It was not a complete disaster, Luthene decided as she pulled the blanket over her. She had helped a stranger out of the desert, after all, and that woman may have actually understood time better than Luthene had given her credit for. But while she wanted to help with the clock, ultimately Luthene felt useless where it was concerned. She was smart, yes,  but perhaps not in the way that was needed. She was also strong, but that did not save the scholars they lost along the way; a time wave could not be defeated by a sword. So far, much of her quest had been marred in disappointment and frustration.

But some things had worked out.

As he'd requested, Luthene let Galin choose the tavern. She also had the foresight to knock before opening the door, and then she shooed him out so she could bathe. There was sand everywhere, especially after spending days in the desert from Cittapashe to the Arriese oasis. Luthene had her fill of it, enough to last a lifetime. Fortunately, Sularia had warm water, plenty of soap, and a tub large enough that she could submerge herself. One of the women who carried buckets to the room had even added rose petals to the water. Luthene sank down in the tub when it was ready, holding her breath until her lungs would burst. Then she did her best to scrub every grain of sand off her skin and out of her hair. When she was finished, the water was cloudy, and she smelt of roses. Luthene had a simple linen dress she picked up at the bazaar just as it was closing. The green didn't suit her eyes, the woman had told her, but Luthene was looking for something better suited to the warm Arri climate, not something fashionable. Her heavy tunic and trousers were uncomfortable in the heat, and the long, loose skirt of the dress wouldn't limit her movement. Pinning her hair back, Luthene left the room to meet Galin for dinner.

When he saw her, Galin was dumbfounded, but he recovered, and teased her the rest of the night. Luthene didn't even mind. She even enjoyed herself, and forgot for a while about Timedeath, and the clock, and the fiasco that was her quest. Then when they'd finished, they went up to the room, which was a bit larger than in Cittapashe, and she kissed him goodnight… more than once. Finally, exhausted, they climbed into the bed, where Luthene relaxed immediately, and fell asleep.

And dreamed.

She saw the face of the woman in Vilpamolan, the one with eyes like those Luthene's father had, who might have been Luthene's half-sister in another world. Then the face grew younger, and Luthene was looking at an angry teen demanding to know about her father. Then a child, who wanted to hear- again- about the war. Younger still, a child who was learning how to sign her name, but Luthene could not see that name, nor the letter itself. Then a screaming infant, and a midwife trying to show her how to feed her, telling her she needs a name, and maybe the right name will help her to love the child.

Luthene sat up suddenly, gasping for breath as she was flooded with feelings, images, memories, belonging to a woman who was her and yet not her, all concerning the woman from Vilpamolan, Lajaka… no, Lunar. Lunar was the name her mother gave her. She shook Galin awake and waited for him to rise. "Do you remember Lajaka? The woman with Aelle who helped us in Vilpamolan? Galin, I think… I think she's my daughter!"

None of the bastards had thought to bring water.  Galin had nearly killed every last one of the scholars after the ripple in time stripped them of their guide and the supplies he had painstakingly purchased out of his own funds to ensure they would survive the desert crossing.  Instead, he was met with blank stares and tomes about problems in the magical universe, problems that he could not and would not understand.  He could barely understand magic, let alone control it, and yet it stole from him the waterskins he hoped would keep the scholars alive until they all had reached the maze and were out of his charge.  One of them earned a backhand across the face when he challenged the soldier about the situation, and the moment the maze within view, he sent them at a gallop toward it while he headed back into the desert to find Luthene.  

By the time the sun was setting, he knew there was no more he could do, so he set off back to the town and its maze.  It was there, as the clock's repairs were completed, that he found Luthene and nearly wept in relief.  He had feared that he would never see her again and with the ripples and the desert, such a fear was not unfounded.  However, she was alive and finally as able to relax, remembering that in their last town, he had complained about their lodging.  Instead, he rented a room in the finest inn he could find and did not mention the quality of the place to Luthene until they arrived.  It was more likely that he would choose a flea pit than a place of distinction but he was glad of his ability to surprise her still.

After a short bath and a shave at the barber-surgeon's, Galin returned to the tavern and ordered them a meal.  Drinks were served first and rather than suck down pints of rather unimpressive ale from Arri, he ordered a flagon of the local wine, judged to be one of the better in the continent, as well as some beef, bread, and vegetables.  He wanted to eat the moment he smelled the beef roasting over the kitchen's fire but a half second later, he heard a door above him and looked to the stairs.   Luthene walked down them, dressed in the green dress she had bought in the bazaar before the hawkers left for the day and he could not believe his eyes.  It was like a vision, transfixing him in his seat as his jaw sagged open.  She was not wearing as delicate nor well-made a dress as she had during their excursion to rescue the erstwhile Sanders, but in that moment, lit by the chandeliers that hung over the taproom, she looked like an angel come into the world.

