Chapter Two

The sound of a door shutting broke the silence of the morning, and Veylan’s footsteps crunched along the dirt road that cut straight through Xani. She knew it would happen sooner or later, she just hadn’t expected it to be quite so soon. Ikoait had sent her away that morning, to the protests of his son and daughter: both liked Veylan, and neither wanted her to leave, but she had gone anyway. She knew it probably wouldn’t help, because the food was getting scarcer every day and even without her the family wouldn’t survive long. Maybe if Xani’s hunters and gatherers started actually getting something done-but until then, people would have to survive on their own.

Veylan looked around, wondering what exactly she was supposed to do next. The village was more-or-less deserted, because it was still early in the morning and people were inside their homes eating their morning meal. There were also no leftovers outside in the garbage dump yet, and Veylan was hungry. She could wait until the citizens of Xani finished their meals and threw out the leftovers (who in their right mind would throw out leftovers, though, when the food was so scarce?), or she could try and catch something on her own. In the time she’d spent with Ikoait and his family, though, she had learned very little about hunting: The males did the hunting; the females cooked. So the first option seemed much more promising.

But before she could find a good spot to sit herself down and wait for the citizens to complete their meals, she heard a cry from off to her right. Turning, she searched for the source of the noise. Whoever had cried out wasn’t in the village, because there was still no one but herself visible outside. So maybe someone had wandered into the woods and gotten hurt or entangled in the thorny plants that grew there? More curious than frightened, Veylan turned and headed for the source of the disturbance. The cry came again, leading her to the edge of the small village and then beyond it, into the bordering woods. Whoever was in trouble was not right on the border, though. It sounded as if he (for the cry sounded distinctly male) was farther in. Veylan kept walking.

----------

Ninth Timekeeper had spent most of that morning perusing her copy of the Timekeeper laws, trying to figure out if what she planned would break any of them or if she could do it without getting herself in trouble. After at least an hour and a half of twice looking through the laws, she found nothing that would prohibit her from doing what she planned. If she got in trouble, she could tell Fifth that there was nothing in the laws that said what she was doing was wrong, and so she couldn’t justly be punished.

Having come to this conclusion, Ninth closed the little book that contained the laws and set it aside, instead turning her attention to the timelines she watched over. She needn’t do anything with Torin or Zion for the moment, although she wondered briefly if she could hide Zion for a little bit to give him time to rest without Colyr’s eye on him she could hide the latter to give him a little chance to rest. She decided she wouldn’t do it now, although she planned to do it later, and turned her attention to Veylan. The half-elf girl was walking down Xani’s main dirt street, going nowhere in particular. Peeking briefly at Veylan’s memories, she found that the girl had been turned away by the family she’d been living with. So now, Ninth could put her plan into action.

Veylan had been wrong in thinking that there was no one outside that morning. One of Xani’s food-gatherers was out in the woods, searching in vain for something to bring back that would feed the villagers. This gatherer was not one of Eighteenth’s Chosen, and therefore any Timekeeper could work with him. Carefully, Ninth pushed the end of his timeline back, looping it and sticking the end into the same timeline an inch from where it had ended. The result was a tiny loop in the timeline, which in turn caused the man’s feet to become entangled with each other. Letting out a yelp of surprise, the man fell. But since Ninth had not undone the loop, the man could not get up again. Every time he tried, his feet would become entangled again and he would fall back. The second time he tried this, he hit his head on one of the trees. It wasn’t hard enough to cause any damage, but the second unexpected surprise caused the man to yell again.

The man’s yelling brought Veylan to see what was going on. Ninth quickly undid the loop in the gatherer’s timeline and the man stood, this time without falling again.

Having done this, Ninth turned her attention back to Veylan. The girl was walking toward the gatherer’s voice, and she was nearly at the edge of her village already. Ninth waited, fingers going to the timeline of a mage who lived in the forest near Xani. This mage was protected by no Timekeeper, so she didn’t have to worry about the law that forbade Timekeepers to tamper with other Timekeepers’ Chosen. The mage was sleeping at that moment, but that didn’t matter. Ninth kept her eyes on Veylan’s timeline and her fingers ready on the mages, and waited.

Mages, unlike other people, have a double timeline. The timelines are connected, and it simply looks like two timelines accidentally melded together. One of the, the thicker of the two, is the timeline of the mage him or herself, the timeline Timekeepers can change that affects the mage’s thoughts or actions. The second timeline is thinner, and there is no getting the two mixed up. The second timeline follows the first. If the first bends, the second bends. If the first curves, the second curves. This second timeline is the magic that the mage possesses, and although magic does not have thoughts, its timeline can still be controlled by a Timekeeper. If a Timekeeper does change the timeline of the magic, then the Timekeeper controls the spells that are cast using this magic. While the Timekeeper has control of the magic, the mage loses control of it, which often terrifies everyone in the vicinity, including the mage Timekeepers don’t often use magic on New Earth, but this was what Ninth was planning to do now.

