No Present Like Time (45 page)

“Don’t leave me here!” I cried. I was not only in a completely unknown, alien world, but somewhere in its past.

She turned a shark’s cold eye on me. “Have you not been practicing? You should be able to will your way back by now! I advised you to study and I expected you to learn. Well, this is an excellent opportunity to try.” She leaned forward, gave a little jump, and fell through the air in a perfect dive. She splashed into the crystal-clear water and did not rise again.

I might have to stay here forever, I thought in panic. I might have to
live
here. Berating myself, I examined the stinking abandoned car but it was already beginning to rot. I kicked it. The dock workers had left when we were talking to the King krait, and I was alone. I sat down and for about an hour, though I had no way of measuring time, I tried to copy the feeling of my return Shifts. I imagined the pull—a plausible path to the Fourlands—growing stronger, solidifying. I grasped it, and dragged myself through.

I lay somewhere that smelled of feathers. Darkness surrounded me. I felt nothing. My body was paralyzed; I couldn’t move. “Because you’re dead,” a heavy voice pronounced in my ear. I screamed with no sound. This is the wrong world; I’ve no body to return to. I struggled and thrashed and forced myself awake.

I came to lying on the worn carpet in Ata’s cabin, by the linenfold paneled walls and brocade bench on which Rayne sat in front of the stern windows. “Well done,” she enthused. “You saved us!” The windows behind her were completely black. “Shame i’ killed you, though.” She smiled and her mouth widened on both sides. She smiled and smiled and smiled. I’m still not home. I’m still not awake!

I squeezed my eyes shut and fought desperately. I then saw a lowering landscape with ruined bridges, fortresses, windmills all benighted backlit with raging fire, vast buildings with stone stairways running in every direction. I did not set down there. Someone’s fingers were on my face, probing like worms in my mouth; they forced my jaw open and rammed down my throat. I simultaneously woke up and vomited helplessly.

I
opened my eyelids to two slivers of glazed-green iris but lay otherwise inert. Rayne’s pair of bloodstained pumps and Lightning’s thick-soled buckled boots stood in front of my face. God, I hate it when I wake up lying in the recovery position.

“He’s no’ responding,” said Rayne. I felt her thumb my eyelid.

“I am,” I said, but it came out as a breath.

Lightning’s voice sounded very weak. “Well, bloody
make
him respond.”

Rayne made a sound like a shrug and slapped my face. “His pupils are so thin they’re like threads. Can you feel t’ Circle working t’ hold him?”

“Yes, damn him.”

Rayne slapped my face again and I gasped and spat.

Lightning said, “Ah, Jant. Everyone fights to survive but you wipe yourself out! You couldn’t poison Gio but you do a bloody good job of poisoning yourself! We need you to fly above and drop missiles on the trebuchet team. I know you prefer to be comatose under heavy bombardment; are you hoping to be revived by the cold water when we sink?”

I rolled into a kneeling position and blinked at him. He half-lay on a chair, still shaking with pain. Instead of his longbow he held a smaller bow with pulleys that could be kept drawn effortlessly.

Rayne said, “Lightning, don’ make him feel bad or you’ll give him an excuse t’ take another dose.”

“The gamin wretch! I’ll—”

I whispered, “You’re wrong. You told me to stop the riot and that’s exactly what I am doing.”

A ripple jolted
Petrel
hard against the harbor wall, throwing Rayne off balance. The snakes have arrived. I swallowed dryly, then I stumbled to my feet and out of the cabin. Rayne hurried and Lightning struggled after me, up the ladder to the poop deck where I gazed from the rail. The quayside was littered with bodies; its pavement was cracked and the walls of houses demolished where
Pavonine
’s shot had struck. Our figurehead and forecastle had been smashed into a mass of splintered wood. I took it all in with one glance, not knowing if I had really woken. The sky was dark—was this Fourlands or still Shift?

Looking down to the lower level through an open hatch I saw Wrenn sitting on a rope coil, drinking a canteen of water voraciously. Rayne’s assistant was sewing the gash that was open to the bone in his arm. The sight brought me back to earth. He knew that Eszai can take wounds—although
not
wounds as serious as that. He must have badly misunderstood what I told him about the Circle.

