Time Streams

by J. Robert King

  “The new students are arriving today,” Karn said, changing the subject. “Barrin has been out collecting them the last three years.”

  Karn glanced up at the rafters of the building. The academy was at last complete. Malzra had ceased his new building designs. He now poured all his energy in the arsenal he was creating to eradicate the Phyrexians in the gorge. He spoke of the battle as a “dress rehearsal for global conflagration.” It was his new mania. The minds of all the scholars and students were trained on the task. One team had developed a battery of long-range ballistae, which were stationed in a ring around the site and were employed in a day-and-night peppering of the fortress. Another crew had devised a set of catapults, which delivered powder bombs as quickly as they could be concocted. Rivers had been dammed and diverted away from the gorge to empty the Phyrexian fish hatcheries and starve them.

  Meanwhile, every student spent hours every day assembling the delicate and complex clockwork falcons Malzra had designed. He would do just about anything to slay Phyrexians.

  On the other hand, in these ten years, what had he done to save Teferi or Jhoira?

  Reaching in delicately, Karn grasped the tube that ran from Malzra’s feeding contraption into Jhoira’s stomach. Bracing himself, the silver man hauled slowly on it, withdrawing the hose. It emerged with a jolting, sucking motion.

  Karn set the tube aside and said gently, “Come with me.” He lifted her limp form in his arms and, with reverent step, carried her out the door.

  It was a long walk past the towering buildings of the new academy and through the western gate. No one stopped him, though everyone stared. Karn was well known among the students and scholars, the ever-present builder and guardian. Jhoira was known too, the never-present ghost of the former island. In all accounts, they were dear friends, and half of those who glimpsed the pair believed she had died at last, and he was taking her to be buried. The other half assumed Karn was acting at the bidding of the inscrutable master.

  Karn carried her away for his own purposes, and hers. Bypassing the killing time pits and pinnacles, the silver man bore Jhoira through the thick forests of Tolaria, across tan shoulders of sandstone, and to the secret niche she had kept on the western edge of the island. Her things were still there as she had left them ten years ago, as she had left all of Tolaria ten years ago.

  “It is time for you to come back.” Karn said heavily.

  He brought her to the sunny ledge of sandstone where she had loved to stand and gaze out to sea. He climbed onto the stone and sat down. Jhoira was small and cold, cradled in his lap. Salty air rose warmly around them, lifting and gently tossing Jhoira’s hair. The laboring waves below worried stones to pebbles and pebbles to sand. The sky was endless in blue. Mountain ranges of cloud slid in slow panorama through it. On the horizon of the vast ocean, a tiny white sail shone—the returning New Tolaria.

  “You always said you would be here, on this stone, when you would first see your soul mate arrive.” He glanced down at her unmoving form, and desperate sadness welled in his voice. “Wake up, Jhoira. You have slept too long.”

  Only her hair moved, lifted by the caressing breeze.

  “You have to come back, Jhoira. Despite his best intentions, Master Malzra has turned the school into a fortification, the students into a young army. He’s bringing more students, to do the same with them.” Karn gazed desolately at the pounding waves. “You wouldn’t have allowed that. You were the soul of this place. Remember how I was before Master Malzra gave me that dark crystal—what he called an intellectual and affective cortex? Remember what I was like before I had a soul? That’s what the island is like without you.”

  Still, there was only the slow shift of breath in her, the arms and leg in languid repose.

  “Look out on that huge dark sea. You see that scrap of white. It is Tolaria’s hope, returning. I know you have been far away. I know your soul feels tiny, lost amid rolling breakers and heaving gales, but it is our best hope. Return.”

  There came a fluttering at her eyelids. Karn held still, not daring to believe. Jhoira’s breath deepened, and she seemed to settle against him. Her eyes again were closed.

  “If you don’t wake now, you may miss your soul mate.”

  “I’ve…dreamed—” a voice came, as thready and elusive as the wind, “—I’ve…quested….I know how to break through….”

