The Temporal Void (ARC)

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Occasionally, as he cast his sorrowful gaze downwards, he could see some souls linger. Distraught at their death, they yearned to remain among their loved ones. Unseen, unheard, the frail spectres grew wretched and dissolute as those they adored above all remained ignorant of their presence; the single comfort of knowing lost to false hope. Their grief was overwhelming, threatening to drown him if he immersed himself among them for any time. So he looked up again, at those who cast themselves longingly into the sky, wishing beyond reason that he could catch the faintest hint of the song sung from the heart of this universe. If he just strained, reached out…

  Edeard woke with a start, sitting up in bed, his skin slick with sweat, heart pounding, gulping for breath.

  Beside him, Kristabel rose to put her arms around him. 'It's all right my love,' she cooed. 'Just a dream.'

  'Every night,' he moaned, for that was what he'd dreamed or been shown since his fall from the Eyrie tower. 'Will this plague ever leave me? I'd willingly rejoin my old dreams in exchange for this curse.'

  'Old dreams?' Kristabel ordered the ceiling to brighten. Perfect white light revealed the maisonette around them.

  The sight of it, the normality, immediately made Edeard feel foolish. 'I'm sorry. I always had dreams. But these!'

  'The souls again?'

  'Yes,' he said weakly. 'I see them rising, and I can't hear the song they're following. So I try and listen, and…' He shook his head in annoyance. 'Sorry.'

  'Stop apologising. I'm just worried for you, that's all.'

  'I'll be all right,' he flopped down, and glanced at the narrow window. 'What time is it?'

  'Hours before dawn.'

  'Huh! It might not be a dream then. I always visualize the city at night.'

  Kristabel rolled on to her side, where she gave him a concerned look. 'Can you farsight any souls right now?'

  'Not sure.' He closed his eyes, and stretched out his farsight. The dark shadows of city buildings slipped through his perception, fizzing with the sparkle of slumbering minds. Makkathran's all-encompassing thoughts were easy to discern, pervading the structure of everything, but strongest beneath the streets and canals, down amid the levels where pipes and tunnels and strange threads of energy wove around each other. They were faint, elusive even, but tangible enough. Of the souls which he knew must be there, he could find no trace. 'Nothing,' he said in defeat.

  'It's not a contest. You haven't lost anything.'

  'But I've sensed them twice.' Edeard stopped to think. 'I was close to the body each time, very close.'

  'What are you saying? You want to go to a hospice?'

  'No,' he lied.

  Kristabel gave him a suspicious glance. 'Humm.'

  'I wonder if I should see the Pythia again.' He didn't like the idea. Their last meeting hadn't been particularly pleasant for him. During the gentle questioning that had gone on for what seemed like hours, he'd felt awkward and defensive. The authority she possessed made him feel like a small child who'd committed some transgression then been hauled up before a loving but stern parent.

  'What would she be able to teach you?' Kristabel asked, with more than a touch of scorn.

  'Nothing, I suppose.' After that unsatisfactory meeting, he'd carefully read the Lady's scriptures again. It was the first time he'd read them properly since Sunday lessons at the Ashwell Church with Mother Lorellan. All he'd ever done then was learn passages by rote, never knowing their meaning.

  Re-reading the scriptures was something of a revelation. They were hardly a religious text, rather an imprecise diary written in a very flowery prose, followed by what amounted to her thoughts on how to lead a better, more fulfilling life. Only the Skylords bound the two sections together. Vast airborne creatures who sailed sedately between Querencia and the nebulas; a migration whose purpose was unknown, but served to guide human souls to the Heart. However, according to the Lady, only souls that had achieved what she termed 'fulfilment' would be taken.

  Reading through her homilies, he couldn't help but think of an elderly spinster aunt telling her relatives about how to be a good family. Be polite, be nice, be considerate, be charitable. Or maybe life was just very different back then - though he suspected not, judging by the diary part. At least that was interesting, though it only began as Rah caught his first glimpse of Makkathran from the mountains. All the Lady ever said of the ship that brought them to this universe was that Rah was leading people away from the turmoil which followed their landing. Beyond that, the past was never mentioned. She was admiring of Rah's perseverance as he broke through the crystal wall, making the three city gates. The wonder they all experienced that first time they sailed into the port seeing a fully built, yet deserted, city where they could make their home. How, as they floated along Great Major Canal that day, a Skylord was soaring above the towers in Eyrie. How it agreed to guide the soul of a dying friend to the Heart which lay beyond Odin's Sea.

