P. Hodgell - The Sea of Time

Timmon looked blank, as if he had never been asked to account for anything in his life, which was probably true.

Gorbel, however, opened his jacket and unhitched a heavy belt. Unfolded, it spilled a cascade of thick, golden arax onto the table.

“No wonder you sank,” said Timmon, enlightened.

The Caineron gave the snort that, for him, passed as a laugh. “This may yet turn into a trade mission, or into headlong flight. Either way, should I have come with empty hands?”

A knock sounded on the door. Gorbel scooped the coins out of sight as Jame bade their host enter.

“The company would be glad to hear your story,” said the man, beaming. No wonder he was pleased: from the growing noise below, their arrival had greatly increased the inn’s business for the night.

Jame stopped Gorbel from snarling a refusal. They had already argued about letting their presence be known in the city. While it carried some risks, Jame had pointed out that the alternative was that the twelve of them skulk in the shadows all night, wet, hungry and, worse, unable to learn anything useful, nor was the next day apt to produce anything better. The sea front was the place most likely to supply someone who spoke their own language or at least that of Kothifir, and so it had proved.

“I’ll go down,” she now said. “The rest of you, get some rest.”

“I’m going too,” said Gorbel with a stubborn set to his jaw. What, did he think she would conclude some bargain behind his back?

“And me,” Timmon chimed in, running fingers through his drying hair. Some of the tavern maids had been pretty.

Brier and Damson both rose, looking stubborn.

“Oh, all right,” said Jame.

The five descended into the common room, a whitewashed rectangle with a geometric frieze around the top in shades of blue and green. Substantial tables were centered under many-candled chandeliers, and fireplaces flanked either end of the chamber, unlit on this mild night. The room was full of dark-skinned, bright-eyed customers whose glances darted back and forth among the three lordan as they came down.

The host escorted them to a central table, which its occupants quickly surrendered. “If it please you, lady and lords, from where do you come?”

“Kothifir,” said Gorbel.

“Ahh . . . !” breathed his audience, recognizing the name at least.

“It has been a long time since anyone came by that route,” the host said.

The lordan exchanged uneasy glances. “How long?” asked Jame.

“Some fifteen years,” the host replied, turning to his customers for confirmation. “Is that not so? Yes. The last caravan arrived in a terrible storm. Our sea is changeable: these days sometimes fresh, sometimes salt; sometimes calm and shallow like tonight, sometimes as high as mountains and as deep. That night, it raged. Bodies were cast on the shore for days, men and beasts alike, also much treasure. Most drowned, except for the seekers and a few others who swam to safety.”

Oh Ean, oh Byrne, thought Jame, briefly closing her eyes. What will I tell Gaudaric?

“One of the survivors has a stall in the night market,” said a man wearing a blue, fish-stained tunic, speaking passable Rendish. “He sells armor.”

The door was flung open. An old man stood dramatically on the threshold. His robe, dyed saffron with a deep hem embroidered with copper thread, swirled around him in a wind unfelt by those within. His white hair and beard flailed upward serpentlike in shaggy braids threaded with gold. He looked vaguely familiar.

“Travelers!” he cried. The others good-naturedly made way for him as he plunged into the room. “What news have you from my fellow gods to the north?”

“Er . . .” said Jame, staring.

“The end is coming, you know,” he said with a broad smile, seeming to relish his news. He turned to take in his audience with a sweeping gesture that overturned tankards as far back as the corners of the room. “All of you have felt the earth shake,” he proclaimed over cries of protest at the spilt beer. “The sea changes its nature more and more often. Year by year, the climate grows drier and hotter. Clearly, a great change is coming. But this world is only an illusion. Are you ready to fly away with me to the true one that lies beyond?”

“Enough of such desert talk,” someone called from his audience. “Next, you’ll claim to be the Karnids’ long-lost prophet, returned again. Show us a trick, old man!”

“Well, now, what would you like?”

“More beer!” shouted back a chorus of voices.

“Hmm. Will this do? Landlord, a round of drinks on me!”

Tavern maids ran about with ewers, pouring amid the cheers of the patrons. Jame had a feeling that the old man had performed this “trick” before, and was all the more welcome here because of it. Her sense was that she and her comrades didn’t really interest him. Rather, he had detected a center of attention and had rushed to usurp it. Timmon looked miffed and Gorbel bored, but she didn’t mind: the more other people talked, the more she might learn.

The tremor started with a faint rumble like a heavy cart approaching over cobblestones. The wine in her cup rippled in concentric circles. The candle flames wavered. No one seemed to pay much attention except the old man in the saffron robe who turned suddenly pale and clutched the back of a chair. Slowly, without any fanfare, his feet left the floor. Jame grabbed his arm . . .

. . . and was falling.

They seemed to be the only two steady people in that whole jiggling room, and yet the pit of her stomach plummeted sickeningly as if the bottom had dropped out of the world. A look of wonder crossed the other’s face as his braids flew upward. He let go of the chair, experimentally. Jame clung to him with both hands, hardly sure which of them she was anchoring. Then the rumble receded and his feet descended gently to the floor.

“I flew,” he said in astonishment, eyes as wide as a child’s. “I flew! You saw me, didn’t you? Didn’t you? ”

“I saw you fall,” said Jame, shaken.

No one else apparently had noticed anything, nor did they seem to take the quake very seriously except to clutch their brimming cups against another upset.

“Here he is! Here! Master!”

In rushed a crowd wearing yellow tunics. They seized the old man and dragged him with them out the door.

“I flew!” he exclaimed in protest to them as he went. “I really flew!”

“Yes, yes,” they assured him. “Soon the entire city will know!”

The landlord shook his bald head as he shut the door behind them. “These uncertain days have bred many strange prophets and the rumor of gods, old and new. Sometimes I think the desert dwellers are right: our new king should never have buried the black temple.”

“The what?” demanded Gorbel.

“Ah, I keep forgetting that you are strangers here. The black rock is as old as the city . . .”

“Older!” called someone.

“Indeed. Langadine was built around it, although I only guess to call it a temple: it appears to be a huge, black square of granite without seam or opening. The desert folk claim that, according to their prophet, it is the gateway to another world and they make pilgrimage to it, or did until King Lainoscopes came to power and quickly grew tired of their frenzied worship. A stickler for order, he, not lenient like his father, the gods give him rest. At any rate, Lainoscopes tried to break up the rock. Failing that, he built it into the foundation of a new tower.”

The lordan exchanged looks.

“You said that your father’s expedition found the ruins of a Kencyr temple,” said Timmon in Kens. “Could it have been here? In which case at some point some thing destroyed it, and the city too.”