Chapter 22

22.

         “I swear, I know Valreck is going to order me to stand guard over that-“ Junyul began, then abruptly quieted as Marin walked in the room from behind her, carrying a tray of snacks. Glancing in the woman’s direction, she added in a low voice, “Is it safe to discuss-“
         ”Go right ahead, dear,” Maleth replied, sedately stirring her tea with a small spoon. “Marin is excellent at keeping confidences. Aren’t you, dearie?”
         Marin smiled at Maleth as she put the tray down on the table. “Why yes,” she said brightly, “I think it would be a delightful idea to go for a walk later. It’s such a pleasant day out.” Still smiling, she patted the arm of Maleth’s chair and with a quick nod to Junyul, quickly exited the room for the kitchen.
         Junyul looked at Maleth, raised an eyebrow.
         The old woman smiled innocently. “Her hearing, alas, isn’t what it used to be . . . but I just can’t bear to let her go. Her family has been with me for generations. Every last one of them a gem, I’ll have you know.”
         “I see,” Junyul replied, shooting a glance toward the kitchen, from which Marin could be heard humming a giddy tune. She drew her legs in, curling up on the couch, her delicate fingers absently picking apart at a pastry, the flakes collecting in a small pile in the air some inches above the floor. “You have been very lucky, then. Good servants are hard to find, especially around here.” She sniffed, breaking off a chunk of pastry and popping it gracefully into her mouth. “I would much rather go with none at all than have to subsist with imperfect help.”
         “Yes, well this must be a little less grandeur than you are used to,” Maleth commented. “Coming here has been a step down in different respects for all of us, I suppose.”
         Junyul shrugged, her elegantly functional garments shimmering in the light. “It is hard to say. I grew up in the desert, my family was head of our clan, we always traveled in the best protected area of the procession, in the finest of the caravans. The best of what we traded and won was ours first, to accept or deny.” She smiled, her fingernails tapping an old rhythm on the arm of the couch. “Yet many of those people out there, in the cramped villages, in the stationary houses, would accept forever their rooted lives here, even if they were given the chance to experience what I had. The desert can be harsh, the sun brutal in the day, the nights cold enough to freeze the air . . .” she looked down, toyed with a bracelet, rotating it around her wrist, “to some, every dune looks the same, yet I knew the name of each one. There were a hundred names for the sand, from the fine, clinging kind that was always in your clothes, to the stinging types that whipped and scoured your exposed flesh, the kind that would turn the air a beautiful orange, sometimes even obscuring the sun itself, as if in defiance.” She shook her head, escaping just barely from the maze of memories. “And each day the view was different, each day I would be greeted by new sights, new impressions.” She waved her hand derisively, though with a more than a hint of detached pity. “For those people, to walk out the front door and find the same road, the same trees, the same sky, that to them is living, is luxury.” She stamped her foot on the floor. “The ground here, it’s too hard, it holds the roots too easily, too firmly. The sands of the desert were always shifting, the winds sending you to the next destination before you became complacent, no patch of land ever allowing you to claim it, as if something so ephemeral could be owned.” Her hand massaged the back of her neck, her eyes staring unflinchingly at the bright sunlight that poured in through the picture window. “It’s all wrong here. What they crave, what they call stability and quiet, is nothing more than stagnation and entropy. It is a dead-end, it is death.”
         Maleth studied her over the lip of the teacup. “Why, Junyul, I do believe that is the longest speech you have ever given. Are you feeling okay?”
         “It has been an . . . unusual day,” Junyul replied, not looking at Maleth, hugging herself, her hands plucking at her billowing sleeves. Her smile was cold, and slightly sad. “I have spent too much away, your ways, your mindset infects me, and I do not even know it. I welcomed change as the one constant in my life, once, but now . . .” She shivered, although the air was pleasantly lukewarm. “He was in me, Maleth. A stranger, able to so effortlessly cross my barriers . . .” she ran both hands through her hair, pulling some strands out, all while staring at her lap. “In me,” she said again, a near whisper. “There has not been one since . . .” Junyul stopped, refused to finish the sentence.
         Maleth gave her a sympathetic glance. “Yes, I can imagine the experience would be traumatic. Were you able to see anything, Junyul, get a sense of where he was.”
