Prince of Time

by Tara Janzen

  And there were the books, the seeming crux of the whole damn matter. One he recognized, the Fata Ranc Le, the Red Book of Doom. The other two were equally as grand, their worn covers marked in gold, their bindings reinforced with silver plackets.

  He looked to Avallyn, and she nodded, reassuring him.

  With due ceremony, Tamisk placed the Gratte Bron Le into the inner chamber, the Orange Book of Stone from the Queen of Deseillign. It was the fourth book, Morgan noted, and there were still two vials of Avallyn’s blood left in the sphere, one for each of the remaining books yet to be placed in the chamber by the mage.

  And there was the vial he’d lifted off Tamisk and put in his own pocket. If he could get the friggin’ Elhion Bhaas Le, he didn’t need her to open the chamber. He could put the Indigo Book in place himself.

  There was some relief with the realization.

  He left the three older vials on the table. Tamisk would be bound to notice their disappearance, and if they weren’t good enough for the mage’s use, he doubted if they’d prove good enough for his. Given what was at stake, it was a chance he wasn’t willing to take.

  While he worked at replacing the copper orbs on their gracefully curved rods, Tamisk unraveled the mystery of Nemeton’s celestial sphere, revealing to Morgan the tower’s secrets. Indeed, their salvation did lie with the books. There were seven. Three were already locked in place, and one was to be taken by Tamisk from the Warmonger’s stronghold—Morgan was profoundly grateful the task to enter Magh Dun had not fallen to him. One was to be given by the dragon conjurer, Rhayne; and the last was to be recovered from the grip of Dharkkum and set into the crystal pillar ten thousand years in the past.

  That task complete, hell would be conquered. The earth would be saved.

  So simple.

  So fraught with potential disaster and the specter of failure.

  With due ceremony, Tamisk put the Gratte Bron Le into place, the Orange Book of Stone from the Queen of Deseillign. It was the fourth book, Morgan noted, and there were still three vials of Avallyn’s blood left in the sphere, one for each of the remaining books. If he could get the friggin’ Elhion Bhaas Le, he didn’t need her to open the chamber. He could put the Indigo Book in place himself.

  There was relief with the realization, nearly enough to overcome the sense of loss.

  Tamisk fixed the last orb onto its rod, and the portal closed on the chamber housing the four books, the bronze rings slowly rolled to a halt. The sudden cessation of the force field left Morgan feeling ungrounded, a feeling ameliorated by the mellifluous sound of Tamisk’s voice.

  Violet, blue, orange, and red, the mage said. The books were part of a rainbow like the rainbow of dragonfire. ’Twas all light, the colors of white light.

  “Remember,” Tamisk continued. “The chamber is timeless, a small tear in the space-time continuum. Like Dharkkum, it exists outside the bounds of physics. The books I set here in this age will be there for you in the past. You have but to fulfill your fate.”

  Morgan felt the weight of Scyld along his back. He knew himself to be an average man possessed of some specialized skills. Before him, Scyld had belonged to Dain Lavrans, a thoroughly unaverage man in any and all aspects, and Morgan couldn’t help but wonder if a mistake had been made on the rim that day, if Dain had been the one meant to fall instead of himself.

  Yet Scyld’s grip had melted away within his grasp, and the sword now fit his hand better than before. Its weight was perfectly balanced, the feel of it more like an extension of his arm and will than a separate weapon.

  Above them, the sun neared its zenith in the desert sky, the light streaming down in shafts of yellow and pale green through a domed ceiling formed of sheets of glass and rusted iron.

  Tamisk glanced upward, and a shadow of wings passed over his face. “The time has come for me to leave,” he said.

  “To Magh Dun?” Avallyn asked.

  “Aye. Sept riders will come for you at dusk and take you to Claerwen. I regret that there is not time for you to journey to the White Palace. As it is, I advise you not to tarry long in the palace of bones. The forces of darkness are gathering, and our world cannot hold forever against their strength. The sooner you are to the past, the better.”

  “And you go south alone?” Avallyn asked.

  A wry smile lifted a corner of Tamisk’s mouth.

