Storm at the Edge of Time (11 page)

Tyaak ran a hand through his hair, and Jamie noticed it wasn't nearly as bristly as earlier. It must have had some sort of treatment, which all the wind and rain had taken out. She would have felt smugly amused at the thought if she hadn't remembered the treatments she'd gone through herself to produce various hair looks. Anyway, she decided, Tyaak's almost limp hair
fit in better with the jeans and jackets all three of them now seemed to be wearing.

“That Urkar person infuriates me,” Tyaak said, giving his hair a few more futile fluffs. “He never once thanks us for risking our lives to retrieve his stick; then he gives us no choice about coming here, either. Suppose we refuse to do any more of this?”

A tempting idea, Jamie thought, trying not to recall that last onslaught of storm. “I suppose that'd be all right with me. This is my world, after all, and I could just go about my business. But if we quit now, I'm not sure how Urkar would feel about returning you two. You're right, he's not big on gratitude.” With a sly smile, she added, “But maybe you'd come to love my Earth and fit right in.”

Tyaak shot her what on any planet would have been a dirty look. “So where do you think this stick is on this precious world of yours?”

That shook her. She hadn't given it a thought. “How should I know? It's a big world. Some farmer could have picked it up for a fence post, or some tourist could have taken it halfway around the world as a souvenir.”

Arni's eyes opened wide. “Halfway around the world? Do you think that's happened?”

“No,” Jamie said firmly, then wasn't sure why. “I mean, I have no idea.”

“Oh, but you do, I think,” Tyaak said with an infuriating smile.

She glared at him. “All right, maybe I do have some sort of hunch that it's still on this island, or maybe I just hope that it is, so we don't have to go traipsing all over
the world looking for a stupid stick. What about you, Mr. Navigator? What direction is it in?”

“I couldn't say.”

“Yes, you could! East, west, south, north. Try, or you'll never get back to that fancy superior planet of yours.”

He scowled at her, but closed his eyes and stood still for long moments. Then he opened his eyes, shrugged, and waved an arm to the northeast. “Perhaps that way, but just as likely not.”

Jamie frowned. That didn't help much since from what she remembered of the map, much of the island was that way. She turned to Arni.

“And what about you? Any feel for whether it's up high or down low or anything?”

He didn't have to close his eyes. “I don't know about high or low, but there are people about. Lots of people.”

“How many?” Jamie pressed. In his world, lots of people could mean a dozen.

“Lots and lots. And lots of … of space, too. No, maybe not space. Things that take up space.”

“Like buildings?”

“Maybe,” he said a little doubtfully. “Built things, anyway.”

Jamie thought a moment. “Lots of people and buildings could mean a town, and there aren't many on the island except Kirkwall and what's-its-name, the port. Only Kirkwall's in that direction, though, so let's start there.”

Tyaak was again trying to fluff up his hair. “Are you planning to walk, or do you have horses too?”

Jamie sniffed. “This century isn't the Dark Ages, you know. We have cars and buses.”

“Gasoline-driven, I suppose? How primitive.”

“Well, feel free to walk if you want. But we're not going anywhere just now, except back to my house.” She thought a moment and asked, “Do you suppose it's the same time now as when I left here?”

“It was for me,” Arni said. “I didn't lose any time at all in Urkar's circle. A great magic worker like him could probably put us down at any point of time he wants.”

“Well, I hope so,” Jamie said, starting off toward the gate. “Otherwise I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do—to my parents and probably the police.”

“Police?” Arni questioned.

“People who enforce law's and look for missing people. Let's go.”

Walking along the road, Jamie enjoyed the feel of paving underfoot. Arni apparently did too. He skipped on ahead. Then looking himself and the others over he said, “This is what you people wear? Girls, too?”

“Yes, and I like it that way. I don't miss that heavy itchy wool skirt one bit. But the jeans and jacket look great on you. You'll fit right in.” She studied Tyaak. “You might, too, but you'll have to keep the jacket hood up over your hair.” She wasn't as sure about Tyaak's complexion. He could be a tourist, maybe, who was perpetually seasick.

