Storm at the Edge of Time (18 page)

“Oh certainly, both on board the big ship and back at the spaceport. But I doubt it was the right number.”

“Why?”

Tyaak smiled. “Making people see numbers that are not there is rather like making people not see things that are”

Jamie laughed. “See! Magic does have its uses.”

He shrugged and turned away. “Not ‘magic' Just some science I do not quite understand yet. But until I do, there is no harm in making use of it.”

Earth was again a large parti-colored ball on the view screens when they received their first security hail. Meekly Tyaak acknowledged and agreed to proceed to the London spaceport and give himself up.

“What,” Arni protested, “give up without a fight?”

Tyaak grunted, adjusting some controls. “From here to London will take us along a northern trajectory. As we pass over the Orkneys, perhaps we can drop down before the security escort can stop us.” He glanced at a screen to see a large well-armed security ship homing in on them. “And perhaps not.”

The ship took up a position behind and above them, keeping at a steady, threatening distance. After a time Jamie ignored it and switched her screen elsewhere. They crossed from night to day and seemed to be coming in over the top of the globe. Great stretches of white showed below. “The North Pole!” She giggled. “Watch out for high-flying reindeer.”

Both boys gave her completely blank stares. She shook her head. “Never mind. Just a dated folk belief.”

Tyaak shrugged and turned back to his instruments. “Coming up on Orkney. I will take us in low. Suddenly dropping like a stone might give us a few seconds' advantage.”

He stared at the view screen. “The clouds keep us from seeing the island, but I can feel it.” On the screen, a swirling mass of cloud blanketed a portion of dark blue ocean. “Coming up, coming up. Now!”

Jamie, expecting the falling-elevator effect, felt nothing but a light dizziness. The main change came on the view screen. Clouds were coming up fast, a great roiling wall of clouds.

Tyaak ignored a beeping hail from the security ship and plunged on. Jamie swiveled her screen and saw the other ship streaking after them like a comet. Another ignored hail. Light shot from the pursuing ship and in moments exploded beside Tyaak's vessel, setting it rocking like a toy boat.

“A warning shot,” Tyaak said.

“Here come the clouds!” Arni cried. “We can hide in them.”

Tyaak shook his head. “They can track us by instruments.”

“Ah,” Arni said. “More magic.”

“Sort of,” Tyaak grunted.

The view screen showed billowing clouds, then went white as they plunged in. Worms of lightning seemed to burrow through the boiling mass. Abruptly the clouds parted, and black, storm-churned sea stretched beneath them. Tyaak jabbed a control, and the ship pulled up, skidding over the water just above the white caps.

“You needed to cut it quite that close?” Jamie squeaked.

“Almost. I was hoping they would either turn too late or lose confidence in flying by instruments and slow a little.”

“Oh, and you wouldn't, I suppose?”

He looked at her sternly. “I can feel where I'm going, even if I can't see it.”

She was about to jab back when light exploded jarringly beside them. Not lightning.

“Another warning shot,” Tyaak said grimly. “Two is usually all the warning they give.”

Above and behind them, the patrol ship shot out of the clouds, pulling up in time. It was closer than before and gaining. Ahead, a gray splotch spread over the dark sweep of ocean.

“They won't blow us up, will they?” Jamie asked. “Surely stealing an old stick isn't a capital offense.”

“Perhaps not. But resisting arrest makes police types awfully mad.”

Suddenly their little ship bucked and lurched. The view seemed washed with yellow.

“No!” Tyaak yelled in frustration. “A capture beam. We must be just within range.” He pointed angrily at the view screen. “And look, we are so close! We are almost home!”

They slowed. The wave-battered coastline inched closer and passed beneath them. Below spread grassy moors splotched with heather. Hills and lochs marked the distance but drew no nearer. They were stopped dead, a few miles from their goal.

