This is part eight of this story. Chapters one through seven can be found at the Tears of the Gods table of contents page, along with important disclaimers and whatnot (you might want to read the prior chapters before you read this one). Enjoy!
***
Previously in "Tears of the Gods"
Three hideous, segmented purple creatures appeared in the Arechive then, rippling into existence from thin air. They looked like the gargantuan larvae of some crystalline insect, with serrated crushing mandibles. The fabric of space seemed to ripple around them.
If all else fails, Onslaught! Tempus stretched forth his hand toward the apex of the dome. Reality blurred and time slowed for an instant, then the energy bolt, resembling a fast-moving heat-shimmer, streaked upward toward the enormous face.
As Tempus looked over the first living creatures he had seen in quite a while, he sensed the effects of time on them acutely. The bark on the golthiar sloughing off like dead skin, wrinkles developing on the faces and skin of the humans, cells dying and falling off all of them. This chronal vision was acquired when he'd entered the portal in the Compart, and ever after he'd been unable to ignore the effects of time on his fellow living beings.
"Indeed, introductions are overdue, now that we have a second to spare. I am Tempus," intoned Tempus with his powerful baritone voice. "Master of time!" He favored Kiraz with a gallant flourish and bow.
Lameth drew his dagger and led the way. Far above, a great geyser of steam shot from one of the Fallside factory's chimneys.
Syrus looked back. Where Fallside's factory had once stood, all that could be seen were streaks of dark gunk leaking down the cliff.
An automaton that appeared to be made of countless tiny brass gears caught her eye as she passed. The automaton was conversing with Lady Isla. Isla was being her usual vacuous self, asking if she could touch the automaton. Kiraz rolled her eyes.
Ixobis-Lar extended a purple effector field, again engulfing Tempus. It then rotated on a quantum axis and disappeared from the vision-ribbon dimension, taking him with it.
***
Date: 34th Pritor in the 397th Year of the Founding
Tempus
Tempus had just enough time to catch a glimpse of a dense jungle of giant fern-like plants in the twilight (or perhaps early morning) before being pulled away again by the purple flash of light. As always, a sensation of twisting sideways. Tempus appeared on a savannah under an enormous red sun directly overhead; a herd of furry orange quadrupeds Tempus didn't recognize grazed on the brownish grass in the distance. Another bright purple flash. Tempus was ripped sideways again to appear under a cloudless blue sky on a hill covered in flowering yellow ulex. At least I recognize these, he thought of the thorny yellow weeds. Very earthlike, so much like home.
Tempus braced himself, but there were no more interdimensional jaunts.
Ixobis-Lar, the spherical interdimensional automaton, lay on the ground nearby; several of its panels were buckled and a faint burning smell came from it. Probably not a good sign, was his expert technical analysis.
Tempus turned around, taking in his new surroundings. Looking down from the hill, he saw a small circle of houses surrounding a large hexagonal tower of weathered grey stone. Could it be? The village was surrounded by circular fields of crops. Green oker, Tempus recognized, still early in the season. In the centre of each field stood a slender mechanical tower; from these extended long spray nozzles that slowly rotated, periodically spraying a fine mist of water and chemicals onto the oker plants. The farm fields in turn were surrounded by a ring of standing stones, each about shoulder-height, hexagonal in shape, miniature versions of the big central tower. They were spaced apart irregularly, as if several were missing. Beyond the village lay a dense forest.
He recognised the place immediately; how could he not? This was Amser, the village on the edge of the Westwood where he'd been born and grew up. He grinned. Is my journey over? But something wasn't right. Memories flooded in and his smile disappeared. When he'd left to explore the Compart, it was to find a way to repair the failed irrigation towers. He watched as one of the towers in question spurted water and nutrients over the crops. Right place, wrong time.
His eyes misted up. He would have to explore the village—how could he not? But there was something to be taken care of first. He bent down and poked gingerly around Ixobis-Lar's remains. Likely there was something that could be salvaged from the teleporting guide. He extracted an impossibly long band of microfine fibers made from a variety of unearthly metals, about half a handspan broad. Most likely this was Ixobis-Lar's teleportation control surface. With some tweaking, it could probably be used to teleport people, though interdimensional jaunts would be chancy at best. He stuffed the cypher into a pocket of his robe and turned to the village again. Ixobis-Lar won't be needing it now, he rationalized.
Tempus descended the hill, heart pounding.
The moment he crossed the invisible barrier formed by the ring of squat standing stones a young man materialized before him in a shimmer of temporal energy—a Far Step esotery, much like his own.
