Anvil of Fate (Meridian Series)

by John Schettler

  The barge glided by the shore. Oh, take it, she seemed to plead inwardly to the river. Take it and be done with this! But it lingered near its mooring site, and she finally knew she would not get off so easily. Her complicity would be complete, undeniable, unforgivable, for she now had to give it one more strong push to nudge it out into the stream and set it free.

  “In for a penny, in for a pound…” She remembered Paul quipping about the mission and realized she had to finish the job. Then she placed her foot on the edge, and pushed hard. It was enough force to ease the ferry out into the river, and now the current began to grasp at it, pulling it away from the shore.

  She moved slowly, as though numbed with some powerful drug, listless and forlorn, backing away from the tree stump as she watched the mooring rope slide off into the water. Then, still holding the reins of her horse, she turned and walked slowly away, heading for a shadowed glen not far from the water’s edge.

  So it was that she saw the frantic arrival of the Bishop, riding the old gray mare and witnessed his desperate effort to get down off the horse and wade out into the shallows. But the ferry had been taken by the powerful stream of the river and was long gone by the time he reached the shoreline.

  She heard the cries of lamentation, the frightened weeping in the night. A thought passed that she could go to them, to offer aid at the last extreme, returning the gentle kindness they had extended to her just moments before. At the very least, she could save the children. Yet a stern voice within her would not permit it. Her own steely logic told her that these were all meant to perish, and their death, though painful and cruel, was an absolute necessity. Leaving even one alive would introduce changes in the stream of the flow that could have dramatic repercussions.

  So she watched in horror as Dodo came riding with his men at arms, full of bluster and harsh throated words. She did not labor to translate, for the hard edge in his voice was enough to make his meaning plain. Here now is death; heed now my vengeance; here I am satisfied that payment has been made for the wrong you have brought upon my family.

  The rasp of swords flashed in the moonlight, and thunder rumbled in the distance. There, on that dark and muddied shore, Time fell in a swoon when silence finally enfolded the scene again. Lambert had been slain, along with all his household. The cry of the boy, his voice cut suddenly short, was the last thing she heard.

  Maeve stood, forcing herself to witness the crime she had made possible, wanting to turn and flee, but riveted to the spot, dogged with reproach and remorse. Then one of the assailants turned, his eyes still wild with violence, and pointed to the place where she lingered in the shadows.

  “Quisnam est illic?” The man turned, squaring off, as he peered in her direction, his sword at the ready.

  Then something in her mind snapped and her body moved. She leapt up, barely able to mount the skittish steed again, and her pulse raced as she saw two, then three men start towards her, stopping when they saw she had mounted.

  “Ad Equos!” One man shouted, and they ran to secure their horses, preparing to mount and give chase.

  Maeve was up, finally shifted into riding position as the rush of adrenaline chased the emotion from her mind with pulsing fear. Her sudden movement caused the Arabian to rear up, turning its head to cast a wide eyed glance at the oncoming soldiers. At that moment she heard a taught snap and the leather rein gave way, suddenly slack in her hands. The tumult of the horse’s movement almost threw her free, but she leaned forward to hold on to the horses neck and mane. Kuhaylan regained his balance, came down, and thundered away, gaining speed even as he ran up the low embankment of the river, a silvered blur in the night.

  It took all her skill, but she was able to steer him west across a grassy field towards the old Roman road by using her legs and reinforcing every desired direction with her voice. She could hear the sound of riders behind her, laboring up the embankment to give chase, but no horse in the land was the equal of Kuhaylan that night, and he ran full out, galloping away, drinking the wind as his powerful body carried her out onto the road. The clatter of his hooves and the wind in her ears was all she could hear now, and she rode north, a cold rippling wave of chaos in the night.

  Chapter 21

  The Berkley Arch Complex, Saturday, 9:38 A.M.

  “I think we’ve got her!” Kelly was jubilant as he completed the retraction sequence. “Let’s get down to the Arch. I want to make certain she phased in properly. Come on!”

