"Time´s End (Chapter 02-new)" by Nicoline Badenhorst

Sighing, she turned towards the library. Actually, she should have turned up there for work about three hours ago.

“Hi there. I’d have expected you to take the week off, seeing that you’re having guests.” The librarian, a young lad with stars in his grey eyes, greeted her.

Lanouri smiled. “I wouldn’t want to take time off.” She headed off to her desk, when the librarian called after her: “Don’t forget that you’re to pitch up on the weapons court in the afternoon! And don’t forget that you’re supposed to eat something at noon. It’s called lunch.”

She turned back and smiled wryly. “I’ll try not to.” She sat down at her desk, but was unable to concentrate. Her dizziness and nausea increased so much that she resorted to watching the stars in front of her eyes instead of working.

Suddenly, she was back in the hall. It was a hot summer day, the air was humid; everything felt sticky with sweat. People milled about, adding to the discomfort she already felt. It was their turn. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Mae asked, trepidation clear in her voice. “Are you?” Lanouri replied. She took her friend’s hand and led her up the stairs of the platform, where they sat down in the prepared chairs. They knew what they were going into. They knew that, once they’d sat down on those chairs, they’d be held to the cruel, absolute rule that no one would be exempted from a contest of any kind due to mere weakness.

 The Marin were a savage people compared to the surface refinery of the confederate royalty. They were born and bred fighters that bore down on the weak as mercilessly as they protected their own against harm. Theirs was a cruel philosophy, drawing a fine line between those of their own deserving their protection and those who would be cast out in deference to the age-old law of dog eat dog. Losers were unwanted, be they as royal as they come. Anyone who shunned a task or rejected a challenge was weak, and not worthy of being one of the choice soldiers of fortune who called themselves Marin. To be Marin meant much more than to be born under the roof of one of the savage women. To be Marin meant to be proud, to never give up, to be wild, untamed and untameable. Lanouri’s heart beat both with and against this permeating vibe that so utterly defined for her who she was to be.

A priestess stepped up in front of them. “You realize that your undertaking is risky to your bodies and souls?” They only nodded. “You realize that you shall not be forced to continue if you wished to step down now, but, should you decide to enter, you shall have to persist to the end?” Again, only nods. Less sure, but nods nonetheless. “Then begin.” The priestess sat down and bound the lightest of contacts with them, only enough to monitor whether they were really binding contact, and that they weren’t pretending weakness to get out of the contest early.

With a last deep breath, Mae groped for Lanouri’s hand and bound contact. Only lightly for the beginning. They didn’t want to expend all their strength all too early. Lanouri could feel how her own vision stepped in for her blind friend’s and what it was like to be blind. Eternal darkness. An abyss into which it was only too easy to fall and never to find one’s way back. It wasn’t exactly disturbing –she had felt it too often for that- but it wasn’t great either. The first half hour passed by and Lanouri could feel herself sinking deeper into the contact, exploring more of her friend’s soul and be explored the same way. It would have cost more effort to keep the level of contact now than just to let it happen. Waves of heat and cold swept over their bound bodies as the outside world lost colour to their unseeing eyes. Minute by minute, breath by breath, the world became darker to them. Minute by minute, breath by breath, the world became colder to them. Minute by minute, breath by breath, the world became muted to them, until they were shut in completely in their silent, cold, dark little world. All that mattered was Mae. And all that mattered was Lanouri. It was like a dizzy dance in the dark, cold pools of insanity. Whatever the time, however long they had persisted; it didn’t matter, for they would not be able to turn back any longer. They were long past the time of sharing memories. They shared thoughts instead. A perfect symbiosis in the embrace of eternity, growing their mutual being. Still, they sank deeper, striving to be one instead of two. What use were two imperfect souls in two imperfect bodies anyhow? The almost-merged souls huddled closer. Closer still. A vague feeling of alarm passed through the part that had been Lanouri in another life, infected the other part, the one that would have called itself Mae. This wasn’t right, was it? The soul screamed, no, stay, complete me, but Lanouri now tore away in panic, feeling dimly in her panic how Mae did the same on her side.

