Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

Lightning was staying at Awndyn convalescing, and with Wrenn’s help he was arranging for a monument to be built on Grass Isle in honor of Ata. Thousands of her extended family had gathered there; I found the way her whole network had clung together rather alarming. But most of all I felt sympathy for Lightning because he also had to find some way of explaining it to Cyan.

I had spent yesterday relating the battle to San, the ensuing riot and the debt we owe to the fifth land: Tris, manorship of Capharnaum. I was now to answer for giving the sea kraits a lodging in our world.

I looked up as Rayne emerged from the Throne Room. “Now i’s your turn,” she said. “I told San everything I witnessed.”

“You told him about Vista Marchan?”

“Yes, but I couldn’ tell if he was surprised.”

I said, “It’s hard to believe I’m not the only Eszai who knows about the Shift. And to find out that you have taken cat.”

Rayne grinned like a crack in a walnut, showing mottled gums. “When I were a girl. I was a lass once, Jant; isn’t tha’ amazing? Rumors were rife a’ t’ university about i’s effects. I only experimen’ed once, in a spiri’ of scientific inquiry; I didn’ like t’ hallucinations because they were extremely intense. When I saw t’ snake I though’ i’ were like t’ krai’ I saw when I dreamed I was walking in Vista. Then I though’: hmm, that was under the influence of t’ fern scolopendium too. Jant, I wanted t’ go t’ Tris. I wanted t’ keep abreas’ of new discoveries. But t’ mos’ interes’ing thing I learned wasn’ Trisian; I have reconsidered my hypothesis.”

I sighed. “People can learn to meditate their way through the Shift worlds. I doubt I’ll ever be successful at it, but you might be able to-you’re good enough to feel the Circle.”

We looked at each other, wondering if the Emperor himself might have visited the Shift. For all we knew, he might walk there nightly, observing the Insect hordes preparing to burst through into different parts of the Fourlands.

“I have no desire to go back to the Shift, Rayne. Ever since seeing the King krait, how powerful he was, the beauty of his striking colors, and how content and happy the stinguish are, I feel freed from my craving. I’m ready to straighten out. When I’m through withdrawal and recovered from the trauma, I’m going to spend Gio’s treasure on Wrought.”

“For t’ stability of Awia.”

“To win Tern back.”

“You know, Tern felt t’ Circle break. She said tha’ she worried herself sick with t’ though’ tha’ i’ was you. She asked t’ Emperor if you had died and if she was aging, bu’ he wouldn’ tell her.”

I was aware that San was waiting. I pointed to the Throne Room door. “Come with me. I don’t want to walk in there by myself.”

We progressed down the scarlet carpet and through the portal in the screen like a couple about to be married: Rayne in her shawl that had seen better days at the turn of the millennium and me in a new shirt and waistcoat, with a long velvet scarf, fine black eyeliner and my hair cut so short it was cruel to my sharp-boned face.

Rayne curtsied and seated herself on the bench and I knelt before the dais. The shining sunburst behind the Emperor’s throne reflected light in all the zestful colors of the stained glass windows.

“Comet,” San said. “You brought serpents from the Shift to infest our ocean. I cannot think of anything more dangerous and irresponsible than your playing with the boundaries and indigenes of worlds.”

I bowed my head. “Tris is part of the Fourlands; the Fourlands is part of the Shift. They’ve always affected each other. As far as Insects, maritime creatures and…and myself are concerned, it’s a continuum.”

“The snakes will pose as big a problem in the sea as Insects do on land!”

“My lord, I assure you they won’t attack us. They only eat the huge whales that never come near land.”

“And do we not need the whales and shoals? Furthermore the sudden appearance of a sea serpent will threaten people’s very perception of reality.”

I was still desolated that Capharnaum library and its precious manuscripts had been lost. I looked up to let the Emperor perceive my anger. He couldn’t expel me from the Circle so soon after Gio’s rebellion. Although there was much less unrest in the Fourlands now, a bibliophile Messenger can be just as dangerous as a vengeful Swordsman. The Emperor needed me, a Trisian scholar known to the Senate and the sea beasts, and, though unwilling, his loyal servant all year. He sent us out to deal with battles and infernos and he offered no reward, just the measly Castle grant and yet more lifetime. I wondered again about his motivations, but no matter how much I cared I could do nothing. If I angered San he would make me mortal, and without him the Fourlands would be swamped by Insects.

I thought of the picture in the history book, showing San as an unassuming sage-turned-soldier. I spoke with determination: “I know that my decision was best. It saved us and Capharnaum. We stopped Gio, and the Senate will be governors of Tris. You gave me to understand that we should use whatever means necessary, and calling the kraits was the right thing to do…” My voice crawled slower and slower and dried up like a snail on a dirt track.

“You sound unrepentant, Comet.”

“My lord.” I fixed my gaze on the apse where the fifth land’s column should be.

The Emperor understood and regarded me for a long time. “Whatever happens, we can do little about sea kraits at the moment. If mariners and whalers sight them, hopefully they will believe that kraits have continually inhabited our sea. There have always been legends of monsters.” He paused. “Comet, you will not tell anyone of the Shift.”

“I promise.”

“I doubt a debauchee such as yourself can keep his word! How many times has the Circle brought you back from the Shift when you would otherwise have died? Immortality was not meant for that purpose, Comet. Next time I am afraid the Circle will not be able to hold you. One more fatal overdose will indeed be fatal.”

The rest of the world would believe that scolopendium had at last killed me. I fiddled with my earring, thinking that anyway my private playground was somehow spoiled, now that I knew other Eszai had visited it. The meaning of Epsilon had changed and I no longer had a yearning to go there, especially after my experience trying to Shift home. I didn’t think I was going to miss it.

I said, “I can do without it. I don’t want to be addicted anymore; I want to be cured. The last thing Mist said to me was, ‘Stop sulking, Jant.’”

Rayne stepped in on my behalf: “I’ll look after him and treat t’ condition. I don’ think he will go back to scolopendium again. T’ prognosis is excellen’.”

The Emperor said with a warm tone, “Well, I thank you, Comet. Despite your injudicious decision with the sea kraits, your service to the Fourlands has been invaluable. Now go with Rayne, and in the fullness of time you will invite the Trisians to compete in a games for the Sailor’s position. You will send mortal emissaries who weren’t involved to talk at length with the Senate, to invite them here and reduce tensions in Capharnaum.”

I bowed and took my leave. I paced past the screen and the first of the Zascai benches. San’s voice called from behind me, “What of Gio Ami’s fortune?”

I stopped dead. Damn. I turned around slowly and slunk back, as the Emperor continued, “That which you salvaged from the Senate House square? Rayne told me that she saw you leading a retinue of servants dragging metal coffers up to your apartments.”

Was there nothing San didn’t know? I imagined my hard-won plunder disappearing into the Castle’s vaults, or being divided up into projects that I would never see. I sighed, resigned. “My lord, what do you want me to do with Gio’s treasure? I intended it for Wrought.”