The Sea of Time (21 page)

“My second oldest, Lathen,” said Kalan, confirming her suspicion.

“Who are these people?” the boy demanded. “Does Cousin Lainoscopes know that you have visitors?”

Kalan drew herself up with an effort. She looked terrified. “Dear, this is an old friend. She’s come to take me home.”

The boy paled. “What do you mean? This is your home!”

“You know that I came here from over the sea, from a future when Langadine no longer exists. A daughter waits for me there. Don’t you remember? I used to sing to you about her, your little half-sister. She’s still only a baby and she needs me. Now I am going back to her.”

The boy shook his head, distraught. “No, no, no. Those were only foolish stories, and you’re deluding yourself now. I told my brothers that the king was pushing you too hard, but no one listens to me, not the way they did to Father. You can’t leave! What about us?”

“Lanek will go with me. You and the rest are old enough to look after yourselves, unlike your sister. Please, dear . . .”

“The king won’t allow it. You’ll see.” His voice broke. “Let go of me!”

Brier had taken his arm. He twisted futilely in her iron grip, simultaneously terrified and outraged that she could overpower him so easily.

“You can come with us,” said Jame.

“Where? Into some fantasy of future days? This is my time. I belong here.”

“Yes. I suppose you do.”

At a nod from her, Brier released the boy and he darted out the door, bound, no doubt, to inform the king of their imminent escape.

“I don’t understand,” said Damson in Kens as they descended the outside stair, Jame supporting the seeker, Brier carrying a delighted Lanek. “If he finds any guards still awake—and he probably will: I couldn’t put them all to sleep—they’ll be after us. So why let him go?”

Jame sighed. “He was right: this is his time, even if it kills him. Brier could have knocked him unconscious, I suppose. That would have been more sensible. But it just didn’t seem fair. He’s terrified of losing his mother. Why take away his self-respect on top of everything else?”

“Why? To get us safely out of here. Ten, sometimes you think too much.”

They had reached the courtyard. A cluster of men advanced on them—guards, Jame thought; Damson was right—but then she saw that they were all clad in yellow and that they escorted an old man who held back, talking fast:

“. . . you see, it wasn’t as if I actually flew. Think more metaphysically. You know that my intellect far exceeds your own . . .”

“Yes, Master, of course, Master,” they soothed him.

The Tishooo spotted Jame. “You were there! You said that I fell!”

“So I did. So you will. But it won’t hurt you.”

He looked up at the tower, his head tipping further and further back. For only three stories, it was remarkably high, “the tallest in the city,” Byrne had proudly claimed.

“Don’t tell me what will or won’t hurt!”

“Just keep talking!” she called after him as he was hustled past. “Stall!”

They went as quickly as they could down through a city shaken awake by the latest tremor. Some dwellings had collapsed while others were on fire. Many had left their inhabitants huddled outside in the street in their nightgowns while their neighbors tried to comfort them, meanwhile keeping a wary eye on their own shaken houses. The night market was a kicked ant’s nest full of merchants scrambling to save their wares. Jame hoped that Ean had taken her seriously concerning the need for haste.

At the waterfront she found not only Ean and Byrne but her own command, moas and all, piled into a sturdy fishing boat.

“Get aboard!” Gorbel shouted from the prow.

There was no wind to speak of, so the oars were out and manned by the cadets. The former owner stood on the marble wharf, his pockets bulging with golden coins, some of which he fingered, as if unable to believe either his luck or the foolish extravagance of some people.

“Are you sure you don’t want to hire a crew?” he called to the newcomers as they rushed past him. “Then at least remember to cast off!”

Gorbel threw off the front hawser, Brier the stern. The boat rocked away from its mooring and began to drift sideways. The moas swayed, squawking.

“Pull, damn you!” roared the Caineron Lordan.

Some oars crashed in midair like inept duelists while others splashed into the water. The cadets hadn’t had any practice rowing since their flight from Restormir in Caldane’s barge more than a year ago. The Silver didn’t promote such sport.

