Beyond the Wall of Time (22 page)

“Let us out!” someone shouted.

Others picked up the cry. “Let us out! Let us out!”

Kannwar turned on them. “You dare command me? You think to order the Undying Man?”

They pulled back from his anger. He had remade his face, but still frightened them. The stories about him were legion, and
each one had a cruel twist.

“Anyone we let out will die,” Stella said, trying to sound reasonable.

“But the storm is over,” a man called out.

“No,” she said. “In the centre of this storm is a small area of calm. It is overhead now. When it passes, the second part
of the storm will come. It is likely to be worse than the first part.”

“It’s only bad because of you,” said another man, an old fellow with a hunched back. “What storm ever had claws and acid?
There is magic in the air, and I want no part of it.”

“He makes his point well,” Sautea said. The fisherman had been hurt by one of the balls of ice; his arm was damaged, sprained
perhaps, or broken. “This is the same as the storm that followed Arathé. If we get out of its way, the worst that will happen
is we’ll get a little wet.”

Kannwar growled his disapproval. Lenares took stock of him. His temper had risen, and only the presence of Stella kept him
from exercising it.

“How many of you wish to leave?” he asked.

About a third of the few hundred refugees put up their hands.

“We worked hard to save you,” he snarled. “Take a look at these fools, you with your hands by your sides. This is the last
you’ll ever see of them.

“Very well. Those with their hands up, get out of the pit. And when your death comes roaring at you, think of the mercy of
the Undying Man.”

Not a few of those so addressed lowered their hands, but still fully a quarter of those in Corata Pit lined up to squeeze
through a narrow opening Kannwar made in the barrier. Above them blue sky winked at their efforts.

“Are we wrong?” Stella wondered aloud.

“We are not wrong,” Kannwar assured her as the last of the line vanished over the lip of the pit. “They are wrong, and it
will cost them everything. No doubt this will be remade into a story in which I forced them out into the storm while all the
while they begged to remain under my protection.” He sighed. “Now I need your attention. We may have little time and there
is something we must do.”

“What?”

“We need to modify the barrier.”

Stella groaned. “I don’t know how much strength I have left.”

“This doesn’t require strength. At least, I will supply the strength we need. I want you to focus that strength. You must
concentrate on this. Do you see this shape?”

Lenares frowned. Kannwar had shown Stella something without moving his hands: they must be communicating mind to mind. How
Lenares wished she had such ability!

“What do I do with it?”

“I am going to spread a multitude of those shapes over the barrier, and you must do the same, keeping the shape just as I
showed you. Can you do this?”

She nodded.

A shadow began to grow at the far end of Corata Pit. Lenares looked up: an enormous sheer wall of cloud advanced over the
pit’s lip. In it vast energies seethed; flashes of light illuminated various parts of the cloud wall.

“Our time has run out,” Kannwar said.

“We need to keep walking,” Noetos urged.

Exhausted, Duon could do no more than plod, feet splashing along the track of sucking mud. Husk’s control had sapped his energy;
he needed to rest, to eat, to sleep.

“We need to do more than walk,” Arathé signalled, her hands frantic. “We need to run!”

The first bolt of lightning nearly made Lenares wet herself. Little more than a blinding blue flash, it cracked and skittered
against the canopy. Stella shrieked, Kannwar grunted; both sounds were drowned out by a terrifying roar that shook the pit.

The first bolt was followed by another, and another, and then a sequence of them: white-blue daggers thrust at the canopy.
The accumulated energy sizzled over the barrier as though searching for weak points, trying to find a way through.

“Exactly what I would have done,” Kannwar remarked between strikes. The rest of his comment was lost in a further series of
flashes and roars.

“Will it hold?” Stella asked.

“That depends on us. Now, concentrate!”

Lightning rained on the canopy like hammer blows. Lenares clapped her hands over her ears, but each thump shook her chest
so vigorously she found it difficult to breathe. The air smelled burnt, as though it had caught fire.

The barrier held.

The man with the hunch approached her. “Miss, come and sit with us. One of the magicians wants to try something.” He clutched
at her arm.

