Unknown

  The Voice of Time

  Paul Kelly

  Copyright © 2014 by Paul Kelly

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  First Published: 2014

  Flying Chicken Publishing

  7 Everton Ave

  Dublin 7

  Ireland

  Email: kellyp15@tcd.ie

  www.paulwhowrites.wordpress.com

  Cover Design Copyright © 2014 by Paul Kelly

  Cover Images are the property of:

  Moyan Brenn, Tom Coppen, Mattys Flicks and Alexander Boden

  Chapter 1 – The Arrival

  There was no screaming. There never was at the start. Elijah looked up from the shoe he was cleaning, staring at the black dots in the distance. In front of him, the man attached to the shoe growled with impatience. Elijah ignored him. Soon he’d have better things to be worrying about.

  The black dots became small ‘V’s, their great wings piercing the sky. They inched closer, their translucent, crystalline forms becoming ever clearer. Imperceptibly, as if it was just another heat haze cast down by the sun, Elijah noticed his left hand begin to glow. It was time to go.

  “The Arrival is coming,” Elijah muttered, pointing at the sky. The man stared, his mouth open.

  “So soon?” he asked, his mouth barely forming the question. Still no screaming. Elijah didn’t wait for it to start. He began to pack up his things, throwing his brushes and polishes into their little container. The man whose shoe he had been polishing didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy staring, his eyes wide as the Wyverns inched their way closer to the city. Elijah yanked his footstool out from under the man and surprise flooded his face, obliterating any trace of anger. He stumbled and caught his bearings, using the excuse to snatch his eyes away from the reptilian creatures approaching them. It was hard to look away once you saw them. Elijah turned his back on the man and ran, sprinting through the warren of streets that made up the city of Prazna. The Wyvern’s were a bigger problem for him than for most.

  The air was hot as he ran through the city, the temperature slowing his muscles, his dark woollen robe weighing him down. People packed the street, oblivious of the Guardians bearing down on them. The scents and smells of the evening market still coated the air, hot spices mixing with the fetid smell of sweat and too many people. Still Elijah ran, weaving and barging past them, his box of polishes tight at his side. Images swarmed across his vision, nightmarish memories fighting for their place as adrenaline forced them out. His mother’s face swam across his eyes, deathly still, a single splayed hand stained crimson. Elijah threw the memory to one side. It just weakened him. You couldn’t survive the Arrival with a weakness.

  Behind him, the Wyverns were flying closer, the Guardians riding them just perceptible now. Elijah forced his legs into a sprint, his cramped muscles screeching in protest. His breath came in short, sharp gasps. He threw himself through the crowd, desperately searching for the door to his home. The brown frame came into view, its pockmarked surface giving it away. He threw himself through it. Behind him, the thump of a landing Wyvern sent shockwaves of dust through the streets. It was about four blocks away, yet still the sound reached him. It wasn’t that the Wyverns were big, they were smaller than a horse. It was the speed with which they moved at. Far away, across the hot, dry air, the screaming started. Took long enough.

  Inside the house, his Dad took up most of the room.

  “Get in!” his Dad ordered, pointing at a narrow crack in the opposite wall. Elijah nodded and threw himself towards it, grazing his shoulder as he entered. He felt the rough fabric of his robe tear and he winced. In front of him, Truth was already hidden in the dark, granite chamber. Unnecessary, but his father was getting cautious. He was afraid it ran in the family. She wore a brown robe identical to his own, only smaller. Around her neck she wore his mother’s silver pendant. No matter how badly off they were, his father had never had the heart to sell it. It was the one item that was hidden with them during the Arrival. On its back was inscribed a strange symbol: it resembled a diamond, surrounded by a circle, except the diamond wasn’t perfect. The top points never met, instead they curved outwards to form the boundary of the circle. He didn’t know what it meant, but he knew the Skylanders didn’t like it.