They ate and joked as they ever had but Luthene did not shy away from his touch, a fact that was not at all lost on Galin.  His arm was never far from her shoulders or waist and he was content to feel her warmth against his as proof that it was not some cruel dream, that in fact Luthene was his as he had been hers for ages.  When their meal was finished, he offered his arm to her and she took it without the bone-jarring hesitation he had come to expect from her, and he lead her to their quarters for the evening.  For once he was not sleeping across the doorway but in their shared bed, kissing her until exhaustion took them both and they slipped into a deep sleep, still wrapped in each other's arms.  

He woke as she shook him awake and his hand naturally felt for the handle of his sword.  Her words slowed him, telling that combat would not be required of him.  It took a minute for her words to sink into his sleep-addled brain but when then did, he nodded, remembering that day in the pirate city.  "Aye, I remember her.  She came with us against the loyalists that wanted to kill Sanders.  One of Aelle's men… But… she was as old as us, I expect, from seeing her, maybe old.  How in the nine hells could you possibly have a daughter at best of an age with you?  It is madness…"

"Not me, another me!" There was a hint of panic in Luthene's voice. She collapsed against Galin, and tried to pace her quick, gasping breaths with his slower, calmer ones. After a few minutes of this, in the silent darkness, she finally felt calm enough to explain.

"I think the scholars were right when they spoke about other worlds, worlds very similar to ours. At the clock, I met two people from another world, and it was surprising to hear them talk about a war not unlike the one we were in. The man even mentioned a battle in the Valley. And in these other worlds, there may be people just like us. Another Galin, another Luthene, even another Randal. Lajaka, she came from another world. Don't ask me how I know, because I can't explain it, but I'm certain of it. In her world, there's a woman just like me, only older, named Luthene. I'd be older myself if not for Timedeath. This other Luthene, in that world, is Lajaka's mother. Except now…" Luthene brought her knees into her chest and placed her hands on her temples. "Some of that woman's memories are now mine, too. I remember her as a child, teaching her to read and write. I remember feeling her inside me, the first time she moved or kicked, and if I concentrate enough, it's like I can feel it actually happening. A mother knows, Galin, and I now I know it. We might be of an age, but I feel I'm as much her mother as the other me, the one who gave birth to her."

Luthene paused and thought on it more. "I think something happened in Vilpamolan, maybe meeting her triggered it, but I've been getting flashes of a life that feels like mine, but I know isn't. I've been dismissing them as dreams, but they're not. Like, when I was feverish, and I said things… I think they were things she said to the Galin of her world. Not to say I don't mean them," she added quickly, "but it explains the things I said that… that I did not really mean." If Galin could see in the Dark, he would see her face colouring the way it so often did. "She loved her daughter and she loved him, and now I can't help but feel the same.

" When we're done here, and we get back to Adeluna, I'll have to find her, somehow. I'm worried that when the clock is fixed, things will fade, and I'll lose her. I know it seems ridiculous that I should feel this way about her, but I can't bear the thought of losing this daughter. My daughter. I have to find her and tell her I know who she is, before I start to forget."

He could make no sense of it, none and all, but he held her anyway, letting her take comfort from his calm, if a little confused, presence.  More than one him?  It smacked of lunacy to him.  There was only one him, only could be one.  He existed in his time and place alone and no one else could be doing the same as him.  It just stood to reason that there was one of everyone, not other worlds full of the same people.  That would be a truly boring universe indeed, with the same characters in the same parts in the same drama.  And anyway, the Maker created this world and placed it in the universe.  It would not have other versions of itself, just the one that was made by the Maker's hand.  But if it was bothering Luthene, he could do worse than to hold her and listen while she spoke about other worlds and daughters the same age as herself.

"I think you are letting that brain of yours get bent out of shape over nonsense some bugger that lives in a library said.  Probably trying to impress you with his learning and charm his way into your pants with the powers of his mind.  Not that I blame him, of course.  Show's he's got at least some sense."  He leaned down and kissed her forehead with a soft smile, teeth showing in the dark chamber.  "And of course a man talked about a battle in a valley.  Look all over the Highlands, for one.  Every damned battle is fought in a valley, near enough.  And even I know there's more than one lad got my name, Randal's, everyone's name.  It ain't as though they break the mold once a name's used, remember?"

"And Lajaka… you've got a mind on you that is able to think up any number of things.  And you've believed this story, this thousands of worlds thing, so it would make sense your mind trying to draw connections to it in the world.  Same way if you lay about in a field and look at the clouds, you see shapes and things, you know?  You've got an idea in your head and it's making the world come into a focus that way only.  If you thought there were frost giants that lived in every shadow, ten crescents to one you'd starting noticing an icy glint in the dark, giants or no.  It ain't uncommon.  Hell, I was once trapped with Domnall and the lads and one of 'em was so sure we were going to run down by cavalry, he kept saying he was hearing hooves pounding down and there wasn't a horse around."  He let her curl into her ball, his arm still around her.  It made no sense, not any of it, another Luthene in her head, a daughter as old as her mother, a multitude of Galin's in a multitude of worlds.  If it were anyone else, he would have smacked them upside the head for waking him over nonsense and gone straight back to sleep.

