The Corridors of Time

by Poul Anderson

  Storm lied about that, too, he thought, and went to work.

  Unarmed, he couldn’t cut the Ranger’s throat. But he yanked out wires and tubes. The blackened body writhed, with little mewling appeals. Not much blood trickled from the piercings.

  ‘Lie there,’ Lockridge said. He stroked Brann’s forehead. ‘You won’t have long to wait. Good-bye.’

  He fled, the breath rough in his throat.

  As he crossed the veil, racket rolled over him. Some part of the fight was swaying back into town. And there went the sizzle of an energy gun. Light flimmered lurid past the doorway curtain. So much for the pirates, Lockridge thought. If I don’t get out of here right away, I never will.

  He ran into the square.

  Hu the Warden appeared at its edge. ‘Koriach!’ he was shouting, lost and frantic. ‘Koriach, where are you? We must stand together – my dearest —’ The gun which made fountain-play further off among the huts was not the one in his hand.

  His head wove back and forth, in search of his goddess. Lockridge knew he himself couldn’t get clear away, nor even back inside the Long House, before he was seen. He sprang.

  Hu saw him and yelped. The pistol slewed about. Lockridge hit the green-clad body. They went over onto the earth and struggled for control of the weapon. Hu’s grip on the butt was not to be broken. Lockridge pulled from his clawing and squirmed around to the Warden’s back. He anchored himself with a scissor lock, cast an arm around his enemy’s neck, and heaved.

  A dry snap came, so loud he heard it through the tumult. Hu ceased to move. Lockridge scrambled up and saw death. ‘I’m sorry.’ He bent to close the staring eyes, before he took the gun and was off.

  For an instant he was tempted to look for Storm, now that he was armed like her. But no; too chancy; one of her Yuthoaz might well brain him while he was stalemated by her energy shield. And then what would become of Auri? He owed the world to her and that handful of her kinfolk down on the strand.

  Besides, he wasn’t sure he could bring himself to fire on Storm.

  The water’s edge gleamed forth. He made out a big skin-boat rocking shadowlike on the ripples, filled with shadow shapes. Auri waited ashore. She sped to him with laughter and tears. He gave her, and himself, a moment’s embrace, then waded out and climbed in.

  ‘Where now do we go?’ asked the son of Echegon.

  Lockridge looked back. He could still see the houses as bulks in the fog, a dim outline of the grove, a hint of men and horses where they fought. Good-bye, Avildaro, he called. God keep you.

  ‘Iril Varay,’ he said: England.

  Paddles bit deep. A coxswain chanted the stroke as an invocation to Her of the Sea; for Auri, who had been reborn, told how The Storm was no goddess but a witch. A baby wailed, a woman sobbed quietly, a man lifted his spear in farewell.

  They slipped around the western ness and Avildaro was gone from them. A mile or so further, through the gathering night, they descried the raider fleet. The coracles had been drawn ashore, the galley stood off at anchor. A few watchmen’s torches glowed starry, so that Lockridge saw the proud curve of figurehead and sternpost, the rake of yards into the sky.

  It was a wonder that these Vikings of the Bronze Age were not yet in decimated flight. Storm and Hu would have separated, of course, to rally confused and scattered Yuthoaz around their flame guns. But then, for some reason, Hu had run off alone. Even so, Storm by herself could – well, that was behind him.

  Or was it, really? Fate-ridden, she would not rest until she found and destroyed him. If somehow he got back to his own century … no, her furies could track him down more surely then than in the wide and lonely Neolithic world. That was the more so if he burdened himself with this boatload of aliens whom he could not abandon.

  He began to doubt his choice of England. Other megalith builders were fleeing there from Denmark, he knew. He could join them, and live out his days in fear. It was no life to offer Auri.

  ‘Lynx,’ the girl whispered beside him, ‘I should not be so happy, should I? But I am.’

  She wasn’t Storm Darroway. And what of that? He drew her close. She was fate, too, he thought. Maybe John and Mary had wanted no more than to give her gallant and gentle heredity to the human race. He wasn’t much, but her sons and daughters could be.

  It came to him what he must do. He sat moveless so long that Auri grew frightened. ‘Are you well, my dear one?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and kissed her.

