Knowledge Aforethought, page 2
There seemed to be some sort of magic surrounding the bars in the theatre during intermission, so I barely managed to squeak out three glasses of wine before the two minute mark when the show would start again. I returned to the box, balancing the drinks precariously and cursing every cheerful show goer that stood in my way. Did they want to die?
Thankfully, the theatre was still standing when I returned to the box. There was no shouting, no pitched battle, and the audience hadn’t burst into screaming panic. My blood pressure dropped minutely. Life and Death hadn't managed to level the theatre or kill each other, so I took the win. However, there was a third person now in the box.
He was tall, though not as tall as Death, and had a sort of casual air about him, as though he had seen everything, done everything, and still enjoyed causing trouble. He didn’t seem to be dark or light, weak or strong, he just sort of was, in the way that the earth beneath your feet is, or the way the stars in the sky are. He was. Despite this gravitas, his shoulders were artfully slouched and he wore a modern, expensive, and wrinkled suit. He stuck one hand into his pocket and grabbed a glass of wine from my hand with the other. Life snatched the remaining glass, leaving me with nothing. Perhaps it was a good thing, considering.
"Well, well," the stranger said looking me over like a new toy. "Interesting. I have met many immortals in my time, but never a human one. Life, darling, what did you do? This is the latest of your playthings?” The stranger spoke with a sort of drawl, though he had a relatively British accent. I wasn't quite sure I like the way he smirked at me.
Life looked at me and curled her lips. "He is not mine. Death refuses to let me play with him."
"The only reason that you didn't burn me to a crisp, lady, is the fact that Death made a mistake when extending my life," I snapped. Life shrugged, and turned back to watch the crowd from the box.
"Time," Death said nodding to be stranger, "this is Cal Thorpe. He is my public relations manager and marketing expert. He is also acting as mediator between Life and myself.”
I would have choked, had I been drinking wine, but it had been taken by the other beings in the box. Instead, I coughed into my hand. "Time? You’re Time?”
The immensely powerful being nodded casually and stretched out his hand for me to shake. I took it rather hesitantly—since Death had fixed my unfortunate inability to be killed at all, I tried to avoid having contact with beings who were dangerous enough to destroy by touch. That included Life and Death. Time, despite having a serious presence, seemed to just be a perfectly normal being. At least, I didn't feel any pain or terror or rapid ageing or anything while shaking Time’s hand.
"Yes," Time said. He took a sip of his wine and tucked his spare hand back into his pocket. "Death is my cousin. We see each other now and again, when certain forces align.”
I winced. Neither Death nor Life looked terribly concerned by this statement, but I had been introduced to the world of magic and mayhem rather more spectacularly than otherwise. One of the first things I learned was to be wary when people made statements like that. "And what forces aligned to bring you here today?" I asked before I could consider whether or not my words would be rude. I needn't have worried.
“You needn’t look so glum, little human. You act as though escorting my cousin and his effervescent wife to the theatre is a burden, not the wonderment it should be. Not many have the opportunities you have, even before their time expires.”
“Yes, well, excuse me if I have to worry about a city block being levelled a whole lot more now than I did when I was just an ordinary ‘little’ human.”
Time just chuckled and sank into the spare chair as the lights flashed, indicating that the second half of the performance was about to begin.
I settled back into my chair between the feuding Life and Death and really hoped that the remainder of the night wouldn't go badly. The stress of the situation was going to give me an ulcer. And now Time was showing up? I rubbed my sternum, certain that I was going to have an acid reflux attack.
I shouldn't have bothered with all the worrying; things seem to often go badly without my input at all.
As far as performances went, the second half of the show was as expected. Gilbert and Sullivan shows being ridiculous, this was that and more. Life and Death seemed suitably distracted from their disagreements with each other to relax a little bit. Time seemed more interested in watching me. I knew this because I could feel him staring at the back of my head. But as soon as I would turn around to look, his eyes would be fixed elsewhere, although never actually on the performance. By the time the show was over, I was feeling extremely jumpy.
The cast came out for bows, smiling as though they had no cares in the world. I envied them, the ignorant, normal, fragile humans. I pushed up my glasses on my nose again, before standing and clapping with the rest of the people in the audience. Death gave an appropriately polite smattering of applause. Life didn't even bother, she just lounged languidly in her chair. The normal people started filtering out of the theatre.
"Are we quite done with this nonsense?" Life asked. "I have a few things to tend to, which are rather more important than this outing."
"Things to tend to?" Death asked, a hint of iron in his voice. I took a deep breath, tried to remember the zen teachings from my yoga studio back when I was a living being, and prepared to face off between two battling beings. "That wouldn't include trying to expand your territory in Elsewhere again? I've noticed a few of your particular favourites gathering along the edge of my territory."
"You're being paranoid," Life said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Why would I want your realm?"
Death started to speak and I decided that it was perhaps time to intervene. "That was a really good show," I said loudly. Life looked at me as though I had shoved something particularly nasty in her face. Death just let out a low breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. He furrowed his brow, which was a little disconcerting given that his head was basically a skull covered in shadows.
