I stared up at the splintering rafters and the ceiling beyond, catching my breath. How had this happened? Why had Loradus brought us here, of all places? Did he have a sound reason? Or had something gone wrong in Travelling? "Where are we?" said Ewar, stumbling backwards, almost out the doorway. Loradus steadied him. "Ask your raven friend; he should know. I daresay he knew where we were headed even before we arrived." I shook my head. "Not--not so." I felt Loradus search my mind again, and I did my best to keep snappy thoughts away from his presence. "Have we returned to the...original timeline?" I asked at length. Loradus was still probing when he said, "In a way." "There are other timelines though, right?" asked Ewar. Loradus nodded slowly, and in my mind I felt him stop, as if he had found what he wanted. "Well, don't the other timelines matter?" Ewar went on. "Why are you bothering this one?" Worry flashed across Loradus' features for the briefest of instants. "I think you'd find it difficult," he began, "to Travel where you don't exist. Or where you do, for that matter. No timeline is dominant over another, and, as a result, they are all equally important." His presence left my mind at last, and I sighed, resting my head on a knot of twigs. Then, turning it slightly, I saw Ewar pull a thorn from his own neck and lean against a scratched and discolored plank in the nearby wall. It bent outward, but did not break. The floor creaked as Loradus stepped back, towards the doorway. "I must leave you now. You are confined to this timepoint until I find a way to resolve everything. What food and water you have around will never run out; I have cursed them into reforming once the course of their existence has been changed. "I must ask you not to leave yourselves. If you try, you will meet a very painful and messy death. "The time is..." He glanced outside. "...I would say about noon of the day you start off on your journey. And Rizzo... "...when in doubt, look up."
He began to carve yet another door in the air, behind his back and in front of the actual entryway to the dwelling. That was when I noticed something poking out from inside his cloak; something reflective. "Wait!" Ewar and I said simultaneously; but, taking a final step back, Loradus disappeared into his doorway, which then winked out of existence before we could make a move towards it. Then something clattered to the floor. It must have fallen from Loradus' cloak, but it struck me as unlike him to leave something behind. I stood from the bed and bent to pick it up. It was the fragment of mirror. Immediately, I hurled it back to the floor, hoping it would shatter. It didn't. "What--what is that?" asked Ewar. "Something foul," I returned softly. Thankfully, the reflective side of the fragment was turned to the floor; yet still I found myself unable to tear my eyes away from it. Turn me over, it seemed to say, and my hands quivered at my sides.... Then Ewar stepped in front of me, saying, "But what is--" "No!" I snatched his shoulder as he bent down himself. "Don't! It--it will--" Ewar's eyes shrank back as he looked into mine, and I fell silent. "What?" he said. I looked from the mirror to him, my beak refusing to open. But he continued to stare into my eyes--that is, eye. "Why didn't you tell us sooner?" he asked at length. "Why did you have it covered at all?" I lifted my shoulders slightly, feeling shame well up deep inside myself. "I don't know." "Well--you didn't have to show us then, and make Loradus bring us here--" "I--I couldn't have known! Perhaps he would have brought us here anyway...." Ewar's beak formed the words two eyes, and I bowed my head. Why couldn't I have revealed it sooner? "How can this be happening?" I whispered, more to myself than to Ewar.
