Beyond the Wall of Time

by Russell Kirkpatrick

  “Where is she?” he growled. “Where is she?”

  “Father, we don’t know,” Anomer said, and waited for the explosion.

  “I am here,” said another voice.

  Unbelievably, Cylene herself emerged from the forest.

  “How are you alive?” Noetos asked, his voice filled with wonder.

  It was the question Anomer wanted an answer to. Alarms began to sound in his head as Cylene started her explanation. This is not right. People don’t come back to life just because their deaths are tragic. Dozens of unlikely things had happened since the gods had begun to break the world, but happy endings had not been a part of any of them. Through his connection with his sister he could sense she too was uneasy.

  “I died,” Cylene said, her voice husky with pain. “There was a noise, then the ship smashed down on top of me. It broke my back and forced my face into the water.” She took a strained breath. “I tried to breathe, but all I could take in was water.”

  “You drowned,” Noetos said.

  He hovered over Cylene like a mother hen, kneeling beside her as she sat against a fallen trunk. He obviously wanted to embrace her, but just as clearly was concerned that she might still be injured.

  She gazed up at the fisherman and Anomer’s breath caught in his throat. Had her eyes always been this dark? Was this an effect of the drowning?

  “Yes,” she said. “I drowned. I struggled, but everything faded away and I floated in blackness, surrounded by a million pinpoints of light. Some of the lights whispered things to me, but I can’t remember what they said. Everything about the black place scared me; it wasn’t anything like the heaven my parents taught us about when we were children. I heard you roar, and your magic pulled me back towards my body. But I could not make the leap and I hovered at the edge of the hole in the world, waiting to see what happened.”

  “So what happened?” Noetos asked.

  “I watched my body start to disintegrate,” she said. “It was awful. My skin became dry and hard and I could see it turning a dreadful green colour around my mouth and eyes. There were things crawling under my skin and strange eructations throughout my body.”

  This still did not ring true. Had Cylene been so absorbed in her appearance while alive that it would become her primary concern when dead? To be fair, Anomer had never been dead, so perhaps he was misreading her—or maybe his love for his mother continued to prejudice him against the young woman. He chastised himself. Ought he not to be rejoicing with his father at this turn of fortune?

  Arathé’s thought came through. Eructations? What sort of a word is that for a provincial girl?

  Ah, so his sister was suspicious. Even better.

  Noetos nodded, encouraging Cylene to continue. “Then a great power began to pour in through the hole in the world, drawing magic from the void. One of the gods enacted some sort of violence against the earth; you tell me there was an earthquake, so that must have been the result of the power. The flow pulled my essenza out of the void and through the hole with it. I couldn’t have avoided being reunited with my body even had I wished to stay dead.”

  “Hah! Defeated by their own schemes!” Noetos cried, and hugged her.

  Anomer saw the girl stiffen for a mere fraction of a second, then relax into his embrace.

  Just like Father to accept this at face value.

  And just like you to reject it, came Arathé’s thought.

  Do you believe it? Is this Cylene returned from the dead?

  Her answer was equivocal. Many strange things have happened since this adventure began. Wait and we will see.

  Oddly, the sea had not yet returned to the empty bay. Anomer had no idea what had made the sea vanish, though he could imagine it draining into a great chasm caused by the shaking. Perhaps the water had gone for good, turning the bay into a wide plain.

  “We’re so pleased to have you back,” Noetos said, tears in his eyes, and widened his embrace to include his children, beckoning them closer with his hands.

  Arathé put her arms around her father and Cylene, but Anomer pretended he hadn’t noticed.

  “Noetos!” cried a voice in the distance. “Are you there? Are you alive?”

  It came from somewhere in the forest. Anomer began sprinting in the direction of the sound even before the others had disengaged themselves.

