by Bob Mayer
“What is it?” Pemberton demanded, his saber up, the point in the direction of Ivar’s chest. “You’re not an Angel. You lie.”
The download indicated Pemberton would be of little consequence after this. Not trusted by most of the Confederates, he wouldn’t be given another command. Despite the fact that President Jefferson Davis stood by him, writing: I thought and still think you did right to risk an army for the purpose of keeping command of even a section of the Mississippi River. Had you succeeded, none would have blamed; had you not made the attempt few would have defended your course.
Pemberton would resign his General’s commission, be reduced to lieutenant colonel, and serve in the artillery. After the war he would retire to his farm in Pennsylvania and live an ignominious life until his death in 1881.
Ivar couldn’t shake the image of Joey lying on the bed, Buster whining next to him. “There are some things, General, that are not forgivable. No redemption possible.”
Pemberton’s eyes shifted, and Ivar knew there was still some sanity residing deep inside. Some part that realized the truth of those words and recognized the utter darkness of the line which had just been crossed in the cave.
Ivar looked past Pemberton. “Sergeant. Arrest the General.”
Pemberton turned.
Ivar stepped forward, grabbed the arm holding the saber, then jammed his thumb into the nerve juncture in the elbow. Ivar’s other hand scooped up the saber before it could hit the ground. He pressed the edge of the blade against Pemberton’s neck.
“Are you ready to make the sacrifice, General? Are you ready for your penance?”
“It is not his time,” a woman said, a voice Ivar recognized. She wore a black robe, the hood pulled low, putting her face in the shadow. She had her book in the crook of one arm.
She touched Pemberton on the shoulder. The General slumped to the ground, unconscious.
“He needs to rest,” she said.
“He need to pay for what he just did,” Ivar said.
“That is not for you to decide. That is for my sister.”
“Which Fate are you?” Ivar asked. “Why didn’t you come here fifteen minutes ago? Why now?”
“It is what it is,” she said.
“Which of the sisters are you?” Ivar demanded.
She indicated the book. “Clotho.”
“Spinner of the thread of life,” Ivar said. “You’re too late.”
“I’m never late.” She crooked her bony finger. “Come with me.”
Ivar looked down at Pemberton, resisted the desire to run him through with the saber, and left him unconscious on the path. Clotho led the way back to the cave.
The soldier, Thomas, once more presented arms with his musket, without any indication he saw Clotho.
“The General requires your assistance,” Ivar said, indicating the path.
“Yes, sir.” Thomas hurried away.
Ivar pushed aside the blanket. Louise was at the stove, stirring one of the large pots. She was startled to see Ivar and, more so, Clotho.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “Where is John? We have to get started.”
Clotho moved forward, almost gliding. Louise stepped back. Clotho raised her hand, her palm toward Louise. “My sister says it is your time.”
“What?”
“That looks very good,” Clotho indicated the pot. “Very good.”
Louise’s arm was trembling as she dipped the long spoon into the pot. She lifted it out, put it to her lips, then dribbled the contents into her mouth. She dropped the spoon and fell to the ground, convulsing, her hands to her throat, no noise coming out, just her body vibrating. Blood began to pour from her eyes, nose, and ears, while a white froth bubbled out between her lips.
She was dead in less than ten seconds.
It was a long ten seconds to Ivar, who could only think of how Joey had suffered the same fate. He fumed as he thought that, the irony of the word, given that he was here with a Fate. “So it was her time? What about Joey? Why was it his time?”
Clotho pulled her hood back, revealing her wrinkled face and pure white eyes. “It is what it is.”
“That’s crap,” Ivar said. “You—” But Clotho was moving past the body, into the ‘bedroom’. Ivar followed. Buster was on the bed, guarding Joey’s body. The dog whined as she entered, a deep, plaintive animal cry.
Clotho went to the bed then put her book down. She put her hands on either side of Joey’s head. “It is not your time,” she whispered.
As life returned to Joey’s eyes, Ivar felt the pull of time, snatching him back to his own.
Mantinea, Greece, 4 July 362 B.C.
Time to go, Scout wished, but knew the wish was naïve.
Epaminondas was dead, as history dictated, and the Theban and Spartans would make peace. So far so good. But Pandora was still here and Legion might still be here.
Scout was walking with a morose Philip II back to his men, retracing their route through the battlefield.
Philip broke the silence. “You said you had several prophecies.”
“That is so,” Scout said, prophecies being the last of her concerns at the moment as she projected the Sight.
Philip halted and turned to face her. “When will you divulge them?”
“I did not say they were all for you,” Scout said. She noted that his hand strayed to the hilt of his sword.
“You didn’t,” Philip said. “You didn’t say much of anything. I find your arrival at just this time strange. I find the fact you knew where I was strange. I find that Epaminondas saw you strange. I find all of this strange.”
“You are not alone in that, king,” Pandora said, striding out from the trees near the base of the ridgeline. Once more Scout’s Sight had failed her.
Pandora’s black robe had dark splotches on it. The blade of her Naga was streaked with blood.
‘Where is your daughter? Scout asked.