“All right, all right, calm down and start over. Up, down . . . pull!”

The boat backed away from the wharf, stern first. How did one turn the thing around? No matter, as long as they were making progress.

Jame stood on the prow, watching Langadine recede ever so slowly. From here, she could see several broken terraces with shattered houses spilling down through the gaps, also flames reflected on whitewashed walls. People shouted. Dogs barked. Perhaps nothing else would happen, tonight at least. Oh, to get away while that doomed, many-tiered city still stood . . .

Whoomp!

The palace folded in on itself in a billow of dust, then the hill on which it stood. Not so the black temple. As the built-up ground fell away, more and more of it was revealed, still square and immobile but looming higher and higher. At first it wore the tilted remains of the tower like a hat, until Kalan’s former quarters fell apart and away, with the hint of a figure in gold flung from its ramparts even as it crumpled.

“Fly,” Jame whispered. “Fly!” But she knew that even now the Old Man had begun his endless fall.

The collapse spread, terrace by terrace, flattening the city as if a great weight had been laid on it. More dust rose, obscuring details, muffling screams cut short.

“What’s happening?” asked Timmon, wide-eyed, standing beside her.

“The temple has come to life and our people are about to arrive on Rathillien,” said Jame. The weight of history bore down on her and the ancient words rose in her throat as harsh as vomit:

“‘Two-thirds of the People fell that night, Highborn and Kendar. “Rise up, Highlord of the Kencyrath,” said the Arrin-ken to Glendar. “Your brother has forfeited all. Flee, man, flee, and we will follow.” And so he fled, Cloak, Knife and Book abandoning, into the new world. Barriers he raised, and his people consecrated them. “A watch we will keep,” they said, “and our honor someday avenge. Alas for the greed of a man and the deceit of a woman, that we should come to this!”’

“Don’t you see? It’s all happening
now
. We are fallen, and in flight.”

Oh Dream-weaver, oh Mother. Do you see, will you ever see, what you have done?

“Fallen or not, we aren’t fleeing fast enough,” said Gorbel, coming up to stand between them. “Are we going to be squashed flat, too?”

“Maybe, maybe not. Everyone, clear the foredeck.”

While the others retreated to the waist (Timmon, reluctantly), Jame ransacked her memory for master runes.
The Book Bound in Pale Leather
was out of her hands, still hidden in the cave behind Mount Alban where the thing that was once Bane sat guard over it. In her mind, however, she flipped over its pages, quickly so as to recognize but not accidentally animate any of its dire sigils.

Nothing, nothing, nothing . . .

Then it came to her: the Great Dance, which even now her mother had perverted, the one intended to direct the power of the temples, of their god itself. Trinity, how long it had been since she had first learned that fearsome variant of the Senetha in Perimal Darkling, taught by golden-eyed shadows. More recently, she had danced in the Tastigon temple after its priest Ishtier had lost control of it.

Child, you have perverted the Great Dance as your namesake did before you,
the Arrin-ken Immilai had said in the Ebonbane afterward, passing judgment on her.
You have also usurped a priest’s authority and misused a master rune. We conclude that you are indeed a darkling, in training if not in blood. On the whole, your intentions have been good, but your behavior has been reckless to the point of madness and your nascent powers barely under control.

Three days before, she had nearly destroyed Tai-tastigon.

Then there was Karkinaroth crumpling behind her, but that had been Tirandys’ fault for sealing its temple’s priests in until they died.

Darkling . . .
 
No one had called her that in a long time. Tentir had almost made her forget. Nonetheless, she still was one, as the Arrin-ken had said, in training if not in blood.

The dust billowed closer. Lightning flashed within it from cloud to cloud and blue fire crept, crackling, up the boat’s rigging. Jame snapped her fingers, and smiled ruefully at the resulting spark.

Tai-tastigon had survived her.

Karkinaroth hadn’t been her fault.

