Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

On the third day under the plane tree I felt a presence watching me-a man, all his colors subdued and outline unfocused as if seen through gauze. I felt a chill and didn’t dare move. I stared at him and he looked back, so strange, full of confidence and concerns larger and more frightening than I could comprehend. An adult world, seen by a young man terrified for an instant by the inkling that he will join it and have heavy responsibilities every day.

I didn’t know in eighteen-eighteen that I was looking through thinned layers of time, at myself. But now I realized that I was the ghost that my younger self saw. I wanted to tell him that everything would work out fine, that he would win his Challenge and two hundred years later he would still be twenty-three. I couldn’t speak to him, but I smiled-and I remember receiving that warm compassion, because when I sat with my back against the plane tree’s bark, I wondered at the manifestation but felt heartened and at ease.

Two centuries ago, what happened next was that at nightfall some immortals returned from the Front. I rushed to hold the reins of a horse carrying a well-built man with stripy gray and white hair, and the Castle’s sunburst on a big round shield. His horse’s withers were smeared with yellow blood.

I don’t know why I expected Eszai to look different. A sparkle of the Circle about him was simply my excited imagination. He said, “You’re no groom.”

“I want to be Eszai.”

He must have wondered at what in the Empire I could possibly excel. “Then come in, waif.” He kicked the horse’s ribs and it cantered forward. Its hooves boomed over the wooden bridge and echoed between the weighty towers of the massive barbican.

Ipicked up some more steak sandwiches; I expend so much energy flying that I have to eat vast amounts. I walked from the kitchens through the ground-floor corridor of the Mare’s Run, the inner west wing, past Hayl’s apartments. I passed the Southwest Tower, where Tawny’s well-lit room was located, full of indiscriminately chosen prizes: Insect legs, bear pelts and jousters’ helmets. Then I climbed the three hundred and thirty steps of my tower, leaning on the wall all the way up, past the myrtle-green storeroom and the bathroom on its first floor that smelled as musty as hessian. I could lie on the bed for a while and fantasize about Tern-although I am more in a mood for a Rhydanne. Or I could, and I know I will, be distracted by the obvious alternative.

Wind-thrown rain began to scour the shutters. Tern had not been in for months; my room was dark and bundles of letters overflowed the shelves, piled everywhere. My valuable pendulum clock had stopped; I wound and set it to the right time and date. Masquerade masks hung around the mirror, beside a hookah as tall as I am, its fuzzy orange tube coiled around its brass pipe like a python. I spun the oval mirror around on its stand, face to the wall.

Faded posters taped to the round ceiling advertised music festivals, marathons, and Challenges when I wiped the floor with the mortals who wanted to contest me. I’m usually Challenged in winter when conditions for flying are at their worst, and I set the same test that won me my immortality-a race from the Emperor’s Throne Room to the throne room of Rachiswater and back.

There was a vase of dried flowers, the only plants that withstand Tern’s immortal forgetfulness. There were a few neglected old projects: my guitar, tennis rackets and a crossbow, all equally broken. There was my bike on which I lavish much attention, wrapped in its red rope that I use to lower it out of the window. Hanging on the wall above it was a series of obsessively concentrated little pen-and-ink sketches by Frost of jousting tournaments. The mantelpiece was cluttered with some wax seals in their skippet boxes; a souvenir from Hacilith-a spider’s web preserved between two sheets of glass; and a lump of solidified Insect paper with a coin pressed into it. By the window stood “Butterfly” my Insect trophy wearing a sailor costume, and my suit of armor stuck fast to the wall with decades of rust. An array of kettles, toast forks and dirty plates filled the hearth. On the dusty table beside my still’s retorts and condenser was a note covered in Tern’s dying-spider handwriting. I screwed it up and threw it in the cold fireplace. Looks as if the temptation of Tornado was more than the pretty lady could stand, I thought, fishing in my satchel for my syringe.

Once I start to feel the need I can go downhill very rapidly, and the room seemed suddenly very warm. I have to shoot some, I found myself thinking. No, I don’t need it. Oh, yes, I bloody do; I don’t want to be sick. Maybe when Tern sees how badly her adultery affects me she’ll come back. The trouble is that we spend so long apart that when we do meet we are still self-sufficient, which is a barrier to becoming really close.

I sat down at my desk, reached behind me to pull down one wing, unfolded it in front and held it between my knees. I preened fingers through feathers like a harp, hearing them rasp, and felt the thin skin ridged over my quills. Here are veins I haven’t used and they looked tempting. But if I made a slip and something went wrong, or if I damaged it and was paralyzed, that would be the end of me. I have only shot up in a wing once before when I was desperate. This was sacred. Sighing but pleased at some show of willpower at least, I untied the pendant thong from around my neck, looped it over my right arm and licked the ends up between my teeth. I flexed my fingers, impatiently tried to raise a vein. Don’t poison yourself, Jant. Meditate your way to Epsilon. Yeah, right. Why did Tarragon think I wanted to go to Epsilon? The Shift was an unwanted side effect when I only needed the drug to make me forget my pain. Why walk through worlds if you’re immigrant in each?

I sat with the needle poised, feeling a last blast of guilty defiance, then pushed it in neatly. In the space of a heartbeat it hit like a coach-and-four. Feeling like a god, if a rather incapable one, I located the chaise longue under my maps and lay down. This was like flying into a wall.

My thoughts played out in the air above me, but they were rudely curtailed by the door unlatching. A graceful and chic figure entered, and seemed to flow over to me. Tern looked at me closely. Her body was a fair; there were dances there. Her spine a snake, voice like icing on cakes-

“Oh, typical,” she said crossly. She touched up her lipstick in a mirror above my head.

“Where have you been?” I asked suspiciously.

Tern glanced down and must have realized from my expression that subterfuge was pointless. “At Tawny’s apartment…I had a good time.”

“What, all of it?”

“Tornado single-handedly held Gio off from attacking our home. He said if Gio came nearer I should run to the Throne Room. I have been encouraging him…Is it okay for you to enjoy yourself but not me? I’ve heard that Tris is a perfect land. You sailed off and left me here.” Tern slipped out of her dress and searched around for her silk dressing gown, clad only in a white bra and underskirt. I was too stoned to be angry. I found it hard to care about anything, not even if the strongest man in the world came in and bent her over in front of me. I gave her my orphan look: please take me home and put me in your bed.

“Wipe that off,” she said. “Are you going to lie there all night with your hand dangling? We had a pact, Jant. You’re not being sophisticated, just sedated.”

Yes, we had a pact, which we began after the span of a mortal lifetime had lapsed. We promised that it is acceptable to have affairs because we will still love each other the most, and we will always return to each other. Actually, sleeping around should be refreshing because we have to spend the rest of eternity together without becoming bored.