408
In a break between songs and story-tellings, I venture out, into the dark, cool night, the scent of death far stronger out here between the pines.
But it is not the smell of carnage that makes me stop and look about me. It’s something far stranger. Birdsong.
Taking a torch from one of the guards, I go out and, following the sound, trying to place it, I make my way back over the crest to where, but a few hours earlier, we had stood, after the battle. And there, near the line of stones we laid, some two or three yards in the air, is a sight I’ve never seen before.
Birds, endless birds, appearing and disappearing in the air, their solid forms lit by the wavering flame of my torch.
A portal. A doorway between two worlds. Reichenau’s escape route.
Yes, but more than that. Much more than that.
I go back to the hall, then bring Katerina back with me, watching the golden features of her face as she takes it in. ‘Is that …?’
‘A doorway, yes. To a different world.’
‘And Reichenau used this?’
I hesitate, then nod. He must have. The two guards swore he had. But all’s not always as it seems.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asks quietly, in Russian, conscious that someone might be listening.
‘I’m going back through,’ I answer. ‘When the feasting’s done. I’ll jump back, then go through before Reichenau. That way …’
But I can see she’s unhappy with that for some reason.
‘We,’ she says. ‘Not you, Otto. We.’
I make to argue with her, but she shakes her head and frowns.
‘You’re going nowhere, Otto Behr. Not without me there by your side.’
And so, after the feasting, we slip out past the dozing guards and snoring warriors, then gather at the portal, just the six of us, our flickering torches lighting the scene.
All’s been decided. We know what each has to do.
But first back, to Moscow Central, to make up the packs that we’re to carry and to run through things again. Then back here, earlier than now, an hour before our doppelgehirn friend arrives.
Oh, we know what we must do. We know our only chance now is to follow – at a distance – and find out where he goes and where this leads. If it leads anywhere.
Only surely it must? Such bolt-holes always have a back door. Why trap oneself, after all? And if this is Kolya’s work, as I am heavily convinced it is, then maybe more than one.
The man has a devious mind, after all.
Only bear this in mind. We are not used to portals. Not of this kind. All of our lives have been spent operating off of platforms. Of being tracked and thus of being relatively safe. This has an air of danger to it, the possibility of being lost.
Lost in Time. There’s little that is worse.
And is that where they are now? My girls? Lost in Time? Trapped in one of these back-door universes?
If so, then we shall never find them.
‘Otto?’
I look to her.
‘Your face just then …’
‘It’s fine,’ I answer. ‘Just a trick of the light.’ I reach across and take her hand, my voice softer, gentler than before. ‘But come. We have demons to pursue.’
409
We step through, into an open-air temple, on an island in a lake, the moon shining down from a blue-black sky, its silver shield reflected in the water.
Where or when we are I could not say, only that, with its warm breezes and Mediterranean-looking trees, this has a familiar feel to it, and when Katerina joins me, stepping from the air like a ballet dancer, I ask her if she knows this place.
She shakes her head.
‘So how did you get among the slaves?’
Katerina shrugs. ‘I don’t know. He must have drugged me. One moment I was in the cell, the next …’
‘Cell? What cell?’
‘The place he kept me. I don’t know where … or when. Just that one moment I was there, locked into that foul and lightless space, the next I was chained to a cartwheel in the Roman encampment. And that’s where I was until you found me, weeks later.’
‘I don’t understand …’
And I don’t. Unless Reichenau was hiding away what he’d stolen. Keeping Katerina from being taken back by Kolya.
I look about me, then look to her again.
‘Was it hard?’
‘Hard?’ Her laugh is pained. ‘Being his prisoner? You don’t know, Otto. You just don’t know. When he took us … from Cherdiechnost …’
She takes a deep breath, as if mentally steadying herself, then continues. ‘I was about to tell you, Otto. I’d pictured it in my head. Do you know that? Imagined me telling you; imagined how your face would have lit up; imagined your joy at my words. Only … only I never got to tell you. And then …’
‘Tell me.’
She hesitates, her eyes searching mine, then places her hand flat against the curve of her stomach. ‘That I was pregnant. Pregnant with your child.’
The words shock me. ‘So what …?’
‘I lost it,’ she says, quieter than before. ‘Or rather, he made me lose it. It was a boy, Otto. A boy.’
‘It was Kolya, yes, who made you do this?’
She nods, her eyes reliving the grief of it.
I go to her, folding her in my arms, feeling her warmth pressed against me, and let her cry for the child she never had. He and his five lost sisters. And I add that to the growing list of reasons why I will kill Kolya.
‘Come, my love,’ I say, after a while, drying her eyes, knowing that there is business still to do, here in this uncharted place. And so we get hidden, up there at the top of the slope above the temple, there among the Mediterranean-looking trees.
Waiting for Reichenau to come through.
410
I’m beginning to think that we had somehow got things wrong, when finally he steps through.
I see how he looks about him, his eyes searching the shadows for movement, paranoid to the last. Only he’s right to be this once, for we are there, watching his every move, following him.
He circles the temple, then seems to sniff the air – it’s hard to tell exactly through the field glasses – and then, as if satisfied he’s alone, he makes his way across.
