The implication was clear. Whoever had organized these attacks had chosen our oldest allies. Even such a tentative connection as my Union might prove too dangerous. I pressed my hands against my eyes. “I cannot. I cannot give up on my Union. Not yet.”
But a chill had settled over me as I recalled the vision I’d had in Osraighe. The rebels, or their allies, had planted their devices at different moments in the future. Tomorrow might bring news that the hall for my Union lay in ruins. Or that fire had gutted Éire’s Congress and banks. And what if they could not undo the future attacks, even if we acquiesced to their demands?
“Send word to evacuate Osraighe,” I said softly.
“We don’t want to cause panic—”
“We have no choice,” I snapped. “They have laid traps for us. Even if we could discover the where, we cannot know when. Even if we knew when, we do not know how. Not yet.”
“What of our prisoner?” Ó Tíghearnaigh said. “With proper persuasion he might recall enough to lead us to the rebels.”
“No. No torture,” I said. “Whatever you call it.”
We settled into an uneasy and angry silence. Lord Ó Tíghearnaigh drank a second glass of whiskey. Lord Ó Duinn reviewed the collection of papers in his hands, as if hoping to discover clues on how to proceed. Lord Ó Cadhla had an air of resignation utterly foreign to all my memories of him. It was in this moment that Lord Ó Breislin arrived. He wore an expression far more hopeful than I thought possible
“I would be grateful for some good news,” I told him.
Ó Breislin took a seat and poured a glass of whiskey. “None, except that Commander Ó Deághaidh has been found. Found and found alive. Is that enough?”
My heart leapt. “He lives?”
“He does. The Garda discovered him half buried in the rubble of the station. His leg is shattered, and he has lost a dangerous quantity of blood. Even so, the doctors tell me he did not succumb gently to their care. They had to forcibly administer a sleep draught before they could properly attend to his injuries.”
Aidrean alive. I whispered a silent prayer of thanks to God and Mhuire and Gaia.
* * *
After that, there was nothing left for us to discuss. Commander Ábraham departed to keep watch with his agents for further news. My ministers and I agreed to meet early the next morning to discuss how to evacuate Osraighe. It was near ten o’clock when I retired to my bedroom and undressed. I lay down and closed my eyes, never expecting to find sleep …
… and woke at midnight, breathless and on edge.
At first I saw nothing, heard nothing except the fading chimes from the nearby clock tower. The moon had set and the palace lay in a smothering darkness, without stars or lamplight to relieve it.
Then I heard it—a faint exhalation, as though someone stood quite close to me.
Assassins.
I lunged from bed, shouting for my guards. My legs tangled in the linens and I landed with a thump on the floor. A wet gurgling noise sounded behind me. I scrambled away on hands and knees until I came to my wardrobe, then the wall of my bedchamber. I eased up to standing and turned to face the intruder.
Nothing. Only fluttering shadows.
Then came another audible gasp. I could not fix on where it came from. Where were my guards? Taking care to move as silently as I could, I crept toward the door and found the switch for the electric lamps. With a snap, light flooded my bedroom.
A man crouched at the foot of my bed, his head bent over his chest, and one hand clutching at the bedcovers, the other splayed against the carpet. Pale blond hair, so pale it appeared silver, tumbled over his face. His clothes were covered in dust, and a faint acrid cloud drifted around him.
Then he lifted his face and I cried out, or tried to, but panic clamped my throat shut.
Breandan Ó Cuilinn stared back at me. Oh, but a strangely altered Breandan, his face scored and seamed with age, his hair an unkempt tangle of silver and gray. Only his eyes were the same, that bright and vivid gaze that pinned my heart even after the absence of twelve years.
“Breandan,” I whispered.
His eyes stretched wide. “Áine. I … Have I found you at last? I thought—”
A spasm took him and his mouth twisted in agony.
Oh, my love. What have you done?
