The Itinerants

Ynkeri fell for an eternity, the wind so loud around her she became deaf to its prophetic howl. Below her, the dim lights of a port city flickered like tiny vesper candles as she plummeted through cloud base. She had done this before, her body controlled with toes pointed down and body straight, but this time it was different. The tears that escaped from her eyes only seconds ago were long ago frozen, her agony a wordless scream in the dark void of sky.

The infinite dark encircled her a moment ago and a mere moment before that all had fallen into chaos as Lukas fell, his eyes sightless even as his body crumpled to the floor. All time was relative to the person- not the jump, he was wont to say with a glimmer and a wink of an eye. Now she knew what he meant. She could feel deep inside her Lukas' death happened years ago- how long, she didn't want to guess. The simultaneous sense of both was a vertiginous feeling. To ponder too long was dangerous and she didn't think madness would suit her well.

They were steps away from the gate when the shots rang out, each bullet finding a home in cement, some instantly and others chaotically ricocheting off steel first. The brown-haired boy only just passed into the void in front of her as the final shot rang out, true to its aim. Everything seemed to slow down, even slower than when they traveled, and when she turned, her hand releasing the boy's, she could see Lukas hanging in midair, propelled by the force of the bullet and the weaker gravity surrounding the gate. The mask of pain passed over his face only briefly and then was replaced with such a look of serenity that, for a moment, she wished their places were switched.

And then all was black and she was through the gate, hands empty and unhurt but for the immeasurable pain in her heart, which persisted through the swirling black.

Ynkeri fell even still. Looking down, she saw the brief reflection of stars in water that lay perfectly still below. Around her, mountains reflected moonlight on icy peaks and the air was colder than what her clothes could protect her from. The gates were not always designed perfectly and this one would have her in the waters of a wintered land within seconds. A chagrined smile crossed her lips as she realized her wish might come true after all. But even if her death would come, she could not bring herself to help it along. Instead, she pressed a hand to her sleeve and her speed slowed until she hovered only inches above the glassy sea, but she could not hover forever. The device attached to wrist and ankles was only designed to prevent breaking bones on impact, not bear her away from harm as if on angel's wings.

The icy water stabbed at her like a thousand knives and a gasp escaped her lips, unbidden. It had been many years since she swam, yet arms and legs moved quickly to keep her head above water. She could see the shore and tried to swim towards it, but after only a few seconds, knew that it would be too far. She would freeze, sinking to the bottom of this bay long before she came close to land. She would try, anyway. It was not in her to quit because a thing was impossible. She had, after all, escaped confinement and outwitted the genetic scanners for years in the largest city on Eris. This was just one more challenge, one more absurd test before she could live in peace. But Ynkeri knew the odds were stacked against her, moreso now than any which came before. If she wasn't so cold, she might have laughed at the cruelty of a god (or gods, she wasn't convinced there was only one) to allow her to die five minutes after escaping the hellish world she'd been born on.

She could tell when the end was near. Her vision began to blur and the roaring sound returned, as if she was falling all over again. Her muscles also resisted, each movement harder and slower than the one before, as if she were slowly turning to stone. She stopped moving towards the shore, her feet barely able to kick enough to keep her head above water. Looking up to keep the cold water from her face, she breathed deeply, savoring the clean, wild air. In a way, she decided, she won after all. Here in the cold dark she could not be captured or imprisoned. She would die the death of an itinerant, not a criminal.

She could see a crystal mist hanging above her face. Beyond, the stars were clear and crisp against a velvet sky as the clouds parted once more above her. It was cold before, but now she was feeling warm. She focused on the starlight as mist and fog hovered at the edges of her vision. She smiled, this time without chagrin. The pain began to lessen after a few moments more and, tired, she closed her eyes. She was surprised to find she wasn't afraid of whatever awaited her beyond this world or any other. Dying was like journeying, she decided with the slow thoughts of a person on the edge of sleep, just one more place to explore in a long list of destinations she hadn't yet visited.

∞

Jask watched each night for ten years, waiting for the flash that would signal Ynkeri's arrival. The gate played cruelly with time. If you did not pass through hand in hand, there was no set time someone could be expected to arrive. He’d heard someone try to explain the paradox once, comparing it to a river with sporadic current speeds, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but always flowing in the same direction. The description was full of inconsistencies- rivers changed over the course of time, for one, but he had neither heard a better comparison, nor had he found one in his own ponderings. The image of an unchanging river path whose speed was governed by an unmanned engine deep in the folds of the universe would have to suffice. Those that could find and travel the “rivers” which joined the known worlds were called wanderers or itinerants. Once, it had been useful for communication across the universe, but the machinations which initially made speedy travel possible had devolved over the centuries, and now were only used by those too desperate or insane to care about what they left behind- or who.

