The Dreamwalker's Path

6/ The Archives, Sanctuary

“Won’t your Hours be jealous to know that you’re here with me, oh gracious Time?” The angel, settled between the high arms of a dark, leather chair, wore an expression of amusement on his gaunt face. “They are highly possessive of you, are they not?”

Time, seated on the couch which matched the angel’s armchair, dismissed the notion with a wave of her hand. Her maiden face began to droop with age as she said, “They can never know that I’m here. Nor can they know why.”

“Oh? This is a secret meeting, is it? Alone, in the dead of night...they really will be jealous, All Knowing One.”

Time scrutinized the angel. She never denied or hid the fact that she was not fond of Lyriel’s presence in her city, nor that her tolerance for his theatrics was severely limited.

“I did not come here to be mocked, angel, and if you wish to remain in Sanctuary, you will do well to keep your trenchant remarks to yourself.”

The angel settled a little deeper into his chair. “I do apologize, I assumed you would appreciate caustic reverence more than open contempt.”

Time’s face was old now, old enough to be mistaken for the bare bones of the earth itself if you didn’t know what you were looking at. The sand that her form was composed from faltered mid-undulation, and the being that was Time looked ragged and tired. “I came to you as a friend.”

This surprised the angel. “Are we friends?”

The sand shivered and fell into the form of a child, a little girl with golden locks and large brown eyes that held in them hope the likes of which only a little girl could possess. “I need help.”

No, he didn’t think he’d have gotten an answer. Not a straight answer, anyway. “What can the likes of me do to help the likes of you, Time? What powers do I have that could put your ever-changing heart at ease?”

In truth, he didn’t want an answer. They were not friends. In fact, he disliked Time about as much as she disliked him. They both knew it; they both knew that Lyriel had about as much business being in Sanctuary as a goldfish had swimming in the sea, that Time looked on him like the foster child that she had taken in and not quite figured out how to get rid of again. They had come to terms with their dislike for one another long ago, and subsequently avoided each other as much as possible. The last thing that Lyriel wanted to know now was what Time thought he could do to help her fix whatever problem Time had created for itself.

“Sanctuary is falling apart.”

At first, Lyriel didn’t understand what Time had said; then, as realization struck him, the angel felt his insides trickle into a cold puddle in his gut. It took everything that he possessed not to let his shock overrun his features, but even as he took a breath to steady himself, he knew that Time saw how the words affected him.

“I should put on some tea.”

“I don’t dri—”

“You don’t, but I do,” the angel snapped. He drew in a sharp breath and bit his tongue as he stood and made his way to the small tiled area that served as his kitchen.

With his back to Time, it was easier to take in the full weight of what her words had meant.

The city was falling apart. The city that housed centuries of criminals from all across Time’s awareness was now, to borrow an expression, on the brink of giving up her dead.

The sound of the water rolling to a full boil in the electric

kettle kept him from reflecting too long on the matter.

Feeling anxious and a little ill, Lyriel made a show of carefully arranging the tea cup just so on the counter before pulling a small pouch of tea out of a brightly colored canister and placing it in the cup. With shaking hands, he picked the kettle up off of its small, plastic stand and poured water over the bag. Then, carefully, and feeling old as he actually was, Lyriel returned to his chair, gripping his mug tightly in between his bony hands.

“At...the risk of sounding...Obvious,” Lyriel tried to take a sip of tea, but it was too hot, “One might suggest that you fix it.”

Time inhaled deeply—not in annoyance, Lyriel noticed, that awful feeling clawing at his stomach again, but in dread.

“I don’t think I can,” she admitted. “Or, well, I don’t know how. I’m only half certain of the why. That’s why I’ve come to you. I had hoped...” she jerked a hand in a slightly spasmodic gesture to incorporate the book filled shelves that surrounded them.

“You’d hoped the Archives would have something in them.”

Time nodded. She’d never seemed so afraid before. This was not the arrogant being who had put on airs as she granted him the run-down temple on the outskirts of her creation. It was not the spitting, swearing manifestation who had confronted him after the death of her Hour and the Alchemist. This was the little girl in the red riding cloak, wandering through the dark of the woods and looking for a friendly face.

