War of the World Makers

by Reilly Michaels

  "The two sides of Tao, I understand. But what do you mean by bestowed on me by Ahriman? Why me? You honestly have no idea?"

  "As Socrates said, the wise man is he who at last understands he knows nothing. If that is true, I am very wise indeed. I only know that one evening my eyes watered and my limbs tingled, and I realized a new World Maker had been born somewhere in the past, in a quietly altered time stream, and one who possessed the rare aria magic. I used my powers and saw it was you."

  It both thrilled and frightened Freddie a bit to consider her birth rippling up through the years to tingle the limbs of Paganini. How odd! She did not wish to imagine it. And what did “altered time stream” really mean?

  Paganini sighed again, and continued. "The World Makers, and there have been a dozen of us, have a saying, Ahriman’s will is water and wind. As I told you, he fell from the stars and now exists in a form none of us understand."

  "Fallen? Like Lucifer?"

  Paganini’s face grew dark and pensive. He hesitated for a few moments, then said, "In our dreams, we often see him as an insect-like thing. Whatever his true form, none of us understand his ultimate aim, or why he exists on this obscure planet on the rim of nowhere, or who he prefers in the war between Edison and I for Earth's future. Maybe it matters not to him. Maybe it is all a big test … The ancient Persians knew him as an evil god, but we know him also as a creator god—like my Skanda, capable of form and chaos ... And he is much like you, future Czarina of all the Russias."

  "But I am not evil, and I will never be so, not like that horrid thing your spellcraft men dragged from here."

  Paganini stared at Freddie, his face appearing saddened. "Eréndira will come after you to settle things, and one of you will perish in the death struggle. War has its victims. I say this for both of you and your older self to hear. We are often forced to do things that may seem immoral at the time."

  "If I meet the monster again, I will kill her, and that will be the moral thing to do," Freddie said.

  "That may be so," Paganini said, "but before you do that, you must undertake an incredibly dangerous and difficult task. It is one that might well shift the bigger conflict in our favor.”

  “Whatever must be done, I—”

  “You must help me destroy Edison Godfellow’s War Tracker that lives in the year 2038."

  "And this will save the world?" Freddie asked, feeling a bit cynical with the taste of blood in her mouth and the dull roar of pain mounting in her muscles and nerves.

  Paganini's face hardened, his gaze deadly serious. "Do not be cynical, Princess von Anhalt. This is not a creation of theater or melodrama. Your precious aria power can help us change the course of history for the sake of human civilization. But you must freely choose to help me in this endeavor, and the total choices available to you are two, not three. You can never go back to life as it once was in your Prussian castle. You either choose to aid Edison Godfellow, and his vision, or you choose to aid me and mine."

  Freddie stared into Paganini’s eyes for a few seconds, and said, "I choose ... to change history for the better, and if this means taking your side, I will do so."

  "Well spoken," Paganini said, and smiled.

  "I know I have the power to make it happen. I sense it."

  Paganini saddened at the comment, as if he felt sorry for her. "Power will be a burden to you, as you will see in time, far more than a blessing."

  This statement made her pause. She heard her older self say:

  Do not ask what you are going to ask.

  Freddie ignored herself and asked anyway, "And evil? Will I—"

  "A few more things ..." Paganini said, cutting her off. "You have met Zolo. He is a friend, and will help guide you because he is a righteous soul."

  "But I thought he was only a castle servant?"

  "He is in my employ, and one day he will be a spellcraft captain of renown." Paganini went on to rumble her mind even further. “Regardless, the end of War Tracker and the defeat of Temujin Gur, as I noted before, are tied together, as you will soon see. But first, we must learn Gur's strategy if he indeed plans to cross the Nicholas, for in theory, your presence now allows that possibility," Paganini said. "Only your power combined with his could possibly penetrate beyond the Nicholas without risking annihilation ... And if we realize this fact, he most certainly does. We must accept that the temptation to betray Master Godfellow and establish his own world order might well prove irresistible, but your powers must first leave their cocoon stage with his help ... It will be painful, very painful."