If not for the mirror and the fact that Ewar was still here with me, I would have dismissed everything as part of a terrible dream. After the overwhelming recent happenings, being back under this roof seemed unreal. "A mirror?" I heard Ewar mutter, and I jerked my head upright, my eyes wide. The mirror was in his hand, and he squinted into its depths. I reached out my hand to knock it from his grasp--but before I could, it fell to the floor yet again. Ewar exhaled slowly, his eyes rolling. With only a moment's hesitation, I stepped forward to steady him. "What did you see?" was the immediate question that rolled off my tongue. But Ewar shook his head. "Nothing--there was too much." "Surely you must have seen--" "No," he repeated, more firmly. Surely he was lying, but I decided not to press him. I looked for the fragment on the floor; as it had landed reflective side up this time, I gazed into it ere I could stop myself. All emotion faded as darkness seemed to rush up out of its depths, a harsh whisper that was all too familiar filling my mind and pushing conscious thought out my ear-slits-- Almost involuntarily, I reached down for the mirror--then flipped it over. Shadows vanished. The whispering was blocked out. Whatever Loradus was doing, all of the darkness seemed an ill omen. Resisting further inclinations to snatch up the mirror, I looked up past the rafters. Dusty noonday sun shafted through the many gaps and holes in the roof, as well as filtering through the window and doorway. What could Ewar possibly have seen in the mirror that would cause him to lie? To say he had seen nothing? I hardly had the heart now to tell him that this mirror had taken possession of him, or that his mind had been opened to Loradus; at that point, I could scarcely believe these things myself.
Looking back down to Ewar, I found him leaning against the wall gingerly again. His brow was pressed together in a frown, and he was glancing around uncomfortably. It must have been terrible for him--confined or not, at least I had lived here not long ago. Turning my back on the entryway (and the mirror), I swept my gaze over the familiarities of my old home: to the immediate right was my bed, to the left the window; a rough stone chimney led up from a false hearth that had been built for the single purpose of hiding stolen treasures; a small table sat in the middle of the space; and the supply closet in the back wall was locked, as it had been for quite some time. Long ago, before I had been fully accepted into my tribe, Razar and I had been assigned to this dwelling to live together, and often he would hide in the closet as part of a game. He would lose all interest in the game, however, once he found the "goods" stored within. "What--what do you think he meant?" Ewar's hesitant voice pulled me out of my thoughts, sounding every but as uncomfortable as he looked. It took me a moment to fully comprehend what he had said, however, as I was opening the closet in my mind to find Razar counting loose coins and bits of wood. I shook myself. "I'm sorry?" Ewar averted his eyes when I turned mine to them. "Loradus said we would meet a painful death if we tried to leave--and--and--" He glanced towards me, exhaling in an exasperated sort of way. "I'm sorry, I can't get used to the fact that you have two eyes. It's--strange." I nodded, feeling rather strange myself. Exactly what reaction had I expected upon revealing my eye, anyway? Pulling a wooden key from a hidden compartment in the wall near the window, I stepped up to the closet door and unlocked it. A small shower of dust and grit fell as I pulled it open, and I looked around the grimy interior of the closet, searching for something I had left there long ago. Hopefully Razar hadn't taken it by now....
At last spotting the dull glint of metal in one of the back corners, I stooped to lift the object from the dust, strapping it in place over my left eye: a replacement covering. I didn't much like the idea of putting this eye in the dark again so soon, but if it made Ewar more comfortable, I had to do it. I returned to him presently. "You were saying...?" Ewar grimaced at my eye covering, but made no comment--yet. "What Loradus was saying," he said. "Do you think he really meant we would die if we tried to leave?" "I don't intend to find out by leaving. But perhaps..." I held up the wooden key. Ewar stared blankly. Shrugging, I tossed the key out the doorway--but before it touched the wood of the platform outside, its surface began to peel away like tree bark, though it was fashioned of smooth, hard wood. After the first, more layers began to peel away, until what remained of the key melted into the air with a sound roughly akin to water sloshing around in a barrel. Stunned, I squinted out the doorway. Nothing moved. Perhaps it was a trick-- "There's a barrier," said Ewar quietly. Still staring out the doorway, I said, "What?" "Loradus put a barrier in place so we can't leave. It probably extends over the window, too." These words and the destruction of the key combined triggered a memory.... I blinked, now staring inwards. "There was a barrier in the Bottomless Canyon," I murmured. Ewar glanced at me. "What?" "The Bottomless--the Gorge of Eternal Death," I said. "Do you remember when I dived in after Laval?" He nodded slowly. "Well, his cloak, er, fell off as I was halting our descent. It drifted down, and then...exploded. The shreds dissolved into the air. I assumed it was a hallucination." "But...?" said Ewar, clearly sensing one coming. I recalled Cragger's words in the rats' prison cell. "Cragger later said that Loradus had placed a timerip barrier halfway down the Canyon. And...I made the connection."
