A Tapestry of Fire (Applied Topology Book 4)

by Margaret Ball

  Within an hour the Manor Place Baths had gone dry. Half an hour later, the Old Surrey Music Hall sustained a direct hit, killing seventeen firemen. At the Elephant and Castle intersection, minutes later, the jets of water disappeared as if they had been sucked back into the hoses. All the firemen could do now was clear away wooden structures in the hope of keeping the fires from spreading.

  When Lensky looked away down the inferno that had been Newington Causeway, he saw lampposts wilting like dying flowers and flames gusting so wildly that they seemed to join across the street to make a curtain of fire. The paint on nearby cars ran down like water.

  When the hoses laid to the Thames were connected the firemen had a little water again, but for every fire they brought under control half a dozen more sprang up. And now the fires had had time to take hold. Sometimes there was nothing to do but spray directly into the fire, and that was not much use. Jets of water vaporized instantly where they met the flames. And even the Thames was not inexhaustible; after two hours of feeding innumerable emergency lines going to all parts of London, it became so low that the hoses choked on the mud at the bottom of the river.

  Before that last crisis Lensky had returned to the doorway of the Elephant and Castle pub, determined to make Thalia listen to reason and get out of this disaster – if she hadn’t left already.

  She hadn’t.

  Of course she hadn’t.

  And she wasn’t even staying under cover, though he could hope she was shielded. She had found a bucket of sand to help her fight incipient fires at the base of the pub, stamping them out where she could, covering them with sand where she couldn’t. When the bucket was empty she looked up, wiped her forehead, and saw Lensky.

  At least she had the decency to look guilty. But what she said was, “There are more buckets of sand in the wardens’ post.”

  There was a point where you just had to accept the hopelessness of arguing with a woman. Lensky fetched the buckets and joined Thalia in her self-imposed task of saving the pub. At least this building wasn’t on fire yet; there was a small possibility that they could do some good here.

  “Because I have a sentimental attachment to this building,” Thalia panted in answer to his unasked question. “It was my beacon to you.”

  When the sand was used up, they joined the people running after water trucks with buckets. When water spilled over the edges of the trucks, they scooped it from the gutters and ran back to the Elephant and Castle.

  This time, as the blazing skyline of London drew closer, Lehmann felt no triumph in the sight. He still felt that he was watching the total destruction of a city; but he also felt that he was approaching his own death.

  “Don’t let me die in fire,” he prayed. It was the nightmare of all flyers. One pilot that Lehmann knew carried a pistol in the cockpit, saying that he would shoot himself before he burned. Logically, Lehmann understood that he was in more danger of burning from an air attack than from a target he would be over for less than fifteen minutes. But he had a superstitious feeling that London itself was reaching tongues of fire for him, was seeking revenge for the damage he and his fellows had inflicted.

  When both his HE bombs had been dropped without incident, Lehmann swung the plane round for his return to base. He felt safer now, even thought he might return alive.

  He did not notice the night fighter behind him. Neither did Anschiess or Krause, though both had been told to keep a sharp lookout.

  Lehmann’s first indication of disaster was a clattering sound and a tongue of flame from the starboard engine. The enemy fighter moved level with him and there was a second burst of fire that shattered the windscreen and most of the instrument panel. As cold air rushed into the cockpit Lehmann cut out the starboard engine and called to his crew over the intercom. Amazingly, Fischer, Scholz, and Krause were still alive, though Fischer was wounded. There was no reply from young Anschiess, who would have been in the rear turret.

  He had three crewmen still living. Could he keep the Heinkel airborne long enough to land them safely? Not likely; even if he found a landing place, even if the shattered plane responded, he would have to land by guesswork now that the instrument panel was gone.

  The Heinkel lurched to starboard and the stick jerked in Lehmann’s hands. At least they were over the quiet countryside now, not over burning London. He knew his duty: to keep the aircraft flying, if possible, long enough to reach the Channel. With only one engine the plane would not likely last long enough for them to be picked up by German rescuers, but at least the English would not have the plane.

  He did not think the Heinkel would last even that long.

  From the corner of his eye he saw a sudden flame somewhere astern. From the way the Heinkel was shaking he knew they were losing height. It was a toss-up whether they burned in the air or crashed on the ground.

  “Bail out,” he instructed his crew. He would take the Heinkel as far as he could by himself.

  “But, Herr Leutnant, you will need—” Krause began.

  “It is an order,” Lehmann interrupted harshly.

  Within minutes the three living crewmen had jumped into the darkness of the English countryside in the blackout.

  The flames astern grew; Lehmann could feel their heat behind him. The plane shook him with its violent shudders. He tugged on the stick, trying to keep the Heinkel up long enough to reach the Channel. He had no control; the plane had begun spinning dizzily.

  But despite the spinning, he could see the Channel beneath him now. At this low altitude, it looked not like a smooth sheet of glass, but more like crumpled foil. As the flames roared into the cockpit, Lehmann went through the escape hatch and yanked at the ripcord of his parachute.

  “At least I did not burn,” he had time to think on the way down.

  The water of the Channel was very cold.

