Beyond the Wall of Time by Russell Kirkpatrick Read Free Book Online Page B

gods?”
    “I don’t think so,” she said, leaving off her work to sign the words. “I get no sense of power from this. Just a sense of
     being far too wet.”
    “Did you see someone hurry past a moment ago?”
    “I’ve been busy with Gennel’s loose bandages since we left the House of the Gods.” She tsked. “Whoever bound these wounds
     wasn’t paying attention to their task.” Talking done, she returned to her work.
    Noetos found himself studying the fading marks on his hand in the pouring rain. What had he seen? He had just about convinced
     himself it had been wet sand, not blood, when Tumar approached him.
    “Heredrew says we need to talk.”
    “What about?”
    The miner’s answer was drowned out by a crack of thunder that shook the earth. The fisherman’s shoulders hunched involuntarily.
     It reminded him of the moments he had spent with Mustar fleeing the gods in Raceme.
    “Why don’t we return to the House of the Gods and wait out the storm?” he suggested.
    Tumar shook his head vehemently and a look as close to fear as Noetos had seen materialised on the miner’s face. “Not goin’
     back there,” he said, his eyes darting back and forth.
    “Why? What happened?”
    “Come ’n’ speak to Heredrew.”
    He led Noetos, Alkuon knew how, unerringly through the battering storm to the portal trees. Heredrew had seated himself under
     the tree to the right of the entrance. Most of the others were gathered there, though the tree itself provided little shelter
     from the rain.
    “I saw what I saw,” Kilfor was shouting as Noetos approached. “You’ve seen all manner of miracles on this journey, even been
     involved in a few of your own, so the story goes, expecting all the while for us to believe you, yet you quibble at this?”
     He glanced in Noetos’s direction, at Tumar, and said, “Ask the miner!”
    “I am not questioning your truthfulness,” Heredrew began.
    “He is telling the truth,” Lenares said.
    The tall Falthan stared at her. “That means nothing. I have no doubt he has described truthfully what he saw, which is little
     enough. What we need to decide is the relevance of his speculation as to what it means, and where the body has gone.”
    Sauxa leaned forward and shook a finger at Heredrew. “My son is a drunkard, a lecher, a coward and has a feeble mind,” he
     said, “but he’s no liar.”
    Kilfor’s mouth twitched in what looked like exasperation.
    The Falthan turned his attention to Noetos. “Did you see anything unusual as we emerged from the gods’ house?”
    Who decided you should run this court?
Too late now: the man was in control.
    “A man rushed past me,” he said, loud enough for them all to hear. “I did not recognise him. I grasped at him, but he struck
     my hand away, leaving blood on my fingers.”
    Multiple pairs of eyes looked down at his hands.
    “The rain has washed the blood away,” he finished. Heredrew wrinkled his long nose. “Did you not get a clear look at his face?”
    “No, but I can guess whom it might have been.”
See how you like this, Falthan.
“Just as we left the Room of Blood—you remember that strange room with what looked like blood flowing from the walls—Dryman’s
     corpse began to bleed.”
    This occasioned mutters from the party.
    “Did anyone else see this?” the Falthan asked. When no one responded, he added, “How is it you saw it?”
    Why so sceptical?
Noetos wondered. “I was helping carry the body at the time,” he said. “Later, when Tumar and Kilfor took the body from Captain
     Duon and me, the bleeding appeared to have stopped again. It was strange,” he admitted, forestalling Heredrew’s likely next
     question, “but I didn’t mention it because, frankly, I’m not totally sure how dead bodies behave. I haven’t carried many before.”
    “They don’t up ’n’ walk off,” Tumar said.
    “No,” said Noetos. “But this one has. I gather the corpse came alive as you carried it through the