The River of No Return

you?”
    “About the Pale?”
    “Yes. About the Pale, and the Talisman, and all of it.”
    Nick laced his hands behind his head and leaned back. “I doubt they’ve told me all of it, Alva. The Guild is stingy with its information. But yes. When you say ‘Pale’ and ‘Talisman’ I understand you. I’m supposed to get you to tell me what the Talisman is and where it is. Perhaps you keep it in your bodice with your glasses.”
    She gave his sally a perfunctory smile, but it died immediately. “I do not hold out much hope that a magical object will save us from the Pale. But we get ahead of ourselves. You were answering my question. The Guild is a corporation, a government, I think you said? And according to Alice et al. it is now also an army preparing for war.”
    “The Guild hasn’t gone to war before? There’s never been a grand Guild-Ofan confrontation?”
    Alva shook her head. “No, never. We haven’t been enemies, exactly. More like rivals. Sometimes even friendly rivals.”
    “Friendly rivals? But Arkady hates you. And when I say he hates you, I mean he hates your guts. Says the Ofan killed his daughter.”
    Alva winced. “Oh, Nick,” she said. “You don’t understand because you have joined us . . . after. After Eréndira died. After the future turned on itself and the Pale began moving toward us.” She pinched the bridge of her nose under her glasses and closed her eyes. “Everything is different now. Before, the Guild was the Guild and the Ofan were the Ofan. We were experimenting with the talent, they were insisting that we already knew enough. We stood for knowledge, they stood for stability. We were little, they were big. We were hip, they were stodgy. Blah blah blah. We disliked each other cordially, but we coexisted. Now . . .” She dropped her hand and her glasses readjusted themselves. Her eyes were wet. She looked at Nick and for just a moment she looked helpless and lost, this woman who lived her life on the edge of time.
    “Just tell me,” Nick said gently. “Now?”
    “It’s hard to say what ‘now’ is, when the Pale is coming closer and closer. I suppose I mean that now the battle lines are being drawn, all up and down the river. The rumors are flying—the Pale is the fault of the Ofan, there is a talisman that could save us, the Ofan are hiding it. . . . Everyone is desperate, and desperation is dangerous. The Guild is arming itself against us—as if we are to blame for what’s coming. Fools! Fighting us won’t stop the Pale.” She pressed her lips together, struggling with some strong emotion.
    “How do you know the Ofan are not to blame?”
    “Nobody knows who is to blame! Perhaps we are. Perhaps our experiments disrupted something. I doubt it, but I can’t say for sure. But that isn’t even the point. If we caused the Pale we don’t know how we did it, or when. It will be no good killing us all. The Pale will still come.”
    “But Eréndira—”
    “Died after the Pale began. She was trying to pierce it. Trying to learn about it. The Pale isn’t Eréndira’s fault.” Alva bit her lip and the tears spilled over her cheeks. “It was her killer. And now the Guild will go to war against us—they say it is to save the world, but Arkady’s grief is behind it. It is revenge.”
    “Surely not,” Nick said. “War . . . it is not a game.”
    “No, but it is a business. The Guild has always thrived on war.” Alva’s voice was bitter. “Now they are simply doing the work themselves.”
    “I’m completely lost, Alva. The Guild thrives on war?”
    “Of course! The Guild exists because of the wars Naturals fight. Wars of conquest. The Guild funds war, and it harvests war. Indeed, who can say which came first? Armies or the Guild?”
    “What the hell are you talking about?”
    She let out a long breath. In the firelight, her magnified eyes glowed with luminous intensity. “All right. I’m sorry. Let’s back up.” She opened her hands. “We endlessly say that time is a river. We describe it that way so often that we tend to forget it’s just a figure of speech. But what else besides a river is described as having flow ?”
    “Hair?”
    The violet eyes blinked, once.
    And Nick knew. It was that feeling, when understanding begins to trickle in, when you know that soon it will burst the dam and that in a moment or two more you will see the world entirely differently from the way you do now. “Money,” he said slowly. “Money