by Bob Mayer
Scout removed her top hand from the orb and pointed to the left. A line of gold flowed from her fingertips to a spot five feet away. Spread. Turning from gold to deep black. A Gate was forming.
“Stop!” Pandora’s command cut through the screams and cacophony of battle. She was leading the Immortals in an all-out charge. Everything seemed to be slowing down.
The Gate stabilized.
“Come with me,” Scout said to Leonidas, taking a step toward the Gate, sphere in one hand, the other toward the King. “Come.”
Leonidas smiled. He flipped the Naga around, seven-headed snake hilt toward Scout. “You’ll need this. My destiny is here.”
Scout’s fingers curled around the haft as Leonidas spun about, bringing up a sword he’d scavenged. Pandora’s Naga blade hit it, sliced through, but that was enough of a delay.
Scout was gone, the Gate snapping shut behind her.
Newburgh, New York, 1783 A.D.
“WHAT DID I FAIL TO SEE?” Eagle was utterly confounded by Caldwell’s statement. So much so that the sword pointed at him was almost a secondary consideration.
Almost.
“Doesn’t matter now. You’re done.” Caldwell pulled his arm back to stab Eagle in the heart when there was a solid thud.
Hercules’ frying pan slammed into the side of Caldwell’s head, the food in it flying.
The officer dropped to the ground.
“Oh, my dear God,” Hercules whispered. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to. Lord forgive me. I’m a dead man.”
Eagle gritted his teeth, pushing the pain from his shoulder back as he got to his feet. He grabbed onto Caldwell’s coat with his good arm. “Help me.”
Hercules dropped the pan and took hold.
Together they dragged the body across the grass toward the dark tree line.
“What have you done?” A woman’s voice asked as they pulled Caldwell into the cover of the trees.
Eagle let go of the body, half faint from the effort. He saw Nancy come forward, look at the body, then at Hercules who was in a state of shock. “What did you do old man? What did you do? You’re gonna have to run with me now.” She glanced at Eagle. “You’re pure trouble. Pure trouble.” Then another practicality hit her. “Where’s my food?” she asked Hercules.
Which explained the frying pan, Eagle thought. What had he missed?
“I’m a dead man,” Hercules sat down, burying his head in his hands.
“What are you doing out here?” Eagle asked Nancy as he knelt next to Caldwell’s body.
“Finishing what I started,” she said. “Getting out of here. Uncle Harkless bringing me some victuals from the dinner. Now we’re all dead. You a storm of trouble.”
She had the bag, which had been awaiting the contents of the frying pan. A small satchel, several scrolls of paper poking out.
“You still have those papers?” Eagle said. “Why—”
“These be new ones to buy my way out of this place,” Nancy said. “All the way to England.”
Eagle took a slow, deep breath. “Who gave them to you?”
“That man this fool just done killed,” Nancy said.
“He gave you papers before, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
Eagle’s finger was on Caldwell’s neck. “He isn’t dead.”
“Oh, no,” Hercules said. “Oh, no. He’ll be seeing us all hung.”
Eagle reached toward Nancy. “Let me see what you have.”
“Why?”
“Cause you don’t know what you’re doing,” Eagle said. “You bring the wrong papers to the British, they’ll hang you.”
“Why would they?” Nancy was confused, but passed the bag to him.
Eagle began to scan the documents.
“Since when do you read?” Nancy asked. Hercules was moaning something now, over and over.
Letters to Washington about various topics, military and political. Even a few pieces of personal correspondence. But from what Eagle could tell, nothing of history-changing proportions. The speech had been made. The coup averted. If Caldwell’s real mission here was to get Nancy to bring this to the British, and the first attempt had been foiled even before Eagle arrived and those papers confiscated, why would he—
“Nancy,” Eagle said, focusing on the one constant. He closed his eyes and accessed the download.
“What?”
Edith was thorough, very thorough. The records of every slave Washington had ever owned, laid out on a spreadsheet, much like prized cattle. Nancy was listed there. And then one year she wasn’t there. But not this year. The records indicated that she was sold in 1785. Where? To whom?
“I need get going,” Nancy said, grabbing her bag back. She kicked Hercules. “Come on, you fool. You got no choice now. Got to run. You too,” she added, looking at Eagle. “Even the old General will hang you for hitting a white man. No black can ever do a thing against a white without paying in blood or life.”
Eagle stood up. Nancy turned to leave and he grabbed her arm.
“Nancy. Wait.”
“What?” She jerked her arm out of his grip and he gasped in pain.
“You can’t run away.”
“I can’t not run away now. This fool saw to that.”
“Hercules,” Eagle said. “Get up. Take Nancy back.”
“You’re crazy,” Nancy said. “You see this?” She shoved her foot at Caldwell. “People gonna miss him. He wakes up, goes back then—”
“He won’t be waking up,” Eagle said.
That gave Nancy paused. “What you plan on doing?”
“Don’t worry.” Eagle said. “Both of you go back.”
“I’m not going back,” Nancy said. “I got my ticket and I’m going. My back is on fire. Not going to be a slave no more. Can’t do it. Can’t do it for another minute. No way for a person to live.”
