Time Masters Book One; The Call (An Urban Fantasy, Time Travel Romance) (15 page)

John shook himself. He was seeing things. “I’ll speak to him about it. You need that time, Dallan.”

Dallan and the green concoction were facing off again. “He wilna listen to ye. He doesna listen to anyone.” He picked up
the glass, causing the
radishes to roll about on his plate.

“Uh, the uh, ot
hers were without certain… infl
uence. He’ll listen to me.” John replied, wondering what the radishes had planned next.

Dallan, distracted by John’s statement, fell victim to an attack. He took too large a swallow, coughed, spu
ttered, and lost his breath. Th
e bread
looked relieved, but the radishes
weren’t fooled for a second. Th
ey jumped
off the plate and went for broke as Dallan set the glass down hard upon the table. “Mayhaps yer better equipped to handle the heathen than others,” he mused, catching a lone radish as it rolled off the table in its race for freedom and promptly did away with it. The smarter radishes had taken cover beneath the bread plate, the loaf trying its best to act casual.

John sighed and rubbed his eyes. One could begin to see things after spending so much time deep in Muiraran territory. Couldn’t they? “I’ll see what I can do.”

Dallan nodded, looking for the rest of the escapees.

“Finish this sentence,” began John as he pointed to the radish’s hiding spot. “What this world needs is…” He decided to take a bite of stew, but it had gone cold, labeling him a traitor.

“I ken well what it doesna need!” Dallan chuckled as he popped the last hapless radishes into his mouth and looked a
t the bread
. It lay there like a lifeless lump of clay, trying to appear as unappetizing as possible. It knew it was over.

John shook himself again. This assignment was really taxing him. He
was not only seeing things during his meal, he felt the atmosphere in the cookhouse seem to come alive with, well, something. “No more Kwaku jests, please?”

  
Dallan simply shrugged, and rubbed his right shoulder tenderly. He sat quietly and pondered the question while staring down the bread.

John wondered if the
little loaf
could will
itself to sprou
t mold. It was its only chance. He
pushed what was left of his own meal aside while nodding to Dallan in understanding,
“What is
something you can do pretty well?”

“Is the question even necessary?”

“Yes. Shall I put weapons?”

“What else is there? I canna think of anything.”

John simply jotted it down. Some questions were bound to be redundant.

The little loaf basked in freedom as Mary came back to the table. “All through are you? Shall I take these away now?” she asked giving a small curtsy.

“Yes, Mary, and thank you.” John said, relieved she would be taking the food away. He looked up at her and realized he might as well have been talking to the bread. She seemed to be addressing only Dallan. He sighed.

“Go right ahead, Mary, and when the wicked auld heathen asks if I ate everything, you can tell him I lost my appetite due to an unpleasant subject discussed at table today.” Dallan grinned wickedly. “
Him
.” She looked at Dallan, concern in her eyes, then looked at the bread.

Mary nodded as she reached for the little loaf on its plate. “I’ll tell him. In fact, I’ll just save this for him. He’ll be in soon and…” She lost her grip on the plate, causing it to
tilt slightly, and the loaf fl
ung itself over the
side, landed on the hardwood fl
oor and broke into a thousand tiny pieces.

The three of them stared at the shattered remains, Mary shaking her head sadly. “I’m so sorry. I don’t see how that could have happened. I’ll just take these away and then clean that right up,” she told them, gathering the plates onto the tray she’d brought.

John just sat there, mouth agape, desperately needing one of his personal healer’s medicinal draughts. Dallan simply nodded to himself, a light smile of understanding on his face.

Even the food hated Kwaku.

*
* *

“Shall we c
ontinue?” John asked, relief fl
ooding him, the blasted meal over at last. The atmosphere in the cookhouse however, remained unchanged. In fact, it seemed to have gotten… tighter, even thicker, whatever it was.

Dallan, assuming his favorite position, nodded.

John shook himself again. “If you were lost in the woods, and it got dark, and you had a youn
g lady with you who was terrifi
ed, what would you do?”

Dallan raised both brows at him. “I wouldna get lost in the woods for one thing, and as to the young lady… what sort o’ fool takes a lady into the woods except for maybe…” he snorted. “Saints man! Who makes up the bloody questions ye ha’ to ask? Give me that list!” Dallan began to reach across the table for John’s tablet.

“Dallan, calm down. I don’t know what’s coming up anymore than you do.” John all but threw himself on the questionnaire.

Dallan snorted again. “How many more questions are there?”

The Lord Councilor began to unfold the list like an accordion, its contents
cascading all the way to the fl
oor. “Well, as you can see…”

“I can see I’ve had quite enough o’ this for one day! I dinna ken how ye can get through all
tha
…” Dallan’s voice faded, his eyes suddenly growing apprehensive. The look on his face was one of acute, heart-wrenching longing.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” John asked.

Dallan rose slowly from his chair, his mouth opening yet unable to speak.

John followed his gaze to the windows near the front door of the cookhouse.
Nothing there.
He looked back to Dallan who appeared to be battling with the urge to bolt. His muscles tensed, his ja
w tightened in a monumental eff
ort to… hold back tears? “By the Creator, Dallan! What’s wrong?”

Dallan slowly stepped away from the table, moving toward the windows. “Can ye no hear it?” he whispered to John in shaky breaths.

“Hear what?”

