Problems with time. Chapter 7.

Chapter Seven.

 

Along the Great Road.

 

Calizone reached Weyrham just as the light began to fray into evening.

The distortions were weaker here, a few shadows lagging half a pace behind, a cartwheel turning twice, a hound barking before it opened its mouth, but nothing immediately dangerous. The Great Road ran straight past the outskirts of town, a strip of dead, scorched earth that the locals had long ago learned to ignore.

The Coach Inn stood at the crossroads, its lanterns already lit and warm light spilling across the cobblestone yard. A stable‑boy spotted her, froze in mid‑stride, and then bolted inside shouting, “The Witch! The Witch of the Dark Forest!”

Calizone dismounted smoothly, patting her horse’s neck. “Calm yourself,” she murmured to the stallion. “They are pleased to see us.”

And they were.

The innkeeper himself hurried out, wiping his flour‑dusted hands on his apron and bowing so deeply his beard nearly brushed the ground.

“My lady Calizone! An honour! A privilege!” he gasped. “King Syldan’s messengers stay here often, and you are welcome as long as you wish. No charge, of course. Never a charge for the Witch!”

Calizone raised a dark eyebrow. “I should hope not.”

He laughed nervously and ushered her inside. The common room was warm, bustling, and full of the comforting smells of mutton stew, fresh bread, and sweet woodsmoke. A few travelling merchants glanced up, startled, then quickly looked away, the shorten‑the‑journey spell still clinging to her like a subtle cloak, making her inconvenient to dwell upon.

The innkeeper led her to his finest room, a quiet chamber overlooking the yard. Fresh linens, a sturdy bed, and a basin of clear water. Calizone approved.

“Food will be sent up shortly, my lady,” he said, bowing again. “And ale, of course. Freshly brewed.”

Calizone paused. “Ale?”

“Yes, my lady. Brewed just this morning.”

She considered him for a quiet moment, then lifted her hand and traced a small, neat spell toward the inn’s cellars below. A soft, pale shimmer settled over the floorboards.

The innkeeper blinked. “My lady?”

“A reward,” Calizone said calmly. “Your ale will taste finer for the next month. And it will not sour, even if time itself forgets how to pass.”

The man’s face lit up like a festival lantern. “Bless you, my lady! The Witch’s ale! Weyrham will talk of this for years!”

Calizone allowed herself a thin, dry smile. “See that you keep the barrels clean. Magic does not improve dirt.”

She ate well, stew thick with root vegetables, bread still warm from the oven, and ale that already tasted richer, and retired early. The spell she used to compress distance was remarkably effective, but it wore heavily on the caster. The bed was comfortable, the room stable, and the immediate moment around her behaved itself for once.

Outside, the Great Road lay silent in the dark, waiting.

Calizone left Weyrham at dawn, the shorten‑the‑journey spell settling around her once more like a second cloak. Travellers on the road glanced up, frowned, and then looked away, their minds sliding neatly aside. A farm cart shifted half a pace to the left without the driver ever noticing. A lone rider blinked at the dust cloud her horse left behind, puzzled but unconcerned.

The Great Road ran straight and dead beside her, its strip of lifeless grey earth unchanged since ancient forces had burned it into the realm. She followed it north‑east, stitching distance whenever it tried to misbehave and nudging moments back into place when they stuttered.

By mid‑morning, Brockton’s rooftops appeared, neat, slate‑grey, and clustered around an old stone well. Smoke rose steadily from chimneys. A dog barked. A woman hung washing on a line. All appeared perfectly ordinary.

Except it wasn’t.

Calizone slowed her horse as she entered the main street. The shorten‑the‑journey spell eased, letting people notice her properly. Heads turned. A few bowed. One man dropped his wooden bucket with a sharp clatter.

The wrongness was already thick in the air.

Brockton’s clock tower stood at the centre of the town square, its brass pendulum visible through an open arch. Calizone glanced at it out of habit.

The pendulum swung left. Then left again. Then right. Then left twice more.

It was not broken. It was confused. The townsfolk walked past it without giving it a second glance.

At the bakery, a tray of loaves sat cooling on the sill. Calizone watched as one loaf rose slightly, as though proving itself again in the oven. A moment later, it sank back, flattening as if struck by an invisible fist.

The baker came out, wiped his hands on his apron, and did not see it happen.

A dog trotted across the square, tail wagging. It barked at nothing. Then barked again. Then uttered the exact same bark a third time, down to the pitch and tone. The dog looked mildly puzzled, then continued on its way.

