Countdown to Armageddon

by Edward M. Lerner

  Just as abruptly, the hole in the clouds snapped shut. Where once bright light made the eyes squint and hid detail behind a veil of mystery, grayness now cynically revealed all: fallen lintels, cracked columns, cracked and toppled statues, splotches of lichen, ancient stains. The old temple was in ruins—a symbol not of hope and survival, but of doom and decay.

  His imagination now cruelly superimposed over the scene a boundless ocean of drifting sand. His mind’s eye zoomed in on the half-shattered face of an armless statue, inventing an imperious frown, a wrinkled lip, a sneer of cold command.

  The mirage of a memorial plaque suddenly shimmered before him. It bore, from the depths of his subconscious, a mocking inscription:

  And on the pedestal, these words appear:

  “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,

  Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

  Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

  Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

  The lone and level sands stretch far away.

  Who was he to dare to lay plans?

  After the ruined temple disappeared behind them, Harry removed a stained and much-read scrap of cloth from his pocket. He read Terrence’s note once more.

  Perhaps he was dying, Harry thought, but he could—and he strongly suspected that he would—die trying.

  METZ, 732

  Someone pounded insistently—nay, imperiously—on the main gate of the abbey.

  Father Gregory shook his head, no, at the one novice foolish enough to look inquiringly at him: They would not interrupt Vigilae to answer the summons. The massive wooden doors resounded from repeated blows. The abbot ignored the booming sound, and then the shouting, until prayers were finished. With a twinge of pain from aging knees, he stood and went to see who came so noisily to the abbey. Neither the smoky torch that he carried nor the predawn starlight seemed to cast much light. Old eyes, he thought.

  The warrior whose impatient beating on the gate the abbot now halted was unfamiliar. So were his fellows standing in an arc behind him. None looked any wearier than might be expected of a group that had traveled through the night. There was one final member of the company, however, leaning against the stone wall beside the entrance. He was exhausted and sick, and seemed somehow familiar to Gregory.

  He took a moment to study this last man. The stranger looked battle-worn and old. No, not old: prematurely aged. A curious tracery of scar tissue crisscrossed his face and covered his hands. The abbot had never seen its like: He could not imagine the manner or combination of injuries that could have caused such scars. One eye was clouded over by a cataract. He had also lost much of his hair; it had come out at random instead of by thinning or receding.

  Surely, Gregory thought, I am mistaken. This is not a face anyone could forget.

  Yet for all the torment this man must have survived, despite the evident exhaustion and the air of a lingering disease, there was a glimmer of humor in his face, a trace of boyish high spirits. Gregory sensed that this poor soul knew him and expected, in turn, to be recognized. It pained Gregory that he must disappoint this hard-worn man.

  His visitor, for such Gregory inferred the stranger to be, studied the abbot with his one good eye. “If you think I look bad,” the man began, standing away from the wall and drawing himself up to his full—and rather surprising—height, “you should see the other guy. Imagine, if you can, glow-in-the-dark worm shit.”

  That self-deprecating tone, the odd phrasing . . . could it possibly be? The height, at least, fit. What could have happened to him? “Harry? Is that really you?”

  Harry smiled. “More or less, Father Gregory, more or less. Buy me a beer and I will tell all.”

  METZ, 733

  Rest and the serenity of the abbey were the best medicines.

  In the days after Harry’s arrival, a mere few hours of idle wakefulness had sufficed to exhaust him. Within weeks, however, as his health slowly improved, he began to hobble about the monastery grounds. Strolling gave way to brisk walks, and eventually, jogging. By the time he had graduated to long hikes through the town, he finally felt well enough to devote part of his day to more private pursuits.

  He had arrived in Metz well-heeled, at the insistence of a grateful major domus. Maybe he was even rich—in such a primitive, land-intensive economy, Harry was not sure what constituted monetary wealth. Whatever his financial status, many of his solidi now went to the purchase of imported Egyptian papyrus. Hardy papyrus was no longer as freely traded as in Roman times, but—for a price—it remained available. He declined Gregory’s repeated offers of parchment and papyrus from the abbey’s own small stock: One of Harry’s escort had, despite Harry’s explicit orders, told Gregory that Harry had refused Karl’s grant of the entire abbey.