Pandora’s face was tight, her eyes red-rimmed. ‘You know she is gone.’
‘The Forever Death?’ Scout asked.
‘Perhaps,’ Pandora said. ‘But you don’t know what you’re talking about, so let us leave it at that.’ She spoke out loud to King Philip II. “I will tell you a prophecy, my king. Tell me what you make of it: ’With silver spears, you may conquer the world’.”
Philip considered it for several moments. “Take the Thracian silver mines. Use their wealth to influence those I can. In the long term it is less expensive to pay off an enemy than fight them.
The download confirmed that Philip had received that prophecy and had done what he’d just come up with. But the prophecy was received three years from now according to the records.
But did it matter?
“That is a good prophecy,” Philip said. He looked Pandora up and down, noting the blood, the weapon. Then at Scout. “I have had enough prophecies for one day. I must go.”
He walked off, leaving the two of them alone.
“The Legion?” Scout asked.
“Pyrrha killed one, while he was killing her. I wounded the other.”
“Is he gone?”
“They’re never gone,” Pandora said. “Like the Spartan mercenaries, they are sent on missions from which there is no return.”
“That sucks for them,” Scout said, with no sympathy.
“Not if where you come from is so terrible.” Pandora watched Philip rejoin his men. “I sense you do not believe me about the importance of this day in so many timelines. Pyrrha is dead because of it.”
Scout didn’t know whether she should commiserate with Pandora or try to kill her. She kept that thought tightly shielded.
“Legion.” Pandora didn’t shield her disgust. “Have you noted how they aren’t large men? And look alike?” She wasn’t waiting for answers. “You’d think elite warriors would be big. Like your Roland. But they come from a philosophy started by Epaminondas, of all people. When he began his military training, he believed that strength, which the wrestlers in t
he Olympic and Pythian games focused on, was less important than agility and speed. The weapon, the dagger, is the great equalizer.”
“You mean the Legion come from Epaminondas somehow?” Scout asked.
Pandora waved a hand, dismissing it. “The last one is still somewhere about. We must finish him to complete our missions.” Pandora paused. “Did you know Philip was here? Is that why you didn’t come my daughter and I?”
“Yes.”
“There is more to you than I thought,” Pandora said.
“You didn’t know he was here?” Scout asked.
Pandora didn’t answer. She was looking about, but with more than just her eyesight.
“The Shadow deals in misdirection,” Scout said. “Epaminondas was the obvious target.” She began walking uphill, Pandora at her side. “Philip, because no one knows he was here, is the less obvious, but the more desirable target.”
“And the day is not done,” Pandora said.
“Where do the Legion come from that’s so terrible?” Scout asked.
Philip was talking to his men, thirty meters away.
“That’s not important,” Pandora said. “He’s close. Can you feel him?”
“Yes,” Scout lied, having no sense of the Legion. “We have to protect Philip.”
The Macedonian King was surrounded by his officers and guards. They were discussing something, probably what Epaminondas’s death and the peace he’d requested to be negotiated meant. The ramifications for their own kingdom.
“Philip will defeat them all,” Scout said.
“What?” Pandora was focused elsewhere.
“The Greeks,” Scout said. “In twenty-four years. He’ll defeat the Thebans and the Spartans and the rest. That will be the end of Classical Greece.”
“That won’t happen if Legion gets to him first,” Pandora said. She pointed toward a grove to the right of where Philip and his entourage were. “He’s there.”
Scout hefted her Naga. “Alexander will go to Delphi. Demand a prophecy that he will conquer the world. The Oracle tells him to come back later.”
“Go to my left,” Pandora ordered as they got closer. “Circle around. We need to attack from two directions.”
“Is that what you did with Pyrrha?” Scout asked.
“There were two of them,” Pandora said.
Scout didn’t know why, but the information in the download was pressing to be told. “Alexander grabbed the Oracle by the hair. Dragged her out of the cave. Threatened her until she told him ‘You are invincible, my son’. He let go of her then.” Scout extended her Naga in front of Pandora, stopping the other woman.
“What are you doing?” Pandora demanded.
“You’re wrong,” Scout said. “Alexander isn’t the one you’re looking for. I don’t know why you settled on him, but it’s all been a lie. Don’t you see that? A man who’d treat an Oracle like that? The fact he’ll come here to Greece and wipe Thebes off the map so completely it never came back. Don’t you see?”
“See what?” Pandora was focused on the grove of trees. “What are you talking about?”
“Misdirection,” Scout said. “It’s been misdirection all along.” She pulled the Naga back, no longer blocking Pandora. “You can go fight Legion. I don’t want a part of it.”
“He’s your enemy too,” Pandora said.
“Yes, he serves my enemy,” Scout said. “The Shadow. They sent killers after me on my first mission in California. Not Legion, though. I was lucky. Probably Spartans. They weren’t very sharp. I killed both. I accomplished my mission, but in the back of my head it seemed the Shadow went a bit overboard trying to get me.”