“Duct tape does wonders for hodge-podge repairs,” Lyriel said callously, unwilling to let years of seething discontent and loathing yeild to the fake face of the adolescent in the chair across from him.

Time slammed her hand on the arm of the couch. “Damn it, Lyriel!” the young woman’s jaw worked. “Do you know what could happen if Sanctuary drops back into the rest of reality?”

“I could guess.”

“Any reality that acknowledges me would be in danger of falling apart.” Clearly, she was not going to chance him guessing incorrectly. “Do you understand that? Not just your stupid God’s reality. All of them. If there is a clock referred to at any point anywhere in the culture of the infinite number of worlds that exist, that world will crumble.”

The full weight settled. “You aren’t good at contingency plans, are you, Time?” Time did not answer. The angel sipped his tea.

“It could take weeks to find what you’re looking for,” the Historian murmured behind his tea cup. “How...” he trailed away before he could finish, not sure he wanted to know the answer.

“I don’t know. Could be linear days. Could be years. It could happen in minutes.”

No, he hadn’t wanted the answer after all.

Breathing deeply to steady himself, the Historian said, “It might help if you had any ideas of where to begin.”

Time dragged her hands through her hair. She was a grown woman, now, medieval-pale. She pulled out the lavender sprigs that decorated the butterscotch blond locks as her hands found them. “I don’t know!”

Her voice was filled with such conviction that it gave Lyriel pause. After a long moment, he pressed again, “Time, anything is better than nothing.”

Throwing down the flowers that she had pulled from her hair, Time said, “It’s been building for so long. I didn’t realize what it was until I noticed that it was raining in one of the Eastern court yards—the same rain that was falling in Rome. I thought that...well I thought it was just a little misstep, that one of the Hours had brought the rain with when they Stepped out of time, but the Hour in that area had been in Sanctuary for a circuit or more.”

“You’re sure that there wasn’t another?” Lyriel couldn’t help but sound hopeful. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding. Maybe the Hour had slipped passed Time without her noticing.

“Of course I am. It’s one of Twelve’s areas, and there is no Twelve, so no one should be Stepping from linear time into Sanctuary from that point.”

And then her face lit up in revelation and horror. “Oh.” Lyriel waited for more. When it was clear that Time had begun to disappear into her own realization, he prompted, “‘Oh’? What does that mean, ‘Oh’?”

Now the reluctance was back in her eyes. “I don’t want to say.”

Lyriel scowled. “Fine, then let’s forget all about it. We’ll let the assortment of criminals that you’ve collected over the years loose on the world--or worlds, as you have graciously clarified. We’re just hope that they all end up back in their own times and not dumped in one specific location, shall we? And I do hope that the gods that have found their way into the Temple are content to mill about in oblivion while the rest of the occupants run wild. Let’s not forget the demons that live here was well. Shall we sit back and wait for them to start rattling the cage? Or shall we hope for the quick unravelling of untold numbers of realities, because you were stupid enough t—”

“You’ve made your point, Historian.”

“Thank the Heavens for that.” He took a long sip of his tea, keeping his gaze locked on Time, lest she attempt to change the subject.

Time took a deep breath. “I was young when I made Sanctuary, and I did it with magic that I...borrowed from other beings, beings that had the ability to travel through realities and across the progression of the worlds. It was a quirk, an anomaly, and it was very powerful. I convinced those beings to help me pull bits of the world out of time to make the city.”

“Your first Hours?” Lyriel raised an eyebrow and set his tea cup down.

Time looked reluctant, like she was going to argue or clarify, and then she nodded. “Just so. As each of them passed on, I tracked down another who had the same ability and made him or her the pillar of the passed Hour’s portion of Sanctuary.”

Lyriel looked relieved. “Then you only have to replace Twelve.”

Time licked her aged lips. She looked up at the ceiling and looked for all the world as though she hoped that there were cue cards hidden above the rafters.