  The three of them rushed to open the heavy metal door and make their way down to the Arch. When they arrived they found Maeve sitting there, legs crossed, though her hooded outer cloak and robe were missing.

  Kelly was the first to her side, extending a hand to help her up with a warm smile. She seemed somewhat disoriented, and her eyes were swollen and red, as though she had been crying. He put his arms around her, guiding her back across the thick yellow event horizon to the safety of the inner chamber where the others waited.

  She blinked at them, and Paul was the first to speak. “I know we asked a great deal of you, Maeve,” he said.

  “Thank God,” she sighed with obvious relief. “You got me out just in time. I made it to the entry point well enough, with Dodo and his men in hot pursuit, though they were well behind me. But I was about to have company! There were also men waiting there, out on the road, and a cleric as well. It was all I could do to steal up and get close to that tree stump, but they saw me and one of the men came running at me just as I felt the shift begin. I slapped the Arabian’s rump as hard as I could, and the horse bolted. That bought me just enough time I suppose…”

  She nodded sullenly, still taking comfort in the warmth of Kelly’s arm. “That apple was a good idea,” she said at last. “I fed it to the horse.”

  “And the note?” Paul asked, still not certain she had been able to decipher the message and take any decisive action.

  “Oh, I got the note,” she eyed him sternly. “I read it and then ate the damn thing. Couldn’t risk a piece of that nice lined paper floating off into the 8th century in a careless moment. But that was the least of my worries. Alright…I killed the bishop, saved the realm, and rode off to glory. What’s next?” She smiled wanly, but they could see she was still shaken with emotion.

  “Sounds like a good game of Darkspawn Chronicles,” said Kelly smiling. “Let’s get you upstairs and get some coffee. Then we can check the Golems and see if you actually did save the realm.”

  Nordhausen was too impatient to wait. “What did you decide, Maeve? What did you do? Anything?”

  She told them the story of her encounter at the farm and all that happened afterwards as they rode the elevator up and made their way back along the long corridor. The incident with the wolves seemed to register with Paul. He recalled his own harrowing encounter with a wolf outside the hidden archive when he had fallen through the Well of Souls and was lost in the land of the Assassins.

  Robert was amazed at how the hieroglyphics had so clearly sketched out the imperatives in that last wild scene where Dodo and his men came upon the bishop.

  “A loose twine!” he said, amazed. “So it had nothing to do with a corral in the Arab camp, or even the rein on that Arabian, eh?”

  “Well…” Maeve hesitated a moment. “Now that you mention it, thank God that rein snapped when it did. It loosened the pressure on the horse’s mouth and stopped him from rearing even more at a critical moment. I was able to get him down and into a run, and that saved me. I owe that horse my life a few times over.”

  Robert was suddenly energized, and was the first to rush to a History Module when they reached the lab, eager to see if anything had changed.

  “Believe me,” said Maeve. “It was hell to stand there and watch that. I really don’t know if I could do that again.”

  “Well, I know its small consolation, “ said Paul, “but Robert and I are grateful we won’t have to shift in and murder Lambert ourselves!”

  “No, I made certain someone else
got the job,” she said flippantly, but he could see she was still deeply troubled.

  Paul gave her a reassuring touch on her shoulder. “You were the only one who could have done it, Maeve. Just riding the damn horses would have been beyond any of the rest of us. You did what you had to do, in the heat of the moment and with great clarity, in spite of how frightening it must have been. Well done!” he finished with a smile.

  Nordhausen shouted at them from the History Module. “Get over here, people! We’ve got variations!”

  The Golems were churning and sifting and sampling the Meridians, and Robert was the first to see that the colors were already changing. “Look,” he pointed. These years are all turning from yellow to green now.”

  Paul looked and saw the colors changing all through the cells marking the early 8th century. The year 705 was now a solid green, as were all the years after until the line reached the year 714. There it remained stubbornly amber. “That’s odd,” he said. “Kelly, should we give this more time?”