  “What?” Karn blurted stupidly. He peered at her, but she was unconscious again, her figure as limp as the wet cloak she had thrown over Teferi.

  Karn stood up, the woman in his arms. He felt as though he had a heart in his chest, for all the thrumming ache of it. Was she awakening, or was it only the wishful thinking of a silver man given to fantasy? Feeling as though his burden had doubled, he staggered back toward the distant academy. Which healer would know how to waken her again? What if she never woke again? How had he lived these ten years without her?

  * * *

  K’rrik stood in the midst of his deep mutant lab, sunk in the lightless bedrock beneath his castle. For twenty years, the spot had been exposed, no longer shielded by water—ever since Urza Planeswalker had diverted rivers from the gorge to kill off the fish they ate. K’rrik had dammed the far end of the gorge, thereby making a shallow, stagnant lake, where at least scavenger fish could be bred from the waste poured into the pool. For forty years, powder bombs and ballistae bolts had rained down on their heads. Urza must have been clearing the island’s forests as fast as he had cleared Argoth’s. None of it, not brimstone hail, lightning shafts, flood nor famine, had reached this deep cavern and its precious contents.

  In great vats of obsidian, melted and cast for this very purpose, K’rrik’s latest generation of negators was gestating, maturing. Vast, pulpy heads, hideously distorted bodies, arms as sharp and thin as swords, legs that could lope at the speed of jackals, clawed feet that could crush a man’s skull as if it were merely a melon. In two years, this sixth batch of modified negators would be ready to emerge from their vats, full-formed, ready to scale the walls of the gorge and struggle through the vast rending curtain of time that surrounded them. Perhaps they would die, like the five previous harvests. Perhaps they would win through, too weak to hunt down the man at the heart of K’rrik’s torment.

  The man? The god!

  Whatever happened, K’rrik had already harvested their flesh, sampled it, improved on it. The seventh batch would be stronger yet and ready in another decade. In no more than twenty years of Urza’s time, his beautiful garden academy would be overrun with Phyrexians, bred to walk uninjured through the worst time storm, and—this was the best part—bred to be utterly faithful to their master, K’rrik. To them, he was more than an ancient sleeper, more than an indomitable and unkillable warlord. To them, he was a god—

  He was Yawgmoth incarnate.

  * * *

  It had been six months since Jhoira had first reawakened in the silver arms of her old friend. The healers and Malzra himself had been incapable of reviving her, despite their intense and sometimes rigorous interventions.

  Karn’s touch had worked the magic their hands could not, bringing her around again a week after the first occasion. The moment of lucidity had been brief and feverish, but Jhoira again said she had been on a vision quest and had seen a way to “break through.” To this cryptic revelation, she added that she knew how to save herself—and Teferi—then she lapsed back into unconsciousness.

  Since that time, Karn had refused to aid in any more war efforts. He spent his time sitting at her side, gently speaking to her through the long hours of night, telling her anything he could think of, even reading stories of Shiv from the academy’s library. It was just as in the old days, the two of them making a home for each other, withdrawing from the ignorant outside world that recognized and welcomed neither of them. Jhoira responded. Soon she had awakened every hour or so and remained awake for minutes at a time. Karn forced brot
h and bread into her on these occasions, refusing to allow Malzra’s tube to be in her throat anymore. In another month, she had been able to sit up, and her arms and legs had grown stronger.

  At that point, she had called for paper and writing implements and tools. She sketched out a complex machine that even Malzra could not quite visualize—long tubes and pump chambers, with large gears bearing huge sails of gauze windmilling up from wide troughs, a massive turbine driven by teams of workers….When Barrin and other scholars expressed their reservations about the large, costly design, none of them spoke of dream delirium, but the thought lingered in their words.

  Karn gathered a passel of young, bright students from the new batch that had arrived on the island. He brought them to the infirmary and equipped them with whatever tools and resources Jhoira directed. They worked tirelessly, these children, forever guided by Jhoira and her vision.

