Touchstone (Meridian Series)

by John Schettler

  Kelly squinted, the rain washing his face, and mixing with tears that welled at the corners of his eyes. They learned of my mission when Salim was sent back on routine courier assignment. He knew it all now, remembered it all, as if the contact with Hamza had shaken the hazy coils of recollection in his brain, and set them in motion. The fog of uncertainty was finally lifted in a golden moment of complete awareness. Salim was pulled out, and informed the other side of these events. Somehow, some way, they were able to run yet another intervention andsend someone back to preserve the integrity of the lock on the stream below. He had little doubt that the logs he had lashed to the flood gate below were set aside by now, as Hamza told him, and the hatchways closed to seal out the flood that was pouring down from the gray heavens above.

  And so now, instead of a watery death with Hamza the Scribe, he would survive this moment—though he could not be certain that any other future still remained for him.

  He turned to Hamza, tears in his eyes. “How long…?”

  Hamza smiled. “We have a little while yet. Your friends will try to call you home soon, though you may not feel the place to be a home in your heart when you return. They will make an error, a very small one of course, but then little things have great consequences—or so we have learned. You will make your return, to a moment when Time may best decide your fate. I will pray for you, my friend. Allah is merciful to all who abandon the errors of unbelief, and hear his words.”

  He pointed east, to Mecca, and began to speak, in a low voice that grew ever more certain, and laced with strength and purpose.

  “How fixed is the order holding together this material universe above and below us! Yet it must give way before the vast, unfathomed Truth in which man will see his past and future in true perspective. To God he owes his life and all its blessings…”

  The voice faded away, and Kelly could feel the strange sense of feathery lightness that accompanied Time shift. He was going home.

  30

  Kelly awoke from a short nap where he lolled on the table at the college library. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked up at the clock on the wall. Lord! It was half past six already. Vague recollections of a dream fled from him as he stirred awake. He remembered a face, a voice, a prayer, yet none of the words made any sense to him now. He had dozed off, waiting for his computational run to download to his laptop computer, and now it was surely finished.

  He got up, walking quickly through the glass doors to the computer lab where he had his laptop docked in a data recovery bay on the Arion system. Sure enough, his download had concluded twenty minutes ago, and he was surprised that no one had come to find him. Time on an Arion system was in high demand these days. He had to come all the way into the city to use this system, as the closer facility at U.C. Berkeley was booked solid for the day. Thankfully, there were still time blocks open here, probably because of the Memorial Day weekend, he thought.

  He rubbed his palms together, as much for warmth as in anticipation of the data he now had secure in his laptop. The solutions to his convoluted algorithms were well in hand, now he just had to get to his Subaru and brave the Bay Area traffic to make the meeting at Nordhausen’s study by eight. He had to get out of the city, on a rush hour Friday night, over the Bay Bridge and up to Berkeley, and all in this maddening late spring rain.

  As he carefully packed his laptop into its carrying case, an ominous rumble of thunder confirmed his worst fears. The freeways were going to be a nightmare. In spite of his nap, he was still tired, and hungry, but there was no time for a meal now. It would take him all of ninety minutes or more to get to Berkeley under these driving conditions.

  He zipped up his satchel case and rushed out of the lab, heading for the staircase that would take him down to the lower floor. When he reached the upper landing he had the strange feeling that he had forgotten something. He paused suddenly, nearly tripping up a young female student, who smiled and maneuvered around him.

  Something was wrong. He could feel it. Something was out of place… He entertained the notion for a brief moment, and then started down the library stairs, dismissing the thought as nonsense.

  ~

  Over five thousand miles and eight hours to the east something was wrong. Three men were walking down a long tunnel at the back of a hillside, dug into the side of the island mountain. Outside, the quiet stars shone in the sky, and the tiny village below them lay sleeping as the hour struck half past two in the morning. It would be the last hours of peace for this island, the home to one of the three men for long generations.

  Palma, in the Canary Islands, was once a secret getaway and waystation for the old Arabic traders, and Ra’id’s family had purchased land there, a small farm and hillside villa, ages ago. Over the centuries it had been passed on, from one generation to the next, and now served as a convenient vacation retreat and lodge of prayer in the trying times of the year 2010.

  For Ra’id and his two associates, this was truly a moment of destiny. For years now, ever since the Americans had come to the Holy Lands again, thirsty for oil, he had planned and plotted with his brothers for the revenge he knew he must surely have one day. He was a simple man, grandson of a wealthy merchant who gained prominence during the first days of the Arab rebellion in the Hejaz. How strange, he thought, that a Westerner should be the spark that ignited the rebellion worked by Feisal and the others, his grandfather among them. First it was to throw off the oppression of the Turks, who had dared set foot in Arabia at the behest of the German Kaiser in WWI. The Arabs joined with a small British officer, el Aurens or Lawrence by name, and fought to drive the Turks from their ancestral lands. It was Lawrence who made the first promise to them, all those years ago, that they would have freedom if they would but join the British cause in the war. Now it was another who brought promises of freedom to the Holy Lands, and the price grew ever higher.