The
Pavonine
continued her bombardment. Cinna spun the wheel, keeping the ship’s stern toward us, rudder at full lock. Tirrick commanded the sweating pirates scurrying inside the treadwheels to ratchet the catapult back. They stacked its sling with slimy rocks from the ship’s own ballast.

The
Pavonine
jolted. An unnatural ripple circled her. The water on either side of her hull began to churn and bubble; waves lapped in every direction. Behind her, between her and the beacon island, a long black ridge surfaced. It was domed like a whale’s back but it rose higher and higher out of the water, passing the height of the
Pavonine
’s rail. It was the King krait’s top lip.

Lightning and Rayne stared, stunned. The men on the
Pavonine
ran about in confused terror as the ridge continued to rise. Two curved sharp fangs emerged parallel with the waves. Longer than pikes they projected from the black arch on the far left and right. The sea krait’s jaw showed its green and blue stripes and the water seething as it emerged glowed with phosphorescence.

A hundred meters away from the top lip, in the water between us and the
Pavonine,
the slick lower lip crested up. Men by the catapult shrieked and pointed; on the main deck they ran from one side to the other, unable to fathom what the arches on either side of them could be. The krait’s open mouth ascended, its teeth curved toward the
Pavonine.
The ridged black skin of its upper palate faced us, twice the size of the mainsail and glistening like tar. Water sluiced off its smooth bony head.

The smoke-filled sky resonated with the pirates’ screams as far as the town. I had the impression that the whole sea bed was ascending. Water thundered out of both sides of the krait’s open mouth; in the rocketing froth between its upper and lower jaws the
Pavonine
danced and spun like an eggshell in boiling brine. The cocked catapult went off, hurling shot vertically into the air.

I heard Cinna screeching. The snake’s lance-long teeth reached the height of
Pavonine
’s foremast, curving above the ship and caging it in.
Pavonine
canted over so far the crow’s nest on its mainmast slapped the water, now on the port side, now the starboard, throwing off men. The krait’s bottom jaw obscured the ship. Its yellow eye emerged, surrounded with wet black skin, waves battering against it.

For an instant the water inside its mouth was carried higher than the harbor water. The snake reared out of the sea, bearing the
Pavonine
up. Sailors clung onto the ropes, dropped off with raucous screams.

Foaming brine spurted out both sides. The sea krait closed its mouth, with one sickening crunch.

In the sudden silence, the bitten-off masthead of the
Pavonine
tumbled to the surf. It floated, no bigger than a matchstick, beside the diamond-shaped snake’s head projecting straight up from the waves. Its body rose to the surface, blocking the harbor entrance, and the length of it extended to the horizon. The King krait lowered its head and turned to look at us.

Lightning scrabbled for an arrow, stammering, “What is that…?” He flexed his bow, aiming directly for its yellow eye.

“No!” I put my jittery hand over the arrowhead and forced it down. “Don’t shoot!”

Lightning gaped at me, striving to understand. “Why not? Its carcass won’t block us in. The sun will rot it. It will rot away.” He yelled at the sea krait,
“What are you?”

The snake’s long mouth stayed closed but the black tongue whipped out like a pennant at the summit of its snout, curling down to our railings, licking slickly in front of me. I assumed the krait was tasting the air for my scent. I actually admired its beauty and overwhelming incalculable strength. I waved my arms to it, grinning madly with gratitude. “Thank you! Thank you in the name of the Emperor—now go find a home!”

It tilted its head to the side, but as it sank it scanned the
Stormy Petrel
’s deck with its great amber eye. The sea rushed back with a noise like rolling boulders, closing over the snake’s eye, upturned mouth, pointed nose; the nostrils last to submerge. An enormous V-shaped ripple formed where, underwater, it began to haul its massive body and retract its head from the harbor.

I swear there was a gust of wind as everybody on the
Stormy Petrel
exhaled. The quay was silent for a second—it
was
silent, the fighting had stopped. I heard weapons fall and clanking as bags of loot dropped to the ground.

