Time's Demon

by D. B. Jackson

  “I would speak with the Winged Ancients,” he called. The shadows and mountain air swallowed his words. He felt small and weak. He would have given a stack of gold rounds for clothes. Or better still, armor and a blade. Too late, he wondered if his wounds, and the residue of healer magick, would be to Belvora as blood to sharks.

  He scanned the sky, but he also reset his sextant for the return to Qaifin and faced eastward. Belvora could not follow him into the gap. If this went poorly, he would Span himself out of danger.

  He checked the sky again. Perhaps the demons weren’t as close as he thought, or hadn’t heard his summons. He was prepared to call a second time, when a lone flying figure wheeled into view high above the surrounding peaks. His heartbeat quickened.

  Two demons soon joined the first. Then another, and two more. Within a spirecount, eight circled over him like buzzards. The first tucked its wings and commenced a swift, spiraling descent toward the basin in which he stood. The rest followed. Orzili set his thumb on the sextant’s release, ready for the first sign of trouble.

  The vortex of Belvora closed on him, as pale as ghosts, their translucent wings aglow with the blue of the mountain sky. The fetor of rot followed them down. As they neared the ground they pulled out of their glide, shifting the angle of their wings to catch the wind. They landed as lightly as birds and folded their wings close to their backs. Rock crunched beneath huge, clawed feet.

  Orzili watched with alarm as they arrayed themselves in a circle around him. Their stench was overpowering. He tried not to let his disgust show.

  They were taller than any human, with long sinuous arms that ended in taloned hands. Manes of hair – some gold, some silver – framed narrow faces. Their ears were long and pointed, their features blunt, their eyes large, amber, alert, like those of wild dogs.

  They regarded him in silence, some grave, others with razor teeth bared in grins. Wind stirred their shining hair. Orzili shivered.

  A blade, he realized, would have done him no good. Neither would a pistol or musket. He needed his men; he needed trisextants. Once again he cursed Tobias and the woman with him, who had been clever enough to shoot a tri-sextant out of the grasp of one of Orzili’s assassins.

  “We are not accustomed to being summoned by prey,” one of the Belvora said, her voice like the shriek of a forest owl.

  The others laughed.

  “I’m not prey,” Orzili said with as much force as he could muster.

  “You smell like prey. You certainly look like prey. I see nothing in you that could keep us from making you prey.”

  “Kill me, and the autarch will send a thousand men to slaughter you, as your kind have been slaughtered elsewhere.”

  That appeared to give the demons pause.

  “You come from the autarch?” the Belvora asked. She was taller than the others, with hair like burnished silver and talons as long as Orzili’s little finger.

  “I do. He has a task for you and your brethren.”

  The demon shifted her gaze to the male beside her and then to the others.

  “He offers payment?” she asked, her eyes finding his again.

  “Your quarry ought to be payment enough: two Walkers, and a human child.”

  A murmur passed through the demons, words he didn’t understand circling him like wolves.

  “Where are they, these Walkers?”

  “We don’t know. You will have to search for them. They could be anywhere between the oceans.”

  “Such a quest will demand that we leave this place, perhaps for many turns. Two Walkers is scant payment for so much effort.”

  “And the child,” Orzili reminded. “The autarch grants you refuge here, protection from others who wish to see your kind wiped out. This is small recompense for all he has done.”

  The other Belvora muttered again, the sound more menacing this time.

  “Bold words from a puny, naked human,” Silver-Hair said, her lip curling.

  “I’m merely repeating what the autarch told me to say. I think you’ll agree that he and his army have proven themselves capable of backing up bold claims.”

  Her features resolved into a scowl. “Still, we tire of feeding on goats and elk and bear. Humans are rare up here. And Travelers are rarest of all.”

  This last she said with too much ardor for his taste.

  “Then this hunt will be a boon to you.” He kept his voice level, refusing to show fear. “You may feast along the way. The autarch cares only that you find the Walkers and the child.”

