“Know when this is, Corinthos?” The Tempus’s voice asked from all around me. “Any idea?”
“The Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disney World?” I asked as I glanced about. There was a faint scent under the tang of the salty air. Rot. Like rotting flesh kind of rot.
“I said ‘when,’ not ‘where,’ you imbecile. You’re the son of a god of time and you can’t even pinpoint when you are. You know, Corinthos, I set out to kill you because I don’t like you, but the more I talk to you the more I realize I am doing the universe a favor by eliminating you.”
“You want to do the universe a favor, start using breath mints, because damn, I can smell you all the way down here.”
The Tempus ignored my comment, but his voice was harder when he spoke again. “The year is 1591. You are on board the Hoard. Ring any bells?”
I Glimpsed backward. Another gift from my father is the ability to see details or events about a person’s or object’s past. Most of the time, a Glimpse is randomly triggered, but I can Glimpse back on my own life at any time I want. I remembered the Hoard from classes when I was training to become a Caulborn agent, and my eyes widened when I recalled it. “Oh shit.” Pretty much every kid learns about Roanoke Island when they’re in school; it’s one of those fun little mysteries that history teachers love to toss out. About five hundred years ago, there had been a colony of settlers on Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. When supply ships arrived at the island in 1590, the sailors found the settlement utterly deserted. There was no sign of violence or plague, absolutely no trace of 118 people who had lived there.
The only clue they found was the word ‘Croatoan,’ which had been carved into a nearby tree. The sailors took this to mean that the settlers had relocated to nearby Croatoan Island. The truth of the matter was that the settlers had uncovered an ancient artifact from a time before humanity. That artifact housed the spirit of a malevolent being called Croatoan who had been banished here eons ago. Many of Croatoan’s followers had been sent to Earth as well, and he had mentally dominated the settlers into building ships to search for them.
To avoid having to deal with the inconvenient human needs of food and rest, Croatoan had horribly transformed the settlers into wights, and commanded them to sail these ships around the world. They had sailed for nearly two years, eventually locating several of Croatoan’s people before being dispatched by the crew of the Undaunted, the Caulborn’s first naval vessel. Led by Captain James Franklin, those brave sailors made it their mission to stop Croatoan and destroyed the Hoard in what must’ve been a spectacular naval battle that would’ve more than rivaled any Johnny Depp movie. In the end, Franklin sank Croatoan in the deepest part of the ocean so he wouldn’t bother anyone again.
“Hang on a second,” I called. “Wheatson said time was being devoured from both ends. How is it I’m here? How can this time exist?”
I heard the Tempus golf-clapping.
“So you’re not as stupid as you look, Corinthos. That’s something, I suppose. What you fail to realize is that Chroniclers are masters over time. We can choose the times that can and can’t exist. And now, I’ve just recreated a tiny pocket of the past just for you. And while it’s a horrific past, one that will end with you being eaten alive, I suppose you can take some solace in that you’re in no danger until nightfall.” I heard fingers snapping and then time accelerated. The sun sailed across the sky; it was like watching a movie on fast-forward. In just a few moments, hours had passed. The sun slipped below the horizon, and time shifted back to its normal speed. “Oh look, it’s nightfall,” the Tempus laughed.
Asshole.
That’s when I heard the moaning.
“So many cursed souls, Corinthos. Damned for all eternity to search for creatures that didn’t belong in this dimension. This batch will eventually be dispatched by the precursors to your Caulborn, but that’s not for another few months or so. And if you interfere here, if you kill them, then they won’t be there for those deluded guardians to stop. Which means you’ll change history. Even someone with your limited faculties must understand the ramifications of that.”
The first of the cursed townsfolk shambled onto the deck. He looked human enough, if you could get past the glowing red eyes, ragged flesh, and the six-inch claws protruding from his fingers. Wights. I hate these things.