Breandan coughed, a harsh, bubbling cough that shook his body. Once more he lifted his head—I could see the effort it took—and stared at me. His eyes were dark now, with only a rim of blue around the pupil. His gaze flickered from me then away, to some point in the far distance. Then slowly, so slowly, all the brilliance faded away, and his eyes turned blank, as though a veil had fallen over them. Even as he reached toward me, his body collapsed into a heap.
“Your Majesty!”
The door latch rattled. I started. Of course, my guards. I glanced toward Breandan. For a moment, my vision wavered—I thought I could see the pattern of the carpet through his body—then, I blinked and the impression disappeared.
“Your Majesty!”
I must know what has happened first.
“It was nothing,” I called out. “A nightmare.”
From the other side came a muttering. I waited until I heard their footsteps withdraw, then closed my eyes and leaned against the door’s solid expanse, shivering.
I cannot believe he came to me, only to die.
Fragments of lessons from years ago, from a tutor who had schooled me and my siblings in philosophy. Mankind’s arrogance shows itself in the belief that all our acts are deliberate, he told us. However much we plot our lives, we too are overtaken by chance, by misfortune, by the errant path of a great storm.
It took me many long moments before I expelled a breath and hurried to Breandan’s side. He was so still, so unnaturally still. My throat drew tight as I fumbled to find the pulse at his neck. No success, and when I attempted to find the one at his wrist, his arm was heavy and lifeless, the skin already cooling to my touch.
I rocked back on my heels. Stared down at my ghost, now become flesh.
He had changed, utterly changed. The gold of his hair was entirely silver now, and thinned to almost nothing over his skull, and the faint lines around his eyes and mouth cut much deeper now. His clothing too was strange—ill fitting and worn, the cut and cloth like nothing I had seen before. I had to shift and rearrange all the images from my memory, which had fixed Breandan Ó Cuilinn as I knew him, all those years ago.
Where have you been? Why—How did you come back to me?
Underneath those thoughts was the idea that he had spent the past twelve years trapped in the cracks and fissures of time itself. No, impossible. The peculiar clothing itself was proof that Breandan Ó Cuilinn had launched himself—if not into the future, then into a different time altogether. But where? And when?
I hesitated a moment, then felt inside one jacket pocket, then another.
The results were odd—odd and mundane and unsettling, all at once. A wad of paper currency, which I tossed to one side. The torn token from a streetcar. A pocket watch. My heart gave an uncomfortable lurch at the sight of the watch, which I recognized at once from our days together, but I continued to search albeit with unsteady hands. I found a packet of cigarettes, mostly empty, the stub of a pencil, a much-folded clipping from a newspaper with the date of February 1, 1943.
1943?
I read through the article, growing colder and colder. A new curfew had been enacted by the government. Citizens without the necessary papers would be fined and imprisoned for the week. Repeated offenses meant transportation to the eastern front. Manufactories would issue proper identification cards to those laborers working the night shift.
No, no, no. This was impossible. I thrust away the newspaper clipping and unfolded the crumpled wad of paper currency. There were six banknotes in various small denominations. All bore the portrait of a thickset man in military dress against a patterned background on one side. On the other was an eagle drawn in stark black lines
, its wings outspread, and the words Empire of Prussia engraved in Éireann and German.
The bills fell from my hands. I covered my face, not to weep, because I was beyond grief now. Éire lost. Its borders overrun and its people conquered. My Union no more, or perhaps it never came to be.
Is that why you came back, my love? To warn me?
The breath fled my body. A warning. Yes, yes. Oh please let that be true. Only how to find out the message?
Hurriedly, I reexamined the other objects. The equations meant nothing to me. The cigarette packet contained only a few cigarettes, several of them broken. If I were any sort of spy, I thought bitterly, I could read these puzzle pieces myself. That Éire faced disaster was obvious enough, but what had taken place in our future …
I stood—unsteadily—and wrapped myself in a robe. On impulse, I dragged a blanket from my bed to cover Breandan’s body and switched off the electric light. My dressing room was dark and empty, but as I expected, a lamp was lit in the sitting room beyond, and a sleepy maidservant kept watch. “Your Majesty,” she said, rising to her feet.
