Chapter 33

33.

         The door, of course, was wide open.
         Ranos stood on the stairs, about halfway up, one hand on the railing and his eyes fixed on the bright rectangle that was the utterly ajar doorway. Slowly, his eyes never leaving the sight, he strode with measured steps toward the portal. His footsteps only made soft creaks on the stairs, a noise that vanished entirely when he reached the ground floor.
         Off to the side and behind him was the kitchen. Hearing a small sound from that direction he carefully looked around the corner. Seeing nothing, he again walked casually toward the door. It occurred to him that he could simply render himself invisible or perhaps merely teleport but his captors would easily notice that and take steps to track him down. He was by no means diminished but he was certainly weakened and until he could take a full measure of his opponents, throwing himself into combat for the sake of escape was pointless, if not purely mad. It was possible that he might learn more by staying and observing these people, perhaps uncovering a crucial weakness that would serve him well to exploit in the instance that he did escape. He had no doubt that when the time came, he would have to kill these people, if Tristian did not beat them to it. Recent events had only confirmed that. It would be best to keep all the weapons at his disposal close to his chest. There were many good reasons for him to stay.
         However, if he stayed, he had every suspicion that they had terrible things in mind for him. It would do him no good to sit and wait for the weight to drop on him, pinning and rendering him helpless. There were people here who needed his help, he could not remain idle. He hated to act on such little information but the circumstances begged him to act and not waste a second longer. All he needed was the space necessary to formulate a plan. And to receive the space, he needed to be free of these walls.
         By the time he had reached the couch, it was obvious to him that there was every reason to believe he was walking into a trap. Halting, he did a thorough probe of the area, sending his mind into all the cracks and spaces, treating it like sand caught in the wind, letting it fly and settle into whatever crevice it might encounter. But all the spaces were sterile, all the blanks were bare. The ambient background remained low and never rose above a few small, sharp peaks, perhaps only the ghosts of half remembered emotions. The surface of the inanimate retained more than anyone might realize. If he had time to study properly, these walls and floor and even the sodden air might tell him volumes about the people who passed through here. But he did not have time. The doorway beckoned. The outside called. He had to leave. Slowly. Slowly.
         The bright light pouring in through the entryway had a too pure quality to it. He wondered if this was all an elaborate illusion, a cage within a cage. He detected nothing. Heat shimmered in a transient dance but beyond that Ranos could find nothing out of the ordinary. A test, then.
         From the couch a pillow smoothly and easily rose into the air, gently floating in the direction of the doorway. When it reached a point about halfway between Ranos and the door, it suddenly shot through the air, flying right through the doorway without pause, landing somewhere beyond and bouncing a little as it landed, throwing up small clouds of dust, the sunlight shining through lending a sort of hollow illumination to them.          
         Ranos tensed, waited.
         There was a soft clatter on the roof that might have been the wind.
         Nothing. Nothing else happened.
         Glancing around, Ranos suppressed a deep breath and stepped toward the door. At the edge of the frame, he stopped, staring at the view outside, the sedate scene of the village, the pastoral vista of the brightly lit forest hovering over the houses like somber guardians.
         I can leave whenever I wish.
         On an impulse he stuck out his hand, palm toward the sunlight.
         With a shock that resonated nearly to his elbow, his hand struck an invisible barrier. Yanking his hand away, he took a step back, looking at the door in confusion. How? Mentally he probed at the doorway again, nearly inverting the air in the process. Nothing. Reaching for his dagger, he let the object hover into the air, sending it floating through the doorway and then back across to return to his hand. Nothing impeded its progress. Gingerly he leaned into the opening, only to find his shoulder pressing up against a wall he couldn’t see. He stepped back again, staring with muted anger at the open door, an exit which now only seemed to mock him with the deceptive ease and promise of escape.
         “It’s a rare guest that wishes to relieve themselves from my hospitality before they have to,” a wrinkled voice said from behind him.