Okay, Wights 101. Wights are the strongest of the mindless undead. The order goes zombies, ghouls, and then wights. They’re insanely strong and fast, and while they don’t think like they did when they were alive, they do have a set of animal instincts that are both clever and lethal. Every now and then, a wight gets awakened, restoring its human intelligence, but not its morals. That kind of wight is a living nightmare.
The Tempus was right, changing the past would totally screw up the future. Right now, I might not have a future to go back to, but I’d seen Back to the Future so many times that I knew how one seemingly insignificant event could change everything. Okay, time to weigh my options. I started out with telekinesis, and threw the wight back through the hatch.
The hatch burst open again before it’d had a chance to shut. Half a dozen wights scrambled out, their eyes glowing red in the fading daylight. My eyes darted around. The deck of the Hoard was about thirty feet wide. The sail was limp on the main mast, and the ropes tethering it to the boat’s railings creaked as we rocked on the waves. The history books hadn’t said how many wights Franklin and his crew had fought, but I took some solace in knowing that there was no way this boat was big enough to hold over a hundred of the damned things.
I wrapped myself in a telekinetic bubble as the first of them launched itself at me. It had been a man once, and was still clad in the ragged remains of what I thought of as a Pilgrim’s outfit. Dark cloth, rusty buckles, and a crumpled hat would’ve made for a comical effect if it hadn’t been so intent on ripping me to pieces. Its teeth and claws sparked against my shield as it lashed out at me with such ferocity that I took an involuntary step back. I jumped as a second wight lunged at me from behind.
Stupid. I’d let them surround me. I took some comfort in knowing that my faith reserves weren’t depleting; that would let me hold this shield indefinitely while I tried to figure a way out. Thinking about that caused me to check my faith reserves out of habit, and my mouth went dry when I realized they were depleting. I slammed my palm into my forehead. I wasn’t outside normal time anymore; I wasn’t in my time, but time was flowing. I reached out to my followers. Listening to their prayers to me would refill my reserves.
Dead silence.
Oh, the Urisk were there, I could sense them over in their realm, the Bright Side, but they wouldn’t worship me for another few hundred years. I was a long way from panic, but I was a pretty good distance from calm, too. I let out a slow breath as I altered the shape of the shield, making it into an open-topped cylinder. That would use less faith while I worked this out. Another wight came from the hatch. This one strode upright like a man. Its clothing was impeccable, and it carried a copper sphere the size of a large coconut in its hands. When it came on deck, the other wights froze in place and bowed their heads to the deck.
“You have power,” the wight spoke. No, wait. The wight didn’t speak. The voice was coming from the sphere. “One such as you could be of tremendous benefit to my cause.” The wight handler adjusted the sphere so it faced several of the other wights directly. “Stand down.” My attackers skittered backward, still in the kneeling position. “You are in no danger while we parlay,” the voice said to me.
I let the shield drop, but was ready to bring it back up at the first sign of trouble. I needed to get back to a point in time where the Urisk worshipped me so I could recharge my faith reserves. Actually, I just needed to get the hell out of here. The voice continued. “My name is Croatoan. I am a visitor to this world you call Earth. Several of my companions and I we
re sent here to be ambassadors of peace and prosperity, to help the denizens of this planet usher in a new age of enlightenment.”
I felt something crash against my mind and then vanish. The main requirement to becoming a Caulborn operative is that you’re born, surprise, with a caul. There are loads of superstitions around what cauls are good for, but the true benefit is that they block attempts at mind control, which Croatoan had just tried. Croatoan must not have realized he hadn’t snared my mind, because he kept going. “Unfortunately, I became separated from my companions. With the help of the good people of Roanoke Island, I search for them now. You would be a welcome addition among my crew.”
“Yeah, thanks, but I’m going to pass on that one. How about you just let me off somewhere, and we go our separate ways?” I could imagine Megan groaning. She was the diplomat. Me, not so much.
