritual. Table, fl
oor, ceiling, and wall started to waver until everything vanished completely. Suspended in the void, his skin moist with sweat, he sang the melody with all of the breath remaining in his throat. His fingers flew through the air, so fast that his own eyes could no longer follow their movements. When his body and the room around it regained their consistency, his hands and lips suddenly stopped. The wizard looked around him. The room was empty, as he had expected it would be, so he opened the door and cautiously walked out. He rejoiced, observing the corridor in front of him: It appears as if His Majesty's forefathers also had good taste.

  He hurried towards the window. Looking out through the glass, he saw three ships hovering over the surface of the sea. Then, one by one, like lightning, they went away.

  Perfect timing. They've just left. There's no time to waste.

  He padded his way further down the corridor until he heard voices coming from behind a door. All of the adults are dead in this palace. Could this be...? He saw the door open and frightened eyes emerge through the crack.

  “Zalbia, I told you it isn't one of them! Look at him, you'll see what I mean!”

  Aldin immediately knew who that child was. The eyes staring at him and the contours of his face were identical to those of the face in the giant fresco that loomed over the throne room.

  “Hurry, children, hurry! They've gone away. Get out of the palace and go find the other survivors!” Aldin encouraged them.

  Not needing to be told twice, the children scurried off.

  “See? He wasn't one of them!” Moltil commented, elbowing Zalbia.

  “B-but if he isn't one of th-them, then who is he?” Brunus asked, trying to keep up with the other two.

  The three turned and disappeared around the corner.

  Aldin swiftly crossed through rooms, down staircases and corridors. As soon as he stepped outside, he observed the sun's position in the sky. There's still time.

  He went up the staircase that led to the high walls sheering the sea. There, he turned towards the East: the coast was lost in the distance. The sky was clear and cloudless. The water sparkled. Enchanted, he observed that landscape – the landscape he knew so well, yet that now appeared so entirely different. Many of the villages and roads built over the centuries did not yet exist.

  He took an instrument out of his tunic and placed it on the palace wall, calculating a series of coordinates based on the time and place where he stood. He looked around. The palace, as expected, was deserted. Most of the adults had just been exterminated, and the few survivors, mostly women and children, had sought refuge outside of its walls.

  Aldin took a few things out of his pocket and started to hum a second melody, writing in the air. The consistency of his body began to fade. Although these elements were rather rare and difficult to find, the ritual for traveling through space was simpler than the ritual for traveling through time.

  His limbs, the palace walls, the sea, the sky, the landscape became increasingly transparent and then disappeared.

  He found himself in a village, where the smell of scorched wood and smoke made it hard for him to breathe. He was standing in a narrow alley. All of the surrounding houses had been burnt down. A few flames still lapped inside some of the dilapidated buildings. Their roofs had caved in, just like the walls.

  Aldin covered his mouth with a handkerchief and tried to make his way through the rubble. Behind the crumbling wall of a house, he noticed several charred bodies. He wondered if it was the fire that had killed them, or if the soldiers had gotten to them first. They only rebelled because they couldn't pay all those taxes, which were making it hard for them to even survive. And they were punished unjustly. He wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of erasing the future of their descendents.

  He turned and, now beyond the butchery, continued onwards. The sea and port laid before his eyes. The three ships were already lined up near the shore. The last few stragglers were boarding a fourth ship. A dozen people were still on the pier, busy loading the few things they had been allowed to take with them. Their faces were dazed, bewildered. The women cried. The children sought refuge, hiding underneath their mother's skirts. Their faces were still covered in soot.

  This broke Aldin's heart. Beanor was crazy, no doubt about it: but for all of his perverted, homicidal tendencies, he could never have reached the level of brutality of his ancestor. Two thousand years later, the memory of the punishment inflicted upon their people would still be strong.

  But I have to do it! He was terrorized by the idea that a priest might survive on the island and undo everything he had worked so hard to arrange. This will be the coup de grace. Then, finally, I'll be free!

  Standing on the ship and the pier, many continued looking towards the village, as if they could hardly believe what was happening. Aldin hid around the corner of a house, fearing he might be seen.

  They keep looking over their former lives, their houses, their happy moments, the nights spent cuddling up with their husband or wife, the evenings at the inn, their holidays...and I killed their future. My showers of stone shards exterminated their descendents. So now I'm here to make sure no one will be able to bring them back to life.