         Ranos spun around to see the old woman from before standing across from him, on the other side of the couch, so that the piece of furniture lay between them, separating them. The distance did not seem so wide. She was dressed in simple blue clothing, and was leaning heavily on a cane with both hands, although she appeared to be capable of resting in that position for a very long time. She had not appeared weak while in the bed, and she certainly appeared no weaker now.
         “Your . . . hospitality is most gracious,” Ranos replied easily, smoothly secreting the dagger within his robes once again, taking a step toward the woman. She was so small and shrunken, although her mind pulsed with a rigid resolve. Ranos had the impression she was holding herself together through sheer willpower. Does your heart beat because it must, or because you wish it to? And how much more would it take to stop it entirely? Outloud, he said, “I only wished to avail myself of the fresh morning air.”
         “Truly?” the old woman replied. “That’s what brings me down here as well.” Her cane tapping hollowly on the wooden floor, she crept toward the door, along the same path Ranos had taken. “I have my help open the door in the mornings in order to air this old place out . . . it gets so musty in here after being sealed up all night . . . a little breeze really does the lungs some good, especially when you first wake up.” She had nearly reached the edge of the couch nearest to Ranos, who involuntarily took a step back, toward the second couch and the table that lay in the center between them. At the edge she stopped, arching her bent back a little as she took a deep breath, inhaling a swirling breeze. Milky eyes regarded Ranos with cold humor. “It simply amazes me how people will allow themselves to be locked away from the outside world. It’s the mingling, you see, that makes life worth it. Where the components touch, that’s where it matters the most.” She tapped her cane on the ground, as if to emphasize her point. Her gaze never left Ranos, who only stared back, knowing he wouldn’t intimidate her, unwilling to back down regardless.
         “I cannot say I have dwelled in many houses in my life,” Ranos responded, somewhat tautly. “It might be said that I have been blessed with one component at the expense of the other.”
         The woman studied him for a few more seconds before looking down and clucking her tongue, as if coming to a decision. “Well, when you put it that way, it makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?” she suggested reasonably. “And yet . . .” she pointed at him with a knobbed finger. Ranos felt the air almost pucker in its wake. She was not powerful, but she was skilled. Years of practice tended to cause such things. “And yet . . . you remain here . . . cooped up inside . . . out of deference to the host, perhaps?” She paused, as if waiting for him to confirm or deny. Ranos did neither, which itself might have been an answer in any case. “So polite of you,” she said with a thin smile. “Manners such as yours we don’t often see anymore. It’s a dying art, etiquette and decor. Most guests these days simply don’t know how to behave.” The old woman sighed, remembering a time long ago, perhaps, when guests truly acted the way she believed.
         Then she roused herself from whatever reverie had apparently overtaken her. “But I forget myself,” she said quickly, dismissively, “and subject you to an old woman’s ramblings of times long gone. Forgive me that was far from my intention.”
         “It is . . . no trouble at all,” Ranos said neutrally. “As you say, I am . . . your guest and with that comes certain responsibilities and expectations.”
         “Oh, that is very true,” the old woman replied, nodding her head in agreement. “But I have taken enough of your time, and this beautiful morning . . .” She looked toward the door, her shadow a twisted thing, stretched as if frantically trying to escape her, but every single time unable to flee her clutching gravity. Ranos was beginning to feel that way himself. “In fact, I was about to talk a short walk around the grounds, stretch these old legs a bit.” Her cane tapped in the doorway. “Would you care to join me?” As she spoke she shuffled over to the entryway, in seconds straddling the inside and outside worlds. The bright light seemed to drive her face deeper into shadow. “I am sure you of all people could appreciate it, dear Ranos.”
         She knows, Ranos thought coldly, able to keep the emotion off his face but not from the contours of his mind, where it skipped and arced madly, a frozen sort of anger. Of course she knows, he thought more rationally. He would not let her goad him.
         “I am afraid I cannot join you,” Ranos said evenly. “There are other things I must see to.”
         “Ah, but I will only be a few minutes, and I do so appreciate company on my walk. Surely you can spare a few moments to indulge an ancient’s whim, hm?” Her voice was innocent, the colors dancing across her thoughts were not. Ranos could turn away and still feel the embedded malevolence that was woven into her very breath. “I do not ask for much, Ranos.”
