The Time Roads

by Beth Bernobich

  I let the air trickle from my lungs. “So. Give me your advice, Commander. What would you do in this situation?”

  All around me the tension eased. Aidrean smiled, but absently, as though he had expected the question. “If I were to suggest anything, Your Majesty, I would advise you to meet with the Anglian delegation once more, and let them know you cannot properly address their concerns at the present. However, invite them to appoint several of their number to remain at Court so you might informally continue the conversation. They cannot refuse you, not without losing their own political advantage. At the same time…”

  “I gain a hostage or two. Yes, I see.”

  Aidrean opened his mouth as if to respond, then shook his head. “Meanwhile, I shall continue my investigation. Unless you prefer to leave the matter entirely with the Queen’s Constabulary.”

  That was a delicate matter.

  “Lord Ó Duinn,” I said. “Commander Ábraham. You will both confer with Commander Ó Deághaidh today. Include Lord Ó Cadhla or whomever else you deem necessary to the investigation. Is there anything else you would share with us?” I said to Aidrean.

  “Not at the present time, Your Majesty.”

  Our glances met. I sensed that he had edited certain details from his report. Either he did not trust my ministers, or he did not trust me.

  * * *

  “What is it?” I demanded.

  The bells had struck midnight. It was only in the past hour that I had successfully dismissed my physician, promising to follow his instructions for rest and solitude. I had lied.

  “I cannot tell yet,” Aidrean replied. “I need another week, or more, to discover the truth.”

  “Meanwhile?”

  The question of the Anglians hovered between us.

  “You should do as your conscience suggests,” he said.

  A useless reply, except I knew Aidrean Ó Deághaidh and I knew our history together. He would not insist. He would only hint and suggest, leaving the final decision to me.

  Because I was the queen. Because I held my honor dear.

  * * *

  The following day, I sent word through my secretary to the Anglian delegation—a message most politely phrased and written on the finest vellum—saying that matters of state would not allow me to grant them the attention they deserved. We would certainly discuss the matter within the next month, I added. Until then, they should appoint a single representative to remain at Cill Cannig to speak for their cause.

  “A hostage,” Aidrean Ó Deághaidh said. He used the same word I had, the day before.

  “A representative,” I replied. “One of their own choosing.”

  We had met again over breakfast. Discretion be damned, I thought. News of yesterday’s attack had overrun Court and beyond. The papers in Osraighe carried accounts from several witnesses. The less reputable newssheets also displayed lurid photographs of bodies among the wreckage. Soon enough the reports would spread to the Continent.

  Nine pilots and their crew murdered. A dozen more in grave condition. The stink of blood and burning gasoline forever imprinted on my memory.

  And yet, the blood of Thomas Austen does not trouble you.

  “I will not arrest them without proof,” I continued. “But I cannot ignore their threat.”

  He tilted his hand to one side. “Agreed. I would only mention that an indefinite invitation is little better than an indefinite arrest.”

  I smiled, somewhat wearily. “Your absence from Court has made you blunt. Not that Lord Ó Cadhla and Lord Ó Breislin are gentle with me.”

  “We are blunt because we love you.”

  My breath stilled within me. I knew what he meant, but it had been many years since anyone had used the word love in my presence.

  “Tell me the latest news,” I said.

  The faint lines etched across his face deepened. “Several details have emerged since we last spoke. Or rather, details that contradict details several times over, all of them from reliable witnesses…” He stopped and chafed one hand inside the other—a sure signal of his troubled mind. “It’s a matter of time. Of time fractures.”

  Oh, oh, and now the cold did flow through my body. Time fractures. I hated the day I first heard mention of them. Time fractures had lured Breandan Ó Cuilinn into a fate unknown. They had murdered a dozen or more students from Awveline University, then restored them to life once the fractures healed. Aidrean Ó Deághaidh had spent nearly two years trapped in madness because of them.

  “How many explosions did you count yesterday?” I asked.

  “Six.”

  “I counted four.”

  “The official reports, what I can confirm, have the number at three.”

  “And the dead?”

  “Nine or thirteen, depending on which witnesses you believe.” There came the barest hesitation before he added, “One man claims a hundred died.”

  The catch in his voice warned me there was more than a simple anomaly of numbers. “What else? Tell me, Aidrean. What else did that report say?”

  Reluctantly, his lifted his gaze to mine. “It was a single report, from a member of the ground crew. He insists that all ten planes were destroyed. He also claims that a dozen more explosions crushed the reviewing stands and turned them into dust and ashes. He says … He says he saw you die.”

  Now I understood his hesitation.

  “That vial you showed me,” I whispered.

  “Might be connected, yes. We shall have to conduct experiments.”

  “Do it,” I said. “Once we know, we can proceed with our investigation.”

  * * *

  The Queen’s Constabulary chose a remote gorge to the southwest for their experiment, miles away from any farms or villages. Little grew on the rocky slopes, and near the midpoint, the gorge narrowed so that its cliffs loomed directly over the floor. A crude means to contain the blast, Aidrean told me later, as he recounted the many details and emotions absent from the Constabulary’s dry account.

