Beyond the Wall of Time by Russell Kirkpatrick

Author:Russell Kirkpatrick [KIRKPATRICK, RUSSELL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC009020
ISBN: 9780316052832
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2009-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

In the gloaming of the day, the hundred-strong band reached the base of the long slope leading to the Malayu Basin. Ahead of them the land steamed in the half-light, radiating its heat to the purpling sky as dusk gathered like a cloak of secrecy. A few of the children cried, a hungry ache beneath their ribs, as no one had found enough to eat in the village behind them. Their parents and the others in the party walked in a tired shuffle, heads down, their lips pressed closed in a determined effort not to complain.

So it was they did not see the small group waiting at the place where the road levelled out. The first Lenares knew of it was a shout from someone at the head of their party, a hail returned by a distant voice.

“Is it Noetos and his family?” Stella asked.

“Can’t tell,” Robal replied. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Where’s Noetos!” someone called, but the voice came from well in front of them. Not more refugees from the storm and earthquake then.

“He’s not here,” Kannwar replied. “Who are you?”

A few garbled introductions later, the two groups had met and mingled and had found seats on a series of felled tree trunks. The leaders of the dozen or so new arrivals were a man and a woman: he, small with a largish belly; she, middle-aged, standing on the balls of her feet like a Three-Spire dancer from lost Talamaq. Bregor he called himself, the Factor of Raceme, and his new-wed wife, she of the elegant poise, he named Consina. She smiled politely at this, her self-possession and reserve an odd contrast to the sweaty effusiveness of her husband.

Lenares looked at them with her numbers, then realised with a sudden shock that it was the first time she’d used her unique gift at all that day. What has happened to me? She felt like a castle of sand slowly eroding away, a special-shaped fortress absorbed into the ordinariness of the beach. Mahudia would know. Lenares longed to talk to her, but didn’t want to draw the attention of the gods to her mother.

Bregor and Consina knelt before Kannwar—the Emperor here, Lenares reminded herself—and began speaking to him in low tones. Lenares moved closer. They wanted to keep their conversation secret, but why shouldn’t the world’s last cosmographer know what was being said!

“I was told of events in Raceme by the Noetos you seek,” Kannwar was saying.

The tubby man sweated freely, even though the air had grown cold. His wife passed him a kerchief, with which he swatted at the moisture glistening on his temples. “Did he tell you of the devastation wreaked by the gods, great lord?”

“He did, Factor, but he did not mention you. What is your relationship with him?”

“Great lord, I was his village Hegeoman until the calamity that overtook us.”

“Do you mean the Neherian invasion? Speak plainly, man; we’re not players in a bard’s tale.”

“Yes, lord,” the man said, mopping perspiration from his brow. “I mean, yes, it was the Neherians.

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