In fact... Tempus' mouth dropped open. The red-cloaked young man with the close-cropped beard standing before him was Tempus himself!
"Are you all right?" asked the younger Tempus. "Are you hurt? I will get our priestess Venerance Niima to examine you."
The dimensional jaunting must have taken a visible toll on my appearance, thought older Tempus. "I'm just tired," he answered weakly.
"What is your name, and why have you come here?"
"I... seem to have forgotten my name." Tempus, an ancient word for "time", had not always been Tempus' name. It was but one of several he'd adopted over the years; even so, telling it to his younger self seemed an unnecessary risk. He frowned. Although he remembered patrolling the village perimeter in his younger days, he was certain he did not remember this meeting with an older version of himself at all. It was surely the sort of thing one would remember. "I have been transported here by numenera I was studying. I will go with you to see this Venerance Niima. Perhaps she can tell me more."
"You are a student of the numenera? My name is Omit; you must meet my family. We would love to compare notes. My wife and I both believe that the study of numenera is the key to the future."
Such a meeting would be most unwise, Tempus intuited. But to not be rude to his younger self, he said only, "I must speak with Venerance Niima as soon as possible."
Venerence Niima was his aunt, the older sister of his father Astath. Though she was an Aeon Priestess, she was wise also in the teachings of Kronos. She would know what to do.
Tempus let the younger man lead him towards Niima's even though he knew how to get there already. Along the way they passed a house of particular interest to him—the home Tempus had shared with his wife Ora and their two young children, so long ago. As if summoned by the thought, Ora—looking about thirty years old—hurried out the front door of their little house, carrying a baby. She was followed by three other children, a boy of perhaps nine or ten years, whom he recognized as his son Riss, and two younger girls—one perhaps six and the other perhaps two.
"Omit," she called as she trotted up to them. "What’s happening? Something has upset the girls and woken up Kala."
There was a blurring around Tempus, as if the whole area were surrounded by a dense heat haze. In his "chronal vision" he saw the nine-year-old boy, Riss, his son, now aged nineteen and trained as a glaive, preparing to set out south for Matheunis, a journey from which—Tempus somehow knew—he would never return.
Something very strange is going on. When he'd left to investigate the Compart, Riss was only three. Zura, his daughter, had just been born. Was Zura this six-year-old standing here before him, looking up at him with open curiosity?
The haze cleared for a moment and he saw Venerance Niima shuffling arthritically towards him; accompanied, as always, by her husband Gwin. She peered at Tempus warily for a moment, then gasped. "By Kronos, no..."
The haze returned.
It was definitely Niima. But... it could not be Niima. She died—had died? will die?—three years ago (by his subjective timeline), shortly before he, Ora, and the others would set out for the Compart.
"This is my wife, Ora", said Omit, indicating the younger woman. And indeed it was Ora, looking much as she had before she dies (did die? would die?) in the Compart, before young Omit would go through the Portal and become Tempus, self-declared Master of Time.
"Do not say your name!" Niima hissed to Tempus. "If you are who I think you are, you must leave here now, or you will bring a doom on us all."
The haze ebbed.
Tempus bowed to Niima and tried to keep his voice neutral. "Have we met before? Who do you think I am and what is the doom you speak of? I... I have been transported here by an unnatural force and may have lost some of my memories."
Venerence Niima looked at him, a long, intensely skeptical look, then glanced at Omit and Ora. She beckoned him to one side to confer privately a moment. He noticed that she seemed to be taking great care not to touch him.
"You are from an alternate future. You are my nephew, as is he," she said, jerking her chin at Tempus' younger self. "You cannot be here in the same time—have you forgotten your teachings here? You cannot be here in the same time! It will disrupt the Laws of Kronos and you have already weakened our defences by being inside the Ring. You must leave. Now!"
Gwin shouted a warning as the rippling haze surged again, much stronger now. The air warped and twisted and three hideous segmented creatures shimmered into existence around the older Tempus. Chronal feeders, Tempus knew. They had the appearance of purple, incompletely-formed crystalline insects, with serrated crushing mandibles.
Tempus grimaced. Am I fated never to find what I have lost?
Two of feeders moved to attack him; the third turned toward his younger self.
Niima screamed at him. "You've brought this doom upon us all! The feeders will not stop until their timeline is restored. We cannot help you—to do so would disrupt the timeline even more!"
Tempus Far-Stepped himself away from the feeders, back toward the village perimeter. Perhaps if I leave, the chronal disturbance in the village will abate and the feeders will leave too, he thought.
