Problems with time. Chapter 9.

The next morning, Calizone woke early, though not as early as her host.

The widow was already up, moving briskly about the hearth and preparing breakfast. The aroma reached Calizone before her eyes were fully open: woodsmoke, rendered fat, and something sweet baking on the iron plate.

The spread was remarkably generous: a thick slice of home‑cured bacon, two fried eggs, toasted bread with golden butter, and fresh honey. To wash it down, the widow handed her a hot clay mug of a dark, slightly bitter brew that proved deeply refreshing.

“Put hairs on the palms of your hands, that stuff,” her hostess said with a warm, toothless grin.

Calizone ate with sincere gratitude. The food was simple, honest, and, most importantly, completely stable. The eggs did not flicker between raw and cooked; the bacon did not repeat its sizzle; the honey remained thick honey without thinning into syrup and back again. The clay mug stayed warm and solid in her hands.

She had a quiet suspicion this might be the last normal meal she would enjoy for a long time.

The widow fussed about her as she prepared to leave, packing a cloth bundle of bread and hard cheese for the road and insisting she take it. Calizone accepted with a polite nod; she had learned long ago that refusing genuine kindness brought far worse luck than accepting it.

Outside, the morning light was thin and uncertain, trembling on the horizon as though struggling to decide between early dawn and mid‑morning. Her horse stamped uneasily in the yard, his breath hanging suspended in the cold air a moment too long.

Before saddling the animal, Calizone walked to the stone well beside the garden patch. The wooden bucket hung neatly on its iron hook, the rope was cleanly coiled, and the stones were cold with night air. She rested her hand on the smooth granite rim.

It was a simple spell. A tiny, quiet thing, barely more than a warm breath.

The water far below shimmered once, then settled into a motionless silver mirror. It would stay clean now, sweet, clear, cold, and entirely untouched by the temporal distortions creeping through the mountain passes. The well would never run dry, not in the widow’s lifetime.

The woman would never know why, and Calizone preferred it that way.

Calizone tightened the girth, checked the leather straps, and then, reluctantly, reached into her saddlebags. She pulled out the Citspal dress.

Citspal, the unique, dead fabric woven by the Wraiths in the far distant Western Mountains. A material through which magic could not, and would not, flow. It was the very substance that allowed the Wraiths to survive the curse laid upon their realm by the witch Magalan.

It was also a cloth that made Calizone’s flesh creep.

The dress would protect her from any stray, volatile magic loose in the air, but it came at a bitter cost: it completely blocked her from reaching her own power.

She pulled the garment on over her travelling clothes. The familiar, sickening sensation ran along her skin, and her internal magic folded away like wings pinned tight. She felt abruptly ordinary, heavy, vulnerable, and dangerously exposed.

As Calizone fastened the final buckle of her saddle, the widow stepped out into the yard, wiping her hands on her apron. The air around the eaves flickered uncertainly, but the woman seemed untroubled by it, perhaps long years living alone in the high mountains had taught her not to look too closely at oddities.

“You are heading for Nordon, aren’t you?” the woman asked in the plain tone she might use to comment on the rainfall.

Calizone paused, holding the reins. “East, yes.”

The widow nodded, her lips pressed into a thin line. “Strange goings‑on up there. Folk say the town has been… forgetting itself.”

Calizone waited in silence.

The woman leaned against the well’s stone rim, the very rim Calizone had just blessed, and lowered her voice. “A shepherd came down the pass last week. Said he walked past the exact same dead oak tree three times, though he never once turned around. Said the bells in Nordon’s chapel rang at dawn, then again at dawn, then again at dawn.”

She shook her head, frowning. “And the baker’s lad, poor boy ran all the way down here claiming his mother had baked the same tray of loaves four times over. She swore on her hearth she hadn’t.”

Calizone felt a cold stillness settle in her stomach. The distortions were spreading far faster than she had calculated.

The widow gave her a long, steady look. “You are a wise woman, I can tell. Mind yourself up there. Nordon is not right these days. Best to keep your wits sharp and your feet moving.”

Calizone inclined her head. “Thank you for your shelter.”

The widow waved from her doorway. “Safe travels, my lady.”

Calizone mounted her horse and rode east into the thinning world, with no magic at all.

She nudged her stallion forward. The Citspal dress clung cold and heavy against her arms, making every movement feel unnaturally stiff, as though the dead cloth disapproved of her being alive. Her magic remained locked away, entirely unreachable.

Her horse, however, felt every subtle shift in the environment.

The first distortion struck before they had gone fifty yards up the mountain track. The stallion’s ears flicked back, then forward, then back again in an identical, shuddering loop. His hooves hesitated on the track, stamping twice on the exact same spot though he had taken only a single step.

Calizone tightened her grip on the leather. “Easy, lad.”

But the world was not easy.

A patch of stone ahead shimmered wildly, stretching long, snapping short, then stretching again. The horse balked, throwing his weight back and refusing to set a hoof upon it. Calizone had to dismount and lead him by the bridle around the flickering patch, her boots crunching on gravel that echoed twice in the thin air.

Further up the pass, a gorse bush rustled violently, then rustled again with identical pitch, though there was no wind. The horse shied sideways, nearly knocking her off her feet. She steadied him with both hands, feeling the Citspal cloth prickle uncomfortably along her arms.