“I can’t. I thought one day that I would have the ability to give the power to someone on a whim, but I never needed to. There’s always been another being with some ability that could take the place of the Hour that died. Almost like a natural progression. Technically I can give the gift to someone else, but unless it…fits with that portion of Sanctuary, I can’t bind that being to the city. Not to mention—” she stopped abruptly, pursing her lips. Time looked increasingly guilty with every word she had spoken.

“Not to mention?” Lyriel didn’t want to know, but he felt the dreadful suspicion that not knowing would be worse. He waited for Time to continue, each passing second making him feel a little more nauseated.

“I tied part of Sanctuary to the Alchemist.”

All of the tension, all of the panic that Lyriel felt suddenly exploded. “You what?!”

3Now when Time spoke, her words were a flowing rush: “The Alchemist was the strongest being that Sanctuary contained! I didn’t think he’d ever get out of the clock tower, so when I imprisoned him, I used him as an anchor for the city; it was supposed to be a failsafe in case something happened and I couldn’t replace an Hour right away—”

“Oh, you mean like now?”

“It never occurred to me that—”

“OBVIOUSLY NOT!”

“Stop SHOUTING AT ME!”

Lyriel did not stop shouting, and neither did Time. They fought, raising their voices at each other, struggling to be heard until they were both raw and breathless. Then they glared, red faced, at each other for a long, long time.

“So,” Lyriel’s voice cracked, “you’re down an Hour and an anchor. The entire city is now unstable—falling apart as we speak, even, and there’s no one to replace the Hour that you lost, which might keep the city from falling apart if the person’s ability is strong enough to hold what the Alchemist and Twelve held.”

Time nodded slowly. “More or less.”

“And you’re certain that there’s no one at all who can even remotely take the place of either the Alchemist or Twelve.”

“I have seen the vampire in linear time, but the…

compatibility isn’t genetic and he no longer has it.”

“And there’s no one else?”

“As I keep saying.”

Lyriel swallowed hard and rubbed his hand over the brand that marred his neck. “What about the Dreamwalker?”

Time looked up at the angel. “The witch?”

“Yes. She can come and go as she pleases, can’t she? And she’s strong. You can’t deny that the girl isn’t strong.”

“I thought about it,” Time replied, and the young woman laughed at herself in a disgusted fashion. “I even told Eight that I was considering her.”

Lyriel felt relief flood his heart. “Have you asked her yet?”

Time shook her head. “There are so many variables.”

“With respect, it isn’t as though you have much of a choice.”

But Time persisted, her brows drawn together anxiously.

“She’s raw, Lyriel. Untrained-”

“She can be trained.”

“—and she hates me—”

“You’re Time itself, you can endure that.” “She’ll never agree!”

“You have to ask!” He slammed his hand on the table. “Time, you have to ask. You’ve just got to. Whatever prejudices you have against the girl, whatever she has against you, you have to come off whatever pedestal you’ve placed yourself on, and you have to ask her. Otherwise the flood gates are going to open up and unleash angry demons, restless gods, and an assortment of criminals that you felt fit to remove from time because their crimes were so terrible, onto the worlds at large, and there’s no telling what sort of affect that might have.”

The maiden form of Time looked frail, the sands that made her skin were translucent and thin as rice paper. “What am I going to do in the meanwhile?”

Lyriel swallowed hard. “I can be your anchor. If you agree to ask the Dreamwalker to agree to be your Hour, I can be your anchor, and I’ll hold Sanctuary for as long as I can until you can get the girl to agree. But Time,” his years weighed down on him—not just his years, but the years that he’d spent away from his true home, his forsaken years, “my strength is very limited. The older I get, the weaker I become. I am not going to be able to hold Sanctuary for very long, so if I do this, it’s not a way out for you. You must ask Ophelia and you must get her to agree.”

Time licked her lips delicately and brushed her tattered hair from her face. “What do I do if she never does?”

Lyriel ground the heel of his palm into his eye socket in the hopes that it would ease the pain that had begun to manifest behind his eyeball. “Let us pray it doesn’t come to that.”