One of the more rarer fields. All specialists of this field are men, for reasons completely unknown. Women can grasp the concepts of it, but not master it. Men face the same issue with the Canto of Frith.
Practitioners of this field are called Xene, single and plural. The Xene are the ones who can travel inside the Argence at will and can create the adits that connect one temporal locale with another. Many is the lord who has paid a Xene to build an adit from his bed-chamber to the house of some pretty lady. It must be noted that they can only build the adits; they have no control over the appearance of inside the Argence along the adit’s path, nor what may be there. Many, also, is the heedless fool who has entered an adit and been lost to some vile denizen of Hjoll.
Because of this skill, a Xene can travel anywhere in no time at all.
The Xene also have some control over time. They cannot travel within time itself, nor change history by altering the past or future. Such things are fixed and immutable. What the Xene can do is stop time for themselves or another for a duration, depending on their skill. Essentially, they slip into the gaps between the “heartbeats” of time. This skill is used mainly as an escape, as the Xene cannot touch any material object whilst in-between the pulses of time, without using specially prepared silver gloves.
It is also used to put people in a timeless state, usually to forestall death where someone has been poisoned or is on the verge of dying. Once again, the duration is dependent upon the skill level of the Xene. A mistaken belief that is credited to the Xene is the ability to age an object or make it younger. They can do neither, but the notion they can is a popular one and will not go away.
A skill unique to the Xene is nauscopy. Nauscopy allows the practitioner to see over the horizon by focusing and bending the air. The distance that can be discerned is, once again, dependent upon skill. Strangely enough, it is for nauscopy alone, that a Xene is a valued member of any noble’s court, despite the multitude of time and space related skills they have.
Because of their ability to stop time for themselves, they are seen as meddlers by the Hielachs of Myre and are outlawed. However, nauscopy is considered a useful, if antemery skill and the Xene are tolerated for this reason. There are only three known Xene in Myre, the two male Dusadea children, Draun Dusadea and Quyle Dusadea, and the Darkenti Azonvando.
