Branches of Time, The (5 page)

“Sometimes I'd like to give them a world like this one: beautiful land, trees, birds that sing,” he says, looking around him.

“Me too, you know. But the game has its rules. Want to play some more?”

“Okay,” the boy responds, sitting down with his legs crossed on the grass.

His sister imitates him.

The universal window unrolls between them. In the center, the light reflected by an azure planet shines stronger than all of the other stars. Nal touches it gently with her thoughts.

13

The fire had gone out. A thin trickle of smoke rose from the embers. The room was flooded with light. Lil opened her eyes and realized that the priestess' arm was resting on her chest. Miril was still deep asleep. Lil had to go to the bathroom, so she tried to gently move Miril's arm. The priestess snorted and opened her eyes. Suddenly a giant smile spread across her face.

Why is she so happy?
Lil wondered, perplexed.

“Good morning, Lil,” she began, without lifting her arm.

“Good morning, Miril.” That excessive closeness made Lil slightly anxious.
Where was she last night?
Lil had woken up several times during the night and hadn't seen the priestess. “I thought you had gone to sleep in your quarters last night,” she commented, immediately regretting her insolence. She still felt rather uncomfortable talking to the priestess.

“No. I was just up late, working on a few things,” Miril explained in a serious tone of voice, seemingly distracted. She suddenly seemed to be lost deep in her thoughts.

Miril must have slept only a few hours, but she didn't seem at all tired. Even her hair was neatly done. She was as beautiful as ever, with the intense gaze of her green eyes and the long, light chestnut mane that unfurled down her back.

Life had always been hard for everyone on that island. Lil wondered what it must be like for a woman who had never experienced the intimate companionship of a man.

A moan from Bashinoir distracted her from her own musings.

“Let's go see how he is,” Miril gently urged.

He was still sleeping, apparently peacefully.

The two women checked his calf. Lil could barely believe her eyes: the wound, although very deep, looked much better.

Miril smiled: “Just a question of using the right ointments.”

Lil anxiously waited for her husband to wake up. She wanted to embrace him, for him to take her in his arms, to sleep with him. Thinking about how, even so recently, she used to enjoy teasing him and making him jealous now made her feel terribly guilty.
But now I'm all his and only his, body and soul
, she thought bitterly.

“I think Bashinoir should wake up sometime very soon,” Miril announced.

“Miril, did you find anything out, while you were working last night?” Lil asked, astonished by her own boldness.

The priestess shook her head. “I'm sorry, Lil.” She didn't think the girl would understand what an astral voyage was, but she still tried to explain it: “I went through the astral planes of the entire island looking for the bodies and their souls, but I didn't find a single trace. I even searched the bottom of the ocean, and even there, no luck.”

Planes of the entire island? At the bottom of the ocean? What is she talking about?

The young woman wanted to know more, but she found it incredibly difficult to ask Miril more questions.

Luckily Miril met her halfway: “Don't worry if you don't fully understand what my words mean. I'll help you as much as I can. There are many things you'll be able to learn. Now come with me, let's go make breakfast. There's something very important I need to talk to you about and it's better that we don't waste any time.”

And most importantly,
Miril thought,
with Bashinoir asleep, Lil can make her choices more freely.

Miril and Lil sat at the table in the dining hall of the Temple. For the first time, after the tragic events of the last two days, they had finally prepared a real breakfast with the best of what the island had to offer. However, they ate as little as possible: who knew when Bashinoir would be awake and able to hunt. Over the next few days, they were bound to see their food supplies dwindle.

As she ate, Lil's cheeks finally began to regain their color. Her black eyes moved from one dish to the next: she had never sat at a table laden with so many wonderful things to eat. The culinary customs of the people of the island were not even remotely similar to those of the priest class, which received the best of every kind of food, in quantities much larger than necessary for their needs.

Miril let Lil eat peacefully, without disturbing her. When it seemed like she was full, she decided to bring up the subject that was weighing upon her: “Lil, my dear. There are just three of us left on this island. We have no idea what set off the inauspicious events of the day before yesterday, but we are alive and we have to make sure we do all we can to continue this existence in the best way possible.”

Lil was surprised by how serious the priestess sounded, and she listened carefully to every word. The priestess' expression still seemed gentle. She felt like the priestess was finally going to disclose something important.

“As you know,” Miril continued, “the priest has left us, unfortunately. If I had been the one officiating the wedding, he would have been spared. But that's not the way things went.” Miril seemed to be sincerely saddened by the death of the priest, although this meant she herself had been saved.

“You may have noticed that the priest and I never left this Temple together. Energy balances are very important. Since our people first stepped foot on this island, the priestly class has always had the duty to protect all of its inhabitants. In order for that to work, there always need to be at least two priests. Both receive the same teachings, so that they can work in unison and in symbiosis in order to perform the necessary rituals. Most importantly, so they can perform the protection spells.”

Lil had actually never thought about why there were two priests.

“Do you know how a new priest is chosen?”

Sure, of course
. It was the highest honor for a family to have a child chosen for the priestly life. Not only would the infant's destiny be changed forever, but the position of the entire family would rise to the highest level of the island's hierarchy, and the head of the family would be admitted as a member of the council of Elders.

“Of course. When a baby is born, the priests go to see it during the first few hours of its life and decide if it's going to become one of you.”

