Beyond the Wall of Time (48 page)

He ought, therefore, to consider himself a lucky man. His fellows in the Instruian Guard would certainly regard him so. But
with such an irresistible, deep love as his came jealousy, and it had eaten at him like a worm in an apple. First the absurd
Conal had tried to claim his beloved, an action more ridiculous than threatening. But latterly his greatest fear had been
realised: the Destroyer had exercised his fascination and hooked his queen. As a result, Stella was about to betray them all
by joining herself with Kannwar’s unquestioned corruption. This could not be allowed to happen.

That thought consumed him. Everything else about his daily life since the moment Stella had called his bluff was mere mechanics:
food, sleep, directions, all taken as required, all pleasure suspended, nothing more satisfying than dust and ashes. The world
around him disappeared. He rode northwards through this dark tunnel, noticing nothing, his thoughts reduced to a few repetitive
phrases that solidified his fears and grievances into something resembling truth.

This cannot be allowed to happen. She must be stopped.

He met people he recognised from the days after Corata Pit, people journeying southwards towards home, having abandoned their
dangerous alliance with Robal’s former companions. They told him of the Bhrudwan lord’s change of plans, confirming what the
young boy’s father had explained the night he left Mensaya and set out slowly on the north road. “Bound for Zizhua,” they
said. “A place of ill repute. A place of ghosts. A place too strange for people to live.” And some whispered: “Stay away.”

Robal’s resolve hardened as he heard these words. Wherever the Destroyer was taking his friends, it was clearly a place of
secrecy and danger. A place, he feared, of betrayal.

Despite his inattention to the world around him, he was careful to exercise all the care over his cargo he had been warned
about. The many precautions seemed foolish to him, especially after those hurried first few days when anxiety had overcome
prudence, all cautions ignored, and the stuff might have failed at any moment. Not that he would have cared overmuch. Keep
it covered by the sawdust, the miners of Corata Pit had told him. Make sure it is kept out of direct sunlight and rain. Of
course, they said to him, you must never park your wagon anywhere near a bonfire or other flame. A single spark… well, do
we have to paint you a picture? Do not expose it to rough handling—preferably, one had said, holding up a handless arm as
evidence, don’t handle it at all. If you must handle it, wear the gloves we have provided you. Don’t get any on your eyes,
nose, lips or even on your skin, as your body will drink it in and it will fix inside you, causing terrible headaches and
ague, possibly unto death.

A hundred fears, each one ready to claim the unwary.

The two dejected, ill-used donkeys recovered slowly over the long, slow days of the journey, and Robal was largely successful
in keeping them in feed—when he remembered to feed them. The miners had sold him food as part of his cargo, and he shared
it with his beasts: bran mash, groats, rotting vegetables and hard biscuits. No meat. It didn’t matter. He ate a little of
everything and tasted nothing. Their diet he supplemented with grass and other plants from the side of the road and adjacent
fields, letting them eat whatever they chose.

He came back to something approximating life on the day a middle-aged, dwarfishly short farmer told him that a party of a
dozen or more were only a few hours ahead: he’d sold them food that morning, apparently. Robal asked if there was another
road to Zizhua from here, and was told there was not. But, the farmer added, for a fee he would show the barbarian a little-known
stock route into the Zizhua Valley. He used it himself to graze his sheep there in the winter, where they did far better than
on his own land. The farmer was breaking some law or other; Robal didn’t listen to the man’s blather. After the promise of
coin the guardsman did not have, the farmer hoisted himself aboard the wagon and pointed across his fields.

Progress was painfully slow. “It’s a direct route,” the farmer insisted, or at least that was what Robal understood by the
man’s words: his accent was strange even for a Bhrudwan, and Robal, relatively new to the language, struggled to make sense
of it.

“What you got in the wagon?” the man asked him.

“No questions about that,” Robal growled.

The farmer nodded wisely, no doubt assuming some sort of contraband.

“If you try to find out, I will cut off your hands,” Robal added, easing his sword a little way out of its scabbard.

