Time Scout

by Robert Asprin

  She started to laugh and ended up crying on his shoulder. If he thought less of her for it, he didn't let it show.

  During the night, more screams and gunshots rang out. Margo started awake, then muttered, "Good!" and heard an answering grunt from Kynan. No one shouted for Kit or Malcolm, though, so no one must have died this time. The next day-the day the gate was supposed to reopen-the Portuguese brought them both out to hear the "testimony" of their accusers. Not that it did Margo or Kynan any good. The testimony was all in Portuguese. But the angry, fearful looks sent their way and the sleepless hollows under most eyes told Margo that Kit and- Malcolm's plans were bearing fruit.

  Given the shouting match and fist fight that ensued during the afternoon, the Portuguese had begun to accuse one another of witchcraft charges. Kit ordered Margo and Kynan locked up while the soldiers broke up the vicious little fight with blows from the butts of their arquebuses. Margo wondered when Kit would make his move. They were running short on time. The gate would be opening in just a few hours if it opened at all.

  The longer they waited, the more terror stretched her nerves taut. Something had gone wrong. They'd slipped up, somehow, their ruse had been discovered, or Kit had vanished, leaving Malcolm to face the whole superstitious, murderous bunch ....

  The sun was sinking into the heart of the distant Drakensbergs when the door opened a last time. Margo's heart pounded unsteadily beneath her rib cage as she came slowly to her feet. Kynan, too, scrambled up to face the Portuguese sergeant who'd unlocked their cell. The sergeant wouldn't meet their gaze. He crossed himself and moved hastily aside. Malcolm stood behind him. He gazed coldly into the cell without speaking, then said roughly, "You have been found guilty of witchcraft, Margo Smith. You will be taken far from Lourengo Marques where you will be put to death by burning. May God pity your soul."

  Margo stared at him, hardly recognizing the gentle man who had loved her in Rome. Then, recalling the part she had to play, Margo gave out a shriek and sank toward the ground. Her theatrical faint was so convincing, Kynan caught her with a cry. He held her protectively. Kit appeared behind Malcolm and said something in Welsh. Kynan didn't speak a word. He just snarled like a trapped wolf.

  Oh, God, Margo thought while her heart trip-hammered, let this work!

  Soldiers herded them out of the cell. They were taken across the open courtyard while the rest of the men crossed themselves and avoided their gaze. Kynan marched stolidly between the soldiers, placing one hand protectively on Margo's waist. The gesture brought tears to her eyes.

  Kit and Malcolm followed, intoning something in Latin. Both of them had slung their ATLS bags over their shoulders. It was the only hopeful sign she saw. They passed a wagon and a thin horse in harness. The remains of Margo's PVC raft and Filmar balloon and everything which had survived the wreck had been piled into it. An ominously large stack of wood and two long, thick stakes also weighed it down. Several of the Portuguese stood near it, holding pikes and lit torches. Margo let her steps falter. Then she sank to her knees, weeping. Given the fear jolting through her that something would yet go wrong, tears were remarkably easy to conjure. Kynan lifted her back to her feet and glared at their executioners.

  Farther along, waiting for them to pass, were that pig of a military governor and the rest of his disgusting, unwashed swine. All of them carried weapons: black powder firearms, cocked crossbows, swords, or murderous long pikes and daggers. Margo tried to keep her spirits from sinking, but she couldn't see how Kit planned to escape with an armed contingent that size acting as guard.

  They marched completely out of the walled village and moved down the beach, heading south around the wide curve of the bay. Margo remembered the layout of the land. Kit was herding them closer to the gate. The whole parade marched down the wave-scoured beach, moving grimly, silently. Only the creak of the wagon and the crackle of the torches rose above the sound of sea and wind. Kit moved into the lead as though searching for something. Whatever it was, he clearly wasn't finding it. Margo knew the gate would open somewhere close to here, but she couldn't remember precisely where, either.

  Kit finally lifted his arms and spoke in Portuguese. The wagon rolled to a halt near him. Roughly dressed men began unloading it. An enormous bear of a man hammered the terrifying stakes into the ground. Sailors piled wood high around them. Kit spoke earnestly in Latin to the skies as though she and Kynan didn't even exist. The wreckage of Margo's raft was added to the pile, along with everything else which had survived. She checked the slant of the sun. Any time now, surely ...

  If the gate opened again.

