Arrows of Time

by Kim Falconer

  ‘I am accompanied by two others.’

  ‘Really? Where are they?’ She studied him as if they might suddenly jump out of his pockets.

  ‘I don’t know where they are, at this point.’

  ‘You lost them?’

  ‘Temporarily.’

  ‘Why in the world did you let that happen?’

  ‘It wasn’t intentional, I assure you. We were separated somewhere along the way.’

  ‘And you left Shane to wait?’

  Jarrod parted his lips but didn’t respond. The Caller closed her eyes again, motioning to him to be silent.

  Jarrod was uncertain whether she was immersed in the inner landscapes of her mind or searching further afield. That she had gone elsewhere was obvious, the withdrawal of her energy palpable. She disappeared, leaving her body like a place marker in a book. Jarrod suspected that she was scanning far beyond her own thoughts. He waited until she returned. Her eyes opened slowly, green gems reappearing. ‘That can’t be,’ she whispered.

  Jarrod gave her a quizzical look.

  ‘Never mind. Your companions aren’t here. I’ve checked.’

  ‘With respect, Caller, I do mind. Can you tell me where they are, if not here on Tensar?’

  ‘I cannot.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘They are beyond my sight.’

  ‘But you know something about it.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Can you please share it with me?’

  She stared until he wanted to look away, a new sensation for him. ‘I’ll make you a deal.’ She smacked her lips. ‘You attend to my concerns first and then we’ll unravel yours.’

  So that’s your game, is it? Hide and seek? You best hope you’re not the one who has hidden Rosette and Drayco from me. ‘Fair enough,’ he answered aloud, his voice smooth. ‘I came to help, if I can.’ I’ll play your game, as long as you play fair.

  She didn’t respond to his mind speech; he had kept his shield up. There was more to this woman than she let on, he was certain of that. He crossed his arms. ‘How can I assist you, Caller?’

  She glanced towards the entrance, holding out her hand for silence. ‘Not here.’

  There were two guards standing sentinel, silhouettes in the afternoon light. Another pair stood at a side doorway, armed with polished wood javelins and metal blades. They were so still they looked to be carved from hardwood; smooth, refined and determined. A breeze wafted through the door, causing the red tassels on the javelins to dance, but nothing else moved, not even the rise and fall of the guards’ breath.

  The Caller snapped her fingers, and one of the guards broke free. His heels clicked on the tile floor, tapping out a rhythm that echoed to the ceiling.

  ‘Escort this traveller to the tearoom, will you, Jayk? See that he’s comfortable.’ She turned to Jarrod. ‘I won’t be long.’

  The guard bowed, then gave Jarrod a brief nod. ‘This way.’

  Jarrod followed him through a side entrance and across a covered breezeway. It was lined with dwarf palm trees in large clay pots and baskets of ferns hanging from the eaves, their long air roots nearly touching the ground. From this elevation he could see much of T’locity, a colourful city with clean, wide streets. They were dotted with yellow-flowering trees, branches reaching up to the red-tiled rooftops. An open-air market was buzzing with trade. The scent of leather, spices and timber floated towards him and in the distance he could see rugged, snowcapped mountains. It was a pleasant contrast to the black swamp in both landscape and aroma.

  ‘In here,’ the guard said, gesturing to a doorway.

  The room had high windows and only the one visible door. The ceiling, like the main hall, was open-beamed, giving a spacious feel and keeping the air cool and fresh. The room was lavishly decorated with bright rugs, wall hangings and overstuffed pillows set around a low table. It felt comfortable, as if friends shared meals here—a surprise after the austere atmosphere of the receiving hall. He sat with his back to the wall and waited. The sentry waited as well.

  The Caller entered from another door seamlessly embedded into the far wall. She sat opposite, motioning him closer.

  ‘Now we can talk,’ she whispered, though she turned abruptly away. ‘Organise us some tea and bread, will you, Jayk?’ She smiled at the guard, whose face held no expression. ‘Then back to your post. No one is to enter or leave until I return.’

  ‘Yes, Mistress.’ He bowed twice before closing the wooden door behind him; the sound of his steps faded as he strode away.