  Commander Ábraham himself directed the operation, with Aidrean at his side. That afternoon, they selected the site for the experiment, and the men cleared a path from the edge of the gorge through the underbrush and into the trees. Dusk had fallen before they had finished, and the first stars had popped into view against the violet sky.

  Aidrean added a single droplet of the liquid to cotton wadding, then inserted the material in a sealed metal tube, from which protruded a length of slow-burning cord. He handed the device to another of Ábraham’s agents, then took his position a half mile away at the observation post, where the gorge veered west and he and the commander had a clear view of the target site. A freezing rain had fallen earlier in the day. The air was brittle with cold, and laden with the scent of pine and snow.

  He gave the signal, a flash from a lantern. The agent struck a match to light the cord, then hurled the device over the side of the cliff. From his observation point, Aidrean saw the bright speck of the burning cord arcing through the darkness, the jerk and jump from the agent’s lantern as he sprinted away from the cliff. Both vanished from sight, and for one moment, Aidrean was convinced, he told me, that their experiment had failed.

  Then a white flash illuminated the night.

  The air went taut. The stars went dark. Reappeared.

  Soft exclamations broke out amongst the other agents. From below came the faint rill of the stream, and farther on, the yip of a hunting fox, as though nothing had touched the gorge. Still Aidrean waited, counting softly to himself. A haon, a dó, a trí …

  He had just reached a thousand when an explosion split the darkness and rocked the earth.

  * * *

  Time, time, time. Time was an illusion, according to certain modern philosophers.

  Those from the older traditions spoke of the time roads, which allowed the adept to travel into the future or the past. The modern world called those beliefs mysticism, but there were elements of science that those in the past would have called fantas
y.

  “They have found a way to send their weapons into the future,” I said. “But who has that ability? And why attack us?”

  “I suspect the Serbian contingent,” Ó Deághaidh said. “But I cannot be certain.”

  “Them or the Austrians,” Ó Breislin added. “Neither has forgiven us for the Montenegro affair.”

  “Do not forget the wider world,” Ó Cadhla said softly. “Too often, we forget the nations beyond our borders and that of Europe. I doubt the Mexica nations are involved, but there are the Turkish States and the Russian principalities, none of them peaceful.”

  No one mentioned the Anglians, but they did not need to.

  “Finding the guilty will be your responsibility,” I told the chief of the Queen’s Constabulary. “Commander Ó Deághaidh will serve as your liaison and adviser. Consider this affair as one of extreme political delicacy, but do not hesitate to act if you must. I want no accidents at my conference this summer. Meanwhile, I shall conduct an investigation of my own.”

  * * *

  Twelve hours later, I waited anxiously in the smallest and most richly appointed of my audience chambers. My father and grandfather had preferred this chamber for highly honored guests, or the most delicate negotiations. Both terms applied to today’s interview, I thought. Gwen and Síomón Madóc had become famous in academia for their theories involving mathematics and time. Twelve years ago, they had founded a research institute to investigate the practical and arcane applications of their discoveries. They were ambitious, though not in the usual fashion—that much I knew from my reports from the Queen’s Constabulary.

  But I had other memories to draw upon. A series of murders in Awveline City, involving graduate students in the mathematics department. A past erased and rewritten, with those dead come alive and other events altered beyond recognition.

  While I waited, I adjusted the curtains, examined the rows of carafes with water and tea. A late winter snowfall hushed against the windowpanes. The new mechanical clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly and incessantly. Time, time, time, it said. Time was not the immutable property you once thought it to be.

  A discreet knock sounded at my door. I spun around, the skirts of my gown hissing.

  “Doctor Síomón Madóc.”

  The photographs provided by the Constabulary proved misleading, I thought, as I clasped his hand and gestured toward the chairs. The gray and white image had shown a long bony face, the hair cut close except for a few curling wisps over his black doctoral robes. They had revealed nothing of his height, or how his gaze alternated between distracted and keenly observant. Today, he wore a gray suit of an elegant cut.

  He bowed over my hand and took the designated seat.

  “Doctor Gwen Madóc.”

  Gwen Madóc had the same spare features as her brother, the same pale blonde hair. But here the photographs were true, perhaps because these had been obtained when the subject was unaware. Her blue eyes met mine in an unflinching gaze, before she sank into a curtsy. Like her brother, she wore the kind of clothing one expected from a member of a wealthy, privileged family.

  “Your Majesty. You have a problem with time fractures,” she said in a low voice.

  My breath stilled. Not a question. A direct statement.

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  She shrugged. “It’s a question of probability and our specialized knowledge.”

  Indeed. Yet she had spoken with more certainty than a simple guess would have indicated. I would have to take care with these two. To my secretary, who hovered in the background, I said, “You may go, Coilín. I shall ring when I need you.”

  My steward poured tea, and retired. Brother and sister sipped politely while I considered once more how to explain the matter. But it was Gwen Madóc who broke the silence first. “You wished for a consultation, Your Majesty. We are willing to offer whatever assistance we can, but I must warn you that we are scientists, not magicians. We cannot scribble an equation and undo the past.”

  “I would not expect it,” I said. “I was hoping to undo the future.”

  That arrested her attention, and her brother’s, too.