         “You ask for what you yourself have already taken,” Ranos shot back, stepping back past the couch, so that he was between the couch and the table. Above him he could hear the rapid scratching of footsteps from the second floor. He sensed no one around. There were people all over.
         “And what might that be, Ranos?” the old woman asked, stepping back into the house. For some reason, Ranos had the impression that no one was there. “A man like yourself, there is very little I can steal or diminish. You are skilled, adaptable, what few tricks might work on you would only be through surprise and even then, would work but only once.”
         “So this then is a new trick?” he asked coolly.
         “If it is a trick then it is no more then slight of hand,” the woman replied. “For I have simply replaced one thing you value with yet another and while the two may coexist, a steady hand may keep the scale tilted toward one side.” Her cane swung out, indicating the door. “Out there lies freedom, my dear, while inside . . .” and the cane swung back, pointing at his chest, “remains your life. Neither are guarantees, as you may soon discover.”
         “So to leave means my death?” Ranos inquired, trying to discover the nature of a trap with no walls or triggers or boundaries. The woman clearly could be tricky if necessary, but he could sense nothing keeping him penned in this place.
         “Your death?” the woman responded, incredulous. A brief chortle strafed the air. “Why, Ranos, let us not be so dramatic.” Her voice settled down, falling into a penetrating, even tone. “The fact of the matter is, I do not need to threaten you with anything. The fact is, you simply cannot leave. And that is all there is to it.”
         She fell silent, presumably allowing this bit of information to sink in so Ranos could best assimilate it. But whatever was happening, it was nothing the woman was doing consciously or actively. She was behind it, but she was not causing it.
         A second later, something in the air bent and expanded, folding over itself and falling into a hole of its own devising before vanishing completely, erasing all record of its own existence on the way out. Ranos recognized the sensation immediately.
         Across from him, the old woman gave a sweetly vicious smile, looking up to the second floor. “Ah . . . and here we have our final guest. I wonder how gracious he will be, hm?”

* * * * *

         I’m beginning to see why Tristian hates teleporting, Brown thought morosely, painfully clambering to his feet as best he could without hands. His wrists had been throbbing fiercely over the last day or so, which couldn’t mean anything good. He had suspected for a while that his body was healing around the metal caps. That would make them somewhat more difficult to remove. Though all in all, considering how his week had been going so far, it really should have come as no surprise. He felt like he had been turned inside out via his pores and then painstakingly reassembled by a group of bored kindergartners. And he was on the floor. At the very least they could have dropped him somewhere a bit more comfortable.
         Standing up and igniting a wave of dizziness, Brown tried to take stock of his new surroundings. Another small room, though brighter and less claustrophobic than the first one, even if it was significantly smaller. All that it really held was a bed, not even a window, but the spartan atmosphere seemed more deliberate than anything else. This room had been prepared for him. Someone intended on keeping him here for a while.
         The only exit that he could see was the door. There wasn’t even a window this time, although somehow the room seemed more brightly lit, as if illumination was coming from a place he couldn’t see. Otherwise the room was utterly boring in its features.
         The only way in or out would be through the door. Brown had a feeling that he had been taken here for a specific purpose and that it was no doubt one that held unpleasant ramifications for him. No reason to stick around and wear out his welcome then. Waiting for someone to walk in before acting probably was not a great idea based on past experience, and by now they were probably expecting it. Well, he was certainly open to coming up with new surprises.
         Striding over to the door, he took note that it opened outward. Interesting design. Even if he had been able to remove the hinges, he wouldn’t be able to. Brown knocked lightly on the door, trying to get an idea of how thick the wood was. About average, from what he could tell. It might be worth it to break the door open and take it from there. It was better than doing nothing. This was getting ridiculous, after all. He was trapping himself into a stalemate with these people, but eventually something would have to give and either they would get desperate or he would. Neither scenario hinted that it would lead to anything good. So he had to get out of here. And if it turned out later that they had brought him here to shower him with cookies and gifts, well then last he checked saying “I’m sorry” tended to make everything okay. He would even offer to pay for the door.
