The Heisenberg Corollary

by C H Duryea

  “Nerves!” Zeke exclaimed. “You’re talking about her nervous system.” He exchanged a quick glance with Narissa.

  “What?” Vibeke asked, looking back and forth from Zeke to Narissa. “Is there something I should know?”

  “Whatever it is will have to wait,” a voice from across the chamber said. They turned to see Prince Feldspar standing in one of the arched entryways. “Her Regency, my aunt, has sent me to collect you. She requests your presence on a rather special errand.”

  Twenty

  The Lady Mica and her entourage led a small procession of mages and what looked to Zeke like clerics of some kind. They walked an elevated road that extended from the upper ramparts of the palace and over the upper reaches of the city between the palace and the side of the mountain. Up some distance ahead, the road spanned the river and gave way to the long series of stairways he had spotted before. Zeke was not surprised by their apparent destination at the top of the stairs—the temple that Harbinger had pointed out on the way in. He and the others trailed behind the royal procession at a respectful distance—close enough for their hosts to see that they were keeping up, but far enough back for them to talk out of earshot. Which was fortunate, because when Narissa explained to Vibeke about her neurological alignment with the systems on the Friendly Card, Vibeke did not take it well.

  “Great,” she said. “So not only do I have some kind of mythical magic running through my nervous system, but I’m also a neurological mirror of that rust bucket up on the cliff? What the rocket scorch am I supposed to do with that?”

  “We don’t know, honey,” Narissa said, trying to soothe her. “But the fact that the energy that makes magic run here is active in you could have implications for getting us out of here. We can look at your neurological makeup once we’re back home.”

  “Right,” Vibeke grumbled. “That’s assuming that there’s a home for us to go back to.”

  They reached the foot of the long stairway. Mica’s entourage paused and waited for Zeke and the others to catch up.

  “Proceed,” Mica said to the gathered group. “I will meet you at the top.” As the procession turned to continue, Mica glanced to Zeke. “Hold, Traverser. I would speak with you.”

  The others glanced back nervously, but Zeke waved them on. If the Lady Regent had wanted to harm him, she had ample opportunity when he was recovering. He sensed no danger, at least not of the immediate variety. Even so, he kept a watchful eye for angry monsters in pits.

  “My Lady,” he said, once they were alone. “You’d said we’d get answers to both our questions today.”

  “This matter will become clear to you soon.”

  “You could perhaps just stop talking in riddles and tell me something I can use.”

  Mica allowed herself the slightest half-smile. She gestured to the stairs. “Walk with me,” she said, “and I will tell you a story. Hopefully, you will find it… useful.”

  Zeke glanced up the grand steps. The others climbed slowly up ahead as the prince seemed to play the tour guide. Vibeke stole an uncertain look over her shoulder and peered down at him. He reminded himself that whatever was going on here was affecting her on a much more profound level than the rest of them, and she possibly had a much greater stake in what was happening than any of them did. But if he was going to help her at all—including, but hardly limited to getting them all home—he would need information. Much more information than he currently possessed.

  He turned to the lady regent and offered her his arm. She looped her arm in his, and they began to climb the steps.

  “The story I have to tell,” she began, “the story of what lies up there, in the temple and inside the mountain beyond, goes back to our oldest tales.”

  “Your mage,” Zeke said, “mentioned these oldest tales of yours.”

  “Our theurgists have had renewed interest in those tales since your arrival.”

  “Why would our being here spark such an interest?”

  Lady Mica shot him an imperious look that she immediately reined back.

  “I ask that you bear with me, Traverser,” she said. “I must carefully measure my next words.”

  “Why?”

  “So that you do not hear them as madness.”

  Zeke snorted in an attempt to stifle a laugh. “My Lady, that shuttle has already launched.”

  “Do you mock me, sir?”

  “Not at all. It’s just that if you knew what I’ve been through the last few days, you’d know that you hardly need to worry about challenging my sense of weird. So, what’s this story of yours? Your mage mentioned the legend of how Inverketh’s native magic emerged.”