         The other woman only shook her head, wrenching herself back to the present. “He is on this world, which is obvious, but all I could sense was his . . . his presence. I do not think he meant to invade, only to look.” She tugged at a strand of hair with both hands, saying to Maleth, “He is seeking us. And he is skilled. Eventually, soon, he will find us and then . . .” she shrugged, “I don’t know. Who knows, perhaps it may be a good thing. It may be someone from . . . from before, trying to find us, wanting to join.”
         “Do you really believe that?”
         “I have to come to . . . realize that the world does not care what I believe and what I do not believe. In the end there is only truth and reality and it does what it wills . . .” the strand suddenly broke apart, leaving her with two limp ends, “and while I might think whatever I wish of that, in the end, it is simply irrelevant. He is one of us, or he is not.” She blinked, staring someplace far away. “I am neither naive, nor innocent, Maleth. I grew up in a harsh place and do not consider myself sheltered. But in the last year, I have been shown that worldly is a meaningless term, and that every fact and every truth can be contradicted, without regard to how deeply held such beliefs are.” Exhaling slowly, she folded her hands in her lap, composing her face into a picture of serenity. “Concepts such as destiny and free will were once merely abstracts ideals to me, yet I found myself engaged in the struggle to assert the dominance of one over the other. Worlds beyond my own, beings who are as different from me as I am to a sandworm, I know now they exist, in more varieties than I can conceive. I have learned that the stories we used to tell each other, of the Time Patrol, of their allies, are not stories are all, but far more tangible things . . .” she tugged at her sleeves, hiding what appeared to be dark burns, caused perhaps by friction. “My life becomes stranger the longer I live. I never truly believed in the Time Patrol, but today I threw a myth through a wall.” A sardonic, knowing smile briefly crossed her face.
         “And weren’t we all proud of you,” Maleth murmured, sipping from her cup placidly.
         Junyul sniffed. “More like you’re all glad it happened to me instead of any of you.” She rested one elbow on the arm of the couch, propping up her head with it. “Have you seen him yet, Maleth? He looks so . . . normal, I don’t know what I expected but I thought they would have some identifying characteristic.” She gave a short laugh. “I guess they wouldn’t be mythical, then.” Her face faded into a more serious expression. “It’s rather frightening, when you think about it . . . they could have been anyone, all those people and they always said the Time Patrol was about but we never saw any . . .”
         “Best not to think about it, child,” Maleth responded, raising her hand and letting a small cake levitate off the tray and settle into her palm. She placed the teacup on the arm of the chair, where it balanced perfectly. “Thoughts like that only lead to paranoia, which has never amounted to anything worthwhile, as far as I’m concerned. Too much self-confidence is never a good thing but the solution is not to make a beeline for the extreme opposite position.
         “I wonder . . .” Junyul said, frowning. “This just occurred to me . . . the man looking for us . . . what if it’s Kilun?”
         “Valreck’s friend?”
         “Yes, him . . . we assumed the Time Patrol had taken him, but what if they recruited him . . . I believe Valreck talked about leaving with him, before he disappeared. He could probably guess where he went.”
         “I sincerely doubt he was what the Time Patrol was looking for in a recruit,” Maleth replied, taking small bites from her cake. “No, I think he was taken and he was killed. Besides, he was far from skilled enough to just walk into someone’s mind like that without a struggle.” She brushed her hands together to remove any crumbs and patted her mouth with a napkin. “I don’t know who it is, but it’s not him. Whoever it is may be working with the Time Patrol, or it may just be simple coincidence. Hopefully Valreck will figure out how to sort this out before we all disappear.” Her mouth twisted in distaste at the thought. “These days he’s seeming less and less sure of himself. There are too many things going on right now, he’s going to wear himself down until he’s incapable of making any kind of decision.” She ticked the incidents off on her fingers, one by one. “Time Patrol soldiers. Our prisoner, who will probably just try harder to escape now that we’ve given him new obstacles. The young girl Tolin seems unable to capture as long as there’s foliage about. Now this new factor . . . you haven’t felt any stirrings since, have you?”
         Junyul shook her head. “Not so far.” Letting her arm drop flat on the couch, she added, “What exactly is Valreck’s plan? We were only supposed to keep her heads low and hope they’d pass us by. Now we’ve killed five, captured one and are chasing another around. What are we supposed to do? It has to end somewhere. We can’t take on the entire Time Patrol.” There was a definite undercurrent of nervousness to her voice, as if she feared that exact eventuality. The visit from the man had disturbed her more than she wanted to admit, Maleth realized. His entrance must have been suitably effortless to rattle her so. That was somewhat impressive. “He must have some plan.”
