by Amber Savage
The journey was uneventful. The usual traffic along the six-hundred-furlong highland-stretch consisted of traders returning from Inverness or making their way to it. The last stretch of the road beyond the dense forests paved with gravel and grass was the most scenic.
From the descending path, the shore of the eastern waters came into view as did the Inverness Castle, home to Lord Barnacle.
It had been six years since Bronia was last here. During that time, the city had grown. The streets were crowded with traders and shoppers, and lined with structures built to house inhabitants or hawk wares. The effects of prosperity were now woven into the urban landscape that sprawled inland from the edge of the cliffs.
Progress and prosperity could be seen on the faces of those who lined the streets and the extravagance of the castle that loomed large over the city.
Set on the cliff’s edge overlooking the bluest waters, Lord Barnacle’s symbol of wealth was on full display. He had levied taxes on his clan and used it to build a castle to match his ego.
It had gone from a four-cornered square castle of humble design to a pentagonal monstrosity with five outer towers punctuating the apexes of the curtain walls encasing the outer bailey and four inner towers at the corner of the wall encompassing the inner bailey.
Red banners carrying the Barnacle insignia of the golden hawk adorned all nine towers and flapped in the afternoon breeze. That was not the kind of mindset that formed the cauldron of Bronia’s thoughts.
Her family and her clan had always adopted humble and strong values. The prosperity of the Magnahul clan was shared and used to build for their shared future, not hoarded and used to build individual egos.
She left her judgment on those hills as she rode with a singular mind. Her objective was clear. She had cast aside her trepidation of bringing Hagan along. This girly man had held up well during the journey and had not proven to be a distraction thus far. Her surge of feelings for him yesterday was under control. While she could not understand the nature of those feelings, she traded uncertainty for resolve and proceeded with the mission.
They rode to the stables outside town, rested their steeds, and walked the rest of the way. They passed shop after shop, row after row of the most luxurious Damask fabric - from table cloths to drapes and horse blankets for the rich.
Traders from the known world and unpronounceable cultures traveled to Inverness to purchase these handlooms and transport them back by ship or carriage. They came from as nearby as Wales or as far as Germania. Unlike some of the other cities in the Isles that circulated wealth amongst themselves, the wealth of Inverness came from foreign lands.
The traders frequented several establishments that offered food, wine, and company. Some were discrete, others were brazen. The inn they were headed to was the former.
The six riders entered without fanfare, below the notice of heady patrons. It was not uncommon to see out-of-town riders in Inverness. Diversity had become ingrained and never triggered curiosity.
The six riders dispersed, three moving to the end of the hall and setting themselves up at a long table. Bronia and two other riders, both expert knife fighters, scouted the layout and moved to one that offered a view of the entire layout.
Hagan sat with the men in the first group. He had battled feelings that rose within him, not understanding their origin or their meaning. He decided to put them aside and place Bronia out of his thoughts. He had to either calculate his predicament or stay in the moment and navigate the challenge that it was certain to present. He chose the wiser of the two options.
The two men with Hagan were soldiers, not knife fighters like the men who accompanied Bronia. The three men settled with their drinks, something Hagan did not know how to process once it hit his lips - an ale made from various berries.
It was sweet and had the viscosity more of honey or nectar than a glass of beer. Once it hit Hagan’s palette, he could not bring himself to separate the wooden goblet from his parched lips.
The two men with him took their time with the drink. It apparently was something one drank at pace. Every move and demeanor of the stranger indicated to them that he was not from the Isles, much less, Scotland and certainly not the Highlands. Worst of all were the things he said and the accent he said it in. “Strange laddie” was the consensus.
It was not until they had a few rounds of drinks and the stew Inverness was famous for, did she spot the man she wanted to speak with. He walked in with a man whom she did not recognize.
The two men entered without any attention paid to themselves nor did they mind anyone who was already within. Bronia watched as they sat close to the table occupied by Hagan and the two soldiers.
She passed a glance at them and indicated with her eyes that they were the targets. The larger of the two soldiers next to Hagan understood her intentions and while Hagan and the smaller soldier maintained a conversation, the third man trained his ears toward the two men who had just taken their seat.
Two more men entered. Bronia recognized both. One had frequently met with her father and even had an audience with the Ridires of the Endecagon, her father’s war council.
Soon, three more arrived and all proceeded to join the four already seated. Six of the seven men were Magnahul sleepers. Bronia studied the body language of the sleepers.
They seemed to pay respect to the unknown seventh man. From where she sat, she could see that his outer garment shielded the hilt of a dagger.
He was dressed well, in rich fabric and well-groomed. He did not seem like a member of the soldier class, but at the same time, he possessed eyes that had not held warmth in them for some time.
He had the markings of an assassin or an advisor, maybe both. Seeing him on the streets of Inverness would not have solicited a second look because he fit in well with the rich, but placed in the company of sleepers who were chosen to mix with the crowd and not know each other, the picture bore a resemblance to a plot.