  “Those are our oldest tales. Our clerics have discovered none more ancient. To witness the record, it’s hard to know which came first—Inverketh or its magic.”

  “If it’s anything like where I come from,” Zeke offered, “there may have been no written history back then.”

  “That may be, Traverser. However, the story I must now relate to you, while ancient to be sure, is not as ancient as these.

  “I’ll not concern you now with the details of the coming of the magic. But it’s important to note that Lankshale, the city behind us, is the center of Inverketh’s spiritual life. I am here in the stead of my late father the king, in service to that life.”

  “My condolences on his passing.” Zeke felt a pang of guilt. The Tozzk might not have been here to kill the king if it hadn’t been for him.

  “The enemy used his own theurgy against him,” the Lady hissed. “I would that Inverketh’s magic had never come here if such a divergence of fate would have preserved his life. But as it is—I intend to use every power at my disposal to avenge him.”

  “In that case, My Lady, we have a common foe.”

  Mica peered at him, and Zeke could sense a tension of imperatives in her, just under the surface.

  “Indeed. I hope you remember those words when you consider my tale.”

  Mica took a deep breath and cast her glance down at the steps before them as the continued to walk.

  “It is said,” she went on, “that the heart of Inverketh’s magic lies within the hills above us, and that the falls that divide the city is enchanted by the underlying natural potency. This remains legend, however. Countless forays into these hills have uncovered nothing. The legend is irrelevant—the source of our theurgy resides here nonetheless.

  “But there is another legend, one that our balladeers have a particular liking for. A story of a dire threat to our land and our people.

  “Ages ago,” she continued, “a curse came to our land, one not dissimilar from the scourge that now assails us. In these very hills, creatures the like had never been seen here emerged seemingly from the shadows and the dark places of the land. A mighty warlord led them in a relentless campaign of destruction across our countryside. The sorcery this warlord wielded was potent enough to shear the faces off whole mountains. The forces of this enemy ravaged the highlands, as if striving to burn Inverketh’s magic from the land itself.”

  “After the source of your magic?” Zeke said.

  “So it was believed,” Mica confirmed. They were nearing the top of the steps. And just past there, the wide, columned mouth of the Inverkethi temple waited. The landing was empty—apparently, the others had already gone inside. “Had he not been repelled, the invader would have leveled every mountain in the Lankshale Climbs.

  “Our forces fought them night and day. Striking as we could into the territory claimed by the enemy, engaging them in the hills and on the plains of the valley. But we were insufficient against the might of the invader.”

  “Yet you prevailed,” Zeke said as they climbed the final set of risers. “Inverketh and its magic is still here.”

  “Indeed it is, Traverser,” Mica said. “Indeed it is.”

  As they reached the landing, the others rushed out from the darkness of the temple doors and stopped before Zeke and Mica.

  “You’re gonna want to
see this,” Narissa said breathlessly.

  Harbinger reached up to his scalp and grabbed two fistfuls of hair. “This is not good,” he said.

  Augie held his hands up as if in appeal. “Don’t jump to any conclusions,” he said to Zeke.

  Qaant Yke was silent and inscrutable, but Vibeke stared hard at Zeke with what he had come to consider her what-the-blazes-have-you-gotten-me-into look.

  “What?” Zeke asked.

  Nobody spoke, so he said it again.

  “What?” He turned to Mica.

  She too said nothing. Her eyes were hard, but Zeke felt a tug-of-war of hope and dread within her.

  “Non-believers and outsiders are rarely given entrance to this temple,” she said finally. “But you would never have accepted the answers to your questions from me. You must see for yourself.”

  Zeke looked from Mica to his companions, to the temple doors, and back again.

  “Blast it,” he muttered. He broke from the Lady Regent, pushed past the others, and went inside.

  The temple interior seemed pitch-black, coming as he did out of full daylight, but within a few seconds, his eyes adjusted. He came through an elaborately decorated antechamber to another set of doors that led him into the main chamber.