The man nodded again, wide-eyed.

Unless the cargo takes your hands first
, Robal added, but did not say it aloud. He could not afford any knowledge of the contents of the wagon to be noised about.
For all he knew, any person he met—that fat woman kneeling by the river washing her clothes, or this old man chivvying a flock
of sheep along the dirt road—could be one of the Destroyer’s spies.

The farmer was a talkative man. He told Robal about his dutiful wife and three lovely daughters, and about the collapse of
his house in the dreadful earthquake. He had buried his wife and two of his daughters; the third had married a year ago and
now lived far to the north, where, the man hoped with oft-repeated fervour, she had escaped the quake.

“I was to go north anyway,” he said. “When I leave you, I will take to the Malayu Road. I must tell her what happened to her
mother and sisters. The farm can look after itself until I return.”

The farmer didn’t look particularly sorrowful at his loss, but Robal couldn’t really tell whether the man’s constant smile
was a cultural thing or relief at finally being alone. Possibly the latter.
Serves the fellow right if he settled for a less consuming love than mine.

On a crisp autumn morning they broached a high saddle and looked across a wide valley. Fog hugged the ground, and at irregular
intervals steep, isolated hills poked through the pale shroud.

“Zizhua,” the farmer announced unnecessarily.

“Do you think we have arrived before my friends?”

“Oh yes,” the man said, smiling rather slyly. “Your friends will come soon, but not today. Time for you to make ready your
surprise. Bang bang bang!”

“What do you know about my intentions?” Robal asked sharply.

Not sharply enough.

“You have explosives in your wagon,” the man said, carrying on blithely. “I can smell them. When I am a boy I make fire-candles
for the great celebrations of Malayu. They make a distinctive smell. Oh, do not worry,” he added, belatedly noting the anger
on Roba1’s face, “I keep your secret to myself. Your plans are safe with me.”

“Indeed they are,” Roba1 said bitterly. “Or, at least, they soon will be.”

What was to prevent the man making his way straight to the Destroyer and selling him Robal’s secret? Perhaps the man would
demand more money from Robal to keep his secret. Whichever, the man had to be silenced. This was too important to be left
to chance.

Time slowed down as Roba1 watched himself draw his sword. He willed the blade to come out more swiftly, hoping he could do
this before he had a chance to think, but his thoughts raced far ahead of his will.
Murderer
, they shrieked at him.
You should never have walked away from those keeping you on the straight path.

One death to save thousands of lives
, he told his traitorous thoughts. His sword came clear of its scabbard and he lifted it into the air.

“Please… my daughter… ”

One death to protect yourself
, his conscience corrected him, reminding him of another man who had made a similarly venal argument only a little while ago.
A man who regularly played god with his empire, killing the few to save the many.

The tip of the blade parted the farmer’s outstretched hands and slid easily through his quaking chest, grazing a rib but finding
his heart.

Robal’s fellow guardsmen would have applauded him. A pragmatic man of action, they would have said.

As the light went out in the farmer’s eyes, eyes that would never now see his one remaining daughter, Robal’s conscience disagreed
with the guardsmen.
You have become a man who would take an innocent life out of expediency.

The body slid off his blade and slumped sideways on the wooden seat. As it came to rest, time resumed its normal pace and
Robal drew a huge, sobbing breath.

Some time later a man with a pale, sweaty face, a thin line for lips and eyes reddened with suppressed weeping, drove a large
wagon down into the Zizhua Valley. The man barely noticed when the body at his side toppled from the wagon and landed softly
in the grass.

That night the travellers rested in a grove of the strange feathery trees. Their branches quivered gently in the breeze, creating
a susurration oddly pleasant to the ear.

“It appears the storm did not penetrate this far inland,” Kannwar remarked as they laid out their makeshift bed-rolls. “I
am pleased they have survived: the lauren tree grows nowhere else but the Zizhua Valley.”

“Is the tree responsible for that aroma?” Stella asked him. The whole valley had smelled faintly of cinnamon, but the scent
was much stronger here amidst the strange foliage.

