“That’s true,” Jasmin said. During the five years they’d been together, Sid had never even raised his voice—let alone his hand—at her. Kind and devoted, he’d been the best husband she could have wished for. But he was dead. And she’d betrayed his memory for someone as worthless as Hrot.
“Something had happened while I’d been rubbing shoulders with death,” Plamena continued. “Although I lost my sight, I was endowed with a tremendous inner vision that enabled me to see through the eyes of others and to peer into the past and the future alike. The villagers began to revere my magic powers and clairvoyance. I healed the sick and blessed the newborn. I became a high priestess.
“Then I grew old, and I tired of glory and reverence. Longing for solitude, I retired to these ruins, which I haven’t left for years. But then I’ve tired of the solitude, and I am happy you are here.”
“And so am I, Plamena,” Jasmin said. She was about to squeeze the woman’s hand again, but then she changed her mind.
Plamena nodded, and her face radiated joy. Then it paled with sorrow. “Unfortunately, meeting you has also given me a sad and terrible duty. Once you’ve rested, I will have to show you something that will shred your heart. I’m surprised the Emissary hasn’t done it yet. He surely does plan to do it, brutally and mercilessly, as he loves to roll and wallow in your grief. I will beat him to it, however, and I will share your tears. But you do need to see what’s underneath these ruins. You need to know where you really are.”
Jasmin lowered her eyes to the ground, wondering what strain of misery was going to strike her now. Then she got up and said. “I’m not tired. Please, let’s get it over with.”
NOTHING GREW IN THE darkness under the ruins—and no layers of greenery concealed the brutal truth. Jasmin staggered when her torch lit up a few thick metal rods sticking out of huge slabs of broken concrete. She felt sick when she squeezed under the slabs. And then she saw them.
Those things . . . useful, commonplace, and innocent, yet sinister, outlandish, and terrible in that very place.
Those things . . . those forgotten and motionless objects that branded her mind and mangled her heart, cold and dry objects that flooded her eyes with hot tears.
Those things . . . the cobwebbed stainless steel . . . the creations of modern technology, objects that could have been made in that factory near her hostel in Turnov, objects that made her realize she had been living in an utter delusion.
Jasmin finally understood that she hadn’t descended into the catacombs of an ancient fort but to the basement of a modern warehouse. She fell to her knees, and she cried over the pipes, sinks, and faucets the way she’d cried over the body of her dying husband.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It took Jasmin two days to walk upstream, skirt Hrot’s village, and cross the ford to the wrong side of the river. Plamena had stayed behind in the ruined warehouse, but depression kept Jasmin a loyal company. The autumn’s last sun was already setting when she finally found the eerily sculptured rock.
The Emissary was punctual that year. A grunt and a squeal scurried among the dead trees, and his antlered shadow passed over the portal a moment after her arrival.
When she noticed him smirking in front of her, she asked the question that had been howling in her mind for half a year: “What happened to humans?” Plamena had told her she’d had nightmares about burning cities, plagues, and natural disasters, which all seemed to have ravished mankind at the same time. But the seer didn’t know when, how, and why it had started.
“What do you mean, my dear?” the Emissary asked with a grin.
The putrid air was fiercely cold, and his mustache and eyelashes were frosted. The veins on his face were bluer than ever. Black, pestilential clouds wallowed above their heads. So low they hung they seemed about to descend and suffocate all that was still alive in these dreadful woods.
“You know damned well what I mean! What terrible catastrophe—”
“Did you know that the old hag is dead?” the Emissary interrupted, making her stagger. “Your protector, Plamena—she died last night. You killed her, Jasmin. You killed a woman who’d saved you from starvation and who’d loved you like your own daughter. You gave her a mortal blow when you left her to come here. After the six months she’d spent by your side, she could not bear the sudden solitude. You broke her heart.”
Jasmin buried her face in her mittened hands. Something had been telling her since the early morning that the old seer was gone. But was Jasmin really to blame for Plamena’s death? Although they both cried while saying goodbye, Plamena had assured her she would be fine. Plamena had known all along that Jasmin would have to leave so that she could meet the monster who was now grinning and smirking in her face.