Most of the refugees sat huddled together a short distance away. Anomer stood before them, addressing them between strikes.

“Hold hands,” he instructed. “I will try to draw strength from your essenza.” A series of booms echoed across the pit and
he waited patiently until the sound had died away. “I have done this before. You will all feel a little discomfort, but no
one will be seriously harmed.”

At this one or two let go of their neighbour’s hand, then took it again, embarrassed. Lenares sat at the end of a row and
took the chubby hand of a young boy. The woman at the end of the row in front reached back and grabbed Lenares’ other hand.

Don’t touch me
, her inner voice said, a rote reaction with little power. She ignored it. The boy’s hand was clammy while the woman’s felt
scaly. Not at all like Torve’s.

Above them a dozen bolts slammed simultaneously into the canopy, which buckled, then snapped back into place. Stella sank
to her knees.

“Now,” Anomer said, and closed his eyes. A moment later they popped open. “Nothing,” he said, disappointed.

Lenares had felt nothing, no surge of power. She had hoped to feel it, to learn more about magic in all its forms.

“I felt something,” someone in front of her cried.

“So did I!”

Others confirmed that something had happened.

Another bright flash lit up the pit, turning the landscape into a searing monochrome. This time the canopy buckled further,
and a small area near the centre did not repair itself.

Umu will know
, Lenares thought as the thunder cracked and rumbled.

“We didn’t feel a thing,” came dozens of voices from behind Lenares.

Anomer waved his arms to get everyone’s attention. “Those who felt the pull of magic, wave your arms.”

Everyone in the rows in front of Lenares waved. She turned to see no raised hands behind her. The woman had let go of her
hand to raise her own, but the boy beside her still held her hand in a fierce grip.

It’s me. I’m the one blocking the magic.

“Lenares,” Anomer called, “why don’t you come up here and help me?”

She nodded, retrieved her other hand from the boy’s grasp and stood up.

This time the flash was unbearable and Lenares squeezed her eyes closed. She counted five, ten, twenty, thirty-two flashes
in a matter of seconds, accompanied by roars fit to burst her ears asunder. When the flashes stopped and the thunder cleared,
Stella lay unmoving on the ground.

“Are we close enough?” Duon asked.

“We have to be!” Arathé was beside herself. “There is no more time!”

Duon could see the pictures in her head. She had forced a channel through to her brother by main strength, one that had been
open in the past but had been seared closed by Husk. Her mind bled from the roughness of her surgery to reopen it. The resulting
images presumably originating from Anomer’s eyes—revealed the remaining travellers under siege. As Duon watched, more explosions
of light tore across his inner vision, and when they ceased he saw the Falthan woman dead on the path.

Arathé took her father’s hand, then dropped it. “I don’t need your hand,” she said. “I can pull power from you anyway.” She
snatched at Duon’s hand and began drawing from him.

Duon trusted her, would always trust her. He could see her intentions, but knew also just how little practical experience
she’d had at this. As the cavity behind his nose warmed and his chest began to hollow, he hoped she wouldn’t draw too much.
His small trickle of power flowed into her own river, then on towards her brother.

At a nod from Noetos, the Padouki warrior lent his hand.

Anomer
, she said.
This is all we have. I hope it is enough.

Lenares’ cheeks burned with shame. She had prevented the magic from working. Something in her had resisted Anomer’s drawing,
and everyone knew it. No one would speak to her now, she was sure; the friendships tentatively begun would end. She hadn’t
meant to ruin things, but who would believe her?

More flashes, this time brighter still as lightning lanced through the growing rent in the canopy. Around her people screamed
in fright.

Her mind backtracked. Something in her had resisted—or something on her. Cursing herself for a fool, she drew out the fragment
of huanu stone she’d taken from Olifa the miner and strode towards Kannwar. She held it up before his shocked eyes.

“Will this be of any help?”

*   *   *

Duon felt the connection between himself, Anomer and hundreds of other minds. Felt Anomer take the stream of magic, shape
it, and aim it at the ragged hole in the canopy wrought by the lightning. Watched as the boy tried and failed to seal the
hole shut.

