“He’s created an incantation to go with the newly forged artifact. It’s written in an obscure Akkadian dialect. There are two spells here. One will transport the user and his companions to Wales in 60 C.E. The other will bring them back here, to the present.” He put down the parchment, then hurried into his office. Buffy heard file drawers opening and shutting, then a brief silence. He emerged, thumbing through some Watcher journals. “60 C.E., 60 C.E.,” he mumbled, searching the pages. “Ah, here we are. The Isle of Anglesey, 60 C.E. The Slayer then was Incinii, a fierce warrior who defended her homeland not only from vampires, but from invading Romans.” He looked up from the text. “She must be the target. We must stop them before they leave!”
Angel stepped forward. “It might be too late for that.”
“What do you mean?” Giles asked.
Buffy cleared her throat. “We think the assassins already left in that flash of light.”
Giles nearly dropped the journal, then looked at his watch. “Any moment now, history might change around us. If they succeed, the Slayer lineage will be disrupted, and the time line forever altered. We could all cease to exist at any moment.”
“How do I stop them?” Buffy asked.
Giles looked down at the spell. “We must follow them back in time.”
“Right on!” Xander yelled, leaping to his feet. “Time travel!”
Willow smiled too, excited at the prospect.
Buffy had a bad feeling, and Angel brooded next to her.
Giles turned to Willow and Xander. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for either of you to go. This could be a very dangerous endeavor. And time travel could be tricky—anything we do could forever alter the future. You could step on a beetle and cause a plague to wipe out all of Europe.”
“What, like the butterfly flapping its wings in Central Park and causing a hurricane off the Eastern Seaboard?” Willow asked. She liked chaos theory.
“Exactly,” Giles said.
Xander shook his head adamantly. “Oh, no way. I’m going. You guys will need an expert in time travel.”
“Your expertise,” Giles said bluntly, “comes from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael J. Fox movies.”
“And that’s bad?” Xander challenged.
“Oh, dear.”
“Giles, look,” Buffy said. “I could use all of your help. Who knows what I’m going to come up against in these places?” After a modest pause, she added, “I didn’t exactly study a whole lot of history. I could get burned at the stake or something.”
“That’s no fun,” said Willow. “I hate when that happens.”
“Wait, wait,” Angel interrupted. “What about this artifact? We don’t know where it is.”
Giles held up a finger, then pushed some books around on the table until he found the one he wanted. “Aha! This is what I learned about the power of the Gem of Chargulgaak. It does not travel through time itself. It acts as a marker, left behind in the present.”
“What does that mean?” asked Xander.
“It means,” Giles continued, “that Lucien would have to leave it here in Sunnydale in 1998 when he journeys back in time. It would be the only way he could return.”
“So then we find it and steal it?” Buffy asked.
“You didn’t see it in the chamber?” Giles asked.
Buffy shook her head.
“That’s strange. …” He took off his glasses, placing one stem in the corner of his mouth, then removing it. “Why would the artifact not be there? It must be there!” He paced around the room, then sat down on the table corner.
“Could he have hidden it?” Angel asked.
Giles shot to his feet. “Of course!” He snapped his fingers, then replaced his glasses. “He would have to hide it. If someone stole or destroyed it while he was gone, it would be disastrous.” He met Buffy’s eyes. “And we don’t even need to find it to use this spell,” he finished.
“What?” Buffy asked, bewildered.
“We know it’s here in Sunnydale in 1998. Lucien would have to leave it behind.” He waved the parchment. “If we use this incantation to travel back in time and stop the assassins, we, too, will return to Sunnydale in 1998. As long as it’s here somewhere, we don’t need to actually possess it to travel backward in time.”
“This whole thing is very confusing,” Buffy said.
Willow stood up. “No, I see what he means, Buffy. We just piggyback onto Lucien’s spell. We say the incantation and poof, we travel back to 60 C.E. Then we speak the return incantation and we come back to Sunnydale in 1998. The artifact has to stay here.”