         “I dearly hope so,” Maleth replied, her face still. Sipping at her tea, she found it had gone slightly cool. The chill always sapped most of the taste. She put her hand over the cup, letting her body warmth seep into the cup. It began to grow warm almost immediately. “Is he going to have you interrogate the prisoner?”
         “I believe so,” came the answer, though it was unclear whether Junyul thought this was a good thing or not. “But that was before the prisoner tried to escape. Now . . . I don’t know. He may want to do it himself.” She made a small noise. “I suppose I should be insulted. He caught me off-guard. But that makes me no less effective. And Valreck does not have the focus for interrogation, chances are it will merely devolve into a question and answer session.”
         “What does he indeed to come out of all of this?”
         “A deal, I think. An agreement that the Time Patrol will leave us alone. I believe he hopes that our killing their soldiers will convince them that we’re too much trouble.”
         “Or that we’re too dangerous to allow to live,” Maleth said with a frown. “He’s playing a deadly game, there . . . we have to watch out for ourselves, Junyul. If things go bad, our fearless leader could easily leave us standing on the target, with the Time Patrol aimed right at our heads.”
         Junyul raised an eyebrow. “Would he be so bold as to abandon us? After going through all the trouble of bringing us together? He could have originally left without us and forged apart on his own.”
         “Perhaps, but back then he was more sure of himself, more in control. Remember, we have been thrown together only by circumstance, not friendship,” Maleth pointed out. “He may have no enmity for us, but he has no great love either, I’m sure. And with events threatening to escalate as they are . . . he may do something rash to save himself, not because he wishes to do us in, but because he’ll see it as the only escape.” She removed her hand from the teacup, took another sip, found that the liquid had been restored to the proper temperature.
         “You could say that about any of us,” Junyul noted mildly. “What’s to stop me from offering the prisoner freedom in exchange for safe passage, leaving the rest of you to your fates? What’s to stop Rathas or Tolin from simply fleeing . . .” she traced a lazy pattern with her fingernail in the couch fabric, “This is not our home, Maleth. It is perhaps better than where we were, but it is not better than where I was born.” She regarded the faint impression for a second, before smoothing it away with a swipe of her palm. “I have no wish to fight, but I have a great desire to live. And if fighting leads to living, then I will do so, without reservations.”
         “And you trust Valreck to do the proper thing?” Maleth asked casually, staring at her with small, watery eyes, her wrinkled face betraying nothing else.
         Junyul considered for a moment. Her eyes focused on the air, as if reading the clues there, searching the emptiness for answers. “He is not a leader,” she concluded finally. “But he has good instincts, and strong convictions, and he is not afraid to pursue them.” Running a hand through her long, dark hair, she added, “I can admire him for such things.” She smirked, “Besides, he has ideas, which I do not hear from anyone else, including myself. Sometimes we are too eager to fault him when in reality we can come up with nothing better ourselves.” Letting her hands fall into her lap, she said, “I wish to return home one day, Maleth. To do that, I must survive. Above all, Valreck is a survivor. That’s why he left. That’s why we will get through this. He has no choice. It is his way.”
         “Survival instinct can easily become self-preservation.”
         “Perhaps,” Junyul conceded. “But without us, he will not survive. And he knows this.” Her eyes narrowed as she regarded the old woman. “Unless you know something . . .”
         Maleth smiled cherubically. “It is just idle speculation, dear. Nothing more. You do not need to lecture me on survival, I have been soaked with the stuff clear down to the marrow.” She let go of the tea cup, letting it float over in the direction of the kitchen. Marin could be heard inside scrubbing plates, cleaning them off as best she could. Pausing for a second to wipe her hands, she added slowly, “However, what if I were to suggest-“
         A ripple surged through the air, a taut string bent painfully, a hand grasping and twisting, tugging at the foundations.
         Junyul’s eyes widened and she jumped up from the couch, taking a step toward the window. “What-“ she asked to no one, squinting into the bright sunlight streaming through.
         A loud clatter was heard from the kitchen as a number of plates were dropped, a series of minor explosions as the dishes shattered, sending fragments skittering all over the floor, mice released from a cage with only the pressing need to escape.
