Time's Demon

by D. B. Jackson

  Orzili stepped to the door, opened it, and beckoned to someone in the corridor. A guard halted before him.

  “See Minister Ainfor to her home,” he said. “You are personally responsible for her well-being.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  She joined Orzili at the doorway.

  “Until next we meet, my lord.”

  “Until then.”

  The guard led her away from the chamber, and she was content to follow, the gold heavy in her pocket, her spirits lighter than they had been in days.

  Lenna stood by her hearth, arms crossed, eyes on the fire. Her heart labored, and had since he introduced her to the minister. The woman’s presence here shouldn’t have unsettled her so. She was being weak, foolish. She might hold any number of people accountable for the years she had lost. She could blame Pemin, or Mearlan, or the Walker she had followed. She could blame Orzili, and herself most of all. The minister bore responsibility for none of this.

  Yet Lenna couldn’t help herself.

  A single rap on her door made her start. It had to be him. No one else ever disturbed her.

  “Yes, come,” she said, remaining where she was.

  He entered the chamber, closed the door softly. Her glance his way was fleeting.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, moving to stand beside her.

  “Who is she?”

  The baldness of the question made him hesitate. “I told you.”

  “Gillian Ainfor. Pemin’s operative. Yes, I heard all of that.” “And the Binder–”

  “I heard that, too. What was she doing here?”

  “Why do you care?”

  She tried again to ease her breathing, her pulse. Failed. “I shouldn’t tell you.”

  “Shouldn’t… What did I–”

  “Not because of anything you did. It relates to my time, your future. You shouldn’t know.”

  He waited.

  What did it matter, this crumb of information? It wasn’t history altering. “Pemin’s operative,” she said again. “In my future, there was still an operative in Mearlan’s court. And the handwriting… The message that told me – us – how far back I would have to go… It was written in a woman’s hand.”

  Orzili let out a breath, and whispered her name. He started to reach for her, but she flinched away. His hands dropped to his sides.

  “Even if it was her,” he said, firelight in his eyes, “she wouldn’t have been responsible. She was a spy, nothing more.”

  “I know that.” She rubbed one arm, unable to get warm. “Forget I mentioned it.”

  “She wants to spy for us.”

  Lenna turned. “Do you trust her?”

  “I do. Her husband ought not to, but that’s not our problem.”

  He smiled; she frowned. He waved off the remark. “It doesn’t matter. She strikes me as clever, competent. I think she can help us. I just don’t know where to send her.”

  Away from here. Somewhere I won’t see her.

  “She’s willing to go anywhere?”

  “I believe so. I’d like to send her to Pemin’s court. It would be useful to have a spy there.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Because Pemin is too intelligent, and she lacks experience. She’d be dead within a turn, and we wouldn’t last much longer.”

  He lowered himself into the nearest chair, wincing. She should have asked how his wounds were healing, but she’d forgotten. She had never thought of him as someone who could be wounded. Foolishness again. Anyone could be hurt. Anyone could be killed. She thought she had shed all illusions about such things when she Walked back to this time.

  “Besides,” he went on, “our greatest concern should be finding Tobias and the princess.”

  “Aiyanth, then,” she said. “If we’re right about the boy needing a chronofor, that’s where he’s likely to go. That’s where I would go.”

  “I agree. But Tobias knows her. And apparently he knows she betrayed Mearlan.”

  “That doesn’t matter. If she’s all you seem to think she is, she can establish herself there and cultivate others to help her.”

  “Yes, all right.”

  She felt him watching her, but kept her gaze on the fire. She wished he would go. The silence between them deepened, and Lenna made no effort to fill it. After a spirecount, he stood and smoothed his shirt with an open hand.

  “I’ll leave you. I’m sorry her presence here upset you.”

  “You couldn’t know it would. I wouldn’t have known.”

  That was all she said. Still she didn’t face him. He let himself out of her chamber.