  The Belvora glanced past him again. Her quick, malicious grin froze his heart.

  “You have your orders,” he said. “The autarch will expect you to follow them.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply, but raised his sextant and pressed the release. The Belvora lunged. Stone shifted and scraped behind him. But the gap sucked him forward before they could touch him.

  As he entered the storm of light and sound, he thought he heard screams of thwarted hunger.

  Orzili emerged from the gap onto the ramparts of Pemin’s castle. He reclaimed the robes he had been given and returned to the autarch’s chamber, where he told Pemin of his encounter. He omitted mention of those final harrowing moments.

  This second audience with the autarch didn’t last long. Soon he was atop the castle again, preparing for his long Span back to Daerjen. The sun hung close to the western horizon and the air had cooled so that even here, far from the mountains, the breeze raised bumps on his skin.

  He thumbed himself into the gap, submitting once more to the torment. The journey back across the seas stretched interminably. When he reached Hayncalde Castle, his legs gave out and he fell into a stone wall, scraping his cheek and wounded leg. He gasped at the pain.

  “Here.”

  A satin wrap settled around him. Lenna loomed over him in the gloaming. Judging from the light, it must have taken him close to a bell to Span back.

  “Thank you,” he mumbled.

  He tried to stand, but she laid a hand on his arm. “Stay there. You’re not ready to walk.”

  “I’ve Spanned before, Lenna.”

  “That far? Twice in a day? After being stabbed and shot?” She softened the questions with a smile. “You may be young, but you’re not that young.”

  His mind cleared slowly. “You’ve been waiting for me?”

  “I knew how weary you’d be.” She brushed a strand of hair from his brow.

  His heart raced much as it had in the Sana, and yet nothing like that at all. “Why are you being nice to me?”

  She stared, then shook her head and laughed. “You really are a fool, aren’t you? I’m being nice because I love you. I have for most of my life. Just because I don’t wish to be bedded by this particular version of you doesn’t mean I love you any less. You should understand that.”

  He could think of no reply.

  “You were gone a long time,” she said, breaking a short silence.

  “He sent me to the Sana.” He spoke without thinking, without any consideration of where the comment would lead.

  “Whatever for?”

  He hesitated, allowing her to answer her own question.

  “Blood and bone,” she whispered. “The Belvora. You told him we didn’t need the bloody winged bastards?”

  “I tried. He didn’t give me a choice.” One more lie. What else could he say? It was either that or spend more of your days. He knew what kind of response that would bring.

  She considered him, her forehead bunching. Perhaps she didn’t need him to lead her there.

  “I’m surprised he didn’t order you to send me back with a warning.” The words were pointed.

  “The idea came up,” he said, skirting the truth. “He prefers not to have you Walk any more than necessary. He said, ‘I may need to send her to her own time. I want her to arrive with strength enough to be of use to me.’ Or something like that.”

  Lenna scowled. “The two of you should stop coddling me. I know better than b
oth of you what I can and can’t do. Let me Walk as I’m supposed to.”

  “You should sail to Qaifin and tell Pemin yourself. I’m sure he’ll enjoy being chastised by one of his assassins.”

  She looked to the side, lips pressed thin. After a fivecount, she surrendered to a smile.

  “Maybe I’ll send a message by bird. A ship would be too slow.”

  Orzili laughed. He braced a hand on the stone and pushed himself up. Lenna stood with him.

  “All right?”

  His vision spun, but he nodded. “Fine.”

  She walked him to his quarters, lingering in the hallway as he opened the door and stepped inside.

  “My thanks. That was a nicer welcome than I expected.”

  “Of course.”

  A pause. Then they both started to speak at once. They stopped, laughed.

  “You first,” he said.

  “We should begin our search for them tomorrow. In earnest. I have no intention of ceding this kill to the Belvora. We started it, you and I. We should be the ones to finish it.”

  He nodded.

  “What were you going to say?”

