The Time Tower (the first visit)

Chapter 17

Jaru screamed in pain. He tried to pull the key back out, tried to release the key's handle, but they
were both held fast. Shadows leaped from his eyes and open mouth, from the keyhole, from the cracks
appearing in the wall.

Several onlookers cried out and attempted to reach him, but they were swallowed up by the
shadows. Their cries of pain joined Jaru's, echoing off the walls and piercing Pima's eardrums. Pima
scrambled for the key as well, but she couldn't pull hers out, and she couldn't break through the
shimmering wall to grab its copy.

Time shifted. The scene elongated and compressed, shoving this Jaru to the side and making
room for a long line of Jarus, each of a mirror of the first Jaru's agony, to appear.

Pima tore her gaze from this vision to look behind her. A line of Pimas wound down the hall
behind her and disappeared down the stairs. A hundred Pimas all stuck to the floor, their expressions
frozen in various stages of hopelessness and horror.

And this is the vision that undid the knot that held the part of herself that she'd been holding onto
in her mind. There was a...slip...She felt it. She was unraveling.

"Ahhhhh!"

Her hands flew to her head, her heart, her mouth. She threw herself at the guardian's image of her
father and beat at him with her fists. She stumbled into Akish's chest and threw her arms around him, too
drained for tears or words to express all the heartache she felt at her failure, her inability to cage time, to
turn back the clock, to save him, save them, save anything.

As time incarnate, the Tower had always seemed two things to her: imposing and cruel. Now she
knew that time was impassive. It marched on because it must. It was hard and immovable but it wasn't
cruel.

She felt the apparition's arms encircle her, gently, lovingly almost, and she pressed her face into
its shoulder.

"Pima..."

"Don't."

"Pima, you can't---"

"I know I can't! I can't change anything! I can't save anyone! I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I couldn't
save you!"

"Stop looking back, Pima. You can't stay in the past. You don't belong here."

"I know. I know. I can't go back. I can't. I can only...go...forward..." She pulled away, her eyes
searching for the light that stood watch over the form of a sleeping five-year-old Akish. "And do better."

She took a step away from the Tower guardian, prying her arm free from its grip, and crept back
into the room to stand beside young Akish's sleeping form. She reached out a trembling hand as if to
brush the hair from his eyes. "I have to look forward. There's nothing else I can do for you...for them...but
they can still make a difference. They can do better. I choose to look forward...to their future."

She refused to run. She refused to look back when the guardian called her name. She refused to
stop, though the floor continued to buckle and shadows leaped from the walls and it felt like she was
caving into herself, crumbling into dust. She walked through door after door in a straight line, never
deviating from her chosen path. No, she inched along as if she had all the time in the world, teeth and fists
clenched against the odd sensation of walking outside of time.

She reached the room where her father stood over the bed as her mother cuddled a newborn baby
in her arms as they discussed the activation of the Tower. With eyes burning from unshed tears, Pima
walked through the next door - a scene of her parents bent over Tower schematics - and the next - the
family of three sitting around the same table eating supper - and the next - her father holding back her
mother's hair as she threw up into a wastebasket - until finally - she was met with nothing on the other
side of the door but a black void.

She closed her eyes and imagined her mother and brother as they had been in her memory of
them standing beside the horse, getting ready to move on to the first tiny, rundown house among many that stood out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by wildlife and fog poison. There she was riding on
Akish's shoulders. She laughed at his joke, the joyful sound ringing out loud and clear.

There was her father, leading the horse on, while their mother walked beside him. She held his
hand; she was smiling. And there was Neeman as she imagined him at that age, walking beside Akish,
grinning up at her, with the left side of his mouth screwed up just a bit higher and a warm twinkle in his
eye.

Avir and all the rest, the brave group that had stormed the Tower, trailed behind the horse,
skipping and hopping along as if they were part of a celebratory parade. In the background, she heard her mother's voice singing a lullaby, lulling her to rest.

"I choose you," Pima whispered. She took a step back, and her searching hand found the
guardian's.

She was lifted off her feet and cradled in gentle arms. Good, because at that moment she heard a
baby's thin wailing cry, echoing through the maze of time, a shrill cord of hope. She was sure the sound
would have sent her to her knees.

Pima lay limp in her brother's arms as he cradled her close to his chest. She imagined that his
hands were warm. She imagined that she could hear his heartbeat, and she smiled.
He looked down at her, a question in his eyes. Her vision blurred, or its face did, and she didn't
know who she was looking at. Akish or Neeman or her father. She didn't care. It was enough to know she
wasn't alone.

The figure took one step forward, and they fell into the dark abyss.