  It was a large, circular space, with a high, parabolic ceiling. From somewhere overhead, diffused sunlight filtered in, and motes of dust, like stars, danced in the shafts of light. Across the chamber, what looked like some kind of devotional altar stood on an ornate dais.

  To Zeke’s left, another quadrant of the dome seemed devoted to some form of abstract art. What appeared to be a fresco showed an intertwined pattern of darkness and light, with a greenish-white polygonal star at its center. Radiating out like a mosaic from that center, tiny dark marks like runes spread away from the center and dissolved into the fresco skyscape that covered most of the rest of the dome. As his eyes followed the representations of clouds, those clouds gave way to a darker, star-speckled sky. As Zeke turned around, the stars began to streak like meteors, growing thicker and thicker until it looked like the biggest meteor shower anyone had ever seen.

  Until his eyes stopped at the base of the other side of the dome, and he realized that the falling stars were actually representations of weapons fire over a raging war scene.

  He recognized the panorama of the Inverkethi city. It was on fire, devastated by a level of violence an order of magnitude worse than the recent damage it had taken. The streets and the ruined building crawled with black creatures with glowing swords and feral red eyes. And everywhere on the mural, the Inverkethi people fought back with everything they had.

  The centerpiece of the spectacle was the top of a battered building, its upper reaches a tangle of ruined gothic archwork, shattered stained glass, and cracked and splintered masonry.

  And in the sky over the building, floating in some kind of tower of swirling light, two figures grappled with one another, locked in what could only be mortal combat.

  The first figure was rendered in the same darks and reds as the inhuman invaders below. Its face was obscured by what looked to Zeke like some kind of ceremonial death mask, but it could also have been an alien battle helmet. The figure was twisted, its aspect frantic, and the composure of the two bodies clearly showed the dark figure at, or just before, the moment it was smited.

  It was a compelling work, worthy of the masters of the Renaissance back on Earth, but that was not what took the breath out of Zeke’s lungs.

  The second figure, floating over the first, dominating, powerful, and getting ready to smite. He recognized him immediately as the warrior who had come to their rescue back in the XARPA lab, who had killed the invading Tozzk soldier—reducing it to slag. He recognized the tech-encrusted armor, the weaponry, right down to the sword he had carried. Only his cloak was different. This time it was pulled back, revealing the warrior’s face.

  It was Zeke’s.

  Twenty-One

  “You,” Zeke said, reaching into the depths of his guts for as much emphasis as possible, “have got. The wrong. Flipping. Guy.”

  “The trial by combat has never erred,” the Lady Regent said.

  “Of course it’s never erred,” Narissa noted. “It leaves you with a single value to which you get to apply any variable you want. Let x equal whatever’s convenient.”

  “I had to be sure of you,” Mica insisted, “and now I am. The only remaining task was to present the truth to you.”

  “But it isn’t me.”

  There was no way he could see himself as the larger-than-life figure up on the fresco. And sure as gravity, the fighter who had protected them against the Tozzk in the lab—that couldn’t have been him either.

  Vibeke stood facing the mural, studying the heroic figure. Augie and Harbinger stood with Feldspar and a few of his attendants on the other side of the chamber, examining the abstract painting. Qaant Yke stood pensively—at least, to the extent that it was possible for crustaceans to look pensive—closer to the center of the chamber where the high dome gave the tall alien the illusion of headroom.

  “I think it kind of suits you, Travers,” Vibeke said, turning and looking at him with what Zeke thought was an extra dose of sparkle in her eye. “Who knew you could come off like such a badass.”

  “And that alone should tell you it’s not me,” Zeke said. “When have you ever known me to be a badass?”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, sonny,” Narissa said. “The fighting spirit that’s in that painting. I see a lot of that in you.”

  “Thanks, mom. It doesn’t change anything. It can’t be me.”

  “Why?” Vibeke asked.

  “For starters, I’ve never been here before.” He nodded up towards the painting. “I think I would have remembered an episode like that.”