  ‘Finally. Do you ever weary of how long it takes to accomplish the simplest of tasks?’ she asked. Jarrod nodded as she kept talking, ‘Here’s the problem,’ she said, keeping her voice low as she fluffed the pillows around herself. Oddly, she didn’t recline into the nest but leaned forward again. ‘We don’t have a lot of time.’

  ‘We don’t?’ Jarrod looked at her, waiting for a response. If there wasn’t much time, she certainly seemed to be wasting what little they had.

  ‘There are listeners everywhere,’ she continued, her voice barely audible.

  At least you’re aware of it. Jarrod had sensed a bevy of inquisitive minds ever since he had arrived. They were like mice trying to chew their way into a grain sack. ‘You mean spies here in your…’ He paused, lifting one shoulder. ‘Temple, is it?’

  ‘Palace,’ she corrected. ‘Spies, assassins, traitors, reporters. Every court has them—people seeking information that they shouldn’t have because others are paying, or forcing, them to do so. It’s all about information. Didn’t you know that?’

  Jarrod repressed a chuckle. His whole existence had come about from the desire for information—more, faster, broader. His memories turned dark as he thought of the scientists at ASSIST all those centuries ago. ‘I’m familiar with the concept of information technology.’

  ‘Is that what you call it? You can understand, then, the need for discretion.’

  ‘Of course.’ He dropped his head close to her ear. ‘Can you tell me, Caller, what information it is we are discussing?’

  ‘I can.’ She spread her fingers out on the table. ‘These spies and reporters, they seek any word about our…’ She looked left and right before cupping her hand around the side of her mouth. ‘Dilemma.’

  Was she going to talk in riddles all day? ‘Your dilemma?’ Jarrod said, matching her tone. ‘And what can you tell me about that, exactly?’ He sat back against his pillows, waiting.

  The Caller clenched her jaw and motioned him closer. ‘Here on Tensar, we are experiencing a strange…problem.’

  ‘I gathered there was a problem, Caller. Otherwise I wouldn’t have come.’

  She took a deep breath and let it spill out, her voice so low he had to amplify his auditory perceptions to catch it. ‘Here on Tensar, there are no more births,’ she whispered.

  Jarrod wasn’t sure he heard her correctly. ‘No more births?’

  ‘Shush. Quiet.’ She looked around the room. ‘We’re denying it, of course, but the fact remains. There are no more births. None at all.’

  ‘Nothing is being born?’

  She clicked her tongue. ‘Of course things are being born. Chickens, dogs, horses, snakes—animals are being born, hatched, whelped. Grass grows, trees bear fruit.’

  ‘But no children of Tensar?’

  ‘That’s it. No children.’

  ‘How long has this been going on?’

  ‘For over a year.’

  Jarrod frowned. ‘Why?’

  The Caller threw up her hands, her face going red. ‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t have troubled you!’ She shouted the words, suddenly unconcerned with discretion. He kept his eyes level with hers, but didn’t respond. She’d become preoccupied with smoothing her long scarves and he gave her a moment to compose herself. ‘That’s what you’re here for,’ she said in a natural tone. ‘To tell us why.’

  He nodded and blinked his eyes, instantly computing the myriad possibilities. ‘I have some questions,’ he said.

 
‘Let’s hear them.’

  ‘Have your people been exposed to any toxins?’

  ‘That’s been checked. We have a self-sustaining agrarian culture, Jarrod. Everything is recycled and any toxic waste decomposed until it becomes inert.’

  ‘Have there been unusual meteorological events?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Weather changes, sunspots, meteor showers?’

  She shook her head, her large amber earrings swinging wildly. ‘No more than usual.’

  ‘Have there been disease outbreaks in food animals?’

  She screwed up her face. ‘What do you mean “food animals”?’

  ‘Animals reared for ingestion.’

  ‘Ingestion? Of course not. Repulsive!’ The thought threw her against the pillows. ‘Who would eat their friends and workmates?’

  ‘Customs do vary, Caller. In some worlds…’

  ‘It’s despicable. Barbaric.’