  On days when the light was good, Harry tried to work for what he estimated to be four hours. On overcast days, or when the muse was with him, he would splurge and buy a candle. When the abbot asked with what scripture he filled so many scrolls, Harry was at an unusual loss for words. “Apocrypha,” he had finally managed.

  The answer was the same when he switched to a new medium.

  Gregory rejoiced in Harry’s slowly returning vigor but knew better than to consider him cured. Anyone who overheard Harry crying out in his sleep would have doubted. The abbot, hearing the shouted names of Terrence and Julia, of Johnny and Melissa, understood all too well that painful memories troubled his guest.

  God alone knew with what demons Harry wrestled in his troubled sleep. For too many nights did Gregory pace the hall outside of his friend’s tiny cell, listening to the mutterings, the tossing and turning. Harry’s soul, like his body, carried seemingly inexplicable scars.

  The ancient Romans had held that dreams were true omens. For all that this belief was surely pagan superstition, Gregory more than once found himself praying that his friend’s horrible dreams not presage more personal tragedy. What more was possible?

  Was it a blessing or a curse that Harry did not consistently think in Frankish? Gregory could never decide. He simply knew that when his friend called out in his sleep, his words were often neither Frankish nor the vulgarized Latin. The anguished shouts, the sad pleas, the defiant protests were identifiable only by tone of voice, all the more poignant for their reduction to such irreducible minima.

  In the mornings that followed such tortured nights, Gregory always asked how he could help. Harry would consider the question gravely. His answer never changed. “Ora pro nobis.” Pray for us. When Gregory asked who “we” were, Harry would only smile sadly.

  Prayer was what monks did, but Gregory still wished he could do more. Perhaps prayer would have seemed more adequate had Harry ever worshipped with the monks. He never did.

  There were times, of course, when Harry’s nighttime shouts were in Frankish. These were almost as incomprehensible. It would have been unseemly to comment uninvited; it must be Harry’s decision to share his innermost thoughts.

  Harry’s freely shared waking memories—of the battle near Tours, of his deep friendship with Terrence, of a family and a strange land so distant as to somehow lie beyond any hope of return—these were enough to rend Gregory’s heart.

  Harry always said that rules were made to be broken, a notion that was breathtakingly alien. Just once, just this morning, Gregory was overcome by the urge to break a rule. To break his rule against asking Harry about his anguished nights.

  Who, the abbot wondered aloud, was this Humpty Dumpty that Harry named in his sleep. What did it mean that Humpty Dumpty had been pushed? Did Harry know who had pushed him?

  The amazed look, followed by a hearty laugh, that Gregory got in reply were welcome indeed. Perhaps there was, in fact, hope for Harry.

  METZ, 733

  By the onset of spring, Harry had recovered a respectable portion of his former strength. His morning hikes took him into
the countryside, where he roamed far and wide, planting trees. He was doing his small part, he explained, to repair the damage of the two recent earthquakes. That he chose to do so was inexplicable in a time when people still fought to wrest arable land from the forests.

  Townsfolk and monks alike came to think of Harry as a harmless eccentric. No, not harmless—tales of his wartime prowess, grown ever grander in the retelling, precluded that fate—but certainly eccentric. His repeated, enigmatic references to himself as Johann Appleseed only reinforced the impression, especially given his predilection for planting pine trees.

  By midspring his wanderings through the woods generated little notice and no interest. As the fresh air and exercise invigorated him, morning hikes became all-day treks, and then overnight camping trips.

  Harry led a swaybacked packhorse up the steep hill, singing old show tunes as he went.

  He had always wanted to name a pet—say, a female dog—after his obnoxious sister-in-law. It amused him to imagine her reaction. Julia, of course, had nixed that idea. Becky—the piebald mare now bearing saplings and his few supplies—would have to suffice.