  “What? Painful … How?”

  "I regret having to tell you that truth, though it had to be done."

  He actually does regret it, and Paganini is a man without love, Catherine said. But now the time winds blow, and I must leave you. Mother Yarrow Maria is our bridge, though not without her faults. You will know her soon enough. I love her, and you will also because you are me.

  "Goodbye," Freddie said.

  How odd that was, yet how natural it felt, to hear herself and to know for certain she was not going insane. As for Paganini, a man without love? In her universe, she knew of no such man. The nobles of Europe, both men and women, took "love" whenever they wished, and spurned it with equal passion.

  "Are you listening?" Paganini asked. "This is very important."

  Freddie apologized for daydreaming, and he continued. "If our new fusion of the magical Tao with the non-magical Tao proves successful, a breakthrough is imminent. Edison is not the only inventive genius in this world," Paganini said with a glimmer of pride in his eyes. "We have been working on a particular project for years, assisted by minds like Einstein and Hawking."

  Upon dropping even more names Freddie did not recognize, he attempted to explain it:

  "Nano-magic Neural Infiltrators."

  "Master Paganini, such words do not—"

  "Imagine atoms that when combined appear to make a solid thing. The NMNI are not nearly as small, but small and magical enough to enter the mind undetected, and once there, listen and record thoughts. All you must do is tightly hug Temujin Gur's body for at least two seconds, and that will enable the transfer of the NMNI."

  What? Oh my God! She could not imagine anything more revolting than holding Gur close.

  "Zolo will provide you with the details upon your return," Paganini said and began to examine some papers on his desk with his beautiful anemone hands, as though hunting for a last second detail he needed to tell Freddie. His foot slid back and forth as he sat there. "One last thing …"

  "Forgive me, Master Paganini, but I have one last thing I must ask you."

  Paganini stopped and glanced up at Freddie's worried face. His foot continued to slide beneath the table, back and forth. He did not appear puzzled, rather resigned to whatever Freddie would ask.

  "Master Paganini, the Eréndira monster said I would allow the death of my father. That cannot be so."

  "We do what we must," Paganini said, his face unmoved. “You have a destiny.”

  "I will not allow the death of my father. I will not," she said with iron in her voice.

  Paganini retreated to his customary look of apathy and exhaustion. He removed a golden watch from his pocket, dangled it by the chain before his eyes and said, "Now you must return to your castle in Anhalt."

  "Did you hear me? Will you not answer?"

  "Your older self, Catherine, has a flight to catch out of Paris in 2033, bound for Washington."

  "I will make my own fate then, Master Paganini."

  "Catherine has a flight to catch out of Paris in 2033, bound for Washington."

  "A flight? ... Washington?"

  Оверман

  7

  The Agony of Destiny - Nobles Might Torture John Locke - A Dream of Bee

  SHE MUST ALLOW HER FATHER'S DEATH, AND ACCEPT IT," the voice said to Zolo, sounding distant and dulled by a low drone of static. "It is destiny, and without this, the Princess von Anhalt will never be Czarina."

>   If Zolo were ignorant, he would not believe this voice belonged to Master Paganini. He sat in his small, candle-lit room deep in Bärenthoren Castle, facing a grand old clock on the table. He’d been talking to the future for a few minutes, hearing of what happened in Saravastra, and now it pained him to consider how devastated Freddie would be by the death of her beloved father, Prince Christian. He only hoped he, Zolo Bold, could bring comfort to her, in some manner.

  To the clock, he spoke these words:

  "She cannot be willing to accept it yet, sir. We need time. Please let me to signal the possibility of this acceptance with you before we allow the death of the Prince, or it will crush her. Please, sir. I am closer to her, and truly, there is no rush."

  "This is against my better judgment, young man. Time will heal.”

  “There is no rush, Master Paganini. I plead.”

  “As you will, Zolo. You must therefore delay the plans of Johanna. Work with Mother Yarrow carefully. She is sensitive to the presence of Temujin Gur, but you must be wise also."

  "He already knows I am your agent."