Tempus' Far Step deposited him out in the oker fields, near an irrigation tower. Looking back, he saw the two feeders coming after him ripple out of existence.
They rippled back into existence barely an arm's length away from him. Tempus knew it was very difficult to escape an enemy capable of teleportation, but he had to draw them off from the village somehow. He prepared to Far Step again.
Before he could complete the esotery, one of the feeders opened its jaws wide and engulfed him.
He passed into a glittering labyrinth of conflicting temporal shards—twisting and spiralling into a corridor of warped time and memories. For a moment, he was Omit the Champion of Light, lying mortally wounded on the ground outside a Tower of Memory somewhere in the north, having given his all saving the world. A young Aeon Priest named Aliser tended his wounds.
"I will never forget you," Aliser whispered as the shadows closed in.
Now he wandered the cold wastes of Matheunis, searching after his missing son Riss. Now he was back in Amser, playing peekaboo with his great-grandchildren.
The labyrinth accelerated forward in a whirling blur until he found himself standing on a grey and featureless plain. There was nothing around him; the ground was unnaturally smooth and flat, the sky equally featureless and grey. In fact, it was impossible to discern where the sky met the ground.
Then, looking around, he saw something. In the distance, about where the horizon should be, was a jagged, frozen lightning bolt.
I have been here before, thought Tempus.
He strode across the featureless grey plain toward the frozen lightning.
The grey around him rippled and shook, throwing him to the "ground". The "sky" cleared; he saw a distorted view of a hideously ugly grey human face, covered in large boil-like growths, repeated four times around the dome of the sky. Gormin. How long has it been since I've seen the Broken Cage Company? he wondered.
In the sky, Gormin's four mouths split into hideous grins as they lunged toward Tempus. The ground bucked and shuddered; a rent opened in front of him. Gouts of vile-smelling grey-green pus erupted from the rent, spattering him and burning his skin on contact.
Tempus Far-Stepped away from the rent.
Gormin's gigantic faces pulled back a moment, then suddenly rushed toward him again. Tempus noticed that the "lightning bolt" had dimmed somewhat.
When all else fails, Onslaught! He sent an Onslaught into the centre of the largest of the four faces.
Time rippled again and he was with the others in the Arechive, speaking with Frater Bellias.
Another ripple as time slid sideways and he was walking through Fallside, not long before the confrontation with Toorkmeyn's band of outlaws. Another ripple and he was in the Coral Palace for the first time, having lunch with Lady Isla.
Time slid sideways in a ripple again. It was Ator, in the 409th Year of the Founding, and his daughter Zura was marrying a merchant from Ishlav. Two years since Riss went south to Matheunis—still no word from him.
Reality dissolved into a whirling blur of possible futures. He'd become unstuck in time. He knew he would need to stabilize himself in his own timeline quickly lest even worse things happen. Time slid sideways. Tempus found himself in the Arechive, examining Toorkmeyn's weapon. He determined what it could do, and that folded it up into a compact shape that he slipped into his pocket instead of returning it to Lameth.
Time slid sideways again. It was now Primon, in the 391st Year of the Founding. He, Ora, and Ora's brothers Mre and Shalha stood outside the entrance to the Compart, lighting glowglobes and preparing to enter it for the first time.
Again. Tempus was recovering from the sting of the tentacle-fish with the help of a poultice. Getting closer. Again. He was back at the Burning Moon party in the Coral Palace. Now. He poured all his esoteric abilities into anchoring himself here. Time seemed to stabilize.
It was as if no time at all had passed. Ixobis-Lar was nowhere to be seen.
No one seemed to note his arrival. A commotion was going on across the room; the Palace guards were escorting a tattooed man in yellow finery, a brass clockwork automaton, a man dressed in monk robes, Syrus Barister the tongue-tied glaive, and Yimoul-Za the golthiar nano out of the Palace.
Tempus watched them leave. He wondered if Gormin and Kiraz had had any luck freeing Frater Bellias' daughter. What was her name again? Oh, yes. Lissia.
Subjectively, it felt as if it had been literal ages since he'd left. His friends, of course, probably suspected nothing of what had happened to Tempus. He pondered his next course of action.
Chaos erupted. Shouts of revelry turned to screams of terror. It didn't take long for the source of the disturbance to become apparent. Pale-green, amphibious-looking bipedal creatures poured into the ballroom from the direction of the tank room, stabbing party-goers with poisoned bone-tipped spears.