  “Be careful!” came the voice, closer now, as Anomer struggled over the strewn vegetation. “There’s a hole… ”

  And there was. An enormous gash slashed across the forest floor like a wound in flesh, perhaps twenty paces wide and—he leaned forward to check—unguessably deep. A blood-red glow rose from the depths. They have wounded the earth!

  On the far side stood his father’s Padouki friend, Cyclamere.

  “Is there any way across?” Anomer asked him.

  “I do not think so. I have travelled much of its length and have found no easy crossing point. This chasm describes a great circle, a mirror of the hole hovering above us. You are marooned on a fortress surrounded by a moat.”

  Anomer pointed down into the chasm. “Is that where the water has gone?”

  The Padouki shook his head. “I think not. Were water to drain into this unnatural fissure open to the hidden fires below, the steam would rise into the heavens, obscuring even the sun. The sea must have found some other inlet to the subterranean depths.”

  Noetos and the others lined up beside Anomer, their mouths open at the sight of the cleft in the forest. Cyclamere repeated his observations.

  “Anywhere narrow enough to cross?” Noetos asked.

  “Two places I thought might be worth the risk,” his mentor replied. “It is at its narrowest right here, but still much too broad for a leap. Far easier to place a few of these fallen trees across the gap.”

  “Ah,” said Noetos, clearly embarrassed he’d not thought of the obvious.

  Anomer reflected on the meaning of this. We’re always looking for the magical solution. Our good sense has been usurped by the commonplace occurrence of the supernatural.

  “It would still be safer for Heredrew to perform his levitation trick,” Duon commented.

  “Where are Heredrew and the others?” Noetos asked Cyclamere. “Have you seen them?”

  “They may still be at Corata Pit,” the Padouki said. “Wondering where we are. Or perhaps the earthquake has provided them with problems of their own.”

  A faint rumbling shook the ground. Everyone froze, waiting to see if it built into another quake. The hole still hovered overhead, an eye alive with mischief, and Anomer wondered just how strong the gods had become. Would the next shake be even greater? The gentle rumble failed to build in intensity, but neither did it die away.

  Cyclamere hissed through bared teeth. The urgency of the sound drew Anomer’s attention: the warrior’s suddenly concerned gaze was fixed on something behind them. As Anomer began to turn, the skin on the back of his neck prickled. He knew his history and the aftermath of the Great Aneheri Quake came swiftly into his mind.

  There it was, a dark smudge far out in the bay.

  None of the others reacted with anything like the fear rising in his chest. Likely they knew nothing of what sometimes came after an earthquake at sea. Cyclamere knew, of course: he had been Father’s tutor, after all. Father clearly had not listened to his lessons.

  “You need to run,” Anomer said to Cyclamere. “Get as far inland as you can.”

  “How can I leave when my lord is in danger?”

  “Danger? What danger?” Noetos said, head swivelling between his son and his old teacher. “What are you talking about?”

  “What are you going to do?” Anomer continued. “Fend it off with your sword?”

  “I cannot run away. Better to face it here.”

  The vibrations had become, if anything, a little stronger.

  Noetos grabbed at his son’s arm. “What are you talking about?”

  Anomer shook him off. “If nothing else, friend, you must warn the others
.”

  Cyclamere nodded once, sense penetrating his stubborn loyalty. “Aye.”

  Only now did Anomer address his father and the others. “A wave is coming. When the earth shakes under the sea, it sometimes creates ripples in the ocean. They become waves when they arrive at the coast.”

  “A wave? Ripples? What are you talking about, lad? We have waves all the time.”

  “Not like this,” said Cyclamere. “This one will be as high as a tree and will break upon us with the full weight of the ocean behind it. The shaking you feel is the wave coming.”

  “Very well,” said Noetos, clearly disbelieving. “What can we do about it?”

  “Nothing, Father; just as the gods planned, we are trapped. Separated from the magicians, exhausted from overuse of our power, surrounded by this chasm. Please, order your servant away. Let someone at least be saved.”