  Throughout the night the fugitives went on, slow in the murk, but every paddle stroke a victory. At dawn they entered the fowl marshes and hid themselves to rest. Later the men hunted, fished, and filled waterskins. Fog blew away on a northeast breeze, the stars next evening stood brilliant to see by. Lockridge had mast raised and sail unfurled. By morning they were at sea.

  That was a passage cold, cramped, and dangerous. None but the Tenil Orugaray could have ridden out a storm they met, in this overloaded frail craft. In spite of all misery, Lockridge was glad. When the Koriach didn’t find him, she might conclude he had drowned and quit looking.

  He wondered if she would be sorry. Or had her feelings for him been another lie?

  After days, East Anglia rose low and autumnally vivid before them. Salt-crusted, wind-bitten, hungry and worn, they beached the coracle and devoured the sweet water of a spring they found.

  They had expected to look for a seaboard community that would take them in. But Lockridge said no. ‘I have a better place,’ he promised. ‘We must go through the underworld to reach it, but there we will be safe from the witch. Would you rather skulk like animals or walk in freedom?’

  ‘We follow you, Lynx,’ the son of Echegon answered.

  They made their way across the land. Progress was not fast, with small children along and the need to hunt for food. Lock-ridge began fretting that they might reach his goal too late. Auri had a different impatience. ‘We are ashore now, my dearest. And yonder grows soft moss.’

  He gave a weary grin. ‘Not until we have arrived, little one.’ Seriously: ‘You are too important to me.’

  She glowed at him.

  And in the end, they waded through icy meres to an island which the tribes roundabout shunned. Natives had told Lock-ridge, one night when the travelers stayed in a village of theirs, that it was haunted. He got exact directions.

  Under bare trees stood a carelessly erected lean-to. One man waited, sword in hand. He was burly and kettle-bellied with hair and beard falling grizzled about pocked, battered features.

  Gladness jumped in Lockridge. ‘Jesper, you old devil!’ he shouted. They beat each other on the back. When Lockridge had his sixteenth-century diaglossa in place, he asked what this meant.

  The Dane shrugged. ‘I was fetched hither with the rest of the fighting men. The witchmaster asked for a volunteer to guard the gate this final while. I said I would. Why not do my lovely Lady a service? So here I’ve sat, with a bit of duck hunting and such to keep me amused. In case of trouble, I was to do something to an engine down below, that’d tell Her. Naught’s happened, though, and taking you for ordinary savages, I didn’t send any summons. I thought instead, more fun would be to scare you off. But good to see you again, Malcolm!’

  ‘Isn’t your guardianship nearly over?’

  ‘Yes, in a few more days. Priest Marcus told me to watch the clock and be sure to leave when the time came, or else the gate would disappear and I’d be stranded. I’ll go up to the other gate he showed me, and thence be wafted home.’

  Lockridge looked on Fledelius with compassion. ‘To Denmark?’

  ‘Where else?’

  ‘I am here on secret business for our Lady. So secret that you must not breathe a word to anyone.’

  ‘Never fear. You can trust me, as I you.’

  Lockridge winced. ‘Jesper,’ he said, ‘come with us. When we get where we’re bound, I can tell you – well, you deserve more than life as an outlaw under a tyrant. Come along!’

  Wistfulness flickere
d in the little eyes. The heavy head shook. ‘No. I thank you, my friend, but I’m sworn to my Lady and my king. Until the bailiffs catch me, I’ll be at the Inn of the Golden Lion each All Hallows Eve waiting.’

  ‘But after what happened there, no, you can’t.’

  Fledelius chuckled. ‘I’ll find ways. Junker Erik won’t stick this old boar as easily as he thinks.’

  And Lockridge’s people stood freezing.

  ‘Well … we must use the corridor. I can’t tell you more, and remember, this is secret from everyone. Good-bye, Jesper.’

  ‘Good-bye, Malcolm, and you, my girl. Drink a bumper to me now and then, will you?’

  Lockridge led his followers below the earth.

