Boy Who Stole Time

by Mark Bowsher

  The cubicles weren’t too much to look at but the water was nice and warm. Krish closed his eyes and drank in the feeling of absolute serenity. He didn’t care that there was no power shower, like in his bathroom at home, to do all the work. He didn’t care that Ilir’s idea of a bath meant standing up and ladling water onto yourself. He didn’t even care that he had to balance precariously on the slippery, uneven tiles and that he’d have to struggle to get his battered old shoes back on without getting mud on his feet. He could close his eyes and not see monsters. He was washing all the sand, all the grit off his body and he felt as if all the terror of his encounter with the Goonmallinns was being swept down the plughole.

  ‘Balthrir!’ he called out to his friend in the next cubicle. ‘This is the best bath I’ve ever had!’

  ‘Bloody good, innit?’ his friend called back.

  They picked up a few supplies from the town, including a flask of ground moonstone and ginger boiled in whisky and ice-cave water.

  ‘To steady the ol’ nerves,’ said Balthrir, followed by a heavy sigh and a widening of the eyes. Krish had forgotten that she’d never crossed The Scar because of her fear of water. ‘You’ll ’ave to ’elp me.’ Balthrir’s eyes were weak and hopeful, looking across at him from the small outdoor café where they were eating lunch. She was scrunching up a section of her midnight-blue robe in one hand. A tight fist, like she resented the robe itself. She had never looked so vulnerable. ‘I’ve ’elped you a lot, mate. Your turn to ’elp me now.’

  ‘Sure, I’ll, er… hold your hand or—’

  ‘Yer ain’t ’oldin’ me ’and, yer twonk!’ She was back to being normal Balthrir for a moment. ‘Just… yer know… be there and all that.’

  Krish didn’t really know, but he was determined not to let her down. He’d do whatever he could.

  Balthrir managed to put off the journey across The Scar for one more night and they headed back out of the town to the palmery where they’d spent the night before. They sat in the quiet under the clear night sky, enjoying the glow of the five moons, Mother and Sons, Krish with one eye on a shooting star sweeping slowly across the stratosphere. They talked a little, looking out at the stars shining between the leaves of the palm trees, of all sorts of odd things as their minds unwound. After surviving so many life-threatening situations they were finally beginning to relax. Balthrir wanted to know if shoes were any different where Krish came from and this then somehow led to them talking about ships, which fascinated Balthrir as the sea on Ilir was comparatively small so they barely had much use for anything other than a few dugouts and the ferry-raft. So many things intrigued her, such as the fact you had to lick letters to seal them rather than using wax, and Krish couldn’t believe how mundane things such as cabbages seemed to completely bewilder her as well. They spoke a little of royalty too.

  ‘What are kings and queens like where you’re from, eh?’ asked Balthrir.

  ‘Er, I dunno,’ said Krish. ‘They… seem very important but I’m not really sure what they do. I just know that when one dies it’s their eldest son or daughter who takes over.’

  ‘Well that’s ’ardly fair!’

  ‘How does it happen here?’

  ‘Simple. Once the king or queen snuffs it, the first one to shove the crown on their fat ’ead takes over.’

  ‘Well that doesn’t seem fair either! Anyway, you’d have to be pretty strong to pick the King’s crown up in the first place. It’s massive!’

  ‘The crown weighs nothing to the King, mate,’ said Balthrir, her eyes shut already, and in moments they were both asleep.

  CHAPTER 26

  THE SANDS OF TYRAAH

  The morning was fresh and bright, the sky bluer than it had been for the whole time Krish had been in Ilir, but a breeze whipped around the shacks of the port of Marraghir. This unsettled Balthrir as they queued with hundreds of people to board the ferry-raft. She was worried about the wind rocking the raft but Krish was certain that the raft, being the size it was, soon to be packed with a whole stadium’s worth of people (plus the fact it was being pulled by a rope), would be pretty stable as it crossed the ocean.

