Read Storm at the Edge of Time Online

Authors: Pamela F. Service

Storm at the Edge of Time (5 page)

BOOK: Storm at the Edge of Time
3.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Then, slowly, Jamie began walking around the circle, following the path of mown grass just inside the stones. The inner part of the circle was covered with low purplish heather. She wondered what the circle looked like from the center.

She veered from the path only to find a small insistent white sign at her feet—Keep to the Perimeter Path—fussily protecting the precious heather mat.

No one was going to tell her where to walk! For crying out loud, half the island was covered with heather. Jamie teetered forward, wanting desperately to walk to the center of the circle. Another force just as desperately wanted her to pull back, to leave the center to its heather—to leave the whole circle alone. It urged
her to run out the gate and down the road, not stopping until she had closed herself behind walls and doors.

In the back of her mind, Jamie knew that what scared her most was that she should care so violently either way. The Orkney police wouldn't arrest her if she stepped on the stupid heather. On the other hand, she could just as easily be like other tourists and see the circle from the “perimeter path.” What was the big deal?

She didn't know. But suddenly she knew it
wad
big, and she didn't want any part of it.

But it wanted her. She felt as if dry invisible hands were clutching her, dragging her into the center of the circled stones.

Chapter Five

Stubbornly, violently Jamie jerked back. She staggered and almost lost her footing. A couple of tourists stared at her oddly and walked on. She couldn't even flash them a sheepish grin. All she could do was turn and run.

She ran out to the road and jogged eastward along its verge. The land narrowed to a slim causeway between the lochs, then spread out again. Averting her eyes, she jogged past the remains of a smaller stone circle on her left. Finally she slowed to a walk, but pointedly ignored the standing stone across from their house. Going directly to her room, she closed the curtain, threw herself on the bed, and started reading a book she'd read four times before.

As the afternoon passed and her mind thawed out, Jamie began to feel really foolish. How could she have been so silly? Why had she felt so strongly about a
really unimportant thing? What difference did it make if she walked on the stupid heather or not?

Anyway, it was a dumb rule and a dumb sign, and the rule makers and sign posters ought to have people walking on their heather all the time just to tell them so.

When her parents came home, they were full of talk about the afternoon's birds, so Jamie didn't have to mention the stone circle. It wasn't really important anyway. In fact, now she could hardly remember what her problem had been with it. Just anger, she guessed, anger at those fussy Orkney tourist people and their stupid prissy rules. Rules like that were meant to be broken. Like Wet Cement and Keep Off the Grass signs, they were outright invitations.

She played with that thought all the way through dinner, and it cheered her up a lot. By bedtime, it was a warm bubbly idea, and she didn't have to wait long to put it into practice.

She opened her curtain. The moon was fuller than before, and the sky was free of even the faintest cloud. The standing stone across the road stretched its long shadow toward her. But stones were nothing. What she was after was heather.

Once again, Jamie waited until her parents were asleep. Lying on her bed fully clothed, she refused to listen to any conflicting mental voices. This was
her
idea, a good one, and she would cany it out. When snores began to fill the house, she crept down the stairs and out the front door.

No sooner was she outside than a great white owl
called from its perch on the standing stone. Jamie tried to calm her jolting heart. So the big, blue-eyed owl was on the stone again. All that meant was that lots of mice ran around this field at night. Resolutely, Jamie marched along the road, keeping her mind focused on the heather and the pleasure of defying that petty busybody rule.

And anyway, it was a beautiful night for a walk. Windy, of course, but she was warmly dressed, and this far from city lights the stars were wonderfully bright. A half moon silvered the waves, spread a sheen over the grass, and cast sharp-edged shadows from fence posts and the first circle of standing stones. She strode by it and the next single standing stone.

Where the road narrowed, she looked down at both shores and saw the white forms of sleeping swans. One swan raised its head and watched her pass, but sounded no alarm.

Jamie neared the big stone circle and slowed. Her conviction that this was a great idea was beginning to fade. Maybe it was kind of silly. But, hey, here she was, and she might as well go through with it. If there was one thing she hated more than looking silly, it was starting something and then giving up. She turned off the road, passed the information placards, and crossed the ditch by the earth causeway.

