Beyond the Wall of Time (28 page)

“Enough.”

Conal’s body stepped over Stella and raised his cudgel. Lenares, clearly knowing what was coming, turned her shoulder away
from the blow, but it fell anyway, striking her savagely on the head. She collapsed like a falling tree.

Come on
, he begged them all.
Do something to change this!

“Conal!” came the voice, right on cue. “What’s happening? What are you doing?”

Umu turned Conal’s head to face a wide-eyed Stella. “Shut your mouth, bitch, or I’ll break your face as well,” rasped his
voice.

She doesn’t know; she’s blind to the—what did the Padouki warrior call it? This double-time. How can we use this?

“Some sort of wild animal,” his mouth called back. “A rat. I’ll have it dead in a moment.” His arm raised the club again,
exactly as he’d known he would.

“No!” Stella cried, and threw herself at Conal.

The club descended, this time taking her above her right eye, and she fell to the ground like a discarded toy.

Conal watched all this in impotent horror from somewhere far behind his own eye. The time-doubling had hurt two of his friends.
As he screamed at Umu, the dizziness intensified, then vanished.

“This is our chance,” Kannwar insisted.

“Our chance?” Robal shouted, his face red with rage. “Stella’s hurt! Heal her with your magic!”

“It is likely one of the gods is trapped inside the priest’s body. If we take that body and imprison it, we eliminate one
of our enemies.”

Robal turned Stella’s limp body onto its back. Though he despised himself for it, he couldn’t help the frisson that burned
its way up his arms. He had not touched her since their first meeting, when he’d mistakenly thought she was offering herself.
How could he think this way when Stella might well be dead?

All such thoughts vanished when he saw her blood-spattered face. The blow had caved in her cheek, the whole right side of
her face unbearable to look upon. He turned his head away.

“She is alive,” Kannwar said, his words clipped. “She cannot be killed. She cannot be healed by anything you or I might do.
Her blood will restore her. The best thing we can do is pursue her assailant, which is what I intend to do, accompanied or
not.”

“We ought to stay together,” said Sautea, the older of the two Fossan fishermen. “If we separate, the gods can pick us off.”

“Like fish in a shoal, friend?” Noetos stooped to stare at the injured women. “Less chance of being eaten when the shark comes
calling?”

“Unfair, Noetos.” Mustar clapped a hand on Sautea’s shoulder. “We’re as brave as you, fisherman, and far more sensible.”

“If you’re sensible, you’ll come with Heredrew and me. We need to find the priest.”

“Heredrew?” Robal said, his temper flaring. “Heredrew’s a fraud. Hasn’t anyone told you?”

“Please! I need assistance! Can anyone help me?”

The voice cut across their debate. Torve the Omeran stood at the edge of their circle, his face white.

“Lenares, she is hurt. I think she is dying.”

The others turned to where the dark-skinned man beckoned them. A figure lay prone right on the edge of the pit, and a number
of the travellers rushed to her side. Robal stayed where he was, his hand on Stella’s wounded forehead.

“Oh, Stella, my queen,” he whispered. “I am no guard to have allowed such things to happen to you. But I would be your lover,
not your guard; your husband, not some impotent watcher. I could guard your heart and keep you safe.”

Her flesh warmed under his hand; she stirred and began to pant. Her eyes sprang open.

“I wish I were dead,” she said, her words slurred by the damage to her face. Blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth.
“How… how is Lenares?”

“Think of yourself for a moment, my dear,” Robal said. “She is well.” He had no idea, of course. “But you are not. I cannot
stand to see you so badly hurt so often, Stella. I wish you would leave the fighting to others and find somewhere to stay
safe with one who can look after you, providing your every need.”

His heart began to pour out with his words; he could not have stopped it even if he’d wished.

“Again and again you have put yourself at risk,” he said, “suffering captivity and injury in the service of people who do
nothing but despise you and question your loyalty.” He ran a finger tenderly down her left cheek. “You deserve so much better,
yet you continue to close yourself off from those who care about you the most.”