"But how did Cragger know about it?" "He...overheard Loradus speaking of it to...to..." I struggled to remember the name for some reason. "Crooler." Ewar frowned and voiced one of the many thoughts troubling me: "How can this be real?" I offered a shuddering exhalation, part weary sigh, part nervous laugh. "I should like to know that as well." "I mean, extra-dimensional space, invisible barriers, time and space Travel, and now we're trapped in your house? At a separate point in time? This is too odd." "Should you not be accepting all this? You are, after all, the lost ruler of a kingdom which made all these things possible." He grimaced again. "I rest my case." Silence fell, and I took to staring out the doorway again. I could not help but think that he was right. Very strange times had come upon us, and even Loradus didn't seem to know what to make of them. And what, exactly, could be defined as "real"? Did not everyone view our world differently? Ewar tentatively stepped up to the window, his first real movement since Loradus had brought us there. "And his parting 'advice'," said he at length. "'When in doubt, look up'... What was that about?" "And why did he direct it at me?" I murmured. Had Loradus planted a hint as to how to leave the dwelling without touching the barriers? What would the point of that be if he had first asked us not to leave? When in doubt, look up. It rather sounded like an unimportant, harmless cliche. But then why had he said it at all? To baffle and flummox us, perhaps. If that were the case, he had done well. "What shall we do about this?" I asked, indicating the mirror. Of a sudden, Ewar seemed uncomfortable again. His beak opened and closed soundlessly, and his claws twitched slightly at his sides. I relaxed my posture as much as I was able. "If you would like to say something, you can." "There--there's something about that mirror--" Ewar broke off, then shook his head.
Again, deciding not to press him, I gingerly lifted the mirror from the floor and transported it to the hidden compartment in the "fireplace". Clenching my beak, I hurriedly stuffed it in, covering the opening and concealing the space once more. "How many hiding places do you have around?" Ewar asked, his uncertain tone fading. I reflected that I must have acted very nervous and suspicious to Loradus about the mirror myself, perhaps even more so than him. "A good number," I returned. "Th--" A loud, gurgling noise filled the air. It was several moments before I realized it was my own stomach. I turned to look at Ewar. He was staring. I smiled slightly. "Would you care to clear the table?" He shook himself and said he would, crossing the floor towards it. I looked through every compartment, gathering several overripe fruits, the heel of a stale loaf of bread, and a portion of smoked meat, all of which I must have purchased from the market some time ago. I had half-expected all the food to be rotting or molding by now, but there it was. After laying it all on the newly-cleared table, I returned to the compartments for a jug of water and a knife (the latter of which I found wrapped in a cloth). I hadn't eaten since the night at the Gatekeeper's dwelling, a fact I was keenly aware of as I started on the meal; it seemed so long ago. I consumed a godly portion, as did Ewar.
Quite some time later, the sky outside began to turn from pale blue to gold and red as the sun sank towards what was visible of the horizon through the trees. I rested my hands on the rail beneath the window, looking out upon the last moments of daylight. Already the sky directly above was a deep indigo. A hint of the chill night air swept in. Behind me, Ewar was pacing. "This doesn't make sense," he said. I sighed. "If you are to say such things, would you at least explain yourself?"