  The Lady went on to describe the founding of the city Councils, and the emergence of the Guilds, and how other refugees from the fallen ships sought them out, while others remained outside the walls and grew jealous. The petty and bitter disputes between city and country over whose law should prevail She never saw the end of those quarrels, the final treaty to enshrine the rights of both provinces and city; and her disappointment in the seemingly interminable squabbling was reflected in her later writing; the years when the Skylord visits became less frequent. When she asked them why they were abandoning humans they told her it was because people were incomplete, their souls too immature to be taken to the Heart. The Lady felt shame for her species. Humbled that they would wither and die before the Heart accepted them, she devoted the remainder of her life to elevating humanity, to installing a sense of purpose and dignity into life through her teachings. Along with a now-ailing Rah and the last few Skylords to visit Makkathran she cajoled the city into creating the central Church in Eyre. When it was done, when she saw the embryonic Church swelling up out of the ground, she joined Rah on the top of Eyrie's highest tower, and let her soul slip from her body, so they could both embrace the guidance of the Skylord and travel into the Heart together.

  No Skylord had been seen above Querencia ever since.

  'That's good,' Kristabel said. 'I don't want you to turn to people like her for answers. They're the past. If you're the person I think you are, the one I believe in, you make your own decisions.'

  'Wow.' Edeard stared at her, almost intimidated by her impassioned expression. 'I'll do my best,' he promised.

  'I know you will. That's why I love you.' With that she cuddled up against him, ordering the illumination down low again. 'And don't think I haven't noticed what you've done to this maisonette, either,' she added.

  'Er…'

  'It's all right. I haven't told anyone. This is Makkathran, even you should know by now never to reveal your full abilities.'

  'I do.'

  'Until you have to, of course.'

  'Right.'

  She grinned in the darkness. Rather surprisingly, Edeard fell asleep again. This time, with her beside him, it was untroubled by dreams or visions of any kind.

  * * * *

  In the morning, Kristabel got up as dawn began to produce a glow in the sky over the Donsori Mountains. She dressed quickly, and kissed Edeard goodbye as he lay drowsily on the bed.

  'I'll see you in a little while,' she said quietly, and slipped out. Edeard followed her with his farsight as she walked off down the street. Her gondola was waiting in the pool that formed the top end of Flight Canal and the bottom of Arrival Canal. A ge-eagle from Jeavons station circled overhead, watching carefully, as she was taken to her family mansion. She would be let in to the ziggurat by a small side door, and appear at her family's breakfast table pretending she'd spent the night in her room, and every relative would maintain the pretence.

  Stupid etiquette, Edeard grumbled to himself as he started to dress. His mauve cotton shirt had sleeves which barely came over his shoulders,
while the trousers were the short ones he used for playing football in the park, ending well above his knees. The cobbler had shaken his head in dismay at the shoes Edeard commissioned; complaining they were little more than lace-up slippers with thick soles. But the strange clothing was perfect for Edeard's now-daily run, as he'd known it would be.

  This morning he threw on a light sleeveless sweater to counter the early chill air, and jogged steadily away from the tenement. With so few people on the street he made good time to Brotherhood Canal, then ran along the path on the Ogden side until he was level with the militia stables where he cut across the meadows to the crystal wall itself. Golden morning light streamed through the crystal, creating a glowing barrier which curved slightly above him.

  As he pounded onwards he felt strands of farsight wash over him, tenuous at best, his observers were trying to avoid being noticed. There were a few blatant scrutinies, accompanied by mental snickering. His routine had attracted a great deal of interest when he started it. The first couple of weeks had even seen kids running alongside as he left the tenement every morning. That casual amusement and mimicry had ended as he kept faithfully to his routine. On those early days after finishing his mild post-fall convalescence, he'd barely been able to last half a mile before having to stop, red faced and heart pounding. Now he could do forty-five minutes with ease.