  But soon he was beyond feeling the chill, or anything else.

  21. “London can take it!”

  London, May 11, 1941

  London and Austin, May 11 and 12, 2018

  Before dawn, although the fires still raged, the urgency of fighting them was over. There would be no more water until the Thames rose again. Here and there, leaning against walls, sitting on heaps of rubble, exhausted firemen sat with heads cradled in their hands.

  Lensky and I, having won a tiny battle in the midst of an overwhelming disaster, were sitting on the ground slumped against what we had come to think of as our pub. The Elephant and Castle pub stood alone and unburnt in a sea of burnt-out buildings, although the gaily painted statue on the roof was gray with ashes. Across the intersection, the turreted Rockingham Arms and the coliseum-like Alfred’s Head also stood in defiance of the destruction that had visited the area. Perhaps there was a special guardian angel for pubs.

  Columns of smoke rolled across the sky like clouds, reddened by the flames below them. Fire and reflected fire gleamed from the windows of buildings, where windows remained. The air was hot from the fires, and thick with ashes and dust. But the thundering waves of bombers had stopped.

  In a side street, in total disregard of licensing hours, a smaller pub had opened. “Drink it while it lasts,” the owner said, drawing beer as fast as possible for the thirsty firemen. Reflected firelight shone on the pub’s sign: “The World’s End.”

  Beer… Alcohol had calories; would it help me to recover and teleport out of here? I considered the idea languidly and rejected it. As tired as I was, it would probably just put me to sleep. Anyway, it had been several hours since I’d depleted my mental energy by applying too much topology. An aching back, sore shoulders and slightly scorched hands wouldn’t interfere with a fresh effort. I felt fairly sure that with Mr. M.’s help I would be able to bring the three of us forward into our own time.

  Fairly sure.

  There could be no harm in waiting a little longer. The bombing was over now, and soon we ought to hear the all-clear signal. I found that not only was I dubious about my own teleporting strength, I was also str
angely reluctant to leave the ruined streets where we’d lived through this night with the people of London. The people who could not and would not give up, no matter what Hitler threw at them. The people who – although they didn’t know it yet – had just withstood the final fury of the Blitz.

  Beside me, Lensky’s head dropped and he startled back into wakefulness. “It’s crazy,” he said, “but I kind of hate to abandon them now.”

  Hours ago I’d called him an egomaniac for thinking his single-handed efforts could make a difference in the middle of a world war. Now I had a different perspective. Perhaps what you accomplished didn’t matter; the important thing was that you had tried. All the same – “I know. But this isn’t our war. If we try to stay longer, with no contemporary papers and nobody to vouch for us, we’ll probably get interned as potential enemy spies. Besides – if there’s any good time to leave, this is it. The Blitz ends with this night. London won’t be attacked directly again until the V-1’s and V-2’s start landing.”

  “When does that start?”

  “I don’t remember. Last year of the war? Year before? Will and Colton would know.” I hadn’t taken time, during this night of bombs and fires, to tell him how I’d found him and how much we both owed to Will’s detective work. Now I told him how Ingrid had heard and repeated Chayyaputra’s taunting, and how Will had used his expertise in history and the puzzle-solving talents of a programmer to connect those veiled threats with this particular time and place.

  Lensky took a deep breath – and expelled it in a series of rasping coughs. The air was still full of burning sparks, and it stank of leaking gas and burnt rubber and wood ash and other things I did not want to think about. I needed to get Lensky back to where a modern doctor could check his lungs.

  “Mr. M.? Can you help me one more time?”

  “Naturally I can. I am not one to give way to my fatigue after such minor exertions.”

  He hadn’t been one to drag buckets of sand and water, either, or to stamp on stray embers. Well; travel with a turtle mage, put up with a turtle mage’s arrogance. I put my arm around Lensky’s waist and he draped one arm over my shoulders, holding me so tightly it almost hurt.

  Drifting smoke and embers obscured visibility, and in any case I was too tired to worry about upsetting outsiders. Anybody who had come through this night with sanity intact was surely steady enough to deal with a little thing like us disappearing before their eyes. I thought about the modern intersection, and about the dawn of the day after I’d arrived in London.

  ”Brouwer,” I said to help me call up the necessary image, and at the same time I opened my free hand and let stars stream into the transition.

  ***

  You probably have no idea how difficult it can be for two filthy, exhausted people to traverse London from Southwark to Heathrow Airport and then to check in for an international flight. Without baggage – which might have made us seem slightly more respectable – and without the opportunity to do more than rinse off the worst of the dust in a bathroom sink. Oh, sorry, a cloakroom or lavatory sink. Although why they call it a cloakroom I cannot imagine, since it seems to have nothing to do with cloaks. A pity, that; I could have used one to cover my dress. The Blitz had done enough damage, and the dress wasn’t improved by my pulling it over my head in a cloakroom cubicle and picking out the stitching that held our papers and money.