  He had prepared a story to fool anyone who might have been on guard here. At worst, he would have used his energy gun. But it was luck finding Jesper. Or destiny? No, Satan take destiny. If Storm happened to think the fugitives had come this way, and sought out the Dane herself to inquire, he would talk; but that was extremely improbable, and otherwise he would keep his mouth shut. Lockridge would never have gotten the idea himself, except for Auri’s nearness.

  He entered the gate of fire. The Tenil Orugaray gathered their whole courage and followed him.

  ‘We need not linger,’ he said. ‘Let us be reborn. Hold hands and come back to the world with me.’

  He took them out along the opposite side of the same gate. That corresponded to the moment when it first appeared in the world, as it would vanish a quarter century afterward.

  The anteroom, like the island, lay empty. He used the control tube Fledelius had given him to open the entrance above the ramp, and close it again. They emerged into summer. The fen lay green with leaves and reeds, bright with water, clamorous with wildfowl, twenty-five years before he and Storm were to reach Neolithic Denmark.

  ‘Oh, but beautiful!’ Auri breathed.

  Lockridge addressed his band. ‘You are the Sea People,’ he said. ‘We will go on to the sea and live. Folk like you can soon grow strong in this land.’ He paused. ‘As for me … I will be your headman, if you wish. But I shall have to travel about a great deal, and perhaps call on your help from time to time. The tribes here are large and widely ranging, but they are divided. With the new time before us, coming in from the South, they will be the better for as broad a oneness as we can shape. This is my task.’

  Inwardly, he looked at his tomorrows, and for a while he was daunted. He was losing so much. His mother would weep when he never came back, and that was worst of all; but himself, he surrendered his country and his people, his whole civilization – the Parthenon and the Golden Gate Bridge, music, books, cuisine, medicine, the scientific vision, every good thing that four thousand years were to bring forth – to become, at most, a chieftain in the Stone Age. He would always be alone here.

  But that, he thought, would mark him out for awe and power. Knowing what he did, he could work mightily, not as conqueror but as uniter, teacher, healer, and lawgiver. He might, perhaps, lay a foundation that would stand strong against the evil Storm was to bring.

  This was his fate. He could only take it.

  He looked at his few people, the seeds of what would come. ‘Will you help me?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Auri said, with her voice and her being.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  And the years flew past, until again there was a day when rain grew into fog and the warriors from the west came in its cloak, up the Limfjord to Avildaro.

  He whom they called Lynx stood in the galley’s bow: a man older than most, gray of hair and beard, but still hardly less hale than the four big sons beside him. All were armed and armoured in shining bronze. They peered at the shoreline, sliding vague in the fading vaporous light, until the father said, ‘Here is our landing.’

  The eagerness of his sixteen years beat through the tone of Hawk, Auri’s child, as he relayed the orders. Oars ceased to splash and creak. The stone anchor went overboard. Men stirred down the length of the ship, their battle gear clanked, they sprang from the benches into cold shoulder-deep water. The skinboats of their flint-weaponed allies grounded and were drawn ashore.

  ‘Keep them still,’ said Lynx. ‘We must not be heard.’

  The captain nodded. ‘Belay that noise, you,’ he commanded his sailors. Iberians like him, dark hook-nosed round-heads, smaller and more slender than the fair tribesfolk of Britain, they needed every restraint that could be laid on them: Even he, a civilized man who had often been in Egypt and Crete, had had some trouble understanding that this was to be no piratical raid.

  ‘I have gathered enough tin and fur to pay for your voyage ten times over,’ the chief named Lynx had told him. ‘All is yours if you will help. But we fare against a witch who wields lightnings. Though I can do likewise, will your men be too frightened? Moreover, we go not to plunder, but to set my kindred free. Will you and yours be content with my wages?’

  The captain swore so, by Her Whom he worshipped as did these powerful barbarians. And he was honest when he did. There was that about the blue eyes confronting him which bespoke a majesty like nothing less than the Minos of the South.

  Nonetheless — Well, Lockridge thought, we’ll just have to play her as she lies. Which is a liberation. Tonight I break free of destiny.

  Not that the time in England was ever bad. On the contrary. I’ve had a better, happier, more useful life than any I dared dream of.

  He made his way aft. Auri stood by the cabin under the poop. Their other children, three girls and a boy too young to fight, waited with her. They’d been lucky in that respect also: a certain dolmen sheltered only one tiny form. Indeed the gods loved her.