         Glancing back to gauge his distance, he shuffled toward the bed a few steps, eyeing the spot that he would have to nail in order to get it open. Fortunately he was in a line of work where he had to do this more times than he wanted to admit. Hopefully he’d get it on the first shot. Generally breaking a door down hurt, although everyone told you otherwise, but not breaking it hurt a lot more, plus you had to go try it again, if only to save face. Let’s try to get this right, then. Not sure how many chances I’m going to get.
         Brown took a deep breath, bracing himself for the impact, and before he could really think about what he was doing shot forward, running the few short steps to the door, his foot already lashing out to strike the spot he had identified as the breakpoint. A part of his mind that observed this with silent detachment noted that he was right on target.
         Except his foot had barely touched the door when a force sent a jarring flare of heat through his entire body, causing his limbs to spasm and sending him reeling back toward the bed, his vision falling into a kind of static dissolution as he stumbled and tried to regain his balance, half of his body landing on the bed, while his knees struck the floor hard, sending another rattling shudder rocketing through his body. The world trembled and wobbled and it occurred distantly to Brown that he might have bitten his tongue in the process. A strange foaming heat was coursing through his limbs, stopping just short of the base of his brain. It was almost impossible to see for some reason. Someone had thrown sand in his brain. It was clogging up the vessels. Deep breath, Joe, deep breath. Brown shook his head, trying to regain his equilibrium, waiting for his body to catch up. That was certainly different. What the hell happened now?
         He was in the process of standing up when he felt ice cubes forming in his mind, cracking as they put down roots. The sensation made him stop, his eyes widening as he looked around, searching for the cause.
         Nothing moved. The door remained still. The air kept silent.
         A voice whispered in his head.
         I don’t think that was a good idea.
         Brown started and spun toward the door, his heart racing uncontrollably, still kneeling down by the bed. Who? Who was that? In his head. It was in his head. That shouldn’t have happened. That shouldn’t have happened at all. The room felt strangely oppressive, all the air in the room clustering around him with suffocating clinginess.
         There’s no need to hurry, I’ll be right there.
         “Oh God,” he whispered, not even sure of what he was saying, not sure why he was talking so softly. All of a sudden it was an effort to stop shivering. What was happening? He tried to evict the oily coating of the voice from his mind but not all his strain could wash it away.
         I’ll be right there.
         And even worse, the voice was familiar.
         I know it
         I know
         I
         I-
         Without even a creak, the door swung open.

* * * * *

         “I must admit,” Ranos said carefully, never taking his eyes off the old woman, casually circling so that he stood opposite her, the couch in between them, an impartial and uncaring mediator, “I am at a loss to explain the mad actions of you and your fellows.”
         “Need I repeat the adage about the ignorant labeling what they do not understand as insane?” came the reply, the woman stepping away from the door, the portal remaining open in outright mockery, showcasing a world in which Ranos was not welcome. “You assume deliberate malice when the only true drive here is survival.” She took several steps toward Ranos on the side of the couch nearest the stairs. Almost subconsciously Ranos adjusted his own position, keeping the object between them, as if the woman might be a physical danger to him. It was a fallacy. What she could do, didn’t require touch.
         “What I have seen has gone past survival and into abuse,” Ranos countered, his mind flowing over the entire area, trying to find an advantage to snap or a loophole to exploit. But he had no idea what he was counteracting and thus could create no remedy. “You have changed from inhabitants to an infestation. Their lower mind functions all pulse with the same rhythms, a stamp that it might be too late to erase. And you think this is acceptable?” he accused, knowing his tone was wasted on the woman, doing his best to stall for time. But she was toying with him. He knew that. And there was nothing he could do about it, except play along.
         The woman didn’t even dismiss his words with a shrug. That’s how little his opinions meant to her. Ranos could read as much from her posture, from the changing colorlight patterns in her mind. It simply wasn’t worth the effort. “I don’t recall ever swearing an oath or being taught a code of ethics, dear Ranos, unless they have changed the curriculum since I was last there . . .” she peered at him with shriveled eyes, bringing him into a focus so sharp he nearly felt the razor at his throat. “You are the famed Ranos, I presume? The greatest student of all the College and all that nonsense . .” the old woman did not sound entirely impressed, although her words did betray some measure of admiration, though for what Ranos could not say.