  The breeze died down as they crowded on board. They had to sit at the back in the corner, the water itself within spitting distance (which didn’t make Balthrir very happy) just so they could run the twine off the end. Carrying the twine through the town had been a nightmare. People kept tripping over it, despite Krish’s best efforts to hold it nice and low under some sacking Balthrir had acquired that morning (‘legally’ she’d added in hushed tones before looking around rather quickly). The queue had been the worst and they’d had to keep to one side so as not to knock anybody into the water.

  Balthrir managed to tie the twine to the edge of the raft, running a length of rope through the middle so it would unwind as they went. Krish tried his best to reassure her as she lay on her front, her head and arms dangling over the edge to tie the twine in place, shaking at the sight of the water below her, but it just caused her to tell him to ‘Shut up!’ The way the water bobbed the raft up and down was really unnerving her.

  ‘Balthrir,’ said Krish, ‘stop being such a bloody coward!’

  Balthrir turned to him in shock. ‘Blimey, since when did you stand up to, like, anyone?’ But she knew the answer. From the moment he had demanded that Halfa (who he hadn’t realised at the time was Balthrir) untie him and take him away, Krish had begun to feel a little more self-assured.

  ‘I’m just trying to help,’ said Krish. ‘Go on: sit up and look out over the water.’

  ‘If yer wanna ’elp yer can shut yer trap!’ spat out Balthrir before doing as he suggested.

  Once they were underway Balthrir began to relax a little, although she looked quite apprehensive. The fact that there were no barriers around the edge of the gigantic raft didn’t help. She jumped every time someone fell in (which happened quite a lot, often deliberately as a child pushed a brother or sister in, simply making them laugh as they swam back to the slow-moving raft).

  The atmosphere on board was very relaxed, jovial in fact. There were no chairs. Everyone just sat on the floor or on sacks of rice or vegetables, gathered together in little circles playing cards, chatting or even cooking with fires on small metal plates that prevented them from setting the wood of the raft alight.

  The air over the water was welcomely cool on such a hot day and breezed past them as the mighty rope hauled them across The Scar. Balthrir didn’t look too comfortable; as if she was waiting for something to happen, for something to go wrong. But nothing did. She didn’t really want to talk and answered most of Krish’s enquiries with ‘Yeah’ or ‘Probably’. But she did keep breaking away from her staring competition with the middle-distance to check that he was still there. And it seemed that that was all she wanted. To know that he was just next to her and for some time he enjoyed just sitting there beside her in silence.

  The sea was calm and rather flat, gentle little waves brushing past them. A few dugouts with fishermen and women aboard passed them and the fisherfolk waved but apart from that there was very little to see on the vast expanse of water.

  The sun began to sink into the water. Ahead they could see the blue of the sky fade to pink then the orange of the setting sun, filling more of the horizon than the local star in Krish’s world would, and partially obscured by a row of palm trees. Land. They entered a delta rich with islands of green. There were many fishing boats here, some small, some big. Krish saw a farmer leading a cow into the water. The cow was not enthusiastic at the prospect of bath-time and mooed loudly as the farmer splashed her and rubbed the mud from her coat. In the distance a number of towers, long and pointed with globes near their pinnacles, stuck out above the palm trees. Farther back was a line of lights, suspended in the air.

  Just before dusk they reached a large island clad in greenery with a winch visible through the trees. Everybody piled off and there was a flurry of activity to load people onto small boats to taxi them into the main t
own further along the river. A smaller, faster boat made Balthrir feel uneasy. She clutched the invisible ball of twine over the side and spent the whole journey looking like she was about to empty her insides of the lunch she’d refused to eat. Fortunately they weren’t on the water long. The oarswomen and men were rowing with furious speed to get to the city before the sun was completely submerged. Instead of lighting torches they managed to row for five minutes in relative darkness, with a little illumination from the twinkling cityscape up ahead. The light emanated not just from along the banks but also from a raised area now looming over them. There was also noise, a hubbub drifting across the water from the city.