Miril thought of how to make her explanations more accessible to the young woman. “You see, Lil, every child has their own energy current, an inherited trait and a predisposition that may be perfectly suited for the major powers and responsibilities that come along with the priestly life. Becoming a priest is not just a high honor, but first and foremost a heavy burden. The life of all of the inhabitants of this island depends on the protection provided by magic. If the priests fail, if they don't fulfill their duties, the consequences may be very harsh indeed.”

So then it's their fault if...
Lil started to wonder.

Once again, it seemed as if Miril could read her thoughts: “Lil, I can assure you that neither I nor the priest were ever distracted from our duties. What happened can't in any way be connected to a failure on our part. There must be another cause and, one way or another, I'll figure it out.”

Is that a desire for revenge in Miril's eyes?
Lil wondered.

“In any case, Lil, we will need to attend to many things over the next few days, including finding food, taking care of the animals and the fields, and checking the houses of all those who have left us. But the most important thing is that we need to be sure that the magical protections of the island are not interrupted, ever, for any reason whatsoever. In order for this to happen, there need to be two priests once again!”

Bashinoir!
So that's why they were sitting in the kitchen, near the warmth of the hearth, the table laden down with all those delicacies. The priestess was trying to tell her that her husband would become a priest.
But priests...don't have wives! They don't sleep in the same bed as women. They dedicate themselves to the Temple, to the rites, to magic. They have practically no ties to their family of origin.
So the priestess was trying to tell her that her husband would no longer be her husband.

Her mouth hanging open, Lil observed the woman sitting in front of her holding a mug of milk in her hands. She couldn't help but feel a surge of jealousy.
Miril is so gorgeous!

Tall and regal, Miril had a timeless beauty to her. She had always seemed so natural while performing the rites, her movements graceful, as if she were a creature of pure spirit. Even during those sacred events, Lil hadn't been able to take her eyes off the elegance of her gestures, made even more fascinating by the white veils of her tunic.

No, that can't be it. My husband is a clumsy lumberjack. Bashinoir could never take on such a role!
But then, why was Miril talking to her about it? It wasn't at all necessary to ask for her permission: on that island, the law was written by the word and wishes of the priest, nothing more and nothing less. That was not about to change, even if there were only three of them left now.
Or maybe Miril is only trying to be nice to me, asking me kindly to step aside?

The two women sat in silence for a few moments. Lil was caught up in her thousand and one thoughts. Her fingers lingered near her mouth as she nervously bit her nails. The priestess, from time to time, glanced over at her, smiling, a knowing look in her eyes.

“What do you think?” Miril asked her.

“Priestess...I mean, Miril, I...I really don't know what to say. Of course, your will shall be done, I mean...what you say goes. If you think Bashinoir should become a priest, I will accept that and I won't get in the way.” A tear made its way down Lil's young face. “Yes, I'll accept it. As you wish, priestess – I mean, Miril.” Now it all made sense for Miril to be telling her all of this: she wanted Bashinoir to be free from distractions, and that she, as his ex-wife, would prepare him in the best way possible to start down that spiritual path.

Miril smiled yet again. “Lil, Bashinoir will not be the new priest. You will.”

14

The wizard Obolil staggered through the magic laboratory, leaning on a walking stick. His face wore a grim expression as his eyes darted quickly from one point to another. “Ah, Aldin, that fool! Look what he's done to this place. I wonder how anyone could get anything done with all this junk everywhere,” he wheezed.

The apprentice Ilis stood in the center of the room, embarrassed, unsure of what to say, where to move, if he should sit or start cleaning.

“Absolutely nothing. He understood absolutely nothing, from everything that I taught him. Look at
what he surrounded himself with. And he thought he could break the barrier with this?” he said, sweeping his arm along the table and knocking off a bunch of precious objects. “Throw it all out in the garbage! I don't want to see any of this crap any more!”

“But master...”

Obolil turned around to look at the boy, his angry eyes framed by dark circles.

“You'll speak when you're spoken to, boy. Do you understand me?”

“Of course, master,” Ilis responded. He went to get a broom and dustpan in order to sweep away all of that
crap
.

Watching the boy leave the room, Obolil gave him another order: “Then come right back here.”

Reluctantly, Ilis threw out everything that had been so carefully collected over decades of research and returned to his new master, moving towards the table Obolil had, in the meantime, taken a seat at.

“Sit down!”

Ilis obeyed.

“Give me your hands.”

Obolil took Ilis' hands. The boy had to stifle a wave of disgust. The old wizard's body, despite having had a few days to refresh and reenergize, was still frightening,

His eyes were sunken in their dark sockets. His face, hands, wrists and every visible patch of skin was covered with scars. Only half of his right eyebrow remained. His fingernails were broken, split or completely missing. A segment of the pinky finger on his left hand was missing, just like his right earlobe. The wizard could not hold his body up straight. Even while seated, he slouched so badly that the top half of his chest was nearly parallel to the top of the table.

“Ah, I disgust you, don't I? Look at what our dear king has done to me! And that's the man I now have to serve. The man who rules over both of us, and he won't think twice about doing the very same thing to you if you don't give him what he wants.” Obolil spoke in a very low and hoarse voice, interrupted frequently by short coughing fits.

“As for me, boy, I may not be here for very long. So if you want a different fate, you better be able to learn quickly.”