  Of course, he, not Rebecca, could now fairly be described as piebald.

  The forest was mostly coniferous, and undoubtedly lovely year-round. The deciduous trees had not fully greened up when he had started his explorations. Delicate buds and dainty young leaves had been sprouting everywhere then. Dark and mature green was now universal.

  Wildflowers and flowering shrubbery splashed vibrant colors everywhere. A stream burbled its way downhill, somewhere off to his left. Birds chirped merrily in the branches overhead. If only, he thought, Julia were here to share this.

  One other lack haunted him: To his inartistic and unobservant eye, all hills and dales looked alike. He had climbed countless hills over the past few weeks. Nothing, of course, was as he remembered it. How could it be?

  He persevered; it was that or give up. All that kept his radiation-ruined body alive was sheer stubborn tenacity. Willpower would not fight off the first cold he caught.

  Well, either he had persevered enough or providence was cutting him some slack for a change. Whichever, as he crested a hill singing “The Impossible Dream” from Man of La Mancha, his voice broke off—for there it was.

  Harry forced himself to continue singing, to resume his seemingly random path across the countryside. Still, an observant watcher, even one ignorant of English, could not have helped but notice the triumphant tone of the recapitulated chorus.

  For once, luck was with Harry. There was no such observer.

  As Harry continued on his meandering course, the day became cold and bleak.

  Becky turned skittish; Harry blamed the weather. He tied her reins securely whenever he stopped to plant a tree. Yes, the air had the feel of a possible storm.

  A rumble of thunder encouraged him to hurry. His remaining saplings could wait for another day. There would be other trips, he lectured himself. This trip must not draw attention to itself from a change in his behavior.

  Good spirits, despite the best of intentions, cannot always be contained. Untying Becky for the walk back to Metz, uncontrollable joy overcame him. He had found it! Lifting his gaze to roiling clouds, he shouted to the watching skies, “I will do it!”

  And in these, the darkest of the Dark Ages, when men believed that God intervened in all things, even the fall of a sparrow, the heavens replied. A bolt of lightning split the sky, striking a giant oak tree not far from where he stood. Rolling thunder drowned out the shattering of the great tree, the clatter and crash of flying shards of wood, the sizzle of vaporizing tree sap....

  The fall of a body.

  Night had fallen when Harry regained consciousness. Becky was gone.

  His teeth chattered. He wrapped himself in his wet cloak to trap body heat. What now? His health was fragile at best. Whatever destination he picked now might well be his last.

  He chose.

  Harry stumbled through the woods, tripping in the dark over unseen roots and stones. The wind howled. Rain in sheets lashed his body, his sodden clothes offering little defense. Blowing branches whipped him. Countless wounds stung: He had been blasted with splinters large and small. Liquid trickled down his face and neck, down his aching torso and weary legs. How much was blood?

  Warmth was a dim memory of a former life. How long had he been slogging through the now-freezing rain? Too long—that was certain. He could not recall when he had last had feeling in his toes. They, at least, were slightly protected by his boots. His numb, but also bare, hands took the brunt of his repeated falls.

  He could not stop shivering. His breath hung in front of him, a steamy vapor. Glints of white hung before him, mixed with the rain. Snow.

  That he wasn’t imagining things, it really was getting colder, did not cheer him up.

  He was delirious from cold and exposure, and from the onset of a raging fever, when he finally stumbled into the outskirts of Metz. The faintest glow on the horizon suggested that dawn would soon break. The abbey lay just ahead, the flickering lights in the chapel windows marking the assembly of the pious brotherhood at Matins. Voices swelled and blended in predawn prayer, an auditory beacon.

  But as Harry scratched feebly on the abbey gate, the faint sounds that he was able to make were all too easily covered by the lovely chanting.

  Harry drifted awake in his familiar cell, beneath an oppressive weight of covers.