About a dozen guards moved in to the defence but were hopelessly outnumbered. The creatures continued poring into the room. They began dragging prisoners, dead or alive, back toward the room with Lissia's column of water.
Probably came up through that column of water, Tempus speculated. He noted that the Weeping Coral, the Palace's much-ballyhooed defense system, was not reacting to the attack. Inside job?
Movement caught his eye. Gormin, naked except for a pair of boots, had emerged behind the creatures. He fell on them with a savage berserker fury, wielding only a knife.
The briny stench that accompanied the attacking creatures changed suddenly; the creatures immediately began to withdraw. Are the creatures controlled with pheromone-laden scents? he wondered. Did Gormin's surprise flank attack turn the tide of battle? The remaining guards and Gormin drove the invaders out of the ballroom.
Gormin stopped to catch his breath. He was covered in minor cuts and spatters of the aquatic creatures' gore. He took notice of Tempus then. "Tempus! Where are the others?"
"The guards threw some of them out of the Palace. Syrus and Yimoul-Za, at least." Tempus shrugged helplessly.
Gormin scoffed and turned toward the tank room. He gestured for Tempus to follow. "This death and mayhem is good cover for us to recover Lissia. And with any luck, those tentacle-fish are already attacking the invaders."
The corridors connecting the ballroom and the tank room were slick with human blood, invader ichor, and a foul-smelling mucus-like substance that the creatures' spear-tips had been coated in. The bodies of the wounded and dead were everywhere. Gormin hurried forward, paying them no heed as he stepped over them.
They reached the tank room. The creatures were all gone, presumably all withdrawn from the Palace. The column of water had gone as well; smeared streaks of mucus and red blood on the floor leading to the open grate were Lissia had once stood in the water seemed to confirm that this was how the creatures got in and out.
The statue/body of Lissia lay to one side.
Kiraz was here as well, standing protectively over Lissia, verred in hand, breathing heavy. She appeared to be the only surviving party-goer in this room.
Tempus hurried over to Lissia. "Is she still alive?"
Kiraz nodded once, keeping a wary eye on the creatures' escape hole.
Gormin snorted. "Nice of those creatures to leave her behind. This mission may yet be a success, assuming the Arechive still stands. We'll want to disguise her in case we meet Isla or Jamira on the way out though."
Gormin set about unceremoniously scavenging clothes and armor from the dead to make impromptu disguises.
Tempus patted his pockets, seeking his small healing kit. He felt something heavy and unfamiliar. He touched the object: Toorkmeyn's weapon. He was certain he hadn't brought it to the Palace in his original timeline. Oh well, close enough... Hopefully.
He put that out of his mind as he found the healing kit and sought to revive Lissia.
She shuddered. Her eyes flew open and she vomited a quantity of clear fluid. Kiraz knelt beside her and put a hand on her shoulder.
Lissia's eyes darted around the room in panic; she struggled weakly to stand, but had to lean on Kiraz for support.
"The kateraptis," she whispered. "Not again. In the Truth, don't make me suffer that again."
Gormin returned with a torn ballgown, originally teal but now heavily blood-stained. "Put this on," he ordered.
Lissia was too weak to resist him stuffing the gown onto her and tying the severed shoulder straps into a knot to keep it in place. "Wait. Where are we and what has happened? Who are you?"
Gormin lowered a stolen guard helmet over his head, then raised the helmet's hinged visor. "We were sent by your father to rescue you. You're in the Coral Palace—what's left of it, anyway. We're going to bring you back to the Arechive. Or what's left of it. As to what's happened, your guess is as good as mine. Some kind of attack."
Lissia's face brightened. "My father! Has he returned then? Is he well? I must see him."
Gormin and Tempus exchanged surprised glances. Returned? wondered Tempus.
Kiraz spoke up. "Can you walk, Lissia? I can support you if you need help."
"I can walk. Where is my father? Not in the Arechive, surely? Or wait, did he succeed in his quest? By the Truth, take me to him."
Gormin ignored her and turned to Tempus. "Might I borrow that healing kit? I... left behind an injured person who needs patching up. Get Lissia moving if she is able. I will catch up."
"I'll go with you," said Tempus. "If someone needs medical attention, four hands are better than two, no?"
Just then, Syrus, Yimoul-Za, and the brass automaton entered the tank room. They looked like they'd been in combat too.
"Well, look at this," said Gormin. "The gang's all here."
The automaton spoke. "I do not believe I have met everyone. My name is Voloidion. I am a nano."
"Yes," agreed Tempus. "Introductions are once more in order, now that we have time to spare. I am Tempus," he intoned. "Master of Time!" He favored Voloidion with a dramatic, flourishing bow.
