almost red – the color of passion. You somehow slipped color of tenderness – his eyes from russet suddenly became pale golden, and as she knew, it meant smile, changed into laughter.
– And there is scarlet – he kept laughing with eyes. – I'm surprised you do not know it.
– Probably, I learned it in the place where were not many colors… – Aurelia smiled…
– Take care of yourself and remember that your dreams are also a gift as a medicine. Do not neglect them. But even better, write travel notes, may be after you will give them for me to read.
He put on a bed of one more gunny bag of average size.
– There are coins, note paper, a pen and some herbs. You will determine them by taste. You are able to use them already; you will learn the rest on the way. Good night, – the last he told already in the door, and, without turning back, easily and silently left.
«Probably, everybody can move silently and live silently here. Everybody but me. Could I live in such silence? – Aurelia tried to distract herself with such thoughts from some vague feeling of disappointment which arose in her. – Perhaps, it is time to sleep!»
Early autumn morning greeted travelers with first frost. Winter was coming. Girl thought it was not the best time to start the journey and covered shoulders in the warm heavy woolen cloak. However, her opinion was never asked, and she did not want to say it without need.
Their company headed by Veres consisted of fresh horses for riders, a couple more for luggage, and a couple of servants. Face of Veres that early morning was absolutely devoid of any emotion, and, after looking at him closely, Aurelia realized that the brothers, despite the 10 years difference in age, were similar much more than she had previously thought, especially when they were silently standing next to each other, watching the final preparations of servants.
«It is going to be a funny way» – said Aurelia to herself and let horse quiet step. All in all, they seemed to be not in a hurry.
… The Reapers see the time and possible options of sequence of events, as a web. They make it in cocoons, in each of them new life is starting– the person who is able to operate others threads. The past and the future, probable events intertwine and create the unique pattern for each person in all variety of its embodiments. To collect a cocoon Reapers take away options of sequence of events from many people who, however, never learn that they could have new meetings and new opportunities, and live further in a quiet current of own only reality. The child is in this cocoon for seven years. During this time threads of a transparent web are absorbed by his skin a layer after a layer, remaining on it with strange hardly visible pattern. By the time of the end of this period almost all layers are absorbed by the child's body, becoming his part and forming his abilities to exist out of time. The world which is created and changed every second obediently by the will of the people who were living in it, demanded stabilization for preservation of its integrity and lives of the beings in it. So The Timeless appeared. However, despite a name, time was the only master, the only truth and the only meaning of life of such children. Growing, they spun their own webs, repaired the existing web of the general current of time and watched its continuous existence …
Nobody knew how the children appeared in a cocoon, what seed created that new life. Some of those few who knew about existence of such people, considered them as aliens, others considered them human beings from the future, and someone confidently claimed that they were ordinary children of our time, who were placed in infancy in a cocoon, and got necessary qualities in it. However, it was not important. For most people occupied with the daily cares they simply didn't exist …
Aurelia was sitting at the wooden rough almost clean table in a small room of an inn, inclined over the book which pages were lit poorly by the smoking candle. Borg continued to carry out functions of the teacher and after her leave. In couple of days after departure, during the rest break Aurelia found in the bag which was carefully packed by the castle owner, the thick book in leather cover with the name «Creating Beings». On the first page there was the message written with the sprawling handwriting: «You wanted to know about this world … Read and remember … And when you start understanding and accepting, you will become its part …». Lines seemed to her a little pompous then, however the further Aurelia went deep into the pages which were accurately covered with small roundish handwriting, it became more clear to her that it was only the beginning of her studying … She could not trust in everything at once. And that moment, she was reading about The Timeless like about some nonexistent monsters, and didn't even try to imagine how they looked … Not to mention an assessment of reality of their existence.
«However, – Aurelia thought, – some don't believe in opportunity to treat by the vital force, and I, perhaps, for someone is simply the fairy tale …». The girl was lost in contemplation of a candle, and her thoughts habitually began to flow on the course which was already laid by the equal read rows: «So, perhaps, the people who are living only in the past were simply deprived of the future by some not really patient Reaper, who does up a baby in a cocoon?»
… After seven years this child appeared in very thin cocoon from one layer of threads. The Reaper met The Timeless, accurately untangling the remained threads carefully to return them to owners … In old age such people have light regrets about the lost opportunities which weren't recreated up to the end …
Aurelia wondered how The Timeless feel the time … Why all of them have the same names, why not to call the child, for example, Timeless Bern or Timeless Turan? How do they distinguish each other at a meeting? The following question arose from the previous one. How does she feel the time? Sometimes Aurelia had a strange feeling inside as though she appeared out of time and space. Places and faces of people around seemed unfamiliar. At such moments surrounding voices sounded in her head as a thick background, the removed echo, and she tried to tie her to reality with routine tasks. A daily routine – as the scheme, as a skeleton which fleshed out with events, everyday clothes in which pockets sometimes one could find bright, unexpected, and sometimes inexplicable and unclear thing to the owner.
The candle burned down, and Aurelia with regret thought that despite the love to the reading, nevertheless it was necessary to go to bed. Crude and cold bed. It was strange to pay for spending the night in not heated crude room on an attic, and to spend the night free of charge downstairs– in the huge heated and lit hall … However, today Aurelia was glad to a privacy, she desperately didn’t like to be among crowd of drunk, talkative and not really familiar with hygiene people.
That night Aurelia hardly managed to be warmed, and she fell asleep only towards morning. During the short dream which didn’t give any freshness she saw the man with an unwinking stare. He offered her two metal balls. She obediently took them, having habitually seen in hands medium-sized skulls. She looked up from them making in the head a question, but as the girl could guess, there was nobody any more next to her. She was standing alone on the snow-covered street, flakes of snow were covering her skin, falling on her face, and Aurelia, for some reason, desperately wanted to cry.
Sense of danger woke Aurelia. It wasn't clear who was in danger. Did it again affect brothers? Veres had to sleep peacefully in the next room. Borg was sleeping in the gloomy castle. May be he could not sleep? Wiping a face, wet from tears, Aurelia tried to prolong short moments of rest and privacy. However persistent