  Tall, full of figure, the hair that fell past her Cretan gown little less bright than in girlhood, she looked at her man with no more than a glimmer of tears. A quarter century in which she must be his right hand had brought forth greatness. ‘Farewell, my dearest,’ she said.

  ‘Not for long. As soon as we’ve won, you can come home.’

  ‘You gave me my home, beyond the sea. If you should fall —’

  ‘Then return, for their sakes.’ He caressed the children, one by one. ‘Rule Westhaven as we did before. The folk will rejoice.’ He forced a smile. ‘But I shall not be harmed.’

  ‘It will be strange,’ she said slowly, ‘to see our young selves go by. I wish you could be with me then.’

  ‘Will the sight hurt you?’

  ‘No. I will give them our love, that pair, and be glad for what they have ahead of them.’ •

  She alone had come to understand what had happened with time. To the rest of the Tenil Orugaray, that was a disquieting magic which they gave as little thought as possible. True, it had brought them to a good country, and they were grateful; but let Lynx bear the burden of sorcery, he was the king.

  Lockridge and Auri kissed each other and he left her.

  Wading to land, he found himself surrounded by his men. A few were Avildaro born, infants when they fled. The rest came from half of Britain.

  That had been his work. He had not gone back to East Anglia, lest rumors of him cross the water and wait for Storm Darroway. Instead, he had led his company into that beautiful land which would later be named Cornwall. There they plowed and sowed, hunted and fished, loved and sacrificed, in the old carefree manner; but piece by piece, he taught them how much they could gain from the tin mines and from trade, he recruited new members from the restless tribes around, he brought in new ways of life and work, until Westhaven was known from Skara Brae to Memphis as a rich and mighty realm. And meanwhile he made alliance – with the axmakers of Langdale Pike, the settlers along the Thames, even the dour downland farmers, whom he persuaded that manslaughter was not pleasing to the gods. Now today they spoke of erecting a great temple on Salisbury Plain, as the sign and seal of their confederation. And so he could leave them; and a hundred hunters he could pick, from the many who asked to come, for his battle in the east.

  ‘Form ranks,’ he o
rdered, ‘Forward.’

  Northerner and Southerner alike, they fell into the formation he had drilled and moved toward Avildaro.

  Walking through the dank grayness, where only footfalls and the wail of curlews broke silence, he felt his throat gone tight and his heart wild. Storm, Storm, he thought, I’m comin’ home to you.

  Twenty-five years had not blurred her in his mind. Grown lean and wolf-gray, with the troubles and joys of a generation between him and her, he still remembered black tresses, green eyes, amber skin, a mouth that had once dwelt on his. Step by reluctant step, he had come to know his weird. The North must be saved from her. The human race must be. Without Brann, she could drive her Wardens to victory. And neither Warden nor Ranger must prevail. They had to wear each other down, until what was good in both stood forth above the wreck of what was evil and the world of John and Mary could take shape.

  Yet he was not really Lynx, the wise and invincible. He was only Malcolm Lockridge, who had loved Storm Darroway. The fight was hard to hold fast to Auri, and to the fact that he was going against the Koriach.

  Hawk slipped back from his scouting. ‘I saw few about in the village, Father,’ he said. ‘None looked like Yuthoaz, as near as I can tell from what you’ve related of them. The chariot people’s watchfires are dim in this mist, and most lie bundled up from the cold.’

  ‘Good.’ Lockridge was glad of action. ‘We’ll divide the bands now, each to its own part of the meadows.’ Their commanders came to him and he gave close instructions. One after the next, the groups vanished into the dusk, until he was left with a score. He numbered their bullhide shields and sharp edges of flint, raised his arm and told them: ‘Ours is the hardest task. We go to meet the witch herself. I swear again that my magic is as strong as hers. But let any leave who fear to witness our strife.’

  ‘Long have you led us, and ever we found you right,’ rumbled a hillman. ‘I stand by my oath.’ A fierce whisper of agreement ran around the circle.

  ‘Then follow.’

  They found a path toward the sacred grove. When combat got going, Storm and her attendants at the Long House should come this way.