P. Hodgell - The Sea of Time

Meanwhile, the storm built.

“And you didn’t denounce him?” demanded Timmon.

It was the next morning, and the sandstorm roared over them, blotting out the sun, turning everything a lurid yellow. No one would travel today.

“At least Ean has a fighter on his team now. You should have seen Gorbel handle that sand monster.”

“Oh, he’s good at killing things, no question about that. Some day, though, you’ll have to face the fact that he’s blood-kin to your brother’s worst enemy.”

“And you aren’t?”

“Of course not. When has Grandfather Adric ever said ‘no’ to Torisen?”

“Repeatedly, starting when he didn’t let Tori attend the randon college. Your grandfather wanted a puppet for Highlord. He’s still coping with the fact that Torisen Black Lord doesn’t dance to anyone’s tune.”

Timmon opened his mouth, then closed it. They were perilously close to bringing up his father Pereden, who had definitely been Torisen’s enemy, and had made the entire Southern Host suffer for that enmity. Jame respected Timmon for coming to accept that, but she didn’t care to rub his nose in it.

“I thought you liked Gorbel,” she said.

Timmon ruffled his golden hair, perplexed. “I suppose I do, despite his rotten house. There’s something dependable about him. Decent, even, to the extent that his father leaves him alone, and even then . . .”

Quill stuck his head into the tent. “You have company, Ten.”

He opened the flap and bowed in a woman closely muffled in a cloak off of which sand cascaded. Jame and Timmon both rose.

“I bring an invitation from the seekers’ tent,” said the visitor with a marked accent which Jame had last heard from the lips of a dying girl. “If the Knorth Lordan would deign to join my mistresses for a dish of tea . . .”

Jame inclined her head. “I would be honored.”

In Kens she added to Timmon, “Stay if you like, or go. I don’t know how long this will take, nor what it’s about.”

The cloaked woman led her though the camp, both of them leaning sideways into the wind. Jame had donned a cape of her own, but sand as fine as flour still found its way into her clothes, eyes, and mouth where it ground unpleasantly between her teeth. Jorin trotted at her side. He at least could keep his eyes closed. The seekers’ tent was four times the size of her own with internal compartments that baffled most of the wind, but still bulged and swayed at its onslaught. The blond, portly woman and her thin, elderly companion waited for her in the innermost chamber, sitting on rich carpets, steaming dishes set out before them. “Tea” was clearly a flexible term.

Jame bowed to her hostesses and, at their invitation, sat cross-legged opposite them. Jorin curled up beside her. His nose twitched at the smell of food.

“I am Kalan,” said the younger. “This is Laurintine. Our kinswoman, whom you tried to save, was Laurintine’s great-granddaughter, Lanielle.”

“I’m sorry that my rescue failed. She tried to send you a message, but died first. My condolences.”

Age and weight notwithstanding, Jame thought, these two ladies bore a striking resemblance to each other and to the young seeker who had so unnervingly crumbled to dust in her arms. They might almost have been the same woman at different ages.

They offered sweetened tea and small honey cakes. Everything was gritty with dust. The canvas walls flexed as the wind buffeted them and the flame in a hanging brazier danced wildly. Jame sipped, wondering what else this was all about.

The two seekers exchanged glances.

“Tell her,” said the older one in a hoarse voice, as if the desert had her by the throat. “We agreed.”

Kalan sighed. “Very well. You may have heard that this is a special caravan, perhaps the last of its kind. That may be. If so, someone in the Kencyr camp should know why in case anything goes wrong. King Krothen may demand secrecy, but your people have always been kind to us. For that and for Lanielle, we chose you.” She sighed again. “Where to begin.”

“Long, long ago . . .” croaked Laurintine.

“. . . there was a southern city named Langadine, on the edge of a great inland sea, surrounded by ancient civilizations. Of them all, though, it was the richest and the most dazzling, home to merchants, nobles, and gods. But no place is paradise to all. One day a girl fled from that fabulous city and tried to drown herself in the sea. She was with child, you see, and unwed. That was a great shame then . . .”

“As it is . . . to this day.”

“Well, yes, but the water would not receive her. As she floundered in it, it turned to the salt of her tears. In the morning after a tempestuous night, she found herself lying on a dry salt plain with nothing but the bones of her city behind her.

“Wanderers found her and took her to Kothifir. There she bore her child, a girl, and there she lived for many years. Eventually, however, she grew homesick and longed to return to Langadine. The king had heard her story. Intrigued by the idea of a great city in the Wastes, where he only knew of ruins, he mounted an expedition to take her and her daughter home. Thus she became the first seeker of the Langadine line.”

“Did they find the city?” asked Jame.

“They did. The northerners were amazed at its wealth, especially at a certain sheer fabric which they had never seen before.”

“Silk.”

“Yes. They took a bolt of it back to Kothifir led by the daughter who thus, because she had been born in Kothifir, became the first Kothifiran seeker. She had, by now, had a daughter of her own, who accompanied her. The travelers were welcome, but not by the king who had sent them. What for them had been only a few weeks’ journey for Kothifir had taken years.”

“So they had traveled in time as well as in space.”

“Again, yes. The king sent a trade mission, but they only found ruins in the desert. Langadine was not rediscovered until one of its two daughters, the maiden, agreed to lead an expedition. And so it has gone ever since. We seekers are always female members of the same lineage, able to find the city of our birth. There are usually three of us bound to each city: the maiden, her mother, and her grandmother, sometimes with a skip in generations, but there are fewer and fewer of us. I can lead this expedition back to Kothifir, having left a recently dead husband and a baby daughter behind me in that city, but my mother is also dead and Laurintine is the last Langadine seeker now that her great-granddaughter Lanielle is also gone.”

There was silence for a moment. Kalan clenched a plump fist and beat it against her thigh. Her hazel eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Ah, I should not have left my child and would not if she had not been ill. Will she live until I return? This is a hard life, always traveling to satisfy the greed of others. The lords of both cities ask too much of us. I only want a home and family of my own, before it is too late.”

“As it is . . . for me?”

“Laurintine, I am sorry. Service to the caravans has worn you to a bone, and all your children are dead.”

The wind soughed, the canvas boomed. All without was desolation. Here within, life was the fragrant if gritty cup of tea which the older woman poured and offered to the younger.

Jame watched them share the moment, the misery. Her own hand instinctively sought Jorin’s rich coat for comfort and he nuzzled her fingers. Could she have left a child behind, a sick baby? The very thought of children was alien to her, but she was young. Perhaps someday she would fully understand Kalan’s distress. She already knew what it felt like to long for a home.

“What about the time distortion?” she asked.