“Have the kitchen brew me a pot of tisane,” I told her. “And send a runner to fetch Doctor Gwen Madóc to me. Tell her … tell her I want her advice about a mathematical problem.”
Soon enough, the tisane arrived. At my request, the maid built up the fire, then retired to her bed. The moment she had gone, I returned to my bedchamber to lock the door, then paced the sitting room for the next quarter hour. I had just determined to send a second runner, when the first man arrived with Gwen Madóc close behind.
“Your Majesty.”
“Doctor Madóc. Thank you for indulging me.”
I poured her a cup of tisane and one for myself. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned the room, taking in the state of my dress, the newly built fire, and the tray with cups and a silver pot. However, she kept silent until the runner had withdrawn and we were alone.
“I cannot change the past,” she said immediately. “I cannot bring the dead of Osraighe and Belfast back to life. Nor can I undo your Commander Ó Deághaidh’s injuries.”
“I did not ask you to,” I replied. “Sit. Drink your tea and listen.”
She sat, but ignored the cup of tisane. I took the seat opposite her and sipped, observing the marks of exhaustion, the tense lines of her mouth, or perhaps it was more impatience. Judging from the state of her dress, I had once more interrupted her work.
I took another sip, then set my cup aside. “Four days ago, Lord Ó Tíghearnaigh asked if you could breach the walls of time. You denied that. You were lying.”
Gwen started up, her cheeks flushed. I held up a hand to forestall her protests.
“You lied because you know the dangers.”
“I lied because—” She broke off and swore under her breath. “Your Lord Ó Tíghearnaigh believes science is nothing but a weapon. He wants us to transport his armies into the past and the future. But I told the truth when I said we could not send a man to any exact moment in time. Our work…”
“Is incomplete. I understand that. Tell me what you have accomplished.”
Still she hesitated.
So and so. I would have to offer her my trust, before she could do the same for me. I stood. “Come. Come, and I will show you the reason for my questions.”
We traversed the darkened dressing room. I unlocked my bedroom door and switched on the electric light. As I stepped to one side, Gwen entered the room. I knew the moment she sighted Breandan’s body underneath the blanket, because she went still as a hunting dog.
“What has happened here?” she whispered.
“A visitation from the future,” I said. I pulled away the blanket and knelt at Breandan’s side. “This man was Doctor Breandan Ó Cuilinn.”
She hissed. She would know the name and his history, of course. Ó Cuilinn had lectured in mathematics at Awveline University during the same years her brother had attended for his graduate studies. Murder and the vanishment of time lines had obliterated much of his work, but I had no doubt that brother and sister had made it their business to read what papers remained.
“He materialized not more than an hour ago,” I said. “He was dying even then, and could not speak more than a few words. I believe he had a message for me.”
Her pale face had gone paper white. “You are certain of his purpose?”
“I am.”
Her gaze flickered from Breandan’s body to my face, then back. “Have you searched him?”
Cold, so cold, and yet, I understood her manner, better than I had anyone else. I pointed to the small heap on the floor, the coins and scraps of paper and the currency bills. Gwen seemed to find the latter more intriguing than the first. “He has traveled the time roads,” she said softly.
She then proceeded to search Breandan’s clothing more thoroughly. She tugged the jacket loose enough to examine the second outer pocket, which yielded only more scribbled equations and a matchbox. An inner pocket, however, held a wallet with more banknotes and an identification card bearing the name Breandan Ó Corráin, citizen of the regional district of Osraighe. I recognized the street name as one on the western edge of the city, less than a mile from Cill Cannig.
Twelve years spent in the alien land of the future. How had he survived? I could only guess that the war and its aftermath had offered the necessary chaos for him to create a new name and identity. He must have resumed work almost at once to create a new time machine.…
“You see why I asked you to come,” I said. “Perhaps I cannot save my dead. But perhaps I can save those who come after me. If I could speak with Breandan, I might learn what I need to make the right decisions. Will you show me the time roads?”