“You two lived almost happily in those stinky ruins, didn’t you?” the Emissary taunted. “You shared the cabin and the food, as well as your stupid little stories, which you both found so fascinating. Then you left, and the old hag choked on desolation. While you were crossing the sandstone rock labyrinth, crows pecked out her eyes, and rats gnawed at her fingers. She had fed you and treated you like her own. And you murdered her with grief, you ungrateful slut.”
“I had to leave her to come and meet you,” Jasmin said, even though she knew she had no obligation to justify her actions to that fiend. “Now tell me, what happened to mankind? Why are they so scarce and primitive? When did it all start? Which century are we in?”
“I knew that one day you’d stumble into the truth. I was really looking forward to the time when you realize you’d actually traveled to post-apocalyptic future. My guess was that you’d accidentally dig up a cell phone or a plastic bottle, even though it would be strange in Hrot’s tribe’s territory, as it has always been scarcely populated. But then you stumbled into the remains of the industrial zone.
“Ha! If you could only see yourself below the ruins! How you wailed over the stainless steel!”
“Tell me what happened. Please!”
“What happened?” The Emissary finally seemed inclined to answer. “What happened was the same thing you stupid humans had been letting happen since the beginning of times. Power-hungry and xenophobic sleazeballs that called themselves world leaders argued and declared war on each other. And people—like the flock of imbecilic sheep they are—began murdering each other instead of marching at the mansions and palaces and killing the leaders themselves. This time, though, everything got way out of control.
“It was what you call a total war, my beauty. For oil, for water, for land, for the various imaginary friends the different nations worshiped . . . you name it, and people set to and tried to annihilate one another. And they almost succeeded!
“Oh, it was spectacular! Atomic bombs wrecked entire cities in seconds, bio-terrorism unleashed deadly pandemics, eco-terrorism caused earthquakes and tsunamis, and giant armies were urged to slaughter and rape. The worst atrocities a human mind could have ever contrived were employed against other humans. The war destroyed nearly all that had ever been created. It annihilated almost all life.
“The scattered handfuls of survivors abandoned the charred cities and retreated into the woods. They shunned all progress and modernity, which they quite rightly blamed for the scale of the cataclysm. Over the centuries, they grew wild and isolated. They sank back to tribal barbarity, and Mother Nature covered all modern debris under layers of soil.”
Jasmin recalled Yavor, her insane landlord from Varna. Miss Jasmin? Atomic bomb destroy all! So he’d been right, after all. A mad prophet.
The foul snow crunched under the Emissary’s foot as he stepped closer to her. His eyes shone with insane glee. “It was amazing to watch the fall of proud mankind.” The topic obviously excited him, and he basked in her sorrow. “The few buildings that hadn’t been blasted during the war crumbled a few hundred years afterward. Only the strongest stone structures still survive here and there, like medieval castles or fortifications—oh, and concrete warehouses, of course. The rest is
almost all gone.
“Leaves! You would never believe what leaves can do when nobody rakes them. As they rot, they bury everything in a yard of dirt every century. And from the dirt, trees begin to grow where there was nothing but concrete. Just think what’s underneath your feet! With every step, you desecrate a corpse. Whenever you pull down your pants and squat, you piss and shit on the remnants of your race!”
Jasmin staggered and leaned against the rock. Her tears seemed unstoppable.
The Emissary chuckled as he said, “Oh, you stupid bitch. Until you met Plamena, you’d thought you were experiencing the dawn of the Middle Ages, hadn’t you?”
Jasmin took a deep breath and wiped her eyes, determined to show no more weakness. “Which year are we in, then?”
“Nobody counts the years around here, haven’t you noticed? Having become even bigger degenerates than they used to be, people have lost their interest and ability to do so. But I can tell you that if you thought you were in proto-Slavic Bohemia, you were wrong by some two thousand years: we are somewhere in the middle of the twenty-fourth century.”