To be continued...
***
Previously in "Tears of the Gods"
Three hideous, segmented purple creatures appeared in the Arechive then, rippling into existence from thin air. They looked like the gargantuan larvae of some crystalline insect, with serrated crushing mandibles. The fabric of space seemed to ripple around them.
If all else fails, Onslaught! Tempus stretched forth his hand toward the apex of the dome. Reality blurred and time slowed for an instant, then the energy bolt, resembling a fast-moving heat-shimmer, streaked upward toward the enormous face.
As Tempus looked over the first living creatures he had seen in quite a while, he sensed the effects of time on them acutely. The bark on the golthiar sloughing off like dead skin, wrinkles developing on the faces and skin of the humans, cells dying and falling off all of them. This chronal vision was acquired when he'd entered the portal in the Compart, and ever after he'd been unable to ignore the effects of time on his fellow living beings.
"Indeed, introductions are overdue, now that we have a second to spare. I am Tempus," intoned Tempus with his powerful baritone voice. "Master of time!" He favored Kiraz with a gallant flourish and bow.
Lameth drew his dagger and led the way. Far above, a great geyser of steam shot from one of the Fallside factory's chimneys.
Syrus looked back. Where Fallside's factory had once stood, all that could be seen were streaks of dark gunk leaking down the cliff.
An automaton that appeared to be made of countless tiny brass gears caught her eye as she passed. The automaton was conversing with Lady Isla. Isla was being her usual vacuous self, asking if she could touch the automaton. Kiraz rolled her eyes.
Ixobis-Lar extended a purple effector field, again engulfing Tempus. It then rotated on a quantum axis and disappeared from the vision-ribbon dimension, taking him with it.
***
Date: 34th Pritor in the 397th Year of the Founding
Tempus
Tempus had just enough time to catch a glimpse of a dense jungle of giant fern-like plants in the twilight (or perhaps early morning) before being pulled away again by the purple flash of light. As always, a sensation of twisting sideways. Tempus appeared on a savannah under an enormous red sun directly overhead; a herd of furry orange quadrupeds Tempus didn't recognize grazed on the brownish grass in the distance. Another bright purple flash. Tempus was ripped sideways again to appear under a cloudless blue sky on a hill covered in flowering yellow ulex. At least I recognize these, he thought of the thorny yellow weeds. Very earthlike, so much like home.
Tempus braced himself, but there were no more interdimensional jaunts.
Ixobis-Lar, the spherical interdimensional automaton, lay on the ground nearby; several of its panels were buckled and a faint burning smell came from it. Probably not a good sign, was his expert technical analysis.
Tempus turned around, taking in his new surroundings. Looking down from the hill, he saw a small circle of houses surrounding a large hexagonal tower of weathered grey stone. Could it be? The village was surrounded by circular fields of crops. Green oker, Tempus recognized, still early in the season. In the centre of each field stood a slender mechanical tower; from these extended long spray nozzles that slowly rotated, periodically spraying a fine mist of water and chemicals onto the oker plants. The farm fields in turn were surrounded by a ring of standing stones, each about shoulder-height, hexagonal in shape, miniature versions of the big central tower. They were spaced apart irregularly, as if several were missing. Beyond the village lay a dense forest.
He recognised the place immediately; how could he not? This was Amser, the village on the edge of the Westwood where he'd been born and grew up. He grinned. Is my journey over? But something wasn't right. Memories flooded in and his smile disappeared. When he'd left to explore the Compart, it was to find a way to repair the failed irrigation towers. He watched as one of the towers in question spurted water and nutrients over the crops. Right place, wrong time.
His eyes misted up. He would have to explore the village—how could he not? But there was something to be taken care of first. He bent down and poked gingerly around Ixobis-Lar's remains. Likely there was something that could be salvaged from the teleporting guide. He extracted an impossibly long band of microfine fibers made from a variety of unearthly metals, about half a handspan broad. Most likely this was Ixobis-Lar's teleportation control surface. With some tweaking, it could probably be used to teleport people, though interdimensional jaunts would be chancy at best. He stuffed the cypher into a pocket of his robe and turned to the village again. Ixobis-Lar won't be needing it now, he rationalized.
Tempus descended the hill, heart pounding.
The moment he crossed the invisible barrier formed by the ring of squat standing stones a young man materialized before him in a shimmer of temporal energy—a Far Step esotery, much like his own.
In fact... Tempus' mouth dropped open. The red-cloaked young man with the close-cropped beard standing before him was Tempus himself!
