The Sea of Time

X The Sea of Time

The next day dawned clear and hot, revealing that the caravan had camped on the very edge of the sand dunes. Flat, rock-strewn land stretched away before them in unparalleled monotony, broken here and there by wind-tortured stone formations. Once again the wagons were unpacked, the wagon wheels restored, and their loads returned. Jame supposed that the rocks, as small as they were, would scrape on the sledge bottoms. Lambas whiffed and hooted, not eager to resume their harnesses. Over the past few days without water, their swollen bellies had shrunken noticeably and their girths needed to be tightened. Soon they would require another deep drink.

Few other beasts had made it so far except for the moas, who required copious amounts of water at least every third day. Horses, mules, and oxen had long since turned back or died in harness under the lash of desperate drivers. Some of the latter found passage on the wagons, abandoning all but the choicest of their own loads, but most shouldered what water they could carry and started the long trudge back to Kothifir. Jame wondered how many would make it.

To have come so far, to fail by so little . . .

At dusk on the thirteenth of Winter, the remaining travelers—some fifty wagons in all—arrived at the edge of the Great Salt Sea. It stretched out before them to the horizon, its surface broken by drought into octagonal plates. A failing slash of light from the west washed its white surface with pink and mauve. The east wind picked up, causing sparkling salt ghosts to drift across the empty plain in stately procession like an army on the march, until the shadows overtook them.

Tents were pitched, evening meals cooked.

When Jame rose early the next morning, she found that the trade caravan had slipped away in the night, leaving its Kencyr escort behind. Moreover, she smelled fresh water. They had set up camp at a brackish oasis which, when dug out of the sand, stank of rot. Now the camp was surrounded by grass, sedge, and tall reeds marching into a shallow sea. One could still make out the salt plates under the surface, but they hadn’t yet dissolved to contaminate the rainwater swell. The face of the water reflected the glowing morning sky like a vast mirror, dazzling the eye.

“What in Perimal’s name . . . ?” said Timmon, coming up to her. “I know this is the beginning of the rainy reason, but surely it didn’t pour last night. Runoff from distant mountains?”

“That might explain it, but not all of this established vegetation. What do you think, Ran?”

The senior officer stood near them, surveying the sudden sea. “I’ve heard of such a thing,” he said, “when the Tishooo plays tricks.”

“Because the Old Man controls the flow of time in the Wastes?” Jame asked, remembering what she had been told in the Undercliff.

He gave a short laugh. “So the natives say.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Jame.

Laurintine had guided the caravan back to lost Langadine, into the past. What if the Tishooo had taken them there too, for some obscure reason of its own? If so, where in the past might they be? She gathered that each caravan trip was closer to the Kothifir of three thousand years ago and to Langadine’s ultimate, mysterious destruction. Perhaps the caravan had barely arrived there. Perhaps it had been in Langadine for days, or months, or years. How long could they wait for its return before their supplies ran out?

Brier also stood by the shore, gazing out at the watery expanse. Jame wondered if she had been there all night and had seen the flood rise. What must she be thinking now? Her mother Rose Iron-thorn had escaped with Tori, Harn, and Rowan from Urakarn on the edge of this same sea, if much farther to the west. It had been dry at first as they fled, and sinksand had swallowed Rose. Jame remembered Brier’s voice telling her the story as Tori had told it to her, how at dusk they had come across the petrified remains of a boat and had collapsed into it.

“In the night, feverish,” Brier had said, “he thought he saw the water return . . . all that flat sand plain changing back to the sea it had been, and the stone boat afloat on it. Under the surface, he saw Rose and reached down to her. She took his hand, pulled it down into the stinging salt water, pulled the whole boat across the sea . . . in a dream, he thought, born of fever; but in the morning, there they were safe on the northern shore, with nothing behind them but sand . . .”

“Do you think that your mother is still out there, under the sand, under the water?” she asked Brier.

The Southron shrugged, malachite green eyes still sweeping the sea. “Did she come back at all or did the Highlord only dream it? Did you?”

“For your brother’s sake . . .”

Cold words, cold hands, thrusting Jame back to the surface when the returning sea had swallowed her outside Mount Alban after the weirdingstrom had swept it into the Southern Wastes. She had no doubt, herself, what she had experienced.

Brier shrugged. “Her bones at least still lie under the sand. Who knows?”