The prognosis did not sit well with the heir of Magnahul. Any plot against the clan would surely include a plot against her father personally.
“First Glasgow, now Inverness,” she thought. “What had precipitated a rise against the man and the clan that had been the architect of prosperity that all these people obviously enjoyed?”
The conversation lasted for less than the time it would take to ride hard to Anderhal Bay. Before the men left, the one who had been leading the conversation gave each of his six guests a heavy pouch. Bronia was not certain what it was.
“Was it some form of payoff?”
She signaled her soldiers to follow them. Hagan would accompany one of the men. Each Magnahul soldier was to follow one sleeper, while Bronia would follow the man of mystery. Once they had observed enough, all were to return to the inn.
The sleepers moved off in different directions, eventually entering meager accommodations across the coastal town. Only one of the sleepers was not followed. Bronia did not have enough men to follow all of them.
She was a skilled assassin in addition to being a powerful tactician like her father. She had already put more men in their grave than any man in her company.
Magnahul had made certain of that.
He wanted to raise an heir that would not hesitate to do what needed to be done. The ability to rise to the occasion is best learned not only by the ability to kill, but to do so justly.
Mere mortals were taught to have the responsibility of judge, jury, and executioner reside in different souls. It was too much power and too little wisdom to reside within one man.
Magnahul was raising the only person who could do all three. That meant she had to wield discipline and prioritize wisdom over knowledge.
Decapitating her uncle in Glasgow was necessary. Not just because he had betrayed an alliance forged by her grandparents, but by his lust for whatever had been promised to him when he agreed to mount an attack on his kin.
These thoughts circled her mind as she blended in with the people and shadowed
her quarry. His destination was not secret for long. The man had no idea he was followed and walked directly to Inverness Castle. Bronia hung back and stood at a merchant’s stall pretending to negotiate on one of his rugs.
The merchant caught her looking at the man who just entered the castle.
“Handsome, isn’t he?”
She recoiled, initially, but found that the conversation would lean to her benefit.
“Yes,” she said as she pretended to giggle, while at the same time thinking how stupid all that was.
“That’s Vicomte de Meaux, nephew to the King of France,” the merchant said with a cheeky smile.
Bronia chuckled, paid for her rug and returned to the inn - discarding the rug along the way. The rest of her company staggered their arrival in short order. Each had marked the location of their sleeper.
All had family, except one who lived the furthest away by himself.
“He’s the one,” she said coldly.
Hagan could not bear the thought of what that meant.
“We leave now.”
The six of them moved swiftly to the stables, retrieved their horses and relocated themselves to the sleeper’s humble shack on the edge of Inverness. Two soldiers rushed in silently, even though there were no neighbors within hearing distance. They tied the treasonous sleeper to a chair and covered his face with a rag.
Bronia walked in, surveyed the shack, and began her interrogation. Two soldiers stood on either side of the seated captive.
“What is your name?” she started hoarsely.
“Who are you?” the man quivered.
Bronia’s soldier pounded his fist into the captives clavicle with full force. The sound of it cracking was heard by everyone in the room and outside. The man burst into pain.
“Pay attention,” Bronia shouted.
“What is your name?”
“Argyle... Argyle.. my name is Argyle!” He screamed. The pain had focused his mind and told him who was really in charge of that humble shack.
The second soldier pounded his fist into the captive’s other clavicle. The scream was louder and longer this time. The pain, undoubtedly unbearable. Both collarbones were broken and sliced into the man’s surrounding muscle. He approached the threshold of consciousness.
Bronia dumped a pail of water over him. The cold and the sudden suffocation reflex tuned him to greater dangers than the source of his pain.
“My name is Argyle Blakie.”
“What is your employment?”
“I help a weaver in town. I take his finished cloth to the market and bring him his threads.”
Bronia moved around the house and saw a hay bed. She moved the blanket and found the pouch Vicomte du Meaux had given him at the inn.” She picked it up and opened it. It contained twelve ducats. That was the equivalent to a soldier’s wages for a year.
“What could this weaver’s assistant have to offer that was so valuable?” she thought.
“How do you come upon so many Ducat?!” she screamed. “You stole it,” her voice turning accusatory.
“No, no. I did not steal it. I earned it.”
“How?”
“I cannot tell,” he said, forgetting his predicament.
Both the soldiers simultaneously dug into his broken bone. Once the collar bone is broken, no more force is needed to inflict excruciating pain on the captive.
He wailed in pain, spewing tears from his eyes and spittle from his mouth. Even once he agreed to talk the soldiers did not release their hold. It was their way of teaching him a lesson. It was the last time he declined to answer Bronia’s questions.
“I earned it by giving false information to my lord.”
Bronia pretended to not know who he meant. “Why would giving a weaver false information be worth so much?” she asked.
“My real master is Lord Adelstan Magnahul. I am here to watch developments, then report to him. There are fifteen of us here.”