         “It has been said,” Ranos answered slowly. “I have never paid much attention to such things.”
         “Nor have I,” the old woman agreed. “Nor should any intelligent person. A man should be judged on his merits and not based on stories or rumors . . .” she punctuated the statement with a stab of her cane. Ranos tensed every muscle to avoid flinching. He had felt the air shift in the wake of the motion. She was testing him. Or testing something. It was impossible to tell. Her mind was oily, without a surface, all his gentlest efforts merely slid right off, unable to find purchase. If he sought to dig in harder, there was no telling what the consequences might be. “A sentiment I am sure you are in full agreement with, Ranos, having no doubt seen the center of many rumors in your lifetime.”
         “Some things are true and some things are not as true,” Ranos replied stoically, sensing the meaninglessness of his sentence. But he was not here to debate. Never moving his gaze from the woman, he stepped around the couch, doing his best to bring the second floor into view. A visitor, she had said. A visitor had arrived. Tristian? Brown? It had to be one of them. Unless it was simply another game. But someone had come here. Someone who had not teleported himself. And he was upstairs. But there was nothing to see. The walkways and doors remained dark. He could sense nothing. “It is up to each man to decide the degree of truth in every facet of life.”
         “Platitudes, Ranos, mere platitudes,” the woman spat out, tapping the couch with her cane, circling as well. It reminded him of a child’s game, hide and seek done in plain sight with their words counting off the seconds, acting as eyes in the shadows, seeking not to find the person but to discover what they were truly hiding. “You are only trying to tell me what you think I need to hear.” Her lips curled into a loose, fleshy smile. “We are living in a Universe ruled by legends and myths and rumors and every day they threaten to outnumber the living.”
         “Perhaps they have always been there and we are only now just noticing.” Ranos thought he spied a flicker of movement on the second floor, but the sight was fleeting and evaded his perceptions. What was that?
         But the woman riveted his attention, forcing his mind elsewhere, back to her, for his own safety. Her barked laugh was both a threat and a flung gauntlet. “You mean like your attempt at playing dead from before?” Her cane tapped an off-key, hollow cadence as she continued to lead Ranos in their careful dance. “I’ve heard of it, you know, there were stories for years about how you figured it out, that you had achieved the ultimate control of mind over body . . .” her chuckle slithered in the air, prepared to strangle him. “People proclaimed you as some kind of god, a sort of superhuman with a perception few of us could ever attain. Nonsense, all of it.” This was said with an archly amused tone, not so much condescension as vindication. “Like most things, when you take the time to look at it properly, at the heart it’s really quite simple.” She stopped her pacing and took a deep breath, a motion Ranos was sure was merely a feint. A burst of inbred light up above warned him of everything and nothing. He toyed with the idea of teleporting up there, perhaps a sharp disruption might crack whatever was holding him here long enough for him to leave. But he needed more to work with. All he had now was words. Useless words and the dust of old ideas. He didn’t have the skills to reverse the decay and make something new out of what had already been discarded. The woman was correct, he was no superhuman. But that didn’t mean he was suddenly ineffective, or any less capable. All he needed was time. Time and a tool he could wield.
         “We thought the Time Patrol was a myth, once,” the woman told him, resuming her leisurely stroll around the furniture. “And why not? We got stories of bogeymen as children, distorted facts in our lessons and transparent warnings of phantoms as adults. Why would any person believe such things?” She shrugged and looked to Ranos, as if he might know. He did, of course and she knew that as well. But Ranos said nothing. He knew she wouldn’t expect him to. “And yet we have discovered that the myth is both true and not true.”
         She waited another instant, her wrinkled face maintaining a sort of sinister innocence. Ranos was doing his best to scan the upper floor of the house without being noticed, although he knew that it was perhaps a useless endeavor. She knew what he was doing. A certain pattern kept appearing, darting from space to space, moment to moment, saturating the air, seeping into the walls. But it didn’t belong to the house. It was a sight he knew. But he couldn’t remember. Why? What had been done to him? What had they done?