"Are you all right?" asked the younger Tempus. "Are you hurt? I will get our priestess Venerance Niima to examine you."
The dimensional jaunting must have taken a visible toll on my appearance, thought older Tempus. "I'm just tired," he answered weakly.
"What is your name, and why have you come here?"
"I... seem to have forgotten my name." Tempus, an ancient word for "time", had not always been Tempus' name. It was but one of several he'd adopted over the years; even so, telling it to his younger self seemed an unnecessary risk. He frowned. Although he remembered patrolling the village perimeter in his younger days, he was certain he did not remember this meeting with an older version of himself at all. It was surely the sort of thing one would remember. "I have been transported here by numenera I was studying. I will go with you to see this Venerance Niima. Perhaps she can tell me more."
"You are a student of the numenera? My name is Omit; you must meet my family. We would love to compare notes. My wife and I both believe that the study of numenera is the key to the future."
Such a meeting would be most unwise, Tempus intuited. But to not be rude to his younger self, he said only, "I must speak with Venerance Niima as soon as possible."
Venerence Niima was his aunt, the older sister of his father Astath. Though she was an Aeon Priestess, she was wise also in the teachings of Kronos. She would know what to do.
Tempus let the younger man lead him towards Niima's even though he knew how to get there already. Along the way they passed a house of particular interest to him—the home Tempus had shared with his wife Ora and their two young children, so long ago. As if summoned by the thought, Ora—looking about thirty years old—hurried out the front door of their little house, carrying a baby. She was followed by three other children, a boy of perhaps nine or ten years, whom he recognized as his son Riss, and two younger girls—one perhaps six and the other perhaps two.
"Omit," she called as she trotted up to them. "What’s happening? Something has upset the girls and woken up Kala."
There was a blurring around Tempus, as if the whole area were surrounded by a dense heat haze. In his "chronal vision" he saw the nine-year-old boy, Riss, his son, now aged nineteen and trained as a glaive, preparing to set out south for Matheunis, a journey from which—Tempus somehow knew—he would never return.
Something very strange is going on. When he'd left to investigate the Compart, Riss was only three. Zura, his daughter, had just been born. Was Zura this six-year-old standing here before him, looking up at him with open curiosity?
The haze cleared for a moment and he saw Venerance Niima shuffling arthritically towards him; accompanied, as always, by her husband Gwin. She peered at Tempus warily for a moment, then gasped. "By Kronos, no..."
The haze returned.
It was definitely Niima. But... it could not be Niima. She died—had died? will die?—three years ago (by his subjective timeline), shortly before he, Ora, and the others would set out for the Compart.
"This is my wife, Ora", said Omit, indicating the younger woman. And indeed it was Ora, looking much as she had before she dies (did die? would die?) in the Compart, before young Omit would go through the Portal and become Tempus, self-declared Master of Time.
"Do not say your name!" Niima hissed to Tempus. "If you are who I think you are, you must leave here now, or you will bring a doom on us all."
The haze ebbed.
Tempus bowed to Niima and tried to keep his voice neutral. "Have we met before? Who do you think I am and what is the doom you speak of? I... I have been transported here by an unnatural force and may have lost some of my memories."
Venerence Niima looked at him, a long, intensely skeptical look, then glanced at Omit and Ora. She beckoned him to one side to confer privately a moment. He noticed that she seemed to be taking great care not to touch him.
"You are from an alternate future. You are my nephew, as is he," she said, jerking her chin at Tempus' younger self. "You cannot be here in the same time—have you forgotten your teachings here? You cannot be here in the same time! It will disrupt the Laws of Kronos and you have already weakened our defences by being inside the Ring. You must leave. Now!"
Gwin shouted a warning as the rippling haze surged again, much stronger now. The air warped and twisted and three hideous segmented creatures shimmered into existence around the older Tempus. Chronal feeders, Tempus knew. They had the appearance of purple, incompletely-formed crystalline insects, with serrated crushing mandibles.
Tempus grimaced. Am I fated never to find what I have lost?
Two of feeders moved to attack him; the third turned toward his younger self.
Niima screamed at him. "You've brought this doom upon us all! The feeders will not stop until their timeline is restored. We cannot help you—to do so would disrupt the timeline even more!"
Tempus Far-Stepped himself away from the feeders, back toward the village perimeter. Perhaps if I leave, the chronal disturbance in the village will abate and the feeders will leave too, he thought.
Tempus' Far Step deposited him out in the oker fields, near an irrigation tower. Looking back, he saw the two feeders coming after him ripple out of existence.