  He took a deep breath and let it out. ‘Have there been any disease outbreaks in grain or fruit crops, then? In anything you do eat.’

  ‘Not that we’ve identified.’

  ‘Has there been an epidemic? An illness with high fevers? Infections?’

  She banged her fist on the table. ‘Do you think I would miss the obvious? All these questions have been considered long ago.’

  ‘I need to be thorough, Caller. Please bear with me.’

  She nodded. ‘Continue.’

  ‘What about morale? Are the people stressed? Worried? Is there an asteroid about to impact, the seas rising, population explosion, climate change?’

  ‘Nothing like that.’

  Jarrod tilted his head, raising one eyebrow. ‘Are your people having sex?’

  She frowned for a moment, the question not seeming to register. She was about to comment when a tap sounded at the door. ‘Enter,’ she said. Her face shifted like a spring breeze and she smiled at the girl entering the room.

  She was dressed in a patchwork skirt and an embroidered top, her long, hair twisted high on top of her head. She carried a serving tray in both hands. The scent of mint, apple blossom and cinnamon wafted about her, and something else that reminded Jarrod of roast pumpkin pie. His mouth watered as she set the tray down between them.

  ‘Thank you, Lila,’ the Caller said, dismissing her when she asked if anything else was required. The girl didn’t move but eyed Jarrod with a lush smile. ‘Go, Lila. That’s all.’ The Caller snapped her fingers and the girl backed out of the room, her eyes still resting on Jarrod. ‘What were you saying?’ She glanced at the door as she served him. She poured his tea and offered bread, warm to the touch. There were dips in little porcelain pots—orange marmalade, red chutney and a deep purple jam.

  ‘I was asking if your people were interested in sex.’

  After taking a few sips of tea, the Caller raised her eyebrows. ‘What do you think?’ She nodded towards the place where Lila had stood.

  ‘It would appear so,’ he said. ‘It’s just one possibility.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Are there any belief systems in place that forbid it?’

  The Caller tapped her chin with a gnarly finger. ‘Sex has never been taboo on Tensar, regardless of shifting religions, cults and factions, though I’ve heard of it in other cultures.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘What kind of god would place a hex on intimacy?’

  You’d be surprised. ‘Only one against nature,’ he said aloud.

  ‘Well, that’s not happening here.’

  ‘You’re certain?’

  ‘Completely.’

  Jarrod shook his head as she offered him more bread. He shut his eyes and calculated the probable causes of this situation from a database of infinite possibilities, cross-referenced with an immeasurable number of realities. In less than a femtosecond—a fraction equal to the difference between one second and thirty-two million years—he opened his eyes again.

  ‘My first thought is that souls aren’t coming through,’ he said, a little dizzy from the quantum journey. ‘That’s my best guess at this point.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘The most likely cause of cessation of births in this world is lack of available souls for incarnation. There is a safety measure in place, you know—otherwise there’d be billions of rudderless ships, as it were.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  Do I give the long or the short version? He sighed. ‘Think of it this way, Caller. Everything is energy and all energy vibrates at a particular frequency. Energy also cannot be made or unmade. It simply is.’

  ‘What’s this got to do with it?’

  ‘Do you think the sex act creates a new person? It doesn’t. It’s merely a magnet that constellates being. brings together the molecules that form a new body, a habitat—something for a soul to dwell in.’

  ‘I still don’t follow.’

  Long version, then…‘We know that energy is always moving into manifest formation, through it and out again.’

  ‘Manifest form in this case, being a body?’

  ‘You can think of it that way, yes. There’s a link, like a beacon, that the soul uses to find its new placement. When that happens, the body materialises from the sex act, which is not only DNA recombination but a “vibrational” alignment. When the DNA, energy vibration and soul match, a pregnancy occurs. A child is born, and the soul jumps in. Actually, the soul jumps in before birth usually, but that’s the basic order of things. Does that make sense?’

  ‘It’s not quite what the mystery schools teach, but also not so different. I follow. You’re saying that there are no souls hovering about to trigger any new bodies, hence no reproduction?’

  ‘That’s about it, though I am not certain yet. It’s a calculated guess. There are other possibilities too.’