  They disembarked and were loaded into large wicker baskets which were somehow being hoisted up to the raised area unsupported. Krish then noticed that a wizard with a staff stood on the higher ground, using his magic to lift them up into the air. This would never happen in Al Kara, where wizards were sideshows. Here, it seemed, magic was an accepted part of life. They rose through the canopy of palm leaves and Krish beheld the city of Alvaris clearly for the first time. Lit all around by the yellow light of floating candles was a large rock formation, like a mountain with the top half sliced off. Some houses were built into the rock face but most buildings were on top of the rock. Ornate towers and minarets. Houses entirely of glass, tinted every colour of the rainbow. Tall buildings with no windows at all, plain and soulless.

  They stepped out of the basket into a swarm of people. Balthrir had to conjure up an enchantment to make them smell of rotten vegetables to keep everybody away so they’d be less likely to trip people up with the twine.

  ‘Balthrir?’ said Krish, not bothering to be quiet as he wouldn’t be heard over the hubbub and no one was listening to anyone they weren’t already talking to anyway. ‘What if somebody here has the other Salvean blade? You said there was another one out there and, well, people seem pretty loaded here!’

  ‘Perhaps,’ answered Balthrir, also not keeping her voice down. No one around them had batted an eyelid. ‘But it’s a million-to-one shot, mate. And the twine is blinkin’ invisible! They’d ’ave no idea what it was even if they did stumble upon it!’

  ‘And if they have something else that could cut through the twine?’

  Balthrir shook her head so hard Krish was concerned that she might do herself an injury. ‘It’s made o’ pure sunlight. Nothin’s cuttin’ through that ’less they’ve got a Sal— oi! Watch it!’ she added as a troupe of smartly dressed and arrogant-looking wizards shoved past them. ‘Unless they’ve got their own Salvean blade,’ Balthrir continued, keeping her voice down as much as she could while remaining audible, ‘then nothin’s cuttin’ through it.’

  Balthrir was becoming increasingly irritated by the crowds so she dragged them into the next guesthouse they saw. She paid up and they headed straight to bed while the housekeeper prodded the strange invisible line that had appeared along the wall and seemed to lead to the new guests’ room.

  The room was tidy and orderly. The walls were dark green and the bedsheets and rugs on the floor were dark red. Fresh flowers of matching red and green were presented in pots by the window. The comfortable-looking beds were big enough to fit three or four people in each.

  ‘Blimey!’ said Balthrir, eyeing the room with concern. ‘This place looks expensive! Perhaps I’ll crack out a bit of m’itchin’ powder in the mornin’ to see if we can get a discount.’

  Balthrir forgot about this idea as soon as she lay down on one of the massive beds with its heavenly soft mattress and fell asleep pretty sharpish. Krish stayed up a few minutes longer. He reached out of his bed and unfastened his pack. The large, dark bowling-ball-sized pearl from the Night Ocean glinted in the meagre amount of light that had made it into the room from the crack in the curtains. Then he pulled a carefully wrapped package out of the pack, unwrapped the jar and basked in the glow of the feather of the FireHawk that was still gently burning without showing any sign of ceasing. He smiled, re-wrapped the jar and placed it back in his pack and drifted away from the waking world for the night with a broad smile upon his face.

  *

  In the morning they explored the city. The buildings here were mainly made of stone, several storeys high, and the streets were, well, actual streets, ordered and practically clean. People’s clothes looked tidier and almost designed, rather than just some rags that were sewn together and passed down several generations until they fell apart. All was shiny and new (compared to the rest of Ilir, anyway).

  ‘Alvaris,’ declared Balthrir. ‘Kingdom of the rich. Got this new craze round ’ere. Called busy-ness or summink. It’s like bein’ in charge o’ stuff but not actually goin’ out there and seein’ how it all works. Yer just like hide in some buildin’ talkin’ about how yer know what yer talkin’ about for so long that nobody gets a chance to realise that yer ’ave absolutely no bloody idea what the ’ell yer doin’.’

  Krish remembered Uncle Ravi trying to explain what he did in the office he worked in. It had all sounded very confusing, so he could understand what Balthrir was talking about. Everybody around them seemed to be either rushing about in remarkably clean robes that looked like they’d never been worn before, paying absolutely no attention to anybody else, or they were lying about in the streets looking as if they and their clothes had never had a wash in their lives and as if they wished somebody, anybody, would notice them. The latter of these two groups held signs asking for money, played instruments or performed unimpressive magic tricks, only to be widely ignored.