There was a pause. “You possess a strong mind, human. And your speech is unlike that of the others I have encountered. You have an air of elsewhere about you. Most interesting. Perhaps we could come to a different sort of agreement. I have need of a strong lieutenant, a man who could serve as a liaison to humanity for my companions and me. I can offer you wealth and powers the likes of which you cannot imagine. You could become like unto a god to these people.”
“Buddy,” I said with a smirk. “I’m already a god. You’re a disembodied voice living in a bowling ball, and you’ve got a half a dozen wights for playmates. I’m not impressed. In fact, you’re kind of pathetic.” I didn’t understand what the big deal was here. Croatoan wasn’t that much of a threat. Maybe good Captain Franklin had exaggerated his historical account of the taking of the Hoard.
“You should not scoff at such an opportunity,” Croatoan said. His voice was cold now. “And I will not make the offer a second time. If you are not with me, you are against me. And those who stand against me are destroyed.”
I snapped my shield back up and glanced at the wights. The main historical point that couldn’t be changed was that Captain Franklin had to fight wights and sink Croatoan. Would it really matter if he only had to fight two wights instead of six? I didn’t have the faith reserves to screw around here, so I tried to maneuver into a spot where I could blast three or four of them with one hit. The ship lolled under my feet and the sky darkened. Black clouds billowed from nowhere, blotting out the stars. A wind that smelled of dead fish blasted across the ship’s deck, knocking me to my knees. Raindrops the size of quarters pelted my head and shoulders.
Croatoan was laughing. “What’s the matter? Haven’t got your sea legs? I do enjoy manipulating the atmosphere of this planet; it’s so delightfully volatile.” The wights were unfazed by the sudden change in weather. Whatever Croatoan was doing, he seemed to be able to exempt them from it. Their eyes glowed like coals as they stalked toward me. It was like watching a pack of demented hyenas moving in for the kill.
“Screw this, I’m no antelope,” I muttered, and blasted three of them with a telekinetic wave. They sailed over the railing of the ship. I heard three distinct splashes and smiled. The other three wights rushed me, pressing against my shield. I sent lances of fire into them. Not enough to kill them, but enough to send them staggering back and away from me.
I’d expected Croatoan to start raging or cursing me for injuring his pets. Instead, he was laughing. Lightning shattered the sky right overhead, leaving jagged purple lines trailing across my vision. The ship lurched and I slid across the deck. I would’ve gone right over the side if my shoulders hadn’t slammed painfully into the railing slats. My head was hanging over the side of the ship, and I had a clear view down to the violent waters below.
That, and about four-dozen wights climbing up the side of the ship.
I scrambled back from the edge and hauled myself to my feet. Croatoan’s laughing increased. “Oh, there wasn’t enough timber on Roanoke to build a vessel large enough for all of the settlers. So the rest of them just cling to the bottom of this craft as we sail. Wights are much better travelers than humans, you see. They don’t need food, water, or even air.” I heard scratching sounds and spun to see another massive group of wights clawing their way over the other side of the ship. Their eyes glowed with malice, and another blast of lightning let me see just how black their teeth were. Suddenly, I didn’t think that good Captain Franklin had exaggerated at all.
There were too many of the things to fight. I snapped my switchblade out and cut one of the rigging ropes tied to the railing next to me. I imagined myself swinging out over the swarm of wights and then climbing up to the crow’s nest, where hopefully I’d have a better vantage point and gain a few precious moments to think. Unfortunately, it turns out all those black-and-white Errol Flynn movies my mom used to watch when I was a kid use Hollywood Physics instead of the real thing. The rope was longer than I’d expected, and instead of sailing up and over the wights, I crashed right into the center of them like a wrecking ball. They swarmed over me, their claws cutting into my leather bomber.
I sent a wave of telekinetic force straight down, blasting myself up like a rocket. I latched onto the crow’s nest and hauled myself up. Croatoan was still laughing. “You prefer us to lay siege to you? Ah, you humans, always drawing things out. No, we will end this now. Up, my children.” The wights sprung from the deck into the rigging ropes like undead spiders. Their ascent was happening too fast.