He had been mumbling to himself ever since the light had begun to fade, after our evening meal. Having eaten perhaps a bit too much at our first meal, neither of us had been overly eager for a second. However, since we had agreed to eat more regularly, and (for this reason more than any other) there was depressingly little to occupy our time, we had searched through the compartments to find everything as it had been ere the previous meal. Unnerved, but reminded that Loradus had said food would reform, we had nibbled on some meat and left it at that. Ewar paused in his pacing. "Didn't Loradus say we were confined to this timepoint?" I turned away from the window. "That he did." "Well--if this really is one point in time, why does it get dark out? Why does time as we know it pass at all?" Fair questions, to which I had no definite answers. I looked up to the rafters again. "Perhaps time is never truly still...or perhaps we were placed where there is motion by mistake...." "No, the barriers mean that something's been halted. They have to. It would be strange if they didn't...." I extended my wings, wishing I could stretch them further by flying out into the twilight. "The barriers may not be real," I said slowly. "Or they might not harm us. We could try to leave--" "Loradus warned us of a painful death, remember?" I shook my head. "It could be a fabrication." I felt Ewar's eyes on me, and I looked down to meet his gaze. "Why do you want to leave so badly?" he asked. I frowned. "Quite honestly? I doubt Loradus will ever return. And I hate to think of what he is doing right now." But try as I might to ignore them, images of a world changed for the worse sprang to the front of my mind. And, deep within, I felt I was already resigned to the fact that we would be here a long time. "Me too," said Ewar, "but we can't really do anything, can we?" I shook my head numbly. And when the time came to turn in, I insisted Ewar take the bed, then wept into the floorboards.
Next morning, we awoke to early sunlight, which poured in through the doorway and filtered through the holes in the roof. I yawned, slowly spreading my wings. I felt slightly haunted, as if an inexplicable, terrible dream remained within me despite my wakefulness. I had no memory of any dreams, however, but I shivered in the warmth of the sun ere fully rising to look through the compartments. Ewar stood from the bed, rolling his shoulders and blinking his eyes. "How did you sleep on the floor?" he croaked. "I could barely get to sleep on the bed..." Finding all the food we had eaten the previous evening back in its place, untouched, I sighed. "Good morning to you, too, Ewar." We ate in silence. Ewar winced slightly whenever his wandering gaze fell to me, and I did my best to ignore it. For the rest of the day, I tried to push thoughts of my other companions--Laval, Gorzan, Worriz, Cragger, Razar, Eris--to the farthest reaches of my mind. It was difficult, as my thoughts wandered aimlessly, and I maintained only the barest fraction of control. During this time, Ewar spoke but once more. "Rizzo," he said eventually, after another wince towards me, "I thought seeing you with two eyes was strange. But now that I have seen you that way--well--seeing that metal thing over one again feels wrong." I unclamped the thing from my left eye warily. Would Ewar change his mind about this again the next day? And the next? When I pulled the covering from my eye, allowing the light to reach it once again, Ewar tilted his head slightly as if in approval, then looked away and returned to silence. Shrugging uncertainly, I tossed the finely crafted piece of metal out the window and watched it fly apart and dissolve. What would happen, exactly, if one of us attempted to leave?
Days passed in a similar fashion. For whatever reason, Ewar no longer spoke, even when I directly (and repeatedly) asked him a question. It was troubling, having heard him speak one day, then being left to talk to myself the next; he gave absolutely no indication that he could hear me at all. I began to count the days since Loradus had brought us here, scratching a mark into the wall above the bed for each one. I paced. I watched blocks of wood dissolve after being tossed through the door or the window. And, a fortnight hence, I scratched a mark and turned about with a weary sigh-- --to find Ewar standing there, waiting. "Yes?" I said, hoping he would respond. And to my relief, he did. "I've been thinking," said he, "if Loradus fails to come back within five moons, he'll appear here again--with us." Glad as I was to hear his voice again, it took a moment for me to realize that this made no sense. I blinked. "I--I'm sorry?" Ewar, however, seemed to have expected this reaction. "It took us about five moons to get to Mount Cavora, right?" "Right." "And Loradus said he put us here, at noon, on the day we set off for Mount Cavora. Well, if time really is passing, in about five moons, the chain of events will lead Loradus to take us here again. Does that make sense?" I slanted my gaze. "In a way. But Loradus may have lied about where we are in time, or...removed us from that timepoint by...by stopping the journey before it starts." "If he did those things, we probably wouldn't be here, now. It is a little hard to wrap your head around, but I thought this through carefully--as I'm sure you've noticed--and it seems like Loradus will be back one way or another in five moons." I considered this for a long moment, eventually nodding. "You're most probably right." Ewar returned the nod, taking a step back. "You're counting the days?" "I am." "Have you run out of things to think about already?" I swallowed and looked away. "Far from it."
