Beyond the Wall of Time (16 page)

Under instructions to leave as little evidence of their passing as possible, the three captives scrambled up a short slope
of broken rock and passed between two tall pillars into a shadowed recess.

Sleep
, the voice commanded.

Disheartened, Duon realised the voice’s power over them was increasing over time. He now had the power to—

Judging by the lengthening shadows, Duon regained consciousness perhaps two hours later. The girl and the priest slept on,
weariness drawn roughly on their young faces. Duon kept his mind at rest, his thoughts slow, to defeat any trigger the voice
might have set to alert him to his captives’ wakefulness.
He can’t be observing us all the time
, Duon reasoned,
or he in turn would be little more than our captive. He must have other things to do; surely he must relax his control at
some point.

What he intended to do was a risk. He moved slowly, wriggling his body and extending his arm so his left hand lay in the sunlight
between the two tall limestone pillars. The lowering sun cast his shadow down towards the path; he tested it by moving his
fingers. Barely visible, but if the man was as good as Duon thought he was, it might well be enough.

Soon he heard the rattle and rustle of someone coming up the path. Beside him Arathé and Conal stirred, then sat up.

Think of other things. How to give Arathé a
warning not
to
speak,
not to
warn
her
father
of the
danger
he is in, perhaps by
shouting
the word
ambush.

The voice came alive, crushing his thought.
You’ll not warn her of anything. You think she doesn’t know? I told her myself. She deserves to know it will be by her hand
her father will die.

Up!
the voice shouted, and his power impelled them to their feet. One after the other the three emerged from the crevice and
together they rushed down the slope. Partway Arathé stumbled on a boulder and fell on her face.

Clever girl
, Duon acknowledged. Her bravery—or desperation—was undeniable.

Noetos awaited them at the base of the slope. Duon’s warning had worked—to a point.

Fool fisherman! You ought to have fled!

Conal and Duon were on him in a moment, knocking him to the ground. Duon had no idea what the man had been expecting, but
clearly it had not been an attack from his companions. It seemed he still did not truly appreciate the nature of their possession.
In those first few moments of scratching, biting and rending, the two men taught him better.

With astonishing strength Noetos threw them off and staggered to his feet, bleeding from half a dozen places on calf, thigh,
arm and face. “What are you doing?” he had time to cry before Arathé, screaming in terror and revulsion, was thrown into the
battle.

You have a sword, fisherman. Use it! We beg you!
But Duon could not shout the words: the voice still had hold of his throat.

He snatched up a lump of wood and began slamming it into the man’s back and side, each blow drawing a grunt.
Fight back!
he begged the fisherman. But the man merely countered their attack, slithering out of their grasp again and again.

A thought insinuated itself into Duon’s mind as his teeth found purchase in the soft area above the fisherman’s knee.
Arathé has magic: why doesn’t the voice attack Noetos through his daughter’s magical ability? Could it be he cannot control
it?

Examine it later
, he decided.

Something thumped him a heavy blow on the forehead, sending him spinning away onto the rocks. Against his will he stood up,
then spat something out. Flesh. He would have thrown up if he could.

As his vision cleared, Duon realised a second person had joined Noetos in the affray. The man’s face was familiar, but for
a moment he couldn’t place it.

The swordmaster.

The Padouki warrior stood alongside Noetos. His sword remained sheathed, the man doubtless under instruction not to harm his
assailants. Clearly some agreement had been struck, though who could know what Noetos might have been able to offer the Padouki
to abandon his people. Duon’s muscles tensed, ready to resist his captor.

Stop fighting me
, the voice commanded. Duon heard the compulsion in the words, though not their full force; they had not been meant for him.
Clearly Arathé was giving him trouble. Duon would have cheered.

Because you’ll ruin everything
, the voice responded in anger to an unheard thought. An answer to Arathé perhaps.
Your struggles might reduce me, but you’ll never defeat me. Even when you came closest to death I survived. And I am stronger
now than I was then, far stronger.

The voice is vulnerable
, Duon realised.