  “It’s just a little wave,” Moralye put in, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand as she stared out to sea. “What damage can it do?”

  “A great deal,” said Cylene dreamily. “What is coming is neither little nor a wave. It is a surge of the sea, a sudden raising of its height, and it keeps coming long after you think it must stop, battering everything in its path. Then, after it ends, the surge withdraws from the land, pulling that which it has destroyed back out to sea with it. It is irresistible.”

  Could no one else hear the relish with which she spoke?

  “How do you know this?” Moralye asked her.

  “My father told me stories,” she said. “Stories of the sea and the great surges that came after the earth shook. I thought they were just stories, but it seems today we are fated to discover they are far more.”

  Cyclamere extended his hand across the unbridgeable gulf. “If I hurry I can bring branches,” he said. “Search on your side for timber. I do not want to see you swept away.”

  For a moment Anomer considered wrestling with the fallen trunks around them, felled by storm and quake, but the wave was much closer now. Far too close. Even had they begun dragging a log the moment they had seen the danger, they would not have made it in time.

  The broad expanse of white foam surged up the beach towards them.

  Cyclamere turned and ran, shouting his frustration.

  The wave drew closer.

  “Gather around me,” Duon said, his voice barely audible above the roar of the water.

  There was a thump like the collision of stars and the wave fountained up into the air. It has found the seaward side of our moat, Anomer realised; perhaps the wave will vanish into the earth. But the hope lasted only a second. The water leaped across the chasm, the power of the ocean far too strong for a mere crack in its bed.

  “Open yourselves to Arathé!” Duon shouted.

  Anomer heard the southerner’s urgent voice in his mind more than with his ears. He opened his connection to his sister and instantly sensed her searching for power.

  The water surged towards them.

  Birds fell from the sky, insects stopped crawling, things smaller than insects died as Arathé drew essenza from every living thing around them. She reached further, and further still, into the silent and dark world of inanimate objects. Every object contributed something; Anomer felt his sister pull power even from the approaching wall of water.

  The wave struck.

  It surged around the small group cowering together without touching them, slipping past and over them as though unable to penetrate a barrier. And barrier it was: Arathé had hastily erected a wall of pure gold essenza between them and the wave.

  Anomer turned in time to see the wave strike the chasm behind them. The fissure swallowed the water, but was not large enough to take it all and within moments the wave surged up the other side and out into the forest. The ground rumbled and shook and steam swirled around them.

  Still not safe, Arathé sent, though her thoughts were triumphant rather than worried. The ground continued to shake, and suddenly began to rise. Another quake. Anomer threw himself to the ground.

  Relax, brother, this is part of my plan.

  The whole of the fortress—the land surrounded by the circular fissure—rose a pace, two paces, five paces, and the water battering at them drained away. Within moments they found themselves on a large island in the midst of a roaring, foam-cloaked sea.

  I thought I might be able to do this, Arathé sent, exulting. Our teachers at Andratan talked about the new magical discoveries being made, and told us that sorcerers didn’t have to draw power from within themselves to work their magic. But they wrongly assumed that power would have to be stolen from others. That’s why I refused to cooperate with them: I hated the idea of taking power from others. So they took me and made me a source of power for others. But they were wrong! Everything has power.

  So the more powerful the weapon the gods throw at us, the more we can draw our protection from it?

  Yes, she sent. Yes. That is exactly what it means.

  Then we’re safe.

  Yes.

  Anomer had not realised how heavily his constant fear had been weighing upon him until it lifted.

  The wave roared in the distance as it crashed through the forest, tossing fallen trees around like kindling wood. The steam from the deep fissure condensed above them and began to fall as a light drizzle.

  How long will we have to wait here? Anomer heard Duon ask Arathé.

  The sea will drain away soon, Taleth. We will wait a while to see if any further waves come, then return to the others at Corata Pit.

  That sounds sensible. Thank you, Arathé.