  Acena, the Culverit family doctor, had approved, commenting that she wished more people would take their health seriously. Others in the city had been less charitable. Edeard didn't care. Never again would he be so pathetically out of condition that he couldn't chase someone up a tower in Eyrie.

  Once he was back level with Arrival Canal, Edeard headed back across the grass as the stable hands began leading the remaining militia horses on their morning walk. He crossed at the green and yellow slab bridge back into Jeavons as the district started to come to life, with shops and traders busy preparing for the day's commerce. As always he stopped at the bakery on the corner of Pharo Street to pick up some fresh croissants before heading back to the tenement.

  Inside the maisonette he stripped off and handed the sweaty clothes to his ge-chimps for laundry. Beside the pool was a shallow oval-shaped recess in the floor, with a sheet of crystal curving round two thirds of it. Edeard stood inside, and told the room to let the water out. A thick spray gushed down on him from holes in the ceiling. He rubbed some soap on then ordered the water to cool slightly so he could rinse himself clean.

  These days he actually preferred the novel mini-rainfall arrangement to bathing in the traditional pool. It was a lot quicker, and left him feeling refreshed even after the run. After the comment Kristabel made last night, he was wondering if he should extend the crystal sheet to make it big enough for two. Sharing might be a lot of fun.

  * * * *

  He met Kristabel outside her mansion as arranged. The two of them took a family gondola across the city to Ilongo district, disembarking on the North Curve Canal, opposite the North Gate.

  'You're happy,' Kristabel said as they started walking. She was wearing a modest azure dress with a simple white lace hem, and a broad green hat to shade against the warming sun. Her thick hair hung down her back in a single fluffy tail.

  'The caravan families are very good old friends,' he replied, 'and I really don't have a lot of those.'

  They picked their way carefully along the tracks that wound across High Moat heading for the caravan pens. There was a lot of traffic that morning, with carts laden with produce, herds of farm beasts driven along, and terrestrial horses cantering in and out of the various wooden stable blocks. They had to step aside smartly for carriages carrying nobility out into the Iguru Plain at considerable speed.

  'That's bad driving,' Kristabel said indignantly as the third one sped past, cloaked in a mild seclusion haze. 'I recognize the crest, it belongs to the Ivesol family. I bet it's Corille off to their pavilion on Korbal Mount. She's started seeing Jamis on the sly, the third son of Upral; you know, the head of the Tarmorl family. And she's the eldest daughter; there's quite a dowry involved. I've heard her father say he wished his family copied ours, for she'd make a better District Mistress than her brother will ever do as Master.'

  'Really?'

  Kristabel's eyes narrowed in suspicion. She rapped her knuckles on his arm. 'Don't be a beast. These things are important. Those two families haven't been allied for over a century and a half.'

  'I'll try and remember. Remind me, which district belongs to the Ivestols?'

  'Lisieux Park.'

  'Okay.' As he recalled, the Park's Master was a waverer in Council, leaning towards the current Mayor. He wondered if a family alliance with the ship-owning Tarmorls would tilt the Master towards Finitan.

  'It helps,' Kristabel said slyly.

  'What does?'

  'That the Tarmorls support Finitan.'

  'Ah.' Edeard grinned sheepishly. What would I do without her?

  He wondered yet again if it was the right time to propose. It had been weeks since their break at the beach lodge, and he'd done his utmost to make time for himself and Kristabel at every opportunity. Yet his terror was now that she'd just think his only concern was time. It wasn't. There wasn't a minute of the day that went past without him thinking of what a life they could have together as man and wife.

  He sighed as he scooted round a cart piled dangerously high with cages of geese. There must be some event or action that would convince her of how genuine he was, how much he'd thought it over, and still couldn't see a life without her. Maybe if I just say that?

  But then what if it's not good enough? Oh Lady, why do you do this to me?

  Not that her scriptures were any help. The closest she ever came on matters of the human heart were: To look into each other's souls and see yourself reflected there is the true sign of a blessed union.