  “It cannot be otherwise,” Mica said. “You are the legendary Defender of Inverketh.”

  Zeke threw his hands up and paced nervously. “And we’re back to where we started.”

  Narissa’s eyes narrowed, the way Zeke knew they did when she was pursuing a difficult proof.

  “What if there was another possibility,” she said, “a simpler one.”

  “There is,” Zeke asserted. “It’s somebody else. Or—maybe it’s some analogue?”

  “Stow the sarcasm, kid. Maybe you’re right. Maybe this isn’t you—yet.”

  Zeke stopped. “What do you mean?” he asked even though he already knew he wasn’t going to like the response.

  “Perhaps what took place in Inverketh’s past,” Narissa said, gesturing at the mural, “lies in your future.”

  “How do you figure that?” Vibeke asked.

  “The Heisenberg corollary,” Zeke said, several ideas beginning to click.

  “That again,” Vibeke said.

  “Back in the lab,” Narissa said, “the problem was purely academic. I never honestly thought any of us would live long enough to have to deal with the actuality.”

  “School’s out, prof,” Vibeke replied. “What gives?”

  “The fundamental limit to which a pair of complementary variables can be measured,” Zeke answered.

  “I know what the Uncertainty Principle is,” Vibeke said.

  “Everything in the universe—or the multiverse—behaves like both a wave and a particle.”

  “Including,” Narissa added, “apparently…the membrane.”

  “Meaning that,” Zeke continued, “just like the impossibility of measuring both the precise speed and position of a particle in space—”

  “The Heisenberg corollary,” Narissa went on, “makes it impossible to determine both the location and the time of any interdimensional shift.”

  “Determine the exact moment of the translation,” Zeke said, “and we lose control over its location.”

  “Conversely,” Vibeke jumped in, “you nail down the exact spot—”

  “And time,” Narissa answered, “becomes the necessary variable.”

  “Hot damn,” Vibeke
said, taking a moment to soak it in. “So your interdimensional drive has an extra special, added bonus feature.”

  “It’s also a time machine,” Zeke confirmed.

  “Hot damn,” Vibeke repeated.

  “So the Lady Regent here,” Narissa said, jerking her thumb towards Mica, “is apparently right. That’s you in the painting, Zeke. You just haven’t done it yet.”

  “Pardon my interruption, colleagues,” Augie said, jogging up to them from across the chamber. “I think you all may want to see this.”

  On the other side of the wide, mosaic floor, Harbinger was on his knees in front of the abstract mural, clawing handfuls of hair at his temples.

  Zeke and the others followed Augie.

  “What’s with Chuck?” Zeke asked.

  “I can’t say,” Augie said. “But from the way he keeps repeating ‘this is not good,’ I can only assume—”

  “That it’s not good,” Zeke answered.

  “Great,” Vibeke said. “This run of spectacular luck was getting boring anyway.”

  Feldspar walked up as they approached.

  “Whatever it is he apprehends,” the prince said, “I cannot see.”

  Zeke knelt down by Harbinger. The coder stared up at the fresco. His eyes, behind the thick lenses of his glasses, appeared glazed, unseeing.

  “Chuck?” Zeke asked.

  “Of all the campaigns,” he muttered, seemingly to himself, “why this one? Why’d it have to be this one?”

  “What is it?”

  Harbinger blinked and turned to Zeke as if just noticing him.

  “Look,” he said. “Look at it. Can’t you see? Man-oh-man, this is not good.”

  Zeke turned to Augie. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”

  “I can’t speak to his pessimistic appraisal,” Augie said. “But I suggest you do what he asks. Look.”

  Zeke stood and approached the fresco. From up close, the glowing polygon at the center seemed even brighter than the afternoon sun slanting across the dome overhead. The illusion of glare from the object almost obscured the fresco’s other feature—the cloud of runic symbols radiating away from it like smoke. He turned away from the center and stepped a few meters to the side for a better look.