  Elijah sat back in the opposite corner of the cramped cell and watched Truth watch him with those big, innocent eyes of hers. It was unnerving somehow. It made Elijah feel judged. It made him want to be more than just another victim of the Skyland’s cruelty, like somehow he was letting her down. As if she was telling him to stop complaining, to go out there and change the world if it frustrated him so much. Truth could say a lot with those eyes. Elijah stared back at her and tried his best to use his eyes to tell her to shut up. It didn’t seem to work.

  Steadily, the sounds of the Arrival got louder. The screaming intensified and Elijah’s skin glowed brighter and brighter. The beat of a Wyvern’s wings reverberated through the air above the house, making the tiles shake. The smell of smoke drifted on the wind. They wouldn’t find anyone. They were almost all gone now, Elijah knew it, could feel it in his gut. He was alone.

  Opposite him, Truth covered her head and curled up tighter as if trying to vanish from the small granite cell through sheer willpower. Or maybe fear. Fear could be pretty powerful, if you let it.

  "I don't like the dragons," she whispered.

  "Wyverns," corrected Elijah absently, trying to avoid her gaze. “Don't worry, there's no such thing as giant lizards that can breathe fire." He wondered if she blamed him for her fear.

  He winced as another crash almost sent the roof caving in. "Just small crystal ones that want to cut out my tongue." He added sourly.

  Truth smiled, somehow comforted by that. Well, good for her. Soon, she began to make shadow puppets against the wall, using the light that shone from him as a torch. The granite cell was cramped and hot and Elijah shifted uncomfortably, throwing the lights into disarray. Truth glanced at him disapprovingly, as if he was there solely for her amusement.

  This was the third time this month they had come. They had come more since the end of the Fallen War and each time their searches became more intense. Elijah had heard that the Future Storm’s attacks had grown worse in the Skyland’s. He smiled thinly to himself – even with all their might, they must feel so powerless atop their vast floating islands. After the Fallen War, they’d conquered the Earthlands completely. They’d wiped out any form of government, murdered any possible leaders and made any hope of resistance futile. Yet still the attacks continued. And they couldn’t stop them. Every day they grew more desperate to cull the Earthlands of any potential recruits. Seers were the only weapons the Future Storm had that the Skylands didn’t and the Guardians knew it.

  The piercing cry of the Siren sliced through the night air, signalling the Guardian’s departure and bursting Elijah’s eardrums. Beside him Truth screamed and Elijah struggled across the small room to hold her hand. She didn’t cry, she was used to all this by now. But the Siren still scared her. It still scared him, truth be told. What seemed like hours later, the sounds faded, Elijah’s body stopped shining and he knew they were gone, although his ears still throbbed. The stone beside his right shoulder began to move then, slowly and silently to his deafened ears. His dad’s face came into view, brightly lit after the darkness of the hidden room.

  “Another week, another Arrival,” Elijah muttered as he and Truth squeezed through the narrow gap his father had created. His dad smiled weakly, but his eyes betrayed his worry. Outside, the daily buzz of activity had already resumed as neighbour
s came out to share stories. Many complained of the Skylanders, they spoke of the days of resistance and about how maybe the Future Storm weren’t as bad as all that. Still more spoke in hushed tones about how the Wyverns had lit up as they wandered their neighbourhood.

  “Why do they stay?” They whispered.

  Elijah knew which way opinion fell. They hated the Skylanders for the Arrival. But they feared the Seers more. And fear beat hate every time. And so hate usually agreed to side with fear for the time being, in order to avoid any pleasantness.

  “You should go out,” said his Dad and Elijah could see the effort it took to force the words out. “The longer you stay inside, the more people will wonder. Let’s not give them anything to talk about.”

  Elijah nodded glumly and walked to the door. That was life. He hid and then he tried to make friends with people who would happily cut his throat if they found out who he was.

  Outside, a house was burning. One of the Pulse-Masters had probably gotten a bit too carried away in the search and had wanted to make a statement. Fire always made a statement. There was an air of panic as dozens of people ran haphazardly, dragging buckets from wells in a desperate attempt to quell the blaze. In the distance, he could just see the Wyverns as pale dots in the shadows of the Skylands, miles above him.