  The only trouble was, with the Lady being so old, every time he recalled a scripture he heard it in Mistress Florrel's voice.

  Talk about a passion killer.

  The pens along High Moat summoned up a real wave of nostalgia. This was the first part of Makkathran Edeard had ever experienced, he remembered being overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of people and animals sauntering along the tracks. The noise and dust was exactly the same as that day; if anything the traffic was thicker now. Three caravans were on their way out of the North Gate, hustled along by the Travel Master's apprentices who were trying to keep everyone moving at a decent rate and avoid jams at junctions between the various tracks. Instructions were shouted and longtalked, adding to the good-natured commotion.

  Two caravans had arrived first thing that day. Stragglers were still lumbering along in their big wagons, drawn by bulky, stolid ge-horses. Edeard and Kristabel fell in behind one as they approached the pens. Assessors from several merchant houses were already walking alongside them, small ge-chimps curled up on their shoulders. Edeard remembered the little creatures with a fond smile. How the caravan families hated them; scampering up the crates and cages, examining produce with their oversize eyes and exceptionally sensitive noses, hunting for blemishes that had been strategically positioned out of sight.

  Edeard and Kristabel arrived at the three pens which Barkus had been allocated, and stood for a moment looking at the wagons. Five were new, but Edeard recognized every one of the remainder. O'lrany's cart with pigs peering over the rear; as pungent as ever, though the O'lranys themselves always claimed they could smell nothing. The wagon of dark jarash, with its intricate inlays of claret-coloured wood that Golthor chiselled in each winter. Olcus, inspecting the axle of his wagon, while his three young children ran about in gleeful pursuit of a whistling loop. Olcus who gave Edeard a strange look, then craned forward as if not quite believing the tall young man in a jet-black constable's uniform.

  'Edeard!' the man laughed joyfully, and flung his arms wide. 'You backward village boy. By the Lady, look at you!'

  Edeard grinned and foolishly stepped into the embrace, only to have the man
's powerful arms almost crush him in welcome. He'd been slightly apprehensive at how they'd greet him, but Olcus immediately dispelled all his apprehension. The rest of the families were hurrying forward now, calling out salutations. He was hugged, kissed, had his hand shaken and his back slapped.

  'My boy!' Barkus exclaimed.

  Everyone cleared away, and Edeard put his arms around the old man. For once he was glad of the skill he'd acquired in the city at shielding his thought. Barkus had aged, disturbingly so. His white whiskers were thinner than before, the thickset body appeared almost frail. He walked with the aid of a stick, necessitated by a pronounced shaking in his knees. But his waistcoat was still a colourful extravaganza of scarlet and topaz, with thin silver piping.

  'Good to see you, sir,' Edeard said.

  'We have heard so much about you,' Barkus said. 'I couldn't believe it at first. Rumours of the Waterwalker travelled far and wide among the provinces, but we never connected them to you. And now look at you.' His hands plucked at Edeard's jacket. 'Wearing a corporal's epaulettes, no less. Congratulations.'

  'Thank you, sir. And yourself, how fares the caravan?'

  'Pha!' Barkus raised his stick in disgust. 'Look at this wretched thing. A stupid fall in the snow last winter, and my leg snaps like glass. Our doctor has forbidden me from riding, I must sit passively on the wagon's seat while my sons lead us through the mountains. The Lady tests me sorely with so much indignity.'

  'You look well.'

  'Ha. Liar! But I forgive you. Now then, there is someone with us who is eager to meet you.' The old man grinned mischievously as he turned towards his splendid covered wagon, calling eagerly with longtalk. Edeard took the moment to turn and beckon Kristabel forwards. She walked timidly through the caravan families, unused to being completely ignored - but of course none of them knew who she was. Edeard had been waiting for this moment for a long time, for some reason he couldn't quite fathom it was important to him that Barkus and Kristabel approved of each other. He held her hand and turned back to Barkus, not really seeing the blue and white clad figure stepping out of the wagon. His smile was proud as he opened his mouth to begin the introductions.