Beyond the Wall of Time (7 page)

What? This is the strangest feeling.
He knew they were in danger… something about arrows… but he could not quite remember…

A young woman, Moralye, stood. “So Dryman’s corpse is missing, and two men claim to have seen the body come to life. Another
touched it and blood came off on his hands. Given where we were and what has been happening to us, I see no reason not to
suspect that Dryman is now alive again.”

For some reason Noetos was reminded of the story of the seaman’s ghost. He hadn’t thought of that story for years—or was it
moments? Why did he feel as though he had experienced this before? And what did arrows have to do with the story?

Moralye continued. “What we do not know is what this means. Is the god back in charge of the body? Or is there some power
in the House of the Gods that undoes death?”

Lightning flashed, followed immediately by the crack of thunder.
Lenares
, Noetos thought wildly.
She will moan and put her hands to her head. She’ll cry a warning about the hole in the world—arrows—Kilfor—oh, Alkuon!

Lenares moaned and her hands went to her head.

“Thank you, Moralye,” Kilfor said.

Fighting with everything he had, Noetos struggled against something—against the flow of time itself—and bunched himself.

Kilfor was still talking. “At least someone believes us—uh!”

Noetos launched himself at the plainsman and took him in the stomach, knocking him to the ground. He felt the arrow streak
past his right ear and
thock
into the portal tree.

“Down!” he cried, as he knew he would.

Kilfor cried out, but it was a cry of surprise and anger, not pain.

Things are changing. Are you aware, Lenares? You’re dead if not.

“It’s the hole in the world,” she said, but it was little more than a whisper, not a shout. With no sound to shoot at, the
arrows never came.

Duon is supposed to warn us about the arrows.
Noetos waited, breathing hard in the wet grass, Kilfor lying inert beside him. Only silence.

No one dared move. They could hear movement in the grass around them. Noetos could sense the approach of a group of people,
but sound attracted arrows, that was the lesson here. Keep still and stay alive.

A bare foot kicked him in the shoulder. “Get up.”

He rose slowly to his feet, arms extended, hands raised in what he hoped would be taken as a conciliatory gesture. None of
the others moved.

A man stood before him. Behind the man were at least fifty of his fellows. All were dressed in little more than loincloths
and jerkins, and most held bows in their hands. At least half had arrows at the ready, some nocked. All poisoned, if the stories
about the natives of Patina Padouk could be believed.

These natives, Noetos recalled, were an unpredictable lot. The official history of Roudhos, written by Bryant of Tochar, suggested
that the Padouki had once had this part of Bhrudwo to themselves, covering it as far as their forests extended. How did the
famous line go? “The whole of southern Bhrudwo was once a green city, with the Padouki its only inhabitants.” Locals told
a different story, one of Padouki invasions of their farmland, of crops burned, of children taken, of villages feathered.
Noetos had been inclined towards the official version, but the look of these people made him wonder.

They loosed poisoned arrows at us. They don’t care if we live or die.

“Where is Keppia?” the man asked. “Has he remained in the Godhouse?”

A reasonable Fisher Coast accent
, Noetos observed. Just one more oddity in a hatful of them. “No,” he answered. “He has left us.”

“We offered your people safety out of respect for Keppia. Why now should we grant you leave to be in our heartland?”

“We are leaving,” Noetos assured him.

Around him, members of the party had only now raised their heads. “Leave the talking to me,” he said to them.

“You may be leaving, but you are still here,” the leader said. “It is death to be found in the heartland uninvited, even for
one of the Padouki. How much more so for one of the tree-eaters?”

“As I said, we are leaving. The sooner this conversation is finished, the sooner we will be on our way.”

The man signalled and ten of his fellows stepped forward, arrows at the ready.

“You’re going to tell us it’s not that easy, aren’t you?” Noetos said.
Time to put this man off balance.
“Where did you study? Tochar?”

“You have an ear,” the man replied grudgingly.

“And you have bows and arrows. Had you wanted to kill us, we would be dead. So what is it you want?”

