by Amber Savage
Crashing Time Trunks
Book 2 - Heartbeats & War Drums
by
Amber Savage
Crashing Time Trunks
Book 2 - Heartbeats & War Drums
Copyright © 2020 Amber Savage.
All rights reserved. Including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter 1: The Sin of Kin
Chapter 2: Gray
Chapter 3: Inverness
Chapter 4: Anomaly
Chapter 5: Encampments
Chapter 6: The Emissary
Chapter 7: Inquisition
Chapter 8: Solution
Chapter 9: Truth
Sneak Peek
About the Author
Prologue
The wings of time carry our minds
Deep within the castles of old
Armed with the notion of love and time
We advance the cause of our soul
Nature and conflict bedfellows entwined
Overcome by the rational few
Fear and greed like effects of wine
Uncontrollable, inconsolable, and true.
Forgiveness blunts the irrational act
Moving to erase all pain
Dual paths of history once intact
Now collide to erase all gain.
Chapter 1
The Sin of Kin
Glasgow Castle lay in ruins.
Clive Anstruthers, lord of the castle and head of the Anstruthers clan remained still on his throne. Bronia Magnahul’s blade had relieved him of his head. With parts of the castle still burning and the treasury vacated of its contents, the Anstruthers stronghold lay decimated. Neither wealth nor power resided within its stone walls.
Lord Adelstan Magnahul, leader of his clan and ruler of the Western Highlands, had not provoked the battle. He had no intention of mounting an attack on the Anstruthers, much less assassinate the leader of its clan.
Clive was once a close friend and an ally whom Magnahul believed in. Trade between the two clans had developed and the prosperity that ensued had paid for the stone and labor that stood as Glasgow Castle.
Magnahul believed in three things – information, strength, and the distribution of wealth. To that end, he had personally trained a legion of spies loyal to him and placed them in Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh, Inverness, and Portree.
These were the strongholds of all the major clans that controlled the Land of the Scots. He also maintained spies in England, Wales, and Ireland.
He could trust each and every one of his sleepers to report an impending assault, but he had heard nothing from them before the Anstruthers attack. Either his sleepers were dead, had been turned, or the enemy had planned the assault so well that news of it had not filtered through the ranks.
The shrewd leader summoned his heir, Bronia, to his tent. Among all the lords across Scotland, England and Wales, Magnahul had not wasted a single coin on elaborate castles and fortresses. While comfortable, his tent had none of the trappings of rich castles.
Bronia entered the tent without evidence of ware. The last three days had tested her mettle, and it had been deemed worthy of the Magnahul crest.
Today she was to take five men and ride hard to Inverness, seventy miles northeast of Anderhal Bay.
A lazy cantor would cost her all of the daylight, but Bronia was not given to sightseeing. She planned on making it within two hours on her trusted Highland Pony. Her mission was to locate the sleepers, observe them, and ascertain the measure of their allegiance. Although they may have had nothing to do with the rise of Anstruthers against Magnahul, prudence demanded tests of loyalty.
She listened with her ears and eyes to the instructions and the undertones of her father’s design. She had learned, since childhood, that her father spoke with more than just words. It was the same when he had given her the order to remove Anstruthers from his throne, and his head from his neck.
It was only Bronia’s nineteenth year. She had already visited the Vikings in the north, the Gauls in the east, and the natives of Alkebulan in the south.
Her view of the world was shaped by her extensive travel, and by her father’s grand design of uniting the tribes, clans, and cities of the Isle under one flag. It would be hers one day if she succeeded. But, her motivating factor to do as he said in the pursuit of that grand plan was not greed nor lust for power. It was to fulfill her clan and family name.
She was the sole heir to the Magnahul name. Her younger brother had died in the winter of his third year when she was five. Her mother died a year after that and her father never betrayed the memory of his wife by vowing himself to another.
For the short time between her first set of memories and the time her mother passed, she remembered the bond Adelstan Magnahul had with Ava Anstruthers. It was as uncommon as it was powerful.
Husband and wife had come together to stand for something greater.
The reality that loomed was that Bronia would not carry the Magnahul name once she married. That event was inescapable, even if somewhat distant on the horizon.
When she eventually sat at the head of the Table of the Elders, it would be the first time in a thousand years that that seat would not be occupied by a Magnahul, and never would be from then on.
Instead of just leaving his heir in a chair, he wanted to leave his legacy on a land that was once pulling apart at the seams with constant battles.
He had spent the lion’s share of his life bringing peace under one banner. But the events of the recent past had put that in jeopardy.
While the failed Anstruthers assault was now ink in history books, only the unwise would think that that was the end of it.