The laughter and catcalls of Char’s third-year cadets sounded behind them. They turned to see Gorbel trudging toward them from Ean’s abandoned tent, stripping off ropes and spitting out a gag.

“One of the wagon masters recognized me,” he said with disgust. “Our friend swore that I was his assistant, but they dragged me off anyway and tied me up to keep me from following. Is that them?” He peered at vague, wavering forms on the horizon.

“It could just be a mirage,” said Timmon.

“Or the spires of a city,” Jame said, staring hard.

An uproar burst out near the shore where the moas had gathered to drink. Something huge lunged out of the reeds and chomped down on the nearest bird. The rest flopped down flat and froze like so many brown lumps, some with their heads inadvertently underwater.

“Ancestors preserve us,” said the senior randon. “A rhi-sar.”

The beast stood on the shore, ignoring the motionless birds. The long legs of its prey dangled out of its toothy jaws, twitching slightly. It threw back its massive head and bolted them down. A second giant reptile emerged from the reeds. Both stood on their powerful hind legs, smaller forearms tucked almost delicately against their armored chests. The first was blue and mottled green, its scales edged with gold. The second was orange shading to the dark red of dried blood. Their lashing, scaly tails made up nearly half of their thirty-foot lengths.

The reeds parted and a third, smaller reptile joined them, this one creamy white with watery blue eyes.

I should have brought Death’s-head, thought Jame. As she had foreseen, however, he had stayed behind with Bel.

“Stand still,” said the randon. “They react to motion.”

Too late: Char broke ranks and dashed to grab a spear.

The two rhi-sar bellowed and charged the camp.

Yells sounded as the cadets scrambled for weapons and into formation. The blue brute lunged at one such group, catching a spear and jerking its wielder out of place. Its red mate snapped sideways, catching the cadet and folding him double backward before bolting him down. The senior randon plunged to the rescue, only to get caught between the two.

“No!” Jame cried, but already they had grabbed him, one on each side, and between them had ripped him apart. Blood sprayed the sedge. The water tinged pink.

Both rhi-sar spread their frilled collars and trilled their triumph.

Jame turned to watch the white rhi-sar. It had held back so far but not, she thought, out of fear or weakness. Its small eyes switched from reptile to reptile like a general directing troops. One of them lumbered back to it and vomited mixed body parts, steaming with acid and already half-digested, at its feet. An offering.

Someone handed her a spear. She balanced it, advanced, and threw it at the white beast. More by luck than skill, she caught the creature in one eye. It reared back, bellowing, and clawed at the shaft, snapping it off in its eye socket. The other blue eye focused on her. How well could it see? Well enough to chase her if she moved.

The other two rhi-sar seemed confused, snapping at random as cadets ran past them. Damson stood before one of them, holding it in her baleful gaze. It lunged at the air on either side of her as if unable to bring her into focus. The other rhi-sar stumbled into it and they fell, tearing at each other.

But the white one wasn’t confused. It thundered straight at Jame, jaws agape. She turned and ran, trying to draw it away from the other cadets, but they in turn were running toward her. Char thrust a spear between its hind legs, tripping it. It turned its fall into a lunge at Jame, missing by inches when she dodged to its blind side. Before it could recover, she threw herself on its head and clasped its jaws shut with her arms and legs, half expecting them to be ripped off. But she had guessed right: the muscles that opened that fearful maw were weaker than those that closed it. The brute reared up, trying to shake her off, scraping futilely at her with its foreclaws.

Cadets darted in and stabbed at its exposed belly. It was armored as thoroughly as a rathorn, but there were wrinkled gaps of bare skin under the forearms. Gorbel’s spear found its mark and bit deep. The creature toppled over backward, pinning Jame under its massive muzzle, knocking the wind out of her. She thought at first that she was dead, but then hands pulled her free.

The other two rhi-sar retreated to the water and reeds. The white one lay on its back, thick crimson blood sluggishly crawling down over its plated stomach. It scrabbled feebly at the sky, then fell limp, its armored jaw harmlessly agape.

Timmon pulled Jame to her feet and she clung to him, gasping. “Did I really . . . just do that?”

“You certainly did, and scared the spit out of me.”