  "Yes, but he does not suspect you have a Mother Yarrow in you. We do not wish to make him suspicious enough to dissect you in order to find her."

  "Gur told me he will be the instrument of my death, and that, as an older man, I am already dead."

  A pause, then Paganini said, "When did he tell you this?"

  "At the banquet for Empress Elizabeth ... He said I would never go to America."

  "Young man, you know he sows seeds of mistrust and fear whenever he can. It gives him pleasure ... Gur was referring to an attempt he makes to kill you when you are an older man, but fails to do so. My magic simply makes it appear to him that he succeeded."

  “Why did you not speak of this, sir?”

  “I did not wish to distract or alarm you.”

  "He would be the true instrument of my death, if he could. That would also give him pleasure. He is a sadist, Master Paganini, pure evil, more evil I believe than Master Godfellow."

  "He believes in a cause, and that makes him dangerous, but Gur would burn the Earth to a cinder just to serve his personal ambition. We must uncover his scheme, and right now we can only guess. You will obtain the nano-magic data, once the Princess von Anhalt exposes him, and use Mother Yarrow to translate."

  "I understand."

  "You must also understand there is a chance that you will have to kill Prince Christian."

  For a long moment, Zolo could not speak, and then he said, "Master Paganini! No, it cannot be me! I cannot murder this man."

  "By foiling the plans of Princess Johanna, you might delay the death for too long, or in such a manner as to cause Johanna to forsake having him murdered, or worse yet, approach Empress Elizabeth asking for Gur's assistance. If that becomes the case …"

  "If Freddie ever—"

  "Whatever happens, she must not be able to prove her mother is behind it, even if she suspects, which she will. In any case, you must work with Mother Yarrow to disguise the true cause of the murder. We do not want the princess burning a hole through the castle to kill Johanna, and we certainly do not want her to suspect you, if it comes to that."

  "Why is her mother's evil life so important?"

  "She will work with Empress Elizabeth to transition the Princess von Anhalt to Russia, as well as help arrange the marriage to Peter. It must play out this way, in all its parts."

  "So the good must die, and the evil live."

  "I wish it could be otherwise, young man, and I understand your sadness. But Princess Johanna must play her role and Prince Christian must die."

  No different than when told of his own death by Temujin Gur, the fact that he might actually have to murder Prince Christian shook Zolo to his very core. Bad enough to be forced to allow the death of someone Freddie loved, but now, to think he might drive the dagger in himself? Besides, he liked Prince Christian, the one noble in castle Bärenthoren, or Anhalt for that matter, who did not treat the servants with cruelty or contempt—unlike his evil wife who beat them every week.

  "Can we not use Mother Yarrow Margaret to change his mind?"

  "Princess von Anhalt's path to becoming Czarina does not include the presence of her father in Moscow. It is history. I am only the messenger."

  "You sometimes ask too much of me, Master Paganini."

  "Destiny asks too much of us all, Zolo Bold."

  * Оверман *

  MOTHER YARROW TOLD ZOLO THAT FREDDIE'S SOUL was hers once more. The princess had returned from Saravastra in 1898, and less than one tenth of a moment had passed in castle Bärenthoren since her departure. Whenever Zolo heard his Mother Yarrow's voice, it sounded soft yet firm, like the voice of wise mother. It always soothed him and made him feel secure. She connected to his time and place via her yarrow bridge—a "frequency on the Chrono Wave Continuum" as Master Paganini would say—created by the World Makers long ago. Since bonding with his Mother Yarrow, Margaret of Anjou, years before in Saravastra, she had never failed him, and her power shielded both he and Freddie from the poisonous influence of Temujin Gur—as long as reasonable precautions remained in force, such as no blatant displays of power.

  Gur must be kept ignorant of all soul trips to Saravastra.

  He must believe that HE is in control.