It would not surprise him if fifty years passed without sighting her. Not for the first time, he wondered if he would be able to remember what she looked like after all this time. Night after night, he tried to picture her, but memories were fragile things, prone to fade, and he did not know her long when they were on Eris. He remembered her hair being a dark brown with sun-burnt streaks of red and her face had been smooth like porcelain. But he could not distinctly recall such things as the shape of her nose or the height of her cheeks. He expected he would know her when he saw her. And if not, he had told himself each night of the last ten years, anyone who found themselves in the middle of the northern sea in the dead hours would need help. So he watched, waiting, his mind finding its way back to his first night in this cold, strange land.

They had not had the time to choose the gate, Jask recollected, since the patrols were fast on their heels. If they had taken the time, they might have known that in the many years before, it had been necessary to arrange a ferry. Instead, Jask found himself in cold, black water with a mile of ocean to swim before reaching dry land. It was a stroke of luck that a vessel had even been out on the night which he arrived. Coarse men who smelled of sweat and salt and fish pulled him out of the frigid sea, as if it was perfectly normal to find children bobbing around the bay.

The captain was different though. He had a shrewd eye and asked questions long into the morning hours. Satisfied with the answers, the captain offered him room and board in exchange for his work, which he accepted, without wondering why. With no one else and nowhere to go, he had spent the last ten years with water not far beneath his feet.

In the day he hauled fish or tended broken nets, but the night was his to do with as he pleased. He woke himself up at the same time each night and walked to the docks where he sat, his eyes upward cast and expectant. The time of night to watch was the only thing he could trust. While years might pass between departure and arrival, another unexplained rule governed the gates: the hour of arrival was always the same as the time of departure. On stormy nights, Jask waited anxiously, hoping he would be able to distinguish lightning from the flash of a gate arrival. The thought crept up on him on occasion that he may have missed her years ago and she had drowned, alone and cold in the dark. The idea made him unbearably sad. She saved him those many years ago and he owed it to her to watch each night, if not for her rescue, then perhaps for her vigil.

Looking up into the sky, Jask frowned. There was an electricity in the air he could taste. The sky was a patchwork of grey clouds, breaking every few minutes to reveal a full moon. He knew the next hour would be hard on his eyes, but his determination did not waiver. While he watched, nearly unblinking, he thought again on the night of his exodus. They made the breathless run to the gate after days of waiting for an opportunity and Jask believed, up until he passed through the gate, they would all make it. Wasn't that how all the stories went with heroes and maidens saving the day? Even when he lost the woman's hand, he continued to believe. A small part of him still hoped there would be two flashes instead of one in the sky, but another, deeper, part knew if there were two, one would be carrying the weight of a dead man. Jask had seen plenty of death in the alleys where he had grown up, eyes starring and faces slack. It was the look he’d seen right before winking out of existence on his home world. It was odd how he remembered each contour of the man's face who standing, was dead, but could not remember the face of the living.

His eyes grew watery from the cold air, but he would not rub them or look away. And then, he thought, perhaps his imagination was getting the best of him, but he saw a light, high in the dark sky, just as the clouds broke. He waited a moment, to see if he was wrong. It only took a moment before the clouds passed over again, and he was left frantically searching for a dark figure against a black sky. For several seconds, he waited and then he saw someone falling mercilessly fast towards the mirror-sea. He didn't know how, but his body had moved him onto a boat while his eyes fixed themselves on the figure who hovered for what seemed like forever and then dropped into the water with the immaculate form of a well-traveled itinerant.

The boat was small, just a skiff, but it was fitted with a motor big enough for a vessel twice as large. He typed in the coordinates and counted the seconds as they passed. Seconds would count in water this cold. Ice had not yet formed in the bay, but it was only a matter of days, if the almanacs were correct (and they always were). He reached forty-one before he spotted the figure moving slowly just a few feet ahead of him. His heart felt as though it would beat out of his chest as he shut off the engine and steered closer.

He timed it perfectly, and as the boat passed, Jask reached down and plucked the slight figure out of the water. Even wet, she weighed almost nothing. Brushing a hand against her face, he found her cold. Too cold to make it to shore to begin warming her, so he lowered anchor and set to work. Jask had pulled plenty of men out of the sea to know wet clothes were as deadly as the frigid water, so he unsheathed the long knife he kept at his side and cut the thin dress away from the woman's slight figure. Then, holding her close with his left hand, he pulled a heavy wool blanket and battery powered heater from a small cache built into the side of the boat with the right.

The clouds broke again and in the moonlight, he would see the face of the woman, her skin pale and smooth as he remembered, not a day older than when last he saw her. Everything about her face rushed back to him then and he knew he’d found her. He didn't know when he started to cry, but for several minutes, he held her tightly to himself, hoping he would be able to share enough of his body heat to prevent her heart from stopping. He hadn't realized until that very moment how badly he wanted to thank her for all the years she had given back to him.

