The Fires of Paratime (v1.0) Read online

  THE FIRES OF

  PARATIME

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Another Original publication of TIMESCAPE BOOKS

  A Timescape Book published by

  POCKET BOOKS, a Simon & Schuster division of

  GULF & WESTERN CORPORATION

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020

  Copyright © 1982 by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Timescape Books, 1230

  Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster.

  Use of the trademark TIMESCAPE is by exclusive license from Gregory Benford, the trademark owner.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  For Christina, in time and in fire

  THE FIRES OF

  PARATIME

  Contents:-

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  I

  Picture a man, or, if you will, a woman, standing in an empty room, a plain hall lit by slow-glass panels and green glowstone floors.

  The person standing there wears a black jumpsuit with a four-pointed star on the left collar and wide silvered wristbands. The bands contain microcircuitry.

  Suddenly, the man, or, if you will, woman, is gone

  The slow-glass panels still light the hall.

  Some time later—a few units, a few days, rarely longer—the traveler reappears in the same spot and walks out of the hall.

  That is all there is to it, the base action of the Temporal Guard at Quest, the single city of the Immortals of Query, that hidden planet circling a very ordinary yellow sun in a very ordinary galaxy.

  There*s no such thing as a race of time-divers, you say, Immortals who ride the paths of time a million years or more, who manipulate cultures in their corner of the galaxy?

  Let us lay that question aside for a time.

  II

  Call me Lola. It’s as good a name as any, better than most, and besides, that’s what my parents named me.

  What better name for the grandson of Ragnorak, for the child of fallen heroes, fumbler in the complex intrigues of the Immortals, sometime god, time-diver, and idiot savant par excellence?

  The dominoes of time have toppled, shoved into new patterns by the winds of change, those chill winds that howl down the corridors of time, those black rays of time-path tossed carelessly out by each sun and vaulted and trod by the time-divers of Query in their ceaseless efforts to maintain their precarious position on the top of time’s totem pole.

  A too-florid description, perhaps, but accurate for all the verbosity.

  I am serious. Queryans are Immortal, but nature balanced it nicely since the genetic interlock required for fertilization and the time-diving ability kept births low—less than one per couple per millennium. And accidents did happen, time-diving ability or not.

  Queryan time-divers ranged through time, and since time is space, so to speak, through space as well. As a precaution, all children were locator-tagged at birth, although the talent didn’t usually develop until later, nor fully until puberty.

  Only a few of us had innate navigational senses, and most Queryans never went far from Query. Back-timing on Query itself is out. The Laws of Time are inflexible. If you dive at all on Query, you dive planet-clear.

  It all starts with the Test.

  The Test, that trial that determines whether a Queryan gets advanced training, membership in the Temporal Guard, or whether he or she stays a planet-slider for a long, long life—that was my first turning point…

  On that morning that may never have been, the sky of Query was blue, with overtones of green that made the hills circling the city of Quest and the peaks behind those hills stand out in even sharper relief than the clearest holo could project.

  The morning was cloudless, as so many mornings in Quest are. I had place-slid to the park surrounding the Square, breaking out of the undertime with the thought-chill that always ends a planet-slide or time-dive.

  The Tower of Immortals stands in the center of the Square, surrounded solely by grass and the low fireflowers that flicker scarlet under the golden sun. The glows tone walks leading to the Tower are edged by the fireflowers.

  Although four portals open from the Tower, Queryans not belonging to the Temporal Guard enter only through the South Portal.

  The Tower soars from its rectangular base into a dome which climbs to a spire. The Tower is out-of-time phase, and the spire flares with the fires of a thousand suns captured in the timeless and untouchable depths of the faceted slow-glass facing.

  The oldest holos of the Tower from the Archives show no change, even though the mountains in the distance are a shade sharper and the hills a trace harsher. While Quest has altered in little particulars, the Tower of Immortals has not.

  As I stared at the Tower on that morning that may not have been, none of this crossed my mind. Too young to note the changes in the vegetation in the park from century to century, and filled with the elation of becoming a Guard, I studied the Tower as a present I was about to receive.

  If you see a good holo of the Tower, you can see how the edges blur. That’s because the walls of the Tower proper, except for the rectangular wings, are partly out-of-time phase, which renders it indestructible, as well as unchangeable. That’s unless the Temporal Guard were to pull it down stone by stone.

  I stood and stared, convincing myself that, red hair and all, I would be the first of my family in eons, that is, since my grandfather, to pass the Test and join the Temporal Guard.

  Wishing would not make it so, and clutching my illusions, I began to walk up the glowstones to the south portal. I could have slid right up to the entrance, but ceremony means much to all Queryans, particularly when a youngster elects to take the Test.