  Three months later, their creation was wheeled to the center of the slow-time slough where the Teferi monument stood. The creature was also wheeled to the spot, on a cart Jhoira had had modified for the purpose. The whole of the academy gathered as the woman’s young protégés rolled long, flexible tubes out of the slow-time area, over the hills, to a nearby rift of extreme fast time. While they worked, discreet murmurs of dubiety circulated among the crowd.

  Jhoira rolled herself up beside the hulking machine she had first glimpsed in her coma. She rapped on the side of a metal reservoir. The thunderous sound drew the attention of the group.

  As they quieted, she began to speak, “The principle is simple. Water resists time change. We have witnessed this. We survivors of the first academy used the properties of slow-time water to stop aging. So, too, fast-time water is reluctant to give up its pulse. This machine draws fast-time water from a nearby rift that contains an underground spring. The pumps here fill the reservoirs with water. These sets of cranks then power the wind turbine and the gauze sails. The windmill blades dip into the reservoir, drawing water into the gauze. Wind from the turbine blows through the gauze and produces a thick fog of fast-time water. The saturated fast-time cloud will create a safe corridor of passage into the time pit where Teferi is, and safe passage back out again.”

  Silent doubt gave way to silent admiration.

  “Have any organic creatures successfully passed into and out of this fast-time cloud?” Barrin asked sensibly.

  Jhoira’s countenance sagged. “This machine is the result not of artifice alone but of vision—Ghitu vision. We have not tested the device on living creatures, no.”

  “I will enter it,” Karn said, his voice like the quiet rumble of gravel in a breaking wave. “I was made to withstand temporal distortions that would kill any living thing, and I believe in Ghitu vision.”

  Barrin, looking chagrined, continued his objections. “Yes, Karn, but just because you might be able to walk safely into the pocket that holds Teferi does not mean he could walk safely out again.”

  It was Karn’s turn to stare downward in defeat.

  “I will go with him,” came another basso voice, and all attention turned to the bright-eyed and bearded speaker.

  “Master Malzra?” Barrin protested. “It’s out of the question. We need further tests, animal tests, before any of us steps into the cloud—”

  “I believe in this machine,” Malzra responded simply. “It is a fine design. It is the first glimmering that any of us have had about crossing severe rifts. I believe in this machine, and—” he paused to send a mocking wink in Barrin’s direction “—since I am the reason Teferi is caught there anyway, I owe it to the lad to help get him out.” He gestured toward Jhoira’s protégés, clustered in an anxious knot beside the pump mechanism. “Fill the reservoir.”

  Brightening, Jhoira nodded toward the students, who began plying the pumps with all their might. The tubes hissed and gurgled for a time before the first brown splashes of water entered the reservoir. The liquid spattered the base of the trough and immediately evaporated, leaving a residue of dry dust.

  Jhoira was distressed to see this, but Malzra crossed to her and patted her shoulder. “It just shows that the water retains its fast-time properties. Be patient. The pumps will do their work. It is a very good design.”

  Water flooded up from the pump tubes and rushed out along the base of the trough. It shimmered and splashed with preternatural speed, rectangular waves coursing over its rising surface. The students continued their work at the cranks. The water level rose. It seemed to be teeming with fish, so energetic was its surface. It reached the halfway point along the wall of the reservoir and crept upward. The crowd around the tank watched in anticipation.

  Malzra stood beside Karn as the gauze-covered blades began to windmill through the trough. After a complete revolution of the blades, workers manning the turbine began cranking. A hot, unnatural wind jetted from one end of the device, striking wet gauze and sending a thin spray outward. Wind bore the vapor along, spotting flagstones between the machine and the alcove where Teferi huddled beneath his soaked robe. The spray entered the slow-time pit and crept slowly over him. Those gathered near the shrine strained forward to make out any movement across the crouched figure—the shift of wet fabric, the quickening of drip lines. As the crank teams set up a powerful rhythm, the mist thickened into a white wall of fog, opaque and dazzling in the sunlight.

  Jhoira nodded to Malzra.