“Wouldn’t the assassins already have beat us to the Slayer?” Buffy asked.
“No,” Xander told her, starting to get it all. “We need to think four-dimensionally.” He pointed at the incantation. “As long as we use the same incantation, we enter at the exact same point in time as the assassins. They won’t have a time jump on us at all, no matter how much earlier they left today. Even if they left last week, we’d still arrive at the same time. Like in The Terminator, Reese and the Terminator leave at different times, but arrive the same night—”
Buffy cut him off. “So we speak this incantation?”
Giles read it over. “We can give it a try.”
“And we come back to 1998?” she asked suspiciously. “Not to Cro-Magnon times when I’m going to have to fight off pterodactyls for my food?”
“Would you wear one of those little deerskin bikini things that—,” Xander began, but stopped abruptly when Angel cleared his throat.
“It should work,” Giles assured her.
“I don’t like ‘should,’ Giles.”
Xander walked over to her. “Like the ‘should,’ Buff. Embrace the ‘should.’ This is time travel. A once-in-a-lifetime adventure.”
Willow and Giles waited for her, eyebrows raised.
She stared at her friends, then exhaled. “Okay,” she said. “When do we leave?”
Giles excitedly paced again. “We’ll need supplies. And period clothing.”
“We could raid the drama club’s storage closet,” Willow offered. “It’s Saturday. They won’t notice anything missing for a couple of days, and we’ll be back by then, right?”
Giles again read over the spell. “We should be back only moments after we leave.”
“Moments?” Buffy asked. “How many moments? You mean Angel and I could have stuck around and grabbed this guy when he returned?”
“Perhaps,” Giles said.
“But wouldn’t that mean that he would have been successful?” Willow asked. “Wouldn’t their coming back mean they’d killed the Slayer, and then everything would be different?”
Giles regarded her gravely. “You may be right, Willow. The sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll be outside of time ourselves. Right now, if they returned successful in their mission, we could all suddenly disappear. At the very least, Buffy may not be the Slayer. At the worst, the Master would be in power.”
“We need to leave now, Giles,” Buffy said, her stomach turning sour. “Will, go raid the drama club’s closet. Xander, help her. We go now.”
Twenty minutes later they rendezvoused in the library, all wearing clothes from a recent production of Robin Hood. The outfits weren’t historically accurate, but the garments were heavy and woolen, with simple tunics, leggings, and capes. They were good enough on such short notice.
Giles, after practicing the incantation silently, realized it wasn’t very specific about the time of day. They could arrive at sunrise, noon, or night. Buffy insisted that Angel stay there and dig up all he could on Lucien and his plot. Angel didn’t like it, but he agreed.
He left the library and the four Scoobies gathered, with Giles in the center. He spoke the words aloud for the first time. A bright point of light fluttered into view in the air above them. The library shook. The bright point expanded, growing elliptical, and a wind kicked up in the room. The light swirled and glittered, the wind tugging at their hai
r and clothes. Buffy felt lighter and lighter, and then she sailed up through the air, her feet leaving the floor. Speeding toward the dizzying display of light, she held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut. Then, unsure of what lay on the other side, not even sure she’d live to see it, she hurtled into the vortex, careening backward through time.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Wales, 60 C.E.
Buffy felt her body decelerate suddenly. The brightness flashed and faded, spitting her out onto a sandy beach. She tumbled, landing against a large rock in the small of her back. Wincing, she looked up to see the vortex, spiraling in the air five feet above her. She rolled over onto her stomach, propped herself up on her elbows, and scanned the beach. No sign of the vamps at all. Giles said they would land at the same time. Was it possible they’d landed somewhere else? She tried to get up to run, do a cursory search, but her trembling legs gave out beneath her and she fell.