  Or if Kit didn't die any moment, shadowing himself.

  If, if, if...

  She noticed sweat on his face and began to tremble. Malcolm's skin had taken on a ghastly hue. He produced a coil of rope and bound one of Margo's wrists securely.

  "Pretend I've tied your other wrist behind you once you're at the stake," he hissed in her ear. Then he dragged her toward the pile of wood.

  Margo screamed and struggled. He caught her wrists and lifted her off the ground, doggedly climbing the stacked wood and shoving her against the stake. Margo begged for mercy, sliding to her knees and clutching his robes. He sobbed out something in Portuguese and snatched her back to her feet, then dragged her hands behind her. He jerked her wrists behind the stake. Margo screamed again. The audience hung on their every movement like hypnotized sports fans. Margo felt sick. Malcolm wound the rope around her hand without looping it around her wrist. All she had to do was let go and she'd be free. Margo slumped against the stake as though tightly bound and gave in to wretched sobs.

  Kit dragged Kynan Rhys Gower to the stake. From her vantage point, she could see that Kit repeated the same procedure with the Welshman's wrists. Kynan was white to the lips. He held his head high and intoned something in a loud voice, speaking in his own native tongue. He might have been heaping curses on the Portuguese or praying to God to let this mad scheme work.

  Kit stumbled back down the piled wood and turned to face them. He lifted both hands, a crucifix clenched in one fist. He began to chant in Latin. Whatever it was, it went on and on. Sweat beaded up on his lips and dripped down his chin. Malcolm kept darting nervous glances in the direction Margo thought the gate ought to lie.

  Nothing was happening.

  The sun sank lower, vanishing behind the distant peaks of the Drakensbergs. The crash of waves was loud in her ears. Seabirds screamed overhead. It's not opening, oh God, it isn't going to open ... On the ground below the pyre, Kit sank to his knees and bowed his head. Malcolm followed suit. The rest of the company went to their knees as well. Torches crackled in the growing twilight. Still no gate opened. Kit couldn't delay this, much longer. The military governor was staring at him, darting uneasy glances toward the as-yet unlit pyre. A few glimmering stars appeared in the darkening sky.

  Then the bones behind Margo's ear began to vibrate.

  She caught her breath on a sob

  Then let out an ear-piercing shriek.

  At the first buzz of the gate, Malcolm went giddy with relief. Then Margo screamed. He started and whirled to stare at her. Even Kit Jumped.

  "HEAR ME!" Margo shouted. "I CALL UPON THE POWERS OF HELL!"

  Malcolm staggered to his feet, holding up his crucifix. The soldier who spoke a little English began to shout that she was calling upon the Evil One himself.

  Kit ran toward the pyre, snatching a torch from a dumbfounded farmer. "Minion of hell!" he cried. "Cease thy conjuring! I command thee in the name of Christ!"

  Margo shouted at him to stuff it. Then she started ranting. "You will all die hideous deaths if you lay that torch to this pyre! I call on Beelzebub! I call on Satan, Lucifer, St. Nick."

  St. Nick?

  From Malcolm's vantage point, Kit nearly lost it. With masterful skill, he converted sudden laughter into a cough and a cry of pain. He sank to his knees, gasping and clutching his chest as though her curses were having real effect. Semi-hysterical image
s flitted briefly through Malcolm's head, threatening to loose his own laughter

  But Margo was still shouting.

  And the soldiers nearest her were swearing in terror, pointing their crossbows right at her. Oh shit ...

  Malcolm flung himself between the crossbows and the still-unlit pyre. "No! Do not interfere in God's work!"

  "But Father-"one of them cried, ashen and sweating in the descending gloom.

  The vibration of the gate had grown so painful several farmers and sailors had dropped their weapons. They clutched their ears, staring wildly around for the appearance of the most profoundly expected demons. Malcolm lifted his own crucifix and advanced toward the piled wood. Kit outdid himself. He twisted on the ground, then crawled to his knees, coughing and holding up his own crucifix.

  In a voice faint with terror, Kit cried, "I command thee, in the name of Christ, begone Satan! God will protect us!"

  "Satan will eat your entrails for lunch!" Margo screamed right back.

  One of the shaking farmers let out a wail of terror, and hurled his torch straight onto the pyre. Wood shavings crackled and roared into flame. Margo screamed, then shrieked at the poor farmer, "St. Nick will have your guts for sausages!"