“Oh, yes,” Kannwar said. “Look!” He gestured to the base of the nearest tree.

There Stella saw a strange arrangement: a smaller tree, little more than a bush, had been cut back near to its roots perhaps
a season or two ago, and the tender shoots had grown to an arm-span or more in length.

“Harvesters will strip these shoots of their bark,” explained Kannwar, “then dry out the bark and roll it into strips. All
the cinnamon in the world comes from this valley.”

“I often had cinnamon on my morning bran,” Stella said in wonder. “I had no idea it came from this far away.”

“There are severe restrictions on how much can be harvested. I can remember receiving a delegation of Zizhua natives a few
centuries ago, come to make an argument for increasing the volume of production. They wanted easier lives, they told me. I
replied that if it was ease they wanted, they ought to leave the valley.”

Stella frowned. “I suppose you had them put to death to impress on others the foolishness of questioning their lot.”

“Not at all,” Kannwar said. “I acceded to their request, but asked that one young person a year be sent to Andratan for training.
They saw that as a fair trade.”

“That’s something, at least.”

“No, it isn’t. None of the youngsters ever adapted to life outside the valley. They all missed their lauren trees, they claimed,
and I was unable to command their loyalty. At that point there were a few deaths. The natives never learned of the true circumstances
surrounding those deaths, so I would thank you not to mention them.”

She snorted. “To travel around the world trying to make right all the wrong you have done truly would be a task for an immortal.”
A thought struck her. “We are to meet these natives?”

“Indeed. None but those born in Zizhua are allowed in the valley. According to their gift, negotiated with me many years ago,
the inhabitants will seek to enforce this rule by slaying us. We should expect a visit tomorrow morning, if not sooner.”

“Oh? Would you have told us this had I not asked?”

“I intend to sit up tonight and take every watch. There is, therefore,” he added complacently, “no need to worry.”

“Every word from you serves to amplify my worries still further.”

“You?” Kannwar said. “What do you have to worry about?”

She sighed, the weariness of nearly ninety years weighing heavily. “I left Instruere with one companion and another man trailing
me. That man is now a corpse animated by an inimical god, wandering Bhrudwo to serve some dreadful purpose. My guardsman has
left me and I have no idea where he is or what he intends. I’m frightened that they will meet and it will go well for neither.”

She lifted her face to his. “And I am currently enduring what must be the strangest, most diffident courtship of all time.
My paramour seems to think that displaying himself at his worst is somehow attractive to me. I suspect he hopes to impress
me with the small gleams of humanity he allows to shine through his deliberately brutal façade. I am not impressed.”

“Is there any point in his continuing then?”

“None. He knows full well that he horrifies me, yet if I wish to risk becoming close to anyone without condemning myself to
watch that person wither and die, he is the only choice. He knows this too. What he doesn’t fully appreciate is that I am
unsure whether I would rather be his companion or be dead.”

“He would be flattered to hear that.”

“And yet I see occasional glimpses of Kannwar, the boy born two thousand years ago, the hope of his generation, and he never
fails to thrill me.”

“Because you have already shared a life with the hope of another generation and you cannot now settle for anything less. Poor
Robal! A worthy man driven mad by his intended’s impossibly high standard.”

She nodded, acknowledging the point. Truly, she’d never thought of it in quite those terms. Leith had been the chosen tool
of the Most High, just as this man had once nearly been, and now was.
I always was ambitious
, she thought, remembering her desire to leave Loulea and its limited supply of small-minded boys all those years ago.
Ambitious—and foolish.

“So, you see, I feel responsible for the fates of Conal and Robal,” she continued. “This adventure is bringing out the worst
in good men, using them up. Can you not see that this piles guilt on my shoulders?”

“You ask me that? Guilt and I are close companions.”

“Yes, I imagine you are. The deaths you bring about in the present are real ones, while those you hope to save in the future
are notional at best. It is no wonder you suffer.”

“Stella, Kannwar!” someone called. “The food is ready!”

“Ah, joy,” said the Undying Man. “More gruel.”