The quiet of a soft Éireann night filled the room.
“I can promise nothing.”
“I know that. But if we do not act, we say that he gave his life for nothing.”
She glanced from me to Breandan’s face and back. “Let us go to the laboratory and I shall do what I can.”
* * *
We would need to wear inconspicuous clothing, Gwen told me. There could be no certainty as to what qualified as inconspicuous, I thought. In the end, I chose a plain costume of dark trousers, low boots, and a dark woolen jumper. Gwen herself wore her usual working clothes of trousers and shirt, which were equally plain. My wardrobe provided us both with long drab coats of wool. If we could avoid direct confrontation, we might pass as men.
With the door to my bedroom locked, and the key in my pocket, we exited my apartments. I gave orders to the guards to admit no one, not my ministers, not even the chief of the Queen’s Constabulary. With one guard to follow, we hurried through the corridors of Cill Cannig, across the great public halls, and into the wing I had once assigned to Breandan Ó Cuilinn. My guard took his post outside, while I continued alone with Gwen.
Most of the laboratory was dark. One lamp illuminated the far end, and I recognized Síomón Madóc bent over his desk, with several open books scattered about and a calculator machine to his right. His head jerked up at our approach, and he gave an exclamation of surprise and displeasure. “Gwen…”
“She comes with my permission, Síomón. I will tell you about it later.”
He shrugged and returned to his work, already dismissing us from his attention as we passed by his desk, to the end of the laboratory itself, where more crates partially obscured a plain wooden door. A storage closet or something like, I thought.
Gwen slid between the crates and unlocked the door. I followed, only to stop in surprise on the threshold.
“You have made more progress than I expected,” I said softly.
The room measured the width of my outstretched arms, and was twice as tall. Thin glass tubes, encased in metal webbing, crisscrossed the walls to either side and the ceiling overhead, and thick wires nested in between, leading down to a row of electrical plugs, obviously of a custom design. The wall opposite the door was covered in a strange black metal, which glea
med softly in the shadows, and off to the left, I noticed how the tubes angled around a small square of panels and dials.
“We began work on a similar device several years ago,” Gwen said. “When you asked for our assistance, we transported the existing machine here, and used the latest measurements to refine our model. Excuse me, please.”
She brushed her hand over the dials. I heard a faint hiss, as if a monster had drawn a breath. Light poured out of a flat disc overhead. The door slid shut and I heard the click of bolts. A silvery gleam traveled along the length of the glass tubes around us, like liquid starlight, and the cables and outlets gave off a strong odor of chemicals.
“You have used this machine yourself?”
Gwen must have caught the hint of panic in my voice, because a fleeting smile crossed her face. “I have,” she said. “But until recently, only to visit the past. It’s been just a week since we made any successful journeys into the future.”
She twisted a knob. A rectangular panel clicked open from the wall. Gwen tilted the panel downward to reveal a tray that resembled a typewriter, with several extra rows of keys marked with mathematical symbols. She tapped the keys. Several other panels slid open. One narrow slot disgorged a slip of paper, which fell into a bucket at Gwen’s side. She glanced down, tapped a few more keys, and consulted the next slip.
“We shall not have long,” she said. “The time fractures have different properties for those traveling ahead. The disturbances are less extreme, but they are nevertheless present. My brother and I have not yet worked out all the permutations.”
She tapped a long and complicated sequence, using more of the symbol keys than before. Then, unexpectedly, she slid the tray back into its slot.
“Now,” she said. “Quickly.”
She took me by the hand and led me through an opening that had abruptly appeared opposite the door. I was too surprised to resist. It was impossible, this corridor stretching onward and into shadows and then into an infinity beyond. There was no space for it to exist behind the machine, or anywhere in Cill Cannig. But I had asked for the impossible.
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