For a moment I think that maybe the temple is another portal, only he moves round it, past it, heading down the slope.
To what?
As Katerina strains to go after him, I hold her back.
‘Give him a moment,’ I whisper. ‘We don’t want him to see us, do we?’
No. But the terrain here is difficult for such a pursuit. It’s far too open. Follow him directly and he’ll only have to turn about to see us. Yet if we stay within the border of trees …
‘Come,’ I say, deciding to risk it. ‘But keep crouched down, and if he turns, fall flat.’
And so we go after him, crouched down, half-running, half-scuttling like crabs, trying to make no noise, sensitive to his every move, and as the slope climbs and then falls again, so we see his destination.
It’s a small village, tucked in between two rocky outcrops, its lower levels overlooking the sea, forming a harbour.
Medieval, I think. Yes, and archetypically Italian by the look of it.
There is another, smaller outcrop to our left.
‘There,’ I say, nudging her, indicating the raised hump of rock and earth.
We go across, crouching down, getting our breath.
And not before time, because just then Reichenau turns abruptly, looking back up the slope, as if to catch us out. I duck down smartly and stay there, rigidly still, holding Katerina against me, counting to twenty before popping up once more … only to see his unmistakable figure much further on, down the slope, almost at the village, hurrying now.
‘Come,’ I say, my whisper urgent. ‘We mustn’t lose him.’
But even as I say it I realise that it doesn’t really matter. Now that we know wher
e he’s heading we can jump back and place ourselves down there, among the buildings, and watch from there where he goes.
Only suddenly he’s not there.
Katerina looks puzzled. ‘Otto?’
We walk down, Katerina following me, a few metres behind, her gun drawn.
For the next half hour we search those narrow, deserted lanes and find …
Nothing.
Katerina looks to me. ‘Well?’
It’s late. The houses are shuttered, the church and the seafront inn closed, the latter padlocked. If there’s anyone living here, then they’ll be safe in their beds right now. Only I’m not going to let that stop me.
I burn out the lock on the quayside inn, then kick the door open.
And nothing. Not at first, anyway. Then, from somewhere at the back of the building, I hear a door creak open. There’s a vague muttering. Medieval Italian, I’m sure of it, and then a figure appears in the bar where we’re standing – a sleepy middle-aged man, a balding fellow with a huge cushion of a belly, an unlit candle in one hand.
‘Where is he?’ I ask, in the only strain of Italian I know. ‘The monstrosity … Where does he go?’
The man feigns ignorance, until I draw a knife and, slamming him down in a chair, threaten to gut him unless he gives me an answer.
Frightened now, he stammers a reply. I can’t make it out at first, but then I understand. The ruin. That’s where he goes. And that, too, it seems, is where he comes from.
Another portal, more like. The back door I was thinking had to exist.
‘Take me there,’ I say.
Only he’s scared to. ‘That thing …’ he says, pleading with his eyes for me to understand. ‘He kill me if I help—’
‘And I’ll kill you if you don’t!’
And I press the knifepoint into his neck enough to make him yelp.
‘Okay … okay!’ he says. ‘I take you … yes?’
And so we go out, into those moonlit streets, heading towards the harbour, going down the narrow steps, and there, beneath a ledge of rock, overlooked by us first time out, is what seems some kind of ruin, its cracked white columns and broken piles of rock rising just above the waves.
‘Here?’
‘Here,’ he says, clearly wanting to get as far from that place as he can now that he’s delivered us.
‘So where is he?’ I ask, and the poor man shrugs.
‘All right,’ I say. ‘You can go.’
And he backs away, bowing as he does, his face a picture of gratitude.
I turn, looking out across the ruin. It’s ancient, Greek, or Roman, or maybe even Etruscan. Whichever, it looks like it’s been built into a cave. There’s a white stone wall to our left and a set of narrow steps leading down, but in the underhang, it’s difficult to make out any detail, it’s so dark.
The only way we’re going to find out is to go down.
But not now. No. We need to return to the portal by the temple and jump back, then come in again, earlier this time.
Which is exactly what we do, and we are there this time, hiding behind a low wall on the far side of the ruin when he makes his appearance.
We hear him come down, into the ruin, his torch briefly lighting up the ceiling overhead before he focuses the beam on the inner darkness.
I give him a ten count then follow, slipping through the gap, taking great care, my fingers finding handholds, Katerina just behind me, the two of us following the torchlight.
We’ve not gone very far when we hear voices – low, masculine voices – even as a second torch beam illuminates that ruined space.
Finding a vantage point, we see Reichenau’s silhouetted figure, facing what is clearly one of Kolya’s ancestors – one of his ‘brothers’. The latter is holding what looks like a very mean piece of weaponry, keeping Reichenau at bay. But Reichenau is pleading with him now, offering all manner of things if he’ll only let him jump up.
Things are sketchy in the wavering torchlight, but my guess is that there’s another portal here, or something like that thing in the desert, some kind of massive focus. Whatever, it looks like Kolya is guarding all of the entrances to his time realm.
If that’s what it is.
