The Stair Of Time (Book 2) (38 page)

Andaris
managed to smile back.  “Ready!” he answered.

No sooner had they sprinted into the open, than they heard raised voices atop the wall.  It was just like old times, together again and on the run from impossible odds, the wind at their backs and fire in their hearts as they raced across the open field to the safety of the trees.   

“There they are!” one man cried. 

“Archers, ready arrows!” yelled another.  “Take aim!  Fire!”

The first volley of
arrows whistled harmlessly over their heads.

N
ot so well-trained, after all,
Andaris thought.

The tree line grew tantalizingly close. 
Now only twenty yards stood between them and freedom.  Andaris pushed himself for more speed, hope and desperation spurring him on. 
We’re going to make it!
he thought. 
We’re actually going to—

More arrows whistled past, closer this time, one
sticking into the ground to his left, blue and white fletchings far too cheery on the pale and baleful shaft.

He p
ressed even harder, laboring for breath, and then all at once was inside, safe within the dense foliage of Eldorana Forest.  He couldn’t believe it.  They’d actually—

Alicia cried out from behind.  He whirled in time to see her falling forward, the tip of an arrow protruding from her chest.  She was dead before she hit the ground.  He darted from safety long enough to help drag her into the trees.

After standing there
for a time, feeling helpless, he placed his hand tentatively against Gaven’s heaving back.  “I’m…sorry.  I understand what she meant to you, but….”  He sighed and shook his head, dumbfounded by the senselessness of it all.  “We can’t stay.  Superstition or no, we can’t be sure they won’t enter.”

Gaven regarded him without seeming to understand,
and then looked down at Alicia.  He gave her shoulder a gentle shake.  “Alicia…honey?”

“Gaven, the arrow pierced
her heart.  There’s no way she—”

Gaven regarded him with the same blank
stare.

In the distance, Andaris heard the call of a trumpet and the
beating of hooves.  “They’re coming!” he said.  “There’s no time.  We have to go.  Now!”

Gaven glanced over his shoulder, realization seeming to finally dawn, eyes filling with hatred for those who had killed his love.  He grabbed
Alicia by her fair shoulders and pulled her to him, a rag doll in the hands of a giant, hugging her fiercely, tears streaming unchecked down his broad cheeks.

Andaris stood and took hold of one of his arms.  “Come on!  Let’s go!”

Gaven pushed him away with a growl, lowering Alicia gently back to earth.  Then, moving his big hands with heartrending tenderness, he closed her eyes for the last time and said, “Sleep well, my love.  Your death will not go unavenged.”

Andaris stood spellbound, feeling as if he’d stumbled into someone else’
s storied dream.  “Please don’t.” was all he could manage.

“I have to,” Gaven replied.  “But there’s no reason for us both to die.  I’ll do my best to keep them busy while you
flee.”

“But I can’t just let you—“

“You can and you will,” Gaven interrupted.  “There’s something important you have to do, right?”

Andaris nodded grimly, truly wishing he could join his friend in what would almost certainly be his
final battle.  If only the weight of the worlds didn’t rest squarely upon his shoulders, and Mandie’s life didn’t hang so precariously in the balance….

Gaven managed a tired
smile.  “Tell Ashel, Trilla, and Mandie…and Gramps—”  His voice broke.  He shook his head and looked down, unable to continue.

“Tell them
that you…love them?” Andaris asked, his voice breaking, as well.  “And that you were proud to know them?  And that you died…honorably, holding their memories especially dear before the end?”

Gaven nodded,
relieved.  “Yes.  Right.  That’s it.  Thank you, Andaris.  And I….  And you….  You know that.  You too, right?”

Andaris swallowed the lump in his throat.  “Yeah, I know, Gaven.  I love you, too.”

The big man nodded, listening to the approaching hooves with eerie calm.  “Okay.  Good.  That makes everything all right then.  Now get out of here!  Like I said, I’ll hold ‘em off as long as I can.  Don’t go making my heroic stand in vain by getting yerself killed!”

Choking back tears, Andaris gave him
a final embrace, turned, and fled deeper into the forest.  Just before he was beyond earshot, he stopped and shouted, “Farewell, my friend!  You are the truest companion I have ever known!  Farewell!”

H
is only response was the clashing of swords.

The journey back to the confounded clockwork stair was a blur for Andaris, his heart swelling with grief.  He and Gaven had survived so much that, even after witnessing very recent evidence to the contrary, he’d come to think of the big man as indestructible.  Strange how the mind worked.  And now, just like that, he was gone...again.  To have come so far, to have survived so much…only to end like this.

Andaris didn’t worry much about being followed.  He felt Gaven’s steel and the soldier’s innate superstition would prove more than sufficient to prevent pursuit.  Besides, two out of three probably wasn’t too bad from their perspective, especially since it was the two who had been imprisoned.  The other one, well, he could just vanish off the face of the earth and not be missed, couldn’t he?

And that’s just what I’ll do,
he thought.

Andaris
had just found the first of the stone arrows when he remembered that the note to himself, from himself, had suggested that he use the map to find his way. 
All that work for nothing,
he thought. 
Ah well.  Once a fool, always a fool.  It’s not like getting to town earlier would have changed anything.  Not enough, anyway.  I mean, using the map wouldn’t have made sixty-two weeks’ worth of difference.  Right?

But
even if it had, as tragic as that would be, it was too late to do anything about it now.  If there was one thing he’d learned on his travels it was that guilt was a pointless emotion, a poison that must be purged before it rots the mind and slays the soul.  “Learn from the past,” Gaven had counseled on more than one occasion, “just don’t waller in it like a pig in slop.” 