  “Nay, priestess. I will have my army. The foul witch, Vishab, has left her precious book unguarded in the black fortress, thinking to keep it safe with her cauldron spells. She travels into the Waste with her master, searching for you, and even now leaves her stench upon the air of Craig Tagen. It is time for me to strike.”

  “What of my captain?” Morgan asked.

  “The boy sleeps in innocence, not enchantment. When his weariness is gone, he will awaken.”

  Another shadow darted across Tamisk’s face, as of a bird soaring, and then another, and another, followed swiftly by the sound of beating wings.

  Morgan looked up. Crows were flocking to the tower, a great murder of them alighting on the domed roof and blocking out the sun.

  “Do not falter when you face Kryscaven Crater,” Tamisk warned. “Set the dragons to their task and they will crack the crystal wall. Let them deal with Dharkkum. Your task is to get the book and bring it here.”

  Neatly said, Morgan thought, though in his experience ’twas difficult to divorce oneself from chaos when it was running rampant all around. The fact would especially hold true with a devouring chaos like Dharkkum.

  “Step lightly in Magh Dun, lord father,” Avallyn said to the mage.

  Tamisk’s smile broadened. “Indeed, daughter, I plan to not step at all. And for you”—he turned away from Avallyn, toward Morgan, his voice low—“I do not begrudge you your token, time rider. Well done, though it changes nothing. She will go into the past.”

  So much for his imperceptible sleight of hand. Tamisk had known he’d taken the vial, and aye, it wouldn’t have done Morgan’s faith much good to have gotten petty thievery past an Ilmarryn mage.

  Tamisk turned and walked away, taking the trail that wound round the oak. As he slipped from the light into shadows, a soft mist began filtering down through the leaves and branches, and Morgan would swear he saw the mage’s cloak shift and ruffle into a robe of silvery gray feathers, would swear the mage lifted his arms at his sides like a raptor’s wings. Then he was gone, and as one the crows lifted off the roof and took to the desert sky.

  Morgan walked partway down the trail and knelt to check the mage’s tracks. Where the soft indentation of boot prints disappeared, the long-toed footprint of a bird began—three toes forward, one back, and a talon mark for each.

  God save him. ’Twas magic even more strange than the sword grip melting in his hand.

  He rose to his feet and found Avallyn beside him.

  “Gyrfalcon,” she said, kneeling and touching her fingers to the track. “We have them in the Lost Forest.” She stood and gave him a quick, nervous glance. “Come along. We should tend your wounds.”

  “Aye,” he agreed. The dragonfire had cut through his clothes and marked his skin, more like a knife than fire. The wounds had bled, but were not so deep. The sleeves of his jacket were in ribbons, though, and his shirt had fared no better.

  “Tamisk has a shelter a little farther on,” she said, starting down the trail. “There will be rasca and food, and mayhaps a tunic.”

  He let her have the lead. The mist deepened as they walked, whorls of it rolling down the trunk of the great tree and spinning out onto the trail. She still wore her priestess robes, a straight white shift falling from her shoulders, her hooded cloak closed at her throat with her gold-and-garnet brooches. After the fires and dragon screams in the pool, and without the melodic sound of Tamisk’s voice, the tower seemed strangely silent, an oasis of otherworldly tranquility. The wind still blew, gentle gusts rising and falling on the air, setting the mist aswirl and rustling the leaves. The trail beneath their feet gre
w mossy, silencing their steps, and Morgan felt as if he and Avallyn were passing through a faerie realm.

  “Listen,” she said, stopping and holding up her hand. “Do you hear it?”

  He did: the rushing of a stream, not too far ahead of them.

  “Do you have any of his skill with magic?” he asked. The man was her father, though Morgan had seen no signs of familial affection. Tamisk hadn’t touched her once, even knowing he would probably never see her again.

  Morgan wanted to touch her. He knew how soft she was, and he wanted that softness in his arms.

  “No.” She shook her head, and her artless tumble of braided and twisted hair brushed across her shoulders. He wanted to reach out and gather a fistful in his hand, to draw her near... and kiss her. “I was raised as a priestess in the north and was not brought to the White Palace until I was half grown, too old to become a mage’s apprentice, as my mother well knew.” She continued walking, and Morgan moved closer to her, keeping pace.