Gorbel braced a foot against the creature, wrenched free his spear, and limped up to them. “I could claim the kill, but it only happened because of your insanity. Besides, I’ve already got a rhi-sar suit. I’d say that you’ve just earned your own armor, Lordan of Ivory.”

They gathered the dismembered limbs of their dead, such as they could retrieve, and gave them to the pyre. Char scowled at Jame over the flames.

I had as much to do with this kill as you did, he seemed to be thinking, and that was probably true, given that she couldn’t have pinned the brute if Char hadn’t tripped it first.

On the bright side, only two Kencyr had been killed, thanks mostly to Damson.

“Good work,” Jame told her.

The plump cadet nodded. She looked thoughtful, not smug, as Jame might have expected.

“I asked myself what you would do, Ten, if you could do what I can. Not run.”

“I did, though.”

“To draw off that white monster. I saw. Then you turned on it. I know I don’t think or feel the way that other people do. Something is . . . missing. But I can imitate you.”

Jame stared at her. “Trinity, Damson, you’d do better to take someone else as a model. Why not Brier?”

The cadet shook her head. “I can see that Five is a good randon. Someday she may even become a great one. But she isn’t like me. Not a bit. You are.”

Jame considered that as she watched the cadets start to skin the white rhi-sar—no easy task given the toughness of its hide. When properly tanned, it would be nearly as impenetrable as rathorn ivory, which itself was the second hardest substance on Rathillien after diamantine. Brier cut free the skull and they began the messy job of hollowing it out, leaving the fearsome, hinged jaws. Others worked on the feet, flaying them but retaining the claws.

All her life, Jame had turned to the Kendar as guides, primarily to Marc, whose moral sense she trusted far more than her own. To have one of them return the favor was . . . unnerving. But Damson was right: as a destructive Shanir, she and Jame had a lot more in common than either did with Brier Iron-thorn.

Meanwhile, Gorbel was arguing with the senior surviving officer, Onyx-eyed. The Caineron Lordan wanted to pursue the caravan.

“That would violate our standing orders,” said the randon.

“Yours. Not mine. My father told me to follow them. Anyway, as lordan I’m the highest ranking Caineron here.”

“You’re the only Caineron here.”

“Fine. I’ll go by myself.”

Jame peered at the black line of the distant horizon, all that separated sky from reflecting sea. The slight, wavering distortion was still there on the edge of sight.

“How far away is it?” she asked. “Three miles? If that’s a mirage, most of what casts it could be below our line of sight, if there’s anything there at all. Still . . .”

The randon looked at her, as blank of expression as ever. “So you want to go too.”

“And me,” said Timmon, coming up.

“You’re asking me to risk the heirs of three houses.”

“We aren’t asking anything,” said Gorbel, his jaw thrust stubbornly forward. As a cadet, he took orders; as a lordan, he gave them. They could all feel the authority radiating off him like heat off a sun-baked stone, and like that stone his will was no easy thing to break.

Onyx-eyed blinked. “Take an escort with you, then,” she said mildly, “and turn back if you lose the tracks.”

“You stay here,” Jame told Jorin. “What, d’you want to wade all the way to the horizon?”

She, the other two lordan, and her ten-command saddled up their moas. They could see the scrapes where the reverted sledges had entered the shallow water to become boats, and beyond that, salt plates on the bottom were broken by the lambas’ hooves. The moas dithered on the shore until encouraged in with whip and spur. The water came halfway up to their knees. They lifted their three-toed, webbed feet high, almost daintily, with every step.

Jorin paced the shore behind them, crying. Jame thought of Kalan and the baby that she had left behind. Would she ever see the ounce again? How did one make clear to a cat or to an infant that it wasn’t being willfully abandoned?

“I should explain some things to you,” she said to her fellow lordan, and told them about Langadine. “Time is fluid here,” she concluded. “Granny Sit-by-the-Fire called this the Sea of Time. The camp might be stranded on the shore forever if our seeker doesn’t return, and we may find ourselves too deep in the past to return even that far.”

Timmon was aghast. “Now you tell us?”

Gorbel only shook his heavy head. “It doesn’t matter. Once we came to the edge of the sea, wet or dry, we had to follow the caravan. The only way back leads though this mysterious city of yours, if we can find it.”

They waded slowly on. Clouds came up from the south, mirrored under their feet by the water so that one felt almost as if one could walk on either. The sun disappeared. The horizon circled them in a thin, dark band. Without the broken salt plates leading straight ahead, they would quickly have lost all sense of direction.