  The portals were dark, but the interior of the Tower was bright with slow-glass panels, glittering and lit with the light of not only golden suns, but red suns, blue suns, orange suns, and white suns. Yet for all the light, as I entered the Tower, I felt a sense of coolness, quiet, and peace.

  Not that I hadn’t been there before. With my parents, tutors, and friends, I had walked all the public corridors, the meeting halls, and the Hall of Justice.

  Before I realized it, I was at the archway to the Testing Hall in the west wing of the Tower.

  A tall woman, with white-blond hair and deep black eyes, waited.

  I had heard all the Guard participated in routine functions, and I concealed my surprise with a curt nod and a simple statement.

  ‘

  ‘Counselor Freyda

  Query made no distinction between civil and military, between compulsory and voluntary. The Tests determined who could join the Guard, and the Guard was the government. Ability determined position in the Guard, and the Counselors directed the Guards to implement the policies laid down by the Tribunes.

  So I was surprised that Counselor Freyda, rumored to have been a close friend of my departed and possibly late grandfather, whom many had said I re
sembled, would be my examiner.

  “Loki,” she responded.

  It was not a lack of warmth, I felt. Rather we are a laconic people, except perhaps for me. That’s what comes from living until some accident in a planet-slide or a time fluke does you in.

  When you contact the same people over centuries, tight speech and good manners prevail, and the Counselor had always been impeccably correct.

  “You need not take the Test.” Her eyes smiled, knowing I would.

  The formal statement was necessary. Some Queryans never took the Test, used their talents only to travel around Query.

  Counselor Freyda had always been an attractive woman, though in my youthful exuberance, I thought all Queryan women were attractive, beauty being a matter of degree.

  She rose from the simple straight-backed chair and led the way to the Travel Hall.

  The Travel Hall is nothing more than a long, high, slow-glass lit room at the end of the West Wing of the Tower. A series of small equipment rooms flanks the Travel Hall. They open directly onto it through small arches. In practical terms, the Travel Hall is actually outside the main time-protected walls of the Tower. So is the Infirmary. If you think about it, it makes sense.

  Most Immortals can’t planet-slide or time jump from within the out-of-time phase walls of the main Tower. That’s why the Infirmary and the Travel Hall are “outside.”

  Freyda conducted me into one of the equipment rooms, the Counselors’, where the slow-glass wall panels were flanked with heavy gold and black hangings. From the drawers of a carved chest, she took four wristbands, slipped one over each forearm and handed the remaining pair to me.

  I put them on, not having the faintest idea what they were for.

  “The first part is simple. Go undertime as far as you can, or until I squeeze your arm. When I squeeze, relax, and I’ll bring us back. Understand?”

  I was all too aware we made a strange pair, she taller and in black, so simple and stark next to my red. If I succeeded, I would wear black. No actual law, but those who serve or have served in the Temporal Guard wear black. My father said it has been so since before his great-grandfather’s time.

  Realizing I had been daydreaming, I nodded abruptly.

  Freyda nodded back and grasped my left wrist. I ducked under-stream. Instead of latching onto the ground I just concentrated on trying to force myself full back-time, trying to turn the universe bright red like me. I could feel the redness flashing against the black of the time-paths.

  Flashes of blue alternated with the sense of back-time red I was seeing, and I began to feel like I was dragging someone. Freyda was signaling. I went limp, blanked my mind, and let her carry us back to the Travel Hall.

  “I doubt we need other tests.” Her voice was level, but with a trace of strain, it seemed to me.

  Was there any question? I’d been confident of passing for as long as I could remember. I’d been practicing fore- and back-timing on Query at least as long as I could read. Not that I could actually break out, given the Law of Non-Interference, but oh, how I had practiced.

  Freyda looked carefully away from me toward the far end of the Hall.

  “Custom, however, requires two other phases.”

  I tensed. What else was necessary?

  “Next, slide off Query as you back-time.”

  “In any direction?”

  “How do you determine, Loki?” The question was somewhat pointed, perhaps because custom, again the unspoken, indicated that I should not have experimented with off-planet time-slides.

  Embarrassed by my gaffe, I tried not to flush, and stammered, “I’m not sure…there must be four. I mean, red and blue and gold and black, except that you could call gold and black, cold and hot. Somehow gold ought to be hot, but it’s cold.”

  “So you’ve experimented on your own. I might have guessed. Have you followed a black line out-system and tried a breakout there?”

  Was there a trace of a smile on her face?

  “I’ve followed the lines a little way, but never tried a breakout.”

  That was certainly true. The Temporal Guard keeps its secrets. I wasn’t about to breakout somewhere or somewhen that wasn’t favorable to my continued existence. I had followed the black time-paths both blue and red directions just up to breakout on a number of worlds. At that time I had no way of knowing whether they were cold asteroids, moons, or planets. I thought I knew, but when you’re experimenting on the edge of the forbidden, you hold back. At least, I did then.