No more time to speculate as they were thrown back into the wrestling match. A shriek from Arathé as the Padouki’s booted
foot took her in the mouth. She tumbled away, blood streaming across her face. Duon found himself circling the fisherman,
who stood favouring one leg, partly because of the bite Duon had taken from it. Conal lay a few paces away, moaning feebly.

“You should not be able to resist me,” the voice said through Duon’s mouth.

“Unless, of course, I have assistance from another such as you,” came Noetos’s reply, delivered through swollen lips.

“Another? One of the gods perhaps?”

“Implying that you are not,” Noetos said, and smiled. “Every contact we have with you makes you weaker. You reveal yourself
without gaining anything in return. Soon we will discover who and where you are. You are not safe from us. When we find you
we will kill you.”

Duon’s mouth hissed at the man.

“I know you are not doing this, Duon. We will take our leave now and trust you to work out a way to defeat your captor. Please
try, for the sake of my daughter.” The fisherman glanced at where Arathé even now scrambled to her feet. “I undertake to stay
away from you, Arathé, so you need not concern yourself with killing me. Between us we will work out a way to see your captor
driven out. I am not abandoning you.”

Her reply was to throw herself at her father, hands outstretched, fingers spread like claws. He darted backwards, moving with
astonishing speed for such a big man, and avoided her lunge. Within moments the pair of them had sprinted back down the path
towards the forest and disappeared into the shadows.

The voice in Duon’s mind cried out in wordless rage, but behind the roar Duon fancied he could hear two thoughts joining his
own in delight.

The travellers came to the end of the forest late on the third day down from the Canopy. There had been no serious pursuit;
twice they had encountered lone forest-dwellers, but news of events must have circulated, as in both cases the men fled.

They emerged from the forest at the crest of a minor escarpment and into the teeth of a stiff breeze. Near the edge of sight,
perhaps a morning’s journey distant, lay the ocean; above, horsetail clouds reared high into the sky. Between the forest and
the sea lay a strip of farmland, already blanketed with twilight. Here and there the lights of houses twinkled amid the rumpled
hills.

“Thank you, Lenares, on behalf of us all,” Stella said, as they breathed deeply of the crisp evening air. “We would likely
have walked around in circles forever without your guidance.”

It wasn’t me
, she wanted to say.
Anomer led us and made it look like I was in charge.
But she held her tongue as Anomer had counselled.

“They want to believe in you as a leader,” he had said earlier in the day, as they scrambled across a limestone ridge. “The
more they trust you, the more likely they will listen to your advice. And, whether you think it or not, you are our hope.
Only you seem to understand the hole in the world. We have found ourselves in trouble before after ignoring you. I do not
want us to die because we wouldn’t listen.”

His words made sense, she wasn’t stupid, but the deception still went against everything in her nature. Lying to achieve a
greater good. Well, not lying exactly, just failing to tell the whole truth. It all sounded like excuses, and this when a
part of her so much wanted to be in charge, loved and adored by those following her. Better not to indulge that feeling, especially
when the love and regard had not been earned.

She tried and failed to keep her glance from straying behind her to where Torve stumbled along at the rear of the group. What
had she earned there? She’d not had the courage to find out; again, a new experience for her. Once nothing would have stopped
her from asking the most awkward of questions of anyone at any time, but now… now she understood why some questions were awkward,
and why someone might reply evasively if such questions were asked. How her quest for truth had sometimes kept truth from
her.

Torve had spent much of the day in conversation with Heredrew. She’d burned with curiosity, but could not bring herself to
ask what they discussed so earnestly. Afraid. Such a paralysing emotion, fear. There was no doubt she was becoming more human
and less Lenares, and the change frightened her.

It frightened her, but not as much as the red-rimmed smear now edging its way into her consciousness. The hole in the world
had returned—so soon, too soon after the Daughter had escaped and the Son had been banished from his earthly body. Lenares
had hoped they would have weeks to think of ways to counter the depredations of the gods. But here was the hole, coming closer
as though borne on the east wind…

She fell to her knees and vomited.