“Most High! Just a little help!” Noetos implored.

The Most High whispered his answer through the fisherman’s own lips. “I will not interfere. So have I sworn.”

“You interfered in the House of the Gods!”

“That place is beyond the Wall of Time. My interference did no harm there.”

“But they are about to die!”

“Yet they may not,” said the Most High, and left Noetos.

Stella lay as still as stone. Kannwar seemed torn: he continued to maintain the increasingly fragile canopy, but also sought
a response from the Falthan queen. “She cannot die, she cannot die,” he chanted over and over, his ravaged eyes sunken like
raisins in his head.

“Ma sor Kannwar?” Lenares called, but his eyes were dim and did not see her. She turned away.

Her numbers offered no help: they were unable to keep up with the enormous amount of magical energy coruscating through the
pit. She had an idea, but could not tell whether it was sensible or foolish—though she feared the latter. Before she could
think, before her mind could persuade her otherwise, her feet took her along the path up towards the lip of Corata Pit.

I am going to die
, she realised.
I will be with Mahudia in the void.

She hoped the others would defeat the gods without her. She hoped the void was not too cold. She hated the cold. At least
she would be with Mahudia.

She came to the place where the canopy was anchored to the path. Holding the huanu stone high, she brought it close to the
barrier.
Carefully, carefully.
As the stone came within a finger-width of the barrier, the insubstantial membrane began to melt. The huanu stone absorbed
magic. Noetos had told her, Olifa had confirmed it, and now she had proof. Quickly she clambered through the barrier, then
pulled the stone away. With a ripple and a snap the canopy flowed back into place.

Now the hard part, the part that made her afraid. She inched out over the canopy, her legs shaking like saplings in a storm,
making her way slowly under Umu’s gaze. She could almost feel the god’s eye on her, and knew she would make an irresistible
target.

When it came, the flash and boom were far worse than Lenares could have imagined. Her heart seemed to stop in her chest, fluttered
for a moment and then began a tentative rhythm. She found herself lying face down on the canopy, her limbs shaking, looking
at the upturned faces below. Drawing a deep breath, she levered herself onto her hands and knees, then looked up into the
storm.

“You’ve had a shot at me, Umu,” she called out, her voice small and quavery. “Is that the best you can do?”

The Daughter’s furious voice smote her ears.
What are you doing, little Lenares? Do not interfere in what you do not understand.

The smell of burning air was very strong out here under the storm. It made her want to throw up. But she had to be brave or
this would not work.

“I understand you well, Umu,” she said, “and one day I will kill you. Maybe today.”

Please, please, repair the canopy while I’m distracting her
, she begged silently, hoping someone down there was still thinking.

Put down the rock and we will talk
, Umu said, her voice like thunder.

“No.” Lenares knew how to be stubborn.
You won’t tell me what to do.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the canopy begin to heal.
Hurry, please hurry.
It was taking too long; she knew she had to keep Umu angry.

“I might talk to your brother,” she said.

You will do no such thing! I will kill you first!

“Not while I have the stone, you won’t.”

I may not be able to kill you
, the Daughter admitted,
but neither can I reward you
.
Do you know it is within my power to give you magic?

“I don’t believe you,” Lenares said, but she did. She knew Umu could do this. More, she wanted it: the desire leaped from
her breast and seized her mind.

Keppia has done it before, you know. He gifted mortals with long life and magical insight.
The cosmographer knew Umu spoke of the Padouki.
I’m as powerful as him. Don’t you want magical power?

“Yes,” Lenares whispered despite herself. “Yes.”
Then put down the stone. I can’t perform magic on you if you hold the stone.

Oh, so persuasive. Lenares knew it was a trap, an obvious trap; that she would die under a barrage of lightning should she
relinquish the stone. But it was what she wanted. She thought again of the bronze map she had seen in the House of the Gods,
of the countries and kingdoms of the world spread before her, of the knowledge that could be hers. It had felt so right to
sit on one of the gods’ chairs. All the questions she could have answered! She knew she would make a far better god than selfish,
cruel Umu.