Beyond the Wall of Time by Russell Kirkpatrick Page A

experienced this before? And what did arrows have to do with the story?
    Moralye continued. “What we do not know is what this means. Is the god back in charge of the body? Or is there some power
     in the House of the Gods that undoes death?”
    Lightning flashed, followed immediately by the crack of thunder.
Lenares
, Noetos thought wildly.
She will moan and put her hands to her head. She’ll cry a warning about the hole in the world—arrows—Kilfor—oh, Alkuon!
    Lenares moaned and her hands went to her head.
    “Thank you, Moralye,” Kilfor said.
    Fighting with everything he had, Noetos struggled against something—against the flow of time itself—and bunched himself.
    Kilfor was still talking. “At least someone believes us—uh!”
    Noetos launched himself at the plainsman and took him in the stomach, knocking him to the ground. He felt the arrow streak
     past his right ear and
thock
into the portal tree.
    “Down!” he cried, as he knew he would.
    Kilfor cried out, but it was a cry of surprise and anger, not pain.
    Things are changing. Are you aware, Lenares? You’re dead if not.
    “It’s the hole in the world,” she said, but it was little more than a whisper, not a shout. With no sound to shoot at, the
     arrows never came.
    Duon is supposed to warn us about the arrows.
Noetos waited, breathing hard in the wet grass, Kilfor lying inert beside him. Only silence.
    No one dared move. They could hear movement in the grass around them. Noetos could sense the approach of a group of people,
     but sound attracted arrows, that was the lesson here. Keep still and stay alive.
    A bare foot kicked him in the shoulder. “Get up.”
    He rose slowly to his feet, arms extended, hands raised in what he hoped would be taken as a conciliatory gesture. None of
     the others moved.
    A man stood before him. Behind the man were at least fifty of his fellows. All were dressed in little more than loincloths
     and jerkins, and most held bows in their hands. At least half had arrows at the ready, some nocked. All poisoned, if the stories
     about the natives of Patina Padouk could be believed.
    These natives, Noetos recalled, were an unpredictable lot. The official history of Roudhos, written by Bryant of Tochar, suggested
     that the Padouki had once had this part of Bhrudwo to themselves, covering it as far as their forests extended. How did the
     famous line go? “The whole of southern Bhrudwo was once a green city, with the Padouki its only inhabitants.” Locals told
     a different story, one of Padouki invasions of their farmland, of crops burned, of children taken, of villages feathered.
     Noetos had been inclined towards the official version, but the look of these people made him wonder.
    They loosed poisoned arrows at us. They don’t care if we live or die.
    “Where is Keppia?” the man asked. “Has he remained in the Godhouse?”
    A reasonable Fisher Coast accent
, Noetos observed. Just one more oddity in a hatful of them. “No,” he answered. “He has left us.”
    “We offered your people safety out of respect for Keppia. Why now should we grant you leave to be in our heartland?”
    “We are leaving,” Noetos assured him.
    Around him, members of the party had only now raised their heads. “Leave the talking to me,” he said to them.
    “You may be leaving, but you are still here,” the leader said. “It is death to be found in the heartland uninvited, even for
     one of the Padouki. How much more so for one of the tree-eaters?”
    “As I said, we are leaving. The sooner this conversation is finished, the sooner we will be on our way.”
    The man signalled and ten of his fellows stepped forward, arrows at the ready.
    “You’re going to tell us it’s not that easy, aren’t you?” Noetos said.
Time to put this man off balance.
“Where did you study? Tochar?”
    “You have an ear,” the man replied grudgingly.
    “And you have bows and arrows. Had you wanted to kill us, we would be dead. So what is it you