“Leave at once. Ascertain the integrity and state of the sleepers in Inverness.”
“At once, m’lord.”
“Take the newcomer with you as your sixth man, and observe his behavior.”
“But, m’lord, he presents a distraction that I cannot afford at this time,” said a perplexed Bronia.
Bronia should have known better. Magnahul never repeated his commands nor uttered that which he had not fully considered. But her discomfort at the sight of the newcomer and the feelings that stirred deep within her caused a reaction that was a shock to her.
It was the first time she had second-guessed him.
Bronia took her leave when it was clear that no alteration to the command was forthcoming. She moved rapidly, in mission-mode, to the detention tent and ordered the guards to prepare Rylen Hagan for travel. He was to be given armor and horse, but no weapons.
By the time the rest of her entourage mounted their steeds, Hagan was presented to her with a complication. The stranger did not know how to ride a horse. It was unheard of that a man in the Highlands of Scotland was ignorant of riding. If Bronia possessed a gentler heart, it may have been cause for levity.
But she was on a mission and now strapped with dead weight.
She looked at Hagan who was still trying to search his thoughts. He was grateful to be out of confinement and decided to make the most of it, promi
sing that ignorance would not impede pace. It seemed his arrogance had made the jump back in time with him.
Chapter 2
Gray
Kravitz Pietre paced in his office. He could not locate his protege, Rylen Hagan. Something had gone horribly wrong. Not only was Hagan missing, so was the pod that he was testing. It would be inconceivable to think that Hagan had tested the pod or made a jump without telling him. But it wasn’t impossible.
Pietre accessed his terminal using the voice interface.
“Locate Rylen Hagan.”
“Unable.”
“When was the last record of his presence?”
“Yesterday. 11.48 pm. Rylen Hagan’s last known location was his office.”
“What time did he leave?” asked Pietre.
“He did not leave.” was the reply.
“Is Rylen Hagan in the building.”
“No.” Replied Gray.
“If Hagan did not leave, and he is not in the building, postulate the possibilities.”
“Standby.”
Pietre initiated a new session with the computer.
“Access simulation models for the Pod.”
“Accessed.”
“What was the astral horolog’s error the last time it was calibrated?”
Gray took some time then came back with the response that it was only 66.7% accurate. With only 66% accuracy, Hagan could have landed anywhere. While the other computations were being executed, Pietre decided to do some qualitative thinking for himself.
His friend had been distraught and would seem that the logical alternative for him would be to go back to 1987 and alter what was corrected. Pietre knew his friend. That would not be something Hagan would do. It was reckless.
“His other option would be to find Clarissa,” Pietre thought.
Hagan had found the love of his life and he may have become desperate to find her, whatever the cost. The only logical explanation that came to the mind of the hyper-logical scientist was that Hagan must have gone back to be with her. Otherwise, he would have been back by now, with no one wise to his plan. Since he was not back yet, there were two possibilities. He got stuck or he decided to stay.
Gray came back with its analysis.
“There is only one logical conclusion. Hagan has used a transportation device, temporal or spatial, and jumped beyond my ability to detect. Since I have access to all living and non-living things, I can only determine that he is not in this timeline,” Gray said in the feminine voice that Pietre had chosen for his voice user interface.
“What if Hagan had jumped with the pod? Could that explain how he went beyond your ability to detect?”
“Yes,” came the answer quickly.
“Which is more likely, Gray,” Pietre asked, “that he chose to stay behind in Clarissa’s timeline, or that he can’t get back?”
“Standby.”
As Gray chewed on the factors that could answer Pietre’s question, Pietre put himself in his friend’s shoes. Of all he had seen, there was love between the two. “How would I act if I found the woman who is my soulmate?”
He had an idea.
“Gray, while you chew on the last question, tell me, do you have records of what the pod’s final setting was before it disappeared?”
“Only of the setting that was fed to me to run the simulation.”
“Open a simulation, Gray.”
“Opening.”
Pietre waited.
“Ready for parameters.”
“Set the pod in the simulation to the last known settings. Take into consideration the amount of fuel it had left and the state of the astral horolog. Now calculate where he could possibly jump to.”
“To be more effective, I need a date that he would jump to,” replied Gray.
Pietre shook his head. He thought for a few minutes. “Access Hagan’s records, what was the last temporal log he accessed?”
“He was searching for Clarissa Abernathy’s last known ancestors in the adjusted timeline.”
“What year did he find them in?”
“2313”
“What month?”
“Professor Pietre, I also have an answer to your previous question about which scenario is more likely, would you like to know that now?”
“Yes, please.”