Gasping, she emerged to the blinding light, the deafening noise, the hammering heat. One, two, three moments, she didn’t know who she was, where she was. She was aware of two times throbbing headaches, two times the feeling of having escaped death, two times cold, bloodless limbs that warmed with life again. She felt their hands that had clutched each other painfully hard unclasp stiffly, unwilling to let go entirely. Her need to let go, to become herself again grew stronger as her body reallocated the life-energies to herself again. She took a last, shuddering look at her friend. No, never would she want to come this close to anyone again. Never. She promised Mae and received the same promise back.

“How... long?” Lanouri gasped. The priestess’ quiet voice rang through their ears like thunder. “Four hours and thirty-three minutes.” Their contact was weak, easy to be severed, yet neither seemed able to take that much energy and sever the link. Finally, Lanouri lifted herself up and pried their hands apart. The effort was almost too much. She sank back into the chair, struggling against the oblivion of a swoon. Strange thoughts crossed her mind, thoughts that made her want to listen, be drawn deeper into the darkness.

Darkness! She shied back, started up. Lanouri repressed a shudder in spite of the waves of heat she felt coursing through her body. She got up rather unsteadily and made her way to her private quarters, taking a little-used passage for fear of being seen. It was almost cold here –she always left the curtains drawn back, she just couldn’t stand the feeling of being cooped up-, in one of the highest rooms of the castle. A kind servant had left hot water for tea- of course, they had all expected her to take a holiday, what with Robin being there- though of course he had political matters to discuss with Adalia and so wasn’t really available to her in any case. Anyhow, she was glad for the hot water- hands shaking with weakness, she made a strong tea against the headache and added a liberal amount of honey.

Collapsing on the cushions, she drained the cup and lay still for a few minutes, thinking angrily about her own weakness, her own stupidity. Foolish, foolish girl, she scolded herself. That the children of Marin were encouraged to try out their limits, even risking death, meant nothing. She should have known better then, before that treacherous experiment with Mae five years ago. And now she had almost done it again, with a complete stranger at that! She should have been more careful. Ever since their imbecile contest, neither Lanouri nor Mae had ever tried to bind contact like that again, not with each other and much less with others. Lanouri thought she had learnt her lesson, but obviously she hadn’t disciplined herself hard enough just yet. She was so furious with herself, for being stupid, for being negligent and worst of all, because she had failed. Because she continuously failed, no matter what she did, it never was, never could be, good enough.

The resentment that welled up in her like a wave of angry lava drove her up and back into the library, where she channelled it into useful work.

All too soon, the librarian tapped on her shoulder. “I’m afraid it’s time. A runner delivered the message that you’re to take your guests along. Adalia thinks they might be interested in learning more of our culture. I bet you haven’t eaten,” he reproached her.

“Sorry. Told you I’d try not to.” Lanouri frowned in disgust. “And what makes Adalia think that the weapons court is the best place to start?”

“Why not? They have to start somewhere. See you later. On second thought, better not, unless you are going to eat. I wouldn’t want to answer to the governess if her historian falls sick for lack of nourishment.”

* * *

Iand had set about checking the translator. It was still busily digesting the data it had collected during the all too brief tour. Iand wasn’t quite sure he knew how the thing worked, only that it had a voice recognition device that fed the data into a microprocessor which in turn, by the mysterious ways all computers went, processed the foreign garble into understandable language, with the added benefit of hypno-teaching when a language had been deciphered. At least it saved time, and it gave credit to the planners of this expedition that they had thought of the possibility of a language barrier and come up with a solution for it. He felt a little weary, so he went to take a nap. His sleep was rudely interrupted by the bell that announced visitors.

“I’m going to the weapons court for an instruction. Would you like to come along?” Lanouri offered, careful to keep the link as light as possible. She started away at the sound of the translator’s metallic voice that had at last managed to calculate the most probable sound-combination for any given meaning. Iand laughed with mirth at Lanouri’s distrustful gaze at the ugly black box. It was only a prototype. Should their mission be a success, the translators would probably get sold in all manners of toxic-looking colours, with he did not know how many useless buttons that did a lot of unnecessary things. For the moment, it was totally sufficient that there was a broadband microphone that could pick up nuances up to 50 microbel and filter the relevant sounds, a button for playback, one for active translation, and one for the hypno-teacher, plus a port for the earphones. What was inside? Who could say? All that Iand knew was what which button did, not how the helpful contraption worked.

“Don’t worry, this is the machine that translates your words into my language and vice versa,” he explained. The translator’s mechanic voice really was horrible.

Lanouri’s face brightened. “Ah, magic. Yes, that makes things easier. So will you come?”

