The Magicians' Daughter, page 46
“It’s not right.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“There’s nothing we can do?”
“Nothing. The Timespell is only good for learning about the past. Don’t ever think you can change it. No matter how many times you loop through some moment, your own experience is always going to be in a straight line. You can’t get ahead of yourself, no matter how hard you try. You’ll just be a dog chasing your tail if you do. And as for the future...”
The older Hubley pursed her lips; a painful shadow passed through her eyes. Apparently there just weren’t enough years available to soften the blow.
“Just remember, you can never forget what you’d rather not know.”
Beyond the window, finches chattered in the sunshine. Hubley, considerably older now after everything she’d been through, decided she no longer wanted to be lectured to, and asked for her cup of tea.
She gave herself up to the care of her older self for the next few days. Life was easier that way. Lying in bed, she had more than enough time to try and sort everything out in her mind. There were still moments when she quivered in frustration, when the memory of killing herself came unbidden and she was forced to live with the thought that she could do nothing about it, that some parts of life were outside even a chronothurge’s hands. She saw now that she’d been guilty of the most basic error of magic. She’d almost thought herself beyond any control other than the limits of her own will. But she’d been lucky. Various versions of herself had been there to pick her up each time she fell.
At least now she knew she’d live to a ripe old age. Now there would be times when she could be fearless, armed with the knowledge of her place of dying. But she would be careful, too. Having challenged fate once and lost irrevocably, she would be unlikely to do so again.
Still, there was one thing she didn’t completely understand.
The day came when her wounds were healed and the poison fully leached from her blood. The older Hubley came to her on an evening when she had gone to the roof to watch the sun set behind the mountains. She was thinking about how pleasant it was to have the older there to nurse and comfort her, how much it was like having her own mother back again. Silently she wondered if she would ever see her older self again.
“You know I won’t answer that,” the older Hubley said.
“You know I wasn’t going to ask,” she replied.
“Yes. And I know what you are going to ask, too.”
“About going back?”
“Yes.”
Hubley pulled her cloak more closely about her shoulders. The nighttime chill was rushing into Valing faster than the sun was leaving.
“Then you know you could answer my suspicions just as easily right here,” she said.
“I could. But it’s better if you see for yourself.”
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
Her older self shrugged and said nothing.
Hubley persisted. “It wouldn’t be something special about that sissit, would it?” she asked, looking for an answer other than the one she’d imagined. “Was that the reason I stepped in front of my own spell?”
“Either way, we have to go back and see.”
Hubley nodded. She had the feeling this was what she was supposed to do. Her older self held up a small bottle, no larger than her thumb, filled with a dark red liquid.
“I’ve already prepared the spell.” She handed the bottle to Hubley. “It will bring you back here whenever you want. You’re not strong enough yet to do it yourself.”
Then the elder spoke a word and the top of their tower was gone, replaced by darkness. She spoke a second word and a pale light shone out from her staff. Before them lay the looming pit of Vonn Kurr, behind them the gently curving wall of the Sun Road.
“They’ll be here any moment,” said the elder. “And I still have to make us both invisible.”
She spoke the third spell softly and doused her light. Then she pulled Hubley back against the smooth stone beside her.
Almost immediately a dull boom echoed up the passage to their left. In the quiet darkness Hubley could feel the pressure of the sound against her ears. Faint shouts followed the explosion, but soon the cries and crashes of battle grew louder. A glimmer of light appeared up the loway; the last Hubley and the diggers came running in full flight around the turn to stop, panting, at the edge of the road.
A skittering of stones at the far side of the tunnel signaled the arrival of the youngest Hubley. There were four Hubleys on the Sun Road now, three of them invisible.