“So when did the war begin?”
The Emissary sneered. “If I let you back to your times before you dry up, you’d better keep your silky thighs closed . . . unless you want to see your grandchildren drafted into the war, of course!”
“So soon,” she whispered and bit her lip.
“Speaking of coming back . . . I told you that you’d have to give me a good reason to open the portal for you today. Have you thought of anything decent?”
Jasmin grew so tense she hardly noticed that it was snowing again. A filthy snowflake fell on the tip of her nose, and she wiped it away automatically. A blind, leprous stag stumbled past them only a few feet away. The stag didn’t see Jasmin, and she didn’t see him. Slowly, like an old woman, she lifted her head. Her bloodshot eyes bored into those of the Emissary. Her voice was dull and empty as she said, “I think I’ve got it. If you let me return to my times today—I will kill Hrot.”
The fiend threw back his head and laughed. His eyes shone with merriment. “I thought you were going to offer me your body. I would have to pass because you’re smelly and filthy—and your pubic hair is ridden with lice. Besides, I have the feeling that one day I’ll have you anyway, nice and clean.
“So you propose to kill Hrot, huh? Well done, my dear! That’s the only proposal I would ever accept. I’m sure it was Plamena who suggested it. But pray, how did you come to accept such a drastic scheme?”
“I suppose it was survival instinct that convinced me that Plamena was right,” Jasmin replied. “I’ve already wasted two years of my life in here, and I can’t go on. I broke Hrot’s curse and gave him two years in somewhat peaceful and civilized times. And that’s enough.
“I loved Hrot, but I’m not sure if he’s ever loved me. And all the suffering I’ve gone through has made me hate him for his treacheries. Even if I stab his heart or break his skull, it won’t be murder. He would’ve already been dead for a year had he never betrayed me.”
The Emissary only leered. What was he thinking? She wished she could read his thoughts, just as he could probably read hers. Genuine anger and despair crept into her voice as she continued. “I’ve got no choice anyway. I can’t go back to Hrot’s village because his own family would kill me as an evil spirit. If it’s true that Plamena’s dead, then I have nowhere to go. And I could never survive here alone.”
“Good thinking,” the Emissary said. “Maybe your brain is a bit bigger than your nipple.”
“I want to make a new pact with you,” she continued, ignoring his last remark. “But I want it in writing to avoid misunderstandings. You’ll have to seal it with your blood—if you’ve got any—just as I’ll seal it with mine. The pact will stipulate that if I kill the betrayer, you’ll let me live and die a natural death in my times.”
The Emissary only smirked, but something akin to admiration passed over his pale face. “I’ll give you exactly one year to find and murder that wimp,” he said as he reached under his cloak and produced a pen and a scroll of paper. “The portal will open once we sign and seal this new pact. If you fail, you and Hrot are going straight into my realm—for good.”
For a few moments, Jasmin thought she was going to throw up. Then she took a deep breath and said, “All right, but I want to write it myself.” When she saw him frown, she added, “My life is on the line, and I have no reason to trust you, as you’re too smart and too cunning. You can make any changes you wish before we sign it.”
The Emissary shrugged his thin shoulders and handed her the pen and paper. Jasmin unrolled the scroll and laid it in a dry crevice in the eerie rock. Then she took off her mitten and took the pen. She wrote hurriedly so that her fingers wouldn’t freeze. She winced and frowned at every word.
“Done,” she said as she dropped the pen and pulled the mitten back on. The Emissary took the sheet and read:
I, Jasmin Bierce, swear a solemn oath to hunt down Hrot, the son of Lesana, before the next winter solstice. And before the same winter solstice, I swear to kill the traitor who has knowingly condemned me to a decade in the dreadful future. In exchange, I will be allowed to remain in my times unmolested until my natural death, and to rest in peace forever after, never to see the Emissary again. In case I fail, I—along with Hrot himself—will become the property of the Emissary and will be forever subjected to him in his realm on the other side. May our blood serve as a seal of the pact.