"You--oh..." Slowly, Ewar's hand inched towards a book at his belt. I instantly recognized it as the one he used to map star patterns. "You should take this," said he, holding it out. "It can help you...organize everything up here." He tapped the side of his head with a claw. I realized that this was exactly what I needed, but I knew how much the book meant to Ewar. I couldn't bring myself to take it. "But--but--" I heard myself stammer. "Don't you need it more than I?" Ewar shrugged. "If I want it back, you'll let me use it, right?" "Of course!" I accepted the book and the miniscule bottle of ink, then sat in a corner to scribble something at once.
I awoke in the middle of the night to a soft creaking sound. Such sounds were not unusual in this house, especially considering I slept on the floor. But this particular creak made me inexplicably nervous. Opening my eyes halfway, I turned my head to look at Ewar. The bed was empty. I quickly closed my eyes again in the way one does when he sees something frightening in the dark and wants to believe it no more than a dream. My heart pounded. Had Loradus come for us already? Was he to reclaim us one by one, leaving me alone whilst he delivered Ewar to some unknown destination? Carefully, I felt for Ewar's book. It was secured to one of my belts, as I had left it. Would Ewar have insisted on taking it with him? Would he have had the chance? That was when I noticed: it was unusually dark, as if the light of the moon and the stars couldn't find its way through the roof down to me. I opened one eye to a slit, peering up. No stars winked back. Instead, the dim outline of a dark form was visible in the rafters. My chest seized up and I let out an involuntary gasp. And, quiet though I had been, the form in the rafters moved. It turned its head to look at me, a shaft of moonlight creeping past and illuminating its features. It was Ewar.
I relaxed, my breath returning. "Rizzo?" said Ewar softly. I saw the glint of metal at his side. "Yes?" I returned. He blinked down at me. "I'm being too loud, aren't I?" "It appears so." His eyes drifted. "Is this the first time I woke you up?" "Tonight, you mean?" "No. Since we came here." I opened and closed my beak several times, wondering which of many new questions to ask. I finally decided on, "Exactly how did you get up there?" Carefully, Ewar crawled across the rafters to a point near the doorway and lifted several of the planks. "They're not nailed in place here. I climbed up the wall and pushed myself through." I padded over underneath him, looking up. Had he removed the nails himself? Or had Razar brought them to the market long ago, to be sold for a reasonable price? Rubbing at my eyes, I clumsily scaled the wall nearest the loose planks, digging my claws into the shabby combination of softened wood and clay whenever they lost their purchase. Ewar extended a hand, helping me up onto the rafters beside him. He then returned the planks to their former places. I glanced around this small space betwixt the rafters and the roof. The space was quite cramped vertically, with barely enough room to crouch. The rafters themselves looked very worn (and rather flimsy), but they felt solid enough. Dark leaves and vines crept in through the gaps all around; only those directly above were completely unobstructed by vegetation. And it was through those that Ewar directed the focus of his spyglass (which I had seen glinting at his side earlier). "Er--you have been up here every night since we were brought here?" "Well...." His grasp about the spyglass tightened momentarily. "Yes." I thought about this, a strange suspicion creeping over me.
How had he known exactly where the planks could be removed? I had lived here as long as I could remember, and I had known nothing about loose rafters. "How is it that you are more familiar with my own house than I am?" I asked Ewar, rather sharply. He lowered his spyglass, staring into my eyes. I stared back, but could read no emotion in his mild, yet somehow guarded, eyes; I felt that I had hurt him, however, and regretted my question. Was that not how I had hurt others in the past? I grow tired of your ceaseless questions. Loradus's words echoed through my mind, and I found I agreed with him. I had grown weary of myself, but never could I rest. "This house is an Emerotopian design," said Ewar suddenly. "And in all similar designs, the rafters near the front were set in place without nails, as... a sort of custom." I continued to stare. Clearly he was lying. Still his eyes betrayed nothing, but it was only a matter of time.... "And how do you know this?" I demanded. "Even if this house truly were of Emerotopian design, you wouldn't remember. Besides which, Loradus would have told me something like this." Ewar's stare became unnerving in its lack of expression. "He told me." "Wh--he did?" I must truly have insulted Ewar for him to continue on with such an absurd lie--and to act as if he actually believed it. Then again, perhaps this was the truth. "Why would he tell you?" Ewar at last broke eye contact and sighed, his shoulders slumping in a defeated sort of way. When he spoke again, his voice was part thoughtful, part regretful. "I really don't know. But while you were sitting on the bed, recovering from...Travel-shock, Loradus whispered into my ear, 'for heaven-studying purposes, you'll find the rafters directly above to be moveable, a customary feature of Emerotopian homes'. Something like that." It rather sounded to me like a raven advertisement. "That was all he said?"