Pandora was shifting her gaze between the trees and Scout. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course not,” Scout said. “Because you have the Sight. Because you trust it too much. Think of the prophecies the Oracle at Delphi gives. An empire will be destroyed. An empire will begin.” Scout shook her head. “No. This isn’t what it appears to be. Philip isn’t the target. Epaminondas wasn’t either.”
“Who then?” Pandora demanded. “You? You think you’re that important?”
“No,” Scout said. “Well, yes, I am a target. But not the primary one. You’re the target, Pandora. This has all been about you. With your wonderful sight you see everything outside of you, but you don’t see your own role in it. It cost you your daughter. It’s going to cost you everything.”
Pandora looked at the copse of trees. Up the ridge where King Philip II and his entourage were beginning to move off, for the journey north to Macedonia.
Scout felt her body quiver. “That’s it. I’m done.”
“We have to—” Pandora began, but Scout didn’t have time to listen.
Scout asked: “Why didn’t you let hope, elpis, out of your pithos? Is that myth even true?”
“It’s partly true,” Pandora said. “You wouldn’t understand. Hope is weakness. It’s not real. Those who hope can’t fight the true fight against the Shadow.”
Scout shook her head. “But the opposite is moros. The spirit of doom. We will never win with that. We must have hope.”
And then she was gone.
The Space Between
Earhart stepped back, letting Lara take the position in front of the control panel, the black cube in front of that.
“What do I do?” Lara asked.
“I have no idea,” Earhart said. “But I sense this is where I was to take you.”
“Right,” Lara said. “You sensed it. After meeting you people, I wonder why I was the one locked up.”
“What they did to you was terrible,” Earhart said, which earned her a sharp look from Lara.
“What do you know of what they did to me?”
“I can see it in front of me,” Earhart said. “It comes off you.”
Lara turned back to the panel. She put her hands on it. “Looks pretty good for ten thousand years old. What does it do?”
“I don’t know,” Earhart said. “What do you do?”
“I go places in my head,” Lara said. She put the piece of bronze down on the edge of the panel. “There’s no sail on that pole. Did it rot away?”
“Looks at that sailing vessel over there,” Earhart said, pointing. “Nothing rots down here. My hair doesn’t grow. Nor my fingernails. This is a timeless place.”
“Okey-dokey,” Lara said. “So not a sail. Well, I’m kinda clueless—” she stopped as there was a flicker of something across the displays on the boat. “That was strange. You feel it?”
“No.”
“Like an electric shock,” Lara said. “Right through me. Check that out,” she added as the rows of hieroglyphics became backlit. “Like my old Mac laptop.” She held her hands over them. “No clue what’s what. Maybe—” she paused and looked out at the Space Between. “They’re going back. All of them. They’re all okay.”
“The team?” Moms said.
“Yes. All six.” Lara closed her eyes. “Interesting group.”
The piece of bronze began to rattle on the panel. Lara opened her eyes and looked at it. “That’s interesting.”
The displays were flickering. Almost images but they were all so fast they couldn’t be comprehended. Lara spread her fingers across the hieroglyphics, closed her eyes, and slowly lowered her hands until they touched the panel.
“It’s an antenna,” Lara said.
Earhart glanced at the tall black pole, but didn’t say anything.
Lara remained still for a moment and the piece of bronze began rattling once more, then snapped out of existence.
“What happened?” Earhart asked.
“A priestess delayed someone,” Lara said. “Just for a minute.”
Earhart was confused, but didn’t say anything.
“Cyra,” Lara whispered. “That’s a nice name.” She opened here eyes, focused. “Their statue is whole. That should make someone happy.” She lifted her hands from the panel. “Want to take me back? I want to get some real ic
e cream, not that yogurty crap Dane got for me.”
The Return
EAGLE WAS ALLOWING the tunnel of time to carry him, the journey to his own time short and bitter. He didn’t look around to see what the possibilities were.
What did it matter?
How many more brave men would have to die before this war was over?
In response, Edith’s download pressed another writing from Yoni Netanyahu into his consciousness: ‘Man does not live forever. He should put the days of his life to the best possible use.’
*****
Doc was tumbling in the tunnel of time.
To the left, a timeline where the Declaration of Emancipation was presented to Congress for signature in concert with the one for Independence. A majority of delegates storming out.
Neither Declaration signed. The Revolutionary War sputtering out within a year. George Washington hanged in New York City. Thomas Jefferson lying dead in the ashes of Monticello, put to the torch by the British. The Union Jack flying over the State House in Philadelphia.
That timeline veered away so sharply, so differently, Doc could no longer see it.
There were others, all making sharp divergences from history. Several blossoming out in the distance in red, some fading away into grey then nothingness.
But in his own history, Doc knew he was carrying back with him the burden of those generations of slaves between 1776 and the Civil War.
Similar to the burden Eagle had brought back from his last mission.
There was only question that dominated Doc’s thoughts as he neared his own time: Had Moms succeeded?
*****
Moms was stalled in the tunnel of time, floating above Monticello. There was movement below on the hillside, a funeral, a casket carried to a plot on the crest of the hill. A stone, marked as Jefferson had desired:
Here was buried Thomas Jefferson. Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom & Father of the University of Virginia