  “I’d love to say we had plenty to give,” said Kelly, but we’ve got about ninety minutes fuel left on the number three generator. Our closer got us through the eighth inning here, but I’m not sure he can get us those last three outs.” He was at their side, now, still holding Maeve’s hand. “What’s the problem?”

  “We’re seeing no changes beyond this year,” said Paul. “714… Wasn’t that the year Pippin dies?”

  “It’s also the year Grimwald was supposed to have been killed at Lambert’s chapel,” said Maeve.

  “Right,” said Paul. “But the variations seem stuck on that point in the continuum. Lambert’s death looks like it was not entirely decisive.”

  “He wasn’t killed at the villa!” Robert pointed excitedly. “He was killed at the ferry by the river this time. The Bishop Hubert was the one who ordered the chapel to be built at the site of Lambert’s death, and that chapel became the center of the future city of Liège. Has it moved?”

  Paul called up a map from the Golem data. “Hard to tell when you look at the city in contemporary times,” he said.

  “No,” said Maeve. “I was there. The ferry site was not that far from Lambert’s villa at Leodium. It would not have affected the location of the city that much, but it may have had some impact on the assassination of Grimwald.”

  “Yes,” said Robert. “He dies in the chapel, and it must have been built at the ferry site now, not the villa.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a difference,” said Paul.

  “Oh, but it is,” Robert argued. “The site of Lambert’s death was the location where he left this earthly existence and his soul ascended into heaven. The place of a martyr’s death was very important considering the future development of the cult to his sainthood.”

  “Well, he may be correct,” said Kelly, “Because I scrolled forward to check the impact of Maeve’s intervention on the outcome of Tours, and Abdul Rahman and his Saracen legions are still victorious…”

  There was a thick silence after that. The weariness of the hour and the stress of all they had been through weighed heavily on them. Paul looked fitfully at the time, rubbing the strain from the back of his neck.

  “Crap,” he said. “Speaking of horses, this one isn’t dead yet. We need to give it another kick! Tell me, Kelly, who was leading the Franks at the battle as the Golems read it now?”

  “Our old friend Grimwald,” said Kelly.

  “But we restored the place of his death when we assured his martyrdom,” said Maeve.

  “Yes, but we moved it,” said Paul. “It may not sound like much but it’s all we have to go on now.”

  “I don’t see how a few miles difference would matter,” said Robert. “He was going to visit the shrine, in one location or another. That’s where he was to be killed.”

  “There’s an infinity of possibilities at work now,” said Paul frustrated. “Anything could have happened to prevent Grimwald’s death, but we don’t seem to have a single clue in the history sources at our disposal here.”

  “Could the Assassins still be operating?” Robert suggested with a question. “It could be that they figured a way to prevent the death of Grimwald, or at least to preserve their earlier intervention to spare the man. With him alive, Plectrude’s side of the family must have prevailed in the power struggle for succession. Look here…”

  He called up some supporting documentation, using his recollection of the history to search for just the right documents. “I read a good PhD thesis on this,” he said. “Let’s have a look at some of Bishop Lambert’s hagiographers. It seems that there was a raft of vengeance that fell upon Dodo and his followers for the murder of Lambert. Look at this passage. The bishop is said to have haunted Dodo and his cohorts in the years after the bishop’s death. This is supposed to be Lambert’s spirit speaking…”

  He began reading a translation of the chronicle: “we have harassed our friend Dodo and his companions. It is time, that they should pay their debt, and receive their just and deserved reward… Then Dodo, who was the first and leader in the death of the bishop, was struck by divine vengeance. After all his hidden parts were made rotten and stinking they were cast forth through his mouth, and his unhappy and wicked present life ended ... Others were tormented by demons, wailing and crying out in the voices of diverse kinds … and within the year only a few from among them remained, those who were in league and conspired to bring about the death of the Saint.”

  “Sounds like Dodo was poisoned,” said Maeve. “Well one of the conspirators is still alive and well,” she said uneasily, obviously referring to herself.