As she walked, Jamie realized that although she was sleepy, she wasn't as exhausted, wet, and bruised as she should have been. Urkar's fire was pretty good stuff. She was thinking about Urkar when she saw her house
down the road and suddenly realized she couldn't just march in with two strange boys and hide them in a closet.

“Look, you two are going to have to wait outside somewhere until morning and then knock on the door, like we've arranged to have you visit or something. Maybe you're friends I've made on the island, and we've arranged to go to Kirkwall together.”

“I have no desire to spend more time outside, thank you,” Tyaak said. “Is it ever anything except cold and windy on this planet of yours?”

“Hey, don't judge the whole planet by the Orkney Islands,” Jamie protested.

Arni piped up, “And don't you two run down Orkney. When my father and Thorfinn went to Rome they said the people and weather there were soft—it was just the sort of place that ought to be plundered. Orkney people are tough.”

And stupid, too, Jamie thought, if they don't take the first chance they can to leave. But she kept quiet. Orkney was proving a more unusual vacation spot than Florida.

“There's a carriage house or something behind our place. It'll keep you out of the wind, and anyway it's supposed to be spring here.”

Predictably, Tyaak didn't like his lodgings, but Jamie didn't really care. She was only as tired as if she'd been out half the night defying tourist signs, but that was tired enough. Her father was still snoring when she slipped back inside the house and climbed the stairs. To that rhythm and the steady roaring of wind outside, she fell into a deep, restful sleep.

When Jamie woke in the morning, wind was still riffling over the slate shingles. As she lay in bed, pictures fell into her mind, and she played with them like fragments of a dream. Only they didn't fade as the minutes passed, but became more clearly linked together.

All her life, she had wanted to be something special. Yet now, the knowledge that she
was
special seemed more frightening than her earlier fear of being a nothing. Being plain unremarkable Jamie might have been disappointing, but it wasn't terrifying.

But it wasn't exciting either. Now, both terrified and excited, she quickly got up and dressed.

A muffled knock downstairs. Moments later her mother came up, a slightly puzzled look on her face. “Jamie, there are a couple of boys at the door who say you arranged to go with them into Kirkwall.”

“Oh, yes,” Jamie said stepping onto the landing. “I met them yesterday when I was … exploring around and got talking, and we sort of decided it would be fun to go into town and look at the shops and stuff.”

She hurried downstairs. Two boys stood in the dark entiyway gazing around. The taller one had his hood pulled up to shadow his face, but one strand of hair had escaped like a blue-black snake.

“Mom,” Jamie said awkwardly, pointing first to the red-haired boy, “this is Arni. He's a local resident. His father's a … writer. And this is Tyaak. He's, uh …” For a moment her imagination ran frighteningly dry. Then it burst free. “He's from Afghanistan. His family are, you know, refugees from that war they have there. They're thinking of opening a restaurant here.”

“What a fine idea,” her mother said. “And I'm sure you'll all have a grand time in Kirkwall. Now, if you boys want an extra breakfast, you can join Jamie. Her father and I ate early so we could get a good start on today's birding trip. Do you have any money for the bus, Jamie?”

“Yes, Mom, I'm fine. Say hi to the birds.”

Jamie was relieved that her parents left before Arni and Tyaak did much at the breakfast table. Neither seemed to know how to deal with the food or utensils. Arni ended up eating the scrambled eggs with his fingers. After a few pokes, Tyaak wouldn't eat the eggs in any manner, but he did slice the banana lengthwise and roll it and the bacon in a piece of toast.

The bus proved even more of a challenge. Arni acted as if he'd rather attack the thing than ride in it, and once Jamie had managed to get them all up the steps, Tyaak insisted on standing behind the driver and asking what every control was and how it worked. After a while, the man glared around at him.

“You pretending you're a flipping bus inspector or something?”

Jamie dragged Tyaak and Arni to seats in the back, away from other passengers. Once Arni got over his distrust of the machine, he eagerly joined Tyaak in looking out the window and flooding Jamie with questions.