“Fifteen?” She thought. They only saw six at the inn.
“So you are paid to give poor information to Magnahul?”
“Yes.”
“What did Magnahul ask you to report to him?
“Everything that Lord Barnacle did.”
“What has he done that you are supposed to not tell Magnahul?”
The servant hesitated. He knew he was caught up in something above his ability to comprehend. He had done it just for the money.
“King Philip has made a pact with Lord Barnacle and troops have been arriving since last month and making camp north.”
“Where?”
“Moray Firth.”
“Did all fifteen agree to misinform Magnahul?”
“No, only six so far. Four who disagreed were killed. He will meet with five more this night at the inn.”
That’s all Bronia Magnahul needed to hear. She thrust her dagger into his heart whispering, “For the crime of treason against your lord, I find you guilty and sentence you to death. As executioner, I cast my blade into your heart. May God have mercy on your soul.”
Chapter 4
Anomaly
A decade had passed since Hagan jumped, and five years since the anomalies started to become apparent. His original timeline had undergone numerous changes that Pietre was observing.
Gray was not able to keep track of all the changes, partly because the changes were different. Changes in the same timeline could be tracked using the Pietre set of formulae. It was the one he had won the Nobel prize for.
The problem was that time trunks were colliding. While Gray could track changes in alterations on the same time trunk, changes that occurred now could not be tracked and thus showed up as anomalies.
Pietre had to formulate a new algorithm and increase the quantum ability of the Gray infrastructure. To do that they had to alter past events by inventing technology that was then sent back in time to create a compound effect to accelerate technological advances.
The Time Keeper’s council was not easily convinced that the action would be lead to the best outcome. The expedited technological jump made Pietre pinpoint the epicenter of the changes that were taking place.
While those changes were mostly positive, the wise thing to do would be to keep the timelines from crashing. To do that they would have to locate Hagan and the rip in the substrate of the universe that was allowing the time trunks to crash.
“Gray.” invoked Pietre.
“Ready.”
“There is an increase in your processing speed, yes?”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Can you calculate how long it would take you, with your current power, to calculate the point in the timeline Hagan cold have landed if all 56 pounds of the Zarcionian Sapphire were used?”
“35 microseconds with new processing speed.”
“How long did it take you prior to the upgrade?”
“Three days, four hours, 34 minutes and 10.34 seconds.”
“It was worth the upgrade.” Pietre thought.
“Compare the temporal logs. Find the first changes caused by Hagan’s Anomaly.”
“None.”
“How is that possible?”
The computer went on to remind the professor that this problem was not the same as the simple matter of jumping back along one timeline or within one time trunk. The Grandfather Paradox that Pietre had solved assumed a single time trunk.
A time trunk contains all the possible timelines that began at the point of its big bang. A parallel time trunk is one that is not within the same trunk of time that emanated from our big bang.
This time trunk proceeded from a different big bang. That time trunk from a completely different event singularity is what is crashing into the time trunk of this universe.
Pietre paused to think. Gray was right. No matter how far one traveled back in time they would not be able to find the genesis of the timeline that Hagan now occupied. It was two different singularities and two separate big bangs that resulted in the different time trun
ks.
“The energy to move from one trunk to the next would be unfathomable,” thought Pietre.
“Will that time trunk displace ours, or will it merge?”
According to calculations, Gray predicted that it would displace the current timeline and the full displacement would be done within the next eighteen standard years. Going back in time would not solve the problem. No matter where they jumped to in the time trunk, it would still be equivalent to eighteen years.
Chapter 5
Encampments
Hagan stood by the horses as Bronia interrogated Argyle, cross-examined him, and judged him. Then, executed him.
The sensibilities of a man used to the refined ways of the 25th century where law and order were a matter for the courts, were sufficiently offended. He knew his place and when to speak but these actions seemed brutal and scathed his moral fiber causing tension inside.
He said nothing as they made their way to Moray Firth. The soldiers that had landed from France had encamped there. Bronia wanted to see for herself. It was a half hour’s ride.
To her surprise, Hagan asked to ride his own horse and promised that he would not slow them down.
He had observed how the men he rode behind controlled and maneuvered the horses they rode. He was a quick learner and the trip up to Inverness had given him sufficient time to learn. If he could jump almost a thousand years, he could gallop across the wilderness.
The seven riders set off to the northeast. Their destination was a point in the wilderness, south of Moray Firth. Bronia had a plan to spy on the troops.
But they would have to go on foot.
Horses were not known to be stealthy. Beyond a creek, they tied their horses and began their journey toward the invader’s camp on foot. It took more than an hour, but the journey was well worth the effort.
They had come by outposts in the forests where scouts perched on trees were on the look-out. The two soldiers who had spent much of the day with Hagan were two of her strongest archers. They even used special bows that each designed themselves.
Each shot they made at their treetop nemesis was a direct hit that resulted in a gravity-induced introduction to the forest floor.