On a nearby washing‑line, the shadows of hung clothes flickered wildly. Not with wind, there was no breeze. Not with sunlight, the sky was steady. They flickered because they were remembering yesterday’s storm.

Calizone’s horse snorted, his ears flicking back nervously.

A few townsfolk approached her, cautious but deeply respectful.

“Good morning, Lady Calizone,” said the miller, bowing. “We did not expect you.”

“No,” Calizone said flatly. “You did not.”

The miller hesitated. “Is… is something wrong, my lady?”

Calizone looked at the frantic pendulum, the sinking bread, the repeating dog, and the confused shadows.

“Yes,” she said. “But not with Brockton. Do not concern yourselves.”

She nudged her horse forward. The townsfolk instinctively parted for her, and she rode on. Behind her, she could hear the low murmur of voices as they pondered the brief visit of the Witch of the Dark Forest.

She did not linger. Brockton was unsettled, but still stable. The distortions were stronger than in Weyrham, but not immediately dangerous.

She rode out through the eastern gates, the shorten‑the‑journey spell reasserting itself. People blinked and looked away. Carts shifted aside. A child paused mid‑step, then continued walking without realising she had been gently nudged out of the way.

The Great Road stretched ahead. Burnton lay further along.

And Burnton, she knew, would be worse.

She consoled herself with the grim realisation that she was at least travelling in the right direction.

By mid‑afternoon, she arrived in Burnton.

Calizone slowed her mount to a walk. Burnton was far busier than Brockton, carts rattling over cobbles, the smithy’s hammer ringing, children chasing one another across the market square. But the wrongness here was significantly stronger.

Near the forge, the blacksmith took a piece of iron from his hearth and laid it on his anvil, but the metal was stone cold. He hammered at it twice, then thrust it back into the coals, except that when he pulled it out again, it was already glowing red‑hot. A second later, the rod ceased to glow entirely.

The blacksmith did not seem to notice the impossibility. He simply kept working.

At the town well, a woman was drawing water. Calizone watched as the woman lowered a bucket that was already brimming with water. She wound the winch and drew it back up, only for the bucket to emerge completely empty. A moment later, the woman walked away carrying a full, dripping pail.

She did not look concerned. She did not even look surprised.

Calizone lifted the shorten‑the‑journey spell entirely. Normally, when people recognized her, they stopped whatever they were doing to stare or bow. Here, the townsfolk did not even look up from their broken, misbehaving tasks.

Calizone did not stop until Burnton’s slate roofs had vanished behind the crest of the eastern hill.

The Great Road stretched on, running like a faded grey ribbon toward the horizon. Here, away from human settlements, the silence felt heavy and brittle. The air was unseasonably cold, biting at her cheeks with a dry, metallic frost that left no trace on the grass.

She pulled her horse to a halt beside a stone milestone half‑buried in nettles. The numerals carved into its face were completely smooth, not worn away by centuries of rain, but melted flat, as though the granite had forgotten the shape of the chisel that cut them.

Calizone dismounted, her boots making a soft, double‑thud on the hard earth as the local moment caught itself. Her horse shook his mane, blowing a long puff of steam that hung suspended in the air for several seconds before abruptly dissolving.

“It is not just time,” she murmured, her fingers tracing the smooth, blank granite. “It is memory.”

The people in Burnton had not noticed the cold iron or the magic bucket because the dying spell was beginning to erase the immediate past the instant it occurred. If a human mind could not hold onto the second that had just passed, a cold rod coming out of a hot forge was simply accepted as reality.

If this reaches the capital, or the forest borders, Calizone thought grimly, people will forget how to farm, how to build, or how to speak, not out of madness, but because the bridge between thought and action is dissolving.

The sun was lowering, though Calizone did not trust its position. It had already flickered twice, dimming and brightening as though forgetting what hour it was supposed to be. The Great Road remained unchanged, a dead ribbon of grey, but the air around it felt stretched dangerously thin, like old cloth pulled too tight.

She remounted and urged her stallion onward until the high gables of the Eastbank Coaching Inn appeared over a rise. It was a sturdy building of stone and half‑timbering, erected where the Road crossed a narrow, stony stream. Travellers favoured it because it was secure, warm, and always served fresh bread.

Today, it was not behaving.

Calizone dismounted in the cobblestone yard. The innkeeper hurried out, bowing so deeply his white apron nearly touched the ground.

“My lady Calizone!” he cried, his voice trembling slightly. “A room, of course! The best we have! No charge. Never a charge for you!”

Calizone nodded slowly, looking past him at the flickering shadows in the doorway.

“I will stay the night,” she said.

He ushered her inside.