  Ra’id, and his brothers, determined what they must do. It came to him in the flush of a night vision, as though Allah himself had opened his eyes. He saw, in his dream, the family villa, crowned by a searing fire. The earth shook around him and he knew that the mountain, sleeping quietly since the second great war, was coming alive again, and belching its red wrath out into the dark waters of the sea.

  The island of Palma was largely formed by a great volcanic seamount called Cumbre Vieja. Each time it erupted, the unstable flank of the island shifted ominously towards the possibility of total collapse. There was evidence, just off the western shore, of at least twelve such events in the geological history of the island. Now, as the years passed, long tubes, once filled with lava, were saturated with rainwater, and each time the island erupted the water would superheat, expanding with great explosive force—enough force to shake loose the entire western flank of the mountain where Ra’id’s villa now sat in the quiet spring morning.

  When this happened the resulting landslide would cause an immense tsunami to surge westward, crossing the whole of the Atlantic in just eight hours. When Ra’id saw the devastation that even a small tsunami could cause after the Indonesian Banda Ache earthquake of December 2004, he knew that he had found the perfect weapon of justice, a mighty sword that he could bring upon the enemies of Islam. It was then that he changed his name to Husan al Din, the sword of the faith, and bent himself to the plan that he hoped would bear fruit this very night.

  With him in the tunnel were Nassim, the Wind, and his younger brother. It had taken them many years to acquire the means, and many long hours digging the tunnel they were now leaving. It burrowed into the heart of the mountain itself, allowing them to carry the long sought after device, the abomination made in the West, to its resting place in the heart of the mountain. Nassim had set the timer, and now all was set in motion.

  They reached the end of the tunnel and went up the narrow staircase that led to the villa. There would be time enough to clean themselves, and to pray, before the chartered helo would arrive to take them from the island. Ra’id would stay, and endu
re the fire in holy sacrifice, but his companions convinced him that he should live on to fight again, should anything go wrong.

  He stepped out onto the veranda, feeling the cool ocean breeze on his face and looking down at the herd of puffy white clouds that seemed to circle the island, dappled with moonlight. The night blue waters of the sea were calm now, but soon, he knew, they would rise up in a torrent of retribution. His only regret was that this, his sanctuary for so many years, would be vaporized as the sword fell upon his enemies, the island itself devastated, and many friends, companions of long years, lost. Yet there was nothing to be done now. The night was upon them, the time was at hand. Even the mountain itself seemed to stir awake, as if it sensed the impending catastrophe that was now only minutes away.

  Soon he heard the distant thrum of the helo, flying high up, but descending rapidly as was planned.

  “Come Nassim,” he called. “It is time…”

  Things have a way of reaching their perfect end, he thought. Did the Americans think they could rape our lands, plunder our wealth, occupy the soil of Islam without consequence? Bush the elder had been brazen, his son even moreso, and foolish. Now the West would pay for their misdeeds. It had taken him many years of waiting and prayer to accomplish his task. But as the Arabs were fond of saying, ‘A’athreh ib dafra,’ with a stumble and a kick, he would achieve his great aim at last. A night of fire, a night of wind and water and earth, all conspiring together to work the retribution, ere the sun rises. It was not his doing, of course, but the will of Allah that he worked with this moment. He was already composing the words of the announcement that he would make to the shocked world when the true magnitude of his plan would finally become apparent.

  ‘…We are patient, forgiving. We are seekers only of peace, but as Allah chooses, then the command is given for the seas to rise and pound the shore. We are but an instrument, to that power. As the oceans are made up of an uncountable number of individual drops of serene waters, when Allah commands, those drops come together to form the most powerful force on earth, the ocean of Believers, who's waves of faith become the hammer upon which justice is delivered to all followers of Satan.’

  ~

  When the fifteen kiloton nuclear device they had buried in Cumbre Vieja exploded just over an hour later, that certainty became a reality. The mountain, rudely jarred by the abomination in its gut, exploded with a fury that was unsurpassed. And just as Steven Ward, Simon Day and a handful of other Western scientists had warned for so many years, the unstable flank gave way, sending well over 500 cubic kilometers of rock into the sea in a mad surging avalanche. The resulting wave set was enormous, and it fanned out from the island, rolling west in dark swells of ocean at the speed of some 600 km per hour. In just under three hours it had swamped the Azores. Three more would find its angry waves upon the shore of Newfoundland. After that, the entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States would be engulfed by the sea. It would be four a.m. in the Canary Islands when the mountain would explode, midnight for the Americans, four hours behind. They would not hear of the disaster for over an hour, those that remained awake, but soon the sirens would blare out a warning. The 24 hour news stations would ignite the fire of panic as the orders to evacuate the entirety of the eastern coast of the United States were finally given an hour later. That would leave only five hours, perhaps six, to try and move over a hundred million people to the safety of some inland refuge. Most, sleeping in the dark of the night, would never even hear the warning, in spite of the rising commotion.

  It was just by chance that Kelly heard it that evening, as he peered through the squeaking windshield wipers of his midnight blue Subaru. He had just finished listening to a custom CD collection of Frank Zappa guitar solos, and when the disk popped out the he caught a snatch of the news that was rapidly becoming the story of the decade all across America that night. He caught the word tsunami, adjusted the volume, and tuned in the station to hear better.