  As I did with the process of fitting a wedding dress, I shall spare you the details of our return. I only wish I could have been spared them. Suffice it to say that after far too many hours of shuffling forward in lines, showing passports and boarding passes, being questioned by various security types, being stuffed into airplanes, shuffling off airplanes, and standing in line to repeat the whole series, we found ourselves in Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. I was so tired by then that we had to take a cab to the condo; I couldn’t have teleported as much as a sugar packet.

  Once we got inside, Mr. M. promptly slithered into the shadows with a slight crunching sound. He had been loudly unhappy about having grit in his scales and now all he wanted was to be left alone with some oil and paper towels.

  I knew just how he felt. I had grit in places even more intimate.

  Lensky and I stripped down in the kitchen and threw our clothes into a black plastic garbage bag before sharing an extremely long shower and falling onto the bed. With my last shreds of consciousness I managed to telephone the office and tell Annelise that everything had worked out okay, we were back and basically unharmed, and we would get together with everybody for a debriefing when we were good and ready.

  Eventually, and much too soon, I registered that someone in the room was singing “There’ll be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover.” Croaking, rather.

  “I thought you were into classic rock now.”

  Mr. M. raised up his front twelve inches and preened. He was now very shiny. “I am, but I have been inspired by our recent experiences. Although,” he said meditatively, “‘Light My Fire’ might be appropriate.”

  “Stick with the bluebirds,” I suggested, and threw an arm over my eyes in an attempt to get back to sleep.

  I may have succeeded, because the next time I became aware of the world, Lensky was standing over me with a cup of coffee while Mr. M. zoomed around his shoulders, trying to dip his beak into it. “When did that turtle-snake of yours learn to fly?”

  I sat up and took the coffee. “We’ve all been able to do it for months now. Ingrid’s algorithm, remember? I suppose it was inevitable that he’d figure it out too.”

  “I,” said Mr. M., “do not use such petty mortal things as algorithms.”

  “Just for that,” I told him, “you’re not getting any of my coffee. Not. One. Drop.” He would have had to be extremely fast in any case. I drained the cup and handed it back to Lensky for a refill. I looked at him, bleary-eyed. “How come you are so disgustingly energetic and cheerful?”

  “I treat my body right and keep it in good condition,” he said, “unlike certain people whose idea of exercise is repeatedly hoisting a coffee cup. You should start jogging with me.”

  “I have too much respect for my knees to do that. I think you’re recovering faster because you didn’t have to do any of the heavy lifting. Teleporting, I mean.”

  “There is that,” he admitted.

  It appeared to be morning again, so in the fullness of time – that is, after I’d had another shower to remove the remaining grit from my hair – we went out to breakfast. I was relieved to find that somebody had retrieved Lensky’s car from where I’d abandoned it and put it in his parking space here. There might never be any need to discuss that part of the emergency with him.

  Huevos rancheros with a sufficient quantity of authoritative hot sauce always make it easier for me to face whatever is coming next. Too, I had suffered some long-term draining in 1941 from repeatedly applying topology to the very limits of my ability. I mopped up my eggs with tortillas and biscuits alternately. “I’m going to need a lot of food for the next few days,” I warned Lensky.

  “So what is new about that? Feeding you is already one of my major budget items. Are you planning to eat all the tortillas?”

  “Yes.” I moved the basket of tortillas over to my side of the table, just in case Lensky thought he was getting some of them.

  “I suppose,” I said after finishing off everything but the salt and pepper shakers, “I suppose we ought to be worrying about the Master of Ravens.” I looked wistfully at the small puddle of egg yolks remaining on my plate. They were too liquid to scoop up with my fork. “Are there any more tortillas?”

  “No.”

  “Biscuits?”

  “No. And I called in to the Center while you were still snoring luxuriously.”

  “I do not snore!”

  “Okay, you don’t snore. You just snuffle. Like a little pig. It’s actually kind of lovable. Ingrid told me that SCI is closed. That fire your impetuous friends started seems to have done more damage t
han they realized at the time. The grackles are acting normal and the Pandit says Shani has probably gone back to India. For the time being.”

  “Did you tell her that we would come in after breakfast?” I shoved my fork through the puddle of egg yolk, but couldn’t pick up enough to make it worthwhile.

  “I did. Shall we go?” He dropped some money on the table and stood up.

  “What’s the sudden hurry?”

  “I want to get you out of here before you embarrass yourself and me by licking the plate.”

  Our colleagues were about evenly divided between relief that the rescue mission had succeeded and concern that the things we had done in the past might have changed history. I thought that worry was silly.

  “Obviously we haven’t changed history, we’re back here and everything’s the same.”

  “There could be long-term effects we don’t know about yet,” Will fretted.

  “The same could be said of Ingrid and Colton’s little excursion to Britfield in 1957,” I pointed out. “That didn’t change anything and I betcha this didn’t change anything either. I think history is a lot more robust than you think it is.”

  “You saved the Elephant and Castle pub,” Will said. “That’s a big change.”

  “Maybe someone else would have done it if we hadn’t happened to be there.”

  Will shook his head. “It’s known that it burned down that night. Look, there’s a picture of the wreckage in this book.” He set a heavy coffee-table book down on Annelise’s desk and flipped through the pages, looking for the picture he remembered. Suddenly he stopped flipping.