Tyaak's dark face took on a look of stubborn fury. “We cannot let them stop us now!” He jumped up and grabbed the wooden staff. “Our engines need more power, and even if the strain tears this ship apart, they will have it!”

He splayed one hand over the engine controls and with the other clutched the staff. Beside him, Arni and Jamie exchanged the same look of stubborn conviction. Each wrapped a hand around the staff and placed another hand on Tyaak's.

Jamie felt like a tiny electrical component connecting two massive forces. Part of her stretched out, vibrating in tune with the engine's straining, rumbling strength. The other part reached into a deep vent of tingling power that welled up and burst through her.

The ship jerked forward, metal screaming, engine whining. Slowly the landscape began moving again.
Jamie's every fiber felt stretched and frayed like a rope in tug-of-war. Ahead, two lochs glinted silver under the stormy sky. They dragged farther and farther forward. So very slow, Jamie thought. Could they possibly make it before the ship blew apart? She strained her eyes and thought she could make out a faint circular mark beyond where the two lochs met, a tiny scattering of gray stones.

One loch passed beneath them, its slate surface churned by the wind. Ahead of them lay the circle; but around them, the ship howled like a dying wolf. Closer, slowly closer. Almost beneath them. They were directly overhead.

The change was so sudden, they all staggered and nearly lost their footing. Below, the circle was perfect again, every stone whole and upright. Jamie scanned with her view screen, but the other ship was gone—or rather, she guessed,
they
had gone, leaving a perplexed police crew alone over a nearly deserted island.

But here no longer seemed an island of eternal stars and stillness. Their ship rocked and plunged as if heaved about by a storm. Above, the stars were blotted out by roiling black clouds fringed with lightning.

Fighting the controls, Tyaak brought the ship spiraling down to a rough landing within the circle. It was difficult even opening the door against the wind, but finally they forced it back, letting in a blast of cold and wet. Struggling for every step, they crawled out, Tyaak clutching the staff. The wind howled like a vengeful beast.

As if with a swipe of its paw, it knocked Jamie from her feet. It tumbled and tossed her like a leaf across the
heather, until she smacked up against a standing stone. Even the stone seemed to tremble from the wind and the constant bombardment of thunder.

Lightning lit the rain-lashed circle in irregular flashes. Jamie strained to see the center. A lone man stood there, clinging to a pillar, a pillar made of two entwining staffs. The boys were slowly fighting their way to him.

Jamie shoved off from the stone and, digging her fingers into the heather, she slowly pulled herself forward. Over the thunder, wind, and pummeling rain, she heard words, snatches of song. The lone figure in the center was hoarsely chanting into the sky; the twined pole he clung to glowed faintly.

She was closer now, and so were the others. Pulling himself with one hand, Tyaak stretched the staff forward. Urkar stretched his free hand toward it. With a final strain, he grasped the staff and pulled it in.

Staggering, the man raised his voice above the storm and jabbed the point of the staff into the earth beside the other two. From where they touched, a glow spread upward and the staffs twisted and coiled together, growing like living things. The carved beasts pranced and flew and dove around one another until they became one creature with wings and fins and flashing hooves. Its ciy split the air.

The three children reached the pillar's base and pulled themselves upright. Under their hands, they felt the wood's vibrant warmth as energy passed from them and to them. The glow stretched across the ground in spokes of light reaching toward the stones. With the touch of that light, each trembling stone steadied and
itself began to glow. The glow strengthened to a white glare, becoming stronger and stronger until the stones could no longer contain it. Light shot from the top of each, powerful white beams piercing the storm-blackened universe.

The circle of light beamed upward, blending into a single shining column, its core glowing and pulsing with life. Urkar and his descendants clutched the core and each other, feeling life run through them to the sky, an unending single force.

It all may have lasted forever or only for seconds; when Jamie was next aware of time, the great pillar she had seen around her was etched in only the faintest trace of light. The sky above was black and infinite, set with crystal stars. The sound of the storm was distant, fading into utter quiet.