  “All right. We can skip phase two. Follow any black line back-time, red direction, as far or as near time as you want. Pick a favorable breakout. If it’s dangerous and you have trouble, I’ll recover you.”

  I picked the strongest time-path till it branched, took what seemed about a Queryan-sized trail to breakout.

  Now, it’s easy to say “followed,” or “took,” but unless you’ve been a time-diver, the words don’t mean much. You can move your body, but the work is all inside your head.

  When I first started time-diving, I actually tried to walk through the undertime nothingness. That’s a bad habit, like mouthing words when you read. Unless you break the habit you’ll never get any distance. You mentally “see” the paths and visualize the shade of red or blue. That’s your acceleration back- or fore-time. Most divers can’t slide or dive off the planet’s surface except along the black force lines, the arrows of the stars.

  Some of the older races speculated that the suns throw time rays, as well as other energies. They do, and the black arrows, paths, call them what you will, are what we follow. You have to know when to get off. If you follow the strongest path to the end, you’d wind up in the middle of some star. Not that you’d get that far. The distortion is so great even in the undertime that you’d have to force yourself beyond the mental abilities of all but the strongest Temporal Guards to approach close enough to injure yourself physically.

  A knack, that’s what it is.

  A Guard can feel the “home” sense of the Tower of Immortals if he or she is near Query. Being both in and out of time, it acts like a beacon. Even if you lose your path you can home in on it.

  With a quick shiver through the mind I popped out, catching a glimpse of stars in a frozen sky, eyeballs bugging out. Gasping for breath, I ducked back understream, thinking what a dunce I’d been.

  That’s it. Pick an easy path, stick your nose out without even a question as to whether there’s any air out there to breathe.

  I fired myself back to Query and the Travel Hall.

  Freyda arrived a moment later.

  “Like your grandfather. Rash. But stronger. With training, you’ll do.”

  That was my Test.

  Sounds simple—but either you can or you can’t.

  After passing my Test with Counselor Freyda, I slid home to wait the days or seasons before I was called for training.

  “I passed! I passed!” I shouted, plunging onto the porch where my parents were eating their midday meal.

  “I didn’t doubt you would for a moment,” said my father, scarcely looking up from his fruit.

  “I hope you’ll be happy, dear,” added my mother.

  “But…I mean…not everyone…” I couldn’t understand it. They were the ones who had told me the legends of the Guard.

  All of them, from the terrible losses of the Frost Giant/Twilight Wars to the heroic deeds of Odinthor, the Triumvirate, my grandfather Ragnorak—all the sacrifices made by the Guard to restore Query to the glory that had preceded the devastation of the Frost Giants.

  I’d gone to sleep so many nights as a child looking up at my father’s shining gold hair, listening to him tell about the hardships that his father Ragnorak had endured on mission after mission for the Temporal Guard.

  “You don’t seem particularly pleased/’ I charged.

  “If that’s what you really want, dear,” answered my mother, “we’re both happy for you.’

  ’ She smiled so faintly it wasn’t a smil
e and turned back to her lunch, a wild salad she’d gathered from the woods behind the house.

  Even my father didn’t meet my eyes after the first few instants. He picked at his fruit silently.

  I thought about sliding out into the mountains to be alone, but what difference did it make? I was apparently alone even at home.

  My room was on the second level at the back, overlooking the small gorge which separated the meadow where the house stood from the woods covering the hills. In the distance on a fair day, I could sometimes see the heights of the western Bardwall over the evergreens.

  I slumped into the hammock chair on the shady side of my small balcony and stared at the trees.

  There was a tap at the door. Doors weren’t really necessary, but were there as a matter of custom and courtesy. Once when I was about ten, I guess, my door stayed locked for a month. It didn’t seem to matter. That was before I realized my parents could slide around it if they wanted to.

  “Come in,’

  ’ I called, knowing from the sharpness of the knock it was Dad.

  He opened the door quietly, came out, and sat in the high-backed stool closest to the hammock chair.

  “You don’t understand, Loki, and you’re confused.” He waved me to silence and went on. “How could your father, the son of the great Ragnorak, hero and Guard, be so casual about your ability and your decision to join the Guard? I can tell from your face. You’re about to say I couldn’t make it, didn’t pass my Test.”

  He smiled gently. “That’s not quite true. I never even tried to take the Test. Nor did your mother. She’s the great-granddaughter of Sammis Olon. I suspect, looking at you, we could have passed. That wasn’t the question. My question was: What’s the Guard for?”

  What was Dad diving at? And why had he chickened out of taking his Test? Who was Sammis Olon?