  Only then did it occur to her to wonder how employing Gillian Ainfor might change his need for her. Did this mean she could go back to her time sooner? Or would she have to wait? He’d said something earlier about the Binder needing a full turn to deliver new tri-sextants. Would she have to wait for that, too?

  Anger welled inside her. Orzili didn’t want her to go; he would do everything in his power to keep her here. He spoke of protecting her, of refusing to spend more of her years and preserving what little time they had together in their shared future. Mostly he wished to keep her here because he had convinced himself that he was in love with her.

  An irony, because she was deeply in love with the older Orzili. This one she didn’t trust. A part of her wished to travel to Fanquir to warn her younger self. Another part knew doing this would create problems that might cause ramifications through the rest of her life.

  She slipped a hand into the pocket of her gown, her fingers closing around the cool metal of her chronofor. She pulled it out, held it in her palm. The flicker of her fire illuminated the three circles on its face, the golden stems jutting from its edge.

  Lenna was acting on her decision before she knew she had made it. If she initiated the Walk in this chamber she would surely encounter herself, and, assuming the tales of Walkers meeting themselves in the past were to be believed, even a few days’ difference might endanger her sanity. Then again, only in this chamber would she find suitable clothing upon her arrival. She thought back to the days before the Emergence. She had passed a good deal of time cloistered here. She had also walked the castle grounds, for bells at a time on occasion. If she could recall the exact day, the exact time, she might Walk to this chamber, dress, and slip away without meeting herself.

  Her days here had blurred in her memory. All of them were so similar, she could scarcely separate them. She closed her eyes, and again wrapped her fingers around the chronofor.

  She had been more inclined to leave her chamber in the days before Tobias’s escape, had in fact enjoyed wandering the castle. After, as she came to realize that Orzili might keep her here indefinitely, she had grown despondent, lethargic. She counted back. Eleven days, then. Perhaps twelve to be safe.

  At that time, she also took her meals elsewhere, including her midday meal. In the kitchen or one of the halls. Even in the gardens. If she arrived near to that time, she ought to be all right.

  Opening her eyes again, she set the device. Twelve days and seven bells. Not an insignificant interval to Walk, but a trifle compared to what she had endured coming back to this time. She would Walk the twelve days, warn Orzili of the boy’s escape, and return to this time. Briefly. With the escape prevented, he would have no reason to keep her here. She could Walk forward to her true time, fourteen years in the future.

  She crossed to the door, locked it, and returned to the warmth of her fire, where she unbuttoned her bodice and slipped out of her gown and undergarments. She checked the settings on her chronofor, took a deep breath, and pressed the central stem.

  A sudden, violent tug into a world of light, foul smells, vile flavors on her tongue, dissonant assault on her ears. And, of course, no air.

  The secret to surviving the between was resisting panic. She fought for calm now. It was a short Walk, she told herself. She would experience nothing like the suffocating ordeal she had endured Walking to this time. A tenco
unt or two and it would be over.

  The battering of her senses stretched on. The pressure in her chest built until the breath she had taken spent itself. She squinted against frenzied images, tried to close her mind to the clamor of voice and footstep and rattling carriage.

  Unable to stop herself, she released her breath and tried to take another. Panic after all. Had she miscalculated?

  In the next instant, she collapsed to her knees on the smooth stone of her floor. She sucked greedily at blessed air, relief bringing tears to her eyes.

  She forced herself into motion. Her calculations and memory had served her well. The chamber was empty. For the moment.

  Standing, weathering a crashing wave of dizziness, she staggered to the wardrobe. He had arranged for gowns to be made for her. There was an aqua one she wore often and would miss. The blue one was gone; she must have been wearing it. Dark red had never been one of her favorites. The other her wouldn’t notice its absence. She dressed hurriedly, chose a pair of cloth shoes that she had yet to wear, and tiptoed to the door.