  But I can still stop, if I want.

  He waited patiently. The last to board was a woman. A man held out his hand to help her. She passed him the bundle of a few things she had managed to save from the massacre and fire. Then the sailors raised the ropes.

  The other three ships, in the meantime, had already taken to the waves. The fourth moved away from the pier. Except for the sailors, everyone looked at the village, right in his direction.

  I'm not the one responsible for this. It was Beanor's forefather, almost two thousand years before I was born. And if he hadn't exterminated them, the people from the Southern lands wouldn't have intervened, helping the survivors find refuge on the island of Turios, killing the king and the court of Ardis, and finally creating that barrier which, for two thousand years, prevented the people of Isk from sailing South.

  I'm just trying to fix everything.

  Aldin left his hiding place. Even if someone had seen him from the ship, they certainly couldn't turn back now.

  I'm sorry, but I have to do it. Looking towards the sea, he felt as if all of their eyes were staring at him. He felt he could hear their invocations, screaming from the sea, begging him to let them live. Or maybe what he heard were the invocations of the descendents of those men and women who were sailing away, hoping to rebuild their future, which had just been so brutally destroyed.

  I could at least let them have the next two thousand years of history. But no, if I do, they could still go back in time, change events and make a new branch of time that, if nourished, would reinvigorate and grow over the one generated by my actions. I'm sorry, but I can't let them stay alive. He drew a circle in the soil in front of him. Aldin removed several herbs, minerals, and a precision instrument from a leather sack. He calculated the measurements around the circle and traced the signs in the proper position. Then he meticulously laid down the herbs and minerals. Holding a scroll, he placed the sack outside of the circle. Finally, very carefully, he placed the scroll in the center of what he had just drawn on the ground.

  He started to move his lips. The song, at first a murmur, rose in volume and intensity. He held the scroll down in front of his eyes and, with his other hand, traced the signs in the air.

  The wind stopped. The dust remained frozen in the air. The smoke of the burnt structures stopped rising.

  Although he was focused on those signs, gestures and songs, his mind was not at peace. I can still stop. I can leave them their two thousand years of history. That's all they have left. They'll live, love one another, enjoy life, until one day, during a wedding, a shower of stone blades will leave nothing but cadavers all over the ground.

  No, no, no...they could come back here. They might overwrite everything.

  He – that horrendous creature who's unworthy of the honor of begging on the street –
he went and beat me up in front of everyone; he got down from his throne and struck me repeatedly, under the blank stares of the entire court; me, a wizard, subjected to public humiliation.

  But I'm sorry, I have to do it. It's the only way.

  Gestures and melodies melted into a single flow which filled the space around him. At the end of the ritual, he pronounced the fateful three words in the sacred language.

  On the fourth ship, already far away across the ocean, several wooden beams started creaking. Tiny drops of saltwater seeped through microscopic cracks.

  Aldin visualized what would happen over the next six hours: the seepage would weaken the structure of the hulls and the sailors would try, in vain, to repair one leak, while another ten would open within the next moment; the decks of the ship would sink lower and lower to the surface of the water, and the captain would frantically search the nautical maps to see if there was enough time to land on a nearby island or turn back to the port they had just left.

  No, they won't have time. I've calculated everything perfectly. You'll be too far from everyone and everything. Nobody will come help you. Nobody in the South will even notice what happened. They'll think you're still heading towards the island of Isk, towards your salvation and your radiant future.

  Full of desperation, men, women, and children crowded the deck. As the ship sunk into the sea, a few would try grasping onto scraps of wood, securing a few more minutes of life, as their brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers would already be in the water, shaking from the cold, listening to their heartbeats slowly fade. The chattering of their teeth would stop and their frozen lips would remain open, unable to let out a last moan of pain, scream for help, or words of useless encouragement for a loved one who, just a little further away, had already died, frozen.

  Goodbye, people of Kaj.

  24

  Bashinoir had fully recovered. Right after breakfast, Lil and Miril went off to start the preparations for the daily ritual. Bashinoir looked forward to when he could return to the forest, walk the paths of the island, stroll along the seashore. He missed the smells and sight of that immense body of water almost as much as the comfort of Lil's warm body underneath the sheets.