The Emissary frowned and thought. He parted his lips as if to say something, but then he only nodded and signed the pact. She quickly added her signature beside his.
The blade of his ceremonial dagger gleamed in the dying sunlight. Two little streams of blood flowed out of two wounds, one red and pure, the other dark and foul. He pressed the bleeding pad of his thumb under his signature, and she followed suit.
“It’s done.” The Emissary rolled the sheet back into a scroll and tied it firmly with a piece of string.
“Hold on,” Jasmin said when she saw him putting the pact under his cloak. “I’d like to keep it myself. Again, I have no reason to trust you.”
“As you wish, my beauty,” he said with a smirk. “But you can be sure I’ll keep an eye on it in any case. Ha! This year will be even more exciting to watch than the previous two! Just remember that if you don’t find and kill Hrot before the next winter solstice, the two of you will be forever subjected to my whims.”
The Emissary licked his lips as he stared at Jasmin’s breasts bulging under her coat. “I told you that one day you’ll be mine. So keep your cunt nice and clean, for I’ll make sure you fail!”
Vomit rushed into Jasmin’s mouth. Plamena had convinced her that this was the only way to deal with the Emissary. But now that the pact had been written, Jasmin was starting to think she had made a dreadful mistake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A strong pressure pried open her left eye and woke her up. A white sun pierced her left pupil. Jasmin tried to blink to stop the pain, but her eyelid refused to move. When the pressure finally ceased and she closed her eye, bright flashes kept bursting between her brain and her eyeball.
The pressure returned, and the sun was up again. It shone into her right eye now, but it set a few moments later. Bright specks of light danced in front of her pupils. When they twirled away, she found herself looking at a bespectacled man with a graying beard.
“You’ll be fine, young lady,” the man said as he turned off his penlight. His words were muffled as if they were coming from behind a waterfall. “Can you hear me?”
Jasmin tried to nod, and the effort plunged her into a deep sleep.
The man turned to an aging woman who was standing behind him. “Keep an eye on her heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature, nurse. I’ve never seen such a bad case of exhaustion and hypothermia.”
“Yes, doctor.”
Painful memories flashed through Jasmin’s sleeping mind. In her dreams, she relived
the fear of the unknown forces that had tossed and shoved her around the portal as if she were a doll in the hands of a clumsy toddler. Fortunately, the long sleep eventually buried her journey through time in the blurry depths of her memory.
All she could remember when she woke up was the crunching of snow under two pairs of shoes, and a young couple carrying her through the woods and driving her to the hospital. Then she recalled an angelic and vaguely familiar face of a girl who’d kept telling her that everything would be fine.
Even though she still shivered with a lingering chill, Jasmin already began to experience a long-forgotten feeling of comfort. For the first time in two years, she was in a real bed, under a real duvet, and wrapped in a soft gown. No straw scratched her skin, no rats scurried around her, and no bugs stung her body; and the old woman sleeping on the other bed didn’t stink at all. The monitor beeping above Jasmin’s head watched over her like a fretful mother. A cast iron radiator mocked the frost that had stuck to the outer window pane. Jasmin was falling back asleep when the door opened and the angelic face poked in.
The face belonged to a young woman dressed in a snow-white nurse’s uniform. Her cheeks were rosy as if she’d just come in from the cold, and her blond hair curled all around her round face. A sad contrast to Jasmin’s condition, the young nurse radiated health and energy.
“Glad to see you’re up, Jasmin,” the nurse said cheerfully. “Welcome to Turnov’s best and only hospital! Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, just a little tired. What date is it?”
“It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow.”
“And when did they bring me here?”
“That was yesterday. Late in the afternoon.”
Jasmin shuddered at the realization that she had lain unconscious by the closed portal for some twenty-four hours. The woods were unfrequented at this time of year, and people usually shunned the strangely lifeless forest on the wrong side of the river. It seemed a miracle that someone had happened to pass nearby. If they hadn’t, she would have frozen to death.
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