“We would love to. And it’s not magic, its technology. Though I suppose that it might seem as such to you,” Iand corrected her.

Lanouri only shrugged when she heard this. “Who cares on what principle something works, as long as it works?”

On the way to the weapons court, Iand and Lanouri chatted light-heartedly, if not as smoothly as a normal conversation would have been. “So, what else can your magic –oh, sorry, technical contraption do?”

“Well, it can teach me you language. I find it a little cumbersome to wait for a translation every time, don’t you think?”

“Yes, indeed. But that will take some time, and for the moment, it does make conversation easy.” She had severed contact immediately upon grasping the facts of the translator and now took care not to brush him inadvertently in the narrower passages.

“...Though I must admit that your way of communication is exceptionally interesting. Can everyone in you land communicate via telepathy?”

Lanouri looked at him strangely. Finally, she just nodded. “Yes. We have to, for... people who do not have the possibility to speak as we do.”

The visitors sat down on a bench at the far side of the court- an enclosed space accessible only by one narrow entrance at one side. Iand craned his neck to see how far into the sky the castle walls reached, but was deceived by perspective. In any case, it was higher up than he cared to know. The court itself measured about fifteen yards across, being more or less round. At one end, twelve wooden swords, the same amount of staffs and an hourglass sat orderly on shelves. Iand itched to have a closer look at the hourglass, for he found it looked somehow strange.

In twos and threes, eleven other Marin, male and female arrived, while Lanouri busied herself with taking down the swords and laying them down in pairs in a semicircle. Judging by their demeanour and stature, the arrivals aged between twenty and fifty years, though he felt he could not be entirely sure- different lifestyles could make so much difference. Lanouri glanced at an elder woman, who nodded to proceed. The younger woman set up the hourglass on a little platform, letting a lever slide into place.

Taking up her own sword, she gave a little shout- the sign to begin. Trainees moved forward hesitantly. As their more seasoned opponents blocked their assaults, they became more enthusiastic, letting blow upon blow follow more quickly. Every one of the six trainers had a specific tactics and style and, as the less adept became more skilful in meeting out blows, the teachers would call out randomly to change partners. The result was that, when the hourglass contraption rung, the novices had become almost overpowering.

“Ten minutes break,” Lanouri called, glancing at a sundial. Inside, they had the more accurate candles to measure time with the added benefit of lighting up dark passages, but for any outside activity, who cared if more or less time passed?

During the swordfight, she had been on the receiving end of instructions, but when they continued the lessons with staffs as weapons, she moved to an instructor’s place, as did some of the other sword-novices, while the former instructors became novices of the staff. Using the same rotating technique, the warriors resumed their training. Lanouri’s skill was indeed out of the ordinary. More often than not, even nearing the end of the lessons, she managed to trip her opponent, disarm the novice with a twirl of wood and speed or surprise both spectators and apprentice by pitching up in a different position from where she had been seconds before.

To her current charge’s relief, the bell tolled.

“That’s it for today. I do hope you learnt something from me, as I did from you, judging by my bruises. Next time, we’ll try mixed weapons- that ought to be real fun.” She grinned.

The course laughed and dispersed, while Iand could no longer contain his curiosity about the ringing hourglass. Lanouri watched with a huge grin on her face as he examined the contraption. It was surprisingly simple, with a spring that measured the weight of the sand and a lever connected to a string, attached to which was the bell. Once all the sand had run through, the spring would snap loose the lever, the resulting movement set the bell a-ringing.

Lanouri laughed at his shocked face. “I guess that’s a little simpler than a talking machine, but at least it seems to have been an invention your people didn’t think of.” She called a runner by pulling a chain. “Please take our guests back to their quarters.”

She must have noticed the bored looks of the others, Iand thought. While he had been the only voluntary, they had gone on this mission for various other reasons spanning from career-wise decisions to pure coercion. He waited unconcernedly as they filed out through the entrance. Lanouri had gone to a tap next to the weapons shelf. Letting the water trickle down, she wet her hands, spraying her heated face a little. Not being used to the Marin ways of courting exposure to sun, he suddenly found the stout, tanned Lanouri highly attractive. Then he shook his head, clearing it of that random, stupid thought. There was nothing special about her- she was short, ugly, common and uneducated. He had to try hard enough to be fair and kind to her, so where did that nonsense come from?

