Ora Sten arrived at a small, ill-used warehouse on the far northern edge of Tirel’s shipping district, and stepped out of his carriage while he adjusted the short sword strapped to his hip. A man emerged from the warehouse and approached him with a smile and an extended hand, and they clasped forearms.

“Olvar Segersall, I presume,” Sten said.

“Indeed sir,” Olvar replied. “Welcome to Tirel! I’ll be honest sir, you’re a bit more distinguished than I imagined from your letters.”

“Ah,” Sten said with a chuckle. “You mean 'old.' And letters were never my strong suit, it’s true. Anyway, don’t let appearances fool you, I’m quite spry.”

“I have no doubt,” Olvar said with a wide smile. “I meant no offense, I just…well. Let’s step inside, eh? We’ve done enough hinting around with the written word, it’s time to have it out. No prying eyes or ears here.”

Ora nodded and held his hand out – lead the way – and Segersall turned and walked into the warehouse, half-turning to speak over his shoulder as he went. “I trust the trek wasn’t too strenuous,” he said. “You arrived very quickly.”

“The weather was with us, and as I said, I don’t feel as old as I look.”

“That is good,” Olvar said, and it sounded like he meant it. “I guess I just imagined there were protocols in place for someone like you. You know, that you’d have to request leave, wait for it to go up the chain, so to speak.”

Ora chuckled again. “I’m no inquisitor, Mister Segersall. My Brotherhood is friendly with the Church, to be sure, but we don’t answer to them. Different faiths, different leaders, different rules. I operate with a fair degree of autonomy, thankfully, as your letters made the situation seem rather…well, sensitive.”

“That is a relief,” Olvar said. They were inside the warehouse now, and Ora could see that it had been converted to a wizard’s makeshift workshop. Tall boards had been raised to create partitions and rooms, and the men walked between them as they talked. “As I’m sure you gathered from my letters, I’m not sure the Church would smile on what I’ve been doing here, though I assure you I’ve taken the greatest care and I have the best of intentions. My experiments strike some as being somewhat alarming, however.”

“Believe me when I say that I would know if your intentions were dark, sir,” Ora said. “Please speak freely. You have nothing to fear from me.”

“Of course,” Olvar said. “Where to begin? Well. As I told you, I’m something of a wizard, though I’ve been operating outside the Church’s purview for some time, for reasons that will become obvious. Like I said, my theories and my proposals were met with a fair bit of alarm, for reasons I fully understand. You see, my mentor was one of the foremost experts on the concept of liquid time. Are you aware of the phenomenon?”

“Somewhat,” Ora said unsurely. “Something about how time flows nonlinearly on Althanas. That a man could be in two places at once.”

“Indeed,” Olvar said. “More precisely, a man could be perceived to be in two places at once, though of course there’s no chance of meeting yourself, at least due to the phenomenon we’re discussing here. It isn’t time travel per se, merely a physical inconsistency in the way time flows from one region to the next. If it is Tuesday in Tirel and Knife’s Edge is only seventy leagues away, then it should be Tuesday in Knife’s Edge as well, at least at the same time. However, the time spent traveling between the two cities is never uniform. If you leave Tirel on a Tuesday and you perceive two days passing on the road, then it should be late Thursday night when you arrive, yes? But it never works that way. Sometimes you arrive on Friday, sometimes you arrive on Wednesday, no matter how many sunsets you saw. Do you follow me so far?”

“No,” Ora admitted.

Olvar laughed. “Well, I don’t blame you. Time is a subject sticky enough; never you mind anomalies within time. I shared my master’s interest in liquid time, but not to such an obsessive degree. You see, I formulated a theory, and if I’m right, it may have dire consequences for our world.”

“Say on, and I will do my best to follow.”

“Well, my area of study is not as complex as my mentor’s. I postulated that liquid time is not just limited to Althanas, but also to regions and realms related to it. Well, let’s be specific, eh? My theory was that Haidia also experiences liquid time, but that time passes there differently than it does here, especially now that the portals have been sealed.”

“Go on,” Ora said cautiously.

“I believed that time was passing much slower for us here than it was there. That is to say, the people of Haidia – if you want to call them people – would experience months for every day we experienced here. Do you follow the implication?”

“I think so,” Sten said. “They would recover from the Demon Wars faster than we would. They would repopulate swiftly, make faster advances in warfare and technology. They’d be prepared for a second war before we would. You said you believed that, though…did something change your mind?”

“Yes,” Olvar said. “Well, no. I said believed because I wasn’t sure then. I am now.”

Ora paused, raising his eyebrows as he stopped walking. Sten slowed, and then stopped, taking a steadying breath before he turned around. He nodded. “Now you see why I had to be careful,” he said. “Why the Church would be concerned. I don’t blame them…let me assure you, I took every precaution…”

“Mr. Segersall,” Ora said slowly, “what exactly did you do?”

Olvar took a moment to gather his thoughts, to word his response precisely.

“I hypothesized a way to slow down Haidia’s advancement, to bring the span of time between our realms in line, but it was…dangerous. I realize now how foolish I was, and how lucky I am – how lucky we all are.”

“Olvar…”

“No, don’t be alarmed. Everything is fine now, thank the gods,” Olvar sighed. “You see, my plan was to open up miniscule tears between this world and theirs – nothing large enough to be noticed, sensed, or even seen. The idea would be to link our realms harmlessly for brief moments at regular intervals, preventing Haidia from getting too far ahead of us in the time stream.”

“Portals?” Ora breathed. “Portals to Haidia?”

“Tiny portals, sir. Not even large enough for air to slip through. At least, that’s how it was supposed to go. Breathe sir, I haven’t finished the story, and I’ll ask you to keep your hand off your sword until I’ve finished it. You’re going to like the next part even less.”

Olvar took a steadying breath, and took a step away from Ora Sten.

“When I had enough evidence, I knew I had to do something, with or without the Church’s sanction. So I came here, and perfected my art. Most of what I did was ward-work and safeguarding. I opened portals to Haidia, yes, but I had tools in place so that if I lost control, this entire area would collapse into a void, and then detonate spectacularly, and then anti-magic runes and dehlar shielding would sanitize all magic from the atmosphere. No portal could be sustained. I was doing this to protect the world.”

“What happened?”

“Something unexpected,” Olvar said. “Something that shouldn’t have been possible. As I said, the portals were so small…”

“But?”

“But the last one expanded for a fraction of a second, and something came through.”

“Then why are we still standing here?” Ora said, his voice low and dangerous. “Why haven’t your safeguards wiped this area from the city?”

“Because it wasn’t a demon, sir,” Olvar said. “It was a man. And he asked for you by name.”