And there
was certainly no time to grieve.  Not yet.  If he were going to escape this world, it would require the full cooperation of both his mind
and
legs.  In other words, he would have to keep a very tight lid on the great river of sorrow flowing just beneath the surface until after he was safe.  If not, if he were to allow himself to take in even the smallest portion of that grief, the floodgates would burst open and he would drown for sure.  Gaven had sacrificed himself to avenge Alicia, but also to save him, so it was his obligation, his duty, to do whatever it took to make that sacrifice count.

Although Andaris was feeling particularly lonely and wretched, and although Endollin had likely saved his life, he opted to postpone their reunion chat for later.  He wasn’t ready for the incessant prattle—sometimes rambling and nonsensical, other times cryptic and grim.  Not, at least, until he had gotten his
own
head clear.

Once he was safely back within the confounded workings of the clockwork stair, he laid across the platform and fell asleep, not even bothering to take off his pack.  Needless to say, his dreams were troubled.

He awoke with a groan, face swimming in a pool of his own spittle.  He felt as
though he’d spent the night battling demons—and losing.  He looked around at the now-familiar surroundings, finding solace where there had once been only fear.  In this place, he could pretend that nothing was real.  Gaven and Alicia now seemed so far away, so removed, that he could almost believe none of it had even happened…. 

Must be
in shock,
he thought.

And so it was that Andaris Rocaren, son of Edward Rocaren, once again made his way up, down, and around the circuitous steps of the confounded clockwork stair.  Unlike before, however, he knew where he was going, and even how to get there.  He did not need to fear, for instance, arriving too soon or too late.  He did not even need to fear that the stair on which he so solemnly trod would suddenly go spinning off like some crazed top. 
Everything’s breaking down….
  The map told him where and when to step, taking him by the hand like mother to child.

Much like
his trek through the caverns, he found it very easy to lose track of time. 
The Stair of Time….
  The blue and orange light, the mist, the yawning void in which untold thousands of circular staircases spun—gears in an unfathomable clock that had been running ceaselessly without being wound or oiled since the day they were set into motion.  Traveling and sleeping, traveling and sleeping, that’s all there was.

Then at last he climbed above the blanket of mist to behold a truly wondrous sight.  The top of the stair on which he now stood connected to a small landing no more than twenty feet away.  Despite his faith in the map, he still couldn’t quite believe it.  He had actually made it!  He was back!  Even better, instead of a wall of dirt rising from said landing, there was a door,
the door—
the portal that would open onto the chessboard courtyard.  Why, it even had a handle on this side, so he need not fear that there was some trick to opening it, some cleverly concealed mechanism that would prevent, or at the very least, delay
,
 
him from leaving.  Best of all, the handle was not S-shaped, nor, praise Rodan, filigreed and fine.  It was a normal-looking brass handle with a straight bar and small curlicue at its end.

The painted
eyes of the mundane king peered down at him with imperious indifference, his regal body spanning the height and width of the door, so real looking that Andaris half expected him to break free of his rectangular prison and come stomping out onto the wrought iron platform, determined to exact revenge upon the individual who had so brazenly defiled his backside.  Under ordinary, less dismal circumstances, this thought would have been enough to make Andaris laugh.  As it was, he couldn’t even manage a smile. 

At least t
he note to himself had not led him astray.  He had that much to be thankful for.  The map had indeed brought him back.  But it felt like a trivial, hollow victory, at best, for he was returning alone and empty-handed, with neither a cure for Mandie, nor a way home.  Here he was, almost safe, almost topside, and now that his initial excitement at having finally found his way out was beginning to wane, he felt almost nothing at all.  Worse yet, he had the sense that this was
more
than just temporary shock, that a part of himself, the jovial, fun-loving part, was forever dead and gone.

L
ike Gaven,
he thought, wondering for the hundredth time if things would have turned out differently had he used the map.  His present success made that seem more likely than before, and in spite of what he thought he’d learned, the guilt he felt for what he deemed to be a stunning lack of competence on his part was suddenly overwhelming—choking him. 

Never in his life had he despised himself more than he did right now.
 
Why,
he asked, feeling the banks of the river beginning to swell. 
What is the matter with me?  If I had just used the map sooner, Gaven might still be here.
I was so tired, but that’s no excuse.
Angrily, he wiped away a tear. 
I don’t deserve to grieve, to purge.  I deserve to suffer, but not in a cathartic way.
 
Gaven would have remembered had our roles been reversed.  Trilla would have.  Even Ashel.
 
If only I had—
 

But
wait!
he thought, eyes widening with unexpected inspiration, the rapid juxtaposition of conflicting emotions making his heart stumble in his chest.
  Maybe I still can!  Now that I have the map, and have confirmed that it works, maybe I can come back later and figure out a way to arrive before that fateful card game and warn him.  There must be a way!  After all, this is the stair of time.  What is, was, and will be is malleable here.  Provided that you know which paths to take, of course.  Which means I’ll need help, and lots of it.  If not, I’d turn around and begin the search right now.  Heck, if I weren’t getting so low on provisions, I might anyway.  But that would be stupid, especially considering how exhausted I am.  And I can’t afford to be stupid.  Not anymore.  Most people don’t get the chance to redeem themselves after something like this.  And if these stairs work the way I think they do, the way I “know” they do, it won’t matter if I wait.  There are countless pathways leading to the same time and location.  I’m sure of it!