Low City: Missing Persons (A Tractus Fynn Mystery Book 3)

by Alexander, MK

  “How so?”

  “I am free already, you have rescued me. Certainly this cannot be undone regardless of whether you proceeded to the Flatlands or not.”

  “So, you’re saying it wouldn’t even matter if we jumped back after I rescued Edmond?”

  “There is no back about it. We are to travel forward in time; we are not jumping back to the future. None of what you say has happened. Nor can we be sure it will. We bring our own causality with us.”

  I had no reply but thought hard about what Fynn was trying to explain. “So, nothing I did before mattered?”

  “Of course it did. Am I not free, walking with you now?”

  “Then it’s a matter of perspective, before and after?” I paused. “Encapsulated causality…”

  “Exactly this,” Fynn replied. “As the Quantifier might say: These things have not occurred from your current vantage point. You are not in nineteen sixty-four to accomplish any of these tasks.”

  “My doppelgänger might be.”

  “You mean to say Gary Sevens?”

  I nodded.

  “Such seems unlikely. He was not much of a traveler, if I recall…” Fynn paused for a moment. “Though, if there is a different Patrick wandering about in that present, well then, this is another kettle of fish.”

  “That’s unlikely too, right?”

  Fynn laughed. “Yes.”

  “And Lorraine?” I asked.

  “She is but a child in nineteen sixty-four.”

  “And you?”

  “A young man at that time, though, I might add, this will all change. That present will cease to exist the moment we arrive.”

  “You mean erased?”

  “If that’s the word you like to use.”

  “Won’t that be a problem?”

  “As I’ve said, it’s quite different than jumping to the past and altering things.” Fynn paused, seemingly as if to gather patience. “As travelers, Patrick, you must remember we have the ability to reset causality.”

  “Are you saying history might unfold differently?”

  “That’s a terrible way to see it. History unfolds the way it does, we are simply arriving in a slightly different present.”

  I thought a bit harder about all that Fynn had just said and stopped walking. “So, basically you’re telling me that we could be traveling to any future…”

  “Any future?” Fynn asked.

  “Well, a very different future than what I’m used to.”

  “I suppose such is possible, but probability still counts for much.”

  “You sound like Mr Q.”

  “He is not wrong about this.” Fynn gave a chuckle. “Perhaps you are imagining a place where Carlos and his Vikings are well in charge?”

  “Something like that.” I laughed nervously.

  “Fear little… the chances of that are extremely remote.”

  “I was thinking more about coffee. Will it be there waiting?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I haven’t met with the Mufti.” Fynn glanced at my expression. “Though, I can see you are sorely tempted.”

  “Shouldn’t we go do that?”

  “You mean now?” Fynn asked.

  “It’s not so far from here, right?”

  “No… this bit of causality should remain intact for the time being.”

  “Why?”

  “I am thinking of your friend, Gary Sevens, and his timeline.”

  “He’s not my friend.”

  “Nonetheless, this is not something I will tamper with.”

  “It might have changed on its own.”

  “Doubtful. I know something about the Grand Mufti Ebussuud Efendi. He was a difficult man to persuade.”

  “How did you convince the Imam?”

  “Rather a long story… and he wasn’t an imam at all, rather more like a judge.” Fynn paused. “…For a week I prepared him this beverage. We had… what you would call a demitasse. He came to think of it as more of a penance than a delight: bitter, thick and black… Though he recognized its invigorating effects and believed it might make the Isha’a, the night prayers, more tolerable; and thereby more frequent. He also experienced an improvement in conjugal relations with his wives.”

  “Wow.”

  “Indeed… I’m not sure he was the Grand Mufti at that point, but he certainly had the Sultan’s ear.”

  “Who?”

  “Selim, Suleiman the Magnificent, a man with a penchant for very large hats and the conquest of Europe.”

  Fynn and I neared the edge of the village and he pointed to the road. “Now, if we could only procure horses or a cart…”

  “A ride you mean?”

  “Yes, my legs are tired.”

  ***

  “We must focus, Patrick… nineteen sixty-four is our next destination. And as you say, it would be ideal to arrive in time to be sure Anika is unharmed.” Fynn paused. “Do you recall the date of your visit?”

  “Let me think for a second… it was October fifteenth.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Well, even with an exact date… returning to the twentieth century will prove to be an arduous journey.”

  “What’s the best plan?”

  “Of course, to go to that place geographically and jump from there.”

  “Isn’t travel more convenient in the twentieth century.”

  “Convenient yes, but complicated by questions.”

  “What questions?”

  “May I see your passport, please?”

  “Oh.”

  “In this time we will contend with the local warlords, roaming bands of rogue soldiers, ruffians, overly-curious clergy… louts, victims of plague… and alike.”

  “Some trade-off.”

  Fynn smiled. “Our chief problem is one of navigation.”

  “How so?”

  “This is indeed a terrible place to be in terms of astronomy… Galileo won’t be born for another hundred years or so.”