“I’ll send a runner to fetch you for dinner,” she informed him, “and I’ll arrange a personal servant for you and your companions, so that you can explore the city on your own if you like.” Her voice was cool and professional, though she still was slightly out of breath.

“Thank you.” Iand nodded courtly, glad for the runner to arrive. There were so many questions he’d like to ask, but found himself unable to concentrate because of a strange dizziness that had set in.

* * *

Lanouri considered returning to the library to maybe catch up on the work-time she had lost, but on the way back, she decided to pay a visit to the council hall instead and find out what had been so important a mission that she’d had to escort Robin across the Banning at such a godless time. She knocked and entered.

“Ah, Lanouri, good that you come,” Adalia greeted her. “Please sit down, dear.” She patted a cushion next to her and waited until Lanouri was comfortable before she picked up the thread. “From your reports, Robin, it seems as though the daemons have been more active during the past weeks, though as yet only within the confines of their own territory. So, please, continue with your account.”

Robin’s forest green eyes glittered with his ingrained light heartedness, but Lanouri knew, this was only the surface of the faerie she loved, albeit only for the time being. There could be no future to their love; they had their duties that they could not abandon.

“I believe the root of the problem is, once again, Darak. His lust for power and revenge drives him against the faerie. We shall have to ask the Marin to fulfil their pledge to protect the faerie lands, should it come to the apparently inevitable attack. It would be presumptuous and premature to talk of war, but...”

The council nodded with understanding in their eyes. They’d gone through this same reasoning the moment the name Darak had fallen.

“So, the question is not so much of a pledge to be fulfilled, but rather of how to mitigate, possibly even prevent an aggression,” Adalia stated, “Any suggestions?”

“I should think that for the moment, mere watchfulness should suffice,” Lanouri proffered, “given Darak’s usual tactics, we’d be best served by doubling the watch and strengthening our reserves. We should prepare for defence, not attack.”

“What makes you think that you know Darak’s tactics?” Aureola inquired rather sharply.

“Mother, I was tutored by him. Don’t you think that I’d know how to get into his head?”

“Ladies, please, would you mind keeping this a rational discussion?” one of the councillors interjected, with a look of disgust on her face.

“The facts are these,” Lanouri continued, “we have time on our side, since the longer Darak waits, the more time we have to prepare. Ours is the land with the greater resources, and Darak will have to spread his –very limited- resources far too thinly should he try to conquer everything in one go. So what he’ll do is try to attack where we expect it the least- directly in the heart of our lands- at the Summer Retreat. His only other possibility is to eliminate the military threat- us here at Marin. But that he cannot do because of the Banning.”

“Which has been breached by your guests!” Aureola retorted.

Lanouri smiled grimly. “But Darak doesn’t know that, unless he’d arranged for it, which I highly doubt. His mage might be good, but even he can’t smuggle more than a few daemons through the Banning.”

“To wrap it up, Marin is reasonably safe, so all we need to do is protect the Summer Retreat,” Janne, the military overseer summed up, “which means I’d better get going. I’ll arrange for extra training sessions and Leavia, you should check on the stores- I’m sure you know what we’ll need in the case of a war.”

The council dispersed, and Robin and Lanouri excused themselves as well. On the way to Lanouri’s suite, Robin commented: “It’s always amazing to see how informal your system is. When I think of how everything needs to receive a blessing of Hunter, the Marin are just so much more dynamic...”

Lanouri laughed. “You know how dangerous it is to give humans too much power. How dangerous it is to give anyone too much power... I really like our system- minus its philosophy, it could be heaven.”

“And yet, the violence that has been trained into the Marin has always served them well.” Robin took her hand and cast a caressing look at it. It was full of minor scars and nicks. No, his love was anything but beautiful, but she was so full of the fire he craved for his cold heart, so full of the youthful energy he had cast off centuries ago. Probably love was too strong a word for what was between them. He needed her to remind him of life. Eternal life could do that- make people forget its worth. She needed him to be reminded that life wasn’t all fighting and pain and disappointment. No, they weren’t meant to be, they just were, trying not to suffocate in their own little worlds.

They had reached her quarters and Robin, pulling open the curtain that served as door, drew in his breath sharply. “It’s freezing in here! When will you learn to keep the curtains closed?” He strode over to the windows and made to close the heavy curtains.

“Please don’t. I like the light. And I know a better way to get warm.” She grinned at him mischievously.