Again, she slowed. There was the heather before her, a pure untrampled field of it. On both sides curved the stones, towering over her like dark misshapen guards. And again came the odd, cold conviction that the center of the circle was exactly where something wanted her to be.

Nonsense! Nobody cared about the center of this circle except the people who put up those prissy Keep to the Perimeter Path signs. No way would they cow her! The only place to see a circle was from the center. With a defiant yell, Jamie stepped off the path and onto the heather.

Another step and another. She walked, then ran forward. Underfoot, the heather was dry and springy, a crunchy pleasure. Jamie reached the center, threw wide her arms, and slowly spun around.

This really did seem the center of things. Beyond the circling stones, water and land stretched out in all directions until they met sky. Throwing back her head, Jamie gazed upward. As she turned, the stars seemed to turn around her. Arms outstretched, eyes on the stars, she turned faster and faster. The stars spun in a dizzying swirl. Faster, and faster yet, until they blended into a blinding curtain of light.

Then an explosion of blackness.

Time, Jamie knew, had passed. Time spent in silence and utter darkness. Slowly she pushed herself up from the ground, from the crackly, springy heather. Fighting dizziness, she looked up and had to jam her eyes shut. The stars burned like ice, far harder and brighter than before. It was as if the atmosphere had burned off, leaving nothing but the cold infinite universe.

Keeping her eyes low, she opened them again. The stones still stood around her, but they were different, too. There were more of them, forming an unbroken
circle. And for the first time since coming to these islands, she could not hear the wind. There was utter silence.

In rising terror, Jamie scrambled to her feet, then immediately crouched again. A dark shape loomed above her. It seemed to have arms, a head, a voice.

“Taken your time, haven't you?” the man said impatiently. “And taken mine as well. That first boy knew the power and wanted it, and the second didn't even know what it was. But you knew just enough to be afraid and fight it every step of the way. What abother!”

Then came a dry cold laugh. “But no matter, you're all here now. So come, you three, stop cowering in the heather. I'll light a fire and we can talk.”

Surprised, Jamie noticed two other figures huddled on the ground nearby. Slowly both stood up, and the taller one spoke.

“Sir, I have no intention of sitting and talking with an obviously hostile native. I demand that you shut off this effect and let me return to my ship and complete my Nri Irll.”

The man only grunted. He walked to a bare spot in the heather and clapped his hands; a lively campfire suddenly appeared on the ground. For a moment, its crackling was the only sound in the total stillness.

“Fire!” the smaller figure said, running toward it. “You can make fire by magic?”

“Of course. It's one of the basics.”

In the firelight, Jamie could now see those two clearly. The man was short and dark, his curly black hair and beard shot with gray. He was wearing leather
trousers and a long cloak of slick dark fur. The boy was young. The hood of his woven yellow cape had fallen back to show a mop of red hair.

The other figure strode toward them, and Jamie stared. His skin was dark, but not in the way she was used to. It was more the color of old avocados, a greenish brown. His hair was not just black. It was a glossy blue-black, and it bristled in a crest over his head to trail down his back like a mane. He was wearing boots and a coppery-colored jumpsuit.

“You have no right to hold me here,” he said angrily, “and I am not interested in your petty holographic illusions. I demand that you let down the force field you have around this place and let me go.”

“No time for argument, boy. Sit down, we need to talk.”

“You can not order me around. I am Kreeth. I have permission to be on this island and—”

“No,” the man interrupted, “you are not Kreeth. You are part Human—
my
part. And here, Tyaak, all the rights are on my side.” Abruptly he turned and addressed the other boy. “And you—your name is Arni.”

“Arni Arnorson,” the younger boy said eagerly. “My father is Arnor, skald to Earl Thorfinn.”

The man nodded, then looked up. “And you, Jamie, come join us. I've had enough trouble with you already.”

Confused, angry, and terribly afraid, Jamie walked toward the fire. She decided to hide everything but the anger. “Mister, I have no idea who you are, how you know my name, or what is going on here, but—”

“Then sit down, and I'll tell you.”