  “You were hoping for his help?”

  “No. The trouble is, barring a few city-states, from here to France is a wasteland. There’s not an astrolabe to be found, nor an observatory. We’d be hard pressed to find a single telescope. Astronomy is in a very primitive state at present.”

  “But you still remember everything you need, right? The big bang, rotating galaxies, the last star in Hydra’s tail, a heliocentric solar system…”

  “What sort of gibberish are you spouting, Patrick?”

  “Astronomy.”

  “Are you asking if I’m familiar with the Celestial Spheres?”

  “I guess,” I muttered, but had a sinking feeling.

  Fynn patted me on the back and let go a huge laugh. “Not to worry, my friend… I still remember all my modern cosmology, most of my quantum mechanics and even Schrödinger’s cat.”

  That was a relief to hear.

  “The first order of business is the clock.”

  “The clock?”

  “In Padua there is a clock overlooking the piazza. A clock in most respects, hardly accurate, but it makes for a rather good astrolabe.”

  “Padua?”

  “To the north. A small city with quite a reputation.”

  “How so?”

  “Hmm… less than a hundred years ago an English mercenary named John Hawkwood led the Paduans in a great victory against Verona.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Indeed… He was Giovanni Acuto to me. I rode with the White Company for a time.” Fynn paused, almost reminiscent. “Of course, Padua fell to the Venetians some years later. But there is also Copernicus… who will attend college there in fifty years or so; and Galileo is a teacher at the same university, just before sixteen hundred… I believe Shakespeare will also visit.”

  “Really?”

  “At least in his imagination.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Padua is the se
tting for several of his plays.”

  ***

  To me, Padua looked a lot like Modena, though it was not as flat, and there were many more canals and bridges. Fynn searched the city for more resplendent attire without much success. He took me to the piazza and pointed.

  “Curiously, there is no Libra.”

  “What?”

  “On the clock, the zodiac, Libra seems to be missing… in its place is a duplicate Cancer.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “I suppose not… though it’s rather odd.”

  “Is it helpful? Can you find our way back now?”

  “I know the date and the hour… and tonight I can view the stars…” Fynn turned to me. “Let’s just say there will be a very large margin of error when we choose to travel.”

  I could tell Fynn was not feeling very confident. “I remember Madeline mentioned a place to jump, along the shores of the Aral Sea. Maybe that’s a good place to start?”

  “Difficult to judge where the shoreline is at present…” Fynn paused. “I know of this place of course, the circle of null, and there are some terrible stories attached to it.”

  “What stories?”

  “I can only say that if one jumps from there, at best, nothing will happen to you.”

  “But there’s some kind of vortex there?”

  “Assuredly.”

  “So not our best destination?”

  “I think not, and it’s rather remote.”

  “Where to then?”

  “Something to consider carefully.”

  “What about that place we jumped from in Mongolia?”

  “Oh, you must mean Kazakstan. Hardly suitable for hard jumps, rather dangerous in fact. I would never use it to travel to the future. No telling where we’d end up.” Fynn paused. “And yet such may be our last resort.”

  “Why?”

  “We may end up there whether we wish it or not… as it is a giant magnet of a kind.”

  “Maybe we could ask Sheik Abbas for help?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Pavel mentioned he was in Yemen.”

  “Yes, well, still rather a large country.” Fynn smiled. “Did he say when?”

  “He wasn’t quite sure.”

  “A place with an even longer history. No, we’re on our own, I’m afraid…” Fynn paused to look at me. “You’re thinking about coffee again, aren’t you?”

  “Well… yes.”

  He ignored me and said, “We might travel back a ways to assist us going forward.”

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

  “Why not?”

  “The past changes the present?” I reminded Fynn of his favorite rule.

  “Yes. Even so, I was thinking of an observatory we might employ for an easier journey.”

  “An observatory?”

  “Such a place will aid our accuracy. Think of it as a gigantic astrolabe. If I recall, the closest being the Ulugh Beg Observatory.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Western Persia, though only in operation between fourteen twenty-nine and forty-nine. Not at all so far from our present.”

  “How do we get there?”

  “We might pose as Venetian merchants. Trade our florins for ducats, so to speak.”

  “Why?”

  “We could take the Silk Road, a fairly civilized way to travel to the observatory.”

  “The whole Marco Polo thing?”

  “Who?” Fynn asked.

  “Marco Polo… the famous explorer, from Venice, I think.”

  “Oh, well, I’ve met many a man called that. It’s quite a common name.”

  “Anywhere else?”

  “Alternatively, the Maragheh Observatory, but we’re two hundred years further from then… and probably not an easy place to reach.” Fynn considered for a moment. “Ah, we might jump ahead just a few scant years to fifteen seventy-seven.”

  “What’s then?”

  “The Istanbul Observatory of Taqi ad-Din.”

  “Istanbul, eh?” I said. “Maybe you could stop in on your pal the Imam and get that whole coffee thing going again.”