A flash of brightness pulled her attention back to the vortex. A dark figure appeared in the brightness. Then Xander, screaming, launched out of the light and tumbled to a painful stop on the beach. Dazed, her head feeling more like a pillow than a place with a working brain, Buffy crawled to him. Two more silhouettes appeared in the light, and the vortex ejected Willow and Giles simultaneously onto the rocks below. Willow landed rolling, managing to somersault up and onto her feet, where she stood, blinking, looking as if any minute she might fall over again.
Giles landed flat on his face, hitting his head on a rock. He groaned, cradling his skull and curling up onto his side. Buffy fought the woolliness in her head. It was day. She had been right to leave Angel behind. If the vampires did land at the same time, they might be dust now. She peered up into the heavily overcast sky. Or maybe not. She scanned her surroundings, searching for the assassins to no avail. Then she spoke to Xander. “You alive?” she asked.
He groaned.
“Good.” She looked over her shoulder at Willow. “Are you alive?”
Willow swayed on her feet, eyes fixed on the spot where the portal was. “I think so. But I can’t feel my head.”
“It’s still on your torso. Trust me.”
Buffy crawled then to Giles, who continued to lie in a ball. She peeled his hand away from the wound to find a small red bruise forming. It looked minor, with no blood. Poor Giles. Always getting hit on the head.
“Don’t say it,” he warned her, reading her mind. He rolled over, meeting her eyes. “I travel back in time to Roman-occupied Britain to face legionnaires and Druids, only to be done in by a rock.”
“I think you’ll live.”
“Oh, good.” Shakily he rose to his knees, holding his head again. “Anyone else feel like their head is full of sponge cake?”
Xander stood up on trembling legs. “I was going to say Ding Dongs, but that works too.”
“Or matzo balls,” Willow added. She slumped onto her knees.
“Giles, where are the vampires?” Buffy asked, rolling over on her back.
He scanned the beach, getting to his feet, his hands resting on his knees. “You looked when you first landed?”
“Yes. No sign.”
“Interesting.” He straightened up.
Her friends were up. Buffy knew she had to get up too. She tried to shake the gauzy feeling from her mind and slowly stood up.
“It’s possible that Lucien worked out the time travel, but not the location travel.”
Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you mean?”
“Well, the time magick may be very specific when it comes to what year we land in, but sketchier when it comes down to the location. The vampires may have landed at the same instant we did, but miles away.”
Buffy scanned the beach into the distance.
“It’s day, too,” Xander pointed out. “Any chance they just went poof?”
Buffy looked up into the thick mass of roiling storm clouds above them. “I don’t think so. These clouds would have protected them long enough to find cover. They would have smoked and been singed a bit, but I don’t think we can count on total incineration.”
On shaky legs, she moved to the nearest cluster of trees, then to a jumble of boulders, searching beneath them and in the darker places for any signs of hiding vampires. She didn’t see any place that could have afforded them cover for long. Unless they went underwater.
She took in the scene before her. The beach behind them ended at a thinned tree line of oaks and pine, many of which had been cut down recently. Only a few still stood, thin ones. A misty rain began to fall, clinging to her hair in tiny droplets. In the distance a thin gray column of smoke rose up behind a nearby hill. Buffy turned around. On the opposite side of this ruined forest lay a narrow strait and an immense island full of tremendous old-growth trees. Beyond that lay an enormous ocean. Buffy wasn’t positive, but she was pretty sure they should be on the island part of the Isle of Anglesey.
“Where are we?” she asked, brushing dirt off her woolen leggings. Her outfit was so scratchy that she couldn’t imagine how people could have suffered in it for an entire lifetime. She pulled her thick cape closer around her shoulders as her breath misted in the chilly, wet air.
Giles swayed a bit but maintained his balance. He stared at the island momentarily, then removed his glasses. After wiping mist away from the lenses with a handkerchief, he replaced them. Squinting for a full minute at the vast forest on the island, and then at the ruined one on their side, he said, “Oh, dear.”
“What oh dear?” Buffy asked, alarmed that she might be right.
“It seems we’ve landed on the wrong land mass. If I’m not mistaken, we are on the mainland, and the Slayer we seek is on that island there.” He pointed to the land across the narrow strait.