Dallan’s eyes darted back and forth, furtively searching the windows, his eyes beginning to water. “The music, John, ‘tis the music!” He ran to the windows, pressed his hands to the thin glass and stared outside in desperate longing.

The villagers witnessing the emotional display all stood and watched with empathetic eyes. John bit his lip, suppressing his own reaction as he suddenly realized what caused the Scot such anguish. “It couldn’t be. Not now. Not here!” he mumbled to himself helplessly.

“I’m afraid it is, Eaton.” John spun to face his assistant who had just entered from the kitchen. Lany swallowed hard as he watched Dallan in the throes of some deep emotional battle.

“No, it’s too early! This can’t be happening!” John choked out in dismay. “This will ruin everything!”

Lany grabbed his shoulder. “No, Eaton, not now. Hold yourself together, and it won’t ruin everything. This may be just what we need. Dallan has a great sense of urgency about him, to seek out and protect. He just doesn’t know what to protect yet.”

“How much time do we have?” John asked
,
face contorted with emotion, hands trembling. The villagers began to leave quickly, knocking benches
over
as they ran, none of them wanting to be there when it hit.

“A week, maybe less. I just spoke with Zara. I… Eaton, I have to get out of here.” Lany’s face was white, his body shaking. For some unexplainable reason, Lany was always more sensitive to a Muiraran’s inner heart at work.

The air in the cook
house tightened another notch making it almost hard to breathe. John nodded to Lany as he began to shove him toward the door. “Get Zara and hurry.” He look
ed anxiously about, his eyes fi
nally landing on Dallan. “Here it comes…”

From a time and place far away, the Muiraran Maiden began to
Call
to her future mate.

You that think Love can convey

No other way but through the eyes,

Into the heart, his fatal dart,

Close up those casements, and

But hear this siren sing
;

And on the wing of her

Sweet voice it shall appear,

Th
at Love can enter through the ear.

Th
omas Carew

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mary came from the kitchen
and moved slowly toward Dallan. His forehead rested on the cool glass,
hands on either side, palms fl
at against the window, his body
shaking from the monumental eff
ort t
o hold back the racking sobs fi
ghting for freedom. “Weapons Master…”

Dallan froze, trying desper
ately to gain control of the flood of pain fl
owing up from within, threatening to break down the wall holding it
back. His hands knotted into fi
sts, the muscles in h
is forearms bulged with the eff
ort. He could feel his heart breaking. Again.

“Dallan,” Mary
now
whispered lovingly as she touched his shoulder and caught a glimpse of his tears as they fell one by one to the windowsill.

Dallan swallowed hard, sniff
ed and turned his head in Mary’s direction, prompting her to put both her hands on his shoulders, preparing to hold him if need be. “Mary… it hurts…”

“I know, I know,” she told him, patting his good shoulder, vainly trying to give him some comfort.

Suddenly, it hit.

Dallan threw his head back as the dam within his heart broke and
l
et out a gut-wrenching howl of pain, shaking the glass in the windows. The remaining villagers hurried to the kitchen door, hoping to leave the Weapons Master alone with his pain, with the Call of the Muiraran.

“You can’t fi
ght it. Just let it happen. It will end quicker if you do.” Mary told him desperately as she tried to turn him to face her.

Dallan rested his fi
st on the sill and breathed hard, getting ready for another onslaught. He bent to the sill, threw his head back again and cried out in pain, then fell to his knees and began to shake uncontrollably. He hugged his stomach and rocked back and forth in a feeble attempt at calming himself. “No
..
.
no
.” He screamed again, louder this time, deeper, letting out more agony as Mary clung to him like a mother desperately trying to comfort a small child, her words drowned out by his cries.

John watched helplessly, unable to do a thing for Dallan, and the thought sickened him. Why did this have to happen? Why should anyone have to endure so much? It was the one aspect of Muiraran culture and their physiological makeup he despised.

He felt a presence behind hi
m. John turned
as a large
black hand placed itself on his shoulder.

Kwaku Awahnee.

John looked up at the Time Master, silently pleading with him to do something.
Anything.

“It was just so, when I was almost ready.” Kwaku whispered in John’s ear. “Now de Boyeee is almost ready.” He shifted his position behind him, his stance laced with fatherly pride.

John looke
d at the heap of Scot on the fl
oor, Mary trying to put him back together and swallowed. “You really think so?” he asked in total disbelief.

Kwaku laughed softly, a monumental feat for him. “De Boyeee, he is almost ready. See how de Call seems to tear him apart?”

John nodded slowly in response.
 
“How can you tell when he’s truly ready?” he asked, afraid of the answer.

“When he breaks, breaks for good. When Mary can no longer put de Boyeee back to-
ge
-dar. Den, he will be ready. Den, we can take him to her.”

Dallan screamed again, the sound
almost
pulling tears from John’s eyes. “By
the Cr
eator,” he whispered as Mary fi
ercely gripped Dallan with everything she had, trying to hold down the racking sobs which poured from the once-proud man. John choked back a sob of his own as Kwaku chuckled quietly.

“Are you sure he’ll survive this? Wil
l he even live long enough to…”
John stopped
short.
Kwaku was gone, another of his more irritating traits. He sighed and looked compassionately at Mary who glanced to his rear, looking relieved at Kwaku’s departure. This was not a good time for Kwaku to be around Dallan, and Kwaku knew it. Thank the Creator he had only come to check the severity of the pain, the strength of the Muiraran’s Call.