  She listened before easing it open. Seeing the corridor empty, she left the chamber and stole to Orzili’s quarters. Her knock brought no response. She let herself in. A risk, but a small one. She hadn’t accompanied this Orzili to his chamber since arriving in Hayncalde. Probably he was in the dungeon, trying to extract information from the Walker. He would come back here alone.

  She sat near his shuttered window and waited.

  A bell passed, and a second. She began to pace. After another half-bell, she wondered if something had happened to further upset their plans. Had her arrival here altered the flow of events in some way she hadn’t anticipated? She studied the clothes she had taken, scanned the chamber. She had taken care not to disturb her surroundings – in her quarters or his. Still, her apprehension grew. He had trusted his men to torture the boy. He joined them for short periods, but never would have spent so long in the dungeon himself.

  Had she arrived on the wrong day? Had the Walker already escaped?

  Doubt gnawed at her. Questions plagued her. And a single thought echoed in her mind: coming back by stealth, without anyone knowing, without him knowing, had been a mistake. She was certain of but one thing: if she reset her chronofor accounting for the bells spent here, she could Walk back to the time she’d left a short while ago. She would return to the safety of her locked room, the comforting glow of her fire. She would be trapped still in that past, but at least she would know with surety what had happened that day and the one before.

  She crept back to the door, listened, opened it, and surveyed the corridor. No one.

  She removed her shoes and scurried back to her chamber, her footsteps silent, her breaths short and sharp.

  She pushed the door open, checked the corridor one last time, and closed the door without so much as a click.

  “What are you doing?”

  She whirled, her heart vaulting into her throat. Her last clear thought was that she should have fled rather than turn.

  Their eyes met. Dark brown and dark brown. Red gown and blue. Bronze hair unbound. Lines in their faces that hadn’t been there a turn or two before.

  Her thoughts fragmented. Something dropped from her hand. She couldn’t recall what it was. She stared. A mirror image that didn’t match her movements, her stance. Only fear. In that regard, the reflection was perfect.

  She had needed to avoid this encounter. She couldn’t remember why. Something about… about time. About the future or the past. About her and the woman before her and also the man – the one the world knew as Orzili.

  “Blood and bone,” whispered the woman staring back at her. “What in the name of the Two are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER 7

  18th Day of Kheraya’s Waking, Year 634

  Droë kept to shadows, following damp cobblestone past derelict shelters and the worn carts of peddlers, which served at night as homes and beds. A storm had moved through Rooktown earlier in the evening, dousing the lanes with warm rain. Lightning still flashed in the eastern sky, illuminating piled clouds from within. Her ears were keen enough to perceive the answering whispers of thunder, but she didn’t think the humans around her could.

  Any more than they could hear her.

  Drunken laughter from behind stopped her, made her turn. She retraced her steps, silent as a hunting cat. Two men, far gone with drink. Had she been hungrier, she might have settled. But the other man she’d been following remained the more attractive prey: young, his years fresher than these two. She turned a second time, listened. Amid low conversations, quiet sobbing, more laughter, another roll of thunder, she heard his steps, quick and light.

  She chased after, only to halt again on another sound she knew. Heavy breath, like a pig grunting over food, then a sudden taken breath. Passion, spent now. As fascinating as a riddle, as alluring as prey. More.

  She followed the next alleyway, stepping with care. Seeing the couple in the faint glow of candlelight from an open window, she froze.

  The woman – hardly more than a girl, really – leaned against the wooden slatting of a shop, adjusting her shift, smoothing her hair. A man, much older, heavy, a rough beard obscuring his face, hiked up his breeches and cinched his belt. The girl held out a hand and he dropped several coins into her palm. He spoke, slurring the words enough that Droë couldn’t make them out, and laughed at his own joke. The girl didn’t smile, but she pocketed the money.

  Droë had seen this before. Passion without love, paid for. A transaction, akin to buying food in a market or a bauble from a traveling merchant. She watched as the man wandered off toward the far end of the byway, wondering which comparison was more apt. Was it survival, like food? Or a luxury, like the bauble? She considered asking the woman, who lingered by the shop wall, dug a hand into her pocket, and tallied the coins she found there.