  A few moments later he was utterly aghast at what was happening, and the odd sensation that something was terribly amiss seized him. He had been musing over the numbers in his laptop, and wondering if all the calculations he had run for tomorrow’s mission were in order. They had planned to see a Shakespeare play, the Tempest, but now, it was clearly all around them, rising in headlong degrees with each passing moment. As the realization of the catastrophe settled over him, he vocalized his first reaction. “Damn…looks like we aren’t going to see the play tomorrow. How could we? We’ve got to do something about this—do something to prevent it!” But he could not think of anything they could achieve, even with the power of Time travel at their disposal, if the project worked at all.

  Up in the quiet of the Berkeley Hills, just above the university, the Arch was already spinning to life, watched by a few interns as they ramped up the power to a low standby mode. Jen was there, and Tom. The others were waiting for him at Nordhausen’s study in the Berkeley suburbs, Maeve, Paul and Robert.

  Paul would think of something, he hoped, as he finally sped through the Tunnel and reached the off ramp he always took when he came this way. He needed more music, and reached for that CD he had made with the favorite songs of a group he had discovered some years ago, a band called Porcupine Tree. The ethereal strains of the music surrounded him now— “Never stop the car on a drive in the dark.” That sounded like good advice in a storm like this, he thought. “Never trust the sound of rain upon a river rushing through your ears…” Somehow the words jogged a distant memory, but he could not grasp it.

  The hunger in his stomach had grown to become unbearable, so, in spite of the rain and lateness of the hour, he simply had to stop and pick up something to eat. There was a 7-11 near the off ramp and, as he started to accelerate again, a strange thought came to him that there was someone on the road ahead, the barest flutter in his awareness. He moved to cover the brake but saw the way was clear, so he drove on. An odd sensation of déjà vu came upon him, woven amid the guitars of the band. The lyric seemed to mock him: “Ever had the feeling you've been here before?”

  He had a sudden flush of adrenaline, an anxious sensation that he could not account for. It made him strangely light headed, keenly aware of his surroundings, and alive in a way that was exhilarating. He had the odd feeling that he was supposed to do something, but could not think of what it was.

  The Subaru rolled into the parking lot of the 7-11 and came to a halt. He was very late but, with any luck, he would get to Nordhausen’s study by 9:30 p.m. He sat for a moment, trying to collect himself and dispel the strange notion that he had just missed something, or forgotten something of the greatest importance, though he could not think of what it was. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone to call the others, but came up empty.

  “Great. Now where is my cell phone?” Then he remembered the phone booth just outside the 7-11, and he opened the car door as the driving guitars of the music ended, slipping out in the interval of quiet between tracks. Just then, a car came skidding around the corner, careening wildly out of control on the rain slick pavement. He saw it coming, yet was frozen, unable to move, riveted to this place and time by some power that he could not impede in any way. The car struck him a hard blow, knocking him against a metal road sign where he hit his forehead as he fell.

  He was stunned, but reached up, by reflex, and felt the trickle of blood on his forehead. A feeling of exhilaration returned again, with strange whispers in his head. What were they saying?

  “…the future depends on Right and Justice… The Day must come when Discord must finally cease, and the Peace of God and his command are all in all… For truly, God’s will flows freely, like these rains fall down upon us now from a darkened sky. We have but to tune our will to His—the ever-living Righteous God…But Oh, for the joy of being found worthy to bear the torch and to say to our brethren: ‘I too was in darkness, comfortless, and behold, I have found comfort and Joy in the Grace Divine.”

  Why those words came to him j
ust then, he could not fathom, only that he knew them, and he had heard them spoken to him somewhere, long ago.

  A sudden moment of clarity came to him, and now he knew this place, this time, to a fullness. He had been here before! The first time, a man had stepped from the shadows and rain, and he remembered how he had slammed on his brakes to avoid hitting him. That moment’s delay, that bare whisper in eternity, had changed things. But now they were set back again—back on the Meridian he was born to, and this was the moment he had been spared before, a time that was to be his last.

  Palma had happened, he knew. The mountain collapsed into the sea, just as the light in his head now seemed to collapse to a fine point where he lay on the hard cold pavement. For the briefest moment he wondered what would happen to the world now—the world he tried to carry on his shoulders, though he stumbled, and fell.

  He cold not think about that… no time for that now… No time for any of it: that first mission to the Hejaz, Nordhausen and his antics in the Arch, Paul’s lost venture in the Well of Souls, the King of Diamonds, and Maeve, dear Maeve. There was no time left now at all. These images of future days he would now never live seemed to emerge like fireflies in his mind, and then die.

  Strangely, he smiled, rolling to his side so his face turned upward into the rain. He felt the cold water on his forehead, and knew that nothing had been changed. The world was restored, without his life traded for a future that was never meant to be.

  Music was playing now, a solemn piano as the next song began on his CD player in the Subaru. The sound was fading… fading… “Collapse the light into earth…. Collapse the light ….” It gave him great comfort as he held the meaning of the words in his heart—here at the beginning, and the end, of all that he ever knew.