“How far have we come?” asked Timmon, breaking a long silence.

Gorbel grunted. “At this pace? Hard to tell. More than three miles. Out here, distance plays tricks as well as time.”

The reflected sky made the lambas’ trail harder and harder to follow, and the water was now up to the moas’ knees, over three feet deep. They had started in midmorning. It now appeared to be midafternoon, but who could say? Had they been walking hours, or days, or years?

The suspense seemed to unnerve Timmon. “What will your father do if he learns the way to Langadine?” he asked.

“Whatever he can to get a trade mission there, or a raiding party, but from what you say”—with a nod to Jame—“he will need a seeker, and those are dying out.”

“What about Kalan’s daughter in Kothifir?”

“She can only find her way back to her birth city. If Laurintine is the last of her line, no one will ever find the city again, at least until after its destruction.”

“And what do you make of that?”

“What can I? Something happened some three thousand years ago that shattered Langadine.”

“That would be more or less when the Kencyrath arrived on Rathillien,” said Jame.

Timmon scratched a peeling nose, dubious. “Coincidence?”

“I doubt it. Anyway, our appearance here and Perimal Darkling moving one world closer seem to have shaken up all sorts of things.”

She was thinking about the sudden manifestation of the Four and about Langadine’s climate changing, along with that of the Southern Wastes, although that seemed to have started before the Kencyrath had arrived.

Was the water getting deeper? Yes, to mid-thigh on the moas, who no longer tried to lift their feet free with each stride. The fluffy feathers on their bellies were soaked and matted. She raised her boots to keep them from getting wet.

Brier nudged her bird up level with the three lordan. “I can’t see the trail anymore,” she said.

Jame peered down. The moas’ progress had stirred up the bottom somewhat, and further distortion made the salt plates dance. Were they broken, or simply smaller than they had been before? At what point would the lambas have started to swim, pulling their barges behind them?

All the birds had stopped and were honking uneasily to each other. The riders sat, surrounded by a seemingly infinite, trackless expanse. The sun was going down.

“Now what?” Timmon asked.

“Forward,” said Gorbel, and kicked his moas into reluctant motion.

“I don’t think these birds can swim,” Jame said, but she followed the Caineron, her ten-command trailing after her.

The sun dipped below the clouds and set them on fire. Orange, red, and yellow ribbons streamed across the sky, perfectly mirrored in the waters below. It was like wading through the heart of a silent inferno. Then the sun’s fiery disk sank into its own reflection, going, going, gone. Color died out of the sky and stars winked between sable clouds. It was hours yet before the moon would rise, if it ever did.

They splashed on into the deepening night, drawn by Gorbel’s will. Water edged up to the moas’ breasts.

“He’s going to drown all of us,” Timmon said to Jame in an undertone.

“Maybe. Turn around, if you choose.”

Timmon rose in the saddle to look back the way they had come, past the following cadets. Nothing remained to mark their passage, and clouds were beginning to extinguish whatever stars might have guided them.

“Huh,” he said.

They continued. The water rose until they were sitting in it as much as in the saddle, and yet it crept higher.

“Look,” said Quill, pointing ahead.

A faint light shone there, perhaps a star near the now invisible horizon. Soon, however, it twinned, one above and one below. More dim lights came out as they advanced, a cluster low in the sky, reflecting off the water.

The moas were mostly underwater now, their small heads rising on serpentine necks. A new determination animated them, a straining forward as if toward the scent of land.

Jame slipped out of the stirrups and rose to swim beside her bird’s head. The others did too, except for Brier and Damson. Jame cursed herself for forgetting that neither cadet could swim. Mint supported the five-commander while Dar grabbed Damson. The lights loomed over them now, above and below, faintly defining high walls and candlelit windows.

Gorbel sank. Timmon and Jame dove, seized his arms, and pulled him up. Trinity, when had the man grown so heavy?

They were coming in between high marble wharfs topped with torches. Jame’s moa found its footing and surged upward. A moment later her feet also hit a flight of marble stairs rising out of the water. The birds lurched up them, their riders staggering beside them.

Timmon and Jame dragged Gorbel to the summit and dropped him.

“Well,” he gasped, rolling over, leaking water from every fold. “Here . . . we are.”