The Sea of Time

V An Unexpected Guest

Torisen dreamed that he was a boy again, struggling to make his way in the Southern Host.

“Here,” said Harn Grip-hard gruffly, thrusting a paper at him. “Take this to the Jaran.”

Young Tori accepted back the note which he himself had transcribed, Harn’s handwriting being nearly unreadable. He had noted that early in his stay with the Southern Host, and it had suggested to him a way in which he might make himself useful. Harn had snarled at him at first, but he had persisted and by slow degrees had gained a measure of grudging acceptance.

Otherwise, he had no assigned role in the camp. That was hard, with everyone else so busy, so sure where they fitted in to the Host’s complex, bustling structure. Only he was the outsider. He had begged to be sent to the randon college at Tentir, but Adric had said that that would be too dangerous, so close to his father’s enemies, so here he was instead, where even the Ardeth wanted little to do with him. Maybe they shared Harn’s belief that he was one of their lord’s bastards, perhaps with a trace of Knorth blood to explain his distinctive looks. All in all, the only place he could call his own was the small, mean set of rooms not far from Harn’s office, kept for him by Adric’s spy Burr.

It was dusk when he emerged from the command block and set off south across the grassy inner ward under the flare of kindling stars.

A ten-command of second-year Edirr cadets trotted past him, skipping on alternate steps to the amusement of all whom they passed. For hazing, that was mild. The Randir and Caineron third-years had drawn blood, especially the latter, where a cadet had swallowed a live coal and died after being forced to tell a lie. The Randir were more subtle. There, two cadets had chosen the White Knife rather than live with what they had been made to do, whatever that was. It was rumored that Commandant Genjar had a taste for such games although he had never experienced them himself, not being a randon. His doting father Caldane had made the Randon Council accept him as Commandant of the Southern Host. Harn actually ran the camp. A proper nest of vipers, the Caineron, and the Randir no better.

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.”

Harn emerged from the compound, still mountainous with rage. Tori had heard that the Kendar was a berserker, but this was the closest he had seen to a full eruption. The very stones seemed to shudder under him.

“One of these days,” Harn was growling, “one of these days . . .”

Tori freed himself from Burr and touched the randon’s arm. From the sizzle down his nerves, it felt as if he had grounded a lightning bolt. Harn shook himself. His small, bloodshot eyes blinked and focused.

“All right, boy?”

“Yes, Ran.”

“You could complain about this to the Ardeth.”

“No, Ran.”

Tori had had time to think. However nasty the hazing, one didn’t run to the authorities to cry about it. Besides, he wasn’t really hurt, although his legs ached abysmally and threatened to give out under him. Most importantly, he had indeed recognized that drawling voice. The Commandant of the Southern Host, Genjar himself, had presided over his torture.

Burr helped Tori back to his quarters. Candles lit the suite of small rooms, and in the second chamber they found the Kothifiran boy busily devouring their supper. Tori sank down into the opposite chair. Burr gave him a glass of thin wine, which he drained with a shaking hand.

Dammit, pull yourself together.

The hand steadied.

Burr refilled the glass. Over its rim, Tori regarded his visitor. The latter was lanky and liberally bespeckled with pimples. A tangle of ginger curls crowned his head. While his clothes were filthy, they were also of fine fabric and an elegant cut.

“Who are you?” Tori asked.

“Do you grant guest rights?”

Tori gathered that he was being asked to extend his protection to his unlikely visitor.

“How can I do that when I don’t know why you’re on the run?”

“Who says that I am—running, that is.”

Both Kencyr looked at him, the Highborn with a raised eyebrow.

“All right. So I am.” He took another bite of bread and gazed longingly at the wine bottle. Tori nodded to Burr, who reluctantly poured the boy a glass.

“Running away from what?” Tori asked patiently.

“What can I say that you would believe? I hardly know myself, except that I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of a man who casts the shadow of a white wolf.”

“Not good enough. Start at the beginning.”

“All right.” The boy took a long swig of wine as if to fortify himself, his skinny throat working. “I’m trusting you, d’you hear me? My father, King Kruin, is dying, but he won’t admit it. And he hangs on, past all reason. Meanwhile, the Karnids’ dark Prophet whispers in his ear and my kinsmen die, wasting away as the wolf’s shadow falls over them. All of my brothers are dead. Now my uncles and cousins have started to disappear. No one will believe what I have seen, so I ran.”

Tori had heard rumors of the mysterious deaths Overcliff among the royal family, not that they had had much to do with him personally. He supposed, though, that anything that affected the Host’s paymaster, King Kruin, would eventually affect the Host itself.

“So you’re afraid both of this wolf and of the prophet,” he said. “What prophet?”

“As I said, a Karnid, out of Urakarn. They’re all fanatics there, sworn to a world to come when death itself will die, or so they claim. Father is desperate; he listens to them. So do many of my family, hoping to save their skins. But I am my father’s youngest, last son, too close to the Rose Throne for safety, and I don’t trust any word that comes out of Urakarn.”

The two Kencyr exchanged glances. The Kendar’s scowl clearly said Don’t trust him.

Tori wondered, Should I?

Moreover, what protection could he really offer? His stinging legs reminded him how vulnerable he himself was and, despite himself, he shivered. Still, this boy and he had much in common, both outcasts with problematic fathers.

“I can’t promise you much,” he said, “only a place to stay and a share in our rations which, I warn you, are meager. That said, again, what is your name?”

The boy grinned with relief, showing big, white teeth worthy of a colt. “I’ll take whatever you can offer. What other choice have I? To answer your question, I am Prince Krothen, but you can call me Kroaky.”