“Oh, Robal, this is not the time for ourselves. Of course I wish I could rest. You know better than anyone how tired I am
of this existence. I cannot face my friends and had to flee from my subjects. I am a thief, stealing life from some storehouse
to which no one else has access. Yet I have this gift, this curse, this magical blood, and I cannot hide it away. If we keep
to ourselves, how will we be able to defeat the immortal gods?”

“I don’t care about the gods,” Robal said, hissing the last word. “I don’t care about him either. I only care about you and
me.”

He’d said it. Something within him, some knotted emotion, came free and a supernatural calm descended upon him.
She knows. Up to her what she does with the knowledge.

“I’m just a soldier,” he said. “Not a very smart one either. I listened to you talking with Phemanderac and understood one
word in ten. I don’t share the abilities and memories linking you to the Destroyer. But, Stella, I can give you love.”

As he watched her face, the blood dried and the dreadful mess began to fade away, as though painted out by an artist.
Truly, nothing can hurt her
, he thought, then remembered her arm. His own sword had taken it off below the elbow.

“Love is not enough,” she said, her voice firm. She glanced at her missing hand, as if she had read his thoughts. “Love can
sometimes be the very worst thing a friend can give you, especially if it cannot be returned. It is fierce when it needs to
be gentle, selfish when it needs to look beyond itself. Robal, I know you will misunderstand these words, but now is the time
to keep your love to yourself.”

“You are wrong,” he said. “Wrong. It is exactly what we need to make sense of everything. It will cause us to fight on instead
of giving up, as you seem to wish. Love drives me, Stella. What drives you?”

She sighed and closed her eyes. “You don’t want to know.”

“I do, my dear; I do.”

Apart from some bruising, her face had restored itself. What magical stuff her blood was, and how deeply he wished she would
share it with him! To watch the centuries pass, the rise and fall of kingdoms, the ages of man succeeding each other; to travel
the length and width of the earth, walking unknown paths, standing on cold mountain peaks and in the midst of the harshest
deserts. To engage with history or to remain aloof from it, entirely as they chose. To explore the depths of their love, kept
together by the accumulation of tender moments, of shared experience. To develop their own language of intimacy.

“I cannot make you see,” she said. “I cannot subject you to my suffering. And I will not watch you grow old and die. Robal,
there is no future for us.”

“There is,” he said, daring all, willing her not to misunderstand. “All you have to do is share your blood with me.”

Stella said nothing for three, four, five beats of the heart.

“Is that what this is all about?” she said. “Do you crave immortality that much? Is it me you love, or unending life?”

The words he wanted never to hear had finally been uttered, and with them, it seemed, went any hope he had of winning her.

“You rightly explained that for there to be the one, there must be the other,” Robal said, the words coming out too fast.
“Be rid of the curse, or share it with me; either way I get what I want, which is you. I tell you the truth: I would rather
have you and a normal life than live forever without you.”

But he had no doubt she could hear the uncertainty in his voice.
How much of my love for her is my desire for immortality?
He could not say, he could not say; and the guilt finally stopped his mouth.

She lay there, the Most High burning in every vessel and sinew, his presence pulsing with a pain she could not have borne
had he not dampened it. Her blood bubbled and sparked with power too fierce for mortal flesh to contain, every mote bringing
healing to her broken and exhausted body.

But it could not heal her heart.

Kannwar loved her, a love born of need, of desperation. From the time she delivered him from the retribution of the Falthan
army at the end of the Falthan War, he had been in her debt. And his act of infusing her with his immortal blood ensured that,
of all the people of the world, she was the only one like him.

Robal loved her, but his love was a ravenous hunger, as much self-preservation, it seemed, as passion for her. Both loves
were more than she was entitled to but less than she needed. Only Leith had loved her selflessly, and now Leith was dead,
setting in motion this most unhappy period of her life.

I am leaving you now
, said the Most High.
The rest of your healing you must accomplish alone.

Suitably enigmatic
, she responded, but he had gone. What healing? Her body or her emotions?

The only true healing
, she realised,
will come when I die.

