P. Hodgell - The Sea of Time

The host was still apparently thinking about his late guest. “Prophets and gods, forsooth. Foolish fellow, to have made such a claim. Now, I suppose, that pack of madmen in yellow will put him to the test. He has finally found his true believers, and they are apt to kill him. Poor Tishooo.”

Jame had chosen wine over beer. Now she choked on it.

“ That was the Tishooo?”

“The Old Man, yes. Why?”

“I knew I had seen him before, but never clearly. This is serious,” she said to the others in Kens. “‘There was an old man, oh, so clever, so ambitious that he claimed to be a god. To prove it, his followers threw him from a high tower.’ You remember, Gorbel: it’s part of one of those Merikit rites you used to spy on.”

“Oh. That Tishooo. The so-called Falling Man. But what is he doing here if he belongs to the hill tribes?”

“He belongs to Rathillien. So do the Earth Wife—your Wood Witch, Gorbel—the Burnt Man, and the Eaten One. Remember her, Timmon? She ate your half-brother Drie. Wherever they originally came from, all of them were mortal once, I think, until our temples turned them into the Four, the elemental forces that personify this world.”

“You know the oddest people,” remarked Timmon. “Then again, since I met you, so do I. That peculiar old man is destined to become the manifestation of air? When?”

“Potentially, any minute now.”

Scowling, Gorbel planted his elbows on the table in a puddle of spilt beer. “Look here: we’re back in time now, or so you tell me, before our people even landed on this accursed world.”

“No one knows when the Builders constructed the temples,” said Jame, “but the structures preceded us here and apparently fired up just before we arrived.”

“So,” Timmon said, “if that old man is about to become the Tishooo, the black rock—pardon, temple—is about to come to life. That means that, even now, Jamethiel Dream-weaver may be dancing out the souls of the Kencyr Host. The Fall is happening, the greatest disaster in our history, and here we sit, its unfortunate heirs, warm and dry, drinking in a tavern in a lost city.”

Gorbel grunted. “Lost. Destroyed. How long have we got?”

“How long before the Tishooo’s worshippers find a high enough tower and get him up it? He may come to his senses and resist, but still . . . My guess? Sometime tonight.”

Timmon ticked off the events on his fingertips. “The Fall occurs, the temples activate, the Four are created, the Kencyrath flees to this world, the temple destroys Langadine, something destroys the temple, and you’re assuming that all of this happens more or less simultaneously. But in our time it’s actually three thousand and twenty-eight years after the Fall, if you believe our scrollsmen. Langadine could have decades yet to live. It all may not fall out exactly so pat.”

Jame shrugged. “Yes, I’m making several assumptions. Do you want to take the chance, though?”

Timmon sighed and scanned the room. “Should we warn them?”

“Would they listen?” said Gorbel. “You’ve convinced me, girl. We need to finish our business here and get out as fast as possible.” He stood up. “Ahoy! Who wants to sell us a boat? We can pay well.”

“You manage that and get my ten-command on board,” Jame said to him under cover of a sudden stir of interest. “I have errands to run in town.”

Langadine sprawled across several foothills in the shadow of the Tenebrae mountain range. The highest hill was crowned by a white, shining structure that must be King Lainoscopes’ palace. Walled terraces descended from it, curving to fit the contours of the land. The streets on each level thus whorled like the ridges of a massive fingerprint. Whitewashed houses lined them, presenting a solid face to the pavement. Most were two stories high at most, given the illusion of greater height by the rolling ground on which they were set. Jame saw, as she climbed higher, that each building had a small, walled garden behind it like a green jewel set in stone.

A gibbous moon lit all with a glowing, nacreous light, nearly as bright as day to Kencyr eyes. It was a beautiful city, far more orderly and lovingly kept than any Jame had yet seen. Was it really to die tonight? She hoped not. While not fond of her god—no Kencyr was—could he (or she, or it) really be so cruel as to smash so much grace and innocence?

Brier and Damson walked behind her. The former had insisted on coming, she said, to make sure that her lord’s heir came to no harm. The latter had simply followed, discovered too late to turn her back. Jame wished that both of them had stayed behind. This was a mission where the Talisman’s skills might serve her best. Brier didn’t know about that aspect of her life and was unlikely to approve of it. Damson, on the other hand, might see entirely too much, if she was still set on imitating Jame.

Most of the city was dark, its daytime residents gone to bed, but there were occasional clusters of lights. Jame headed toward the brightest of these constellations.

The night market swarmed with life, as active as any of its peers in Tai-tastigon, if cleaner. Stallkeepers hawked wares from finger food to erotic spices, from tin trinkets to heavy goldware. Bolts of silk dominated many a stall. Jame wondered what defect the dark was supposed to cover, unless Langadine was so rich that even these night offerings were of prime quality as their merchants proclaimed.

“Talisman!”

Jame started as big hands grabbed and spun her around. A young man with curly chestnut hair stared down at her with disbelief and dawning delight.

“It is you, isn’t it?” He shook her until her teeth rattled. “I always knew that you would come!”

“Byrne?” She waved back Brier, who had stepped forward and loomed over them both as if set to protect her. “It’s really you?”

He was at least her age now and much taller, but he still had that small boy’s mischievous grin.

“I’ll take you to my father. After all these years, he won’t believe this!”

Ean’s quarters were a block from the market in a shabby, second-story apartment, half workshop, half sparse but well-kept living space. He started up in alarm from his bed as they entered. “Has something happened in the market? Who is tending the stall? Byrne! Night rent may cost less than day, but it’s all we can afford.” Then he noticed his visitors and his agitation grew. “Who are these people?”

Jame observed that his hair was now streaked with white, his face creased with wrinkles, and he was missing several teeth. The intervening years had not been kind to him.

“Ean,” she said, “we came as quickly as we could, starting out the day after you left the oasis. Nonetheless, I’m sorry we arrived so late.”

Like his son, Ean grabbed her; unlike Byrne, he burst into tears.

“I’d given up hope. Evensong, Gaudaric, are they well?”

“As much so as when you left, if a few days older. Why didn’t you return? What kept you here all this time?”

He backed away, wiping his face, then turned as if without thinking to scrounge for the makings of tea. “I tried,” he said, over his shoulder. “The Kothifiran seeker, Lady Kalan, survived the storm, but in all these years the king hasn’t let me see her.”

“It sounds,” said Jame, “as if I should pay her a visit.”

Ean turned around, an empty teapot forgotten in his hand. “You can try, but she lives in the new palace tower, well guarded.”

“I can show you the way,” Byrne said eagerly.

“No!” Ean dropped the pot, which shattered unnoticed at his feet. “It’s too dangerous! Remember how they beat me, the last time I tried?”

“How close can you safely get us?” Jame asked Byrne.