Not much time. I couldn’t sink the ship. Hell, I couldn’t even incinerate the wights without changing history. I ran a hand over my face, and the oversized watchband from the Entropic scratched my cheek. I snapped my wrist and looked at the device. Its display cycled through several modes, the time, my current location, and then I saw the tachyon concentration meter. Wheatson had mucked around with that setting when we were trapped in the warehouse. I wasn’t exactly sure what it did, but what did I have to lose?
I tapped the watch face and lowered the tachyon concentration by twenty-five percent. There was no gale-force wind this time, but there was a strong breeze. As it swooshed past me, the specters appeared in my vision. The ship’s wheel turned in opposite directions at the same time; the sails billowed in different directions, and the wights approaching me advanced in a dozen different ways.
Possibilities. I was seeing possibilities. Every single possibility that one moment might have. It was like having a forward-facing Glimpse for every outcome of every decision. I lowered the tachyon concentration by another twenty-five percent. More specters, and something else; a faint shimmering toward the bow of the ship. I dropped the tachyon by another ten percent. My head teetered on the brink of vertigo, and my vision fuzzed for an instant. The number of specters on the boat increased; the ones I could see became more defined, and new ones, ones that represented far more remote possibilities, ghosted into view. The shimmering sharpened, revealing a funnel of spiraling blue sparks of light. The Tempus’s voice came clearly from that point. “That’s not possible!” he exclaimed.
As the wights lunged at me, I dove from the crow’s nest and telekinetically guided myself into the funnel, down through the spiraling light and back onto the solid stone floor of the Chroniclers’ Citadel. I pulled myself to my feet and faced the Tempus. Eighty of him. My tachyon meter was still sixty percent lower than normal. The faintest of the Tempus’s specters fell to their knees and raised their hands as if asking for mercy. Others that were slightly more substantial turned and ran. Those more substantial than that began calling out orders. The three most defined attacked. Another blue ball of time energy hurtled toward me. With my tachyon-vision going, I easily dodged it.
The Tempus tipped his head at me quizzically and then tapped on the face of his watch. The air around me warmed, and the specters in the room disappeared. Crap, he’d just negated my tachyon vision in the same way Wheatson had earlier. I didn’t have time to monkey around with my own watch right now, so I threw a ball of fire at the Tempus instead. The man ha
stily tossed a time ball into the flames and they vanished. I charged forward and lunged at him, but he blurred away. One second he was in front of me, the next, he was thirty feet back.
There was a popping sound and fire scorched my back and legs. I yelped in surprise and hit the ground, rolling to put out the flames. I managed to smother them before they did any damage.
“What you fail to understand, godling, is that time is the most powerful weapon in the universe. Stronger than steel, than bullets, than your pathetic psychic powers. I captured your own fire and moved it forward in time; then I made sure you’d be in just the right spot where the flames would appear a few moments later. Manipulating time is clever, Corinthos. You are not clever. You are a child who throws psychic tantrums. You lack control and focus, and it is for those reasons that I will end you now.” He was before me again in a flash; he must’ve been manipulating time to make himself faster. Another ball of time appeared in his hand as he grinned wickedly at me. “I believe it’s time to give you to the Mentem.”
“I’m sorry, the what?”
The ball suddenly engulfed me; the bastard must’ve accelerated it so I couldn’t dodge. When the blue swirly lights cleared, I was in a desert. The sun bore down on me from a clear sky. It must’ve been over a hundred degrees. Ahead of me, a deeply tanned man sat bare-chested on the ground. He wore a faded pair of jeans and nothing else. In just the few moments I’d been here, sweat began streaming down my face, but no perspiration adorned the stranger’s brow. His eyes were a bright green, practically glowing in the sunlight. A lone palm tree stood behind him, seeming to stand guard over a tiny pool of water.
Sync: Caulborn 1.5 Page 3