As he held her small frame to himself, he couldn't help but marvel. When last he saw her, she towered above him, a protector, perhaps even a mother. With a more mature eye, he saw she was far too young for that. She might even be his own age, but he would not guess any older. After several minutes, he began to feel her body warm and her breath fell on his neck and shoulders with more ease. Moving to examine her, he could see color was returning to her lips and fingernails. Setting her gently into the spine of the boat, he wrapped the woolen blanket about her frame and re-positioned the heater. Satisfied with his work, he turned to the work of hauling anchor, each pull of the thick, wet rope harder than the last, but finally it was in the bow and he could turn his attention back to the shore. There was always a bed open at the town's inn. She would be safe there, while she recovered.

∞

When Ynkeri's eyes opened to a white sky and the smell of lavender, she wondered if all the stories had been true after all, but then realized quickly she was not the type to win the attention of anyone, especially God. So, she surmised, she was not dead.

If it was possible, she felt both tired and strangely rested at the same time. While her mind wished she could close her eyes and sleep for days, her body was eager to rise and explore the new world she found herself in. Between mind and body, there was only a stalemate. Her eyes moved quickly, taking in the room's contents. What she confused for a pure sky was, on a second look, an imperfect ceiling, splotchy with inconsistent textures. The lavender she smelled seemed to be coming from everywhere. The light purple walls, she suspected, had something to do with it since most of the room was bare but for a wooden chest and a framed picture of the sea. One window let in daylight and, beyond, a grey sky and jagged green waters.

A shiver ran through her as she remembered what she assumed was the night before. She lost consciousness in the icy depths, giving herself over to whatever lay beyond the living world, but whatever, or whoever, apparently wasn’t interested. She couldn't say she was disappointed.

It was her stomach which drove her from the soft sheets, her feet hitting a floor of shaggy fabric. Her teeth chattered as she stood naked, looking for something to wear. Tip toeing over to the chest, she unlatched the sides and found thick, woolen pants and a grey sweater. Beneath those were a pair of fur-lined boots and socks. Socks! She hadn't seen a pair of socks since she was a small child. For moment, she marveled, naked on the floor, her fingers exploring the neat stitching. Eagerly, she put them on and wiggled her toes against the soft threads that clung to her feet as if in a loving embrace. After a few moments, Ynkeri shrugged into the clothes. The instant warmth made it so that it didn't matter they were a size too big. The boots were supple, as if they'd been broken in by someone else.

The room’s bareness did not encourage her to stay and so she turned the door knob with tentative hands, her head peering into the hall with the wariness of a cat. Finding it empty, she stepped out with more confidence and then walked down the length of the corridor until she found a set of stairs leading down into a room whose smells made her mouth water. Anxiety gripped her as she took the first step, her boots making the stairs creak. She paused for a moment, listening for movement at the bottom. Hearing nothing, she relaxed some. This is not Eris, she told herself. She ignored the other voice, reminding her she didn't know where she was, and continued down the stairs.

When she reached the bottom of the stairwell, she looked about a large, open room made almost entirely of wood. She'd never seen so much wood in one place. In Laivs, wood was ornamental, a symbol of stature rather than a building material. The cost to build a room entirely of wood was unthinkable. Plush seats lined one corner of the room and wooden tables surrounded by hard chairs were scattered about the center. A man, perhaps twenty years old, sat hunched over a steaming cup, his large hands wrapped around the sides as if to draw the heat out into his hands. Or perhaps it was the other way.

He turned, casually, perhaps because of the way she stared at him and then stood abruptly, the sudden movement making her step back out of habit. The man was tall, with dark hair that might curl if it was left to grow past his ears. He stood starring at her, an expectant look on his face. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn't quite place where she’d seen him before. A flicker of an idea ran through her mind, but she dismissed it. Not possible, she decided. Or maybe it was. There was something about his eyes, something that reminded her of the boy whose hand she let go of amid the chaos of escape only a little while ago. That, if she was right, was for him many years ago.

"Why do you look familiar?" She said aloud, her voice betraying a fearful hope.

"I suppose it's not fair, you looking the very same while I've aged a decade. My name is Jask."

Ynkeri felt the blood leave her face. It wasn't a coincidence or a hope born out of madness. She'd heard of people who lost their partner's grip before passing through a gate, sometimes a day separated them and other times it was years. No one could predict it and most stories she heard were tragic. His hands were under her elbows, then, as if to steady her and when she looked up she could see the same big, brown eyes which starred at her so worshipfully what felt to her like only a day ago. Without thinking, she reached around him as best she could and held him in an embrace she couldn't bring herself to break.

"You made it." She said, after a few minutes, finally releasing him. Embarrassed, she felt blood return to her face. She was making a fool of herself. But when she met his gaze, she didn't see disdain.

"Because of you."