Pandemonium broke out as, shoulder to shoulder, some soldiers and pirates moved closer to the waterfront to stare at the floating top-mast, the broken pieces of canoes and pontoons where the krait had been. The rest, especially the Trisians, tried to run as far from the sea as possible, back into town. The rioting on the quayside and all the way up the boulevard had completely ceased; everybody was watching the ocean.

“Did…?” Lightning stammered. “In the name of…god’s arse…I can’t believe I just saw that.” He turned on me. “Why do you keep stopping me from shooting monsters?”

“It saved us, Saker; it’s a friend.”

On my other side Rayne spoke calmly. “You were in too deep, Jant, if you reached Vista Marchan.”

I goggled at her, but she simply smiled.

“How did you know that
thing
was going to appear?” Lightning demanded.

I seated myself on the deck; I was too nauseous to question Rayne. I moaned, “Oh, please let me lie down. They’ve stopped fighting. I halted the riot; we’ve won.”

“We los’ so much, Jant, tha’ I doubt you could call i’ winning.”

Lightning nudged me with his boot. “I see Vendace and the senators approaching the gangway. At the moment I don’t think relations between Capharnaum and the Castle could be any worse. Can you address them?”

Rayne said, “Jant is very disorien’ed; I don’—”

I nodded. “Yes. I will speak for the Castle.”

S
cavenger smoke rifled across the sky. The moisture of the sea breeze condensed on the library’s fumes to form a thick cloud descending over the crag; we gradually lost sight of the blackened, burned-out Amarot. The air was filthy and muggy, unfamiliar to the senators. They stood huddled together, coughing. The sea krait had rendered them speechless and their eyes were downcast; they were in mortal fear. Lightning and I walked unsteadily down the gangplank to the corniche which was littered with debris. Vendace’s tunic and unruly gray hair were soot-stained. He looked at the blood on Lightning’s shirt, the puke on mine and the ash on us both. He faltered, “We saw the serpent. Can you communicate with it?”

“I just did,” I said.

They conferred between themselves; they all had a tone of defeat. Vendace said, “This is so much worse than legendary Insects coming to life. We had no idea that such a serpent existed. How did you summon it?”

“What are they asking—?” Lightning began.

“One minute!” I said to him. I gathered my thoughts and addressed the senators. “Yes, I summoned the snake to stop the battle and save your homes. I don’t want to call up any more but the Archer is furious and unmerciful. You heard us arguing on the ship; he wants to show you what we can do. I’m trying to make him agree not to encircle the island with giant snakes.” I turned to Lightning and addressed him gravely in high Awian. “We must look like we’re conferring. I’m bluffing, but the senators will appreciate the Empire after this. Pretend to be angry and speak to me; quote theater or something.”

Lightning was quick to understand. He shook his head and said in a stern tone, “Well, in that case—balsam for lovers.”

I inquired, “Willows for brides?”

“Briars for the maidens,” Lightning retorted. “Look, you will explain this afterward, please?”

I patted his shoulder as if in agreement, “Oh yes, but I’m positive you won’t like it. And to wives we give lilies. Right.” I switched back to Trisian and said, “My friend and I have decided not to summon the snakes, and to let them abide in the deepest ocean where they will be no threat to your country again.” I extended my hand to Vendace. “There are many more wonderful things in the Fourlands. We’re your allies; please join us.”

Vendace and the others seemed doubtful. His lean shoulders were sagging. “If all the trials to face Tris from now on will be this arduous, then we cannot resist them alone. We’ll give you a message for”—he paused and blanched—“for San, now he has done to us what he did to the Pentadrica.”

“What?” I said.

Vendace looked at his associates for support, shrugged. “Everybody knows that centuries ago San let the Pentadrica be destroyed so he could seize power. He deliberately contrived that unfortunate Alyss be slain, and now he’s done the same to us.”

I shook my head. “No, no. San was only an adviser. He would have told Alyss not to visit the Insects’ enclave and she must have ignored him.”

Vendace glanced at the murk covering the Amarot, through which glimpses of the blackened library walls came and went. “That is not what Capelin wrote. I have read the manuscript, many of us have, but now…how do we prove it? It is ash with the rest.”