"No. He told me to help calm the mess of your mind." I raised my eyebrows slightly, then lowered them. How nice of him. "Loradus told you to give me this book?" I pulled the book of drawn star-maps from my belt and held it out. Ewar glanced at it, rather guiltily. "Well...yes." I opened the book to my recent scribblings, scarcely halfway through, and looked over them. Truth be told, some of the "mess" within my mind had been cleared when put down on the page. But if Loradus had suggested this, I was (of course) inclined to be suspicious. I looked up. "Did--" I got no further than this, as a sadly familiar expression had crept over Ewar's face. He was staring down through the rafters, a shaft of moonlight accenting the profile of his gleaming, white-feathered head. His brows were pressed together, and his spyglass was held limply in both hands. "Ewar?" I said, very softly indeed. "W--what's wrong?" He continued to stare through the rafters to the floor below, giving no sign that he had heard me. Half of his face lay in shadow. I kept silent, glancing at the old wooden boards all around, listening to the slight breeze in the treetops. "I'm thinking," returned Ewar at last, every bit as soft as I, "about my home." "Ah." I traced the misery in his eyes back to the very beginning of our journey. I still remembered Equila's words as he introduced Ewar: "Do me a favor and take Ewar with you. He hasn't been sure what to do with himself lately." If only Equila had known.... "Ewar?" I whispered. "You never did tell me--" "Ewald was Esmerald's successor." Ewar lifted his head slightly to look at me, half of his face still in shadow. I was going to tell him that I hadn't finished speaking, but lost the will to do so when I saw large tears pooling in his eyes. And so I sat back, bumped my head on the ceiling, and sat back again, slouching and ducking my head.
"Ewald was a sharper and more strict leader--he put me under Equila's care. And discouraged my stargazing. He--he said it was a disgrace to Esmerald's memory." I squinted in confusion, unable to stop myself from interrupting this time. "But...did Esmerald not give you the spyglass for stargazing?" Ewar shook his head, beak clenched as the tears rolled down his face. At this I felt my own eyes begin to sting. "See--see, Esmerald gave me the spyglass for my astronomy class," said Ewar. "But after a while, astronomy got too easy. I--I was--bored." These last words sounded like a reprimand, aimed at himself. For the briefest of moments, anger burned at the centers of his eyes. "So I was mapping my own star patterns--using them to predict future events. Nothing big--small fortunes and misfortunes. It--it actually worked. Everything was up there in the sky. Secrets of our past, present, and future, waiting to be discovered. "But eagles--at least, those under Ewald--want everything they do to have simple, dependable, constant results. My--divination, they would call it--was too--well--complicated. They would've hated it. And--though I never told anyone about what I was doing, Ewald--Ewald found out." My eyes widened, a film of fluid blurring my vision. "He didn't tell anyone, surely?" Ewar took a shuddering breath. "No. He told me to stop 'dabbling in frivolous arts', then brought me to the captain of the guard and signed me on to become a wing soldier. Any other eagle would have been overjoyed. But I'm not a fighter." I looked up through a hole in the ceiling. The stars, in their thousands, glinted in the blackness, peering between branches and leaves. Dark, wispy clouds drifted here and there across the sky. I wiped the moisture from my eyes and looked to the brilliance of the full moon.