“There is an 86.88% chance that he can’t get back and a 27% chance he chose not to come back. As for the month, he set the horolog to March.”
Pietre continued to run the simulations, narrowing down the possibilities with each iteration.
“Run the simulation with those parameters.”
“Calculating.”
It took three days for Gray to work with the data. In the meantime, Pietre realized that to better pinpoint his efforts it would be good to know how much of fuel Hagan took with him. The only fuel that was used in the mobile pods were unpolished Zarcionian Sapphires, mined from the moon.
Pietre checked the vault for the stock of unpolished Zarcionian Sapphires. “Gray, check the store for the quantity of Zarcionian Sapphire.”
“Done. There are 32,492.9 pounds in the vault.”
“How much was there before Hagan vanished?”
“32,548.9 pounds. 56 pounds are unaccounted for.”
Three days passed, the results of the simulation were inconclusive. The range of possibilities was too wide. The calculations determined that it could be anywhere for 100 to 600 years. That was too wide a field to scour for a pod.
Pietre kept thinking of what he could do to narrow the search.
That year the Nobel committee did award the prize for physics to Rylen Hagan. It was awarded posthumously. Everyone assumed Hagan was dead, but Pietre did not give up. Three years had gone by, and Pietre was still running simulations on Gray to locate his friend.
The mystery vexed him deeply. From a professional perspective, it tore at his intellect that he was not able to solve a mystery and that his friend may be in jeopardy because of it. From an emotional perspective, he missed his friend.
After five years of failed attempts, he needed to get away. He had not taken a vacation since the day his friend disappeared and Nadia wanted to take her husband away from the Time Complex to shift his attention from the problem that consumed him.
They decided to travel to the highlands of India – to the ancient city of Darjeeling. It used to be the center of the world’s finest tea production but that had long since changed. There was still some tea grown by private farmers there but nowhere in the quantities that were sufficient to supply the world the way it once did.
From the humble ashram that sat perched on the summit, the view of Mount Everest was sobering. It humbled the mind to be in the presence of something of such magnitude. For a man like Pietre, having conquered time, a God complex had infused his psyche and soul and served to obscure his heart.
But now, in the shadow of imposing greatness, humility returned.
Nadia and Kravitz spent their days breathing in the mountain air. The surrounding forests had thinned and the soil had changed, but it still served as a retreat and respite for the heart and soul.
The tea was unlike anything Kravitz had tasted. Food from his replicator at home was designed in a lab and manufactured in a factory. It had been the way for more than three centuries since the time naturally-grown food had become scarce in the wake of climate shifts.
This tea he drank was brewed from the miniature leaves that were left to naturally ferment and oxidize. No lab was involved. No factory had touched it. The experience altered him as he sat in the shade and watched the granite, once covered in glaciers before him.
He felt clarity descend and was compelled to look to the heavens. Clear blue sky, gray granite, and …. the glimmer of a snow-capped peak. He didn’t understand.
The world’s current climate was not suited to have snow at any elevation. Global warming had raised the temperature across the entire globe and heated it from the surface to fifty thousand feet.
S
omething was different.
He stared at it, allowing his mind to dive deeper into the present moment. “This would have been a better future,” he thought. He looked at his wife, who seemed happy, and more importantly, content. He walked over to the edge of the shade. A barrier stood between him and the steep drop. He invoked Gray.
“Gray, are there any anomalies in the temporal integrity?”
“Yes.”
“What is the nature of the anomaly?”
“There seems to be an alternate time trunk crashing into ours.”
Time trunks are groupings of all possible timelines that emanate from a particular singularity - the big bang. Alternate time trunks emerge from alternate singularities. That means that its history differs from our history from the very first existence of nothingness.
“What is the consequence of that?”
“Unknown.”
“Is it possible to find the source of the anomaly?”
“Yes. It will take some time.”
“Understood.”
Pietre could feel it in his bones. The snow cap on Everest’s peak was an indication that something significant had changed. The only person who could cause a temporal anomaly of this scale would be Hagan.
As concerning as colliding time trunks can be, Pietre was more excited that his friend was alive at some point and in some time trunk. If he had died between jumps then he would be lost forever and that had worried Pietre the most. But since there was a disturbance in the time trunk, he was certain it was too great a coincidence for it to not be his old friend, alive and well.
He had to double his efforts to locate him - which, he didn’t know at that time, also meant fixing the colliding time trunks.
Chapter 3
Inverness
The six Magnahul warriors, dressed as common folk, and their temporal guest arrived in Inverness with the sun passed its zenith. Bronia had not allowed Hagan’s ignorance of riding to slow them down.
The five men who accompanied her took turns carrying him and brought the sixth horse as a backup.