         “Since then,” the old woman told him, “we have discovered that the Time Patrol are neither invincible nor omniscient, very far from being gods and entirely fallible.” Her heavy shoulders jerked upwards in semblance of a shrug. “Some might feel disappointment at finding such matters out. But not I. I welcome the truth, regardless of its forms.”
         “Then the truth is you will fail here,” Ranos said, keeping his voice steady. The pattern was whirling faster upstairs, achieving a sound his ears refused to hear. It was a shredded kind of rhythm, one that kept vanishing into itself without warning, giving him little to analyze. If he could devote his full attention to it, perhaps he could discern the source. That was impossible now, alas. “This is not about battling scattered parties of warriors to defeat or a stalemate, you are facing an organization as old as existence itself, one that will eventually bring its full force to bear on you. I do not think the result will be pleasant.”
         “I imagine it won’t be,” the woman said offhandedly. She had stopped at the opposite apex of the couch was from Ranos. The view up the stairs was clear and the patterns of light and shadows seemed to be reversed. He was aware of a low throbbing in the background of the air, pressing at a point that couldn’t possibly exist. There was an increased pressure around his ears. He didn’t know where it was coming from. “But I’ve found that no matter what the circumstances or the situation, the big picture or the small picture . . . you always deal with it in the same fashion.”
         A shout screamed across the silence left by her words, lacerating the air of the top floor, leaving audible holes in the invisible foundation, falling gently to floor in a brisk shower of shredded tin.
         Surprised, Ranos stepped back, his gaze leaving the old woman, his eyes intently skimming the area. There. The pattern tightened into a knot, folding itself into a smaller and smaller identical copies, all not the original, all somehow varying. It made no sense. It was strangely familiar.
         He risked one more glance at the old woman, who was only smiling knowingly. What did you do, woman? he asked silently, wondering if she could really hear. What secrets didn’t he have anymore? Did it truly matter?
         The scream rippled and doubled in intensity, lashing him across the pain with an almost physical pain. The hell with teleporting, he thought and without another look at the woman, sprinted past her and up the stairs, his footsteps creating a mad hammering on the old wood.
         The woman did not even watch him go. Her smile only deepened and a low laugh escaped from her wrinkled throat.
         “The same fashion,” she whispered with a sort of glee. “Each and every time.”
         Then, in no hurry at all, she turned and began to follow Ranos up the stairs.

* * * * *

         The air was a prism and the light was a razor and Brown was caught at the edge and the center and was watching from the outside and the pieces were just tearing his own body to ribbons because there was nothing holding him together anymore, the cycle revolved around itself and no one could remember how it began. A force without pressure forced him against the bed, caused to him fall against and slide down it, striking his forehead on the headboard, the floor rushing up to greet him before slapping him away. He distinctly heard the sound of his brain bouncing in his skull. It didn’t hurt as much as he feared.
         The door was open but he couldn’t see. Dirty snow coated the air, sticking to his pupils, blotting out all sight. All his senses could discern was a presence, hovering at the center of a maelstrom, battering him with limbs traveling faster than his vision could see, than his brain could understand. He had to do something. At the edges he could feel himself spiraling away. Leaden claws were burying themselves in the gradually yielding matter of his mind. Nothing wanted to respond. But it had to.