  ‘There’re plenty of animals reproducing.’

  ‘That would suggest plenty of animal intention souls.’

  She nodded, cupping her tea with both hands.

  Jarrod closed his eyes for less than a blink. ‘Tell me, Caller,’ he asked. ‘Are there deaths?’

  She frowned. ‘No more than usual.’

  ‘But no less?’ Jarrod watched her expression as she struggled with the concept. He was perplexed by it himself. If energy always moved into form, through form and out of form, why was it only going one way here? Why only out of form and not into it?

  ‘No less death,’ she answered. ‘Can you tell me why this is happening?’

  ‘I’ll need to investigate further.’

  ‘I suggest you get started immediately.’

  She drained her teacup and stood, calling in the guard. She patted Jarrod’s shoulder and mouthed the words thank you before her face turned sour as if she’d tasted bitter fruit. ‘I’d hoped for more from you—solutions, cures, explanations. You’ve only given me riddles to ponder.’

  Jarrod hid his surprise. She certainly was paranoid. ‘I’ll know more soon,’ he replied. He leaned towards her, extending his hand. ‘May I have your leave to explore the city and talk with your people? I may need to travel as well.’

  She waved the question away. ‘Do what you must, if you think it will help. I’ll expect you back soon with a substantial result.’

  He didn’t move.

  ‘You may go,’ she said.

  ‘There is still the matter of my friends.’

  She gave him a quizzical look. ‘Your friends?’

  ‘My travelling companions. They didn’t arrive with me. You said you might know something?’

  The Caller motioned the guard out, though the door remained open and he stood well within earshot. ‘Did I say that?’ She chuckled, running a hand over her close-cropped hair.

  Jarrod waited for her mirth to subside.

  ‘They never arrived,’ she said, humour still dancing in her eyes. ‘You must have lost them before you got here.’

  ‘Rosette?’ Shane whispered.

  She turned to him, the breeze lifting long strands of hair. Her lips curved into a smile as s
he gazed back over the valley. ‘What’s that, Shane?’

  ‘Can I thank you now?’

  She laughed. ‘You may. We’re above Corsanon, safe and sound.’ She’d dismounted, holding the reins lightly as her horse’s head drooped, eyes half shut. The mare cocked a hind foot and fluttered her nostrils. Both horses had laboured hard, increasing the gap between them and their pursuers by many leagues before the first nightfall. They were days ahead now, if the temple guards had even continued the chase.

  The young pup who called himself Fynn was asleep, draped over the saddlebags, tied there like a sausage link. He hadn’t protested when Rosette took him on board. He had refused to be left behind, and it had broken her heart to watch him struggle to keep up. When he’d fallen back she’d sent Drayco to retrieve him. He’d hoisted the pup by the nape of his neck and Rosette had made room for him across the saddlebags. She felt a soft spot growing for the little guy, though she didn’t know what in the many-worlds she would do with him.

  ‘Still no pursuit?’ Shane asked, searching the horizon.

  She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘I can’t sense them at all.’

  ‘Not much of a guard team, really.’

  Rosette frowned as she undid the ties securing Fynn. ‘I agree, and that bothers me.’

  ‘Maybe so, but it was lucky for us.’

  She lifted the pup and nested him in the grass that carpeted the mountain ledge. He let out a huge sigh but didn’t wake up.

  ‘Lucky, though they didn’t have a chance in any case. These horses left them in the dust.’ She ran up the stirrup and unbuckled the girth before hauling the saddle off. ‘I would have loved to have met their High Priest, just to learn what the big “women-with-swords” taboo was all about.’

  Shane leaned against his horse, letting it rub its sweat-crusted forehead on his shoulder. He’d improved his horsemanship skills considerably in the last few days, and he was proud of it, if somewhat saddle sore. ‘Probably it’s what all taboos are about,’ he said.

  Rosette looked at him.

  ‘Generating fear to stay in control.’ He answered the unspoken question.

  ‘I don’t know how it could happen at Treeon, but your theory sounds right.’ She began vigorously rubbing down the mare with a thick cloth.