His body was already becoming a stranger to him. Umu pushed it beyond mortal endurance, crashing through copses, rebounding
from trees, stumbling over fallen trunks, thumping its feet in an endless procession of leaden steps, while Conal sat as an
unwilling passenger, locked in a corner of what was once his own mind. He could not feel the pain these abuses undoubtedly
caused, and this, more than anything, forced a final separation between what remained of him and what was once his own flesh.

So pain gives us ownership of our flesh
, he considered.
Keeps us grounded in a world of actions and consequences.
Becoming a philosopher was no comfort to him, but there was nothing else he could do except think.

You may well be right
, Umu said.
I am certainly experiencing unpleasant stimulation from these nerve endings.

Let me feel them
, Conal begged.

And gift you life?
She laughed.
Keppia is a fool. He refuses to feel the Emperor’s pain, unloading it all onto his captive. I, on the other hand, may well
have discovered the way to make my presence permanent on this side of the wall.

Do you really want to become me?

Better that than what the Father relegated me to
, she said.
But no, I’ll leave you well before I’m imprisoned in your poor flesh-sac.

And I’ll have it back
, he said fiercely.

You still refuse to understand. Your connection to this body has been severed. If I cease sustaining it, you will leach into
the void. It’s cold there.

Ahead, the night was giving way to dawn, a soft, pearly light revealing the devastation wrought by the storm. The body picked
its way across a waterlogged field, passing carcasses piled at the western end against a low bluff. Cresting a hill, the vista
was one of unrelieved destruction. Vegetation stripped of foliage, the ground churned as though trampled by a thousand oxen.

Down a gentle slope jogged the body, slowing to pick its careful way through a village.

I did a thorough job
, Umu said, pride colouring her thoughts.
My storm harvested thousands of untimely deaths. I am now stronger than my brother. Soon I will have no rival in all of heaven
and earth.

Then why are you running?

Her answer was a mental squeeze that smeared his memories, giving him something akin to pain, coming near to snuffing him
out.
Careful
, she said.
You remain here only on sufferance.

Conal doubted that, doubted it very much. He could not imagine Umu, or her brother, suffering anything unnecessarily. His
presence, he concluded, was somehow necessary to her possession of his body.

Worse comes to worst
, he told himself,
I’ll find a way to leave her here, trapped.

The body staggered and fell. It had been struck a blow to the head, one neither Conal nor Umu had seen coming. Umu’s thoughts
faded for a moment, then snapped back into sharpness. She pushed the body back to its feet.

Sweat mingled with blood obscured his—her—one eye. A figure crouched before her, then, curiously, bowed to her. Conal watched
as she raised the cudgel and took a lurching swipe at it. The figure seemed to dance backwards just far enough for the stick
to flash over its shoulder.

He recognised the figure. Knew why he stood there. And definitely did not want Umu to know.

The first catechism of the Koinobia
, he recited,
is to serve the Most High with all one’s heart and soul. The second is to serve the First Men under the guidance of one’s
superiors.
With a furious concentration he began to run through the rest of the list.

The dark figure, clothed only in a light, knee-length jerkin, took a step forward and dealt three blows to Conal’s body. Two
slaps to the face, followed by a kick that seemed to start from somewhere under the ground and finished in the sky, collecting
his head along the way. Umu yelped as the body’s feet left the ground.

Conal kept reciting.

Who is this?
she cried as she staggered backwards, trying to keep out of the range of the figure’s swift fists and feet.

The fifth is to spread knowledge of Hal’s redemptive sacrifice at every opportunity
, he chanted, like he had ten thousand times before. A well-worn path: before every meal and again before retiring, the Twelve
Catechisms needed to be repeated twelve times each.
Empty the mind, narrow the focus, think of nothing else. Do not think of the name of the person assailing Umu.

The pressure increased on his tiny spark of life and memory, but he was gone into the catechisms now. Pain would not recall
him. He’d abandoned the recitals during his journey with Stella, but now immersed himself in them as though they were the
fluid of his mother’s womb.