         Reacting by instinct, guided by intuition, Brown gathered himself and launched his protesting frame at the door. As if through a distant tunnel, he could see a railing that presumably led to another floor below. Maybe he could knock his assailant off and send the both of them tumbling down a level. The fall might not kill him. But even death was better to the steadily increasing corkscrew forming around his head, tiny drills battering at his skull, letting his thoughts and strengths and ideas leak out, spinning away like solar prominences, spraying in fine arcs all over the walls. The world was going negative, the colors reversing, faces gone ghostly and warped. The firmament was full of familiar rumbles and bumps. He was moving and he didn’t remember when he had started doing so. A wraith was getting closer and his arms were almost around it and it was so small that he could just tuck it under his arm and carry it away and-
         A spectral shock trembled through his body, starting at the base of his neck and working outwards. The world treated him like a rubber band and pulled, not caring how brittle he really was. His limbs refused to work and momentum carried him through the person in the doorway and further along to the floor, a gentle cushion stuffed full of needles, the yawning gap leading to the downstairs floor opening before him. A mad part of him wished for a few extra inches to send him over the edge and away, to the bottom, where at least his fate was assured. Gravity hadn’t let him down yet. That was about to change, he feared. He didn’t know why.
         He had landed on his back. Or someone had turned him over. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t feel his body, he knew it existed the same way he knew the stars were giant balls of gas, it was a fact he took merely on faith. Brown couldn’t be entirely sure he was breathing anymore. There was a whistling sound across the surface of his mind and he half expected to feel the whispery sensation of mental tumbleweed rolling over his cerebrum. Somehow it made perfect sense.
         There was no light. The world was only defined by vague shapes and assumptions and assertions. A person or people were talking somewhere but it might have been underwater or in his imagination for all he knew. His throat hurt. Had he been screaming? He didn’t remember. Brown could swear the world was rotating. It was too quiet, even with the talking. People had to make up their minds. Speak or say nothing at all. All the little words crawling under his skin, burrowing and burrowing and never finding anything. You don’t understand, you silly fools. You’ll never find it. You’ll never know. I’m the man with a hole for his head. When you stick your hand in there’s just nothing to find. But all things come in due time. And time comes for all things. Don’t you people see? Don’t you see?
         I don’t think I do.
         A face glimmering with youth came into view.
         Fingers pressed into his brain.
         His lips moved without words.
         I know you he said without saying.
         I know you and the face went out of focus.
         I know you Brown thought one last time.
         I
                   know
                                       you-

* * * * *

         There were too many steps. Ranos reached the top so quickly he almost fell. Thoughtforms were crashing in waves down the hall, bending the sounds in the air. It was unguarded and unguided power. He knew who it was. He knew it instantly. You fool, what have you done? She is a gun that could strike us all.
         He found her at the corner, at the end of the walkway. There was a man on the floor, on his back, his eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling, at nothing at all. She was staring at the man without any kind of expression, without pity or sadness or even satisfaction. It was as if she had been walking past and he had just tumbled backwards out of the room and landed at her feet. But Ranos knew that wasn’t true. Not at all. The echoes transfixed the air, held it in stasis. The world wasn’t so much holding it breath as forgetting how to inhale. It was silent now, but the screams had left impressions, a dinosaur’s footprint on unwilling clay, a shape not too easily removed.
         She knew he was there. There was no way to hide. Any movement of his was the same as dropping a heavy ball into still waters. Her sensitivity was completely open to the world now. How she was handling it, he had no idea. He needed to reach out to her and pull her back, but Ranos didn’t know how. Even without the separation, he wouldn’t know. You need to be here, Tristian. I don’t know what to do.
         She was facing him now. Speaking to the air, her lips moving but without sound.
         “Of course I know who he is,” she said, not to Ranos but to a place past him. He spun around, only to find the old woman already there. How long she had been there he couldn’t say. Her movements were a soft breeze through silk, barely a rustle to mark her presence. She was smiling triumphantly, but her eyes were serious.
         I’m sorry, he said to the girl who wouldn’t hear him, but I can’t help you. I don’t know what they’ve done. They don’t know.
         “His name,” Kara said clearly, and what was in her eyes didn’t belong to her anymore, or anyone at all, “is Joseph Brown.” She paused to glance at the silent Brown, who barely seemed to breathing. “And he is the Commander of the Time Patrol.”
         “And that’s how you do it, Ranos,” the old woman murmured to him, even as he stood between two forces he didn’t dare oppose. “No matter what the situation, it’s always the same.” Her smile bit into his brain, tearing and pulling it like rotten taffy. “Whatever happens, all you need to do is simply take the pieces off the board. From there, everything else just falls into place.”