  He studied the roiling wall of fog before him. It churned in a dizzy dance, the suspended particles of water as vital as they had been in the trough.

  “Well, Karn, it seems creature and creator will step together into this time machine.”

  The silver man stared at the turgid mist. “I can precede you and provide report.”

  Malzra flung away the suggestion with a simple shake of his head. “We go, side by side.” With that, the two strode to the rolling edge of the fog and stepped inside.

  The mist enveloped Karn with sudden force. It felt like the rush of sea water when he had fallen into it from his time-travel cone. He could sense the wet flagstones beneath his feet, but the fog tore over him like a gale. Bracing himself against the rolling blast, Karn reached a hand outward to make certain Malzra was beside him. Through the impenetrable white air, as thick as paint, it was impossible to see the man. The buffeting wind coursed around something solid. Karn’s hand swayed outward and struck another hand, reaching. Malzra took hold of the silver man’s fingers and clung tightly.

  The winds slackened. The violent forces tearing along Karn’s armor plating diminished to a washing flood, and then a gentle caress.

  Malzra’s voice sounded pinched, as though he were caught in a great vise. “The time differential…is leveling…off.”

  Karn responded easily. “You are having trouble breathing.”

  “I don’t need…to breathe,” came the reply. Again the winds softened. “We should walk. We are nearly…time adjusted now. Hours will pass on the outside for every few minutes we spend…in here.”

  Shoulder to shoulder, they pressed forward, in line with the sifting fog. Though time in the fog was compacted, space remained constant. In only five steps, white mist turned to gray, and they could sense the looming corner behind the Teferi shrine. The boy himself lay in a barely distinguishable huddle on the ground. Karn was thankful he hadn’t stepped on him. It might not have mattered. Teferi didn’t appear to move beneath that wet cloak.

  Except that he was panting….

  “Teferi,” Malzra said, the old roundness returned to his voice, “rise. We have come to take you out of here.”

  A small shiver moved through the cloak, and a young, breathless voice emerged, “Who are you? Angels?”

  Malzra laughed, but it was Karn who replied, “It’s me, Teferi. It’s Arty Shovelhead. I’m here with Master Malzra.”

  The boy tugged the cloak back from his head and stared into the thick darkness. He could not have
seen more than a pair of towering figures wrapped in dense fog.

  “What is happening? There was a big lightning bolt out of the clear air, and thunder so loud I couldn’t hear it, and then everything was flying and burning, even me. Once I could get my feet under me, I ran. Everything was blinding and boiling hot, and then all of a sudden comes this darkness and you two.”

  “We’ve come to take you out of here,” Malzra repeated.

  The gray cloud around them suddenly dimmed and grew black. Night had fallen in the world outside. Only the Glimmer Moon, streaking bright beyond the fog, lit the niche.

  Feeling a new urgency, Karn reached down, drew off the cloak, and lifted Teferi by his hand. “Come along. Hurry now. Jhoira is waiting.”

  “Jhoira?” the boy said as he staggered to his feet. “I’ll be glad to see her.”

  “Come along.”

  Monologue

  After the first hour of cranking, I moved among the crowd, organizing the students into teams that took shifts powering the pumps, windmills, and turbines. If the flow of fast-time fog had ceased for only a moment, Urza, Karn, and Teferi could have been torn to shreds on the verge of their time pit. The teams worked all through the night. I fortified them with a number of white-mana spells I know. All the while, Jhoira and I remained beside the machine to monitor it for stresses and possible breakdown. No crises came—as Urza had said, it was a good design.

  The real crisis was one of hope. It had occurred to me after the first hour that Urza and Karn might have been torn to pieces by the time cloud only moments after entering it. They might be lying dead just within the wall of steam, unseeable to us. How long would we keep up our labors? Days? Weeks? Months? I could tell that these same dark musings were plaguing Jhoira, though neither of us voiced our concerns. It was the middle of the next morning before I overheard these questions muttered among the crank teams. It had been a weary and sleepless night for all of us—the fatigue of labor overlaid with the fatigue of welling doubt.