Timefall: A Thousand Years to Find You

Someone had been calling his name right before the light took him. Not a voice he knew. Not a voice that sounded human at all. Xie Jinyan didnt have time to wonder about that. One second there was a blade in his sleeve and the cold floor of the palace hallway under his knees, guards closing in, his own blood warm on his fingers. The next, there was nothing. No blade. No hallway. No guards. Just white light, humming somewhere above him, and ground so smooth and cold it didnt feel like anything hed ever touched. He got up fast, the way you get up when your body doesnt trust the ground anymore. And the moment he was on his feet, he understood something was very, very wrong. The sky was wrong. Too bright, too even, scrubbed clean of clouds. The buildings were wrong, tall as mountains, made of glass, throwing back light like water. People stared at him. Too many of them, too close, in clothes hed never seen, talking in voices too loud and too fast. His hand went to his sword before he even decided to move it. He didnt know these people. He didnt know if they meant him harm, and in his world, you didnt wait to find out. He pulled the blade halfway from its sheath, enough that the crowd around him flinched back, a few of them shouting words he didnt understand, phones raised like small dark mirrors. That was when the trailer came. It came around the corner like a wall on wheels, taller than a horse and cart, faster than anything should move on solid ground, and it screamed, a horn like some furious animal, as it swung toward the crowd he was standing in. Jinyan had faced armies. He had faced blades aimed at his throat without blinking. But he had never in his life heard a sound like that, never seen a shape like that bearing down on him with no warning and no mercy, and something in him that had nothing to do with training just broke and ran. He didnt know where. That was the truth of it, he just ran, the sword still half drawn in his hand, no plan, no direction, just his legs carrying him away from the noise and the light and the wall of screaming metal, deeper into a maze of streets that made no sense to him at all. He turned down a smaller street. Then a smaller one after that. When he saw a door standing open, he didnt think. He just went in and pulled it shut behind him. The house was quiet. That was the first thing he noticed, and it felt like water after a long walk in the sun. He stood in the entryway a moment, breathing hard, listening to his own heartbeat slow down, the sword still gripped white knuckled in his hand. There was a smell coming from somewhere close, food, oil and garlic. Jinyan followed it without meaning to, the way a starving man follows anything that smells like a meal, and that was how he ended up standing in the doorway of a kitchen that wasnt his, in a house that wasnt his, staring at a young man standing at the stove with his back turned. The man must have heard him, because he turned around, and went very still at the sight of the sword. Okay, the man said, slow, careful, both hands lifting slightly. Nobody has to get hurt here. Who are you, and what are you doing in my house? Jinyan looked down at the blade in his own hand like hed forgotten it was there. He lowered it, fast, embarrassed in a way he didnt have a name for. I dont, I dont know how I came to be here. The mans eyes moved over him slowly, the long hair, tied back the old way, the robes, the stitching, the jade at his belt. His face went from alarmed to something more careful, more curious, like he was doing math that wasnt adding up the way he wanted it to. Is this a prank, the man said. Are you filming something? Because I swear, if theres a camera in my house right now I am not familiar with these words, Jinyan said. Camera. Filming. Right. Sure. The man kept his hands up a second longer, then slowly reached over and turned the stove off, like he needed something normal to do with his hands. So what, you just walked into my house waving a sword around dressed like youre in some historical drama, and you dont know what a camera is. I do not know what a drama is either. The man laughed at that, short and disbelieving. Okay, thats a good bit. Really committed. I dont even have time for this, Ive got a shift in an hour and rent is due Friday. He crossed his arms. Lets try this from the top. Where are you from? Jinyan told him. Not a country he would ever call by that word, a dynasty, a name that hadnt been spoken in longer than anyone alive could remember. The man frowned. Something flickered behind his eyes, a memory from a textbook, years old and mostly forgotten. Thats, wait, thats from school. Thats ancient. Like, ancient ancient. Yes. So what, youre telling me youre from a thousand years ago? He laughed again, thinner this time, less sure of itself. Come on. Say it. Say youre joking. Jinyan didnt say it. The silence went on a little too long. Okay, this isnt funny anymore, the man said, but his voice had changed. He took a step back instead of forward, like some part of him, some part he didnt want to listen to, had already started to believe. Jinyan looked down at his own hands. At the faint blue light that had, without him doing anything at all, begun to glow beneath his skin. The man saw it too. He went completely still. And somewhere far behind Jinyans ribs, quiet as a held breath, something that was not quite his own heartbeat answered it back. What, the man said slowly, was that. Jinyan didnt answer. He didnt have one to give. The man stared at him for a long moment, at the glow already fading from his skin, at the sword now lowered but not put away, at a stranger who claimed to be a thousand years too old to be standing in his kitchen. Then, quietly, like the words cost him something, he said, Im Lu Chenxi. And I really, really need you to explain what I just saw. Jinyan opened his mouth to try. That was when the door he had shut behind him rattled, hard, like something on the other side had just thrown its full weight against it. Chenxis eyes went to the door, then back to Jinyan, then to the sword still in his hand. Tell me thats not for you, Chenxi said. Jinyan already had the blade raised. I do not think it is for you. The door rattled again, harder. And then it went still. Completely still. No sound at all, which was worse, somehow, than the banging had been. Neither of them moved. Neither of them breathed.