“Well,” Urkar said into the trembling silence, “I suppose that waiting for a brood of stubborn, goal-oriented relatives was worth it after all.”

They didn't need a campfire now. As they sat around it in the heather, light and healing warmth came from the entwined wooden core. “I've got to admit,” Urkar said, running a hand through his mop of forever graying hair, “you three had much more power than I ever guessed.”

“Or than I guessed,” Arni said, unconsciously copying the gesture with his own red hair. “It's so different from being good with the sword. I suppose I'll have to be a little careful how I show power or use it.”

“And so will you all,” Urkar cautioned. “Each one
of you comes from a time when this power is neither understood nor trusted—except, of course, by those who share it on one side or the other. You'll have to teach yourselves and take care how you practice. There's a great deal more to it than you've yet guessed. Magic is a difficult heritage.”

Tyaak shook his mane of flowing hair. “There is certainly more to my heritage than I ever expected.” He laughed. “Perhaps I will continue wearing my hair like this.”

Jamie grinned at him. “An outstanding idea.”

Arni looked at Urkar. “But if there's so much we have to learn, why can't we stay here a while and have you teach us?”

“Me? A teacher? Preposterous! I haven't the patience.”

Jamie gave an indignant snort. “Urkar, that's just a line, and you know it. You waited around here for centuries and centuries.”

“Yes, but not patiently.”

Tyaak laughed. “Stubborn, isn't he? But what are you going to do now that the waiting is over?”

“Oh, but it isn't. That's the rub. Eternity is a long time, and that storm will always be out there ready to break.” He looked around at the three young faces. “It's the same in any individual life, the constant struggle between creation and destruction. But you, at least, will be aware of it, and you will not be alone. There will be others who are with you, whether they know it or not.” The man smiled wryly. “And I guess I won't be quite as alone either. If I need help again, I'll know where to find it.”

“We'll be ready!” Arni said, jumping up and waving his sword arm in the air.

Urkar chuckled. “Well, you're not ready to go home like this—soaked, cold, exhausted. Come, one last time, sleep within the circle.”

The wind was sharp and tinged with rain, but it didn't chill her as much as did the feeling of loss. Jamie sat up and looked around. The stones were tilted and only half were standing. Beyond them the moors were marked by fields, roads, and the occasional house. The wind froze the tears on her cheeks. She was home, and she had never felt so alone.

Arni and Tyaak had been like brothers, bothersome and precious at the same time. And now she'd never know the rest of their stories. One had already been told and forgotten, and the other had not yet been written. How had it been for Arni when he returned? Did he become what he wanted to be? And Tyaak, would he find a place for himself in that strange universe of his?

She'd never know; yet, oddly, she was sure that things were or would be right with both of them. Somehow, she still felt a part of each, as they would always be a part of her.

Jamie looked about the bleak landscape. No, not so bleak. It had its beauties. And it was part of her too.

The rain had stopped. It took a moment to recall where she had last left this time. Yes, the people from the cathedral. Some present-world time seemed to have
passed, in which they'd given up and gone back. She'd have to hurry to get to the house before her parents.

Maybe she'd even suggest going bird-watching with them tomorrow. She'd kind of like to see more of the island, Jamie thought, admitting with a smile that it did get into a person's blood after a while. But wait, she remembered queasily, weren't they planning on taking a boat to one of those other islands? Another stomach-turning boat trip.

Running her hand through her hair, Jamie laughed. Then, stretching out her arms, she spun around happily in the heather.

Yes, she would have to be patient with this magic thing. She'd have to teach herself carefully how to use it and always be on the lookout for threats from the other side. And, too, she'd have to not let herself get too splashy trying to show that Jamie Halcro could be better at something than her brother. But still, she ought to at least be able to use magic to keep her from getting seasick!

With a jaunty wave at a passing blue-eyed seagull, Jamie marched out of the circle, boldly ignoring the signs about keeping to the path.