P. Hodgell - The Sea of Time

The main street opened before him between the high walls of the barrack compounds. Lights shone in the Caineron to the west. The garrison would be sitting down to supper. The Knorth to the east remained dark and empty, a haunting emblem of Ganth Gray Lord’s fall.

Someone moved in the latter’s shadow.

“Please, sir, can you spare some food?”

A Kothifiran beggar, here, at this hour? If he were a thief, though—the camp did occasionally suffer from such infestations—should Tori call the guard? No. From the sound of his nasal voice, this was a boy not much older than Tori himself, and even more an alien here. On impulse he directed the stranger back to his own rooms.

“Tell Burr to feed you.”

The next garrison block, across from the Caineron to the south, belonged to the Jaran. Its gate was shut for the night, but the door cracked open at his knock. A wiry woman took the note which he handed to her. Something about her looked familiar.

“Were you a Knorth?” he asked, speaking despite himself.

She hesitated. “Yes, I was. How did you know?”

“Someone pointed you out to me.”

“A damn fine randon, and another bit of the Highlord’s wreckage,” the man had said. “All his house, scattered to the mercy of the winds. No wonder they curse him.”

“Do they honor you here?” Tori asked abruptly.

Her figure was backlit, her face unreadable. She tilted her head as if in thought. “Well enough, considering. Rather, pity those who went to other houses or who became Caineron yondri-gon like Harn Grip-hard. Why do you ask?” She moved a step toward him, as if drawn. “Who are you?”

“No one.” He stepped back. Dangerous, dangerous . . .

“Well, my name is Rowan. Remember it. Please.”

“I will.”

The door closed.

Tori turned back toward the inner ward, his mission complete.

But what had just happened? He had been drawn to his father’s people before, as to Harn. Were they now beginning to respond? It felt like a scratching on the inside of his soul-image.

Let me out, let me out . . .

There was an unlocked door and behind it a faint voice. He tried not to listen, much less to answer.

Father, this is my life, such as it is. I left you, and the Haunted Lands keep where I was born, and the memory of the sister whom you drove out before me. You didn’t keep faith with her. Why should I with you? Leave me alone.

Here again was the deserted Knorth barrack. On impulse, he put his hand on the locked door, and it swung open at his touch on rasping hinges. The inner courtyard was weed-choked and overgrown. Balconies rose above it, tier on tier up to the third floor, faced on the inside by closed doors like so many sealed eyes. What had happened here when his father had marched out the Northern Host to disastrous battle in the White Hills? How quickly had the Southern garrison felt his fall? At once, probably. They were bound to him. Then he had thrown down the Highlord’s collar in petulant despair and gone away, leaving them to fend for themselves in a world echoing hollowly with his departure.

“Damn you, Father,” Tori muttered to the emptiness. “Did you ever think of anyone but yourself, and her?”

Ganth hadn’t then known Tori’s mother (and Jame’s too, he reminded himself), yet he had seemed drawn to her across the Ebonbane, into the Haunted Lands. There she had come to him and he had been happy, for a while. Her departure had destroyed him. Jame had told him that their mother was Jamethiel Dream-weaver, but what sense did that make? The Dream-weaver had been consort to Gerridon, the Master of Knorth, during the Fall three thousand years ago.

“Time moves slower in Perimal Darkling than in Rathillien,” Jame had said.

(What? When? A dream within a dream. I want to wake up, but I can’t, I can’t, even knowing what comes next . . . )

The wind combed the weeds, twining them around his legs, whining: never, forever, never, forever . . .

The barrack’s gate rasped again. He had been followed. Four dark figures slipped through the opening, one after another, and spread out to surround him. They wore their cadet scarves over the lower halves of their faces, the insignia turned inward.

“You have enemies,” Adric had said. Which ones were these?

One stepped forward to grab him. Tori caught his hand and pulled him into an earth-moving throw that tumbled him into a comrade. Another he avoided with wind-blowing. He took the fight to them with a fire-leaping kick that made a fourth stagger back and pause to spit out a tooth. Then they were upon him, bearing him down. He struggled in their grip, among the tough, clinging grass, but they were Kendar, a head taller than he, and forty pounds heavier, each.

Someone yanked a hood over his head and tightened its drawstring around his throat. He thrashed in their arms until one of them bashed him over the ear. The world spun. Was he on his feet or off? Which way was up? They were carrying him, he thought, half dazed, but where?

Into a building, against whose walls their shuffling footsteps echoed, up a stair—bump, bump, bump—into a noisy room.

They set him on something that tottered underfoot, a rickety chair or stool. Hands held him upright until his head cleared enough for him to balance, more or less. His hands were bound behind him and a noose had been dropped over his head. While he tipped forward, his hands were drawn up and the noose tightened. The rope must have been passed over a rafter. He fought his way upright and stood panting within the close confines of the hood.

People were talking, laughing, eating. He heard the rasp of utensils on pewter plates and mugs thumping on tabletops.

Someone cleared his throat for silence and got it, except for a nervous giggle off to one side. A chair scraped back. Footsteps approached.

“Now then, mystery boy,” said a voice he had never heard before. “Who are you?”

Tori didn’t answer. A swish, a searing pain across the back of his legs. He barely kept himself from toppling forward.

“Even bastards have fathers. Who was yours?”

No response. Another fiery blow. It must be a switch or thin rod, Tori thought. Nothing that would do him serious damage, unless he lost his balance. But oh Trinity, the pain . . .

“The Ardeth sent you here, but they aren’t in any hurry to claim you. Are you one of M’lord Adric’s bastards, hmm? Answer!”

Another blow.

“Stubborn, aren’t you? Well then, let’s make you howl.”

The switch hissed and cracked, again and again. Time stopped in one endless moment of agony.

“What in Perimal’s name . . . ?”

Harn’s bellow nearly made Tori fall off his precarious perch. Hands grabbed him as he swayed. The noose and the rope binding his hands were removed, but not the hood.

“Steady,” said Burr in his ear, helping him down.

“Commander Grip-hard.” A new voice this time, languid, familiar. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

“I came looking for my clerk.” Harn was trying to speak calmly, but his voice rumbled with enough anger to rattle the silverware. “Perhaps, not being a randon, you didn’t know that hazing is strictly an in-house ritual. This boy is an Ardeth.”

A deep sigh. “Well, then, take him if you must. He was proving poor sport anyway.”

Burr hustled Tori out, not removing the hood until they were in the street outside a barracks.

“You may know,” he said cryptically, “but he doesn’t know that you know.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“That boy you sent me to feed saw you being hustled off. He’s back in your rooms now, probably eating everything in them.”