  Kit, not to be outdone, rose tottering to his feet and lifted both arms, trembling so violently even Malcolm was halfway convinced he was about to fall down again. "Jesu Christo! Open the gates of hell itself! Send these minions of damnation to their deaths!"

  Then Kit hurled his own torch like a thrown javelin – straight at the source of the sound that wasn't a sound.

  Twenty-five yards down the beach, a crack appeared in the fabric of reality. The torch sailed straight through it. Someone behind Malcolm screamed. Someone else began chanting hail Marys. Another man began to sob. Half the Portuguese broke and ran for town, wailing in terror. The gate dilated open, pulsing savagely in the mad rhythm of an unstable string.

  "NOW!" Kit yelled.

  Margo flung herself down the pile of burning wood, jumping right through the flames. Kynan Rhys Gower followed with a wild yell. Malcolm caught a blur of motion

  The huge blacksmith had aimed his weapon at Margo's back.

  Malcolm lunged forward. He knocked the barrel of the smith's rifled wheel lock upward just as the piece discharged. The smith roared. Malcolm dodged away. –Then delivered a snap kick that flattened an arquebusier trying to fire on Margo.

  Then he ran through the confused, shaken crowd. "Kit! Run!"

  The time scout dove at the fire instead, snatching something out of it, then whirled, knocking aside a white-faced soldier just before his arquebus went off with a roar. A lead ball slammed into the beach less than a foot short of Margo's flying feet. The soldier snarled and charged. Kit brushed him to the ground. The man screamed. Malcolm caught the glint of push daggers in the firelight. Nothing like Aikido and a push-dagger blade to ruin your whole day.

  Someone else levelled a crossbow at Kit's back.

  Malcolm delivered a flying kick that knocked the man to the sand, then he was past and running for the gate.

  "Kit!" he yelled. "It's disintegrating!"

  Margo reached the gate first. It shrank savagely to a pinpoint. She sobbed out something Malcolm couldn't quite hear. Kynan skidded to a halt beside her. The gate roared open again. Kynan glanced back and shouted. Malcolm looked wildly over one shoulder. Behind them, Amaro had taken a careful bead on Margo with his crossbow. Malcolm couldn't do anything to stop him and Kit was out of position-

  Kynan yelled and flung himself between Margo and the arbalestier. The Welshman knocked her to the ground with a sweeping blow, shoving her out of harm's way. The slap of the steel spring was a hideous sound. Kynan screamed and collapsed like a punctured balloon. A steel shaft thick as Malcolm's thumb slammed through Kynan's body instead of Margo's chest.

  Margo sobbed once and crawled to him, trying to stanch the bleeding with her hands. Malcolm lunged the final yard to the gate. "Go!" He shoved her bodily through. She sprawled into Phil Jones' shop with a hoarse yell. Malcolm scooped up the injured Welshman in a fireman's carry. Kynan groaned and fainted. Malcolm lunged through, tripping over Margo and dropping Kynan to the concrete floor. Margo howled in pain and crawled out from under him. Malcolm came to his feet and whirled. "Kit!"

  He was running for the gate.

  The time scout gasped with effort and dove forward. He crashed into Malcolm just as the gate shrank with a roar like a freight train. Malcolm landed on hard concrete. Kit swore hideously and cradled one arm. A crackle of fire and thick, acrid smoke roared into Malcolm's awareness. One of the totem poles in Phil Jones' store room had caught fire from Kit's thrown torch. A crossbow bolt, covered with blood and bits of Kynan's flesh, stuck obscenely out of another.

  Above them, the gate vanished as though it had never been.

  Chapter Twenty

  AN INSTANT LATER, the fire-control system cut in, spraying clouds of halon into the room.

  "Out!" Kit cried.

  Malcolm helped carry Kynan into Phil Jones' office. Margo ran for the phone to call in a medical emergency, then ran interference, as well, driving Phil Jones bodily out of their way when he started shouting that they'd ruined his inventory, his business, and his life. When he didn't shut up, she tossed him through the doorway into his showroom. The last glimpse Malcolm had of her, she was standing on him.

  Kit stripped off Kynan's shirt and stanched bleeding as best he could with direct pressure. Malcolm stripped off his woolen cassock and cut thick compresses. "Here..."

  They applied the compresses and more pressure. Kynan moaned. His eyelids fluttered, then he sought Kit's gaze. His eyes were glazed.