  “Fynn laughed grimly. “Fifteen seventy-seven might be too late for such a plan.”

  “I think it’s worth a try. Put everything back to normal.”

  “Normal, eh? And what does this mean exactly?” Fynn asked. “So that you may enjoy a tall latte again?”

  “Well, there’s that… and everything else: Durbin’s murder, my alter-ego, Lorraine, you going missing.”

  “These things are unrelated to coffee, I fear.”

  “What?”

  “These vaporous events have more to do with your particular actions than cappuccino.”

  “My actions?”

  “Missing brunch with Lorraine and Anika.”

  ***

  “Next we need to find a compass box, and for that we must locate a busy port,” Fynn explained.

  “Where would that be?”

  “Some leagues to the east, Venezia.”

  “Venice?”

  “As you say.”

  “How many leagues?”

  “Ha, about twenty-five of your miles.”

  “Can we ride there?”

  “The Venetians have no love for horses. We may have to walk for a while. Hmm… I wonder if your family name carries any sway. Perhaps you are nobility, or related to the aristocracy?”

  “I’m not sure I can even pronounce my last name.”

  “We might find passage as far as Messina on a Venetian galley,” Fynn considered instead.

  “Messina?”

  “Near Sicily.”

  “Not as oarsman or slaves, I hope.”

  “It rather depends on how we are dressed.” Fynn smiled. “From there, on to Genoa, where we can easily make it to France.”

  “There’s not like a non-stop boat?”

  “Let’s just say there is no love lost between the Venetians and the Genoese.”

  The road to Venice was a marvel in any era. It was paved in parts and ran along a series of canals that connected various small rivers and streams. It was a bustling place also, full of people and industry. There were mills everywhere, water wheels dripped incessantly.

  We passed slow moving carts stacked with lumber. Alders, Fynn told me; specifically, tree trunks dressed and stripped of their bark, and sharpened on one end like a pencil. “These are the foundations for the entire city,” he explained, and pointed to the lagoon far in the distance. Grand buildings rose on various islands and I could see any number of ships gliding along the calm waters. “We must be careful when we stay in Venice. It’s rather a strict place, a highly stratified society. Utter a wrong word and we’ll both be in a predicament.”

  “What do you mean by predicament?”

  “The Most Serene Republic of Venice does not look kindly upon criticism, except for feeding the lions.”

  “What?”

  “At the palace, a kind of suggestion box, where one might put a note into the lions’ mouth and condemn a neighbor to death.” Fynn turned to me with a serious expression. “Be careful what you say and refrain from lapsing into English, if you please, or even middle English as the case may be.”

  “There are no Englishman around?”

  “There may be a few, though it’s best not to draw attention to ourselves. I’d hate to see the inside of a dungeon again so soon.”

  “Are there dungeons in Venice?”

  “They certainly exist… and below the water line, often flooded, and filled with gnats, and rats and all.”

  “You sound like an expert.”

  “I will only mention that I spent too much time under the Doge’s palace.”

  “When was this?”

  “Not for some years, not until the Bridge of Sighs is built.” Fynn paused. “I had to jump from there once, a terrible experience.”

  “Where did you end up?”

  “The middle of the canal.”

  ***


  We rested along the road for a while and I rummaged through my satchel, a bit worried that our ducats were running low. At the bottom of the bag I came across a small object wrapped in silk. I didn’t remember having anything like this, but as I uncovered it, a huge smile came to me. I ran to Fynn.

  “Ah, an astrolabe of rare design and workmanship. Certainly not from this era,” he said, examining it closely.

  “It wasn’t there before, I swear.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I can’t be. I’m guessing it’s a gift from one of the sisters.”

  “It seems we have an ally after all.”

  “I think I know who… Chloe, if I had to guess.”

  “Well, our journey has just become all the much easier.”

  “There’s this too, another anachronistic tarot card, the Wheel of Fortune.”

  “How appropriate,” Fynn said and laughed.

  ***

  That evening Inspector Fynn announced with some confidence how we’d return to the future. “It’s good that we’ve already traveled a bit north so as to avoid landing in the Mediterranean,” he told me. “To start with, we will try to gain as much distance as possible.”

  “Distance?”

  “Oh, I am meaning years. We will gain precision as we get closer, and by that I am meaning geography.”

  “We’re jumping totally at random?” I felt a bit alarmed at the prospect.

  “Just for the first few centuries or so. It’s almost automatic that we will cover some distance to the west.”

  “You mean, like skip through time?”

  “That’s hardly the word I would use.”

  “What then?”

  “It’s a bit of a gamble, admittedly. Are you game?”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Ah, we must wait for nightfall, when the time is right.” Fynn gave me an awkward smile. “And… it may seem a bit silly, embarrassing even…” Fynn hedged.

  “What?”

  “We must hold hands while we jump.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s best that we land together, eh?”

  There was no arguing that point.

  ***

  Our first landing took us to the middle of the night, or so it seemed to me. It was cold and pouring down rain as well.