  The mounded cloaks and furs made it difficult to breathe. Something, anyway, made it hard to breathe. A hacking cough racked his frame, and he knew his own traitorous body was the problem. His chest hurt; that had not been his first wrenching cough. His breath gurgled; his lungs were filled with fluid.

  Should he throw off some of the covers? It seemed a dumb idea—he still trembled with chills. Another convulsion overcame him; the spasm brought up a gob of bloody phlegm.

  You didn’t need to be a doctor to render a diagnosis: pneumonia.

  Now Harry did cast aside his coverings. Ignoring teeth chattering from a raging fever, he hurriedly assembled everything so laborious prepared during his last convalescence. That thought carried a bitter irony: He doubted this illness would end in convalescence. With little resistance to infection, courtesy of the radiation sickness, how could it?

  He glanced at the scrap of cloth, Terrence’s final words, tacked to the rough wooden trestle table at which he worked. “You asked for a superweapon and got a Leyden jar,” he muttered. “Now you want a time machine? You’ll take what I’m giving you and like it.”

  He was laboriously sealing his work with dripping candle wax when Father Gregory came to check on his patient. “Praise Jesus,” his friend began. “My prayers have been answered. I had feared that we would never speak together again.”

  Harry frowned with concentration. He must do this job perfectly. He did not look up until all the wax had cooled. “Sorry, Father. That had to be done just right. Thank you for your prayers.”

  Gregory draped another cloak over Harry’s quivering shoulders. “May I bring you some soup?”

  “After—” Harry gestured at his work, as chattering teeth interrupted. “After we talk. Will you honor a dying man’s last request?” He brushed aside Gregory’s protests. They were clearly pro forma. “God wills it, my friend. Will you help me?”

  The abbot could have no rebuttal to God’s will. He answered, at last, very softly. “How?”

  “Has the abbey a brother whom you trust implicitly? Someone whom you would entrust with your holiest relic?”

  “Yes, of course,” Gregory said.

  The room swayed alarmingly; Harry grabbed on to the abbot for balance. “Who among them is strong? Can one undertake a journey deep into the hills?”

  “Several are young and strong enough.”

  Harry squeezed Gregory’s arm, the weakness of his grasp dismay
ing. His hand, to his utter horror, slipped from the abbot’s arm. “And is there one among them who will keep a secret even unto the grave?”

  Gregory gaped at the question.

  “Forgive me, Father. There is no time to debate. I need an answer.”

  Gregory roused himself. “Certainly. Brother Adolphus meets all these requirements. But please take food. You must keep up your strength.”

  His strength, Harry knew, had left him for the final time. “First we speak with Brother Adolphus. For what good it will do, I will take some hot soup after that.”

  THE VOSGES MOUNTAINS, 1988

  Black squirrels were their only companions as Harry and Julia hiked the unspoiled woods. They had broken camp shortly after daybreak, and climbed, he guestimated, around a thousand feet. No, no, dummy—this is Europe. Think metric. Call it three hundred meters. The slope had begun quite gently, but it was now quite steep. He might follow her example and use a fallen branch as a walking stick. The rocky outcroppings that they came across with increasing frequency hinted that the terrain would only get rougher.

  He let Julia lead, the motion in her taut jeans a quiet delight. Hell, quiet was overrated. He was reaching out to take a pinch when she stopped abruptly.

  She poked with her branch at a tangle of bushes. Yet another rocky outcropping peeked through the greenery. “I tell you, that noise I heard came from back here. You know, like wind whistling through a constriction. Maybe there’s a cave back there.”

  He crowded up behind her for a perfunctory glance. Yup, it was a bunch of bushes, all right. He completed the pinchus interruptus.

  “Quit that.”

  “This is our honeymoon. Certain things are traditional.”

  She patted his hand lovingly, then brushed it off. “This is romantic, too. Imagine if we found our own cave.” She kept poking through the greenery with her stick. The unseen end went tap, tap, tap against the overgrown rocky escarpment.