"How long was that?” Death asked. I looked at my watch, noting the position of the hands. The time between arguments was annoyingly small.
"Two and a half hours," I said. "It's a new record!"
Death looked less than impressed by my poor enthusiasm. He looked at me, looked at Life, looked at Time, then sighed. "I am returning home," Death said. "You may stay here for a few more hours if you like, Cal, since you’ve been wanting a visit to the mortal realms. I trust you can find your way home."
By the time I got around to answering in the affirmative, Life was already gone and Death was fading. That left me alone with Time, who was looking mildly interested. He stood and shoved his hands into his pockets with that annoying artistic slouch again. "What's with the timer?" He asked.
I shoved my phone back into my pocket and shrugged. "For the last two weeks, every time I have had Life and Death go out together to try and sort out their differences and figure out common ground, I have timed them to see how long it would take before they started arguing. Two and half hours is actually quite the improvement for them. First time we did this, they couldn't even last through a cup of coffee."
Time chuckled. "Used to be that they were madly in love. Of course, things went wrong as they always do. Actually, that's where it all started to go badly."
"Madly in love?" I asked with a scoff. "I hardly believe it. Those two have been at each other's throats since before I got around. And then there was that whole incident with Justice—not my fault by the way. Then, Yolanda said that I had to do something about this feud before The Order of Silence got involved and forced them to spend time together in solitary confinement, which is apparently what they've done before. Apparently that didn’t end well. At all. So here I am, relationship counsellor. Not in my job description, just so you know. There has to be another way." This last point was spoken mostly to myself, with my nose pinched between my fingers. Frankly, dealing with Life and Death was giving me a major headache. And no matter what I seemed to be doing, they just kept arguing. Soon, I knew there would be nothing I could do and the powers that be would have to battle it out, probably at the expense of most of the mortal realms. I hoped I was long gone by that point.
"I think there might be another way," Time said. He seemed particularly unconcerned about the situation between Life and Death. Or maybe that was just his way. Maybe he was particularly unconcerned about everything, considering that he was Time. If that was anything like what Life and Death were, then he was Time itself. Which was a terrifying thought. I narrowed my eyes a little bit.
"Oh really?" I asked. At this point, I was tired, hungry, and wanted very little more than to go and find a nice sandwich somewhere. Time nodded.
"Indeed. See, all of this started back when they were first married. They were still madly in love, only circumstances got in the way and mistakes were made. Death missed a terribly important appointment. Life refused to let Death get involved in a particular mortal’s end days. Things spiralled out of control from there. But don’t worry; I think you can fix it," Time said as though I was some sort of extremely powerful being of my own. I folded my arms and laughed.
"I have been trying to fix it for two weeks now, not to mention all of the minor altercations in the last year before this. Somehow, I don't think it's working." I think that might've been an understatement, but I was only human.
"I think you should give it a try my way," Time said. Before I could even ask what that meant, Time reached out and touched me on the forehead, right between my eyes.
A sharp pain formed where he touched me, like nails through my skin. The lights sharpened until they were blindingly white. The ground fell away from beneath my feet and my body felt as though it was being torn into a thousand pieces.
My last thought before I blacked out completely was that I knew Gilbert and Sullivan was a bad idea.
In the Interest of Time
I woke screaming. Now, you might think that this is a really bad way to wake up, but given my current lifestyle, it was not terribly uncommon. In fact, I had sort of lost track of the times in recent history that I had woke up with something really awful staring me in the face. Many of them, incidentally, being the selfie-loving gremlin doctor Graveltoes that was so fascinated by my humanity. Though Agravaine took particular pleasure in waking me up in unconventional ways. The incident with the tiny fire lizard? Nothing I did could possibly be considered overreaction. By contrast, staring into the face of Time was, well, pretty terrifying. Still, it was familiar.
I missed the days when waking up by means of my phone alarm was jarring.
Once my scream died down, I got a good look at the place where I was laying. Most of the time, my terrible encounters had ended with me in the hospital inElsewhere, with the weird creature Doctor Graveltoes leering over me. Well, most of the time. There was that time on the Irishman Fionn’s mountain. And in a parking lot in Norway. And in the bowels of the Order of Silence’s network of caves.
By contrast, the place where I was now was actually quite pleasant. It seemed like there were smoothly rolling hills, covered with waving grasses and fields. There were a few trees around and more off in the distance. Birds sang as if they hadn’t a care in the world. The sun was shining. The sky was blue as it gets. On the whole, it was actually a very delightful place. But—and this was a big issue—it was not the theatre.
"Where am I?" I demanded. I tried to stand, but given that my feet seemed to have an uncertain relationship with the ground, I decided that sitting up was perhaps the best I could manage under the circumstances. Time sat on the ground beside me, his legs stretched out as if he could not be any more relaxed. Hardly a hair on his head had been ruffled. He looked around, smiling, and shrugged.
"I would've thought it obvious,” he said, stretching. He stood and brushed off some of the grass from his trousers. Then, he looked around and took in a full, deep breath. Letting it out, he turned to me and smiled wider. “We’re in Italy."
I coughed once. Loudly.