“But—”

“Sit!”

Jamie found herself sitting on the heather. The two called Tyaak and Arni were sitting as well, with surprised looks on their faces. The man stared down at them with cold blue eyes; then he, too, sat.

“My name is Urkar. I am your great-great-great-whatever—your ancestor, anyway. And that is why you are here. Ours is a family of power. It is strong in me, and it is strong in each one of you.”

Arni's face lit up. “You mean I
do
have the power, like Great-grandmother Eithne? I always knew it! I always knew I could work magic!”

“Magic?” Tyaak objected. “What sort of superstitious babble is this? Backwater planet that it may be, I thought Earth was at least advanced enough to forget that foolishness.”

“In your time, unfortunately, it
had
forgotten magic,” Urkar growled. “But forgetting something doesn't make it not exist. Now, stop interrupting me.

“Where was I? Yes, descendants. For millennia, every member of our line has inherited some degree of power. Many never used or even recognized it. Others channeled it into certain trades or skills. But all three of you are especially strong carriers of the power, and you also live in especially critical times—times when you are called upon to use it.”

“I am sorry,” Tyaak said, standing up. “Not only are you ridiculous, you are wrong. I have no ‘magic powers.' The only thing I am called upon to do is complete my Nri Irll and—”

“Do shut up!” Urkar snapped, and abruptly Tyaak
was sitting again. Strange-looking as the boy was, Jamie could recognize the anger and confusion in his face. His expression, she was sure, mirrored her own.

She cleared her throat uncertainly. “I don't know about these two, but I
certainly
don't have any magic powers. I always thought I could sense the supernatural, but it turns out I can't. I've been trying hard, and I haven't seen one ghost yet.”

“Ghosts!” Urkar sputtered. “Just what do you think the ‘supernatural' is? It's simply power that goes beyond the common laws of nature. Making use of this power is what you call magic. And seeing ghosts is only a tiny passive sideline of that.”

Jamie sat silent for a moment, letting this settle through her mind, rearranging things.

Arni spoke up again. “These two must come from some pretty strange places not to know about magic. But what do you mean, Urkar, about being called upon to use it?”

The man combed a hand through his gray-streaked hair. “I'd better explain about power first. I imagine that even Tyaak understands about there being two kinds of it in the universe.”

“Two kinds?” the boy said. “You mean like matter and antimatter?”

“Something like I suppose. In the universe there are two forces, one that creates and one that destroys. Usually they are in balance, but occasionally one force grows and breaks over the other like a storm. If it is the creative force, then a rash of new mountains or worlds or galaxies can be created. If the storm is one of destruction,
then mountains, planets, and galaxies can be destroyed.”

Tyaak sneered. “Sounds like superstitious clothing over basic cosmic dynamics—energy rift theory gone wild. But what does this have to—”

“Stop interrupting, and I'll tell you. Throughout the universe, there are beings who can sense these forces and use them, gravitating either to the destructive or the creative. When a force storm looms up, those of the threatened side use their powers to resist.”

Arni was frowning. “What sort of power does our family have?”

“Creative.”

“Good. I don't think I'd much like doing evil magic.”

“Evil magic!” Tyaak exploded. “I have had quite enough!”

“No you haven't!” Urkar stabbed him with his icy blue gaze. “‘Evil' is one term for it. So is ‘destruction,' or ‘chaos,' or ‘death,' or—what did you call it?—antimatter.

“Now, I
will
continue. One of those storms of destruction was growing when I was a young man. On these islands, we had always tried to channel and strengthen our forces through constructs of power, the way pillars and roof posts are repaired or added when a great storm is brewing out at sea. But this storm was greater than any ever faced before. Those of us who wielded power determined that a new central pillar of creative force was needed to, so to speak, keep the roof on this part of the universe from collapsing.”

BOOK: Storm at the Edge of Time
3.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Size Matters by Judy Astley
Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii by Goldberg, Lee
Death by Pantyhose by Laura Levine
Fair Warning by Mignon Good Eberhart
The Land's Whisper by Monica Lee Kennedy
The Intruder by Hakan Ostlundh
Dying to Have Her by Heather Graham