They rippled back into existence barely an arm's length away from him. Tempus knew it was very difficult to escape an enemy capable of teleportation, but he had to draw them off from the village somehow. He prepared to Far Step again.
Before he could complete the esotery, one of the feeders opened its jaws wide and engulfed him.
He passed into a glittering labyrinth of conflicting temporal shards—twisting and spiralling into a corridor of warped time and memories. For a moment, he was Omit the Champion of Light, lying mortally wounded on the ground outside a Tower of Memory somewhere in the north, having given his all saving the world. A young Aeon Priest named Aliser tended his wounds.
"I will never forget you," Aliser whispered as the shadows closed in.
Now he wandered the cold wastes of Matheunis, searching after his missing son Riss. Now he was back in Amser, playing peekaboo with his great-grandchildren.
The labyrinth accelerated forward in a whirling blur until he found himself standing on a grey and featureless plain. There was nothing around him; the ground was unnaturally smooth and flat, the sky equally featureless and grey. In fact, it was impossible to discern where the sky met the ground.
Then, looking around, he saw something. In the distance, about where the horizon should be, was a jagged, frozen lightning bolt.
I have been here before, thought Tempus.
He strode across the featureless grey plain toward the frozen lightning.
The grey around him rippled and shook, throwing him to the "ground". The "sky" cleared; he saw a distorted view of a hideously ugly grey human face, covered in large boil-like growths, repeated four times around the dome of the sky. Gormin. How long has it been since I've seen the Broken Cage Company? he wondered.
In the sky, Gormin's four mouths split into hideous grins as they lunged toward Tempus. The ground bucked and shuddered; a rent opened in front of him. Gouts of vile-smelling grey-green pus erupted from the rent, spattering him and burning his skin on contact.
Tempus Far-Stepped away from the rent.
Gormin's gigantic faces pulled back a moment, then suddenly rushed toward him again. Tempus noticed that the "lightning bolt" had dimmed somewhat.
When all else fails, Onslaught! He sent an Onslaught into the centre of the largest of the four faces.
Time rippled again and he was with the others in the Arechive, speaking with Frater Bellias.
Another ripple as time slid sideways and he was walking through Fallside, not long before the confrontation with Toorkmeyn's band of outlaws. Another ripple and he was in the Coral Palace for the first time, having lunch with Lady Isla.
Time slid sideways in a ripple again. It was Ator, in the 409th Year of the Founding, and his daughter Zura was marrying a merchant from Ishlav. Two years since Riss went south to Matheunis—still no word from him.
Reality dissolved into a whirling blur of possible futures. He'd become unstuck in time. He knew he would need to stabilize himself in his own timeline quickly lest even worse things happen. Time slid sideways. Tempus found himself in the Arechive, examining Toorkmeyn's weapon. He determined what it could do, and that folded it up into a compact shape that he slipped into his pocket instead of returning it to Lameth.
Time slid sideways again. It was now Primon, in the 391st Year of the Founding. He, Ora, and Ora's brothers Mre and Shalha stood outside the entrance to the Compart, lighting glowglobes and preparing to enter it for the first time.
Again. Tempus was recovering from the sting of the tentacle-fish with the help of a poultice. Getting closer. Again. He was back at the Burning Moon party in the Coral Palace. Now. He poured all his esoteric abilities into anchoring himself here. Time seemed to stabilize.
It was as if no time at all had passed. Ixobis-Lar was nowhere to be seen.
No one seemed to note his arrival. A commotion was going on across the room; the Palace guards were escorting a tattooed man in yellow finery, a brass clockwork automaton, a man dressed in monk robes, Syrus Barister the tongue-tied glaive, and Yimoul-Za the golthiar nano out of the Palace.
Tempus watched them leave. He wondered if Gormin and Kiraz had had any luck freeing Frater Bellias' daughter. What was her name again? Oh, yes. Lissia.
Subjectively, it felt as if it had been literal ages since he'd left. His friends, of course, probably suspected nothing of what had happened to Tempus. He pondered his next course of action.
Chaos erupted. Shouts of revelry turned to screams of terror. It didn't take long for the source of the disturbance to become apparent. Pale-green, amphibious-looking bipedal creatures poured into the ballroom from the direction of the tank room, stabbing party-goers with poisoned bone-tipped spears.
About a dozen guards moved in to the defence but were hopelessly outnumbered. The creatures continued poring into the room. They began dragging prisoners, dead or alive, back toward the room with Lissia's column of water.