  “That exact thing.” The truth.

  She started away. “Good. I’ll see you at dawn bells.”

  He snored beside her, and had for much of the night, despite kicks to his ankles and elbows to his side. The man slept like the dead. If the dead could shake the rafters.

  Gillian had loved him once. Not so very long ago, when she was still taken with his intellect and reserved sophistication, she had thought that Bexler Filt might make a fine husband. With both of them serving the Daerjeni court, and both of them collecting gold on the side for their work on behalf of Oaqamar’s autarch, they would never want for anything.

  The autarch, however, had plans of his own, plans he did not share with them. Valuable though they might have been, they were minor nobles. Pemin, on the other hand, was the most powerful man between the oceans, and he had moved against Mearlan IV, who might have been the second most powerful. They were fortunate not to have been crushed in the ensuing conflict.

  She longed to be summoned to a court, somewhere. She enjoyed the intrigue, the excitement of being at the center of events. She enjoyed playing at deception. She was good at it.

  Yet, for now – and this galled her – Bexler was the more prized of the two of them. Without him, she was just another woman of status in a city still reeling from the assault that killed Mearlan and made Noak sovereign. The Sheraigh Assertion, they called it. She and Bexler had gold, and this small but comfortable flat, because he was one of the few Binders in all of Islevale who knew how to construct tri-devices.

  So she put up with his snoring, and his uninspired lovemaking, and his pedantic nonsense.

  After she had left Bexler in their shelter in the Notch with Tobias holding a flintlock to his head and a rope around his neck, she feared she had lost him for good. She apologized repeatedly, begging him to understand. She told him how frightened she had been, how certain that they would both die if she remained.

  His frosty anger lasted all of a day and a night. She had long been amazed at the ease of seducing a man into forgiveness.

  Still, it bothered her that she needed him so much more than she wanted him. She had to find some way to make herself indispensable to the autarch and his men.

  She wasn’t a Binder. She didn’t possess any powers. Except she was clever, and fearless, and men of a certain sort responded well to her attention. Surely Pemin or Noak would have some use for her.

  Bexler’s breathing stuttered, tipped over into a snort. He stirred, his eyes fluttered open. She pasted a smile on her lips.

  “Good morning, love.”

  He muttered a response, rose, and lurched into the next room, where he relieved himself into a pot. Charming.

  A noise from the front of the flat made her sit up. A scratching at the door. Gillian swung out of bed, shrugged on a robe, and hurried into the common room. A folded piece of parchment had been slipped under the door. She turned the key, peered out into the corridor. It was empty, though she heard footsteps on the stairway. She closed and locked the door again, picked up the parchment.

  Sextants lost. Three needed. Bring to castle.

  “What does it say?”

  She turned. Bexler stood in the doorway to their bedroom, his hair disheveled, but his eyes alert.

  “They need new sextants. Apparently several have been lost.”

  “What?”

  He crossed the room in a few lumbering strides, tore the scrap of parchment from her hand, and scanned it himself.

  “Three? They lost three?” His voice rose. “Do they think I dig these devices out of the ground like turnips?” He closed his fist around the parchment and spun away.

  Gillian followed Bexler across the front chamber, which he had claimed as a workroom. He stood at his bench, hands on his hips, staring at a half-completed tri-sextant, the only one he had.

  “Three sextants,” he said, exhaling the words. “I don’t even have the materials. This will take the better part of a turn. At least.”

  She sensed an opportunity. Bexler was right: losing three sextants in so little time was unusual. Something must have gone wrong for the Sheraighs, or their allies. Perhaps Tobias and his friend had proven themselves a match for agents of the new sovereign. Maybe they needed more than Bound devices.

  “How long until you finish this one?”

  Bexler didn’t look her way. “Not long. I can finish it today. That’s not the difficulty. As I said–”

  “Materials. Yes, I understand. Finish this one. I’ll take it to the castle when you’ve finished. A promise of more to come. In the meantime we need gold for this one in order to buy what we need for the others.”