“Lenares, what is wrong?”

For a moment she thought the voice was Torve’s, but the hand on her shaking shoulder was pale like hers, not dark. She looked
up into Anomer’s beautiful, concerned eyes.

“Get everyone together,” she whispered.

An hour later the sun had set and the remains of their meal were being buried, the better to dissuade scavengers from scouting
their camp, and by then Lenares had no doubt.

She raised a weary arm and pointed to the east, to the inky darkness. “The hole in the world is coming,” she told them, and
received groans and curses in reply. “It’s in the wind, somehow. One or both of the gods approach us, bringing some calamity
with them.”

“Could be a plague,” Kilfor said. “We get plenty of plagues back home in the Central Plains. Sickness in the air.” Surprisingly,
his father nodded his assent.

“Not a plague,” Heredrew said. “Not coming from the sea. Plagues come from the land.”

“A storm then,” Moralye said. “Dhauria once suffered a storm so severe the lightning set fires in the lower city. Over twenty
people were killed.”

“It’s much larger than a storm,” Lenares said. “The gods want to break open the Wall of Time, and to do that they have to
kill thousands and thousands of people. A storm wouldn’t do that.”

Another dishonesty: she had no real idea what a storm could do.

She sighed. “Actually, I don’t know how many people a storm could kill. It is hard to imagine wind and rain killing thousands
of people.”

There: she felt much better for speaking the truth as she saw it. Even though it reduced her standing in the eyes of the others;
at least as Anomer had explained it.

“The east coast sometimes suffers tremendous storms and the flooding can do great damage,” Heredrew said, his eyes narrowing.
“I remember a savage storm sweeping up the Panulo River during the reign of the Red Duke and near destroying the city of Tochar.
I was forced—”

His mouth snapped shut.

“Near everyone knows, Kannwar,” said Robal the guard, a strange smile playing on his face. “Those who don’t will soon work
it out. How long ago did the Red Duke reign?”

“He died seventy years ago,” said Heredrew, his eyebrows beetling at the guard. “I’ve explained that my sorcery has given
me a long life.”

“It has,” said Anomer. “But it doesn’t explain why a sorcerer from Faltha remembers a storm that, according to the history
I was taught, occurred over a century ago in Bhrudwo—and afterwards, says Abraxi the scholar, was hushed up by the Undying
Man. If he were here today I’d ask him why.”

Lenares looked from Robal to Anomer, then took in the expression on Stella’s face. What her numbers had not told her, logic
began to put together.

“You were never going to keep it secret forever,” Stella said on an exhaled breath.

“You all know?” Heredrew said resignedly.

“What do you care, great man?” Robal’s face had turned red with anger. “Nothing any of us can do about it.”

“What do I care? You fool, I care a great deal! Don’t you understand, you brainless bull, how much I need the help of everyone
here to defeat the gods?” He leaned forward, intimidating without meaning to. “If any of you walk away, our chances of preventing
the world’s end diminish to almost nothing. Because so many of you would be… threatened by what I am, I have dissembled. Not
for my benefit, but for yours!” He sighed. “More of you apparently know than I believed.”

“Know what?” Moralye asked. “What is being said? Who are… you?” From the look of horror on her face, the revelation hit her
between words. “Oh, oh no, it was you all the time—you allowed us to find Kannwar’s old scroll justifying his actions, you
have manipulated us ever since.” Her face had turned deathly white. “Did Phemanderac know?”

“Yes,” Heredrew said simply. “He knew before we left Dhauria. And no, he didn’t approve, but he realised he had no choice.
Matters had moved well past his understanding, as I will explain.”

Lenares felt as though she was about to expire. “Are you the Undying Man? Kannwar of the North? The man my Emperor sought
to defeat?” But she knew the answer. The numbers poured through her mind.

The tall man nodded. “At your service,” he said, and held out his hand.

She slapped it away. “You lied to me. I can’t be of any use to people if they keep
lying
to me! I need truth!”