  As he walked through the city towards the main square, he noticed small groups beginning to form as friends recounted their stories. Some in fearful, trembling voices, others angry and too many just talking normally, having look ago become accustomed to the violence. Elijah sighed and wandered between the groups exchanging the two or three lines of small talk he’d managed to master.

  “Hi, how’re you doing? How are the mines? Nope still don’t think I’ll join, too much like hard work! Ha! Let’s all laugh and not talk about the fact that the only reason I don’t go up there is that they’d rip out my tongue for being a Seer…” He usually left that last part out.

  “We saw you.” Dread seized Elijah and he spun around, his dark thoughts instantly replaced by an instinctual, primal fear. But the words were not directed at him. In the left hand corner of the square, four hulking boys towered over another boy, Elijah’s own age. His neighbour, Densin.

  “Shining like a pretty little star,” one of the boys jeered. Crotty, Elijah thought it was.

  “I wasn’t,” the boy mumbled, backing further into the alley.

  “I don’t believe you,” Crotty smiled, showing yellowed teeth. “I saw the Wyvern as it passed by you. It glowed. We all saw it.”

  “It didn’t,” spluttered the boy, his eyes alive with panic. The impossibility of proving a negative was beginning to dawn on him.

  “The Wyvern will decide that,” Crotty smiled. “Do you know how much the Guardians will pay if we turn over a Seer to them? It’s been years since they found one…”

  Then Elijah was there, charging towards them. “Get away!” he shouted, piling into the back of the leader. Crotty stumbled and fell, clawing at the wall as he lost his balance. But then the others turned around and saw him. This was a bad idea, Elijah knew that now. This was the kind of thing that drew attention. The three remaining stared at him, their muscles tensed for violence, but did not yet move towards him. He could still run, Elijah thought. Running was what people who stayed alive did.

  “Looks like we have two now!” Crotty exclaimed, righting himself and smiling broadly. “Two scrawny things that nobody ever sees working in the mines and are always nowhere to be found during the Arrival.”

  Elijah decided to play it safe and ran straight for him. Subtlety had never been his strong point anyway, he might as well play to his strengths. He barrelled straight into Crotty and for a solid twenty seconds it didn’t matter that he was smaller and that he was weaker. It was all about how much he wanted to win. And he really wanted to win.

  Around them, a crowd was beginning to gather. This had to end quickly. Crotty struggled but Elijah hit quickly and frequently and the funny thing about hitting someone in the face is that their hand eye coordination rapidly deteriorates. Crotty swung madly at him, but Elijah dodged the strikes with ease. His friends hung back, shouting at Crotty to fight back, cheering him on but failing to actually do anything to stop Elijah. Which suited him just fine.

  Then Densin started running towards them, which was good and bad. Good, because two were always better than one. Bad because it might encourage Crotty’s friends to join the fray. Then the first punch came, blisteringly fast and strong. Elijah’s head snapped back, blood and the bitter taste of betrayal filling his mouth. The punch hurt, but the betrayal was what put weight to it.

  Then Densin was on top of him, screaming, each fresh punch driving his point home.

  “I am not like you!” he screamed, his face contorted in rage. “I am not like you!” He punched him again, kept punching him, with each new strike screaming. “Not like you! Not like you! Not like you!”

  Then Densin was being pushed off him, Crotty’s friends finally stepping in to drag Elijah to his feet. Elijah spun in a circle, wild eyed, his vision blurred and unfocused. The crowd had surged in numbers. They surrounded him now, dozens of people staring at him. He recognised the faces even if he didn’t know their names. And in all their eyes there was the same troubled apprehension, that same uncertainty that shows just before someone good does something terrible. A crushing terror filled Elijah’s soul.

  “Two of them!” Announced Crotty, his smile grim. He didn’t speak to Elijah, he spoke to the crowd. He was only sixteen, but yet they listened raptly. “Only two of the age when the Seer taint first arrives and only two who have never worked in the mines! I’ve never seen one of them within ten miles of a Wyvern, have any of you?”