Without magic, she could not smooth the moment. She could only endure it.

The track climbed into a jagged stone pass. Shadows flickered wildly between dawn and late afternoon. A boulder on the upper ridge rolled, paused, rolled again, and then snapped back to its original resting place. The stallion snorted, his eyes rolling wide, his breath coming in sharp, terrified bursts.

Calizone stroked his neck. “I know. I know.”

She could not soothe him with a spell. She could not shield his mind. She could not steady the world beneath his feet. All she could do was walk beside him, leading him step by careful step, mile after exhausting mile.

The journey through the pass, which should have taken a single hour, stretched into three. The narrow trail became a nightmare of stuttering ground and repeating moments.

By mid‑morning, both rider and horse were slick with sweat. By noon, they had covered far less distance than she had hoped. By late afternoon, the distortions were growing violent.

And still, the road forced them east.

The trail narrowed into a precarious shelf of rock, the cliff face rising sharply on their left and dropping away into a deep, scrub‑filled ravine on their right. The air flickered between bitter cold and dry heat, as though time itself were running a fever.

Calizone felt none of the magical pressure through the Citspal dress, but her horse felt all of it.

He stopped dead. It was not a simple balk; it was a total, rigid refusal. His ears flattened, his muscles locked, and the whites of his eyes showed in the gloom.

“Easy,” Calizone murmured, but her voice carried no weight without her power.

The horse took one step backward. Then another. Then the exact same step repeated again, as though a wave in time were trying to drag him off the cliff.

Calizone seized the reins near the bit, planting her boots firmly on the stone. “No. Forward.”

The path ahead flickered between smooth rock and cracked earth. A shadow lay across it that belonged to no cliff or cloud. The horse saw it, felt the wrongness, and panicked. He tossed his head violently, nearly tearing the leather from her grasp, his hooves striking the ground twice for a single movement.

Calizone stepped up to his shoulder, pressing her palm firmly against his neck. She could not use magic, but she had her voice, her weight, and her stubbornness.

“I know,” she said quietly into his ear. “I know. But we must go on.”

The stallion shuddered beneath her hand. For a terrifying second, she thought he would bolt backward into the abyss. His tail flicked twice in identical precision.

Calizone tightened her grip, leaned her weight forward, and pulled him onward.

One hoof.

Then the next.

A tense pause.

Then another step.

When another distorted patch of road shimmered and stretched before them, Calizone stood still beside her trembling mount. She could not charm him, but she could use plain mortal sense.

She unbuckled her heavy woollen travelling cloak from her pack. Folding it twice, she draped it gently over the stallion’s head and eyes. He snorted, startled, but she spoke softly until he settled. She tied the cloak loosely behind his ears, creating a thick blindfold that shut out the flickering land.

“There,” she whispered. “You do not need to see it.”

The horse’s intense shuddering eased. He could still feel the spatial stutters, but without the terrifying sight of shifting shadows and stretching roads, his panic receded into manageable fear.

Calizone picked up the reins and led him forward. The track still stuttered beneath her boots, and the air still flickered, but the horse followed her blindly, trusting her voice and her firm hand on his bridle.

Together, slowly and painstakingly, they climbed out of the high pass.

The Great Road reached the outskirts of Nordon by mid‑afternoon, though the town did not so much appear as materialise out of a pale, unnatural mist.

It was a mountain settlement built of grey fieldstone and dark timber, clinging to rocky shelves. Under normal circumstances, Nordon was a loud, prosperous wool‑town, ringing with the clatter of handlooms and the noise of livestock.

Today, it was dead silent.

Calizone reined in her blindfolded horse at the edge of the market square. The Citspal dress clung to her skin like a cold, heavy hide, muting her magical instincts entirely. She was forced to rely strictly on her eyes, her ears, and the unyielding clarity of her mind.

What she saw was horrifying.

In the centre of the square, a butcher stood at his wooden block. He poured an earthenware jug of water, wiped the wood with a rag, set the jug down, and then picked up the exact same jug to pour the exact same water again. His face was entirely blank, his eyes milky with empty calm.

Ten feet away, a woman sat on a stone bench holding a bare wooden spindle, her fingers endlessly twirling imaginary thread in a seamless, mindless loop.

The dying spell had reached Nordon’s heart.

The town had not merely been touched by temporal glitches; it had been entirely hollowed out. The immediate past was dissolving the instant it occurred, trapping the townsfolk in endless three‑second loops. They were not suffering, nor did they realise they were trapped; their minds had simply lost the concept of after.

Her horse snorted nervously, stepping close to her shoulder. Even through his blindfold, he could feel the dead, heavy pressure in the air.

Calizone took the reins and led him into the square, past the pouring butcher, past the spinning woman, toward the ancient town centre. The square was filled with dozens of people, all locked in their own private loops: a man sweeping the same patch of cobble, a child tying and untying a bootlace, a shepherd counting sheep that were not there.

Not one of them looked up.

Not one of them noticed her arrival.

Calizone felt the Citspal dress prickle against her skin as a heavy, physical pressure filled the air like deep water.

The whirlpool was close.

Very close.

And Nordon was already lost.