  “What has happened?” she demanded.

  I told them, giving as much details as I dared. The explosions. The confusion. The contradiction between my memories and the later reports of those who had survived. The even more unsettling reports from those who had seemingly died, yet nevertheless reappeared alive and untouched.

  Síomón closed his eyes and listened, his mouth drawn into a thin line. Gwen let her gaze drift upward to the ceiling with its patterns etched in plaster and paint. When I mentioned the discrepancies between one report and the next, her brother twitched, but she did not.

  “You believe they have achieved mastery of time?” Gwen asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I only know they threaten us all—Éire, Anglia, and everyone throughout the world—with chaos.”

  “And what do you wish from us?”

  I had spent much of the past day considering how to phrase the request. What I wanted, after all, was such a nebulous thing. “I want the opportunity for peace,” I said softly. “Not just for myself and my queendom, but for the world. I told you I wanted to change the future, but not with weapons or armies. For that I must know which decisions are the right ones. The best ones. That is my wish.”

  Wish. A word chosen from dreams and intentions both, but Gwen Madóc did not smile at my words. “You need us to investigate the future,” she said. “To see where the time roads lead.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But all of them, you understand.”

  She held out a hand. I clasped hers in mine, wondering at her strong grip, the chilled flesh, the strange intent gaze she lifted to mine.

  “I understand,” she said. “More than most.”

  * * *

  I gave them the same suite of rooms that Breandan Ó Cuilinn had once occupied, twelve years ago. And like that previous, that once innocent time, I never questioned their demands. They brought truckloads of their own equipment. I supplied them with clerks, equipment, reams of paper, and the newest mechanical calculators for their research. Aidrean Ó Deághaidh did not approve of their presence—there was a curious tension between him and Síomón Madóc—but he never openly objected, and after a few days, even that first tension had vanished.

  “What do you think?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You always know.”

  His mouth flickered into an all-too-brief smile. The crease remained even after the humor had left his face. It made me think of shadows, and a time when I had once trusted, and loved, and laughed.

  * * *

  Three weeks passed in a strange and oppressive calm. Throughout the day, I conducted all my ordinary duties as queen. I continued with the plans for my Union of Nations, with over thirty countries to attend our first session in August, which was to be held in a new hall outside Osraighe. Over dinner and through the evening, I met with Commander Ábraham from the Queen’s Constabulary, or with Aidrean Ó Deághaidh and Lord Ó Duinn, whose investigations had proved frustrating.

  “My agents have kept watch over the members of the delegation,” Ó Duinn replied when I asked. “Without exception, they have all returned to their ordinary lives. Merchants. Professors. Booksellers. Physicians. Unless they have constructed a series of secret tunnels underneath the streets of Londain, they conduct their daily affairs in public and remain at home during the night.”

  “We’ve considered the possibility of their passing messages to each other,” Aidrean said. “Our people have intercepted all their letters, but the contents have proved annoyingly mundane. The Constabulary has assigned a cipher team to examine them, just in case.”

  “What about our guest?” I said. “Has the great Peter Godwin resigned himself to his quarters?” In the days immediately after the disaster on the airfield, I had dismissed my so-called guest from my thoughts, but now I thought it curious
that Godwin had not inundated me with demands.

  Ó Duinn glanced up from his sheaf of notes. “I thought I had mentioned in my reports—No, Godwin returned to the Dependencies along with the others. It is Michael Okoye who remained behind. He’s a quiet young man. He spends his days writing—letters, poetry, for the most part. They tell me he has a talent in that direction.”

  I gave an exhalation of surprise. “Okoye. I would not have expected—Why did they choose him, do you suppose?”

  “I suppose nothing, Your Majesty,” Aidrean said. “Not even that Godwin and his associates are guilty. We know of a dozen organizations outside the Districts who are addicted to violence.”

  “Not to mention Thomas Austen’s more radical followers,” Ó Duinn added. “And they would have nothing to do with anything as diplomatic as petitions or delegations. The puzzling thing is that none have the funds or the connections to create such a device. Or so we believe.”

  A complicated set of puzzles, I agreed. Letters that meant nothing. Dissidents who seem to have given over their activities. And a young man writing poetry while he waited for release from his richly appointed captivity.

  * * *

  My meetings with Síomón and Gwen Madóc were less fraught, but ultimately just as frustrating. They had mapped the time fractures around the airfield and discovered key differences between them and the ones Breandan Ó Cuilinn had described in his research.

  Accidental is the word Síomón used to describe the older fractures. Just as there were faults in the Earth’s crust, there were natural cracks in the fabric of time. The causes for the original fractures were yet unknown, but Gwen had a theory connecting the fractures with upheavals in the far, far past. “As the universe expanded, worlds might have replicated themselves, much as cells do, but as they separated, they weakened the fabric of time.”

  “But these are different,” I said.

  “Very much so,” Gwen said. “The term I would apply here is deliberate.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “We’ve measured the patterns of activity. Electrical and radioactive readings generally signal the presence of time fractures. We compare those readings with ones from our own devices. Those around the airfield and the experiment your Constabulary conducted are far too regular, compared to the accidental ones.”