  “So you weren’t coddled as a youngster?”

  “Coddled?” She gave a gasp of near laughter. “No. Most assuredly not.” She paused for a second, glancing at him, then asked, “Were you?”

  “Oh, aye,” he admitted. “Most assuredly yes. My father was a hard man of small holdings and great pride, but he was not unkind, and he was ever proud of his sons.”

  “You have brothers?” She stopped walking again and looked up at him, her attention fully engaged.

  “I had one, an older brother, Damian.”

  “You must miss him terribly.”

  “Not as much as I miss others,” Morgan admitted, and at the furrowing of her brow, offered a reluctant explanation. “There was no love lost between us once I was grown.”

  “And before?”

  “Before that we were a family much given to hugging and bussing, especially me mum.”

  “Bussing?”

  “Kissing,” he said, and watched a soft color wash into her cheeks. She was nervous, aye, but as aware of him as he was of her.

  “What happened to put you and your brother at odds?”

  A fair question, he thought—a fair difficult question.

  “His betrothed took a fancy to me. ’Twas as simple as that.” And all he was going to say.

  “Not so simple among brothers,” she contradicted him.

  “No.”

  “Did you kiss her?”

  “A little,” he said after a long, uncomfortable moment, hoping he wouldn’t have to get any closer to a lie than that.

  “Hmmm,” she murmured, turning back down the trail and giving him no clue at all about what she thought of his confession.

  Morgan caught up to her in two strides. “I didn’t seek her out. She took me by surprise, or I might have avoided what followed.” ’Twas a weak defense, but the only defense he had for the betrayal that had cost him his brother’s goodwill.

  “Aye.” She nodded sagely. “I can imagine that she was the one seeking you.”

  “You can?” She could hardly have surprised him more.

  “Aye. Any woman would be tempted. You’re very like an Orion slave boy. Or so I thought in Racht’s canal.”

  He’d been wrong. There was plenty of room for surprise left. Morgan didn’t know whether to be offended or intrigued.

  “Orion slave boys are considerably younger than I am,” he corrected her.

  “You were young when your brother’s betrothed came to you, weren’t you?”

  “Sixteen... and easily led astray,” he added for honesty’s sake. “But I am not so young now, and far less easily led anywhere.”

  “ ’Twas dark in the canal and difficult to tell your age.”

  “Not that dark.” He laughed.

  Her blush deepened, and Morgan found himself waiting expectantly for what she would say next.

  “Aye, ’twas dark, but not too dark to see your face, and it took no light to feel your strange power.”

  “Strange power?” That sounded ominous, and not at all what he wanted her to feel with him.

  The stream came into view then, with Tamisk’s shelter on the other side, a bower of leafy branches with the trunk of the oak as its main wall. A great wooden chest was pushed against the tree next to a pallet on the ground. The top of the chest held a small brazier, a ewer, and a few dishes and pots, some with food. Dried herbs hung in bunches from the branches making up the bower’s roof.

  “At first, I thought it was the wine,” she said, crossing the plank bridging the stream. Morgan followed, and when they stepped into the shelter’s mossy glade, she stopped and spoke again. “Orion slave boys are known to possess powerful carnal charms.”

  He stood very still, letting the implication of her words sink in. The “carnal charms” of Orion slave boys were legendary. No mere catamites, they were sorcerers of sexual pleasure, trained in a secret colony somewhere in the Orion group before being sent out to be indulged in a life of ease and plenty by obscenely wealthy patrons and matrons throughout the galaxy—but only for a few years, after which they returned to their mistress on Orion and became monks.

  Morgan had met one once, at a party in the Old Dominion where Ference Lieq’s wife had been slumming with her prize. Even though Morgan was a lover of women, he’d recognized the young man’s beauty as exceptional, and he’d recognized the nearly painful aura of sensuality surrounding him, for to look upon the slave boy was to want him. Even Morgan had felt his allure.

  “Have you ever actually seen an Orion slave boy?” he asked, somewhat incredulously.