“Your friend Marc warned me that I would probably find the Riverland reduced to rubble and you in the midst of it, looking apologetic.”

Tentir had only been slightly damaged.

Langadine was dying anyway. No one could blame her for that—could they?

G’ah, don’t think of it
.

She might be both a darkling and a potential nemesis, but destruction had its role to play too, as Granny Sit-by-the-Fire had said. Her duty now lay with those still alive.

She could feel the power looming over her. Rather than the fierce torrent that she had experienced with other temples, it was thick and clogged with the debris that made it visible, as if the newly awakened edifice were expelling its own afterbirth. The moon and stars dimmed, then disappeared. Jame saluted the on-rolling darkness, turning the gesture into one of defiance. Time to dance.

Glide, dip, turn . . .

Each move summoned power and expelled it. Violet flames ran down her limbs and crackled at her fingertips. Freed of its cap, her braided hair cracked like whips as she spun. Blue lightning snapped from the ship’s rigging to be met by a blinding return stroke from the roiling clouds. As one, the moas flopped over to hide heads under wings. Jame barely noticed. Darkness arched over the boat and pressed down. The mast groaned, but the light flaring at its tip held the shadows at bay. Her dance was creating a space within the clouds, a partial haven from their crushing weight.

An oar shattered. Cadets hastily withdrew and shipped the rest, then went back to holding their ears against the relentless pressure.

Whomp!

Suddenly they were falling, but only a few feet. The sea had been driven back, leaving their keel on its salty bottom among flopping fish.

Just as abruptly, the weight lifted. Jame fell to her knees on the prow. Dark stars splashed between her shaking gloved hands: her nose and ears were bleeding.

“Mommy, is it over?” asked Lanek in a piping voice through a mask of tears and snot.

“Not quite,” said Gorbel, looking out to sea. “Hold on. Here it comes!”

The sea was returning in a towering wave, flinging whitecaps and fish off of its crest as it came. It rolled under the boat’s stern, pitching it upward and nearly flinging out its passengers. The moas screamed. So did Lady Kalan.

The wave rolled on, driving the clouds before it up through the broken tiers of the city. Then back it came, dragging the dead with it. Jame clung to the rail staring down into all of those blank, smashed faces. The ship bobbed in a sea of corpses. Over all, power still roiling about its base, loomed the black temple crowned by the gibbous moon.

The wind returned in a swirl of tattered gold, not quite landing on the deck beside her.

“You were right,” said the Old Man in a tone of wonder. “It didn’t hurt at all.”

“You think not? Look.”

The Tishooo stared down, his seamed face going slack with shock, then taut with outrage. “Oh, my poor people, my poor city! Who has done this terrible thing?”

That, thought Jame, was a good question. Hers was supposedly a sentient god, yet his actions seemed mindless. All of this destruction—to what end? A temple had come to life, and in the process had slaughtered an innocent population. Where was the justice in that? Never mind that he might be said to have saved his own people through her actions. But honor didn’t only apply within the Kencyrath, whatever some Kencyr like Caldane believed—did it? Not to her understanding. Was such an action any worse than what Perimal Darkling had done to the previous world, through the agency of the Master and the Dream-weaver? Were they also only tools, and if so, of whom? What difference was there, after all, between the Shadows and the Three-Faced God? Did her own people also worship a monster?

“There,” she said, dragging herself upright and pointing at the tower.

The Tishooo breathed deep, and the air flexed with him, in and out of her own lungs until her head spun.

Then he was gone.

Jame couldn’t see his progress directly, but the clouds around the base of the tower recoiled. Something buffeted them, then drove them back round and around the temple’s black shaft, higher and higher. The embedded dead seemed to rise with the blast as if they were storming their destroyer. The wind drew tighter and grew faster, dispersing the clouds of god-power. The tower cracked. Massive shards toppled off of it, plummeting into the chaos below. Then it shattered and fell.

“Good,” said Jame, and collapsed.

III