  "My lord ... I'm ... dying.. ." He groped weakly for Kit's arm.

  "No," Kit said roughly, "you won't die, Kynan Rhys Gower. I won't allow it."

  "Aye," Kynan breathed, allowing his eyes to close again. "My life is ... yours... ."

  Kit had said just the right thing. Maybe-just maybe the man's superstitious faith that his liege lord could work magic would keep him alive. Long enough for station medical to arrive, anyway... The Meet of the medi-van's siren was the most welcome sound Malcolm had heard since the buzz of the gate in the African twilight. Rachel Eisenstein and another duty doctor raced into the office.

  "Cross-bow bolt," Kit said tersely.

  Rachel took over, rigging pressure bandages, stabilizing Kynan's vitals with IVs, treating for shock. "Prepare for thoracic surgery" Rachel said into her radio link with the station's hospital. -Stat! We're bringing in a bad one."

  "Roger."

  They lifted Kynan carefully onto a gurney and ran for the medi-van. Silence, sudden and brutal, descended on the smoky office. Kit scrubbed his brow with the heel of a bloody hand. Malcolm leaned against Phil's desk and rubbed aching ribs where Kit's lunge for safety had caught him. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

  Then Kit glanced his way. Malcolm ..."

  He looked up. A rarely seen look which everyone dreaded having pointed at them was levelled straight at him. Malcolm winced. Well, you've been waiting for this.

  "All right," Kit said quietly. "Let's hear it."

  "What do you want me to say, Kit? I'm sorrier than you'll ever know. Breaking a friend's trust ... Well, I am British. For whatever that's worth. I've no excuses, Kit. So I won't even try to make any. But lame as it sounds, I thought she'd just turned nineteen, Kit, not seventeen, and ... and dammit, that headstrong little idiot does something to me ... ."

  Kit snorted.

  Malcolm adjusted himself against the hard desk, wincing slightly. "She's been hurt, Kit. Desperately. If I ever find out who did it, I think I might actually kill him. There's something fine inside her fighting to get out. I see glimpses of it all the time. First in London, again in Brighton. Then in Rome ..." He swore softly. "We were both a little drunk. Hilaria was in full swing. She was doing so well and I was so proud of her and the next thing I knew..."

  "Stop." Kit held up one hand. "Pl
ease."

  Malcolm halted. Then, very quietly, "It isn't much, but I never meant any of this. I'm bloody sorry, Kit. I won't say I'd undo the way I feel about her, but I'm bloody damned sorry for how I've handled this, the mess I've caused. If it's any consolation, I went through nine days of absolute hell, thinking I'd killed her." He groped for something else to say and ended lamely with the only thing he could say. "I'm sorry, Kit."

  "So am I," his one-time friend sighed.

  "I'll ... I'll go to another station, I guess, get out of your way...

  "Malcolm."

  He shut up, ready to take whatever bitter anger his friend vented.

  "I ought to break your neck, you know. I'm tempted to saddle you with the Neo Edo. The punishment ought to fit the crime, after all. You deserve that paperwork and the government auditors and the inspections and..."

  Malcolm winced.

  "But..." Kit's faint smile shocked him. "At least she had enough sense to pick someone like you."

  Malcolm didn't know what to say.

  "It might have been Skeeter Jackson, after all."

  Malcolm found his voice after all, surprising both of them. Kit just stared. "Where do you pick up language like that?"

  Malcolm managed a wan smile. "Believe it or not, I overheard that one from a Praetorian guardsman the day Caligula was murdered."

  "Really? Some day you must tell me the whole story about that day."

  Malcolm let his gaze focus on something far beyond Phil Jones' sordid little office. "Maybe. I'm not sure I'll ever tell anyone the whole story."

  Kit cleared his throat. "Know the feeling he muttered He scrubbed bloody hands on his ruined jesuit cassock, then cleared his throat again and held out one hand "I don't have enough friends to lose one. Not even for something like this."

  Malcolm paused only a moment, then shook it. "I'll make it up, Kit."

  The lean time scout grinned. "You sure as hell will. And if she's pregnant..." He let the threat dangle.

  Malcolm just groaned

  The office door opened. Kit and Malcolm looked up to find Margo staring down at them. Clad in a ragged Portuguese shirt, face and hands smeared with soot and blood, eyes hardened by what she'd been through, Malcolm hardly recognized her.