  Before going in search of Freddie, Zolo Bold left a snoring double of himself in his small servant chamber in Bärenthoren (a room half the size of the average closet and containing only a narrow bed and a bronze chamber pot), for he believed it prudent not to give the appearance of being absent, and entered the inner walls of the castle via a hidden door. Over the past many months before the coming of Empress Elizabeth, he wisely used Mother Yarrow in the creation of secret rooms and doors, and in the boring out of more inner passageways, so that now, all vital points could be reached easily. Without these new passageways in the castle, magic would be required to pass through the walls, and such magic was an alarm bell to a warlock like Gur.

  Zolo made his way to Freddie's bedchamber. He halted outside the entrance and waited while Mother Yarrow Maria quietly looked inside, using no more energy than a fall of light snow. In a moment, the image of the sleeping Princess von Anhalt filled his eyes. She had changed out of her banquet clothes and fallen back on the bed. Her mind must have been so exhausted with the trip, as well as the terrible fight with Marquez, and she needed to process the explosion of information and new sensations thrown at her.

  Who could possibly deal with it all?

  His own trip to Saravastra as a small child, upon losing his mother, was shocking and strange enough. The mother Bodhisattvas descended on white wings from the godlike city of Saravastra and escorted him through the air to a place they called "The Tower of Mothers." Once there, he received warm food, a hot bath, and loving embraces. They were his mother's aunts, they said, and would care for him always. So far though, Freddie's bath in the waters of the future was not only very different, but also hot with violence. To imagine the evil Eréndira Marquez seeking Freddie's death drove a spike of fury into him. He only hoped good fortune would one day allow him to kill Eréndira, or at least, help the future Czarina accomplish the task.

  Zolo pushed open the hidden door to Freddie's bedchamber and walked in, softly and without a sound. The room, dark and huge, scattered with furniture and life-sized wooden statues of famous heroes. Six of them were created by a talented craftsman in Anhalt known to the castle. Among them, one of Zolo's favorites: Alexander the Great. There he stood, the world's greatest general and leader, crouching for battle, his round shield before him, his spear thrusting at an invisible enemy. Perhaps the mighty Darius himself?

  But no time for musing on Alexander's wars.

  At the foot of the four post bed, Zolo stopped and stared at Freddie. The Czarina-to-be wore a simple robe of black cotton, tied at the waist. Her bosom rose and fell, her glossy dark chestnut hair spread across her chest and over the pillow. To a love-hungry young man like Zolo
at age 16, she appeared divine, a cross between Greek goddesses Hera and Diana, symbols of true power and pure love. He recalled Paganini saying to him, "The Czarina will one day sing rivers on the moon," and he imagined the two of them there, on the shore of a dark moon river, staring up at the blue ball of Earth while breathing the air of stars.

  Zolo closed his eyes, and as he made love to his passionate Czarina beneath the shine of Earth, he heard a soft sound, like the opening of lips. He lifted his eyelids, and in the light of the small candle burning beside Freddie's bed, he saw her staring back at him. He gasped in surprise, and said in a whisper, "Princess ... my apologies for waking you, it's just that we must talk. I was sent—"

  "I know who sent you here, Mister Bold," she said with a calm, firm voice.

  In silence he watched as she rose from the bed and stood to face him. Her expression showed calm and courage, though he knew she must be fearful for her father. He said to her, "We must leave this room and descend deeper in the castle if we are to be perfectly safe. Mother Yarrow has created a sphere of solitude that will protect us from any spies or senses of Temujin Gur."

  "Lead the way, sir," she said and smiled at him. The smile took him by surprise and stopped all motion. "Please, let us not tarry," she said, reaching out with the palm of her hand to gently touch his arm and nudge him onward.

  Recovering from his daze, Zolo turned and walked towards the hidden exit, and Freddie whispered at his back, "Where in Beelzebub's name are you going, Mister Bold?" He turned and quietly told her of the secret passageways, one leading to her room. "I had no idea ..." she said. "My mother could have—"

  "Your mother knows nothing of this," he said.

  The invisible door in the wall swung outward at Zolo's touch and they entered the passageway, the door closing behind them.

  "There is no light in here, and yet I can see," Freddie said.

  "Your power is like a child awakening in your body. It becomes smarter and stronger every day, and now your eyes pierce the dark, like mine," Zolo said, and turned to lead.