Reichenau’s pleas don’t seem to be getting him anywhere, but then nature lends a hand. There’s a sudden noise as a small animal – a rat, maybe – scuttles across the floor of the ruin. For the briefest moment the ‘brother’ is distracted, and in that instant Reichenau springs, launching himself, letting fly with a knife that pierces the other’s throat.
Clambering up onto the platform, he quickly finishes the job, then, with an almost cursory glance about him … vanishes.
411
Katerina wants to go back and bring reinforcements, but for once I’m loath to. I want to follow while we yet can, to find out where this leads. And this time I have my way, Katerina joining me on the platform as, not knowing where we are going, we jump.
Into a scene of total desolation, refugees everywhere, buildings on fire, aircraft thundering overhead, and there, across from us, half a kilometre away at most, making his way towards a huge building with a shining golden dome, is Reichenau.
We start to run.
Getting to the dome is harder than I thought. Whatever’s going on here, the fighting is intense, and more than once we have to stop and shelter, but eventually we get there and slip inside.
The building displays signs of a fierce firefight. Bodies are strewn everywhere. Kolya, I realise, has fashioned a real rabbit’s warren through Time, and every gateway is defended by his ‘brothers’. Only here – as we can see from the corpses piled up around the platform – Kolya’s ancestors have died in some numbers defending it.
But there’s no sign of Reichenau. We can only assume that he’s jumped through yet again … and so, again, we follow.
Is this foolishness? This slavish following of him? Maybe. Only my gut instinct is that this is the quickest way out, and besides, we’re not fated to die here nor in any of these places. We’ve still got to complete the loop. To come full circle and emerge wherever it is that we are fated to emerge.
But not here. It doesn’t end here.
We jump up, onto the platform, and, hand in hand, step through, into a scene we know very well.
Cherdiechnost!
It’s early morning and a heavy dew is on the long grass. Bird call fills the air, yet one single look reveals how different it is.
What was once a flourishing estate has been transformed into a work camp, with long barracks, high fences with barbed wire and guard towers. Where we have jumped to, we are inside the fence, and, glimpsing Reichenau making his way across the fields, we quickly follow.
Only now we are spotted by one of the guards. A call goes up for us to halt. We hurry on, but laser fire now burns a blackening line just ahead.
I turn, aiming my weapon, and open fire. There is a shriek and an awful screaming as the guard, in flames now, tumbles from the tower.
And as he does, so Reichenau turns, looking back, and sees us … and begins to run, heading for the church with its white walls and blue cupola.
It’s there, in that ancient, wooden church, the scene of so many pleasant gatherings across the years, that we finally corner him.
He’s standing there, before the altar, snarling, cursing the air, frustrated that there is no time portal here, no way of jumping out, where he’s clearly expected one. And my guess is that Kolya, warned that someone was penetrating his defences, has finally taken action and closed down one of the gateways.
Or that’s my guess.
I make to hail him, only, before I can say a word, Katerina pushes past me and confronts him, her gun aimed at his exaggerated skull.
‘Where are they? Where did you put them?’
He turns slowly, as if in a daze, seeming only then to take in the fact that we are there.
‘Oh,’ he says, almost dismissively. ‘You.’
He has near on killed me once before,
and I would happily blow the man away, except that he knows things, and his fixed smile registers that fact.
We need him, and he knows it.
‘Help me and I might help you,’ he says.
And that word ‘might’, which suggests he’s doing us a favour, riles me beyond all belief.
‘Are they unharmed?’ Katerina asks.
The bastard can see that she’s afraid for her daughters and he uses that. He looks back at me, no sign of any human warmth or kindness in that expression, just calculation. ‘Do you seriously think I would harm such a valuable commodity?’
The words make me go cold. Facing him, I begin to understand what he is. Not really human at all. An experiment, with all the warped thinking of an experiment.
Yes. I doubt it no longer. Reichenau is capable of anything, from the pettiest theft to the vilest murder, and I wonder what he has done to my girls that will make me want to kill him. For I’m sure there must be something. Something unimaginably vile.
The thought of it makes me hesitate. Can I really make any kind of bargain with this creature? He is a liar, after all, and not just any liar, but a liar through and through – as if it’s been imprinted in his DNA.
No, I realise. I can’t. Which leaves me with only one course of action: to take him back and, via the Russians’ platform, physically take him there. Wherever ‘there’ is.
I go to Reichenau and place the barrel of my laser against his bulbous head.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’
412
A small crowd has gathered at the Russian platform as I bring Reichenau through, his hands bound, a thick cloth blindfold about that grotesquely large head.
This is their enemy and there are many – like Freisler – who feel he should be killed, his threat extinguished at once. Only he still holds my daughters, and until they’re returned to us I’ll not consider harming the man.
We place him in a cell, the doors heavily guarded, then convene a meeting of the veche. It’s there that I explain my plan, which is to use him as the means of getting back my girls. Then, if he satisfies us in that regard, we’ll do what Kolya attempted to do: exile Reichenau in a cut-off timeline, like Bonaparte on Elba.
The Master of Time: Roads to Moscow: Book Three Page 22