The scene played itself out. The oldest Hubley found the hatch in the floor; Omarose opened it. The company fled down the chute one by one while the oldest Hubley kept the sissit at bay. Several arrows came close to the two hiding invisibly by the wall, misfires from the sissit’s bows, but the eldest Hubley made sure that none of her magical attacks came near them. The sissit fell beneath her power; the cavern began to fill with the stench of their burns. Then Omarose bowed to her and stepped into the shaft, and only the four Hubleys remained at the edge of Vonn Kurr. The sissit rushed the one they saw, howling their rage at the escape of the rest of their prey, forgetting their fear of magic until Hubley splashed them with fire once again and they went tumbling backward.
Their leader rolled away from the blast toward the inner wall of the loway, its shield falling away from its hand. Even though she saw the sissit coming, Hubley still lost her balance and fell on top of it when the creature banged into her legs. It couldn’t see her of course, but, thinking itself attacked by some strange new magic, the sissit grabbed her violently all the same. They wrestled in the dust, Hubley trying to escape from the creature, the sissit clinging to her desperately, fighting for its life against this new and unseen apparition. Its hard, knobby hands closed around her throat. She fought to push it away, her head twisted to one side, and found herself looking at her oldest self, the one who was about to die. That Hubley stood slightly to one side, her staff raised. Hubley saw plainly that her older self was ready to blast the sissit to a cinder if she could only find a clear shot; willing, even in that moment, to take a chance with history and save herself if the opportunity arose. But the chance, as they both knew, never came.
Then the older Hubley’s eyes focused directly on her. A weary smile graced her mouth. And in her older self’s eyes Hubley saw tenderness, and a message of forgiveness sent to reassure her. There was no time for anything more. No chance for the elder to say all the things she wanted to before she took one step to her right and caught the flash of flame the youngest Hubley fired, killing herself. But saving herself also.
The shock from the blast caused the sissit to loosen its grip on Hubley’s throat. She kicked herself free and rolled panting to the edge of the cliff. For the second time she watched her death in a plume of fire and tried not to imagine the pain.
When it was over, the sissit stood silent for a moment, their enemy defeated in a way they didn’t understand. They had no idea where that ball of flame had come from. The leader scrabbled across the dusty floor for his shield. Once that protection was back in his hands he stood, shook the shield over his head, and let out a howl of victory. That was the signal for the rest to break their silence and cheer as well. Their whoops and bellows crashed across the Sun Road and out into the great, dark deep.
They were stopped, though, when a loud voice shouted, “ENOUGH!” Another Hubley appeared magically in the middle of the circle of ash where she’d died a moment before. Even the younger Hubley was fooled, until she realized this was the third Hubley, the one who’d been hiding beside her against the wall. But the sissit possessed no such understanding. As far as they were concerned, this was the same mage, apparently risen from the dead. A hush fell across their pale faces.
“BEGONE!” she cried, and launched her fire once more into their ranks. They ran, even the leader, who dropped his shield and fled with the rest back up the tunnel into the darkness. As the last of their bare feet slapped away into silence her elder self turned to Hubley with a weary sigh.
“You know it all, now. It’s time to go home.”
“And you? What are you going to do?”
The elder stooped to retrieve the sissit’s shield. “I have to go on with the others. There’s no reason for them to know I’ve died. They’ll never know what happened.”
“You should get some rest first.”
“I should,” the elder agreed, “but it’s better if I don’t. They’ll be expecting me to be exhausted after the strain of the battle.”
She sat down on the rock beside the open shaft and began to lower herself down. Then she looked back up at Hubley one last time.
“You have many, many years,” she said, “before you get to this point. You’ll know what to do when the time comes. There is still much for you to learn. Break the vial I gave you and step into the mist that forms. That will take you home.”
Without another word, the older Hubley let go the sides of the chute. With the emblem of Ydderri strapped to her back, she disappeared down the shaft. Hubley heard a thin whoosh as her older self vanished; then all was silence and darkness on the Sun Road again.
She went home.
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About the Author
S. C. Butler is an author living in New Hampshire with his wife and son.
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S. C. Butler, The Magicians' Daughter