“So it’s possible the assassins landed in a different spot from us because they used a different portal?” She felt her stomach fall. “Then they might be on the island, already hunting the Slayer.”
Giles regarded her with a grim expression. “Yes.”
“Except that they’d have to find cover until dark, no matter how overcast it is,” Willow added.
“Good point,” Giles said, still wobbly.
Xander eyed the waterway. “It’s not that far. Can’t we just borrow a boat from someone?”
“I’m afraid it won’t be that easy. You see those ruined trees there?” He pointed at the cut forest. “That’s a sure sign of Roman occupation. The cuts look fresh, too, meaning they’re likely still nearby.”
“Like sitting around that fire?” Buffy asked, gesturing at the column of smoke.
“Oh, dear.”
Xander lifted his eyebrows. “So? We just ask them if we can borrow a boat, right?”
“Not unless we want to be decorated in our own entrails or set on fire.”
“What?” Xander cried.
“The Romans wouldn’t take kindly to us being here. We made a choice to dress like British common folk instead of Roman soldiers because we’d be talking to the Druidic Slayer. The Romans would just as soon cut us down as help us.”
“Oh, boy,” Xander said, then squatted down.
Willow glanced around, then sat down herself. “I don’t like this. I feel so out in the open.”
“Yes,” Giles said. “We should get some cover. Perhaps we can find a boat along the shore. I suggest we move along what’s left of the trees, searching the waterline.”
“Sounds good,” Buffy said, already moving toward the oaks. Her head felt less woolly, more cotton candy now.
In a silent row, they slunk along the trees, keeping watch for any sign of Roman soldiers. The beach lay deserted. No fishermen. No boats. Just lots of sand and some bleached white driftwood. Buffy hoped Xander was right about the timing of the incantation, that if they repeated the same words the assassins had, they’d be deposited at the same instant in time. That meant the vamps didn’t have a head start on them. If anything, since they landed in the middle of the day, Buffy and the others had the head start. The a
ssassins, if they survived the daylight at all—which Buffy thought was probable under the heavily overcast sky—would have had to seek shelter. That gave the Scoobies the advantage for now.
The rain, though slight, began to accumulate on Buffy’s woolen cape and tunic. A chill set in, and her teeth chattered. Frequently, she glanced back to be sure the others were okay. Willow was shivering more and more. Her fingernails were blue. Buffy wanted to find shelter, but she knew the vamps wouldn’t be slowed down by wet or cold. The sky darkened in the east, and it grew increasingly difficult to make out the shoreline in the gloom. Still no boats. No people. The coastline was utterly deserted.
A half hour later, her leather shoes soaked completely through and her toes so cold she could barely feel them, Buffy stopped. Her woolen clothes, utterly drenched now, felt five times their original weight, pulling down on her shoulders. Her back and shoulders ached. She turned to watch the others catch up with her. It was completely dark. Now that night had fallen, the vampires would resume their search for the Druidic Slayer. If they had landed on the island, they had a significant head start. Willow’s lips looked dangerously blue, and she walked as if in a daze. She was the last to reach them.
“We need to make a fire and get warm,” Buffy told Giles. “The more night sets in, the colder it’s going to get.”
“We can’t! The Romans will spot any flame,” Giles reminded her.
Buffy gestured at Willow. “Look at her, Giles! She’s freezing.”
Giles studied Willow’s face. She was no longer shivering, a dangerous sign of the onset of hypothermia.
“What about that fire?” Xander asked, pointing through the trees.
Ahead the shoreline angled inward, and firelight flickered in the tree branches there.
Willow suddenly shucked off her cape, then tried to strip off her tunic.
“What are you doing?” Xander asked her.
She didn’t answer, just flung the cloak down on the wet ground, baring her teeth.
Giles picked it up, stilling her hands. “Keep it on. It’s wet, but it’ll still keep you warm.” He draped the cloak over her shoulders.
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