Revaliir was finally starting to feel like home, Mathuin thought as he scratched his grey-streaked beard sleepily. It had taken a while after he was deposited here through the rift, but he had made peace with his situation and began to treat this land as his home, as much as a nomad could call anything home. He did not stay in any place overly long, traveling the length and breadth of Canelux, trading rumors and news for coin, doing odd jobs when it suited him, and living off the land when he could. It was a simple life and if afforded him the freedom he had lacked before, bound down with onerous responsibilities to his people and his oaths. Now he was a man without a country and it suited him down to the ground. He pushed his sheets off and pulled himself upright in the bed in a Sularian inn. His muscles were sore but it was to be expected after the hours he spent with his sword the day before. It was a fun sort of trick, looking as he did, a poor, down on his luck Highlander cast adrift in the world, and he would stand out on a market day and offer ten crescents for anyone that would beat him for the price of a crescent. And for every time he lost, and there were a few if he was honest with himself, there were dozens that would lose in often hilarious fashion, and he left the market a richer man each time.
He willed himself to get out of the comfortable bed and face the day with a grimace, stretching as he stood. He did not want to bother himself with the worries of the clock but he would be remiss if he did not at least see the madness himself so he could invent a good story about it when he returned south or made his way across the sea. When he washed his face in the small basin of water on the table, he saw his reflection in the polished bronze mirror. It was startling, as he often did not bother with mirrors, and he took a moment to commit it to memory. He was scarred in a few places, with a star-shaped scar on his chest from an arrow and other nicks and scratches on his torso. There was another scar on his left cheek that gave him a dangerous look that was offset by an easy, wide smile and flashing blue eyes. His brown hair grew longer now, and his beard was streaked with a few strands of grey since he passed through the crack to this land. He doubted if many of his companions from his own side would recognize him now, with his skin tanned by the sun and the beard.
He pulled the linen shirt at the foot of the bed over his head, looking wistfully at the small, even line of stitches that closed up what had been a sword thrust he took in battle, remembering the woman that mended it fondly. She was gone and he had come to grips with that, but it would be a cold day in the Abyss before he got rid of that shirt. He pulled on his boots, their thick leather and hobnails ensuring that would last over the miles he traveled over Canelux. He did not need his armor, he decided, especially in the heat, so he instead wore a leather arming jacket, the wooden buttons left open as a concession to the heat of the day. Finally, he fastened his sword belt around his waist, letting the heavy blade settle on his left with a steel buckler looped over the top of the scabbard. The blade was heavy and crude, re-forged a number of times, but like the shirt, he would never trade it for even the finest blades of Adeluna or Tarishitar. It had once killed a man who betrayed him in a fight that Mathuin should have lost and he knew the blade was lucky.
After a short breakfast of cold beef and bread, Mathuin hired a horse from the inn’s stable and headed toward the maze. He wanted nothing to do with this, not in the slightest, remembering the last time he had been caught up in a crisis that involved the gods in his own realm. It cost him two friends, countless comrades, and his marriage and he was not keen to lose the detached freedom of his rambling around the world. The ride was pleasant, Mathuin thought, for being in a desert that was threatened with rippling shifts of time. These rifts held no concern for Mathuin, having already been through one before and survived. The maze and the towering clock appeared on the horizon and he spurred his horse faster toward them, sending up spurts of sand behind him. To his right, he saw a cluster of people on the dunes near the maze, and one broke into a run toward the maze. Mathuin turned his horse toward the ones that remained, thinking to offer them help to the maze if it was required. Only then the woman, he could tell now as he closed the distance, had jumped back to the group out of thin air. So the clock was starting to fail even more, he thought, pulling up his reins as he came alongside them.
“I don’t know what you lot are doing out here, but things are safer closer in.” He swung out of his saddle and nodded to the women, then blinked. Both were familiar to him, but not from this time. He swallowed heavily then offered the reins to Luthene and Ara. “You ladies can ride the last way, the both of you. I’d just suggest we not stay out here much longer before something bloody terrible happens.” He smiled with his secret pleasure of recognition, the corners of his blue eyes crinkling. “Now, blondie and the one with the badger hair, let’s move. We don’t have Time to waste,” he said, putting heavy emphasis on the word time and chuckling. Even in the midst of everything going to the Abyss, the Maker found a way to bring him laughter. Unless he had lost his mind, of course, but it just seemed too perfect. Time come to the clock and the general that fought her as well. The Maker was a hilarious bastard.