“It isn’t,” Eagle agreed. “That’s why you have to stay.”
Nancy looked at him, dark eyes glinting in the growing glow from the Cantonment as night began to close around them.
“You’re talking foolish again.”
Eagle put a hand on her shoulder. “You said I was crazy earlier, correct?”
“You’re scrambled in the head,” she said.
“I am. I have visions. You have to stay because of your son.”
“My son? I got no son. Got no husband. I won’t ever bring a child into this world to be a slave. That’s the worst sin in the world. Worse than killing this piece of trash here.” She kicked Caldwell’s unconscious body, taking some satisfaction in finally getting to strike out against a white person.
“You’ll have a husband and you’ll have a son,” Eagle said. “He’ll be important. I’ve seen it. In a vision.”
“How can a black boy, a slave, be important?” Nancy said.
“He won’t be a slave all his life,” Eagle said. “He’ll be free. He’ll write a book. An important book. I can’t tell you any more than that. But you have to trust me.”
“You want me to go back, put my chains back on for a book? You’re crazier than Uncle Harkless.”
“Both of you go back,” Eagle said. “You try running, they’ll catch you. Once they know Caldwell’s dead and find his body, you won’t get far. You know that. Every sheriff, every militia, every white man for a hundred miles around will be hunting you. And when they get you, and they will get you, they’ll hang you.”
Nancy looked down at Caldwell. “But he ain’t dead.”
“He will be,” Eagle said, picking up Caldwell’s sword.
“You’re crazy,” Nancy said. “You can’t kill him.”
“I can and I will. And then they’ll come for me. You’ll both be safe if you go back now.” Eagle pressed it home. “Take Uncle Harkless back. Once they realize I’m gone and put that together with the confrontation between Caldwell and me earlier? They’ll have no doubt I killed him. Give me the papers, too.”
“How are you going to get away?” Nancy ask
ed, her resolve weakening in the face of reality.
“Don’t worry about that,” Eagle said. “As you said. All of this is on me. I’ll bear the burden.”
Hercules stood, having listened, even through his horror, figuring the angles like a man who’d survived his entire life by seeing them. “You’re taking care of this?” He indicated Caldwell.
“He’s on me,” Eagle said. “You saved me. Gave me my life. I’m giving you yours back.”
Hercules turned to Nancy. “He right, Nancy. You won’t make five miles before they run you down.”
“Go.” Eagle pointed with his good arm back to the Cantonment. “That meeting will be breaking up soon. Caldwell will be missed.”
Nancy looked uncertain. Eagle got close to her, leaned over to whisper in her ear. “I’m giving you hope. Not for you. But for your son and millions of our brothers and sisters. Your son’s book will help lead to freedom for all our people.” He reached into her satchel and pulled Washington’s papers out.
“How can one book do that?” Nancy asked.
“How can the Bible keep people in chains but also free them in their heads?” Eagle asked in return.
“You got that right,” Nancy said. “But . . .” She turned her head, her eyes but inches from his. There were tears in them. “Only if the boy will be free one day. That’s the only way. Only if he’ll be free one day. You gotta promise me that.”
“He will be,” Eagle said. “I promise you. On my life.”
Hercules tugged on her arm. “Come on.”
They moved toward the light of camp, but Nancy paused just before they left the trees and looked back at Eagle. “What’s your real name?”
It had been so long since he’d used it, giving it up when he joined the Nightstalkers that Eagle had to actually think for a moment. He smiled, all the pieces falling into place. “Josiah. My name is Josiah.”
Eagle watched them scurry back to slavery, feeling the weight of the moment and the hope for the future. Then he looked at Caldwell. He almost wished the preacher would come back to consciousness, to know his fate.
But there was no time to wait on that satisfaction. Eagle placed the papers on top of the body.
Eagle killed him with a single thrust through the papers into heart. He left the sword in the body and stepped back. In just a few seconds the body collapsed on itself, to ash, and then to nothing. Leaving the sword standing in the dirt, Washington’s paper pinned under it.
Eagle he turned about, away from the Cantonment. He began walking, cradling his bad arm with the other. Long strides at first. But as he covered more distance, the blood continued to seep out of the bullet wound, pushing past Hercules’ axle grease. The shock of being shot, of all that had happened in such a short time span, began to take a toll. His strides became shorter and slower.
Eagle almost fell, half unconscious. He shook his head. Something had alerted him. Then he heard it. The distant bay of hounds on the scent.
How much longer? Eagle wondered. He moved faster, but the terrain grew steep. Storm King Mountain, Eagle realized. He was moving south and east and Storm King was that way. And over it? West Point. Where he’d—
The bloodhounds were closer.
Eagle tried to run and it jolted his mangled shoulder so painfully he almost passed out, falling to his knees.
A man can only take so much, Eagle thought, as he got back to his feet and staggered forward. So strange. So strange that this had turned out the way it had.
“Uncle Tom,” Eagle whispered as he walked into a tree in the darkness and staggered back. “Uncle Tom.”
He could only take so much. Only so—and then there was only darkness.
Ravenna, Capitol of the Remains of the Western Roman Empire, 493 A.D.