  A dishevelled-looking man with dark thick curly hair and a battered old suit was carrying a basket full of scrolls and making a very good job of spilling them all over the street, picking them up and then spilling them all over again seconds later. People shouted at one another as they passed but none stopped to commit to a full argument. One shouted something like ‘Ilaea!’ at Balthrir as he passed. There was quiet anger in her face. Krish chose to start a conversation before she became too distracted.

  ‘So, this is the place you were talking about?’ asked Krish. ‘Where there might be call for wizards?’

  Balthrir’s lip curled up on one side in an unpleasant way. ‘Nah. This ain’t the place for me. It’s flippin’ crackers! Nobody’s talkin’ to nobody! Can see why market traders never set up shop ’ere; nobody’d pay them any attention! Besides,’ she said with a heavy sigh, ‘millions o’ miles away from the folks.’

  There were no palmeries to sleep in here and the parks were guarded, so they stayed the night in another guesthouse on the opposite side of the city. Balthrir tried to get them a decent-sized room by offering the owner a free sample of her itching powder (‘What d’yer mean yer’d ’ave no use for it? In’t yer got long-term guests, ’angers-on yer just wanna got shot of? Perfect for the likes o’ them!’) but with no success. There was just one room available that they could afford and it had only one bed. That night, Krish lay awake, across the bed from Balthrir. He felt odd, yes, but as if this was the one place in the world he wanted to be more than anywhere else. Somehow, though, he just couldn’t help feeling unbelievably nervous. He was so sure she was awake too, all the way over there on the other side of the bed.

  They left Alvaris in the morning. A basket flew them down the eastern side of the city to the green valley of palm trees below. Rather than being a sheer cliff edge like the western rock face, the eastern side was like a gigantic wave of stone curling round, almost touching the ground.

  As the days went by Krish began to realise that his relationship with Balthrir had changed since they’d escaped the Goonmallinns. They were far more comfortable with each other now. What would once have been awkward silences were now just pleasant periods of quiet where they no longer had to speak to communicate. ‘Thanks,’ she said to him one morning, for no apparent reason, her eyes smiling, and then the corners of her lips twitched hesitantly for a moment. Maybe ‘smiled’ was the wrong word, he thought. Her eyes almost glowed and she looked into him like she
’d known him for a hundred years.

  *

  The city of Alvaris was far behind them now. The mountains sprang up all around, craggy, fearsome structures of rock looking down on them. Balthrir pointed to Hudaffrid, Ugethrid’s twin and the second highest mountain on Ilir (although this one was firmly planted on the ground rather than stuck up a tree).

  They climbed through a mountain pass and from his vantage point high above the world Krish looked ahead and saw a tiny dark dot on the horizon and realised that the Black Palace was now in front of them rather than behind. A shudder of fear crept through him. Although they had the pearl, the feather and were well on their way to tying a bow around the world, Krish still felt sure that the King would be able to refuse him the Myrthali. Balthrir banished his doubts with a dismissive wave of her hand over her shoulder.

  ‘Yer said yer ’eard bird singin’ when yer left the palace?’ said Balthrir.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Krish.

  ‘Then trust me. Yer’ll be fine.’

  Although Krish was really enjoying Balthrir’s company, he wished she’d get out of the habit of only explaining things when she could be bothered, not when it would be handy for him to know. What did the sound of birdsong have to do with anything?

  As they continued to unfurl the twine they became aware of an odd sensation. It felt as if someone was tugging on it. Had it been discovered? Had it been untied from the tree they’d attached it to back on the Great Plain? Krish and Balthrir stared at each other in puzzlement as the tugging continued for a few more moments and then stopped.

  ‘Could it be all those people in Alvaris?’ suggested Krish. ‘Or… I dunno, wind on The Scar? Or a ship trying to cross over it?’

  ‘I guess,’ said Balthrir, unconvincingly. She pulled the twine hard and it didn’t budge. ‘It’s not been cut. So if someone’s found it they’re not the person with the other Salvean blade.’