  Elijah wished he had the words to interrupt him, to argue with him, but none came. The crowd was huge. Crotty must have planned this. He must have known people would crowd together after the Arrival. Or maybe he’d just seen the opportunity and ran with it. Either way, Elijah knew, he needed a way out.

  “They hide during the Arrival.” Continued Crotty. “So they don’t know. But we know. We’ve seen the Wyvern’s stalking our streets. We’ve all seen the glow that comes when they pass their homes.”

  On the other side of the circle, Densin stared at him, wide eyed. He was terrified. Of the crowd or of Elijah himself, Elijah wasn’t sure. But he knew that Densin had done the math. He knew that he wasn’t a Seer and somebody had to be causing that glow. Elijah saw his fingers close into fists. Around them, the crowd closed in. In the distance, Elijah heard someone shouting.

  “They are rats!” Announced Crotty. “And when rats are cornered and hungry, they will eat each other to survive.” And then Densin ran at him.

  Chapter 2 – The Wyvern

  Elijah was better prepared this time. Raw aggression only works when your opponent has something to lose, when the fear that fighting back could just cause more pain causes them to pull their punches. Elijah was still afraid, but he wasn’t pulling his punches anymore. He threw himself towards Densin, meeting the smaller boy’s charge. It was the right move. They may have both been relatively weak when compared to the rest of the boys in a city of miners, but Elijah still had about three inches on Densin. When there’s almost no difference between two fighters, that almost makes all the difference required. Elijah’s shoulder barrelled into the younger boy’s face sending him flying to the ground and blood streaming from his nose. He threw himself towards him to cram his advantage down Densin’s throat. But the kid was quick. He rolled to one side and grabbed Elijah’s robe, throwing out a kick to trip him. Elijah flailed madly in the air and then was thrown on the ground.

  “Elijah!” A voice roared through the crowd. Elijah turned towards it, just in time for his face to meet Densin’s shoe. The world spun around him. But the voice was coming closer, becoming more desperate. It was his father. Elijah struggled to his feet, clawing at Densin’s short legs in an effort to stem the flow of blows. In front o
f him, he saw Greg reach the front of the crowd. He was a big man and he was wild, flinging away anyone who dared get in his way. But there were dozens of them, too many for one man. And they were overwhelming him, arms crossing to pull him back into the seething mass of humanity. Elijah saw rage in his eyes.

  “How could you?” he roared at the crowd. “He’s my son!”

  Crotty wasn’t smiling anymore. He was dragging something badly beaten, a creature warped and twisted from being forced into a box too small to fit it. It was several moments before Elijah realised he was looking at a Wyvern. The creature looked at Elijah with sad eyes the colours of the rainbow. Its skin was pale and translucent and stretched over its bones. Within it, a pale light shone and flickered, lending substance to its form. The creature was badly injured and its light was faint. Perhaps it was this that had spared Elijah from glowing earlier. But now, just a few feet away from it, his skin began to emit the same dull glow.

  Densin had been viscous and the crowd had been cruel, but nothing scared Elijah more than this glow. Across from him, his father redoubled his struggles, forcing the crowd away from him. “Run Elijah!” He roared.

  Elijah looked around himself. There was nowhere to run. The crowd was too close, fear and hatred in the eyes of every one of them. Then his father broke free. He grabbed Elijah under one huge arm and turned abruptly to power back through the crowd the way he had come, his face contorted in a parent’s terror. It was that look that made Elijah realise what had happened. His skin was shining like the sun, the light from his face casting the world in a bright bronze. Behind them there was a roar from the crowd, a beastly scream of hate that could never have come from just one throat. They had seen everything. His dad just kept running, Elijah under one arm. Elijah may have been thin but he wasn’t weightless. He shrugged himself free and Greg let go, his face unreadable. Together, they sprinted through the reed thin streets of Prazna, desperately making for home.