IN THE FOREST OUTSIDE OF THE CITY, away from any road or trail, Roland stood bare-chested between the two fresh graves wearing only a loincloth. He was caked with dried blood, brains, and dirt. Streaks of sweat had cut narrow lines through all of it. The sun had gone down a while ago and a full moon punched shafts of light through the bare branches overhead.
Eric was to the right. Teleclus to the left.
Warriors from two different timelines. Both dead and buried, today, here, in this bubble of time in order that nothing changed.
Except their deaths. Which meant, as every Time Patrol member had fundamentally understood when they signed on for the gig, that they didn’t matter in the big scheme of things. Their deaths weren’t even the tiniest ripple in the river of history, either in this timeline for Eric, or in another timeline for Teleclus.
How many people really did matter? Kings?
Apparently.
But in his last mission it had been a nun. Actually, the child that would have been if Roland had not stopped her rape. But she’d still been killed by the Time Patrol agent from that era. She’d only have mattered if Roland had failed.
It was hard for Roland to understand.
“Where was God?”
He couldn’t tell from which direction the woman’s voice came.
His sword was ten feet away, piled on top of his armor and the rest of his clothes. Nada would have bitched him out for leaving his weapon out of arms reach. A Ranger Instructor would have given him a minus spot report. He might die now because of the oversight.
He slowly turned in a circle, scanning the forest.
She was a tall, slim figure standing between two trees twenty feet away. No weapon as far as he could tell, although her hands were hidden under the cloak wrapped around her. Her breath was small puffs in the chill night air.
He could get to his sword before she could get to him. But he remembered Teleclus: weapons were not enough.
“It was actually a question,” she said. “Where was God for King Odoacer?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think Odoacer really believed in God?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you?”
“I believe in my sword.”
She laughed. “Simplistic but realistic.”
Roland hated being asked questions. “Who are you?”
“What did Teleclus tell you?”
“He told me he was screwed. His timeline was screwed.”
She laughed again. “Elegantly put.” She threw off her cloak. She wore a medium length tunic with hunting boots. Of more interest to Roland was the short bow and quiver over one shoulder.
“You’re a hunter?” he asked.
“Of sorts. I’ve had different names in different places, in different times.”
“How does Diana sound?”
“It sounds like Teleclus told you more that you admitted. What else did Teleclus say?”
“He said the Shadow’s mission, your mission, was me.”
“That was the first part of my plan,” Diana allowed.
“But you still tried to have Theodoric killed.”
“That was the second part of my plan. It would have succeeded if the first part of my plan had. But how do you know I’m from the Shadow? There are many timelines.”
“Teleclus said you were.”
“Maybe I’m from God,” she said. “Maybe I am a God.”
“Maybe you have a big head,” Roland said. “If you’re a God, I shouldn’t have been able to stop your plan.”
“But if Odoacer’s God were real, why was the King abandoned at the end, to die by Theodoric’s hand? Perhaps Gods have their limits?”
“Right,” Roland said. He sprinted for his sword. In his peripheral vision he saw the woman pull the bow off her shoulder with one hand, snatching an arrow out of the quiver with the other and then . . .
The Return
MOMS WAS SLIDING THROUGH the tunnel of time, forward. To her own time. There were no images of possible timelines flickering outside of the tunnel. Just darkness so absolute, it blocked any possibility of something different having occurred on the Ides of March.
Caesar died.
Fate, Moms thought.
That is what fate is.
No other options.
An absolute.
*****
Doc was heading toward the light without any effort on his part or urging from his subconscious or an Angel.
Was there an afterlife? Doc wondered distantly, outside of himself, yet inside. Had he been wrong about God all his life? Was the light heaven or hell?
But then images began to flicker on either side. It took a few moments before Doc could make some sense of them and he realized he was still alive.
Instead of looking to the other timelines, he first checked his chest, half-afraid to see blood flowing from bullet wounds, but there was no blood. Only then did he cast his gaze about.
To the left, in another tunnel, King George V, with a young Alexei at his side. Abdicating in the face of virulent protests by the English people, ending the British monarchy. World War I sputtering on as Europe fell further apart. Bolsheviks joining sides with the Germans as the English withdrew from the continent. America staying an ocean away.
Germany winning the First World War, controlling France and Italy.
There were other tunnels, above, below, all around, but Doc was moving too fast to focus on more than one, and this one was the closest and clearest.
The Great Depression, which didn’t seem so great based on the images. No sign of Hitler or Nazism at all. No World War II until the Soviet Union, in a desperate attempt to funnel a rising tide of discontent outwards, attacked Germany. England allying with Germany.
An image of an American fleet of battleships traversing the Pacific, heading toward Japan, and then the tunnel veered away, into the gray of multiple timelines.
That didn’t look so bad, Doc thought.
Possibilities.
******
Mac allowed himself be taken forward in time, arms akimbo, floating. He was breathing hard, but not out of breath. Off to one side a possible timeline flared up, showing a plague spreading outward from Spain, burning across Europe. A virus with the perfect timing: enough incubation to not kill the host too quickly, but contagious enough to spread fast.