The moment Veylan stepped into the forest, Ninth acted. Her fingers found the smaller, thinner timeline connected to the mage and carefully tugged at it, shaping it, changing it, and creating a great wall of magic that circled the entire village. When the mage woke up, he would immediately recall his magic, figuring that he had been spellcasting in his sleep. Nothing major would result from Ninth borrowing the magic, except that the mage would feel very drained for the next couple days. But he would restore himself, and there would be no harm done. Ninth sat back to wait.

----------

Veylan co0uldn’t help but laugh a little as she returned to the village. Somehow, she found the gatherer’s situation funny, although he certainly didn’t. He’d gone red when she’d asked him if he was alright, and he had explained that he had merely become tangled up in some plant or other and hit his head. After telling this to her, he had taken the first chance he had to escape, which left her to return to the village by herself.

Veylan broke into a run, just for the sake of running. She hadn’t got much time to run lately. But now, she had all the time she needed and so she took advantage of it as she raced back to the village.

She didn’t get quite that far, though. Just as she was preparing to exit the forest, she smashed into something. The object, whatever it was, was as solid as it was invisible. She stumbled back, hands going to her face as her nose began to bleed. She gasped, startled, and stumbled back a little further before regaining her balance. She gritted out a curse in Tradarri, tipping her head back and using her shirt sleeve to try and stem the blood flow. Involuntary tears started to well from her eyes at the sudden pain, and she fished a handkerchief out of her pocket with her unoccupied hand to deal with them.

Once Veylan had taken care of the nosebleed, she stepped back up to try and find the mysterious wall that had sprung up in front of her, moving much more cautiously now, palms extended out in front of her. They touched the wall first, one that felt like nothing more than smooth, unsullied glass, with no faults or irregularities. She pushed against it, leaning her full weight on it, but it didn’t give. She struck it with an open palm, but succeeded in only making her palm sting harshly. She rubbed it with her other hand, then focused her eyes on the spot where the wall should be. She saw the village, but not the wall itself. By this time, Veylan was utterly confused.

----------

Torin and Zion entered Colyr’s main room about ten minutes after Zektres had woken them. She was sitting on one of her more comfortable chairs, watching the door, tapping her foot. Torin knew this was more for show than because she was impatient, but he also knew that when she did this, he was in trouble.

As it happened, Zion was in more trouble than Torin was. He was called forward by Colyr, and then she began to berate him, covering one topic thoroughly in something like two minutes, then switching to another. She started with the time Zion had taken to wake up, then she continued to the state of the musician’s clothes-they were wrinkled because he had put them on in a hurry-and then she continued to tell him that he had made Torin later than usual and so both of them would be in trouble. Then Colyr turned away for a moment, and Torin both saw and heard Zion mutter “and you’ll both be in trouble” in a distinctly mocking tone of voice. Colyr heard it too, because she was on him in a moment, sending a burst of fear directly at Zion. Torin watched impassively as Zion reflexively threw up his hands, his brain receiving the fear signals and trying to protect him. This time, Colyr sent out her magic like a wall, bowling Zion over and sending him to the floor. He fell backwards, and he didn’t have enough time to break his fall with his hands. He landed flat on his back in disarray, and stayed there for a moment before getting up again. When he did rise, he had one hand pressed to the elbow that had hit the floor the hardest, letting out his breath in a hiss as he straightened the pained limb. Colyr watched him as he pulled himself together, then repeated the process again. When Zion next rose, he was prepared.

But Colyr didn’t go after him again. She turned her attention to Torin and ordered him to take Zion back to the room where he stayed, and to lock him in there until it was time for his next meal.

It was true that Colyr’s treatment of Zion wasn’t the worst he’d ever endured, but it was also true that the worse punishments had happened all at once. Over the days he’d spent here, the little aches and pains he’d received from Colyr’s treatment were accumulating, and together they caused much more discomfort than they would have separately. When Torin left Zion alone in his room, he flopped backwards on the bed and lay on his back, wondering absently if he could sneak out and find a healer that could give him something for the pain he was feeling. Then he decided that it wasn’t worth the risk and that he could deal with it, considering that he had been in worse pain before. Even so, the almost constant headache he was plagued with now seemed to get worse by the day, and he rolled over onto his side to pillow his head on one arm, trying to alleviate it. Nothing worked until Zion finally fell asleep a while later.