  Droë walked forward, less concerned with stealth now. The woman whirled. A knife glinted in her hand. Droë hadn’t seen her draw it.

  “Who’s there?” She sounded scared.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Droë stepped into the light. The woman lowered her blade hand.

  “You gave me a start.” She spoke with the drawling accent of the Ring Isles. Narrowing her eyes, she adjusted her shift again. “Did you see?”

  Droë nodded. “Do you enjoy it?”

  “Do I what?”

  “What you just did. The act of love with that man. Do you enjoy it?”

  The woman’s laugh was dry as sand. “The act of- tha’s not… A girl your age–”

  “I’m older than I look.”

  “I’m not talkin’ ’bout this with a child.”

  “I just want to know if you enjoy it. With a stranger. For coin.”

  The woman pushed a strand of hair back from her brow. She might have been pretty if her hair had been cleaned and combed, if she’d had decent clothes. Dark, open sores oozed on her cheek and her arms. A bruise darkened her temple. She shook her head.

  “Nah, I don’t enjoy it. Don’t know any girls that do. Get off th’ street if you can. If you’re old enough to ask th’ question, you’re old enough for some fat bastard to fuck. Don’t do it. Find another way. Steal if you have to. Don’t do this.”

  “Then why do you?”

  She lifted a shoulder, stared off to the side. “It’s long past too late for me.”

  “Have you ever loved any of them?”

  A smile flickered, here and gone like lightning. “Nah. If I had, I woulda held on with both hands.”

  She straightened, let the coins fall back into her pocket with the ring of silver and bronze. “But I can eat, can’t I? And maybe even have an ale. Tha’s somethin’.”

  “Yes,” Droë answered, unsure of what else to say.

  “I’m goin’ now. Get home or wherever it is you pass the nights. It’s late for someone so young to be prowlin’ the lanes.”

  “Goodnight,” Droë said. She considered feeding o
n the woman. She was younger than the man Droë had been following. Her years would have been sweet and plentiful. The woman didn’t seem very happy with her life. She might not mind being taken.

  After some thought, she chose to leave the woman alone and return to the lane she’d been following. The young man was long gone, of course, but she soon found another.

  He wove along the cobbles, stumbling once or twice, but managing to keep his feet. She smelled ale on his breath from ten paces back, and could tell he was several years older than the other man. Still, he would do for now. Knowing Treszlish, the Shonla with whom she journeyed, this wouldn’t be their last stop of the night.

  She waited until he followed a bend onto a narrower lane and paused before a door. Drawing on her speed, she rushed him, latching onto his shoulders, toppling him to the street. He shouted, twisted, grabbed for her with strong, meaty hands. He might as well have tried to bend iron. As he struggled to push her off, she put her lips and teeth to his neck and drew the years from his blood. He stank of sweat and grime and drink, but his years were ripe enough.

  When she had taken them all, she detached herself, intending to creep back onto the main street. People had heard his cry, though. Two of them stood at the corner, squinting into the shadowed lane. Droë pressed herself to the street, as still as stone, body coiled in case they spied her. She could take one of them, and probably scare off the other. She and the Shonla would be gone from this place before daybreak.

  They didn’t see her, and soon moved on. Droë returned to the waterfront.

  Tresz floated over the harbor, a swirling, pale cloud. Droë assumed that a ship lay at the center of his mists. Shonla didn’t take life, as Tirribin did, but they fed on fear and screams, sometimes music. Mist demons, the humans called them. The men on that ship would remember this night for a long time. Perhaps, in the future, they would take care to burn more torches.

  A bell pealed in the city, from the temple of the Goddess. The appointed time.

  Droë lifted her voice in song.

  “Away on the sea, past the Axle and Ring,

  Where the wind whistles high, and the sailor is king,