         Marin came running in, almost tripping in her haste, like her body had become something foreign. Like the puppet had acquired new strings.
         Maleth felt the new tension, a obese presence elbowing her aside, and knew who it was.
         “We’ve got problems, people,” Marin said, sounding out of breath. One arm was streaked with blood where a shard had cut into her. She paid it no notice, other than to hold one hand there to keep it from staining her clothes.
         “Yes,” Junyul said, eyeing Marin with new distaste and unease. “Tolin is in trouble. He just called for help.” Only tight self control prevented her voice from shaking. Maleth noticed with some curiosity that she had one hand clenched in a fist at her side. It was quivering ever so slightly.
         “Tolin?” Marin said in surprise. “What the . . . what is the kid doing to him now?”
         Maleth realized the shock in her voice was genuine. Tolin was not what he came here for, she thought, adjusting the blanket covering her legs with gnarled hands, trying not to look at either of the two people. Did you plan for this, Valreck?
         Junyul closed her eyes lightly, concentrating. They flew open a second later, and she glared at Marin. “It is not the girl. He is home and there are people . . . they . . .” her face went briefly blank again, and suddenly she went very pale. Slowly, she looked at both Maleth and Marin. “One has a sword. A glowing sword.” She sounded both resigned and frightened, the sound of someone who felt the endgame had begun and had just discovered the other team had brought along twice as many players. Unfair wasn’t exactly the word.
         Marin swore violently, a most unladylike sound. Spinning on her heel, she pressed the heels of her hands against her forehead, leaving smears of blood on her face. “Okay,” she said, pacing around wildly. “Okay . . . just give . . . just give me a second. Okay? Just . . . let me . . . I’ll tell . . .” she stopped speaking, nodding imperceptibly, her face twitching. “Okay,” she said again, blinking suddenly, her eyes clearing. Turning back to the others, she said, her voice still agitated, “He says Tolin’s is the more immediate problem . . . Junyul get over there, now. Do what you can but don’t take any risks. If it starts to go bad get you and Tolin out of there. Especially Tolin, he can probably handle himself, but he’ll wreck the entire village in the process. Sound good?”
         Junyul nodded stiffly, her face taut and expressionless. We must all work together to survive, Maleth thought archly. Isn’t that what you said, dear? Enjoy the taste of battle. I trust you’ll find it suitably bitter.
         “Then go,” Marin ordered, making a sharp gesture with her arm.
         Junyul began to turn away, the air flickering around her as she vanished in mid-motion, slitting, opening and then sealing itself behind her with a snap and a muffled thump.
         Maleth turned away from the flash, wincing painfully at the brighter than she was used to light. When she looked up again, Marin was nowhere in sight.
         Then she heard the woman’s rapid breathing.
         “Oh geez, oh . . .” Marin muttered something she couldn’t hear, her footsteps a rapid flurry of motion, a series of dancesteps you could only perform when the world was crashing.
         “Rough day, dearie?” Maleth asked politely, facing forward. Marin figured as a textured shadow in her peripheral vision, flickering like a bad picture, always out of focus. Sometimes she appeared to be another man entirely.
         “It’s getting there,” Marin replied, with an archness that could only come from those surprised that not only had they not hit bottom, but that they still had a long way to go. “This just added to it.” She made a strange noise, as if inhaling something too large for her nostrils. “There’s some kind of alien and another guy running around, near Valreck’s home.” Her voice was calmer, but barely. “An alien,” she said, in wonderment. “Who would have thought the Time Patrol would be so open?”
         “Sounds very serious,” Maleth said helpfully, lifting her head to try and get a glimpse of Marin. “Just what are we doing about it?”
         “Valreck’s taking care of it, I think. They’re not doing anything at the moment . . . but . . .” she exhaled slowly, her footsteps sounding far apart, moving in an easy circle. “You ever see an alien, Maleth? Any kind? A real one?”
         “I can’t say I have. No, not really.”
         “It’s scary, woman, it really is,” Marin said. There was the sound of her fist lightly striking the wall. “Even worse than the Time Patrol, because at least . . . at least they look normal, this, what I saw . . . I don’t even . . .” she paused, stopping her words from running into the other. “We’re in trouble. I hope you realize that. This is serious business now.” There was a garbled quality to her voice, like she was transmitting her voice through solid rock.
         “Believe me, I can fully grasp the situation,” Maleth reminded him irritably. “You can save the charts and diagrams for another time, however proud you must be of them.”