  The jealousy Anomer felt at this exchange was foolish—it wasn’t Duon’s fault he now had an intimate link to Arathé—but his sister had called the southerner by his first name. Anomer hadn’t even known he had one. Moreover, the mind-tone she had used had been friendly, to say the least of it—as had his.

  Foolish to feel it, he knew, but feel it he did.

  The group waited through the night for the water to recede. Five enormous waves came past their circular island during the hours of darkness, the second and third larger than the first, the fourth and fifth tapering away.

  The waxing moon rose some time in the small hours, and Anomer bumped into Cylene while returning from relieving himself over the side of Arathé’s magical island. The unguarded look of rage on the girl’s face frightened him, though within moments it was replaced by her usual friendly, slightly licentious grin. He almost asked her what she was so angry about, but then remembered his suspicions and said nothing.

  At least Father isn’t sleeping with her yet. But how much longer could Noetos resist her charms? She had draped herself around his neck like a scarf while they partook of their scanty meal of fresh fish, but he’d not said much to her—or to anybody.

  Indeed, few of the group had felt like talking. Cylene tried to make conversation, but no one offered her more than perfunctory replies. Moralye and Arathé spoke in low tones for a few minutes, then settled down to sleep.

  The silence, Anomer considered, was fitting, given how the hole in the world still hovered above them, marked at night by an absence of glittering stars, perfectly mirroring the island on which they stood.

  COSMOGRAPHER

  CHAPTER 11

  MENSAYA

  LENARES HATED UNCERTAINTY.

  There was no telling how Torve would react to the questions she intended to ask him. Perhaps he would become angry and tell her he wanted nothing more to do with her, and that would make her sad. Just when she had found someone she was comfortable with, whom she talked to with ease, she feared she could lose him. Of course, he might show sensitivity and understanding. He might even promise to remain with her, though she doubted this. The doubt made her miserable.

  A frightening thing, not being able to control someone else. Lenares’ world depended on being certain of those close to her. Mahudia had always responded swiftly to her needs, and over the years Lenares had devised ways of getting what she wan
ted from her foster mother. But Torve owed her nothing. No duty, no responsibility, leaving no way Lenares could make him do what she wanted. Worse, she had come to realise that even if she could manipulate him, such behaviour would work against her happiness in the long run.

  If only she knew more! On the afternoon they had left Corata Pit and made their way north she had spent an hour or so talking with the Undying Man, Kannwar. She had asked him to tell her whatever he knew about the effects on a man of having his worm cut off as well as his balls. At first he’d refused, claiming that he didn’t want to distress her, but he was lying, behaving “diplomatically.” Eventually, though, she pestered him into telling her. Lenares usually got what she wanted.

  In some respects Kannwar knew entirely too much. The procedure was called castration, he told her, and had been a not-uncommon practice all across northern Bhrudwo until about five hundred years ago. Apparently begun as a punishment for enemies defeated in battle, its practitioners believed it allowed them to possess the sexual energy and prowess of their victims in addition to their own. Lenares had frowned at this, barely believing that people would be so foolish, but his words had the ring of truth about them. Castration also resulted in a more practical outcome, Kannwar had added, in that it justified the conquerors’ taking of the enemy’s women. What use were they, after all, if their emasculated men could no longer service them?

  Such talk angered Lenares. It made women seem like child manufactories. Kannwar himself didn’t believe this, he’d said when she’d snapped at him, but her anger did not lessen. It was so unfair that men did things and women had things done to them. If women had the outies and men had the innies, things would have been different, Lenares was sure.

  Kannwar had laughed at her outrage. Sexual politics, he had called it, and advised her to abandon her concerns. “Women are what we make them,” he had said, his long face carrying a faintly distasteful look, not caring or even noticing Stella’s frown as she walked beside them; she a woman once queen of an empire the equivalent of his, answerable to no man bar her husband, and, according to what Stella had said, seldom even then.