Her comments about Vilpamolan made him stiffen a little.  Maybe it was the madness that made her say what she said and she was just too proud to say so.  It would not be far outside her character to stand on pride, or worse, she did not believe them apart from this madness that gripped her about another Luthene and another Galin.  Maybe it was all just a damned illusion, them together as they were, ready to be torn away when this madness faded and she became level headed once again.  Galin sighed through his nose and closed his eyes, cursing the moment with a wide and far-reaching vocabulary of slurs and epithets all silently ringing his head.  "Aye, could be.  Or you could just be looking for something to help things make sense with the clock having buggered the world up to a fare-thee-well and that's the answer that leapt out to you."  He smiled a little wanly, a touch of self-pity there, which he forced away rather than indulge in the coming melancholy.  

"So you want to find her?  Maker knows I think you've missed the mark here, but I think I have a way you can do it.  We head to Dunholm in the Highlands.  Largest of the ports there.  We put word out with the crews and captains, give her name, her looks, and then offer some silver for any information that leads us to her, or her to us.  Then we can hunker down in Adeluna and let those greedy bastards do the work for us.  We've got a grand position there to sift the stories and follow the ones we like."  He paused and chewed his lip, not wanting to go farther down the road of what he thought was at best a passing fancy or at worst, madness, but he relented for Luthene's sake.  "If you are worried about forgetting, come morning we will go to the market, get you a proper book and you can write it all down, whatever you remember and anything else that comes to you as it comes.  That way, no matter the clock's magic, you'll have it there in letters and won't need to worry if it don't happen right away."  He turned her face up to his and kissed her.  "Now let's go back to bed, yeah?  I haven't slept a proper night in weeks, with the ship and the scholars and the desert.  This will still be waiting for us in the light."

Galin wrapped his arms around her, and Luthene found comfort and calm in his embrace. His explanation for the way she'd been feeling made sense, of course, and was rooted in their known reality, grounded in the way she knew Galin to be. Even so, she knew he was wrong, but it forced her to look at things in a different way. She was letting the suden rush of emotion cloud her thinking, and what she needed was to be more rational. As a result, it took her a minute to reply to him.

"It's more than one scholar saying it, even the women. They can't all be trying to impress you, and besides," Luthene tilted her head to kiss his mouth, "I'm with you, and happily so, and I imagine anyone who has seen us since Cittapashe knows it, and knows that any such attempts are foolish." She sighed. "The dream-memories started before I heard about such things from scholars. I would have dismissed what they said, except it fits what I've seen and felt. It's not the same as expecting to be attacked by cavalry and hearing horses. It's more like, I've been hearing something I couldn't explain, and then when someone suggests cavalry, I conclude that fits what I hear and it's probably right. What they are suggesting is that, at different points in history, there's a road we take, and one we don't… and at that moment, another world is created in which the other path is taken. The woman I met yesterday, she said she was once on Conclave, in the same sort of role as our own dead goddess. Not the same, but similar. And you can probably guess what I thought about that, and I would have dismissed it, but the man…" She looked up at Galin, and reached up to touch his face. "He reminded me of you, in a way. I don't think he put much stock in Conclave, either, and he was a Highlander. I think they both came from the same world. They knew each other, at any rate. The way he spoke about her, and the war… I believed him. I think he hated her, and there was bitterness in his voice that can't be faked. If it had just been her, I would have said she was touched in the head. He wasn't, though, and if you had heard him speak about the war in his world, you'd have believed it, too."

Luthene was thinking again, and hoped that Galin would follow her line of thinking. "So if we accept that other worlds exist, and those worlds are analogous to our own, then it follows that there might be other versions of you and I in these other worlds. And in one of them… I have a daughter. And she has, somehow, come to this world, and for reasons I'm still trying to understand, I am remembering the life of this other Luthene, her mother." 

Galin stiffened when she mentioned the fever, and Luthene didn't miss the hint of hurt in his voice. Again she kissed him, and let it linger. "That was me," she said, certainty in her voice, trying to meet his eyes as best she could in the dark. "Don't forget, I've cared about you since before all this madness started. Before the strange memories, before Timedeath, even before the war." She flushed and looked away for a moment before returning to gaze at his face. "Do you remember, just before the attack on that lord, in Adeluna? And I looked at you not unlike the way I am now, and I kissed you and told you to stay alive? I know we were pretending to be together and playing it up for the sake of the men, but then… Well, I was worried, and anything can happen in a battle, and the opportunity was there so… I meant that." She hugged him. "I'll still be here when the clock is repaired. Nothing there has changed."

Unlike Luthene, Galin had a plan for finding Lajaka, and for dealing with any possible memory loss. A book, of course. It seemed so obvious now that he mentioned it. And asking men in Dunholm to keep an eye out for Lajaka made more sense than travelling the continent trying to find her. Besides, this way might not require taking leave from the Company, leave Domnall might not be willing to give. She hugged him again and returned his kiss. "Thank you," she said. "It's a good plan, and I will get that book and write down as much as I can. And it can wait until morning." Luthene settled back down in the bed, but still held on to him. "We'll sleep, then."