  “Someone was taking out all the remaining opposition in Alpaida’s side of the family,” said Paul, images of the Godfather returning to his mind. “They got to Dodo and his followers, eliminating Alpaida’s brother, and they must have also found a way to stop Grimwald’s assassination.”

  A loud warning claxon went off, and Kelly jumped with a start. He saw nothing at the Golem Alert Station, but the breaching indicators were all lit up again.

  “Didn’t I close that breach effectively?” he said aloud. “Damn it! What the hell’s going on? I’ve got a residual signature in the matter stream!”

  “What?” Paul was at his side in an instant. “A residual signature?”

  “The Arch has hold of someone else! Hell, I’d better feed this baby some additional power.” Then he remembered what Maeve had told them about the men on the road close by the site of the retraction point.

  “Maeve? You say men were waiting for you at the entry coordinates?”

  “At least three men and a cleric, on the road, perhaps twenty yards off. By that time I was well off the road and approaching from the river side. I was able to squeak in close to the tree stump we used as a marker and dismount, but that hedge wasn’t much cover. They saw me, and one of them came running at me.”

  Kelly looked at Paul. “Well someone is still in the matter stream, and coming through the Arch. You suppose this guy lunged at her and fell into the retraction? Doesn’t make sense. I would have no signature on him. How would the system know what to pull through?”

  Paul nodded agreement. “It’s not an open portal,” he said to Kelly. “You’re right, the system has to have a secure mass pattern to move anything. Another person could be standing right next to you, right in the shift zone, and they wouldn’t move a millisecond in Time.”

  “Then what’s going on?”

  “One way to find out,” said Paul flatly. “Let’s get down there. You and Maeve better stay here and keep an eye on things. Robert? Care to join me?”

  A moment later, the two men were rushing along the long tunnel, heading down to the Arch again.

  “So who’s the uninvited dinner guest this time?” said Robert. “LeGrand? Graves? I thought you said they couldn’t get through the penumbra cast by Palma? That their machines were largely wiped out after that?”

  “Kelly said it was a residual on Maeve’s retraction s
tream, Robert. That means they have to be shifting in from the 8th century….but I’ve been wrong before,” said Paul.

  They reached the Arch, peering into the haze as the lights subsided and the power turbine wound down again. Both of them started when a man stepped out of the bluish fog and strode boldly into the central chamber. He was wearing Medieval clothing, burgundy felt cap, a dark cape over a brunia leather jerkin, flannel trousers laced tight on the calves and brown stained leather boots. Paul noted the short sword at his side, and a barbed javelin slung on his back.

  “Who the hell are you?” Paul said, almost reflexively.

  The man had been gazing up at the walls and ceiling, following the last of the glimmering lights as the Arch shift subsided, now he looked at them square on, his deep set eyes bright with fascination and obvious elation.

  “Forgive me!” he said in perfect English. “And allow me to introduce myself.” He bent his tall, angular frame to make a respectful bow. “You may call me Rantgar,” he said. “Rantgar of Friesia.”

  Part VIII

  The Rogue

  “There is no den in the world to hide a rogue…Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.”

  — Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Chapter 22

  The Berkley Arch Complex, Saturday, 9:55 A.M.

  The name immediately struck Nordhausen, and he looked at Paul as he spoke. “Rantgar? Impossible!”

  “One might think so,” said the visitor. “But we’re getting very clever these days—or perhaps very desperate. I suppose the latter gives rise to the former. Or how is it Plato put things? Ah… Necessity is the mother of invention.”

  Paul’s eyes narrowed. “Appearances aside,” he said flatly, “it’s clear you’ve come here from the future.” He knew this was no native of the 8th century. Anyone from that era would have been utterly terrified had they come through the Arch as this man obviously did. His swagger and jaunt, and the relaxed, cool way in which he took in the surroundings immediately spoke of familiarity. “Then you found a way to penetrate Palma’s Shadow?”