The Timewalker’s Arrival

The Man Who Walked Through Time No one noticed when he arrived. That was always

how it happened. A quiet breath of displaced air. A faint shimmer that looked like

heat rising off pavement. And then a man standing where, a moment before,

there had been nothing. He stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking a restless sea.

The year was 12,000 BCE. He adjusted the small bronze dial embedded in his

wrist — a device no larger than a watch, yet capable of breaking the spine of reality

itself. His name was Aren Valis, and he had been walking through

time for longer than most civilizations had been alive. Below him, smoke curled from