"Italy. Explain to me how going from a New York theatre to the Italian countryside is an obvious choice.” I shoved my glasses up on my nose and shielded my eyes from the sun.
"The where is unimportant," Time said, shrugging dismissively. "It's the when that you should find interesting.”
I frowned. It should have been completely and idiotically obvious given the fact that I was dealing with Time. But, call me an optimist—or an idiot—but I had hoped that maybe I wouldn't get sucked through some vortex during an average night out. "Okay, I’ll bite. When are we?”
Time fixed me with a grin that I can only describe as mischievous elves taking too much pleasure in causing trouble. He would get along well with Agravaine and Yolanda. “I believe that you would call it the year 1494. Granted, I think you humans are very strange in the way that you describe me. The years are based on what, some arbitrary movements of the planets around the sun? Nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense.”
"1494. As in the middle of the Renaissance. As in long before the era of indoor plumbing and the popularisation of glasses?" It had been a while since I had studied history, but I remembered a decent portion of my history lesson from Renaissance Italy, given that was when all the really good art was happening. I remembered that things had not been nearly as nice as with modern times. I remembered that the Catholic Church was in charge in a very big way. And I remembered such things like death by various unpleasant diseases, including the plague.
I forced my legs to cooperate and pushed myself off the ground. This time, I did manage to stand, though it was more to do with abject panic than anything else. My legs were still shaking, and I was beginning to have a splitting headache, but I managed it. Barely. I looked up at Time—still taller than me and wearing a calm expression. Time looked back and me. Smiled. That bastard.
“Indeed,” he said looking around at the countryside. "Very interesting time period. Then again, they're all interesting to me."
I tried to be reasonable. I tried to think of my nice comfortable bed and my nice automatic coffeemaker. I tried to think happy thoughts, like Yolanda who efficiently sorted through my mail, electronic and otherwise, every morning before I even had to ask. I tried to think of the way that I had successfully survived my first week with Death and Life. Somehow, I imagined that the smile crossing my face wasn't quite as pleasant as I had hoped. "Would you care to tell me why we are in the middle of the Italian Renaissance? Or were you hoping I had figured that out for myself."
Time stretched lazily, looking more like he was inclined to talk nonsense than get me back to the modern times that I was used to. Sometimes, I really hated my job. "I told you," he said. "I brought you here to help. You did want to fix the problems between Life and Death, didn't you?"
This was the point where I lost my temper. I threw my arms up and practically shouted at Time. “To get them to have a normal therapy session! I didn't mean for you to go and tell me that I should be pulled through time to a place of death and disease. Take me back!”
Time seemed to consider. He looked around, put his hands in his pockets, then shook his head. “No," he said. "I don't think I will. I think this will be good for you. After all, how many people get to travel through time to help fix the wrong that was never meant to be in the first place? Appreciate the opportunities you have been given.”
"I work for Death," I said through gritted teeth. "Death may have made me immortal, so I didn’t fall to the ground as a dead body burnt to a crisp despite whatever stupid magic you have going on. But that doesn't mean you can just treat me like one of your playthings!"
Time paused. It was a very strange thing to see, considering every muscle in his body froze simultaneously. He just stopped. Like an actual sculpture instead of the living being that I knew he was. "No. I think this is best," Time said after a moment, his movements returning as though they had never stopped. "The other possibility is a far too… strenuous on things."
"You know that, do you?" I demanded.
Time raised an eyebrow at me. I set my jaw, but didn't rise to the bait. Yes, he was Time. Yes, he could probably see every eventuality and all of the different possibilities. But really? My life had to be involved? I had just gotten back into a good relationship with the vampires after accidentally—not my fault—killing their prince. I had gotten The Order of Silence off my back about the whole breaking the balance issue. I was just getting back into an almost normal life where I just did marketing and social media and public relations. Things were good. A decently normal life, despite my circumstances, was all I wanted. And now…
"Don't forget. An appointment. And a death meant to happen.” Time raised his hand, waved, then promptly vanished. I reached out to the spot where he had been, hoping to catch a backlash or something so I could be pulled back through. Instead, I just tripped and landed on my face in the dirt. I was already hating Italy.
After a few moments, I stood up and brushed myself off. Lying in the dirt would not help the situation, as much as I wanted it to. I had to come up with a plan to get me back home, to my normal time of computers and plumbing and coffee. A half-formed plan took shape in the back of my mind. It was better than nothing and didn’t involve Time’s ridiculous errand.
If I could find Death—he was always around somewhere—then maybe I could get him to convince Time to take me back. Granted, Death would have no idea who I was given he was several centuries younger than the Death I knew, but it was worth a shot. At this point, anything would be worth a shot.
I unbuttoned my blazer, looked around to see if there were any markers to point me in the direction of civilisation, and came up with nothing. All I could see around me were fields and hills. It was very pretty. Annoyingly pretty. This was the sort of spot I would have chosen for a nice vacation of lazy days and much wine. Only, you know, with the appropriate level of technology. This nonsense about being in 1494 was not how I had planned on a trip to Italy going. Instead of a wine tour with a nice brunette lady on my arm, I was likely to be stabbed as a heretic or a witch for wearing glasses.