         “That so?” Marin asked, her voice shifting from jittery to polished nearly in the middle of a word. Her footsteps sounded much closer. “Because I really don’t get the impression that you do.” Maleth heard a brisk sigh very close to her left ear. “It’s very liberating to hear the girls talk, you know? They’re so open with each other . . . they tell each other things that you might not hear when all those nasty guys are around.”
         Maleth’s mouth twisted in a jagged line. “I won’t dare ask you how long you were listening. Although I’m not quite sure what you heard that was so damning.”
         “Ah, smart,” Marin hissed, now on Maleth’s other side. “A good eavesdropper never reveals what he heard. That’s how the game is played. You should know, old woman, you’ve got ears enough for everyone . . .” something tugged at her ear, but she resisted the urge to swat it away.
         “I’ve got ears enough for Junyul,” Maleth shot back, rubbing her hands together, feeling the old coarseness of her skin, scratching together like worn sandpaper. “The day’s events unnerved the poor thing. She wished to talk, I chose to listen. Is there now something wrong with being a sympathetic ear?”
         “Oh no, not at all,” Marin replied easily. “I think it’s very laudable.” She paused, and Maleth felt her tap the back of the couch, two firm shots, “You’ll just have to forgive me, I guess, I was just surprised at how much listening you did . . .”
         The voice whispered on her right side now. “. . . instead of talking.”
         “And what would I have said?” Maleth asked slowly, concentrating and trying to push. But he was too anchored, squatting with the full bulk of his mind, his synapses like parasitic tendrils, rooted in the deepest crevasses.
         “Oh, I won’t presume to speak for you, but I know what I would have said,” Marin noted with a grim smile that almost leapt out of her tone. “I would have told her how a lot of times, when I’m moving, you know, in my fashion, a little fact I’ve discovered over the past few months.”
         Her voice was back on the left, and uncomfortably close. Maleth fought the urge to lean away, and made every effort to keep her face and body still. “I would have noted how simple it is to move into someone, if they’re already occupied. So much easier. Like someone holding a door open for you. Because, really . . .” and Maleth could feel the passage of Marin’s breath by her ear. “. . . contrary to popular belief, there’s always room for one more.”
         Maleth stared straight ahead, said nothing.
         “I think Junyul, being the inquisitive soul that she is, might find that fact very interesting, don’t you think?” Something tapped her on both shoulders, hard. “Next time Junyul comes to talk, you may want to do a little more than listen, old woman.” She laughed, “Because, at your age, there’s no end to the wisdom you can dispense.”
         A face formed out of her peripheral vision, imprints bursting through a too tight membrane. “And there’s no telling how much time you have left to dispense it.”
         There was a humming whine, right at the edge of her hearing, rising swiftly out of an audible range. That sounds like . . .
         Suddenly she recognized it.
         “No!” she shouted, lashing out, cutting all of the strings with a brutal gesture, gathering them up in a handful as Marin jerked and started to fall, taking the bundle and flinging it as far as she could.
         Marin, already dropping, suddenly stumbled backwards, slamming into the wall with a dense thud, holding the pose for a split second before sliding gently down into a sitting position, arms and legs askew.
         Maleth let out a deep breath, curled her trembling hands into claws and tried to calm herself down. He’s playing a dangerous game. Out of desperation? Or because he simply no longer cares?
         Behind her Marin groaned. “Oh . . . what . . . oh, I must have . . . Maleth?” Her voice was quietly confused, the child with her hand on the hot stove, unable to understand where the sizzling sound was coming from. “Did I fall? Maleth, what happened? When did I fall?”
         “It’s okay, dear,” Maleth said softly, without turning around. “You merely had a bad spell.” It’s too bold to be a bluff. But what does he truly know? His knowledge is laughably fragmentary, while mine . . . mine is absolutely concrete.
         “Oh, did I? I don’t even remember. I’m so sorry, I don’t know what . . .” Marin’s voice trailed off as Maleth regathered, caressing the landscape and smoothing it all away.
         “Don’t fret,” she crooned gently. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”
         No it’s not. For one of us, at least.
         Don’t force my hand, boy, she warned silently, not knowing who was listening, if anyone. It didn’t matter. It had to be said. I have one on you already. I can tighten it at any time.
         And the mark the other hand will leave won’t go away.