“We have no love for you, tree-eater, so do not presume to cow us with your arrogance. Your lives are spared only because
we do not know if killing you will offend Keppia. And since he is not here, we cannot ask him.”

Just as well for us then
, Noetos acknowledged silently. “What was a Padouki warrior doing in the Tochar academy?” he asked.

To his left Heredrew signalled vigorously, but Noetos paid him no attention. While others kept their heads down, it was his
time to lead.

“Or are you a Fisher Coaster gone native?”

The man’s face darkened, but none of the men either side of him stirred at this insult.
None but him speaks Bhrudwan. I have learned something, at least.

“This is not about me,” the man ground out between clenched teeth. “You have asked your last question. Keppia would understand
if you end up dying in agony, andali coursing through your veins.”

“Very well then. What would you have of us?”

The man ignored Noetos’s impudence. “You are to be taken to the Canopy. There our elders will decide what must be done with
you.”

The Padouki did not, apparently, bind their captives, but nor did they allow them to keep their weapons. Swords, knives and
even Phemanderac’s staff were bundled up in linen ropes and carried on the backs of three of their captors.
We have a few weapons they cannot take from us,
Arathé reminded herself.
Even if they are double-edged.

The rain ceased as they tramped across the plateau, and by the time they reached the cliff-edge the sun had come out. There,
a thousand paces above the steaming forest, they stopped for food and to take in the vista. Even the most frightened of captives
surely could not help but be impressed by the view. Arathé shaded her eyes and gazed down at the dark forest stretching to
the horizon in every direction save for the plateau at their back and a faint blue line on the eastern horizon, no doubt marking
the sea. The trees smoked in the heat of the sun, giving back to the sky much of the moisture that had recently rained down
on them. Above, glorious white clouds formed as the captives sat and ate the fruit doled out to them.

“Beautiful. Unique. Beyond the grasp of mortal men.” Their chief captor stood beside her father, his arm outstretched. “Every
tree a sacred pillar of our temple, some of them three thousand years old and more.” Her father was about to imperil them
again, she knew. Like the old Red Duke of Roudhos, who had been burned at the stake by the Undying Man, Noetos, his grandson,
never knew when to leave well enough alone. Couldn’t help himself. Yet it was just as well someone in their party had his
persistence. Whatever had happened back there in front of the Godhouse door had nearly killed them all. Arathé had felt her
father fight against the relentless stream of time as it seemed to double back on itself; perhaps others had tried, but he
was the only one to succeed.

“You’re about to tell me how outsiders have cut down the trees and put the spirit of the forest in jeopardy, aren’t you?”
Noetos said. “How we evil tree-eaters are always destroying the sacred grove of something-or-other. Do not bother, friend.
Our journey is more important than a few trees. The whole of Patina Padouk is as nothing beside it.”

“You
want
me to feather your friends?” the man asked, incredulous, and raised his bow.

“For Alkuon’s sake, Father, be silent!” Anomer hissed.

“None of you understand, do you!” Noetos said. “Something happened to us back at the portal that just might make everything
we’ve done, or might do, completely irrelevant. Did you all sleep through it, or am I the only one with courage enough to
talk about it?”

Arathé listened intently. Even the Padouki leader took a step closer, holding up his hands to keep his bowmen from loosing
their arrows.

“Are you talking of the double-time?” he said.

“You have a name for it?”

“No, but one of my warriors called it
datinala
, which means ‘two-time.’ A good name, I thought. It’s happened once in living memory, coincidentally when last Keppia visited
the Godhouse. Perhaps not a coincidence. This time was much longer in duration according to some of the older warriors.” He
swept an arm out, indicating those behind him.

“Did you see it as we did? You found three of us with your arrows the first time, but none the second?”

“We did,” the man acknowledged. “It made many of our warriors nervous.”

“Not as nervous as it made me, I’m sure.” Her father sighed. “Look, we’ve begun this all wrong.
I’ve
begun this wrong. Whatever happens in the next few days and weeks will affect Patina Padouk as much as the rest of the world.
Believe me, we are at the heart of it. Why otherwise would we be travelling with a god?”