  This did draw his gaze. “Do you think they’ll pay?”

  “They will if they want the sextants promptly.”

  A bit of the tension drained from his face. He was actually handsome in a drab way. On those rare occasions when he wasn’t mired in despair. “Yes, of course. They need us.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Perhaps I should talk to them. Explain what it will take to make the devices.”

  “You have no time to talk to them, darling.” She smiled. “As I meet them, you’ll be toiling on their behalf, building and Binding the devices they so desperately need.”

  He considered this. “You’re right. That would be better.”

  “Get to work on this one,” she said. “I’ll fix us breakfast and then I’ll go into the lanes for a time. I want to know what’s happening.”

  “Is that wise? There are still those in the city who would recognize us.”

  “Trust me.” She felt revived, as if roused from a long, uninterrupted slumber. Since fleeing the Notch, they had been confined to this bloody flat. No more. She had purpose again, and it seemed her renewal had infected him as well. He sat, took up his loupe and the tri-sextant. A cloud of glowing Binder magick wreathed him.

  Gillian retreated to their chamber, pausing in the doorway when she spotted the pigeons they had taken from the castle. Three of them, cooing softly in a cage near the shuttered window.

  A glance back at Bexler confirmed he was fully absorbed in his work.

  She tore a narrow strip of parchment and took up a quill. Word of lost sextants received, she scrawled. Will come this evening. Inform guards. Must talk.

  She removed a brown and white dove from the cage, tied her message to the bird’s leg, and carried the creature to the window. “Home you go,” she whispered, opening the shutters. She tossed the pigeon into the air. It flew off, angling north and west toward the castle, its wingbeats swift and determined. She watched until it vanished over a rooftop. Then she dressed and made her way to the small larder beside their hearth. She sliced bread, slathered it with butter and honey, and brought a piece to Bexler. The other she bit into herself. She also lit a fire and boiled water for tea.

  All the wh
ile, her thoughts churned. She would start at the wharves, because workers and sailors had access to information that others did not. From there, she would go to the marketplace, where she would walk among peddlers and buyers, listening, chatting, and buying goods they truly did need.

  She might learn something from guards at the castle as well, but she didn’t dare visit there twice in a single day. As Bexler said, they had been known in the city: the talented young Binder and his wife, Mearlan’s minister of protocol. Some had suggested that aside from Mearlan and Keeda themselves, no couple in Hayncalde wielded more influence within the court. Commoners might not recognize her, but even today, with the Hayncaldes swept from power, the closer she drew to the castle, the greater the likelihood that someone would.

  Before she left, she would change clothes. She needed to be as plain as possible.

  When the tea was ready, she brought Bexler his cup and dressed a second time. Not until she opened the door to leave the flat did he look up from his tri-sextant, magick clinging to him like dew to grass.

  “Where are you going?”

  “The wharves and the market. I’ll find out what’s happened.”

  “Yes, all right.” Already he was intent on the device again. He did love his work. Too bad he couldn’t be so attentive to all his passions.

  She spent the better part of a bell wandering along the waterfront, chatting with sailors, feigning interest in news from other isles, feigning attraction to men and women of all ages and origins. She learned precious little. Most of those she met had as many questions as she did. The most exciting tidings in Islevale still came from Hayncalde, and still revolved around the ease with which Noak had taken the sovereignty for Sheraigh.

  “Do you know how he did it?”

  “How many men did he bring?”

  “Is it true he commanded an army of demons?”

  She would have laughed had she not been so frustrated.

  The marketplace proved more fertile ground, but only just. Few people here knew any more than she did of what transpired the night Mearlan died.

  One older man, a peddler of blades both short and long, did tell her that not long before her own encounter with Tobias, a woman from the sanctuary and three men of a less savory nature died near the wharves. The woman was killed by a crossbow. The men’s deaths were more difficult to explain.