“How do you heat these big houses?” Arni asked, and before Jamie could explain about furnaces and fireplaces, Tyaak asked, “Are there still fish in the seas for people to catch and eat? I thought they nearly all died out in the twentieth century. Or maybe that was the twenty-first.”

Great, Jamie thought. Now I'm a guide for time travelers—a new profession. Trying to keep the other passengers from hearing, she answered questions as well as she could. It surprised her to realize how much she didn't know about her own time. How did gasoline-driven engines actually work, anyway? And how many different religions were there in the world?

When they finally got to Kirkwall, Jamie was relieved that both boys were too busy looking even to talk. But once on the street, she had to deal with Arni's ignorance of traffic and Tyaak's tirades against primitive, carelessly piloted death traps.

In the shopping area set off for pedestrians only, she relaxed a little and asked, “Now what? Is this what you mean by a lot of people, Arni?”

He nodded solemnly. “This is more than a lot. But yes, I think it is right.”

She turned to Tyaak, who was staring at a window full of puffin souvenirs. “And what about you? Any idea about direction?”

For a moment, his dark face clouded, and Jamie was afraid he was going to start denying again that he could do anything. Then he shrugged and said, “Up that way, perhaps. But I am not a calibrated homing device. It is just a vague pull, a feeling of rightness somehow. I could as easily be imagining the whole thing.”

Jamie nodded. “Yeah, I know. I have a picture in my mind of this staff being pale, like sunlight glimmering on fish scales, like when a fish jumps out of the water. Every time I tell myself that's silly and try to think of it some other way, I keep coming back to a fish, a jumping fish. I just wish Urkar had taken the time to
show us how to use this power, but I guess he's not a time-taking sort.”

They headed up the shopping street, looking at window displays that were amazingly futuristic or crudely primitive, depending on the point of view. Jamie noticed the same local teens lounging about with the same tank tops and cool expressions, trying to look scornfully superior to the gawking tourists. She'd have liked to shove their smugness in their faces by telling them just how far from home
these
tourists were, but instead she traded impudent stare for impudent stare and walked on.

Soon the narrow street opened up, the shops continuing on one side and the plaza with its cathedral and cemetery on the other. “Are we still heading in the right direction?” Jamie asked.

“Yes,” Tyaak said, then shook his head. “I am not certain. This is like trying to tune myself to a very narrow frequency and picking up many other signals instead. And I do not know how to adjust the scanner—assuming the principle works at all.”

Arni looked confused, but shrugged and said, “The staff is around people and built things and space.”

“And it's upright instead of horizontal like the last one,” Jamie added. “But that still doesn't get us far. Look, if this power thing's too slippery, let's just use our heads. What we're looking for is a carved wooden staff, an old one. Now, someone who found something like that would probably keep it at home as a curiosity or give it to a museum or a college or something. I think there's a museum down that way, across from the cathedral, though I don't know what it has.”

“What's a museum?” Arni asked.

“A place to keep old things that show about the past.”

“That's silly,” the Viking boy said. “If old things are any good, people should use them; if not, they should throw them out.”

“Spoken like a barbarian,” Tyaak said scornfully, heading down the street.

The museum was indeed full of old things: furniture, glass, and silver from the last few hundred years; jewelry and inscribed stone from Viking times; and bone, pots, and stone tools taken from ancient burial cairns. From the first, however, Jamie felt that the staff was not there. In fact, the place made her uneasy, and it seemed to do the same for the others, too, though they dutifully examined everything.

Three times, Arni went back to the Viking exhibit only to walk away quickly, looking even paler than usual. “Let's go,” he said at last. “What should be here isn't, and a lot of things that shouldn't be here are.” He hurried down the stairs and headed for the door.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Jamie said, “Wait, let's check out the gift shop.”

“They sell antiquities?” Tyaak said, surprised.

“No, but they might sell carvings by local craftspeople or maybe have some guidebooks or something useful.”