  “Once, in the northern desert,” she said, and his amazement was complete.

  If he’d had that kind of effect on her, she was an innocent indeed to have kept her hands off him.

  “Not every slave returns to the Orion colony to be ordained into priesthood,” she continued. “A few prefer to remain free, and thievery is not an uncommon trade for them to take up as their glamour fades.”

  Well, that put him in his place. “So you thought I was a rogue slave who had lost his charms?”

  “Nay. For what I felt, I feared your charms were still strong.”

  She’d spoken softly, but Morgan heard every word.

  “Avallyn...” He brought his hand up to cup her face. Tendrils of mist wove through her hair, twining her blond and ivory braids with ribbons of dew. Her skin shone, begging his kiss.

  There had been no mistake on the rim of the weir. This was his place, here with her in this enchanted forest of Llynya’s and Tamisk’s making. No other man had been meant to be by her side. Not ever. ’Twas him and only him, born ten thousand years in her past.

  He started to lower his mouth to hers, but she turned her face aside.

  “We cannot, dread lord. I—I cannot.”

  “Avallyn?”

  She shook her head. “I know the Red Book said we were to be as one, and I know I kissed you, but my mother forbade it, and here in the Hart the reason has become clear.”

  To her, mayhaps, he thought, perfectly confused. “What reason?”

  “I can’t think when you kiss me, to a disconcerting degree,” she confessed, as if ’twas the worst consequence imaginable.

  “Then all is as it should be,” he assured her. “Too much thinking is the ruination of kissing.”

  “Aye, and kissing leads to the ruination of a priestess.” She pulled away, and he reluctantly let her go.

  “Avallyn, I—”

  “I’m not a child, lord,” she interrupted, turning her back to him and pacing the small glade. “I know about sex and mating, and the bonds of pleasure. The Ilmarryn of the Lost Forest are not shy, and I’ve seen what happens to priestesses who forget themselves among the fey folk.” She brushed against a branch, and a leaf let go of its twig and drifted down to nest in her hair.

  He watched her pace, watched another leaf follow the first, and told himself not to panic, that everything would be fine. All he had to do was say something warm and wise and gently honest about how he
felt. Then she wouldn’t be afraid. For ’twas fear he was hearing in her words.

  “They grow wild and go to live in the canopy of the forest with their sylvan lovers,” she continued, “their vows forgotten. Claerwen forgotten.”

  She could be his sylvan lover, Morgan thought, and for certes he’d happily live in the trees to be with her.

  “ ’Tis a tragedy,” she said.

  He thought not.

  “My mother feared such an end for me, I think, and not just that I would be debauched by a drunken tech-trash thief with no lineage. Your lineage has been proven by the dragonfire, but she would not have me forget my own.”

  He was still a little confused, but she’d just given him a clue, one he should not have forgotten: Palinor, her death-witch mother of the northern dunes.

  “Your mother has no part in this,” he told her, utterly certain of at least that much. “She has no place between us. I saw as much the night you gave me Tamisk’s potion.” ’Twas true, no lover’s lie, and she had to know it as well as he. “Whatever power Palinor wields, ’tis not power over this.”

  “Nay.” She stopped her pacing and faced him, and he saw that she’d been crowned by leaves, their petioles twined into her braids in a verdurous fillet. “There is no White Lady blessing for this union.”

  Poor chit, he thought. The very tree was giving her to him, as had her father, and still she clung to her mother’s beliefs.

  She was his. He had no doubts, but she still had to be won, this elfin desert-witch he loved.

  Aye, and there was a startling thought. Love. He dragged a hand back through his hair. Of course he would fall in love with a hundred-and-twenty-five-year-old virgin whose mother had forbidden her to have a physical relationship with the man who was her fated destiny, even though she’d waited ten thousand years for him to show up.

  “Come. Let me tend your wounds,” she said, stepping toward the bower.

  “If we need a blessing, we could take your father’s,” he suggested, following her, the voice of practicality and reason. “I think he married us back by the scrying pool. Or at least I think he married me. Mayhaps you are still free to choose, but I am yours.”