Probably came up through that column of water, Tempus speculated. He noted that the Weeping Coral, the Palace's much-ballyhooed defense system, was not reacting to the attack. Inside job?
Movement caught his eye. Gormin, naked except for a pair of boots, had emerged behind the creatures. He fell on them with a savage berserker fury, wielding only a knife.
The briny stench that accompanied the attacking creatures changed suddenly; the creatures immediately began to withdraw. Are the creatures controlled with pheromone-laden scents? he wondered. Did Gormin's surprise flank attack turn the tide of battle? The remaining guards and Gormin drove the invaders out of the ballroom.
Gormin stopped to catch his breath. He was covered in minor cuts and spatters of the aquatic creatures' gore. He took notice of Tempus then. "Tempus! Where are the others?"
"The guards threw some of them out of the Palace. Syrus and Yimoul-Za, at least." Tempus shrugged helplessly.
Gormin scoffed and turned toward the tank room. He gestured for Tempus to follow. "This death and mayhem is good cover for us to recover Lissia. And with any luck, those tentacle-fish are already attacking the invaders."
The corridors connecting the ballroom and the tank room were slick with human blood, invader ichor, and a foul-smelling mucus-like substance that the creatures' spear-tips had been coated in. The bodies of the wounded and dead were everywhere. Gormin hurried forward, paying them no heed as he stepped over them.
They reached the tank room. The creatures were all gone, presumably all withdrawn from the Palace. The column of water had gone as well; smeared streaks of mucus and red blood on the floor leading to the open grate were Lissia had once stood in the water seemed to confirm that this was how the creatures got in and out.
The statue/body of Lissia lay to one side.
Kiraz was here as well, standing protectively over Lissia, verred in hand, breathing heavy. She appeared to be the only surviving party-goer in this room.
Tempus hurried over to Lissia. "Is she still alive?"
Kiraz nodded once, keeping a wary eye on the creatures' escape hole.
Gormin snorted. "Nice of those creatures to leave her behind. This mission may yet be a success, assuming the Arechive still stands. We'll want to disguise her in case we meet Isla or Jamira on the way out though."
Gormin set about unceremoniously scavenging clothes and armor from the dead to make impromptu disguises.
Tempus patted his pockets, seeking his small healing kit. He felt something heavy and unfamiliar. He touched the object: Toorkmeyn's weapon. He was certain he hadn't brought it to the Palace in his original timeline. Oh well, close enough... Hopefully.
He put that out of his mind as he found the healing kit and sought to revive Lissia.
She shuddered. Her eyes flew open and she vomited a quantity of clear fluid. Kiraz knelt beside her and put a hand on her shoulder.
Lissia's eyes darted around the room in panic; she struggled weakly to stand, but had to lean on Kiraz for support.
"The kateraptis," she whispered. "Not again. In the Truth, don't make me suffer that again."
Gormin returned with a torn ballgown, originally teal but now heavily blood-stained. "Put this on," he ordered.
Lissia was too weak to resist him stuffing the gown onto her and tying the severed shoulder straps into a knot to keep it in place. "Wait. Where are we and what has happened? Who are you?"
Gormin lowered a stolen guard helmet over his head, then raised the helmet's hinged visor. "We were sent by your father to rescue you. You're in the Coral Palace—what's left of it, anyway. We're going to bring you back to the Arechive. Or what's left of it. As to what's happened, your guess is as good as mine. Some kind of attack."
Lissia's face brightened. "My father! Has he returned then? Is he well? I must see him."
Gormin and Tempus exchanged surprised glances. Returned? wondered Tempus.
Kiraz spoke up. "Can you walk, Lissia? I can support you if you need help."
"I can walk. Where is my father? Not in the Arechive, surely? Or wait, did he succeed in his quest? By the Truth, take me to him."
Gormin ignored her and turned to Tempus. "Might I borrow that healing kit? I... left behind an injured person who needs patching up. Get Lissia moving if she is able. I will catch up."
"I'll go with you," said Tempus. "If someone needs medical attention, four hands are better than two, no?"
Just then, Syrus, Yimoul-Za, and the brass automaton entered the tank room. They looked like they'd been in combat too.
"Well, look at this," said Gormin. "The gang's all here."
The automaton spoke. "I do not believe I have met everyone. My name is Voloidion. I am a nano."
"Yes," agreed Tempus. "Introductions are once more in order, now that we have time to spare. I am Tempus," he intoned. "Master of Time!" He favored Voloidion with a dramatic, flourishing bow.
To be continued...
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