The man grunted. “As I said, that is all that has kept you alive. But where is he now?”

Lenares came forward. “Do you have cosmographers in your culture?”

Noetos took her hand and began to pull her away.

“Leave me alone!” she said. “Don’t touch me!”

“Let the woman go,” the Padouki leader commanded, then addressed Lenares. “What are cosmographers?”

“Special people who can see the meaning of what the gods do,” she announced. “Did you know the gods are trying to break into
the world so they can live here all the time? Would you like them living in your heartland if they succeed?”

The man grunted at that, and turned to his warriors. A rapid exchange followed, in which the warriors became more and more
animated.

“We must take you to see the elders,” their leader said eventually. “They have spoken of something like this, but we warriors
do not pay heed to such talk. The elders will, however, want to hear what you have to say. Come, no more discussion. Save
it for the elders. Before them you must measure every word and apportion it like the purest rice. You will need more courage
than I,” he finished darkly.

The winding trail down from the plateau took an entire afternoon, the slow pace clearly frustrating the Padouki. The captives
began to droop with fatigue. None knew exactly how long they had been within the House of the Gods, but it had certainly been
at least one sleepless night. Phemanderac seemed to be faring worst. Moralye and then Stella kept him upright and walking,
but even the effort of staying awake appeared to be draining him.

During one rest break Arathé drifted closer, watching with concern as Moralye tended to the old scholar. The woman dabbed
at his mouth with a cloth, whether to wipe away fluid or to try to make him take water, Arathé could not tell. She did, however,
hear the old man say distinctly: “You should have left me up there, dear. The House of the Gods would have been a pleasant
place to sleep.” Then he noticed Arathé standing there and nothing else was said.

Dusk had begun to reduce vistas to silhouettes by the time they reached their destination. In a grove of trees indistinguishable
from hundreds and thousands they had passed during the long day—except perhaps for an extra patina of age, an extra breadth
of trunk—the Padouki leader called a halt. He jerked at a liana that looked exactly like all the others, and then waited.

“We should have been here hours ago,” he said. “The elders will not be happy.”

“Some of us are old and infirm,” Heredrew said. “We have injured and maimed among us. How could we keep to your schedule?”

The man did not answer him, instead indicating that he should stand aside. “Clear a space. The ladders are extremely heavy.”

At his word a pile of hempen rope thudded to the ground. The man tugged the liana again, and a rope ladder arose from the
pile and stretched upwards into the trees.

“Your infirm will wait here,” the man said. “They will be guarded. If they give any offence they will be cut down with no
more concern than a Malayuan woodsman has for a blackwood tree.”

Phemanderac remained behind, with Moralye as his guardian, as did Torve, of course, and the two injured porters: the others
who Arathé had thought might struggle to make the climb—Mustar with his leg, Sauxa and his age, Conal with his lost eye, and,
most disadvantaged, Stella and her missing arm—all elected to make the ascent.

“Be certain,” said their captor. “There is no going back. We will neither wait for you nor render any assistance.”

“How do your own old and sick make the journey?” Noetos asked as he set his foot to the lowest rung.

“They do not. At some point in the life of every Padouki he or she elects to remain in the Canopy, never to return to the
ground.”

Arathé struggled to make the ascent. The trees were enormous, and there was no indication of how far she had to travel, just
a barely perceptible lessening of the tree’s girth as they rose, hand over hand, into the green world. She could think of
nothing further removed from the bleak sterility of Fossa’s cliffs, the black and grey fences that had once been her too-close
limits; then again, she wondered how long a Padouki child could live in a tree before conceiving a desire to escape, just
as she had.

She was amazed—shocked—at how quickly she tired. She could still see the ground rocking back and forth beneath her feet, hadn’t
even reached the first great branch before she began to shake, her muscles cramping. Above her, Noetos slowly drew away; beneath
her, Anomer began to make worried comments. Arathé was worried herself. How far had she walked in the past months? Halfway
across a continent? So why did one rope ladder exhaust her?